Crime at Tattenham Corner Read online

  Dicky Penn-Moreton was a general favourite in society, but his portion as a younger son had been small, and Dicky was not fond of work. Just eighteen, he had joined the Army in the first months of the Great War, and he and his brother had passed through it unscathed. After the Armistice he had spent some time with the Army of Occupation; later he had announced that he loathed soldiering in peace time, that he found it impossible to live on his pay, supplemented, as it was, by his own small income and his brother’s liberal allowance, and had resigned his commission. Since then he had been unable to find a job to his liking, and had remained at Hepton looking round the estate and, as he put it, learning his business from the agent. A couple of months before he had astonished society by marrying the vivacious daughter of Silas P. Juggs, the Chicago multi-millionaire.

  Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton had given a ball the night before this story opens to welcome the young couple on their return to England after their honeymoon.

  The marriage had been so hurriedly arranged that there had been literally no time to get a house, and the Richard Penn-Moretons were at present living in one of London’s palatial hotels, seeing life and, incidentally, making long motor journeys to look at desirable residences to let.

  Mrs. Richard had made a great impression at the ball. Her wonderful Parisian frock, the vivacity for which her countrywomen are famous, and a certain joie de vivre, peculiarly her own, had fascinated the somewhat humdrum society near Hepton.

  Another attraction from over the water had been present in the person of the great American actress, who had taken all London by storm – Charmian Karslake.

  Lady Moreton had regarded the acceptance of her invitation as a compliment, as the ball at Hepton Abbey was the only festivity at which the actress had been present since her coming to England. .

  Her loveliness was undeniable; tall and slim, with an exquisite complexion that owed nothing to art, with a mass of auburn hair that alone would have made her remarkable in these days of shingling. Her small mignon face, with its beautifully formed features, was lighted up by a pair of eyes so deeply blue that they seemed almost to match the big sapphire ball that she always wore suspended by a long platinum chain. Her mascot, Miss Karslake called it, and it was always so described in every interview or account of her that appeared in any paper. At the ball she had worn a wonderful gown woven of gold tissue. Like a flame she had flashed to and fro among the sober Meadshire folk.

  Dicky Moreton’s eyes kept wandering to the door, in spite of his pretty wife’s presence. So did those of most of the men in the room. But the minutes passed and no Charmian Karslake appeared.

  Sir Arthur began to talk about the shooting; the fresh comers finished their breakfast and retired with the morning papers to the window.

  At last the butler came into the room. He looked uncomfortably at Sir Arthur.

  “Could I speak to you for a minute, if you please, Sir Arthur?”

  With a murmured word of apology Sir Arthur went out of the room.

  “Old Brook looks as if he had had a spot of something last night,” commented Dicky. “Whitish about the gills, reddish about the eyes, don’t you know!”

  “Dicky, I’m really ashamed of you,” Mrs. Richard flashed round upon him. “Brook is the cutest creature alive. He might have stepped from the pages of Dickens or Thackeray, or Anthony Trollope. Family retainer, you know. And you –”

  Words apparently failed Mrs. Richard. She made an expressive face at her husband just as Sir Arthur re-entered, looking distinctly worried.

  He turned to his brother. “One of the upper doors has stuck, Dicky. You and Larpent will have to give me a hand. This old wood is the very deuce to move when once it catches.”

  “All serene. I’ll come along,” said Dicky, abandoning his kidneys and beckoning to Mr. Larpent, who resigned his mushrooms with a sigh.

  Once outside the room Sir Arthur’s manner changed. “I’m afraid that there is something wrong, Miss Karslake’s maid has not been able to get in this morning. At first she thought, when there was no response to her knock, that Miss Karslake was just sleeping off the effects of last night’s late hours. But at last she grew alarmed and appealed to Brook. He came to me, as you saw, and we have both been up. But though we have made noise enough to wake the dead we can’t rouse her. I can’t think what is the matter.”

  Dicky gave his brother a resounding slap on the back. “Cheerio, I expect she is all right. You can’t expect her to keep the same hours as the rest of the world.” But Dicky’s own face was white as he followed his brother up the stairs and along the corridor to the door outside which a maid was standing – a typical-looking Frenchwoman with her dark hair and eyes, her black frock and coquettish little apron. She was dabbing her eyes with a dainty handkerchief as the men came up to her.

  “Ah, sare,” she exclaimed, taking a look at them out of the corners of her eyes, “my poor Mademoiselle, dat somesing ’orrible ’as ’appened to her.”

  “Rot! My good girl, I expect either that your mistress had gone out for an early walk or else she has taken something to make her sleep, and cannot hear us.” Dicky turned to his brother. “Best keep all the women back, old chap, in case – But we will soon have this door in. Now what sort of stuff would your mistress take if she could not sleep?” he demanded of the maid.

  She spread out her hands. “Me! I do not know. Nevare – nevare have I seen my Mademoiselle take anysing. Nevare I see anysing zat she can take.”

  “H’m! Well, she may keep it out of sight. Stand out of the way, please, mademoiselle. Now, Larpent!” At a word from Sir Arthur, Brook had gone back to keep Lady Moreton and the other women back.

  Now the men surveyed the door a minute, then Dicky, his brother and Mr. Larpent put their shoulders to it. It cracked at first, but it did not give and it took the best efforts of all of them, using a flat board one of the footmen brought as a lever, before they were able to force it open. Then Dicky Moreton drew back, his fair face white.

  “I am afraid there is something very wrong, Arthur. The room is all upset, as far as I can see.”

  “And I don’t know how you did see,” said John Larpent. “I was just beside you and I didn’t. Don’t be a fool, Dicky! The room is in a deuce of a mess, that’s all. The girl’s on the bed.” But his voice stopped and he drew back with an exclamation of horror.

  The most cursory glance was enough to show that something was terribly wrong. The room was in confusion, the furniture was tossed about everywhere, and Charmian Karslake lay on the bed, looking almost as if she had been flung there. Her white face was turned towards the door, the mouth wide open, and the blue, starry eyes, dull now and glazed, stared sightlessly at the men in the doorway. Quite evidently she had not finished undressing, though she was lying across the bed.

  The bed-clothes were trailing on the floor, and she was wearing soft silk underclothing of the same fabric and colour as the wonderful gold frock she had worn at the ball the night before. Over them she had apparently thrown carelessly a white silk kimona. Right in the front, over the left breast, an ugly red stain disfigured both the kimona and the gold tissue. It needed no second glance to see that life had been extinct for some hours.

  Sir Arthur went nearer and bent over the quiet form. He took one of the cold hands in his and let it fall again.

  “Dead!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Dead, and cold! Poor soul! Poor soul! What could have made her do it?”

  “Made her do it!” echoed one of the men who had followed him in. “Man alive! Don’t you see” – pointing to two tiny burnt holes in the midst of the red stain, and then waving his hands round the disordered room – “how she has struggled and fought for her life? Charmian Karslake has been foully, brutally murdered.”

  Published by Dean Street Press 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  First published in 1929 by The Bodley Head

  Cover by DSP

  Introduction © 2015 Curtis Evans

  ISB
N 978 1 910570 75 3

  www.deanstreetpress.co.uk