The Unexpected Guest

Laura stared at him. ‘You’re crazy,’ was all she said.

‘Probably,’ Starkwedder agreed.

She shook her head in perplexity. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ she told him.

‘I know very well what I’m doing,’ he answered. ‘I’m making myself an accessory after the fact.’

‘But why?’ asked Laura. ‘Why?’

Starkwedder looked at her for a moment before replying. Then, ‘Yes, why?’ he repeated. Speaking slowly and deliberately, he said, ‘For the simple reason, I suppose, that you’re a very attractive woman, and I don’t like to think of you being shut up in prison for all the best years of your life. Just as horrible as being hanged by the neck until you are dead, in my view. And the situation looks far from promising for you. Your husband was an invalid and a cripple. Any evidence there might be of provocation would rest entirely on your word, a word which you seem extremely unwilling to give. Therefore it seems highly unlikely that a jury would acquit you.’

Laura looked steadily at him. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said. ‘Everything I’ve told you may have been lies.’

‘It may,’ Starkwedder agreed cheerfully. ‘And perhaps I’m a sucker. But I’m believing you.’

Laura looked away, then sank down on the footstool with her back to him. For a few moments nothing was said. Then, turning to face him, her eyes suddenly alight with hope, she looked at him questioningly, and then nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘I can lie if I have to.’

‘Good,’ Starkwedder exclaimed with determination. ‘Now, talk and talk fast.’ He walked over to the table by the wheelchair, flicking ash in the ashtray. ‘In the first place, who exactly is there in this house? Who lives here?’

After a moment’s hesitation, Laura began to speak, almost mechanically. ‘There’s Richard’s mother,’ she told him. ‘And there’s Benny—Miss Bennett, but we call her Benny—she’s a sort of combined housekeeper and secretary. An ex-hospital nurse. She’s been here for ages, and she’s devoted to Richard. And then there’s Angell. I mentioned him, I think. He’s a male nurse-attendant, and—well, valet, I suppose. He looks after Richard generally.’

‘Are there servants who live in the house as well?’

‘No, there are no live-in servants, only dailies who come in.’ She paused. ‘Oh—and I almost forgot,’ she continued. ‘There’s Jan, of course.’

‘Jan?’ Starkwedder asked, sharply. ‘Who’s Jan?’

Laura gave him an embarrassed look before replying. Then, with an air of reluctance, she said, ‘He’s Richard’s young half-brother. He—he lives with us.’

Starkwedder moved over to the stool where she still sat. ‘Come clean, now,’ he insisted. ‘What is there about Jan that you don’t want to tell me?’

After a moment’s hesitation, Laura spoke, though she still sounded guarded. ‘Jan is a dear,’ she said. ‘Very affectionate and sweet. But—but he isn’t quite like other people.’

‘I see,’ Starkwedder murmured sympathetically. ‘But you’re fond of him, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Laura admitted. ‘Yes—I’m very fond of him. That’s—that’s really why I couldn’t just go away and leave Richard. Because of Jan. You see, if Richard had had his own way, he would have sent Jan to an institution.’

Starkwedder slowly circled the wheelchair, looking down at Richard Warwick’s body, and pondering. Then, ‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘Is that the threat he held over you? That, if you left him, he’d send the boy to an institution?’

‘Yes,’ replied Laura. ‘If I—if I believed that I could have earned enough to keep Jan and myself—but I don’t know that I could. And anyway, Richard was the boy’s legal guardian of course.’

‘Was Richard kind to him?’ Starkwedder asked.

‘Sometimes,’ she replied.

‘And at other times?’

‘He’d—he’d quite frequently talk about sending Jan away,’ Laura told him. ‘He’d say to Jan, “They’ll be quite kind to you, boy. You’ll be well looked after. And Laura, I’m sure, would come and see you once or twice a year.” He’d get Jan all worked up, terrified, begging, pleading, stammering. And then Richard would lean back in his chair and roar with laughter. Throw back his head and laugh, laugh, laugh.’

‘I see,’ said Starkwedder, watching her carefully. After a pause, he repeated thoughtfully, ‘I see.’

Laura rose quickly, and went to the table by the armchair to stub out her cigarette. ‘You needn’t believe me,’ she exclaimed. ‘You needn’t believe a word I say. For all you know, I might be making it all up.’

‘I’ve told you I’ll risk it,’ Starkwedder replied. ‘Now then,’ he continued, ‘what’s this, what’s-her-name, Bennett—Benny—like? Is she sharp? Bright?’

‘She’s very efficient and capable,’ Laura assured him.

Starkwedder snapped his fingers. ‘Something’s just occurred to me,’ he said. ‘How is it that nobody in the house heard the shot tonight?’

