The Castleford Conundrum

by J. J. Connington

  “I see, sir,” Westerham concurred, in a tone of some relief.

  “Very well. Now I want to see this Chalet where the affair happened. We can get up to it in my car, I believe? Come along with us and show us over the ground.”

  When they reached the Chalet, Sir Clinton listened while the Inspector described the position of things on the day of the tragedy. Westerham pointed out the spot where the rook-rifle bullet had lain, and showed the chalk-marks he had made to register the positions of the table and chairs. At the Chief Constable’s request, he also led them to the pile of debris in the spinney where the automatic bullet had been discovered by P. C. Gumley. Sir Clinton listened in silence to the explanations.

  “You had all that in your reports,” he commented at last when they returned to the verandah. “Still, I wanted to see things with my own eyes. And now what about this dead cat you found? Where was it?”

  The Inspector led them into the other arm of the spinney to the little glade where he had found the corpse.

  “It was hung up here, sir, by that string. I’ve no doubt in my mind that the boy hung it up and shot it to death, although he made out to me that it was dead before he came on it. We found about a dozen rook-rifle bullets in the carcase of the thing when we came to open it up.”

  “I gathered that you didn’t look on him as a reliable witness. By the way, Inspector, you gave me the impression in your reports that you were setting down most of that evidence verbatim. Did you take shorthand notes?”

  “No, sir. But I’ve got a very good verbal memory.”

  “Have you?” Sir Clinton’s tone was neutral. “Let’s test it. What was the first thing I said to you after we met?”

  Westerham was too sure of himself to take offence at the underlying suggestion.

  “You said, sir: ‘I’ve read your reports. Very clear and full. You must have had a busy time gathering your information.’”

  “And what did you say yourself, before I put that question just now?”

  “I said: ‘I’ve got a very good verbal memory,’ sir.”

  “You’ve proved it,” Sir Clinton admitted. “Then I suppose I can take these reported conversations as almost textually accurate?”

  “I think so, sir,” Westerham declared, confidently.

  “That may be useful,” the Chief Constable said musingly.

  He glanced round the little glade and his eye fell on the second piece of twine hanging from the tree-branch.

  “This is the string young Glencaple said he’d hung a tin can on, I suppose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sir Clinton stepped over and examined the cord, incuriously at first, and then with more interest.

  “Did you notice, Inspector, that the end of this has been burned? You can see the charring and the tiny point of blackened fibre, if you look closely.”

  Wendover and the Inspector came to his side and scrutinised the end of the twine.

  “I see it’s been burned,” Westerham admitted, “but I don’t quite see what bearing that has.”

  “Neither do I,” Sir Clinton admitted blandly. “It strikes me as curious, that’s all. Can you consult that memory of yours, Inspector, and tell us what the boy said about it?”

  Westerham racked his brain for a few moments. Evidently he felt on trial and wanted to be sure that he made no mistake. Suddenly his face cleared.

  “I remember now, sir. He said something very like this: ‘Auntie Connie and I fixed up a tin can so that it swung about in the wind. Then I found a dead cat, and I thought it would be more fun to hang it up and shoot at it. So I took away the can and hung up the cat.’ That was his account of it, sir.”

  Sir Clinton seemed to have lost interest in the matter.

  “It’s common enough twine—the ordinary three-strand stuff they sell in balls for household and office use,” he said. “By the way, did you find the tin can hereabouts, just to check his tale?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t think of looking for it.”

  “I don’t think I’d trouble, then. By the way, I suppose you have the two bullets: the rook-rifle one from the verandah and the .32 automatic one which killed her?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve kept them, of course. The .22 had been fired from the boy’s rook-rifle, sure enough. I’ve fired a number of shots from that gun into water, myself, yesterday; and the markings that the rifling leaves on the bullet are quite clear. Three or four of my bullets are marked almost identically with the bullet I picked up on the verandah.”

