Who Killed Charmian Karslake? Read online

  “I hope we shall.” The inspector held out his hand. “If you will give me the keys, Mr. Brook, we really need not trouble you to come any farther.”

  The butler made no motion to part with them.

  “It is no trouble, I assure you, inspector. And the lock of Mrs. Richard’s room requires humouring. It wasn’t often locked while Mrs. Richard was here, with the nurses going in and out and so on.”

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t be,” the inspector agreed.

  “Mrs. Richard looked very much altered when she went away, poor thing,” the butler went on conversationally. “I hope the sea air may set her up, but concussion of the brain is a nasty thing, as I know. A cousin of mine had it – slipped down at the top of one of those nasty, moving staircases and was never the same again.”

  “H’m! Well, I hope that will not be the case with Mrs. Richard,” the inspector observed as he took the key and fitted it into the lock. The door opened at once.

  The inspector, still holding it in his hand, looked at the butler. “Not so difficult as you expected, Mr. Brook! Now we really will not detain you.”

  “No, I will leave you, inspector.” But Brook still hesitated. “I hope Mrs. Richard will be quite safe for the future for poor Mr. Richard’s sake as well as her own. He was like a madman when first he heard of the attack.”

  “Ah, well! I dare say we all of us should be, in his place.” The inspector motioned Harbord inside. “You are very fond of Mr. Richard – like him better than Sir Arthur, don’t you, Mr. Brook?”

  The butler smiled a little.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, inspector. I have always been devoted to all the family. But Mr. Richard’s very bright and friendly. Well, then, if you have all you want, gentlemen –”

  “Quite, thanks!” The inspector stood for a minute watching the butler’s retreating back, then he went back to Harbord, closing the door behind him.

  Mrs. Richard’s room and Dicky’s dressing-room, which opened out of it, had the tidy and rather desolate appearance of rooms which are not in daily use. The big bed in the middle of Sadie’s room had been stripped, and the furniture had been put straight, but by the inspector’s orders no cleaning had been done. Harbord was already at work going through the waste-paper-basket. The inspector went on to the dressing-room; in the communicating doorway he paused.

  “You won’t find anything there, Alfred. That will have been attended to. I don’t like that butler.”

  “I don’t much, either,” Harbord agreed. “Never did for that matter. I have always suspected him of keeping something back. But there is something rather fine about his devotion to the Moretons. If he knew one of them was guilty he would screen him with his life, I am certain.”

  “Such devotion may be very fine, but it is a damned nuisance sometimes,” the inspector said in a preoccupied tone as he went on and opened the door of Dicky’s wardrobe.

  Both men worked on in silence for some time. Harbord had finished with the waste-paper-basket and had turned his attention to Mrs. Richard’s writing-table, which stood close at hand, when he heard a sharp exclamation from the inspector.

  “This is a trifle that has been overlooked, Alfred.”

  The younger man sprang up. The inspector was standing near the window, his pocket microscope screwed into his eye as he examined a black evening coat he was holding.

  “Look here!” he said, pointing to the sleeve of the coat.

  Harbord bent over it. The inspector handed him the microscope.

  “What do you see?”

  Harbord waited a minute.

  “A couple of dark spots on the cloth, hardly distinguishable,” he said at last.

  “Blood,” the inspector said laconically. “Don’t you understand, Harbord? This is the coat worn by Richard Moreton at the ball on the night that Charmian Karslake was murdered.”

  “Are you certain it was that coat?” Harbord asked, still scrutinizing the spots.

  For answer the inspector took the coat from him, and slipping his hand in the pocket brought out the dance programme all crumpled up.

  “Fairly conclusive, that? But what is this?”

  This was a thin slip of paper that had slipped up against the lining. It was just a bit of very ordinary writing paper with these words scrawled across it.

  “I *will see you tonight. Did you think you could deceive me?”

  That was all. There was neither beginning nor ending, and the writing was singularly indistinctive. Certainly it had nothing in common with the big, dashing handwriting with which the detectives had become familiar as that of Charmian Karslake.

