Casual Alibis
Bennett pushed back his chair and turned. She had come in quietly, and was standing not far from the table. Bennett started to draw out a chair for her, before the imperturbable Thompson could move; but she shook her head.
"Is somebody accusing me," she said, "of trying to kill Marcia? And that remark about Louise. " She looked curiously at Maurice, as though she had never seen him before. "Don't you think it was rather a foul thing to say?"
She had put on what was probably the best dress in her wardrobe, as though in a sort of defiance. It was a sombre affair in gray. Momentarily her nervousness seemed almost gone, although she was twisting a handkerchief. Katharine Bohun stood with the firelight along one side of her face; and for the first time Bennett saw her clearly. She was more mature than he had thought. And in the soft, now brilliant face was a look as though she had come to a determination.
Round her neck was wound, as though carelessly, a gauze scarf that concealed bruises.
"Er-did you speak, Kate?" inquired Maurice. He was not looking at her, and seemed gently surprised. "Surely you must be aware that I am not — what shall I say? at all in the habit of discussing my assertions with anyone?"
She was trembling; biting at her lower lip; and the eyes had a hot, hard brightness as she came forward. Yet she was beaten, and seemed to know it the moment Maurice went on: "Tut! Er — extraordinarily stupid of me, I fear. It is, I see, another small mutiny. You were trying to say, — ah — 'Go to the devil,' were you not?"
The insufferable pleasure of being right, like the solving of an easy problem, made Maurice regard her with gentle satisfaction and concern. Her eyes brimmed over.
"I won't make a fool of myself!" she said breathlessly. 'I won't let you make a fool of me; again and again and — John! John, what's the. matter?"
They all turned to look. John Bohun said:
"It's all right, Kate. I'm not feeling well, that's all. Touch of something." He straightened his head from bending down, bracing himself with one hand on the table. He looked genuinely ill, and there was sweat on his forehead. The tweed coat now seemed too big for his big lean frame. "Come here, Kate. I haven't seen you since. since I got back." He held out his hand, trying to smile. "How are you, old girl? You look fit. You look different, somehow. I've got a present for you, only I haven't even unpacked my bags yet."
`But what's wrong?"
She ran over to him. He caught her under the chin and held up her head to study her the better; and, despite the twitching of the nostrils, he was smiling down apparently without a thought except for her. Bennett had a curious feeling that he was seeing the real John Bohun under a number of masks.
"Nothing's wrong, fathead. Don't let 'em frighten you, d'you hear? They've got me in rather a bad situation — but, you see, no matter what I try to prove, I'm caught out in one thing or the other. I'm bound to be hanged for something."
Masters stepped forward, and John held up his hand.
"Steady, inspector. I'm not admitting anything. I suppose there's no reason for telling or not telling; but-maybe. later. I'm going up to my room to lie down now. Don't try to stop me. You said yourself you had no official authority here yet."
There was something so intense in his manner that nobody spoke. He seemed to realize that (for the only second in his life) he was in command of a given group of people. He went rather quickly to the door, but his step slowed down as he neared it. He turned, and jerked his head towards them. He studied them.
"Well, cheer-o," said John Bohun. The door closed.
There was a silence. Bennett looked across at the placid, faintly amused countenance of Maurice; and he had to crush down a somewhat undiplomatic impulse to take Maurice and break him into rather small pieces. The impulse had been troubling him for some time. This wouldn't do. He looked across at Katharine, and started to light a cigarette; but his hands trembled.
"But what's wrong with him?" the girl cried. "There's something. ”
Bennett went over quietly, took her by the shoulders, and made her sit down. He thought that she pressed his hand. Masters had swung round again; and, if he read Masters' expression correctly, the chief inspector had much the same feeling towards the whole wild muddled business as he had himself.
Masters said heavily: "There are a number of questions I've got to ask about Mr. Bohun's doings here last night and this morning. But I think it will be necessary to get things in order. Excuse me; you are Miss Bohun? Just so. Now, to begin with."
She had been pouring out coffee, her hands trembling a little among the cups; but she did not once look across the table at Maurice.
