Macdonald said afterwards that something in his subconscious mind told him the whole thing was a put-up job. When Sanderson fell, his limbs did not seem to lose control as do the limbs of a man rendered suddenly senseless. It was a good fall, and in addition to the thud on the echoing planks, the timber of the bridge creaked and groaned in reverberation. The lively uproar following the noisy flop into the water was reinforced by the sound of a window being flung violently open and Venner’s voice calling, “What’s that? What’s that?”
It was then that another voice spoke from the shadows, the calm sensible voice of Raymond Ferens.
“All right, Venner. Sorry if we startled you. Don’t wake the whole village. We were only trying an experiment. Come down here a minute.”
Macdonald, peering from the shadows, decided to hold a watching brief, and assumed that Reeves was doing likewise. Sanderson, who was evidently a good swimmer, had reached the bank with a few powerful trudge strokes across the current, and by the time he had scrambled out, Ferens was reassuring Farmer Moore, who had appeared in his nightshirt in a surprisingly short space of time, roused by the indignant voices of his young stock in the byre.
Venner came out of doors and turned on Ferens in a fury.
“You did ought to know better, Doctor, giving we a turn like that. Us has had enough without you fooling like a zany——”
“Keep calm, laddy. We weren’t fooling. Listen to a little common sense. If Miss Torrington had collapsed on that bridge and fallen into the water as is generally supposed, she’d have made as much row as Sanderson did. She was as large as he is. I never believed she could have slipped in without a sound, not if she fell from the bridge. She’d have made enough noise to wake your dog, and the dog would have barked.”
“The dog didn’t bark,” said Venner. “Us didn’t hear a sound that night. I told you so, Doctor. Not a sound did us hear, and if you don’t believe me——”
“The whole point is that we do believe you,” put in Sanderson. “What do you think I flopped into the water for? It was to find out how much noise it made. If anybody fell on that bridge at night, and flopped into the water, they’d make noise enough to wake your dog. Your dog barks and wakes the cattle, and the cattle wake Moore’s dog, and so it goes on, like the house that Jack built. Half the village will have been wakened up tonight, you mark my words. We’ve proved what we set out to prove. That’s all. Now I’m going up to have a rubdown. It’s not so warm as you might think.”
Fie turned towards the village street, jog-trotting, and Venner turned again to Ferens. “What good d’you think you’ve done. Doctor?” he asked angrily. “If so be Was an accident, and I reckon ‘twas, what’s the use o’ making it seem harder?”
“I tried to believe it was an accident, Venner. We all did,” replied Ferens, his voice low and deep. “If the police had been willing to accept the accident theory, no one would have been gladder than myself. But the police don’t believe it was an accident, and they’ve put Scotland Yard on to it now. Sanderson and I tried this experiment to prove the thing one way or the other. If your dog hadn’t barked and the cattle hadn’t bawled I’d have gone to the Chief Inspector and said, ‘If you do fall flat on that bridge and flop into deep water at night nobody’d hear you.’ Now I know that isn’t true. You’ve got a trained watchdog and the dog wakes up at any unusual sound.”
“And so you’ll go to the C.I.D. man and tell him what you’ve found out?”
“No, I shan’t. It won’t be necessary. He’ll try the same thing himself. The reason Sanderson and I took a chance tonight is that the C.I.D. men have driven out to the moor and I thought we should have the place to ourselves.” He paused a moment and then added: “Look here, Venner. She didn’t fall when she was on the bridge. She didn’t knock her head on the handrail. If you still believe it was an accident, how else did she fall?”
“Her come over dizzy, on the bank there, maybe, and her fell backwards and knocked herself silly.”
“If she fell backwards, how did she roll into the river?” persisted Ferens. “That’s what they’ll ask, you silly old fool. If you can prove to me any way it could have been an accident, I’ll back you till the cows come home, but going on talking about her being dizzy doesn’t explain how her body got in the river. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now I’m going home to bed.”
