The Woman in the Wardrobe Page 4

  “While I seem to be amusing Mr Verity,” she said, “I am still very busy. If you have finished with me, there are a great many things that need my attention.”

  Jackson nodded.

  “Yes, thank you: that’ll be all for the moment. I’ll send for you should I want you again. Oh—and no one is to leave here,—not even long-term residents.”

  “Very good.”

  “And I know we can rely on your co-operation, Miss Framer.”

  She looked surprised, but only rose and walked quickly out of the room.

  Matthews came in almost immediately, carrying a sheaf of papers in his hand, which he laid before Jackson.

  “These were in his desk, sir. Right at the back.”

  Verity rose, extended his eye-glass (“I always need it for handwriting”) and looked over the first of the pile.

  ‘My dear Paxton’, it read, ‘this is the last time you’ll be hearing from me for at least a month, so why not celebrate my going away? Shall we say £200? Same arrangements. M.’

  “I think,” said Mr Verity slowly, “that we shall need everybody’s finger-prints. The tea-cups are easiest. Tell Locksley to start with Miss Burton down in the kitchen. Prevent her from washing up.”

  “Look here, sir, is that quite the thing?” Jackson was clearly shocked.

  “No,” said Verity smilingly. “It isn’t. But when you have an imitation waitress telling an absurd story about masked men—a story that could have come straight from the pages of a novelette—well, it’s best to check up. Insults to one’s intelligence aren’t the thing, either.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “In any case, my real object here is Paxton. The fact that he didn’t fire his own gun makes it all the more possible that he did fire Cunningham’s.

  “It’s as I said: your finger-print men are going to be kept very, very busy.”

  Chapter III

  Dr Pelham was a short, wry, fastidious person; he wore a pince-nez, and showed the gold in his teeth whenever he laughed at his own jokes, which was often. He stood now in the sunny garden of the hotel, talking excitedly to Verity and Jackson, the while he explored a hunch-backed apple-tree with a stick for any fruit that might have ripened early.

  “Oh yes, I’ve seen him,” he was saying. “He’ll have to be moved, of course. I can’t examine him properly up there. I should say he died between 6.30 and 8.30. Obviously shot in the back. Just what happened there I don’t know. He got two bullets in him.”

  “Yes,” said Jackson. “There are two missing from the revolver.”

  “But whether one or both killed him—for what it’s worth—I can’t say at the moment.”

  “Did you know him yourself, Doctor?” asked Verity.

  “Oh, indeed, yes. If ever a man deserved a couple of bullets, he did.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, just squab and beastly.”

  “Squab?”

  “Sweating with money, too.” Dr Pelham spat out his bite of green apple. “And sly. The kind of man who’d make life a Puritan hell for his children and spend his mornings tickling the secretary. By the way, did he have any children?”

  “The police are finding out everything they can,” said Jackson. “No family has been traced, as yet”—(it was now noon)—“and there are no family letters among his papers.”

  “Ah! His papers!” The doctor put his head on one side and looked at the Inspector wistfully. “How I’d like to settle down with those for a cosy evening’s reading! I do envy you detectives—especially you private ones.”

  “I am sensible of it,” said Verity, lighting one of his little cigars. “I started life with a very genuine zeal for the public good. It was my highest ideal to give devoted service in some work of reform. I had, in fact, a positive lust for amelioration. Yet it was only when I had discovered how to make my improving society dependent on a much deeper desire to wash its dirty linen in private, that I became a detective. After that, I was a much more likeable person. How did you know Mr Maxwell, Doctor?”

  “I met him several times in the streets. Mostly at night.”

  “Ah yes, he always walked at night, did he not?”

  “Either walked or was driven.”

  “Driven?”

  “Yes, the taxi-driver here, a very decent young man, used to drive him around in the small hours. He suffered terribly from insomnia: so do I—though I fancy mine is not provoked by the same sort of guilty conscience. We often met. He maintained that driving round aimlessly at night was good for him. It was his money of course.”

