The Mystery at Stowe. Vernon Loder
It looked haggard and tormented, the lips drawn back from the teeth in an ugly way. He shuddered.
‘I must send for the doctor at once. I don’t understand what can have happened. Will you help me get her on to the bed?’
Elaine shook her head doubtfully. ‘I don’t think it wise. I have seen many dead people before now, and this doesn’t look natural.’
‘You can’t mean murder?’ he asked, his jaw dropping.
‘I mean we had better leave her where she is,’ said Elaine. ‘Telephone at once to the doctor, and to the police. That is the only thing to do. I shall stay here until they come, or until you return.’
‘Please do,’ he said. ‘I suppose we shall have to tell the others? Shocking affair, dreadful, awful! But I must telephone. That can’t wait.’
He hurried out of the room, and slipped downstairs. He was anxious to alarm no one just yet, and at that hour most of the guests were wrapped in heavy sleep. It took him some time to get a reply from Dr Browne’s house, but, when the sleepy man at the other end of the wire heard what had happened, he assured Mr Barley that he would drive over at once.
Mr Barley next rang up the police station. Another short wait here. Then he heard the sergeant’s voice, hurriedly told him of the tragic event, and went upstairs again.
No one had been disturbed. Elaine was standing looking out of the window when he returned to the room. A great deal was required to shake her nerve. She had seen death too near, and too often, to lose control.
‘You will notice that this window is wide open, Mr Barley,’ she said in a low voice, as he went to her side, ‘top and bottom.’
‘So was mine,’ he said, rubbing his hands nervously together. ‘It was a very hot night.’
‘At all events, remember it,’ she said, so significantly that it rang in his head for long after. ‘Is the doctor coming?’
‘Yes, and the police sergeant. Dear me! Dear me! What ought I to do? The people here will be alarmed. Will it be wise to defer telling them?’
‘For the present, yes,’ she said.
‘And later on I could make arrangements for them to go.’
She shook her head. ‘The police may want to see them all.’
The thought of the police worried him. ‘I think I must lock up this room then. We can’t stand here. I don’t like it. If we could have put her on the bed, it would have been different, but she looks terrible lying there.’
‘Very well,’ said Elaine. ‘It’s lucky most of the others are sleeping in the other wing of the house. Only Mr Haine is in this—beside my room, and her husband’s.’
‘Poor Tollard!’ he said, ‘I had forgotten him. What a blow it will be! How he will reproach himself for being away. But, Miss Gurdon, surely it’s possible she died naturally? She was not well yesterday, had a violent headache, and did not come down later—’
She touched him on the shoulder. ‘We shall see all that later. We had better lock up this room. I must get dressed, and you too. The doctor might be here in a few minutes.’
He turned to the door. ‘You are so practical. Yes, I must dress at once. I am sure Browne will be shocked when he sees her. But we mustn’t talk here.’
He let her out, followed himself, withdrawing the key, and locking the door from the outside. He was far more disturbed than Elaine, unusually shaken for such a stolid and experienced man.
‘Don’t tell the others till after breakfast, if you can avoid it,’ she whispered, as they parted outside her room.
He shook his head mournfully, and went off to complete his dressing. He did not shave. As he put on his collar he suddenly remembered that Miss Gurdon had not told him why she had gone into the dead woman’s room. He supposed that, like himself, she had heard that extraordinary sound, and the thud. In the light of what he now knew, it occurred to him that the latter noise must have been the sound of Mrs Tollard’s fall. In that case her death must have taken place at the most a few minutes before Miss Gurdon came to tell him that something was wrong.
That this should happen was troubling enough of itself to the good host and kindly friend, but in addition he had a liking for Mrs Tollard. It may have been that her rather pathetic face and air appealed to him; or her habit of speaking to him as if he stood in some protective relation to her. At all events he felt her death deeply.
He was sorry for Tollard too. The man had not seemed very happy of late. Probably there had been some slight marital differences, but these things fade away in the face of death. Ned would be horrified when he learned what had happened.
It was as well that most of the guests slept well that morning. One or two may have heard the doctor’s car drive up, but at that early hour no one thought anything of it. Mr Barley, in a fret of impatience, let the doctor in, asking him to be as quiet as he could.
‘A good many guests,’ he added anxiously.
‘I see,’ said Browne, in a quiet voice. ‘Will you lead the way, Mr Barley.’
Barley took him upstairs. In the passage near the door of Mrs Tollard’s room, Elaine Gurdon stood waiting. Barley whispered an introduction, Browne bowed, looked curiously at Elaine, whom he had heard lecture, and waited till Mr Barley had unlocked the door.
He advanced into the room, and bent down to look at the dead woman. Mr Barley stopped near him, his heavy face quivering. Elaine slipped in, but remained near the door, her face intent.
Dr Browne pursed his lips, studying the face of Mrs Tollard carefully. Something he saw in it seemed to check him in an impulse to lift the body.
‘Just a moment,’ he whispered over his shoulder to Mr Barley.
Mr Barley stepped gingerly over to him, and listened to a few rapid words that Elaine could not catch. But, watching the doctor’s moving lips, she thought she saw them shape the word ‘Poison.’
‘Yes, we had better wait for the sergeant,’ replied Mr Barley.
Through the open window they heard a slight crunch of loose gravel. The doctor stepped over, glanced out, and nodded back at the others. Barley took this gesture to mean that the police sergeant had arrived on his bicycle. He left the room softly, but hurriedly.
Browne looked at Miss Gurdon. She approached him, and put a question in a low voice.
‘What do you think? She was not very well yesterday.’
He shrugged. ‘I prefer to say nothing for the moment.’
She nodded, and went back to where she had stood before. In a very short time Mr Barley ushered in the sergeant, who tried to cover his excitement by looking very grim and important. This sort of case had not come into his hands before.
He and the doctor spoke together in whispers for a few moments. Then, between them, they raised the dead woman into a sitting position, supported by their arms, being careful not to disturb the position of the lower portion of the body.
As they raised her, Dr Browne removed one arm suddenly, and glanced at the sergeant. ‘Something here,’ he said softly. ‘Can you hold her yourself for a moment, sergeant? I felt something against my sleeve.’
The sergeant did as he was bid. Mr Barley stared eagerly at the two men. Elaine drew herself up, and seemed to be frozen by some sudden thought.
Browne put a hand to a spot beneath Mrs Tollard’s left shoulder-blade, made a gentle plucking movement, and stared at something he held between his fingers. It looked to the others like a dark wooden sliver, or long thorn. The sergeant opened his mouth, restrained an exclamation, and fixed his eyes on this strange object.
‘Lay her back again, please,’ said Browne, his voice troubled.
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