The Santa Klaus Murder Read online

  Rousdon stared at him incredulously. “You’re not telling me that you yourself didn’t hand out crackers to the children before you went out to give the servants their presents?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. I give out crackers? It’s absurd. I never saw a cracker.”

  “Do you know that two or three people saw you handing out those crackers in the hall?”

  “They couldn’t have seen me,” Witcombe persisted. “If they say they did, it’s a lie! It’s a conspiracy! I don’t know what the point of those crackers is, but I had nothing to do with them.”

  Rousdon was nonplussed. He looked at Witcombe as if unable to make up his mind whether the man were sane or not. He hadn’t been flustered into this denial, so far as I could see. He had been disturbed by the questions about the window, but had calmed down again afterwards. I had before me a plan of the ground floor at Flaxmere and I called to Witcombe to come and show me, on this, his movements from the time he left Sir Osmond’s study. He came over to my table in the window, took out a pencil and traced on the plan a path from the study door across the hall and out by the door at the back; then across the passage and through the door into the servants’ quarters.

  Rousdon stood over him and, when he got to that point, snatched the pencil, exclaiming, “You’ve left something out!”

  Witcombe jumped and looked rather concerned. He watched very attentively whilst Rousdon traced a line along the passage into the dining-room and out of the other dining-room door into the hall again. Then he looked up at Witcombe, who shook his head. “No; that’s not the way I came back. And anyway, what’s that door?” He pointed to the one between the dining-room and library. “There’s no door there, surely? The map’s wrong.” He looked up from the plan towards the corner of the library.

  The door is a concealed one. It was not generally used and I didn’t know of its existence until this investigation. On the dining-room side it is covered with the same paper as the walls and there are bookshelves attached to it on the library side, which swing back absurdly when you open the door. You could see that it was a door if you looked closely, as Witcombe did now.

  “Yes, of course, I remember now. The servants came through that way to see the Christmas-tree. But I’d never noticed it before.”

  “Not very observant, are you?” sneered Rousdon.

  “I think I’m pretty average, but there wasn’t any reason why I should notice that. Anyway, I didn’t use it. I came back into the hall the same way as I went out.”

  “Not the first time,” put in Rousdon quietly.

  “I don’t know what you mean by the first time. I went out to the servants’ hall and then I came back and returned to Sir Osmond’s study.”

  “Do you mean to say that you didn’t come back again after you went out, and before you went through to the servants’ quarters?”

  “I do mean to say that. I showed you on the plan how I went out and I came back the same way.”

  Rousdon, now quite hot and ruffled, gave it up and very ungraciously told Witcombe he could go. The latter turned to me.

  “My original plans, Colonel Halstock, were to return home to-morrow. I suppose there is nothing against that?” he asked, rather anxiously, I thought.

  “As things stand at the moment, I’m afraid there is,” I told him. “You are a material witness and we may want you again. I can’t allow any one of the party to leave this house until—well, until certain facts are cleared up.”

  “Yes; I see. Well, I shall be very grateful if you’ll let me go as soon as possible. I’m thinking of the family, you know,” he added. “After all, they don’t want visitors around at the moment.”

  I asked him one more question before he left. Had he at any time taken off the Santa Klaus costume from the time he put it on until after Sir Osmond was found dead.

  “Good heavens, no! Though I’d have been glad enough to get rid of it. But I was under orders to play the part until I left the house as Santa Klaus; then I was to go round to the back door and come in again as myself,” he explained.

  Rousdon exploded when Witcombe had gone. “It’s lunatic! The man’s a fool! How can he expect us to believe that? It’s Mrs. Wynford’s and Miss Portisham’s word against his, and they were the clearest witnesses we had. They’ll swear to it, I know.”

  I only asked him, “Exactly what will they swear to?” When he was cooler, I thought, he would reach the same idea as was now in my mind. But I had noticed two things that Rousdon hadn’t been able to see. One was Witcombe’s look of genuine surprise when he had noticed the door marked on the plan between the dining-room and library. The other was his worried, perhaps guilty, look when Rousdon said, “You’ve left something out!” and the way the muscles of his face relaxed again into an expression of relief when Rousdon’s pencil took a line from the door at the back of the hall into the dining-room.

  Rousdon stood by the fireplace, staring at me gloomily. Just then Kenneth Stour passed outside the window, strolling along the paved path with a pipe in his mouth.

  “You still don’t want that man arrested?” Rousdon inquired.

  “Less than ever, unless he does anything that justifies it; watch him closely,” I advised.

  Kenneth passed again and looked in through the window as he did so, caught my eye and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

  “You might see whether you can trace that old-fashioned saloon car the doctor saw,” I suggested to the Inspector. “And see whether your men have been able to get into touch with Sir Osmond’s solicitor yet and when he’s coming back from his Christmas holiday,” I suggested.

  I left him blasting all Bank Holidays, and went to find Kenneth and see what he had to tell.

  The rain had cleared away and I found him strolling up and down on the gravel sweep between the front door and the paved path that ran under the study and library windows.