He turned to cross the bridge—they’d been standing on the Mill House side of the stream—and Macdonald squeezed back as silently as be could behind the elder bush, for it was evident that Ferens intended to come up the path through the park. Ferens spoke again as he reached the bridge:
“It’s no use getting angry, Venner. I know you feel mad with me, but if you believe that woman drowned by accident, for God’s sake use your wits and think out how the accident happened. Phony explanations aren’t any good. Sanderson and I have blown your blessed theory about the bridge sky-high. You’ve got to think again if you’re going to persuade that C.I.D. chap it was an accident. Good night.”
He crossed the bridge, opened the gate and chained it up again, and set up the path at a good steady pace. Macdonald waited until he heard Venner shut the door and shoot the bolt before he emerged from the thicket which had concealed him so successfully.
3
“Talk about performing apes: I reckon I’ve proved my ancestry,” muttered Reeves resignedly. The two C.I.D. men were sitting in the shadow of the sawmill shed.
“I guessed you’d be under the bridge, waiting for me,” said Macdonald.
“I’d say I was. I heard you come down that path, for all you were as quiet about it as a tom on tiles,” said Reeves. “There’s an echo or something. You chucked a stone, didn’t you? I got a foothold and handhold on the timbers underneath the bridge, close in by the bank, reckoning I could hold on for a brace of shakes. It seemed hours,” he said, “and as for the row the chap made when he did his swooning act, you’d have thought the whole bridge had copped a V-1. Thunder also ran. I suppose water reflects sound back like any other surface. Then he fell in the stream with a proper belly flop and I was just going in after him when I saw he was swimming like hell, so I gave that idea up and held on till the curtain came down.”
“It was a very convincing demonstration, and both those chaps have been using their wits,” said Macdonald. “The swooning act made much more noise than I’d have believed possible. They’ve proved their point, all right.”
“But did they know we were there?” pondered Reeves. “When blokes start being clever, I always wonder how far the cleverness goes. And what will old Venner cough up as a variation on ‘her was dizzy like’?”
“I don’t know, but I think we can accept our first ideas as a basis of probability. I argued that she was killed somewhere near the bank of the stream because she was too heavy to carry; that it wasn’t on the Mill House side of the stream because of the risk of being heard or seen; that it was a little upstream from the weir, because her body was found caught in the piles where the current makes an eddy. Her cape would have floated out in the current and it was the cape which hitched itself on the piles and anchored the body against them. It was one of those old-fashioned capes with loops for the arms, so it wasn’t torn off her.”
“So she was probably knocked out close to where we are now,” said Reeves. “Its good and dark here in the shadow.”
“Yes, and about as light as day in the moonlight,” said Macdonald. “That may have been an advantage from deceased’s point of view. She could have been quite sure she wasn’t being followed. That path is straight for quite a long stretch.” He paused and then went on: “I’ve been trying to work out reasons for the woman coming here. What’s your guess, Pete?”
“Well, I might make quite a number of guesses: put them up to see if I can knock them down, like ninepins,” said Reeves. “I think we’ve got to accept the probability that she’d done the same thing several times before. Mrs. Venner saw her, that’s once. Maybe Nancy Bilton saw her—and that�
�s the last thing Nancy Bilton did see. I’d have guessed deceased was spying on someone, but I don’t think she’d have chosen bright moonlight for spying; she could be seen too easily. She might have been going to somebody’s house, but to do that she’d have had to cross that bridge and go along the path between the farm and the Mill blouse, and there was always the chance she’d wake those dogs. And there was the moonlight again: if she’d gone into the village street she’d have been so obvious if anyone had happened to be around. No. I come back to your original idea. She came here to meet someone. She’d put around this blah about meditating in the peace of the night, so if anybody did happen to see her on that path she could say afterwards she was wrestling with the devil or whatever it was she did say, and to make her date she’d only got to come through that gate and take a few steps along to the cover of these shacks. As to why she met anybody here, well, I reckon Peel wasn’t far out when he suggested blackmail. To collect her loot—that might have been the idea. And the payer-up got fed up, and that was that.”
