The Sittaford Mystery Read online

The parlourmaid withdrew and Violet unfolded the paper, glanced over it and handed it to Emily.

  “There you are,” she said. “As a matter of fact you are just in time. This murder business has upset the servants. They think it’s dangerous to live in this out of the way part. Mother lost her temper with them yesterday evening and has sent them all packing. They are going after lunch. We are going to get two men instead—a houseparlourman and a kind of butler-chauffeur. I think it will answer much better.”

  “Servants are silly, aren’t they?” said Emily.

  “It isn’t even as if Captain Trevelyan had been killed in this house.”

  “What made you think of coming to live here?” asked Emily, trying to make the question sound artless and girlishly natural.

  “Oh, we thought it would be rather fun,” said Violet.

  “Don’t you find it rather dull?”

  “Oh, no, I love the country.”

  But her eyes avoided Emily’s. Just for a moment she looked suspicious and afraid.

  She stirred uneasily in her chair and Emily rose rather reluctantly to her feet.

  “I must be going now,” she said. “Thank you so much, Miss Willett. I do hope your mother will be all right.”

  “Oh, she’s quite well really. It’s only the servants—and all the worry.”

  “Of course.”

  Adroitly, unperceived by the other, Emily managed to discard her gloves on a small table. Violet Willett accompanied her to the front door and they took leave of each other with a few pleasant remarks.

  The parlourmaid who had opened the door to Emily had unlocked it, but as Violet Willett closed it behind her retreating guest Emily caught no sound of the key being turned. When she reached the gate, therefore, she retraced her steps slowly.

  Her visit had more than confirmed the theories she held about Sittaford House. There was something queer going on here. She didn’t think Violet Willett was directly implicated—that is unless she was a very clever actress indeed. But there was something wrong, and that something must have a connection with the tragedy. There must be some link between the Willetts and Captain Trevelyan, and in that link there might lie the clue to the whole mystery.

  She came up to the front door, turned the handle very gently and passed across the threshold. The hall was deserted. Emily paused, uncertain what to do next. She had her excuse—the gloves left thoughtfully behind in the drawing room. She stood stock-still listening. There was no sound anywhere except a very faint murmur of voices from upstairs. As quietly as possible Emily crept to the foot of the stairs and stood looking up. Then, very gingerly she ascended a step at a time. This was rather more risky. She could hardly pretend that her gloves had walked of their own accord to the first floor, but she had a burning desire to overhear something of the conversation that was going on upstairs. Modern builders never made their doors fit well, in Emily’s opinion. You could hear a murmur of voices down here. Therefore, if you reached the door itself you would hear plainly the conversation that was going on inside the room. Another step—one more again . . . Two women’s voices—Violet and her mother without doubt.

  Suddenly there was a break in the conversation—a sound of a footstep. Emily retreated rapidly.

  When Violet Willett opened her mother’s door and came down the stairs she was surprised to find her late guest standing in the hall peering about her in a lost dog kind of way.

  “My gloves,” she explained. “I must have left them. I came back for them.”

  “I expect they are in here,” said Violet.

  They went into the drawing room and there, sure enough, on a little table near where Emily had been sitting lay the missing gloves.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Emily. “It’s so stupid of me. I am always leaving things.”

  “And you want gloves in this weather,” said Violet. “It’s so cold.” Once again they parted at the hall door, and this time Emily heard the key being turned in the lock.

  She went down the drive with plenty to think about, for, as that door on the upper landing had opened, she had heard distinctly one sentence spoken in an older woman’s fretful and plaintive voice.

  “My God,” the voice had wailed, “I can’t bear it. Will tonight never come?”

  Nineteen

  THEORIES

  Emily arrived back at the cottage to find her boyfriend absent. He had, Mrs. Curtis explained, gone off with several other young gentlemen, but two telegrams had come for the young lady. Emily took them, opened them, and put them in the pocket of her sweater, Mrs. Curtis eyeing them hungrily the while.

