I
They had walked for perhaps two hundred yards before the elder man broke the silence.
“I hope Lucia will be all right,” he said. “Probably it was the heat. It’s a scorcher today.”
Anthony nodded. He was in no mood for talk.
“Dora was telling me,” continued Sir Arthur, “that Lucia had been feeling queer since last night. They hardly saw her after dinner. She vanished to her room and locked herself in. But apparently she’d been all right this morning until lunchtime.”
Anthony began to take notice. Here was more confirmation—though it was hardly needed.
They were drawing near the bridge now. Another silence fell. Again it was Sir Arthur who broke it.
“You’re very silent, my boy,” he said. “Perhaps you’ve got something to think about, though. Something definite, I mean.” His tone changed. “God! What I would give to get my hands on the—the animal that killed John! I shan’t sleep till he’s caught. It’s torture he needs! Torture!” The kindly face was distorted.
Anthony looked at him curiously. “The great difficulty so far,” he said, “is failure to find any indication of motive. I mean, you can’t do anything in a complicated case unless you can do some work from that end. A motiveless murder’s like a child without a father—damn hard to bring home to anyone. Suppose I suddenly felt that life wouldn’t be worth living any longer unless I stabbed a fat man in the stomach; and I accordingly went to Wanstead and assuaged that craving on the darkest part of the Flats, and after that took the first train home and went to bed. They’d never find me out. The fat man and I would have no connection in the minds of the police. No, motive’s the key, and so far it’s hidden. Whether the lock can be picked remains to discover.”
Sir Arthur smiled. “You’re a curious feller, Gethryn. You amuse while you expound.” He grew grave again. “I quite see what you mean: it’s difficult, very difficult. And I can’t imagine anyone having a grudge against John.”
Anthony went on: “Another thing; the messiness of the business indicates madness on the part of the murderer. With homicidal mania there might be no motive other than to kill. Myself, I don’t think the murderer was as mad as all that. Look at the care he took, for all his untidiness. No, the murderer was no more mad than the rest of the affair. It’s all mad if you look at it—in a way. Mad as a Hatter on the first of April. And so am I, by God!” His voice trailed off into silence.
They had crossed the bridge now. Sir Arthur, instead of turning directly to his right to return to Abbotshall by the riverside path, chose the way which led to the village. Anthony drifted along beside him in unheeding silence. He was thinking.
Yes, “mad” had been the right word to use. There didn’t seem to be any common sense about the thing. Even She was mad! Why swim to Abbotshall? The saving in time, he calculated, could have only been a matter of ten minutes or so. And she couldn’t—well, she must have been in hell’s own hurry. But the sandals indicated a bathing-dress, and surely the time taken to change into that might have been spent in covering the distance on dry land. And what had she been there for, outside that window of the study? She—surely She had nothing to do with that messy crime—must be interrogated. Oh, yes! His heart beat faster at the thought of seeing her again.
He rebuked himself for thus early and immorally losing interest in his task, and returned to consciousness of his surroundings. He found himself in Marling High Street.
Sir Arthur disappeared, suddenly, into a low-browed little shop, whose owner seemed, from his wares, to be an incongruous combination of grocer, tobacconist, draper and newsagent. Anthony stood looking about him. The narrow street, which should have been drowsing away that blazing August afternoon, carried an air of tension. Clumps of people stood about on its cobbles. Women leaned from the windows of its quaint houses. The shop outside which he waited, and two others across the road, flaunted shrieking news placards.
“ ’Orrible Murder of a Cabinet Minister!” Anthony quoted with a wry face. “Poor devil, poor devil. He’s made more stir by dying than he ever did in his life.”
Sir Arthur emerged, a packet of tobacco in one hand, a sheaf of newspapers in the other. With fleeting amusement Anthony noticed the red and black cover of an Owl “special.” They walked on.
