The Mysterious Mr Quin (5 page)

‘That’s a damned lie,’ said Porter.

His voice rang out hoarse and defiant. The Inspector said nothing, merely shook his head.

‘What is her own story?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite.

‘She says that she went into the Privy Garden to be quiet for a little. Just before she rounded the last hedge, she heard the shots. She came round the corner, saw the pistol lying at her feet, and picked it up. No one passed her, and she saw no one in the garden but the two victims.’ The Inspector gave an eloquent pause. ‘That’s what she says–and although I cautioned her, she insisted on making a statement.’

‘If she said that,’ said Major Porter, and his face was still deadly white, ‘she was speaking the truth. I know Iris Staverton.’

‘Well, sir,’ said the Inspector, ‘there’ll be plenty of time to go into all that later. In the meantime, I’ve got my duty to do.’

With an abrupt movement, Porter turned to Mr Satterthwaite.

‘You! Can’t you help? Can’t
you
do something?’

Mr Satterthwaite could not help feeling immensely flattered. He had been appealed to, he, most insignificant of men, and by a man like John Porter.

He was just about to flutter out a regretful reply,
when the butler, Thompson, entered, with a card upon a salver which he took to his master with an apologetic cough. Mr Unkerton was still sitting huddled up in a chair, taking no part in the proceedings.

‘I told the gentleman you would probably not be able to see him, sir,’ said Thompson. ‘But he insisted that he had an appointment and that it was most urgent.’

Unkerton took the card.

‘Mr Harley Quin,’ he read. ‘I remember, he was to see me about a picture. I did make an appointment, but as things are–’

But Mr Satterthwaite had started forward.

‘Mr Harley Quin, did you say?’ he cried. ‘How extraordinary, how very extraordinary. Major Porter, you asked me if I could help you. I think I can. This Mr Quin is a friend–or I should say, an acquaintance of mine. He is a most remarkable man.’

‘One of these amateur solvers of crime, I suppose,’ remarked the Inspector disparagingly.

‘No,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘He is not that kind of man at all. But he has a power–an almost uncanny power–of showing you what you have seen with your own eyes, of making clear to you what you have heard with your own ears. Let us, at any rate, give him an outline of the case, and hear what he has to say.’

Mr Unkerton glanced at the Inspector, who merely snorted and looked at the ceiling. Then the former
gave a short nod to Thompson, who left the room and returned ushering in a tall, slim stranger.

‘Mr Unkerton?’ The stranger shook him by the hand. ‘I am sorry to intrude upon you at such a time. We must leave our little picture chat until another time. Ah! my friend, Mr Satterthwaite. Still as fond of the drama as ever?’

A faint smile played for a minute round the stranger’s lips as he said these last words.

‘Mr Quin,’ said Mr Satterthwaite impressively, ‘we have a drama here, we are in the midst of one, I should like, and my friend, Major Porter, would like, to have your opinion of it.’

Mr Quin sat down. The red-shaded lamp threw a broad band of coloured light over the checked pattern of his overcoat, and left his face in shadow almost as though he wore a mask.

Succinctly, Mr Satterthwaite recited the main points of the tragedy. Then he paused, breathlessly awaiting the words of the oracle.

But Mr Quin merely shook his head.

‘A sad story,’ he said. ‘A very sad and shocking tragedy. The lack of motive makes it very intriguing.’

Unkerton stared at him.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Mrs Staverton was heard to threaten Richard Scott. She was bitterly jealous of his wife. Jealousy–’

‘I agree,’ said Mr Quin. ‘Jealousy or Demoniac Possession. It’s all the same. But you misunderstand me. I was not referring to the murder of Mrs Scott, but to that of Captain Allenson.’

‘You’re right,’ cried Porter, springing forward. ‘There’s a flaw there. If Iris had ever contemplated shooting Mrs Scott, she’d have got her alone somewhere. No, we’re on the wrong tack. And I think I see another solution. Only those three people went into the Privy Garden. That is indisputable and I don’t intend to dispute it. But I reconstruct the tragedy differently. Supposing Jimmy Allenson shoots first Mrs Scott and then himself. That’s possible, isn’t it? He flings the pistol from him as he falls–Mrs Staverton finds it lying on the ground and picks it up just as she said. How’s that?’

