The Sittaford Mystery

  She looked round the room and shook her head. There was nothing here.

  She went up the stairs again and once more entered the bedroom.

  She must know why these boots were missing! Until she could concoct some theory reasonably satisfactory to herself which would account for their disappearance, she felt powerless to put them out of her mind. They were soaring to ridiculous proportions, dwarfing everything else to do with the case. Was there nothing to help her?

  She took each drawer out and felt behind it. In detective stories there was always an obliging scrap of paper. But evidently in real life one could not expect such fortunate accidents, or else Inspector Narracott and his men had been wonderfully thorough. She felt for loose boards, she felt round the edge of the carpet with her fingers. She investigated the spring mattress. What she expected to find in all these places she hardly knew, but she went on looking with dogged perseverance.

  And then, as she straightened her back and stood upright, her eye was caught by the one incongruous touch in this room of apple-pie order, a little pile of soot in the grate.

  Emily looked at it with the fascinated gaze of a bird for a snake. She drew nearer, eyeing it. It was no logical deduction, no reasoning of cause and effect, it was simply that the sight of soot as such suggested a certain possibility. Emily rolled up her sleeves and thrust both arms up the chimney.

  A moment later she was staring with incredulous delight at a parcel wrapped neatly in newspaper. One shake detached the newspaper and there, before her, were the missing pair of boots.

  “But why?” said Emily. “Here they are. But why? Why? Why? Why?”

  She stared at them. She turned them over. She examined them outside and inside and the same question beat monotonously in her brain. Why?

  Granted that someone had removed Captain Trevelyan’s boots and hidden them up the chimney. Why had they done so?

  “Oh!” cried Emily desperately, “I shall go mad!”

  She put the boots carefully in the middle of the floor, and drawing up a chair opposite them she sat down. And then deliberately she set herself to think out things from the beginning, going over every detail that she knew herself or had learned by hearsay from other people. She considered every actor in the drama and outside the drama.

  And suddenly, a queer nebulous idea began to take shape—an idea suggested by that pair of innocent boots that stood there dumbly on the floor.

  “But if so,” said Emily,—“if so—”

  She picked up the boots in her hand and hurried downstairs. She pushed open the dining room door and went to the cupboard in the corner. Here was Captain Trevelyan’s motley array of sporting trophies and sporting outfits, all the things he had not trusted within reach of the female tenants. The skis, the sculls, the elephant’s foot, the tusks, the fishing rods—everything still waiting for Messrs. Young and Peabody to pack them expertly for store.

  Emily bent down boots in hand.

  In a minute or two she stood upright, flushed, incredulous.

  “So that was it,” said Emily. “So that was it.”

  She sank into a chair. There was still much that she did not understand.

  After some minutes she rose to her feet. She spoke aloud.

  “I know who killed Captain Trevelyan,” she said. “But I don’t know why. I still can’t think why. But I mustn’t lose time.”

  She hurried out of Hazelmoor. To find a car to drive her to Sittaford was the work of a few minutes. She ordered it to take her to Mr. Duke’s bungalow. Here she paid the man and then walked up the path as the car drove away.

  She lifted the knocker and gave a loud rat-tat.

  After a moment or two’s interval the door was opened by a big burly man with a rather impassive face.

  For the first time, Emily met Mr. Duke face to face.

  “Mr. Duke?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I am Miss Trefusis. May I come in, please?”

  There was a momentary hesitation. Then he stood aside to let her pass. Emily walked into the living room. He closed the front door and followed her.

  “I want to see Inspector Narracott,” said Emily. “Is he here?”

  Again there was a pause. Mr. Duke seemed uncertain how to answer. At last he appeared to make up his mind. He smiled—a rather curious smile.

  “Inspector Narracott is here,” he said. “What do you want to see him about?”

  Emily took the parcel she was carrying and unwrapped it. She took out a pair of boots and placed them on the table in front of him.

  “I want,” she said, “to see him about those boots.”

  Twenty-nine

  THE SECOND SÉANCE

  “Hullo, hullo, hullo,” said Ronnie Garfield.