"To begin with," she insisted, "oh, really, let me say it! This absurd notion-about Louise's trying to. That's as silly and nonsensical as anybody would be who made it." After a pause, during which they heard from Maurice a sound which in anybody else might have been a snicker, she hesitated as though she had said more than she dared. She looked at Bennett, flushing hotly. "May I give you some coffee?"
Masters' look said, "Good girl!" Aloud he said:
"I'm bound to tell you, Miss Bohun, that the same accusation was made against you. Didn't you hear me say so?" "That? Oh, that's silly too. Because I didn't; why on earth should I? — Who made it? Not-?"
Maurice had been making faint clucking sounds of mild protest. Again he touched the bridge of his nose as though puzzled; then he reached out and gently touched Katharine's hand as though in reassurance.
"Of course not, my dear; could such a thought have entered your poor little head? My dear, tut — be careful. You will have that coffee across my hand. And do you mind not rattling the cups so much? Thank you. " A benevolent smile. "I must really insist on not being misquoted, Mr. Masters. I am not aware of having made any accusation whatsoever. Let me see? What was I saying? Oh, yes. Since all those present were unlikely to have done what you suggest, it occurred to me that, in view of Miss Carewe's fairly vehement and not entirely unjustified objections to her father's possible marriage to Miss Tait, the young lady had a stronger cause for dislike than any others. I may, of course, be mistaken."
"Suppose we hear," said Masters quickly, "exactly what did happen. You, Miss Bohun; would you mind giving your account?"
"Not at all. If you'll tell me who it was that said I–I shoved her."
"It was Mr. Rainger. Eh? Does that surprise you, Miss Bohun?"
Her hand stopped in lifting the cup. Dull anger changed to a rather hysterical laughter.
"That little — ugh! Did he say that, really? Oh, I say, he would! He was the one who was going to make me a star in pictures. Yes, I understand now."
"What?"
"Our little Kate," observed Maurice vaguely, "has sound moral ideas. Sometimes. "
She kept her gaze fixed on Masters: a shining and rather hoydenish amusement mixed with the anger. "Sound moral ideas," said Katharine Bohun, with a violence of loosened breath, "be — be — d-damned! Eee! That man; that's all. Ugh! I could no more stand having him touch me than… I don't know what. Listen, I'll tell you about it, because it's a part of the story you wanted to hear. At dinner last night was where the suggestion started that my uncle should take-you know — Marcia, and the rest of us, over the house by moonlight, with my uncle carrying a candle but no lights turned on.
"Well, all through dinner, you see, this man Rainger kept looking at me. He didn't say anything. But first he'd look at Marcia, and then he'd look at me for a long time, and he'd hardly answer when anybody spoke to him. But when Marcia suggested going over the house by moonlight, he said it would be a splendid idea; something like that. He was sitting-"
her eyes wandered over towards Bennett, and a rather startled expression crept into them: instantly veiled as at some thought she did not wish seen. "Here. There; I don't remember. Anyway, what was I saying? Yes. Marcia wouldn't let the men stay at table after we'd left, and on the way through the passages to the library he came behind the others and took my arm." She began to laugh again until she had to put her handkerchief to her eyes. "I say, it was so jolly funny because you couldn't understand what the blighter was about for a minute; all he could do was sort of mutter out of the side of his mouth, `What about it, baby?' After a minute I knew what he meant from the way they always say that in the films; but I said, `What about what?' And he said, `Come off that; they understand it in the States,' in rather a tired way. And I said, `Yes, they understand it over here, too, but you've got to make your approach in a very different way if you want to get anywhere in England."'
Maurice Bohun involuntarily said, "Good God!" and Bennett, also involuntarily, said, "Great!" Maurice leaned a little forward.
"This, I think," he said, quietly, "is a really remarkable statement from you, in equally remarkable language. I shall have to take measures towards seeing that your mode of expressing yourself, either to me or to our guests"
"Oh, you go to the devil!" she said, whirling on him and blazing at him at last. "I'll say what I jolly well please!"
"No," said Maurice after a pause, and smiled gently. "You will go to your room, I think."
"Now I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Bohun," interposed Masters, in a voice of very cool sanity. "I've got no wish to interfere in, um, domestic matters. Eh? But I'm getting a bit tired of this too. This isn't a domestic matter. It's a murder case. And when it comes to ordering witnesses about. Oh, ah. Sit still, Miss Bohun. Go on, please: what were you saying?"
