Chapter XIV.A Bird Bath and an InquestIn spite of my succession of broken nights, I woke shortly after seven, and I got up as soon as Annie knocked at my door. No one was about when I made my way to the bathroom; the cans of hot water were still doing sentry duty outside the bedroom doors. I bathed and shaved at leisure and sauntered down-stairs to find the breakfast table being set, Annie hurrying to and fro. She spoke to me at once about the accident to cook.“Have you heard what’s been happening in the night, sir? The doctor left a note on the table to say as how cook’s been taken ill and has had to be sent to the hospital. Such goings-on there must have been, the kitchen window smashed, and the doors standing wide open when I come down this morning. I don’t know what we’re all coming to, I’m sure. Do you know what it’s all about, sir?”“Ah, you must sleep very soundly, Annie,” I answered. “Tell me now, what was cook doing when you went up-stairs to bed last night?”“Me, sir? I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, sir. I kept away from the kitchen, I did. There’s all my washing up to do yet, but I wasn’t going near cook as she was last night if I could help it, and when I’d cleared away I went and sat by myself in the work room.”“And where was cook then, Annie?”“She was in the kitchen, sir. I locked the back door and fastened all the windows except the kitchen window before I went to bed, but I never heard her come up-stairs at all. What was it broke the window, sir?”“She never went to bed at all, Annie. She must have been too far gone to get up-stairs, and apparently she turned on the gas at the stove and then forgot to light it, and nearly paid the penalty.” I told her exactly what had taken place during the early hours of the morning, but I could get no useful information in return. Annie had not gone into the kitchen and could not tell me anything of cook’s condition when she went up-stairs to bed.“My goodness, sir, we might all have been exploded up in our beds. I told Miss Ethel it wasn’t safe to have her about the house,” was Annie’s comment, and she added rather maliciously, “She won’t get none of her whisky in the hospital.”“No, Annie, you may be quite certain of that.”“And my kitchen isn’t half in a mess with broken glass all over the floor. You don’t know what became of the table-cloth, do you, sir?”“The table-cloth, Annie?”“Yes, sir, I can’t find it nowhere this morning.”Now, I remembered quite definitely that the cloth, a red one, was on the table when Janet and I had left the kitchen in the early hours of the morning. I remembered the large wet patch where the whisky had been upset. The Tundish had taken away the bottle and the glass, and had left us two talking alone together. The cloth was there then, and now, only a few hours later, it had disappeared. Clearly, either the doctor must have come back and annexed it, or the police had taken advantage of the open windows to return after we had gone to bed. It occurred to me that it had been a rather strange suggestion to make, that we should leave the window open. In either case it was interesting, and made me begin to wonder whether the accident to cook had been an accident at all.Poor besotted cook, sitting drinking alone in the dark basement kitchen, slowly drinking herself to death, while all the time that more rapid certain death was swirling round her in the poisoned air. I pictured her pitching forward in the dark. In the dark——? It suddenly struck me how strange it was that she should have been sitting there alone without any light, and my doubt about it being an accident became a certainty that it was not.“You’re sure that it isn’t there, Annie? You’ve looked everywhere, I suppose?”“It isn’t in either the kitchen or the scullery, sir.”I was puzzled, and decided to tell Janet about it at the first opportunity. Breakfast was not yet ready and no one was down, so I sauntered out into the garden. I was just in time to see Janet come in through the little door that leads into Dalehouse Lane. I was standing on the far side of the lawn, level with the end of the doctor’s wing, and somehow, from the way she looked about her, perhaps, I could guess that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when they quite suddenly realize that the word “friendship” can no longer express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was as Janet moved the few short paces across the end of the surgery wing that I realized that I was head over heels in love.She looked so solemn and reliable as she came in through the door, so utterly dependable and brave. She scanned the garden toward the garage, apparently to make sure that her return had been unobserved, a little smile flickering across her serious face, as though half amused at her own precaution. It was not until she reached the corner of the wing that she saw me, and it was then at that instant that I knew with an absolute assurance that she was the one and only woman in the world for me. Had an angel with wings sailed down from the cathedral tower and led her to me, saying, “Mr. Jeffcock, allow me to introduce you to your wife,” I could not have been more sure about the matter.Laughing that she had not seen me before, she came forward to greet me, and my uneasy thoughts of whisky-stained red table-cloths that mysteriously vanished in the night vanished too, and I could have cried out aloud, “Oh, you darling, you darling, what have you done?” But instead, I stood awkward and silent, thrilled with the realization of her nearness and her morning beauty.“You’ve caught me,” she laughed.“Have I?” I whispered back, and I think that she must have felt that my words might hold some double meaning, for we stood looking at each other, her eyes meeting mine—unflinching, appraising, her level brows a little arched—puzzled and wholly adorable.“Please don’t tell any one.”“It shall be our special secret,” I replied.She turned and ran to the house, and I lounged up the sunny garden, my pulses pleasantly a-throb, drinking in the morning freshness that seemed to reflect and emphasize the joy of my uplifting discovery.At the far end and in the corner away from the garage, there is a little rose garden, enclosed on two sides by a sturdy hedge of wild white rose, and on two by the mellow red brick walls—a diminutive but formal square of lawn with a rose bed in each corner—a little place of peace and sanctuary to which I naturally turned. An archway gives entry through the white rose hedge and I passed through it musing happily—yes happily, in spite of all the horrors of the week—for it seemed that for me the darkness might lift to a golden dawn. In one of the corner-beds grew a lovely large white rose and I stooped to examine one of the buds, a thing of perfect beauty, the outer petals curling back to show the heart—layer on layer of closely folded purity.Then just behind me I heard a tiny splash, and I turned quickly to learn the cause. I had been looking at beauty and thinking of love, while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death.Dead birds lay scattered over the little square; sparrows mostly, but a robin with its vivid breast, and a cock blackbird with its gay orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their backs with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world as though they had been taken from some taxidermist’s show-case and scattered about the grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel’s tabby Tom, stark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws.In the center of the square there stood an old painted iron table on which Ethel kept a shallow dish of red pottery filled with water for the birds in times of drought. A thrush was in the middle of it, lying on its back, and it made one last dying flutter as I stood taking in the tragic little scene. A second thrush, its mate, I guessed, flew down from the garden wall as I watched, and perched on the edge of the dish, then catching sight of me, it gave one long, sorrowful, flutelike note and flew away.I crossed over to the cat and turned him over with my foot. His eyes were wide and when I saw them I felt the hair go creeping across my scalp, for there was a yellow slit of iris and the rest was an angry red. I started back in horror and ran to the house for Janet.She was coming down the stairs as I entered the hall, and I beckoned to her to come into the garden with me.“What is it?” she queried. “Is anything the matter?”“Yes, come and see what I’ve found.”We hurried back to the rose garden.“Oh, the poor dears, the poor dears! Oh, how horrible!” she cried when I pointed to the birds, her sweet low voice vibrating with a tenderness that it made my heart ache to hear.“Yes, it’s the poison,” she agreed, when I showed her Ethel’s cat. “How horribly, oh, how wantonly cruel! Run in quickly, please, and telephone to Inspector Brown before the others get down-stairs. Ask him to come in by the side door and straight to me here at once, not to go to the house. I know he’s at the station. If Annie’s about send her to me here out of the way before you speak. If any of the others are about come back to me at once and we must hide them away without showing the inspector. The number’s forty-seven. I’ll be thinking of some excuse for wanting Annie.”There was no one about but Annie and when I had sent her to Janet I got my message through to the inspector without any interruption, for once the telephone working according to plan. He promised to be with us in a few minutes and I hurried back to find Janet walking up and down the path behind the garage. What excuse she made for her talk with Annie I forgot to ask, but it was satisfactory, for Annie met me smiling broadly.Janet was angry. Now that I know her so well I can better estimate how angry and disturbed she was. “It’s so stupidly cruel,” she almost sobbed, “to put it there where the birds come to drink. It seems an unsympathetic thing to say, but somehow it riles me more than the murder itself.”“Don’t you think we had better tell the doctor,” I asked her, “he will be able to say more definitely if it’s the poison—the Chinese poison, I mean.”She shook her head emphatically and looked at me rather queerly, I almost fancied, too. “No, no,” she said. “There’s nothing to be gained by telling any one else. Never tell any one anything, that’s Johnny Allport’s golden rule for detective work.”At her suggestion we went back to the rose garden to await the inspector and to prevent any more birds from drinking the poisoned water. “He’ll have to take them away with him,” she said. “Did you tell him anything?”