Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny) rs-9 Page 9

  But that did not of necessity say that all of the little lumps of skin under her nails came from her own neck. Had the murderer succeeded in removing himself quickly enough out of the range of those clawing hands? Or was there anyone in the party who carried a brand - new scratch on his or her own hands or face?

  Roger could not go and look for the answer to that interesting question until the police arrived to set him free from his vigil.

  Ronald Stratton's house, Sedge Park, lay three miles or so outside the fair - sized town of Westerford. The constable who had been on duty in Westerford police station had to cover them on his push - cycle. He arrived just thirteen minutes after Ronald had telephoned, which, in view of the number of things the man himself had had to do before he could leave the station, was not too bad. Ronald, who was perfectly well known to all the members of the Westerford police and himself knew most of them, brought him up to the bedroom, where he at once began asking his routine questions.

  'Perfectly unnecessary,' thought Roger, as he left him to it, 'because the inspector will ask exactly the same ones all over again as soon as he arrives; but they always do it.' He went upstairs once more.

  Most of the party were collected now in the big room with the side open to the head of the well staircase, where the bar had been set up. Nearly everyone was extremely tired, and conversation was only spasmodic, but bed was out of the question. Ronald had already warned them that the police would almost certainly want to question each person. Standing about, or thrown into the big leather armchairs, they stared moodily into the still glowing fire.

  At Roger's arrival a flicker of interest went round; and Dr. Chalmers asked whether Frank Mitchell had yet arrived.

  "No," Roger explained, "but the police have. A constable. He says the inspector will be here in five or ten minutes."

  He looked round the room. There was no scratch visible on any face. He had hardly expected that there would be. He joined Dr. Chalmers by the fireplace and opened a low - toned conversation. "Did you arrive at any conclusion as to how long she'd been dead?" he asked.

  Dr. Chalmers looked at him inquiringly. "How long?" he repeated.

  "Yes. I was just wondering whether she did it immediately after she rushed out of the ballroom or whether she brooded about it first."

  "Oh, I see. Well, it's difficult to say to a few minutes, you know. I took the temperature of the body, and from that, and certain other indications, I should say that, allowing for the temperature of the outside air, she must have been dead at least two hours."

  "Two hours," Roger said thoughtfully. "Then she probably did it at once."

  "Oh, I think so, undoubtedly. She made the scene, my wife told me, just after I was called out."

  "Yes," said Roger inattentively. "Yes. By the way, what's the local police inspector like?"

  "A very good fellow. Not a fusser, but quite thorough. He'll go into all details, of course, but in such a straightforward case there's not very much he can do, is there?"

  "No," said Roger. "I suppose there isn't."

  His eyes were on the top of the staircase, perfectly visible through the low balustrade which had replaced the wall on that side of the room. The staircase ended in a small landing, off which the ballroom opened. The landing ran on for a few yards past the ballroom door, and at the end on the left there rose the short flight of stairs which led up onto the roof. This flight pierced through one of the remaining gables, so that its upper half was concealed from the barroom; but the lower half, and the whole of the landing, was perfectly visible. Anyone mounting to the roof would therefore be under the observation of anyone standing at the bar.

  The conversation with Dr. Chalmers petered out as Roger pondered over his very meagre two and two and tried to make them into a robust four. Anyone going up onto the roof could be seen by anyone in the barroom. But nobody knew where Ena Stratton had gone; therefore nobody had been in the barroom just then, because the most absorbed toper could not have remained oblivious of her exit and passage. Therefore, if her murderer followed her almost at once onto the roof, again nobody was in the barroom, or in all probability nobody, to mark his passage either. But of course one must not forget that the murderer might have been on the roof already and met her there.

  Anyhow, the obvious question was: who was in the ballroom just then and stayed there? It was possible at any rate to eliminate, if one could not construct.

