by John Bude
“That window,” said Bigswell,” what does it give on to?”
“The garden,” replied Cowper, obviously resenting the Inspector's curiosity.
“Which means that it's in line with the french windows of the sitting-room, eh?” Cowper nodded. “Was the window open or closed when you were in here on Monday night?”
“Closed,” said Cowper promptly. “There's enough draught in this ruddy place without leaving the windows open.”
“I see that it does open.”
“Oh, it opens all right,” agreed Cowper in surly tones. “But it's not been opened this side of of Christmas. You can take my word for that.”
The Inspector moved to the window and took a close look at it. He was about to place his hand on the latch, when he thought better of it and turned suddenly on Cowper, who had been furtively watching the Inspector's procedure.
“Look here, Cowper—there's one thing which puzzles me in this case. You say you were in this room from eight-forty-five until Miss Tregarthan found her uncle dead. Out there, through that window, is the garden and at the end of the garden, the cliff-path. On the other side of this wall is the sitting-room. Mr. Tregarthan was murdered by some unknown person who fired three shots at him from the path. One of those shots was fatal. On the other side of the wall, say twelve feet from where we are standing, Mr. Tregarthan—a heavily built man mind you—fell to the ground shot through the head. On Monday night you made a statement to the Constable. You were asked if you heard any unusual sounds between eight-forty-five and nine-seventeen. You replied that you didn't. D'you still stick to that statement, Cowper?”
“Why shouldn't I?” asked Cowper truculently. “It's the truth, isn't it? You know as well as I do that there was a storm right over the house. If the chap that killed Mr. Tregarthan chose his moment and fired at the same time as a thunder-clap, how the devil could I be expected to hear the sound of the shots?”
“It's curious—that's all,” answered Bigswell meaningly. “The shots being so close and the window apparently open.”
Cowper gave him a sudden, furtive look of enquiry.
“The window open? Didn't I tell you it was shut!”
“Then how do you account for this?” asked the Inspector in a quiet voice, pointing to the window-sill. “D'you see those marks, Cowper? D'you know what they are, eh? You don't? Then I'll tell you. They're rain spots—recent, too, by the look of them. It's curious how driving rain will dapple the surface of dark paint and remain spotted until the marks are cleaned off. What have you to say about that, eh? You realise, Cowper, that it hasn't rained since Monday night. The storm had gone over completely by nine-thirty. It rather looks as if somebody did open that window on Monday night. Your wife perhaps. If so I can easily put the question to her and make sure. The same applies to Miss Tregarthan. If neither of them opened the window, then it rather looks as if you've not been telling the truth, Cowper. Well?”
During this exposition of logic Cowper's face had assumed the look of a man who finds himself in a tight corner and can't see his way out of it. His features were ashen. His fingers worked nervously at the tapes of his green baize apron.
“Well, then,” he mumbled uneasily, “let's say I made a mistake. With so much happening in the house, it's nothing but natural, isn't it? Daresay I did open the window earlier in the evening. A chap can't remember everything when he's upset.”
“I see. So the window was opened on Monday night?”
“Come to think of it,” said Cowper, with a kind of despairing heartiness, “you're right there, Inspector. Can't think how I came to forget it! I'd been filling the oil-lamp in here what I use in the wood-shed. Just afore dinner that would be. Paraffin hangs about, as you know. So I opened the window to clear the air a bit, not wanting Mrs. C. to fall on me for filling the lamp in the pantry. She's a stickler for having things just-so.”
“A very commendable quality,” Bigswell observed dryly. “Well, I won't keep you any longer, Cowper. You can get back to your job.”
Without waiting to be told twice Cowper, with a faint smile of relief, slipped out of the pantry and returned to his sawing. He was pleased with his own smartness. He had not suspected that he was the possessor of a highly inventive mind. He had parried the Inspector's stroke, he felt, with extreme deftness.