  “Technically,” said Verity. “Well, Doctor, we’ll see you later. What about dinner tonight? Come over at 8.30.”

  “I’ll be glad to,” said the little man, shouldering his walking-stick. “It’s very good of you, to be sure. In the meantime I’ll be taking a closer look at our friend.”

  Verity and Jackson stepped back through the French window into the lounge.

  “An admirable man,” said Verity. “It’s a pleasure to work with a man who’s on the same side as I am.”

  “And which side is that?” asked Jackson wearily.

  “The murderer’s. Dr Pelham has already confirmed me in my instinctive detestation of Mr Maxwell… However—to work! We must still catch our man while the trail is hot. Each man hangs the thing he loves!”

  Jackson stared at him heavily.

  “Shall we go through the papers now?” he asked.

  “Excellent idea, Jackson. Most of them seem irrelevant, but we’ll examine the lot, just in case. Give me half, and we should be finished in thirty minutes. Where, by the way, are our two prize suspects?”

  “Still in the dining-room, where I put them.”

  “Good. I suggest you see them presently.”

  As the doctor had predicted, the papers of the late Mr Maxwell made fascinating reading. They were mostly in the same vein as his note to Paxton, and among them Jackson discovered a draft letter to Cunningham. Apart from these, there were accounts of sums received from his victims, some of them neatly pencilled on the backs of despairing letters from men and women who could pay no longer—or who said they couldn’t. Among these letters addressed to Maxwell was one which caught the eye of Verity and kindled in it the light of battle.

  “Listen to this!” he shouted, screwing in his eye-glass with a gesture. “‘Maxwell: Alice has told me everything. This is the end of the line for you. Just you try to see her once more and see what you get. Just once more, Maxwell, and you’re a goner.’ It’s signed ‘Winnidge’.”

  “Is it dated?”

  “The postmark’s indistinct. It looks like sometime last month.”

  “Where was it posted?”

  “Here—in Amnestie.”

  “Winnidge, you say?”

  “Yes, do you know him?”

  “No, but it looks as if we have another good suspect.”

  “The more the merrier! When the number of suspects is continually increasing, and the number of corpses remains constant, you get a sort of inflation. The value of your individual suspect, of course, becomes hopelessly depreciated. That, for your real detective, is a state of paradise.”

  “Shall we have one of them in?” Jackson asked quietly.

  “Of course! At once!”

  The Inspector opened the door and spoke to Locksley.

  “Send Mr Paxton in, and relieve Matthews upstairs. Tell him to get some lunch. And let me know the moment the print-men arrive.”

  Paxton came into the lounge. He had pulled himself together somewhat since Mr Verity had pulled him upstairs four hours before.

  “Sit down, please,” said Jackson. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

  Mr Paxton sat down, glaring through his great spectacles.

  “Let me see, it was you who gave the alarm, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell me, in your own words, what happened?”

  Paxton shifted nervously in his seat and then, with
extreme reluctance, began.

  “It was like this. I went to see Maxwell in his room.”

  “What time was this?”

  “About ten to eight.”

  “How did you get in?” asked Verity.

  “Through the window.”

  “The window?”

  “Yes. I—I didn’t want to be seen entering.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Well, you see—I did not want anyone to know I knew him… That is—” He stopped aghast. “I’m afraid I’m expressing myself badly. What I mean is, people might have wondered what I was doing—”

  “Indeed they might,” assented Verity.

  “You were armed, of course?” asked Jackson.

  “Yes.”

  Verity smiled.

  “I’m afraid we have your gun. We’ll return it to you, of course—after the arrest. Was it new?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you buy it?”

  “At Jessop’s in the Strand. I said I wanted it for personal protection…”

  “I see. That explains why you got an Army Service revolver. Curious this fondness for .45’s. One would almost think some kind of league had been formed to kill this man.”

