Death Comes to Cambers (14 page)

A good deal interested by this chance piece of information, Bobby continued on his way. Only if Sterling were guilty, why was young Eddy Dene keeping out of the way? That had a bad look about it, even though there was always the reflection that Lady Cambers was Eddy's chief financial support, and that men do not kick down the ladder by which they are climbing.

Then, too, as regarded Eddy, there was further the alibi his mother's evidence seemed to establish. Not but that an alibi is always a tricky thing. The question of the clothing, for instance. Clothes, though usual, are not an absolute necessity. At a pinch a night-shirt, or less, might serve, or, indeed, clothing could have been provided by that accomplice who might possibly have taken Eddy's place in his bedroom, but whose very existence had yet to be proved. It was a point, however, that would have to be dealt with, for defending counsel would certainly make great play with it, as, indeed, he would with the attack of toothache Eddy was said to have suffered from as a result of his drenching in the rain. Not a very serious argument, perhaps, but one that would draw a smile from any jury, and put it in a good humour, when told that an attack of toothache was enough to keep any man too fully occupied to leave him any time to think of murder!

But on one detail of the puzzle this business of the clothing had a bearing of some significance. There had to be explained how Lady Cambers had been induced to leave the house in secrecy so late at night. Any theory that Eddy had returned after the butler had let him out by the front door, that it was for him Lady Cambers had provided the brandy, meant perhaps to ward off a chill if he had come back wet through, had to assume that he was dressed normally. A visitor in a night-shirt, or less, would hardly have been received by her with complete equanimity!

Deep in thought, letting his mind dwell on Eddy's room, trying to let the significance of every object it contained sink into his mind, Bobby came to the shed in the middle of Frost Field that Eddy Dene used in connection with his work.

By Colonel Lawson's orders it had been carefully locked, though with so much to do, so many errands to be run, such a variety of lines of inquiry to be followed up, he had not been able to spare an officer to remain on guard. Now the door was wide open, and Bobby, walking in, found there Eddy himself, contemplating with a certain satisfaction his neatly re-arranged collection of stone implements and fossils that had been so ruthlessly disturbed earlier in the day.

‘Hullo,' he said amiably, over his shoulder, as Bobby, somewhat taken aback, gave an exclamation of surprise at seeing him.

‘You are being looked for everywhere,' Bobby told him, in his most severe, official tone.

‘I rather thought as much,' observed Eddy, quite undisturbed. ‘Someone came banging at the door. Couldn't open it, couldn't get the key to turn. I had fixed the lock so it shouldn't. I expect they thought they had the wrong key, and, anyhow, no one could be inside, so they went off again. Had to get my stuff straight, you know.'

Bobby regarded him wrathfully.

‘Do you mean,' he demanded, ‘that when you knew quite well any information you had to give us might be a help, you were deliberately keeping out of the way?'

‘That's right,' said Eddy, as placidly as ever.

He turned towards Bobby, chubby-faced and smiling as ever, but with vivid, eager eyes that seemed to tell of a hasty and imperious will, and nervous, mobile lips where a certain occasional twitching suggested a self-control and composure less complete than they seemed. And on one chubby cheek a plainly visible swelling seemed to prove that as regards toothache his mother's story was fully accurate.

‘How did you get in? The place was locked,' Bobby said. ‘Had you another key?'

‘That's right,' agreed Eddy.

‘You are hardly going the way, you know, to make a good impression,' Bobby pointed out, with some heat. 

‘Do I want to make a good impression?' Eddy wondered. ‘But I'll put you right on one point. There's nothing of any value I can tell you. All I know is that after I left last night I got caught in the rain, drenched, gave my things to mother to dry for me, and spent most of the night walking about the room with a bad attack of toothache.' He paused to light a cigarette. He went on: ‘I suppose what you mean is that I'm under suspicion. I half thought I should be. But I was jolly well going to see I had my specimens right before anything else happened – before I got marched off to gaol, if that's what's next on the programme.'

‘We haven't got as far as that yet,' Bobby answered, not much liking, and not quite understanding either, the young man's attitude.

