The Sittaford Mystery Read online

  “You mean he’d have waited.”

  “No man in his senses would break into a house with a light in it. If anyone forced this window—he did it because he thought the house was empty.”

  Sergeant Pollock scratched his head.

  “Seems a bit odd, I admit. But there it is.”

  “We’ll let it pass for the moment. Go on.”

  “Well, suppose the Captain hears a noise downstairs. He comes down to investigate. The burglar hears him coming. He snatches up that bolster arrangement, gets behind the door, and as the Captain enters the room strikes him down from behind.”

  Inspector Narracott nodded.

  “Yes, that’s true enough. He was struck down when he was facing the window. But all the same, Pollock, I don’t like it.”

  “No, sir?”

  “No, as I say, I don’t believe in houses that are broken into at five o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “We-ell, he may have thought it a good opportunity—”

  “It is not a question of opportunity—slipping in because he found a window unlatched. It was deliberate housebreaking—look at the confusion everywhere—what would a burglar go for first? The pantry where the silver is kept.”

  “That’s true enough,” admitted the Sergeant.

  “And this confusion—this chaos,” continued Narracott, “these drawers pulled out and their contents scattered. Pah! It’s bunkum.”

  “Bunkum?”

  “Look at the window, Sergeant. That window was not locked and forced open! It was merely shut and then splintered from the outside to give the appearance of forcing.”

  Pollock examined the latch of the window closely, uttering an ejaculation to himself as he did so.

  “You are right, sir,” he said with respect in his voice. “Who’d have thought of that now!”

  “Someone who wishes to throw dust in our eyes—and hasn’t succeeded.”

  Sergeant Pollock was grateful for the “our.” In such small ways did Inspector Narracott endear himself to his subordinates.

  “Then it wasn’t burglary. You mean, sir, it was an inside job.”

  Inspector Narracott nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The only curious thing is, though, that I think the murderer did actually enter by the window. As you and Graves reported, and as I can still see for myself, there are damp patches still visible where the snow melted and was trodden in by the murderer’s boots. These damp patches are only in this room. Constable Graves was quite positive that there was nothing of the kind in the hall when he and Dr. Warren passed through it. In this room he noticed them immediately. In that case it seems clear that the murderer was admitted by Captain Trevelyan through the window. Therefore it must have been someone whom Captain Trevelyan knew. You are a local man, Sergeant, can you tell me if Captain Trevelyan was a man who made enemies easily?”

  “No, sir, I should say he hadn’t an enemy in the world. A bit keen on money, and a bit of a martinet—wouldn’t stand for any slackness or incivility—but bless my soul, he was respected for that.”

  “No enemies,” said Narracott thoughtfully.

  “Not here, that is.”

  “Very true—we don’t know what enemies he may have made during his naval career. It’s my experience, Sergeant, that a man who makes enemies in one place will make them in another, but I agree that we can’t put that possibility entirely aside. We come logically now to the next motive—the most common motive for every crime—gain. Captain Trevelyan was, I understand, a rich man?”

  “Very warm indeed by all accounts. But close. Not an easy man to touch for a subscription.”

  “Ah!” said Narracott thoughtfully.

  “Pity it snowed as it did,” said the Sergeant. “But for that we’d have had his footprints as something to go on.”

  “There was no one else in the house?” asked the Inspector.

  “No. For the last five years Captain Trevelyan has only had one servant—retired naval chap. Up at Sittaford House a woman came in daily, but this chap, Evans, cooked and looked after his master. About a month ago he got married—much to the Captain’s annoyance. I believe that’s one of the reasons he let Sittaford House to this South African lady. He wouldn’t have any woman living in the house. Evans lives just round the corner here in Fore Street with his wife, and comes in daily to do for his master. I’ve got him here now for you to see. His statement is that he left here at half past two yesterday afternoon, the Captain having no further need for him.”

  “Yes, I shall want to see him. He may be able to tell us something—useful.”

  Sergeant Pollock looked at his superior officer curiously. There was something so odd about his tone.

  “You think—” he began.

  “I think,” said Inspector Narracott deliberately, “that there’s a lot more in this case than meets the eye.”

  “In what way, sir?”

  But the Inspector refused to be drawn.

  “You say this man, Evans, is here now?”

  “He’s waiting in the dining room.”

  “Good. I’ll see him straight away. What sort of a fellow is he?”

  Sergeant Pollock was better at reporting facts than at descriptive accuracy.

  “He’s a retired naval chap. Ugly customer in a scrap, I should say.”

  “Does he drink?”

  “Never been the worse for it that I know of.”

  “What about this wife of his? Not a fancy of the Captain’s or anything of that sort?”

  “Oh! no, sir, nothing of that kind about Captain Trevelyan. He wasn’t that kind at all. He was known as a woman hater, if anything.”

  “And Evans was supposed to be devoted to his master?”

  “That’s the general idea, sir, and I think it would be known if he wasn’t. Exhampton’s a small place.”

  Inspector Narracott nodded.

