Envious Casca Read online

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Hemingway, who had no opinion of cold collations at midwinter.

  Sturry bowed slightly. His arctic gaze took in the position of the chair which the Sergeant had used to enable him to reach the knives on the wall, and travelled upwards. He acknowledged the disappearance of one of the pair of knives by a pronounced elevation of the eyebrows, and moved forward to restore the chair to its place against the wall. He then plumped up a couple of cushions, looked with contempt at the partially dismantled Christmas tree, and at last withdrew.

  The Sergeant, who had been watching him with considerable disfavour, said: ‘I don’t like that chap.’

  ‘That’s only inferiority complex,’ said Hemingway. ‘You didn’t like being called the Other Policeman.’

  ‘Snooping round,’ said the Sergeant darkly. ‘He saw the knife had gone all right. He’ll spread that bit of news round the house.’

  ‘Then we may get some interesting reactions,’ responded Hemingway. ‘Come on! We’ll take the knife back to headquarters, and get a bit of dinner at the same time. I want to think.’

  He was unusually silent during the hot and substantial meal provided by the cook at the Blue Dog inn; and the Sergeant, respecting his preoccupation, made no attempt to converse with him. Only when the cheese was set before them did he venture to say: ‘I’ve been thinking about that weapon.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Hemingway. ‘I’ve been thinking about that locked door.’

  ‘I don’t seem to get any ideas about that,’ confessed the Sergeant. ‘The more I think about it the more senseless it seems.’

  ‘There must have been a reason for it,’ said Hemingway. ‘A pretty strong one, too. Whoever murdered Nathaniel Herriard, and locked the door behind him, was taking the hell of a chance of being caught in the act. He didn’t do it for fun.’

  ‘No,’ agreed the Sergeant, thinking it over. ‘It looks as though you’re right there. But what reason could he possibly have had?’

  Hemingway did not answer. After a few moments, the Sergeant said slowly: ‘Supposing the murdered man didn’t lock the door himself, in the first place? We’ve no proof that he did, after all. I was just wondering… If the murderer walked into the room, and locked the door behind him –’

  ‘Old Herriard would have kicked up a rumpus.’

  ‘Not if it had been his nephew he wouldn’t. He might have thought Stephen wanted to have a straight talk with him, without the valet’s coming in to interrupt them.’

  ‘Well?’ said Hemingway, showing a faint interest.

  ‘Well, Stephen, or someone else, killed him. You remember the valet telling us that he came along, and tried the door, and found it locked? Suppose the murderer was still in the room then?’

  ‘All right, I’m supposing it. So what?’

  The Sergeant caressed his chin. ‘I haven’t worked it all out, but it does strike me that he may have thought he’d got to leave that door locked when he left the room.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Might be the time element, mightn’t it? He may have thought that if anyone was to come along and try the door a minute or two later, and find it unlocked, he’d be whittling down the time of the murder a bit dangerously. I don’t say I quite see –’

  ‘No, nor anyone else,’ interrupted Hemingway.

  ‘There might have been a reason,’ persisted the Sergeant doggedly.

  ‘There might have been half a dozen reasons, but what you seem to forget is that it isn’t all that easy to turn keys from the wrong side of the door. If the door was locked from the outside, the man who did it must have provided himself with a tool for the purpose. He couldn’t have done it extempore, so to speak.’

  ‘He could, by slipping a pencil through the handle of the key, with a bit of string attached.’

  ‘He could, but we haven’t any evidence to show that he did. In fact, we’ve plenty of evidence to show that he didn’t.’

  ‘Were there any finger-prints on the key?’ asked the Sergeant.

  ‘Old Herriard’s, and the valet’s, considerably blurred. Just what you’d expect.’

  The Sergeant sighed. ‘Nothing seems to lead anywhere, does it, sir? I’m blessed if I know how to catch hold of this case.’

  ‘We’ll go back to the station,’ decided Hemingway. ‘I’m going to have another look at that key.’

  The key, however, revealed no new clue. It was a large key, and it had been lately smeared with vaseline. ‘Which makes it still more unlikely that it could have been turned from outside,’ said Hemingway. ‘To start with, I doubt if any oustiti would have gripped such a greasy surface; and to go on with, we’d be bound to see the imprint of the grooving on the grease. It’s disheartening, that’s what it is.’ He scrutinised the handle through a magnifying glass, and shook his head. ‘Nothing doing. I’d say it hasn’t been tampered with in any way.’

  ‘Which means,’ said the Sergeant weightily, ‘that whoever locked that door did it from the inside.’

  ‘And then dematerialised himself like the spooks you read about. Talk sense!’

  ‘What was to stop him hiding in the room until the body had been found, and then slipping out unnoticed, sir?’

  ‘Nothing at all. In fact, you might have got something there, except for one circumstance. All the members of the household were accounted for at the time of the discovery. Think again!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said the Sergeant frankly. ‘Seems as though we’ve got to come back to the ventilator.’

  ‘The more I think of it, the more that ventilator looks to me like a snare and a delusion,’ said Hemingway. ‘It’s a good seven foot above the floor, to start with, and too small to allow an average-sized man to squeeze through it, to go on with.’

  ‘The valet,’ said the Sergeant.

  ‘Yes, I’ve thought of him, but I still don’t see it. Even supposing he could have got through, how did he reach the floor?’

  ‘Supposing he didn’t come in that way, but was there all the time, and escaped through the ventilator?’

  ‘Worse!’ said Hemingway emphatically. ‘Did he go head first down a ladder?’

  ‘Not the way I see it,’ said the Sergeant, ignoring this sarcasm. ‘I’ve got an idea he and young Herriard were in this together. It seems to me that if he’d had a chair to stand on he might, if he was clever, have got out through the ventilator. Once his shoulders were through, he could have wormed himself round, and maybe got hold of a drain-pipe, or a bit of that wistaria over the window, to give himself a purchase while he got a leg out. Once he’d got one foot on the ladder he’d be all right.’

  ‘Seems to me he’d have to be a ruddy contortionist,’ said the Inspector. ‘And what about the chair under the ventilator?’

  ‘He could have moved that back when the door was forced open. Who’d have noticed? The old fellow would have been taken up with his brother’s body, and if Stephen was in it he doesn’t count.’

  ‘I can’t see what you want with young Stephen in this Arabian Nights story of yours. Why don’t you let the valet have the whole stage?’ demanded the sceptical Inspector.

  ‘Because if Stephen wasn’t in it, there wasn’t a motive,’ replied the Sergeant. ‘My idea is that Stephen bribed the valet to help him. I don’t say the valet did the killing: that’s going too far.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to know you draw the line somewhere,’ said Hemingway. ‘And don’t you run away with the notion that I’m not pleased with this theory of yours! I’ve always told you that you haven’t got enough imagination, so it’s very gratifying to me to see you taking my words to heart, which is a thing I never thought you did. And if it weren’t for all the circumstances you’ve overlooked, it would be a good theory.’

  The Sergeant said in a resigned voice: ‘I know there are some loose ends, but –’

  ‘Who set the ladder up to be handy?’

  ‘Either of them.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Any time,’ said the Sergeant, add