The Unexpected Guest Read online

  'Richard,' Mrs Warwick whispered, as Jan leaned over the body, calling, 'Look – look – there's something on his chest – a paper – with writing on it.' His hand went out to it, but he was stopped by Starkwedder's command: 'Don't touch – whatever you do, don't touch.' Then he read aloud, slowly, '"May – fifteen – paid in full".'

  'Good Lord! MacGregor,' Miss Bennett exclaimed, moving behind the sofa.

  Laura rose. Mrs Warwick frowned. 'You mean,' she said, '– that man – the father – the child that was run over – ?'

  'Of course, MacGregor,' Laura murmured to herself as she sat in the armchair.

  Jan went up to the body. 'Look – it's all newspaper – cut up,' he said in excitement. Starkwedder again restrained him. 'No, don't touch it,' he ordered. 'It's got to be left for the police.' He stepped towards the telephone. 'Shall I – ?'

  'No,' said Mrs Warwick firmly. 'I will.' Taking charge of the situation, and summoning her courage, she went to the desk and started to dial. Jan moved excitedly to the stool and knelt upon it. 'The man that ran away,' he asked Miss Bennett. 'Do you think he – ?'

  'Ssh, Jan,' Miss Bennett said to him firmly, while Mrs Warwick spoke quietly but in a clear, authoritative voice on the telephone. 'Is that the police station? This is Llangelert House. Mr Richard Warwick's house. Mr Warwick has just been found – shot dead.'

  She went on speaking into the phone. Her voice remained low, but the others in the room listened intently. 'No, he was found by a stranger,' they heard her say. 'A man whose car had broken down near the house, I believe . . . Yes, I'll tell him. I'll phone the inn. Will one of your cars be able to take him there when you've finished here? . . . Very well.'

  Turning to face the company, Mrs Warwick announced, 'The police will be here as soon as they can in this fog. They'll have two cars, one of which will return right away to take this gentleman' – she gestured at Starkwedder – 'to the inn in the village. They want him to stay overnight and be available to talk to them tomorrow.'

  'Well, since I can't leave with my car still in the ditch, that's fine with me,' Starkwedder exclaimed. As he spoke, the door to the corridor opened, and a dark-haired man of medium height in his mid-forties entered the room, tying the cord of his dressing-gown. He suddenly stopped short just inside the door. 'Is something the matter, madam?' he asked, addressing Mrs Warwick. Then, glancing past her, he saw the body of Richard Warwick. 'Oh, my God,' he exclaimed.

  'I'm afraid there's been a terrible tragedy, Angell,' Mrs Warwick replied. 'Mr Richard has been shot, and the police are on their way here.' Turning to Starkwedder, she said, 'This is Angell. He's – he was Richard's valet.'

  The valet acknowledged Starkwedder's presence with a slight, absent-minded bow. 'Oh, my God,' he repeated, as he continued to stare at the body of his late employer.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At eleven the following morning, Richard Warwick's study looked somewhat more inviting than it had on the previous foggy evening. For one thing, the sun was shining on a cold, clear, bright day, and the french windows were wide open. The body had been removed overnight, and the wheelchair had been pushed into the recess, its former central place in the room now occupied by the armchair. The small table had been cleared of everything except decanter and ashtray. A good-looking young man in his twenties with short dark hair, dressed in a tweed sports jacket and navy-blue trousers, was sitting in the wheelchair, reading a book of poems* After a few moments, he got up. 'Beautiful,' he said to himself. 'Apposite and beautiful.' His voice was soft and musical, with a pronounced Welsh accent.

  The young man closed the book he had been reading, and replaced it on the bookshelves in the recess. Then, after surveying the room for a minute or two, he walked across to the open french windows, and went out onto the terrace. Almost immediately, a middle-aged, thick-set, somewhat poker-faced man carrying a briefcase entered the room from the hallway. Going to the armchair which faced out onto the terrace, he put his briefcase on it, and looked out of the windows. 'Sergeant Cadwallader!' he called sharply.

  The younger man turned back into the room. 'Good morning. Inspector Thomas,' he said, and then continued, with a lilt in his voice, '"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun".'

  The inspector, who had begun to unbutton his overcoat, stopped and looked intently at the young sergeant. 'I beg your pardon?' he asked, with a distinct note of sarcasm in his voice.

