“All the same,” began Warbstow dubiously, “I don’t think I’d expect anyone to murder Penhallow for a reason like that.”
“No, sir. I’m only giving you the possibilities. Then we have this Loveday Trewithian. I don’t more than half like the look of her. She’s going to marry Mr Bartholomew — the one they all call Bart. Tough young devil with a temper. She’s maid to Mrs Penhallow, and it was she got the prescription for the veronal made up the day before the murder. Not that I want to make a lot of that, because anyone could have got at that veronal at any time. She’s like a good many of the people about here: sooner tell a lie than not. She denied that there was any fixed understanding between herself and Mr Bart , said old Mr Penhallow had never said a word to her about it. She was frightened all right. But Mr Bart blurted out the whole thing. Said he was going to marry the girl; that his father had found it out, and they’d had a row about it, which ended though in his agreeing to do nothing about it for a bit. Told me his father said I could please himself once he was dead, and that he hadn’t wanted to upset the old man, if he really was going to die.”
“Frank!” ejaculated the Major. “I think I’ve seen the young fellow once or twice: generally rather well liked about here.”
“Well, I rather liked him myself,” admitted Logan, caressing his chin. “Compared with the rest of them, that is. I’d say he isn’t the sort to use poison. Violent young chap: half-killed his twin brother when I was questioning him this morning. It took Plymstock and me quite a time to drag ’em apart. That was because his brother, as soon as he saw I was taking notice of this Loveday Trewithian business, said he hadn’t a doubt she’d poisoned the old man. Seems Mr Bart told him how the old man had said he’d get Trellick Farm when he died, whatever he did. As I see it, sir, he’s mad with jealousy — you do get that sort of thing in twins, I believe —— and nothing would please him more than to get Loveday Trewithian removed out of his brother’s path. Hates her like the devil. Told me the old man knew very well the thing would die a natural death, given time enough, and that the girl knew it too, which was why she didn’t dare risk waiting for Penhallow to die in his own good time. I daresay he’d have told me a lot more, but that was where Mr Bart walked into the room. Before I properly knew what was happening, there was one chair broken, and a table with a lot of knickknacks on it sent flying, and this Conrad Penhallow flat on his back, with his brother on top of him, trying to choke the life out of him. However, they’re much of a size, and Mr Bart didn’t have it all his own way by any means. It took us quite a time to get them separated.”
“You take it very calmly!” exclaimed the Major.
The Inspector’s rather grave face relaxed into a smile. “Well, sir, that’s the way everyone else took it. The noise they made brought the old lady — Mr Penhallow’s sister, that is — into the room, with Mr Ingram and his good lady, and all the old lady had to say about it was, "Now, boys!" while Mr Ingram just told them to shut up. Seemed to me there wasn’t anything what you might call out of the way about that little scrap, Mr Bart being given to using his hands a bit quicker than most people.”
“Good lord! Do you mean to say he’s in the habit of attacking people in that homicidal fashion?”
“Well, he threw Jimmy the Bastard down the backstairs not so long ago,” replied Logan. “No one seemed to think much of it, and I’m bound to say that kind of high-spirited behaviour doesn’t go with poisoning: not to my mind it doesn’t.”
“I never heard of such a thing in my life! He sounds to be a most dangerous young ruffian! What about the other two you mentioned? Are they cut after the same pattern?”
“No, sir, not by a long chalk. Between you and me, I don’t know when I’ve seen a nastier bit of work than Aubrey Penhallow. He’s one of these writing-blokes, who wears his hair long, and goes about in fancy clothes, and smells of scent.”
“God bless my soul!” said the Major, properly disgusted.
“Yes, sir. He thinks he’s got to be funny, too, and I’m not fond of humorists. Not his kind. Regular smart alec. By what I could see of it, he spends his time annoying the rest of them.”
“In face of what you’ve just told me, I wonder he dares!”
“Yes, so did I, but he very kindly explained to me when a couple of his brothers looked like getting rough with him that they’d like to kick him into the middle of next week, but didn’t dare to, on account of his knowing Jujitsu."
“A pleasant lot, upon my word!”
“Well, they’re not the kind of people you meet ever day of the week, sir, and that’s a fact. But this Aubrey! Well, he doesn’t care who gets pinched for the murder as long as he doesn’t.”
“Is he implicated in any way?”
“That’s what I haven’t yet satisfied myself about, sir. Mr Eugene took care to let me know that Mr Penhallow had suddenly taken it into his head to keep young Aubrey at home, and that that wouldn’t suit Aubrey’s book at all. I gather he’s in debt, but I haven’t yet discovered to what extent, nor how serious this living at home business was. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to slip a drop of poison into a man’s drink, but whether he’d poison his father is another matter. You can’t spend long in that house, sir, without coming up against the feeling that however much they quarrelled with the old man, and whatever way he treated them, they all of them, barring, perhaps, Mr Raymond, were proud of him, and even rather liked him. Young Bart, and Mrs Hastings, the old lady, and Mrs Penhallow are definitely upset at him dying. Well, I should think they’d miss him, I must say.”
“A darned good miss, I should imagine! Is that the full list of the people you suspect?”
“No, sir, I’ve got one more suspect, and one man I’ll have to look into this afternoon. There’s Mrs Penhallow’s son, this one they call Clay. Nervous boy, scared stiff of me, and trying to carry the whole thing off in a breezy kind of way. Seems his father had just taken him away from college, and meant to article him to his cousin — Hastings, of Blazey, Blazey, Hastings, and Wembury. I had all this from Eugene and Conrad and Aubrey. Apparently Master Clay never has got on with the rest of the family — well, it isn’t likely he would: he’s the soft kind, and I should think a chap like that would have a pretty thin time in that household. He’s been going about talking in a wild way about how he’d go mad if he had to live at Trevellin for the rest of his life, and how he’d sooner be anything than a solicitor. What’s more, he tried to hatch up some sort of an alibi for himself, which didn’t exist; and altogether he struck me as a chap worth watching.”
“H’m! And the other man you mentioned?”
“Well, I don’t know that there’s much in that, sir, but I’ll have to investigate it. Miss Penhallow — who seems to have got an idea that it’s she and not me who’s conducting this case ,tells me that a Mr Phineas Ottery, who was the first Mrs Penhallow’s brother, went up to Trevellin to call on Mr Penhallow yesterday afternoon and insisted on seeing him privately.”
“I don’t see much in that.”
“No, sir, no more did I, but it’s obvious the Penhallows do. They all say it was highly unusual of Mr Ottery to come to Trevellin uninvited, and there isn’t one of them that has any idea of what he could possibly have wanted with their father. None of them saw him, except the old man himself, and they all seem to think there was something fishy about the visit. All except Mr Raymond, that is. When I spoke to him about it, he said there way nothing odd in it at all, and that his father probably had a bit of business with him. I shouldn’t think much of it if it weren’t for the fact that none of the servants showed Mr Ottery out of the house, and no one can tell mc whether Mr Penhallow went with him to the door or not.”