  Mr. Rycroft, slowly ascending the steep slope of the lane from the post office, paused, till Ronnie overtook him.

  “Been to the local Harrods, eh?” said Ronnie. “Old Mother Hibbert.”

  “No,” said Mr. Rycroft. “I have been for a short walk along past the forge. Very delightful weather today.”

  Ronnie looked up at the blue sky.

  “Yes, a bit of a difference from last week. By the way, you’re going to the Willetts’, I suppose?”

  “I am. You also?”

  “Yes. Our bright spot in Sittaford—the Willetts. Mustn’t let yourself get downhearted, that’s their motto. Carry on as usual. My aunt says it is unfeeling of them to ask people to tea so soon after the funeral and all that, but that’s all bunkum. She just says that because she’s feeling rattled about the Emperor of Peru.”

  “The Emperor of Peru?” said Mr. Rycroft surprised.

  “One of the blinking cats. It’s turned out to be an Empress instead and Aunt Caroline’s naturally annoyed about it. She doesn’t like these sex problems—so, as I say, she got her feelings off her chest by making catty remarks about the Willetts. Why shouldn’t they ask people to tea? Trevelyan wasn’t a relation, or anything like that.”

  “Very true,” said Mr. Rycroft turning his head and examining a bird which flew past and in which he thought he recognized a rare species.

  “How annoying,” he murmured. “I haven’t got my glasses with me.”

  “Eh! I say, talking of Trevelyan, do you think Mrs. Willett can have known the old boy better than she says?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because of the change in her. Have you ever seen anything like it? She’s aged about twenty years in the last week. You must have noticed it.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Rycroft. “I have noticed it.”

  “Well, there you are. Trevelyan’s death must have been the most frightful shock to her in some way or other. Queer if she turned out to be the old man’s long lost wife whom he deserted in his youth and didn’t recognize.”

  “I hardly think that likely, Mr. Garfield.”

  “Bit too much of a movie stunt, eh? All the same very odd things happen. I’ve read some really amazing things in the Daily Wire—things you wouldn’t credit if a newspaper didn’t print them.”

  “Are they any more to be credited on that account?” inquired Mr. Rycroft acidly.

  “You have got a down on young Enderby, haven’t you?” said Ronnie.

  “I dislike ill-bred nosing into affairs that do not concern you,” said Mr. Rycroft.

  “Yes, but then they do concern him,” Ronnie persisted. “I mean nosing about is the poor chap’s job. He seems to have tamed old Burnaby all right. Funny, the old boy can hardly bear the sight of me. I’m like a red rag to a bull to him.”

  Mr. Rycroft did not reply.

  “By Jove,” said Ronnie again glancing up at the sky. “Do you realize it’s Friday? Just a week ago today at about this time we were trudging up to the Willetts’ just as we are now. But a bit of a change in the weather.”

  “A week ago,” said Mr. Rycroft. “It seems infinitely longer.”

  “More like a bally year, doesn’t it? Hullo, Abdul.”

  They were
passing Captain Wyatt’s gate over which the melancholy Indian was leaning.

  “Good afternoon, Abdul,” said Mr. Rycroft. “How’s your master?”

  The Indian shook his head.

  “Master bad today, Sahib. Not see anyone. Not see anyone for long time.”

  “You know,” said Ronnie as they passed on, “that chap could murder Wyatt quite easily and no one would know. He could go on for weeks shaking his head and saying the master wouldn’t see anyone and no one would think it the least odd.”

  Mr. Rycroft admitted the truth of the statement.

  “But there would still be the problem of the disposal of the body,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, that’s always the snag, isn’t it? Inconvenient thing, a human body.”

  They passed Major Burnaby’s cottage. The Major was in his garden looking sternly at a weed which was growing where no weed should be.

  “Good afternoon, Major,” said Mr. Rycroft. “Are you also coming to Sittaford House?”

  Burnaby rubbed his nose.

  “Don’t think so. They sent a note asking me. But—well—I don’t feel like it. Expect you’ll understand.”

  Mr. Rycroft bowed his head in token of understanding.

