The March Hare Murders (21 page)

“Well, I was worried about it,” Ferdie said in embarrassment.

“I didn’t like to think of it being around. After all, you—you were in a rather queer state, and I thought it’d be safer …”

“I see,” David said. “And what did you do with it?”

“I put it in my desk. And—I suppose I’d better tell you the rest.” Ferdie’s voice dropped even lower, almost to a whisper. “I don’t remember when I saw it last. Some days ago, anyway. But I did notice something to-day, when I took that Inspector into my study. And this is what you mustn’t tell anybody. There’d been some cigarettes on my desk in the morning, and they’d disappeared. And that means Stella’d been in there. She doesn’t often go in; Mrs. Scales cleans the room and Stella hardly ever goes in except to look for cigarettes. And listen, David, has it occurred to you——” Ferdie swallowed noisily, but it seemed now that he could not stop himself talking. “I never meant to say this to a soul, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since I thought of it—and after all, you’re Stella’s brother. Has it occurred to you that perhaps no one’s ever going to be able to tell whether or not Stella really heard those shots she said she heard on the telephone?”

Somewhere in David’s mind that thought had been lodged for some time. But he felt a kind of satisfaction that it should have been put into words by Ferdie and not by him. Yet he felt his features twitch into an expression of disagreement.

Ferdie went on speaking rapidly. “Don’t just say no, David, just for the sake of saying it. For God’s sake, think—think what it might mean! And we haven’t much time. You know I’d do anything for Stella, in spite of—in spite of this trouble we’ve been having. I think a lot of that’s been my own fault. But I mustn’t talk about that now. Listen …” He had approached David and was holding him by the sleeve. “She could have done it, couldn’t she? Suppose the shots weren’t fired at the time she said they were; suppose Ingrid’s rushing in here just gave her a heaven-sent opportunity for fixing an alibi for herself; suppose she’d been out and had only just got in when Ingrid ran in. … She’d reason to hate him, you know—Verinder, I mean. He’d treated her rottenly, I’d seen it, and he’d made her desperately unhappy——”

“But look here, Ferdie”—David came suddenly to himself—“that’s all nonsense. What about the person Clay saw on the road?”

“Why need he have had anything to do with the murder?”

“And what about Clay’s murder? She was here with you when that happened.”

“No.”

“No? But then …?”

“Soon after you left, she said she was going down to the beach after you. She seemed to be worried about you. She went out and came back quite soon, saying she’d changed her mind, and she sat down and started to play the piano. I hadn’t heard her do that for months. Then all of a sudden she left off and started crying.”

“No,” David said. “I don’t believe it.”

“Nor do I,” Ferdie said,
“I
don’t believe it. I know I don’t really believe it, but still, David, it could have been—I mean, she might never have heard those shots when she said she did. And whoever killed Clay knew all about your eyesight, or they’d never have dared to push him over the cliff with you looking full at him. Of course every one knows you wear thick glasses, but how many people know exactly how short-sighted you are? And if none of us told any one about the revolver …”

“One of us did,” David said.

Ferdie shook his head hopelessly. “That’s no good. All three of us are denying it, and yet it would be to our own advantage to admit we’d told someone else.”

“Not if by any chance one of us should want suspicion to fall in a particular quarter.”

Ferdie did not seem to understand that at once. Then a dazed look came into his eyes. “Good God,” he said softly. “Good God. … David, you don’t really think that I …?”

“No,” David said, “but I do think you told somebody about the revolver. Probably unintentionally. Now for the Lord’s sake, sit down and think carefully. Think if you didn’t say something to somebody which could have given them the clue about where to find it.”

Obediently, Ferdie sat down. He sat limply, his hands resting on his knees. His eyes, still looking dazed, remained on David’s.

“It’s very queer,” he said after a moment. “You seem perfectly calm and collected. All the rest of us are in a dither, and you’re quite calm.”

“I suppose I’ve had enough of being in a dither to last me a lifetime,” David said. “But now, think, Ferdie. Think over everyone you’ve talked to recently. It might have been someone right outside Verinder’s circle. It could have got back indirectly.”

“No,” Ferdie said. “I didn’t say anything to anybody about the revolver. I know I didn’t.”

“But you must have—you or Stella.”

“Then it was Stella.”

