He paused for a moment or two, as though considering the case; but when he spoke again it was on a different point.
“You sometimes jeer at me for playing the mystery-man and refusing to tell you what I infer from the facts that turn up. It’s sometimes irritating, I admit; and now and again I suppose it makes me look as if I were playing the superior fellow. But it’s really nothing of the sort. In affairs of this kind, one never can tell what the next turn of the wheel may be; and one might quite well blurt out something which would give the cue to the very people you want to keep in the dark.”
“You do irritate me often enough, Clinton,” Wendover admitted. “I can’t see why you shouldn’t put your cards on the table. A fact’s a fact, after all.”
“I’ll give you just one example,” said Sir Clinton seriously. “Suppose I had blurted out the fact which I’d inferred about Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux’s marriage. It was implicit in the story she told us; but luckily no one spotted the key except myself. Now, just think what would have happened to-night if that had been common property. These scoundrels would have known that Mrs. Fleetwood was legally married to young Fleetwood, since the ceremony with Staveley was illegal. Therefore, instead of trying the business of the forced marriage, they’d simply have pitched her over the cliff at the Blowhole. She’d have been dead by this time; for their only interest in keeping her alive was to force this marriage with the claimant and side-track difficulties in that way. Suppose I’d blurted out my inference, and sent that girl to her death by my carelessness, how should I be feeling at this moment? None too comfortable, so far as I can see.”
Wendover had to admit that the secrecy policy had justified itself.
“It would have been a dreadful business,” he confessed.
Inspector Armadale’s figure appeared from one of the corridors, and, catching sight of Sir Clinton, he came over to where they were standing. His face showed that he had good news to tell.
“I’ve got practically the whole business out of them, sir. Billingford gave everything away that he knew about; and the other chap’s nerve was completely gone, so that he couldn’t resist questioning. It’s as clear a case as one could wish for.”
He paused, as though puzzled by something, and then added:
“It beats me how you tumbled to the fact that Cargill was one of the gang, though.”
Sir Clinton ignored the underlying inquiry.
“Was he the brains of the show?” he asked. “I’ve only a suspicion to go on there.”
“Yes, he did the planning for them.”
“And the gentleman with no face collaborated with Aird in the actual murders? That’s a guess, I may say, so far as the Staveley affair’s concerned, though I’m fairly sure of my ground in the other cases.”
“You’re right in that case too, sir. Aird and the impostor fellow were the actual murderers. Aird’ll hang for certain.”
“It’ll make a very nice case for you, inspector; and I’m sure you’ll work it up well for the Public Prosecutor. I can see a laurel wreath somewhere in the background.”
“But it’s you who did most of it, sir. Nobody understands that better than I do,” the inspector objected, evidently afraid lest Sir Clinton thought him capable of accepting the credit without protest.
“I came into the thing on a strict understanding that I was to be a pure spectator, you remember. I’m afraid that at times I got a shade too zealous, perhaps; but it’s your case and not mine. If we’d made a mess of it between us, you’d have had to stand the racket; so obviously a success goes down to your account. The subject’s closed.”
Wendover, seeing the inspector’s difficulty in framing a suitable reply to this, intervened to change the subject.
“I see the main outlines of the affair easily enough, Clinton,” he said, “but I’d like to hear just how you worked it out as you went along. Any objections to telling me? It’ll go no farther, of course.”
The chief constable’s face betrayed a tinge of boredom.
“You’ve lived with this case for the best part of a week. Haven’t you had enough of it by this time?”
Wendover persisted in his demand; but Sir Clinton, instead of complying, glanced at his watch.
“There’s one detective story I’m very fond of, squire: The Hunting of the Snark. I rank it high in the scale, especially on account of the number of apt quotations one can make from it. Here’s one:
The method employed I would gladly explain
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain—
But much yet remains to be said.
It’s far too late to start a long story to-night. I’m dead sleepy. If you remind me about it to-morrow, I’ll do my best; but I will not sit up all night even to please you.”
