The Measure of Malice

by Martin Edwards

“That girl of Jack Sparkford’s; has she any money?”

  “Not a stiver,” the sergeant declared emphatically. “She’s as poor as a church mouse. I fished that out quite definitely.”

  “So Jack Sparkford would have to wait six years before he could get into double harness. H’m! And now he can get spliced tomorrow, if he wants to. Possible motive there,” the inspector concluded thoughtfully “He was in the house, handy, that night. And there was that quarrel the maid overheard, on this very point of an extra allowance. H’m! Put a query against his name, I think. That finishes the insiders.”

  “The outsiders are Timothy Sparkford, Corfe, and some person or persons unknown,” Sergeant Longridge suggested, entering into the spirit of systematic inquiry.

  “What about Timothy Sparkford then? Why doesn’t he live with the rest of them?”

  “He won two or three hundred last year on a share in a Sweep ticket,” Longridge explained. “As soon as he got that money he cleared out and went to live by himself in a cottage in Moor End Road, across the railway from Leadburn’s place, with the sidings in between. I don’t blame him; I’d have cleared out myself if I’d been in his shoes. It was no life for a man of thirty, under the thumb of old Leadburn.”

  He paused momentarily and then added: “A bad lad, Timothy. Wine and women; a short life and a gay one: that’s his motto. He’s got consumption, poor beggar! and Leadburn wouldn’t pay for sanatorium treatment in the early stages; said he didn’t believe in it. Just a fad, by his way of it. So he saved money. Timothy didn’t love his uncle much; I could see that with half an eye.”

  The inspector looked up sharply.

  “‘Wine and women’, eh? That fits in with the talk about discreditable doings that the maid heard. And ‘discreditable conduct’ are the words in the will. Old Leadburn must have been threatening to disqualify Timothy. That meant one less to share in the capital in the final divvy-up. Something in that, perhaps.”

  “He’s got an alibi though,” the sergeant pointed out. “He called in Dr. Ackworth, just as he told me. I’ve checked that. Still,” he added ruminatively, “alibis aren’t always sound. And he bought liver that morning. He fetches his own stuff from the butcher, living alone as he does.

  “The butcher remembered him buying liver that day; and the dog was poisoned with liver. But Corfe bought liver, too, that day—so I fished out from his butcher. I wonder the dog would touch stuff with that smell on it; but it seems they fed it only in the morning—it being a watchdog—so probably it was ready to bolt anything by the time it came to midnight.”

  “Most likely,” the inspector concurred. “But why should Timothy want to poison his own family dog which wouldn’t interfere with him?”

  “Corfe’s more likely for that,” the sergeant admitted. “And I’ve fished out that Corfe bought some cyanide that evening. I’ve seen the entry he signed in the poison-book of the druggist who sold it to him. And Corfe’s coat was torn a bit when I saw him on the morning of the murder. The dog hated him, so they say. But he swore then that he’d gone to bed at ten and never waked up till the morning.”

  “He lied then,” said the inspector. “Somebody saw a light in the lodge-room about midnight. Got a note of it here. You told him to call in just now, didn’t you? See if he’s turned up and we’ll put him through it.”

  In a minute or two the sergeant returned with Corfe. The gardener had the coarse looks and powerful physique of a fine animal, but not altogether a good-natured one. Something in the eyes suggested a dangerous temper which might break out suddenly and furiously, though at this moment he seemed sullen and uneasy rather than angry.

  “We want more information than you gave the sergeant, Corfe,” the inspector began abruptly. “First of all, how did you get that tear in your jacket?”

  “Caught it on a nail and tore it,” Corfe declared sullenly.

  “A nail doesn’t make that shape of tear in cloth,” retorted the inspector. “What had you for supper on the night of the murder?”

  Corfe pondered for some seconds before answering, as though he were weighing alternatives.

  “Sausages,” he said at last.

  “So you had the raw liver in the house? You bought liver at the butcher’s that day.”

  Corfe had the wit to see the trend of this. Caesar had been poisoned with raw liver. He corrected himself clumsily.