  “Not bad news, I hope?” said Mrs. Curtis.

  “Oh, no,” said Emily.

  “Always gives me a turn, a telegram does,” said Mrs. Curtis.

  “I know,” said Emily. “Very disturbing.”

  At the moment she felt disinclined for anything but solitude. She wanted to sort out and arrange her own ideas. She went up to her own room, and taking pencil and notepaper she set to work on a system of her own. After twenty minutes of this exercise she was interrupted by Mr. Enderby.

  “Hullo, hullo, hullo, there you are. Fleet Street has been hard on your tracks all morning but they have just missed you everywhere. Anyway they have had it from me that you are not to be worried. As far as you’re concerned, I am the big noise.”

  He sat down on the chair—Emily was occupying the bed—and chuckled.

  “Envy and malice isn’t in it!” he said. “I have been handing them out the goods. I know everyone and I am right in it. It’s too good to be true. I keep pinching myself and feeling I will wake up in a minute. I say, have you noticed the fog?”

  “It won’t stop me going to Exeter this afternoon, will it?” said Emily.

  “Do you want to go to Exeter?”

  “Yes. I have to meet Mr. Dacres there. My solicitor, you know—the one who is undertaking Jim’s defence. He wants to see me. And I think I shall pay a visit to Jim’s Aunt Jennifer, while I am there. After all, Exeter is only half an hour away.”

  “Meaning she might have nipped over by train and batted her brother over the head and nobody would have noticed her absence.”

  “Oh, I know it sounds rather improbable, but one has to go into everything. Not that I want it to be Aunt Jennifer—I don’t. I would much rather it was Martin Dering. I hate the sort of man who presumes on going to be a brother-in-law and does things in public that you can’t smack his face for.”

  “Is he that kind?”

  “Very much that kind. He’s an ideal person for a murderer—always getting telegrams from bookmakers and losing money on horses. It’s annoying that he’s got such a good alibi. Mr. Dacres told me about it. A publisher and a literary dinner seems so very unbreakable and respectable.”

  “A literary dinner,” said Enderby. “Friday night. Martin Dering—let me see—Martin Dering—why, yes—I am almost sure of it. Dash it all, I am quite sure of it, but I can clinch things by wiring to Carruthers.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Emily.

  “Listen. You know I came down to Exhampton on Friday evening. Well, there was a bit of information I was going to get from a pal of mine, another newspaper man, Carruthers his name is. He was coming round to see me about half past six if he could—before he went on to some literary dinner—he is rather a big bug, Carruthers, and if he couldn’t make it he would send me a line to Exhampton. Well, he didn’t make it and he did send me a line.”

  “What has all this got to do with it?” said Emily.

  “Don’t be so impatient, I am coming to the point. The old chap was rather screwed when he wrote it—done himself well at the dinner—after giving me the item I wanted, he went on to waste a good bit of juicy description on me. You know—about the speeches, and what asses so and so, a famous novelist and a famous playwright, were. And he said he had been rottenly placed at dinner. There was an empty seat on one side of him where Ruby McAlmott, that awful best seller woman, ought to have sat and
an empty place on the other side of him where the sex specialist, Martin Dering, ought to have been, but he moved up nearer to a poet, who is very well known in Blackheath, and tried to make the best of things. Now, do you see the point?”

  “Charles! Darling!” Emily became lyrical with excitement. “How marvellous. Then the brute wasn’t at the dinner at all?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You are sure you’ve remembered the name right?”

  “I’m positive. I have torn up the letter, worse luck, but I can always wire to Carruthers to make sure. But I absolutely know that I’m not mistaken.”

  “There’s the publisher still, of course,” said Emily. “The one he spent the afternoon with. But I rather think it was a publisher who was just going back to America, and if so, that looks fishy. I mean it looks as though he had selected someone who couldn’t be asked without rather a lot of trouble.”

  “Do you really think we have hit it?” said Charles Enderby.