  “All the same,” he said. “I wish you’d come. I’ve got a reason.”

  “A reason. What sort of reason?”

  Mr. Rycroft hesitated. It was clear that the presence of Ronnie Garfield constrained him. But Ronnie, completely oblivious of the fact, stood his ground listening with ingenuous interest.

  “I’d like to try an experiment,” he said at last slowly.

  “What sort of experiment?” demanded Burnaby. Mr. Rycroft hesitated.

  “I’d rather not tell you beforehand. But if you come I’ll ask you to back me up in anything I suggest.”

  Burnaby’s curiosity was aroused.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll come. You can count on me. Where’s my hat?”

  He rejoined them in a minute, hat on head, and all three turned in at the gates of Sittaford House.

  “Hear you are expecting company, Rycroft,” said Burnaby conversationally.

  A shade of vexation passed over the older man’s face.

  “Who told you that?”

  “That chattering magpie of a woman, Mrs. Curtis. She’s clean and she’s honest, but her tongue never stops, and she pays no attention to whether you listen or whether you don’t.”

  “It’s quite true,” admitted Mr. Rycroft. “I am expecting my niece, Mrs. Dering, and her husband, tomorrow.”

  They had arrived at the front door by now, and on pressing the bell it was opened to them by Brian Pearson.

  As they removed their overcoats in the hall, Mr. Rycroft observed the tall broad-shouldered young man with an interested eye.

  “Fine specimen,” he thought. “Very fine specimen. Strong temper. Curious angle of the jaw. Might be a nasty customer to tackle in certain circumstances. What you might call a dangerous young man.”

  A queer feeling of unreality stole over Major Burnaby as he entered the drawing room, and Mrs. Willett rose to greet him.

  “Splendid of you to turn out.”

  The same words as last week. The same blazing fire on the hearth. He fancied, but was not sure, the same gowns on the two women.

  It did give one a queer feeling. As though it were last week again—as though Joe Trevelyan hadn’t died—as though nothing had happened or were changed. Stop, that was wrong. The Willett woman had changed. A wreck, that was the only way of describing her. No longer the prosperous determined woman of the world, but a broken nervy creature making an obvious and pathetic effort to appear as usual.

  “But I’m hanged if I can see what Joe’s death meant to her,” thought the Major.

  For the hundredth time he registered the impression that there was something deuced odd about the Willetts.

  As usual, he awoke to the realization that he was being silent and that someone was speaking to him.

  “Our last little gathering, I am afraid,” Mrs. Willett was saying.

  “What’s that?” Ronnie Garfield looked up suddenly.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Willett shook her head with a would-be smile. “We have got to forego the rest of the winter in Sittaford. Personally, of course, I love it—the snow and the tors and the wildness of it all. But the domestic problem! The domestic problem is too difficult—it defeats me!”

  “I thought you were going to get a chauffeur-butler and a handyman,” said Major Burnaby.

  A sudden shiver shook Mrs. Willett’s frame.

  “No,” she said, “I—I have to give up that idea.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Mr. Rycroft. “This is a great blow to us all. Very sad indeed. We will sink back into our little rut after you have gone. When do you go, by the way?”

  “On Monday, I expect,” said Mrs. Willett. “Unless I can get away tomorrow. It’s so very awkward with no servants. Of course, I must arrange things with Mr. Kirkwood. I took the house for four months.”

  “You are going to London?” inquired Mr. Rycroft.

  “Yes, probably, to start with anyway. Then I expect we shall go abroad to the Riviera.”

  “A great loss,” said Mr. Rycroft bowing gallantly.

  Mrs. Willett gave a queer aimless little titter.

  “Too kind of you, Mr. Rycroft. Well, shall we have tea?”

  Tea was laid ready. Mrs. Willett poured out. Ronnie and Brian handed things. A queer kind of embarrassment lay over the party.

  “What about you?” said Burnaby abruptly to Brian Pearson. “You off too?”

  “To London, yes. Naturally I shan’t go abroad till this business is over.”

  “This business?”