But the Inspector was far less gullible than Cowper imagined. From the moment he had discovered the rain-spots on the window-sill he knew that Cowper had been lying. He had lied to Grouch. It would have been obvious to the least observant man that Cowper was hiding something from the police. He felt certain in his own mind now, that the man had stolen the notes. The next problem to be solved was where had he concealed the money? In the pantry itself? It was a very probable hiding-place.
Closing the door, Inspector Bigswell made a minute search of every nook and cranny of the little room. But there was no money. At the conclusion of his search, however, his gaze was attracted to the polished surface of the long, oak stool under the window. It had been scratched, recently it seemed, and on looking closer the broken outlines of a footprint were faintly discernible. Whoever had stood on the stool had worn nailed boots—boots such as a gardener might wear or a man whose duties carried him outside the house. A few pieces of gravel were dusted over the dark, shiny wood. It was identical with the gravel which the Inspector had found on the Greylings drive and on the cement outside the french windows.
But why had Cowper mounted the stool? The window was set fairly low down. There was no reason why Cowper should have climbed on to the stool to open the window. But he had climbed on to it. Why?
Leaving this question for the moment, Bigswell let himself out of the side door and, leaving the light on in the pantry, walked down to the cliff-path. It was now almost dark and the orange square of the frosted window shone out brightly from the grey bulk of the house. The Inspector realised at once that the pantry-window was set at the extreme right-hand corner of the house. But that was not all! Directly beneath the window, running at right angles to the house's façade, was the southern wall of the garden.
For a moment, unable to suppress a quick thrill of excitement, he pondered the full significance of this fact. Was his Ronald Hardy-Ruth Tregarthan theory at sixes and sevens? Was Cowper responsible, not only for the theft of the notes, but for the murder itself? How damnably easy for Cowper, knowing the coast to be clear, to climb out of the pantry window, creep along the wall, shoot Tregarthan and return, unnoticed, to the house. No tracks on the surrounding paths or the flower beds. Little chance of being surprised in the act, since he had a perfect knowledge of everybody's whereabouts. And following up the murder, the theft of the notes. Perhaps he had misjudged the man's true character. Perhaps, driven to desperation by his bookmaker's threat to divulge the secret of his debts to Tregarthan, he had decided in cold blood to murder his master, having full knowledge that he carried the monthly cash-allowance on his person. And the revolver? Well, the same theory would still hold water. It had slipped from his hand when he was on the wall. Ruth Tregarthan had come along and picked it up in the belief that it was Hardy's. She probably knew that he possessed a Webley. She knew of the quarrel between Ronald and her uncle. She knew Ronald was liable to sudden emotional storms and, putting two and two together, had jumped to a very possible conclusion. True it was that Hardy's revolver was missing from its holster. But that might have been an unfortunate coincidence. On the other hand the man had disappeared and the revolver with him. Was his disappearance to be dismissed also as an unfortunate coincidence?
Bigswell suddenly felt disheartened. Where was he really getting to? This affair of the stolen notes had opened up an entirely new line of reconstruction. In some way Cowper was implicated. He had climbed on to that stool. He had, in spite of his initial denial, opened the pantry window. Was it not a perfectly logical argument to say that the theft was connected with the murder and that Cowper was the “wanted man” on both counts?
CHAPTER XIII
> CORONER'S INQUEST
BEFORE returning to Greystoke, Inspector Bigswell called in at the Constable's office to acquaint himself with Ned Salter's evidence. Cross-examined by Grouch, who had full knowledge of the Bedruthen interview, the poacher had given a perfectly satisfactory account of his movements on the night of the murder. His story fitted without flaw the account already given by the shepherd, and the Inspector realised that, as far as Ned Salter was concerned, he had absolutely no connection with Tregarthan's death. He had guessed that Salter's alibi was unassailable the moment Bedruthen had come forward, but it was with a great sense of relief that he found himself in a position to cross at least one suspect from his list.
