Hangmans Holiday (12 page)

The party assembled gradually, but, as though by common consent, nothing was said about pearls until after breakfast, when Oswald Truegood took the bull by the horns.

“Well now!” said he. “How’s the detective getting along? Got your man, Wimsey?”

“Not yet,” said Wimsey easily.

Sir Septimus, looking at Wimsey as though for his cue, cleared his throat and dashed into speech.

“All very tiresome,” he said, “all very unpleasant. Hr’rm. Nothing for it but the police, I’m afraid. Just at Christmas, too. Hr’rm. Spoilt the party. Can’t stand seeing all this stuff about the place.” He waved his hand towards the festoons of evergreens and coloured paper that adorned the walls. “Take it all down, eh, what? No heart in it. Hr’rm. Burn the lot.”

“What a pity, when we worked so hard over it,” said Joyce.

“Oh, leave it, Uncle,” said Henry Shale. “You’re bothering too much about the pearls. They’re sure to turn up.”

“Shall I ring for James?” suggested William Norgate.

“No,” interrupted Comphrey, “let’s do it ourselves. It’ll give us something to do and take our minds off our troubles.”

“That’s right,” said Sir Septimus. “Start right away. Hate the sight of it.”

He savagely hauled a great branch of holly down from the mantel-piece and flung it, crackling, into the fire.

“That’s the stuff,” said Richard Dennison. “Make a good old blaze!” He leapt up from the table and snatched the mistletoe from the chandelier. “Here goes! One more kiss for somebody before it’s too late.”

“Isn’t it unlucky to take it down before the New Year?” suggested Miss Tompkins.

“Unlucky be hanged. We’ll have it all down. Off the stairs and out of the drawing-room too. Somebody go and collect it.”

“Isn’t the drawing-room locked?” asked Oswald.

“No. Lord Peter says the pearls aren’t there, wherever else they are, so it’s unlocked. That’s right, isn’t it, Wimsey?”

“Quite right. The pearls were taken out of these rooms. I can’t tell yet how, but I’m positive of it. In fact, I’ll pledge my reputation that wherever they are, they’re not up there.”

“Oh, well,” said Comphrey, “in that case, have at it! Come along, Lavinia—you and Dennison do the drawing-room and I’ll do the back room. We’ll have a race.”

“But if the police are coming in,” said Dennison, “oughtn’t everything to be left just as it is?”

“Damn the police!” shouted Sir Septimus. “They don’t want evergreens.”

Oswald and Margharita were already pulling the holly and ivy from the staircase, amid peals of laughter. The party dispersed. Wimsey went quietly upstairs and into the drawing-room, where the work of demolition was taking place at a great rate, George having bet the other two ten shillings to a tanner that they would not finish their part of the job before he finished his.

“You mustn’t help,” said Lavinia, laughing to Wimsey. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

Wimsey said nothing, but waited till the room was clear. Then he followed them down again to the hall, where the fire was sending up a great roaring and spluttering, suggestive of Guy Fawkes night. He whispered to Sir Septimus, who went forward and touched George Comphrey on the shoulder.

“Lord Peter wants to say something to you, my boy,” he said.

Comphrey started and went with him a little reluctantly, as it seemed. He was not looking very well.

“Mr. Comphrey,” said Wimsey, “I fancy these are some of your property.” He held out the palm of his hand, in which rested twenty-two fine, small-headed pins.

“Ingenious,” said Wimsey, “but something less ingenious would have served his turn better. It was very unlucky, Sir Septimus, that you should have mentioned the pearls when you did. Of course, he hoped that the loss wouldn’t be discovered till we’d chucked guessing games and taken to ‘Hide-and-Seek.’ Then the pearls might have been anywhere in the house, we shouldn’t have locked the drawing-room door, and he could have recovered them at his leisure. He had had this possibility in his mind when he came here, obviously, and that was why he brought the pins, and Miss Shale’s taking off the necklace to play ‘Dumb Crambo’ gave him his opportunity.

