Wicked Uncle (16 page)

When Justin Leigh walked into the hall of the Grange after putting his car away it was a quarter to one. They had made very good time on the way down. If he found Moira Lane unusually silent, he preferred it that way. He had plenty to think about.

He had hardly shut the front door behind him when to his surprise Dorinda came out of the study. She clutched him and pulled him back into the room.

“I want to talk to you—I thought you were never coming. It’s quite dreadful. The police have only just gone, and Mr. Winter is washing his hands.”

Justin shut the study door.

“Darling, you’re gibbering. Who or what is Winter?”

Dorinda gazed at him with widened eyes.

“He’s Mr. Porlock’s solicitor. The Scotland Yard policeman got him down—he arrived about eleven o’clock—”

He interrupted her.

“I wasn’t really asking for a biography.”

“Justin, it’s too dreadful. They rang up and said would I come over, because he’d brought down Mr. Porlock’s will. Only of course it isn’t Mr. Porlock—it’s Uncle Glen, and he’s left everything to me.”

Justin whistled. Then he said,

“Not really!”

Dorinda nodded.

“Frightful—isn’t it?”

Justin looked at her curiously.

“What makes you say that?”

She had turned quite pale.

“Justin, I can’t take it. He usedn’t to have any money. I’m sure he made it some wicked way.”

“Blackmail, my dear—just a little simple, innocent blackmail.”

“Oh, how—” She hesitated for a word, and came out with a childish ‘beastly!’ “I’m glad I said at once I didn’t want it.”

“You said that?”

“Yes, I did—to the policemen, and to Mr. Winter. I said I couldn’t imagine why he’d thought of leaving it to me. And Mr. Winter said—he’s a little grey man, very respectable, and industrious like an ant, only of course ants aren’t grey, but you know what I mean—he twiddled his pince-nez, and he said his client had informed him that he had no relatives, but that he would like to benefit a niece of his late wife’s—said he had lost touch with her, but he remembered her as a pleasant little girl. I suppose I ought to feel grateful, but when I think how he did his best to get me put in prison for shoplifting—well, I can’t. He did, you know. The big policeman said so.”

Justin was looking serious.

“What are you going to do?”

She said, “I don’t know. I had to wait and see you. Mr. Winter says it will make everything a lot easier if he and I prove the will—we’re executors. If I don’t, the money will just go to the Crown, and there doesn’t seem to be any point about that. He says it will be better to prove it, and then, if he’s taken money from people, I can give it back. That bit isn’t what he said—it’s what I thought of myself. And then if there was anything over I could give it to something—for children perhaps. So I thought it would be better to let him get on with the will.”

“Had he much to leave? What does it amount to?”

“He isn’t sure. He knows there’s about five thousand pounds —he doesn’t know whether there’s anything more or not. Justin—they want me to come here.”

“Why?”

“They say it would be easier. You see, I’m one of the executors. In a way, it’s my house. There’s no one here to give any orders. Mr. Winter would like me to be here because, he says, we are responsible for the house and furniture—Uncle Glen had it on a year’s lease. And the police say it would make it easier for them.”

Justin said quickly,

“These people in the house—they’re a queer crowd, and one of them’s a murderer. I don’t want you here.”

“I don’t particularly want to come, but of course I see their point.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I wouldn’t come here unless I could have Miss Silver.”

“Miss Silver?”

“I told you last night I wished she was here. If you were here, and she was here, I wouldn’t mind being here too.”

“What about Mrs. Oakley?”

“That’s the extraordinary thing. The police came up and saw her after breakfast. She made me stay in the room. She’s dreadfully unhappy and dreadfully frightened. I can’t tell you about it, but if I was here I might be able to help a little. I mean, there might be things amongst Uncle Glen’s papers—that’s what she’s afraid of. And you see, if I’m an executor I should have the right to go through them with Mr. Winter and, I suppose, the police. And of course I would do my best for her, poor thing. She hasn’t any brains, but she does love her husband and Marty, and she’s sick with fright at the idea of losing them.”

Justin looked at her straight and said,

“Did she kill Porlock?”

