Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (14 page)

French sat down and made a remark or two about the weather, while he watched the man opposite to him keenly but unobtrusively. He was playing for time in which to ascertain what manner of man this doctor really was, so that he might handle the interview in the way most likely to achieve its end. Philpot replied politely but shortly, evidently at a loss to know why his visitor could not come to the point. But French presently did so with surprising suddenness.

“I am sorry, Dr. Philpot, that I am here on very unpleasant business, and I must begin by telling you that I am a detective-inspector from New Scotland Yard.”

As he spoke French made no secret of his keen scrutiny. His eyes never left the other’s face, and he felt the thrill of the hunter when he noticed a sudden change come over its expression. From inattentive and bored it now became watchful and wary, and the man’s figure seemed to stiffen as if he were bracing himself to meet a shock.

“I regret to say,” French proceeded, “that information has recently been received by the Yard which, if true, would indicate that you are guilty of a very serious crime, and I have to warn you that if you are unable to offer me a satisfactory explanation I may have to arrest you, in which case anything which you may now say may be used in evidence against you.”

French was deeply interested by the other’s reception of this speech. Dr. Philpot’s face was showing extreme apprehension, not to say actual fear. This was not altogether unexpected—French had seen apprehension stamped on many a face under similar circumstances. But what was unexpected was that the doctor should show no surprise. He seemed indeed to take French’s statement for granted, as if a contingency which he had long expected had at last arisen. “He knows what is coming,” French thought as he paused for the other to speak.

But Philpot did not speak. Instead he deliberately raised his eyebrows, and looking inquiringly at French, waited for him to continue. French remained silent for a moment or two, then leaning forward and staring into the other’s eyes, he said in a low tone: “Dr. Philpot, you are accused of murdering your wife, Edna Philpot, at your home at Braeside, Kintilloch, about 5.30 on the afternoon of the 15th May, 1921.”

The doctor started and paled. For a moment panic seemed about to overtake him, then he pulled himself together.

“Ridiculous!” he declared coolly. “Your information must be capable of some other explanation. What does it consist of?”

“It purports to be the statement of an eye-witness,” French returned, continuing slowly: “It mentions—among other things—it mentions—a cricket bat.”

Again Philpot’s start indicated that the shot had told, but he answered steadily:—

“A cricket bat? I don’t follow. What has a cricket bat to do with it?”

“Everything,” French said grimly: “if the information received is correct, of course.”

Philpot turned and faced him.

“Look here,” he said harshly, “will you say right out what you mean and be done with it? Are you accusing me of murdering my wife with a cricket bat, or what are you trying to get at?”

“I’ll tell you,” French rejoined. “The statement is that you arranged the—‘accident’—which befell your wife. The ‘accident,’ however, did not kill her, as you hoped and intended, and you then struck her on the temple with a cricket bat, which did kill her. That, I say, is the statement. I have just been to Kintilloch and have been making inquiries. Now, Dr. Philpot, when I mentioned the cricket bat you started. You therefore realised its significance. Do you care to give me an explanation or would you prefer to reserve your statement until you have consulted a solicitor?”

Dr. Philpot grew still paler as he sat silent, lost in thought.

“Do you mean that you will arrest me if I don’t answer your questions?”

“I shall have no alternative.”

Again the doctor considered while his eyes grew more sombre and his expression more hopeless. At last he seemed to come to a decision. He spoke in a low voice.

“Ask your questions and I’ll answer them if I can.”

French nodded.

“Did you ever,” he said slowly, “admit to any one that you had committed this murder?”

Philpot looked at him in surprise.

“Never!” he declared emphatically.

“Then how,” French went on, slapping the confession down on the table, “how did you come to write this?”

Philpot stared at the document as if his eyes would start out of his head. His face expressed incredulous amazement, but here again French, who was observing him keenly, felt his suspicions grow. Philpot was surprised at the production of the paper; it was impossible to doubt the reality of his emotion. But he did not read it. He evidently recognised it and knew its contents. For a moment he gazed breathlessly, then he burst out with a bitter oath.