“I’ve been playing with the blackmail idea myself,” murmured Macdonald. “We don’t know yet what her assets are. She’s probably got some other funds besides those in the Building Society. My own idea is that she’d become a miser. It’d be in keeping with her character. We shall get information about that sooner or later. But why should she have come to this spot for her date, as you call it?”
“Search me,” said Reeves.
“I’ll offer one or two suggestions,” went on Macdonald. “Neither party would go to the other’s house, and the postmistress in this village may be a nosy parker. They often are in small village post offices.”
Reeves chuckled, the faintest of mirthful murmurs. “You’ve got that right. The dame in the post office here is definitely interested. I saw her sorting the afternoon mail and she didn’t half quiz them. A nice registered packet of pound notes has got quite a feel to it.” The two men were sitting close together on a huge tree trunk which lay close up against the shed in the shadows. Their voices were only the low, practised murmur which was inaudible to any save each other, and the plash and swirl of falling water made a background of covering sound.
“We’ve had a good evening,” said Reeves. “A free demonstration provided, which saved you a swim, and we’ve got the feel of the place. You say it was a rum place to choose for a date. I think it’s rather cosy, not far from home but quite hidden away.”
“It has its advantages,” agreed Macdonald, “and more than those you’ve mentioned. Call it a day. We’ve got a surprising lot of information in a very short time.”
4
“What have you been up to, Raymond?” asked Anne. “You might as well tell me, and then you won’t have to bother about every word you utter for weeks on end. You’re tiresome when you’re concentrating on keeping a secret.”
Anne Ferens sat up in bed when her husband came in, and he chuckled at her words. “All light, angel. Sorry I’m so late. I went in to see Sanderson, and we got chewing things over. Both of us have been trying to think out some convincing theory which will prove the woman’s death was due to accident and nothing but accident. I was always doubtful about that idea of her slipping into the water without a sound, because it seemed to me that a woman of her weight falling on that bridge was bound to make some noise, and Venner’s got a very spry young house dog.”
“So what?”
“I asked Sanderson if he’d come and do a reconstruction. Fall flat on the bridge and then flop into the water and see if there were any reactions.”
“Did he agree?”
“Yes. Straightaway—rather to my own relief, I admit. I expected him to argue and say it was ill advised to go butting in, and so forth. He changed into shorts and we went down the village street. I didn’t want to go down the park in case we ran into Sir James or Lady R.”
“But heavens above, Lady R. doesn’t go rambling in the moonlight.”
“Not so sure, angel. Everyone’s nerves are rather playing tricks just now—but never mind that. Sanderson did his stuff all right. He fell like a hero, an absolute pitcher. I couldn’t have done it if I’d tried, and the row he made was unbelievable, shook the whole bridge. Then he rolled over and pitched into the stream, raising a sort of waterspout. Whereon Venner’s dog barked like mad and woke up Venner and the calves in the byre, and Moore’s dog began barking as well. What you might call a good reaction. Venner came out and pitched into me; he was properly furious and we had quite a party. But it convinced all of us of one thing: it couldn’t have happened the way everybody said. That wooden bridge makes too much row, and a big body flopping in the water makes too much splash, just like a flat dive. It makes a real smack and splother.”
“Oh dear . . .” said Anne.
“Yes. I know. But it’s better to get things straight. My first idea was right. Somebody gave her a good whang from behind and rolled her into the water. And they didn’t do it from the side of the stream by Venner’s house. It had to be on this side, and a bit away from the bridge.”
Anne sat up, with her knees up to her chin, her hands clasped round her ankles, and her face was troubled. “Ray, did you feel it was worth while, this experiment of yours?”
“Yes.” He spoke without hesitation. “It’s cleared up some possible misapprehensions, and I know you realise what I mean. Perhaps inquisitiveness isn’t a very admirable quality, but you’ve either got it or you haven’t. I wanted to get one or two things clear.”
