Dr. Adams had acted very quickly. So did the Chief Constable. As Dr. Adams had expected, Scotland Yard was called in almost immediately. By six o’clock that same evening, the pathologists had determined the cause of Uncle Hugh’s death, and the Scotland Yard Inspector, a man named Burgess, was talking to all of us in the library.
The atmosphere in the room was tight and strained. Daphne sat with her hand in Robert’s, and Anne and Andrew, together on the sofa, occasionally murmured something to one another in low voices. Tay sat alone and seemed as withdrawn as he had been all during the week-end. Uncle William looked shattered, and I realized that in spite of his remarks in the morning, he had been profoundly unsettled by his brother’s death. Like all of us, after all, he had been propped up by Uncle Hugh all his life. Donald Gresham sat aloof and withdrawn. No one spoke to him. And Charles lounged near the fire, his hands in his pockets, looking like a Hollywood conception of a young English diplomat. That, I gathered, was his present role. But in spite of his almost consciously graceful pose, his eyes were alert and watchful.
Burgess was a quiet, pleasant-spoken man about forty-five, obviously well educated and entirely at ease in his surroundings. He had clearly been picked with some care for this job. He began by expressing formal regrets to the family for Uncle Hugh’s death, and was then introduced to all of us by Dr. Adams. Then Burgess took over again.
“I’m very much afraid that I have to tell you Sir Hugh did not die a natural death. I find it impossible, for various reasons, to avoid the conclusion that he was wilfully murdered.”
There were one or two exclamations, but Burgess’ authority held the room quiet as he went on. “It will therefore be necessary for me to conduct a regular police inquiry into his death. I am certain that all of you will be co-operative. My men will try to be as unobtrusive as possible—and I shall try to be as quick as possible.”
There was another pause, broken by Andrew. “Do you think we could be told how he was killed?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Burgess. “He was killed because he was given a new drug which lowers the blood-pressure very markedly. They discovered Sir Hugh had been given it when they did a gastric analysis. The drug was probably in tablet form—it dissolves very easily. It was, I believe, put in the water carafe that stood on his bedside table. He got out of bed, probably to go into the bathroom, and there was just not enough blood reaching the head to enable him to go on functioning. He fell into a faint and never recovered consciousness.”
The cold matter-of-factness stunned all of us. Andrew said, “You’re sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“And the drug—the name of it, I mean?”
“It’s a relatively new one—used in treating hypertension. It’s called hexamethonium bromide. It’s not too easy to come by.”
There was an appalled silence. Then Andrew said, in a slightly unsteady voice: “It’s odd that it should be just that drug. You see, we all—know about it. We were talking about it at a family dinner some months ago. Our own London doctor—his name’s Barker—was there. He was one of the pioneers in its use, and he was telling us about it.”
We sat like statues. Burgess said: “You all have the same doctor in London?”
“Yes.”
“And that dinner-party was some months ago. How many months? Three? Six?”
Charles pulled a diary out of his pocket and flicked through it rapidly. He gave Burgess the date. It had been nearly five months ago.
“Have any of you been to see Dr. Barker at his office since then?”
Silence again. I said: “I had.” And gradually, everyone else admitted that at some time or other during the past five months, he had been to the doctor’s office in Harley Street. Gresham, of course, had not. He added that he had never heard of the drug, and I think most of us believed him. The possibility that any of the servants had had access to such an uncommon drug, or that having had access they would understand its characteristics, was limited. It was difficult to escape the conclusion that one of us in that room had murdered my uncle.
Burgess having, I imagine, learned more than he had expected, went on to his next point. Had any of us, he asked, been in Sir Hugh’s room any time during the previous evening?
There were again uneasy glances and silence. Then my Aunt Mildred said brightly that she just remembered she had gone to talk to Sir Hugh before dinner. Burgess asked courteously whether her errand had had any particular purpose.
