The Sittaford Mystery Read online

  It was half past three, and, with his head spinning from the effects of Mrs. Curtis’s conversation, Mr. Enderby went out for a stroll. His intention was to cultivate the acquaintance of Miss Percehouse’s nephew more closely. Prudent reconnaissance in the neighbourhood of Miss Percehouse’s cottage proved unavailing, but by a stroke of good fortune he ran into that young man just as he was emerging disconsolately from the gates of Sittaford House. He had all the appearance of having been sent away with a flea in his ear.

  “Hello,” said Charles. “I say, isn’t that Captain Trevelyan’s house?”

  “That’s right,” said Ronnie.

  “I was hoping to get a snapshot of it this morning. For my paper, you know,” he added. “But this weather is hopeless for photography.”

  Ronnie accepted this statement in all good faith without reflecting that if photography was only possible on days of brilliant sunshine, the pictures appearing in the daily papers would be few.

  “It must be a very interesting job—yours,” he said.

  “A dog’s life,” said Charles faithful to the convention of never showing enthusiasm about one’s work. He looked over his shoulder at Sittaford House. “Rather a gloomy place I should imagine.”

  “No end of a difference there since the Willetts moved in,” said Ronnie. “I was down here last year about the same time, and really you would hardly take it for the same place, and yet, I don’t know quite what they have done. Moved the furniture about a bit, I suppose, got cushions and things of that sort about. It’s been a godsend to me their being there, I can tell you.”

  “Can’t be a very jolly spot as a rule, I suppose,” said Charles.

  “Jolly? If I lived here a fortnight I should pass out altogether. How my aunt manages to cling on to life in the way she does beats me. You haven’t seen her cats, have you? I had to comb one of them this morning and look at the way the brute scratched me.” He held out a hand and an arm for inspection.

  “Rather rough luck,” said Charles.

  “I should say it was. I say, are you doing any sleuthing? If so, can I help? Be the Watson to your Sherlock, or anything of that kind?”

  “Any clues in Sittaford House?” inquired Charles casually. “I mean did Captain Trevelyan leave any of his things there?”

  “I don’t think so. My aunt was saying he moved lock, stock and barrel. Took his elephant’s trotters and his hippopotamus’s toothy pegs and all the sporting rifles and whatnots.”

  “Almost as though he didn’t mean to come back,” said Charles.

  “I say—that’s an idea. You don’t think it was suicide, do you?”

  “A man who can hit himself correctly on the back of the head with a sandbag would be something of an artist in the suicide world,” said Charles.

  “Yes, I thought there wasn’t much in that idea. Looks as if he had a premonition though,” Ronnie’s face brightened. “Look here, what about this? Enemies on his track, he knows they’re coming, so he clears out and passes the buck, as it were, to the Willetts.”

  “The Willetts were a bit of a miracle by themselves,” said Charles.

  “Yes, I can’t make it out. Fancy planting yourself down here in the country like this. Violet doesn’t seem to mind—actually says she likes it. I don’t know what’s the matter with her today. I suppose it’s the domestic trouble. I can’t think why women worry so about servants. If they cut up nasty, just push them out.”

  “That’s just what they have done, isn’t it?” said Charles.

  “Yes, I know. But they are in a great stew about it all. Mother lying down with screaming hysterics or something and daughter snapping like a turtle. Fairly pushed me out just now.”

  “They haven’t had the police here, have they?”

  Ronnie stared.

  “The police, no, why would they?”

  “Well, I wondered. Seeing Inspector Narracott in Sittaford this morning.”

  Ronnie dropped his stick with a clatter and stooped to pick it up.

  “Who did you say was in Sittaford this morning—Inspector Narracott?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he—is he the man in charge of the Trevelyan case?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What was he doing in Sittaford? Where did you see him?”

  “Oh, I suppose he was just nosing about,” said Charles, “checking up Captain Trevelyan’s past life so to speak.”

  “You think that’s all?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “He doesn’t think anyone in Sittaford had anything to do with it?”

  “That would be very unlikely, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, frightfully. But then you know what the police are—always butting in on the wrong tack. At least that’s what it says in detective novels.”

  “I think they are really rather an intelligent body of men,” said Charles. “Of course, the Press does a lot to help them.” he added. “But if you really read a case carefully it’s amazing the way they track down murderers with practically no evidence to go on.”

  “Oh—well—it’s nice to know that, isn’t it? They have certainly got on to this man Pearson pretty quick. It seems a pretty clear case.”

  “Crystal clear,” said Charles. “A good thing it wasn’t you or me, eh? Well, I must be sending off a few wires. They don’t seem very used to telegrams in this place. If you send more than half a crown’s worth at one go they seem to think you are an escaped lunatic.”

  Charles sent his telegrams, bought a packet of cigarettes, a few doubtful-looking bull’s eyes and two very aged paperbacked novelettes. He then returned to the cottage, threw himself on his bed and slept peacefully, blissfully unaware that he and his affairs, particularly Miss Emily Trefusis, were being discussed in various places all around him.

