Who Pays the Piper? (13 page)

“Cyril will make her,” said Susan with wretched conviction.

“All right, we'll tell the truth. Let's hope we shame the devil.”

As they came up the terrace steps they saw Frank Abbott at the open glass door, and he saw them. His light eyes looked them over as he beckoned them in. Not the sort of girl you'd expect. Nice chap. I suppose he did it, poor devil. He shut the door behind them and saw them to their chairs. They were both pale. Bill Carrick steady and composed. Susan finedrawn, the contours of brow and chin emphasized, lips parted, nostrils taut. Frank Abbott thought, “She'd be lovely with a colour”; and then, “She's lovely now.”

Inspector Lamb's ox-like gaze dwelt first on Bill and then on Susan. He had three daughters of his own, and was sometimes put to it to conceal a most obstinate softness of heart where girls were concerned. Miss Susan Lenox appeared to be of the same age as his Margy. He felt it a handicap, frowned portentously, and addressed himself to Bill.

“Mr. Carrick, we have certain information which I will ask you to confirm. Until recently you and Miss Lenox were engaged to be married?”

Bill looked him in the eye.

“Miss Lenox and I have been engaged for two years. We are still engaged.”

“Yesterday afternoon Mr. Lucas Dale called upon the Vicar of this parish and asked him to officiate at his marriage to Miss Lenox on Thursday next——”

Susan said quickly and breathlessly,

“It was a dreadful mistake.”

“You mean that Mr. Dale was mistaken in thinking that you would marry him?”

Susan became even paler, and said, “No.”

“Had you quarrelled with Mr. Carrick, and engaged yourself to Mr. Dale on the rebound, as it were?”

Frank Abbott's hand covered his mouth for a moment. Old Lamb and his “rebound”! Something queer behind all this—something very queer.

Susan said, “No.”

“Now, Miss Lenox, you know you needn't answer any of these questions. We're not in court, and there's no charge——” He paused and added “
yet
. But I'll tell you one thing—if you or Mr. Carrick have got your reasons for being afraid of the law, then you'll do best to say no more than you need. But if you've no reason to be afraid of the truth coming out, then the more you help us the more we can help you. We're not out to hound people down, we're out to get at the truth. In trying to get at it we've got to ask all sorts of questions about people's private affairs. It isn't pleasant for you and it isn't pleasant for us, but it's got to be done. Anything you tell us that hasn't got to be used as evidence—well, it'll be as private as if you only knew it yourself. If you don't tell us what we want to know, we're bound to try and find it out, and that means raking round and stirring up the mud. Now are you going to be frank and tell us why you broke off your engagement to Mr. Carrick and when—particularly when?”

Susan had lifted startled eyes to his face. She looked now at Bill. He nodded. She drew a long, difficult breath.

“I'll tell you as much as I can. There wasn't any quarrel. Bill and I——” Her voice faltered, but she went on gallantly. “It's always been Bill and I. Then Mr. Dale came here. He wanted to marry me. I said no. He knew I was engaged to Bill.” For a moment her colour flamed. “He said he always got what he wanted. He found a way to threaten someone—I—cared for. Not Bill—it was nothing to do with Bill.”

“You say he was blackmailing you?”

Susan drew another long breath.

“I suppose so. I said—I would—do it.”

“You agreed to marry him?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“Saturday.”

“And you wrote to Mr. Carrick. He got the letter on Monday morning and came down to forbid the banns. Is that right?”

Bill said, “Yes.”

“When did you get here, Mr. Carrick?”

“Soon after six. I didn't get the letter until late—I'd been out all day.”

“Well, you got down here, and you had a scene with Miss Lenox in the kitchen at the Little House. Mrs. Mickleham walked in on the end of it.”

“Yes—I left.”

“She says you were declaring your intention of going up to King's Bourne and having it out with Mr. Dale, and Miss Lenox was begging you not to go and saying she had promised. Is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“She states that she heard you say, ‘Do you want me to kill him, Susan? I think I'm going to.' Is this also correct?”