My aunt’s reply, stripped of its verbiage, was that she had gone to see Sir Hugh about the inefficient way his household was run and in particular about the failure of the housekeeper, Mrs. Rapp, to model her behaviour on my aunt’s wishes. Aunt Mildred indicated that though her niece, Mrs. Fane, was supposed to have some responsibility for the household, she appeared to meet this responsibility by allowing the servants—and particularly Mrs. Rapp—to do precisely as they pleased. Andrew gave me a rather wan and apologetic grin at this, and Charles winked in sympathy. But Burgess listened to my aunt impassively and asked how long she had been with Sir Hugh.
“But I didn’t see him,” said my aunt. “When I went in, he had already gone down to dinner.”
What that meant—though I don’t suppose Burgess realized it then—was that my aunt, finding my uncle away, had taken the opportunity to scrutinize those of his belongings and possessions which he had left lying around the room. It also meant, I guessed, that she had been seen by some maid going into the room. Otherwise, whatever her intentions had been, she would not have volunteered any information about her visit to Sir Hugh’s room. These uncharitable reflections were the result of long knowledge of my aunt, and of her mixed feelings toward Uncle Hugh. I did not believe she had hated him enough to kill him; but if she had thought his death would benefit herself or her immediate family, I doubt whether she would have been troubled by many scruples.
“He went down fairly early,” said Anne, “to have a drink. I was early, too, and I rapped on his door on my way. I wanted to ask him if he’d come to dinner later in the month—there were some people who’d particularly wanted to meet him. I stayed in his room talking for a few minutes, and then we went down to the library together.”
Anne’s self-possession seemed to suggest that any additional questions would be unnecessary. Burgess seemed to agree, for he turned to listen to my Uncle William. “I went upstairs with Hugh,” said my uncle, “and I spent a few minutes with him in his room. We were talking about the business—just general things, you know. And as I came out,” he added, with a triumphant look, “I met Mr. Tay. He was just going in.”
“That’s right,” said Tay. “Like you, I wanted to discuss some points about the business. I didn’t stay long, either—about fifteen minutes.”
“Perhaps we could put this on some sort of a time basis. What time did you all go upstairs?”
After a general discussion, it was decided that it had been about 11.15. Anne here interjected that she had gone up a few minutes earlier. It was established that Tay had met Uncle William on the threshold of Uncle Hugh’s room at about 11.30 and had himself left about 11.45. “That’s much better,” said Burgess. “It’s easier to work when one has some idea of the time involved. Now, did anyone else go into Sir Hugh’s room?”
Charles and I spoke at once, and Charles deferred politely to me. “I went upstairs just after dinner—about 9.30. I wanted to make sure everything had been done by the maids for the night. I just opened the doors to all the rooms and gave a quick look. I didn’t go in, though.”
It is surprising how the fact of murder can make one’s simplest and most natural activities sound sinister. It was as obvious to me as to everyone else that I could have put the tablets into the carafe at my leisure, on that entirely ordinary trip upstairs. I caught myself suppressing a desire to expand on what I had said, to explain that I did this customarily, though on Friday night, having been unusually tired, I had omitted it. But Burgess only took note of my statements as he had those of the others and waited for Charles.
But before Charles could speak, Andrew cut in ahead of him. I wondered if he had forgotten Charles’ earlier attempt to intervene. “I went in to see him,” said Andrew. “But I didn’t see anyone else. It was quite late—a quarter to one, or just before.”
Uncle Hugh had clearly spent a sociable night. Yet—had we not had the fact of murder to contend with—this was not so unusual. My uncle was known to work late or to read late, and he seldom went to sleep before two in the morning. Moreover, he was a difficult man to see alone, so that people with things on their minds might legitimately have cornered him in his bedroom late at night. It had frequently happened before. Burgess said, “And what did you go to see him about, sir?”
Andrew looked thoughtful. He was apparently debating with himself whether, as a matter of policy, he ought to follow Tay and his father in saying that he had gone to talk about the business. Then obviously coming to a different decision, he said, incisively, “I went to talk to him about the Freemen.”
There were murmurs, and I saw Charles eyeing Andrew with mixed amusement and approval. Andrew certainly was a bit of a tough, I thought. He could easily have lied, since it was highly unlikely that anyone could have overheard his conversation with Uncle Hugh; and he had chosen instead to introduce the highly charged subject of the Freemen, about which everyone else except Gresham had been discreetly silent. Uncle Hugh, I thought with some amusement, would have behaved in exactly the same way.
