Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn
was out with my town show,” Dick shrugged. “I didn’t get home until long after Janet.”
“I was out too,” Patricia said, with a defiant little smile. “I spent the evening with friends....”
“So,” Maria murmured, “everybody was out except you, Alice, and the servants?”
She nodded, then looked rather surprised. “But does it make any point, Maria dear? Or are you— Good Lord, I do believe you are trying to read something else into the horrible business!”
“No.” Maria shook her dark head briefly. “No—not yet. But when we are finished I would like to see his library. I’m not a morbid woman but I am a stickler for details and I want to know exactly how and where he met his end.”
“Sounds like going over old ground to me,” Patricia sighed. “Anyway, you won’t need me, will you?”
“I would rather have liked all of you to co-operate,” Maria said. “I’ve still one or two things to get absolutely clear in my mind.”
“But why?” Genuine fury blazed in Patricia’s green eyes. “Just why do you have to come here and rake up this tragedy again? Why do we have to suffer it all over again just because you want a—a reconstruction? The police went over all the ground and the thing’s finished with. You know just as much as we do!”
“Just what’s the matter with you tonight, Pat?” Dick snapped. “What are you going off half-cocked about? After all, Aunt’s entitled to some explanations. As she says, she wasn’t here when the thing happened.”
Janet said: “I think you can rest assured we’re all willing to do what we can to give you a true picture, Aunt. Of course, I don’t much care myself to have old unhappy memories revived, but I also know what is common sense.... That’s for you, Pat,” she added dryly.
“All right—all right!” Pat subsided again and threw down her serviette impatiently. “But I still resent the insinuation that we’re all a bunch of criminals or something! Yes, that is what it amounts to!” she cried, glaring at the faces directed towards her. “Here are we, a perfectly respectable family with our private tragedy—then along comes Aunt Maria from England to question us all and rake up old dirt.... Good Heavens, Aunt, one would almost think dad was murdered!”
“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Dick asked quietly—then seeing Maria’s look of surprise he went on, “You might as well all know now as later on. I asked Aunt not to spring it on you—not to tell you that I sent for her as well as attorney Johnson. I told her that I did not like the circumstances of dad’s death. It looked like suicide: the police were satisfied it was suicide.... But I’m not!”
“Are you trying to suggest...?” Pat’s eyes went wide. “You mean to say somebody killed father?”
“Yes!”
In the long silence that followed Janet was the first to comment. Despite Dick’s announcement her voice was as composed as ever.
“Don’t you think you’re making rather a dangerous statement, Dick?”
“Why am I? We’re all innocent—we know that. It was an outside job, if anything. Mind you, it’s only a suspicion—but a suspicion I can’t get rid of just the same. As we all know, dad had lots of enemies. So I told Aunt Maria I suspected murder.”
“And what for?” Patricia snapped. “Aunt is a headmistress, not a detective.”
“She happens to be father’s sister and therefore entitled to our views.”
Alice Black made a rather bewildered movement. “Really, I’m quite confused! This is all so—so extraordinary! I never even thought of such a horrible possibility.... I begin to think you’ve been reading too many of those plays of yours, Dick.”
He shrugged, but his face was grim. The silence fell back and one looked at the other. Maria finished her meal with calm detachment, then as there was a general rising to feet Dick spoke again.
“Come along to the library, Aunt, and see things for yourself.”
Maria accompanied him through the lounge and across the hall. The two girls and Alice followed. Finally all of them had collected in the library in the somber twilight.
The place was well but plainly furnished. There was a massive writing desk, a heavy hide armchair drawn to face the old-style fireplace, a radiogram in the corner alcove near the window, a richly thick carpet, and hundreds of books lining the walls. The lighter furniture was in the ultra-modern steel tubing fashion.... Maria took in most of this at a glance then directed her attention back to the fireplace.
At either side of it, on the out-jutting wall produced by the chimney breast, fixed at right angles to the fireplace itself, were ancient crossed swords and pistols, shields, armory trifles, and other examples of antique art.
Patricia glanced round wearily.
“Well, Aunt, I guess there isn’t much in the place, is there?”
“It’s not the room, Patricia, it’s the memories,” Maria said quietly, gazing round her. “Yes, standing here I can almost feel Ralph’s presence. I can imagine how he must have loved this room.”
“I feel that too,” Alice said soberly. “I often come in here and sit—and sit. It refreshes me. I seem to feel again Ralph’s blustering assurances, his overwhelming strength of purpose, his ruthless ambition—for which he paid with his life! Well, Fate always has the sledgehammer....”
Patricia parted with something close to a sniff.
“Confoundedly depressing, I call it! I could never understand what dad wanted with a dump like this room. It’s—it’s medieval!”
Maria’s steady eyes fixed on her.
“Patricia, I have the oddest feeling about you. You seem to have no happy memories of your father. Why is that?”
“Would you have any happy memories of a parent who balked your dearest wish? I had no affection for father—none whatever. He insisted on treating me as an irresponsible crackpot, as a money-blown heiress with no sense of duty. I didn’t like it, and I’d be a hypocrite if I said I were sorry he died.”
“Pat!” Her mother was aghast.
“It’s true!” Pat insisted defiantly. “And you know it—all of you!” She stopped, gave a slow, bitter smile. “If you don’t mind this is too slow for me. Besides, I’m tired.... I think I’ll go up to my room.”
She went out and slammed the door. Maria looked at it thoughtfully.
Janet broke in with an apology. “I don’t quite know what to say about Pat, Aunt. She’s been unaccountably nasty ever since dad died, as a matter of fact. Says she sleeps badly. Anyway, she’s always going off to bed early in the evening like this.”
“But the doctor can’t find anything wrong with her,” Dick grunted. “Maybe she’s temperamental—classy term for dyspeptic.”
“At least she is honest about herself,” Maria reflected. “I think we should count that in her favor.... But where were we?” she went on, brisking to action. “Oh, yes, I remember. Tell me, Alice, can you remember in what position Ralph was found?”
“Yes, yes, of course; I’ll show you.”
Alice Black moved to the leather armchair and slumped into it so that her head just angled over the top of the big square back. She lolled her head sideways and tapped her right temple significantly.
“The wound had slight powder marks about it,” Dick explained. “That indicated fire from pretty close range, of course. The revolver was on the floor, about two inches from where mother’s left hand is dangling now. The only fingerprints on it were dad’s own. His own gun, of course, and a pretty hefty one—a thirty-eight automatic. He used to keep it in the