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Title: The Three Taps: A detective story without a moral
Author: Knox, Ronald Arbuthnott (1888-1957)
Date of first publication: 1927
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1961
   (Reprint of 1960 Penguin edition)
Date first posted: 24 May 2008
Date last updated: 24 May 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #121

This ebook was produced by: Dr Mark Bear Akrigg




    RONALD A. KNOX


    THE THREE TAPS

    _A detective story without a moral_





    DEDICATED TO

    _Susan and Francis Baker_

    ONLY HE MUSTN'T SIT
    UP TOO LATE
    OVER IT




    CONTENTS

    1. _The Euthanasia Policy_
    2. _The Detective Malgr Lui_
    3. _At the 'Load of Mischief'_
    4. _The Bedroom_
    5. _Supper, and Mr Brinkman_
    6. _An Ear at the Keyhole_
    7. _From Leyland's Note-book_
    8. _The Bishop at Home_
    9. _The Late Rector of Hipley_
    10. _The Bet Doubled_
    11. _The Generalship of Angela_
    12. _The Makings of a Trap_
    13. _A Morning with the Haberdasher_
    14. _Bredon is Taken for a Walk_
    15. _A Scrap of Paper_
    16. _A Visitor from Pullford_
    17. _Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman_
    18. _The Barmaid is Brought to Book_
    19. _How Leyland Spent the Evening_
    20. _How Bredon Spent the Evening_
    21. _How Eames Spent the Evening_
    22. _At a Standstill_
    23. _Leyland's Account of it all_
    24. _Mottram's Account of it all_
    25. _Bredon's Account of it all_




CHAPTER I

_The Euthanasia Policy_


The principles of insurance, they tell us, were not hidden
from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. How anybody had the
enterprise, in those rough-and-tumble days, to guarantee a
client against 'fire, water, robbery, or other calamity',
remains a problem for the historian; the more so as it
appears that mathematical calculations were first applied to
the business by the eminent John de Witt. In our own time,
at any rate, the insurance companies have woven a golden net
under the tight-rope walk of existence; if life is a
lottery, the prudent citizen faces it with the consciousness
that he is backed both ways. Had the idea been thoroughly
grasped in that remoter period, no doubt but Alfred's
hostess would have been easily consoled for the damage done
to her cakes, and King John handsomely compensated for all
that he lost in the Wash. Let us thank the soaring genius of
the human mind, which has thus found a means to canalize for
us the waters of affliction; and let us always be scrupulous
in paying up our premiums before the date indicated on the
printed card, lest calamity should come upon us and find us
unprepared.

In a sense, though, insurance was but an empirical science
until the Indescribable Company made its appearance. The man
who is insured with the Indescribable walks the world in
armour of proof; those contrary accidents and mortifications
which are a source of spiritual profit to the saint are a
source of material advantage to him. No east wind but
flatters him with the prospect of a lucrative cold; no
dropped banana-skin but may suddenly hurl him into
affluence. The chicken-farmer whose hen-houses are fitted
with the Company's patent automatic egg-register can never
make a failure of his business. The egg is no sooner laid
than it falls gently through a slot, which marks its passage
on a kind of taximeter; and if the total of eggs at the end
of the month is below the average, the Company pays--I had
almost said, the Company lays--an exact monetary equivalent
for the shortage. The Company, which thus takes upon itself
the office of a hen, is equally ready, when occasion arises,
to masquerade as a bee; if your hives are opened in the
presence of its representative, you can distend every empty
cell with sweet nectar at the Company's expense. Doctors can
guarantee themselves against an excess of panel patients,
barristers against an absence of briefs. You can insure
every step you take on this side of the grave, but no one of
them on such handsome terms as the step which takes you into
the grave; and it is confidently believed that, if certain
practical difficulties could be got over, the Indescribable
would somehow contrive to frank your passage into the world
beyond. Wags have made merry at the Company's expense,
alleging that a burglar can insure himself against a haul of
sham jewels, and a clergyman against insufficient attendance
at evensong. They tell stories of a client who murmured
'Thank God!' as he fell down a liftshaft, and a shipwrecked
passenger who manifested the liveliest annoyance at the
promptness of his rescuers when he was being paid for
floating in a life-belt at the rate of ten pounds a minute.
So thoroughly has the Indescribable reversed our scale of
values here below.

But of all the Company's enterprises none can rival, in
importance or in popularity, the so-called Euthanasia
policy. One of the giant brains that organize the
undertaking observed with compassion the doubtful lot of
human kind, which makes the business man sweat and labour
and agonize, uncertain whether he himself will reap the
fruits of his industry, or whether they will pass to an heir
in whom, on the whole, he is less interested. It follows, of
course, from the actuarial point of view that he needs a
policy which covers both possibilities, immature death or
unexpected longevity, but the former on a more princely
scale than the latter. If you take out a Euthanasia policy,
you will pay very heavy premiums; that goes without saying.
But you pay them with a sense of absolute security. If you
should die before the age of sixty-five, a fortune is
immediately distributed to your heirs and assigns. If you
outlive that crucial age, you become thenceforward, until
the decree of nature takes its tardy effect, the pensioner
of the Company; every faltering breath you draw, in the last
stages of senility, is money to you; your heirs and assigns,
instead of looking forward heartlessly to the moment of your
release, conspire to keep your body and soul together with
every known artifice of modern medicine--it is in their
interest to do so. There is but one way in which you can
forfeit the manifest advantages of the scheme, and that is
self-murder. So complex is our human fashioning that men may
even be tempted to enrich their surviving relatives by such
means; and you will find, accordingly, at the bottom of your
Euthanasia policy, an ominous black hand directing attention
to the fact that in the event of suicide, no benefits are
legally recoverable.

It goes without saying that the Indescribable Buildings are
among the finest in London. It appears to be an axiom with
those who conduct business in the modern or American manner,
that efficiency is impossible unless all your transactions
are conducted in an edifice not much smaller and not much
less elaborate than the Taj Mahal. Why this should be so, it
is difficult to explain. In a less credulous age, we might
have been tempted to wonder where all the money came from;
whether (to put it brutally) our premiums might not have
worked out a little lower if the company's premises had not
been quite so high. After all, our solicitor lives in
horrid, dingy little chambers, with worn-out carpets and
immemorial cobwebs on the wall--does he never feel that this
squalor will fail to inspire confidence? Apparently not; yet
the modem insurance company must impress us all, through the
palatial splendour of its offices, with the idea that there
is a vast reserve of capital behind it. The wildest
voluptuousness of an eastern tyrant is less magnificent in
its architectural schemes than the hard-headed efficiency of
the American business man. Chatting in the waiting-room of
some such edifice, Sardanapalus might have protested that it
beat him how they did it, and Kubla Khan might have
registered the complaint that it was all very well, but the
place didn't feel homey.

Indescribable House is an enormously high building, with
long, narrow windows that make it look like an Egyptian
tomb. It is of white stone, of course, so time-defying in
its appearance that it seems almost blasphemous to remember
the days when it was simply a gigantic shell composed of
iron girders. Over the front door there is a group of
figures in relief, more than life-size; the subject is
intended, I believe, to be Munificence wiping away the tears
of Widowhood, though the profane have identified it before
now as Uncle Sam picking Britannia's pocket. This is
continued all round the four sides by a frieze, ingeniously
calculated to remind the spectator of the numerous risks
which mortality has to run; here is a motor-accident, with
an ambulance carrying off the injured parties; here an
unmistakable shipwreck; there a big-game hunter is being
gored by a determined-looking buffalo, while a lion prowls
thoughtfully in the background. Of the interior I cannot
speak so positively, for even those who are favoured enough
to be the Company's clients never seem to go up beyond the
fourth floor. But rumour insists that there is a
billiard-room for the convenience of the directors, who
never go there; and that from an aeroplane, in hot weather,
you can see the clerks playing tennis on the roof. What they
do when they are not playing tennis, or what possible use
there can be in all those multitudinous rooms on the fifth,
sixth, and seventh floors, is a thought that paralyses the
imagination.

In one of the waiting-rooms on the ground floor, sitting
under a large palm-tree and reading a closely-reasoned
article in the _Actuaries' and Bottomry Gazette_, sat a
client to whom the reader will do well to direct attention,
for our story is concerned with him. His look, his dress,
his manner betrayed the rich man only to those who have
frequented the smaller provincial towns and know how little,
in those centres, money has to do with education. He had a
short black coat with very broad and long lapels, a starched
collar that hesitated between the Shakespeare and the
all-the-way-and-back-again patterns, a double-breasted
waistcoat from which hung a variety of seals, lockets, and
charms--in London, in fact, you would have put him down for
an old-fashioned bank cashier with a moderate income.
Actually, he could have bought you out of your present job
at double the salary, and hardly felt it. In Pullford, a
large Midland town, which you will probably never visit, men
nudged one another and pointed to him as one of the
wealthiest residents. In the anteroom of the Indescribable
Office he looked, and perhaps felt, like a school-boy
waiting his turn for pocket-money. Yet even here he was a
figure recognizable to the attendant who stood there
smoothing out back numbers of the _Actuaries' and Bottomry
Gazette_. For this man, called Mottram by accident of birth
and Jephthah through the bad taste of his parents, was the
holder of a Euthanasia policy.

Another attendant approached him, summoning him to his
appointed interview. There was none of that 'Mr Mottram,
please!' which reverberates so grimly through the dentist's
waiting room. At the Indescribable, the attendants come up
close to you and beckon you away with confidential whispers;
it is part of the tradition. Mr Mottram rose, and was gently
sucked up by the lift on to the second floor, where fresh
attendants ushered him on into one of the few rooms that
really mattered. Here he was met by a pleasant, rather
languid young man, delicately dressed, University-bred,
whose position in the complicated hierarchy of the
Indescribable it is no business of ours to determine.

'How do you do, Mr Mottram? Keeping well, I hope?'

Mr Mottram had the blunt manner of his fellow-townsmen, and
did not appreciate the finesse of Metropolitan
conversational openings. 'Ah, that's right,' he said; 'best
for you I should keep well, eh? You and I won't quarrel
there. Well, it may surprise you, but it's my health I've
come to talk about. I don't look ill, do I?

'You look fit for anything. I'd sooner be your insurance
agent than your family doctor, Mr Mottram.' The young man
was beginning to pick up the Pullford idea of light small
talk.

'Fit for anything, that's right. And, mind you, I feel fit
for anything. Never felt better. Two years!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Two years, that's what he says. What's the good of being
able to know about these things if they can't do anything
_for_ 'em, that's what I want to know? And mind you, he
says there isn't anything for it, not in the long run. He
tells me to take this and that, you know, and give up this
and that--'

'I'm sorry, Mr Mottram, but I don't quite understand. Is
this your doctor you're talking about?'

'No doctor of mine. My doctor down in Pullford, he couldn't
tell what was the matter. Sent me on to this big man in
London I've been seeing this morning. Two years, he says.
Seems hard, doesn't it?'

'Oh... You've been to a specialist. I say, I'm most awfully
sorry.' The young man was quite serious in his condolences,
though he was even more embarrassed than actually grieved.
It seemed horrible to him that this red-faced man who looked
so well and obviously enjoyed his meals should be going
where Numa and Ancus went before him; he did not fit into
the picture. No taint of professionalism entered into this
immediate reaction. But Mr Mottram still took the business
line.

'Ah! sorry--you may say that. It may mean half a million to
you, mayn't it?'

'Yes, but look here, these specialists are often wrong.
Famous case of one who went potty and told all his patients
they were for it. Look here, what about seeing our man? He'd
vet you, gladly.'

It need hardly be said that the Indescribable keeps its own
private physician, whose verdict must be obtained before any
important insurance is effected. He is considered to be one
of the three best doctors in England, and fantastic stories
are told about the retaining fee which induced him to give
up his practice in Harley Street. Once more, the young man
was entirely disinterested; once more, Mr Mottram saw ground
for suspicion. It looked to him as if the Company were
determined to get stable information about the exact state
of his health, and he did not like the idea.

'It's of no consequence, thank you all the same. It isn't as
if my case was a doubtful one; I can give you the doctor's
certificate if needed. But I didn't come here to talk about
that; I came on business. You know how I stand?'

The young man had just been looking up Mr Mottram's docket,
and knew all about him well enough. But the Indescribable
cultivates the family touch; it likes to treat its clients
as man to man, not as so many 'lives'. 'Let's see'--the
young man appeared to be dragging the depths of memory--'you
should be sixty-three now, eh? And in two years' time--why,
it looks as if it were just touch and go whether your policy
covered a case of, h'm, premature decease or not, doesn't
it?'

'That's right. My birthday's in a fortnight's time, more or
less. If that doctor was dead accurate, it'll stand you in
five hundred thousand. If he put the date a bit too soon,
then I get nothing, and you pay nothing; that's how it is,
isn't it?'

'Looks like it, I'm afraid. Of course, you'll understand, Mr
Mottram, the Company has to work by rule of thumb in these
cases.'

'I see that. But, look at it this way. When I took out that
policy, I wasn't thinking much of the insurance part; I've
no kith nor kin except one nephew, and he's seen fit to
quarrel with me, so nothing goes to him, anyhow. If that
half-million falls in, it will just go to charity. But what
I'd set my heart on was the annuity; we're a long-lived
family, mostly, and I'd looked forward to spending my last
days in comfort, d'you see? Well, there's no chance of that,
after what the doctor's been telling me. So I don't value
that Youth in Asia policy as much as I did, see? And I've
come here to make you a fair offer.'

'The Company--' began the young man.

'Let me have my say, and you shall have yours afterwards.
They call me rich, and I suppose I am rich: but my stuff is
tied up more than you'd think; with money as tight as it is,
you can't just sell out of a thing when you feel inclined.
What I want is ready money--doctor's bills, you know, and
foreign travel, and treatment, and that. So this is my
offer--you pay back half the premiums from the time I
started insuring with you, half the premiums, mind you; and
if I die before I reach sixty-five, then we call it off; you
pay no insurance: if I live beyond sixty-five, we call it
off, and you pay no annuity. Come now, there's a business
offer. What do you people say to it?'

'I'm sorry; I'm frightfully sorry. But, you know, we've had
this kind of offer before, and the Company has always taken
the line that it can't go back on the original contract. If
we lose, we lose; if the client loses, he must shoulder the
responsibility. If we once went in for cancelling our
insurances like that, our whole credit would suffer. I know
you mean well by us, Mr Mottram, and we're grateful to you
for the generosity of the offer; but it can't be done;
really it can't.'

There was a heavy silence for nearly a minute. Then Mr
Mottram, pathetic in his disappointment, tried his last
card.

'You could put it to the directors, couldn't you? Stands to
reason you couldn't accept an offer of that kind without
referring it to them. But you could put it to them at their
next meeting, eh?'

'I could put it to the directors; indeed, I will. But I'm
sorry to say I can't hold out any hopes. The premium of the
Euthanasia policy is so stiff that we're always having
people wanting to back out of it half-way, but the directors
have never consented. If you take my advice, Mr Mottram,
you'll take a second opinion about your health, go carefully
this next year or two, and live to enjoy that annuity--for
many years, I hope.' The young man, after all, was a paid
official; he did not stand to lose.

Mr Mottram rose; he declined all offers of refreshment. A
little wearily, yet holding his head high, he let the
confidential attendants usher him out. The young man made
some notes, and the grim business of the Indescribable
Company went on. In distant places, ships were foundering,
factories were being struck by lightning, crops were being
spoiled by blight, savages were raiding the peaceful
country-side, men were lying on air-cushions, fighting for
breath in the last struggle of all. And to the Indescribable
Company all these things meant business; most of them meant
loss. But the loss never threatened their solvency for a
moment; the law of averages saw to that.




CHAPTER 2

_The Detective Malgr Lui_


I have already mentioned that the Indescribable kept its own
tame doctor, a man at the very head of his profession. He
was not in the least necessary to it; that is to say, a far
cheaper man would have done the work equally well. But it
suited the style of the Indescribable to have the very best
man, and to advertise the fact that he had given up his
practice in order to work exclusively for the Company; it
was all of a piece with the huge white building, and the
frieze, and the palms in the waiting-room. It looked well.
For a quite different reason the Indescribable retained its
own private detective. This fact was not advertised; nor was
he ever referred to in the official communications of the
Company except as 'our representative'. He carried neither a
lens nor a forceps--not even a revolver; he took no
injections; he had no stupid confidential friend, but a
private detective he was for all that. An amateur detective
I will not call him, for the Company paid him, as you would
expect, quite handsomely; but he had nothing whatever to do
with Scotland Yard, where the umbrellas go to.

He was not an ornament to the company; he fulfilled a quite
practical purpose. There are, even outside the humorous
stories, business men in a small way who find it more
lucrative to burn down their premises than to sell their
stock. There are ladies--ladies whose name the Indescribable
would never dream of giving away--who pawn their jewels, buy
sham ones, and then try to make the original insurance
policy cover them in the event of theft. There are small
companies (believe it or not) who declare an annual loss by
selling their stuff below cost price to themselves under
another name. Such people flocked to the Indescribable. It
was so vast a concern that you felt no human pity about
robbing it--it was like cheating the income-tax, and we all
know what some people feel about that. The Indescribable
never prosecuted for fraud; instead, it allowed a
substantial margin for these depredations, which it allowed
to continue. But where shady work was suspected, 'our
representative' would drop in, in the most natural way in
the world; and, by dint of some searching inquiries, made
while the delinquent's back was turned, would occasionally
succeed in showing up a fraud, and saving the company a few
hundreds of thousands by doing so.

The Company's representative, and our hero, was Miles
Bredon, a big, good-humoured, slightly lethargic creature
still in the early thirties. His father had been a lawyer of
moderate eminence and success. When Miles went to school, it
was quite clear that he would have to make his own way in
the world, and very obscure how he was going to do it. He
was not lazy, exactly, but he was the victim of hobbies
which perpetually diverted his attention. He was a really
good mathematician, for example; but as he never left a sum
unfinished and 'went on to the next', his marks never did
him justice. He was a good cross-country runner; but in the
middle of a run he would usually catch sight of some
distraction which made him wander three miles out of his
course and come in last. It was his nature to be in love
with the next thing he had to do, to shrink in loathing from
the mere thought of the next but one. The war came in time
to solve the problem of his career; more fortunate than
some, he managed to hit on a. _mtier_ in the course of it.
He became intelligence officer; did well, then did
brilliantly; was mentioned in despatches, though not
decorated. What was more to the point, his Colonel happened
to be a friend of some minor director of the Indescribable,
and, hearing that a discreet man was needed to undertake the
duties outlined above, recommended Bredon. The offer fell at
his feet just when he was demobilized; he hated the idea of
it, but was sensible enough to realize, even then, that
ex-officers cannot be choosers. He was accepted on his own
terms, namely that he should not have to sit in an office
kicking his heels; he would always be at home, and the
Company might call him in when he was wanted.

In a few years he had made himself indispensable to his
employers--that is to say, they thought they could not get
on without him, though in fact his application to his duties
was uncertain and desultory. Four out of five inquiries
meant nothing to him; he made nothing of them, and
Whitechapel thanked the God of its fathers for his
incompetence. The fifth case would appeal to his capricious
imagination; he would be prodigal of time and of pains, and
bring off some _coup_ which was hymned for weeks, behind
closed doors, in the Indescribable Buildings. There was that
young fellow at Croydon, for example, who had his
motor-bicycle insured, but not his mother-in-law. Her body
was found at the foot of an embankment beside a lonely road
in Kent, and there was no doubt that it had been shot out of
the side-car; only (as Bredon managed to prove) the lady's
death had occurred on the previous day, from natural causes.
There was the well-known bootlegger--well known, at least,
to the U.S. police--who insured all his cargoes with the
Indescribable, and then laid secret information against
himself, whereby vigilant officials sank hundreds of dummy
cases in the sea, all the bottles containing sea-water. And
there was the lady of fashion who burgled her own jewels in
the most plausible manner you could imagine, and had them
sold in Paris. These crooked ways, too, the fitful
intuitions of Miles Bredon made plain in the proper
quarters.

He was well thought of, in fact, by everyone except himself.
For himself, he bitterly regretted the necessity that had
made him become a spy--he would use no other word for it,
and constantly alarmed his friends by announcing his
intention of going into the publishing trade, or doing
something relatively honest. The influence which saved him
on these occasions was that of--how shall I say it?--his
wife. I know--I know it is quite wrong to have your
detective married until the last chapter. But it is not my
fault. It is the fault of two mocking eyes and two very
capable hands that were employed in driving brass-hats to
and fro in London at the end of the war. Bredon surrendered
to these, and made a hasty but singularly fortunate
marriage. Angela Bredon was under no illusions about the
splendid figure in khaki that stood beside her at the altar.
Wiser than her generation, she realized that marriages were
not 'for the duration'; that she would have to spend the
rest of her life with a large, untidy, absent-minded man who
would frequently forget that she was in the room. She saw
that he needed above all things a nurse and a chauffeur, and
she knew that she could supply both these deficiencies
admirably. She took him as a husband, with all a husband's
failings, and the Indescribable itself could not have
guaranteed her more surely against the future.

There is a story of some Bishop or important person who got
his way at Rome rather unexpectedly over an appeal, and,
when asked by his friends how he did it, replied, _Fallendo
Infallibilem_. It might have been the motto of Angela's
mastery over her husband; the detective, always awake to the
possibilities of fraudulent dealing in every other human
creature, did not realize that his wife was a tiny bit
cleverer than he was, and was always conspiring for his
happiness behind his back. For instance, it was his custom
of an evening to play a very long and complicated game of
patience, which he had invented for himself; you had to use
four packs, and the possible permutations of it were almost
unlimited. It was an understood thing in the household that
Angela, although she had grasped the rules of the game, did
not really know how to play it. But when, as often happened,
the unfinished game had to be left undisturbed all night,
she was quite capable of stealing down early in the morning
and altering the positions of one or two cards, so that he
should get the game 'out' in time to cope with his ordinary
work. These pious deceits of hers were never, I am glad to
say, unmasked.

About a fortnight after Mr Mottram's interview with the
young man at Indescribable House, these two fortunate people
were alone together after dinner; she alternately darning
socks and scratching the back of a sentimental-looking
fox-terrier; he playing his interminable patience. The bulk
of the pack lay on a wide table in front of him, but there
were outlying sections of the design dotted here and there
on the floor within reach of his hand. When the telephone
bell rang, he looked up at her appealingly; obviously, he
was tied hand and foot by his occupation--to her, it only
meant putting her darning away, taking the fox-terrier off
her feet, and going out into the hall. She understood the
signal, and obeyed it. There was a fixed law of the
household that if she answered a call which was meant for
him, he must try to guess what it was about before she told
him. This was good for him, she said; it developed the
sleuth instinct.

'Hullo! Mrs Bredon speaking--who is it, please?... Oh, it's
you... Yes, he's in, but he's not answering the telephone...
No, only drunk... Just rather drunk... Business? Good;
that's just what he wants... A man called what?...
M-o-t-t-r-a-m, Mottram, yes... Never heard of it... St
William's? Oh, the MIDLANDS, that are sodden and unkind,
that sort of Midlands, yes... Oh!... Is it--what?... Is it
supposed to have been an accident?... Oh, that generally
means suicide, doesn't it?... Staying where?... Where's
that?... All right, doesn't matter, I'll look it up... At an
inn? Oh, then it was in somebody else's bed really! What
name?... What a jolly name! Well, where's Miles to go? To
Chilthorpe?... Yes, rather, we can start bright and early.
Is it an important case? Is it an important case?... Oo! I
say! I wish I could get Miles to die and leave me half a
million! Right O, he'll wire you tomorrow... Yes, quite,
thanks... Good night.'

'Interpret, please,' said Angela, returning to the
drawing-room. 'Why, you've been going on with your patience
the whole time! I suppose you didn't listen to a word I was
saying?'

'How often am I to tell you that the memory and the
attention function inversely? I remember all you said,
precisely because I wasn't paying attention to it. First of
all, it was Sholto, because he was ringing you up on
business, but it was somebody you know quite well--at least,
I hope you don't talk like that to the tradesmen.'

'Sholto, yes, ringing up from the office. He wanted to talk
to you.'

'So I gathered. Was it quite necessary to tell him I was
drunk?'

'Well, I couldn't think of anything else to say at the
moment. I couldn't tell him you were playing patience, or he
might have thought we were unhappily married. Go on,
Sherlock.'

'Mottram, living at some place in the Midlands you've never
heard of, but staying at a place called Chilthorpe--he's
died, and his death wants investigating; that's obvious.'

'How did you know he was dead?'

'From the way you said Oh--besides, you said he'd died in
his bed, or implied it. And there's some question of half a
million insurance--Euthanasia, I suppose? Really, the
Euthanasia's been responsible for more crimes than
psycho-analysis.'

'Yes, I'm afraid you've got it all right. What did he die
of?'

'Something that generally means suicide--or rather you think
it does. The old sleeping-draught business? Veronal?'

'No, stupid, gas. The gas left turned on. And where's
Chilthorpe, please?'

'It's on the railway. If my memory serves me right, it is
Chilthorpe and Gorrington, between Bull's Cross and Lowgill
Junction. But the man, you say, belongs somewhere else?'

'Pullford, at least, it sounded like that. In the Midlands
somewhere, he said.'

'Pullford, good Lord, yes. One of these frightful holes.
They make perambulators or something there, don't they? A
day's run, I should think, in the car. But of course it's
this Chilthorpe place we want to get to. You wouldn't like
to look it up in the Gazetteer while I just get this row
finished, would you?'

'I shan't get your sock finished, then. On your own foot be
it. Let's see, here's Pullford all right... It isn't
perambulators they make, it's drain-pipes. There's a Grammar
School there, and an asylum; and the Parish Church is a fine
specimen of early Perp., extensively restored in 1842; they
always are. Has been the seat of a R. Cath. bishopric since
1850. The Baptist chapel--'

'I did mention, didn't I, that it was Chilthorpe I wanted
to know about?'

'All in good time. Let's see,--Chilthorpe--it isn't a
village really, it's a t'nship. It has 2,500 inhabitants.
There's a lot here about the glebe. It stands on the river
Busk, and there is trout fishing.'

'Ah, that sounds better.'

'Meaning exactly?'

'Well, it sounds as if the fellow had done himself in by
accident all right. He went there to fish--you don't go to a
strange village to commit suicide.'

'Unless you've got electric light in your house, and want to
commit suicide with gas.'

'That's true. What was the name of the inn, by the way?'

'The "Load of Mischief". Such a jolly dedication, I think.'

'Now let's try the map.'

'I was coming to that. Here's the Busk all right. I say, how
funny, there's a place on the Busk called Mottram.'

'Anywhere near Chilthorpe?'

'I haven't found it yet. Oh, yes, here it is, about four
miles away. Incidentally, it's only twenty miles or so from
Pullford. Well, what about it? Are we going by car?'

'Why not? The Rolls is in excellent condition. Two or three
days ought to see us through; we can stay, with any luck, at
the "Load of Mischief", and the youthful Francis will be all
the better for being left to his nurse for a day or two.
You've been feeding him corn, and he is becoming
obstreperous.'

'You don't deserve to have a son. However, I think you're
right. I don't want to trust you alone in a t'nship of 2,500
inhabitants, some of them female. Miles, dear, this is going
to be one of your big successes, isn't it?'

'On the contrary, I shall lose no time in reporting to the
Directors that the deceased gentleman had an unfortunate
accident with the gas, and they had better pay up like
sportsmen. I shall further point out that it is a great
waste of their money keeping a private spy at all.'

'Good, then I'll divorce you. I'm going to bed now. Not
beyond the end of that second row, mind; we shall have to
make an early start tomorrow.'




CHAPTER 3

_At the 'Load of Mischief'_


By next morning, Bredon's spirits had risen. He had
received, by the early post, a confidential letter from the
Company describing Mr Mottram's curious offer, and
suggesting (naturally) that the state of his health made
suicide a plausible conjecture. The morning was fine, the
car running well, the road they had selected in admirable
condition. It was still before tea-time when they turned off
from its excellent surface on to indifferent by-roads,
through which they, had to thread their way with difficulty.
The sign-posts, as is the wont of English sign-posts, now
blazoned Chilthorpe, Chilthorpe, Chilthorpe, as if it were
the lodestone of the neighbourhood, now passed it over in
severe silence, preferring to call attention to the fact
that you were within five furlongs of Little Stubley. They
had fallen, besides, upon hill-country, with unexpected
turns and precipitous gradients; they followed, with
enforced windings, the bleak valley of the Busk, which
swirled beneath them over smooth boulders between desolate
banks. It was just after they had refused the fifth
invitation to Little Stubley that the County Council's
arrangements played them false; there was a clear issue
between two rival roads, with no trace of a sign-post to
direct their preference. It was here that they saw, and
hailed, an old gentleman who was making casts into a
promising pool about twenty yards away.

'Chilthorpe?' said the old gentleman. 'All the world seems
to be coming to Chilthorpe. The County Council does not
appear to have allowed for the possibility of its becoming
such a centre of fashion. If you are fond of scenery, you
should take the road to the left; it goes over the hill. If
you like your tea weak, you had better take the valley road
to the right. Five o'clock is tea-time at the "Load of
Mischief", and there is no second brew.'

Something in the old gentleman's tone seemed to invite
confidences. 'Thank you very much,' said Bredon. 'I suppose
the "Load of Mischief" is the only inn that one can stop
at?'

'There was never much to be said for the "Swan". But today
the "Load of Mischief" has added to its attractions; it is
not everywhere you can sleep with the corpse of a suicide in
the next room. And the police are in the house, to satisfy
the most morbid imagination.'

'The police? When did they come?'

'About luncheon-time. They are understood to have a clue. I
am only afraid, myself, that they will want to drag the
river. The police always drag the river if they can think of
nothing else to do.'

'You're staying at the inn, I gather?'

'I am the surviving guest. When you have tasted the coffee
in the morning, you will understand the temptation to
suicide, but so far I have resisted it. You are not
relatives, I hope, of the deceased?'

'No; I'm from the Indescribable. We insured him, you know.'

'It must be a privilege to die under such auspices. But I am
afraid I have gone beyond my book; when I say poor Mottram
committed suicide, I am giving you theory, not fact.'

'The police theory?'

'Hardly. I left before they arrived. It is the landlady's
theory, and when you know her better, you will know that it
is as well not to disagree with her; it provokes
discussion.'

'I am afraid she must be very much worried by all this.'

'She is in the seventh heaven of lamentation. You could
knock her down, she tells me, with a feather. She insists
that her custom is ruined for ever; actually, you are the
second party to stay at the inn as the result of this
affair, and the jug and bottle business at mid-day was
something incredible. The Band of Hope was there _en
masse_, swilling beer in the hope of picking up some
gossip.'

'The other party, were they relations?'

'Oh, no, it's a policeman; a real policeman from London. The
secretary, I suppose, must have lost his head, and insisted
on making a _cause clbre_ of the thing. I forgot him, by
the way, a little chap called Brinkman; he's at the "Load",
too. A thousand pardons, but I see a fish rising. It is so
rare an event here that I must go and attend to it.' And,
nodding pleasantly, the old gentleman made his way to the
bank again.

Chilthorpe is a long, straggling village, with the business
part (such as it is) at the lower end. The Church is there,
and the 'Load of Mischief', and a few shops; here too, the
Busk flows under a wide stone bridge--a performance which,
at most times of the day, attracts a fair crowd of local
spectators. The houses are of grey stone, the roofs of blue
slate. The rest of the village climbs up along the valley,
all in one street; the houses stand perched on the edge of a
steep slope, too steep, almost, for the cultivation of
gardens, though a few currant and gooseberry bushes retain a
precarious foothold. The view has its charms; when mists
hang over it in autumn, or when the smoke of the chimneys
lingers idly on a still summer evening, it has a mysterious
and strangely un-English aspect.

The hostess, presumably to be identified with J. Davis,
licensed to sell wines, spirits, and tobacco, met them on
the threshold, voluble and apparently discouraging. Her idea
seemed to be that she could not have any more guests coming
and committing suicide in her house. Bredon, afraid that his
patience or his gravity would break down, put Angela in
charge of the conversation; so delicate was her tact, so
well-placed her sympathy, that within ten minutes their
arrival was being hailed as a godsend, and Mrs Davis,
ordering the barmaid to bring tea as soon as it could be
procured, ushered them into a private room, assuring them of
accommodation upstairs, when she could put things to rights.
It had been one thing after another, she complained, all
day, she didn't really hardly know which way to turn, and
her house always a respectable one. There was not much
custom, it seemed, at Chilthorpe, lying so far away from the
main road and that--you would have supposed that in an R.A.
listed hotel suicides were a matter of daily occurrence, and
the management knew how to deal with them. Whereas Mrs Davis
hadn't anybody not but the girl and the Boots, and him only
with one arm. And those boys coming and looking in through
the front window, disgraceful, she called it, and what were
the police for if they couldn't put a stop to it? And the
reporters--six of them she'd turned away that very day,
coming and prying into what didn't concern them. They didn't
get a word out of her, that was one thing.

Though, mark you, if Mrs Davis didn't know poor Mr Mottram,
who did? Coming there regular year after year for the
fishing, poor gentleman; such a quiet gentleman, too, and
never any goings-on. And how was she to know what would come
of it? It wasn't that the gas leaked; time and again she'd
had those pipes seen to, and no complaints made. If there
had have been anything wrong, Mr Pulteney he'd have let her
hear about it, he was one for having everything just as he
liked, and no mistake.... Yes, that would be him, he was a
great one for the fishing. Such a queer gentleman, too, and
always taking you up short. Why, yesterday morning, when she
went to tell him about what had happened in the night, he
was as cool as anything; all he said was, 'In that case, Mrs
Davis, I will fish the Long Pool this morning,' like that he
said. Whereas Mr Brinkman, that was the secretary, he was in
a great taking about it, didn't hardly know what he said or
did, Mr Brinkman didn't. And to think of all the gas that
was wasted; on all night it was, and who was to pay for it
was more than she knew. Summing up, Mrs Davis was understood
to observe that it was a world for sorrow, and man was cut
down like a flower, as the sparks fly upwards. However,
there was Them above as knew, and what would be would be.

Of all this diatribe Bredon was a somewhat languid auditor.
He recognized the type too well to suppose that any end was
to be gained by cross-examination. Angela cooed and sighed,
and dabbed her eyes now and again at appropriate moments,
and in so doing won golden opinions from the tyrannous
conversationalist. It was a strong contrast when the maid
came in with the tea-things; she plumped them down in
silence, tossing her head defiantly, as who should imply
that somebody had recently found fault with her behind the
scenes, but she was not going to take any notice of it. She
was a strapping girl, of undeniable good looks, spoilt
(improved, the Latins would have said) by a slight cast in
one eye. In the absence of any very formidable competition,
it was easy to imagine her the belle of the village. So
resolute did her taciturnity appear that even Angela, who
could draw confidences from a stone, instinctively decided
that it would be best to question her later on. Instead, she
whiled away the interminable interval which separates the
arrival of the milk-jug from that of the tea-pot by idly
turning over the leaves of the old-fashioned visitors' book.
The Misses Harrison, it appeared, had received every
attention from their kind and considerate hostess. The
Pullford Cycling Club had met for their annual outing, and
pronounced themselves 'full to bursting, and coming back
next year'. An obvious newly-married couple had found the
neighbourhood very quiet; a subsequent annotator had added
the words 'I don't think', with several marks of
exclamation. The Wotherspoon family, a large one, testified
to having had a rattling good time at this old-world
hostelry. The Reverend Arthur and Mrs Stump would carry away
many pleasant memories of Chilthorpe and its neighbourhood.

Miles was wandering aimlessly about, the room, inspecting
those art treasures which stamp, invariably and
unmistakably, the best room of a small country inn. There
was the piano, badly out of tune, with a promiscuous heap of
Dissenting hymn-books and forgotten dance tunes reposing on
it. There were the two pictures which represent a lovers'
quarrel and a lovers' reconciliation, the hero and heroine
being portrayed in riding costume. There was a small
bookshelf, full of Sunday-school prizes, interspersed with
one or two advanced novels in cheap editions, left behind,
clearly, by earlier visitors. There was a picture of
Bournemouth in a frame of repulsive shells. There was a
photograph of some local squire or other, on horseback.
There were several portraits which were intended to
perpetuate the memory of the late Mr Davis, a man of full
bodily habit, whose clothes, especially his collar, seemed
too tight for him. There were a couple of young gentlemen in
khaki on the mantelpiece; there was a sailor, probably the
one who had collected the strange assortment of picture
post-cards in the album under the occasional table; there
were three wedding groups, all apparently in the family--in
a word, a detective interested in such problems might have
read here, in picture, the incredibly long and complicated
annals of the poor.

