It took him twenty - five seconds to find it, in the shadow of the little arbour. It lay there, huddled grotesquely. The path from it to the gallows was unobstructed, so that it might have been carelessly tossed or kicked there. Roger knelt down to examine it and found that it was headless. It was a minute or two before he found the ball of plaited straw which had served as the head, lying in a gully on the way down to the sun parlour. He wondered how it had got there.
But chiefly he was wondering whether the figure had fallen down or had been torn down. The answer to that question might be quite significant; but Roger did not see how an answer could possibly be obtained. The few wisps at the top of the trunk were no indication either way.
Well, what did it matter? He was only wasting time playing at being a detective till the real police should arrive, trying to be cleverer with the facts than the facts themselves would allow. Coincidences, and far worse coincidences too, had occurred in the history of crime before now. Undoubtedly Ena Stratton had committed suicide - and a very good thing for all concerned, that hagridden lady herself included. And that was that, and he would go downstairs again and behave like a reasonable being and have another tankard of beer before the police came.
He walked quickly over to the house door. Nevertheless something caused him to stop there and turn back for a last look across the roof: some remnant that had refused to be stifled of that extra sense of his which automatically rejected the improbable in human nature, however plausibly probable argument might make it. His hands in his pockets, he stood still and let his eyes move very slowly over the whole space before him, as if to give them one last chance to pick out any detail to which they had been blind before.
It was then that Roger decided, with an incredulous shock, that his powers were waning. For the detail on which his eyes alighted was no insignificant one, but a glaring, enormous, whitewashed elephant of a detail. It was no less than the fallen chair off which he himself had stepped.
Not till then did he realize that where that chair now was, no chair had been before. And quite certainly Mrs. Stratton had not taken a flying and accurate leap upwards, straight into the noose. To hang oneself, it is necessary first to adjust the noose about one's neck and then step off an eminence into vacancy: and there had been no eminence.
The phantom pricking of Roger's mental thumbs had been justified. Murder had been committed.
CHAPTER VII
FACTS AND FANCIES
RIGHT under the very nose of Roger Sheringham himself murder had been committed.
In spite of the tragedy, Roger could hardly suppress a smile at the audacity of it. He was not unaware of his reputation among the laity; at times indeed he was almost childishly pleased about it. Somebody evidently thought it undeserved - somebody, too, who could make such a colossal blunder of his own as to leave that hanging body without the overturned chair which should have been its natural corollary. And Roger had to admit that the unknown might not have made such a mistake in his estimate of Roger Sheringham's stupidity. It was only by the smallest chance that he had turned round, right in the doorway, for that last look.
Roger smiled again. Then he turned round, passed through the doorway, and walked downstairs. It was the murderer's own huge luck which had placed an overturned chair just where an overturned chair ought to be, and Roger was not going to interfere with it. Let the police make anything of it if they could.
Roger was accustomed to look facts in the eye. It was a fact, if a regrettable one, that Mrs. Ena Stratton meant nothing at all to him as a person, dead or alive. It was no less a fact that as a human being she had herself thrown away any sympathy in her fate; more, she had pulled that fate upon her with both hands. Roger could not feel any drivings of conscience to help the police towards avenging her.
But he could, and did, feel that a challenge had been thrown down to him personally, and a rush of exhilaration drove the fatigue out of him. No, he would not take that chair away again, any more than he would tell the authorities exactly what he knew. Not yet. This was going to be played out first as a perfectly private battle of brains.
He hurried downstairs. In view of what he had learnt, he must have another look at the body, alone, before the police arrived.
Dr. Chalmers had not quite finished his examination. The stethoscope hanging round his neck, he was bending over the bed when Roger looked in at the doorway.
'No hope, I'm afraid?' Roger asked tentatively.
Dr. Chalmers glanced round and then straightened up. 'None. A dreadful business. What can have possessed her to take her life like that?'
'You think it was suicide, then?'
Chalmers stared at him, his pleasant face showing his surprise. 'Why, what else could it be?'
'Oh, nothing, I suppose,' Roger said airily. 'I just wondered if there was any possibility of accident that's all. I shouldn't have said she was a suicidal type at all, you see; at least, on the little I saw of her.'
Dr. Chalmers drew the coverlet carefully over the body before he replied. 'Wouldn't you?' he said slowly. 'Well, of course that's more in your line than mine, but I should certainly have said that Ena's neurotic, egocentrical type has a predisposition to suicide. I may be wrong, of course. Morbid psychology doesn't enter very much into a general practitioner's work. But though I was very shocked when Ronald told me what had happened, I can't say I felt much surprise.'
'You'll be prepared to give evidence at the inquest, then, that in your professional opinion Mrs. Stratton was a suicidal subject?' Roger asked, wishing that Chalmers would go.
'I think so. Unless,' said Dr. Chalmers with interest, 'you can convert me to the opposite view.' He looked as if he would like to embark upon such a discussion at once.
'Oh, no,' Roger said firmly. 'For all I know, you're right.' The stage seemed to be setting itself without hesitation for a verdict of suicide, and Roger had no intention of interfering with it at this juncture. 'Well,' he added, 'I expect you want to see Ronald. Is he still changing?'
'No, he looked in a minute ago to say he was going upstairs.'
'I think someone ought to stay with the body,' Roger said cunningly. 'I'll take charge if you like, while you go upstairs.'
Dr. Chalmers looked for a moment a little doubtful as to the propriety of this suggestion. Then he nodded. 'Thanks. I don't suppose it will be for more than a minute or two in any case. The police ought to be here any minute now.'
'You live nearer here than Dr. Mitchell does, I suppose?' Roger asked casually, as the other moved over to the doorway.
'Yes. We both live in Westerford, but Frank's at the farther end.'
Roger waited until the door was safely closed. Then he hurried over to the bed. Turning back the coverlet, he stood for a moment looking down at Ena Stratton's body. She was still dressed exactly as she had been, even to the misshapen hat on her head, and Roger could not see that her dress had been torn or damaged in any way. If violence had been used, it must have been a tidy violence. He would have liked very much to know whether there were any marks or bruises on the trunk, but that was impossible; forcing himself to look calmly at her face, he could detect none there. With careful fingers he felt gingerly round the back of her head, sliding his hand underneath the hat, but no bump or swelling rewarded his search.
He lifted her hands and scrutinized in turn the space beneath each nail. So far as he could make out without a magnifying glass, nothing was to be seen there except a few tiny strands belonging obviously to the cord that had hanged her, and some fragments of skin. On either side of her neck, as Roger had expected, were a number of long, deep scratches. Before losing consciousness, Ena Stratton must have scrabbled desperately at the cord that was choking her. The palms of her hands, too, showed distinct signs of excoriation.
But that did not of necessity say that all of the little lumps of skin under her nails came from her own neck. Had the murderer succeeded in removing himself quickly enough out of the range of those clawing hands? Or was there anyone in the party who carried a brand - new scratch on his or her own hands or face?
Roger could not go and look for the answer to that interesting question until the police arrived to set him free from his vigil.
