The Loudwater Mystery Part 13

"That I can't say at all. But she has a bedroom to herself," said Mrs.

Carruthers. "Besides, if she had talked to any of the others, they would have told you about it."

"Yes; there is that. I think it would be a good thing if you were to give her a hint to keep it to herself. It may have no bearing whatever on the crime. It's not probable that it has. But it's the kind of thing to set people talking and do both Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey a lot of harm."

"I will give her a hint at once," said Mrs. Carruthers, rising. "But the unfortunate thing is that if Twitcher doesn't talk, this young fellow Roper will. And, really, Lord Loudwater gave her ladyship quite enough trouble and unhappiness when he was alive without giving her more now that he's dead."

"I may be able to induce William Roper to hold his tongue," said Mr.

Flexen dryly. "Certainly his talking cannot do any good in any case. And I have gathered that Lady Loudwater has suffered quite enough already from her husband."

"I'm sure she has; and I do hope you will be able to keep that young man quiet," said Mrs. Carruthers, moving towards the door. As she opened it, she paused and said: "Will you be here to lunch, Mr. Flexen?"

"To lunch and probably all the afternoon." He hesitated and added: "It would be rather an advantage if I could sleep here, too. I do not think that I shall need to look much further than the Castle for the solution of this problem, though there's no telling. At any rate, I should like to have exhausted all the possibilities of the Castle before I leave it. And if I'm on the spot, I shall probably exhaust them much more quickly."

"Oh, that can easily be arranged. I'll see her ladyship about it at once," said Mrs. Carruthers quickly.

"And would you ask her if she feels equal to seeing me yet?"

"Certainly, Mr. Flexen; and if she does, I'll let you know at once," she said and went through the door.

Mr. Flexen was considering the new facts she had given him, when about three minutes later Inspector Perkins returned; and Mr. Flexen bade him find William Roper and bring him to him without delay. The inspector departed briskly. He was not used to having the inquiry into a crime conducted by the Chief Constable himself; but Mr. Flexen had impressed the conviction on him that it was work which he thoroughly understood.

Moreover, he had been appointed acting Chief Constable of the district during the absence of Major Arbuthnot, on the ground of his many years'

experience in the Indian Police. Also, the inspector realized that this was, indeed, an exceptional case worthy of the personal effort of any Chief Constable. He could not remember a case of the murder of a peer; they had always seemed to him a cla.s.s immune from anything more serious than ordinary a.s.sault. He was pleased that Mr. Flexen was conducting the inquiry himself, for he did not wish Scotland Yard to deal with it. Not only would that cast a slur on the capacity of the police of the district, but he was sure that he himself would get much more credit for his work, if he and Mr. Flexen were successful in discovering the murderer, than he would get if a detective inspector from Scotland Yard were in charge of the case. Such a detective inspector might or might not earn all the credit, but he would certainly know how to get it and probably insist on having it.

He had not been gone a minute when Elizabeth Twitcher came into the dining-room, said that her ladyship would be pleased to see Mr. Flexen, and led him upstairs to her sitting-room.

He found Olivia paler than her wont, but quite composed. She had lost her nervous air, for she had perceived very clearly that it would be dangerous, indeed, to display the anxiety which was hara.s.sing her. It was only natural that she should appear upset by the shock, but not that she should appear in any way fearful.

Mr. Flexen had been told that Lady Loudwater was pretty, but he had not been prepared to find her as charming a creature as Olivia. He made up his mind at once to do the best he could to save her from the trouble that the gossip about her and Colonel Grey would surely bring upon her--if always he were satisfied that neither of them had a hand in the crime. Looking at Olivia, nothing seemed more unlikely than that she should be in any way connected with it. But he preserved an open mind. As such reasons go, she was not without reasons, substantial reasons, for getting rid of her husband, and she appeared to him to be a creature of sufficiently delicate sensibilities to feel that husband's brutality more than most women. At the same time he found it hard to conceive of her using that fatal knife herself. Yet the knife is most frequently the womanly weapon.

For her part, Olivia liked his face; but she had an uneasy feeling that he would go further than most men in solving any problem with which he set his mind to grapple.

They greeted one another; he sat down in a chair facing the light, though he would have preferred that Olivia should have faced it, and expressed his concern at the trouble which had befallen her.

Then he said: "I came to see you, Lady Loudwater, in the hope that you might be able to throw some light on this deplorable event."

