The Project Gutenberg eBook of The three taps
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Title: The three taps
A detective story without a moral
Author: Ronald Arbuthnott Knox
Release date: March 18, 2024 [eBook #73198]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Jacobsen Publishing Company, Inc, 1927
Credits: Brian Raiter
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE TAPS ***
The Three Taps
A Detective Story without a Moral
by Ronald A. Knox
Contents
I. The Euthanasia Policy
II. The Detective _Malgré Lui_
III. At the _Load of Mischief_
IV. The Bedroom
V. Supper, and Mr. Brinkman
VI. An Ear at the Keyhole
VII. From Leyland’s Note-Book
VIII. The Bishop at Home
IX. The Late Rector of Hipley
X. The Bet Doubled
XI. The Generalship of Angela
XII. The Makings of a Trap
XIII. A Morning with the Haberdasher
XIV. Bredon Is Taken for a Walk
XV. A Scrap of Paper
XVI. A Visitor from Pullford
XVII. Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman
XVIII. The Barmaid Is Brought to Book
XIX. How Leyland Spent the Evening
XX. How Bredon Spent the Evening
XXI. How Eames Spent the Evening
XXII. At a Standstill
XXIII. Leyland’s Account of It All
XXIV. Mottram’s Account of It All
XXV. Bredon’s Account of It All
Dedicated to
Susan and Francis Baker
(only he mustn’t sit up too late over it)
Chapter I
The Euthanasia Policy
The principles of insurance, they tell us, were not hidden from our
Anglo-Saxon forefathers. How anybody had the enterprise in those
rough-and-tumble days to guarantee a client against “fire, water,
robbery or other calamity” remains a problem for the historian; the
more so as it appears that mathematical calculations were first
applied to the business by the eminent John de Witt. In our own time,
at any rate, the insurance companies have woven a golden net under the
tight-rope walk of existence; if life is a lottery, the prudent
citizen faces it with the consciousness that he is backed both ways.
Had the idea been thoroughly grasped in those remoter periods, no
doubt but Alfred’s hostess would have been easily consoled for the
damage done to her cakes and King John handsomely compensated for all
that he lost in The Wash. Let us thank the soaring genius of the human
mind which has thus found a means to canalize for us the waters of
affliction; and let us always be scrupulous in paying up our premiums
before the date indicated on the printed card, lest calamity should
come upon us and find us unprepared.
In a sense, though, insurance was but an empirical science until the
Indescribable Company made its appearance. The man who is insured with
the Indescribable walks the world in armour of proof; those contrary
accidents and mortifications which are a source of spiritual profit to
the saint are a source of material advantage to him. No east wind but
flatters him with the prospect of a lucrative cold; no dropped banana
skin but may suddenly hurl him into affluence. The chicken-farmer
whose hen-houses are fitted with the company’s patent automatic
egg-register can never make a failure of his business. The egg is no
sooner laid than it falls gently through a slot which marks its
passage on a kind of taximeter; and if the total of eggs at the end of
the month is below the average the company pays—I had almost said, the
company lays—an exact monetary equivalent for the shortage. The
company which thus takes upon itself the office of a hen is equally
ready when occasion arises to masquerade as a bee: if your hives are
opened in the presence of its representative you can distend every
empty cell with sweet nectar at the company’s expense. Doctors can
guarantee themselves against an excess of panel patients, barristers
against an absence of briefs. You can insure every step you take on
this side of the grave, but no one of them on such handsome terms as
the step which takes you into the grave; and it is confidently
believed that if certain practical difficulties could be got over the
Indescribable would somehow contrive to frank your passage into the
world beyond. Wags have made merry at the company’s expense, alleging
that a burglar can insure himself against a haul of sham jewels, and a
clergyman against insufficient attendance at even-song. They tell
stories of a client who murmured “Thank God!” as he fell down a
lift-shaft, and a shipwrecked passenger who manifested the liveliest
annoyance at the promptness of his rescuers when he was being paid for
floating on a life-belt at the rate of ten pounds a minute. So
thoroughly has the Indescribable reversed our scale of values here
below.
But of all the company’s enterprises none can rival in importance or
in popularity the so-called Euthanasia policy. One of the giant brains
that organized the undertaking observed with compassion the doubtful
lot of human kind, the lot which makes the business man sweat and
labour and agonize, uncertain whether he himself will reap the fruits
of his industry or whether they will pass to an heir in whom, on the
whole, he is less interested. It follows, of course, from the
actuarial point of view, that he needs a policy which covers both
possibilities, immature death or unexpected longevity, but the former
on a more princely scale than the latter. If you take out a Euthanasia
policy you will pay very heavy premiums; that goes without saying. But
you pay them with a sense of absolute security. If you should die
before the age of sixty-five a fortune is immediately distributed to
your heirs and assigns. If you outlive that crucial age you become
thenceforward, until the decree of nature takes its tardy effect, the
pensioner of the company; every faltering breath you draw in the last
stages of senility is money to you; your heirs and assigns, instead of
looking forward heartlessly to the moment of your release, conspire to
keep your body and soul together with every known artifice of modern
medicine—it is in their interest to do so. There is but one way in
which you can forfeit the manifest advantages of the scheme, and that
is self-murder. So complex is our human fashioning that men even may
be tempted to enrich their surviving relatives by such means; and you
will find, accordingly, at the bottom of your Euthanasia policy, an
ominous black hand directing attention to the fact that in the event
of suicide no benefits are legally recoverable.
It goes without saying that the Indescribable Building is among the
finest in London. It appears to be an axiom with those who conduct
business in the modern, or American, manner that efficiency is
impossible unless all your transactions are conducted in an edifice
not much smaller and not much less elaborate than the Taj Mahal. Why
this should be so it is difficult to explain. In a less credulous age
we might have been tempted to wonder where all the money came from;
whether (to put it brutally) our premiums might not have worked out a
little lower if the company’s premises had not been quite so high.
After all, our solicitor lives in horrid, dingy little chambers, with
worn-out carpets and immemorial cobwebs on the wall—does he never feel
that this squalor will fail to inspire confidence? Apparently not; yet
the modern insurance company must impress us all through the palatial
splendour of its offices with the idea that there is a vast reserve of
capital behind it. The wildest voluptuousness of an Eastern tyrant is
less magnificent in its architectural scheme than the hard-headed
efficiency of the American business man. Chatting in the waiting-room
of some such edifice, Sardanapalus might have protested that it
stumped him how they did it, and Kublai Khan might have registered the
complaint that it was all very well but the place didn’t feel homey.
Indescribable House is an enormously high building with long, narrow
windows that make it look like an Egyptian tomb. It is of white stone,
of course, so time-defying in its appearance that it seems almost
blasphemous to remember the days when it was simply a gigantic shell
composed of iron girders. Over the front door there is a group of
figures in relief, more than life-size; the subject is intended, I
believe, to be Munificence wiping away the tears of Widowhood, though
the profane have identified it before now as Uncle Sam picking
Britannia’s pocket. This is continued all round the four sides by a
frieze, ingeniously calculated to remind the spectator of the numerous
risks which mortality has to run: here a motor accident, with an
ambulance carrying off the injured parties; here an unmistakable
shipwreck; there a big-game hunter being gored by a determined-looking
buffalo, while a lion prowls thoughtfully in the background. Of the
interior I cannot speak so positively, for even those who are favoured
enough to be the company’s clients never seem to go up beyond the
first storey. But rumour insists that there is a billiard-room for the
convenience of the directors (who never go there); and that from an
aeroplane, in hot weather, you can see the clerks playing tennis on
the roof. What they do when they are not playing tennis and what
possible use there can be in all those multitudinous rooms on the
fifth, sixth and seventh floors are thoughts that paralyze the
imagination.
In one of the waiting-rooms on the ground floor, sitting under a large
palm-tree and reading a closely reasoned article in the _Actuaries’
and Bottomry Gazette_, sat a client to whom the reader will do well to
direct attention, for our story is concerned with him. His look, his
dress, his manner betrayed the rich man only to those who have
frequented the smaller provincial towns and know how little in those
centres money has to do with education. He had a short black coat with
very broad and long lapels, a starched collar that hesitated between
the Shakespeare and the all-the-way-and-back-again patterns, a
double-breasted waistcoat from which hung a variety of seals, lockets
and charms—in London, in fact, you would have put him down for an
old-fashioned bank cashier with a moderate income. Actually, he could
have bought you out of your present job at double the salary and
hardly felt it. In Pullford, a large Midland town which you probably
will never visit, men nudged one another and pointed to him as one of
the wealthiest residents. In the anteroom of the Indescribable offices
he looked, and perhaps felt, like a schoolboy waiting his turn for
pocket-money. Yet even here he was a figure recognizable to the
attendant who stood there smoothing out back numbers of the
_Actuaries’ and Bottomry Gazette_. For this man, called Mottram by
accident of birth and Jephthah through the bad taste of his parents,
was the holder of a Euthanasia policy.
Another attendant approached him, summoning him to his appointed
interview. There was none of that “Mr. Mottram, please!” which
reverberates so grimly through the dentist’s waiting-room. At the
Indescribable the attendants come close to you and beckon you away
with confidential whispers; it is part of the tradition. Mr. Mottram
rose, and was gently sucked up by the lift to the first storey, where
fresh attendants ushered him on into one of the few rooms that really
mattered. Here he was met by a pleasant, rather languid young man,
delicately dressed, university-bred, whose position in the complicated
hierarchy of the Indescribable it is no business of ours to determine.
“How do you do, Mr. Mottram? Keeping well, I hope?”
Mr. Mottram had the blunt manner of his fellow townsmen, and did not
appreciate the finesse of metropolitan conversational openings. “Ah,
that’s right,” he said; “best for you I should keep well, eh? You and
I won’t quarrel there. Well, it may surprise you, but it’s my health
I’ve come to talk about. I don’t look ill, do I?”
“You look fit for anything. I’d sooner be your insurance agent than
your family doctor, Mr. Mottram.” The young man was beginning to pick
up the Pullford idea of light small talk.
“Fit for anything, that’s right. And, mind you, I feel fit for
anything. Never felt better. Two years!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Two years, that’s what he says. What’s the good of being able to know
about these things if they can’t do anything _for_ ’em, that’s what I
want to know? And, mind you, he says there isn’t anything for it, not
in the long run. He tells me to take this and that, you know, and give
up this and that”——
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mottram, but I don’t quite understand. Is this your
doctor you’re talking about?”
“No doctor of mine. My doctor down in Pullford, he couldn’t tell what
was the matter. Sent me on to this big man in London I’ve been seeing
this morning. Two years, he says. Seems hard, doesn’t it?”
“Oh! . . . You’ve been to a specialist. I say, I’m most awfully
sorry.” The young man was quite serious in his condolences, though he
was even more embarrassed than actually grieved. It seemed horrible to
him that this red-faced man who looked so well and obviously enjoyed
his meals should be going where Numa and Ancus went before him: he did
not fit into the picture. No taint of professionalism entered into
this immediate reaction. But Mr. Mottram still took the business line.
“Ah! ‘sorry’—you may say that. It may mean half a million to you,
mayn’t it?”
“Yes; but, look here, these specialists are often wrong. Famous case
of one who went potty and told all his patients they were in for it.
Look here, what about seeing our man? He’d vet you, gladly.”
It need hardly be said that the Indescribable keeps its own private
physician, whose verdict must be obtained before any important
insurance is effected. He is considered to be one of the three best
doctors in England, and fantastic stories are told about the retaining
fee which induced him to give up his practice in Harley Street. Once
more the young man was entirely disinterested; once more Mr. Mottram
saw ground for suspicion. It looked to him as if the company were
determined to get stable information about the exact state of his
health, and he did not like the idea.
“It’s of no consequence, thank you all the same. It isn’t as if my
case were a doubtful one; I can give you the doctor’s certificate if
needed. But I didn’t come here to talk about that; I came on business.
You know how I stand?”
The young man had just been looking up Mr. Mottram’s docket and knew
all about him well enough. But the Indescribable cultivates the family
touch; it likes to treat its clients as man to man, not as so many
_lives_. “Let’s see”—the young man appeared to be dragging the depths
of memory—“you should be sixty-three now, eh? And in two years’
time—why, it looks as if it were just touch and go whether your policy
covered a case of—h’m!—premature decease or not, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right. My birthday’s in a fortnight’s time, more or less. If
that doctor was dead accurate, it’ll stand you in five hundred
thousand; if he put the date a bit too soon, then I get nothing, and
you pay nothing; that’s how it is, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it, I’m afraid. Of course, you’ll understand, Mr. Mottram,
the company has to work by rule of thumb in these cases.”
“I see that. But look at it this way. When I took out that policy I
wasn’t thinking much of the insurance part; I’ve no kith nor kin
except one nephew, and he’s seen fit to quarrel with me, so nothing
goes to him, anyhow. If that half-million falls in, it will just go to
charity. But what I’d set my heart on was the annuity; we’re a
long-lived family, mostly, and I’d looked forward to spending my last
days in comfort, d’you see? Well, there’s no chance of that after what
the doctor’s been telling me. So I don’t value that Youth-in-Asia
policy as much as I did, see? And I’ve come here to make you a fair
offer.”
“The company”—— began the young man.
“Let me have my say, and you shall have yours afterward. They call me
rich, and I suppose I am rich; but my stuff is tied up more than you’d
think; with money as tight as it is, you can’t just sell out of a
thing when you feel inclined. What I want is ready money—doctors’
bills, you know, and foreign travel, and treatment, and that. So this
is my offer: you pay back half the premiums from the time I started
insuring with you, half the premiums, mind you; and if I die before I
reach sixty-five, then we call it off; you pay no insurance: if I live
beyond sixty-five we call it off, and you pay no annuity. Come now,
there’s a business offer. What do you people say to it?”
“I’m sorry; I’m frightfully sorry. But, you know, we’ve had this kind
of offer before, and the company has always taken the line that it
can’t go back on the original contract. If we lose, we lose; if the
client loses, he must shoulder the responsibility. If we once went in
for cancelling our insurances like that, our whole credit would
suffer. I know you mean well by us, Mr. Mottram, and we’re grateful to
you for the generosity of the offer; but it can’t be done; really it
can’t.”
There was a heavy silence for nearly a minute. Then Mr. Mottram,
pathetic in his disappointment, tried his last card.
“You could put it to the directors, couldn’t you? Stands to reason you
couldn’t accept an offer of that kind without referring it to them.
But you could put it to them at their next meeting, eh?”
“I could put it to the directors; indeed, I will. But I’m sorry to say
I can’t hold out any hopes. The premium of the Euthanasia policy is so
stiff that we’re always having people wanting to back out of it
half-way, but the directors have never consented. If you take my
advice, Mr. Mottram, you’ll take a second opinion about your health,
go carefully this next year or two, and live to enjoy that annuity—for
many years, I hope.” The young man, after all, was a paid official; he
did not stand to lose.
Mr. Mottram rose; he declined all offers of refreshment. A little
wearily, yet holding his head high, he let the confidential attendants
usher him out. The young man made some notes, and the grim business of
the Indescribable Company went on. In distant places ships were
foundering, factories were being struck by lightning, crops were being
spoiled by blight, savages were raiding the peaceful country-side; men
were lying on air-cushions, fighting for breath in the last struggle
of all. And to the Indescribable Company all these things meant
business; most of them meant loss. But the loss never threatened its
solvency for a moment; the law of averages saw to that.
Chapter II
The Detective _Malgré Lui_
I have already mentioned that the Indescribable kept its own tame
doctor, a man at the very head of his profession. He was not in the
least necessary to it; that is to say, a far cheaper man would have
done the work equally well. But it suited the style of the
Indescribable to have the very best man, and to advertise the fact
that he had given up his practice in order to work exclusively for the
company; it was all of a piece with the huge white building, and the
frieze, and the palms in the waiting-room. It looked well. For a quite
different reason the Indescribable retained its own private detective.
This fact was not advertised; nor was he ever referred to in the
official communications of the company except as “our representative.”
He carried neither a lens nor a forceps—not even a revolver; he took
no injections; he had no stupid confidential friend; but a private
detective he was for all that. An amateur detective I will not call
him, for the company paid him, and as you would expect, quite
handsomely; but he had nothing whatever to do with Scotland Yard,
where the umbrellas go to.
He was not an ornament to the company; he fulfilled a quite practical
purpose. There are, even outside the humorous stories, business men in
a small way who find it more lucrative to burn down their premises
than to sell their stock. There are ladies—ladies whose names the
Indescribable would never dream of giving away—who pawn their jewels,
buy sham ones, and then try to make the original insurance policy
cover them in the event of theft. There are small companies (believe
it or not) which declare an annual loss by selling their stuff below
cost price to themselves under another name. Such people flocked to
the Indescribable. It was so vast a concern that you felt no human
pity about robbing it—it was like cheating the income tax, and we all
know how some people feel about that. The Indescribable never
prosecuted for fraud; instead, it allowed a substantial margin for
these depredations, which it allowed to continue. But where shady work
was suspected “our representative” would drop in in the most natural
way in the world and by dint of some searching inquiries made while
the delinquent’s back was turned would occasionally succeed in showing
up a fraud and saving the company a few hundreds of thousands by doing
so.
The company’s “representative,” and our hero, was Miles Bredon, a big,
good-humoured, slightly lethargic creature still in the early
thirties. His father had been a lawyer of moderate eminence and
success. When Miles went to school it was quite clear that he would
have to make his own way in the world, and very obscure how he was
going to do it. He was not exactly lazy, but he was the victim of
hobbies which perpetually diverted his attention. He was a really good
mathematician, for example; but as he never left a sum unfinished and
“went on to the next” his marks never did him justice. He was a good
cross-country runner, but in the middle of a run he would usually
catch sight of some distraction which made him wander three miles out
of his course and come in last. It was his nature to be in love with
the next thing he had to do, to shrink in loathing from the mere
thought of the next but one. The war came in time to solve the problem
of his career; and more fortunate than some he managed to hit on a
_métier_ in the course of it. He became an intelligence officer; did
well, then did brilliantly; was mentioned in despatches, though not
decorated. What was more to the point, his Colonel happened to be a
friend of some minor director of the Indescribable, and, hearing that
a discreet man was needed to undertake the duties outlined,
recommended Bredon. The offer fell at his feet just when he was
demobilized; he hated the idea of it, but was sensible enough to
realize, even then, that ex-officers cannot be choosers. He was
accepted on his own terms, namely, that he should not have to sit in
an office kicking his heels; he would always be at home, and the
company might call him in when he was wanted.
In a few years he had made himself indispensable to his employer; that
is to say, they thought they could not get on without him, though in
fact his application to his duties was uncertain and desultory. Four
out of five inquiries meant nothing to him; he made nothing of them;
and Whitechapel thanked the God of its fathers for his incompetence.
The fifth case would appeal to his capricious imagination; he would be
prodigal of time and of pains; and he would bring off some coup which
was hymned for weeks behind closed doors in the Indescribable
Building. There was that young fellow at Croydon, for example, who had
his motor-bicycle insured, but not his mother-in-law. Her body was
found at the foot of an embankment beside a lonely road in Kent, and
there was no doubt that it had been shot out of the side-car; only (as
Bredon managed to prove) the lady’s death had occurred on the previous
day from natural causes. There was the well-known bootlegger—well
known, at least, to the United States police—who insured all his
cargoes with the Indescribable and then laid secret information
against himself whereby vigilant officials sank hundreds of dummy
cases in the sea, all the bottles containing sea-water. And there was
the lady of fashion who burgled her own jewels in the most plausible
manner you could imagine and had them sold in Paris. These crooked
ways too the fitful intuitions of Miles Bredon made plain in the
proper quarters.
He was well thought of, in fact, by every one except himself. For
himself, he bitterly regretted the necessity that had made him become
a spy—he would use no other word for it—and constantly alarmed his
friends by announcing his intention of going into the publishing
trade, or doing something relatively honest. The influence which saved
him on these occasions was that of—how shall I say it?—his wife. I
know—I know it is quite wrong to have your detective married until the
last chapter, but it is not my fault. It is the fault of two mocking
eyes and two very capable hands that were employed in driving
brass-hats to and fro in London at the end of the war. Bredon
surrendered to these, and made a hasty but singularly fortunate
marriage. Angela Bredon was under no illusions about the splendid
figure in khaki that stood beside her at the altar. Wiser than her
generation, she realized that marriages were not “for the duration”;
that she would have to spend the rest of her life with a large,
untidy, absent-minded man who would frequently forget that she was in
the room. She saw that he needed above all things a nurse and a
chauffeur, and she knew that she could supply both these deficiencies
admirably. She took him as a husband, with all a husband’s failings,
and the Indescribable itself could not have guaranteed her more surely
against the future.
There is a story of some Bishop, or important person, who got his way
at Rome rather unexpectedly over an appeal, and, when asked by his
friends how he did it, replied, “_Fallendo infallibilem_.” It might
have been the motto of Angela’s mastery over her husband; the
detective, always awake to the possibilities of fraudulent dealing in
every other human creature, did not realize that his wife was a tiny
bit cleverer than he was and was always conspiring for his happiness
behind his back. For instance, it was his custom of an evening to play
a very long and complicated game of patience, which he had invented
for himself; you had to use four packs, and the possible permutations
of it were almost unlimited. It was an understood thing in the
household that Angela, although she had grasped the rules of the game,
did not really know how to play it. But when, as often happened, the
unfinished game had to be left undisturbed all night, she was quite
capable of stealing down early in the morning and altering the
positions of one or two cards, so that he should get the game “out” in
time to cope with his ordinary work. These pious deceits of hers were
never, I am glad to say, unmasked.
About a fortnight after Mr. Mottram’s interview with the young man at
Indescribable House these two fortunate people were alone together
after dinner, she alternately darning socks and scratching the back of
a sentimental-looking fox-terrier, he playing his interminable
patience. The bulk of the pack lay on a wide table in front of him,
but there were outlying sections of the design dotted here and there
on the floor within reach of his hand. The telephone bell rang, and he
looked up at her appealingly—obviously, he was tied hand and foot by
his occupation—which to her only meant putting her darning away,
lifting the fox-terrier off her feet, and going out into the hall. She
understood the signal, and obeyed it. There was a fixed law of the
household that if she answered a call which was meant for him he must
try to guess what it was about before she told him. This was good for
him, she said; it developed the sleuth instinct.
“Hullo! Mrs. Bredon speaking—who is it, please? . . . Oh, it’s
you. . . . Yes, he’s in, but he’s not answering the telephone. . . .
No, only drunk. . . . Just rather drunk. . . . Business? Good; that’s
just what he wants. . . . A man called what? . . . M-o-t-t-r-a-m,
Mottram, yes. . . . Never heard of it. . . . St. William’s? Oh, the
_Midlands_, that are sodden and unkind, that sort of Midlands,
yes? . . . Oh! . . . Is it—what? . . . Is it supposed to have been an
accident? . . . Oh, that generally means suicide, doesn’t it? . . .
Staying where? . . . Where’s that? . . . All right, doesn’t matter;
I’ll look it up. . . . At an inn? Oh, then it was in somebody else’s
bed really! What name? . . . What a jolly name! Well, where’s Miles to
go? To Chilthorpe? . . . Yes, rather, we can start bright and early.
Is it an important case? Is it an important case? . . . Oo! I say! I
wish I could get Miles to die and leave me half a million! Righto,
he’ll wire you to-morrow. . . . Yes, quite; thanks. . . . Good-night.”
“Interpret, please,” said Angela, returning to the drawing-room. “Why,
you’ve been going on with your patience the whole time! I suppose you
didn’t listen to a word I was saying?”
“How often am I to tell you that the memory and the attention function
inversely? I remember all you said, precisely because I wasn’t paying
attention to it. First of all, it was Sholto, because he was ringing
you up on business, but it was somebody you know quite well—at least I
hope you don’t talk like that to the tradesmen.”
“Sholto, yes, ringing up from the office. He wanted to talk to you.”
“So I gathered. Was it quite necessary to tell him I was drunk?”
“Well, I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. I
couldn’t tell him you were playing patience, or he might have thought
we were unhappily married. Go on, Sherlock.”
“Mottram, living at some place in the Midlands you’ve never heard of,
but staying at a place called ‘Chilthorpe’—he’s died, and his death
wants investigating; that’s obvious.”
“How did you know he was dead?”
“From the way you said ‘Oh’—besides, you said he’d died in his
bed, or implied it. And there’s some question of half a million
insurance—Euthanasia, I suppose? Really, the Euthanasia’s been
responsible for more crimes than psychoanalysis.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’ve got it all right. What did he die of?”
“Something that generally means suicide—or rather, you think it does.
The old sleeping draught business? Veronal?”
“No stupid, gas. The gas left turned on. And where’s Chilthorpe,
please?”
“It’s on the railway. If my memory serves me right, it is Chilthorpe
and Gorrington, between Bull’s Cross and Lowgill Junction. But the
man, you say, belongs somewhere else?”
“Pullford; at least it sounded like that. In the Midlands somewhere,
he said.”
“Pullford, good Lord, yes. One of these frightful holes. They make
perambulators or something there, don’t they? A day’s run, I should
think, in the car. But of course it’s this Chilthorpe place we want to
get to. You wouldn’t like to look it up in the gazetteer while I just
get this row finished, would you?”
“I shan’t get your sock finished, then. On your own foot be it! Let’s
see, here’s Pullford all right. . . . It isn’t perambulators they
make, it’s drain-pipes. There’s a grammar school there, and an asylum;
and the parish church is a fine specimen of early Perp., extensively
restored in 1842; they always are. Has been the seat of a Roman
Catholic Bishopric since 1850. The Baptist Chapel”——
“I did mention, didn’t I, that it was Chilthorpe I wanted to know
about?”
“All in good time. Let’s see, Chilthorpe—it isn’t a village really,
it’s a ship town. It has 2,500 inhabitants. There’s a lot here about
the glebe. It stands on the River Busk, and there is trout fishing.”
“Ah, that sounds better.”
“Meaning exactly?”
“Well, it sounds as if the fellow had done himself in by accident all
right. He went there to fish—you don’t go to a strange village to
commit suicide.”
“Unless you’ve got electric light in your house and want to commit
suicide with gas.”
“That’s true. What was the name of the inn, by the way?”
“The _Load of Mischief_. Such a jolly dedication, I think.”
“Now let’s try the map.”
“I was coming to that. Here’s the Busk all right. I say, how funny,
there’s a place on the Busk called ‘Mottram.’”
“Anywhere near Chilthorpe?”
“I haven’t found it yet. Oh, yes, here it is, about four miles away.
Incidentally, it’s only twenty miles or so from Pullford. Well, what
about it? Are we going by car?”
“Why not? The Rolls is in excellent condition. Two or three days ought
to see us through; we can stay, with any luck, at the _Load of
Mischief_, and the youthful Francis will be all the better for being
left to his nurse for a day or two. You’ve been feeding him corn, and
he is becoming obstreperous.”
“You don’t deserve to have a son. However, I think you’re right. I
don’t want to trust you alone in a ship town of 2,500 inhabitants,
some of them female. Miles, dear, this is going to be one of your big
successes, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, I shall lose no time in reporting to the directors
that the deceased gentleman had an unfortunate accident with the gas,
and they had better pay up like sportsmen. I shall further point out
that it is a great waste of their money keeping a private spy at all.”
“Good, then I’ll divorce you! I’m going to bed now. Not beyond the end
of that second row, mind; we shall have to make an early start
to-morrow.”
Chapter III
At the _Load of Mischief_
By next morning Bredon’s spirits had risen. He had received by the
early post a confidential letter from the company describing Mr.
Mottram’s curious offer, and suggesting (naturally) that the state of
his health made suicide a plausible conjecture. The morning was fine,
the car running well, the road they had selected in admirable
condition. It was still before tea time when they turned off from its
excellent surface onto indifferent by-roads, through which they had to
thread their way with difficulty. The signposts, as is the wont of
English signposts, now blazoned “Chilthorpe,” “Chilthorpe,”
“Chilthorpe,” as if it were the lodestone of the neighbourhood, now
passed it over in severe silence, preferring to call attention to the
fact that you were within five furlongs of Little Stubley. They had
fallen, besides, upon hill country, with unexpected turns and
precipitous gradients; they followed with enforced windings the bleak
valley of the Busk, which swirled beneath them over smooth boulders
between desolate banks. It was just after they had refused the fifth
invitation to Little Stubley that the County Council’s arrangements
played them false; there was a clear issue between two rival roads,
with no trace of a signpost to direct their preference. It was here
that they saw, and hailed, an old gentleman who was making casts into
a promising pool about twenty yards away.
“Chilthorpe?” said the old gentleman. “All the world seems to be
coming to Chilthorpe. The County Council does not appear to have
allowed for the possibility of its becoming such a centre of fashion.
If you are fond of scenery, you should take the road to the left; it
goes over the hill. If you like your tea weak, you had better take the
valley road to the right. Five o’clock is tea time at the _Load of
Mischief_, and there is no second brew.”
Something in the old gentleman’s tone seemed to invite confidences.
“Thank you very much,” said Bredon. “I suppose the _Load of Mischief_
is the only inn that one can stop at?”
“There was never much to be said for the _Swan_. But to-day the _Load
of Mischief_ has added to its attractions; it is not everywhere you
can sleep with the corpse of a suicide in the next room. And the
police are in the house, to satisfy the most morbid imagination.”
“The police? When did they come?”
“About luncheon time. They are understood to have a clue. I am only
afraid, myself, that they will want to drag the river. The police
always drag the river if they can think of nothing else to do.”
“You’re staying at the inn, I gather?”
“I am the surviving guest. When you have tasted the coffee in the
morning you will understand the temptation to suicide; but so far I
have resisted it. You are not relatives, I hope, of the deceased?”
“No; I’m from the Indescribable. We insured him, you know.”
“It must be a privilege to die under such auspices. But I am afraid I
have gone beyond my book: when I say poor Mottram committed suicide I
am giving you theory not fact.”
“The police theory?”
“Hardly. I left before they arrived. It is the landlady’s theory, and
when you know her better you will know that it is as well not to
disagree with her; it provokes discussion.”
“I am afraid she must be very much worried by all this.”
“She is in the seventh heaven of lamentation. You could knock her
down, she tells me, with a feather. She insists that her custom is
ruined for ever; actually, you are the second party to stay at the inn
as the result of this affair, and the jug and bottle business at
mid-day was something incredible. The Band of Hope was there _en
masse_, swilling beer in the hope of picking up some gossip.”
“The other party, were they relations?”
“Oh no, it’s a policeman; a real policeman from London. The secretary,
I suppose, must have lost his head, and insisted on making a _cause
célèbre_ of the thing. I forgot him, by the way, a little chap called
Brinkman; he’s at the _Load_ too. A thousand pardons, but I see a fish
rising. It is so rare an event here that I must go and attend to it.”
And, nodding pleasantly, the old gentleman made his way to the bank
again.
Chilthorpe is a long, straggling village with the business part (such
as it is) at the lower end. The church is here, and the _Load of
Mischief_, and a few shops; here, too, the Busk flows under a wide
stone bridge—a performance which at most times of the day attracts a
fair crowd of local spectators. The houses are of grey stone, the
roofs of blue slate. The rest of the village climbs up along the
valley all in one street; the houses stand perched on the edge of a
steep slope, too steep almost for the cultivation of gardens, though a
few currant and gooseberry bushes retain a precarious foothold. The
view has its charms; when mists hang over it in autumn, or when the
smoke of the chimneys lingers idly on a still summer evening, it has a
mysterious and strangely un-English aspect.
The hostess, presumably to be identified with “J. Davis, licensed to
sell wines, spirits and tobacco,” met them on the threshold, voluble
and apparently discouraging. Her idea seemed to be that she could not
have any more guests coming and committing suicide in her house.
Bredon, afraid that his patience or his gravity would break down, put
Angela in charge of the conversation, and so delicate was her tact, so
well-placed her sympathy, that within ten minutes their arrival was
being hailed as a godsend, and Mrs. Davis, ordering the barmaid to
bring tea as soon as it could be procured, ushered them into a private
room, assuring them of accommodation upstairs when she could put
things to rights. It had been one thing after another, she complained,
all day, she didn’t really hardly know which way to turn, and her
house always a respectable one. There was not much custom, it seemed,
at Chilthorpe, lying so far away from the main road and that—you would
have supposed that in a R.A.C. Listed Hotel suicides were a matter of
daily occurrence, and the management knew how to deal with them.
Whereas Mrs. Davis hadn’t anybody but the girl and the Boots, and him
only with one arm. And those boys coming and looking in through the
front window; “disgraceful,” she called it; and what were the police
for if they couldn’t put a stop to it? And the reporters—six of them
she’d turned away that very day—coming and prying into what didn’t
concern them. They didn’t get a word out of her, that was one thing.
Though, mark you, if Mrs. Davis didn’t know poor Mr. Mottram, who did?
Coming there regular year after year for the fishing, poor gentleman;
such a quiet gentleman too, and never any goings-on. And how was she
to know what would come of it? It wasn’t that the gas leaked; time and
again she’d had those pipes seen to, and no complaints made. If there
had have been anything wrong, Mr. Pulteney, he’d have let her hear
about it, he was one for having everything just as he liked, and no
mistake. . . . Yes, that would be him, he was a great one for the
fishing. Such a queer gentleman too, and always taking you up short.
Why, yesterday morning, when she went to tell him about what had
happened in the night he was as cool as anything; all he said was, “In
that case, Mrs. Davis, I will fish the Long Pool this morning,” like
that he said. Whereas Mr. Brinkman, that was the secretary, he was in
a great taking about it, didn’t hardly know what he said or did, Mr.
Brinkman didn’t. And to think of all the gas that was wasted; on all
night it was, and who was to pay for it was more than she knew.
Summing up, Mrs. Davis was understood to observe that it was a world
for sorrow, and man was cut down like a flower, as the sparks fly
upward. However, there was them above as knew, and what would be would
be.
Of all this diatribe Bredon was a somewhat languid auditor. He
recognized the type too well to suppose that any end was to be gained
by cross-examination. Angela cooed and sighed, and dabbed her eyes now
and again at appropriate moments, and in so doing won golden opinions
from the tyrannous conversationalist. It was a strong contrast when
the maid came in with the tea things; she plumped them down in
silence, tossing her head defiantly, as who should imply that somebody
had recently found fault with her behind the scenes, but she was not
going to take any notice of it. She was a strapping girl, of
undeniable good looks, spoilt (improved, the Latins would have said)
by a slight cast in one eye. In the absence of any very formidable
competition it was easy to imagine her the belle of the village. So
resolute did her taciturnity appear that even Angela, who could draw
confidences from a stone, instinctively decided that it would be best
to question her later on. Instead, she whiled away the interminable
interval which separates the arrival of the milk jug from that of the
teapot by idly turning over the leaves of the old-fashioned visitors’
book. The Misses Harrison, it appeared, had received “every attention”
from their kind and considerate hostess. The Pullford Cycling Club had
met for its annual outing, and the members pronounced themselves “full
to bursting, and coming back next year.” An obviously newly married
couple had found the neighbourhood “very quiet”; a subsequent
annotator had added the words “I don’t think!!!” with the three marks
of exclamation. The Wotherspoon family, a large one, testified to
having had a “rattling good time” at this old-world hostelry. The
Reverend Arthur and Mrs. Stump would carry away “many pleasant
memories” of Chilthorpe and its neighbourhood.
Miles was wandering aimlessly about the room inspecting those art
treasures which stamp, invariably and unmistakably, the best room of a
small country inn. There was the piano, badly out of tune, with a
promiscuous heap of dissenting hymn-books and forgotten dance tunes
reposing on it. There were the two pictures which represent a lovers’
quarrel and a lovers’ reconciliation, the hero and heroine being
portrayed in riding costume. There was a small bookshelf, full of
Sunday-school prizes, interspersed with one or two advanced novels in
cheap editions, clearly left behind by earlier visitors. There was a
picture of Bournemouth in a frame of repulsive shells. There was a
photograph of some local squire or other on horseback. There were
several portraits which were intended to perpetuate the memory of the
late Mr. Davis, a man of full bodily habit, whose clothes, especially
his collar, seemed too tight for him. There were a couple of young
gentlemen in khaki on the mantelpiece; there was a sailor, probably
the one who had collected the strange assortment of picture post-cards
in the album under the occasional table; there were three wedding
groups, all apparently in the family—in a few words, a detective
interested in such problems might have read there, a picture, the
incredibly long and complicated annals of the poor.
To Bredon it was all a matter of intense irritation. When he visited
the scene of some crime or some problem, he was fond of poking his way
round the furniture, trying to pick up hints from the books and the
knickknacks about the character of the people he was dealing with. At
least, he would say, if you cannot pick up evidence about them you can
always catch something of their atmosphere. Mottram had hardly played
the game when he died in a country inn where he had not been able to
impress his surroundings with any touch of his own quality; this inn
parlour was like any other inn parlour, and the dead body upstairs
would be a problem in isolation, torn away as it was from its proper
context. The bedroom doubtless would have a text over the
washing-stand, a large wardrobe stuffed with family clothes and
mothballs, a cheap print of the “Soul’s Awakening”; it would just be
an inn bedroom, there would be no Mottram about it.
“I say,” Angela interrupted suddenly, “Mottram seems to have visited
this place pretty regularly, and always for the fishing season. There
are some fine specimens of his signature; the last only written two
days ago.”
“Eh? What’s that?” said Bredon. “Written his signature in already, had
he? Any date to it?”
“Yes, here it is, ‘J. W. Mottram, June 13th to’—and then a blank. He
didn’t know quite how long he would be staying, I suppose.”
“Let’s see. . . . Look here, that’s all wrong, you know. This isn’t a
hotel register; it’s just a visitors’ book. And people who write in a
visitors’ book don’t write till the day they leave.”
“Necessarily?”
“Invariably. Look here: look at Arthur Stump. You can see from his
style and his handwriting what a meticulous fellow he is. Well, he
came here on May twenty-first, and stayed till May twenty-six. The
Wilkinsons came here a day later, on the twenty-second, and left on
the twenty-fourth. But the Wilkinson entry comes first, and that’s
because they left first, don’t you see? And here is Violet Harris
doing the same; she puts her name before the Sandeman party. Look at
Mottram’s entry last year. He didn’t leave a blank then, and fill in
his date of departure afterward; you can always tell when a thing is
filled in afterward because the spacing is never quite exact. No;
Mottram did something quite foreign to his habit when he wrote June
thirteenth to blank, and quite foreign to the habits of every one I
know.”
“You get these little ideas sometimes. No; you can’t have tea till you
come and sit at the table. I don’t want you sloshing it about all over
the place. Now, what can have been the idea of writing that entry?
Nobody wanted proof that he’d been there. Could it be a forgery, done
from last year’s entry? That would mean that it isn’t Mottram upstairs
at all, really.”
“We shall know that soon enough. . . . No; there’s only one idea that
seems to me to make sense. He came to this place knowing that he was
never going to leave it alive. And consequently he wanted to put an
entry in the book which would make it look as if he had been paying
just an ordinary visit, and was expecting to leave it alive. People
will never see that they’re overreaching themselves when they do that
kind of thing. It’s absurd to go on such slight indications, but so
far as I can see the presumption is this: Mottram meant to commit
suicide, and meant to make it look as if he hadn’t.”
“The date’s all right, I suppose?”
