The Castleford Conundrum

by J. J. Connington

  This suggestion evidently came as a thunderbolt to Castleford.

  “But there’s no such will,” he protested.

  “No such will has been produced, so far, I grant you,” Sir Clinton corrected. “I’m putting a purely hypothetical case.”

  “Well, I can’t answer hypothetical questions,” Castleford retorted. “I never dreamt of such a thing. You don’t think it’s likely, do you?” he demanded, anxiously.

  “You ought to know more about it than I do,” Sir Clinton said, meaningly.

  Then he changed his tone sharply.

  “I’ll give you one plain piece of advice, Mr. Castleford. I’m quite certain that you’ve been lying, and lying hard, in this case. I’m not going to choose my words about it. You and your daughter have got up a cock-and-bull story between you. Each gives the other an alibi. For whose benefit was that double alibi put up? Either you or your daughter was intended to profit by it. If it was you, and you put that girl into the witness-box to repeat that tale, I warn you that perjury is a serious business. No matter what happens to you, she’ll have to bear the brunt of it. You can take that as official. Think it over carefully.”

  He rose as he spoke.

  “Come along, Wendover. I’ve other things to do.”

  They left Castleford staring after them with an expression on his face that suggested something very near panic.

  As the car ran down the avenue to the Carron Hill gate, Sir Clinton was silent; but when they reached the open road he turned to Wendover.

  “Not altogether the Don Quixote, Squire,” he said sardonically. “A bit of a wash-out, in that role, I think, I never could stand liars.”

  “You think they’re not straight?”

  “Wait a bit.”

  Sir Clinton pulled up the car at a pillar-box, got out, and posted a letter after examining the time-plate.

  “That’s a note addressed to myself, Poste Restante, Thunderbridge,” he explained. “We’ll call for it at the post-office this afternoon and watch the postman bring it in. Nothing like checking up things when one can; and we may as well be certain about the reception of that posted telegram which disappeared at the Chalet. And that reminds me, I’ve to telephone to Headquarters to make some inquiry about that firearm certificate of Miss Lindfield’s.”

  He got back into the driving-seat and started the car.

  “You’re sure those two weren’t telling the truth?” Wendover persisted.

  He had little doubt about it himself, but he wished to get Sir Clinton’s reasons to compare with his own.

  “Look at the evidence in the case, Squire. The thing stares you in the face. Besides that, I caught them both lying just a few minutes ago.”

  “Did you?” said Wendover, rather annoyed at not having seen this for himself. “How did you?”

  “With these exhibits, the three bits of cloth. The one I showed to Miss Lindfield was nothing—a pattern I picked up in a shop. She didn’t recognise it, of course; and she said so. Then I showed the Castleford girl a bit that had been snipped out of her father’s coat—the one Westerham impounded. She recognised it all right. That was plain enough. But she denied quite flatly that she’d ever seen anything to match it. Then I showed Castleford a fragment of the dress his wife was wearing when she was killed—a thing with a quite distinctive pattern. He’d never seen it before, honest man. Do you expect me to fall on the necks of people like that, Squire?”

  Wendover’s simple code barred lying. He had no answer to Sir Clinton’s sneer.

  “So you arranged these things to trap them?” he asked.

  “No,” said Sir Clinton, with a faint grin, “it was a shade more subtle than that. I wanted their fingerprints, and I didn’t want them to know I was taking them. So I gave them something else to think about while they were fingering the glasses, and they didn’t tumble to what I was really after.”

  “That’s neat enough,” Wendover confessed. “You bamboozled me completely with it, and I expect you diddled them too. But why bother about fingerprints? There aren’t any in this case, unless I’ve missed something.”

  “There aren’t any, so far,” Sir Clinton amended. “But there may be, before we’re through. I’ll be able to tell you when I’ve looked up the weather reports for the last few weeks at the Public Library. We’ll go there this afternoon. I ought to pay a visit to the hospital, too.”

