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Title: The Five Red Herrings
Author: Sayers, Dorothy Leigh (1893-1957)
Date of first publication: March 1931
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Victor Gollancz, March 1935
   ["Eighth impression"]
Date first posted: 8 December 2013
Date last updated: 8 December 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1137

This ebook was produced by Dianne Nolan
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                                  THE
                           FIVE RED HERRINGS

                                   by

                           DOROTHY L. SAYERS

                               author of

                Strong Poison, Lord Peter Views the Body
                               etc., etc.

                                 LONDON
                          VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD.
                   14 Henrietta Street Covent Garden




                       First published March 1931
                      Second impression April 1931
                      Third impression August 1931
                      Fourth impression March 1932
                    Fifth impression September 1932
                      Sixth impression April 1933
                     Seventh impression March 1934
                      Eighth impression March 1935

                      Printed in Great Britain by
             The Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southampton
             _on paper supplied by_ Spalding & Hodge Ltd.,
        _and bound by_ The Leighton-Straker Bookbinding Co. Ltd.




                   CONTENTS

                   I. Campbell Quick

                   II.  Campbell Dead

                   III.  Ferguson

                   IV.  Strachan

                   V.  Waters

                   VI.  Farren

                   VII.  Graham

                   VIII.  Gowan

                   IX.  Mrs. McLeod

                   X.  Sergeant Dalziel

                   XI.  Inspector Macpherson

                   XII.  Ferguson's Story

                   XIII.  Lord Peter Wimsey

                   XIV.  Constable Ross

                   XV.  Bunter

                   XVI.  Chief Inspector Parker

                   XVII.  Lord Peter Wimsey

                   XVIII.  Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier

                   XIX.  Waters' Story

                   XX.  Farren's Story

                   XXI.  Strachan's Story

                   XXII.  Graham's Story

                   XXIII.  Gowan's Story

                   XXIV.  Farren: Ferguson: Strachan

                   XXV.  Graham: Gowan: Waters

                   XXVI.  The Murderer

                   XXVII.  Lord Peter Wimsey

                   XXVIII.  Lord Peter Wimsey

                   XXIX.  Lord Peter Wimsey




                                FOREWORD


                        To my friend Joe Dignam,
                         kindliest of landlords

Dear Joe,--

Here at last is your book about Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright. All the
places are real places and all the trains are real trains, and all the
landscapes are correct, except that I have run up a few new houses here
and there. But you know better than anybody that none of the people are
in the least like the real people, and that no Galloway artist would
ever think of getting intoxicated or running away from his wife or
bashing a fellow-citizen over the head. All that is just put in for fun
and to make it more exciting.

If I have accidentally given any real person's name to a nasty
character, please convey my apologies to that person, and assure him or
her that it was entirely unintentional. Even bad characters have to be
called something. And please tell Provost Laurie that though this story
is laid in the petrol-gas period, I have not forgotten that Gatehouse
will now have its electric light by which to read this book.

And if you should meet Mr. Millar of the Ellangowan Hotel, or the
station-master at Gatehouse, or the booking-clerks at Kirkcudbright, or
any of the hundred-and-one kindly people who so patiently answered my
questions about railway-tickets and omnibuses and the old mines over at
Creetown, give them my very best thanks for their assistance and my
apologies for having bothered them so.

Give my love to everybody, not forgetting Felix, and tell Mrs. Dignam
that we shall come back next summer to eat some more potato-scones at
the Anwoth.

                                                      Dorothy L. Sayers.




                               CHAPTER I


                             CAMPBELL QUICK

If one lives in Galloway, one either fishes or paints. "Either" is
perhaps misleading, for most of the painters are fishers also in their
spare time. To be neither of these things is considered odd and almost
eccentric. Fish is the standard topic of conversation in the pub and the
post-office, in the garage and the street, with every sort of person,
from the man who arrives for the season with three Hardy rods and a
Rolls-Royce, to the man who leads a curious, contemplative life,
watching the salmon-nets on the Dee. Weather, which in other parts of
the Kingdom is gauged by the standards of the farmer, the gardener, and
the weekender, is considered in Galloway in terms of fish and paint. The
fisherman-painter has the best of the bargain as far as the weather
goes, for the weather that is too bright for the trout deluges his hills
and his sea with floods of radiant colour; the rain that interrupts
picture-making puts water into the rivers and the locks and sends him
hopefully forth with rod and creel; while on cold dull days, when there
is neither purple on the hills nor fly on the river, he can join a
friendly party in a cosy bar and exchange information about Cardinals
and March Browns, and practise making intricate knots in gut.

The artistic centre of Galloway is Kirkcudbright, where the painters
form a scattered constellation, whose nucleus is in the High Street, and
whose outer stars twinkle in remote hillside cottages, radiating
brightness as far as Gatehouse-of-Fleet. There are large and stately
studios, panelled and high, in strong stone houses filled with gleaming
brass and polished oak. There are workaday studios--summer
perching-places rather than settled homes--where a good north light and
a litter of brushes and canvas form the whole of the artistic
stock-in-trade. There are little homely studios, gay with blue and red
and yellow curtains and odd scraps of pottery, tucked away down narrow
closes and adorned with gardens, where old-fashioned flowers riot in the
rich and friendly soil. There are studios that are simply and solely
barns, made beautiful by ample proportions and high-pitched rafters, and
habitable by the addition of a tortoise stove and a gas-ring. There are
artists who have large families and keep domestics in cap and apron;
artists who engage rooms, and are taken care of by landladies; artists
who live in couples or alone, with a woman who comes in to clean;
artists who live hermit-like and do their own charing. There are
painters in oils, painters in water-colour, painters in pastel, etchers
and illustrators, workers in metal; artists of every variety, having
this one thing in common--that they take their work seriously and have
no time for amateurs.

Into this fishing and painting community, Lord Peter Wimsey was received
on friendly and even affectionate terms. He could make a respectable
cast, and he did not pretend to paint, and therefore, though English and
an "in-comer," gave no cause of offence. The Southron is tolerated in
Scotland on the understanding that he does not throw his weight about,
and from this peculiarly English vice Lord Peter was laudably free.
True, his accent was affected and his behaviour undignified to a degree,
but he had been weighed in the balance over many seasons and pronounced
harmless, and when he indulged in any startling eccentricity, the matter
was dismissed with a shrug and a tolerant, "Christ, it's only his
lordship."

Wimsey was in the bar of the McClellan Arms on the evening that the
unfortunate dispute broke out between Campbell and Waters. Campbell, the
landscape painter, had had maybe one or two more wee ones than was
absolutely necessary, especially for a man with red hair, and their
effect had been to make him even more militantly Scottish than usual. He
embarked on a long eulogy of what the Jocks had done in the Great War,
only interrupting his tale to inform Waters in parenthesis that all the
English were of mongrel ancestry and unable even to pronounce their own
bluidy language.

Waters was an Englishman of good yeoman stock, and, like all Englishmen,
was ready enough to admire and praise all foreigners except dagoes and
niggers, but, like all Englishmen, he did not like to hear them praise
themselves. To boast loudly in public of one's own country seemed to him
indecent--like enlarging on the physical perfections of one's own wife
in a smoking-room. He listened with that tolerant, petrified smile which
the foreigner takes, and indeed quite correctly takes, to indicate a
self-satisfaction so impervious that it will not even trouble to justify
itself.

Campbell pointed out that all the big administrative posts in London
were held by Scotsmen, that England had never succeeded in conquering
Scotland, that if Scotland wanted Home Rule, by God, she would take it,
that when certain specified English regiments had gone to pieces they
had had to send for Scottish officers to control them, and that when any
section of the front line had found itself in a tight place, its mind
was at once relieved by knowing that the Jocks were on its left. "You
ask anybody who was in the War, my lad," he added, acquiring in this way
an unfair advantage over Waters, who had only just reached fighting age
when the War ended, "they'll tell you what they thought of the Jocks."

"Yes," said Waters, with a disagreeable sneer, "I know what they said.
'They skite too much.'"

Being naturally polite and in a minority, he did not add the remainder
of that offensive quotation, but Campbell was able to supply it for
himself. He burst into an angry retort, which was not merely nationally,
but also personally abusive.

"The trouble with you Scotch," said Waters, when Campbell paused to take
breath, "is that you have an inferiority complex."

He emptied his glass in a don't-careish manner and smiled at Wimsey.

It was probably the smile even more than the sneer which put the final
touch to Campbell's irritation. He used a few brief and regrettable
expressions, and transferred the better part of the contents of his
glass to Waters' countenance.

"Och, noo, Mr. Campbell," protested Wullie Murdoch. He did not like
these disturbances in his bar.

But Waters by this time was using even more regrettable language than
Campbell as they wrestled together among the broken glass and sawdust.

"I'll break your qualified neck for this," he said savagely, "you dirty
Highland tyke."

"Here, chuck it, Waters," said Wimsey, collaring him, "don't be a fool.
The fellow's drunk."

"Come away, man," said McAdam, the fisherman, enveloping Campbell in a
pair of brawny arms. "This is no way to behave. Be quiet."

The combatants fell apart, panting.

"This won't do," said Wimsey, "this isn't the League of Nations. A
plague on both your houses! Have a bit of sense."

"He called me a ----," muttered Waters, wiping the whiskey from his
face. "I'm damned if I'll stand it. He'd better keep out of my way,
that's all." He glared furiously at Campbell.

"You'll find me if you want me," retorted Campbell. "_I_ shan't run
away."

"Now, now, gentlemen," said Murdoch.

"He comes here," said Campbell, "with his damned sneering ways----"

"Nay, Mr. Campbell," said the landlord, "but ye shuldna ha' said thae
things to him."

"I'll say what I damn well like to him," insisted Campbell.

"Not in my bar," replied Murdoch, firmly.

"I'll say them in any damned bar I choose," said Campbell, "and I'll say
it again--he's a ----."

"Hut!" said McAdam, "ye'll be thinkin' better of it in the morning. Come
away now--I'll give ye a lift back to Gatehouse."

"You be damned," said Campbell, "I've got my own car and I can drive it.
And I don't want to see any of the whole blasted lot of ye again."

He plunged out, and there was a pause.

"Dear, dear," said Wimsey.

"I think I'd best be off out of it too," said Waters, sullenly.

Wimsey and McAdam exchanged glances.

"Bide a bit," said the latter. "There's no need to be in sic a hurry.
Campbell's a hasty man, and when there's a wee bit drink in him he says
mair nor he means."

"Ay," said Murdoch, "but he had no call to be layin' them names to Mr.
Waters, none at all. It's a verra great pity--a verra great pity
indeed."

"I'm sorry if I was rude to the Scotch," said Waters, "I didn't mean to
be, but I can't stand that fellow at any price."

"Och, that's a'richt," said McAdam. "Ye meant no harm, Mr. Waters.
What'll ye have?"

"Oh, a double Scotch," replied Waters, with rather a shame-faced grin.

"That's right," said Wimsey, "drown remembrance of the insult in the
wine of the country."

A man named McGeoch, who had held aloof from the disturbance, rose up
and came to the bar.

"Another Worthington," he said briefly. "Campbell will be getting into
trouble one of these days, I shouldn't wonder. The manners of him are
past all bearing. You heard what he said to Strachan up at the
golf-course the other day. Making himself out the boss of the whole
place. Strachan told him if he saw him on the course again, he'd wring
his neck."

The others nodded silently. The row between Campbell and the golf-club
secretary at Gatehouse had indeed become local history.

"And I would not blame Strachan, neither," went on McGeoch. "Here's
Campbell only lived two seasons in Gatehouse, and he's setting the whole
place by the ears. He's a devil when he's drunk and a lout when he's
sober. It's a great shame. Our little artistic community has always got
on well together, without giving offence to anybody. And now there are
nothing but rows and bickerings--all through this fellow Campbell."

"Och," said Murdoch, "he'll settle down in time. The man's no a native
o' these parts and he doesna verra weel understand his place. Forbye,
for all his havers, he's no a Scotsman at a', for everybody knows he's
fra' Glasgow, and his mother was an Ulsterwoman, by the name of
Flanagan."

"That's the sort that talks loodest," put in Murray, the banker, who was
a native of Kirkwall, and had a deep and not always silent contempt for
anybody born south of Wick. "But it's best to pay no attention to him.
If he gets what is coming to him, I'm thinking it'll no be from anybody
here."

He nodded meaningly.

"Ye'll be thinking of Hugh Farren?" suggested McAdam.

"I'll be naming no names," said Murray, "but it's well known that he has
made trouble for himself with a certain lady."

"It's no fault of the lady's," said McGeoch, emphatically.

"I'm not saying it is. But there's some gets into trouble without others
to help them to it."

"I shouldn't have fancied Campbell in the rle of a home-breaker," said
Wimsey, pleasantly.

"I shouldn't fancy him at all," growled Waters, "but he fancies himself
quite enough, and one of these days----"

"There, there," said Murdoch, hastily. "It's true he's no a verra
popular man, is Campbell, but it's best to be patient and tak' no notice
of him."

"That's all very well," said Waters.

"And wasn't there some sort of row about fishing?" interrupted Wimsey.
If the talk had to be about Campbell, it was better to steer it away
from Waters at all costs.

"Och, ay," said McAdam. "Him and Mr. Jock Graham is juist at daggers
drawn aboot it. Mr. Graham will be fishing the pool below Campbell's
hoose. Not but there's plenty pools in the Fleet wi'out disturbin'
Campbell, if the man wad juist be peaceable aboot it. But it's no his
pool when a's said and dune--the river's free--and it's no to be
expectit that Mr. Graham will pay ony heed to his claims, him that pays
nae heed to onybody."

"Particularly," said McGeoch, "after Campbell had tried to duck him in
the Fleet."

"Did he though, by Jove?" said Wimsey, interested.

"Ay, but he got weel duckit himsel'," said Murdoch, savouring the
reminiscence. "And Graham's been fushin' there every nicht since then,
wi' yin or twa of the lads. He'll be there the nicht, I wadna wonder."

"Then if Campbell's spoiling for a row, he'll know where to go for it,"
said Wimsey. "Come on, Waters, we'd better make tracks."

Waters, still sulky, rose and followed him. Wimsey steered him home to
his lodgings, prattling cheerfully, and tucked him into bed.

"And I shouldn't let Campbell get on your nerves," he said, interrupting
a long grumble, "he's not worth it. Go to sleep and forget it, or you'll
do no work to-morrow. That's pretty decent, by the way," he added,
pausing before a landscape which was propped on the chest of drawers.
"You're a good hand with the knife, aren't you, old man?"

"Who, me?" said Waters. "You don't know what you're talking about.
Campbell's the only man who can handle a knife in this place--according
to him. He's even had the blasted cheek to say Gowan is an out-of-date
old blunderer."

"That's high treason, isn't it?"

"I should think so. Gowan's a real painter--my God, it makes me hot when
I think of it. He actually said it at the Arts Club in Edinburgh, before
a whole lot of people, friends of Gowan's."

"And what did Gowan say?"

"Oh, various things. They're not on speaking terms now. Damn the fellow.
He's not fit to live. You heard what he said to me?"

"Yes, but I don't want to hear it again. Let the fellow dree his own
weird. He's not worth bothering with."

"No, that's a fact. And his work's not so wonderful as to excuse his
beastly personality."

"Can't he paint?"

"Oh, he can paint--after a fashion. He's what Gowan calls him--a
commercial traveller. His stuff's damned impressive at first sight, but
it's all tricks. Anybody could do it, given the formula. I could do a
perfectly good Campbell in half an hour. Wait a moment, I'll show you."

He thrust out a leg from the bed. Wimsey pushed him firmly back again.

"Show me some other time. When I've seen his stuff. I can't tell if the
imitation's good till I've seen the original, can I?"

"No. Well, you go and look at his things and then I'll show you. Oh,
Lord, my head's fuzzy like nothing on earth."

"Go to sleep," said Wimsey. "Shall I tell Mrs. McLeod to let you sleep
in, as they say? And call you with a couple of aspirins on toast?"

"No; I've got to be up early, worse luck. But I shall be all right in
the morning."

"Well, cheerio, then, and sweet dreams," said Wimsey.

He shut the door after him carefully and wandered thoughtfully back to
his own habitation.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Campbell, chugging fitfully homewards across the hill which separates
Kirkcudbright from Gatehouse-of-Fleet, recapitulated his grievances to
himself in a sour monotone, as he mishandled his gears. That damned,
sneering, smirking swine Waters! He'd managed to jolt him out of his
pose of superiority, anyhow. Only he wished it hadn't happened before
McGeoch. McGeoch would tell Strachan, and Strachan would redouble his
own good opinion of himself. "You see," he would say, "I turned the man
off the golf-course and look how right I was to do it. He's just a
fellow that gets drunk and quarrels in public-houses." Curse Strachan,
with his perpetual sergeant-major's air of having you on the mat.
Strachan, with his domesticity and his precision and his local
influence, was at the base of all the trouble, if one came to think of
it. He pretended to say nothing, and all the time he was spreading
rumours and scandal and setting the whole place against one. Strachan
was a friend of that fellow Farren too. Farren would hear about it, and
would jump at the excuse to make himself still more obnoxious. There
would have been no silly row that night at all if it hadn't been for
Farren. That disgusting scene before dinner! That was what had driven
him, Campbell, to the McClellan Arms. His hand hesitated on the wheel.
Why not go back straight away and have the thing out with Farren?

After all, what did it matter? He stopped the car and lit a cigarette,
smoking fast and savagely. If the whole place was against him, he hated
the place anyhow. There was only one decent person in it, and she was
tied up to that brute Farren. The worst of it was, she was devoted to
Farren. She didn't care twopence for anybody else, if Farren would only
see it. And he, Campbell, knew it as well as anybody. He wanted nothing
wrong. He only wanted, when he was tired and fretted, and sick of his
own lonely, uncomfortable shack of a place, to go and sit among the cool
greens and blues of Gilda Farren's sitting-room and be soothed by her
slim beauty and comforting voice. And Farren, with no more sense or
imagination than a bull, must come blundering in, breaking the spell,
putting his own foul interpretation on the thing, trampling the lilies
in Campbell's garden of refuge. No wonder Farren's landscapes looked as
if they were painted with an axe. The man had no delicacy. His reds and
blues hurt your eyes, and he saw life in reds and blues. If Farren were
to die, now, if one could take his bull-neck in one's hands and squeeze
it till his great staring blue eyes popped out like--he laughed--like
bull's eyes--that was a damned funny joke. He'd like to tell Farren that
and see how he took it.

Farren was a devil, a beast, a bully, with his artistic temperament,
which was nothing but inartistic temper. There was no peace with Farren
about. There was no peace anywhere. If he went back to Gatehouse, he
knew what he would find there. He had only to look out of his bedroom
window to see Jock Graham whipping the water just under the wall of the
house--doing it on purpose to annoy him. Why couldn't Graham leave him
alone? There was better fishing up by the dams. The whole thing was
sheer persecution. It wasn't any good, either, to go to bed and take no
notice. They would wake him up in the small hours, banging at his window
and bawling out the number of their catch--they might even leave a
contemptuous offering of trout on his window-sill, wretched little fish
like minnows, which ought to have been thrown back again. He only hoped
Graham would slip up on the stones one night and fill his waders and be
drowned among his infernal fish. The thing that riled him most of all
was that this nightly comedy was played out under the delighted eye of
his neighbour, Ferguson. Since that fuss about the garden-wall, Ferguson
had become absolutely intolerable.

It was perfectly true, of course, that he had backed his car into
Ferguson's wall and knocked down a stone or two, but if Ferguson had
left his wall in decent repair it wouldn't have done any damage. That
great tree of Ferguson's had sent its roots right under the wall and
broken up the foundations, and what was more, it threw up huge suckers
in Campbell's garden. He was perpetually rooting the beastly things up.
A man had no right to grow trees under a wall so that it tumbled down at
the slightest little push, and then demand extravagant payments for
repairs. He would not repair Ferguson's wall. He would see Ferguson
damned first.

He gritted his teeth. He wanted to get out of this stifle of petty
quarrels and have one good, big, blazing row with somebody. If only he
could have smashed Waters' face to pulp--let himself go--had the thing
out, he would have felt better. Even now he could go back--or
forward--it didn't matter which, and have the whole blasted thing right
out with somebody.

He had been brooding so deeply that he never noticed the hum of a car in
the distance and the lights flickering out and disappearing as the road
dipped and wound. The first thing he heard was a violent squealing of
brakes and an angry voice demanding:

"What the bloody hell are you doing, you fool, sitting out like that in
the damn middle of the road right on the bend?" And then, as he turned,
blinking in the glare of the headlights, to grapple with this new
attack, he heard the voice say, with a kind of exasperated triumph:

"Campbell. Of course. I might have known it couldn't be anybody else."




                               CHAPTER II


                             CAMPBELL DEAD

"Did ye hear aboot Mr. Campbell?" said Mr. Murdoch of the McClellan
Arms, polishing a glass carefully as a preparation for filling it with
beer.

"Why, what further trouble has he managed to get into since last night?"
asked Wimsey. He leaned an elbow on the bar and prepared to relish
anything that might be offered to him.

"He's deid," said Mr. Murdoch.

"Deid?" said Wimsey, startled into unconscious mimicry.

Mr. Murdoch nodded.

"Och, ay; McAdam's juist brocht the news in from Gatehouse. They found
the body at 2 o'clock up in the hills by Newton-Stewart."

"Good heavens!" said Wimsey. "But what did he die of?"

"Juist tummled intae the burn," replied Mr. Murdoch, "an' drooned
himself, by what they say. The pollis'll be up there now tae bring him
doon."

"An accident, I suppose."

"Ay, imph'm. The folk at the Borgan seed him pentin' there shortly after
10 this morning on the wee bit high ground by the brig, and Major Dougal
gaed by at 2 o'clock wi' his rod an' spied the body liggin' in the burn.
It's slippery there and fou o' broken rocks. I'm thinkin' he'll ha'
climbed doon tae fetch some watter for his pentin', mebbe, and slippit
on the stanes."

"He wouldn't want water for oil-paints," said Wimsey, thoughtfully, "but
he might have wanted to mix mustard for his sandwiches or fill a kettle
or get a drop for his whiskey. I say, Murdoch, I think I'll just toddle
over there in the car and have a look at him. Corpses are rather in my
line, you know. Where is this place exactly?"

"Ye maun tak' the coast-road through Creetown to Newton-Stewart," said
Mr. Murdoch, "and turn to the richt over the brig and then to the richt
again at the signpost along the road to Bargrennan and juist follow the
road till ye turn over a wee brig on the richt-hand side over the Cree
and then tak' the richt-hand road."

"In fact," said Wimsey, "you keep on turning to the right. I think I
know the place. There's a bridge and another gate, and a burn with
salmon in it."

"Ay, the Minnoch, whaur Mr. Dennison caught the big fish last year.
Well, it'll be juist afore ye come to the gate, away to your left abune
the brig."

Wimsey nodded.

"I'll be off then," he said, "I don't want to miss the fun. See you
later, old boy. I say--I don't mind betting this is the most popular
thing Campbell ever did. Nothing in life became him like the leaving it,
eh, what?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a marvellous day in late August, and Wimsey's soul purred within
him as he pushed the car along. The road from Kirkcudbright to
Newton-Stewart is of a varied loveliness hard to surpass, and with a sky
full of bright sun and rolling cloud-banks, hedges filled with flowers,
a well-made road, a lively engine and the prospect of a good corpse at
the end of it, Lord Peter's cup of happiness was full. He was a man who
loved simple pleasures.

He passed through Gatehouse, waving a cheerful hand to the proprietor of
the Anwoth Hotel, climbed up beneath the grim blackness of Cardoness
Castle, drank in for the thousandth time the strange, Japanese beauty of
Mossyard Farm, set like a red jewel under its tufted trees on the blue
sea's rim, and the Italian loveliness of Kirkdale, with its fringe of
thin and twisted trees and the blue Wigtownshire coast gleaming across
the bay. Then the old Border keep of Barholm, surrounded by white-washed
farm buildings; then a sudden gleam of bright grass, like a lawn in
Avalon, under the shade of heavy trees. The wild garlic was over now,
but the scent of it seemed still to hang about the place in memory,
filling it with the shudder of vampire wings and memories of the darker
side of Border history. Then the old granite crushing mill on its white
jetty, surrounded by great clouds of stone-dust, with a derrick sprawled
across the sky and a tug riding at anchor. Then the salmon-nets and the
wide semi-circular sweep of the bay, rosy every summer with sea-pinks,
purple-brown with the mud of the estuary, majestic with the huge hump of
Cairnsmuir rising darkly over Creetown. Then the open road again,
dipping and turning--the white lodge on the left, the cloud-shadows
rolling, the cottages with their roses and asters clustered against
white and yellow walls; then Newton-Stewart, all grey roofs huddling
down to the stony bed of the Cree, its thin spires striking the
sky-line. Over the bridge and away to the right by the kirkyard, and
then the Bargrennan road, curling like the road to Roundabout, with the
curves of the Cree glittering through the tree-stems and the tall
blossoms and bracken golden by the wayside. Then the lodge and the long
avenue of rhododendrons--then a wood of silver birch, mounting, mounting
to shut out the sunlight. Then a cluster of stone cottages--then the
bridge and the gate, and the stony hill-road, winding between mounds
round as the hill of the King of Elf-land, green with grass and purple
with heather and various with sweeping shadows.

Wimsey pulled up as he came to the second bridge and the rusty gate, and
drew the car on to the grass. There were other cars there, and glancing
along to the left he saw a little group of men gathered on the edge of
the burn forty or fifty yards from the road. He approached by way of a
little sheep-track, and found himself standing on the edge of a scarp of
granite that shelved steeply down to the noisy waters of the Minnoch.
Beside him, close to the edge of the rock, stood a sketching easel, with
a stool and a palette. Down below, at the edge of a clear brown pool,
fringed with knotted hawthorns, lay something humped and dismal, over
which two or three people were bending.

A man, who might have been a crofter, greeted Wimsey with a kind of
cautious excitement.

"He's doon there, sir. Ay, he'll juist ha' slippit over the edge. Yon's
Sergeant Dalziel and Constable Ross, mekkin' their investigation the
noo."

There seemed little doubt how the accident had happened. On the easel
was a painting, half, or more than half finished, the paint still wet
and shining. Wimsey could imagine the artist getting up, standing away
to view what he had done--stepping farther back towards the treacherous
granite slope. Then the scrape of a heel on the smooth stone, the
desperate effort to recover, the slither of leather on the baked short
grass, the stagger, the fall, and the bump, bump, bump of the tumbling
body, sheer down the stone face of the ravine to where the pointed rocks
grinned like teeth among the chuckling water.

"I know the man," said Wimsey. "It's a very nasty thing, isn't it? I
think I'll go down and have a look."

"Ye'll mind your footing," said the crofter.

"I certainly will," said Wimsey, clambering crablike among the stones
and bracken. "I don't want to make another police-exhibit."

The Sergeant looked up at the sound of Wimsey's scrambling approach.
They had met already, and Dalziel was prepared for Wimsey's interest in
corpses, however commonplace the circumstances.

"Hech, my lord," said he, cheerfully. "I dooted ye'd be here before
verra long. Ye'll know Dr. Cameron, maybe?"

Wimsey shook hands with the doctor--a lanky man with a non-committal
face--and asked how they were getting on with the business.

"Och, well, I've examined him," said the doctor. "He's dead beyond a
doubt--been dead some hours, too. The rigor, ye see, is well developed."

"Was he drowned?"

"I cannot be certain about that. But my opinion--mind ye, it is only my
opinion--is that he was not. The bones of the temple are fractured, and
I would be inclined to say he got his death in falling or in striking
the stones in the burn. But I cannot make a definite pronouncement, you
understand, till I have had an autopsy and seen if there is any water in
his lungs."

"Quite so," said Wimsey. "The bump on the head might only have made him
unconscious, and the actual cause of death might be drowning."

"That is so. When we first saw him, he was lying with his mouth under
water, but that might very well come from washing about in the scour of
the burn. There are certain abrasions on the hands and head, some of
which are--again in my opinion--post-mortem injuries. See here--and
here."

The doctor turned the corpse over, to point out the marks in question.
It moved all of a piece, crouched and bundled together, as though it had
stiffened in the act of hiding its face from the brutal teeth of the
rocks.

"But here's where he got the big dunt," added the doctor. He guided
Wimsey's fingers to Campbell's left temple, and Wimsey felt the bone
give under his light pressure.

"Nature has left the brain ill-provided in those parts," remarked Dr.
Cameron. "The skull there is remarkably thin, and a comparatively
trifling blow will crush it like an egg-shell."

Wimsey nodded. His fine, long fingers were gently exploring head and
limbs. The doctor watched him with grave approval.

"Man," he said, "ye'd make a fine surgeon. Providence has given ye the
hands for it."

"But not the head," said Wimsey, laughing. "Yes, he's got knocked about
a bit. I don't wonder, coming down that bank full tilt."

"Ay, it's a dangerous place," said the Sergeant. "Weel, noo, doctor, I'm
thinkin' we've seen a' that's to be seen doon here. We would better be
getting the body up to the car."

"I'll go back and have a look at the painting," said Wimsey, "unless I
can help you with the lifting. I don't want to be in the way."

"Nay, nay," said the Sergeant. "Thank you for the offer, my lord, but we
can manage fine by oorsel's."

The Sergeant and a constable bent over and seized the body. Wimsey
waited to see that they required no assistance, and then scrambled up to
the top of the bank again.

He gave his first attention to the picture. It was blocked in with a
free and swift hand, and lacked the finishing touches, but it was even
so a striking piece of work, bold in its masses and chiaroscuro, and
strongly laid on with the knife. It showed a morning lighting--he
remembered that Campbell had been seen painting a little after 10
o'clock. The grey stone bridge lay cool in the golden light, and the
berries of a rowan-tree, good against witchcraft, hung yellow and red
against it, casting splashes of red reflection upon the brown and white
of the tumbling water beneath. Up on the left, the hills soared away in
veil on veil of misty blue to meet the hazy sky. And splashed against
the blue stood the great gold splendour of the bracken, flung in by
spadefuls of pure reds and yellows.

Idly, Wimsey picked up the palette and painting-knife which lay upon the
stool. He noticed that Campbell used a simple palette of few colours,
and this pleased him, for he liked to see economy of means allied with
richness of result. On the ground was an aged satchel, which had
evidently seen long service. Rather from habit than with any eye to
deduction, he made an inventory of its contents.

In the main compartment he found a small flask of whiskey, half-full, a
thick tumbler and a packet of bread and cheese, eight brushes, tied
together with a dejected piece of linen which had once been a
handkerchief but was now dragging out a dishonoured existence as a
paint-rag, a dozen loose brushes, two more painting-knives and a
scraper. Cheek by jowl with these were a number of tubes of paint.
Wimsey laid them out side by side on the granite, like a row of little
corpses.

There was a half-pound tube of vermilion spectrum, new, clean and almost
unused, a studio-size tube of ultramarine No. 2, half-full, another of
chrome yellow, nearly full, and another of the same, practically empty.
Then came a half-pound tube of viridian, half-full, a studio-size cobalt
three-quarters empty, and then an extremely dirty tube, with its label
gone, which seemed to have survived much wear and tear without losing
much of its contents. Wimsey removed the cap and diagnosed it as crimson
lake. Finally, there was an almost empty studio-size tube of rose madder
and a half-pound lemon yellow, partly used and very dirty.

Wimsey considered this collection for a moment, and then dived
confidently into the satchel again. The large compartment, however,
yielded nothing further except some dried heather, a few shreds of
tobacco and a quantity of crumbs, and he turned his attention to the two
smaller compartments.

In the first of these was, first, a small screw of grease-proof paper on
which brushes had been wiped; next, a repellent little tin, very sticky
about the screw-cap, containing copal medium; and, thirdly, a battered
dipper, matching the one attached to the palette.

The third and last compartment of the satchel offered a more varied bag.
There was a Swan vesta box, filled with charcoal, a cigarette-tin, also
containing charcoal and a number of sticks of red chalk, a small
sketch-book, heavily stained with oil, three or four canvas-separators,
on which Wimsey promptly pricked his fingers, some wine-corks and a
packet of Gold Flakes.

