‘Oh, a detective, yes? You accuse me of killing the poor little dog?’
Nigel changed direction with fluency and astuteness. He gazed at Lily admiringly, as though he had not noticed her properly before.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you came into the room, I couldn’t think for a moment who you reminded me of. Really, it’s an extraordinary resemblance. I should say you had a real film personality: and it’s personality that does count on the screen nowadays.’
Miss Barnes swallowed the bait voraciously. She beamed in a most un-Garboesque manner and said:
‘That’s what I’m always telling Ed.’
‘Ed?’
‘Ed Parsons—he’s my bo—one of my admirers, I mean,’ Lily amended hastily.
‘Well, whaddya-know-about-that?’ exclaimed Nigel, desperately ransacking his memory for film vocabulary. ‘Ed Parsons? Well, isn’t that just too bad now?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lily sharply.
‘Well, I’ll say that boy is in one tough spot just now with the bulls.’
‘Oh, come off it!’ said Lily, dropping Great Garbo with a thump onto the floor. ‘Talk English! My Ed’s not done anything, and if anyone says——’
‘Half a minute,’ interrupted Nigel gratefully, resuming his own personality. ‘Let’s get the Truffles business straight first. Either his death is connected with Bunnett’s or not.’
‘Go on!’ Lily said derisively.
‘I will. If it was connected, it implies that the murderer wished to make an experiment in the sarcophagous qualities——’
‘The what qualities?’
‘Sorry, the flesh-devouring qualities of the pressure copper. In other words, whoever killed Truffles killed Bunnett too. So naturally a certain amount of suspicion falls on the office staff.’
The dawning consternation in Lily’s eyes did not escape Nigel. But he continued glibly, looking down his nose now, ‘Of course, the whole thing may have been a practical joke that went wrong—or explainable in some innocent way; in fact it would be very much more comfortable for everyone concerned if it was. But I’m afraid——’
Lily Barnes was beside him, clutching his shoulders. ‘Look here, if I tell you, will you promise not to spill it to Mr Joe or Dad. They’d be ever so angry, and it was all an accident, I swear it was.’
Nigel’s sighting shot had hit the bull. He tried to look as omniscient as Lily evidently believed him to be, sat the girl down in a chair and made her tell her story. Briefly, it was this. Eustace Bunnett had been raising hell in the office the day before. Lily and the two clerks, rabid with indignation, had planned to kidnap Truffles. This was partly to spite its owner and partly because they were genuinely sorry for the animal—Truffles had not escaped his master’s ill-temper that morning; they had heard Bunnett thrashing him in his room. The plan was that when Bunnett went out for his morning tour of inspection the next day, Lily should take the dog, hide him under her coat, walk into the brewery yard with him and hand him over to her friend, Gertie Tollworthy, who would be waiting just outside the yard gates with a hamper. Gertie would take a bus and hand over the dog to some friends of hers who lived in a small village twenty miles away. There he would be kept till a permanent home was found for him. All had gone swimmingly, up to a point. But just as Lily was about to walk out of the premises, she heard Bunnett talking to the clerk in the entrance office. So, unfortunately, did Truffles. He began to yelp under her coat. Lily lost her head and rushed through the door and up the ladder into the copper-room. Luckily there was no one there at the moment. Lily stood behind the wall of the open copper, ready to duck down if Bunnett should come that way. Truffles was now thoroughly restive. He had heard his master’s voice; and, with that perverse and horrible instinct that drives a dog to come cowering up to the hand that will beat him (his instinct told him he was doing wrong not to be sitting tamely in his basket in Bunnett’s room), Truffles squirmed and wriggled, and before Lily could get a proper grip on him, he had squirmed out of her arms and fallen straight into the open copper.
That was that. Lily knew he would be dead in a second after dropping into that seething brew. She hurried back to the office and told her fellow conspirators what had happened. When Bunnett made his enquiries into the dog’s disappearance, both the clerks swore black and blue that Lily had been in the office all the time that he was out of his room; and, if any of the other employees had seen her elsewhere on the premises, they liked her too much to rush off to Bunnett with the information.
This tale was at the same time so odd and so circumstantial that Nigel had no difficulty in believing it, apart from it’s teller’s obvious sincerity. But there was one point.
