Watson's Choice (21 page)

‘Not connected with the dog – no. I hadn’t thought of the dog. Can’t find out who did, either. That’s the oddest thing. I know it scared some of the women when we opened the door and saw it there, you see, but it was such a good idea – the
Hound of the Baskervilles
, dash it – that one would have expected somebody to come forward and claim the credit. But I can’t get any one of them to own to it. Odd, that. I mean, it was no sort of accident. The dog had been touched up here and there with luminous paint, so it was meant to be part of the evening. You’d think somebody would have owned to bringing it, wouldn’t you?’

‘What happened to it in the end, sir?’

‘I have no idea. Mrs Bradley fed it and turned it out again, and
one
doesn’t go about the grounds on a foggy November night looking for a dog the size of a donkey, even if one
is
an addict of Holmes. I suppose that whoever brought it got rid of it somehow. I suspected that young Miss Laura Menzies, with the connivance of Mrs Bradley’s chauffeur, and tackled her on the subject, but she denied any knowledge of it, and she isn’t a girl to tell lies. Said she wished she
had
thought of it, and I believe her.’

‘So you hadn’t planned to introduce the dog, sir, and yet you
had
planned something of a surprise. Would that have had any bearing on what has happened?’

‘I don’t see how it could, but, for what it’s worth, I’ll tell you. I’d planned to let a flock of geese into the drawing-room.’

‘Geese, sir?’

‘Yes, geese. The
Blue Carbuncle
, you know. I was disappointed when they didn’t turn up. The idea was to have a sort of competition to see which of the guests selected the one which was supposed to have the blue carbuncle in its crop. I had decided upon the one when I went to see the dealer. I had a nice prize ready, too, a very nice prize.’

Collins mentally dismissed the flock of geese from the case, but enquired, for politeness’ sake:

‘And what had happened to the geese, sir?’

‘Lost in the fog in a van. Driver got hopelessly muddled, and landed up in a ditch on the other side of East Bealing. Never came within miles of my place. I’d paid for the geese, too. Still, I sent them to hospitals for Christmas, which I’d planned to do in any case. Very disappointing not to have had them at the party, though, all the same.’

‘Yes, it must have been. You mentioned Miss Laura Menzies, but you had an even younger lady staying here at the time – your niece, I believe.’

‘Celia? Yes. She’s still here. I
like
to have people in the house. You can see the girl, of course, if you want to, but I don’t think you’ll get much out of her that will help you.’

‘As a matter of routine, sir, I had better see everybody here, including your servants. Sometimes one gets a pointer from a completely innocent person.
He
doesn’t realize that what he’s telling you may be just the one missing link in a chain of evidence, but time and again it is apt to turn out like that, especially in a case of murder.’

‘Oh, well, you go ahead, of course. Celia has nothing to hide.’

From what he had heard, Collins did not share this opinion. He ignored it, and fired in his last and deadliest question, but, so to speak, with a silencer on the gun.

‘By the way, sir – a routine point only, of course, so don’t answer unless you wish – will you tell me where you were and what you were doing between the hours of three and five on Thursday January eleventh last?’

‘Doing? And where? Bless my soul, that would be when it was done, would it? Oh, dear me, now! Let me see. I don’t remember doing anything different from usual, so I should have been – yes, yes – in the library, probably looking forward to my tea. I always look forward to my tea.’

‘Could anyone confirm this, sir? Just for our records, you know.’

‘Ah, now, I wonder! Why, yes, of course! Manoel was with me for most of the time.’

‘Er – were you active or passive, sir?’

‘Look here, what the devil are you getting at?’ demanded Sir Bohun, suddenly red in the face. ‘If you must know, we were playing a fool game with his
espada
– the sword bull-fighters use, don’t you know. Bell was on short leave, so we had the library to ourselves.’

‘I see, sir. Thank you very much.’

‘Checking my story against Manoel’s, I suppose,’ said Sir Bohun, restored to good humour. ‘That’s the end of the inquisition, then, I take it?’

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ Collins repeated stolidly. Then, when Sir Bohun had gone, ‘Get Miss Godley quickly, before he has time to prompt her,’ he said to the sergeant.

