Death-Watch (31 page)

“Literally?”

“Quite literally insane, and several times within an ace of being certified. Ought to be, as a matter of fact. But his sister got around somebody higher up … I don’t know the straight of it. Of course he’ll never hang if he is guilty; he’ll go to Broadmoor, where he belongs. But do you see the leader in the morning
Trumpeter,
for instance? ‘Let our readers consider the strange case of the mad policeman who has for some years been supported and coddled by the present authorities, instead of being placed in a position where he can do no further harm. Is it at all strange that the authorities endeavoured to hush the matter up when this man ran amok and killed a senior detective-inspector of whom he had long been jealous, just as he killed, some years ago, a banker against whom nothing has yet been proved,’ etc. I tell you—”

The big car swerved to avoid a barrow, and roared on through the light mist and rain that blurred the Embankment lights. Melson felt his heart rise as they skidded; but the whole mad business was lightness and exhilaration, as though the car itself were rushing to a conclusion of the case. His fingers tightened on the door.

“But what,” he demanded, “does Fell think?”

“All I can tell Fell,” the chief inspector returned, “is that he’s got to swallow his own medicine.
He
can’t have it both ways, either. If his reconstruction of the whole business is right—I mean about Eleanor—then Stanley can’t be guilty! It would be raving nonsense; it would make nonsense of everything else. Don’t you see that? If I could only prove that that letter we found is a forgery! But it’s not! I showed it to our handwriting man, with a blotter over the letter itself, and he swears it’s absolutely genuine. That tears it. It puts Stanley in a corner … while all I can do now is follow Fell’s instructions, return to the house, and tell the Carver crowd that we’ve decided to release Eleanor. Seems rather an anticlimax now, doesn’t it? Anyhow, there you are. If that young fool Paull hadn’t …”

He checked himself, and spoke no more until the car drew up in the drizzle outside No. 16. Kitty Prentice, whose swollen reddish eyes attested to recent weeping, opened the door. She jumped back with a queer squeak like a toy, peered over Hadley’s shoulder, saw nothing, and seized his arm.

“Sir! Oh, sir, you’ve gotter tell. ’Ave they arrested Miss Eleanor? ’
Ave
they, sir? Oh, it’s awful! You
gotter
tell! Mr. Carver’s frantic, and ’e’s been a-telephoning to Scotland Yard, and couldn’t find you, and they wouldn’t tell ’im anything, and—”

Hadley evidently feared that premature joy would have the wrong effect in a too-quick revelation for the rest of them. His eye silenced her, even though his expression approved this witness.

“I can’t tell you anything. Where are they?”

She was stricken silent, and pointed to the sitting-room. In a moment her face would slowly begin wrinkling up with tears. Hadley crossed over swiftly to the sitting-room door. Into the house had come palpably now a new atmosphere: at once of hurry and tense waiting, of hands that were clenched and faces waiting to wrinkle like Kitty’s. In the stillness Melson could hear the rustling noise of clocks ticking in the front workroom, as he had heard them last night; but this time they had a quicker beat. From the sitting-room he heard Lucia Handreth’s muffled voice raised:

“—I repeat I’ve told you all I can. If you keep on I shall go mad. I promised not to tell, but I can warn you you’d better be prepared for—”

Hadley knocked.

The white door, with its porcelain knob and big key, opened like a theatre curtain on sudden silence. Carver, big and dishevelled, still in smoking-jacket and slippers, stopped pacing before the fireplace. His grip on a short pipe-stem made the jaw muscles stand out, and Melson could see the gleam of his teeth as one corner of his lip lifted. Mrs. Steffins, a handkerchief below her smeary eyes and her face now clearly furrowed, rolled up her head from where she sat lolling by the table; she gave a hiccoughing sob just before she was transfixed by the sight of Hadley. Lucia Handreth stood bolt upright by the mantelpiece, her arms folded, her colour high.

For a second the tableau held, emotion arrested at its climax and in the weird facial distortions of its climax; while the currents of it, hatred or tears or anger or jubilation, flowed out palpably at the watchers. They felt these emotions like the heat of a fire. Then Lucia Handreth released her breath. Carver took a step forward, and Mrs. Steffins’s knuckles made a rattling noise as her arm fell on the table.

“I knew it!” Mrs. Steffins cried, suddenly, as at a confirmation. Her face grew to hideous ugliness with tears. “I knew it, remember! I warned you! I told you it would come to this house …”

Carver took another step forward, slowly, his big shoulders against the light of the lamp. The pale-blue eyes were unreadable.

