XXIII
Bredon Plays Patience Again
“Would you be shocked,” asked Nigel, “if you thought I’d done it?”
He was sitting up, for the first time, in a costume as nearly approaching full dress as Leyland would permit. Angela sat opposite him, knitting vaguely. Her attitude throughout his stay in bed had been rather embarrassed, and he was evidently determined to establish more normal relations.
“I’m too old to be caught that way,” she said. “You want me to say or imply that I don’t think you did it. You’d better ask me whether I’d be shocked if I knew you’d done it. Because, after all, it makes a lot of difference if you can give a person the benefit of the doubt. As it is, I’m only provisionally shocked, if you understand what I mean.”
“But the idea of talking to a murderer does shock you?”
“Of course it does. If I read in the paper that a total stranger has broken his neck I’m not shocked—not really. But if my hairdresser broke his neck I should be shocked—why, I don’t know.”
“But that’s a different kind of shock.”
“I’m not so sure. I suppose very good people when they come in personal contact with really wicked people, do really disapprove of them morally. But an ordinary humdrum person, like me, doesn’t really feel disapproval, only a sort of surprise. You have to readjust your values, to realize that the man you had tea with yesterday was the man who robbed the bank; and it’s that feeling of surprise at the suddenness of the thing, to my mind, that means being shocked.”
“Perhaps you’re right. But, look here, would you be shocked if I told you this—that I would cheerfully have murdered my cousin at any time, if I could have made quite sure of not being hanged for it?”
“Go steady. Don’t say anything you don’t want to say. Remember that I chatter to my husband continually, and I may pass on any remark you make.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. Your husband, I’m quite sure, thinks me capable of any crime, morally. So does Leyland; he’d put me in jug tomorrow if he could see any way of explaining how I’d done it. So it doesn’t matter what they think about my character. Only I’d rather like to know what you think about me.”
“I’ve told you; I’m provisionally shocked. I shouldn’t be shocked, though, merely by your saying that you would do your cousin in for twopence, because I shouldn’t believe you meant what you said.”
“But I do say it, and I do mean it. I don’t think a person like Derek has any right to exist, and I don’t see that it would have been wrong for me to put him out of the way. Selfish, of course—I should only have been doing it to gratify my own feelings and my own pocket. But not wrong, because he’d no right to exist. A fellow like that doesn’t really qualify by any standard; the parsons couldn’t approve of him, the State gets no earthly good out of him; and as for the aesthetic point of view, he simply doesn’t count. He neither enjoys any of the higher pleasures nor helps anybody else to enjoy them. He’s no function. That’s my point.”
“Oh, but that’s just what seems to me absolute nonsense. Either everybody’s life ought to be respected or nobody’s. It’s absurd to suppose that because you can appreciate Scriabin and Derek couldn’t, the man who murdered Derek was doing something worse than if he’d killed you.”
“That’s putting it rather personally. I’m not quite sure that I’ve any right to exist either. I’ve made a pretty good fool of myself, and I shall make a worse fool of myself if I come in for any money as the result of all this—you see if I don’t.”
Nigel, like most people who fancy themselves as rogues, rather liked to have good women talking to him for his good. It enhanced your sense of importance, to have people trying to reform you, as long as they talked sympathetically and looked nice. But Angela was adroit at refusing such openings; her common sense was admirably poised. “Yes,” she admitted, “I should think you’d make a ghastly mess of it. I can imagine you doing a frightful lot of harm. But I haven’t put strychnine in your Bovril for all that, and I’m not going to. By the way, it’s nearly time I gave you some—Bovril, I mean.”
“Yes, but that would be for sentimental reasons, wouldn’t it? I mean, you’d probably hate killing a mouse. But you don’t mind mice being killed. So why should you mind Derek being killed? Or me, for that matter?”
“I didn’t say I would,” Angela reminded him. “I only said I’d sooner not know the person who did it, because I don’t think he’d be a nice person to know.”
“Then I can’t be a nice person to know. Because I’m the kind of person who would have killed Derek, if I’d had the opportunity, and if somebody else hadn’t (apparently) got in before me.”