From the door, Stella said, “I didn’t.”

They both turned sharply. She was standing there, holding a tray. David wondered how long she had been listening to them. But as she came in and put the tray down, she gave no sign of having heard more than the last few words.

“I haven’t been talking to any one much for some time,” she said. “I used to talk a good deal to Deirdre, but somehow after Mark fell in love with her, I couldn’t anymore. I’d never have thought of talking much to Ingrid or Giles anyway—I never knew them well enough. I did once have a try at talking to Sam and Winnfrieda, but they wouldn’t let me. I think they were afraid I wanted to consult them about Mark, and they were really both horribly afraid of getting implicated in some local scandal. So I know I didn’t say anything to them. And who else is there?”

“But one of us
must
have told somebody,” David said.

“Yes,” Ferdie said, “that’s absolutely true. One of us must have—unless …”

“Yes—unless,” Stella said, and looked at David. Then she bent over the tray and picked up a plate of sandwiches. She held them out to him. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing on the road when Giles saw you?” she said.

David took a sandwich. “He didn’t see me,” he said. “And one of us did tell someone, or show someone, or in some way allow someone to discover that I had a revolver in the drawer of my dressing-table.”

A voice from the garden said, “That is in a sense perfectly true, Mr. Obeney. One of you, or perhaps it was really all three of you, did allow someone else to discover that there was a revolver in this house. Now I wonder if you could spare me one of those sandwiches and perhaps a cup of coffee?” Removing his hat, the tall man who had called that morning and whom they had later seen with Inspector Upjohn stepped into the room.

David was still the most collected of the three. Taking the plate of sandwiches from Stella, he held it out to the newcomer.

“Thank you,” the man said. “I’m very grateful for that. It’s been a tiring day, and I suffer a good deal in my joints, particularly in wet weather. Talking of wet weather——”

Stella interrupted. “What did you mean just now when you said we’d allowed someone to know there was a revolver in the house?”

“Ham?” the man said, looking between the slices of bread he was holding. “Not ham? No, I thought not.”

“Where d’you think we’d get ham these days?” Stella asked. “But what did you mean——”

“I couldn’t help thinking of ham, somehow,” the man went on, without seeming to notice her, “because I’ve got the March Hare on my mind. Remember how he fed the Red King with ham sandwiches? And when the sandwiches ran out, he gave him hay. Well, we haven’t quite got down to that yet, have we? Ha, ha!” He laughed placidly.

“May we know why you’ve had the March Hare on your mind?” David asked. “And then may we know the answer to the question my sister’s just asked you?”

“Well, the answer to that, of course, is Mrs. Scales,” the man said. “The March Hare—well, that’s more complicated. Just a train of association, sort of. It was running in my mind ever since I saw that cottage across the way, and then when I saw the remains of that Mad Hatter’s tea-party, or sherry-party, with four glasses and only three guests, it kind of got me on to thinking about Mad Hatters and March Hares——”

“What about Mrs. Scales?” Stella demanded.

“Just that she told nearly every one in the place about the revolver. What would you expect?” the man said. “She looked in Mr. Obeney’s drawer, just by way of taking an interest in him, no doubt, and then told every one in the place that he was a homicidal maniac with a gun hidden away, or words to that effect. Then she told them that the gun was now in Mr. Pratt’s desk. But I haven’t said what I came to say. It’s those sandwiches distracted me. I couldn’t resist. … By the way, could you spare me another?” He reached out a large hand and went on. “What I came across to say was, would you mind coming over to the cottage? There are a few more questions Inspector Upjohn would like to ask you, and he thought he might as well have you all together.”

•   •   •   •   •

They acquiesced wearily. While Stella fetched a coat, Ferdie ate sandwiches rapidly and drank coffee. No one remembered to offer the tall man any coffee until, apologetically, he repeated his request for some. Drinking it, he praised its quality, observing heavily that it was really much better than hay when you were feeling faint. At that point David put in an abrupt question about Deirdre Masson’s condition.

The tall man chose not to answer, but asked instead, “Interested in her, are you, Mr. Obeney?”

“Why not?” David asked.

“No reason why not,” the man said, munching. “I just wondered.”

“How is she?” David repeated.

“Doing nicely, I believe. Not very seriously injured. Be up and about in a few days. And now what about going over to the cottage?”

