The Floating Admiral (Detection Club)

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

  I am anxious to run up to London this afternoon on an urgent matter connected with my clerical duties. I hope that there will be no objection to my doing so. I should not think of absenting myself if the case were not of great importance, since I know that you would prefer to have all your witnesses on the spot. However, I trust that I shall not be detained very long, and I shall, of course, make a point of being back in time to attend the inquest which, as I am informed by Mr. Skipworth, will take place the day after to-morrow. I will keep you informed as to my movements, should you require to get in touch with me at any time, and should I be detained overnight, shall be staying at the Charing Cross Hotel.

  Apologising for any inconvenience this request may cause you,

  Yours very truly,

  PHILIP MOUNT.

  “Good lord! Another of them,” was the Inspector’s mental comment. He stood for a few moments undecided, the note open in his hand.

  He had to make up his mind. If he forbade the Vicar to go—well, he could scarcely do that without committing himself to an accusation, for which step he was certainly not prepared. He could ask the Vicar not to go—but behind the courtesy of the expression the note seemed to carry a suggestion of mild determination. He had nothing definite against the Vicar, except that his hat and his coat had been found in a curious place, and that he was a bad gardener. He turned to Peter.

  “I think I’d like to see your Dad if he can spare a few moments.”

  “Right you are.”

  “How did you get across, by the way?”

  “Your new policeman brought the punt over for me—but he isn’t very good at it.”

  Rudge noted with satisfaction that Hempstead’s deputy had arrived. That meant that he himself would be free to leave Rundel Croft if he wanted to. He spoke a word or two to the new arrival—a very stout man called Bancock—stepped into the punt and was poled across by Peter. On the way up to the Vicarage he noticed the drenched area round the summer-house. The hose had caught a clump of begonias at the edge of a garden-bed. One or two of the plants had been actually broken by the force of the stream, and on others the water-drops were standing like miniature burning-glasses under the bright sun. The Vicar would probably wonder, next day, why their foliage should be speckled with white heat-blisters.

  The Vicar was in his study. He greeted Rudge cordially, but his face looked a little drawn. No doubt he had received a severe shock, thought Rudge. It was a strong face, though, and handsome in its rather set, ecclesiastical way. It looked honest, but you could never tell. According to local report the Vicar was a ritualist, and ritualists had odd ideas about the truth. They would, for instance, subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles and then unblushingly invent ingenious ways to get round them. Rudge was rather well up in the different varieties of parsons, for his brother-in-law was people’s warden at St. Saviour’s, Whynmouth.

  “Well, Inspector, I hope you haven’t come to tell me that I mustn’t go to town.”

  “Well, no, sir—not exactly. I shouldn’t like to go so far as that, though I don’t say but what I hadn’t rather you stayed here. Still, as I understand you to say the business is urgent—”

  He paused, to give the Vicar time to explain what the business was, but Mr. Mount merely said:

  “Oh, yes; it is very important. If it would have waited a couple of days I should have tried to put it off, but I fear that is quite impossible.”

  “I see, sir.” Rudge could not for the life of him see what clerical business could be so urgent as that, unless it was a summons from the Archbishop of Canterbury or an important conference, and if it were, why should not the Vicar say so? Mr. Mount’s face displayed, however, only the bland severity of one about to read the First Lesson.

  “I take it that will be all right then, Inspector?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. Provided, as you say, you keep in touch with us. And I’m very much obliged to you for letting me know of your intentions. It isn’t everybody would be so considerate.”

  “We both have our duty to do,” replied the Vicar. “Besides,” he added, with a slight twinkle, “if I had gone off without letting you know, you might have imagined I was running away from you, and that would never do.”

  Rudge laughed dutifully.

  “There’s just one or two things I was going to ask you, sir,” he said, “and I’m glad to have this opportunity. About the late Admiral Penistone. Should you say he was a quick walker?”