To Bredon it was all a matter of intense irritation. He was
fond, when he visited the scene of some crime or some
problem, of poking his way round the furniture, trying to
pick up hints, from the books and the knick-knacks, about
the character of the people he was dealing with. At least,
he would say, if you cannot pick up evidence about them, you
can always catch something of their atmosphere. Mottram had
hardly played the game when he died in a country inn, where
he had not been able to impress his surroundings with any
touch of his own quality; this inn parlour was like any
other inn parlour, and the dead body upstairs would be a
problem in isolation, torn away from its proper context. The
bedroom, doubtless, would have a text over the
washing-stand, a large wardrobe stuffed with family clothes
and moth-balls, a cheap print of the Soul's Awakening; it
would just be an inn bedroom, there would be no Mottram
about it.

'I say,' Angela interrupted suddenly, 'Mottram seems to have
visited this place pretty regularly, and always for the
fishing season. There are some fine specimens of his
signature; the last only written two days ago.'

'Eh? What's that?' said Bredon. 'Written his signature in
already, had he? Any date to it?'

'Yes, here it is, J. W. Mottram, June 13th to--and then a
blank. He didn't know quite how long he would be staying, I
suppose.'

'Let's see... Look here, that's all wrong, you know. This
isn't a hotel register; it's just a Visitors' Book. And
people who write in a Visitors' Book don't write till the
day they leave.'

'Necessarily?'

'Invariably. Look here, look at Arthur Stump. You can see
from his style and handwriting what a meticulous fellow he
is. Well, he came here on May 21st, and stayed till May
26th. The Wilkinsons came here a day later, on the 22nd, and
left on the 24th. But the Wilkinsons' entry comes
first--that's because they left first, don't you see? And
here is Violet Harris doing the same; she puts her name
before the Sandeman party. Look at Mottram's entry last
year. He didn't leave a blank then, and fill in his date of
departure afterwards; you can always tell when a thing is
filled in afterwards, because the spacing is never quite
exact. No, Mottram did something quite foreign to his habit
when he wrote June 13th to blank, and quite foreign to the
habits of everyone I know.'

'You get these little ideas sometimes. No, you can't have
tea till you come and sit at the table. I don't want you
sloshing it about all over the place. Now, what can have
been the idea of writing that entry? Nobody wanted proof
that he'd been here. Could it be a forgery, done from last
year's entry? That would mean that it isn't Mottram upstairs
at all, really.'

'We shall know that soon enough... No, there's only one idea
that seems to me to make sense. He came to this place
knowing that he was never going to leave it alive. And,
consequently he wanted to put an entry in the book which
would make it look as if he had been paying just an ordinary
visit, and was expecting to leave it alive. People will
never see that they're overreaching themselves when they do
that kind of thing. It's absurd to go on such slight
indications, but as far as I can see, the presumption is
this--Mottram meant to commit suicide, and meant to make it
look as if he hadn't.'

'The date's all right, I suppose?'

'Bound to be. No sense in falsifying it when it could always
be verified from the bill. Landladies have a habit of
knowing what night guests arrived.'

'Let's see, then; he arrived on the 13th; and he was found
dead in the morning, that's yesterday morning, Tuesday. The
13th was Monday--he'd only been here one night.'

'Well, we'll hope we can find all that part out from the
secretary. I don't much want another hour of Mrs Davis.
Meanwhile, let's see if you can knock any more out of that
tea-pot; I'm as thirsty as a fish.'




CHAPTER 4

_The Bedroom_


They did not escape another dose of Mrs Davis, who appeared
soon afterwards to announce that the big upstairs room was
ready for them, and would they step up and mind their heads,
please, the stairs were that low. It was, indeed, a rambling
sort of house, on three or four different levels, as country
inns are wont to be; it did not seem possible to reach any
one room from any other without going down and up again, or
up and down again. At the head of the stairs Mrs Davis
turned dramatically and pointed to a door marked 5. 'In
there!' she said, the complicated emotion in her voice
plainly indicating what was in there. To her obvious
confusion the door opened as she spoke, and a little, dark
man, whom they guessed then and knew afterwards to be the
secretary, came out into the passage. He was followed by a
policeman--no ingenuity could have doubted the fact--in
plain clothes. Bredon's investigations were ordinarily made
independently of, and for the most part unknown to, the
official champions of justice. But on this occasion Fate had
played into his hands. 'By Gad,' he cried, 'it's Leyland!'

It was, nor will I weary the reader by detailing the
exclamations of surprise, the questionings, the
reminiscences, the explanations which followed. Leyland had
been an officer in the same battalion with Bredon for more
than two years of the war; it was at a time when the
authorities had perceived that there were not enough
well-dressed young men in England to go round, and a police
inspector who had already made a name for efficiency easily
obtained commissioned rank; with equal ease he returned to
the position of inspector when demobilized. Their memories
of old comradeship promised to be so exhaustive and, to the
lay mind, so exhausting, that Brinkman had gone downstairs
and Angela Bredon to her room long before it was over; nay,
Mrs Davis herself, out-talked for once, retired to her
kitchen.

'Well, this is A1,' said Leyland at last. 'Sure to be left
down here for a few days until I can clear things up a bit.
And if you're working on the same lay, there's no reason why
we should quarrel. Though I don't quite see what your people
sent you down for, to start with.'

'Well, the man was very heavily insured, you know, and, for
one reason or another, the Company were inclined to suspect
suicide. Of course, if it's suicide, they don't pay up.'

'Well, you'd better lie low about it and stay on for a few
days. Good for you and Mrs Bredon to get a bit of a holiday.
But, of course, suicide is right off the map.'

'People do commit suicide, don't they, by leaving the gas
on?'

'Yes, but they don't get up and turn the gas off, and then
go back to bed to die. They don't open the window, and leave
it open--'

'The gas turned off? The window opened? You don't mean--'

'I mean that if it was suicide it was a very rum kind of
suicide, and if it was accident it was a very rum kind of
accident. Mark you, I'm saying that to you, but don't you go
putting it about the place. Some of these people in the inn
may know more about it, than they ought to. Mum's the word.'

'Yes, I can see that. Let's see, who were there in the
house? This secretary fellow, and the old gentleman I saw
down by the river, I suppose, and Mrs Davis and the barmaid
and the Boots--that's all I've heard of up to date. That's
right, keep 'em all under suspicion. But I wish you'd let me
see the room. It seems to me there must be points of
interest about it.'

'Best see it now, I think. They're going to fix up the
corpse properly tonight; so far they've left things more or
less untouched. There's just light enough left to have a
look round.'

The inn must at some time have known better days, for this
room, like Bredon's own, was generously proportioned, and
could clearly be used as a bed-sitting-room. But the
wall-paper had seen long service; the decorations were mean,
the furniture shabby; it was not the sort of accommodation
that would attract a rich man from Pullford, but for the
reputation the place had for fishing and the want of any
rival establishment. Chilthorpe, in spite of its
possibilities of water-power, had no electric light; but the
inn, with one or two neighbouring houses, was lighted by
acetylene gas from a plant which served the Vicarage and the
Parish Hall. These unpleasant fumes, still hanging in the
air after two days, were responsible, it seemed, for the
tragic loading of the bed which stood beside them.

To this last, Bredon paid little attention. He had no expert
medical knowledge, and the cause of death was unquestioned;
both the local man and a doctor whom the police had called
in were positive that the symptoms were those of gas
poisoning, and that no other symptoms were present; there
were no marks of violence, no indications, even, of a
struggle; the man had died, it seemed, in his sleep as if
from an overdose of anaesthetic. Beside his bed stood a
glass slightly encrusted with some whitish mixture; Bredon
turned towards Leyland with an inquiring look as his eye met
it.

'No good,' said Leyland. 'We had it analysed, and it's quite
a mild sort of sleeping-draught. He sometimes took them, it
seems, because he slept badly, especially in a strange bed.
But there's no vice in the thing; it wouldn't kill a man,
however heavily he doped himself with it, the doctor says.'

'Of course, it explains why he slept so soundly, and didn't
notice the gas leaking.'

'It does that; and, if it comes to that, it sets me
wondering a little. I mean, supposing it was murder, it
looks as if it was done by somebody who knew Mottram's
habits.'

'If it was murder, yes. But if it was suicide, it's easy to
understand a man's doping himself, so that he should die off
more painlessly. The only thing it doesn't look like is an
accident, because it would be rather a coincidence that he
should happen to be laid out by a sleeping-draught just on
the very night when the gas was left on. I'd like to have a
look at this gas.'

There was a bracket on the wall, not far from the door,
which had been, originally, the only light in the room. But
for bed-sitting-room purposes a special fitting had been
added to this, giving a second vent for the gas; and this
new vent was connected, by a long piece of rubber tubing,
with a standard lamp that stood on the writing-table near
the window. There were thus three taps in all, and all of
them close together on the bracket. One opened the jet on
the bracket itself, one led to the rubber tubing and the
standard lamp. The third was the oldest and closest to the
wall; it served to cut off the supply of gas from both passages
at once. This third, main tap was turned off now; of
the other two, the one on the bracket was closed, the one
which led to the standard stood open.

'Is this how the taps were when the body was first found?'
asked Bredon.

'Exactly. Of course, we've turned them on and off since, to
make certain that the jets were both in working order--they
were, both of them. And we tried the taps for
finger-prints--with powder, you know.'

'Any results?'

'Only on the main tap. We could just trace where it had been
turned on, with the thumb pressing on the right-hand side.
But there were no marks of fingers turning it off.'

'That's damned queer.'

'Gloves?'

'Oh, of course, you think it was murder. Still, if it was
murder, it should have been the murderer who turned it on
and off. Why did he conceal his traces in one case and not
in the other?'

'Well, as a matter of fact, it was Mottram who turned the
gas on. At the main, that is. The tap of the standard seems
to have been on all the time--at least, there were no marks
on it. That's queer, too.'

'Yes, if he wanted it to be known that he committed suicide.
But if he didn't, you see, the whole business may have been
bluff.'

'I see--you want it to be suicide masquerading as accident.
I want it to be murder masquerading as suicide. Your
difficulty, it seems to me, is explaining how the tap came
to be turned off.'

'And yours?'

'I won't conceal it. The door was locked, with the key on
the inside.'

'How did anybody get in, then, to find the corpus?'

'Broke down the door. It was rotten, like everything else in
this house, and the hinges pulled their screws out. You can
see, there, where we've put fresh screws in since.'

'Door locked on the inside. And the window?' Bredon crossed
to the other side of the room. 'Barred, eh?' It was an
old-fashioned lattice window, with iron bars on the inside
to protect it from unauthorized approach. The window itself
opened outwards, its movements free until it reached an
angle of forty-five degrees; at that point it passed over a
spring catch which made it fast. It was so made fast now
that Bredon examined it.

'This too?' he asked. 'Was the window just like this?'

'Just like that. Wide open, so that it's hard to see why the
gas didn't blow out of doors almost as soon as it
escaped--there was a high wind on Monday night, Brinkman
tells me. And yet, with those bars, it seems impossible that
anyone should have come in through it.'

'I think you're going to have difficulties over your murder
theory.'

'So are you, Bredon, over your suicide theory. Look at that
shirt over there; the studs carefully put in overnight; and
it's a clean shirt, mark you; the outside buttonholes
haven't been pierced. Do you mean to tell me that a man who
is going to commit suicide is going to let himself in for
all that tiresome process of putting studs in before he goes
to bed?'

'And do you mean to tell me that a man goes out fishing in a
boiled shirt?'

'Yes, if he's a successful manufacturer. The idea that one
wears special clothes when one is going to take exercise is
an upper class theory. I tell you, I've seen a farmer
getting in the hay in a dickey, merely to show that he was a
farmer, not a farm labourer.'

'Well, grant the point; why shouldn't a man who wants to
commit suicide put studs in his shirt to make it look as if
it wasn't suicide? Remember, it was a matter of half a
million to his heirs. Is that too heavy a price for the
bother of it?'

'I see you're convinced; it's no good arguing with you.
Otherwise, I'd have pointed out that he wound up his watch.'

'One does. To a man of methodical habit, it's an effort to
leave a watch unwound. Was he a smoker?'

'Brinkman says not. And there are no signs of it anywhere.'

'The law ought to compel people to smoke. In bed,
especially--we should have got some very nice indications of
what he was really up to if he had smoked in bed. But I see
he wasn't a bedroom smoker in any case; here's a solitary
match which has only been used to light the gas--he hasn't
burnt a quarter of an inch of it.'

'That match worries me too. There's a box on the
mantelpiece, but those are ordinary safeties. This is a
smaller kind altogether, and I can't find any of them in his
pockets.'

'The maid might have been in before him and lighted the
gas.'

'They never do. At least, Mrs Davis says they never do.'

'It was dark when he went to bed?'

'About ten o'clock, Brinkman says. You would be able to see
your way then, but not much more. And he must have lit the
gas, to put the studs in his shirt--besides he's left some
writing which was probably done late the night before last,
though we can't prove it.'

'Writing! Anything important?'

'Only a letter to some local rag at Pullford. Here it is, if
you want to read it.' And Leyland handed Bredon a letter
from the blotting-pad on the table. It ran:

    To the Editor of the _Pullford Examiner_

    DEAR SIR,

    Your correspondent, 'Brutus', in complaining of the closing
    of the Mottram Recreation Grounds at the hour of seven P.M.,
    describes these grounds as having been 'presented to the
    town with money wrung from the pockets of the poor'. Now,
    Sir, I have nothing to do with the action of the Town
    Council in opening the Recreation Grounds or closing same. I
    write only as a private citizen who has done my best to make
    life amenable for the citizens of Pullford, to know why my
    name should be dragged into this controversy, and in the
    very injurious terms he has done. Such recreation grounds
    were presented by me twelve years ago to the townspeople of
    Pullford, not as 'blood-money' at all, but because I wanted
    them, and especially the kiddies, to get a breath of God's
    open air now and again. If 'Brutus' will be kind enough to
    supply chapter and verse, showing where or how operatives in
    my pay have received less pay than what they ought to have
    done--

At this point the letter closed abruptly.

'He wasn't very handy with his pen,' observed Bredon. 'I
suppose friend Brinkman would have had to get on to this in
the morning, and put it into English. Yes, I know what
you're going to say; if the man had foreseen his end, he
either wouldn't have taken the trouble to start the letter,
or else he'd have taken the trouble to finish it. But I tell
you, I don't like this letter. I say, we must be getting
down to dinner; attract suspicion, what, if we're found
nosing round up here too long? All right, Leyland, I won't
spoil your sport. What about having a fiver on it--suicide
or murder?'

'I don't mind if I do. What about telling one another how we
get on?'

'Let's be quite free about that. But each side shall keep
notes of the case from day to day, putting down his
suspicions and his reasons for them, and we'll compare notes
afterwards. Ah, is that Mrs Davis? All right, we're just
coming.'




CHAPTER 5

_Supper, and Mr Brinkman_


Mrs Davis's cuisine, if it did not quite justify all the
ironic comments of the old gentleman, lent some colour to
them. With the adjectival trick of her class, she always
underestimated quantity, referring to a large tureen as 'a
drop of soup', and overestimated quality, daily suggesting
for her guests' supper 'a nice chop'. The chop always
appeared; the nice chop (as the old gentleman pointed out)
would have been a pleasant change. As surely as you had eggs
and bacon for breakfast, so surely you had a chop for
supper; 'and some nice fruit to follow' heralded the
entrance of a depressed blancmange (which Mrs Davis called
'shape', after its principal attribute) and some cold
greengages. These must have come from Alcinous's garden, for
at no time of the year were they out of season. If Angela
had stayed in the house for a fortnight, it is probable that
she would have taken Mrs Davis in hand, and inspired her
with larger ideas. As it was, she submitted, feeling that a
suicide in the house was sufficiently unsettling for Mrs
Davis without further upheavals.

The coffee-room at the 'Load of Mischief' was not large
enough to let the company distribute itself at different
tables, each party conversing in low tones and eyeing its
neighbours with suspicion. A single long table accommodated
them all, an arrangement which called for a constant
exercise of forced geniality. Bredon and Leyland were both
in a mood of contemplation, puzzling out the secret of the
room upstairs; Brinkman was plainly nervous, and eager to
avoid discussing the tragedy; Angela knew, from experience
in such situations, the value of silence. Only the old
gentleman seemed quite at his ease, dragging in the subject
of Mottram with complete sang-froid, and in a tone of irony
which seemed inseparable from his personality. Brinkman
parried these topical references with considerable
adroitness, showing himself as he did so a travelled man and
a man of intelligence, though without much gift of humour.

Thus, in reply to a conventional question about his day's
sport, the old gentleman returned, 'No, I cannot say that I
caught any. I think, however, that I may claim, without
boasting, to have frightened a few of them. It is an
extraordinary thing to me that Mottram, who was one of your
grotesquely rich men, should have come down for his fishing
to an impossible place like this, where every rise deserves
a paragraph in the local paper. If I were odiously rich, I
would go to one of those places in Scotland, or Norway even,
though I confess that I loathe the Scandinavians. I have
never met them, but the extravagant praise bestowed upon
them by my childhood's geography books makes them detestable
to me.'

'I think,' said Brinkman, 'that you would find some
redeeming vices among the Swedes. But poor Mottram's reason
was a simple one: he belonged to these parts; Chilthorpe was
his home town.'

'Indeed,' said the old gentleman, wincing slightly at the
Americanism.

'Oo, yes,' said Angela, 'we saw Mottram on the map. Was he a
sort of local squire, then?'

'Nothing of that sort,' replied Brinkman. 'His people took
their name from the place, not the other way round. He
started here with a big shop, which he turned over to some
relations of his when he made good at Pullford. He
quarrelled with them afterwards, but he always had a
sentimental feeling for the place. It's astonishing what a
number of group names there are still left in England. There
is no clan system to explain it. Yet I suppose every tenth
family in this place is called Pillock.'

'It suggests the accident of birth,' admitted the old
gentleman, 'rather than choice. And poor Mottram's family,
you say, came from the district?'

'They had been here, I believe, for generations. But this
habit of naming the man from the place is curiously English.
Most nations have the patronymic instinct; the Welsh, for
example, or the Russians. But with us, apparently, if a
stranger moved into a new district, he became John of
Chilthorpe, and his descendants were Chilthorpes for ever.'

'A strange taste,' pursued the old gentleman, harping on the
unwelcome subject, 'to want to come and lay your bones among
your ancestors. It causes so much fuss and even scandal. For
myself, if I ever decided to put a term to my own existence,
I should go to some abominable place--Margate, for
example--and try to give it a bad name by being washed up
just underneath the pier.'

'You would fail, sir,' objected Brinkman; 'I mean, as far as
giving it a bad name was concerned. You do not give things a
good name or a bad name nowadays; you only give them an
advertisement. I honestly believe that if a firm advertised
its own cigarettes as beastly, it would draw money from an
inquisitive public.'

'Mrs Davis has had an inquisitive public today. I assure
you, when I went out this morning I was followed for a
considerable distance by a crowd of small boys, who probably
thought that I intended to drag the river. By the way, if
they do drag the river, it will be interesting to find out
whether there were, after all, any fish in it. You will let
me be present, Sir?'--and he turned to Leyland, who was
plainly annoyed by the appeal. Angela had to strike in, and
ask who was the character in _Happy Thoughts_ who was
always asking his friend to come down and drag the pond. So
the uneasy conversation zigzagged on, Mr Pulteney always
returning to the subject which occupied their thoughts, the
rest heading him off. Bredon was deliberately silent. He
meant to have an interview with Brinkman afterwards, and he
was determined that Brinkman should have no chance of sizing
him up beforehand.

The opportunity was found without difficulty after supper;
Brinkman succumbed at once to the offer of a cigar and a
walk in the clear air of the summer evening. Bredon had
suggested sitting on the bridge, but it was found that at
that hour of the evening all the seating accommodation was
already booked. Brinkman then proposed a visit to the Long
Pool, but Bredon excused himself on the ground of distance.
They climbed a little way up the hill-road, and found one of
those benches, seldom occupied, which seem to issue their
invitation to travellers who are short of breath. Here they
could rest in solitude, watching cloud after cloud as it
turned to purple in the dying sunlight, and the shadows
gathering darker over the hill crests.

'I'm from the Indescribable, you know. Expect Mrs Davis has
told you. I'd better show you my card-case so that you can
see it's correct. They send me to fool round, you know, when
this sort of thing happens. Have to be careful, I suppose.'
('This Brinkman,' he had said to Angela, 'must take me for a
bit of a chump; if possible, worse than I am.')

'I don't quite see--' began Brinkman.

'Oh, the old thing, suicide, you know. Mark you, they don't
absolutely bar it. I've known 'em pay up when a fellow was
obviously potty. But their rules are against it. What I say
is, if a man has the pluck to do himself in, he ought to get
away with the stakes. Well, all this must be a great
nuisance to you, Mr Brickman--'

'Brinkman.'

'Sorry, always was a fool about names. Well, what I mean is,
it can't be very pleasant for you to have so many people
nosing round; but it's got to be done somehow, and you seem
to be the right man to come to. D'you think there was
anything wrong in the upper storey?'

'The man was as sane as you or I. I never knew a man with
such a level head.'

'Well, that's important. You don't mind if I scribble a note
or two? I've got such a wretched memory. Then, here's
another thing; was the old fellow worried about anything?
His health, for example?'

There was an infinitesimal pause; just for that fraction of
a second which is fatal, because it shows that a man is
making up his mind what to say. Then Brinkman said, 'Oh,
there can be no doubt of that. I thought he'd been and told
your people about it. He went to a doctor in London, and was
told that he'd only got two more years to live.'

'Meaning, I suppose--'

'He never told me. He was always a peculiar man about his
health; he got worried even if he had a boil on his neck.
No, I don't think he was a hypochondriac; he was a man who'd
had no experience of ill-health, and the least thing scared
him. When he told me about his interview with the
specialist, he seemed all broken up, and I hadn't the heart
to question him about it. Besides, it wasn't my place. I
expect you'll find that he never told anyone.'

'One could ask the medico, I suppose. But they're devilish
close, ain't they, those fellows?'

'You've got to find out his name first. Mottram was very
secret about it; if he wrote to make an appointment, the
letter wasn't sent through me. It's a difficult job,
circularizing Harley Street.'

'All the same, the doctor in Pullford might know. He
probably recommended somebody.'

'What doctor in Pullford? I don't believe Mottram's been to
a doctor any time these last five years. I was always asking
him to, these last few months, because he told me he was
worried about his health, though he never told me what the
symptoms were. It's difficult to explain his secretiveness
to anybody who didn't know him. But, look here, if you're
inclined to think that his story about going to a specialist
was all a lie, you're on the wrong tack.'

'You feel certain of that?'

'Absolutely certain. Look at his position. In two years'
time, he was due to get a whacking annuity from your Company
if he lived. He was prepared to drop his claim if the
Company would pay back half his premiums. You've heard that,
I expect? Well, where was the sense of that, unless he
really thought he was going to die?'

'You can't think of any other reason for his wanting to do
himself in? Just bored with life, don't you know, or what
not?'

'Talk sense, Mr Bredon. You know as well as I do that all
the suicides one hears of come from money troubles, or
disappointment in love, or sheer melancholia. There was no
question of money troubles; his lawyers will tell you that.
He was not at the time of life when men fall badly in love,
bachelors, anyhow; and his name was never coupled with a
woman's. And as for melancholia, nobody who knew him could
suspect him of it.'

'I see you're quite convinced that it was suicide. No
question of accident, you think, or of dirty work at the
cross-roads? These rich men have enemies, don't they?'

'In story-books. But I doubt if any living soul would have
laid hands on Mottram. As for accident, how, would you
connect it with all this yarn about the specialist? And why
was the door of his room locked when he died? You can ask
the servants at Pullford; they'll tell you that his room was
never locked when he was at home; and the Boots here will
tell you that he had orders to bring in shaving-water first
thing.'

'Oh, his door was locked, was it? Fact is, I've heard very
little about how the thing was discovered. I suppose you
were one of the party when the body was found?'

'I was. I'm not likely to forget it. Not that I've any
objection to suicide, mark you. I think it's a fine thing,
very often; and the Christian condemnation of it merely
echoes a private quarrel between St Augustine and some
heretics of his day. But it breaks you up, rather, when you
find a man you said "Good night" to the night before, lying
there all gassed... However, you want to know the details.
The Boots tried to get in with the shaving-water, and found
the door locked; tried to look through the keyhole and
couldn't; came round to me and told me about it. I was
afraid something must be wrong, and I didn't quite like
breaking down the door with only the Boots to help me. Then
I looked out of the window, and saw the doctor here, a man
called Ferrers, going down to take his morning bathe. The
Boots went and fetched him, and he agreed the only thing was
to break down the door. Well, that was easier than we
thought. There was a beastly smell of gas about, of course,
even in the passage. The doctor went up to the gas, you
know, and found it turned off. I don't know how that
happened; the tap's very loose, anyhow, and I fancy he may
have turned it off himself without knowing it. Then he went
to the bed, and it didn't take him a couple of minutes to
find out that poor old Mottram was dead, and what he'd died
of. The key was found on the inside of the door, turned so
that the lock was fastened. Between you and me, I have a
feeling that Leyland is wondering about that tap. But it's
obvious that nobody got into the room, and dead men don't
turn off taps. I can't piece it together except as suicide
myself. I'm afraid your Company will be able to call me as a
witness.'

'Well, of course, it's all jam to them. Not that they mind
coughing up much, but it's the principle of the thing, you
see. They don't like to encourage suicide. By the way, can
you tell me who the heirs were? What I mean is, I suppose a
man doesn't insure his life and then take it unless he makes
certain who comes in for the bullion?'

'The heirs, as I was saying at supper, are local people.
Actually a nephew, I believe--I didn't want to say more at
the time, because I think, between ourselves, that Mr
Pulteney shows rather too much curiosity. But Mottram
quarrelled with this young fellow for some reason--he owns
the big shop here; and I'm pretty certain he won't be
mentioned in the will.'

'Then you don't know who the lucky fellow is?'

'Charities, I suppose. Mottram never discussed it with me.
But I imagine you could find out from the solicitors,
because it's bound to be common property before long in any
case.'

Bredon consulted, or affected to consult, a list of entries
in his pocket-book. 'Well, that's awfully kind of you; I
think that's all I wanted to ask. Must think me a beastly
interfering sort of fellow. Oh, one other thing--is your
room anywhere near the one Mr Mottram had? Would you have
heard any sounds in the night, I mean, if there'd been
anything going on in his room above the ordinary?'

'My room's exactly above, and my window must have been open.
If there was any suspicion of murder, I should be quite
prepared to give evidence that there was nothing in the
nature of a violent struggle. You see, I sleep pretty light,
and that night I didn't get to sleep till after twelve. It
was seven o'clock in the morning when we found him, and the
doctor seemed to think he'd been dead some hours. I heard
nothing at all from downstairs.'

'Well, I'm tremendously obliged to you. Perhaps we'd better
be wandering back, eh? You're unmarried, of course, so you
don't have people fussing about you when you sit out of an
evening.' In this happy vein of rather foolish
good-fellowship Bredon conducted his fellow-guest back to
the inn; and it is to be presumed that Brinkman did not feel
he had spent the evening in the company of a Napoleonic
brain.




CHAPTER 6

_An Ear at the Keyhole_


On their return to the coffee-room they found Mr Pulteney in
sole possession. He was solemnly filling in a crossword in a
daily paper about three weeks old. Leyland had gone off to
the bar parlour, intent on picking up the gossip of the
village. Bredon excused himself and went upstairs, to find
that Angela was not yet thinking of bed, she had only got
tired of the crossword. 'Well,' she asked, 'and what do you
make of Mr Brinkman?'

'I think he's a bit deep; I think he knows just a little
more about all this than he says. However, I let him talk,
and did my best to make him think I was a fool.'

'That's just what I've been doing with Mr Pulteney. At
least, I've been playing the _ingnue_. I thought I was
going to get him to call me "My dear young lady"--I love
that; he very nearly did once or twice.'

'Did you find him deep?'

'Not in that way. Miles, I forbid you to suspect Mr
Pulteney; he's my favourite man. He told me that suicide
generally followed, instead of preceding, the arrival of
young ladies. I giggled.'

'I wish he'd drown himself. He's one too many in this darned
place. And it's all confusing enough without him.'

'Want me to put in some Watson work?'

'If you aren't wanting to go to bed.' Watson work meant that
Angela tried to suggest new ideas to her husband under a
mask of carefully assumed stupidity. 'You see, I'm all for
suicide. My instincts tell me that it's suicide. I can smell
it in the air.'

'I only smell acetylene. Why suicide particularly?'

'Well, there's the locked door. I've still got to see the
Boots and verify Brinkman's facts; but a door locked on the
inside, with barred windows, makes nonsense of Leyland's
idea.'

'But a murderer might want to lock the door, so as to give
himself time to escape.'

'Exactly; but he'd lock it on the outside. On the other
hand, a locked door looks like suicide, because, unless
Brinkman is lying, Mottram didn't lock his door as a rule;
and the Boots had orders to go into the room with
shaving-water that morning.'

'Why the Boots? Why not the maid?'

'Angela, don't be so painfully modern. Maid-servants at
country hotels don't. They leave some tepid water on the
mat, make a gentle rustling noise at the door, and tip-toe
away. No, I'm sure he locked the door for fear Brinkman
should come in in the middle--or Pulteney, of course, might
have come to the wrong door by mistake. He wanted to be left
undisturbed.'

'But not necessarily in order to commit suicide.'

'You mean he might have fallen asleep over something else he
was doing? Writing a letter, for example to the _Pullford
Examiner_? But in that case he wouldn't have been in bed.
You can't gas yourself by accident except in your sleep.
Then there's another thing--the Bertillon-mark on the gas.
Leyland is smart enough to know the difference between the
mark you leave when you turn it on and the mark you leave
when you turn it off. But he won't follow out his own
conclusions. If Mottram had gone to bed in the ordinary way,
as he must have in the event of foul play or accident, we
should have seen where he turned it off as well as where he
turned it on. The point is, Mottram didn't turn the light on
at all. He went to bed in the half-darkness, took his
sleeping-draught, and turned on the gas.

'But, angel pet, how could he write a long letter to the
Pullford paper in the half-darkness? And how did he read his
shocker in the half-darkness? Let's be just to poor Mr
Leyland, though he is in the Force.'

'I was coming to that. Meanwhile, I say he didn't light the
gas. Because if you want to light the gas you have to do it
in two places, and the match he used, the only match we
found in the room, had hardly burned for a second.'

'Then why did he strike a match at all?'

'I'm coming to that, too. Finally, there's the question of
the taps. A murderer would want to make certain of doing his
work quickly, therefore he would make sure that the gas was
pouring out of both jets, the one on the bracket on the
wall, and the one on the standard-lamp by the window. The
suicide, if he means to die in his sleep, isn't in a hurry
to go off. On the contrary, he wants to make sure that his
sleeping-draught takes effect before the gas-fumes become
objectionable. So he turns on only one of the two jets, and
that is the one further away from him. Isn't that all
right?'

'You are ingenious, you know, Miles, occasionally. I'm
always so afraid that one day you'll find me out. Now let's
hear all about the things you were just coming to.'

'Well, you see, it isn't a simple case of suicide. Why
should it be? People who have taken out a Euthanasia policy
don't want Tom, Dick, and Harry to know--more particularly
they don't want Miles Bredon to know--that they have
committed suicide. They have the habit, as I know from
experience, of trying to put up a little problem in
detection for me, the brutes.'

'You shouldn't be angry with them, Miles. After all, if they
didn't, the Indescribable might sack you, and where would
Francis' new tam-o'-shanter come from?'

'Don't interrupt, woman. This is a case of suicide with
complications, and dashed ingenious ones. In the first
place, we noticed that entry in the visitor's book. That's
an attempt to make it look as if he expected a long stay
here, before he went to bed. Actually, through not studying
the habits of the Wilkinsons, he overshot himself there--a
little too ingenious. _We_ know that when he did that he
was simply trying to lead us up the garden; but we were too
clever for him.'

'Let me merely mention the fact that it was I who spotted
that entry. But pray proceed.'

'Then he did two quite irreconcilable things--he took a
sleeping draught, and he asked to be called early. Now, a
man who's on a holiday, and is afraid he won't sleep,
doesn't make arrangements to be called early in the morning.
_We_ know that he took the sleeping-draught so as to die
painlessly; and as for being called early in the morning, it
was probably so as to give the impression that his death was
quite unpremeditated. He took several other precautions for
the same reason.'

'Such as?'

'He wound up his watch. Leyland noticed that, but he didn't
notice that it was an eight-day watch. A methodical person
winds up his eight-day watch on Sunday; once more, Mottram
was a tiny bit too ingenious. Then, he put the studs out
ready in his shirt. Very few people, when they're on
holiday, take the trouble to do that. Mottram did, because
he wanted us to think that he meant to get up the next
morning in the ordinary way.'

'And the next article?'

'The window. A murderer, not taking any risks, would shut
the window or see that it was shut, before he turned the gas
on. A man going to bed in the ordinary way would either shut
it completely, or else open it to its full extent, where the
hasp catches, so that in either case it shouldn't bang
during the night. Mottram left his window ajar, not enough
open to let the gas escape much. But he knew that in the
morning the door would have to be knocked in, and with that
sudden rush of air the window would swing open. Which is
exactly what happened.'

'I believe he wrote and told you about all this beforehand.'

'Silence, woman. He left a shocker by his bedside, to make
us think that he went to bed at peace with all the world. In
real life, if you take a dose, you don't read yourself to
sleep as well, Besides, if he had been wanting to read in
bed, he would have brought the standard lamp over to his
bedside, so as to put it out last thing. Further, he had a
letter ready written, or rather, half-written, which he left
on the blotting-pad. But he hadn't written it there--he
wrote it downstairs; I found the place where he had blotted
it on the pad in the dining-room. Once more, a deliberate
effort to suggest that he had gone to sleep peacefully,
leaving a job half-finished. And then, of course, there was
the match.'

'You mean, he'd only struck it to give the impression that
he'd lit the gas, but didn't really light it? I'm getting
the hang of the thing, aren't I? By the way, he couldn't
have lit another match and thrown it out of the window?'

'Very unlikely. Only smokers, and tidy ones at that, throw
matches out of the window. He either had one match left in
his pocket, or borrowed one from Brinkman. But he didn't use
it; suicides like the dark. There's one other tiny
point--you see that?' He took up a large, cheap Bible which
stood at the bedside of their own room. 'There's a Society
which provides those, and, of course, there's one for each
room. Mottram had taken his away from the bedside and put it
in a drawer. It's funny how superstitious we men are, when
all's said and done.'

'That's a tiny bit grooly, isn't it? Well, when are you
going to dig the grave at the cross-roads, and borrow a
stake from the local carpenter?'

'Well, you see, there's just that trifling difficulty about
the tap being turned off. Leyland is right in saying that
dead men don't do that sort of thing.'

'What's Brinky's explanation?'

'Mr Brinkman, to whom you were only introduced three hours
ago, thinks the doctor turned it off accidentally. That's
nonsense, of course. His idea was that the tap was very
loose, but it wasn't, really--Leyland had it loosened on
purpose, so as to be able to turn it without obliterating
the finger-marks. If it hadn't been stiff, of course,
there'd have been no marks left at all. So there's a
three-pipe problem for you, my dear Mrs Hudson.'

Angela's forehead wrinkled becomingly. ' Two problems, my
poor old Lestrade. How did the tap get turned off, and why
does Brinky want us to think it got turned off accidental? I
always like you to have plenty of theories, because it keeps
your mind active; but with my well-known womanly intuition I
should say it was a plain issue between the locked door,
which means suicide, and the turned-off tap, which means
murder. Did I hear you putting a fiver on it with Leyland?'

'You did. There's dashed little you don't hear.'

'Well, if you've got a fiver on it, of course it's got to be
suicide. That's a good, wifely point of view, isn't it? I
wish it were the other way round; I believe I could account
for that door if I were put to it. But I won't; I swear I
won't. I wonder how Leyland's getting on?'