  “My mistake. It was liver I had for supper, now I think of it. I ate the lot.”

  “What did you buy cyanide for?” the inspector continued.

  This time the answer came promptly enough.

  “To kill rats with. They’re in my chicken run.”

  “Dangerous stuff to have lying about,” commented Dronfield. “Could the dog have got at it?”

  “No, it was inside my fence. I put it at the rats’ holes, not in the run, of course. I’m not a fool.”

  “You are, in some ways,” Dronfield said acidly. “Look here, my man, I advise you to tell the truth. It’ll do you less harm than the lies you’ve given us. That’s a plain warning. We know a bit more than you think. You’d better come across.”

  Corfe shifted uneasily from one foot to the other as he digested this advice. He was so long in making up his mind that the inspector grew suspicious.

  “You needn’t start making up a yarn,” he said sharply. “If you’re going to tell the truth, it won’t need any thinking over. Come along now.”

  Corfe pondered for a few moments longer. Then he seemed to have his story ready.

  “This was the way of it,” he began hesitatingly, like a man not too sure of his ground. “After the row I had with that old blackguard Leadburn, I had to have a talk with Jenny, naturally. But when I went for to see her, she was busy with their dinner and we couldn’t get more than a word.

  “I do a bit of jobbing work in the evenings to make some extra money, and I had to go to Mr. Rigg’s in Broomhill Drive, and I didn’t expect to be back till after ten. Old Leadburn wouldn’t have a maid outside his door after ten o’clock. So I slipped a word to Jenny to be at the window in the hall upstairs at midnight and I’d come up, so as to have a talk with her about things. I thought I’d be able to get up on a bit of wall there, and keep clear of the damned dog. I was about beyond caring about dogs, then, in the state of mind I was in.

  “So when I got back from Broomhill Drive I hung about a bit, waiting till it was time, and then I went up for to see her. But the dog beat me. I took a stick with me; but stick or no stick, it near had me down. It tore my coat for me and I had to give up. If I’d managed to get past it, it’d have raised Cain anyhow, barking, and had the house all awake. Lucky it fought quiet, so there was no row, barring the growling, and that roused nobody. But I had to turn back and go home to the lodge. And that’s the plain truth, believe it or not.”

  “Did you see a light in the room with the French window?” the inspector asked, without commenting on Corfe’s statement.

  “The curtains were drawn, but the light was burning.”

  “When was that?”

  “I went up just before twelve o’clock, as I told you,” Corfe declared. “Just as I was going to bed, after I got home, I heard the express pass. That’s twelve twenty-five.”

  “Very well,” said Dronfield. “That’ll do for the present.”

  He dismissed Corfe, and in a few minutes the sergeant ushered Jenny Hart into the room.

  “You’re quite sure about those things you told the sergeant?” was the inspector’s opening. “About the quarrel amongst the three men on the night of the murder?”

  “I heard them at it.”

  “You heard something about an allowance? And Mr. Leadburn said something about ‘discreditable doings’? Sure of that?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “The murder took place at midnight. Where were you then?”

 
“Sitting in the upstairs hall, waiting for Simmy. He said he’d come if he could get past the dog.”

  “Hear anything while you were there?”

  “Yes. Caesar gave a funny howl—sort of like a squeaking balloon it was, only louder, of course. Long-drawn-out sort of noise. And I was afraid, a bit, about Simmy. I waited for a while in case he turned up. When he didn’t, and I heard the express go past, I took it that Simmy wouldn’t be up that night, so I went to bed.”

  “Any bedrooms on that floor, opening off the hall?”

  “Master Sydney’s room opens off it on one side and Mr. Jack’s on the other.”

  “Moonlight night, wasn’t it? Notice if the bedroom doors were shut?”

  “Master Sydney’s was. Mr. Jack’s was open. I thought he hadn’t gone to bed. When I passed his door I saw his bed hadn’t been slept in.”

