Читать книгу The Borgia Cabinet - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The butler was quick to notice the tone of concern in Charlesworth’s voice, and his own, in reply, took on a note of dismay.

“I’m afraid not, sir!” he answered. “It never struck me—of course, there was nothing to arouse any suspicion in my mind, at that time: I just thought that Sir Charles had happened to bring a friend in for a drink. I fear the glasses will have been washed up, in the ordinary course. You wanted them?”

“Finger-prints, perhaps,” said Charlesworth. “However——”

“There was something I noticed about those glasses, though,” interrupted Bedford. “One of them had had whisky in it—in fact, there was a small amount of whisky and soda left in the glass. But the other glass had had no whisky in it.”

“Did Sir Charles drink whisky?” asked Charlesworth.

“Yes, sir. He always had a glass or two every night before he retired.”

“Then the glass which had had whisky in it was probably his?” said Charlesworth. “And that which hadn’t, the other man’s? What about the decanter, Bedford?”

“I have that, sir—just as I found it this morning.”

“Let me have it—fetch it now, and it shall be sealed up,” directed Charlesworth. He turned to Harding as the butler left the room. “We’ll have that analysed,” he said. “The poison may have been introduced into the whisky. And if so, it looks as though somebody in this house had had a hand in it. By-the-bye, as I suppose you know all about this family, what’s it consist of? Nobody in the house but Sir Charles, his wife, and his sister?”

“Sister-in-law, Mrs. John Stanmore,” replied Harding. “Of course there are servants. And there’s a secretary—Miss Fawdale.”

“If he’s been poisoned, the thing to find out is—motive,” remarked Charlesworth. “Now,” he went on as Bedford came back with a small cut-glass decanter, in which about a quarter of a pint of whisky still remained, “you take charge of that, Superintendent, and have it sealed up and labelled, to hand over for analysis. Well—what’s next? This, I think. You’re absolutely certain, Bedford, that is, as certain as you can be, that nobody in this house ever saw Sir Charles after he came in last night?”

“I’m positive of it!” declared Bedford. “I made the fullest inquiries this morning, after we found him dead. Nobody saw him—nobody heard anything of him.”

“But—his car? Who attended to that?”

“He’d see to it himself, sir. He always did, when he came home late. There’s a chauffeur, of course, but Sir Charles very rarely made use of him—he attended chiefly to my lady. There are three cars in the garage—Sir Charles, for his own purposes, used one which he’s had some years and always drove himself. It was one of his rules that if he wasn’t home by ten o’clock, Watson, the chauffeur, was not to wait up for him—he’d put his car in the garage himself. He did that last night. Watson went to bed at ten-thirty last night—Sir Charles hadn’t come then.”

“It just comes to this, apparently,” remarked Charlesworth, turning to Harding. “Sir Charles came home late last night and nobody saw him. But there’s some evidence that he brought some person into the house with him and that they had a drink in this room. Well now, Bedford, can you tell me this? Were the decanter and the mineral water and the glasses left here, in readiness for Sir Charles, or would he have to fetch them, himself, from another room?”

“I can explain that at once, sir,” replied Bedford. “In addition to our footman, we have a parlour-maid, Purser. It was her duty, every night, when Sir Charles didn’t come home to dinner—which, as a rule, was about four nights a week—to leave here, in his study, a tray, on which was a plate of sandwiches, another of biscuits, a decanter of whisky—which she fetched from my pantry—a syphon of soda-water, and a couple of glasses.”

“Why a couple of glasses?” asked Charlesworth.

“Because every drink that Sir Charles had, he’d have a clean glass for it,” replied the butler. “He wouldn’t drink, sir, two glasses of sherry out of the same glass. As a rule, I believe, he never drank more than one glass of whisky before going to bed, but if he had a second, he’d have a clean glass for it.”

“I see! Well—did Purser bring the tray in as usual last night?”

“She did—exactly as usual. We always knew, of course, when Sir Charles wasn’t coming home to dinner. He was a great man for his club, Sir Charles—dined there three or four nights a week.”

Charlesworth turned to Harding.

“I think we’d better see the parlour-maid,” he said. “Perhaps Mr. Bedford will send her in?”

Bedford rose, giving the two officials a somewhat peculiar and significant look.

“I think I’d better bring her in,” he said. “She’s a rather superior young woman, Miss Purser—she might feel a bit strange if——”

“Oh, bring her yourself, by all means,” exclaimed Charlesworth. “There’s no need for any secrecy: I only want to ask her a question or two which she’ll no doubt easily answer. You can stop here when you bring her, too.”

Bedford went off, to return in a few minutes with a pretty, smart-looking young woman, of apparently five and twenty years of age, who glanced at the two men waiting to receive her with a look that was half inquisitive and half demure. Charlesworth inspected her carefully as she took the seat which Harding drew forward, and decided that Bedford had been quite right when he described her as being something rather superior: he made a mental note that the parlour-maid was self-possessed, wary, cool, and probably keenly observant of everything that went on around her.

“I just want to ask you one or two questions, Miss Purser,” he said. “I understand that it was one of your duties to leave in this room when Sir Charles happened to be dining out and not home till late, a tray of light refreshments for him. Yes?—well, did you leave it last night?”

“I did, sir!”

“What was on the tray?”

“The usual things. Sandwiches, biscuits, whisky, soda-water.”

“Where did you get the whisky?”

“Where I always get it—from Mr. Bedford.”

“Was the decanter full?”

“Three parts full.”

“Were there two glasses on the tray?”

“Two tumblers—yes.”

“Where did you get those?”