“The organization the Freemen of Britain, sir?”
“Yes,” said Andrew. “And I think you’d better hear the whole of it—rather than distorted part-versions. You see, my uncle had become very much interested in the Freemen—and you must have some idea what it’s like. It’s been called a Fascist organization, and I think that describes it well. He had decided to support it very strongly and openly—he’d been doing so privately for some time. I guessed he was planning to do something public and when he had Gresham here this week-end, I was sure. I thought the whole idea of the Freemen bad, and my uncle’s association with it bad for himself, the family, and the business. I went in to tell him so.”
I felt a relief at that blunt statement. It was better to have it out in the open. Charles had said two possible motives: money or the Freemen. Burgess now had both of them on a plate, and he could see what he could do with them. He said very politely to Andrew, “Thank you very much, sir. That’s very helpful,” and then turned to Charles. “Did you want to say something, Mr. Mason?”
“Yes,” said Charles. “I got back late last night. I’d originally intended to come over from Paris on the early plane. But I finished earlier than I expected, and I don’t like getting up early. So I caught a plane and got a car at the airfield to bring me down here. I arrived before midnight and came upstairs. I didn’t want to bother anyone and I knew my room would be ready for me. But as I passed my father’s door, I noticed light coming from under it and I knew he was still up. So I knocked and went in.”
“I see, sir. You must have wanted to say hello and tell him you were here?”
“Partly that—and to wish him a happy birthday. But, like my cousin, I also wanted to talk to him about the Freemen.”
Burgess seemed faintly surprised. “You’d heard about it in Paris?”
“In Paris, yes—and when I’ve been over here for a few days. I also thought it an unwise idea and an unwise association for him. To-day was his birthday, you know. We were going to have presents and speeches at lunch. My father rather liked occasions, and I thought it not unlikely he might pick the occasion of his birthday to make some kind of announcement of his plans. Once he’d done that, it was less likely he’d go back on it than if he’d never said anything to us at all. I wanted to talk it over with him first.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. I put my point of view and he listened. But he wasn’t convinced. I could see he wasn’t going to be and I was tired anyway, so I didn’t stay long. I don’t suppose I was with him longer than fifteen minutes—twenty at the outside.”
Well, I thought, he had certainly matched Andrew in bluntness. Burgess said to me, “Mrs. Fane, you worked closely with your uncle. Did you ever talk to him about the Freemen of Britain or did you know what he planned to do about it? Did you know anything about it at all?”
“I’d heard some rumours,” I said, slowly. “I did speak to him about it once. That is, I spoke of his association with it. He didn’t deny it, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I didn’t know what his plans were, though.”
If Burgess thought it unusual that though I worked so closely with my uncle in his political activities, I knew so little about such an important interest of his, he did not say so. “Did you also disapprove?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“If he’d openly associated himself with the organization you would have stopped working for him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him so?”
“No. But I’m sure he would have expected it.”
Tay appeared to be engrossed in his own thoughts. But he answered readily enough that he agreed with all of us. He had known that my uncle had had some connection with the Freemen, but had not been sure of its exact nature. My uncle had been evasive when the subject was mentioned. Like Charles, Tay considered the association unwise.
“And you, sir?” Burgess asked Uncle William.
Uncle William thought we were all making a great deal out of nothing. He’d heard Hugh’s name associated with the Freemen, but he didn’t really credit it. We had, after all, only Mr. Gresham’s word for it that my uncle really contemplated anything so absurd as an open association with the organization, let alone giving it any substantial financial support. My uncle implied that he did not think much faith should be placed in Gresham’s word. Hugh had a good deal of common sense when it came to the point, and he thought that all of us, including Tay, had got the entire matter out of proportion.