The Inspector shook his head.

‘Won’t wash, Major Porter. If Captain Allenson had fired that shot close to his body, the cloth would have been singed.’

‘He might have held the pistol at arm’s length.’

‘Why should he? No sense in it. Besides, there’s no motive.’

‘Might have gone off his head suddenly,’ muttered Porter, but without any great conviction. He fell to silence again, suddenly rousing himself to say defiantly: ‘Well, Mr Quin?’

The latter shook his head.

‘I’m not a magician. I’m not even a criminologist. But I will tell you one thing–I believe in the value of impressions. In any time of crisis, there is always one moment that stands out from all the others, one picture that remains when all else has faded. Mr Satterthwaite is, I think, likely to have been the most unprejudiced observer of those present. Will you cast your mind back, Mr Satterthwaite, and tell us the moment that made the strongest impression on you? Was it when you heard the shots? Was it when you first saw the dead bodies? Was it when you first observed the pistol in Mrs Staverton’s hand? Clear your mind of any preconceived standard of values, and tell us.’

Mr Satterthwaite fixed his eyes on Mr Quin’s face, rather as a schoolboy might repeat a lesson of which he was not sure.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘It was not any of those. The moment that I shall always remember was when I stood alone by the bodies–afterwards–looking down on Mrs Scott. She was lying on her side. Her hair was ruffled. There was a spot of blood on her little ear.’

And instantly, as he said it, he felt that he had said a terrific, a significant thing.

‘Blood on her ear? Yes, I remember,’ said Unkerton slowly.

‘Her ear-ring must have been torn out when she fell,’ explained Mr Satterthwaite.

But it sounded a little improbable as he said it.

‘She was lying on her left side,’ said Porter. ‘I suppose it was that ear?’

‘No,’ said Mr Satterthwaite quickly. ‘It was her right ear.’

The Inspector coughed.

‘I found this in the grass,’ he vouchsafed. He held up a loop of gold wire.

‘But my God, man,’ cried Porter. ‘The thing can’t have been wrenched to pieces by a mere fall. It’s more as though it had been shot away by a bullet.’

‘So it was,’ cried Mr Satterthwaite. ‘It was a bullet. It must have been.’

‘There were only two shots,’ said the Inspector. ‘A shot can’t have grazed her ear and shot her in the back as well. And if one shot carried away the ear-ring, and the second shot killed her, it can’t have killed Captain Allenson as well–not unless he was standing close in front of her–very close–facing her as it might be. Oh! no, not even then, unless, that is–’

‘Unless she was in his arms, you were going to say,’ said Mr Quin, with a queer little smile. ‘Well, why not?’

Everyone stared at each other. The idea was so vitally strange to them–Allenson and Mrs Scott–Mr Unkerton voiced the same feeling.

‘But they hardly knew each other,’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Satterthwaite thoughtfully. ‘They might have known each other better than we thought. Lady Cynthia said he saved her from being bored in Egypt last winter, and you’–he turned to Porter–‘you told me that Richard Scott met his wife in Cairo last winter. They might have known each other very well indeed out there…’

‘They didn’t seem to be together much,’ said Unkerton.

‘No–they rather avoided each other. It was almost unnatural, now I come to think of it–’

They all looked at Mr Quin, as if a little startled at the conclusions at which they had arrived so unexpectedly.

Mr Quin rose to his feet.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘what Mr Satterthwaite’s impression has done for us.’ He turned to Unkerton. ‘It is your turn now.’

‘Eh? I don’t understand you.’

‘You were very thoughtful when I came into this room. I should like to know exactly what thought it was that obsessed you. Never mind if it has nothing to do with the tragedy. Never mind if it seems to you–superstitious–’ Mr Unkerton started, ever so slightly. ‘Tell us.’

