Who Killed Charmian Karslake? Read online

  “A homicidal maniac, I should say,” the inspector remarked, looking round. “But where did the assassin lurk? Not by the pool itself, or Mrs. Richard Moreton must have seen him. Not among the ruins, the wall is too high for her to have been seen or for a man to get over in a hurry for that matter. Among these rhododendrons” – stepping off the path to look behind them – “though there might have been no sign if he had for that matter. Now, the question is, is there any connexion between Charmian Karslake’s murder and this attack upon Mrs. Richard Moreton? How many people have you staying in the house now, Sir Arthur?”

  Sir Arthur looked surprised. “Only my brother and sister-in-law, Mr. John Larpent and Miss Paula Galbraith. And the usual servants, of course.”

  “Of course,” the inspector assented. “With the careful watch that is kept on the Abbey and the grounds it does not seem possible that any casual tramp could have got in or indeed any outsider. Besides, the pearl necklace and rings being intact disposes of any theory of that kind.”

  “We have another visitor now,” Sir Arthur went on. “Mr. Silas Juggs, Mrs. Richard’s father. He arrived by car just before we started. Of course he is terribly upset. Mrs. Richard is his only child and he is making all sorts of wild accusations.”

  “What does he say?” The inspector looked sharply at Sir Arthur.

  “Well, really, I hardly know. I doubt whether he does himself. He seems to be charging everybody in the house with being concerned in the matter. But he was just having an argument with the doctor when I came away. He was insisting on seeing his daughter and Dr. Spencer was trying to prevent him.”

  They had turned now and were walking up to the house, the car preceding them: Sir Arthur and Stoddart together, Harbord lingering behind near where Mrs. Richard had been found.

  As they neared the house, the door was flung open and an ireful voice made itself heard.

  “I tell you, I am going to put your blessed detective wise myself and then I am going to cable to Washington to send me a couple of the slickest sleuths we have got in the States.”

  A big, burly man, not in the least like the typical American, stood in the doorway. Behind him appeared Dicky and the butler, both looking white and shaken.

  Mr. Silas P. Juggs, on the contrary, was nearly crimson as to complexion, while his prominent pale eyes seemed to be bursting out of his head.

  “Look you here, Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton,” he began, “this matter has got to be probed to the bottom. It is inconceivable that a couple of American women should be murdered in your house, or on your land anyway” – as there was a feeble protest from Dicky behind – “I tell you, sir, we United States men will not stand it. This last affair is about the limit and we shall know how to avenge it. Guess we aren’t too proud to fight when it is a question of our women. Guess we shall make your government look alive.”

  “I am sure we shall do our best to find out who is guilty, Mr. Juggs,” Sir Arthur said with a kind of chill courtesy. “Let me introduce Inspector Stoddart, one of the most brilliant members of our C.I.D., who is down here to investigate the mystery, first of Charmian Karslake’s death, and now of this inexplicable attack upon Sadie.”

  Mr. Juggs acknowledged the introduction by a sharp jerk of his grizzled head. “We have heard of you, sir,” he observed. “Right away in the States. But I guess you aren’t quite a Sherlock Holmes yet, or you would have laid Charmian Karslake’s murderer by the heels before now.”

  Not a muscle of Inspector Stoddart’s face stirred.

  “You must give us time, Mr. Juggs. We don’t find everything just as straight for us as it is in a fairy tale.”

  “Well, you don’t, that’s a fact,” conceded Mr. Juggs. “First thing, now, I’m going to see about this cable. What time did you say the doctor was coming, Dicky?”

  Thus adjured, Dicky came forward. He was looking pale and anxious and, though his monocle appeared to be screwed in as firmly as ever, it was obvious that his eyes were red-rimmed.

  “He should be here any minute now. The car was to meet him at Meadsford and I told the chauffeur to drive for all he was worth.”

  Mr. Juggs’ eyes softened as he looked at his son-in-law’s dejected countenance. He laid his hand on the young man’s arm.

  “I allow you are real fond of Sadie, my boy. I saw that before you were married. It wasn’t the dollars you were after; it was the girl herself.”

