The Sittaford Mystery Read online

  “Alas. We have one grave drawback here. The domestic problem, Inspector. Servants will not stand these country places. All of mine have been threatening to leave us for some time, and the news of the murder seems to have unsettled them utterly. I don’t know what I shall do. Perhaps men servants would answer the case. That is what the Registry Office in Exeter advised.”

  The Inspector answered mechanically. He was not listening to her flow of talk. He was thinking of the expression he had surprised on the girl’s face.

  Mrs. Willett had been clever—but not quite clever enough.

  He went away cogitating on his problem.

  If the Willetts had nothing to do with Captain Trevelyan’s death, why was Violet Willett afraid?

  He fired his last shot. With his foot actually over the threshold of the front door he turned back.

  “By the way,” he said, “you know young Pearson, don’t you?”

  There was no doubt of the pause this time. A dead silence of about a second. Then Mrs. Willett spoke:

  “Pearson?” she said. “I don’t think—”

  She was interrupted. A queer sighing breath came from the room behind her and then the sound of a fall. The Inspector was over the threshold and into the room in a flash.

  Violet Willett had fainted.

  “Poor child,” cried Mrs. Willett. “All this strain and shock. That dreadful table-turning business and the murder on the top of it. She isn’t strong. Thank you so much, Inspector. Yes, on the sofa please. If you would ring the bell. No, I don’t think there is anything more you can do. Thank you so much.”

  The Inspector went down the drive with his lips set in a grim line.

  Jim Pearson was engaged, he knew, to that extremely charming-looking girl he had seen in London.

  Why then should Violet Willett faint at the mention of his name? What was the connection between Jim Pearson and the Willetts?

  He paused indecisively as he emerged from the front gate. Then he took from his pocket a small notebook. In it was entered a list of the inhabitants of the six bungalows built by Captain Trevelyan with a few brief remarks against each name. Inspector Narracott’s stubby forefinger paused at the entry against No. 6 The Cottages.

  “Yes,” he said to himself. “I’d better see him next.”

  He strode briskly down the lane and beat a firm rat-tat on the knocker of No. 6—the bungalow inhabited by Mr. Duke.

  Fifteen

  VISIT TO MAJOR BURNABY

  Leading the way up the path to the Major’s front door, Mr. Enderby rapped upon it in a cheery fashion. The door was flung open almost immediately and Major Burnaby, red in the face, appeared on the threshold.

  “It’s you, is it?” he observed with no very great fervour in his voice, and was about to go on in the same strain when he caught sight of Emily and his expression altered.

  “This is Miss Trefusis” said Charles with the air of one producing the ace of trumps. “She was very anxious to see you.”

  “May I come in?” said Emily with her sweetest smile.

  “Oh! yes. Certainly. Of course—Oh, yes, of course.”

  Stumbling in his speech the Major backed into the living room of his cottage and began pulling forward chairs and pushing aside tables.

  Emily, as was her fashion, came straight to the point.

  “You see, Major Burnaby, I am engaged to Jim—Jim Pearson, you know. And naturally I am terribly anxious about him.”

  In the act of pushing a table the Major paused with his mouth open.

  “Oh dear,” he said, “that’s a bad business. My dear young lady, I am more sorry about it than I can say.”

  “Major Burnaby, tell me honestly. Do you yourself believe he is guilty? Oh, you needn’t mind saying if you do. I would a hundred times rather people didn’t lie to me.”

  “No, I do not think him guilty,” said the Major in a loud assertive voice. He hit a cushion once or twice vigorously, and then sat down facing Emily. “The chap is a nice young chap. Mind you, he might be a bit weak. Don’t be offended if I say that he’s the kind of young fellow that might easily go wrong if temptation came in his way. But murder—no. And mind you, I know what I am talking about—a lot of subalterns have passed through my hands in my time. It’s the fashion to poke fun at retired army officers nowadays, but we know a thing or two all the same, Miss Trefusis.”