Maurice got to his feet. "Then perhaps you wouldn't mind," he said, his voice slightly shrill, "if my niece gave me permission to go to my room?"
"I shall want to speak to you presently, sir," said Masters urbanely. "But if your niece sees no reason — just so. Thank you"
Maurice gestured to Thompson, who swiftly picked up his gold-headed stick from the floor. Maurice was white with a smiling, deadly, lightly-sweating fury; and his eyes had the dead look of a wax-work figure's.
He said: "I confess I had never been aware that the police, those sometimes useful servants of the superior classes, were in the habit of encouraging children to talk in the fashion of — ha — sluts. I cannot, of course, allow this to pass unnoticed, on the part of either one of you. It has been my habit to enforce implicit obedience in this house, to the end that my own comfort might be maintained, and I should be foolish if I permitted the slightest imputation of that authority to pass unchallenged. Should I not?" He smiled delicately. "You will deeply regret your failure to minister to my comfort, Kate."
He bowed, and the complacency returned to his bearing as he left them.
Bennett reached over and beamingly shook hands with her.
"Now, now!" protested Masters, and stroked his ploughshare chin. "None of that, if you please. I'm a police officer, and I'm here on a definite job. I " He tried to keep impassive, but a grin broke over his face. Peering over his shoulder, Masters added in a low voice, "Lummy, you did put the old man's back up, Miss! Hum. Hurrum! Just so."
"Nice work, inspector," said Bennett affably. "Good old C.I.D. If you were a Maypole, we'd both dance around you."
Masters pointed out that he was not a Maypole. The idea seemed to make him uncomfortable, and he insisted on Katharine continuing with her story.
"There isn't much, really," she insisted, still a little fearfully and with a nervous color in her cheeks as she seemed to reflect what she had said. "I mean, about that man Rainger. He said he would put me in the films, and seemed to think that was all anybody in the world could want. Then he reached down and-nothing." She shifted in her chair. "It was a bit dark there, but the others were close ahead of us; and the only thing I could do without being noticed was to stamp down hard on his foot. That was all the attention he paid to me, because I hurried up and took Jervis Willard's arm. He didn't say anything more; he kept talking to Louise. But I didn't think he'd be liar enough to say that I…"
She went on rapidly to describe the incident on the secret staircase in King Charles's room, and it agreed with the description Bennett had already heard from Willard.
"because I don't think, really, that the pushing was intentional. Marcia said it wasn't; and she would know, wouldn't she?"
"Um. Possibly. Then there were six of you at the top of the stairs: yourself, Miss Tait, Miss Carewe, and the three men; eh? Just so. How were you standing? Who was behind her, for instance?"
"I was. But I don't know about the others; it's a little space, and everybody was pushing about. Besides, there was only that little candle."
"Oh, ah; the candle. How did it come to go out?"
"The draught. Really it was! There's a strong draught blowing through there from the door downstairs when you
open the bedroom door."
"Yes. And afterwards?"
"Well — nothing. The sight-seeing party broke up. They all looked rather quiet and queer; but nobody said anything. That was some little time after eleven o'clock. Marcia was the only one who was as gay as ever. Louise and I were sent to bed by uncle. The rest of them went downstairs; I know they went out to the pavilion afterwards, because my bedroom window was open and I heard them."
"And none of you," said Masters, knocking his fist into his palm, "none of you saw anything at all odd in this?'
"No! Why should we? Marcia said… and she rather — I don't know how to express it ruled us. She was so attractive that you almost shivered when you looked at her; that dark skin and bright eyes and the way she dressed and everything. She had on a gown that my uncle would have killed me if I'd worn, but, I say, it was. And she was being very motherly towards me." The long eyelashes lowered a little, speculatively. "I think she heard what that man Rainger said to me."
"Yes?"
"Because she turned round. Then she dropped a silver brocade cloak she was wearing (lovely thing), and he jumped to pick it up. Then she looked at him in a funny way and said something."
"Did Miss Tait — um — did she seem to mind?'