'Well, he's worse off than we are, because he's got to get
over the door trouble, and he's got to find a motive for the
murder, and a criminal to convict of it. We score there; if
it's suicide, there can be no two theories about the
criminal! And we know the motive--partly, anyhow. Mottram
did it in order to make certain of that half-million for his
legatees. And we shall soon know who they were. The only
motive that worries me is Brinkman's; why he's so keen on
its being suicide? Perhaps the will would make that clear,
too ... I can't work it out at present.' He began to stride
up and down the room. 'I'm perfectly certain about that
door. It's impossible that it should be a spring lock, in an
old-fashioned hotel like this.' He went up to the door of
their room, and bent down to examine it. Then, with
startling suddenness, he turned the handle and threw it
open. 'Angela, come here ... You see that picture in the
passage? There's no wind to make it swing like that, is
there?'

'You mean you think somebody's been...'

'Just as I bent down to the door, I could have sworn I heard
foot-steps going softly away. It must have been somebody
actually at the key-hole.'

'Why didn't you run out?'

'Well it makes it so dashed awkward, to find somebody
listening and catch them at it. In some ways, it's much
better to know that somebody has been listening, and for
them not to know whether you know or not. It's confoundedly
awkward, all the same.'

'Idiotic of us not to have remembered that we were in a
country pub, and that servants in country pubs still do
listen at key-holes.'

'Servants? Well, ye-es. But Pulteney's room is only just
round that corner.'

'Miles, I will not have you talking of poor old Edward like
that.'

'Who told you his name was Edward?'

'It must be; you've only to look at him. Anyhow, he will
always be Edward to me. But he simply couldn't listen at a
key-hole. He would regard it as a somewhat unconventional
proceeding' (this with a fair imitation of Mr Pulteney's
voice). 'Besides, he can't nearly have finished that
crossword yet. He's very stupid without me to help him; he
will always put down Emu when there's a bird of three
letters.'

'Well, anyhow, Brinkman's room is only up one flight of
stairs. As you say, it may be the servants, or even Mrs
Davis herself; but I'd like to feel sure of that. I wonder
how much of what we said was overheard.'

'Well, Miles, dear, you ought to know. Don't you remember
how you listened at the kitchen door in old Solomon's house,
and thought you heard a man's voice, and found out
afterwards it was only the loud speaker?'

'Good God, why does one marry? Look here, I'm just going to
have a look-round for old Leyland, and warn him that there's
dirty work at the cross-roads.'

'Yes, he must be careful not to soliloquize too much.'

'Don't be silly. It's time you went to bed; I won't be more
than half-an-hour or so.'

'Not beyond closing-time, in other words? Gosh, what a man!
Well, walk quietly, and don't wake Edward.'

Bredon found Leyland still in the bar-parlour, listening
patiently to the interminable theorizings of the oldest
inhabitant. 'That's how it was, you see. Tried to turn off
the gars, and didn't turn it off proper, that's what he did.
He didn't think to lay hands on himself, stands to reason he
didn't. What for should he, and him so rich and all? Mark
you, I've known Mottram when he wasn't no higher than that
chair yonder, not so much he wasn't; and I know what I'm
talking about. I've seen suicides put away too, I have; I
recollect poor Johny Pillock up at the toll-house; went mad,
he did, and hung himself off of a tree the same as if it
might be from the ceiling yonder. Ah ! There wasn't no gars
in them days. Good night, Mr Warren, and pleasant dreams to
you; you mind them stairs in your front-garden. Yes,
powerful rich Mottram he was ...' and so on without
cessation or remorse. It was nearly closing-time before
Bredon managed to drag the policeman away, and warn him that
there were others (it appeared) besides themselves who were
interested in the secret of the upstairs room.




CHAPTER 7

_From Leyland's Note-book_


Now that I have put that fiver on with Bredon, I begin to
doubt my own conclusions. That is the extraordinary effect
of having a 'will to believe'. As long as you have no
prejudices in the case, no brief to maintain, you can form a
theory and feel that it is a mathematical certainty.
Directly you have a reason for wanting to believe the thing
true, that same theory begins to look as if it had all sorts
of holes in it. Or rather, the whole theory seems
fantastic--you have been basing too much on insufficient
evidence. Yesterday, I was as certain that the case was one
of murder as I am certain of my own existence. Today, I am
developing scruples. Let me get it all down on paper,
anyhow; and I shall be able to show my working to Bredon
afterwards, however the case turns out.

There is one indication which is absolutely vital,
absolutely essential; that is the turning off of the tap.
That is the pin-point of truth upon which any theory must
rest. I don't say it's easy to explain the action; but it is
an action, and the action demands an agent. The fact that
the gas was tampered with would convince me of foul play,
even if there were no other direct indications. There are
such indications.

In the first place, the window. If the window had stood all
night as it was found in the morning, wide open and held by
its clasp, there could have been no death. Pulteney tells me
that there was a strong east wind blowing most of the night;
and you can trust a fisherman to be accurate in these
matters. The window, then, like the gas, had been
deliberately arranged in an artificial position between
Mottram's death and the arrival of the rescue party. If the
death had been accidental, the window would have been shut
and remained shut all night. You do not leave a window half
open, with nothing to fix it, on a windy night. If it had
been a case of suicide, it is equally clear that the window
would have remained shut all night. If you are proposing to
gas yourself, you do not take risks of the window blowing
open and leaving you half-asphyxiated. There is only one
explanation of the open window, as there is of the gas-tap;
and that explanation involves the interference of a person
or persons unknown.

Another direct indication is the match found in the grate.
Bredon's suggestion that this match was used by the maid
earlier on in the evening is quite impossible; there was a
box on the mantelpiece, which would be plainly visible in
daylight, and it was not one of those matches that was used.
It was a smaller match, of a painfully ordinary kind;
Brinkman uses such matches, and Pulteney, and probably every
smoker within miles round. Now, the match was not used to
light the gas. It would have been necessary to light the gas
in two places, and the match would have burned some little
way down the stem, whereas this one was put out almost as
soon as it was lit. It must have been used, I think, to
light the gas in the passage outside, but of this I cannot
be sure. It was thrown carelessly into the grate because, no
doubt, the nocturnal visitor assumed as a matter of course,
that others like it would already have been thrown into the
grate. As a matter of fact Mottram must have thrown the
match he lit the gas with out of the window: I have not
found it.

From various indications, it is fairly clear that Mottram
did not foresee his end. Chief among these is the order
which he gave that he was to be woken early in the morning.
This might, of course, be bluff; but if so it was a very
heartless kind of bluff, for it involved the disturbing of
the whole household with the tragic news in the small hours,
instead of leaving it to transpire after breakfast. And this
leads us on to another point, which Bredon appears to have
overlooked. A man who wants to be woken up early in the
morning does not take a sleeping draught over-night. It
follows that _Mottram did not really take the
sleeping-draught_. And that means that the glass containing
it was deliberately put by his bed to act as a blind. The
medical evidence is not positive as to whether he actually
took the stuff or not. My conjecture is, then, that the man
who came in during the night--twice during the night--put a
glass with the remains of a sleeping-draught by the bed in
order to create the impression that Mottram had committed
suicide.

When I struck upon this idea, it threw a flood of light on
various other details of the case. We have to deal with a
murder who is anxious to create the impression that the
victim has died by his own hand. It was for this reason that
he left a half-finished letter of Mottram's on the table--a
letter which Mottram had actually written downstairs; this
would look like the regular suicide's dodge of trying to
cover up his tracks by leaving a half-finished document
about. It would make a mind like Bredon's suspect suicide at
once. The same may be said of the ridiculous care with which
the dead man was supposed to have wound up an eight-day
watch before retiring; it was a piece of bluff which in
itself would deceive nobody; but here it was a double bluff,
and I expect it has deceived Bredon. He will see everywhere
the marks of a suicide covering up his tracks, which is
exactly what the murderer meant him to see.

The thing begins to take shape in my mind, then, as follows.
When he feels confident that his victim is asleep, the
murderer tip-toes into the room, puts down the glass by the
bed-side and the letter on the table; winds up the watch (a
very silent one) ; and then goes over to the gas, wipes off
with a rag the mark of Mottram's hand turning it off, and
then, with the same rag, gently turns it on once more. The
window is already shut. He tip-toes out of the door, and
waits for an hour or two till the gas has done its deadly
work. Then, for some reason, he returns; for what reason, I
cannot at the present determine. Once he had taken all these
precautions, it must have looked to him as if a verdict of
suicide was a foregone conclusion. But it is a trick of the
murderer--due, some think, to the workings of a guilty
conscience--to revisit the scene of his crime and spoil the
whole effect of it. It is this reason, of course, that I
must find out before I am certain of my case; leaving aside
all further questions as to the murderer's identity and his
motives.

In fact, there are two problems, a problem of why and a
problem of how. _Why_ did the murderer turn the gas off?
And how did he leave the door locked behind him? I suspect
that the answer to the first question is, as I have said,
merely psychological; it was some momentary instinct of
bravado, or remorse, or sheer lunacy... The answer to the
second question must be something more complicated. In the
abstract it is, I suppose, possible to turn a key in a lock
from the wrong side, by using a piece of wire or some such
instrument. But it is almost inconceivable that a man could
do this without leaving scratches on the key; I have
examined the key very carefully, and there are no scratches.
Bredon, I can see, hopes to arrive at some different
conclusion about the evidence; somebody, he thinks, is
lying. But Brinkman, and Ferrers, the doctor, and the Boots,
all rushed into the room at the same moment. Ferrers is an
honest man, and I am sure he is telling the truth when he
says he found the gas turned off; and he went to it at once,
before either of the others had time to interfere. It was
the Boots who found the key on the inside of the door, and
the Boots will not do for the murderer; a man with one hand
cannot have done conjuring tricks with a lock. Brinkman's
own evidence is perfectly straightforward, and consistent
with that of the others. He seems secretive, but that, I
think, is the fellow's manner. I cannot at present see any
motive which could have made him want to do away with
Mottram; and the two seem to have been on intimate terms,
and there is no evidence of a quarrel.

I am inclined to exonerate Pulteney of all knowledge, even
of all interest in the affair. He was a complete stranger to
Mottram, as far as I can discover. But suspicion may equally
well fall on people outside the house; for, although the
doors of the inn were locked, there is a practicable window
on the ground floor, which is not always shut at night.
Mottram was known in Chilthorpe and had lived there when he
was young; there is the chance, then, of a local vendetta.
Pullford is only twenty miles or so distant; and in Pullford
he may easily have had enemies; the letter from 'Brutus'
shows that. But, since the salient fact about Mottram was
his wealth, it seems obvious that the first question to be
settled is that of his testamentary dispositions. I must
telegraph to London tomorrow for full information about
these, and pursue my local inquiries in the meantime. The
only person on the spot who has any close tie of blood with
the deceased is the young fellow who owns the big shop here.
He is Mottram's nephew; Mottram himself started it long ago,
and afterwards made it over to his sister and her husband,
both of whom are now dead. Unfortunately for himself, the
young man seems to have been something of a radical, and he
made an injudicious speech at the time when Mottram was
proposing to run himself as an Independent Parliamentary
candidate for the constituency. There was a quarrel; and Mrs
Davis thinks that the two never met again.

These are only my first impressions. They may have to be
revised drastically as the case proceeds. But of one thing I
am confident--there has been foul play, and the effort to
represent it as a case of suicide is necessarily doomed to
failure.




CHAPTER 8

_The Bishop at Home_


Angela and her husband breakfasted late next morning.
Leyland came in as they were finishing, his manner full of
excitement.

'Mrs Davis,' he explained, 'has been talking to me.'

'Don't be led on too much by that,' said Angela. 'It has
happened to others.'

'No, but I mean Mrs Davis has been saying something.'

'That is far more unusual,' assented Bredon. 'Let's hear all
about it. Angela...'

'Mrs Bredon,' said Angela firmly, 'has been associated with
me in many of my cases, and you may speak freely in her
presence. Cough it up, Mr Leyland; nothing is going to
separate me from this piece of toast.'

'Oh, there's nothing private about it particularly. But I
thought perhaps you might help. You see, Mrs Davis says that
Mottram was expecting a visitor to turn up in the morning
and go out fishing with him.'

'A mysterious stranger?' suggested Angela. 'Carrying a blunt
instrument?'

'Well, no, as a matter of fact it was the Bishop of
Pullford. Do you know Pullford at all?'

'Nothing is hidden from us, Mr Leyland. They make
drain-pipes there, not perambulators, as some have supposed.
The parish church is a fine specimen of early Perp. It has
been the seat of a R. Cath. Bishopric--oh, I suppose that's
the man?'

'So Mrs Davis explained. A very genial man. Not one of your
stand-offish ones. He was expected, it seems, by the first
train, which gets in about ten. Mottram left word that he
was to be called early, because he wanted to get at the
fishing, and the Bishop, when he arrived, was to be asked to
join Mr Mottram on the river; he would be at the Long Pool.
He'd been down here before, apparently as Mottram's guest.
Now, it's obvious that we had better find out what the
Bishop has to say about all this. I'd go myself, only for
one thing I don't quite like leaving Chilthorpe while my
suspicions' (he dropped his voice) 'are so undefined; and
for another thing I'm telegraphing up to London for details
about the will, and I want to be certain that the answer
comes straight to my own hands. And the inquest is at four
this afternoon; I can't risk being late for that. I was
wondering whether you and Mrs Bredon would care to run over
there? It would take you less than an hour in the car, and
if you went as representing the Indescribable, it would make
it all rather less--official. Then I thought perhaps at the
end of the day we might swap information.'

'What about it, Angy?'

'I don't think I shall come and see the Bishop. It doesn't
sound quite proper, somehow. But I'll drive you into
Pullford, and sit at the hotel for a bit and have luncheon
there, and you can pick me up.'

'All right. I say, though,' he added piteously, 'shall I
have to go and change my suit?'

'Not for a moment. You can explain to the Bishop that your
Sunday trousers are in pawn; if he's really genial he'll
appreciate that. Besides, that tweed suit makes you look
like a good-natured sort of ass; and that's what you want,
isn't it? After all, if you do stay to lunch, it will only
be a bachelor party.'

'Very well,then, we'll go. Just when I was beginning to like
Chilthorpe. Look here, Leyland, you aren't expecting me to
serve a summons on the bishop, or clap the darbies on him,
or anything? Because if so you'd better go yourself.'

'Oh, no, I don't suspect the bishop--not particularly, that
is. I just want to know what he can tell us about Mottram's
movements immediately before his death, and what sort of man
he was generally. He may even know something about the will;
but there's no need to drag that topic in, because my
telegram ought to produce full information about that.
Thanks awfully. And we'll pool the day's information, eh?'

'Done. I say, though, I think I'd better just wire to the
Bishop, to make sure that he's at home, and ready to receive
a stray spy. Then we can start at elevenish.'

As Bredon returned from sending the telegram, he was
waylaid, to his surprise, by Mr Pulteney, who was fooling
about with rods and reels and things in the front hall. 'I
wonder if I might make a suggestion to you, Mr Bredon,' he
said. 'I despise myself for the weakness, but you know how
it is. Every man thinks in his heart that he would have made
a good detective. I ought to know better at my age, but the
foul fiend keeps urging me to point something out to you.'

Bredon smiled at the elaborate address. 'I should like to
hear it awfully,' he said. 'After all, detection is only a
mixture of common sense and special knowledge; so why
shouldn't we all put something into the pot?'

'It is special knowledge that is in question here; otherwise
I would not have ventured to approach you. You see that rod?
It is, as you doubtless know, Mottram's; it is the one which
he intended to take out with him on that fatal morning. You
see those flies on it?'

They looked to Bredon very much like any other flies, and he
said so.

'Exactly. That is where special knowledge comes in. I don't
know this river very well; but I do know that it would be
ridiculous to try and fish this river with those particular
flies, especially at this time of the year and after the
weather we've been having. And I do know that a man like
Mottram, who had been fishing this river year after year,
couldn't possibly have imagined that it was any use taking
those flies down to the Long Pool. I only mention it,
because it makes me rather wonder whether Mottram really
came down here to fish. Well, I must be starting for the
river. Still nursing the unconquerable hope. Good morning.'
And, with one of his sudden gestures, the old gentleman was
gone.

A telegram came in admirably good time, assuring Bredon that
the Bishop would be delighted to see him. It was little
after eleven when the car took the road again; this time
their way brought them closer to the Busk, and gave them a
better view of its curious formation. A narrow gorge opened
beneath them, and they looked down into deep pools overhung
by smooth rocks that the water had eaten away at their base.
There was no actual waterfall, but the stream always hurried
downwards, chuckling to itself under and around boulders
which interrupted its course. ' I think Pulteney
overestimates the danger of having his river dragged,'
observed Bredon. 'You couldn't drag that part of it; and
with all those shelves of rocks, a corpse might lie for days
undiscovered, and no one the wiser. I'm glad that it's a
death by gas, not by drowning.'

Their road now climbed on to the moors, and they began to
draw closer to a desolate kind of civilization. Little
factory towns which had sprung up when direct water-power
was in demand, and continued a precarious existence, perched
on those barren slopes, now that water-power had been
displaced by steam, were the milestones of their route. They
were jolted on a pavement of villainous sets; the air grew
dim with smoke-haze, and the moorland blackened with their
approach to the haunts of men. At last tram lines met them,
announcing the outskirts of Pullford. 'I'm getting the
needle rather about this interview,' confessed Bredon. 'What
does one do by way of making oneself popular with a Catholic
Bishop?' he demanded of Angela, who was convent-bred.

'Well, the right thing is to go down on one knee and kiss
his ring. I don't think you'd make much of a show at it; we
ought to have practised it before we left Chilthorpe. But I
don't suppose he'll eat you.' Bredon tried to rearrange his
ideas about Bishops. He remembered the ceremony of being
confirmed at school; a long, tiresome service, with an
interminable address, in which he and fifty of his compeers
were adjured to play for their side. He remembered another
bishop, met in a friend's rooms at Oxford; a hand laid on
his shoulder, and an intolerably earnest voice asking
whether he had ever thought of taking Holy Orders. Was that
the sort of thing? Or was he rather to expect some
silken-tongued courtier, in purple and fine linen, pledging
him in rich liqueurs (as in the advertisements) and lying to
him smoothly (as in the story-books)? Was he to be
embarrassed by pietism, or to be hoodwinked by a practised
intriguer? Anyhow, he would know the worst before long now.
They drew up at the centre of the town before a vast,
smoke-grimed hotel which promised every sort of discomfort;
and Bredon, after asking, his way to the Catholic Cathedral,
and steadying himself with a vermouth, went out to face the
interview.

The Cathedral house proved to be a good specimen of that
curious municipal Gothic, which is the curse of all
institutions founded in 1850. The kind of house which is
characterized by the guide books as fine, by its immates as
beastly. The large room into which Bredon was shown was at
least equally cheerless. It was half-panelled in atrocious
pitch-pine, and it had heavy, ecclesiastical-looking chairs
which discouraged all attempts at repose. There was a gas
stove in the fireplace. Previous occupants of the See of
Pullford lined the walls, in the worst possible style of
portraiture. A plaster Madonna, of the kind that is
successively exiled from the church to the sacristy, and
from the sacristy to the presbytery, at once caught and
repelled the eye. In point of fact the room is never used,
except by the canons of Pullford when they vest for the
chapter Mass, and by the strange visitor who looks a little
too important to be left in the waiting-room downstairs.

A door opened at the end of the room, and through it came a
tall man dressed in black with a dash of red, whose welcome
made you forget at once all the chill of the reception room.
The face was strong and determined, yet unaffectedly
benevolent; the eyes met you squarely, and did not languish
at you; the manner was one of embarrassed dignity, with no
suggestion of personal greatness. You did not feel that
there was the slightest danger of being asked whether you
meant to take orders. You did not catch the smallest hint of
policy or of priestcraft. Bredon made a gesture as if to
carry out Angela's uncomfortable prescription; but the hand
that had caught his was at once withdrawn in obvious
deprecation. He had come there as a spy, expecting to be
spied upon; he found himself mysteriously fitting into this
strange household as an old friend.

'I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Brendan.' (The
Chilthorpe post office is not at its best with proper
names.) 'Come inside, please. So you've come to have a word
about poor old Mottram? He was an old friend of ours here,
you know, and a close neighbour. You had a splendid morning
for motoring. Come in, please.' And Bredon found himself in
a much smaller room, the obvious sanctum of a bachelor.
There were pipes about, and pipe-cleaners; there was a
pleasant litter of documents on the table; there was a piano
standing open, as pianos do when people are accustomed to
strum on them for mere pleasure; there was a quite unashamed
loud speaker in one corner. The chair into which the visitor
was shepherded was voluminous and comfortable; you could not
sit nervously on the edge of it if you tried. Instinctively,
in such a room, your hand felt for your tobacco-pouch. Would
Mr Brendan take anything before dinner? Dinner was due in
three-quarters of an hour. Yes, it was a very sad business
about poor Mottram. There was a feeling of genuine regret in
the town.

'I don't really know whether I'd any right to trespass on my
Lordship's--on your Lordship's time at all,' began Bredon,
fighting down a growing sense of familiarity. 'It was only
that the landlady told us this morning you were expected to
join Mottram at Chilthorpe just on the morning when he died.
So we naturally thought you might have known something about
his movements and his plans. When I say "we", I mean that
I'm more or less working in with the police, because the
inspector down there happens to be a man I know.' (Dash it
all, why was he putting all his cards on the table like
this?)

'Oh, of course, I should be only too glad if I can be of any
use. The papers have just mentioned the death as if it were
an accident, but one of my priests was telling me there is a
rumour in the town that the poor fellow took his own life.
Well, of course, I don't think that very probable.'

'He was quite cheerful, you mean, when you last saw him?'

'Well, I wouldn't say cheerful, exactly; but, you see, he
was always a bit of a dismal Jimmy. But he was in here one
evening not a week ago, very glad to be going off for his
holiday, and full of fishing plans. It was then he asked me
to come down and join him just for the day. Well, there was
a tempting hole in my engagement book, and there's a useful
train in the morning to Chilthorpe; so I promised I would.
Then the Vicar-General rang me up the last thing at night
and told me about an important interview with some Education
person which he'd arranged behind my back. So I gave it
up--one has to do what one's told--and was meaning to
telegraph to Mottram in the morning. And then this sad news
came along before I had time to telegraph at all.'

'Oh, the news got here as early as that?'

'Yes, that secretary of his wired to me, Brinkman. It was
kind of him to think of me, for I know the man very little.
I forget the exact words he used, _Regret to say Mr Mottram
died last night, useless your coming,_ something of that
sort.'

'Do you know if he meant to make any long stay at
Chilthorpe?'

'Brinkman would be able to tell you better than I could; but
I fancy they generally spent about a fortnight there every
year. Mottram himself, I daresay you know, came from those
parts. So far as I knew, this was to be the regular yearly
visit. Honestly, I can't think why he should have been at
pains to ask me down if there had been any idea of suicide
in his mind. Of course, if there was definite insanity,
that's a different thing. But there was nothing about him to
suggest it.'

'Do I understand that Mottram belonged to your--that Mottram
was a Catholic?'

'Oh, dear no. I don't think he was a church-goer at all. I
think he believed in Almighty God, you know; he was quite an
intelligent man, though he had not had much schooling when
he was young. But his friendship with us was just a matter
of chance--that and the fact that his house is so close to
us. He was always very kindly disposed towards us--a
peculiar man, Mr Brendan, and a very obstinate man in some
ways. He liked being in the right, and proving himself in
the right; but he was broad-minded in religious matters,
very.'

'You don't think that he would have shrunk from the idea of
suicide--on any moral grounds, I mean?'

'He did defend suicide in a chat we had the other day. Of
course, my own feeling is that by the time a man has got to
the state of nerves in which suicide seems the only way out,
he has generally got beyond the stage at which he can really
sit down and argue whether it is right or wrong. At least,
one hopes so. I don't think that a person who defends
suicide in the abstract is any more the likely to commit
suicide for that, or vice versa. Apart from grace, of
course. But it's the absence of motive, Mr Brendan. Why
should Mottram have wanted to take his own life?'

'Well, my Lord, I'm afraid I see these things from an
uncharitable angle. You see, my business is all connected
with insurance; and Mottram was insured with us, and insured
heavily.'

'Well, there you are, you see; you have the experience and I
haven't. But doesn't it seem to you strange that a man in
good health, who digests his meals, and has no worries,
should take his own life in the hope of benefiting his
heirs, whoever they may prove to be? He had no family, you
must remember.'

'In good health? Then ... then he didn't mention anything to
you about his life prospects?'

'I can't say that he did; but he always seemed to enjoy good
health. Why, was there anything wrong?'

'My Lord, I think this ought to be confidential, if you
don't mind. But, since you knew him so well, I think it's
only fair to mention to you that Mottram had misgivings
about his health.' And he narrated the story of Mottram's
singular interview at the Indescribable Office. The Bishop
looked grave when he had finished.

'Dear, dear, I'd no notion of that; no notion at all. And
it's not clear even now what was wrong with him? Well, of
course, that alters things. It must be a grave temptation
for people who are suffering from a malignant disease,
especially if it's a painful one; pain clouds the reason so,
doesn't it? I wish I'd realized that he was in trouble,
though it's very little one can do. But that's just like
him; he was always a bit of a Stoic; fine, in a rugged sort
of way; _it never did any good meeting troubles half-way,_
he used to say to me. Well, money can't do everything for
us.'

'He was enormously rich, I suppose?'

'Hardly that. He was very comfortably off, though. There
will be a windfall, I suppose, coming to somebody.'

'He never mentioned to you, I suppose, what he meant to do
with his money?'

'Well, of course, he used to say half-jokingly that he was
going to provide for us; but I don't think he meant us to
take that seriously. He had a kind of hankering after
religion, you see, but he didn't get on well with religious
people as a general thing. The Anglicans, he said, were all
at sixes and sevens, and he couldn't bear a Church which
didn't know its own mind. The Nonconformists, he said, did
no sort of good in the town; all those fine chapels, and
only thirty or forty people in each of them on a Sunday
morning. He was a little unjust, I think, to the
Nonconformists; they do a great deal of good, some of them.
And about the Salvation Army he was extraordinarily bitter.
So he used to say he'd sooner his money went to us than to
any of the others. But I think that was only an ironic way
he had with him; people who have made a lot of money are
often fond of talking about what they're going to do with
it. Of course, it would have made a lot of difference to us;
but I don't think he meant to be taken seriously.'

'Well, I'm very much obliged to your Lordship; I think,
perhaps, I ought to be...'

'What, going away, and dinner on the table? No, no, Mr
Brendan, that isn't how we treat our guests at Pullford.
Just you come along, now, and be introduced to some of the
reverend clergy. I know the "Load of Mischief ", and those
chops! Come on, and we'll send you off in better trim than
you came.' It was evident that there was no help for it;
Angela must wait.




CHAPTER 9

_The Late Rector of Hipley_


The dinner-table left a blurred impression on Bredon, for
all his habit of observing his fellow-men and analysing his
feelings about them. The setting-out of the meal had faults
that Angela would have condemned, and would have put right
in no time; you were conscious at once that the household
belonged to bachelors. Yet the meal itself and the cooking
of it were of excellent quality; and it was thrown at you
with a clamorous, insistent hospitality that made you feel
like a guest of honour. The room seemed to be full of
priests--there were five, perhaps, in reality, besides the
Bishop--and every detail of their behaviour proved that they
were free from any sense of formality or restraint; yet
constant little attentions showed the guest that he was
never forgotten. The topic of conversation which Bredon
could recall most distinctly afterwards was a learned and
almost technical discussion between the Bishop and the
youngest priest present on the prospects of the local Soccer
team for next year. Nothing fitted in, somehow, with his
scheme of probabilities; there was a Father O'Shaughnessy,
who had been born and bred in Pullford and never seemed to
have been outside it; there was a Father Edwards, who talked
with a violent Irish brogue. A teetotaller opposite kept
plying him with Barsac.

It was perhaps a delicate attention that Bredon's next-door
neighbour, on the side away from the Bishop, was the only
other layman present. He was introduced as the Bishop's
secretary; and he was the only man in the room who looked
like a clergyman. He seemed some fifty years old; he was
silent by habit, and spoke with a dry humour that seemed to
amuse everybody except himself. Bredon could not help
wondering how such a man came to occupy such a position at
his time of life; for his voice betrayed University
education, and he was plainly competent; yet he obviously
thought of himself as a supernumerary in the household. The
riddle was solved when Bredon, in answer to some question
about his journey down to Chilthorpe, explained that he did
not come from London itself, but from a village in Surrey, a
place called Burrington. 'What,' said Mr Eames, the
secretary, 'not Burrington near Hipley?' And, when Bredon
asked if he knew Hipley, 'Know it? I ought to. I was rector
there for ten years.'

The picture of the rectory at Hipley stood out before
Bredon's mind; you see it from the main road. There is an
old-fashioned tennis-lawn in front of it; roses cluster
round it endearingly; there is a cool dignity about the
Queen Anne house, the terraces are spotlessly mowed. Yes,
you could put this man in clerical clothes, and he would fit
beautifully into that spacious garden; you saw him with
surplice fluttering in the breeze, going up the churchyard
path to ring the bell for evening service; that was his
atmosphere. And here, unfrocked by his own conscience, he
was living as a hired servant, almost a pensioner, in this
gaunt house, these cheerless rooms. ... You wondered less at
his silent habit, and his melancholy airs of speech.

Nothing creates intimacy like a common background discovered
among strangers. They belonged, it seemed, to the same
University, the same College; their periods were widely
different, but dons and scouts, the milestones of
short-lived undergraduate memory, were recalled, and their
mannerisms discussed; and when at the end of the meal the
Bishop rose, profuse in his apologies, to attend a meeting,
Eames volunteered to walk Bredon back to his hotel. 'I
thought there'd be no harm, my Lord, if we just took a look
in at poor Mottram's house; I daresay it would interest Mr
Bredon to see it. The house-keeper,' he explained to Bredon
'is one of our people.'

The Bishop approved the suggestion; and with a chorus of
farewells they left the Cathedral House together. 'Well,'
said Bredon, to his companion, 'you've got a wonderful
Bishop here.'

'Yes,' said Eames, 'the mind dwells with pleasure on the
thought of him. There are few of us for whom more can be
said than that.'

'I can't fit Mottram, from what I've heard of him, into that
household.'

'Because you're not a provincial. Our common roots are in
Oxford and in London. But in a place like this people know
one another because they are neighbours.'

'Even the clergy?'

'The Catholic clergy, anyhow. You see, our priests don't
swap about from one diocese to another; they are tied to the
soil. Consequently they are local men, most of them, and a
local man feels at home with them.'

'Still ... for a man who had no religion particularly ...
isn't it rather a challenge, to be up against your faith
like that? I should have thought a man was bound to react
one way or the other.'

'Not necessarily. It's astonishing what a lot of theoretical
interest a man can take in the faith, and yet be miles away
from it practically. Why, Mottram himself, about three weeks
ago, was pestering us all about the old question of "the end
justifying the means". Being a Protestant, of course he
meant by that doing evil in order that good may come. He
worried the life out of the Bishop, urging the most
plausible reasons for maintaining that it was perfectly
right. He simply couldn't see why the Bishop insisted you
weren't ever allowed to do what's wrong, whatever comes of
it. And the odd thing was, he really seemed to think he was
being more Catholic over it than we were. However, all that
bores you.'

'No, indeed. I want to know everything about Mottram; and
it's silly to pretend that a man's religion doesn't matter.
Was he thinking at all, do you suppose, of becoming a
Catholic?'

Eames shrugged his shoulders. 'How can I tell? I don't think
he really showed any disposition. But of course, he was a
religious man in a way, he wasn't one of your No-goddites,
like Brinkman. You've met Brinkman?'

'Yes, I'm staying in the same hotel, you see. And I confess
I'm interested in him, too. What do you make of him? Who is
he, or where did Mottram pick him up?'

'I don't know. I don't like the little man. I don't even
know what his nationality is; he's spent a long time in
Paris, and I'm pretty sure he's not British. And mind you,
he hated us. I think he had corresponded for some paper out
in Paris; anyhow, he knew all the seedy anti-clericals; and
I rather think he was asked to leave. Mottram seems to have
taken him on on the recommendation of a friend; he had some
idea, I think, of doing a history of the town; and, of
course, Brinkman can write. But Brinkman very seldom came in
here, and when he did, he was like a dog among snakes. I
daresay he thought the house was full of oubliettes. He'd
got all that Continental anti-clericalism, you see. Here's
the house.'

They turned up a short drive which led them through a
heavily-walled park to the front door of a painfully
middle-Victorian mansion. A mansion it must be called; it
did not look like a house. Strange reminiscences of various
styles, Gothic, Byzantine, Oriental, seemed to have been
laid on by some external process to a red-brick abomination
of the early seventies. Cream-coloured and slate-coloured
tiles wove irrelevant patterns across the bare spaces of
wall. Conservatories masked a good half of the lowest
storey. It was exactly suited to be what it afterwards
became, a kind of municipal museum, in which the historic
antiquities of Pullford, such as they were, could be visited
by the public on dreary Sunday afternoons.

'Now,' said Eames, 'does that give you Mottram's
atmosphere?'

'God forbid,' replied Bredon.

'See then the penalty of too great riches. Only one man in a
thousand can express his personality in his surroundings if
he has a million of money to do it with. It wasn't Mottram,
of course, who did this; but he would have built the same
sort of horror if he hadn't taken it over from a predecessor
like himself. And the rooms are as bad as the house.'

Eames was fully justified in this last criticism. The house
was full of expensive bad taste; the crude work of local
artists hung on the walls; bulging goddesses supported
unnecessary capitals; velvet, and tarnished gilding, and
multi-coloured slabs of marble completed the resemblance to
a large station restaurant. Mottram had possessed no private
household gods, had preserved no cherished knick-knacks. The
house was the fruit of his money, not of his personality. He
had given the architect a free hand, and in the midst of all
that barbaric splendour he had lived, a homeless exile.

The housekeeper had little to add to what Bredon already
knew. Her master usually went away for a holiday about that
time in the year, and Mr Brinkman always went with him. He
had expected to be away for a fortnight, or perhaps three
weeks. He had not shown, to the servants at any rate, any
signs of depression or anxiety; he had not left any parting
messages to suggest a long absence. His letters were to be
re-directed, as usual, to the 'Load of Mischief'. There had
been none, as a matter of fact, except a few bills and
circulars. She didn't think that Mr Mottram went to any of
the Pullford doctors, regularly at least; and she had had no
knowledge of his seeing the specialist in London. She did
not remember Mr Mottram being ill, except for an occasional
cold, though he did now and again take a sleeping-draught.

'It's quite true,' said Eames as they left the house, 'that
we never noticed any signs of depression or anxiety in
Mottram. But I do remember, only a short time ago, his
seeming rather excited one evening when he was round with
us. Or am I imagining it? Memory and imagination are such
close neighbours. But I do think that when he asked the
Bishop to go and stay down at Chilthorpe he seemed
unnaturally insistent about it. He was fond of the Bishop,
of course, but I shouldn't have thought he was as fond of
him as all that. To hear him talk, you would think that it
was going to make all the difference to him whether the
Bishop shared his holiday or not.'

'Yes ... I wonder what that points to?'

'Anything or nothing. It's possible, of course, that he was
feeling depressed, as he well might be; and thought that he
wanted more than Brinkman's company to help him over a bad
time. Or ... I don't know. He was always secretive. He gave
the Bishop a car, you know; and took endless pains to find
out beforehand what sort of car would be useful to him,
without ever giving away what he was doing till the last
moment. And the other evening--well, I feel now as if I'd
felt then that he had something up his sleeve. But did I
really feel it then? I don't know.'

'On the whole, though, you incline to the suicide theory?'

'I didn't say that. It's possible, isn't it, that a man who
had some premonition of a violent end might want company
when he went to a lonely place like Chilthorpe?'

'Had he any, enemies, do you think, in Pullford?'

'Who hasn't? But not that sort of enemies. He used, I fancy,
to be something of a martinet with his workpeople, in the
old manner. In America, a disgruntled employ sometimes
satisfies his vendetta with a shot-gun. But in England we
have no murdering classes. Even the burglars, I am told,
make a principle of going unarmed, for fear they might be
tempted to shoot. You would probably find two or three
hundred men in Pullford who would grouse at Mottram's
success and call him a blood-sucker, but not one who would
up with a piece of lead-piping if he met him in a lonely
lane.'

