‘With any particular purpose in mind, sir?’
‘No – except that I wasn’t keen on rejoining the party. I wanted to be quiet.’ He paused; the Superintendent said nothing. ‘Then I went into the tapestry room. The light was out. I switched it on and saw – Miss Grayle. She was lying close against the radiator. I thought she had fainted. I went over to her and found she was – dead. I only waited long enough to be sure, and then I went into the ballroom and gave the alarm.’
‘Thank you, sir. Now, may I ask, what were your relations with Miss Grayle?’
‘I – I admired her very much.’
‘Engaged to her, sir?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘No quarrel – misunderstanding – anything of that sort?’
‘Oh, no!’
Superintendent Johnson looked at him again, and again said nothing, but his experienced mind informed him:
‘He’s lying.’
Aloud he only thanked and dismissed Tony. The White King stumbled drearily out, and the Red King took his place.
‘Miss Grayle,’ said Frank Bellingham, ‘is a friend of my wife and myself; she was staying at our house. Mr Lee is also our guest. We all came in one party. I believe there was some kind of understanding between Miss Grayle and Mr Lee – no actual engagement. She was a very bright, lively, popular girl. I have known her for about six years, and my wife has known her since our marriage. I know of no one who could have borne a grudge against Miss Grayle. I danced with her the last dance but two – it was a waltz. After that came a fox-trot and then Sir Roger. She left me at the end of the waltz; I think she said she was going upstairs to tidy. I think she went out by the door at the upper end of the ballroom. I never saw her again. The ladies’ dressing-room is on the second floor, next door to the picture-gallery. You reach it by the staircase that goes up from the garden-passage. You have to pass the door of the tapestry room to get there. The only other way to the dressing-room is by the stair at the east end of the ballroom, which goes up to the picture-gallery. You would then have to pass through the picture-gallery to get to the dressing-room. I know the house well; my wife and I have often stayed here.’
Next came Lady Hermione, whose evidence, delivered at great length, amounted to this:
‘Charmian Grayle was a minx and no loss to anybody. I am not surprised that someone has strangled her. Women like that ought to be strangled. I would cheerfully have strangled her myself. She has been making Tony Lee’s life a burden to him for the last six weeks. I saw her flirting with Mr Vibart tonight on purpose to make Mr Lee jealous. She made eyes at Mr Bellingham and Mr Playfair. She made eyes at everybody. I should think at least half a dozen people had very good reason to wish her dead.’
Mr Vibart, who arrived dressed in a gaudy Polo costume, and still ludicrously clutching a hobby-horse, said that he had danced several times that evening with Miss Grayle. She was a damn sportin’ girl, rattlin’ good fun. Well, a bit hot, perhaps, but, dash it all, the poor kid was dead. He might have kissed her once or twice, perhaps, but no harm in that. Well, perhaps poor old Lee did take it a bit hard. Miss Grayle liked pulling Tony’s leg. He himself had liked Miss Grayle and was dashed cut-up about the whole beastly business.
Mrs Bellingham confirmed her husband’s evidence. Miss Grayle had been their guest, and they were all on the very best of terms. She felt sure that Mr Lee and Miss Grayle had been very fond of one another. She had not seen Miss Grayle during the last three dances, but had attached no importance to that. If she had thought about it at all, she would have supposed Miss Grayle was sitting out with somebody. She herself had not been up to the dressing-room since about midnight, and had not seen Miss Grayle go upstairs. She had first missed Miss Grayle when they all stood up for Sir Roger.
Mrs Wrayburn mentioned that she had seen Miss Carstairs in the ballroom looking for Mr Lee, just as Sir Charles Deverill went down to speak to the band. Miss Carstairs had then mentioned that Mr Playfair was in the north corridor, waiting for Miss Grayle. She could say for certain that the time was then 1.28. She had seen Mr Playfair himself at 1.30. He had looked in from the corridor and gone out again. The whole party had then been standing up together, except Miss Grayle, Miss Carstairs, Mr Lee and Mr Playfair. She knew that, because Sir Charles had counted the couples.
Then came Jim Playfair, with a most valuable piece of evidence.
