The Literary Lord Peter

 

(Chapter VII Continued)

 

 

 

Mr. Puffett entered suddenly without knocking.

 

"They're takin' Mr. Noakes away. Shall I be gettin' on with the kitchen chimney?" He walked across to the fireplace. "Draws beautiful now, don't she? I allus said there was nothing the matter with the flue. Ah! it's a good thing Mr. Noakes ain't alive to see all that 'eap of coal. That's a fire as does credit to any chimney."

 

"All right, Puffett," said Peter, absently. "Carry on."

 

Steps on the path, and a dismal little procession passing the window: a sergeant of police and another uniformed man, carrying a stretcher between them.

 

"Very good, me lord." Mr. Puffett glanced from the window and removed his bowler hat. "And where's all 'is cheese-parin' brought 'im now?" he demanded. "Nowhere."

 

He marched out.

 

"De mortuis," said Peter, "and then some."

 

"Yes, he seems to be getting a nice derangement of epitaphs, poor old creature."

 

Corpse and policemen—there they were, not to be got rid of, whatever one's feelings might be. Much better to accept the situation and do one's best. Superintendent Kirk came in, followed by Joe Sellon.

 

"Well, well," said Peter. "All ready for the third degree?"

 

"'Tain't likely to come to that, my lord," replied Mr. Kirk, jovially. "You and your lady had something better to do last week than committing murders, I'll be bound. That's right, Joe, come along. Let's see what you can do with a bit o' shorthand. I'm sending my sergeant over to Broxford to pick up what he can there, so Joe can give me a hand with the statements. I'd like to use this room, if it's not inconvenient."

 

"Not at all." Seeing the Superintendent's eye fix modestly upon a spindly specimen of Edwardian craftsmanship, Peter promptly pushed forward a stout, high-backed chair with gouty arms and legs and an eruption of heavy scroll work about its head. "You'll find this about up to your weight, I fancy."

 

"Nice and imposing," said Harriet.

 

The village constable added his comment:

 

"That's old Noakes's chair, that was."

 

"So," said Peter, "Galahad will sit down in Merlin's seat."

 

Mr. Kirk, on the point of lowering his solid fifteen stone into the chair, jerked up abruptly.

 

"Alfred," said he, "Lord Tennyson."

 

"Got it in one," said Peter, mildly surprised. A glow of enthusiasm shone softly in the policeman's ox-like eyes. "You're a bit of a student, aren't you, Superintendent?"

 

"I like to do a bit o' reading in my off-duty," admitted Mr. Kirk, bashfully. "It mellows the mind." He sat down. "I often think as the rowtine of police dooty may tend to narrow a man and make him a bit hard, if you take my meaning. When I find that happening, I say to myself, what you need, Sam Kirk, is contact with a Great Mind or so, after supper. Reading maketh a full man——"

 

"Conference a ready man," said Harriet.

 

"And writing an exact man," said the Superintendent. "Mind that, Joe Sellon, and see you let me have them notes so as they can be read to make sense."

 

"Francis Bacon," said Peter, a trifle belatedly. "Mr. Kirk, you're a man after my own heart."

 

"Thank you, my lord. Bacon. You'd call him a Great Mind, wouldn't you? And what's more, he came to be Lord Chancellor of England, so he's a bit in the legal way, too. Ah! well, I suppose we'll have to get down to business."

 

"As another Great Mind so happily put it, 'However entrancing it is to wander through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?'"

 

"What's that?" said the Superintendent. "That's a new one on me. 'Garden of bright images,' eh? That's pretty, that is."

 

"Kai-Lung," said Harriet.

 

"Golden Hours of," said Peter. "Ernest Bramah."

 

"Make a note o' that for me, will you, Joe? 'Bright images'—that's just what you get in poetry, isn't it? Pictures, as you might say. And in a garden too—what you'd call flowers of fancy, I dessay. Well, now——" He pulled himself together and turned to Peter. "As I was saying, we mustn't waste time with the fancy-work. About this money we found on the body. What did you say you paid him for the house?"

 

"Six-fifty, altogether. Fifty at the beginning of the negotiations and the six hundred at quarter-day."

 

"That's right. That accounts for the six hundred he had in his pocket. He'd just about have cashed it the day he was put away."

 

"The quarter-day was a Sunday. The cheque was actually dated and sent on the 28th. It would have reached him Monday."

