The Sittaford Mystery

  “Thank you, you are a good chap. It’s not such easy going earning your living by literature, Inspector. You’ll see the answer will be all right. I did tell you a lie about the dinner, but as a matter of fact I had told my wife that that was where I had been, and I thought I might as well stick to the same story to you. Otherwise I would have let myself in for a lot of trouble.”

  “If Mr. Rosenkraun confirms your statement, Mr. Dering, you will have nothing else to fear.”

  “An unpleasant character,” the Inspector thought, as he left the house. “But he seems pretty certain that this American publisher will confirm the truth of his story.”

  A sudden remembrance came to the Inspector, as he hopped into the train which would take him back to Devon.

  “Rycroft,” he said, “of course—that’s the name of the old gentleman who lives in one of the cottages at Sittaford. A curious coincidence.”

  Twenty-five

  AT DELLER’S CAFÉ

  Emily Trefusis and Charles Enderby were seated at a small table in Deller’s Café in Exeter. It was half past three, and at that hour there was comparative peace and quiet. A few people were having a quiet cup of tea, but the restaurant on the whole was deserted.

  “Well,” said Charles, “what do you think of him?”

  Emily frowned.

  “It’s difficult,” she said.

  After his interview with the police, Brian Pearson had lunched with them. He had been extremely polite to Emily, rather too polite in her opinion.

  To that astute girl it seemed a shade unnatural. Here was a young man conducting a clandestine love affair and an officious stranger butts in. Brian Pearson had taken it like a lamb; had fallen in with Charles’s suggestion of having a car and driving over to see the police. Why this attitude of meek acquiescence? It seemed to Emily entirely untypical of the natural Brian Pearson as she read his character.

  “I’ll see you in hell first!” would, she felt sure, have been far more his attitude.

  This lamb-like demeanour was suspicious. She tried to convey something of her feelings to Enderby.

  “I get you,” said Enderby. “Our Brian has got something to conceal, therefore he can’t be his natural high-handed self.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “Do you think he might possibly have killed old Trevelyan?”

  “Brian,” said Emily thoughtfully, “is—well, a person to be reckoned with. He is rather unscrupulous, I should think, and if he wanted anything, I don’t think he would let ordinary conventional standards stand in his way. He’s not plain tame English.”

  “Putting all personal considerations on one side, he’s a more likely starter than Jim?” said Enderby.

  Emily nodded.

  “Much more likely. He would carry a thing through well—because he would never lose his nerve.”

  “Honestly, Emily, do you think he did it?”

  “I—I don’t know. He fulfils the conditions—the only person who does.”

  “What do you mean by fulfils the conditions?”

  “Well, (1) Motive.” She ticked off the items on her fingers. “The same motive. Twenty thousand pounds. (2) Opportunity. Nobody knows where he was on Friday afternoon, and if he was anywhere that he could say—well—surely he would say it? So we assume that he was actually in the neighbourhood of Hazelmoor on Friday.”

  “They haven’t found anyone who saw him in Exhampton,” Charles pointed out, “and he’s a fairly noticeable person.”

  Emily shook her head scornfully.

  “He wasn’t in Exhampton. Don’t you see, Charles, if he committed the murder, he planned it beforehand. It’s only poor innocent Jim who came down like a mug and stayed there. There’s Lydford and Chagford or perhaps Exeter. He might have walked over from Lydford—that’s a main road and the snow wouldn’t have been impassable. It would have been pretty good going.”

  “I suppose we ought to make inquiries all round.”

  “The police are doing that,” said Emily, “and they’ll do it a lot better than we shall. All public things are much better done by the police. It’s private and personal things like listening to Mrs. Curtis and picking up a hint from Miss Percehouse and watching the Willetts—that’s where we score.”

  “Or don’t, as the case may be,” said Charles.