“No,” I replied, “for once I obeyed the golden rule.”“Well, we ought to be looking for something to put them in. Do you think you could get a clothes-basket or something without Annie seeing you, and a bottle or can for the water?”I returned to the house once more to try my luck, but Annie was in the hall, and though I racked my brains I could think of no reasonable excuse for getting her out of the way. Then my eyes happened to light on the garage key that hung on a hook in the hall, and I remembered having seen an old wooden box that I thought might serve our purpose. It was there, but I could find nothing for the water, so I took what I had found across to Janet hoping that she might be able to make some other suggestion.But she had already solved the problem by finding the watering can, and to my dismay I returned to find her tipping the contents of the bird bath into it. I hated to see her handle the deadly stuff, remembering the doctor’s alarm when I had only touched the outside of the baby flagon.“It’s all right,” she replied cheerfully to my protest. “I haven’t touched a drop, and I promise to disinfect.”Then very gingerly we picked up the birds one by one and put them in the box, leaving one bird and the cat, so that the inspector might see exactly how they had lain when he arrived.He was with us before we had completed our task, more gigantic and phlegmatic than ever, I thought he looked, in the little formal garden. Janet quickly explained the situation and bustled him away with a competence that only went to increase my admiration for her, but we were not to be left alone as I half hoped we might. She would have none of it, but insisted that we ought to get back to the house at once, that breakfast must be ready and that we should be missed, and that the less we were seen together the better, though I did my best to persuade her to stay.Idiotic of me, perhaps, but it was—no, I can’t explain it—if you who read need explanations then you are beyond me. I was in love, I had never been in love before, and here was my darling alone among the roses. I wanted to stay with her and keep her to myself, not share her with the rest.But it was not to be, for up the garden path came The Tundish whistling theMarseillaise, his chin stuck out in a way that he had when he whistled and felt jolly, or rather I should say when he was willing that others should know he was feeling jolly, for only once had I seen him really depressed, and that was the time when I had caught him frowning over Hanson’s case-book. He was amazing, The Tundish, and the more I saw of him the more my amazement grew. Here we were at the morning of the inquest, and he could whistle away light-heartedly, just like any boy at home from school on the first day of the holidays.If I was amazed, Janet was alert. “Your knife, quickly, Mr. Jeffcock,” and she was cutting roses and asking me about their names—of which I knew exactly nothing—even as the doctor stood smiling happily under the arch.“Hello! Breakfast ready?” she greeted him.“Yes.”He was looking at the little table on which the bird bath had stood. “Where’s the bird bath gone to?”Janet looked at him hard and I looked at Janet. “It has gone to be cleaned, Dr. Wallace,” she replied.“Cleaned! Oh, Ethel’s taken it, has she? I came to see if it wanted filling. Come along in to breakfast.”The others were seated at the table when we got back to the house, and although Janet said very little and I could see that her thoughts were busy with our discovery, her presence again seemed to break down the restraint of some of our former meals. Neither Ethel, Margaret, nor the boys had heard of cook’s experience, and their natural curiosity kept the conversation going, and helped us to avoid those appalling periods of silence that I was beginning to associate not only with our meals, but even with dear old Dalehouse itself. Silences they were that seemed beyond our control. Silences that seemed to close down on us from outside, while we sat with averted eyes, each busy with his own suspicious thoughts.“What a night you must have had,” was Ethel’s comment. “I see now that I ought to have given way, and have allowed you to turn her out last night as you wanted to, Tundish; then you would all have been spared.”“No, it was my fault, and I blame myself entirely for what happened,” he replied. “I ought to have looked round myself before I went to bed, knowing the state she was in. I’m only glad that the rest of you were not disturbed—especially you two girls—it was no pretty sight, I can assure you.”“I’m thankful I didn’t wake,” Margaret joined in, “I shouldn’t have slept another wink all night. It makes me feel quite faint even to think of it now.”The doctor smiled broadly, rather unkindly too, I fancied. “Well, if that’s what you look like when you feel faint——!”We all of us laughed, for never had she looked more pink and white and golden, more full of vitality and less like a fainting lady. Both Ethel, whose bruise was still in evidence, and Janet looked pallid and worn by comparison.As we were finishing breakfast a note came by hand for the doctor. Ralph had just said, apropos of the accident to cook, that the house seemed fated, and that, without meaning to be rude, he would be very glad to be back at work. The Tundish looked up from his note with a smile, as happy a smile as you could wish to see.“Well, you’ll be able to gratify your wish. This is from the inspector. The inquest is fixed for eleven o’clock and we are all to be there. He is sending cars to fetch us. Moreover, our little pocket Hercules will be with us at four, and so you see, Ralph, you will be able to leave this evening, but whether I shall be here to see you off is, I imagine, more uncertain.”He got up to leave the room as he spoke, but turned with his hand on the door-knob. “By the way, Ethel, what have you done with the bird bath from the rose garden? I’ll fill it up before I go.”“The bird bath?”“Yes, haven’t you had it? It’s missing from the table.”“No, I filled it up yesterday morning and I’m afraid I haven’t touched it since.” Ethel looked round the table to see if we could give her information, but we none of us spoke, and The Tundish left the room.When he had gone Margaret offered to take out another bowl of water, saying, “The poor little things will be parched,” and there was a discussion as to household duties, during which the two boys went off to the garden and I out into the hall where I pretended to be brushing my clothes. I wanted to waylay Janet.She came out at last and I persuaded her to join me in the garden as soon as she could get away, and after an interminable half-hour she came to me there. “Just for two minutes,” she said uncompromisingly, but with the smile I had grown to look for and to love so much. “What do you want?”“I want to know what you make of it all,” I asked her. “Wasn’t it just a little odd that the doctor should have come to look for the bird bath then?”“I don’t know, and I can’t tell you what I make of it.”“You mean you won’t. You don’t want to tell me.”“No, it’s not that. I do want to tell you but I can’t.”“Where did you go before breakfast?”“To the police station.”“What for?”“I can’t tell you.”“I’m rather a poor sort of confederate then, I’m afraid, if you won’t let me know what you are doing.”“You’re not a confederate, you’re a protector should the need rise. Honestly, I can’t help it, Mr. Jeffcock, it isn’t my doing. Johnny Allport is my superior officer and I was to tell you nothing except who I was, and that I might possibly require your help. And that was only because you caught us together.”“I see, a sort of sop to keep me good.” I was feeling childishly hurt.We had been walking up and down the strip of lawn that lay between the house and the boundary wall, and at the end of one of our sentry goes she turned and faced me, the sun lighting up her dear face so that I could see the tiny gold brown hairs that straggled across the bridge of her delectable little nose. I wanted to help her and felt absurdly that I had the right to. I wanted endless consultations. Here we were, within an hour of the inquest, with the mystery that had bedeviled the Dalehouse atmosphere from cellar to attic as far from solution as ever, and while yesterday my head had been full of such thoughts as, “If he did this, then why did he go and do that?” now this morning I could think of nothing but Janet and how I might keep her near me.“Do please be sensible,” she smiled.“But how can I help you if I’m all in the dark?”“It helps me just to know you’re there at hand. Now I must really go.”She turned to go back to the house. The two boys were sitting out of earshot, under the cedar tree. “I say, do sit next to me at the inquest,” I called after her gently.She laughed outright. “Certainly, sir,” she said, “only I’m not going.” She was gone, leaving me uncertain as to whether I was annoyed or pleased about what she had said. And I only remembered afterward that I had told her nothing of Annie’s missing table-cloth.Two police cars came for us at a quarter before the hour, backing into Dalehouse Lane where we got into them without attracting the attention I had rather feared. Two men only observed us, and I heard one say to the other in passing, “Aye, that’s ’im, goes about the town as bold as brass,” a remark which made me appreciate the doctor’s bravery, or effrontery, in continuing to attend his patients.I had never been to an inquest before and the only thing that really impressed me was the brevity of the whole proceeding. A room behind the mortuary was used for the purpose, a long room it was with a plain deal table running nearly the length of it, and with whitewashed walls that made the most of the rather inadequate light.The jurors were all assembled when we arrived, a solemn uninteresting dozen, with, so far as I could judge, not one man of any personality among them. They were seated round the table. We were given seats against the wall, and the coroner, a very much younger man than I had expected, came in as we took our places.He was business itself.He asked the inspector to take the jury to view the body, filling up an official-looking form pending their return. And he then asked Ethel to explain to the jury exactly how she had found Miss Palfreeman on the Wednesday morning. There was no witness box and she was sworn and made her statement standing in front of her chair at the side of the room. She spoke clearly and well.The doctor made a similarly brief statement, and was continuing to describe how he had prepared a draft for Stella the evening before, when the coroner pulled him up.