Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

“Well, sir, with one thing and another, it did come into my mind to wonder about Miss Lane selling the bracelet-whether she had the right to, as you might say. I certainly got the impression that Mr. Porlock thought he’d got something he could use against her. But it didn’t look to me as if it was money he wanted, because if he bought that bracelet he must have paid a lot of money for it. It looked to me as if there was something he wanted Miss Lane to do, and she didn’t want to, so he was giving her time to think it over. She’s a lady that goes about a lot-very well connected, as you might say. A high-class blackmailer like Mr. Porlock-well, there are ways a lady like Miss Lane could be a lot of use to him.”

Lamb’s grunt may have meant that he agreed. On the other hand it may just have been a grunt.

Frank Abbott’s pencil travelled, and his thoughts too. What a case! What a pity to have to hang even a Tote for removing a blackmailer from the body politic. Perhaps it wasn’t Tote. He hoped quite dispassionately that it wasn’t the lady who might or might not have stolen a diamond and ruby bracelet. But perhaps there were others… He turned his attention to Pearson, who was at that moment producing Mr. Leonard Carroll like a rabbit out of a hat.

“The Leonard Carroll!” he exclaimed.

Lamb turned the frown his way.

“Know him?”

“Society entertainer. Clever-sophisticated-very much the rage at the moment. I don’t know him personally. If I did I should probably dislike him quite a lot.”

The Chief Inspector enquired darkly,

“One of these crooners?”

“Oh, no, sir. There’s always one bright spot, isn’t there? It is nice to reflect that whatever else he has done, he has never crooned.”

“Well, what has he done?” growled Lamb.

“Perhaps Pearson is going to tell us, sir.”

Ernest Pearson had plenty to tell. Mr. Carroll had arrived later than any of the other guests. He had gone straight into the study, and circumstances being favourable, there had been some very satisfactory listening-in. “Everyone being upstairs dressing for dinner, as you might say. Which of course Mr. Carroll would count on, for there wasn’t any keeping his voice down. Not exactly loud, if you know what I mean, but very carrying.”

“What did he say?”

“It’s more what didn’t he say, sir-or what both of them didn’t say. Mr. Carroll, he started in hammer and tongs. ‘What’s all this about Tauscher? I don’t know the man from Adam. Who is he-what is he? You’re a damned blackmailer, and I’ve come down here to tell you so!’ And Mr. Porlock says, ‘You’ve come down here to save your neck.’ ”

The Chief Inspector whistled.

“His neck-eh? What had he been up to-murder?”

Pearson shook his head.

“Worse, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Because there’s murders you can understand how a man came to do them. I wouldn’t like you to think I was excusing them, but you can see how they got there. But meeting enemy agents on the sly when you were supposed to be out with a concert party entertaining the troops, and giving things away that might mean hundreds of lives-well, that’s the sort of thing that nobody can understand except those that have demeaned themselves to do it.” A dull flush coloured his cheekbones as he spoke. “I’d a boy out there myself in ’forty-five, and I’ve got my feelings.”

Lamb said, “That’s all right. What did you hear?”

“Well, it was a bit here and a bit there. Seems there’s a man called Tauscher that Mr. Porlock got his information from, and according to Mr. P. this is what it amounted to. Tauscher says he had a brother who was a Nazi agent. When this brother died-he got bumped off towards the end of the war-this Tauscher opened up a box of papers his brother had left with him. That’s Mr. Porlock’s story, if you understand, and I’m not saying how much of it’s true. All I say is, he put it to Mr. Carroll that Tauscher had left notes of their meetings which incriminated him up to the hilt, and what did he propose to do about it? Mr. Carroll, he uses most awful language and says it’s all a lie, and Mr. Porlock laughs and says of course he knows his own business best, and if that’s the way he feels, then it don’t matter about Tauscher going ahead and turning his brother’s papers over to our people out there-it being his idea to show what a good German he is by doing so. I thought Mr. Carroll was going to have a fit-I really did, sir. And anything like the language-well, you know what you come across in the way of business, but I give you my word it was enough to curl your hair. Mr. Porlock, he just laughed very pleasantly and said, ‘We won’t say another word about it, my dear fellow.’ And Mr. Carroll says, fit to kill, ‘How much do you want, damn you?’ ”

Sergeant Abbott, having written this down, looked across at his Chief and observed,

“Quite a party-”

He received no reply. Lamb’s frown had become ferocious. His eyes, which that irreverent young man was in the habit of comparing to bullseyes, were definitely bulging. He said on a deep growling note,

“Is that the lot?”

Pearson sustained both growl and frown with an air of conscious virtue just perceptibly tinged with regret.

“In the matter of Mr. Masterman, I was quite unable to hear as much as I should have wished.”

“Masterman?” Lamb’s voice threatened to rise. His colour had deepened to a rich plum.

“Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Porlock took him off into the study before tea, and what with having my duties and other guests arriving, the hall was really not available as, if I may put it that way, an observation post. I was thrown back upon the dining-room, where the conditions for listening are not at all what I should describe as satisfactory. The parlourmaid came in once or twice about the silver, and altogether the only things I can swear to are that there was a quarrel going on, that Mr. Masterman used the word blackmail, and that there was some mention of a missing will. But I happened to be in the hall when Mr. Masterman came out of the study, and the way he looked-well, what it reminded me of was a Channel crossing on a rough day. The wife and I used to be very partial to one of those day trips to Boulogne before the war. Very good sailors, both of us, but you know how it is with a choppy sea-the way most people look. Well, I couldn’t compare Mr. Masterman with nothing else.”

“Look here, Pearson, you’re not making this up?”

“Me, sir?”

“Because you’d better be careful. You’re not on what I should call very firm ground, you know. Let’s see-you say in your statement to Inspector Hughes that you were in the servants’ hall having supper at the time of the murder-” He picked up a paper from the table in front of him and read: “ ‘I had fetched out the coffee-tray from the drawing-room about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes earlier. I did not go through to the front of the house again till the bell rang. During this time I was in the company of the cook, the parlourmaid, and the head-housemaid.’ Anything to add to that?”

“No, sir.”

“Sure you didn’t go through to the hall between taking out the coffee tray and answering the bell after the murder had happened?”

“Quite sure.” Mr. Pearson’s tone was one of reasonable protest. “The Blake Agency gives good service, sir. The clients’ interests are our study, but it wouldn’t run to murder-now really, sir!”

Lamb said grimly, “I suppose it wouldn’t.”

Some time later, Pearson having departed with instructions to ask Mr. Justin Leigh if he would come and speak to the Chief Inspector, Sergeant Abbott said, “Plenty of suspects, sir.”