The Floating Admiral (Detection Club)

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

  10. The Car. Meanwhile the hired chauffeur has been getting impatient. His fare said she would only be a few minutes and here it is getting on for an hour. Nobody seems to have opened the door to her. The Vicarage is as dark as a tomb. He gets a strong impression that he has been bilked. He hoots violently several times and then walks up to the side-door, which is the first he comes to, and hammers on it. The Vicar, who sleeps over the side-door (servants and boys on the river side of house) looks out. What is the matter? Some parishioner dying? The chauffeur’s reply is unintelligible—to him—but he thinks he had better come down and see what it is all about. Chauffeur says, Will the lady be long, because he has got to get back to his garage, he has, for another job? Vicar says, What lady?—Lady what came in here. Describes lady. Is he going to get his money? Because, if not—shows every intention of making a disturbance. The Vicar, who with extreme uneasiness has recognised the description of the lady, does some quick thinking. At all costs a disturbance must be prevented. He makes some sort of explanation and pays the man off, after taking his name and the address of the garage. Then he returns and ponders. Where did his wife go? Why did she come? Perhaps she is over at Rundel Croft. He goes down to the boat-house. His boat is out. She must have gone across in it. He shakes his head over this. Obviously the poor woman is still under that scoundrel’s thumb. What will she do when she returns and finds the car gone? Obviously he must wait and explain what has happened. He will drive her himself if necessary. He returns and dresses; then sits in his bedroom to watch the road. (Why does not he watch the boat-house? Because, if Walter returns with her there may be trouble and possibly a noise—and then, the boys! the servants!—In any case she must return to where she left the car, so he will wait at the high-road side of the house.)

  11. Denny and Mrs. Mount are now left to bring the boats back. They swab up the blood behind the old boat-house as best they can. Mrs. Mount, threatened by Denny whom she has just seen kill a man, helps without protest. Denny puts the Admiral’s coat on him—(or he put it on himself when he arrived)—and stuffs in the pocket the evening paper which Walter or Denny brought to the meeting. (It was purchased in Whynmouth that night or Walter brought it from town.) At about one o’clock they start with the slack of the tide. They put the body in the Vicar’s boat, unshipping the rowlocks, and putting Denny’s coat over it to hide the face. This explains why the body is not wet with the dew. The Vicar’s boat with the body in it is tied by the painter to the stern of the Admiral’s boat and towed along. The incompetent Denny naturally ties it in one of those landsman’s knots which nothing but a marlin-spike will ever undo, especially as the painter has got wet and the new rope has swollen with the water. With a boat to tow and two incompetent oarsmen, they do not make very good time, and the ghastly dawn is breaking before they get up to Rundel Croft. Walter is there, chafing at the delay. He has locked the window and brought the key, but in helping the idiotic Denny alongside he drops the key. It falls, as he thinks, into the mud, but actually into the Admiral’s boat and is kicked under the boards by Denny. Anyway, they can’t search now. It is getting light. Damn Denny and his inextricable knot! They hew the rope off with Denny’s knife and push the boat with the body adrift. It dawdles out into the river and fetches up against the opposite bank. Later, the tide frees it and carries it on up the river. They hack and tear away the remains of the rope from the Admiral’s boat, having taken it into the boat-house wrong end first. Then they return to Whynmouth in Denny’s car, dropping Walter and Mrs. Mount. Walter retrieves his own car from wherever he left it when he came from London and takes Mrs. Mount away in it—and if that poor woman comes out of this business alive I shall be very much surprised. (N.B.—Or Walter’s car can be used throughout. Or Walter and Mrs. Mount may return to town by the milk-train. In any case these movements of cars should be traceable.)

