Darkness at Pemberley Page 3

  "I wish you'd think over that post-mortem again, doctor," he said. "Any little thing, you know. I don't understand this case at all, not at all, and anything may mean anything. I'm dead sure Boneface is wrong." He came back and sat on the table by his friend's chair. "Listen," he said. "I'm not keeping anything back—-that sort of thing's all bosh. I haven't any theories, and I'm lost. But those men were murdered, both of them, and I don't stand for cold murder like that. I don't want to catch the man for the sake of my reputation. I want to catch him because he's all wrong. I don't care whether he ought to be punished or pitied, and I don't know whether murderers ought to be hanged. But I want to catch him because I've a feeling for England, and that's an odd thing to say. This case is all ends up, and anything may be significant or nothing, So I should just like to be sure of that autopsy, like everything else. There may be something we ought to have noticed and haven't. Perhaps one or other of them was poisoned and shot afterwards. I take it that Sir Loftus confined himself to the local wounds. Perhaps one or other or both or neither was dead before he was shot. In fact, perhaps anything. So I'd like you to be very careful, would you? If you could, I should like you to look into it again. Don't take offence at me. The man who did these murders was a scientist." He stopped abruptly and got off the table.

  "Mauleverer," he said, "is a lecturer in chemistry."

  CHAPTER IV

  Rudd, the porter who had been on duty on Tuesday, was off duty when the Inspector called at the Porter's Lodge. He ran him to earth in the under-porter's cottage on the other side of the river.

  The two men sat solemnly in the parlour, shaded with aspidistras, bowered with lace. Between them was a red serge table-cloth.

  The Inspector said: "I've called because I want you to give me some information. Were you on duty between seven and midnight on Tuesday?"

  Rudd was a stout surly man with an expression not altogether pleasant. His eyes were close together and evasive. He was above the common height. When the Inspector asked him this question he replied with another: "Who said I wasn't?"

  "Nobody did," replied Buller patiently. "I was asking you a question."

  "Well, I was," said the porter. "It's my duty."

  "You were in the Porter's Lodge all the time?"

  "See here, mister, what are you getting at? Are you accusing me of the murder or asking for information? I don't know as you've any right to pry into my private affairs without a caution, nor I don't know what reason you could have for wanting to. If you think it's me I can tell you you're wasting your time."

  "I don't think it was you, Mr. Rudd. I asked because I want information about the people who passed through the Old Court between seven and midnight, and naturally I wondered whether you were there all the time first."

  "Well, I was," said Mr. Rudd defiantly. "But if you want to know who went through the Old Court you can get a college list. Why, both Halls would pass through between them times."

  "What time are your Halls?"

  "Six-thirty and seven-thirty."

  "Well now, between seven-thirty and eight you can help me; for the second Hall would be in just then and few people about. Can you remember anybody in the courts between those times?"

  "Nobody went through the Old Court at all."

  "Not a soul?"

  "Not a soul! I was there, wasn't I?"

  "You couldn't by any chance have missed anybody?"

  "I tells you I was standing in the gateway all the time!"

  "What happened after eight?"

  "The second Hall came out, that was all."

  "You didn't notice any dons?"

  "The Fellows of the college was having their coffee in the Combination Room till half past eight. That is, all except the Master. Come to think of it, I seen him come into the Old Court about twenty past, but I never seen what he did there for I had to go for something in the Lodge.

  "You didn't see any of the other fellows? Mr. Meacock? Mr. Bell? Mr. Mauleverer?"

  "I tells you the Fellows was in the Combination Room! And Mr. Mauleverer wasn't in college anyway."

  "How do you know?" The question came out like a palm slapped upon the table. Rudd paused, and amended weakly:

  "He didn't come out of the Combination Room with the others in any case."

  The Inspector suddenly got up and said pleasantly: "Well, thank you very much. That will help me a lot, I think."

