9

nothing could have been more peaceful than the grounds and building of melfort abbey as the two men saw it that afternoon in the september sunshine. portions of the abbey were fifteenth century. it had been restored and a new wing added on to it. the new sanatorium was out of sight of the house, with grounds of its own.

sir charles and mr. satterthwaite were received by mrs. leckie, the cook, a portly lady, decorously gowned in black, who was tearful and voluble. sir charles she already knew, and it was to him she addressed most of her conversation.

“you’ll understand, i’m sure, sir, what it’s meant to me. the master’s death and all. policemen all over the place, poking their noses here and there - would you believe it, even the dustbins they had to have their noses in, and questions! - they wouldn’t have done with asking questions. oh, that i should have lived to see such a thing - the doctor, such a quiet gentleman as he always was, and made sir bartholomew, too, which a proud day it was to all of us, as beatrice and i well remember, though she’s been here two years less than i have. and such questions as that police fellow (for gentleman i will not call him, having been accustomed to gentlemen and their ways and knowing what’s what) fellow, i say, whether or no he is a superintendent - ” mrs. leckie paused, took breath and extricated herself from the somewhat complicated conversational morass into which she had fallen. “questions, that’s what i say, about all the maids in the house, and good girls they are, every one of them - not that i’d say that doris gets up when she should do in the morning. i have to speak about it at least once a week, and vickie, she’s inclined to be impertinent, but, there, with the young ones you can’t expect the training - their mothers don’t give it to them nowadays - but good girls they are, and no police superintendent shall make me say otherwise. ‘yes,’ i said to him,

‘you needn’t think i’m going to say anything against my girls. they’re good girls, they are, and as to having anything to do with murder, why it’s right-down wicked to suggest such a thing.”

mrs. leckie paused.

“mr. ellis, now - that’s different. i don’t know anything about mr. ellis, and couldn’t answer for him in any way, he having been brought from london, and strange to the place, while mr. baker was on holiday.”

“baker?” asked mr. satterthwaite.

“mr. baker had been sir bartholomew’s butler for the last seven years, sir. he was in london most of the time, in harley street. you’ll remember him, sir?” she appealed to sir charles, who nodded. “sir bartholomew used to bring him up here when he had a party. but he hadn’t been so well in his health, so sir bartholomew said, and he gave him a couple of months’ holiday, paid for him, too, in a place near the sea down near brighton - a real kind gentleman the doctor was - and he took mr. ellis on temporary for the time being, and so, as i said to that superintendent, i can’t say anything about mr. ellis, though, from all he said himself, he seems to have been with the best families, and he certainly had a gentlemanly way with him.”

“you didn’t find anything - unusual about him?” asked sir charles hopefully.

“well, it’s odd your saying that, sir, because, if you know what i mean, i did and i didn’t.”

sir charles looked encouraging, and mrs. leckie went on:

“i couldn’t exactly say what it was, sir, but there was something - ”

there always is - after the event - thought mr. satterthwaite to himself grimly. however much mrs. leckie had despised the police, she was not proof against suggestion. if ellis turned out to be the criminal, well, mrs. leckie would have noticed something.

“for one thing, he was standoffish. oh, quite polite, quite the gentleman - as i said, he’d been used to good houses. but he kept himself to himself, spent a lot of time in his own room; and he was - well, i don’t know how to describe it, i’m sure - he was, well, there was something -”

“you didn’t suspect he wasn’t - not really a butler?” suggested mr. satterthwaite.

“oh, he’d been in service, right enough, sir. the things he knew - and about well-known people in society, too.”

“such as?” suggested sir charles gently.

but mrs. leckie became vague, and non-committal. she was not going to retail servants’ hall gossip.

such a thing would have offended her sense of fitness.

to put her at her ease, mr. satterthwaite said:

“perhaps you can describe his appearance.”

mrs. leckie brightened.

“yes, indeed, sir. he was a very respectable-looking man - side- whiskers and grey hair, stooped a little, and he was growing stout - it worried him, that did. he had a rather shaky hand, too, but not from the cause you might imagine. he was a most abstemious man - not like many i’ve known. his eyes were a bit weak, i think, sir, the light hurt them - especially a bright light, used to make them water something cruel. out with us he wore glasses, but not when he was on duty.”

“no special distinguishing marks?” asked sir charles. “no scars?

or broken fingers? or birth marks?”

“oh, no, sir, nothing of that kind.”

“how superior detective stories are to life,” sighed sir charles. “in fiction there is always some distinguishing characteristic.”

“he had a tooth missing,” said mr. satterthwaite.

“i believe so, sir; i never noticed it myself.”

“what was his manner on the night of the tragedy?” asked mr. satterthwaite in a slightly bookish manner.

