XXIV + 

Backed Both Ways + 

Angela came in before anybody had time to add further comment. “France, Belgium,” she said. “A good way up the river, near Ditcham Martin, just after breakfast. Yes, each took three of the other⁠—Derek’s suggestion.” + 

“That settles it,” said Bredon. “Leyland, I really think you might return Nigel his trousers. All the same, we won’t ask him downstairs just now, because I may be taking his name in vain a bit.” + 

“Derek Burtell!” said Leyland in a stupefied way. “How long have you been on his track?” + 

“Only since yesterday. I thought it all out this morning. But, of course, we ought to have recognized it was either he or somebody like him who was responsible for all this mystery-making.” + 

“Somebody like him? How, like him?” + 

“Somebody who took drugs. Don’t you see, this whole business has puzzled us from the first because there were signs of extraordinary cunning at work, and yet it didn’t figure out right. It didn’t give us a wrong impression, as it was obviously meant to; it simply gave us no impression at all. It was fantastic, like a dream. And that was because it was a dream, really⁠—an opium dream, only carried out in real life. + 

“Derek, as we know, was a quite unimaginative person. But Derek was taking the stuff in large quantities; and whatever else is certain about the effects of drug-taking, it’s certain that it turns people into champion liars. Derek, in an ordinary way, was too stupid to lie, or at least to lie cleverly. But the drug let him out. They say every man has one good story in him; and Derek has produced one story, not by writing it but by acting it. I don’t think it would ever have formed itself properly in his imagination if it hadn’t come to him in those moments of exaltation when the drug-taker sees clearly and imagines without effort. Like Kubla Khan, you know. Only this time there was no gentleman from Porlock to interfere, and the dream was realized. The outline was a framework of splendid deception; the details were untidily managed, because Derek hadn’t got the drug in him when he arranged them. + 

“Derek Burtell hated his cousin. We know that, and we know why. But his hatred took something like a moral form; he at any rate believed that his cousin was as good as a murderer, because he was responsible for that woman’s death. He didn’t want to kill Nigel: he wanted Nigel to be executed by the laws of his country. Since Nigel couldn’t be punished for the murder he had done, he should be punished for a murder he hadn’t done. He should be punished for murdering Derek, and Derek would disappear in circumstances which would make everybody think he was murdered.” + 

“One moment, Miles,” said Angela. “Did Derek mean to give up his fifty thousand altogether? Because if Nigel had been hanged, the legacy would never have been available.” + 

“My impression is that he was backing himself both ways. If Nigel were hanged, well and good; he would sooner have his vengeance than any amount of legacies. But if Nigel escaped suspicion, the other plan would hold; Nigel would come in for the legacy, Derek would get into communication with him, and they would split the proceeds. Derek took his cousin fully into his confidence up to a point. Beyond that point he kept him in the dark. And I suppose he never dreamed that Nigel would have the face to tell that story he told us yesterday morning, or that he would be believed if he did. It would be supposed that Nigel was just inventing the tale of the bargain, to save his own skin. I believe you did think that, Leyland.” + 

“I’m still waiting to be told why I’m not to think so.” + 

“Because of Mr. Luke Wallace’s visit to Witney. We shall come to that. What I want you to take on trust for the moment is that everything Nigel has told us about his movements on that Sunday and that Monday is strictly true. The things he didn’t tell us were things he didn’t know. + 

“Derek’s difficulty was this⁠—he didn’t want to commit suicide; not so much because he cared about his life, as because he didn’t want his cousin to get the legacy. He had, therefore, to create the impression that he was dead, with Nigel’s complicity; he had also, without Nigel’s complicity, to create the impression that he had been murdered. What steps he took to create the impression that he was dead, Nigel has already told us. They weren’t very clever ones; they were, I take it, the invention of Derek in his normal state. To disappear and leave a canoe floating about on a river, to lie low until your death is presumed, to start again in the Colonies under a fresh name⁠—all that is a sufficiently clumsy idea, and a hundred accidents might have upset the plan. But the steps he took to create the impression that he had been murdered were, at least in their outline, very ingenious; I give them full marks for ingenuity. They were Derek Burtell’s Kubla Khan. Tell me, Leyland, why have you and I assumed up till now that it was a murder?” + 

“Because it seemed certain that some human being had been with Derek after the moment when Burgess lost sight of him at the lock.” + 

“Exactly. And what is our evidence that Derek Burtell was not alone during all that time?” + 

“The photograph; or rather the two photographs. No, a man can take a snapshot of his own footprints. But he can’t take a photograph of his own body lying stretched full-length in a canoe. Don’t tell me he did it by some arrangement of strings, because I won’t believe it.” + 

