CHAPTER V
THE SEDDON-BATTYES
Keightley Wilbur, inconsistently with his amazing egotism, was extraordinarily perceptive. He was accustomed to thinking of his mother as happy and content with her life. When he was with her she was always at her happiest. And, indeed, on such occasions it seemed to him impossible she could have anything more for which to wish. She adored him, and although, as he said, his own feelings were more reasoned and less emotional, he freely admitted that he really liked her in many ways better than any other woman he had ever known. The terms on which they lived together gratified his taste, and her companionship gave him an utter sense of security. She admired his person, understood and appreciated his wildest paradoxes, was never tired of listening to revised versions of anything he wrote. He revised a great deal, and tested her with every change, almost of a comma or stop. Sometimes, but very rarely, he accepted a suggestion from her, and although he always lamented her literary limitations and that she had not had a classical education, her appreciation was nevertheless pleasant, and he conceded to her a great natural intelligence.
A few days after he had completed his investigations into the Ince case, coming home unexpectedly about tea-time, he found this happy mother of his in the drawing-room alone, and with reddened eyelids. He adjusted the blind, to make sure, and found, as usual, that he had not made a mistake.
"Why are you alone? You didn't know I was coming in to tea."
"No. But I hoped it I told James to deny me to callers."
"To say you were out, in short?"
"As you say."
"Then probably there will be no hot cakes?"
"Oh, yes. I hope so."
"Did you lose much last night?"
"No. I won a little."
"Got a headache?"
"No."
"New dress a failure?"
"Fits like a glove."
"You had better tell me what is wrong."
"Why should you think there is anything wrong?"
"I don't think. Lesser people think. I know."
"Veda has lost her baby." Her face was averted, the words came out like a sob.
"Absurd!"
She looked up abruptly, the sob was strangled in her throat
"What do you mean by absurd?" The word actually startled her. Her mood, for once, was almost antipathetic to him. Almost, not quite. Five minutes with him and it would veer round. Already he had arrested her attention, dried her tears.
"Absurd that the loss of such a recent acquaintance should make you cry."
I am not crying."
Not at the moment, perhaps."
Apologetically she said, "I am fond of Veda. After you, she is my nearest living relative, my own sister's child. And she is in great trouble; dreadful trouble. You must not laugh or scoff, it is really serious. She sent for me this morning. I have only just got back."
"It was not only a baby, it was an heir, wasn't it? Is that the trouble?"
"They have been married over five years "
"Seems a non sequitur, but get along."
"It was their first baby."
"I understand—dilatory. Didn't we go to the christening, by the way? Why, of course we did. Cheer up, old woman. It might have lived to be as interesting as its father, our dear cousin, Sir Audley. There seems to me something providential that another potential Audley Seddon-Battye should be snuffed out. It had red hair, too. What a memory I have!"
"Keightley!"
"I'm listening!"
Now she spoke hesitatingly. "That hobby of yours"
"Devenish says it is little better than spying. He has rather put me off. Shall I ring for tea? I'll read to you afterwards: I'm not going to let you fret because a three-months'-old Seddon-Battye has been translated. Poor old mater! I'm an unsympathetic brute, aren't I? I've done that villanelle I told you about, only roughed it in, of course. …"
"David Devenish said it was like spying?"
"What? Oh! my hobby, yes. I asked him if he thought it would be more appropriate for me to play golf."
"Keightley, listen. I don't know what to do. It isn't only that the baby is dead. Of course, that is very sad; they had waited a long time. But it isn't that; the way of his death is so dreadful. Nobody quite knows how it came about I am afraid, we are all afraid, there will have to be an inquest." The tone of the last sentence was tragic.
"An inquest?"
"Yes. Unless you can help."
"I?"
"I told Veda I would speak to you, that you knew Dr. Ince."
"Ince?"
"Yes."
"But I don't. I know of him, I don't know him. But go on. What is the idea or suggestion?"
She had succeeded at least in interesting him. His eyes were bright with question.
"It's all so incredible, so impossible." She put her handkerchief to her eyes again.
"Here, mater, that won't do. I can't stand that. The baby has died, and they don't know of what it died. That is what you are trying to tell me. Didn't they call in consultants?"
"There was not time. At eleven o'clock in the morning baby was quite well, asleep. Nurse went down into the hall to get the perambulator ready. The under-nurse had had toothache and had been sent to the dentist. Nurse was not out of the room half an hour. When she came back"—Mrs. Wilbur's voice dropped—"the baby was dead! He had been suffocated. …"
"The pillows, bedclothes?"
"His dear little face was clear of them all."
Keightley would not let her cry, he put a consoling hand on her shoulder. "Buck up, mater. Tell me some more. How about the nurse?"
"Trustworthy, reliable."
"Who had been in the nursery?"
"Veda, perhaps Audley. No one else. Veda cannot bear the thought of an inquest. Can't you see Dr. Ince and persuade him to give a certificate? He is under an obligation to you. You never said anything of what you found out from that dreadful Dr. Boyne."
"I say, mater, you haven't given me away, have you? You haven't told Veda?"
"No, nobody."
"That's all right. I haven't taken up the 'failure of coroners' inquests to establish the cause of death,' in the interest of public morality, or anything like that. Only as a study and to strengthen my psychology. I rather like the idea of interviewing Ince," he went on, a gleam of amusement playing about the thin mobility of his lips. "Seriously now, what is behind this affair? Is anyone suspected? Who is the next heir? Is it a penny novelette story? Tell me all you know."