  Wendover knew that he would gain no further information by trying to cross-examine the Chief Constable, who was apparently in one of his impish moods. Instead he turned to another aspect of the matter.

  “Why did you drag Stevenage’s name in with all of them?”

  “Well, see what I elicited,” Sir Clinton explained. “First of all, Miss Lindfield was quite honestly anxious to keep Stevenage’s name out of the business. In fact, she was more anxious than one would expect from a mere acquaintance, which confirms Haddon’s story about them. Also, my suggestion about Stevenage’s influence with Mrs. Castleford obviously disturbed her. There might be more than one way of interpreting that. As to the Castleford girl, she was as plain as print in that matter. She would have accepted Stevenage if it hadn’t been that she felt there was something between him and Mrs. Castleford. As for Castleford himself, of course he knew all about his wife’s game. What gave him a jar was the possibility of a will in favour of Stevenage, which would perhaps cut him out of his wife’s fortune at this eleventh hour. These are interesting points, to my mind.”

  “So you think Stevenage . . . ?”

  “Don’t let us try to define things too closely,” Sir Clinton begged, with a comic air of offended modesty. “Do you remember that German song about the fellow who knew three fair maidens?

  “Die eine küss’ i’,

  Die and’re lieb’ i’,

  Dritte heirath’ i’ einmal.”

  Friend Stevenage reminds me of him, somehow. Though which of the three he really wanted to marry is a problem beyond me, I admit. She’d have had to keep him, whoever she was.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Public Library

  The Chief Librarian of the Strickland Regis public library was an alert little man, full of enthusiasm for his work. His tawny hair, bright eyes, and staccato movements, called up in Wendover’s mind the comic simile of a squirrel in horn-rimmed spectacles. Sir Clinton could hardly have fallen upon a better man for his purpose; for Tenbury was immensely proud of the library under his charge and liked nothing better than to talk about it.

  “Yes, Sir Clinton,” he explained, “in theory, our readers’ tickets are personal ones; but in practice we don’t bother about that. If anyone brings a ticket to the counter and asks for a book that’s available, we let them have the book whether it’s their own ticket they show or not. We don’t bother much about red tape. In my view, my job’s to get books into the hands of the public. I want to encourage people to read as much as I can. I’m a librarian, not a bookkeeper. A little joke of mine, that; but it puts the thing in a nutshell. Books are no good to anyone if you keep them standing on the shelves here all the time.”

  “I quite agree,” Sir Clinton said, heartily. “Now would you mind explaining your system? Suppose I were a local reader, how would I get a book out of the Library and how would I return it in proper form?”

  “You’d have to apply for a ticket, first, and get two householders to sign your application. Then we’d supply you with the ticket. Here’s one. It’s got a number printed on the cover, you see, and a space inside for writing your name and address. You bring this ticket with you whether you want to take a book away or consult it in the library: the system’s the same in both cases. You look up the book in the catalogue and find its shelf-number. Say it was H.144. You go to the indicator-board and look up H.144. If the figures are in red, the book’s out. If H.144 appears on the indicator in black, you know the book’s available. That saves needless trouble at the counter, you see? You go to the counter, if your book’s indicated as available, and you give
the number H.144 to the librarian there. You also hand in your ticket. He looks at the printed number on your ticket and jots that down, together with H.144 in our record-book. Then he goes to the indicator and twists a knob which reverses the H.144 plate so as to show its other side, with the figures printed in red. That shows the book’s not available now. At the same time, he slips your ticket into a slit behind the H.144 plate in the indicator. Then he gets the book from the shelves and hands it over to you.”

  “And when I bring the book back again, the process is reversed, more or less?”

  “Yes. You hand in the book at the counter. The librarian looks inside the cover and sees the press-mark H.144. He goes to the indicator, turns H.144 from red to black, and collects your ticket from the slit. He hands the ticket back to you at the counter and replaces the book on the shelves. The system’s nearly automatic. Any untrained boy can learn it in a couple of minutes.”