  “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing more to be seen here. I’ll interview Evans and I’ll take a look at the rest of the house and after that we will go over to the Three Crowns and see this Major Burnaby. That remark of his about the time was curious. Twenty-five past five, eh? He must know something he hasn’t told, or why should he suggest the time of the crime so accurately?”

  The two men moved towards the door.

  “It’s a rum business,” said Sergeant Pollock, his eye wandering to the littered floor. “All this burglary fake!”

  “It’s not that that strikes me as odd,” said Narracott, “under the circumstances it was probably the natural thing to do. No—what strikes me as odd is the window.”

  “The window, sir?”

  “Yes. Why should the murderer go to the window? Assuming it was someone Trevelyan knew and admitted without question, why not go to the front door? To get round to this window from the road on a night like last night would have been a difficult and unpleasant proceeding with the snow lying as thick as it does. Yet there must have been some reason.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Pollock, “the man didn’t want to be seen turning in to the house from the road.”

  “There wouldn’t be many people about yesterday afternoon to see him. Nobody who could help it was out of doors. No—there’s some other reason. Well, perhaps it will come to light in due course.”

  Five

  EVANS

  They found Evans waiting in the dining room. He rose respectfully on their entrance.

  He was a short thickset man. He had very long arms and a habit of standing with his hands half clenched. He was clean shaven with small, rather piglike eyes, yet he had a look of cheerfulness and efficiency that redeemed his bulldog appearance.

  Inspector Narracott mentally tabulated his impressions.

  “Intelligent. Shrewd and practical. Looks rattled.”

  Then he spoke:

  “You’re Evans, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Christian names?”

  “Robert Henry.”

  “Ah! Now what do you know about this business?�
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  “Not a thing, sir. It’s fair knocked me over. To think of the Capting being done in!”

  “When did you last see your master?”

  “Two o’clock I should say it was, sir. I cleared away the lunch things and laid the table here as you see for supper. The Capting, he told me as I needn’t come back.”

  “What do you usually do?”

  “As a general rule, I come back about seven for a couple of hours. Not always—sometimes the Capting would say as I needn’t.”

  “Then you weren’t surprised when he told you that yesterday you wouldn’t be wanted again?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t come back the evening before either—on account of the weather. Very considerate gentleman, the Capting was, as long as you didn’t try to shirk things. I knew him and his ways pretty well.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “Well, he looked out of the window and he says, ‘Not a hope of Burnaby today.’ ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ he says, ‘if Sittaford isn’t cut off altogether. Don’t remember such a winter since I was a boy.’ That was his friend Major Burnaby over to Sittaford that he was referring to. Always comes on a Friday, he does, he and the Capting play chess and do acrostics. And on Tuesdays the Capting would go to Major Burnaby’s. Very regular in his habits was the Capting. Then he said to me: ‘You can go now, Evans, and you needn’t come till tomorrow morning.’ ”

  “Apart from his reference to Major Burnaby, he didn’t speak of expecting anyone that afternoon?”

  “No, sir, not a word.”

  “There was nothing unusual or different in any way in his manner?”

  “No, sir, not that I could see.”

  “Ah! Now I understand, Evans, that you have lately got married.”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. Belling’s daughter at the Three Crowns. Matter of two months ago, sir.”

  “And Captain Trevelyan was not overpleased about it.”

  A very faint grin appeared for a moment on Evans’s face.

  “Cut up rough about it, he did, the Capting. My Rebecca is a fine girl, sir, and a very good cook. And I hoped we might have been able to do for the Capting together, but he—he wouldn’t hear of it. Said he wouldn’t have women servants about his house. In fact, sir, things were rather at a deadlock when this South African lady came along and wanted to take Sittaford House for the winter. The Capting he rented this place, I came in to do for him every day, and I don’t mind telling you, sir, that I had been hoping that by the end of the winter the Capting would have come round to the idea; and that me and Rebecca would go back to Sittaford with him. Why, he would never even know she was in the house. She would keep to the kitchen, and she would manage so that he would never meet her on the stairs.”

  “Have you any idea what lay behind Captain Trevelyan’s dislike of women?”

  “Nothing to it, sir. Just an ’abit, sir, that’s all. I have seen many a gentleman like it before. If you ask me, it’s nothing more or less than shyness. Some young lady or other gives them a snub when they are young—and they gets the ’abit.”

  “Captain Trevelyan was not married?”

  “No, indeed, sir.”

  “What relations had he? Do you know?”

  “I believe he had a sister living at Exeter, sir, and I think I have heard him mention a nephew or nephews.”

  “None of them ever came to see him?”

  “No, sir. I think he quarrelled with his sister at Exeter.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Gardner, I think, sir, but I wouldn’t be sure.”

  “You don’t know her address?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”

  “Well, doubtless we shall come across that in looking through Captain Trevelyan’s papers. Now, Evans, what were you yourself doing from four o’clock onwards yesterday afternoon?”

  “I was at home, sir.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Just round the corner, sir, 85 Fore Street.”

  “You didn’t go out at all?”

  “Not likely, sir. Why, the snow was coming down a fair treat.”

  “Yes, yes. Is there anyone who can support your statement?”