“Just at the moment I am only asking you to tell the jury how you found Miss Palfreeman when you went up-stairs at Miss Hanson’s request.”“I have nothing more to add then,” the doctor replied.“You were of the opinion that her death was not from any natural cause and decided that the police should be informed?”“Yes.”Inspector Brown next described how he had been called and went to Dalehouse along with Detective Inspector Allport and the police surgeon, and he concluded his few short sentences by asking that the inquest might be immediately adjourned while the police secured further evidence.“How long do you want, Inspector?”“I suggest Tuesday of next week, sir.”“At the same time?”“Yes.”“Very well then, gentlemen, the inquest is adjourned and I am sorry to have to ask you to attend here again next Tuesday at the same time. A formal reminder will be posted to you. I understand that there have been rumors in the city with regard to this unfortunate affair, and there have been one or two most improper references in the press. It is your plain duty to shut both your ears and your eyes until we meet again, and to take care that you come to the adjourned inquest with your minds a blank. There has been talk of foul play. We shall know nothing of that. The unfortunate girl met her death in circumstances that require further investigation. That is the sum of our knowledge at present. We shall meet again on Tuesday to consider the full evidence that will be put before us, and, under my guidance, you will then decide together what was the cause of her death. Thank you.”A tall, gray-haired, full-faced man whom I hadn’t noticed before came and stood at the end of the table, facing the coroner. “I have a statement, sir, that I think it is my duty to make. It’s with regard to——”“Excuse me,” the coroner interrupted, “but whoever you are I can allow no statement whatever to be made.”“My name is Crawford and I am uncle to the deceased, and what I have to say may, I think, ha——”“I am sorry, Mr. Crawford, but I really can not allow any statement whatever to be made. The jury must hear all the evidence in proper order and at the proper time. If you have any information you feel you ought to impart immediately, then it is your duty to report it to the police.”“Can’t I——?”“No, really you can’t.”The florid-faced uncle retired. I liked the look of the man, jolly I thought, and I wondered what it was that he wanted to say. Then to my surprise, just as the coroner was gathering up his papers, and the jurors were pushing back their chairs, Kenneth jumped to his feet.“May I ask, sir, how much longer we are to be detained?”The coroner looked up in some surprise. “We—detained? I don’t think I understand you. Who are you and to whom do you refer?”“My name is Dane, sir, and I refer to my friends and myself and our detention at Dalehouse.”The inspector stepped forward and whispered in the coroner’s ear. The coroner nodded his head emphatically and then he turned to Kenneth.“No warrant has been issued for any one’s detention. I understand that you and your friends made a perfectly voluntary arrangement with Inspector Allport, and if that is so I think that your application is in very bad taste indeed. Neither I, nor the police, have any right to detain any one at present and you are at liberty to go when and where you will, but you will be wanted at the inquest on Tuesday and a proper notice will be served.”Kenneth reddened and sat down.Inspector Brown came forward and told us that the cars were available for our return, and we filed out into the dazzling sun. The dreaded inquest was over, but I realized that the next would be a far more trying affair.At the door stood Mr. Crawford talking to the police surgeon, and he came forward and spoke a few words to Ethel in the kindest possible way, and then to my surprise he buttonholed the doctor, drawing him a few paces apart. They held a brief, earnest little conversation, at the close of which Mr. Crawford handed The Tundish a letter which he put carefully away in his pocketbook. They shook hands amicably and the doctor rejoined us. I could not help my curiosity, and I wondered what Stella’s uncle could have to say and give to the doctor and whether he had lived in China too, and they had met before. There was nothing to be gleaned from the doctor’s face, however; he was neither pleased nor perturbed, but just the same equable and placid Tundish, as inscrutable as ever.We were back at Dalehouse before twelve o’clock, and my first concern was to look for Janet. She was not in the down-stairs rooms and I went up to change my coat for a blazer, prior to making a search in the garden. The Tundish and I happened to go up the stairs together, he to his room and I to mine. They were next door to each other, and as he opened his door out came Janet. Obviously a little astonished, he stood to one side to allow her to pass.“Sorry, Doctor. I was finishing off some dusting for Ethel, and didn’t expect you back so soon,” she apologized.He made some conventional remark and she went on down-stairs, but I noticed, and I wondered whether the doctor noticed it too, that she had no duster. She had been searching his room, I felt convinced, and I hated the whole business and Janet’s part in it in particular as I had never hated it before.Lunch passed without incident—Janet did not look at me once—but afterward, as we were leaving the dining-room, with a whispered “Take this,” she handed me a folded note. I went up-stairs to my bedroom at once to read it.“Dear Mr. Jeffcock,”—it ran—“I am going out this afternoon and shall not be back until four o’clock. If an opportunity occurs will you please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor’s bedroom before lunch; that you heard me tell him that I had been dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn’t any duster. Just tell her that you thought it rather curious. I don’t want to tell her myself, but I do want her to guess that I have been searching the doctor’s room. Please burn this.”There was no signature, and I folded it up and put it carefully away in my pocketbook in spite of her request; it was my first letter from Janet and whatever its contents it should be preserved. As for its contents, I could not understand them at all. Think as I would, and I sat on the edge of my bed for a full quarter of an hour thinking as hard as the sweltering heat would let me, I could read neither sense nor reason into her request. If, for some reason or other, she wanted Margaret to know that she was working with Allport, why could she not tell her right out, instead of adopting this roundabout device? If, on the other hand, she still desired to keep her true identity hidden from the rest, why should she tell even Margaret that she had been searching the doctor’s room?After a time, I gave up my attempt to follow the reasoning that led to the writing of the letter, and concentrated my attention on trying to carry out the instructions it contained. The two boys had been reduced to their chess again and were playing in the drawing-room. In neither the house nor the garden could I find Margaret, and I concluded that she had gone to her room to lie down, so I had perforce to amuse myself as best I might by reading the paper and by watching the two at their funereal game.Three o’clock came and then half past three, and I was beginning to think that I should be unable to do as Janet wished when Margaret joined us and surprisingly asked me to go into the garden with her.“Come up behind the garage,” she said, “I want to show you something.”Full of curiosity, and wondering whether what she had got to show might not have some bearing on Janet’s strange request, I followed her up the garden and we sat down on the bench behind the garage where I had caught Allport talking to Janet.“You remember that newspaper that was found in the chest of drawers in your bedroom?” Margaret began.“Yes.”“Well, you know, I always felt somehow that you might have put it there yourself after all—forgive me for saying so—and that it might have been you who put up the second notice over the switch, you see you found it and had such a chance to put——”“You have no business to make such suggestions,” I interrupted angrily, as soon as I could conquer my first astonishment.“Oh, please don’t be cross, you know what a way I have of blurting out whatever comes into my head. And, after all, it must be one of us, we must each of us be guessing and thinking these awful things about the rest. It was all very well, and natural too, perhaps, of the doctor to warn us against it, but it really isn’t human nature not to. However, it doesn’t matter now for just look here what I’ve stumbled across.”She put her hand down inside the top of her jumper and pulled out a sheet of newspaper, handing it over for my inspection. Like the one that had been found in my chest of drawers, odd words and letters had been cut out here and there, and I gazed at it astonished.“And look at this,” she added, passing me a smaller piece of paper.I recognized it for what it was at once. It was a sheet torn from the memo tablet that stood on the doctor’s desk. On it there were some almost illegible pencil notes, about a prescription, I gathered, in The Tundish’s characteristic writing. And right across the middle of it, and pasted partly over the penciled words, had been stuck letters cut from a newspaper forming the first portion of the identical message that I had found on the card above the landing switch.“dark Deeds ARE done in D”“Where on earth did you find this?” I asked her.