‘Miss Grayle was engaged to me for Sir Roger de Coverley. I went to wait for her in the north corridor as soon as the previous dance was over. That was at 1.25. I sat on the settee in the eastern half of the corridor. I saw Sir Charles go down to speak to the band. Almost immediately afterwards, I saw Miss Grayle come out of the passage under the musicians’ gallery and go up the stairs at the end of the corridor. I called out: “Hurry up! they’re just going to begin.” I do not think she heard me; she did not reply. I am quite sure I saw her. The staircase has open banisters. There is no light in that corner except from the swinging lantern in the corridor, but that is very powerful. I could not be mistaken in the costume. I waited for Miss Grayle till the dance was half over; then I gave it up and joined forces with Miss Carstairs, who had also mislaid her partner.’
The maid in attendance on the dressing-room was next examined. She and the gardener were the only two servants who had not danced Sir Roger. She had not quitted the dressing-room at any time since supper, except that she might have gone as far as the door. Miss Grayle had certainly not entered the dressing-room during the last hour of the dance.
The Vicar, much worried and distressed, said that his party had arrived by the garden door at 1.40. He had noticed a man in a white costume smoking a cigarette in the garden. The waits had removed their outer clothing in the garden passage and then gone out to take up their position in the north corridor. Nobody had passed them till Mr Lee had come in with his sad news.
Mr Ephraim Dodd, the sexton, made an important addition to this evidence. This aged gentleman was, as he confessed, no singer, but was accustomed to go round with the waits to carry the lantern and collecting-box. He had taken a seat in the garden passage ‘to rest me pore feet.’ He had seen the gentleman come in from the garden ‘all in white with a crown on ’is ’ead.’ The choir were then singing ‘Bring me flesh and bring me wine.’ The gentleman had looked about a bit, ‘made a face, like,’ and gone into the room at the foot of the stairs. He hadn’t been absent ‘more nor a minute,’ when he ‘come out faster than he gone in,’ and had rushed immediately into the ballroom.
In addition to all this, there was, of course, the evidence of Dr Pattison. He was a guest at the dance, and had hastened to view the body of Miss Grayle as soon as the alarm was given. He was of opinion that she had been brutally strangled by someone standing in front of her. She was a tall, strong girl, and he thought it would have needed a man’s strength to overpower her. When he saw her at five minutes past two he concluded that she must have been killed within the last hour, but not within the last five minutes or so. The body was still quite warm, but, since it had fallen close to the hot radiator, they could not rely very much upon that indication.
Superintendent Johnson rubbed a thoughtful ear and turned to Lord Peter Wimsey, who had been able to confirm much of the previous evidence and, in particular, the exact times at which various incidents had occurred. The Superintendent knew Wimsey well, and made no bones about taking him into his confidence.
‘You see how it stands, my lord. If the poor young lady was killed when Dr Pattison says, it narrows it down a good bit. She was last seen dancing with Mr Bellingham at – call it 1.20. At 2 o’clock she was dead. That gives us forty minutes. But if we’re to believe Mr Playfair, it narrows it down still further. He says he saw her alive just after Sir Charles went down to speak to the band, which you put at 1.28. That means that there’s only five people who could possibly have done it, because all the rest were in the ballroom after that, dancing Sir Roger. There’s the maid in the dressing-room; between you and me, sir, I think
we can leave her out. She’s a little slip of a thing, and it’s not clear what motive she could have had. Besides, I’ve known her from a child, and she isn’t the sort to do it. Then there’s the gardener; I haven’t seen him yet, but there again, he’s a man I know well, and I’d as soon suspect myself. Well now, there’s this Mr Tony Lee, Miss Carstairs, and Mr Playfair himself. The girl’s the least probable, for physical reasons, and besides, strangling isn’t a woman’s crime – not as a rule. But Mr Lee – that’s a queer story, if you like. What was he doing all that time out in the garden by himself?’
‘It sounds to me,’ said Wimsey, ‘as if Miss Grayle had given him the push and he had gone into the garden to eat worms.’
‘Exactly, my lord; and that’s where his motive might come in.’