Sir Bohun’s niece did not give the impression of someone with nothing to hide. Collins saw a slightly-built, fair-haired, insipidly-pretty girl who was patently on the defensive. He wasted no time. He glanced at his sergeant, nodded, asked Celia to sit down, and then said genially:

‘Well, Miss Godley, I’ve come to see a lady about a dog.’

The girl stiffened immediately.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘The
Hound of the Baskervilles
, you mean, I suppose? But that had nothing to do with me. It was Linda Campbell’s idea, I think.’

‘Really? She could not have mentioned it to Sir Bohun, I suppose?’

‘Oh, no, she wouldn’t have done. It was to be a surprise.’

‘I gather that it succeeded in its object. She took you into her confidence, then?’

‘Yes – well, I mean – well, yes, I suppose she did.’

‘And you undertook to look after the dog, and you continued to look after it until her death.’

Celia looked helplessly at him.

‘No, of course not. I had nothing to do with it,’ she said.

‘You were seen to go and feed it more than once, Miss Godley, long after the party was over and done with.’

‘I? I feed it? Oh, nonsense! It was an awful great brute! I wouldn’t have dared go near it!’

‘Indeed? My informant seemed quite certain that you fed it. The evidence was that you cycled along beside the railway track and that the dog was kept at the disused station which has now been superseded by the new halt at Keatsdown.’

Celia moistened her lips.

‘Oh, nonsense! I’ve never been there in my life,’ she said, ‘except once or twice in the train.’

Collins nodded, and there was a long silence. Celia broke it at last.

‘Do you want me any more? May I go now? I have rather a lot to do.’

‘Very good, Miss Godley. If you should reconsider what you’ve just told me I hope you won’t hesitate to come along.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded the girl. Collins looked at her, and did not reply. She gave him a wild look, began to get up, hesitated, and then sat down again.

‘I – I found that there was a dog chained up in that deserted station,’ she said in a tone of defiance. ‘I couldn’t make it out. It didn’t seem right, so, as soon as I could, I got on my bicycle and went back to investigate.’

‘You had seen it from the train, of course.’

‘Yes … yes, from the train.’

‘And, as soon as you could, you got on to your bicycle and went back to investigate. Where was the dog when you saw it first?’

‘On – on the platform.’

‘And you took it food and water?’

‘Yes. I – I could quite easily manage on my carrier and in my basket.’

‘Quite, quite. How did the dog get into the waiting-room, Miss Godley?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘It was always on the platform when you saw it and fed it?’

‘I – I only went once.’

‘Only once?’

‘Yes. I was afraid I might be trespassing. I didn’t like to risk it again.’

‘I see. Thank you, Miss Godley. If you should chance to remember something which you have not told me, you won’t hesitate to come and find me, will you? I shall be in and out of this house for quite some time, I expect.’

‘But there couldn’t be anything else! I’ve told you everything I know!’ She sounded hysterical.

‘That is not what I have been informed from other sources, Miss.’ He nodded, and Celia scurried out like a child glad to escape from a too-inquisitive adult. Collins rang the bell and told the butler to ask Mrs Dance to spare a few minutes for a talk. She could not have been far away, for it was in less than a minute that she sailed in and smiled at the Superintendent. He indicated a chair, and reseated himself in the place he had previously occupied.

Brenda Dance was a
fausse maigre
. Clothed, as she was at the moment, in a dark winter dress, long-sleeved and high at the neck, she gave an impression of slenderness, and such was her charm that the Superintendent, a staid man, had to remind himself hastily of who and what he was, and why she was in his presence. He blushed, and his voice came harshly. Mrs Dance, accustomed to the effect she had on many men, smiled sadly, and extended a shapely foot towards the fire.

‘Quite good weather for the time of year,’ she remarked.

‘Going to snow,’ said Collins, recovering, beaming at her, and nodding to the sergeant to take down what she said. ‘Now, madam, I’m hoping you can help me over this miserable business. I take it I may anticipate that you will answer a few questions?’