'I say, it's been very kind of you looking after me like
this. I wish, if you've any time to spare in the next day or
two, you would drop down to Chilthorpe and help me to make
the case out. Or is that asking too much?'

'Not the least. The Bishop goes off to a Confirmation
tomorrow, and I shall probably have time on my hands. If you
think I could be of any use, I'll certainly look in. I like
Chilthorpe; every prospect pleases and only chops are vile.
No, I won't come in, thanks; I ought to be getting back
now.'

Angela was a little inclined to be satirical at her
husband's prolonged absence; but she seemed to have killed
the time with some success. She had not even been reduced to
going round the early Perp. Church. They made short work of
the way back to Chilthorpe, and found Leyland eagerly
awaiting them at the door of the hotel.

'Well,' he asked, 'have you found out anything about
Mottram?'

'Not much, and that's a fact. Except that a man who strikes
me as a competent observer thought he had noticed a certain
amount of excitement in Mottram's manner last week, as if he
had been more than ordinarily anxious to get the Bishop to
stay with him. That, and the impression, made on the same
observer, that he was keeping dark about something, had
something up his sleeve. I have seen the house; it is a
beastly place; and it has electric light laid on, of course.
I have seen the housekeeper, an entirely harmless woman,
partly Irish by extraction, who has nothing to add to what
we know, and does not believe that Mottram habitually
employed any of the Pullford doctors.'

'Well, and what about the Bishop?'

'Exactly, what about him? I find his atmosphere very
difficult to convey. He was very nice to me, and very
hospitable; he has not the overpowering manners of a great
man, and yet his dignities seem to sit on him quite easily.
He is entirely natural, and I am prepared to go bail for his
being an honest man.'

'That,' said Leyland, 'is just as well.'

'How do you mean? Have you had the answer to your telegram?'

'I have, and a very full answer it is. The solicitors gave
all the facts without a murmur. About fifteen years ago
Mottram made a will which was chiefly in favour of his
nephew. A few years later, he cancelled that will
absolutely, and made another will, in which he devised his
property to certain public purposes--stinkingly useless
ones, as is the way of these very rich men. I can't remember
it all; but he wants his house to be turned into a silly
sort of museum, and he provides for the erection of a
municipal art gallery--that sort of thing. But this is the
important point. His Euthanasia policy was not mentioned at
all in the later will. Three weeks ago he put in a codicil
directing how the money he expects from the Indescribable is
to be disposed of.'

'Namely, how?'

'The entire half-million goes to the Bishop of Pullford, to
be administered by him for the benefit of his diocese, as he
and his successors shall think fit.'




CHAPTER 10

_The Bet Doubled_


There was no time to discuss the implications of this
unexpected announcement, for the inquest was just beginning,
and neither Leyland nor Bredon could afford to miss it.
There was a decayed outbuilding which adjoined the 'Load of
Mischief', the scene, you fancied, of the farmers' ordinary
in more prosperous times. Here the good men and true were to
deliver their verdict, and the coroner his platitudes.

Brinkman's evidence need not be repeated here, for it
followed exactly the lines we already know. The local doctor
and the Boots corroborated his account so far as the
discovery of the corpse was concerned. Particular attention
was naturally called to the tap and to the locked door. The
doctor was absolutely positive that the tap was turned off
when he reached it; the fumes had blown away a good deal by
that time, and his first action was to put a match to both
jets in turn. Neither gave the least promise of a flame,
although the jet on the standard stood open; there was no
doubt, then, that the main tap sufficiently controlled both
outlets. Asked whether he turned the main tap on to
experiment, the doctor said 'No', and was congratulated by
the coroner on his circumspection. The work of the police
would be much facilitated, observed that prudent
functionary, if people would leave things as they found
them. After testing the gas the doctor's next action had
been to attend to the patient. Much medical detail followed
at this point, but with no results that would be new to us.
Asked how long it would have taken for the gas to cause
asphyxiation, the doctor was uncertain. It all depended, he
said, on the position of the window, which must clearly at
some time have blown further open than it had been
originally. It was his impression that the death must have
occurred about one o'clock in the morning; but there were no
sure tests by which the exact moment of death could be
determined.

The Boots, by his own account, entered the room immediately
after the doctor. The door of the room had fallen almost
flat when it fell in; not quite flat, for it was not
entirely separated from the lower hinge. The Boots made his
way over this, and helped the doctor by supplying him with a
match. When the doctor went across to the bed, he himself
went to the window to throw the match out. Dr Ferrers had
joined Mr Brinkman at the bed, so he devoted himself to
examining, and trying to hoist up, the wreckage of the door.
The lock was right out, and the key duly turned on the
inside of the door. It was not usual for him to call guests
in the morning, but he had arranged to do so on that
particular occasion. He noticed the smell of gas even
outside the door, but did not feel sure there was anything
wrong until he tried the door and found it locked. It was
not usual for guests to lock their doors in that hotel,
although keys were provided for the purpose ... Yes, he did
bend down and look through the keyhole, but it was
completely dark--naturally, since the key was in the lock.
He went and asked Mr Brinkman what he should do, because he
was anxious not to go beyond his orders.

The barmaid had really nothing to contribute. She had not
been into the room at all after six o'clock, or it might be
half past on the Monday evening, when she went in to put
everything to rights. Pressed to interpret this phrase, she
said it meant turning down the corner of the bedclothes. She
had not struck a match, naturally, since it was broad
daylight. She had never noticed any leak of gas in that room
since the plumber had paid a visit in the previous March.
There was nothing wrong, she thought, about the catch of the
window; certainly no visitor had ever complained of its
fetching loose in the night. The Bible, she thought, had
been by the bedside when she went into the room at six or it
might have been half past. She did not move it, nor did she
interfere in any way with the arrangements of the room.

Mrs Davis confirmed this evidence as far as it needed
confirmation. It was she who had taken the order from
Mottram about his being called early in the morning. He had
spoken to her quite naturally, and said good night to her
cheerfully.

Mr Pulteney's evidence was entirely negligible. He had
noticed nothing the evening before, had heard nothing in the
night, had not entered the room since the tragedy occurred.

The Coroner spread himself in his allocution to the jury. He
reminded them that an escape of gas could not properly be
described as an act of God. He pointed out that it was
impossible to return a verdict of death from unknown causes,
since the cause of death was known. If they were prepared to
give any new explanation of the fact that the gas was turned
off, they might bring in a verdict of death by misadventure,
or by suicide; in the latter case, it was possible to add a
rider saying that the deceased was of unsound mind. If they
were prepared to give any new explanation of the locked
door, it was possible for them to bring in a verdict of
wilful murder against a person or persons unknown. In fact,
the reader will see that the coroner was a man like himself.

The jury, unequal to the intellectual strain which seemed to
be demanded of them, returned an open verdict. The coroner
thanked them, and made them a little speech which had not
really much bearing on the situation. He pointed out the
superiority of electric light over gas; in a house lit by
electric light this could never have happened. He called
attention to the importance of making certain that the gas
was turned off before you got into bed, and the almost equal
importance of seeing that your window was well and truly
opened. And so the inquest ended, and Mottram, who had
expressed no desires in his will as to where or how he
should be buried, was laid to rest next day in the
churchyard of the little town which had seen his early
struggles, and Pullford remembered him no more.

As soon as the inquest was over, Leyland and Bredon met, by
arrangement, to discuss further the bearings of the new
discovery. They avoided the inn itself, partly because the
day's events had left it overcrowded, partly because they
were afraid, since Bredon's experience the night before, of
speaking to a concealed audience. A slight rain was falling,
and they betook themselves to the back of the inn, where a
rambling path led along the river bank through the ruins of
an old mill. Next the disused millwheel there was a little
room or shed, whose gaping walls and roof afforded,
nevertheless, sufficient shelter from the weather. A 'rustic
seat', made of knobby branches overlaid with dark brown
varnish, offered uncomfortable repose. Draughts at the back
of your neck, or sudden leakage in the slates above you,
would cause you now and again to shift your attitude
uneasily; but, since the 'Load of Mischief' did not abound
with amenities in any case, they were content with their
quarters.

'I confess I'm a little shaken,' admitted Bredon. 'Not that
I see any logical reason for altering my own point of view;
but I don't _want_ it to be suicide now as much as I did.
The Bishop is such a jolly old man; and he could so
obviously do with half a million, if only to put in new
wallpapers. ... He might even give his secretary a rise. I
tell you, I hate the idea of advising the Company not to pay
up. It can afford the money so easily. But I suppose I must
have a sort of conscience about me somewhere; for I'm still
determined to get at the truth. This codicil, you say, was
put in less than three weeks ago?'

'Just about that. As nearly as I can calculate, it must have
been just before, not after, Mottram's visit to the
Indescribable.'

'The thing becomes more confusing than ever. If he did want
to endow the diocese of Pullford, why did he offer to resign
his Euthanasia claim on condition that we repaid half his
premiums? And if he didn't want to endow the diocese of
Pullford, why did he take the trouble of altering his will
in its favour?'

'Remember, when he drew up the codicil he may not have seen
the specialist.'

'That's true, too. ... Now, look here, supposing he hadn't
put the codicil in, what would have become of the Euthanasia
money? Would it have gone, like the rest, into these silly
schemes of his about Art galleries?'

'No, it wasn't just a vague will, nothing about "all I die
possessed of ". The whole thing was itemized very clearly,
and no allowance had been made at all for the disposal of
the Euthanasia money. Consequently, if he hadn't made the
codicil, the Euthanasia money would have gone to his next of
kin.'

'In fact, to this nephew? Really, I begin to want to see
this nephew.'

'You have seen him.'

'Seen him--where?'

'At the inquest. Didn't you notice a rather seedy little
fellow, with a face like a rat, who was standing about in
the porch just when it was over? That's your man; Simmonds
his name is, and if you want to get a taste of his quality,
nothing's easier, for he serves in his own shop. On a plea
of braces trouble, shortage of cough lozenges, or what you
will, his time is yours from ten in the morning to seven at
night.'

'Yes, I noticed the little man. I can't say I was favourably
prepossessed. But I must certainly improve the acquaintance.
I suppose it's not fair to ask what you make of him?'

'Oh, personally I can't say I've made much of him. I had a
talk, and his manner and statements seemed to be perfectly
straightforward. No nervousness, no embarrassment.'

'There's one other thing about Mottram's will that's clearly
important. You got it, I gather, from the solicitors; did
you find out from them whether the terms of it were made
public in any way?'

'About the main will they thought there was no secret.
Mottram seems to have talked it over with members of the
Pullford Town Council. Also, the lawyers were directed to
send a full statement of it to young Simmonds, as a kind of
rebuke; Simmonds, you see, had annoyed Mottram at the time.
But this codicil was a different affair; it was extremely
confidential. Brinkman himself--though of course he may have
been lying, or being discreet--professed ignorance of it. I
should think it very improbable that anybody knows about it
yet, except you and me and Mrs Bredon, and of course the
lawyers themselves.'

'Then there's a chance, I suppose, that Simmonds thought,
and still thinks, he is coming in for a windfall from our
Company? Or do you think he didn't know Mottram was
insured?'

'He must have; because the Euthanasia policy was explicitly
mentioned in the earlier will, the one which was cancelled.
So you are not the only person who's interested in young
Simmonds. Well, what do you make of it all?'

'Let me tell you one thing; it wouldn't be fair if I didn't.
About three weeks ago Mottram had an argument with the
Bishop of Pullford on a matter of theology. Mottram was
trying to persuade the Bishop that you were morally
justified in doing evil in order that good might come of
it.'

'I'm very much obliged for the information, old man, but I'm
not much interested in these speculative questions. I'm
concerned to hunt out the people who do evil, whether good
comes of it or not.'

'But the information doesn't impress you?'

'Not much.'

'Very well, then. Will you double that bet?'

'Double the bet? You're mad! Why, I was just going to make
the same offer, feeling sure you'd refuse. It's taking your
money.'

'Never mind that. Are you on?'

'On? Why, I'm prepared to redouble if you like.'

'Done! That's twenty pounds. Now, would you like to hear my
reading of the story?'

'By all means. And then I shall have the pleasure of putting
you wise.'

'Well, from the first, the whole thing smelt of suicide to
me. Every step Mottram took seemed to be the calculated step
of a man who was leading up to some deliberate
_dnouement_. He was mysterious, he was excited, when he
went round the other night to the Cathedral House. When he
came here, he made the most obvious attempts to try and
behave as if everything was going on just as usual. He made
fussy arrangements about being called in the morning; he
pretended to have left a letter half-finished; he put a
novel down by the bedside, wound up his watch, put studs in
his shirt--he did everything to create the surface
impression, good enough (he thought) for the coroner, that
whatever else was the truth, suicide was out of the
question. He made one or two slips there-- writing down his
name in the Visitors' book with a blank for his date of
departure, as if any guest ever did that; putting the flies
ready on his rod, but (so Pulteney tells me) the wrong kind
of flies. To make sure that there was not a verdict of
suicide, he even made arrangements--through Brinkman,
through Mrs Davis, I don't know how--to have the gas in his
bedroom turned off again after it had done its work. Then he
tossed off his sleeping-draught, turned the gas on, and got
into bed. I was sure of all that, even before I went over to
Pullford, before you got the telegram from London. What I
couldn't understand was the motive; and now that's as plain
as daylight. He was determined to endow the Pullford diocese
with half a million, so as to be sure of having his nest
well lined in the next world. He knew that Christian
morality doesn't permit suicide, but he thought he was all
right, because he was only doing evil in order that good
might come of it. And so he got rid of the spectre of a
painful death from disease, and at the same time made sure,
he thought, of a welcome on the other side, if there should
prove to be an eternity.'

'Well, that's your idea. I don't deny it hangs together. But
it comes up against two things--fatally, I think. If Mottram
was so set upon endowing the Pullford diocese, why did he
bequeath most of his fortune to a footling Town Council, and
only leave the diocese the one bit of money which, if a
verdict of suicide was given, could never be touched? And
granted that he was at pains to get someone to turn off the
gas for him, so as to avoid the appearance of suicide, why
did he tell that person to lock the door, and leave the key
on the wrong side? That's the problem you've set yourself.'

'Oh, God knows, I don't see my way clear yet. But there's
the outlines of the thing. Now let's hear the _proxime
accessit_ solution.'

'I feel inclined to apologize. I feel ashamed of being so
right. But you've asked for it. Look here, the thing which
has complicated this case so badly is the appearance of
bluff. At one moment it looked like suicide pretending to be
accident or murder; at another time it looked like murder
pretending to be suicide. But the great mountainous fact
that stands out is the turning off of the gas. In the event
of suicide, that was impossible; in the event of murder, it
was curiously needless. For it entirely removed the
possibility of a suicide verdict. It was only as I was
getting into bed last night that the truth flashed upon me.
The gas was turned off by a murderer deliberately, in order
to show that the murder was not suicide. It was a deliberate
protest, an advertisement. Make what you like of this case
(it seemed to say); but do not call it suicide; that at
least is outside the scheme of possibilities.'

'Well, my solution was rather by way of allowing for that.'

'To be sure. But, you see, you involve yourself in a
hopeless psychological improbability. You make a man commit
suicide, leaving behind him an accomplice who will turn off
the gas. Now, it's an extraordinary thing, our human love of
interference, but I don't believe it's possible to have an
accomplice in suicide. Except, of course, for those "death
pacts" which we are all familiar with. Tell anyone that you
mean to commit suicide, and that person will not only try to
dissuade you, but will scheme to prevent your bringing the
thing off. Suicide here would involve an accomplice;
therefore it was not suicide. It was murder; and yet the
murderer, so far from wanting to make it appear suicide, was
particularly anxious to make it clear that it was not
suicide. There is a strange situation for you.

'The strange situations, the mysterious situations, are not
those which are most difficult to unravel. You can proceed
in this case to look for the murderer in the certainty that
he is someone who would stand to lose if a verdict of
suicide were brought in. Puzzling it over last night, I was
unable to conceive such a person. Between you and me, I had
been inclined to suspect Brinkman; but there did not seem to
be any possible reason why he should want to murder Mottram;
and, if he did, there was no conceivable reason why he
should want to make it appear that Mottram did not commit
suicide. Brinkman was not the heir; the Euthanasia policy
did not affect him.

'My discoveries of this morning put me on an entirely
different track. There was one man in the world, and only
one, whose interest bade him murder Mottram, and murder him
in such a way that no suspicion of suicide could rest over
the event. I mean, of course, young Simmonds. It was in his
interest, as he must have thought, to murder Mottram,
because if Mottram lived to be sixty-five the Euthanasia
policy would run out. This was Simmonds' last chance but
one, assuming that Mottram's yearly visits to Chilthorpe
were the best chance of doing away with him. In two years
from now, Mottram would have turned sixty-five, and the
half-million would have vanished into the air. Moreover,
there was much to be said for haste; who could tell when
Mottram might not take it into his head to draw up a new
will? As it seemed to Simmonds, he had only to get rid of
this lonely, crusty old bachelor by a painless death, and
he, as the next of kin, would walk straight into five
hundred thousand. Meanwhile, there must be no suspicion of
suicide; for any such suspicion might mean that your company
would refuse to pay up, and the half-million would have
disappeared once more.

'To young Simmonds, as he let himself in by the ground-floor
casement into the "Load of Mischief", only one fear
presented itself--the fear of a false verdict. He was of
the type that cannot commit cold-blooded murder. The more
civilization advances, the more ingenious does crime become;
meanwhile, it becomes more and more difficult for one man to
kill another with his hands. Simmonds might have been a
poisoner; as it was, he had discovered a safer way; he would
be a gasser. But there was this defect about the weapon he
was using--it might create a false impression on the jury.
Imperative, then, not merely to kill his man, but to prove
that he had killed him. That is why, after turning on the
gas in the sleeping man's room, he waited for two hours or
so outside; then came back, flung open the window to get
air, and turned the gas off again, only pausing to make sure
that his victim was dead.

'How he worked the door trick I don't know. We shall find
out later. Meanwhile, let me tell you that one of the
friends I made last night in the bar-parlour told me he had
seen Simmonds hanging round the hotel just after closing
time, although (for the fellow is a teetotaller) he had not
been drinking there. This was on the very night of the
murder. That was a point in which I was in a position to
score off you. There was another point, over which you had
the same opportunities of information, but neglected them.
You remember the letter which Mottram left lying about in
his bedroom? It was in answer to a correspondent who signed
himself "Brutus". I took the trouble to get, from the
offices of the _Pullford Examiner_, a copy of the issue in
which that letter appeared. It is a threatening letter,
warning Mottram that retribution would come upon him for the
bloodsucking methods by which his money had been made. And
it was signed "Brutus" ... You've had a classical education;
you ought to have spotted the point; personally I looked it
up in an encyclopedia. Brutus wasn't merely a demagogue; he
led the revolt in Rome which resulted in the expulsion of
his own maternal uncle, King Tarquin. The same relation, you
see, that there was between Simmonds and Mottram.

'Well, I've applied for a warrant. I'm in no hurry to use
it; for, as long as Simmonds is off his guard, he's all the
more likely to give himself away. Meanwhile, I'm having him
watched. If you go and talk to him, just to form your own
impressions, I know you'll be careful not to say anything
which would give away my suspicions. And I can wait for that
twenty pounds, too.'

Bredon sat spell-bound. He could see the whole thing
happening; he could trace every calculation in the mind of
the criminal. And yet he was not convinced. He was just
about to explain this, when a fresh thought struck him and
interfered with their session. 'Leyland,' he said, in a very
quiet voice, 'you aren't smoking, and I've had my pipe out
these last ten minutes. Can you tell me why there should be
a smell of cigarette smoke?'

Leyland looked round, suddenly on the alert. It was only as
he looked round that he noticed how insecure was their
privacy. The rain had stopped some time since, and there was
no reason why an interloper should not be standing outside,
listening through one of the numerous chinks in the wall
behind them. Gripping Bredon's arm, he darted out suddenly,
and rounded the corner of the building. There was nobody
there. But close to the wall lay a cigarette end, flattened
and soiled as if it had been trodden out by a human foot.
And as Leyland picked it up a faint spark and a thin stream
of smoke showed that it had been trodden out only a moment
before, not quite successfully. 'Callipoli,' he read,
examining the stump. 'Not the sort of cigarette one buys in
the village. It looks to me, Bredon, as if we were on the
track of something fresh here. We'll leave that
cigarette-stump exactly where we found it.'




CHAPTER 11

The Generalship of Angela


'Angela,' said Bredon when he found her, 'I've got a job of
work for you.'

'Such as?'

'All you've got to do is to make Brinkman and Pulteney open
their cigarette-cases for inspection without knowing that
they're doing it.'

'Miles, it won't do. You know I can't work in blinkers.
There's nothing I dislike so much as a want of complete
confidence between husband and wife. Sit down and tell me
all about it. You'd better make sure of the door first.' And
she turned down the little shutter which protected their
keyhole on the inside.

'Oh, all right,' said Bredon, and told the story of their
recent alarms. 'It almost must be somebody in the house.
Brinkman and Pulteney are both cigarette-smokers, and of
course it would be easy for me to cadge a cigarette by
saying I'd run short. But that just might put the mysterious
gentleman on his guard. And I don't want to hang about
picking up fags. So what you've got to do is to lead round
the conversation in such a way that we can have an
opportunity of finding out what cigarettes each of them
smokes, without his suspecting anything.'

'Why not pinch some from their rooms?'

'It might work. But since people took to smoking all kinds
of vile cigarettes at the end of the war, one doesn't
trouble to carry one's own brand about. One buys them at the
local shop. These Callipolis are an oddity, but there
probably aren't many more where they came from, and the
safest place to look for them is inside somebody's
breast-pocket. Anyhow, you might try.'

'Sort of salted almonds game?' said Angela reflectively.
'All right, I will. Don't you try your hand at it; sit there
and back me up. Meanwhile you'd better go down and have a
pick-me-up at the bar, because I'm going to dress for
dinner.'

'Dress for dinner, in a hole like this? Whatever for?'

'You don't understand the technique of the thing. If I'm to
have complete control of the conversation, I must be looking
my best. It makes all the difference with a susceptible old
dear like Edward.'

She certainly had made herself look attractive, if a trifle
exotic, by the time she came downstairs. The maid all but
broke the soup-plates at the sight of her.

'Did you see much of Pullford, Mrs Bredon?' asked Brinkman,
on hearing of their day's expedition.

'Much of it? Why, I'm practically a native of the place by
now. I shall never see a perambulator again, I mean a
drain-pipe, without a sort of homely feeling. My husband
left me alone for three solid hours while he went and
caroused with the hierarchy.'

'A very genial man, isn't he, the Bishop,' said Brinkman,
appealing to her husband.

'What a poor compliment that word _genial_ is,' put in the
old gentleman. 'I would sooner be called well-meaning,
myself. You have no grounds for saying that a man is really
kind or charitable; you have not personally found him
attractive; and yet he has a sort of good-natured way with
him which demands some tribute. So you say he is genial.'

'Like a Dickens character?' suggested Brinkman.

'No, they are too human to be called merely genial. Mr
Pickwick genial! It is like calling the Day of Judgement a
fine sight. How did Pusey, by the way, ever have the wit to
light upon such a comparison?'

'I think _witty_ is rather a dreadful thing to be called,'
said Angela. 'I always think of witty people as people who
dominate the conversation with long anecdotes. How glad I am
to have been born into a world in which the anecdote has
gone out of fashion!'

'A hemisphere, Mrs Bredon,' said Brinkman in correction.
'You have not been to America? The anecdote there is in its
first youth; the anecdotes mostly in their extreme old age.'

'There is a pleasant dryness about American humour,'
objected Pulteney. 'But I confess that I miss piquancy in
it.'

'Like Virginian tobacco?' suggested Bredon, and was rewarded
by a savage kick from Angela under the table.

'The anecdote, however,' pursued Mr Pulteney, 'is the enemy
of conversation. With its appearance, the shadow of egotism
falls over our conviviality. The man who hoards up
anecdotes, and lets them loose at intervals, is a social
indecency; he might as well strip and parade some kind of
acrobatic feat. See how your anecdotist lies in wait for his
opportunity, prays for the moment that will lend excuse to
his "That reminds me". There is a further pitch of
shamelessness, at which such a man will assault you openly
with: "Have you heard this one?" But, as long as men have
some rags of behaviour left to them, your sex, Mrs Bredon,
saves us from this conversational horror. When the ladies
leave us, anecdotes flow out as from a burst dam.'

'That's because we don't know how to tell stories; we don't
drag them out enough. When I try to tell a story, I always
find I have got to the point when I've only just started.'

'You are too modest, Mrs Bredon. It is your essential
altruism which preserves you. You women are always for
helping out the conversation, not strangling it at birth.
You humour us men, fool us to the top of our bent, yet you
always restrain conversation from its worst
extravagances--like a low organ accompaniment, you
unobtrusively give us the note. All praise to your
unselfishness.'

'I expect we are trained that way, or have trained ourselves
that way. Civilization has taught us, perhaps, to play up to
the men.'

'Indeed, no,' chirped Mr Pulteney, now thoroughly enjoying
himself. 'Conversational receptivity is a natural glory of
your sex. Nature itself, who bids the peacock strut to the
admiration of the hen, bids you evoke the intellectual
powers of the male. You flatter him by your attention, and
he basks unconsciously in your approval. How much more
knowledge of human nature had Virgil than Homer! Alcinous
would never have got all that long story out of Ulysses;
challenged by a direct question, the hero would probably
have admitted, in a gruff voice, that he had been fooling
around somewhere. It was a Dido that was needed to justify
the hysteron proteron--'_multa super Priamo rogitans, super
Hectore multa_'; she knew how to do it! But I become
lyrical.'

'Do, please, be lyrical, Mr Pulteney. It's so good for
Miles; he thinks he's a strong, silent man, and there's
nothing more odious. The trouble is, of course, he thinks
he's a kind of detective, and he has to play up to the part.
Look at you, Mr Leyland, you've hardly uttered.'

'Is this helping us out in conversation, Mrs Bredon? You
seem to be flogging us into it.'

'The strong silence of the detective,' explained the old
gentleman, 'is a novelist's fiction. The novelist must gag
his detective, or how is he to preserve his secret till the
last chapter? No, it is Mr Brinkman who should be
professionally silent; for what is a secretary if he does
not keep secrets?'

'I am not silent, I am silenced,' said Brinkman. 'The second
best peacock dare not strut, for fear of an encounter.'

'I find in silence,' said Bredon, 'a mere relief from the
burden of conversation. I am grateful to the man who talks,
as I should be grateful to the man who jumped in before me
to rescue a drowning baby. He obviates the necessity for
effort on my part. I sometimes think that is why I married.'

'Miles,' said Angela, 'if you are going to be odious, you
will have to leave the room. I suppose you think you can be
rude because the detectives in fiction are rude? Mr Leyland
may be silent, but at least he's polite.'

'Mr Bredon is married,' suggested Pulteney. 'The caged bird
does not strut. His are golden chains, I hasten to add, but
they take the spring out of him none the less. For all that,
I have some contempt for the man who does not take his share
in shouldering the burden of conversation. He puts nothing
into the common pot. Mr Brinkman, I resign the
strutting-ground. Tell us whether you think detectives
should be strong, silent men, or not.'

'I'm afraid I haven't read much in that direction, Mr
Pulteney. I should imagine it was an advantage to the
detective to be silent, so that he can be in a good position
to say, "I told you so," when the truth comes out.'

'Oh, but a detective ought to be talking all the time,'
protested Angela. 'The ones in the books always are. Only
what they say is always entirely incomprehensible, both to
the other people in the book and to the reader. "Let me call
your attention once more," they say, "to the sinister
significance of the bend in the toast-rack," and there you
are, none the wiser. Wouldn't you like to be a detective, Mr
Pulteney?'

'Why, in a sense I am.' There was a slight pause, with
several mental gasps in it, till the old gentleman
continued: 'That is to say, I am a schoolmaster; and the two
functions are nearly akin. Who threw the butter at the
ceiling, which boy cribbed from which, where the missing
postage-stamp has got to--, these are the problems which
agitate my inglorious old age. I do not know why headmasters
allow boys to collect postage-stamps; they are invariably
stolen.'

'Or why anybody wants to collect them?' suggested Angela.
'Some of them are quite pretty, of course. But I've no
patience with all this pedantry about the exact date of
issue, and the exact shape of the water-mark. But I suppose
the water-mark helps you in your investigations, Mr
Pulteney?'

'I am hardly professional enough for that. I leave that to
the philatelist. A philatelist, by the way, means one who
loves the absence of taxes. It hardly seems to mark out the
stamp-lover from his fellows.'

'The detectives of fiction;' put in Leyland, 'are always
getting important clues from the water-mark of the paper on
which some cryptic document is written. That is where they
have the luck. If you pick up the next four pieces of paper
you see, and hold them up to the light, you will probably
find that three of them have no water-mark at all.'

'I know,' said Angela. 'And I used to be told, when I was
small, that every genuine piece of silver had a lion stamped
on it. But of course they haven't really. I should think
it's quite likely the wristwatch you gave me, Miles dear,
has no lion on it.' She took it off as she spoke. 'Or it
must be a teeny-weeny one if there is.'

'I think you're wrong there, Mrs Bredon.' It was Brinkman
who offered the correction. 'If you'll allow me to have a
look at it... There, up there; it's a little rubbed away,
but it's a lion all right.'

'I thought there always was a lion,' said Bredon, taking out
a silver pencil-case with some presence of mind. 'Yes, this
has got two, one passant and one cabinet size.'

'Let's see your watch, Mr Leyland,' suggested Angela, 'or is
it electro?'

'It should be silver; yes, there's the little chap.'
Immediately afterwards, Angela was rewarded by seeing
Pulteney take a silver cigarette-case out of his pocket, and
handing it over to her. 'It'll be on the inside of this, I
suppose? Oh, no, it's all gilt stuff; yes, I see, here it is
on the outside.' It is to be feared that she added 'Damn!'
under her breath; the cigarette-case had been empty.

'I seem to be the only poor man present,' said Brinkman; 'I
am all gun-metal.'

Angela did not trouble to influence the conversation further
until the shape course was finished. Then, rather
desperately, she said, 'Do smoke, Mr Leyland, I know you're
dying to. What is a detective without his shag?' and was
rewarded by seeing Brinkman take out the gun-metal case and
light up. Mr Pulteney, after verifying his own
cigarettelessness, began slowly to fill a briar.

Brinkman's cigarette, she had seen, was the last in the
case; what if it should be the last of its box or of its
packet? 'I wish I smoked,' she said. 'But if I did I would
smoke a pipe; it always looks so comfortable. Besides, you
can shut your eyes and go to sleep with a pipe, which must
be rather dangerous with a cigarette.'

'You'd lose the taste of the pipe if you did,' objected
Brinkman. 'It's an extraordinary thing, how little
satisfaction you can get out of smoking in the dark.'

'Is that really true? I've always heard that about taste
depending on sight, and not being able to distinguish one
wine from another with one's eyes shut. Miles, if I put a
handkerchief over your eyes, could you tell your beer from
Mr Brinkman's cider? Oo, I say, let's try! I'll give them
you in spoonfuls.'

'I'll shut my eyes and play fair,' suggested Bredon. The
idiocy of men!

'No, you won't, you'll do what you're told. Anybody got a
clean hanky? Thank you so much, Mr Leyland. ... There's
that's right. Now, open your mouth, but not too wide, or
you'll choke. ... Which was that?'

'Cider, I thought.'

It was vinegar, really, with a little water in it.'

'Oh, shut up, that's not fair.' Miles tore away the
handkerchief from his eyes. 'Hang it all, I won't strut; I'm
a married man!'

'Then Mr Brinkman shall try instead; you will, won't you, Mr
Brinkman?' It is to be feared that Angela favoured him with
an appealing look; at any rate, he succumbed. With the
instinct of the blindfolded man, he put his cigarette down
on the edge of his plate. It was easy work for Angela to
drop the spoon, and set Mr Pulteney grovelling for it.
Meanwhile, she hastily picked up Brinkman's cigarette, and
read the word 'Callipoli'.




CHAPTER 12

_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 mill-house. 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 pig-headedly about its 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, and the
few street-lamps 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
backwards. 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
_msalliance_ 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 some
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 afterwards 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 cave-man. Go downstairs like a
good boy, and help Leyland incriminate the Oldest
Inhabitant. He'll be getting to that soon.'




CHAPTER 13

_A Morning with the Haberdasher_


The sun rose bright the next morning, as if it had heard
there was a funeral in contemplation, and was determined to
be there. The party at the 'Load of Mischief' rose
considerably later, and more or less coincided at the
breakfast-table. 'I am afraid we shall be losing you?' said
Mr Pulteney to Angela. 'A fortunate crime privileged us with
your presence; when the mortal remains of it have been put
away, I suppose that your husband's work here is done?
Unless, of course, Mrs Davis's eggs and bacon have
determined you to stay on here as a holiday.'

'I really don't know what we are doing, Mr Pulteney. My
husband, of course, will have to write a report for those
tiresome people at the office, and that will take a little
time. Why do men always take a whole day to write a report?
I don't suppose we shall be leaving till tomorrow in any
case. Perhaps you will have caught a fish by then.'

'If you would only consent to stay till that happens, we
should all congratulate ourselves. But, seriously, it will
be a deprivation. I came to this hotel feeling that I was
foredoomed to solitude, or the company, now and again, of a
stray bagman. Instead, I have found the place a feast of
reason; and I shall regret the change.'

'You'll still have Mr Brinkman.'

'What is Brinkman? A man who cannot tell beer from cider
with his eyes shut. ... Ah, here he is. I have been
lamenting the loss Mr and Mrs Bredon will be to our desert
island. But you, too, I suppose, will be for Pullford again
before the funeral bakemeats are cold?'

'Me? Oh, I don't know. ... My plans are rather vague. The
house at Pullford is almost shut up; everybody except the
housekeeper away. I daresay I shall stay on a bit, and then,
I suppose, go to London to look for another job.'

'With better auspices, I hope. Well, you deserve a rest
before you settle down to the collar again. Talking of
collars' (he addressed himself to the barmaid, who had just
come in with more eggs and bacon), 'I wonder if you could
represent to Mrs Davis the desirability of sending some of
my clothes to the wash?'

'Raight-ho,' said the barmaid, unconcernedly.

'I thank you; you gratify my least whim. Ah, here is Mr
Leyland! I trust you have slept off the weariness induced by
the coroner's allocution yesterday?'

'Quite, thanks,' said Leyland, grinning. ' Good morning, Mrs
Bredon. Good-morning, Bredon; I wonder if you could give me
ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after breakfast? ... No,
no porridge, thanks; just eggs and bacon.'

'Yes, rather. We might stroll back to the mill-house, if you
don't mind, for I rather think I dropped a packet of
pipe-papers there. In fact, I think I'll go on there and
wait for you. No hurry.'

It was some twenty minutes before Leyland turned up, and
almost at the moment of his arrival both men heard a very
faint click behind them, as if somebody on the further side
of the wall, in walking gently, had dislodged a loose stone.
They exchanged an instantaneous glance, then Leyland opened
up the prearranged conversation. There was something
curiously uncanny about this business of talking entirely
for the benefit of a concealed audience, but they both
carried off the situation creditably.

'Well,' began Bredon, 'you're still hunting for murderers?'

'For a murderer, to be accurate. It doesn't take two men to
turn on a gas jet. And when I say I'm hunting for him, I'm
not exactly doing that; I'm hunting him. The motive's clear
enough, and the method's clear enough, apart from details,
but I want to make my case a little stronger before I take
any action.'

'You've applied for a warrant, you say?'

'Against Simmonds, yes. At least, I wrote last night, though
of course with the posts we have here it won't reach London
till this evening, and probably late this evening.
Meanwhile, I keep him under observation.'

'You're still sure he's your man?'