“Bound to be. No sense in falsifying it when it could always be
verified from the bill. Landladies have a habit of knowing what night
guests arrived.”
“Let’s see, then. He arrived on the thirteenth; and he was found dead
in the morning, that’s yesterday morning, Tuesday. The thirteenth was
Monday—he’d only been here one night.”
“Well, we’ll hope we can find all that part out from the secretary. I
don’t much want another hour of Mrs. Davis. Meanwhile, let’s see if
you can knock any more out of that teapot; I’m as thirsty as a fish.”
Chapter IV
The Bedroom
They did not escape another dose of Mrs. Davis, who appeared soon
afterward to announce that the big room upstairs was ready for them,
and would they step up and mind their heads please, the stairs were
that low. It was indeed a rambling sort of house, on three or four
different levels, as country inns are wont to be; it did not seem
possible to reach any one room from any other without going down and
up again or up and down again. At the head of the stairs Mrs. Davis
turned dramatically and pointed to a door marked “5”. “In there!” she
said, the complicated emotion in her voice plainly indicating what was
in there. To her obvious confusion the door opened as she spoke, and a
little, dark man, whom they guessed then and knew afterward to be the
secretary, came out into the passage. He was followed by a
policeman—no ingenuity could have doubted the fact—in plain clothes.
Bredon’s investigations were ordinarily made independently of, and for
the most part unknown to, the official champions of justice. But on
this occasion Fate had played into his hands. “By Gad!” he cried,
“it’s Leyland!”
It was, and I will not weary the reader by detailing the exclamations
of surprise, the questionings, the reminiscences, the explanations
which followed. Leyland had been an officer in the same battalion with
Bredon for more than two years of the war. It was at a time when the
authorities had perceived that there were not enough well-dressed
young men in England to go round, and a Police Inspector who had
already made a name for efficiency easily obtained commissioned rank;
with equal ease he returned to the position of an Inspector when
demobilized. Their memories of old comradeship promised to be so
exhaustive and, to the lay mind, so exhausting, that Brinkman had gone
downstairs and Angela Bredon to their room long before it was over;
nay, Mrs. Davis herself, outtalked for once, retired to her kitchen.
“Well, this is Al,” said Leyland at last. “Sure to be left down here
for a few days until I can clear things up a bit. And if you’re
working on the same lay, there’s no reason why we should quarrel.
Though I don’t quite see what your people sent you down for to start
with.”
“Well, the man was very heavily insured, you know; and, for one reason
or another, the company is inclined to suspect suicide. Of course if
it’s suicide it doesn’t pay up.”
“Well, you’d better lie low about it and stay on for a few days. Good
for you and Mrs. Bredon to get a bit of a holiday. But of course
suicide is right off the map.”
“People do commit suicide, don’t they, by leaving the gas on?”
“Yes, but they don’t get up and turn the gas off and then go back to
bed to die. They don’t open the window, and leave it open”——
“The gas turned off? The window opened? You don’t mean”——
“I mean that if it was suicide it was a very rum kind of suicide, and
if it was accident it was a very rum kind of accident. Mark you, I’m
saying that to you; but don’t you go putting it about the place. Some
of these people in the inn may know more about it than they ought to.
Mum’s the word.”
“Yes, I can see that. Let’s see, who were there in the house? This
secretary fellow, and the old gentleman I saw down by the river, I
suppose, and Mrs. Davis and the barmaid and the Boots—that’s all I’ve
heard of up to now. That’s right, keep ’em all under suspicion. But I
wish you’d let me see the room; it seems to me there must be points of
interest about it.”
“Best see it now, I think. They’re going to fix up the corpse properly
to-night; so far they’ve left things more or less untouched. There’s
just light enough left to have a look round.”
The inn must at some time have known better days, for this room was
generously proportioned, and could clearly be used as a bed-sitting
room. But the wall-paper had seen long service; the decorations were
mean, the furniture shabby; it was not the sort of accommodation that
would attract a rich man from Pullford but for the reputation the
place had for fishing and, perhaps, the want of any rival
establishment. Chilthorpe, in spite of its possibilities of
water-power, had no electric light; but the inn, with one or two
neighbouring houses, was lighted by acetylene gas from a plant which
served the vicarage and the parish hall. These unpleasant fumes, still
hanging in the air after two days, were responsible, it seemed, for
the tragic loading of the bed which stood beside them.
To this last, Bredon paid little attention. He had no expert medical
knowledge, and the cause of death was unquestioned; both the local man
and a doctor whom the police had called in were positive that the
symptoms were those of gas poisoning and that no other symptoms were
present; that there were no marks of violence, no indications even of
a struggle; the man had died, it seemed, in his sleep as if from an
overdose of anæsthetic. Beside his bed stood a glass slightly
encrusted with some whitish mixture; Bredon turned toward Leyland with
an inquiring look as his eye met it.
“No good,” said Leyland. “We had it analysed, and it’s quite a mild
sort of sleeping draught. He sometimes took them, it seems, because he
slept badly, especially in a strange bed. But there’s no vice in the
thing; it wouldn’t kill a man however heavily he doped himself with
it, the doctor says.”
“Of course it explains why he slept so soundly and didn’t notice the
gas leaking.”
“It does that; and, if it comes to that, it sets me wondering a
little. I mean, supposing it was murder, it looks as if it was done by
somebody who knew Mottram’s habits.”
“If it was murder, yes. But if it _was_ suicide, it’s easy to
understand the man doping himself, so that he should die off more
painlessly. The only thing it doesn’t look like is accident, because
it would be rather a coincidence that he should happen to be laid out
by a sleeping draught just on the very night when the gas was left on.
I’d like to have a look at this gas.”
There was a bracket on the wall, not far from the door, which
originally had been the only light in the room. But for bed-sitting
room purposes a special fitting had been added to this giving a second
vent for the gas; and this new vent was connected by a long piece of
rubber tubing with a standard lamp that stood on the writing-table
near the window. There were thus three taps in all, and all of these
close together on the bracket. One opened the jet on the bracket
itself, one led to the rubber tubing and the standard lamp and the
third was the oldest and closest to the wall, serving to cut off the
supply of gas from both passages at once. This third main tap was
turned off now; of the other two, the one on the bracket was closed,
the one which led to the standard lamp stood open.
“Is this how the taps were when the body was first found?” asked
Bredon.
“Exactly. Of course we’ve turned them on and off since to make certain
that the jets were both in working order. They were, both of them. And
we tried the taps for finger-prints—with powder, you know.”
“Any results?”
“Only on the main tap. We could just trace where it had been turned
on, with the thumb pressing on the right-hand side. But there were no
marks of fingers turning it off.”
“That’s damned queer.”
“Gloves?”
“Oh, of course you think it was murder. Still, if it was murder it
should have been the murderer who turned it on _and_ off. Why did he
conceal his traces in one case and not in the other?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it was Mottram who turned the gas on. At
the main, that is. The tap of the standard seems to have been on all
the time, at least there were no marks on it. That’s queer too.”
“Yes, if he wanted it to be known that he committed suicide. But if he
didn’t, you see, the whole business may have been bluff.”
“I see, you want it to be suicide masquerading as accident. I want it
to be murder masquerading as suicide. Your difficulty, it seems to me,
is explaining how the tap came to be turned off.”
“And yours?”
“I won’t conceal it. The door was locked, with the key on the inside.”
“How did anybody get in, then, to find the corpus?”
“Broke down the door. It was rotten, like everything else in this
house, and the hinges pulled the screws out. You can see, there, where
we’ve put fresh screws in since.”
“Door locked on the inside. And the window?” Bredon crossed to the
other side of the room. “Barred, eh?” It was an old-fashioned lattice
window with iron bars on the inside to protect it from unauthorized
approach. The window itself opened outward, its movement free until it
reached an angle of forty-five degrees; at that point it passed over a
spring catch which made it fast. It was so made fast now that Bredon
examined it.
“This too?” he asked. “Was the window just like this?”
“Just like that. Wide open, so that it’s hard to see why the gas
didn’t blow out of doors almost as soon as it escaped; and there was a
high wind on Monday night, Pulteney tells me. And yet, with those
bars, it seems impossible that any one should have come in through
it.”
“I think you’re going to have difficulties over your murder theory.”
“So are you, Bredon, over your suicide theory. Look at that shirt over
there; the studs carefully put in overnight; and it’s a clean shirt,
mark you; the outside buttonholes haven’t been pierced. Do you mean to
tell me that a man who is going to commit suicide is going to let
himself in for all that tiresome process of putting studs in before he
goes to bed?”
“And do you mean to tell me that a man goes out fishing in a boiled
shirt?”
“Yes, if he’s a successful manufacturer. The idea that one wears
special clothes when one is going to take exercise is an upper-class
theory. I tell you, I’ve seen a farmer getting in the hay in a dickey,
merely to show that he was a farmer, not a farm labourer.”
“Well, grant the point; why shouldn’t a man who wants to commit
suicide put studs in his shirt to make it look as if it wasn’t
suicide? Remember, it was a matter of half a million to his heirs. Is
that too heavy a price for the bother of it?”
“I see you’re convinced; it’s no good arguing with you. Otherwise, I’d
have pointed out that he wound up his watch.”
“One does. To a man of methodical habit it’s an effort to leave a
watch unwound. Was he a smoker?”
“Brinkman says not. And there are no signs of it anywhere.”
“The law ought to compel people to smoke. In bed, especially—we should
have got some very nice indications of what he was really up to if he
had smoked in bed. But I see he wasn’t a bedroom smoker in any case;
here’s a solitary match which has only been used to light the gas—he
hasn’t burnt a quarter of an inch of it.”
“That match worries me too. There’s a box on the mantelpiece, but
those are ordinary safeties. This is a smaller kind altogether, and I
can’t find any of them in his pockets.”
“The maid might have been in before him and lighted the gas.”
“They never do. At least, Mrs. Davis says they never do.”
“It was dark when he went to bed?”
“About ten o’clock, Brinkman says. You would be able to see your way
then, but not much more. And he must have lit the gas, to put the
studs in his shirt—besides, he’s left some writing, which was probably
done late that night, though we can’t prove it.”
“Writing! Anything important?”
“Only a letter to some local rag at Pullford. Here it is, if you want
to read it.” And Leyland handed Bredon a letter from the blotting-pad
on the table. It ran:
To the Editor of the _Pullford Examiner_:
Dear Sir:
Your correspondent, “Brutus,” in complaining of the closing of the
Mottram Recreation Grounds at the hour of seven P.M., describes
these grounds as having been “presented to the town with money wrung
from the pockets of the poor.” Now, Sir, I have nothing to do with
the action of the Town Council in opening the Recreation Grounds or
closing same. I write only as a private citizen who has done my best
to make life amenable for the citizens of Pullford, to know why my
name should be dragged into this controversy, and in the very
injurious terms he has done. Such recreation grounds were presented
by me twelve years ago to the townspeople of Pullford, not as
“blood-money” at all, but because I wanted them, and especially the
kiddies, to get a breath of God’s open air now and again. If
“Brutus” will be kind enough to supply chapter and verse, showing
where or how operatives in my pay have received less pay than what
they ought to have done——
At this point the letter closed abruptly.
“He wasn’t very handy with his pen,” observed Bredon. “I suppose
friend Brinkman would have had to get onto this in the morning and put
it into English. Yes, I know what you’re going to say: if the man had
foreseen his end he either wouldn’t have taken the trouble to start
the letter or else he’d have taken the trouble to finish it. But I
tell you, I don’t like this letter—I say, we must be getting down to
dinner; attract suspicion, what, if we’re found nosing round up here
too long? All right, Leyland, I won’t spoil your sport. What about
having a fiver on it—suicide or murder?”
“I don’t mind if I do. What about telling one another how we get on?”
“Let’s be quite free about that. But each side shall keep notes of the
case from day to day, putting down his suspicions and his reasons for
them, and we’ll compare notes afterward. Ah, is that Mrs. Davis? All
right, we’re just coming.”
Chapter V
Supper, and Mr. Brinkman
Mrs. Davis’s cuisine, if it did not quite justify all the ironic
comments of the old gentleman, lent some colour to them. With the
adjectival trick of her class she always underestimated quantity,
referring to a large tureen as “a drop of soup,” and overestimated
quality, daily suggesting for her guests’ supper “a nice chop.” The
chop always appeared; the nice chop (as the old gentleman pointed out)
would have been a pleasant change. As surely as you had eggs and bacon
for breakfast, so surely you had a chop for supper; “and some nice
fruit to follow” heralded the entrance of a depressed blanc-mange
(which Mrs. Davis called “shape,” after its principal attribute) and
some cold green-gages. These must have come from Alcinous’s garden,
for at no time of the year were they out of season. If Angela had
stayed in the house for a fortnight, it is possible that she would
have taken Mrs. Davis in hand and inspired her with larger ideas, As
it was, she submitted, feeling that a suicide in the house was
sufficiently unsettling for Mrs. Davis without further upheavals.
The coffee room at the _Load of Mischief_ was not large enough to let
the company distribute itself at different tables, each party
conversing in low tones and eyeing its neighbours with suspicion. A
single long table accommodated them all, an arrangement which called
for a constant exercise of forced geniality. Bredon and Leyland were
both in a mood of contemplation, puzzling out the secret of the room
upstairs; Brinkman was plainly nervous, and eager to avoid discussing
the tragedy; Angela knew, from experience in such situations, the
value of silence. Only the old gentleman seemed quite at his ease,
dragging in the subject of Mottram with complete _sang-froid_ and in a
tone of irony which seemed inseparable from his personality. Brinkman
parried these topical references with considerable adroitness, showing
himself as he did so a travelled man and a man of intelligence, though
without much gift of humour.
Thus, in reply to a conventional question about his day’s sport, the
old gentleman returned, “No, I cannot say that I caught any. I think,
however, that I may claim without boasting to have frightened a few of
them. It is an extraordinary thing to me that Mottram, who was one of
your grotesquely rich men, should have come down for his fishing to an
impossible place like this, where every rise deserves a paragraph in
the local paper. If I were odiously rich, I would go to one of these
places in Scotland, or Norway, even, though I confess that I loathe
the Scandinavians. I have never met them, but the extravagant praise
bestowed upon them by my childhood’s geography books makes them
detestable to me.”
“I think,” said Brinkman, “that you would find some redeeming vices
among the Swedes. But poor Mottram’s reason was a simple one; he
belonged to these parts; Chilthorpe was his home town.”
“Indeed,” said the old gentleman, wincing slightly at the Americanism.
“Oo, yes,” said Angela, “we saw Mottram on the map. Was he a sort of
local squire, then?”
“Nothing of that sort,” replied Brinkman. “His people took their name
from the place, not the other way round. He started here with a big
shop, which he turned over to some relations of his when he made good
at Pullford. He quarrelled with them afterward, but he always had a
sentimental feeling for the place. It’s astonishing what a number of
group names there are still left in England. There is no clan system
to explain it. Yet I suppose every tenth family in this place is
called ‘Pillock.’”
“It suggests the accident of birth,” admitted the old gentleman,
“rather than choice. And poor Mottram’s family, you say, came from the
district?”
“They had been here, I believe, for generations. But this habit of
naming the man from the place is curiously English. Most nations have
the patronymic instinct; the Welsh, for example, or the Russians. But
with us, apparently, if a stranger moved into a new district, he
became John of Chilthorpe, and his descendants were Chilthorpes for
ever.”
“A strange taste,” pursued the old gentleman, harping on the unwelcome
subject, “to want to come and lay your bones among your ancestors. It
causes so much fuss and even scandal. For myself, if I ever decided to
put a term to my own existence, I should go to some abominable
place—Margate, for example—and try to give it a bad name by being
washed up just underneath the pier.”
“You would fail, sir,” objected Brinkman; “I mean, as far as giving it
a bad name was concerned. You do not give things a good name or a bad
name nowadays; you only give them an advertisement. I honestly believe
that if a firm advertised its own cigarettes as beastly it would draw
money from an inquisitive public.”
“Mrs. Davis has had an inquisitive public to-day. I assure you, when I
went out this morning I was followed for a considerable distance by a
crowd of small boys who probably thought that I intended to drag the
river. By the way, if they do drag the river, it will be interesting
to find out whether there were, after all, any fish in it. You will
let me be present, sir?” turning to Leyland, who was plainly annoyed
by the appeal. Angela had to strike in and ask who was the character
in _Happy Thoughts_ who was always asking his friends to come down and
drag the pond. So the uneasy conversation zigzagged on, Mr. Pulteney
always returning to the subject which occupied their thoughts, the
rest heading him off. Bredon was deliberately silent. He meant to have
an interview with Brinkman afterward, and he was determined that
Brinkman should have no chance of sizing him up beforehand.
The opportunity was found without difficulty after supper; Brinkman
succumbed at once to the offer of a cigar and a walk in the clear air
of the summer evening. Bredon had suggested sitting on the bridge, but
it was found that at that hour of the evening all the seating
accommodation was already booked. Brinkman then proposed a visit to
the Long Pool, but Bredon excused himself on the ground of distance.
They climbed a little way up the hill road, and found one of those
benches, seldom occupied, which seem to issue their invitation to
travellers who are short of breath. Here they could rest in solitude,
watching cloud after cloud as it turned to purple in the dying
sunlight and the shadows gathering darker over the hill crests.
“I’m from the Indescribable, you know. Expect Mrs. Davis has told you.
I’d better show you my cardcase so that you can see it’s correct. They
send me to fool round, you know, when this sort of thing happens. Have
to be careful, I suppose.” (“This Brinkman,” he had said to Angela,
“must take me for a bit of a chump; if possible, worse than I am.”)
“I don’t quite see”—— began Brinkman.
“Oh, the old thing, suicide, you know. Mark you, they don’t absolutely
bar it. I’ve known ’em pay up when a fellow was obviously potty. But
their rules are against it. What I say is, If a man has the pluck to
do himself in he ought to get away with the stakes, Well, all this
must be a great nuisance to you, Mr. Brickman”——
“Brinkman.”
“Sorry, always was a fool about names. Well, what I mean is, it can’t
be very pleasant for you to have so many people nosing round; but it’s
got to be done somehow, and you seem to be the right man to come to.
D’you think there was anything wrong in the upper story?”
“The man was as sane as you or I. I never knew a man with such a level
head.”
“Well, that’s important. You don’t mind if I scribble a note or two?
I’ve got such a wretched memory. Then, here’s another thing: was the
old fellow worried about anything? His health, for example?”
There was an infinitesimal pause; just for that fraction of a second
which is fatal, because it shews that a man is making up his mind what
to say. Then Brinkman said: “Oh, there can be no doubt of that. I
thought he’d been and told your people about it. He went to a doctor
in London and was told that he’d only two more years to live.”
“Meaning, I suppose”——
“He never told me. He was always a peculiar man about his health; he
got worried even if he had a boil on his neck. No, I don’t think he
was a hypochondriac; he was a man who’d had no experience of
ill-health, and the least thing scared him. When he told me about his
interview with the specialist he seemed all broken up, and I hadn’t
the heart to question him about it. Besides, it wasn’t my place. I
expect you’ll find that he never told any one.”
“One could ask the medico, I suppose. But they’re devilish close,
ain’t they, those fellows.”
“You’ve got to find out his name first. Mottram was very secret about
it; if he wrote to make an appointment, the letter wasn’t sent through
me. It’s a difficult job, circularizing Harley Street.”
“All the same the doctor in Pullford might know. He probably
recommended somebody.”
“What doctor in Pullford? I don’t believe Mottram’s been to a doctor
any time these last five years. I was always asking him to these last
few months because he told me he was worried about his health, though
he never told me what the symptoms were. It’s difficult to explain his
secretiveness to anybody who didn’t know him. But, look here, if
you’re inclined to think that his story about going to a specialist
was all a lie, you’re on the wrong track.”
“You feel certain of that?”
“Absolutely certain. Look at his position. In two years’ time he was
due to get a whacking annuity from your company if he lived. He was
prepared to drop his claim if the company would pay back half his
premiums. You’ve heard that, I expect? Well, where was the sense of
that, unless he really thought he was going to die?”
“You can’t think of any other reason for his wanting to do himself in?
Just bored with life, don’t you know, or what not?”
“Talk sense, Mr. Bredon. You know as well as I do that all the
suicides one hears of come from money troubles, or disappointment in
love, or sheer melancholia, There’s no question of money troubles; his
lawyers will tell you that. He was not at the time of life when men
fall badly in love, bachelors anyhow; and his name was never coupled
with a woman’s. And as for melancholia, nobody who knew him could
suspect him of it.”
“I see you’re quite convinced that it was suicide. No question of
accident, you think, or of dirty work at the crossroads? These rich
men have enemies, don’t they?”
“In story-books. But I doubt if any living soul would have laid hands
on Mottram. And as for accident, how would you connect it with all
this yarn about the specialist? And why was the door of his room
locked when he died? You can ask the servants at Pullford; they’ll
tell you that his room was never locked when he was at home; and the
Boots here will tell you that he had orders to bring in shaving-water
first thing.”
“Oh, his door was locked, was it? Fact is, I’ve heard very little
about how the thing was discovered. I suppose you were one of the
party when the body was found?”
“I was. I’m not likely to forget it. Not that I’ve any objection to
suicide; mark you, I think it’s a fine thing, very often; and the
Christian condemnation of it merely echoes a private quarrel between
St. Augustine and some heretics of his day. But it breaks you up
rather when you find a man you said ‘Good-night’ to the night before
lying there all gassed. . . . However, you want to know the details.
The Boots tried to get in with the shaving-water, and found the door
locked; tried to look through the keyhole and couldn’t; came round to
me and told me about it. I was afraid something must be wrong, and I
didn’t quite like breaking down the door with only the Boots to help
me. Then I looked out of the window, and saw the doctor here, a man
called Ferrers, going down to take his morning bath. The Boots went
and fetched him, and he agreed the only thing was to break down the
door. Well, that was easier than we thought. There was a beastly smell
of gas about, of course, even in the passage. The doctor went up to
the gas, you know, and found it turned off. I don’t know how that
happened; the tap’s very loose, anyhow, and I fancy he may have turned
it off himself without knowing it. Then he went to the bed, and it
didn’t take him a couple of minutes to find out that poor old Mottram
was dead, and what he’d died of. The key was found on the inside of
the door, turned so that the lock was fastened. Between you and me, I
have a feeling that Leyland is wondering about that tap. But it’s
obvious that nobody got into the room, and dead men don’t turn off
taps. I can’t piece it together except as suicide myself. I’m afraid
your company will be able to call me as a witness.”
“Well, of course it’s all jam to them. Not that they mind coughing up
much; but it’s the principle of the thing, you see. They don’t like to
encourage suicide. By the way, can you tell me who the heirs are? What
I mean is, I suppose a man doesn’t insure his life and then take it
unless he makes certain who comes in for the bullion?”
“The heirs, as I was saying at supper, are local people. Actually a
nephew, I believe—I didn’t want to say more at the time, because I
think between ourselves that Mr. Pulteney shows rather too much
curiosity. But Mottram quarrelled with this young fellow for some
reason—he owns the big shop here; and I’m pretty certain he won’t be
mentioned in the will.”
“Then you don’t know who the lucky fellow is?”
“Charities, I suppose. Mottram never discussed it with me. But I
imagine you could find out from the solicitors, because it’s bound to
be common property before long in any case.”
Bredon consulted, or affected to consult, a list of entries in his
pocketbook. “Well, that’s awfully kind of you. I think that’s all I
wanted to ask. Must think me a beastly interfering sort of fellow. Oh,
one other thing—is your room anywhere near the one Mr. Mottram had?
Would you have heard any sounds in the night, I mean, if there’d been
anything going on in his room above the ordinary?”
“My room’s exactly above, and my window must have been open. If there
were any suspicion of murder, I should be quite prepared to give
evidence that there was nothing in the nature of a violent struggle.
You see, I sleep pretty light, and that night I didn’t get to sleep
till after twelve. It was seven o’clock in the morning when we found
him, and the doctor seemed to think he’d been dead some hours. I heard
nothing at all from downstairs.”
“Well, I’m tremendously obliged to you. Perhaps we’d better be
wandering back, eh? You’re unmarried, of course, so you don’t have
people fussing about you when you sit out of an evening.” In this
happy vein of rather foolish good fellowship Bredon conducted his
fellow guest back to the inn; and it is to be presumed that Brinkman
did not feel that he had spent the evening in the company of a
Napoleonic brain.
Chapter VI
An Ear at the Keyhole
On their return to their coffee room they found Mr. Pulteney in sole
possession, He was solemnly filling in a cross-word puzzle in a daily
newspaper about three weeks old. Leyland had gone off to the bar
parlour, intent on picking up the gossip of the village. Bredon
excused himself and went upstairs to find that Angela was not yet
thinking of bed, she had only got tired of a cross-word puzzle.
“Well,” she asked, “and what do you make of Mr. Brinkman?”
“I think he’s a bit deep. I think he knows just a little more about
all this than he says. However, I let him talk, and did my best to
make him think I was a fool.”
“That’s just what I’ve been doing with Mr. Pulteney. At least, I’ve
been playing the _ingénue_. I thought I was going to get him to call
me ‘My dear young lady’—I love that; he very nearly did once or
twice.”
“Did you find him deep?”
“Not in that way. Miles, I forbid you to suspect Mr. Pulteney; he’s my
favourite man. He told me that suicide generally followed, instead of
preceding, the arrival of young ladies. I giggled.”
“I wish he’d drown himself. He’s one too many in this darned place.
And it’s all confusing enough without him.”
“Want me to put in some Watson work?”
“If you aren’t wanting to go to bed.” Watson work meant that Angela
tried to suggest new ideas to her husband under a mask of carefully
assumed stupidity. “You see, I’m all for suicide. My instincts tell me
that it’s suicide. I can smell it in the air.”
“I only smelt acetylene. Why suicide particularly?”
“Well, there’s the locked door. I’ve still got to see the Boots and
verify Brinkman’s facts; but a door locked on the inside, with barred
windows, makes nonsense of Leyland’s idea.”
“But a murderer might want to lock the door, so as to give himself
time to escape.”
“Exactly; but he’d lock it on the outside. On the other hand, a locked
door looks like suicide, because, unless Brinkman is lying, Mottram
didn’t lock his door as a rule; and the Boots had orders to go into
the room with shaving-water that morning.”
“Why the Boots? Why not the maid?”
“Angela, don’t be so painfully modern! Maid servants at country hotels
don’t. They leave some tepid water on the mat, make a gentle rustling
noise at the door, and tiptoe away. No, I’m sure he locked the door
for fear Brinkman should come in in the middle—or Pulteney, of course,
might have come to the wrong door by mistake. He wanted to be left
undisturbed.”
“But not necessarily in order to commit suicide.”
“You mean he might have fallen asleep over something else he was
doing? Writing a letter for example, to the _Pullford Examiner_? But
in that case he wouldn’t have been in bed. You can’t gas yourself by
accident except in your sleep. Then there’s another thing—the
Bertillon mark on the gas-tap. Leyland is smart enough to know the
difference between the mark you leave when you turn it on and the mark
you leave when you turn it off. But he won’t follow out his own
conclusions. If Mottram had gone to bed in the ordinary way, as he
must have in the event of foul play or accident, we should have seen
where he turned it off as well as where he turned it on. The point is,
Mottram didn’t turn the _light_ on at all. He went to bed in the
half-darkness, took his sleeping draught, and turned on the gas.”
“But, angel pet, how could he write a long letter to the Pullford
paper in the half-darkness? And how did he read his shocker in the
half-darkness? Let’s be just to poor Mr. Leyland, though he is in the
force.”
“I was coming on to that. Meanwhile, I say he didn’t light the gas.
Because if you want to light the gas you have to do it in two places,
and the match he used, the only match we found in the room, had hardly
burned for a second.”
“Then why did he strike a match at all?”
“I’m coming to that too. Finally, there’s the question of the taps. A
murderer would want to make certain of doing his work quickly,
therefore he would make sure that the gas was pouring out of both
jets, the one on the bracket on the wall and the one on the standard
lamp by the window. The suicide, if he means to die in his sleep,
isn’t in a hurry to go off. On the contrary, he wants to make sure
that his sleeping draught takes effect before the gas fumes become
objectionable. So he turns on only one of the two jets, and that is
the one farthest away from him. Isn’t that all right?”
“You are ingenious, you know, Miles, occasionally. I’m always so
afraid that one day you’ll find _me_ out. Now let’s hear about all the
things you were just coming to.”
“Well, you see, it isn’t a simple case of suicide. Why should it be?
People who have taken out a Euthanasia policy don’t want Tom, Dick and
Harry to know—more particularly, they don’t want Miles Bredon to
know—that they have committed suicide. They have the habit, as I know
from experience, of trying to put up a little problem in detection for
me, the brutes!”
“You shouldn’t be angry with them, Miles. After all, if they didn’t
the Indescribable might sack you, and then where would Francis’s new
tam-o’-shanter come from?”
“Don’t interrupt, woman! This is a case of suicide with complications,
and dashed ingenious ones. In the first place, we noticed that entry
in the visitors’ book. That’s an attempt to make it look as if he
expected a long stay here, before he went to bed. Actually, through
not studying the habits of the Wilkinsons, he overshot himself there—a
little too ingenious. _We_ know that when he did that he was simply
trying to lead us up the garden; but we were too clever for him.”
“Let me merely mention the fact that it was I who spotted that entry.
But pray proceed.”
“Then he did two quite irreconcilable things: he took a sleeping
draught and he asked to be called early. Now, a man who’s on a
holiday, and is afraid he won’t sleep, doesn’t make arrangements to be
called early in the morning. _We_ know that he took the sleeping
draught so as to die painlessly; and as for being called early in the
morning it was probably so as to give the impression that his death
was quite unpremeditated. He took several other precautions for the
same reason.”
“Such as?”
“He wound up his watch. Leyland noticed that, but he didn’t notice
that it was an eight-day watch. A methodical person winds up his
eight-day watch on Sunday; once more, Mottram was a tiny bit too
ingenious. Then he put the studs out ready in his shirt. Very few
people when they’re on holiday take the trouble to do that. Mottram
did because he wanted us to think that he meant to get up the next
morning in the ordinary way.”
“And the next article?”
“The window. A murderer, not taking any risks, would shut the window,
or see that it was shut, before he turned the gas on. A man going to
bed in the ordinary way would either shut it completely or else open
it to its full extent, where the hasp catches, so that in either case
it shouldn’t bang during the night. Mottram left his window ajar, not
enough open to let the gas escape much. But he knew that in the
morning the door would have to be knocked in, and with that sudden
rush of air the window would swing open. Which is exactly what
happened.”
“I believe he wrote and told you about all this beforehand.”
“Silence, woman! He left a shocker by his bedside, to make us think
that he went to bed at peace with all the world. In real life, if you
take a dose you don’t read yourself to sleep as well. Besides, if he
had been wanting to read in bed he would have brought the standard
lamp over to his bedside so as to put it out last thing. Further, he
had a letter ready written, or rather half-written, which he left on
the blotting-pad. But he hadn’t written it there—he wrote it
downstairs. I found the place where he had blotted it on the pad in
the dining-room. Another deliberate effort to suggest that he had gone
to sleep peacefully, leaving a job half-finished. And then, of course,
there was the match.”
“You mean he only struck it to give the impression that he’d lit the
gas, but didn’t really light it? I’m getting the hang of the thing,
aren’t I? By the way, he couldn’t have lit another match and thrown it
out of the window?”
“Very unlikely. Only smokers, and tidy ones at that, throw matches out
of the window. He either had one match left in his pocket or borrowed
one from Brinkman. But he didn’t use it; suicides like the dark.
There’s one other tiny point—you see that?” He took up a large, cheap
Bible which stood at the bedside of their own room. “There’s a society
which provides those, and of course there’s one for each room. Mottram
had taken his away from the bedside and put it in a drawer. It’s funny
how superstitious we men are, when all’s said and done.”
“That’s a tiny bit grooly, isn’t it? Well, when are you going to dig
the grave at the crossroads and borrow a stake from the local
carpenter?”
“Well, you see, there’s just that trifling difficulty about the tap
being turned off. Leyland is right in saying that dead men don’t do
that sort of thing.”
“What’s Brinky’s explanation?”
“Mr. Brinkman, to whom you were only introduced three hours ago,
thinks the doctor turned it off accidentally in the morning. That’s
nonsense, of course. His idea was that the tap was very loose, but it
wasn’t, really—Leyland had it loosened on purpose, so as to be able to
turn it without obliterating the finger-marks. If it hadn’t been
stiff, of course, there’d have been no marks left at all. So there’s a
three-pipe problem for you, my dear Mrs. Hudson.”
Angela’s forehead wrinkled becomingly. “Two problems, my poor old
Lestrade. How did the tap get turned off, and why does Brinky want us
to think it got turned off accidental? I always like you to have
plenty of theories, because it keeps your mind active; but with my
well-known womanly intuition I should say it was a plain issue between
the locked door, which means suicide, and the turned-off tap, which
means murder. Did I hear you putting a fiver on it with Leyland?”
“You did. There’s dashed little you don’t hear.”
“Well, if you’ve got a fiver on it, of course it’s got to be suicide.
That’s a good, wifely point of view, isn’t it? I wish it were the
other way round; I believe I could account for that door if I were put
to it. But I won’t; I wonder how Leyland’s getting on?”
“Well, he’s worse off than we are, because he’s got to get over the
door trouble, and he’s got to find a motive for the murder _and_ a
criminal to convict of it. We score there; if it’s suicide, there can
be no two theories about the criminal! And we know the motive—partly,
anyhow. Mottram did it in order to make certain of that half-million
for his legatees. And we shall soon know who they are. The only motive
that worries me is Brinkman’s: Why’s he so keen on its being suicide?
Perhaps the will would make that clear too. . . . I can’t work it out
at present.” He began to stride up and down the room. “I’m perfectly
certain about that door. It’s impossible that it should be a
spring-lock, in an old-fashioned hotel like this.” He went up to the
door of their room, and bent down to examine it. Then, with startling
suddenness, he turned the handle and threw it open. “Angela, come
here. . . . You see that picture in the passage? There’s no wind to
make it swing like that, is there?”
“You mean you think somebody’s been”——
“Just as I bent down to the door, I could have sworn I heard footsteps
going softly away. It must have been somebody actually at the
keyhole.”
“Why didn’t you run out?”
“Well, it makes it so dashed awkward to find somebody listening and
catch them at it. In some ways it’s much better to know that somebody
has been listening and for them not to know whether you know or not.
It’s confoundedly awkward, all the same.”
“Idiotic of us not to have remembered that we were in a country pub,
and that servants in country pubs still do listen at keyholes.”
“Servants? Well, ye-es. But Pulteney’s room is only just round that
corner.”
“Miles, I will not have you talking of poor old Edward like that.”
“Who told you his name was Edward?”
“It must be; you’ve only to look at him. Anyhow, he will always be
Edward to me. But he simply couldn’t listen at a keyhole. He would
regard it as a somewhat unconventional proceeding” (this with a fair
imitation of Mr. Pulteney’s voice). “Besides, he can’t _nearly_ have
finished that cross-word yet. He’s very stupid without me to help him;
he _will_ always put down ‘EMU’ when there’s a bird of three letters.”
“Well, anyhow, Brinkman’s room is only up one flight of stairs. As you
say, it may be the servants, or even Mrs. Davis herself; but I’d like
to feel sure of that. I wonder how much of what we said was
overheard.”
“Well, Miles dear, you ought to know. Don’t you remember how you
listened at the kitchen door in old Solomon’s house, and thought you
heard a man’s voice and found out afterward it was only the
loud-speaker?”
“Good God, why does one marry? Look here, I’m just going to have a
look around for old Leyland, and warn him that there’s dirty work at
the crossroads.”
“Yes, he must be careful not to soliloquize too much.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s time you went to bed; I won’t be more than half
an hour or so.”
“Not beyond closing time, in other words? Gosh, what a man! Well, walk
quietly, and don’t wake Edward.”
Bredon found Leyland still in the bar parlour, listening patiently to
the interminable theorizings of the oldest inhabitant. “That’s how it
was, you see. Tried to turn off the gars, and didn’t turn it off
proper, that’s what he did. He didn’t think to lay hands on himself,
stands to reason he didn’t. What for should he, and him so rich and
all? Mark you, I’ve known Mottram when he wasn’t no higher than that
chair yonder, not so much he wasn’t; and I know what I’m talking
about. I’ve seen suicides put away too, I have; I recollect poor
Johnny Pillock up at the toll-house; went mad he did, and hung himself
off of a tree the same as if it might be from the ceiling yonder. Ah!
There wasn’t no gars in them days. Good-night, Mr. Warren, and
pleasant dreams to you; you mind them stairs in your front garden.
Yes, powerful rich Mottram he was,” and so on without cessation or
remorse. It was nearly closing time before Bredon managed to drag the
policeman away and warn him that there were others (it appeared)
besides themselves who were interested in the secret of the upstairs
room.
Chapter VII
From Leyland’s Note-Book
“Now that I have put that fiver on with Bredon, I begin to doubt my
own conclusions. That is the extraordinary effect of having a ‘will to
believe.’ As long as you have no prejudices in the case, no brief to
maintain, you can form a theory and feel that it is a mathematical
certainty. Directly you have a reason for wanting to believe the thing
true that same theory begins to look as if it had all sorts of holes
in it. Or rather, the whole theory seems fantastic—you have been
basing too much on insufficient evidence. Yesterday I was as certain
that the case was one of murder as I am certain of my own existence.
To-day I am developing scruples. Let me get it all down on paper,
anyhow; and I shall be able to shew my working to Bredon afterward,
however the case turns out.
“There is one indication which is absolutely vital, absolutely
essential: that is the turning off of the tap. That is the pinpoint of
truth upon which any theory must rest. I don’t say it’s easy to
explain the action; but it is an action, and the action demands an
agent. The fact that the gas was tampered with would convince me of
foul play, even if there were no other direct indications. There are
such indications.
“In the first place, the window: If the window had stood all night as
it was found in the morning, wide open and held by its clasp, there
could have been no death. Pulteney tells me that there was a strong
east wind blowing most of the night, and you can trust a fisherman to
be accurate in these matters. The window, then, like the gas, had been
deliberately arranged in an artificial position between Mottram’s
death and the arrival of the rescue party. If the death had been
accidental, the window would have been shut and remained shut all
night. You do not leave a window half open, with nothing to fix it, on
a windy night. If it had been a case of suicide, it is equally clear
that the window would have remained shut all night. If you are
proposing to gas yourself you do not take risks of the window blowing
open and leaving you half-asphyxiated. There is only one explanation
of the open window, as there is of the gas-tap: and that explanation
involves the interference of a person or persons unknown.
“Another direct indication is the match found in the grate. Bredon’s
suggestion that this match was used by the maid earlier in the evening
is quite impossible; there was a box on the mantelpiece, which would
be plainly visible in daylight, and it was not one of those matches
that was used. It was a smaller match, of a painfully ordinary kind;
Brinkman uses such matches, and Pulteney, and probably every smoker
within miles around. Now, the match was not used to light the gas. It
would have been necessary to light the gas in two places, and the
match would have burned some little way down the stem, whereas this
one was put out almost as soon as it was lit. It must have been used,
I think, to light the gas in the passage outside, but of this I cannot
be sure. It was thrown carelessly into the grate because, no doubt,
the nocturnal visitor assumed as a matter of course that others like
it would already have been thrown into the grate. As a matter of fact,
Mottram must have thrown the match he lit the gas with out of the
window: I have not found it.