“In the box-room up among the attics. I went up just now to look for a cardboard box to send some things away in. Annie told me there were a lot stored away up there and the first one I came to had a lot of rubbish and odd bits of paper in it and when I emptied them out, this”—she pointed to the memo slip—“fell face upward on the floor. Then I found the sheet of newspaper when I searched among the rest.”“I can’t make it out, can you? Who could have put it there?”“It looks fishy to me,” she said. “Kenneth’s bit of fish,” she added pensively after a pause.“You mean you think that Dr. Wallace is—responsible for this.”“Well, it does point that way to say the least of it. I’m sure that’s his writing on the pad slip. And listen. I went to Annie with the box to ask her if she thought I might take it, and this is what she told me. ‘Oh yes, miss, it was by the waste-paper basket in the dispensary this morning where the doctor always puts anything that he wants us to throw away, but it seemed such a nice box that I took it up-stairs instead.’ Now what do you make of that? I argue that he must have been trying what it would look like, when he was interrupted or something, and that he might have thrown them into the basket or on to the floor by mistake. The basket may have been full, perhaps, and then when Annie went to clean out she would naturally sweep them up into the box. Yes, and he would think that they had been burned, and wouldn’t like to make any inquiries when he missed them later on!”“Yes, I suppose that is a possibility,” I replied meditatively, “but it doesn’t sound very characteristic of the doctor, does it?”“No, it doesn’t, but I can’t think of anything more likely.”We sat on the bench in thought for a little time, and then I gave her the information Janet had asked me to in her little note. I could have had no better opportunity.“How very strange!” was Margaret’s comment. She sat frowning in thought, and then she turned to me, her eyebrows arched. “And so you suspect the doctor after all, do you? Or else why do you think that Mrs. Kenley, of all unlikely people, might have been searching his room? Come now, isn’t it more natural to suppose that she left the duster in the room? I think you’re almost as bad as I am, Mr. Jeffcock.”“Well, one can’t help wondering,” I excused myself lamely enough; “but what are you going to do with these?”“Give them to the police, I suppose. It’s no use showing them to the Kenneth-Ralph combination, and it would be unkind to say anything to Ethel. I think I shall just keep them to myself until Mr. Allport comes.”“I think we ought to ring up the inspector at once, or show them to Mrs. Kenley,” I ventured, “she at any rate is impartial and has no bias.”“You think her tremendously clever, don’t you? Perhaps I will.”We got up to return to the house, my brain a-whirl with fresh conjecture, but as we drew level with the end of the garage and were approaching the little rose garden, I could have sworn that I heard movements in the hedge.“Did you hear that?” I asked, holding Margaret back.“No, what?”“I’m certain I heard some one moving in the rose garden.” We went forward through the archway piercing the hedge as I spoke. At first we could see nothing and we were just coming away when Margaret grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed to the end of the hedge. Right at the end of it where it met the garden wall some one was standing—pressed well back between the hedge and the wall itself—apparently trying to hide. We went to see who it could be.It was Miss Summerson.“What is the matter? Whatever are you doing?” Margaret asked her.She came a little forward out of the hedge and stood before us, her face scarlet, her breast heaving like a woman in a crisis in a picture play, obviously on the edge of tears, a pitiable object. There we stood, the three of us, Margaret and I exchanging glances of surprise, Miss Summerson looking first at one of us and then at the other and then at the ground, a study in furtive indecision.At length she stammered, “I was trying to reach a rose in the hedge.”I stepped forward to get it for her, pressing into the hedge where it grew thickly against the wall and where we had seen her standing, but no rose at all could I see.“Whereabouts was the one you were after?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder to where she and Margaret stood.“Oh, I’m—I’m—no-not sure that there was one really,” she stammered, looking at me beseechingly out of her timid tear-filled eyes. “I must really go now.”And before we could say another word she ran away through the arch, leaving us alone with our astonishment.“Well, and what are we expected to make of that?” I queried.“You know, I wonder whether she really did lose the poison cupboard key!” was Margaret’s rather irrelevant reply.“But what is—I don’t see the connection.”“Oh, none, no connection exactly, but her behavior was queer, wasn’t it? And I’ve always thought she looked a little underhand. You see, if she did poison Stella, then it would be quite a good plan to lose the key, a little before the event, say on the afternoon before and in time for some one else to have possibly found it.”“Oh, I say, how could she though, she wasn’t even in the house?”“She could—she could have got in through the bedroom window while we were at supper. She may easily have known of the medicine there ready for Stella and handy for the poison. In spite of what he said, the doctor may have made it up before she left; or he may have told her about it; or he may have written himself a reminder on his pad, or—oh, I can think of several ways in which she might have got to know about the draft.”“But why should she have done it?”“Oh, you men, how blind you are. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed that she worships the ground he treads on? Why, she can’t keep her eyes away from him when they are in the room together.”“But even so, that’s surely no reason why she should murder one of Ethel’s guests?”“Blockhead,” she laughed, “she was jealous. And I’m not so sure that she hadn’t good reason to be too, or why did Mr. Allport ask Ethel about it in the way he did?”“But, my dear Miss Hunter, the girl is only just engaged to another man, you heard her tell us so yourself.”“And, my dear Mr. Jeffcock,” she mocked, “it’s quite, quite possible to be engaged to one man and in love with another all the time—even quite, quite nice girls may find themselves in that position. If you doubt it I can give you a case near at hand, can’t I now?”I had to admit to myself that she could, but our conversation was interrupted by the cathedral clock which boomed out the hour of four. Margaret seemed absurdly—I was going to say put out, but I think alarmed is more the word—that it should be so late.“Why, that’s four o’clock,” she whispered. “Mr. Allport expected to be here by then, didn’t he? I must go, I must really go. I had no idea it was so late.”We hurried off down the garden together. A subtle change seemed to have come over Margaret—in the rose garden and behind the garage, friendly and anxious to exchange her ideas and confidences with mine—now suddenly reticent and disturbed. I could hear her whispering to herself as we hurried along the path, “How late it is, how late it is, I had no idea it was so late!” It somehow brought a picture of the White Rabbit hurrying off to the duchess’s tea party before my mind.“I say, they’re going to have tea in the garden, and it’s ready now; Mr. Allport may be here before we finish,” she said aloud in an agitated voice.“Well, and why not?” I voiced my surprise.“But I wanted to see Mrs. Kenley before he came, to show her the paper I found in the attic, you know, and now I shall have to wait until after tea and he may be here before we finish.”The doctor was still away on his afternoon round, but Janet, who had returned, and the others were seated under the cedar having tea. It was a hurried, agitated, unhappy little meal: Ethel obviously nervous and on edge; Margaret, anxious to finish and buttonhole my Janet, hardly ate anything at all; Janet absorbed and I fancied a little worried; Kenneth morose, with Ralph, as usual, a sort of sympathetic shadow, myself thinking, thinking, thinking, of Margaret’s latest find and Miss Summerson’s odd behavior. And all the time as we sat under the cedar’s shade with the sunsplashed lawn before us and the rooks cawing dreamily overhead, we each had an ear alert and listening for the front door-bell, and Allport, and the breaking of the storm. No wonder that we finished rather quickly and that Annie, for once, had overestimated our requirements in the matter of bread and butter.The two boys went off to the garage to make Ralph’s beloved and expensive car ready for the anticipated journey back to Sheffield as soon as Allport should arrive and release them from their parole. Ethel went indoors to aid the overworked Annie, and I think to escape from the rest of us. I saw Margaret turn and whisper to Janet as soon as Ethel had gone. They were seated next to each other, Janet next to me, Margaret in the chair beyond, and it just happened that I was looking at Janet’s hand as it rested on the arm of her wicker-chair when Margaret began to whisper. I was thinking how characteristic those hands of hers were—rather large for a woman—strong and gentle at once with fingers that tapered away like a dream; hands that were both manly and womanly at once. And then to my astonishment I noticed that the wicker of the chair-arm was bending beneath her grip.She rose to her feet as I glanced at her in surprise—surprise which increased, when I felt her tap my foot with hers as she said, “I don’t suppose that I shall be gone for more than five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock—about five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock.” For all the world as though we had had some definite arrangement together and she were making some excuse. But she took Margaret by the arm and walked away before I could question her about it.They went into the house together.
In spite of my succession of broken nights, I woke shortly after seven, and I got up as soon as Annie knocked at my door. No one was about when I made my way to the bathroom; the cans of hot water were still doing sentry duty outside the bedroom doors. I bathed and shaved at leisure and sauntered down-stairs to find the breakfast table being set, Annie hurrying to and fro. She spoke to me at once about the accident to cook.