'I can hardly imagine a stronger case. There's the motive
present, and a good motive, too, half a million pounds.
There's the disposition, a natural resentment against his
uncle for treating him hardly, added to a conscientious
objection to his great wealth and the means by which he made
it. There's the threat; that letter of "Brutus" will tell in
a law-court, if I know anything of juries. There's the
occasion, the fact of Mottram happening to be down at
Chilthorpe. There's the facility--we know that he was
hand-in-glove with the barmaid, who could let him in at any
hour of the day or night, who could further his schemes, and
cover his traces. Finally, there is the actual coincidence
of his whereabouts; I can bring testimony to prove that he
was hanging round the "Load of Mischief " at a time when all
honest teetotallers ought to be in bed. There's only one
thing more that I want, and only one thing on the other side
that would make me hold my hand.'

'What's the one thing you want?'

'Definite evidence to connect him with the actual room in
which Mottram was sleeping. If he'd dropped anything there,
so much as a match-head; if he'd left even a finger-mark
about anywhere, I'd have the noose round his neck. But if
you haven't got just that last detail of evidence, juries
are often slow to convict. I could tell you of murderers who
are at large now simply because we couldn't actually connect
them with the particular scene of the crime, or with the
particular weapon the crime was committed with.'

Bredon could not help admiring the man. It was obvious that
he was still allowing for the possibility of Brinkman's
guilt, and was accordingly advising Brinkman, whom he knew
to be hidden round the corner, to manufacture some clue
which would point to Simmonds, and thereby to give himself
away. Bredon could not help wondering whether this was the
real purpose of the colloquy, and whether he himself was not
being kept in the dark. However, he had his sailing orders,
and continued to play up to them.

'And the one thing which would make you hold your hand?'

'Why, if I could get satisfactory proof that Simmonds knew
of the existence of that codicil. You see, we know that
Simmonds did not stand to gain anything by murdering his
uncle, because, in fact, his uncle had signed away all his
expectations to the Bishop of Pullford. Now, if I could feel
certain that Simmonds knew where he stood; knew that there
was nothing coming to him as next of kin--why, then the
motive would be gone, and with the motive my suspicions. The
fact that he disliked his uncle, the fact that he
disapproved of his uncle, wouldn't make him murder his
uncle. It's a humiliating fact, but you don't ever get a
crime of this sort without some _quid pro quo_ in the form
of hard cash. If I felt sure that Simmonds knew he was cut
out of the will altogether, then I'd acquit him, or be
prepared to acquit him. If, on the other hand, somebody
could produce good reason for thinking that Simmonds was
expecting to profit by his uncle's will, then my case would
be proportionately strengthened.'

Once more Bredon listened with admiration. The man who was
concealed behind the wall had been Mottram's own secretary,
more likely than any other man living to know how the facts
stood. And Leyland was appealing to him, if he had any
relevant knowledge about Simmonds' expectations, to produce
it; if he had none, to forge it, and thereby give himself
away. The game began to thrill him in spite of himself.

'And, meanwhile, what of our other friend?'

'Brinkman? Well, as I told you, I don't suspect Brinkman
directly. He had no motive for the crime, as far as we can
see. But he is not playing the game, and for the life of me
I can't think why. For instance, he has been ready from the
first to back up your idea of suicide. In fact, it seems to
have been he who first mentioned the word suicide in
connexion with this business. He told you, for example, that
he thought Dr Ferrers must have shut off the main gas jet by
accident. He said, I think you told me, that it was very
loose. As a matter of fact, it was very stiff at the time,
and he must have known that it was stiff; for it was he who
borrowed a pair of pincers for me when I wanted to loosen
it. And there are some other bits of evidence, which I'm
afraid I'm not at liberty to mention to you, which make me
look askance at Brinkman's behaviour. He's hiding something,
but what?'

'I don't see what good he can be doing himself by holding
back.'

'Precisely. I don't want to injure the fellow, but I must
get at the truth. I'm writing tonight for a warrant; not
because I think he's the guilty man, but because we must get
his evidence somehow, and I think a taste of prison
detention might make him speak out. But of course it's bad
luck on the fellow, because a record like that, however much
he is cleared, is bound to count against him when he looks
out for a new job. It's possible that he's shielding
Mottram's reputation, or it's possible that he's afraid of
coming under suspicion himself, or it's possible that he's
simply lost his head, and, having no one to consult, can't
make up his mind what to do. But he's cutting his own
throat; there's no doubt about that. I can't think he's
really guilty, or why hasn't he skipped? For all we could
do, he could be in Vienna in a couple of days, and we none
the wiser. Yet he stays on, and stays on as if there was
some end to be gained by it.'

'But if he went off you could arrest him on suspicion,
couldn't you?'

'Could I? Hardly, on what I know at present. I'm looking
forward, you see, to Simmonds' evidence when he's arrested.
I know that type, anaemic, nervous; once he's arrested, with
any luck we can make him tell us the whole story: and then,
if Brinkman really has been up to anything, it will be too
late for him to get clear. But, as I say, I don't believe
Brinkman is a wrong 'un. If only he'd have the sense to
confide in me--or in you, if he's afraid of the police. ...
Well, I wanted to tell you all this, so that you'll know
where you are in dealing with Simmonds. Mrs Bredon told me
you were hoping to get a look at him today.'

'That's the idea. To tell the truth, I think I'd better be
starting now, because it's easier to have a private
interview with him if I go into the shop before the rush
hour begins. Not that the rush hour at Chilthorpe is likely,
to be very formidable, but I don't want to have our
_tte--tte_ interrupted by old ladies matching ribbons.'

Bredon strolled off. Leyland stayed where he was till he
guessed the coast would be clear, and then went cautiously
round to the back of the building. He found what he had
expected, and hoped for. The cigarette, which they had left
the night before in the place where it lay, had by now been
carefully removed.

When Bredon reached the shop, he found that Fortune was
smiling on him. There seemed to be only one attendant about
besides Simmonds himself, and this was a freckled,
sandy-haired youth who was cleaning the front windows with
every appearance of deliberation. Nor were there any rival
shoppers so early on a Chilthorpe morning. Mr Simmonds
approached the handkerchief question with the air of being
just the right man to come to. Other things, you felt, were
to be bought in this shop; teethers, for example, and
walking-sticks, and liquorice, and so on. But when you came
to _handkerchiefs_, there you had found a specialist, a man
who had handled handkerchiefs these fifteen years past.
Something stylish, perhaps, was required? This with a glance
at the customer, as if to size him up and recognize the man
of taste. 'The _plain_ ones? Just plain white, you mean,
Sir? Well, it's a curious thing, but I'm not certain I can
lay my hand on one of them. You see, there's more demand for
the coloured ones, a bit of edging, anyhow. And, you see, we
haven't got in our new stock yet.' (They never have got in
their new stock yet at Simmonds'.) 'Three weeks ago, I could
have done you a very good line in the plain ones, but I'm
rather afraid we're right out. I'll just see.'

This was followed by an avalanche of drawers, containing
handkerchiefs of every conceivable variety that was not
plain. A violent horse-shoe pattern, that ran through all
the gamut of the colours; a kind of willow pattern; a
humorous series featuring film stars; striped edges, spotted
edges, check edges--but no plain. From time to time Mr
Simmonds would draw attention to the merits of the exhibits,
as if it were just his luck that his customer should be a
man so unadventurous in taste. 'Now, that's a very good
number; you couldn't get a better line than that, not if it
was a coloured handkerchief you were wanting. ... No, no,
Sir, no trouble at all; I daresay perhaps I may be able to
lay my hand on the article you require. ... You don't fancy
those, now? Those come very cheap because they're bankrupt
stock. Just you feel that, Sir, and see what a lot of wear
there is in it. ... Yes, that's right, they're a little on
the gay side, Sir. But we don't get any real demand, not for
the plain ones; people don't seem to fancy them nowadays.
Mind you, if you'll be staying on here for a day or two, I
could get you some; we shall be sending into Pullford the
day after tomorrow. But at the moment we seem to be right
out of them. ... Oh, you'll take the check ones ... half a
dozen? Thank you, Sir; you'll find they're a very good line;
you could go a long way and not find another handkerchief
just like that one. It's a handkerchief we've stocked many
years now, and never had any difficulty in getting rid of
it. And the next article, please?'

But Bredon did not meditate any more purchases. He had begun
to realize that in Chilthorpe you bought, not the thing you
wanted, but the thing Mr Simmonds had in stock. As the
parcel was being wrapped up, he sat down on a high,
uncomfortable chair close to the counter, and opened
conversation about the deceased. Simmonds might have
quarrelled with his uncle, but surely he would take the
gloomy pride of the uneducated in his near relationship to a
corpse.

'I'm afraid you've had a sad loss, Mr Simmonds.'

Now, why did the man suddenly turn a white, haggard face
towards his visitor, starting as if the remark had been
something out of the way? There was no secret about the
relationship; it had been mentioned publicly at the inquest.
Leyland had insisted that in all his interviews with
Simmonds he had failed to observe any sign of discomposure.
Yet this morning a mere allusion to Mottram. seemed to throw
his nephew all out of gear! The cant phrases of his craft
had flowed from him mechanically enough, but once his
customer began to talk the gossip of the village, all the
self-possession fell from him like a mask, and he stood pale
and quivering.

'As you say, Sir. Very melancholy event. My uncle, Sir, he
was. Oh, yes, Sir. We didn't see him much down here--we
hadn't anything to do with him, Sir. We didn't get on very
well--what I mean is, he didn't think much of me. No, Sir.
But he was my uncle, Sir. Over in Pullford he lived; hasn't
lived here for many years now, though it was his own place.'

'Still, blood's thicker than water, isn't it?'

'What's that, Sir? Oh, I see what you mean, yes, Sir. I'm
seeing to the funeral and all that. Excuse me one moment,
Sir. Sam! Just take a pair of steps and put them boxes back,
there's a good lad. And there's nothing else today, Sir?'

There was nothing else. Bredon had meant to say a good deal,
but he had reckoned on dealing with a smug, self-possessed
tradesman, who might unsuspectingly drop a few hints that
were worth knowing. Instead, he found a man who started at
shadows, who was plainly alive with panic. He went back to
his hotel full of disquiet; there went his twenty pounds,
and the Company's half-million. And yet, what did it all
mean? Why did Simmonds tremble in the presence of Bredon,
when he had shown no trace of embarrassment in talking to
Leyland, who was an official of the police? The whole tangle
of events seemed to become more complicated with every
effort that was made to unravel it.




CHAPTER 14

_Bredon is Taken for a Walk_


In front of the 'Load of Mischief' stands an alehouse
bench--that is the description which leaps to the mind.
Ideally, it should be occupied by an old gaffer in a white
smock, drinking cider and smoking a churchwarden pipe. A
really progressive hotel would hire a gaffer by the day to
do it. A less appropriate advertisement, yet creditable
enough to the establishment in the bright air of the June
morning, Angela was occupying this seat as her husband came
back from his shopping; she was knitting in a nice,
old-fashioned way, but spoilt the effect of it rather by
whistling as she did so.

'Well, did you get a bargain?' she asked.

'So I am assured. I have got a very good line; I could go a
long way and not find another handkerchief just like this
one. Or indeed six other handkerchiefs just like these six.
They are distinctive, that is the great point. Even you,
Angela, will have difficulty in getting them lost at the
wash.'

'And how was Mr Simmonds?' asked Angela, dropping her voice.

Bredon looked round cautiously. But Angela had chosen her
place well; she knew that publicity is the surest safeguard
of privacy. In the open square in front of the inn, nobody
would suppose that you were exchanging anything but
trivialities. Bredon communicated his mystification and his
alarm, depicting the strange behaviour of the haberdasher in
terms that left no room for doubt.

'Yes,' said Angela when he had finished, 'you were quite
right not to press him with any more questions. It would
only have put the wind up him. You do seem to be rather
heavy-handed, somehow, over these personal jobs. Now, I've
been having it out with Raight-ho since breakfast, and I got
quite a lot out of her. Miles, that girl's a jewel. If she
wasn't going to be married, I'd get her to come to
Burrington, in spite of your well-known susceptibility. But
it's no use; the poor girl is determined to sign away her
liberty!'

'To Mr Simmonds?'

'So I gather, from what Mr Leyland told me last night. But,
of course, I was far too discreet to ask for any names.'

'How did you manage to worm yourself into her confidence?
I'd as soon tackle a stone wall.'

'One must unbend. It's easier for us women. By a sudden
inspiration, I reflected that it must be an awful nuisance
washing up all those plates after breakfast, especially in a
pub where they seldom have more than two guests at a time.
So I offered to help. That was just about the time you went
out shopping. I'm quite good at washing up plates, you know,
thanks to having married beneath me. She said, "Raight-ho",
and we adjourned to the scullery, where I did wonders. In
the scullery I saw a copy of _Home Hints_, which was very
important.'

'I don't quite see why.'

'Don't you remember that cantankerous old bachelor friend of
yours who came to us once in London, Soames, I think his
name was, who told us that he wrote the column headed
Cupid's Labyrinth? The column that gives advice to
correspondents, you know, about affairs of the heart. It's
the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that the modern
pillion-girl is any less soppy about her amours than the
young misses of last century. I knew instinctively that
Raight-ho--her name, by the way, is Emmeline, poor
thing--was an avid reader of Cupid's Labyrinth. And I'm
afraid I rather prevaricated.'

'Angela, you surprise me. What particular form of lie did
you blacken your soul with this time?'

'Oh, I didn't exactly _say_ anything. But I somehow allowed
her to get the impression that it was I who did the column.
After all, Mr Soames is a friend of yours, so it wasn't so
very far from the truth. Miles, she rose to the bait like
anything.'

'Heaven forgive you! Well, go on.'

'It was all to save you twenty quid, after all. Up till
then, she'd been saying all the ordinary things--she'd got a
sister in London, whom she goes and stays with; and she
finds Chilthorpe rather slow, hardly ever going to the
pictures, and that; and she'd like to get up to London
herself--it's what they all say. But when I let on that I
was Aunt Daphne of Cupid's Labyrinth, she spread herself.
How would I advise a friend of hers to act, who found
herself in a very delicate situation? So I told her to cough
it up. The friend, it seemed, had been walking out with a
young man who was quite decently off, that is, he had quite
enough to marry on. But one day he explained to her that he
had expectations of becoming really very rich, if only a
relation of his would die; he would then come into a
property far above his own station, let alone hers.'

'The situation sounds arresting, in more ways than one.'

'Don't interrupt. Well, the man suggested they should get
engaged, and they did, only on the quiet. And then, a few
weeks ago, or it might have been a fortnight ago, this man
suddenly informed her friend that all his dreams of wealth
had suddenly collapsed. The rich relation had made a new
will, in which he made no provision for his family. And he,
the young man, was very nice about it; and said of course
he'd asked her to marry him at a time when he thought he
could make her a rich woman; and now he couldn't. So if she
wanted to back out of the engagement now, he would give her
complete liberty.'

'Sportsman.'

'Her friend indignantly said No; she wouldn't dream of
backing out. She wanted to marry him for himself, not for
his money; and all that. So they are continuing to regard
the engagement as a fixture. But her difficulty, I mean the
friend's difficulty, is this--was it just a sort of
melodramatic instinct which made her say that the money
meant nothing to her? Was it just her pride which made her
think she was still in love with the man, now that he was no
longer an heir? Or was she really still in love with him?
That was the problem, and I had to set to and answer it.'

'And what was your answer?'

'Oh, that's hardly important, is it? Of course, I put on my
best Aunt Daphne manner, and tried to think of the sort of
tripe Soames would have written. It wasn't difficult,
really. I said that if the man was quite comfortably off as
it was, it was probably far better for them both that they
shouldn't become enormously rich; and I laid it on thick
about the deceitfulness of riches, though I wish I'd more
experience of it, don't you? And I said if they were already
walking out before the man mentioned anything about the
legacy, that proved that her friend was already in love with
him, or half in love with him, before the question of money
cropped up at all. And I told her I thought her friend would
be very happy with the man, probably all the happier because
he knew that she wasn't mercenary in her ambitions. And all
that sort of thing--I felt rather a beast doing it. She was
very grateful, and it didn't seem to occur to her for a
moment that she was giving herself away, horse, foot, and
guns. She can't have known, obviously, that you and Leyland
were rubbering in the lane last night. And so there it is.'

'And confoundedly important at that. Angela, you are a trump!
We've got Leyland down, both ears touching. He himself
said that his theory about Simmonds would break down if it
could be proved that Simmonds did know about the codicil,
did know that he'd been cut out of the will. And it can be
proved; we can prove it! It's too much of a coincidence,
isn't it, that all this should have happened a fortnight ago
or thereabouts? Obviously it was hearing about the codicil
which made Simmonds offer to free Raight-ho from her
engagement, and jolly sporting of him, I consider.'

'Candour compels me to admit that I've been rather
efficient. But, Miles dear, the thing doesn't make sense
yet. We know now that Simmonds wasn't expecting anything
from his uncle's will, and therefore had no motive for
murdering him, unless it was mere spite. Then why has
Simmonds got the wind up so badly? You aren't as frightening
as all that.'

'Yes; it still looks as if Simmonds had got something on his
mind. And we know Brinkman's got something on his mind.
Perhaps Brinkman will react on this morning's conversation,
and let us know a little more about it.'

Almost as he spoke, Brinkman came out from the door of the
inn. He came straight up to Bredon as if he had been looking
for him, and said: 'Oh, Mr Bredon, I was wondering if you
would care to come for a bit of a walk. I shall get no
exercise this afternoon, with the funeral to attend, and I
thought perhaps you'd like a turn round the gorge. It's
considered rather a local feature, and you oughtn't to leave
without seeing it.'

It was clumsily done. He seemed to ignore Angela's presence,
and pointedly excluded her, with his eyes, from the
invitation. It seemed evident that the man was determined on
a _tte--tte_. Angela's glance betrayed a surprise which
she did not feel, and perhaps a pique which she did, but she
rose to the occasion. 'Do take him out, Mr Brinkman. He's
getting dreadfully fat down here. Instead of taking
exercise, he comes out and chats to me in public, more like
a friend than a husband--and he's making me drop my
stitches.'

'Aren't _you_ coming?' asked Bredon, with a wholly
unnecessary wink.

'Not if I know it. I'm not dressed for gorge-inspecting. You
may buy me a picture-postcard of it, if you like, on the way
back.'

The two strolled off up the valley. Bredon's heart beat
fast; it was evident that Brinkman was taking advantage of
the overheard conversation, and was preparing to make some
kind of disclosure. Was he at last on the track of the
secret? Well, he must be careful not to betray himself by
any leading questions. The pose of the amiable incompetent,
which he had already sustained with Brinkman, would do well
enough.

'It's a fine thing, the gorge,' said Brinkman. 'It lies just
below the Long Pool; but fortunately Pulteney isn't fishing
the Long Pool today, so we shan't be shouted at and told to
keep away from the bank. I really think, apart from the
fishing, Chilthorpe is worth seeing, just for the gorge. Do
you know anything about geology and such things?'

'You can search me. Beats me how they do it.'

'It beats me how the stream does it. Here's a little trickle
of water, that can't shift a pebble weighing half a pound.
Give it a few thousand years, and it eats its way through
the solid rock, and digs a course for itself a matter of
fifteen or twenty feet deep. And all that process is a mere
moment of time, compared with the millions of years that lie
behind us. If you want to reckon the age of the earth's
crust, they say, you must do it in thousands of millions of
years. Queer, isn't it?'

'Damned rum.'

'You almost understate the position. Don't you feel,
sometimes, as if the whole of human life on this planet were
a mere episode, and all our boasted human achievement were a
speck on the ocean of infinity?'

'Sometimes. But one can always take a pill, can't one?'

'Why, yes, if it comes to that. ... An amusing creature,
Pulteney.'

'Bit high-brow, isn't he? He always makes me feel rather as
if I were back at school again. My wife likes him, though.'

'He has the school-master's manner. It develops the
conversational style, talking to a lot of people who have no
chance of answering back. You get it with parsons, too,
sometimes. I really believe it would be almost a
disappointment to him if he caught a fish, so fond is he of
satirizing his own performance. ... You haven't been in
these parts before, have you?'

'Never. It's a pity, really, to make their acquaintance in
such a tragic way. Gives you a kind of depressing feeling
about a place, when your first introduction to it is over a
death-bed.'

'I am sure it must. ... It's a pity the country out towards
Pullford has been so much spoilt by factories. It used to be
some of the finest country in England. And there's nothing
like English country, is there? Have you travelled much,
apart from the war, of course?'

'Now, what the devil does this man think he's doing?' Bredon
asked himself. Could it be that Brinkman, after making up
his mind to unbosom himself, was feeling embarrassed about
making a start, was taking refuge in every other conceivable
topic, so as to put off the dreaded moment of confession?
That seemed the only possible construction to put on his
conversational vagaries. But how to give him a lead? 'Very
little, as a matter of fact. I suppose you went about a good
deal with Mottram? I should think a fellow, as rich as he
was gets a grand chance of seeing the world. Funny his
wanting to spend his holiday in a poky little place like
this.'

'Well, I suppose each of us has his favourite corner of
earth. There, do you see how deep the river has cut its way
into the rock?'

They had left the road by a foot-path, which led down
steeply through a wood of fir-trees and waist-deep bracken
to the river bank. They were now looking up a deep gully, it
almost seemed a funnel, of rock; both sides falling sheer
from the tumbled boulders and fern-tufts of the hill-side.
Before them, a narrow path had been worn or cut out of the
rock face, some five or six feet above the brawling stream,
just clear of the foam that sprang from its sudden
waterfalls. There was no habitation of men in view; the
roaring of the water drowned the voice unless you shouted;
the sun, so nearly at its zenith, could not reach the foot
of the rocks, and the gorge itself looked gloomy and a
little eerie from the contrast. 'Let's go along the path a
bit,' said Brinkman; 'one gets the effect of it better when
one's right in the middle of it. The path,' he explained,
'goes all the way along, and it's the regular way by which
people go up when they mean to fish the Long Pool. I'll go
first, shall I?'

For a second Bredon hesitated. The man had so obviously been
making conversation all the way, had so obviously been
anxious to bring him to this particular spot, that he
suddenly conceived the idea of hostile design. A slight
push, disguised as an effort to steady you round a corner,
might easily throw you off the path into the stream; they
were alone, and neither rock nor stream, in such an event,
would readily give up its secret. Then he felt the
impossibility of manufacturing any excuse for refusing the
invitation. Brinkman, too, was a good foot smaller than
himself.

'All right,' he said, 'I'll follow on.' He added a mental
determination to follow at a safe distance.

About twenty yards from the entrance, they stopped at a
resting-place where the rock-path widened out till it was
some five feet in breadth. Behind it was a smooth face of
rock six or seven, feet in height, a fresh narrow ledge
separating it from the next step in that giant's stairway.

'Curious, ain't it,' said Brinkman, 'the way these rocks are
piled against one another? Look at that ledge that runs
along, over there to the right, almost like the rack in a
railway-carriage! What accident made that, or was it some
forgotten human design?' It looked, indeed, as if it might
have been meant for the larder-shelf of some outlaw who had
hidden here in days gone by. A piece of white paper--some
sandwich-paper, doubtless, that had fallen from above--tried
to complete the illusion. 'Yes,' said Bredon, 'you expect to
see a notice saying it's for light articles only. By Jove,
this is a place!' Forgetting his tremors, he passed by
Brinkman, and went exploring further along the gorge.
Brinkman followed slowly, almost reluctantly. There was no
more conversation till they reached the end of the gorge and
climbed up an easy path on to the high road.

Now, surely, if there were going to be any confidential
disclosures, they would come. To Bredon's surprise, his
companion now seemed to have grown moody and
uncommunicative; whatever openings were tried, he not only
failed to follow them up, but seemed, by his monosyllabic
answers, to be discouraging all approach. Bredon abandoned
the effort at last, and returned to the 'Load of Mischief'
thoroughly dissatisfied with himself, and more completely
mystified than ever.




CHAPTER 15

_A Scrap of Paper_


Leyland met him immediately on his return. He had heard from
Angela that Bredon had gone out for a walk with Brinkman,
and at Brinkman's invitation, something, too, of the
abruptness and the eagerness with which the invitation was
issued. Clearly, he was anxious to get first news about
Brinkman's disclosures. There was still half an hour or so
to waste before luncheon; and Bredon, taking a leaf out of
his wife's book, suggested the alehouse bench as a suitable
place for talking things over.

'Well?' asked Leyland. 'I never dared to hope that Brinkman
would react so quickly. What did he say? Or rather, what can
you tell me of what he said?'

'Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just took me for a walk to
the gorge and back.'

'I say, old thing, are you playing quite fair? I mean, if
Brinkman only consented to talk to you in confidence, by all
means say so, and I'll have to be content.'

'But he didn't. He didn't say a word he mightn't have said
in the parlour to all of us. I can't make head or tail of
it.'

'Look here, it's absurd trying to palm that off on me. I
know you're more scrupulous than I am about these things;
but really, what harm can it do to tell me that Brinkman has
confided to you? It doesn't make it any easier or any harder
for me to put you into the witness-box; and short of that I
can't get it out of you if you don't want to tell me. I
won't badger you; I won't try and worm it out of you;
honestly I won't. But don't pretend that you're still as
ignorant of Brinkman's movements this last week as I am.'

'What the devil am I to say? Can't you believe a fellow when
he tells the truth? I tell you that all the way to the gorge
he talked about anything that came into his head; and coming
back from the gorge he wouldn't talk about anything at
all--I simply couldn't get him to talk.'

'And _at_ the gorge?'

'He talked about the gorge. A regular morning with Herr
Baedeker. There really isn't anything more to it.'

'Look here, let's get this straight. We put up a
conversation together in a place where we know for a fact
that Brinkman's listening behind the wall--and it isn't the
first time he's listened to us, either. I explain in a loud
voice that I've taken out a warrant, or rather that I'm just
going to take out a warrant, for his arrest, and that his
best chance of saving himself from arrest is to confide in
you or me. An hour or so afterwards he comes up to you,
while you're sitting out there with Mrs Bredon in the middle
of a conversation. He takes no notice at all of Mrs Bredon,
but asks you to come out for a morning walk--on the
transparent excuse that he wants to show you this beastly
ditch of his. And then he proceeds to waste more than an
hour of his time and yours by talking platitudes about the
scenery. Are we really going to sit down and admit that?'

'Confound it all; we've got to. I'm no better pleased about
it than you are. But God knows I gave him every chance of
having a talk if he wanted to.'

'Do you think he was trying to pump you, perhaps? Can't you
remember at all what he did talk about?'

'Talked about Pulteney a little. Said he was a typical
schoolmaster, or something of that sort. Oh, yes, and he
talked about geology--probable age of the earth, if I
remember right. Asked me whether I'd been here before. Asked
me whether I'd been abroad much. I really can't recall his
saying anything else.'

'And you're sure you said nothing which could frighten him,
which could put him off?'

'I couldn't have been more careful to avoid it.'

'Well, it's--can you make anything of it yourself?'

'The only idea that occurred to me is that possibly Brinkman
wanted me to be away from the house for some reason; and
chose this way of making sure that I was.'

'M'm--it's possible, of course. But why should he want you
to be away--especially if he's going to be away, too?'

'I know. It doesn't really make sense. I say, Leyland, I'm
awfully sorry about this.' He felt absurdly apologetic,
though without seeing any way of putting the blame on
himself. 'Look here, I'll tell you one thing; it's not in
our bargain, of course, but I don't think there's any harm
in telling you. Simmonds didn't expect the Euthanasia
policy. Or rather, he did expect it to come to him at one
time, but not this last week or two, because he'd heard
about the codicil leaving it to the Bishop--heard, at any
rate, that it wasn't coming to him. So I'm afraid your
theory about Simmonds wants revising.'

'It has already been revised. This is very interesting; you
say it's certain Simmonds knew about the change of plan?'

'Yes. You can guess the source.'

'And do you suppose he had any idea where the new will was
kept? Whether it was up in London, I mean, or in Mottram's
own possession?'

'That I couldn't say. Does it make much difference?'

'A lot of difference. Look here, you've been dealing openly
with me, so I'll give you some information in return. But I
warn you you won't like it, because it doesn't help your
theory of suicide a bit. Look here.' He glanced round to see
that nobody was watching them, then took an envelope from
his pocket, and cautiously shook out on to his open palm a
triangle of paper. It was blue, lined paper, with an
official sort of look about it. It was obviously a corner
left over from a document which had been burned, for the
hypotenuse opposite the right angle was a frayed edge of
brown ash. The writing on it was 'clerkly'--there is no
other word to describe its combination of ugliness with
legibility. Only a fragment of writing was left on each of
the three lines which the paper contained, for there was a
generous allowance of margin. It was a bottom right-hand
corner that the fire had spared; and the surviving ends of
the lines read as follows:

    ...queath
    ...aken out by
    ...March in the year

'Well, how's that?' said Leyland. 'I don't think we shall
differ much over the reading of it.'

'No. It's really rather disappointing, when you are supposed
to be a detective, for a document to come to hand in such
excellent condition--what there is of it. There aren't two
words in the English language that end with the syllable
"queath", and unless I am mistaken--no, as you were, the
word in the next line might be either "taken" or "mistaken".
And of course there's Interlaken, when one comes to think of
it, and weaken, and shaken, and oaken, and all sorts of
words. But as you say, or rather imply, _taken out by_
makes the best sense. And I shall hardly be communicating
new impressions to you if I suggest that one speaks of
"taking out" insurance policies. Do you happen to know when
Mottram took out his Euthanasia? I believe I've got the
record upstairs.'

'He took it out in March. There isn't a bit of doubt about
this document as it stands. It's the copy of a will, made
out by Mottram, having reference to the Euthanasia policy.
Now, unless this was a new will altogether--which is
possible--that means that this was a copy of his second
will, or rather of the codicil which referred to the policy.
For in the will, if you remember, there was no allusion to
the Euthanasia at all.'

'I suppose it is absolutely certain that this scrap of paper
belonged to Mottram?'

'Quite certain--that's the extraordinary thing, the way I
found it. The undertaker came round this morning to make ...
certain arrangements. As you know, I had taken command of
the key of Mottram's room; it's been locked by my orders
ever since you and I had that look round--except yesterday,
when I took the coroner in. The undertaker came to me for
the key this morning, and I went into the room with him;
and, just mooning about there aimlessly, I saw something
that you and I had failed to see when we were searching the
room--this bit of paper. We were not much to blame, for it
was rather hidden away, behind the writing-table, that is,
between the writing-table and the window. To do us justice,
it was under a fold of the table-cloth, but I don't know how
we came to overlook it. Considering it was in Mottram's
room, I don't think it is a very wild speculation to suppose
that it was part of Mottram's will.'

'No, that seems reasonable. And how does it fit into your
view of the case? I mean--'

'Oh, of course, it's conceivable that Mottram burned the
thing himself. But it doesn't really make very much sense
when you come to think of it. We know, and Mottram knew,
that it was only a spare copy of the will which the
solicitors had got up in London. It wasn't a very important
document, therefore, one way or the other. And I'm sure it
hasn't escaped your observation, that whereas burning papers
is a natural way to get rid of them in winter, when there's
a fire in the grate, one doesn't do it in summer unless
one's absolutely put to it. Nothing burns more
ill-temperedly than a piece of paper when you have to set
light to it with a match. You can't even burn it whole,
without great difficulty, for you must either keep hold of
it, and so leave a corner unburnt, or else leave it lying
about in a grate or somewhere, and then the flame generally
dies down before it is finished. In this case, it is pretty
clear that somebody must have held it in his hand, or it
probably wouldn't be a corner that remained unburnt. I can
find no finger-marks.'

'Wouldn't a man who was destroying an important document be
apt to take care he didn't leave any of it lying about?'

'Certainly, if he'd plenty of time to do it in. If it had
been Mottram, for example, burning his own will. It seems to
me more like the action of a man in a hurry; and I suspect
that the man who burned this document was in a hurry. Or at
least he was flustered; for he had been committing a murder,
and so few people can keep their heads altogether in that
position.'

'It's Simmonds, then, by your way of it?'

'Who else? You see, at first I was in rather a difficulty.
We had assumed, what it was natural to assume, that this
codicil Mottram added to his will was kept a secret--that
Simmonds didn't know about it, and that he'd murdered
Mottram under the mistaken idea that he would inherit the
Euthanasia benefits as the next of kin. Now, if that had
been his intention, it would have been rather a coincidence
his happening to light on the will and being able to burn
it. But you tell me that Simmonds did know about the
codicil; very well, that solves the difficulty. It was a
double crime not only in fact, but in intention. You thought
that Simmonds' knowledge of the codicil gave him a sort of
moral alibi. On the contrary, it only fastens the halter
round his neck. He determined to destroy Mottram and the
will together, and so inherit. The motive is more obvious
than ever. The only thing which he unfortunately hadn't
taken into account was the fact that the copy of the codicil
which he destroyed was a duplicate, and the original was up
in London.'

'But isn't it rather a big supposition, that Simmonds not
only knew the codicil was in existence, but knew that it was
in Mottram's possession when he came down here, and that it
would be lying about in Mottram's room, quite easy for him
to find?'

'You forget Mottram's psychology. When Simmonds offended
him, he wasn't content that Simmonds should be cut out of
his will; he wanted him to know that he'd been cut out of
the will--directed the lawyers to inform him of the fact.
When he added that codicil about the Euthanasia, although he
made such a secret of it all round, he was careful, as we
know, to inform Simmonds that it had been done. Don't you
think it's likely that he wrote to Simmonds and said: "I
have willed the Euthanasia policy away to strangers, so as
to prevent it coming to you; you can look in on me when I'm
at Chilthorpe, and I'll show you the document"? And
Simmonds, not understanding the pernicketiness of lawyers,
imagined that it would be the original of the will, not a
copy, that Mottram had by him. So, when he came round here
on his midnight visit, or rather on his early morning visit,
he turned off the gas, flung the window open, ransacked the
dispatch-box which he found lying on the table, found the
will, and burnt it hastily at the open window. Probably he
thought the unburnt fragment had fallen out of the window;
actually it had fallen under the table, and here we are!'

'It was Angela, I suppose, who told you that Simmonds knew
he had been cut out of the will?'

'With the best intentions. Mrs Bredon thought, of course,
that my suspicion of Simmonds could not survive the
revelation. As a matter of fact, it all fitted in nicely.
Well, it just shows that one should never waste time trying
to puzzle out a problem until one's sure that all the
relevant facts have been collated. Here were you and I
worrying our lives out over the difficulty, and all because
we had never noticed that bit of paper lying on the
floor--and might never have noticed it, if I hadn't happened
to go in with the undertaker. Now, there's only Brinkman's
part of the business to settle. Apart from that, it's as
clear as daylight.'

'You think so? Well, you must think me a frightful Sadducee,
but even now I don't mind doubling that bet again.

'Forty pounds! Good Lord, man, the Euthanasia must pay you
well ! Or do they insure you against losing bets? Well, it
would eat a big hole in my salary. But if you want to throw
your money away, I don't mind.'

'Good ! Forty quid. We'd best keep it dark from Angela,
though. I say, when Raight-ho makes that horrible noise on
the tom-tom inside, it generally means that Mrs Davis has
finished blowing the dust off the cold ham. What's wrong
with going in and seeing about a little lunch?'




CHAPTER 16

_A Visitor from Pullford_


When they came into the coffee-room, Bredon had the
instantaneous impression we all get occasionally that the
room was too full. Then, on disentangling his sensations, he
was delighted to find that the newcomer was Mr Eames, who
was exchanging a word or two with Brinkman, though he seemed
not to have been introduced to the others. 'Good man!' said
Bredon. 'I don't think you met my wife, did you? This is Mr
Pulteney ... it was very good of you to keep your promise.'

'As it turned out, I should have had to come in any case.
The Bishop had to go off to a Confirmation, so, when he
heard the funeral was down here, he sent me to represent
him. You see, we heard from the solicitors about our
windfall--I suspect you were keeping that dark, Mr
Bredon--and he was very much touched by Mr Mottram's
kindness. He wished he could have come, Mr Brinkman, but of
course a Confirmation is a difficult engagement to get out
of.'

'I really knew nothing about the will when I came over to
Pullford,' protested Bredon. 'I've heard about it since, of
course. Can I offer my congratulations to the diocese, or
would it look too much like gifts from the Greeks?'

'Nonsense; you serve your Company, Mr Bredon, and none of us
bears you any ill-will for it. I hope, by the way, I have
not been indiscreet in mentioning the subject?' he glanced
for a moment at the old gentleman. 'The Bishop, of course,
has not mentioned the matter except to me, because he quite
realizes there may be legal difficulties.'