  “No,” said the Vicar. “Admiral Penistone never cared to walk much, owing to a wound he got in his foot during the War. A piece of shrapnel, I understand. He was not actually lame, but it tired him to walk very far or very fast. He always preferred to take the car or go by the river if possible.”

  The Inspector nodded. This upset his recent calculations and left him where he was before. He went on to the next point.

  “Do you sleep on the river side of the house, sir?”

  “No. My sons and the servants sleep on that side, but my bedroom window is at the other side, overlooking the lane. Sometimes I get called up in the night to visit the sick or dying, and it is more convenient for them to be able to knock me up without disturbing the household. There is a side-door, you see, which opens on to the lane, with a bell which rings in my bedroom.”

  “I see. Does your window command the high road?”

  “Yes, in a sense. I mean, I can see the road, but it is, of course, a couple of hundred yards from the house.”

  “Quite so. I suppose you did not happen to see a closed car pass along last night in the direction of Whynmouth?”

  “That is rather a vague question. At what time do you mean?”

  “At about a quarter to eleven. I thought perhaps you might have seen it when you were undressing.”

  The Vicar shook his head.

  “No,” he said at once, “I am afraid I cannot help you. I came straight upstairs at ten-twenty, undressed and went to bed. I do not think I looked out of the window at all. But in any case, at the time you mention, I should be either in the bathroom along the passage, or” (he twinkled again) “saying my prayers.”

  “Just so,” said Rudge, embarrassed as every true Englishman is at the mention of private devotions. “Well, it was just a chance, sir, but a very slight one. I couldn’t really have expected you to notice. You’ll be good enough to ring me up when you get to town, sir?”

  “I certainly will,” said the Vicar. “And thank you very much for your permission to elope. I promise you that I will not break my parole.”

  “I’m quite sure of that, sir,” replied Rudge, with conviction, and took his leave.

  He strolled slowly back through the Vicarage garden, his heavy boots squeaking loudly on the gravel in the hot hush of the August morning. Peter was still idling about the boat-house. Rudge looked at the post in the stream, with the end of rope still fastened to it by a couple of half-hitches. He wondered whether he had assumed too hastily that the body had been dumped into the Vicar’s boat from another boat. He ought at least to take the precaution of examining the bank for footprints.

  Search, however, revealed nothing very helpful. The grass edge was crumpled and broken in places, as it would naturally be if the Vicar’s family were accustomed to board the boat from that point, but the grass itself was too short and dry to show definite footprints, and anything below high-water mark would naturally have been obliterated when the tide came up that morning.

  Rudge sat down on the bank and stared at the river. The tide was just running down to the slack, and the ripples went clucking and clapping against the sides of the punt and the boat-house. On the other side lay the Admiral’s boat, shivering slightly as the wash of the stream lifted her stern and dimmed the outlines of her mirrored shape in among the brown shadows. Between bank and bank the sun blazed full on the water. Rudge found the tune running in his head:—

  “Ol’ man River, dat ol’ man River.

  He must know sumfin’, he don’ say nuffin’—”


  That reminded him that he had promised to get his landlady Paul Robeson’s record of “Swing low, sweet chariot.” And his wireless needed a new accumulator. Curse the river, with its perpetual chuckle and its imbecile tidal vagaries. He knew the Ouse at Huntingdon—slow, solitary, regulated by pumps and weirs, and little used for boating because of its derelict and weed-grown locks. He had seen rivers in Scotland, tumbling and brawling and full of stones, useful for nothing but for fishing in—if you liked that kind of thing. He had even taken a holiday trip to Ireland and seen the majestic Shannon harnessed and set to churning out electricity. But this river was a secretive beast and no good to anybody. What was the sense of a river with three feet between its high and low tide twice a day?

  He looked at the mooring-post again (“Swing low, sweet chario-ot”) and measured with his eye the distance between the hitch of rope and the level of the river. Nearly eight feet. Neddy was right. Anybody on the river waiting to loose the boat at low tide would have to cut the painter. The boat would swing very low indeed (“coming for to carry me home”), and the painter would need to be a long one, if the boat was to ride in the water. Suddenly he got up, started out of his drowsy ruminations.