Wimsey's air of idleness had left him. His long and inquisitive nose
seemed to twitch like a rabbit's as he turned the satchel upside down
and shook it, in the vain hope of extracting something more from its
depths. He rose, and searched the easel and the ground about the stool
very carefully.

A wide cloak of a disagreeable check pattern lay beside the easel. He
picked it up and went deliberately through the pockets. He found a
pen-knife, with one blade broken, half a biscuit, another packet of
cigarettes, a box of matches, a handkerchief, two trout-casts in a
transparent envelope, and a piece of string.

He shook his head. None of these was what he wanted. He searched the
ground again, casting like a hound on the trail, and then, still
dissatisfied, began to lower himself gingerly down the smooth face of
the rock. There were crannies here into which something might have
fallen, clumps of bracken and heather, prickly roots of gorse. He hunted
and felt about in every corner, stabbing his fingers again at every move
and swearing savagely. Small fragments of gorse worked their way up his
trouser-legs and into his shoes. The heat was stifling. Close to the
bottom he slipped, and did the last yard or so on his hinderparts, which
irritated him. At a shout from the top of the bank he looked up. The
Sergeant was grinning down at him.

"Reconstructing the accident, my lord?"

"Not exactly," said Wimsey. "Here, wait just a moment, will you?"

He scrambled up again. The corpse was now laid as decently as possible
on a stretcher, awaiting removal.

"Have you searched his pockets?" panted Wimsey.

"Not yet, my lord. Time enough for that at the station. It's purely a
formality, ye ken."

"No, it's not," said Wimsey. He pushed his hat back and wiped the sweat
from his forehead. "There's something funny about this, Dalziel. That
is, there may be. Do you mind if I go over his belongings now?"

"Not at all, not at all," said Dalziel, heartily. "There's no sic a
great hurry. We may as weel dew't first as last."

Wimsey sat down on the ground beside the stretcher, and the Sergeant
stood by with a notebook to chronicle the finds.

The right-hand coat pocket contained another handkerchief, a Hardy
catalogue, two crumpled bills and an object which caused the Sergeant to
exclaim laughingly, "What's this, lip-stick?"

"Nothing so suggestive," said Wimsey, sadly, "it's a holder for
lead-pencil--made in Germany, to boot. Still, if that's there, there
might be something else."

The left-hand pocket, however, produced nothing more exciting than a
corkscrew and some dirt; the breast-pocket, only an Ingersoll watch, a
pocket comb and a half-used book of stamps; and Wimsey turned, without
much hope, to the trouser-pockets, for the dead man wore no waistcoat.

Here, on the right, they found a quantity of loose cash, the notes and
coins jumbled carelessly together, and a bunch of keys on a ring. On the
left, an empty match-box and a pair of folding nail-scissors. In the
hip-pocket, a number of dilapidated letters, some newspaper cuttings and
a small notebook with nothing in it.

Wimsey sat up and stared at the Sergeant.

"It's not here," he said, "and I don't like the look of it at all,
Dalziel. Look here, there's just one possibility. It may have rolled
down into the water. For God's sake get your people together and hunt
for it--now. Don't lose a minute."

Dalziel gazed at this excitable Southerner in some astonishment, and the
constable pushed back his cap and scratched his head.

"What would we be lookin' for?" he demanded, reasonably.

              (Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant
              what he was to look for and why, but as the
              intelligent reader will readily supply these
              details for himself, they are omitted from
              this page.)

"It'll be important, then, to your way o' thinking," said Dalziel, with
the air of a man hopefully catching, through a forest of obscurity, the
first, far-off glimmer of the obvious.

"Important?" said Wimsey. "Of course it's important. Incredibly,
urgently, desperately important. Do you think I should be sliding all
over your infernal granite making a blasted pincushion of myself if it
wasn't important?"

This argument seemed to impress the Sergeant. He called his forces
together and set them to search the path, the bank and the burn for the
missing object. Wimsey, meanwhile, strolled over to a shabby old
four-seater Morris, which stood drawn well up on the grass at the
beginning of the sheep-track.

"Ay," said Constable Ross, straightening his back and sucking his
fingers, preliminary to a further hunt among the prickles, "yon's his
car. Maybe ye'll find what ye're wantin' in it, after all."

"Don't you believe it, laddie," said Wimsey. Nevertheless, he subjected
the car to a careful scrutiny, concentrated for the most part upon the
tonneau. A tarry smear on the back cushions seemed to interest him
particularly. He examined it carefully with a lens, whistling gently the
while. Then he searched further and discovered another on the edge of
the body, close to the angle behind the driver's seat. On the floor of
the car lay a rug, folded up. He shook it out and looked it over from
corner to corner. Another patch of grit and tar rewarded him.

Wimsey pulled out a pipe and lit it thoughtfully. Then he hunted in the
pockets of the car till he found an ordnance map of the district. He
climbed into the driver's seat, spread out the map on the wheel, and
plunged into meditation.

Presently the Sergeant came back, very hot and red in the face, in his
shirt-sleeves.

"We've searched high and low," he said, stooping to wring the water from
his trouser-legs, "but we canna find it. Maybe ye'll be tellin' us now
why the thing is so important."

"Oh?" said Wimsey. "You look rather warm, Dalziel. I've cooled off
nicely, sitting here. It's not there, then?"

"It is not," said the Sergeant, with emphasis.

"In that case," said Wimsey, "you had better go to the coroner--no, of
course, you don't keep coroners in these parts. The Procurator-Fiscal is
the lad. You'd better go to the Fiscal and tell him the man's been
murdered."

"Murdered?" said the Sergeant.

"Yes," said Wimsey, "och, ay; likewise hoots! Murrrderrrt is the word."

"Eh!" said the Sergeant. "Here, Ross!"

The constable came up to them at a slow gallop.

"Here's his lordship," said the Sergeant, "is of opeenion the man's been
murdered."

"Is he indeed?" said Ross. "Ay, imph'm. And what should bring his
lordship to that conclusion?"

"The rigidity of the corpse," said Wimsey, "the fact that you can't find
what you're looking for, these smears of tar on the Morris, and the
character of the deceased. He was a man anybody might have felt proud to
murder."

"The rigidity of the corpse, now," said Dalziel. "That'll be a matter
for Dr. Cameron."

"I confess," said the doctor, who had now joined them, "that has been
puzzling me. If the man had not been seen alive just after 10 o'clock
this morning, I would have said he had been nearer twelve hours dead."

"So should I," said Wimsey. "On the other hand, you'll notice that that
painting, which was put on with a quick-drying copal medium, is still
comparatively wet, in spite of the hot sun and the dry air."

"Ay," said the doctor. "So I am forced to the conclusion that the chill
of the water produced early rigor."

"I do not submit to force," said Wimsey. "I prefer to believe that the
man was killed about midnight. I do not believe in that painting. I do
not think it is telling the truth. I know that it is absolutely
impossible for Campbell to have been working here on that painting this
morning."

"Why so?" inquired the Sergeant.

"For the reasons I gave you before," said Wimsey. "And there's another
small point--not very much in itself, but supporting the same
conclusion. The whole thing looks--and is meant to look--as though
Campbell had got up from his painting, stepped back to get a better view
of his canvas, missed his footing and fallen down. But his palette and
painting-knife were laid down on his stool. Now it's far more likely
that, if he were doing that, he would have kept his palette on his thumb
and his knife or brush in his hand, ready to make any little extra touch
that was required. I don't say he might not have laid them down. I only
say it would have looked more natural if we had found the palette beside
the body and the knife half-way down the slope."

"Ay," said Ross. "I've seen 'em dew that. Steppin' back wi' their eyes
half-shut and then hoppin' forward wi' the brush as if they was throwin'
darts."

Wimsey nodded.

"It's my theory," he said, "that the murderer brought the body here this
morning in Campbell's own car. He was wearing Campbell's soft hat and
that foul plaid cloak of his so that anybody passing by might mistake
him for Campbell. He had the body on the floor of the tonneau and on top
of it he had a push-cycle, which has left tarry marks on the cushions.
Tucked in over the whole lot he had this rug, which has tar-marks on it
too. Then I think he dragged out the corpse, carried it up the
sheep-track on his shoulders and tumbled it into the burn. Or possibly
he left it lying on the top of the bank, covered with the rug. Then,
still wearing Campbell's hat and cloak, he sat down and faked the
picture. When he had done enough to create the impression that Campbell
had been here painting, he took off the cloak and hat, left the palette
and knife on the seat and went away on his push-bike. It's a lonely
spot, here. A man might easily commit a dozen murders, if he chose his
time well."

"That's a verra interesting theory," said Dalziel.

"You can test it," said Wimsey. "If anybody saw Campbell this morning to
speak to, or close enough to recognise his face, then, of course, it's a
wash-out. But if they only saw the hat and cloak, and especially if they
noticed anything bulky in the back of the car with a rug over it, then
the theory stands. Mind you, I don't say the bicycle is absolutely
necessary to the theory, but it's what I should have used in the
murderer's place. And if you'll look at this smear of tar under the
lens, I think you'll see traces of the tread of a tyre."

"I'll no say ye're no richt," said Dalziel.

"Very well," said Wimsey. "Now let's see what our murderer has to do
next." He flapped the map impressively, and the two policemen bent their
heads over it with him.

"Here he is," said Wimsey, "with only a bicycle to help or hinder him,
and he's got to establish some sort of an alibi. He may not have
bothered about anything very complicated, but he'd make haste to
dissociate himself from this place as quickly as possible. And I don't
fancy he'd be anxious to show himself in Newton-Stewart or Creetown.
There's nowhere much for him to go northward--it only takes him up into
the hills round Larg and the Rhinns of Kells. He could go up to Glen
Trool, but there's not much point in that; he'd only have to come back
the same way. He might, of course, follow the Cree back on the eastern
bank as far as Minniegaff, avoiding Newton-Stewart, and strike across
country to New Galloway, but it's a long road and keeps him hanging
about much too close to the scene of the crime. In my opinion, his best
way would be to come back to the road and go north-west by Bargrennan,
Cairnderry, Creeside and Drumbain, and strike the railway at Barrhill.
That's about nine or ten miles by road. He could do it, going briskly,
in an hour, or, as it's a rough road, say an hour and a half. Say he
finished the painting at 11 o'clock, that brings him to Barrhill at
12.30. From there he could get a train to Stranraer and Port Patrick, or
even to Glasgow, or, of course, if he dumped the bicycle, he might take
a motor-bus to somewhere. If I were you, I'd have a hunt in that
direction."

The Sergeant glanced at his colleagues and read approval in their eyes.

"And whae d'ye think, my lord, wad be the likeliest pairson to hae
committed the crime?" he inquired.

"Well," said Wimsey, "I can think of half a dozen people with perfectly
good motives. But the murderer's got to be an artist, and a clever one,
for that painting would have to pass muster as Campbell's work. He must
know how to drive a car, and he must possess, or have access to, a
bicycle. He must be fairly hefty, to have carried the body up here on
his back, for I see no signs of dragging. He must have been in contact
with Campbell after 9.15 last night, when I saw him leave the McClellan
Arms alive and kicking. He must know the country and the people pretty
well, for he obviously knew that Campbell lived alone with only a
charwoman coming in, so that his early morning departure would surprise
nobody. He either lives in the same way himself, or else had a very good
excuse for being up and out before breakfast this morning. If you find a
man who fulfils all these conditions, he's probably the right one. His
railway-ticket, if he took one, ought to be traceable. Or it's quite
possible I may be able to put my finger on him myself, working on
different lines and with rather less exertion."

"Och, weel," said the Sergeant, "if ye find him, ye'll let us know."

"I will," said Wimsey, "though it will be rather unpleasant, because ten
to one he'll be some bloke I know and like much better than Campbell.
Still, it doesn't do to murder people, however offensive they may be.
I'll do my best to bring him in captive to my bow and spear--if he
doesn't slay me first."




                              CHAPTER III


                                FERGUSON

On his way back to Kirkcudbright, it occurred to Wimsey that it was more
than time for tea, and further, that it would be a good idea to visit
Campbell's cottage. He accordingly pulled up at the Anwoth Hotel, and,
while voraciously filling himself up with potato-scones and ginger-cake,
made out a rough list of possible suspects.

At the end of the meal, the list stood as follows:

 _Living in Kirkcudbright_:--

 1. Michael Waters--28--5 foot 10 inches--unmarried--living
 in lodgings with private latch-key--landscape
 painter--boasts of being able to counterfeit Campbell's
 style--quarrelled with Campbell previous night and
 threatened to break his neck.

 2. Hugh Farren--35--5 foot 9 inches--figure and
 landscape painter--particularly broad in the shoulder--married--known
 to be jealous of Campbell--lives alone
 with a wife who is apparently much attached to him.

 3. Matthew Gowan--46--6 foot 1 inch--figure and
 landscape painter, also etcher--unmarried--house with
 servants--wealthy--known to have been publicly insulted
 by Campbell--refuses to speak to him.

 _Living in Gatehouse-of-Fleet_:--

 4. Jock Graham--36--5 foot 11 inches--unmarried--staying
 at Anwoth Hotel--portrait painter--keen fisherman--reckless--known
 to be carrying on a feud with
 Campbell and to have ducked him in the Fleet after being
 assaulted by him.

 5. Henry Strachan--38--6 foot 2 inches--married--one
 child, one servant--portrait painter and illustrator--secretary
 of golf-club--known to have quarrelled with
 Campbell and turned him off the golf-course.

The list had reached this stage when the landlord of the hotel came in.
Wimsey gave him the latest news of the Campbell affair, without,
however, referring to the murder theory, and remarked that he thought of
running along to Campbell's house, to see if anything was known there
about his movements.

"I doot ye'll no be hearin' much there," said the landlord. "Mrs. Green
that does his work is away home, but she knows juist naething at a',
except that when she arrived this mornin' at 8 o'clock to put the place
in order, he had went oot. And Mr. Ferguson that lives next him was away
to Glasgow by the first train."

"Ferguson?" said Wimsey. "I think I've met him. Didn't he do those mural
paintings for the town hall at some place or other?"

"Ay, he's a verra gude penter. Ye'll have seen him gaun aboot in his wee
Austin. He has the stujo next to Campbell's every summer."

"Is he married?"

"Ay, but his wife's away the noo, visitin' wi' friends in Edinbro'. I
believe they du not get on so verra weel tegither."

"Who, Ferguson and Campbell?"

"No, no, Ferguson and Mrs. Ferguson. But the ither's true, too. He and
Campbell had an awfu' quarrel aboot a bit wall of Ferguson's that
Campbell knocked down wi' his car."

"I wonder if there is a single person in the Stewartry that Campbell
didn't have a row with," thought Wimsey, and made an addition to his
list:--

6. John Ferguson--about 36--about 5 foot 10
  inches--grass-widower--landscape
and figures--row about a wall.

"By the way," he went on, "is Jock Graham anywhere about?"

"Och, Jock--he's away oot. He didna come hame last nicht at a'. He said
he might be fishin up at Loch Trool."

"Oho!" said Wimsey. "Up at Loch Trool, is he? How did he go?"

"I couldna say. I think the factor had invitit him. He'll ha' spent last
nicht in Newton-Stewart, maybe, and went up wi' the factor in the
mornin'. Or he will ha' been fishin' the loch all nicht."

"Will he, though?" said Wimsey. This put a new complexion on the matter.
An active man might have driven the body up to the Minnoch and walked
back to Newton-Stewart in time to keep his appointment, if that
appointment was not an early one. But it would have to be, of course,
for a day's fishing, and Jock Graham liked to work by night.

"Will he be back to-night, Joe?"

"I couldna say at all," said the landlord, scattering his hopes at a
blow. "They'll maybe tak' twae nichts if the fishin's gude."

"H'm!" said Wimsey. "And very nice, too. Well, I'll be getting on."

He paid his bill and came downstairs, accompanied by the landlord.

"How's Andy?" he asked, casually.

"Och, fine," said the other. "He's in a great way, though, to-day. Some
fellow's pinched his push-bike. An' the worst is, he had juist fitted it
wi' new tyres on both wheels."

Wimsey, with his thumb on the self-starter, paused, electrified.

"How's that?"

"It's his ain fault. He will go leavin' it aboot the place. It'll be
some o' these trampin' fellows that sells carpets, verra like. There's
naebody in Gatehouse wad du sic a thing."

"When did he miss it?"

"This mornin', when he was aff to schule. It's a gude thing it wasna the
motor-bike he's always after me to be givin' him."

"I daresay somebody's just borrowed it," said Wimsey.

"That's so. It may turn up yet. Well, gude day to your lordship."

Wimsey did not cross the bridge, but turned up the road to the railway
station. He passed the turning on the left leading past Anwoth Old Kirk
to the Creetown road, and followed the course of the Fleet till he came
to a small lane on the right. At the end of this stood two little
detached cottages, side by side, looking over a deep pool--in fact, the
famous disputed pool in which Jock Graham had ducked the deceased
Campbell.

Under normal circumstances, Wimsey would have expected to find both
doors confidingly on the latch, but to-day the lower cottage, which was
Campbell's, had been locked--probably by the police. Wimsey peered in
through all the ground-floor windows in turn. Everything seemed peaceful
and in order as the charwoman had left it that morning. There was a
sitting-room of bachelor appearance in front and a kitchen behind--the
usual but and ben with a bedroom over. In addition, a glass-roofed
studio had been built out beyond the kitchen. At the right-hand side,
the shed that had housed the Morris stood empty, a fresh set of
tyre-tracks in the dust showing where the car had been taken out that
morning. Just beyond, a wooden gate led into an untidy little garden.
From the end of the studio a party-wall of rough stone ran down,
separating the yard and garden from those belonging to the other
cottage, and Wimsey noticed a breach in the wall and the pile of debris
which marked where Campbell had backed injudiciously while turning into
the garage, and given cause for so much unneighbourly feeling.

Ferguson's cottage was the mirror-image of Campbell's, but his garden
was neatly cared-for, and his garage was brand-new and built,
regrettably, of corrugated iron. Wimsey pushed open the door and was
confronted by a new and shining two-seater of a popular type.

This surprised him for a moment. Ferguson had taken the early train to
Glasgow, and Gatehouse Station is six and a half miles from the town.
Why had Ferguson not taken the car? He could easily have left it at the
station till his return. It appeared to be a new toy; perhaps he had not
cared to leave it in strange hands? Or perhaps he meant to be away a
long time? Or perhaps----?

Wimsey lifted the bonnet thoughtfully. Yes, that was the explanation. A
gap and some loose connections showed that the magneto had been taken
away. Quite probably Ferguson had carried it off with him to Glasgow for
repairs. How, then, had Ferguson got to the station? A friendly lift?
The 'bus? Or a bicycle? The simplest way was to go and ask. At a small
country station no passenger goes unnoticed, and one might as well make
sure that Ferguson really had travelled by that train.

Wimsey closed the bonnet and shut the garage-door carefully after him.
The house-door was open and he walked in and glanced round. It was as
neat and non-committal as any house could be. Everything had been swept,
dusted and tidied up by Mrs. Green, including the contents of the
studio; for when the artist is away the charwoman will always play among
the paint-pots, and no amount of remonstrance will prevent it. Wimsey
glanced at some figure-studies piled against the wall, squinnied up his
eyes at an elaborate and mannered piece of decorative landscape on the
easel, noted casually that Ferguson got his painting materials from
Roberson's, glanced along a row of detective novels on the sitting-room
bookshelf, and tried the lid of the writing-bureau. It was unlocked, and
disclosed an orderly row of pigeon-holes, with everything in its place.
Wimsey put down Ferguson as a man of an almost morbidly exact mentality.
There was nothing here to throw any light on Campbell's death, but he
became all the more anxious to get hold of Ferguson. The way in which
the cottages were built, detached and sharing one common entrance yard,
ensured that everything which was done in the one could be overlooked
from the other. If anything unusual had happened to Campbell the
previous night, Ferguson could scarcely have failed to see something of
it. And, on the other hand, if Ferguson had not seen it, then nobody
had, for the two little houses stood remote from all other neighbours,
hidden at the bottom of the rough, leafy lane, with the Water of Fleet
lipping by at the bottom of the gardens. If Jock Graham, indeed, had
been fishing Standing-Stone Pool that night--but no! He was supposed to
have gone to Loch Trool. Ferguson was the man. It would be advisable to
get quickly upon the track of Ferguson.

Wimsey went back to his car and started away up the long hill road to
Gatehouse Station, which lies at the edge of the Galloway hill-country,
looking away over the Fleet Valley and the viaduct and frowned on by the
lofty scarp of the Clints of Dromore.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The railway-station at Gatehouse is approached by one of those gates so
numerous in the Border Country, which provide some slight restraint upon
straying cattle but to the impatient motorist appear an unmitigated
nuisance. As usual, however, at this point, an obliging old gentleman
emerged from the little group of cottages by the wayside and let Wimsey
through.

Immediately beyond the gate, the road branches right and left into a
rough, stony track, of which the left-hand side goes deviously down to
Creetown, while the right-hand side wanders away to Dromore and ends
abruptly at the railway viaduct. Wimsey crossed this road and kept
straight on down a steep little approach, heavily masked by
rhododendrons, which brought him to the station.

The line from Castle-Douglas to Stranraer is a single one, but boasts of
two sets of rails at Gatehouse Station, for the better convenience of
passengers and to allow of the passing of trains. Wimsey approached the
station-master, who was profiting by a slack period between two trains
to study the _Glasgow Bulletin_ in his office.

"I've been trying to find Mr. Ferguson," said Wimsey, after the usual
greetings, "to fix up a fishing-party at Loch Skerrow, but I'm told he
went away this morning by the 9.8. Is that so?"

"Ay, that is so. I saw him mysel'."

"I wonder when he'll be back. Was he going to Glasgow, do you know, or
only to Dumfries?"

"He mentioned he was gaun to Glasgow," said the station-master, "but
he'll maybe be back the nicht. Angus here will be able to tell ye if he
took a return ticket."

The booking-clerk, who shared the station-master's office, remembered
Mr. Ferguson very well, because he had taken a first-class return to
Glasgow, an extravagance somewhat unusual among the artist community.

"But of course," said Wimsey, "the ticket is available for three months.
He's not bound to return to-day. Did he leave his car here, I wonder?"

"He didna come by car," said the clerk. "He tell't me the magneto was
broken down, and he was obliged to take the train from here, instead o'
drivin' to Dumfries."

"Oh, then he bicycled up, I suppose," said Wimsey, carelessly.

"Nay," said the station-master, "he'll have come with Campbell's 'bus.
He arrived aboot that time, did he no, Angus?"

"He did that. He was talkin' with Rabbie McHardy when he came in. He'll
maybe have told him how long he thocht to be stayin' in Glasgow."

"Thanks," said Wimsey. "I'll have a word with Rabbie. I wanted to
charter a boat for to-morrow, but if Ferguson isn't going to be back,
it's not much use, is it?"

He chatted for a few minutes more, giving them a suitably censored
account of the Campbell affair, and then took his leave. He had not got
very much farther, except that he seemed to have more or less eliminated
Ferguson from his list of suspects. He would have to check him up, of
course, and see that he really had arrived in Glasgow. This might
present a little difficulty, but it was merely routine-work for Dalziel
and his myrmidons.

Wimsey looked at his watch. Jock Graham was at present the most
promising candidate for criminal honours, but since he had disappeared,
there was nothing to be done about him for the present. There was,
however, still time to go and interview Strachan, and so round off his
inquiries in Gatehouse.




                               CHAPTER IV


                                STRACHAN

Strachan lived in a pleasant, middle-sized house handily situated for
him a little way out of Gatehouse on the road that goes up to the
golf-course. The neat maid who came to the door smiled kindly upon the
visitor and said that the master was at home and would his lordship
please step in.

His lordship stepped accordingly into the sitting-room, where he found
Mrs. Strachan seated by the window instructing her small daughter Myra
in the art of plain knitting.

Wimsey apologised for calling just before dinner, and explained that he
wanted to fix up with Strachan about a foursome.

"Well, I don't quite know," said Mrs. Strachan, a trifle doubtfully. "I
don't think Harry is likely to be playing for a day or two. He's had
rather a tiresome--oh, well! I really don't know. Myra, dear, run and
tell Daddy Lord Peter Wimsey is here and wants to talk to him. You know,
I never like to make any sort of arrangements for Harry--I always manage
to put my foot in it."

She giggled--she was rather a giggly woman at the best of times.
Nervousness, Wimsey supposed. Strachan had an abrupt manner which tended
to make people nervous, and Wimsey more than suspected him of being a
bit of a domestic tyrant.

He said something vague about not wanting to be a nuisance.

"Of _course_ not," said Mrs. Strachan, keeping an uneasy eye on the
door, "how _could_ you be a nuisance? We're always so _delighted_ to see
you. And what have you been doing with yourself this beautiful day?"

"I've been up to the Minnoch to see the body," said Wimsey, cheerfully.

"The body?" cried Mrs. Strachan, with a little squeal. "How dreadful
that sounds! What _do_ you mean? A salmon, or something?"

"No, no," said Wimsey. "Campbell--Sandy Campbell--haven't you heard?"

"No, what?" Mrs. Strachan opened her large baby-blue eyes very wide
indeed. "Has anything happened to Mr. Campbell?"

"Good Lord," said Wimsey, "I thought everybody knew. He's dead. He
tumbled into the Minnoch and got killed."

Mrs. Strachan gave a shrill shriek of horror.

"Killed? How perfectly dreadful! Was he drowned?"

"I don't quite know," said Wimsey. "I think he bashed his head in, but
he may have been drowned as well."

Mrs. Strachan shrieked again.

"When did it happen?"

"Well," said Wimsey, cautiously, "they found him about lunch-time."

"Good gracious! And we never knew anything about it. Oh, Harry"--as the
door opened--"what _do_ you think? Lord Peter says poor Mr. Campbell has
been killed up at the Minnoch!"

"Killed?" said Strachan. "What do you mean, Milly? Who killed him?"

Mrs. Strachan shrieked a third time, more loudly.

"Of course I don't mean that, Harry. How absurd and how horrible! He
fell down and cut his head open and got drowned."

Strachan came forward rather slowly and greeted Wimsey with a nod.

"What's all this about, Wimsey?"

"It's perfectly true," said Wimsey. "They found Campbell's dead body in
the Minnoch at 2 o'clock. Apparently he had been painting and slipped
over the edge of the granite and cracked his skull on the stones."

He spoke a little absently. It was surely not his fancy that his host
looked exceedingly pale and upset, and now, as Strachan turned his face
round into the full light of the window, it was obvious that he was
suffering from a black eye--a very handsome and well-developed black
eye, rich in colour and full in contour.

"Oh!" said Strachan. "Well, I'm not surprised, you know. That's a very
dangerous spot. I told him so on Sunday, and he called me a fool for my
pains."

"Why, was he up there on Sunday?" said Wimsey.

"Yes, making a sketch or something. You remember, Milly, just on the
other side of the burn from where we were picnicking."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Strachan, "was _that_ the place? Oo! how
perfectly horrid! I'll never go there again, never. You may say what you
like. Wild horses wouldn't drag me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Milly. Of course you needn't go there if you don't
want to."

"I should always be afraid of Myra falling in and being killed," said
Mrs. Strachan.

"Very well, then," said her husband, impatiently. "Don't go there. That
settles that. How did all this happen, Wimsey?"

Lord Peter told the story again, with such detail as he thought
desirable.

"That's exactly like Campbell," said Strachan. "He walks about--that is,
he used to walk about--with his eyes on his canvas and his head in the
air, never looking in the least where he was going. I shouted out to him
on Sunday to be careful--he couldn't hear what I said, or pretended he
couldn't, and I actually took the trouble to fag round to the other side
of the stream and warn him what a slippery place it was. However, he was
merely rude to me, so I left it at that. Well, he's done it once too
often, that's all."

"Oh, don't speak in that unfeeling tone," exclaimed Mrs. Strachan. "The
poor man's dead, and though he wasn't a very nice man, one can't help
feeling sorry about it."

Strachan had the grace to mutter that he _was_ sorry, and that he never
wished any harm to the fellow. He leaned his forehead on his hand, as if
his head was aching badly.

"You seem to have been in the wars a bit yourself," remarked Wimsey.

Strachan laughed.

"Yes," he said, "most ridiculous thing. I was up on the golf-course
after breakfast when some putrid fool sliced a ball about a thousand
miles off the fairway and got me slap-bang in the eye."

Mrs. Strachan gave another small squeak of surprise.

"Oh!" she said, and then subsided swiftly as Strachan turned his
parti-coloured eyes warningly upon her.

"How tiresome," said Wimsey. "Who was the blighter?"

"Haven't the faintest idea," replied Strachan, carelessly. "I was
completely knocked out for the moment, and when I pulled myself together
again and went to spy out the land, I only saw a party of men making off
in the distance. I felt too rotten to bother about it, I simply made
tracks for the club-house and a drink. I've got the ball, though--a
Silver King. If anybody comes to claim it I shall tell him where he gets
off."

"It's a nasty knock," said Wimsey, sympathetically. "A beautiful
specimen of its kind, but uncommonly painful, I expect. It's come up
nicely, hasn't it? When exactly did you get it?"

"Oh, quite early," said Strachan. "About 9 o'clock, I should think. I
went and lay down in my room at the club-house all morning, I felt so
rotten. Then I came straight home, so that's why I hadn't heard about
Campbell. Dash it all, this means a funeral, I suppose. It's a bit
awkward. In the ordinary way we should send a wreath from the Club, but
I don't quite know what to do under the circumstances, because last time
he was here I told him to send in his resignation."

"It's a nice little problem," said Wimsey. "But I think I should send
one, all the same. Shows a forgiving spirit and all that. Keep your
vindictiveness for the person who damaged your face. Whom were you
playing with, by the way? Couldn't he have identified the assassin?"

Strachan shook his head.

"I was just having a practice round against bogey," he said. "I caddied
for myself, so there were no witnesses."

"Oh, I see. Your hands look a bit knocked about, too. You seem to have
spent a good bit of your time in the rough. Well, I really came in to
ask you to make up a foursome to-morrow with Waters and Bill Murray and
me, but I don't suppose you'll, so to speak, feel that your eye is in
just yet awhile?"

"Hardly," said Strachan, with a grim smile.

"Then I'll be popping off," said Wimsey, rising. "Cheerio, Mrs.
Strachan. Cheerio, old man. Don't bother to see me off the premises. I
know my way out."

Strachan, however, insisted on accompanying him as far as the gate.

At the corner of the road Wimsey overtook Miss Myra Strachan and her
nurse taking an evening stroll. He stopped the car and asked if they
would like a little run.

Myra accepted gleefully, and her attendant made no objection. Wimsey
took the child up beside him, packed the nurse into the back seat and
urged the Daimler Double-Six to show off her best paces.

Myra was delighted.

"Daddy never goes as fast as this," she said, as they topped the
tree-hung rise by Cally Lodge and sailed like an aeroplane into the open
country.

Wimsey glanced at the speedometer-needle, which was flickering about the
85 mark, and took the corner on a spectacular skid.

"That's a fine black eye your Dad's got," he remarked.

"Yes, isn't it? I asked him if he'd been fighting, and he told me not to
be impertinent. I like fighting. Bobby Craig gave me a black eye once.
But I made his nose bleed, and they had to send his suit to the
cleaners."

"Young women oughtn't to fight," said Wimsey, reprovingly, "not even
modern young women."

"Why not? I like fighting. Oo! look at the cows!"

Wimsey trod hastily on the brake and reduced the Daimler to a ladylike
crawl.

"All the same, I believe he _was_ fighting," said Myra. "He never came
home last night, and Mummy was ever so frightened. She's afraid of our
car, you know, because it goes so fast, but it doesn't go as fast as
yours. Does that cow want to toss us?"

"Yes," said Wimsey. "It probably mistakes us for a pancake."

"Silly! Cows don't eat pancakes, they eat oil-cake. I ate some once, but
it was very nasty, and I was sick."

"Serve you right," said Wimsey. "I'd better put you down here, or you
won't be back by bed-time. Perhaps I'd better run you part of the way
home."

"Oh, please do," said Myra. "Then we can drive the cows and make them
run like anything."

"That would be very naughty," said Wimsey. "It isn't good for cows to
run fast. You are an impertinent, bloodthirsty, greedy and unkind young
person, and one of these days you'll be a menace to society."