‘So it might,’ said Wimsey, ‘but look here. There’s a couple of inches of snow on the ground. If you can confirm the time at which he went out, you ought to be able to see, from his tracks, whether he came in again before Ephraim Dodd saw him. Also, where he went in the interval and whether he was alone.’
‘That’s a good idea, my lord. I’ll send my sergeant to make inquiries.’
‘Then there’s Mr Bellingham. Suppose he killed her after the end of his waltz with her. Did anyone see him in the interval between that and the fox-trot?’
‘Quite, my lord. I’ve thought of that. But you see where that leads. It means that Mr Playfair must have been in a conspiracy with him to do it. And from all we hear, that doesn’t seem likely.’
‘No more it does. In fact, I happen to know that Mr Bellingham and Mr Playfair were not on the best of terms. You can wash that out.’
‘I think so, my lord. And that brings us to Mr Playfair. It’s him we’re relying on for the time. We haven’t found anyone who saw Miss Grayle during the dance before his – that was the foxtrot. What was to prevent him doing it then? Wait a bit. What does he say himself? Says he danced the fox-trot with the Duchess of Denver.’ The Superintendent’s face fell, and he hunted through his notes again. ‘She confirms that. Says she was with him during the interval and danced the whole dance with him. Well, my lord, I suppose we can take Her Grace’s word for it.’
‘I think you can,’ said Wimsey, smiling. ‘I’ve known my mother practically since my birth, and have always found her very reliable.’
‘Yes, my lord. Well, that brings us to the end of the fox-trot. After that, Miss Carstairs saw Mr Playfair waiting in the north corridor. She says she noticed him several times during the interval and spoke to him. And Mrs Wrayburn saw him there at 1.30 or thereabouts. Then at 1.45 he and Miss Carstairs came and joined the company. Now, is there anyone who can check all these points? That’s the next thing we’ve got to see to.’
Within a very few minutes, abundant confirmation was forthcoming. Mervyn Bunter, Lord Peter’s personal man, said that he had been helping to take refreshments along to the buffet. Throughout the interval between the waltz and the fox-trot, Mr Lee had been standing by the service door beneath the musicians’ stair, and half-way through the fox-trot he had been seen to go out into the garden by way of the servants’ hall. The police-sergeant had examined the tracks in the snow and found that Mr Lee had not been joined by any other person, and that there was only the one set of his footprints, leaving the house by the servants’ hall and returning by the garden door near the tapestry room. Several persons were also found who had seen Mr Bellingham in the interval between the waltz and the fox-trot, and who were able to say that he had danced the fox-trot through with Mrs Bellingham, Joan Carstairs had also been seen continuously throughout the waltz and the fox-trot, and during the following interval and the beginning of Sir Roger. Moreover, the servants who had danced at the lower end of the room were positive that from 1.29 to 1.45 Mr Playfair had sat continuously on the settee in the north corridor, except for the few seconds during which he had glanced into the ballroom. They were also certain that during that time no one had gone up the staircase at the lower end of the corridor, while Mr Dodd was equally positive that, after 1.40, nobody except Mr Lee had entered the garden passage or the tapestry room.
Finally, the circle was closed by William Hoggarty, the gardener. He asserted with the most obvious sincerity that from 1.30 to 1.40 he had been stationed in the garden passage to receive the waits and marshal them to their places. During that time, no one had come down the stair from the picture-gallery or entered the Tapestry Room. From 1.40 onwards, he had sat beside Mr Dodd in the passage and nobody had passed him except Mr Lee.
These points being settled, there was no further reason to doubt Jim Playfair’s evidence, since his partners were able to prove his whereabouts during the waltz, the fox-trot and the intervening interval. At 1.28 or just after, he had seen Charmian Grayle alive. At 2.00 she had been found dead in the tapestry room. During that interval, no one had been seen to enter the room, and every person had been accounted for.
At 6 o’clock, the exhausted guests had been allowed to go to their rooms, accommodation being provided in the house for those who, like the Bellinghams, had come from a distance, since the Superintendent had announced his intention of interrogating them all afresh later in the day.