  “To go back to Brian Pearson fulfilling the conditions,” said Emily. “We’ve done two, motive and opportunity, and there’s the third—the one that in a way I think is the most important of all.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, I have felt from the beginning that we couldn’t ignore that queer business of the table-turning. I have tried to look at it as logically and clear-sightedly as possible. There are just three solutions of it. (1) That it was supernatural. Well, of course, that may be so, but personally I am ruling it out. (2) That it was deliberate—someone did it on purpose, but as one can’t arrive at any conceivable reason, we can rule that out also. (3) Accidental. Someone gave himself away without meaning to do so—indeed quite against his will. An unconscious piece of self-revelation. If so, someone among those six people either knew definitely that Captain Trevelyan was going to be killed at a certain time that afternoon, or that someone was having an interview with him from which violence might result. None of those six people could have been the actual murderer, but one of them must have been in collusion with the murderer. There’s no link between Major Burnaby and anybody else, or Mr. Rycroft and anybody else, or Ronald Garfield and anybody else, but when we come to the Willetts it’s different. There’s a link between Violet Willett and Brian Pearson. Those two are on very intimate terms and that girl was all on the jump after the murder.”

  “You think she knew?” said Charles.

  “She or her mother—one or other of them.”

  “There’s one person you haven’t mentioned,” said Charles. “Mr. Duke.”

  “I know,” said Emily. “It’s queer. He’s the one person we know absolutely nothing about. I’ve tried to see him twice and failed. There seems no connection between him and Captain Trevelyan, or between him and any of Captain Trevelyan’s relations, there’s absolutely nothing to connect him with the case in any way, and yet—”

  “Well?” said Charles Enderby as Emily paused.

  “And yet we met Inspector Narracott coming out of his cottage. What does Inspector Narracott know about him that we don’t? I wish I knew.”

  “You think—”

  “Supposing Duke is a suspicious character and the police know it. Supposing Captain Trevelyan had found out something about Duke. He was particular about his tenants, remember, and supposing he was going to tell the police what he knew. And Duke arranges with an accomplice to have him killed. Oh, I know it all sounds dreadfully melodramatic put like that, and yet, after all, something of the kind might be possible.”

  “It’s an idea certainly,” said Charles slowly.

  They were both silent, each one deep in thought.

  Suddenly Emily said:

  “Do you know that queer feeling you get when somebody is looking at you? I feel now as though someone’s eyes were burning the back of my neck. Is it all fancy or is there really someone staring at me now?”

  Charles moved his chair an inch or two and looked round the café in a casual manner.

  “There’s a woman at a table in the window,” he reported. “Tall, dark and handsome. She’s staring at you.”

  “Young?”

  “No, not very young. Hello!”

  “What is it?”

  “Ronnie Garfield. He has just come in and he’s shaking hands with her and he’s sitting down at her table. I think she’s saying something about us.”

  Emily opened her handbag. Rather ostentatiously she powdered her nose, adjusting the small pocket mirror to a convenient angle.

  “It’s Aunt Jennifer,” she said softly. “They are getting up.”

  “They are going,” said Charles. “Do you want to speak to her?”


  “No,” said Emily. “I think it’s better for me to pretend that I haven’t seen her.”

  “After all,” said Charles, “why shouldn’t Aunt Jennifer know Ronnie Garfield and ask him to tea?”

  “Why should she?” said Emily.

  “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Charles, don’t let’s go on and on like this, should—shouldn’t—should—shouldn’t. Of course it’s all nonsense, and it doesn’t mean anything! But we were just saying that nobody else at that séance had any relation with the family, and not five minutes later we see Ronnie Garfield having tea with Captain Trevelyan’s sister.”

  “It shows,” said Charles, “that you never know.”

  “It shows,” said Emily, “that you are always having to begin again.”

  “In more ways than one,” said Charles.

  Emily looked at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing at present,” said Charles.

  He put his hand over hers. She did not draw it away.

  “We’ve got to put this through,” said Charles. “Afterwards—”

  “Afterwards?” said Emily softly.

