Die All, Die Merrily

by Bruce, Leo

  “He was known to Florrie Lamplow, who came down to open the door to him. This was I think, as Mrs Redlove maintained, about two in the morning. He had taken Richard’s car from the car park by which Slugley slept, and he was at the cottage for an unknown period since Mrs Redlove had ‘dozed off’ again before she heard him leave.

  “He wanted the body to be discovered soon, but in a place likely to have been chosen by Richard. That is what I meant when I told Inspector Bowler that in looking in the places where Richard Hoysden would have left a body I was doing the commonsense thing. The murderer would have chosen one of those places, I argued. In fact he chose the clearing near the house, where we found it. He could not, unfortunately, leave the silk cord with the tassels like epaulettes on the dead shoulders, but at least he could use the designed method—strangulation and hope that the absence of the silk cord would not be noticed, or it would be thought that this was raving on Richard’s part or that someone had removed it.

  “His scheme was nearly successful. It was true that he would have to wait some considerable time and work out something quite different in order to remove Lady Drumbone, his primary object. But he had recouped his losses very well. For his night’s work he had left a strangled woman and a man who had shot himself having confessed to strangling her, and there was nothing in this that could involve him. He had the born murderer’s gift of patience and was quite willing to wait for another occasion. That he had covered up well is shown by the fact that after the discovery of Florrie’s body none of Richard’s family, not even Lady Drumbone, doubted that Richard had killed her. I shall not easily forget Lady Drumbone’s surprise when I told her he had not done so.

  “So at this point, though I had my reasons for being pretty sure of the murderer’s identity, I was faced with six—I won’t say suspects, because it is too strong a word, but six persons who could be said to have some sort of motive, who had, at least so far as I knew for certain, the opportunity, and who had the means. In the case of each there was something pretty strong against believing him guilty, but while I had no absolute proof against my own suspect, I had to consider the case against each of these.

  “To take the family first, there was Alan Bourne. He had the motive they all had—for remember we must look for motives for killing Lady Drumbone, no one else. He had told me that no one knew what Lady Drumbone had to leave, but it was obviously a great deal. He suffered from her autocracy as I noticed on the first evening when she offered drinks to me and deliberately did not invite her nephews, who dared not protest. He had access to the pistol and could drive out to Flogmore. He had learned from Pippa that she intended to stay the night at Lady Drumbone’s and so could know that the second half of his plan was impossible. But against this, and to clear Alan, was first his wife’s evidence, then the fact that these circumstances would have meant that he had killed Richard before he met Pippa. This is not quite impossible, but it discounts the evidence of Mrs Nodges and Mr Hoskins about the time of the shots.

  “Then Keith. He had all the same motives as Alan and perhaps better opportunities, because he could wait until Pippa had finally gone to bed and then slip out. But against this was the fact that he had intended going to Wilma Day at the bungalow that night, and when I overheard their conversation I knew that he had intended to come and was deeply in love with her. Moreover there was his youth.

  “Youth, too, was against suspecting Charles Bourne, though Slugley claimed to have seen him, or someone suspiciously like him, leaving the block of flats that night after coming from Richard’s. Moreover, though one might conceivably convince oneself that he had some motive for killing Richard, it is hard to say why he should plot an elaborate double murder to kill Lady Drumbone.

  “Slugley had the three essentials, motive (of a sort), means and opportunity. But unless Richard himself had taken the pistol from Alan’s house it is hard to see how Slugley could have had it to use that evening. It is unlikely, too, that he knew of the family’s visits to Flogmore or, if he did, of their favourite picnic spots.

  “Toffin had everything as a suspect, except probability. I could not, somehow, bring myself to see him in the part. His enthusiasm for amateur theatricals and his knowledge that Richard might be inveigled into a part could account for his presence in Richard’s flat and the tape-recording. It was the rest of the programme that seemed almost to rule him out.

  “Finally there was Rothsay. He, again, had motive, opportunity and means. I admitted to myself that like Slugley he was either a stupid man or one clever enough to appear stupid. He could have known all about Flog-more woods, and certainly his car was in the car-park near Richard’s flat that evening. But I did not fancy him as a suspect. His car could have been where Slugley saw it while he had a drink at the Fox and Hounds, as Slugley admitted, and if he had entered the block with the express purpose of killing Richard he would scarcely have left it there to be seen. Moreover, he had had no opportunity to get possession of the revolver with which Richard was killed.

  “However, none of these five could be quite ruled out …”

  Mr Gorringer raised his hand.

  “Let us pause for a moment,” he suggested, “and perhaps”—he looked enquiringly about him—“once more relieve our thirst.”

  Knowing that the round the headmaster had bought was already regarded by him as something of an extravagance, Carolus was about to order when Bowler spoke.

