I took John aside after lunch and informed him of what I had done. He was good enough to express his eagerness to offer the hospitality of the farm to anyone working on my behalf, but I could see that he did not altogether approve of my action; his fear was obvious that Sheringham might only confirm the conclusions of the police; was I quite sure that my own solicitor would not have been better? I smiled and said that I was sure that Sheringham was a better investigator than any solicitor, and all I wanted was my own innocence proved; Sheringham would do this for me, and, on my request, not seek to prove a case against anyone else. John did not seem altogether convinced, but that I could not help.
Such is the pleasure of even the most self-reliant man in shifting some at least of his burdens onto the shoulders of another, that I was already feeling much calmer when, at six o’clock, I went up to the garage to get out my car for the purpose of driving into Budeford to meet Sheringham. John had seemed so impressed with his skill as a detective (at times even a semi-official one, attached temporarily to Scotland Yard, I had gathered from John, who seemed to know all about him) that I was confident of his ability to unearth some definite evidence in my favour, and already the lowering horizon about me seemed to have lifted somewhat.
I had reversed out of the garage, and was just beginning to go forward, when a man suddenly appeared out of the hedge on my left and called to me to stop. I obeyed, and he informed me, addressing me by name, that I must not leave the farm premises.
I was not unreasonably annoyed. ‘That is ridiculous. I am on my way to meet a friend, by the 6:42 train at Budeford.’
‘I’m sorry, sir; those are my orders. The superintendent doesn’t wish anyone to leave the place for a day or two, in case he wants to question them in a hurry.’
I asked him who he was and demanded his credentials. He turned somewhat red, and said it didn’t matter about credentials; those were the superintendent’s orders. I spoke to the man sharply and, disregarding his minatory attitude, drove on. The incident was of no importance, but it served to unsettle me once more. Evidently I was to be allowed very little scope. Not for a moment was I deceived into believing that such restrictions were to apply to anyone but myself. The position was not merely dangerous but humiliating.
It was therefore without surprise that I observed a loiterer outside Budeford station as I drew up there, who followed me, almost without troubling to conceal the fact, onto the platform. The net could not be eluded for long.
I recognized Sheringham instantly, in spite of the many years since I had last seen him. Indeed, he was only too conspicuous. Even in the country I endeavour to preserve the neatness of my attire. It would have pained me considerably had anyone I knew ever surprised me in such a disreputable pair of flannel trousers as Sheringham was wearing, or such an inconceivably shapeless hat. And he actually must have had the thing on in London. His pockets, too, were bulging with papers, and he had four books bundled under his left arm.
‘Well, well,’ he said, wringing my hand as if genuinely delighted to see me, which I certainly found a warming sensation. ‘And how the devil are you, Tapers?’
In spite of my pleasure in welcoming one whom I was already looking on as my deliverer, I could not help wincing at this odious nickname, which I had thankfully imagined dead and buried these twenty years. For some totally obscure reason I had been hailed, on the very first day I ever set foot in Fernhurst, as ‘Tapeworm’, a highly offensive appellation of quite incomprehensible relevancy; nor had its subsequent abbreviation to ‘Tapers’ ever seemed very much better to me. I remember once my dear mother asking me: ‘But my dear Cyril, why do the boys all…’ But that has no bearing on the present situation.
It would, however, have been churlish of me to remonstrate with a man who had come over two hundred miles to do me a service, so I put the best face I could on the thing and replied with a smile, perhaps somewhat forced: ‘At the moment, I’m afraid, rather precariously.’
Sheringham responded with a violent thump behind my left shoulder, which was doubtless intended to be encouraging but succeeded actually in jarring my spine rather painfully. ‘Cheer up, cheer up, you’re not dead yet, you know,’ he said, with brutal good humour. ‘Not even arrested. Where can we get some beer?’
‘Beer?’ I said deprecatingly. There was only just time to get back to Minton Deeps to dress comfortably for dinner, and in any case I do not care at all for beer so shortly before a meal. A light sherry and bitters, perhaps; or even, if the circumstances warrant it, an inoffensively flavoured cocktail; but beer, no.