  Quite unconscious of the fact that to Dr. Chalmers his conduct might appear extremely rude, Roger pushed his hands in his pockets, turned his back on the other man, and wandered, absorbed in his thoughts, onto the landing, where he propped his back against the stalwart pillar which ended the balustrade, and frowned ferociously as he tried to throw his memory back over the last two hours.

  First of all Dr. Chalmers himself was eliminated, as he had not been on the premises at all. Then Ronald, Mrs. Lefroy, Celia Stratton, and Mrs. Williamson had been with himself in the group which had tried to be kind to David Stratton. Yes, and Margot Stratton and Mike Armstrong. So they were all cleared. Whom did that leave? Williamson, Colin Nicolson, Mrs. Chalmers, Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell - but the last two had been the first to begin the dancing again (Roger distinctly remembered that), just before he himself had led David Stratton - why, dash it all, he himself had been at the bar within a few minutes of Mrs. Stratton's disappearance! He himself had been mounting guard over the only way of access to the roof. And had anyone passed along the landing and gone up there? Roger smiled to himself with exasperation. For the life of him he could not say. Of so much value is the evidence of the man on the spot. Roger Sheringham himself simply had not the faintest idea whether anyone had slipped out of the ballroom or not.

  Nevertheless, this line of inquiry had not been quite fruitless. One thing at any rate was certain. David Stratton, who after all might be said to have a greater motive than anyone else, could not possibly have murdered his wife. During the really critical period he had been in Roger's own company. Well, that was one step, and a big one.

  Roger looked up, to find Colin Nicolson talking to him. ". . . thought about?" said Colin.

  "Do you mind saying that again, Colin?" said Roger politely.

  "I said, 'Well, what's the great man plunged in thought about?' Not very well put perhaps, but that's what I said." Nicolson lifted a hand and felt, in the eternal gesture of the dinner - jacketed male, the sit of his tie.

  Roger looked at the hand with interest. Just above the knuckles ran a long new scratch. It was impossible, of course, that Colin Nicolson could be the murderer of Mrs. Stratton. Absolutely and entirely out of the question. For one thing Colin would no more commit a murder than rob a blind widow, and for another he scarcely knew Mrs. Stratton at all - possibly had not spoken to her the whole evening. It was quite out of the question that Colin could have done such an incredible thing. Nevertheless Roger had been looking for someone who bore a nice new scratch somewhere visible, and here was a nice new scratch on Colin. Colin at any rate must account for the scratch.

  "What was I thinking about?" Roger repeated vaguely. "Ah!"

  "Very interesting, no doubt. Well, this is a nice business, I must say. How long do you think the police are going to keep us hanging about?"

  "Oh, most of the night, I expect. You seem to have scratched your hand, Colin," Roger said mildly.

  "Ach, yes. A nasty jab."

  "Yes. Come up on the roof."

  "On the roof?"

  "I want a mouthful of fresh air."

  "It'll be deuced parky fresh air. Besides, we've only just come down. No, no. If you want more fresh air, you can go up there alone."

  "As a matter of fact, I want to speak to you rather particularly, Colin. Away from these people."

  "Ach, you're a nuisance, Roger. All right, I suppose you'll give me no peace till I do."

  Roger led an unwilling Colin out on the roof. "Ah, that's better. You ought to do something about that scratch, Colin. How did you get it?"

 
"Oh, it's nothing. Do you expect me to faint at every wee scratch I get? Well, what do you want to say, now you've got me here?" asked Colin turning up the collar of his coat. "For pity's sake hurry up and get it over."

  Roger took the other's hand and examined the scratch. It was broad but not deep.

  "How did you get it, Colin?" he repeated.

  "Ach, man, what's it matter?"

  "I'd just like to know."

  Colin stared at him. "You're very suspicious. What's the idea?"

  Roger laughed soothingly. "Just exercising my well - known powers. Whatever caused that scratch, my dear Colin, it wasn't, for instance, a pin. Look at it for yourself."

  "Does it matter a tuppenny damn what caused it?"

  "Not even a three - ha'penny one. It's just my regrettable curiosity. Don't tell me if it's anything terribly private."

