The White Cottage Mystery Page 3

  W.T. sat back in his chair and passed his hand over his forehead.

  ‘I can only repeat that you’re behaving very unwisely, Miss Phillips,’ he said stiffly. ‘How long ago was it that Mr Crowther came to the “Dene”?’

  The old woman shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know – maybe four years, maybe five.’

  ‘Can’t you remember exactly?’ W.T. insisted gently. ‘Fix it by some other event in your mind.’

  The woman shot a shrewd, suspicious glance at him.

  ‘It was just over six years ago,’ she said at last.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘By Jo-an’s age,’ she said, splitting the name with a faint trace of a country accent. ‘He came just over a year afore she was born.’

  ‘Before?’ W.T. raised his eyebrows on the word. ‘I thought Mrs Christensen said a year after ’

  The old woman’s eyelids flickered for an instant, but she answered stolidly, ‘No, it was before. She forgot, I reckon.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said W.T. ‘When Mr Crowther first came to the “Dene”, were he and Mrs Christensen more – er – friendly than they were – yesterday, for instance?’

  The old woman looked him squarely in the eyes.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘but you’re wrong. Him that’s dead wasn’t that sort of a man – he had great sins to his credit, but that wasn’t one of them.’

  ‘I see,’ said W.T. ‘Thank you. There’s just one more thing – it’s a little point, but I want everything quite clear … that sporting-gun in the next room, it belonged to the house, I suppose – was it always kept loaded? Who used it as a rule?’

  The old woman looked at him curiously.

  ‘He did,’ she said. ‘It was his gun.’

  ‘He?’ W.T. looked mystified.

  The old woman regarded him stolidly. ‘Him that’s dead,’ she said at last.

  ‘The dead man’s own gun?’ exclaimed the detective, surprised out of his usual calm. ‘Who brought it over? Was it in the house before today?’

  The gaunt old creature hesitated, and her beady black eyes surveyed him doubtfully.

  ‘I’m not sure if I ought to tell you,’ she said at last.

  W.T. leant forward across the table. ‘Be sure you ought,’ he said. ‘I haven’t come here as an enemy, Miss Phillips. I’m only doing the best I can to find out the guilty so that the innocent may be spared distress.’

  The old woman looked at him gravely.

  ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you all I know about the gun.’ She paused, and W.T. signalled to Jerry to take down what she said.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I’m listening …’

  The old woman took a deep breath.

  ‘Maybe you know there’s a balcony outside the nursery, just above the french windows in the dining-room,’ she began. ‘I sit out there sometimes of an afternoon. Two days ago I was there sewing. About four o’clock it was, and I saw him that’s dead coming across the lawn with the gun under his arm like as if he’d just come in from the woods. He didn’t see me, though,’ she went on, smiling sourly to herself; ‘his mind was on the dining-room, and he passed right under me without knowing. Mr Roger was in the room,’ she went on. ‘Mr Christensen that is – I always call him Mr Roger – and I heard him that’s dead speak to him. “Hallo, you,” he said, and added on a word I’m not repeatin’ to you or anyone – suggesting that she was unfaithful to him, as it did.’ She paused.

  ‘Go on. What did Mr Roger say?’

  Old Estah hesitated.

  ‘I’m only telling you because I believe you’re acting for the good,’ she said at last. ‘I haven’t told a word of this to another soul.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the detective encouragingly. ‘You can trust us.’

  ‘Mr Roger, he turned on him,’ the old woman continued. ‘Told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. Then him that’s dead began to laugh – a terrible laugh he had – there’s only one word for it, and that’s gloating – gloating – as if he was enjoying himself. Then he said – and I heard him upon my balcony as plainly as if I’d been in there with him – “You hate me, don’t you, Christensen? And you’re afraid of me too, aren’t you?”’

  Silence had fallen upon the room as the old woman spoke, and her harsh voice sounded dramatic in the stillness.

