The Deductions of Colonel Gore

by Lynn Brock

  Rather annoying, though, if one was going to be bored with a lot of that sort of chaff …

  So Master Bertie Challoner had cooled off, then. Feeling a bit silly about that unexpected meeting in Hatfield Place, of course. That probably accounted for his walking just behind for a mile and a half without hailing or trying to pick up …

  Odd, though, that Challoner should have been the one to see him … suppose he had wanted a witness to prove where exactly he had been at that time. Quite odd.

  And then … suddenly … it seemed to Gore perhaps not so odd …

  A south-west gale howled and moaned and groaned in the creaking trees of the Green that night, and screamed and wailed about the flank of the Riverside, and rattled all the windows of its annexe most infernally, but none more infernally than those of a certain private sitting-room to which several references have been made already. In that sitting-room a tallish gentleman with a not unpleasing brown face—now clean-shaven—sat in extremely well-fitting evening clothes before his fire, hammering his excellent teeth with the stem of a long-extinct briar pipe of offensive odour. His forehead was creased by three large wrinkles; his eyes gazed into the heart of the fire as if the least distraction of their gaze might prove fatal. On a chair beside his own lay several sheets of manuscript pinned together, and a fountain-pen. And the last words on the last sheet of the manuscript were:

  ‘The whole thing began to seem to me dream-like—not real—exactly like a mixed-up nightmare. I had a sort of feeling that I should wake up and discover that it was the morning after that dinner at Melhuish’s, and that I’d had a bad night. The only clear, definite conclusion I had arrived at now was that, if Arndale hadn’t done it, Challoner had. Stevens fitted for Frensham, partially, but only partially. For Barrington, of course, he didn’t fit at all. I couldn’t get away from the belief that whoever had killed one had killed the other; and that excluded Stevens. However, it didn’t seem much use reasoning from any belief—’

  And the fact is that a graph for Stevens was added to the collection in Colonel Gore’s suit-case before he retired to rest that night.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  BUT by next morning he had reverted definitely to the earliest of his theories, which had first connected Arndale and Challoner with the affair and had supposed Mrs Barrington aware of at least some of the measures which they had taken, in concert, on that Monday night.

  Arndale had known that Barrington was to see Pickles on that night. It was he who had met Barrington under the lamp, had gone home with him to Hatfield Place, remained there for an hour with him, and gone out again with him in his car. They had separated then, temporarily; but, knowing where Barrington was going, Arndale had followed him and waited until he came out from Pickles. There had been a quarrel; Barrington had tried to defend himself with the knife, and had somehow received a scratch on one hand—probably without Arndale’s intention. Fright, probably, more than anything else had caused Barrington’s death. At all events he had died—suddenly. Arndale had put him into his car, driven it across to Challoner’s flat—where Mrs Barrington had probably been at the moment—and had persuaded Challoner, probably with Mrs Barrington’s assistance, to allow him to use the garage in the lane. Next day, when darkness fell, he or Challoner had driven the car and the dead man to Melhuish’s door and left them there.

  No doubt, with Barrington dead and buried, Arndale had thought himself safe … for a day.

  Then Frensham had appeared on the scene, and had taken up Barrington’s old game, and had paid the penalty. Arndale had remembered how swiftly the knife had worked once. He had obtained possession of it again—laid his plans carefully, and succeeded, somehow, in inveigling Frensham to a spot where he thought they could be safely carried out.

  If Challoner had aided him in his first adventure, was it not quite conceivable that he had been scared into aiding him—probably by keeping watch—in the second. Probably someone had seen him hanging about there near that path leading to Prospect Rock, and he had realised that he had been seen and perhaps recognised. So he had invented this story of having walked across the Downs from Blackbrothers Hill just behind someone else—Gore, as it happened—whom he had seen from his hiding-place come from that direction and go down Fountain Hill.

  This last part of the theory—the part concerning Challoner—was certainly not very convincing. But for that curious episode in Hatfield Place, Gore would have felt inclined to accept Challoner’s unsuspected proximity during his walk across the Downs on Saturday evening as a curious coincidence. But it seemed to him that some extraordinary desperation must have laid behind Mrs Barrington’s attempt to shoot herself. Why should she have come back from London to that furtive meeting with Challoner, if some extraordinary urgency which she shared with him had not compelled her? Something had frightened her badly—frightened them both badly, he felt sure. It was quite possible that Frensham knew or suspected the circumstances of Barrington’s death, and that he had begun to threaten all the three people whom his knowledge or his suspicion had connected with it.

  Certainly some much stronger fear than solicitude on Pickles’s behalf must have driven Arndale to this carefully-planned silencing of Frensham. What more likely, after all, than that Frensham had got some information from the Rodney girl which had put him upon the track? She had been peeping out of her window that night—on the alert—waiting for Barrington. She must have seen and heard what went on … practically beneath her window. She must have seen and heard the car going up the lane afterwards, too, and into Challoner’s garage. Perhaps, even, she had seen the dead man in it. From her window one could see down into a passing car. There was plenty of light there at the mouth of the lane; and the car would have to go pretty slowly round the sharp, narrow corner. If Frensham had got that information, Arndale and Challoner and Mrs Barrington were all sufficiently explained.