 

"That's right. We'll check the payment at the bank, but it's not really necessary. Wonder what they thought of him taking it away in cash instead of paying it in. H'm. It's a pity it ain't the bank's business to give us the office when people do things that look like bolting. But it wouldn't do, naturally."

 

"He must have had it in his pocket when he told poor Crutchley he'd no money to pay him his forty pounds. He could have given it him then."

 

"Course he could, my lady, if he'd wanted to. He was a proper old dodger, was Mr. Noakes; a regular Artful Dodger."

 

"Charles Dickens!"

 

"That's right. There's an author what knew a bit about crooks, didn't he? A pretty rough place London must have been in those days, if you go by what he says. Fagin and all. But we wouldn't hang a man for being a pickpocket, not now. Well—and having sent the cheque, you just came on here the next week and left it to him?"

 

"Yes. Here's his letter, you see, saying he'd have everything ready. It's addressed to my agent. We really ought to have sent someone ahead to see to things, but the fact is, as I told you before, what with newspaper reporters and one thing and another——"

 

"They give us a lot of trouble, them fellows," said Mr. Kirk, sympathetically.

 

"When," said Harriet, "they gate-crash your flat and try to bribe your servants——"

 

"Fortunately, Bunter is sea-green incorruptible——"

 

"Carlyle," said Mr. Kirk, with approval. "French Revolution. Seems a good man, that Bunter. Head screwed on the right way."

 

"But we needn't have troubled," said Harriet. "We'll have them all on our backs now."

 

"Ah!" said Mr. Kirk. "That's what comes of being a public character. You can't escape the fierce light that beats upon——"

 

"Here!" said Peter, "that's not fair. You can't have Tennyson twice. Anyway, there it is and what's done—no, I may want Shakespeare later on. The ironical part of it is that we expressly told Mr. Noakes we were coming for peace and quiet and didn't want the whole thing broadcast about the neighbourhood."

 

"Well, he saw to that all right," said the Superintendent. "By George, you were making it easy for him, weren't you? Easy as pie. Off he could go, and no inquiry. Don't suppose he meant to go quite so far as he did go, all the same."

 

"Meaning, there's no chance of it's being suicide?"

 

"Not likely, is it, with all that money on him? Besides, the doctor says there's not a chance of it. We'll come to that later. About them doors, now. You're sure they were both locked when you arrived?"

 

"Absolutely. The front we opened ourselves with the latch-key, and the back—let me see——"

 

"Bunter opened that, I think," said Harriet.

 

"Better have Bunter in," said Peter. "He'll know. He never forgets anything." He called Bunter, adding, "What we want here is a bell."

 

"And you saw no disturbance, except what you've mentioned. Egg-shells and such. No marks? No weapon? Nothing out of its place?"

 

"I'm sure I didn't notice anything," said Harriet. "But there wasn't much light, and, of course, we weren't looking for anything. We didn't know there was anything to look for."

 

"Wait a bit," said Peter. "Wasn't there something struck me this morning? I—no, I don't know. It was all upset for the sweep, you see. I don't know what I thought I—— If there was anything, it's gone now.... Oh, Bunter! Superintendent Kirk wants to know was the back door locked when we arrived last night."

 

"Locked and bolted, my lord, top and bottom."

 

"Did you notice anything funny about the place at all?"

 

"Apart," said Mr. Bunter, warmly, "from the absence of those conveniences that we were led to expect, such as lamps and coal and food and the key of the house and the beds made up and the chimneys swept, and allowing further for the soiled crockery in the kitchen and the presence of Mr. Noakes's personal impedimenta in the bedroom—no, my lord. The house presented no anomalies nor incongruities of any kind that I was able to observe. Except——"

 

"Yes?" said Mr. Kirk, hopefully.

 

"I attached no significance to it at the time," said Bunter, slowly, as though he were admitting to a slight defection from duty, "but there were two candlesticks in this room, upon the sideboard. Both candles were burnt down to the socket. Burnt out."

 

"So they were," said Peter. "I remember seeing you clean out the wax with a pen-knife. Night's candles are burnt out."

 

The Superintendent, absorbed in the implications of Bunter's statement, neglected the challenge till Peter poked him in the ribs and repeated it, adding, "I knew I should want Shakespeare again!"