  12. Holland. What has he been doing? He may, of course, have been innocently in bed and asleep, but I think it would be more fun if he wasn’t. I think that, after putting out his boots to be cleaned, he thought he would have another shot at the Admiral. He went out, unseen by the Boots, sometime between ten and eleven (not too early, or the family will not have returned from the Vicarage). He strolls two and a half miles leisurely in his rubber-soled canvas shoes. He reaches Rundel Croft say at 11.15 (Admiral at boat-house, Elma upstairs). House dark. They are not in yet. He goes down to the boat-house. No boat. They are still at the Vicarage. Good. He goes for a stroll down the road, keeping an eye on the house. No lights yet. Very odd. He muses on love and marriage and recites the Ode to the Nightingale to fill up time. House still dark. Can he have missed them? He goes down to the boat-house again. Boat still out. No lights anywhere. Past midnight. Well, he can hardly knock them up at this time of night. Hullo! Somebody has gone in by the drawing-room window! Light in the study. He distinctly sees the Admiral’s bearded profile (really Walter’s, of course, with the family resemblance) in the study. Curiouser and curiouser. Where is the boat? He goes up to the house. The curtains have now been drawn in the study, but there is a light in the drawing-room now. He taps. Elma opens the window. She seems very much startled at seeing him. Can he see the Admiral? No—Oh, no—but there is no need. The Admiral has consented to the marriage. Look! Here is the written consent. Then, says Holland, there is no need to go to London to-morrow. Oh, yes—let them do it now, as it is all settled. In fact, the Admiral has only given his consent on the understanding that she never darkens his french windows again. Has he, by Jove! He’ll tell the blighter what he thinks of him. Please, no! that will only make things worse. Please do as she tells him. Of course, darling—and she does love him, doesn’t she?—Oh, of course, but please go now. Very well—but she is looking so beautiful to-night. Very well. Good night, sweetheart.

  Exit Holland to ramble round in a dream of ecstasy till he is ashamed to knock up the Lord Marshall. Instead, he drifts round the harbour (where he may be seen if necessary) till six, when he goes in, unseen by Boots who is occupied in the bar. (Observe that Holland will now be ready to swear that he saw the Admiral alive after midnight.)

  When the news of the Admiral’s death comes along, he is worried. He must see Elma. He goes to Rundel Croft, thinking that, as things are, she won’t want to go through with the marriage. He is delayed by Inspector Rudge, and when he gets free learns that Elma has gone to town as per schedule. He hastens after her, and, feeling that there is going to be a lot of trouble about this business, marries her. As his wife he can protect her. He sees, naturally, that it is impossible for them to stay in town as she suggests—they will have to go back for the inquest and funeral—but she is upset, and for the moment he humours her. (Note: He says nothing to Rudge about his midnight excursion, fearing to be detained. He will get hold of Elma first. Indeed, he may possibly at this point suspect Elma himself.)

  13. Elma. The emphasis laid on the time spent in calling Elma and in dressing seems to me a little exaggerated. When she hears of the death, she is horrified. She can hardly help suspecting Walter of some guilty knowledge, but hopes, naturally, that the crime was committed by the other unknown man after Walter left them. She feels faint and sick—but will Emery bring her a cup of tea and she will try to pull herself together. Emery does so. Yes—she is better now—tell the Inspector she will be down in a quarter of an hour. She thinks over what she had better say. Nobody knows about Walter. Holland evidently thinks it was the Admiral who came in at midnight. She had better say nothing. She hopes Holland will say nothing without consulting her—in fact, he is probably already in town. She must tell Jennie to pack. Her white frock will do to be married in—she looks at it! Heavens! A smear of blood on the waist. Walter’s hand or coat must have made the mark when he greeted her.

  Then Walter—! Horrible. She hastily hides the dress, gets into her clothes and comes down.

  Elma will, of course, leave Holland to suppose that it was the Admiral he saw in the study, since otherwise she will have to explain about Walt
er. But she will have difficulty in explaining why she let Rudge suppose that she last saw the Admiral at ten o’clock.

  14. The Vicar. Goes out early in the morning. No one has come to the car. What has happened? Finds his wife’s bag in summer-house and marks of high heels on path leading from house to summer-house, also on flower-bed near summer-house. (Note: It is the path between the summer-house and boat-house that is of brick. The other garden paths will be of gravel.) Anxious to avoid scandal, he takes a rake and fork and digs these over.

  The weather has been hot and dry, but there has been rain on and off for a week or so before. (Note: There has been no prolonged drought, or Neddy Ware would have had something to say about its effect on the height of the river, which appears to be at least normal.) Therefore the earth, when turned up, looks suspiciously black and moist. After hearing of the murder the Vicar cannot help suspecting his wife of complicity or guilty knowledge at least. He learns the difference between preaching and practising the religious man’s duty to the State. He conceals the bag and waters the dug-up patches.