They went over, walking in single file, silently. The place was alive with policemen. Bull’s-eye lanterns flashed along the path to the sea. David, walking behind Stella, was trying to grasp the implications of what he had just heard about Mrs. Scales. A feeling he had had all that afternoon that the person who had had most reason to kill Mark Verinder was his sister was calmed by the knowledge that others besides Stella and Ferdie had known of the revolver. But that there was no logic in this, that it still might be Stella or Ferdie who had taken the revolver from Ferdie’s desk and used it, did not quite escape his mind. For the moment, however, he felt able to ignore it. That Deirdre was not badly injured, that she would be about in a few days, made his heart sing.

The next moment it was pounding in suddenly renewed fear.

In the Verinders’ sitting-room, Inspector Upjohn was looking at him and saying, “And now will you tell me, Mr. Obeney, what took you to Mrs. Masson’s house this morning?”

In the sitting-room, Upjohn, Ingrid, Sam and Winnfrieda waited for David’s answer.

He gave it with a flame of anger. “I didn’t go to Mrs. Masson’s house.” But then a sense of hopelessness came to him. He felt that this situation had been prepared for him by Mark Verinder himself and that from the malevolence of the dead there was no escape. There was no revenge, no chance of retribution. Of the dead one could only be the victim. He could not understand how he had come to forget his own danger.

“In that case, where did you go?” Upjohn asked, looking at him steadily.

“I went to the pub,” David said.

“Yet you were seen on the road beyond it.”

David shrugged. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I saw on the cliffs?” he asked.

“Yes, in a moment,” Upjohn said. “But first I want to make sure if you still claim that you did not pass the crossroads.”

“I certainly do,” David said.

“And that you arrived at the Three Huntsmen at one-thirty?”

“To the best of my knowledge. And that I did not shoot Mark Verinder, and that I did not push Giles Clay over the edge of the cliff, and that I did not set fire to the summer-house in which Mark Verinder was supposed to be sleeping.”

“That’s very interesting,” Upjohn said, “because it is quite certain that a lot of trouble has been taken to convince us that you did just those things. In fact, it seems probable that from the time of your arrival here, or even before that, you were marked down to appear as the murderer of Professor Verinder. It is lucky for you that you wear spectacles, Mr. Obeney.”

David groped for a chair. His fury was still with him, making his mind and movements uncertain. “Spectacles?”

“Yes, and that it rained. You don’t like rain on your spectacles, do you? It blinds you. So you carry an umbrella. Lucky for you. Lucky for you that you were seen with it when you came across here this morning and that you left it behind in the pub, when you’d had your drink, proving that you still had it with you when you left here. It should be a lesson to murderers not to prepare cases against people whose habits they don’t know really intimately. And yet I shouldn’t be surprised if the murderer thought it was a piece of luck for him when the rain started. He must have thought it would keep the road emptier of traffic than usual.”

“I don’t understand,” David said.

“I don’t understand either,” Winnfrieda said in a high, shaky voice. “He must have done it. Who else could have done it?”

Upjohn turned on her. “You’ve admitted that you knew of the existence and whereabouts of the revolver, haven’t you?”

She nodded sullenly. “Yes, Mrs. Scales told me—I’ve said so.”

“And your husband knew too?”

“Sam didn’t do it!” Winnfrieda shrieked. “I know he didn’t. It must have been a fake telephone call for him, so that he could take the blame. But he didn’t do it!”

“It wasn’t a fake telephone call,” Upjohn said. “Mrs. Masson agrees that she made it. And I don’t think the murderer even knew that your husband was expected. The murderer was Giles Clay himself. He gave that away the first time I questioned him. And that was why you, Mrs. Verinder, pushed him over the edge of the cliff. You knew that he could not be trusted to control his fantasies. He had done his job for you, and he was safer out of the way. Unfortunately for you, he had done his job for us too.” There followed, in cold tones, the words of the official warning.

Strangely, David thought, remembering how she had acted in the afternoon, there were no hysterics now. Ingrid sat quite still. Yet, as the colour went out of her face, it seemed to David that a new woman began to emerge from behind a cloud of disguise. For a moment he had wanted to cry out that this was impossible, but seeing before him the hard, cold, brutal face that stared at Upjohn’s, he caught the words back.