"How lovely! I could have a pistol and a beautiful evening dress, and
lure people to opium-dens and stick them up. I think I'd better marry
you, because you've got such a fast car. That would be useful, you see."

"Very," said Wimsey, gravely. "I'll bear the idea in mind. But you might
not want to marry me later on, you know."




                               CHAPTER V


                                 WATERS

It amused Lord Peter to lead the simple life at Kirkcudbright. Greatly
to the regret of the hotel-keepers, he had this year chosen to rent a
small studio at the end of a narrow cobbled close, whose brilliant blue
gate proclaimed it to the High Street as an abode of the
artistically-minded. His explanation of this eccentric conduct was that
it entertained him to watch his extremely correct personal man gutting
trout and washing potatoes under an outside tap, and receiving the
casual visitor with West End ceremony.

As he clattered down the close, picking his way past the conglomeration
of bicycles which almost blocked the entrance, Wimsey perceived this
efficient person waiting upon the doorstep with an expression which,
though strictly controlled, might almost have been called eager.

"Hullo, Bunter!" said his lordship, cheerfully. "What's for dinner? I'm
feeling uncommonly ready for it. There's a beautiful corpse up at
Creetown."

"I apprehended, my lord, that your lordship would be engaged in
investigation. Not being certain of the exact hour of your lordship's
return, I thought it wiser, my lord, to prepare a dish of stewed beef
with thick gravy and vegetables, which could, in case of necessity, be
kept hot without deterioration."

"Excellent," said his lordship.

"Thank you, my lord. I understand from the butcher that the portion of
the animal which I have been accustomed to call shin of beef is termed
in these parts the--er--hough."

"I believe you are right, Bunter."

"I did not take the man's word for it," said Bunter, with melancholy
dignity. "I inspected the carcase and ascertained that the correct cut
was removed from it."

"You are always so thorough," said Wimsey, appreciatively.

"I do my best, my lord. Would your lordship desire me to refer to the
comestible as--er--hough--during our residence in this country?"

"It would be a graceful concession to national feeling Bunter, if you
can bring yourself to do it."

"Very good, my lord. I presume that the leg of mutton will again pass
under the appellation of jiggot, as on the occasion of your lordship's
previous visit?"

"Certainly, Bunter."

"Yes, my lord." Bunter sighed deeply. "Whatever is correct I will
endeavour to do to your lordship's satisfaction."

"Thank you, Bunter. We must try to be correct under all circumstances."

"Yes, my lord. Dinner will be served in twenty minutes, as soon as the
potatoes are ready."

"Right-ho!" said his lordship. "I'll just run across the close and have
a chin-wag with Miss Selby till dinner-time."

"Pardon me, my lord. I understand that the ladies have gone away."

"Gone away?" said Wimsey, rather taken aback.

"Yes, my lord. I was informed by the young person who attends upon them
that they had gone away to Glasgow."

"Oh!" said Wimsey, "they're away to Glasgow. But that probably only
means that they are out for the day. It does not necessarily imply, as
it does down South, that they have packed up bag and baggage and
departed on a long visit. Well, I'll go and hunt up Mr. Waters. I rather
want to see him. I may bring him back to dinner."

"Very good, my lord."

Wimsey crossed the High Street and knocked upon the door of Waters'
lodgings. The landlady answered his knock and in reply to his inquiry
observed that "Mr. Waters was away just now."

"When will he be back?"

"I couldna say, my lord, but I'm thinkin' he'll be stayin' the nicht in
Glasgow."

"Everybody seems to have gone to Glasgow," said Wimsey.

"Och, ay. They'll all have went tae the Exhibition. Mr. Waters was away
by the first train."

"What! the 8.45?" said Wimsey, incredulously. From what he had seen of
Waters the previous night he had hardly expected such energy.

"Ay," said the landlady, placidly. "He had his breakfast at 8 o'clock
and was away with Miss Selby and Miss Cochran."

Wimsey felt rather relieved. He had been afraid for the moment that this
early activity might have something a little sinister about it. But,
chaperoned by Miss Selby and Miss Cochran, Waters could scarcely have
got into mischief. One more of his six suspects seemed to be safely
eliminated. He left a message that he would like to see Mr. Waters as
soon as he got back and returned to Blue Gate Close.

He had finished his savoury stew, and was enjoying an admirable cheese
souffle, when there was a sound of two pairs of heavy boots labouring
over the cobbles, followed by that of a voice inquiring for his
lordship.

"Hullo!" said Wimsey, "is that you, Dalziel?"

"Yes, my lord." The Sergeant shouldered his way through the narrow
doorway and stood aside to allow his companion to pass. "I've been
reportin' this matter to Sir Maxwell Jamieson, the Chief Constable, an'
he has been gude enough to come round wi' me for a word wi' your
lordship."

"Splendid!" said Wimsey, heartily. "Delighted to see you both. We
haven't met before, Sir Maxwell, but that's not to say I don't know you
well by reputation, as, I fancy, you know me. There was a trifling
complaint of speeding last year, I believe, in which justice was rather
more than tempered with mercy. Have a drink."

"Well," said Dalziel, when Wimsey's proffered hospitality had been
accepted, with suitable signs of appreciation, "I've been makin'
inquiries along the line in accordance wi' the theory, but I'm no sae
verra weel satisfied t'ane way or t'ither. But first of a', I'd have ye
ken I've interviewed the folk at Borgan, and they tell me young Jock saw
Campbell pentin' there at ten minutes past ten when he gaed oot tae tak'
a message to a wumman at Clauchaneasy, and he was still sittin' there
when Jock returned at five minutes past eleven. Sae ye see, he couldna
ha' left the place till a few minutes past eleven at the airliest."

"When you say he saw Campbell, do you mean that he knew it was Campbell
or that he only thought it was?"

"Nay, he disna ken Campbell, but he saw a man in a big black hat and a
plaid cloak, like Campbell was wearin'. An' he thinks there was a big
plaid or rug liggin' by the side of him."

"Then it may have been the murderer."

"Ay, so it may, but it's the time o' day I wad dra' your attention to.
Ye'll admit that, murderer or no murderer, he couldna ha' left yon place
till past eleven?"

"That seems clear enough."

"Well, then, we come tae the investigations consairnin' the railway.
There's no sae mony trains in the day between Stranraer and Girvan stops
at Pinwherry or Barrhill."

The Sergeant pulled an L.M.S. time-table from his pocket and smacked it
out upon the table.

"Let's tak' the trains tae Stranraer first. The murderer micht verra
likely be thinkin' o' escapin' by the boat fra' Stranraer, ye ken, and
if so, it's in Ireland we'll have to be lookin' for him."

He pulled out a thick pencil and jotted the times down on a sheet of
paper.

                                     a.m.           p.m.

                Girvan               10.45          2.16
                Pinmore              11.1           2.31
                Pinwherry            11.8           2.39
                Barrhill             11.18          2.50
                Glenwhilly           11.33          3.6
                New Luce             11.41          3.13
                Dunragit             11.52          3.26
                Castle Kennedy       12 noon        3.33
                Stranraer            12.7           3.39

Wimsey shook his head.

"He couldn't catch the first train--not on a bicycle, at any rate.
Barrhill is his nearest point, and, if you give him only five minutes to
pack his traps and get started, that leaves a bare eight minutes for ten
miles or so. It's just conceivable that he might do it by car if he
blinded like hell and the train happened to be late, but how could he
have got the spare car along? Of course he could have hung about
somewhere in the hills and taken the 2.50, or he could have ridden
farther and picked the same train up at another station, but that would
give him a very poor alibi."

"That's so, my lord," said Dalziel, "I hadna overlookit the
possibeelity. Noo, there's a report come in fra' the station-master at
Pinwherry that there was a gentleman tuk the 2.39 at Pinwherry. He paid
particular attention to him because he was a stranger and appeared out
of the ordinar' nairvous and excited."

"Where did he book to?"

"That's juist the interesting part of the matter. He tuk his teecket to
Stranraer----"

"Why, of course," said Wimsey, with his eye on the time-table. "That
explains why he waited for that train. That's the one that makes the
connection with the boat to Larne. It's a rotten connection at
that--over three hours to wait in Stranraer--but it's apparently the
only one there is."

"I was aboot to tell ye," said the Sergeant, "the gentleman inquired
maist anxiously aboot the connection and seemed sair disappointit to
lairn that there was no boat before 7 o'clock."

"That fits in all right," said Wimsey, "though it's queer he didn't find
out about the boats earlier, while he was thinking this crime out so
carefully. What was this fellow like?"

"Juist a youngish body in a grey suit and soft hat, they tell me, an'
carryin' a wee attach-case. Rather tall than short, wi' a sma' dark
moustache. The station-master wad ken him again."

"Did he give any particular account of himself?"

"He said somethin' o' havin' misread the time-table and thocht there was
a boat at 3.50."

"Well, that's perfectly possible," said Wimsey. "You see there are three
lines at the bottom of the page showing the steamer connections from
Stranraer Pier to Larne and Belfast, and just above them, three lines
showing the train-connection between Stranraer, Colfin and Port Patrick.
It's easy to mistake the one for the other. But look here, Dalziel, if
there was no boat for him before 7, you must have been in time to catch
him."

"That's a fact, my lord, and so soon as I had the report I telephoned
through tae the pollis at Stranraer to have a sairch made; but I got
their answer juist before comin' over here, and it was tae the effect
that there was no sic a pairson on the boat."

"Damn it!" said Wimsey.

"They are conducting an inquiry in Stranraer, in case he should be in
hidin' there, and are stoppin' all cars enterin' and leavin' the toon,
and naiturally they will keep a strict eye on to-morrow's boat. But it
is no unthinkable that the felly isna mekkin' for Larne at a'. That may
ha' been juist a blind."

"Did he actually go to Stranraer?"

"It seems so. The teeckets ha' been checkit, and the third-class teecket
issued at Pinwherry was duly given up at Stranraer. Unfortunately, the
porter whae collectit it is no an obsairvin' body and canna say what
like the mon was that handit it tae him."

"Well, you seem to have done pretty well on that part of the business,"
said Wimsey, "considering the shortness of the time. And it looks as
though we really had got on to something. By the way, did the
station-master at Pinwherry mention whether the passenger had a
bicycle?"

"Nay, he hadna a bicycle. I askit him how he came there, but naebody had
noticed him come. It seems he juist walkit intae the station."

"Well, of course, if he was taking the Irish boat, he would probably get
rid of the bicycle first. He had plenty of time to hide it up in the
hills. Well--that looks rather hopeful. Still, we mustn't rely on it too
much. How about the trains in the other direction--the ones going to
Glasgow?"

Dalziel turned over a couple of pages, licked the thick pencil and
produced a new list.

                                 a.m.                p.m.         p.m.
    Stranraer                 dep. 11.35         12.30 (from       4.5
                                               Stranraer Pier)
    Castle Kennedy               11.42                "           4.12
    Dunragit                     11.52              12.42         4.20
    New Luce                   12.7 p.m.              "           4.33
    Glenwhilly                   12.19                "           4.45
    Barrhill                     12.35                "            5.0
    Pinwherry                    12.43                "            5.8
    Pinmore                      12.56                "           5.18
    Girvan                    {arr. 1.6              1.37         5.28
                              {dep. 1.11             1.42         5.36

"There are opportunities there, too," said Wimsey. "How about the 12.35?
He could catch that easily and go on to Glasgow, and from there he could
get anywhere."

"Ay, that's so. That was what I thocht masel'. I telephoned tae the
station-master at Barrhill, but there was only four passengers by thet
train, an' he knowed them a' pairsonally."

"Oh!" said Wimsey. "I see. That rather puts the lid on that, then."

"Ay. But there's anither thing. I didna rest satisfied wi' that. I
pursued my inquiries at the ither stations along the line an' I found
there was a gentleman wi' a bicycle tuk the 1.11 train at Girvan."

"Was there, by Jove!" Wimsey pulled out his map of the district and
studied it intently.

"It could be done, Dalziel, it could be done! Barrhill is nine miles
from the scene of the crime and Girvan is, say, twelve miles further
on--call it twenty-one miles altogether. If he started at 11.10 that
would give him two hours, which means just over ten miles an hour--easy
enough for a good cyclist. Was the train punctual, by the way?"

"It was. Ay, he could ha' done it."

"Did the station-master give any description of him?"

"He said that accordin' tae the porter he was juist an ordinary
gentleman of thirty or forty years of age, in a grey suit and a check
cap pu'd weel doon. Clean-shaven, or nearly so, and of middling size,
and he was wearin' big glasses wi' they tinted lenses."

"That's suspicious," said Wimsey. "Would the porter be able to identify
him, do you think?"

"Ay, I'm thinkin' he wad. He said the gentleman spoke like an
Englishman."

"Did he?" Wimsey considered his six suspects. Waters was a Londoner and
spoke standard public-school English. Strachan, though a Scot,
habitually spoke with an English accent, having been educated at Harrow
and Cambridge. He, however, was a noticeably tall man. It could hardly
be he. Gowan was double-tongued; he spoke English with Wimsey and the
broadest Scots with the natives--but then, Gowan's grand silky beard
which had never known a razor was pointed out to visitors as one of the
local sights of Kirkcudbright. Graham was completely Londonised, and his
English would pass muster at Oxford. His astonishing blue eyes were his
one really memorable feature--was this the explanation of the tinted
glasses? Farren--his Scots tongue was unmistakable; nobody, surely,
could mistake him for an Englishman. His whole person was noticeable,
too--the wide, ridgy shoulders, tumbling fair hair and queer, light
eyes, temperish, pouted mouth and heavy jaw. Ferguson, too, was Scottish
in accent, though not in idiom, and in feature might be almost anything.

"Did the gentleman give any particular account of himself?" asked
Wimsey, coming rather suddenly out of his abstraction.

"No, he only got tae the station as the train was standin' at the
platform, but he said somethin' aboot startin' late fra' Ballantrae. He
tuk his ticket for Ayr and the machine was labelled according."

"We may be able to trace that," said Wimsey.

"Ay, that's so. I hae sent an inquiry to Ayr and to Glesga'. They'll
maybe remember 't."

"And maybe not," said Wimsey. "Well, now, Dalziel, I also, as the lady
said, have not been idle."

He produced his list of suspects.

"Mind you," he said, warningly, "this list may not be complete. But we
know the man we are looking for is a painter, which narrows the field
considerably. And all these six people are known to have had it in for
Campbell in one way or another, though some of the motives may seem
pretty inadequate."

The Sergeant peered thoughtfully at the list, and so did Sir Maxwell.
The latter's jurisdiction extended over both Kirkcudbrightshire and
Wigtownshire, and he knew all the artists more or less well, though not
with any great intimacy, his own interests being military and sporting.

"Now," said Wimsey, "two of these people have alibis. Ferguson was duly
seen on to the 9.8 from Gatehouse. He had no bicycle with him, and he
booked to Glasgow. There's a picture exhibition on there, and no doubt
that's what he was making for. Waters also departed for Glasgow by the
8.45 from Kirkcudbright, in company with Miss Selby and Miss Cochran. If
they all met at the show they will prove each other's alibis all right.
Strachan was out all night and came home at lunch-time with a black eye,
and what is more, he is telling lies about it." He gave a brief summary
of his conversations with Strachan and Myra.

"That looks bad," said Dalziel.

"Yes; we mustn't pin all our faith to the cyclist at Girvan, or even to
the mysterious passenger at Pinwherry; they may both be perfectly
genuine travellers. Strachan might quite well have been painting up at
the Minnoch at 11 o'clock and ridden back to Gatehouse by lunch-time.
It's only twenty-seven miles. It would be dangerous, because he might be
recognised, but people who commit murders must take a few risks.
Besides, he might have hidden his car somewhere on the road the day
before, and picked it up on his way back, bringing the bicycle with him.
Did I mention to you, by the way, that there's a bicycle disappeared
from the Anwoth Hotel at Gatehouse?"

Dalziel shook his head.

"It's a case wi' a great number of possibeelities," he said. "Always
supposin' that it is a case. We havena got the doctor's opeenion yet."

"That'll come to-morrow, I suppose?"

"Ay. The maitter has been laid before the Fiscal, and there will be a
post-mortem examination. There's Campbell's sister expectit to-nicht--it
seems she's his only relation--an' they'll maybe wait till she has seen
the corpse, forbye the licht will be better for the doctor in the
mornin'."

                 *        *        *        *        *

After the Sergeant and his companion had gone, Wimsey remained smoking
thoughtfully for some time. He was worried about Waters. He had left him
the night before in a dangerous mood. The last train from Glasgow got in
to Kirkcudbright at 9.00. If Waters had really gone to see the
Exhibition, it was not reasonable to expect him back that night. He
would only have got in to Glasgow at 2.16, and would have had to leave
again at 5.30. Nobody would go all that way in order to spend a bare
three hours in the town. Except, possibly, to establish an alibi. Could
one establish an alibi that way?

Wimsey turned to the time-table again. Kirkcudbright depart 8.45. That
was capable of proof by witnesses. Tarff 8.53, Brig-of-Dee 9.2--nothing
to be done from there, except by car. Castle-Douglas 9.7. That was
different. Castle-Douglas was a junction. From there one might turn back
in the direction of Newton-Stewart. Yes. There was a train. This was
ridiculous, of course, because Waters had travelled with the two women,
but there was no harm in working it out. Castle-Douglas 9.14,
Newton-Stewart 10.22. Wimsey breathed a sigh of relief. If the murderer
had been seen painting at 10 o'clock, that let out Waters. He could not
have got even so far as Newton-Stewart by that time.

But all this depended on the doctor's report. If both Wimsey and he had
been mistaken about the rigor--then it was possible that Campbell
himself had been painting at the Minnoch till five minutes past eleven.
In which case--Wimsey thumbed the time-table again.

In which case a train reaching Newton-Stewart at 10.22 might prove very
handy to an intending murderer--supposing the murderer knew already that
Campbell meant to paint that day at the Minnoch. A car from
Newton-Stewart would bring him to the scene of the crime in twenty
minutes--time enough and to spare. And though Waters had no car, such
things can be hired. There would be a risk, certainly, for in country
districts people know one another, and indeed, who would hire out a
driverless car to a man he did not know, without making careful
inquiries? Yet, if the deposit were big enough, he might take the risk.
It would not do to cross Waters off the list too promptly.

At this point Wimsey cursed himself for a fool. It was as certain as
anything could be that Waters had travelled peacefully to Glasgow under
the eyes of his friends, and would return peacefully with them the next
day.

He looked at his watch. It was not possible, of course, that Waters had
returned by the 9 o'clock train. Still, it would do no harm to go and
see.

He walked along the High Street. There was no light either in Waters'
sitting-room or in his bedroom, both of which faced upon the street. The
landlady would think him daft if he made any more inquiries. There was
Waters' studio--a big converted barn up a turning off the Tongland Road.
If he had come back, he certainly would not be working there at this
hour. Still, when one is restless, any excuse will serve to take a
little walk.

Wimsey made his way past the Castle, up the little flight of steps and
over the green by the harbour. The tide was dropping, and the long
mud-flats of the estuary glimmered faintly in the pale midsummer night.
The yacht that had come in that morning still lay close against the
harbour wall, her spars and rigging making a bold foreground of
interlaced verticals and horizontals against the galumphing curves of
the ugly concrete bridge. Wimsey crossed the open space where the 'buses
congregate by day, plunged down the little alley by the gasworks and
came out past the station on to the Tongland Road.

Crossing the street, he turned off again to the right and found himself
in a happy backwater, with an ancient overshot water-mill, a few
cottages and a wide open space, grassy and forlorn, surrounded by sheds
and derelict out-buildings.

Waters' studio was approached by a little winding path among overgrown
bushes and lush grass. He pushed open the gate and tried the door. It
was locked, and there was no sign of life about the place. The silence
was intense. He heard some small animal move in the grass, the plop,
plopping from the wooden trough over the paddles of the mill-wheel; far
off, somewhere in the town, a dog barked hoarsely.

Wimsey turned to go. As he went, the stony path creaking under his feet,
the door of one of the cottages was flung suddenly open, letting a long
bar of light stream suddenly across the ground. Framed in the door he
saw the silhouette of a woman peering out anxiously into the silvery
darkness.

It occurred to Wimsey suddenly that this was Farren's house, and he
paused, half-decided to stop and speak. But as he hesitated, somebody
laid a hand on the woman's shoulder and drew her in, shutting the door.
There had been something quick and stealthy about the action that
banished Wimsey's plan, half-formed. The second figure had been a man's,
but it was taller and bigger than Farren's. He felt sure that it was not
Farren, and that, if he knocked, the door would not open to his
knocking.




                               CHAPTER VI


                                 FARREN

Sir Maxwell Jamieson was not a man to rush into precipitate action.
Sound and cautious, with a reputation for taciturnity, he preferred to
know exactly where he stood before committing himself to stirring up
scandal by vexatious inquiries. He was not over-pleased to find Wimsey
palpitating on his doorstep the next morning, shortly after breakfast,
when he himself had barely had time to read the paper.

He was too wise to ignore Wimsey and his theories. He knew that Lord
Peter had an uncanny nose for a crime, and that his help was valuable,
but he did not care for this English habit of rushing into situations on
a high tide of chatter and excitement. It was true that Wimsey had shown
a certain amount of tact in coming to him. There was no telephone in
Blue Gate Close, and if Wimsey must have the latest intelligence piping
hot, it was better that he should apply for it in private than
interrogate Sergeant Dalziel over the line in a hotel bar.

But Sir Maxwell was not yet perfectly convinced that there was any
murder to be investigated. All this talk about missing objects and
bicycles was well enough, but it was a small basis on which to rear so
threatening a structure of accusation. Doubtless, if the things were
more carefully searched for, they would be found, and the whole murder
theory would collapse. Certainly, there was that awkward point about the
rigor, but Sir Maxwell, turning over the pages of Taylor and Glaister,
felt convinced that it was not possible to lay down any very exact or
reliable laws about the onset of rigor.

He frowned over Wimsey's list of suspects--a disagreeable document, he
thought, and savouring strongly of the libellous. All these people were
highly respected citizens. Take Gowan, for instance--a leading
inhabitant of Kirkcudbright for over fifteen years, well known and well
liked, in spite of his small vanities and somewhat overbearing manner.
He was wealthy, kept a good house, with an English butler and
housekeeper, and owned two cars, with a chauffeur to drive them when
required. Was it likely that he would be found knocking his
fellow-artists on the head and tumbling them into salmon-rivers in the
neighbouring county? What possible motive could he have for it? There
had been talk of some disagreement about a picture, but, in Sir
Maxwell's experience, artists frequently disagreed about pictures, with
no more consequences than a little cold-shouldering or the formation of
a clique. Waters, again--a pleasant young man enough, though inclined to
irritate his neighbours by his South-country mannerisms. It was
unfortunate that he should have fallen out with Campbell, but surely he
was not the man to harbour murderous resentment for a hasty word spoken
over a drink. And Farren----

Sir Maxwell paused there, in justice to Wimsey. Where women were
concerned, you never knew. Campbell had been rather a frequent visitor
at the cottage by the old mill. It was said--there had been
talk--threats had been uttered. If there was anything in it, there might
be some difficulty in getting at the truth here. Farren's suspicions had
probably been quite unfounded, for one could hardly look at Mrs. Farren
and believe evil of her. Still, wives will tell lies and provide alibis,
even for the most unreasonable of husbands, and indeed, the more
virtuous the wife, the more obstinate the liar, under such conditions.
With considerable discomfort, Sir Maxwell admitted to himself that he
could not undertake to say that the Farrens were, in the nature of
things, clear of all suspicion.

Then of course there were those people over at Gatehouse. Jock Graham--a
harum-scarum, word-and-a-blow fellow if ever there was one. Clever, too.
If it came to picking the man with the brains to plan an ingenious crime
and the coolness to carry it through, then Graham was the man for his
money, every time. Graham had had plenty of practice in the execution of
practical jokes, and he could tell a circumstantial lie, looking you
square in the eyes with the face of an angel. Ferguson was notoriously
on bad terms with his wife. Sir Maxwell knew nothing else to his
disadvantage, but he noted it, in his upright Presbyterian mind, as a
discreditable fact. Strachan--well, Strachan was secretary of the
golf-club and weel-respectit. Surely Strachan, like Gowan, could be
ruled out.

The telephone rang. Wimsey pricked up his ears. Sir Maxwell raised the
receiver with irritating deliberation. He spoke; then turned to Wimsey.

"It's Dalziel. You had better listen in on the extension."

"Is't you, Sir Maxwell? ... Ay, we have the doctor's report.... Ay, it
supports the theory of murder richt eneugh. There was nae water in the
lungs at a'. The mon was deid before he got intae the burn. 'Twas the
scart on the heid that did it. The bone is a' crushed intae the brain.
Och, ay, the wound was made before death, and he must ha' deid almost
immediately. There's a wheen mair blows to the heid an' body, but the
doctor thinks some o' them will ha' been made after death, wi' the body
pitchin' doon the burnside an' washin' aboot amang the stanes."

"What about the time of the death?"

"Ay, Sir Maxwell, I was juist comin' to that. The doctor says Campbell
will ha' been deid at least six hours when he first saw the body, an'
mair likely twelve or thirteen. That'll pit the time o' the murder in
the late nicht or the airly mornin'--at ony rate between midnicht and
nine o'clock. And a verra suspeecious an' corroboratin' circumstance is
that the man had nae food in his wame at a'. He was kilt before he had
ta'en ony breakfast."

"But," said Wimsey, cutting in on the conversation, "if he had had his
breakfast early, it might have passed out of the stomach before
lunch-time."

"Ay, that's so. But it wadna ha' passed oot o' him a'tegither. The
doctor says his interior was as toom as a drum, an' he will stake his
professional credit he hadna eaten onything sin' the previous nicht."

"Well, he ought to know," said Wimsey.

"Ay, that's so. That's his lordship speakin', is't no? Your lordship
will be gratified by this support for our theory."

"It may be gratifying," said Jamieson, "but I wish very much it hadn't
happened."

"That's so, Sir Maxwell. Still, there's little doot it has happened and
we maun du the best we can by it. There is another remarkable
circumstance, an' that is that we can find no recognisable finger-prints
upon the artistic paraphernalia, and it has the appearance as if the
user of them had been doin' his pentin' in gloves. An' the
steerin'-wheel o' the car is wiped as clean as a whistle. Ay, I'm
thinking the case is weel substantiated. Is it your opeenion, Sir
Maxwell, that we should mak' the fact o' the murder public?"

"I hardly know, Sergeant. What do you think yourself? Have you consulted
with Inspector Macpherson?"

"Weel, sir, he thinks we maun gie some gude reason for makin' our
inquiries ... Ay, we'll best gae cannily aboot it, but there's folk
talkin' a'ready aboot the quarrel wi' Waters ... ay, an' wi' Farren ...
ay ... ay ... an' there's a story about Strachan bein' over in Creetown
the nicht of the crime speirin' after Farren.... I doot we'll no be able
to keep the thing hushed up."

"I see. Well, perhaps we had better let it be known that there is a
possibility of foul play--that we are not quite satisfied, and so on.
But you'd better not tell anybody what the doctor says about the time of
the death. I'll be over presently and have a word with the Fiscal. And
meanwhile I'll get the Kirkcudbright police on to making a few
inquiries."

"Ay, sir, 'twill be best for them to sort it their end. I've a report
here fra' Stranraer I'll hae to deal wi' masel'. They've detained a
young fellow that was boardin' the Larne boat ... ay, weel, I'll ring ye
again later, Sir Maxwell."

The Chief Constable hung up the receiver, and confronted Wimsey with a
dour smile.

"It certainly looks as though you were right," he admitted reluctantly.
"But," he added, more cheerfully, "now that they've traced the man at
Stranraer, it will probably all be cleared up this morning."

"Maybe," said Wimsey, "but I rather doubt whether the man who fixed that
accident up so cleverly would be fool enough to give himself away by
making a belated bolt to Ireland. Don't you?"

"That's a fact," said Jamieson. "If he'd wanted to escape he could have
taken yesterday morning's boat. And if he wanted to play the innocent,
he could do it better at home."

"H'm!" said Wimsey. "I think, you know, the time has come to talk of
many things with Farren and Gowan and Waters--only he's
disappeared--and, in fact, with all the good people of Kirkcudbright. A
little tactful gossip, Sir Maxwell, by a cheerful, friendly, inquisitive
bloke like myself, may do wonders in a crisis. Nothing unusual in my
making my morning round of the studios, is there? Nobody minds me. Why,
bless you, I've got some of 'em so tame, they'll let me sit round and
watch 'em paint. An official personage like you might embarrass them,
don't you know, but there's no dignity about me. I'm probably the least
awe-inspiring man in Kirkcudbright. I was born looking foolish and every
day in every way I am getting foolisher and foolisher. Why, even you,
Chief, let me come here and sit round on your official chairs and smoke
a pipe and look on me as nothing more than an amiable nuisance--don't
you?"

"There may be something in what you say," agreed Jamieson, "but you'll
be discreet, mind. There's no need to mention the word murder."

"None whatever," said Wimsey. "I'll let them mention it first. Well,
toodle-oo!"

Wimsey may not have been an awe-inspiring person to look at, but his
reception at Farren's house did not altogether justify his boast that
"nobody marked him." The door was opened by Mrs. Farren who, at sight of
him, fell back against the wall with a gasp which might have been merely
of surprise but sounded more like alarm.

"Hullo!" said Wimsey, breezing cheerily over the threshold, "how are
you, Mrs. Farren? Haven't seen you for an age--well, since Friday night
at Bobbie's, but it seems like an age. Is everything bright and
blooming? Where's Farren?"

Mrs. Farren, looking like a ghost painted by Burne-Jones in one of his
most pre-Raphaelite moments, extended a chill hand.

"I'm very well, thank you. Hugh's out. Er--won't you come in?"

Wimsey, who was already in, received this invitation in his heartiest
manner.

"Well--that's very good of you. Sure I'm not in the way? I expect you're
cooking or something, aren't you?"

Mrs. Farren shook her head and led the way into the little sitting-room
with the sea-green and blue draperies and the bowls of orange marigolds.

"Or is it scarves this morning?" Mrs. Farren wove hand-spun wool in
rather attractive patterns. "I envy you that job, you know. Sort of Lady
of Shalott touch about it. The curse is come upon me, and all that sort
of thing. You promised one day to let me have a twirl at the wheel."

"I'm afraid I'm being lazy to-day," said Mrs. Farren, with a faint
smile. "I was just--I was only--excuse me one moment."

She went out, and Wimsey heard her speaking to somebody at the back of
the house--the girl, no doubt, who came in to do the rough work. He
glanced round the room, and his quick eye noted its curiously forlorn
appearance. It was not untidy, exactly; it told no open tale of tumult;
but the cushions were crushed, a flower or two here and there was
wilted; there was a slight film of dust on the window-sill and on the
polished table. In the houses of some of his friends this might have
meant mere carelessness and a mind above trifles like dust and disorder,
but with Mrs. Farren it was a phenomenon full of meaning. To her, the
beauty of an ordered life was more than a mere phrase; it was a dogma to
be preached, a cult to be practised with passion and concentration.
Wimsey, who was imaginative, saw in those faint traces the witness to a
night of suspense, a morning of terror; he remembered the anxious figure
at the door, and the man--yes. There had been a man there, too. And
Farren was away. And Mrs. Farren was a very beautiful woman, if you
liked that style of thing, with her oval face and large grey eyes and
those thick masses of copper-coloured hair, parted in the middle and
rolled in a great knot on the nape of the neck.

A step passed the window--Jeanie, with a basket on her arm. Mrs. Farren
came back and sat down in a high, narrow-backed chair, looking out and
past him like a distressed beggar-maid beginning to wonder whether
Cophetua was not something of a trial in family life.

"And where," said Wimsey, with obtuse tactlessness, "has Farren
disappeared to?"

The large eyes shadowed suddenly with fear or pain.

"He's gone out--somewhere."

"The gay dog," said Wimsey. "Or is he working?"

"I--don't quite know." Mrs. Farren laughed. "You know what this place
is. People go off, saying they'll be back to dinner, and then they meet
a man, or somebody says the fish are rising somewhere, and that's the
last you see of them."

"I know--it's shameful," said Wimsey, sympathetically. "Do you mean he
didn't even come home to his grub?"

"Oh--I was only speaking generally. He was home to dinner all right."

