The Floating Admiral (Detection Club)

by Christie, Agatha; Detection Club, by Members of the

  “What is it, Mr. Ware?” he asked.

  “Something pretty bad, I’m afraid.”

  Hempstead, wide awake now, slipped on his clothes again, came down and opened the door. Ware told him what had happened.

  “I must get the Inspector out from Whynmouth—and a doctor,” said the constable, “I’ll phone to the station there.”

  He came out again in two or three minutes.

  “All right,” he said. “They’ll run over in a car at once. Now you come along with me and show me that boat and what’s in it. You haven’t been messing about with anything—moving the body and so on, I hope?”

  “I shouldn’t be such a fool,” replied Ware.

  “That’s all right. You haven’t seen anyone else?”

  “No one.”

  The policeman went on asking questions from time to time as they hurried along. He was a smart man, this young constable, eager for his stripes, and wanted to make the most of the opportunity. As soon as they reached the river bank he took a glance at the boat and its contents, and exclaimed:

  “Hullo! Don’t you know who that is, Mr. Ware?”

  “Never saw him before that I know of. Who is he?”

  “Why, it’s Admiral Penistone. He lives at Rundel Croft—that big house the other side of the river just opposite the Vicarage. Leastways, he’s been in residence there about a month. He only bought it last June. A new-comer.”

  “Oh! Admiral Penistone, is he?” said Neddy Ware.

  “That’s the man, right enough. But, look here: are you sure this is the Vicarage boat?”

  “Certain.”

  “Queer, eh? That seems to mean something happened this side of the river, for of course there’s no bridge till you get to Fernton—three miles lower down. Ah, and the parson’s hat, eh? Let’s see; what time did you first see the boat coming along?”

  “A little after half-past four, I should say.”

  Hempstead had his note-book out and was making pencilled jottings in it. Then he said:

  “Look here, Mr. Ware, I want you, if you will, to go back to the road and stop Inspector Rudge when he comes along in his car.”

  “Very well,” replied Ware; “nothing more I can do?”

  “Not yet, at any rate.”

  Hempstead was an astute man. He waited until Neddy Ware was out of the way before he began a little examination on his own account. He knew very well that his superior officer would take the case fully in hand, but he was anxious to see what he could, without disturbing anything, in the meantime.

  As he got into the boat, he noticed a folded newspaper, half sticking out of the dead man’s overcoat pocket. He took it out, gingerly, looked at it, and replaced it.

  “Ah,” he murmured, “the Evening Gazette, last night’s late London edition. He wouldn’t get that here. The nearest place where it’s sold is Whynmouth.”

  He would very much have liked to examine the contents of all the pockets of the dead man’s clothes, but felt he had better not. So he got out of the boat, sat down on the bank, and waited.

  After a bit the sound of a car running along the main road was heard, and in a minute or two, four men came across the meadow; Neddy Ware, a police inspector in uniform, and two men in plain clothes, one of them a doctor, the other a detective-sergeant.

  Inspector Rudge was a tall, thin man, with sallow, cleanshaven face. He came up to Hempstead.

  “You haven’t moved anything?” he asked curtly.

  “No, sir.”

  Rudge turned to the doctor.

  “I won’t do anything, Doctor Grice, till you have made your examination.”

  Doctor Grice got into the boat and proceeded to examine the body. It was only a few minutes before he said:

  “Stabbed to the heart, Inspector, with some narrow-bladed instrument—a thin knife or dagger. Death must have been instantaneous. There’ll have to be a post-mortem, of course.”

  “How long has he been dead?”

  “Some hours. He probably died before midnight.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “Not at present, Inspector.”

  “Very well. I’ll have a look now.”

  He turned the body over, shifting it slightly.

  “No sign of blood under him,” he said, “or anywhere else in the boat that I can see. Let’s have a look in his pockets—ah, it wasn’t robbery. Gold watch and chain—wallet full of notes—they were not after that. Evening paper here—last night’s date. That must be noted. Now—we’ve got to be as quick as possible. Tell me, Hempstead, what do you know about him?”

