Who Killed Charmian Karslake? Read online

  “Everything that can be done to get Richard Penn-Moreton off will be done. One is sure of that.”

  “Quite sure,” the inspector assented. He got up. “Well, now I am going to put a trunk call through to the Yard and see if anything has been heard of Mademoiselle Celeste. If there is no news I think I shall have to send you down to Hepton and go up to town myself. We can’t afford to miss Celeste.”

  They went to the nearest call office. After some little delay the inspector got through. Then there followed the usual exasperating period of suspense, for Harbord, unable to catch what was said at the other end, was only able to hear the inspector’s jerky sentences. At last Stoddart said in a satisfied tone:

  “That’s all right, then. I will be up by the express.” He put the receiver down and rang off. Harbord looked at him inquiringly.

  “Am I to go to Hepton, sir?”

  The inspector hesitated a minute. “Yes, I think so. There may be work to be done and one of us ought to be there. They have got Celeste under surveillance. She was staying at a little private hotel in Paddington, meaning to get off home as soon as it could be arranged. But she had left the Trewhelly district without informing the police and directly after my wire inquiries from the Yard were made everywhere in Paddington. The manager of the hotel became suspicious and notified the police and Celeste was interviewed and discovered to be the wanted Frenchwoman. I must get up at once and see how the lady explains her letter and discover whether she has any grounds for asserting that Penn-Moreton is innocent. At any rate I hope to extract any knowledge she may have of Charmian Karslake’s death from her.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “You are a beast, a nasty horrid beast, and I hate you!”

  Inspector Stoddart smiled, his eyes watching the French girl’s angry face.

  “You have discovered that I can see just a little bit further than the tip of my ugly long nose, mademoiselle.”

  Mademoiselle Celeste became suddenly quiet, her face lost a little of its angry red.

  “I do not know vot you mean,” she said sullenly.

  The inspector smiled again. “Come, come, mademoiselle, why should you put yourself out over such a simple matter? You were good enough to write me a little letter, and I have come in person to thank you. That is all.”

  “Dat is all! I write a letter to you – to a policeman. Bah!” Celeste snapped her fingers. “I dare you to say zat again! I dare you –” Her excitement almost choked her.

  The inspector put out his hand. “There you go, making yourself ill! And it is such a little thing. Now be a sensible girl! And you and I will have a quiet talk, just you and I together, I assure you, mademoiselle.”

  Celeste stamped her foot. “But I tell you I do not want any quiet talks wif you. I do not – what is it you say – want ever to see your ugly, long face again.”

  “Hard words break no bones,” observed the inspector philosophically.

  The two were facing one another in a small sittingroom in a private hotel in Paddington. The room had been placed by the manager at the inspector’s disposal. Celeste had been induced to come there by a stratagem which had aroused her liveliest indignation.

  “Be sensible, mademoiselle,” the inspector went on. “I assure you we know much more than you think. We shall manage without you, but it will be the worse for you if we have to.”

  “Ze worse – it cannot be worse!” Celeste raved. “You dare not do anysing to me. I am French – me. I am not one of your stupid Englishwomen, wiz faces like sheep. I will go back to my beautiful France, I will –”

  “You will not go back to France just yet, I am afraid,” the inspector said firmly. “Ah, mademoiselle, if you had only spoken the truth that first day, how much trouble you would have saved yourself and us. However, you did perhaps a wiser thing than you know when you wrote to tell me that Richard Penn-Moreton was innocent. You –”

  “You would have known that yourself if you had not been a fool,” Celeste interrupted. “Bah! Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton would not kill a fly. He is a kind, gay young man. I like him.”

  “Yes, there is not much harm in Mr. Richard,” the inspector acknowledged. “He would not be where he is now if you had told us it was not he whom you saw in the passage outside Miss Karslake’s room on the night of the murder.”

  Celeste drew herself up with a little air of dignity. “I did tell you zat it vas a stranger; ’ow zen could it be Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton?”

  “You must remember that you knew no one at the Abbey.”