"I don't think I can," said Olivia gently. "But of course, if I can do anything to help you find out about it I shall be very pleased to try."

She looked at him with steady, candid eyes that deepened his feeling that she had had no hand in the crime.

"And, of course, I'll make it as little distressing for you as I can,"

he said. "Do you know whether your husband had anything worrying him--any serious trouble of any kind which would make him likely to commit suicide?"

"Suicide? Egbert?" cried Olivia, in a tone of such astonishment that, as far as Mr. Flexen was concerned, the hypothesis of suicide received its death-blow. "No. I don't know of anything which would have made him commit suicide."

"Of course he had no money troubles; but were there any domestic troubles which might have unhinged his mind to that extent?" said Mr. Flexen.

He wished to be able to deal with the hypothesis of suicide, should it be put forward.

Olivia did not answer immediately. She was thinking hard. The possibility that her husband had committed suicide, or that any one could suppose that he had committed suicide, had never entered her head. She perceived, however, that it was a supposition worth encouraging. At the same time, she must not seem eager to encourage it.

"But they told me that he'd been murdered," she said.

"We cannot exclude any possibility from a matter like this, and the possibility of suicide must be taken into account," said Mr. Flexen quickly. "You don't know of any domestic trouble which might have induced Lord Loudwater to make an end of himself?"

"No, I don't know of one," said Olivia firmly. "But, of course, he was sometimes quite mad."

"Mad?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Yes, quite. I told him so last night--just before dinner. He was quite mad. He said that I had kissed a friend of ours--at least he was a friend of both of us till he quarrelled with my husband some weeks ago--in the East wood. He raged about it, and declared he was going to start a divorce action. But I didn't take much notice of it. He was always falling into dreadful rages. There was one at breakfast about my cat and another at lunch about the wine. He fancied it was corked."

Olivia had perceived clearly that since Elizabeth Twitcher had been a witness of her husband's outburst about Grey, it would be merely foolish not to be frank about it.

"But the last matter was very much more serious than the matter of the cat or the wine," said Mr. Flexen. "You don't think that your husband brooded on it for the rest of the evening and worked himself up into a dangerous frame of mind?"

Olivia hesitated. She was quite sure that her husband had done nothing of the kind, for if he had worked himself up into a dangerous frame of mind he would a.s.suredly have made some effort to get at her and give some violent expression to it. But she said:

"That I can't say. I wish I'd gone down to dinner--now. But I was too much annoyed. I dined in my boudoir. I'd had quite enough unpleasantness for one day. Perhaps one of the servants could tell you. They may have noticed something unusual in him--perhaps that he was brooding."

"Wilkins did say that Lord Loudwater seemed upset at dinner, and that he was frowning most of the meal," said Mr. Flexen.

"That wasn't unusual," said Olivia somewhat pathetically. "Besides--"

She stopped short, on the very verge of saying that she was sure that those frowns cleared from her husband's face before the sweets, for he would never take afternoon tea, in order to have a better appet.i.te for dinner, and consequently was wont to begin that meal in a tetchy humour.

Such an explanation would have gone no way to support the hypothesis of suicide. Instead of making it she said:

"Of course, he did seem frightfully upset."

"But you don't think that he was sufficiently upset to do himself an injury?" said Mr. Flexen.

Olivia had formed a strong impression that her husband would not in any circ.u.mstance do himself an injury; it was his part to injure others.

But she said:

"I can't say. He might have gone on working himself up all the evening. I didn't see him after he left my dressing-room. It was there he made the row--while I was dressing for dinner."

Mr. Flexen paused; then he said: "Mr. Manley tells me that Lord Loudwater used to sleep every evening after dinner. Do you think that he was too upset to go to sleep last night?"

"Oh, dear no! I've known him go to sleep in his smoking-room after a much worse row than that!" cried Olivia.

"With you?" said Mr. Flexen quickly.

"No; with Hutchings--the butler," said Olivia.

"But that wouldn't be such a serious matter--not one to brood upon," said Mr. Flexen.

"I suppose not," said Olivia readily.

Mr. Flexen paused again; then he said in a somewhat reluctant tone: "There's another matter I must go into. Have you any reason to believe that there was any other woman in Lord Loudwater's life--anything in the nature of an intrigue? It's not a pleasant question to have to ask, but it's really important."

"Oh, I don't expect any pleasantness where Lord Loudwater is concerned,"