  It is fairly safe to say that there were only three topics of conversation at present in Sittaford. One was the murder, one was the escape of the convict, and the other was Miss Emily Trefusis and her cousin. Indeed at a certain moment, four separate conversations were going on with her as their main theme.

  Conversation No. 1 was at Sittaford House, where Violet Willett and her mother had just washed up their own tea things owing to the domestic retreat.

  “It was Mrs. Curtis who told me,” said Violet.

  She still looked pale and wan.

  “It’s almost a disease the way that woman talks,” said her mother.

  “I know. It seems the girl is actually stopping there with a cousin or something. She did mention this morning that she was at Mrs. Curtis’s, but I thought that that was simply because Miss Percehouse hadn’t room for her. And now it seems that she’d never even seen Miss Percehouse till this morning!”

  “I dislike that woman intensely,” said Mrs. Willett.

  “Mrs. Curtis?”

  “No, no, the Percehouse woman. That kind of woman is dangerous. They live for what they can find out about other people. Sending that girl along here for a recipe for coffee cake! I’d like to have sent her a poisoned cake. That would have stopped her interfering for good and all!”

  “I suppose I ought to have realized—” began Violet. But her mother interrupted her.

  “How could you, my dear! And anyway what harm is done?”

  “Why do you think she came here?”

  “I don’t suppose she had anything definite in mind. She was just spying out the land. Is Mrs. Curtis sure about her being engaged to Jim Pearson?”

  “That girl told Mr. Rycroft so, I believe. Mrs. Curtis said she suspected it from the first.”

  “Well, then the whole thing’s natural enough. She’s just looking about aimlessly for something that might help.”

  “You didn’t see her, Mother,” said Violet. “She isn’t aimless.”

  “I wish I had seen her,” said Mrs. Willett. “But my nerves were all to pieces this morning. Reaction, I suppose, after that interview with the police inspector yesterday.”

  “You were wonderful, Mother. If
only I hadn’t been such an utter fool—to go and faint. Oh! I’m ashamed of myself for giving the whole show away. And there were you perfectly calm and collected—not turning a hair.”

  “I’m in pretty good training,” said Mrs. Willett in a hard dry voice. “If you’d been through what I’ve been through—but there, I hope you never will, my child. I trust and believe that you’ve got a happy, peaceful life ahead of you.”

  Violet shook her head.

  “I’m afraid—I’m afraid—”

  “Nonsense—and as for saying you gave the show away by fainting yesterday—nothing of the kind. Don’t worry.”

  “But that Inspector—he’s bound to think—”

  “That it was the mention of Jim Pearson made you faint? Yes—he’ll think that all right. He’s no fool, that Inspector Narracott. But what if he does? He’ll suspect a connection—and he’ll look for it—and he won’t find it.”

  “You think not?”

  “Of course not! How can he? Trust me, Violet dear. That’s cast-iron certainty and, in a way, perhaps that faint of yours was a lucky happening. We’ll think so anyway.”

  Conversation No. 2 was in Major Burnaby’s cottage. It was a somewhat one-sided one, the brunt of it being borne by Mrs. Curtis, who had been poised for departure for the last half hour, having dropped in to collect Major Burnaby’s laundry.

  “Like my Great Aunt Sarah’s Belinda, that’s what I said to Curtis this morning,” said Mrs. Curtis triumphantly. “A deep one—and one that can twist all the men round her little finger.”

  A great grunt from Major Burnaby.

  “Engaged to one young man and carrying on with another,” said Mrs. Curtis. “That’s my Great Aunt Sarah’s Belinda all over. And not for the fun of it, mark you. It’s not just flightiness—she’s a deep one. And now young Mr. Garfield—she’ll have him roped in before you can say knife. Never have I seen a young gentleman look more like a sheep than he did this morning—and that’s a sure sign.”

  She paused for breath.

  “Well, well,” said Major Burnaby. “Don’t let me keep you, Mrs. Curtis.”

  “Curtis will be wanting his tea and that’s a fact,” said Mrs. Curtis without moving. “I was never one to stand about gossiping. Get on with your job—that’s what I say. And talking about jobs, what do you say, sir, to a good turn out?”

  “No!” said Major Burnaby with force.

  “It’s a month since it’s been done.”

  “No. I like to know where to lay my hand on everything. After one of these turn outs nothing’s ever put back in its place.”

  Mrs. Curtis sighed. She was an impassioned cleaner and turner out.

  “It’s Captain Wyatt as could do with a spring cleaning,” she observed. “That nasty native of his—what does he know about cleaning, I should like to know? Nasty black fellow.”

  “Nothing better than a native servant,” said Major Burnaby. “They know their job and they don’t talk.”

  Any hint the last sentence might have contained was lost on Mrs. Curtis. Her mind had reverted to a former topic.

  “Two telegrams she got—two arriving in half an hour. Gave me quite a turn it did. But she read them as cool as anything. And then she told me she was going to Exeter and wouldn’t be back till tomorrow.”

  “Did she take her young man with her?” inquired the Major with a gleam of hope.

  “No, he’s still here. A pleasant-spoken young gentleman. He and she’d make a nice pair.”

  Grunt from Major Burnaby.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Curtis. “I’ll be getting along.”

