Lewis Haldean stretched his legs ostentatiously. He had the air of a man who was completely unconcerned.
“I’ve just told you all that,” he observed sardonically. “The point is that I didn’t work the miracle. Galley did.”
“Unfortunately for you,” Mordecai Tremaine said, “Galley couldn’t have worked it. There was a matinée performance of the Follies that day and he was there for the opening number at half-past two. Inspector Penross has made certain of that. You, of course, were officially staying at St. Mawgan, and on the surface you had an alibi. But when the inspector and I went a little deeper into that same alibi we discovered a rather curious thing. According to your host, Mr. Tregarwen, you enjoyed a protracted fishing trip that day—you left the harbour in your boat with the early tide before it was light and you didn’t return until the tide came in again late in the afternoon. You were alone. There was no one to say that you didn’t go fishing but that you left your boat in a cave under the headland here and spent the day in this house waiting for Adrian Carthallow.”
He pushed his pince-nez higher and regarded Lewis Haldean reflectively. He fancied that the blond man had lost something of his composure.
“I’m not certain of your motive, but knowing Adrian Carthallow’s attitude towards women I think I can guess. When I called at your bungalow on the day we went to St.Mawgan together there was the photograph of a woman on your dressing-table. It was a photograph you evidently prized highly, and yet it was one that even your closest friends hadn’t apparently seen, because when I happened to mention it to Mrs. Eveland she told me that although she was on very good terms with you she’d never heard you speak of a girl called Margaret, and it was obvious that the photograph conveyed nothing to her.
“I think your plan to murder Carthallow must have been developing over a long period of time—which shows that you must have had good reason to hate him. His expensive tastes aided your design. You encouraged him to gamble and when he was hard pressed you lent him money to make sure he’d try to get back what he’d already lost and lose more still.
“I saw you together in London, as you will doubtless recall, although you’ve carefully avoided any reference to it. It was clear then that you were leading him on, and clear, too, that Carthallow was risking more than he could afford, because he couldn’t help showing his chagrin when he lost. He wasn’t at all happy about my seeing him, which I rather fancy is another proof that he was in deep water and knew it.
“Of course, your role was that of the trusted friend. You lent him several thousand pounds and didn’t press for payment. You pretended to be worried about him and tried to get him to take things easily—knowing perfectly well that he couldn’t afford to do it and that you were only making him more determined to go on. You told people like myself that you thought he was under a great strain and heading for a breakdown, in the hope that the idea would spread. You wanted it to be thought that Carthallow was living on his nerves. You were preparing the way for his suicide.”
Lewis Haldean’s hand went up to smooth his silken beard. It was intended to be a nonchalant gesture. But his hand was unsteady.
“That was your intention,” Tremaine went on. “You weren’t going to let Carthallow’s death be treated as murder and run any risks over it. Officially he was going to commit suicide. I don’t know how much you knew about Carthallow’s connection with Galley, but if you did know the full story you must have been highly delighted. Respected artist, up to his eyes in debt, trying to make ends meet by selling fake old masters. What a perfect motive for suicide!
“Carthallow came back unexpectedly from Wadestow because you’d persuaded him to meet you secretly. You told him that you’d come over from St. Mawgan so that you could talk without being disturbed. I don’t doubt that you gave him a convincing reason for the meeting.
“You knew he kept a Webley revolver in his desk. You knew its calibre and everything about it. You also knew that there were plenty of Service revolvers of a similar pattern to be picked up in London if you contacted the right people—revolvers left over from the war that might be expensive to buy but that wouldn’t be registered under the firearms act and that the police wouldn’t be able to trace. Carthallow’s own gun, in fact, was just that kind of weapon.
“When Carthallow came into the house he didn’t suspect that you were already there so he went into his study and sat waiting for you. The stage was set now so you made your entrance as though for the first time. I dare say you thought that if you were unlucky enough to be seen leaving the place by some chance visitor to the neighbourhood a pair of dark glasses would help to prevent your being recognized. Anyway, you came provided with a pair and I think you were wearing them when you went into the study—probably to heighten the illusion that you’d just come in from the sun. You strolled in with your hands in your pockets, and Carthallow, suspecting nothing, didn’t realize that it was because you were wearing gloves.
“As you went in, you took off the glasses and dropped them on a chair, and then you stepped up to Carthallow and, before he could grasp what was happening, you’d placed the revolver against his head and fired. You took his keys from his pocket and whilst his body was still propped in the chair you went over to the desk by the window and took out his gun. The mistake you made there, of course, was in leaving the entire bunch in the lock instead of only the one key as Carthallow himself would have done.
“Then you dragged the desk across the floor and placed Carthallow’s body as it might reasonably look if he’d shot himself. You knew that moving the desk was a weakness that might possibly lead to awkward questions, but you daren’t move the body across to the place where it usually stood. You knew that there’d inevitably be traces that the forensic science experts in the police laboratories would be able to find, and once there was any suspicion aroused that the body had been moved after death the suicide theory would have been ruled out. You had to account for any odd splashes of blood there might have been on the floor around the body and the only way you could do that was by moving the desk and making it look as though the shooting had actually taken place in the centre of the room. The position of the desk might seem puzzling, but there wouldn’t appear to be anything directly significant about it.
