Towards Zero Read online

  Nevile took a step forward and caught her by the arm.

  “Shut up, Kay. For goodness’ sake. You can’t make this kind of scene here.”

  “Can’t I? You’ll see. I’ll—”

  Hurstall stepped out on the terrace. His face was quite impassive.

  “Tea is served in the drawing room,” he announced.

  Kay and Nevile walked slowly towards the drawing room window.

  Hurstall stood aside to let them pass in.

  Up in the sky the clouds were gathering.

  XI

  The rain started falling at a quarter to seven. Nevile watched it from the window of his bedroom. He had no further conversation with Kay. They had avoided each other after tea.

  Dinner that evening was a stilted difficult meal. Nevile was sunk in abstraction; Kay’s face had an unusual amount of makeup for her; Audrey sat like a frozen ghost. Mary Aldin did her best to keep some kind of a conversation going and was slightly annoyed with Thomas Royde for not playing up to her better.

  Hurstall was nervous and his hands trembled as he handed the vegetables.

  As the meal drew to a close, Nevile said with elaborate casualness: “Think I shall go over to Easterhead after dinner and look up Latimer. We might have a game of billiards.”

  “Take the latch key,” said Mary. “In case you’re back late.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  They went into the drawing room, where coffee was served.

  The turning on of the wireless and the news was a welcome diversion.

  Kay, who had been yawning ostentatiously ever since dinner, said she would go up to bed. She had a headache, she said.

  “Have you got any aspirin?” asked Mary.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Kay left the room.

  Nevile turned the wireless on to a programme with music. He sat silent on the sofa for some time. He did not look once at Audrey, but sat huddled up looking like an unhappy little boy. Against her will, Mary felt quite sorry for him.

  “Well,” he said, at last rousing himself, “better be off if I’m going.”

  “Are you taking your car or going by ferry?”

  “Oh, ferry. No sense in going a round of fifteen miles. I shall enjoy a bit of a walk.”

  “It’s raining, you know.”

  “I know. I’ve got a Burberry.” He went towards the door.

  “Goodnight.”

  In the hall, Hurstall came to him.

  “If you please, sir, will you go up to Lady Tressilian? She wants to see you specially.”

  Nevile glanced at the clock. It was already ten o’clock.

  He shrugged his shoulders and went upstairs and along the corridor to Lady Tressilian’s room and tapped on the door. While he waited for her to say Come in, he heard the voices of the others in the hall down below. Everybody was going to bed early tonight, it seemed.

  “Come in,” said Lady Tressilian’s clear voice.

  Nevile went in, shutting the door behind him.

  Lady Tressilian was all ready for the night. All the lights were extinguished except one reading lamp by her bed. She had been reading, but she now laid down the book. She looked at Nevile over the top of her spectacles. It was, somehow, a formidable glance.

  “I want to speak to you, Nevile,” she said.

  In spite of himself, Nevile smiled faintly.

  “Yes, Headmaster,” he said.

  Lady Tressilian did not smile.

  “There are certain things, Nevile, that I will not permit in my house. I have no wish to listen to anybody’s private conversations, but if you and your wife insist on shouting at each other exactly under my bedroom windows, I can hardly fail to hear what you say. I gather that you were outlining a plan whereby Kay was to divorce you and in due course you would remarry Audrey. That, Nevile, is a thing you simply cannot do and I will not hear of it for a moment.”

  Nevile seemed to be making an effort to control his temper.

  “I apologize for the scene,” he said, shortly. “As for the rest of what you say, surely that is my business!”

  “No, it is not. You have used my house in order to get into touch with Audrey—or else Audrey has used it—”

  “She has done nothing of the sort. She—”

  Lady Tressilian stopped him with upraised hand.

  “Anyway, you can’t do this thing, Nevile. Kay is your wife. She has certain rights of which you cannot deprive her. In this matter I am entirely on Kay’s side. You have made your bed and must lie upon it. Your duty now is to Kay and I’m telling you so plainly—”

  Nevile took a step forward. His voice rose:

  “This is nothing whatever to do with you—”

  “What is more,” Lady Tressilian swept on, regardless of his protest. “Audrey leaves this house tomorrow—”

  “You can’t do that! I won’t stand for it—”

  “Don’t shout at me, Nevile.”

  “I tell you I won’t have it—”

  Somewhere along the passage a door shut….

  XII

  Alice Bentham, the gooseberry-eyed housemaid, came to Mrs. Spicer, the cook, in some perturbation.

  “Oh, Mrs. Spicer, I don’t rightly know what I ought to do.”

  “What’s the matter, Alice?”

  “It’s Miss Barrett. I took her in her cup of tea over an hour ago. Fast asleep she was and never woke up, but I didn’t like to do much. And then, five minutes ago, I went in again because she hadn’t come down and her ladyship’s tea all ready and waiting for her to take in. So I went in again and she’s sleeping ever so—I can’t stir her.”

  “Have you shaken her?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Spicer. I shook her head—but she just goes on lying there and she’s ever such a horrid colour.”

  “Goodness, she’s not dead, is she?”