The entrance of tea interrupted. She poured out for him and was glad the hot cakes were well buttered. She would even have listened to the villanelle, but that he waived the suggestion nobly.
"The villanelle can wait. I suppose Veda is in an awful state."
"She has had several attacks of faintness, heart failure. She was in bed when I left her. She does nothing but cry."
"And Audley?"
"I didn't see him."
"He wasn't sitting with her?"
"No." She hesitated.
"Go ahead."
"Keightley, I—I think there is something wrong between them."
"What sort of wrong? Has she found out what an ineffable prig he is?"
"Audley is a man of the strongest rectitude, the highest moral character."
"I know. A dull dog all the same! But I thought they were devoted to each other."
"They were. But something has come between them. Keightley, you have taken up crime as a hobby, become interested in it. What do you make of this? You were right that I have been crying. I feel very distressed and useless. Veda tried to tell me something. I wouldn't listen, I wouldn't hear. She thinks, she suspects—it is such an awful thing to say"
"Why, you are quite pale, I believe you are frightened."
"I can't help it, I am frightened. She says the last person to go into the nursery was her husband!"
"But he was prouder than anyone on earth has ever been before at having a son, an heir. He gave it sixteen names, I know, because they cost two shillings each to emblazon on that bowl we bought."
"Keightley, be absolutely serious for a moment. I can't say it, you must try and understand without words. If—if he got it into his head that the child was—was not his"
"Good God! But Veda is as straight as a die!"
"Yes, I know: of course she is, and as proud, or prouder than he. But in some way, you know, she is a little like you. …"
"No one is like me."
"I mean she says things she does not mean, light, witty things. He has never quite understood her. In her agony of mind, this morning, she told me she had chaffed him once or twice because the boy had red hair, and no Seddon-Battye had ever been red! He was offended, estranged. For a week they have hardly spoken. They have quarrelled before, of course. It is his way, it appears, on these occasions, to shut himself up from her, not to speak until she has made the first step to a reconcilation. But now it has got into her head, she is almost out of her mind with fear that he took her chaff seriously, that he thought the baby was really not his"
She could not go on.
"Finish."
"He was the last person in the room," she said brokenly.
Keightley stood up and stretched himself. He actually forgot to be epigrammatic or paradoxical. He was following the mind of Sir Audley Seddon-Battye, who he had sometimes called "the last of the Aristocrats." Audley had an immense pride of birth, pride of place: to him the Seddon-Battyes represented not only England, but Scotland and Wales. He was a prig and ridiculous, but as sensitive to honour as he, Keightley Wilbur, to a false quantity.
When Keightley got as far as that and saw what it would be to such a man to think of a putative heir being foisted on the family tree, a child that was not his own, bearing his name, he took a large piece of crumpet, soaked in butter, and said, nonchalantly:
"I suppose I shall have to straighten this up."
"I promised Veda."
"Are you going back to her?"
"I said I would after I had seen you."
"I'll drive you there and then go on and see Ince."
"You don't think he will have done anything about the inquest yet?"
"You are as bad as John Jerman."
But he was lightly tender to her, and set himself to keep up her spirits as they drove to Eaton Square. Whilst he had waited for her to dress he telephoned to Clarges Street for an appointment, and heard that Dr. Ince could see him at five o'clock.
When he left her at the door, he said:
"I shan't be with Ince long, mater. I'll fetch you in less than an hour. I may want to see Audley. Don't lose your courage, nor let Veda. Audley wears ready-made ties, but it would be too far fetched to let him be hanged on that account. What bad psychologists you all are! Audley would never commit a murder, the thought of the funeral expenses would keep him from it! What I have to do is to shut Ince's mouth while I find out who did kill the little beggar. What a good thing it is, after all, that I have taken up crime, whatever Devenish may say about it. Tell Veda not to fret. I'll pull her through."
Keightley received a good impression of Dr. Ince—Bob Ince, as his friends called him—before he was ushered into the consulting-room. The rehabilitated house in Clarges Street showed no trace of the recent fire, but every evidence of a refined and cultured taste. It was an old house: Keightley had an idea, which he afterwards confirmed, that it was the one to which Lady Hamilton had removed after the death of Sir William, that it was here she had entertained Nelson. The walls of hall and staircase were panelled, and the panels were all fitted with contemporary prints, many of Emma herself, in bistre and colours. The dining-room in which he waited had walls varnished a dull yellow, and were hung with glass prints or paintings; the Chippendale sideboard and supports were laden with Staffordshire figures, cottages and Toby mugs; there were some fine pewter pots and old cut glass in corner cupboards. The current literature lay on an old gate table. There were four ribbon-pattern Chippendale chairs, and the others, although they did not match, were equally rare and distinctive. Keightley almost forgot the object of his visit whilst surveying his surroundings.
The consulting-room, also panelled and painted white, was hung with a collection of Nanteuils, in rare condition. Keightley got a general impression of reticulated bookcases, many books and more china. Then he found himself shaking hands with a tall and handsome man, about forty years of age, with a deep and pleasant voice, dark blue eyes and assured manner.