  He must now find his wife. He must know whether she is guilty or not (his boys’ mother hanged for murder!!!). He hopes that she is not guilty and that by proving to her that he is aware of her presence that night in his summer-house, he may induce her to reveal what she knows about Walter. He cannot, of course, supply this information himself, since it is impossible for him to reveal what he heard in confession. He knows the address of the garage from which she hired the car. As soon as he possibly can, without arousing the suspicions of the police, he must get upon her track.

  15. The Admiral’s pipe was left on the Vicar’s table during his visit. It has no significance in the plot except that, when coupled with Holland’s story of having seen the Admiral at Rundel Croft after midnight, it may serve to throw fresh suspicion on the Vicar.

  CHAPTER VIII

  By Ronald A. Knox

  CHAPTER 1. The salient feature of the situation—none of the later contributors have dealt with it—seems to me the fact that the body is in a boat at all. A murder in a boat is very unlikely; but why put a body into a boat, when it would be simpler to throw it into the stream? Unless, indeed, a very elaborate frame-up is intended, the position of the boat on the river having been artificially engineered so as to cast suspicion of murder upon some innocent person.

  If Canon Whitechurch has any murderer in view at all, Ware should be the man—we must assume that Canon Whitechurch respects the honour of the cloth. Ceteris paribus, in a modern detective story the first person named is likely to be the criminal.

  In favour of Ware’s guilt, it must be observed that he claims not to recognise Penistone’s corpse, though he had met him long before on the China station. It does not seem probable that Ware would not know Penistone by sight after even a month’s residence, in the height of the summer, since Ware was always fishing, and Penistone kept a boat. Against Ware’s guilt, the fact that Penistone has come to settle next door to him forms an improbable coincidence, if we are to suppose that Ware harboured an old grudge against him.

  I once laid it down that no Chinaman should appear in a detective story. I feel inclined to extend the rule so as to apply to residents in China. It appears that Admiral Penistone, Sir W. Denny, Walter Fitzgerald, Ware, and Holland are all intimate with China, which seems overdoing it.

  Chapter 2. I imagine that the Coles meant to incriminate Elma, though they may have had their eye on Denny.

  Chapter 3. Wade seems to suspect Elma; the packing up or concealing of her evening things points this way. (Why did she dress up to meet the Vicar? This must be considered.) The words “And if it was …” in Chapter III seem more designed to incriminate Ware; so does Appleton’s theory of the murder having taken place up-stream.

  Does dew form on boats floating in rivers? The encyclopædia gives me no help.

  Chapter 4. Mrs. Christie seems suspicious of Denny; he is hard up, Penistone’s change of residence is attributed to a desire to be near him, and, according to Mrs. Davis, Denny was none too pleased over it. On the ordinary principles of a mystery story, this should mean that Penistone is blackmailing Denny. I cannot find out what is the importance, if any, of the Vicar’s runaway wife. She left her husband in 1920, well after the War, so it seems difficult to identify her with Elma, who was with her uncle at that time. How far is Whynmouth from London?

  Chapter 5. Rhode seems to be fixing it on Holland. Penistone might have gone to Whynmouth to interview Holland, who met and murdered him, and conveyed him up-stream; afterwards transferring the corpse into the Vicar’s boat, and running the other boat in head first. But of course Denny is under suspicion, from the position of his house. And again, Ware’s insistence that the murder was committed down-stream might be an effort to exculpate the real criminal, himself. How far up was the river tidal?

  Chapter 6. Kennedy seems to point to the Vicar. If not, why was the weapon taken from the Vicarage summer-house? (Unless caught up at random.) And why does the Vicar water the garden so thoroughly, if he is not obliterating footprints? (I take it we are not to fix a juvenile crime on the sons.) I do not understand the woman in the car. If she was Elma, I do not see how she got there. If anybody else, she is a new character, not mentioned in the first five chapters, and therefore on my own principles not the criminal. She might be the Vicar’s runaway wife; but it seems a coincidence that she should have happened to pay a call on a night so accidentée already.

