The Crimson Rambler

by John Russell Fearn

  “Well, glad to have had this little chat, Miss Darnworth,” Gossage said. “See you about the house, I expect. Now I think I’ll give myself some exercise.”

  She nodded and lifted the catch on the gate for him. With a nod of thanks he strode out into the lane and began to walk with the steady, deliberate tread that had earned him his title of ‘The Crimson Rambler.’

  When he returned to the manor just after darkness had fallen Gossage found himself confronted in the hall by a woman who couldn’t be anybody else but Elaine Darnworth.

  “I suppose you are Inspector Gossage? Just the man I want to see!”

  For a woman Elaine Darnworth was tall beyond the average, dressed in jodhpurs, riding boots, a tweed jacket and green silk shirt with a gold pin through an emerald coloured tie. She was holding a riding crop that she thwacked with a certain menacing intentness against her leg. It crossed Gossage’s mind that Andrews had been right. Here, definitely, was a very strong-willed woman,

  “Is something the matter, Miss Darnworth?” Gossage sounded quite placid.

  “Matter!” she exclaimed, “I should think so! What do you mean by turning this place into an exhibition piece? What are all those men doing ploughing up the gardens with their elephantine boots? Is this the best way in which you can conduct an investigation?”

  Her face had something of Sheila’s pointedness about the chin, but there the sisterly resemblance stopped. She was darkly handsome, full lipped to the point of arrogance, with a wealth of dark and tumbling hair. Her eyes were intensely blue. Pride, possessiveness and ruthless will were all there, fighting each other.

  Gossage said: “You are an intelligent woman, Miss Darnworth, and—It is Miss Darnworth?”

  “I am Elaine Darnworth, yes.”

  “Well, you are intelligent enough to realize that we have to find the weapon with which your father was shot. It isn’t in the house and so we are looking outside.”

  “And why on earth should you expect it to be there? That it can’t be found in the house is surely sufficient guarantee that it isn’t going to be found?”

  “By no means.” Gossage regarded her levelly. “By no means, Miss Darnworth,” he repeated. “As far as I am concerned the search will go on. We’re going to find that weapon.”

  “I object to you making the manor a target for gossip.”

  “Murder,” Gossage said, “has an unpleasant habit of drawing attention to itself. However, I think you are worrying needlessly. By the way, I understand you are engaged to Mr. Bride?”

  “Yes. Which, I would add, has nothing whatever to do with my father’s death.”

  “He meets you every night as you leave your self-imposed task as assistant to Mr. Findley, does he not?”

  “He most certainly does. It is not altogether safe for a woman to be alone in these lonely ports after dark.”

  “He doesn’t, Miss Darnsworth. I’ve been checking up. Mr. Bride has never been anywhere near the veterinary’s, and Mr. Findley certainly doesn’t know of him.”

  “I am not in the habit,” said Elaine Darnworth, “of discussing my private affairs with Mr. Findley! And—”

  “Miss Darnworth, in your statement to the police you said that last night Mr. Bride met you at the vet’s and came home with you. Bride verified that fact in his statement. Now I find that you hadn’t met Mr. Bride even after you had got a mile away from the vet’s. I really must insist on having the real facts.”

  “I think you’re trying to read something into my statement which isn’t there,” she said. “Something suspicious. I might have expected it of a detective.”

  Gossage shrugged, unmoved.

  “You and Mr. Bride were the only two persons absent from the manor when your father met his death. You came in together fifteen minutes after his death—which by medical evidence has been placed as 7:30. What did happen yesterday evening?”

  There was a silence as Elaine reflected. Then a man’s voice, rather high pitched but definitely languid, spoke from the doorway of the lounge.

  “You’d better explain it, Elly. Playing ducks and drakes with the police never did anybody any good. Not because the police are smarter than anybody else but because they have the preponderance of power. ’Evening, Inspector Gossage.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  FRUITFUL WALK

  While speaking, the man had walked across the hall—a squarely built youngish fellow with a good forehead and fair hair. He had an expression that was neither surprised nor supercilious; it was hard to tell. The main impression he gave was of mental and physical strength at the cost of good looks. In general his features were blunt—a peg-top nose, an upper lip too long, and grey eyes much too closely set.