"And what can I do for Mr. Keightley Wilbur?" the doctor began, and added a flattering word as to the pleasure he had in meeting one of whom he had heard so much. Keightley asked from whom he had heard of him. It was not modesty, only curiosity. Dr. Ince said, "From everybody," adding that he had read "The Nut's Progress," and all of Keightley's work, and was eager for more.
"But I must not talk about your work. You have come to consult me about your health?"
"No," Keightley answered lightly. "No. I'm very fit, very fit indeed."
"You did not want to see about your health?"
"Not at the moment."
Dr. Ince waited.
"Well, sit down, anyway," he said.
"You are not in a hurry?"
"When you telephoned I put off an appointment. I have half an hour."
"I shan't keep you as long as that. Do you happen to know that Lady Seddon-Battye is a cousin of mine, almost a sister? We were brought up practically together."
"I'm very sorry"
"Sorry?"
"About the affair, the baby's death. After waiting all these years, too. There must be an inquiry, of course."
"That's just what there must not be."
Bob Ince looked serious.
"I wish it could be avoided. I've already given notice to the coroner."
"You'll have to withdraw it."
Dr. Ince laughed.
"You can't withdraw a notice to a coroner unless you substitute for it an information before a magistrate, and I don't think you can, even then."
"Isn't the cause of death clear?"
"As clear as it possibly can be without a post-mortem. The baby was smothered. Someone put a pillow or cushion over its face, held it there until breathing ceased. It is not difficult to suffocate an infant of three months."
"Couldn't it have become entangled, tied up as it were in its own bedclothes or pillows, without strength to extricate itself?"
"Committed felo de se? Quite impossible in this case. I saw it seven minutes after the nurse's screams aroused the household, and it was lying on its back, clear of all obstruction. It had been dead about a quarter of an hour, rigor mortis had not yet set in. I've not had time to make a complete examination. I'm going back there."
"You must find a way to avoid an inquest, any public inquiry."
"I have told you it is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible. You'll have to discover a natural cause. Convulsion, clot on the brain? You must devise something."
Dr. Ince became a little irritable and impatient with Keightley's persistence.
"You don't expect me to make a false statement?" he asked.
"That is just what I do," Keightley answered imperturbably. "Why not? You are not going to pretend to me that it would be the first time?"
"Sir!"
"Well, are you?"
Dr. Ince rang the hand-bell on his desk. The servant appeared.
"The door," said Dr. Ince.
"One moment, please," interposed Keightley; the servant stood irresolute.
Dr. Ince kept up the appearance of courtesy.
"Do you want a cab, or have you your motor here?" he said to Keightley.
"He might see if my motor is there, I told the chauffeur to wait."
The man withdrew. Dr. Ince had no desire to quarrel, his temper was naturally generous, and his personal dignity as yet unchallenged.
That was a very insulting thing you said."
I know. It was a preliminary to one more insulting still." Keightley had risen. Both men were now standing. "I'll make it as short and straightforward as I can. There must be no inquest on my cousin's child. I will myself make all the necessary investigations." Dr. Ince opened his mouth to speak, but Keightley gave him no opportunity. "It may be news to you that I have been doing detective work for some time now." Then he paused dramatically, but Dr. Ince made no further sign. "Mysterious deaths and the verdicts of coroners' juries have absorbed me to the exclusion of everything else. I have not been taken in by a finding of 'Death by misadventure.' "
He brought this out more dramatically still, watching the effect of his words. Bob Ince was looking at him as if he had suddenly become a patient. He sat down again, drawing forward a writing-pad and poising his pencil as if he were about to take notes.
"No," he said: "no? You have not been taken in by a finding of … What is the fellow driving at? Probably a case of acute egotism," he reflected.
Keightley was a little nettled at the other's calm. He let fly his bombshell prematurely:
"I have been puzzled, but not deceived, when poisoning by picric acid in conjunction with lanoline has been mistaken by twelve jur3anen and two consultants for duodenal ulcer!"
Dr. Ince reddened and then paled; he swung round on the writing-chair and faced the speaker. For a moment he remained silent, the room became filled with silence.
Then Keightley said softly, gently:
"You will find some way to avoid the necessity of an inquest on my cousin's baby?"
But he did not know his man. Ince was stronger than he expected to find him, bigger altogether.
"So Leonard has been talking," Ince said then, in that deep melodious voice of his.
"Need we continue the discussion?" Wilbur answered, still gently. "There will be no inquest? I may tell my cousin that?"
"Blackmail, in fact?"
"Curious. That is just what I said to myself."
The doctor became thoughtful, he seemed to have a moment's hesitation, or weakening, and Keightley took immediate advantage of it.
"You will oblige me in this little matter?"
"If you are not out of the house in one minute I shall throw you out." Ince rose from his chair; his decision had been quickly made. "You are a young blackguard."
Keightley rose too. "You exaggerate, my dear fellow. …" The doctor advanced threateningly. Keightley matched himself in a glance with the other man. The doctor was at least two inches taller, a stone or so heavier. Keightley was rather pleased with the situation, although he knew he had failed. "I will take you on if you really mean it; I have always been fond of wrestling. But it wouldn't be to the point, would it? 'Brawl in a West End Surgery. Amateur Detective Gets Tripped Up!' There is nothing in it for either of us."
"Damn you!" But the doctor could see the justice of his words, the truth of them.