  “So Jack Sparkford was out of his room until past midnight,” the inspector mused, after Jenny had been dismissed. “That’s a bit of fresh news. And that little piece seemed to be speaking the truth then, which is more than Corfe did. Let’s think it over again. Start with what we’ve got.”

  The sergeant checked over the facts on his fingers.

  “There’s the dog poisoned with cyanide; and the raw liver; and the knife; and the unfinished writing; and the burned newspaper; and the left-handed cut in his throat; and the tear in Corfe’s coat; and Jack Sparkford up until the small hours; and the quarrels, of course,” he ended rather vaguely.

  “That seems the lot,” Dronfield agreed. “Well, it wasn’t either of the maids. The cook has no motive; and Jenny Hart could get Corfe to do the job sooner than do it herself—unless they were both in it together.”

  “The boy had cyanide in his butterfly bottle, and he knew about the knife being on the table,” the sergeant suggested.

  “He’d no motive and no raw liver,” the inspector objected impatiently.

  “There’s Corfe. He’s been telling a pack of lies and he did get his coat torn by the dog that night. And he’d both liver and cyanide in hand. And he had a motive, right enough.”

  “Leave him aside for a moment. See how the rest of them stand.”

  “There’s Timothy Sparkford,” Longridge suggested rather doubtfully. “I’d have put my shirt on him as the one that did it. He’s got the temper for it, or I’m a Dutchman. If old Leadburn meant to use that clause about discreditable conduct against him, Timothy was going to be cut out altogether after waiting so long for his share. There’s motive enough. And the bit of writing might be something about the cutting-out that Timothy just stopped in time. And the left-handed cut fits him, with his left-handedness. And the burnt newspaper may have been a bit that he used to wrap round the handle of the knife to keep his finger-prints off it; and he had to burn the paper afterwards on the same account.”

  “Anybody might have done the same,” the inspector objected. “That doesn’t fit Timothy specially.”

  “Then he bought some liver that day,” Longridge continued, disregarding the interruption. “In fact, as I say, I’d have put my shirt on him. Only, it won’t wash,” he added regretfully.

  “Are you so sure as all that?” the inspector demanded.

  “It won’t work,” Longridge insisted. “You know the lie of the land about the house. To get from it to Timothy’s cottage you’ve got to cross the railway. There’s two bridges: one a quarter of a mile north of the house, and t’other one half a mile to the south. That makes it either half a mile or a mile by road from door to door.

  “The dog was poisoned at 12.20 a.m. Besides, what would he poison the dog for, seeing he could walk past it without bother, seeing it was friendly? Well, it was poisoned at twelve-twenty. Then there was some time spent in doing the murder itself—ten minutes, at least, and likely longer. That makes it 12.30 a.m. before Timothy could start off home again.

  “But it was just about half-past twelve when he rang up Dr. Ackworth from his cottage; and the doctor got there very soon afterwards to find him ghastly sick. I’ve seen Dr. Ackworth and them’s the facts. Besides, he couldn’t have got across either bridge without being seen, as it happens. The road was up at the north bridge, and there was a watchman on all night who swears that between eleven and two o’clock nobody passed him, barring a tall, slim young fellow in plus-fours, bare-headed, and wearing a white scarf.

  “That won’t fit Timothy. He’s short, with a figure like a gorilla. On t’other bridge there was a motorist in trouble, kept there for over an hour between eleven-thirty and twelve-thirty o’clock, fixing something under a street lamp. He and his passenger are certain nobody passed, bar one man: the same cove in the white scarf. He stopped to ask if he could lend a hand. That was about a quarter-past twelve, they say. Timothy’s easy remembered, and he wasn’t seen at either bridge.”

  “Well, what was to hinder him going straight across the railway line, making a bee-line from house to cottage?”

  “It won’t work,” Longridge protested in an aggrieved tone. “Timothy suffers from something they call comical cornea. He’s as blind as a bat, even on a bright moonlight night like that one.