‘Beer,’ Sheringham repeated firmly. ‘I’ve got a wonderful thirst after that journey. That looks a likely sort of pub over the road. We’ll try it.’
I was forced to accompany him, but I did refuse to let him order beer for me.
‘So it is murder, your little affair down here,’ Sheringham positively beamed at me. ‘I rather gathered it might be. And they suspect you of it, Tapers. Marvellous! Well, here’s luck.’
‘To such an extent,’ I replied dryly, sipping my sherry, ‘that the gentleman on your left, who has just ordered a bitter beer, is here for the express purpose of seeing that I do not bolt by the next train.’ It seemed necessary to impress on Sheringham the real seriousness of the situation, which he had not apparently quite realized.
‘One of the local sleuths?’ said Sheringham, not troubling to moderate his voice as he turned round. ‘Good! We’ll get him to join us.’
I endeavoured to put a stop to any such thing, but before I could speak Sheringham had actually invited the man to bring his glass to our end of the counter. The detective did so, grinning somewhat sheepishly.
Sheringham began to question him with remarkable rapidity.
At first the man hedged in his replies, but Sheringham continued to mention names such as Chief Inspector Moresby, Superintendent Green, and the like, with such familiarity that at last the fellow said, very civilly: ‘Excuse me, sir, you’re not from the Yard yourself, are you?’
‘Me? Oh, no. At least, not at the moment,’ Sheringham replied, with complete composure. ‘That is, I haven’t come down here officially, but…’ He left it to be understood that official instructions might reach him at any moment.
Considerably to my surprise the detective allowed himself to be taken in by this bluff, and spoke freely. He was not on the case himself. He had come to the station in response to a telephone message from Minton.
‘To keep an eye on our friend here,’ Sheringham said, with a wink in my direction, to which I endeavoured to respond with a smile.
The detective agreed that this was the fact. Sheringham went on to ask him general questions, such as who was in charge of the case, what was the name of the chief constable, and so forth, which the man answered now without hesitation.
‘I needn’t bother to ask you the details of the case,’ Sheringham concluded carelessly. ‘I can get those from Superintendent Hancock. Have another drink? No? Well, perhaps we’d better be getting along, Tapers. It’s all right,’ he added to the man. ‘I shall be with Mr Pinkerton now. You needn’t bother any more.’
‘Very good, sir,’ replied the detective. ‘Thank you.’
I was amazed. But I did not think Sheringham would have quite such an easy task with the superintendent.
For the credit of the detective force I should add that when we drove off a few minutes later I caught sight in the driving mirror of the man watching us from a doorway until the car disappeared. He had not been taken in quite so thoroughly as he pretended. It was quite a pretty problem to ponder, who had won the game of bluff.
Sheringham chattered incessantly all the way. He would not allow me to put the facts before him, as I was itching to do, on the ridiculous pretext that a man can do only one thing well at a time; and either I should muddle my story, or else have us in the ditch. Without flattering myself I had to point out that it is a very incompetent driver who cannot drive and speak rationally at the same time; but Sheri
ngham very nearly annoyed me by retorting that until he had had a little more experience of my driving, he would reserve judgment on that point.
I had my revenge, perhaps rather childishly, by asking him what he did with himself in these days besides detecting, though I knew perfectly well that he wrote novels, I had even read one or two. They had not struck me as anything very much out of the ordinary ruck, though I gathered that they enjoyed considerable sales. He replied now, not without prevarication, that he was able to get a bit of journalistic work occasionally.
If I had been able to pretend ignorance of Sheringham’s real activities, nobody else thought it worthwhile to do the same. Indeed I was surprised to see our placid Ethel, whom not even a sudden death in our party had been able to throw off her balance, in quite a flutter. I had spoken to no one but John of Sheringham’s impending arrival, and he had actually forgotten to mention it until after I had left for Budeford, what with the various anxieties of the moment; so that Ethel had only just had time to get his bedroom ready, whither I led him at once as the others were still dressing. It was the only room vacant, Eric’s.