“From various indications, it is fairly clear that Mottram did not
foresee his end. Chief among these is the order which he gave that he
was to be woken early in the morning. This might of course be bluff;
but if so it was a very heartless kind of bluff, for it involved the
disturbing of the whole household with the tragic news in the small
hours, instead of leaving it to transpire after breakfast. And this
leads us on to another point, which Bredon appears to have overlooked:
A man who wants to be woken up early in the morning does not take a
sleeping draught overnight. It follows that _Mottram did not really
take the sleeping draught_. And that means that the glass containing
it was deliberately put by his bed to act as a blind. The medical
evidence is not positive as to whether he actually took the stuff or
not. My conjecture is, then, that the man who came in during the
night—twice during the night—put a glass with the remains of a
sleeping draught by the bed in order to create the impression that
Mottram had committed suicide.
“When I struck upon this idea, it threw a flood of light on various
other details of the case. We have to deal with a murderer who is
anxious to create the impression that the victim has died by his own
hand. It was for this reason that he left a half-finished letter of
Mottram’s on the table—a letter which Mottram had actually written
downstairs; this would look like the regular suicide’s dodge of trying
to cover up his tracks by leaving a half-finished document about. It
would make a mind like Bredon’s suspect suicide at once. The same may
be said of the ridiculous care with which the dead man was supposed to
have wound up an eight-day watch before retiring; it was a piece of
bluff which in itself would deceive nobody; but here it was double
bluff, and I expect it has deceived Bredon. He will see everywhere the
marks of a suicide covering up his tracks, which is exactly what the
murderer meant him to see.
“The thing begins to take shape in my mind, then, as follows: When he
feels confident that his victim is asleep the murderer tiptoes into
the room, puts down the glass by the bedside and the letter on the
table; winds up the watch (a very silent one); then goes over to the
gas, wipes off with a rag the mark of Mottram’s hand turning it off,
and then, with the same rag, gently turns it on once more. The window
is already shut. He tiptoes through the doorway, and waits for an hour
or two till the gas has done its deadly work. Then, for some reason,
he returns; for what reason, I cannot at present determine. Once he
had taken all these precautions, it must have looked to him as if a
verdict of suicide was a foregone conclusion. But it is a trick of the
murderer—due, some think, to the workings of a guilty conscience—to
revisit the scene of his crime and spoil the whole effect of it. It is
this reason, of course, that I must find out before I am certain of my
case; leaving aside all further questions as to the murderer’s
identity and his motives.
“In fact, there are two problems: a problem of why and a problem of
how. _Why_ did the murderer turn the gas off? And _how_ did he leave
the door locked behind him? I suspect that the answer to the first
question is, as I have said, merely psychological; it was some
momentary instinct of bravado, or remorse, or sheer lunacy. The answer
to the second question must be something more complicated. In the
abstract it is, I suppose, possible to turn a key in a lock from the
wrong side by using a piece of wire or some instrument. But it is
almost inconceivable that a man could do this without leaving
scratches on the key; I have examined the key very carefully and there
are no scratches. Bredon, I can see, hopes to arrive at some different
conclusion about the evidence; somebody, he thinks, is lying. But
Brinkman, and Ferrers the doctor, and the Boots, all rushed into the
room at the same moment. Ferrers is an honest man, and I am sure he is
telling the truth when he says he found the gas turned off; and he
went to it at once, before either of the others had time to interfere.
It was the Boots who found the key on the inside of the door, and the
Boots will not do for the murderer; a man with one hand cannot have
done conjuring tricks with a lock. Brinkman’s own evidence is
perfectly straightforward and consistent with that of the others. He
seems secretive, but that, I think, is the fellow’s manner. I cannot
at present see any motive which could have made him want to do away
with Mottram; the two seem to have been on intimate terms, and there
is no evidence of a quarrel.
“I am inclined to exonerate Pulteney of all knowledge, even of all
interest in the affair. He was a complete stranger to Mottram, so far
as I can discover. But suspicion may equally well fall on people
outside the house; for, although the doors of the inn were locked,
there is a practicable window on the ground floor which is not always
shut at night. Mottram was known in Chilthorpe, and had lived there
when he was young; there is the chance, then, of a local vendetta.
Pullford is only twenty miles or so distant; and in Pullford he may
easily have had enemies; the letter from ‘Brutus’ shews that. But,
since the salient fact about Mottram was his wealth, it seems obvious
that the first question to be settled is that of his testamentary
dispositions. I must telegraph to London to-morrow for full
information about these, and pursue my local inquiries in the mean
time. The only person on the spot who has any close tie of blood with
the deceased is the young fellow who owns the big shop here. He is
Mottram’s nephew; Mottram himself started it long ago, and afterward
made it over to his sister and her husband, both of whom are now dead.
Unfortunately for himself, the young man seems to have been something
of a radical, and he made an injudicious speech at a time when Mottram
was proposing to run himself as an independent Parliamentary candidate
for the constituency. There was a quarrel; and Mrs. Davis thinks that
the two never met again.
“These are only my first impressions. They may have to be
revised drastically as the case proceeds. But of one thing I am
confident—there has been foul play, and the effort to represent it as
a case of suicide is necessarily doomed to failure.”
Chapter VIII
The Bishop at Home
Angela and her husband breakfasted late next morning. Leyland came in
as they were finishing, his manner full of excitement. “Mrs. Davis,”
he explained, “has been talking to me.”
“Don’t be led on too much by that,” said Angela. “It has happened to
others.”
“No, but I mean, Mrs. Davis has been saying something.”
“That is far more unusual,” assented Bredon. “Let’s hear all about it.
Angela”——
“Mrs. Bredon,” said Angela firmly, “has been associated with me in
many of my cases, and you may speak freely in her presence. Cough it
up, Mr. Leyland; nothing is going to separate me from this piece of
toast.”
“Oh, there’s nothing private about it particularly. But I thought
perhaps you might help. You see, Mrs. Davis says that Mottram was
expecting a visitor to turn up in the morning and go out fishing with
him.”
“A mysterious stranger?” suggested Angela. “Carrying a blunt
instrument?”
“Well, no, as a matter of fact it was the Bishop of Pullford. Do you
know Pullford at all?”
“Nothing is hidden from us, Mr. Leyland. They make drain-pipes there,
not perambulators, as some have supposed. The parish church is a fine
specimen of early Perp. It has been the seat of a Roman Catholic
Bishopric—oh! I suppose that’s the man?”
“So Mrs. Davis explained. A very genial man. Not one of your
standoffish ones. He was expected, it seems, by the first train, which
gets in about ten. Mottram left word that he was to be called early,
because he wanted to get at the fishing, and the Bishop, when he
arrived, was to be asked to join Mr. Mottram on the river; he would be
at the Long Pool. He’d been down here before, apparently, as Mottram’s
guest. Now, it’s obvious that we had better find out what the Bishop
has to say about all this. I’d go myself only for one thing: I don’t
quite like leaving Chilthorpe while my suspicions” (he dropped his
voice) “are so undefined; and for another thing, I’ve telegraphed up
to London for details about the will and I want to be certain that the
answer comes straight to my own hands. And the inquest is at four this
afternoon; I can’t risk being late for that. I was wondering whether
you and Mrs. Bredon would care to run over there? It would take you
less than an hour in the car, and if you went as representing the
Indescribable it would make it all rather less—well, official. Then I
thought perhaps at the end of the day we might swap information.”
“What about it, Angy?”
“I don’t think I shall come and see the Bishop. It doesn’t sound quite
proper, somehow. But I’ll drive you into Pullford, and sit at the
hotel for a bit and have luncheon there, and you can pick me up.”
“All right. I say, though,” he added piteously, “shall I have to go
and change my suit?”
“Not for a moment. You can explain to the Bishop that your Sunday
trousers are in pawn; if he’s really genial he’ll appreciate that.
Besides, that tweed suit makes you look like a good-natured sort of
ass; and that’s what you want, isn’t it? After all, if you do stay to
lunch, it will only be a bachelor party.”
“Very well, then, we’ll go. Just when I was beginning to like
Chilthorpe! Look here, Leyland, you aren’t expecting me to serve a
summons on the Bishop or clap the darbies on him, or anything? Because
if so you’d better go yourself.”
“Oh no, I don’t suspect the Bishop—not particularly, that is. I just
want to know what he can tell us about Mottram’s movements immediately
before his death, and what sort of man he was generally. He may even
know something about the will; but there’s no need to drag that topic
in, because my telegram ought to produce full information about that.
Thanks awfully. And we’ll pool the day’s information, eh?”
“Done. I say, though, I think I’d better just wire to the Bishop, to
make sure that he’s at home, and ready to receive a stray spy. Then we
can start at elevenish.”
As Bredon returned from sending the telegram, he was waylaid, to his
surprise, by Mr. Pulteney, who was fooling about with rods and reels
and things in the front hall. “I wonder if I might make a suggestion
to you, Mr. Bredon,” he said. “I despise myself for the weakness, but
you know how it is. Every man thinks in his heart that he would have
made a good detective. I ought to know better at my age, but the foul
fiend keeps urging me to point something out to you.”
Bredon smiled at the elaborate address. “I should like to hear it
awfully,” he said. “After all, detection is only a mixture of common
sense and special knowledge, so why shouldn’t we all put something
into the pot?”
“It is special knowledge that is in question here; otherwise I would
not have ventured to approach you. You see that rod? It is, as you
doubtless know, Mottram’s; it is the one which he intended to take out
with him on that fatal morning. You see those flies on it?”
They looked to Bredon very much like any other flies, and he said so.
“Exactly. That is where special knowledge comes in. I don’t know this
river very well; but I do know that it would be ridiculous to try to
fish this river with those particular flies, especially at this time
of the year and after the weather we’ve been having. And I do know
that a man like Mottram, who had been fishing this river year after
year, couldn’t possibly have imagined that it was any use taking those
flies down to the Long Pool. I only mention it because it makes me
rather wonder whether Mottram really came down here to fish. Well, I
must be starting for the river. Still nursing the unconquerable hope.
Good-morning.” And, with one of his sudden gestures, the old gentleman
was gone.
A telegram came in admirably good time, assuring Bredon that the
Bishop would be delighted to see him. It was little after eleven when
the car took the road again; this time their way brought them closer
to the Busk and gave them a better view of its curious formation. A
narrow gorge opened beneath them, and they looked down into deep pools
overhung by smooth rocks that the water had eaten away at their base.
There was no actual waterfall, but the stream always hurried downward,
chuckling to itself under and around the boulders which interrupted
its course. “I think Pulteney overestimates the danger of having his
river dragged,” observed Bredon. “You couldn’t drag that part of it;
and, with all those shelves of rock, a corpse might lie for days
undiscovered, and no one the wiser. I’m glad that it’s a death by gas,
not by drowning.”
Their road now climbed onto the moors, and they began to draw closer
to a desolate kind of civilization. Little factory towns which had
sprung up when direct water-power was in demand, and continued a
precarious existence perched on those barren slopes now that
water-power had been displaced by steam, were the mile-stones of their
route. They were jolted on a pavement of villainous sets; the air grew
dim with a smoky haze and the moorland blackened with their approach
to the haunts of men. At last tram-lines met them, announcing the
outskirts of Pullford. “I’m getting the needle rather about this
interview,” confessed Bredon. “What does one do by way of making one’s
self popular with a Catholic Bishop?” he demanded of Angela, who was
convent-bred.
“Well, the right thing is to go down on one knee and kiss his ring. I
don’t think you’d make much of a show at it; we ought to have
practised it before we left Chilthorpe. But I don’t suppose he’ll eat
you.”
Bredon tried to rearrange his ideas about Bishops. He remembered the
ceremony of being confirmed at school; a long, tiresome service, with
an interminable address in which he and fifty of his compeers were
adjured to play for their side. He remembered another Bishop, met in a
friend’s rooms at Oxford, a hand laid on his shoulder and an
intolerably earnest voice asking whether he had ever thought of taking
holy orders. Was that the sort of thing? Or was he rather to expect
some silken-tongued courtier, in purple and fine linen, pledging him
in rich liqueurs (as in the advertisements) and lying to him smoothly
(as in the story-books)? Was he to be embarrassed by pietism or to be
hoodwinked by a practised intriguer? Anyhow, he would know the worst
before long now. They drew up at the centre of the town before a vast,
smoke-grimed hotel which promised every sort of discomfort; and
Bredon, after asking his way to the Catholic Cathedral, and steadying
himself with a vermuth, went out to face the interview.
The Cathedral house proved to be a good specimen of that curious
municipal Gothic which is the curse of all institutions founded in
1850. The kind of house which is characterized by the guide-books as
fine, by its inmates as beastly. The large room into which Bredon was
shewn was at least equally cheerless. It was half-panelled in
atrocious pitch-pine, and it had heavy, ecclesiastical-looking chairs
which discouraged all attempts at repose. There was a gas-stove in the
fireplace. Previous occupants of the See of Pullford lined the walls,
in the worst possible style of portraiture. A plaster Madonna of the
kind that is successively exiled from the church to the sacristy and
from the sacristy to the presbytery at once caught and repelled the
eye. In point of fact, the room is never used except by the canons of
Pullford when they vest for the chapter mass and by the strange
visitor who looks a little too important to be left in a waiting-room
downstairs.
A door opened at the end of the room, and through it came a tall man
dressed in black with a dash of red whose welcome made you forget at
once all the chill of the reception room. The face was strong and
determined, yet unaffectedly benevolent; the eyes met you squarely,
and did not languish at you; the manner was one of embarrassed
dignity, with no suggestion of personal greatness. You did not feel
that there was the slightest danger of being asked whether you meant
to take orders. You did not catch the smallest hint of policy or of
priestcraft. Bredon made a gesture as if to carry out Angela’s
uncomfortable prescription; but the hand that had caught his was at
once withdrawn in obvious deprecation. He had come there as a spy,
expecting to be spied upon; he found himself mysteriously fitting into
this strange household as an old friend.
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Brendan.” (The Chilthorpe
post-office is not at its best with proper names.) “Come inside,
please. So you’ve come to have a word about poor old Mottram? He was
an old friend of ours here, you know, and a close neighbour. You had a
splendid morning for motoring. Come in, please.” And Bredon found
himself in a much smaller room, the obvious sanctum of a bachelor.
There were pipes about, and pipe-cleaners; there was a pleasant litter
of documents on the table; there was a piano standing open, as pianos
do when people are accustomed to strum on them for mere pleasure;
there was a quite unashamed loud-speaker in one corner. The chair into
which the visitor was shepherded was voluminous and comfortable; you
could not sit nervously on the edge of it if you tried. Instinctively,
in such a room your hand felt for your tobacco-pouch. Would Mr.
“Brendan” take anything before dinner? Dinner was due in three
quarters of an hour. Yes, it was a very sad business about poor
Mottram. There was a feeling of genuine regret in the town.
“I don’t really know whether I’d any right to trespass on My
Lordship’s—on Your Lordship’s time at all,” began Bredon, fighting
down a growing sense of familiarity. “It was only that the landlady
told us this morning you were expected to join Mottram at Chilthorpe
just on the morning when he died. So we naturally thought you might
have known something about his movements and his plans. When I say
‘we,’ I mean that I’m more or less working in with the police, because
the Inspector down there happens to be a man I know.” (Dash it all,
why was he putting all his cards on the table like this?)
“Oh, of course, I should be only too glad if I can be of any use. The
newspapers have just mentioned the death as if it were an accident,
but one of my priests was telling me there is a rumour in the town
that the poor fellow took his own life. Well, of course, I don’t think
that very probable.”
“He was quite cheerful, you mean, when you last saw him?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say cheerful, exactly; but, you see, he was always a
bit of a dismal Jimmy. But he was in here one evening not a week ago;
very glad to be going off for his holiday, and full of fishing plans.
It was then he asked me to come down and join him just for the day.
Well, there was a tempting hole in my engagement book, and there’s a
useful train in the morning to Chilthorpe, so I promised I would. Then
the Vicar General rang me up the last thing at night and told me about
an important interview with some education person which he’d arranged
behind my back. So I gave it up—one has to do what one’s told—and was
meaning to telegraph to Mottram in the morning. And then this sad news
came along before I had time to telegraph after all.”
“Oh, the news got here as early as that?”
“Yes, that secretary of his wired to me, Brinkman. It was kind of him
to think of me, for I know the man very little. I forget the exact
words he used, ‘Regret to say Mr. Mottram died last night, useless
your coming,’ something of that sort.”
“Do you know if he meant to make any long stay at Chilthorpe?”
“Brinkman would be able to tell you better than I could; but I fancy
they generally spent about a fortnight there every year. Mottram
himself, I daresay you know, came from those parts. So far as I knew,
this was to be the regular yearly visit. Honestly, I can’t think why
he should have been at pains to ask me down there if there had been
any idea of suicide in his mind. Of course if there was definite
insanity that’s a different thing. But there was nothing about him to
suggest it.”
“Do I understand that Mottram belonged to your—that Mottram was a
Catholic?”
“Oh, dear no! I don’t think he was a church-goer at all. I think he
believed in Almighty God, you know; he was quite an intelligent man,
though he had not had much schooling when he was young. But his
friendship with us was just a matter of chance—that and the fact that
his house is so close to us. He was always very kindly disposed toward
us—a peculiar man, Mr. ‘Brendan,’ and a very obstinate man in some
ways. He liked being in the right, and proving himself in the right;
but he was broad-minded in religious matters, very.”
“You don’t think that he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide—on
any moral grounds, I mean?”
“He did defend suicide in a chat we had the other day. Of course my
own feeling is that by the time a man has got to the state of nerves
in which suicide seems the only way out he has generally got beyond
the stage at which he can really sit down and argue whether it is
right or wrong. At least one hopes so. I don’t think that a person who
defends suicide in the abstract is any more the likely to commit
suicide for that or vice versa. Apart from grace, of course. But it’s
the absence of motive, Mr. ‘Brendan.’ Why should Mottram have wanted
to take his own life?”
“Well, My Lord, I’m afraid I see these things from an uncharitable
angle. You see, my business is all connected with insurance; and
Mottram was insured with us, and insured heavily.”
“Well, there you are, you see; you have the experience and I haven’t.
But doesn’t it seem to you strange that a man in good health, who
digests his meals, and has no worries, should take his own life in the
hope of benefiting his heirs, whoever they may prove to be? He had no
family, you must remember.”
“In good health? Then—then he didn’t mention anything to you about his
life prospects?”
“I can’t say that he did; but he always seemed to me to enjoy good
health. Why, was there anything wrong?”
“My Lord, I think this ought to be confidential, if you don’t mind.
But since you knew him so well I think it’s only fair to mention to
you that Mottram had misgivings about his health.” And he narrated the
story of Mottram’s singular interview at the Indescribable offices.
The Bishop looked grave when he had finished.
“Dear, dear, I’d no notion of that; no notion at all. And it’s not
clear even now what was wrong with him? Well, of course that alters
things. It must be a grave temptation for people who are suffering
from a malignant disease, especially if it’s a painful one; pain
clouds the reason so, doesn’t it? I wish I’d realized that he was in
trouble, though it’s very little one can do. But that’s just like him;
he was always a bit of a stoic; fine, in a rugged sort of way. ‘It
never did any good meeting troubles half way,’ he used to say to me.
Well, money can’t do everything for us.”
“He was enormously rich, I suppose?”
“Hardly that. He was very comfortably off, though. There will be a
windfall, I suppose, coming to somebody.”
“He never mentioned to you, I suppose, what he meant to do with his
money?”
“Well, of course, he used to say half-jokingly that he was going to
provide for us; but I don’t think he meant us to take that seriously.
He had a kind of hankering after religion, you see, but he didn’t get
on well with religious people as a general thing. The Anglicans, he
said, were all at sixes and sevens, and he couldn’t bear a church
which didn’t know its own mind. The non-conformists, he said, did no
sort of good in the town; all those fine chapels, and only thirty or
forty people in each of them on a Sunday morning. He was a little
unjust, I think, to the non-conformists; they do a great deal of good,
some of them. And about the Salvation Army he was extraordinarily
bitter. So he used to say he’d sooner his money went to us than to any
of the others. But I think that was only an ironic way he had with
him; people who have made a lot of money are often fond of talking
about what they’re going to do with it. Of course it would have made a
lot of difference to us; but I don’t think he meant to be taken
seriously.”
“Well, I’m very much obliged to Your Lordship; I think, perhaps, I
ought to be”——
“What, going away, and dinner on the table? No, no, Mr. ‘Brendan,’
that isn’t how we treat our guests at Pullford. Just you come along,
now, and be introduced to some of the reverend clergy. I know the
_Load of Mischief_, and those chops! Come on, and we’ll send you off
in better trim than you came.” It was evident that there was no help
for it; Angela must wait.
Chapter IX
The Late Rector of Hipley
The dinner-table left a blurred impression on Bredon, for all his
habit of observing his fellow men and analysing his feelings about
them. The setting-out of the meal had faults that Angela would have
condemned, and would have put right in no time; you were conscious at
once that the household belonged to bachelors. Yet the meal itself and
the cooking of it were of excellent quality; and it was thrown at you
with a clamorous, insistent hospitality that made you feel like a
guest of honour. The room seemed to be full of priests—there were
five, perhaps, in reality, besides the Bishop—and every detail of
their behaviour proved that they were free from any sense of formality
or restraint; yet constant little attentions shewed the guest that he
was never forgotten. The topic of conversation which Bredon (who in
the mean time had informed the Bishop of the post-office mistake)
could recall most distinctly afterward was a learned and almost
technical discussion between the Bishop and the youngest priest
present on the prospects of the local soccer team for next year.
Nothing fitted in, somehow, with his scheme of probabilities; there
was a Father O’Shaughnessy, who had been born and bred in Pullford and
never seemed to have been outside it; there was a Father Edwards who
talked with a violent Irish brogue. A teetotaller opposite kept plying
him with Barsac.
It was perhaps a delicate attention that Bredon’s neighbour, on the
side away from the Bishop, was the only other layman present. He was
introduced as the Bishop’s secretary; and he was the only man in the
room who looked like a clergyman. He seemed some fifty years old; he
was silent by habit, and spoke with a dry humour that seemed to amuse
everybody except himself. Bredon could not help wondering how such a
man came to occupy such a position at his time of life, for his voice
betrayed university education and he was plainly competent, yet he
obviously thought of himself as a supernumerary in the household. The
riddle was solved when Bredon, in answer to some question about his
journey down to Chilthorpe, explained that he did not come from London
itself, but from a village in Surrey, a place called Burrington.
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Eames, the secretary, “not Burrington near
Hipley?” And, when Bredon asked if he knew Hipley, “Know it? I ought
to. I was rector there for ten years.”
The picture of the rectory at Hipley stood out before Bredon’s mind;
you see it from the main road. There is an old-fashioned tennis-lawn
in front of it; roses cluster round it endearingly; there is a cool
dignity about the Queen Anne house, the terraces of which are
spotlessly mowed. Yes, you could put this man in clerical clothes, and
he would fit beautifully into that spacious garden; you saw him, with
surplice fluttering in the breeze, going up the churchyard path to
ring the bell for evening service; that was his atmosphere. And here,
unfrocked by his own conscience, he was living as a hired servant,
almost a pensioner, in this gaunt house, these cheerless rooms. . . .
You wondered less at his silent habit, and his melancholy airs of
speech.
Nothing creates intimacy like a common background discovered among
strangers. They belonged, it seemed, to the same university, the same
college; their periods were widely different, but dons and scouts, the
mile-stones of short-lived undergraduate memory, were recalled, and
their mannerisms discussed; and when at the end of the meal the Bishop
rose, profuse in his apologies, to attend a meeting, Eames volunteered
to walk Bredon back to his hotel. “I thought there’d be no harm, My
Lord, if we just took a look in at poor Mottram’s house; I daresay it
would interest Mr. Bredon to see it. The housekeeper,” he explained to
Bredon, “is one of our people.”
The Bishop approved the suggestion; and with a chorus of farewells
they left the Cathedral house together. “Well,” said Bredon to his
companion, “you’ve got a wonderful Bishop here.”
“Yes,” said Eames, “the mind dwells with pleasure on the thought of
him. There are few of us for whom more can be said than that.”
“I can’t fit Mottram, from what I’ve heard of him, into that
household.”
“Because you’re not a provincial. Our common roots are in Oxford and
in London. But in a place like this people know one another because
they are neighbours.”
“Even the clergy?”
“The Catholic clergy, anyhow. You see, our priests don’t swap about
from one diocese to another; they are tied to the soil. Consequently
they are local men, most of them, and a local man feels at home with
them.”
“Still, for a man who had no religion particularly, isn’t it rather a
challenge to be up against your faith like that? I should have thought
a man was bound to react one way or the other.”
“Not necessarily. It’s astonishing what a lot of theoretical interest
a man can take in the faith and yet be miles away from it practically.
Why, Mottram himself, about three weeks ago, was pestering us all
about the old question of ‘the end justifying the means.’ Being a
Protestant, of course he meant by that doing evil in order that good
may come. He worried the life out of the Bishop, urging the most
plausible reasons for maintaining that it was perfectly right. He
simply couldn’t see why the Bishop insisted you weren’t ever allowed
to do what’s wrong, whatever comes of it. And the odd thing was, he
really seemed to think he was being more Catholic over it than we
were. However, all that bores you.”
“No, indeed. I want to know everything about Mottram; and it’s silly
to pretend that a man’s religion doesn’t matter. Was he thinking at
all, do you suppose, of becoming a Catholic?”
Eames shrugged his shoulders. “How can I tell? I don’t think he really
shewed any dispositions. But of course he was a religious man in a
way, he wasn’t one of your nogoddites, like Brinkman. You’ve met
Brinkman?”
“Yes, I’m staying in the same hotel, you see. And I confess I’m
interested in him too. What do you make of him? Who is he, or where
did Mottram pick him up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like the little man. I don’t even know what his
nationality is; he’s spent a long time in Paris, and I’m pretty sure
he’s not British. And mind you, he hated us. I think he had
corresponded for some paper out in Paris; anyhow, he knew all the
seedy anti-clericals; and I rather think he was asked to leave.
Mottram seems to have taken him on on the recommendation of a friend;
he had some idea, I think, of doing a history of the town; and of
course Brinkman can write. But Brinkman very seldom came in here, and
when he did he was like a dog among snakes. I daresay he thought the
house was full of oubliettes. He’d got all that Continental
anti-clericalism, you see. Here’s the house.”
They turned up a short drive which led them through a heavily walled
park to the front door of a painfully mid-Victorian mansion. A mansion
it must be called; it did not look like a house. Strange reminiscences
of various styles, Gothic, Byzantine, Oriental, seemed to have been
laid on by some external process to a red-brick abomination of the
early seventies. Cream-coloured and slate-coloured tiles wove
irrelevant patterns across the bare spaces of wall, Conservatories
masked a good half of the lowest storey. It was exactly suited to be
what it afterward became, a kind of municipal museum, in which the
historic antiquities of Pullford, such as they were, could be visited
by the public on dreary Sunday afternoons.
“Now,” said Eames, “does that give you Mottram’s atmosphere?”
“God forbid!” replied Bredon.
“See then the penalty of too great riches. Only one man in a thousand
can express his personality in his surroundings if he has a million of
money to do it with. It wasn’t Mottram, of course, who did this; but
he would have built the same sort of horror if he hadn’t taken it over
from a predecessor like himself. And the rooms are as bad as the
house.”
Eames was fully justified in this last criticism. The house was full
of expensive bad taste; the crude work of local artists hung on the
walls; bulging goddesses supported unnecessary capitals; velvet and
tarnished gilding and multicoloured slabs of marble completed the
resemblance to a large station restaurant. Mottram had possessed no
private household gods, had preserved no cherished knickknacks. The
house was the fruit of his money, not of his personality. He had given
the architect a free hand, and in the midst of all that barbaric
splendour he had lived a homeless exile.
The housekeeper had little to add to what Bredon already knew. Her
master usually went away for a holiday about that time in the year,
and Mr. Brinkman always went with him. He had expected to be away for
a fortnight, or perhaps three weeks. He had not shewn, to the servants
at any rate, any signs of depression or anxiety; he had not left any
parting messages to suggest a long absence. His letters were to be
redirected, as usual, to the _Load of Mischief_. There had been none,
as a matter of fact, except a few bills and circulars. She didn’t
think that Mr. Mottram went to any of the Pullford doctors, regularly
at least; and she had had no knowledge of his seeing the specialist in
London. She did not remember Mr. Mottram being ill, except for an
occasional cold, though he did now and again take a sleeping draught.
“It’s quite true,” said Eames as they left the house, “that we never
noticed any signs of depression or anxiety in Mottram. But I do
remember, only a short time ago, his seeming rather excited one
evening when he was round with us. Or am I imagining it? Memory and
imagination are such close neighbours. But I do think that when he
asked the Bishop to go and stay down at Chilthorpe he seemed
unnaturally insistent about it. He was fond of the Bishop, of course,
but I shouldn’t have thought he was as fond of him as all that. To
hear him talk, you would think that it was going to make all the
difference to him whether the Bishop shared his holiday or not.”
“Yes, I wonder what that points to?”
“Anything or nothing. It’s possible, of course, that he was feeling
depressed, as he well might be; and thought that he wanted more than
Brinkman’s company to help him over a bad time. Or—I don’t know. He
was always secretive. He gave the Bishop a car, you know; and took
endless pains to find out beforehand what sort of car would be useful
to him, without ever giving away what he was doing till the last
moment. And the other evening—well, I feel now as if I’d felt then
that he had something up his sleeve. But did I really feel it then? I
don’t know.”
“On the whole, though, you incline to the suicide theory?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s possible, isn’t it, that a man who had some
premonition of a violent end might want company when he went to a
lonely place like Chilthorpe?”
“Had he any enemies, do you think, in Pullford?”
“Who hasn’t? But not that sort of enemies. He used, I fancy, to be
something of a martinet with his work-people, in the old manner. In
America, a disgruntled employee sometimes satisfies his vendetta with
a shotgun. But in England we have no murdering classes. Even the
burglars, I am told, make a principle of going unarmed, for fear they
might be tempted to shoot. You would probably find two or three
hundred men in Pullford who would grouse at Mottram’s success and call
him a bloodsucker, but not one who would up with a piece of lead
piping if he met him in a lonely lane.”
“I say, it’s been very kind of you looking after me like this. I wish,
if you’ve any time to spare in the next day or two, you would drop
down to Chilthorpe and help me to make the case out. Or is that asking
too much?”
“Not the least. The Bishop goes off to a confirmation to-morrow and I
shall probably have time on my hands. If you think I could be of any
use, I’ll certainly look in. I like Chilthorpe; every prospect pleases
and only the chops are vile. No, I won’t come in, thanks; I ought to
be getting back now.”
Angela was a little inclined to be satirical at her husband’s
prolonged absence; but she seemed to have killed the time with some
success. She had not even been reduced to going round the early Perp.
church. They made short work of the way back to Chilthorpe, and found
Leyland eagerly awaiting them at the door of the hotel.
“Well,” he asked, “have you found out anything about Mottram?”
“Not much, and that’s a fact. Except that a man who strikes me as a
competent observer thought he had noticed a certain amount of
excitement in Mottram’s manner last week, as if he had been more than
ordinarily anxious to get the Bishop to stay with him. That, and the
impression made on the same observer that he was keeping dark about
something—had something up his sleeve. I have seen the house; it is a
beastly place; and it has electric light laid on, of course. I have
seen the housekeeper, an entirely harmless woman, partly Irish by
extraction, who has nothing to add to what we know, and does not
believe that Mottram habitually employed any of the Pullford doctors.”
“Well, and what about the Bishop?”
“Exactly, what about him? I find his atmosphere very difficult to
convey. He was very nice to me and very hospitable; he has not the
overpowering manners of a great man, and yet his dignities seem to sit
on him quite easily. He is entirely natural, and I am prepared to go
bail for his being an honest man.”
“That,” said Leyland, “is just as well.”
“How do you mean? Have you had the answer to your telegram?”
“I have, and a very full answer it is. The solicitors gave all the
facts without a murmur. About fifteen years ago Mottram made a will
which was chiefly in favour of his nephew. A few years later he
cancelled that will absolutely and made another will in which he
devised his property to certain public purposes—stinkingly useless
ones, as is the way of these very rich men. I can’t remember it all;
but he wants his house to be turned into a silly sort of museum, and
he provides for the erection of a municipal art gallery—that sort of
thing. But this is the important point: His Euthanasia policy was not
mentioned at all in the later will. Three weeks ago he put in a
codicil directing how the money he expects from the Indescribable is
to be disposed of.”
“Namely how?”
“The entire half-million goes to the Bishop of Pullford to be
administered by him for the benefit of his diocese as he and his
successors shall think fit!”
Chapter X
The Bet Doubled
There was no time to discuss the implications of this unexpected
announcement, for the inquest was just beginning, and neither Leyland
nor Bredon could afford to miss it. There was a decayed outbuilding
which adjoined the _Load of Mischief_, the scene, you fancied, of the
farmers’ ordinary in more prosperous times. Here the good men and true
were to deliver their verdict and the Coroner his platitudes.
Brinkman’s evidence need not be repeated here, for it followed exactly
the lines we already know. The local doctor and the Boots corroborated
his account so far as the discovery of the corpse was concerned.
Particular attention was naturally called to the tap and to the locked
door. The doctor was absolutely positive that the tap was turned off
when he reached it; the fumes had blown away a good deal by that time,
and his first action was to put a match to both jets in turn. Neither
gave the least promise of a flame, although the jet on the standard
stood open; there was no doubt, then, that the main tap sufficiently
controlled both outlets. Asked whether he turned the main tap on to
experiment, the doctor said “No,” and was congratulated by the Coroner
on his circumspection. The work of the police would be much
facilitated, observed that prudent functionary, if people would leave
things as they found them. After testing the gas the doctor’s next
action had been to attend to the patient. Much medical detail followed
at this point, but with no results that would be new to us. Asked how
long it would have taken for the gas to cause asphyxiation, the doctor
was uncertain. It all depended, he said, on the position of the
window, which must clearly at some time have blown farther open than
it had been originally. It was his impression that the death must have
occurred about one o’clock in the morning; but there were no sure
tests by which the exact moment of death could be determined.
The Boots, by his own account, entered the room immediately after the
doctor. The door of the room had fallen almost flat when it fell in;
not quite flat, for it was not entirely separated from the lower
hinge. The Boots made his way over this, and helped the doctor by
supplying him with a match. When the doctor went across to the bed, he
himself went to the window to throw the match out. Dr. Ferrers had
joined Mr. Brinkman at the bed, so he devoted himself to examining,
and trying to hoist up, the wreckage of the door. The lock was right
out, and the key duly turned on the inside of the door. It was not
usual for him to call guests in the morning, but he had arranged to do
so on that particular occasion. He noticed the smell of gas even
outside the door, but did not feel sure there was anything wrong until
he tried the door and found it locked. It was not usual for guests to
lock their doors in that hotel, although keys were provided for the
purpose. Yes, he did bend down and look through the keyhole, but it
was completely dark—naturally, since the key was in the lock. He went
and asked Mr. Brinkman what he should do, because he was anxious not
to go beyond his orders.
The barmaid had really nothing to contribute. She had not been into
the room at all after six o’clock or it might be half-past on the
Monday evening, when she went in to put everything to rights. Pressed
to interpret this phrase, she said it meant turning down the corner of
the bedclothes. She had not struck a match, naturally, since it was
broad daylight. She had never noticed any leak of gas in that room
since the plumber had paid a visit in the previous March. There was
nothing wrong, she thought, about the catch of the window; certainly
no visitor had ever complained of its fetching loose in the night. The
Bible, she thought, had been by the bedside when she went into the
room at six or it might have been half-past. She did not move it, nor
did she interfere in any way with the arrangements of the room.
Mrs. Davis confirmed this evidence as far as it needed confirmation.
It was she who had taken the order from Mottram about his being called
early in the morning. He had spoken to her quite naturally, and said
good-night to her cheerfully.
Mr. Pulteney’s evidence was entirely negligible. He had noticed
nothing the evening before, had heard nothing in the night, had not
entered the room since the tragedy occurred.
The Coroner spread himself in his allocution to the jurymen. He
reminded them that an escape of gas could not properly be described as
an act of God. He pointed out that it was impossible to return a
verdict of death from unknown causes, since the cause of death was
known. If they were prepared to give any new explanation of the fact
that the gas was turned off, they might bring in a verdict of death by
misadventure, or by suicide; in the latter case, it was possible to
add a rider saying that the deceased was of unsound mind. If they were
prepared to give any new explanation of the locked door, it was
possible for them to bring in a verdict of wilful murder against a
person or persons unknown.
The jurymen, unequal to the intellectual strain which seemed to be
demanded of them, returned an open verdict. The Coroner thanked them,
and made them a little speech which had not really much bearing on the
situation. He pointed out the superiority of electric light over gas;
in a house lit by electric light this could never have happened. He
called attention to the importance of making certain that the gas was
turned off before you got into bed, and the almost equal importance of
seeing that your window was well and truly opened. And so the inquest
ended, and Mottram, who had expressed no desire in his will as to
where or how he should be buried, was laid to rest next day in the
churchyard of the little town which had seen his early struggles, and
Pullford remembered him no more.
As soon as the inquest was over, Leyland and Bredon met by arrangement
to discuss further the bearings of the new discovery. They avoided the
inn itself, partly because the day’s events had left it overcrowded,
partly because they were afraid, since Bredon’s experience the night
before, of speaking to a concealed audience. A slight rain was
falling, and they betook themselves to the back of the inn, where a
rambling path led along the river-bank through the ruins of an old
mill. Next the disused mill-wheel there was a little room or shed,
whose gaping walls and roof afforded, nevertheless, sufficient shelter
from the weather. A “rustic seat,” made of knobby branches overlaid
with dark brown varnish, offered uncomfortable repose. Draughts at the
back of your neck, or sudden leakage in the slates above you, would
cause you now and again to shift your attitude uneasily; but, since
the _Load of Mischief_ did not abound with amenities in any case, they
were content with their quarters.
“I confess I’m a little shaken,” admitted Bredon. “Not that I see any
logical reason for altering my own point of view; but I don’t _want_
it to be suicide now as much as I did. The Bishop is such a jolly old
man; and he could so obviously do with half a million, if only to put
in new wall-paper. He might even give his secretary a rise. I tell
you, I hate the idea of advising the company not to pay up. It can
afford the money so easily. But I suppose I must have a sort of
conscience about me somewhere, for I’m still determined to get at the
truth. This codicil, you say, was put in less than three weeks ago?”
“Just about that. As nearly as I can calculate it must have been just
before, not after, Mottram’s visit to the Indescribable.”
“The thing becomes more confusing than ever. If he did want to endow
the Diocese of Pullford, why did he offer to resign his Euthanasia
claim on condition that we repaid half his premiums? And if he didn’t
want to endow the Diocese of Pullford, why did he take the trouble of
altering his will in its favour?”
“Remember, when he drew up the codicil he may not have seen the
specialist.”
“That’s true too. Now, look here, supposing he hadn’t put the codicil
in, what would have become of the Euthanasia money? Would it have
gone, like the rest, into these silly schemes of his about art
galleries?”