The inspector seemed as much disappointed as Wendover at his superior’s decision.
“I’d like to hear it too, sir, if you don’t mind.”
Sir Clinton suppressed a yawn with difficulty.
“I don’t mind, inspector. Meet us at Neptune’s Seat at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. It’ll be interesting to hear how far wrong I’ve gone in some of my guesses; and you can tell me that, since you’ve got so much out of these two precious scoundrels to-night. And now I’ll drive you into Lynden Sands—save you the trudge. After that I really must get to bed.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Threads in the Case
This hasn’t been a tidy case, in the strict meaning of the words,” Sir Clinton mused, as he chose a comfortable spot on Neptune’s Seat and settled down on it. “It’s really an omnium gatherum. It began long before we appeared on the scene; and the inspector has the facts about the earlier stages, whilst I’ve nothing better than guesswork.”
“What we’re interested in, chiefly, is what you thought about it at different stages in the game,” Wendover pointed out. “If you start with the Peter Hay case and go on from there, you can tell us what you saw and what we missed. And at the tail end you can give us your guesses about the earlier stage. The inspector can check them from the confessions he got.”
Sir Clinton agreed with a gesture, and began without more ado. It was evident that he was by no means eager to recapitulate, and was doing so merely out of good nature.
“The Peter Hay case was crystal clear so far as one side was concerned. It required no marvellous insight to see what had happened. It wasn’t by any possibility a one-man murder. At least two men must have been on the spot to overpower Peter and tie him up. They—or at least one of them—was a better-class fellow, or Peter Hay would have been in his shirt-sleeves instead of having his jacket on. And the jacket implied that he knew they were coming that evening, too. Further, the fact that they had amyl nitrite ready in their pockets is enough to prove two things. They weren’t casual strangers, for they knew about his liability to cerebral congestion. And they premeditated killing him in certain circumstances. We worked out pretty definitely the course of events which led to his death, so I needn’t go over that again. I suppose we were right in the main points, inspector?”
Armadale, primed with the information he had extracted from Aird, was able to confirm this.
“They used surgical bandages because they hoped to leave no marks on the skin, I suppose?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“That was the idea, Aird admitted, sir. He thought they’d succeeded, and he was surprised to find they’d made a mess of it.”
Sir Clinton smiled, apparently at the thought of Aird’s discomfiture.
“Well, if they bungled one side of the affair, they certainly managed to leave us in the dark about the second side: the motive behind the murder. It wasn’t robbery, obviously. It wasn’t bad feeling—everyone we examined had a good word for Peter Hay. It couldn’t be homicidal mania—not with two of them mixed up in it. That left, so far as I could see, only one probable motive at the back of the thing. Either they wanted to force Peter Hay into something he didn’t like, or
else he knew something about them which they were afraid of.
“Peter Hay wasn’t the blackmailing type, from all we learned about him. That notion wouldn’t hold water for a moment. So, if he had to be silenced, then the information he had must have been something he’d come across quite innocently. What it was I couldn’t guess. In fact, the whole idea was very vague in my mind, since there didn’t seem anything definite to support it. That was the stage I’d reached when we sat in the garden and discussed the thing.
“But there was one thing that seemed to lead on to something fresh—the silver we found in Peter Hay’s drawer. That silver was the murderers’ mistake—the silly thing that gives them away. No sensible person would ever have tried to throw a suspicion of breach of trust on Peter Hay. The thing was absurd on the face of it, from what we learned of his character. But these fellows weren’t looking at it objectively. They would have abused their trust in Hay’s shoes; and naturally they saw nothing outré in faking a petty theft and trying to throw it on his shoulders. That made me think.
“Why suggest a robbery at Foxhills? For that was what they evidently intended the police to swallow. As a matter of fact, they’d have been much better to have left the thing alone. It was a mistake to fake evidence; it always is. However, they’d done it, and I wanted to know why they’d done it. So, when the Fordingbridges arrived, we went off to Foxhills.