  “Evening,” Gossage responded, nodding. “Mr. Bride?”

  “Gregory Bride, yes. Miss Darnworth is simply being obstinate. Habit she’s got. I’ve told her about it many a time but she never seems to learn. There’s no mystery, inspector. I’ve never been to the vet’s to meet her—not right to the vet’s, that is. When I said that last night to the divisional inspector—and Elly here said it, too—I used the term loosely.”

  “I see,” Gossage said. “I’d suggest you be a trifle more accurate in your statements henceforth, Mr. Bride.”

  “Yes, suppose I’d better,” Bride admitted. “Anyway, I’ve always kept clear of Findley’s place because Miss Darnworth asked me to. She just doesn’t want Findley or anybody else outside the family to know that she’s engaged. Not, mind you, because she’s ashamed of me,” Bride added, grinning and blinking again, “but because she thinks it’s cheap to discuss one’s private affairs with strangers.”

  “And so it is!” Elaine declared flatly, and the crop banged viciously. “And see here, inspector, I only became engaged to Mr. Bride because I wanted to help him with his scientific inventions, and it seemed to me that as his wife-to-be I’d be able to influence my father more easily than Mr. Bride himself.”

  “The old man didn’t like me—much,” Gregory Bride explained, showing his big crooked teeth. “It was mutual, though. I didn’t like him a bit. Too hard-boiled. Elly here is just like him, you know. Sheila is more like her mother. Or rather as I understand her mother was in the old days.”

  “I think,” Gossage said, “we are wandering from the point. So you didn’t meet Miss Darnworth at the vet’s. What, then, did you do?”

  “Met her well clear of the village, as usual. Then we came here together. We’ve done it for long enough, every weekend. I’m here for the weekend, in case you’re not aware of it.”

  “I’m quite aware of it, Mr. Bride, thank you. I also understand that you arrived here yesterday about 4:30 from Godalming in your car, bringing your luggage—a thing you’ve done for some time. At 5:30 you left again to meet Miss Darnworth. You came back here with her at 7:45. At what time did you meet her, and where?”

  Something of the self-assured look seemed to fade a little from Gregory Bride’s face.

  “We met at the fork of the lane—Manor Lane as it’s called, just where it joins Bexley Road. You’ll know the lane, since you must have come down it to get to the manor. It has Morgan’s Deep in it.”

  “You mean the pond with the tree over it?”

  ‘That’s it. We met about twenty-five to six.”

  “In your car, or walking?”

  “Walking,” Elaine Darnworth said briefly.

  “That left you two hours and five minutes to wait, then, Mr. Bride?”

  “Yes. Elly was late. But I didn’t mind. I was expecting Elly to turn up about twenty past six, but she was delayed. So I just waited and strolled up and down smoking.”

  Gossage said: “It’s time I freshened up after my walk. Glad to have met you two. Maybe we’ll get to know each other better before long.”

  With a cheerful nod he turned and went up the stairs.

  Somewhat to his surprise, Gossage found Sergeant Blair in an easy chair in the bedroom.

  “Glad you’re back, sir.” He go
t up, stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Hope you don’t mind me waiting in here? I felt sort of out of it amongst that crowd downstairs. They’re at tea there—in the lounge, including a big-footed dragon by the name of Elaine Darnworth.”

  Gossage grinned, pulled off his jacket, and began to roll up his sleeves. Then he unpegged his pince-nez and set them down.

  “Put yourself where you like, Harry. Did you find out what the folks were wearing?”

  “Yes,” Blair pulled out his notebook. “Sheila Darnworth—and a nice girl she is, too—was wearing slacks and a jumper—no raincoat or hat. She hurried through the drizzle to the ‘summer house’ and there stayed. Bride had on a light mackintosh, but it was flowing open and there was nothing concealed, Crespin had on a fairly long raincoat, but he dropped his cigarette case as he left the house and stooped to pick it up. He couldn’t stoop if concealing a rifle under his coat, could he?”