Burgess again nodded, and asked if anyone else had known about my uncle’s activities with the Freemen. Anne and Daphne and my Aunt Mildred all appeared to have heard of it, but nothing more. The two girls did not seem to have been much interested; and as my aunt had got her information from her husband, it seemed unlikely that it was very accurate. Robert said that he had known of it, though he had not realized how far my uncle had planned to go. He added flatly that though it was none of his business, he thought it an outlandish idea. Burgess then asked if any of them had been in my uncle’s room the previous evening or night, and all said no.
I was somewhat surprised that Donald Gresham had said nothing so far. But he did now, in a voice shaking with anger. “I don’t know about the rest of them,” he said. “Myself, I wouldn’t trust a word they said. But she”—he pointed at Daphne—“she went in to see him. It was after midnight. I saw her.”
Daphne turned white as chalk. She started to speak, couldn’t, and burst into tears. Her mother and Robert both tried to quiet her, while we all tried to look as if nothing were happening. When she had managed to control herself a little, Burgess asked Gresham how he had happened to see Daphne—if he had.
“I didn’t go right to bed,” said Gresham. “I had some work to do. Just after midnight, I remembered I’d left something in the library and I went down to get it. When I came back up, I saw her slipping into Sir Hugh’s room. I was a little worried about him anyway. I guessed they’d got word of what he planned to do and I knew what they’d think of it. They’ve just told you. And if you don’t think any one of them is capable of murdering him, after what they’ve just said——”
“That is what I shall attempt to find out,” said Burgess. “Suppose you just tell me what you did next.”
“Well, I went back to my room and went on with what I was doing. Then I began to get a bit windy. As I’ve said, I knew this lot was capable of anything. So I went down the corridor to his room.”
“What time was that?”
“Oh, it was well after one by this time. Say twenty to two. The light was still shining under the door. I stayed in the corner near the stairs for a while. I don’t know how long—maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then the light went out, so he’d obviously gone to bed. I stayed a while longer, but nothing happened, so I went back and went to bed myself.”
“That would have been after two o’clock.”
“Yes. That’s right. I looked at my watch when I got back to my room and it was about ten-past two.”
“Of course, we’ve only your word for that,” said Uncle William. “How can you prove you didn’t go and poison him yourself?”
The incongruity between this suggestion and his continued insistence that his brother had died a natural death did not seem to strike my uncle. Donald Gresham looked genuinely surprised. “Why should I? I’d nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
Uncle William persisted. “How do we know you’re telling the truth? Maybe my brother had told you he’d decided against doing anything at all and was pulling out of the Freemen—and you killed him?”
Gresham looked at him with amazement. “You heard what everyone else said,” he pointed out. “And I can prove what he himself said to the two top members of my organization. Besides, he’d hardly invite me to a week-end at his home just to tell me he was pulling out, would he?”
“Mr. Gresham,” said Burgess, “when exactly did Sir Hugh invite you down for the week-end?”
“Late on Thursday,” said Gresham, promptly.
“Had you expected such an invitation from him—or were you surprised?”
“Well,” said Gresham, a bit dubiously, “I don’t know quite how to answer that. I hadn’t expected it, no. But I wasn’t surprised especially.”
“Let me put it another way, Mr. Gresham. Apparently Sir Hugh had been considering making a public announcement of his support for the Freemen for some time. It wasn’t a new idea—and it was going to be an important step. Presumably timing was important. Yet he invited you down on fairly short notice. This would seem to suggest that he suddenly decided to put forward the date on which he would make the public announcement. I don’t claim that’s what happened, of course. He just could have decided that an opportune moment had come. But it’s conceivable that something happened which made him act more quickly than he’d planned. Have you any idea what it might be?”
Gresham looked astonished, but very much interested. “I don’t know of anything, no. But you’re right—we did think it was rather sudden. Still, Sir Hugh always knew what he was doing, and we thought there wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t make the announcement fairly soon.”
Burgess turned to the rest of us. “Can you think of anything that might have caused Sir Hugh to act suddenly instead of taking his time as he’d planned?”
No one could. Burgess said to Gresham, “I suppose that if the announcement of Sir Hugh’s connection with the Freemen had come as a disclosure by someone else rather than as an announcement made by himself, it would have been less valuable for the organization?”
“I suppose so,” Gresham admitted. “But I don’t think in the long run it would have made much difference.”