“Oh, I don’t mind knowing people who think they would have murdered Derek. Because, as I say, I don’t believe you are the kind of person who would have. Unless, of course, you did.”
“Isn’t that a tiny bit inconsistent?”
“Not at all. Actions speak louder than words. Tell me you did it, and I’ll believe you. Tell me you would have done it, and I won’t believe you because I don’t think you know yourself. Of course, it’s different when one’s excited; but when it comes to cold-blooded murder, why, I believe we’re all a little less unscrupulous than we think we are.”
“All the same, where would have been the harm in murdering Derek? He’s for it, anyhow; you can’t go on drinking and doping like that without doing yourself in. What’s the good of his being alive? He’s only keeping me out of fifty thousand.”
“With which, as you say, you’d only make a beast of yourself. No, it’s all nonsense worrying about the consequences of actions. The only thing is to stick to the rules of the game; and murder isn’t sticking to the rules; it’s an unfair solution, like cheating at patience.”
“Well, it’s only speeding up the end. You’d hardly argue, would you, that Derek was worth keeping alive?”
“Everybody’s worth keeping alive—or rather, very few people are worth it, but everybody’s got to be kept alive if it can be managed. Look at you the other day—we all thought you were a murderer, with nothing in front of you but the gallows. And yet we rallied round with hot-bottles and restoratives, and treated you as if you were the Shah of Persia. No use to anybody, particularly, but we had to do it, because one has to stick to the rules. Once try to make exceptions, and we shall all get into no end of a mess.”
“Blessed if I’d do it.”
“You would, though. If you were waiting behind a bush to murder a man, and he fell into the river on the way, you’d jump in and rescue him.”
“You try me. If it was Derek, I’d let him sink and heave a brick after him.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You mustn’t keep on contradicting, or I shall put you to bed and tell you not to agitate yourself. Now, I’m going to make your Bovril, if I can get at the bottle. I left it next door, and my husband’s in there playing patience; so it’s quite possible I shall get shot out head first.”
And indeed, she found her husband in no accommodating mood. “I want a bus timetable,” he said, retrieving a three of spades from the wastepaper basket.
“Why not ring for one?” suggested Angela, with an assumption of hauteur.
“I’ve been wanting to for a long time, but I can’t get at that dashed bell without disturbing the cards. Do be a sport and ask for one.”
“All right. Chuck over the Bovril, though.” And she did contrive to secure a dog’s-eared sheet from downstairs, which he thumbed this way and that abstractedly, while she watched him from the doorway. “Good!” he announced at last. “Things begin to clear up a bit. Tell the third chauffeur to have the Rolls round this afternoon, because we’ve got to make a little expedition to Witney.”
“We’ve lots of blankets at home, you know.”
“Oh, go and feed Bovril to the patient. I’m busy.”
Bredon appeared at luncheon with symptoms of suppressed excitement which Angela recognized and welcomed. He was vivacious, and, in the presence of Mr. Farris, he talked about everything rather than the Burtell mystery. “Anything fresh this morning?” he asked, when he got Leyland alone.
“A little. Only a little, and dashed puzzling at that. You remember Nigel told us that before all this happened he had been on the point of going off to the Continent. Well, that suggested to me that he’d probably already got a passport, and it didn’t seem to me very safe to leave a passport in the keeping of such a slippery young customer. So I asked him about it, and he said he’d left it in his digs—told me exactly where I could find it. Apparently there were some few of his personal possessions that he’d left behind, to be picked up later. Well, I went over and searched, and there wasn’t a confounded trace of the passport.”
“You think he was just lying?”
“We could find out, of course, from the passport office. But I don’t think he was lying, because though I didn’t find the passport itself, I found the odd copies of his passport photographs, one of them authenticated by his College chaplain. It’s a mystery to me why the law always wants clergymen to do these things, because of all professions I think the parsons are the most careless about the way they give testimonials. However, there they were; and indeed, here they are—have a look at them if you like. I don’t call it a very good portrait, and it’s rather blurred at that; but these passport people will take anything.”
“Yes, it’s a dashed bad likeness, somehow. You can see the family chin all right, though. By the way, here’s another point—who took that photograph? Because you were hunting all over the place for a portrait of Nigel, and couldn’t get one; I think you said you circularized the Oxford and London photographers pretty thoroughly.”