“It was what I was feeling like,” said Bill. “I suppose I said it. But I didn't kill him, Inspector. He was dead when I got here.”

There was a momentary pause. Lamb looked at him and said,

“You did come here then?”

“Oh, yes, I came. I'll tell you if I may.” He glanced at Abbott. “He can take it down. I've nothing to hide—I'd rather say just what happened. I ran out of the house and up the hill as hard as I could go till I got to the second terrace. Then I stopped because I realized that I'd got to pull myself together. Whilst I was standing there I heard the shot. I wasn't sure where the sound came from at first. Then I went on up to the house. I came up the steps at the end of the terrace by the corner of the study. One of those windows in the recess over there was open and the curtain drawn back. I could see the light. I went and looked in——”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don't know. I think I wanted to see if he was there, and if he was alone. I saw his hand and arm stretched out on the floor. I don't know how long I stood there. It was—a shock—because I—had wanted to kill him. I thought about the shot. I thought perhaps he had killed himself. After a bit I went back on to the terrace. The glass door was open——”

“One minute, Mr. Carrick—as you came up the steps on to the terrace the glass door would be in front of you on your left, and the windows of the recess still more to your left and at right angles?”

Bill nodded and said “Yes.”

“Very well, when you came up the steps you noticed that the window in the recess was open. Was the glass door open too?”

“I didn't notice it.”

“It was nearer to you than the window was—would you not have noticed it?”

“I don't know. I didn't.”

“Yet you noticed it at once when you came back. Do you think it possible that it was not open when you came up the steps, though it was open when you came back after looking in at the window?”

“I don't know—I just didn't notice. As soon as I saw the door was open I went in. Do you want me to tell you what I saw?”

“If you please, Mr. Carrick.”

“Dale was lying face downwards behind the writing-table. It was his left hand and arm I had seen from the window. The right was doubled up under him. He had been shot through the back of the head. The chair you are sitting in was pushed back, and the second drawer on the right of the table was open. There was no sign of a struggle. There was a revolver lying across the corner of the blotting-pad on this side. I came as far as the end of the table and stood there for a bit. I thought I ought to give the alarm, but I—well, I funked doing it. Then I heard someone on the terrace and went out. It was Susan. When I saw her the only thing I thought about was keeping her out of it. I told her Dale was dead, and I took her back to the Little House. That's all, sir.”

“You say there was a revolver on the table. Did you touch it?”

“I didn't touch anything.”

“Ever see the revolver before?”

“No.”

“Did you know Mr. Dale had a revolver?”

“I don't know—Susan says I must have—she says everyone knew.”

Frank Abbott's lips drew together as if he were about to whistle. No sound issued from them, but in his own mind he rendered the opening phrase of Chopin's Funeral March.

Lamb said a thought gruffly,

“Did you know where he kept it?”

“He
didn't,”
said Susan—“not till I told him. Oh, he didn't really!”

Lamb looked at her for quite a long time. Then he said,

“Did you hear the shot, Miss Lenox?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you?”

“I had just come out of the orchard. I was clear of the trees.”

“We'll have to check the time that takes you—we'll have to check all these times. But I dare say you've got a good idea how long it takes. Was there time for Mr. Carrick to have reached the study before you heard the shot?”

Susan had been very pale. She became paler still. She said in a voice that did not rise above a whisper,

“He was on the terrace. He didn't go—straight—to the house.”

“But if he had—was there time?”

She looked at him and did not speak.

“Was there time, Miss Lenox?”

Bill said roughly, “Of course there was! What's the good of beating about the bush? If I'd gone straight on to the house the way I was going I'd have been there when the shot was fired—it's no good making any bones about that. But I didn't go straight, so I wasn't in the house. I was on the second terrace.”

“Sure of that, Mr. Carrick?”

“Quite sure.”

“Yes.… You said you were pulling yourself together. Were you out of control?”

“I wanted to kill him,” said Bill grimly.

Frank Abbott glanced up from his shorthand and murmured something which sounded like “The prisoner conducted his own prosecution”. He received a majestic glance from his superior officer and went back to his notes.