  “He’s Admiral Penistone, sir. Retired. A new-comer hereabouts. Bought Rundel Croft, a big house on the other side of the river, a few months ago. Took up residence there lately. I believe he has a niece living with him. But it’s not in my district, sir.”

  “I know.”

  The Inspector turned to Ware.

  “You say the boat belongs to the Vicar here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long would it take for the tide to bring it up from his place?”

  “Forty to forty-five minutes,” replied Ware promptly, “with the tide as it is to-day.”

  “I see. Now, the question is how are we to move him? We might pull the boat back against the tide. Won’t do, though. Those oars must be tested for finger-prints before they are handled. Let’s see—Vicarage on the telephone, Hempstead?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. I’ll go there now. I want to see the Vicar. We’ll phone to Whynmouth for an ambulance. Have to run him to Rundel Croft round by Fernton Bridge. You remain here, Hempstead, and if anyone comes along don’t let ’em touch anything. I shall want you, Sergeant—we’ll have to put you across the river from the Vicarage if we can get a boat there; I want you to mount guard over the Admiral’s boat and boat-house. Perhaps you won’t mind coming too, Mr. Ware. You may be useful. There! We’ll get a move on. Come along, Doctor.”

  In a very short time the Inspector was driving the car down the short bit of road leading from the highway to the Vicarage. The front door of the latter faced the river, a lawn stretching down to the bank. Opposite, about a hundred yards from the bank, stood a large, red-brick, Tudor mansion, with a broad sweep of lawn in front and a boat-house.

  The Inspector, the Vicar’s hat in his hand, got out of the car and rang the bell; the others followed. It was a few minutes before the maid, who evidently had only just come down, opened the door and said her master was not up yet.

  “Will you kindly tell him that Inspector Rudge wants to see him at once. Say I’m sorry to disturb him, but it’s most important.”

  “I’ll tell him, sir. Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you, no. I’ll wait here.”

  “Hullo, I say, are you a policeman?”

  He turned. Two boys had come across the lawn, aged, respectively, about sixteen and fourteen, dressed in flannel trousers and shirts open at the neck, and carrying bathing towels. They were regarding him eagerly.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am.”

  “Good egg!” exclaimed the elder, “just what we want, isn’t he, Alec? Look here; some blighter has taken our boat—cut the painter. Perhaps you’ve heard about it, though? Is that what you’ve come about?”

  The Inspector smiled grimly.

  “Yes—that’s what I’ve come about, young gentlemen,” he replied, dryly, “but you needn’t worry about your boat. It’s been found.”

  “Hooray!” exclaimed the other boy. “Got the beggar who took it?”

  “Not yet,” said Rudge, with another grim little smile, “that may not be so easy. Have you got another boat handy?” he asked.

  “Only our old punt—she’s in the boat-house.”

  “Well, do you two young gentlemen think you could manage to put my detective-sergeant here across the water in her? He wants to pay a call at Rundel Croft.”

  “Rather!” Peter Mount looked with boyish admiration at the sergeant. “Is there going t
o be a man-hunt? Cheerio! We’ll help you. But you don’t suspect old Admiral Penistone of sneaking our boat, do you? He crossed back in his own last night. He’d been dining here, you know.”

  “Oh, had he!” said the Inspector. “No, we don’t suspect him. Now—will you do what I asked?”

  “Come on,” said Alec to Sergeant Appleton, “the tide’s running pretty strong, but we’ll put you across all right.”

  They went down to the boat-house with the sergeant.

  “Good morning, Inspector. Good morning, Doctor Grice—ah—it’s you, Ware, I see. What’s the meaning of this early morning deputation?”

  The Vicar had come out of the house; a man of about fifty, of medium height, sturdily built, with clear-cut features and hair a little grey. He asked the question of the Inspector, who replied:

  “I’ll explain directly, Mr. Mount. Is this your hat?”

  The Vicar took it and looked at it.

  “Yes; certainly it is.”

  “Then would you mind telling me if you remember when you had it last?”

  “That is quite simple. To be absolutely accurate, at twenty minutes past ten last evening.”

  “And where?”

