‘The trouble was,’ Shirley continued, ‘he wanted a ridiculous sum for it, and naturally we couldn’t possibly raise anything like the money until we came into possession of my grandfather’s estate. It was rather a deadlock, but in the end we reached a compromise, and Dawson – principally, I think, because he was afraid if he held out we should make trouble with the police – agreed to trust us. He was to meet Mark on the Pittingly Road on his evening out and hand over his half of the will – which seemed to me better than nothing. In return Mark was to give him a plain IOU for five thousand pounds.’
‘Hold on a moment, miss! Was your brother present when he was done in?’ demanded the sergeant.
‘You’re off duty, Sergeant,’ Mr Amberley reminded him. ‘We now come to my own nefarious conduct. You remember that I told you I wasn’t sure that I was on your side?’
‘I do, sir,’ said the sergeant, regarding him round-eyed.
‘I informed you,’ proceeded Amberley, ‘that I had discovered the body of a murdered man in an Austin Seven saloon on the Pittingly Road. What I did not tell you was that standing in the road beside that car I found Miss Shirley Fountain.’
The sergeant’s jaw dropped. ‘Suppressing valuable evidence, Mr Amberley, sir!’
‘Exactly. But Fraser would probably have got her hanged for the murder if I’d spoken. Now you begin to understand why this very dull crime interested me so much. Dawson was alive when you found him, wasn’t he, Shirley?’
‘Just alive. He knew me. He hadn’t brought his half of the will. I don’t know why not. Probably because he wanted to squeeze us for more money. Anyway he managed to tell me where it was. Then you came.’
‘You mean to tell me, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘that you knew about this will, and all the rest, right from the start and never let on to us?’
‘Not at all. I knew nothing. But I was interested. The only thing I knew was that the murder had been committed for the purpose of robbery. When I learned Dawson’s identity I assumed that as it could hardly be money that he had, and as nothing of value was missing from the manor, it was in all probability a document. I made the acquaintance of Basil Fountain. It was on the occasion of my first visit to the manor that my suspicions were roused against Collins. He was rather too anxious to overhear what I had to say. What the connection between him and Fountain was I had no idea, but that there was one I was fairly certain. Fountain knew he was listening at the door, and he didn’t want us to guess that. It seemed to me a point worth remembering, too, that Collins’ alibi rested on Fountain’s word alone. I was sufficiently interested to make a few casual inquiries about Fountain. Before I connected him with the crime at all, you, Aunt Marion, had divulged that you did not like him. I have a great respect for your instinct. You, Felicity, said that he was always grumbling about money. He kicked up a fuss about the cost of Joan’s fancy dress. When I made his acquaintance that didn’t fit in with his obviously generous, rather extravagant nature. He was the type of man who likes spending money. On the face of it, it looked as though he were hard up. Why? His fortune was considerable, and you, Anthony, informed me that he didn’t go in for excesses. You described him quite accurately as a bonhomous sportsman. You also informed me that although he and Joan had never hit it off life had gone more or less smoothly until he came into possession of his uncle’s estate.’
‘I seem to have told you the hell of a lot,’ remarked Anthony.
‘You did. It was to you that I owed my knowledge of his fondness for the sea. You described his bungalow at Littlehaven to me and the super motorboat he had, which was capable of crossing the Channel. At the time that conveyed nothing particular to me. It came in useful later. You also told me that he had asked you to remain on at the manor, actuated, you thought, by funk. He did not want to be left alone there. That might have arisen from his undoubtedly gregarious nature. On the other hand it looked very much as though the presence of guests in the house was a protection. So it was. While you and Joan were there Collins had to walk warily. Fountain was beginning to be afraid of him. He knew that Collins had murdered Dawson, but he dared not give him away for fear Collins should counter with the real will – which Fountain undoubtedly thought he possessed in its entirety. That he didn’t eliminate Collins then was due, I feel sure, to his perfectly sincere horror of death. If you remember, Anthony, Miss Fountain mentioned that on the occasion of my first meeting with her. He could not bear the thought of a dead body – even a puppy’s.
