by Cyril Hare
The evidence of Detective Inspector Parkinson wound up the proceedings. Like that of the last witness it was technical, but it was easy enough to understand. He described in careful detail the position of the body, illustrating what he said from photographs. He had found it at a spot in the heather some three yards distant from the road itself, but less than a yard from the nearest point to which a motor car could drive. In fact, tracks shewed clearly that a number of vehicles had pulled off the road at this place, one of the few level strips of roadside on the Tussock. It was a favourite spot for picnickers. Indeed, he had found beneath the body the remains of a picnic meal, wrapped in a portion of a Sunday newspaper—last Sunday’s newspaper, he added significantly. There were clear indications that the deceased had been placed in the position where he was found after death, or, at all events, after the injuries had been inflicted. Further enquiries were proceeding on the assumption that this had been done by the driver of the motor vehicle concerned. Traffic over the Tussock was particularly heavy at holiday periods, and there were a great many more investigations to be made. He respectfully asked the coroner for an adjournment sine die.
And on this inconclusive note the proceedings proper ended. To the great delight of the assembled company, however, they were succeeded by what might be fairly called proceedings improper.
A stalwart young man with a round red face arose from the middle of the hall, and said, “Mr. Coroner! Is that there all the evidence we’re going to have?”
The coroner pecked at him sharply.
“That is all the evidence that will be called to-day. You heard what the police officer said; there are further enquiries to be made.”
“Will he be enquiring where Jack was Saturday and Sunday?”
“If you have any information, Mr.——”
“Gorman, the name is. Richard Gorman, Beechanger Farm. They call me Dick.”
“If you have any information, have a talk to the Inspector, and tell him anything you know about this matter. Now, members of the jury——”
“It’s not for me to tell him anything. I don’t know anything. But I know a fiddle when I see one, and that’s what there’s been yere—a fair fiddle!”
He stalked from the room. In the momentary confusion that followed, Mallett noticed Tom Gorman, who had been sitting just behind Louisa, get up and follow him. He waited, himself, until the proceedings had been formally adjourned and then went out with the rest into the soft, damp Exmoor afternoon.
Pushing his way through the crowd, Mallett avoided various acquaintances who shewed signs of wishing to speak to him. He wanted rather badly to be alone, to think over what he had seen and heard. But he was to be disappointed. As he turned into the Inn yard where he had left his car, he almost walked into Tom and Dick Gorman, deep in conversation. At the sight of him, Dick turned, and edging him into the wall, fairly forced him to a standstill.
“Ah!” said Dick. “Just the man we want, isn’t he, Tom?”
Tom said nothing, but he stood with his arms akimbo in a position to cut off Mallett’s retreat. He was a large man—not so large as Mallett by a good way, but at least thirty years younger. Dick was smaller, but compact and muscular. Mallett did not want a rough house, in any event. He said mildly,
“What can I do for you?”
“There’s a man who said he saw Jack on the Tussock on Saturday—I hear he’s staying with you,” said Dick truculently. “What’s his name, Tom?”
“Betty something,” said Tom. “Funny name for a man, but that’s what it sounded like.”
“I have some visitors,” said Mallett cautiously. “A Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew.”
“What I want to know is,” Dick persisted, “did he see Jack or not?”
“It’s no use asking me that,” said Mallett firmly. “In any case,” he turned to Tom, “you should know the answer as well as I do. You were with him on Saturday, I understand. If your brother——”
“Not my brother,” said Tom. “Second cousin, isn’t it, Dick?”
“That’s right. And brother-in-law. I married his sister and he married mine.”
Mallett sighed. He had long since ceased trying to chart the ramifications of the Gorman clan.
“If he really believes it, why doesn’t he talk to the Inspector, as the coroner said?”
“It’s Tom ought to talk to the Inspector, not me,” Dick broke in. “He was there.”
“I didn’t see anything,” said Tom. “There wasn’t anything to see. Mr. Olding will tell you that.”
“But you don’t believe Jack was killed on Monday night, do you?” Dick’s voice had an urgency of appeal in it that astonished Mallett.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Even supposing it did turn out that Jack Gorman died on Saturday instead of Monday, what earthly difference is that going to make to either of you?”
There was no answer to his question, but the silence that succeeded it seemed charged with meaning. Tom looked at Dick and Dick at Tom and the expression on their faces told Mallett that he had stumbled on the meaning of the whole strange little episode.
“It might make a difference and it mightn’t.” Tom’s voice was quiet and reflective. “From what Mr. Bulford says, it seems that it might. That’s just the point.”
“And who may Mr. Bulford be?”
“He’s the lawyer up to Wiveliscombe. Would you like to go to Wiveliscombe to-morrow and have a word with him? I could run you up in my car—it won’t cost you a penny.”
“Why on earth should I want to talk to your lawyer—or he to me?”
