Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

“By Porlock?”

“You’ve got it.”

“Well then-no.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“Which would you pick on, Mr. Leigh, if you had to make a guess?”

Justin frowned.

“I don’t think I care about guessing in a murder case.”

Lamb gave a slow, ponderous nod.

“I’ll put it another way. We have evidence that two of the party were being blackmailed. You’ve mentioned two of the party being out of sorts-Mr. Tote and Mr. Masterman. What about the others? Any sign of relations being strained?-with Mr. Porlock I mean. What about Mr. Carroll?”

Justin said, “Carroll is an actor.” The words were no sooner out than he regretted them. He said quickly, “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like the fellow, but there was nothing to make me say what I did.”

Another of those slow nods.

“That’s all right, Mr. Leigh.”

The questions went on. Everything that had been said or done came under the microscope. Presently it was,

“Did you happen to notice that Miss Lane was wearing a bracelet-could you describe it?”

He could, and did.

“A kind of diamond trellis-panels set with rubies.”

“Valuable?”

“Extremely, I should think.”

“Ever seen it before?”

“No. As a matter of fact, Miss Lane came into the drawing-room before dinner and showed it to us. She said it had been lost, and Porlock had got it back for her. She seemed very grateful.”

“Will you tell me as nearly as possible what was said?”

When he had done so the questions began again. The evening was gone through down to the time of the murder.

“I’d like you to come out into the hall and show me just where you were and what you did.”

Justin had the feeling that he would presently be doing it in his sleep. Abbott timing him, he did just what he had done the night before in the dark, finishing up at the front door with his hand on the light switch.

“And then?” This was Lamb, solid and observant, from the hearth.

“I came down to where Porlock was lying. You’ve got all that in my statement.”

Lamb gave an affirmative grunt.

“And then you rang the bell and told Pearson to send for the police. Now we’ll go back to the study.”

When they had got there he had another question.

“You knelt down by the body?”

“Yes. I felt for his pulse to see if he was dead.”

“He was lying on his face with the handle of the dagger sticking out between his shoulder blades?”

“Yes.”

“Notice anything else-anything peculiar?”

“There was a white patch all round the dagger.”

“Know what it was?”

“I thought it was luminous paint-they’d been using it in the charade.”

“Did you think it could have come there by accident?”

“Not possibly.”

“How did you think it had come there?”

“I thought the murderer had marked him with the paint so as to be sure of getting the right spot in the dark.”

“Now, Mr. Leigh-two questions. Who knew that there was luminous paint in the house, and how soon did they know it?”

“I can’t answer that. It was certainly mentioned at dinner.”

“Will you tell me just what was said?”

Justin told him. Lamb went on.

“Then there were two lots of the stuff. The Oakleys had some to paint a clock, and Porlock had some to paint the beam in the cloakroom-the pot being in the cupboard there, where anyone could have got at it.”

“There was plenty of the stuff about. Carroll had it all over his hands for the charade, and a luminous mask and horns. Miss Lane was dressed up as a nun with a couple of towels and a sheet. Carroll jumped down on her from that table against the stairs. She must have been fairly daubed with the paint. As soon as the lights went on she got out of the stuff she was wearing and threw it on the table. Carroll left his mask there. Anyone could have picked up enough paint to put that mark on Porlock’s back. We were all standing fairly close together round the hearth after the charade was over. Anyone could have done it.”

“And no one noticed it, Mr. Leigh. At least no one admits to having noticed it. Anyone could have done it, and anyone could have taken the dagger, but nobody seems to have noticed that it was missing. I don’t mean to say that there’s anything peculiar about that in a strange house. That’s what strikes me- that it was a strange house. They all say that in their statements except Miss Lane. She was the only one who had ever been here before, and she couldn’t have known about the luminous paint till the middle of dinner. Yet the crime was very carefully planned. The person who planned it was bold, ingenious, quickwitted. He used what was to hand-the dagger, the luminous paint, the charade. It was Miss Lane who proposed the charade, I think?”

“That was really quite an unwarrantable suggestion.” Justin had stiffened a little. He said quietly, “Of all the guests Miss Lane was on the best terms with Porlock.”

Lamb’s face was stolid.

“I’m not making suggestions, Mr. Leigh, I’m stating facts. That’s what I’m here for-to collect facts. Now here’s a matter of fact about which you can help us. I want to know just where everybody was when you turned on the light. You’d have a good view of them all, looking down the hall like that. Could you make me a rough sketch, do you think?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact I’ve made one.”

He produced a sheet of paper and pushed it over the table.

Frank Abbott got up and came round to look over Lamb’s shoulder. The two of them studied the plan for some time. At last Lamb said,

“The two women were nearest to him, one on either side. Miss Lane between you and the body. Mrs. Oakley on the far side. Was Mrs. Oakley facing you?”

“Yes. She was facing towards the body.”

“How far off?”

Justin hesitated. “Five or six feet.”

“And Miss Lane?”

“About the same distance. She had her back to me.”

“But you could see Mrs. Oakley’s face. How did she look?”

“Shocked-horrified.”

“And then she went down on her knees by the body, calling him Glen, and saying that someone had killed him?”

“Yes.”

The Chief Inspector continued to interview Mr. Porlock’s guests. He may have got tired of asking the same questions over and over again, but his manner did not vary. Some of the interviews were very short. Some may have seemed intolerably long to the persons concerned.

Mr. Masterman came out of his interview with something of the complexion already noticed by Ernest Pearson. On his way to his own room a bedroom door opened and his sister called to him.

“Geoffrey-I want to speak to you.”

He said, “Then you can’t,” and went on.

But before he could reach his room, let alone slam himself in, she was beside him, a hand on his arm. He could feel the tense, bony strength of it through the stuff of his sleeve. She said in an almost soundless whisper,

“If I can’t speak to you, I’ll go down and speak to them. Would you rather I did that?”

He turned and looked at her. Women are capable of any folly if you push them too far. He judged her capable of this. He said with cold self-command,

“I’m not talking over anything in this house. If you’d like to put on your coat and hat, we can go out.”

She left him without a word, and without a word came back again, the old fur coat caught round her, the shabby black felt hat pulled on. They went downstairs together, out by the front door, and through the garden to the wide green expanse of the croquet lawn. The surface was not what it had been in the days before the war when the Miss Pomeroys had given croquet parties to their elderly friends, but it had one inalienable merit, if you kept to the middle of the grass, no one could possibly hear what you said, since no one could approach within earshot without being seen.