"And, of course, if I can't blackmail you, I can't. This is my first attempt, and I could hardly expect it to be successful. I have had no practice. It was a good scheme, but it has not come off. I suppose I didn't give it sufficient thought. It seemed so easy. I suppose you're not to be bribed either?" he asked contemplatively.
Ince tried to get hold of him, but Keightley feinted; he was really an expert wrestler, and also knew ju-jitsu.
"Don't rush your work, keep cool. I'm not really even annoyed. In fact, I believe we shall become quite good friends. Milly said she was sure I would like you."
Bob Ince's arms dropped to his sides.
Keightley could be the most charming fellow in the world when he chose, and he chose now. Dr. Ince yielded to him gradually, but he did yield. He was a many-sided man, not belligerent, much more intelligent than the average medico. They spoke of Milly Mordaunt, and incidentally of other mutual stage acquaintances, ricochetting to the subject-matter of the interview abruptly. Naturally it had remained in both their minds. When they came back to it they had advanced in knowledge of each other, and Keightley made something of an apology. "I suppose I started on the wrong tack. You would avoid an inquest, if possible?"
"Of course I would have done all I could, but an inquest is inevitable, whatever the result."
"You know what my cousin—what Lady Seddon-Battye has in her mind?"
"She is very hysterical: not really recovered from her lying-in. She is not fully accountable for anything she may say."
"All the more reason …"
"One cannot hush up a thing like this." Now Dr. Ince was even sympathetic. "The household, the tradespeople—everybody knows what she said in her hysteria; that the child has been suffocated. It would be risking everything to gain nothing. I'll do my best I'll do all I can. I am really more distressed about it than I can say. I brought the little fellow into the world."
"Well, you can leave it to me to find who helped him out of it" Keightley tock up his hat. "Not Audley, for a million. I'm not only a criminologist, my friend, I'm a psychologist. You think that, notwithstanding Lady Seddon-Battye is hysterical, there is some truth in what she said in her hysteria? Sir Audley was the last person in the nursery: and so you suspect him! You, she, my mother, all of you! Will you wager? I'm never wrong. I bet he had nothing whatever to do with it—less than nothing. Will you bet? And that I shall find out who it was."
"Good luck to you. No, I won't bet. That the baby died from suffocation, that someone put a pillow over its face and kept it there, is not open to argument."
"Coolest fellow I ever met," Keightley said to himself when he was in the motor. "I like him, though. Wonder whether it was all a mistake? Boyne was blundering fool enough for anything. I'm no good as a blackmailer. I shall have to take lessons."
In Eaton Square the blinds were down and everyone trod softly. Keightley asked for his mother and was told she was with her ladyship, that Sir Audley was still in the library, and would see no one. Mrs. Wilbur appeared at the top of the stairs while Keightley was talking to the butler, and he went up to her, two steps at a time.
"No! I can't say I've exactly succeeded," he replied to a hurriedly whispered question. "I expect there will have to be some sort of an inquiry. I want to see Veda. Can I go in?"
"I am not sure if she will see anybody—even you. I'll go and ask her. Is Dr. Ince coming over again? I am sure she ought to have a sleeping draught. Someone must sit up with her to-night."
Now Keightley was in the darkened room. Veda was lying on the bed. She had gone from one fainting fit to another; the atmosphere was heavy with complicated restoratives. Keightley had many of the little human failings at which it was his habit to scoff, family affection amongst them. He was fond of Veda; they were as intimate as brother and sister, more intimate than many brothers and sisters. She had helped his mother to spoil him, hero-worshipping him throughout her younger years. Her marriage had somewhat separated them; the Seddon-Battye estates were in the North of England and the two men temperamentally antagonistic. But nothing ever really separates two young people who have been associated in a long and happy childhood.
"Poor old girl!"
"Oh, Keightley, I can't bear it!"
But Keightley's presence quieted her, made her more reasonable, less hysterical.
"You've got to remember you'd only known him such a short time."
But he was my baby—my first baby."
You must go on crying, I suppose?"
She raised her flushed and disfigured face, all blurred with weeping, from the pillow.
"Keightley, you've heard"
"What a rotten idea you've got in your head! Yes. And I think you must have gone mad to imagine such a thing. Audley! of all people."
"Someone held a pillow over his little face." Her own went down again.
"Does Audley know what you have been thinking about him?" Keightley said again after a short pause.
"I called him a coward. We hadn't spoken before that for three weeks."
The words were muffled by the bedclothes.
"Well, it must have been something of an unequal fight, you were right there."
"Don't laugh at me, Keightley—don't laugh. I know I am half out of my mind. I'm so miserable and … and wicked."
"Nonsense."
Now she was looking at him again, and indeed it was not necessary for her to tell him how unhappy she was.
"I've said such things—such awful things to him just to see how he would take them, just for fun. Now this punishment has come upon me. I let him think it was not his."
Her young grief-ravaged face made him turn away, but he only said lightly, a little unsteadily:
"There wasn't any other fellow, I suppose?"
At that she burst out hysterically crying again.
"I've never looked at anyone else, you know I never have. I only tried to make him lighter, not be so solemn. I was so happy, and I never thought he would be offended, would believe" Again she abandoned herself to her grief, forgetting even that her cousin was there. " Oh, Audley, Audley!" she sobbed.
