The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories Read online

  In spite of this the moths fluttered round the candle, and amongst this venturesome tribe none stood out more prominently than Mr Laurence Smethick, son of the M.P. for the Pakethorpe division. Some folk there were who vowed that the young people were secretly engaged, in spite of the fact that Margaret was an outrageous flirt and openly encouraged more than one of her crowd of adorers.

  Be that as it may, one thing was very certain—namely, that Major Ceely did not approve of Mr Smethick any more than he did of the others, and there had been more than one quarrel between the young man and his prospective father-in-law.

  On that memorable Christmas Eve at Clevere none of us could fail to notice his absence; whilst Margaret, on the other hand, had shown marked predilection for the society of Captain Glynne, who, since the sudden death of his cousin, Viscount Heslington, Lord Ullesthorpe’s only son (who was killed in the hunting field last October, if you remember), had become heir to the earldom and its £40,000 a year.

  Personally, I strongly disapproved of Margaret’s behaviour the night of the dance; her attitude with regard to Mr Smethick—whose constant attendance on her had justified the rumour that they were engaged—being more than callous.

  On that morning of December 24th—Christmas Eve, in fact—the young man had called at Clevere. I remember seeing him just as he was being shown into the boudoir downstairs. A few moments later the sound of angry voices rose with appalling distinctness from that room. We all tried not to listen, yet could not fail to hear Major Ceely’s overbearing words of rudeness to the visitor, who, it seems, had merely asked to see Miss Ceely, and had been most unexpectedly confronted by the irascible and extremely disagreeable Major. Of course, the young man speedily lost his temper, too, and the whole incident ended with a very unpleasant quarrel between the two men in the hall, and with the Major peremptorily forbidding Mr Smethick ever to darken his doors again.

  On that night Major Ceely was murdered.

  II

  Of course, at first, no one attached any importance to this weird coincidence. The very thought of connecting the idea of murder with that of the personality of a bright, good-looking young Yorkshireman like Mr Smethick seemed, indeed, preposterous, and with one accord all of us who were practically witnesses to the quarrel between the two men, tacitly agreed to say nothing at all about it at the inquest, unless we were absolutely obliged to do so on oath.

  In view of the Major’s terrible temper, this quarrel, mind you, had not the importance which it otherwise would have had; and we all flattered ourselves that we had well succeeded in parrying the coroner’s questions.

  The verdict at the inquest was against some person or persons unknown; and I, for one, was very glad that young Smethick’s name had not been mentioned in connection with this terrible crime.

  Two days later the superintendent at Bishopthorpe sent an urgent telephone message to Lady Molly, begging her to come to the police-station immediately. We had the use of a motor all the while that we stayed at the “Black Swan,” and in less than ten minutes we were bowling along at express speed towards Bishopthorpe.

  On arrival we were immediately shown into Superintendent Etty’s private room behind the office. He was there talking with Danvers—who had recently come down from London. In a corner of the room, sitting very straight on a high-backed chair, was a youngish woman of the servant class, who, as we entered, cast a quick, and I thought suspicious, glance at us both.

  She was dressed in a coat and skirt of shabby-looking black, and although her face might have been called good-looking—for she had fine, dark eyes—her entire appearance was distinctly repellent. It suggested slatternliness in an unusual degree: there were holes in her shoes and in her stockings, the sleeve of her coat was half unsewn, and the braid on her skirt hung in loops all round the bottom. She had very red and very coarse-looking hands, and undoubtedly there was a furtive expression in her eyes, which, when she began speaking, changed to one of defiance.

  Etty came forward with great alacrity when my dear lady entered. He looked perturbed, and seemed greatly relieved at sight of her.

  “She is the wife of one of the outdoor men at Clevere,” he explained rapidly to Lady Molly, nodding in the direction of the young woman, “and she has come here with such a queer tale that I thought you would like to hear it.”

  “She knows something about the murder?” asked Lady Molly.

  “Noa! I didn’t say that!” here interposed the woman roughly, “doan’t you go and tell no lies, Master Inspector. I thought as how you might wish to know what my husband saw on the night when the Major was murdered, that’s all; and I’ve come to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t your husband come himself?” asked Lady Molly.