“After that you turned your attention to the gun. You knew that the police would soon find out that it wasn’t Carthallow’s revolver that had killed him. It hadn’t been fired and in any case the barrel and breech markings wouldn’t tally with the bullet and the ejected cartridge case. You found the spent bullet in the picture rail and managed to extract it with a pair of surgical forceps you’d brought for the purpose. Then, still wearing gloves, you fired a second shot, this time with Carthallow’s gun and standing as far back as you dared, into the hole made by the first. You realized, of course, that the hole would be larger than that made by a spent bullet and that there might be more blackening and powder grains and destruction round the edges, but you were gambling on an obvious appearance of suicide to prevent too detailed a scientific examination, and in any case firearms can play queer tricks.
“So far everything was working out just as you’d planned. The police were going to find Adrian Carthallow seated at his desk with his gun still in his hand, and when they tested the bullet and the cartridge case they were going to verify that they had come from that particular weapon. If anything had gone wrong and the first bullet had lodged in his skull you were going to take his gun and the cartridges and leave your own. Since Carthallow wasn’t supposed to have the weapon officially and hadn’t registered it you thought you’d be safe. One Webley looks like another and nobody would be able to swear it wasn’t Carthallow’s gun if any doubt did happen to arise.
“And then the whole scheme went wrong. You’d fired the second shot, collected the first bullet and the cartridge case, checked for anything else that might need attention—and then you heard someone coming into the house!
“That must have been a moment of real panic. You ha
dn’t expected anything like that and you lost your nerve. You’d thought that Mrs. Carthallow was safely in Wadestow and that the servants wouldn’t be back until later. You didn’t know who was coming in, or how many visitors there might be. And, although you hadn’t quite completed your arrangements, you dared not stay because if anyone saw you it would mean you were finished. You made sure you’d picked up your own gun and then escaped through the garden. In your hurry you overlooked both the sun-glasses and the forceps.”
There was a hush upon the room. Each of them was still, listening without sound or movement to the steady, damning indictment that was coming from the mild-looking, elderly man with the pince-nez who sat facing them.
No one looked at Lewis Haldean. The blond man’s normal air of vitality had gone and there were deep lines of strain etched into his cheeks, but otherwise he gave no sign of the havoc that quiet voice must have caused in him.
“When you got back from St. Mawgan that night,” Mordecai Tremaine went on, “you must have been a shocked and bewildered man. Not by the news that Adrian Carthallow was dead—that certainly wasn’t news to you—but by the fact that Helen Carthallow had told the police that she had killed him. That was a development you hadn’t reckoned with and it presented you with a problem you had no idea how to solve. You didn’t want someone else to be accused of the crime you’d committed, and at the same time you were understandably anxious to avoid being arrested for it yourself.
“From the first I was intrigued by two things—your insistence that Carthallow might have committed suicide, and your championship of Mrs. Carthallow. It seemed so obviously not suicide and you harped so much on the point that it was that I began to wonder whether you didn’t know more than you’d admitted—something, in fact, that fitted in with the suicide theory. That brought me to the next stage. Suppose, I reasoned, it wasn’t really suicide, but that somebody had intended to make a murder look like a suicide. And suppose that somebody had been interrupted by Mrs. Carthallow’s arrival before he had been able to finish his artistic setting.
“It began to look hopeful. I’ll admit that at first I was inclined to suspect Mr. Imleyson, but then I realized that there were too many things that didn’t fit. For instance, if Mr. Imleyson had planned to kill Mr. Carthallow he would hardly have arranged to meet Mrs. Carthallow on the scene of the crime—unless they were in it together, which in view of the apparently elaborate attempt to make it look like suicide seemed unlikely, since neither of them would have had an alibi. And if he’d killed him after meeting him unexpectedly as the guilty lover then it just didn’t explain the desk and the forceps.
“The more I thought it over the more convinced I became that I’d have to find someone else—a third party, who knew that Carthallow was coming to the house, who’d been interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Carthallow, and, indirectly, Mr.Imleyson, and who’d made his escape by way of the sea instead of crossing the bridge.
“That made you the obvious choice. You’d been on a fishing trip to St. Mawgan, which meant that you could have used a motor launch without arousing comment and could quite easily have come in this direction—it’s quite a short journey by water. You knew all about the arrangements Mr. and Mrs.Carthallow had made and knew that the house would be empty. I recalled your strange harping on the suicide theory and how you’d told me that you were worried about Carthallow and wouldn’t be surprised if he had a breakdown. I recalled how intimate you’d been with him and how you’d seemed to know a great deal about his financial affairs. All those things gradually began to form a complete picture, but I think it was a lie you told me in Valance Gardens that made me certain you were the man for whom we were searching.”