  ‘Mr Roger didn’t reply to that,’ she went on. ‘And then him that’s dead fell a-laughing and cursing again. “You coward!” he said, and put a word in that I’m leaving out. “If you had any spirit in you at all you’d kill me; but you daren’t – you’re afraid. Kill me, Christensen – I deserve it from you … Kill me, you snivelling funk.”’

  She paused suddenly and instinctively lowered her voice.

  ‘He went on taunting him, and then I heard him say quite sudden and distinctly, “Here’s my gun – it’s loaded. One shot of that would finish me. Take it, Christensen. Take it and fire at me. You’re afraid. I know you’d never dare to shoot – but you’d like to. God! How you’d like to, Christensen! You’d have her all to yourself then. You won’t take the gun? I knew you wouldn’t – but I’ll leave it here in the corner – it’s loaded, so any time, remember – any time, you little coward – it’ll always be there.” And then he came out on to the lawn again, and I could see him laughing to hisself as he went off down the path.’

  As her voice died away Estah looked at them anxiously.

  ‘That’s how the gun came there,’ she said. ‘I hope I ha’n’t done wrong to tell you.’

  ‘You’ve done the wisest thing you could do,’ said W.T. gently. ‘The truth always leaks out eventually, you know, and the earlier the better. Where were you when the shot was fired this afternoon – in the nursery?’

  ‘No, I was in the spare room looking over the linen – go up and see it all pulled out, if you want to. Kathreen was helping me most of the time, but she’d gone down to see about tea when I heard the shot.’

  ‘Long before?’

  ‘About five minutes, roughly.’

  ‘Is the spare room far from the nursery?’

  ‘It’s over this room – some way away.’

  W.T. nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That is all. You might ask Mr Christensen to step in here for a moment, will you? Thank you.’

  As the door closed behind her Jerry smiled. ‘There goes an innocent old woman, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘There goes a clever old woman,’ said W.T.

  Jerry looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Do you mean to say you don’t believe her?’

  W.T. shook his head.

  ‘On the contrary, I do believe her,’ he said. ‘All she said – but she has a secret, Jerry – she has a secret – everyone seems to have a secret. The murdered man must have been a most extraordinary customer. I wonder – ’

  His remark was cut short by a sudden nervous rap on the door, which burst open the next instant as a man in an invalid chair shot into the room.

  He darted forward right up to the table at which the detective sat, and put out his hand and grasped the ledge to steady himself. As he did so he showed only head and shoulders high above the board. And as they sat looking at him the same thought flashed simultaneously into the minds of both father and son … the gun on the table, the scorched tablecloth …

  The shot that killed Eric Crowther could only have been fired by a man or woman kneeling … or sitting …

  4 The Invalid Chair

  ‘You sent for me?’

  W.T. looked at the man steadily, and his eyes seemed to become brighter and very piercing.

  ‘You are Roger William Christensen,’ he began, ‘the owner of the house?’

  ‘Yes.’ The monosyllable was quietly spoken.

  ‘Where were you at the time of the murder?’ The cripple’s grave face was unmoved by any tremor of emotion.

  ‘I was in the drawing-room,’ he said – ‘the room next to
this one, that is, in between this and the dining-room.’

  ‘You can prove that, of course?’ W.T.’s tone was dry and matter of fact. The man looked faintly surprised.

  ‘Why, no,’ he said, laughing deprecatingly. ‘I don’t suppose I can. I was quite alone, looking through my books in there, waiting for my wife to come in to tea. The books are as I left them when I heard the shots. I don’t know if that would be any sort of proof.’

  W.T. ignored the last remark. He was busy jotting down notes in the unofficial-looking memo book he always carried.

  ‘When you heard the shot,’ he went on at last, ‘what did you do?’

  ‘I hurried out into the hall – naturally – the report was terrific.’

  ‘Quite,’ said the detective, without looking up. ‘You must have been the nearest to the scene. Were you the first to make the discovery?’

