Tragedy at Ravensthorpe (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Read online

  “You’ve no idea where your brother is?”

  “None at all,” Joan answered. Then a thought seemed to strike her. “You don’t think Maurice had anything to do with this?” she demanded, anxiously.

  “He’ll turn up shortly to speak for himself, I’ve no doubt,” Sir Clinton said, as though to reassure her. “Now that’s all we need just now, so far as you’re concerned. I’m going to take Mr Clifton away for a few minutes, but he’ll be back again almost immediately.”

  With a reassuring smile, the Chief Constable excused himself and led the way to the door, followed by Michael and the Inspector. As soon as he was out of the room, he turned to Michael.

  “You’re quite sure that Mr Chacewater wasn’t in the museum when you reached it?”

  Michael considered carefully before replying.

  “I don’t see how he could have been. I glanced into all the bays; and you know there isn’t cover enough for a cat in the place.”

  “Was the safe door open or shut, did you notice?”

  Michael again reflected before replying.

  “Shut, I’m almost certain.”

  Sir Clinton in his turn seemed to reflect for a moment or two.

  “We’ll have a look at this fellow Marden, now, I think, Inspector, if you’ll bring him along to the museum. We’d better hear his tale on the spot. It’ll save explanations about the positions of things.”

  Inspector Armadale departed on his quest while Michael and the Chief Constable made their way to the scene of the crime. Suddenly Sir Clinton turned and confronted Michael.

  “Have you any notion whatever as to where Maurice has gone? I want the truth.”

  Michael was manifestly taken aback by the direct demand.

  “I haven’t a notion,” he declared. “He wasn’t in the museum when I got there, so far as I know. You can put me on my oath over that, if you like.”

  The Chief Constable scanned his face keenly, but made no comment on his statement. He led the way to the museum; and they had hardly passed through the door before Inspector Armadale returned with the valet.

  Marden appeared to be a man of about thirty years of age. Sir Clinton noticed that he carried himself well and did not seem to have lost his head in the excitement of the past hour. When he spoke, it was without any appreciable accent; and he seemed to take pains to be perfectly clear in his evidence. Sir Clinton, by an almost imperceptible gesture, handed over the examination of the valet to the Inspector. Armadale pulled out his notebook once more.

  “What’s your name?” he demanded.

  “Thomas Marden.”

  “How long have you been in Mr Foss’s service?”

  “Since he arrived here from America, about three months ago.”

  “How did he come to engage you?”

  “Advertisement.”

  “You knew nothing about him before that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Where was he living then?”

  “At 474a Gunner’s Mansions, S.W. It’s a service flat.”

  “He still has that flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he spend his time?”

  The valet seemed astonished by the question.

  “I don’t know. None of my business.”

  Inspector Armadale was not to be turned aside.

  “You must have known whether he stayed in the flat or went out regularly at fixed times.”

  Marden seemed to see what was wanted.

  “You mean, did he go out to an office every day? No, he came and went just when it suited him.”

  “Had he much correspondence?”

  “Letters? Just about what one might expect.”

  The Inspector looked up gloomily. So far, he had not got much to go upon.

  “What do you mean by: ‘Just what one might expect?’”

  “He got some letters every day, sometimes one or two, sometimes half a dozen. Just what one might expect.”

  “Have you any idea whether they were business letters or merely private correspondence?”

  Marden seemed annoyed by the question.

  “How should I know?” he demanded, stiffly. “It’s not my business to pry into my employer’s affairs.”

  “It’s your business to read the addresses on the envelopes to see that the postman hasn’t left wrong letters. Did you notice nothing when you did that? Were the addresses mainly typewritten or written by hand?”

  “He got bills and advertisements with the address typewritten—like most of us. And one or two letters came addressed by hand.”

  “Did you notice the stamps?”

  “Some were American, of course.”