“No; it wasn’t just a vague will, nothing about ‘all I die possessed
of.’ The whole thing was itemized very clearly, and no allowance had
been made at all for the disposal of the Euthanasia money.
Consequently, if he hadn’t made the codicil, the Euthanasia money
would have gone to his next of kin.”
“In fact, to this nephew? Really, I begin to want to see this nephew.”
“You have seen him.”
“Seen him—where?”
“At the inquest. Didn’t you notice a rather seedy little fellow, with
a face like a rat, who was standing about in the porch just when it
was over? That’s your man; Simmonds his name is, and if you want to
get a taste of his quality, nothing’s easier, for he serves in his own
shop. On a plea of braces trouble, shortage of cough lozenges, or what
you will, his time is yours from ten in the morning to seven at
night.”
“Yes, I noticed the little man. I can’t say I was prepossessed. But I
must certainly improve the acquaintance. I suppose it’s not fair to
ask what you make of him?”
“Oh, personally, I can’t say I’ve made much of him. I had a talk, and
his manner and statements seemed to be perfectly straightforward. No
nervousness, no embarrassment.”
“There’s one other thing about Mottram’s will that’s clearly
important. You got it, I gather, from the solicitors; did you find out
from them whether the terms of it were made public in any way?”
“About the main will they thought there was no secret. Mottram seems
to have talked it over with members of the Pullford Town Council. Also
the lawyers were directed to send a full statement of it to young
Simmonds, as a kind of rebuke; Simmonds, you see, had annoyed Mottram
at the time. But this codicil was a different affair; it was extremely
confidential. Brinkman himself—though of course he may have been
lying, or being discreet—professed ignorance of it. I should think it
very improbable that anybody knows about it yet, except you and me and
Mrs. Bredon and of course the lawyers themselves.”
“Then there’s a chance, I suppose, that Simmonds thought, and still
thinks, he is coming in for a windfall from our company? Or do you
think he didn’t know Mottram was insured?”
“He must have; because the Euthanasia policy was explicitly mentioned
in the earlier will, the one which was cancelled. So you are not the
only person who’s interested in young Simmonds. Well, what do you make
of it all?”
“Let me tell you one thing; it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t. About
three weeks ago Mottram had an argument with the Bishop of Pullford on
a matter of theology. Mottram was trying to persuade the Bishop that
you were morally justified in doing evil in order that good might come
of it.”
“I’m very much obliged for the information, old man, but I’m not much
interested in these speculative questions. I’m concerned to hunt out
the people who do evil, whether good comes of it or not.”
“But the information doesn’t impress you?”
“Not much.”
“Very well, then. Will you double that bet?”
“Double the bet? You’re mad! Why, I was just going to make the same
offer, feeling sure you’d refuse. It’s taking your money.”
“Never mind that. Are you on?”
“On? Why, I’m prepared to redouble if you like.”
“Done! That’s twenty pounds each way. Now, would you like to hear my
reading of the story?”
“By all means. And then I shall have the pleasure of putting you
wise.”
“Well, from the first, the whole thing smelled of suicide to me. Every
step Mottram took seemed to be the calculated step of a man who was
leading up to some deliberate _dénouement_. He was mysterious, he was
excited, when he went round the other night to the Cathedral house.
When he came here, he made the most obvious attempts to try to behave
as if everything was going on just as usual. He made fussy
arrangements about being called in the morning; he pretended to have
left a letter half-finished; he put a novel down by the bedside, wound
up his watch, put studs in his shirt—he did everything to create the
surface impression, good enough (he thought) for the Coroner, that
whatever else was the truth suicide was out of the question. He made
one or two slips there—writing down his name in the visitors’ book
with a blank for his date of departure, as if any guest ever did that;
putting the flies ready on his rod, but (so Pulteney tells me) the
wrong kind of flies. To make sure that there was not a verdict of
suicide, he even made arrangements—through Brinkman, through Mrs.
Davis, I don’t know how—to have the gas in his bedroom turned off
again after it had done its work. Then he tossed off his sleeping
draught, turned the gas on, and got into bed. I was sure of all that,
even before I went over to Pullford, before you got the telegram from
London. What I couldn’t understand was the motive; and now that’s as
plain as daylight. He was determined to endow the Pullford Diocese
with half a million, so as to be sure of having his nest well lined in
the next world. He knew that Christian morality doesn’t permit
suicide, but he thought he was all right, because he was only doing
evil in order that good might come of it. And so he got rid of the
spectre of a painful death from disease, and at the same time made
sure, he thought, of a welcome on the other side, if there should
prove to be an eternity.”
“Well, that’s your idea. I don’t deny it hangs together. But it comes
up against two things—fatally, I think. If Mottram was so set upon
endowing the Pullford Diocese, why did he bequeath most of his fortune
to a footling Town Council and only leave the diocese the one bit of
money which, if a verdict of suicide was given, could never be
touched? And granted that he was at pains to get some one to turn off
the gas for him, so as to avoid the appearance of suicide, why did he
tell that person to lock the door, and leave the key on the wrong
side? That’s the problem you’ve set yourself.”
“Oh, God knows, I don’t see my way clear yet. But there’s the outlines
of the thing. Now let’s hear the _proxime accessit_ solution.”
“I feel inclined to apologize. I feel ashamed of being so right. But
you’ve asked for it. Look here, the thing which has complicated this
case so badly is the appearance of bluff. At one moment it looked like
suicide pretending to be accident or murder; at another time it looked
like murder pretending to be suicide. But the great mountainous fact
that stands out is the turning off of the gas. In the event of
suicide, that was impossible; in the event of murder, it was curiously
needless. For it entirely removed the possibility of a suicide
verdict. It was only as I was getting into bed last night that the
truth flashed upon me. The gas was turned off by a murderer
deliberately, and, mark this, in order to shew that the murder was not
suicide. It was a deliberate protest, an advertisement. Make what you
like of this case (it seemed to say); but do not call it suicide; that
at least is outside the scheme of possibilities.”
“Well, my solution was rather by way of allowing for that.”
“To be sure. But, you see, you involve yourself in a hopeless
psychological improbability. You make a man commit suicide, leaving
behind him an accomplice who will turn off the gas. Now, it’s an
extraordinary thing, our human love of interference; but I don’t
believe it possible to have an accomplice in suicide. Except, of
course, for those ‘death pacts’ which we are all familiar with. Tell
any one that you mean to commit suicide and that person will not only
try to dissuade you but will scheme to prevent your bringing the thing
off. Suicide here would involve an accomplice; therefore it was not
suicide. It was murder; and yet the murderer, so far from wanting to
make it appear suicide, was particularly anxious to make it clear that
it was _not_ suicide. There is a strange situation for you.
“The strange situations, the mysterious situations, are not those
which are most difficult to unravel. You can proceed in this case to
look for the murderer in the certainty that he is some one who would
stand to lose if a verdict of suicide were brought in. Puzzling it
over last night I was unable to conceive such a person. Between you
and me, I had been inclined to suspect Brinkman; but there did not
seem to be any possible reason why he should want to murder Mottram;
and, if he did, there was no conceivable reason why he should want to
make it appear that Mottram did not commit suicide. Brinkman was not
the heir; the Euthanasia policy did not affect him.
“My discoveries of this morning put me on an entirely different track.
There was one man in the world, and only one, whose interest bade him
murder Mottram, and murder him in such a way that no suspicion of
suicide could rest over the event. I mean, of course, young Simmonds.
It was in his interest, as he must have thought, to murder Mottram,
because if Mottram lived to be sixty-five the Euthanasia policy would
run out. This was Simmonds’s last chance but one, assuming that
Mottram’s yearly visits to Chilthorpe were the best chance of doing
away with him. In two years from now Mottram would have turned
sixty-five and the half-million would have vanished into the air.
Moreover, there was much to be said for haste: who could tell when
Mottram might not take it into his head to draw up a new will? As it
seemed to Simmonds, he had only to get rid of this lonely, crusty old
bachelor by a painless death, and he, as the next of kin, would walk
straight into five hundred thousand. Meanwhile, there must be no
suspicion of suicide, for any such suspicion might mean that your
company would refuse to pay up and the half-million would have
disappeared once more.
“To young Simmonds, as he let himself in by the ground-floor casement
into the _Load of Mischief_, only one fear presented itself—the fear
of a false verdict. He was of the type that cannot commit cold-blooded
murder. The more civilization advances the more ingenious does crime
become; meanwhile, it becomes more and more difficult for one man to
kill another with his hands. Simmonds might have been a poisoner; as
it was, he had discovered a safer way: he would be a gasser. But there
was this defect about the weapon he was using—it might create a false
impression on the jury. Imperative, then, not merely to kill his man
but to prove that he had killed him. That is why, after turning on the
gas in the sleeping man’s room, he waited for two hours or so outside;
then came back, flung open the window to get air, and turned the gas
off again, only pausing to make sure that his victim was dead.
“How he worked the door trick I don’t know. We shall find out later.
Meanwhile, let me tell you that one of the friends I made last night
in the bar parlour told me he had seen Simmonds hanging round the
hotel just after closing time, although (for the fellow is a
teetotaller) he had not been drinking there. This was on the very
night of the murder. That was a point in which I was in a position to
score off you. There was another point, over which you had the same
opportunities of information, but neglected them. You remember the
letter which Mottram left lying about in his bedroom? It was in answer
to a correspondent who signed himself ‘Brutus.’ I took the trouble to
get from the offices of the _Pullford Examiner_ a copy of the issue in
which that letter appeared. It is a threatening letter, warning
Mottram that retribution would come upon him for the bloodsucking
methods by which his money had been made. And it was signed ‘Brutus.’
You’ve had a classical education; you ought to have spotted the point;
personally I looked it up in an encyclopædia. Brutus wasn’t merely a
demagogue; he led the revolt in Rome which resulted in the expulsion
of his own maternal uncle, King Tarquin. The same relation, you see,
that there was between Simmonds and Mottram.
“Well, I’ve applied for a warrant. I’m in no hurry to use it; for, as
long as Simmonds is off his guard, he’s all the more likely to give
himself away. Meanwhile, I’m having him watched. If you go and talk to
him, just to form your own impressions, I know you’ll be careful not
to say anything which would give away my suspicions. And I can wait
for that twenty pounds too.”
Bredon sat spellbound. He could see the whole thing happening; he
could trace every calculation in the mind of the criminal. And yet he
was not convinced. He was just about to explain this, when a fresh
thought struck him and interfered with their session. “Leyland,” he
said, in a very quiet voice, “you aren’t smoking, and I’ve had my pipe
out these last ten minutes. Can you tell me why there should be a
smell of cigarette smoke?”
Leyland looked round, suddenly on the alert. It was only as he looked
round that he noticed how insecure was their privacy. The rain had
stopped some time since, and there was no reason why an interloper
should not be standing outside, listening through one of the numerous
chinks in the wall behind them. Gripping Bredon’s arm, he darted out
suddenly, and rounded the corner of the building. There was nobody
there. But close to the wall lay a cigarette-end, flattened and soiled
as if it had been trodden by a human foot. And as Leyland picked it up
a faint spark and a thin stream of smoke shewed that it had been
trodden on only a moment before, not quite successfully. “Callipoli,”
he read, examining the stump. “Not the sort of cigarette one buys in
the village. It looks to me, Bredon, as if we were on the track of
something fresh here. We’ll leave that cigarette-stump exactly where
we found it.”
Chapter XI
The Generalship of Angela
“Angela,” said Bredon when he found her, “I’ve got a job of work for
you.”
“Such as?”
“All you’ve got to do is to make Brinkman and Pulteney open their
cigarette-cases for inspection without knowing that they’re doing it.”
“Miles, it won’t do. You know I can’t work in blinkers. There’s
nothing I dislike so much as a want of complete confidence between
husband and wife. Sit down and tell me all about it. You’d better make
sure of the door first.” And she turned down the little shutter which
protected their keyhole on the inside.
“Oh, all right,” said Bredon, and told the story of their recent
alarms. “It almost must be somebody in the house. Brinkman and
Pulteney are both cigarette-smokers, and of course it would be easy
for me to cadge a cigarette by saying I’d run short. But that just
might put the mysterious gentleman on his guard. And I don’t want to
hang about picking up fags. So what you’ve got to do is to lead round
the conversation in such a way that we can have an opportunity of
finding out what cigarettes each of them smokes without his suspecting
anything.”
“Why not pinch some from their rooms?”
“It might work. But since people took to smoking all kinds of vile
cigarettes at the end of the war, one doesn’t trouble to carry one’s
own brand about. One buys them at the local shop. These Callipolis are
an oddity, but there probably aren’t many more where they came from,
and the safest place to look for them is inside somebody’s
breast-pocket. Anyhow, you might try.”
“Sort of salted almonds game?” said Angela reflectively. “All right, I
will. Don’t you try your hand at it; sit there and back me up.
Meanwhile, you’d better go down and have a pick-me-up at the bar,
because I’m going to dress for dinner.”
“Dress for dinner, in a hole like this? Whatever for?”
“You don’t understand the technique of the thing. If I’m to have
complete control of the conversation, I must be looking my best. It
makes all the difference with a susceptible old dear like Edward.”
She certainly had made herself look attractive, if a trifle exotic, by
the time she came downstairs. The maid all but broke the soup-plates
at the sight of her.
“Did you see much of Pullford, Mrs. Bredon?” asked Brinkman, on
hearing of their day’s expedition.
“Much of it? Why, I’m practically a native of the place by now. I
shall never see a perambulator again, I mean a drain-pipe, without a
sort of homely feeling. My husband left me alone for three solid hours
while he went and caroused with the hierarchy.”
“A very genial man, isn’t he, the Bishop,” said Brinkman, appealing to
her husband.
“What a poor compliment that word _genial_ is,” put in the old
gentleman. “I would sooner be called well-meaning, myself. You have no
grounds for saying that a man is really kind or charitable; you have
not personally found him attractive; and yet he has a sort of
good-natured way with him which demands some tribute. So you say he is
genial.”
“Like a Dickens character?” suggested Brinkman.
“No, they are too human to be called merely genial. Mr. Pickwick
genial! It is like calling the day of judgment a fine sight. How did
Pusey, by the way, ever have the wit to light upon such a comparison?”
“I think _witty_ is rather a dreadful thing to be called,” said
Angela. “I always think of witty people as people who dominate the
conversation with long anecdotes. How glad I am to have been born into
a world in which the anecdote has gone out of fashion!”
“A hemisphere, Mrs. Bredon,” said Brinkman in correction. “You have
not been to America? The anecdote there is in its first youth; the
anecdotes mostly in their extreme old age.”
“There is a pleasant dryness about American humour,” objected
Pulteney. “But I confess that I miss piquancy in it.”
“Like Virginian tobacco?” suggested Bredon, and was rewarded by a
savage kick from Angela under the table.
“The anecdote, however,” pursued Mr. Pulteney, “is the enemy of
conversation. With its appearance, the shadow of egotism falls over
our conviviality. The man who hoards up anecdotes, and lets them loose
at intervals, is a social indecency; he might as well strip and parade
some kind of acrobatic feat. See how your anecdotist lies in wait for
his opportunity, prays for the moment that will lend excuse to his
‘That reminds me.’ There is a further pitch of shamelessness at which
such a man will assault you openly with ‘Have you heard this one?’ But
as long as men have some rags of behaviour left to them your sex, Mrs.
Bredon, saves us from this conversational horror. When the ladies
leave us, anecdotes flow out as from a burst dam.”
“That’s because we don’t know how to tell stories; we don’t drag them
out enough. When I try to tell a story I always find I have got to the
point when I’ve only just started.”
“You are too modest, Mrs. Bredon. It is your essential altruism which
preserves you. You women are always for helping out the conversation,
not strangling it at birth. You humour us men, fool us to the top of
our bent, yet you always restrain conversation from its worst
extravagances—like a low organ accompaniment you unobtrusively give us
the note. All praise to your unselfishness!”
“I expect we are trained that way, or have trained ourselves that way.
Civilization has taught us, perhaps, to play up to the men.”
“Indeed, no,” chirped Mr. Pulteney, now thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Conversational receptivity is a natural glory of your sex. Nature
itself, which bids the peacock strut to the admiration of the hen,
bids you evoke the intellectual powers of the male. You flatter him by
your attention and he basks unconsciously in your approval. How much
more knowledge of human nature had Virgil than Homer! Alcinous would
never have got all that long story out of Ulysses; challenged by a
direct question the hero would probably have admitted, in a gruff
voice, that he had been fooling around somewhere. It was a Dido that
was needed to justify the hysteron proteron—‘Multa super Priamo
rogitans, super Hectore multa’—she knew how to do it! But I become
lyrical.”
“Do please be lyrical, Mr. Pulteney. It’s so good for Miles; he thinks
he’s a strong, silent man, and there’s nothing more odious. The
trouble is, of course, he thinks he’s a kind of detective, and he has
to play up to the part. Look at you, Mr. Leyland, you’ve hardly
uttered.”
“Is this helping us out in conversation, Mrs. Bredon? You seem to be
flogging us into it.”
“The strong silence of the detective,” explained the old gentleman,
“is a novelists’ fiction. The novelist must gag his detective, or how
is he to preserve his secret till the last chapter? No, it is Mr.
Brinkman who should be professionally silent; for what is a secretary
if he does not keep secrets?”
“I am not silent, I am silenced,” said Brinkman. “The second best
peacock dare not strut for fear of an encounter.”
“I find in silence,” said Bredon, “a mere relief from the burden of
conversation. I am grateful to the man who talks, as I should be
grateful to the man who jumped in before me to rescue a drowning baby.
He obviates the necessity for effort on my part. I sometimes think
that is why I married.”
“Miles,” said Angela, “if you are going to be odious, you will have to
leave the room. I suppose you think you can be rude because the
detectives in fiction are rude? Mr. Leyland may be silent, but at
least he’s polite.”
“Mr. Bredon is married,” suggested Pulteney. “The caged bird does not
strut. His are golden chains, I hasten to add, but they take the
spring out of him none the less. For all that, I have some contempt
for the man who does not take his share in shouldering the burden of
conversation. He puts nothing into the common pot. Mr. Brinkman, I
resign the strutting-ground. Tell us whether you think detectives
should be strong, silent men or not.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t read much in that direction, Mr. Pulteney. I
should imagine it was an advantage to the detective to be silent, so
that he can be in a good position to say ‘I told you so’ when the
truth comes out.”
“Oh, but a detective ought to be talking all the time,” protested
Angela. “The ones in the books always are. Only what they say is
always entirely incomprehensible, both to the other people in the book
and to the reader. ‘Let me call your attention once more,’ they say;
‘to the sinister significance of the bend in the toast-rack,’ and
there you are, none the wiser. Wouldn’t you like to be a detective,
Mr. Pulteney?”
“Why, in a sense I am.” There was a slight pause, with several mental
gasps in it, till the old gentleman continued, “That is to say, I am a
schoolmaster; and the two functions are nearly akin. Who threw the
butter at the ceiling, which boy cribbed from which, where the missing
postage-stamp has got to—these are the problems which agitate my
inglorious old age. I do not know why headmasters allow boys to
collect postage-stamps; they are invariably stolen.”
“Or why anybody wants to collect them?” suggested Angela. “Some of
them are quite pretty, of course. But I’ve no patience with all this
pedantry about the exact date of issue and the exact shape of the
water-mark. But I suppose the water-mark helps you in your
investigations, Mr. Pulteney?”
“I am hardly professional enough for that. I leave that to the
philatelist. A philatelist, by the way, means one who loves the
absence of taxes. It hardly seems to mark out the stamp-lover from his
fellows.”
“The detectives of fiction,” put in Leyland, “are always getting
important clues from the water-mark of the paper on which some cryptic
document is written, That is where they have the luck. If you pick up
the next four pieces of paper you see, and hold them up to the light,
you will probably find that three of them have no water-mark at all.”
“I know,” said Angela. “And I used to be told, when I was small, that
every genuine piece of silver had a lion stamped on it. But of course
they haven’t really. I should think it’s quite likely the wrist-watch
you gave me, Miles dear, has no lion on it.” She took it off as she
spoke. “Or it must be a teeny-weeny one if there is.”
“I think you’re wrong there, Mrs. Bredon.” It was Brinkman who offered
the correction. “If you’ll allow me to have a look at it. . . . There,
up there; it’s a little rubbed away, but it’s a lion all right.”
“I thought there always was a lion,” said Bredon, taking out a silver
pencil-case with some presence of mind. “Yes, this has got two, one
passant and one cabinet size.”
“Let’s see your watch, Mr. Leyland,” suggested Angela, “or is it
electro?”
“It should be silver; yes, there’s the little chap.” Immediately
afterward, Angela was rewarded by seeing Pulteney take a silver
cigarette-case out of his pocket, and handing it over to her. “It’ll
be on the inside of this, I suppose? Oh, no, it’s all gilt stuff; yes,
I see, here it is on the outside.” It is to be feared that she added
“Damn!” under her breath; the cigarette-case had been empty.
“I seem to be the only poor man present,” said Brinkman; “I am all
gun-metal.”
Angela did not trouble to influence the conversation further until the
“shape” course was finished. Then, rather desperately, she said, “Do
smoke, Mr. Leyland, I know you’re dying to. What is a detective
without his shag?” and was rewarded by seeing Brinkman take out the
gun-metal case and light up. Mr. Pulteney, after verifying his own
cigarettelessness, began slowly to fill a briar.
Brinkman’s cigarette, she had seen, was the last in the case; what if
it should be the last of its box or of its packet? “I wish I smoked,”
she said. “But if I did I would smoke a pipe; it always looks so
comfortable. Besides, you can shut your eyes and go to sleep with a
pipe, which must be rather dangerous with a cigarette.”
“You’d lose the taste of the pipe if you did,” objected Brinkman.
“It’s an extraordinary thing, how little satisfaction you can get out
of smoking in the dark.”
“Is that really true? I’ve always heard that about taste depending on
sight, and not being able to distinguish one wine from another with
one’s eyes shut. Miles, if I put a handkerchief over your eyes, could
you tell your beer from Mr. Brinkman’s cider? Oo, I say, let’s try!
I’ll give them you in spoonfuls.”
“I’ll shut my eyes, but play fair,” suggested Bredon. The idiocy of
men!
“No, you won’t, you’ll do what you’re told. Anybody got a clean hanky?
Thank you so much, Mr. Leyland. . . . There, that’s right. Now, open
your mouth, but not too wide, or you’ll choke. . . . Which was that?”
“Cider, I thought.”
“It was vinegar, really, with a little water in it.”
“Oh, shut up, that’s not fair.” Miles tore away the handkerchief from
his eyes. “Hang it all, I won’t strut; I’m a married man!”
“Then Mr. Brinkman shall try instead; you will, won’t you, Mr.
Brinkman?” It is to be feared that Angela favoured him with an
appealing look; at any rate, he succumbed. With the instinct of the
blindfolded man, he put his cigarette down on the edge of his plate.
It was easy work for Angela to drop the spoon, and set Mr. Pulteney
grovelling for it. Meanwhile, she hastily picked up Brinkman’s
cigarette, and read the word “Callipoli.”
Chapter XII
The Makings of a Trap
It was Bredon and Leyland, this time, who took their evening walk
together. To Bredon, events seemed to be closing in like a nightmare.
Here was he pledged to uphold the theory of suicide; and he had
depended largely for his success on Leyland’s inability to produce a
suitable candidate for the position of murderer. But now there seemed
to be a perfect _embarras_ of murderers. Macbeth wasn’t in it.
“Well,” he said, “at least we have something positive to go upon now.
Brinkman’s part in this business may be what you will, but he
certainly takes an unhealthy interest in it, to the extent of hanging
about round corners where he’s no business to be. At least we can
confront him with his behaviour, and encourage him to make a clean
breast of the whole thing. I imagine you will have no objection to
that, since it’s not Brinkman you suspect of the murder?”
“I’m afraid,” said Leyland, “that’s not the way we go to work. The
force, I mean. It’s quite true Brinkman is not the man I have under
suspicion at the moment, but I’m only working on a theory, and that
theory may prove to be a false one. I’m not certain of it yet, and I
should have to be certain of it before I acquitted Brinkman.”
“But, hang it all, look at the question of motive. Simmonds, I grant
you, had a reasonable motive for wanting to make away with his uncle.
He had grounds for thinking that his uncle’s death would mean a clear
half-million to him. He had quarrelled with his uncle, and thought he
had been treated badly. He disapproved of his uncle, and regarded him
as a bloodsucker. The fact that Mottram was down at Chilthorpe was an
excellent opportunity, and a rare opportunity, for young Simmonds to
get at him. Seldom the time and the place and the hated one all
together. But your Brinkman, as far as we can see, was only affected
by the death in the sense that he has lost a good job and has now to
look out for another one, with no late employer to supply him with
testimonials. Personally, I believe Brinkman did know about the
alteration in the will; at least he knew about the uncertainty of
Mottram’s health. Can you suppose that, even if Simmonds offered to go
halves with him, he would consent to be an accomplice in what might
prove a wholly unnecessary crime?”
“You’re assuming too much. We don’t know yet that Brinkman has no
financial interest in the affair. Look here—this is far-fetched, I
grant you, but it’s not impossible: Everybody says Mottram had no
family; whose word have they for that except his own? Where did he
pick up Brinkman? No one knows. Why did he want a secretary? There was
some talk of writing a history of Pullford, but nothing ever came of
it. Why, then, this curious interest which Mottram takes in Brinkman?
I don’t say it’s likely, but I say it’s possible that Brinkman is
Mottram’s son by a clandestine marriage. If that’s so, and if Brinkman
didn’t know about the codicil, he may himself be the next of kin who
is preparing to step into the half-million. And a clever man—Brinkman
is a clever man—might find it convenient to get Mottram out of the
way, and get some one else to do it for him. He is afraid that Mottram
will live to be sixty-five, and the policy will leave no benefits
behind it. Or he is afraid that Mottram is going to make a new will.
What does he do? Why, he goes to Simmonds, and points out to him that
as the next of kin he would score by putting Mottram through it.
Simmonds does so, all unsuspecting; and here’s Brinkman, only waiting
to step in and claim the half-million on the strength of his mother’s
marriage-lines!”
“You’re too confoundedly ingenious. Things don’t happen like that.”
“Things have happened like that before now, and with less than half a
million to give grounds for them. No, I’m not going to leave Brinkman
out of my calculations, and therefore I’m not going to take him into
my confidence. But this eavesdropping of his does give us a very
important chance, and we’re going to use it.”
“I don’t quite see how.”
“That’s because you’re not a professional, and you don’t know the way
things are done in the force. The outside public doesn’t, and we don’t
mean it to. We don’t show our workings. But half, or say a third at
least, of the big businesses we clear up are cleared up by bluff, by
leading the suspected man on and encouraging him to give himself away.
Sometimes it isn’t a very pretty business, of course; we have to use
agents who are none too scrupulous. But here we’ve got a ready-made
chance of bluffing our man, and bluffing him into betraying himself.”
“How, exactly?”
“You and I are going to meet again in that mill-house. And we are
going to talk about it openly beforehand, so that we can be jolly sure
Brinkman will creep up behind and listen to us. And when we’ve got him
comfortably fixed there listening to us, you and I are going to lead
him up the garden. We are going to make him overhear something which
is really meant for his ears, though he thinks it’s meant for
anybody’s ears rather than his own.”
“Oh, I see—a fake conversation. I say, I’m not much of an actor.
Angela would do it far better than I should.”
“There’s no acting wanted. All you’ve got to do is to sit there and
argue pigheadedly about it’s being suicide, the same as you always do.
Meanwhile, I’ll do the fake part—or rather, it won’t be much of a
fake, either. I shall repeat what I told you yesterday, about
suspecting Simmonds. That’s all true enough; I do suspect the man;
though I wish he wasn’t so confoundedly innocent and self-possessed
under examination. Then I shall say that I also suspect Brinkman—not
letting on, of course, about the cigarette and all that, but putting
up some ground or other for suspicion. Simmonds, I shall say, is
clearly the murderer, but I’ve reason to think Brinkman knows more
about it than he ought to do. I shall say that I’m going to have
Brinkman shadowed, and that I’m going to get a warrant for his arrest.
At the same time, I shall say I think he’s a fool not to own up, if
his share in the business is not a guilty one. And so on. Then we just
wait and see how Brinkman reacts.”
“I should think he’d skip.”
“That’s what I want him to do. Of course, I’ve got him shadowed
already. If he makes a determined bolt for it that gives me reasonable
ground for putting him under arrest.”
“What else can he do?”
“Well, if he’s relatively innocent, he might confide in you about it.”
“Oh, I see, that’s the game. Damn it, why did I ever consent to become
a spy? Leyland, I don’t like this job. It’s too—too underhand.”
“Well, you were an intelligence officer, weren’t you? There was no
trick you wouldn’t play, while the war was on, to beat the Germans.
Why should you be more squeamish about it when you’ve the well-being
of society to consider? Your job is to protect the interests of all
the honest men who’ve insured with your company. My business is to see
that harmless people don’t get gassed in their sleep. In any case,
we’ve got to get at the truth. I might even point out that we’ve got a
bet on it.”
“But look here, if Brinkman confides in me, am I to betray his
confidence? That hardly seems cricket.”
“Well, if you’re not a fool, you’d better avoid making any promise of
secrecy. You must act up to your own confounded conscience, I suppose.
But remember, Brinkman can’t get away; I’ve got him watched all right.
If his part in the show is quite an innocent one, you’d better point
out to him that his best plan is to make a clean breast of it.”
“Well, I’ll help you bait the trap. If Brinkman comes to me about it,
I can’t answer for what I’ll do—unless you subpœna me, of course. By
the way, what happens if Brinkman doesn’t react at all? If he simply
does nothing about it?”
“We shall be just where we were before. But I think if we give him a
lead he’s almost certain to take it. After all, there’s no reason why
he should stay on here, but he hasn’t shown any signs of moving yet.
Once the funeral’s over, he’ll be anxious to put things straight, if
only to get a fresh job.”
By now they were on their return journey, on the road leading down the
valley; the twilight was gathering, but the few street-lamps which
Chilthorpe afforded had not yet been lit. It was but natural that on a
summer evening such a road as this should be a trysting-place of
lovers. There is a sentimental streak in all our natures which warns
us that a young man and a young woman sharing a railway carriage must
be left to share it; and equally that a pair of lovers in a lane must
be passed by as hastily as possible, with no inquisitive looks thrown
in their direction. It is our instinct thus to propitiate the Paphian
Queen. It was characteristic of Bredon that, as he passed one of these
couples from behind, seeing their heads close together in earnest
colloquy, he quickened his pace and never looked backward. It was
equally characteristic of Leyland that, although he too quickened his
pace, he did let his eye rest on the pair for a moment—lightly, it
seemed, and uncomprehendingly. But when they were out of earshot he
shewed that his had been no casual glance. “You saw them, Bredon, eh?
You saw them?”
“I saw there were some people there. I didn’t”——
“You wouldn’t. But it doesn’t do to miss these things. The young lady
is the barmaid at our hotel, the lady who always says ‘Raight-ho!’
when you ask for anything. And the young man is our friend Mr.
Simmonds. It looks as if a _mésalliance_ were in contemplation, from
the Simmonds point of view. And it means—well, it may mean almost
anything.”
“Or almost nothing.”
“Well, if you ask me, it seems to be a matter of importance to know
that Simmonds has got his foot inside the door, so to speak, at the
_Load of Mischief_. He had somebody there to let him in and let him
out late at night. He had somebody to cover his traces, if necessary,
when the crime was over. I think our nets are beginning to close at
last.”
“Like to hide behind the hedge and listen to what they’re saying?”
“Why, it might be done. But it seemed to me they had their voices
lowered all the time, not merely while we were passing. No, I think
it’s the bar parlour for me.”
Angela was far more enthusiastic than her husband over the proposed
ambush. “You see, Brinky can’t really be a very nice man, or he
wouldn’t have been listening at our keyhole. Just think, I might have
been ticking you off about your table manners or something. No, if he
will go and hide in the arras he must take what he gets, like
Polonius. And, after all, if he does come to you afterward, and wants
to sob on your bosom, you can always refuse to promise secrecy. The
world would be such a much happier place if people wouldn’t make
promises.”
“None at all?”
“Don’t be soppy. You aren’t in the lovers’ lane now. Meanwhile, I
think it would be a good thing if you overcame your natural bonhomie,
and had a talk with Mr. Simmonds to-morrow. The more necessary, since
you only seem to have brought three hankies here, and it’s you for the
haberdasher’s in any case.”
“All right; but you mustn’t come. You cramp my style in shops. Too
much of the I-want-a-handkerchief-for-this-young-gentleman business
about you.”
“Then I shall console myself by talking to the barmaid, and finding
out if she’s capable of saying anything except ‘Raight-ho.’ Of course
I knew she had a young man all the time.”
“Rot! How could you tell?”
“My dear Miles, no girl ever waits so badly as that, or tosses her
head like that, unless she’s meaning to chuck up her job almost
immediately. I deduced a young man.”
“I wonder you haven’t wormed yourself into her confidence already.”
“Wasn’t interested in her. But to-night, at supper, she was jumpy—even
you must have noticed it. She almost dropped the soup-plates, and the
‘shape’ was quivering like a guilty thing surprised.”
“That was your dressing for dinner.”
“Bunkum! You must have seen that she was all on edge. Anyhow, we’re
going to have a heart-to-heart talk.”
“All right. Don’t bully the wretched girl, though.”
“Miles! You really mustn’t go running after every woman you meet like
this. I shall deal with her with all my well-known delicacy and tact.
Look how I managed them at supper! I should have cried, I think, if
I’d found it was Edward who smoked the Callipoli. Do you think Leyland
has still got his knife into Simmonds? Or do you think he wants to
arrest Brinky, and is only using Simmonds as a blind?”
“He was excited enough when we met Simmonds in the lane. No, I think
he’s out to arrest everybody at the moment; Simmonds for doing the
murder, and Brinkman for persuading him or helping him to do it. He’s
got ’em both shadowed, anyhow, he says—I hope not by the Chilthorpe
police, who look to me too substantial to be mistaken for shadows. But
I’m sure I’m right, I’m sure I’m right.”
“Of course you are. Though, mind you, it looks to me as if Mottram had
only just managed to commit suicide in time to avoid being murdered.
The trouble about Leyland’s Simmonds theory is that it makes the
little man too clever. I don’t believe Leyland could ever catch a
criminal unless he were a superhumanly clever criminal, and of course
so few of them are. They go and make one rotten little mistake, and so
get caught out.”
“You’re getting too clever. It’s quite time you went to bed.”
“‘Raight-ho,’ as your friend the barmaid says. No, don’t stamp about
and pretend to be a caveman. Go downstairs like a good boy, and help
Leyland incriminate the oldest inhabitant. He’ll be getting to that
soon.”
Chapter XIII
A Morning with the Haberdasher
The sun rose bright the next morning, as if it had heard there was a
funeral in contemplation and was determined to be there. The party at
the _Load of Mischief_ rose considerably later, and more or less
coincided at the breakfast table. “I am afraid we shall be losing
you,” said Mr. Pulteney to Angela. “A fortunate crime privileged us
with your presence; when the mortal remains of it have been put away I
suppose that your husband’s work here is done? Unless, of course, Mrs.
Davis’s eggs and bacon have determined you to stay on here as a
holiday.”
“I really don’t know what we are doing, Mr. Pulteney. My husband, of
course, will have to write a report for those tiresome people at the
office, and that will take a little time. Why do men always take a
whole day to write a report? I don’t suppose we shall be leaving till
to-morrow in any case. Perhaps you will have caught a fish by then.”
“If you would only consent to stay till that happens we should all
congratulate ourselves. But, seriously, it will be a deprivation. I
came to this hotel feeling that I was foredoomed to solitude, or the
company, now and again, of a stray bagman. Instead, I have found the
place a feast of reason; and I shall regret the change.”
“You’ll still have Mr. Brinkman.”
“What is Brinkman? A man who cannot tell beer from cider with his eyes
shut—Ah, here he is! I have been lamenting the loss Mr. and Mrs.
Bredon will be to our desert island. But you too, I suppose, will be
for Pullford again before the funeral bake-meats are cold?”
“Me? Oh, I don’t know. . . . My plans are rather vague. The house at
Pullford is almost shut up, everybody except the housekeeper away. I
daresay I shall stay on a bit. And then, I suppose, go to London to
look for another job.”
“With better auspices, I hope. Well, you deserve a rest before you
settle down to the collar again. Talking of collars” (he addressed
himself to the barmaid, who had just come in with more eggs and
bacon), “I wonder if you could represent to Mrs. Davis the
desirability of sending some of my clothes to the wash?”
“Raight-ho,” said the barmaid, unconcernedly.
“I thank you; you gratify my least whim. Ah, here is Mr. Leyland! I
trust you have slept off the weariness induced by the Coroner’s
allocution yesterday?”
“Quite, thanks,” said Leyland, grinning. “Good-morning, Mrs. Bredon.
Good-morning, Bredon; I wonder if you could give me ten minutes or a
quarter of an hour after breakfast? . . . No, no porridge, thanks;
just eggs and bacon.”
“Yes, rather. We might stroll back to the mill-house, if you don’t
mind, for I rather think I dropped a packet of pipe-papers there. In
fact, I think I’ll go on there and wait for you. No hurry.”
It was some twenty minutes before Leyland turned up, and almost at the
moment of his arrival both men heard a very faint click behind them,
as if somebody on the further side of the wall, in walking gently, had
dislodged a loose stone. They exchanged an instantaneous glance, then
Leyland opened up the pre-arranged conversation. There was something
curiously uncanny about this business of talking entirely for the
benefit of a concealed audience, but they both carried off the
situation creditably.
“Well,” began Bredon, “you’re still hunting for murderers?”
“For a murderer, to be accurate. It doesn’t take two men to turn on a
gas-jet. And when I say I’m hunting for him, I’m not exactly doing
that; I’m hunting him. The motive’s clear enough, and the method’s
clear enough, apart from details, but I want to make my case a little
stronger before I take any action.”
“You’ve applied for a warrant, you say?”
“Against Simmonds, yes. At least, I wrote last night; though of course
with the posts we have here it won’t reach London till this evening,
and probably late this evening. Meanwhile, I keep him under
observation.”
“You’re still sure he’s your man?”
“I can hardly imagine a stronger case. There’s the motive present, and
a good motive too, half a million pounds. There’s the disposition, a
natural resentment against his uncle for treating him hardly, added to
a conscientious objection to his great wealth and the means by which
he made it. There’s the threat: that letter of ‘Brutus’ will tell in a
law court, if I know anything of juries. There’s the occasion: the
fact of Mottram happening to be down at Chilthorpe. There’s the
facility: we know that he was hand in glove with the barmaid, who
could let him in at any hour of the day or night, who could further
his schemes and cover his traces. Finally, there is the actual
coincidence of his whereabouts: I can bring testimony to prove that he
was hanging round the _Load of Mischief_ at a time when all honest
teetotallers ought to be in bed. There’s only one thing more that I
want, and only one thing on the other side that would make me hold my
hand.”
“What’s the one thing you want?”
“Definite evidence to connect him with the actual room in which
Mottram was sleeping. If he’d dropped anything there, so much as a
match-head; if he’d left even a finger-mark about anywhere, I’d have
the noose round his neck. But if you haven’t got just that last detail
of evidence juries are often slow to convict. I could tell you of
murderers who are at large now simply because we couldn’t actually
connect them with the particular scene of the crime or with the
particular weapon the crime was committed with.”