  “I’m sure you do,” said Emily. “I’m awfully grateful to you for saying what you’ve done.”

  “Have—have a whisky and soda?” said the Major. “I’m afraid there’s nothing else,” he said apologetically.

  “No, thank you, Major Burnaby.”

  “Some plain soda then?”

  “No, thank you,” said Emily.

  “I ought to be able to produce tea,” said the Major with a touch of wistfulness.

  “We’ve had it,” said Charles. “At Mrs. Curtis’s,” he added.

  “Major Burnaby,” said Emily, “who do you think did it—have you any idea at all?”

  “No. I am damned—er—bother—if I have,” said the Major. “Took it for granted it was some chap that broke in, but now the police say that can’t be so. Well, it’s their job, and I suppose they know best. They say nobody broke in, so I suppose nobody did break in. But all the same it beats me, Miss Trefusis. Trevelyan hadn’t an enemy in the world as far as I know.”

  “And you would know if anybody did,” said Emily.

  “Yes, I suppose I knew more of Trevelyan than many of his relations did.”

  “And you can’t think of anything—anything that would help, in any way?” asked Emily.

  The Major pulled at his short moustache.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Like in books there ought to be some little incident that I should remember that would be a clue. Well, I’m sorry, but there isn’t any such thing. Trevelyan just led an ordinary life. Got very few letters and wrote less. There were no female complications in his life, I am sure of that. No, it beats me, Miss Trefusis.”

  All three were silent.

  “What about that servant of his?” asked Charles.

  “Been with him for years. Absolutely faithful.”

  “He had married lately,” said Charles.

  “Married a perfectly decent respectable girl.”

  “Major Burnaby,” said Emily, “forgive me putting it this way—but didn’t you get the wind up rather easily about him?”

  The Major rubbed his nose with the embarrassed air that always came over him when the table-turning was mentioned.

  “Yes, there’s no denying it, I did. I knew the whole thing was tommy rot and yet—”

  “You felt somehow it wasn’t,” said Emily helpfully.

  The Major nodded.

  “That’s why I wonder—” said Emily.

  The two men looked at her.

  “I can’t quite put what I mean in the way I want,” said Emily. “What I mean is this: You say that you don’t believe in all this table-turning business—and yet, in spite of the awful weather and what must have seemed to you the absurdity of the whole thing—you felt so uneasy that you had to set out, no matter what the weather conditions, and see for yourself that Captain Trevelyan was all right. Well, don’t you think that may have been because—because there was something in the atmosphere?

  “I mean,” she continued desperately as she saw no trace of comprehension in the Major’s face, “that there was something in someone else’s mind as well as yours. And that somehow or other you felt it.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said the Major. He rubbed his nose again. “Of course,” he added hopefully, “women do take these things seriously.”

  “Women!” said Emily. “Yes,” she murmured softly to herself, “I believe somehow or other that’s it.”

  She turned abruptly to Major Burnaby.

  “What are they like, these Willetts?”

  “Oh, well,” Major Burnaby cast about in his mind, he was clearly no good at personal description. “
Well—they are very kind you know—very helpful and all that.”

  “Why do they want to take a house like Sittaford House at this time of year?”

  “I can’t imagine,” said the Major. “Nobody does,” he added.

  “Don’t you think it’s very queer?” persisted Emily.

  “Of course, it’s queer. However, there’s no accounting for tastes. That’s what the Inspector said.”

  “That’s nonsense,” said Emily. “People don’t do things without a reason.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Major Burnaby cautiously. “Some people don’t. You wouldn’t, Miss Trefusis. But some people—” He sighed and shook his head.

  “You are sure they hadn’t met Captain Trevelyan before?”

  The Major scouted the idea. Trevelyan would have said something to him. No, he was as astonished himself as anyone could be.

  “So he thought it queer?”

  “Of course, I’ve just told you we all did.”

