Have His Carcase

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  Constable Ormond put all his energy into his last question.

  ‘What time did this young man go through?’

  ‘What time? You needn’t shout, young man – I may be a bit hard of hearing, but I’m not deaf. I says to vicar only last Monday, “That was a good sermon you give us yesterday,” I says. And he says, “Can you hear all right where you sit?” And I says to him, “I may not have my hearing as good as it was when I was a young man,” I says, “but I can still hear you preach, vicar,” I says, “from My Text is taken to Now to God the Father.” And he says, “You’re a wonderful man for your age, Gander,” he says. And so I be, surely.’

  ‘So you are, indeed,’ said Ormond. ‘I was just asking you when you saw this fellow with the glasses and the long stick pass through the village.’

  ‘Nigh on two o’clock it was,’ replied the old gentleman, triumphantly, ‘nigh on two o’clock. Because why? I says to myself, “You’ll be wanting a wet to your whistle, my lad,” I says, “and the Feathers shuts at two, so you’d better hurry up a bit.” But he goes right on, coming from Wilvercombe and walking straight through towards Hinks’s Lane. So I says “Bah!” I says, “you’re one o’ them pussy-footin’ slop-swallowers, and you looks it, like as if you was brought up on them gassy lemonades, all belch and no body” (if you’ll excuse me), that’s what I says to myself. And I says, “Gander,” I says, “that comes like a reminder as you’ve just got time for another pint.” So I has my second pint, and when I gets into the bar I see as it’s two o’clock by the clock in the bar, as is always kept five minutes fast, on account of getting the men out legal.’

  Constable Ormond took the blow in silence. Wimsey was wrong; wrong as sin. The two o’clock alibi was proved up to the hilt. Weldon was innocent; Bright was innocent; Perkins was innocent as day. It now only remained to prove that the mare was innocent, and the whole Weldon-theory would collapse like a pack of cards.

  He met Wimsey on the village green and communicated this depressing intelligence.

  Wimsey looked at him.

  ‘Do you happen to have a railway time-table on you?’ he said at last.

  ‘Time-table? No, my lord. But I could get one. Or perhaps I could tell your lordship—’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Wimsey. ‘I only wanted to look up the next train to Colney Hatch.’

  The constable stared in his turn.

  ‘The mare is guilty,’ said Wimsey. ‘She was at the Flat-Iron, and she saw the murder done.’

  ‘But I thought, my lord, you proved that that was impossible.’

  ‘So it is. But it’s true.’

  Wimsey returned to report his conclusions to Superintendent Glaisher, whom he found suffering from nerves and temper.

  ‘Those London fellows have lost Bright,’ he remarked, curtly. ‘They traced him to the Morning Star office, where he drew his reward in the form of an open cheque. He cashed it at once in currency notes and then skipped off to a big multiple outfitters – one of those places all lifts and exits. To cut a long story short, he diddled them there, and now he’s vanished. I thought you could rely on these London men, but it seems I was mistaken. I wish we’d never come up against this qualified case,’ added the Superintendent bitterly. ‘And now you say that the mare was there and that she wasn’t there, and that none of the people who ought to have ridden her did ride her. Are you going to say next that she cut the bloke’s throat with her own shoe and turned herself into a sea-horse?’

  Saddened, Wimsey went home to the Bellevue and found a telegram waiting for him. It had been despatched from a West End office that afternoon, and ran:

  DOING BRIGHT WORK HERE. EXPECT RESULTS SHORTLY. COMMUNICATING CHIEF INSPECTOR PARKER. HOPE FIND OPPORTUNITY DESPATCH LOVAT TWEEDS FROM FLAT. – BUNTER.

  XXVII

  THE EVIDENCE OF THE FISHERMAN’S GRANDSON

  ‘Has it gone twelve? –

  This half-hour. Here I’ve set

  A little clock, that you may mark the time.’

  Death’s Jest-Book

  Wednesday, X July

  ‘There’s one thing that stands out a mile,’ said Inspector Umpelty. ‘If there was any hanky-panky with that horse round about two o’clock at the Flat-Iron, Pollock and his precious grandson must have seen it. It’s not a mite of use saying they didn’t. I always did think that lot was in it up to the eyes. A quiet, private, heart-to-heart murder they might have overlooked, but a wild horse careering about they couldn’t, and there you are.’

  Wimsey nodded.