Bredon could not help admiring the man. It was obvious that he was
still allowing for the possibility of Brinkman’s guilt and was
accordingly advising Brinkman, whom he knew to be hidden round the
corner, to manufacture some clue which would point to Simmonds, and
thereby to give himself away. Bredon could not help wondering whether
this was the real purpose of the colloquy, and whether he himself was
not being kept in the dark. However, he had his sailing orders, and
continued to play up to them.
“And the one thing which would make you hold your hand?”
“Why, if I could get satisfactory proof that Simmonds knew of the
existence of that codicil. You see, we know that Simmonds did not
stand to gain anything by murdering his uncle, because, in fact, his
uncle had signed away all his expectations to the Bishop of Pullford.
Now, if I could feel certain that Simmonds knew where he stood; knew
that there was nothing coming to him as next of kin—why, then the
motive would be gone, and with the motive my suspicions. The fact that
he disliked his uncle, the fact that he disapproved of his uncle,
wouldn’t make him murder his uncle. It’s a humiliating fact, but you
don’t ever get a crime of this sort without some _quid pro quo_ in the
form of hard cash. If I felt sure that Simmonds knew he was cut out of
the will altogether, then I’d acquit him, or be prepared to acquit
him. If, on the other hand, somebody could produce good reason for
thinking that Simmonds was expecting to profit by his uncle’s will,
then my case would be proportionately strengthened.”
Once more Bredon listened with admiration. The man who was concealed
behind the wall had been Mottram’s own secretary, more likely than any
other man living to know how the facts stood. And Leyland was
appealing to him, if he had any relevant knowledge about Simmonds’s
expectations, to produce it; if he had none, to forge it, and thereby
give himself away. The game began to thrill him in spite of himself.
“And meanwhile, what of our other friend?”
“Brinkman? Well, as I told you, I don’t suspect Brinkman directly. He
had no motive for the crime, as far as we can see. But he is not
playing the game, and for the life of me I can’t think why. For
instance, he has been ready from the first to back up your idea of
suicide. In fact, it seems to have been he who first mentioned the
word suicide in connexion with this business. He told you, for
example, that he thought Dr. Ferrers must have shut off the main
gas-jet by accident. He said, I think you told me, that it was very
loose. As a matter of fact, it was very stiff at the time, and he must
have known that it was stiff; for it was he who borrowed a pair of
pinchers for me when I wanted to loosen it. And there are some other
bits of evidence which I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to mention to
you, which make me look askance at Brinkman’s behaviour. He’s hiding
something, but what?”
“I don’t see what good he can be doing himself by holding back.”
“Precisely. I don’t want to injure the fellow, but I must get at the
truth. I’m writing to-night for a warrant; not because I think he’s
the guilty man but because we must get his evidence somehow, and I
think a taste of prison detention might make him speak out. But of
course it’s bad luck on the fellow, because a record like that,
however much he is cleared, is bound to count against him when he
looks out for a new job. It’s possible that he’s shielding Mottram’s
reputation, or it’s possible that he’s afraid of coming under
suspicion himself, or it’s possible that he’s simply lost his head,
and, having no one to consult, can’t make up his mind what to do. But
he’s cutting his own throat; there’s no doubt about that. I can’t
think he’s really guilty, or why hasn’t he skipped? For all we could
do, he could be in Vienna in a couple of days, and we none the wiser.
Yet he stays on, and stays on as if there was some end to be gained by
it.”
“But if he went off you could arrest him on suspicion, couldn’t you?”
“Could I? Hardly on what I know at present. I’m looking forward, you
see, to Simmonds’s evidence when he’s arrested. I know that type,
anæmic, nervous; once he’s arrested, with any luck, we can make him
tell us the whole story; and then, if Brinkman really has been up to
anything, it will be too late for him to get clear. But, as I say, I
don’t believe Brinkman is a wrong ’un. If only he’d have the sense to
confide in me—or in you, if he’s afraid of the police. . . . Well, I
wanted to tell you all this, so that you’ll know where you are in
dealing with Simmonds. Mrs. Bredon told me you were hoping to get a
look at him to-day.”
“That’s the idea. To tell the truth, I think I’d better be starting
now, because it’s easier to have a private interview with him if I go
into the shop before the rush hour begins. Not that the rush hour at
Chilthorpe is likely to be very formidable, but I don’t want to have
our _tête-à-tête_ interrupted by old ladies matching ribbons.”
Bredon strolled off. Leyland stayed where he was till he guessed the
coast would be clear, and then went cautiously round to the back of
the building. He found what he had expected, and hoped for. The
cigarette, which they had left the night before in the place where it
lay, had by now been carefully removed.
When Bredon reached the shop he found that Fortune was smiling on him.
There seemed to be only one attendant about besides Simmonds himself,
and this was a freckled, sandy-haired youth who was cleaning the front
windows with every appearance of deliberation. Nor were there any
rival shoppers so early on a Chilthorpe morning. Mr. Simmonds
approached the handkerchief question with the air of being just the
right man to come to. Other things, you felt, were to be bought in
this shop: teethers, for example, and walking-sticks, and liquorice,
and so on. But when you came to _handkerchiefs_, there you had found a
specialist, a man who had handled handkerchiefs these fifteen years
past. Something stylish, perhaps, was required? This with a glance at
the customer, as if to size him up and recognise the man of taste.
“The _plain_ ones? Just plain white, you mean, sir? Well, it’s a
curious thing, but I’m not certain I can lay my hand on one of them.
You see, there’s more demand for the coloured ones, a bit of edging,
anyhow. And, you see, we haven’t got in our new stock yet.” (They
never have got in their new stock yet at Simmonds’s.) “Three weeks ago
I could have done you a very good line in the plain ones, but I’m
rather afraid we’re right out. I’ll just see.”
This was followed by an avalanche of drawers, containing handkerchiefs
of every conceivable variety that was not plain. A violent horseshoe
pattern that ran through all the gamut of the colours; a kind of
willow pattern; a humorous series featuring film stars; striped edges,
spotted edges, check edges—but no plain. From time to time Mr.
Simmonds would draw attention to the merits of the exhibits, as if it
were just his luck that his customer should be a man so unadventurous
in taste. “Now, that’s a very good number; you couldn’t get a better
line than that, not if it was a coloured handkerchief you were
wanting. . . . No, no, sir, no trouble at all; I daresay perhaps I may
be able to lay my hand on the article you require. . . . You don’t
fancy those, now? Those come very cheap because they’re bankrupt
stock. Just you feel that, sir, and see what a lot of wear there is in
it! . . . Yes, that’s right, they’re a little on the gay side, sir,
but we don’t get any real demand, not for the plain ones; people don’t
seem to fancy them nowadays. Mind you, if you’ll be staying on here
for a day or two, I could get you some; we shall be sending into
Pullford the day after to-morrow. But at the moment we seem to be
right out of them. . . . Oh, you’ll take the check ones . . . half a
dozen? Thank you, sir; you’ll find they’re a very good line; you could
go a long way and not find another handkerchief just like that one.
It’s a handkerchief we’ve stocked many years now, and never had any
difficulty in getting rid of it. And the next article, please?”
But Bredon did not meditate any more purchases. He had begun to
realize that in Chilthorpe you bought not the thing you wanted but the
thing Mr. Simmonds had in stock. While the handkerchiefs were being
wrapped, he sat down on a high, uncomfortable chair close to the
counter, and opened conversation about the deceased. Simmonds might
have quarrelled with his uncle, but surely he would take the gloomy
pride of the uneducated in his near relationship to a corpse.
“I’m afraid you’ve had a sad loss, Mr. Simmonds.”
Now, why did the man suddenly turn a white, haggard face toward his
visitor, starting as if the remark had been something out of the way?
There was no secret about the relationship; it had been mentioned
publicly at the inquest. Leyland had insisted that in all his
interviews with Simmonds he had failed to observe any sign of
discomposure. Yet this morning a mere allusion to Mottram seemed to
throw his nephew all out of gear. The cant phrases of his craft had
flowed from him mechanically enough, but once his customer began to
talk the gossip of the village all the self-possession fell from him
like a mask, and he stood pale and quivering.
“As you say, sir. Very melancholy event. My uncle, sir, he was. Oh,
yes, sir. We didn’t see him much down here—we hadn’t anything to do
with him, sir. We didn’t get on very well—what I mean is, he didn’t
think much of me. No, sir. But he was my uncle, sir. Over in Pullford
he lived; hasn’t lived here for many years now, though it was his own
place.”
“Still, blood’s thicker than water, isn’t it?”
“What’s that, sir? Oh, I see what you mean; yes, sir. I’m seeing to
the funeral and all that. Excuse me one moment, sir. Sam! Just take a
pair of steps and put them boxes back, there’s a good lad. And there’s
nothing else to-day, sir?”
There was nothing else. Bredon had meant to say a good deal, but he
had reckoned on dealing with a smug, self-possessed tradesman, who
might unsuspectingly drop a few hints that were worth knowing.
Instead, he found a man who started at shadows, who was plainly alive
with panic. He went back to his hotel full of disquiet; there went his
twenty pounds, and the company’s half-million. And yet, what did it
all mean? Why did Simmonds tremble in the presence of Bredon when he
had shewn no trace of embarrassment in talking to Leyland, who was an
official of the police? The whole tangle of events seemed to become
more complicated with every effort that was made to unravel it.
Chapter XIV
Bredon Is Taken for a Walk
In front of the _Load of Mischief_ stands an ale-house bench—that is
the description which leaps to the mind. Ideally, it should be
occupied by an old gaffer in a white smock, drinking cider and smoking
a churchwarden. A really progressive hotel would hire a gaffer by the
day to do it. A less appropriate advertisement, yet creditable enough
to the establishment in the bright air of the June morning, Angela was
occupying this seat as her husband came back from his shopping; she
was knitting in a nice, old-fashioned way, but spoilt the effect of it
rather by whistling as she did so.
“Well, did you get a bargain?” she asked.
“So I am assured. I have got a very good line; I could go a long way
and not find another handkerchief just like this one. Or indeed six
other handkerchiefs just like these six. They are distinctive, that is
the great point. Even you, Angela, will have difficulty in getting
them lost at the wash.”
“And how was Mr. Simmonds?” asked Angela, dropping her voice.
Bredon looked round cautiously. But Angela had chosen her place well;
she knew that publicity is the surest safeguard of privacy. In the
open square in front of the inn nobody would suppose that you were
exchanging anything but trivialities. Bredon communicated his
mystification and his alarm, depicting the strange behaviour of that
haberdasher in terms that left no room for doubt.
“Yes,” said Angela when he had finished, “you were quite right not to
press him with any more questions. You do seem to be rather
heavy-handed, somehow, over these personal jobs. Now, I’ve been having
it out with ‘Raight-ho’ since breakfast, and I got quite a lot out of
her. Miles, that girl’s a jewel. If she wasn’t going to be married,
I’d get her to come to Burrington, in spite of your well-known
susceptibility. But it’s no use; the poor girl is determined to sign
away her liberty.”
“To Mr. Simmonds?”
“So I gather from what Mr. Leyland told me last night. But of course I
was far too discreet to ask for any names.”
“How did you manage to worm yourself into her confidence? I’d as soon
tackle a stone wall.”
“One must unbend. It’s easier for us women. By a sudden inspiration, I
reflected that it must be an awful nuisance washing up all those
plates after breakfast, especially in a pub where they seldom have
more than two guests at a time. So I offered to help. That was just
about the time you went out shopping. I’m quite good at washing up
plates, you know, thanks to having married beneath me. She said
‘Raight-ho,’ and we adjourned to the scullery, where I did wonders. In
the scullery I saw a copy of _Home Hints_, which was very important.”
“I don’t quite see why.”
“Don’t you remember that cantankerous old bachelor friend of yours who
came to us once in London—Soames, I think his name was—who told us
that he wrote the column headed ‘Cupid’s Labyrinth’? The column that
gives advice to correspondents, you know, about affairs of the heart.
It’s the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that the modern
pillion-girl is any less soppy about her amours than the young misses
of last century. I knew instinctively that ‘Raight-ho’—her name, by
the way, is Emmeline, poor thing—was an avid reader of ‘Cupid’s
Labyrinth.’ And I’m afraid I rather prevaricated.”
“Angela, you surprise me. What particular form of lie did you blacken
your soul with this time?”
“Oh, I didn’t exactly _say_ anything. But I somehow allowed her to get
the impression that it was I who did the column. After all, Mr. Soames
is a friend of yours, so it wasn’t so very far from the truth. Miles,
she rose to the bait like anything.”
“Heaven forgive you! Well, go on.”
“It was all to save you twenty quid, after all. Up till then, she’d
been saying all the ordinary things—she’d got a sister in London, whom
she goes and stays with; and she finds Chilthorpe rather slow, hardly
ever going to the pictures and that; and she’d like to get up to
London herself—it’s what they all say. But when I let on that I was
Aunt Daphne of ‘Cupid’s Labyrinth,’ she spread herself. How would I
advise a friend of hers to act who found herself in a very delicate
situation? So I told her to cough it up. The friend, it seemed, had
been walking out with a young man who was quite decently off; that is,
he had quite enough to marry on. But one day he explained to her that
he had expectations of becoming really very rich; if only a relation
of his would die, he would then come into a property far above his own
station, let alone hers.”
“The situation sounds arresting in more ways than one.”
“Don’t interrupt. Well, the man suggested they should get engaged, and
they did, only on the quiet. And then, a few weeks ago, or it might
have been a fortnight ago, this man suddenly informed her friend that
all his dreams of wealth had suddenly collapsed. The rich relation had
made a new will in which he made no provision for his family. And he,
the young man, was very nice about it; and said of course he’d asked
her to marry him at a time when he thought he could make her a rich
woman; and now he couldn’t. So if she wanted to back out of the
engagement now, he would give her complete liberty.”
“Sportsman.”
“Her friend indignantly said ‘No’; she wouldn’t dream of backing out.
She wanted to marry him for himself, not for his money, and all that.
So they are continuing to regard the engagement as a fixture. But her
difficulty, I mean the friend’s difficulty, is this: was it just a
sort of melodramatic instinct which made her say that the money meant
nothing to her? Was it just her pride which made her think she was
still in love with the man, now that he was no longer an heir? Or was
she really still in love with him? That was the problem, and I had to
set to and answer it.”
“And what was your answer?”
“Oh, that’s hardly important, is it? Of course, I put on my best Aunt
Daphne manner, and tried to think of the sort of tripe Soames would
have written. It wasn’t difficult, really. I said that if the man was
quite comfortably off as it was, it was probably far better for them
both that they shouldn’t become enormously rich; and I laid it on
thick about the deceitfulness of riches, though I wish I’d more
experience of it, don’t you? And I said if they were already walking
out before the man mentioned anything about the legacy, that proved
that her friend was already in love with him, or half in love with
him, before the question of money cropped up at all. And I told her I
thought her friend would be very happy with the man, probably all the
happier because he knew that she wasn’t mercenary in her ambitions,
and all that sort of thing—I felt rather a beast doing it. She was
very grateful, and it didn’t seem to occur to her for a moment that
she was giving herself away, horse, foot and guns. She can’t have
known, obviously, that you and Leyland were rubbering in the lane last
night. And so there it is.”
“And confoundedly important at that. Angela, you are a trump! We’ve
got Leyland down, both ears touching. He himself said that his theory
about Simmonds would break down if it could be proved that Simmonds
did know about the codicil, did know that he’d been cut out of the
will. And it can be proved; we can prove it! It’s too much of a
coincidence, isn’t it, that all this should have happened a fortnight
ago or thereabouts? Obviously, it was hearing about the codicil which
made Simmonds offer to free ‘Raight-ho’ from her engagement, and jolly
sporting of him, I consider.”
“Candour compels me to admit that I’ve been rather efficient. But,
Miles dear, the thing doesn’t make sense yet. We know now that
Simmonds wasn’t expecting anything from his uncle’s will, and
therefore had no motive for murdering him, unless it was mere spite.
Then, why has Simmonds got the wind up so badly? You aren’t as
frightening as all that.”
“Yes; it still looks as if Simmonds had got something on his mind. And
we know that Brinkman’s got something on his mind. Perhaps Brinkman
will react on this morning’s conversation and let us know a little
more about it.”
Almost as he spoke, Brinkman came out from the door of the inn. He
came straight up to Bredon as if he had been looking for him, and
said, “Oh, Mr. Bredon, I was wondering if you would care to come for a
bit of a walk. I shall get no exercise this afternoon, with the
funeral to attend, and I thought perhaps you’d like a turn round the
gorge. It’s considered rather a local feature, and you oughtn’t to
leave without seeing it.”
It was clumsily done. He seemed to ignore Angela’s presence, and
pointedly excluded her, with his eyes, from the invitation. It seemed
evident that the man was determined on a _tête-à-tête_. Angela’s
glance betrayed a surprise which she did not feel, and perhaps a pique
which she did, but she rose to the occasion. “Do take him out, Mr.
Brinkman. He’s getting dreadfully fat down here. Instead of taking
exercise, he comes out and chats to me in public, more like a friend
than a husband—and he’s making me drop my stitches.”
“Aren’t _you_ coming?” asked Bredon, with a wholly unnecessary wink.
“Not if I know it. I’m not dressed for gorge inspecting. You may buy
me a picture post-card of it, if you like, on the way back.”
The two strolled off up the valley. Bredon’s heart beat fast. It was
evident that Brinkman was taking advantage of the overheard
conversation, and was preparing to make some kind of disclosure. Was
he at last on the track of the secret? Well, he must be careful not to
betray himself by any leading questions. The post of the amiable
incompetent, which he had already sustained with Brinkman, would do
well enough.
“It’s a fine thing, the gorge,” said Brinkman. “It lies just below the
Long Pool; but fortunately Pulteney isn’t fishing the Long Pool
to-day, so we shan’t be shouted at and told to keep away from the
bank. I really think, apart from the fishing, Chilthorpe is worth
seeing, just for the gorge. Do you know anything about geology and
such things?”
“You can search me. Beats me how they do it.”
“It beats me how the stream does it. Here’s a little trickle of water
that can’t shift a pebble weighing half a pound. Give it a few
thousand years, and it eats its way through the solid rock, and digs a
course for itself a matter of fifteen or twenty feet deep. And all
that process is a mere moment of time, compared with the millions of
years that lie behind us. If you want to reckon the age of the earth’s
crust, they say, you must do it in thousands of millions of years.
Queer, isn’t it?”
“Damned rum.”
“You almost understate the position. Don’t you feel sometimes as if
the whole of human life on this planet were a mere episode, and all
our boasted human achievement were a speck on the ocean of infinity?”
“Sometimes. But one can always take a pill, can’t one?”
“Why, yes, if it comes to that. . . . An amusing creature, Pulteney.”
“Bit highbrow, isn’t he? He always makes me feel rather as if I were
back at school again. My wife likes him, though.”
“He has the schoolmaster’s manner. It develops the conversational
style, talking to a lot of people who have no chance of answering
back. You get it with parsons too, sometimes. I really believe it
would be almost a disappointment to him if he caught a fish, so fond
is he of satirizing his own performance. . . . You haven’t been in
these parts before, have you?”
“Never. It’s a pity, really, to make their acquaintance in such a
tragic way. Gives you a kind of depressing feeling about a place when
your first introduction to it is over a death-bed.”
“I am sure it must. . . . It’s a pity the country out toward Pullford
has been so much spoilt by factories. It used to be some of the finest
country in England. And there’s nothing like English country, is
there? Have you travelled much, apart from the war, of course?”
“Now, what the devil does this man think he’s doing?” Bredon asked
himself. Could it be that Brinkman, after making up his mind to
unbosom himself, was feeling embarrassed about making a start, was
taking refuge in every other conceivable topic so as to put off the
dreaded moment of confession? That seemed the only possible
construction to put on his conversational vagaries. But how to give
him a lead? “Very little, as a matter of fact. I suppose you went
about a good deal with Mottram? I should think a fellow as rich as he
was gets a grand chance of seeing the world. Funny his wanting to
spend his holiday in a poky little place like this.”
“Well, I suppose each of us has his favourite corner of earth. There,
do you see how deep the river has cut its way into the rock?”
They had left the road by a foot-path, which led down steeply through
a wood of fir-trees and waist-deep bracken to the river bank. They
were now looking up a deep gully, it almost seemed a funnel, of rock;
both sides falling sheer from the tumbled boulders and fern-tufts of
the hillside. Before them was a narrow path which had been worn or cut
out of the rock-face, some five or six feet above the brawling stream,
just clear of the foam that sprang from its sudden waterfalls. There
was no habitation in view; the roaring of the water drowned the voice
unless you shouted; the sun, so nearly at its zenith, could not reach
the foot of the rocks, and the gorge itself looked gloomy and a little
eerie from the contrast. “Let’s go along the path a bit,” said
Brinkman; “one gets the effect of it better when one’s right in the
middle of it. The path,” he explained, “goes all the way along, and
it’s the regular way by which people go up when they mean to fish the
Long Pool. I’ll go first, shall I?”
For a second Bredon hesitated. The man had so obviously been making
conversation all the way, had so obviously been anxious to bring him
to this particular spot, that he suddenly conceived the idea of
hostile design. A slight push, disguised as an effort to steady you
round a corner, might easily throw you off the path into the stream;
they were alone, and neither rock nor stream, in such an event, would
readily give up its secret. Then he felt the impossibility of
manufacturing any excuse for refusing the invitation, Brinkman, too,
was a good foot smaller than himself. “All right,” he said, “I’ll
follow on.” He added a mental determination to follow at a safe
distance.
About twenty yards from the entrance, they stopped at a resting-place
where the rock-path widened out till it was some five feet in breadth.
Behind it was a smooth face of rock six or seven feet in height, a
fresh narrow ledge separating it from the next step in that giant’s
stairway. “Curious, isn’t it,” said Brinkman, “the way these rocks are
piled against one another? Look at that ledge that runs along, over
there to the right, almost like the rack in a railway carriage! What
accident made that, or was it some forgotten human design?” It looked,
indeed, as if it might have been meant for the larder-shelf of some
outlaw who had hidden there in days gone by. A piece of white
paper—some sandwich paper doubtless, that had fallen from above—tried
to complete the illusion. “Yes,” said Bredon, “you expect to see a
notice saying it’s for light articles only. By Jove, this is a place!”
Forgetting his tremors, he passed by Brinkman, and went exploring
further along the gorge. Brinkman followed slowly, almost reluctantly.
There was no more conversation till they reached the end of the gorge
and climbed up an easy path on to the highroad.
Now, surely, if there were going to be any confidential disclosures,
they would come. To Bredon’s surprise his companion now seemed to have
grown moody and uncommunicative; whatever openings were tried he not
only failed to follow them up but seemed, by his monosyllabic answers,
to be discouraging all approach. Bredon abandoned the effort at last,
and returned to the _Load of Mischief_ thoroughly dissatisfied with
himself, and more completely mystified than ever.
Chapter XV
A Scrap of Paper
Leyland met him immediately on his return. He had heard from Angela
that Bredon had gone out for a walk with Brinkman, and at Brinkman’s
invitation; something too of the abruptness and the eagerness with
which the invitation was issued. Clearly, he was anxious to get first
news about Brinkman’s disclosures. There was still half an hour or so
to waste before luncheon; and Bredon, taking a leaf out of his wife’s
book, suggested the ale-house bench as a suitable place for talking
things over.
“Well?” asked Leyland. “I never dared to hope that Brinkman would
react so quickly. What did he say? Or rather, what can you tell me of
what he said?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just took me for a walk to the gorge
and back.”
“I say, old thing, are you playing quite fair? I mean, if Brinkman
only consented to talk to you in confidence, by all means say so, and
I’ll have to be content.”
“But he didn’t. He didn’t say a word he mightn’t have said in the
parlour to all of us. I can’t make head or tail of it.”
“Look here, it’s absurd trying to palm that off on me. I know you’re
more scrupulous than I am about these things; but really, what harm
can it do to tell me that Brinkman has confided to you? It doesn’t
make it any easier or any harder for me to put you into the
witness-box; and short of that I can’t get it out of you if you don’t
want to tell me. I won’t badger you; I won’t try and worm it out of
you; honestly I won’t. But don’t pretend that you’re still as ignorant
of Brinkman’s movements this last week as I am.”
“What the devil am I to say? Can’t you believe a fellow when he tells
the truth? I tell you that all the way to the gorge he talked about
anything that came into his head; and coming back from the gorge he
wouldn’t talk about anything at all—I simply couldn’t get him to
talk.”
“And _at_ the gorge?”
“He talked about the gorge. A regular morning with Herr Baedeker.
There really isn’t anything more to it.”
“Look here, let’s get this straight. We put up a conversation together
in a place where we know for a fact that Brinkman’s listening behind
the wall—and it isn’t the first time he’s listened to us, either. I
explain in a loud voice that I’ve taken out a warrant, or rather that
I’m just going to take out a warrant, for his arrest, and that his
best chance of saving himself from arrest is to confide in you or me.
An hour or so afterward he comes up to you, while you’re sitting out
there with Mrs. Bredon in the middle of a conversation. He takes no
notice at all of Mrs. Bredon, but asks you to come out for a morning
walk—on the transparent excuse that he wants to shew you this beastly
ditch of his. And then he proceeds to waste more than an hour of his
time and yours by talking platitudes about the scenery. Are we really
going to sit down and admit that?”
“Confound it all; we’ve got to. I’m no better pleased about it than
you are. But, God knows, I gave him every chance of having a talk if
he wanted to.”
“Do you think he was trying to pump you, perhaps? Can’t you remember
at all what he did talk about?”
“Talked about Pulteney a little. Said he was a typical schoolmaster,
or something of that sort. Oh, yes, and he talked about
geology—probable age of the earth, if I remember right. Asked me
whether I’d been here before. Asked me whether I’d been abroad much. I
really can’t recall his saying anything else.”
“And you’re sure you said nothing which could frighten him, which
could put him off?”
“I couldn’t have been more careful to avoid it.”
“Well, it’s—can you make anything of it yourself?”
“The only idea that occurred to me is that possibly Brinkman wanted me
to be away from the house for some reason; and chose this way of
making sure that I was.”
“M’m!—it’s possible, of course? But why should he want you to be
away—especially if he’s going to be away too?”
“I know, it doesn’t really make sense. I say, Leyland, I’m awfully
sorry about this.” He felt absurdly apologetic, though without seeing
any way of putting the blame on himself. “Look here, I’ll tell you one
thing: it’s not in our bargain, of course, but I don’t think there’s
any harm in telling you. Simmonds didn’t know about the Euthanasia
policy. Or rather, he did expect it to come to him at one time, but
not this last week or two, because he’d heard about the codicil
leaving it to the Bishop—heard, at any rate, that it wasn’t coming to
him. So I’m afraid your theory about Simmonds wants revising.”
“It has already been revised. This is very interesting: you say it’s
certain Simmonds knew about the change of plan?”
“Yes. You can guess the source.”
“And do you suppose he had any idea where the new will was kept?
Whether it was up in London, I mean, or in Mottram’s own possession?”
“That I couldn’t say. Does it make much difference?”
“A lot of difference. Look here, you’ve been dealing openly with me,
so I’ll give you some information in return. But I warn you you won’t
like it, because it doesn’t help your theory of a suicide a bit. Look
here.” He glanced round to see that nobody was watching them, then
took an envelope from his pocket, and cautiously shook out into his
open palm a triangle of paper. It was blue, lined paper, with an
official sort of look about it. It was obviously a corner left over
from a document which had been burned, for the hypotenuse opposite the
right angle was a frayed edge of brown ash. The writing on it was
“clerkly”—there is no other word to describe its combination of
ugliness with legibility. Only a fragment of writing was left on each
of the three lines which the paper contained, for there was a generous
allowance of margin. It was a bottom right-hand corner that the fire
had spared; and the surviving ends of the lines read:
“queath
aken out by
March in the year”
“Well, how’s that?” said Leyland. “I don’t think we shall differ much
over the reading of it.”
“No. It’s really rather disappointing, when you are supposed to be a
detective, for a document to come to hand in such excellent
condition—what there is of it. There aren’t two words in the English
language that end with the syllable ‘queath,’ and unless I am
mistaken—no, as you were—the word in the next line might be either
‘taken’ or ‘mistaken.’ And of course there’s Interlaken, when one
comes to think of it, and weaken, and shaken, and oaken, and all sorts
of words. But, as you say, or rather imply, ‘taken out by’ makes the
best sense. And I shall hardly be communicating new impressions to you
if I suggest that one speaks of ‘taking out’ insurance policies. Do
you happen to know when Mottram took out his Euthanasia? I believe
I’ve got the record upstairs.”
“He took it out in March. There isn’t a bit of doubt about this
document as it stands. It’s the copy of a will, made out by Mottram,
having reference to the Euthanasia policy. Now, unless this was a new
will altogether—which is possible—that means that this was a copy of
his second will, or rather of the codicil which referred to the
policy. For in the will, if you remember, there was no allusion to the
Euthanasia at all.”
“I suppose that it is absolutely certain that this scrap of paper
belonged to Mottram?”
“Quite certain—that’s the extraordinary thing, the way I found it. The
undertaker came round this morning to make—well, certain arrangements.
As you know, I had taken command of the key of Mottram’s room; it’s
been locked by my orders ever since you and I had that look
round—except yesterday, when I took the Coroner in. The undertaker
came to me for the key this morning, and I went into the room with
him; and, just mooning about there aimlessly, I saw something that you
and I had failed to see when we were searching the room—this bit of
paper. We were not much to blame, for it was rather hidden away,
behind the writing-table; that is, between the writing-table and the
window. To do us justice, I don’t know how we came to overlook it.
Considering it was in Mottram’s room, I don’t think it is a very wild
speculation to suppose that it was a part of Mottram’s will.”
“No, that seems reasonable. And how does it fit into your view of the
case? I mean”——
“Oh, of course, it’s conceivable that Mottram burned the thing
himself. But it doesn’t really make very much sense when you come to
think of it. We know, and Mottram knew, that it was only a spare copy
of the will which the solicitors had got up in London. It wasn’t a
very important document, therefore, one way or the other. And I’m sure
it hasn’t escaped your observation that whereas burning papers is a
natural way to get rid of them in winter, when there’s a fire in the
grate, one doesn’t do it in summer unless one’s absolutely put to it.
Nothing burns more ill-temperedly than a piece of paper when you have
to set light to it with a match. You can’t even burn it whole, without
great difficulty, for you must either keep hold of it, and so leave a
corner unburnt, or else leave it lying about in a grate or somewhere,
and then the flame generally dies down before it is finished. In this
case, it is pretty clear that somebody must have held it in his hand,
or it probably wouldn’t be a corner that remained unburnt. I can find
no finger-marks.”
“Wouldn’t a man who was destroying an important document be apt to
take care he didn’t leave any of it lying about?”
“Certainly, if he’d plenty of time to do it in. If it had been
Mottram, for example, burning his own will. It seems to me more like
the action of a man in a hurry; and I suspect that the man who burned
this document was in a hurry. Or at least he was flustered; for he had
been committing a murder, and so few people can keep their heads
altogether in that position.”
“It’s Simmonds, then, by your way of it?”
“Who else? You see, at first I was in rather a difficulty. We had
assumed, what it was natural to assume, that this codicil which
Mottram added to his will was kept a secret—that Simmonds didn’t know
about it, and that he’d murdered Mottram under the mistaken idea that
he would inherit the Euthanasia benefits as the next of kin. Now, if
that had been his intention, it would have been rather a coincidence
his _happening_ to light on the will and be able to burn it. But you
tell me that Simmonds did know about the codicil; very well, that
solves the difficulty. It was a double crime not only in fact but in
intention. You thought that Simmonds’s knowledge of the codicil gave
him a sort of moral alibi. On the contrary, it only fastens the halter
round his neck. He determined to destroy Mottram and the will
together, and so inherit. The motive is more obvious than ever. The
only thing which he unfortunately hadn’t taken into account was the
fact that the copy of the codicil which he destroyed was a duplicate,
and the original was up in London.”
“But isn’t it rather a big supposition, that Simmonds not only knew
the codicil was in existence but knew that it was in Mottram’s
possession when he came down here, and that it would be lying about in
Mottram’s room, quite easy for him to find?”
“You forget Mottram’s psychology. When Simmonds offended him, he
wasn’t content that Simmonds should be cut out of his will; he wanted
him to know that he’d been cut out of the will—directed the lawyers to
inform him of the fact. When he added that codicil about the
Euthanasia, although he made such a secret of it all round, he was
careful, as we know, to inform Simmonds that it had been done. Don’t
you think it’s likely that he wrote to Simmonds and said, ‘I have
willed the Euthanasia policy away to strangers, so as to prevent it
coming to you; you can look in on me when I’m at Chilthorpe, and I’ll
shew you the document’? And Simmonds, not understanding the
pernicketiness of lawyers, imagined that it would be the original of
the will, not a copy, that Mottram had by him. So, when he came round
here on his midnight visit, or rather on his early morning visit, he
turned off the gas, flung the window open, ransacked the despatch-box
which he found lying on the table, found the will, and burnt it
hastily at the open window. Probably he thought the unburnt fragment
had fallen out of the window; actually it had fallen under the table,
and here we are!”
“It was Angela, I suppose, who told you that Simmonds knew he had been
cut out of the will?”
“With the best intentions. Mrs. Bredon thought, of course, that my
suspicion of Simmonds could not survive the revelation. As a matter of
fact, it all fitted in nicely. Well, it just shews that one should
never waste time trying to puzzle out a problem until one’s sure that
all the relevant facts have been collated. Here were you and I
worrying our lives out over the difficulty, and all because we had
never noticed that bit of paper lying on the floor—and might never
have noticed it, if I hadn’t happened to go in with the undertaker.
Now, there’s only Brinkman’s part of the business to settle. Apart
from that, it’s as clear as daylight.”
“You think so? Well, you must think me a frightful Sadducee, but even
now I don’t mind doubling that bet again.”
“Forty pounds! Good Lord, man, the Indescribable must pay you well! Or
do they insure you against losing bets? Well, it would eat a big hole
in my salary. But if you want to throw your money away, I don’t mind.”
“Good! Forty quid. We’d best keep it dark from Angela, though. I say,
when ‘Raight-ho’ makes that horrible noise on the tom-tom inside, it
generally means that Mrs. Davis has finished blowing the dust off the
cold ham. What’s wrong with going in and seeing about a little lunch?”
Chapter XVI
A Visitor from Pullford
When they came into the coffee room, Bredon had the instantaneous
impression we all get occasionally that the room was too full. Then,
on disentangling his sensations, he was delighted to find that the
newcomer was Mr. Eames, who was exchanging a word or two with
Brinkman, though he seemed not to have been introduced to the others.
“Good man!” said Bredon. “I don’t think you met my wife, did you? This
is Mr. Pulteney . . . it was very good of you to keep your promise.”
“As it turned out, I should have had to come in any case. The Bishop
had to go off to a confirmation, so, when he heard the funeral was
down here, he sent me to represent him. You see, we heard from the
solicitors about our windfall—I suspect you were keeping that dark,
Mr. Bredon—and he was very much touched by Mr. Mottram’s kindness. He
wished he could have come, Mr. Brinkman, but of course a confirmation
is a difficult engagement to get out of.”
“I really knew nothing about the will when I came over to Pullford,”
protested Bredon. “I’ve heard about it since, of course. Can I offer
my congratulations to the diocese, or would it look too much like
gifts from the Greeks?”
“Nonsense; you serve your company, Mr. Bredon, and none of us bears
you any ill-will for it. I hope, by the way, I have not been
indiscreet in mentioning the subject?” he glanced for a moment at the
old gentleman. “The Bishop, of course, has not mentioned the matter
except to me, because he quite realizes there may be legal
difficulties.”
“I can keep a secret as well as most men,” explained Pulteney. “That
is to say, I have the common human vanity which makes every man like
to be in possession of a secret; and perhaps less than my share of the
vulgar itch for imparting information. But you know Chilthorpe little,
sir, if you speak of discretion in the same four walls with Mrs.
Davis. I assure you that the testamentary dispositions of the late Mr.
Mottram are seldom off her lips.”
There was a fractional pause, while everybody tried to think how Mrs.
Davis knew. Then they remembered that the matter had been mentioned,
though only incidentally, at the inquest.
“To be sure,” said Eames. “I have met Mrs. Davis before. If it is true
that confession lightens our burdens, the _Load of Mischief_ must sit
easily on her.”
“I’m so glad they haven’t changed the name of the inn,” observed
Angela. “These old-fashioned names are getting so rare. And the _Load
of Mischief_ is hardly an encouraging title.”
“There used,” said Eames, “to be an inn in my old—in the parish where
I lived—which was called ‘_The Labour in Vain_.’ I sometimes thought
of it as an omen.”
“Are you of the funeral party, Mr. Pulteney?” asked Leyland, seeing
the old gentleman dressed in deep black.
“There is no hiding anything from you detectives. Yes, I have promised
myself the rustic treat of a funeral. In the scholastic profession
such thrills are rare; they make us retire at sixty nowadays. My lot
is cast amidst the young; I see ever fresh generations succeeding to
the old, filling up the gaps in the ranks of humanity; and I confess
that when one sees the specimens one sometimes doubts whether the
process is worth while. But do not let me cast a gloom over our
convivialities. Let us eat and drink, Mrs. Davis’s ‘shape’ seems to
say to us, for to-morrow we die.”
“I hope I oughtn’t to have gone,” said Angela. “I’d have brought my
blacks if I’d thought of it.”
“Without them, you would be a glaring offence against village
etiquette. No, Mrs. Bredon, your presence would not be expected. The
company needs no representatives at the funeral; more practical, it
sheds golden tears over the coffin. For the rest of us it is
different. Mr. Eames pays a last tribute to his diocesan benefactor.
Mr. Brinkman, like a good secretary, must despatch the material
envelope to its permanent address. For myself, what am I? A fellow
wayfarer in an inn; and yet what more is any of us in this brief
world? No, Mrs. Bredon, you are exempt.”
“Oh, do stop him,” said Angela. “How did you come down, Mr. Eames?”
“By the midday train, a funeral pageant in itself. Was Mr. Mottram
much known in the neighbourhood?”
“He is now,” replied Mr. Pulteney, with irrepressible ghoulishness.
“The victim of sudden death is like a diver; no instinct of decency
withholds us from watching his taking-off.”
“I don’t think he had any near relations living,” said Brinkman,
“except young Simmonds. He’ll be there, I suppose; but there wasn’t
much love lost between them. He will hardly be interested, anyhow, in
the reading of the will.”
“By the way, Mr. Brinkman, His Lordship asked me to say that you will
be very welcome at the Cathedral house, if you are detained in
Pullford at all.”
“It is extremely kind of him. But I had wound up all Mr. Mottram’s
outstanding affairs before he came away for his holiday, and I don’t
suppose I shall be needed. I was thinking of going up to London in a
day or two. I have to shift for myself, you see.”
“Have some coffee, Eames,” suggested Bredon; “you must need it after a
tiring journey like that.”
“Thanks, I think I will. Not that I’m tired, really. It makes so much
difference on the railway if you are occupied.”
“You don’t mean to say you are one of those fortunate creatures who
can _work_ in railway trains?”