  “Well, it looks like it. I think the best thing to be done is—to go straight to that nice Inspector Narracott and just tell him these new facts. I mean, we can’t tackle an American publisher who is on the Mauretania or the Berengaria or somewhere. That’s a job for the police.”

  “My word if this comes off. What a scoop!” said Mr. Enderby. “If it does, I should think the Daily Wire couldn’t offer me less than—”

  Emily broke ruthlessly into his dreams of advancement.

  “But we mustn’t lose our heads,” she said, “and throw everything else to the wind. I must go to Exeter. I don’t suppose I shall be able to be back here until tomorrow. But I’ve got a job for you.”

  “What kind of a job?”

  Emily described her visit to the Willetts and the strange sentence she had overheard on leaving.

  “We have got absolutely and positively to find out what is going to happen tonight. There’s something in the wind.”

  “What an extraordinary thing!”

  “Wasn’t it? But of course it may be a coincidence. Or it may not—but you observe that the servants are being cleared out of the way. Something queer is going to happen there tonight, and you have to be on the spot to see what it is.”

  “You mean I have to spend the whole night shivering under a bush in the garden?”

  “Well, you don’t mind that, do you? Journalists don’t mind what they do in a good cause.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Never mind who told me, I know it. You will do it, won’t you?”

  “Oh, rather,” said Charles. “I am not going to miss anything. If anything queer goes on at Sittaford House tonight, I shall be in it.”

  Emily then told him about the luggage label.

  “It’s odd,” said Mr. Enderby. “Australia is where the third Pearson is, isn’t it?—the youngest one. Not, of course, that that means anything, but still it—well, there might be a connection.”

  “H’m,” said Emily. “I think that’s all. Have you anything to report on your side?”

  “Well,” said Charles, “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Yes?”

  “The only thing is I don’t know how you’ll like it.”

  “What do you mean—how I’ll like it?”

  “You won’t fly out over it, will you?”

  “I don’t suppose so. I mean I hope I can listen sensibly and quietly to anything.”

  “Well, the point is,” said Charles Enderby eyeing her doubtfully, “don’t think I mean to be offensive or anything like that, but do you think that lad of yours is to be depended on for the strict truth?”

  “Do you mean,” said Emily, “that he did murder him after all? You are quite welcome to that view if you like. I said to you at the beginning that that was the natural view to take, but I said we had to work on the assumption that he didn’t.”

  “I don’t mean that,” said Enderby. “I am with you in assuming that he didn’t do the old boy in. What I mean is, how far is his own story of what happened true? He says that he went there, had a chat with the old fellow, and came away leaving him alive and well.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it just occurred to me, you don’t think it’s possible that he went there and actually found the old man dead? I mean, he might have got the wind up and been scared and not like to say so.”

  Charles had propounded this theory rather dubiously, but he was relieved to find that Emily showed no signs of flying out at him over it. Instead, she frowned and creased her brow in thought.

  “I am not going to pretend,” she said. “It is possible. I hadn’t thought of it before. I know Jim wouldn’t murder anyone, but he might quite well get rattled and tell a silly lie and then, of course, he would have to stick to it. Yes, it is quite possible.”

  “The awkward thing is that you can’t go and ask him about it now. I mean they wouldn’t let you see him alone, would they?”

  “I can put Mr. Dacres onto him,” said Emily. “You see your solicitor alone, I believe. The worst of Jim is that he is frightfully obstinate, if he has once said a thing he sticks to it.”

  “That’s my story and I’m going to stick to it,” said Mr. Enderby comprehendingly.

  “Yes. I am glad you mentioned that possibility to me, Charles, it hadn’t occurred to me. We have been looking for someone who came in after Jim had left—but if it was before—”

  She paused, lost in thought. Two very different theories stretched out in opposite directions. There was the one suggested by Mr. Rycroft, in which Jim’s quarrel with his uncle was the determining point. The other theory, however, took no cognizance of Jim whatsoever. The first thing to do, Emily felt, was to see the doctor who had first examined the body. If it were possible that Captain Trevelyan had been murdered at—say—four o’clock, it might make a considerable difference to the question of alibis. And the other thing to do was to make Mr. Dacres urge most strongly on his client the absolute necessity of speaking the truth on this point.