“From the butler’s pantry. The tray is always ready for me there, at half-past ten, on evenings when Sir Charles is out—I mean was out.”

“So you’d nothing to do but bring it in here?”

“That is so.”

“Where did you put it last night?”

“Where I always put it—on this small table at the side of the desk.”

“What time was that?”

“Twenty-five minutes to eleven.”

“There was no one in this room, of course, when you brought in the tray?” said Charlesworth. “Empty, eh?”

Purser, for the first time, hesitated. She looked from one man to the other.

“Come!” continued Charlesworth, encouragingly. “Don’t keep anything back!”

But Purser still hesitated, this time looking at the butler. Bedford nodded.

“I should do what Mr. Charlesworth asks,” said Bedford. “Of course, I don’t know what it is—you’ve said nothing to me.”

“Listen!” said Charlesworth. “You no doubt know that there’ll have to be a coroner’s inquest in this affair? You’ll be called as a witness, and you’ll be on oath, and you’ll have to tell everything. So—you may as well tell me ... if there is something to tell. I asked you——”

Purser suddenly spoke.

“There was somebody in the room!” she said.

“Who?” demanded Charlesworth.

“Lady Stanmore! She was reading, in that chair.”

“When you brought the tray in?”

“When I brought the tray in.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“You set the tray down and left her there?”

“I set down the tray and left her there.”

“Did you close the door when you went out?”

“Of course!”

“What did you do, then?”

“Went to my room.”

“Did you see anything more of Lady Stanmore?”

“How could I? The servants’ quarters are in quite another part of the house.”

Charlesworth glanced at his notes and turned to Bedford.

“You told us—here’s what I wrote down—that Lady Stanmore had gone to her rooms long before eleven last night,” he said. “How does that fit?”

“She’d gone before ten minutes to eleven, anyway,” declared Bedford. “I saw Mrs. John Stanmore come out of the drawing-room at a quarter to eleven and go up the big stairs in the hall, and I saw my lady a minute or two afterwards come along the corridor and follow her. That’s what I mean by long before eleven—a good ten minutes before.”

“What time did you yourself retire?” asked Charlesworth.

“Just after eleven—a few minutes after.”

“I suppose Sir Charles would let himself in with his latch-key? But you’ve no idea what time he came in, eh?”

“Not the least idea,” replied Bedford, with emphasis. “I’ll make bold to say, gentlemen, that there’s nobody in this house who ever heard anything of Sir Charles’ coming home last night—nobody! But there’s nothing unusual in that—he’s come in hundreds of times without anybody knowing.”

“Bit odd, that, though, isn’t it?” asked Charlesworth. “What with family and servants there must be at least twelve or fifteen people in this house. It’s queer that no one heard anything! What about the car?—did no one hear that arrive?”

“Nothing strange about that, sir,” replied Bedford. “The garage is two hundred yards from the house, and there are thick shrubberies between. Sir Charles would follow his usual plan; he’d put up the car himself and then walk up to the house. And there was no need for him to enter by the front door. Look here, gentlemen.” He moved across to a French window which opened from one corner of the room, and tapped the glass panels. “Sir Charles always carried a key to this,” he said. “As often as not, he’d let himself in this way, from the gardens. My opinion, gentlemen, if you want it,” continued Bedford, “is that Sir Charles came in through this window last night, and that he let the man he had with him out by this window. I’ve a reason for thinking so.”

“What is it?” asked Charlesworth.

“Well, it’s this,” replied Bedford. “When Sir Charles let himself in, late at night, at the front door, it was his custom to slip a certain bolt after he’d entered. Now that bolt wasn’t slipped this morning. So I conclude he came straight into this room, from the gardens.”

“Very good reasoning,” said Charlesworth. “Well, I think that’s all I want from Miss Purser and you, Bedford, just now. A word, though—don’t talk! You know what I mean?—there’s this coroner’s inquest to come off, and then—eh?” He turned to Harding when the parlour-maid and the butler had gone, and gave the superintendent a meaning look. “I don’t like that!” he murmured in a low tone. “Don’t like it at all!”

“Don’t like—what?” asked Harding.

“The fact that Lady Stanmore was left alone in this room after Purser put the tray there,” replied Charlesworth, pointing to the table. “That’s bound to come out at the inquest, and it’ll look ugly. It looks ugly now—if ...”

“If—what?”

“If ...” Charlesworth paused, glancing knowingly at his companion. “You live in the same village, Harding,” he went on. “You must know and hear things. How did these people get on—Sir Charles and his wife? Ever hear, know, or notice anything?”

“Nothing, except that Sir Charles was—well, I suppose old enough to be her father,” replied Harding, stolidly. “Still, he was a fine, handsome, well-preserved man.”

“Never heard of any domestic differences, eh?”

“I? No! Never heard anything.”

“Bedford,” remarked Charlesworth, “told us that Sir Charles had his rooms in one part of the house; Lady Stanmore hers in another. Not usual, surely!”

“Can’t say,” replied Harding. “Not acquainted with the habits or peculiarities of these people. Seems a bit odd, certainly. Very pretty woman, Lady Stanmore.”

“Never heard any scandal, eh?” asked Charlesworth. “No lovers—anything like that?”

“Not a word! Nothing’s known in the village, anyhow.”

“Well, I’ll have to inquire into things a bit more thoroughly,” declared Charlesworth. “I don’t like what Purser told us. There was opportunity——”

He paused as a knock came at the door and a lady entered, with an inquiring glance at Harding. Harding sprang to his feet with a bow; Charlesworth rose, too. Harding turned to him.

“Mrs. John Stanmore,” he said.