'I can keep a secret as well as most men,' explained
Pulteney. 'That is to say, I have the common human vanity
which makes every man like to be in possession of a secret;
and perhaps less than my share of the vulgar itch for
imparting information. But you know Chilthorpe little, Sir,
if you speak of discretion in the same four walls with Mrs
Davis. I assure you that the testamentary dispositions of
the late Mr Mottram are seldom off her lips.'

There was a fractional pause, while everybody tried to think
how Mrs Davis knew. Then they remembered that the matter had
been mentioned, though only incidentally, at the inquest.

'To be sure,' said Eames. 'I have met Mrs Davis before. If
it is true that confession lightens our burdens, the "Load
of Mischief" must sit easily on her.'

'I'm so glad they haven't changed the name of the inn,'
observed Angela. 'These old-fashioned names are getting so
rare. And the "Load of Mischief" is hardly an encouraging
title.'

'There used,' said Eames, 'to be an inn in my old--in the
parish where I lived, which was called "The Labour in Vain".
I sometimes thought of it as an omen.'

'Are you of the funeral party, Mr Pulteney?' asked Leyland,
seeing the old gentleman dressed in deep black.

'There is no hiding anything from you detectives. Yes, I
have promised myself the rustic treat of a funeral. In the
scholastic profession such thrills are rare; they make us
retire at sixty nowadays. My lot is cast amidst the young; I
see ever fresh generations succeeding to the old, filling up
the gaps in the ranks of humanity; and I confess that when
one sees the specimens one sometimes doubts whether the
process is worth while. But do not let me cast a gloom over
our convivialities. Let us eat and drink, Mrs Davis's shape
seems to say to us, for tomorrow we die.'

'I hope I oughtn't to have gone,' said Angela. 'I'd have
brought my blacks if I'd thought of it.'

'Without them, you would be a glaring offence against
village etiquette. No, Mrs Bredon, your presence would not
be expected. The Company needs no representatives at the
funeral; more practical, it sheds golden tears over the
coffin. For the rest of us it is different. Mr Eames pays a
last tribute to his diocesan benefactor. Mr Brinkman, like a
good secretary, must dispatch the material envelope to its
permanent address. For myself, what am I? A fellow-wayfarer
in an inn; and yet what more is any of us, in this brief
world? No, Mrs Bredon, you are exempt.'

'Oh, do stop him,' said Angela. 'How did you come down, Mr
Eames?'

'By the midday train, a funereal pageant in itself. Was Mr
Mottram much known in the neighbourhood?'

'He is now,' replied Mr Pulteney, with irrepressible
ghoulishness. 'The victim of sudden death is like a diver;
no instinct of decency withholds us from watching his
taking-off.'

'I don't think he had any near relations living,' said
Brinkman, 'except young Simmonds. He'll be there, I suppose;
but there wasn't much love lost between them. He will hardly
be interested, anyhow, in the reading of the will.'

'By the way, Mr Brinkman, his Lordship asked me to say that
you will be very welcome at Cathedral House, if you are
detained in Pullford at all.'

'It is extremely kind of him. But I had wound up all Mr
Mottram's outstanding affairs before he came away for his
holiday, and I don't suppose I shall be needed. I was
thinking of going up to London in a day or two. I have to
shift for myself, you see.'

'Have some coffee, Eames,' suggested Bredon; 'you must need
it after a tiring journey like that.'

'Thanks, I think I will. Not that I'm tired, really. It
makes so much difference on the railway if you are
occupied.'

'You don't mean to say you are one of those fortunate
creatures who can work in railway trains?'

'No, not work. I played patience all the way.'

'Patience? Did I hear you say patience? Ah, but you only
brought one pack, of course.'

'No, I always travel with two.'

'Two? And Mr Pulteney has two! Angela, that settles it !
This afternoon I shall have a game.'

'Miles, dear, not the game? You know you can't play that and
think of anything else at the same time. Mr Eames, would you
mind dropping your packs in the river? You see, it's so bad
for my husband; he sits down to an interminable game of
patience, and forgets all about his work and everything.'

'You don't understand, Angela; it clears the brain. When
you've been puzzled over a thing, as I have been over this
question of suicide, your brains get all stale and used up,
and you must give them a fresh start. A game of patience
will just do the trick. No, no milk, thanks. Would you tell
Mrs Davis'--this was to the barmaid--'that I shall be very
busy all the latter part of this afternoon, and mustn't be
disturbed on any account? It's all right, Angela; I'll give
you half an hour now to remonstrate with me, but it won't be
any use.'

It was not, as a matter of fact, till after the funeral
party had left, and the coffin been removed, that Miles and
Angela forgathered. They went to the old mill-house, feeling
that it would be a safe place for confidences now that
Brinkman was otherwise engaged. 'Well,' said Angela, 'I
suppose you're wanting some Watson-work?'

'Badly. Look here, one of us, either Leyland or I, is
beginning to feel the strain a bit. Everything that crops up
makes him more and more determined to have Simmonds' blood,
and me more and more inclined to stick to my old solution.'

'You haven't been doubling that bet again, have you?'

'That's a detail. Look here, I must tell you all about his
find this morning.' And he proceeded to explain the whole
business of the piece of paper, and Leyland's inferences
from it. 'Now,' he finished up, 'what d'you make of all
that?'

'Well, he has got a case, hasn't he? I mean, his explanation
would explain things.'

'Yes, but look at the difficulties.'

'Let's have them. No, wait a minute, I believe I can do the
difficulties. Let's try a little womanly intuish.
First--you'd have noticed the piece of paper if it had been
there when you went in.'

'Not necessarily. It's wonderful what one can overlook if
one isn't thinking about it.'

'Well, then, Simmonds wouldn't have been such a chump as to
burn the thing on the spot. Especially with a foul smell of
gas in the room, not to mention the corpse. He'd have shoved
it into his pocket and taken it home.'

'There's a good deal in that. But Leyland would say that
Simmonds was afraid to do that for fear he should be stopped
and searched.'

'Pretty thin. And then, of course, if it was really
important for him to get the document out of the way, he
wouldn't have left a bit lying about. He'd have seen that it
was _all_ burnt.'

'Leyland says that was because he was in a hurry.'

'Well, let's have some others. I'm used up.'

'Well, don't you see that a man who is burning an important
document, holding it in his hand all the time, takes it up
by the least important corner, probably a blank space at the
top? This is the work of a man who wasn't particularly keen
on destroying all traces of the document, and he held it by
the bottom right hand corner, as one naturally would.'

'Why not the left hand, and the match in one's right? Ha!
The left-handed criminal. We are in luck.'

'Don't you believe it. You start holding it at the left hand
corner, and then transfer it to your right hand when you've
thrown the match away. You try, next time you're burning
your dressmaker's bill. And here's another point. Simmonds
would have been bound to stand with his head right in the
window, to keep clear of the gas fumes. Almost certainly he
would have put the paper down on the window-sill and let it
burn, leaving one of those curious damp marks. He didn't,
because I should have been bound to notice that; I was
looking for marks on the window-sill. If he held it in his
hand, he would be holding it outside the window, and he
wouldn't be such a chump as to throw away the odd corner in
the room, when he could pitch it out of the window. Another
thing, he wouldn't have dared to burn a light at the window
like that, for fear of attracting attention.'

'Well, I still think my objections were more important. But
go on.'

'Well, since that piece of paper wasn't dropped in the room
before Leyland and I went into it, probably not, anyhow, it
looks as if it had been dropped in the room since Leyland
and I went into it. Or at any rate, since the first police
search. Because the room has been kept locked, one way and
another, since then.'

'There was no deceiving this man.'

'Which makes it very improbable that the piece of paper was
dropped there by accident at all. Anybody who went in there
had no business to go in there and would be jolly careful
not to leave any traces. We are therefore irresistibly
compelled, my dear Angela, to the conclusion that somebody
dropped it there on purpose.'

'That firm grasp of the obvious. Yes?'

'He put it there deliberately, to create an impression. Now,
it might be to create the impression that Simmonds was the
murderer. To whose advantage would that be?'

'Mr Leyland's.'

'Angela, don't be flippant. Is there anybody?'

'Well, Mr Simmonds hasn't any enemies that we know of.
Unless it was somebody who was disappointed in the quality
of his handkerchiefs. What you want me to say is, that it
must be somebody who has murdered Mottram himself, and wants
to save his skin by pretending it was Simmonds as did it.'

'I'm dashed if I want you to say that. In fact, it's just
what I didn't want you to say. Of course, if you assume that
Mottram was murdered by Brinkman, it does all work out, most
unpleasantly well. You see, when Leyland and I were sitting
here, talking at Brinkman, who was hiding behind the wall,
Leyland did say that the only thing which prevented him from
arresting Simmonds was the fact that he'd no evidence to
connect him with the actual room. I could see what he was up
to--he wanted Brinkman to take the hint (assuming, of
course, that he was the real murderer) and start
manufacturing clues to incriminate Simmonds. Well, it looks
very much as if Brinkman had taken the hint, and was doing
identically what Leyland suggested. Curse it all.'

'Still, it was clever of Brinky to get in when the door was
locked.'

'Oh, that's nothing. I wouldn't put it beyond Brinkman to
have a duplicate key of that door. No, I've nothing to fall
back on really except the absence of motive. What earthly
reason had Brinkman for wanting to do Mottram in? Or rather,
I have one other thing to fall back on. But it's not
evidence; it's instinct.'

'As how?'

'Why, don't you see that the whole thing works out too
beastly well? Isn't it rather too obviously a ruse? I mean,
that idea of dropping a piece of paper with only half a
dozen words on it, and yet those half-dozen words showing
exactly what the document was? Isn't it rather too obviously
a plant?'

'But it was a plant, if Brinky put it there.'

'Yes, but isn't it too obviously a plant? So obviously, I
mean, that you couldn't expect anybody, even Leyland, to
think for a moment that it was genuine? Can Brinkman really
have thought that Leyland wouldn't see through it?'

'But if he didn't think so--'

'Double bluff, my good woman, double bluff. I can tell you,
crime is becoming quite a specialized profession nowadays.
Don't you see that Brinkman argued to himself like this: "If
I leave an obviously faked clue lying about like this,
Leyland will immediately think that it is a faked clue, used
by one criminal to shove off the blame on another. Who the
criminals are, or which is which, doesn't matter. It will
convince him that there has, after all, been a murder. And
it will disguise from him the fact that it was suicide." Of
course, all that's making Brinkman out to be a pretty smart
lad. But I fancy he is a pretty smart lad. And I read that
piece of paper as a bit of double bluff, meant to harden the
ingenious Leyland in his belief that the suicide was a
murder.'

'Ye-es. It'll look pretty thin before a jury, won't it?'

'Don't I know that it'll look thin before a jury? Especially
as, on my showing, Brinkman was prepared to let suspicion of
murder rest on himself rather than admit it was suicide. But
what beats me is the motive. There's no doubt that Brinkman
is a fanatical anti-clerical, and would do anything to
prevent Mottram's money going to a Catholic diocese... I
say, what's that?'

A sudden sneeze, an unmistakable sneeze, had come from
somewhere immediately behind them. In a twinkling Bredon had
rushed round to the other side of the wall. But there was
nobody there.




CHAPTER 17

_Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman_


Bredon and his wife looked at one another in astonishment.
It was impossible than 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, now, from the south. The air felt
breathless and oppressive; not a door could bang, not a
window rattle. The very flies on the window-panes seemed
drowsy. They 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, one summer day.

'I can't stand much of this,' he said. 'Let's go down
towards 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_ there.'

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 Bredon's 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 afterwards. 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 mill-house
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 it have
been Pulteney listening all along?'

'He was there, you know, when you and Leyland arranged to go
out to the mill-house 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 dispatch-box open on the table, and
a suit-case 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 motor-car. 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 card-case inside which showed me
which Mottram's car was. 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 south-west.'

'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 number-plate 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!'




CHAPTER 18

_The Barmaid is Brought to Book_


The bewilderment registered by Mr Pulteney's face at this
extraordinary announcement rapidly gave way to a look of
intense gratification. 'At last,' he said, 'I have lived! To
be mistaken for a criminal, perhaps a murderer--it is my
_Nunc Dimittis_. All these years I have lived the blameless
life of one who is continually called upon to edify his
juniors; I have risen early, in order to convict my pupils
of the sin of being late; I have eaten sparingly, in order
to pretend that the food provided by our establishment is
satisfying when it is not; I have pretended to sentiments of
patriotism, of rugged sportsmanship, of moral approval or
indignation, which I did not feel. There is little to
choose, believe me, between the fakir and the schoolmaster;
either must spend days of wearisome mortification, because
that is the way in which he gets his living. And now, for
one crowded hour of glorious old age, I have been mistaken
for a guilty intriguer. The blood flows richer in my veins;
I am overcome with gratitude. If only I could have kept it
up!'

'Mr Eames,' said Angela, 'there's one thing you said which
you've got to take back. You said Mr Pulteney was too much a
man of reflection to be a man of action as well. And now
you've heard how he broke into a garage, stole a piece of
sandwich, and took the cap off a petrol-tank without being
in the least certain that the car wouldn't explode. Is this
the pale scholar you pictured to us?'

'I apologize,' said Eames. 'I apologize to Mr Pulteney
unreservedly. I will form no more judgements of character.
You may tell me that Mrs Davis is a murderess, if you will,
and I will discuss the proposition on its merits.'

'Talking of which,' said Angela, 'the cream of the situation
is that we _still_ don't know who it was that was rubbering
behind that beastly mill-house.'

'Oh, as to that,' said Eames diffidently, 'I've felt fairly
certain about that all along. I suppose it's the result of
living with priests that one becomes thus worldly-wise. But
didn't you know, Mr Bredon, that maids always steal their
masters' cigarettes? It is, I believe, a more or less
recognized form of perquisite. Every liberty taken by the
rich is aped by their domestics. And, although she is not in
household service, I have no doubt that the barmaid here
claims a like privilege.'

'Do you mean--' began Bredon.

'You noticed, surely, that her fingers are a little stained
with brown? I noticed it when she brought in my fried eggs.
Ladies generally have expensive tastes in cigarettes, and I
have no doubt that this maid would go for the "Callipoli" if
she got a chance.'

'Miles, dear,' said Angela softly, 'who was it said that it
must be a servant who was listening at our bedroom door?'

'The uneducated do not take Mr Pulteney's view about
curiosity. I daresay this young lady often listens at
key-holes. With a corpse in the house, and detectives about,
she listens with all the more avidity. And if the detectives
insist on exchanging confidences close to that precise point
in the shrubbery at which she is in the habit of smoking
purloined cigarettes, they put themselves in her hands. But
a stronger motive supervenes; what she overhears out of pure
curiosity turns out to be of vital importance to herself.
She learns that the young man she is walking out with is
suspected of murder.'

'Good Lord, and of course it was she who reacted on our
suggestions, not Brinkman! I don't know if I mentioned it to
you, Angela, but when Leyland and I were talking together at
the mill-house, he said the only thing that would make him
hesitate to arrest Simmonds would be evidence showing that
Simmonds knew he wasn't Mottram's heir. And it was exactly
that evidence which Raight-ho proceeded to produce.'

'Oh,' cried Angela, 'how perfectly odious! You mean that
when I thought I was pumping Emmeline so cleverly, and
getting out of her exactly what I wanted, she was really
doing it all on purpose, and telling me exactly what _she_
wanted?'

'I'm afraid so, my dear. A lot of reputations seem to be
going west today. And, of course, I should say it's odds
that her whole story was absolutely trumped up, invented to
suit the occasion. And we're back exactly where we were, not
knowing whether Simmonds knew he was cut out of the will or
not.'

'On the other hand,' said Angela, 'we do know, now, what put
the wind up young Simmonds so badly. When you and Leyland
passed him and Emmeline in the lane last night, she was
telling him that he was suspected of murder, and had better
be dashed careful what he said and who he said it to.
Naturally, it gave him a bit of a fright when he thought you
were going to pump him, about his uncle.'

'And meanwhile, what has Brinkman been up to? We've really
no evidence against him until all this about the car cropped
up. Dash it all, and just when I was going to get a game of
patience!'

'I don't want to put my oar in unduly,' said the old
gentleman in an apologetic tone, 'but might it not be a good
thing to acquaint Mr Leyland with the somewhat unusual state
of affairs down at the garage? If Brinkman really intends to
do what is popularly known as a bunk, he may be off at any
moment. Had I been more expert, I could no doubt have
immobilized some important part of the mechanism. As it was,
I was helpless.'

'Where is Leyland, by the way?' asked Bredon.

'He is just coming up the street now,' said Eames, looking
out of the window. 'I'll call to him to come in here.'

'Hullo, what have you been up to?' asked Bredon, as Leyland
entered.

'Why, to tell the truth, I have been shadowing Mr Pulteney.
I must apologize, Mr Pulteney, but I felt bound to be
careful. I've had you kept under close observation all this
week; and it was only as I stood behind the door, watching
your investigations into that car, that I became perfectly
convinced of your innocence.'

'What! More suspicion! This is indeed a day. Why, if I had
had the least conception that you were watching me, Mr
Leyland, I would have led you a rare dance! My movements, I
promise you, should have been full of mystery. I should have
gone out every night with a scowl and a dark lantern. I am
overwhelmed.'

'Well, I must apologize at least for spying upon your
detective work. You do very well for an amateur, Mr
Pulteney, but you are not suspicious enough.'

'Indeed! I overlooked something? How mortifying!'

'Yes, when you took the cushion off that front seat, you
failed to observe that there was a neat tear in it, which
had been quite recently sewn up. Otherwise I am sure that
you would have done what I did just now--cut it open.'

'And is it fair to ask what you found inside?'

'Well, we seem to have gone too far now to have any secrets
between us. I feel sure that both you, Mr Pulteney, and you,
Mr Eames, are anxious to see justice done, and are prepared
to help at least by your silence.'

'To be sure,' said Pulteney.

'I am at your service,' said Eames.

'Well, this is actually what I found.' With a dramatic
gesture he produced a small waterproof wallet, and turned
out its contents. 'You will find a thousand pounds there,
all in Bank of England notes.'

'Well,' said Bredon, when the exclamations of surprise had
died away, 'are you still suspecting young Simmonds?'

'I'm not easy about him yet in my own mind. But of course, I
see Brinkman's deeper in this business than I had suspected
so far. A man who's innocent doesn't prepare to do a bolt
with a thousand pounds and a motor-car that doesn't belong
to him.'

'Well,' said Bredon, 'I suppose we ought to be keeping an
eye on Mr Brinkman.'

'My dear old thing,' said Leyland, 'don't you realize that
I've had two of my men at the "Swan" all this week, and that
Brinkman hasn't been unaccounted for for one moment? The
trouble is, he knows he's being watched, so he won't give
himself away. At least, I'm pretty sure of it. But the
motor, of course, puts us in a very good position. We know
how he means to escape, and we can afford to take the watch
off him and put it on the motor instead. Then he'll show his
hand, because he's mad keen to be off. At present he's in
his room, smoking a cigarette and reading an old novel. He
won't move, I think, until he makes certain that we're all
out of the way. Probably not till after supper, because a
night ride will suit his purpose best. And he's got a night
for it, too; there's a big storm coming on, unless I'm
mistaken.'

'And what about Simmonds?' asked Bredon.

'And the barmaid?' added Angela.

'Well, of course I could question both or either of them.
But I'd sooner not, if I can help it; it's cruel work. I was
wondering if you, Mrs Bredon, could go and have a talk to
that maid after we've had our tea, and see what satisfaction
you can get out of her?'

'I don't mind at all. In fact, I rather want to have it out
with dear Emmeline. I owe her one, you see. Meanwhile, let's
have tea by all means. I wonder if Brinky will come down to
it?'

Brinkman did come down, and tea was not a very enlivening
meal. Everybody in the room looked upon him as a man who was
probably a murderer and certainly a thief. Consequently
everybody tried to be nice to him, and everybody's style was
cramped by the effort. Even Mr Pulteney's verbosity seemed
to have been dried up by the embarrassment of the situation.
On the whole, Eames carried it off best. His dry, melancholy
manner was quite unaltered; he talked about patience to
Bredon, he talked Pullford gossip to Brinkman; he tried to
draw out Pulteney on educational questions. But most of the
party were glad when it was over, when Brinkman had shut
himself up again, and Angela had betaken herself to the back
premises to have it out with the barmaid.

The 'best room' had been turned by common consent into a
sort of committee-room; during all this whirligig of
sensations, the background of their mind was filled with
those protuberant portraits of the late Mr Davis which so
defiantly occupied the walls. It was here that Angela found
them assembled when she came up, some half an hour later, a
little red about the eyes.

'Well, I didn't try any subterfuges this time; I let her
have it straight from the shoulder. And then she cried, and
I cried, and we both cried together a good bit.'

'The mysterious sex again,' said Mr Pulteney.

'Oh, you wouldn't understand, of course. Anyhow, she's had a
rotten time. That first evening, when she listened outside
the door, it was only for a moment or two, out of sheer
curiosity, and she didn't hear anything that interested her.
It was yesterday evening, when you two were talking, that
she got interested. She overheard at first merely by
accident, which just shows how careful you ought to be. She
caught the name "Simmonds"; she heard, for the first time,
about the Euthanasia policy, and what it might have meant to
him and to her. She went on listening, naturally, and so she
came in for all Mr Leyland's exposition of the case against
Simmonds. You didn't convince my husband, Mr Leyland, but
you had a much greater success on the other side of the
wall. The poor girl, who's been brought up on novelettes and
penny shockers all her life, drank in the whole story. She
really believed that the man who had been making love to
her, the man she was in love with, was a cold-blooded
murderer. She acted, I think, very well. He came round that
evening to take her out for an evening walk, and on the way
she taxed him with his supposed crime. If you come to think
of it, that was sporting of her.'

'It was,' said Leyland. 'People are found dead in ditches
for less than that.'

'Well, anyhow, it worked all right. Simmonds listened to her
charges, and then denied them all. He didn't give her any
evidence for his denial much, but she believed him. There
was no quarrel. Next day, that is to say this morning,
Emmeline heard you two arranging for a talk at the
mill-house. She didn't suspect the trap; she walked straight
into it. What she heard made her believe that there was only
one way to save Simmonds--to pretend that he knew about the
Euthanasia, and knew the money wasn't coming to him. The
poor girl reflected that Simmonds had been hanging round the
house on the night of Mottram's death; he had been there
waiting to see her, when she left the bar at closing time.
So, bravely again, I think, she came to me with her story
about the anonymous friend and her young man with his lost
legacy. Of course, by sheer accident I made it much easier
for her to pitch me this yarn, and I swallowed it whole. She
thought that, with some blackening of her own conscience,
she had saved an innocent man's life.'

'And that's all she knows, so far?'

'No; at the end of lunch she heard you, Miles, saying that
you'd give me half an hour to talk things over. So when she
saw us stealing down to the now familiar trysting-place by
the mill--she hadn't gone to the funeral--she followed us
and listened again. And, to her horror, she realized from
what you said that all her lying had failed to do its work.
Leyland still believed, believed more than ever, that her
young man was the criminal. Her anxiety put her off her
guard, and a sudden sneeze gave her away. She didn't dare to
go back to the house; she hid in the privet-hedge.'

'And the long and short of it is,' suggested Leyland, 'that
her story is no evidence at all. Simmonds may be as guilty
or as innocent as you like; she knew nothing about it. Can
she give any account of Simmonds' movements on the night of
the murder?'

'Well, she says she had to be in the bar up to closing-time,
and then she slipped round to the back door, where he was
waiting for her, and stood there talking to him.'

'For how long?'

'She says it might have been a quarter of an hour, or it
might have been three-quarters of an hour; she really
couldn't say.'

'That sounds pretty thin.'

'How impossible you bachelors are! Miles, can't you explain
to him? Oh, well, I suppose it's no use; you couldn't
possibly understand.'

'It's certainly rather an unfortunate circumstance for
Simmonds that, just at the moment the gas was turned on in
Mottram's room, he was indulging in a kind of ecstasy which
may have lasted a quarter of an hour; or may have lasted
three-quarters.'

'Meanwhile,' said Bredon, 'I hope you realize that your own
case against Simmonds is considerably weakened? You were
trying to make out, if you remember, that Simmonds murdered
Mottram and burned the will, knowing that the will cut him
out of his inheritance. But since we have learned to
discredit the testimony of Raight-ho, we have no evidence
that Simmonds ever knew anything about the will, or had ever
so much as heard of the Euthanasia policy.'

'That's true. And it's also true that these last discoveries
have made me more inclined to suspect Brinkman. I shall have
to keep my eye on Simmonds, but for the time being Brinkman
is the quarry we must hunt. It's Brinkman's confession I
look forward to for the prospect of those forty pounds.'

'Well, if you can catch Brinkman and make him confess,
you're welcome to them. Or even if Brinkman does himself in
somehow, commits suicide rather than face the question, I'll
give you the benefit of the doubt, and we'll treat it as
murder. Meanwhile, if you will excuse me, I think, I've just
time to lay out that patience before supper.'

'Oh, he's hopeless,' said Angela.




CHAPTER 19

_How Leyland Spent the Evening_


Bredon was not allowed to escape so easily. Leyland insisted
that their plans must be settled at once, before
supper-time. 'You see,' he said, 'we've got to make rings
round Brinkman, and he's got to fancy that he is not under
observation. That's going to be a difficult job. But it's
made easy for us, rather, by the fact that Friday night is
cinema night in Chilthorpe.'

'A cinema at Chilthorpe!' protested Mr Pulteney. 'Good God!'

'Yes, there's a sort of barn out behind the Rectory, and one
of these travelling shows comes round once a week or once a
fortnight. It's extraordinary how civilization has
developed, isn't it? My idea was this; our friend the
barmaid is to come in at supper, and ask us if we shall be
wanting anything for the night, and whether she can go out.
The Boots, she will say quite truthfully, is going to the
cinema, and she wants to do the same. Mrs Davis will be kept
busy at the bar. Therefore there will be nobody to attend to
the bell if we ring--she will ask us whether we mind that.'

'Machiavellian,' said Mr Pulteney.

'Then somebody--you, Mrs Bredon, for choice--will suggest
_our_ making up a party for the cinema. Your husband will
refuse, because he wants to stay at home playing patience.'

'Come, I like this scheme,' said Bredon. 'It seems to me to
be all on the right lines. I only hope that you will allow
me to be as good as my word.'

'That's all right; I'm coming to that. The rest of us will
consent to accompany Mrs Bredon; Brinkman, presumably, will
refuse. Soon after supper--the performance is at eight--we
will all leave the house in the direction of the cinema,
which is fortunately the opposite direction from the
garage.'

'And have I got to sit through an evening performance in the
barn?' asked Angela.

'Why, no. I want you and Mr Eames to make your way back to
the inn, by turning off along the lane which leads to the
old mill; then you can come in quietly by the privet-hedge
at the back. Then I want you, Mr Eames, to wait about in the
passage which leads to the bar, dodging down the cellar
stairs if Brinkman comes to the bar to have a fortifier on
his way. I hope your reputation will not suffer from these
movements. You will keep your eye on the front of the house,
in case Brinkman goes out that way.'

'He's a fool if he does,' said Bredon. 'In the first place,
it's a shorter way to the garage to take the path that goes
out at the back. And in the second place, if he takes that
path, he will be unnoticed, whereas if he comes out by the
front-door he will be under the eyes of the bar-parlour.'

'I know, and I am going to discourage him still further from
going out at the front by leaving you to keep a look out.
Your window faces the front, doesn't it? Very well, then,
you will sit in your room playing patience, but right in the
window-seat, please, and with the blind up.'

'But I say, if he goes by the front way, have I got to track
him? Because--'

'No, you haven't. Mr Eames is to do that. You sit still
where you are and go on playing patience. Mr Eames, if
Brinkman goes out by the front-door, you will see him; you
will wait till he is round the corner, and then follow him
at a distance. That, of course, is only to make sure what he
does on the way to the garage; you are not to overtake him
or interfere with him.'

'I see.'

'And what am I to do?' asked Angela.

'Well, I was wondering if, on returning from our false
start, you would mind going up unnoticed to your husband's
room? The back-stairs are very handy for the purpose. You
could sit there reading, or anything, and then if Brinkman
does leave by the front, your husband, while still sitting
at the window and pretending not to notice, could pass the
word to you. You would then go downstairs and ring up the
garage, so that we shall be ready for Brinkman when he
comes.'

'That will be a thoroughly typical scene. And are you taking
poor Mr Pulteney to the post of honour and of danger?'

'If Mr Pulteney does not object. He knows his way about the
garage.'

'I shall be delighted to go where glory waits. If I fall, I
hope that you will put up a plain but tasteful monument over
me, indicating that I died doing somebody else's duty.'

'And what about your two men?' asked Bredon.

'One of them will be told off to watch Simmonds. As I told
you, I can't afford to leave Simmonds out of account. The
other will wait out at the back, in a place I have selected;
if (or rather when) Brinkman comes out at the back-door to
make his way to the garage, my man will follow him at a
distance, and will take his post at the garage door, in case
there's any rough work there. That, I think, accounts for
the whole party.'

'How long does our vigil last?' asked Eames.

'Not, I imagine, beyond nine o'clock. That is the hour at
which the garage shuts; and, although there is a bell by
which the proprietor can be fetched out if necessary, I
hardly think that Brinkman would take the risk. The dusk is
closing early this evening, with all these clouds about; and
if, as I strongly suspect, there is a thunder-storm, it will
be a capital night for his purpose. It's a nuisance for us,
because I haven't dared to leave any of my watching-parties
out of doors, for fear of a deluge.'

If tea had been an embarrassing meal, supper was a positive
nightmare. But when the barmaid, carefully coached by
Angela, asked for leave to go out to the pictures, a perfect
piece of acting began. Angela's suggestion to her husband
was beautifully done, so was his languid reply; Mr Pulteney
excelled himself in the eagerness with which he offered to
be her cavalier; Leyland's show of reluctance over the
programme, and Eames' humorous resignation to his fate,
completed the picture. Brinkman, after one nerve-racking
pause, said he thought on the whole he would rather be
excused. He found the cinema tiring to the eyes. 'Good,'
said Bredon; 'then you and I will keep the home-fires
burning. It's true I shall be sitting upstairs, because I've
got my patience all laid out up there, and I haven't the
heart to desert it. But if you're frightened of thunder, Mr,
Brinkman, you can always come up and have a crack with me.'

The alleged cinema party left at five minutes to eight. By
that time Bredon was already immersed in his mysteries
upstairs; and it was Brinkman, smilingly apologetic, who saw
them off at the front-door. 'Don't sit up for us if we're
late, Mr Brinkman,' said Angela, with the woman's instinct
of overdoing an acted part; 'we'll throw brickbats in at my
husband's window.' The inn door, with its ridiculous panes
of blue and yellow, shut behind them, and they heard the
unsuspecting footsteps of their victim climbing the stairs.
As they passed down the street, a few drops of rain were
falling, uneasy presages of the storm. Angela quickened her
pace; she had not carried realism to the extent of arming
herself with an umbrella. It was, in truth, but a short
distance she and Eames had to travel; they were only just
out of sight round a bend of the street when they doubled
back upon the lane by which they were to return to the inn.
At the entrance of it they met Emmeline, with the 'Boots' in
attendance; it was difficult not to believe that, upon
arrival at the cinema, he would be replaced by a more
favoured escort. Leyland and Pulteney just stood long enough
at the turning to make sure that all had gone well, and then
continued their journey to the garage.

Here all was clearly in readiness; the proprietor was
waiting for them at the door to receive his orders.

'Look here,' said Leyland, 'this gentleman and I are going
to watch for a bit in here. Where's the telephone? Ah,
that's all right; very well, we'll get behind this lorry. If
anybody comes into the garage and wants you, he can ring
that bell, can't he? And if anybody rings up on the
telephone, we'll take the message; and if it's for you, not
for us, we'll let you know. Meanwhile I suppose you and your
mate can keep in the background?'

'That's all right, Sir, there won't be any difficulty about
that. About how long might you be requiring the use of the
garage for, Sir?'

'Till nine o'clock--that's your closing-time, isn't it? Any
objections?'

'There ain't no difficulty, Sir, except that I've got to
take my car out; I've got to meet a gentleman who's coming
down on the 8.40 train. But if I take it straight out, and
don't waste any time over it, that'll be all right, won't
it? She's all ready for starting.'

'Very well. Twenty minutes to nine--or I suppose you'll want
it about twenty-five to. Well, you may see us when you come
back, or you may not. There's nothing else, then.'

As the proprietor withdrew behind the door which led into
the workshop at the back, Leyland and Pulteney took up their
stand behind a hay-waggon which afforded them generous
concealment. Even as they did so, a sudden wink of lightning
illuminated the outline of the garage and the road outside;
it was followed by a distant roar of thunder. The wind had
got up by now, and was moaning uneasily amongst the rafters
of the building, which was no better than an open barn.

'Our performance could hardly have been better staged,'
murmured the old gentleman. 'I only regret the absence of a
revolver. Not that I should have any idea how to use a
lethal weapon; but it would give me more sense of
derring-do. It is singularly unfortunate that, even if I
narrate the events of this evening to my pupils next term,
they will not believe me. They suspect any information which
comes from such a source. To you, I suppose, this is an
everyday affair?'

'Don't you believe it, Mr Pulteney. Most of a detective's
life is spent sitting in an office filling up forms, like
any bank-clerk. I've got a revolver with me myself, but I'm
not expecting any shooting. Brinkman doesn't strike me as
being that kind of customer.'

'Is it intended that I should precipitate myself upon the
miscreant and overpower him, or where exactly do my services
come in?'

Leyland was rather at a loss to answer. The truth was, he
did not quite trust Mr Pulteney, and he thought it best for
that reason to keep him by his side. 'Well,' he said, 'two
heads are better than one if it comes to a sudden alteration
of plans. But there isn't going to be any difficulty about
catching our friend. If he comes out by the back, he'll have
my man shadowing him. If he should come out by the front, he
will have Mr Eames shadowing him. So he will be caught
between two fires.'

'But it might be difficult for Mr Eames to catch him if he
were already in the motor-car and driving it.'

'Don't you worry about that, Mr Pulteney. I've fixed that
car so that nobody's going to get her to move unless I want
him to. It's the devil of a night, this. I hope Brinkman
won't funk it.'

They seemed, indeed, to be in the very centre of a
thunder-storm, though it was nowhere quite close at hand.
Every few seconds, from some unexpected quarter, the whole
sky seemed to wink twice in rapid succession, and with the
wink the roofs of Chilthorpe would suddenly stand out
silhouetted, and a pale glare fell on the white road
outside. Storms of rain lashed upon the roof above them, and
for a few minutes every gutter spouted and every seam in the
tiles let in a pattering flood; then, without a word of
warning, the rain would die down once more. Occasionally the
lightning would manifest itself closer, great jagged streaks
across the sky that looked as if they were burying
themselves in the hill-summits above the town. When the
elements were at rest for a moment, there was an uncanny
stillness on every side; not a dog barked, not a footstep
clattered down the deserted street.

Attuned as their nerves were to the roar of thunder, they
both started as if in panic when the telephone-bell rang.
Leyland was at the instrument in a moment, and heard
Angela's cool voice asking for him at the other end.

'Is that you, Mr Leyland? Brinkman has just left the hotel
by the front-door ... Yes, the _front_-door. I didn't see
him myself, of course, but my husband said he came out quite
coolly, just looking up at our window as if to see whether
he was watched. Then I came straight to the telephone. I
just looked in at the bar passage, and found that Mr Eames
was not there, so I suppose he has followed. Shall I give
any message to the man at the back? Oh, all right. ... Yes,
he was carrying a dispatch-box, which looks as if he would
round up with you before long. ... All right, we'll expect
you when we see you.'

'That sounds all right,' said Leyland to his companion.
'We'd best take cover. Though why on earth the man came out
by the front-door--Gad, he must be a cool customer! To walk
out with his bag from the front-door, and wander in here
asking for his car! Keep well behind the lorry, Mr Pulteney.
... Hullo, what's that?'

The door of the workshop opened, and the proprietor
appeared, drawing on a pair of motoring-gloves. 'Sorry, Sir,
it's twenty-five to; got to go and pick up my gent. Bad
night for a drive, with the rain on your wind-screen, and
this lightning blinding you every other second.'

