The Deductions of Colonel Gore

by Lynn Brock

  It was a moment before she spoke, hesitatingly,—

  ‘The only thing,’ she said at length, ‘is Sidney’s going out.’

  ‘But we know why he went out. Mrs MacArthur, or whatever her name is, rang him up to go and see her little boy.’

  ‘She rang him up, yes. But he didn’t go.’

  ‘Didn’t go?’ he repeated.

  ‘No. I met Mrs MacArthur shopping this morning, and she apologised to me for having rung him up at that hour, and said she was so glad he hadn’t gone, because her little boy had been so much better next morning. When I came in I went straight out to the consulting-room and looked at Sidney’s diary—you know? … the book he enters up his visits in.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well … at the end of the space for Monday he had begun to make an entry—and then he had scratched it out—very carefully. But I got a magnifying-glass and had a good look at it. He had written something there at the end of the space, and scratched it out.’

  Gore raised his eyebrows and let them fall expressively.

  ‘Where does this Mrs MacArthur live?’

  ‘In Vyford Place.’

  ‘Vyford Place? Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s one of the new roads—beyond the college.’

  ‘Beyond the college …?’

  He made a hurried calculation. If Melhuish had gone out at half-past one, he could certainly not have walked to any road beyond the college—interviewed a small boy afflicted with gastritis and an over-anxious mother—and walked back again to Aberdeen Place—all in ten minutes. Forty minutes work at the very least. Yet, he had been back in Aberdeen Place at twenty minutes to two at the latest …

  Of course, he might have taken a taxi—both ways. Even then he couldn’t have done it in ten minutes. And the chances of picking up a taxi in Linwood at half-past one in the morning were about the same as those of finding a tank in Piccadilly Circus at noonday …

  ‘Hell, Pickles,’ he said softly. ‘That’s queer. Look here—how long was your husband out … exactly? …’

  But while she still stood frowning, he turned and picked up the little beaded sheath hurriedly, as the door behind them opened and Melhuish came in.

  ‘Finished already, Sidney?’ Mrs Melhuish asked, with extraordinary composure, as the two men exchanged good-mornings.

  ‘No. I’m afraid I may not be able to get back to take you to the station, Barbara. I thought I had better let you know in good time. They want me to go out to Mrs Larmour’s to meet Sir John Taylor in consultation at a quarter to twelve.’

  His smile said, ‘I’ve come back to say good-bye to my wife’—just that and nothing more. There was nothing to do but make the most graceful exit possible, and, as quickly as possible, Gore made it.

  CHAPTER XI

  HE went down to Cleveport by a midday train to lunch, golf, and dine with a married cousin, and—it must be quite frankly admitted—dismissed Pickles and her affairs almost completely from his mind for nearly twelve hours. The greatest anxiety of the business had been laid to rest; Pickles had had no hand, wilfully or accidentally, in Barrington’s death. She had been—miraculously—extricated from her troubles and difficulties at their blackest hour. The thing was done with. As regarded the letters, he felt pretty sure that she had heard the last of them. They were not at Hatfield Place; there was no necessity to worry about Mrs Barrington then. Supposing that someone did find them wherever else Barrington had left them, what likelihood was there that that someone would ever think of making trouble for Pickles on the head of them? No doubt the world did contain a certain proportion of blackguards of Barrington’s particular type. But only an almost grotesque pessimism could reckon that the person into whose hands the letter would stray that way, accidentally, would be another individual of the same kidney. Gore was not inclined to be pessimistic just then. The certainty that Pickles was clear of the greater danger, and the fact that the wet, depressing morning had given way to an afternoon of crisp, brilliant sunshine, had indeed so strongly influenced his spirits that, after a very little reflection, he had abandoned his carefully concocted ‘story’ root and branch, lock, stock, and barrel, and decided to devote his attention to playing the kind of golf which he knew a plus-two cousin would expect from him.

  The ‘story,’ it appeared to him now, had been the figment of a most amazingly distorted imagination. Barrington had died just as he had appeared to die, of heart-disease, on his way to visit Melhuish professionally. No doubt his fall, however it had occurred, had knocked him about severely. Heaven knew, too, how he had spent the night. He had died, at any rate, just as he had been liable to die at any moment.