  “Beg pardon, sir.”

  “Is there anyone who knows that you were at home during that time?”

  “My wife, sir.”

  “She and you were alone in the house?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, well, I have no doubt that’s all right. That will be all for the present, Evans.”

  The ex-sailor hesitated. He shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Anything I can do here, sir—in the way of tidying up?”

  “No—the whole place is to be left exactly as it is for the present.”

  “I see.”

  “You had better wait, though, until I have had a look round,” said Narracott, “in case there might be any question I want to ask you.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Inspector Narracott transferred his gaze from Evans to the room.

  The interview had taken place in the dining room. On the table an evening meal was set out. A cold tongue, pickles, a Stilton cheese and biscuits, and on a gas ring by the fire a saucepan containing soup. On the sideboard was a tantalus, a soda water siphon, and two bottles of beer. There was also an immense array of silver cups and with them—a rather incongruous item—three very new-looking novels.

  Inspector Narracott examined one or two of the cups and read the inscriptions on them.

  “Bit of a sportsman, Captain Trevelyan,” he observed.

  “Yes, indeed, sir,” said Evans. “Been an athlete all his life, he had.”

  Inspector Narracott read the titles of the novels. “Love Turns the Key,” “The Merry Men of Lincoln,” “Love’s Prisoner.”

  “H’m,” he remarked. “The Captain’s taste in literature seems somewhat incongruous.”

  “Oh! that, sir.” Evans laughed. “That’s not for reading, sir. That’s the prizes he won in these Railway Pictures Names Competitions. Ten solutions the Capting sent in under different names, including mine, because he said 85 Fore Street was a likely address to give a prize to! The commoner your name and address the more likely you were to get a prize in the Capting’s opinion. And sure enough a prize I got—but not the £2,000, only three new novels—and the kind of novels, in my opinion, that no one would ever pay money for in a shop.”

  Narracott smiled, then again mentioning that Evans was to wait, he proceeded on his tour of inspection. There was a large kind of cupboard in one corner of the room. It was almost a small room in itself. Here, packed in unceremoniously, were two pairs of skis, a pair of sculls mounted, ten or twelve hippopotamus tusks, rods and lines and various fishing tackle including a book of flies, a bag of golf clubs, a tennis racket, an elephant’s foot stuffed and mounted and a tiger skin. It was clear that, when Captain Trevelyan had let Sittaford House furnished, he had removed his most precious possessions, distrustful of female influence.

  “Funny idea—to bring all this with him,” said the Inspector. “The house was only let for a few months, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Surely these things could have been locked up at Sittaford House?”

  For the second time in the course of the interview, Evans grinned.

  “That would have been much the easiest way of doing it,” he agreed. “Not that there are many cupboards at Sittaford House. The architect and the Capting planned it together, and it takes a female to understand the value of cupboard room. Still, as you say, sir, that would have been the commonsense thing to do. Carting them down here was a job—I should say it was a job! But there, the Capting couldn’t bear the idea of anyone messing around with his things. And lock things up as you will, he says, a woman will always find a way of getting in. It’s curiosity, he says. Better not lock them up at all if you don’t want her to handle them, he says. But best of all, take them along, and then you’re sure to be on the
safe side. So take ’em along we did, and as I say, it was a job, and came expensive too. But there, those things of the Capting’s was like his children.”

  Evans paused, out of breath.

  Inspector Narracott nodded thoughtfully. There was another point on which he wanted information, and it seemed to him that this was a good moment when the subject had arisen naturally.

  “This Mrs. Willett,” he said casually. “Was she an old friend or acquaintance of the Captain’s?”

  “Oh no, sir, she was quite a stranger to him.”

  “You are sure of that?” said the Inspector, sharply.

  “Well—” the sharpness took the old sailor aback. “The Capting never actually said so—but—Oh yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “I ask,” explained the Inspector, “because it is a very curious time of year for a let. On the other hand, if this Mrs. Willett was acquainted with Captain Trevelyan and knew the house, she might have written to him and suggested taking it.”

  Evans shook his head.

  “ ’Twas the agents—Williamsons—that wrote, said they had an offer from a lady.”

  Inspector Narracott frowned. He found this business of letting Sittaford House distinctly odd.

  “Captain Trevelyan and Mrs. Willett met, I suppose?” he asked.

  “Oh! yes. She came to see the house and he took her over it.”

  “And you’re positive they hadn’t met before?”

  “Oh! quite, sir.”

  “Did they—er—” the Inspector paused, as he tried to frame the question naturally. “Did they get on well together? Were they friendly?”

  “The lady was.” A faint smile crossed Evans’s lips. “All over him, as you might say. Admiring the house, and asking him if he’d planned the building of it. Altogether laying it on thick, as you might say.”

  “And the Captain?”

  The smile broadened.

  “That sort of gushing lady wasn’t likely to cut any ice with him. Polite he was, but nothing more. And declined her invitations.”

  “Invitations?”

  “Yes, to consider the house as his own any time, and drop in, that’s how she put it—drop in. You don’t drop in to a place when you’re living six miles away.”