  The Major hardly dared breathe for fear he might distract her from her purpose. But this time Mrs. Curtis was as good as her word. The door closed behind her.

  With a sigh of relief the Major drew forth a pipe and began to peruse a prospectus of a certain mine which was couched in terms so blatantly optimistic that it would have aroused suspicion in any heart but that of a widow or a retired soldier.

  “Twelve per cent,” murmured Major Burnaby. “That sounds pretty good. . . .”

  Next door Captain Wyatt was laying down the law to Mr. Rycroft.

  “Fellows like you,” he said, “don’t know anything of the world. You’ve never lived. You’ve never roughed it.”

  Mr. Rycroft said nothing. It was so difficult not to say the wrong thing to Captain Wyatt that it was usually safer not to reply at all.

  The Captain leaned over the side of his invalid chair.

  “Where’s that bitch got to? Nice-looking girl,” he added.

  The association of ideas in his mind was quite natural. It was less so to Mr. Rycroft, who looked at him in a scandalized fashion.

  “What’s she doing here? That’s what I want to know?” demanded Captain Wyatt. “Abdul!”

  “Sahib?”

  “Where’s Bully? Has she got out again?”

  “She in kitchen, Sahib.”

  “Well, don’t feed her.” He sank back in his chair again and proceeded on his second tack. “What does she want here? Who’s she going to talk to in a place like this? All you old fogies will bore her stiff. I had a word with her this morning. Expect she was surprised to find a man like me in a place like this.”

  He twisted his moustache.

  “She’s James Pearson’s fiancée,” said Mr. Rycroft. “You know—the man who has been arrested for Trevelyan’s murder.”

  Wyatt dropped a glass of whisky he was just raising to his lips with a crash upon the floor. He immediately roared for Abdul and cursed him in no measured terms for not placing a table at a convenient angle to his chair. He then resumed the conversation.

  “So that’s who she is. Too good for a counter jumper like that. A girl like that wants a real man.”

  “Young Pearson is very good-looking,” said Mr. Rycroft.

  “Good-looking—good-looking—a girl doesn’t want a barber’s block. What does that sort of young man who works in an office every day know of life? What experience has he had of reality?”

  “Perhaps the experience of being tried for murder will be sufficient reality to last him for some time,” said Mr. Rycroft dryly.

  “Police sure he did it, eh?”

  “They must be fairly sure or they wouldn’t have arrested him.”

  “Country bumpkins,” said Captain Wyatt contemptuously.

  “Not quite,” said Mr. Rycroft. “Inspector Narracott struck me this morning as an able and efficient man.”

  “Where did you see him this morning?”

  “He called at my house.”

  “He didn’t call at mine,” said Captain Wyatt in an injured fashion.

  “Well, you weren’t a close friend of Trevelyan’s or anything like that.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Trevelyan was a skinflint and I told him so to his face. He couldn’t come bossing it over me. I didn’t kowtow to him like the rest of the people here. Always dropping in—dropping in—too much dropping in. If I don’t choose to see anyone for a week, or a month, or a year, that’s my business.”

  “You haven’t seen anyone for a week now, have you?” said Mr. Rycroft.

  “No, and why should I?” The irate invalid banged the table. Mr. Rycroft was aware, as usual, of having said the wrong thing. “Why the bloody hell should I? Tell me that?”

  Mr. Rycroft was prudently silent. The Captain’s wrath subsided.

  “All the same,” he growled, “if the police want to know about Trevelyan I’m the man they should have come to. I’ve knocked about the world, and I’ve got judgment. I can size a man up for what he’s worth. What’s the good of going to a lot of dodderers and old women? What they want is a man’s judgment.”

  He banged the table again.

  “Well,” said Mr. Rycroft, “I suppose they think they know themselves what they are after.”

  “They inquired about me,” said Captain Wyatt. “They would naturally.”

  “Well—er—I don’t quite remember,” said Mr. Rycrof
t cautiously.

  “Why can’t you remember? You’re not in your dotage yet.”

  “I expect I was—er—rattled,” said Mr. Rycroft soothingly.

  “Rattled, were you? Afraid of the police? I’m not afraid of the police. Let ’em come here. That’s what I say. I’ll show them. Do you know I shot a cat at a hundred yards the other night?”

  “Did you?” said Mr. Rycroft.

  The Captain’s habit of letting off a revolver at real or imaginary cats was a sore trial to his neighbours.

  “Well, I’m tired,” said Captain Wyatt suddenly. “Have another drink before you go?”

  Rightly interpreting this hint, Mr. Rycroft rose to his feet. Captain Wyatt continued to urge a drink upon him.

  “You’d be twice the man if you drank a bit more. A man who can’t enjoy a drink isn’t a man at all.”

  But Mr. Rycroft continued to decline the offer. He had already consumed one whisky and soda of most unusual strength.

  “What tea do you drink?” asked Wyatt. “I don’t know anything about tea. Told Abdul to get some. Thought that girl might like to come in to tea one day. Darned pretty girl. Must do something for her. She must be bored to death in a place like this with no one to talk to.”