The Woman in the Wardrobe Page 5
“No, thank God!”
Mr Verity walked up and down the lounge, puffing expansively. One or two elderly and bewildered guests peered in through the French window: the old man bowed to them affably, and they resumed their shamble round the walled garden. The smell of sea and sunbeams reached him, and faint, scrannel chatter. There was mercifully no sign of Mr Tudor.
“By the way,” he said, “I see we’ve neglected something in the Maxwell papers.”
He flourished them at the Inspector, who still sat frowning at the table.
“What’s that?”
“There’s a Memo here to ‘see Miss F.’ And it’s dated after Maxwell arrived here.”
“Miss F.? I wonder—No, it couldn’t be…”
“Miss Framer?”
“No one could have anything on her.”
His voice was pleading.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I dare say even she sowed a little crop of wild oats once upon a time. It is interesting, too, that she called the meeting of Paxton and Maxwell on the stairs ‘very cordial’. From what we have just seen, I should say that was a deliberate lie.”
“It certainly looks like it.”
“I wonder whether her original ‘mistake’—if any—was perjury…”
Jackson lit a cigarette.
“The deeper we go, the more people seem to be involved,” he said.
“Precisely. The detective’s paradise!”
More guests passed the window.
“We’ll have to question them all,” said Jackson, without enthusiasm.
“All except King Richard. Unless Maxwell was instrumental in getting him locked up at one period in his life…”
“I wouldn’t be surprised at anything now. Shall we have Cunningham in?”
“As you please. I think he will give you a tougher session than Paxton.”
Sergeant Matthews came in to report that the print-men had just arrived.
“Good,” said Jackson, with as much briskness as he could summon. “Have you had lunch?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I want to see Mr Cunningham.”
“He’s waiting outside, sir. And I thought you’d like to know, sir—”
“Yes?”
“When he stood up in the dining-room to come in here, the constable found this under his chair.”
He handed over what was obviously Miss Framer’s pass-key.
“On the floor under his chair? Are you sure?”
“Positive, sir.”
“Right. Get it identified by Miss Framer, and then hand it straight over to the print-men. I’ve got the gun for them, too, once I’ve seen Cunningham. Send him in, will you?”
Cunningham came in slowly, sidling round the door and keeping to the walls as much as possible. He seemed afraid to come out into the open spaces of the room, and when he did approach the table it was in two short, ill-considered rushes. This was the first time that Verity had really looked at him. He was an untidy man, ill-kempt and rather dirty. His face was lean and mottled and wore a sly look. Yet his eyes were quite still—liquid, grey eyes, remote and detached in a cunning face. They seemed quite out of focus, and the effect was unpleasant—as if a really sharp rake-off man had suddenly been struck blind in the middle of a deal. The effort of concentration seemed difficult; the need for it imperative. The conflict showed harshly in this wretched face.
“Good morning,” he said, pulling a struggling moustache. “You wanted to see me?”
His voice, now in repose, was far softer and more querulous than the early morning’s passion had led Mr Verity to believe.
“Yes,” said the Inspector. “I have one or two questions to ask you.”
“I’ll do my best, Inspector. May I sit down?”
“Please do.”
Verity watched in silence.
“You knew Mr Maxwell?” asked Jackson.
“No.”
“Oh… You didn’t know him at all? Never had any business with him?”
“No. None whatever.”
“Yet you were in his room this morning.”
“Who—me?”
“The constable who arrested you watched you climb out of his window. Have you forgotten?”
Cunningham smiled vaguely.
“If I overheard him aright this morning, the constable could not for sure identify which window I came out of. I was actually on the drain-pipe before he saw me. It could equally well have been the window next door.”
“Mr Paxton’s?”
“Yes, Mr Paxton’s.”
He said this with an air of almost childish pride.
“Or even the one on the other side of Maxwell’s?” asked Verity.
“Yes, even that!”
“Because, after all, you did have the pass-key.”
“I?… No! Never!… I never had the pass-key!”
“Never?”
Verity looked shocked, and reaching over the table, revealed the revolver in its handkerchief. Cunningham followed him with his eyes.
“Now you had better be very careful,” the old man said, “that a fourth lie does not reveal the falsity of your other three. Have you ever seen this before?”
“I—”
He fell silent and appeared to be making a great effort at concentration.
“I’m asking you about this gun,” said Verity. “Perhaps I should warn you that it has already been identified by the Manageress as belonging to you.”
“That bitch!” He spat furiously with a sudden return to his manner of the morning. “She would say that! Can’t you see she’s covering up for Paxton?”
“Oh? Why should she do that?”
Verity sat strewing innocence before him with a blandishing hand.
“Why? How the devil should I know why? Anyone can see there’s something between them… Always together whispering… Always together!…”
“Always? I thought you only arrived last night?”
“I… I did.”
Verity rose.