 

"Eh?" said the Superintendent. "Night's candles? Romeo and Juliet—not much o' that about this here. Burnt out? Yes. They must a-been alight when he was killed. After dark, that means."

 

"He died by candlelight. Sounds like the title of a high-brow thriller. One of yours, Harriet. When found, make a note of."

 

"Captain Cuttle," said Mr. Kirk, not to be caught napping again. "October 2nd—sun would be setting about half-past five. No, it was Summer Time. Say half-past six. I dunno as that gets us much further. You didn't see nothing lying about as might have been used for a weapon? No mallet or bludgeon, eh? Nothing in the way of a——"

 

"He's going to say it!" said Peter to Harriet, in a whisper.

 

"—in the way of a blunt instrument?"

 

"He's said it!"

 

"I've never really believed they did say it."

 

"Well, now you know."

 

"No," said Bunter, after a short meditation. "Nothing of that description. Nothing beyond the customary household utensils in their appropriate situations."

 

"Have we any idea," inquired his lordship, "what kind of a jolly old blunt instrument we are looking for? How big? What shape?"

 

"Pretty heavy, my lord, that's all I can say. With a smooth, blunt head. Meaning, the skull was cracked like an egg-shell, but the skin hardly broken. So there's no blood to help us, and the worst of it is, we don't know, no more than Adam, whereabouts it all 'appened. You see, Dr. Craven says deceased—— Here, Joe, where's that letter Doctor wrote out for me to send to the coroner? Read it out to his lordship. Maybe he'll be able to make it out, seein' he's had a bit of experience and more eddication than you or me. Beats me what doctors want to use them long words for. Mind you, it's educational; I don't say it isn't. I'll have a go at it with the dictionary afore I goes to bed and I'll know I'm learning something. But to tell you the truth, we don't have many murders and violent deaths hereabouts, so I don't get much practice in the technical part, as you might say."

 

"All right, Bunter," said Peter, seeing that the Superintendent had finished with him. "You can go."

 

Harriet thought Bunter seemed a little disappointed. He would doubtless have appreciated the doctor's educational vocabulary.

 

P.C. Sellon cleared his throat and began: "'Dear Sir—It is my duty to notify——'"

 

"Not there," interrupted Kirk. "Where it begins about deceased."

 

P.C. Sellon found the place and cleared his throat again:

 

"'I may state, as the result of a superficial examination'—is that it, sir?"

 

"That's it."

 

"'That deceased appears to 'ave been struck with a 'eavy blunt instrument of some considerable superficies——'"

 

"Meaning, he said, by that," explained the Superintendent, "as it wasn't a little fiddlin' thing like the beak of a 'ammer."

 

"'On the posterior part of the'—I can't rightly make this out, sir. Looks to me like 'onion,' and that makes sense all right, only it don't sound like doctor's language."

 

"It couldn't be that, Joe."

 

"Nor it ain't 'geranium' neither—leastways, there's no tail to the G."

 

"'Cranium,' perhaps," suggested Peter. "The back of the skull."

 

"That'll be it," said Kirk. "That's where it is, anyhow, never mind what the doctor calls it."

 

"Yes, sir. 'A little above and behind the left ear, the apparent direction of the blow being from behind downwards. An extensive fracture——'"

 

"Hullo!" said Peter. "On the left, from behind downwards. That looks like another of our old friends."

 

"The left-handed criminal," said Harriet.

 

"Yes. It's surprising how often you get them in detective fiction. A sort of sinister twist running right through the character."

 

"It might be a back-handed blow."

 

"Not likely. Who goes about swotting people left-handed? Unless the local tennis-champion wanted to show off. Or a navvy mistook old Noakes for a pile that needed driving."

 

"A navvy'd have hit him plumb centre. They always do. You think they're going to brain the man who holds the thing up, but it never happens. I've noticed that. But there's another thing. My recollection of Noakes is that he was awfully tall."

 

"Quite right," said Kirk, "so he was. Six foot four, only he stooped a bit. Call it six foot two or three."

 

"You'll want a pretty tall murderer," said Peter.

 

"Wouldn't a long-handled weapon do? Like a croquet-mallet? or a golf club?"