"And then barged out afterwards, saying he wanted some Gold Flakes and
would be back in ten minutes, I suppose. It's disheartening, isn't it,
the way we behave. I'm a shocking offender myself, though my conscience
is fairly easy. After all, Bunter is paid to put up with me. It's not as
though I had a devoted wife warming my slippers and looking out of the
front-door every five minutes to see if I'm going to turn up."

Mrs. Farren drew in her breath sharply.

"Yes, it's terrible, isn't it?"

"Terrible. No, I mean it. I do think it's unfair. After all, one never
knows what may happen to people. Look at poor Campbell."

This time there was no doubt about it. Mrs. Farren gave a gasp of terror
that was almost a cry; but she recovered herself immediately.

"Oh, Lord Peter, do tell me, what really _has_ happened? Jeanie came in
with some dreadful story about his being killed. But she gets so
excited, and talks such broad Scotch that I really couldn't make it
out."

"It's a fact, I'm afraid," said Wimsey, soberly. "They found him lying
in the Minnoch yesterday afternoon, with his head bashed in."

"With his head bashed in? You don't mean----"

"Well, it's difficult to say quite how it happened. The river is full of
rocks just there, you see----"

"Did he fall in?"

"It looks like it. He was in the water. But he wasn't drowned, the
doctor says. It was the blow on the head that did it."

"How dreadful!"

"I wonder you hadn't heard about it before," said Wimsey. "He was a
great friend of yours, wasn't he?"

"Well--yes--we knew him very well." She stopped, and Wimsey thought she
was going to faint. He sprang up.

"Look here--I'm afraid this has been too much of a shock for you. Let me
get some water."

"No--no----" She flung out a hand to restrain him, but he had already
darted across the passage into the studio, where he remembered to have
seen a tap and a sink. The first thing he noticed there was Farren's
sketching-box, standing open on the table, the paints scattered about
and the palette flung down higgledy-piggledy among them. An old
painting-coat hung behind the door, and Wimsey inspected it inside and
out with some care, but seemed to find nothing in it worthy of
attention. He filled a cup at the tap, with his eyes roving about the
room. The studio-easel stood in its place with a half-finished canvas
upon it. The small sketching-easel was propped against the sink,
strapped up. Farren had not gone out to paint, evidently.

The water, splashing on his hand, reminded him of what he was supposed
to be there for. He wiped the cup and turned to leave the studio. As he
did so, he caught sight of Farren's fishing-tackle standing in the
corner behind the door. Two trout-rods, a salmon-rod, net, gaff, creel
and waders. Well, there might be a fourth rod, of course, and one can
fish without creel or waders. But, standing there so quietly, the things
had a look of settled completeness.

He returned to the sitting-room. Mrs. Farren waved the cup impatiently
aside.

"Thank you--I don't need it. I told you I didn't. I'm quite all right."
Her worried and sleepless eyes belied her. Wimsey felt that he was being
a brute, but somebody would be asking questions soon enough. As well he
as the police, he thought.

"Your husband ought to be here soon," he said. "The news will be all
over the country by now. It's surprising, really, he hasn't got back
already. You don't know at all where he is?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"I mean, I'd gladly take a message or do anything of that sort."

"Why should you? Thank you all the same. But really, Lord Peter, you
talk as though the death were in my family. We knew Mr. Campbell very
well, of course, but after all, there's no reason for me to be so
prostrated as all that.... I'm afraid I may sound callous----"

"Not at all. I only thought you looked a bit upset. I'm very glad you're
not. Perhaps I misunderstood----"

"Perhaps you did," she said in an exhausted voice. Then she seemed to
gather up her spirits a little, and turned upon him almost eagerly.

"I was sorry for Mr. Campbell. He was a bitterly unpopular man, and he
felt that more than people ever realised. He had a perpetual grudge
against everybody. That's unattractive. And the more you hate everybody
for hating you, the more unattractive you grow and the more they go on
hating you. I understood that. I didn't like the man. One couldn't. But
I tried to be fair. I daresay people did misunderstand. But one can't
stop doing what's right because people misunderstand, can one?"

"No," said Wimsey. "If you and your husband----"

"Oh," she said, "Hugh and I understood one another." Wimsey nodded. She
was lying, he thought. Farren's objections to Campbell had been
notorious. But she was the kind of woman who, if once she set out to
radiate sweetness and light, would be obstinate in her mission. He
studied the rather full, sulky mouth and narrow, determined forehead. It
was the face of a woman who would see only what she wished to see--who
would think that one could abolish evils from the world by pretending
that they were not there. Such things, for instance, as jealousy or
criticism of herself. A dangerous woman, because a stupid woman. Stupid
and dangerous, like Desdemona.

"Well, well," he said lightly. "Let's hope the truant will turn up soon.
He promised to show me some of his stuff. I'm very keen to have a look
at it. I daresay I shall meet him as I buzz about the country. On his
bike, as usual, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, he's got his bicycle with him."

"I think there are more bicycles per head of the population in
Kirkcudbright than in any town I ever struck," said Wimsey.

"That's because we're all so hardworking and poor."

"Just so. Nothing is so virtuous as a bicycle. You can't imagine a
bicyclist committing a crime, can you?--except of course, murder or
attempted murder."

"Why murder?"

"Well, the way they rush about in gangs on the wrong side of the road
and never have any brakes or bells or lights. I call it murder, when
they nearly have you into the ditch. Or suicide."

He jumped to his feet with an exclamation of concern. This time Mrs.
Farren had really fainted.




                              CHAPTER VII


                                 GRAHAM

Lord Peter Wimsey, having rendered first aid to Mrs. Farren, left her
comfortably reclining on the couch in the sitting-room and went in
search of Jeanie. He discovered her in the fishmonger's and dispatched
her home with the tidings that her mistress was unwell.

"Ay," said Jeanie, philosophically, "I'm no surprised. She's troubled in
her mind aboot Mr. Farren. And nae wonder, wi' him mekkin' a' that
disturbance and gaein' aff that gate an' never comin' back for twa
nichts."

"Two nights?" said Wimsey.

"Ay. Nicht before last it was he went aff on his bicycle, swearin'
somethin' awfu' an' nae ward tae say whaur he was gaein' nor what he was
gaein' to du."

"Then he wasn't at home last night for dinner?"

"Him? Hame for's denner? 'Deed no, nor ony time o' the day. Monday nicht
it was he come back an' fund Campbell i' the hoose an' sent him packin',
an' after that there was sic a collie-shangie it nigh frighted my
brither's wife into a fit an' her verra near her time, tu. An' oot he
gaes and away, wi' Mistress Farren runnin' oot o' the door after him wi'
the tears fallin' doon her cheeks. I dinna ken for why she takes on so
aboot the man. I'd let him gae an' be daumed tae him, wi' his jealousies
an' his tempers."

Wimsey began to see why Jeanie had been sent out on an errand in such a
hurry. It was foolish, though, for nobody could expect the girl to hold
her tongue over so fine a piece of gossip. Sooner or later, the tale
would have come out to somebody. Even now he observed that curious
glances were following them down the street.

He asked a few more questions. No, Jeanie's brother's wife could not say
exactly what the quarrel was about, but she had witnessed it from her
bedroom window. Mr. Campbell had been in about 6 o'clock, and then Mr.
Farren had come in and Mr. Campbell had gone away almost immediately.
She could not say there had been any dispute between Farren and
Campbell. But then Mr. and Mrs. Farren had talked about an hour in the
sitting-room and Mr. Farren had walked about the room and waved his
hands a great deal, and Mrs. Farren had cried. Then there had been a
shouting and a kind of a skelloch, and Mr. Farren had run out of the
door cramming his hat over his eyes, and had snatched up his bicycle.
And Mrs. Farren had run out to stop him and he had shaken her roughly
off and ridden away. Nor had he been home syne, for Jeanie's brother's
wife had kept a look-out for him, being interested to see what might
happen.

That was Monday and this was Wednesday; and on the Tuesday, Campbell had
been found dead up at the Minnoch.

Wimsey said good-bye to Jeanie, with a caution against talking too much
about her employers' affairs, and turned in the direction of the
police-station. Then he changed his mind. No need to make trouble before
it was wanted. There might be other developments. It would not be a bad
idea to run over to Gatehouse. There was a question he wanted to ask
Mrs. Green who did the charing for Campbell. Also, something might have
been found at Campbell's house--letters, papers or what-not. In any
case, a wee run in the car would do him no harm.

Passing over the bridge at Gatehouse, with these intentions, he was
arrested by the sight of a tall man standing outside the Anwoth Hotel in
conference with the local constable. The man, who was very shabbily
dressed in an ancient burberry, dilapidated plus-fours, disreputable
boots and leggings and a knapsack, waved a hand in violent greeting.
Wimsey pulled up with reckless haste, nearly slaying the hotel cat, and
waved violently back.

"Hullo--ullo--ullo!" he cried. "Where d'you spring from, you old
ruffian?"

"That's just what everybody seems anxious to know," said the untidy man,
extending a large, raw-boned hand. "I don't seem to be allowed to go
away on a little private matter without a hue and cry. What's it all
about?"

Wimsey glanced at the constable, who shook his head mysteriously.

"Having received orders," he began, "to make an inquiry----"

"But you haven't received orders to make a mystery, have you?" said the
untidy man. "What's the matter? Am I supposed to have committed a crime?
What is it? Drunk and disorderly, eh? or riding a push-bike without a
tail-light? or driving to the public danger, or what?"

"Weel, now, Mr. Graham, sir--in the matter of the bicycle, I wad be glad
to know----"

"Not guilty this time," said Mr. Graham, promptly. "And in any case
borrowing isn't stealing, you know."

"Have you been borrowing push-bikes?" asked Wimsey, with interest. "You
shouldn't. It's a bad habit. Push-bikes are the curse of this country.
Their centre of gravity is too high, for one thing, and their brakes are
never in order."

"I know," said Mr. Graham, "it's shameful. Every bicycle I borrow is
worse than the last. I often have to speak quite firmly about it. I
nearly broke my neck the other day on young Andy's."

"Oh!" said the landlord, who had come up during this conversation, "is
ye, is't, Mr. Graham, that's got the lad's bicycle? Ye're welcome eneugh
tae't, I'm no sayin' the contrary, but the lad's been a bit put out, not
knowin' whaur it had disappeared tae."

"It's gone again, has it?" said Mr. Graham. "Well, I tell you it's not
me this time. You can tell Andy I'll never borrow his miserable machine
again till he has the decency to put it in order. And whoever did take
it, God help him, that's all I can say, for he'll probably be found dead
in a ditch."

"That may be, Mr. Graham," said the constable, "but I'd be glad if ye
wad tell me----"

"Damn it!" said Jock Graham. "No, I will not tell you where I've been.
Why should I?"

"Well, it's like this, old dear," said Wimsey. "You may possibly have
heard in your mysterious retreat, that Campbell was found dead in a
river yesterday afternoon."

"Campbell? Good Lord! No, I hadn't heard. Well, well, well. I hope his
sins are forgiven him. What had he done? Taken too many wee halves and
walked over the dock at Kirkcudbright?"

"Well, no. Apparently he had been painting and slipped on the stones and
bashed his head in."

"Bashed his head in? Not drowned, then?"

"No, not drowned."

"Oh! Well, I always told him he was born to be hanged, but apparently
he's got out of it another way. Still, I was right about his not being
drowned. Well, poor devil, there's an end of him. I think we'd better go
in and have one on the strength of it, don't you? Just a little one to
the repose of his soul. He wasn't a man I liked, but I'm sorry in a way
to think I'll never pull his leg again. You'll join us, officer?"

"Thank you, sir, but if ye'd kindly----"

"Leave it to me," murmured Wimsey, jogging the constable's elbow and
following Graham into the bar.

"How have you managed not to hear about it, Jock?" he went on, when the
drinks had been served. "Where have you been hiding the last two days?"

"That's telling. You're as inquisitive as our friend here. I've been
living a retired life--no scandal--no newspapers. But do tell me about
Campbell. When did all this happen?"

"They found the body about 2 o'clock," said Wimsey. "He seems to have
been seen alive and painting at five past eleven."

"They didn't lose much time about it, then. You know, I've often thought
that one might have an accident up in the hills about here and be lost
for weeks. Still, it's a fairly well-frequented spot up there at the
Minnoch--in the fishing season, at any rate. I don't suppose----"

"And how did ye ken, might I ask, sir, that the accident took place up
at the Minnoch?"

Jock Graham stared at the constable's excited face.

"How did I----? Oh-ho! To quote an extremely respectable and
primly-dressed woman I once happened to overhear conversing with a
friend in Theobald's Road, there's bloody more in it than meets the
bloody eye. This anxiety about my whereabouts and this bash on
Campbell's head--do I understand, constable, that I am suspected of
having bashed the good gentleman and tumbled him into the stream like
the outlandish knight in the ballad?"

"Well, not exactly, sir, but as a matter of routine----"

"I see."

"Och, now!" exclaimed the landlord, on whom a light had been slowly
breaking. "Ye're not meanin' tae tell as the puir man was murdered?"

"That's as may be," said the constable.

"He does mean it," said Graham. "I read it in his expressive eye. Here's
a nice thing to happen in a quiet country spot."

"It's a terrible thing," said the landlord.

"Come now, Jock," said Wimsey. "Put us out of our misery. You can see
the suspense is telling on us. How _did_ you know Campbell was up at the
Minnoch?"

"Telepathy," said Graham, with a wide grin. "I look into your minds and
the picture comes before me--the burn full of sharp stones--the steep
slope of granite leading down to it--the brig--the trees and the dark
pool under them--and I say, 'The Minnoch, by Jove!' Perfectly simple,
Watson."

"I didn't know you were a thought-reader."

"It's a suspicious circumstance, isn't it? As a matter of fact, I'm not.
I knew Campbell was going to be up at the Minnoch yesterday because he
told me so."

"He told you so?"

"Told me so. Yes, why not? I did sometimes speak to Campbell without
throwing boots at him, you know. He told me on Monday that he was going
up the next day to paint the bridge. Sketched it out for me, grunting
all the time--you know his way."

Graham pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and set to work on the
bar counter, his face screwed up into a lifelike imitation of Campbell's
heavy jowl and puffed lips, and his hand roughing in outlines with
Campbell's quick, tricky touch. The picture came up before their eyes
with the conjuring quickness of a lightning-sketch at the cinema--the
burn, the trees, the bridge and a mass of bulging white cloud, so like
the actual canvas Wimsey had seen on the easel that he was thoroughly
startled.

"You ought to be making a living by impersonations, Jock."

"That's my trouble. Too versatile. Paint in everybody's style except my
own. Worries the critics. 'Mr. Graham is still fumbling for an
individual style'--that kind of thing. But it's fun. Look, here's
Gowan."

He rubbed out the sketch and substituted a vivid chalk impression of one
of Gowan's characteristic compositions--a grim border-keep, a wide sweep
of coast, a boat in the foreground, with muscular fishermen bending over
their nets.

"Here's Ferguson--one tree with decorative roots, one reflection of same
in water--dim blue distance; in fact, general blues all over--one heap
of stones to hold the composition up. Here's Farren--view of the roofs
of Kirkcudbright complete with Tolbooth, looking like Noah's Ark built
out of nursery bricks--vermilion, Naples yellow,
ultramarine--sophisticated _navet_ and no cast shadows. Waters--'none
of these charlatans take the trouble to draw'--bird's-eye view of a
stone-quarry with every bump identifiable--horse and cart violently
foreshortened at the bottom, to show that he can do it. Bless you"--he
slopped some beer on the counter and wiped the mess away with a ragged
sleeve--"the whole bunch of them have only got one gift between them
that I lack, and that's the single eye, more's the pity. They're
perfectly sincere, I'm not--that's what makes the difference. I tell
you, Wimsey, half those damned portraits people pay me for are
caricatures--only the fools don't know it. If they did, they'd rather
die than sign the cheques."

Wimsey laughed. If Graham was playing for time, he was doing it well. If
he was trying to avert suspicion from his dangerous gift of imitation,
his air of careless frankness could not possibly be better done. And his
explanation was plausible enough--why, indeed, should Campbell not have
mentioned where he was going--to Graham or to anyone?

The constable was registering impatience.

"As a matter of routine," he murmured.

"Oh!" said Mr. Graham. "This lad's one of the bulldog breed."

"Obviously," said Wimsey, "like St. Gengulphus. They cried out, 'Good
gracious! How very tenacious!' It's no good, old man. He means to have
his answer."

"Poor fellow!" said Graham. "Want must be his master, as nurses said in
the good old days before Montessori was heard of. I was not up at the
Minnoch. But where I was is my affair."

"Weel, sir," said the constable, nonplussed. Between the Judges' Rules,
the Royal Commission, his natural disinclination to believe anything
wrong about Mr. Graham, and his anxiety to pull off a coup, he felt his
position to be a difficult one.

"Run along, laddie," said Graham, kindly. "You're only wasting your
time. You've only to look at me to know that I wouldn't hurt a fly. For
all you know, the murderer's escaping while you and I exchange merry
quips over a pint of bitter."

"I understand," said the constable, "that ye refuse cateegoorically tae
state whaur ye were on last Monday nicht."

"Got it at last!" cried Graham. "We're slow but sure in this country,
Wimsey. That's right. I refuse categorically, absolutely, _in toto_ and
entirely. Make a note of it in case you forget it."

The constable did so with great solemnity.

"Ah, weel," he said, "I'll hae tae be reportin' this tae the
authorities."

"Right," said Graham. "I'll have a word with them."

The constable shook his head doubtfully and departed with slow
reluctance.

"Poor devil!" said Graham. "It's a shame to tease him. Have another,
Wimsey?"

Wimsey declined, and Graham took himself off rather abruptly, saying
that he must go down and see to things at his studio.

The landlord of the Anwoth followed him with his eyes.

"What's behind that?" said Wimsey, carelessly.

"Och, it will be some tale or anither," replied the landlord. "He's a
perfect gentleman, is Graham, and a great lad for the leddies."

"Quite so," said Wimsey. "And that reminds me, Rob, I've got a new
limerick for you."

"Have ye noo?" said the landlord, and carefully closed the door between
the inn-parlour and the bar.

Having delivered himself of his limerick and taken his leave, Wimsey
turned his attention again to business. Mrs. Green, the charwoman, lived
in a small cottage at no great distance. She was making bannocks when
Wimsey arrived, but having dusted the flour from her hands and
transferred the bannocks to the girdle, was willing enough to talk about
the sudden death of her gentleman.

Her Scots was broad and her manner excitable, but after putting his
questions two or three times, Wimsey succeeded in understanding her
replies.

"Did Mr. Campbell take any breakfast before he went out on Monday
morning?"

Yes, he did. There had been the remains of some bacon and eggs on the
table and a used tea-pot and cup. Forbye, the loaf and butter had
diminished, by comparison with the previous night, and there had been
slices cut from the ham.

"Was that Mr. Campbell's usual breakfast?"

Ay, fried eggs and bacon were his breakfast, as regular as clockwork.
Two eggs and two rashers, and that was what he had taken that morning,
for Mrs. Green had counted.

"Did Mr. Ferguson eat his breakfast that morning also?"

Yes, Mr. Ferguson had taken a kipper with a cup of coffee. Mrs. Green
had herself brought in a pair of kippers for him on Saturday, and he had
had the one on Sunday morning and the other on Monday morning. There had
been nothing unusual about either cottage, that she could see, and so
she had told the policeman when he called upon her.

Wimsey turned these matters over in his mind as he ran back to
Kirkcudbright. The doctor's report made those two eggs and rashers a
suspicious circumstance. Somebody had breakfasted in Campbell's cottage,
and the person who could do that most easily was Ferguson.
Alternatively, if it was not Ferguson, Ferguson might have seen whoever
it was. Tiresome of Ferguson to have gone off to Glasgow like that.

As for Graham, apparently he had not been at Glen Trool. His silence
might have half a dozen different explanations. "The leddies" was the
most obvious; it would be well, in Graham's own interests, to discover
whether he had any local attachment. Or he might merely have discovered
some remote river, rich in trout, which he wished to keep to himself. Or
he might just be doing it to annoy. One could not tell. Beneath all his
surface eccentricity, Graham was a man who kept his wits about him.
Still, in a country place, where everybody knows everybody, it is
impossible to keep one's movements altogether secret. Somebody would
have seen Graham--that is, if somebody chose to speak. But that was as
doubtful as everything else about the case, for your country-dweller is
a master of pregnant silences.

Wimsey called at Sir Maxwell Jamieson's to make his report about the
eggs and bacon, which was received with an "Ay, imph'm" of the driest
kind. There had been no further news from Dalziel, and he went home,
first calling across the way, only to ascertain that Waters had not yet
returned.

Bunter received him with respectful welcome, but appeared to have
something preying on his mind. On inquiry, however, this turned out to
be merely the discovery that the Scotch were so lost to all sense of
propriety as to call a dish an "ashet"--obviously with the deliberate
intention of confusing foreigners and making them feel like bulls in
china-shops.

Wimsey sympathised and, to take Bunter's mind off this mortifying
experience, mentioned his meeting with Jock Graham.

"Indeed, my lord? I was already apprised of Mr. Graham's reappearance. I
understand, my lord, that he was in Creetown on Monday night."

"Was he, by Jove? How do you know?"

Bunter coughed.

"After the interview with the young person at the china-shop, my lord, I
stepped for a few moments into the McClellan Arms. Not into the public
bar, my lord, but into the bar-parlour adjacent. While there, I
accidentally overheard some persons mention the circumstance in the
bar."

"What sort of persons?"

"Roughly dressed persons, my lord. I apprehend that they might have been
engaged in the fishing-trade."

"Was that all they said?"

"Yes, my lord. One of them unfortunately glanced into the bar-parlour
and discovered my presence, and after that they said nothing further
about the matter."

"Who were they, do you know?"

"I endeavoured to ascertain from the landlord, but he said no more than
that they were a bunch of lads from the harbour."

"Oh! And that's all you ever will hear, I expect. H'm. Did you manage to
see any of them?"

"Only the one who looked in at the door, and him only for a brief
interval. The rest had their backs to the bar door when I emerged, my
lord, and I did not care to appear inquisitive."

"No. Well--Creetown is on the way to Newton-Stewart, but it's a far cry
from there to the Minnoch. Did they mention the time at which they saw
Mr. Graham?"

"No, my lord, but, from the circumstance that they alluded to the number
of drinks he consumed, I apprehend that it would be before
closing-time."

"Ah!" said Wimsey. "An inquiry among the Creetown pubs might settle
that. Very well, Bunter. I think I shall go out and clear my wits with a
round of golf this afternoon. And I'll have a grilled steak and chips at
7.30."

"Very good, my lord."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Wimsey had his round of golf with the Provost, but without much
satisfaction beyond that of beating him five up and three to play. He
deduced from this victory that the Provost was not altogether easy in
his mind, but he failed altogether to draw him on the subject of
Campbell. It was "an unfortunate occurrence," and the Provost thought
that "it might be a wee while before they got to the bottom of it"--and
after that the conversation was firmly led away to the quoiting match at
Gatehouse, the recent regatta at Kirkcudbright, the shortage of salmon
and depredations of poachers in the estuary, and the problems of
sewage-distribution in tidal waters.

At half-past nine, when Wimsey had absorbed his grilled steak and a
rhubarb tart, and was dreaming over some old numbers of _The
Gallovidian_, he was aroused by a clatter of feet upon the cobblestones
of the close. He was just rising to look out of the window, when there
was a knock upon the door, and a cheerful female voice called: "May we
come in?"

Miss Selby and Miss Cochran occupied adjacent cottages and were
continually to be found taking tea in each other's living-rooms or
bathing together on the sands at the Doon. Miss Selby was tall, dark,
rather angular, rather handsome in an uncompromising kind of way and
painted rather good, strong, angular and handsome figure-studies in
oils. Miss Cochran was round, cheerful, humorous and grey-haired; she
illustrated magazine stories in line and wash. Wimsey liked them both,
because they had no nonsense about them, and they liked him for the same
reason, and also because they found Bunter extremely amusing. Bunter was
always distressed to see them cooking their own dinners and putting up
their own curtains. He would step reproachfully to their assistance, and
take the hammer and nails from their hands, with a respectful, "Allow
me, miss"; and would obligingly offer to look after stews and casseroles
during their absence. They rewarded him with gifts of vegetables and
flowers from their garden--gifts which Bunter would receive with a
respectful, "Thank you, miss. His lordship will be greatly obliged."
While Wimsey was greeting his visitors, Bunter now advanced
unobtrusively and inquired, as soon as there was a pause in the
conversation, whether the ladies would take supper after their journey.

The ladies replied that they were quite well-fed, but a little
investigation showed that they had indeed had nothing since tea-time
except a few sandwiches on the train. Wimsey promptly ordered omelettes,
a bottle of claret and the remains of the rhubarb-tart to be brought
forward, and, when Bunter had withdrawn to prepare the feast, said:

"Well, you've missed all the excitement."

"So they told us at the station," said Miss Cochran. "What is it all
about? Is it true that Mr. Campbell is dead?"

"Quite true. He was found in the river----"

"And now they're saying he's been murdered," put in Miss Selby.

"Oh, they're saying that, are they? Well, that's true, too."

"Good gracious!" said Miss Selby.

"And who is it they're saying has done it?" demanded Miss Cochran.

"They don't know yet," said Wimsey, "but there's a kind of an idea that
it was a premeditated job."

"Oh, why?" asked Miss Cochran, bluntly.

"Oh, well, because the symptoms point that way, you know, and there
doesn't seem to have been any robbery from the person, or
anything--and--in fact, several things."

"And in fact you know more than you think you ought to tell us. Well,
it's fortunate we've got an alibi, isn't it, Margaret? We've been in
Glasgow ever since yesterday morning. It was on Tuesday it happened,
wasn't it?"

"It seems so," said Wimsey, "but just to make sure, they are checking up
everybody's whereabouts from Monday night onwards."

"Who's everybody?"

"Well--the people who knew Campbell best, and so on."

"I see. Well, you know we were here on Monday night, because we said
good-night to you when you came in, and we went off by the 8.45
yesterday morning and we've got any amount of witnesses to show that we
were in Glasgow between then and now, so I imagine we're all right.
Besides it would have taken more powerful people than Mary or me to
tackle Mr. Campbell. What a relief to know that we can't possibly be
suspected!"

"No--you two and Waters are out of the running all right, I fancy."

"Oh? Where was Mr. Waters?"

"Wasn't he with you?"

"With us?"

They stared at one another. Wimsey apologised.

"I'm sorry. Mrs. Doings--his landlady, what's her name?--told me Waters
had gone with you two to Glasgow."

"She must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He said on Sunday
evening at Bob Anderson's that he might possibly turn up, but he didn't,
so we thought he'd changed his mind. Anyhow, we didn't really expect
him, did we, Mary?"

"No. But isn't he here, then, Lord Peter?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, he's not," said Wimsey, aghast.

"Oh, well, he must be somewhere," said Miss Cochran, comfortably.

"Naturally," said Wimsey, "but he certainly went off at about 8.30
yesterday morning, saying he was going to Glasgow. Or at least, he seems
to have left that impression behind him."

"Well, he certainly never came to the station," said Miss Selby,
decidedly. "And he wasn't at the show either day, that I could see. But
of course he may have had other fish to fry."

Wimsey scratched his head.

"I must interview that woman again," he said. "I must have misunderstood
her. But it's exceedingly odd. Why should he get up and go out early if
he wasn't going to Glasgow? Especially----"

"Especially what?" said Miss Cochran.

"Well, I shouldn't have expected it," said Wimsey. "He was a bit lit-up
the night before, and as a rule it takes a lot to get Waters out of bed
at the best of times. It's rather unfortunate. Still, we can't do much
till he turns up."

"We?" said Miss Selby.

"The police, I mean," said Wimsey, blushing a little.

"You'll be helping the police, I expect," said Miss Cochran. "I was
forgetting that you had such a reputation as a Sherlock. I'm sorry we
don't seem able to help. You'd better ask Mr. Ferguson. He may have run
across Mr. Waters somewhere in Glasgow."

"Oh, Ferguson was there, was he?"

Wimsey put his question carelessly, but not so carelessly as to deceive
Miss Cochran, who darted a shrewd glance at him.

"Yes, he was there. I believe we can give ye the precise time we saw
him." (As Miss Cochran became more emphatic, she became more Scottish in
her accent. She planted her plump feet squarely on the ground and leaned
forward with a hand on each knee, like an argumentative workman in a
tram.) "That train of ours gets in at 2.16--it's a bad train, stops at
every station, and we'd have done better to wait and take the 1.46 at
Dumfries, only we wanted to meet Margaret's sister Kathleen and her
husband and they were away to England by the 4 o'clock train. They came
to the station to meet us, and we went into the hotel and had a bit of
lunch, for we hadn't had anything since 8 o'clock--there's none served
on that train--and the hotel was as good a place as any to have our bit
of talk in. We saw them off at 4 o'clock, and then we had a little
argument whether we should go straight on to my cousin's where we were
staying, or look in at the Gallery first. I said it was too late to do
anything, but Margaret said it would be a good idea just to go down and
see where they'd hung the different things, and then to come back next
day and have our proper look at them; and I agreed that was a sensible
notion. So we took the tram and we got into the Exhibition just about
half-past four, or a few minutes earlier, and in the first room, whom
should we see but Mr. Ferguson, just coming away. So of course we spoke
to him and he said he'd been through the rooms pretty thoroughly once
and was coming back next day. However, he went round once again with
us."

Wimsey, who had been trying to hold the whole local time-table in his
head and was hurriedly calculating arrivals and departures, broke in at
this point.

"I suppose he really _had_ been through the place already?"

"Oh, yes. He told us beforehand where everything was, and mentioned the
ones he liked. He'd come in on the same train as we did--only I suppose
he would go straight up to the Exhibition."

"On your train--the 2.16. Yes, of course, he would join it at Dumfries.
It leaves there at 11.22, doesn't it? Yes, that's right. Did you see him
at Dumfries?"

"No, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. He'd travel smoking, anyway,
and we made for a nice, old-fashioned Ladies' Compartment, not being
great smokers in confined spaces. Anyhow, he saw us at Glasgow if we
didn't see him, because the first thing he said when we met him was, 'I
saw you at the station, but you didn't see me. Was that Kathleen and her
good man with you?' And then he mentioned that he had been in the same
train."

"Pretty good," said Wimsey. "Well, as you say, we'll have to see
Ferguson--I mean, the police will have to see him."

Miss Cochran shook her head.

"You can't deceive me," she said. "You're in it up to the eyes. If the
truth were told, I dare say you did it yourself."

"No," said Wimsey. "This is about the only murder I couldn't possibly
have committed. I haven't the technical skill."




                              CHAPTER VIII


                                 GOWAN

Inspector Macpherson of Kirkcudbright was one of those painstaking and
unimaginative people for whom no hypothesis is too far-fetched to be
investigated. He liked material clues. He paid no attention to such a
trivial consideration as psychological improbability. The Chief
Constable had put before him the ascertained facts about Campbell's
death, and he saw that they pointed to the guilt of some artist or
other. He liked them. The medical evidence was what he liked best; good,
solid, meaty stuff about rigor and the alimentary canal. The business
about trains and time-tables pleased him too; it lent itself to being
set out in tabular form and verified. The bit about the picture was less
satisfactory: it depended on technical matters which he did not
personally understand, but he was open-minded enough to accept expert
opinion on such matters. He would, for instance, have taken his Cousin
Tom's advice on electricity or his sister Alison's opinion about ladies'
underwear, and he was not unprepared to admit that a gentleman like
Wimsey might know more than he did about artists and their
paraphernalia.

Accordingly, he perceived that all artists were, for his purpose,
suspect, no matter how rich, respectable or mild-mannered they might be,
and whether they were known to have quarrelled with Campbell or not.
Kirkcudbright was his district, and his job was to collect alibis and
information from every artist in Kirkcudbright, young or old, male or
female, virtuous or wicked, indiscriminately. He went about the thing in
a conscientious manner, not omitting Marcus McDonald, who was bedridden,
or Mrs. Helen Chambers, who had only just settled in Kirkcudbright, or
old John Peterson, who was ninety-two, or Walter Flanagan who had
returned from the Great War with an artificial leg. He noted the absence
of Waters and Farren, though he did not get as much out of Mrs. Farren
as Lord Peter had done; and during the afternoon he presented himself at
Mr. Gowan's front-door, notebook in hand and rectitude upon his brow. He
had left Gowan to the last, because it was well-known that Mr. Gowan
worked in the mornings and resented interruptions before lunch, and
Inspector Macpherson had no notion of making difficulties for himself.