  The porter seemed no longer at ease. "I could tell you some more," lie said, "about Mr. Beedon. He had a quarrel with the Chaplain on Tuesday morning, according to the Chaplain's bedder. And I saw the Chaplain go to Mr. Beedon's room at about half past ten. I noted the time, for I put a telephone call through to Mr. Beedon just then. He didn't answer it. The Chaplain was there five minutes."

  "What was this quarrel about?" asked the Inspector.

  "Mrs. Duckworth only heard the end of it. She heard Mr. Beedon say, as he came out of the Chaplain's room: 'And don't you try to threaten me, because I should have no more qualms in squashing a creature like you than in squashing a white slug!' That was the very words."

  "I suppose I shall have to see Mrs. Duckworth. Was there anything else?"

  "Nothing else about the Chaplain," said Rudd, as if he were sorry to admit it.

  "Anything else you can remember before midnight?"

  Mr. Rudd paused. "I went up to Mr. Beedon's landing myself," he said, "when I was doing the staircase lights. His lights was on."

  "What made you go up?"

  "I don't know," said Rudd slowly. "I hadn't seen him about, and I wondered why his light was still on."

  The Inspector said "Ah!" a little encouragingly.

  Rudd made up his mind and assumed a virtuous air. "There was something up between the Master and Mr. Beedon," he explained with rather nauseating candour. "I happened to come across——"

  "I know all about that," said the Inspector unexpectedly. "So when you saw the Master in the Old Court you guessed he was bound for Mr. Beedon's room with the usual letter. I expect you hid and spied on him, and you thought you might be able to make a little out of it? A little blackmail, perhaps?"

  "I never thought of such a thing, Inspector, and you've no right to say it! If there's a law in this land——"

  "O.K.," Buller put in. "The point is, did you or didn't you make up your mind to do anything? I needn't ask. You were thinking of trying to work it out of the letter-box, but the light being on put you off? So you just stood there and then went away. Thank you. I'd like to see you again later, if I may. Try to cast your mind back to eight o'clock."

  "I tell you I was in the gateway!" shouted the porter, but shouted in vain, for the Inspector was making his way sedately back to college.

  *****

  Before calling on the Chaplain, Buller waited to collect himself. He stopped on St. Bernard's bridge and, taking out his little note book, began to write, resting it on the wooden edge.

  He wrote:

  Frazer, undergraduate, St. Barnabas: dead: not known to be acquainted with anybody in this college.

  Beedon, Fellow of St. Bernard's: dead.

  Master of St. Bernard's: drug addict: ordered drugs through Beedon (?)

  Mauleverer, Fellow of St. Bernard's: alibi rather pat: No motive yet.

  Chaplain of St. Bernard's: quarrelled with Beedon. Why not come forward?

  Rudd, porter: blackmailer: but why lie about people in Old Court?

  Weans: party to Mauleverer's alibi.

  Undergraduate in A5: why should he?

  Undergraduate in A2: alibi.

  Then he wrote down in block capitals: "FEAR, ENVY, GAIN," scratched everything out, rolled the page into a ball, and tossed it impatiently into the river. The sluggish flow carried it slowly away.

  *****

  The Chaplain received Buller with the laboured surprise of one who had been expecting him. He was a sallow man in the early forties, whose brown eyes hesitated before Buller's and fled away. He asked the Inspector to sit down, in a voice calc
ulated to be hearty, but miserably without success. Then he walked nervously round the room, cleared his voice to speak, and broke down entirely. He looked at Buller, pleading mutely for mercy, for a lead in conversation.

  Buller said sharply: "If you tell me everything at once, it'll do you good and help me. The inquest is on the day after to-morrow, unless I have to put it off, and the verdict won't be murder and suicide against Mr. Beedon. I take it you're sensible enough to prefer some other kind of charge to a charge of murder."

  The tonic acted effectively. "There is no possible charge against me. What I have to say might damage my reputation or tend to lose me my position, but no legal evidence exists which could put me on a criminal footing. You will have the goodness to bully somebody else."

