Margaret Millar - The Devil Loves Me

“Stevens was pretty subtle.”

“Perhaps he was subtle but he was no Houdini. If the money were here it would have been found.”

“Williams found it, I think. Did he put it back? He must have. He—”

“How do you know Williams found it?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Prye said.

“Get Revel for me,” Sands said. “There are two possible reasons for Williams’ death: either he found the money or he knew who murdered Stevens.”

Prye went out and came back to the library in five minutes with Revel. Sands asked Revel politely to sit down, and Revel, puzzled but still indifferent, sat down in the leather chair beside the desk.

“I am not,” Sands said, “asking you to say anything which may be used in evidence. I think personally that you’re involved in some crooked deal which would annoy the Foreign Exchange Control Board, but I can’t prove it and you know I can’t. We’ll leave that then. I want you to tell me if, when you talked to Williams at the hotel shortly before he was murdered, he hinted that he knew who murdered Stevens.”

Revel smiled. “Did he act as though he had guilty knowledge? No. I think he was bewildered and a little scared.”

“Why?”

“Scared you might arrest him, I fancy. I’ve had the same feeling myself now and then.”

“Why did he come back to this house when I’d given him permission to return to Montreal?”

“Why?” Revel said. “Why do people do anything? For love or money. Perhaps both.”

“Did you send him back here?”

Revels smile broadened into a grin. “What a nasty question, Inspector. If I admit sending him back, it would mean that I admit knowledge of those elusive fifty brunettes, wouldn’t it? It would also mean that since I wanted to find out where they were I couldn’t be the murderer. So you are tempting me to clear myself of a murder charge by getting myself embroiled in a lesser charge.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Sands said brusquely. “You don’t think Williams had knowledge of the murderer?”

“Quite sure of it. I believe he even suspected me!”

“Horrible thought,” the inspector said. “All right. You may go.”

Revel looked surprised but willing to go. When he had left Prye said, “And what about Sammy?”

“Nothing much beyond the essential fact that he is dead. Struck from behind with something heavy and sharp. Sutton suggests an ax, but the weapon hasn’t been found. Apparently Sammy was struck down on the driveway some time before midnight. You must have forgotten to lock your nimble seat. The garage is never locked, I’m told.” He smiled sourly. “Precautions like that are considered unnecessary in this section of the city. Someone rang up Sammy, told him to come here at a certain time, waited for him to come, and killed him.”

“And where in hell was the policeman we’ve been billeting?”

“That’s the interesting part of it,” Sands said softly. “He was in the hall downstairs with a clear view of both halls. The lights were on and he swears he was awake.”

“And that means?”

“Fairies,” Sands said. “The fairies killed Sammy, because nobody went through those halls after eleven o’clock last night except Revel, who went into your room around one and went straight back to his own room half an hour later.”

“Windows?”

“The first-floor windows are out. The policeman says that everyone was upstairs from a quarter to eleven.”

“Second-floor windows then,” Prye said. “I’d rather believe in an agile murderer than in fairies. There is ivy growing on the walls, trees surrounding the house, and there’s the old boarding-school dodge of knotted sheets.”

Sands said, “The ivy’s too young to support a cat. The trees are too far away. And the sheets— Perhaps I’d better see Hilda.” He rang the bell for Jackson.

When Jackson came in he was looking shocked and a little frightened and his voice trembled.

“Where is Hilda?” Sands asked.

“Upstairs,” Jackson said. “I— She is making up the rooms.”

“Will you get her, please?”

Jackson hesitated. “I don’t think she’ll come.”

“She’ll come.”

Jackson’s face got red. “She’s scared. You’re a policeman. You’re used to seeing people murdered. What does it matter to you? If people weren’t murdered you wouldn’t have a job—”

He had to stop because he couldn’t control his voice. He was afraid he might cry, so he turned and went out, very stiffly.

Sands watched him go, his eyes rather sad. “He’s a very young man,” he said gently.

Prye said, “Find anything out about him?”

“Just that he went to Harvard as he says he did. He waited on table in one of the residences.”

Prye said, “So that’s it,” and Sands nodded. They were both a little embarrassed at their own softness.

When Hilda came in her eyes were red with weeping. She refused to sit down but stood just inside the door, defiant and sullen.

“I don’t know anything,” she said.

“You look after the upstairs, Hilda?”

“That’s part of my job. I make the beds, change the linen twice a week, and tidy—”

“When do you change the linen, Hilda?”

Her gaze said plainly, I might have expected stupid questions like this. She said finally, “Mondays and Thursdays. You’re wasting my time. There’s been three murders done and you—”

“Yesterday morning, then, you changed the linen on all the beds?”

“Most of them.”

“What do you do with the soiled linen?”

“Put it down the laundry chute. It goes into a basket in the cellar.”

“Have you made the beds this morning?”

The scorn of the righteous was in her voice. “Naturally I have. It’s nearly lunch time. I’m just tidying up the bathrooms.”

“Notice anything unusual about any of the beds this morning?” Sands asked.

She looked faintly contemptuous. “Sure I did. I found Mrs. Revel in bed crying, and I found a hole in one of the blankets where Mr. Revel had burned it with a cigarette, if that’s what you mean by unusual.”

Sands regarded her coldly. “I’d like to go down to the cellar and see the laundry basket. I want you to come too.”

“Why?” she cried. “Why? I don’t want to go down there where... where Mr. Williams was— I want to go home!”

“You want your mother,” Sands said.

She began to cry. “I w-want my m-mother!”

Sands said, “You come down into the cellar with me and I’ll send you home to your mother.”

He took her by the arm and led her out. Prye followed them to the cellar. The laundry basket was beside the steps. Sands paused in front of it and said, “I want you to count the sheets, Hilda, and as you count, hand them to me.”

She started to pull out the sheets, still crying, but softly and happily.

“Sixteen,” Sands said, five minutes later. “Is that all?”

Hilda straightened up. “N-no, I don’t think so. Let me see. I didn’t change Mr. Revel’s bed, as he hasn’t been here very long, and I didn’t go into Mr. Stevens’ or Mr. Williams’ room. But all the other beds would make eighteen sheets. That means there are two missing.”

“So it does,” Sands said.

“What could that mean? Who’d want two dirty sheets?”

Sands told her she’d better go up to her room and pack if she still wanted to go home. She exhibited her first sign of willing co-operation by running up the steps two at a time. Sands and Prye faced each other across the laundry basket.

“The old boarding-school dodge,” Sands said, “seems to have worked. How it was worked is another question. If any of the guests came through the first- and second-floor halls carrying two soiled sheets Constable Clovis would remember. Sitting at the front door, he had a view of both halls. However, we’ll examine the rooms on the second floor.”