"Shall I fetch him?"
"I want him; I don't care if he did it or not."
"Of course he didn't do it. Don't be so idiotic."
She hardly knew what she was saying.
"I said it couldn't be a real Seddon-Battye because it had red hair."
"Pity it wasn't blue, he might have suspected Circe."
Keightley still spoke lightly, but he was genuinely moved, and incredulous. Veda's mass of black hair was all he could see of her, and the heaving bedclothes.
Circe was the great blue Persian cat, a prize-winner, and before baby came Veda's great interest in life—Circe and her perennial kittens. She was lying even now at the foot of the bed. Keightley rubbed her fur up the wrong way, and she rose to her feet, hunched her back and spat at him.
"I'll fetch Audley. Don't make him more of a scene than you can help."
"He won't come, I know he won't come. He'll never speak to me again. He doesn't care for me any more. …"
The library door was closed. Sir Audley had given orders he was not to be disturbed. Keightley went in without knocking; there was nothing to be gained by subjecting himself to a refusal.
The unexpected happened. Sir Audley Seddon-Battye, a blond and slow-witted man of huge proportions, was sitting forlornly in an easy-chair: but he got up when his cousin entered. He actually seemed glad to see him.
"It was kind of you to come."
Sir Audley never read anything but racing calendars, Debrett's Peerage and Burke's "Landed Gentry." He was forty odd years of age, a little deaf, and although enormously rich was very careful of his expenditure. His wife had a Rolls-Royce car for her exclusive use, but he had been known almost to cry when he spoke of the amount of petrol it used. He and his wife's family had nothing in common. But he was so shaken by the event of the morning, following upon the estrangement from his wife, that he welcomed even Keightley as an interruption to his thoughts. They talked platitudes for a few moments. Keightley strove for simplicity in expressing his sympathy. Audley was at his deafest before an epigram. Keightley said it was "hard lines" and "rotten luck." Audley said "Poor little chap!" and there were tears in his blue eyes. The idea that he was the murderer of the child he was lamenting became always more grotesque.
"Have you seen Veda?"
"Just come out of her room. Which reminds me. She wants you to go up to her."
Sir Audley got red. Actually there was a flush on his forehead.
"Me! Are you sure? I'll go."
"Wait a minute."
But he had already gone.
"Poor devil! I don't suppose he even heard what she said to him, or if he did, he never gave it a thought. He has no idea he is a suspected murderer! What fools women are! He has been sitting here longing to see her, longing for reconciliation. He didn't even wait to hear what I had to tell him. The moment he thought she wanted him, had asked for him, he was off. And she's in love with the ass, and leads him the deuce of a life. Gad! Why can't I be like other people, and care like that?"
And then he lounged about the bookless room and thought of himself. But recollected in time that he had a rôle to play, and was not playing it.
"Now, who did kill the little beggar?" he pondered. "It wasn't Audley, that's sure. Nor Ince. Nor Ince? Once a murderer, always a murderer. No, that's rot! But what motive, what motive could anyone have had? And," he pondered, "if there was no motive … By God! I've got it. What a genius I am! Why don't I say 'Eureka'? Does anyone ever say 'Eureka'?"
He was suddenly excited at an idea that had come to him, and tried to calm himself with phrases. He rang the bell, and, too impatient to wait until it was answered, was out in the hall.
"I say, one of you fellows"—it was the sort of household where never less than two people answered the bell, however dilatorily—"where's the nursery? Can't you take me up there? I want to see—can't I see the—the"
"The corpse, sir?" suggested the footman with heavy solemnity.
"Yes, that's it."
The footman led the way. All the household had been up already. Such are the easy pleasures of the servants' hall.
The nursery was full of the scent of flowers, lilies and orchids, gardenias and tuberoses. The blinds were down. The swinging cot, white painted and hung with muslin and lace, was nothing but a mound of flowers in the gloom. Keightley dismissed his guide:
"Thank you. Get out now. I want to be alone."
Keightley stood beside the cot. The little waxen figure lay stiff and unreal amid the lilies—one had been put in the tiny hand. Then Keightley Wilbur did a strange thing, an unaccountable thing. He locked the door, turned on all the electric light, came back and took up his former position.
Ten minutes later, or perhaps less, he was downstairs; his eyes shining like stars.
"Where's the telephone?"
"There's one in the library, sir."
"Get me on to Dr. Ince."
"He's in the house, sir."
"In the house?"
"In her ladyship's room."
"You must get him out."
"Me, sir?"
"I'll go up myself."
Sir Audley met him on the landing: he had only that moment left his wife's room.
"I want to speak to Ince."
"He is with Veda. Is it important?"
"Vital. I can't wait."
"She is better, I think she is decidedly better."
Certainly Audley was; the forlorn aspect of unbearable trouble had left him.
"I am returning to her." Keightley could see the pride he had in saying it. "She cannot bear to be alone; she wants me to stay with her. Thank you, my dear Keightley, for fetching me. Had I known"
"I say, there isn't a moment to lose, do get Ince."
"Your dear mother not unwell, I hope?"
"She is decidedly better," Dr. Ince began, exactly as Sir Audley had done.
"I don't care a damn," was Keightley's quick reply. "Oh! I don't mean that. But I want to talk to you. I want you to come upstairs with me at once."