  “What was Mrs. Willett’s attitude towards Captain Trevelyan?” asked Emily. “Did she try and avoid him?”

  A faint chuckle came from the Major.

  “No, indeed she didn’t. Pestered the life out of him always asking him to come and see them.”

  “Oh!” said Emily thoughtfully. She paused and then said. “So she might—just possibly she might have taken Sittaford House just on purpose to get acquainted with Captain Trevelyan.”

  “Well,” the Major seemed to turn it over in his mind. “Yes, I suppose she might have. Rather an expensive way of doing things.”

  “I don’t know,” said Emily. “Captain Trevelyan wouldn’t have been an easy person to get to know otherwise.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” agreed the late Captain Trevelyan’s friend.

  “I wonder,” said Emily.

  “The Inspector thought of that too,” said Burnaby.

  Emily felt a sudden irritation against Inspector Narracott. Everything that she thought of seemed to have already been thought of by the Inspector. It was galling to a young woman who prided herself on being sharper than other people.

  She rose and held out her hand.

  “Thank you very much,” she said simply.

  “I wish I could help you more,” said the Major. “I’m rather an obvious sort of person—always have been. If I were a clever chap I might be able to hit upon something that might be a clue. At any rate count on me for anything you want.”

  “Thank you,” said Emily. “I will.”

  “Good-bye, sir,” said Enderby. “I shall be along in the morning with my camera, you know.”

  Burnaby grunted.

  Emily and Charles retraced their steps to Mrs. Curtis’s.

  “Come into my room, I want to talk to you,” said Emily.

  She sat on the one chair and Charles sat on the bed. Emily plucked off her hat and sent it spinning into a corner of the room.

  “Now, listen,” she said. “I think I’ve got a kind of starting point. I may be wrong and I may be right, at any rate it’s an idea. I think a lot hinges on this table-turning business. You’ve done table-turning, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, now and then. Not serious, you know.”

  “No, of course not. It’s the kind of thing one does on a wet afternoon, and everyone accuses everyone else of shoving. Well, if you’ve played it you know what happens. The table starts spelling out, say, a name, well, it’s a name somebody knows. Very often they recognize it at once and hope it isn’t going to be that, and all the time unconsciously they are what one calls shoving. I mean sort of recognizing things makes one give an involuntary jerk when the next letter comes and stops the thing. And the less you want to do that sometimes the more it happens.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” agreed Mr. Enderby.

  “I don’t believe for a moment in spirits or anything like that. But supposing that one of those people who were playing knew that Captain Trevelyan was being murdered at that minute—”

  “Oh, I say,” protested Charles, “that’s awfully far fetched.”

  “Well, it needn’t be quite so crude as that. Yes, I think it must be. We are just taking a hypothesis—that’s all. We are asserting that somebody knew that Captain Trevelyan was dead and absolutely couldn’t hide their knowledge. The table betrayed them.”

  “It’s awfully ingenious,” said Charles, “but I don’t believe for a minute it’s true.”

  “We’ll assume that it is true,” said Emily firmly. “I am sure that in detection of crime you mustn’t be afraid to assume things.”

  “Oh, I’m quite agreeable,” said Mr. Enderby. “We’ll assume that it is true—anything you like.”

  “So what we have to do,” said Emily, “is to consider very carefully the people who were playing. To begin with there’s Major Burnaby and Mr. Rycroft. Well, it seems wildly unlikely that either of them should have an accomplice who was the murderer. Then there is this Mr. Duke. Well, for the moment we know nothing about him. He has only just arrived here lately and of course, he might be a sinister stranger—part of a gang or something. We will put X against his name. And now we come to the Willetts. Charles, there is something awfully mysterious about the Willetts.”

  “What on earth have they got to gain from Captain Trevelyan’s death?”

  “Well, on the face of it, nothing. But if my theory is correct there must be a connection somewhere. We’ve got to find what is the connection.”