  There were moments when Gore accused himself—or rather, felt that he ought to accuse himself—of an undue cold-bloodedness in these speculations of his. The business was a horrible business. One ought to have been decently shocked by it. One ought to have been horrified by the thought that three old friends were involved in such a business.

  But the truth was—and his apologies to himself for that truth became feebler and feebler—that the thing had now so caught hold of him that he had come to regard the actors in it as merely pieces of a puzzle baffling and engrossing to the verge of monomania. He was perfectly aware that his reticence at the inquest had sailed perilously close to the wind. He was perfectly aware that if he succeeded in establishing the fact that Arndale had committed a cruel and cowardly murder—if not two—it would be his own duty to denounce him to justice, his own grave peril not to denounce him. Nothing was farther from his intention or his desire than to be compelled to face that consequence. But he could not persuade himself to leave the pieces alone. ‘I’m not going to be beaten by the damn thing,’ was his defence. ‘I want to know.’ And so he went on shuffling the pieces of his puzzle and using so many matches that the Riverside rebelled and compelled him to purchase his own.

  He came to the conclusion—once more—that all along he had made one fatal mistake for a criminal investigator. Instead of following up any one of his theories, he had allowed himself to be distracted by every red herring which chance or imagination had drawn across it. One never got any forrarder that way.

  This theory—still in favour at the end of Wednesday—about Arndale and Challoner, for instance … One ought to begin at the very beginning, and follow it up step by step, fact by fact. One ought to start by trying to ascertain where Arndale and Challoner were, respectively, between the falling of dusk and six o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 7th—that is to say, during the time at some point of which Barrington had been driven back in his car to Aberdeen Place, dead. It was essential to the stability of the theory that one or other of the two should have visited the garage in the lane some time between those hours. If one or other of
them could not be nailed to that fact, then the whole theory fell to pieces at once.

  Now Challoner, he knew, had been in his flat in Selkirk Place when he had rung him up from Barrington’s house some time about seven o’clock that Tuesday evening. Arndale also, he knew, had been in his own house across the Downs at that time; the servant who had answered his call on the telephone had said that Mr Arndale was in and had asked if he wished to speak to him personally.

  But where had they both been earlier that afternoon—just before dusk and just after it? Now how could one find that out?

  The obvious course was to make inquiries in the lane itself first of all. The rooms over the stables there which had been converted into garages were in most cases occupied—presumably by chauffeurs and their families—at all events by people with very little to look at and likely to be induced by a small douceur to say what they remembered to have seen. A fortnight had elapsed, it was true. Still, some of the women who were to be seen at any hour of the day hanging out of their windows or gossiping in the lane might be capable of remembering what had happened a fortnight ago. The ordinary witness in the ordinary trial was expected to remember things that had happened months before. At all events it was worth trying.

  He tried it on the Thursday morning after the inquest.

  As a result of inquiries at which the entire population of the lane ultimately assisted, he acquired the following information:

  1. Mr Challoner had last taken out his car on

  (a) last Friday week.

  (b) last Saturday week.

  (c) last Tuesday fortnight.

  2. No car had come out of Mr Challoner’s garage since last Monday week.

  3. A tall, dark man had taken a car out of Mr Challoner’s garage on—

  (a) Tuesday of week before last.

  (b) Friday of last week.

  (c) Friday of week before last.

  4. The garage from which the tall dark man had taken the car was not Mr Challoner’s, but the garage next to it.

  5. The tall man was not so dark, but more inclined to be fairish. Not so tall either.

  For these variegated statements Gore paid seventeen and sixpence in largesse. The lane cheered him as he departed.

  In the Mall, as he was about to turn into the club, Melhuish passed in his car. He had evidently overcome his scruples as to taking over the Kinnairds’ chauffeur, Gore perceived, for the man was driving, Melhuish in a back seat being apparently absorbed in his newspaper. He looked up, however, as he went by, and, seeing Gore, stopped the car to ask if he might come across to the Riverside for a chat that evening.

  ‘Delighted,’ said Gore. ‘How’s Mrs Melhuish?’

  ‘Much better. She hopes to get back early next week. Looks like snow, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Rather. Any time up to midnight, doctor—’

  ‘Thanks. About half-past nine, probably.’

  The club was always practically deserted at that early hour, and Gore was somewhat disconcerted to discover, when he entered the lounge, that he was to share its solitude with Bertie Challoner. They interchanged a rather formal ‘Good-morning,’ and for a little time remained entrenched behind their respective newspapers at opposite sides of the fire. Then Challoner rose and came across the hearth-rug with a rather uncertain smile.

  ‘Look here, Wick,’ he said bluntly, ‘I expect you think I’m a frightful ass. You’ve probably been hearing all kinds of stories about me, I expect, from various people … I think I had better explain. I suppose you’ve been wondering about … what happened the other day in Hatfield Place, haven’t you?’

  ‘I have,’ Gore replied with candour.

  ‘Well … it’s like this,’ began Challoner, and seated his fourteen stone with delicate nicety in a chair beside Gore’s. ‘Ethel and I have fixed up to get married … You’d better have that straight—to start off with. We’re to be married in the spring. You may be my best man, if you care to take on the job.’