 

"Yes, or a cricket-bat. Or a beetle, of course——"

 

"Or a spade—the flat side——"

 

"Or a gun-stock. Possibly even a poker——"

 

"It'd have to be a long, heavy one with a thick knob. I think there's one in the kitchen. Or even a broom, I suppose——"

 

"Don't think it'd be heavy enough, though it's possible. How about an axe or a pick——?"

 

"Not blunt enough. They've got square edges. What other long things are there? I've heard of a flail, but I've never seen one. A lead cosh, if it was long enough. Not a sand-bag—they bend."

 

"A lump of lead in an old stocking would be handy."

 

"Yes—but look here, Peter! Anything would do—even a rolling-pin, always supposing——"

 

"I've thought of that. He might have been sitting down."

 

"So it might be a stone or a paper-weight like that one on the window-sill there."

 

Mr. Kirk started.

 

"Strewth!" he observed, "you're quick, you two. Not much you miss, is there? And the lady's as smart as the gentleman."

 

"It's her job," said Peter. "She writes detective stories."

 

"Does she now?" said the Superintendent. "I can't say I reads a lot o' them, though Mrs. Kirk, she likes a good Edgar Wallace now and again. But I couldn't rightly call 'em a mellering influence to a man in my line. I read an American story once, and the way the police carried on—well, it didn't seem right to me. Here, Joe, hand me that there paper-weight, would you? Hi! Not that way! Ain't you never heard of finger-prints?"

 

Sellon, his large hand clasped round the stone, stood awkwardly and scratched his head with his pencil. He was a big, fresh-faced young man, who looked as though he would be better at grappling with drunks than measuring prints and reconstructing the time-table of the crime. At length he opened his fingers and brought the paper-weight balanced on his open palm.

 

"That won't take finger-prints," said Peter. "It's too rough. Edinburgh granite, from the look of it."

 

"It might a-done the bashing, though," said Kirk. "Leastways, the underneath part, or this here rounded end. Model of a building, ain't it?"

 

"Edinburgh Castle, I fancy. It shows no signs of skin or hair or anything about it. Just a minute." He picked it up by a convenient chimney, examined its surface with a lens, and said, definitely, "No."

 

"Humph. Well. That gets us nowhere. We'll have a look at the kitchen poker presently."

 

"You'll find lots of finger-prints on that. Bunter's and mine, and Mrs. Ruddle's—possibly Puffett's and Crutchley's."

 

"That's the devil of it," said the Superintendent, frankly. "But none the more for that, Joe, you keep your fingers off anything what looks like a weapon. If you sees any of them things what his lordship and her ladyship here mentioned laying about, you just leave 'em be and shout till I come. See?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"To go back," said Peter, "to the doctor's report. I take it Noakes can't have bashed the back of his own head falling down the steps? He was an oldish man, wasn't he?"

 

"Sixty-five, my lord. Sound as a bell, though, as far as you can judge now. Eh, Joe?"

 

"That's a fact, sir. Boasted of it, he did. Talked large as Doctor said 'e was good for another quarter of a century. You ask Frank Crutchley. 'E 'eard 'im. Over at Pagford, in the Pig and Whistle. And Mr. Roberts wot keeps the Crown in the village—he've heard him many a time."

 

"Ah! well, that's as may be. It ain't never safe to boast. The boast of heraldry—well, I take it that'd be more in your lordship's line, but it all leads to the grave, as Gray's Elegy has it. Still, he wasn't killed falling down the stairs, because there's a bruise on his forehead where he went down and hit the bottom step——"

 

"Oh!" said Peter. "Then he was alive when he fell?"

 

"Yes," said Mr. Kirk, a little put out by being anticipated. "That's what I was leading up to. But there again, that don't prove nothing, because seemin'ly he didn't die straight off. Accordin' to what Dr. Craven makes out——"

 

"Shall I read that bit, sir?"

 

"Don't bother with it, Joe. It's only a lot of rigmarole. I can explain to his lordship without all your onions and geraniums. What it comes to is this. Somebody 'it him and bust his skull, and he'd likely tumble down and lose consciousness—concussed, as you might say. After a bit, he'd come to, like as not. But he'd never know what hit 'im. Wouldn't remember a thing about it."

 

"Nor he would," said Harriet, eagerly. She knew that bit—in fact she'd had to expound it in her latest detective novel but one. "There'd be complete forgetfulness of everything immediately preceding the blow. And he might even pick himself up and feel all right for some time."