Dorinda’s eyes became quite round.

“Oh—she wouldn’t!”

He said, “I don’t know about that.”

Miss Maud Silver arrived at tea-time in the black cloth coat, the elderly fur tippet, and the black felt hat with its purple starfish in front and its niggle of purple and black ruching behind. Having partaken of what she described as a most refreshing cup of tea, she was conducted to her room, where she removed her outer garments and had a conversation with Dorinda.

“It’s very good of you to come.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“It is certainly more suitable that I should be here with you than that you should be here alone… My room is next to yours? That is nice, very nice indeed. And now, Miss Brown, tell me just what happened on Saturday night.”

When Dorinda had finished Miss Silver coughed and said, “Very clear, very succinct.” She looked at the watch she wore pinned on the left-hand side of her bodice. “And now I think I will go down. Sergeant Abbott said he would be here by five o’clock, and it is just on the hour.”

Sergeant Abbott was punctual. He rang the front door bell as they came down the stairs, greeted Miss Silver a good deal more like a nephew than a policeman, and carried her off to the study, leaving Dorinda conscious for the first time that he was not only a very personable young man but quite human.

Inside the study he was less like a policeman than ever. He put an affectionate arm round Miss Silver as he guided her to a comfortable chair, after which he took an informal seat on the arm of another.

“It’s a good thing you rang me up,” he said. “The Chief was hopping mad at first, but I’ve got him soothed. The fact is, there are just about half a dozen people up to their necks in this case— and when I say up to their necks I mean up to their necks. And any blighted one of them could have knifed Gregory Porlock— and had every reason to.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” She had brought down a flowery chintz knitting-bag, the gift of her niece Ethel. She opened it now and took out a half-made infant’s vest in the pale pink wool which she had bought on the occasion of her visit to the De Luxe Stores. The four needles clicked. The vest revolved without detracting in any way from the attention with which she was regarding Frank.

He nodded.

“As you say—‘Dear me!’ it is. One might almost call it the theme-song. I take it you know more or less what happened on Saturday night?”

“Miss Brown has given me a commendably clear account.”

“Would you like to read the statements first? They won’t take you very long. The Chief let me bring them, after blowing off the customary steam.”

Miss Silver laid down her knitting and perused the typewritten sheets in a silence which he did not attempt to interrupt. When she looked up from the last word he had another sheaf to offer her.

“These are my notes of the various interviews. There’s quite a lot of information in them.”

She read these too.

“It all fits very well into the framework given me by Miss Brown.”

“Yes, she’s got a head on her shoulders, and in spite of being the late unlamented’s sole legatee she is one of the few people who isn’t a suspect. Now for the ones who are. I’ve tabulated them for you, and you’ll see how nice and simple it all is. Here we go.”

He handed her some more of his neat typing and leaned over her shoulder to read aloud, with occasional excursions in the nature of comment or explanation.

“1. Leonard Carroll. Cabaret artist. Clever, slick, thoroughly unreliable.”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“I have met him.”

“In fact you have him taped! Well, he had a very compelling motive. Porlock was blackmailing him. Their conversation was overheard by Pearson—you know about him. He was here to try and get something on Porlock because Porlock was blackmailing a client of his firm. The Chief knows him, and says he’s all right. He was doing all the listening at doors he could, and as he said himself, a butler really has excellent opportunities. Well, Pearson heard Porlock talking to Carroll. He told him he had evidence that he had given information to the enemy when he was out at the front with a concert-party in ’forty-five. Carroll went right off the deep end—very much rattled, very abusive. You’ve had that—it’s in my notes. An hour or two later Porlock is knifed. Now if you look at this plan of the hall you can see where everyone was when Justin Leigh turned on the lights. It’s his plan, and nobody disputes it. Gregory Porlock’s body was lying with the feet a couple of yards from the newel-post at the bottom of the stairs. He had gone over there from the group about the hearth, and just before the lights went out he had turned round and was coming back. That is to say, at the time he was stabbed he was facing the hearth and had his back to the staircase and the drawing-room door. If you look at the plan you will see that Carroll was on the stairs, third step from the top, and Tote was in the drawing-room doorway. Now, taking Carroll as the murderer, the theory is that on his way up to wash after impersonating the devil in his charade he left a spot of luminous paint on Porlock’s back as he passed, and subsequently turned out the hall lights from the top of the stairs. He then slid down the banisters, stabbed Porlock right in the middle of the bright spot, and got back upstairs a couple of steps at a time. It could have been done. There were no fingerprints on the dagger. He may have worn a glove, or he may have taken a moment to wipe it clean.”