  “So it comes to this,” Inspector Armadale concluded, “he was not carrying on a big business from the flat; most of his letters were ordinary bills and so forth; but he had some private correspondence as well; and part of his correspondence was with America? Why couldn’t you tell us that straight off, instead of having it dragged out of you?”

  The valet was quite unruffled by the Inspector’s tone.

  “I hadn’t put two and two together the way you do. They were just letters to me. I didn’t think anything about them.”

  Inspector Armadale showed no appreciation of this indirect tribute to his powers.

  “Had he many visitors?”

  “Not at the flat. He may have met his friends in the restaurant downstairs for all I know.”

  “Do you remember any visitors at the flat?”

  “No.”

  The Inspector seemed to recollect something he had missed.

  “Did he get any telegrams?”

  “Yes.”

  “Frequently?”

  “Fairly often.”

  “You’ve no idea of the contents of these wires?”

  Marden obviously took offence at this.

  “You asked me before if I pried into his affairs; and I told you I didn’t.”

  “How often did these wires arrive?” the Inspector demanded, taking no notice of Marden’s annoyance.

  “Perhaps once or twice a week.”

  “Did he bet?” the Inspector inquired, as though it had just struck him that the telegrams might thus be explained.

  “I know nothing about that.”

  Armadale went off on a fresh tack.

  “Did he seem to be well off for money?”

  “He paid me regularly, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He had a car and a chauffeur, hadn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they his own or simply hired?”

  “I don’t know. Not my business.”

  “The Gunner’s Mansions flats are expensive?”

  “They get the name of it. I don’t know what he paid.”

  “You don’t seem to have had much curiosity, Marden.”

  “I’m not paid for being curious.”

  The Inspector put down his pencil and reflected for a moment or two.

  “Have you any idea of his address in America?”

  “Not my business.”

  “Did he write many letters?”

  “I couldn’t say. None of my business.”

  “You can at least say whether he gave you any to post.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Have you anything else you can tell us about him?”

  Marden seemed to think carefully before he replied.

  “All his clothes were split new.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He carried a revolver—I mean an automatic.”

  “What size was it?”

  “About that length.”

  The valet indicated the length approximately with his hands, and winced slightly as he moved the bandaged one.

  “H’m! A ·38 or a ·45,” Armadale commented. “Too big for a ·22, anyway.”

  He took up his pencil again.

  “Now come to this afternoon. Begin at lunchtime and go on.”

  Marden reflected for a moment, as though testin
g his memory.

  “I’d better begin before lunch. Mr Foss came to me with a parcel in his hand and asked me to take it over to Hincheldene post office. He wanted it registered. He offered to let me take the car if I wished; but I preferred to walk over. I like the fresh air.”

  “And then?” demanded the Inspector with an unconscious plagiarism of his Chief.

  “Immediately after lunch, I set out and walked through the grounds towards Hincheldene village. I didn’t hurry. It was a nice afternoon for a walk. By and by I met a keeper, and he told me I couldn’t go any farther in that direction. He’d orders to turn back anyone, he said. I talked to him for a minute or two, and explained where I was going; and I pulled the parcel out of my pocket as a guarantee of good faith. He didn’t know me, you see. And when I got the parcel out, I noticed the label quite by chance.”

  “Ah, you do look at addresses after all!” interjected the Inspector.

  “Quite by chance,” Marden went on, without taking any notice of the thrust. “And I saw that Mr Foss had made a mistake.”

  “How did you know that,” Inspector Armadale demanded, with the air of a cat pouncing on a mouse. “You said you’d taken no interest in his correspondence and yet you knew this parcel was directed to a wrong address. Curious, isn’t it?”

  Marden did not even permit himself to smile as he discomfited the Inspector.

  “He’d left out the name of the town. An obvious oversight when he was writing the label.”

  “Well, go on,” growled the Inspector, evidently displeased at losing his score.

  “As soon as I saw that, I knew it was no good taking the thing to the post office as it was. So I asked the keeper a question or two about the shortest way to Hincheldene without getting on to the barred ground. Then I turned and came home again, intending to ask Mr Foss to complete the address on the parcel.”