  “You are very mysterious, Inspector. But I’ll tell you. My neighbour who lives opposite was dining with us last evening, with his niece. They left just about ten. I went down to the river to see them off, and put my hat on. After the Admiral had crossed the stream in his boat with his niece I sat down in that little summer-house and smoked a pipe. I took off my hat and laid it on the seat beside me—and, absent-mindedly, I forgot to put it on again when I returned to the house. It was then that I set my watch by the clock in the hall—twenty minutes past ten. But will you tell me why you ask me this—and what you have all come about?”

  “I will, sir. This hat was found in your boat early this morning. Your boat was drifting with the tide up-stream. And in her was the dead body of your opposite neighbour, Admiral Penistone—murdered, Mr. Mount.”

  CHAPTER II

  By G. D. H. and M. Cole

  BREAKING THE NEWS

  “MURDERED! Good God!” the Vicar said—and it was well known, the Inspector reflected, that the Vicar of Lingham had a ridiculously exaggerated respect for the Third Commandment. He had stepped back a pace at the shock of the news, and some of the colour was fading from his cheeks. “But—murdered. … How—what do you mean, Inspector?”

  “I mean,” said Rudge, “that Admiral Penistone was stabbed to the heart some time before midnight last night—and his body placed in your boat.”

  “But what—why … ? How could he have been?”

  “And your hat,” the Inspector remorselessly amplified, “was lying in the boat beside him. So you see,” he added, “that the first thing I had to do was to make enquiries at your house.”

  The Vicar turned on his heel abruptly. “Come into my study,” he said. “We can talk better there—I don’t suppose you want my sons, at present?” The Inspector shook his head, and followed him into a quiet, brown room with wide sash windows, the very model of what a clerical study, owned by a none too tidy cleric, should be. As he led the way in, the Vicar stumbled over something, and with a little gasp caught hold of the table for support. “You—you must excuse me,” he muttered, as he motioned the Inspector to a chair and sank into one himself. “This is—a very great shock. Now, will you tell me what I can do for you?”

  Rudge scanned him a minute before replying. Undoubtedly he had received a very great shock. He was pale; his hands were none too steady; and his breath was coming and going quickly. Whether the cause was merely the sudden impact of violent death on a sheltered clerical life, or whether there was some graver reason, the Inspector did not know enough to decide. At any rate, there was no sense in causing further alarm at the moment. So when he spoke it was in a gentle reassuring tone.

  “What I want to find out immediately, Mr. Mount, is exactly what happened last night, as far as you know it. Admiral Penistone, you say, came over to dine with his niece—what is the lady’s name, by the way?”

  “Fitzgerald—Miss Elma Fitzgerald. She is his sister’s daughter, I understand.”

  “About what age?”

  “Oh—I should say a year or two over thirty.”

  “Thank you. They arrived—when?”

  “Just before seven-thirty. In their boat.”

  “And left?”

  “Slightly after ten. I can’t fix it to the minute, I’m afraid; but they were just taking their leave when the church clock struck, and Admiral Penistone said, ‘Hurry up, I want to get back before midnight’—or something of that sort; and within a very few minutes they were gone.”

  “And you saw them off?”

  “Yes. I went down to the landing-stage with them, and Peter—that’s my eldest son—helped them to start. It’s sometimes a little awkward getting off, if the current is running strongly.”

  “Did you actually see them land?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t dark. I watched them take the boat into the Admiral’s boat-house, and then, a little later, I saw them come out of the boat-house, and go up to the house.”

  “I should have thought those trees at the back of the boat-house would have screened them from you,” said the Inspector, who had made good use of his eyes. “Or do you mean they were crossing the lawn?”

  The Vicar looked at him with respect. “No, they were in the trees,” he said. “But Miss Fitzgerald had on a white dress, and I saw it showing through them.”

  “But Admiral Penistone hadn’t a white dress?”

  “No. … I suppose,” the Vicar reflected, “that now you mention it I couldn’t say I saw the Admiral leave the boat-house—but seeing his niece I naturally concluded he was with her.”

  “Very naturally,” Rudge concurred soothingly. “And you yourself stayed out smoking until—?”

  “Twenty past ten.”

  “And then?”

  “I locked the house up and went to bed.”

