Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [74]
‘It must have been recently. Why, I remember having a conversation about it on the very day of the tragedy. Charnley was saying it really ought to be kept under glass.’
Mr Satterthwaite shook his head. ‘The house was shut up immediately after the tragedy and everything was left exactly as it was.’
Bristow broke in with a question. He had laid aside his aggressive manner.
‘Why did Lord Charnley shoot himself?’ he asked.
Colonel Monckton shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
‘No one ever knew,’ he said vaguely.
‘I suppose,’ said Mr Satterthwaite slowly, ‘that it was suicide.’
The Colonel looked at him in blank astonishment.
‘Suicide,’ he said, ‘why, of course it was suicide. My dear fellow, I was there in the house myself.’
Mr Satterthwaite looked towards the empty chair at his side and, smiling to himself as though at some hidden joke the others could not see, he said quietly:
‘Sometimes one sees things more clearly years afterwards than one could possibly at the time.’
‘Nonsense,’ spluttered Monckton, ‘arrant nonsense! How can you possibly see things better when they are vague in your memory instead of clear and sharp?’
But Mr Satterthwaite was reinforced from an unexpected quarter.
‘I know what you mean,’ said the artist. ‘I should say that possibly you were right. It is a question of proportion, isn’t it? And more than proportion probably. Relativity and all that sort of thing.’
‘If you ask me,’ said the Colonel, ‘all this Einstein business is a lot of dashed nonsense. So are spiritualists and the spook of one’s grandmother!’ He glared round fiercely.
‘Of course it was suicide,’ he went on. ‘Didn’t I practically see the thing happen with my own eyes?’
‘Tell us about it,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘so that we shall see it with our eyes also.’
With a somewhat mollified grunt the Colonel settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
‘The whole thing was extraordinarily unexpected,’ he began. ‘Charnley had been his usual normal self. There was a big party staying in the house for this ball. No one could ever have guessed he would go and shoot himself just as the guests began arriving.’
‘It would have been better taste if he had waited until they had gone,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
‘Of course it would. Damned bad taste–to do a thing like that.’
‘Uncharacteristic,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
‘Yes,’ admitted Monckton, ‘it wasn’t like Charnley.’
‘And yet it was suicide?’
‘Of course it was suicide. Why, there were three or four of us there at the top of the stairs. Myself, the Ostrander girl, Algie Darcy–oh, and one or two others. Charnley passed along the hall below and went into the Oak Parlour. The Ostrander girl said there was a ghastly look on his face and his eyes were staring–but, of course, that is nonsense–she couldn’t even see his face from where we were–but he did walk in a hunched way, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. One of the girls called to him–she was somebody’s governess, I think, whom Lady Charnley had included in the party out of kindness. She was looking for him with a message. She called out “Lord Charnley, Lady Charnley wants to know–” He paid no attention and went into the Oak Parlour and slammed the door and we heard the key turn in the lock. Then, one minute after, we heard the shot.
‘We rushed down to the hall. There is another door from the Oak Parlour leading into the Terrace Room. We tried that but it was locked, too. In the end we had to break the door down. Charnley was lying on the floor–dead–with a pistol close beside his right hand. Now, what could that have been but suicide? Accident? Don’t tell me. There is only one other possibility–murder–and you can’t have murder without a murderer. You admit that, I suppose.’
‘The murderer might have escaped,’ suggested Mr Satterthwaite.
‘That is impossible. If you have a bit of paper and a pencil I will draw you a plan of the place. There are two doors into the Oak Parlour, one into the hall and one into the Terrace Room. Both these doors were locked in the inside and the keys were in the locks.’