  “I say, sonny,” he said aloud.

  Peter emerged from the boat-house.

  “How long should you say your painter was?”

  “It’s about three fathoms—eighteen feet, you know. It has to be pretty long, you see, to allow for the fall of the tide.”

  “Yes, I thought it would be.” Rudge measured with his eye the end of rope as it trailed in the stream, then tried to remember the look of the end left on the Vicar’s boat. Five feet or so at the most, he thought. But he couldn’t be sure. Probably it was quite all right, but, just as a matter of routine, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to fit the two cut ends together. He stared at the post again. He could see clearly in his mind’s eye the Vicar’s boat with the new manilla cut through and Neddy Ware demonstrating on his plug of tobacco the sharpness of the knife that had made the cut. The sun on the river was dazzling. Gazing at the post, Rudge’s eyes swam with water. But it seemed to him that that end was cut less cleanly than the other.

  “What is it?” asked Peter, staring first at the post and then at the Inspector.

  “Nothing much,” said Rudge, “just a little job I thought of, which I shall have to see to presently. I’ll go across now, I think, if you are not wanting the punt.”

  He poled himself across without disaster, and found P.C. Bancock stolidly reading a newspaper on the farther bank. Telling him to keep an eye on the house and to take any telephone messages, Rudge hurriedly climbed into the police car and drove round across Fernton Bridge to Lingham. The Vicar’s boat was there, having been carefully loaded on to a farm cart and locked up in the “Dance Hall” of the local pub, where also lay, in charge of the local undertaker, the body of Admiral Penistone. On consideration Rudge had thought this the best arrangement, since the inquest would have to be held at Lingham, and it seemed better to leave the body there for the present, bringing it back, if necessary, to Rundel Croft for the funeral.

  But the body did not interest Rudge for the moment. The boat with its painter was his object. On entering the “Dance Hall” Rudge found the police photographer in possession. He appeared to have reaped a rich crop of finger-prints, and was now methodically exposing plates upon them. Rudge nodded to him to carry on, and then pulling out a folding tape-measure from his pocket he stretched it carefully along the painter. The precise measurement came out at four feet nine inches, from the cut end to the ring on the boat’s nose.

  He came out again, drove back, cursing the silly necessity of having to go three miles out of his way on every journey and, returning to Rundel Croft, got out the punt once more. Poling across to the mooring-post, he took his measurements.

  From the bottom of the hitch to the end of the rope was eight feet, and, allowing for the rope used in surrounding the post and making the hitches, and for the spare end, you got another three feet. That brought the whole length of rope on the post to eleven feet. Add four feet nine inches, and you got a total of fifteen feet nine inches only. Two feet three inches of rope still remained unaccounted for.

  Rudge, clinging affectionately with one arm to the post while he made his measurements, and digging his toes well in to prevent the punt from drifting off and leaving him like a monkey on a stick, shook his head at this. Then he took the cut end of the painter in his hand and considered it attentively. He had been right. This was no clean cut like the other. A sharp knife had been used, but the rope had parted gradually, the strands loosening out under the strain and one final strand having ravelled out beyond the rest.

  He was left with his new puzzle. Why should anybody need a bit of rope only a couple of feet long? It could hardly have been used to tie anything up, for the thickness of the rope meant that nearly the whole of this length would be taken up in making the knot. Well—it was one more riddle.

  He pushed off from the post and took up the punt-pole once more. That piece of rope ought to be found if possible. But probably it had merely been thrown into the river, and if so, it would have gone out to sea by this time. Or (since the ridiculous Whyn flowed both ways) it might have gone up-stream after the Admiral. That did not seem to be a very promising line of research.

  No message of any kind had been received at the house during his absence, and not quite knowing what to do, he wandered into the Admiral’s study. There he found the sergeant, who, after considerable back-chat with the local exchange, had succeeded in getting through to the Admiralty and was trying to explain to a languid voice at the other end what department he wanted and whom he wished to speak to. The Inspector took over the instrument.