  “And you heard nothing more of your neighbour?”

  “Nothing,” said the Vicar. “Nothing at all,” he repeated more loudly.

  “What about your sons? Or your servants? Would they have heard anything?”

  “I don’t think so. They had all gone to bed when I came in.”

  “Thank you. Now, Mr. Mount, can you tell me this? Did Admiral Penistone seem in his usual spirits during the evening?”

  The question appeared to distress the Vicar. “I—I don’t think I can really answer that,” he said. “You see, I haven’t known the Admiral at all long. He has only recently come to the neighbourhood. … I really hardly know him.”

  “But still,” Rudge persisted, “you might have noticed if he seemed distressed, or worried in any way. Did he?” And, seeing the Vicar still hesitated, he pressed his point. “If you did notice anything, Mr. Mount, I really think you should tell me. It’s of the highest importance that we should find out everything we can about the poor gentleman’s state of mind at the time—and I assure you I know how to be discreet.”

  “Well,” said the Vicar, fidgeting a little. “Well … it’s nothing, probably. But I should say—yes—that the Admiral was perhaps a little worried. He was not as—as amiable as usual. And he was generally a very pleasant man—not at all snappish.”

  “He was snappish with Miss Fitzgerald, perhaps?” the Inspector suggested quickly; and the Vicar blinked.

  “Oh, no … hardly … I shouldn’t say that at all.”

  “But he acted as though there was something on his mind. … I suppose you’ve no idea what it was?”

  “I think—I don’t know—it may have been his niece’s marriage. He said something about it. Nothing much.”

  “Oh, she’s getting married, is she? Who to?”

  “Somebody called Holland, Arthur Holland. From London, I think. I don’t know him.”

  “And Admiral Penistone didn’t approve?”

  “I don’t mean that. I me
an, I don’t know. He didn’t say. Only he seemed as though something might have gone a little wrong. Perhaps it was to do with her settlements; she has a good deal of money, as I understand, and the Admiral is—was her trustee. But I really don’t know anything about it.”

  “I see. Had you, yourself, known Admiral Penistone long?”

  “Only since he came here, about a month ago. I called on him, you know; and we got acquainted.”

  “And you saw each other fairly often?”

  “Oh, two or three times in the week, perhaps. Not more.”

  “Ever hear him speak of any enemies—anyone who’d have a reason for killing him?”

  “Oh, no, no!” The Vicar looked shocked, but hastened to add, “Of course, I really know nothing of his life before he came here.”

  “Had he many friends? In the neighbourhood? Or outside? Where did he live before?”

  “Somewhere in the West, I believe. I don’t remember his ever telling me the district. I don’t think he knew many people about here well. Sir Wilfrid Denny, over at West End, saw most of him, I fancy. I believe he had old friends down to meet him, sometimes.”

  “Ever meet any of them yourself?”

  “Oh, no,” said the Vicar.

  “I see. Well, I think I’d better be getting over to his place now,” the Inspector said. “I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Mount. I’ll want to have a word with your sons and your servants some time, just in case any of them noticed anything that might help us. But that can wait. By the way,” he turned at the door to add, “can you tell me what sort of a young lady Miss Fitzgerald is? Liable to—to be very upset, I mean?”

  The Vicar smiled a little, almost in spite of himself. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think Miss Fitzgerald is at all the fainting type.”

  “Very devoted to her uncle, eh?”

  “I couldn’t say, particularly. About as much as most nieces are to their uncles, I imagine. Perhaps she is rather a reserved young woman—has interests of her own. But this is just gossip—you can see for yourself what you think, Inspector.”

  “That’s true enough. Well, I’ll be going,” the Inspector said, and noted the expression of relief which overspread the Vicar’s face. “I know we aren’t popular visitors,” he thought to himself, “at the best of times. But need he show quite so plainly how glad he is to get rid of me? I wonder if there could be any other reason—if he knows anything more than he’s said. But—the Vicar of Lingham, and a most respectable Vicar, from all I’ve ever heard of him! I must say it doesn’t sound likely.” And, so thinking, he made his way back to the car, and drove rapidly the three miles or so which he had to cover to reach the house a hundred yards away.