“Perhaps not. But if I’m right—then if Sir Hugh feared someone else might get in first—that would have been a good reason for his haste?”
Gresham agreed that it might be so. Again, Burgess did not labour the point. He just asked Gresham whether my uncle had said precisely what he hoped to do for the organization financially.
Gresham was not sure. “He didn’t name a figure. But he did say he thought we’d need about £250,000 to get on our feet properly.”
It was a large sum by anyone’s standards. We all looked shocked, and Gresham looked pleased at his results. But Burgess took it calmly, and asked Daphne if she would now tell him about her visit to Uncle Hugh’s bedroom the night before.
Daphne, in a very quiet voice, said that she had gone to see her uncle on a private matter. It had, as she put it, “nothing to do with anything”. That was all she would say, and no amount of coaxing—chiefly by Aunt Mildred, as Burgess accepted at least temporarily her mulish silence—could get anything else out of her.
Finally, my aunt gave it up. “I don’t know why you have to persecute Daphne,” she said, though she was the only person who had. “If she wanted to go and talk to her uncle, she had a perfect right to. It’s far more reasonable than Charles suddenly rushing back from Paris at all hours of the night, and coming into his own father’s house like a thief. And I’m surprised that no one’s mentioned Giles. He’s here in the neighbourhood frequently and he’s probably here this week-end. If Charles could walk into the house unnoticed, so could Giles. And if anyone hated Hugh—which considering all Hugh had done for him is downright wicked—Giles did. And he’s got an ungovernable temper—always did have, even as a child. If I were you, Inspector, I’d investigate his movements very carefully indeed.”
It would have been difficult to surpass the sheer malice of that speech. Aunt Mildred’s dislike for all of them—Hugh, Charles, and Giles alike—was so patent that it even shocked me, and I had been aware of it all my sentient life. I wondered drearily if all families in fact were that way with each other under the surface, and if we—and especially Aunt Mildred—simply let it come out on the surface more than most people did.
Burgess said, “Mr. Giles Randall, that would be? I wasn’t aware he lived here.”
It all came out then: Giles’ political beliefs, his girlfriend in Redcot, his general tiresomeness. It all poured out, while everyone else seemed to withdraw into themselves, and I tried to hear as little of it as possible. But finally Aunt Mildred ran out of information and stopped; and Burgess said he would not interrupt our dinner, but would like to see each of us in turn in the small sitting-room (where it had been arranged for him to work) as soon as we had finished.
Luckily, we were relieved of Gresham’s presence. Burgess did not have to be told how an uncomfortable atmosphere would be made very much worse if Gresham remained. Nor did Gresham show any desire to stay at Feathers. While we were at dinner, he gave Burgess a more detailed account of his afternoon with Uncle Hugh and of the early hours of Sunday morning. His luggage and his room were both searched with care by one of Burgess’ men. Gresham was then allowed to go off to the village inn, and Burgess no doubt saw to it that an eye was kept on his activities.
Dinner was an uncomfortable meal. There was very little conversation and no one seemed to look at anyone else. By the time it was my turn to see Burgess, I was so glad to escape from my family’s company that I almost didn’t mind the coming interview.
Burgess’ first questions had to do with my arrival at Feathers, with Friday night and Saturday morning, and with domestic arrangements. He then switched to the arrival of Donald Gresham. “Did it strike you as unusual that Sir Hugh should suddenly introduce a stranger into a family party without any explanation?”
“It did, rather.”
“When the others found out about it, how did they react?”
I remembered the scene in the library and my uncomfortable awareness of hostility at lunch. “They seemed a bit surprised at having a stranger suddenly thrust upon them.”
“Did anyone appear to know him?”
“No.”
“But you guessed who Gresham was?”
“I guessed he was connected with the Freemen, of course. It seemed the only logical explanation.”
“Judging from what was said, the others must have guessed, too. Did anything unusual happen at lunch—or at dinner?”
“No. Gresham was very quiet and self-effacing. He didn’t say much.”
“Did your uncle seem in any way unusual? Depressed?”