  Melhuish had found the knife in his pocket when he had examined him in the car, and must have believed that, somehow, Barrington had contrived to pinch it. Perhaps, for a moment, he had thought that the scratch on Barrington’s hand might have had something to do with his death. At any rate, as nine men out of ten would have done under the circumstances, he had decided, since the man was dead, to avoid any trouble about the knife by concealing the fact that Barrington had stolen it. And so he had invented the idea of leaving it somewhere about for one of the maids to find.

  It was possible that he had suspected, and did still suspect, that there had been something—some furtive connection—between his wife and Barrington. But that he actually knew anything definite regarding it, Gore doubted now altogether. As to that telephone call of Mrs MacArthur’s, Melhuish had gone out intending to go and see the child, but had probably failed to get a taxi, and, knowing that the boy was in no danger, had decided against a long walk on a nasty night for nothing, and had gone home again. His own words had been: ‘A Mrs MacArthur rang me up,’ not ‘I have been to see the little boy of a Mrs MacArthur.’ Gore was pretty certain about that; for he remembered that it had occurred to him at the time that this Mrs MacArthur lived in Selkirk Place and that Melhuish was then still on his way to her.

  As to the knife-sheath—well, that, too, was perfectly simple, after all. After leaving Pickles, Barrington had gone, in his car, up the lane at the end of Selkirk Place, bound for wherever he was bound for. He had said to himself: ‘Better not keep that knife, perhaps. It’s really no use to me—poisoned, too, and dangerous. My business never comes to producing proofs. So long as she knows I can say that she tried to give me a jab with a knife, that’s all I want.’ So he had thrown the knife away. Then he had thought better of it, and had got out of the car and looked about for it. He had found the knife itself, but the sheath had come off it. While he was still looking for the sheath he had probably been disturbed. It would have been just then—say, just at half-past one—that Melhuish had come out from his house. If Barrington heard the hall door of Number 33 opening—had seen it opening, as he could have seen from that corner, looking across the Green—he would get into his car and clear out. And so the sheath had remained behind, to be found where it had been found.

  All the rest of the story—all that about Arndale and Challoner and all the rest of it—seemed now the most amazing moonshine. It amused Gore to perceive how curiously his judgment had been warped by the desire to translate an ordinary death into a murder, to fasten the murder on someone, and to run that someone down. The ease with which facts had permitted themselves to be twisted so as to support an entirely erroneous theory impressed him sardonically. How many times in courts of justice, he asked of his rather abashed common sense, had the things one called bald, hard facts, absolutely misled juries—juries summoned specifically to do the thing which he himself had done gratuitously, to fix the blame on someone, and, despite themselves, determined to do it.

  He got back to the Riverside about eleven o’clock that night, and over a pipe and a drink decided to write Pickles a line to her Surrey address, to ease her mind about things generally. He felt just then like cheering people up. His visit to Cleveport had been an entirely soothing success—not least because the plus-two cousin—off his game, of course, but playing quit
e scratchy stuff—had ended but one up on the nineteenth green. He had met several old friends, fixed up several days’ shooting, been appointed godfather, had a mild but quite sparkling flirtation with a charming little widow during dinner, and encountered some marvellous Westmouth cream—that most contenting of sherries. So he made a long arm for his writing-case, cocked it on a knee, and began his letter of good cheer with light-hearted fluency.

  ‘November 8, 1922.

  ‘DEAR PICKLES,—Just a line to ask you not to worry in the least about those foolish questions of mine this morning—or anything. You need have no anxiety whatever about the discovery under the coat-and-umbrella-stand. I have thought the thing over very carefully, and—’

  A slight sound behind him disturbed him at that point. He turned in his chair and saw, framed in the doorway, the tawny-haired Miss Rodney, surveying him with a smile intended, he divined, to invest her uninvited appearance in his sitting-room with a quality of vivacious feminine playfulness. To that kind of playfulness Gore had, at ordinary times, no violent objection. But, since it was getting on to midnight and he had lived for some little time in a wicked world, the smile with which he greeted this unexpected apparition was correct to the verge of fatherliness.