He looked carefully and slowly all round the room, and with special attention at the fossils and so on that earlier he had noticed thrown together in a confused heap, but that now were all neatly arranged and ticketed again. Eddy certainly had not been wasting his time. The task was one that must have kept him busy all morning. On the floor, where it had fallen behind a packing-case that partly hid it, was the suit-case Lady Cambers had apparently brought out with her.

‘That oughtn't to have been left here,' Bobby said.

‘Suppose it got forgotten,' Eddy remarked. ‘There's nothing in it.'

‘We are wondering a good deal what made her bring it out with her,' Bobby observed.

‘If you knew that, you would know it all, perhaps,' Eddy said slowly, and almost as if to himself.

He was still holding in one hand the match with which he had lighted the cigarette he had begun to smoke. He put it down on the table, in an ash-tray standing there, and Bobby picked the stalk up and saw that printed thereon were the words: ‘Hotel Henry VIII'.

Looking at it meditatively, and wondering what it meant, Bobby went on: ‘They didn't know at your home where you were?'

‘I didn't tell them,' Eddy answered briefly.

‘I understand,' Bobby persisted, ‘you are engaged to Miss Amy Emmers?'

‘What about it?' Eddy asked sharply. ‘It's been arranged for years – since we were kids. My people are set on it. Amy's one of the best, too. She's a darn good sort. What's it got to do with your lot?'

‘We have to know who people are to know where we are ourselves,' Bobby answered, in his most conciliatory tones. ‘I take it all this must have been a great shock to you?'

‘If blue ruin's what you call a shock,' Eddy answered grimly, ‘it is. Because, that's what it means, most likely. Perhaps that's what's preventing me thinking so much about the poor old girl herself. It was her money was running the show here, and who is going to take it on now? Not Sir Albert, anyway; he hated to see her spend a penny on it. Looks like it's back to the shop for me, weighing tea and sugar all day long.' As always when he spoke of the shop, there sounded in his voice a veritable passion of hatred and of loathing. Whatever else was doubtful, that he hated the shop, and everything connected with it, beyond all reasonable measure, was perfectly clear. Bobby felt that had Lady Cambers been pushing him back into the shop instead of providing him with probably his only hope of escape from it, then, indeed, a motive for the murder might be guessed at. ‘Sorry,' Eddy went on, with a little apologetic laugh as if he noticed how Bobby was looking at him and felt he had unnecessarily betrayed his feelings, ‘but it's all rather a wash-out for me. Even the introduction to Mr. Tyler I was to have had has gone down the drain now, I suppose.'

‘Who is Mr.Tyler?'

‘Some johnny she knew. American millionaire; dabbles in archaeology. Don't expect he knows anything about it. Millionaires never know anything. I suppose they spend all their time acquiring money and ignorance – very successfully.'

Bobby put down in his mind another trait of Eddy's character as arrogance. Sure of himself, and contempt for others, Bobby thought. He asked: ‘Was Lady Cambers thinking of withdrawing her support?'

‘Eh?' asked Eddy. ‘First I've heard of it. She was keen enough last night, if only to show that interfering old ass of a parson where he got off.'

‘I was told she was worried about a sermon he preached. He excommunicated you, I understand?'

‘You heard about that?' asked Eddy, smiling broadly. ‘He would hardly have dared try that on Lady Cambers, would he?'

Bobby did not answer the question. He was still looking at the match-stalk he had picked up.

‘Do you mind telling me where you got these matches?' he asked.

‘Why? Are they the fatal clue?' Eddy asked lightly enough, though he looked a little startled. ‘As a matter of fact I believe that chap who has been messing about the village lately left them here. He trotted up here one afternoon, asking a lot of fool questions. Tried to let on he was interested, and seemed to think what I was doing had some connection with cathedrals – Lord knows why!'

‘Have you any idea what he wanted here?'

‘No. I never worried. Why should I?'

‘Or who he was?'

‘Just plain fool, if you ask me. Poor old Lady Cambers got it into her head he was a burglar after her jewels. Nonsense, of course. A burglar wouldn't make himself conspicuous hanging about and asking a lot of fool questions.'

‘He seems to have disappeared as soon as he heard of the murder,' Bobby remarked.