  “This is the Whynmouth police,” he said, in a peremptory tone calculated to convey that, though the Navy might be the Senior Service, the Law was more important still. “We want information about the career of Admiral Penistone, retired, late of the Chinese Squadron, and now living at Lingham. Will you kindly put me on to the proper person at once. The matter is urgent.”

  “Oh!” said the voice. “What do you want to know about him? I could look up his record for you, of course, I—”

  “I don’t want that,” said the Inspector. “I want to speak confidentially to somebody in authority—and the quicker the better.”

  “Oh!” said the voice again. “Well, I don’t know. You see, everybody’s out at lunch, I think. One o’clock, you know. Look here. I think you’d better ring up again in an hour or two and ask for Extension fifty-five—they’ll probably be able to tell you something there, don’t you know. I’ll send them a chit about it.”

  “Thank you.” The Inspector slammed the receiver down and, after allowing the statutory thirty seconds, took it off again.

  “Number please,” said the exchange.

  “Look here, miss,” said Rudge. “Have you got a London telephone directory? You have. Good. Would you look up the number of Messrs. Dakers and Dakers for me? They’re solicitors in—wait a moment—in Lincoln’s Inn. Yes, I’ll spell that. That’s right, Dakers and Dakers. It’s rather urgent.”

  “I’ll r-r-ring you,” said the exchange.

  The remarks of the young man at the Admiralty had reminded Rudge that he had been on the job since six o’clock and had had no breakfast. He rang the bell and asked Emery if he could be given something to eat.

  “Well,” said the retainer, dubiously, “I don’t know, I suppose so.” He pondered, and then added: “Me and Mrs. Emery was just sitting down to gammon rashers. I dare say you could have a gammon rasher if you fancied it.”

  The idea seemed good to the Inspector. He replied that he should fancy it very much indeed.

  “Well, I’ll tell her,” said Emery. He went out, and returned again in a few minutes.

  “I suppose you would be wanting something to drink,” he suggested, reluctantly.

  “Anything that’s going,” said Rudge, pleasantly.
/>   “Well, I dare say you could have a glass of beer,” said Emery. “Me and Mrs. Emery was just sitting down to a glass. Mrs. Emery felt she needed a drop of something to raise her spirits.”

  The Inspector readily accepted the offer of beer. Emery shambled slowly away, returning presently to enquire:

  “If I was to bring it in on a tray, would that do for you? We ain’t never been accustomed to have the police about the place.”

  The Inspector signified that whatever was most convenient to Mr. and Mrs. Emery would suit him. The man retired again, and after a considerable time returned to announce in a mournful tone:

  “Mrs. Emery says you can have a gammon rasher if you want it. She says she hasn’t made no sweet to-day, on account of being low in her spirits, but perhaps a piece of the Stilton would do for you.”

  The Inspector replied that it would do admirably, and at that moment the telephone rang. On answering it Rudge found that he was through to Mr. Dakers’s office. Mr. Edwin Dakers and Mr. Trubody were both out. Could the speaker do anything?

  The Inspector explained that he wanted to speak urgently to Mr. Edwin Dakers on business connected with Admiral Penistone. No, he was not speaking for the Admiral. The Admiral, in fact, was dead.

  “Indeed? Mr. Dakers will be very sorry to hear that.”

  “In fact,” said the Inspector, “he has died under very mysterious circumstances. I represent the police.”

  “Indeed? Mr. Dakers will be greatly distressed. If you will give me your number, I will ask him to ring you as soon as he comes in.”

  The Inspector thanked the speaker and then remembered that Sergeant Appleton was still somewhere about, and unfed. He rang the bell again. Emery shuffled in and began at once with a reproachful expression.

  “Now it ain’t no good you ringing. Nobody can’t hurry a gammon rasher. They wants a good deal of cooking if they ain’t to give you bile.”

  “Quite so,” said Rudge, “but I was thinking about my sergeant. Do you think you could manage a meal for him too?”