“No, not work. I played patience all the way.”
“Patience? Did I hear you say patience? Ah, but you only brought one
pack, of course.”
“No, I always travel with two.”
“Two? And Mr. Pulteney has two! Angela, that settles it! This
afternoon I shall have a game.”
“Miles, dear, not _the_ game? You know you can’t play that and think
of anything else at the same time. Mr. Eames, would you mind dropping
your packs in the river? You see, it’s so bad for my husband; he sits
down to an interminable game of patience, and forgets all about his
work and everything.”
“You don’t understand, Angela; it clears the brain. When you’ve been
puzzled over a thing, as I have been over this question of suicide,
your brains get all stale and used up, and you must give them a fresh
start. A game of patience will just do the trick. No, no milk, thanks.
Would you tell Mrs. Davis”—this was to the barmaid—“that I shall be
very busy all the latter part of this afternoon, and mustn’t be
disturbed on any account? It’s all right, Angela; I’ll give you half
an hour now to remonstrate with me, but it won’t be any use.”
It was not, as a matter of fact, till after the funeral party had
left, and the coffin been removed, that Miles and Angela foregathered.
They went to the old mill-house, feeling that it would be a safe place
for confidences now that Brinkman was otherwise engaged. “Well,” said
Angela, “I suppose you’re wanting some Watson work?”
“Badly. Look here, one of us, either Leyland or I, is beginning to
feel the strain a bit. Everything that crops up makes him more and
more determined to have Simmonds’s blood, and me more and more
inclined to stick to my old solution.”
“You haven’t been doubling that bet again, have you?”
“That’s a detail. Look here, I must tell you all about his find this
morning.” And he proceeded to explain the whole business of the piece
of paper, and Leyland’s inferences from it. “Now,” he finished up,
“what d’you make of all that?”
“Well, he has got a case, hasn’t he? I mean, his explanation would
explain things.”
“Yes, but look at the difficulties.”
“Let’s have them. No, wait a minute, I believe I can do the
difficulties. Let’s try a little womanly intuish. First, you’d have
noticed the piece of paper if it had been there when you went in.”
“Not necessarily. It’s wonderful what one can overlook if one isn’t
thinking about it.”
“Well, then, Simmonds wouldn’t have been such a chump as to burn the
thing on the spot. Especially with a foul smell of gas in the room,
not to mention the corpse. He’d have shoved it into his pocket and
taken it home.”
“There’s a good deal in that. But Leyland would say that Simmonds was
afraid to do that for fear he should be stopped and searched.”
“Pretty thin. And, then, of course, if it was really important for him
to get the document out of the way, he wouldn’t have left a bit lying
about. He’d have seen that it was _all_ burnt.”
“Leyland says that was because he was in a hurry.”
“Well, let’s have some others. I’m used up.”
“Well, don’t you see that a man who is burning an important document,
holding it in his hand all the time, takes it up by the least
important corner, probably a blank space at the top? This is the work
of a man who wasn’t particularly keen on destroying all traces of the
document, and he held it by the bottom right-hand corner, as one
naturally would.”
“Why not the left hand, and the match in one’s right? Ha! The
left-handed criminal. We _are_ in luck.”
“Don’t you believe it. You start holding it at the left-hand corner,
and then transfer it to your right hand when you’ve thrown the match
away. You try, next time you’re burning your dressmaker’s bill. And
here’s another point: Simmonds would have been bound to stand with his
head right in the window, to keep clear of the gas fumes. Almost
certainly he would have put the paper down on the window-sill and let
it burn, leaving one of those curious damp marks. He didn’t, because I
should have been bound to notice that; I was looking for marks on the
window-sill. If he held it in his hand, he would be holding it outside
the window, and he wouldn’t be such a chump as to throw away the odd
corner in the room when he could pitch it out of the window. Another
thing: he wouldn’t have dared to burn a light at the window like that
for fear of attracting attention.”
“Well, I still think my objections were more important. But go on.”
“Well, since that piece of paper wasn’t dropped in the room before
Leyland and I went into it—probably not, anyhow—it looks as if it had
been dropped in the room since Leyland and I went into it. Or, at any
rate, since the first police search. Because the room has been kept
locked, one way and another, since then.”
“There was no deceiving this man.”
“Which makes it very improbable that the piece of paper was dropped
there by accident at all. Anybody who went in there had no business to
go in there, and would be jolly careful not to leave any traces. We
are therefore irresistibly compelled, my dear Angela, to the
conclusion that somebody dropped it there on purpose.”
“That firm grasp of the obvious. Yes?”
“He put it there deliberately to create an impression. Now, it might
be to create the impression that Simmonds was the murderer. To whose
advantage would that be?”
“Mr. Leyland’s.”
“Angela, don’t be flippant. Is there anybody?”
“Well, Mr. Simmonds hasn’t any enemies that we know of. Unless it was
somebody who was disappointed in the quality of his handkerchiefs.
What you _want_ me to say is, that it must be somebody who has
murdered Mottram himself, and wants to save his skin by pretending it
was Simmonds that did it.”
“I’m dashed if I want you to say that. In fact, it’s just what I
didn’t want you to say. Of course if you assume that Mottram was
murdered by Brinkman, it does all work out, most unpleasantly well.
You see, when Leyland and I were sitting here, talking at Brinkman,
who was hiding behind the wall, Leyland did say that the only thing
which prevented him from arresting Simmonds was the fact that he’d no
evidence to connect him with the actual room. I could see what he was
up to—he wanted Brinkman to take the hint (assuming, of course, that
he was the real murderer) and start manufacturing clues to incriminate
Simmonds. Well, it looks very much as if Brinkman had taken the hint,
and were doing identically what Leyland suggested. Curse it all.”
“Still, it was clever of Brinky to get in when the door was locked.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. I wouldn’t put it beyond Brinkman to have a
duplicate key of that door. . . . No, I’ve nothing to fall back on
really except the absence of motive. What earthly reason had Brinkman
for wanting to do Mottram in? Or rather, I have one other thing to
fall back on. But it’s not evidence; it’s instinct.”
“As how?”
“Why, don’t you see that the whole thing works out too beastly well?
Isn’t it rather too obviously a ruse? I mean, that idea of dropping a
piece of paper with only half a dozen words on it, and yet those
half-dozen words shewing exactly what the document was? Isn’t it
rather too obviously a plant?”
“But it was a plant, if Brinky put it there.”
“Yes, but isn’t it _too_ obviously a plant? So obviously, I mean, that
you couldn’t expect anybody, even Leyland, to think for a moment that
it was genuine? Can Brinkman really have thought that Leyland wouldn’t
see through it?”
“But if he didn’t think so”——
“Double bluff, my good woman, double bluff. I can tell you, crime is
becoming quite a specialized profession nowadays. Don’t you see that
Brinkman argued to himself like this: ‘If I leave an obviously faked
clue lying about like this, Leyland will immediately think that it is
a faked clue, used by one criminal to shove off the blame on another.
Who the criminals are, or which is which, doesn’t matter. It will
convince him that there has, after all, been a murder. And it will
disguise from him the fact that it was suicide.’ Of course all that’s
making Brinkman out to be a pretty smart lad. But I fancy he is a
pretty smart lad. And I read that piece of paper as a bit of double
bluff, meant to harden the ingenious Leyland in his belief that the
suicide was a murder.”
“Ye-es. It’ll look pretty thin before a jury, won’t it?”
“Don’t I know that it’ll look thin before a jury? Especially as, on my
shewing, Brinkman was prepared to let suspicion of murder rest on
himself rather than admit it was suicide. But it does give us a
motive. There’s no doubt that Brinkman is a fanatical anti-clerical,
and would do anything to prevent Mottram’s money going to a Catholic
diocese. . . . I say, what’s that?”
A sudden sneeze, an unmistakable sneeze, had come from somewhere
immediately behind them. In a twinkling Bredon had rushed round to the
other side of the wall. But there was nobody there.
Chapter XVII
Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman
Bredon and his wife looked at one another in astonishment. It was
impossible that the funeral should yet be over; impossible, surely,
that Brinkman, whose place in the pageant was such a prominent one,
should have absented himself from the ceremony unnoticed. There was no
doubt as to the path which the self-betrayed listener must have taken.
From behind the wall, there was a gap in a privet-hedge, and through
this there was a direct and speedy retreat to the back door of the
inn. The inn itself, when they went back to it, was as silent as the
grave—indeed, the comparison forced itself upon their minds. It was as
if the coffin from upstairs had taken all human life away with it when
it went on its last journey, leaving nothing but the ticking of clocks
and the steaming of a kettle in the kitchen to rob solitude of its
silence. Outside the sun still shone brightly, though there was a
menacing bank of cloud coming up from the south. The air felt
breathless and oppressive; not a door could bang, not a window rattle.
The very flies on the window-panes seemed drowsy. The Bredons passed
from room to room, in the vain hope of discovering an intruder;
everywhere the same loneliness, the same stillness met them. Bredon
had an odd feeling as if they ought, after all, to be at the funeral;
it was so like the emptiness of his old school when everybody was out
of doors except himself on a summer day.
“I can’t stand much of this,” he said. “Let’s go down toward the
churchyard, and see if we can meet them coming back. Then at least we
shall be in a position to know who _wasn’t_ here.”
The expedition, however, proved abortive; they met Eames almost on the
doorstep, and down the street figures melting away by twos and threes
from the churchyard shewed that the funeral was at an end. “I say,
come in here,” said Bredon. “I want to talk things over a bit, Mr.
Eames.” And the three retired into that “best room” where tea had been
laid on the afternoon of the Bredons’ arrival. “You’ve just come back
from the funeral?”
“This moment. Why?”
“Can you tell us for certain who was there? Was Brinkman there, for
example?”
“Certainly. He was standing just next me.”
“And Mr. Simmonds from the shop—do you know him by sight?”
“He was pointed out to me as the chief mourner. I had a word with him
afterward. But why all this excitement about the local celebrities?”
“Tell him, Miles,” said Angela. “He may be able to throw some light on
all this.” And Bredon told Eames of the strange eavesdropping that
went on behind the mill-house wall; something, too, of the suspicions
which he and Leyland entertained, and the difficulty they both found
in giving any explanation of the whole tragedy.
“Well, it’s very extraordinary. Pulteney, of course didn’t go after
all”——
“Pulteney didn’t go?”
“No; didn’t you hear him say, soon after luncheon, that his good
resolutions had broken down, and that he wasn’t going to the funeral
after all? I thought it rather extraordinary at the time.”
“You mean his sudden change of plan?”
“No, the reason he gave for it. He said the afternoon was too
tempting, and he really must go out fishing.”
“Is that a very odd reason for Pulteney? He’s an incalculable sort of
creature.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t happen to be true. Can’t you feel the thunder in
the air? If you can’t, the fishes can, And when there’s thunder in the
air they won’t rise. Pulteney knows that as well as I do.”
“Would you know his rod if you saw it?”
“Yes, I was looking at it with him just before luncheon.”
“Come on.” They went out into the front hall, and Eames gave a quick
glance round. “Yes, that’s it, in the corner. He’s no more out fishing
than you or I.”
“Edward!” said Angela as they returned to the best room. “To think it
was my Edward all the time.”
“Oh, don’t rag, Angela; this is serious. Now, can’t it have been
Pulteney listening all along?”
“He was there, you know, when you and Leyland arranged to go out to
the mill-house after breakfast. And he was there at luncheon, though I
don’t think either of us mentioned that we meant to go there. Still,
he might have guessed that. But what on earth is the poor old dear up
to?”
“Well, one or two things are clear. About Brinkman, I mean. Whatever
his idea may have been when he took me out for a walk to the gorge and
talked about geology he wasn’t ‘reacting’ on Leyland’s suggestion,
because it wasn’t he who was listening behind the wall when the
suggestion was made. And there’s another thing—this bit of paper
Leyland found lying about in the room upstairs. If Brinkman put it
there, then Brinkman did it on his own; he wasn’t playing up to the
suggestion which Leyland made about wanting clues to incriminate
Simmonds with.”
“Still,” objected Angela, “we never proved that it was Brinky who left
that old clue lying about. We only assumed it, because we thought it
was Brinky who was listening behind the wall.”
“You mean that if Pulteney was listening, and Pulteney was—well, was
somehow interested in confusing the tracks of the murder, it may have
been he who left the bit of paper under the table.”
“I didn’t say so. But it seems quite as much on the cards as anything
else in this frightful business.”
“Let’s see, now, what do we know about Pulteney? We know, in the first
place, that he was sleeping in the house on the night when Mottram
died. Actually, he had the room next door to Mottram’s—between his and
the one we’ve got now. According to his own evidence, he slept soundly
all night, and heard nothing. On the other hand, his own evidence
shewed that he went to bed after Mottram and Brinkman, and we’ve
nothing, therefore, to confirm his own account of his movements. He
was woken up the next morning after the tragedy had occurred, and when
he was told about it all he said was—what was it, Angela?”
“‘In that case, Mrs. Davis, I shall fish the Long Pool this morning.’”
“That might almost be represented as suggesting that he wasn’t exactly
surprised when he heard of Mottram’s death, mightn’t it? All his
references to Mottram’s death since then have been rather—shall we
say?—lacking in feeling. He, no less than Brinkman, seemed to be
anxious that we should interpret the death as suicide, because it was
he who suggested to me that idea about Mottram having brought down the
wrong flies, as if he never really had any intention of fishing at
all. He has been rather inquisitive about when Brinkman was leaving,
and when we were leaving too, for that matter. That’s all you can
scrape together, I think, against his general behaviour. And against
that, of course, you’ve got to put the absence of all known motive.”
“And the general character of the man,” suggested Eames.
“I suppose so. . . . What impression exactly does he make on you?”
“Why, that he is out of touch with real life. All that _macabre_
humour of his about corpses and so on is an academic thing—he has
never really felt death close to. I don’t say that a superb actor
mightn’t adopt that ironical pose. I only say it’s far more natural to
regard him as a harmless old gentleman who reflects and doesn’t act.
It’s very seldom that you find the capacity for acute reflection and
the capacity for successful action combined in the same character. At
least, that’s always been my impression.”
“Well, granted that we acquit him of the main charge, as Leyland would
acquit Brinkman of the main charge. He still comes under the minor
suspicion of eavesdropping. He’s as good a candidate for that position
as Brinkman himself, only that it was Brinkman’s brand of cigarette we
found behind the wall yesterday.”
“Edward had run out, you remember,” suggested Angela. “He might have
borrowed one from Brinky, or pinched it when he wasn’t looking. And to
be accurate, we must remember that the first time we were overheard,
when we were talking in my room, the listener had disappeared before
you got into the passage, and the next room to ours is Edward’s.”
“And besides, we know now that it wasn’t Brinkman, this time at any
rate. Because he was away at the funeral. Whereas Pulteney shirked the
funeral on an obviously false ground; didn’t go to the funeral and
didn’t go fishing either. Assuming that the listener is the same all
through, it looks bad for Pulteney.”
A knock at the door suddenly interrupted their interview. “May I come
in?” said a gentle voice, and following it, flushed as with hot
walking yet still beaming with its habitual benevolence, came the face
of Mr. Pulteney.
“Ah, Mr. Bredon, they told me I would find you in here. I wanted a
word with you. Could we go outside, or”——
“Nonsense, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela firmly. “What Mr. Eames and I
don’t know isn’t worth knowing. Come in and tell us all about it.”
“Well, you know, I’m afraid I’ve got to make a kind of confession.
It’s a very humiliating confession for me to make, because I’m afraid,
once again, I’ve been guilty of curiosity. I simply cannot mind my own
business.”
“And what have you been up to now?” asked Angela.
“Why, when I said I was going out fishing this afternoon, I’m afraid I
was guilty of a prevarication. Indeed, when I announced my intention
of going to the funeral, I was beginning to weave the tangled web of
those who first practise to deceive. You see, I didn’t want Brinkman
to know.”
“To know what?”
“Well, that I was rather suspicious about his movements. You see, I’ve
asked him several times when he means to leave Chilthorpe, and he
always talks as if he was quite uncertain of his plans. He did so at
breakfast, you remember. But this morning, when I went up to get a
sponge I had left in the bathroom, I saw Brinkman packing.”
“Packing?”
“Well, he was wandering about the room clearing up his papers, and
there was a despatch-box open on the table, and a suitcase on the
floor. And, as I knew he was due to be at the funeral, I thought this
was rather a funny time for him to want to leave. Especially as he’d
given no notice to Mrs. Davis. So I wondered whether, perhaps, there
was anything behind it.”
“You did well to wonder,” said Bredon. “So what did you do?”
“Well it stuck in my head that Mottram, when he came down here, came
in a motor-car. Mrs. Davis, though her trade announcement advertises
good accommodation for man and beast, does not run to a garage. There
is only one in Chilthorpe; you can just see it down the road there.
Now, thought I, if by any chance Mr. Brinkman is meditating a
precipitate disappearance, it would be like his caution to have made
all arrangements beforehand. And if I went down to the garage and had
a look at the car, it might be that I, though heaven knows I am no
motorist, should be able to see whether he had got the car in proper
trim for a journey.”
“You must have talked very nicely to the garage people,” suggested
Angela. “It would never do if you were suspected of being a
motor-thief.”
“Well, I had to do my best. I changed my mind about going to the
funeral, and made the excuse that I wanted to go fishing. I heard you
gasp, Mr. Eames; but Brinkman knows nothing about fishing. Then, when
you had started, I went off to the garage by myself. Fortunately, very
fortunately for my purpose, it proved that there was nobody in. There
are only two men, in any case, and they neglect their business a good
deal. I had an excuse if one was needed, but when I found myself alone
in the garage I flung caution to the winds. There was a cardcase
inside which shewed me which was Mottram’s car. My investigations led
me to the conclusion that the car was in readiness for an immediate
and secret departure for some considerable journey.”
“Do tell us what they were,” said Angela demurely. “Just for the
interest of the thing.”
“Well, I removed with some difficulty a kind of cap from that thing
behind, which put me in a position to examine the interior of what is,
I suspect, called the petrol-tank. The careful insertion of a pencil
shewed that the tank was quite full; which suggested that a refill had
been obtained since they arrived.”
“They might have run short on the journey down, a mile or two out,”
suggested Angela. “But this was not all?”
“No, there was a map lying on the driver’s seat, somewhat carelessly
folded up. I thought it a point of interest that this map did not
include Pullford, and seemed to contemplate an expedition to the west
or southwest.”
“There’s not a great deal in that,” said Bredon. “Still, it’s
suggestive. Anything else?”
“Well, you know, I lifted up one of the seats, and found there a
collection of sandwiches and a large flask of whisky.”
“The devil you did! But they might have been for the journey down
here. Did you taste the sandwiches to see if they were fresh?”
“I took that liberty. They seemed to me, I must say, a trifle on the
stale side. But who was I to complain? I was, as it were, a guest.
Meanwhile, let me point out to you the improbability of Mottram’s
loading up his car with sandwiches for a twenty-mile drive.”
“That’s true. Were they properly cut? Professional work, I mean?”
“I suspected the hand of the artist. Mrs. Davis, no doubt. The whisky
I did not feel at liberty to broach. But the idea suggested itself to
me that these were the preparations of a man who is contemplating a
considerable journey, and probably one which will not allow him time
to take his meals at a public-house.”
“And why a secret departure?”
“Why, somebody had induced a coat of black paint over what I take to
be the number-plate of the car. I am a mere novice in such matters,
but is that usual?”
“It is not frequently done. And was the paint still wet?”
“That is a curious point. The paint was dry. I supposed then, that
Brinkman’s preparations for departure were not made yesterday or the
day before.”
“It’s awfully kind of you to take all this trouble, and to come and
tell us.”
“Not at all. I thought perhaps it might be worth mentioning, in case
you thought it best, well, to lay hands somehow on Brinkman.”
“Why, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela, bubbling over, “we were just
preparing to lay hands on you!”
Chapter XVIII
The Barmaid Is Brought to Book
The bewilderment registered by Mr. Pulteney’s face at this
extraordinary announcement rapidly gave way to a look of intense
gratification. “At last,” he said, “I have lived! To be mistaken for a
criminal, perhaps a murderer—it is my _nunc dimittis_. All these years
I have lived the blameless life of one who is continually called upon
to edify his juniors; I have risen early in order to convict my pupils
of the sin of being late; I have eaten sparingly in order to pretend
that the food provided by our establishment is satisfying when it is
not; I have pretended to sentiments of patriotism, of rugged
sportsmanship, of moral approval or indignation, which I did not feel.
There is little to choose, believe me, between the fakir and the
schoolmaster; either must spend days of wearisome mortification,
because that is the way in which he gets his living. And now, for one
crowded hour of glorious old age, I have been mistaken for a guilty
intriguer. The blood flows richer in my veins; I am overcome with
gratitude. If only I could have kept it up!”
“Mr. Eames,” said Angela, “there’s one thing you said which you’ve got
to take back. You said Mr. Pulteney was too much a man of reflection
to be a man of action as well. And now you’ve heard how he broke into
a garage, stole a piece of sandwich, and took the cap off a
petrol-tank without being in the least certain that the car wouldn’t
explode. Is this the pale scholar you pictured to us?”
“I apologize,” said Eames. “I apologize to Mr. Pulteney unreservedly.
I will form no more judgments of character. You may tell me that Mrs.
Davis is a murderess, if you will, and I will discuss the proposition
on its merits.”
“Talking of which,” said Angela, “the cream of the situation is that
we _still_ don’t know who it was that was rubbering behind that
beastly mill-house.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Eames diffidently, “I’ve felt fairly certain
about that all along. I suppose it’s the result of living with priests
that one becomes thus worldly wise. But didn’t you know, Mr. Bredon,
that maids always steal their masters’ cigarettes? It is, I believe, a
more or less recognized form of perquisite. Every liberty taken by the
rich is aped by their domestics. And, although she is not in household
service, I have no doubt that the barmaid here claims a like
privilege.”
“Do you mean”—— began Bredon:
“You noticed, surely, that her fingers are a little stained with
brown? I noticed it when she brought in my fried eggs. Ladies
generally have expensive tastes in cigarettes, and I have no doubt
that this maid would go for the Callipoli if she got a chance.”
“Miles, dear,” said Angela softly, “who was it said that it must be a
servant who was listening at our bedroom door?”
“The uneducated do not take Mr. Pulteney’s view about curiosity. I
daresay this young lady often listens at keyholes. With a corpse in
the house, and detectives about, she listens with all the more
avidity. And if the detectives insist on exchanging confidences close
to that precise point in the shrubbery at which she is in the habit of
smoking purloined cigarettes, they put themselves in her hands. But a
stronger motive supervenes; what she overhears out of pure curiosity
turns out to be of vital importance to herself. She learns that the
young man she is walking out with is suspected of murder.”
“Good Lord, and of course it was she who reacted on our suggestions,
not Brinkman! I don’t know if I mentioned it to you, Angela, but when
Leyland and I were talking together at the mill-house, he said the
only thing that would make him hesitate to arrest Simmonds would be
evidence shewing that Simmonds knew he wasn’t Mottram’s heir. And it
was exactly that evidence which ‘Raight-ho’ proceeded to produce.”
“Oh,” cried Angela, “How perfectly odious! You mean that when I
thought I was pumping Emmeline so cleverly, and getting out of her
exactly what I wanted, she was really doing it all on purpose, and
telling me exactly what _she_ wanted?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear. A lot of reputations seem to be going west
to-day. And, of course, I should say it’s odds that her whole story
was absolutely trumped up, invented to suit the occasion. And we’re
back exactly where we were, not knowing whether Simmonds knew he was
cut out of the will or not.”
“On the other hand,” said Angela, “we do know, now, what put the wind
up young Simmonds so badly. When you and Leyland passed him and
Emmeline in the lane last night, she was telling him that he was
suspected of murder, and had better be dashed careful what he said and
who he said it to. Naturally it gave him a bit of a fright when he
thought you were going to pump him about his uncle.”
“And meanwhile, what has Brinkman been up to? We’ve really no evidence
against him until all this about the car cropped up. Dash it all, and
just when I was going to get a game of patience!”
“I don’t want to put my oar in unduly,” said the old gentleman in an
apologetic tone, “but might it not be a good thing to acquaint Mr.
Leyland with the somewhat unusual state of affairs down at the garage?
If Brinkman really intends to do what is popularly known as a ‘bunk,’
he may be off at any moment. Had I been more expert, I could no doubt
have immobilized some important part of the mechanism. As it was, I
was helpless.”
“Where is Leyland, by the way?” asked Bredon.
“He is just coming up the street now,” said Eames, looking out of the
window. “I’ll call to him to come in here.”
“Hullo, what have you been up to?” asked Bredon, as Leyland entered.
“Why, to tell the truth, I have been shadowing Mr. Pulteney. I must
apologize, Mr. Pulteney, but I felt bound to be careful. I’ve had you
kept under close observation all this week; and it was only as I stood
behind the door, watching your investigations into that car, that I
became perfectly convinced of your innocence.”
“What! more suspicion! This is indeed a day! Why, if I had had the
least conception that you were watching me, Mr. Leyland, I would have
led you a rare dance! My movements, I promise you, should have been
full of mystery. I should have gone out every night with a scowl and a
dark lantern. I am overwhelmed.”
“Well, I must apologize at least for spying upon your detective work.
You do very well for an amateur, Mr. Pulteney, but you are not
suspicious enough.”
“Indeed! I overlooked something? How mortifying!”
“Yes, when you took the cushion off that front seat, you failed to
observe that there was a neat tear in it, which had been quite
recently sewn up. Otherwise I am sure that you would have done what I
did just now—cut it open.”
“And is it fair to ask what you found inside?”
“Well, we seem to have gone too far now to have any secrets between
us. I feel sure that both you, Mr. Pulteney, and you, Mr. Eames, are
anxious to see justice done, and are prepared to help at least by your
silence.”
“To be sure,” said Pulteney.
“I am at your service,” said Eames.
“Well, this is actually what I found.” With a dramatic gesture he
produced a small waterproof wallet, and turned out its contents. “You
will find a thousand pounds there, all in Bank of England notes.”
“Well,” said Bredon, when the exclamations of surprise had died away,
“are you still suspecting young Simmonds?”
“I’m not easy about him yet in my own mind. But of course I see
Brinkman’s deeper in this business than I had suspected so far. A man
who’s innocent doesn’t prepare to do a bolt with a thousand pounds and
a motor-car that doesn’t belong to him.”
“Well,” said Bredon, “I suppose we ought to be keeping an eye on Mr.
Brinkman.”
“My dear old thing,” said Leyland, “don’t you realize that I’ve had
two of my men at the _Swan_ all this week, and that Brinkman hasn’t
been unaccounted for for one moment? The trouble is, he knows he’s
being watched, so he won’t give himself away. At least I’m pretty sure
of it. But the motor, of course, puts us in a very good position. We
know how he means to escape, and we can afford to take the watch off
him and put it on the motor instead. Then he’ll shew his hand, because
he’s mad keen to be off. At present he’s in his room, smoking a
cigarette and reading an old novel. He won’t move, I think, until he
makes certain that we’re all out of the way. Probably not till after
supper, because a night ride will suit his purpose best. And he’s got
a night for it too; there’s a big storm coming on, unless I’m
mistaken.”
“And what about Simmonds?” asked Bredon.
“And the barmaid?” added Angela.
“Well, of course I could question both or either of them. But I’d
sooner not, if I can help it; it’s cruel work, I was wondering if you,
Mrs. Bredon, could go and have a talk to that maid after we’ve had our
tea, and see what satisfaction you can get out of her?”
“I don’t mind at all. In fact, I rather want to have it out with dear
Emmeline. I owe her one, you see. Meanwhile, let’s have tea by all
means. I wonder if Brinky will come down to it?”
Brinkman did come down, and tea was not a very enlivening meal.
Everybody in the room looked upon him as a man who was probably a
murderer and certainly a thief. Consequently everybody tried to be
nice to him, and everybody’s style was cramped by the effort. Even Mr.
Pulteney’s verbosity seemed to have been dried up by the embarrassment
of the situation. On the whole, Eames carried it off best. His dry,
melancholy manner was quite unaltered; he talked about patience to
Bredon, he talked Pullford gossip to Brinkman; he tried to draw out
Pulteney on educational questions. But most of the party were glad
when it was over, when Brinkman had shut himself up again, and Angela
had betaken herself to the back premises to have it out with the
barmaid.
The “best room” had been turned by common consent into a sort of
committee room; during all this whirligig of sensations, the
background of their mind was filled with those protuberant portraits
of the late Mr. Davis which so defiantly occupied the walls. It was
here that Angela found them assembled when she came up, some half an
hour later, a little red about the eyes.
“Well, I didn’t try any subterfuges this time; I let her have it
straight from the shoulder. And then she cried, and I cried, and we
both cried together a good bit.”
“The mysterious sex again,” said Mr. Pulteney.
“Oh, you wouldn’t understand, of course. Anyhow, she’s had a rotten
time. That first evening, when she listened outside the door, it was
only for a moment or two, out of sheer curiosity, and she didn’t hear
anything that interested her. It was yesterday evening, when you two
were talking, that she got interested. She overheard at first merely
by accident, which just shews how careful you ought to be. She caught
the name ‘Simmonds’; she heard, for the first time, about the
Euthanasia policy, and what it might have meant to him and to her. She
went on listening, naturally, and so she came in for all Mr. Leyland’s
exposition of the case against Simmonds. You didn’t convince my
husband, Mr. Leyland, but you had a much greater success on the other
side of the wall. The poor girl, who’s been brought up on novelettes
and penny-shockers all her life, drank in the whole story. She really
believed that the man who had been making love to her, the man she was
in love with, was a cold-blooded murderer. She acted I think, very
well. He came round that evening to take her out for an evening walk,
and on the way she taxed him with his supposed crime. If you come to
think of it, that was sporting of her.”
“It was,” said Leyland. “People are found dead in ditches for less
than that.”
“Well, anyhow, it worked all right. Simmonds listened to her charges,
and then denied them all. He didn’t give her any evidence for his
denial, but she believed him. There was no quarrel. Next day, that is
to say this morning, Emmeline heard you two arranging for a talk at
the mill-house. She didn’t suspect the trap; she walked straight into
it. What she heard made her believe that there was only one way to
save Simmonds—to pretend that he knew about the Euthanasia, and knew
the money wasn’t coming to him. The poor girl reflected that Simmonds
had been hanging round the house on the night of Mottram’s death; he
had been there waiting to see her when she left the bar at closing
time. So, bravely again, I think, she came to me with her story about
the anonymous friend and her young man with his lost legacy. Of
course, by sheer accident, I made it much easier for her to pitch me
this yarn, and I swallowed it whole. She thought that, with some
blackening of her own conscience, she had saved an innocent man’s
life.”
“And that’s all she knows, so far?”
“No, at the end of lunch she heard you, Miles, saying that you’d give
me half an hour to talk things over. So when she saw us stealing down
to the now familiar trysting-place by the mill—she hadn’t gone to the
funeral—she followed us and listened again. And, to her horror, she
realized from what you said that all her lying had failed to do its
work. Leyland still believed, believed more than ever, that her young
man was the criminal. Her anxiety put her off her guard, and a sudden
sneeze gave her away. She didn’t dare go back to the house; she hid in
the privet-hedge.”
“And the long and short of it is,” suggested Leyland, “that her story
is no evidence at all. Simmonds may be as guilty or as innocent as you
like; she knew nothing about it. Can she give any account of
Simmonds’s movements on the night of the murder?”
“Well, she says she had to be in the bar up to closing time, and then
she slipped round to the back door, where he was waiting for her, and
stood there talking to him.”
“For how long?”
“She says it might have been a quarter of an hour, or it might have
been three quarters of an hour; she really couldn’t say.”
“That sounds pretty thin.”
“How impossible you bachelors are! Miles, can’t you explain to him?
Oh, well, I suppose it’s no use; you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“It’s certainly rather an unfortunate circumstance for Simmonds that,
just at the moment the gas was turned on in Mottram’s room, he was
indulging in a kind of ecstasy which may have lasted a quarter of an
hour, or may have lasted three quarters.”
“Meanwhile,” said Bredon, “I hope you realize that your own case
against Simmonds is considerably weakened? You were trying to make
out, if you remember, that Simmonds murdered Mottram and burned the
will, knowing that the will cut him out of his inheritance. But since
we have learned to discredit the testimony of ‘Raight-ho,’ we have no
evidence that Simmonds ever knew anything about the will, or had ever
so much as heard of the Euthanasia policy.”
“That’s true. And it’s also true that these last discoveries have made
me more inclined to suspect Brinkman. I shall have to keep my eye on
Simmonds, but for the time being Brinkman is the quarry we must hunt.
It’s Brinkman’s confession I look forward to for the prospect of those
forty pounds.”
“Well, if you can catch Brinkman and make him confess, you’re welcome
to them. Or even if Brinkman does himself in somehow, commits suicide
rather than face the question, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,
and we’ll treat it as murder. Meanwhile, if you will excuse me, I
think I’ve just time to lay out that patience before supper.”
“Oh, he’s hopeless,” said Angela.
Chapter XIX
How Leyland Spent the Evening
Bredon was not allowed to escape so easily. Leyland insisted that
their plans must be settled at once, before supper time. “You see,” he
said, “we’ve got to make rings round Brinkman, and he’s got to fancy
that he is not under observation. That’s going to be a difficult job.
But it’s made easy for us, rather, by the fact that Friday night is
cinema night in Chilthorpe.”
“A cinema at Chilthorpe!” protested Mr. Pulteney. “Good God!”
“Yes, there’s a sort of barn out behind the rectory, and one of these
travelling shows comes round once a week or once a fortnight. It’s
extraordinary how civilization has developed, isn’t it? My idea was
this: our friend the barmaid is to come in at supper, and ask us if we
shall be wanting anything for the night, and whether she can go out.
The Boots, she will say quite truthfully, is going to the cinema, and
she wants to do the same. Mrs. Davis will be kept busy at the bar.
Therefore there will be nobody to attend to the bell if we ring—she
will ask us whether we mind that.”
“Machiavellian!” said Mr. Pulteney.
“Then somebody—you, Mrs. Bredon, for choice—will suggest _our_ making
up a party for the cinema. Your husband will refuse, because he wants
to stay at home playing patience.”
“Come, I like this scheme,” said Bredon. “It seems to me to be all on
the right lines. I only hope that you will allow me to be as good as
my word.”
“That’s all right; I’m coming to that. The rest of us will consent to
accompany Mrs. Bredon; Brinkman, presumably, will refuse. Soon after
supper—the performance is at eight—we will all leave the house in the
direction of the cinema, which is fortunately the opposite direction
from the garage.”
“And have I got to sit through an evening performance in the barn?”
asked Angela.
“Why, no; I want you and Mr. Eames to make your way back to the inn,
by turning off along the lane which leads to the old mill; then you
can come in quietly by the privet-hedge at the back. Then I want you,
Mr. Eames, to wait about in the passage which leads to the bar,
dodging down the cellar stairs if Brinkman comes to the bar to have a
fortifier on his way. I hope your reputation will not suffer from
these movements. You will keep your eye on the front of the house, in
case Brinkman goes out that way.”
“He’s a fool if he does,” said Bredon. “In the first place, it’s a
shorter way to the garage to take the path that goes out at the back.
And in the second place, if he takes that path he will be unnoticed,
whereas if he comes out by the front door he will be under the eyes of
the bar parlour.”
“I know, and I am going to discourage him still further from going out
at the front by leaving you to keep a lookout. Your window faces the
front, doesn’t it? Very well, then, you will sit in your room playing
patience, but right in the window-seat, please, and with the blind
up.”
“But I say, if he goes out by the front way, have I got to track him?
Because”——
“No, you haven’t. Mr. Eames is to do that. You sit still where you are
and go on playing patience. Mr. Eames, if Brinkman goes out by the
front door, you will see him; you will wait till he is round the
corner, and then follow him at a distance. That, of course, is only to
make sure what he does on the way to the garage; you are not to
overtake him or interfere with him.”
“I see.”
“And what am I to do?” asked Angela.
“Well, I was wondering if, on returning from our false start, you
would mind going up unnoticed to your husband’s room? The back stairs
are very handy for the purpose. You could sit there reading, or
anything, and then if Brinkman does leave by the front, your husband,
while still sitting at the window and pretending not to notice, could
pass the word to you. You would then go downstairs and ring up the
garage, so that we shall be ready for Brinkman when he comes.”
“That will be a thoroughly typical scene. And are you taking poor Mr.
Pulteney to the post of honour and of danger?”
“If Mr. Pulteney does not object. He knows his way about the garage.”
“I shall be delighted to go where glory waits. If I fall, I hope that
you will put up a plain but tasteful monument over me, indicating that
I died doing somebody else’s duty.”
“And what about your two men?” asked Bredon.
“One of them will be told off to watch Simmonds. As I told you, I
can’t afford to leave Simmonds out of account. The other will wait out
at the back, in a place I have selected; if (or rather when) Brinkman
comes out at the back door to make his way to the garage, my man will
follow him at a distance, and will take his post at the garage door,
in case there’s any rough work there. That, I think, accounts for the
whole party.”
“How long does our vigil last?” asked Eames.
“Not, I imagine beyond nine o’clock. That is the hour at which the
garage shuts; and, although there is a bell by which the proprietor
can be fetched out if necessary, I hardly think that Brinkman would
take the risk. The dusk is closing early this evening, with all these
clouds about; and if, as I strongly suspect, there is a thunder-storm,
it will be a capital night for his purpose. It’s a nuisance for us,
because I haven’t dared to leave any of my watching-parties out of
doors for fear of a deluge.”
If tea had been an embarrassing meal, supper was a positive nightmare.
But when the barmaid, carefully coached by Angela, asked for leave to
go out to the pictures, a perfect piece of acting began. Angela’s
suggestion to her husband was beautifully done, so was his languid
reply; Mr. Pulteney excelled himself in the eagerness with which he
offered to be her cavalier; Leyland’s shew of reluctance over the
programme, and Eames’s humorous resignation to his fate, completed the
picture. Brinkman, after one nerve-racking pause, said he thought on
the whole he would rather be excused. He found the cinema tiring to
the eyes. “Good,” said Bredon; “then you and I will keep the
home-fires burning. It’s true I shall be sitting upstairs, because
I’ve got my patience all laid out up there, and I haven’t the heart to
desert it. But if you’re frightened of thunder, Mr. Brinkman, you can
always come up and have a crack with me.”
The alleged cinema party left at five minutes to eight. By that time
Bredon was already immersed in his mysteries upstairs; and it was
Brinkman, smilingly apologetic, who saw them off at the front door.
“Don’t sit up for us if we’re late, Mr. Brinkman,” said Angela, with
the woman’s instinct of overdoing an acted part; “we’ll throw
brickbats in at my husband’s window.” The inn door, with its
ridiculous panes of blue and yellow, shut behind them, and they heard
the unsuspecting footsteps of their victim climbing the stairs. As
they passed down the street, a few drops of rain were falling, uneasy
presages of the storm. Angela quickened her pace; she had not carried
realism to the extent of arming herself with an umbrella. It was, in
truth, but a short distance she and Eames had to travel; they were
only just out of sight round a bend of the street when they doubled
back upon the lane by which they were to return to the inn. At the
entrance of it they met Emmeline, with the Boots in attendance; it was
difficult not to believe that, upon arrival at the cinema, he would be
replaced by a more favoured escort. Leyland and Pulteney just stood
long enough at the turning to make sure that all had gone well, and
then continued their journey to the garage.