“He had spent Christmas here before, and knew perfectly well that ‘Animal, Vegetable and Mineral’ would form part of the entertainment. He had only to gather up the necklace from the table when it came to his turn to retire, and he knew he could count on at least five minutes by himself while we were all arguing about the choice of a word. He had only to snip the pearls from the string with his pocket-scissors, burn the string in the grate and fasten the pearls to the mistletoe with the fine pins. The mistletoe was hung on the chandelier, pretty high—it’s a lofty room—but he could easily reach it by standing on the glass table, which wouldn’t show footmarks, and it was almost certain that nobody would think of examining the mistletoe for extra berries. I shouldn’t have thought of it myself if I hadn’t found that pin which he had dropped. That gave me the idea that the pearls had been separated and the rest was easy. I took the pearls off the mistletoe last night—the clasp was there, too, pinned among the holly-leaves. Here they are. Comphrey must have got a nasty shock this morning. I knew he was our man when he suggested that the guests should tackle the decorations themselves and that he should do the back drawing-room—but I wish I had seen his face when he came to the mistletoe and found the pearls gone.”

“And you worked it all out when you found the pin?” said Sir Septimus.

“Yes; I knew then where the pearls had gone to.”

“But you never even looked at the mistletoe.”

“I saw it reflected in the black glass floor, and it struck me then how much the mistletoe berries looked like pearls.”

“G
OOD MORNING, MISS,” SAID
Mr. Montague Egg, removing his smart trilby with something of a flourish as the front door opened. “Here I am again, you see. Not forgotten me, have you? That’s right, because I couldn’t forget a young lady like you, not in a hundred years. How’s his lordship to-day? Think he’d be willing to see me for a minute or two?”

He smiled pleasantly, bearing in mind Maxim Number Ten of the
Salesman’s Handbook,
“The goodwill of the maid is nine-tenths of the trade.”

The parlourmaid, however, seemed nervous and embarrassed.

“I don’t—oh, yes—come in, please. His lordship—that is to say—I’m afraid—”

Mr. Egg stepped in promptly, sample case in hand, and, to his great surprise, found himself confronted by a policeman, who, in somewhat gruff tones, demanded his name and business.

“Travelling representative of Plummet & Rose, Wines and Spirits, Piccadilly,” said Mr. Egg, with the air of one who has nothing to conceal. “Here’s my card. What’s up, sergeant?”

“Plummet & Rose?” said the policeman. “Ah, well, just sit down a moment, will you? The inspector’ll want to have a word with you, I shouldn’t wonder.”

More and more astonished, Mr. Egg obediently took a seat, and in a few minutes’ time found himself ushered into a small sitting-room which was occupied by a uniformed police inspector and another policeman with a note-book.

“Ah!” said the inspector. “Take a seat, will you, Mr.—ha, hum—Egg. Perhaps you can give us a little light on this affair. Do you know anything about a case of port wine that was sold to Lord Borrodale last spring?”

“Certainly I do,” replied Mr. Egg, “if you mean the Dow ’08. I made the sale myself. Six dozen at 192s. a dozen. Ordered from me, personally, March 3rd. Dispatched from our head office March 8th. Receipt acknowledged March 10th, with cheque in settlement. All in order our end. Nothing wrong with it, I hope? We’ve had no complaint. In fact, I’ve just called to ask his lordship how he liked it and to ask if he’d care to place a further order.”

“I see,” said the inspector. “You just happened to call to-day in the course of your usual round? No special reason?”

Mr. Egg, now convinced that something was very wrong indeed, replied by placing his order-book and road schedule at the inspector’s disposal.

“Yes,” said the inspector, when he had glanced through them. “That seems to be all right. Well, now, Mr. Egg, I’m sorry to say that Lord Borrodale was found dead in his study this morning under circumstances strongly suggestive of his having taken poison. And what’s more, it looks very much as if the poison had been administered to him in a glass of this port wine of yours.”

“You don’t say!” said Mr. Egg incredulously. “I’m very sorry to hear that. It won’t do us any good, either. Not but what the wine was wholesome enough when we sent it out. Naturally, it wouldn’t pay us to go putting anything funny into our wines; I needn’t tell you that. But it’s not the sort of publicity we care for. What makes you think it was the port, anyway?”

For answer, the inspector pushed over to him a glass decanter which stood upon the table.

“See what you think yourself. It’s all right—we’ve tested it for fingerprints already. Here’s a glass if you want one, but I shouldn’t advise you to swallow anything—not unless you’re fed up with life.”

Mr. Egg took a cautious sniff at the decanter and frowned. He poured out a thimbleful of the wine, sniffed and frowned again. Then he took an experimental drop upon his tongue, and immediately expectorated, with the utmost possible delicacy, into a convenient flower-pot.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Mr. Montague Egg. His rosy face was puckered with distress. “Tastes to me as though the old gentleman had been dropping his cigar-ends into it.”