“Have you heard what’s been happening in the night, sir? The doctor left a note on the table to say as how cook’s been taken ill and has had to be sent to the hospital. Such goings-on there must have been, the kitchen window smashed, and the doors standing wide open when I come down this morning. I don’t know what we’re all coming to, I’m sure. Do you know what it’s all about, sir?”
“Ah, you must sleep very soundly, Annie,” I answered. “Tell me now, what was cook doing when you went up-stairs to bed last night?”
“Me, sir? I’m sure I couldn’t tell you, sir. I kept away from the kitchen, I did. There’s all my washing up to do yet, but I wasn’t going near cook as she was last night if I could help it, and when I’d cleared away I went and sat by myself in the work room.”
“And where was cook then, Annie?”
“She was in the kitchen, sir. I locked the back door and fastened all the windows except the kitchen window before I went to bed, but I never heard her come up-stairs at all. What was it broke the window, sir?”
“She never went to bed at all, Annie. She must have been too far gone to get up-stairs, and apparently she turned on the gas at the stove and then forgot to light it, and nearly paid the penalty.” I told her exactly what had taken place during the early hours of the morning, but I could get no useful information in return. Annie had not gone into the kitchen and could not tell me anything of cook’s condition when she went up-stairs to bed.
“My goodness, sir, we might all have been exploded up in our beds. I told Miss Ethel it wasn’t safe to have her about the house,” was Annie’s comment, and she added rather maliciously, “She won’t get none of her whisky in the hospital.”
“No, Annie, you may be quite certain of that.”
“And my kitchen isn’t half in a mess with broken glass all over the floor. You don’t know what became of the table-cloth, do you, sir?”
“The table-cloth, Annie?”
“Yes, sir, I can’t find it nowhere this morning.”
Now, I remembered quite definitely that the cloth, a red one, was on the table when Janet and I had left the kitchen in the early hours of the morning. I remembered the large wet patch where the whisky had been upset. The Tundish had taken away the bottle and the glass, and had left us two talking alone together. The cloth was there then, and now, only a few hours later, it had disappeared. Clearly, either the doctor must have come back and annexed it, or the police had taken advantage of the open windows to return after we had gone to bed. It occurred to me that it had been a rather strange suggestion to make, that we should leave the window open. In either case it was interesting, and made me begin to wonder whether the accident to cook had been an accident at all.
Poor besotted cook, sitting drinking alone in the dark basement kitchen, slowly drinking herself to death, while all the time that more rapid certain death was swirling round her in the poisoned air. I pictured her pitching forward in the dark. In the dark——? It suddenly struck me how strange it was that she should have been sitting there alone without any light, and my doubt about it being an accident became a certainty that it was not.
“You’re sure that it isn’t there, Annie? You’ve looked everywhere, I suppose?”
“It isn’t in either the kitchen or the scullery, sir.”
I was puzzled, and decided to tell Janet about it at the first opportunity. Breakfast was not yet ready and no one was down, so I sauntered out into the garden. I was just in time to see Janet come in through the little door that leads into Dalehouse Lane. I was standing on the far side of the lawn, level with the end of the doctor’s wing, and somehow, from the way she looked about her, perhaps, I could guess that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.
To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when they quite suddenly realize that the word “friendship” can no longer express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was as Janet moved the few short paces across the end of the surgery wing that I realized that I was head over heels in love.
She looked so solemn and reliable as she came in through the door, so utterly dependable and brave. She scanned the garden toward the garage, apparently to make sure that her return had been unobserved, a little smile flickering across her serious face, as though half amused at her own precaution. It was not until she reached the corner of the wing that she saw me, and it was then at that instant that I knew with an absolute assurance that she was the one and only woman in the world for me. Had an angel with wings sailed down from the cathedral tower and led her to me, saying, “Mr. Jeffcock, allow me to introduce you to your wife,” I could not have been more sure about the matter.
Laughing that she had not seen me before, she came forward to greet me, and my uneasy thoughts of whisky-stained red table-cloths that mysteriously vanished in the night vanished too, and I could have cried out aloud, “Oh, you darling, you darling, what have you done?” But instead, I stood awkward and silent, thrilled with the realization of her nearness and her morning beauty.
“You’ve caught me,” she laughed.
“Have I?” I whispered back, and I think that she must have felt that my words might hold some double meaning, for we stood looking at each other, her eyes meeting mine—unflinching, appraising, her level brows a little arched—puzzled and wholly adorable.
“Please don’t tell any one.”
“It shall be our special secret,” I replied.
She turned and ran to the house, and I lounged up the sunny garden, my pulses pleasantly a-throb, drinking in the morning freshness that seemed to reflect and emphasize the joy of my uplifting discovery.
At the far end and in the corner away from the garage, there is a little rose garden, enclosed on two sides by a sturdy hedge of wild white rose, and on two by the mellow red brick walls—a diminutive but formal square of lawn with a rose bed in each corner—a little place of peace and sanctuary to which I naturally turned. An archway gives entry through the white rose hedge and I passed through it musing happily—yes happily, in spite of all the horrors of the week—for it seemed that for me the darkness might lift to a golden dawn. In one of the corner-beds grew a lovely large white rose and I stooped to examine one of the buds, a thing of perfect beauty, the outer petals curling back to show the heart—layer on layer of closely folded purity.
Then just behind me I heard a tiny splash, and I turned quickly to learn the cause. I had been looking at beauty and thinking of love, while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death.
Dead birds lay scattered over the little square; sparrows mostly, but a robin with its vivid breast, and a cock blackbird with its gay orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their backs with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world as though they had been taken from some taxidermist’s show-case and scattered about the grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel’s tabby Tom, stark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws.
In the center of the square there stood an old painted iron table on which Ethel kept a shallow dish of red pottery filled with water for the birds in times of drought. A thrush was in the middle of it, lying on its back, and it made one last dying flutter as I stood taking in the tragic little scene. A second thrush, its mate, I guessed, flew down from the garden wall as I watched, and perched on the edge of the dish, then catching sight of me, it gave one long, sorrowful, flutelike note and flew away.
I crossed over to the cat and turned him over with my foot. His eyes were wide and when I saw them I felt the hair go creeping across my scalp, for there was a yellow slit of iris and the rest was an angry red. I started back in horror and ran to the house for Janet.
She was coming down the stairs as I entered the hall, and I beckoned to her to come into the garden with me.
“What is it?” she queried. “Is anything the matter?”
“Yes, come and see what I’ve found.”
We hurried back to the rose garden.
“Oh, the poor dears, the poor dears! Oh, how horrible!” she cried when I pointed to the birds, her sweet low voice vibrating with a tenderness that it made my heart ache to hear.
“Yes, it’s the poison,” she agreed, when I showed her Ethel’s cat. “How horribly, oh, how wantonly cruel! Run in quickly, please, and telephone to Inspector Brown before the others get down-stairs. Ask him to come in by the side door and straight to me here at once, not to go to the house. I know he’s at the station. If Annie’s about send her to me here out of the way before you speak. If any of the others are about come back to me at once and we must hide them away without showing the inspector. The number’s forty-seven. I’ll be thinking of some excuse for wanting Annie.”
There was no one about but Annie and when I had sent her to Janet I got my message through to the inspector without any interruption, for once the telephone working according to plan. He promised to be with us in a few minutes and I hurried back to find Janet walking up and down the path behind the garage. What excuse she made for her talk with Annie I forgot to ask, but it was satisfactory, for Annie met me smiling broadly.
Janet was angry. Now that I know her so well I can better estimate how angry and disturbed she was. “It’s so stupidly cruel,” she almost sobbed, “to put it there where the birds come to drink. It seems an unsympathetic thing to say, but somehow it riles me more than the murder itself.”
“Don’t you think we had better tell the doctor,” I asked her, “he will be able to say more definitely if it’s the poison—the Chinese poison, I mean.”
She shook her head emphatically and looked at me rather queerly, I almost fancied, too. “No, no,” she said. “There’s nothing to be gained by telling any one else. Never tell any one anything, that’s Johnny Allport’s golden rule for detective work.”
At her suggestion we went back to the rose garden to await the inspector and to prevent any more birds from drinking the poisoned water. “He’ll have to take them away with him,” she said. “Did you tell him anything?”
“No,” I replied, “for once I obeyed the golden rule.”