  “What time was it when you reached here again?”

  Marden considered for a while.

  “I couldn’t say precisely. Sometime round about half-past three or a bit later. I didn’t look at the time.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I hunted about for Mr Foss, but he didn’t seem to be in the house. At last, when I was just giving it up, I met Miss Chacewater coming away from this room, and she told me that Mr Foss was inside. She went away, and I came to the door. It was half-open and I could hear voices inside: Mr Foss and Mr Chacewater from the sound. I thought they’d soon be coming out and that I’d get Mr Foss as he passed me; so I waited, instead of interrupting them.”

  “How long did you wait?”

  “Only a minute or two, so far as I can remember.”

  “You could hear them talking?”

  “I could hear the sound of their voices. I couldn’t hear what they said. There’s an echo or something in this room and all I heard was the tone they were speaking in.”

  “What sort of tone do you mean?”

  Marden paused as though searching for an adjective.

  “It seemed to me an angry tone. They raised their voices.”

  “As if they were quarrelling?”

  “Like that. And then I heard Mr Chacewater say: ‘So that’s what you’re after?’ Then I heard what sounded like a scuffle and a gasp. I was taken aback, of course. Who wouldn’t be? I stood stock still with the parcel in my hand for a moment or two. Then I got my head back and I pushed open the door and rushed into the room.”

  “Be careful here,” Sir Clinton interrupted. “Don’t try to force your memory. Tell us exactly what comes back into your mind.”

  Marden nodded.

  “When I got into the room here,” he went on, “the first thing I saw was Mr Chacewater. He had his back to me and was just turning the corner here.”

  Marden walked across and indicated the end of the bay beyond the one which contained the safe, the last recess in the room at the end opposite from the door.

  “He went round this corner in a hurry. That’s the last I saw of him.”

  Marden’s face betrayed his amazement even at the recollection.

  “Never mind that just now,” said Sir Clinton. “Tell us what you did yourself.”

  “I couldn’t see Mr Foss at the first glance; but when I got near the corner where I’d seen Mr Chacewater, I saw Mr Foss lying on the ground. I thought he’d slipped or something; and I went over to give him a hand up. Then I saw a big knife or a dagger through his chest and some blood on his mouth. As I was hurrying over to his side, I slipped on the parquet—it’s very slippery—and down I came. I put out my hand to save myself and my fist broke the glass in one of these cases. When I got up again, my hand was streaming with blood. It’s a nasty gash. So I pulled out my handkerchief and wrapped it round my hand before I did anything else. It was simply gushing with blood and I thought of it first of all.”

  Marden held up his roughly swathed hand in proof.

  “I got to my feet again and went over to Mr Foss. By that time he was either dead or next door to it. He didn’t move. I didn’t touch him, for I saw well enough he was done for. Then I went to the door and shouted ‘Murder!’ as hard as I could. Then while I was shouting, it struck me as queer that Mr Chacewater had disappeared.”

  “It didn’t occur to you that he might have slipped out of the room while your back was turned—when you were busy over Mr Foss?” demanded Inspector Armadale in a hostile tone.

  Marden shook his head.

  “It didn’t occur to me at all, because I knew it hadn’t happened. No one could have got out of the room without my seeing him.”

  “Go on with your story, please,” Sir Clinton requested.

  “There’s nothing more to tell. I kept shouting ‘Murder!’ and I searched the room here while I was doing it. I found nothing.”

  “Was the safe door closed when you saw it first?” Sir Clinton inquired.

  “Yes, it was. I thought perhaps Mr Chacewater might be inside, with the door pulled to; so I tried the handle. It was locked.”

  Sir Clinton put a further inquiry.

  “You heard only two voices in the room before you burst in?”

  A new light seemed to be thrown by this question across Marden’s mind.

  “I heard only two people speaking: Mr Foss and Mr Chacewater; but of course I couldn’t swear that only two people were in the room. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

  Inspector Armadale caught the drift of the inquiry.