“Mr Cunningham, you are the most wretched liar I have ever met. If I excuse you, it is only because you have too much dope inside you to allow you to be a good one. Once, I imagine, you took smaller doses: at the moment it would not be worth anyone’s while to blackmail you about a feature of your life which is obvious to all. Your eyes betray you. Your hands betray you. Above all, to me, your feeble attempts to defend yourself betray you. If you had only realised what a hopeless, irredeemable dope-addict you look, you would not have gone on paying hush-money for so long. And you certainly would not have resorted to violence.”
Cunningham looked helplessly up at him, as the vast man swung round the room ejaculating finely at the walls. Jackson sat impassively at his table, but listening with great respect.
“What were you,” demanded Verity, “before you started taking the stuff?”
“I worked for a firm of brokers. They fired me.”
“Earlier on you told me four lies. The first was when you denied knowing Maxwell; the second when you denied coming out of his window; the third when you denied having the pass-key; the last when you denied, by implication, owning the gun. The letter I have now, and the finger-prints I shall have presently, will tell me all I need to know. Now, when did you buy this Service revolver?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Come, Mr Cunningham. It has its maker’s name inlaid in the handle. Everyone knows Jessop’s in the Strand—identification is the easiest thing imaginable.”
For a moment Cunningham said nothing. Then:
“Yesterday morning.”
“Good,” said Verity, and sat down again.
Jackson took up the examination.
“What kind of bullets did you buy?”
“I left that to Mr Jessop,” he said cautiously. “I don’t know what he chose.”
“What reason did you give him for wanting the weapon?”
“I said I was going out East.”
“And you neede
d it for personal protection?”
Cunningham looked startled.
“If he had been wise he’d have given you spray-guns,” put in Verity—“both you and Paxton!”
“I have a licence,” said Cunningham doggedly.
“We’ll require to see it in due course. Now about you and Mr Maxwell——”
“Oh, stop playing with me!” the man broke out. “So you have one of his letters. So you can see it all for yourselves—well, what of it? I had good reason to kill Maxwell! So had everyone who knew him. So had Paxton! Even I know that much… So had that waitress…”
“What waitress?” asked Verity with quiet deliberation.
There was a slight pause. Inspector Jackson looked up sharply from his notes.
“The—the girl I saw go into his room last night. The one Miss Framer calls Alice…”
His voice faltered.
“Yes?”
“I heard them quarrelling—she and Maxwell.”
“You heard them last night?”
“Yes. I tell you, everyone who knew him hated him!”
“But not everyone who knew him left their guns in his room.”
“I know—that’s what I was going to tell you. You see, I lost my gun last night. It was taken from my room. I missed it when I went upstairs after supper.”
“What time was that?” asked Jackson.
“Between nine-thirty and ten. I had late supper when I arrived.”
“But how could anybody know you had a gun?”
“Miss Framer knew about it. It fell out of my overcoat pocket last night in the hall. She saw it. I know she did!”
He stared Jackson in the face, almost triumphantly.
“Anybody else?” asked the Inspector.
“She could have told Paxton, couldn’t she?… She probably did!”
“What evidence have you,” asked Jackson judicially, “for saying that Miss Framer knows Mr Paxton as anything more than a guest?”
Cunningham nodded sagely.
“Twice last night I saw them whispering together. Once in the hall, and once in the corridor outside my room. Whispering, I tell you… Not talking like ordinary people.”
“Where is your room?”
“The first floor—on the other side of the hotel. It overlooks the garden.”
“Now about this pass-key. When did you take it?”
The furious again succeeded the confidential in Cunningham’s manner.
“I tell you I didn’t touch it!” he cried, slapping his hand down on the desk. “I’ve never seen your blasted pass-key!”
“It was found under your chair in the dining-room but a minute ago.”
“You’re a liar!”
Jackson said nothing.
“It’s a plant, then! That’s what it is!…” He faced them both wildly. “I never had the key!… If I’d had it—would I hide it there, under my chair? Of all the damn silly places!… I tell you Paxton put it there! He got it from that woman!”
“That’s not true,” said Verity evenly. “If Paxton had the key, he’d have used it. As it was, he entered Maxwell’s room by the window.”
Cunningham gaped. “Oh… yes,” he said. “Yes.”
“Paxton confessed he went to see Maxwell,” said Verity quietly. “Why don’t you do the same? I know you did.”
There was another pause. Finally Cunningham said: “All right. I’ll tell you.” He was looking at Verity with a sort of fear in his eyes. “I did go.”
“I know you did. It’s getting late, and you could have spared us the prelude.”
“But I didn’t have the pass-key, and I didn’t have the gun. I went to reason with him—that’s all.”
“Yes, of course. To reason with him,” Verity repeated, wondering how often he had heard the absurd inaccuracy during all his years of detective work. “What form did the reasoning take?”
“I went into the room. It was in a terrible mess. Everything was lying about the room—covered with blood. It was horrible. Maxwell was lying on the floor. He was dead. I know he was dead because I took a closer look. That’s when I must have got his blood on my coat. I suppose my gun must have been lying near him too—but I didn’t see it. I was panic-stricken—what could I do? I was desperate: no one would believe me if I told them the truth. I can see you don’t now—”
“What happened next?”