  “I think in view of your elaborate theorizing, Mr Deene, we might run to one out of Expenses.” He pushed the bell.

  “Well,” remarked Mrs Tuck, “I never thought I’d get a drink from a copper. Nor accept it, either. But since They’re paying for it, cheerio.”

  Mr Gorringer’s good humour was returning to him and he no longer seemed so anxiously concerned about the reputation of his school.

  “There is a piece of evidence, related to me by Priggley,” he announced, “which strikes me as particularly telling. One of the tenants of flats above Richard Hoys-den’s, a Mrs Nodges, believed she heard the sound of a shot at the mysterious hour of 4 a.m. What of that? ”

  Carolus grinned.

  “As I tackle more problems,” he said, “I find the necessity increases of distinguishing between evidence and what I may call natural red herrings. This was one of these. The woman believed she heard something, but as her husband told her, her mind was full of shots. This time it may really have been a car backfiring. At all events, so far as I can see, it had nothing to do with the case. Certainly no second shot was fired in Richard’s flat.”

  Mr Gorringer cleared his throat.

  “As something of an aficionado in these matters,” he said, “forced into association with them by Deene’s predilections, I cannot but admire the way he has drawn us off the scent, as it were. It is quite evident that the murderer was not among the five persons mentioned.”

  “Who was it then? “asked Carolus, somewhat surprised.

  Mr Gorringer allowed an expression of great cunning to overspread his face.

  “Come now, Deene. It is all too obvious. It was the tenant of the flat above Hoysden’s who claimed to have heard a shot. Hoskins, I mean.”

  “But why, headmaster? On what do you base that? ”

  “Aha,” said Mr Gorringer, “old birds are not to be caught with chaff. I sensed it as soon as you failed to name him among your ‘possibles’.”

  “In other words you simply guessed the least likely person and gambled on it. No, I said right at the beginning of this case that it was one in which not to be afraid of the obvious. The murderer was, of course, Keith Bourne.

  “In considering him just now I said that what seemed to clear him was his appointment with Wilma Day at Marling Flats. But if we examine that a moment we shall see that it is precisely what incriminates him. For the original plot an alibi was necessary and Wilma was to provide this. In that conversation I overheard were these significant words. ‘Had you given up hope by then?’ asked Keith. ‘Darling, don’t be absurd. I
’d no idea what time it was till it started getting light. You knew I hadn’t a watch. You were taking it to …’ Keith in other words, on a pretext of having Wilma’s watch adjusted, repaired or cleaned, made sure that she would not know the time when he arrived at the bungalow. He would perhaps hand her her watch set back an hour or so, to match his own. So that if he had finished what he had to do in Maresfield by eleven-thirty as he hoped, and reached the bungalow within an hour of that, he would have someone to swear he had been there since eleven, an excellent alibi.

  “Apart from that all the probabilities were with him. He was the only one who had a real and urgent motive for murdering Lady Drumbone, and if you’re going to tell me that to a pathological murderer of twenty-one the ambition to marry a girl and start a repertory theatre does not constitute a motive, I shall say that the facts confute you. He had worked out every detail of his theatre, found the place for it and knew the capital needed. For both of these things he needed only the money he would inherit from his aunt. His lies to me about that were highly indicative. He did not know how his aunt felt about him and Wilma. ‘We’ve never let her guess,’ he said. He did not see why he should anticipate opposition to the repertory theatre from his aunt. ‘It’s just that I haven’t had the guts to tell her yet.’ He knew perfectly well that his aunt, as she told me, had flatly refused to countenance either of his projects, but he did not mean to let me guess that he had a motive for killing her.

  “Yes, he planned very efficiently. His first idea was that Richard should appear to have shot himself with Tom Lamplow’s Savage 30.30 rifle, and went out with his sister to get hold of it. This was easy, as it happened, because the two women left him and went upstairs because Florrie had a present for Olivia. ‘All very mysterious’. Olivia recalled Florrie saying ‘Come up to my room because I’ve got something for you’. Keith wasn’t even allowed to see it. But while they were upstairs he had plenty of time to put the rifle in his car.

  “However, that afternoon at Anita’s tennis party, a better idea occurred to him—the revolver and ammunition which Alan kept so carelessly locked up in his room. This was better because it would avoid the difficulty of getting the rifle into Richard’s flat—cricket-bag or golf clubs or whatnot—and it would look as though Richard himself had taken it that afternoon. Keith even went so far as to say to me when I asked him if Richard could have taken the revolver—’ I suppose so, yes. I believe he stayed upstairs for a shower when we went down for drinks.’