  “You haven’t reached your solution yet?” he asked. “Nor has anyone else. The family don’t know who did it. They see that the known facts point to Witcombe, but they can’t think of any reason why he should want to shoot Sir Osmond, so they let their suspicions range around. Now I believe that if we could get them to tell us all that happened on the few days before Christmas—since they arrived here—we should see the whole thing plain.”

  “Of course!” I agreed sarcastically. “The murderer would then tell us exactly how he did the job and why!”

  “I’m making an exception of the murderer. I believe that the others hold the clue within their knowledge, but partly they don’t realize that and partly they’re reluctant to tell you anything because they don’t know whom they’re inculpating.”

  I didn’t need him to come over to Flaxmere to tell me all this, as I pointed out.

  Disregarding me he continued: “I’ve given Hilda and Jennifer and Philip Cheriton something to keep them quiet for the next twenty-four hours, or perhaps longer. I’ve asked each of them to write a confidential account of events leading up to the murder. Philip is to deal with the family situation in general, as it seemed to an outsider. Hilda is to describe Saturday and Sunday and Jennifer, Monday. They are to put down as much as they can remember of trivial incidents, conversations and so forth. Now I want you to ask Miss Melbury and Miss Portisham to do the same for Tuesday and Christmas Day. I don’t know them well enough to ask them and I don’t want to approach them as your emissary.”

  “I should think not indeed!” I was able to say.

  Of course he met all my objections; his idea was that they would be partly off their guard when they sat down to write; they might reveal something of value which they thought too trivial to mention to me and which I couldn’t extract from them by questions because I was too much in the dark, and so forth. He had chosen the people who might, he thought, write fairly connected narratives without much difficulty. Philip Cheriton as a literary man, Jennife
r because she had literary aspirations, Miss Portisham because she was businesslike (and also because she was in close touch with Sir Osmond), Hilda because she had been a school teacher and because he considered her more capable of a detached point of view than any other member of the family. Dittie was too upset, he said, to be bothered. Eleanor and Patricia and George would be hopeless; they couldn’t write three grammatical sentences on end, he was sure. Gordon Stickland wouldn’t be reliable; he was too self-conscious; he’d write what he thought fit and would never forget that intention.

  I was interested in Kenneth’s reasons for his choice and asked him why Carol wasn’t included. She was well-educated, she was self-possessed and I felt sure she was observant.

  He looked a bit worried. “Ask her, too, if you like,” he said. “I don’t know her well. I don’t think she could add anything to what Jennifer and Hilda can tell us.”

  “And why not Witcombe?” I asked.

  “Strikes me as too obtuse. No imagination.”

  “But we don’t want imaginings; we want facts,” I pointed out.

  “You need imagination to see the facts.”

  “And why on earth do you include Miss Melbury?” I asked him finally.

  “I hear that Aunt Mildred is famous for her long letters; she writes frequently to all her acquaintances, giving them all the news and explaining everything. Her account will be full of gossip; it may be malicious gossip. Any reasons she gives for anyone’s behaviour will certainly be wrong, but she overhears a good deal; she’s a specialist in other people’s affairs; she may give us something of value.”

  Of course, by criticizing Kenneth’s choice of writers and discussing them with him I had implicitly accepted his scheme. That’s his way. He makes some monstrous proposal and you are drawn into a discussion of it and before long you find that you are talking of it as a plan you have agreed to. Anyhow, I promised to ask Miss Portisham and Miss Melbury to write their stories and Kenneth went off to join the family at lunch.

  I lingered a few minutes on the drive, from which a lawn—a patch of strong bright green in the bleached winter landscape—sloped down to the dull pewter surface of the swimming-pool. I was wondering if I had time before luncheon—which George had insisted I must take with the family—to stroll down to the pool and through the copse behind it. I noticed two figures by the edge of the pool, who moved slowly towards the path that climbs the slope and began to come up to the house—a glint of auburn hair, as well as the black frock which flicked out from under a dark coat hugged round her, identified the smaller one as Miss Portisham. Her jaunty, gaitered companion was Bingham, the chauffeur. I remembered having heard some talk of tender feelings between them and was glad to know that Miss Portisham had at least one friend in the hostile household. I abandoned my idea of a stroll because I saw an opportunity of waylaying Miss Portisham to make the request to which Kenneth had committed me.

  Note. The accounts which were written by Philip Cheriton, Hilda Wynford, Jennifer Melbury, “Aunt Mildred,” and Miss Portisham, have been used, with very little editing, to form the first five chapters of this narrative.

  Chapter Ten

  The Clue of the Glove

  by Col. Halstock

  Miss Portisham entered the hall quite buoyantly and with a little smile on her lips. When I asked her to write for me an account of the events of Christmas Day, in the manner of a story rather than as a statement of evidence, I was relieved that she didn’t seem to think the request at all unusual. I think she welcomed it as a job of some kind. I asked her not to mention it to the others. She agreed to this in a voice that implied that she wouldn’t have dreamt of doing so. She turned away and then hesitated.

  “Colonel Halstock—do you think I might have my typewriter—from the study? If it is not required, of course.”

  I went with her to fetch it. It was on the telephone table in the alcove, with its cover on, but on looking more closely at it we both saw that the cover was not properly fitted but loosely put on, slightly askew, and not latched.