  “Oh, Haggett ain’t well enough—he—” she began explaining with a careless shrug of her shoulders, “so to speak—”

  “The fact of the matter is, my lady,” interposed Etty, “this woman’s husband is half-witted. I believe he is only kept on in the garden because he is very strong and can help with the digging. It is because his testimony is so little to be relied on that I wished to consult you as to how we should act in the matter.

  “Tell this lady what you have just told us, Mrs Haggett, will you?” said Etty curtly.

  Again that quick, suspicious glance shot into the woman’s eyes. Lady Molly took the chair which Danvers had brought forward for her, and sat down opposite Mrs Haggett, fixing her earnest, calm gaze upon her.

  “There’s not much to tell,” said the woman sullenly. “Haggett is certainly queer in his head sometimes, and when he is queer he goes wandering about the place of nights.”

  “Yes?” said my lady, for Mrs Haggett had paused awhile and now seemed unwilling to proceed.

  “Well!” she resumed with sudden determination, “he had got one of his queer fits on on Christmas Eve, and didn’t come in till long after midnight. He told me as how he’d seen a young gentleman prowling about the garden on the terrace side. He heard the cry of ‘Murder!’ and ‘Help!’ soon after that, and ran in home because he was frightened.”

  “Home?” asked Lady Molly, quietly, “where is home?”

  “The cottage where we live. Just back of the kitchen garden.”

  “Why didn’t you tell all this to the superintendent before?”

  “Because Haggett only told me last night, when he seemed less queer-like. He is mighty silent when the fits are on him.”

  “Did he know who the gentleman was whom he saw?”

  “No, ma’am—I don’t suppose he did—leastways, he wouldn’t say—but—”

  “Yes? But?”

  “He found this in the garden yesterday,” said the woman, holding out a screw of paper which apparently she had held tightly clutched up to now, “and maybe that’s what brought Christmas Eve and the murder back to his mind.”

  Lady Molly took the thing from her and undid the soiled bit of paper with her dainty fingers. The next moment she held up for Etty’s inspection a beautiful ring composed of an exquisitely carved moonstone surrounded with diamonds of unusual brilliance.

  At the moment the setting and the stones themselves were marred by scraps of sticky mud which clung to them, the ring obviously having lain on the ground and perhaps been trampled on for some days, and then been only very partially washed.

  “At any rate, you can find out the ownership of the ring,” commented my dear lady after awhile, in answer to Etty’s silent attitude of expectancy. “There would be no harm in that.”

  Then she turned once more to the woman.

  “I’ll walk with you to your cottage, if I may,” she said decisively, “and have a chat with your husband. Is he at home?”

  I thought Mrs Haggett took this suggestion with marked reluctance. I could well imagine, from her own personal appearance, that her home was most unlikely to be in a fit state for a lady’s visit. However,
she could, of course, do nothing but obey, and, after a few muttered words of grudging acquiescence, she rose from her chair and stalked towards the door, leaving my lady to follow as she chose.

  Before going, however, she turned and shot an angry glance at Etty.

  “You’ll give me back the ring, Master Inspector,” she said with her usual tone of sullen defiance. “‘Findings is keepings,’ you know.”

  “I am afraid not,” replied Etty curtly; “but there’s always the reward offered by Miss Ceely for information which would lead to the apprehension of her father’s murderer. You may get that, you know. It is a hundred pounds.”

  “Yes! I know that,” she remarked dryly, as, without further comment, she finally went out of the room.

  III

  My dear lady came back very disappointed from her interview with Haggett.

  It seems that he was indeed half-witted—almost an imbecile, in fact, with but a few lucid intervals, of which this present day was one. But, of course, his testimony was practically valueless.

  He reiterated the story already told by his wife, adding no details. He had seen a young gentleman roaming on the terraced walk on the night of the murder. He did not know who the young gentleman was. He was going homeward when he heard the cry of “Murder!” and ran to his cottage because he was frightened. He picked up the ring yesterday in the perennial border below the terrace and gave it to his wife.