"Mind? Oh, I see. Why, I fancy she did," Katharine replied with candor. "She usually did, you know. He said, 'Do you mean it?"'
"Beats me…" said Masters, in dull incredulity and half aloud. He scowled. "Now there's nothing else about that staircase business; nothing you can remember; nothing at all? Please think. Everything!"
She passed the back of her hand across her forehead. "N — no. Nothing. The only other thing was that I went down to unlock the door at the foot of the stairs for my uncle John, so that he'd find it open when he got home. But that was after the-the accident happened. When he comes in late, he always uses that door; because, you see, it opens on the side porch and he doesn't have to come up through the house."
She picked up the cup again and forced herself to drink scalding coffee.
"Everything was wrong. I was going to meet John last night, no matter how late it was, after all that time he'd been in America. And yet I didn't, after all. When I heard Tempest barking at half-past one, I thought it must be for John coming home. But it wasn't. I got up and went to his room, and down the staircase to meet him… but nobody drove in."
Although Masters kept a bland face, his hands tightened on the edge of the table. Shadows of moving clouds passed across the dusky room. In the stillness they could hear the falling rattle of the fire.
"Just so. You're sure, now," said Masters suddenly, and cleared his throat; "you're positive that he didn't come in at that time? Be careful, Miss. It may prove very important."
"Of course I'm sure. I went down and looked out on the drive… Why? What is it? Why are you looking so queer?"
"Ah! Nothing, Miss, nothing; only that somebody told us he got back at one-thirty. He couldn't have driven down to the garage, maybe, so that you missed him?"
"No, of course not. I should have seen him. Besides, his car's in the drive this morning. I thought it was odd then, because the light was on in his room; but he wasn't there.. It isn't something against him, is it?" I haven't told something I shouldn't, have I? Tell me!"
"On the contrary, Miss. Don't be uneasy about that. But you don't know what time he did get here, do you?"
"No. I fell asleep. Besides" she hesitated.
"Go on!"
"Well, when I was coming back from his room after I knew he hadn't come in, I was going along the gallery, and I saw that man Rainger come upstairs… "
"So?" inquired Masters, pinching at his lip. "A very rummy chap, that gentleman, I repeat. I don't mind informing you, Miss, that he told us this: He said that after they had gone out to see Miss Tait into the pavilion-which would be at a little past twelve — he and Mr. Maurice Bohun returned to the library. He said that sat there talking books or the like for at least two hours. He said that they heard the dog barking, and both of them believed. it to be Mr. John Bohun returning at half-past one. Two hours would mean that they presumably stopped in the library until after two o'clock. Very well. Now you tell us, Miss, that you went down to your uncle's room at half-past one; and, as you were returning, how long afterwards…?"
"A few minutes. Not long. But it's true!"
"A few minutes afterwards, you saw Mr. Rainger coming upstairs. Where was he going?"
"To his room. I saw him go in. You see, I hurried straightaway for my room; because I was — well, rather undressed, and I thought he might be-"
"Exactly. Well?"
"He wasn't. He called out to me, `You can forget what I said tonight,' in a nasty but rather a triumphant way; he said, `I've got better business.' And he slammed the door of his room." She brushed Rainger aside, with a violence of impatience; she pushed the heavy brown hair back behind her ears and leaned forward with her hands clenched. "But this other thing. What are you thinking about John?'
Masters took a deep breath. "You needn't be surprised to hear, Miss, that among Mr. Rainger's other remarks was an accusation of murder. Now, now! Steady, Miss. Fine lot of witnesses. Rainger's case, a matter of snowfall, rests on Mr. Bohun's arriving back here half an hour before the snow stopped. But if we only knew what time he did get back…"
A pewter dish-cover rattled on the sideboard. Somebody coughed.
"Excuse me, sir," said Thompson's voice. "May I speak?" His expression was worried but determined; he seemed less hostile towards Masters.
"I know I shouldn't be here," he said. "I hear things. But I've been in this house for a long time, and they let me. I can tell you positively the time Mr. John came home last night; and my wife was awake too, and she'll tell you the same thing."
"Well?"
"He returned at a little past three o'clock, sir. At just the time he told you he did. Tempest was barking because of something else."