  “And the only record made is the entering up of the two numbers: the ticket-number and the press-mark?”

  “We don’t need anything more,” Tenbury pointed out—“We can find out from that list which books are most in demand and also what books have been drawn from the library with a particular card. We can’t tell, of course, whether a book has been read on the premises or taken home by the reader.”

  “For my purposes, that doesn’t matter,” Sir Clinton explained. “Now, I’d like you to do this for me, if you will, Mr. Tenbury. Look up the ticket-numbers of the people at Carron Hill: Mr. Castleford, the late Mrs. Castleford, Miss Castleford, and Miss Lindfield. Then find out for me, please, what books have been read or consulted by means of these four tickets during the last six months. And jot down the date on which each book was called for. I know it will mean a good deal of work, but it’s likely to be of importance.”

  “I’ll do it myself,” Tenbury volunteered without hesitation. “I’ll have a list ready for you before we close the library tonight. There’s really nothing in it, as you can see for yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Sir Clinton said gratefully. “I don’t think your time will be wasted. By the way,” he added, “I noticed a Stevenson thermometer screen in the grounds outside. Do you do anything in the meteorological line?”

  “We do what we can,” Tenbury said modestly, but with some pride. “Mr. Saddell of Beechcroft generously presented us with a very good outfit: Jordan sunshine recorder, maximum and minimum thermometers, anemometer, barograph. I take the records myself.”

  “They may turn out to be very useful,” Sir Clinton said, with unconcealed satisfaction. “Perhaps, later on, you’ll go over them with me, Mr. Tenbury?”

  “I’d be delighted,” the librarian replied, though in a tone which showed that he could not see what Sir Clinton had in mind.

  “Then that’s that. Thanks very much. I’ll come back again at your closing time and see what you’ve made of the list of books.” When they were back in the waiting car, Wendover turned to Sir Clinton.

  “What’s all that about?” he demanded. “You can’t expect to infer much from the weather conditions on the day of the murder—and I suppose that’s what you’re going to look up.”

  “You suppose wrong,” said the Chief Constable ungrammatically. “Exercise is good for the brain, Squire. Just puzzle away at it. I’ll give you this hint. It’s a damned long shot, which might just hit the mark. If it doesn’t—well, I shan’t record it in my memoirs. These things are all right if they come off. If they don’t, they make one look silly.”

  “Where-away now?” Wendover inquired, as he recognised that he would learn nothing more about the visit to the Library.

  “Sunnyside Hospital. I want to see this Dr. Pendlebury.”

  At the hospital, Sir Clinton’s card brought the doctor with very little delay.

  “I suppose it’s this motor-smash?” he asked, as he came into the room. “I’m afraid you can’t see the patient. He’s pretty bad. We’ve had to resort to blood transfusion and I’m not sure if he’ll pull through even with that help.”

  “You had Miss Castleford for that?” Sir Clinton asked. “Did she stand it all right?”

  “She was very nervous; but everything went off quite well,” Dr. Pendlebury explained. “She won’t be any the worse for it.”

  “You’re accustomed to the technique of this blood business?” Sir Clinton asked. “There’s some way of detecting the difference between one blood and another, isn’t there? You can’t transfuse unless you’re sure the new blood won’t do some damage?”

  Once again, it seemed, they had encountered an enthusiast. Dr. Pendlebury’s face took on a less formal expression as he launched into what was evidently a pet subject.

  “It’s quite simple,” he explained. “We can classify any individual, male or female, in one of four groups according to certain properties of his or her blood. The tests depend on two things. First, the manner in which the serum of his blood reacts with the red corpuscles of the blood of people belonging to the other three groups. Second, the way his red corpuscles react with the sera of the blood of people belonging to the other three groups. It’s a question of agglutination of the corpuscles—whether they clump together or not, when the serum is added.”

  He picked up a piece of paper and jotted down a little table which he showed them:—

  Corpuscles of Group

  Serum of Group

  I.

  II.

  III.

  IV.

  Group I.

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Group II.

