by Roger Bax
“I agree,” said Maddox sadly. The wholesale manner in which the inspector had laid waste the suspects had left him feeling rather depressed. “It’s all very well, though—it must have been one of them.”
“Yes, I suppose so. There’s an overriding problem that’s been worrying me for a long time—how exactly was it done? We’ve had to assume in all this that Hutton was pushed into the grave, because we haven’t hit on any other theory that explains why he should have been in it, but I’m blessed if I can see it happening in practice. There’s another thing—this family had had its showdown with Hutton in the afternoon. However agitated Marion Appleby or Thomas or the old man may have been then, I can’t think they’d still have been at white heat at six-thirty. Yet surely whoever shot Hutton must have been absolutely reckless with fury to commit a noisy murder in daylight in a place like that. That’s what puzzles me most of all, I think—that anyone could have taken such a gigantic risk, with such an utter disregard of all consequences.”
Maddox scratched his head. “I see all that. What I don’t see is where we go from here.”
“The exasperating thing is,” James added, “that I can’t help feeling we’ve got all the bits of the puzzle now—all we’re likely to get, anyway. In fact, we’ve got too many—there are pieces that don’t fit into any theory. The disappearance of Mrs. Thornton’s car, for instance.”
Suddenly the telephone on his desk rang and he reached for the receiver. “Inspector James here … Yes, constable … What?” He nearly jumped from his chair. “Right, we’ll be over right away.”
He dropped the instrument with a clatter and looked excitedly at Maddox. “That was our man from the churchyard. Barbara Rutherford has just helped herself to the gun!”
Chapter Twenty Seven
As the police car raced once again over the familiar road to the Farm, the inspector mentally jingled his handcuffs. The case, he felt, had suddenly begun to move toward a climax. At the house, however, a fresh surprise awaited him. Thomas Appleby was standing in the drive, and directly the car stopped he strode up to James. “Ah, here you are, Inspector,” he cried with the overeagerness of concealed anxiety. “I’ve just been trying to get you at the station, and they told me you were on your way here. A fortunate coincidence—something extraordinary has happened. Please come in.”
With a frown to Maddox that commanded silence, James followed Thomas into the sitting room, where the rest of the family were assembled. Barbara was pale and tense, like someone awaiting sentence. Marion was positively shaky. Only the old man appeared at ease, nodding peacefully in a lounge chair. It was his first day downstairs since the start of the investigation.
Still holding the initiative, Thomas pointed to a table near the window. “That’s why I was ringing you up, Inspector. We’ve found the gun.”
“I see,” said James impassively. His searching glance swept the circle of faces before coming to rest on Thomas. “What exactly do you mean, sir, by ‘we’?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Thomas, in obvious embarrassment, “my niece found it. By pure chance, of course …”
William opened one eye and growled, “Let the girl tell her own story, Thomas, and stop babbling.”
“I should be grateful if you’d all keep quiet for a moment,” said James. He went to the table and stood for a while looking at the gun in silence. Then he beckoned Maddox over, and there was a brief, inaudible conversation. Not a sound came from the rest of the company during the examination. The shadow of a murder charge seemed to lie heavily over everyone there.
At last James swung round and confronted Barbara. “Well, Miss Rutherford, what have you to say about this?”
She met his gaze squarely. “It was about an hour ago,” she said. “I’d been out for a walk, and when I got back I missed one of my slippers. I knew I’d left them both in here, and one was definitely gone. I asked Gertie about it, but she didn’t know anything. I thought one of the puppies must have taken it—they’re always carrying things from room to room. After we’d looked everywhere I thought I’d go and see if it was in the hollow tree—the one the puppies were born in. They’ve hidden things there before. So I went along—and I found the gun.”
James grunted. A plausible story, not easy to discredit. “Did you find the slipper?” he asked.
“Not in the tree—it turned out to be behind the boiler in the kitchen.”
“And what did you do about the gun?”
“I brought it straight indoors. I told Aunt Marion, and then I rang up Uncle Thomas—he was at the vicarage—and he came here right away.”
“It’s a great pity you didn’t get in touch with me before you moved the gun.”
“That’s what Uncle Thomas said, but I didn’t think of it at the time. I was so surprised when I put my hand in the tree and felt something hard, and I had to take it out to make sure what it was, and then there didn’t seem to be any point in putting it back again.”
“I’d like to make it clear, Inspector,” Thomas broke in, “that no one has attempted to hide anything from you or to mislead you. Not a moment was lost in reporting the find when I got back here, and no one has touched the gun since it was brought in.”
“You can hardly vouch for that personally,” said James dryly, “since you were not here at the time.”
Thomas flushed. “Not personally, no. But I believe that is so, isn’t it, Marion?”
“Certainly it is,” she answered. “I’ve been here practically all the time. In any case, no one would want to touch the horrible thing.”
James caught Maddox’s eye. “No?” he said. The monosyllable held a world of skepticism. “Well, it will be interesting to see if it has any message for us when we get to work on it. Perhaps we might borrow its case from the gun room, Mr. Appleby? Sergeant, will you see to that—better take it along to the station right away. You know what to do. I’ll join you later.”
