Blue Murder (7 page)

The train had been an hour late, so he returned to the station to ascertain if Leda had called for him on time, and intended to call again later.

“Who, sir? Miss Hardstaffe, sir?” asked the station-master-ticket-collector. “Oh no, not to-day she hasn't been. You wouldn't hardly expect it, would you?”

Arnold stared at him.

“Well, yes, I did expect her,” he said abruptly. “She usually drives my car for me, and...”

The station-master looked at him more closely.

“Oh, it's you, sir,” he said. “I didn't notice you properly. You'll be the gentleman who's staying at the Hardstaffes'. Well, you couldn't rightly blame her for not coming. Very sad, sir. Very sad. ‘From battle, murder, and sudden death,' that's what we say on our knees of a Sunday, but it comes to us all just the same.”

Arnold felt cold and apprehensive.

“Sudden death?” he asked. “At the Hardstaffe's? Sudden Death! Not...?”

The station-master eyed him strangely, he thought.

“Why, haven't you heard, sir? I'm sure I wouldn't for the world have... but you being their friend... Yes, sudden death it was for sure. And,” he moved his head confidentially forward, “if you was to say it was murder, sir, it's my notion you wouldn't be wrong. No, you wouldn't be wrong!”

It was then that Arnold remembered the elusive fact which he had felt to be so important.

He turned without another word, and made off as quickly as he could, leaving his suitcase standing on the ground, while the station-master lifted a bewildered forefinger and gave his forehead a significant tap.

Arnold Smith passed the door of the constable's modern concrete bungalow several times before he finally summoned enough courage to walk along the narrow path between the cabbages and onions in the front garden up to the green-painted door itself. In response to his knock, it was opened by Constable Files, looking singularly undressed without his peaked, flat-crowned hat.

“Good-evening,” he said in the cheerfully expectant voice which had sold many a ticket for Police Charity Concerts. “What can I do for you?”

“It's rather important,” said Arnold, stammering a little. “Come in, sir.” He ushered Smith into a small, barely-furnished, well-scrubbed room on the right of the tiny hall. “My Superintendent's here. You won't mind talking in front of him, I daresay. Superintendent Cheam. Mr. Smith. This is the gentleman who is staying with the Hardstaffes, sir,” he explained, after having effected his introductions. “Glad to see you back again, sir. Miss Hardstaffe was quite worried at having no word from you.”

“I was—detained,” explained Arnold. “Well, as a matter of fact I bumped into the first raid London has had for some time. In a way, it has something to do with my visit to you now.”

He paused for a moment, then,

“I've come to give myself up for murder!” he said.

The Superintendent and the Constable exchanged quick glances.

“Perhaps you'll sit down, Mr. Smith,” said Files, pushing forward a hard, wooden chair. “Now, murder, you say. Was that in London?”

“In London?” repeated Arnold impatiently. “Of course not. It was here, in the village. At the Hardstaffe's.”

The Superintendent leaned forward.

“And who told you that there had been a murder in the village?” he asked.

“The station-master,” replied Arnold, adding in haste, “Of course, I knew about it before, or, at least I should have done if I hadn't happened to get a knock on the head in the raid. After that, I felt muzzy for days, and although I thought I remained in London all the time, there was something I knew I'd done that puzzled me. As soon as I heard that there'd been a—a murder at the Hardstaffe's I knew in a flash what had happened, so I came to give myself up at once. You ought to have no trouble in tracing my movements and getting the evidence you need to convict me.”

The Constable nodded.

“I see, sir. A blow on the head, you said. You must have had a pretty narrow escape. Perhaps you'll tell us all you know about this murder.”

Arnold ran a sweating finger round the inside of his starched collar, then played with the heavy, engraved ring through which his tie was threaded.

‘It's all a dreadful shock,” he said. “I'd made my plans for the murder and worked them out to the last detail; I admit that. But I never intended to murder Mr. Hardstaffe really. I only meant to write it all.” He noticed that the two policemen exchanged glances again, and he hesitated. “I'm afraid I'm not being too clear about this,” he said. “Perhaps you'd like to ask a few questions.”