‘I’m sure that is the truth,’ he said: ‘don’t get the idea that I’m doubting it, because I’m not. But from all I’ve heard of the late E. Bunnett, I’m rather surprised he didn’t bully the truth out of you himself.’
Lily blushed and twisted her fingers round one of the raincoat buttons.
‘He didn’t try very hard. You see—well, it does seem silly, him being as old as the hills and past that sort of thing, you’d think—but he was a bit sweet on me and I suppose that’s why.’
This was going to be a ticklish operation, thought Nigel. Well, he might as well have a go at it.
‘I suppose Ed was pretty jealous—if he knew that, I mean.’
Lily’s face grew hard and sullen. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘are you trying to put anything on Ed, because, if you are, I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of it.’
‘It’s not what I am trying to put on him. It’s the police—and their noses are a sight sharper than mine.’
The girl’s long mouth began to quiver. She burst out:
‘But Ed wouldn’t—anyhow, he didn’t know—and I was with him that night, out in Honeycombe Wood, we were, we went out there on his motor-bike after the dance—we didn’t get back till half-past twelve—so he couldn’t have done the murder, that proves it, doesn’t it?’
Nigel claimed no infallibility as a lie-detector. Indeed, he might easily have accepted all this if he hadn’t just before heard Lily telling what was almost certainly the truth about Truffles. There was such an obvious divergence between her ways of telling the two different stories. Ed’s alibi came too readily, too mechanically to her tongue in spite of the emotional strain which made the actual wording of it a little incoherent; and she gave the impression—an impression that all unpractised liars give—of listening to her own words and listening for their effect on the audience.
Nigel said, in his gentle but detached voice, not looking at Lily:
‘You know, I’ve been mixed up in several crimes, and there’s one thing I’ve always noticed. It does pay to tell the truth. I remember a case not long ago when several witnesses—from the best and most unselfish motives—withheld certain bits of information and distorted others. It was an awful mistake on their part. They wanted to shield someone; and, of course, we soon tumbled to who that someone was, and it merely had the effect of making us suspect him far more seriously than we should have done if his friends had told the truth all along. That’s all rather complicated: but you see what I mean? If you really believe someone is innocent, then much the best thing is to tell the truth about him. To tell the truth is really a test of how strong your belief is. If you, for instance, love Ed Parsons enough to believe absolutely in his innocence, then—’
Nigel was interrupted by a subdued sob from the girl. She mastered herself and said:
‘You really mean that? Honest? You’re not trying to trap me into——?’
‘I don’t look like a grizzled trapper, do I?’
‘I’ll trust you, then. I’ve been ever so miserable, wondering if I oughtn’t to. You see, Mr Strangeness, it was like this——’
Then Lily Barnes began to tell her tale—a different tale. She and Ed had left the dance at 11.30, as she had originally said, and gone up to Honeycombe Wood. There a quarrel had flared up. Ed had st
arted throwing his weight about on the subject of Eustace Bunnett. Lily had replied spiritedly that she was not married to Ed yet, and if he didn’t like her gentlemen friends, he knew what he could do about it. Ed replied darkly that he did know, and Bunnett’d better watch his step and so had Lily—if it wasn’t too late already. Just what exactly did he mean by that? Well, he said, it wouldn’t’ve been the first time that a girl had been got into trouble by her employer. Lily had been furious at this totally false (she assured Nigel) insinuation: so furious, indeed, that she hadn’t even bothered to deny its truth. If Ed believed she was that sort, he was welcome to and she wouldn’t take him back, not if he went down on his knees to her. Nigel asked how the young man could have got such an idea into his head, and Lily replied that that dirty little cat, Gertie Tollworthy, who apparently nourished a hopeless passion for Ed, must have been telling stories. Remembering the sergeant’s statement, Nigel could verify this. But, he said, he thought Lily and Gertie were bosom friends. Lily made some forceful comments on the subject of vipers in bosoms, and told him that she had quarrelled with Gertie soon after the Truffles episode and not been on speaking terms since. Nigel led her tactfully back to the dustup with Ed. After raving for a bit, Ed had asked her point-blank whether she was with child by Bunnett. Lily had said if he liked to believe that, then she was not going to stop him; and added some excusable but ill-advised remarks on the comparative potentiality of Ed and Mr Bunnett for fatherhood. That, as she said, tore it properly. Ed had taken her refusal to deny his accusation as a confession of guilt, jumped on his motor-bike and ridden off at breakneck speed, leaving Lily to walk back by herself into Maiden Astbury. The evening after, Ed had come round in a fair panic. Eustace Bunnett had been murdered and the police would be bound to suspect him of the murder. Lily herself was terrified that he might have done it, though he swore that, after leaving her the night before, he’d ridden about the country lanes half-trying to break his neck and not gone near the brewery. So she had made it up with him and agreed to say that she had been with him all the time that night.
