Inspector Jerrold made a very early call on the Chief Constable next morning, and found him eating his breakfast. He apologised for disturbing him, but the Colonel merely waved him to a chair, and said: “Not at all. What's your trouble? Anything serious?”
“Pretty serious, sir. Man found stabbed to death at Ashleigh Green at 1.50 this morning.”
“Good God! You don't say so! Who is it?”
“Gentleman of the name of Arnold Vereker, sir, of Riverside Cottage.”
“God bless my soul!” ejaculated the Colonel, putting down his coffee-cup. “Who did it? Any idea?”
“No, sir, none. No clues at all so far. The body was found by Constable Dickenson - in the stocks.”
“In the what?”
“Does sound odd, doesn't it, sir? But that's how it was.”
“Do you mean he was put in the stocks and then stabbed, or what?”
“It's hard to say, sir. Not much bleeding, you see: nothing on the ground. Might have been stabbed first, though why anyone should take the trouble to put the body in the stocks I can't make out. He was in evening dress, no hat or overcoat, and the only thing we've got so far that looks like helping us at all is his hands, which were dirty. Smear of motor-oil on one, inference being he'd had to change a tyre, or do some repair on a car. But his car's not there, and not at the garage either. Of course, he may have walked into the village from Riverside Cottage - it's under a mile away - but it seems a funny thing to do at that hour of night. The Doctor doesn't put the hour of the murder earlier than twelve o'clock, or thereabouts. No, it looks like he was motoring down with someone or other for the week-end. What I thought, sir, was that I should go off to Riverside Cottage first thing after seeing you to find out if he was staying there, or expected down last night. Seems to have been a gentleman with irregular sort of habits.”
“Yes, I believe so,” said the Colonel. “Didn't know him myself, but one hears things. A city man - mining interests, so I was informed. I don't fancy it's much of a case for us, Inspector. What do you feel about it?”
“Well, sir, pretty much what you do. Of course, we don't know that it wasn't a local affair, but on the face of it it doesn't look like it. I've got a man out at Ashleigh Green making inquiries, but I don't expect to get much. You know what it is out in the country, sir. Folks go to bed early, and if there wasn't any noise made, barring the car - assuming there was a car - no one would be likely to wake up - or take any notice if they were awake. The Doctor's of the opinion death must have been pretty well instantaneous. There's no sign of any struggle. Dickenson tells me this Mr Vereker was in the habit of bringing friends down from town over the week-end. What we want is his car. That might tell us something. How I look at it sir, is we'll have to get on to the Yard for information, whatever happens.”
“Quite right. Not our case at all. Still, you should certainly go to this cottage you speak of and see what you can pick up. Does he keep any servants there?”
“No, sir. There's a woman by the name of Beaton who keeps the place tidy, by what I understand, but she lives out. I'll see her of course, but I don't expect to find anyone at the Cottage. It isn't likely. But I might get a line on it.”
The Inspector was wrong. Half an hour later, when he and Constable Dickenson got out of the police car at Riverside Cottage, there were unmistakable signs that the cottage was occupied.
It was a small house of stuccoed brick and jade green shutters, standing in wooded grounds that ran down to the river. The position was what house-agents would describe as picturesque and secluded, no other house being visible in summer from any of its windows.
As the car drew up a dog started barking inside the house, and the Constable said at once: “That's funny. Mr Vereker never had a dog down here to my knowledge.”
The Inspector set his finger on the electric bell, remarking as he did so: “Might be the charwoman's. Who looks after the garden, and the electric light plant?”
“Young Beaton, sir. He comes in a couple of days a week. But he wouldn't bring his dog with him, not into the house. There's someone here all right. I can hear him moving about.”
The Inspector pressed the bell again, and was about to press it a third time when the door was opened to them by a girl with a head of burnished copper curls, and very large and brilliant dark eyes. She was wearing a man's dressing-gown of expensive-looking brocade, which was several sizes too large for her, and was chiefly occupied in keeping back a powerful bull-terrier who did not seem to view the visitors with much favour.
“Shut up you fool!” commanded the girl. “Heel! - What on earth do you want?” This last remark was addressed in a tone of considerable surprise to the Inspector.
“Inspector Jerrold, miss, from Hanborough,” said the Inspector, introducing himself. “If convenient, I should like to have a word with you.”
She looked at him frowningly. “I don't know what you want to have a word with me about, but you can come in if you like. Get back, Bill!”
The two men followed her into a square hall, decorated in a modernist style, with curtains and a carpet of cubist design, a number of tubular steel chairs, and a squat table of limed oak. The girl saw Constable Dickenson blink at it and said with a flickering smile: “You needn't think I did it.” The Constable looked at her rather quickly, involuntarily startled. “You'd better come into the kitchen. I haven't finished breakfast. The scenery's better too.” She strolled ahead of them through a door at the end of the hall into a pleasant kitchen with a tiled floor, a homely-looking dresser, and a breakfast of eggs and coffee and toast spread at one end of the large table. An electric cooker stood at one end of the room, and a small electric brazier had been attached by a long flex to the light fixture, and was switched on for the purpose of drying a linen skirt which was hung over a chair-back in front of it. The Inspector, pausing on the threshold, cast a swift, trained glance round the room. His gaze rested for a moment on the damp skirt, and travelled to the girl. She walked round the table, picking up a slice of half-eaten toast and butter from her plate in a casual way as she passed, and pulled a chair forward. “Sit down, won't you? I warn you, I shan't make any statement till I've seen my solicitor.” She looked up as she spoke, and raised her brows. “Joke,” she explained.
The Inspector smiled politely. “Yes, miss, naturally. Might I ask if you are staying here?”
“God, no!”
The Inspector glanced at the brocade dressing-gown, and looked inquiring.
“Quite right, I spent the night here,” said the girl coolly. “Anything else you'd like to know?”
“Did you come down with Mr Vereker, miss?”
“No, I didn't. I haven't seen Mr Vereker.”
“Indeed, miss? Was he not expecting you?”
A rather hard glint crept into the girl's fine eyes. “Well, everything was very nicely prepared, but I don't fancy it was on my account. But what the hell it has to do with -” She broke off, and laughed suddenly. “Oh, I see! Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a burglar - though I did get in through a window. The dressing-gown is merely borrowed till my skirt's dry.”
The Inspector directed his gaze towards the skirt. “I quite understand, miss. Must have been a bad stain, if I may say so.”
“Blood,” said the girl between sips of coffee.
Constable Dickenson gave a slight gasp. “Blood?” said the Inspector evenly.
The girl set down her cup, and met his look with a belligerent gleam in her eyes. “Just what do you want with me?” she demanded.
“I'd like to know how you came to get blood on your skirt, miss,” said the Inspector.
“Yes? Well, I should like to know what right you have to ask me that - or anything else for that matter. Get on with it! What is it you're after?”
The Inspector drew out his note-book. “There's no need to take offence, miss. We've had a little upset in these parts last night, and I have to find out one or two details. May I have your name and address, please?”
“Why?” asked the girl.
A shade of severity crept into the Inspector's voice. “You'll pardon me, miss, but you're behaving in a silly way. There's been an accident connected with this house, and it's my duty to get what information I can about it.”
“Well, you aren't likely to get much out of me,” observed the girl. “Don't know anything, My name's Antonia Vereker. Address, 3 Grayling Street, Chelsea. What the devil's the matter now?”
The Inspector had looked up quickly from his notebook. “A relation of Mr Arnold Vereker?” he said.
“Half-sister.”
The Inspector lowered his gaze to the book again, and carefully wrote down the name and address. “And you say you have not seen Mr Vereker since you came here?”
“Haven't seen him for months.”
“How long have you been here, miss?”
“Since last night. Sevenish.”
“Did you come especially to see your brother?”
“Half-brother. Of course I did. But I haven't seen him. He never turned up.”
“You were expecting him, then?”
“Look here!” said Antonia strongly. “Do you think I should have motored thirty-five miles to this place if I hadn't expected to see him?”
“No, miss. But you said a minute or two back that Mr Vereker was not expecting you. I was merely wondering how it was that with him not expecting you, and you not having seen him for months, you were sure enough of finding him here to come all that way?”
“I wasn't sure. But I know his habits. Coming here over the week-end is one of them.”
“I take it you wanted to see him urgently, miss?”
“I wanted to see him, and I still want to see him,” said Antonia.
“I'm afraid, miss, that won't be possible,” said the Inspector, getting up from his chair.
She stared at him in a smouldering way. “Oh, won't it?” she said.
“No, miss. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Mr Vereker has met with an accident.”
Her brows drew together. “Are you breaking it to me gently? You needn't bother. Is he dead, or what?”
The Inspector's manner became a shade sterner. “Yes, miss. He is dead,” he answered.
“Good lord!” said the girl. The fierce look had left her face; she glanced from one to the other of the two men. To the Constable's shocked amazement, a twinkle appeared in her eye. “I thought you were trying to run the dog in,” she remarked. “Sorry I was a trifle brusque. He had a bit of a fight last night, and a dam' fool of a woman who owned the other dog swore all sorts of vengeance on him. Is my half-brother really dead? What happened to him? Car smash?”
The Inspector had no longer any compunction in disclosing the truth. “Mr Vereker was murdered,” he said bluntly. He noticed with satisfaction that he did seem at last to have startled her a little. She lost some of her colour, and looked as though she did not know what to say. He added after a short pause: “His body was discovered in thee stocks at Ashleigh Green at one-fifty this morning.”
“His body was discovered in the stocks?” repeated the girl. “Do you mean somebody put him in the stocks and he died of fright, or exposure, or what?”
“Your half-brother, miss, died as a result of a knife thrust through the back,” said the Inspector.
“Oh!” said Antonia. “Rather beastly.”
“Yes,” said the Inspector.
She stretched out her hand mechanically towards an open box of cigarettes, and began to tap one of them on her thumb-nail. “Very nasty,” she observed. “Who did it?”
“The police have no information on that point at present, miss.”
She struck a match, and lit the cigarette. “Well, I didn't, if that's what you want to know. Have you come here to arrest me, or something?”
“Certainly not, miss. All I wish to do is to make a few inquiries. Anything you can tell me that would throw some light on -”
She shook her head. “Sorry, but I can't. We haven't been on speaking terms for months.”
“Excuse me, miss, but if that's so, how do you come to be in Mr Vereker's house now?”
“Oh, that's easy,” she replied. “He wrote me a letter which made me see red, so I came down to have it out with him.”
“May I ask if you have that letter, miss?”
“Yes, but I don't propose to show it to you, if that's what you're after. Purely personal.”
“I take it the matter was very pressing? Mr Vereker would have been in London again on Monday?”
“Well, I didn't feel like waiting till Monday,” retorted Antonia. “He wasn't in Eaton Place when I rang up, so I took a chance on his being here. He wasn't, but the beds were made up, and there was some milk and butter and eggs and things in the larder, which made it look fairly certain that he was expected, so I waited for him. When he didn't turn up at midnight I went to bed, because it seemed to be a bit late to go home again then.”
“I see. And you haven't been out of the house since - I think you said it was about seven o'clock - last night?”
“Yes, of course I've been out of the house since then,” she said impatiently. “I took the dog for a run just before I turned in. That's when he had the fight. A mangy looking retriever set on him about half a mile from here. Blood and fur all over the place. However, there was no real damage done.”
The Constable was surveying the bull-terrier, lying watchfully by the door. “You dog wasn't hurt then, miss?” he ventured.
She looked contemptous. “Hardly at all. He's a bull terrier.”
“I was only thinking, miss,” said the Constable, with a deprecating glance towards the Inspector, “that it was odd your dog wasn't bitten too.”
“You don't seem to know much about bull-terriers,” said Antonia.
“That'll do, Dickenson,” intervened the Inspector. He addressed Antonia again. “I shall have to ask you, miss, if you would come back to the Police Station with me. You'll understand that you being a relative, and in Mr Vereker's house at the time, the Chief Constable would like to have your statement, and any particulars you can give of the deceased's -”
“But I tell you I don't know anything about it,” said Antonia snappishly. “Moreover, if I'm wanted to make statements and sign things, I'll have a lawyer down to see I don't go and incriminate myself.”
The Inspector said in a measured tone. “No one wants you to do that, miss. But you must surely realise that the police are bound to want all the information they can get. You can't object to telling the Chief Constable quite simply anything you know about your brother -”
“Don't keep on calling him my brother! Half-brother!”
“I beg pardon, I'm sure. Anything you know about your half-brother, and what you yourself were doing at the time of the murder.”
“Well, I've already told you that.”
“Yes, Miss, and what I want you to do is tell it again, just in what words you please, at the Station, where it can be taken down in shorthand, and given you to read over and correct, if you like, and sign. There isn't any harm in that, is there?”
The girl stubbed the end of her cigarette into her saucer. “It seems to me there might he a lot of harm in it,” she said with paralysing frankness. “If you're going to investigate my half-brother's murder you're bound to find out quite a lot of happy little details about our family, so I might just as well tell you at the outset that I loathed the sight of Arnold, I didn't happen to murder him, but I haven't got an alibi, and, as far as I can see, things rather point my way. So if it's all the same to you - and equally if it isn't - I shan't say anything at all till I see my solicitor.”
“Very well, miss, it's just as you like. And if you'll accompany me to Hanborough you can ring your solicitor from the station.”
“Do you mean I've got to hang about in a Police Station all day?” demanded Antonia. “I'm damned if I will! I've got a luncheon engagement in town at one o'clock.”
“Well, miss,” said the Inspector placably, “I've no wish to force you into making a statement if you don't want to, but if you'd only see sense and act reasonably, I daresay the Chief Constable wouldn't see any need to detain you.”
“Have you got a warrant for my arrest?” Antonia shot at him.
“No, miss, I have not.”
“Then you can't stop me going back to Town.”
The Inspector showed signs of beginning to lose his temper. “If you go on like this much longer, miss, you'll soon see whether I can take you up to the Police Station or not!”
Antonia lifted an eyebrow, and glanced towards the “Would you like to bet on it?” she inquired.
“Come along, miss, don't be silly!” said the Inspector.
“Oh, well!” said Antonia. “After all, I do want to know who did kill Arnold. I've often said I'd like to, but I never did, somehow. Do you mind if I put on my skirt, or would you like me just as I am?”
The Inspector said he would prefer her to put on her skirt. “All right. But you'll have to clear out while I do. And while you're waiting one of you might look out Mr Giles Carrington's number in the telephone book, and get on to him for me, and tell him he's got to come down here at once, because I'm being charged with murder.”
“Nobody's charging you with anything of the sort, miss, I keep on telling you!”
“Well, you will be soon,” said Antonia, with the utmost cheerfulness.