‘After the inquest you, Sergeant, told me of Dawson’s money. It puzzled you. You could find no explanation for it. It was then that the thought that he might have been blackmailing Fountain crossed my mind. But what you, Shirley, had to do with any of this I had no idea until the night of the fancy-dress ball at the manor. You attended that ball, quite uninvited, in the costume of an Italian peasant-girl.’
‘Good Lord, was it you?’ cried Felicity. ‘Joan and I wondered who on earth it could be, because you weren’t there at the unmasking. I say, how perfectly thrilling of you!’
‘Restrain your ardours, my love,’ requested Mr Amberley. ‘When I discovered the contadina’s identity I thought it worth while to keep an eye on her. It did not seem to me probable that she had gate-crashed the ball from a mere desire to be at an amusing party. Putting two and two together I inferred that she had seized the opportunity to get into the manor for some very definite purpose. Then I saw the Reynolds on the passage.’
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘A portrait, Sergeant. The portrait of a lady of the late eighteenth century. The resemblance is most striking, Shirley. Fountain came upon me while I was studying this portrait, and from what he said I knew that he was unaware of your presence in the district. He was not much interested in the picture but remarked, with perfect truth, that the lady had the family beetle brows. He thought she was probably a great-grandmother but recommended me to ask the housekeeper.
‘The main facts in my possession then were, briefly, these: that Fountain’s butler had been shot with robbery as the motive; that a mysterious lady bearing a startling resemblance to the family had been present on that occasion and was now masquerading in the house in disguise; and that Jasper Fountain had had a son, then deceased, whom he had disinherited on account of his predilection for drink – and other things. It proved nothing, but was an interesting coincidence that Mark Brown also drank.’ He paused and pressed the tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. ‘We now come to the extremely reprehensible proceedings of Miss Shirley Fountain. Dawson having informed her that his half of the will was hidden in a certain tallboy, she went to find it. She was interrupted by the appearance of Collins, who was watching her with great interest. Both he and she left the tallboy, which was in the passage leading to the picture gallery, and went downstairs. A bad moment, wasn’t it, Shirley?’
‘Thanks to you!’ she retorted.
He laughed. ‘All your own fault, my dear. Well, when the two of them had gone I had a look in the tallboy myself and found the torn half of a will. Part of Jasper Fountain’s signature was on it, and most of the signatures of the two witnesses. The names of the legatees were upon the other half, but the thing seemed fairly obvious in spite of that.
‘In due course Shirley came back to the tallboy. Finding the will gone she leaped to the conclusion that Collins had been before her. Right?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What else could I think?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said. ‘Collins, who came a few minutes later to secure the missing half, naturally assumed that Shirley had outwitted him. An engaging state of mind on both sides.’
Shirley interrupted. ‘Yes, I’ve no doubt, but why couldn’t you have told me you had it?’
‘My good child, once I had that torn paper in my possession there was very little you could tell me that I didn’t already know. It was, in fact, infinitely better that neither you nor Collins should know who really had the will. Your combined antics were
far more helpful to me than your confidence would have been. There was another reason too, which concerns you and me alone. To continue: On the following day I sustained a visit from Colonel Watson and agreed to take on the case. I now held most of the strings of it. I knew that there was a later will in existence which at least two people were painfully anxious to get hold of. Your anxiety, Shirley, led me to suppose that it was in your favour; Collins’ anxiety confirmed my previous suspicion that he was blackmailing Fountain with it. It seemed probable that he held the missing half. The first thing to be proved was your identity, and the main problem was how to get hold of the rest of the will, which obviously existed. It was no case for the police, who wouldn’t have acted on an entirely valueless half. I went up to London. I instructed my man Peterson to apply for the vacant post of butler at the manor and provided him with a faked reference, which reminds me that you gave him a bad moment over that, Sergeant.’
‘Ah!’ said the sergeant deeply.
‘Quite. I thought it possible that he might manage to get hold of a clue to the will’s hiding-place, but my chief object in putting him at the manor was to have someone watching Fountain’s movements. It seemed to me that it could only be a matter of time before Fountain discovered who was living at Ivy Cottage, and when he knew that, anything might happen. On this same visit to town I visited the Times office to look through the back numbers for a notice of your father’s death, Shirley. That represents the only occasion in my memory when you’ve let me down, Aunt Marion. Your recollection of dates is lamentable. He died five years ago, not three.’