  “I mean until my brother is cleared of this ridiculous charge.”

  He flung the words at them defiantly in such a challenging manner that nobody knew quite what to say. Major Burnaby relieved the situation.

  “Never have believed he did it. Not for a moment,” he said.

  “None of us think so,” said Violet, flinging him a grateful glance.

  The tinkle of a bell broke the ensuing pause.

  “That’s Mr. Duke,” said Mrs. Willett. “Let him in, Brian.”

  Young Pearson had gone to the window.

  “It’s not Duke,” he said. “It’s that damned journalist.”

  “Oh! dear,” said Mrs. Willett. “Well, I suppose we must let him in all the same.”

  Brian nodded and reappeared in a few minutes with Charles Enderby.

  Enderby entered with his usual ingenuous air of beaming satisfaction. The idea that he might not be welcome did not seem to occur to him.

  “Hullo, Mrs. Willett, how are you? Thought I’d just drop in and see how things were. I wondered where everyone in Sittaford had got to. Now, I see.”

  “Have some tea, Mr. Enderby?”

  “Awfully kind of you. I will. I see Emily isn’t here. I suppose she’s with your aunt, Mr. Garfield.”

  “Not that I know of,” said Ronnie staring. “I thought she’d gone to Exhampton.”

  “Ah! but she’s back from there. How do I know? A little bird told me. The Curtis bird, to be accurate. Saw the car pass the post office and go up the lane and come back empty. She is not in No. 5 and she’s not in Sittaford House. Puzzle—where is she? Failing Miss Percehouse, she must be sipping tea with that determined lady killer, Captain Wyatt.”

  “She may have gone up Sittaford Beacon to see the sunset,” suggested Mr. Rycroft.

  “Don’t think so,” said Burnaby. “Should have seen her pass. I’ve been in the garden for the last hour.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s a very vital problem,” said Charles cheerfully. “I mean I don’t think she’s been kidnapped or murdered or anything.”

  “That’s a pity from the point of view of your paper, isn’t it?” sneered Brian.

  “Even for copy, I wouldn’t sacrifice Emily,” said Charles. “Emily,” he added thoughtfully, “is
unique.”

  “Very charming,” said Mr. Rycroft. “Very charming. We are—er—collaborators, she and I?”

  “Has everyone finished?” said Mrs. Willett. “What about some bridge?”

  “Er—one moment,” said Mr. Rycroft.

  He cleared his throat importantly. Everyone looked at him.

  “Mrs. Willett, I am, as you know, deeply interested in psychic phenomena. A week ago today, in this very room, we had an amazing, indeed an awe-inspiring experience.”

  There was a faint sound from Violet Willett. He turned to her.

  “I know, my dear Miss Willett, I know. The experience upset you, it was upsetting. I do not deny it. Now, ever since the crime the police force have been seeking the murderer of Captain Trevelyan. They have made an arrest. But some of us, at least, in this room, do not believe that Mr. James Pearson is the guilty party. What I propose is this, that we repeat the experiment of last Friday, though approaching it this time in a rather different spirit.”

  “No,” cried Violet.

  “Oh! I say,” said Ronnie. “That’s a bit too thick. I’m not going to join in anyway.”

  Mr. Rycroft took no notice of him.

  “Mrs. Willett, what do you say?”

  She hesitated.

  “Frankly, Mr. Rycroft, I do not like the idea. I don’t like it at all. That miserable business last week made a most disagreeable impression on me. It will take me a long time to forget it.”

  “What are you getting at exactly?” asked Enderby interestedly. “Do you propose that the spirits should tell us the name of Captain Trevelyan’s murderer? That seems a pretty tall order.”

  “It was a pretty tall order, as you call it, when last week a message came through saying that Captain Trevelyan was dead.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Enderby. “But—well—you know this idea of yours might have consequences you haven’t considered.”

  “Such as?”

  “Supposing a name was mentioned? Could you be sure that someone present did not deliberately—”

  He paused and Ronnie Garfield tendered the word.

  “Shove. That’s what he means. Supposing somebody goes and shoves.”