“On the contrary. He was very cheerful, almost exhilarated. I’d seldom seen him in such a gay mood.”
“You guessed he’d come to some decision about the Freemen?”
“I thought it might be that.”
“He didn’t strike you as a man contemplating suicide?”
“Not possibly.”
“He doesn’t sound the sort of man who would commit suicide under any circumstances.”
“I don’t think he was.”
“All right,” said Burgess. “Now tell me about money. I understand that the contents of your uncle’s will aren’t known to any of you?”
“That’s right.”
“And none of you had any capital of your own. You just had such money as Sir Hugh chose to give you?”
“That’s true as regards Uncle Hugh’s money. I mean, Robert Alison and Andrew’s wife, Anne, have some capital of their own. And, of course, Uncle William has quite a bit of money.”
“Which I understand he made through his brother’s offices?”
“Yes.”
“Though Mr. William Mason is, as you say, well-to-do, his wealth isn’t in the same class with his brother’s?”
I agreed.
Burgess then asked about my own financial arrangements with my uncle, and commented that they seemed very generous. “Was he as liberal with his own son or with your other cousins?”
“I honestly don’t know. I couldn’t even guess what he did about Andrew and Daphne. I don’t see any reason why he should have been any less generous to Charles than he was to me.”
“He was angry with him for going into the Foreign Office instead of into the business?”
“If he was, he never said so, and he never acted as if he were. I’ve always thought he approved. But it’s only a guess.”
“He liked the nephew who’s in the business, Andrew?”
“I believe so.”
“More than his own son?”
“I suppose Uncle William told you that. Well, I don’t know, and what’s more, Uncle William doesn’t know either.”
“He did suggest it,” admitted Burgess, smiling slightly. “Well, let’s complete the list. He liked Mrs. Alison? Her husband? Andrew’s wife? Mr. Tay?”
“All of them,” I said, briefly. “At least, so far as I could judge. He wasn’t a man who went in for very intense personal relationships.”
“But he must have felt intensely about your other cousin.”
“Giles? I suppose it seems so—and yet, do you know, I don’t think he did.”
“He—Mr. Randall—wouldn’t stand to profit by Sir Hugh’s death?”
“You mean, would he be left any money? I should say the chances were against it. But it’s not entirely impossible.”
“Do you think your uncle might have left him some money hoping to wean him back to capitalist ways?”
We both laughed. “Giles was brought up in capitalist ways and look at him. Besides, if the possession of money alone makes capitalists, Giles would be one. He makes a great deal of it.”
“Your aunt,” observed Burgess, “seems to feel that your cousin’s political differences with your uncle were a very serious matter indeed. Some of their differences, of course, were common knowledge.”
It was a difficult remark to reply to. “It’s true enough they saw things very differently. It’s always difficult to say how deep these things go.”
“Did your cousin Giles know about your uncle’s association with the Freemen? As he was a journalist, I suppose he must have.”
“He probably did,” I said, cautiously. “Of course, he wouldn’t be in sympathy with the aims of the Freemen.”
Burgess smiled. “That’s one way of putting it. They’re rather a mixed crew, your cousins, aren’t they? Mr. Andrew Mason, now—I gather he and your uncle’s assistant, Mr. Tay, weren’t very friendly? Some rivalry in the business?”
Either Burgess had done a good deal of research into family matters before coming down to Feathers or else these matters were more widely known than I had suspected—or else he had picked up an incredible amount in his short time in the house. He might, of course, have got much of it when seeing the servants, which he had done before starting on the family. I said briefly that he was correct.
“Was everyone aware of the situation between those two?”
“Everyone was aware there was a situation,” I said. “No one knew exactly what it was or how things would turn out.”
“It’s odd none of you tried to mediate between the two.”
“There are some things for which there aren’t any solution,” I said. “Both of them want to control the company. They aren’t the type to work in harness with each other. It doesn’t make any difference what anyone does. If one wins, the other loses. There isn’t any room for compromise.”
“There are situations like that,” agreed Burgess. “Tell me, Mrs. Fane—had you ever, before your uncle’s death, I mean—thought of violence in connection with your family?”