Dr. Ince marvelled at his excitement.
"None of you have got any sense; if you only had my flair for this sort of thing …" was how Keightley Wilbur began when he and Dr. Ince were alone.
That evening at dinner even his mother failed to recognise her genius, her developed and brilliant son. He was in the wildest spirits, emitting cries like an Indian warrior or a cowboy, was excessively voluble and exhausting; for although he talked all the time he said nothing. By the time dinner was over he had silenced all speech in her; in another half-hour he had paralysed thought. He had been subject to these moods as a boy. Not a word of sense could she get from him, nor an answer to a question.
"I gather there is to be no inquest?" she ventured when he came up to her in the drawing-room. For answer he executed a war dance and terrified her for the safety of her furniture. Then sat down to the piano and played ragtime, leaving off suddenly and swinging round on the music-stool.
"No inquest! Rather! I should think there would be an inquest. It's the whole point. I've sworn Ince to secrecy. I'm not going to tell even you."
"Veda?"
"Veda is all right. Audley might have committed every crime in the calendar, but she won't have anyone else near her. He is going to sit up with her to-night. I left him fussing about hot-water bottles and sal volatile, comparing Boots' prices with the local chemist."
"Then?"
"It won't do, mater. I am going to keep it a secret. You won't get anything out of me."
"You seem quite pleased your cousin has lost her baby."
"Even that won't do it. I'm going out. You'll pump me if I don't. And I want my field day, my drama, my surprise "
His mother went to bed and took bromide, whilst Keightley distinguished himself by visiting every night club in London, making himself more conspicuous at one than another, narrowly escaping conflict with the police, telling everyone he had had the day of his life.
The next morning he had a splitting headache and remained in bed. He distressed his mother by excluding her from his room, and startled her later by sending for Dr. Ince. They were closeted together for nearly an hour. But Dr. Ince was able to bring her the reassuring news that her son was recovering from a bad attack of migraine and that there was not the slightest cause for uneasiness. True enough, Keightley reappeared at dinner practically normal.
"Poor old mater! I hope you haven't been worrying about me. What it is to have a genius for a son!" was the note of his conversation at dinner. Afterwards he read her the villanelle. She knew better than to mention the Seddon-Battyes, but praised his poem unreservedly and discussed it for three solid hours. As they were going to bed he said casually:
"By the way, darling, I want you to come with me to the inquest to-morrow. It's at Westminster."
The idea was repellent to her and she remonstrated. But without any effect.
"Be ready at eleven o'clock. I'll drive you round. Don't stop awake and think how trying it will be. Veda won't be there, she won't be wanted."
"You won't tell me what has happened, or what is going to happen?"
"Not a word."
At Westminster the next morning in a crowded court an inquiry was opened into the cause of the death of the infant child of Sir Audley and Lady Seddon-Battye.
The nurse was the first witness called.
"My name is Sarah Evans. I took the baby from the month. Her ladyship had a good character with me from the Duchess of Narrowly, the young duchess. I had all her three children. I should have been there now if she hadn't taken a French young woman into the nursery."
Recalled to the matter in hand, and kept to it strictly, she deposed that the under-nurse had been awake all night with toothache, and that after she had done the nurseries and got baby's bath ready "my lady" insisted on sending her to a dentist. Her ladyship remained in the nursery and herself assisted at baby's toilet. There was then the necessity for cleaning the pram, airing the rug, and getting ready a hot-water bottle against the "little precious" went for his outing. Nurse was careful to explain she was not used to do such things, but "obliged" on this occasion. The litany of domestic service seldom varies.
Asked about the time, she was quite certain it was not more than eleven o'clock when she left the nursery. It was eleven-thirty-five when she returned. Then followed the account of how she went over to the cot—the dead baby, her screams, the housemaid coming to her, her ladyship, and after her Sir Audley.
"White as death milady went. 'It's you has done it. Coward!' she says, and falls fainting on the floor."
The sensation in court was profound.
It was then elicited from various members of the household that relations had been strained between Sir Audley and her ladyship for some few days. Sir Audley had had his meals in the library, her ladyship kept a great deal to her own apartments.
At this juncture the coroner asked if Sir Audley Seddon-Battye was represented by a solicitor. The question was repeated to Sir Audley by an inspector, and he shook his head.
"No. Certainly not. Why?"
Presently, at the invitation of the coroner, he left his seat and went into the box. Kissing the book and undertaking to give his evidence faithfully, he detailed his name, various titles and seats with careful exactitude. When he had finished the coroner consulted for a moment with his clerk, and then said:
"Sir Audley Seddon-Battye, you have been in court the whole time of this inquiry, you have heard from the child's nurse the words spoken by your wife when she was unexpectedly confronted by you at the bedside of your dead child. Have you any comment to make, any explanation to offer the court? You are not bound to answer."
Sir Audley asked for the question to be repeated.
Mrs. Wilbur, not in a general way a woman to show emotion, put a hand on her son's knee. Keightley covered it with his own.
"It's all right, mater. I'm stage managing this show; wait a bit. There's a surprise coming."
Perhaps the calmest man in court was Sir Audley himself.
"Were you in the nursery between the time the nurse left it and the moment when her piercing shriek alarmed all the household?"
"Yes."
All faces were turned to the witness-box at this answer, necks were craned, and people stood up in their places.