  "That's better," said the Inspector. "That makes it much easier for both of us. If there had been any crime of fact, outside the sphere of the present case, I should have been forced to follow it up. But if as you say it's an extra-legal matter of reputation, there can be no harm in making a clean breast. It goes no further."

  The Chaplain looked at him calmly. This aspect of the situation had made him brave again.

  "I don't require a confidant."

  "Very well. And I don't require confidences. Will you explain why you have not come forward in response to my notice on the screens?"

  "My visit to Mr. Beedon was in no way connected with his death, and I have no evidence which bears upon it."

  "You must kindly convince me of that, sir."

  The Chaplain was in difficulties again.

  "I called on Mr. Beedon over a private matter..."

  The Inspector stood up and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you must be a little more explicit. I must warn you that I know something about your experiences on Tuesday, and I don't propose to tell you what. If you are going to fabricate a story, fabricate it so that it bears a close relation to the facts. Then I may not know anything to contradict it."

  The Chaplain swallowed.

  "You must swear not to say anything about what I am going to tell you to anybody."

  "I won't swear anything of the sort," replied the Inspector. "But if you are criminally in a safe position it makes me unable to say anything. There is a law of libel, you know."

  "Well, I shall have to begin at the beginning. I suppose I've no choice."

  "No," said Buller. "You haven't. I don't believe you had anything to do with the murder or I should have to warn you. But I do believe you can clear one or two things up. Now go ahead."

  "Beedon was a very difficult man to get on with, for clergymen especially. He had no principles and his own kind of vice. He always made his ideas very painfully clear. Although he was not a religious man himself he believed that clergymen ought to be. He felt contempt for us if we were—er—religious, and greater contempt if we were not." The Chaplain paused and added: "This is very painful to me. Can't you accept my assurance that I know nothing about it?"

  "Just give me the outlines of the story."

  The creature plucked up courage: "Briefly," he said, "a letter written by me came into Beedon's possession by a stupid accident. On Tuesday morning he brought it to my room and behaved very ratingly. Er—he was very cutting and contemptuous. He was an Irishman and we had never got on with each other. I believe he was delighted to have the opportunity." The Chaplain stopped speaking. The scene was repeating itself behind his eyes. "I hated him," he added, and his white hands clutched and unclutched themselves on his lap. "He was an intransigent man, and thought he was God Almighty. He came with the definite intention of taunting and humiliating me, and he tortured me past bearing. Besides, I was frightened because I didn't know what he would do with the letter. I became hysterical, I think, and threatened his life. After all, one isn't a worm."

  The Chaplain's eyes followed the course of events again in silence. "In the evening," he resumed, "I went to Beedon's rooms to end the suspense. I still didn't know what he meant to do with the letter. I meant to ask him, or to apologise, or to do anything that might suggest itself rather than remain in uncertainty any longer. I didn't notice from the Court whether his light was on or off. When I got to his landing the door was sported. You may or may not know that the sport keys sometimes fit different locks. I tried my own and it opened his door. I found that the electric light was on. I had only opened the door a fraction and the light daunted me. I swear that I closed the door and went away again without doing anything. I swear that, Inspector, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

  Buller felt disgusted. "There's no need," he said. "There's no need. It's a plausible story already."

  The two men faced each other in silence.

  Buller said: "There was no such letter among his effects."

  "When I got back I noticed the white of an envelope in my letter box. It was a letter from Beedon enclosing my own letter. He must have delivered it himself after tea, when I was out."

  "So everything fits in beautifully," said the Inspector.

  "Oh God!" exclaimed the Chaplain. "You don't believe me! But I swear it's true."

  "I suppose you burnt the letter?"

  "I did! Oh, you won't believe me, but I did! It was natural, wasn't it? I didn't keep the covering letter either. Why should I? It was beastly."

  The Chaplain suddenly became calm and urgent. "Listen," he said, "what I've told you is true. If you don't believe it you must face other facts. I didn't visit Beedon till half past ten. Whoever told you that they saw me must have told you that. I read detective stories. Surely your autopsy proved that Beedon died before or after that hour? The coincidence would be too cruel otherwise. And then, am I the sort of person that would go about committing murders? Does it strike you that I have the nerve?"