Haldean looked up. There was enquiry in his eyes. Tremaine said:
“I imagine you felt you must be under suspicion because of your vigorous denials that Helen Carthallow had killed her husband. As one of her closest friends you would naturally be expected to adopt such an attitude, but I think you realized that you’d been carrying things just a little too far and you wanted to give me a reason that would satisfy me. So you told me you were in love with her.
“I knew it was a lie. Quite apart from the fact that I’d seen that photograph in your room, Mrs. Eveland had told me that you weren’t in love with Helen Carthallow, and I was quite sure she wouldn’t have made a mistake over a matter of that kind. So you were lying. And if you were lying then it was a sign that you had something on your conscience.
“I don’t doubt that you killed Galley. Upon reflection I think you must have known a great deal about his connection with Carthallow, and perhaps he knew a great deal about you—too much, in fact. Maybe he thought he could blackmail you as he’d tried to blackmail Carthallow. So you pushed him over the cliffs at Trecarne Head to make sure he kept his mouth shut.”
He stopped. He looked at the blond man. Haldean said, without malice:
“You’re a clever devil. You knew when you brought us all here that Galley couldn’t have killed Adrian. All that stuff about his having developed cold feet and gone over the cliff by accident or because he knew the game was up was just bait in the trap.”
Mordecai Tremaine inclined his head.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was bait.”
“You knew I couldn’t let anyone else—least of all Helen—be convicted for something I’d done. But you weren’t too sure of yourself, so you decided to call this friendly little gathering and give the impression that the case was as good as closed, and that all you needed before you made the thing public was to find out just how Galley had managed to get in and out of the house. You reasoned that I’d be so relieved at finding I was safe, after all, that I’d give you the whole story, thinking I was pinning the job well and truly on to Galley. And it worked. I behaved like a lamb going to the slaughter!”
His voice rose. He glanced towards the window. A tense watchfulness crept into Mordecai Tremaine’s manner.
“The game’s up, you know.”
“Don’t worry,” Lewis Haldean said. “I’m not going to try anything. I know when I’m beaten.” He leaned back in his chair. “What a fool I was to fall for it—what a stupid, unwary fool!”
He began to laugh—quietly and with genuine amusement. He was still laughing when Inspector Penross placed a hand on his shoulder and told him that he was being taken into custody for the wilful murder of Adrian Carthallow and that anything he said would be written down and might be used in evidence at a later date.
10
THE GARDEN GATE was thrust open. Charles Penross came buoyantly down the path and dropped into the vacant deck-chair.
“I hear,” he said, “that you’re going back tomorrow.”
Jonathan Boyce took his pipe out of his mouth.
“Yes, Charles, the holiday’s over. We’re leaving on the nine-thirty.”
Penross said, gruffly:
“I just wanted to say thanks—for all the help you’ve given me.”
He was looking at Mordecai Tremaine.
“You did all the hard work, Charles,” said that gentleman, embarrassed. “It’s easy for a spectator to offer advice from the sidelines.” He added: “It’s all over?”
The inspector nodded.
“Bar the shouting. Haldean’s made a full statement. You were right about the motive. It was that girl in the photograph. He admitted he made a mistake there. He used to put it away during the day in case Carthallow saw it and recognized her, but when you called it had slipped his mind and all he could do was to try and pass it off.
“Haldean was engaged to her. She went off to the States with Carthallow just before the date fixed for the wedding. She died in San Francisco—of pneumonia accentuated by under-nourishment. By that time Carthallow had grown tired of her and had left her flat. He hadn’t troubled to marry her—you know his type.”
“I watched him with Roberta Fairham,” Tremaine said. “It wasn’t pretty. I take it, by the way, that Haldean hasn’t been using his real name?”
“No. That was why Carthallow didn’t connect him with the man whose girl he’d once run off with. He knew she was engaged but apparently he’d never met her fiancé. Not that he’d have troubled himself about him in any case.
“Haldean was genuinely in love with the girl and he didn’t forget. He found out after a while that Carthallow had deserted her and he went over to America to bring her back. He was too late. She’d died a couple of months before.
“After that his one idea was to get even with Carthallow. He wasn’t short of money so that there was nothing to stop him devoting himself to the job. When Carthallow came back to this country and began to establish himself as an artist Haldean got to know him and gradually achieved a position as his most intimate friend.
“He encouraged him to gamble just as you said, although I don’t think much encouragement was needed. His plan was to bring Carthallow to the point where his suicide would seem like the act of a man taking the easiest way out of the mess he was in and then he was going to strike.
“He did know all about the fake paintings and about the link-up between Carthallow and Galley. He knew that if he wanted to he could give Carthallow away, ruin him and get him a term in jail, but he wanted more than that. He wanted to take a personal revenge and nothing less than murder would satisfy him.
“It was his knowledge about the Reynolds deal with Warren Belmont that enabled him to persuade Carthallow to meet him secretly at the house. He told him that he knew that things were getting dangerous and that he wanted to get together with him where they wouldn’t be disturbed to try and find a way out. Carthallow fell for the guardian angel act and arranged the meeting before he went to Wadestow. He never did intend to stay in the town until the evening although he told his wife and everybody else that he did.
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