“I wasn’t surprised to find that the murderers had tried to make the thing convincing by filling that sack with silver odds and ends. I’d almost expected something of the sort. But I don’t suppose any of us were misled to the extent the murderers hoped. They thought we’d be delighted to find confirmation of Peter Hay’s dishonesty—stuff ready packed up for transport. But what one obviously asked oneself was the question: ‘What’s all this meant to cover?’ And the answer was, so far as I could see: ‘The removal of some inconspicuous object whose absence won’t be noticed in the excitement over the silver.’
“It wasn’t long before I got an inkling of what that inconspicuous object was. Miss Fordingbridge was able to tell us. But, notice, if Miss Fordingbridge hadn’t happened to come up to Foxhills when we paid our visit, we’d never have known that the diary was missing. We’d have missed the main clue in the whole affair. That was where we were really lucky, and where Aird & Co. had very hard lines.
“There was the diary gone a-missing, anyhow; and the obvious question to ask was: ‘Cui bono? Who stands to score by its removal?’
“You heard the story of the missing nephew and the power of attorney given to Paul Fordingbridge. You could hardly help drawing the obvious conclusion that here at last was a possible motive appearing behind the Peter Hay case. The stake on the table was the assets of the Fordingbridge estate; and that was quite big enough to make murder worth while, if you happened to have a turn for that sort of thing.
“But when you come to ask: ‘Cui bono?’ you find that the problem’s like one of these quadratic equations we used to get at school, where there are two answers and one seems just as good as the other.
“Suppose the claimant was an impostor, and see where that leads you. Derek Fordingbridge had spent a lot of time with Peter Hay in earlier days. The chances were that Peter Hay was the only man who could give evidence about their joint doings, and that evidence might form the basis of a damaging examination of the impostor. Further, the diary would be a priceless thing for an impostor to lay his hands on. It would supply him with any amount of irrefutable evidence which he could draw on for his sham recollections. Clearly enough, if the claim was a fraudulent one, then the theft of the diary and the silencing of Peter Hay would fit in very neatly.
“On the other hand, suppose the boot’s on the other foot. Assume that Paul Fordingbridge had some very strong reason for wishing to retain control over the funds, and see where that leads you. Remember that he showed no desire whatever to investigate this claim. He simply denied straight off that the claimant was his nephew, without waiting for any evidence on the point. That seemed to me a curious attitude in a trustee; perhaps it struck you in the same way. And he appeared to be very little put out by Peter Hay’s death, if you remember—treated it very much as a matter of course. It doesn’t take much thinking to see that what holds good for a fraudulent claimant would hold good for a fraudulent trustee also. The diary and Peter Hay would be two weak spots for him too. They’d help a genuine nephew to establish an almost irrefutable case if he could pass tests applied both by the diary and by Peter Hay’s recollections.
“So, whichever way one looked at it, there seemed to be something to be said. And, consequently, I got no further at that stage than being able to say that three things were possible. First, the claimant might be a fraud, and Paul Fordingbridge merely an obstinate old beggar. Second, the claimant might be genuine, and Paul might be a dishonest trustee. Or, third, both the claimant and Paul might be wrong ’uns.
“Miss Fordingbridge had known her nephew intimately, and she had identified him straight off, it’s true. But we’ve heard of that kind of thing before. You remember how Roger Tichborne’s mother identified Arthur Orton as her son, and stuck to it through thick and thin. Hallucinations of that sort do occur. And one couldn’t help noticing Miss Fordingbridge’s talk about spiritualism and so forth, all tending to show that she had a sort of fixed idea that her nephew would turn up sooner or later. That discounted the value of her identification a good deal, but it didn’t discredit it completely, of course.
“Now go back a stage. The thing was a two-man job at Peter Hay’s. Therefore, whether the claimant or Fordingbridge was our man, we had to find a second fellow for the accomplice’s part. The claimant we knew nothing about at that stage; and I proposed to look into his affairs later. If Paul Fordingbridge was one of the murderers, on the other hand, then, who was his accomplice? ‘Cui bono?’ again. If the claimant could be kept out of the succession, who was next on the list? Stanley Fleetwood’s wife.”
