The Woman in the Wardrobe Read online

  He lived in his ‘villa’ just outside Amnestie, on a windy hill overlooking the town: to be truthful, it was little more than three tiny fishing cottages knocked into one low, medium-sized house, but it charmed him. The whole had been whitewashed and named ‘Persepolis’. Its living-room, but for the smallest of kitchens, ran the length of the place, and resembled nothing so much as a sculptor’s workroom. From the floor sprang a forest of pedestals, each bearing the head or torso (and very occasionally both) of some Ancient notable. Mr Verity had travelled far in his sixty-six years of life, mostly in Classical lands: and where Mr Verity travelled, he rummaged. In fact, he admitted to having more archaeological thefts to his credit than the governing body of any museum in Europe. Marbles were a speciality of his; burial urns a side-line.

  One July morning just before eight o’clock, Mr Verity was striding down from ‘Persepolis’ for an early bathe. A wonderful day was beginning to flare in the East: the fretted towers of Carrington were just visible through the haze that clung to the sea, and above him the weather-vane on the church steeple dazzled his eyes as he entered the town. He was just level with ‘The Charter’ Hotel when he saw something which made him halt in his tracks and retire under the tattered awning of a shop opposite to watch. A man in shirt sleeves was climbing furtively out of a first-floor window. When he had satisfied himself that there was no one about, he walked swiftly along the balcony to the next window, pushed it up, and entered the room which neighboured his own. The window was pulled softly down behind him.

  Mr Verity was an abnormally curious man. He was also more than usually experienced: and there was something about this performance that warned him to take notice. Emerging swiftly from his retirement under the awning, he crossed the road and entered the hotel. A large woman with a heavy face that had been dusted almost casually with powder sat at the hall desk. She was looking through what seemed to be accounts.

  “Good morning,” said Verity. “Are you the Manageress?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am pleased to meet you. My name is Verity. I am a resident here. I’m sorry to say I have not made your acquaintance before. In mitigation, however, I must say that I have been busy knocking down my cottages.”

  “Oh…”

  “Yes. Tell me, Miss—”

  “Framer.”

  “Tell me, Miss Framer, whether it is usual for guests at this hotel to use the window as an exit?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Miss Framer

  Verity repeated his question. Miss Framer suddenly smiled nervously.

  “Why no… Of course not…”

  “And what would you do if I were to tell you that that is just what someone is doing up on your first floor?”

  “What?… But that can’t be!… I mean it’s highly irregular.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way about it,” said Verity warmly. “And even more irregular if they entered the room next door?”

  “Next door?”

  Miss Framer rose at once.

  “Yes. I watched a man climb out and then in. Quite expertly, too. I’m afraid I don’t like it at all.”

  “Oh no!” There was more fear in her face than bewilderment. “Oh no!… No!…”

  “My dear, good lady, I did not mean to alarm you.” He watched her closely as he spoke: watching was one of his passions. “All I meant was that there was something a little strange, a little—as you say—irregular in the proceeding. There was nothing more to it than that.”

  As he spoke there was a shout from the floor above, and a man came flying downstairs as fast as he could run.

  “Help! Police!” cried the man, stopping at the last stair and swaying against the wall. “Quick! Get the police!”

  “The police?”

  “Yes, quickly!… Mr Maxwell—he’s dead… Murdered!”

  Miss Framer screamed shortly and fell forward on to her ledgers. The inkpot she upset at the same time erased the work of a week.

  “Come, sir,” said Verity sternly to the dishevelled man by the stairs. “A little assistance, if you please.”

  But the man, whom Verity had recognised immediately as the man on the balcony, merely sank to the floor and began babbling to himself.

  As dexterously as he could, Verity raised the phone to his lips with one hand and the Manageress to her feet with the other.

  “Just breathe quietly,” he told her, “and hold on to the desk till you think you can leave go.”

  Miss Framer tried hard.

  The police at Carrington answered at last, and Verity told the story.

  “I’m Jackson,” said a stern voice at the other end. “Leave everything just as you found it.”

  “I didn’t find it,” said Verity, and rang off.

  “Oh, my God!” said the man on the floor. “It’s terrible… If only I’d never come here.”

  “Pull yourself together,” Verity commanded, leaving Miss Framer’s side to haul him to his feet.

  But the man continued to moan.

  “I’m finished,” he gasped to Verity, as he struggled to catch his breath. “This is the end… I should never have come here… What am I to do?”

  “Show me to the body,” said Verity crisply. “You stay here, Miss Framer.”

  “No… I’m quite all right—really I am.”

  The brilliant morning light streaming through the high doors of the vestibule showed her face grey and trembling under its load of powder. There was an ink-smudge on her forehead. She had evidently had a terrible shock.

  “Nevertheless, I think it would be far better if you sat here quietly until the police arrive.”

  She smiled faintly, and obediently sat down on a high-backed chair against the wall.

  Mr Verity turned to the man.

  “What is your name, sir?” he asked.

  “That’s Mr Paxton,” said the Manageress dully, as the man himself seemed incapable of answering.