The English butler opened the door, and in reply to the Inspector's
inquiry, remarked briefly:

"Mr. Gowan is not at home."

The Inspector explained that his business was official, and again
requested an interview with Mr. Gowan.

The butler replied loftily:

"Mr. Gowan is h'out."

The Inspector begged to know when Mr. Gowan would be in again.

The butler condescended to explain further.

"Mr. Gowan is away."

To the Scottish mind, this expression has not the same finality that it
has to the English mind. The Inspector asked whether Mr. Gowan would be
back that evening.

The butler, driven to be explicit, announced imperturbably:

"Mr. Gowan has gone to London."

"Is that so?" said the Inspector, annoyed with himself for having put
off his visit so long. "When did he go?"

The butler appeared to think this catechism ill-bred, but nevertheless
replied:

"Mr. Gowan left for London on Monday night."

The Inspector was startled.

"At what time on Monday night?"

The butler appeared to undergo a severe internal struggle, but answered,
with great self-control:

"Mr. Gowan took the h'eight forty-five train from Dumfries."

The Inspector thought for a moment. If this was true, it left Gowan out
altogether. But it must, of course, be verified.

"I think," he said, "that I had best step in for a moment."

The butler appeared to hesitate, but, seeing that a number of
inhabitants from the close opposite had come out to stare at the
Inspector and himself, he graciously gave way and let Macpherson in to
the handsome panelled entrance-hall.

"I am investigatin'," said the Inspector, "this maitter o' the death o'
Mr. Campbell."

The butler bowed his head silently.

"I will tell ye, wi'oot circumlocution, that there is mair than a
suspeecion that the puir gentleman was murdered."

"So," said the butler, "I h'understand."

"It is important, ye ken," went on Macpherson, "that we should get all
possible information from those that saw Mr. Campbell of late."

"Quite so."

"And as a matter of routine, ye understand, that we should ken whaur
everybody was at the time the calamity occurred."

"Exactly," said the butler.

"Nae doot," pursued the Inspector, "if Mr. Gowan were at hame, he wad be
anxious tae gie us a' the assistance in his power."

The butler was sure that Mr. Gowan would be only too happy to do so.

The Inspector opened his notebook.

"Your name is Halcock, is't no?" he began.

The butler corrected him.

"H'alcock," he said, reprovingly.

"H, a, double-l?" suggested the Inspector.

"There is no h'aitch in the name, young man. H'ay is the first letter,
and there is h'only one h'ell."

"I beg your pardon," said the Inspector.

"Granted," said Mr. Alcock.

"Weel, noo, Mr. Alcock, juist as a pure formality, ye understand, whit
time did Mr. Gowan leave Kirkcudbright on Monday nicht?"

"It would be shortly after h'eight."

"Whae drove him?"

"Hammond, the chauffeur."

"Ammond?" said the Inspector.

"Hammond," said the butler, with dignity. "H'albert Hammond is his
name--with a h'aitch."

"I beg your pardon," said the Inspector.

"Granted," said Mr. Alcock. "Perhaps you would wish to speak to
Hammond?"

"Presently," said the Inspector. "Can ye tell me whether Mr. Gowan had
seen Mr. Campbell at a' on the Monday?"

"I could not undertake to say."

"Mr. Gowan was friendly with Mr. Campbell?"

"I could not undertake to say."

"Has Mr. Campbell visited at the house recently?"

"Mr. Campbell has never visited at this house to my knowledge."

"Indeed? Imph'm." The Inspector knew as well as Mr. Alcock that Gowan
held himself very much aloof from the rest of the artistic population,
and seldom invited anybody except for a stately bridge-party now and
again, but he felt it his duty to put these questions officially. He
ploughed on conscientiously.

"Noo, I'm only juist checkin' up on this maitter, ye ken, wi' a' Mr.
Campbell's acquaintances. Can ye tell me what Mr. Gowan did on the
Monday?"

"Mr. Gowan rose at 9 o'clock according to custom and breakfasted at
9.30. He then took a turn in the garden and retired to his studio in the
customary manner. He partook of luncheon at the usual time, 1.30.
H'after luncheon, he was again engaged on his h'artistic pursuits till 4
o'clock, when tea was served in the library."

The butler paused.

"Ay?" said the Inspector, encouragingly.

"H'after tea," went on the butler, more slowly, "he went out for a run
in the two-seater."

"Did Hammond drive him?"

"No. When Mr. Gowan takes the two-seater, he is accustomed to drive
himself."

"Ah? Ay. Whaur did he go?"

"I could not undertake to say."

"Weel, when did he return?"

"At about 7 o'clock."

"And then?"

"Mr. Gowan then made the h'observation that he had decided to go to town
that night."

"Had he said anything aboot that airlier?"

"No. Mr. Gowan is in the habit of making occasional journeys to town."

"Without previous notice?"

The butler bowed.

"It didna strike ye as unusual in any way?"

"Certainly not."

"Ay, imph'm. Did he dine before leaving?"

"No. I understood Mr. Gowan to say that he would be dining on the
train."

"On the train? Ye say he took the 8.45 from Dumfries?"

"So I was given to understand."

"But, man, are ye no aware that the 8.45 disna mak' ony connection wi'
London? It arrives in Carlisle at 9.59, which is verra late tae get
dinner, and after that there's nae train tae London till five meenuts
past twelve. Wherefore did he no tak' his dinner here an' catch the 11.8
at Dumfries?"

"I could not undertake to say. Mr. Gowan did not h'inform me. Possibly
Mr. Gowan had some business to transact at Carlisle."

The Inspector gazed at Mr. Alcock's large, white, imperturbable face,
and said:

"Ay, that may be. Did Mr. Gowan say how long he would be away?"

"Mr. Gowan mentioned that he might be h'absent for a week or ten days."

"Did he give you any address?"

"He desired that letters should be forwarded to his club."

"And that is?"

"The Mahlstick, in Piccadilly."

The Inspector made a note of the address, and added:

"Have ye heard from Mr. Gowan since his departure?"

The butler raised his eyebrows.

"No." He paused, and then went on less frigidly. "Mr. Gowan would not
write unless he had occasion to mention any special h'instructions."

"Ay, that's so. Then so far as ye ken, Mr. Gowan is at this moment in
London."

"For all I know to the contrary, he is."

"Imph'm. Weel, noo--I wad like tae speak a word wi' Hammond."

"Very good." Mr. Alcock rang the bell, which was answered by a young and
rather pretty maid.

"Betty," said Mr. Alcock, "h'inform Hammond that his presence is
required by the H'Inspector."

"Juist a moment," said Macpherson. "Betty, ma lass, whit time did Mr.
Gowan leave here o' Monday nicht?"

"Aboot 8 o'clock, sir," said the girl, quickly, with a little glance at
the butler.

"Did he dine before he went?"

"I--I canna juist charge ma memory, sir."

"Come, my girl," said Mr. Alcock, magisterially, "surely you can
remember that. There's nothing to be frightened about."

"N-n-no, Mr. Alcock."

"No," said Mr. Alcock. "You are quite sure about that. Mr. Gowan did not
dine at home on Monday?"

"No."

Mr. Alcock nodded.

"Then run and give Hammond my message--unless the Inspector wants to ask
you anything further?"

"No," said Macpherson.

"Has--onything happened?" asked Betty, tremulously.

"Nothing whatever, nothing whatever," replied the butler. "The Inspector
is just making some routine inquiries, as I understand. And, Betty, just
you give that message to Hammond and come straight back. No stopping and
chattering. The Inspector has his work to get through, same as you and
me."

"Yes--I mean, no, Mr. Alcock."

"A good girl," said the butler, as Betty ran out, "but slow in the
uptake, if you understand me."

"Imph'm," said Inspector Macpherson.

Hammond, the chauffeur, was a small, perky man, mongrel in speech, but
betraying a strong streak of the fundamental cockney. The Inspector
reeled off his preliminary speech about routine inquiries, and then came
to the point.

"Did ye drive Mr. Gowan onywhere on Monday last?"

"That's right. Drove 'im ter Dumfries."

"What time?"

"Eight o'clock for the 8.45."

"In the two-seater?"

"Naow, in the saloon."

"What time did Mr. Gowan come in wi' the two-seater?"

"'Baht a quarter past seven, might be earlier, might be later. I was
'avin' me supper at 'alf-past seven, and the Riley was in the garridge
w'en I come back there."

"Did Mr. Gowan tak' ony luggage wi' him?"

"Bit of a bag, like. One 'er they 'tashy cases--'baht so long."

He indicated a spread of about two feet.

"Ay, imph'm. Did ye see him get into the train?"

"Naow. 'E walked into the station and told me ter cut along 'ome."

"What time was that?"

"Eight thirty-five as near as makes no difference."

"And ye cam' straight back tae Kirkcudbright?"

"Sure thing. Naow. Wait a mo. I brought a parcel o' stuff back with me."

"Ay? An' whit stuff wad that be?"

"Two pictures of Mr. Gowan's, what belonged to a gentleman in Dumfries.
The boss didn't want 'em sent by train, so I picked 'em up at the house.
They was all done up waitin' to be collected."

"Ye went tae this hoose after ye had left Mr. Gowan at the station?"

"That's right. Gentleman name of Phillips. Want 'is address?"

"Ay--ye may as weel gie't me."

The chauffeur gave it.

"Did Mr. Gowan mek ony mention o' whaur he was gaein'?"

"'E only said 'e wanted ter catch the train for Carlisle.'"

"Carlisle?"

"That's right."

"He didna say for London?"

"Not ter me. Train for Carlisle, 'e says."

"Ay--and when did he first gi' ye the order?"

"Mr. Alcock comes down w'en I was 'avin' me supper, and says Mr. Gowan
wanted the saloon round at 8 o'clock ter tike 'im ter Dumfries. And I
says, 'Right-oh!' I says, 'an' I can pick up them there pitchers at the
same time.' That's what I says and that's what I done."

"Ay, verra guid. That's quite clear. Thank you, Mr. Hammond. This is
naething at a', ye understand, but juist a simple formality."

"Thet's all right. Finni?"

"What's that?"

"I says, finni? meaning, is that O.K.? complet? 'ave yer done?"

"Oo, ay, there's nae mair I'll be wantin' from ye at the moment."

"Well, cheerio, then," said the chauffeur.

"Did you wish to see Mrs. Alcock?" inquired the butler, politely, but
with the air of one prepared to endure all things.

"Och, no--I'm thinkin' it'll no be necessary. Thank ye verra much, Mr.
Alcock."

"Don't mention it," said the butler. "I trust that you will soon have
the miscreant by the heels. Very happy to have been of use, I am sure.
There are two steps h'up to the front door. A beautiful h'evening, is it
not? Reelly, the sky is quite a poem. Good h'evening, Inspector."

"A' the same," said the Inspector to himself, "it'll no be amiss tae
make inquiries at Dumfries. They'll no have forgotten Gowan, wi' his big
black beard. It's a queer thing he should suddenly be wantin' tae spend
twa-three hours in Carlisle waitin' for a train tae London. He micht
verra weel ha' hired anither car tae fetch him hame."

He considered a little, as he wandered thoughtfully towards the
police-station.

"Forbye," he continued, "yon lassie didna seem juist sae ready wi' her
replies as they twa."

He pushed back his cap and scratched his head.

"Nae maitter," said he, cheerfully, "I'll sort it yet."




                               CHAPTER IX


                              MRS. McLEOD

Things were lively in the Close that night. Wimsey had escorted his
visitors to their doors, and was thinking of turning in, when the sudden
opening of the blue gate and the cries of a fellow-creature entangled
and in pain urged him to go to the assistance of the Chief Constable,
who had become involved with the bicycles in the narrow passage.

"I don't mind telling you," said Sir Maxwell, when at length he was
safely seated in Wimsey's armchair and comforted with Scotch, "that I am
greatly disturbed about all this business. If I could see any clear line
to follow up, it would be more satisfactory. Even supposing that your
list of suspects comprises the whole of the possibilities (which at
present, mark you, I am not disposed to grant)--even then, I simply do
not know where to start an inquiry. That one or two of them should have
no good alibis is only what one might expect--but that practically all
of them should be open to suspicion really bewilders me."

"Dear me!" said Wimsey.

"Graham and Strachan," went on the Chief Constable, "were both out all
night, as you know, and have no explanations. Ferguson appears, from
what you say, to be all right, but he has not been interrogated yet, and
really, after to-day's experiences, I am beginning to doubt whether
anybody's movements will bear investigation. Farren's disappearance is
so suspicious that, if it were not for the extraordinary behaviour of
the rest, I should get out a warrant for him straight away. Gowan----"

"Surely not Gowan, too?"

"Gowan has gone to England, and there are points in Inspector
Macpherson's report----"

"I haven't heard that yet."

"No." The Chief Constable gave the gist of the Inspector's interview
with the servants, and resumed:

"There are undoubtedly points there that need looking into. And now
comes a most infernal business about Waters."

"Unbosom yourself," said Wimsey. "Trouble shared is trouble halved."

"Well," said Sir Maxwell, "when Waters didn't turn up to-day with the
ladies yonder, Inspector Macpherson made a few further inquiries of Mrs.
McLeod, who seems to have misled you--though, I think and hope,
unintentionally. And these inquiries brought to light a very remarkable
circumstance.

"Apparently Waters did ask to be called early on the Tuesday morning and
did make the remark that he rather thought of going to Glasgow. On the
Monday night, Mrs. McLeod heard him come in with you and go up to bed.
Then you went out again. She puts this at about 10.30. Is that right?"

"Meaning, did I leave about 10.30? Yes, that's near enough."

"Well, then, some time between 11 and midnight, Mrs. McLeod heard
somebody throwing pebbles at Waters' bedroom window. Her room is next
but one to his, and they both look out on the High Street. She looked
out, and saw a man down below. She couldn't make him out very well, but
he seemed to be shortish and broad, well wrapped up in an overcoat and
muffler. She was just going to shout down and tell him to shut up, when
Waters' window opened, and she heard Waters say angrily:

"'What the devil do you want?'

"The man in the street said something which she did not catch, and then
Waters said:

"'Well, don't make that blasted row. I'm coming down.'

"She then leaned out a little further and saw a four-seater car standing
a few yards down the street. Waters came down presently in some sort of
outdoor togs--a sweater and trousers, she thinks--and he and the man
went into Waters' sitting-room. They talked there for a bit, and Mrs.
McLeod went back to bed. Presently she heard somebody run up to Waters'
bedroom and down again, and the front door was opened and shut. Mrs.
McLeod looked out once more, and saw both men climb into the car and
move off. In about three-quarters of an hour--being thoroughly wakened
up by that time--she heard the door open softly again, and footsteps
tiptoeing up the stairs into Waters' bedroom.

"Nothing more happened after that, and at 7.30 she knocked on Waters'
door as arranged, with his shaving-water, and at 8 o'clock she put his
breakfast in the sitting-room. She then went out to the back of the
house to do some household work, and at 8.20, when she came in again,
Waters had eaten a sketchy sort of breakfast and gone.

"Now, there are two more interesting points. First of all, Waters
went--ostensibly to see an exhibition in Glasgow--in an old sweater, a
pair of grey flannel bags, tennis-shoes and an old burberry. And
secondly, he took his bicycle with him."

"What?" cried Wimsey.

"He took his bicycle with him. Or rather, to be accurate, his bicycle,
which stands just inside the front door, was there on the Monday night
and was gone at 8.20. The presumption is that Waters took it."

"Good Lord!"

"What do you make of that?" demanded the Chief Constable.

"What you want me to make of it," said Wimsey, slowly, "is that the man
in the street was Campbell, come back to finish out his row with Waters.
That they went off together to fight it out. That in the row, Campbell
got his head bashed in. That Waters then concealed the body somewhere.
That he came home, in order to look as ordinary as possible. That he
then thought out a plan of concealment, and that next morning he went
off at the time previously appointed, put the body and the bicycle in
Campbell's car, and hared off to the Minnoch to fake the accident."

"Can you make anything else of it?"

"I _might_ make fifty things," said Wimsey, "but--not to practise any
mean concealment, I will admit that the circumstances seem to fit the
crime. Except, perhaps, for one point."

"Yes, I thought of that. What did he do with the body between midnight
and 8 a.m.?"

"No," said Wimsey. "No--I see no difficulty about that. All he had to do
was to put the body in the car and run it along to his studio. There is
plenty of open space there where people often stand cars and carts, and
nobody would take any notice of an old car with junk in it, covered with
a rug. It's not as if he'd left it in Piccadilly Circus. People leave
cars in the street all night in this place, and nobody bothers. No,
that's not what's puzzling me."

"Well?"

"Well! if all that is true, where is Waters? He ought to have been here
yesterday, blatantly establishing his entire innocence. What's the good
of concocting an elaborate fake like that, and then drawing suspicion on
yourself by running away?"

"Perhaps he got cold feet when he'd done it. Anyhow, your objection
applies to them all, except Strachan and possibly Ferguson."

"That's true. Well, Chief, I think you'll have to send out the hue and
cry after Waters."

"I suppose I shall. Will this mean Scotland Yard, do you suppose?"

"Well, you'll have to get help in tracing these people all over the
country. They may be anywhere. But I'm still inclined to think that it's
a case where local knowledge can make the running best. But I'm not in a
position to pronounce, don't you know."

"Of course, I'd rather we could work it ourselves. Macpherson is a good
man and so is Dalziel."

"That reminds me," said Wimsey, "how about the young man they detained
at Stranraer?"

Sir Maxwell groaned.

"A wash-out. He turns out to be a perfectly respectable stranger
employed in a linen manufactory at Larne. Apparently he had leave to
visit his family, who live in some obscure farm near Pinwherry. He was
given a long week-end, finishing up on Monday night. It seems there was
some kind of a jollification on the Monday night, and the lad was
over-persuaded to stay on for it. On Tuesday, as soon as he had
recovered his senses, he bolted off to the station, thinking he could
get back that afternoon, but mistook the time-table and then found he
could get no boat before 7 o'clock that evening."

"Having, of course, missed the morning boat."

"Exactly. That was what he originally intended to catch, of course, but
owing to the jollification, he didn't. Well, having got to Stranraer, he
decided that there was no point in returning that night, and that he
might as well stay over and take the 6.10 boat on Wednesday morning.
Consequently, Dalziel's message to the Stranraer police caught him as he
was boarding this morning's boat. Dalziel has been working like a nigger
all day, getting him identified by his family and by the station-master
at Pinwherry and by the people at Larne, and the upshot of it is that
his story is perfectly straight, and that he's guilty of nothing worse
than being too drunk to go back to work on Monday night. Confound the
fellow! He's wasted a whole day of our best man's time, and left us
exactly where we were before. I hope he's sacked, that's all."

"Oh, don't be vindictive," said Wimsey. "He couldn't know how
inconvenient he was going to be. He 'maun ha' gotten a rare fricht,' as
the man in Ian Hay's book said about the lice in his blanket."

The Chief Constable grunted.

"Any more news of the man with the bicycle who took the train at
Girvan?"

"No, except that they've checked the tickets and decided that he went to
Ayr all right."

"How about the bicycle?"

"The bicycle-ticket appears to have been given up too, though we can't
trace any ticket-collector who remembers anything about it. It would be
much easier if we knew what kind of bicycle we were looking for."

"M'm. Yes. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get hold of some exact
descriptions. Mrs. McLeod ought to know what Waters' bike looked like. I
bet Andy could tell you every scratch and scrape on his old crock. It's
got new tyres on, by the way. That ought to be a help."

"And then there's Farren's bicycle."

"So there is. And there's a very fine selection of bicycles, male and
female, up our close. Anybody who urgently wanted to borrow one in
Gatehouse or Kirkcudbright wouldn't have very great difficulty. And they
all look much alike--honest, hardworking bicycles, half as old as time.
For all we know, the murderer's bicycle, if he was a murderer, and used
one, may have come peacefully back home by this time."

"That's a fact," said the Chief Constable. "But we'll circulate those
descriptions all the same."




                               CHAPTER X


                            SERGEANT DALZIEL

On the Thursday morning, Sergeant Dalziel woke unrefreshed and
irritable. He had rather counted upon the young man at Stranraer. To
have a murder reported at lunch-time on Tuesday, and to catch the
murderer at 6.30 the next morning would, he felt, have been a smart
piece of work. Now he had to start all over again. The voluminous,
contradictory and confusing reports from Kirkcudbright worried him. Also
he felt dissatisfied about the bicyclist at Girvan. Surely it must be
possible to trace him and his bicycle. These inquiries by telephone were
never satisfactory. There was nothing for it, he supposed, but to go
himself. With a grunt of annoyance, he tucked himself into his shabby
car, collected Police Constable Ross to act as his aide-de-camp, and set
out to collect descriptions.

He began with the Anwoth Hotel. Here he had the advantage of
interviewing the outraged owner of the missing bicycle. Information was
forthcoming in abundance. He had to look for a six-year-old Raleigh,
with two new Dunlop tyres. The frame was painted black; one of the
handle-bar grips was slightly broken; the bell was missing and the
brakes defective. There was a tool-bag containing a repair outfit; a
pump on the cross-bar, and a carrier at the back. The Sergeant wrote
down all the particulars, promised his best attention and passed on his
way.

At Waters' lodgings, his task was more difficult. Mrs. McLeod had seen
the bicycle week after week standing in her front passage, but, like
most people of her type and sex, had only the very vaguest idea of its
appearance. It was "an auld yin," it was of "the ordinar' colour," she
"couldna charge her memory" as to its fittings, though she thought there
was, or had been, a lamp on it, because she had once had occasion to
complain of drips on her floor. As for the maker's name, it had not
occurred to her to look for it.

Her small son, however, proved more observant. He declared that it was a
very old Humber, very rusty, and that it had neither bell nor lamp nor
pump. "But there's Mr. Waters' name on a wee luggage label," he added,
pleased to supply so helpful a clue.

"Ay, but I doot it'll no be there the noo," said the Sergeant.

He passed on to Mrs. Farren's. Here he at first drew a complete blank.
Mrs. Farren "had not the faintest idea" what was the make of her
husband's bicycle. She apologised for being so unpractical, and gave the
Sergeant the impression that such details were beneath an artist's
notice.

"I'm sure," she added, "I couldn't even tell you what make my own is."

"H'm," said the Sergeant, struck by an idea, "could ye let me have a
look at your own bicycle, ma'am?"

"Oh, certainly." She led the way to an outhouse, and indicated a clean,
well-kept Sunbeam, not new, but well-oiled, and with all its parts in
good condition.

"Ye keep it verra nice," said Dalziel, approvingly.

"I like to have everything orderly and clean," said Mrs. Farren. "There
is a real beauty in cleanliness and decency. Even inanimate things may
breathe out a kind of loveliness if they are well cared-for. Do not you
think so?"

"Nae doot, Mistress Farren, nae doot, ma'am. Wad this machine and your
husband's have been bought at the same time?"

"Oh, no--his is newer than this."

"Ah!" said Dalziel, disappointed. "Imph'm. Aweel, nae doot Mr. Farren'll
be returnin' home before verra long. Ye ha' heard naething from him, I
suppose?"

"No. But that's not really surprising. He does go off like this
sometimes, for days together. You know what men are--especially artists
and fishers."

"Och, ay," said Dalziel, comfortably. "Weel, if we should meet wi' him
onywhere, we'll tell him he's expectit hame. Could I speak a bit word
wi' the lassie? She'll maybe ken what kind o' bicycle it is."

"Jeanie? Oh, certainly--though I doubt if she'll know much about it. I
am always telling her she should be more observant--though I'm afraid
I'm a bad example to follow. By the way, Sergeant, do you mind telling
me why----"

She stopped and laid her hand on her throat as if the words were
difficult to say, or as though, while feeling bound to ask the question,
she were reluctant to hear the answer.

"Why what, were ye aboot tae say?"

"Why all this fuss about my husband's bicycle?"

The Sergeant looked hard at her for a moment, then turned his eyes away
and answered pleasantly:

"Och, 'tis naething. But there's several bicycles missin' lately, and
we've found a dealer at Castle-Douglas wi' twa-three machines he disna
seem able tae gie a verra gude account on. Sae we're juist mekkin' a
sort o' round-up throughout the district, tae see if we can identify ony
o' them. However, ye're quite sure Mr. Farren has his bicycle wi' him?"

"So far as I know. Why not? He--went away on it. But--I don't know of
course--he may have left it somewhere--how should I know? He might have
had it stolen since Monday, anywhere, by anybody. I--have you found it
anywhere?"

Under Dalziel's steadfast eye, she was fumbling and stammering.

"I'll tak' ma aith," said Dalziel to himself, "she kens fine there is
some importance tae be attached tae the bicycle, and she disna ken
whether tae say her man had it or no. Whae could ha' tell't her? It's no
that Lord Peter, for he's clever, wi' a' his bletherin' talk. And it's
no Macpherson, he'd never let oot a word. There's some yin is expectin'
yon bicycle tae be found in a queer place, I reckon."

Jeanie proved, indeed, to know as little about the bicycle as was to be
expected, and produced no information beyond the fact that Mr. Farren
was accustomed to clean both machines himself, and took "a wheen o'
trouble" over them. A man who cared for his tools, evidently, and
particular in certain matters, though he was an artist.

A bicycle-shop in the town was more helpful. The machine was a Raleigh,
not new, but in very good condition, black, with plated handle-bars. The
shop had fitted a new Dunlop tyre to the back wheel a few weeks
previously; the front tyre was of the same make and about six months
old. Bell, brakes, lamps and brackets were all in good order.

Armed with these particulars, the Sergeant made his way to Girvan
Station. Here he found the porter concerned, a middle-aged man named
McSkimming, who repeated to him, in rather more detail, the account he
had already given to the station-master.

The train from Stranraer was due in at 1.6, and on the Tuesday it had
come in well up to time. It had just entered the station, when a
gentleman had come in hurriedly, wheeling a bicycle. He had called to
McSkimming, and the man had noticed the high, affected English voice,
with its "Heah, portah!" The gentleman had told him to label the bicycle
for Ayr, quick, and the porter had wheeled the machine along to the
little case containing luggage-labels. While he was labelling it, the
gentleman was undoing a strap which held a small leather case to the
carrier, saying that he would take it in the carriage with him. As time
was short, he had pulled out a note-case from his pocket and sent
McSkimming off to buy him a third-class ticket and bicycle-ticket for
Ayr. Running back with these, the man had seen his passenger standing at
the door of a third-class Smoker. He had handed over the tickets and
received his tip, and had then placed the bicycle in the rear van. The
train had moved out almost immediately afterwards.

No, he had not noticed the gentleman's face particularly. He was wearing
a grey flannel suit and a check cap, and he had passed his handkerchief
over his face from time to time, as though he were very hot with
bicycling in the sun. As he gave the tip he had said something about
being glad he had caught the train, and that it was a stiff pull from
Ballantrae. He wore slightly tinted spectacles--the sort that is used to
shield the eyes from sun-glare. He might have been clean-shaven, or he
might have had a small moustache. McSkimming had had no time to notice
details, forbye he had been feeling very unwell at the time with an
awful pain to his stomach. If anything, he was feeling still worse
to-day, and dooted that handling heavy luggage on a hot day did a man no
good.

Dalziel sympathised and asked whether he thought he would be able to
identify the man or the bicycle if he saw them again.

The porter did not know--he thought not. The bicycle had been old and
dusty. He had not noticed the make. It was not his business. His
business was to label it for Ayr, and he had so labelled it and put it
in the van, and there was an end of it.

So far, so good. The bicycle had had a carrier, but then, many bicycles
had that. It had looked old, and therefore was not very likely to have
been Farren's, but it might have been either of the other two. There
seemed to be no doubt that passenger and bicycle, whoever and whatever
they might be, had travelled safely by the 1.11 to Ayr.

Dalziel thanked and rewarded the porter and returned to his car.
Consulting the time-table, he saw that the train stopped only once
before Ayr, and that was at Maybole. It would be worth while to call and
see if, by any chance, the passenger had left the train there, instead
of going on to Ayr.

At Maybole he interviewed the station-master, and learned that only two
passengers had alighted from the Stranraer train on the Tuesday. Both
were women, and neither had a bicycle. This was only what he might have
expected. The station-master added that the tickets of all passengers
for Ayr by the train in question would be collected at Maybole. Eight
third-class tickets had been given up--as was proved by a reference to
the booking-clerk's returns--including a third-class ticket from Girvan.
Any discrepancy between the number of tickets issued and collected would
be checked at the Audit Office at Glasgow and reported within three
days, so that if there was anything wrong about these tickets, they
might expect to hear about it by the next day. The bicycle-ticket of a
passenger travelling to Ayr would not be collected at Maybole; it would
be retained by him until he claimed the machine at Ayr.

Dalziel left instructions that any query arising about tickets should be
at once reported to him, and the two policemen then made their way to
Ayr.

Ayr is a good-sized station, acting as a junction for several lines of
traffic. The main line from Stranraer to Glasgow runs straight through
the station. On the east side of the main line is the principal
platform, containing the booking-hall, bookstall and station entrance,
with a number of bays for branch lines.

Here Dalziel directed his first inquiries to the question of the bicycle
ticket. A reference to the records showed that a ticket issued from
Girvan to cover a twenty-five mile journey had been duly given up at
Ayr. The next question was, to whom had the ticket been handed? Since
the passenger-tickets had all been collected at Maybole, there would
have been no collector at the barrier on that particular occasion.
Therefore, presumably, the ticket would have been given up to the porter
who removed the bicycle from the van.

Dalziel and Ross interviewed the porters in turn, but all were quite
positive that they had not taken any bicycle out of the Stranraer train
on the Tuesday. One of them, however, recollected something about the
ticket. After seeing a number of passengers out of the train, he had
gone back to the rear brake to deal with the luggage. The guard had then
handed him a bicycle ticket, saying that it belonged to a gentleman who
had taken his bicycle out himself and wheeled it away. The porter had
considered this a shabby trick to avoid giving a tip, but he supposed
that the traveller had been in a hurry, since the guard had seen him
briskly wheeling the machine away in the direction of the exit. By that
time the passenger would, of course, have left the station. People were
often mean about tips, bicyclists especially. With times so hard and
money so tight you didn't get twopence nowadays where once you would
have got sixpence or a shilling. Call this a Socialist Government.
Things were harder than ever for a working man, and as for Jimmy Thomas,
he had sold himself, lock, stock and barrel, to the capitalists. If he
(the porter) had had the right treatment, he would have been something
better than an ordinary porter long before this, but with everybody
getting at you all at once----

Dalziel cut short this jeremiad by asking whether the same guard would
be travelling on the train that afternoon. The porter said, Yes, he
would, and Dalziel determined to wait and interview him when he arrived.
In the meantime he thought he and Ross might as well get some lunch,
after which they would have to find somebody who had seen the bicyclist
leave the station.

Over a hasty meal in the refreshment-room, the two officers discussed
their campaign. It might take some time to trace the movements of their
quarry after leaving Ayr Station, and it was necessary that Dalziel
should be back at Newton-Stewart as early as possible, to keep in touch
with Macpherson. There were a number of routine inquiries to be made at
Glasgow, and it would, he felt, be advisable to get hold of photographs
of all the persons at present under suspicion, in order that the
bicyclist might be identified, if possible. Since all the men were
well-known artists, it seemed likely that an inquiry among the leading
Glasgow news-agencies would produce the photographs, and this would be a
far better plan than asking for them directly at Gatehouse and
Kirkcudbright, which would have the effect of putting the suspects on
their guard. It was therefore decided that Dalziel should board the
train from Stranraer when it came in, and proceed to Glasgow,
interviewing the guard on the way. Ross should keep the car and pursue
his investigations as and how he could, reporting to Newton-Stewart from
time to time. If he got on the bicyclist's track, he was to follow where
it led and, if necessary, detain the man when he found him.