  She rose from the bed.

  “Well,” she said, “you had better find out how I can get to Exhampton. The man at the smithy has a car of a kind, I believe. Will you go and settle with him about it? I’ll start immediately after lunch. There’s a train at three ten to Exeter. That will give me time to see the doctor first. What’s the time now?”

  “Half past twelve,” said Mr. Enderby, consulting his watch.

  “Then we will both go up and fix up about that car,” said Emily. “And there’s just one other thing I want to do before leaving Sittaford.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I am going to pay a call on Mr. Duke. He’s the only person in Sittaford I haven’t seen. And he was one of the people at the table-turning.”

  “Oh, we’ll pass his cottage on the way to the smithy.”

  Mr. Duke’s cottage was the last of the row. Emily and Charles unlatched the gate and walked up the path. And then something rather surprising occurred. For the door opened and a man came out. And that man was Inspector Narracott.

  He, too, looked surprised and, Emily fancied, embarrassed.

  Emily abandoned her original intention.

  “I am so glad to have met you, Inspector Narracott,” she said. “There are one or two things I want to talk to you about if I may.”

  “Delighted, Miss Trefusis.” He drew out a watch. “I’m afraid you will have to look sharp. I’ve a car waiting. I’ve got to go back to Exhampton almost immediately.”

  “How extraordinarily fortunate,” said Emily. “You might give me a lift, will you, Inspector?”

  The Inspector said rather woodenly that he would be very pleased to do so.

  “You might go and get my suitcase, Charles,” said Emily. “It’s packed up and ready.”

  Charles departed immediately.

  “It’s a great surprise meeting you here, Miss Trefusis,” said Inspector Narracott.

  “I said au revoir,” Emily reminded him.

  “I didn’t notice it at the time
.”

  “You’ve not seen the last of me by a long way,” said Emily candidly. “You know, Inspector Narracott, you’ve made a mistake. Jim’s not the man you’re after.”

  “Indeed!”

  “And what’s more,” said Emily, “I believe in your heart that you agree with me.”

  “What makes you think that, Miss Trefusis?”

  “What were you doing in Mr. Duke’s cottage?” retaliated Emily.

  Narracott looked embarrassed, and she was quick to follow it up.

  “You’re doubtful, Inspector—that’s what you are—doubtful. You thought you had got the right man and now you are not so sure, and so you are making a few investigations. Well, I have got something to tell you that may help. I’ll tell it to you on the way to Exhampton.”

  Footsteps sounded down the road, and Ronnie Garfield appeared. He had the air of a truant, breathless and guilty.

  “I say, Miss Trefusis,” he began. “What about a walk this afternoon? While my aunt has a nap, you know.”

  “Impossible,” said Emily. “I’m going away. To Exeter.”

  “What, not really! For good you mean?”

  “Oh, no,” said Emily. “I shall be back again tomorrow.”

  “Oh, that’s splendid.”

  Emily took something from the pocket of her sweater and handed it to him. “Give that to your aunt, will you? It’s a recipe for coffee cake, and tell her that she was just in time, the cook is leaving today and so are the other servants. Be sure to tell her, she will be interested.”

  A far-off scream was borne on the breeze. “Ronnie,” it said, “Ronnie, Ronnie.”

  “There’s my aunt,” said Ronnie starting nervously. “I had better go.”

  “I think you had,” said Emily. “You’ve got green paint on your left cheek,” she called after him. Ronnie Garfield disappeared through his aunt’s gate.

  “Here’s my boyfriend with my suitcase,” said Emily. “Come on, Inspector. I’ll tell you everything in the car.”

  Twenty

  VISIT TO AUNT JENNIFER

  At half past two Dr. Warren received a call from Emily. He took an immediate fancy to this businesslike and attractive girl. Her questions were blunt and to the point.