“The infernal scoundrel!” he cried furiously. “I knew he was bad, but this is more than I could have imagined! That——Roper is at the bottom of this, I’ll swear! It’s another of his hellish tricks!”

“What do you mean?” French asked. “Explain yourself.”

“You got that paper from Roper—somehow, didn’t you?” The man was speaking eagerly now. “Even after he’s dead his evil genius remains.”

“If after my warning you care to make a statement, I will hear it attentively, and you will have every chance to clear yourself. As I told you I have learned about the case from various sources. I retain that knowledge to check your statement.”

Philpot made a gesture as if casting prudence to the winds.

“I’ll tell you everything; I have no option,” he said, and his manner grew more eager. “It means admitting actions which I hoped never to have to speak of again. But I can’t help myself. I don’t know whether you’ll believe my story, but I will tell you everything exactly as it happened.”

“I am all attention, Dr. Philpot.”

The doctor paused for a moment as if to collect his thoughts, then still speaking eagerly though more calmly, he began:—

“As you have inquired into this terrible affair, you probably know a good deal of what I am going to tell you. However, lest you should not have heard all, I shall begin at the beginning.

“In the year 1913 I was appointed assistant on the medical staff of the Ransome Institute. One of the attendants there was called Roper, John Roper: the John Roper who lost his life at Starvel some weeks ago. He was a sneering, cynical man with an outwardly correct manner, but when he wished to be nasty, with a very offensive turn of phrase. He was under my immediate supervision and we fell foul of each other almost at once.

“One day, turning a corner in one of the corridors I came on Roper with his arms round one of the nurses. Whether she was encouraging him or not I could not tell, but when he saw me he let her go and she instantly vanished. I spoke to him sharply and said I would report him. I should have been warned by his look of hate, but he spoke civilly and quietly.

“ ‘I have nothing to say about myself,’ he said, ‘but you’ll admit that Nurse Williams is a good nurse, and well conducted. I happen to know she is supporting her mother, and if she gets the sack it will be ruin to both of them.’

“I told him he should have considered that earlier, but when I thought over the affair I felt sorry for the girl. She was, as he had said, a thoroughly attentive, kindly girl, and a good nurse. Well, not to make too long a story, there I made my mistake. I showed weakness and I made no report.”

Philpot had by this time mastered his emotion and now he was speaking quietly and collectedly, though with an earnestness that carried conviction.

“But though I hadn’t reported him, Roper from that moment hated me. He was outwardly polite, but I could see the hatred in his eyes. I, on my part, grew short with him. We never spoke except on business and as little as possible on that. But all the time he was watching for his revenge.

“In May, 1914, I married and set up house at Braeside. Then came the war and in ’I5 I joined up. After two years I was invalided out and went back to Kintilloch. Roper, I should say, was exempted from service owing to a weak heart.

“On my return after that two years I was a different man. I am not pleading neurasthenia, though I suffered from shell-shock, but I had no longer the self-control of my former days. Though I still dearly loved my wife, I confess I felt strongly attracted to other women when in their company. Thus it happened—I don’t want to dwell on a painful subject—that I in my turn became guilty of the very offence for which I had threatened to report Roper.” He spoke with an obvious effort. “There was a nurse there—I need not tell you her name: she’s not there now—but she was a pretty girl with a kindly manner. I met her accidentally in Edinburgh and on the spur of the moment asked her to lunch. From that our acquaintance ripened and at last, by Fate’s irony—well, Roper found her in my arms one evening in a deserted part of the Institute shrubbery. I can never forget his satanic smile as he stood there looking at us. I sent the girl away and then he disclosed his terms. The price of his silence was ten shillings a week. If I would pay him ten shillings a week he would forget what he had seen.

“Well, just consider my position. The incident was harmless in itself and yet its publication would have been my ruin. As you probably know, in such institutions that sort of thing is very severely dealt with. If Roper had reported me to the authorities my resignation would have followed as a matter of course. And it was not I alone who would have suffered. The nurse would probably have had to go. My wife also had to be considered. I needn’t attempt to justify myself, but I took the coward’s way and agreed to Roper’s terms.