“Well, we ought to be looking for something to put them in. Do you think you could get a clothes-basket or something without Annie seeing you, and a bottle or can for the water?”
I returned to the house once more to try my luck, but Annie was in the hall, and though I racked my brains I could think of no reasonable excuse for getting her out of the way. Then my eyes happened to light on the garage key that hung on a hook in the hall, and I remembered having seen an old wooden box that I thought might serve our purpose. It was there, but I could find nothing for the water, so I took what I had found across to Janet hoping that she might be able to make some other suggestion.
But she had already solved the problem by finding the watering can, and to my dismay I returned to find her tipping the contents of the bird bath into it. I hated to see her handle the deadly stuff, remembering the doctor’s alarm when I had only touched the outside of the baby flagon.
“It’s all right,” she replied cheerfully to my protest. “I haven’t touched a drop, and I promise to disinfect.”
Then very gingerly we picked up the birds one by one and put them in the box, leaving one bird and the cat, so that the inspector might see exactly how they had lain when he arrived.
He was with us before we had completed our task, more gigantic and phlegmatic than ever, I thought he looked, in the little formal garden. Janet quickly explained the situation and bustled him away with a competence that only went to increase my admiration for her, but we were not to be left alone as I half hoped we might. She would have none of it, but insisted that we ought to get back to the house at once, that breakfast must be ready and that we should be missed, and that the less we were seen together the better, though I did my best to persuade her to stay.
Idiotic of me, perhaps, but it was—no, I can’t explain it—if you who read need explanations then you are beyond me. I was in love, I had never been in love before, and here was my darling alone among the roses. I wanted to stay with her and keep her to myself, not share her with the rest.
But it was not to be, for up the garden path came The Tundish whistling theMarseillaise, his chin stuck out in a way that he had when he whistled and felt jolly, or rather I should say when he was willing that others should know he was feeling jolly, for only once had I seen him really depressed, and that was the time when I had caught him frowning over Hanson’s case-book. He was amazing, The Tundish, and the more I saw of him the more my amazement grew. Here we were at the morning of the inquest, and he could whistle away light-heartedly, just like any boy at home from school on the first day of the holidays.
If I was amazed, Janet was alert. “Your knife, quickly, Mr. Jeffcock,” and she was cutting roses and asking me about their names—of which I knew exactly nothing—even as the doctor stood smiling happily under the arch.
“Hello! Breakfast ready?” she greeted him.
“Yes.”
He was looking at the little table on which the bird bath had stood. “Where’s the bird bath gone to?”
Janet looked at him hard and I looked at Janet. “It has gone to be cleaned, Dr. Wallace,” she replied.
“Cleaned! Oh, Ethel’s taken it, has she? I came to see if it wanted filling. Come along in to breakfast.”
The others were seated at the table when we got back to the house, and although Janet said very little and I could see that her thoughts were busy with our discovery, her presence again seemed to break down the restraint of some of our former meals. Neither Ethel, Margaret, nor the boys had heard of cook’s experience, and their natural curiosity kept the conversation going, and helped us to avoid those appalling periods of silence that I was beginning to associate not only with our meals, but even with dear old Dalehouse itself. Silences they were that seemed beyond our control. Silences that seemed to close down on us from outside, while we sat with averted eyes, each busy with his own suspicious thoughts.
“What a night you must have had,” was Ethel’s comment. “I see now that I ought to have given way, and have allowed you to turn her out last night as you wanted to, Tundish; then you would all have been spared.”
“No, it was my fault, and I blame myself entirely for what happened,” he replied. “I ought to have looked round myself before I went to bed, knowing the state she was in. I’m only glad that the rest of you were not disturbed—especially you two girls—it was no pretty sight, I can assure you.”
“I’m thankful I didn’t wake,” Margaret joined in, “I shouldn’t have slept another wink all night. It makes me feel quite faint even to think of it now.”
The doctor smiled broadly, rather unkindly too, I fancied. “Well, if that’s what you look like when you feel faint——!”
We all of us laughed, for never had she looked more pink and white and golden, more full of vitality and less like a fainting lady. Both Ethel, whose bruise was still in evidence, and Janet looked pallid and worn by comparison.
As we were finishing breakfast a note came by hand for the doctor. Ralph had just said, apropos of the accident to cook, that the house seemed fated, and that, without meaning to be rude, he would be very glad to be back at work. The Tundish looked up from his note with a smile, as happy a smile as you could wish to see.
“Well, you’ll be able to gratify your wish. This is from the inspector. The inquest is fixed for eleven o’clock and we are all to be there. He is sending cars to fetch us. Moreover, our little pocket Hercules will be with us at four, and so you see, Ralph, you will be able to leave this evening, but whether I shall be here to see you off is, I imagine, more uncertain.”
He got up to leave the room as he spoke, but turned with his hand on the door-knob. “By the way, Ethel, what have you done with the bird bath from the rose garden? I’ll fill it up before I go.”
“The bird bath?”
“Yes, haven’t you had it? It’s missing from the table.”
“No, I filled it up yesterday morning and I’m afraid I haven’t touched it since.” Ethel looked round the table to see if we could give her information, but we none of us spoke, and The Tundish left the room.
When he had gone Margaret offered to take out another bowl of water, saying, “The poor little things will be parched,” and there was a discussion as to household duties, during which the two boys went off to the garden and I out into the hall where I pretended to be brushing my clothes. I wanted to waylay Janet.
She came out at last and I persuaded her to join me in the garden as soon as she could get away, and after an interminable half-hour she came to me there. “Just for two minutes,” she said uncompromisingly, but with the smile I had grown to look for and to love so much. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what you make of it all,” I asked her. “Wasn’t it just a little odd that the doctor should have come to look for the bird bath then?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t tell you what I make of it.”
“You mean you won’t. You don’t want to tell me.”
“No, it’s not that. I do want to tell you but I can’t.”
“Where did you go before breakfast?”
“To the police station.”
“What for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I’m rather a poor sort of confederate then, I’m afraid, if you won’t let me know what you are doing.”
“You’re not a confederate, you’re a protector should the need rise. Honestly, I can’t help it, Mr. Jeffcock, it isn’t my doing. Johnny Allport is my superior officer and I was to tell you nothing except who I was, and that I might possibly require your help. And that was only because you caught us together.”
“I see, a sort of sop to keep me good.” I was feeling childishly hurt.
We had been walking up and down the strip of lawn that lay between the house and the boundary wall, and at the end of one of our sentry goes she turned and faced me, the sun lighting up her dear face so that I could see the tiny gold brown hairs that straggled across the bridge of her delectable little nose. I wanted to help her and felt absurdly that I had the right to. I wanted endless consultations. Here we were, within an hour of the inquest, with the mystery that had bedeviled the Dalehouse atmosphere from cellar to attic as far from solution as ever, and while yesterday my head had been full of such thoughts as, “If he did this, then why did he go and do that?” now this morning I could think of nothing but Janet and how I might keep her near me.
“Do please be sensible,” she smiled.
“But how can I help you if I’m all in the dark?”
“It helps me just to know you’re there at hand. Now I must really go.”
She turned to go back to the house. The two boys were sitting out of earshot, under the cedar tree. “I say, do sit next to me at the inquest,” I called after her gently.
She laughed outright. “Certainly, sir,” she said, “only I’m not going.” She was gone, leaving me uncertain as to whether I was annoyed or pleased about what she had said. And I only remembered afterward that I had told her nothing of Annie’s missing table-cloth.
Two police cars came for us at a quarter before the hour, backing into Dalehouse Lane where we got into them without attracting the attention I had rather feared. Two men only observed us, and I heard one say to the other in passing, “Aye, that’s ’im, goes about the town as bold as brass,” a remark which made me appreciate the doctor’s bravery, or effrontery, in continuing to attend his patients.
I had never been to an inquest before and the only thing that really impressed me was the brevity of the whole proceeding. A room behind the mortuary was used for the purpose, a long room it was with a plain deal table running nearly the length of it, and with whitewashed walls that made the most of the rather inadequate light.
The jurors were all assembled when we arrived, a solemn uninteresting dozen, with, so far as I could judge, not one man of any personality among them. They were seated round the table. We were given seats against the wall, and the coroner, a very much younger man than I had expected, came in as we took our places.
He was business itself.