  'That's Keats,' the sergeant informed him, sounding quite pleased with himself. The inspector responded with a baleful look at him, then shrugged, took off his coat, placed it on the wheelchair in the recess, and came back for his briefcase.

  'You'd hardly credit the fine day it is,' Sergeant Cadwallader went on. 'When you think of the terrible time we had getting here last night. The worst fog I've known in years. "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes." That's T.S. Eliot.' He waited for a reaction to his quotation from the inspector, but got none, so continued, 'It's no wonder the accidents piled up the way they did on the Cardiff road.'

  'Might have been worse,' was his inspector's uninterested comment.

  'I don't know about that,' said the sergeant, warming to his subject. 'At Porthcawl, that was a nasty smash. One killed and two children badly injured. And the mother crying her heart out there on the road. "The pretty wretch left crying" –'

  The inspector interrupted him. 'Have the fingerprint boys finished their job yet?' he asked.

  Suddenly realizing that he had better get back to the business in hand, Sergeant Cadwallader replied, 'Yes, sir. I've got them all ready here for you.' He picked up a folder from the desk and opened it. The inspector sat in the desk chair and started to examine the first sheet of fingerprints in the folder. 'No trouble from the household about taking their prints?' he asked the sergeant casually.

  'No trouble whatever,' the sergeant told him. 'Most obliging they were – anxious to help, as you might say. And that is only to be expected.'

  'I don't know about that,' the inspector observed. I've usually found most people kick up no end of a fuss. Seem to think their prints are going to be filed in the Rogues' Gallery.' He took a deep breath, stretching his arms, and continued to study the prints. 'Now, let's see. Mr Warwick – that's the deceased. Mrs Laura Warwick, his wife. Mrs Warwick senior, that's his mother. Young Jan Warwick, Miss Bennett and – who's this? Angle? Oh, Angell. Ah yes, that's his nurse-attendant, isn't it? And two other sets of prints. Let's see now – Hm. On outside of window, on decanter, on brandy glass overlaying prints of Richard Warwick and Angell and Mrs Laura Warwick, on cigarette lighter – and on the revolver. That will be that chap Michael Starkwedder. He gave Mrs Warwick brandy, and of course it was he who carried the gun in from the garden.'

  Sergeant Cadwallader nodded slowly. 'Mr Starkwedder,' he growled, in a voice of deep suspicion.

  The inspector, sounding amused, asked, 'You don't like him?'

  'What's he doing here? That's what I'd like to know,' the sergeant replied. 'Running his car into a ditch and coming up to a house where there's been a murder done?'

  The inspector turned in his chair to face his young colleague. 'You nearly ran our car into the ditch last night, coming up to a house where there'd been a murder done. And as to what he's doing here, he's been here ^ in this vicinity – for the last week, looking around for a small house or cottage.'

  The sergeant looked unconvinced, and the inspector turned back to the desk, adding wryly, 'It seems he had a Welsh grandmother and he used to come here for holidays when he was a boy.'

  Mollified, the sergeant conceded, 'Ah, well now, if he had a Welsh grandmother, that's a different matter, isn't it?' He raised his right arm and declaimed, '"One road leads to London , One road leads to Wales . My road leads me seawards, To the white dipping sails." He was a fine poet, John Masefield. Very underrated.'

  The inspector opened his mouth to complain, but then thought better of it and grinned instead. 'We ought to get the report o
n Starkwedder from Abadan any moment now,' he told the young sergeant. 'Have you got his prints for comparison?'

  'I sent Jones round to the inn where he stayed last night,' Cadwallader informed his superior, 'but he'd gone out to the garage to see about getting his car salvaged. Jones rang the garage and spoke to him while he was there. He's been told to report at the station as soon as possible.'

  'Right. Now, about this second set of unidentified prints. The print of a man's hand flat on the table by the body, and blurred impressions on both the outside and the inside of the french windows.'

  Til bet that's MacGregor,' the sergeant exclaimed, snapping his fingers.

  'Ye-es. Could be,' the inspector admitted reluctantly. 'But they weren't on the revolver. And you would think any man using a revolver to kill someone would have the sense enough to wear gloves, surely.'

  'I don't know,' the sergeant observed. 'An unbalanced fellow like this MacGregor, deranged after the death of his child, he wouldn't think of that.'

  'Well, we ought to get a description of MacGregor through from Norwich soon,' the inspector said.

