Murder by Matchlight

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “No. He’s dead. He was knocked over the head in Regents Park on Thursday evening. We want to get a line on his friends. The name he was using when he was killed was John Ward, but he may have been known as Timothy O’Farrel. He was an Irishman.”

  “Right. I’ll see what I can do—but the trouble is he probably used another name at the Studio. They nearly always do.”

  “Where was the film made?”

  “Engleton Studios. They were blitzed in 1941.”

  “I see. Doesn’t look very hopeful, does it?”

  “Well—there’s always a chance. I tell you straight out it’ll be a hundred to one against, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Right—and thanks very much.”

  “Rum business,” said Jenkins as they reached the street again. “The bloke’s dead . . . and he looked so much alive in that picture. Come to think of it, they keep folks alive in a way these days. You can turn on a movie and see the way they walked and moved and looked—and hear their voices talking to you. It’s a damned queer world we’re living in.”

  “It’s a damned sight too queer for my liking,” said Macdonald. “If we go on being so infernally clever, homo sapiens will annihilate his own species. Sapiens on the wrong track.”

  Jenkins was following his own trail of thought. “That bloke—Johnnie Ward—or whatever he called himself—had got an interesting face . . . he’d got some quality.”

  “Yes. A quality called charm,” said Macdonald. “He’d got a way with him, and when you’ve said that you’ve said all that there was to say in his favour so far as I can make out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  i

  IT WAS shortly after eight o’clock that Macdonald sent up his card to Mr. Ross Lane and he was taken straight up to the surgeon’s sitting-room. Ross Lane got up from the same comfortable chair in which he had been sitting on Macdonald’s first visit, but he was not alone in the room this time. A slim grey-haired woman stood with her back to the fire and studied Macdonald as he came into the room: her scrutiny was deliberate and impersonal and he was aware of an interesting face and a well-tailored figure as Ross Lane said:

  “Good-evening, Chief Inspector. My wife has asked me to introduce you. Chief Inspector Macdonald—my wife.”

  Macdonald bowed, and was able to get a closer impression of a very charming face, thin and not unlined, with clear-cut features, sensitive close-shut lips and dark blue eyes, wide-set under arched black eyebrows. Macdonald said:

  “How do you do. I believe that you practice under the name of Dr. Josephine Falton ?”

  “I do. It is customary for women doctors to keep to their professional names—but at home I am Mrs. Ross Lane. Will you sit down?”

  “Thank you.” Macdonald then turned to the surgeon. “Last time I was here I asked you if you had ever heard the name Timothy O’Farrel.”

  “You did. I replied that I knew the name and that I believed it to be that of a character in one of Congreve’s or Wycherley’s plays. I was quite wrong, of course—but the name Tim O’Farrel does occur in an old Irish play which I once saw produced at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.”

  “I’m not prepared to dispute that—but would you like to reconsider your answer to my question?”

  Mrs. Ross Lane promptly put in: “I think that suggestion is put with remarkable courtesy and lack of acrimony. In fact it shows much more consideration than we deserve.”

  “Quite true,” said Ross Lane. “Well, Chief Inspector, having discussed the matter with my wife, who was away from home last time you called, I am prepared to make you a full statement, which can be supplemented by my wife later. Would you rather interview us separately?”

  “No. I don’t think that is necessary,” replied Macdonald. “I may have my own opinion about the unwisdom of concealing evidence in the matter of a capital crime, but I have a high opinion of the integrity of your profession. In short, I should be very much surprised if you were to make any statement which you knew to be untrue.”

  “Your judgment is perfectly correct,” said Ross Lane, and though his voice was dry and formal, there was a twinkle in his eyes. It was plain that the surgeon, though possibly embarrassed, was not in the least apprehensive. “Well—here is my statement—and a pretty kettle of fish it is. My wife, while still a medical student, married a man named Timothy O’Farrel. She left him three years afterwards. That is her part of the story. Mine begins later: I first met Dr. Josephine Falton in 1925. I did not persuade her to marry me until 1944, when she was informed of the death of Timothy O’Farrel in an air-raid shelter in Camberwell. We had had three very pleasant months of matrimony, and then my wife was asked to go to see her mother—who has since died. On the morning of the day my wife was to travel to Devon she had a telephone call purporting to come from Timothy O’Farrel.”