Miss Silver gave her slight cough.

“What about the switch?”

“Wiped clean. And that’s one of the most damning bits of evidence against Carroll. A switch like that ought to have been a perfect smother of everybody’s fingerprints. It was as clean as a whistle. Why should anyone have wiped it? Well, there’s only one answer to that, and only one person who had a motive for doing it—the person who turned out the lights. If it was Carroll—and I don’t see that anyone else was in a position to reach that switch—then Carroll is the murderer. So much for him. Now we come to Tote. Porlock was blackmailing him over activities on the black market. One of our leading operators. He was by all accounts very angry. Now, as you will have gathered, Tote wasn’t one of the party who went out to play the charade. He stayed behind in the drawing-room with Porlock, Miss Masterman, Justin Leigh, and Dorinda Brown. What we don’t know is whether he went on staying behind after the others came out to do audience in the dark hall. He says he did. Nobody else says anything at all. Gregory Porlock was last out of the room. He was the only person who would know for certain whether Tote followed him. He could have followed him. He could have marked him with the luminous paint. Everyone in the party knew the pot was standing handy in the cloakroom. And he could have crossed the hall without being seen and lurked behind the service door until the charade was over and everyone was moving about. Then he would only have needed to open the door a very little way in order to put out the lights. Of course there’s no proof that he did anything of the sort—that switch has an absolute crisscross of fingerprints. And when Leigh turned on the lights from over by the outer door, Tote was in the open drawing-room doorway, apparently about to emerge into the hall. Look at the plan.”

Miss Silver coughed and said,

“Very interesting.”

Frank Abbott went on.

“But Tote could have done it. At the service door he was in a position to see the luminous mark on Porlock’s back. That is to say, he was slightly behind him, the door being at the back of the hall in prolongation of the line of the stair. Like Carroll he could have worn a glove, or he could have wiped the dagger. After that he had only to reach the drawing-room door, open it, and turn round so as to look as if he was coming out. He could have done it on his head.”

“My dear Frank!” Miss Silver’s tone reproved the slang.

He threw her a kiss.

“We’re getting along nicely—two murderers in about three minutes. Here comes a third. Shakespearean, isn’t it? First, Second, and Third Murderers. Enter the rather saturnine Mr. Masterman, a gloomy cove who looks the part to a T, which murderers generally don’t. Porlock was probably blackmailing him too. Our chief eavesdropper, Pearson, only got away with an intriguing fragment about a missing will, but I should say there was something in it. We’ve been busy on the telephone, and it transpires that Masterman and his sister came in for a packet about three months ago from an old cousin who boarded with them. Nothing extraordinary about that, but the death was sudden, and there was apparently some local talk, reinforced by the fact that, whereas Masterman has been spending in a big way, the sister has gone about looking like death and wearing out shabby old clothes. They were, I gather, tolerably hard up until they came in for fifty thousand apiece under the old cousin’s will. Connecting this with what Pearson overheard, it looks as if Cousin Mabel might have made a second will and been tidied out of the way—or perhaps only the will. Now, to consider Masterman as Third Murderer. I don’t think there’s much doubt that Porlock was blackmailing him. He was in the charade, with ample opportunity for picking up a spot of luminous paint—probably on a handkerchief. He had every opportunity of marking Porlock, easy access to the switch by the hearth, and no need to wipe off his prints, since he was known to have turned on the lights there at the close of the charade. Say he put them out again as soon as he saw Porlock turn back from the foot of the stairs. He had only to cross the hall until he was behind him, strike him down, and get over to the other side of the hearth. All quite easy—and, as you are about to observe, unsupported by a single shred of evidence.”