  The sergeant settled himself on the footstool. 'It's sad story, whichever way you look at it,' he suggested. 'A man, his wife but lately dead, and his only child killed by furious driving.'

  'If there'd been what you call furious driving,' the inspector corrected him impatiently, 'Richard Warwick would have got a sentence for manslaughter, or at any rate for the driving offence. In point of fact, his licence wasn't even endorsed.' He reached down to his briefcase, and took out the murder weapon.

  'There is some fearful lying goes on sometimes,' Sergeant Cadwallader muttered darkly.' "Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying." That's Shakespeare.'

  His superior officer merely rose from the desk and looked at him. After a moment, the sergeant pulled himself together and rose to his feet. 'A man's hand flat on the table,' murmured the inspector as he went across to the table, taking the gun with him., and looking down at the table-top. 'I wonder.'

  'Perhaps that could have been a guest in the house,' Sergeant Cadwallader suggested helpfully.

  'Perhaps,' the inspector agreed. 'But I understand from Mrs Warwick that there were no visitors to the house yesterday. That manservant – Angell – might be able to tell us more. Go and fetch him, would you?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Cadwallader as he went out. Left alone, the inspector spread out his own left hand on the table, and bent over the chair as if looking down at an invisible occupant. Then he went to the window and stepped outside, glancing both to left and right. He examined the lock of the french windows, and was turning back into the room when the sergeant returned, bringing with him Richard Warwick's valet-attendant, Angell, who was wearing a grey alpaca jacket, white shirt, dark tie and striped trousers.

  'You're Henry Angell?' the inspector asked him.

  'Yes, sir,' Angell replied.

  'Sit down there, will you?' said the inspector.

  Angell moved to sit on the sofa. 'Now then,' the inspector continued, 'you've been nurse-attendant and valet to Mr Richard Warwick – for how long?'

  'For three and a half years, sir,' replied Angell. His manner was correct, but there was a shifty look in his eyes.

  'Did you like the job?'

  'I found it quite satisfactory, sir,' was Angell's reply.

  'What was Mr Warwick like to work for?' the inspector asked him.

  'Well, he was difficult.'

  'But there were advantages, were there?'

  'Yes, sir,' Angell admitted. 'I was extremely well paid.'

  'And that made up for the other disadvantages, did it?' the inspector persisted.

  'Yes, sir. I am trying to accumulate a little nest-egg.'

  The inspector seated himself in the armchair, placing the gun on the table beside him. 'What were you doing before you came to Mr Warwick?' he asked Angell.

  'The same sort of job, sir. I can show you my references,' the valet replied. I've always given satisfaction, I hope. I've had some rather difficult employers – or patients, really. Sir James Walliston, for example. He is now a voluntary patient in a mental home. A very difficult person, sir.' He lowered his voice slightly before adding, 'Drugs!'

  'Quite,' said the inspector. 'There was no question of drugs with Mr Warwick, I suppose?'

  'No, sir. Brandy was what Mr Warwick liked to resort to.'

  'Drank a lot of it, did he?' the inspector asked.

  'Yes, sir,' Angell replied. 'He was a heavy drinker, but not an alcoholic, if you understand me. He never showed any ill-effects.'

  The inspector paused before asking, 'Now, what's all this about guns and revolvers and – shooting at animals?'

  'Well, it was his hobby, sir,' Angell told him. 'What we call in the profession a compensation. He'd been a big-game hunter in his day, I understand. Quite a little arsenal he's got in his bedroom there.' He nodded over his shoulder to indicate a room elsewhere in the house. 'Rifles, shotguns, air-guns, pistols and revolvers.'

  'I see,' said the inspector. 'Well, now, just take a look at this gun here.'

  Angell rose and stepped towards the table, then hesitated. 'It's all right,' the inspector told him, 'you needn't mind handling it.'

  Angell picked up the gun, gingerly. 'Do you recognize it?' the inspector asked him.

  'It's difficult to say, sir,' the valet replied. 'It looks like one of Mr Warwick's, but I don't really know very much about firearms. I can't say for certain which gun he had on the table beside him last night.'

  'Didn't he have the same one every night?' asked the inspector.

  'Oh, no, he had his fancies, sir,' said Angell. 'He kept using different ones.' The valet offered the gun back to the inspector, who took it.

  'What was the good of his having a gun last night with all that fog?' queried the inspector.

  'It was just a habit, sir,' Angell replied. 'He was used to it, as you might say.'