“Now look here, Mr. Mallett,” said Dick persuasively. “You heard what I told that fool of a coroner just now. There’s been a fiddle over this business—or looks like there has. And if so, there’s enquiries to be made—that’s what Mr. Bulford says. You can forget about your Betty friend—he don’t count. There’s someone else behind all this and we want to know who. And we reckon you’re the chap to find out. It’s your sort of work, isn’t it? There’s fifty pounds in it for you, all for asking a few questions. Now, what do you say?”
Mallett was tugging at his moustache ends until it felt that the hair must come out at the roots—a sign, in him, of intense emotion. Had he but known it, his sensations at that moment were very much the same as those experienced by Pettigrew a few days before, at the sound of the hunting horn. Only in his case the memories evoked were far more recent, and for that reason more compelling. He could think of a dozen reasons why he should turn a deaf ear to the offer, but …
“I don’t mind going to Wiveliscombe with you tomorrow,” he said. “Mind you, I make no promises—none whatever. Is that understood?”
“That’s understood, all right, Mr. Mallett.”
“One other thing, before we go any further. If I should undertake this enquiry, and if anything should come of it, it will be no use asking me to stop half-way. I shall find out all I can. And if what I find out seems likely to disclose a criminal offence, then I go straight to the police, no matter who the criminal may turn out to be, and it will be too late to ask me to hush it up. Is that also understood?”
For the life of him, Mallett could not have said why he spoke with so much vehemence, especially as he had not even decided to accept the commission which had been offered him in such vague terms. But there was a streak of melodrama in him, and to his own ears, at least, it sounded most impressive. One at least of his hearers was impressed. Dick’s face was solemn as he answered, “Yes, sir, I accept that.”
Tom was not quite so ready with his reply, and there was a gleam of what could have been amusement in his heavy face as he said, “Surely, Mr. Mallett, surely. We’ll call for you to-morrow about ten, then?”
CHAPTER XII
The Price of a Ham
“I really believe,” said Pettigrew, “that spring has begun at last.”
“You said that,” Eleanor reminded him, “two weeks ago.”
“Now you mention it, I believe I did. It was t
he usual false alarm. I should have known better. But this is the real thing. There’s a softness in the air that’s quite unmistakable. Winter’s rains and ruins are over, and all the season——”
“Please, Frank! Not at breakfast!”
“I apologize. Swinburne at breakfast should be left to undergraduates. I will moderate my transports by looking at my post. It should have a thoroughly deadening effect—nothing but bills and circulars, by the look of it.”
He slit open one envelope after another with a resigned expression. Near the bottom of the pile he found something that was neither bill nor circular.
Pettigrew read the letter through in silence. Then he laid it down beside his plate, and sat for a while, looking at nothing in particular, drumming his fingers on the table, wrinkling his nose as was his habit in moods of anxiety or doubt.
“If you’re not going to eat any breakfast,” said Eleanor, reproachfully, “I am. Won’t you cut a slice of ham, or shall I do it myself?”
Pettigrew came out of his abstraction with a jerk.
“No woman is to be trusted with a ham,” he declared. “Particularly a superb specimen like this. Let me do it.”
He went across to the sideboard, carved two slices from the fine ham that was there, and stood back to admire his handiwork. Then he began to laugh quietly. He was still laughing when he returned to the table.
“Is this a private joke?” Eleanor asked, her mouth full of ham. “Or can anyone join in?”
“It has only just dawned on me. Didn’t Mallett send us this ham last week?”
“You know perfectly well he did. It’s twice the size of anything I should have wanted to buy, even if I could afford it.”
“And why, do you think, should he take it into his head to do such a thing, just at this moment?”
“It was simply a kind thought, I suppose.”
“There was no letter with it, was there?”
“Just a card with his name on it and some polite message,” said Eleanor. “You saw it yourself. But Frank, why——”
“It’s the first message of any sort we’ve had from him since we left Exmoor,” Pettigrew persisted. “He’s not sent us so much as a line all that time. Even Mr. Joliffe was good for a threepenny Christmas card, but Mallett was mum. I particularly asked him to let me know what happened about the Gorman inquest, but he never did a thing about it. Why is that, do you imagine?”
“Frank, dear,” said Eleanor gently. “Don’t be cross with me, but I’m afraid that is my fault. You see, you have been sleeping so much better ever since we came home, and I didn’t want you upset. I asked Mr. Mallett not to write.”
“I see. That makes it funnier than ever. He’s not allowed to write, so he says it with hams.”
“But, Frank, I do assure you, there’s been nothing for him to write about. Since the inquest was adjourned all those months ago, nothing whatever has happened. The police have made all sorts of enquiries, of course, and the whole neighbourhood was full of rumours for a time, but nobody was ever arrested over poor Jack Gorman’s death, and little by little the whole thing has died down.”
“You seem to be remarkably well up in the matter,” said Pettigrew. “How is that?”
“Well, as I’d told Mr. Mallett that he wasn’t to bother you with letters, I thought I had better keep an eye on things,” Eleanor explained. “So I asked Hester Greenway to keep me informed. She has really been very helpful. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to save you being worried.”