  ‘No, as it happens I was not.’ The man spoke easily, in a quiet conversational tone, his drawn face the only indication of any strain he may have felt. ‘I always have some difficulty in negotiating a door that opens inwards – that is to say towards me. As you see, I am pretty helpless in this chair’ – he laughed a little awkwardly. ‘I believe I was some seconds longer than usual in getting the drawing-room door open on this occasion,’ he went on. ‘The explosion had made me nervy, I suppose. When I did get into the hall I found Kathreen there, and the next instant my wife dashed out of the dining-room doorway screaming and crying that Crowther was murdered.’

  He paused, and W.T. frowned.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Christensen,’ he said, ‘I’ll have the girl Kathreen in to verify that now.’

  The cripple bowed.

  ‘Anything you wish,’ he said.

  The old detective looked at his downcast eyes and resigned expression with the eye of an expert. For a moment he was silent, then he turned to the red-headed policeman.

  ‘Send Kathreen Goody in, constable,’ he said, and waited in silence until the man returned with the plump, round-faced girl that he and Jerry had carried in from the road.

  She was still terrified, and her brown eyes were almost circular.

  All W.T.’s benign, avuncular manner returned at the sight of her distress, and he beamed upon her.

  ‘Now, Kathreen,’ he said, ‘I want you to try hard to remember what happened this afternoon. You spent most of the time up in the spare room with Miss Phillips sorting linen – did you?’

  ‘Ye-e-s,’ said Kathreen, with a great effort.

  ‘Good,’ said W.T., smiling. ‘And what did you do next?’

  ‘I – I come downstairs to get tea,’ said Kathreen, ‘and I went into the pantry to get the butter and – ‘She broke off huskily and began to shake.

  ‘And I heard the bang, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’ said the detective, with that patience for which he was noted.

  ‘Yes – and what did you do then?’

  Kathreen pulled herself together.

  ‘I – I said “Oh!” sir, and dropped the butter,’ she said huskily.

  The old detective’s expression did not change.

  ‘Very naturally,’ he said pleasantly. ‘And did you go straight into the hall after that?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Kathreen. ‘Cook made me pick up the butter first.’

  ‘Oh, Cook was there too, was she?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘When you heard the shot?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘About how long was it after you heard the shot that you went into the hall – three minutes?’

  Kathreen hesitated.

  ‘I dropped the butter first, sir – then I ran to the pantry door. Then Cook sent me back to pick up the butter. I did pick it up, and put it on to a clean plate; then I ran through the kitchen into the hall. It must have been about three minutes, sir.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said the detective. ‘And when you reached the hall what did you see?’

  ‘I saw the master edging his chair out of the drawing-room door, sir,’ said the girl. ‘Then the dining-room door burst open and Mrs Christensen came out screaming. I went into the dining-room, sir, and – ‘Her brown eyes dilated with horror, and she grew inarticulate.

  ‘That’s all right, that’s all right, Kathreen,’ said the detective hastily, ‘that’s all I wanted to know. You can go now. Jerry, open the door for Miss Goody. That’s all right, my girl – don’t worry. Don’t think of what you saw. It’s all over now.’

  If ever Jerry bundled a woman out of a room he considered he did it then. He was afraid that she was going to faint again, and he saw her safely seated in the drawing-room with relief.

  Norah was in there too, seated near the fireplace. She smiled at him a little wanly as he came in, and he was just about to cross the room to speak to her when his eyes fell on a door in the wall that separated the drawing-room from the dining-room. He had not noticed it from the other side. It must open into the dark corner behind the heavy window-curtains, he reflected.

  The man in the invalid chair had been in the drawing-room at the time of the murder. On his own admission it was three minutes after the shot before he came out into the hall. Might he not have spent that three minutes in darting back through this second doorway and getting himself across the room to the other into the hall? In the face of Estah’s story – in the face of the scorched tablecloth – in the face of Mrs Christensen’s admission of her husband’s jealousy – there seemed at that moment no other explanation of the mystery.

  Jerry pointed to the door and strove to speak naturally.

  ‘I say,’ he said, ‘does that door open?’