‘The devil he has,' said Eddy, looking a little surprised. ‘Got cold feet perhaps. Wonder if my fountain-pen has disappeared with him. Shouldn't be surprised.'

‘Your fountain-pen?'

‘Yes, one Lady Cambers gave me last Christmas – a jolly good one, too. Gold-mounted and all that. Since that johnny was here I've missed it. I may have dropped it somewhere. I sent an advert, to the
Hirlpool Gazette
on Saturday – no, Friday. Ten bob reward. It'll be in this morning. Lady Cambers wouldn't have liked it if she had known I had lost it – that won't worry her now, poor soul.'

‘No, no,' agreed Bobby absently.

It seemed as if the two clues so far discovered had now turned to point away from Eddy and towards the vanished Mr. Jones. But then, as Eddy himself had remarked, would anyone planning a criminal enterprise have begun by drawing attention to himself by endless questioning? Could it have been Jones who had been the unknown guest at Cambers House, or the unknown watcher in the rhododendron-bushes? But then it seemed that for him, too, a firm alibi was established by the evidence of the people at the inn.

‘Why not take Jones at his face-value?' demanded Eddy, after a pause. ‘Retired gent looking for a bargain in the way of cottage and garden, and wanting to know all about everything before deciding.'

‘We can't take anything for granted in our work,' Bobby answered gravely. ‘We've got to test it all. You were the last person, except for those in the house itself, who saw Lady Cambers last night?'

‘Except, also,' retorted Eddy, ‘whoever it was came along afterwards and she treated to a swig of brandy.'

‘You've heard about that?' Bobby said, slightly disconcerted.

‘Of course. All the village has,' Eddy assured him. ‘Someone hid in the rhododendrons for a while, and then went into the house and had a drink with Lady Cambers before he and she went out together. Ergo, there's your murderer. Only, who was it, eh?'

Bobby did not point out, as a weak point in this theory, that apparently the man concealed in the rhododendrons had been there a good part of the night, till long after the murder had been committed. And it was quite incredible that a man who had just committed a murder would hang about his victim's house, hiding and waiting in rhododendron-bushes.

‘During which time,' Eddy added, ‘I was having the devil of a time with my tooth. Anything like a chill or a draught sets it off at once. Not,' he added thoughtfully, ‘that tooth-ache doesn't make me feel like murder, especially when people won't leave you alone and come banging at the door, wanting to do things for you you know perfectly well will only make the pain worse, having had some. Mother's like that, what she really wants is to relieve herself, by fussing round, feeling she's doing something. So now I just lock my door, don't answer, and wait till it's through. It's a help, too, if you keep on the move. But then you jolly well can't keep still while it's giving you fair gyp.'

So he knew his mother had been knocking at his door during the night. But then too, if an accomplice had taken his place, he would have been told that that had happened. So the point really did not go for much. Bobby harked back to an earlier point.

‘Was there any special reason for your visiting Lady Cambers last night?'

‘Only to tell her how things were going.'

‘Did you notice anything unusual in her manner?'

‘Absolutely no. She was just the same as usual.'

‘There was no difference of opinion between you?'

‘No. What?' asked Eddy, staring. ‘Why, there was nothing else. I was always having to put her right – she had the weirdest ideas. Not that that mattered so long as she stumped up.'

‘The opposition to your work you are carrying on here had affected her, then?' Bobby insisted, for the point seemed to him of some importance.

‘She worried a bit – not much,' Eddy agreed. ‘You know, I've been thinking about that myself. Our parson here is a bit crazy. Dotty. He came messing round here once, and I told him I was going to prove the Bible all wrong. He took it seriously – more seriously than anyone takes the Bible, I should say. He talked quite a lot about the judgement of the Lord – jolly excited. Lady Cambers smoothed him down a bit when he went to see her, but he was soon up on his hind-legs again.'

‘Do you mean, you think Mr. Andrews may have had something to do with the murder?'

‘If it had been me murdered,' Eddy answered, ‘I would have put it down to him without thinking twice. He looked like it, and a religious fanatic is capable of anything. Of course, it's a bit different with Lady Cambers. You would have to explain how he got her to come out alone so late. That's what beats me. She wasn't so fond of midnight excursions as all that.'