“You have kept us waiting a long time,” he said. “Well?”

“What,” said Hadley, bluntly, “do you wish to know?”

“I wish to know what you have done. Have you arrested Eleanor?”

“Miss Handreth,” the chief inspector replied, without conscious irony, “has undoubtedly given you some idea of what we talked over in Miss Carver’s room this afternoon …”

The pale-blue eyes bored in. Carver made a slight gesture. He seemed to grow larger and nearer, although he did not move.

“That is not the point, Mr. Inspector. Not the point at all. The only thing we are interested in is—is it true?”

“It’s the
shame
of it!” cried Mrs. Steffins, and began to beat her hands on the table wildly. “It’s the awful
shame
of it. Arrested for murder. In this house. Living in this house, and her name in the papers as arrested for murder. I could have stood anything
else
…”

Hadley’s impassive look roved round the group.

“Yes, I have something to tell you, if you will be quiet. Where is Mr. Boscombe?”

“He’s done no talking. But he’s just as much of a fool,” said Lucia, and kicked at the edge of the mantelpiece. “He’s gone to find his solicitor for her. He says you haven’t any case, didn’t have a case, and never will have a case…”

“He is quite right, Miss Handreth,” said Hadley, very quietly.

Again they were stricken motionless in a hush, in that queer illusion wherein their faces seemed to have been caught as though by a camera. Melson felt a roaring in his ears. In the quiet Hadley’s voice sounded loudly.

“The evidence against her,” he continued, “is wiped out. We do not have a case, did not have a case, and never will have one. We knew it this afternoon, in time to prepare for—something else.” A faintly sinister ring here. “She has been enjoying herself at the theatre, with the young man she intends shortly to marry, and should be here presently.”

Melson was watching Lucia and Mrs. Steffins. On the latter’s face was only a stupid expression, like a drunken person fumbling with keys. Then realization came and she sagged. Her head went over against the back of the chair in an unconsciously theatrical gesture, and her shaky lips framed words which Melson could have sworn were, “Thank God.”

“Are you mad?” said Lucia Handreth.

It was not a question, but a quick, sharp, incredulous statement.

She took a step forward. Her breast rose and fell. “Doesn’t it please you, Miss Handreth?”

“Kindly don’t try to be suave. I—I am neither pleased nor displeased. I simply don’t believe it. Is this a joke? You told me this morning—”

“Yes. But since then we have heard other things. I’m afraid all of your evidence wasn’t … altogether corroborated, if you understand me? I think you do.”

“Yet with all that evidence—?” Her voice began to rise. “What did she say? What did she tell you? You mean Don is really going to m—What
do
you mean?”

Then Carver moved across Melson’s line of vision. He put the dead pipe back in his mouth and drew at it noisily. He looked as though a great weight had been taken from him; not angry with the trick, or even curious, but with the energy drawn from his brittle bones now that there was no longer occasion for it.

“Thank you for your good sense,” he remarked, rather shakily. “You’ve given us the worst scare we ever had. At least we seem well out of it now. What—what do you wish us to do?”

They heard the faint slam of the front door, footsteps, and somewhere a telephone insistently ringing. Clearly not knowing what to do, Hadley lifted his hand and waited. There were mumbling voices, and the whisper of the rain grew louder. Then Kitty appeared.

“Dr. Fell’s ’ere, sir,” she said to the chief inspector. “And they want you on the telephone …”

Through the open doorway Melson had a glimpse of the doctor’s rain-spattered cloak as he stood with his back to them muttering hurriedly to Sergeant Betts and Constable Sparkle. They slid back out of sight in a moment. Dr. Fell, his shovel-hat in his hand, lumbered into the room as Hadley went out. They did not speak; the doctor’s face was heavy with weariness.

“Ah—good evening,” he greeted them, wheezing a little. “I’m just on time, I fancy. It seems we’re always setting this house by the ears, but I’m glad to say that tonight will probably be the last time.”

“The last time?” repeated Carver.

“I hope so. I hope to make the acquaintance of the real murderer,” said Dr. Fell, “tonight. Under these circumstances you must allow me to send you all out of this room, until I summon you here presently. Go anywhere you like, but none of you must leave the house … No hysterics, ma’am!” he added, swinging towards Mrs. Steffins. He seemed to tower. “I think I see it in your eye that you are about to accuse Miss Handreth of being the cause of all your trouble and worry. Perhaps she is; but this is not the time to discuss it … Mr. Carver, will you please take charge of these ladies? All of you are to be within call.”

