Miss Hailsham obviously does not wish to see Hassendean’s murderer caught; and therefore her identification with “Justice” is more than problematical. She may or may not have an alibi for the time of the bungalow affair, since she admits going to a dance in her car and coming away almost immediately. One may keep her case in reserve for the present.
Markfield’s car, GX. 9074, is alleged to have been in in an accident that night. The man who complained about it might provide a clue to Markfield’s movements, if we can lay hands on him.
The man who appeared at Fountain Street Police Station, fishing for a reward in connection with the bungalow affair, can hardly be anyone but one of the two watchers at the windows. Unfortunately, unless he chooses to talk, we have no power to extract information from him. Flamborough states that he can lay hands on him at any moment, as he is well known to our men.
Written after the receipt of the code advertisement.
This “Justice” is an ingenious fellow. First his trail was covered by using letters clipped from telegraph forms; now he resorts to advertisements, so that we do not get his handwriting. However, he betrays his knowledge of the internal affairs of the Croft-Thornton, which is a bad mistake since it limits the circle of inquiry.
Written after the interview with Renard.
I don’t care much for Mr. Renard. He poses too much as the honest fellow rather puzzled by the course of events. His evidence, certainly supplied a fresh motive for Silverdale in the rôle of murderer. But Silverdale will not fit into the Heatherfield affair on any reasonable basis; and the tragedies at Heatherfield and at the bungalow are obviously interconnected. It’s a nuisance that Silverdale won’t tell us where he spent the night of the murders. It might save trouble if he did so.
“Justice” seems to be making a fool of himself. The fact that he forged Mrs. Silverdale’s writing in the advertisement addresses limits the circle still further. We now know: (a) that “Justice” must have learned of the bungalow shooting almost as soon as it was done; (b) that he knows hyoscine was in the Croft-Thornton stores; (c) that he is in possession of specimens of Mrs. Silverdale’s writing.
Markfield might fill the bill.
Other possibles are: Miss Hailsham, Miss Deepcar, and Silverdale himself.
Written after the Whalley murder.
So Flamborough has let Whalley slip through our fingers!
My impression is that Whalley was murdered elsewhere and taken out in a car to be dumped into the ditch where he was found. The man behind all this is clever, and wouldn’t go in for an open-road murder in which he might be interrupted by a motorist coming round the corner.
The tourniquet was obviously intended to mislead us, or it would never have been left beside the body. The Heatherfield tourniquet was a makeshift thing which indicated no one in particular; this new one, with its pressure-tubing and banjo-string, seems constructed specially as evidence. The tubing suggests the Croft-Thornton chemical work; the banjo-string points to Silverdale, since I learned from Ringwood that Silverdale was a banjo-player. Both these points would be familiar to Markfield.
The laboratory coat was apparently left on its peg every night after work was done. It was therefore accessible to anyone in the Croft-Thornton, after Silverdale had gone for the day. Markfield could have procured it, if necessary, and returned it when his work with it was over. If the Whalley murder was committed in some secluded spot—say inside a house—the murderer would hardly have left a clue, like this button and shred of cloth, in his victim’s hand, since he would have plenty of time to search the body at leisure. As things are, it looks like a manufactured clue, especially since the shred of cloth is so characteristic.
Silverdale again has no alibi; but neither has Markfield, since his housekeeper was away nursing a relative. We shall need to wait for further evidence.
Written after the raid on Avice Deepcar’s house.
Flamborough has arrested Silverdale. Perhaps it’s a sound move, though not from his point of view. I hope it will bring things to a crisis, and that we may be able to fish something out of the disturbed waters.
One point is already established: Silverdale had nothing to do with this raid on Miss Deepcar’s house.
The raider must have been a man. Miss Deepcar herself could not have impersonated me well enough to deceive her own maid. Miss Hailsham has a girl’s figure and could hardly have posed as myself. The shape of her face, and especially her mouth, would make that impossible. No other woman that we know about is sufficiently mixed up in the business to make it worth while to run a risk like that.
Markfield, according to Ringwood’s evidence, used to go in for amateur theatricals. Further, Markfield knew—for he told me so at the Croft-Thornton—that Miss Deepcar was out of town on the night of the raid on her house, so if he was the raider, he could be sure that he wouldn’t have to meet her and run the risk of meeting (a) a person who knew him when undisguised; and (b) a person who knew my appearance well enough.
What was he after? Letters, evidently. And again this limits the circle, since the raider must be someone who has knowledge of the relations between Silverdale and Miss Deepcar.
Miss Deepcar’s evidence gives Silverdale a complete alibi for the time of the bungalow murder. On the other hand, they may both have been mixed up in it; in which case her evidence carries no weight. But the Heatherfield affair seems the key to the whole business, and Silverdale had no motive for that murder, even assuming he wanted to destroy the draft of his wife’s new will. On the face of it, Miss Deepcar’s evidence seems sound and clears Silverdale.
Written after the receipt of the photographs.
Curious how people will never let well alone. If this fellow “Justice” had been content to stay out of the case, we’d have had a much stiffer job. Now at last he’s let us see what side he’s on—anti-Silverdale definitely.
The photographs are obvious fakes if one examines them carefully. Their only importance is as a guide to the identity of “Justice.”
They limit the circle still further, since the production of them implies the use of a good microphotographic camera; and the Croft-Thornton Institute has more than one of these.