At 1.48, the train came in, and Dalziel got into it, after ascertaining
that the guard was, in fact, the same man who had been in charge on the
Tuesday. As it drew away from Ayr, he observed Ross engaged in
conversation with the bookstall clerk. Ross was an energetic and
enthusiastic man, and the Sergeant felt sure that he would not be slack
in his investigations. He rather wished that he had felt justified in
himself taking over the more adventurous and entertaining side of the
inquiry, but he reflected that there was, after all, no certainty that
the elusive bicyclist had anything to do with the crime, and that it
would not do for him, in his position, to lose himself indefinitely on
what might prove to be a wild-goose chase. He made his way along the
train to the guard's van.

The guard perfectly remembered the incident of the bicycle. The train
had scarcely drawn up at the station before a passenger--a youngish man
in a check cap and grey flannel suit and wearing Crookes' glasses--had
come running along the platform to the van. He had addressed the guard,
saying that he wanted his bicycle got out immediately, as he had no time
to lose. The porters were all up in front, and the guard had himself
opened the van and handed out the bicycle, first glancing at the label
to make sure that it was the right one. It was labelled to Ayr correctly
enough, and he remembered its being put in at Girvan. The gentleman
thrust the ticket into his hand, together with a shilling tip, and
immediately walked away with the bicycle in the direction of the exit.
The guard further recollected that the passenger had been carrying a
small attach-case. He had not seen him actually leave the station,
because he had had to see to the coupling of the Pullman Restaurant Car,
which was put on at Ayr. Before leaving the station, he had handed the
bicycle-ticket over to a porter to be sent to headquarters in the usual
way.

Dalziel asked next for a personal description of the traveller. This was
not so easy to get. The guard had only seen him for about half a minute.
He thought he would be between thirty and forty, of middle height, and
either clean-shaven or wearing a small, fair moustache. Not a dark
moustache--the guard felt sure he would have noticed that. His hair was
almost invisible beneath his cap, but the guard's general impression was
of a fairish man with a fresh complexion. He might perhaps have been
mouse-coloured or sandy. His eyes, beneath the glasses, were at any rate
not noticeably dark--blue, grey or hazel, possibly. The guard, like the
porter at Girvan, had particularly noticed the high, affected English
voice. He thought he might recognise a photograph of the man if he saw
it, but he really could not be sure. Everything about the man, with the
exception of the voice and the glasses, might be called nondescript. The
bicycle was an old and shabby one. The guard had not observed the make,
but he had noticed that the tyres were comparatively new.

Dalziel nodded. He knew better than to expect a recognisable description
of a man in a cap and glasses, seen only for a few seconds by a busy
official at a railway-station. He went back to his compartment and
passed the time making notes of the case until the train, after only a
brief halt at Paisley, Gilmour Street, drew in to St. Enoch Station.

Here there was nothing for him to do except to inquire whether all
tickets collected on the Tuesday had already been forwarded to the Audit
Office. Being assured that this was so, he betook himself thither and
was soon closeted with the head official there.

His business here was the purely routine matter of checking the tickets
issued and collected on the Tuesday between Gatehouse and St. Enoch and
Kirkcudbright and St. Enoch respectively. He found that these had
already been made up and found to agree perfectly with the returns sent
in by the issuing clerks. Wimsey's vague suggestion that Waters might
have started from Kirkcudbright with a Glasgow ticket and disappeared
_en route_ was evidently incorrect. If, unseen by either the officials
or by Miss Selby and Miss Cochran, he had indeed taken the 8.45 from
Kirkcudbright, he must have booked to some intermediate station. But
there seemed no reason at all to suppose that he had ever started by
that train at all. Waters had simply disappeared and taken his bicycle
with him. Was this, or was it not, the bicycle which had travelled to
Ayr? The Sergeant, remembering that young Andrew had fitted new tyres
not long before, was more inclined to think that this might be the
Anwoth Hotel bicycle, but then he had no evidence about the condition of
Waters' tyres.

He inquired for Ferguson's ticket, which was readily identified, being
the only first-class ticket issued from Gatehouse to Glasgow that day.
It had been duly punched at Maxwelltown, between Gatehouse and Dumfries,
and again at Hurlford and Mauchline, between Dumfries and St. Enoch,
thus affording definite proof that Ferguson had made the whole journey
as he had purported to do.

Not satisfied with this, Dalziel demanded a check of all tickets issued
on Tuesday on all lines within a fifty-mile radius of Newton-Stewart, in
case some interesting discrepancy of some sort should turn up somewhere,
and then departed for the Central Police Station at Glasgow.

Here he set on foot inquiries for a bicyclist seen travelling over the
road between Bargrennan and Girvan between 11 a.m. and 1.11 p.m. on
Tuesday morning, as also for any bicyclist seen in the neighbourhood of
Ayr on the Tuesday afternoon, or travelling on any line out of Ayr or
any of the neighbouring stations on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. For
it readily occurred to him that the bicyclist might have ridden from Ayr
to some near-by station and re-booked there, after, perhaps, disguising
his appearance in some way. He then remembered that the compromising
bicycle might have been abandoned in some convenient spot, and sent out
a further call to search station-cloakrooms for unclaimed bicycles and
report any bicycle left derelict by the roadside round about Ayr and the
neighbourhood. He gave a general description of the three missing
bicycles, asking, however, that reports should not be confined to these
two makes, but extended to include any bicycle found abandoned during
the prescribed period.

Having put the machinery of the law in motion, he turned his attention
to the matter of the photographs. He had little difficulty in collecting
what he needed among the newspaper offices of the city, and finished up
at 6 o'clock with a fine collection of portraits of all six artists. He
then discovered that he had missed the last train to Newton-Stewart, and
that his only hope of getting back that night was to go to Girvan or
Lockerbie and drive home.

His own car was, of course, at Ayr. Wearily, the Sergeant went to the
'phone and rang up the Ayr police to discover if Constable Ross was
still in the town. But luck was against him. Ross had been in and left a
message that he was following up a clue in the direction of Kilmarnock
and would report again.

Cursing his fate--though somewhat cheered by the thought of a
clue--Dalziel then rang up Kirkcudbright. Inspector Macpherson answered
him. Yes, a great deal of new evidence had come in. Yes, the Inspector
thought Dalziel had better get back that night if he could. What a pity
he had now just missed the 6.20 to Girvan. (Sergeant Dalziel gritted his
teeth.) Well, it couldna be helped. Let him take the 7.30, getting in at
9.51, and a car would be sent to meet him.

The Sergeant replied, with a certain grim satisfaction, that the 9.51
only ran on Saturdays and the 9.56 only on Wednesdays, and that, this
being a Thursday, they would have to meet him at 8.55 at Ayr. The
Inspector retorted that in that case he had better hire a car at Ayr.
Finding that there was no help for it, Sergeant Dalziel abandoned all
hopes of a comfortable night of dinner, talkie and bed at Glasgow, and
reluctantly retired to the refreshment-room for an early supper before
catching the 7.30.




                               CHAPTER XI


                          INSPECTOR MACPHERSON

At headquarters, meanwhile, the market in evidence was looking up. At
least, as Wimsey observed to the Chief Constable, it was not looking up
so much as looking about in all directions.

The first piece of excitement was provided by a young farmer, who
presented himself rather diffidently at Kirkcudbright police-station and
asked to see Inspector Macpherson.

It appeared that he had been having a drink at the Murray Arms in
Gatehouse at about 9 o'clock on the Monday night, when Mr. Farren had
come suddenly into the bar, looking very wild and queer, and had asked
in a loud, peremptory tone, "Where's that b---- Campbell?" On perceiving
that Campbell was not anywhere in the house, he had calmed down a
little, and ordered two or three whiskeys in quick succession. The
witness had tried to find out what the trouble was about, but had
extracted nothing from Farren but a few vague threats. Presently, Farren
had again started asking where Campbell was. Witness, who had lately
come in from Kirkcudbright, and knew for a fact that Campbell was in the
McClellan Arms, formed the opinion that Farren was in a dangerous mood
and, in order to avert an encounter, had said, untruthfully, that he
fancied he had seen Mr. Campbell in his car taking the road to Creetown.
Farren had then muttered something about "getting him yet," adding a
number of abusive epithets, from which witness gathered that the quarrel
had something to do with Mrs. Farren. He (Farren) had then hurried out
of the bar and witness had seen him ride off, not, however, in the
direction of Creetown, but towards Kirkcudbright. Witness had not felt
satisfied and had run out after him. When, however, Farren had got as
far as the War Memorial, he had turned off to the left along the road to
the golf-links. Witness had then shrugged his shoulders and dismissed
the matter from his mind.

On Wednesday, however, when it became clear, through the activities of
the police, that Campbell was considered to have been murdered, the
incident presented itself in a more sinister light. He (witness) had
consulted with the barman at the Murray Arms and with one or two men who
had been in the bar with him during Farren's visit, and they had decided
that the police ought to be told. Witness had been chosen as spokesman,
and here he was. Witness had been reluctant to get Mr. Farren into
trouble, but murder was murder and there you were.

Macpherson thanked the farmer and immediately put an inquiry through to
Creetown, to find out whether Farren had, after all, followed the false
trail in that direction. It was puzzling that he should have turned off
by the golf-links. He had left Campbell in Kirkcudbright some three
hours previously, and it was likely enough that, failing to find him in
Gatehouse, he should have gone back to search for him on the
Kirkcudbright road. But why the golf-links? Unless----

Unless he had gone to visit Strachan. Strachan and Farren were well
known to be particularly friendly. Had there been some sort of
complicity here? Had Strachan been at home between 9 and 10 on Monday
night? That was comparatively easy to ascertain. The Inspector
telephoned to Gatehouse for information and waited.

Then came the second excitement of the day--much more definite and
encouraging. It presented itself in the shape of a small and very timid
child of about ten, haled along by a determined mother, who incited her
offspring to speech by alternately shaking her and offering to "skelp
her ower the lug" if she did not do as she was told.

"I kenned fine," said the mother, "as she'd been up tae some mischief
an' I wadna rest while I'd got it oot o' her. (Blow your nose an' speak
civil to the policeman, or he'll hae ye locked up.) She's a bad girl,
stravaiguin' aboot the country wi' the laddies, when she should be in
her bed. But they'll no listen tae their mithers these days. Ye canna do
onything wi' them."

The Inspector expressed his sympathy, and asked the lady's name.

"Mrs. McGregor, I am, an' we have our cottage between Gatehoose an'
Kirkcudbright--ye'll ken the place--near by Auchenhaye. Me an' my man
was away tae Kirkcudbright last Monday nicht, an' Helen was alone at
hame. An' no sooner are we away than she's away oot, leavin' the door
open behind her as like as not for onybody tae come in----"

"Jist a moment," said the Inspector. "This wee lassie will be Helen, I'm
thinkin'."

"Ay, that's Helen. I thought it best tae bring her, seein' as this puir
Mr. Campbell has been pit oot o' the way, so the postman says. An' I
says tae George, if Mr. Campbell was fightin' on the road Monday night,
then the pollis ought tae know it. An' George says----"

The Inspector interrupted again.

"If your wee Helen can tell us onything aboot Mr. Campbell, we wad like
fine tae hear it. Now, Mistress McGregor, will ye jist let the lassie
tell us her ain tale fra' the beginning. Come along, Helen, dinna be
frightened, now. Speak up."

Helen, thus encouraged, began her story, which, between her own
agitation and her mother's interruptions, was rather a tangled one.
However, by dint of coaxing and the gift of a bag of sweeties which a
constable was sent out to procure, the Inspector eventually succeeded in
getting the tangle straightened out.

Mr. and Mrs. McGregor had gone over to Kirkcudbright on the Monday
evening in a neighbour's car, to visit some friends, leaving Helen with
strict instructions to lock the cottage door and put herself to bed.
Instead of this, the abandoned child had gone out to play with some
little boys belonging to a neighbouring farm. They had strayed down the
road to some fields about half a mile away, where the boys were going to
set some highly illegal rabbit-snares.

The Inspector shook his head slightly at this, but gave his promise that
nothing dreadful should be done to the marauders, and Helen, who seemed
to have been more troubled by this thought than by her mother's threats
of punishment, went on more coherently with her story.

The place where they were looking for rabbits was about half-way between
Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright, at a point where the road makes a very
sharp and dangerous S-bend between two stone walls. It was a fine night,
not dark, but dusk, and with a slight ground-mist lying in streaks on
the hills. The boys had wandered well away into the fields and were
intending to stay out much later, but at about a quarter to ten Helen,
remembering that her parents would soon be home, had left them and
started to go back by the road. She knew it was a quarter to ten,
because one of the boys had a new watch which his grandfather had given
him.

She crossed the fields and was just about to climb over the wall into
the road, when she noticed a man in a car, drawn up stationary by the
roadside and headed towards Gatehouse. The engine was running, and at
that very moment, the driver pulled the car out across the road as
though he was about to turn. At the same time, she heard another car
approaching fast from the direction of Gatehouse.

She described the spot very exactly. It was not the sharpest and most
dangerous part of the bend, where the walls are high on either side, but
was what might be described as the lower bend of the S--the bend nearer
Kirkcudbright. Here the turn is shallower and wider, and the wall on the
side where she stood is a sunk wall, with gorse bushes and brambles
beneath it. The approaching car came very quickly round the upper bend,
just as the first car turned across the road, blocking the way. There
was a sharp squeal of brakes, and the second car stopped, slewing
violently to the right and avoiding a crash by a miracle. The driver had
shouted out something and the first man had replied, and then the driver
of the second car had said in a loud and angry tone, "Campbell! Of
course! It would be Campbell"--or words to that effect.

Then there had been a sharp exchange of abuse, and Campbell had stopped
his engine and got out. She had seen him jump on the other man's
running-board. There was some sort of struggle and then, all in a
moment, both men were out on the road, fighting and struggling. There
were blows and a great deal of foul language. She could not see exactly
what was going on, because the men were on the far side of the two cars.
They had fallen to the ground and seemed to be rolling over one another.
Nor could she say what the cars were like, except that Campbell's was a
four-seater and the other a large two-seater with very bright lights.

When the struggle had gone on for some little time, she got a bad
fright. A big spanner was flung suddenly into the air. It just missed
her head and fell close beside her. She cowered down again under the
wall, afraid to stay where she was and yet anxious to find out what was
happening. She heard horrid sounds as though somebody was being thumped
and throttled. After a little time she peeped up again and saw something
which frightened her still more. A man was getting up from the roadside,
and over his shoulders he had got the body of another man. From the limp
way in which it hung she thought the man must be dead. She didn't
scream, because she was afraid if she did that the terrible man would
hear her and kill her too. He carried the body over to the two-seater
car and slumped it into the passenger's seat. This was the car which
stood nearest to Gatehouse. She didn't see the face of the living man,
because it was all bent down under the burden he was carrying, but as he
passed in front of the lights of the four-seater to get to the other car
she caught a glimpse of the dead man's face and it looked very dreadful
and white. She couldn't describe it, except that she thought it was
clean-shaven and the eyes were shut. The terrible man then got into the
driver's seat and backed the two-seater away round the bend in the
direction of Gatehouse. She heard the engine change its note, and the
lights moved backwards and forwards as though the car were turning
round. Then she heard it move off again, and the noise of the engine
gradually died away.

When it had gone, she climbed up over the wall, and thought she would
have a look at the four-seater car, which was still standing half-across
the road. It was headed towards Gatehouse, and its lights were turned
towards the off-side of the road. Before she could examine it, however,
she heard footsteps coming along from the direction of Gatehouse. She
hoped it was somebody who would look after her and take her home, and
then, suddenly, for no reason, it came over her that this was the bad
man coming back to kill her. She was dreadfully alarmed, and started to
run home as fast as she could. Then she heard an engine started up and
hid herself in the bushes, thinking that the bad man was pursuing her in
the car. Nothing came, however, and after a time she ventured out again
and hurried home. Just as she got inside her own gate, a car flashed
past at a furious pace towards Kirkcudbright. She got into the cottage
just as the kitchen clock was striking ten. She rushed into the bedroom
and jumped into bed, just as she was, and pulled the clothes over her
head.

Mrs. McGregor then took up the tale. She and her husband had got home at
10.30, and found the child shivering and crying in bed with all her
clothes on. She was so terrified that they could get nothing out of her.
All they could do was to scold her soundly, undress her and put her to
bed properly, give her a hot drink and stand by till she fell asleep
from sheer exhaustion. All next day she refused to tell them anything,
but the next night she had woken them up three times by crying out in
her sleep that the bad man was coming to kill her. On Wednesday evening,
her father, who made a great pet of the child, succeeded in getting the
story out of her, and when they heard the name of Campbell mentioned,
they decided that the police ought to be told. In answer to a question
of the Inspector's, Mrs. McGregor said that their kitchen clock was five
or six minutes slow.

The Inspector thanked them both very much--and felt that he had indeed
good reason to be grateful. He told Helen that she was a brave lassie,
begged her mother not to punish her, in view of the great importance of
her story, and ended the interview with a strongly-worded caution
against passing the story on to anybody else.

When they had gone, he sat back to think it out. The times agreed fairly
well with the doctor's report, except that he was now obliged to place
the actual moment of the murder rather earlier than he had expected. As
he interpreted it, Campbell and the other man had met and quarrelled,
and Campbell had been killed in the struggle. The murderer must then
have pushed Campbell's body into the two-seater car and concealed it
somewhere at the side of the road. Then he had come back, fetched
Campbell's car, and driven it back to Gatehouse, where it would, of
course, be wanted to stage the fake accident. At some later time, he
must have come back, collected his own car with the body in it,
and--well, what? Driven it back to Gatehouse?

The Inspector grunted. There were difficulties here. Why in the world
had not the murderer put Campbell's body straight away into Campbell's
Morris and driven off with it there and then? Why court discovery by
leaving the body by the roadside for anyone to find during the time it
would take him to drive the Morris back to Gatehouse and return on his
bicycle? For he must have come back on a bicycle or on foot, if he was
going to take his own car away. A bicycle was the obvious thing for him
to use, and he might quite well have brought it back in the dickey of
the two-seater. But the difficulty remained: why had he left the corpse
behind him?

It was possible, thought Macpherson--indeed, it was more than
possible--that the murderer had not at that time thought out the scheme
of the alibi and the faked accident. Perhaps that explained it. He meant
simply to drive away as though nothing had happened, and it was only
afterwards that, having worked out his elaborate plan, he had returned
to collect the corpse. But no! that would not work. It was Campbell's
car that he had driven away with. The only explanation of that was that
he had already planned the faked accident in his own mind. But that
seemed simply incredible. Taking the child's account as reliable, which
it appeared to be, it seemed obvious that the encounter between Campbell
and the other man was fortuitous. Surely, in those few brief moments
after the struggle, it would hardly have been possible for the murderer
to work out his elaborate plan of escape.

And yet--_had_ the meeting been, after all, fortuitous? Campbell's
behaviour, if you came to think of it, suggested the exact contrary. He
had planted his car in the road at the exact point where it was most
difficult for two vehicles to pass, and when he had heard the other car
coming, he had actually drawn out so as to block the way still further.
A crazy thing to do, since it was more likely to provoke a fatal
accident than any other kind of encounter. Still, it was known that
Campbell was drunk at the time, and this might have blinded him to the
risk of a collision.

But, if the witness was to be trusted (and, after all, he could not pick
and choose, believing one bit of evidence and rejecting another to suit
his own theories), then it was clear that, whoever had expected the
meeting, it was not the murderer. And if the murderer had not foreseen
the meeting, he could not have premeditated the crime, and so could not
have prepared the faked alibi beforehand.

"Ay," said the Inspector to himself, "but that doesna follow, by no
manner of means. He might weel ha' premeditated the alibi, intendin' tae
commit the murder at some ither place or time. Then, meetin' wi'
Campbell in that verra convenient manner, he may ha' cairrit oot his
nefarious design forthwith."

There still remained the difficulty about the car. And there was the
account of the man who had driven so furiously along towards
Kirkcudbright a short time after the encounter. Was he the murderer?
Impossible, if the murderer was taking Campbell's car to Gatehouse. If
he was somebody else, who was he? He must have passed the murderer on
the road. He would have to be found. After a little further thought, the
Inspector gave up this part of the problem as insoluble for the moment,
and turned to another aspect of the matter.

How did this story fit in, if at all, with the evidence about Farren?
And here, suddenly, the Inspector gave a great smack with his hand upon
the table. Of course! the times fitted perfectly, and here was the
explanation of why Farren had turned up the road to the golf-links.
Evidently he had seen through the young farmer's well-meant lie about
Creetown. He had searched Gatehouse for Campbell and, failing to find
him there, had come to the conclusion that he must be still in
Kirkcudbright. He had then hurried off to see Strachan, obviously for
the purpose of borrowing Strachan's car. Whether or not Strachan was an
accomplice was not quite plain. Probably not. No. Again, the Inspector
smacked the table with enlightenment. This explained the whole
thing--the taking of the wrong car, the leaving the body and everything.
Farren's original idea had been to put the guilt of the murder on
Strachan. The body was to have been found in Strachan's car and the
inference was to have been that Strachan had decoyed Campbell away and
murdered him.

A very poor plan, of course. Strachan would immediately tell the story
of how he had lent the car to Farren. Probably he would be able to
produce witnesses of the transaction. Moreover, the thing would in
itself have a very unlikely appearance. What man would be fool enough to
leave his own car lying about with a murdered body in it? This was, in
fact, the very point which had immediately struck the Inspector himself,
and Farren, when he thought over what he had done, could not fail to see
how unreasonable his first idea was. But while driving Campbell's car
back to Gatehouse, he would have time to think matters over. A better
idea would occur to him--the idea of faking the accident at the Minnoch.
What then? What would he do?

He would first, of course, take Campbell's car back and put it in the
garage. Then he would have to go and collect his own bicycle from
Strachan's house. At that time of night it would be easy enough to do so
without being seen supposing, as was possible, that he had left the
machine somewhere handy--say, just inside the garden gate.

With considerable excitement, the Inspector drew a pad of paper towards
him, and began to jot down a schedule of times, heading the document
boldly: "The Case against Hugh Farren."

          _Monday._

             6 p.m. Farren returns home and finds Campbell
                    there. Turns him out of the house. (Jeanie's
                    sister's evidence.)

             7 p.m. After a quarrel with his wife, during which
                    she presumably makes some damaging admission
                    about Campbell, Farren departs on
                    his bicycle.

             9 p.m. Farren enters the Murray Arms, looking for
                    Campbell. (The farmer's evidence.)

          9.15 p.m. (about). Farren goes to Strachan's house and
                    borrows car.

          9.45 p.m. (about). Meeting with Campbell on the
                    Kircudbright road. Murder of Campbell.
                    (Helen McGregor's evidence.)

          9.55 p.m. Farren plants the body in Strachan's car.

            10 p.m. (or thereabouts). Farren starts back in
                    Campbell's car.

         10.10 p.m. Farren arrives in Gatehouse (say five miles)
                    and garages Campbell's car.

         10.30 p.m. Farren arrives on foot at Strachan's house to
                    fetch bicycle.

            11 p.m. Farren arrives on bicycle at the scene of the
                    crime.

         11.10 p.m. Farren is back with the body at Campbell's
                    house. Hides the body in the house or
                    garage.

         11.20 p.m. Farren returns car to Strachan's house.

         11.40 p.m. Farren is back at Campbell's house to prepare
                    evidence of Campbell's having spent the
                    night and breakfasted there.

The Inspector gazed with some complacency upon this schedule. Some of
the times were, of course, only approximate, but the essential points
corresponded well enough, and, making every allowance for Farren's being
a slow walker, or bungling parts of his procedure, he had ample time to
carry out all these manoeuvres before Tuesday morning.

Encouraged by this, the Inspector proceeded, rather more tentatively,
with the rest of his theory.

According to the evidence of "young Jock" at Borgan, the spurious
Campbell had been seen sitting by the Minnoch at 10.10 on the Tuesday
morning. This, therefore, gave the latest possible moment for Farren's
arrival there. Actually, the Inspector thought it would probably have
been earlier. Farren would certainly not have risked hanging about in
Campbell's cottage very late in the morning. He would have been up and
away well before 8 a.m., when Mrs. Green was due to arrive. On the other
hand, he would not have started ridiculously early, because of Ferguson.
It would be necessary that Ferguson, if he happened to hear Campbell's
car go out, should be able to swear that it left at a reasonable hour in
the morning. Accordingly, the Inspector put down at a venture:--

          7.30 Farren leaves Campbell's house, wearing Campbell's
               hat and cloak, with the body tucked away on
               the floor of the car and the bicycle on top, all
               covered by the rug.

          8.35 (say). Farren arrives at the Minnoch, hides the
               corpse and starts on his painting.

         10.10 Farren (disguised as Campbell) seen by Jock for
               first time.

          11.5 Farren seen by Jock for the second time.

Here the Inspector paused uncertainly. Was two-and-a-half hours too long
to allow for the painting of that picture? He knew very little about
artists, and the thing had seemed to him a rough and sketchy affair. He
must ask somebody who knew.

But there! What a thick-headed fool he was! Of course, Farren could not
begin to paint till the light was good. He mightn't know much, but he
did know that. He thoughtfully shook a few blots from his fountain-pen
and continued.

It now seemed very probable that Farren was the passenger at Girvan. The
schedule would therefore run on:--

         _Tuesday._
         11.10 a.m. Farren throws body into the river, puts on
                    cap and overcoat and starts for Girvan on his
                    bicycle.

           1.7 p.m. Arrives at Girvan. Has bicycle labelled for
                    Ayr.

          1.11 p.m. Takes train for Ayr.

          1.48 p.m. Arrives Ayr.

Here, for the moment, the Inspector's deductions came to an end.
Dalziel, he knew, was following up the trail of the bicycle. It would be
better to wait for his report before carrying the schedule any further.
But he had not done so badly. He had at last succeeded in fixing the
crime definitely upon one person, and in producing a plausible
time-scheme to which to work. Fortunately, also, it was one that was
susceptible of confirmation at several points.

He glanced over his paper again.

If Farren had been searching for Campbell in Gatehouse between 8 o'clock
and 9.15, there ought to be evidence of other calls besides that at the
Murray Arms. Inquiries would have to be made at the Angel and the
Anwoth. But surely, before asking at public-houses, Farren would have
tried Campbell's house. If so, it was almost impossible that he should
not have been seen. For one thing, he would have had to cross the bridge
twice, and there is no hour of the day at which the bridge at Gatehouse
is not occupied by at least one idler. The bridge is the common club and
gathering-place of the Gatehouse population, who meet there for the
exchange of gossip, the counting of passing cars and rising trout, and
the discussion of local politics. Even if, by a miracle, the bridge
should have been clear on both occasions, there was the long bench
outside the Anwoth Hotel, on which fishermen sit to tie knots, pat
Bounce the dog and inquire of Felix the cat how many rats he has killed
during the day. Lastly, supposing Farren to have escaped notice at both
these points, there was always the possibility that Ferguson had been at
home and had seen him come to the cottage.

Then, if Strachan's car had been taken out, surely somebody would know
of it. Strachan himself might refuse information or lie stoutly in
defence of his friend, but there still remained Mrs. Strachan, the child
and the maid. They could not possibly all be in the plot. According to
the theory, Farren had called three times at Strachan's--at about 9.15,
to borrow the car; at about 10.40, to fetch the bicycle; at about 11.30,
to return the car. The first and last of these visits at any rate ought
to have left traces behind them.

Next, there were the three night visits to Campbell's house--the first,
to garage Campbell's car; the second to bring in the body; the third, on
foot, to fake the evidence. No, that was not necessarily correct. There
might have been only two visits. It was more likely that on the first
occasion the car had been left somewhere, to be picked up on the final
visit. That would reduce the risk very considerably. In fact, the body
might have been transferred to Campbell's car at some quiet spot, thus
doing away with the necessity of entering Campbell's place twice in two
different cars--a proceeding bound to arouse suspicion. The transfer
could not, naturally, have taken place in Gatehouse itself--that would
have been the act of a madman. But it might have been done anywhere
between Kirkcudbright and Gatehouse, or on the unfrequented piece of
road between the War Memorial and Strachan's house. Or, if Strachan was
indeed involved, it might have been done still more quietly and safely
at Strachan's house itself.

The Inspector made an alteration or two in his time-table to correspond
with this new theory, and made a note to advertise for any passer-by who
might have seen a Morris car with Campbell's number-plates stationary at
any point on the route.

Finally, the Tuesday morning's journey could now be corroborated. If his
calculations were exact, Campbell's car must have passed through
Gatehouse a little after 7.30; through Creetown about 8 o'clock; and
through Newton-Stewart at about 8.15. Somebody must undoubtedly have
seen it. The Newton-Stewart police were, in fact, already investigating
this point, but now that he could give them the approximate times, his
task would be easier.

Inspector Macpherson put a call through to Newton-Stewart and another to
Gatehouse, and then turned back with renewed appetite for a fresh bite
at his problem.

And now he suddenly realised, what he had momentarily overlooked in
working out his times, that he had one piece of hugely important
evidence lying ready to his hand. With any luck at all, he had the
weapon!

That heavy spanner, which had hurtled through the air and nearly laid
out the unfortunate little Helen--what else could it be but the blunt
instrument which had crashed in Campbell's skull? It was perhaps odd
that it should have drawn no blood, but much depended on the kind of
spanner it was. Anyway, the great thing was to get hold of it. The
doctor would tell him if it was a suitable weapon to have inflicted the
blow. How fortunate that the corpse was still above ground! It was to be
buried next day. He must get hold of that spanner instantly. The
Inspector was simmering with suppressed excitement as he pulled on his
cap and hastened out to his car.




                              CHAPTER XII


                            FERGUSON'S STORY

On the same Thursday morning that took Sergeant Dalziel and Constable
Ross to Ayr and set Inspector Macpherson to work at time-schedules, Lord
Peter Wimsey presented himself at the farther of the two cottages at
Standing Stone Pool.

The door was opened by Mr. Ferguson in person, palette in hand, and
dressed in a pair of aged flannel bags, an open shirt and a shapeless
and bulging jacket. He seemed a little disconcerted at the sight of an
early visitor. Wimsey hastened to explain himself.

"I don't know if you remember me. My name's Wimsey. I fancy we met once
at Bob Anderson's."

"Yes, of course. Come in. When I heard you knock I thought you were
going to be a pound of sausages or the man from the greengrocer's. I'm
afraid the place is in rather a mess. I've been away for a couple of
days, and Mrs. Green seized the opportunity to tidy up, with the result
that I've had to spend a couple of hours untidying it again." He waved
his hand towards a litter of canvases, rags, dippers, bottles and other
paraphernalia. "I never can find anything I want in a tidy studio."

"And now I've come bargin' in and interrupting you just as you were
settling down to work."

"Not a bit. It doesn't worry me. Have a drink?"

"No, thanks, I've just had one. You carry on and don't mind me."

Wimsey cleared a number of books and papers from a chair and sat down,
while Ferguson returned to the contemplation of a large canvas, in which
Wimsey recognised the typical Ferguson of Graham's malicious
description--the tree with twisted roots, the reflection, the lump of
granite and the blue distance and the general air of decorative
unreality.

"Been in Glasgow, haven't you?"

"Yes. Ran up to look at the show."

"Is it a good one?"

"Not bad." Ferguson squeezed out some green paint on to his palette.
"Craig's got some fine studies, and there's a good thing of Donaldson's.
The usual allowance of duds, of course. I really went to see the
Farquharsons."

He added a blob of scarlet vermilion to the semi-circle of colours, and
appeared to think that his palette was made up, for he took up a bunch
of brushes and began to mix two or three paints together.

Wimsey asked a few more questions about the Exhibition, and then
remarked carelessly:

"So you've lost your next-door neighbour."

"Yes. I don't care to think too much about that. Campbell and I were not
exactly on the best of terms, but--I wish he could have departed some
other way."

"It's all rather queer," said Wimsey. "I suppose you've had the police
round, asking the usual questions."

"Oh, yes. Apparently it's just as well I had an alibi. I say,
Wimsey--you know all about this kind of thing--I suppose it's a fact
that he was--that it wasn't an accident?"

"That does seem to be the case, I'm afraid."

"What makes them think so?"

"Oh, well, I'm an outsider, you know, and of course the police aren't
giving their game away. But I think it was something to do with his
being dead before he got into the river and all that kind of guff, don't
you know."

"I see. I heard something about a bash on the head. What's the idea?
That somebody snooped up behind and did him in for his money?"