He stood back. Muffled by the falling rain, the voice of Lincoln’s Inn bell began to toll nine. In the midst of the strokes, as though at an agreed signal, the house bell began buzzing in bursts under somebody’s finger, and the big doorknocker banged out under a vigorous hand. Kitty flew to answer it. The voices of the newcomers were stilled as Eleanor, shaking rain from her coat, moved into the hall so that those in the sitting-room could see her. Behind her loomed Hastings, sullenly jubilant; Boscombe, dryly pleased; and Paull— slightly drunk and very wet, standing puzzled with his rolled umbrella gripped under his arm.

Eleanor faced them.

“Here I am,” she said. Her voice could not find the right level, and echoed thinly. But she stood very straight. “Not in gaol. Free— for the first time.” She looked at Lucia. “Aren’t you sorry?”

“Don, you fool!” screamed Lucia. She dashed her hand across her eyes; hesitated, and then flung out of the room as though she were running for the group. But she passed them, while Eleanor was palely smiling, darted into her own room, and slammed the door. Mrs. Steffins’s wail took up the echo of the noise; but Carver paid no attention. He walked out slowly and said something to Eleanor.

“Thanks, J.,” she replied. “Come upstairs with us, won’t you?”

As in a dream Melson heard Dr. Fell giving instructions; the group fell silent, but terror was here as well as tensity when the doctor returned with Hadley and the hall was cleared. The chief inspector, his back to the door, stood and stared at Dr. Fell.

“Well?” the latter barked. “What is it? Anything wrong?”

“Everything—now. Everything. Somebody’s blown the gaff.”

“What gaff?”

“Call from the office,” Hadley replied, heavily. “It’s in all the late editions of the evening papers. Somebody at the Yard talked; my instructions weren’t understood. Hayes got into a mix-up with the Press Bulletin, but they won’t hold that as his fault. It may be my job in my last couple of weeks, and the pension with it … They know Stanley was here last night, mixed up in funny business, and the Assistant Commissioner told me what would happen if it leaked out. I shall be the scapegoat for all of ’em. Even if we do catch the real murderer now—”

“Do you think I didn’t foresee all that?” asked Dr. Fell, quietly. “Foresee?”

“Steady, son. You’ve been thirty-five years in the Force without losing your nerve, and don’t lose it now. Yes, I saw the trouble; and there’s only one way to meet it, if we can meet it …”

“Yes, thirty-five years,” nodded Hadley. He stared at the floor. “You’ve got something arranged?”

“Yes.”

“You realize what will happen if you bungle it, don’t you? Not merely to me, but to—”

He stopped. Kitty was there again, looking more frightened, as though she had darted away from the front door.

“Sir,” she said,
“Mr. Peter Stanley is here
…”

For a second the chief inspector stood stonily; then, as he started to move, Dr. Fell gripped his arm. Hadley said:

“That’s done it. That’s done it now. Somebody’ll see him, and we’re ruined. He was to be kept in the background. Now—”

“Be quiet, you fool,” said Dr. Fell, very softly. “Sit down there, and whatever happens don’t move or speak. I sent a message for him to come. Send Mr. Stanley in here, Kitty.”

Hadley backed away and sat down by the table. So did Dr. Fell. Standing in the background by the glass cases, Melson gripped the edge of one to steady himself …

“Come in, Mr. Stanley,” continued Dr. Fell, almost drowsily. “Don’t trouble to close that door. Take a chair, please.”

He entered with a curiously soft step for such a big man. Melson had never yet seen him in full light, and all past feelings and insinuations about him returned now with a sort of shock. He seemed to jerk back from the full glow of the lamp, as an animal might. Wearing a sodden ulster, he was hatless; and when the rain dripped down his face he would twitch his head. His eyes were set and sunken, and the broad face with the projecting ears, which last night had been of a leaden colour, was now of a blotchy pallor—and he was smiling.

“You sent for me,” he said, heavily, and opened his eyes wide.

“That’s right. Sit down. Mr. Stanley, this afternoon certain accusations—suggestions—were made about you …”

He sat down, his big fingers outspread on his knees. Nor was he really smiling, Melson saw; it was a twitching of the lips he could not control. He sat there as motionless as wax, power and danger poised and growing tense in the white lamplight. Suddenly he leaned forward.