  “Well, then, Mr Paxton, be so good as to precede me upstairs.”

  Mr Paxton goggled, but though his mouth moved, no words came out of it. He was a small man against whose pale face and sand-white hair the jet-black rims of a pair of great spectacles made a startling contrast. At the present moment, with his doll-like head lolling against the wall and his tiny body held from crumpling only by the force of Verity’s huge arm, he resembled nothing so much as a trampled puppet.

  Mr Paxton

  “We will go,” said Verity, turning him round firmly to face the way he had just come. “But first of all, you must hand me that gun I see in your pocket.”

  Dazedly Paxton took the gun from his pocket and handed it over.

  Verity examined it. It was fully loaded, and had not been recently fired.

  “Good. Now lead the way, like a sensible man. Oh—and don’t forget to point out the sights of interest to me as we pass, will you?”

  “What do you mean?” gasped Paxton, reeling before so much action.

  “Oh, things like the patch of blood at our feet, for instance.”

  Paxton looked round wildly.

  “Blood?”

  “Yes, where you slipped down on the floor.” He indicated a dark stain at the foot of the stairs. “There’s a certain amount of it on your suit too; that may need explanation a little later on… Come along, my dear sir.”

  They went upstairs to the first floor. Mr Verity saw a wide corridor flanked down its sides by cream doors with shiny number-plates. Paxton stopped before number 3.

  “After you,” said Verity politely.

  Hesitantly the little man turned the handle. But it did not yield. Verity smiled encouragingly.

  “Shall we try a little harder?”

  “I can’t!” cried Paxton peevishly. “It’s locked!… Can’t you see it’s locked?”

  He started banging on it.

  “Locked?”

  Paxton’s face was livid as he turned from the door.

  “I swear—on my oath, I swear I did
n’t lock it! Oh, my God!…”

  “A key is an easier thing to find than you might suppose,” said Verity sternly.

  “Oh no—I swear I didn’t!… Who are you, anyway?”

  The noise of a struggle came from the vestibule below. Miss Framer called out in alarm, and a male voice—a local—cried roughly: “No, yer don’t!” Then there was a short scuffle. The detective seized Paxton by the shoulder, and almost tucking him under his arm, set off down the stairs again. In the hall a man of about forty was standing, his arms pinioned behind him by a stocky policeman. Verity noticed a dark stain down the front of his coat: he released Paxton to examine it at closer quarters.

  “A novel fashion,” he said quietly, comparing the colour with the mark on Paxton’s suit. “Nice work, Constable.”

  “Who the devil are you?” asked the prisoner furiously.

  “That is just what Mr Paxton was asking before your arrival! Though I can’t think why. I should have thought everyone knew me!” He turned to the constable for confirmation. “Can you think why, Constable?”

  The constable agreed that everyone knew Mr Verity hereabouts.

  “Verity? The amateur detective?” He tossed his head at the Manageress. “Miss Framer, tell this gentleman who I am. The oaf behind me might care to know too.”

  “Yes, of course. This is Mr Cunningham, gentlemen. I’m sure there’s been a terrible mistake.”

  “One of your guests?”

  “He certainly is. A most respectable gentleman. Believe me, Mr Verity.”

  Mr Cunningham said nothing, but tried at once to look respectable, injured and indifferent.

  Mr Cunningham

  “But what,” asked Verity, “is he being held for? Surely the constable didn’t catch him trying to get in somebody’s bedroom too?”

  “No, sir,” said the constable, impassively. “I caught him coming out.”

  Miss Framer swayed slightly against the desk. Even Mr Verity found concentration an effort.

  “Life among the denizens of Amnestie must be very uneventful,” he said at last.

  “I’m sure there’s been a terrible mistake…” repeated Miss Framer stupidly. “I’m sure there has… really there has…”

  Verity bowed to her.

  “I’d take your word for almost anything, Miss Framer. May I please borrow your pass-key for a moment?”

  “Well, no, I’m afraid—”

  “Thank you.” He turned to the constable. “You found him climbing out of a window?”

  “Yes, sir. Going real fast, ’e was. Came down the drainpipe in no time! Didn’t see me waitin’ fer ’im till ’e’d got ter the bottom.”

  “Yet once more the sacrifice of vision to pace,” murmured Verity. “The Modern Dilemma seems to crop up everywhere.”

  Cunningham spat angrily and writhed in his captor’s grasp.

  “Now look here, Verity. I’ve stood just about enough of this. I have a perfect right to leave my room any way I please!”

  “Yes. Mr Paxton here seems to feel the same about going in. By the way, Constable, permit me to introduce my prisoner to yours. Mr Paxton—Mr Cunningham.”

  The two men glared at each other in silence. It was clear they had already met.

  Miss Framer was rummaging frantically among the things on her desk.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, with a returning firmness in her voice. “I seem to have lost my pass-key just for the moment. I could have sworn I put it on that hook last night.”

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” said Verity casually. “I didn’t really expect it to be there.”

  “But why…?”

  “To facilitate the murder, my dear lady—or prevent its discovery.”

  “Murder?” The constable’s jaw dropped. “Murder?”

