Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

Carroll said, with something that just stopped short of being a laugh,

“Well, that lands us in for a game of Hunt the Murderer! I wonder who did it. Whoever it was can reassure himself with the thought that the painstaking local constabulary will probably obliterate any clues he may have left.” He did laugh then, and added, “Now I do wonder who hated Gregory enough to take a chance like this.”

Justin made no reply. He was looking at the group of people any one of whom might be the answer to Leonard Carroll’s question. Mrs. Tote was sitting in a small ornamental Sheraton chair. The waterproof she had worn for the charade lay along at her feet with a horrid resemblance to a second body, but she was still wearing the hat, an old-fashioned wideawake, now tipped well to one side. Her small features were sternly set. Perhaps the grey satin of her dress and the glitter of her diamonds contributed to her pallor. She sat without moving, stiffly upright, her hands in a rigid clasp, the large bediamonded rings still and unwinking. Miss Masterman had remained standing, but not upright. She had hold of the back of a chair and was bent forward over her straining hands. She wore no rings, and every knuckle stood up white. As he looked Justin saw her brother come over to her. He said something, and when she made no reply fell back again to the edge of the hearth, where he bent down to put a log on the fire. Linnet Oakley lay sobbing in a long armchair, Dorinda on one side of her, Martin Oakley on the other. The pink and white carnations which she had taken from the dinner-table to make a wreath had for the most part fallen. There was one on the arm of the chair, and one on her lap. A bud and a leaf hung down against her neck like a pendant earring. Her face was hidden against her husband’s shoulder. He looked across at Justin now, and said in a deep, harsh voice,

“I’ve got to get my wife out of this-she’s ill.”

Justin crossed the space between them. He dropped his voice.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the police come.”

Their eyes met, Martin’s dark with anger.

“And who’s going to make me?”

Justin said, “Your own common sense, I should think.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do you suppose? Anyone who gets out is going to attract a good deal more attention than it’s worth.”

There was a moment of extreme tension. There was something as well as anger. Justin remembered that the Wicked Uncle’s name was Glen-Glen Porteous. Mrs. Oakley had cried out that Glen was dead. Nine people had heard her say it, as well as Martin Oakley. If he held his tongue, the others couldn’t and wouldn’t. Mrs. Oakley, who had met Gregory Porlock tonight as a stranger, would certainly have to explain to the police why she had flung herself down weeping by his body and called him Glen. As he went back to his post he saw one of her pink carnations. The heavy bloom had broken off. It lay between Gregory’s left shoulder and the thick curly hair.

Mr. Tote had gone over to stand beside his wife. Not a muscle of her face moved. The small greyish eyes stared steadily down at her own hands.

Leonard Carroll said sharply,

“What we all want is a drink.”

He was still where he had been, a yard or two from the body, staring at it. There was a curious white mark on the back-a round pale smudge, with the knife driven home in the centre ot it.

It came to Justin with horror that the smudge was luminous paint.

That Saturday night brought very little sleep to the Grange. With dreadful suddenness it had ceased to be a private dwelling. Justin, whose mother had been a devoted bee-keeper, could not help being reminded of the moments when she used to remove part of the outer covering and watch through a sheet of glass the private activities of the hive. Cross the line which divides the law-abiding from the law-breaker, and all cherished rights of privacy are gone. The police surgeon, the photographer, the fingerprint man; Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Constable -each and every one of them comes and takes a look through just such a pane of glass and watches to see who shrinks from the observing eye. Murder, which used to be one of the most private things on earth, is now attended by a vast deal of ceremonial and publicity, and whilst an efficient constabulary attended to its rights Inspector Hughes sat in the study taking statements.

It was late before Martin Oakley was permitted to take his wife and her secretary back to the Mill House, and later still before those who remained could separate and go to bed if not to sleep.

At ten o’clock on the Sunday morning Detective Sergeant Frank Abbott rang up Miss Maud Silver at her flat in Montague Mansions.

“Miss Silver speaking.”

“This is Frank. I’m afraid I shan’t be able to come to tea. A bloke has got himself stabbed in Surrey, and as everyone who can possibly have done it hails from London and the corpse was London too, they’ve thrown the job at us, and the Chief and I are off. What’s the odds you crop up as we go along?”

Miss Silver gave her characteristic cough.

“That, my dear Frank, is hardly likely.”

She heard him heave an exaggerated sigh.

“I wish it were. Never a dull moment when you’re about. Uplift a speciality-morals strictly attended to.”

“My dear Frank!”

“I’m afraid it’s a case of ‘Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together.’ I must fly.”

Later on in the morning Justin rang up Dorinda.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Get any sleep?”

“Well-”

“I don’t suppose anyone did much. How is Mrs. Oakley?”

“Very upset.”

“I’d come up and see you, but I hear the job’s been turned over to Scotland Yard. They may walk in at any moment now, so I think I’d better be here. They’ll want to see everyone of course.”

There was a pause. Then Dorinda said,

“Horrid for you-but, oh, it does make such a difference your being in it too!”

He said firmly, “Neither of us is in it,” and rang off.

Actually, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb and Sergeant Abbott did not reach the Grange until a little after two o’clock, having meanwhile conferred with Inspector Hughes, gone through the statements which he had obtained, and partaken of a mediocre lunch at the local inn.

Admitted by the butler, Lamb stared hard at him before letting him take his coat and hat. Coming in out of the grey afternoon light, the hall seemed middling dark. The man threw open the first door on the right and stood aside to let them pass into the study. The Chief Inspector walked as far as the writing-table and, turning, called him.

“Come in and shut the door! You’re the butler?”

“Yes, sir.”

The light from three windows showed a middle-aged man with a slight forward stoop, thinning hair, brown eyes, and rather hollow cheeks.

Lamb said sharply, “Pearson! I thought so!”

The butler did not speak, only lifted his eyes with a deprecatory expression and stood there waiting.

Frank Abbott looked from one to the other and waited too.

Very deliberately the Chief Inspector pulled up a chair to the table and sat down. He was in the habit of judging the furniture in a house by the way in which any given chair stood up to his weight. Since this one received him without a protesting creak, it was approved. Perhaps he judged men by the manner in which they sustained his formidable stare. If so, Pearson would not come off so badly. He stood there, meek, elderly, and silent, but not very much discomposed. The stare continued.

“Pearson! My word! I didn’t expect to see you here, and I don’t suppose you thought of seeing me.”