‘What time did Ed leave you, actually?’ asked Nigel.
‘I heard the Priory clock strike midnight just before he went off. You don’t think he—?’
‘No, I don’t. And it just shows you how very much more satisfactory it’d have been if you’d told the truth at the beginning. You see, it’s not likely that Ed would’ve made plans to kill Bunnett until he had heard from your own mouth that the old satyr had done you wrong. But the anonymous letter that got Bunnett into the brewery was written on the 15th, the day before your quarrel. Mind you, that doesn’t clear Ed absolutely; but it will make things look a good deal better for him.’
Lily smiled at Nigel. She had recovered her spirits and a certain measure of her Garbo personality as well.
‘You know, you’re a nice boy. A very nice boy, you are, really,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Nigel, backing hastily towards the door, ‘so my wife tells me. I’ll be seeing you.’
IX
July 19, 11.30 a.m.–1.20 p.m.
I’ll example you with thievery.
SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens
Frost and fraud have dirty ends.
WILLIAM GURNALL, The Christian in Complete Armour
ON HIS WAY to the police station, Nigel called in at Ed Parsons’ lodgings. Ed was a tall young man, with a mop of stubborn red hair and a rather delicate, pallid complexion. He was inclined to be truculent at first; but, on hearing that Lily had told Nigel the real story, he calmed down and admitted its truth. He had left Lily in a towering rage and ridden madly around the deserted lanes for nearly half an hour before returning home. He was ashamed now of ever having suspected her of relations with Bunnett; but he’d been ragged about it a bit at the brewery, and when Gertie Tollworthy told him Lily was going to have a baby and Lily led him on to thinking it must be true, what could you expect?
‘When did Gertie tell you that?’ Nigel asked.
‘Oh—let me see now, it was during the dance—on Thursday night, that was.’
‘Good. If she corroborates that, you’re out,’ thought Nigel to himself. ‘The letter was posted on Wednesday afternoon. Unless, of course, there’s a conspiracy between Ed and Gertie, and that doesn’t seem likely. Anyway, if Gertie had told Ed her story before Thursday night he would have already determined to kill Bunnett and written the anonymous letter—in which case it would obviously not be safe to let Lily know that he believed her guilty.’
However, to make sure certain, Nigel obtained the Tollworthys’ address from Parsons, found Gertie in, and soon reduced her to a proper state of tears and repentance. Yes, she agreed that she had come to Ed with that tale about Lily and Mr Bunnett on Thursday night: she couldn’t help it; seeing Ed dancing with Lil made her feel so jealous of a sudden, it all slipped out: and of course, Mr Bunnett had been carrying on a bit with Lil—at least, that’s what people in the brewery were saying; so really it was only right for someone to warn Ed.
Nigel cut short this casuistry, and walked the thirty yards farther to the police station. There he found Sergeant Tollworthy, positively bursting his buttons with suppressed excitement.
‘Mr Bunnett’s house burgled last night,’ he said.
‘Eustace Bunnett’s?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What was taken?’
‘That we don’t rightly know yet. No silver or nothing like that. The chap seems to have been after higher game.’
‘Coo! You interest me strangely, Watson. Not private papers, by any chance?’
The sergeant leant back, put his head on one side, and gazed at Nigel admiringly.
‘I told that Tyler only this morning that you’d got a head on your shoulders,’ he said. ‘It never does to judge by appearances, does it, sir?’ he added enthusiastically.