  “That isn’t funny to me!”

  A flash of anger showed in Paxton’s eyes. Then suddenly he began moaning again, as he had done at the bottom of the stairs. Once again, too, the resemblance to a smashed puppet reappeared.

  “I swear I didn’t do it!…” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “Appearances are against me… So? What does that matter? I didn’t do it… They know I didn’t…”

  “How many bullets did you buy with it?” asked Verity firmly.

  “Six… Oh, I know you think I did it. I don’t care! I meant to do it. I bought the gun to do it! I’m sorry I didn’t. I tell you, I’m sorry I didn’t!”

  “You mean you found yourself forestalled?”

  “Of course I did! Someone had been there before me. That’s why I called for help.” He turned to Verity. “You know I did that.”

  “Louis Tissier, railway-worker of Lyons, smashed his wife’s head with a fish-plate, then informed his neighbours, sent for the police, and phoned his mother-in-law.”

  “No one has levelled any accusations yet,” said Jackson imperturbably. “What we want is the truth.”

  “And I’m giving it to you! I went there to talk to him—to reason with him!…”

  “And if he wouldn’t listen?”

  Jackson waited about ten seconds for the expected answer.

  “To kill him. You see… I could stand it no longer. Listen! It happened years ago, when I first started practising law.”

  “You are a solicitor?”

  “I qualified in 1924. I worked in London—did quite well, too… I didn’t really need the money.”

  “What was it you did?”

  There was an even longer pause before, staring hard at the carpet, Mr Paxton confessed in a whisper:

  “I cooked an alibi… for a friend. A lady. It was a dreadful thing to do, of course—but I felt sorry for her. She was very helpless…”

  “And evidence of this got into Maxwell’s hands?”

  “I must have been mad…”

  “And then?”

  “For years he used it against me. In the end my nerves got so bad—I had to give up practice.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Oh, this and that. What I could… this and that… Oh, God, I hated him!…” The tears began rolling down his face. “There was no reason… he didn’t know me—it didn’t matter to him. There was no reason, don’t you see? But he was like that!…”

  Jackson averted his gaze.

  “And he still went on even after you had given up practice?”

  “He smashed my whole life. It took him just over two years. I would have killed him a hundred times over!… I would… but I didn’t!… I swear I didn’t!”

  He began sobbing helplessly, looking so much like a broken doll expressing resentment at its relegation to the playbox, that Jackson rose and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “That’ll do for the moment, Mr Paxton. Go and get some food. I’ll see you a little later.”

  He smiled encouragingly as he helped him up.

  As the little man turned to go, Mr Verity leaned forward in his chair.

  “Just one thing, Mr Paxton. Did you lock the window when you went into Maxwell’s room?”

  Paxton shook his head firmly in the negative, and groped his way out still weeping to himself.

  “God, this Maxwell was a swine!” said Jackson after a pause.

  “It’s as I said before,” observed Verity. “It’s hardly a pleasure being on the side of the Law.”

  A tall, proud man, with raven locks flowing over his high, white forehead, stood surveying them at the French window. He was dressed in a long, dark suit, and a shirt whose frayed collar and cuffs encased a prickly neck and a pair of heavy wrists.

  Richard Tudor

  “Pleasure?” he boomed at them. “Pleasure? It’s a duty! Provided it is the Law!”

  “Who are you?” asked Verity, surprised.

  “My name is Richard Tudor. If the Law held any sway in England, I should be her rightful king.”

  “Come in,” said Verity, smiling politely. “Take a seat.”

  “I am accustomed to people remaining seated when I come into a room,” said the tall man loftily. “I suppose it is only to be expected.”

  “We are very busy, sir, if you don’t mind,” said Jackson firmly.

  “I am used to that kind of talk, too, young man. But what else is to be expected from a People which has for generations paid public allegiance to usurpers?”

  “A readiness to be imposed upon, I should imagine,” said Verity, lighting another cigar. “From whom do you claim descent?”