Here all was clearly in readiness; the proprietor was waiting for them
at the door to receive his orders.
“Look here,” said Leyland, “this gentleman and I are going to watch
for a bit in here. Where’s the telephone? Ah, that’s all right; very
well, we’ll get behind this lorry. If anybody comes into the garage
and wants you, he can ring that bell, can’t he? And if anybody rings
up on the telephone, we’ll take the message; and if it’s for you, not
for us, we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, I suppose you and your mate can
keep in the background?”
“That’s all right, sir, there won’t be any difficulty about that.
About how long might you be requiring the use of the garage for, sir?”
“Till nine o’clock—that’s your closing time, isn’t it? Any
objections?”
“There ain’t no difficulty, sir, except that I’ve got to take my car
out: I’ve got to meet a gentleman who’s coming down on the 8.40 train.
But if I take it straight out, and don’t waste any time over it,
that’ll be all right, won’t it? She’s all ready for starting.”
“Very well. Twenty minutes to nine—or I suppose you’ll want it about
twenty-five to. Well, you may see us when you come back, or you may
not. There’s nothing else, then.”
As the proprietor withdrew behind the door which led into the workshop
at the back, Leyland and Pulteney took up their stand behind a
hay-waggon which afforded them generous concealment. Even as they did
so, a sudden wink of lightning illuminated the outlines of the garage
and the road outside; it was followed by a distant sound of thunder.
The wind had got up by now, and was moaning uneasily among the rafters
of the building, which was no better than an open barn.
“Our performance could hardly have been better staged,” murmured the
old gentleman. “I only regret the absence of a revolver. Not that I
should have any idea how to use a lethal weapon, but it would give me
more sense of derring do. It is singularly unfortunate that, even if I
narrate the events of this evening to my pupils next term, they will
not believe me. They suspect any information which comes from such a
source. To you, I suppose, this is an everyday affair?”
“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Pulteney. Most of a detective’s life is
spent sitting in an office filling up forms, like any bank clerk. I’ve
got a revolver with me myself, but I’m not expecting any shooting.
Brinkman doesn’t strike me as being that kind of customer.”
“Is it intended that I should precipitate myself upon the miscreant
and overpower him, or where exactly do my services come in?”
Leyland was rather at a loss to answer. The truth was, he did not
quite trust Mr. Pulteney, and he thought it best for that reason to
keep him by his side. “Well,” he said, “two heads are better than one
if it comes to a sudden alteration of plans. But there isn’t going to
be any difficulty about catching our friend. If he comes out by the
back, he’ll have my man shadowing him. If he should come out by the
front, he will have Mr. Eames shadowing him. So he will be caught
between two fires.”
“But it might be difficult for Mr. Eames to catch him if he were
already in the motor-car and driving it.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Pulteney. I’ve fixed that car so that
nobody’s going to get her to move unless I want him to. It’s the devil
of a night, this. I hope Brinkman won’t funk it.”
They seemed, indeed, to be in the very centre of a thunder-storm,
though it was nowhere quite close at hand. Every few seconds, from
some unexpected quarter, the whole sky seemed to wink twice in rapid
succession, and with the wink the roofs of Chilthorpe would suddenly
stand out silhouetted, and a pale glare fell on the white road
outside. Rain lashed upon the roof above them, and for a few minutes
every gutter spouted and every seam in the tiles let in a pattering
flood; then, without a word of warning, the rain would die down once
more. Occasionally the lightning would manifest itself closer, great
jagged streaks across the sky that looked as if they were burying
themselves in the hill summits above the town. When the elements were
at rest for a moment, there was an uncanny stillness on every side;
not a dog barked, not a footstep clattered down the deserted street.
Attuned as their nerves were to the thunder, they both started as if
in panic when the telephone bell rang. Leyland was at the instrument
in a moment, and heard Angela’s cool voice asking for him at the other
end.
“Is that you, Mr. Leyland? Brinkman has just left the hotel by the
front door. . . . Yes, the _front_ door. I didn’t see him myself, of
course, but my husband said he came out quite coolly, just looking up
at our window as if to see whether he was watched. Then I came
straight to the telephone. I just looked in at the bar passage, and
found that Mr. Eames was not there, so I suppose he has followed.
Shall I give any message to the man at the back? Oh, all right. . . .
Yes, he was carrying a despatch-box, which looks as if he would round
up with you before long. . . . All right, we’ll expect you when we see
you.”
“That sounds all right,” said Leyland to his companion. “We’d best
take cover. Though why on earth the man came out by the front
door—Gad, he must be a cool customer! To walk out with his bag from
the front door, and wander in here asking for his car! Keep well
behind the lorry, Mr. Pulteney. . . . Hullo, what’s that?”
The door of the workshop opened, and the proprietor appeared, drawing
on a pair of motoring-gloves. “Sorry, sir, it’s twenty-five to; got to
go and pick up my gent. Bad night for a drive, with the rain on your
wind-screen, and this lightning blinding you every other second.”
“Hurry up, man, get clear,” said Leyland impatiently. “He’ll be here
in a moment. As you come back, you might stop at the _Load of
Mischief_, because we may want a car.”
There was a drumming and a grinding, and the taxi bounded out on to
the roadway. Leyland and Pulteney drew back behind the lorry, and
waited for the sound of a footfall. They heard the hoot of the taxi as
it passed the turning at the bridge; they heard the scrape as it
changed gears a little late on the hill road; then the noise died
down, and there was silence. Two flashes of lightning, with the
thunder following quick on them; then silence again. Five minutes
passed, ten minutes, and still they sat on in the half-darkness.
Leyland’s mind was in a whirl of agitation. Granted that Brinkman had
taken some circuitous route, to avoid observation, was it likely that
he should take so long as this? He had had time to carry his luggage
all round the township by now. . . . Suddenly, from up the street,
came a sound of running footsteps. Leyland gripped his revolver and
waited with drawn breath.
Chapter XX
How Bredon Spent the Evening
Bredon had undoubtedly secured the best occupation for the evening.
For two whole days he had missed the feeling of cards between his
hands, and now he returned with a great hunger to his favourite
pastime. True, the circumstances were not ideal. It was thoughtless of
Leyland to have insisted on his sitting so close to the window; there
was, fortunately, a window-seat, but not generous enough in its
proportions to secure a convenient lay-out of the cards. The rows,
instead of lying flat, had to climb over downs and gullies in the
faded chintz; the result was an occasional avalanche, and a
corresponding loss of temper. In an ideal world, Bredon reflected, you
would have a large building like a racquet-court to play patience in,
and you would wheel yourself up and down between the rows in an
invalid’s chair.
There was a soft rustle at the door, and Angela came in. “Oo, I’ve
been feeling so nice and stealthy,” she said. “Mr. Eames and I crept
back down the lane like burglars. It was better than a cinema, I can
tell you! We dodged round the privet-hedge, and came in through the
back of Mrs. Davis’s kitchen. And I thought the back stairs would
never stop creaking. Did you hear me coming up?”
“I can’t say I did. But you see, I was otherwise engaged. To a man
like Brinkman, on the alert for every noise, your progress probably
sounded like a charge of cavalry. You’re sure you shut the door
properly? I need hardly say that a sudden draught would be a disaster
to all my best hopes. A little knitting is indicated for you, Angela,
to steady the mind.”
“Don’t you talk too much. If Brinky came out and saw your lips moving
it might worry him. Remember, you’re supposed to be alone in the room.
Though indeed he probably regards you as potty by now in any case, so
it wouldn’t surprise him to see you talking to yourself. Words cannot
depict the shame I have felt this evening at having such a lazy
husband. Talk of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning!”
“Say rather, Drake insisting on finishing his game of bowls. Or was it
William Tell? I forget. Anyhow, this is the fine old British spirit.
What’s the word? Not undaunted—imperturbable, that’s what I mean. The
myrmidons of Scotland Yard bustle to and fro outside; the great
detective sits calmly within, with all the strings in his hands. My
nets begin to close tighter round them, Watson. Dash it all, I believe
Pulteney’s let me down. Where’s his other two of spades?”
“I don’t want to be unpleasant, but you will perhaps allow me to
remind you that you are supposed to be on the lookout. If Brinky comes
out in front, you are to report to me. And how are you to see him, if
you will go scavenging about under the window-seat like that?”
“Well, you’ll jolly well have to find my two of spades, then, while I
keep an eye on the street. Fair division of labour. Watchman, what of
the night? There’s going to be a jolly fine thunder-storm. Did you see
that flash? I deduce that there will shortly be a slight roll of
thunder. There, what did I tell you?”
“It’s not so much the innate laziness of the man,” murmured Angela, as
if to herself, “it’s his self-sufficiency! Here’s your beastly two of
spades; don’t lose it again. You ought to have the cards tied round
your neck with a piece of string. I say, aren’t you excited? Do you
think Brinky will show fight when they nab him in the garage?”
“Don’t fluster me. I wish to be secluded from the world. Here before
me lies a very pretty problem, represented by two hundred and eight
pieces of pasteboard. Behind that, in the dim background of my
half-awake consciousness, lies a very pretty problem in detection. It
is my boast that I can do both at once. But how am I to do either if
women will chatter at me?”
“Passengers are requested not to speak to the man at the wheel. All
right, Aunty, go on with your silly game. I’m going to knit. It
doesn’t feel quite womanly to knit, somehow, with a thing like you in
the room.”
There was silence for a while, as Bredon sat over his cards, with an
occasional glance at the street below him. There is said to be a man
who has invented a Chinese typewriter; and since (they tell us) every
word in the Chinese language has its own symbol—the fault of
Confucius, for not thinking of letters—the machine is said to be of
the size and shape of a vast organ, and the typist runs to and fro,
pulling out a stop here, pressing down a pedal there, in a whirl of
activity. Not otherwise did Bredon appear when he saw the
possibilities of a particular gambit in his patience; then he would
sit for a while lost in thought, puzzling out combinations for the
future. Below him, the street lay in an unearthly half-darkness. Lamps
should not have been needed by this time on a June evening, but the
thick mantle of clouds had taken away all that was left of the sun’s
departing influence, and it was a twilit world that lay below. He
could see a broad splash of light from the front door, and, further
along, the mellower radiance diffused by the bar windows, with their
drawn red blinds. From time to time a sudden flare of lightning
illuminated the whole prospect, and shamed these human lights into
insignificance.
“Angela,” said Bredon suddenly, without turning round, “I don’t know
if it interests you at all, but a stealthy figure has crept out into
the moonlight. At least, there isn’t any moonlight, but still, those
irritatingly twirled moustaches, that supercilious pince-nez—can it
be? It is—our old friend Brinkman. He carries a despatch-box, but no
other luggage. He is passing down the street in the direction of the
turning; perhaps making for the garage—who shall say? He is looking
round at this window. Ha! ’tis well, I am observed. Anyhow, it’s up to
you to go to the telephone this time.”
Angela’s self-possession was more of a pose. She sprang up in a hurry,
dropping her knitting as she rose, and threw the door open silently
but swiftly; then, as silently, as swiftly, it shut again behind her.
But not before irretrievable damage had been done. The evening was
full of those sudden gusts and air-currents which a thunder-storm
brings with it. One of these, synchronizing with the sudden opening of
the door, neatly lifted up three of the cards from the window-seat,
and swept them out into the open air.
Bredon was intensely annoyed, and somewhat puzzled as to his duty. On
the one hand, it was impossible to go on with the game when three
cards, whose values he could not remember, were missing from a row. On
the other hand, Leyland’s instructions had been explicit; he was to
sit at the window without stirring. Then common sense came to his aid.
After all, Brinkman was no longer in sight; even if he were still
watching from the corner, he would never suspect that a movement in
the room upstairs portended discovery. With a great effort Bredon
heaved himself up from the chair into which he had sunk, opened the
door delicately for fear of fresh draughts, and in half a minute’s
time was searching before the front of the inn for his truant
pasteboard.
The king of spades, good. And here was the three of diamonds. But
there was one other card; he was certain of it. A friendly flash of
lightning gave him a sudden snapshot of the road; Brinkman was out of
sight; another figure, Eames presumably, was already making for the
turning. But there was no card in the street; no deceptive fragments
of paper, even, to catch the eye. He looked round, baffled. Then his
eye caught the sight of an open ground-floor window, that of the “best
room.” Could the fluttering runaway have dived indoors again? He put
his head in through the window; there it lay, close to the occasional
table with the photograph album on it. He was back through the front
door in an instant, and making his way upstairs again with his prize.
“Great Scott!” he said, aloud, as he regained his room, “could that
possibly be it? That would mean, of course . . . hang it all, what
would that mean? Ah! That’s more like it.” The patience lay all round
him, forgotten for the moment; his eyes sparkled, his hands gripped
the arms of his chair.
When Angela came back from the telephone, she was astonished at the
change that had come over her husband. He was standing on the fender
with his back to the empty grate, swinging himself to and fro while he
carolled a snatch from an out-of-date musical repertoire:
“All the girls began to cry, ‘Hi, hi, hi, Mister Mackay,
Take us with you when you fly back to the Isle of Skye,’”
were the actual words that greeted her entrance.
“Miles, dear,” she expostulated, “whatever’s the matter? Have you got
it out?”
“What, the patience? No, I don’t think the patience is coming out just
yet. But I’ve got a very strong suspicion that our little detective
mystery is coming out. As you are up, I wonder if it would be
troubling you too much to ask you to step down to Mrs. Davis and ask
her if she ever cut any sandwiches for Mr. Brinkman?”
“My poor, poor dear!” said Angela; but she went. She knew the signs of
a victory in her husband’s erratic deportment. He was still crooning
softly to himself when she came back with her message.
“Mrs. Davis says that she doesn’t remember ever to have cut any
‘sangwiches,’ not for Mr. Brinkman she didn’t. Mr. Pulteney, now, he
often takes a nice ‘sangwich’ with him when he goes out fishing. Not
that she always makes them herself, because the girl cuts as nice a
‘sangwich’ as you’d wish to see. But Mr. Brinkman he didn’t order any
‘sangwiches,’ not all this week he hasn’t. That’s all the message. At
least, I came away at that point.”
“Good! The case progresses. Let me call your attention to this
singular absence of ‘sangwich’-cutting on the part of Mrs. Davis.
Angela, I’m right on the track of the beastly thing, and you mustn’t
disturb me.”
“Have you really worked it all out?”
“No, not quite all; but I’m in the sort of stage where the great
detective says, ‘Good God, what a blind bat I have been!’ As a matter
of fact, I don’t think I’ve been a blind bat at all. On the contrary,
I think it’s dashed clever of me to have got hold of the thing now.
It’s more than you have.”
“Miles, you’re not to be odious. Tell me all about it, and I’ll see
what I think of you.”
“Who was it laughed at me for staying at home and playing patience
while other people did the work? No, you shan’t hear about it; besides
I haven’t fitted it all together yet.”
“Well, anyhow, you might tell me whether you’ve won the forty quid or
lost it.”
“Not a word shall you get out of me at present.”
“Then I’ll make Mr. Leyland arrest you and torture you with
thumb-screws. By the way, I wonder what Mr. Leyland’s doing? Brinky
must have got to the garage by now, and I should have thought he would
have brought him straight back here.”
“The garage? Oh, yes. At least, wait a minute. . . . Of course, now I
come to think of it, there’s no real reason to suppose that Brinkman
meant to take the car out at all.”
Chapter XXI
How Eames Spent the Evening
Eames stood behind the window of the passage into the bar parlour,
making sure that there was no light behind him to show a silhouette.
Yes, there was no doubt, it was Brinkman who had stepped out into the
twilight of the street; Brinkman with a despatch-box in his hand;
Brinkman on the run. He waited until the street corner hid the
fugitive from view, then crammed on his soft hat and followed. He was
not an expert at this sort of game, but fortunately there was not much
to be done. Brinkman would obviously make for the garage, and when he
had passed through the open doors of it, it would be easy for him,
Eames, to slink up behind and post himself outside the gateway to
prevent a sudden rush. Hang it all, though, why hadn’t the man gone
out by the back lane?
And then he saw that he had counted on his luck too soon. Brinkman had
reached the turning, and had not made for the garage after all. He had
turned his back on it, and was starting out on the Pullford Road, the
road toward the gorge and the Long Pool. This was outside all their
calculations; what on earth could the man be up to? Not only was he
deserting his car, he was deserting the garage, and with it all the
available petrol-power of Chilthorpe. He could not be walking to
Pullford, a distance of twenty miles more or less. He could hardly
even be walking to Lowgill Junction, eight miles off, though that
would, of course, bring him onto the main line. Chilthorpe Station
would be hopeless at this time of night; no strand remained to connect
it with civilization. No, if Brinkman took this road, he must be
taking it only to return along it.
And yet, was it safe to reckon on that? Was it safe to make straight
for the garage, and warn Leyland of what was happening? If he did
that, he must let Brinkman out of his sight; and his orders were not
to let Brinkman out of his sight. Eames was in the habit of obeying
orders, and he obeyed. It would need cautious going, for, if Brinkman
turned in his tracks, it was not unlikely that he would walk straight
into the arms of his pursuer. Very cautiously then, flattening himself
in doorways or hiding behind clumps of broom and furze on the
roadside, Eames stalked his man at a distance of some thirty yards. It
was difficult work in the half-darkness, but those sudden, revealing
flashes of lightning made it unsafe to go nearer. They had left the
last of the houses, and were now reaching the forked roads a little
way up the hill. If Brinkman took the lower road, it must be Lowgill
Junction he was making for; that would make easy work for his
pursuers, who could ride him down in a fast motor. Surely it could not
be that; surely he could not be turning his back on the motor and the
thousand pounds!
No, he was not making for Lowgill. He took the hill turning instead;
that led either to the railway station or across the moors to
Pullford. In either case every step was taking the hunted man farther
away from help. “If he goes as far as the first milestone,” Eames said
to himself, “I’ll defy my orders and cut back to the garage, so that
they can get the car out and follow him. Confound it all, what’s the
man doing now?”
Brinkman had left the high road, and was making his way deliberately
down the field-path that led to the gorge. This was worse than ever;
the path was steep, and Eames, although he carried an electric torch
which Bredon had lent him, did not dare to use it for fear of
betraying himself. He could not guess the significance of this last
move. There was no road Brinkman could be making for, unless he
returned to this same road at the other end of the gorge, a few
hundred yards higher up. Was it safe to wait at the beginning of the
path? Was it safe to follow along the road, flanking his movements
from above? Once more Eames had to fall back upon his orders. There
was only one way of keeping his man in sight, and that was to stick to
his heels. It would mean, probably, some nasty stumbles in the
half-darkness, but it was too late to consider that. At least, the
fir-trees and the bracken made it easier to follow unseen. And the
fir-trees kept off a little of the rain, which was now driving
fiercely upon his overcoat, and clogging the knees of his trousers
with damp. Never mind, he had his orders.
Any kind of scenery achieves dignity in a thunder-storm; but rocky
scenery in particular is ennobled by the combination. Under those
quivering flashes, the two sides of the valley with the river running
in between looked like the wings of a gigantic butterfly shaking off
the pitiless dew that was falling on them. The opening of the gorge
itself, with the slant of the shadows as the lightning’s glare failed
to reach its depths, was like an illustration to the “Inferno.” The
rain on the hillside turned to diamond drops as it reflected the
flashes; “the fire ran along the ground,” thought Eames to himself. It
was a sight to make a man forget his present occupations, if those
occupations had been less pressing and less sinister.
Brinkman himself either did not carry a torch or did not use it. His
pace was leisurely on the whole, though he seemed to quicken his step
a little when the church clock struck half-past eight. By that time he
was already at the opening of the gorge. This took him out of sight,
and Eames, secure in the cover which the dark tufts of fern afforded,
ran forward over the spongy grass to creep up nearer to him. The gorge
itself, ominous at all times, was particularly formidable under such
skies as these. The half-light enabled one to see the path, but (to a
man unaccustomed to his surroundings) suggested the ever-present
possibility of losing one’s foothold; and when the lightning came, it
revealed the angry torrent beneath with unpleasant vividness.
Fortunately the noise of the elements deadened the sound of feet on
the hard rock. Eames hesitated for one moment, and then followed along
the narrow path that led up the gorge.
He could just see the dim figure that went before him as it reached
the wider foothold at the middle of the gorge, where Brinkman and
Bredon had interrupted their conversation to comment on the shape of
the rocks, Then it halted, and Eames halted too; he was now less than
twenty yards behind, and he was at the last turn in the rock which
could promise him any shelter from observation. He did well to halt,
for while he stood there a huge tree of lightning seemed to flash out
from the opposite side of the valley, and, for an interval which could
be counted in seconds, the whole landscape lay open to view as if in
hard daylight.
Eames’s eyes were riveted upon a single spot; he had thoughts for
nothing but the sudden and inexplicable behaviour of Brinkman. In that
flash, he saw the little man leaping up in the air, his right hand
outstretched at full arm’s length, as if to reach the top, or
something behind the top, of that very ledge which in the morning he
had compared to the rack in a railway carriage. Indeed, Brinkman
himself looked not unlike some juvenile traveller who just cannot
reach the parcel he wants to bring down, and must needs jump for it.
What was the object of Brinkman’s manœuvre did not appear, nor even
whether he was trying to take something down from the ledge or to put
something onto it. But the grotesque attitude, momentarily revealed in
that single spotlight of the thunder-storm, was perfectly
unmistakable.
The prolonged glare left Eames momentarily blinded, like one who has
just passed a car with very powerful headlights. When he saw clearly
again, the dark figure under the ledge was gone. Could Brinkman have
taken alarm? He had looked backward after his absurd leap, like a man
who felt he was pursued. In any case, Eames must press forward now, or
he would lose his quarry altogether. . . . By the time he had reached
the ledge a new flash came and showed him, at the very end of the
gorge, Brinkman running as if for his life. There was no more sense in
concealment; he must mend his own pace too; and that was impossible,
on this narrow shelf of rock, unless he lit his torch. Lighting it, he
took one look at the ledge toward which Brinkman had been jumping,
and, by reason of his superior height, saw without difficulty an
envelope which looked as if it must be the explanation of Brinkman’s
gesture. He reached it with little trouble, put it in his pocket, and
ran. As he ran he heard the hum of a motor engine on the road above
him.
The scramble up the bank at the further end of the gorge was less
formidable than he had feared, for he kept his torch alight, and he
made a pace very creditable for his years. But even as he breasted the
level of the roadway, he saw a car climbing the hill, doubtless
carrying Brinkman with it. He cried to the driver to stop, but a
volley of thunder drowned his utterance. He turned impotently, and
began running down the hill: in ten minutes or so, at this pace, he
should be at the garage. But as he ran he took the envelope out of his
pocket and scanned its superscription by the light of his torch. It
read: “To His Lordship the Bishop of Pullford. Private and
Confidential.” He thrust it away, wondering; but a short-winded man
running has no taste for puzzles. Would it be any use turning in to
the _Load of Mischief_, and letting somebody else carry his message
the rest of the way? Hardly; and a double set of explanations would be
a waste of precious time.
He reached the garage panting too heavily for speech, and, in answer
to a challenge in Leyland’s voice, turned his own torch on himself for
identification. Then, leaning wearily against the front of the lorry,
he blurted out his explanations. “He’s gone—motor-car—toward
Pullford—couldn’t stop him—better follow him up—didn’t look a fast
car—lost him at the gorge—take me with you, and I’ll explain.”
“Yes, but curse it all, has he made for Pullford or for Lowgill? We
must try Lowgill; we can telegraph from there, anyhow, and have him
stopped. Hullo, who next?”
Angela had rushed in, hatless, to announce Breton’s cryptic
observation about the car. She knew his mysterious moods, and felt
that it was best to make straight for Leyland, especially as her car
was the only fast one in the township. “Right you are,” she said, when
the situation had been outlined to her; “I’ll drive you both into
Lowgill; jump up.”
“Mr. Pulteney,” said Leyland, “do you mind going to the stables at the
back of the inn to find my man who’s waiting there? Tell him what’s
happened, say he’s to get onto the telephone, break into the
post-office if necessary, and warn Pullford and Lowgill. He may just
have time to head the man off. Oh, by the way, he won’t know who you
are, may take you for Brinkman. Say, ‘Here we are again,’ loudly—do
you mind?—when you’re outside the stable.”
“It will be a novel experience,” said Mr. Pulteney.
Chapter XXII
At a Standstill
It was nearly eleven o’clock before Angela returned; and, since she
resolutely refused to disclose anything about her movements unless
Bredon divulged his theory, there were no explanations at all that
night. “It’s not that I’m inquisitive,” she explained, “but I do want
to break you of that bad habit of obstinacy.” “Well, well,” said
Bredon, “if you choose to drag my name in the dust, not to mention my
car, by these midnight expeditions, there’s no more to be said.” And
no more was said.
They found Leyland already at breakfast when they came down. He had
been up, he said, since six, making inquiries in every conceivable
direction. “I must say,” he added, “it wasn’t Mrs. Bredon’s fault we
didn’t catch our man last night.”
“The woman was reckless, I suppose, as usual?” asked Bredon.
“Oo, no,” said Angela in self-defence, “I only got her going a
little.”
“It’s eight miles to Lowgill by the signposts,” said Leyland, “and a
little more in real life. Mrs. Bredon did it—and, remember, the
gradients are far worse than those on the Pullford road—in just over
twelve minutes. But we’d no luck. The up-train from Lowgill—it’s the
only one of the big expresses that stops there—had just gone before we
arrived. And, of course, we couldn’t tell whether Brinkman had gone on
it or not. His car passed us on the road, only a few hundred yards
from the station, and we hadn’t time to stop.”
“What car was he in?”
“That’s the devilish part of it—I’m sorry, Mrs. Bredon.”
“That’s the damnable part of it,” amended Angela serenely. “It was the
car from the garage; and it sailed out at twenty-five minutes to nine,
under Mr. Leyland’s nose. Even the sleuthlike brain of Mr. Pulteney
didn’t realize what was happening.”
“You see,” explained Leyland, “it was a very well-arranged plant.
Brinkman had rung up earlier in the afternoon, asking the garage to
meet the late train which gets in to Chilthorpe at 8.40. He gave the
name of Merrick. The garage naturally asked no questions as to where
the message came from; they’re always meeting that late train. And, of
course, they assumed that there was somebody _arriving_ by that train.
Then, when the man had got a little way out of the town, just above
the gorge there, he was stopped on the road by a passenger with a
despatch-box in his hand, who was walking in the direction of
Chilthorpe, as if coming from the station. He waved at the car, and
asked if it was for Mr. Merrick; then he explained that he was in a
great hurry, because he wanted to catch the express at Lowgill. It was
a perfectly normal thing to want to do, and there wasn’t much time to
do it in; so the man went all out, and just caught the express in
time. He didn’t know who we were when we passed him, and it wasn’t
till he got back to Chilthorpe that he realized what he’d done.
Meanwhile, who’s to say whether Brinkman stopped at Lowgill, or really
got into the express?”
“Or took the later train back to Pullford?” suggested Bredon.
“No, we kept a good lookout to see that he didn’t do that. But the
other uncertainty remained, and it was fatal to my plans. I sent word
to London to have the train watched when it got in, giving a
description of Brinkman; but of course that’s never any use. In half
an hour or so I shall get a telegram from London to say they’ve found
nothing.”
“You couldn’t have the express stopped down the line?”
“I’d have liked to, of course. But it’s a mail train, and it’s always
full of rich people in first-class carriages. Give me a local train on
a Saturday night, and I’ll have it stopped and searched and all the
passengers held up for two hours, and not so much as a letter to the
papers about it. But if you stop one of these big expresses on the
chance of heading off a criminal, and nothing comes of it, there’ll be
questions asked in the House of Commons. And I was in a bad position,
you see. I can’t prove that Brinkman was a murderer. Not at present,
anyhow. If he’d run off in Mottram’s car, I could have arrested him
for car-stealing, but he hadn’t. Why, he even paid Mrs. Davis’s bill!”
“Do you mean to say he asked for his bill yesterday afternoon, and we
never heard of it?”
“No, he calculated it out exactly, left a tip of two shillings for the
barmaid, and went off leaving the money on his chest of drawers.”
“What about his suitcase?”
“It wasn’t his, it was Mottram’s. He carried off all his own things in
the despatch-box. Apart from the fact that he gave a false name to the
garage people, his exit was quite _en règle_. And it’s dangerous to
stop a train and arrest a man like that. Added to which, it was
perfectly possible that he was lying doggo at Lowgill.”
It was at this point that Mr. Pulteney sailed into the room. The old
gentleman was rubbing his hands briskly in the enjoyment of
retrospect; he had scarce any need of breakfast, you would have said,
so richly was he chewing the cud of his experiences overnight. “What a
day I have spent!” he exclaimed. “I have examined a motor-car, and
even opened part of its mechanism, without asking the owner’s leave. I
have been suspected of murder. I have set up in an extremely draughty
garage, waiting to pounce upon a criminal. And, to crown it all, I
have approached a total stranger with the words ‘Here we are again.’
Really life has nothing more to offer me. But where is Mr. Eames?”
“We took him to Lowgill with us,” explained Angela, “and when he got
there he insisted on taking the late train back to Pullford. He said
he had something to talk over with the Bishop. He has left some
pyjamas and a toothbrush here as hostages, and says he will look in on
us in the course of the day to reclaim them. So you’ll see him again.”
“A remarkable man. A shrewd judge of character. He recognized me at
once as a man of reflection. God bless my soul! Do I understand that
Mrs. Davis has provided us with sausages?”
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” said Angela. “She must have felt that the
occasion had to be marked out somehow. And she was so pleased at
having her bill paid. I don’t think Brinky can have been such an
unpleasant man, after all.”
“Believe me,” said Leyland earnestly, “there is no greater mistake
than to suppose your criminal is a man lost to all human feelings. It
is perfectly possible for Brinkman to have murdered his master, and
have been prepared to run off with a car and a thousand pounds which
didn’t belong to him, and yet to have shrunk from the prospect of
leaving an honest woman like Mrs. Davis the poorer for his visit. We
are men, you see, and we are not made all in one piece.”
“But how odd of him to pop off into the gorge like that! I mean, it’s
a very jolly place, they tell me; and we know Brinky admired the
scenery of it, because he told my husband so. But isn’t it rather odd
of him to have wanted to take a long, last lingering look at it before
he bolted for South America?”
“It is perfectly possible that it may have had a fascination for him,”
assented Leyland. “But I think his conduct was more reasonable than
you suppose. After all, by coming up at the farther end of the gorge
he managed to make it look quite natural when the motor found him
walking in the direction of Chilthorpe. And, more than that, I have
little doubt that he knew he was followed. Eames is a most capable
fellow, but he must, I think, have followed his man a little
carelessly, and so given himself away. Brinkman probably thought that
it was Bredon who was following him.”
“Because he did it so badly, you mean?” suggested Angela. “Miles, you
shouldn’t throw bread at breakfast, it’s rude.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant that he had reason to believe Mr. Eames
was at the cinema, whereas he knew Bredon was in the house, and saw
him sitting in a window that looks down over the street. Almost
inevitably he must have supposed that it was the watcher in the front
of the house who had followed in his tracks.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Bredon. “I’m afraid, you see, when my
wife went out of the room, she opened the door in that careless way
she has, and three of my cards fell into the street below. Well, I
thought Brinkman had disappeared; there was no sign of him. So I went
downstairs and retrieved the cards, thinking it couldn’t do any harm.
But I’ve been wondering since whether Brinkman wasn’t still watching,
and whether my disappearance from the window didn’t give him the first
hint that he was being followed. I’m awfully sorry.”
“Well, I don’t expect it made any difference. He was a cool hand, you
see. I suppose he thought your sitting in the window must be a trap,
and that the house was really watched at the back. He wasn’t far wrong
there, of course.”
“Indeed he was not,” assented Mr. Pulteney. “You seem to me to have
posted a singularly lynx-eyed gentleman in the stables.”
“And so, you see, he thought he’d brazen it out. He reckoned on being
followed, but that didn’t matter to him as long as the man behind was
a good distance off, and as long as he himself made sure of picking up
his car at the right moment. The whole thing was monstrously
mismanaged on my part. But, you see, I made absolutely certain that he
was going for Mottram’s car, in which he’d obviously made all the
necessary preparations. Even now I can’t understand how he consented
so calmly to leave the car behind him. Unless, of course, he spotted
that we were watching the garage, and knew that it would be unsafe.
But he must be crippled for money without his thousand.”
“My husband,” said Angela mischievously, “seemed to know beforehand
that he wouldn’t go off in Mottram’s car.”
“Yes, by the way,” asked Leyland, “how was that?”
“I’m sorry, it ought to have occurred to me earlier. It never dawned
on me till the moment when I mentioned it, and of course then it was
too late. But it was merely the result of a reasoning process which
had been going on in my own mind. I had been trying to work things
out, and it seemed to me that I had arrived at an explanation which
would cover all the facts. And that explanation, though it didn’t
exclude the possibility that Brinkman intended to skip with the
thousand and the car, didn’t make it absolutely necessary that he
should mean to.”
“I suppose you’re still hankering after suicide?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But, hang it all, though there’s little enough that’s clear, it’s
surely clear by now that Brinkman was a wrong ’un. And if he was a
wrong ’un, what can his motive have been throughout unless he was
Mottram’s murderer? I don’t associate innocence with a sudden flitting
at nightfall, and a bogus name given in when you order the car to take
you to the station.”
“Still, it’s not enough to have a general impression that a man is a
wrong ’un, and hang him on the strength of it. You must discover a
motive for which he would have done the murder, and a method by which
he could have done it. Are you prepared to produce those?”
“Why, yes,” said Leyland. “I don’t profess to have all the details of
the case at my fingers’ ends; but I’m prepared to give what seems to
me a rational explanation of all the circumstances. And it’s an
explanation which contends that Mottram met his death by murder.”
Chapter XXIII
Leyland’s Account of It All
“Of course, as to the motive,” went on Leyland, “I am not absolutely
sure that I can point to a single one. But a combination of motives is
sufficient, if the motives are comparatively strong ones. On the
whole, I am inclined to put the thousand pounds first. For a rich man,
Mottram did not pay his secretary very well; and at times, I
understand, he talked of parting with him. Brinkman knew that the sum
was in Mottram’s possession, for it was he himself who cashed the
cheque at the bank. It was only a day or two before they came down
here. On the other hand, I doubt if Brinkman knew where the money was;
plainly Mottram didn’t trust him very much, or he wouldn’t have taken
the trouble to sew the money in the cushions of the car. When I first
found the cache, I assumed that Brinkman knew of its existence, and
that was one of the reasons why I felt so certain that he would make
straight for the garage. Now, I’m more inclined to think he fancied he
would find the money among Mottram’s effects, which he must have hoped
to examine in the interval before the arrival of the police.”
“Then you don’t think the Euthanasia had anything to do with it after
all?” asked Bredon.
“I wouldn’t say that. There’s no doubt that Brinkman was a rabid
anti-clerical—Eames was talking to me about that—and I think it’s
quite likely he would have welcomed, in any case, an opportunity of
getting Mottram out of the way provided that the death looked like
suicide. The appearance of suicide would have the advantage, as we
have all seen, that the Indescribable wouldn’t pay up. But he wanted,
in any case, to give the murder the appearance of suicide, in order to
save his own skin.”
“Then you think both motives were present to his mind?”
“Probably. I suppose there is little doubt that he knew of the danger
to Mottram’s health, and the consequent danger, from his point of
view, that the money would go to the Pullford Diocese. But I don’t
think that motive would have been sufficient, if he hadn’t reckoned on
getting away with a thousand pounds which didn’t belong to him.”
“Well, let’s pass the motive,” said Bredon. “I’m interested to hear
your account of the method.”
“Our mistake from the first has been that of not accepting the facts.
We have tried to fit the facts into our scheme, instead of letting the
facts themselves guide us. From the first we were faced with what
seemed to be a hopeless contradiction. The locked door seemed to make
it certain that Mottram was alone when he died. The fact that the gas
was turned off seemed to make it clear that Mottram was _not_ alone
when he died. There was ground for suspecting either suicide or
murder; the difficulty was to make the whole complex of facts fit into
either view. We had made a mistake, I repeat, in not taking the facts
for our guide. The door was locked; that is a fact. Therefore Mottram
was alone from the time he went to bed until the time when the door
was broken in. And at the time when the door was broken in the gas was
found turned off. Somebody must have turned it off, and in order to do
so he must have been in the room. There was only one person in the
room—Mottram. Therefore it was Mottram who turned the gas off.”
“You mean in his last dying moments?”
“No, such a theory would be fantastic. Mottram clearly turned the gas
off in the ordinary way. Therefore, now, mark this, it was not the gas
in Mottram’s room which poisoned Mottram.”
“But hang it all, if it wasn’t in his room”——
“When I say that, I mean it was not the gas which turned on and off in
Mottram’s room. For that gas was turned off. Therefore it must have
been some independent supply of gas which poisoned him.”
“Such as?”
“Doesn’t the solution occur to you yet? The room, remember, is very
low, and the window rather high up in the wall. What is to prevent a
supply of gas being introduced from outside and from above?”
“Good Lord! You don’t mean you think that Brinkman”——
“Brinkman had the room immediately above. Since his hurried departure,
I have had opportunities of taking a better look round it. I was
making some experiments there early this morning. In the first place,
I find that it is possible for a man leaning out of the window in
Brinkman’s room to control with a stick the position of the window in
Mottram’s room—provided always that the window is swinging loose. He
can ensure at will that Mottram’s window stands almost shut, or almost
fully open.”
“Yes, I think that’s true.”
“I find, further, that Brinkman’s room, like Mottram’s, was supplied
with a double apparatus, with a bracket on the wall and with a movable
standard lamp. But whereas the main tap in Mottram’s room was near the
door, and the tube which connected the gas with the standard lamp was
meant to allow the lamp to be put on the writing-table, in Brinkman’s
room it was the other way. The main tap was near the window, and the
tube which connected it with the standard lamp was meant to allow the
lamp to be placed at the bedside. The main tap in Brinkman’s room is
barely a yard from the window. And the tube of the standard lamp is
some four yards long.
“When Mottram went to bed, Brinkman went up to his room. He knew that
Mottram had taken a sleeping draught; that in half an hour or so he
would be asleep, and unconscious of all that went on. So, leaving a
prudent interval of time, Brinkman proceeded as follows. He took the
tube off from the foot of the standard lamp; that is quite an easy
matter. Then he took the tube to the window. With a walking-stick he
slightly opened Mottram’s window down below—it had been left ajar. And
through the opening thus made he let down the tube till the end of it
was in Mottram’s room. Then, with the walking-stick, he shut the
window again, except for a mere crack which was needed to let the tube
through. Then he turned on the guide-tap which fed his standard lamp,
and the gas began to flow through into Mottram’s room. That coil of
tube was a venomous serpent, which could poison Mottram in his sleep,
behind locked doors, and be removed again without leaving any trace
when its deadly work was done.
“Whether it was through carelessness on Brinkman’s part, or whether it
was owing to the wind, that the window swung right open and became
fixed there, I don’t know. In any case, it did not make much
difference to his plans. He had now succeeded in bringing off the
murder, and in a way which it would have been hard for anybody to
suspect. But there was one more difficulty to be got over: In order to
remove the suspicion of murder, and to make the suspicion of suicide
inevitable, it was necessary to turn on the gas in Mottram’s room.