Bill's colour rose.

“I didn't kill him—I only wanted to. He was a blackmailing swine, and I had to get Susan clear. I'd got sense enough left to know that it was no good crowding in and offering to beat him up. I'd got to keep my head. That's why I was on the lower terrace and not up at the house when the shot was fired.”

Inspector Lamb made no comment. He said,

“Did you touch anything at all while you were in the study?”

“No.”

“And you, Miss Lenox?”

“I didn't come in. I didn't come any farther than the middle of the terrace.”

Lamb swung round in his chair and picked up a paper from the table. His eyes travelled slowly from the page to Susan's face.

“Were you aware that Mr. Dale made a fresh will yesterday?” he said.

Frank Abbott saw Bill Carrick start. Susan clenched her hands and said,

“Yes.”

“Were you aware of the terms of that will?”

She kept her eyes on his face.

“He rang me up and said he had made a will.”

“Did he tell you what was in it?”

Susan steadied the very small amount of voice she had left.

“He said—it was the old-fashioned everything-to-my-wife sort. He said—he just wanted me to know——” The voice failed altogether.

Bill Carrick sprang up.

“She wasn't his wife—she never would have been! The will isn't worth the paper it's written on!”

Inspector Lamb got up too, slowly as befitted a man of his girth.

“The will leaves everything to Miss Susan Lenox in anticipation of marriage. Mr. Duckett of the Market Square, Ledlington, who drew it up, will tell you that it is perfectly valid.”

Susan lost the Inspector in a mist. It was a very thick mist, like cotton wool. She stopped trying to compete with it and shut her eyes.

CHAPTER XX

“Well,” said Inspector Lamb—“and where does this get us?”

Frank Abbott opened his notebook.

“Those times check up pretty well the way we thought. If Susan Lenox started up the hill three minutes after Carrick did, he could easily have reached this study by the time she got to the top of the orchard. Mrs. Mickleham gives us the times they started from the Little House.”

“Think he did it?” said Lamb.

Frank Abbott laughed.

“Do you?”

“I'm asking you.”

“Hearing the boy his lessons,” murmured Frank Abbott. “‘Home-work at the Yard', and ‘How to become an Inspector'—I beg your pardon, sir.”

“You'll need to one of these days. Tongue trouble—that's what you've got. What do you say about Carrick? That's what I asked you, you know.”

“Well, Dale was shot with his own revolver—that's been confirmed. Carrick most obligingly informed us that everyone knew about Dale's revolver, and if he couldn't remember knowing about it himself, that was just too bad and quite his own fault. If you're going to take Susan Lenox's evidence as to the time of the shot, Dale was killed at between one and two minutes after the half hour, and nearer the one than the two. I think we've got to believe her, because if she was going to lie she would produce something that would look a bit better for Carrick. As it stands, he had between four and four and a half minutes to reach the study and shoot Dale. I don't believe he did shoot Dale. Firstly, because no guilty person ever furnished the police with quite so much gratuitous evidence against himself—to my mind he said everything that the murderer wouldn't have said. Secondly, the thing is stiff with inherent improbabilities. He's not only got to reach this room in four and a half minutes, he's got to get hold of the revolver and shoot it off while Dale's back is turned. I can't see how it could possibly have happened. If I was mad enough to kill a chap who had taken my girl I'd want to damn him into heaps before I shot him. If it had been Carrick's own revolver, he might have rushed off with it, got in at the glass door, and shot Dale. But even so I don't see how he was going to get behind him. Anyone sitting at this writing-table has that door in view all the time. And anyhow it wasn't Carrick's revolver, it was Dale's. Suppose he came in and threatened Dale, and Dale got out his revolver—Carrick would have to take it from him. Dale was a powerful man. Do you think he could have got it without a struggle? And if he had got it, was Dale going to turn his back and let himself be shot through the head? And all in four and a half minutes—from the kitchen of the Little House, to Dale dead here on the floor. I say it couldn't be done. And if it couldn't be done, then I say Carrick didn't do it.”