"Something like that, I dare say. Though, naturally, the police can't
tell if he was robbed till they know how much he had on him. They're
making inquiries at the bank and all that, I expect."

"Funny sort of place for a tramp to hang around, isn't it?"

"Oh, I dunno. There might have been some fellow sleepin' up there in the
hills."

"H'm. Why couldn't he just have hit his head on the stones in falling?"

Wimsey groaned within himself. This perpetual parrying of pertinent
questions was growing wearisome. One after another, everybody wanted to
know the same thing. He replied, vacuously:

"Couldn't say. Seems on the whole the likeliest idea, don't it? If I
were you, I'd ask the doctor johnnie."

"He wouldn't say, any more than you."

Ferguson went on for a few minutes dabbing paint on to his canvas in
silence. Wimsey noticed that he seemed to be working at random, and was
not surprised when he suddenly threw the palette on to the table and,
turning round, demanded suddenly:

"Look here, Wimsey. Tell me one thing. It's no good your pretending you
don't know, because you do. Is there any doubt at all that Campbell died
the same morning that he was found?"

Wimsey felt as though he had suddenly received a jolt on the solar
plexus. Whatever made the man ask that--if it was not the self-betrayal
of a guilty conscience? Not being very sure how to answer, he asked,
quite simply, the question he had just asked himself.

"Whatever makes you ask that?"

"And why ever can't you give me a straightforward answer?"

"Well," said Wimsey, "it seems such a damn funny question. I mean--oh,
well, of course--perhaps they didn't tell you about the picture?"

"What picture?"

"The picture Campbell had been painting. The paint was still wet on it.
So he must have been alive that morning, or he couldn't have painted it,
could he?"

"Ah!" Ferguson let out a long breath, as though his mind were relieved
of some anxiety. He picked his palette up again. "No, they didn't tell
me about that. That settles it, of course."

He stepped back a couple of paces and regarded his canvas with head
cocked and eyes half-shut.

"But what made you ask?"

"Well," said Ferguson. He took up a palette-knife and began scraping off
all the paint he had just put on. "Well--the police have been asking
questions. I wondered----See here"--his face was close to the painting
and he went on scraping without looking at Wimsey--"perhaps you can tell
me what I ought to do about it."

"About what?" said Wimsey.

"About the police. The first thing they did was to go into my movements,
starting from Monday night. That was simple enough, as far as Tuesday
went, because I took the 9.8 to Glasgow and was there all day. But I had
to admit that I was here all Monday night, and they became--damnably
inquisitive."

"Did they? Well, I'm blessed."

"That was why I wanted to know, don't you see? It's extremely unpleasant
if--well, if there's any doubt about Campbell having been alive on the
Tuesday morning."

"Yes, I see your point. Well, so far as I know--mind, I don't pretend to
know everything--but so far as I know, anybody who has a complete alibi
for Tuesday morning is perfectly safe."

"I'm glad of that. Not so much for my own sake, though naturally one
isn't keen on being suspected of things. But--the fact is, Wimsey, I
didn't quite know what to say to those fellows."

"Oh?" said Wimsey, his eyes all over the place. "I say, I like that
thing over there, with the white cottages and the heather in the
foreground. It sits very nicely up against the slope of the hill."

"Yes. It isn't so bad. I'll tell you what, Wimsey, after what you've
said, I don't so much mind--that is, when those fellows were here, I
thought there might possibly be something in it, so I--reserved
judgment, so to speak. But perhaps I'd better spill the beans to you,
and then you can say whether I ought to mention it. I'm not particularly
anxious to make trouble. On the other hand, you know, I don't want to be
an accessory to anything."

"If my opinion is worth anything," said Wimsey, "I'd say, cough it up.
After all, if anybody did do the poor devil in, it's rather up to one to
get it detected, and so on."

"I suppose it is, though one can't bring people to life again,
unfortunately. If one could, of course, one wouldn't hesitate.
Still----"

"Besides," said Wimsey, "you never know which way evidence is going to
work. People sometimes hang on to information with the bright idea of
shieldin' their husbands or sons or best girls, and give the police a
hell of a time, and when it does come out, it proves to be the one thing
in the world that was wanted to save their necks--the husbands' and
sons' and best girls' necks I mean, of course."

Ferguson looked dissatisfied.

"If I only knew why they wanted to know about Monday night," he said,
slowly.

"They want to find the last person who saw the man alive," said Wimsey,
promptly. "It's always done. It's part of the regular show. You get it
in all the mystery stories. Of course, the last person to see him never
commits the crime. That would make it too easy. One of these days I
shall write a book in which two men are seen to walk down a cul-de-sac,
and there is a shot and one man is found murdered and the other runs
away with a gun in his hand, and after twenty chapters stinking with red
herrings, it turns out that the man with the gun did it after all."

"Well, nine times out of ten he has done it--in real life, that
is--hasn't he? Well, I don't know."

"What _have_ you told the police, anyhow?" asked Wimsey, losing patience
a little, and fiddling with a tube of white paint.

"I said I'd been at home all evening, and they asked if I had seen or
heard anything suspicious next door. I said I hadn't, and I can't say
exactly that I did, you know. They asked if I'd seen Campbell come home
and I said I hadn't seen him, but I'd heard the car come in. That was a
little after 10. I heard it strike, and thought it was about time I
pottered off to bed, as I had to catch a train next morning. I'd had a
last drink and tidied up and picked out a book to read and had just
toddled upstairs when I heard him."

"Was that the last you heard of him?"

"Ye--es. Except that I had a hazy kind of idea that I heard the door
open and shut again shortly afterwards, as if he had gone out again. But
I can't say for certain. He must have come back again later, if he did
go out, because I saw him go out again in his car in the morning."

"Well, that's valuable. What time was that?"

"Some time between 7.30 and 7.45--I can't say to the moment. I was just
finishing dressing. I had to get my own breakfast, you see, so as to
catch the 'bus for the 9.8. It's six and a half miles to that bally
station."

"You actually saw Campbell in the car?"

"Oh, yes, I saw him all right. At least, I suppose if I had to go into
the witness-box, I could only swear to his clothes and general
appearance. I didn't see his face. But there was no doubt it was
Campbell all right."

"I see." Wimsey's heart, which had missed a beat, calmed down again. He
had seen the handcuffs closing on Ferguson. If he had sworn to seeing
Campbell alive at an hour when Wimsey knew him to have been dead----!
But things were not made as easy as all that for detectives.

"What had he got on?"

"Oh, that hideous check cloak and the famous hat. There's no mistaking
them."

"No. Well, what is it you didn't let up about?"

"One or two other things. First of all--though I don't see that that can
have had anything to do with it--there was a sort of a hullabaloo about
8 o'clock on Monday evening."

"Was there? I say, Ferguson, I'm so sorry, I've burst a perfectly good
Winsor & Newton tube. It's my beastly habit of fidgeting. It's all
bulged out at the end."

"Has it? Oh, it doesn't matter. Roll it up. Here's a rag. Did you get it
on your coat?"

"No, thanks, it's all right. What sort of hullabaloo?"

"Fellow came round banging on Campbell's door and using language.
Campbell was out--rather fortunately, because I gathered there was a
perfectly good shindy brewing."

"Who was the fellow?"

Ferguson glanced at Wimsey, then back at his canvas, and said in a low
tone:

"As a matter of fact, I'm afraid it was Farren."

Wimsey whistled.

"Yes. I stuck my head out and told him not to make such a filthy row and
he asked me where the something-or-other that what-d'ye-call it Campbell
was. I said I hadn't seen him all day and advised Farren to remove
himself. So then he started some rigmarole about always finding the
so-and-so hanging round his place and he wanted to have it out with him,
and if once he laid hands on Campbell he would do all kinds of nasty
things to him, inside and out. Of course, I paid no attention to it.
Farren's always going off the deep end, but he's like the Queen of
Hearts--never executes nobody, you know. I told Farren to forget about
it, and he told me to go and do this and that to myself, and by that
time I'd got fed up, so I retorted that he could go away and hang
himself, and he said that was exactly what he was going to do, only he
must slay Campbell first. So I said, Right-ho! but not to disturb
hardworking people. So he hung about a bit and then took himself off."

"On his two legs?"

"No, on a bicycle."

"Oh, yes, of course. He could hardly have walked from Kirkcudbright. I
say, Ferguson, how much is there in that business about Mrs. Farren?"

"Damn all, if you ask me. I think Campbell was fond of her in his way,
but she's much too high-minded to get herself into trouble. She likes to
do the motherly business--inspiration, you know, and influence of a pure
woman. Do good, and never mind what the rude world says. Sweetness and
beautiful lives and all that rot. Dash it! What have I done with the
cobalt? Can't stick the woman, you know, never could. Oh! I've got it in
my pocket, as usual. Yes. As you may know, my wife and I don't live
together, and Gilda Farren takes it upon herself to lecture me. At
least, I've choked her off now, but she once had the impertinence to try
and 'bring us together.' Blast her cheek! She created a damned
embarrassing situation. Not that it matters now. But I can't stick those
interfering, well-meaning bitches. Now, whenever she meets me, she looks
mournfully and forgivingly in my eyes. I can't stand that kind of muck."

"Beastly," agreed Wimsey. "Like the people who offer to pray for you.
Did Farren depart altogether, or did he by any chance come back?"

"I don't know. That's just the point. _Somebody_ came later on."

"When was that?"

"Just after midnight, but I didn't get up to see who it was. Somebody
knocked at the door and presently whoever it was went in, but I didn't
bother to get up and look. And then I went off to sleep."

"And didn't hear the person go?"

"No. I've no idea how long he--or she--stayed."

"She?"

"I say he or she, because I really haven't the least idea which it was.
I don't think it was Farren, though, because I fancy I heard a car. You
might give me that rag, if you've finished with it. I'm really
frightfully vague about the whole business. To tell the truth, I thought
it was Jock Graham up to his games again."

"That's quite likely. H'm. If I were you, Ferguson, I think I'd mention
it."

"What? Just that midnight visitor, do you mean? Or Farren as well?"

"Farren too. But particularly the midnight person. After all, he
apparently _was_ the last to see Campbell alive."

"What do you mean? I saw him in the morning."

"Saw him to speak to," said Wimsey. "He might be able to give the police
valuable help, if they could get hold of him."

"Why hasn't he come forward, then?"

"Oh, Lord! a hundred reasons. He may have been selling illicit salmon,
or, as you say, he may have been she. One never knows."

"True. All right. I'll come clean, as they say. I'd better do it at
once, or they'll think I know more than I do."

"Yes," said Wimsey. "I shouldn't waste any time."

He wasted none himself, but drove straight back to Kirkcudbright, where
he met Inspector Macpherson just stepping into his car.




                              CHAPTER XIII


                           LORD PETER WIMSEY

"Hullo--ullo--ullo!" cried Wimsey. "Where are you off to? I've got
something for you."

The Inspector clambered out of the car again and greeted Wimsey
cordially.

"Weel, noo," said he, "I had something tae show ye, too. Wull ye step
intae the station a wee while?"

The Inspector was in no way sorry to get someone to admire his
time-schedule, and Wimsey applauded generously. "What's more," said he,
"I can fill up a blank or two for you."

He unfolded his budget, while the Inspector sat licking his lips.

"Ay," said the latter, "'tis a' clear as daylight. Puir Farren--he must
ha' been in a rare way tae go and do such a thing. Peety we ha' lost sae
much time. It's a hundred to one he's oot o' the country by noo."

"Out of the country or out of the world," suggested Wimsey.

"Ay, that's a fact. He said he wad hae 't oot wi' Campbell an' then mak'
away wi' himsel'. They often says it an' doesna' do't, but whiles they
do't a' the same."

"Yes," said Wimsey.

"I'm thinking," pursued Macpherson, "we'll no be far wrang if we send a
search-party up into them hills beyond Creetown. Ye'll mind the sad
affair there was a year or two ago, with the puir woman as threw hersel'
doon one o' the auld lead-mines. Where there's been trouble once there
may be again. It wad be a terrible thing if the puir man's body was to
be lyin' up yonder and us not tae find it. Ay. D'ye ken, my lord, I'm
thinkin' this'll juist be the verra thing that Mistress Farren's
fearin', though she disna like tae say so."

"I absolutely agree," said Wimsey. "I think she believes her husband's
killed himself, and daren't say so because she suspects he may have done
the murder. You'd better get your sleuth-hounds out at once, Inspector,
and then we'll pop along and have a hunt for this spanner."

"There's a terrible deal of work tae be done," said Macpherson. "I'll
doot we'll no have men enough for a' these investigations."

"Cheer up," said Wimsey. "You've pretty well narrowed it down now,
haven't you?"

"Ay," replied the Inspector, cautiously, "but I'm no countin' upon it.
There's mony a slip, an' I'm no losin' sight o' ony o' my suspectit
pairsons, juist yet awhile."

Wee Helen had described the site of Campbell's encounter with the man in
the car so exactly that there was no necessity to take her along with
them to point it out. "We'll be mair comfortable and private-like on our
own," observed Macpherson, and heaved himself with a sigh of contentment
into the front seat of Wimsey's huge Daimler. Six or seven minutes
brought them to the bend. Here Wimsey deposited the Inspector, and here,
after stowing the car out of the way of other travellers, he joined him
in his search.

According to Helen's story, she had taken up her position beneath the
sunk wall, on the left-hand side of the road going towards Gatehouse.
Wimsey and Macpherson therefore started, one at either end of the bend,
searching within a couple of yards from the wall and working gradually
towards one another. It was back-breaking exercise, for the grass was
rather long, and as he groped, Wimsey found himself versifying after the
manner of the old man sitting on a gate.

    "_But I was scheming to devise_
      _A wheeze to catch the spanner,_
    _With magnets of uncommon size,_
      _And sell it for a tanner,_

    _Or train a pack of skilful hounds_
      _To scent it like a rabbit,_
    _And something, something, something--ounds_
      _And something, something habit._"

He paused and straightened his spine.

"Not very lively," he mused; "better, I think, for a Heath Robinson
picture.

    _Or purchase half a ton of flints_
      _And hurl them in the dark_
    _And something or the other ending in glints,_
      _And a last line ending in see the spark._

I ought to have brought Bunter. This is menial toil. It's really beneath
the dignity of any human being, unless one is like the army of Napoleon
which is popularly reputed to have marched on its belly. Hullo! hullo!
hullo!"

His walking-stick--which he carried with him everywhere, even in the
car, for fear that by some accident he might be obliged to stagger a few
steps when he got to places--struck against something which gave out a
metallic noise. He stooped, looked, and let out a loud yell.

The Inspector came galloping up.

"Here you are," said Wimsey, with conscious pride.

It was a big King Dick spanner, slightly rusty with the dew, lying
within a couple of feet of the wall.

"Ye've no touched it?" asked the Inspector, anxiously.

"What do you take me for?" retorted Wimsey, hurt.

Macpherson knelt down, drew out a tape-measure and solemnly measured the
distance of the spanner from the wall. He then peered over the wall into
the road and, drawing out his notebook, made a careful plan of the exact
position. After that, he took out a large jack-knife and thrust it in
among the stones of the wall, by way of making the indication still more
precise, and only after performing these rites did he very gingerly lift
the spanner, covering his fingers with a large white handkerchief and
wrapping the folds of the linen tenderly about it.

"There might be finger-prints, ye ken," said he.

"Ay, there might," agreed Wimsey, in the language of the country.

"And then we've only tae get the prints of Farren and compare them. How
will we do that now?"

"Razor," said Wimsey, "palette-knife, picture-frames, pots--anything in
his studio. Studios are never dusted. I suppose the actual riot took
place on the other side of the road. There won't be much trace of it
now, I'm afraid."

The Inspector shook his head.

"It's no likely, wi' cars and cattle passin' up and doon. There was no
bloodshed, an' this dry grass takes no marks, mair's the pity. But we'll
tak' a look round."

The tarmac itself betrayed nothing, and the indications in the grass
were so vague that nothing could be made of them. Presently, however,
Wimsey, beating about among a tuft of bramble and bracken, uttered a
small astonished noise.

"What's that?" asked Macpherson.

"What indeed?" said Wimsey. "It's one of these problems, Inspector,
that's what it is. Did you ever hear of the Kilkenny cats that fought
till only their tails were left behind them? Now here are two gentlemen
having a fight, and both of them spirited away, leaving only a tuft of
hair. And what's more, it's the wrong colour. What do you make of that?"

He held up in his hand a tuft of curly blackness suggestive of an
Assyrian wall-painting.

"That's a queer thing," said Macpherson.

"Cut off, not torn out," said Wimsey. He pulled a lens from his pocket
and examined the trophy carefully. "It's soft and silky, and it's never
been trimmed at the distal end; it might come from one of those sweet
old-fashioned, long-haired girls, but the texture's a bit on the coarse
side. It's a job for an expert, really, to say where it does come from."

The Inspector handled it carefully and peered through the lens with as
much intelligence as he could assume on the spur of the moment.

"What makes ye say it's never been trimmed?" he inquired.

"See how the points taper. Is there a female in the country with hair so
black and so curly, that's never been shingled or bingled? Were our
blokes wrestling for a love-token, Inspector? But whose? Not Mrs.
Farren's, unless she's turned from a Burne-Jones to a Rossetti in the
night. But if it isn't Mrs. Farren's, Inspector, where's our theory?"

"Hoots!" said the Inspector. "Maybe it has naething tae do wi' the case
at a'."

"How sensible you are," said Wimsey, "and how imperturbable. Calm
without something or other, without o'er-flowing, full. Talking of that,
how soon will the pubs be open? Hullo! here's another bunch of hair.
Some love-token! I say, let's trot home with this and interview Bunter.
I've a notion it may interest him."

"Ye think so?" said Macpherson. "Weel, that's no a bad idea, neither.
But I'm thinkin' we'll better be away tae Newton-Stewart first. We'll
have tae find the doctor and get the undertaker tae open the coffin.
I've a great fancy tae see how this spanner fits yon wound in the heid."

"Very good," said Wimsey, "so have I. But just a minute. We'd better
have a look first and see if we can find out what happened to the body.
The murderer stuck it into his car and drove off towards Gatehouse with
it. He can't have gone far, because he very soon came back for
Campbell's Morris, so there ought to be a gate about here somewhere. In
fact, I fancy I remember seeing one."

The search did not take long. About fifty yards farther along the bend
they came to a rusty iron gate on the right-hand side. This led into a
grassy lane which, after about thirty yards, turned abruptly to the left
and was hidden behind some bushes.

"Here's the place," said Wimsey. "There's been a car up here lately. You
can see where the wing scraped the post. The gate has a hook and
chain--easy enough to undo. He must have backed it in up to the bend.
Then, if he turned the lights off, it would be absolutely invisible from
the road. There's no difficulty about that, and there's no other
possible hiding-place for a mile or so, I'm certain of that. Well,
that's uncommonly satisfactory. I gloat, as Stalky says. Back we go to
the car, Inspector. Spit on your hands and grasp the coachwork firmly.
I'm feeling sprightly, and I'm going to break all records between here
and Newton-Stewart."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Dr. Cameron was greatly interested in the spanner, and experienced so
much difficulty in keeping his hands off it, that it was thought best to
have it tested for finger-prints before anything else was done. By the
combined exertions of the police-staff, the local photographer and
Wimsey, this was done. A magnificent thumb-print made its appearance
after a dusting with mercury powder, and a perfectly good negative was
"secured," to use the journalist's pet phrase.

In the meantime, a constable had rounded up the undertaker, who arrived
in great excitement, swallowing the last fragments of his tea. A slight
further delay was caused by its occurring to somebody that the Fiscal
should be notified. The Fiscal, fortunately enough, happened to be in
the town, and joined the party, explaining to Wimsey as they drove along
to the mortuary that this was the most painful case he had handled in
the whole of his experience, and that he had been much struck by the
superiority of the Scots law to the English in these matters. "For,"
said he, "the publicity of a coroner's inquest is bound to give much
unnecessary pain to the relations, which is avoided by our method of
private investigation."

"That is very true," said Wimsey, politely, "but think of all the extra
fun we get from the Sunday newspapers. Inquests are jam to them."

"We then proceeded," ran Inspector Macpherson's official notes on this
occasion, "to the mortuary, where the coffin was unscrewed in the
presence of the Fiscal, Dr. Cameron, James McWhan (the undertaker), Lord
Peter Wimsey and myself, and the body of Campbell extracted. On
comparison of the spanner formerly mentioned with the wounds upon the
head of the corpse, Dr. Cameron gave it as his opinion that a contused
area upon the left cheek-bone agreed exactly in contour with the head of
the said spanner and had in all probability been inflicted by that or by
a similar instrument. With regard to the larger contused area upon the
temple, which had occasioned death, Dr. Cameron could not speak with
certainty, but said that its appearance was consistent with the use of
the said spanner."

After this triumphant entry, which bears the marks of considerable
literary effort, appears another.

"Acting upon the suggestion of Lord Peter Wimsey" (the Inspector was a
just man, giving honour where it was due, regardless of his own
lacerated feelings), "the finger-prints of the corpse were then taken."
(This last phrase is erased, and a better locution substituted), "a
record was then secured of the finger-prints of the corpse. On
comparison of this record with the thumb-print found upon the spanner,
these were both found to be identical. Acting upon instructions, I
despatched both records to Glasgow for expert scrutiny."

In this stately paragraph, nothing is said of the bitter disappointment
experienced by the Inspector. It had seemed to him, with that
finger-print in his hands, as though his case were concluded, and now,
suddenly, he was taken up and cast down into the old outer darkness of
uncertainty and gnashing of teeth. But his behaviour was handsome to the
last degree.

"It's a great maircy," said he to Wimsey, "that your lordship should ha'
taken the notion tae have that done. It wad never have entered my heid.
We might have eliminated a' six suspects on the strength o' that
deceivin' finger-print. It was a gran' notion of yours, my lord, a gran'
notion."

He sighed deeply.

"Cheer up," said Wimsey. "It's all the luck of the game. Come and have a
spot of dinner with me at the Galloway Arms."

Now that was an unlucky suggestion.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The gathering in Bob Anderson's studio was well attended that night. Bob
was an artist, the geniality of whose temperament is best vouched for by
the fact that it had never for one moment occurred to anybody engaged on
the case that he could by any chance have hated Campbell, damaged
Campbell, or been mixed up for a single moment in the Campbell mystery.
He had lived in Kirkcudbright for nearly as many years as Gowan, and was
extremely popular, not only with all the artists, but also with the
local inhabitants, particularly with the fishermen and the men employed
about the harbour. He seldom visited anybody, preferring to be at home
every evening in the week, and all the news of the town was bound to
filter through Bob's studio in time.

When Wimsey poked his long nose round the door on that Thursday evening,
he found a full house already assembled. Miss Cochran and Miss Selby
were there, of course, and Jock Graham (in a remarkable costume,
comprising a fisherman's jersey, a luggage strap, riding-breeches and
rope-soled deck-shoes), and Ferguson (rather surprisingly, for he did
not as a rule go out of an evening), the Harbour-master, the doctor,
Strachan (his black eye almost faded out), a Mrs. Terrington, who worked
in metal, a long, thin, silent man, called Temple, of whom Wimsey knew
nothing except that his handicap was five at St. Andrews, and finally
Mrs., Miss and young Mr. Anderson. The babble of conversation was
terrific.

Wimsey's entrance was greeted by a welcoming shout.

"Here he is! Here he is! Come away in! Here's the man to tell us all
about it!"

"All about what?" said Wimsey, knowing only too well. "What to back for
the Leger?"

"Leger be damned. All about this business of poor Campbell. It's
terrible the way the police come running in and out of one's house. One
doesn't feel safe for a moment. Luckily I've got a cast-iron alibi, or
I'd begin to feel I was a criminal myself."

"No, Bob, not you," said Wimsey.

"Oh, ye never know these days. But very fortunately I was at dinner with
the Provost Monday night and didn't get home till midnight, and on
Tuesday morning I was showing myself up and down St. Cuthbert's Street.
But tell us, Wimsey, you that's hand in glove with the police----"

"I'm not allowed to tell anything," said Wimsey, plaintively. "You
mustn't tempt me. It's not fair. I could not love thee, Bob, so much,
loved I not honour more. Besides, I'm supposed to be finding things out,
not giving information away."

"Well, you're welcome to all we know," said Miss Selby.

"Am I?" said Wimsey. "Tell me, then, how many hundred people in the
county, besides Jock, knew that Campbell meant to go up to the Minnoch
on Tuesday?"

"You had better ask who did not?" said the doctor. "He said so here on
the Sunday night. He'd been making a preliminary sketch that afternoon.
Monday he was going to fish in some wonderful place he wouldn't tell
anybody about----"

"I know where it was, all the same," put in Graham.

"You would. And Tuesday he was going to paint the Minnoch if the weather
held. You heard him say so, Sally."

"I did so," said Miss Cochran.

"I was here, too," said Ferguson, "and I remember it perfectly. I fancy
I said something about it to Farren on the Monday morning, because he
had a tea-party or something fixed up for Brighouse Bay on Tuesday and
said he hoped they wouldn't run into Campbell."

"I knew, too," said Strachan. "My wife and I met him up there on Sunday,
as I think I mentioned to Wimsey."

Wimsey nodded. "Campbell seems to have been more communicative than
usual," he remarked.

"Och," said Bob, "Campbell was not such a bad fellow if you took him the
right way. He had an aggressive manner but I believe it was mostly due
to a feeling that he was out of everything. He used to have awful
arguments with people----"

"He was an opinionated man," said the Harbour-master.

"Yes, but that made it all the more amusing. One couldn't take Campbell
seriously."

"No, one couldn't," said Graham.

"Gowan did, for one," said the doctor.

"Ah, but Gowan takes everything very seriously, and himself most of
all."

"All the same," said Mrs. Anderson, "Campbell ought not to have spoken
of Gowan as he did."

"Gowan's away, isn't he? They told me he had gone to London. By the way,
Wimsey, what's happened to Waters?"

"I haven't the foggiest. As far as I can make out, he's supposed to be
in Glasgow. Did you see anything of him, Ferguson?"

"No. The police asked me that. Do I take it that Waters is suspected of
anything?"

"Waters was here on Sunday night," observed the doctor, "but he didn't
stay very long after Campbell came in."

"You're a great man for facts, doctor. But if Waters was in Glasgow he
couldn't have been up at the Minnoch."

"The odd thing," said Miss Selby, "is that nobody saw him in Glasgow. He
was supposed to be going by our train, but he didn't, did he, Mr.
Ferguson?"

"I didn't see him. But I wasn't looking out for him particularly. I saw
you two get in at Dumfries, and I saw you again with your party at St.
Enoch Station. But I went off in rather a hurry. I had some shopping to
do before I got down to the show. As a matter of fact, the whole thing
was very irritating. Something went wrong with my magneto, otherwise I
should have got up early and run over to catch the 7.30 express from
Dumfries, instead of waiting for that ghastly 11.22, which stops at
every station."

"Rather than travel by a confirmed stopper," said Wimsey, "I'd have
waited a little longer and gone by the 1.46."

"Taking the 10.56 from Gatehouse, you mean?"

"Or the 11 o'clock 'bus. It gets you in to Dumfries at 12.25."

"No, it doesn't," said Strachan. "That's the Sunday 'bus. The week-day
'bus goes at 10."

"Well, anyway, I couldn't," said Ferguson, "because I'd made an
appointment to meet a man at the show at 3.15, and the 1.46 doesn't get
in to Glasgow till 3.34. So I had to make a martyr of myself. And the
sickening thing was that my man never turned up after all. I found a
note at my hotel, saying he'd been called to see a sick relative."

"Sick relatives ought to be forbidden by law," said Wimsey.

"Yes; I was damned fed-up. However, I took my mag. along to Sparkes &
Crisp, and it's still there, confound it. Something obscure in the
armature winding, as far as I could make out--I don't think they knew
themselves. And it's practically a new car, too; only done a few
thousand. I'm claiming under guarantee."

"Oh, well," said Wimsey, consolingly, "Sparkes & Crisp will provide a
nice little alibi for you."

"Yes; I don't know exactly when I got there, but they'll be able to say.
I took a tram up. I should think I got to their place about 3 o'clock.
The train was a quarter of an hour late, of course; it always is."

"It was nearer twenty minutes late," said Miss Selby, severely. "We were
very much annoyed about it. It cut down our time with Kathleen."

"Local trains always are late," said Wimsey. "It's one of the rules.
It's done so that the guard and the engine-driver can step out and
admire the station-master's garden at every stop. You know those
gardening competitions they have in railway magazines. Well, that's how
they're run. The guard gets off at Kirkgunzeon or Brig o' Dee with a
yard measure in his hand and measures the prize marrow and says: 'Twa
fut four inches--that'll no dew, Mr. McGeoch. They've got one at
Dalbeattie that beats ye by twa inches. Here, George, come and look at
this.' So the engine-driver strolls over and says, 'Och, ay, imph'm,
ye'll dew weel tae gie't a mulch o' liquid guano and aspidistra tonic'
And then they go back to Dalbeattie and tell them that the marrow at
Kirkgunzeon is hauling up on them hand over fist. It's no good laughing.
I know they do it. If not, what on earth do they do, hanging
everlastingly about at these three-by-four stations?"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said Miss Anderson, "talking
such nonsense, with poor Mr. Campbell lying dead."

"They're burying him to-morrow, aren't they?" said Jock Graham, suddenly
and tactlessly. "At Gatehouse. Does one go? I haven't any
wedding-garments."

"Oh, dear," said Bob. "Never thought of that. We must go, I suppose.
Look odd if we didn't. Besides, I'd like to show respect to the poor
fellow. Surely we can go as we are."

"You can't go in those terrific tweeds, Bob," said Miss Selby.

"Why not?" demanded Bob. "I can feel just as sorry in a check suit as in
a frock-coat smelling of moth-balls. I shall go in my ordinary working
clothes--with a black tie, naturally. Can you see me in a top-hat?"

"Dad, you are dreadful," said Miss Anderson.

"My God!" said Wimsey. "I hope Bunter has remembered to order a wreath.
I expect he has. He remembers everything. Did you decide to send one
from the Club, Strachan?"

"Oh, yes," said Strachan. "We all agreed it was the right thing to do."

"The trouble with Campbell," said the five-handicap man unexpectedly,
"was that he was a bad loser. A slice off the tee or a foozled
approach-shot would put him off his game for the afternoon."

Having unburdened his mind of this criticism, he retired in obscurity
again and spoke no more.

"He was having a one-man show in London this autumn, wasn't he?" said
Ferguson.

"I expect his sister will carry on with that," said the doctor. "It will
probably be a great success."

"I never know what the doctor means by those remarks," said young
Anderson. "What's the sister like, by the way? Has anybody seen her?"

"She called here yesterday," said Mrs. Anderson. "A nice, quiet girl. I
liked her."

"What did she think about it all?"

"Well, Jock, what could she think? She seemed very much distressed, as
you would expect."

"No idea of who might have done it, I suppose?" suggested Wimsey.

"No--I gathered that she hadn't seen anything of her brother for some
years. She's married to an engineer in Edinburgh, and, though she didn't
say much, I rather fancy the two men didn't hit it off very well."

"It's all very unpleasant and mysterious," said Mrs. Anderson. "I hope
very much it'll all turn out to be a mare's nest. I can't really believe
that anybody about here could have committed a murder. I think the
police are just anxious to make a sensation. Probably it was only an
accident, after all."

The doctor opened his mouth, but caught Wimsey's eye, and shut it again.
Wimsey guessed that his colleague at Newton-Stewart must have said
something, and hastened to lead the conversation away on lines which
would at the same time convey a warning and possibly also elicit useful
information.

"A great deal," he said, "depends on how long Campbell actually spent at
the Minnoch on Tuesday. We know--at least, Ferguson knows--that he
started out about 7.30. It's about twenty-seven miles--say he got up
there between 8.30 and 8.45. How long would it take him to do his
sketch?"

"Starting from scratch?"

"That's just what one can't be sure of. But say he set out with a blank
canvas."

"Which he probably did," said Strachan. "He showed me his rough sketch
in his sketch-book on Sunday, and on Monday he didn't go up."

"So far as we know," said Ferguson.

"Exactly. So far as we know."

"Well, then?" said Wimsey.

"We haven't seen the picture," said Bob. "So how can we tell?"