  Two of these brief statements made by the imbecile were easily proved to be true, and my dear lady had ascertained this before she returned to me. One of the Clevere under-gardeners said he had seen Haggett running home in the small hours of that fateful Christmas morning. He himself had been on the watch for the cattle-maimers that night, and remembered the little circumstance quite plainly. He added that Haggett certainly looked to be in a panic.

  Then Newby, another outdoor man at the Hall, saw Haggett pick up the ring in the perennial border, and advised him to take it to the police.

  Somehow, all of us who were so interested in that terrible Christmas tragedy felt strangely perturbed at all this. No names had been mentioned as yet, but whenever my dear lady and I looked at one another, or whenever we talked to Etty or Danvers, we all felt that a certain name, one particular personality, was lurking at the back of all our minds.

  The two men, of course, had no sentimental scruples to worry them. Taking the Haggett story merely as a clue, they worked diligently on that, with the result that twenty-four hours later Etty appeared in our private room at the “Black Swan” and calmly informed us that he had just got a warrant out against Mr Laurence Smethick on a charge of murder, and was on his way even now to effect the arrest.

  “Mr Smethick did not murder Major Ceely,” was Lady Molly’s firm and only comment when she heard the news.

  “Well, my lady, that’s as it may be!” rejoined Etty, speaking with that deference with which the entire force invariably addressed my dear lady; “but we have collected a sufficiency of evidence, at any rate, to justify the arrest, and, in my opinion, enough of it to hang any man. Mr Smethick purchased the moonstone and diamond ring at Nicholson’s in Coney Street about a week ago. He was seen abroad on Christmas Eve by several persons, loitering round the gates at Clevere Hall, somewhere about the time when the guests were leaving after the dance, and again some few moments after the first cry of ‘Murder!’ had been heard. His own valet admits that his master did not get home that night until long after two a.m., whilst even Miss Granard here won’t deny that there was a terrible quarrel between Mr Smethick and Major Ceely less than twenty-four hours before the latter was murdered.”

  Lady Molly offered no remark to this array of facts which Etty thus pitilessly marshalled before us, but I could not refrain from exclaiming:

  “Mr Smethick is innocent, I am sure.”

  “I hope, for his sake, he may be,” retorted Etty gravely, “but somehow ’tis a pity that he don’t seem able to give a good account of himself between midnight and two o’clock that Christmas morning.”

  “Oh!” I ejaculated, “what does he say about that?”

  “Nothing,” replied the man dryly; “that’s just the trouble.”

  Well, of course, as you who read the papers will doubtless remember, Mr Laurence Smethick, son of Colonel Smethick, M.P., of Pakethorpe Hall, Yorks, was arrested on the charge of having murdered Major Ceely on the night of December 24–25, and, after the usual magisterial inquiry, was duly committed to stand his trial at the next York assizes.

  I remember well that throughout his preliminary ordeal young Smethick bore himself like one who had given up all hope of refuting the terrible charges brought against him, and, I must say, the formidable number of witnesses which the police brought up against him more than explained that attitude.

  Of course, Haggett was not called, but, as it happened, there were plenty of people to swear that Mr Laurence Smethick was seen loitering round the gates of Clevere Hall after the guests had departed on Christmas Eve. The head gardener, who lives at the lodge, actually spoke to him, and Captain Glynne, leaning out of his brougham window, was heard to exclaim:

  “Hallo, Smethick, what are you doing here at this time of night?”

  And there were others, too.

  To Captain Glynne’s credit, be it here recorded, he tried his best to deny having recognized his unfortunate friend in the dark. Pressed by the magistrate, he said obstinately:

  “I thought at the time that it was Mr Smethick standing by the lodge gates, but on thinking the matter over I feel sure that I was mistaken.”

  On the other hand, what stood dead against young Smethick was, firstly, the question of the ring, and then the fact that he was seen in the immediate neighbourhood of Clevere, both at midnight and again at about two, when some men who had been on the watch for cattle-maimers saw him walking away rapidly in the direction of Pakethorpe.