  ‘Not in bed yet, Miss Rodney?’

  She laughed, and flashed a look at him from beneath her eyelashes.

  ‘Every time you see me you say: “Not in bed yet, Miss Rodney?” Can’t you think of anything else to say?’

  ‘Had I said that to you before?’

  ‘As if you didn’t remember. And that’s just what I’ve been wanting to talk to you about ever since—you and your friend Mr Challoner. I saw a light in here as I came along the passage. So I said to myself: “I’ll just pop in and pluck that little crow with him.” But I’ve disturbed you. Writing to your best girl, I suppose. My eye—what a swanky dressing-gown. Now, if you wanted to be a sport, you’d offer me a very, very, very good cigarette.’

  ‘Dear sportive, giddy little kitten,’ mused Gore. ‘Too many teeth. Too little chin. Cute as a pet fox. What’s she after?’

  He supplied the best cigarette at his command, however, and lighted it for her politely. She blew a little cloud through experienced nostrils, and then seated herself on the arm of a chair.

  ‘You’re older,’ she said pertly, ‘when one looks into your face for a bit.’

  ‘The shorter the bit then,’ he laughed, ‘the younger I remain.’

  ‘Is that a hint to me to clear out?’

  ‘My dear young lady, I had no hope whatever that you would remain.’

  Her eyes hardened; her whole expression changed with extraordinary promptness. A kitten with ready claws, this.

  ‘Don’t think I want to force my company where it isn’t wanted, please. I just want to ask you a simple question. And I’ll be obliged if you’ll answer it.’

  ‘With pleasure, if I can.’

  ‘Well … what were you and Mr Challoner doing on Monday night hanging about there at the gates? Perhaps you’ll kindly tell me. Because I’m anxious to know.’

  ‘Did we hang about? Or rather—did we seem to hang about? How thoughtless of us. We were not planning a burglary, however—merely, as far as I can recall, parting till the morrow.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ she said coolly. ‘And you know it is. Which of you whistled—you or Mr Challoner?’

  ‘Did we whistle?’

  ‘One of you did. Which of you? I want to know, please.’

  ‘Obviously. You can understand then, how natural it is that I should want to know why you want to know.’

  ‘Because I want to know what you and Mr Challoner were doing there.’

  ‘I have already told you that I parted from Mr Challoner there. I had been in his rooms, and he walked with me as far as the gates of the grounds.’

  She eyed him sullenly for some moments in silence.

  ‘You won’t answer the question I’ve asked you?’

  ‘I have answered it, Miss Rodney—twice, I believe.’

  She threw her cigarette into the fire angrily.

  ‘Well, you may be as glib and as smart as you please, but I tell you I’m going to know the meaning of you and your friends hanging about that way at night, watching and spying on people. If you won’t tell me, I’ll go to Mr Challoner and ask him. And if he won’t tell me, I’ll go to Dr Melhuish and ask him. And if he won’t tell me, I’ll complain to the manager and have it stopped. You’ll see.’

  ‘My dear Miss Rodney,’ said Gore suavely, ‘I assure you you are labouring under some most extraordinary delusion.’

  ‘Oh, am I, indeed?’

  ‘I assure you.’

  ‘Well, then, why did I see you twice on Monday night, waiting about there at the gates? I saw you there just after half-past one—and I saw you there again at half-past two, with Mr Challoner. Why did I see Dr Melhuish there at half-past one, too, just before I saw you? What’s the game? Come on. Say it out. And let’s have done with it.’

  ‘We have done with it, Miss Rodney, so far as I am concerned. If you imagine that I entertain the least interest in your private affairs—I mean, beyond the interest which is their due—you are absolutely mistaken. To state the matter quite concisely, I don’t. Another cigarette? No. They are pretty bad. Goodnight.’

  Before his adroit manœuvring she had retreated slowly to the door.

  ‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘But if there’s any more of it, I’ll complain to the manager. Understand that. He’ll soon put a stop to your molesting people.’

  She waited for his retort, but as there was none, flounced out into the passage and went off towards her sleeping quarters, leaving Gore to shut his door and return to contemplate his fire dubiously.