Four pairs of eyes watched the gun being packed up. It was not until Maddox had departed that James turned again to the family. “I suppose,” he said, “you all knew about the existence of this hollow tree?”
Thomas glanced from face to face and spoke for everyone. “Yes, I think we all knew.”
“What about Mr. Gwynn, I wonder? Did he know?” James looked inquiringly at Barbara, but her face was blank.
“Of course he knew,” put in the Ancient testily. “So did a lot of other people who visited here.” He glared at James. “I can tell you this, young man—if you’d had any gumption you’d have found out about it yourself and looked there long ago. It was a very likely hiding place from the first. Damned incompetence, I call it.”
“There’s an old saying,” remarked the inspector mildly, “that ‘he who hides can find.’ Isn’t that so, Miss Rutherford?”
“I knew that’s what you would think,” said Barbara coldly, “but you’re quite wrong. If I’d hidden it, do you think I’d have been such an idiot as to ‘find’ it again and start all this trouble?”
“You might have. You heard me talking about fingerprints and about the search I was going to make for the gun. I know, of course, that you handled the gun when you were with Hutton, but certain fingerprints would still have taken a bit of explaining, wouldn’t they?—on the trigger, for instance? ‘Finding’ the gun may have been quite a clever idea. We shall see.”
“Lot of rubbish!” muttered the Ancient.
“There’s also the point,” James added, “that by producing the gun yourself you might have hoped to divert suspicion away from yourself. The double bluff is an old technique.”
“It would never have occurred to me,” said Barbara. “I tell you I found it by pure chance.”
“I must say, Inspector,” Thomas began, “that to suggest that Barbara of all people …”
James cut him short. “I don’t think we need to go into that now, sir. By this evening, I may have some more facts to go on. I should be glad if you could all arrange to be here at, say, nine o�
��clock. I’ll ask Mr. Gwynn to join us.”
He picked up his hat and moved toward the door. “That should give you plenty of time to synchronize your stories!”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Back at the station, the inspector found Maddox studying a telephone message of such a startling nature that for the time being it drove all thoughts of the gun out of his head. The call had been from Tom Brinton, the young man who helped to tend the pumping engine on the Twenty Foot. It seemed that he had had the morning off and had strolled along the continuation of Judy’s Lode beyond the village looking for a likely spot to do a bit of fishing. By the water’s edge he had noticed some marks which definitely ought not to have been there, and had rushed straight off to ring the police. In his view, there was a motor car in the Lode.
A few moments after getting the message, James and Maddox, accompanied by a local sergeant, were racing back toward Long Wicklen, where they picked up Tom Brinton. Under his directions, they took a little-used byroad that branched off beyond the village and ran beside the stream, and at a point about a quarter of a mile along they stopped.
There was little to be seen on the side of the low humped bank bordering the road except the faintest suggestion of wheel depressions in the sandy soil. But near the top of the bank there were scourings where back wheels had spun, and down by the edge of the stream, where the ground was always soft, there were deep, well-defined tire marks. Where the parallel lines ended at the brink, the earth had crumbled.
James gave Brinton a grim, approving nod. There was no doubt whatever that a car had gone into the water there. There was equally no doubt that it had been driven there deliberately. He peered over the edge. The Lode looked deep, the water was opaque. From the bank nothing was visible, but that was to be expected. If a car had been driven in here, it would probably have somersaulted and settled well out in the stream.
“I’d like to locate the thing before we get help,” said James. “Let’s get Hutton’s boat.”
They all piled into the car and drove to Osier Cottage at speed. James went through to the back of the house and managed to find a stout pole. The local sergeant, having baled out the dinghy with an old bucket, rowed off upstream on his own and about fifteen minutes later brought the boat to the bank at the spot where the others were already waiting. James clambered in, and as they drew out into midstream he began to sound over the side with the pole. Almost at once he struck something much harder than the bed of the Lode and not very far down. He prodded at various points.
“It’s a car all right,” he called. “Lying upside down, as we thought—I can feel the axles. Okay, Sergeant, let’s go.”
It took some time to organize salvage operations, for Judiford’s resources were limited. With Superintendent’s Bell’s co-operation, James succeeded after an hour or so in borrowing a powerful salvage lorry and a squad of Royal Engineers from an army camp just outside the town.
The raising of the car presented no serious difficulties. It was drawn to the bank by means of a grapnel round one of the axles and then hauled up on to the grass, inch by inch, with the help of a wire rope. Strong hands maneuvered it and turned it back on to its wheels. It seemed intact, apart from its buckled near-side front mudguard.
James pulled open one of the doors and began poking about inside. At first the car appeared to be quite empty, but presently, as the mud and water drained away, he saw that it was not. He emerged with a pair of woman’s shoes. He gave one glance at the maker’s label and passed them over to Maddox.
“Recognize those, Sergeant?”
Maddox turned one of the shoes over, inspected the heel, and nodded. “That’s the one, Chief. No doubt about it at all.” He stared at the Austin. “I can understand she’d want to get rid of the shoes, but why ditch the car?”
