Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

Lamb’s mental comment was that Mr. Carroll was as slippery as an eel. Quick in the uptake too-and that’s what he was looking for. It was someone uncommon quick and clever who had murdered Gregory Porlock. He said in his measured voice,

“That’s as may be. You had a quarrel with Mr. Porlock in this room not long before dinner, didn’t you?”

“I had a talk with him, and a couple of drinks.”

“You asked him, ‘What’s all this about Tauscher?’ and you called Mr. Porlock a damned blackmailer and said you’d come down here to tell him so. And he said, ‘You’ve come down here to save your neck.’ ”

If the first shock of danger had brought the sweat to Mr. Carroll’s face and stopped his tongue, he was now over the worst of it and very much in command of his faculties. He said,

“What’s all this rubbish?”

Lamb looked at him with gravity.

“Your conversation was overheard.”

He took that without a tremor.

“Then whoever overheard it was a damned bad listener. Porlock asked me if I knew a man called Tauscher, and I said I didn’t know him from Adam.”

“There’s a good deal more to it than that, Mr. Carroll. I understand that this man was an enemy agent, and that Mr. Porlock was suggesting that you had met him when you were out with a concert party entertaining the troops at a time when the war was still going on, and that you supplied him with information likely to be of use to the Nazis… No, no, no-wait a minute-wait a minute, if you please! It’s not me that’s putting out these suggestions. I’m only telling you that Mr. Porlock was overheard putting them out-and I suppose you would agree that there would be the makings of a quarrel in that.”

There was another of those twists, for Mr. Carroll laughed.

“I’m afraid your eavesdropper was a bit handicapped by being on the other side of the door! A pity he didn’t come in and join us! Then he’d have got the matter straight! Porlock told me this man Tauscher was an enemy agent. Said he was knocking about in Belgium about the time I was there, and asked me if I’d met him. I wasn’t best pleased-I thought it was an offensive thing to say. I let Porlock see I didn’t like it-I mean-well, who would? I’d never seen the fellow in my life, and on the top of telling me he’s an enemy agent he asks me if I know him. I don’t mind owning I lost my temper. But you don’t murder a man because he’s been a bit tactless. I mean-well, do you?”

Lamb sat back and said, “Well-”

Frank Abbott transferred his gaze from the door which had recently closed upon Leonard Carroll to his Chief’s face. It was a cool and sarcastic gaze. It conveyed an opinion of Mr. Carroll which would hardly have pleased him.

“Well, sir?”

“I’m asking you.”

There was nothing in this to minister to a junior officer’s self-esteem. Schoolboys do not get wind in the head when the schoolmaster asks them a question. All this, and more, was not only a well-established fact, but was even now conveyed by the Chief Inspector’s air and manner. Frank became deferential.

“They’re all full of reasons why someone else should have done it. Masterman was very ingenious about the possibility of Tote’s having slipped across the hall in the dark and waited behind the service door. Carroll had a few kind words for Tote too. And both he and Masterman, and Tote himself, simply tumble over themselves to underline the fact that Mrs. Oakley went down on her knees by the body and addressed it as Glen.”

Lamb grunted.

“Yes-we’ll have to go into that. Let me see-we haven’t seen Miss Lane or Miss Masterman. Mrs. Tote is negligible. If she’d seen her husband in the hall she wouldn’t say so, and she didn’t want to say anything about anyone else. I think we can count her out. I’d say it was one of those three men, if it weren’t for the complication about Mrs. Oakley. There might be something there that would give Oakley a motive, so I’m keeping an open mind. But taking the three in the house-Carroll’s clever enough and quick enough, and by Pearson’s account he’d motive enough. Masterman had his fingerprints on the switch by the hearth and a very good reason for having them there. We don’t know much about a motive, but it looks as if he might have had one. The Yard can get on with looking up his record. Then there’s Tote-now, what did you make of Tote?”

Frank lifted his eyebrows.

“If the murderer had to be clever and quick, you’d hardly say that Tote would fill the picture. On the other hand, if Tote was quite as thick in the head as he seems, how did he make so much money?”

Lamb nodded.

“There’s two answers to that, you know. The first is, he didn’t make it, he stole it. And the other is that he’s not such a fool as he looks.”

Frank thought the Chief was in good form. He said,

“I don’t think so much of the first reason. That Black Market racket had brains behind it. If a man was stupid, they might use him as a tool, but they wouldn’t let him get away with anything big-why should they? Tote, I gather, is fairly rolling, and if that’s the case, I doubt his stupidity. A little man would make a little profit. If Tote got away with the big stuff, the second answer is right-he’s not such a fool as he looks.”

Lamb sat there looking blank. He drummed with his fingers on the blotting-pad.

“He would have had to mark Porlock with the luminous paint, and he would have had to get to one of those switches. There was just a muddle of prints on the one by the service door, and the same on the door itself. It’s more or less what you’d expect. But the one at the top of the stairs had been wiped clean.”

“That looks like Carroll.”

Lamb nodded.

“Or Tote. He could have got up there if he’d gone through the service door and up the back stair-though I don’t know why he should.”

Frank shook his head.

“Doesn’t seem likely. He’s not the build for sliding the banisters or running down stairs. You know, sir, I don’t see how anyone could have run down or up those stairs without being heard. You can’t walk silently on bare oak.”

“Not unless you’re in your stocking feet. If Carroll slid the banisters and ran back up the stairs he could slip off his pumps and leave them handy to get back into. Tote could have carried his down in his hand-fat men are often extraordinarily light on their feet. I don’t think there’s much in that. But I don’t know why he should have bothered to go upstairs to turn off the lights, when it would have been a whole lot simpler to have done it downstairs from the service door.”

“Well, that’s Masterman’s theory-he could have followed the others out of the drawing-room when they went out to watch the charade and got across the dark hall to wait behind the service door, and he could have put the mark on Porlock as he followed him into the hall. That would give him the switch by the service door to play with, and the luminous paint on Porlock’s back to guide him when the lights were out again. It’s all quite possible in theory, and not as much evidence as you could balance on the point of a needle.”

The door was opened in a tentative sort of way. Pearson made his appearance with a tray. Something about his manner suggested that he was, for the moment, a butler and not a detective. The tray supported a tea-pot, milk-jug and sugar-basin of a Queen Anne pattern, two cups and saucers, a covered dish, a dark fruit cake, and a plate of sandwiches. There was an agreeable smell of muffins, or perhaps buttered toast.

Pearson shut the door behind him dexterously and set down the tray.

“I thought you’d be ready for some tea, sir. Anchovy toast under the cover, and the sandwiches are egg and Gentleman’s Relish.” Then, reverting to the private detective, “If I may offer a word, sir, there’s something I think you ought to know.”