XII
The Makings of a Trap
It was Bredon and Leyland, this time, who took their evening walk together. To Bredon, events seemed to be closing in like a nightmare. Here was he pledged to uphold the theory of suicide; and he had depended largely for his success on Leyland’s inability to produce a suitable candidate for the position of murderer. But now there seemed to be a perfect embarras of murderers. Macbeth wasn’t in it.
“Well,” he said, “at least we have something positive to go upon now. Brinkman’s part in this business may be what you will, but he certainly takes an unhealthy interest in it, to the extent of hanging about round corners where he’s no business to be. At least we can confront him with his behaviour, and encourage him to make a clean breast of the whole thing. I imagine you will have no objection to that, since it’s not Brinkman you suspect of the murder?”
“I’m afraid,” said Leyland, “that’s not the way we go to work. The force, I mean. It’s quite true Brinkman is not the man I have under suspicion at the moment, but I’m only working on a theory, and that theory may prove to be a false one. I’m not certain of it yet, and I should have to be certain of it before I acquitted Brinkman.”
“But, hang it all, look at the question of motive. Simmonds, I grant you, had a reasonable motive for wanting to make away with his uncle. He had grounds for thinking that his uncle’s death would mean a clear half-million to him. He had quarrelled with his uncle, and thought he had been treated badly. He disapproved of his uncle, and regarded him as a bloodsucker. The fact that Mottram was down at Chilthorpe was an excellent opportunity, and a rare opportunity, for young Simmonds to get at him. Seldom the time and the place and the hated one all together. But your Brinkman, as far as we can see, was only affected by the death in the sense that he has lost a good job and has now to look out for another one, with no late employer to supply him with testimonials. Personally, I believe Brinkman did know about the alteration in the will; at least he knew about the uncertainty of Mottram’s health. Can you suppose that, even if Simmonds offered to go halves with him, he would consent to be an accomplice in what might prove a wholly unnecessary crime?”
“You’re assuming too much. We don’t know yet that Brinkman has no financial interest in the affair. Look here—this is far-fetched, I grant you, but it’s not impossible: Everybody says Mottram had no family; whose word have they for that except his own? Where did he pick up Brinkman? No one knows. Why did he want a secretary? There was some talk of writing a history of Pullford, but nothing ever came of it. Why, then, this curious interest which Mottram takes in Brinkman? I don’t say it’s likely, but I say it’s possible that Brinkman is Mottram’s son by a clandestine marriage. If that’s so, and if Brinkman didn’t know about the codicil, he may himself be the next of kin who is preparing to step into the half-million. And a clever man—Brinkman is a clever man—might find it convenient to get Mottram out of the way, and get someone else to do it for him. He is afraid that Mottram will live to be sixty-five, and the policy will leave no benefits behind it. Or he is afraid that Mottram is going to make a new will. What does he do? Why, he goes to Simmonds, and points out to him that as the next of kin he would score by putting Mottram through it. Simmonds does so, all unsuspecting; and here’s Brinkman, only waiting to step in and claim the half-million on the strength of his mother’s marriage-lines!”
“You’re too confoundedly ingenious. Things don’t happen like that.”
“Things have happened like that before now, and with less than half a million to give grounds for them. No, I’m not going to leave Brinkman out of my calculations, and therefore I’m not going to take him into my confidence. But this eavesdropping of his does give us a very important chance, and we’re going to use it.”
“I don’t quite see how.”
“That’s because you’re not a professional, and you don’t know the way things are done in the force. The outside public doesn’t, and we don’t mean it to. We don’t show our workings. But half, or say a third at least, of the big businesses we clear up are cleared up by bluff, by leading the suspected man on and encouraging him to give himself away. Sometimes it isn’t a very pretty business, of course; we have to use agents who are none too scrupulous. But here we’ve got a ready-made chance of bluffing our man, and bluffing him into betraying himself.”
“How, exactly?”
