Wicked Uncle

The Chief Inspector said without any expression at all,

“We don’t know what reason Mr. Carroll had for going there. But he did go there. The person who murdered him would have that motive for following or accompanying him.”

There was a pause during which, and not for the first time, Mr. Oakley became convinced that he would have done better to hold his tongue. He was dismissed to the company of the other guests assembled in the drawing-room under the solemn gaze of a large local constable. If this young man had had any thoughts to spare from his job he might have reflected that the company presented some strange contrasts, but beyond concluding that it was a rum start he was conscious of little else than that this was a murder case, and that one of these people was probably a murderer. That being so, it did not matter to him that Mr. Tote was wearing blue serge trousers and a tweed overcoat; that Mrs. Tote had got back into the tight black cloth dress which she had worn for di

Well, there they all were, and there they sat, not one of them with a word to throw to anyone else. And time went on.

In the study Lamb said,

“He was struck on the head with something that broke his skull. There’s no sign of the weapon. It’s got to be somewhere. There’s no sign of it in the house. I don’t say it couldn’t have been cleaned and put back wherever it came from, because it could. There’s fire-irons, flat irons, golf-clubs, and all ma

Miss Silver coughed in a tentative ma

“Mr. Carroll’s bedroom windows look out that way.”

Lamb grunted.

“Yes, but they were shut and the curtains drawn.”

Her needles clicked above the pale pink vest.

“If someone had desired to attract Mr. Carroll’s attention, a handful of gravel might have been thrown up at one of the closed windows. Mr. Carroll would then have looked out. That he was persuaded to a meeting with his murderer is certain. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that he may have closed the window again and drawn the curtains.”

Frank Abbott broke in with “How did Oakley know which was Carroll’s window? He’d never been to the house until he dined here on Saturday night, and he hadn’t been here since. That is to say, he’d never been here by daylight. Yet we’re asked to believe that he made a bee line for Carroll’s window and got it with the first shot. I can’t swallow it myself.”

His Chief had a frown for this.

“A bit free with your opinions, aren’t you, my lad? I’ll ask for them when I want them. I don’t say there isn’t a point there, but I’m quite able to see it myself. And here’s an answer. Who says Oakley didn’t know the house? Who says he’d only been here once? Who says he didn’t fix it up with Carroll on the telephone to come round under his window?” He hit his knee with the flat of his hand. “Oakley-Oakley-Oakley every time!”

Frank Abbott had an impenitent frown.

“I just can’t see why, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t see why Oakley should have chosen such a place for a private conversation. At that hour everyone would be upstairs. Five of the upstair windows look down on to that court, two in each of the small wings, and one in the middle of the side wall of the house, all double casements. The two on the left belong to Carroll’s room, the two on the right to the bedroom shared by Mr. and Mrs. Tote. The one in the end wall lights the passage. Now, would Oakley, who had every reason to desire privacy, choose a place like this for the sort of conversation he was going to have with Carroll? To my thinking it’s all wrong. How could he know that the Totes wouldn’t have their windows open? If they had, they could have listened to everything that was said. Oakley was obviously in a fever about his wife-he’d have wanted to talk privately between four walls-”

This time Lamb hit the table.

“What makes you think he wanted to talk? If he’d got his mind made up for the murder he wouldn’t come into the house -he’d get Carroll to come out!”

“And take him round under the Totes’ windows? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Look here,” said Lamb-“suppose it was this way. He throws his gravel up at the window-I’ll have that looked for-or makes some other signal, and Carroll comes down. Well, suppose he gets out of one of those ground-floor windows-no, that won’t do, because they were all fastened on the inside, and Oakley couldn’t have fastened them.”

“Suppose it wasn’t Oakley, Chief.”

“Well?”

“Suppose it was someone in the house. He could have got back by the open window and shut it after him, couldn’t he?”

Lamb’s colour had deepened.

“And what would he be doing, meeting Carroll out there? And why should Carroll go outside to meet anyone who was living in the house? They could pick any room they liked to talk in, couldn’t they? Everyone had gone to bed. Now you look here-facts are what we’ve got to stick to. Carroll left the house and went to that court. It’s no good asking why he did it, or saying it’s not the sort of thing he would have done-he did it. The same applies to Oakley. It’s no good saying, ‘Why should he choose a place like that to meet Carroll?’ He went there, and he left Carroll lying dead. There’s no evidence to show whether he found him alive. He says no. That’ll be for a jury to decide- unless any of these people we’ve got boxed up in the drawing-room has got something useful to say. I’m going to start with Mrs. Tote.”

During the first part of this conversation Miss Silver had appeared very much abstracted. Those rapid needles of hers slowed down and came to a standstill, her hands resting upon the pale pink wool. Towards the end she was giving her attention to what was being said, but with the air of one who has something to say and is waiting for the first opportunity of saying it. She now coughed in a very definite ma