‘I don’t mind telling you,’ said Unkerton. ‘Though it’s nothing to do with the business, and you’ll probably laugh at me into the bargain. I was wishing that my
Missus had left well alone and not replaced that pane of glass in the haunted window. I feel as though doing that has maybe brought a curse upon us.’

He was unable to understand why the two men opposite him stared so.

‘But she hasn’t replaced it yet,’ said Mr Satterthwaite at last.

‘Yes, she has. Man came first thing this morning.’

‘My God!’ said Porter, ‘I begin to understand. That room, it’s panelled, I supposed, not papered?’

‘Yes, but what does that–?’

But Porter had swung out of the room. The others followed him. He went straight upstairs to the Scotts’ bedroom. It was a charming room, panelled in cream with two windows facing south. Porter felt with his hands along the panels on the western wall.

‘There’s a spring somewhere–must be. Ah!’ There was a click, and a section of the panelling rolled back. It disclosed the grimy panes of the haunted window. One pane of glass was clean and new. Porter stooped quickly and picked up something. He held it out on the palm of his hand. It was a fragment of ostrich feather. Then he looked at Mr Quin. Mr Quin nodded.

He went across to the hat cupboard in the bedroom. There were several hats in it–the dead woman’s hats. He took out one with a large brim and curling feathers–an elaborate Ascot hat.

Mr Quin began speaking in a gentle, reflective voice.

‘Let us suppose,’ said Mr Quin, ‘a man who is by nature intensely jealous. A man who has stayed here in bygone years and knows the secret of the spring in the panelling. To amuse himself he opens it one day, and looks out over the Privy Garden. There, secure as they think from being overlooked, he sees his wife and another man. There can be no possible doubt in his mind as to the relations between them. He is mad with rage. What shall he do? An idea comes to him. He goes to the cupboard and puts on the hat with the brim and feathers. It is growing dusk, and he remembers the story of the stain on the glass. Anyone looking up at the window will see as they think the Watching Cavalier. Thus secure he watches them, and at the moment they are clasped in each other’s arms, he shoots. He is a good shot–a wonderful shot. As they fall, he fires once more–that shot carries away the ear-ring. He flings the pistol out of the window into the Privy Garden, rushes downstairs and out through the billiard room.’

Porter took a step towards him.

‘But he let her be accused!’ he cried. ‘He stood by and let her be accused. Why? Why?’

‘I think I know why,’ said Mr Quin. ‘I should guess–it’s only guess-work on my part, mind–that Richard Scott was once madly in love with Iris Staverton–so madly that even meeting her years afterwards stirred
up the embers of jealousy again. I should say that Iris Staverton once fancied that she might love him, that she went on a hunting trip with him and another–and that she came back in love with the better man.’

‘The better man,’ muttered Porter, dazed. ‘You mean–?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Quin, with a faint smile. ‘I mean you.’ He paused a minute, and then said: ‘If I were you–I should go to her now.’

‘I will,’ said Porter.

He turned and left the room.

Mr Satterthwaite was annoyed. Altogether it had been an unfortunate day. They had started late, there had been two punctures already, finally they had taken the wrong turning and lost themselves amidst the wilds of Salisbury Plain. Now it was close on eight o’clock, they were still a matter of forty miles from Marswick Manor whither they were bound, and a third puncture had supervened to render matters still more trying.

Mr Satterthwaite, looking like some small bird whose plumage had been ruffled, walked up and down in front of the village garage whilst his chauffeur conversed in hoarse undertones with the local expert.

‘Half an hour at
least
,’ said that worthy pronouncing judgment.

‘And lucky at that,’ supplemented Masters, the chauffeur. ‘More like three quarters if you ask me.’

‘What is this–place, anyway?’ demanded Mr Satterthwaite fretfully. Being a little gentleman considerate of the feelings of others, he substituted the word ‘place’ for ‘God-forsaken hole’ which had first risen to his lips.

‘Kirtlington Mallet.’