  “It would present difficulties,” Gossage agreed. “Well, come and tell me more while I wash.”

  Blair nodded and in the bathroom he had to shout to make himself heard above the swishings of water.

  “Elaine Darnworth went out in a leather jacket to protect her from the rain—otherwise she was in riding habit. No place for concealing a rifle. In fact, the only one who has gone out a lot during the day has been Preston. And you know the length of that oilskin of his. He alone seems the most likely to fit my theory.”

  Gossage dried himself with the towel and his face emerged like a winter sun.

  “I’ll tell you what you do, Harry….” He winked seriously. “Just forget all about your theory, eh? Start again? It’s all right to play about with but it ignores one vital detail—the mind of the killer.”

  “Oh?” Blair shut his notebook. “How so?”

  “Whoever committed this crime has ingenuity, eh?”

  “I should say there’s no doubt of it. Locked study and no trace of the weapon. So?”

  “He—or she—being ingenious enough to kill old man Darnworth and leave no trace of it would never be clumsy enough to try and get the weapon out of the house under a Mackintosh or something.”

  “I don’t know so much about that, sir—”

  “But I do,” Gossage insisted. “Besides, how could they know that they’d need a mackintosh or coat, anyway? Might not have rained. Might have been warm, as it sometimes is in November,” Gossage dried his arms vigorously. “No, Harry, it doesn’t fit. The person responsible would think up something just as ingenious as the act of murder itself. I admit I’m a bit woolly brained on that aspect myself, and so far the only answer that occurs to me is that the weapon was thrown from the house, probably from one of the upper windows, to be picked up later. I saw Craddock this afternoon and told him to get his boys on the job of searching for it.”

  “I saw them arrive and start searching just before it got dark.”

  “I don’t expect them to find the air rifle because I give the murderer credit for having more brains than to have left it lying about so long—but I do maintain that footprints are possible. The rifle would have to be taken hastily. There wouldn’t, as I see it, be time to obliterate footprints as well. Faint hope, maybe, but only one so far.”

  He went across to the dressing table, fitted a fresh collar, and pulled his green tie into place while Blair thought the point out.

  “Yes, Blair agreed finally, with all the signs of having applied logic to the problem. “I think you’re right, sir, Being rid of that rifle under a mackintosh would be chancy…. Incidentally, have you found out anything? During your ramble, I mean?”

  “I’ve found that Sheila Darnworth didn’t care much for her father. I’ve also discovered, through Sheila, that Barry Crespin is a go-ahead radio-engineer who usually gets what he wants and that Sheila is very much in love with him. Crespin has two radio stores in the city. One of his assistants rang him from London, asking him to go to the city as there was an important matter that only he could deal with. I’m having Craddock check on it. I learned from the formidable Elaine that she only became engaged to Gregory Bride so that she could push things with her father on Bride’s behalf. Scientific inventions, or something, Bride says he didn’t like the old man and that the dislike was mutual. I had a chat with the vet for whom Elaine works. He never heard of Gregory Bride. Last night she left the vet’s at seven, whereas she usually goes about six. He walked part of the way with her, going to a case, but Bride had not met her when he, the vet, left her at 7:20.”

  “The things you pick up on a ramble, sir,” Blair observed.

  Gossage got into his jacket again and clipped his pince-nez back on his nose. “There is the matter of the queer behaviour of Gregory Bride last evening. He says he waited two hours and five minutes at the fork of Manor Lane for Elaine. I suppose a man could do that—nothing impossible about it—but he’d need the hell of a lot of patience. On the other hand, you can do a lot in two hours and five minutes.”

  “You can, sir, yes,” Blair agreed heavily.

  “As for Elaine….” Gossage reflected. “As for her, the time seems to check. She left the vet’s at seven. I’ve made sure of that, and walking the two and a half-mile distance she got in here at 7:45, which is near as dammit.”

  “And Bride didn’t like old man Darnworth, eh?” Blair mused. “Did he say why?”