  Mrs. Ross Lane interrupted here. “The call was from Timothy O’Farrel. His voice was unmistakable.”

  Her husband continued: “You know the substance of the call. My wife told me about it, and I said that I would go and keep the appointment at the bridge. Obviously, if Timothy O’Farrel were alive, it was necessary for us to see him and consider what was to be done. I should in no case have allowed my wife to go to Regents Park alone to keep the appointment, and eventually she agreed with me that I should go and meet Timothy O’Farrel and hear what he had to say while she travelled to Devon as arranged.” The surgeon paused a moment, studying Macdonald’s face with the lively quizzical air which was so characteristic. “I might make an interpolation here. Obviously the resurrection of Tim O’Farrel was a confounded nuisance. It meant that Josephine and myself were bigamously married, and people of our profession have to reckon with a body called the General Medical Council. I should like to make it plain that I used the word ‘nuisance’ advisedly. O’Farrel’s reappearance was just that, no more. I am close on fifty years of age: my wife is forty-eight. We neither of us intended to wreck our lives because a rogue was hoping to exploit his roguery. If the Medical Council debar us from practising—well, it’s a pity, but we are quite capable of leading happy and, I hope, useful lives along other lines. I want you to understand that. I intended to listen to what O’Farrel had to say: obviously blackmail was indicated—but I didn’t lose my wool over it. I wanted to tell him to go to the devil his own way, and to assure him that his progress was not going to be assisted, financially or otherwise, by myself or my wife. I don’t know if you can swallow that, Chief Inspector, but it’s true. All I wanted to say was ‘Publish and be damned. If you think you’re on to a soft proposition—think again.’ ”

  Macdonald nodded. “Yes. I think I can believe that—but I very much doubt if most people would do so.”

  “If the jury would do so,” put in Mrs. Ross Lane tranquilly. “In other words, only a mature mind, which has evolved its own philosophy, would believe that we were not in a hair-tearing state.”

  “To continue,” went on Ross Lane. “I set out from here on Thursday evening with my dog—and I haven’t a word to add or delete from the statement I made to you previously about my progress to the bridge. There’s a very important point I want to make here. I had never seen Timothy O’Farrel, neither had I seen a photograph of him. When I reached the bridge, the constable was in charge of three men—one dead, two alive. I had never seen any of them before. Later I was told that the dead man was named John Ward. I knew of no John Ward. Neither had I any knowledge of who caused the man’s death, by what agency it occurred, or anything at all about it.”

  He paused here and Macdonald said: “Very good. The gist of your statement will be set down, and after reading it you will be asked to sign it.”

  “That’s all right—but I’d rather go on a bit, if you’re prepared to listen.”

  “It’s my business to listen,” said Macdonald. “As a matter of correct procedure, I ought to have another man with me, and had I anticipated a detailed statement such as you are making, I should have brought one. If, however, you are willing to c
ontinue your statement with no further witness and without the presence of a solicitor, I am only too anxious to hear that statement.”

  “Personally I’d much rather tell you the story, just as I’m doing now, than have a witness to take my speech down and a solicitor to check any garrulity,” said Ross Lane. “At the beginning of our talk you said a very unexpected thing, to the effect that you were willing to accept the integrity of our profession and that you would not expect to be told lies. I respect you the more for saying that because you know I evaded giving you a straight answer last time you talked to me.”

  “From my recollection of what you said the word ‘evasion’ covers it,” said Macdonald. “You told me that the telephone call from St. Pancras was not answered by yourself. That was true. In reply to my question about the name O’Farrel you said that it was a name in a play. I noted the answer for what it was worth.”