 

"Except," put in Mr. Kirk, who liked a literal precision, "for a sore head. But, generally speaking, that's correct, according to Doctor. He might walk about and do quite a bit for himself——"

 

"Such as locking the door behind the murderer?"

 

"Exactly, there's the trouble."

 

"Then," pursued Harriet, "he'd get giddy and drowsy, wouldn't he? Wander off to get a drink or call for help and——"

 

Memory suddenly showed her the open cellar-door, yawning between the back-door and the scullery.

 

"And pitch down the cellar-steps and die there. That door was standing open when we arrived; I remember Mrs. Ruddle telling her Bert to shut it."

 

"Pity they didn't happen to look inside," grunted the Superintendent. "Not as it'ud have done the deceased any good—he'd been dead long enough—but if you'd a-known you could have kept the house in statu quo, as they say."

 

"We could," said Peter, with emphasis, "but I don't mind telling you frankly that we were in no mood to."

 

"No," said Mr. Kirk, meditatively, "I don't suppose you were. No. All things considered, it would have been inconvenient, I see that. But it's a pity, all the same. Because, you see, we've got very little to go on and that's a fact. The poor old chap might a-been killed anywhere—upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber——"

 

"No, no, Mother Goose," said Peter, hastily. "Not there, not there, my child, Felicia Hemans. Let us pass on. How long did he live after he was hit?"

 

"Doctor says," put in the constable, "'from half an hour to one hour, judging by the—the—hem-something or other.'"

 

"Hæmorrhage?" suggested Kirk, taking possession of the letter. "That's it. Hæmorrhagic effusion into the cortex. That's a good one."

 

"Bleeding in the brain," said Peter. "Good lord—he had plenty of time. He may have been coshed outside the house altogether."

 

"But when do you suppose it all happened?" demanded Harriet. She appreciated Peter's effort to exonerate the house from all share in the crime, and was annoyed with herself for having betrayed any sensibility on the subject. It was distracting for him. Her tone, in consequence, was determinedly off-hand and practical.

 

"That," said the Superintendent, "is what we've got to find out. Some time last Wednesday night, putting what the doctor says with the rest of the evidence. After dark, if them candles are anything to go by. And that means—— H'm! We'd better have this chap Crutchley in. Seems like he might have been the last person to see deceased alive."

 

"Enter the obvious suspect," said Peter, lightly.

 

"The obvious suspect is always innocent," said Harriet in the same tone.

 

"In books, my lady," said Mr. Kirk, with a little indulgent bow towards her, as who should say, "The ladies. God bless them!"

 

"Come, come," said Peter, "we must not introduce our professional prejudices into the case. How about it, Superintendent? Shall we make ourselves scarce?"

 

"That's as you like, my lord. I'd be glad enough if you'd stay; you might give me a bit of help, seeing as you know the ropes, so to speak. Not but what it'll be a kind of busman's holiday for you," he finished up, rather dubiously.

 

"That's what I was thinking," said Harriet. "A busman's honeymoon. Butchered to make a——"

 

"Lord Byron!" cried Mr. Kirk, a little too promptly. "Butchered to make a busman's—no, that don't seem right somehow."

 

"Try Roman," said Peter. "All right, we'll do our best. No objection to smoking in court, I take it. Where the devil did I put the matches?"

 

"Here you are, my lord," said Sellon. He produced a box and struck a light. Peter eyed him curiously, and remarked:

 

"Hullo! You're left-handed."

 

"For some things, my lord. Not for writing."

 

"Only for striking matches—and handling Edinburgh rock?"

 

"Left-handed?" said Kirk. "Why, so you are, Joe. I hope you ain't this tall, left-handed murderer what we're looking out for?"

 

"No, sir," said the constable, briefly.

 

"A pretty thing that'ud be, wouldn't it?" said his superior, with a hearty guffaw. "We shouldn't never hear the last of that. Now, you hop out and get Crutchley. Nice lad he is," he went on, turning to Peter as Sellon left the room. "'Ard working, but no Sherlock 'Olmes, if you follow me. Slow in the uptake. I sometimes think his heart ain't rightly in his work these days. Married too young, that's what it is, and started a family, which is a handicap to a young officer."

 

"Ah!" said Peter, "all this matrimony is a sad mistake."

 

He laid his hand on his wife's shoulder, while Mr. Kirk tactfully studied his note-book.