XVII
Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman
Bredon and his wife looked at one another in astonishment. It was impossible that the funeral should yet be over; impossible, surely, that Brinkman, whose place in the pageant was such a prominent one, should have absented himself from the ceremony unnoticed. There was no doubt as to the path which the self-betrayed listener must have taken. From behind the wall, there was a gap in a privet-hedge, and through this there was a direct and speedy retreat to the back door of the inn. The inn itself, when they went back to it, was as silent as the grave—indeed, the comparison forced itself upon their minds. It was as if the coffin from upstairs had taken all human life away with it when it went on its last journey, leaving nothing but the ticking of clocks and the steaming of a kettle in the kitchen to rob solitude of its silence. Outside the sun still shone brightly, though there was a menacing bank of cloud coming up from the south. The air felt breathless and oppressive; not a door could bang, not a window rattle. The very flies on the windowpanes seemed drowsy. The Bredons passed from room to room, in the vain hope of discovering an intruder; everywhere the same loneliness, the same stillness met them. Bredon had an odd feeling as if they ought, after all, to be at the funeral; it was so like the emptiness of his old school when everybody was out of doors except himself on a summer day.
“I can’t stand much of this,” he said. “Let’s go down toward the churchyard, and see if we can meet them coming back. Then at least we shall be in a position to know who wasn’t here.”
The expedition, however, proved abortive; they met Eames almost on the doorstep, and down the street figures melting away by twos and threes from the churchyard showed that the funeral was at an end. “I say, come in here,” said Bredon. “I want to talk things over a bit, Mr. Eames.” And the three retired into that “best room” where tea had been laid on the afternoon of the Bredons’ arrival. “You’ve just come back from the funeral?”
“This moment. Why?”
“Can you tell us for certain who was there? Was Brinkman there, for example?”
“Certainly. He was standing just next me.”
“And Mr. Simmonds from the shop—do you know him by sight?”
“He was pointed out to me as the chief mourner. I had a word with him afterward. But why all this excitement about the local celebrities?”
“Tell him, Miles,” said Angela. “He may be able to throw some light on all this.” And Bredon told Eames of the strange eavesdropping that went on behind the millhouse wall; something, too, of the suspicions which he and Leyland entertained, and the difficulty they both found in giving any explanation of the whole tragedy.
“Well, it’s very extraordinary. Pulteney, of course didn’t go after all—”
“Pulteney didn’t go?”
“No; didn’t you hear him say, soon after luncheon, that his good resolutions had broken down, and that he wasn’t going to the funeral after all? I thought it rather extraordinary at the time.”
“You mean his sudden change of plan?”
“No, the reason he gave for it. He said the afternoon was too tempting, and he really must go out fishing.”
“Is that a very odd reason for Pulteney? He’s an incalculable sort of creature.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t happen to be true. Can’t you feel the thunder in the air? If you can’t, the fishes can. And when there’s thunder in the air they won’t rise. Pulteney knows that as well as I do.”
“Would you know his rod if you saw it?”
“Yes, I was looking at it with him just before luncheon.”
“Come on.” They went out into the front hall, and Eames gave a quick glance round. “Yes, that’s it, in the corner. He’s no more out fishing than you or I.”
“Edward!” said Angela as they returned to the best room. “To think it was my Edward all the time.”
“Oh, don’t rag, Angela; this is serious. Now, can’t it have been Pulteney listening all along?”
“He was there, you know, when you and Leyland arranged to go out to the millhouse after breakfast. And he was there at luncheon, though I don’t think either of us mentioned that we meant to go there. Still, he might have guessed that. But what on earth is the poor old dear up to?”
“Well, one or two things are clear. About Brinkman, I mean. Whatever his idea may have been when he took me out for a walk to the gorge and talked about geology he wasn’t ‘reacting’ on Leyland’s suggestion, because it wasn’t he who was listening behind the wall when the suggestion was made. And there’s another thing—this bit of paper Leyland found lying about in the room upstairs. If Brinkman put it there, then Brinkman did it on his own; he wasn’t playing up to the suggestion which Leyland made about wanting clues to incriminate Simmonds with.”