He returned to Greystoke and went at once to the Superintendent's office, where he made a concise report of the day's investigations. On the whole Bigswell felt little progress had been made. The theft of the money was an annoying complication, which had considerably shaken his faith in the theory which he had advanced the night before. The Superintendent, too, was worried by the introduction of yet one more suspected person into the already overcrowded picture. In his opinion the Coroner's verdict was already a foregone conclusion. Confronted with such a mass of conflicting evidence he could do little more than to bring in a verdict of “murder by person or persons unknown.” The Superintendent had no doubt that the Chief would get in touch with the Coroner and suggest that the inquest should run along these lines. Unsatisfactory, perhaps. But there it was. The Inspector had done his best in the limited time, but it looked as if the problem was of a more stubborn nature than they had first anticipated.
The next morning proved fine and Bigswell was early on the road to Boscawen. Although the police had subpœnaed a number of witnessess, he expected little to come of the inquest. Mrs. Mullion's evidence would probably cause a sensation. He was curious to see how Ruth Tregarthan would parry the unexpected blow. The fact that she was seen on the cliff-path with the revolver in her hand would certainly prejudice public opinion against her, but the police were by no means in a position to issue a warrant for the girl's arrest. Hardy was still missing and his statement was an essential factor in building up a foolproof case against the girl. On top of that there was this new complication arising from the theft of the notes and Cowper's lie about the open window. It seemed ridiculous to suppose that Cowper was hand-in-glove with Ronald Hardy and Ruth Tregarthan, but if he had acted on his own, why had Hardy disappeared directly after the murder?
Still turning these problems over in his mind the Inspector went to the Constable's office. Grouch was not alone. Seated on a bench under the clock was a tall, shambling fellow with a knitted balaclava helmet completely encasing his head and ears. A huge muffler encircled his scraggy neck. On seeing the Inspector this extraordinary figure rose from the bench and demanded in a penetrating voice to know the time. Bigswell, rather taken aback by the strange request, grinned and pointed at the clock. The man grinned back and started to count aloud on his fingers. The Inspector threw an enquiring look toward Grouch. The Constable beckoned him over.
“It's all right, sir,” he said in a quick undertone. “It's only old Tom Prattle. Quite harmless as long as you don't pull his leg, but a bit——” He tapped his forehead. “You know, sir.”
“What's he here for? Drunk and disorderly?”
“At this time of the day, sir?” Grouch chuckled and shook his head. “It's that, sir. That's the reason for his visit. Curious, eh?”
The Inspector moved over to the desk. Then he stopped short and whistled.
“Hullo! Hullo!” he said. “What the devil's this?”
Lying on a sheet of blotting paper was a Webley service-pattern revolver!
“That's just what I can't make out, sir. Tom here found it this morning. He's a hedger and ditcher for the Rural District. And he came across it lying at the bottom of a ditch up on the Vicarage road.”
“Whereabouts on the road?”
“Well, as far as I can make out from Tom, about a quarter of a mile this side of the Greylings drive gate. Funny, eh? Looks rather as if——”
“Exactly,” cut in the Inspector. “We'll get this fellow to show us the exact spot.”
He took up the revolver gingerly in his gloved hand. It was speckled with rust and splotched with daubs of dried mud. Finding it loaded, the Inspector emptied the cartridges into his hand. He was surprised. Every chamber was filled. He looked at the butt of the revolver. Crudely scratched on the metal, obviously with some blunt instrument, were the perfectly defined initials—R.H. Hardy's revolver! Precisely. But why fully loaded? And how the devil had it found its way into the ditch by the roadside, when according to Mrs. Mullion's evidence, Ruth Tregarthan had handled this very revolver on the cliff-path some hundreds of yards away?
He turned to the grotesque figure, who was sitting with splayed knees on the extreme edge of the bench.
“Can you show us exactly where you picked this up?”
“Oh—oi. I can do that right enough.”
“Good!”
The three men went outside and clambered into the car, but not before Tom Prattle had enquired the time of Grimmet and informed the Inspector in a lugubrious voice that Mr. Tregarthan had been murdered by a German spy.
Grouch winked.
“Got Germans on the brain, sir. It was the war that sent him rocky. He's always talking about the Jerries. Poor devil!”