  “Quite—and when you think the matter out now you can realise that my evasions had this to justify then: it was my wife who answered O’Farrel’s telephone call, and I had no intention of telling you anything about her affairs until I had had the chance of talking to her.”

  Dr. Falton put in a word here. “You did a very unwise thing, Bill. The only sensible course would have been to refuse to answer. The Inspector would then have had no cause for complaint.”

  “Well—that’s as may be. John Ward is dead and Timothy O’Farrel is dead. He gave you a lot of trouble during the course of his life. If I could have saved you any further trouble in the matter of his death I would have done so.” He turned back to Macdonald and addressed him directly: “I think I’ve said all that’s relevant. I went to Regents Park with the intention of meeting Timothy O’Farrel on the bridge. When I arrived there he was dead, and I know nothing about his death. I had never seen him in my life, so I could truthfully say I could not identify him. If I could have saved my wife from becoming involved in the inquiry about O’Farrel’s death I should have done so. To be involved in it will cause her a great deal of trouble and will not assist the police at all. We neither of us know anything about the matter.” He paused and then added: “I have spoken to you quite frankly, Chief Inspector. I realise that you must inevitably suspect me, and I don’t resent the inevitable. I prevaricated to you when you first asked me for evidence, and, in the eyes of the average man, I had a motive to kill O’Farrel. The point which I think you will understand—though most people would not—is that I wanted to avoid trouble for my wife. I have wits enough to know that to commit a murder is not a trouble-saving course of action.”

  “I quite agree,” said Macdonald, “though I wish you had employed your wits a little further, and considered the fact that to conceal essential evidence is not a trouble-saving course of action, either.”

  He turned to Mrs. Ross Lane. “ Do you wish to make a statement, or would you rather answer explicit questions?”

  “I would rather make a statement. If I am to tell you about Timothy O’Farrel it means giving you a large slice of my life-history. I don’t like the prospect, but I’m prepared to go through with it—if only to make amends for my husband’s behaviour in the matter of evidence. I was telling him, just before you came, that I can’t understand how a man with a first-class mind could have been so stupid as he appears to have been.”

  “It’s a type of stupidity which I frequently meet,” replied Macdonald. “It’s easy to say ‘If I had been in the same position I should have done so and so.’ Very intelligent people are capable of doing very ill-judged things under stress of circumstances.”

  “That’s a two-edged comment,” she said. “However—here’s my statement concerning Timothy O’Farrel. We were fellow students at Dublin University. He was sent down in his second year. I married him in 1918, when I was twenty-two. Our married life was brief and difficult and we parted in 1921—though even in those three years we did not live together for longer than six months all told. I had a small income of my own and I paid my husband an allowance on condition that he left me alone and did not attempt to interfere with me or come to my house or make any attempt to see me.”

  “You must have had very strong reasons to follow such a course.” said Macdonald. “It is my business to try to understand the type of man O’Farrel was. I realise it must be unpalatable to you—to say the least of it—to discuss him, but will you diagnose him, as it were—state his condition of mind as though he were a patient.”

  “I am quite willing to tell you all I can about him: it is twenty years since I had anything much to do with him at first hand, and he means no more to me than an illness which is past and over: a one-time misery which no longer has power to distress. Timothy O’Farrel was fundamentally dishonest and incorrigibly lazy. He would make no effort of any kind to work or to earn a living. When he was without money he borrowed or stole, first from me, then from my friends. He read private letters—and sought to profit from what he learned in them. He induced confidences—and exploited them. He was a very dangerous person because he was a very attractive one. Everyone liked him, men as well as women: people confided in him. He was a curious creature because side by side with his laziness and inertia, he was physically brave. He loved a scrap, and he got involved with the Sinn Fein extremists. I have no doubt at all that he had several murders to his credit, though he always got off scot-free.”