  What was, of course, unexplainable and very terrible to witness was Mr Smethick’s obstinate silence with regard to his own movements during those fatal hours on that night. He did not contradict those who said that they had seen him at about midnight near the gates of Clevere, nor his own valet’s statements as to the hour when he returned home. All he said was that he could not account for what he did between the time when the guests left the Hall and he himself went back to Pakethorpe. He realized the danger in which he stood, and what caused him to be silent about a matter which might mean life or death to him could not easily be conjectured.

  The ownership of the ring he could not and did not dispute. He had lost it in the grounds of Clevere, he said. But the jeweller in Coney Street swore that he had sold the ring to Mr Smethick on December 18, whilst it was a well-known and an admitted fact that the young man had not openly been inside the gates of Clevere for over a fortnight before that.

  On this evidence Laurence Smethick was committed for trial. Though the actual weapon with which the unfortunate Major had been stabbed had not been found nor its ownership traced, there was such a vast array of circumstantial evidence against the young man that bail was refused.

  He had, on the advice of his solicitor, Mr Grayson—one of the ablest lawyers in York—reserved his defence, and on that miserable afternoon at the close of the year we all filed out of the crowded court, feeling terribly depressed and anxious.

  IV

  My dear lady and I walked back to our hotel in silence. Our hearts seemed to weigh heavily within us. We felt mortally sorry for that good-looking young Yorkshireman, who, we were convinced, was innocent, yet at the same time seemed involved in a tangled web of deadly circumstances from which he seemed quite unable to extricate himself.

  We did not feel like discussing the matter in the open streets, neither did we make any comment when presently, in a block in the traffic in Coney Street, we saw Margaret Ceely driving her smart dog-cart; whilst sitting beside her, and talking with great earnes
tness close to her ear, sat Captain Glynne.

  She was in deep mourning, and had obviously been doing some shopping, for she was surrounded with parcels; so perhaps it was hypercritical to blame her. Yet somehow it struck me that just at the moment when there hung in the balance the life and honour of a man with whose name her own had oft been linked by popular rumour, it showed more than callous contempt for his welfare to be seen driving about with another man who, since his sudden access to fortune, had undoubtedly become a rival in her favours.

  When we arrived at the “Black Swan” we were surprised to hear that Mr Grayson had called to see my dear lady, and was upstairs waiting.

  Lady Molly ran up to our sitting-room and greeted him with marked cordiality. Mr Grayson is an elderly, dry-looking man, but he looked visibly affected, and it was some time before he seemed able to plunge into the subject which had brought him hither. He fidgeted in his chair, and started talking about the weather.

  “I am not here in a strictly professional capacity, you know,” said Lady Molly presently, with a kindly smile and with a view to helping him out of his embarrassment. “Our police, I fear me, have an exaggerated view of my capabilities, and the men here asked me unofficially to remain in the neighbourhood and to give them my advice if they should require it. Our chief is very lenient to me and has allowed me to stay. Therefore if there is anything I can do—”

  “Indeed, indeed there is!” ejaculated Mr Grayson with sudden energy. “From all I hear, there is not another soul in the kingdom but you who can save this innocent man from the gallows.”

  My dear lady heaved a little sigh of satisfaction. She had all along wanted to have a more important finger in that Yorkshire pie.

  “Mr Smethick?” she said.

  “Yes; my unfortunate young client,” replied the lawyer. “I may as well tell you,” he resumed after a slight pause, during which he seemed to pull himself together, “as briefly as possible what occurred on December 24 last and on the following Christmas morning. You will then understand the terrible plight in which my client finds himself, and how impossible it is for him to explain his actions on that eventful night. You will understand, also, why I have come to ask your help and your advice. Mr Smethick considered himself engaged to Miss Ceely. The engagement had not been made public because of Major Ceely’s anticipated opposition, but the young people had been very intimate, and many letters had passed between them. On the morning of the 24th Mr Smethick called at the Hall, his intention then being merely to present his fiancée with the ring you know of. You remember the unfortunate contretemps that occurred—I mean the unprovoked quarrel sought by Major Ceely with my poor client, ending with the irascible old man forbidding Mr Smethick the house.