From the conversation in the drawing room before dinner, while we sipped our cocktails, I gathered that Sheringham really was quite a famous author; and I must say, in fairness to him, that bumptious though the impression was that he gave in other ways, over this particular matter he was modesty itself, seeming almost to be ashamed of being an author at all and praising in the most extravagant terms John’s detective stories, which I was surprised to learn that he knew intimately. It was then John’s turn to pretend to be ashamed of being an author, and so it went on, while we stood humbly by and listened to the two great men. It was a curiously human little interlude between the acts of our tragedy.
At dinner Sheringham talked away with a volubility nothing short of amazing. Hardly anyone else was able to get a word in at all. I know that several times I cleared my throat preparatory to speaking, which I usually find causes a little anticipatory silence, but Sheringham would scurry in on each occasion before I could even begin. It was occasionally somewhat exasperating.
He also persisted, in spite of my frowns, in calling me by the same unpleasant nickname in front of everyone. Then Armorel (on whom, I was sorry to notice, Sheringham seemed to be having a most unfortunate effect, inducing in her all the old characteristics of strident ill-mannerliness which had so grated on me before) must needs scream across the table to know what it meant, and Sheringham actually told the story in full, using terms altogether unsuitable for the dinner table. I joined of course in the ensuing laughter, but I began to doubt whether I had been as wise as I had imagined in summoning the man. Anyone who could remain so insensitive to my wishes and feelings could hardly possess much acumen in any direction.
Yet after dinner, when we had sat for a few minutes over our port and then adjourned with John to the study to rid ourselves of De Ravel, Sheringham seemed to take on quite a different personality. ‘Now then,’ he said briskly, as soon as we were seated, ‘we’ve got no time to waste, and I know old Tapers has been aching to get it all off his chest, but it’s always a mistake to do a thing at the wrong moment. Let’s get down to it now. I want the facts first. No, not from you, Tapers. You might give me an unconsciously distorted version. From Hillyard, if he doesn’t mind. The outside facts first, to which there’s independent evidence; then the inside facts from you, Tapers, for which there’s no corroboratory evidence; and finally what both of you think about it all, for which there’ll be neither evidence nor even perhaps reason, and therefore all the more interesting. Anyhow, the facts first. I know most of ‘em already, of course, but tell me as if I didn’t know a single thing, please.’
I was sorry, for some reason, not to be telling the story myself, but I recognized the justice of what Sheringham said: I might quite possibly distort it. For the rest, he spoke with such confidence and with an air of being so familiar with the procedure on such occasions, that my reliance on him, which had almost vanished as I listened to his foolish talk at dinner, began to return.
John told the narrative well, with no over-emphasis or meiosis. And by prefacing his remarks with the observation that he was going to acquaint Sheringham with precisely what the superintendent knew, or rather, with what John knew he knew, he was able to avoid telling the true story behind the false one. In other words, he only told half of what there was to tell. Not even Scott-Davies’ relations with Mrs de Ravel were mentioned.
This did not suit me. I had called in Sheringham for the express reason that he, unlike my solicitor, could be told everything.
I held up my hand when John had finished, before Sheringham could put any questions he had already in mind.
‘Sheringham, before we go any further I want to say something. I have had no chance yet of explaining why I sent that telegram to you, instead of to my solicitor, as Hillyard here had been pressing me to do. It was for this reason: I want my innocence established, but not at the cost of official cognizance of somebody else’s guilt.’
Sheringham looked puzzled. ‘Don’t quite get you. Say that again.’
‘I am anxious for my innocence to be established,’ I repeated patiently. ‘Indeed, there is nothing for which I could conceive myself more anxious. But that is all. I do not wish the police to be provided with proof of anyone else’s guilt. My solicitor, I’m afraid, in his zeal for me might think it his duty to present any such proof, if he could unearth it, to the police. I want you to give me your solemn word not to do the same.’
‘You mean, you don’t want it found out at all who shot the chap?’ Sheringham asked, in undisguised astonishment.