  'All right, sit down again, would you?'

  Angell sat again at one end of the sofa. The inspector examined the barrel of the gun before asking, 'When did you see Mr Warwick last?'

  'About a quarter to ten last night, sir,' Angell told him. 'He had a bottle of brandy and a glass by his side, and the pistol he'd chosen. I arranged his rug for him, and wished him good-night.'

  'Didn't he ever go to bed?' the inspector asked. 'No, sir,' replied the valet. 'At least, not in the usual sense of the term. He always slept in his chair. At six in the morning I would bring him tea, then I would wheel him into his bedroom, which had its own bathroom, where he'd bath and shave and so on, and then he'd usually sleep until lunch-time. I understand that he suffered from insomnia at night, and so he preferred to remain in his chair then. He was rather an eccentric gentleman.'

  'And the window was shut when you left him?' 'Yes, sir,' Angell replied. 'There was a lot of fog about last night, and he didn't want it seeping into the house.'

  'All right. The window was shut. Was it locked?' 'No, sir. That window was never locked.' 'So he could open it if he wanted to?' 'Oh, yes, sir. He had his wheelchair, you see. He could wheel himself over to the window and open it if the night should clear up.'

  'I see.' The inspector thought for a moment, and then asked, 'You didn't hear a shot last night?' 'No, sir,' Angell replied.

  The inspector walked across to the sofa and looked down at Angell. 'Isn't that rather remarkable?' he asked.

  'No, not really, sir,' was the reply. 'You see, my room is some distance away. Along a passage and through a baize door on the other side of the house.'

  'Wasn't that rather awkward, in case your master wanted to summon you?'

  'Oh no, sir,' said Angell. 'He had a bell that rang in my room.'

  'But he didn't press that bell last night at all?'

  'Oh no, sir,' Angell repeated. 'If he had done so, I would have woken up at once. It is, if I may say so, a very loud bell, sir.'

  Inspector Thomas leaned forward on the arm of the sofa to approach A
ngell in another way.

  'Did you – ' he began in a voice of controlled impatience, only to be interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone. He waited for Sergeant Cadwallader to answer it, but the sergeant appeared to be dreaming with his eyes open and his lips moving soundlessly, perhaps immersed in some poetic reflection. After a moment, he realized that the inspector was staring at him, and that the phone was ringing. 'Sorry, sir, but a poem is on the way,' he explained as he went to the desk to answer the phone. 'Sergeant Cadwallader speaking,' he said. There was a pause, and then he added, 'Ah yes, indeed.' After another pause, he turned to the inspector. 'It's the police at Norwich , sir.'

  Inspector Thomas took the phone from Cadwallader, and sat at the desk. 'Is that you, Edmundson?' he asked. 'Thomas here . . . Got it, right. . . Yes . . . Calgary , yes . . . Yes . . . Yes, the aunt, when did she die? . . . Oh, two months ago . . . Yes, I see . . .

  Eighteen, Thirty-fourth Street , Calgary .' He looked up impatiently at Cadwallader, and gestured to him to take a note of the address. 'Yes. . . Oh, it was, was it? . . . Yes, slowly please.' He looked meaningfully again at his sergeant. 'Medium height,' he repeated. 'Blue eyes, dark hair and beard . . . Yes, as you say, you remember the case . . . Ah, he did, did he? . . . Violent sort of fellow? . . . Yes . . . You're sending it along? Yes . . . Well, thank you, Edmundson. Tell me, what do you think, yourself? . . . Yes, yes, I know what the findings were, but what did you think yourself? . . . Ah, he had, had he? . . . Once or twice before. . . Yes, of course, you'd make some allowances . . . All right. Thanks.'

  He replaced the receiver and said to the sergeant, 'Well, we've got some of the dope on MacGregor. It seems that, when his wife died, he travelled back to England from Canada to leave the child with an aunt of his wife's who lived in North Walsham, because he had just got himself a job in Alaska and couldn't take the boy with him. Apparently he was terribly cut up at the child's death, and went about swearing revenge on Warwick . That's not uncommon after one of these accidents. Anyway, he went off back to Canada . They've got his address, and they'll send a cable off to Calgary . The aunt he was going to leave the child with died about two months ago.' He turned suddenly to Angell. 'You were there at the time, I suppose, Angell? Motor accident in North Walsham , running over a boy.'