  The Inspector said: "Everybody says that. But it isn't a question of nerve, it's a question of nerves. However, I believe you. If it hadn't been for the autopsy I wouldn't."

  He stood up abruptly, and took his hat off the table. "You said that Beedon had his private vice. Will you tell me what it was?"

  The Chaplain stared in the fire. "No," he said. "I don't believe it had anything to do with it and I refuse to get people into trouble."

  "Thank you," said the Inspector. "I believe your story. Anyway I shall see the Master as soon as he comes back." His stern face suddenly melted a little. "Good night," he said. "I'm glad you got the letter."

  When he had gone the Chaplain walked slowly into his bedroom and knelt on a rather ornamental prie-dieu.

  *****

  After this interview the Inspector realised that it was time for dinner and that he had had nothing to eat all day. Without calling at the police station, he went back to his rooms.

  Buller was in many ways a strange man. He was a man without education in the university sense, and yet he was tactful and perceiving. Most curious of all, although he was an ordinary policeman and the son of a pork-butcher (perhaps because?) he had a private income and knew how to spend it. He loved his work and did it for that reason only—a boast open to few. He was what is so very misguidedly called a self-educated man, and yet he was neither bumptious nor insincere. He played the flute with sentiment and execution, because he enjoyed it. His flat, looking over Parker's Piece, was furnished for comfort and for beauty. Very few people had ever been inside this flat, not because Buller was falsely diffident or secretive, but because he preferred solitude like an animal.

  He did not write poems or literary biographies or abstruse books on matters of vertu, nor was he addicted to solving his cunning problems in a flowered dressing gown with the aid of narcotics and a violin. Actually he seldom had the opportunity to solve a problem. The criminal scope in Cambridge has not, until recent years, been wide. Buller was that almost unique phenomenon: a man of sincerity and restraint who enjoyed being alive, was too sensible to worry about being dead, and who was not defeated by his own company.

  He let himself into his flat, glanced at the dinner-wagon which his charwoman had left ready for his m
eal, and wandered into the sitting-room. There he looked at the clock and put a record on the gramophone. It was Myra Hess, playing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." In the middle of this he went out to the kitchen and poured two fingers of whiskey into a tumbler of milk. After drinking this he turned the record over and listened to the Gigue. His hands curved in front of him, wrists upwards, over imaginary reins. When the record had curveted in half a dozen paces from a trot to a stand he switched it off and stood still, looking about the room. He picked up his flute and began to play without intention. What he played was "John Peel." Then he put down the flute, dragged the dinner-wagon into the dining-room, and began to eat ravenously.

  His meal took him ten minutes, after which, without conceding a moment for digestion, he rang up the Porter's Lodge at St. Bernard's. He asked whether the Master was back, and was told that he was. He gave a message asking that the Master should see him in a quarter of an hour. He lit a cigar, which he cut with a penknife produced rather unexpectedly from a pocket at the back of his coat, and started for the college.

  The Master received him in the long gallery, apologising for being late. He had only just finished his dinner.

  The Inspector said: "I hope you had a good day in London, Master."

  "It was a beautiful day. Quite warm for the time of year, and I really believe the plane-trees were budding. But I expect you haven't come to discuss the weather."

  The Inspector sighed. He was faced by an antagonist whose powers were not inferior, like the Chaplain's. He decided not to beat about the bush.

  "In a case like this, Master," he said, "a lot of cross-currents crop up which have no bearing upon the matter in hand. I daresay it must be so everywhere. If we suddenly burst into any room where there was a gathering of people we should find troubles and secrets abounding, all irrelevant to the mere fact of our entrance. A murder makes an entrance, and we spend our time clearing away the cross-purposes which don't apply to it. Now, I will be perfectly frank with you, because it would be useless to be anything else. Why did you sign your name in invisible ink on the sheet of paper which you delivered at Mr. Beedon's door?"