  “So he rang Richard up at the shop and told him about the play he was writing. As Pippa had told me, ‘Keith I didn’t mind so much, though he was always coming to Richard for advice or with schemes for something he wanted to write’. There was nothing unusual in this then. Would Richard bring up a tape-recorder because it would be wonderful to try it out and Richard could read so well and so on. (To me he flatly denied ‘writing’. Any of the other arts, but’ that at least I know I can’t do’.) Richard did, and as he finished that very artfully written confession Keith, who was sitting beside the bed, silently switched off the light. ‘Hell!’ said Richard, and it was his last word. With extraordinary sang froid Keith shot him from under the chin through the head. He switched on the light again, letting Richard fall into a natural position, wiped his own finger-prints from the revolver and put it in Richard’s hand for his, then put it on the floor. Everything he did in complete silence because all the time the tape-recorder was running.

  “He had prepared for his leaving the house. He had noticed yesterday that Charles’s arm was in a sling and had brought one in his pocket. He slipped it on, also a Grammar School cap and a pair of sun-glasses. He was much the same size as Charles and he looked so young in face that I was able to convince my housekeeper that he was a friend of Priggley’s. But he wore these only to the public lavatory at the corner, I guess. I remember almost hoping that Charles would say he had been to the flat that evening, for I did not suspect him, and this would have exonerated Keith. I told him that everything depends on his word about this. But of course he had not been there and there was only one person young enough to dare wear a schoolboy’s cap even for that short distance and at night, and that was Keith. I was interested to notice how Keith probed in questions to me to find out if I knew of that ‘schoolboy’s’ departure. ‘I suppose someone could have gone to the flat without Slugley noticing’, and so on.

  “But when he reached Drumbone House he found that Pippa had arrived unexpectedly at 11.5 and was staying the night. It meant that the rest of his scheme was off. You may remember that he was ‘flabbergasted’ to see her. I would like to know how quickly he realized his position. He had, as it were,’ wasted’ one perfectly executed murder and would have to carry out another, equally futile, to save himself from any possible suspicion.

  “He took Richard’s car, as Slugley heard, at about two o’clock. He was not going to take the chance of driving his own noticeable sports car. If a car was to be noticed it must be Richard’s. After all, the timing might stretch wide enough for Richard to have murdered Florrie at this time and shot himself afterwards. But he was not seen. All Mrs Redlove could say was that it sounded like an ‘ordinary’ car.

  “His only anxiety after that was that Florrie’s body should be found. Until then the circumstances of Richard’s death were curious and his ‘confession’ unaccountable. But he was too clever to lead anyone to it, by either word or action. How brilliantly and naturally he consented to lead me through Flogmore woods, saying that of course we should find nothing. He started at the wrong end of Tom’s beat and worked back to the beginning, allowing Priggley to exclaim on seeing the corpse which Keith knew was there. He was aided by nature then, for he naturally felt sick, but it was all beautifully misleading.

  “I still had no proof. There was no one else who could have done it, in my eyes, but that doesn’t constitute proof. I had to work something out.

  “Perhaps what I did was somewhat elaborate, but it worked. I gambled on one thing—that he didn’t know I knew about the gun. It was extremely unlikely, after all. Florrie had had only one day in which to notice its disappearance and was notoriously reticent with her neighbours. She had noticed it and, what is more, I believe, suspected Keith of taking it. ‘The thought of who might have it’, worried her more than its disappearance, according to Mrs Beale.

  “I don’t know how he explained to himself the fact that I was to stay at the game-keeper’s cottage. He suspected a trap, but luck had been with him, and like most paranoiacs he underrated his opponents. He came out determined to kill me, as I knew he would, but with the safeguard that if he was seen or caught he was coming to my assistance. Hadn’t he been heard asking if he might accompany me? When he had killed me he would rouse the district to say that he had found me dead. It was a fairly safe bet. A schoolmaster alone in a lonely cottage at night would be no match for a now hardened murderer with a Savage 30.30 rifle.

  “You know the rest. The noticeable suit, the lamplight and the open book—it was an easy shot and he did not hesitate. Then that ‘megaphone-microphone-magnified’ voice above him in the trees—he did as I hoped he would, dropped the rifle and made for his car. My only fear was that he would hang on to the rifle, but there wasn’t much danger of that, really. It’s a primitive instinct to drop anything heavy before running, and he obeyed it. I had the car ready if he hadn’t, but I was fairly confident. So, after all, it was a case for finger-prints. There’s a tendency to belittle their importance in detection nowadays, but never by me.

  “And knowing something of the pathological murderer, the murderer born, I should not be surprised if he has already made a long and boastful statement, admitting, or rather glorying in everything. Am I right, Inspector? ”

  Bowler hesitated, seeming to consider whether an answer would be a breach of professional etiquette. Then as they all watched him he slowly nodded his head.

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