“Oh yes,” said Sloan grimly, pointing to the suit of armour. “No man could have got into this contraption on his own. I can work that much out from here.”
“I know,” said Purvis flatly. “That’s why we sent for you.”
Mrs. Pearl Fisher was sitting in the biggest kitchen Sloan had ever seen in his life.
She was by no means the only person in the room, but she contrived—by a subtle alchemy that would have done credit to some first lady of the stage—to give the impression that she was.
She was sitting at a vast deal table and she was drinking tea. Teas (2/-per head) were available to visitors in the Old Stables, but this pot was obviously on the house. It was being administered by the Housekeeper, Mrs. Morley, a lady who looked as if she had only just stopped wearing bombasine. A personage whom Sloan took to be Mr. Dillow, the butler, hovered at an appropriate distance.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever get over the shock,” Mrs. Fisher was announcing as Inspector Sloan and Crosby went in.
“The tea will help,” Mrs. Morley said drily.
Mrs. Fisher ignored this. “Sent me heart all pitter patter, it did.”
“Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Morley.
Histrionically, Mrs. Fisher laid her hand on her left chest. “It’s still galloping away.”
“Another cup of tea?” suggested Mrs. Morley.
Both ladies knew that there would be brandy and to spare in a house like this, but one of them, at least, was not prepared for it to be dispensed.
“It can bring on a nasty turn, can a sight like that,” offered Mrs. Fisher.
Mrs. Morley advised a quiet sit.
Mrs. Fisher said she thought it would be quite a while before her heart steadied down again.
Mrs. Morley said she wasn’t to think of hurrying. She was very welcome. Besides, the Police Inspector would want to hear all about it, wouldn’t he, sir?
Sloan nodded. Crosby got out his notebook.
“I shall never sleep again,” declared Mrs. Fisher. “That face; I tell you, it’ll come between me and my sleep for the rest of my born days.”
“Tell me, madam—”
“Them eyes,” she moaned. “Staring like that.”
“Quite so. Now—”
“He didn’t die today, did he?” she said. “I know that much—”
“How do you know that?”—sharply.
“He was the same colour as poor old Mr. Wilkins in our street, that’s why—”
“Mr. Wilkins?”
“Putty, that’s what he looked like when they found him.”
“Indeed?”
“Three days’ milk there was outside his house before they broke the door down,” said Mrs. Fisher reminiscently. “And he looked just like him.”
“I see.”
“In fact,” said Mrs. Fisher, seeing an advantage and taking it all in the same breath, “if it hadn’t been for my Michael there’s no knowing when you might have found the poor gentleman, is there?” She looked round her audience in a challenging manner. “It’s not as if there was any milk bottles.”
Sloan nodded. It was a good point. There had been no milk bottles outside the armoury door. Nothing that he knew of to lead to that particular suit of armour. There was indeed no knowing…
Where was Michael now?
Michael Fisher, it presently transpired, was somewhere else being sick.
“I don’t know what he’ll be like in the coach going home, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Fisher with satisfaction. “I shouldn’t wonder if we don’t have to stop.”
Maureen was despatched to retrieve Michael.
Finding the dead face had had its effect on the boy. His complexion was chalky white still, and there was a thin line of perspiration along the edge of his hair line. He looked Sloan up and down warily.
“I didn’t touch him, mister. I just lifted that front piece thing, that’s all.”
“Why?” asked Sloan mildly.
“I wanted to see inside.”
“But why that particular one? There are eight there.”
“Tell the Inspector,” intruded Mrs. Fisher unnecessarily.
“I dunno why that one.”
“Had you touched any of the others?”
Michael licked his lips. “I sort of touched them all.”
“Sort of?”
“I’m learning to box at school.”
“I see.”
“I tried to get under their guards.”
“Not too difficult surely?”
“More difficult than you’d think.” Michael Fisher’s spirit was coming back. “Those arms got in the way.”
“But you got round them in the end?”
“That’s right.”
“And this particular one—the one with the man inside…”
“It sounded different when I hit it,” admitted Michael. “Less hollow.”
“That’s why you looked?”
“Yes.”
“No other reason?”
Michael shook his head.
It was the first time in Sloan’s police career that he had ever been conducted anywhere by a butler.
“Mr. Purvis said I was to take you straight to his Lordship,” said Dillow, “as soon as his Lordship got back from the village.”
“Thank you,” murmured Sloan politely.
There was no denying that the butler was a man of considerable presence. As tall as the two policemen and graver. Sloan, who had subconsciously expected him to be old, saw that he was no more than middle-aged.
“If you would be so good as to follow me, gentlemen.”
Sloan and Crosby obediently fell in behind Dillow of the stately mien and set off on the long journey from the kitchen to what the butler referred to as the Private Apartments.
“You would have known Mr. Meredith, of course,” began Sloan as they rounded their first corridor.
“Certainly, sir. A very quiet gentleman. Always very pleasant, he was. And no trouble.”
“Really?” responded Sloan as non-committally as he could. Mr. Osborne Meredith might not have been any trouble to a butler. He was going to be a great deal of trouble to a police inspector.
This police inspector.
“He usually went home to luncheon,” said the butler. “Ah, through this way, I think, sir, if you don’t mind.”
He changed direction abruptly at the distant sound of voices. Sloan had almost forgotten the house was still full of people who had paid to see some—but by no means all—of the sights of Ornum House.
“Sometimes,” went on the butler, “he would take tea with the family, but more often than not he would be… ah… absorbed in his work and I would take him a pot to himself in the Library.”
“I shall want to see the Library presently.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And the… er… Muniments Room.”
“Certainly, sir.” Dillow had at last reached the door he wanted. He moved forward ahead of them, coughed