‘Tiresome for you, dear boy,’ agreed Lady Matthews.
‘It was. However, I found the notice at last and took down the address in Johannesburg. Then I sent a cable to a firm of inquiry agents there to ascertain whether he left any issue, and if so what became of the issue. To speed things up a little I also employed a private detective agency in London to trace the records of Mark and Shirley Brown.
‘When I got back to Greythorne I found you there, Anthony. You gave me, though reluctantly, a valuable piece of information. You divulged that Fountain had received a letter from a firm of private detectives and that it had very much upset him. That could only mean one thing: he too was trying to discover what offspring his cousin had left and where they were. The fact that he was upset seemed to point to him knowing that both Mark and Shirley Fountain were actually at his gates. You told me next day that he had had a row with Collins. I imagine he had jumped to the conclusion that Collins was double-crossing him. Things were beginning to move rather quickly, and the devil was in it that while Collins still held that vital portion of the will it was extraordinarily hard to take any sort of action.
‘Putting in a little detective work on my own I came to call on you, Shirley. That was a lucky coincidence. You, believing that Collins now possessed the entire will, had determined to try and buy him over and had sent for him to come and see you. He came because he thought that you held Dawson’s half and might destroy his little game. I saw him leave Ivy Cottage. I imagine you must both have fenced very skilfully on that occasion, since neither of you was aware at the end of the interview that the other was not, after all, in possession of the missing half.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘We did. We didn’t even mention the word will.’
‘I should have loved to hear you,’ he remarked. ‘When Collins had left the cottage I entered it. You may possibly recall that I told you I had come for a piece of information which I managed to get. I ascertained that you had been in South Africa. Your kaross of King Jackal skins and your brother’s artless conversation told me that. It was not proof, but good enough to go on with.
‘The next move in the game was made by Fountain, who rang up to ask me to go over to see him. He had all along been keeping a weather-eye cocked in my direction. He was nervous, and like most people in that condition he couldn’t leave well alone. He had to try and put me off the scent. Between them he and Collins hatched up an extremely improbable story about Dawson to account for the butler’s inexplicable wealth. It had its uses: I was able to hand it to the inspector to investigate. He liked it very much, and it gave him a little harmless occupation.
‘While I was at the manor a disturbance occurred. Mark Fountain, under the influence of drink, came to the house with a hazy idea of forcing Collins to disgorge the will by threatening to shoot him. It was very awkward for Collins.’
‘Good Lord, was that why he kept on urging Basil to let the kid go?’ demanded Corkran.
‘Yes, that was why. And since Fountain, who didn’t know Mark from Adam, had every intention of sending for the police, Collins was compelled to divulge his identity. If you remember, he used the words: “The young gentleman from Ivy Cottage,” which instantly enlightened Fountain. That incident looked as though I was right in my theory about his letter from the detective agency. In fact, it was all fitting in very nicely. But Mark’s idiotic conduct was a serious complication. I can’t say that I actually expected Fountain to make an attempt on his life: I had no reason to suppose that he was the type to commit a murder; but it was a possibility one couldn’t ignore. I had him watched, not in the least unobtrusively. I regret to say that I thought the mere knowledge that the boy was being shadowed would be enough to choke Fountain off. He certainly wasn’t pleased about it, but he wasn’t as easily baulked as I’d expected him to be. I paid a visit to the manor just to let him know that I had put a man on to Mark. Incidentally I saw that Peterson was safely installed.
‘That evening I received the answer to my cable to Johannesburg. There was now no longer any doubt about your identity, Shirley, and I thought it well to pay a visit to Sergeant Gubbins to get him to tighten up the watch on Mark. Unfortunately I was too late. While I was at the police station the news of Mark’s death came through.’ He paused and looked down at Shirley. ‘I’m sorry if this distresses you. I have something to say about it.’
‘Go on,’ she replied curtly.