  “Oh no, Mrs. Spicer, because I can hear her breathing, but it’s funny breathing. I think she’s ill or something.”

  “Well, I’ll go up and see myself. You take in her ladyship’s tea. Better make a fresh pot. She’ll be wondering what’s happened.”

  Alice obediently did as she was told whilst Mrs. Spicer went up to the second floor.

  Taking the tray along the corridor, Alice knocked at Lady Tressilian’s door. After knocking twice and getting no answer she went in. A moment later, there was a crash of broken crockery and a series of wild screams, and Alice came rushing out of the room and down the stairs to where Hurstall was crossing the hall to the dining room.

  “Oh, Mr. Hurstall—there’ve been burglars and her ladyship’s dead—killed—with a great hole in her head and blood everywhere….”

  A FINE ITALIAN HAND…

  I

  Superintendent Battle had enjoyed his holiday. There were still three days of it to run and he was a little disappointed when the weather changed and the rain fell. Still, what else could you expect in England? And he’d been extremely lucky up to now.

  He was breakfasting with Inspector James Leach, his nephew, when the telephone rang.

  “I’ll come right along, sir.” Jim put the receiver back.

  “Serious?” asked Superintendent Battle. He noted the expression on his nephew’s face.

  “We’ve got a murder. Lady Tressilian. An old lady, very well known down here, an invalid. Has that house at Saltcreek that hangs right over the cliff.”

  Battle nodded.

  “I’m going along to see the old man” (thus disrespectfully did Leach speak of his Chief Constable). “He’s a friend of hers. We’re going along together.”

  As he went to the door he said pleadingly:

  “You’ll give me a hand, won’t you, Uncle, over this? First case of this kind I’ve had.”

  “As long as I’m here, I will. Case of robbery and housebreaking, is it?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  II

  Half an hour later, Major Robert Mitchell, the Chief Constable, was speaking gravely to uncle and nephew.

/>   “It’s early to say as yet,” he said, “but one thing seems clear. This wasn’t an outside job. Nothing taken, no signs of breaking in. All the windows and doors found shut this morning.”

  He looked directly at Battle.

  “If I were to ask Scotland Yard, do you think they’d put you on the job? You’re on the spot, you see. And then there’s your relationship with Leach here. That is, if you’re willing. It means cutting the end of your holiday.”

  “That’s all right,” said Battle. “As for the other, sir, you’ll have to put it up to Sir Edgar” (Sir Edgar Cotton was Assistant Commissioner) “but I believe he’s a friend of yours?”

  Mitchell nodded.

  “Yes, I think I can manage Edgar all right. That’s settled, then! I’ll get through right away.”

  He spoke into the telephone: “Get me the Yard.”

  “You think it’s going to be an important case, sir?” asked Battle.

  Mitchell said gravely:

  “It’s going to be a case where we don’t want the possibility of making a mistake. We want to be absolutely sure of our man—or woman, of course.”

  Battle nodded. He understood quite well that there was something behind the words.

  “Thinks he knows who did it,” he said to himself. “And doesn’t relish the prospect. Somebody well-known and popular or I’ll eat my boots!”

  III

  Battle and Leach stood in the doorway of the well-furnished handsome bedroom. On the floor in front of them a police officer was carefully testing for fingerprints the handle of a golf club—a heavy niblick. The head of the club was bloodstained and had one or two white hairs sticking to it.

  By the bed, Dr. Lazenby, who was police surgeon for the district, was bending over the body of Lady Tressilian.

  He straightened up with a sigh.

  “Perfectly straightforward. She was hit from in front with terrific force. First blow smashed in the bone and killed her, but the murderer struck again to make sure. I won’t give you fancy terms—just the plain horse sense of it.”

  “How long has she been dead?” asked Leach.

  “I’d put it between ten o’clock and midnight.”

  “You can’t go nearer than that?”

  “I’d rather not. All sorts of factors to take into account. We don’t hang people on rigor mortis nowadays. Not earlier than ten, not later than midnight.”

  “And she was hit with this niblick?”

  The doctor glanced over at it.

  “Presumably. Luck, though, that the murderer left it behind. I couldn’t have deduced a niblick from the wound. As it happens the sharp edge of the club didn’t touch the head—it was the angled back of the club that must have hit her.”

  “Wouldn’t that have been rather difficult to do?” asked Leach.

  “If it had been done on purpose, yes,” agreed the doctor. “I can only suppose, that by a rather odd chance, it just happened that way.”

  Leach was raising his hands, instinctively trying to reconstruct the blow.

  “Awkward,” he commented.

  “Yes,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “The whole thing was awkward. She was struck, you see, on the right temple—but whoever did it must have stood on the right-hand side of the bed—facing the head of the bed—there’s no room on the left, the angle from the wall is too small.”

  Leach pricked up his ears.

  “Left-handed?” he queried.

  “You won’t get me to commit myself on that point,” said Lazenby. “Far too many snags. I’ll say, if you like, that the easiest explanation is that the murderer was left-handed—but there are other ways of accounting for it. Suppose, for instance, the old lady had turned her head slightly to the left just as the man hit. Or he may have previously moved the bed out, stood on the left of it and afterwards moved the bed back.”