  ‘I’ve seen that all along – but how are you going to get it out of them? Shall I have a go at it, Umpelty? That young fellow, Jem – he doesn’t look as surly as his grandpa – how about him? Has he got any special interest or hobbies?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, my lord, not without it might be football. He’s reckoned a good player, and I know he’s hoping to get taken on by the Westshire Tigers.’

  ‘H’m. Wish it had been cricket – that’s more in my line. Still, we can but try. Think one might find him anywhere about this evening? How about the Three Feathers?’

  ‘If he’s not out with his boat, you’d most likely find him there.’

  Wimsey did find him there. It is always reasonably easy to get conversation going in a pub, and it will be a black day for detectives when beer is abolished. After an hour’s entertaining discussion about football and the chances of various teams in the coming season, Wimsey found Jem becoming distinctly more approachable. With extreme care and delicacy he then set out to work the conversation round to the subject of fishing, the Flat-Iron and the death of Paul Alexis. At first, the effect was disappointing. Jem lost his loquacity, his smile vanished, and he fell into a brooding gloom. Then, just as Wimsey was deciding to drop the dangerous subject, the young man seemed to make up his mind. He edged a little closer to Wimsey, glanced over his shoulder at the crowd about the bar, and muttered:

  ‘See here, sir, I’d like to have a word with you about that.’

  ‘By all means. Outside? Right! Dashed interesting,’ he added, more loudly. ‘Next time I’m down this way I’d like to come along and see you play. Well, I must be barging along. You going home? I can run you over in the car if you like – won’t take a minute.’

  ‘Thank’ee, sir. I’d be glad of it.’

  ‘And you could show me those photographs you were talking about.’

  The two pushed their way out. Good-nights were exchanged, but Wimsey noticed that none of the Darley inhabitants seemed particularly cordial to Jem. There was a certain air of constraint about their farewells.

  They got into the car, and drove in silence till they were past the level crossing. Then Jem spoke:

  ‘About that business, sir. I told Grandad he’d better tell the police how it were, but he’s that obstinate, and it’s a fact there’d be murder done if it was to get out. None the more for that, he did ought to speak, because this here’s a hanging matter and there’s no call as I see to get mixed up with it. But Grandad, he don’t trust that Umpelty and his lot, and he’d leather the life out of Mother or me if we was to let on. Once tell the police, he says, and it ’ud be all about the place.’

  ‘Well – it depends what it is,’ said Wimsey, a little mystified. ‘Naturally, the police can’t hide anything – well, anything criminal, but—’

  ‘Oh, ’tis not that, sir. Leastways, not as you might take notice on. But if they Bainses was to hear tell on it and was to let Gurney know – but there! I’ve always told Grandad as it wur a fool thing to do, never mind if Tom Gurney did play a dirty trick over them there nets.’

  ‘If it’s nothing criminal,’ said Wimsey, rather relieved, ‘you may be sure I shan’t let anybody know.’

  ‘No, sir. That’s why I thought I’d like to speak to you, sir. You see, Grandad left a bad impression, the way he wouldn’t let on what he was doing off the Grinders, and I reckon I did ought to have spoke up at the time, only for knowing as Grandad ’ud take it out of Mother the mome
nt my back was turned.’

  ‘I quite understand. But, what was it you were doing at the Grinders?’

  ‘Taking lobsters, sir.’

  ‘Taking lobsters? What’s the harm in that?’

  ‘None, sir; only, you see, they was Tom Gurney’s pots.’

  After a little interrogation, the story became clear. The unfortunate Tom Gurney, who lived in Darley, was accustomed to set out his lobster-pots near the Grinders, and drove a very thriving trade with them. But, some time previously, he had offended old Pollock in the matter of certain nets, alleged to have sustained wilful damage. Mr Pollock, unable to obtain satisfaction by constitutional methods, had adopted a simple method of private revenge. He chose suitable moments when Tom Gurney was absent, visited the lobster-pots, abstracted the greater part of their live contents and replaced the pots. It was not, Jem explained, that Mr Pollock really hoped to take out the whole value of the damaged nets in lobsters; the relish of the revenge lay in the thought of ‘doing that Gurney down’ and in hearing ‘that Gurney’ swearing from time to time about the scarcity of lobsters in the bay. Jem thought the whole thing rather foolish and didn’t care for having a hand in it, because it would have suited his social ambitions better to keep on good terms with his neighbours, but what with one thing and another (meaning, Wimsey gathered, what with old Pollock’s surly temper and the possibility of his leaving his very considerable savings to some other person, if annoyed), Jem had humoured his grandfather in this matter of lobster-snatching.