“You and I are going to meet again in that millhouse. And we are going to talk about it openly beforehand, so that we can be jolly sure Brinkman will creep up behind and listen to us. And when we’ve got him comfortably fixed there listening to us, you and I are going to lead him up the garden. We are going to make him overhear something which is really meant for his ears, though he thinks it’s meant for anybody’s ears rather than his own.”
“Oh, I see—a fake conversation. I say, I’m not much of an actor. Angela would do it far better than I should.”
“There’s no acting wanted. All you’ve got to do is to sit there and argue pigheadedly about it’s being suicide, the same as you always do. Meanwhile, I’ll do the fake part—or rather, it won’t be much of a fake, either. I shall repeat what I told you yesterday, about suspecting Simmonds. That’s all true enough; I do suspect the man; though I wish he wasn’t so confoundedly innocent and self-possessed under examination. Then I shall say that I also suspect Brinkman—not letting on, of course, about the cigarette and all that, but putting up some ground or other for suspicion. Simmonds, I shall say, is clearly the murderer, but I’ve reason to think Brinkman knows more about it than he ought to do. I shall say that I’m going to have Brinkman shadowed, and that I’m going to get a warrant for his arrest. At the same time, I shall say I think he’s a fool not to own up, if his share in the business is not a guilty one. And so on. Then we just wait and see how Brinkman reacts.”
“I should think he’d skip.”
“That’s what I want him to do. Of course, I’ve got him shadowed already. If he makes a determined bolt for it that gives me reasonable ground for putting him under arrest.”
“What else can he do?”
“Well, if he’s relatively innocent, he might confide in you about it.”
“Oh, I see, that’s the game. Damn it, why did I ever consent to become a spy? Leyland, I don’t like this job. It’s too—too underhand.”
“Well, you were an intelligence officer, weren’t you? There was no trick you wouldn’t play, while the war was on, to beat the Germans. Why should you be more squeamish about it when you’ve the well-being of society to consider? Your job is to protect the interests of all the honest men who’ve insured with your company. My business is to see that harmless people don’t get gassed in their sleep. In any case, we’ve got to get at the truth. I might even point out that we’ve got a bet on it.”
“But look here, if Brinkman confides in me, am I to betray his confidence? That hardly seems cricket.”
“Well, if you’re not a fool, you’d better avoid making any promise of secrecy. You must act up to your own confounded conscience, I suppose. But remember, Brinkman can’t get away; I’ve got him watched all right. If his part in the show is quite an innocent one, you’d better point out to him that his best plan is to make a clean breast of it.”
“Well, I’ll help you bait the trap. If Brinkman comes to me about it, I can’t answer for what I’ll do—unless you subpoena me, of course. By the way, what happens if Brinkman doesn’t react at all? If he simply does nothing about it?”
“We shall be just where we were before. But I think if we give him a lead he’s almost certain to take it. After all, there’s no reason why he should stay on here, but he hasn’t shown any signs of moving yet. Once the funeral’s over, he’ll be anxious to put things straight, if only to get a fresh job.”
By now they were on their return journey, on the road leading down the valley; the twilight was gathering, but the few streetlamps which Chilthorpe afforded had not yet been lit. It was but natural that on a summer evening such a road as this should be a trysting-place of lovers. There is a sentimental streak in all our natures which warns us that a young man and a young woman sharing a railway carriage must be left to share it; and equally that a pair of lovers in a lane must be passed by as hastily as possible, with no inquisitive looks thrown in their direction. It is our instinct thus to propitiate the Paphian Queen. It was characteristic of Bredon that, as he passed one of these couples from behind, seeing their heads close together in earnest colloquy, he quickened his pace and never looked backward. It was equally characteristic of Leyland that, although he too quickened his pace, he did let his eye rest on the pair for a moment—lightly, it seemed, and uncomprehendingly. But when they were out of earshot he showed that his had been no casual glance. “You saw them, Bredon, eh? You saw them?”