  “I suppose if one man can disappear in a mysterious way, there’s nothing against two men vanishing in the same way,” he hazarded. “So all you can really tell us is that Mr Foss and Mr Chacewater were here at any rate, and possibly there were other people as well?”

  “I couldn’t swear to anyone except these two,” Marden was careful to state.

  “Another point,” Sir Clinton went on. “Have you any idea whether Mr Foss came into contact with a person or persons outside the house during his stay here? I mean people known to him before he came to Ravensthorpe?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “None of your business, I suppose?” Inspector Armadale put in, with an obvious sneer.

  “None of my business, as you say,” Marden returned, equably. “I wasn’t engaged as a detective.”

  “Well, this question falls into your department,” Sir Clinton intervened, as Armadale showed signs of losing his temper. “What costume was Mr Foss wearing on the night of the masked ball? You must know that.”

  Marden replied without hesitation.

  “He was got up as a cow-puncher. He hired the costume from London when he heard about the fancy dress. It was a pair of cow-boy trousers, big heavy things with fringes on them; a leather belt with a pistol-holster on it; a coloured shirt; a neck-cloth; and a flappy cow-boy hat.”

  “Rather a clumsy rig-out, then?”

  Marden seemed to find difficulty in repressing a smile.

  “It was as much as he could do to walk at all, until he got accustomed to the things. He
told me it gave him a good excuse for not dancing. He wasn’t a dancing man, he said.”

  “He carried a revolver, you say. Did you ever see any sign that he was afraid of anything of this sort happening to him?”

  “I don’t understand. How could I know what he was afraid of or what he wasn’t? It was none of my business.”

  Sir Clinton’s smile took the edge off Marden’s reply.

  “Oh, I think one might make a guess,” he said, “if one kept one’s eyes open. A terrified man would give himself away somehow or other.”

  “Then either he wasn’t afraid or else I don’t keep my eyes open. I saw nothing of the sort.”

  Sir Clinton reflected for a moment or two. He glanced at Armadale.

  “Any more questions you’d like to put? No? Then that will do, Marden. Of course there’ll be an inquest and your evidence will be required at it. You can stay on here until you’re needed. I’ll see Miss Chacewater about it. But for the present you’ve given us all the help you can?”

  “Unless you’ve any more questions you want to ask,” Marden suggested.

  Sir Clinton shook his head.

  “No, I think I’ve got all I need for the present, thanks. I may want you again later on, of course.”

  Marden waited for nothing further, but left the room pursued by a slightly vindictive glance from Inspector Armadale. When he had disappeared, Sir Clinton turned to Michael Clifton.

  “Hadn’t you better go back to Joan, now? She must be rather nervous after this shock.”

  Michael came to himself with a slight start when the Chief Constable addressed him. Hitherto his rôle had been purely that of a spectator; and he had been so wrapped up in it that it came as a faint surprise to find himself directly addressed. Throughout the proceedings he had been semi-hypnotized by the deadly matter-of-fact way in which the police were going about their work. When he had first heard of the murder, he had felt as though something unheard-of had invaded Ravensthorpe. Of course murders did take place: one read about them in the newspapers. But the idea that murder could actually be done in his own familiar environment had come to him with more than a slight shock. The normal course of things seemed suddenly diverted.

  But during the last ten minutes he had been a witness of the beginning of the police investigation; and the invincible impression of ordinariness had begun to replace the earlier nightmare quality in his mind. Here were a couple of men going about the business as though it were of no more tragic character than a search for a lost dog. It was part of their work to hunt out a solution of the affair. They were no more excited over it than a chess-player looking for the key-move in a problem. The cool, dispassionate way in which the Chief Constable had handled the affair seemed to strike a fresh note and to efface the suggestions of the macabre side of things which had been Michael’s first impression of the matter. The Dance of Death retreated gradually into the background in the face of all the minute questionings about letters, and visits, and parcels—these commonplace things of everyday life.