  “I’d do anything for you, Emily,” said Charles. “Simply anything—”

  “Would you?” said Emily. “That’s rather nice of you, Charles dear.”

  Twenty-six

  ROBERT GARDNER

  It was just twenty minutes later when Emily rang the front door bell of The Laurels. It had been a sudden impulse.

  Aunt Jennifer, she knew, would be still at Deller’s with Ronnie Garfield. She smiled beamingly on Beatrice when the latter opened the door to her.

  “It’s me again,” said Emily. “Mrs. Gardner’s out, I know, but can I see Mr. Gardner?”

  Such a request was clearly unusual. Beatrice seemed doubtful.

  “Well, I don’t know. I’ll go up and see, shall I?”

  “Yes, do,” said Emily.

  Beatrice went upstairs, leaving Emily alone in the hall. She returned in a few minutes to ask the young lady to please step this way.

  Robert Gardner was lying on a couch by the window in a big room on the first floor. He was a big man, blue-eyed and fair-haired. He looked, Emily thought, as Tristan ought to look in the third act of Tristan and Isolde and as no Wagnerian tenor has ever looked yet.

  “Hello,” he said. “You are the criminal’s spouse to be, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, Uncle Robert,” said Emily. “I suppose I do call you Uncle Robert, don’t I?” she asked.

  “If Jennifer will allow it. What’s it like having a young man languishing in prison?”

  A cruel man, Emily decided. A man who would take a malicious joy in giving you sharp digs in painful places. But she was a match for him. She said smilingly:

  “Very thrilling.”

  “Not so thrilling for Master Jim, eh?”

  “Oh, well,” said Emily, “it’s an experience, isn’t it?”

  “Teach him life can’t be all beer and skittles,” said Robert Gardner maliciously. “Too young to fight in the Great War, wasn’t he? Able to live soft and take it easily. Well, well . . . He got it in the neck from another source.”

  He looked at her curiously.

  “What did you want to come and see me for, eh?”

  There was a tinge of something like suspicion in his voice.

  “If you are going to marry into a family it’s just as well to see all your relations-in-law beforehand.”

  “Know the worst before it’s too late. So you really think you are going to marry young Jim, eh?”

  “Why not?”

  “In spite of this murder charge?”

  “In spite of this murder charge.”

  “Well,” said Robert Gardner, “I have never seen anybody less cast down. Anyone would think you were enjoying yourself.”

  “I am. Tracking down a murderer is frightfully thrilling,” said Emily.

  “Eh?”

  “I said tracking down a murderer is frightfully thrilling,” said Emily.

  Robert Gardner stared at her, then he threw himself back on his pillows.

  “I am tired,” he said in a fretful voice. “I can’t talk any more. Nurse, where’s Nurse? Nurse, I’m tired.”

  Nurse Davis had come swiftly at his call from an adjoining room. “Mr. Gardner gets tired very easily. I think you had better go now if you don’t mind, Miss Trefusis.”

  Emily rose to her feet. She nodded brightly and said:

  “Good-bye, Uncle Robert. Perhaps I’ll come back some day.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Au revoir,” said Emily.

  She was going out of the front door when she stopped.

  “Oh!” she said to Beatrice. “I have left my gloves.”

  “I will get them, Miss.”

  “Oh, no,” said Emily. “I’ll do it.” She ran lightly up the stairs and entered without knocking.

  “Oh,” said Emily. “I beg your pardon. I am so sorry. It was my gloves.” She took them up ostentatiously, and smiling sweetly at the two occupants of the room who were sitting hand in hand ran down the stairs and out of the house.

  “This glove leaving is a terrific scheme,” said Emily to herself. “This is the second time it’s come off. Poor Aunt Jennifer, does she know, I wonder? Probably not. I must hurry or I’ll keep Charles waiting.”

  Enderby was waiting in Elmer’s Ford at the agreed rendezvous.

  “Any luck?” he asked as he tucked the rug round her.

  “In a way, yes. I’m not sure.”