He asked the inspector to take the jury to view the body, filling up an official-looking form pending their return. And he then asked Ethel to explain to the jury exactly how she had found Miss Palfreeman on the Wednesday morning. There was no witness box and she was sworn and made her statement standing in front of her chair at the side of the room. She spoke clearly and well.
The doctor made a similarly brief statement, and was continuing to describe how he had prepared a draft for Stella the evening before, when the coroner pulled him up.
“Just at the moment I am only asking you to tell the jury how you found Miss Palfreeman when you went up-stairs at Miss Hanson’s request.”
“I have nothing more to add then,” the doctor replied.
“You were of the opinion that her death was not from any natural cause and decided that the police should be informed?”
“Yes.”
Inspector Brown next described how he had been called and went to Dalehouse along with Detective Inspector Allport and the police surgeon, and he concluded his few short sentences by asking that the inquest might be immediately adjourned while the police secured further evidence.
“How long do you want, Inspector?”
“I suggest Tuesday of next week, sir.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Very well then, gentlemen, the inquest is adjourned and I am sorry to have to ask you to attend here again next Tuesday at the same time. A formal reminder will be posted to you. I understand that there have been rumors in the city with regard to this unfortunate affair, and there have been one or two most improper references in the press. It is your plain duty to shut both your ears and your eyes until we meet again, and to take care that you come to the adjourned inquest with your minds a blank. There has been talk of foul play. We shall know nothing of that. The unfortunate girl met her death in circumstances that require further investigation. That is the sum of our knowledge at present. We shall meet again on Tuesday to consider the full evidence that will be put before us, and, under my guidance, you will then decide together what was the cause of her death. Thank you.”
A tall, gray-haired, full-faced man whom I hadn’t noticed before came and stood at the end of the table, facing the coroner. “I have a statement, sir, that I think it is my duty to make. It’s with regard to——”
“Excuse me,” the coroner interrupted, “but whoever you are I can allow no statement whatever to be made.”
“My name is Crawford and I am uncle to the deceased, and what I have to say may, I think, ha——”
“I am sorry, Mr. Crawford, but I really can not allow any statement whatever to be made. The jury must hear all the evidence in proper order and at the proper time. If you have any information you feel you ought to impart immediately, then it is your duty to report it to the police.”
“Can’t I——?”
“No, really you can’t.”
The florid-faced uncle retired. I liked the look of the man, jolly I thought, and I wondered what it was that he wanted to say. Then to my surprise, just as the coroner was gathering up his papers, and the jurors were pushing back their chairs, Kenneth jumped to his feet.
“May I ask, sir, how much longer we are to be detained?”
The coroner looked up in some surprise. “We—detained? I don’t think I understand you. Who are you and to whom do you refer?”
“My name is Dane, sir, and I refer to my friends and myself and our detention at Dalehouse.”
The inspector stepped forward and whispered in the coroner’s ear. The coroner nodded his head emphatically and then he turned to Kenneth.
“No warrant has been issued for any one’s detention. I understand that you and your friends made a perfectly voluntary arrangement with Inspector Allport, and if that is so I think that your application is in very bad taste indeed. Neither I, nor the police, have any right to detain any one at present and you are at liberty to go when and where you will, but you will be wanted at the inquest on Tuesday and a proper notice will be served.”
Kenneth reddened and sat down.
Inspector Brown came forward and told us that the cars were available for our return, and we filed out into the dazzling sun. The dreaded inquest was over, but I realized that the next would be a far more trying affair.
At the door stood Mr. Crawford talking to the police surgeon, and he came forward and spoke a few words to Ethel in the kindest possible way, and then to my surprise he buttonholed the doctor, drawing him a few paces apart. They held a brief, earnest little conversation, at the close of which Mr. Crawford handed The Tundish a letter which he put carefully away in his pocketbook. They shook hands amicably and the doctor rejoined us. I could not help my curiosity, and I wondered what Stella’s uncle could have to say and give to the doctor and whether he had lived in China too, and they had met before. There was nothing to be gleaned from the doctor’s face, however; he was neither pleased nor perturbed, but just the same equable and placid Tundish, as inscrutable as ever.
We were back at Dalehouse before twelve o’clock, and my first concern was to look for Janet. She was not in the down-stairs rooms and I went up to change my coat for a blazer, prior to making a search in the garden. The Tundish and I happened to go up the stairs together, he to his room and I to mine. They were next door to each other, and as he opened his door out came Janet. Obviously a little astonished, he stood to one side to allow her to pass.
“Sorry, Doctor. I was finishing off some dusting for Ethel, and didn’t expect you back so soon,” she apologized.
He made some conventional remark and she went on down-stairs, but I noticed, and I wondered whether the doctor noticed it too, that she had no duster. She had been searching his room, I felt convinced, and I hated the whole business and Janet’s part in it in particular as I had never hated it before.
Lunch passed without incident—Janet did not look at me once—but afterward, as we were leaving the dining-room, with a whispered “Take this,” she handed me a folded note. I went up-stairs to my bedroom at once to read it.
“Dear Mr. Jeffcock,”—it ran—“I am going out this afternoon and shall not be back until four o’clock. If an opportunity occurs will you please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor’s bedroom before lunch; that you heard me tell him that I had been dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn’t any duster. Just tell her that you thought it rather curious. I don’t want to tell her myself, but I do want her to guess that I have been searching the doctor’s room. Please burn this.”
“Dear Mr. Jeffcock,”—it ran—“I am going out this afternoon and shall not be back until four o’clock. If an opportunity occurs will you please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor’s bedroom before lunch; that you heard me tell him that I had been dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn’t any duster. Just tell her that you thought it rather curious. I don’t want to tell her myself, but I do want her to guess that I have been searching the doctor’s room. Please burn this.”
There was no signature, and I folded it up and put it carefully away in my pocketbook in spite of her request; it was my first letter from Janet and whatever its contents it should be preserved. As for its contents, I could not understand them at all. Think as I would, and I sat on the edge of my bed for a full quarter of an hour thinking as hard as the sweltering heat would let me, I could read neither sense nor reason into her request. If, for some reason or other, she wanted Margaret to know that she was working with Allport, why could she not tell her right out, instead of adopting this roundabout device? If, on the other hand, she still desired to keep her true identity hidden from the rest, why should she tell even Margaret that she had been searching the doctor’s room?
After a time, I gave up my attempt to follow the reasoning that led to the writing of the letter, and concentrated my attention on trying to carry out the instructions it contained. The two boys had been reduced to their chess again and were playing in the drawing-room. In neither the house nor the garden could I find Margaret, and I concluded that she had gone to her room to lie down, so I had perforce to amuse myself as best I might by reading the paper and by watching the two at their funereal game.
Three o’clock came and then half past three, and I was beginning to think that I should be unable to do as Janet wished when Margaret joined us and surprisingly asked me to go into the garden with her.
“Come up behind the garage,” she said, “I want to show you something.”
Full of curiosity, and wondering whether what she had got to show might not have some bearing on Janet’s strange request, I followed her up the garden and we sat down on the bench behind the garage where I had caught Allport talking to Janet.
“You remember that newspaper that was found in the chest of drawers in your bedroom?” Margaret began.
“Yes.”
“Well, you know, I always felt somehow that you might have put it there yourself after all—forgive me for saying so—and that it might have been you who put up the second notice over the switch, you see you found it and had such a chance to put——”
“You have no business to make such suggestions,” I interrupted angrily, as soon as I could conquer my first astonishment.
“Oh, please don’t be cross, you know what a way I have of blurting out whatever comes into my head. And, after all, it must be one of us, we must each of us be guessing and thinking these awful things about the rest. It was all very well, and natural too, perhaps, of the doctor to warn us against it, but it really isn’t human nature not to. However, it doesn’t matter now for just look here what I’ve stumbled across.”
She put her hand down inside the top of her jumper and pulled out a sheet of newspaper, handing it over for my inspection. Like the one that had been found in my chest of drawers, odd words and letters had been cut out here and there, and I gazed at it astonished.
“And look at this,” she added, passing me a smaller piece of paper.
I recognized it for what it was at once. It was a sheet torn from the memo tablet that stood on the doctor’s desk. On it there were some almost illegible pencil notes, about a prescription, I gathered, in The Tundish’s characteristic writing. And right across the middle of it, and pasted partly over the penciled words, had been stuck letters cut from a newspaper forming the first portion of the identical message that I had found on the card above the landing switch.
“dark Deeds ARE done in D”
“dark Deeds ARE done in D”
“Where on earth did you find this?” I asked her.