‘No, I suppose it doesn’t,’ replied Nigel, with less enthusiasm.
‘Papers—that’s what it was, sir. Properly rifled, Mr Bunnett’s study was. Drawers opened—everything all over the shop. Inspector’s going through them now with Mrs Bunnett, though I don’t reckon she knows much about her husband’s private affairs.’
‘Did he break in—the burglar, I mean.’
‘No, sir, just walked, seemingly. You was right about them keys, after all, sir.’
‘Right about the keys?’ said Nigel, mystified.
‘Ar. It’s like this. When, in the course of our investigations upon the scene of the crime, we found no traces of breaking and entering,’ the sergeant declaimed sonorously, ‘we deduced that the burglar must have been in possession of keys. The front door was bolted as well as locked at night, of course; but there’s a side door with a Yale lock, unbolted, and it was through the same that the criminal must have effected his entry. Similarly, the drawers of Mr Bunnett’s buroo had not been forced, which pointed to the presence of a desk-key in the possession of the miscreant.’
‘Quite so,’ said Nigel, his head reeling a little from the solid impact of this jargon. ‘But how did the keys come into the possession of the—er—miscreant?’
‘Ah,’ said the sergeant rather gratuitously, ‘now you’ve laid your finger on the vital spot. Tyler had an idea—a bit overdue, I reckon, but he does his best with the brains God gave him. He showed Mr Bunnett’s key-ring, what was found in the hop-back, to Mrs Bunnett, thinking as how the murderer might have slipped a couple of ’em off before he pushed the deceased into the copper. “Nothing doin’,” says the lady: “all present and correct.” Tyler was looking fair disheartened, when Mrs Bunnett pipes up, “But what about the duplicates? Where are they?” So it transpires as Mr Bunnett used to keep duplicates of his door keys, and the keys of the desks in his home and in the brewery, in his waistcoat pocket; so as, if he lost one set, he’d still have another—if you take my meaning.’
‘In fact, it’s dollars to doughnuts that the bloke who was making merry with Bunnett’s papers last night was the bloke who murdered Bunnett.??
?
‘That’s right, sir. But there ain’t no fingerprints, none that haven’t a business to be there. So I can’t see as it helps us much.’
‘Oh, come now, I don’t agree with that. However, did Mrs Bunnett take the point? I mean, how did she react to the idea of having had a midnight visit from the murderer?’
‘Oh, she’s a regular caution, the old girl is. Murderer in the house? Husband’s study burgled? Did that worry her? Not a bit of it! Kept nagging at Tyler to arrest Alice—that’s her servant—for eating a cake and a couple of loaves she’d baked the day before. In a fair taking over, it, the old girl was. Tyler had to dry her up pretty sharp in the end.’
At this point the inspector came in, carrying a file and a sheaf of papers under his arm. He nodded curtly to Nigel and sat down at his table.
‘Find anything missing, sir?’ asked Tollworthy.
‘All in good time, me lad,’ said Tyler, spreading the papers out in front of him and perusing them. Then he added, over his shoulder, ‘Can’t tell what was missing because we don’t know what was there originally.’
The sergeant subsided. After a minute or two, Tyler pushed the papers away impatiently.
‘Nothing there that I can see. That leaves us with this file. New file marked “Roxby’s,” Mr Strangeways, found it empty, and no papers in Mr Bunnett’s study connected with it. Roxby’s? Now where the devil have I heard that name?’
‘The night watchman was in their employment before he came to Bunnett’s,’ said Nigel demurely.
The inspector frowned. ‘Yes, of course. Had it on the tip of my tongue. I always thought there might be something fishy about that man Lock.’
‘Not fish, beer,’ said Nigel, succumbing, as usual, to his weakness for exhibitionism. ‘Roxby’s is a big brewery firm in the Midlands. The missing papers contain preliminary negotiations between Roxby’s and Mr Bunnett for the sale of Bunnett’s controlling interest in the brewery to Roxby’s.’
Nigel looked down his nose and waited for the storm to break. The sergeant’s eyes appeared to be coming out on stalks. Tyler was sitting quite rigid, his big white face motionless as a frozen moon: then he burst out.