“No, that’s what’s been at the back of our minds all the time, imposing on us the idea of murder, or at least foul play. But what if the figure in the canoe was not really Derek’s, but somebody else’s? The hat, remember, was drawn over the face.” + 

“But the chin was Derek’s.” + 

“It was a Burtell chin. But are you sure it was Derek’s, and not Nigel’s?” + 

“But, hang it all, that doesn’t make things any clearer. He couldn’t photograph Nigel if Nigel wasn’t there. And if Nigel was there, Derek wasn’t alone.” + 

“Yes, I ought to explain, I suppose, that the photograph of Nigel was taken by Derek much higher up the river, near a place called Ditcham Martin. There is a light bridge over the river there, very much like the one at Shipcote Lock; it’s a common type, you know, except for the cement steps. Derek persuaded his cousin to take some of the drug, just to try it; you remember Nigel told us that it ‘laid him out.’ It did lay him out, on the floor of the canoe. Derek got on shore, let the canoe drift, and hopped up on to the bridge with the camera. The next film to be exposed was Number Three; Derek didn’t expose that, nor Number Four, nor Number Five. He turned the spool on to Number Six, and with Number Six he took a snapshot of his cousin as he floated under the bridge. Then he turned the spool back again to Number Three; not difficult to do, though of course he must have had to get a darkened room to do it in.” + 

“And this happened, I suppose, in the evening? That’s why the shadows went from left to right instead of right to left.” + 

“No, that’s the funny thing. Derek was careful to take his photograph at the right time of day, soon after breakfast. But he’d forgotten that on that particular bend the river is flowing south, or nearly south; you can see it on the map here. So that was that. Long before the cousins reached Millington Bridge, the sixth film contained damning evidence of Derek’s murder⁠—at least, Derek thought so. + 

“Now we can take the story in its historical order. At the Blue Cow, a little above Millington Bridge, Derek suggested to Nigel that idea that they should sleep in separate places. Derek himself would put up at White Bracton, a mile or so from Millington Bridge, while Nigel came to the hotel at Millington Bridge twice over, and so created the impression that they both slept there. Thus, at White Bracton, the useful Mr. Anderton would come into existence; he was to be Derek’s future alias. Only, without telling his cousin, Derek altered the plan. He caught a late bus, and went all the way on to Witney. Nor, at Witney, did he give the name of H. Anderton. He gave the first name that came into his head⁠—his imagination, you see, had broken down; and that was the name ‘Luke Wallace,’ which he had seen on a packet of letters in the letter-rack at the Blue Cow. Observe that Derek had now got a new name and a new address, of which Nigel could suspect nothing. + 

“By bus, or perhaps by an early train, he reached Millington Bridge in good time on Monday morning. He pretended that he had slept at White Bracton, but not very well; he pretended, therefore, that he was sleepy, and appeared to doze off on the floor of the canoe. In fact, he was pretending to be already a corpse. You, Mr. Farris, could not have sworn in a court of law, could you, that both passengers in the canoe were alive?” + 

“Quite certainly not. To tell the truth, it gave me a slight shock when I saw Derek lying so motionless. But then I remembered that he was said to be addicted to drugs, and thought that explained it.” + 

“I see. Nor did Burgess at the lock see Derek move, or hear him speak. He did speak to Nigel from the canoe; but by that time the water had sunk low, and the lock walls prevented any sound reaching Burgess’ ears. In a court of law, Burgess would have had to depose that he had heard Nigel speaking to Derek, but not Derek speaking to Nigel. When inquiries came to be made, nobody would be able to swear to having seen Derek alive on the Monday. If those inquiries were very carefully made, it would also be seen that there was no real evidence of Derek’s having slept at Millington Bridge. The trick by which Nigel pretended to be two people would have been discovered, and it would have looked black against Nigel. It would have looked as if he had been ingeniously concealing his cousin’s death.” + 

“Do you know,” said Angela, “I believe I prefer Nigel to Derek.” + 

“Well, it was Derek doped; so perhaps we oughtn’t to be too hard on him. At the lock, Nigel acted precisely as he told us the other day; and, on Derek’s suggestion throughout, he acted precisely like a man who is interested in establishing an alibi. He went out of his way by Spinnaker Farm; he asked questions about the time, and so on. Meanwhile, Derek had given the canoe one shove to get it out of the lock, and lay doggo until he heard Burgess walk away. Now was his time to finish his preparations. + 