Points which seem to tell against Markfield:
(1) He was intimate with Mrs. Silverdale shortly after she came here.
(2) He was near Heatherfield on the night of the murder.
(3) He knew the maid was alone in Heatherfield except for her sick companion.
(4) He could easily have obtained possession of Silverdale’s cigarette-holder.
(5) Owing to his housekeeper’s absence, he could move about freely with no check on the times when he left his house or returned to it.
(6) He was out at the Research Station on the Lizardbridge Road early in the evening on the night of the bungalow affair.
(7) The evidence he gave us, for all his pretence of reluctance, was directed against Silverdale.
(8) He was well acquainted with all the arrangements of the Croft-Thornton Institute.
(9) Owing to his earlier association with Mrs. Silverdale, he had access to specimens of her writing.
(10) His car’s number, GX. 9074, was known to Whalley, who made inquiries about it with reference to the night of the murders.
(11) He knew that Silverdale had a banjo.
(12) He had access to Silverdale’s laboratory coat.
(13) He knew of the relations between Silverdale and Miss Deepcar.
(14) He knew that Miss Deepcar would be out of town on the night when the raid was made on her house.
(15) He was a good amateur actor.
(16) He had access to a microphotographic camera.
These are established facts. Make the assumption that his earlier association with Mrs. Silverdale was a guilty and not an innocent one, and see where that leads. It suggests the following:
(a) That they took special care to conceal their intimacy, since Silverdale would have been glad of a divorce.
; (b) That they themselves did not wish for a divorce, possibly for financial reasons.
(c) That Hassendean was utilised as a shield for the real intrigue, without understanding that he was serving this purpose.
(d) That he took the bit in his teeth and resorted to hyoscine to gain his ends.
(e) That Markfield, on his way home from the Research Station that night, caught a glimpse of Hassendean driving Mrs. Silverdale out to the bungalow, and became suspicious.
(f) That he followed them and the tragedy ensued.
(g) That after the tragedy, Markfield realised the danger of his love-letters to Mrs. Silverdale which were in her room at Heatherfield.
(h) That the Heatherfield murder followed as a sequel to this.
Finally, there is the inscription in the ring which Mrs. Silverdale wore. Markfield has no initial “B” in his name; but the “B” might stand for some pet name which she used for him.
The net result of it all is that there are strong grounds for suspicion against him, but no real proof that one could put confidently before a jury.
Possibly he might be bluffed. I’ll try it.
Written some time after the explosion at Markfield’s house.
One might put it down as a drawn game. We failed to hang Markfield, for the explosion killed him on the spot. Luckily, the effects were extraordinarily localised, and Flamborough and I got off alive, though badly damaged temporarily.
Markfield, one has to admit, was too clever for us at the last. From what a chemist has since told me, tetranitromethane detonates with extraordinary violence in presence of triethylamine, though it is perfectly safe to handle under normal conditions. Markfield had about half a pound or more of tetranitromethane in his conical flask; in his dropping funnel he had alcohol, or some other harmless liquid, colourless like triethylamine; and in his stoppered bottle he had triethylamine itself. While he talked to us, he ran the alcohol into the tetranitromethane—a perfectly harmless operation. Then, when he saw the game was up, he ran the funnel empty, and refilled it from the bottle. As we saw it, this was simply a preparation for continuing the experiment which we had already found to be harmless; but in practice it meant that he had only to turn his tap and mix the two liquids in order to get his explosion. He staged it so well that neither Flamborough nor I spotted what he was after.
The house was a perfect wreck, they tell me: doors and windows blown out, ceilings down, walls cracked. The room we were in was completely gutted by the explosion; and Markfield was torn in pieces. I didn’t see it, of course. The next thing I remember was waking up in a nursing home. Possibly it was cheap at the price of getting rid of Markfield. He was a good specimen of the callous murderer. The only soft spot in him seems to have been his passion for Yvonne Silverdale.
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By J. J. Connington
Sir Clinton Driffield Mysteries
Murder in the Maze
Tragedy at Ravensthorpe
The Case with Nine Solutions
Mystery at Lynden Sands
Nemesis at Raynham Parva
The Boathouse Riddle
The Sweepstake Murders
The Castleford Conundrum
The Ha-Ha Case
In Whose Dim Shadow
A Minor Operation
For Murder Will Speak
Truth Comes Limping
The Twenty-One Clues
No Past is Dead
Jack-in-the-Box
Common Sense is All You Need
Supt Ross Mysteries
The Eye in the Museum
The Two Tickets Puzzle
Novels
Death at Swaythling Court
The Dangerfield Talisman
Tom Tiddler’s Island
Murder Will Speak
The Counsellor
The Four Defences
J. J. Connington (1880–1947)
Alfred Walter Stewart, who wrote under the pen name J. J. Connington, was born in Glasgow, the youngest of three sons of Reverend Dr Stewart. He graduated from Glasgow University and pursued an academic career as a chemistry professor, working for the Admiralty during the First World War. Known for his ingenious and carefully worked-out puzzles and in-depth character development, he was admired by a host of his better-known contemporaries, including Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr, who both paid tribute to his influence on their work. He married Jessie Lily Courts in 1916 and they had one daughter.
An Orion ebook
Copyright © The Professor A. W. Stewart Deceased Trust 1928, 2012
The right of J. J. Connington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2012
by Orion
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4719 0596 4
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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The Case With Nine Solutions (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 24