‘No, no. Find out by all means, if you can. But don’t tell the police. Tell the police of nothing at all except any evidence which clears me and inculpates no one else.’
‘But why ever not?’
‘Because,’ I explained, with a glance at John, ‘both Hillyard and myself are privately agreed that the shooting of Scott-Davies was a meritorious act, and whoever did it ought not to suffer for the act, if it can be prevented.’
Sheringham glanced from one to the other of us, and whistled softly. ‘Hullo! Conspiracy to condone a felony, eh? And you want me to join it. Serious matter, Tapers.’
‘I don’t know, Cyril,’ said John, looking slightly uncomfortable, ‘that I went quite so far as that, did I? I said – ’
‘You said that you weren’t going to be hypocrite enough to pretend to regret his death,’ I interrupted. ‘Come, John. You implied the rest. Have the courage to say it straight out.’
John hesitated for a moment. Then he looked at Sheringham. ‘It’s quite true. I did imply it, and I do think it. Scott-Davies was a blackguard, and half a hundred people are going to be happier for his death. I think it would be a shame for anyone to suffer for it.
‘Well, that’s all right,’ Sheringham said, quite unperturbed. ‘We three are more capable of judging that than twelve wooden-headed country bumpkins. I’ve not the least objection to our constituting ourselves a highly unofficial jury. But you must let me have your evidence of his blackguardism. I must be allowed to judge for myself.’
‘And it’s precisely that which I absolutely refuse to divulge to you unless I have your promise not to communicate to the police any proof you may discover of another person’s guilt,’ I replied firmly.
Sheringham looked at me quizzically. ‘Dear me, Tapers; the tapeworm turning with a vengeance,’ he said coarsely. ‘So you won’t give me your evidence without my promise, and I won’t give you my promise without the evidence. This looks uncommonly like a deadlock, doesn’t it?’ He looked at us both, but neither of us answered him. ‘Has this evidence of Scott-Davies’ blackguardism any bearing on the actual crime – assuming of course that it is murder?’
‘Possibly,’ said John.
‘Perhaps vitally,’ I amended.
‘And is it in possession of the police?’
‘No,’ John replied.
&nbs
p; ‘Or at any rate, only in vague outline,’ I added. ‘Though of course they must have some idea of his general character. Inquiries are certain to have been made in London, I take it. The usual gossip will be at their disposal.’
John rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, that’s true enough. I’d overlooked that. And if they have got hold of the gossip – ’
I nodded. Obviously if they had got hold of the gossip, the dead man’s relations with Mrs de Ravel, already guessed by them, must have been definitely established.
‘That was a very bare outline you gave me just now,’ Sheringham remarked to John, more thoughtfully. ‘Am I to take it that this evidence at which you’re hinting fills that out?’
‘Considerably,’ John admitted.
‘In fact,’ I put the case bluntly, ‘instead of my being the only person with an apparent motive for killing the man, it shows mine as the weakest of the lot and gives a far stronger one to almost everyone in this house, including even John here.’
John gave quite a start. ‘By Jove, you’re perfectly right, Cyril,’ he said, in such obvious surprise that one would have gathered that so plain a fact had never been apparent to him before.
Then I must hear it,’ said Sheringham with decision. ‘Now look here, we’ll arrange a compromise. I’ll agree that, if I’m satisfied Scott-Davies was as bad as you paint him, I’ll confine my communications to the police (always supposing I find anything to communicate) to facts and theories in support only of Tapers’ innocence. But if I’m not satisfied, I use my own discretion. Do you accept that?’
We looked at each other.
‘Then the final decision will rest with you,’ John pointed out. ‘In actual fact it will cease to be a jury even of three.
There’ll be a judge only, not even a jury. You’re taking a great responsibility, Sheringham.’
‘I’m not afraid of responsibility. I consider myself the equal, in intelligence and sound common sense, of any properly constituted jury.’ Whatever Sheringham may lack, it is not self-confidence.
The Second Shot Page 14