“Violence?” I repeated. “No. There was a certain amount of—well, as you’ve just said, the relations between Andrew and Tay weren’t very good. And Giles and my uncle didn’t get on. But they never saw each other, after all.”
“Yet your uncle’s chauffeur, Raikes, tells me that he suspected something odd. He wasn’t satisfied with the explanation of that accident you three were in on the way to Birmingham a couple of weeks ago.”
“No,” I said, slowly, “I know he wasn’t.”
“He even made some investigations on his own—and told you about them, I understand. Didn’t you take them seriously?”
I was reasonably sure that Raikes had not known about my uncle’s indisposition in the Birmingham hotel, as he would have mentioned it to me. On the other hand, Dr. Barker did know, and was sure to mention it to the police. I could have told Burgess I had known nothing of this, but it might have sounded a bit thin. Besides, I remembered my conversation with Charles. He had quickly assumed that my apparently innocent telephone call to Paris the previous week-end had been in some way connected with my anxiety about his father. If he learned—as he probably would—of Uncle Hugh’s illness in Birmingham, he would put the two things together without difficulty. Once he had, I rather thought he would tell Burgess, though I had no idea what his motive in doing so would be. I decided I had better tell the truth.
“I hadn’t made up my mind,” I said. “I listened to Raikes, of course. It was difficult to take seriously the idea that anyone was trying to harm Uncle Hugh. I think I worried for a day or two after I spoke to Raikes. But I was in bed, and not feeling very cheerful. After I’d been back to work for a few days, it all seemed a bit melodramatic—Raikes is a bit of a fusser, anyway—and I didn’t consciously worry about it.”
Burgess nodded. “Raikes told you his suspicions about the tyre pump having been used. I suppose he’s neat enough so that we can at least say with certainty that someone moved the tyre pump—for whatever reason?”
“Oh, yes. He’d be right about that.”
“Have you any idea why Raikes didn’t proceed any further with his investigations?”
As I had already made the point to Charles, I could see no point in dodging it. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I can guess. You see, it would have been quite possible for anyone to use a skeleton key to get into the garage, or for a lot of people to use the key that hangs in the kitchen. But it happens that the Sunday night before the accident we had a family dinner. Everyone was there except Giles. And Tay came in later. I suppose Raikes thought the situation a little—delicate.”
“Yes,” said Burgess. “He might indeed. But you—you forgot about it or did nothing about it.”
I hesitated. “I spoke to my uncle about it.”
He pounced. “When? What did he say?”
“Wednesday night—last week. He said that I was being melodramatic and that it had been a simple accident.”
“I dare say he would think just that. Perhaps you even knew he would say it when you spoke to him.”
“I thought he might. He wasn’t the sort to get alarmed. But maybe I hoped—it would put him on his guard.”
“Then you did think there was danger? But why did it take you so long to make up your mind to say something?”
Again I hesitated. “Well, you see, I had more or less put Raikes’ idea out of my mind. But it lingered a bit, in spite of myself. Then on Wednesday my uncle had a dinner-party and afterwards I saw him take a digestive pill. He told me he’d had a digestive upset in Birmingham and that the hotel doctor had been a bit puzzled by his symptoms. Our own doctor in London changed my uncle’s pills after he returned to London.”
I had kept my tone as carefully neutral as possible. Burgess was not deceived. “So you then decided that there might have in fact been two attempts made on your uncle’s life. Is that it?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that. I was a bit worried, though—at least, concerned.”
“But you did nothing?”
“Well,” I said, “in an ordinary family like mine, one doesn’t go round thinking of murder. I was a bit upset by Raikes’ suggestion, but when I thought it over, it seemed far-fetched. When my uncle told me about his trouble in Birmingham, I again got alarmed, but I couldn’t decide just what to do. And so—I suppose to reassure myself—I rang up all my relatives and talked to them.”
Burgess appeared to understand without difficulty. “To convince yourself that they were entirely normal people and that your suspicions were ill-founded?”
“Yes.”
“What excuse did you give them for ringing up—or do you do it normally anyway?”
“I said I’d called to confirm the final arrangements for this party.”