“Oh, apparently it’s an amateur one. Actually it was done by Derek, before they started out on the river tour. At least, so Nigel says.”
“But it can’t have been immediately before.”
“No, it would be about a week before, when they were arranging the trip together. Hullo, what’s wrong with you?”
“Only that I think I’ve picked up an extra link. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have. Look here, Leyland, are you coming over to Witney this afternoon?”
“Not unless I’m wanted specially.”
“No, I don’t think you’d be much use. Hullo, here’s Angela with the car. Look here, I may have rather important things to tell you this evening, so try to be on hand about teatime.”
“Rather. Bring all your friends. We’re becoming quite a party here, aren’t we?”
“No, I shan’t bring anybody. But if I’m right—and I feel quite certain I’m right this time—I shall have news for you which will set you telegraphing all over the place.”
“Another pub-crawl?” suggested Angela, as the car turned the corner into the main road.
“Exactly. But there can’t be many pubs in Witney—decent ones, I mean.”
“Whose name do we ask for this time?”
“No name, particularly. Just to find out if anybody came there for the night on Sunday, the Sunday before last.”
Their search was rewarded at the first and most obvious hotel. For a wonder, the hotel register had been kept, and it was not surprising to find that only one guest had arrived on the Sunday. Angela, looking over her husband’s shoulder, read the words “L. Wallace, 41 Digby Road, Coventry.”
“Luke Wallace!” she cried, “why, that’s dear old Farris! Miles, this is bright of you. But why’s he gone and changed his address? He was in Cricklewood last time. Miles, I’m hanged if I see how you expected to find this.”
“Oh, give a man time! Is it possible you don’t see that I wasn’t expecting it? I don’t want Luke Wallace here one little bit. He spoils the whole show. Farris! What on earth was he doing here? And why on earth did he want a fresh address? I think I’m going mad.”
“So shall I, unless you tell me what it is you’re after. Do you know, I quite enjoy seeing you puzzled, when you yourself are deliberately keeping me on the rack like this.”
“The rack, the rack! Luke Wallace on the letter-rack! That’s it, that does it all. Now, go and ask that young creature in the cage what she can remember about Mr. L. Wallace.”
But neither the lady in the cage nor the hotel porter could remember much about Mr. Wallace. He had attracted attention by arriving on a Sunday, by arriving late at night, and by leaving early the following morning. He had no heavy luggage with him, but talked of having left some at Oxford. He had inquired about the trains to Oxford, and had taken the earliest on Monday morning. Nothing more was known.
At the Gudgeon, they found Leyland writing up his diary at a table by the window, while Mr. Farris, in an uncomfortable rush-bottomed chair, was reading the local directory.
“Well,” said Bredon cheerfully, “it’s up to you now. Angela’s going upstairs to ask Nigel a few questions; when I know the answer to those, I shall be able to leave the whole business in your hands.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” asked Leyland.
“Why, get on to the Continental police, and ask them to obtain all the information they can about the movements of a traveller who crossed the Channel about ten days ago, giving the name of Mr. Luke Wallace.”
Leyland gave one anguished glance in the direction of Mr. Farris, imagining that Bredon had not noticed him. Farris himself sprang to his feet with a look of utter bewilderment. “The Channel? The Continent? But I assure you I haven’t left England since Christmas! Really, Mr. Bredon—”
“It’s all right; nothing to do with you. Except that, apparently, somebody’s been borrowing your alias. That can hardly be described as impersonation, though of course it’s open to you to regard it as a breach of copyright. But I shouldn’t use that alias any more, if I were you, because the gentleman who borrowed it will, before long, be much in the mouths of the police.”
“That’s all very well,” objected Leyland, “but surely the fellow will have had the sense to take a fresh alias when he got across to the other side. Why stick to the old name, when he can always invent a new one?”
“He might do that, of course. But he’s been at such pains to identify himself, for a particular object, as Mr. Luke Wallace, that I have a strong suspicion he will stick to the name. You see, he thinks that the identification will put us off the scent.”
“And the real name?”
“Is, of course, Derek Burtell.”