“Still,” objected Angela, “we never proved that it was Brinky who left that old clue lying about. We only assumed it, because we thought it was Brinky who was listening behind the wall.”
“You mean that if Pulteney was listening, and Pulteney was—well, was somehow interested in confusing the tracks of the murder, it may have been he who left the bit of paper under the table.”
“I didn’t say so. But it seems quite as much on the cards as anything else in this frightful business.”
“Let’s see, now, what do we know about Pulteney? We know, in the first place, that he was sleeping in the house on the night when Mottram died. Actually, he had the room next door to Mottram’s—between his and the one we’ve got now. According to his own evidence, he slept soundly all night, and heard nothing. On the other hand, his own evidence showed that he went to bed after Mottram and Brinkman, and we’ve nothing, therefore, to confirm his own account of his movements. He was woken up the next morning after the tragedy had occurred, and when he was told about it all he said was—what was it, Angela?”
“ ‘In that case, Mrs. Davis, I shall fish the Long Pool this morning.’ ”
“That might almost be represented as suggesting that he wasn’t exactly surprised when he heard of Mottram’s death, mightn’t it? All his references to Mottram’s death since then have been rather—shall we say?—lacking in feeling. He, no less than Brinkman, seemed to be anxious that we should interpret the death as suicide, because it was he who suggested to me that idea about Mottram having brought down the wrong flies, as if he never really had any intention of fishing at all. He has been rather inquisitive about when Brinkman was leaving, and when we were leaving too, for that matter. That’s all you can scrape together, I think, against his general behaviour. And against that, of course, you’ve got to put the absence of all known motive.”
“And the general character of the man,” suggested Eames.
“I suppose so. … What impression exactly does he make on you?”
“Why, that he is out of touch with real life. All that macabre humour of his about corpses and so on is an academic thing—he has never really felt death close to. I don’t say that a superb actor mightn’t adopt that ironical pose. I only say it’s far more natural to regard him as a harmless old gentleman who reflects and doesn’t act. It’s very seldom that you find the capacity for acute reflection and the capacity for successful action combined in the same character. At least, that’s always been my impression.”
“Well, granted that we acquit him of the main charge, as Leyland would acquit Brinkman of the main charge. He still comes under the minor suspicion of eavesdropping. He’s as good a candidate for that position as Brinkman himself, only that it was Brinkman’s brand of cigarette we found behind the wall yesterday.”
“Edward had run out, you remember,” suggested Angela. “He might have borrowed one from Brinky, or pinched it when he wasn’t looking. And to be accurate, we must remember that the first time we were overheard, when we were talking in my room, the listener had disappeared before you got into the passage, and the next room to ours is Edward’s.”
“And besides, we know now that it wasn’t Brinkman, this time at any rate. Because he was away at the funeral. Whereas Pulteney shirked the funeral on an obviously false ground; didn’t go to the funeral and didn’t go fishing either. Assuming that the listener is the same all through, it looks bad for Pulteney.”
A knock at the door suddenly interrupted their interview. “May I come in?” said a gentle voice, and following it, flushed as with hot walking yet still beaming with its habitual benevolence, came the face of Mr. Pulteney.
“Ah, Mr. Bredon, they told me I would find you in here. I wanted a word with you. Could we go outside, or—”
“Nonsense, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela firmly. “What Mr. Eames and I don’t know isn’t worth knowing. Come in and tell us all about it.”
“Well, you know, I’m afraid I’ve got to make a kind of confession. It’s a very humiliating confession for me to make, because I’m afraid, once again, I’ve been guilty of curiosity. I simply cannot mind my own business.”
“And what have you been up to now?” asked Angela.
“Why, when I said I was going out fishing this afternoon, I’m afraid I was guilty of a prevarication. Indeed, when I announced my intention of going to the funeral, I was beginning to weave the tangled web of those who first practise to deceive. You see, I didn’t want Brinkman to know.”
“To know what?”