“They all accepted this explanation?”
“All but Charles. That is, I didn’t call my Aunt Mildred or my Uncle William. And Charles just said my calling was very thoughtful or something like that.”
“But now he thinks it might have been prompted by something else?”
“Yes.”
“He’s very sharp, your cousin. What did he do in the war?”
“Intelligence,” I said, briefly.
“On the Continent? Risky—cloak-and-dagger stuff?”
“More or less.”
“Did you tell him about the digestive upset?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The continued questioning was beginning to be a strain. “I just didn’t feel like it.”
“Then why did you tell me? Because you thought I might learn it from Dr. Barker?”
“Yes.”
“When you spoke to your uncle, you mentioned the digestive upset as well?”
“Yes. I asked what if both the episodes hadn’t been accidental. But he brushed them both aside.”
“You don’t seem to have been very decisive about the matter, Mrs. Fane, if I may say so. Didn’t you think of going to the police?”
It was a direct hit. I said nothing for a moment. Then I said that I had thought of it, but that I had hesitated to go to the police with nothing more than a few vague suspicions. I knew that it sounded weak. For Burgess knew and I knew that the police would have paid attention to anything involving a man like my uncle.
“Well, all right, Mrs. Fane, we have two possible attempts at murder. Let’s look at the third. Saturday night. The rooms were made ready for the night while you were at dinner—this was the usual procedure?”
“Yes. When I went up on Saturday night at 9.30 or so, they had already been done.”
“So I understand. Now, they tell me that each bedroom has a water carafe on the bedside table, that your uncle’s was cut glass, with a stopper, and that the water is changed every night.”
I was puzzled. “Yes. Is that important?”
“Yes,” said Burgess. “Mrs. Fane, if we tested any carafe—say yours—for fingerprints yesterday, whose would you have expected to find on it?”
I considered. “My own, if I’d had any water. Anyone who’d come in to see me, if they’d had any water. And, of course, the maid’s. Actually, they’re supposed to dust the carafes every day and they usually do. But I suppose they might neglect it sometimes—which would mean fingerprints for a couple of days might conceivably be on it.”
“The maid called Hawkins did the rooms last night. She was a bit rushed as there’s been a lot of work and she was needed downstairs, so she hurried. She says she just took the tops off and filled the carafes—didn’t stop to dust them. She’s quite sure of it. But her fingerprints aren’t on the stopper. So someone wiped it after she’d filled it. There is only one set of fingerprints on your uncle’s carafe—his own. You can see what that means, I suppose?”
I could. It was not difficult.
“This third attempt,” said Burgess. “At least, it could have been the third attempt. I’ll have to learn what I can about the second from other people. But you can tell me a bit more about the first.”
Burgess’ idea of “a bit” proved to be intensive. We went over that dinner-party on Sunday night in exhaustive detail. I could remember most of what had happened; but it had all been very ordinary, and I could not see that it was much use to Burgess.
By the time we had finished with that episode, I was nearly dropping with fatigue. Burgess apologized for keeping me so long. “Only two small points, Mrs. Fane. First of all, most of the servants seemed most co-operative. But I had the distinct impression that one or two of them were holding something back. I can’t quite put my finger on it and I’ve no idea what it might be. Do you think you might have a word with the housekeeper and suggest that—if she is holding anything back or knows anyone who is—she had better come and talk to me?”
“I’m sure they’ve all told you everything they can,” I said, somewhat stiffly. “Mrs. Rapp is entirely reliable. I could hardly make a suggestion like that to her.”
Burgess looked at me. He sighed. But he did not pursue the subject. Instead, he took from his pocket a small, amber cigarette-holder. “The maid found this in the corridor outside Sir Hugh’s room early Sunday morning,” he said. “She meant to give it to the housekeeper, but she put it in her pocket and forgot about it. When she learned Sir Hugh had been murdered, she thought it might be important and she gave it to me. Do you know whose it is?”
I examined the holder carefully. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
I had not, however, told the truth. I knew quite well to whom it belonged. It belonged to my cousin Giles. He had been using it when I had last seen him.