“It is a bit like throwing away the baby with the bath water, isn’t it?” said James noncommittally. He climbed back into the car and went over it in detail. Suddenly he gave a little exclamation. “That’s interesting,” he said. “The headlamp switch is turned on.” He continued to look around for some time but could find nothing else that called for comment. Presently he gave an “All Clear” to the R.E.’s and the car was hauled slowly up the bank.
Chapter Twenty Nine
James was taciturn on the way back to Judiford, and immediately on arrival at headquarters he shut himself up alone in his office for some hard, constructive thinking. Everything had suddenly become much more complex, as well as much grimmer. He lit his pipe, found a sheet of paper and a pencil, and set to work to assemble his facts. His method, at this penultimate stage of a case, was unspectacular and painstaking. He liked to get all the evidence down first of all—all the things which had struck him during the investigation as relevant or intriguing. Then he would sift and eliminate and establish, and finally logic and a brooding intuition would usually give him the answer.
Today the solution eluded him for a long time. At the end of an hour he had a page of notes, but the laurel leaves which he had doodled round the edge of the paper were still unearned. He refilled his pipe, and went on working.
Occasionally, when he found something particularly puzzling, he would jot down a question. There were several questions on the paper. The last one was, “Would Fred Pepper really not have noticed the watch?” He sat thinking about that for a long while.
Presently he reached for a virgin sheet of paper and began to write out a series of numbered statements. Each one followed inexorably from the preceding one. His face took on an expression of utter absorption as a conclusion slowly emerged. Logic was fascinating.
After a while he took up the phone and rang the Yard. He wanted an answer quickly to a specific question.
Then he called in Maddox. “I’ve got a big job for you this evening, Sergeant,” he said. “The position, as far as I can see it, is this.…”
Chapter Thirty
Sharp at nine o’clock the inspector was again shown into the Monks Farm sitting room. Everyone there seemed to sense that the last act of the drama had begun, and the atmosphere was heavy with fear and secret knowledge. Dennis Gwynn had joined the party as instructed and was sitting opposite Barbara, watchful and somber. The others looked as though they had hardly moved since the afternoon. The old man was still in the same chair, his beard drooping on his chest and his whole appearance giving a misleading impression of somnolence.
Almost before James had had time to look round at his audience Thomas said, “Whatever you have to tell us, Inspector, please do it quickly and put us out of our misery. I assure you we can’t stand much more of this suspense.”
“What makes you think you’ll be put out of your misery, Thomas?” mumbled the Ancient.
“Now, William!” Marion reproved him. She looked old and strained, but she turned to James with an attempt at normal behavior. “Won’t you sit down, Inspector?”
“No, thank you, Miss Appleby—I prefer to stand. I’m afraid this is a formal visit. Before I leave, I expect to have an unpleasant duty to perform.”
Marion sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.
“You want to know about the gun, of course,” said James, addressing Thomas. He sounded as though he himself were in no great hurry to come to the point. “Well, it’s been thoroughly examined. There isn’t any doubt that it’s the weapon that was used to kill Neville Hutton. As I expected, there are some fingerprints on the stock and barrel, but they are smudged and therefore of no value. In any event, several people are known to have handled the gun at different times, so those particular prints—even if they had been perfect specimens—wouldn’t have told us who fired it. As far as the trigger is concerned, the evidence—as I thought it might be—is of a negative kind. You see, sir, the trigger of this gun has been very carefully wiped.”
Thomas stared at him blankly. “Then the gun doesn’t tell you anything at all?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that—I wouldn’t say that by any means. It’s fairl
y obvious who wiped it. This afternoon, you’ll remember, Miss Rutherford scouted the idea that she could have had any reason for ‘finding’ the gun. Well, here’s the reason—she obviously wanted to clean off her fingerprints.” He looked sternly at Barbara. “Isn’t that so, Miss Rutherford?”
Before she could say anything, Dennis Gwynn broke in. “That’s just nonsense, Inspector. Obviously the murderer wiped it before he put it in the tree.”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Gwynn. Perhaps this is the moment when I should make a confession.” He turned to the sphinx-like Ancient. “You were wrong, sir,” he said in a slightly louder voice, “to express surprise that we had not ourselves discovered the hollow tree. There was no reason why an outsider should suspect its existence. However, we had a stroke of luck, and as a matter of fact we found the gun a couple of days ago. We subsequently put it back, in the hope that the murderer might attempt to recover it and be caught in the act.” This time it was on Marion that his accusing glance fell. “While it was in our possession, we naturally checked it over for fingerprints—and at that time there were prints on the trigger.”
“Whose?” asked Thomas anxiously.
“As it happens, they were smudged and unidentifiable, but the important thing is that they were there. We took photographs of them, so there’s no possibility of disputing the point. Well, they’re no longer there. As the gun has been under close surveillance by day and night ever since we put it back, the only possible conclusion is that it must have been wiped after Miss Rutherford took it from the tree. But I am assured that no one touched the gun after it was brought in here and laid on the table. I can only conclude, therefore, that Miss Rutherford herself wiped the trigger on the way up from the tree.” He looked sardonically at Marion. “You did give me that assurance, didn’t you, Miss Appleby?”