  Melhuish, according to this account, had been ‘hanging about’ by those gates just before he himself had gone out through them on his way to post his letters. At half-past one, she had said—probably a vague estimate of the hour, approximate merely, yet, as it happened, accurate enough.

  For he recalled that, having stamped his two letters, he had looked at his watch and had seen that it was twenty-five minutes past one. He had felt suddenly disinclined to go out into the fog and damp again, and, having decided not to post his letters that night, had lighted a pipe and smoked for a bit, thinking about things. Finally he had changed his mind again, decided that his letters ought to go that night, put on an overcoat, and gone out—as nearly as he could now reckon, at 1.35 or a very little later. Melhuish had been nowhere in sight then. Of course there had been a pretty thick fog—

  He remembered then that the blind of that lighted window over the bar had been drawn a little aside, and that someone had peeped down at him as he halted to light a cigarette. Naturally enough the girl had been curious, if Melhuish had been ‘hanging about’ there a couple of minutes before—

  It had taken, say, two minutes or three to reach the pillar-box. At 1.38, then, he had met Melhuish by the pillar-box. Say two minutes later, at 1.40, they had seen Arndale coming out of Challoner’s flat. Yes. That fitted. Beginning from the other end, it fitted too. At 1.20 Barrington had left Pickles. Ten minutes later Melhuish had gone out, at 1.30.

  But that allowed Melhuish no time to ‘hang about.’

  Well, allow for a difference of clocks and watches. Allow Melhuish five or six minutes to ‘hang about’—

  What had taken him across there to that corner, by the gates? What had he been hanging about there for? Waiting for Barrington? Had he, as Pickles had originally feared, followed Barrington—seen him go in to this girl—waited for him to come out? Had he followed Barrington knowing that Barrington had just come from his own house—knowing that he had been with Pickles—knowing what had passed between them—knowing everything?

  Or had he merely seen Barrington’s car and wondered where Barrington was? Perhaps Barrington had moved the car from Aberdeen Place, where it had stood apparently while he had been with Pickles, and had left it at that corner while he was
with this girl.

  But why should Melhuish ‘hang about’ wondering where Barrington was—unless he had some special reason beyond mere idle curiosity … a thing unlikely in a man of Melhuish’s stamp?

  Devilish odd that he should have been there—at that spot where the sheath had turned up.

  Suppose he had followed Barrington, knowing that Barrington had those letters of his wife’s— Hell—

  Suppose he had waited outside until Barrington had come out from this Rodney girl, and had demanded them. Would a threat of exposure have scared Barrington into giving them up? Wouldn’t he have simply defied Melhuish? Might not that scrap which the ‘story’ had supposed to have taken place over in Aberdeen Place with Arndale, have taken place in that corner by the gates … with Melhuish. Suppose Barrington had shown fight, and taken out the knife—

  Gore turned his back on the fire, plunged his hands as far as they would go into his trousers-pockets, and informed the hearthrug solemnly that he was damned.

  Perhaps this girl had seen the scrap. Perhaps she suspected that it had had something to do with Barrington’s death—perhaps knew that it had— Perhaps she had come in just now to try to get some information out of him— Jolly—

  It was absolutely ridiculous. Here he was again, back in a muddle of confused suspicion—trying to twist a few miserable, maddeningly inadequate facts into another ‘story’ as absurd as that which he had abandoned for good and all that morning. What was it? What was this obsession that had him in its grip—that refused to allow him to let this sleeping dog lie? Did he or did he not believe that Barrington had died of heart disease—was it impossible for him to answer that simple question to himself?

  He seated himself and, having torn up his uncompleted letter to Pickles, threw it into the fire and fell to meditating upon this curious vacillation of his judgment with regard to the whole affair. It occurred to him after some moments, as a species of relief from formless thought, to make a diagram—a kind of temperature-chart, which would exhibit concretely these strayings to-and-fro of his conjecture; and after some consideration he evolved the following graph, designed to record the varying phases of his opinion with regard to that definite question: ‘Do I believe that Barrington died of heart disease and from no other cause, or do I not believe it?’