  “From His Majesty King Edward the Sixth, son of King Henry the Eighth!”

  “Under your correction, Mr Tudor, I have always thought that His Majesty King Edward the Sixth died at the age of fifteen—unmarried. The Virgin King, in fact.”

  “False! Quite false!” Mr Tudor came much nearer and laid a hand on his arm with sinister emphasis. “You must understand,” he said, “that my noble ancestor knew the tremors of love!”

  “At fifteen?”

  “No, at fourteen. He was, of course, precocious—like all his family. The trouble was that the girl of his choice was a Catholic.”

  “I always believed that Edward—your noble ancestor—was a devoted patron of the English Reformation.”

  “That is true, of course—before his marriage. But” (he nodded intimately, and drew even nearer) “there are some things even more persuasive to a young boy than religion.” Mr Verity looked surprised. “However, there was one person who could not afford to have this known—one person whose position as real ruler of England depended absolutely on the Protestant faction. That man was the Duke of Northumberland—the man who murdered Edward.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, I can prove it!”

  “The power behind the throne killed the man on the throne? Curious! But tell me,” asked Verity, dabbing at his ear, “who was this girl you speak of?”

  “Her name was Katerina. She came with an embassy from the Court of Spain. She was, in fact, a distant relation of Philip the Second.” He preened himself and took a few steps back, the better to narrate his story. “Yes, her secret marriage to Edward was to become a favourite topic of conversation between Philip and Mary later on. I have documents to prove this.”

  “He married at fourteen?”

  “In the greatest of secrecy, of course—surrounded by only a few trusted Lords.”

  “But surely the King of England wouldn’t marry in this manner? Why didn’t he come straight out and dare Northumberland to do his worst?”

  “What could a boy of fourteen do against a man like the Duke?” (Inspector Jackson indicated with a gesture of impatience that he real
ly couldn’t think.) “After all, he did manage to get his young wife and her baby smuggled out of the palace, disguised as the last two stragglers from a popular uprising which had recently been repulsed. I have documents to prove this.”

  “Nevertheless,” Verity purred, “as I remember it, Edward continued to champion the Reformation till the day of his death.”

  Tudor bridled.

  “I have documents to prove this was all a pretence. In private he abjured this new-fangled faith and adhered to the creed of his fathers—I mean of his father.”

  “May I ask, in light of this complication, what faith you yourself profess?”

  “I am an Henrican Catholic,” said Mr Tudor loftily.

  “That must be difficult for you.”

  Jackson shifted in his chair. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me now. I happen to be very busy.”

  “I, too, regrettably enough,” said Verity, rising. “But do tell me the rest of the story sometime.”

  “I shall be happy to give you audience,” he said, bright-eyed. “Make no mistake, gentlemen. I am Richard the Fourth, King of England—and I have documents to prove it.” Then, in a calmer voice, he added: “Continue your work.”

  He bowed stiffly, turned and strode into the garden.

  “Extraordinary,” said Verity, thoughtfully.

  “Yes!” said Jackson. He was plainly annoyed. “Dr Pelham would doubtless put it down to the air.”

  Chapter IV

  “Did you notice the dark stain on Paxton’s suit?” asked Jackson when they had recovered themselves.

  “Yes. I saw it earlier on. There is also one on Cunningham’s coat, and another on the carpet in the vestibule, at the foot of the stairs.”

  “Yes, I’d been wondering about that.”

  “Well, the one on the floor doesn’t tally with the others, at any rate. The stain on Paxton’s coat was new when I saw it. That on the floor was already quite old when he flopped down on it. But I’m pretty sure it’s blood in all three cases—and blood from the same body.”

  “Yes. This gets more difficult every minute.”

  “You’re right, my boy, it does. Of course, I may be wrong about the same body: there is always the possibility that the number of corpses is as unstable as the number of suspects. Have you heard of any notabilities disappearing from Amnestie?”