“Film Number Five on the spool had not been exposed. Something must be done with it, and it was an opportunity for doing something ingenious. Nigel was quite truthful when he told me that his cousin was fond of trick photography. He took, on Number Five, what appeared to be an accidental exposure, but was really a deliberate snapshot of his own footprints on the bridge⁠—footprints which he had deliberately made, in order to suggest that somebody had been standing on the bridge with bare feet to photograph the corpse. What precise inference he meant us to draw from the footprints I don’t know. He certainly didn’t expect that Burgess would come along and see the footprints themselves. But there was one thing he had to be careful about. Derek Burtell had hammertoes; Nigel hadn’t. And, oddly enough, it was in looking to see whether Nigel had that I found out about Derek. Their foot-statistics were close together at Wickstead’s, on opposite sides of the same page. That was when I really cottoned on to its being Derek who worked the whole plant. So Derek only left the marks of his heels and insteps. + 

“He paddled down a short way, and then left, on the bank, those traces which you and I, Leyland, investigated so credulously. He wormed himself along on his back through the bracken, careful to make dragging marks with his boots. He lay flat on the clay bank, taking good care that one button should leave its impress. He paddled round the end of the island into the weir-stream, driving his canoe hard into the bank so as to make a start. He made a single track, walking, between the weir-stream and the clay bank. He crossed the weir-stream, and left the film lying about for somebody to find. I forgot to say that he had already dropped his notecase in the lock-stream, so as to look as if it had fallen out when his corpse was lugged ashore. In fact, I think he meant to create the exact impression which the various clues did create, Leyland, on you and me.” + 

“Yes. I’m going to meet Mr. Derek Burtell, if I have to search every dosshouse on the Continent of Europe.” + 

“Then he paddled across the main stream to the Byworth bank. Before he turned the canoe adrift he managed, probably with one of those composite penknives, to dig a tiny hole in the bottom of the canoe. That, of course, was perfectly inconsistent with his main plan; in the given circumstances, the supposed murderer would have been a fool to do anything of the kind. What he calculated on, I suppose, was that the hole in the canoe would immediately produce in everybody’s mind the impression of foul play⁠—as indeed it would have, if Nigel hadn’t doctored the hole when he found it. Derek himself went off in the Byworth direction, leaving the impression that he had been murdered by Nigel at Millington Bridge or above it, ferried down next morning to Shipcote, photographed from the bridge and lugged ashore at the island, retrieved somehow and smuggled away later in the day. It was a fantastic impression; but then, as I say, this wasn’t a deep plot laid by a cunning schemer; it was an opium-dream. + 

“I dare say he had actually left some luggage at Oxford, but that won’t help us, for we don’t know under what name it was left. In any case he must have taken train at Oxford, I suspect for Southampton. That meant crawling across country by Didcot and Newbury, instead of risking the possibility of a recognition in London. And there, I suppose, he would take ship to Havre.” + 

“And his passport?” asked Leyland. “You mean that he⁠—” + 

“Yes, he’d provided himself with a passport, rather ingeniously. When he went up to make plans with Nigel, Nigel was just getting a passport, and he wanted an amateur photograph of himself. He asked Derek to do it, and Derek, foreseeing his own need of a passport, took three photographs of Nigel, and got Nigel to take three of himself, in exactly the same pose, on the same plates. (Nigel, of course, didn’t realize this.) It was only one chance in a thousand, but one of the films did come out, as you can see, a perfect composite photograph. The photograph was sufficiently like Nigel to deceive the College chaplain. It was sufficiently like Derek to deceive the passport authorities at Havre. It was with that passport, then, that he got away. Of course, this was long before any hue and cry had been made over either cousin. What he’s done since I don’t know, but as the passport is visa’d for France and Belgium, I suppose he’s in one or the other. Perhaps, if you circulate the news about Mrs. Coolman’s will, Derek will reappear of his own accord. If not, I suggest a complete inquiry into the whereabouts of Mr. Wallace. I don’t suppose he will have been using another alias all the time, because he obviously meant to trade on the previous history of Mr. L. Wallace. If anybody suspects that L. Wallace is Derek Burtell, they will be silenced, he thinks, when they learn that L. Wallace stayed at Witney on the Sunday night when Derek Burtell was safely tucked up at Millington Bridge. Remember, though, he’s been brought up in France; so he may by now be posing as a native.” + 

“We’ll find him all right,” said Leyland grimly. “If I can get leave, I’ll go after him myself.” + 

“Go steady with your revolver, then. The Company won’t like it a bit if he’s a corpse by the third of September.” + 