‘Certainly.’ Mrs Dance smothered a tiny, cat-like yawn, and smiled at the Superintendent. Her dark-brown hair, artlessly dressed by a genius (herself, very likely, thought Collins), was that
of
a well-cared-for child. It lay on her forehead like silk and curled round about her small ears and the nape of her neck. Her wide-set eyes were as innocent as those of a very young boy, but there was nothing but primitive passion in the flare of her nostrils, her firm, red, quick-tempered mouth, her wilful chin and the curve of the cheek which she turned towards her interlocutor. She was not beautiful, in the literal sense of the word, but Collins had never before been confronted by such a mixture of
gamine
devilment and charm. Moreover (if he summed up Mrs Dance correctly), if Mrs Dance had decided to murder Miss Campbell, nothing, he was convinced, would have come between Miss Campbell and her fate. Incidentally, he reflected, nothing had.

‘There is just one thing,’ he said. ‘What is all this about a dog?’

‘A dog? Oh, the
Hound of the Baskervilles!
I know nothing about it, Superintendent. I fled. We all fled except Miss Menzies and Mrs Bradley. It was as good an example of crowd-panic as I’ve seen since a bull got loose in Crendon High Street on cattle-market day.’

‘Do you know how the dog came to be on the premises that night?’

‘I’ve no idea. I knew that Sir Bohun had a surprise for us all, so I imagine he brought the dog here. He is very transparent, and during dinner he hinted, rather childishly, that there were to be two competitions during the course of the evening. We knew we were to be given pencils and paper to record our impressions of the characters or something – I’m no good at all at party games, particularly if it involves writing anything down – I couldn’t possibly care less who’s who and what’s what – but then he indicated something more. I suppose it was the dog he had in mind.’

‘But I understood that the appearance of the dog surprised him as much as it did his guests.’

‘He ran away. We all did, I tell you, except that terrifying Mrs Bradley and her secretary, but Sir Bohun would do that sort of thing for the fun of it and to keep up the joke. Fly with the rest of us, I mean. He’s terribly little-boy, you know.’

‘I see. It doesn’t seem as though the dog was very important. Did you leave the house that night for any reason, Mrs Dance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh? At what time?’

‘At about one o’clock in the morning, I believe – or it may have been rather earlier. I didn’t notice.’

‘Alone?’

‘Well, I was alone when I left the house, but I was joined by Mr Mildren.’

‘Where?’

‘In the garage.’

‘You went for a drive in that fog?’

‘No, of course not, but we had to be careful.’

‘Indeed? Oh, I see.’

Mrs Dance smiled tolerantly.

‘I’m sure you do,’ she said. ‘It was our own business. We then went to the Dower House, where we’d lighted the fire. It was a previous arrangement, and I can’t see that it had anything to do with Linda Campbell.’

‘Of course not. No, no. At what time did you return to the house?’

‘At three. And, if it’s of any help, I can tell you that by that time the fog had lifted.’

‘But was not the house locked up?’

‘Yes, but a maid let us in. She had her orders.’

‘What do you know about the dog that was kept on the station?’

‘Nothing. Was there one? I never travel by train if I can help it.’

‘Mrs Dance, can you tell me whether Miss Godley is under the influence of anybody here?’

‘Little Celia? What a question! I am the last person Celia would confide in. What exactly do you mean?’

‘Only what I say, Mrs Dance. Ladies usually get to know one another’s little secrets.’

‘Yes, but I’m not interested in Celia Godley. I don’t care how many little secrets she keeps from me. All I ask is that other people don’t interfere in
my
affairs.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Dance. Then it is of no use to ask you whether Miss Campbell had any enemies.’

‘Enemies?’ Mrs Dance looked thoughtful. Collins had a sudden, complete, delightful picture of her at the age of six, innocence, devilment and all. ‘I should say she had quite a few. Poor old Manoel hated her, for one. She was trying to hook Sir Bohun, and Manoel couldn’t stand that. Manoel, you know, is his son.’

‘Illegitimate, though, I believe. I have heard something of the
kind
from various sources. Sir Bohun does not seem to hide the fact. How do they get on together?’

‘Manoel stands a pretty good chance of inheriting the property, if Sir Bohun does not marry again and alter his will. At least, that’s what Manoel thinks. He told me so. But – get on together, I don’t really think they do.’

‘And Miss Campbell, only a very short time before her death, had become engaged to Sir Bohun. Yes, it supplies a motive. Besides, Manoel seems to have asked Mrs Bradley to tell him how to commit murder without being found out!’

‘I should call that a point in his favour. Nobody would be such a moron as to ask a thing like that if he really contemplated doing it.’