“Then there was triumph on his evil face and he saw that he had me. With outward civility and veiled insolence he said that while my word was as good to him as my bond, the matter was a business one, and should be settled in a business way. To ensure continued payment he must have a guarantee. The guarantee was to take the form of a statement written and signed by myself, stating—but I can remember its exact words. It was to say:—

“ ‘I, Herbert Philpot, doctor of medicine and at present assistant on the staff of the Ransome Institute in this town, under compulsion and in the hope of avoiding exposure, hereby admit that I have been carrying on an intrigue with Nurse So-and-so of the same institute. I further admit unseemly conduct with her in the grounds of the Ransome Institute on the evening of this 2nd October, 1920, though I deny any serious impropriety.’ ”

Philpot was now speaking in low tones with every appearance of shame and distress, as if the memory of these events and the putting of them into words was acutely painful to him. His manner was convincing, and French felt that the story at least so far, might well be true.

“You can’t think less of me than I do of myself, Inspector, when I tell you that at last after a protest and a long argument I submitted even to this humiliation. I am not trying to justify myself, but I just couldn’t face the trouble. I wrote the statement. Roper took it, and thanking me civilly, said he would keep it hidden as long as the money was paid. But if there was a failure to pay he would send it anonymously to the Institute authorities.

“After that everything seemed to become normal again. Every Saturday I secretly handed Roper a ten-shilling note and our relations otherwise went on as before. And then came that awful afternoon when my wife lost her life.

“I can never forget the horror of that time and I surely need not dwell on it. If you have made inquiries at Kintilloch you will know what took place. Every word I said then was the literal truth. I shall pass on to what happened afterwards, but if there is any question you want to ask I will try to answer it.”

“There is nothing so far.”

“One evening about a week after the funeral Roper called at my house and asked for an interview. I brought him into my study and then he referred to the ten shillings a week and said that he was sure I would see that his knowledge had now become vastly more valuable, and what was I going to do about it? I said that on the contrary it was now almost worthless. My wife was dead and I didn’t care what became of myself. There was only the nurse to think of, and even about her I didn’t now mind so much, as she had gone to America. At the same time for peace sake I would continue the payments. He need not, however, think he was going to get any more out of me.

“His answer dumbfounded me. It left me terribly shaken and upset. He said he expected I hadn’t known it, but the police suspected me of murdering my wife, and were making all sorts of inquiries about me. He pointed out that it was generally believed my wife and I hated each other: that we were seldom seen together and that she had been overheard speaking disparagingly of me. Then he said I was alone in the house when she met her death; no one had seen the accident and there was only my word for what had taken place. He said it was known there was a cricket bat in the hall, and that it would be obvious to any one that a blow on the temple from the flat side of the bat would look just like a bruise caused by striking the floor. All this, he said, the police had discovered, but what prevented them taking action was the fact that they didn’t think they could show a strong enough motive to take the case into court. That—he said—and I shall never forget the devilish look in his eyes—that was where he came in. He had but to go forward and relate the incident in the shrubbery to complete their case. He explained that he could do it in a perfectly natural way. He would say that while the affair was only a mere intrigue he did not consider it his business to interfere, but when it came to murder it was a different thing. He did not wish to be virtually an accessory after the fact.

“His remarks came as a tremendous shock to me. The possibility of such a terrible suspicion had not occurred to me, but now I saw that there was indeed a good deal of circumstantial evidence against me. I need not labour the matter. The result of our long conversation is all you wish to hear. In the end I was guilty of the same weakness and folly that I had shown before; I asked him his price and agreed to pay it. Two pounds a week, he demanded, until further notice, and I gave way. But when he went on to say that as before he required a guarantee and must have a written confession of the crime, I felt he had passed the limit. I refused to avow a crime of which I was not guilty, and dared him to do his worst.