The elder man glanced down at the papers in his hand. “It’s a queer thing, Gethryn,” he said, “but I somehow can’t keep away from the sordid side of this awful, terrible tragedy. Up at the house I keep feeling that I must get into that study—that room of all places! And I came this way really to buy newspapers, though I cheated myself into thinking it was tobacco I wanted. And I can’t help nosing about while the detectives are working. I expect I shall bother you.” His voice was lowered. “Gethryn, do you think you’ll succeed? He was my best friend—I—my nerves are on edge, I’m afraid. I—”
“Great strain.” Anthony was laconic. Conversation did not appeal to him.
He tried to map out a course of action, and decided on one thing only. He must see and talk with the Lady of the Sandal again. For the rest, he did not know. He must wait.
They walked on to the house in silence. At the front door was a car. Boyd was climbing into it. He paused at the sight of Anthony. Sir Arthur passed into the house.
Boyd was excited, respectably excited. “Where’ve you been, sir? You’ve missed all the fun.”
“Really?” Anthony was sceptical.
“Yes. I don’t mind telling you, sir, that the case is over, so to speak.”
“Is it now?”
“It is. You were quite right, sir. It was someone belonging to the house. I can’t tell you more now. I’m off back to town. I’ll see you later, sir.”
Anthony raised his eyebrows. Things were going too fast. Had Boyd found out anything about Her?
“Shalt not leave me, Boyd.” He raised a protesting hand. “ ‘The time has come, the Walrus said—’ You’re too mysterious. Be lucid, Boyd, be doosid lucid.”
The detective glanced at his watch with anxiety. He seemed torn between the call of duty and desire to be frank with the man who had helped him.
“I’ll have to be very short, then, sir,” he said, pushing the watch back into his pocket. “Ought to have started ten minutes ago. This is very unofficial on my part. I’m afraid I must ask you—”
“Don’t be superfluous, Boyd.”
“Very well, sir. After I left you in the garden this morning, I asked them all—the household—some more questions, and elicited the fact that one of what you called the ‘cast-iron’ alibis was a dud, so to speak. It was like this, sir: one of the maids had told me she’d seen Mr. Deacon—that’s the deceased’s secretary—go to his room just after ten. That coincided with what he told me himself, and also with what Sir Arthur Digby-Coates said. Now, this girl spent the time from ten until about a minute before the murder was discovered working—arranging things and whatnot, I take it—in the linen-room. Apparently it took her so long because she’d been behindhand, so to speak, and was doing two evenings’ jobs in one. This linen-room’s just opposite Mr. Deacon’s room, and the girl said last night that she knew he hadn’t come out because, having the door of this linen-room open all the time, she couldn’t have helped but see him if he had.
“But she told a different tale this morning, sir, when I talked to her after you’d left me. I wasn’t thinking about Deacon at all, to tell you the truth, when out she comes with something about having made a mistake. ‘What’s that?’ I said, and told her not to be nervous. Then she tells me that she hadn’t been in the linen-room all that time after all. She’d left it for about ten minutes to go downstairs. She was very upset—seemed to think we’d think she was a criminal for having made a slip in her memory.” Boyd laughed.
Anthony did not. “What time was this excursion from the linen-closet?” he asked.
“As near as the girl can remember, it was ten minutes or so after she saw Deacon go into his room, sir.”
“And I suppose, according to you, that this Deacon left his room while the girl was away, slipped out of the house, waited, climbed into the study window, killed his employer, climbed out again, hid somewhere till the fuss was over, got back unseen to his room, and then pretended he hadn’t ever left it.”
Boyd looked reproach. “You’re being sarcastic, sir, I know; but as a matter of fact that’s very nearly exactly what he did do.”
“Is it? You know, Boyd, it doesn’t sound at all right to me.”
“You won’t think that way, sir, when I tell you that we know Deacon’s our man.” Boyd lowered his voice. “Colonel Gethryn, those fingerprints on the weapon—the wood-rasp—are Deacon’s!”
“Are they now?” said Anthony irritably. “How d’you know? What did you compare ’em with?”
Boyd looked at him almost with pity. “Got everyone’s marks this morning, sir.” He smiled happily. “Handed each one of ’em—when I was alone with ’em, of course—a bit of white paper. Very mysterious I was about it too, asking ’em if they recognised it. They didn’t: very natural when you come to think each sheet was out of my notebook.” He looked again at his watch.