Now, there was no implement Brinkman could employ which would enable
him to reach Mottram’s gas-tap. He depended, therefore, on bluff. He
made sure that he would be summoned by the Boots when the locked door
forbade entrance. He would force his way in with the Boots; he would
make straight for the tap, and _pretend_ to turn it off. Would anybody
doubt that it was he who had turned it off? The room was full of gas
fumes, and even a man of more intelligence than the Boots would
naturally leap to the conclusion that the gas _must_ have been on, in
order to account for the fumes.
“His plan, you see, was perfect in its preparations. It was an
unexpected interference that prevented its coming off. When Brinkman
was telling you the story, he pretended that it was he who saw Dr.
Ferrers outside, and suggested calling him in. Actually it was the
Boots, according to the story he himself tells, who drew attention to
the presence of Dr. Ferrers and suggested his being called in. This
point, which was of capital importance, was slurred over at the
inquest because nobody saw the bearing of it. Brinkman did not want
Dr. Ferrers to be there; yet the suggestion was too reasonable to be
turned down. Brinkman stationed himself with his shoulder close to the
lock, while Ferrers leant his weight against the door at the other
end, nearest the hinges. Assuming that the lock would give, Brinkman
could rush into the room first and go through the motions of turning
off the gas without attracting suspicion.
“Actually, it was the hinges which gave. Dr. Ferrers, realizing that
the gas must be turned off in order to clear the air, ran straight to
the tap over the _débris_ of the broken door before Brinkman could get
at it. And Ferrers naturally exclaimed in surprise when he found the
tap already turned off. The Boots heard his exclamation; Brinkman’s
plan had fallen through. There was nothing for it but to pretend that
the tap was a loose one, and that Dr. Ferrers had himself turned it
off without noticing it. That was the story, Bredon, which he put up
to you. We know that it was a lie.”
“I don’t quite see,” said Bredon, “how all this works in with the
sandwiches and whisky. In the motor, I mean. What was the idea of
them?”
“Well, Brinkman’s original idea must clearly have been flight. That
was, I take it, when he realized the difficulty which had been created
for him by his failure to reach the gas first. It must have been
before I arrived that he made these preparations—stored the motor with
food and painted out the number-plate at the back. I’ve had him under
pretty careful observation ever since I came here. But that was
Tuesday afternoon, and I have no doubt that his preparations had been
made by then.”
“And why didn’t he skip?”
“I think he was worried by my arrival. You see, he tried to palm off
the suicide story on me, and I didn’t fall to it. If he skipped, he
would confirm me in my conviction that there had been a murder, and,
although he himself might get off scotfree, it would mean that your
Indescribable people would have to pay up to the Bishop of Pullford.
He couldn’t stand the idea of that. He preferred to hang about here,
trying to convince you, because you were already half-convinced, that
the case was one of suicide and that the company was not liable.”
“In fact, he just waited for the funeral, and then made off?”
“No, he waited until he thought he wasn’t watched. It’s a rum
business, shadowing a man; you don’t want him to see exactly who is
shadowing him, or where the man is who is shadowing him; but you do,
very often, want him to know that he is shadowed, because that makes
him lose his head and give himself away. Now, Brinkman didn’t know
what I suspected and didn’t, I think, know about my two men at the
_Swan_. But I contrived to let him see that he was under observation,
and that it wasn’t safe for him to go far out of my sight. It’s an old
game: you give a man that impression, and then you suddenly let on
that he is free—for the moment at any rate. He seizes his chance, and,
with luck, you catch him. He really thought yesterday evening that you
were the only person watching the front of the house. But he was
clever enough, confound him, to see that there might be danger for him
in the garage. So he rang up, ordering a car to meet the 8.40 at
Chilthorpe Station, and then made his arrangements—uncommonly good
ones—for boarding the car en route. And nobody’s to blame, exactly,
but I gravely fear that the murderer has got off scotfree.”
As if in confirmation of his words, the maid came in with a telegram.
He opened it and crushed it in his hand. “As I thought,” he said;
“they searched the train at the terminus and didn’t find their man.
They may watch the ports, but I doubt if they’ll get him now. It’s a
rotten business.”
“I don’t think you’ve explained everything,” said Bredon, “I mean,
about Brinkman’s movements after the murder. Indeed, I know for a fact
that you haven’t explained everything; partly because you don’t know
everything. But I think your account of Brinkman’s movements that
night is extraordinarily ingenious, and I only wish it were true. I
wish it were true, I mean, because it would have brought us up, for
once in our lives, against a really clever criminal. But, you see,
there’s one thing which is fatal to all your theory. You haven’t
explained why the gas-tap showed the mark where Mottram turned it on
and didn’t show the mark where Mottram turned it off.”
“Oh, yes, I admit that’s puzzling. Still, one can imagine
circumstances”——
“One can imagine circumstances, but one can’t fit them onto the facts.
If the gas had been quite close to Mottram’s bed, and he had had a
stick by his side, he might have turned off the tap with the stick;
I’ve known slack men do that. But the gas wasn’t near enough for that.
Or, again, if Mottram had gone to bed in gloves, he might have turned
off the tap with gloves on; but he didn’t. The tap was stiff; it was
stiff both when you turned it on and when you turned it off; and there
must, in reason, have been some slight trace left if that gas was
turned off by a man’s naked fingers. Therefore it wasn’t turned off by
a man’s naked fingers. Therefore it wasn’t turned off by Mottram, or
by anybody who had any business to turn it off. It was turned off by
somebody who had a secret end to serve in doing so.”
“You mean a criminal end?”
“I didn’t say that. I said a secret end. Your view doesn’t explain
that; and because it doesn’t explain that, although I think you’ve
told us an extraordinarily ingenious story, I don’t think it’s worth
forty pounds. . . . Hullo! What’s this arriving?”
The taxi from the garage had drawn up outside the inn’s door, and was
depositing some passengers who had obviously come by the early morning
train from Pullford. They were not left in doubt for long; the
coffee-room door was opened, and, with “Don’t get up, please” written
all over his apologetic features, the Bishop of Pullford walked in.
Eames followed behind him.
“Good-morning, Mr. Bredon. I’m so sorry to disturb you and your
friends at breakfast like this. But Mr. Eames here has been telling me
about your alarums and excursions last night, and I thought probably
there would be some tired brains this morning. Also, I felt it was
important to tell you all I know, because of Mr. Brinkman’s hurried
departure.”
Bredon hastily effected the necessary introductions. “You know
something, then, after all?”
“Oh, you mustn’t think I’ve been playing you false, Mr. Bredon. The
evidence I’m referring to only came to hand last night. But such as it
is, it’s decisive; it proves that poor Mottram met his death by
suicide.”
Chapter XXIV
Mottram’s Account of It All
“Rapid adjustment of the mental perspective,” said Mr. Pulteney, “is
an invaluable exercise, especially at my age. But I confess there is a
point at which the process becomes confusing. Are we now to understand
that Mr. Brinkman, so far from being a murderer, is simply an innocent
man with a taste for motoring late at night? I have no doubt there is
a satisfactory explanation of it all, but it looks to me as if there
had been an absence of straightforwardness on somebody’s part.”
“Possibly on that of Mr. Eames,” said the Bishop. “I have to confess,
on his behalf, that he has been concealing something, and to take the
blame for his conduct—if blame attaches to it—unreservedly upon
myself. However, I do not think that any earlier disclosure could have
helped forward the cause of justice; and I have lost no time in
putting it all before you.”
“You mean that letter which was left about in the gorge,” suggested
Bredon, “addressed to the Bishop of Pullford? With a confession of
suicide in it?”
“Goodness, Mr. Bredon, you seem to know as much about it as I do
myself! Well, that is the long and short of it. When Mr. Eames was
with you last night, Mr. Leyland, he told you that he had followed
Brinkman along the gorge, and that Brinkman had disappeared in a
motor. He did not tell you that, half way through the gorge, he saw
Brinkman leaping up under a ledge in the rock, as if to put something
on it or take something down from it. The something which he was
putting up or taking down was, I make no doubt, the document which I
now hold in my hand. Mr. Eames found it after Brinkman had left, and,
seeing that it was addressed to me with an intimation that it was
private and confidential, thought it best to carry it straight to me
without informing you of its existence. I understood him to say that
he did not mention its existence to you, Mr. Bredon, either.”
“Nor did I,” put in Eames.
“How jolly of you, Mr. Eames,” said Angela. “You can’t think what a
lot of trouble we’ve been having with my husband; he thinks he knows
all about the mystery, and he won’t tell us; isn’t it odious of him?
And I’m so glad to think that you managed to keep him in the dark
about something.”
“Not entirely,” protested Bredon. “Cast your eye over that, Mr.
Eames.” And a document was handed, first to Eames, then to the rest of
the company, which certainly seemed to make Eames’s caution
unnecessary. It was a plain scrap of paper, scrawled over in pencil
with the handwriting of a man who is travelling at thirty-five miles
an hour over bumpy roads in a badly sprung car. All it said was, “Make
Eames shew you what he found in the gorge. I thought it was you. F.
Brinkman.”
“Ah!” said the Bishop. “Brinkman, it seemed, had some doubt as to the
fate of a document which got into the hands of the Catholic
authorities. Poor fellow, he was always rather bitter about it.
However, here we are, Mr. Bredon, owning up like good boys. It was to
put that very document into your hands that I came down this morning.
But I think Mr. Eames was quite right in holding that the document,
with such a superscription, ought to be handed over to me direct,
without any mention even of its existence to a third party.”
“I for one,” put in Leyland, “applaud his action. I do not believe in
all these posthumous revelations; I prefer to respect the confidence
of the dead. But I understand that Your Lordship is prepared to let us
see the contents of the letter after all?”
“Certainly. I think poor Mottram’s last directions were influenced
simply by consideration for my own feelings in the matter. I have no
hesitation myself in making it public. Shall I read it here and now?”
In deference to a chorus of assent, the Bishop took out the enclosure
of the envelope and prepared to read. “I ought to say by way of
preface,” he explained, “that I knew poor Mottram’s handwriting well
enough, and I feel fully convinced that this is a genuine autograph of
his, not a forgery. You will see why I mention that later on. This is
how the letter runs:
“‘My dear Lord Bishop:
“‘Pursuant to our conversation of Thursday evening last, it will be
within your Lordship’s memory that upon that occasion I asserted the
right of a man, in given circumstances, to take his own life,
particularly when same was threatened by an incurable and painful
disease. This I only mentioned casually, when illustrating the
argument I was then trying to put forward, namely that the end
justifies the means, even in a case where said means are bad,
provided said ends are good. I note that your Lordship is of the
contrary opinion, namely that said end does not justify said means.
I am, however, confident that in a concrete case like the present
your Lordship will be more open to conviction _re_ this matter, as
it is a case where I am acting to the best of my lights, which, your
Lordship has often told me, is all that a man can do when in
doubtful circumstances.
“‘I regret to have to inform your Lordship that, interviewing
recently a specialist in London _re_ my health, said specialist
informed me that I was suffering from an incurable disease. I have
not the skill to write the name of it; and as it is of an unusual
nature, maybe it would not interest your Lordship to know it. The
specialist was, however, of the decided opinion that I could not
survive more than two years or thereabouts; and that in the interim
the disease would give rise to considerable pain. It is therefore my
intention, in pursuance of the line of argument which I have already
done my best to explain to your Lordship, to take my own life, in
circumstances which will be sufficiently public by the time this
reaches you.
“‘I have not, as your Lordship knows, any firm religious
convictions. I believe that there is a future life of some kind, and
that we shall all be judged according to our opportunities and the
use we made of same. I believe that God is merciful, and will make
allowances for the difficulties we had in knowing what was the right
thing to do and in doing it. But I have been through some hard
times, and maybe not always acted for the best. Being desirous,
therefore, of making my peace with God, I have taken the liberty of
devising some of the property of which I die possessed to your
Lordship personally, to be used for the benefit of the diocese of
Pullford. Said property consisting of the benefits accruing from the
Euthanasia policy taken out by me with the Indescribable Insurance
Company. And so have directed my lawyers in a will made by me
recently.
“‘I believe that your Lordship is a man of God, and anxious to do
his best for his fellow-citizens in the town of Pullford. I believe
that the money will serve a good end, although I do not agree with
what your Lordship teaches. I feel sure that your Lordship will
realize the desirability of keeping this letter private, and not
letting it be known that I took my own life. The insurance company
would probably refuse to pay the claim if I was supposed to have
died by my own hand, that being their rule in such cases, except
where the deceased was of unsound mind, which is not the case, me
being in full possession of all my faculties. If, however, the
preparations which I have made should eventuate successfully, it
will not be supposed by the coroner’s jury that I took my own life,
and the claim will be paid accordingly. Your Lordship will realize
that this is only fair, since (1) in taking my own life I am only
anticipating the decree of nature by a few months, and (2) the
object to which I have devised the money is not the selfish
enjoyment of a few persons, but the spiritual benefit of a large
number, mostly poor. I am writing this, therefore, for your
Lordship’s own eyes, and it has no need to be made public. I am
quite sure that God will forgive me what I am doing if it is at all
wrong, for I am afraid to suffer pain and am doing my best to
bequeath my money in such a way that same will be used for good
purposes. With every gratitude for the kindness I have always
received at the Cathedral House, though not of the same religion, I
remain,
“‘Your Lordship’s obedient servant,
“‘J. Mottram.’”
The Bishop’s voice quavered a little at certain points in this
recital; it was difficult not to be affected by the laborious efforts
of a pen untrained in language to do justice to the writer’s friendly
intentions. “I’m very sorry indeed for the poor fellow,” the Bishop
said. “The older we grow, the more tender we must become toward the
strange vagaries of the human conscience. That’s not the letter of a
man, whose mind is unhinged. And yet, what is one to make of a
conscience so strangely misformed? However, I didn’t come here to talk
about all that. You’ll see for yourselves that, although the writer
_recommends_ my keeping it dark, he places me under no obligation to
do so—he would have put me in an uncommonly awkward position if he
had. As it is, I’ve had no hesitation in reading it to you, and shall
have no hesitation in producing it, if necessary, before a court of
law. It seems that our legacy, after all, was only a castle in Spain.”
“The poor dear!” said Angela. “And it’s bad luck on you, Mr. Leyland.
Did you realize, My Lord, that Mr. Leyland had just succeeded in
persuading us all that Mr. Brinkman had murdered Mr. Mottram by
letting in gas from the room above?”
“Well, thank God it was nothing as bad as that!” said the Bishop. “At
least this letter will help us to take a kindlier view of him.”
“It would be a very singular and, I had almost said, a diverting
circumstance, if both things could have happened at once,” said Mr.
Pulteney, “if, while Mottram was busy poisoning himself with his own
gas down below, Brinkman was at the same moment, in complete
ignorance, feeding him with an extra supply of gas from above. It
would be a somewhat knotty problem, in that case, to decide whether we
were to call it suicide or murder. However,” he added with a little
bow to the Bishop, “we have a competent authority with us.”
“Oh, don’t ask me, sir,” protested the Bishop, “I should have to
consult my Canon Penitentiary. He would tell me, I fancy, that the act
of murder in this case inflowed into the act of suicide, but I am not
sure that would help us much.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Eames, “Mr. Bredon could tell us what view the
Indescribable would take of such a case.”
“They would be hard put to it,” said Bredon. “Fortunately, there is no
question of any such doubt here. For Leyland’s suggestion of murder
was only based on the impossibility of suicide, in view of the gas
being turned off. Whereas Mr. Pulteney’s ingenious suggestion has all
the difficulties in it which Leyland was trying to avoid.”
“I’m hanged if I can make head or tail of it,” said Leyland. “It’s
like a nightmare, this case; every time you think you’ve found some
solid ground to rest on, it sinks under your feet. I shall begin to
believe in ghosts soon. And what are we to make of the message itself?
Might I see the envelope, My Lord? . . . Thank you. Well, it’s clear
that Brinkman wasn’t putting the letter up on the ledge; he was taking
it down. It’s so weather-stained that it must clearly have been there
the best part of a week. Now, why on earth was Brinkman so anxious to
take the letter away with him? For the letter proved it was suicide,
and that’s precisely what he wanted to have proved.”
“Brinkman may not have known what was in the letter,” suggested Eames.
“He may have thought the thousand pounds were in it,” suggested
Pulteney, “waiting there as a surprise present for the Bishop. I am no
acrobat myself, but I believe I could jump pretty high if you gave me
that sum to aspire to.”
“I wonder if Brinkman did know?” said Leyland. “Of course if he did he
was an accessory before the fact to Mottram’s suicide. And that might
make him anxious for his own position—but it doesn’t ring true, that
idea.”
“Might I see the letter itself?” asked Bredon. “It sounds impolite, I
know; but I only want to look at the way in which it’s written. . . .
Thank you, My Lord. . . . It’s rather a suggestive fact, isn’t it,
that this letter was copied?”
“Copied?” asked the Bishop. “How on earth can you tell that?”
“I am comparing it in my mind’s eye with the letter we found lying
about in Mottram’s bedroom, half-finished. Mottram wrote with
difficulty; his thoughts didn’t flow to his pen. Consequently, in that
letter to the _Pullford Examiner_ you will find that only the last
sentence at the bottom of the page has been blotted when the ink was
wet. The rest of the page had had time to dry naturally, while Mottram
was thinking of what to say next. But this letter of yours, My Lord,
has been written straight off, and the blotting process becomes more
and more marked the further you get down the page. I say, therefore,
that Mottram had already composed the letter in rough, and when he set
down to this sheet of paper he was copying it straight down.”
“You’re not suggesting that Brinkman dictated the letter?”
asked Leyland. “Of course that would open up some interesting
possibilities.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of that. I was only thinking it was rather a
cold-blooded way for a suicide to write his last letter. But it’s a
small point.”
“And meanwhile,” said Leyland, “I suppose you’re waiting for me to
fork out those forty pounds?”
“What!” said the Bishop, “you have a personal interest in this, Mr.
Bredon? Well, in any case you have saved your company a larger sum
than that. I’m afraid you will have to write and tell them that it was
suicide, and the claim does not urge.”
“On the contrary, My Lord,” said Bredon, knocking out his pipe
thoughtfully into the fireplace, “I’m going to write to the company
and tell them that the claim has got to be paid, because Mottram met
his death by accident.”
Chapter XXV
Bredon’s Account of It All
“God bless my soul!” cried the Bishop, “you don’t mean to say you’re
preparing to hush it up! Why, your moral theology must be as bad as
poor Mottram’s.”
“It isn’t a question of theology,” replied Bredon, “it’s a question of
fact. I am going to write to the Indescribable Company and tell them
that Mottram died by accident, because that happens to be the truth.”
“Ah—h-h!” said Angela.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Eames.
“Not another mental perspective!” groaned Mr. Pulteney.
“That’s exactly what it is. I’m not a detective really; I can’t sit
down and think things out. I see everything just as other people do, I
share all their bewilderment. But suddenly, when I’m thinking of
something quite different, a game of patience, for example, I see the
whole thing in a new mental perspective. It’s like the optical
illusion of the tumbling cubes—you know, the pattern of cubes which
looks concave to the eye, and then, by a readjustment of your mental
focus, you suddenly see them as convex instead. What produces that
change? Why, you catch sight of one particular angle in a new light,
and from that you get your new mental picture of the whole pattern.
Just so, one can stumble upon a new mental perspective about a problem
like this by suddenly seeing one single fact in a new light. And then
the whole problem rearranges itself.”
“I am indebted to you for your lucid exposition,” said Mr. Pulteney,
“but even now the events of the past week are not quite clear to me.”
“Miles, don’t be tiresome,” said Angela. “Start right from the
beginning, and don’t let’s have any mystery-making.”
“All right. It would make a better story the other way, but
still—well, first you want to get some picture of Mottram. I can only
do it by guesswork, but I should say this: He had an enormous amount
of money, and no heir whom he cared for. He was a shrewd, rather
grasping man, and he came to think that everybody else was after his
money. It’s not uncommon with rich people—what you might call the
Chuzzlewit-complex. Am I right so far?”
“Absolutely right,” said the Bishop.
“Again, he was a man who loved a mystery for its own sake, surprises,
almost practical jokes. And again, he was a vain man in some ways,
caring intensely what other people thought of him, and very anxious to
know what they thought of him. Also, he had a high respect for the
Catholic Church, or at least for its representatives in Pullford.”
“All that’s true,” said Eames.
“Well, I think he really did mean to leave some money to the Pullford
Diocese. No, don’t interrupt; that’s not as obvious as it sounds. He
really did mean to endow the diocese, and he disclosed his intention
to Brinkman. Brinkman, as we know, was a real anti-clerical, and he
protested violently. Catholics were alike, he said, all the world
over; the apparent honesty of a man like Your Lordship was only a
blind. In reality Catholics, and especially Catholic priests, were
always hunting for money and would do anything to get it—anything. At
last Mottram determined that he must settle the point for himself.
First of all, he went round to the Cathedral house and defended the
proposition that it was lawful to do evil in order that good might
come. He wanted to see whether he would get any support for that view
in the abstract; he got none. Then he decided, with Brinkman’s
collaboration, on a practical test. He would put Your Lordship’s
honesty to the proof.
“He went up to London, saw his solicitors, and added a codicil to his
will, leaving the benefits of the Euthanasia policy to the Bishop of
Pullford. I am afraid it must be admitted that he did not, at the
time, mean that codicil to become operative. It was part of his
mystery. Then he went on to our people at the Indescribable, and spun
a cock-and-bull yarn about seeing a specialist, who had told him that
he had only two more years to live. Actually he was in robust health;
he only invented this story and told it to the Indescribable in order
that, when it came to the point, it might be reasonable (though not
necessary) to explain his death as suicide. Then he came, back here
and made preparations for his holiday. He was going to take his
holiday at Chilthorpe—to be more accurate, he meant to start his
holiday at Chilthorpe. He strongly urged Your Lordship to come down
and share part of it with him; it was essential to his plan.”
“And that,” suggested the Bishop, “explains his intense eagerness that
I should come down?”
“Precisely. He made certain, as best he could, that you would arrive
here on the morning after him; that you would be told he had gone out
to fish the Long Pool, and that you would be asked to follow him.
This would ensure that you would be the first witness of his
disappearance.”
“His what?”
“His disappearance. He meant to disappear. Not only for the sake of
the test, I imagine; he wanted to disappear for the fun of the thing;
to see what happened. He wanted to be a celebrity in the newspapers.
He wanted to read his own obituaries. That was why he wrote, or rather
got Brinkman to write, a letter to the _Pullford Examiner_, calling
him all sorts of names—the letter was signed, of course, with a
pseudonym. You found that out, didn’t you, Leyland?”
“Yes, confound it all, I heard only this morning that ‘Brutus’ was
really Brinkman. But I never saw the point.”
“Then he sat down and wrote an unfinished letter in answer to these
charges. That letter, of course, was to be found after his
disappearance, and would be published in thick type by the _Pullford
Examiner_. That would set everybody talking about him, and his
obituary notices would be lively reading. He wanted to read them
himself. But in order to do that he must disappear.
“The Chilthorpe gorge is a good place to disappear from. Leave your
hat on the edge of it, and go and hide somewhere—you will be reported
the next morning as a tragic accident. Mottram had made all
arrangements for hiding. He was going to spend his holiday incognito
somewhere; I think in Ireland, but it may have been on the Continent.
He was going to take Brinkman with him. He would disappear, of course,
in his car. He had victualled it before he left Pullford. On his
arrival at Chilthorpe his first act was to paint out its number-plate.
He hid some notes in the cushions of the car—that, I think, was a mere
instinct of secretiveness; there was no need to do so.
“The plan, then, was this. On Tuesday morning, early, Mottram was to
set out for the gorge. Almost immediately afterward, Brinkman was to
take out the motor, as if to go to Pullford. He was to pick up
Mottram, who would hide under the seat or disguise himself or smuggle
himself away somehow, and drive like mad for the coast. Later, you, My
Lord, would come to the _Load of Mischief_, and would get the message
about going out to join Mottram at the Long Pool. In passing through
the gorge, you would (I fancy) have found some traces there—Mottram’s
hat, for example, or his fishing-rod; and your first thought would
have been that the poor fellow had slipped in. Then, looking round,
you would find this letter half-concealed on a high ledge. You would
read it, and you would think that Mottram had committed suicide.
“And then—then you would either make the contents of this letter
public or you wouldn’t. If Brinkman was right in his estimate, you
would keep the letter dark; the death, before long, would be presumed.
The Indescribable Company would have been on the point of paying out
the half-million when—Mottram would have reappeared, and Your Lordship
would have been in a delicate position. If Mottram was right in his
view of your character, then you would produce the letter; Mottram’s
death would be regarded as suicide, and the Indescribable would refuse
all claims. Then Mottram would have reappeared, and would have seen to
it that, in one way or another, the Pullford Diocese should be
rewarded for the honesty of its Bishop.
“He was not really a very complete conspirator, poor Mottram. He made
three bad mistakes, as it proved. Though indeed they would not have
mattered, or two of them would not have mattered, if events had
proceeded according to plan.
“In the first place, he went and wrote his name in the visitors’ book
immediately on arrival. He wanted to leave no doubt that it was
Jephthah Mottram in person who arrived at the _Load of Mischief_ on
Monday night. He wanted journalists to come down here and look
reverently at the great man’s signature. Of course, in reality, it is
a thing nobody ever does on the night of arrival. It has made me
suspicious from the very first, as my wife will tell you.
“In the second place, when he took the precaution of drawing up a new
will he neglected to sign it overnight. Brinkman, I suppose, pointed
out to him that if any fatal accident occurred—say a motor
accident—the codicil leaving the half-million to the Bishop would be
perfectly valid. To avoid this danger they must have drawn up a new
will, and if Mottram had signed this overnight his death would have
made it valid. As it was, for some reason—probably because Brinkman
himself was drawing it up (I think the writing is Brinkman’s) late on
Monday night—the will was never signed and was useless.
“In the third place, he did something overnight which he ought to have
left till the next morning. He not only wrote his confidential letter
to the Bishop but he went out with Brinkman to the gorge and posted
it—put it on the ledge ready for the Bishop to find next morning. He
did not mean to go into the gorge at all the next morning. He would
start out on the way to it, say, at eight, and at ten minutes past
eight Brinkman, driving the car, would pick him up on the road. From
the side of the road they could throw over Mottram’s hat, possibly,
and they could slide his rod down the rocks, so as to make it appear
that he had been there. (Brinkman, in this way, would establish an
alibi; he could not be supposed to have murdered Mottram in the
gorge.) But it was not safe to let the letter drop in this casual way;
therefore the letter must be planted out overnight. There was no great
danger of its premature discovery; in any case, Mottram put it rather
out of sight on a ledge so high up that only a tall man would see it,
and only if he was looking about him carefully.
“That is the complicated part of this business; the rest of it depends
on two simple accidents. Mottram went to bed rather early; he was in
an excited frame of mind, and determined to steady himself with a
sleeping draught. The watch, the studs, were only symptoms of that
fussiness we all feel on the eve of a great adventure. I suppose he
borrowed a match from Brinkman to light his gas with. But it was a
clear night; there was no need of light to go to bed by. But just at
the last moment—a fateful moment for himself—he did light the gas;
perhaps he wanted to read a page or two of his novel before turning
in.
“The rest of the story could be more easily told upstairs. I wonder if
you would mind all coming up into the actual room? It makes it so much
easier to construct the scene if you are on the spot.”
The whole party applauded this decision. “This is what is called an
object-lesson, in the education of the young,” observed Mr. Pulteney.
“The young like it; they are in a position to hack one another’s shins
when the teacher’s back is turned.”
When they reached the bedroom, Bredon found himself falling into the
attitude of a lecturer. “The guide,” murmured Angela, “taking a party
round the ruins of the old dungeon. Scene of the ’orrible crime.
Please pay attention, gentlemen!”
“You see how the gas works in here,” began Bredon. “There’s the main
tap, we’ll call it A, which controls the whole supply. Tap B is for
the bracket; tap C leads through the tube to the standard lamp. It
doesn’t matter leaving tap B or tap C on as long as tap A is turned
off.
“When Mottram went up to bed, tap B and tap C were both open, but tap
A was properly turned off. Mottram took no particular notice of the
disposition of taps; he turned on one tap at random, tap A. Then he
lit his match, and put it to the bracket, which naturally lit. He then
immediately threw the match away. We know that, because we found the
match, and it was hardly burned down the stalk at all. Meanwhile, of
course, he had also allowed the gas to escape through the tube into
the standard lamp; it never occurred to him to light this. The
standard was at the other end of the room, close to the open window;
the slight escape of gas did not, unfortunately for him, offend his
nostrils. Brinkman told me, and it is probably true, that Mottram had
not a very keen sense of smell. After a minute or two, feeling ready
to go to sleep, he went up to the taps again, and forgot to reverse
the process he had gone through before. Instead of turning off the
main tap, A, he carelessly turned off tap B. And the light on the
bracket obediently went out.
“That is the lesson of a finger-print. Tap A was stiff, and Mottram
left a mark when he turned it on; he would have left another if he had
turned it off. He did not; he turned off tap B, which works at a mere
touch, and of course he left no mark in doing so. There, then, lies
Mottram; the sleeping draught has already taken effect; the wind gets
up, and blows the window to; tap A is still open, and tap C is still
open; and through the burner of the standard lamp the acetylene is
pouring into the room.
“Brinkman is not a late sleeper. The Boots, who is the earliest riser
in this establishment, tells me that Brinkman was always awake when he
went round for the shoes. On Tuesday morning Brinkman must have woken
early, to be greeted by a smell of gas. It may have crept in through
his window, or even come up through the floor, for the floors here are
full of cracks. Once he had satisfied himself that the escape was not
in his own room, he must have thought of the room below. When he
reached the lower passage, the increasing smell of gas left him in no
doubt. He knocked at Mottram’s door, got no answer, and rushed in,
going straight across and opening the window so as to get some air.
Then he had time to turn round and see what was on the bed. There was
no doubt that he was too late to help.”
[Illustration: The Three Taps as Brinkman Found Them. A diagram of a
horizontal gas pipe with three taps. Tap A is located where the pipe
meets the wall. Its handle is vertical, and it is labelled “turned
on.” Tap B is located on the far side of where the pipe turns upwards.
Its handle is horizontal, and it is labelled “turned off.” Between the
two, a flexible tube connects to the pipe and leads away to a lamp.
Tap C is located on this branch. Its handle is horizontal, and it is
labelled “turned on.”]
“Did he know it was accident?” asked Eames. “Or did he think it was
suicide?”
“I think he must have known it was accident. And now, consider his
position. Here was Mottram, dead by accident. There up in London was
Mottram’s codicil, willing half a million to the Diocese of Pullford.
And that codicil had not been meant to become operative. It had been
made only for the purposes of the test. And now, through this
accident, the codicil, which did not represent Mottram’s real wishes,
had suddenly become valid. It would certainly be judged valid,
unless—unless the claim were dismissed owing to a verdict of suicide.
Brinkman may or may not have been a good man; he was certainly a good
secretary. Put yourself in his position, Mr. Eames. He could only give
effect to his dead master’s real wishes by pretending that his dead
master had committed suicide.
“You remember the remark in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ that to
lose one parent may be an accident, to lose both looks like
carelessness? So it was with Mottram and the taps. Two taps turned on
meant, and would be understood to mean, an accident. But, and this is
worth remembering, if all three taps were found on, it would look like
suicide. Brinkman acted on the spur of the moment; he was in a hurry,
for the atmosphere of the room was still deadly. He wrapped his
handkerchief round his fingers, so as to leave no mark, then, in his
confusion, he turned the wrong tap! He meant to turn tap B on;
instead, he turned tap A off. That sounds impossible, I know. But you
will notice that whereas tap A and tap B are turned off when they are
at the horizontal, tap C is turned off when it is at the vertical,
When Brinkman, then, saw the three taps, B and C were both horizontal,
and A was vertical, it was natural, in the flurry of the moment, for
him to imagine that if all three taps were in the same position (that
is, all horizontal) they would all be turned on. Instinctively, then,
he turned tap A from the vertical to the horizontal. And in doing so
he left the whole three in the same position in which they were before
Mottram lit his match. No gas was escaping at all. The result of
Brinkman’s action was not to corroborate the theory of suicide, but to
introduce a quite new theory—that of murder. Half-stifled, he rushed
from the room, locked the door on the outside, and took the key away
with him up to his room.”
[Illustration: The Three Taps as They Were Found in the Morning. A
diagram of the same gas pipe as previously, the only difference being
that the handle of tap A is now horizontal also, and is labelled
“turned off.”]
“Steady on,” put in Angela, “why did he lock the door?”
“It may have been only so as to keep the room private till he had
thought the thing out, and the Boots may have come round too soon for
him. Or, more probably, it was another deliberate effort to encourage
the idea of suicide. Anyhow, his actions from that moment onward were
perfectly clear-headed. He helped to break down the door, and, while
Ferrers was examining the gas, while the Boots was lighting a match,
he thrust the key in on the inner side of the door. It was only when
he had done this, when he thought that he had made the suicide theory
an absolute certainty, that he was suddenly confronted with the
horrible mistake he had made in turning the wrong tap. It was a bad
moment for him, but fortunately one which excused a certain display of
emotion.”
“And he thought he would be run in for the murder?” asked Leyland.
“Not necessarily. But your arrival worried him badly; you got hold of
the murder idea from the start.”
“Why didn’t he skip, then? There was the car, all ready provisioned.”
“The trouble is that Brinkman is, according to his lights, an honest
man. And he hated the idea of the Euthanasia money going to the
Bishop. I was a godsend to him; here was a nice, stupid man, briefed
to defend the thesis of suicide. As soon as I came, he tried to take
me out for a walk in the gorge.”
“Why in the gorge?” asked the Bishop.
“So that I should find the letter. Yesterday he did manage to take me
to the gorge, and actually drew my attention to the ledge. I saw a bit
of paper there, but it never occurred to me to wonder what it was.
Poor Brinkman! He must have thought me an ass!”
“But why didn’t he get the letter himself, and bring it to us? Or
leave it lying about?”
“That was the maddening thing, the poor little man just couldn’t reach
it. The wind of Monday night had blown it a bit further away, I
suspect. Of course, he could have gone out with a step-ladder, or
rolled stones up to stand on. But, you see, you were watching him, and
I’m pretty sure he knew you were watching him. He thought it best to
lead us on, lead me on rather, and make me find out the envelope for
myself. When he’d drawn me right across the trail of it, and I’d
failed to see it, he was in despair. He decided that he must bolt
after all. It was too horrible a position to be here under
observation, and fearing arrest at any moment. If he were arrested,
you see, he must either tell a lie, and land himself in suspicion, or
tell the truth, and see the Euthanasia money fall into Catholic hands.
“He ordered a car from the garage to meet the train which arrives at
Chilthorpe at 8.40. He determined to meet it on the way to the
station. I don’t think the thought of the car lying at the garage,
with the ‘sangwiches’—I mean the sandwiches—and the whisky on board,
occurred to him for a moment. He is an honest man. But on his way to
meet the car he would go through the gorge, and make sure that he was
followed; he would draw attention to the document, and then disappear
from the scene. He had not much luggage; he had only to clear up a few
papers, mostly belonging to Mottram. Among these was the unsigned will
which had been drawn up, ready for Mottram’s signature, on the Monday
night. This he burned; it could be no use to anybody now. He burned it
standing at the window, and the last, unburnt piece escaped from his
fingers, and fluttered down through a second window into the room
below—this room, which had been Mottram’s. That was your find,
Leyland. And the odd thing is that it was through this absurd detail
that I got onto the track of the whole thing; because one of my
patience cards fluttered down through a ground-floor window; and as I
was carrying it upstairs I realized that was how the scrap of paper
came to be lying about in Mottram’s room. Then I began wondering what
the will was, and why Brinkman should have been burning it, and
suddenly the whole truth began to sketch itself in my mind, just as
I’ve been telling it you.
“Brinkman had bad luck to the last. I dropped that card just after he
started out with his despatch-box; he saw that I’d disappeared from
the window, and supposed, with delight, that I was following him. With
delight, for of course I was the one man who was interested in proving
the death to be suicide. He went back to the cache in the gorge,
leading me (as he supposed) all the way; then he waited for a flash of
lightning, and jumped up so as to draw attention to the envelope. As
he came down again he looked round, and, in the last rays of the
lightning flash, saw that it was Eames, not I, who was following him.
Eames—the one man who would certainly make away with the precious
document! But there was no time to be lost; he could hear the taxi
already on the hill. He ran round to the road, leaped on board the
taxi, and, in desperation, sent a note to me by the taxi-man telling
me to make Eames shew me what he had found. I don’t know where
Brinkman is now, but I rather hope he gets clear.”
“Amen to that,” said Leyland; “it would be uncommonly awkward for us
if we found him. What on earth could we charge him with? You can’t
hang a man for turning the wrong gas-tap by mistake.”
“Poor Mr. Simmonds will be relieved about this,” said Angela.
“By the way,” said the Bishop, “I hear that Mottram did leave some
unsettled estate after all, and that, I suppose, will go to Simmonds.
Not a great deal, but it’s enough for him to marry on.”
Angela swears that at this point she heard, on the other side of the
door, a scuffle and the rustle of departing footsteps. She says you
can’t cure maids of their bad habits, really.
“My own difficulty,” said the Bishop, “is about my moral claim to this
money. For it was left to me, it seems, by a will which the testator
did not mean to take effect.”
“On the other hand, you’ve earned it, My Lord,” suggested Bredon.
“After all, poor Mottram was only waiting to find out whether you
would prove to be an honest man or not. And I think you’ve come out of
the test very well. Besides, you can’t refuse the legacy; it’s in
trust for the diocese. I hope Pullford will see a lot of Catholic
activity now.”
“The church collections will be beginning to fall off almost at once,”
said Eames, with a melancholy face.
“I wish I had scrutinized those motor-cushions more closely,” said Mr.
Pulteney. “It seems to me that I get nothing out of all this.”
“Which reminds me,” said Leyland, “I suppose the bet’s off.”
“And Mr. Bredon,” added the Bishop, “will get no thanks from his
company. I’m afraid, Mr. Bredon, you will have carried nothing away
with you from your visit to these parts.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Bredon.
Transcriber’s Note
This transcription follows the text of the edition published in 1927
by Jacobsen Publishing Company, Inc. The following changes have been
made to correct what are believed to be printer’s errors (based in
part on corrections made in later editions).
* “injunctions” has been changed to “injections” (Ch. II).
* “he ever left” has been changed to “he never left” (Ch. II).
* “motion in her voice” has been changed to “emotion in her voice”
(Ch. IV).
* “swerving to” has been changed to “serving to” (Ch. IV).
* “trace it had” has been changed to “trace where it had” (Ch. IV).
* “constitutency” has been changed to “constituency” (Ch. VII).
* “verybody” has been changed to “everybody” (Ch. XVI).
* “put my car in” has been changed to “put my oar in” (Ch. XVIII).
* “on the other hand” has been changed to “on the one hand”
(Ch. XX, first instance).
* “Dr. Ferers” has been changed to “Dr. Ferrers” (Ch. XXIII).
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