  “Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton was not a stranger,” Celeste, returned, regaining her self-possession in a marvellous manner. “I was watching the dancing all ze evening and I see Mr. Richard quite well. It is for him ze dance is given, for him and his wife. She is Americaine, and so gay and smart. I like her too.”

  “That is a good thing.” The inspector moved a little nearer. “You are positive the man you saw in the passage was not Richard Penn-Moreton?”

  “Of course. I am positive,” Celeste returned, her voice becoming steadier. “I’ve always told you –”

  “Why are you so sure?” the inspector demanded. “You were some distance away, remember.”

  Celeste tossed her head. “I tell you I am sure, quite, quite sure zat it was not Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton.”

  “Still,” the inspector continued, “if you were near enough to the man to be sure that it was not Richard Penn-Moreton, you might have been near enough to see who he was.”

  “I was not, I tell you, you stupid policeman. Again and again I tell you zat I do not know zat man, and again and again you keep asking me – Who is he? I will not say any more.”

  “Well, I shall not ask you again whether you recognized the man you saw go into Miss Karslake’s room,” the inspector said very slowly, making an odd little pause between each word, and keeping his eyes fixed on the Frenchwoman’s face. “Instead, I’m going to suggest to you that I will tell you the name, and if I am right –”

  “But you are not right – you cannot be right!” Celeste cried, backing away from him and clapping her hands over her ears. “I will not listen. You do not know anysing. You are just pretending.”

  “Oh, no, I am not!” His face grew dark, there was a sinister look in his eyes as he gazed straight at the girl whose courage and defiance were visibly oozing away from her. He stepped nearer to her.

  Celeste shrank away. She backed right up against the wall behind her. She put out her hands as though to keep him at arm’s length.

  “No, no, no!” she moaned.

  The inspector drew nearer and nearer. The small battling hands did not keep him off. He stood looking down at her for a minute, then, very deliberately, he bent lower and lower until his head was on a level with hers – shrink away as she might she could not escape him. With his mouth almost touching her ear he whispered one word.

  “Ah–h!” Celeste shrieked as she slipped sideways from him. “You devil! You wicked devil!”

  The inspector stepped out of the train at Medchester; with him were a couple of men in plain clothes. Harbord was on the platform, looking pale and worried. The inspector walked forward with him.

  “Instructions carried out, Alfred?”

  “Absolutely. Every exit, as a matter of fact every niche, of the wall round the Abbey grounds is guarded.”

  “Sir Arthur is there, I suppose.”

  “With Lady Moreton,” Harbord assented. He cast a searching glance at the inspector as he spoke. “Mr. Larpent and Mr. Juggs are there too,” he added. “And Mrs. Richard is expected tomorrow.”

  “I am glad she isn’t there today,” the inspector murmured. “Car outside, I suppose.” He beckoned to the men who came down with him.

  Hepton Abbey looked much as usual, save that a close observer would have noticed an unusual number of loiterers near the walls. The inspector stopped the car at the gates and got out. He walked a hundred yards or so each way outside, and spoke a few sharp words of direction to one of th
e men he encountered. “At the very first sound of the whistle,” he concluded. Then he turned back to Harbord and the two men who had come down with him. They all four went in at the gate together. Stoddart and Harbord walked first up the drive, the other two following at a discreet distance.

  The door was opened at once in answer to the inspector’s summons by a footman, Brook hovering in the background. He came forward as Stoddart stepped inside.

  “Sir Arthur is expecting you, inspector. Will you come this way?”

  Harbord and the other two men had followed the inspector inside. Brook looked at them curiously.

  “With you, inspector? Sir Arthur is in the library.”

  “Lady Penn-Moreton?”

  Brook looked rather surprised at this question. “Her ladyship is out, sir.”

  “I am glad of that,” was the inspector’s surprising reply.

  At this moment Sir Arthur appeared at the open door of the library. Since his brother’s arrest he seemed to have aged years. There was a distinct shade of grey to be seen in his close-cropped hair. His shoulders were bent and his face was set in new lines of stern sadness. He looked at the detectives in a strange, bewildered fashion.