Mr Satterthwaite was not much wiser, and yet a faint familiarity seemed to linger round the name. He looked round him disparagingly. Kirtlington Mallet seemed to consist of one straggling street, the garage and the post office on one side of it balanced by three indeterminate shops on the other side. Farther down the road, however, Mr Satterthwaite perceived something that creaked and swung in the wind, and his spirits rose ever so slightly.

‘There’s an Inn here, I see,’ he remarked.

‘“Bells and Motley”,’ said the garage man. ‘That’s it–yonder.’

‘If I might make a suggestion, sir,’ said Masters, ‘why not try it? They would be able to give you some sort of a meal, no doubt–not, of course, what you are accustomed to.’ He paused apologetically, for Mr Satterthwaite was accustomed to the best cooking of continental chefs, and had in his own service a
cordon bleu
to whom he paid a fabulous salary.

‘We shan’t be able to take the road again for another three quarters of an hour, sir. I’m sure of that. And
it’s already past eight o’clock. You could ring up Sir George Foster, sir, from the Inn, and acquaint him with the cause of our delay.’

‘You seem to think you can arrange everything, Masters,’ said Mr Satterthwaite snappily.

Masters, who did think so, maintained a respectful silence.

Mr Satterthwaite, in spite of his earnest wish to discountenance any suggestion that might possibly be made to him–he was in that mood–nevertheless looked down the road towards the creaking Inn sign with faint inward approval. He was a man of birdlike appetite, an epicure, but even such men can be hungry.

‘The “Bells and Motley”,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That’s an odd name for an Inn. I don’t know that I ever heard it before.’

‘There’s odd folks come to it by all account,’ said the local man.

He was bending over the wheel, and his voice came muffled and indistinct.

‘Odd folks?’ queried Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Now what do you mean by that?’

The other hardly seemed to know what he meant.

‘Folks that come and go. That kind,’ he said vaguely.

Mr Satterthwaite reflected that people who come to an Inn are almost of necessity those who ‘come and
go’. The definition seemed to him to lack precision. But nevertheless his curiosity was stimulated. Somehow or other he had got to put in three quarters of an hour. The ‘Bells and Motley’ would be as good as anywhere else.

With his usual small mincing steps he walked away down the road. From afar there came a rumble of thunder. The mechanic looked up and spoke to Masters.

‘There’s a storm coming over. Thought I could feel it in the air.’

‘Crikey,’ said Masters. ‘And forty miles to go.’

‘Ah!’ said the other. ‘There’s no need to be hurrying over this job. You’ll not be wanting to take the road till the storm’s passed over. That little boss of yours doesn’t look as though he’d relish being out in thunder and lightning.’

‘Hope they’ll do him well at that place,’ muttered the chauffeur. ‘I’ll be pushing along there for a bite myself presently.’

‘Billy Jones is all right,’ said the garage man. ‘Keeps a good table.’

Mr William Jones, a big burly man of fifty and landlord of the ‘Bells and Motley’, was at this minute beaming ingratiatingly down on little Mr Satterthwaite.

‘Can do you a nice steak, sir–
and
fried potatoes, and as good a cheese as any gentleman could wish for. This way, sir, in the coffee-room. We’re not very full
at present, the last of the fishing gentlemen just gone. A little later we’ll be full again for the hunting. Only one gentleman here at present, name of Quin–’

Mr Satterthwaite stopped dead.

‘Quin?’ he said excitedly. ‘Did you say Quin?’

‘That’s the name, sir. Friend of yours perhaps?’

‘Yes, indeed. Oh! yes, most certainly.’ Twittering with excitement, Mr Satterthwaite hardly realized that the world might contain more than one man of that name. He had no doubts at all. In an odd way, the information fitted in with what the man at the garage had said. ‘Folks that come and go…’ a very apt description of Mr Quin. And the name of the Inn, too, seemed a peculiarly fitting and appropriate one.

‘Dear me, dear me,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘What a
very
odd thing. That we should meet like this! Mr Harley Quin, is it not?’