  Chapter 7. I suppose Miss Sayers thinks the Vicar knew something about it all. The length of the rope ought to indicate that the Vicarage boat was twice moored that night, and loosed each time by a cutting of the painter from a position of disadvantage; hence the missing two feet of rope, which should be hanging up somewhere, unless deliberately removed since the murder. The double loosing of the boat suggests either that there were two separate plots afoot, or else that there has been a very elaborate frame-up.

  The return of the Hollands, with their story of having seen Penistone alive after midnight, seems to put a wholly new complexion on the story; I wish I could discover what. If the permission to marry was genuine, their motive for murder ceases, and their motive for hurry is difficult to see. If they were the murderers, why throw suspicion on themselves by their haste to marry? It all beats me, and I wish she had not left me to conduct the interview.

  Anyhow, this is my solution:

  Walter Fitzgerald took strongly after his mother and could, with make-up, pass as the Admiral, his uncle. It was probably thus that he managed to shift a peccadillo of his own in Shanghai on to his uncle’s shoulders. The Admiral suspected this; which is why he collected papers in his desk calculated to blast Walter’s reputation if he reappeared in Europe. Almost more important, the Admiral held and was suppressing papers which would have proved Walter’s innocence in the matter of forgery, and would have made it possible for him to reappear in Society. Walter survived the War, and ran away with Celia Mount, the Vicar’s wife, in 1920. Celia, to further his interests, went to act as (French) maid to Elma, the sister. Elma knew that her brother meant to recover the papers, but not that he intended to murder, and thus silence, his uncle. The Admiral came to Lingham so as to be near Denny, whom he was blackmailing. Celia, finding her husband so close, went to see him and urged him to divorce her. He refused on conscientious grounds. She left, having taken a wax impression of the key of the Admiral’s desk.

  Holland had somehow become an enemy of Walter’s in China. Walter therefore decided to saddle him with whatever suspicion attached to the murder. Elma was not in love with Holland, but wanted to marry him so as to get the full control of her own money. Penistone refused his consent, because he suspected Holland, whom he had met in Sir Wilfrid’s house, of acting in Sir Wilfrid’s interests.

  Walter and Celia, on the fatal night, motored down to Lingham. They knew from Elma the plans of the Rundel Croft household. Celia was put down at the Vicarage, where she found the Vicar in the garden, and persua
ded him to ferry her across in his boat and detain the Admiral in conversation, while she went into the study and secured the papers “needed to save an innocent man.” The Vicar had to cut his painter, owing to the state of the tide. Celia secured the papers, about 10.30; and sent a telephone message as from Elma (who was upstairs, ignorant of her presence) asking Holland to come round at midnight. Meanwhile (the Vicar still talking to the Admiral) Walter has gone to the inn and posed as Penistone, hoping thus to implicate Holland. (It would be found that he had not taken the train, and that Holland had gone out at night; it would be assumed that the murder had taken place, and the body set adrift, at or near Whynmouth. Perhaps the plotters made a mistake about the tides.) Then Walter returned to Rundel Croft, where he either murdered Penistone, or found him murdered by Celia (caught in her act of theft). The Vicar, who was scheduled to keep the Admiral in talk till (say) eleven, was waiting at the boat-house, and ferried Celia across; she told him to go to bed, the chauffeur would pick her up. Actually she returned, stumbling over flower-beds, to the river, cut the painter a second time (she was much shorter than Mount) and rejoined Walter. He, meanwhile, had put Penistone’s body into its greatcoat, and thrust a paper into the pocket to suggest that Penistone had really gone to Whynmouth. He meant to put the body into the Admiral’s boat, but imagined that this would be the one moored by its bows; hence actually he put the body in the Vicar’s boat (where the hat had been left by accident) and, using the Admiral’s boat, towed boat and body out to midstream; then cut adrift. Celia pointed out the mistake when he landed, but it was too late to do anything; Holland’s steps were heard on the gravel. Walter rushed into the study and personated the Admiral, showing Holland the forged consent. He left this in an envelope for Elma (who knew it was a forgery); Holland went home, letting himself in by a door he had left unlocked; Walter and Celia got off in their car.