  “I have done what you wished, inspector, but I cannot say that I understand –”

  “No you would not, Sir Arthur. Unfortunately I saw no other way of doing what had to be done.”

  At an imperceptible sign from him the other men moved forward. Harbord slipped round to the other side of the hall. Sir Arthur stared at them with an expression of bewildered incredulity. Brook who had seen him coming forward to open the library door for the detectives now stood aside.

  “You see, Sir Arthur –” Stoddart began; then like a flash of lightning he had turned on the retreating butler, one arm barring his way. “William Brook, I arrest you –”

  With a snarl, like that of a wild beast at bay, Brook sprang forward. Too late! The inspector’s raised right hand held a pistol.

  “Hands up, Brook, or I fire!”

  The other men closed around. There was a short, sharp struggle, and then frothing out inarticulate threats Brook stood handcuffed before them. The inspector dropped his hand. “William Brook, I arrest you for the murder of Charmian Karslake, otherwise, Penn-Moreton, otherwise Gossett, in this house on April 17th, 192—. And it is my duty to warn you that anything you may say in answer to the charge will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you.”

  Brook appeared to have no desire to say anything, but kept up a low, raving cursing. Stoddart glanced round.

  “The library, Sir Arthur.”

  For answer, Sir Arthur, looking too overwhelmed for speech, flung the door wide open.

  “Bring him in,” Stoddart ordered.

  There was a momentary trouble with Brook, but, handcuffed, he was powerless to offer effectual opposition, and he was hustled into the library.

  “The car!” Stoddart looked at Harbord. “We must get off to Medchester as soon as possible!”

  Horrified, Sir Arthur stared at them. “This is too terrible. It can’t be true, Brook, I –” He broke off speechless. This man with his hands and face streaked with blood, with his coat torn in the struggle and his dishevelled hair, cursing with every breath he drew, was so unlike the quiet, respectful, immaculately garbed butler to whom he was accustomed that words absolutely failed him. “It – it can’t be true,” he stammered.

  “That will have to be proved at the trial,” the inspector said, his eyes fixed on his captive. “I am setting a guard over the pantry and Brook’s room, Sir Arthur; with your permission both will have to be thoroughly searched. Anything Brook requires can be sent after him; for the present all his possessions are in the hands of the police. He himself will be searched on his arrival at Medchester, but in the meantime there is one little thing.” He sprung forward and apparently caught at Brook’s neck.

  With an oath Brook raised his manacled hands, and would have dashed them in the inspector’s face. But his captors were too quick for him. One on each side they pinioned his arms while the inspector pulled a long chain from the back of the prisoner’s neck. Helpless though he was, Brook struggled violently to free himself – in vain. He kicked, he twisted his head round to bite the inspector’s hands, but Stoddart went quietly on, his face set and stern, his muscles like steel as he drew up the chain. At the end of it was a round ball that gleamed brightly as he swung it to and fro – Charmian Karslake’s sapphire ball!

  CHAPTER 26

  It was Dicky’s third appearance before the magistrates. The crowd round the justice room at the Hill at Medchester was larger than ever. The wildest rumours were current throughout the town. Nothing was known but that the butler at Hepton Abbey had been arrested. That Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton were staying in Medchester and that with them were Mr. Juggs and his daughter, still called Mrs. Richard Penn-Moreton; though, as the gossips whispered, if Dicky had married Charmian Karslake before his marriage with Mr. Juggs’ daughter the second could not be legally Mrs. Richard. It was very involved and altogether such a dish of scandal as had not been enjoyed by the Medchester folk within living memory.

  Dicky was brought into court looking alert and cheerful; as near as she could get to the side of the dock, Mrs. Richard sat, still wan and fragile, but with a bright smile for Dicky as he turned to her. Beside her was Lady Moreton, behind them Mr. Juggs with Sir Arthur and John Larpent.