  The inspector stared at it.

  “It isn’t Dicky’s and it isn’t Charmian’s unless it is very skilfully disguised.”

  Harbord looked at it over his shoulder.

  “At any rate this definitely connects Richard Moreton with the crime.”

  The inspector stared at the coat, from it to the paper.

  “Does it?” he said in a curiously altered tone. “I wonder?”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Here we are!” said the inspector, taking up his letters. “You didn’t see the advertisement in the Agony Column of the ‘Daily Wire’ yesterday?”

  Harbord shook his head. He had just come in from a two days’ sojourn on his own at Hepton. The inspector, who had come up to town to pursue a new line of inquiry, had left the younger man to watch developments in the country.

  Stoddart tore open the top letter.

  “Ah! I guessed we should do the trick. This is the advertisement that has appeared in the ‘Daily Wire’ for a couple of days, Alfred. It is headed – ‘Gossett – Hepton. If any relatives of the late Sylvia Gossett of Hepton will apply to Messrs. Evans and Turner, of 25 Crow’s Inn, they will hear of something to their advantage.’ A bit taking, isn’t it? This is in reply. Evans and Turner have just forwarded it. It was written from an obscure street in Bloomsbury and dated yesterday morning.”

  He handed the letter to Harbord, who read:

  GENTLEMEN

  The late Sylvia Gossett of Hepton was my mother. As I am her eldest son I presume that I am her representative and heir. I should be glad to hear your news, particularly if it is of only pecuniary advantage. I will do myself the pleasure of waiting upon you at twelve o’clock tomorrow, Wednesday, morning.

  Yours faithfully,

  JOHN GOSSETT.

  “We shall just manage it if we get off at once. Come along. What is the news from Hepton? We’ll walk along the Embankment and you can tell me everything as we go along.”

  The inspector stepped out smartly. When they reached the Embankment he looked at Harbord.

  “Well?”

  “I am afraid I have very little to report. I have had tea with the butler and the housekeeper twice, and the only thing that I have got out of them that bears upon the subject at all is that Dicky is subject to corns, that he had a particularly nasty one on the day of the ball, and was complaining that he hadn’t got time to get up to town to consult his chiropodist.”

  “And you take it that that means?” Stoddart glanced keenly at his subordinate.

  “As the shoes found in his cabin,” Harbord pursued diffidently, “were a size larger than he wears himself and the same as those worn by John Larpent, doesn’t it seem possible, even probable, that Mr. Dicky borrowed his friend’s shoes for the occasion?”

  “Quite possible,” the inspector agreed. “As for probable – well, we must not give way to the fascinating temptation of trying to make things fit into a certain theory, like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. You went through Sir Arthur’s room and the study?”

  “Yes. Everything was in apple-pie order, as I rather expected to find it,” Harbord said gloomily.

  “Ah, well, things are moving. I expect we shall know more soon,” the inspector said briskly.

  A turning from the Embankment led them into the Crow’s Inn Gardens, and from thence it was but a step to the offices of Messrs. Evans and Tu
rner. They were a few minutes in advance of the hour named by Mr. John Gossett, but the inspector went straight in and up to the second floor. A shabby-looking man who had been standing outside glanced at them curiously and then after a moment’s hesitation followed them up.

  They were admitted at once. A rosy-looking man came to meet them.

  “Inspector Stoddart?” he said inquiringly. “Mr. Turner is expecting you.”

  He opened a door at the right-hand side and ushered them into Mr. Turner’s presence.

  The solicitor was sitting in a revolving chair at a kneehole writing-table in the middle of the room. He held out his hand with a friendly smile.

  “Well, inspector, it did not take long to execute your commission this time. Mr. John Gossett was soon lured into the net.”

  The inspector smiled responsively.

  “It’s not a net this time. My advertisement is perfectly genuine. Mr. John Gossett may hear of something to his advantage. And, on the other hand, he may be able to give us some information we are very anxious to obtain.”