  “Not very likely—that last.”

  “Perhaps not, but it might have happened. I’ve had some experience in these things, and I can tell you, my boy, deducing that a murderous blow was struck left-handed is full of pitfalls.”

  Detective Sergeant Jones, from the floor, remarked, “This golf club is the ordinary right-handed kind.”

  Leach nodded. “Still, it mayn’t have belonged to the man who used it. It was a man, I suppose, doctor?”

  “Not necessarily. If the weapon was that heavy niblick a woman could have landed a terrible swipe with it.”

  Superintendent Battle said in his quiet voice:

  “But you couldn’t swear that that was the weapon, could you, doctor?”

  Lazenby gave him a quick interested glance.

  “No. I can only swear that it might have been the weapon, and that presumably it was the weapon. I’ll analyse the blood on it, make sure that it’s the same blood group—also the hairs.”

  “Yes,” said Battle approvingly. “It’s always as well to be thorough.”

  Lazenby asked curiously:

  “Got any doubts about that golf club yourself, Superintendent?”

  Battle shook his head.

  “Oh no, no. I’m a simple man. Like to believe the things I see with my eyes. She was hit with something heavy—that’s heavy. It has blood and hair on it, therefore presumably her blood and hair. Ergo—that was the weapon used.”

  Leach asked: “Was she awake or asleep when she was hit?”

  “In my opinion, awake. There’s astonishment on her face. I’d say—this is just a private personal opinion—that she didn’t expect what was going to happen. There’s no sign of any attempt to fight—and no horror or fear. I’d say offhand that either she had just woken up from sleep and was hazy and didn’t take things in—or else she recognized her assailant as someone who could not possibly wish to harm her.”

  “The bedside lamp was on and nothing else,” said Leach thoughtfully.

  “Yes, that cuts either way. She may have turned it on when she was suddenly woken up by someone entering her room. Or it may have been on already.”

  Detective Sergeant Jones rose to his feet. He was smiling appreciatively.

  “Lovely set of prints on that club,” he said. “Clear as anything!”

  Leach gave a deep sigh.

  “That ought to simplify things.”

  “Obliging chap,” said Dr. Lazenby. “Left the weapon—left his fingerprints on it—wonder he didn’t leave his visiting card!”

  “It might be,” said Superintendent Battle, “that he just lost his head. Some do.”

  The doctor nodded.

  “True enough. Well, I must go and look after my other patient.”

  “What patient?” Battle sounded suddenly interested.

  “I was sent for by the butler before this was discovered. Lady Tressilian’s maid was found in a coma this morning.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Heavily doped with one of the barbiturates. She’s pretty bad, but she’ll pull round.”

  “The maid?” said Battle. His rather oxlike eyes went heavily to the big bell pull, the tassel of which rested on the pillow near the dead woman’s hand.

  Lazenby nodded.

  “Exactly. That’s the first thing Lady Tressilian would have done if she’d cause to feel alarm—pull that bell and summon the maid. Well, she could have pulled it till all was blue. The maid wouldn’t have heard.”

  “That was taken care of, was it?” said Battle. “You’re sure of that? She wasn’t in the habit of taking sleeping draughts?”

  “I’m positive she wasn’t. There’s no sign of such a thing in her room. And I’ve found out how it was given to her. Senna pods. She drank a brew of senna pods every night. The stuff was in that.”

  Superintendent Battle scratched his chin.

  “H’m,” he said. “Somebody knew all about this house. You know, doctor, this is a very odd sort of murder.”

  “Well,” said Lazenby, “that’s your business.”

  “He’s a good man, our doctor,” said Leach when Lazenby had left the room
.

  The two men were alone now. The photographs had been taken, and measurements recorded. The two police officers knew every fact that was to be known about the room where the crime had been committed.

  Battle nodded in answer to his nephew’s remark. He seemed to be puzzling over something.

  “Do you think anyone could have handled that club—with gloves on, say—after those fingerprints were made?”

  Leach shook his head.

  “I don’t and no more do you. You couldn’t grasp that club—not use it, I mean, without smearing those prints. They weren’t smeared. They were as clear as clear. You saw for yourself.”

  Battle agreed.

  “And now we ask very nicely and politely if every body will allow us to take their fingerprints—no compulsion, of course. And everyone will say yes—and then one of two things will happen. Either none of these fingerprints will agree, or else—”

  “Or else we’ll have got our man?”

  “I suppose so. Or our woman, perhaps.”

  Leach shook his head.

  “No, not a woman. Those prints on the club were a man’s. Too big for a woman’s. Besides, this isn’t a woman’s crime.”

  “No.” agreed Battle. “Quite a man’s crime. Brutal, masculine, rather athletic and slightly stupid. Know anybody in the house like that?”

  “I don’t know anyone in the house yet. They’re all together in the dining room.”

  Battle moved towards the door.

  “We’ll go and have a look at them.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bed, shook his head and remarked:

  “I don’t like that bell pull.”

  “What about it?”

  “It doesn’t fit.”

  He added as he opened the door: