Spider's Web Part 2

"I didn't mean any harm," Elgin protested. "I've got my living to earn "

The Inspector interrupted him again. "At the moment, I'm not interested in fake references," he told the butler. "I want to know what happened here tonight, and what you know about Mr. Costello."

"I'd never set eyes on him before," Elgin insisted. Looking around at the hall door, he continued, "But I've got a good idea of why he came here."

"Oh, and what is that?" the Inspector wanted to know.

"Blackmail," Elgin told him. "He had something on her."

"By 'her,'" said the Inspector, "I a.s.sume you mean Mrs. Hailsham-Brown."

"Yes," Elgin continued eagerly. "I came in to ask if there was anything more she wanted, and I heard them talking."

"What did you hear exactly?"

"I heard her say 'But that's blackmail. I won't submit to it.'" Elgin adopted a highly dramatic tone as he quoted Clarissa's words.

"Hm!" the Inspector responded a little doubtfully. "Anything more?"

"No," Elgin admitted. "They stopped when I came in, and when I went out they dropped their voices."

"I see," the Inspector commented. He looked intently at the butler, waiting for him to speak again.

Elgin got up from his chair. His voice was almost a whine as he pleaded, "You won't be hard on me, sir, will you? I've had a lot of trouble one way and another."

The Inspector regarded him for a moment longer, and then said dismissively, "Oh, that will do. Get out."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Elgin responded quickly as he made a hasty exit into the hall.

The Inspector watched him go and then turned to the Constable. "Blackmail, eh?" he murmured, exchanging glances with his colleague.

"And Mrs. Hailsham-Brown such a nice-seeming lady," the Constable observed with a somewhat prim look.

"Yes, well, one never can tell," the Inspector replied. He paused, and then ordered curtly, "I'll see Mr. Birch now." The Constable rose, went over to the library door, and opened it, calling, "Mr. Birch, please."

Hugo came through the library door, looking dogged and rather defiant. The Constable closed the door behind him and took a seat at the table, while the Inspector greeted Hugo pleasantly. "Come in, Mr. Birch," he invited. "Sit down here, please," he suggested, indicating a chair by the bridge table.

Hugo sat, and the Inspector continued, "This is a very unpleasant business, I'm afraid, sir. What have you to tell us about it?"

Slapping his spectacle case on the table, Hugo replied defiantly, "Absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?" queried the Inspector, sounding surprised.

"What do you expect me to say?" Hugo expostulated. "The blinking woman snaps open the blinking cupboard, and out falls a blinking corpse." He gave a snort of impatience. "Took my breath away," he declared. "I've not got over it yet." He glared at the Inspector. "It's no good asking me anything," he said firmly, "because I don't know anything about it."

The Inspector regarded Hugo steadily for a moment before asking, "That's your statement, is it? Just that you know nothing at all about it?"

"I'm telling you," Hugo repeated. "I didn't kill the fellow." Again he glared defiantly. "I didn't even know him."

"You didn't know him," the Inspector repeated. "Very well. I'm not suggesting that you did know him. I'm certainly not suggesting that you murdered him. But I can't believe that you 'know nothing,' as you put it. So let's collaborate to find out what you do know. To begin with, you'd heard of him, hadn't you?"

"Yes," snapped Hugo, "and I'd heard he was a nasty bit of goods."

"In what way?" the Inspector asked calmly.

"Oh, I don't know," Hugo bl.u.s.tered. "He was the sort of fellow that women liked and men had no use for. That sort of thing."

The Inspector paused before asking carefully, "You've no idea why he should come back to this house a second time this evening?"

"Not a clue," replied Hugo dismissively.

The Inspector took a few steps around the room, then turned abruptly to face Hugo. "Was there anything between him and the present Mrs. Hailsham-Brown, do you think?" he asked.

Hugo looked shocked. "Clarissa? Good Lord, no! Nice girl, Clarissa. Got a lot of sense. She wouldn't look twice at a fellow like that."

The Inspector paused again, and then said finally, "So you can't help us."

"Sorry. But there it is," replied Hugo with an attempt at nonchalance.

Making one last effort to extract at least a crumb of information from Hugo, the Inspector asked, "Had you really no idea that the body was in that recess?"

"Of course not," replied Hugo, now sounding offended.

"Thank you, sir," said the Inspector, turning away from him.

"What?" queried Hugo vaguely.

"That's all, thank you, sir," the Inspector repeated, going to the desk and picking up a huge red book that lay on it.

Hugo rose, picked up his spectacle case, and was about to go across to the library door when the Constable got up and barred his way. Hugo then turned towards the French windows, but the Constable said, "This way, Mr. Birch, please," and went to the hall door. Giving up, Hugo went out by the hall door, which the Constable closed after him.

The Inspector carried his huge red book over to the bridge table and sat consulting it, as the Constable commented satirically, "Mr. Birch was a mine of information, wasn't he? Mind you, it's not very nice for a J. P. to be mixed up in a murder."

The Inspector began to read aloud. "'Delahaye, Sir Rowland Edward Mark, KCB, MVO '"

"What have you got there?" the Constable asked. He peered over the Inspector's shoulder. "Oh, Who's Who."

The Inspector went on reading. "'Educated Eton... Trinity College...' Um! 'Attached Foreign Office-second Secretary... Madrid... Plenipotentiary.'"

"Ooh!" the Constable exclaimed at this last word.

The Inspector gave him an exasperated look and continued, "'Constantinople Foreign Office special commission rendered; Clubs: Boodles, Whites.'"

"Do you want him next, sir?" the Constable asked.

The Inspector thought for a moment. "No," he decided. "He's the most interesting of the lot, so I'll leave him till the last. Let's have young Warrender in now."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE CONSTABLE went back to the library door and called, "Mr. Warrender, please."

Jeremy came in, attempting rather unsuccessfully to look completely at his ease. The Constable closed the library door and resumed his seat at the table, while the Inspector half-rose and pulled out a chair from the bridge table for Jeremy.

"Sit down," he ordered somewhat brusquely as he resumed his seat. Jeremy sat, and the Inspector asked formally, "Your name?"

"Jeremy Warrender."

"Address?"

"Three hundred and forty Broad Street, and thirty-four Grosvenor Square," Jeremy told him, trying to sound nonchalant. He glanced across at the Constable, who was writing all this down, and added, "Country address, Hepplestone, Wiltshire."

"That sounds as though you're a gentleman of independent means," the Inspector commented.

"I'm afraid not," Jeremy admitted with a smile. "I'm private secretary to Sir Kenneth Thomson, the Chairman of Saxon-Arabian Oil... Those are his addresses."

The Inspector nodded. "I see," he remarked. "How long have you been with him?"

"About a year. Before that, I was personal a.s.sistant to Mr. Scott Agius for four years."

"Ah, yes," said the Inspector. "He's that wealthy businessman in the City, isn't he?" He thought for a moment before going on to ask, "Did you know this man, Oliver Costello?"

"No, I'd never heard of him till tonight," Jeremy told him.

"And you didn't see him when he came to the house earlier this evening?" the Inspector continued.

"No," Jeremy replied. "I'd gone over to the golf club with the others. We were dining there, you see. It was the servants' night out, and Mr. Birch had asked us to dine with him at the club."

The Inspector nodded his head. After a pause, he asked, "Was Mrs. Hailsham-Brown invited, too?"

"No, she wasn't," said Jeremy.

The Inspector raised his eyebrows, and Jeremy hurried on. "That is," he explained, "she could have come if she'd liked."

"Do you mean," the Inspector asked him, "that she was asked, then? And she refused?"

"No, no," Jeremy replied hurriedly, sounding as though he was getting rattled. "What I mean is well, Hailsham-Brown is usually quite tired by the time he gets down here, and Clarissa said they'd just have a scratch meal here, as usual."

The Inspector looked confused. "Let me get this clear," he said rather snappily. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown expected her husband to dine here? She didn't expect him to go out again as soon as he came in?"

Jeremy was now quite definitely fl.u.s.tered. "I er well er really, I don't know," he stammered. "No now that you mention it, I believe she did say he was going to be out this evening."

The Inspector rose and took a few paces away from Jeremy. "It seems odd, then," he observed, "that Mrs. Hailsham-Brown should not have come out to the club with the three of you, instead of remaining here to dine all by herself."

Jeremy turned on his chair to face the Inspector. "Well er well," he began, and then, gaining confidence, continued quickly, "I mean, it was the kid Pippa, you know. Clarissa wouldn't have liked to go out and leave the kid all by herself in the house."

"Or perhaps," the Inspector suggested, emphasising his words to make them sound very significant, "perhaps she was making plans to receive a visitor of her own?"

Jeremy rose to his feet. "I say, that's a rotten thing to suggest," he exclaimed hotly. "And it isn't true. I'm sure she never planned anything of the kind."

"Yet Oliver Costello came here to meet someone," the Inspector pointed out. "The two servants had the night off. Miss Peake has her own cottage. There was really no one he could have come to the house to meet except Mrs. Hailsham-Brown."

"All I can say is..." Jeremy began. Then, turning away, he added limply, "Well, you'd better ask her."

"I have asked her," the Inspector informed him.

"What did she say?" asked Jeremy, turning back to face the police officer.

"Just what you say," the Inspector replied suavely.

Jeremy took a chair at the bridge table. "There you are, then," he observed.

The Inspector took a few steps around the room, his eyes on the floor as though deep in thought. Then he turned back to face Jeremy. "Now tell me," he queried, "just how you all happened to come back here from the club. Was that your original plan?"

"Yes," Jeremy replied, but then quickly changed his answer. "I mean, no."

"Which do you mean, sir?" the Inspector queried smoothly.

Jeremy took a deep breath. "Well," he began, "it was like this. We all went over to the club. Sir Rowland and old Hugo went straight into the dining-room and I came in a bit later. It's all a cold buffet, you know. I'd been knocking b.a.l.l.s about until it got dark, and then well, somebody said 'Bridge, anyone?' and I said, 'Well, why don't we go back to the Hailsham-Browns's where it's more cosy, and play there?' So we did."

"I see," observed the Inspector. "So it was your idea?"

Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't remember who suggested it first," he admitted. "It may have been Hugo Birch, I think."

"And you arrived back here when?"

Jeremy thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "I can't say exactly," he murmured. "We probably left the clubhouse just a bit before eight."

"And it's what?" the Inspector wondered. "Five minutes' walk?"

"Yes, just about that. The golf course adjoins this garden," Jeremy answered, glancing out of the window.

The Inspector went across to the bridge table and looked down at its surface. "And then you played bridge?"

"Yes, " Jeremy confirmed.

The Inspector nodded his head slowly. "That must have been about twenty minutes before my arrival here," he calculated. He began to walk slowly around the table. "Surely you didn't have time to complete two rubbers and start" he held up Clarissa's marker so that Jeremy could see it "a third?"

"What?" Jeremy looked confused for a moment, but then said quickly, "Oh, no. No. That first rubber must have been yesterday's score."

Indicating the other markers, the Inspector remarked thoughtfully, "Only one person seems to have scored."

"Yes," Jeremy agreed. "I'm afraid we're all a bit lazy about scoring. We left it to Clarissa."