"Do you wish to say anything more?" The coroner then gave him the usual warning.
It seemed as if Sir Audley did so wish, and he half opened his mouth as if to speak. But then he remembered his dignity and that this person who was questioning him was possibly not in the blue book.
"I have nothing further to say."
"That will do, then. You may go."
Sir Audley left the box as if a long array of ancestors were behind him and he was leading them.
The coroner leaned forward and said a few words to his officer.
"Idiot!" commented Keightley to his mother. "He has told the man not to lose sight of him!"
Dr. Ince was the next witness called.
"Now watch," said Keightley excitedly. "See him practise the art of suppressio veri. I coached him myself. He mustn't fail me."
Keightley's excitement was manifest, culminating.
"After Ince it will be my turn. Watch, mater: watch, listen! "
Dr. Ince, duly sworn, proved comparatively uninteresting. He said, in answer to questions, that he had attended Lady Seddon-Battye in her confinement three months ago, and believed she had fully recovered her strength. Her mind had never been clouded. The baby was healthy, weighed seven pounds when he was born and increased steadily, although with fluctuations. He then went on to tell what had led him to his diagnosis that the child had been suffocated, and explained how every other cause of death was excluded by this or the other circumstance. He said further that he saw no necessity for a post-mortem, the cause of death being absolutely clear. He waited, and might perhaps have said more, but the coroner told him, as he had Sir Audley:
"You may go."
There was a short pause after Dr. Ince left the box. The pressmen were curiously awaiting developments, the jury were confused and uneasy, the coroner uncertain what to do. Sir Audley's manner had undoubtedly impressed him, and the relation of his titles and estates. Yet why had his wife accused him, made that amazing statement? Of course the case must be adjourned for further evidence. But from whom was it to come?
At this juncture in his thoughts he became aware of a gentleman standing up in the body of the court and addressing him.
"Am I entitled to speak?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Keightley Wilbur."
"What do you know about this case?"
"Everything."
"Do you wish to give evidence?"
"I am willing to give evidence."
Keightley went into the box and permitted himself to be sworn. The questions began.
"What is your profession?"
"I am a criminologist."
The coroner said in an irritated way that Mr. Wilbur might describe himself more particularly. Was he a detective?
Keightley replied pleasantly that he had thought his name was well known. The coroner answered rudely that he at least had never heard it. Keightley, looking at the reporters' table, shrugged his shoulders and answered:
"I suppose I must not resent that. I recall that there was once a judge who had never heard of Connie Gilchrist."
"Will you please tell us what you know of this case," the coroner then said impatiently. "Or if you know anything."
He did not think any important evidence would be forthcoming from this quarter. There were always cranks in coroners' courts; and he thought this was one of them.
"The child was smothered."
"So we have been told by Dr. Ince."
"He has not told you by whom?"
"He was not questioned upon that point. That may be a matter for another court. You are not going to tell us that you know who suffocated this child?" the coroner asked sharply.
"Why not?"
Another sensation in court and Keightley obviously exhilarated.
"You know that you will be bound over to repeat your evidence at another time, in another place. You know that?"
"You are threatening me?"
"I am explaining your position."
Keightley turned as if to leave the box.
"Well, since I am not compelled to speak "
Flat disappointment, shown on every face, quivered throughout the expectant court.
"Come back, sir." The coroner raised his voice. "Answer the questions put to you." He spoke with great severity. "Remember there is such a thing as committal for contempt."
"I am obliged to answer, then?"
"You are obliged to answer, since you have told us that you know. Was it a member of the household?"
A member of the household. Well, yes and no.
"Be more explicit, please."
Mrs. Wilbur found her heart palpitating violently.
But Dr. Ince was by her side and reassured her.
"Who is he going to accuse? What is he going to say?"
"You mustn't worry, he is enjoying himself in his own strange way. There will be nothing to distress you."
"Go on, please," said the coroner.
"You insist?" asked Keightley.
"I insist."
Keightley looked round the court and at the reporters.
"The responsibility is not mine, then," he said seriously.
"We shall judge of your responsibility when you have made your statement. You are keeping the court waiting."
"Very well. You will have only yourself to blame if"
Every face was turned to him in hushed expectancy; tense. He addressed, not the coroner, but the whole court, the small public and the constables, the reporters and loutish twelve in the jury box.
"I will tell you who suffocated this baby, who committed this murder! This murder," he spoke with contempt and sarcastic coolness, "of which you, sir, dared to suspect my cousin, Sir Audley Seddon-Battye."
The coroner said warmly that he had suspected no one. But it was obvious the accusation annoyed him.
"Now I will reconstruct the scene, as they do in France." He stopped. Everyone's eyes were upon him, following his every phrase and gesture, intent, strung up to the last pitch of excitement. "Listen. Sir Audley Seddon-Battye went up to the nursery, as he himself has told you, whilst the nurse was cleaning the perambulator in the hall. He went over to the cot, stood admiringly by the sleeping child a little while, and then went out again. Lady Seddon-Battye was the next visitor." Again the very breath of the court was hushed. "She is not well enough to appear before you, but I made a point of seeing her this morning, before the court opened, and she said"
"What Lady Seddon-Battye said to you is not evidence," the coroner interposed.
"Not evidence? You don't wish me to go on then?"
"You can go on," the coroner answered sullenly.