  Norah looked up at him with surprise.

  ‘Of course it does,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s – it’s not kept locked?’ persisted Jerry.

  The girl leant across from her seat, and, turning the handle, pulled the door open.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘It’s always left like that. We use it often.’

  Jerry did not answer her. He was so overcome by his discovery that he turned on his heel abruptly and hurried back to the morning-room, leaving her staring after him.

  ‘Of course,’ W.T. was saying, as Jerry re-entered the room and silently took up his old position behind the older man’s chair, ‘of course, Mr Christensen, the girl’s story bears out yours very well, but there is a matter concerning your wife that I am afraid I must ask you to discuss with me, because up to now the evidence upon it has been greatly at variance – ’

  The cripple looked at him steadily.

  ‘Don’t hesitate to ask me anything,’ he said.

  ‘Had you ever any cause to think that your wife was receiving attentions from Eric Crowther?’

  The cripple raised his eyes slowly and looked the detective full in the face.

  ‘No,’ he said at last.

  W.T. hesitated a moment, and Jerry’s mind went back to Estah Phillips’ vivid story of the conversation she had overheard from the balcony. W.T. must have been thinking of it also, for he said:

  ‘I’m sorry to have to talk like this, Mr Christensen, but did nothing the dead man ever said to you suggest that there was some sort of – well – intrigue going on?’

  The man in the invalid chair paused for a moment before replying, and an expression of loathing and contempt passed over his face.

  ‘The dead man was the most despicable wretch on the face of this earth!’ he said. ‘Sometimes I thought he must be mad – then I forgave him a little.’

  There was silence in the room after he had spoken, and the echo of his words seemed to cling and hang about the atmosphere, although they had not been spoken in anything approaching a loud voice.

  W.T. was the first to speak after this announcement.

  ‘I’m afraid you will have to explain, Mr Christensen,’ he said slowly.

  The cripple nodded, and his long thin fingers twisted and untwisted themselves with nervous haste.

  ‘Eric Crowther was a coward and a bully,
’ he said. ‘From the day I returned from France crippled as you see me now, he has come striding into my house as if he had a right here – insinuating her infidelity – gently at first – almost imperceptibly, then openly – bragging, gesticulating, lying.’

  His voice died away to a whisper, and the old detective stared at him with surprise.

  ‘Lying?’ he murmured.

  ‘Of course!’ The cripple’s tone was contemptuous.

  The detective spoke again.

  ‘If you knew he was lying I don’t quite see why you put up with him,’ he said, ‘especially as you seem to have resented his intrusion.’

  ‘I had to put up with him.’ Roger Christensen’s tone was still quiet, but the passion of resentment showed beneath the forced calm. ‘What else could I do?’ he went on. ‘He was not a man upon whom words had the least effect. He was without decency – without pride. My natural protection was the police, I suppose – I might have prosecuted him for trespass or annoyance, but I shrank from that – my wife dreaded the publicity – she hated Crowther as much as I did, but she would never discuss him, and I never pressed her.’ He paused, and a bitter smile twisted his wide, sensitive mouth. ‘The only right way to deal with a man like that was to whip him,’ he said, ‘and you see I was incapacitated from taking that way … God! What I would have given for my old strength just for an hour!’ The last sentence burst from his lips involuntarily.

  The detective frowned.

  ‘I must warn you you’re making some very dangerous statements, Mr Christensen,’ he said gently. ‘Do you quite realize the importance of them?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘I said I should tell you all I knew,’ he said slowly. ‘I did not kill Crowther, but if I had I should only feel ashamed that I could not have thrashed him first. I was in the drawing-room until the shot was fired; then I behaved exactly as I have told you.’

  The detective sighed.

  ‘Well, Mr Christensen,’ he said, ‘that will do for the moment, but I must ask you not to leave the house.’

  The cripple nodded.

  ‘I quite understand,’ he said, and wheeling round in his chair, he passed out through the door that Jerry held open for him, into the hall beyond.