  Enderby looked at her inquiringly.

  “No,” said Emily in answer to his glance, “I’m not going to tell you about it. You see, it may have nothing whatever to do with it—and if so, it wouldn’t be fair.”

  Enderby sighed.

  “I call that hard,” he observed.

  “I’m sorry,” said Emily firmly. “But there it is.”

  “Have it your own way,” said Charles coldly.

  They drove on in silence—an offended silence on Charles’s part—an oblivious one on Emily’s.

  They were nearly at Exhampton when she broke the silence by a totally unexpected remark.

  “Charles,” she said, “are you a bridge player?”

  “Yes, I am. Why?”

  “I was thinking. You know what they tell you to do when you’re assessing the value of your hand? If you’re defending—count the winners—but if you’re attacking count the losers. Now, we’re attacking in this business of ours—but perhaps we have been doing it the wrong way.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, we’ve been counting the winners, haven’t we? I mean going over the people who could have killed Captain Trevelyan, however improbable it seems. And that’s perhaps why we’ve got so terribly muddled.”

  “I haven’t got muddled,” said Charles.

  “Well, I have then. I’m so muddled I can’t think at all. Let’s look at it the other way round. Let’s count the losers—the people who can’t possibly have killed Captain Trevelyan.”

  “Well, let’s see—” Enderby reflected. “To begin with there’s the Willetts and Burnaby and Rycroft and Ronnie—Oh! and Duke.”

  “Yes,” agreed Emily. “We know none of them can have killed him. Because at the time he was killed they were all at Sittaford House and they all saw each other and they can’t all be lying. Yes, they’re all out of it.”

  “As a matter of fact everyone in Sittaford is out of it,” said Enderby. “Even Elmer,” he lowered his voice in deference to the possibility of the driver hearing him. “Because the road to Sittaford was impassable for cars on Friday.”

  “He could have walked,” said Emily in an equally low voice. “If Major Burnaby could have got there that evening Elmer could have started at lunchtime—got to Exhampton at five, murdered him, and walked back again.”

  Enderby shook his head.

  “I don’t think he could h
ave walked back again. Remember the snow started to fall about half past six. Anyway, you’re not accusing Elmer, are you?”

  “No,” said Emily, “though, of course, he might be a homicidal maniac.”

  “Hush,” said Charles. “You’ll hurt his feelings if he hears you.”

  “At any rate,” said Emily, “you can’t say definitely that he couldn’t have murdered Captain Trevelyan.”

  “Almost,” said Charles. “He couldn’t walk to Exhampton and back without all Sittaford knowing about it and saying it was queer.”

  “It certainly is a place where everyone knows everything,” agreed Emily.

  “Exactly,” said Charles, “and that’s why I say that everyone in Sittaford is out of it. The only ones that weren’t at the Willetts—Miss Percehouse and Captain Wyatt are invalids. They couldn’t go ploughing through snowstorms. And dear old Curtis and Mrs. C. If any of them did it, they must have gone comfortably to Exhampton for the weekend and come back when it was all over.”

  Emily laughed.

  “You couldn’t be absent from Sittaford for the weekend without its being noticed, certainly,” she said.

  “Curtis would notice the silence if Mrs. C was,” said Enderby.

  “Of course,” said Emily, “the person it ought to be is Abdul. It would be in a book. He’d be a Lascar really, and Captain Trevelyan would have thrown his favourite brother overboard in a mutiny—something like that.”

  “I decline to believe,” said Charles, “that that wretched depressed-looking native ever murdered anybody.

  “I know,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” said Emily eagerly.

  “The blacksmith’s wife. The one who’s expecting her eighth. The intrepid woman despite her condition walked all the way to Exhampton and batted him one with the sandbag.”

  “And why, pray?”

  “Because, of course, although the blacksmith was the father of the preceding seven, Captain Trevelyan was the father of her coming che-ild.”

  “Charles,” said Emily. “Don’t be indelicate.