  “You’re lucky, then. Sometimes bullets from the same rifling are marked quite differently from others. And while we’re on that subject, what did you make of the .32 pistol you secured? Did you try it for fingerprints?”

  “I did, sir,” the Inspector said, in a rather rueful tone, “but it was simply covered with them, all different. As you’d see from my reports, practically everybody in that household had handled the thing long before the shooting. The metal surface was a perfect mosaic of fingerprints with nothing much to pick and choose between them. But there was no doubt it was that pistol that did the trick, sir. Just yesterday I fired some shots from it and kept the empty cartridge-cases. You may remember that we found the empty shell in the grass in front of the verandah—the case of the cartridge that killed her? I’ve compared it with the others and there’s no doubt the murderer used that particular pistol. The marks of the extractor hook on the rim of the cartridge case, and the indentation made by the striking-pin are identical all through the series.”

  “And you infer from that?” Sir Clinton asked.

  “I infer, sir, that the murderer must be somebody who had access to that pistol, which narrows the circle very much; and it must be somebody who could replace the pistol afterwards—which limits the ‘possibles’ still further.”

  Sir Clinton nodded his agreement.

  “Whom did you put into these two categories?” he inquired.

  “Everybody at Carron Hill could have got at the pistol. That means Castleford, Miss Castleford, Miss Lindfield, the Glencaple boy, and the maids. In addition to them, sir, I’d include Dr. Glencaple and Mr. Glencaple, since they’ve been about the premises and could come and go as they pleased, being relations of Mrs. Castleford. And I’d add Stevenage, for he was always running in and out of the house and seemed pretty much at home.”

  “And then you begin to eliminate some from that list?”

  “Yes, sir. The maids can be scored off. I’ve sound evidence that none of them left the house on the afternoon of the murder. Miss Lindfield, Miss Castleford, and her father, they—all knew exactly where the pistols were planted. The boy Frankie didn’t know; but he was one of the ferreting kind—you remember he found them first of all in the garret, sir—and he might quite well have unearthed them in the cupboard after they were hidden there. Dr. Glencaple was at Carron Hill immediately after the murder; I saw him there. Mr. Glencaple wasn’t at the house until a day later. Young Stevenage hasn’t been near Carron Hill since the murder happened.”

  “But suppose he had an accomplice inside the house who could do the replacing of the pistol for him?” Sir Clinton inquired. “I don’t say it’s likely; but if you’re going to eliminate on that basis you have to take every possibility into account, you know.”

  “Well, it’s possible, sir,” the Inspector admitted. “He was very friendly with both the girls, I find.”

  “It would take a lot of friendliness to make a girl into an accomplice of that brand,” Wendover contributed in a rather grumpy tone which the Inspector did not like.

  Sir Clinton seemed to think that question might be thrashed out further. He sat down in one of the rustic chairs on the verandah and with a gesture invited the other two to seat themselves also.

  “That covers the matter of the pistol, we’ll assume,” he went on. “Now what about the other factor: the dose of morphia? That seems a rather weird addition to the case, doesn’t it? Where do you think it came from, Inspector?”

  “Wel
l, sir, it obviously narrows things down very much further. Nowadays, morphia can’t be got by the man in the street. Only a research chemist, or a medical man, or druggist could get it—I don’t think dentists use it. And there’s only one medical man in the Carron Hill circle—Dr. Glencaple.”

  “Perhaps he had an accomplice,” Wendover interjected in a faintly ironic tone.

  “What I’m concerned with now, sir, is the source of the stuff,” the Inspector said, stiffly. “I’m not considering who actually used it.”

  “Then let’s go on to that point,” Sir Clinton suggested. “What’s your view about it?”

  “If Dr. Glencaple was the original source of the stuff, then he may have used it himself, or he may have handed it to an accomplice to use, or it may have been stolen from him, or he may have mislaid it and someone may have come across it and used it. That seems to cover all the ground,” Wendover suggested.