“You’ve proved that she didn’t tumble all in a heap on the bridge. You haven’t proved that she didn’t commit suicide by slipping quietly into the water.”
“Angel, you don’t get an enormous welt on the occiput by slipping quietly into the water. The only way she could have bruised the back of her head like that was by collapsing in such a way that her head struck the handrail as she fell. I was willing to maintain that that might have happened until this evening. Now I know better.”
“So let’s put it quite plainly. You believe somebody murdered her,” said Anne, “and that means somebody in this place. It’s not a comforting thought.”
“I quite agree. But it’s better to look the fact in the face.”
“Well, don’t you go getting a great whang on your occiput, Ray. Leave it to that rather pleasant cop. He looked pretty competent to me. I wonder where he was when you were doing your reconstruction act.”
“He told Simon Barracombe he was driving up to Stone Barrow; but for all I know he was somewhere around by the bridge. If so, he saw a very competent demonstration of what didn’t happen.”
“In that case you’ll get ticked off tomorrow. Pros don’t like amateurs butting in,” said Anne. “Let’s go to sleep and forget all about it.”
“Shouldn’t be hard, angel,” said Raymond sleepily as he slipped into bed beside her.
CHAPTER XII
“Isn’t the real fact of the matter that you accepted Miss Torrington at her face value, madam?” enquired Macdonald evenly.
He was talking to Lady Ridding, who had already tried several varieties of technique on the Chief Inspector, without seeming to make much impression. First, her undoubted charm had been well to the fore.
“It was so wise of the Chief Constable to put the matter in your hands, Chief Inspector. I was very worried about Sergeant Peel. He showed a tendency to jump to conclusions—and very unwise conclusions, too. Between you and me, Pm afraid he’s rather a stupid man.”
“I have found Sergeant Peel a most able and conscientious officer,” said Macdonald quietly.
“Ah, but you wouldn’t know the extent to which he has upset the village,” said Lady Ridding. “These people are our people. I know them all, and know them well. Knowing them as I do, it seems outrageous to me that any police officer should imagine that a crime of violence could have been committed by any of them. And Sister Monica——”
Macdonald let her babble on uninterrupted for a while. Saintliness and halos, self-abnegation an
d devotion floated in the air like incense, until Macdonald put his abrupt question. Lady Ridding flushed and drew herself very erect.
“I knew her, Chief Inspector,” she replied. “She had worked faithfully for me for thirty years.”
“Nevertheless, I think that, apart from the qualities she made a show of, you knew very little about her,” persisted Macdonald, “but there is another point I should like to raise first. Have you any knowledge of the antecedents of Hannah Barrow, known as Nurse Barrow at Gramarye?”
“Nurse Barrow has been at Gramarye for over twenty years,” said Lady Ridding coldly. “I have no recollection of where she came from, because Sister Monica engaged her and made all the necessary enquiries. Sister was a genius at training domestic servants, and I left the engaging of them to her judgment. Of course we had village girls as domestics at Gramarye in the old days, but it got increasingly difficult to persuade girls to go into service. We were very lucky in having Hannah, who was a very hard worker.”
“Yes. I think she has worked hard,” agreed Macdonald. “I am going to tell you Hannah’s history, because it throws light on Miss Torrington’s character. Hannah was brought up in an orphanage in Bristol. She was trained as a domestic servant and placed in a job with a woman who was a very harsh and cruel employer. I need not go into all the details, but in 1918 Hannah Barrow was arrested and charged with the murder of her employer. Eventually the charge was reduced to manslaughter, and Hannah Barrow (or Brown, as her name was then) was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. There were extenuating circumstances, as she had been abominably treated, but she certainly killed her employer. Some time after her release, Hannah was engaged by Miss Torrington. Were you aware of these facts, madam?”
Lady Ridding looked horrified, but she kept her poise. “I knew nothing of this,” she declared. “Nothing. Sister Monica was very wrong to keep me in ignorance, but she doubtless did so from motives of charity.”
Murder in the Mill-Race Page 14