This new inquiry produced no result. Lord Peter Wimsey did not take part in it. He and Bunter (who was an expert photographer) occupied themselves in photographing the ballroom and adjacent rooms and corridors from every imaginable point of view, for, as Lord Peter said, ‘You never know what may turn out to be relevant.’ Late in the afternoon they retired together to the cellar, where with dishes, chemicals and safe-light hastily procured from the local chemist, they proceeded to develop the plates.
‘That’s the lot, my lord,’ observed Bunter at length, sloshing the final plate in the water and tipping it into the hypo. ‘You can switch the light on now, my lord.’
Wimsey did so, blinking in the sudden white glare.
‘A very hefty bit of work,’ said he. ‘Hullo! What’s that plateful of blood you’ve got there?’
‘That’s the red backing they put on these plates, my lord, to obviate halation. You may have observed me washing it off before inserting the plate in the developing-dish. Halation, my lord, is a phenomenon—’
Wimsey was not attending.
‘But why didn’t I notice it before?’ he demanded. ‘That stuff looked to me exactly like clear water.’
‘So it would, my lord, in the red safe-light. The appearance of whiteness is produced,’ added Bunter sententiously, ‘by the reflection of all the available light. When all the available light is red, red and white are, naturally, indistinguishable. Similarly, in a green light—’
‘Good God!’ said Wimsey. ‘Wait a moment, Bunter, I must think this out. . . . Here! damn those plates – let them be. I want you upstairs.’
He led the way at a canter to the ballroom, dark now, with the windows in the south corridor already curtained and only the dimness of the December evening filtering through the high windows of the clerestory above the arcading. He first turned on the three great chandeliers in the ballroom itself. Owing to the heavy oak panelling that rose to the roof at both ends and all four angles of the room, these threw no light at all upon the staircase at the lower end of the north corridor. Next, he turned on the light in the four-sided hanging lantern, which hung in the north corridor above and between the two settees. A vivid shaft of green light immediately flooded the lower half of the corridor and the staircase; the upper half was bathed in strong amber, while the remaining sides of the lantern showed red towards the ballroom and blue towards the corridor wall.
Wimsey shook his head.
‘Not much room for error there. Unless – I know! Run, Bunter, and ask Miss Carstairs and Mr Playfair to come here a moment.’
While Bunter was gone, Wimsey borrowed a step-ladder from the kitchen and carefully examined the fixing of the lantern. It was a temporary affair, the lantern being supported by a hook screwed into a beam and lit by means of a flex run from the socket
of a permanent fixture at a little distance.
‘Now, you two,’ said Wimsey, when the two guests arrived, ‘I want to make a little experiment. Will you sit down on this settee, Playfair, as you did last night. And you, Miss Carstairs – I picked you out to help because you’re wearing a white dress. Will you go up the stairs at the end of the corridor as Miss Grayle did last night. I want to know whether it looks the same to Playfair as it did then – bar all the other people, of course.’
He watched them as they carried out this manoeuvre. Jim Playfair looked puzzled.
‘It doesn’t seem quite the same, somehow. I don’t know what the difference is, but there is a difference.’
Joan, returning, agreed with him.
‘I was sitting on that other settee part of the time,’ she said, ‘and it looks different to me. I think it’s darker.’
‘Lighter,’ said Jim.
‘Good!’ said Wimsey. ‘That’s what I wanted you to say. Now, Bunter, swing that lantern through a quarter-turn to the left.’
The moment this was done, Joan gave a little cry.
‘That’s it! That’s it! The blue light! I remember thinking how frosty-faced those poor waits looked as they came in.’
‘And you, Playfair?’
‘That’s right,’ said Jim, satisfied. ‘The light was red last night. I remember thinking how warm and cosy it looked.’
Wimsey laughed.
‘We’re on to it, Bunter. What’s the chessboard rule? The Queen stands on a square of her own colour. Find the maid who looked after the dressing-room, and ask her whether Mrs Bellingham was there last night between the fox-trot and Sir Roger.’
In five minutes Bunter was back with his report.
‘The maid says, my lord, that Mrs Bellingham did not come into the dressing-room at that time. But she saw her come out of the picture-gallery and run downstairs towards the tapestry room just as the band struck up Sir Roger.’