The Murder at Sissingham Hall (18 page)

‘All right then, but I don’t like it,’ said Gwen sulkily.

‘Where have you been?’ Sylvia asked me in a low voice. ‘You’ve missed all the fun.’

‘Talking to Inspector Jameson,’ I muttered. ‘What happened?’

‘Come outside and I’ll tell you.’

It was a dull, chilly day and a dank mist hung low over the park.

‘It’s all looking rather bad for MacMurray,’ I remarked.

‘That’s exactly what I was going to say,’ said Sylvia eagerly.

‘Why, what happened?’

‘After you went out, Hugh came back looking rather dazed and before Gwen could stop him, blurted out the whole story. Apparently, the police have discovered why Neville intended to disinherit him.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ she went on. ‘It seems that a friend of Neville’s took him aside one day and said did he know that Hugh had been chucked out of his club for disreputable conduct—something to do with illegal gambling, or running a book, or something. Neville did a bit of investigating on his own account and found out that it was true and confronted Hugh with the facts. Hugh admitted it, said that it had just been a harmless game among friends and promised to stick to the straight and narrow from now on. He must have lapsed back into his old ways, though, as not long afterwards the suspicion arose at another club that he was running some betting operation in concert with someone called Myerson, who is apparently the absolute end, although I’ve never heard of him. When Neville found out he went into fits.’

I whistled in astonishment.

‘Not really? Clem Myerson? Surely you must have read about him in the newspapers? He is one of the most notorious criminals in London. He is thought to have a finger in every pie: guns, drug-running, illegal gambling and worse. Many of his gang are already behind bars, although the police have not been able to touch him—it is thought that he pays his associates handsomely to take the blame and rules over his men by a combination of persuasion and fear. He has a taste for better things, though, and is often seen mingling with some of the more disreputable elements of high society. If MacMurray has been consorting with Clem Myerson then it’s no wonder that Sir Neville decided to disinherit him!’

‘Goodness!’ said Sylvia. ‘Anyway, Hugh was accused of acting as Myerson’s “inside man” in clubland, giving him access to lots of people with plenty of money.’

‘If he has admitted all this, then why didn’t Inspector Jameson arrest him immediately?’

‘He didn’t admit it. The inspector confronted him with the accusations that had been made against him and he denied them, although of course he couldn’t deny that the accusations had been made. His story is that he had met Myerson a few times but knew nothing of his reputation, and that Neville had made a mistake. He is convinced that he would have been able to persuade Neville to change his mind if Neville hadn’t been killed.’

‘Do you think his story is true?’

She shrugged.

‘Who knows? I’ve always thought that Hugh was a bit of an ass but harmless enough.’

‘But what about the murder? He hasn’t been arrested, so presumably no-one has been able to find any evidence against him.’

‘No, he hasn’t been arrested—yet,’ she said. ‘But the police are searching through all our belongings now. I wonder what they are looking for.’

I told her about the conversation I had had with Angela Marchmont earlier, about the police’s new theory regarding the windows and the time at which the murder had happened.

‘I expect they are examining the knees of our trousers and suchlike, for signs that someone has been clambering about the place,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t me, anyhow,’ said Sylvia. ‘By the way, what did Inspector Jameson want to speak to you about?’

‘Oh, he merely wanted to ask me whether I knew of any reason why someone would want to kill Sir Neville,’ I said airily. ‘Of course I said no.’

Sylvia turned to look at me.

‘Charles, do you really think Hugh did it?’ she said.

‘Who else could it have been?’

She did not answer.

‘He is the most obvious suspect. After all, he had the motive and the opportunity.’

‘If what you say is true, then we all had the opportunity,’ she said.

‘But nobody else had such a strong motive, you must see that. Sir Neville was about to disinherit him, so he had to act fast.’

‘We don’t know that nobody else had a motive. Hugh’s is just the one we know about. There are all kinds of reasons for killing someone and money is only one of them. The murderer might have acted out of—oh, I don’t know—out of love, or jealousy, or fear, or even just pure hatred.’

‘True but money seems to be the most obvious motive in Sir Neville’s case. I think we can discount love and jealousy as reasons and I don’t know who could have feared or hated him enough to kill him.’

‘Well
someone
killed him.’

‘Tell me, then, who do you think did it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I don’t like it, Charles. I hate all this sneaking around and talking in corners and looking sideways at my friends wondering which one of them is a murderer. I wish—’

‘Yes?’

She said nothing for a moment, then burst out:

‘I wish we’d left well alone and never gone snooping around in the study. Then Neville could have been buried decently and we could all have gone about our business as before. Nothing will ever be the same again now.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ I said. ‘We weren’t the only ones to be suspicious—it was the doctor who raised the alarm, remember, when he arrived with Mr. Pomfrey.’

‘Oh, damn and blast the man, why couldn’t he have kept his suspicions to himself?’ she said. ‘Mr. Pomfrey didn’t want to say anything, I could tell. It was Dr. Carter who had to go and spoil everything.’

After my bruising interview with Inspector Jameson, I was beginning to share her feelings. At first, I had been only too keen to see the killer brought to justice and had been surprised at the reluctance to call the police displayed by Sylvia, Mrs. Marchmont and the solicitor. But of course then there was no suspicion that the crime had been committed by someone in the house. I began to see the enormity of what had happened. Sylvia was right. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Sylvia shivered.

‘I’m cold,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back inside.’

We returned to the house in silence. Sylvia looked glum—as did I, probably. Little as I liked the man, I had no wish to see Hugh MacMurray hanged for murder or his wife arrested as an accessory, but it now looked inevitable. All that was needed was some evidence, which I had no doubt the police would soon find. In fact, as it turned out, the evidence was provided by MacMurray  himself.