“Well, that I was rather suspicious about his movements. You see, I’ve asked him several times when he means to leave Chilthorpe, and he always talks as if he was quite uncertain of his plans. He did so at breakfast, you remember. But this morning, when I went up to get a sponge I had left in the bathroom, I saw Brinkman packing.”
“Packing?”
“Well, he was wandering about the room clearing up his papers, and there was a despatch-box open on the table, and a suitcase on the floor. And, as I knew he was due to be at the funeral, I thought this was rather a funny time for him to want to leave. Especially as he’d given no notice to Mrs. Davis. So I wondered whether, perhaps, there was anything behind it.”
“You did well to wonder,” said Bredon. “So what did you do?”
“Well it stuck in my head that Mottram, when he came down here, came in a motorcar. Mrs. Davis, though her trade announcement advertises good accommodation for man and beast, does not run to a garage. There is only one in Chilthorpe; you can just see it down the road there. Now, thought I, if by any chance Mr. Brinkman is meditating a precipitate disappearance, it would be like his caution to have made all arrangements beforehand. And if I went down to the garage and had a look at the car, it might be that I, though heaven knows I am no motorist, should be able to see whether he had got the car in proper trim for a journey.”
“You must have talked very nicely to the garage people,” suggested Angela. “It would never do if you were suspected of being a motor-thief.”
“Well, I had to do my best. I changed my mind about going to the funeral, and made the excuse that I wanted to go fishing. I heard you gasp, Mr. Eames; but Brinkman knows nothing about fishing. Then, when you had started, I went off to the garage by myself. Fortunately, very fortunately for my purpose, it proved that there was nobody in. There are only two men, in any case, and they neglect their business a good deal. I had an excuse if one was needed, but when I found myself alone in the garage I flung caution to the winds. There was a cardcase inside which showed me which was Mottram’s car. My investigations led me to the conclusion that the car was in readiness for an immediate and secret departure for some considerable journey.”
“Do tell us what they were,” said Angela demurely. “Just for the interest of the thing.”
“Well, I removed with some difficulty a kind of cap from that thing behind, which put me in a position to examine the interior of what is, I suspect, called the petrol-tank. The careful insertion of a pencil showed that the tank was quite full; which suggested that a refill had been obtained since they arrived.”
“They might have run short on the journey down, a mile or two out,” suggested Angela. “But this was not all?”
“No, there was a map lying on the driver’s seat, somewhat carelessly folded up. I thought it a point of interest that this map did not include Pullford, and seemed to contemplate an expedition to the west or southwest.”
“There’s not a great deal in that,” said Bredon. “Still, it’s suggestive. Anything else?”
“Well, you know, I lifted up one of the seats, and found there a collection of sandwiches and a large flask of whisky.”
“The devil you did! But they might have been for the journey down here. Did you taste the sandwiches to see if they were fresh?”
“I took that liberty. They seemed to me, I must say, a trifle on the stale side. But who was I to complain? I was, as it were, a guest. Meanwhile, let me point out to you the improbability of Mottram’s loading up his car with sandwiches for a twenty-mile drive.”
“That’s true. Were they properly cut? Professional work, I mean?”
“I suspected the hand of the artist. Mrs. Davis, no doubt. The whisky I did not feel at liberty to broach. But the idea suggested itself to me that these were the preparations of a man who is contemplating a considerable journey, and probably one which will not allow him time to take his meals at a public-house.”
“And why a secret departure?”
“Why, somebody had induced a coat of black paint over what I take to be the numberplate of the car. I am a mere novice in such matters, but is that usual?”
“It is not frequently done. And was the paint still wet?”
“That is a curious point. The paint was dry. I supposed then, that Brinkman’s preparations for departure were not made yesterday or the day before.”
“It’s awfully kind of you to take all this trouble, and to come and tell us.”
“Not at all. I thought perhaps it might be worth mentioning, in case you thought it best, well, to lay hands somehow on Brinkman.”
“Why, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela, bubbling over, “we were just preparing to lay hands on you!”