Waiting for the Police
I wonder where Mr Wainwright's gone?' said Mrs Mayton.
It didn't matter to her in the least where he had gone. All that mattered was that he paid his three guineas a week regularly for board and lodging. But life - and particularly evening life -was notoriously dull in her boarding-house, and every now and again one tried to whip up a little interest.
`Did he go?' asked Monty Smith.
It didn't matter to him, either, but he was as polite as he was pale, and he always did his best to keep any ball rolling.
`I thought I heard the front door close,' answered Mrs Mayton. `Perhaps he went out to post a letter,' suggested Miss Wicks, without pausing in her knitting. She had knitted for seventy years, and looked good for another seventy.
`Or perhaps it wasn't him at all,' added Bella Randall. Bella was the boarding-house lovely, but no one had taken advantage of the fact. `
You mean, it might have been someone else?' inquired Mrs Mayton.
`Yes,' agreed Bella.
They all considered the alternative earnestly. Mr Calthrop, coming suddenly out of a middle-aged doze, joined in the thinking without any idea what he was thinking.
`Perhaps it was Mr Penbury,' said Mrs Mayton, at last. `He's always popping in and out.'
But it was not Mr Penbury, for that rather eccentric individual walked into the drawing-room a moment later.
His arrival interrupted the conversation, and the company became silent. Penbury always had a chilling effect. He possessed a brain, and since no one understood it when he used it, it was resented. But Mrs Mayton never allowed more than three minutes to go by without a word; and so when the new silence had reached its allotted span, she turned to Penbury and asked:
`Was that Mr Wainwnght who went out a little time ago?
Penbury looked at her oddly.
`What makes you ask that?' he said.
`Well, I was just wondering.'
`I see,' answered Penbury slowly. The atmosphere seemed to tighten, but Miss Wicks went on knitting. `And are you all wondering?'
`We decided perhaps he'd gone out to post a letter,' murmured Bella.
`No, Wainwright hasn't gone out to post a letter,' responded Penbury. `He's dead.'
The effect was instantaneous. Bella gave a tiny shriek. Mrs Mayton's eyes became two startled glass marbles. Monty Smith opened his mouth and kept it open. Mr Calthrop, in a split second, lost all inclination to doze. Miss Wicks looked definitely interested, though she did not stop knitting. That meant nothing, however. She had promised to knit at her funeral.
`Dead?' gasped Mr Calthrop.
`Dead,' repeated Penbury. `He is lying on the floor of his room. He is rather a nasty mess.'
Monty leapt up, and then sat down again. `You - don't mean . . . ?' he gulped.
`That is exactly what I mean,' replied Penbury.
There had been,countless silences in Mrs Mayton's drawing-room, but never a silence like this one. Miss Wicks broke it.
`Shouldn't the police be sent for?' she suggested.
`They already have,' said Penbury. `I phoned the station just before coming into the room.'
`How long - that is - when do you expect . . . ?' stammered Monty.
`The police? I should say in two or three minutes,' responded Penbury. His voice suddenly shed its cynicism and became practical. `Shall we try and make use of these two or three minutes? We shall all be questioned, and perhaps we can clear up a little ground before they arrive.'
Mr Calthrop looked angry.
`But this is nothing to do with any of us, sir!' he exclaimed.
`The police will not necessarily accept our word for it,' answered Penbury. `That is why I propose that we consider our alibis in advance. I am not a doctor, but I estimate from my brief examination of the body that it has not been dead more than an hour.Since it is now ten past nine, and at twenty to eight we saw him leave the dining-room for his bedroom . . .'
`How do you know he went to his bedroom?' interrupted Miss Wicks.
`Because, having a headache, I followed him upstairs to go to mine for some aspirin, and my room is immediately opposite his,' Penbury explained. `Now, if my assumption is correct, he was killed between ten minutes past eight and ten minutes past nine, so anyone who can prove that he or she has remained in this room during all that time should have no worry.'
He looked around inquiringly.
`We've all been out of the room,' Miss Wicks announced for the company.
`That is unfortunate,' murmured Penbury.
`But so have you!' exclaimed Monty, with nervous aggression.
`Yes -so I have,' replied Penbury. `Then let me give my alibi first. At twenty minutes to eight I followed Wainwright up to the second floor. Before going into his room he made an odd remark which - in the circumstances -is worth repeating. "There's somebody in this house who doesn't like me very much," he said. "Only one?" I answered. "You're luckier than I am." Then he went into his room, and that was the last time I saw him alive. I went into my room. I took two aspirin tablets.Then as my head was still bad, I thought a stroll would be a good idea, and I went out. I kept out till approximately - nine o'clock. Then I came back. The door you heard closing, Mrs Mayton, was not Wainwright going out. It was me coming in.'
`Wait a moment!' ejaculated Bella.
`Yes?'
`How did you know Mrs Mayton heard the front door close? You weren't here!'
Penbury regarded her with interest and respect.
`Intelligent,' he murmured.
`Now, then, don't take too long thinking of an answer!' glared Mr Calthrop.