FOURTEEN

We were greeted in the hall by a beaming Joan.

‘Have you heard the good news?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘They’ve found Simon! And he’s all right!’

We duly expressed our surprise and satisfaction.

‘Where did they find him?’ asked Sylvia.

‘Well, they found the car first of all, on the beach near Aldeburgh with the waves lapping around it. They thought the worst at first but it was just that the silly ass hadn’t thought to leave it out of the reach of the high tide. He was found a little way away, sitting on the sand and staring out to sea. His mother lives nearby, you know, in one of those rest homes for decayed gentlewomen. I believe she’s quite ga-ga now, poor old thing. That’s what made them think he might be there. Anyway, he must have been having one of his nervous attacks, as they couldn’t get a word out of him for hours. Poor Simon! I hope the police are being kind to him.’

I smiled and thought what a kind-hearted soul Joan was, despite her cross demeanour. She would make Gale a good wife, once this terrible business was all over and done with.

‘Is he coming back here?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes. Rosamund insisted on it. Simon was dreadfully embarrassed about the whole thing and wanted to slink off and hide somewhere but Rosamund wouldn’t hear of it. She said that Sissingham was his home and that he needed looking after. It was really very kind of her.’

I forbore to point out that Inspector Jameson was probably very keen himself for Gale to return to the house: after all, although he had an alibi for the fifteen minutes between a quarter to eleven and eleven o’clock, he was still as much under suspicion as the rest of us for the period until half-past one. Here at Sissingham, it would be much easier for the police to keep an eye on us and wait for someone to make a wrong move.

The search of our belongings had taken place and, it seemed, had drawn a blank. Certainly, nothing was removed and no-one was questioned further. Furthermore, we received hints that the police were perplexed as to how the killer had got back into the house after the murder. According to Joan, one of the servants had overheard a constable reporting that the downstairs windows were either impossible to open or too high off the ground to allow anyone to pass through them easily. I began to wonder if the crime would ever be solved, given that each time an avenue of inquiry opened up, it seemed to be closed off again immediately.

Simon Gale returned after tea, accompanied by the inspector. Rosamund had warned us all not to make a fuss or mention his escapade and we mostly succeeded, except for Hugh MacMurray who, as was only to be expected, clapped him on the back and made one or two loud remarks in dubious taste, which caused Gale to wince. He hurried off as soon as was decently possible and was reported as having gone to the study in order to arrange Sir Neville’s papers and bury himself in his work.

The inspector had come for only a brief visit, he told us, to report on the progress of the case to Lady Strickland. He was preparing to depart when he suddenly paused.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I almost forgot these.’

He reached into his jacket, drew out of his note-case several scraps of folded paper and placed them on a nearby table. Gwen MacMurray took one of them up.

‘Why, it’s our Consequences game,’ she exclaimed. ‘Whatever did you take these for?’

‘Just part of our routine investigation,’ replied Jameson. ‘We’ve finished examining them now.’

I failed to see what clue could be gleaned from a childish game but supposed the inspector had had his reasons. Hugh MacMurray had taken a paper too and let out a loud guffaw as he read it.

‘Oh I say! That’s very good,’ he said and reached for another one.

‘Boopsie, you’ve already read them,’ said his wife impatiently.

‘No I haven’t,’ he replied. ‘I missed the game, don’t you remember? I was taking a turn on the terrace at the time. Shame, though—it sounds like it was rather a laugh, what?’

At that moment, I saw both Inspector Jameson and Angela Marchmont turn their heads towards MacMurray and regard him thoughtfully.

‘Mr. MacMurray, how long were you out walking on the terrace?’ asked Jameson.

‘Eh, what’s that?’ replied MacMurray, tearing his eyes away from the paper he held in his hand. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Half an hour, perhaps more.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Rosamund. ‘Charles and I met you on our way back to the drawing-room from the study, didn’t we?’

I heard Angela let out a soft ‘Oh!’

The inspector said nothing and went out.

Half an hour or so later he returned and asked Rosamund if she would kindly join him in the morning-room, as he had just remembered something he had meant to ask her earlier.

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Rosamund, surprised. She rose and they went out. A few minutes later, Rogers came in and murmured discreetly in my ear that Inspector Jameson would be pleased if I would join them. Puzzled, I went along to the morning-room at once, to find Rosamund and the inspector sitting in close conference.

‘Oh, Charles,’ said Rosamund, when she saw me. ‘Inspector Jameson has asked me the most extraordinary question which concerns us both, so I insisted that you be present. Now, inspector,’ she continued, turning to him, ‘do repeat what you said. It’s simply too odd for words!’

I had the feeling that this was not how the inspector would have preferred to conduct the interview but he went on politely.

‘Mr. Knox,’ he said. ‘I have been asking Lady Strickland about the events that occurred shortly before a quarter to eleven, when she and you went to the study and attempted to persuade Sir Neville to join his guests.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Before then, I understand you were all playing at Consequences. Do you remember at what time the game began?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I replied. ‘I suggest you ask Mr. Gale that, as he seems to have a perfect memory for that kind of thing.’

‘Shall we fetch him in?’ said Rosamund brightly. Before the inspector could object, she rang the bell and had him summoned.

‘Oh, Simon,’ she said, when Gale arrived. ‘The inspector is asking us questions about the night of Neville’s death and I’ve such a frightfully bad memory that I need your help. He wants to know at what time we started playing Consequences. Do you remember?’

Gale thought for a moment.

‘I think it must have been a few minutes before ten o’clock, Lady Strickland. I remember looking at my watch and thinking that I had some work to finish and that I had better start soon.’