Careless of the inspector’s feelings, Wendover broke out at this point:
“You won’t persuade me you were such an ass, Clinton, as to suppose that young Fleetwood helped in a murder merely for the sake of cash or any other reason?”
“It wasn’t my business to make pets of anyone, and exclude them from suspicion merely because I liked them in private life, squire. Many murderers are most amiable persons—Crippen, for example. ‘A fair field and no favour’ is the only motto for a conscientious detective.
“Before we had time to delve further into the Peter Hay case, however, the Staveley murder occurred. There’s no need to go into the whole business; it’s fresh in your minds; but I’ll tell you the main points that struck me when we’d finished our examination of the scene of the murder.
“First, Staveley had banged his wrist and stopped his watch at 11.19. But, of course, that didn’t prove he’d been killed at that moment. Second, his clothes were wet under his rainproof; and, as he’d been shot through both rainproof and jacket, it must have rained before he was shot. Third, since the car-tracks had gone back on a dry road for a while before the rain came on and made them clearer, Staveley was killed after the car had gone off; and the people in the car weren’t mixed up in the actual killing. Fourth, there was only one cartridge-case to be seen—the one on the rock. There was no cartridge-case at the groyne when I searched the place. Besides, that track at the groyne belonged to the man in the car, and he was cleared completely by the rain question. If I was right in my inferences, then the murder must have been committed by one of three people: the woman with the neat shoes, Billingford, or someone who had left no tracks on the sand.
“The letter we found in Staveley’s pocket showed that Mrs. Fleetwood had been to meet him on the previous night at the rock; and, as she was acting in conjunction with a man, there wasn’t much trouble in inferring that young Fleetwood might have been on the spot also, as soon as we heard that the Fleetwoods’ car had been out all night. You, inspector, jumped to the conclusion
that the Fleetwoods were at the back of the business; and you worked up the case against them very convincingly. But, as I told you at the start, the case wasn’t sound. I wanted all the data I could get, of course, so I didn’t discourage you too much; and you eventually dragged out a lot of interesting material about the events of the night.
“Meanwhile, we’d come to a blank end with the Fleetwoods and had turned to Billingford. My impression was that he seemed genuinely surprised by the news of Staveley’s murder; but he might have been acting, for all one could tell. What we did get out of him was the general impression that Flatt’s cottage was inhabited by a gang of rogues. How many were there? Three, if one took Billingford at face value; four, if one believed the story the claimant blurted out when we questioned him at the cottage.
“Anyone could see that the fourth man was a dark horse. He might be the murderer whom they were shielding, possibly. But there was another explanation of his disappearance; he might be someone well known to the local people, and whom it was desirable to keep under cover. How would that fit in with things? Suppose the claimant was an impostor; he wouldn’t be very anxious to meet the villagers more than he could help, for fear of dropping on someone who might trap him and expose him. The less he saw of his neighbours the better; and his disfigurement gave him a fair excuse for keeping indoors in the daytime. Staveley was well enough known to the villagers also; and perhaps he had good reason for not wishing his presence known. If the fourth man was in the same boat, then none of them would care to go shopping and so forth, and yet supplies had to be got daily. Hence it might be convenient to have a man like Billingford as the nominal host, to act as go-between for them in their public transactions. That’s how it appeared to me. Naturally, I was curious about the fourth man, and I got you, inspector, to set a watch and see if he could be recognised.
“That left me with a fair suspicion that these fellows were hatching some devilment or other at the cottage. Then I noticed the card-index; and I saw light to some extent. A card-index implies the need for ready reference. The claimant, if he were a fraud, would need to cram himself with all the available facts about the doings of the real Derek Fordingbridge—just as Arthur Orton crammed up all the facts about Roger Tichborne. And a card-index would be the handiest repository of all the news they could collect. As you saw for yourself, squire, that guess of mine was right.
Mystery at Lynden Sands (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 25