The inspector exchanged a glance with the policeman.

“You’re not far out,” he said. “The doctor hasn’t quite finished his post-mortem, but he says it looks to him like nicotine poisoning. Now, here’s the problem. Lord Borrodale was accustomed to drink a couple of glasses of port in his study every night after dinner. Last night the wine was taken in to him as usual at 9 o’clock. It was a new bottle, and Craven—that’s the butler—brought it straight up from the cellar in a basket arrangement—”

“A cradle,” interjected Mr. Egg.

“—a cradle, if that’s what you call it. James the footman followed him, carrying the decanter and a wineglass on a tray. Lord Borrodale inspected the bottle, which still bore the original seal, and then Craven drew the cork and decanted the wine in full view of Lord Borrodale and the footman. Then both servants left the room and retired to the kitchen quarters, and as they went, they heard Lord Borrodale lock the study door after them.”

“What did he do that for?”

“It seems he usually did. He was writing his memoirs—he was a famous judge, you know—and as some of the papers he was using were highly confidential, he preferred to make himself safe against sudden intruders. At 11 o’clock, when the household went to bed, James noticed that the light was still on in the study. In the morning it was discovered that Lord Borrodale had not been to bed. The study door was still locked and, when it was broken open, they found him lying dead on the floor. It looked as though he had been taken ill, had tried to reach the bell, and had collapsed on the way. The doctor says he must have died at about 10 o’clock.”

“Suicide?” suggested Mr. Egg.

“Well, there are difficulties about that. The position of the body, for one thing. Also, we’ve carefully searched the room and found no traces of any bottle or anything that he could have kept the poison in. Besides, he seems to have enjoyed his life. He had no financial or domestic worries, and in spite of his advanced age his health was excellent. Why should he commit suicide?”

“But if he didn’t,” objected Mr. Egg, “how was it he didn’t notice the bad taste and smell of the wine?”

“Well, he seems to have been smoking a pretty powerful cigar at the time,” said the inspector (Mr. Egg shook a reproachful head), “and I’m told he was suffering from a slight cold, so that his taste and smell may not have been in full working order. There are no fingerprints on the decanter or the glass except his own and those of the butler and the footman—though, of course, that wouldn’t prevent anybody dropping poison into either of them, if only the door hadn’t been locked. The windows were both fastened on the inside, too, with burglar-proof catches.”

“How about the decanter?” asked Mr. Egg, jealous for the reputation of his firm. “Was it clean when it came in?”

“Yes, it was. James washed it out immediately before it went into the study; the cook swears she saw him do it. He used water from the tap and then swilled it round with a drop of brandy.”

“Quite right,” said Mr. Egg approvingly.

“And there’s nothing wrong with the brandy, either, for Craven took a glass of it himself afterwards—to settle his palpitations, so he says.” The inspector sniffed meaningly. “The glass was wiped out by James when he put it on the tray, and then the whole thing was carried along to the study. Nothing was put down or left for a moment between leaving the pantry and entering the study, but Craven recollects that as he was crossing the hall Miss Waynfleet stopped him and spoke to him for a moment about some arrangements for the following day.”

“Miss Waynfleet? That’s the niece, isn’t it? I saw her on my last visit. A very charming young lady.”

“Lord Borrodale’s heiress,” remarked the inspector meaningly.

“A very
nice
young lady,” said Mr. Egg, with emphasis. “And I understand you to say that Craven was carrying only the cradle, not the decanter or the glass.”

“That’s so.”

“Well, then, I don’t see that she could have put anything into what James was carrying.” Mr. Egg paused. “The seal on the cork, now—you say Lord Borrodale saw it?”

“Yes, and so did Craven and James. You can see it for yourself, if you like—what’s left of it.”

The inspector produced an ash-tray, which held a few fragments of dark blue sealing-wax, together with a small quantity of cigar-ash. Mr. Egg inspected them carefully.

“That’s our wax and our seal, all right,” he pronounced. “The top of the cork has been sliced off cleanly with a sharp knife and the mark’s intact. ‘Plummet & Rose. Dow 1908.’ Nothing wrong with that. How about the strainer?”

“Washed out that same afternoon in boiling water by the kitchenmaid. Wiped immediately before using by James, who brought it in on the tray with the decanter and the glass. Taken out with the bottle and washed again at once, unfortunately—otherwise, of course, it might have told us something about when the nicotine got into the port wine.”