  Wimsey was staggered. It was as simple as that, then. All this mystification, and nothing behind it but a trivial local feud. He glanced sharply at Jem. It was getting dark, and the young man’s face was nothing but an inscrutable profile.

  ‘Very well, Jem,’ he said. ‘I quite see. But now, about this business on the shore. Why did you and your grandfather persist in saying you saw nobody there?’

  ‘But that was right, sir. We didn’t see nobody. You see, it was like this, sir. We had the boat out, and we brings her along there round ’bout the slack, knowin’ as the other boats ’ud be comin’ home with the tide, see? And Grandad says, “Have a look along the shore, Jem,” he says, “and see as there’s none o’ them Gurneys a-hangin’ about.” So I looks, an’ there weren’t a soul to be seen, leaving out this chap on the Flat-Iron. And I looks at him and I sees as he’s asleep or summat, and he’s none of us by the looks of him, so I says to Grandad as he’s some fellow from the town, like.’

  ‘He was asleep, you say?’

  ‘Seemingly. So Grandad takes a look at him and says, “He’s doin’ no harm,” he says, “but keep your eyes skinned for the top of the cliffs.” So I did, and there wasn’t a single soul come along that there shore before we gets to the Grinders, and that’s the truth if I was to die for it.’

  ‘Now, see here, Jem,’ said Wimsey. ‘You heard all the evidence at the inquest, and you know that this poor devil was killed round about two o’clock.’

  ‘That’s true, sir; and as sure as I’m sitting here, he must ha’ killed himself, for there was nobody come a-nigh him – barring the young lady, of course. Unless it might be while we was taking them pots up. I won’t say but what we might a-missed summat then. We finished that job round about two o’clock – I couldn’t say just when it were, not to the minute, but the tide had turned nigh on three-quarters of an hour, and that’s when I looks at this fellow again and I says to Grandad, “Grandad,” I says, “that chap there on the rock looks queer-like,” I says, “I wonder if there’s summat wrong.” So we brings the boat in-shore a bit, and then, all of a sudden, out comes the young lady from behind them rocks and starts caperin’ about. And Grandad, he says, “Let un bide,” he says, “let un bide. Us have no call to be meddlin’ wi’ they,” he says. And so we puts about again. Because, you see, sir, if we’d gone a-meddling and it was to come out as we was thereabouts with the boat full of Tom Gurney’s lobsters, Tom Gurney’d a-had summat to say about it.’

  ‘Your grandfather said you saw Alexis first at about 1.45.’

  ‘It ’ud be before that, sir. But I’ll not say as we kept our eyes on un all the time, like.’

  ‘Suppose someone had come along, say, between 1.45 and two o’clock, would you have seen him?’

  ‘Reckon so. No, sir; that poor gentleman made away with himself, there’s no doubt of it. Just cut his throat quiet-like as he sat there. There’s no manner of doubt about that.’

  Wimsey was puzzled. If this was lying, it was done with a surprising appearance of sincerity. But if it was truth, it made the theory of murder still harder to substantiate than before. Every fragment of evidence there was pointed to the conclusion that Alexis had died alone upon his rock and by his own hand.

  And yet – why wouldn’t the bay mare go near the Flat-Iron? Was it possible – Wimsey was no friend to superstition, but he had known such things happen before – was it possible that the uneasy spirit of Paul Alexis still hung about the Flat-Iron, perceptible to the brute though not to self-conscious man? He had known another horse that refused to pass the scene of an age-old crime.

  He suddenly thought of another point that he might incidentally verify.

  ‘Will anybody be up and about at your home, Jem?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Mother’s sure to be waiting up for me.’

  ‘I’d like to see her.’

  Jem offered no objection, and Wimsey went in with him to Pollock’s cottage. Mrs Pollock, stirring soup for Jem in a saucepan, received him politely, but shook her head at his question.

  ‘No, sir. We heard no horse on the beach this afternoon.’

  That settled that, then. If Wimsey could ride past the cottages unnoticed, so could any other man.

  ‘The wind’s off-shore today,’ added Mrs Pollock.

  ‘And you’re still sure you heard nothing of the sort last Thursday week?’

  ‘Ah!’ Mrs Pollock removed the saucepan. ‘Not in the afternoon, what the police was asking about. But Susie have called to mind as she did hear something like a trampling round about dinner-time. Happen it might be twelve o’clock. But being at her work, she didn’t run out to look.’