  "Why should it be private, you old rascal?"

  "Well, it looks to me like a scratch from someone's fingernail. In fact, if I didn't know you so well, Colin, I should say you had been making a nuisance of yourself to a lady and got very properly scratched for your pains."

  Roger's fly - fishing was rewarded. "Well, it was nothing of the sort," Colin said crossly, "and none but a mind like yours would have thought it was. If you're really so curious, I got it on a bit of broken glass."

  "And where have you been playing with broken glass?" Colin grudgingly gave the commonplace particulars. He had broken a glass at the bar and hidden the pieces under the table.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE CASE AGAINST ROGER SHERINGHAM

  "I ACCEPT your explanation, Colin," Roger said judicially, leaning back against the railing that bordered the roof.

  "The deuce you do, Roger. That's very kind of you."

  "Don't get heated. I was only thinking that men have been hanged before now because their explanations weren't accepted. Many, many men, Colin."

  "Have you brought me up here in the cold just to tell me that?"

  "We'll go into the sun parlour, if you prefer it," Roger said kindly.

  "I do prefer it. I've reached the age when I appreciate comfort." Colin Nicolson was an elderly and disillusioned twenty - eight.

  They went down the steps to the sun parlour, switched on the light, and found two chairs. "Well, now, what's on your mind, Roger?" Colin asked when they were settled.

  "Why should you think anything's on my mind?"

  "I know the signs. You're like an old war horse that smells the powder. Surely you're not trying to wist this business into anything serious?"

  "I should have thought," Roger said mildly, - that it was quite serious enough already."

  "Huh!" Colin made a Scottish noise, expressive of any interpretation which its hearer might care to put on it.

  Roger was minded to try a little experiment. "No, of course not. I was just thinking on what small points these cases depend. One single piece of evidence is enough to turn an apparently obvious case of suicide into a still more obvious case of murder, or an accident into a suicide, or what you will. As a student of crime yourself, Colin, can you pick out the vital piece of evidence in this case?"

  "Vital, you mean, for suicide?"

  "Yes."

  Colin thought. "That she'd been talking about killing herself half the evening?"

  "No, no, no. That's evidence the other way, if anything. No, I mean material evidence."

  Colin pondered. "No, I'm blessed if I can."

  "Well, everyone just takes it for granted that it was suicide. Why? No, I'll tell you. Because there's a piece of evidence which does actually prove it was suicide, but which in all probability no one has consciously realized. They've seen it, and they've absorbed it, but because it was part of the general picture of suicide they just take it for granted. Like you, not one of them could put a name to it. Can't you, Colin? It's something perfectly obvious."

  "Do you mean the absence of any signs of violence?"

  "No, but of course that is a point, too," Roger had to concede.

  "Well, what is it, then?"

  "Why, that chair on the ground below her, of course. You remember there was a chair lying on its side under the gallows?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, the presence of that chair proves that she wasn't lifted up into the noose, and it proves too that she did voluntarily put her own head in. Doesn't it?"

  "Yes, I see what you mean. Very interesting, Roger. Yes, that's the important piece of evidence, without a doubt."

  Roger nodded and lit a cigarette. His experiment had been successful. The human mind is apt to accept what it thinks ought to exist with such decision that it will even construct and imprint on the memory perfectly detailed pictures the originals of which never, in fact, did exist at all. Colin without doubt had looked several times, when they were on the roof just now, at the gallows. Underneath the gallows was a fallen chair. That fallen chair was a necessary detail in a stage set for suicide. Colin therefore perfectly remembered it being there while he was administering first - aid to Mrs. Stratton twenty minutes ago. The picture was firmly printed on his brain: a gallows with only two figures instead of three, and a fallen chair on the ground beneath the third crossbeam. It was impossible that the chair could not have been there twenty minutes ago. Colin remembered its presence perfectly. He would swear, with complete sincerity, not merely that he thought the chair was there when he first came out on the roof, but that it actually was there. And so would everyone else in the party. Roger never had been troubled by the smallest doubt that the addition of the chair to the picture would be noticed by a single person.