  “The way I look at it is this, sir,” said the Inspector, ignoring Wendover. “I think there’s only one source of morphia in the case: Dr. Glencaple. Now morphia appears twice in this affair: once in the body and once in that hypodermic syringe that was used for the insulin injections. Whoever it was that dosed Mrs. Castleford, that person had access to the hypodermic syringe and could use the syringe on Mrs. Castleford without exciting her suspicions about it. Who was that?”

  Sir Clinton made a gesture to arrest the Inspector.

  “Have you examined the remaining insulin, the unused stuff in the house? It might be worth analysing.”

  “That’s been done, sir,” the Inspector retorted triumphantly. “I got the bottle from one of the maids and got Miss Lindfield and Castleford to identify it after it was in my possession. It’s been examined, and there’s no trace of morphia in it. So she didn’t get the dose out of that bottle.”

  “Very good, Inspector,” Sir Clinton approved. “But to judge from my impression of her, Mrs. Castleford wasn’t a very acute person. If an old bottle had been filled up with morphia solution, it might have been substituted for the proper stuff and she’d never have seen it.”

  “If that was how it was done, then the bottle was washed out afterwards. I got the maid to give me the emptied bottle as well,” the Inspector explained with pardonable pride in his thoroughness.

  “I’d have expected that from you, after your reports,” Sir Clinton acknowledged with a smile. “Now let’s take a third line. What about motive? We don’t need to prove it, of course; but I’d like to hear your views.”

  “Well, sir, I don’t think you need go far to look for that. The money question sticks out all over the case. Mrs. Castleford originally married a rich man with two none-too-well-off brothers. When he died, she got the estate—the Glencaple money. She married again, and made a will in favour of her new husband, Castleford. That cut out the two Glencaples; and they were as mad as hornets about it when they discovered the state of affairs. That’s common talk about the neighbourhood, and I heard Dr. Glencaple himself say a few things that confirmed it. He and his brother persuaded Mrs. Castleford to tear up that will and she was going to make a new one in their favour. The new will, I understand, was going to put Miss Lindfield in a better position, too. The Glencaples assumed that the new will had been signed. I heard Miss Lindfield telling Dr. Glencaple that it hadn’t been, and he was absolutely staggered—anyone could see that. Her death at that juncture upset everything. Instead of Miss Lindfield and the two brothers dividing the Glencaple money between them, the whole life-interest in it goes to Castleford.”

  “So that her death just at that stage made all the difference to him, obviously,” Sir Clinton agreed. “But that’s hardly news to me, after reading your reports.”

  “But wait a moment,” Wendover interrupted, turning to the Inspector. “You’re suggesting that Castleford wanted his wife’s money. Well, then, if he was after her money and was ready to go the length of murder to get it, why didn’t he kill her while the old will was in force—during the last five or ten years? Why did he wait until now?”

  Westerham’s smile was rather condescending. These amateurs, he reflected, were apt to be dense.

  “Why should he do anything of the sort, so long as the old will was in force?” he demanded. “She was keeping him and his daughter. He was living in luxury, with nothing to do for it except loaf about and look pleasant. His wife was a diabetic; for all he could tell, she might die off comparatively young and leave him in possession. In these conditions, it wasn’t worth running the risk of murder just to inherit a bit earlier. But when he got wind of this new will, why, then, things would look a bit different, I expect. It wasn’t just going to be a case of waiting till the plum fell into his mouth sooner or later. It was a case of now-or-never, before the new will was signed. That’s how I’d look at it.”

  Sir Clinton, at Wendover’s rather crestfallen look, intervened by continuing the interrupted topic.

  “Then I take it that you look at it rather in this way, Inspector. Miss Lindfield knew that Mrs. Castleford was intestate; and she knew also—I gather from your reports—that if Mrs. Castleford died, intestate, she would lose everything under the old will and would get nothing under the new will, since it wasn’t executed. The Glencaples are in a different category. They imagined that the new will was completed and valid; so that if Mrs. Castleford died, they would scoop the pool. Philip Castleford was in a third class, along with his daughter. They knew that she was intestate and that on her death, before she signed the new will, her money reverted to her husband. That seems to be a fair statement of the case.”