"But if it is not evidence?"
"Go on, sir."
"She told me that she remembers now, she remembers perfectly now that her husband left the room as she entered it. She saw the child alive later than he did, took the bottle from his mouth …"
He paused; the silence was tense. Dr. Ince asked the lady in front of him for the loan of her smelling salts. Mrs. Wilbur was very white, and he thought she would faint.
"Lady Seddon-Battye, then, was the last person to see the child alive?"
"My God! in another moment your suspicions will be directed towards Lady Seddon-Battye."
The coroner could not find words.
The reporters were now writing rapidly, the jury staring open-mouthed.
"Lady Seddon-Battye had gone into the nursery softly so as not to awaken the baby, almost stealthily."
"You know this? How can you know this?"
It was Keightley's turn to be annoyed now, he wanted his effect, his climax.
"Oblige me by not interrupting. I shall make no statement that I am not in a position to prove. She took the bottle from the wet lips of the sleeping child, kissed him, withdrew. But she had been followed. …" It seemed for the moment as if he could not go on.
"Soft-footed, more soft-footed even than she, surreptitious, the intruder came through the door that had been inadvertently left ajar. There she waited, crouching, concealed, until Veda—until my cousin went out again. Then, without pause or delay, one spring, and her helpless and wretched victim …"
A woman shrieked. The coroner said sharply he would have the court cleared. Keightley himself seemed to have turned pale.
"And the name of this dastardly criminal, the name?"
There was sympathy with the witness. Who would he accuse? Keightley recovered himself, apparently with an effort.
"What dastardly criminal?" he asked the coroner, he seemed perplexed at the question, surprised.
"You said 'she.' It was a woman then?"
"A woman! God forbid! Surely I have made myself clear. It was Circe, my cousin's favourite Persian cat."
The woman who had shrieked began to giggle hysterically.
"Circe it was who jumped upon the cot, settled herself upon the baby's face, jumping off again when nurse startled her by opening the door in the noisy way peculiar to servants."
In the pause that followed Keightley permitted himself to relax, to lounge.
"There is evidence of this extraordinary story?"
"Surely it is not nearly as extraordinary as the one you credited," Keightley retorted with an affectation of being weary of such stupidity. "Not nearly as extraordinary as if my cousin had killed her baby, or Sir Audley his heir."
"You can step down."
"Thank you so much."
Dr. Ince, recalled, deposed to finding several of the cat's hairs in the cradle. And although, unlike Keightley, he was careful not to throw any blame upon the coroner, he pointed out that he had not been asked any questions as to how the child's death had been compassed; the cause of death, but not how it had been brought about. The coroner censured him, nevertheless, and said the court had been befooled. There was quite a little argument before the verdict of "Death by misadventure" was brought in. Ince defended himself with ability. He said it was not his place to volunteer evidence. The general impression remained that the coroner had been inept.
Keightley, going home afterwards with his mother, said:
"Mater, I ought to have been an actor. Didn't I tell the story well? I spoofed you, too, you know I did. Wasn't it a glorious anti-climax when I said 'My cousin's Persian cat.' How nearly that pompous beggar swore. Ince behaved well, didn't he? Never said a word until he was recalled. I don't believe anyone would have thought of it if I hadn't, if the idea had not come to me when I was in the library, after I'd sent Audley up to Veda. It came to me quite suddenly. It struck me that if Circe was accustomed to jump on Veda's bed, why not on the baby's cot? So I went up, turned on all the lights, found three or four hairs, got hold of Ince, found some more. The great cat had jumped up, settled in the little beggar's face."
"Veda knows?"
"Oh, yes. I told them yesterday. Audley thought it was all cut and dried, never even knew what the coroner was driving at. Veda insists upon Circe being destroyed. You are not annoyed with me, are you? It was pretty smart of me, wasn't it?"
And she was such a good mother, such a devoted and loving mother, that although she was sick at heart, and shocked, she never uttered a word of criticism or blame, never told him what she really thought of the way he had treated their family trouble or tragedy. She praised him for his prescience, praised the dramatic way with which he had brought out his evidence, agreed he would have become a great actor had that been the career he had selected; gave him the admiration he claimed from her.
But David Devenish was less reticent when Keightley made his boast.
"What about spying now? If it had not been for my gift of insight, my skill as a criminologist. Sir Audley might have found himself in the dock. My Heaven! What an exhibition he would have given us! Family pride, and then the horrid fear of excessive counsels' fees."
"The differences between your cousin and her husband would not have been in everyone's mouth: his temper or her humours."
"Ince had missed everything."
"You gave him no time. You were so anxious to mountebank at the inquest, to have your dramatic moment, to be in the public eye, that you considered no one's feelings. You say there is always a story behind a verdict. Shall I tell you the real story behind this verdict? It is a three-volume one, and the end is not yet. It is the story of Keightley Wilbur's vanity."
"The mater thought I carried the thing through splendidly.
"If the managers only thought as mother does," David quoted contemptuously. "And as for being an actor, you played tragedy as if it were comedy, or farce. I don't believe you even remembered that it was tragedy, you were so occupied in thinking of yourself, in posing for publicity. Don't you think it is time you gave up this child's play of being 'Sherlock Holmes' and settled down again? You have obviously little or no qualification for the game. Go back to your writing. For that, at least, you have some small ability."