  “I should about think it was,” Dicky said simply. “I fell for her at once. Just let me get hold of that nasty, murdering brute and I’ll squeeze the life out of him with my bare hands.”

  “Ay, my lad, I believe you would and so would I. But there is the doctor now, I think.” His hand was still on Dicky’s arm as the pair moved forward.

  Stoddart gazed after them with a curious expression as he beckoned Harbord into the library.

  Sir Arthur opened the door of a room opposite.

  “Hello, Bower, Inspector Stoddart is here. You had better go to him in the library.”

  The local superintendent tramped slowly across the hall. He was a big, ponderous-looking man with a flat, wide face, ruddy from exposure to all sorts of weather and embellished by an untidy-looking grey moustache. But Superintendent Bower was more intelligent than he looked, as Stoddart had discovered.

  He came into the library and closed the door.

  “I am glad you have come back, Inspector Stoddart. I wanted to know what you would make of this.” Fumbling in the pocket of his tunic he produced a little packet done up in tissue-paper. Very slowly he unwrapped it and laid on the table a small suede handbag, a large piece of cotton-wool and something that looked like the metal lid of a small box.

  Inspector Stoddart bent over the two articles and scrutinized them carefully. Then he looked up.

  “Well, superintendent?”

  “These articles,” said Superintendent Bower, “I found in the bushes not a hundred yards from where Mrs. Richard was found. Seems to me they might have been dropped by her assailant as he ran away.”

  The inspector continued to gaze. Harbord crossed over to the other side and looked too.

  The inspector turned the cotton-wool over gingerly with his forefinger.

  “A few yards from where Mrs. Richard was found, you say. On which side of the path?”

  Superintendent Bower drew a jagged sheet of drawing paper from his pocket and spread it on the table.

  “This here,” he said heavily, “is a map of the shrubbery I made myself. ’Tain’t so difficult to understand how things are when you see it down on paper. This” – pointing to a circle at one side – “is the Monks’ Pool. Over this way is the gate into the Bull Ring, where Mrs. Richard said good-bye to her friends, and this path winds in and out. Back here I should say she came” – tracing a wavering line with his pencil – “nearest way to where she was found right past the pool, straight to the Abbey as the path would let her. This is where she was found. I’ve marked it with a cross” – tapping it to emphasize his remarks – “and here where this other cross is, this is where I found the lid of the box. The cotton-wool, it was caught in the bush above.”

  “I see, nearer to the house than where Mrs. Richard was found,” Inspector Stoddart said consideringly. “The only thing is, have these two articles any connexion with the attack?”

  “I think they have,” said Superintendent Bower, a touch of triumph in his small eyes – here was he pointing things out to the great London detective. “I think they have,” he said again, lapsing again into the Meadshire dialect and broad accent on the vowels.

  “This here bag, it was Mrs. Richard’s. There’s her handkerchief in it. I think the man, whoever he might be, ran back to the house, dropping this box lid as he ran, and maybe never noticed the wool were catching. This lid” – taking it up and holding it out to the inspector – “do you see the letterin’ on it? If we could find out where it was bought –”

  The inspector was examining the lid carefully.

  “It
isn’t easy to make the name out. McCall and Saunders it looks like, but all the rest has been worn off by damp and exposure. I suppose McCall and Saunders would be the manufacturers.”

  “There’s nobody of that name here,” the superintendent said slowly.

  The inspector put the lid down.

  “Well, we must do what we can. But you know this is the lid of a very ordinary sweet box.”

  “If we could find the other part of the box we might know something. The cotton-wool don’t look to me as if sweets had been kept in it lately,” the superintendent said shrewdly.

  “Not if the cotton-wool came out of the box,” the inspector agreed.

  “I think it did come out of it,” the superintendent went on. “I have puzzled it out to myself, inspector, that the lady had something in her hand as was valuable to somebody. And that somebody come along and knocked her down to get hold of it, and maybe he hit harder than he meant to.”