  “It leaves one possibility out,” Wendover commented. “Where does this man Stevenage come in? For all you know, he may have persuaded her to make a will in his favour—she seems to have been a very unstable-minded creature. Suppose he’s sitting with that will in his pocket at this moment. He doesn’t need to produce it instanter. He can wait till the clouds roll by, can’t he, if he chooses to do so?”

  “They’d roll up again pretty quick if he did that,” said the Inspector, sourly.

  “Yes,” Wendover admitted, “but still, it’s harder to get your evidence after months have elapsed. People forget things quickly.”

  “Well, it’s an idea,” Westerham said grudgingly.

  Sir Clinton seemed anxious to keep along more orthodox lines.

  “Is that all you have to suggest in the way of motive?” he asked the Inspector.

  Westerham rubbed his nose doubtfully before answering.

  “Well, there’s no doubt in my mind that Mrs. Castleford and young Stevenage were a bit more intimate than they need have been. It sticks out all over the place—anonymous letters, his fencing with me about their doings at the Chalet, the way he hung about Carron Hill where Castleford, I gather, didn’t want him. And Castleford knew all about it. The anonymous letters would tell him, if nothing else did. And yet he denied violently to me that there was anything wrong.”

  “Most men would do that, after she was dead,” Wendover pointed out. “They’d want to bury the scandal in her grave if they could manage it.”

  “That I don’t deny,” said Westerham, “but it’s beside the point. What I was demonstrating was that Castleford had another motive in addition to the money. By putting her out, he’d be squaring up his account with her for her little games with Stevenage, and he’d be filling his pocket as well.”

  Wendover had no answer to this.

  “There seems to be just one possibility more which you haven’t mentioned,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “You’ve considered the matter of direct profit. What about contingent profit?”

  “I don’t quite follow you, sir,” Westerham acknowledged after a moment’s thought.

  “Well, take Miss Castleford. Legally, she doesn’t come into the limelight. But wouldn’t she be—h’m!—rather better off, we’ll say, if her father came into his wife’s money? That’s a contingency, isn’t it?”

  Wendover was displeased by this suggestion. He could see
that the Inspector had caught at it as a confirmation of his own ideas on the case; and he was vexed with Sir Clinton for lending his weight to suspicions against the Castlefords. They were mere suspicions, after all; and he thought the Chief Constable might have held his tongue on the subject.

  Sir Clinton rose and crossed the verandah to the Chalet door.

  “I thought it just as well to make sure things weren’t tampered with, sir,” Westerham explained as he also went up to the door. “I’ve got all the keys of the place from the different people who had them; but just to make sure, I put seals on the door and windows.”

  “So things are just as they were?” Sir Clinton asked, as the Inspector broke the seals and opened the door.

  “Exactly as they were, sir.”

  Sir Clinton stepped inside the Chalet and made a thorough inspection of it; but he seemed to find nothing fresh.

  “Thanks for letting me have a sample of the paper-ash that you found in the grate,” he said to Westerham as he paused in front of the hearth. “You made nothing out of it?”

  “No,” the Inspector admitted. “There was no writing of any sort on it. I’m sure of that.”

  “Then it obviously wasn’t the ash of the telegram which Mrs. Castleford received just before her death.”

  “No, it wasn’t that, sir, for certain. There was too much of it, for one thing. I’d guess it was from a quarto or a foolscap sheet of paper.”

  “I wonder what happened to that telegram,” Sir Clinton mused. “Queer that it disappeared. If it hadn’t been for the initiative of your constable—Gumley—we’d have had more trouble in getting the text of it.”

  “He’ll be fortunate if he hears no more of that, sir.” Westerham said with a wry smile. “The responsibility’s his, in that affair.”