“No, that's all right,” the Superintendent assured him. “Just tell us the story in your own way.”

Arnold smiled ruefully.

“That's what I was afraid you'd say,” he remarked. “I'm certainly getting some first-hand information for my book now, but I'm afraid it will be too late to be of any use to me. You see, it's like this. I'm writing a detective novel, and I'd cast old Hardstaffe as the victim and myself as the murderer. In it, I am a writer who becomes so affected by the atmosphere of hatred in the house where I am staying that I become obsessed with the idea that it will make a perfect setting for a murder, and determine to commit one. It sounds a bit involved, I know, but there's no doubt whatever in my mind that when I got that bang on the head, I submerged myself in the character I had created, returned here to murder Mr. Hardstaffe, and somehow got back to London. My movements have all been rather hazy to me since I was in the raid, but as soon as I heard at the station what had happened, something clicked into place in my mind, and I said to myself, ‘My God! I've murdered him!'”

There was a pause. Then the Superintendent said,

“You hadn't any real reason for killing him, then?”

Arnold hesitated.

“Well, I disliked him intensely,” he said at length. “He was one of the worst-mannered men I've ever met, and he treated his wife abominably. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would have murdered her if I hadn't disposed of him first.”

For the first time, his audience showed signs of real interest.

“What makes you think that, sir?”

Arnold described the scene he had inadvertently witnessed in the study.

It could no longer hurt Mr. Hardstaffe, and it might count in his own favour if he related the incident, he thought.

“Most interesting,” remarked the Superintendent.

“Most,” agreed the Constable.

Arnold became annoyed.

“Look here!” he exclaimed. “You don't seem to believe a word I'm saying. Well, I'll prove it to you that I'm a murderer. I'll tell you exactly what I did, and exactly what Mr. Hardstaffe looked like after I'd—finished with him. The only thing I can't tell you is which night it took place, because...”

“Because it was after you'd had that knock on the head,” the Constable suggested unnecessarily.

Superintendent frowned at him.

“Yes,” agreed Arnold. “I know it sounds as if I'm joking, but you'll see... And, in any case, it doesn't make any difference to my story because they all do exactly the same things in that house every night of the year. Mrs. Hardstaffe goes to bed at half-past nine, Miss Hardstaffe goes at half-past ten, and Mr. Hardstaffe sits up with a tantalus of whiskey and a syphon of sodawater till after the midnight news.”

“And who locks up the house for the night?” asked Cheam.

“Miss Hardstaffe,” replied Arnold. “She puts the dogs outside, then goes to see that the kitchen quarters are safe—no fires burning or lights forgotten. She lets the dogs in again, locks and bolts the front door, takes the dogs to the bedrooms—yes, they all sleep upstairs—then goes to bed herself.”

Arnold paused for a moment, and was pleased to see that Constable Files was apparently taking down his statement.

“I approach the house at about 11.15,” he went on. “I enter through the open bay window of the drawing-room, knowing in advance that Mr. Hardstaffe is sure to have it opened, whatever the weather. (He's a fresh-air fiend). I stand for a few minutes behind the heavy plush curtain which blacks out the whole alcove. On the wall at my left hand hangs a meerschaum pipe: on the right, a knobkerri. I've often heard Mr. Hardstaffe's boast that he'd use the latter to split the skull of any parachutist who tried to force his way into the house. I take it, into my hand, and move silently through the curtains, blinking at first at the subdued light which comes from a standard lamp with a rose-coloured shade, which stands near the table at Mr. Hardstaffe's right. (Mr. Hardstaffe is partial to rose-coloured light: he thinks it makes him look young and handsome).

“I am not afraid that he will hear me, because he has now been alone for over an hour, and the tantalus is half-empty already. Besides, he is an old man, and his hearing is not as good as he likes to pretend.

“I am not afraid that he will see me, because the back of his chair is directly in front of the window through which I have just entered. And again, he is old, and is not likely to move out of his comfortable chair until he is ready to go to bed.