  “Now look how the land lies. There’s a rock cutting from the one bridge to the station. He couldn’t have climbed down that rock face and up t’other side, not with his sight. It’s impossible; let alone there isn’t the time. He couldn’t get into the station. It’s locked up at that time of night, and it’s a solid block of building on the lip of the cutting. You can’t get at the stair down to the platform without breaking in the door of the ticket-office. He didn’t go that way.

  “Beyond the station, just opposite the house, there’s a barbed-wire fence on level ground, and a mass of sidings filled with odd trucks standing, and beyond the sidings there’s another stiff fence on the Moss Cottage side of the line.

  “I might be able to get across by that route in ten minutes myself, though it would be quick work: but a man with Timothy’s comical cornea simply couldn’t come near that time. He’d be absolutely lost among the trucks, let alone that he couldn’t shin over the fences like a normal man who could see what he was doing.

  “I’ve been over the ground myself. He simply couldn’t have managed it. And farther north, beyond the sidings, there’s another rock-cutting, sheer in the sides, that would take a man with all his sight to get down. No half-blind man did that job, you can take it from me.”

  “H’m!” said the inspector, convinced by this evidence, “then that leaves Jack Sparkford. But he doesn’t fit in anyhow. It’s his own dog, so he needn’t be afraid of it interfering with him. Besides, he’s in the house already and doesn’t need to pass the dog.”

  “He had a motive,” the sergeant insisted. “If old Leadburn was out of the way he could marry the girl. Maybe he was putting the screw on the old man and went a bit too far—killed him without actually planning to do it.

  “Making him write out, ‘I hereby agree to give Jack Sparkford an allowance fit to marry on,’ or something of that sort. That would fit the facts. And he was up and about, late that night, by the girl’s evidence. He kept his thumb on that bit when he was giving his own account of things.”

  “We’ll go over and see him now,” the inspector decided, after a glance at his watch. “Don’t like his keeping back information this way. Not good enough.”

  They found Jack Sparkford at home, and after the sergeant had introduced his superior, the inspector opened the matter with his usual bluntness.

  “You told Sergeant Longridge that you went up to bed at 11 p.m. on the night of Mr. Leadburn’s death, sir. Was that a slip, by any chance? Would you like to correct it?”

  Jack seemed taken aback by this suggestion.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded, rather uncertainly.

  “You went up to bed about eleven,” the inspector conceded. “But did you get into bed?”

  Jack s
eemed to be all on the alert.

  “What I said was perfectly accurate,” he insisted. “I went upstairs at eleven o’clock.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the inspector testily. “But what did you do after that? You didn’t go to bed immediately. What were you doing?”

  Jack paused for a moment or two, then he seemed to come to a decision.

  “You seem to know something. I’ve nothing to conceal, so I’ll be quite frank with you. I’d had a row with my uncle, a private matter, nothing to do with his death. He wouldn’t come round to my view. It was an important matter to me. I saw my brother part of the way home when he left at ten o’clock. Then I came back again and tried to persuade my uncle again.

  “It was no use; he was quite set in his view. So I went upstairs at eleven o’clock. I was worried, very worried, when I got up to my room. I knew it was no good going to bed, I’d never have slept. I sat about in my room for a while, about an hour, I should guess, thinking. Then I came downstairs and went out of the house. I wanted to walk off my troubles.”

  “What time was that?” the inspector demanded.

  “I didn’t look at my watch.”

  “How were you dressed?”

  “Plus-fours—the same as I have on now. And I put on a white scarf because I’d had a touch of sore throat that day.”

  Jack unconsciously clinched the matter with his next words.

  “I remember one thing that may help you,” he added with something like a sneer. “On the bridge beyond the station I came across a fellow under a street lamp with a twelve-six Austin car. He’d been caught with a puncture with his spare wheel out of action. He’d patched up the puncture with a portable vulcaniser, put his wheel on again, and just as I got up he found the nail had gone through both sides of his inner tube, and he had missed the second hole when he had it down. He was just starting to take it off the wheel a second time when I passed him and offered to give him a hand. If you can get hold of him, he’ll identify me, I expect. It must have been round about midnight when I had my talk with him.”

  “Which way did you come home again?” the inspector asked.