'Hurry up, man, get clear,' said Leyland impatiently. 'He'll
be here in a moment. As you come back, you might stop at the
"Load of Mischief", because we may want a car.'

There was a drumming and a grinding, and the taxi bounded
out on to the roadway. Leyland and Pulteney drew back behind
the lorry, and waited for the sound of a footfall. They
heard the hoot of the taxi as it passed the turning at the
bridge; they heard the scrape as it changed gears a little
later on the hill-road; then the noise died down, and there
was silence. Two flashes of lightning, with the thunder
following quick on them; then silence again. Five minutes
passed, ten minutes, and still they sat on in the
half-darkness. Leyland's mind was in a whirl of agitation.
Granted that Brinkman had taken some circuitous route, to
avoid observation, was it likely that he should take so long
as this? He had had time to carry his luggage all round the
township by now. ... Suddenly, from up the street, came a
sound of running footsteps. Leyland gripped his revolver and
waited with drawn breath.




CHAPTER 20

_How Bredon Spent the Evening_


Bredon had undoubtedly secured the best occupation for the
evening. For two whole days he had missed the feeling of
cards between his hands, and now he returned with a great
hunger to his favourite pastime. True, the circumstances
were not ideal. It was thoughtless of Leyland to have
insisted on his sitting so close to the window; there was,
fortunately, a window-seat, but not generous enough in its
proportions to secure a convenient lay-out of the cards. The
rows, instead of lying flat, had to climb over downs and
gullies in the faded chintz; the result was an occasional
avalanche, and a corresponding loss of temper. In an ideal
world, Bredon reflected, you would have a large building
like a racquet-court to play patience in, and you would
wheel yourself up and down between the rows in an invalid's
chair.

There was a soft rustle at the door, and Angela came in.
'Oo, I've been feeling so nice and stealthy,' she said. 'Mr
Eames and I crept back down the lane just like burglars. It
was better than a cinema, I can tell you. We dodged round
the privet-hedge, and came in through the back of Mrs
Davis's kitchen. And I thought the back stairs would never
stop creaking. Did you hear me coming up?'

'I can't say I did. But, you see, I was otherwise engaged.
To a man like Brinkman, on the alert for every noise, your
progress probably sounded like a charge of cavalry. You're
sure you shut the door properly? I need hardly say that a
sudden draught would be a disaster to all my best hopes. A
little knitting is indicated for you, Angela, to steady the
mind.'

'Don't you talk too much. If Brinky came out and saw your
lips moving, it might worry him. Remember, you're supposed
to be alone in the room. Though indeed he probably regards
you as potty by now in any case, so it wouldn't surprise him
to see you talking to yourself. Words cannot depict the
shame I have felt this evening at having such a lazy
husband. Talk of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning!'

'Say, rather, Drake insisting on finishing his game of
bowls. Or was it William Tell? I forget. Anyhow, this is the
fine old British spirit. What's the word? Not
undaunted--imperturbable, that's what I mean. The myrmidons
of Scotland Yard bustle to and fro outside; the great
detective sits calmly within, with all the strings in his
hands. My nets begin to close tighter round them, Watson.
Dash it all, I believe Pulteney's let me down. Where's his
other two of spades?'

'I don't want to be unpleasant, but you will perhaps allow
me to remind you that you are supposed to be on the
look-out. If Brinky comes out in front, you are to report to
me. And how are you to see him, if you will go scavenging
about under the window-seat like that?'

'Well, you'll jolly well have to find my two of spades,
then, while I keep an eye on the street. Fair division of
labour. Watchman, what of the night? There's going to be a
jolly fine thunder-storm. Did you see that flash? I deduce
that there will shortly be a slight roll of thunder. There,
what did I tell you?'

'It's not so much the innate laziness of the man,' murmured
Angela, as if to herself, 'it's his self-sufficiency. Here's
your beastly two of spades; don't lose it again. You ought
to have the cards tied round your neck with a piece of
string. I say, aren't you excited? Do you think Brinky will
show fight when they nab him in the garage?'

'Don't fluster me. I wish to be secluded from the world.
Here before me lies a very pretty problem, represented by
two hundred and eight pieces of pasteboard. Behind that, in
the dim background of my half-awake consciousness, lies a
very pretty problem in detection. It is my boast that I can
do both at once. But how am I to do either, if women will
chatter at me?'

'Passengers are requested not to speak to the man at the
wheel. All right, Aunty, go on with your silly game. I'm
going to knit. It doesn't feel quite womanly to knit,
somehow, with a thing like you in the room.'

There was silence for a while, as Bredon sat over his cards,
with an occasional glance at the street below him. There is
said to be a man who has invented a Chinese typewriter; and
since (they tell us) every word in the Chinese language has
its own symbol--the fault of Confucius, for not thinking of
letters--the machine is said to be the size and shape of a
vast organ, and the typist runs to and fro, pulling out a
stop here, pressing down a pedal there, in a whirl of
activity. Not otherwise did Bredon appear when he saw the
possibilities of a particular gambit in his patience; then
he would sit for a while lost in thought, puzzling out
combinations for the future. Below him, the street lay in an
unearthly half-darkness. Lamps should not have been needed
by this time on a June evening, but the thick mantle of
clouds had taken away all that was left of the sun's
departing influence, and it was a twilit world that lay
below. He could see a broad splash of light from the
front-door, and, farther along, the mellower radiance
diffused by the bar windows, with their drawn red blinds.
From time to time a sudden flare of lightning illuminated
the whole prospect, and shamed these human lights into
insignificance.

'Angela,' said Bredon suddenly, without turning round, 'I
don't know if it interests you at all, but a stealthy figure
has crept out into the moonlight. At least, there isn't any
moonlight, but still--Those irritatingly twirled moustaches,
those supercilious pince-nez--can it be? It is--our old
friend Brinkman. He carries a dispatch-box, but no other
luggage. He is passing down the street in the direction of
the turning; perhaps making for the garage--who shall say?
He is looking round at this window; ha! 'tis well, I am
observed. Anyhow, it's up to you to go to the telephone this
time.'

Angela's self-possession was more of a pose. She sprang up
in a hurry, dropping her knitting as she rose, and threw the
door open silently but swiftly; then, as silently, as
swiftly, it shut again behind her. But not before
irretrievable damage had been done. The evening was full of
those sudden gusts and air-currents which a thunder-storm
brings with it. One of these, synchronizing with the sudden
opening of the door, neatly lifted up three of the cards
from the window-seat, and swept them out into the open air.

Bredon was intensely annoyed, and somewhat puzzled as to his
duty. On the one hand, it was impossible to go on with the
game when three cards, whose values he could not remember,
were missing from a row. On the other hand, Leyland's
instructions had been explicit; he was to sit at the window
without stirring. Then common sense came to his aid. After
all, Brinkman was no longer in sight; even if he were
still watching from the corner, he would never suspect that
a movement in the room upstairs portended discovery. With a
great effort Bredon heaved himself up from the chair into
which he had sunk, opened the door delicately for fear of
fresh draughts, and in half a minute's time was searching
before the front of the inn for his truant pasteboard.

The king of spades, good. And here was the three of
diamonds. But there was one card; he was certain of it. A
friendly flash of lightning gave him a sudden snap-shot of
the road; Brinkman was out of sight; another figure, Eames
presumably, was already making for the turning. But there
was no card in the street; no deceptive fragments of paper,
even, to catch the eye. He looked round, baffled. Then his
eye caught the sight of an open groundfloor window, that of
the best room. Could the fluttering runaway have dived
indoors again? He put his head in through the window; there
it lay, close to the occasional table with the photograph
album on it. He was back through the front door in an
instant, and making his way upstairs again with his prize.

'Great Scott!' he said, aloud, as he regained his room,
'could that possibly be it? That would mean, of course ...
hang it all, what would that mean? Ah! That's more like it.'
The patience lay all round him, forgotten for the moment;
his eyes sparkled, his hands gripped the arms of his chair.

When Angela came back from the telephone, she was astonished
at the change that had come over her husband. He was
standing on the fender with his back to the empty grate,
swinging himself to and fro while he carolled snatches from
an out-of-date musical repertoire:

    All the girls began to cry, Hi, hi, hi, Mister Mackay, Take
    us with you when you fly back to the Isle of Skye,

were the actual words that greeted her entrance. 'Miles,
dear,' she expostulated, 'whatever's the matter? Have you
got it out?'

'What, the patience? No, I don't think the patience is
coming out just yet. But I've got a very strong suspicion
that our little detective mystery is coming out. As you are
up, I wonder if it would be troubling you too much to ask
you to step down to Mrs Davis and ask her if she ever cut
any sandwiches for Mr Brinkman?'

'My poor, poor dear!' said Angela; but she went. She knew
the signs of a victory in her husband's erratic deportment.
He was still crooning softly to himself when she came back
with her message.

'Mrs Davis says that she doesn't remember ever to have cut
any sangwiches, not for Mr Brinkman she didn't. Mr Pulteney,
now, he often takes a nice sangwich with him when he goes
out fishing. Not that she always makes them herself, because
the girl cuts as nice a sangwich as you'd wish to see. But
Mr Brinkman he didn't order any sangwiches, not all this
week he hasn't. That's all the message. At least, I came
away at that point.'

'Good! The case progresses. Let me call your attention to
this singular absence of sangwich-cutting on the part of Mrs
Davis. Angela, I'm right on the track of the beastly thing,
and you mustn't disturb me.'

'Have you really worked it all out?'

'No, not quite all; but I'm in the sort of stage where the
great detective says, Good God, what a blind bat I have
been! As a matter of fact, I don't think I've been a blind
bat at all; on the contrary, I think it's dashed clever of
me--to have got hold of the thing now. It's more than you
have.'

'Miles, you're not to be odious. Tell me all about it, and
I'll see what I think of you.'

'Who was it laughed at me for staying at home and playing
patience while other people did the work? No, you shan't
hear about it; besides, I haven't fitted it all together
yet.'

'Well, anyhow, you might tell me whether you've won the
forty quid or lost it.'

'Not a word shall you get out of me at present.'

'Then I'll make Mr Leyland arrest you and torture you with
thumbscrews. By the way, I wonder what Mr Leyland's doing?
Brinky must have got to the garage by now, and I should have
thought he would have brought him straight back here.'

'The garage? Oh, yes. At least, wait a minute ... Of course,
now I come to think of it, there's no real reason to suppose
that Brinkman meant to take the car out at all.'




CHAPTER 21

_How Eames Spent the Evening_


Eames stood behind the window of the passage into the
bar-parlour, making sure that there was no light behind him
to show up his silhouette. Yes, there was no doubt, it was
Brinkman who had stepped out into the twilight of the
street; Brinkman with a dispatch-box in his hand; Brinkman
on the run. He waited until the street-corner hid the
fugitive from view, then crammed on his soft hat and
followed. He was not an expert at this sort of game, but
fortunately there was not much to be done. Brinkman would
obviously make for the garage, and when he had passed
through the open doors of it, it would be easy for him,
Eames, to slink up behind and post himself outside the
gateway to prevent a sudden rush. Hang it all, though, why
hadn't the man gone out by the back lane?

And then he saw that he had counted on his luck too soon.
Brinkman had reached the turning, and had not made for the
garage after all. He had turned his back on it, and was
starting out on the Pullford Road, the road towards the
gorge and the Long Pool. This was outside all their
calculations; what on earth could the man be up to? Not only
was he deserting his car, he was deserting the garage, and
with it all the available petrol-power of Chilthorpe. He
could not be walking to Pullford, a distance of twenty
miles, more or less. He could hardly even be walking to
Lowgill junction, eight miles off, though that would, of
course, bring him on to the main line. Chilthorpe station
would be hopeless at this time of night; no strand remained
to connect it with civilization. No, if Brinkman took this
road, he must be taking it only to return along it.

And yet, was it safe to reckon on that? Was it safe to make
straight for the garage, and warn Leyland of what was
happening? If he did that, he must let Brinkman out of his
sight; and his orders were not to let Brinkman out of his
sight. Eames was in the habit of obeying orders, and he
obeyed. It would need cautious going, for, if Brinkman
turned in his tracks, it was not unlikely that he would walk
straight into the arms of his pursuer. Very cautiously,
then, flattening himself in doorways or hiding behind clumps
of broom and furze on the road-side, Eames stalked his man
at a distance of some thirty yards. It was difficult work in
the half-darkness, but those sudden, revealing flashes of
lightning made it unsafe to go nearer. They had left the
last of the houses, and were now reaching the forked roads a
little way up the hill. If Brinkman took the lower road, it
must be Lowgill junction he was making for; that would make
easy work for his pursuers, who could ride him down in a
fast motor. Surely it could not be that; surely he could not
be turning his back on the motor and the thousand pounds!

No, he was not making for Lowgill. He took the hill-turning
instead; that led either to the railway-station or across
the moors to Pullford. In either case every step was taking
the hunted man further away from help. 'If he goes as far as
the first milestone,' Eames said to himself, 'I'll defy my
orders and cut back to the garage, so that they can get the
car out and follow him. Confound it all, what's the man
doing now?'

Brinkman had left the high road, and was making his way
deliberately down the field path that led to the gorge. This
was worse than ever; the path was steep, and Eames, although
he carried an electric torch which Bredon had lent him, did
not dare to use it for fear of betraying himself. He could
not guess the significance of this last move. There was no
road Brinkman could be making for, unless he returned to
this same road at the other end of the gorge, a few hundred
yards higher up. Was it safe to wait at the beginning of the
path? Was it safe to follow along the road, flanking his
movements from above? Once more Eames had to fall back upon
his orders. There was only one way of keeping his man in
sight, and that was to stick to his heels. It would mean,
probably, some nasty stumbles in the half-darkness, but it
was too late to consider that. At least, the fir-trees and
the bracken made it easier to follow unseen. And the
fir-trees kept off a little of the rain, which was now
driving fiercely upon his overcoat, and clogging the knees
of his trousers with damp. Never mind, he had his orders.

Any kind of scenery achieves dignity in a thunderstorm; but
rocky scenery in particular is ennobled by the combination.
Under those quivering flashes, the two sides of the valley
with the river running in between looked like the wings of a
gigantic butterfly, shaking off the pitiless dew that was
falling on them. The opening of the gorge itself, with the
slant of the shadows as the lightning-glare failed to reach
its depths, was like an illustration to the Inferno. The
rain on the hill-side turned to diamond drops as it
reflected the flashes; 'the fire ran along the ground,'
thought Eames to himself. It was a sight to make a man
forget his present occupations, if those occupations had
been less pressing and less sinister.

Brinkman himself either did not carry a torch or did not use
it. His pace was leisurely on the whole, though he seemed to
quicken his step a little when the church clock struck half
past eight. By that time he was already at the opening of
the gorge. This took him out of sight, and Eames, secure in
the cover which the dark tufts of fern afforded, ran forward
over the spongy grass to creep up nearer to him. The gorge
itself, ominous at all times, was particularly formidable
under such skies as these. The half-light enabled you to see
the path, but (to a man unaccustomed to his surroundings)
suggested the permanent possibility of losing your foothold;
and when the lightning came, it revealed the angry torrent
beneath with unpleasant vividness. Fortunately the noise of
the elements deadened the sound of your feet on the hard
rock. Eames hesitated for one moment, and then followed
along the narrow path that led up the gorge.

He could just see the dim figure that went before him as it
reached the wider foothold at the middle of the gorge, where
Brinkman and Bredon had interrupted their conversation to
comment on the shape of the rocks. Then it halted, and Eames
halted, too; he was now less than twenty yards behind, and
he was at the last turn in the rock which could promise him
any shelter from observation. He did well to halt, for while
he stood there a huge tree of lightning seemed to flash out
from the opposite side of the valley, and, for an interval
which you could count in seconds, the whole landscape lay
open to view as if in hard daylight.

Eames' eyes were riveted upon a single spot; he had thoughts
for nothing but the sudden and inexplicable behaviour of
Brinkman. In that flash, he saw the little man leaping up in
the air, his right hand outstretched at full arm's length,
as if to reach the top, or something behind the top, of
that very ledge which, this morning, he had compared to the
rack in a railway-carriage. Indeed, Brinkman himself looked
not unlike some juvenile traveller who just cannot reach the
parcel he wants to bring down, and must needs jump for it.
What was the object of Brinkman's manoeuvre did not appear,
nor even whether he was trying to take something down from
the ledge or to put something on to it. But the grotesque
attitude, momentarily revealed in that single spot-light of
the thunder-storm, was perfectly unmistakable.

The prolonged glare left Eames momentarily blinded, like one
who has just passed a car with very powerful headlights.
When he saw clearly again, the dark figure under the ledge
was gone. Could Brinkman have taken alarm? He had looked
backwards after his absurd leap, like a man who felt he was
pursued. In any case, Eames must press forward now, or he
would lose his quarry altogether. ... By the time he had
reached the ledge, a new flash came, and showed him, at the
very end of the gorge, Brinkman running as if for his life.
There was no more sense in concealment; he must mend his own
pace, too; and that was impossible, on this narrow shelf of
rock, unless he lit his torch. Lighting it, he took one look
at the ledge towards which Brinkman had been jumping, and,
from his superior height, saw without difficulty an envelope
which looked as if it must be the explanation of Brinkman's
gesture. He reached it with little trouble, put it in his
pocket, and ran. As he ran he heard the hum of a motor's
engine on the road above him.

The scramble up the bank at the further end of the gorge was
less formidable than he had feared, for he kept his torch
alight, and made a pace very creditable to his years. But
even as he breasted the level of the roadway, he saw a car
climbing the hill, doubtless carrying Brinkman with it. He
cried to the driver to stop, but a volley of thunder drowned
his utterance. He turned impotently, and began running down
the hill; in ten minutes or so, at this pace, he should be
at the garage. But as he ran, he took the envelope out of
his pocket, and scanned its superscription by the light of
his torch. It read: 'To his Lordship the Bishop of Pullford.
Private and Confidential.' He thrust it away, wondering; but
a short-winded man running has no taste for puzzles. Would
it be any use turning in to the 'Load of Mischief', and
letting somebody else carry his message the rest of the way?
Hardly; and a double set of explanations would be a waste of
precious time.

He reached the garage panting too heavily for speech, and,
in answer to a challenge in Leyland's voice, turned his own
torch on himself for identification. Then, leaning wearily
against the front of the lorry, he blurted out his
explanations. 'He's gone--motor-car--towards
Pullford--couldn't stop him--better follow him up--didn't
look a fast car--lost him at the gorge--take me with you,
and I'll explain.'

'Yes, but curse it all, has he made for Pullford or for
Lowgill? There's a side road. We must try Lowgill; we can
telegraph from there, anyhow, and have him stopped. Hullo,
who next?'

Angela had rushed in, hatless, to announce Bredon's cryptic
observation about the car. She knew his mysterious moods,
and felt that it was best to make straight for Leyland,
especially as her car was the only fast one in the township.
'Right you are,' she said, when the situation had been
outlined to her; 'I'll drive you both into Lowgill; jump
up.'

'Mr Pulteney,' said Leyland, 'do you mind going to the
stables at the back of the inn, to find my man who's waiting
there? Tell him what's happened, say he's to get on to the
telephone, break into the Post Office if necessary, and warn
Pullford and Lowgill. He may just have time to head the man
off. Oh, by the way, he won't know who you are; may take you
for Brinkman. Say _Here we are again_ loudly, do you mind,
when you're outside the stable.'

'It will be a novel experience,' said Mr Pulteney.




CHAPTER 22

_At a Standstill_


It was nearly eleven o'clock before Angela returned, and,
since she resolutely refused to disclose anything about her
movements unless Bredon divulged his theory, there were no
explanations at all that night. 'It's not that I'm
inquisitive,' she explained, 'but I do want to break you of
that bad habit of obstinacy.' 'Well, well,' said Bredon, 'if
you choose to drag my name in the dust, not to mention my
car, by these midnight expeditions, there's no more to be
said.' And no more was said.

They found Leyland already at breakfast when they came down.
He had been up, he said, since six, making inquiries in
every conceivable direction. 'I must say,' he added, 'it
wasn't Mrs Bredon's fault we didn't catch our man last
night.'

'The woman was reckless, I suppose, as usual?' asked Bredon.

'Oh, no,' said Angela in self-defence, 'I only got her going
a little.'

'It's eight miles to Lowgill by the sign-posts,' said
Leyland, 'and a little more in real life. Mrs Bredon did
it--and, remember, the gradients are far worse than those on
the Pullford road--in just over twelve minutes. But we'd no
luck. The up-train from Lowgill--it's the only one of the
big expresses that stops there--had just gone before we
arrived. And, of course, we couldn't tell whether Brinkman
had gone on it or not. His car passed us on the road, only a
few hundred yards from the station, and we hadn't time to
stop.'

'What car was he in?'

'That's the devilish part of it--I'm sorry, Mrs Bredon.'

'That's the damnable part of it,' amended Angela serenely.
'It was the car from the garage; and it sailed out at
twenty-five minutes to nine, under Mr Leyland's nose. Even
the sleuth-like brain of Mr Pulteney didn't realize what was
happening.'

'You see,' explained Leyland, 'it was a very well arranged
plant. Brinkman had rung up earlier in the afternoon, asking
the garage to meet the late train which gets into Chilthorpe
at 8.40. He gave the name of Merrick. The garage naturally
asked no questions as to where the message came from;
they're always meeting that late train. And, of course, they
assumed that there was somebody arriving by that train.
Then, when the man had got a little way out of the town,
just above the gorge there, he was stopped on the road by a
passenger with a dispatch-box in his hand, who was walking
in the direction of Chilthorpe, as if coming from the
station. He waved at the car, and asked if it was for Mr
Merrick; then he explained that he was in a great hurry,
because he wanted to catch the express at Lowgill. It was a
perfectly normal thing to want to do, and there wasn't much
time to do it in; so the man went all out, and just caught
the express in time. He didn't know who we were when we
passed him, and it wasn't till he got back to Chilthorpe
that he realized what he'd done. Meanwhile, who's to say
whether Brinkman stopped at Lowgill, or really got into the
express?'

'Or took the later train back to Pullford?' suggested
Bredon.

'No, we kept a good look-out to see that he didn't do that.
But the other uncertainty remained, and it was fatal to my
plans. I sent word to London to have the train watched when
it got in, giving a description of Brinkman; but of course
that's never any use. In half an hour or so I shall get a
telegram from London to say they've found nothing.'

'You couldn't have the express stopped down the line?'

'I'd have liked to, of course. But it's a mail train, and
it's always full of rich people in first-class carriages.
Give me a local train on a Saturday night, and I'll have it
stopped and searched and all the passengers held up for two
hours, and not so much as a letter to the papers about it.
But if you stop one of these big expresses on the chance of
heading off a criminal, and nothing comes of it, there'll be
questions asked in the House of Commons. And I was in a bad
position, you see. I can't prove that Brinkman was a
murderer. Not at present, anyhow. If he'd run off in
Mottram's car, I could have arrested him for car-stealing,
but he hadn't. Why, he even paid Mrs Davis's bill.'

'Do you mean to say he asked for his bill yesterday
afternoon, and we never heard of it?'

'No, he calculated it out exactly, left a tip of two
shillings for the barmaid, and went off, leaving the money
on his chest-of-drawers.'

'What about his suit-case?'

'It wasn't his, it was Mottram's. He carried off all his own
things in the dispatch-box. Apart from the fact that he gave
a false name to the garage people his exit was quite _en
rgle_. And it's dangerous to stop a train and arrest a man
like that. Added to which, it was perfectly possible that he
was lying doggo at Lowgill.'

It was at this point that Mr Pulteney sailed into the room.
The old gentleman was rubbing his hands briskly in the
enjoyment of retrospect; he had scarce any need of
breakfast, you would have said, so richly was he chewing the
cud of his experiences overnight. 'What a day I have spent!'
he exclaimed. 'I have examined a motor-car, and even opened
part of its mechanism, without asking the owner's leave. I
have been suspected of murder. I have sat up in an extremely
draughty garage, waiting to pounce upon a criminal. And, to
crown it all, I have approached a total stranger with the
words _Here we are again_. Really, life has nothing more to
offer me. But where is Mr Eames?'

'We took him to Lowgill with us,' explained Angela, 'and when
he got there he insisted on taking the late train back to
Pullford. He said he had something to talk over with the
Bishop. He has left some pyjamas and a tooth-brush here as
hostages, and says he will look in on us in the course of
the day to reclaim them. So you'll see him again.'

'A remarkable man. A shrewd judge of character. He
recognized me at once as a man of reflection. God bless my
soul! Do I understand that Mrs Davis has provided us with
sausages?'

'It's wonderful, isn't it?' said Angela. 'She must have felt
that the occasion had to be marked out somehow. And she was
so pleased at having her bill paid. I don't think Brinky can
have been such an unpleasant man after all.'

'Believe me,' said Leyland earnestly, 'there is no greater
mistake than to suppose your criminal is a man lost to all
human feelings. It is perfectly possible for Brinkman to
have murdered his master, and have been prepared to run off
with a car and a thousand pounds which didn't belong to him,
and yet to have shrunk from the prospect of leaving an
honest woman like Mrs Davis the poorer for his visit. We are
men, you see, and we are not made all in one piece.'

'But how odd of him to pop off into the gorge like that! I
mean, it's a very jolly place, they tell me; and we know
Brinky admired the scenery of it, because he told my husband
so. But isn't it rather odd of him to have wanted to take a
long, last, lingering look at it before he bolted for South
America?'

'It is perfectly possible that it may have had a fascination
for him,' assented Leyland. 'But I think his conduct was
more reasonable than you suppose. After all, by coming up at
the further end of the gorge he managed to make it look
quite natural when the motor found him walking in the
direction of Chilthorpe. And, more than that, I have little
doubt that he knew he was followed. Eames is a most capable
fellow, but he must, I think, have followed his man a little
carelessly, and so given himself away. Brinkman probably
thought that it was Bredon who was following him.'

'Because he did it so badly, you mean?' suggested Angela.
'Miles, you shouldn't throw bread at breakfast; it's rude.'

'I didn't mean that. I meant that he had reason to believe
Mr Eames was at the cinema, whereas he knew Bredon was in
the house, and saw him sitting in a window that looks down
over the street. Almost inevitably he must have supposed
that it was the watcher in the front of the house who had
followed in his tracks.'

'It's worse than that,' said Bredon. 'I'm afraid, you see,
when my wife went out of the room, she opened the door in
that careless way she has, and three of my cards fell into
the street below. Well, I thought Brinkman had disappeared;
there was no sign of him. So I went downstairs and retrieved
the cards, thinking it couldn't do any harm. But I've been
wondering since whether Brinkman wasn't still watching, and
whether my disappearance from the window didn't give him the
first hint that he was being followed. I'm awfully sorry.'

'Well, I don't expect it made any difference. He was a cool
hand, you see. I suppose he thought, your sitting in the
window must be a trap, and that the house was really watched
at the back. He wasn't far wrong there, of course.'

'Indeed he was not,' assented Mr Pulteney. 'You seem to me
to have posted a singularly lynx-eyed gentleman in the
stables.'

'And so, you see, he thought he'd brazen it out. He reckoned
on being followed, but that didn't matter to him as long as
the man behind was a good distance off, and as long as he
himself made sure of picking up his car at the right moment.
The whole thing was monstrously mismanaged on my part. But,
you see, I made absolutely certain that he was going for
Mottram's car, in which he'd obviously made all the
necessary preparations. Even now I can't understand how he
consented so calmly to leave the car behind him. Unless, of
course, he spotted that we were watching the garage, and
knew that it would be unsafe. But he must be crippled for
money without his thousand.'

'My husband,' said Angela mischievously, 'seemed to know
beforehand that he wouldn't go off in Mottram's car.'

'Yes, by the way,' asked Leyland, 'how was that?'

'I'm sorry, it ought to have occurred to me earlier. It
never dawned on me till the moment when I mentioned it, and
of course then it was too late. But it was merely the result
of a reasoning process which had been going on in my own
mind. I had been trying to work things out, and it seemed to
me that I had arrived at last at an explanation which would
cover all the facts. And that explanation, though it didn't
exclude the possibility that Brinkman intended to skip with
the thousand and the car, didn't make it absolutely
necessary that he should mean to.'

'I suppose you're still hankering after suicide?'

'I didn't say so.'

'But, hang it all, though there's little enough that's
clear, it's surely clear by now that Brinkman was a wrong
'un. And if he was a wrong 'un, what can his motive have
been throughout unless he was Mottram's murderer? I don't
associate innocence with a sudden flitting at nightfall, and
a bogus name given in when you order the car to take you to
the station.'

'Still, it's not enough to have a general impression that a
man is a wrong 'un, and hang him on the strength of it. You
must discover a motive for which he would have done the
murder, and a method by which he could have done it. Are you
prepared to produce those?'

'Why, yes,' said Leyland. 'I don't profess to have all the
details of the case at my fingers' ends; but I'm prepared to
give what seems to me a rational explanation of all the
circumstances. And it's an explanation which contends that
Mottram met his death by murder.'




CHAPTER 23

_Leyland's Account of it all_


'Of course, as to the motive,' went on Leyland, 'I am not
absolutely sure that I can point to a single one. But a
combination of motives is sufficient, if they are
comparatively strong ones. On the whole, I am inclined to
put the thousand pounds first. For a rich man, Mottram did
not pay his secretary very well; and at times, I understand,
he talked of parting with him. Brinkman knew that the sum
was in Mottram's possession, for it was he himself who
cashed the cheque at the bank. It was only a day or two
before they came down here. On the other hand, I doubt if
Brinkman knew where the money was; plainly Mottram didn't
trust him very much, or he wouldn't have taken the trouble
to sew up the money in the cushions of the car. When I first
found the cache, I assumed that Brinkman knew of its
existence, and that was one of the reasons why I felt so
certain that he would make straight for the garage. Now, I'm
more inclined to think he fancied he would find the money
among Mottram's effects, which he must have hoped to examine
in the interval before the arrival of the police.'

'Then you don't think the Euthanasia had anything to do with
it after all?' asked Bredon.

'I wouldn't say that. There's no doubt that Brinkman was a
rabid anti-clerical--Eames was talking to me about that; and
I think it's quite likely he would have welcomed, in any
case, an opportunity of getting Mottram out of the way
provided that the death looked like suicide. The appearance
of suicide would have the advantage, as we have all seen,
that the Indescribable wouldn't pay up. But he wanted, in
any case, to give the murder the appearance of suicide, in
order to save his own skin.'

'Then you think both motives were present to his mind?'

'Probably. I suppose there is little doubt that he knew of
the danger to Mottram's health, and the consequent danger,
from his point of view, that the money would go to the
Pullford diocese. But I don't think that motive would have
been sufficient, if he hadn't reckoned on getting away with
a thousand pounds which didn't belong to him.'

'Well, let's pass the motive,' said Bredon. 'I'm interested
to hear your account of the method.'

'Our mistake from the first has been that of not accepting
the facts. We have tried to fit the facts into our scheme,
instead of letting the facts themselves guide us. From the
first, we were faced with what seemed to be a hopeless
contradiction. The locked door seemed to make it certain
that Mottram was alone when he died. The fact that the gas
was turned off seemed to make it clear that Mottram was not
alone when he died. There was ground for suspecting either
suicide or murder; the difficulty was to make the whole
complex of facts fit into either view. We had made a
mistake, I repeat, in not taking the facts for our guide.
The door, was locked, that is a fact. Therefore Mottram was
alone from the time he went to bed until the time when the
door was broken in. And at the time when the door was broken
in the gas was found turned off. Somebody must have turned
it off, and in order to do so he must have been in the room.
There was only one person in the room, Mottram. Therefore it
was Mottram who turned the gas off.'

'You mean in his last dying moments?'

'No, such a theory would be fantastic. Mottram clearly
turned the gas off in the ordinary way. Therefore _it was
not the gas in Mottram's room which poisoned Mottram_.'

'But hang it all, if it wasn't in his room--'

'When I say that, I mean it was not the gas which turned on
and off in Mottram's room. For that gas was turned off.
Therefore it must have been some independent supply of gas
which poisoned him.'

'Such as--?'

'Doesn't the solution occur to you yet? The room, remember,
is very low, and the window rather high up in the wall. What
is to prevent a supply of gas being introduced from outside
and from above?'

'Good Lord! You don't mean you think that Brinkman--'

'Brinkman had the room immediately above. Since his hurried
departure, I have had opportunities of taking a better look
round it. I was making some experiments there early this
morning. In the first place, I find that it is possible for
a man leaning out of the window in Brinkman's room to
control, with a stick, the position of the window in
Mottram's room--provided always that the window is swinging
loose. He can ensure at will that Mottram's window stands
almost shut, or almost fully open.'

'Yes, I think that's true.'

'I find, further, that Brinkman's room, like Mottram's, was
supplied with a double apparatus; with a bracket on the
wall, and with a movable standard lamp. But whereas the main
tap in Mottram's room was near the door, and the tube which
connected the gas with the standard lamp was meant to allow
the lamp to be put on the writing table, in Brinkman's room
it was the other way. The main tap was near the window, and
the tube which connected it with the standard lamp was meant
to allow the lamp to be placed by the bedside. The main tap
in Brinkman's room is barely a yard from the window. And the
tube of the standard lamp is some four yards long.

'When Mottram went to bed, Brinkman went up to his room. He
knew that Mottram had taken a sleeping-draught; that in half
an hour or so he would be asleep, and unconscious of all
that went on. So, leaving a prudent interval of time,
Brinkman proceeded as follows. He took the tube off from the
foot of the standard lamp; that is quite an easy matter.
Then he took the tube to the window. With a walking-stick he
slightly opened Mottram's window down below-- it had been
left ajar. And through the opening thus made he let down the
tube till the farther end of it was in Mottram's room. Then,
with the walking-stick, he shut the window again, except for
a mere crack which was needed to let the tube through. Then
he turned on the guide-tap which fed his standard lamp, and
the gas began to flow through into Mottram's room. That coil
of tube was a venomous serpent, which could poison Mottram
in his sleep, behind locked doors, and be removed again
without leaving any trace when its deadly work was done.

'Whether it was through carelessness on Brinkman's part, or
whether it was owing to the wind, that the window swung
right open and became fixed there, I don't know. In any
case, it did not make much difference to his plans. He had
now succeeded in bringing off the murder, and in a way which
it would have been hard for anybody to suspect. But there
was one more difficulty to be got over. In order to remove
the suspicion of murder, and to make the suspicion of
suicide inevitable, it was necessary to turn on the gas in
Mottram's room. Now, there was no implement Brinkman could
employ which would enable him to reach Mottram's gas tap. He
depended, therefore, on bluff. He made sure that he would be
summoned by the Boots when the locked door forbade entrance.
He would force his way in with the Boots; he would make
straight for the tap, and pretend to turn it off. Would
anybody doubt that it was he who had turned it off? The room
was full of gas-fumes, and even a man of more intelligence
than the Boots would naturally leap to the conclusion that
the gas _must_ have been on, in order to account for the
fumes.

'His plan, you see, was perfect in its preparations. It was
an unexpected interference that prevented its coming off.
When Brinkman was telling you the story, he pretended that
it was he who saw Dr Ferrers outside, and suggested calling
him in. Actually it was the Boots, according to the story he
himself tells, who drew attention to the presence of Dr
Ferrers and suggested his being called in. This point, which
was of capital importance, was slurred over at the inquest
because nobody saw the bearing of it. Brinkman did not much
want Dr Ferrers to be there; yet the suggestion was too
reasonable to be turned down. Brinkman stationed himself
with his shoulder close to the lock, while Ferrers leant his
weight against the door at the other end, nearest the
hinges. Assuming that the lock would give, Brinkman could
rush into the room first and go through the motions of
turning off the gas without attracting suspicion.

'Actually, it was the hinges which gave. Dr Ferrers,
realizing that the gas must be turned off in order to clear
the air, ran straight to the tap over the dbris of the
broken door, before Brinkman could get at it. And Ferrers
naturally exclaimed in surprise when he found the tap
already turned off. The Boots heard his exclamation;
Brinkman's plan had fallen through. There was nothing for it
but to pretend that the tap was a loose one, and that Dr
Ferrers had himself turned it off without noticing it. That
was the story, Bredon, which he put up to you. We know that
it was a lie.'

'I don't quite see,' said Bredon, 'how all this works in
with the sandwiches and whisky. In the motor, I mean. What
was the idea of them?'