  “Right,” said Mr. Enderby. “And supposing it’s all a mare’s nest?”

  “Well, we’ll have to start all over again,” said Emily.

  “Hark!” cried Charles suddenly.

  He held up his hand. Then he went over to the window and opened it, and Emily too, heard the sound which had aroused his attention. It was the far-off booming of a great bell.

  As they stood listening, Mrs. Curtis’s voice called excitedly from below:

  “Do you hear the bell, Miss—do you hear it?”

  Emily opened the door.

  “D’you hear it? Plain as plan, isn’t it? Well now, now, to think of that!”

  “What is it?” asked Emily.

  “It’s the bell at Princetown, Miss, near to twelve mile away. It means that a convict’s escaped. George, George, where is the man? D’you hear the bell? There’s a convict loose.”

  Her voice died away as she went through the kitchen.

  Charles shut the window and sat down on the bed again.

  “It’s a pity that things happen all wrong,” he said dispassionately. “If only this convict had escaped on Friday, why, there would be our murderer nicely accounted for. No farther to look. Hungry man, desperate criminal breaks in. Trevelyan defends his English-man’s castle—and desperate criminal biffs him one. All so simple.”

  “It would have been,” said Emily with a sigh.

  “Instead of which,” said Charles, “he escapes three days too late. It’s—it’s hopelessly inartistic.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  Sixteen

  MR. RYCROFT

  Emily woke early the next morning. Being a sensible young woman, she realized there was little possibility of Mr. Enderby’s collaboration until the morning was well advanced. So, feeling restless and unable to lie still she set out for a brisk walk along the lane in the opposite direction from which they had come last night.

  She passed the gates of Sittaford House on her right and shortly after that the lane took a sharp turn to the right and ran steeply up hill and came out on the open moor where it degenerated into a grass track and soon petered out altogether. The morning was a fine one, cold and crisp, and the view was lovely. Emily ascended to the very top of Sittaford Tor, a pile of grey rock of a fantastic shape. From this height she looked down over an expanse of moorland, unbroken as far as she could see without any habitation or any road. Below her, on the opposite side of the Tor, were grey masses of granite boulders and rocks. After considering the scene for a minute or two she turned to view th
e prospect to the north from which she had come. Just below her lay Sittaford, clustering on the flank of the hill, the square grey blob of Sittaford House, and the dotted cottages beyond it. In the valley below she could see Exhampton.

  “One ought,” thought Emily confusedly, “to see things better when you are high up like this. It ought to be like lifting off the top of a doll’s house and peering in.”

  She wished with all her heart that she had met the dead man even if only once. It was so hard to get an idea of people you had never seen. You had to rely on other people’s judgment, and Emily had never yet acknowledged that any other person’s judgment was superior to her own. Other people’s impressions were no good to you. They might be just as true as yours but you couldn’t act on them. You couldn’t, as it were, use another person’s angle of attack.

  Meditating vexedly on these questions, Emily sighed impatiently and shifted her position.

  She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had been oblivious to her immediate surroundings. It was with a shock of surprise that she realized that a small elderly gentleman was standing a few feet away from her, his hat held courteously in his hand, while he breathed rather fast.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Miss Trefusis, I believe?”

  “Yes,” said Emily.

  “My name is Rycroft. You must forgive me speaking to you, but in this little community of ours the smallest detail is known, and your arrival here yesterday has naturally gone the round. I can assure you that everyone feels a deep sympathy with your position, Miss Trefusis. We are all, one and all, anxious to assist you in any way we can.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Emily.

  “Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Rycroft. “Beauty in distress, you will pardon my old-fashioned manner of putting it. But seriously, my dear young lady, do count on me if there is any way in which I can possibly assist you. Beautiful view from up here, is it not?”

  “Wonderful,” agreed Emily. “The moor is a wonderful place.”

  “You know that a prisoner must have escaped last night from Princetown.”