  “Very well thought out,” the inspector said approvingly. “But if robbery was the motive, why were Mrs. Richard’s pearls left round her neck and the money in the purse untouched?”

  Superintendent Bower gazed at him with his small, deep-set eyes distended.

  “I doan’t know,” he said, his accent growing broader and slower. “But that’s the way I h’ve puzzled it out myself. I h’ve thought maybe it was only what was in the box that was wanted special.”

  “But is there any evidence that Mrs. Richard had such a box – or rather I should say that she had anything of value with her?”

  Superintendent Bower pointed his red forefinger at the lid and then at the cotton-wool.

  “That is all the evidence I have got. But maybe – I think you’ll find as I’m right.”

  “I dare say we shall,” the inspector said as he unlocked his desk and carefully put the two pieces of evidence in a little compartment by themselves. “Now, superintendent, we will say nothing of your find to any-body for the present. And I must ask you – have you and your man kept a strict guard over the Abbey, inside and out?”

  Superintendent Bower pulled himself up.

  “That we have, sir. There’s been no suspicious characters seen about, and that narrows matters down as far as I can see.”

  “Narrows them down to the people in the Abbey or the outdoor servants – gardeners, chauffeurs and suchlike,” Inspector Stoddart agreed. “Also in spite of the watch some man might have managed to slip over.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think so,” Superintendent Bower dissented. “I knew there were guests at the Abbey and I was up with the men myself most of the afternoon. It would have been a slim chap who managed to get through our guard. Besides, no chauffeur or gardener could have got to Miss Karslake – not as I see things.”

  “There I am inclined to agree with you,” Stoddart said thoughtfully. “But I don’t quite see the connexion between the murder of Miss Karslake and this second crime.”

  “I doan’t see it.” The superintendent’s Meadshire accent got stronger as he became excited. “I doan’t see it myself, but I have no doubt it is there.”

  “Well, time will show,” said the inspector. “Now, superintendent, we must make a few inquiries of the household. And would you make what investigation you can into the movements of the outdoor staff?”

  “That I will,” promised the superintendent, breathing heavily as he went out of the room.

  The inspector looked across at Harbord.

  “Well?”

  There was a gleam in the younger detective’s eyes.

  “I am beginning to think that Superintendent Bower is not such a fool as he looks.”

  Inspector Stoddart coughed.

  “I never thought he was,” he said shortly.

  CHAPTER 13

  “The specialist gives us hope.” Lady Penn-Moreton had obviously been crying, but she was smiling now as she caught Miss Galbraith’s arm. “Paula, darling, aren’t you glad?”

  “Of course I am,” Miss Galbraith returned. “But I always thought he would.”

  “Well, I don’t know whether you are wiser than Dr. Spencer,” Lady Moreton said fretfully. “And I know he was very doubtful as to whether she would even recover consciousness at all. Do you know, Paula, there are times when I should like to shake you.”

  “Are there really?” Paula Galbraith opened her blue eyes wide. “Why don’t you do it, then?”

  “I dare say I shall, some day,” Lady Moreton returned in an irate voice. “Really, Paula, I think you might say you are glad Sadie is going to live. I know you don’t like her, but still you might pretend –”

  “Well, I am glad she is going to get better, of course,” Paula returned, her colour rising a little. “But I don’t like Americans. I can’t help it, Viva.”

  “Well, it sounds very uncharitable,” Lady Moreton said decidedly. “At any rate Americans will not have much reason to like us in the future. Though I suppose it was just a chance that both Charmian and Sadie were Americans.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t you feel dreadfully nervous sometimes, Paula? It is an awful thing to think that the assassin may be in the house, that we may be talking to him – not knowing. And all the time he may be plotting to murder someone else – you, or me, or Arthur. Heaven knows who!” She broke off, shuddering.

  Paula Galbraith looked at her pityingly.

  “Try and forget it, Viva. I don’t think for one instant that there is any connexion between the two happenings, Charmian Karslake’s murder and the attack on Mrs. Richard.”