  “Oh, I see!” exclaimed Miss Portisham brightly. “Perhaps Inspector Rousdon, or one of his men, has had occasion to use it and they didn’t know, of course, how to fit the cover. It’s a bit tricky if you don’t happen to know this machine. A Remington; I think they’re so good, don’t you? You see, you have to press this knob in—so; then it clicks and the cover will fit on. But I wonder if I ought to take the machine, if Inspector Rousdon is using it?”

  I thought that Mere might have been typing his notes of Witcombe’s answers, but he could borrow the machine again if he really needed it, so I told her to take it.

  “By the way,” I asked her. “When did you use it last? I suppose you always put the cover on after you had done with it?”

  “Oh yes. Sir Osmond was very particular. He didn’t like to see the machine standing uncovered. Now, let me see; I did no typing on Christmas Day, of course. Yes, it would be on Tuesday morning, when Sir Osmond dictated a few letters.”

  I asked her whether Sir Osmond ever used the typewriter. She was sure that he didn’t. She didn’t think he understood it. He dictated most of his letters, even personal ones.

  “But, of course,” she added; “I have no objection to anyone using the machine, though it really is my own. And anyone could remove the cover quite easily and work the machine. I quite understand how they didn’t manage to replace it correctly, and no harm is done. Thank you so much.”

  She had put the cover on and picked it up by the handle. Again she stood hesitating.

  “Colonel Halstock; I am in some difficulty. Really, I don’t quite know what my position is now. I am so anxious to do the right thing and what Sir Osmond would have wished, of course. Do you think that I ought to make my arrangements to leave Flaxmere as soon as possible? Really, I don’t know what I ought to do!”

  I promised her that I would speak to Sir George, but that at any rate we should need her here for some days. She trotted off, looking happier.

  They had sent a luncheon tray into the library for Rousdon, who was eating heartily. I asked him about the typewriter. He was sure that Mere hadn’t used it and he himself hadn’t touched it. One of the men, he thought, might have taken off the lid when searching the study, though that was unlikely.

  He had some news about Crewkerne, Sir Osmond’s solicitor, who had shut up his house and gone away for Christmas and whom the police had been trying to trace.

  “He’s getting back to Bristol this afternoon, cursing like hell. Says he can’t come out to see you, because he’s given his chauffeur a holiday for the rest of the week and he can’t get in touch with him and doesn’t drive himself and doesn’t think he can hire a car on Bank Holiday and doesn’t know about the buses. Full of difficulties, he was, so I told him we’d send to meet his train. But I think one of us must go. No one ought to be allowed out of this house except under supervision.”

  Envying Rousdon’s peaceful repast, I went into the dining-room, late and reluctant. The others were all at the table. It was a buffet meal, so I helped myself and found a seat between George and Dittie. It wasn’t a comfortable meal. Miss Melbury and Patricia, who were chatting confidentially at the far end of the table, eyed me coldly. During one of the many awkward gaps in the conversation, Miss Melbury’s peevish voice reached me, declaring, “—not done a thing, which means of course, dear, that the unspeakable criminal who struck down your dear father is still in our midst, red-handed. I shall not be in the least surprised if there is another terrible crime before many days are out! Well, at least I have said what I can, but of course no one will consider my warning—”

  George made a valiant but unfortunate effort to blot her out. Leaning forward, very red in the face, to Sir David who sat opposite, he blurted out: “Feel like takin’ a little air this afternoon, David? We’re to be allowed out on the drive, the Colonel tells me. We can’t get at the bunnies,
but how about a little target practice?”

  “George, you’re an ass!” said Gordon Stickland to his plate. The fall of that brick had silenced everyone again. Looking up, Gordon announced loudly, “Enid’s been taking some photographs with her new camera and now she wants someone to help her develop them in the dark room. Who’s an expert?”

  Unfortunately the dark room—which had been rigged up many years earlier, for George, in the disused dairy—had been made to serve as a mortuary, which several of those at the table knew, though Gordon didn’t. Whilst we were at lunch, Bingham and Parkins were conveying the body from that “dark room” to Sir Osmond’s bedroom. Stickland was dismayed by the awful silence, broken only by Witcombe volunteering nervously.

  “Well, I have done a bit in that line—” and letting the sentence fade out because everyone looked at him so ominously.

  Carol muttered, “Hell! This is a ghastly day! Nothing’s safe.”

  Dittie, curiously enough, seemed to be the only one with her wits about her, for it was she who began a conversation about Kenneth’s theatrical tour in the States, into which everyone who was near enough plunged with relief.

  They must be having a pretty awful time, I realized, especially as they were, most of them, not much given to intellectual occupations. They were forbidden to leave the house, except to walk up and down the drive within sight. They could find nothing to do except sit about and suspect one another.

  I finished my lunch and got up as soon as I could. Passing Kenneth on the way out I murmured that I wanted a word with him. I hung about the hall for a few minutes and soon he appeared. I told him that if Miss Melbury’s account of events was to be written he must ask her to do it. I didn’t feel that she was prepared to comply with any request made by me.