  “Ah, I see. Cuts both ways. Sit down, inspector.” Mr. Turner pointed to the chair opposite. “I believe Mr. John Gossett is here now. I thought so,” as a tiny electric bell at his side tinkled sharply. He took up his speaking tube. “Send Mr. Gossett in at once.”

  The inspector fidgeted, looking across at Harbord.

  John Gossett was shown in by a clerk. Shabby and down-at-heel as he was, he yet bore the traces of former good looks. From his place in the background Harbord studied his features and came to the conclusion that there was a certain resemblance to the beautiful actress of the Golden Theatre.

  “Mr. John Gossett?” Mr. Turner said inquiringly.

  Mr. Gossett turned his hat about in his hands.

  “Yes, that’s my name right enough. I’ve come because of that advert in the ‘Daily Wire.’ But I didn’t think of all these –” His glance was antagonistic as he looked from Mr. Turner to the detectives.

  “Sit down, Mr. Gossett,” said the solicitor affably, indicating a hard-looking office chair with the point of his pen. “These two gentlemen have come about your business. It was they who inserted the advertisement you saw.”

  “Was it?” Mr. Gossett sat down awkwardly, balancing himself on the edge of his chair. “Well, if it is good news I shall be downright glad to hear it,” he said with the sing-song intonation of the counties bordering upon Wales. “I’ve had bad luck long enough.”

  “It is a long lane that has no turning,” the solicitor observed sententiously.

  He drew a paper towards him and made a note upon it. The inspector took out his pocket-book.

  “You are John Robert Gossett, of Hepton, Meadshire,” Mr. Turner went on. “Your mother’s name, please.”

  “Sylvia Mary Gossett,” the man said sullenly.

  “Your father’s?”

  “Robert Henry Gossett. But I don’t know anything about him, never did. He was a bad lot, he was.”

  “Dead or alive?” Mr. Turner went on.

  “Oh, dead. Leastways I should think so. He would be a pretty big age if he was alive. We never knew what became of him. Bad lot, he was.”

  “Do you know where he came from?”

  “West Hever, on the other side of the county. Mother and Father both come from there,” Mr. Gossett proceeded with the same sulky air that had characterized him all through the interview. “I did hear he was seen there some time back. Living with the woman he went off with, he was. But that’s some years gone.”

  “Still, it ought to be a comparatively easy matter to prove his death, if dead he is.” Mr. Turner scrawled something on his paper.

  “Oh, he’ll be dead safe enough. Besides, we don’t want to see anything of him if he should be alive.”

  “Nevertheless it might complicate matters,” Mr. Turner said thoughtfully. “Now!” He looked across at Stoddart. “There are various questions to be answered. If you will ask Mr. Gossett –”

  “Thank you, sir.” The inspector drew his chair nearer Mr. Gossett. “You have brothers and a sister, I believe?”

  “One brother and a sister,” Gossett corrected. “Three brothers I had, but two of ‘em were killed in the war. There’s only me and the youngest but one left, and I haven’t seen anything of him for years.”

  “Your sister?”

  Gossett shook his head.

  “Nor I don’t know anything of her. I don’t know where she is. But I am the eldest right enough. Anything as there may be is bound to come to me.”

  “That so?” The inspector took an envelope from his pocket-book. From it he extracted a photograph – one of those taken of poor Charmian Karslake as she lay in her last long sleep. “Do you recognize this?” Gossett took it.

  “Why, yes. That’s Sylvia right enough. A bit older maybe, but it’s her. Why does she look like this, as if she was asleep or maybe – dead?”

  “She is dead,” the inspector said briefly. “And it is because we want to know how she died that we are here today.”

  “Ah, so that’s it.” Mr. Gossett drew a deep breath. “Well, it’s no good coming to me. I know nothing about what she’s been doing for years. But I call it a swindle to get a hard-working man like me here of a morning thinking to hear of something good when this is what you want him for.” He got up. “I have had enough of it,” he said truculently. “If I hadn’t have thought there was money in it, I shouldn’t have been here today. And now –”

  “And now –” The inspector put out his hand.