‘Mark,’ said Amberley, ‘did not fall into the river because he was drunk. He was drunk, of course very drunk – but he was pushed in. Being drunk, he drowned. It was a murder planned so cleverly that I doubt whether it could ever have been brought home to Fountain. Mark’s habits were a byword in Upper Nettlefold; several persons had wondered aloud how it was that he hadn’t stumbled into the river long since. It is also a well-known fact that at this season of the year the mist that lies over the Weald after dark is nearly always pretty thick in that hollow where the road runs beside the Nettle. Fountain trusted to luck – or perhaps knew – that Tucker would not be following Mark particularly closely. For Mark’s death Inspector Fraser was indirectly responsible. He gave Tucker to understand that he was being put on to that job merely to humour a whim of mine.’
The sergeant coughed. ‘Be making a report, I expect, sir?’
‘I shall, Sergeant, but don’t interrupt. Fountain gave out that he was going to London that afternoon. He probably did go. If he hadn’t had any luck in what he meant to do I have no doubt that he would have repeated the manoeuvre next day. But he had luck. It all turned out as he had expected. He left his car probably in one of the lanes leading on to the main road and lay in wait for Mark beside the river where the fog was thickest. When Mark appeared he had only to push him over the bank. I don’t suppose it required much strength, and in any case Fountain was a very powerful man. The river is fairly deep; Mark drowned, being too drunk to make any effort to save himself.’
‘Yes, but supposing he hadn’t drowned?’ objected Anthony.
‘That would have been annoying for Fountain, of course, but not dangerous. If the boy had said that someone pushed him in, who would have believed him?’
‘You would,’ said Anthony.
‘Possibly, but although Fountain was suspicious of me he never knew how much I’d found out. No, the thing was safe enough – and it worked. Had the mist been less thick, had Collins not lost sight, temporarily, of Mark, it woul
d not have worked. But Collins was too late to save the boy’s life, though there is no doubt that he put forth superhuman efforts to do so. From the moment that Fountain learned of his cousins’ presence in Upper Nettlefold Collins was on the watch. He knew Fountain better than I did. His story about the cigarette case, Sergeant, was quite untrue, but I daresay Miss Fountain would have confirmed it, wouldn’t you, Shirley?’
She nodded. ‘I was completely in his power. If he had the will I dared not give him away. That was partly why I didn’t confide in you. He suspected you from the start of knowing much more than the police.’
‘And therefore it was unsafe to confide in me lest I should betray my knowledge? Many thanks. Now, on the day following the murder Fountain came to call on me at Greythorne. Ostensibly his object was to inquire into Collins’ presence on the scene. Actually he came to discover, if he could, what I was thinking and whether you, Shirley, were remaining at Ivy Cottage. I gave him to understand that I suspected Collins and also that you were remaining at the cottage. Since he had eliminated Mark I expected him to make an attempt on you next, and my plan was to catch him in the act and arrest both him and Collins on two separate charges. I should have been able to do that very successfully had it not been for the well-meaning but disastrous zeal of Corkran. When I took you to the cottage to collect your things, Shirley, I unbolted the back door and appropriated the key. Having deposited you at the Boar’s Head I motored back to Greythorne and rang up Peterson, telling him to keep an eye on Fountain and let me know if he left the house that night. You came into the room in the middle of that conversation, Felicity, and remarked that I had sweet telephone manners. Do you remember? Peterson rang me up just after midnight to say that Fountain had left the house and gone off on a push-bike. I then got on to you, Sergeant, and we drove to Ivy Cottage to await his arrival. Then, when things were panning out almost miraculously well, Corkran gave the alarm and Fountain escaped by the back door. You were rather fed up with me for letting him go, weren’t you? To have stopped him would have been sheer folly. I couldn’t prove a thing against him except that he had broken into a strange house. It had its amusing side, of course. Not only did you follow him, but Peterson, having caught sight of you pedalling down the drive, followed you both. Unnecessary but equally zealous. He didn’t recognise you, and fearing that I might be surprised by two criminals instead of one, came along to lend a hand. I saw him when I went to bolt the back door, and he was just going to come and speak to me when he caught sight of you, Anthony, and tactfully beat a retreat.
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