  “Because he was obstinate, I gathered.” Gossage grinned. “So I thought—”

  From the hall came the vibration of a gong. Blair became alert and momentarily avidity crossed his square face.

  “That sounds like dinner, and I’m ready for it.”

  Gossage nodded. “Meeting adjourned. Harry. Come on.”

  They left the bedroom together and arrived in the dining room to find the family and guests assembled—six of them, every one sitting with something of the circumspect detachment of a board meeting, dominated at the head of the table by Mrs. Darnworth, still in black silk with the long loop of gold chain down her small bosom.

  To Gossage’s silent relief there was no sign of evening dress. The men were entirely informal in lounge suits and the two younger women were in dark blue. The change from a yellow jumper suited Sheila, but no change she could affect suited the full-breasted Elaine. She sat at the table like a pouter pigeon, her coldly suspicious eyes watching the two men as they came into the room.

  “Gentlemen, you are late!” Mrs. Darnworth observed, and set her firm little mouth. “I would remark that we are in the habit of assembling in the lounge five minutes prior to dinner so that we may all sit down together. Call us slaves of habit if you wish, but that is how it was in my husband’s lifetime, and that is how I mean it to continue.”

  “Very sorry,” Gossage apologized humbly, and settled in his chair; then his eyes travelled across the faultlessly laid table to the young man seated opposite him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MOTIVES COME TO LIGHT

  “Mr. Crespin—Inspector Gossage and Sergeant Blair.” Mrs. Darnworth made the introductions.

  “Glad to know you, inspector, and you, sergeant,” Crespin said, smiling.

  He was about thirty-three or thirty-four, comfortably plump, and with unruly blond hair. His complexion was as delicate as a girl’s and his teeth small and even. In a careless kind of way, he was quite good looking.

  “You have made my list complete, Mr. Crespin,” Gossage told him. “I’ve now met everybody.”

  Nobody commented immediately. It looked as though they were all waiting for the chief inspector to add something, but he refrained. Instead he beamed disarmingly as he looked at each member of the party, even the washed-out Louise, looking very small and somehow squeezed in a lacy affair that emphasized her boniness.

  “I trust the experience of meeting people has helped your investigation, inspector,” Elaine remarked cynically. “It seems to me that you’re not getting on very rapidly in tracing the murderer of my father.”

  Gossage said: “I’m not a miracle worker. I’m simpl
y a paid employee of’ Scotland Yard and unfortunately for me clues don’t hang on trees like ripe plums. And speaking of plums reminds me. Actually, I don’t like talking about the murder at all….” He gave a sigh and shook his scrubbed head. “I’m a simple man who loves gardening and nature, but fate has bamboozled me into bringing villains to justice for their misdeeds.”

  “While finding your brief digression into personal foibles interesting, inspector, I would like to know how far you have progressed!” Mrs. Darnworth made the observation as she fixed him with her blue eyes. “You have met everybody: You have, I understand, been out part of the day. Now you have men wandering about the grounds with lanterns.”

  “Yes,” Gossage acknowledged amiably. “A fact of which Miss Darnworth has already reminded me.”

  “That is purely because she dislikes the police as much as I do—but I have good sense to realize that you have, of necessity, to act as you see fit—”

  “Heaven be praised,” Gossage murmured under his breath.

  “Are we not therefore entitled to know where we stand?” Mrs. Darnworth asked.

  “You stand just where you were to start with,” Gossage said. “All of you have perfectly reasonable explanations for your actions last night: none of you seem to be aware of any enemies Mr. Darnworth might have had, and it is a complete mystery how anybody got in and out of the study to kill him, and an even bigger one whither went the weapon with which he was shot….”

  “What did kill him?” Gregory Bride asked, “I know he was shot in the head, but with what? Was it a revolver?”

  Gossage looked round on the faces. “It was a B.S.A. air rifle.”

  “Air rifle!” Barry Crespin exclaimed. “That puts a different complexion on things. It’d be a big thing to hide, and also it would be an easy weapon for the killer to get, much easier than a revolver, or ordinary rifle.”

  Sheila asked: “What comes next, Mr. Gossage?”

  “The inquest.”