Ernest Bramah

“ Although it was afternoon the bolts and locks of the front door had to be unfastened in answer to their knock. When at last the door was opened a shrivelled little old woman, rather wicked-looking in a comic way, and rather begrimed, stood there.
“Mr Frank Whitmarsh?” she replied to Carrados’s polite inquiry; “oh yes, he lives here. Frank,” she called down the passage, “you’re wanted.”
“What is it, mother?” responded a man’s full, strong voice rather lazily. ”

“ We get murders in brand-new suburban villas and the virtues, light-heartedness and good-fellowship, in moated granges. What should you say about it, eh, Parkinson?”
“I should say it was damp, sir,” observed Parkinson, with his wisest air.
Madeline Whitmarsh herself opened the door. She took them down the long flagged hall to the dining-room, a cheerful enough apartment whatever its exterior might forebode.
“I am glad you have come now, Mr Carrados,” she said hurriedly, when the door was closed. “Sergeant Brewster is here from Stinbridge police station to make some arrangements for the inquest. ”

“ When I look back on the abyss of meanness, treachery and guilt into which I would have wilfully cast myself, and been condemned to live in all my life, I can scarcely trust myself to write.
“I will not say that I do not suffer now. I think I shall for many years to come, but all the bitterness and I think all the hardness have been drawn out. ”

“ Carrados stayed a few more minutes and before they left he asked to see the watch.
“A unique memento, Mr Whitmarsh,” he remarked, examining it. “I should think this would become a family heirloom.”
“It’s no good for anything else,” said Whitmarsh practically. “A famous time-keeper it was, too.”
“The fingers are both gone.”
“Yes; the glass was broken, of course, and they must have caught in the cloth of my pocket and ripped off.”
“They naturally would; it was ten minutes past nine when the shot was fired.” ”

“ How can they know, Mr Carrados?”
“Your father, Miss George?”
“Yes. My name is Madeline Whitmarsh. At home everyone looks at me as if I was an object of mingled pity and reproach. I thought that they might know the name here, so I gave the first that came into my head. I think it is a street I was directed along. Besides, I don’t want it to be known that I came to see you in any case.”
“Why?”
Much of the girl’s conscious nervousness had stiffened into an attitude of unconscious hardness. ”

“ Yes, I had heard something about coal. Providence seems to be on your side just now, Mr Whitmarsh. May I offer you a cigarette?”
“Thanks, I don’t mind for once in a way.”
“They’re Turkish; quite innocuous, I believe.”
“Oh, it isn’t that. I can smoke cutty with any man, I reckon, but the paper affects my lips. I make my own and use a sort of paper with an end that doesn’t stick.”
“The paper is certainly a drawback sometimes,” agreed Carrados. “I’ve found that. Might I try one of yours?”
They exchanged cigarettes and Whitmarsh returned to the subject of the tragedy. ”

“ The sergeant was at the table, making notes in his pocket-book, when they entered. An old-fashioned revolver lay before him.
“This gentleman has come a long way on hearing about poor papa,” said the girl. “He would like to see the revolver before you take it, Mr Brewster.”
“Good-evening, sir,” said Brewster. “It’s a bad business that brings us here.”
Carrados “looked” round the room and returned the policeman’s greeting. Madeline hesitated for a moment, and then, picking up the weapon, put it into the blind man’s hand. ”

“ Does your cousin Frank smoke cigarettes?”
“I cannot say, Mr Carrados. You see ... I knew so little of him.”
“Quite so; there was just the chance. And your father?”
“He never did. He despised them.”
“That is all I need ask you now. What time to-morrow shall I find you in, Miss Whitmarsh? It is Sunday, you remember.”
“At any time. The curiosity I inspire doesn’t tempt me to encounter my friends, I can assure you,” she replied, her face hardening at the recollection. “But ... Mr Carrados——”
“Yes?”
“The inquest is on Monday afternoon.... ”

“ The daughter of a man who had the misfortune to be murdered might just possibly be tolerated as a vicar’s wife, but the daughter of a murderer and suicide—it is unthinkable! You see, the requirements for the office are largely social, Mr Carrados. ”

“ We met occasionally, of course, at people’s houses.”
“You did not visit High Barn?”
“Oh no.”
“But there was no particular reason why you should not?”
“Why do you ask me that?” she demanded quickly, and in a tone that was quite incompatible with the simple inquiry. Then, recognizing the fact, she added, with shamefaced penitence: “I beg your pardon, Mr Carrados. I am afraid that my nerves have gone to pieces since Thursday. The most ordinary things affect me inexplicably.”
“That is a common experience in such circumstances,” said Carrados reassuringly. ”

“ I have taken a second-class passage to Canada and we sail to-night. Willie, who returned to Barony last week, has lent me all the money I shall need until I find work. Do not be apprehensive. It is not with the vague uncertainty of an indifferent typist or a downtrodden governess that I go, but as an efficient domestic servant—a capable cook, housemaid or ‘general,’ as need be. It sounds rather incredible at first, does it not, but such things happen, and I shall get on very well.
“Good-bye, Mr Carrados; I shall remember you very often and very gratefully.
“Madeline Whitmarsh. ”

“ There are so many well-meaning people who always get up petitions.... No, as I stand here looking at myself over there, I feel that I couldn’t quite have hanged Frank, no matter how much he deserved it.... You are very shocked, Mr Carrados? ”

“ That position indicates ten minutes past nine.”
“Surely it would have been an easy matter to have altered that afterwards?”
“In this case fate has been curiously systematic, Miss Whitmarsh. The bullet that shattered the works has so locked the action that it will not move a fraction this way or that.”
“There is something more than this—something that I do not understand,” she persisted. “I think I have a right to know.”
“Since you insist, there is. There is the wad of the blank cartridge that you fired in the outbuilding.” ”

“ Stinbridge is our nearest town—about six miles from Tilling Shaw, where we live. This is the account:
“‘MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY AT TILLING
“‘Well-known Agriculturalist Attempts Murder and Commits Suicide
“‘The districts of Great Tilling, Tilling Shaw and the immediate neighbourhood were thrown into a state of unusual excitement on Thursday last by the report of a tragedy in their midst such as has rarely marked the annals of our law-abiding country-side. ”

“ Grief takes many forms, and whatever she had been before, the tragic episode had left Miss Whitmarsh a little hurt and cynical.
“You are a man living in a town and can do as you like. I am a girl living in the country and have therefore to do largely as my neighbours like. For me to set up my opinion against popular feeling would constitute no small offence ”

“ Dust lies on the ledges and you always have to open them a little to dust properly. They were never kept locked.”
“Possibly your father had taken the revolver with him.”
“No. I had seen it there after he had gone. He rode to Stinbridge immediately after lunch and did not return until nearly eight. After he left I went to dust his room. It was then that I saw it. I was doing the desk when Frank knocked and interrupted me. That is how I came to be there twice.”
“But you said that you had no proof, Miss Whitmarsh,” Carrados reminded her, with deep seriousness. ”

“ In the meanwhile, on the other side of the new boundary fence, Frank senior was growing poorer year by year. To his periodical entreaties that William would agree to shafts being sunk on High Barn he received an emphatic “Never in my time!” The poor man argued, besought, threatened and swore; the prosperous one shook his head and grinned. Carrados did not need to hear the local saying: “Half brothers: whole haters ”