  "And you think," Colin pursued, "that if the chair hadn't been there, the case would have smelt of murder?"

  "I'd put it a little more strongly than that. I should say that murder would have been perfectly obvious." Roger was enjoying the irony of discussing fact as if it were wild hypothesis. It was a pity Colin could not appreciate the irony.

  "Because she couldn't possibly have got her neck into the noose without either being lifted up or standing on something high enough?"

  "Exactly. Do you agree?"

  "Yes, I certainly do. This is very interesting, Roger."

  "It's good exercise, to appreciate the importance of trifles," Roger said cautiously.

  "And that's why you were so interested in my scratch?"

  Roger laughed. If Colin only knew how near the wind he was sailing . . .

  "Well, we can say that it amused me, by way of exercise, to pretend to myself that the chair never had been there at all, and therefore it was a case of murder; and there were you with a nice scratch on your hand, just such as I might have been looking for on one of the party, in that event."

  "Well, well. But what motive could I have had for making away with the unfortunate woman? There's motive enough going about, I'll grant you, but not in my case. I'd never met her before this evening."

  "But don't you see, that's precisely what would make the perfect murder," Roger said with enthusiasm. "It's motive, in ninety - nine cases out of a hundred, that really pins a murder on a certain individual. Without a motive, suspicion might never be directed towards him at all."

  "Without a motive there'd be no murder." Colin was entering into the discussion with nearly as much interest as Roger himself, although to him it must have seemed almost preposterously academic.

  "When I say without a motive, of course I mean without an apparent motive. But take this very instance. You apparently had no motive at all for Mrs. Stratton's death. That is to say, no material motive. But need a motive always be material? What about a spiritual one?"

  "Well, what about a spiritual one?" said Colin, rather aggressively.

  "De mortuis nil nisi verum. I see no reason why one shouldn't speak the truth about the dead. The woman was a pest. She was making a nuisance of herself to almost everyone she came in contact with, she was a real menace to the happiness of at least two people here tonight, and she was making her husband's life a misery to him.
There were only two things that could be done to stop her: shut her up in a madhouse or polish her off. Unfortunately she wasn't quite insane enough to be certifiable; therefore only the second alternative remains. But not a one of the people who had a material motive for her removal had the moral guts to effect it.

  "Along comes Colin Nicolson, judicial, sympathetic, strong - minded, clear - sighted enough to see right through shibboleths, and courageous enough to act on his own judgment. He knows that laws were made for man, but he knows too that some people put themselves outside those laws. He is socialistic enough to believe that the security of the majority demands the sacrifice of the individual. He is intelligent enough to realize that it is hardly possible that suspicion can ever fall on him, and that he is taking very little risk. He is sorry, of course, that what he conceives to be his duty should require of him anything so drastic, and he is sorry, too, for Mrs. Stratton; but he is a great deal more sorry for the people whose lives might be ruined if Mrs. Stratton is allowed to go on living. And so . . ."

  "Well, well," said Colin calmly. "But I'm not sure you've got my character so well. I'm afraid I'm not so noble as all that, Roger. It all sounded to me much more like you."

  "It did rather, didn't it?" said Roger, not without surprise. "Anyhow, you see what I mean?"

  "Oh, yes," said Colin slowly. "I see that." He sat for a moment in thoughtful silence and then lifted his stocky bulk to its feet.

  "Going down again?" Roger asked.

  "No, back in a minute."

  Colin went out of the sun parlour and up onto the roof. Through the glass wall Roger saw him walk across the roof and come to a halt under the gallows. With his hands in his pockets, he seemed to be staring at the chair which had been the cause of all the talk. Then Roger saw him take a large white silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and thoroughly wipe over the back, rails, and seat of the chair. After that he walked, in his unhurried way, back to the sun parlour.

  "What on earth . . ." said Roger, in bewilderment not unmixed with apprehension.