The Floating Admiral

“And Admiral Penistone didn’t approve?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t know. He didn’t say. Only he seemed as though something might have gone a little wrong. Perhaps it was to do with her settlements; she has a good deal of money, as I understand, and the Admiral is—was her trustee. But I really don’t know anything about it.”

“I see. Had you, yourself, known Admiral Penistone long?”

“Only since he came here, about a month ago. I called on him, you know; and we got acquainted.”

“And you saw each other fairly often?”

“Oh, two or three times in the week, perhaps. Not more.”

“Ever hear him speak of any enemies—anyone who’d have a reason for killing him?”

“Oh, no, no!” The Vicar looked shocked, but hastened to add, “Of course, I really know nothing of his life before he came here.”

“Had he many friends? In the neighbourhood? Or outside? Where did he live before?”

“Somewhere in the West, I believe. I don’t remember his ever telling me the district. I don’t think he knew many people about here well. Sir Wilfrid Denny, over at West End, saw most of him, I fancy. I believe he had old friends down to meet him, sometimes.”

“Ever meet any of them yourself?”

“Oh, no,” said the Vicar.

“I see. Well, I think I’d better be getting over to his place now,” the Inspector said. “I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Mount. I’ll want to have a word with your sons and your servants some time, just in case any of them noticed anything that might help us. But that can wait. By the way,” he turned at the door to add, “can you tell me what sort of a young lady Miss Fitzgerald is? Liable to—to be very upset, I mean?”

The Vicar smiled a little, almost in spite of himself. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think Miss Fitzgerald is at all the fainting type.”

“Very devoted to her uncle, eh?”

“I couldn’t say, particularly. About as much as most nieces are to their uncles, I imagine. Perhaps she is rather a reserved young woman—has interests of her own. But this is just gossip—you can see for yourself what you think, Inspector.”

“That’s true enough. Well, I’ll be going,” the Inspector said, and noted the expression of relief which overspread the Vicar’s face. “I know we aren’t popular visitors,” he thought to himself, “at the best of times. But need he show quite so plainly how glad he is to get rid of me? I wonder if there could be any other reason—if he knows anything more than he’s said. But—the Vicar of Lingham, and a most respectable Vicar, from all I’ve ever heard of him! I must say it doesn’t sound likely.” And, so thinking, he made his way back to the car, and drove rapidly the three miles or so which he had to cover to reach the house a hundred yards away.

It was close on eight o’clock by the time he reached his destination; but Rundel Croft obviously did not keep early hours. One or two of the windows facing him still had their blinds down; and the hall, when he was admitted to it, was obviously undergoing its matutinal clean-up. A rather down-at-heels butler, of the type which seems to have become a butler because its wife is a good cook and itself has no special ability of any kind, opened the door to him and blinked uneasily in his face. Rudge asked for Miss Fitzgerald, and was told that she was not yet about. Apparently she always breakfasted in bed. Rudge then asked for Admiral Penistone.

“He’s in his room, still,” the butler said, looking faintly hostile, as though he did not approve of early morning visitors.

“No, he isn’t,” Rudge said sharply. “He’s had an accident.” The butler goggled at him. “Look here—what’s your name?”

“Emery.”

“Look here, Emery, I’m Inspector Rudge from Whynmouth, and I must see Miss Fitzgerald at once. Admiral Penistone has met with a very serious accident—in fact, he’s dead. Will you find Miss Fitzgerald’s maid, if she has one, and tell her that I want to speak to Miss Fitzgerald as soon as she can possibly come down. And come back here when you’ve done it. I want a word with you.”

With no more than an inarticulate noise the butler shuffled off, and it was ten minutes or so before he returned, with the news that Miss Fitzgerald would be down in a quarter of an hour. The Inspector took him aside into a square, rather beautiful morning-room, and began questioning him about his master’s movements of the night before. But he got very little help from his interview. It seemed to him that the man must be either phenomenally stupid or else dazed with shock at his master’s death; and yet the latter did not seem to be the case. Beyond a muttering or two of “Dear, dear!” and the like, he hardly appeared to have taken in the news; and the Inspector felt some surprise that a retired naval officer should keep so incompetent-looking a servant. Yet the house appeared well cleaned, if it did rouse itself somewhat late in the day.

Admiral Penistone, the Inspector learned, had last been seen by his staff at about a quarter past seven on the previous evening, when he and his niece had gone down to the boat-house to row themselves over to the Vicarage. (He never allowed anyone to disturb him in the morning until he rang, which accounted for his absence being unknown.) As he was going to the boat-house, he had told Emery that he need not wait up, but was to lock the front of the house and go to bed, leaving the french window of the drawing-room, which led to the lawn and the river, unbolted. “I was to lock it,” Emery said, “but Admiral Penistone always had his own key.”

“Stop a moment. Was this window bolted when you came down this morning, or not?”

“No,” Emery said; but added that that didn’t mean anything. Half the time the Admiral didn’t bolt it. It was locked, and nobody was likely to come burgling from the riverside.