  “Yes, yes, someone’s been killed upstairs. You may deduce a fair amount of blood from the stains on our friends’ coats. Inspector Jackson will be here any minute from Carrington. They told me specifically not to touch anything. Come out into the street with me and see whether we can see them coming. Oh… and do release Mr Cunningham. It’s far too late for him to conceal anything now—except perhaps a pass-key, and some of his more controllable reactions.”

  He wandered out into the bright street, and the policeman followed doubtfully in his wake. The two suspects were left alone in the hall with Miss Framer, who eyed them both uncomprehendingly. White-faced and trembling, the two men fell to a fierce scrutiny of each other.

  “An interesting start to the day,” said Verity with pleasure. “Tell me, Constable, which window you saw Mr Cunningham come out of.”

  “That one, sir—the third along from the end, on the left of the drain-pipe. Or no… wait a mo’—p’r’aps it was the one next to it.”

  Mr Verity’s smile left his lips for almost the first time that morning. On the window that Paxton had entered a few minutes earlier there was now a reddish smudge.

  “Are you sure you can do no better than that?” he asked anxiously.

  “No, sir, to be honest, I can’t. I’m pretty sure it’s the third one along, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I didn’t rightly start taking note of ’im till ’e was on the pipe. It might be the fourth.”

  “And there’ll be no finger-prints,” said Verity sadly. “I know it in my bones.”

  “Oughtn’t we to go up, sir?” asked the constable nervously.

  “When our superiors arrive,” the old man replied absently. “Let us enjoy the sunlight while we can.”

  From the end of the main street a car came speeding towards them, bearing inside Inspector Jackson, a sergeant and three constables: outside the doors of ‘The Charter’ all that was authoritative in Carrington met all that was enlightened in Amnestie.

  Chapter II

  On the advice of Mr Verity, Paxton and Cunningham were locked up in the dining-room. The two suspects were left sitting at a small table laid for two, with a card reading RESERVED between them and a policeman watching over them. Miss Framer had not yet found her pass-key, and had also begun to cry.

  “We have wasted too much time already,” said Verity. “It is now imperative we gain access to that room.”

  “There’s always the window,” said Jackson, following him upstairs. He was a red-faced man of twenty-nine, nervous and inadequate beside the old man.

  “Once set your men tramping through that window, and all clues will be lost forever.”

  “Well, sir—”

  “There’s only one thing for it. It’s an old lock. We must use Paxton’s gun on it.”

  Before Miss Framer had time to hear about the idea and protest, the lock was shot off and the door itself hurled open. A scene of terrible chaos faced them. The prevailing impression was of blood: blood on the carpet and the rumpled bed, blood on the walls, the curtains and the window-panes. The floor was littered with overturned furniture, clothes, books and papers, a set of golf-clubs, two whisky bottles and a concomitant tooth-mug. Among the debris lay the body, between the door and the great wardrobe which filled the right wall of the room: it was curled over on its face, and still dressed in silk pyjamas—once white, now a streaming scarlet.

  “Don’t move him till the doctor’s seen him,” said the Inspector to his sergeant.

  “That’s in case anyone should feel the need to,” added Verity.

  No one apparently did. With elaborate care the sergeant and two constables skirted the bright, wet bundle and began their more minute observation of the room.

  “There’s been quite a struggle,” said Jackson superfluously. “Quite a struggle.”

  “And I was bounding down the hill singing my head off…”

  “I beg pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing,” said Verity, shrugging his shoulders. He was standing by the window, looking down into the street. “You know, this thing is really beginning to intrigue me. I mean it’s getting really fascinating.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir,” said Jackson stiffly.


  Verity smiled.

  “Well, a locked door I could just about understand:—but a locked window!…”

  “What? It can’t be!”

  “I’m afraid it is—fully locked on the inside.”

  Jackson hurried over. Together they contemplated the bloodstained window in dumbfounded silence. Mr Verity, of course, was right.

  Inspector Jackson

  “When does the doctor arrive?” the old man asked at last.

  “I ’phoned the man here,” said Jackson briskly. “Thought it would be quicker. He’s pretty good.”

  “Well?”

  “He wasn’t in, so I left a message with his housekeeper.”

  “But how long did she say he’d be?”

  “Oh, not long. He’d just gone over to Mrs Treacher. I gather she calls him about three times a week.”

  Jackson smiled for the first time.

  “But I don’t believe he has. No one ever seems to be sick over here in Amnestie. Dr Pelham says it’s the air.”

  “‘Cooks’ should issue posters about it,” said Verity testily. “‘Come to ’Appy Amnestie! WE CURE YOU and KILL YOU!’”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jackson.

  He was down on his hands and knees exploring the carpet, and rather displeased at having permitted himself to play second-fiddle to this blustering old man. It was therefore with obvious pride that he spied the revolver lying in a corner of the room.

  “Be careful with that, Matthews: watch out for fingerprints now!”

  The find was carefully wrapped in a handkerchief by his impassive sergeant.

  Jackson put it to his nose.

  “Recently fired,” he announced. “.45 Service. Two bullets missing.”