Chapter XXIII
Lamb sat back and said, “Well-”
Frank Abbott transferred his gaze from the door which had recently closed upon Leonard Carroll to his Chief’s face. It was a cool and sarcastic gaze. It conveyed an opinion of Mr. Carroll which would hardly have pleased him.
“Well, sir?”
“I’m asking you.”
There was nothing in this to minister to a junior officer’s self-esteem. Schoolboys do not get wind in the head when the schoolmaster asks them a question. All this, and more, was not only a well-established fact, but was even now conveyed by the Chief Inspector’s air and manner. Frank became deferential.
“They’re all full of reasons why someone else should have done it. Masterman was very ingenious about the possibility of Tote’s having slipped across the hall in the dark and waited behind the service door. Carroll had a few kind words for Tote too. And both he and Masterman, and Tote himself, simply tumble over themselves to underline the fact that Mrs. Oakley went down on her knees by the body and addressed it as Glen.”
Lamb grunted.
“Yes-we’ll have to go into that. Let me see-we haven’t seen Miss Lane or Miss Masterman. Mrs. Tote is negligible. If she’d seen her husband in the hall she wouldn’t say so, and she didn’t want to say anything about anyone else. I think we can count her out. I’d say it was one of those three men, if it weren’t for the complication about Mrs. Oakley. There might be something there that would give Oakley a motive, so I’m keeping an open mind. But taking the three in the house-Carroll’s clever enough and quick enough, and by Pearson’s account he’d motive enough. Masterman had his fingerprints on the switch by the hearth and a very good reason for having them there. We don’t know much about a motive, but it looks as if he might have had one. The Yard can get on with looking up his record. Then there’s Tote-now, what did you make of Tote?”
Frank lifted his eyebrows.
“If the murderer had to be clever and quick, you’d hardly say that Tote would fill the picture. On the other hand, if Tote was quite as thick in the head as he seems, how did he make so much money?”
Lamb nodded.
“There’s two answers to that, you know. The first is, he didn’t make it, he stole it. And the other is that he’s not such a fool as he looks.”
Frank thought the Chief was in good form. He said,
“I don’t think so much of the first reason. That Black Market racket had brains behind it. If a man was stupid, they might use him as a tool, but they wouldn’t let him get away with anything big-why should they? Tote, I gather, is fairly rolling, and if that’s the case, I doubt his stupidity. A little man would make a little profit. If Tote got away with the big stuff, the second answer is right-he’s not such a fool as he looks.”
Lamb sat there looking blank. He drummed with his fingers on the blotting-pad.
“He would have had to mark Porlock with the luminous paint, and he would have had to get to one of those switches. There was just a muddle of prints on the one by the service door, and the same on the door itself. It’s more or less what you’d expect. But the one at the top of the stairs had been wiped clean.”
“That looks like Carroll.”
Lamb nodded.
“Or Tote. He could have got up there if he’d gone through the service door and up the back stair-though I don’t know why he should.”
Frank shook his head.
“Doesn’t seem likely. He’s not the build for sliding the banisters or running down stairs. You know, sir, I don’t see how anyone could have run down or up those stairs without being heard. You can’t walk silently on bare oak.”
“Not unless you’re in your stocking feet. If Carroll slid the banisters and ran back up the stairs he could slip off his pumps and leave them handy to get back into. Tote could have carried his down in his hand-fat men are often extraordinarily light on their feet. I don’t think there’s much in that. But I don’t know why he should have bothered to go upstairs to turn off the lights, when it would have been a whole lot simpler to have done it downstairs from the service door.”
“Well, that’s Masterman’s theory-he could have followed the others out of the drawing-room when they went out to watch the charade and got across the dark hall to wait behind the service door, and he could have put the mark on Porlock as he followed him into the hall. That would give him the switch by the service door to play with, and the luminous paint on Porlock’s back to guide him when the lights were out again. It’s all quite possible in theory, and not as much evidence as you could balance on the point of a needle.”
The door was opened in a tentative sort of way. Pearson made his appearance with a tray. Something about his manner suggested that he was, for the moment, a butler and not a detective. The tray supported a tea-pot, milk-jug and sugar-basin of a Queen Anne pattern, two cups and saucers, a covered dish, a dark fruit cake, and a plate of sandwiches. There was an agreeable smell of muffins, or perhaps buttered toast.
Pearson shut the door behind him dexterously and set down the tray.
“I thought you’d be ready for some tea, sir. Anchovy toast under the cover, and the sandwiches are egg and Gentleman’s Relish.” Then, reverting to the private detective, “If I may offer a word, sir, there’s something I think you ought to know.”
“What is it?” Lamb recalled his eye from the covered dish. “Well, speak up, man!”
Pearson looked deferential.
“In the matter of Mrs. Oakley’s maid-”
“What about her?” He jerked round upon Frank Abbott, who had picked up the tea-pot. “Pour out your own wash if you want to. If I have a cup of tea I like a bit of body in it. Brew it well, stand it well, sugar it well-that’s what my old Granny used to say, and she made the best cup of tea I ever tasted.” He turned back again. “What’s this about Mrs. Oakley’s maid?”
“Hooper, sir-Miss Hooper. Nothing, sir, except that she was in Mr. Porlock’s pay.”
Lamb sat up square, hands on knees.
“Oh, she was, was she? What makes you think so?”
Pearson looked more deprecating than ever. Quite irrationally, Frank was reminded of an earwig coming out from under a stone-or didn’t earwigs come out from under stones? He didn’t know, but that was what Pearson reminded him of. He was saying,
“Oh, I don’t think, sir-I know. In this sort of house the telephones are very convenient for listening in, and a butler is most commodiously placed with an extension in the pantry all to hand and private, as you might say. If I happened to know that Mr. Porlock was telephoning, I’d only to go into my pantry and shut the door. Or, in this case, if Miss Hooper rang him up-which she did, only not of course under that name-I’d only to put the call through to Mr. Porlock and make believe to hang up myself. With a little care the click can be induced or avoided, to suit the occasion.”
Frank Abbott put three drops of milk in his straw-coloured tea. Lamb grunted.
“How did you find out that it is this Hooper woman, if she didn’t give her name?”
Pearson evinced a modest pride.
“The young lady at the telephone exchange was able to give me the subscriber’s number. The name Miss Hooper gave was Robinson. I soon discovered that there was no one by that name at the Mill House. From the substance of the conversations it was quite clear that someone of the nature of a personal maid was speaking.”