‘That’s right, sir. This is the coffee-room, sir. Ah! here is the gentleman.’

Tall, dark, smiling, the familiar figure of Mr Quin rose from the table at which he was sitting, and the well-remembered voice spoke.

‘Ah! Mr Satterthwaite, we meet again. An unexpected meeting!’

Mr Satterthwaite was shaking him warmly by the hand.

‘Delighted. Delighted, I’m sure. A lucky breakdown
for me. My car, you know. And you are staying here? For long?’

‘One night only.’

‘Then I am indeed fortunate.’

Mr Satterthwaite sat down opposite his friend with a little sigh of satisfaction, and regarded the dark, smiling face opposite him with a pleasurable expectancy.

The other man shook his head gently.

‘I assure you,’ he said, ‘that I have not a bowl of goldfish or a rabbit to produce from my sleeve.’

‘Too bad,’ cried Mr Satterthwaite, a little taken aback. ‘Yes, I must confess–I do rather adopt that attitude towards you. A man of magic. Ha, ha. That is how I regard you. A man of magic.’

‘And yet,’ said Mr Quin, ‘it is you who do the conjuring tricks, not I.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Satterthwaite eagerly. ‘But I cannot do them without you. I lack–shall we say–inspiration?’

Mr Quin smilingly shook his head.

‘That is too big a word. I speak the cue, that is all.’

The landlord came in at that minute with bread and a slab of yellow butter. As he set the things on the table there was a vivid flash of lightning, and a clap of thunder almost overhead.

‘A wild night, gentlemen.’

‘On such a night–’ began Mr Satterthwaite, and stopped.

‘Funny now,’ said the landlord, unconscious of the question, ‘if those weren’t just the words I was going to use myself. It was just such a night as this when Captain Harwell brought his bride home, the very day before he disappeared for ever.’

‘Ah!’ cried Mr Satterthwaite suddenly. ‘Of course!’

He had got the clue. He knew now why the name Kirtlington Mallet was familiar. Three months before he had read every detail of the astonishing disappearance of Captain Richard Harwell. Like other newspaper readers all over Great Britain he had puzzled over the details of the disappearance, and, also like every other Briton, had evolved his own theories.

‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘It was at Kirtlington Mallet it happened.’

‘It was at this house he stayed for the hunting last winter,’ said the landlord. ‘Oh! I knew him well. A main handsome young gentleman and not one that you’d think had a care on his mind. He was done away with–that’s my belief. Many’s the time I’ve seen them come riding home together–he and Miss Le Couteau, and all the village saying there’d be a match come of it–and sure enough, so it did. A very beautiful young lady, and well thought of, for all she was a Canadian and a stranger. Ah! there’s some dark mystery there. We’ll never know the rights of it. It broke her heart, it did, sure enough. You’ve heard as she’s sold the place
up and gone abroad, couldn’t bear to go on here with everyone staring and pointing after her–through no fault of her own, poor young dear! A black mystery, that’s what it is.’

He shook his head, then suddenly recollecting his duties, hurried from the room.

‘A black mystery,’ said Mr Quin softly.

His voice was provocative in Mr Satterthwaite’s ears.

‘Are you pretending that we can solve the mystery where Scotland Yard failed?’ he asked sharply.

The other made a characteristic gesture.

‘Why not? Time has passed. Three months. That makes a difference.’

‘That is a curious idea of yours,’ said Mr Satterthwaite slowly. ‘That one sees things better afterwards than at the time.’

‘The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into proportion. One sees them in their true relationship to one another.’

There was a silence which lasted for some minutes.

‘I am not sure,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, in a hesitating voice, ‘that I remember the facts clearly by now.’

‘I think you do,’ said Mr Quin quietly.

It was all the encouragement Mr Satterthwaite needed. His general role in life was that of listener and looker-on. Only in the company of Mr Quin was the position
reversed. There Mr Quin was the appreciative listener, and Mr Satterthwaite took the centre of the stage.