“well, really, sir, i couldn’t say. i was busy, you see, in my kitchen. i hadn’t time for noticing things.”

“no, no, quite so.”

“when the news came out that the master was dead we were struck all of a heap. i cried and couldn’t stop, and so did beatrice. the young ones, of course, were excited like, though very upset. mr. ellis naturally wasn’t so upset as we were, he being new, but he behaved very considerate, and insisted on beatrice and me taking a little glass of port to counteract the shock. and to think that all the time it was he - the villain - ”

words failed mrs. leckie, her eyes shone with indignation.

“he disappeared that night, i understand?”

“yes, sir, went to his room like the rest of us, and in the morning he wasn’t there. that’s what set the police on him, of course.”

“yes, yes, very foolish of him. have you any idea how he left the house?”

“not the slightest. it seems the police were watching the house all night, and they never saw him go - but, there, that’s what the police are, human like anyone else, in spite of the airs they give themselves, coming into a gentleman’s house and nosing round.”

“i hear there’s some question of a secret passage,” sir charles said.

mrs. leckie sniffed.

“that’s what the police say.”

“is there such a thing?”

“i’ve heard mention of it,” mrs. leckie agreed cautiously.

“do you know where it starts from?”

“no, i don’t, sir. secret passages are all very well, but they’re not things to be encouraged in the servants’ hall. it gives the girls ideas. they might think of slipping out that way. my girls go out by the back door and in by the back door, and then we know where we are.”

“splendid, mrs. leckie. i think you’re very wise.”

mrs. leckie bridled in the sun of sir charles’s approval.

“i wonder,” he went on, “if we might just ask a few questions of the other servants?”

“of course, sir; but they can’t tell you anything more than i can.”

“oh, i know. i didn’t mean so much about ellis as about sir bartholomew himself - his manner that night, and so on. you see, he was a friend of mine.”

“i know, sir. i quite understand. there’s beatrice, and there’s alice. she waited at table, of course.”

“yes, i’d like to see alice.”

mrs. leckie, however, had a belief in seniority. beatrice church, the upper-housemaid, was the first to appear.

she was a tall thin woman, with a pinched mouth, who looked aggressively respectable.

after a few unimportant questions, sir charles led the talk to the behaviour of the house party on the fatal evening. had they all been terribly upset? what had they said or done?

a little animation entered into beatrice’s manner. she had the usual ghoulish relish for tragedy.

“miss sutcliffe, she quite broke down. a very warm-hearted lady, she’s stayed here before. i suggested bringing her a little drop of brandy, or a nice cup of tea, but she wouldn’t hear of it. she took some aspirin, though. said she was sure she couldn’t sleep. but she was sleeping like a little child the next morning when i bought her her early tea.”

“and mrs. dacres?”

“i don’t think anything would upset that lady much.”

from beatrice’s tone, she had not liked cynthia dacres.

“just anxious to get away, she was. said her business would suffer. she’s a big dressmaker in london, so mr. ellis told us.”

a big dressmaker, to beatrice, meant “trade,” and trade she looked down upon.

“and her husband?”

beatrice sniffed.

“steadied his nerves with brandy, he did. or unsteadied them, some would say.”

“what about lady mary lytton gore?”

“a very nice lady,” said beatrice, her tone softening. “my great aunt was in service with her father at the castle. a pretty young girl she was, so i’ve always heard. poor she may be, but you can see she’s someone - and so considerate, never giving trouble and always speaking so pleasant. her daughter’s a nice young lady, too. they didn’t know sir bartholomew well, of course, but they were very distressed.”

“miss wills?”

some of beatrice’s rigidity returned.

“i’m sure i couldn’t say sir, what miss wills thought about it.”

“or what you thought about her?” asked sir charles. “come now, beatrice, be human.”

an unexpected smile dinted beatrice’s wooden cheeks. there was something appealingly schoolboyish in sir charles’s manner. she was not proof against the charm that nightly audiences had felt so strongly.

“really, sir, i don’t know what you want me to say.”

“just what you thought and felt about miss wills.”

“nothing, sir, nothing at all. she wasn’t, of course - ”

beatrice hesitated.

“go on, beatrice.”

“well, she wasn’t quite the ‘class’ of the others, sir. she couldn’t help it, i know, went on beatrice kindly. but she did things a real lady wouldn’t have done. she pried, if you know what i mean, sir, poked and pried about.”

sir charles tried hard to get this statement amplified, but beatrice remained vague. miss wills had poked and pried, but asked to produce a special instance of the poking, beatrice seemed unable to do so. she merely repeated that miss wills pried into things that were no business of hers.

they gave it up at last, and mr. satterthwaite said:

“young mr. manders arrived unexpectedly, didn’t he?”