“I saw there were some people there. I didn’t—”
“You wouldn’t. But it doesn’t do to miss these things. The young lady is the barmaid at our hotel, the lady who always says ‘Raight-ho!’ when you ask for anything. And the young man is our friend Mr. Simmonds. It looks as if a mésalliance were in contemplation, from the Simmonds point of view. And it means—well, it may mean almost anything.”
“Or almost nothing.”
“Well, if you ask me, it seems to be a matter of importance to know that Simmonds has got his foot inside the door, so to speak, at the Load of Mischief. He had somebody there to let him in and let him out late at night. He had somebody to cover his traces, if necessary, when the crime was over. I think our nets are beginning to close at last.”
“Like to hide behind the hedge and listen to what they’re saying?”
“Why, it might be done. But it seemed to me they had their voices lowered all the time, not merely while we were passing. No, I think it’s the bar parlour for me.”
Angela was far more enthusiastic than her husband over the proposed ambush. “You see, Brinky can’t really be a very nice man, or he wouldn’t have been listening at our keyhole. Just think, I might have been ticking you off about your table manners or something. No, if he will go and hide in the arras he must take what he gets, like Polonius. And, after all, if he does come to you afterward, and wants to sob on your bosom, you can always refuse to promise secrecy. The world would be such a much happier place if people wouldn’t make promises.”
“None at all?”
“Don’t be soppy. You aren’t in the lovers’ lane now. Meanwhile, I think it would be a good thing if you overcame your natural bonhomie, and had a talk with Mr. Simmonds tomorrow. The more necessary, since you only seem to have brought three hankies here, and it’s you for the haberdasher’s in any case.”
“All right; but you mustn’t come. You cramp my style in shops. Too much of the I-want-a-handkerchief-for-this-young-gentleman business about you.”
“Then I shall console myself by talking to the barmaid, and finding out if she’s capable of saying anything except ‘Raight-ho.’ Of course I knew she had a young man all the time.”
“Rot! How could you tell?”
“My dear Miles, no girl ever waits so badly as that, or tosses her head like that, unless she’s meaning to chuck up her job almost immediately. I deduced a young man.”
“I wonder you haven’t wormed yourself into her confidence already.”
“Wasn’t interested in her. But tonight, at supper, she was jumpy—even you must have noticed it. She almost dropped the soup-plates, and the ‘shape’ was quivering like a guilty thing surprised.”
“That was your dressing for dinner.”
“Bunkum! You must have seen that she was all on edge. Anyhow, we’re going to have a heart-to-heart talk.”
“All right. Don’t bully the wretched girl, though.”
“Miles! You really mustn’t go running after every woman you meet like this. I shall deal with her with all my well-known delicacy and tact. Look how I managed them at supper! I should have cried, I think, if I’d found it was Edward who smoked the Callipoli. Do you think Leyland has still got his knife into Simmonds? Or do you think he wants to arrest Brinky, and is only using Simmonds as a blind?”
“He was excited enough when we met Simmonds in the lane. No, I think he’s out to arrest everybody at the moment; Simmonds for doing the murder, and Brinkman for persuading him or helping him to do it. He’s got ’em both shadowed, anyhow, he says—I hope not by the Chilthorpe police, who look to me too substantial to be mistaken for shadows. But I’m sure I’m right, I’m sure I’m right.”
“Of course you are. Though, mind you, it looks to me as if Mottram had only just managed to commit suicide in time to avoid being murdered. The trouble about Leyland’s Simmonds theory is that it makes the little man too clever. I don’t believe Leyland could ever catch a criminal unless he were a superhumanly clever criminal, and of course so few of them are. They go and make one rotten little mistake, and so get caught out.”
“You’re getting too clever. It’s quite time you went to bed.”
“ ‘Raight-ho,’ as your friend the barmaid says. No, don’t stamp about and pretend to be a caveman. Go downstairs like a good boy, and help Leyland incriminate the oldest inhabitant. He’ll be getting to that soon.”