“I heard a noise in the corridor. Someone was approaching—if he came in, he’d think I did it! No, there were more than one, several people… at any rate I couldn’t go out that way… And I couldn’t lock the door—”
“You couldn’t?”
“There was no key in it.”
“I see.”
“There was only one thing I could do.”
“The window?”
“Yes. I climbed out onto the balcony.”
“Then down the drain-pipe into the arms of the constable?”
“Yes. That’s the whole story, I swear it.”
“It may,” conceded Verity, “be a fragment of the truth.”
“You’re sure there was no one in the room beside Maxwell?” asked Jackson.
“I don’t know. I was too frightened to notice… There could have been.”
“I see.” The Inspector pursed his lips and frowned. “Is that all you can tell us?”
“Yes, that’s everything!”
“Just being the last person to see a man alive isn’t all that heinous an offence, Mr Cunningham,” said Verity.
“I was frightened…” he mumbled again.
“Then you must learn to cast out fear.”
“I think that’ll be all for the moment,” said Jackson, who was now wanting his lunch badly. “I shall be seeing you again, of course, later on. In the meantime I’m afraid that neither you nor Mr Paxton will be allowed to leave the hotel.”
“No… I understand,” said Cunningham, rising and making for the door. “Of course I understand.”
“Nor Miss Burton, nor Miss Framer,” added Verity when Cunningham had left the room. “In a way, I’m glad I’m not sleeping here.”
Jackson smiled. “All the same, we haven’t done a bad morning’s work, sir.”
“True,” said Verity. “We have met a dope-addict, a crook-solicitor, and the girl with the feeblest imagination in Sussex.”
“I must admit, it’s the tallest story I’ve ever heard.”
“And Mr Richard Tudor. I have the most pleasing feeling that he doesn’t fit into this at all… Oh, by the way, you are coming along to dinner with Dr Pelham tonight?”
“That’s very kind of you, sir.”
“So I must leave you and lay in provisions. We’ll try to sort some of it out tonight.”
Jackson looked surprised, but only said: “Are you staying here for lunch?”
“Oh, dear me, no!” Verity heaved himself to his feet. “A plate of Amnestie shrimps on top of three cigars would probably finish me off. By the way, do you know Detective Inspector Rambler?”
“No, sir, I can’t say I do.”
“He’s a Yard man.”
“Oh, yes?” Inspector Jackson’s manner became a little colder.
“You’ll meet him tonight.”
“Why, is he staying with you?”
“He will be,” said Verity. Then he added, quickly: “There’s no question of credit-stealing here. You, of course, will get it all. But the case offers complications which I do not think you have realised. I shall try to point some of them out tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now Rambler is an old hand—or rather, an old brain—of very great standing. At the moment he’s on holiday, but it might be as well if I put things before him. Tonight is an excellent time—none better. And the sense of being on the inside of things will please Dr Pelham enormously!”
“Yes,” said Inspector Jackson thoughtfully. “If you really think that’s the best course…”
“I do,” said Mr Verity smartly. “Unquestionably the best.”
Chapter V
The arrival of Detective Inspector Rambler that same evening sufficed to dispel all Jackson’s suspicions. Though he would not have admitted it to anyone, he was by no means loth to accept help in a case that was rapidly becoming far too much for him to handle alone.
Rambler was on his vacation at the time: this constituted to him the busman’s holiday dear to experts and connoisseurs. And, as Verity had briefly explained, the Maxwell case was very much a specimen for the connoisseur.
Rambler was a stout man—as stout as Verity himself: a great, sad-faced hulk with a heavy, pink jowl and a cold, fierce brain. He was curiously named: inaccurately, if one considered his tenacious mind which, once it had seized on a thing, never relaxed its hold till it had thoroughly done with it. He was, as Verity observed of him, “a humourless, single-minded porpoise”. Yet anyone who considered his ill-clothed frame, his shirts (always too wide at the neck), and his ties (always too loose at the knot), would agree that the name, with its ability to create a slightly false impression, was still partially appropriate.
He had known Verity well of old, and had solved two of his most formidable cases solely because of the older man’s violent intervention: their association had made both famous, and the talk of the Yard. Verity respected the tamed logic in Rambler; Rambler the explosive vision in Verity. Both shared in common an immense bulk, a healthy appetite for the bizarre, and an absence of friends. Their differences were only such as could not be helped. Verity had a temper and a beard; but Rambler was a professional and could afford neither.
Inspector Rambler
He sat now opposite his host in the long living-room at ‘Persepolis’ eating the excellent dinner prepared by Verity’s housekeeper. As he sat, he swelled gently inside his hacking-jacket, and from time to time fingered his huge, pink jowl. To his right sat Dr Pelham, active and intelligent; and to his left Inspector Jackson, silent—though not peeved—and redder than ever in a smartened uniform.
Night had fallen. The light of a dozen candles fell on the table, and on the faces of the ancient statues grouped around it. Innumerable marble eyes, as shiny and blank as pigeons’ eggs, glared down at them from under the frozen ledges of their brows. Verity as usual was talking. The candlelight stained his wide old face and set his eyes afire.