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“It’s an axiom of police investigation,” said Alleyn and wondered if indeed she was i
“It just can’t be murder,” said Phillipa. “We were all too much afraid to kill him. I believe he’d win even if you murdered him. He’d hit back somehow.” She put her hands to her eyes. “I’m all muddled,” she said.
“I think you are more upset than you realize. I’ll be as quick as I can. Your father made this scene in your room. You say he screamed. Did anyone hear him?”
“Yes. Mummy did. She came in.”
“What happened?”
“I said: ‘Go away, darling, it’s all right.’ I didn’t want her to be involved. He nearly killed her with the things he did. Sometimes he’d… we never knew what happened between them. It was all secret, like a door shutting quietly as you walk along a passage.”
“Did she go away?”
“Not at once. He told her he’d found out that Richard and I were lovers. He said… it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to tell you. She was terrified. He was stabbing at her in some way I couldn’t understand. Then, quite suddenly, he told her to go to her own room. She went at once and he followed her. He locked me in. That’s the last I saw of him, but I heard him go downstairs later.”
“Were you locked in all night?”
“No. Richard Hislop’s room is next to mine. He came up and spoke through the wall to me. He wanted to unlock the door, but I said better not in case—he—came back. Then, much later, Guy came home. As he passed my door I tapped on it. The key was in the lock and he turned it.”
“Did you tell him what had happened?”
“Just that there’d been a row. He only stayed a moment.”
“Can you hear the radio from your room?”
She seemed surprised.
“The wireless? Why, yes. Faintly.”
“Did you hear it after your father returned to the study?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think. While you lay awake all that long time until your brother came home?”
“I’ll try. When he came out and found Richard and me, it was not going. They had been working, you see. No, I can’t remember hearing it at all unless—wait a moment. Yes. After he had gone back to the study from mother’s room I remember there was a loud crash of static. Very loud. Then I think it was quiet for some time. I fancy I heard it again later. Oh, I’ve remembered something else. After the static my bedside radiator went out. I suppose there was something wrong with the electric supply. That would account for both, wouldn’t it? The heater went on again about ten minutes later.”
“And did the radio begin again then, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m very vague about that. It started again sometime before I went to sleep.”
“Thank you very much indeed. I won’t bother you any longer now.”
“All right,” said Phillipa calmly, and went away.
Alleyn sent for Chase and questioned him about the rest of the staff and about the discovery of the body. Emily was summoned and dealt with. When she departed, awe-struck but complacent, Alleyn turned to the butler.
“Chase,” he said, “had your master any peculiar habits?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In regard to his use of the wireless?”
“I beg pardon, sir. I thought you meant generally speaking.”
“Well, then, generally speaking.”
“If I may say so, sir, he was a mass of them.”
“How long have you been with him?”
“Two months, sir, and due to leave at the end of this week.”
“Oh. Why are you leaving?”
Chase produced the classic remark of his kind.
“There are some things,” he said, “that flesh and blood will not stand, sir. One of them’s being spoke to like Mr. Tonks spoke to his staff.”
“Ah. His peculiar habits, in fact?”
“It’s my opinion, sir, he was mad. Stark, staring.”
“With regard to the radio. Did he tinker with it?”
“I can’t say I’ve ever noticed, sir. I believe he knew quite a lot about wireless.”
“When he tuned the thing, had he any particular method? Any characteristic attitude or gesture?”
“I don’t think so, sir. I never noticed, and yet I’ve often come into the room when he was at it. I can seem to see him now, sir.”
“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn swiftly. “That’s what we want. A clear mental picture. How was it now? Like this?”
In a moment he was across the room and seated in Septimus’s chair. He swung round to the cabinet and raised his right hand to the tuning control.
“Like this?”
“No, sir,” said Chase promptly, “that’s not him at all. Both hands it should be.”
“Ah.” Up went Alleyn’s left hand to the volume control. “More like this?”
“Yes, sir,” said Chase slowly. “But there’s something else and I can’t recollect what it was. Something he was always doing. It’s in the back of my head. You know, sir. Just on the edge of my memory, as you might say.”
“I know.”
“It’s a kind—something—to do with irritation,” said Chase slowly.
“Irritation? His?”
“No. It’s no good, sir. I can’t get it.”
“Perhaps later. Now look here, Chase, what happened to all of you last night? All the servants, I mean.”
“We were all out, sir. It being Christmas Eve. The mistress sent for me yesterday morning. She said we could take the evening off as soon as I had taken in Mr. Tonks’ grog-tray at nine o’clock. So we went,” ended Chase simply.
“When?”
“The rest of the staff got away about nine. I left at ten past, sir, and returned about eleven-twenty. The others were back then, and all in bed. I went straight to bed myself, sir.”
“You came in by a back door, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve been talking it over. None of us noticed anything unusual.”
“Can you hear the wireless in your part of the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Well,” said Alleyn, looking up from his notes, “that’ll do, thank you.”
Before Chase reached the door Fox came in.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Fox, “I just want to take a look at the Radio Times on the desk.”
He bent over the paper, wetted a gigantic thumb, and turned a page.
“That’s it, sir,” shouted Chase suddenly. “That’s what I tried to think of. That’s what he was always doing.”
“But what?”
“Licking his fingers, sir. It was a habit,” said Chase. “That’s what he always did when he sat down to the radio. I heard Mr. Hislop tell the doctor it nearly drove him demented, the way the master couldn’t touch a thing without first licking his fingers.”
“Quite so,” said Alleyn. “In about ten minutes, ask Mr. Hislop if he will be good enough to come in for a moment. That will be all, thank you, Chase.”
“Well, sir,” remarked Fox when Chase had gone, “if that’s the case and what I think’s right, it’d certainly make matters worse.”
“Good heavens, Fox, what an elaborate remark. What does it mean?”
“If metal knobs were substituted for bakelite ones and fine wires brought through those holes to make contact, then he’d get a bigger bump if he tuned in with damp fingers.”
“Yes. And he always used both hands. Fox!”
“Sir.”
“Approach the Tonkses again. You haven’t left them alone, of course?”
“Bailey’s in there making out he’s interested in the light switches. He’s found the main switchboard under the stairs. There’s signs of a blown fuse having been fixed recently. In a cupboard underneath there are odd lengths of flex and so on. Same brand as this on the wireless and the heater.”
“Ah, yes. Could the cord from the adapter to the radiator be brought into play?”
“By gum,” said Fox, “you’re right! That’s how it was done, Chief. The heavier flex was cut away from the radiator and shoved through. There was a fire, so he wouldn’t want the radiator and wouldn’t notice.”
“It might have been done that way, certainly, but there’s little to prove it. Return to the bereaved Tonkses, my Fox, and ask prettily if any of them remember Septimus’s peculiarities when tuning his wireless.”