“That was a kind thought of yours. But as it happened, I was anxious not to worry you. You needn’t have troubled Hester. I’ve discovered a man at Mark-hampton who comes from Exmoor and takes in the local paper regularly. Every week I’ve been through it from cover to cover to see if there was any hint of developments in the affair. And there has been none.”
“Well, then….” said Eleanor. “There’s nothing for either of us to worry about, is there? Or—or is there?”
By way of reply, Pettigrew tossed across the table the letter that he had been reading. It bore at the top an imposingly long list of names and an address in Lincoln’s Inn. It ran:
“Dear Sir,
Re Gorman, decd; Gorman v. Southern Bank Ltd. and Another.
We are acting as London agents for Messrs. Bulford and Langrish of Wiveliscombe on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above matter. It is an action shortly to be heard in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in which the Plaintiff claims (inter alia) a declaration that John Richard Gorman, deceased, predeceased Gilbert Amos Gorman, deceased. We are given to understand that you may be in a position to assist the Plaintiff. We should accordingly esteem it a favour if you would attend at our office at a date convenient to yourself in the near future when our Mr. Fitzgibbon could take a proof of evidence from you.
We would add that this letter is written on the advice of Mr. Manktelow of counsel (who is, we believe, personally known to you) and that he has further advised us to secure your attendance, if necessary, by sub poena ad testificandum. We trust, however, that you will not oblige us to resort to this expedient.
With apologies for troubling you in this matter, we remain,
Your obedient servants,
Harkness, Fitzgibbon, Blandy & Co.”
Eleanor read the letter through twice before handing it back.
“I don’t see what this has got to do with the Southern Bank,” she remarked.
“Oh, they’re only in the action because they’re trustees or executors of a will, or something like that. I’m not worrying about them.”
“Then all this nonsense about deceased and predeceased. I don’t understand it.”
“I understand only too well. Gilbert Gorman died on—I forget the date, but it was a Sunday—the day I was laid up in bed at Sallowcombe. At least—obviously one must be careful in these matters—that was the day the news of his death came to Sallowcombe. But from what I overheard on the telephone, I think we can assume he did die on that Sunday.”
“And Jack died on Monday night or Tuesday morning, That’s what the coroner said. Isn’t that final?”
“Obviously it isn’t, as someone is trying to get the Chancery Court to say something different.”
“Why should they?”
“There could be quite a number of reasons for that. Suppose Jack was Gilbert’s next of kin, for instance…. No, it can’t be quite as simple as that. But does it matter? The point is, someone is trying to prove that Jack died first.”
“But I thought we’d decided that he didn’t. I mean …”
There was an embarrassed pause before Pettigrew spoke again.
“Has it occurred to you,” he said, “what sort of a figure I should cut in the witness-box, explaining to a Chancery judge that I had been indulging in—what did you call it?—precognition?”
“But if that’s what you had been doing——”
Pettigrew put his coffee cup down with a clatter.
“I’ve been quietening my conscience all this time by telling myself that it didn’t matter,” he said. “Jack’s body turned up in due course and the coroner sat on him and no harm was done. Now it seems that it does matter, and harm may have been done. It’s a judgment on me for shirking my plain duty as a citizen and trying to hide behind a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo. I’m going to be made to look ridiculous, and serve me right.”
“But, Frank, is anybody going to believe your story against all the other evidence? Surely it’s much more likely that you should have been mistaken than everyone else?”
“If my evidence stood alone, this case would never have been brought. Obviously, it doesn’t. That’s where Mallett’s ham comes in. He’s the man responsible for the whole business, and the ham was his way of apologizing for landing me in this mess.”
“Really, Frank! You’re imagining things.”
“I’m certainly not. I’m beginning to remember them, though. The day after the inquest, Mallett said he had to go to Wiveliscombe.
He didn’t go in his own car. Someone called for him. The next day he was out all day. I thought at the time that he was sheepish and silent about where he’d been and what he was doing. It’s perfectly obvious. He was the only available person with the knowledge and the intelligence to ferret this matter out. Someone took him to see these solicitors at Wiveliscombe and from then on he was employed by them to cook up this case. He must have felt rather uncomfortable having us in the house all the time.”
“I thought he seemed quite relieved when we went,” Eleanor remarked. “That would explain it. But that was nearly six months ago. Why has it taken all this time to bring it to court?”
“All this time? Good heavens, woman, this is a Chancery suit. It’s the nearest thing to greased lightning in my experience. What I can’t make out is how it has got to this stage so quickly.”
CHAPTER XIII
Re Gorman, Deceased
To a layman, there is probably little to choose between the various courts of law that are to be found in the vast Gothic pile at the eastern end of the Strand. They vary somewhat in size, but, large or small, they are alike in their dingy livery of grey stone and fumed oak, in their austerely uncomfortable furnishings, in their lancet windows, ingeniously designed to exclude any stray shaft of light that might wander into this quarter of London. To the connoisseur, however, distinctions, invisible to the outsider, leap to the eye. To him, the difference between a Court of Queen’s Bench and one of Chancery is as obvious and as pronounced as the difference between Oxford and Cambridge.