“One moment,” said Anthony. “Found anything like a motive?”
The watch went back into its pocket. “We have, sir. Yes, you may well look surprised—but we have. And the motive’s a nice little piece of evidence in itself. A chance remark Sir Arthur made when I was talking to him before luncheon-time put me on to it. Yesterday morning he happened to walk with the deceased into the village. The deceased went into the bank, and, luckily, Sir Arthur went in with him. Mr. Hoode drew out a hundred of the best, so to speak—all in ten-pound notes. We didn’t know of this before, because Sir Arthur had mentioned it to the Chief Constable—Sir Richard Morley—last night, and Sir Richard had somehow not thought it important enough information to pass on.” Boyd’s tone conveyed his opinion of the Chief Constable of the county. “Well, sir, I had a search made. That hundred was missing. But we found it!”
Anthony ground his heel savagely into the gravel.
“I suppose it was secreted behind the sliding panel in Deacon’s room, all according to Cocker?”
“Don’t know anything about any sliding panel, sir; nor any Mr. Cocker. But Deacon’s room is just where we did find it. I verified the numbers of the notes from the bank.”
“What’s Deacon say about it?”
The detective barked scornfully. “Said Mr. Hoode gave it to him for a birthday present. Lord, a birthday present! So probable, isn’t it, sir?”
“Why the withering irony, Boyd? It’s so improbable that it’s probably true.”
Boyd snorted. “Now, sir, just think about it! Turn it over in your mind, so to speak. Deacon’s alibi turns out all wrong. His movements last night fit the time of the murder. A hundred pounds drawn from the bank by the deceased are found stuffed into a collar-box in Deacon’s room—a good hiding-place, but not one to put a ‘birthday-present’ in. And, sir, Deacon’s fingerprints are found on the weapon which the murder was done with! Why! it’s a case in a million, so to speak. Wish they were all as easy.”
“All right, Boyd; all right. I’ll admit you’ve some justification. Yes—I suppose—queer about those fingerprints! Very queer!”
Boyd smiled. “In fact, they settle the business by themselves, as you might say.” His kindly face grew grave. “It’s quite clear, sir, I think. That murder—one of the worst in my experience—was done for the sake of a paltry hundred pounds!”
Anthony was not moved. “And your culprit, I presume,” he said, “languishes in Marling’s jail.”
“If you mean have we arrested Deacon, sir, we have not. He doesn’t know anything about us having found the prints of his fingers. And I’m afraid I must ask you, sir, officially, to say nothing to him about what I’ve told you. You see, this is one of those cases where contrary to the general rule we should like the coroner’s jury to pass a verdict against our man and then arrest him. I’m having him watched until the inquest tomorrow, and we’ll nab him after.” Out came the watch again; a look of horror crossed its owner’s face. “I must really get off now, sir. I’m terrible late as it is. Got to report up at the Yard. Good day, sir, I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re still here. And thank you for your help. It was you and what you said in your study about it being an ‘insider,’ so to speak, that put me on the right track, though I did take your other view at first. Now I see—as I’ve done in the past, sir—that you generally know.”
Anthony concealed a smile at this attempt to gild the pill. “So I put you on the right track, did I?” he said softly. “Or the wrong, my friend; or the wrong! I don’t like it. I don’t like it a little bit. It’s too rule-of-thumb. The Profligate Secretary, the Missing Banknotes, the Fingerprinted Blunt Instrument! It’s not even a good shilling shocker. It’s too damnation ordinary, that’s what it is!”
If Boyd heard him he gave no sign, but hurried back to the waiting car.
Anthony watched it out of sight. He communed with himself. No, he didn’t like it. And where did She come in? And why, in the name of a name, had she said: “Who shot him?” when the poor devil had had his head battered in?
“That rather lets her out as regards the actual bashing,” he said, half-aloud. “That’s a comfort, anyhow. But it’s perplexing, very perplexing. ‘Do I sleep, do I dream, or is Visions about?’ I think, yes, I think a little talk with the murderous secretary would do me good—always remembering the official injunction not to tell him he’s going to be hanged soon.”