  “But then you see you don’t know much about it,” Lady Moreton said resentfully. “As for putting it out of your mind, if a murder had been committed in your house – Oh, really, I haven’t patience to talk about it. Sometimes one would think you were a perfect fool, Paula! Now I suppose it will surprise you to know that the detectives feel very little doubt that both things are the work of one man.”

  “Nothing that the detectives think would surprise me,” Miss Galbraith returned. “If we had had a French detective here he would have discovered the whole thing long ago, and then you would have seen – Oh, here is Mr. Juggs.”

  Lady Moreton and her friend had been standing before the log-fire in the hall. Lady Moreton was holding one of her dainty, little, suede-clad feet to the blaze. She turned to greet the new-comer.

  Mr. Juggs was coming down the staircase, blowing his nose noisily. He crossed to them at once.

  “I guess you have heard my good news, ladies.”

  “Our good news,” Lady Moreton corrected him. She held out her hands to him impulsively. “Of course we have heard it. And I cannot tell you how very, very thankful we are.”

  The millionaire held her hands in his, unconsciously gripping them so closely that Viva Moreton had some ado to keep from crying out.

  “You’ve been very good, you and your kind husband,” he said brokenly. “I am not ashamed to say I have been shedding tears just now, Lady Penn-Moreton. Real joy tears, they were. Sadie’s my only one. And if I lost her – well, I should be all alone in this world till I go to meet her mother in the next. You have just the one child yourself, Lady Penn-Moreton, so you can figure it out how you would feel if he was taken.”

  “I know, I know.” Lady Penn-Moreton gently released her hands. “I have been so sorry for you, more sorry than I can say, for you – and poor Dicky.”

  “Ay! There’s some lad!” the millionaire nodded emphatically. “I am free to confess, Lady Penn-Moreton, that when Sadie and he got spliced I didn’t think much of my son-in-law. But Sadie had set her heart on him and I have never refused her anything in her life. It was not the marriage I had looked for for the girl. But, well, money isn’t everything, and son-in-law and I understand one another now. Sadie is a real lucky girl and cute. She knew real gold when she came across it. I am off to cable to J. B. Harker. I reckon he is the sharpest sleuth in the States. I shall tell him to come over as soon as the mail can bring him, and he will soon sort out the tangle we have got
things into here.”

  “But won’t Sadie be able to tell us all about it herself?” Lady Moreton inquired in a puzzled tone. “I understood the specialist said she would soon recover consciousness.”

  The millionaire coughed.

  “He did. But from what he said I don’t think she will be able to be asked questions, not for some time anyway. He will be able to start straight away on Miss Karslake too. The poor thing was a countrywoman and your British sleuths seem to be a bit backward. Your young man is something in that line himself, I understand, ma’am?” He turned himself sharply about to Paula Galbraith.

  She did not speak for a minute. Then she said slowly:

  “Mr. Larpent is a barrister, not a detective. Of course he is making a name at the Bar. But it is for defending criminals, not discovering them.”

  “Defending ’em, oh!” Mr. Juggs sniffed. “I have no use for a man that defends criminals. I’d hang the lot.”

  “Innocent or guilty?” Paula Galbraith inquired scornfully.

  Silas P. Juggs glanced at her.

  “Well, way I look at it an innocent man isn’t a criminal,” he said bluntly. “Well, I see Mr. Larpent coming up the drive with my son-in-law. I guess it will be the best thing for me to go out and meet them. Son-in-law hasn’t heard our good news yet.” He went out humming to himself, singing beneath his breath, “His soul goes marching on.”

  Lady Moreton turned back to the fire.

  “Poor man! He has crushed all the feeling out of my hands. Still, I think we ought to meet them and tell Dicky how glad we are. Come along, Paula.”

  But Paula Galbraith did not move, and after an uncertain glance at her Lady Moreton went on. She met the three men just outside the door and stood talking to them.

  Paula Galbraith went into the drawing-room. A log fire was blazing on the open hearth. She waited, looking down into the glorious depths of the fire. Presently the door was pushed open and John Larpent came in alone. His face looked white and strained.

  “Paula, I saw you in here and I made up my mind to follow you to force an explanation from you.”