  ‘Delighted, my dear chap, if I’m in England.

  ‘I suppose Roly-Poly had told you, hadn’t she?’ Mr Challoner was plainly a little disappointed that this announcement had been received so calmly.

  ‘Your sister? Not a word.’

  ‘It’s a wonder. Well, anyhow, there it is. It’s not public property yet, you know, but I thought it better to let you know.’

  ‘Congratulations, my dear fellow.’

  For a little time Challoner expanded his views and feelings with reference to matrimony in general and matrimony for him with Ethel Barrington in particular. He had evidently thought the subject out earnestly and exhaustively, and he spared Gore none of the reasons which had persuaded him to a decision which it was clear he still regarded as of the most momentous and anxious gravity. From that he passed to the reasons—equally numerous and embarrassingly intimate—which had prevented him from coming to that decision long ago—long before SHE had ruined her life … or part of it … by marrying that blackguard Barrington. The reasons were not very convincing; but their very feebleness appeared at least to afford Mr Challoner the pleasures of self-martyrdom. Then for a considerable period he dilated with fervour upon the Hell through which that blackguard had dragged one of the best … in fact, the best … little woman that had ever lived. And at length he burst into a full-blooded description of the episode on the evening of the Melhuish’s dinner-party, which had culminated for the best little woman in the world in a black eye and a resolve to break the chains of her intolerable and unspeakable slavery for ever. There was no need to encourage the historian. His wrathful reminiscence flowed on now, forgetful of his audience, desirous only to find words for its denunciation and its pity.

  It was a somewhat disconnected story, but a palpably authentic one; and in substance it amounted to this:

  On the afternoon of that Monday Challoner had called at 27 Hatfield Place … for the first time, he alleged … ‘just called in the ordinary way.’ … Barrington had returned—unexpectedly, it was clear—and had found him ‘having tea and chatting.’ … To Challoner’s surprise and outraged incredulity, the blackguard had made the most frightful scene, the most frightful accusations. Mrs Barrington had fled to her bedroom; the scene had continued downstairs until Challoner, after various speeches of the utmost nobility and virtue, and various threats and defiances of not quite so dignified a nature, had left the house.

  About half-past ten that night Mrs Barrington had rung him up at his flat to say that, after he had gone away, she had had a dreadful row with her husband, who had struck her several times severely—that it was the last straw—and that she had thought it over and had decided to leave the house that night—for good—before her husband returned from the Melhuishs’ dinner-party.

  Challoner had thought that that was a very ‘serious’ thing for her to do, and had tried over the phone to dissuade her from doing anything so serious in a hurry. But she had refused to alter her decision, and finally he had persuaded her to consent to the Arndales meeting her at the Riverside. She couldn’t possibly arrive at the Riverside, he had told her, at eleven o’clock at night, with a black eye, alone. She had agreed to his suggestion, and he had rung up Arndale at the Melhuishs’ house and asked him and Mrs Arndale to go at once to the Riverside to meet Mrs Barrington when she arrived there, and to arrange about rooms for her.

  They had met her when she arrived at the hotel, and had remained with her for nearly three hours, as she had been very worked up and excited, naturally. Arndale had left his wife with her for the greater part of the time, and had apparently been backwards and forwards between the hotel and Challoner’s flat at least twice, if not more often, to report how things were going with the fugitive and her consoler. It was impossible for Gore to follow Arndale’s movements in the narrative with accuracy. It appeared, however—according to the narrative—that about 11.15 he had left the Riverside by the front door, come up Aberdeen Place—past the Melhuishs’ house—crossed to Selkirk Place to Challoner’s flat, an
d remained there until a little before one o’clock. He had then gone back to the Riverside—to return again by the same route almost immediately, a little after one o’clock. It had been upon this excursion that he had seen Barrington’s car waiting in Aberdeen Place near the Melhuishs’ door, empty. He had remained at the flat until about a quarter to two—twenty to two, in fact, as Gore knew—and had then gone away finally to pick up his wife at the Riverside and take her home. The purport of these passings to and fro was not altogether clear; but the impression which Gore understood he was to gather from them was that Mr Challoner and the best little woman in the world had been on the point of burning their boats, and that his sister and her husband had busied themselves to dissuade them from a step which even Mr Challoner himself now admitted would have been disastrous.

  The narrative explained, too, Mrs Barrington’s prompt return to Hatfield Place on the afternoon of the following day—following Gore’s conversation with Challoner over the phone. Challoner had rung her up to tell her of her husband’s death—of which he had just heard from the Barracombes—and to advise her to return to Hatfield Place at once—as she had done. He had told Gore over the phone that he didn’t know where she was, because—well, under the circumstances he hadn’t wanted to seem to know anything about her movements—for her own sake.

  At that point Gore asked one question, though he made two of it.

  ‘By the way, did you see Arndale that afternoon, Bertie?’

  ‘Yes. I came up from the Yard in his bus, and he came into my rooms for a bit. Why?’

  ‘Nothing. Just wanted to know. What time was that?’