“I move across quietly to the chair. I steady myself. I lift the knobkerri. I am too close to miss him. I bash his head in. I think of the cane beating a schoolboy to insensibility, and of the horsewhip cracking over his poor wife's head. And I
make quite sure
that he can't live!”

He shuddered.

“Then, sir,” remarked the Superintendent, “he fell to the floor, and you dropped the weapon beside him, after wiping your fingerprints away?”

A cunning smile spread itself over Arnold's mild, round face.

“Oh, no. You'll find that you can't trip me up, Superintendent,” he replied. “Hardstaffe didn't fall: he was held up by his own vanity! You see, although he was such a short, little man, he liked to pretend that he was really a Carnera. He took a large size in everything. Even collars, hats, and gloves were all a size too big for him—that's why he always looked so badly-dressed. His chair, too, was too large for him. It's one of those enormous, padded, enveloping ones with a low, inclined back. No one else is ever allowed to sit in it, and he never sits in any other, in that room. No. He just slumped in it, and his head rolled sideways towards the right arm. As for the knobkerri, I threw it into the shrubbery on my way out of the grounds, and I had no need to wipe it because I was wearing gloves. Now do you believe me?”

He leaned back in his chair, and passed his hand over his eyes. The excitement which the telling of his story had aroused in him had suddenly passed away, leaving him very tired and dejected.

Constable Files completed his notes, then looked at Cheam.

“Thank you, sir, for coming along,” said the Superintendent. “I expect you're feeling tired after your journey. We know where to find you if we should happen to need you for anything.”

“But—but—” stammered Arnold. “Aren't you going to arrest me?”

“Not this time, sir,” was the smiling reply.

“But—Mr. Hardstaffe? I—”

The Superintendent shook a weary head.

“He's not dead yet.”

“Not dead?” Arnold stared unbelievingly. “Why, that's impossible! Those head injuries!”

The Constable shook his head. Superintendent Cheam had turned to look at some papers on the desk, as if to make it clear that he had no further interest in the interview.

“I'm afraid you're the only one whose head has been injured, sir,” said Files patiently. “Nobody's even tried to murder Mr. Hardstaffe. I saw him walking down the village this morning.”

Arnold looked utterly bewildered.

“But all that I've been telling you...?”

“Ah! You've been letting your imagination run away with you a bit there. Been working a bit too hard on that book, I shouldn't wonder, and it's got on your nerves.” Arnold rose to his feet, and swayed unsteadily. The Constable came across, and, taking him by the arm, propelled him gently through the door and out into the hall.

“If you take my advice, sir,” he said, “you'll go and see the doctor in the morning. That knock on the head must have been worse than you imagined. You need a good long rest. Just you leave London alone for a bit, and stay up here in Nether Naughton: it's healthier.”

“Then it's all nonsense?” demanded Arnold. “There isn't any tragedy at the Hardstaffes' after all?”

“Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that,” remarked the Constable as he ushered him through the front door.
Mrs.
Hardstaffe was found dead in her bed on Sunday morning.”

The inquest on Mrs. Hardstaffe was held on the following day.

Arnold, whose suggestion that he should move to the local inn had been waved aside by an indignant Leda, drove the bereaved daughter and husband to the large, bleak, single-storied building lent by the Women's Institute for the occasion. He sat with them in one of the small wooden chairs placed in rows, while the Coroner faced them over one of the green-baized card tables, and as many of the villagers as were not afraid of being dubbed “gawpers,” crowded into the spaces behind them.

The doctor who had performed the post-mortem was called first.

The Coroner, a white-haired country lawyer, fidgetted as though his task was distasteful to him, and listened as though he did not in the least care how many grains of morphia had been found in the body of the schoolmaster's wife.

In fact, he did care very much.

He had lived in the village as long as he could recall—apart from such absences as were necessary for the purpose of education—and he had as a matter of course entered the legal firm in the nearby market town which bore his father's and grandfather's name. And so he remembered the time when Mrs. Hardstaffe had first come to live in Nether Naughton, a radiant little figure, suitably proud of being a headmaster's wife, and prouder still of the two children whom she adored.