“yes, sir, he had an accident with his car - just by the lodge gates, it was. he said it was a bit of luck its happening just here. the house was full, of course, but miss lyndon had a bed made up for him in the little study.”

“was everyone very surprised to see him?”

“oh, yes, sir, naturally, sir.”

asked her opinion of ellis, beatrice was non-committal. she’d seen very little of him. going off the way he did looked bad, though why he should want to harm the master she couldn’t imagine. nobody could.

“what was he like, the doctor, i mean? did he seem to be looking forward to the house party? had he anything on his mind?”

“he seemed particularly cheerful, sir. smiled to himself, he did, as though he had some joke on. i even heard him make a joke with mr. ellis, a thing he’d never done with mr. baker. he was usually a bit brusque with the servants, kind always, but not speaking to them much.”

“what did he say?” asked mr. satterthwaite eagerly.

“well, i forget exactly now, sir. mr. ellis had come up with a telephone message, and sir bartholomew asked him if he was sure he’d got the names right, and mr. ellis said quite sure - speaking respectful, of course. and the doctor he laughed and said, ‘you’re a good fellow, ellis, a first-class butler. eh, beatrice, what do you think?’ and i was so surprised, sir, at the master speaking like that - quite unlike his usual self - that i didn’t know what to say.”

“and ellis?”

“he looked kind of disapproving, sir, as though it was the kind of thing he hadn’t been used to. stiff like.”

“what was the telephone message?” asked sir charles.

“the message, sir? oh, it was from the sanatorium - about a patient who had arrived there and had stood the journey well.”

“do you remember the name?”

“it was a queer name, sir.” beatrice hesitated. “mrs. de rushbridger - something like that.”

“ah, yes,” said sir charles soothingly. “not an easy name to get right on the telephone. well, thank you very much, beatrice. perhaps we could see alice now.”

when beatrice had left the room sir charles and mr. satterthwaite compared notes by an interchange of glances.

“miss wills poked and pried, captain dacres got drunk, mrs. dacres displayed no emotion. anything there? precious little.”

“very little indeed,” agreed mr. satterthwaite.

“let’s pin our hopes on alice.”

alice was a demure, dark-eyed young woman of thirty. she was only too pleased to talk.

she herself didn’t believe mr. ellis had anything to do with it. he was too much the gentleman. the police had suggested he was just a common crook. alice was sure he was nothing of the sort.

“you’re quite certain he was an ordinary honest-to-god butler?”

asked sir charles.

“not ordinary, sir. he wasn’t like any butler i’ve ever worked with before. he arranged the work different.”

“but you don’t think he poisoned your master.”

“oh, sir, i don’t see how he could have done. i was waiting at table with him, and he couldn’t have put anything in the master’s food without my seeing him.”

“and the drinks?”

“he went round with the wine, sir. sherry first, with the soup, and then hock and claret. but what could he have done, sir? if there’d been anything in the wine he’d have poisoned everybody - or all those who took it. it’s not as though the master had anything that nobody else had. the same thing with the port. all the gentlemen had port, and some of the ladies.”

“the wine glasses were taken out on a tray?”

“yes, sir, i held the tray and mr. ellis put the glasses on it, and i carried the tray out to the pantry, and there they were, sir, when the police came to examine them. the port glasses were still on the table. and the police didn’t find anything.”

“you’re quite sure that the doctor didn’t have anything to eat or drink at dinner that nobody else had?”

“not that i saw, sir. in fact, i’m sure he didn’t.”

“nothing that one of the guests gave him - ”

“oh, no, sir.”

“do you know anything about a secret passage, alice?”

“one of the gardeners told me something about it. comes out in the wood where there’s some old walls and things tumbled down. but i’ve never seen any opening to it in the house.”

“ellis never said anything about it?”

“oh, no, sir, he wouldn’t know anything about it, i’m sure.”

“who do you really think killed your master, alice?”

“i don’t know, sir. i can’t believe anyone did ... i feel it must have been some kind of accident.”

“h’m. thank you, alice.”

“if it wasn’t for the death of babbington,” said sir charles as the girl left the room, “we could make her the criminal. she’s a good- looking girl ... and she waited at table ... no, it won’t do. babbington was murdered; and anyway tollie never noticed good-looking girls. he wasn’t made that way.”

“but he was fifty-five,” said mr. satterthwaite thoughtfully.

“why do you say that?”

“it’s the age a man loses his head badly about a girl - even if he hasn’t done so before.”

“dash it all, satterthwaite, i’m -er - getting on for fifty-five.”

“i know,” said satterthwaite.

and before his gentle twinkling gaze sir charles’s eyes fell. unmistakably he blushed ...