‘Well, Richard’s mother is quite old, and she’s rather deaf,’ Laura replied. ‘Benny’s room is over on the other side of the house, and Angell’s quarters are quite separate, shut off by a baize door. There’s young Jan, of course. He sleeps in the room over this. But he goes to bed early, and he sleeps very heavily.’

‘That all seems extremely fortunate,’ Starkwedder observed.

Laura looked puzzled. ‘But what are you suggesting?’ she asked him. ‘That we could make it look like suicide?’

He turned to look at the body again. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There’s no hope of suicide, I’m afraid.’ He walked over to the wheelchair and looked down at the corpse of Richard Warwick for a moment, before asking, ‘He was right-handed, I assume?’

‘Yes,’ replied Laura.

‘Yes, I was afraid so. In which case he couldn’t possibly have shot himself at that angle,’ he declared, pointing to Warwick’s left temple. ‘Besides, there’s no mark of scorching.’ He considered for a few seconds and then added, ‘No, the gun must have been fired from a certain distance away. Suicide is certainly out.’ He paused again before continuing. ‘But there’s accident, of course. After all, it could have been an accident.’

After a longer pause, he began to act out what he had in mind. ‘Now, say for instance that I came here this evening. Just as I did, in fact. Blundered in through this window.’ He went to the French windows, and mimed the act of stumbling into the room. ‘Richard thought I was a burglar, and took a pot shot at me. Well, that’s quite likely, from all you’ve been telling me about his exploits. Well, then, I come up to him’—and Starkwedder hastened to the body in the wheelchair—‘I get the gun away from him—’

Laura interrupted eagerly. ‘And it went off in the struggle—yes?’

‘Yes,’ Starkwedder agreed, but immediately corrected himself. ‘No, that won’t do. As I say, the police would spot at once that the gun wasn’t fired at such close quarters.’ He took a few more moments to reconsider, and then continued. ‘Well now, say I got the gun right away from him.’ He shook his head, and waved his arms in a gesture of frustration. ‘No, that’s no good. Once I’d done that, why the hell should I shoot him? No, I’m afraid it’s tricky.’

He sighed. ‘All right,’ he decided, ‘let’s leave it at murder. Murder pure and simple. But murder by someone from outside. Murder by person or persons unknown.’ He crossed to the French windows, held back a curtain, and peered out as though seeking inspiration.

‘A real burglar, perhaps?’ Laura suggested helpfully.

Starkwedder thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, I suppose it could be a burglar, but it seems a bit bogus.’ He paused, then added, ‘What about an enemy? That sounds melodramatic perhaps, but from what you’ve told me about your husband it seems he was the sort who might have had enemies. Am I right?’

‘Well, yes,’ Laura replied, speaking slowly and uncertainly, ‘I suppose Richard had enemies, but—’

‘Never mind the buts for the time being,’ Starkwedder interrupted her, stubbing out his cigarette at the table by the wheelchair, and moving to stand over her as she sat on the sofa. ‘Tell me all you can about Richard’s enemies. Number One, I suppose, would be Miss—you know, Miss quivering backside—the woman he took pot shots at. But I don’t suppose she’s a likely murderer. Anyway, I imagine she still lives in Norfolk, and it would be a bit far-fetched to imagine her taking a cheap day return to Wales to bump him off. Who else?’ he urged. ‘Who else is there who had a grudge against him?’

Laura looked doubtful. She got up, moved about, and began to unbutton her jacket. ‘Well,’ she began cautiously, ‘there was a gardener, about a year ago. Richard sacked him and wouldn’t give him a reference. The man was very abusive about it and made a lot of threats.’

‘Who was he?’ Starkwedder asked. ‘A local chap?’

‘Yes,’ Laura replied. ‘He came from Llanfechan, about four miles away.’ She took off her jacket and laid it across an arm of the sofa.

Starkwedder frowned. ‘I don’t think much of your gardener,’ he told her. ‘You can bet he’s got a nice, stay-at-home alibi. And if he hasn’t got an alibi, or it’s an alibi that only his wife can confirm or support, we might end up getting the poor chap convicted for something he hasn’t done. No, that’s no good. What we want is some enemy out of the past, who wouldn’t be so easy to track down.’

Laura moved slowly around the room, trying to think, as Starkwedder continued, ‘How about someone from Richard’s tiger-and lion-shooting days? Someone in Kenya, or South Africa, or India? Some place where the police can’t check up on him very easily.’

‘If I could only think,’ said Laura, despairingly. ‘If I could only remember. If I could remember some of the stories about those days that Richard told us at one time or another.’