Miss Silver coughed, and said thoughtfully,

“That is not what I was about to say. But pray go on.”

He gave her a sharp glance. It met with no response. He did as he was told.

“Now for Miss Lane. She was undoubtedly being blackmailed, and she is a very fine, upstanding, handsome young woman who wouldn’t take at all kindly to it. Pearson only heard something enigmatic about a bracelet. If she was being blackmailed about that she pulled a fast one on the late Gregory—see description of her bounding into the drawing-room and displaying a very handsome bracelet and telling everyone how marvellous Greg had been to get it back for her after she had lost it. Well, he didn’t contradict her, but we’ve come across the bill for the bracelet. He paid a pretty price for it. It wasn’t true, what Pearson heard him tell her, that the bracelet was fully described in the bill—it wasn’t. But we got on to the jeweller, and he said it was sold to him in November by Miss Moira Lane. Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it? But on the whole, I don’t know about Moira. I don’t see how she could have turned out the lights without upsetting Masterman’s fingerprints, for one thing.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“A woman could raise or depress a switch without touching more than a very small portion of the surface, and if it were done with the fingernail, there would be no print.”

Frank sat up with a jerk.

“You’ve got it! Anyone could have done it with a fingernail! What a dolt I am! I never thought about it. I’ve been trying to see how anyone except Masterman could have handled that switch, and there’s the answer, right under my nose!” He spread out a hand and frowned at five well kept nails, then suddenly relaxed. “It was under the Chief’s nose too—but perhaps we won’t rub that in. Well, Moira Lane could have done it, and so—and a great deal more likely—could Martin Oakley.”

Miss Silver fixed him with an intelligent eye.

“The statements you have given me to read do not include one from Mrs. Oakley.”

“No, I kept that back. We saw Martin Oakley and her maid yesterday, but we didn’t see her until this morning.”

“Her maid? Had she anything to say?”

There was a sparkle of malice in his eyes.

“Only that Mrs. Oakley committed bigamy when she married Oakley—the first husband being Glen Porteous alias Gregory Porlock.”

“Dear me!”

Frank produced another of his typewritten sheets.

“She listened to a conversation between her mistress and Porlock on Wednesday afternoon. You’d better read my notes.”

When she had done so she looked up gravely and said,

“So he was blackmailing her too.”

“Undoubtedly. She doesn’t admit it—she doesn’t admit anything. She just cries and says, ‘Please don’t tell Martin.’ I wish you could have been there, because you would probably have known whether she was putting on an act. She’s one of those little fluffy women—brain apparently left out. I say apparently, because the Chief says he’s met that sort before, and you can’t always tell. He swears they have an instinct for putting on a scene. I expect you would have been able to tell whether it was genuine or not. And it’s important, because everything turns on whether she told Martin Oakley that Glen Porteous had turned up and was blackmailing her. If she did, he had all the motive any jury could want. If she didn’t, he hadn’t any motive at all. Porlock was his friend and they were doing business together. He simply hadn’t got a motive—if Mrs. Oakley held her tongue. She says she did. Martin Oakley says she did, but then of course he would. I may say that he put up a most convincing show—dumbfounded astonishment, resentment, anger, and, at the end something as near a breakdown as you’d get in a man of his type. If he was putting it on he’s an uncommon good actor. As far as the physical side of it goes, he could have turned off the lights, and he could have stabbed Porlock just as any one of the group round the hearth could have done. And that brings us to Mrs. Oakley.”

“Yes?”

Frank nodded.

“She certainly had a motive, and she had the same opportunity as everyone else. She was right beside the body when the lights went on. Everyone says she looked dazed. She went down on her knees beside him and began to scream out his name, calling him Glen and saying, ‘They’ve killed him!’ Whether she had the brains to plan the murder—and it must have been carefully planned—is another matter. You wouldn’t say she had. The Chief isn’t sure—I think he’s rather impressed by the strength of the motive. He says it’s surprising what a woman will do if she’s faced with the loss of her husband and her child.”