  +

  —

  +

  —

  Group III.

  +

  +

  —

  —

  Group IV.

  +

  +

  +

  +

  “A cross shows agglutination, a dash shows there’s no agglutination in that particular case,” the doctor explained. “For example, a Group II serum will agglutinate the corpuscles of blood drawn from Groups I and III, but it won’t agglutinate the corpuscles of a Group IV blood. And naturally, it won’t agglutinate the corpuscles of its own type of blood, Group II. The technique’s a bit tricky; but the results are plain enough and perfectly sound.”

  “Let’s take a concrete case,” Sir Clinton proposed, with an air of having not quite grasped the point. “Your motor-smash patient, which group is his blood in?”

  “Group III.”

  “Then I suppose Miss Castleford’s blood belongs to Group III also. Am I right?”

  “Yes, she’s in Group III too.”

  “How does this thing go in heredity?” Sir Clinton asked. “Is her blood in the same group as her father’s?”

  “Her blood might belong to her mother’s group or her father’s group—not to any other,” Dr. Pendlebury explained.

  “H’m!” said Sir Clinton, in a sceptical tone. “Is that just one of your scientific assertions, or is it really proved?”

  “It’s proved in this case, anyhow,” Dr. Pendlebury declared with a slightly triumphant smile. “I’ve tested his blood too, and it belongs to Group III, like hers. She takes after him. Her mother may have had Group III blood also, for all I know, of course.”

  Though Dr. Pendlebury had been deceived by Sir Clinton’s profession of scepticism, Wendover saw that it—and probably a good deal more—had been merely assumed. Sir Clinton had been fishing for information and had obtained it without letting the doctor realise that he was being pumped.

  “You say there are four types of blood?” Sir Clinton went on. “I suppose the numbers of people in each of the four Groups are about equal?”

  “No, no,” Dr. Pendlebury corrected. “Some thousands of cases have been examined, and the proportions work out something like this: In Group I, you’ve got about 42% of the population; Group II is almost as numerous—41%. In Group III, there’s only 12%; and only .5% of people are in Group IV.”


  “Now I come to business,” the Chief Constable explained, as though the previous talk had been on a side-issue. “I’ve brought three bits of blood-stained cloth with me.” He took three envelopes from his pocket and showed that they were numbered. “Could you determine from these blood stains the character of the original blood in each case. I mean could you tell me to which Group each specimen belonged?”

  “There’s nothing against it,” said Pendlebury, confidently. “The tests work perfectly well, even in the case of old, dried-up blood.”

  “This may mean your having to go into the witness-box, perhaps. Care to take it on?”

  “I don’t mind,” said the doctor. “When do you want the results? I can give you them tomorrow, if it’s an urgent business.”

  “That’s very good of you. Tomorrow, then. Of course this is strictly confidential, doctor.”

  When they had left the hospital, Wendover turned to Sir Clinton.

  “Three bits of blood-stained cloth? I can guess what some of them are. But what’s it all about?”

  “I’m not sure it will lead to anything,” Sir Clinton admitted frankly, “but if it was worth doing at all, it was worth doing thoroughly. It might turn out useful to have a list of the blood-groups of the people at Carron Hill; but as nothing at all may come out of it, I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss. Besides, if I’d asked openly for specimens, I might not have got them.”

  “I saw you manoeuvred the doctor into telling you that the two Castlefords are in Group III,” Wendover commented.

  “Yes, it was easy enough. I could have asked him a straight question about it; but the less dust raised, the better, I think. The specimens in the envelopes were a bit of Mrs. Castleford’s blouse, a piece of Castleford’s bloodstained sleeve, and a bit of the handkerchief I used to tie up Miss Lindfield’s cut finger. If you really want to do a public service, Squire, you might get up a scrap with Dr. Glencaple and tap his claret. Then we’d have a complete collection of the blood of everybody, bar that boy. We shan’t need them all, though; it’s merely that I’d like to have full data, even if we scrap part of it in the end.”