`I don't need any time at all to think of an answer,' retorted Penbury. `I know because I listened outside the door. But as I say, I came back. I went up to my room.' He paused. `On the floor I found a handkerchief. So I went into his room to ask if the handkerchief was his. I found him lying on the ground near his bed. On his back. Head towards the window. Stabbed through the heart. But no sign of what he'd been stabbed with . . . It looks to me a small wound, but deep. It found the spot all right . . . The window was closed and fastened. Whoever did it entered through the door. I left the room and locked the door. I knew no one should go in again till the police and police doctor turned up.I came down. The telephone, as you know, is in the dining-room. Most inconvenient. It should be in the hall. Passing the door of this room,I listened, to hear what you all were talking about. Then I went into the dining-room and telephoned the police. And then I joined you.'
Flushed and emotional, Mrs Mayton challenged him.
`Why did you sit here for three minutes without telling us?' she demanded.
`I was watching you,' answered Penbury, coolly.
`Well, I call that a rotten alibi!' exclaimed Mr Calthrop. `Who's to prove you were out all that time?'
`At half past eight I had a cup of coffee at the coffee-stall in Junkers Street,' replied Penbury. `That's over a mile away. It's not proof, I admit, but they know me there, you see, and it may help. Well, who's next?'
`I am', said Bella. `I left the room to blow my nose. I went to my room for a handkerchief. And here it is!' she concluded, producing it triumphantly.
`How long were you out of the room?' pressed Penbury.
`Abour five minutes.'
`A long time to get a handkerchief.'
`Perhaps. But I not only blew my nose, I powdered it.'
`That sounds good enough,' admitted Penbury. `Would you oblige next, Mr Calthrop? We all know you walk in your sleep. A week ago you walked into my room, didn't you. Have you lost a handkerchief?'
Mr Calthrop glared.
`What the devil are you implying?' he exclaimed.
`Has Mr Calthrop dozed during the past hour?' pressed Penbury.
`Suppose I have?' he cried. `What damned rubbish! Did I leave this room without knowing it, and kill Wainwright for -for no reason at all ?' He swallowed, and calmed down. `I left the room,sir, about twenty minutes ago to fetch the evening paper from the dining-room to do the crossword puzzle!' He tapped it viciously. `Here it is!'
Penbury shrugged his shoulders.
`I should be the last person to refute such an emphatic statement,' he said, `but let me suggest that you give the statement to the police with slightly less emphasis, Mr Smith?'
Monty Smith had followed the conversation anxiously, and he had his story ready.
`This is why I left the room. I suddenly remembered that I'd forgotten to return Mr Wainwright's latchkey. Then I met Mrs Mayton, who asked me to help her with the curtain of the landing window. It had come off some of its hooks. I did so and then returned to the drawing-room with her. You'll remember, all of you, that we returned together.'
`That's right,' nodded Mrs Mayton. `And the reason I went out was to fix the curtain.'
Penbury looked at Monty hard.
`What about that latchkey?' he demanded.
`Eh? Oh, of course,' jerked Monty. `The curtain put it out of my mind. I came down with it still in my pocket.'
`And you didn't go up to his room?'
`No! I've just said so, haven't I?'
Penbury shrugged his shoulders again. He did not seem satisfied. But he turned now to Miss Wicks, and the old lady inquired, while her needles moved busily.
`My turn?'
`If you'll be so good,' answered Penbury. `Just as a matter of form.'
`Yes, I quite understand,' she replied, smiling. `There's no need to apologize. Well, I left the drawing-room to fetch some knitting-needles. The steel ones I'm using now. My room, as of course you know, is also on the second floor and after I'd got the needles I was just about to come down when I heard Mr Wainwright's cough ...
`What time was that?' interrupted Penbury.
`Just before nine, I think it was,' said Miss Wicks. `Oh, that irritating cough! How it gets on one's nerves, doesn't it? Or I should say, how it did get on one's nerves. Morning, noon and night. And he wouldn't do anything for it. Enough to send one mad.'
She paused. The tense atmosphere grew suddenly tenser. `Go on,' murmured Penbury.
`Well,' continued Miss Wicks. ` Your door was open, Mr Penbury, and I went in to ask if we couldn't do something about it. But you were out.And suddenly, when I heard Mr Wainwright coughing again across the passage ,well, I felt I couldn't stand it any more, and I was knocking at his door almost before I knew it. It was my handkerchief you found in your room, Mr Penbury. I must have dropped it there.'
She paused again. Again Penbury murmured, `Go on.'
She turned on him with sudden ferocity.
`Will you stop interrupting?' shouted the old woman.
Penbury moistened his lips. For a few moments Miss Wicks knitted rapidly, the steel points of the needles making the only sound in the room.Then she continued, in a queer hard voice.
"Come in," called Mr Wainwright. "I'm coming in," I called back. And I went in. And there he stood smiling at me. "You haven't come to complain of my cough again, have you?" he asked. "No," I answered. "I've come to cure it." And I plunged a steel knitting-needle into his heart - like this!'
She stretched out a bony hand, and, with amazing strength, stabbed a cushion.
The next instant there came a knocking on the front door. `The police !' gasped Mr Calthrop. But no one moved. With tense ears they listened to the maid ascending from the basement, they heard the front door open, they heard footsteps entering . . .
A moment later they heard Mr Wainwright's cough.
`Yes, and I heard it when he went out ten minutes ago,' smiled Miss Wicks. `But thank you very much indeed, Mr Penbury. I was as bored as the rest of them.' |