DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FRANK Abbott was of the opinion that the Yard had got the dirty end of the stick again. You expected it when you were brought in on a country job, but as near in as Grove Hill you might with a bit of luck have hoped to be on the spot in time to get the first reactions of at least the principal suspect. What annoyed him most was that he would have been in time if the Chief, otherwise Chief Superintendent Lamb, had not delayed him over some inquiries as to the winding up of the case against the Callaghan gang, which could perfectly well have waited for a more convenient occasion. Added to which the Chief’s rather bulging brown eyes, sometimes irreverently compared with the smaller kind of peppermint bullseye, having discerned a certain impatience to be off with the old case and on with the new, he was treated to one of Lamb’s well known homilies on the duty of junior officers to behave themselves lowly and reverently to their betters, and to bear in mind the proverb that more haste made worse speed. Ensuing upon which, he arrived at No. 1 Belview Road about ten minutes after Nicholas Carey had made his dramatic entrance.
He had with him Detective Sergeant Hubbard, a young man whose ambition it was to mould himself in every way upon Inspector Abbott – this becoming so evident in the course of the case that the goaded Frank was driven to remark to Miss Silver that if there was going to be a second murder she wouldn’t have far to look for either the victim or the assassin. But all that lay in the future. He knew Detective Inspector Sharp, and had nothing but praise for what had been done up to date. When he had put him in possession of the facts as he knew them Sharp said,
‘It’s an odd story – a very odd story. Here’s a woman who is supposed to be an invalid, and she goes out not once but twice in the night to see if her daughter isn’t meeting a chap in the garden.’
‘They will do it.’
‘Well, there’s rather more to it in this case. This fellow Carey and Miss Graham were going together – oh, it must be the best part of seven years ago. He had a shocking old car, and I’ve seen them out in it myself. Everyone said they were engaged. Then about five years ago it was all off and he went abroad. The mother played up being an invalid – I don’t think there was much the matter with her, but she made the most of what there was. Selfish old woman by all accounts. Didn’t want her daughter to marry and worked her to the bone. A pretty clear case of slave-driving, if you ask me.’
‘You say she went out twice?’
‘If the daughter is telling the truth. She says she went out to meet Carey because her mother wouldn’t let him come to the house and he said if she didn’t come out, he was going to come in. He has the name of being a determined sort of chap. She says they were going to be married, and they wanted to discuss the arrangements. He had come back after five years, and I gather they were going to get on with it and not tell her mother until it was too late for her to do anything to stop them. There’s a sort of summerhouse at the top of the garden. That’s where they met, and that’s where Mrs Graham was murdered. Miss Graham says her mother came out and found them there and made a scene, but she sticks to it that she sent Carey away and took her mother in and put her to bed. If that is true, Mrs Graham must have gone out again. She may have thought Carey was still hanging about and wanted to make sure her daughter didn’t meet him. If it isn’t true and she only went out once, then she was killed when she surprised them, and they are both in it up to the neck. However it was, she was choked by a pair of strong hands and the scarf she was wearing twisted round her neck to make sure.’
‘Was the daughter alone in the house with her?’
‘She is as a rule – she was last night.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
Sharp pulled rather an odd kind of face.
‘Your Miss Silver arrived about half an hour ago, and Nicholas Carey walked in about ten minutes before you did. He banged past young Hammet who opened the door for him, and was in the drawing-room before anyone could stop him. I came up with him just in time to see the girl fling herself into his arms, and to hear her say, “Oh, Nicky, tell them you didn’t do it!”’
Frank Abbott whistled.
‘Well, that’s straight to the point at any rate. I suppose you didn’t leave them to put their heads together?’
‘What do you take me for? He’s in the dining-room – you had better come in and see him. Perhaps you had better look at Miss Graham’s statement first.’
Nicholas Carey was walking up and down with a good deal of vigour and impatience. He wanted to get on with making a statement, and he wanted to get back to Althea. She was looking all in, and what she wanted was a shoulder to cry on. What he wanted was to know what had been happening, and how it could possibly have happened. He stopped his pacing when the two police officers came in, and said abruptly:
‘What’s been going on here?’
Frank Abbott’s colourless eyebrows rose. He had the type of looks which lends itself without effort to an appearance of being supercilious. A long nose, a long pale face, fair hair slicked back into mirror smoothness, eyes of the palest shade of a bluish grey, a tall light figure, a certain elegance of dress, a certain fastidiousness as to detail, added up to something as unlike the popular idea of a police inspector as possible. He might have been any young man in any rather exclusive club. The light eyes focused themselves upon Nicholas in a daunting manner as he said,
‘Don’t you know?’
Nicholas had stopped pacing. He stood between the dining-table and the window, his face pale and frowning.
‘I heard that Mrs Graham was dead. I came to find out if it was true. Miss Graham and I are engaged. I asked you what has been happening. I’m still asking.’
Frank said without any expression at all,
‘Mrs Graham was murdered last night.’
Nicholas exclaimed, ‘Murdered!’
‘Some hours ago.’ He turned to Inspector Sharp. ‘Did the police surgeon hazard any guess as to the time?’
‘Somewhere round about midnight.’
Frank Abbott resumed.
‘Perhaps you can help us. What time was it when you left?’ Then, as everything in Nicholas tautened, ‘Oh, we know you were here – Miss Graham has been quite frank about that. By the way my name is Abbott – Detective Inspector Abbott from Scotland Yard. I have only just arrived, and I haven’t seen Miss Graham myself. I shall be interested to have your account of what happened. You had an appointment with her. How was it made?’
‘I telephoned. I said I would come round and see her at half past ten.’
‘Mrs Graham went to bed early?’
‘Yes – about nine.’
‘She did not welcome your visits?’
‘You might put it that way.’
‘Which is why you arranged to meet Miss Graham in the summerhouse at the top of the garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you kept this appointment?’
‘I did.’
Frank Abbott said,
‘Well, Mr Carey, are you going to tell us what happened after that? You are not obliged to do so of course. On the other hand, if you haven’t got anything to hide…’
‘I certainly haven’t got anything to hide.’
‘Then I think we might just as well sit down.’ He turned one of the chairs which stood in to the dining-table and sat down on it. Inspector Sharp followed his example.
Nicholas Carey jerked back the chair for himself. It went through his mind that it must be all of six years since he had broken bread in this house. Yet it was Allie’s house and always had been – an added irony! He took his seat and waited for one of the policemen to begin. It was the Scotland Yard man who led off.
‘Well, you got here at half past ten. Did you come into the house?’
‘No, I waited in the gazebo.’
The word rang a bell in Frank Abbott’s mind. His grandmother, the formidable Lady Evelyn Abbott, had possessed a gazebo in the old-fashioned garden at Deeping. It had been Abbott property for three hundred years, and it belonged now to his uncle, Colonel Abbott. The gazebo looked down a yew walk which Monica Abbott kept planted with lilies in their season. But Lady Evelyn’s money had gone past them to their daughter Cicely, the only one of her relations with whom she had not managed to quarrel. [see Eternity Ring]