'Well, Brinkman's original idea must clearly have been
flight. That was, I take it, when he realized the difficulty
which had been created for him by his failure to reach the
gas first. It must have been before I arrived that he made
these preparations--stored the motor with food and painted
out the number-plate at the back. I've had him under pretty
careful observation ever since I came here. But that was
Tuesday afternoon, and I have no doubt that his preparations
had been made by then.'

'And why didn't he skip?'

'I think he was worried by my arrival. You see, he tried to
palm off the suicide story on me, and I didn't fall to it.
If he skipped, he would confirm me in my conviction there
had been a murder, and, although he himself might get off
scot-free, it would mean that your Indescribable people
would have to pay up to the Bishop of Pullford. He couldn't
stand the idea of that. He preferred to hang about here,
trying to convince you, because you were already
half-convinced, that the case was one of suicide and that
the Company were not liable.'

'In fact, he just waited for the funeral, and then made
off?'

'No, he waited until he thought he wasn't watched. It's a
rum business, shadowing a man; you don't want him to see
exactly who is shadowing him, or where the man is who is
shadowing him; but you do, very often, want him to know that
he is shadowed, because that makes him lose his head and
give himself away. Now, Brinkman didn't know what I
suspected and didn't, I think, know about my two men at the
"Swan". But I contrived to let him see that he was under
observation, and that it wasn't safe for him to go far out
of my sight. It's an old game, you give a man that
impression, and then you suddenly let on that he is
free--for the moment at any rate. He seizes his chance, and,
with luck, you catch him. He really thought yesterday
evening that you were the only person watching the front of
the house. But he was clever enough, confound him, to see
that there might be danger for him in the garage. So he rang
up, ordering a car to meet the 8.40 at Chilthorpe Station,
and then made his arrangements--uncommonly good ones--for
boarding the car _en route_. And nobody's to blame,
exactly, but I gravely fear that the murderer has got off
scot-free.'

As if in confirmation of his words, the maid came in with a
telegram. He opened it and crushed it in his hand. 'As I
thought,' he said; 'they searched the train at the terminus
and didn't find their man. They may watch the ports, but I
doubt if they'll get him now. It's a rotten business.'

'I don't think you've explained everything,' said Bredon, 'I
mean, about Brinkman's movements after the murder. Indeed, I
know for a fact that you haven't explained everything;
partly because you don't know everything. But I think your
account of Brinkman's movements that night is
extraordinarily ingenious, and I only wish it were true. I
wish it were true, I mean, because it would have brought us
up, for once in our lives, against a really clever criminal.
But, you see, there's one thing which is fatal to all your
theory. You haven't explained why the gas-tap showed the
mark where Mottram turned it on, and didn't show the mark
where Mottram turned it off.'

'Oh, yes, I admit that's puzzling. Still, one can imagine
circumstances--'

'One can imagine circumstances, but one can't fit them on to
the facts. If the gas had been quite close to Mottram's bed,
and he had had a stick by his side, he might have turned off
the tap with the stick; I've known slack men do that. But
the gas wasn't near enough for that. Or, again, if Mottram
had gone to bed in gloves, he might have turned off the tap
with gloves on; but he didn't. The tap was stiff; it was
stiff both when you turned it on and when you turned it off;
and there must, in reason, have been some slight trace left
if that gas was turned off by a man's naked fingers.
Therefore it wasn't turned off by a man's naked fingers.
Therefore it wasn't turned off by Mottram, or by anybody who
had any business to turn it off. It was turned off by
somebody who had a secret end to serve in doing so.'

'You mean a criminal end?'

'I didn't say that. I said a secret end. Your view doesn't
explain that; and because it doesn't explain that, although
I think you've told us an extraordinarily ingenious story, I
don't think it's worth forty pounds. ... Hullo! What's this
arriving?'

The taxi from the garage had drawn up outside the inn-door,
and was depositing some passengers, who had obviously come
by the early morning train from Pullford. They were not left
in doubt for long; the coffee-room door was opened, and,
with 'Don't get up, please,' written all over his apologetic
features, the Bishop of Pullford walked in. Eames followed
behind him.

'Good morning, Mr Bredon. I'm so sorry to disturb you and
your friends at breakfast like this. But Mr Eames here has
been telling me about your alarums and excursions last
night; and I thought probably there would be some tired
brains this morning. Also, I felt it was important to tell
you all I know, because of Mr Brinkman's hurried
departure.'

Bredon hastily effected the necessary introductions. 'You
know something, then, after all?'

'Oh, you mustn't think I've been playing you false, Mr
Bredon. The evidence I'm referring to only came to hand last
night. But such as it is, it's decisive; it proves that poor
Mottram met his death by suicide.'




CHAPTER 24

_Mottram's Account of it all_


'Rapid adjustment of the mental perspective,' said Mr
Pulteney, 'is an invaluable exercise, especially at my age.
But I confess there is a point at which the process becomes
confusing. Are we now to understand that Mr Brinkman, so far
from being a murderer, is simply an innocent man with a
taste for motoring late at night? I have no doubt there is a
satisfactory explanation of it all, but it looks to me as if
there had been an absence of straightforwardness on
somebody's part.'

'Possibly on that of Mr Eames,' said the Bishop. 'I have to
confess, on his behalf, that he has been concealing
something, and to take the blame for his conduct--if blame
attaches to it--unreservedly upon myself. However, I do not
think that any earlier disclosure could have helped forward
the cause of justice; and I have lost no time in putting it
all before you.'

'You mean that letter which was left about in the gorge,'
suggested Bredon, 'addressed to the Bishop of Pullford? With
a confession of suicide in it?'

'Goodness, Mr Bredon, you seem to know as much about it as I
do myself! Well, that is the long and short of it. When Mr
Eames was with you last night, Mr Leyland, he told you that
he had followed Brinkman along the gorge, and that Brinkman
had disappeared in a motor. He did not tell you that,
half-way through the gorge, he saw Brinkman leaping up under
a ledge in the rock, as if to put something on it or take
something down from it. The something which he was putting
up or taking down was, I make no doubt, the document which I
now hold in my hand. Mr Eames found it after Brinkman had
left, and seeing that it was addressed to me with an
intimation that it was private and confidential, thought it
best to carry it straight to me without informing you of its
existence. I understood him to say that he did not mention
its existence to you, Mr Bredon, either.'

'Nor did I,' put in Eames.

'How jolly of you, Mr Eames,' said Angela. 'You can't think
what a lot of trouble we've been having with my husband; he
thinks he knows all about the mystery, and he won't tell us;
isn't it odious of him? And I'm so glad to think that you
managed to keep him in the dark about something.'

'Not entirely,' protested Bredon. 'Cast your eye over that,
Mr Eames.' And a document was handed, first to Eames, then
to the rest of the company, which certainly seemed to make
Eames' caution unnecessary. It was a plain scrap of paper,
scrawled over in pencil with the handwriting of a man who is
travelling at thirty-five miles an hour over bumpy roads in
a badly-sprung car. All it said was: Make Eames show you
what he found in the gorge. I thought it was you. -- F.
Brinkman.

'Ah!' said the Bishop. 'Brinkman, it seemed, had some doubt
as to the fate of a document which got into the hands of the
Catholic authorities. Poor fellow, he was always rather
bitter about it. However, here we are, Mr Bredon, owning up
like good boys. It was to put that very document into your
hands that I came down this morning. But I think Mr Eames
was quite right in holding that the document, with such a
superscription, ought to be handed over to me direct,
without any mention even of its existence to a third party.'

'I for one,' put in Leyland, 'applaud his action. I do not
believe in all these posthumous revelations; I prefer to
respect the confidence of the dead. But I understand that
your Lordship is prepared to let us see the contents of the
letter after all?'

'Certainly. I think poor Mottram's last directions were
influenced simply by consideration for my own feelings in
the matter. I have no hesitation, myself, in making it
public. Shall I read it here and now?'

In deference to a chorus of assent, the Bishop took out the
enclosure of the envelope and prepared to read. 'I ought to
say by way of preface,' he explained, 'that I knew poor
Mottram's handwriting well enough, and I feel fully
convinced that this is a genuine autograph of his, not a
forgery. You will see why I mention that later on. This is
how the letter runs:

    'MY DEAR LORD BISHOP,

    'Pursuant to our conversation of Thursday evening last, it
    will be within your Lordship's memory that upon that
    occasion I asserted the right of a man, in given
    circumstances, to take his own life, particularly when same
    was threatened by an incurable and painful disease. This I
    only mentioned casually, when illustrating the argument I
    was then trying to put forward, namely that the end
    justifies the means, even in a case where said means are
    bad, provided said ends are good. I note that your Lordship
    is of the contrary opinion, namely that said end does not
    justify said means. I am, however, confident that in a
    concrete case like the present your Lordship will be more
    open to conviction _re_ this matter, as it is a case where
    I am acting to the best of my lights, which, your Lordship
    has often told me, is all that a man can do when in doubtful
    circumstances.

    'I regret to have to inform your Lordship that, interviewing
    recently a specialist in London _re_ my health, said
    specialist informed me that I was suffering from an
    incurable disease. I have not the skill to write the name of
    it; and as it is of an unusual nature, maybe it would not
    interest your Lordship to know it. The specialist was,
    however, of the decided opinion that I could not survive
    more than two years or thereabouts; and that in the interim
    the disease would give rise to considerable pain. It is
    therefore my intention, in pursuance of the line of argument
    which I have already done my best to explain to your
    Lordship, to take my own life, in circumstances which will
    be sufficiently public by the time this reaches you.

	'I have not, as your Lordship knows, any firm religious
	convictions. I believe that there is a future life of some
	kind, and that we shall all be judged according to our
	opportunities and the use we made of same. I believe that
	God is merciful, and will make allowances for the
	difficulties we had in knowing what was the right thing to
	do and in doing it. But I have been through some hard times,
	and maybe not always acted for the best. Being desirous,
	therefore, of making my peace with God, I have taken the
	liberty of devising some of the property of which I die
	possessed to your Lordship personally, to be used for the
	benefit of the diocese of Pullford. Said property consisting
	of the benefits accruing from the Euthanasia policy taken
	out by me with the Indescribable Insurance Company. And so
	have directed my lawyers in a will made by me recently.

	'I believe that your Lordship is a man of God, and anxious
	to do his best for his fellow-citizens in the town of
	Pullford. I believe that the money will serve a good end,
	although I do not agree with what your Lordship teaches. I
	feel sure that your Lordship will realize the desirability
	of keeping this letter private, and not letting it be known
	that I took my own life. The Insurance Company would
	probably refuse to pay the claim if I were supposed to have
	died by my own hand, that being their rule in such cases,
	except where the deceased was of unsound mind, which is not
	the case, me being in full possession of all my faculties.
	If, however, the preparations which I have made should
	eventuate successfully, it will not be supposed by the
	Coroner's jury that I took my own life, and the claim will
	be paid accordingly. Your Lordship will realize that this is
	only fair, since (1) in taking my own life I am only
	anticipating the decree of Nature by a few months, and (2)
	the object to which I have devised the money is not the
	selfish enjoyment of a few persons, but the spiritual
	benefit of a large number, mostly poor. I am writing this,
	therefore, for your Lordship's own eye, and it has no need
	to be made public. I am quite sure that God will forgive me
	what I am doing if it is at all wrong, for I am afraid to
	suffer pain and am doing my best to bequeath my money in
	such a way that same will be used for good purposes. With
	every gratitude for the kindness I have always received at
	Cathedral House, though not of the same religion, I remain,

	'Your Lordship's obedient servant,

	'J. MOTTRAM'

The Bishop's voice quavered a little at certain points in
this recital; it was difficult not to be affected by the
laborious efforts of a pen untrained in language to do
justice to the writer's friendly intentions. 'I'm very sorry
indeed for the poor fellow,' he said. 'The older we grow,
the more tender we must become towards the strange vagaries
of the human conscience. That's not the letter of a man
whose mind is unhinged. And yet what is one to make of a
conscience so strangely misformed? However, I didn't come
here to talk about all that. You'll see for yourselves that,
although the writer recommends my keeping it dark, he places
me under no obligation to do so--he would have put me in an
uncommonly awkward position if he had. As it is, I've had no
hesitation in reading it to you, and shall have no
hesitation in producing it, if necessary, before a court of
law. It seems that our legacy, after all, was only a castle
in Spain.'

'The poor dear!' said Angela. 'And it's bad luck on you, Mr
Leyland. Did you realize, my Lord, that Mr Leyland had just
succeeded in persuading us all that Mr Brinkman had murdered
Mr Mottram by letting in gas from the room above?'

'Well, thank God it was nothing as bad as that!' said the
Bishop. 'At least this letter will help us to take a
kindlier view of him.'

'It would,' said Mr Pulteney, 'be a very singular and, I had
almost said, a diverting circumstance, if both things could
have happened at once--if, while Mottram was busy poisoning
himself with his own gas down below, Brinkman was at the
same moment, in complete ignorance, feeding him with an
extra supply of gas from above. It would be a somewhat
knotty problem, in that case, to decide whether we were to
call it suicide or murder. However,' he added with a little
bow to the Bishop, 'we have a competent authority with us.'

'Oh, don't ask me, sir,' protested the Bishop, 'I should
have to consult my Canon Penitentiary. He would tell me, I
fancy, that the act of murder in this case _inflowed_ into
the act of suicide, but I am not sure that would help us
much.'

'Perhaps,' suggested Eames, 'Mr Bredon could tell us what
view the Indescribable would take of such a case.'

'They would be hard put to it,' said Bredon. 'Fortunately,
there is no question of any such doubt here. For Leyland's
suggestion of murder was only based on the impossibility of
suicide, in view of the gas being turned off. Whereas Mr
Pulteney's ingenious suggestion has all the difficulties in
it which Leyland was trying to avoid.'

'I'm hanged if I can make head or tail of it,' said Leyland.
'It's like a nightmare, this case; every time you think
you've found some solid ground to rest on, it sinks under
your feet. I shall begin to believe in ghosts soon. And what
are we to make of the message itself? Might I see the
envelope, my Lord? ... Thank you. Well, it's clear that
Brinkman wasn't putting the letter up on the ledge; he was
taking it down. It's so weather-stained that it must clearly
have been there the best part of a week. Now, why on earth
was Brinkman so anxious to take the letter away with him?
For the letter proved it was suicide, and that's precisely
what he wanted to have proved.'

'Brinkman may not have known what was in the letter,'
suggested Eames.

'He may have thought the thousand pounds were in it,'
suggested Pulteney, 'waiting there as a surprise present for
the Bishop. I am no acrobat myself, but I believe I could
jump pretty high if you gave me that sum to aspire to.'

'I wonder if Brinkman did know?' said Leyland. 'Of course,
if he did, he was an accessory before the fact to Mottram's
suicide. And that might make him anxious for his own
position--but it doesn't ring true, that idea.'

'Might I see the letter itself?' asked Bredon. 'It sounds
impolite, I know; but I only want to look at the way in
which it's written ... Thank you, my Lord. ... It's rather a
suggestive fact, isn't it, that this letter was copied?'

'Copied?' asked the Bishop. 'How on earth can you tell
that?'

'I am comparing it in my mind's eye with the letter we found
lying about in Mottram's bedroom, half finished. Mottram
wrote with difficulty, his thoughts didn't flow to his pen.
Consequently, in that letter to the _Pullford Examiner_,
you will find that only the last sentence at the bottom of
the page has been blotted when the ink was wet. The rest of
the page had had time to dry naturally, while Mottram was
thinking of what to say next. But this letter of yours, my
Lord, has been written straight off, and the blotting
process becomes more and more marked the further you get
down the page. I say, therefore, that Mottram had already
composed the letter in rough, and when he sat down to this
sheet of paper he was copying it straight down.'

'You're not suggesting that Brinkman dictated the letter?'
asked Leyland. 'Of course, that would open up some
interesting possibilities.'

'No, I wasn't thinking of that. I was only thinking it was
rather a cold-blooded way for a suicide to write his last
letter. But it's a small point.'

'And meanwhile,' said Leyland, ' I suppose you're waiting
for me to fork out those forty pounds?'

'What,' said the Bishop, 'you have a personal interest in
this, Mr Bredon? Well, in any case you have saved your
company a larger sum than that. I'm afraid you will have to
write and tell them that it was suicide, and the claim does
not urge.'

'On the contrary, my Lord,' said Bredon, knocking out his
pipe thoughtfully into the fireplace, 'I'm going to write to
the Company and tell them that the claim has got to be paid,
because Mottram met his death by accident.'




CHAPTER 25

_Bredon's Account of it all_


'God bless my soul!' cried the Bishop, 'you don't mean to
say you're preparing to hush it up! Why, your moral
theology must be as bad as poor Mottram's.'

'It isn't a question of theology,' replied Bredon, 'it's a
question of fact. I am going to write to the Indescribable
Company and tell them that Mottram died by accident, because
that happens to be the truth.'

'Ah-h-!' said Angela.

'Indeed?' said Mr Eames.

'Not another mental perspective!' groaned Mr Pultaney.

'That's exactly what it is. I'm not a detective really; I
can't sit down and think things out. I see everything just
as other people do, I share all their bewilderment. But
suddenly, when I'm thinking of something quite different, a
game of patience, for example, I see the whole thing in a
new mental perspective. It's like the optical illusion of
the tumbling cubes--you know, the pattern of cubes which
looks concave to the eye; and then, by a readjustment of
your mental focus, you suddenly see them as convex instead.
What produces that change? Why, you catch sight of one
particular angle in a new light, and from that you get your
new mental picture of the whole pattern. Just so, one can
stumble upon a new mental perspective about a problem like
this by suddenly seeing one single fact in a new light. And
then the whole problem rearranges itself.'

'I am indebted to you for your lucid exposition,' said Mr
Pulteney, 'but even now the events of the past week are not
quite clear to me.'

'Miles, don't be tiresome,' said Angela. 'Start right from
the beginning and don't let's have any mystery-making.'

'All right. It would make a better story the other way, but
still. Well, first you want to get some picture of Mottram.
I can only do it by guess-work, but I should say this. He
had an enormous amount of money, and no heir whom he cared
for. He was a shrewd, rather grasping man, and he came to
think that everybody else was after his money. It's not
uncommon with rich people--what you might call the
Chuzzlewit-complex. Am I right so far?'

'Absolutely right,' said the Bishop.

'Again, he was a man who loved a mystery for its own sake,
surprises, almost practical jokes. And again, he was a vain
man in some ways, caring intensely what other people thought
of him, and very anxious to know what they thought of him.
Also, he had a high respect for the Catholic Church, or at
least for its representatives in Pullford.'

'All that's true,' said Eames.

'Well, I think he really did mean to leave some money to the
Pullford diocese. No, don't interrupt; that's not as obvious
as it sounds. He really did mean to endow the diocese, and
he disclosed his intention to Brinkman. Brinkman, as we
know, was a real anti-clerical, and he protested violently.
Catholics were alike, he said, all the world over; the
apparent honesty of a man like your Lordship was only a
blind. In reality, Catholics, and especially Catholic
priests, were always hunting for money and would do anything
to get it--anything. At last Mottram determined that he must
settle the point for himself. First of all, he went round to
Cathedral House and defended the proposition that it was
lawful to do evil in order that good might come. He wanted
to see whether he would get any support for that view in the
abstract; he got none. Then he decided, with Brinkman's
collaboration, on a practical test. He would put your
Lordship's honesty to the proof.

'He went up to London, saw his solicitors, and added a
codicil to his will, leaving the benefits of the Euthanasia
policy to the Bishop of Pullford. I am afraid it must be
admitted that he did not, at the time, mean that codicil to
become operative. It was part of his mystery. Then he went
on to our people at the Euthanasia, and spun a cock-and-bull
yarn about seeing a specialist, who had told him that he had
only two more years to live. Actually he was in robust
health; he only invented this story and told it to the
Indescribable in order that, when it came to the point, it
might be reasonable (though not necessary) to explain his
death as suicide. Then he came back here and made
preparations for his holiday. He was going to take his
holiday at Chilthorpe--to be more accurate, he meant to
start his holiday at Chilthorpe. He strongly urged your
Lordship to come down and share part of it with him; it was
essential to his plan.'

'And that,' suggested the Bishop, 'explains his intense
eagerness that I should come down?'

'Precisely. He made certain, as best he could, that you
would arrive here on the morning after him; that you would
be told he had gone out to fish the Long Pool, and that you
would be asked to follow him. This would ensure that you
would be the first witness of his disappearance.'

'His what?'

'His disappearance. He meant to disappear. Not only for the
sake of the test, I imagine; he wanted to disappear for the
fun of the thing; to see what happened. He wanted to be a
celebrity in the newspapers. He wanted to read his own
biographies. That was why he wrote, or rather got Brinkman
to write, a letter to the _Pullford Examiner_, calling him
all sorts of names--the letter was signed, of course, with a
pseudonym. You found that out, didn't you, Leyland?'

'Yes, confound it all, I heard only this morning that
"Brutus" was really Brinkman. But I never saw the point.'

'Then he sat down and wrote an unfinished letter in answer
to these charges. That letter, of course, was to be found
after his disappearance, and would be published in thick
type by the _Pullford Examiner_. That would set everybody
talking about him, and his obituary notices would be lively
reading. He wanted to read them, himself. But in order to do
that he must disappear.

'Chilthorpe gorge is a good place to disappear from. Leave
your hat on the edge of it, and go and hide somewhere--you
will be reported the next morning as a tragic accident.
Mottram had made all arrangements for hiding. He was going
to spend his holiday _incognito_ somewhere; I think in
Ireland, but it may have been on the Continent. He was going
to take Brinkman with him. He would disappear, of course, in
his car. He had victualled it before he left Pullford. On
his arrival at Chilthorpe his first act was to paint out its
number-plate. He hid some notes in the cushions of the
car--that, I think, was a mere instinct of secretiveness;
there was no need to do so.

'The plan, then, was this. On Tuesday morning, early,
Mottram was to set out for the gorge. Almost immediately
afterwards, Brinkman was to take out the motor, as if to go
to Pullford. He was to pick up Mottram, who would hide under
the seat or disguise himself, or smuggle himself away
somehow, and drive like mad for the coast. Later, you, my
Lord, would come to the "Load of Mischief", and would get
the message about going out to join Mottram at the Long
Pool. In passing through the gorge, you would (I fancy) have
found some traces there--Mottram's hat, for example, or his
fishing-rod; and your first thought would have been that the
poor fellow had slipped in. Then, looking round, you would
find this letter half-concealed on a high ledge. You would
read it, and you would think that Mottram had committed
suicide.

'And then--then you would either make the contents of this
letter public, or you wouldn't. If Brinkman was right in his
estimate, you would keep the letter dark; the death, before
long, would be presumed. The Indescribable Company would
have been on the point of paying out the half-million,
when--Mottram would have reappeared, and your Lordship would
have been in a delicate position. If Mottram was right in
his view of your character, then you would produce the
letter; Mottram's death would be regarded as suicide, and
the Indescribable would refuse all claims. Then Mottram
would have reappeared, and would have seen to it that, in
one way or another, the Pullford diocese should be rewarded
for the honesty of its Bishop.

'He was not really a very complete conspirator, poor
Mottram. He made three bad mistakes, as it proved. Though
indeed, they would not have mattered, or two of them would
not have mattered, if events had proceeded according to
plan.

'In the first place, he went and wrote his name in the
Visitors' Book immediately on arrival. He wanted to leave no
doubt that it was Jephthah Mottram in person, who arrived at
the "Load of Mischief" on Monday night. He wanted
journalists to come down here, and look reverently at the
great man's signature. Of course, in reality, it is a thing
nobody ever does, on the night of arrival. It has made me
suspicious from the very first, as my wife will tell you.

'In the second place, when he took the precaution of drawing
up a new will, he neglected to sign it overnight. Brinkman,
I suppose, pointed out to him that, if any fatal accident
occurred--say a motor accident--the codicil leaving the
half-million to the Bishop would be perfectly valid. To
avoid this danger, they must have drawn up a new will, and
if Mottram had signed this overnight, his death would have
made it valid. As it was, for some reason--probably because
Brinkman himself was drawing it up (I think the writing is
Brinkman's) late on Monday night, the will was never signed,
and was useless.

'In the third place, he did something overnight which he
ought to have left till the next morning. He not only wrote
his confidential letter to the Bishop, but he went out with
Brinkman to the gorge and posted it--put it on the ledge
ready for the Bishop to find it next morning. He did not
mean to go into the gorge at all the next morning. He would
start out on the way to it, say, at eight, and at ten
minutes past eight Brinkman, driving the car, would pick him
up on the road. From the side of the road they could throw
over Mottram's hat, possibly, and they could slide his rod
down the rocks, so as to make it appear that he had been
there. (Brinkman, in this way, would establish an _alibi_;
he could not be supposed to have murdered Mottram in the
gorge.) But it was not safe to let the letter drop in this
casual way; therefore the letter must be planted out
overnight. There was no great danger of its premature
discovery; in any case, Mottram put it rather out of sight,
on a ledge so high up that only a tall man would see it, and
only if he was looking about him carefully.

'That is the complicated part of this business; the rest of
it depends on two simple accidents. Mottram went to bed
rather early; he was in an excited frame of mind, and
determined to steady himself with a sleeping-draught. The
watch, the studs were only symptoms of that fussiness we all
feel on the eve of a great adventure. I suppose he borrowed
a match from Brinkman to light his gas with. But it was a
clear night; there was no need of light to go to bed by. But
just at the last moment--a fatal moment for himself--he did
light the gas; perhaps he wanted to read a page or two of
his novel before turning in.

'The rest of the story could be more easily told upstairs. I
wonder if you would mind all coming up into the actual room?
It makes it so much easier to construct the scene if you are
on the spot.'

The whole party applauded this decision.

'This is what is called an object-lesson, in the education
of the young,' observed Mr Pulteney. 'The young like it;
they are in a position to hack one another's shins when the
teacher's back is turned.'

When they reached the bedroom, Bredon found himself falling
into the attitude of a lecturer. 'The guide,' murmured
Angela, 'taking a party round the ruins of the old dungeon.
Scene of the 'orrible crime. Please pay attention,
gentlemen.'

'You see how the gas works in here,' went on Bredon.
'There's the main tap, we'll call it A, which controls the
whole supply. Tap B is for the bracket; tap C leads through
the tube to the standard lamp. It doesn't matter leaving tap
B or tap C on as long as tap A is turned off.

'When Mottram went up to bed, tap B and tap C were both
open, but tap A was properly turned off. Mottram took no
particular notice of the disposition of taps; he turned on
one tap at random, tap A. Then he lit his match, and put it
to the bracket, which naturally lit. He then immediately
threw the match away. We know that, because we found the
match, and it was hardly burned down the stalk at all.
Meanwhile, of course, he had also allowed the gas to escape
through the tube into the standard lamp; it never occurred
to him to light this. The standard was at the other end of
the room, close to the open window; the slight escape of gas
did not, unfortunately for him, offend his nostrils.
Brinkman told me, and it is probably true, that Mottram had
not a very keen sense of smell. After a minute or two,
feeling ready to go to sleep, he went up to the taps again,
and forgot to reverse the process he had gone through
before. Instead of turning off the main tap A, he carelessly
turned off tap B. And the light on the bracket obediently
went out.

    [Illustration: THE THREE TAPS AS BRINKMAN FOUND THEM]

'That is the lesson of the finger-print. Tap A was stiff,
and Mottram left a mark when he turned it on; he would have
left another if he had turned it off. He did not; he turned
off tap B, which works at a mere touch, and of course he
left no mark in doing so. There, then, lies Mottram; the
sleeping-draught has already taken effect; the wind gets up,
and blows the window to; tap A is still open, and tap C is
still open; and through the burner of the standard lamp the
acetylene is pouring into the room.

'Brinkman is not a late sleeper. The Boots, who is the
earliest riser in this establishment, tells me that Brinkman
was always awake when he went round for the shoes. On
Tuesday morning, Brinkman must have woken early, to be
greeted by a smell of gas. It may have crept in through his
window, or even come up through the floor, for the floors
here are full of cracks. Once he had satisfied himself that
the escape was not in his own room, he must have thought of
the room below. When he reached the lower passage, the
increasing smell of gas left him in no doubt. He knocked at
Mottram's door, got no answer, and rushed in, going straight
across and opening the window so as to get some air. Then he
had time to turn round and see what was on the bed. There
was no doubt that he was too late to help.'

'Did he know it was accident?' asked Eames. 'Or did he think
it was suicide?'

'I think he must have known it was accident. And now,
consider his position. Here was Mottram, dead by accident.
There, up in London, was Mottram's codicil, willing half a
million to the diocese of Pullford. And that codicil had not
been meant to become operative. It had been made only for
the purpose of the test. And now, through this accident, the
codicil, which did not represent Mottram's real wishes, had
suddenly become valid. It would certainly be judged valid,
unless--unless the claim were dismissed owing to a verdict
of suicide. Brinkman may or may not have been a good man; he
was certainly a good secretary. Put yourself in his
position, Mr Eames. He could only give effect to his dead
master's real wishes by pretending that his dead master had
committed suicide.

'You remember the remark in "The Importance of being
Earnest", that to lose one parent may be an accident, to
lose both looks like carelessness? So it was with Mottram
and the taps. Two taps turned on meant, and would be
understood to mean, an accident. _But if all three taps were
found on, it would look like suicide_. Brinkman acted on
the spur of the moment; he was in a hurry, for the
atmosphere of the room was still deadly. He wrapped his
handkerchief round his fingers, so as to leave no mark. Then
in his confusion, _he turned the wrong tap_. He meant to
turn tap B on; instead, he turned tap A off. That sounds
impossible, I know. But you will notice that whereas tap A
and tap B are turned off when they are at the horizontal,
tap C is turned off when it is at the vertical. When
Brinkman, then, saw the three taps, B and C were both
horizontal, and A was vertical, it was natural, in the
flurry of the moment, for him to imagine that if all three
taps were in the same position, that is, all horizontal,
they would all be turned on. Instinctively, then, he turned
tap A from the vertical to the horizontal. And in doing so,
he left the whole three in the same position in which they
were before Mottram lit his match. No gas was escaping at
all. The result of Brinkman's action was not to corroborate
the theory of suicide, but to introduce a quite new
theory--that of murder. Half-stifled, he rushed from the
room, locked the door on the outside, and took the key away
with him up to his room.'

'Steady on,' put in Angela, 'why did he lock the door?'

'It may have been only so as to keep the room private till
he had thought the thing out, and the Boots may have come
round too soon for him. Or, more probably, it was another
deliberate effort to encourage the idea of suicide. Anyhow,
his actions from that moment onwards were perfectly
clear-headed. He helped to break down the door, and, while
Ferrers was examining the gas, while the Boots was lighting
a match, he thrust the key in on the inner side of the door.
It was only when he had done this, when he thought that he
had made the suicide theory an absolute certainty, that he
was suddenly confronted with the horrible mistake he had
made in turning the wrong tap. It was a bad moment for him,
but fortunately one which excused a certain display of
emotion.'

'And he thought he would be run in for the murder?' asked
Leyland.

'Not necessarily. But your arrival worried him badly; you
got hold of the murder idea from the start.'

'Why didn't he skip, then? There was the car, all ready
provisioned.'

'The trouble is that Brinkman is, according to his lights,
an honest man. And he hated the idea of the Euthanasia money
going to the Bishop. I was a godsend to him; here was a
nice, stupid man, briefed to defend the thesis of suicide.
As soon as I came, he tried to take me out for a walk in the
gorge.'

'Why in the gorge?' asked the Bishop.

'So that I should find the letter. Yesterday he did manage
to take me to the gorge, and actually drew my attention to
the ledge. I saw a bit of paper there, but it never occurred
to me to wonder what it was. Poor Brinkman! He must have
thought me an ass!'

'But why didn't he get the letter himself, and bring it to
us? Or leave it lying about?'

'That was the maddening thing; the poor little man just
couldn't reach it. The wind of Monday night had blown it a
bit further away, I suspect. Of course, he could have gone
out with a step-ladder, or rolled stones up to stand on.
But, you see, you were watching him, and I'm pretty sure he
knew you were watching him. He thought it best to lead us
on, lead me on rather, and make me find out the envelope for
myself. When he'd drawn me right across the trail of it, and
I'd failed to see it, he was in despair. He decided that he
must bolt after all. It was too horrible a position to be
here under observation, and fearing arrest at any moment. If
he were arrested, you see, he must either tell a lie, and
land himself in suspicion, or tell the truth, and see the
Euthanasia money fall into Catholic hands.

'He ordered a car from the garage to meet the train which
arrives at Chilthorpe at 8.40. He determined to meet it on
the way to the station. I don't think the thought of the car
lying at the garage, with the sangwiches--I mean the
sandwiches--and the whisky on board, occurred to him for a
moment. He is an honest man. But on his way to meet the car
he would go through the gorge, and make sure that he was
followed; he would draw attention to the document, and then
disappear from the scene. He had not much luggage; he had
only to clear up a few papers, mostly belonging to Mottram.
Among these was the unsigned will which had been drawn up,
ready for Mottram's signature, on the Monday night. This he
burned; it could be no use to anybody now. He burned it
standing at the window, and the last, unburnt piece escaped
from his fingers, and fluttered down through a second window
into the room below--this room, which had been Mottram's.
That was your find, Leyland. And the odd thing is, that it
was through this absurd detail that I got on to the track of
the whole thing. Because one of my patience-cards fluttered
down through a ground-floor window; and as I was carrying it
upstairs I realized that was how the scrap of paper came to
be lying about in Mottram's room. Then I began wondering
what the will was, and why Brinkman should have been burning
it, and suddenly the whole truth began to sketch itself in
on my mind, just as I've been telling it you.

'Brinkman had bad luck to the last. I dropped that card just
after he started out with his dispatch-box; he saw that I'd
disappeared from the window, and supposed, with delight,
that I was following him. With delight, for of course I was
the one man who was interested in proving the death to be
suicide. He went back to the cache in the gorge, leading me
(as he supposed) all the way; then he waited for a flash of
lightning, and jumped up so as to draw attention to the
envelope. As he came down again he looked round, and, in the
last rays of the lightning flash, saw that it was Eames, not
I, who was following him. Eames--the one man who would
certainly make away with the precious document! But there
was no time to be lost; he could hear the taxi already on
the hill. He ran round to the road, leaped on board the
taxi, and, in desperation, sent a note to me by the taxi-man
telling me to make Eames show me what he had found. I don't
know where Brinkman is now, but I rather hope he gets
clear.'

'Amen to that,' said Leyland; 'it would be uncommonly
awkward for us if we found him. What on earth could we
charge him with? You can't hang a man for turning the wrong
gas-tap by mistake.'

'Poor Mr Simmonds will be relieved about this,' said Angela.

'By the way,' said the Bishop, 'I hear that Mottram did
leave some unsettled estate after all, and that, I suppose,
will go to Simmonds. Not a great deal, but it's enough for
him to marry on.'

Angela swears that at this point she heard, on the other
side of the door, a scuffle and the rustle of departing
footsteps. She says you can't cure maids of their bad
habits, really.

'My own difficulty,' said the Bishop, 'is about my moral
claim to this money. For it was left to me, it seems, by a
will which the testator did not mean to take effect.'

'On the other hand you've earned it, my Lord,' suggested
Bredon. 'After all, poor Mottram was only waiting to find
out whether you would prove to be an honest man or not. And
I think you've come very well out of the test. Besides, you
can't refuse the legacy; it's in trust for the diocese. I
hope Pullford will see a lot of Catholic activity now.'

'The Church collections will be beginning to fall off almost
at once,' said Eames, with a melancholy face.

'I wish I had scrutinized those motor-cushions more
closely,' said Mr Pulteney. 'It seems to me that I get
nothing out of all this.'

'Which reminds me,' said Leyland, 'I suppose the bet's off.'

'And Mr Bredon,' added the Bishop, 'will get no thanks from
his Company. I'm afraid, Mr Bredon, you will have carried
nothing away with you from your visit to these parts.'

'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Bredon.




Transcriber's note:

The edition used as base for this book contained the
following error, which has been corrected:

Page 164:
and we know Brink admired the scenery of it
=> and we know Brinky admired the scenery of it

Page 184:
paying out the halfmillion
=> paying out the half-million

[End of _The Three Taps_ by Ronald Knox]