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Gossett. I haven’t told you there is no money in it. If this lady is your sister and you can prove it and you can answer a few other questions there may be a great deal of money in it.”

  Mr. Gossett’s face cleared. “Ah, now you are talking. That’s more like it. That’s Cissie right enough. The very spit of her mother she is. How was it as she came to die?”

  The inspector held out another photograph – one of those taken of Charmian Karslake in the height of her glory at the Golden. John Gossett stared at it in a puzzled fashion.

  “Yes, I think it’s Cissie. But she is mighty dressed up. Looks as if she wasn’t any better than she might be.”

  “On the contrary, nobody has ever breathed a word against her,” the inspector said, still keeping his eyes fixed on the man’s face. “You have heard of Charmian Karslake, the beautiful actress who used to be at the Golden Theatre, I don’t doubt.”

  John Gossett was still looking at the photograph.

  “Ay, I’ve heard of her. Shot, down at old Hepton, she was. The mystery at Hepton Abbey they call it in the papers. But you do not mean that Sylvia –”

  “I have every reason to believe that Charmian Karslake was your sister,” the inspector told him gravely. “In fact, I think your identification puts the matter beyond doubt. In that case an informal Will in her own handwriting leaves everything to her brothers.”

  “And how much is that likely to be?” Gossett broke in eagerly. “Not but what I should have said it all ought to have come to me, being the eldest.”

  “Oh, the eldest does not get quite everything.” The inspector’s face was stern. “But the sooner we can trace your sister’s murderer the sooner her affairs will be settled. So if you will help us, Mr. Gossett –”

  “I don’t know as I can,” Mr. Gossett said doubtfully. “Not but what he ought to be laid by the heels, the murdering ruffian. But I ain’t seen much of Sylvia to speak of since we left Hepton. Kids we were then. Leastways me and Bill, the next boy, we were getting a bit running errands, but when Mother died in the Cottage Hospital we heard talk about us being sent to the workhouse an’ we all made up our minds to do a bunk. So we ran off in the night and we had the luck to fall in with a travelling circus and they took us on – me and the other boys we could run and carry, and Sylvia she was to dance. We came on to town and me an’ Bill did another bunk and got jobs both of us sweeping out shops in the East End and running errands and sleeping
in a cellar. Half starved, but we were free, we weren’t penned up in a workhouse.”

  “What did your sister do?” the inspector inquired.

  “Sylvia, she stayed on with the circus. Thought a lot of her, they did, for she was a clever kid, danced and sang and what not. Got good money too and often sent us a bit. Then, when she got older, she was mad to get on the real stage. I cleaned shoes and knives then and carried up coal at a little private hotel in Bloomsbury. Me and the other boys had got an attic together then and we were fairly comfortable. Cissie came to see us and told us she’d got a job in a touring company.” Mr. Gossett stopped, apparently for want of breath.

  “And was that the last you saw of her?” the inspector questioned.

  “Well, no, it wasn’t. She came once after that and told us she had got on well with the play-acting and she was thinking of getting married. That was the last time I saw her.”

  “Whom did she marry?” The inspector found it impossible to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

  Gossett shook his head. “I don’t know. I have never known. I asked her then who the chap was and she laughed and said we should be surprised if we knew.”

  “What did she call herself then?”

  “Sylvia Gossett. She said that was good enough for the stage. I never knew anything of this Karslake business.”

  The inspector studied his notes in silence for a moment.

  “That was the last you saw of your sister, you say. How was that?”

  Gossett looked stupid.

  “Well, it isn’t a matter I care to talk about, for I’ve lived it down, but I got into a bit o’ trouble, though I never did anything, mind you, but I got into the cops’ hands and got put away for two years. When I came out I reckon Sylvia was ashamed of me, for I’ve never heard any more of her from that day to this.”

  “And your brothers?” Harbord, who knew every inflection of the inspector’s voice, recognized the disappointment in it now.