  She paused, lighted a cigarette, and then went on: “I had qualified as a doctor: I did my term in hospital and I wanted to practise. It was abundantly evident that I could not do so while my husband lived with me. Further, I knew that he cared nothing about me. I soon found out that he had married me because he thought I should keep him without any effort on his part. He admitted it—coolly and amusedly. It was then that I told him that I would pay him an allowance provided he kept away from me—and he agreed, still amusedly. That arrangement went on for seven years. I had come to England and I was practising. Timothy turned up at my house one day and demanded a larger allowance. I refused it. Then, by a stroke of good fortune for me, I learned that he had stolen from a friend of mine. We had the evidence. I told him he could clear out or else be handed over to the police. I was still willing to pay him a subsistence allowance—but he could subsist elsewhere. He went—I paid his passage to America. He drew his allowance until 1930. Then he disappeared. I believed he was in prison. In 1935 I heard from him again—this time in Eire, in County Cork. I continued to pay him the allowance I originally promised, remitting to a firm of solicitors in Cork. In 1938 he ceased to claim the allowance. I heard no more of him until I had a letter from an address in Camberwell last February, saying that Timothy O’Farrel had been killed when a shelter was bombed on February 5th. The letter was signed M. Casey—you can see it. I went to the address on it—Dulverton Place—and found it was blitzed. I went and examined the names of those killed in the shelter. Timothy O’Farrel’s name was down as ‘missing, believed killed.’ I made further inquiries and learnt that a cigarette case had been found in the shambles. It was Timothy’s cigarette case. It was that which convinced me he was dead. He had pawned that cigarette case dozens of times and always redeemed it. I believe that he would never have left anything on which he could raise money in a shelter. I was wrong. That was casting his bread upon the waters. Perhaps he had been ‘observing me’ and thought I might get married again if I knew he was dead. I did—and it must have seemed to him the chance of a life-time. He was at last in a position to blackmail his wife. That’s the story, Chief Inspector.”

  “Thank you for being so frank,” said Macdonald quietly. “There are one or two questions I must ask. First, in that conversation over the telephone, O’Farrel mentioned the bridge in Regents Park. Why should he have assumed that you knew it?”

  “He knew that I did. I have twice talked to Timothy in that spot—once during our honeymoon when we stayed in London, and again in 1925 when he tried to get more money out of me. It was on that bridge that I told him that I would tell the police about his theft if
he persisted in bothering me. I didn’t mince words, and it was an occasion which he could have remembered with no pleasure at all. He wanted to turn the tables on me. I understood that all right. He always had a sense of the picturesque.”

  It seems to me an odd place to have chosen to talk—in November and in the blackout.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was odd—but so was Timothy. He was a fantastic creature in many ways. The oddest part of it all is that I didn’t hate him. I hardly even resented him. I made a fool of myself over marrying him and I paid for my foolishness, but the thing I shall always remember about him was that he was capable of being the most delightful companion. Even as a self-confessed rogue and shameless egotist he was charming. I’m Irish too, you see, and though I soon realised that life with Timothy was impossible, I always admitted his attractiveness. Now having heard all that, Chief Inspector, are you really any nearer to knowing who killed Timothy O’Farrel?—for certainly I did not, and neither did my husband.”

  Ross Lane put in a word here, and his voice was whimsical.

  “No. I didn’t kill him. There’s something bizarre in the suggestion that I should have done so. I’ve never seen Timothy O’Farrel. The idea of killing an unknown man in the blackout on the mere assumption that because he’s in a certain spot he’s unmistakably the man you want to kill strikes me as a bit chancy. Whoever killed him must have known him by sight sufficiently well to recognise him in the gleam of a match-light.”

  “That’s all self-evident to you and me, Bill,” said his wife. “We both know that it’s true that you didn’t know Timothy by sight. Also, there’s evidence to show that you did not make his acquaintance on the bridge—there was no conversation before the murder—but I fail to see how you could prove that you didn’t know him by sight.”