The Stately Home Murder

reason.

“And, Sloan, if you had got on to him quicker then this wouldn’t have happened…”

“No, sir. Dr. Dabbe says that’s not so. He thinks he was killed as soon as he got to the House.”

“Just after Bloggs lost him,” pointed out Leeyes inexorably.

“It means, sir, that someone was ready for him.”

“I know that, Sloan. You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, sir.”

“Ready and waiting,” snapped Leeyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“With”—on a rising note—“three able-bodied policemen actually in the house at the time.”

“Yes, sir.” It was no good explaining that Ornum wasn’t a house but a House, that it wasn’t a two up and two down jerry-builder’s delight. Or that medieval dungeons were sound-proofed as a careless in-built extra.

“That doesn’t make it look any better on paper either,” grumbled Leeyes.

“No, sir.” Nothing could make that poor distorted face look any better now either, Sloan knew that.

William Murton, half gentleman, half painter, father but not husband, nephew but never heir, penniless but never properly penurious, had gone to another world where presumably all things were wholly good or wholly bad.

“And who killed him, Sloan? Tell me that.”

Sloan backtracked. “Up until this afternoon, sir, we had four suspects for the murder of Mr. Osborne Meredith. William Murton was one of them.”

“We are not, I hope,” remarked Leeyes coldly, “playing elimination games.”

“No, sir. Leaving out Murton…”

“Suicides don’t strangle themselves as a rule.”

“Quite so, sir”—hastily. “As you say, leaving out Murton we would have had three suspects for the first murder.”

Sloan wasn’t a bardolator—wouldn’t even have known the meaning of the word—but he had once been to see a performance of Macbeth. It had been the insouciant irony of the cast list that he had remembered, could quote to this day:

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldier, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.

Give or take a soldier or two he reckoned they’d got the lot at Ornum today.

First and Second Murderers, there had been in the play?

Was there going to prove to have been a First Murderer for Osborne Meredith and a Second Murderer for William Murton? Doubtful.

Or a First and Second Murderer for each as in the play?

A husband and wife? That most committing of all partnerships at law. My wife and I are one and I am he, the books said. With Miles and Laura Cremond it would be the other way round. There was no doubt there who wore the kilt.

Three suspects were two too many for Superintendent Leeyes and he said so.

“Can’t you do better than that, Sloan?”

“Not at the moment, sir. Miss Gertrude Cremond, Mr. and Mrs. Miles Cremond, and Dillow could all have committed the first murder.”

“And which did?”

“I don’t know, sir. Of course, the second murder puts a different complexion on things…”

As soon as the word was out of his mouth Sloan wished he had chosen another one instead.

Any word but complexion.

William Murton’s had been hideous. A mottled reddish-blue with swollen tongue protuberant between discoloured lips.

Dr. Dabbe, recalled at great speed from Berebury, had been terse.

“Strangulation,” he had said at his first glance. “Not more than two hours ago at the outside. Something thin pulled over his head from behind and then tightened. I don’t know what. I’ll have to tell you later.”

Sloan didn’t know what either. The instrument of death had disappeared between swollen, engorged folds of skin. He hadn’t realised the frightening vulnerability of the human neck. That a large and powerful young man like William Murton could be done to death with a quick twist of something thin round the throat seemed all wrong.

After luncheon.

Everyone in the house had dispersed after luncheon. Sloan had established that easily enough.

Then what?

Enter First Murderer for Second Murder?

“And why kill him anyway?” The Superintendent’s question came charging into his train of thought.

“I don’t know…” began Sloan—and stopped.

He did know.

Something at the back of his mind told him.

It teased his subconscious. Still nominally listening to Superintendent Leeyes, he flipped back the pages of his notebook. Somewhere this morning—it couldn’t only have been this morning surely—it seemed aeons ago—William Murton had said something to him which…

He found the place in his notebook.

“I don’t,” William Murton had said, and he, Sloan, had written down, “earn my keep like Cousin Gertrude cleaning chandeliers for dear life. I’m a sponger.”

How did William Murton, who was supposed not to have come up to Ornum House at all on Friday, know that Cousin Gertrude had been cleaning a chandelier all day? Something must have put it into his mind.

Not just “a chandelier,” of course, but the Great Hall chandelier.

That same Great Hall where towards evening the ancient and ageing Lady Alice Cremond had seen what she fondly took to be the ghost of her long departed ancestor, Judge Cremond.

To know that Cousin Gertrude had been cleaning the chandelier one would have had either to see her doing it or see the pieces of crystal on the table and know that this was one of the duties arrogated to herself by the formidable Miss Cremond. Or, perhaps, as a very long shot, have talked to someone who had mentioned it.

But if William Murton had been in the House on Friday after all, why hadn’t he said so?

There was one simple and very sinister to that question. Was it because William Murton had seen that same figure and not only known it not to have been Judge Cremond but had—dangerously—recognised it?

“A pikestaff…” Superintendent Leeyes was saying.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Cousin Gertrude was as plain as a pikestaff; was that what he meant?

“A pikestaff,” repeated Leeyes irritably. “Was he killed with something fancy from the armoury?”

“No, sir,” dully. “The armoury’s locked. It’ll have been something more modern than that.”

Dr. Dabbe still hadn’t established what by the time Sloan got back to the oubliette.

It was a macabre setting for murder. Death went well with bare stone and it was the little crowd of modern men who looked incongruous.

Crosby was there and a considerably shaken Bert Hackle. He it had been who had led the police search party to this part of the House, who had given a quick jerk at the oubliette grating without considering for a single second that there might be anything at all within—still less the crumpled heap that had been William Murton.

The Reverend Walter Ames was somehow also of this party. Sloan didn’t know whether he hadn’t gone home after this morning or had gone and come back again and he was too busy to care.

Dr. Dabbe was still the central figure in the drama with the others playing supporting roles. Doctors, realised Sloan, were like that.

All three professions had something to tell the police inspector.

Rather like The Ballad of Reading Gaol, thought Sloan, who in his day had been