Then he hadn’t seen the Admiral again? No. Or Miss Fitzgerald? Yes, so to speak. He meant that, as he and his wife were going up to bed, a bit after ten, might have been quarter-past, they’d seen Miss Fitzgerald coming up the path from the boat-house. At least, they’d seen her dress; they couldn’t see her properly in the dark. The Admiral wasn’t with her then; but they supposed he was behind, locking up the boat-house. No, he didn’t know if the boat-house was locked now; he supposed it was, but it wasn’t his work to go down to the boat-house. No, he couldn’t say they’d actually seen Miss Fitzgerald come in; she might have, or she might have stopped on the lawn. He and his wife weren’t particularly noticing; they were going to bed.

And that was all Emery had to say. Questioned about his late master’s mood of the previous evening, he seemed to have no idea, and simply stared with a moon-faced imbecility. He “supposed he was much as usual.” The Admiral was occasionally “short” with his servants (the Inspector reflected that it would take a saint not to be short with Emery at least a dozen times a day); but beyond that his butler had nothing to say. Masters, apparently, were phenomena that were occasionally short, like pastry; but one accepted the fact, and did not conjecture about the cause. At least, not if one were as limp and uninterested as Emery appeared. No, his wife and he had only been a month with the Admiral; they had applied for the post from an advertisement; they were last with a lady and gentleman in Hove, for a year and a half. At this point, somewhat to Rudge’s relief, a much more intelligent-looking maidservant appeared, and announced that Miss Fitzgerald was awaiting him in the dining-room.

“She’s ugly!” was the Inspector’s immediate reaction on first beholding the niece of the late Admiral Penistone. And then: “No, I’m not so sure that she would be, in some lights. But she’d take a good bit of making-up, I shouldn’t wonder. And, jiminy! isn’t she sulky-looking!”

Miss Elma Fitzgerald was very pale. But it was not the pallor of fear for a possible accident to her uncle, but that peculiar to a very thick, opaque skin. She was big and heavily-made, with long limbs and broad shoulders, and would have been better suited, obviously, by long trailing draperies than by the tweed skirt and jumper which she had rather carelessly put on. She had largish, strongly-marked, but roughly-designed features, with a wide jaw and full chin, and dark brows nearly meeting in her white face. Her hair was dark and coarse, done in flat plaits around her ears, and under her eyes, which were so little open that the Inspector could not at first glance determine their colour, were lines and dark pouches. She was, to him, distinctly unattractive; and “a year or two over thirty” was, he thought, a generous description. Yet she was certainly a woman of personality, and in a kinder light and with artificial aids to lighten her skin and hide the disfiguring lines, she might even have been attractive.

“Yes?” she said in a voice that contrived to have a rasp and a drawl simultaneously. “What do you want?” At any rate, the Inspector thought, she was not going to waste his time.

“I am sorry to have to tell you, Miss Fitzgerald,” said he, “that Admiral Penistone has met with a serious accident.”

“Is he dead?” The tone was so matter-of-fact that the Inspector jumped slightly.

“I am afraid he is. But did you—were you expecting—?”

“Oh, no.” Still she had not raised her eyes. “But that’s the way the police always break things to one, don’t they? What happened?”

“I’m sorry to say,” said the Inspector, “that the Admiral was murdered.”

“Murdered?” At that the eyes did open wide for a moment. They were grey, very dark grey. They would have been fine eyes, Rudge noted, if the lashes had been longer. “But—why?”

As that was exactly what the Inspector wanted to know himself, he was momentarily brought to a stop.

“His body was found,” he said, “at half-past four this morning, drifting in a boat up-stream and stabbed to the heart.” Miss Fitzgerald merely bowed her head in acquiescence, and seemed waiting for him to continue. “Damn her!” the Inspector thought. “Hasn’t she got any natural feelings? You’d think I’d told her there was a cat on the lawn!” Aloud he said: “I’m afraid this must come as a good deal of a shock to you, madam.”

“You need not consider my feelings, Inspector,” said Elma Fitzgerald, with a glance which said, more plainly than words: “And it is a gross impertinence on your part to make any enquiries into them!” “I suppose you have some idea why—this happened? Or who did it?”

“I am afraid I don’t see it very clearly yet,” the Inspector said. “I wondered—if you could …”

“I can’t,” said Miss Fitzgerald with decision. “I haven’t any idea”—she spoke slowly—“why anyone—anyone at all—should want to kill my uncle. I suppose—” But the sentence stopped there. Whatever it was she supposed, the Inspector, wait as he might, was not to be privy to it. “What do you want me to tell you?” she continued at length. (“I wish you’d be quick and go about your business,” her voice conveyed.)

“Just this, madam,” the Inspector said. “When did you last see Admiral Penistone?”

“Last night. When we came back from dining at the Vicarage.”

“What time would that be?” The Inspector believed in getting his information confirmed from as many sources as possible.

“Oh … a little after ten, I think. It struck ten just before we left.”

“And you rowed across, and came up to the house with the Admiral?”

“No, he didn’t come up to the house when I did. He was locking the boat-house, and he said he thought he’d like a cigar before he went to bed. So I said good night to him, and came straight up to the house.”

“Was there anyone about when you came in?” “No; but Emery and his wife had only just gone to bed, I think. I saw the lights going on and off as I came up. They must have been shutting up the house.” “And then—what did you do?”

“I came straight up, and went to bed myself.”