“In the box-room up among the attics. I went up just now to look for a cardboard box to send some things away in. Annie told me there were a lot stored away up there and the first one I came to had a lot of rubbish and odd bits of paper in it and when I emptied them out, this”—she pointed to the memo slip—“fell face upward on the floor. Then I found the sheet of newspaper when I searched among the rest.”
“I can’t make it out, can you? Who could have put it there?”
“It looks fishy to me,” she said. “Kenneth’s bit of fish,” she added pensively after a pause.
“You mean you think that Dr. Wallace is—responsible for this.”
“Well, it does point that way to say the least of it. I’m sure that’s his writing on the pad slip. And listen. I went to Annie with the box to ask her if she thought I might take it, and this is what she told me. ‘Oh yes, miss, it was by the waste-paper basket in the dispensary this morning where the doctor always puts anything that he wants us to throw away, but it seemed such a nice box that I took it up-stairs instead.’ Now what do you make of that? I argue that he must have been trying what it would look like, when he was interrupted or something, and that he might have thrown them into the basket or on to the floor by mistake. The basket may have been full, perhaps, and then when Annie went to clean out she would naturally sweep them up into the box. Yes, and he would think that they had been burned, and wouldn’t like to make any inquiries when he missed them later on!”
“Yes, I suppose that is a possibility,” I replied meditatively, “but it doesn’t sound very characteristic of the doctor, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t, but I can’t think of anything more likely.”
We sat on the bench in thought for a little time, and then I gave her the information Janet had asked me to in her little note. I could have had no better opportunity.
“How very strange!” was Margaret’s comment. She sat frowning in thought, and then she turned to me, her eyebrows arched. “And so you suspect the doctor after all, do you? Or else why do you think that Mrs. Kenley, of all unlikely people, might have been searching his room? Come now, isn’t it more natural to suppose that she left the duster in the room? I think you’re almost as bad as I am, Mr. Jeffcock.”
“Well, one can’t help wondering,” I excused myself lamely enough; “but what are you going to do with these?”
“Give them to the police, I suppose. It’s no use showing them to the Kenneth-Ralph combination, and it would be unkind to say anything to Ethel. I think I shall just keep them to myself until Mr. Allport comes.”
“I think we ought to ring up the inspector at once, or show them to Mrs. Kenley,” I ventured, “she at any rate is impartial and has no bias.”
“You think her tremendously clever, don’t you? Perhaps I will.”
We got up to return to the house, my brain a-whirl with fresh conjecture, but as we drew level with the end of the garage and were approaching the little rose garden, I could have sworn that I heard movements in the hedge.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, holding Margaret back.
“No, what?”
“I’m certain I heard some one moving in the rose garden.” We went forward through the archway piercing the hedge as I spoke. At first we could see nothing and we were just coming away when Margaret grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed to the end of the hedge. Right at the end of it where it met the garden wall some one was standing—pressed well back between the hedge and the wall itself—apparently trying to hide. We went to see who it could be.
It was Miss Summerson.
“What is the matter? Whatever are you doing?” Margaret asked her.
She came a little forward out of the hedge and stood before us, her face scarlet, her breast heaving like a woman in a crisis in a picture play, obviously on the edge of tears, a pitiable object. There we stood, the three of us, Margaret and I exchanging glances of surprise, Miss Summerson looking first at one of us and then at the other and then at the ground, a study in furtive indecision.
At length she stammered, “I was trying to reach a rose in the hedge.”
I stepped forward to get it for her, pressing into the hedge where it grew thickly against the wall and where we had seen her standing, but no rose at all could I see.
“Whereabouts was the one you were after?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder to where she and Margaret stood.
“Oh, I’m—I’m—no-not sure that there was one really,” she stammered, looking at me beseechingly out of her timid tear-filled eyes. “I must really go now.”
And before we could say another word she ran away through the arch, leaving us alone with our astonishment.
“Well, and what are we expected to make of that?” I queried.
“You know, I wonder whether she really did lose the poison cupboard key!” was Margaret’s rather irrelevant reply.
“But what is—I don’t see the connection.”
“Oh, none, no connection exactly, but her behavior was queer, wasn’t it? And I’ve always thought she looked a little underhand. You see, if she did poison Stella, then it would be quite a good plan to lose the key, a little before the event, say on the afternoon before and in time for some one else to have possibly found it.”
“Oh, I say, how could she though, she wasn’t even in the house?”
“She could—she could have got in through the bedroom window while we were at supper. She may easily have known of the medicine there ready for Stella and handy for the poison. In spite of what he said, the doctor may have made it up before she left; or he may have told her about it; or he may have written himself a reminder on his pad, or—oh, I can think of several ways in which she might have got to know about the draft.”
“But why should she have done it?”
“Oh, you men, how blind you are. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you haven’t noticed that she worships the ground he treads on? Why, she can’t keep her eyes away from him when they are in the room together.”
“But even so, that’s surely no reason why she should murder one of Ethel’s guests?”
“Blockhead,” she laughed, “she was jealous. And I’m not so sure that she hadn’t good reason to be too, or why did Mr. Allport ask Ethel about it in the way he did?”
“But, my dear Miss Hunter, the girl is only just engaged to another man, you heard her tell us so yourself.”
“And, my dear Mr. Jeffcock,” she mocked, “it’s quite, quite possible to be engaged to one man and in love with another all the time—even quite, quite nice girls may find themselves in that position. If you doubt it I can give you a case near at hand, can’t I now?”
I had to admit to myself that she could, but our conversation was interrupted by the cathedral clock which boomed out the hour of four. Margaret seemed absurdly—I was going to say put out, but I think alarmed is more the word—that it should be so late.
“Why, that’s four o’clock,” she whispered. “Mr. Allport expected to be here by then, didn’t he? I must go, I must really go. I had no idea it was so late.”
We hurried off down the garden together. A subtle change seemed to have come over Margaret—in the rose garden and behind the garage, friendly and anxious to exchange her ideas and confidences with mine—now suddenly reticent and disturbed. I could hear her whispering to herself as we hurried along the path, “How late it is, how late it is, I had no idea it was so late!” It somehow brought a picture of the White Rabbit hurrying off to the duchess’s tea party before my mind.
“I say, they’re going to have tea in the garden, and it’s ready now; Mr. Allport may be here before we finish,” she said aloud in an agitated voice.
“Well, and why not?” I voiced my surprise.
“But I wanted to see Mrs. Kenley before he came, to show her the paper I found in the attic, you know, and now I shall have to wait until after tea and he may be here before we finish.”
The doctor was still away on his afternoon round, but Janet, who had returned, and the others were seated under the cedar having tea. It was a hurried, agitated, unhappy little meal: Ethel obviously nervous and on edge; Margaret, anxious to finish and buttonhole my Janet, hardly ate anything at all; Janet absorbed and I fancied a little worried; Kenneth morose, with Ralph, as usual, a sort of sympathetic shadow, myself thinking, thinking, thinking, of Margaret’s latest find and Miss Summerson’s odd behavior. And all the time as we sat under the cedar’s shade with the sunsplashed lawn before us and the rooks cawing dreamily overhead, we each had an ear alert and listening for the front door-bell, and Allport, and the breaking of the storm. No wonder that we finished rather quickly and that Annie, for once, had overestimated our requirements in the matter of bread and butter.
The two boys went off to the garage to make Ralph’s beloved and expensive car ready for the anticipated journey back to Sheffield as soon as Allport should arrive and release them from their parole. Ethel went indoors to aid the overworked Annie, and I think to escape from the rest of us. I saw Margaret turn and whisper to Janet as soon as Ethel had gone. They were seated next to each other, Janet next to me, Margaret in the chair beyond, and it just happened that I was looking at Janet’s hand as it rested on the arm of her wicker-chair when Margaret began to whisper. I was thinking how characteristic those hands of hers were—rather large for a woman—strong and gentle at once with fingers that tapered away like a dream; hands that were both manly and womanly at once. And then to my astonishment I noticed that the wicker of the chair-arm was bending beneath her grip.
She rose to her feet as I glanced at her in surprise—surprise which increased, when I felt her tap my foot with hers as she said, “I don’t suppose that I shall be gone for more than five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock—about five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock.” For all the world as though we had had some definite arrangement together and she were making some excuse. But she took Margaret by the arm and walked away before I could question her about it.
They went into the house together.