  Inspector Stoddart went into the box at once. He exhibited the anonymous letter he had received, and described how he had discovered Celeste Dubois, Charmian Karslake’s French maid, to be the writer. It was a matter of common knowledge that Celeste had at the inquest sworn that she saw a man come down the passage and go into her mistress’s room, but that he was a stranger to her. She had confessed that she had seen at once that it was the butler, William Brook. And, further, that while she waited, overcome with amazement to see the butler there under such circumstances, she heard what she described as a sharp pop, which she now feels sure was the shot that killed Miss Karslake. Celeste, who was present, would appear to tell her own story. It was obvious enough that she had blackmailed William Brook. It would be proved that she had received large sums of money from him. Brook would also be identified by Miss Forester as the man of whom Sylvia Gossett, now identified as Charmian Karslake, had told her she was afraid – the man she had heard uttering threats and seen in the garden path.

  Further evidence would be put in to show that Brook had been madly in love with Sylvia Gossett, and had sworn that if he did not have her no one else should. It was probable that her change of name was caused by her desire to hide herself from Brook. When she knew him last he was home on leave – he had served in the Midland Foresters in the Great War and had later on been reported “missing, supposed to be dead” – therefore he would be the last man she would expect to see at Hepton Abbey. Moreover, it was quite possible that she did not recognize him, clean-shaven as he now was. When she had known him he had worn a moustache. As a result of the information received, he had proceeded to Hepton Abbey, and had there arrested William Brook. The police did not propose to offer any more evidence against Mr. Richard Penn-Moreton, who would now tell them his own story and clear up some of the mystery surrounding Charmian Karslake’s death.

  The inspector stood down. After a pause Richard Peter Penn-Moreton was called.

  Dicky rose at once, made his way to the box at the left of the magistrate’s bench. There he took the oath in a perfectly audible voice, and, screwing his monocle in his eye, glanced at the magistrates.

  The chairman looked at him. “Will you give us your account of what took place on the night of Miss Charmian Karslake’s death?”

  Dicky considered a minute or two. “When I heard that the great American actress was coming to Hepton I had no idea that I had ever seen her before,” he began. “When I recognized her I was horrified as any chap would be who had been fool enough to marry her when he was young and green, and
who thought she was dead.”

  “You believed she was dead,” the chairman said as the witness paused. “Will you kindly tell us why?”

  “Her name was given with that of the rest of the company she was with in a boat torpedoed by the Germans,” Dicky answered. “I suppose she must have been saved, but it didn’t occur to me to doubt the newspaper report then. We had a pretty bad quarrel and parted long before then.”

  “Tell us what happened at the ball, in your own words, please.”

  Dicky coughed. “Well, when I recognized her and saw what a darned hole I’d got myself into – two wives at once, you know – I was a bit upset; any chap would be.”

  A disposition to titter on the part of the spectators was instantly suppressed by the chairman and Dicky proceeded:

  “Well, as I say, I’d pretty well got the hump as far as dancing was concerned. I walked up and down outside trying to think things out, and it only seemed plainer and plainer what a pickle I was in. Coming in, I met Larpent looking for ices for his young woman. He’d seen Charmian Karslake and knew what it meant. ‘You go into the little smoking-room, old chap, and I’ll come to you in a minute, and we’ll have a smoke and think things out,’ he said.

  “I went into the room and I hadn’t been there a minute when the door opened, and in she came – Sylvia – Charmian – deuced if I know what to call her. ‘So I have found you at last, Mr. Peter Hailsham,’ she said. I had married her as Hailsham, you know.”

  “Why had you done that?” the chairman asked sternly.

  Dicky fidgeted about on one leg, took out his monocle and screwed it in again.

  “Because I was a damned fool, I suppose,” he said at last. “The marriage was legal of course, I knew that. But if I had married her as Penn-Moreton, she would have gone down to Hepton, and – and I thought I would wait until I’d distinguished myself in the war or somewhere, you know. She wouldn’t have waited, she had got the very devil of a temper. I hadn’t been married a week when I found that out. We did nothing but quarrel and at last she turned me out of the house. I swore I’d have nothing to do with her any more, but I didn’t know about the kiddy, or I shouldn’t have kept my word. I paid an allowance for her into the bank but she never claimed it. You can call me a blinking blackguard as much as you like,” he added to the Bench.