On that short drive the Inspector did some pretty rapid thinking. He was at an entire loss to explain away the revolver's sudden appearance in the ditch. It would have been impossible for Ruth Tregarthan to have planted it there when she had crept out of Greylings on Monday night. She would not have had time; moreover her track round the outskirts of the wall had corroborated her explanation. No—if Ruth Tregarthan had picked up a revolver from the cliff-path and later thrown it into the sea, it was not Hardy's revolver. She may have thought it was Hardy's revolver. But she had been mistaken. Then whose revolver had she picked up? Cowper's? That seemed the only feasible supposition. Then it was Cowper and not Hardy who had lured Tregarthan to the window and shot him? Well! Well! So much for his pretty little theory about the Ruth-Ronald collaboration. Was it after all going to be a case for the experts?
At that moment the car drew up beside an ordinary roadman's barrow from which projected a red flag.
“Is this the spot,” asked the Inspector over his shoulder.
“Oh—oi. This is it. Down in the trench, corporal—just here it was.”
Tom clambered awkwardly out of the car and the men formed a little group about his swaying figure.
“You see that big stone, hay? Right aside that it was lying, Corporal. Left there in a hurry, I reckon, by some poor, ruddy German.”
The Inspector examined the spot carefully. There was a deep indent in the almost liquid mud which lay in the trough of the ditch, but it was impossible to say if the impress had been made by the revolver. But Bigswell was less interested in the ditch than in the springy ribbon of turf which divided the ditch from the road. He worked along this ribbon of spongy turf for about five yards either side of where Tom Prattle had found the revolver. Suddenly he uttered a little exclamation of satisfaction. About six feet away from the parked car was the unmistakable tread of a tyre. It had left a series of diamond-shaped prints in the damp turf.
“When I made that test yesterday, Grimmet, where did we park? About here?”
Grimmet shook his head.
“Fifty yards further on, sir.”
“And these marks?”
“Not the tyres on our own car, sir. We've got bramble-markings.”
The Inspector nodded and with a word of thanks to Tom Prattle, climbed back into the car and ordered Grimmet to drive back to the Constable's cottage.
There he put through a call to Fenton's Quick Service Garage. Fenton himself answered the phone.
“Morning, Fenton. I want you to do something for me. Take a look at the markings of the tyres on Hardy's car for
me, will you? I didn't notice myself when I was over on Tuesday.”
“Right!” snapped Fenton. In a few moments he was back at the phone. “Criss-crosses,” he said, “sort of diamond-shaped pattern.”
“Thanks. That's all I wanted to know.”
He hung up the receiver and turned to Grouch.
“No doubt about it, Grouch. Hardy parked his car up on the Vicarage road on Monday night.”
“And the revolver, sir?”
“His without a shadow of doubt.”
“But how——?”
“Don't ask me,” said the Inspector testily. “This damned case is fairly bristling with snags. No sooner do we round one awkward corner when we come on another. Look here, Grouch, let's tabulate all those points which, at the moment, we can't explain.”
At the end of ten minutes Bigswell had drawn up a pretty formidable list. It ran:
(1) Why did Hardy leave his revolver in the ditch near the scene of the crime instead of ridding himself of it on his way to Greystoke station?
(2) Why, if he did not intend to murder Tregarthan, had he taken the revolver out of its holster that evening?
(3) Why did he park his car near Greylings on the night of, and at the estimated time of, the murder?
(4) Unless he was implicated in the murder, why had he disappeared?
(5) Did he murder Tregarthan?
(6) Whose revolver did Ruth Tregarthan have in her hand when seen by Mrs. Mullion?
(7) Did she believe it to be Hardy's?
(8) Was that the reason for her subsequent actions later in the evening? Had she thrown that particular revolver into the sea?
(9) Was it Cowper's revolver?
(10) Did Cowper murder Tregarthan?
(11) Why was it, since three shots were fired, that Salter and Bedruthen both swore that they had heard only a single shot?