‘It was just over a year ago,’ he said, ‘that Ashley Grange passed into the possession of Miss Eleanor Le Couteau. It is a beautiful old house, but it had been neglected and allowed to remain empty for many years. It could not have found a better chatelaine. Miss Le Couteau was a French Canadian, her forebears were
émigrés
from the French Revolution, and had handed down to her a collection of almost priceless French relics and antiques. She was a buyer and a collector also, with a very fine and discriminating taste. So much so, that when she decided to sell Ashley Grange and everything it contained after the tragedy, Mr Cyrus G. Bradburn, the American millionaire, made no bones about paying the fancy price of sixty thousand pounds for the Grange as it stood.’

Mr Satterthwaite paused.

‘I mention these things,’ he said apologetically, ‘not because they are relevant to the story–strictly speaking, they are not–but to convey an atmosphere, the atmosphere of young Mrs Harwell.’

Mr Quin nodded.

‘Atmosphere is always valuable,’ he said gravely.

‘So we get a picture of this girl,’ continued the other. ‘Just twenty-three, dark, beautiful, accomplished, nothing crude and unfinished about her. And rich–we must not
forget that. She was an orphan. A Mrs St Clair, a lady of unimpeachable breeding and social standing, lived with her as duenna. But Eleanor Le Couteau had complete control of her own fortune. And fortune-hunters are never hard to seek. At least a dozen impecunious young men were to be found dangling round her on all occasions, in the hunting field, in the ballroom, wherever she went. Young Lord Leccan, the most eligible
parti
in the country, is reported to have asked her to marry him, but she remained heart free. That is, until the coming of Captain Richard Harwell.

‘Captain Harwell had put up at the local Inn for the hunting. He was a dashing rider to hounds. A handsome, laughing daredevil of a fellow. You remember the old saying, Mr Quin? “Happy the wooing that’s not long doing.” The adage was carried out at least in part. At the end of two months, Richard Harwell and Eleanor Le Couteau were engaged.

‘The marriage followed three months afterwards. The happy pair went abroad for a two weeks’ honeymoon, and then returned to take up their residence at Ashley Grange. The landlord has just told us that it was on a night of storm such as this that they returned to their home. An omen, I wonder? Who can tell? Be that as it may, the following morning very early–about half-past seven, Captain Harwell was seen walking in the garden by one of the gardeners, John
Mathias. He was bareheaded, and was whistling. We have a picture there, a picture of light-heartedness, of careless happiness. And yet from that minute, as far as we know, no one ever set eyes on Captain Richard Harwell again.’

Mr Satterthwaite paused, pleasantly conscious of a dramatic moment. The admiring glance of Mr Quin gave him the tribute he needed, and he went on.

‘The disappearance was remarkable–unaccountable. It was not till the following day that the distracted wife called in the police. As you know, they have not succeeded in solving the mystery.’

‘There have, I suppose, been theories?’ asked Mr Quin.

‘Oh! theories, I grant you. Theory No. 1, that Captain Harwell had been murdered, done away with. But if so, where was the body? It could hardly have been spirited away. And besides, what motive was there? As far as was known, Captain Harwell had not an enemy in the world.’

He paused abruptly, as though uncertain. Mr Quin leaned forward.

‘You are thinking,’ he said softly, ‘of young Stephen Grant.’

‘I am,’ admitted Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Stephen Grant, if I remember rightly, had been in charge of Captain Harwell’s horses, and had been discharged by his
master for some trifling offence. On the morning after the homecoming, very early, Stephen Grant was seen in the vicinity of Ashley Grange, and could give no good account of his presence there. He was detained by the police as being concerned in the disappearance of Captain Harwell, but nothing could be proved against him, and he was eventually discharged. It is true that he might be supposed to bear a grudge against Captain Harwell for his summary dismissal, but the motive was undeniably of the flimsiest. I suppose the police felt they must do something. You see, as I said just now, Captain Harwell had not an enemy in the world.’

‘As far as was known,’ said Mr Quin reflectively.

Mr Satterthwaite nodded appreciatively.