"Look here," said Wimsey. "I know how we could get a rough idea.
Supposing all you fellows were each to start off with a panel that size
and a rough charcoal outline--could you kind of fudge something up,
imitating Campbell's style as much as possible, while I stood over you
with a stop-watch? We could take the average of your speeds and get a
sort of line on the thing that way."

"Reconstruct the crime?" said young Anderson, laughing.

"In a sense."

"But Wimsey, that's all very well. No two men paint at the same rate,
and if I, for instance, tried to paint like Campbell, with a
palette-knife, I should make an awful muck of it, and get nowhere."

"Possibly--but then your styles are so very unlike, Ferguson. But Jock
can imitate anybody, I know, and Waters said it would be easy to fake a
perfectly plausible Campbell. And Bob here is an expert with the knife."

"I'll be sporting, Lord Peter," said Miss Selby, surprisingly. "If it's
really going to do any good, I don't mind making a fool of myself."

"That's the spirit," said Graham. "I'm on, Peter."

"I don't mind having a dash at it," said Strachan.

"All right, then," said Bob. "We all will. Have we got to go up to the
scene of the tragedy, old man?"

"Starting at 7.30?" said Miss Selby.

"It's no good getting there too early," objected Strachan, "because of
the light."

"That's one of the things we've got to prove." said Wimsey. "How soon he
could have got going on it."

"Ugh!" said Bob Anderson. "It's against my principles to get up in the
small hours."

"Never mind," said Wimsey. "Think how helpful it may be."

"Oh, well--is it to-morrow morning you're thinking of?"

"The sooner the better."

"Will you convey us there?"

"In the utmost luxury. And Bunter shall provide hot coffee and
sandwiches."

"Be sporting," said Miss Selby.

"If we must----" said Bob.

"I think it's monstrous," said Ferguson. "Going over in car-loads like
that and having a picnic. What will people take us for?"

"What does it matter what they take us for?" retorted Graham. "I think
you're absolutely right, Wimsey. Damn it all, we _ought_ to do what we
can. I'll be there. Come on, Ferguson, don't you let us down."

"I'll come if you like," said Ferguson, "but I do think it's rather
disgusting, all the same."

"Miss Selby, Bob, Strachan, Ferguson, Graham, and me as timekeeper.
Coffee and palette-knives for six. Strachan, you'd better run Ferguson
and Graham up, and I'll take the Kirkcudbright contingent. I'll get a
police witness as well. That's fine."

"I believe you enjoy it, Lord Peter," said Mrs. Terrington. "I suppose
you get carried away by these investigations."

"They are always interesting," admitted Wimsey. "Every man is thrilled
by his own job. Isn't that so, Mr. Doulton?" he added, addressing the
Harbour-master.

"That's so, my lord. I remember having tae du much the same thing, mony
years since, in an inquest upon a sailing-vessel that ran aground in the
estuary and got broken up by bumping herself to bits in a gale. The
insurance folk thocht that the accident wasna a'tegither
straightforward. We tuk it upon oorsels tae demonstrate that wi' the
wind and tide settin' as they did, the boat should ha' been well away
fra' the shore if they had started at the hour they claimed to ha' done.
We lost the case, but I've never altered my opeenion."

"That estuary can be awkward if you don't know the channels," said Bob.

"Ay, that's true. But a man of experience, as this skipper was, should
no ha' made such a mistake, unless indeed he was drunk at the time."

"That's a thing that might happen to anybody," said Wimsey. "Who were
those fellows that were kicking up such a row in the town over the
week-end?"

"Och, they were juist a couple a' English gentlemen fra' the wee yacht
that was anchored up by the Doon," said the Harbour-master, placidly.
"There was nae harm in them at a'. Verra decent, hospitable fellows,
father and son, and knew how tae handle a boat. They were aff on Tuesday
mornin', makin' their way up the west coast to Skye, they tell't me."

"Well, they've got fine weather for it," said the doctor.

"Ay, imph'm. But I'm thinkin' there'll be a bit of a change the nicht.
The wind's shiftin', and there's one o' they depressions coming over
fra' Iceland."

"I wish they'd keep their depressions at home," grumbled Wimsey,
thinking of his experiment.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The meeting did not break up till 11 o'clock. Stepping out into the
street, Wimsey became immediately aware of the change in the weather. A
soft dampness beat on his cheek, and the sky was overcast with a close
veil of drifting cloud.

He was about to turn into Blue Gate Close, when he saw, far away at the
end of the street, the red tail-lamp of a car. It was difficult to judge
distances in the close blackness, but his instinct seemed to tell him
that the car was standing before Gowan's house. Possessed by curiosity,
he strolled down the street towards it. Presently, straining eyes and
ears, he seemed to hear a stir of low voices, and to see two muffled
figures cross the pavement.

"Something's happening!" he said to himself, and started to run,
noiselessly, on rubber soles. Now he heard distinctly enough the
starting of the engine. He redoubled his speed.

Something tripped him--he stumbled and sprawled headlong, bruising
himself painfully. When he picked himself up, the red tail-light was
vanishing round the corner.

The Harbour-master appeared suddenly at his elbow, assisting him to
rise.

"It's a fair scandal," said the Harbour-master, "the way they doorsteps
is built right oot tae the edge o' the pavement. Are ye hurt, my lord?
The Council should du something aboot it. I remember, when I was a young
man----"

"Excuse me," said Wimsey. He rubbed his knees and elbows. "No harm done.
Forgive me, won't you? I have an appointment."

He dashed off in the direction of the police-station, leaving the
Harbour-master to stare after him in surprise.




                              CHAPTER XIV


                             CONSTABLE ROSS

The next day dawned wild and stormy, with heavy rain and violent squalls
of south-west wind. Wimsey's sketching-party was perforce postponed.
Nevertheless, the day was not wholly lacking in incident.

The first thing that happened was the sudden return of Constable Ross
from Ayr, with a remarkable story.

He had gone out on the previous night to Kilmarnock, to investigate the
history of a bicyclist in a burberry, who had been seen to leave Ayr
station shortly after 1.48. This trail, however, had petered out. He
found the man without the least difficulty. He proved to be a perfectly
innocent and respectable young farmer who had come to the station to
inquire about some goods lost in transit.

Ross had then made further inquiries in and about the town, with the
following result.

The bookstall clerk had seen the passenger in grey pass his bookstall at
1.49, in the direction of the exit. He had not seen him actually leave
the station, because of the corner of the bookstall, which cut off his
view of the exit.

A taxi-driver, standing just outside the station exit, had seen a young
man in a burberry come out with a bicycle. (This was the farmer whom
Ross subsequently interviewed.) He also saw a youngish man in a cap and
a grey flannel suit come out, carrying a small attach-case, but without
a bicycle. A fare had then hailed him and he had driven away, but he
fancied he had seen the man in grey turn into a small side-street. This
would be about two minutes after the Stranraer train came in--say, at
1.50.

At about 2.20, a porter who was taking along a truck of luggage to the
2.25 for Carlisle, noticed a man's bicycle standing against a board
which displayed time-tables and railway posters, just above the bays on
the booking-hall side of the platform. He examined it and found that it
had an L.M.S. label for Euston. He knew nothing about it, except that he
had a dim impression that it had been there for some little time.
Supposing that it was in charge of one of his colleagues and possibly
belonged to some passenger who was breaking his journey at Carlisle, he
left it where it was. At 5 o'clock, however, he noticed that it was
still there, and asked the other porters about it. None of them
remembered handling it or labelling it, but since it was there, with its
label all in order, he did his duty by it and put it into the 5.20
express for Euston. If the passenger to whom it belonged had travelled
by the 2.25, the bicycle would arrive in Euston by the same train as
himself, for the 2.25 does not run to Euston, and London passengers
would have to change at Carlisle and wait two-and-a-quarter hours till
the 5.20 came in to take them on.

This porter, having had his attention particularly directed to the
bicycle, had examined it fairly closely. It was a Raleigh, not new and
not in very good condition, but with good tyres front and back.

Ross jumped when he heard this description, and eagerly examined all the
porters. He completely failed, however, to discover the man who had
affixed the Euston label to it, or to get any information about its
owner.

The booking-clerk had issued ten tickets to Carlisle by the 2.25--five
third singles, three third returns, a first single and a first
return--and two third singles to Euston. He had issued no long-distance
bicycle-ticket by that train or by the 5.20, which had carried eight
passengers from Ayr. A porter, not the same man who had put the bicycle
into the 5.20, remembered a gentleman in a grey suit who had travelled
to Carlisle on the 2.25 without luggage; he had asked him some question
about the route, which was via Mauchline. This person did not wear
glasses and had said nothing at all about any bicycle, nor had any
passenger by the 5.20 mentioned a bicycle.

Constable Ross next endeavoured to trace the man in the grey suit who
had vanished down the side-street, but without success. It was a small
alley, rather than a street, containing nothing but the back-entrances
of some warehouses and a public convenience.

The bookstall clerk, interrogated again, thought he remembered seeing a
man in a soft felt hat and a burberry pass the bookstall with a bicycle
at about 1.53 from the direction of the booking-hall, but had not paid
much attention to him. Nobody else had noticed this person at all, as
the Stranraer train was just due out again to Glasgow and there was a
considerable number of passengers hurrying to catch it.

Two porters, who had seen the last of the luggage into the Glasgow train
at 1.54, swore definitely that there was no bicycle in either of the
vans.

Constable Ross hardly knew what to make of all this. The description of
the bicycle coincided almost exactly with that of the machine taken from
the Anwoth Hotel and, rather less closely, with that of Farren's
bicycle. But how had it come to bear a Euston label? The bicycle put in
at Girvan had been labelled for Ayr by the porter, and this point was
verified by the guard who put it out at Ayr. It was quite impossible
that it could have been re-labelled at Ayr, during the train's six
minutes' wait at that station, for throughout that period one porter or
another had been continually on duty beside the case containing labels,
and all were prepared to swear that the bicycle had not passed through
their hands.

The only possibility was that the bicycle had somehow been re-labelled
after the Glasgow train had gone; but it was not labelled by a porter,
for none of them remembered it.

What had become of the man in the grey suit?

If he was the same person as the man in the burberry who had been seen
by the bookstall clerk wheeling a bicycle at 1.53, he must have put on
the burberry somewhere outside (in the public convenience?) and returned
via the booking-hall. What, then, had become of him? Had he hung about
the station till 2.55? If so, where? He had not gone into the
refreshment-room, for the girl there was positive that she had seen
nobody of the sort. He had not been seen in the waiting-rooms or on the
platform. Presumably he had left the bicycle by the hoarding and then
gone out again, or taken some other train.

But which train?

He had not gone on to Glasgow by the 1.54, because it was quite certain
that the bicycle could not been re-labelled before the train left.

There remained the 1.56 to Muirkirk, the 2.12 and the 2.23 to Glasgow,
the 2.30 to Dalmellington, the 2.35 to Kilmarnock and the 2.45 to
Stranraer, besides, of course, the 2.25 itself.

Of these seven possibilities, Ross was able to eliminate the 1.56, the
2.30 and the 2.35. Nobody in the least corresponding to the description
had travelled by any of them. The 2.45 to Stranraer he thought he could
also dismiss. It had the advantage of bringing the murderer (if it was
the murderer) back on his tracks--and Ross bore in mind Wimsey's remark
that the murderer would probably wish to reappear at home as soon and as
plausibly as possible--but it seemed almost inconceivable that anybody
should take the trouble to go all the way to Ayr to get rid of a bicycle
which could have been dumped so much more readily and easily at some
point nearer home.

There remained the two Glasgow trains and the 2.25. The 2.12 to Glasgow
was a comparatively slow train, getting in at 3.30; the 2.23 was the
Stranraer boat-train, getting in at 3.29. The former had the advantage
of getting the traveller away from the station earlier. He made
inquiries about both trains, and received, in each case, vague
descriptions of men in burberries and grey suits. It depressed him that
this style of dress should be so common. He played a little with the
idea that the wanted man might have changed his clothes before leaving
Ayr, but dismissed the idea. He could not have carried a second suit of
clothes as well as a burberry in the little attach-case, and he could
hardly have gone out, bought a suit in the town and taken a room to
change in. At least, he _could_ have done so, but it would have been
unnecessarily risky. In that case he would have had to go by a much
later train, and the more time he wasted at Ayr, the more worthless his
alibi would be. And if he had not wanted to establish an alibi, what was
the meaning of the elaborate proceedings at the Minnoch? If, then, he
had gone on to Glasgow, he could not have arrived there before 3.29 at
the earliest, and in all probability would not have travelled later.

There remained the 2.55. He might have been the grey-suited traveller
who had travelled to Euston. But if so, why take the bicycle with him,
acknowledged or unacknowledged? He might just as well have left it on
the platform at Ayr.

But no! Perhaps the best thing he could have done was to take it with
him. He would know that it might be inquired for--as a stolen bicycle at
least, if not as a piece of evidence in a murder plot. Euston was larger
and farther from the site of the crime than Ayr. A bicycle could be lost
very conveniently in London, and so long as he had not been seen to
travel with it, he could deny all knowledge of it.

Constable Ross was not entirely satisfied with any of these
explanations. It was perfectly possible that the man had not travelled
by any train at all. He might still be walking about Ayr. He might have
taken a car or a 'bus to anywhere. He felt that the thing was becoming
too complicated to tackle single-handed. Accordingly he decided to
return to Newton-Stewart with his report and get further instructions.

The first necessity was obviously to find out what had happened to the
bicycle if and when it had got to London. Dalziel put an inquiry through
to Euston. The reply came back in an hour's time. A bicycle answering to
the description had duly arrived on the 5 a.m. train on Wednesday
morning. As it had not been claimed, it had been placed in the
left-luggage office to await its owner. It was a Raleigh corresponding
to the description issued.

The police scratched their heads about this, and instructed the railway
authorities to hold the machine until someone could come and identify
it. In the meantime, if anybody called for it, he was to be detained. A
call was put through to the London police requesting assistance in this
part of the business, though it seemed likely that, if the bicycle was
indeed the one which had been stolen, anybody who called for it would be
foolish indeed.

"He couldna get it if he did call for 't," said Constable Ross. "They'd
no gie 't up wi'oot a ticket."

"Wad they no?" said Sergeant Dalziel. "An' if the fellow had got oot o'
the train an' purchased a ticket at some other station? At Carlisle or
Crewe or Rugby, maybe?"

"That's a fact," said Ross. "But had he done so, he'd have called for 't
earlier. The later he leaves it the mair risky it wad be for him."

"Ay, we'll be thankful it isna away already," said Dalziel.

"Imph'm," said Ross, pleased with himself.

Inspector Macpherson was pleased, too. He had driven over early to
Newton-Stewart to lay his time-table before Sergeant Dalziel, and he
preened himself.

"It a' fits in fine wi' my theory," said he. "If yon's no Farren's
bicycle, I'll eat my hat."

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the meantime, however, a shock was being prepared for Sergeant
Dalziel. Full of pride in his own swift efficiency, he had, on his way
back from Ayr the previous night, left a set of photographs at Girvan
police-station, with instructions that they were to be shown to the
porter McSkimming, as soon as he arrived in the morning, to see if he
could identify the man in the grey suit. Now the Girvan police rang
through to say that the porter had been carried off to hospital during
the night, the "awfu' pain in his stomach" having suddenly developed
into acute appendicitis. A call to the hospital brought the news that
the man was being operated upon at that very moment, and would certainly
be able to make no statement for some time. Disquieting details were
added about "perforation," "threatenings of peritonitis" and "condition
of the heart unsatisfactory." Dalziel swore, and instantly packed Ross
off again with a second set of photographs to show to the station
officials at Ayr.

The next blow was directed at Inspector Macpherson, and caught him right
on the midriff.

"If yon's no Farren's bicycle," he had said, "I will eat my hat."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the telephone bell rang.

"This is the Creetown police speaking," said a voice. "We've found yon
bicycle o' Mr. Farren's lyin' abandoned in the hills by Falbae. There's
nae doot it's his all right, for his name is written on a label tied to
the handle-bars."

                 *        *        *        *        *

It will be remembered that on the previous evening, the Inspector had
dispatched a party to search the neighbourhood of certain disused
lead-mines, the scene of an unfortunate disaster a year or two before.
These mines consisted of half a dozen or more narrow shafts cut in the
hill-granite a few miles east of Creetown. They were reached by
following the road to a farm called Falbae. From there a sheep-track or
two led to the mines, which were surface-workings only, from thirty to
forty feet deep at most. Some of the supporting beams of the cages were
still in position, though all the tackle had long since disappeared. The
mines had a bad name, particularly since an unhappy girl had thrown
herself down one of them, and nobody went near them, except an
occasional shepherd. The people of the farm had little occasion to visit
the place, and the road ended at the farm. Though the mines were
comparatively close to civilisation, they were, for all practical
purposes, as lonely and desolate as though they had been in the middle
of a desert.

It was in this ill-omened spot that Farren's bicycle had been found.
Macpherson, hastily driving over to investigate, found the Creetown
policeman and a number of volunteer assistants clustered round the head
of one of the pits. A man was fitting a rope about his waist preparatory
to descending.

The bicycle was lying where it had been found--a few hundred yards
beyond the farm, and half a mile or so from the nearest pit. It was in
good order, though the plated parts were slightly rusty from lying four
nights among the bracken. There were no signs of accident or violence.
It seemed simply to have been flung down and left when the track became
too rough and steep for bicycling.

"Ye've no found the body?" said Macpherson.

No, they had found no body or clothing, but it seemed only too probable
that the unfortunate Farren might be lying at the foot of one of the
pits. They were intending--subject to instructions--to explore all the
shafts in turn. It might be an awkward job, for one or two of them had
water at the bottom. Macpherson told them to carry on and report the
moment anything turned up. Then, deeply disappointed and chagrined, he
made his mournful way back to Kirkcudbright.

To the Chief Constable fell the unpleasant task of telling Mrs. Farren
about the fears they entertained about her husband. She was smiling when
she met him at the door, and looked more cheerful than she had been for
some days, and Sir Maxwell found it hard to enter upon his story. She
took it well, on the whole. He laid stress on the fact that nothing as
yet definitely pointed to suicide and that the search was only a matter
of precaution.

"I quite understand," said Mrs. Farren, "and it is most good of you. You
are very kind. I can't really believe that Hugh would do such a dreadful
thing. I'm sure it's all a mistake. He is rather eccentric, you know,
and I think it's much more likely that he has just wandered off
somewhere. But of course you must search the mines. I quite see that."

The Chief Constable made a few other inquiries, as tactfully as he
could.

"Well, yes--if you know that already--I must admit that he was rather in
a temper when he went away. Hugh is excitable, and he was upset by
something that happened about the dinner. Oh, dear, no--nothing whatever
to do with Mr. Campbell. What a ridiculous idea!"

Sir Maxwell felt he could not let this pass. He explained, as kindly as
possible, that Farren had been heard to make some very unfortunate
observations that same evening with reference to Mr. Campbell.

Mrs. Farren then admitted that her husband had, indeed, objected to
Campbell's repeated visits to the house.

"But as soon as he came to think it over," she said, "he would realise
that he was doing me an injustice. He would never go so far as to lay
violent hands on himself--or on anybody else. Sir Maxwell, you _must_
believe me. I _know_ my husband. He is impulsive, but with him
everything blows over very quickly. I am as certain as I stand here that
he is alive and well, and that he has done nothing rash. Even if--even
if you should find his dead body, nothing will persuade me but that he
has met with an accident. Anything else is unthinkable--and before long
you will come back and tell me that I am right."

She spoke with so much conviction that Jamieson was shaken in his
belief. He said that he very much trusted that events would prove Mrs.
Farren right, and took his leave. As he went, Strachan's car passed him
at the turn of the lane, and glancing over his shoulder, he saw it stop
at Mrs. Farren's door.

"Whatever it is about Farren," he said, "Strachan is in it, up to the
hilt."

He hesitated for a moment, and then turned back. He remembered that
Macpherson had so far received no reply to his inquiry at Gatehouse
about Strachan's whereabouts at 9.15 on Monday night.

"Oh, Mr. Strachan!" he said.

"Oh, good morning, Sir Maxwell."

"I just wanted to ask you something. I don't know if you've heard
this--er--this rather disquieting news about Farren."

"No. What about him?"

Sir Maxwell explained about the discovery of the bicycle.

"Oh!" said Strachan. "Yes--h'm--well--that does look rather bad, doesn't
it? Farren's a temperamental beggar you know. I hope there's nothing in
it. Does Mrs. Farren know?"

"Yes; I thought it better she should be prepared--just in case----"

"M'm. Is she upset?"

"No; she's being very brave. By the way, my people were trying to get
hold of you yesterday evening."

"Were they? I'm so sorry. We'd all gone down to Sand Green and the girl
had her night out. What did you want me for?"

"Just to ask if you happened to be at home on Monday night at a quarter
past nine."

"Monday night? Let me see. No, I wasn't. No. I went up to fish at
Tongland. Why?"

"Farren was seen going up the Laurieston Road, and we thought he might
have been calling at your place."

"Not that I know of," said Strachan. "But I'll ask my wife. She'll know,
or the girl will, if she doesn't. But they never said anything about it,
so I don't think he can have called. Poor devil! I should never forgive
myself if I thought that he was looking for me and that I might have
prevented him from----But we don't know yet that anything has happened
to him."

"Of course not," said the Chief Constable. "We'll hope for the best,
anyway."

He turned away homewards.

"Poker-faced man, that," he muttered to himself. "I don't trust him. But
of course Farren may have nothing to do with all this. This
extraordinary story of Wimsey's----"

For Wimsey had, an hour or so earlier, given him a shock beside which
all other shocks were a gentle tickling.




                               CHAPTER XV


                                 BUNTER

The shock was a staggerer of the first water, and lost nothing of its
force by being conveyed in terms of the most melancholy reproach. With
bent head Wimsey bowed to the storm, and at the end had so little spirit
left in him that he meekly allowed himself to be stripped of his grey
flannel suit and sent to attend Campbell's funeral in a black
morning-coat, top-hat and black kid gloves, to the consternation of his
friends and the immense admiration of Mr. McWhan.

The trouble was this. On the Thursday morning, Bunter had asked for and
received leave of absence in order to attend the cinema. Owing to
Wimsey's having dinner with Inspector Macpherson at Newton-Stewart and
then gone straight on to Bob Anderson's, he had not seen Bunter again
until he returned between midnight and one o'clock in the morning after
his visit to the police station.

Then his first words were:

"Bunter! Something's going on at Mr. Gowan's house."

To which Bunter replied:

"I was about, my lord, to make a similar communication to your
lordship."

"Somebody's just made a moonlight flitting," said Wimsey. "I've been
round to tell the police. At least," he corrected himself, "not
moonlight, because there is no moon; in fact, it's beastly dark and I
fell over some confounded steps, but the principle is the same and have
you got any arnica?"

Bunter's reply was memorable:

"My lord, I have already taken upon me, in your lordship's absence, to
acquaint Sir Maxwell Jamieson with Mr. Gowan's project of escape. I have
every reason to anticipate that he will be detained at Dumfries or
Carlisle. If your lordship will kindly remove your garments, I will
apply suitable remedies to the contusions."

"For God's sake, Bunter," said Lord Peter, flinging himself into a
chair, "explain yourself."

"When," said Bunter, "your lordship was good enough to acquaint me with
the result of Inspector Macpherson's inquiry at Mr. Gowan's house, it
came into my mind that possibly a greater amount of information might be
elicited from Mr. Gowan's domestic staff by a gentleman's personal
attendant than by an officer of the law. With this object in view, my
lord, I desired permission to attend the cinematograph performance
to-night. There is"--Bunter coughed slightly--"a young person employed
in Mr. Gowan's household of the name of Elizabeth, from whom, in the
course of a casual conversation yesterday, I obtained the information
that she was to receive permission to spend this evening out. I invited
her to attend the cinematograph entertainment in my company. The film
was one which I had already seen in London, but to her it was a novelty
and she accepted with apparent pleasure."

"No doubt," said Wimsey.

"During the course of the performance I contrived to render our
relations somewhat more confidential."

"Bunter! Bunter!"

"Your lordship need be under no apprehension. In short, the young person
confessed to me that she had some cause for dissatisfaction with her
present situation. Mr. Gowan was kind, and Mrs. Alcock was kind and so
was Mr. Alcock, but during the last few days certain circumstances had
arisen which had put her into a state of considerable trepidation. I
naturally inquired what these circumstances might be. In reply she gave
me to understand that her alarm was occasioned by the presence of a
mysterious stranger in the house."

"You paralyse me!"

"Thank you, my lord. I pressed the young woman for further particulars,
but she appeared apprehensive of being overheard in so public a place. I
accordingly waited until the close of the performance, which took place
at 10 o'clock, and invited her to take a stroll in the environs of the
town.

"Not to trouble you with a long story, my lord, I succeeded at length in
eliciting from her the following particulars. The mysterious occurrences
of which she complained had commenced to eventuate on Monday last, on
which day she had received permission to spend the evening with a sick
relative. On returning to the house at half-past 10, she was informed
that Mr. Gowan had been suddenly called away to London and had departed
by the 8.45 train for Carlisle. She alleges that she would have thought
nothing of this circumstance, had not the butler and the housekeeper
taken such excessive pains to impress it upon her mind.

"The next day she was further surprised by being expressly forbidden by
Mrs. Alcock to enter a certain corridor at the top of the house. This
was a corridor leading to some disused rooms and one which, under
ordinary circumstances, it would never have occurred to her to enter.
Being, however, of the female sex, the prohibition immediately aroused
in her a strong spirit of inquiry, and, on the first possible occasion,
when she had reason to suppose the rest of the staff occupied
downstairs, she went into the forbidden corridor and listened. She heard
nothing, but to her alarm detected a faint odour of disinfectant--an
odour which immediately connected itself in her mind with the idea of
death. Which reminds me, my lord, to suggest that your lordship's
injuries----"

"Never mind my injuries. Carry on."

"The young woman, alarmed as she was, was still more frightened by
hearing footsteps ascending the stairs. Not wishing to be caught in an
act of disobedience, she hastened to conceal herself inside a small
broom-cupboard at the head of the staircase. Peeping through the crack,
she observed Alcock, carrying a jug of hot water and a safety-razor,
pass along the corridor and enter a room at the end. Convinced that
there was a corpse in the house, and that Alcock was on his way to wash
and shave it in preparation for burial, she rushed downstairs and
indulged in hysterics in the pantry. Fortunately Mrs. Alcock was not at
hand, and in time she contrived to control her feelings and go about her
duties in the accustomed manner.

"Immediately after lunch she was sent out upon an errand in the town,
but she was afraid to communicate her suspicions to anybody. On
returning, she was kept fully occupied by various tasks, and was never
out of sight of one or the other of her fellow-domestics until bed-time.
She spent the night in a condition of nervous apprehension, trying but
failing to summon up courage to investigate the mysterious corridor
again.

"Early in the morning she began to feel that even the most disagreeable
certainty was preferable to agitating suspicions. She got up, crept
cautiously past the bedroom of the two Alcocks and went up to the top of
the house again. She ventured a little way down the corridor, when she
was rooted to the spot by the sound of a hollow groan."

"Really, Bunter," said Wimsey, "your narrative style would do credit to
the _Castle of Otranto_."

"Thank you, my lord. I am only acquainted by repute with the work you
mention, but I understand that it enjoyed a considerable vogue in its
day. The girl Elizabeth was hesitating whether to shriek or to run away,
when she happened to tread upon a loose board, which made a loud noise.
Thinking that the sound would awaken the Alcocks, she was preparing to
retreat once more to the shelter of the broom-cupboard, when the door at
the end of the passage was opened in a stealthy manner and a terrible
face looked out at her."

Bunter appeared to be enjoying the sensation he was producing, and
paused.

"A terrible face," said Wimsey. "Very well, I've got that. A terrible
face. Next, please!"

"The face, as I understand," pursued Bunter, "was enveloped in
grave-clothes. The jaws were closely bound up, the features were hideous
and the lips writhed away from the protruding teeth and the apparition
was of a ghastly pallor."

"Look here, Bunter," said Wimsey, "could you not cut out some of the
fancy adjectives and say plainly what the face was like?"

"I had not myself the opportunity of observing the face," said Bunter,
reprovingly, "but the impression produced on me by the young woman's
observations was that of a dark-haired, clean-shaven man with protruding
teeth under the affliction of some form of physical suffering."

"Oh, it was a man, then?"

"That was Elizabeth's opinion. A lock of hair was visible beneath the
bandages. The eyes appeared to be shut, or partly shut, for, although
she was standing in full view, the man said in a muffled tone, 'Is that
you, Alcock?' She did not reply, and presently the apparition retired
into the room and shut the door. She then heard a bell ring violently.
She rushed down the passage in blind alarm, encountering Alcock as he
issued from his bedroom. Too terrified to think what she was doing, she
gasped out: 'Oh, what is it? What is it?' Alcock replied: 'It must be
those dratted mice playing with the bell-wires. Go back to bed Betty.'
She then remembered that she deserved rebuke for having gone into the
upstairs corridor and retired to her own room to hide her head in the
bed-clothes."

"The best thing she could do," said Wimsey.

"Precisely, my lord. Thinking the matter over during the forenoon, she
came to the very reasonable conclusion that the person she had seen
might, after all, not be a living corpse but merely a sick man. She was,
however, quite sure that she had never seen the person's face in her
life. She now noticed that food was disappearing at every meal in excess
of that consumed by herself and the Alcocks, and this she found
encouraging, because, as she observed, dead folks do not eat."

"True," replied Wimsey. "As G. K. C. says, 'I'd rather be alive than
not.'"

"Quite so, my lord. I spoke as encouragingly as possible to the young
woman and offered to accompany her back to Mr. Gowan's house. She
informed me, however, that she had received permission to spend the
night at her mother's."

"Indeed?" said Wimsey.

"Precisely. I therefore took her home and returned to the High Street,
where I observed Mr. Gowan's saloon car standing before the door. It was
then five minutes to eleven. It was borne in upon me, my lord, that some
person was about to take a surreptitious departure from Mr. Gowan's
residence, and that Elizabeth had been given a night's leave of absence
in order that she might not be a witness of the proceedings."

"I think the inference is justifiable, Bunter."

"Yes, my lord. I took the liberty of concealing myself at the corner of
the street contiguous to Mr. Gowan's house where the little flight of
steps leads down to the river. Presently a tall figure, closely muffled
in a scarf and overcoat with the hat pulled well down to conceal the
features, emerged from the doorway. I could not see the features at all,
but I am confident that the form was that of a male person. A few words
were exchanged in a low tone with the chauffeur, and the impression
produced upon my mind was that the speaker was Mr. Gowan himself."

"Gowan? Then who was the mysterious stranger?"

"I could not say, my lord. The car moved away, and, on consulting my
watch, I found that the time was three minutes past eleven."

"H'm," said Wimsey.

"I formed the opinion, my lord, that Mr. Gowan had, after all, not
departed from Kirkcudbright on the Monday evening as Alcock had stated,
but that he had remained concealed in his own house in attendance upon
the sick person observed by Elizabeth."

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Wimsey.

"I returned here," pursued Bunter, "and consulted the local time-table.
I found that there was a train leaving Dumfries for Carlisle and the
South at two minutes past midnight. It appeared conceivable that Mr.
Gowan was intending to catch it either at Dumfries or at
Castle-Douglas."

"Did you see any luggage taken out?"

"No, my lord; but it might have been previously placed in the car."

"Of course it might. Did you inform the police?"

"I thought it best, my lord, in view of the delicacy of the
circumstances, to communicate directly with Sir Maxwell Jamieson. I
hastened to the Selkirk Arms and put in a call from there."

"You must have passed me," said Wimsey. "I had just hared across to the
police-station, but Inspector Macpherson wasn't there."

"I regret extremely that I should have missed your lordship. I informed
Sir Maxwell of the circumstances, and I understood him to say that he
would immediately telephone to Castle-Douglas and Dumfries, with a view
to intercepting Mr. Gowan if he should make his appearance at either of
those points, and that he would also circulate a description of the car
and its driver."

"Well, well, well," said Wimsey. "For a quiet country place,
Kirkcudbright seems to boast a bright lot of inhabitants. They appear
and disappear like Cheshire cats. I give it up. Bring forward the arnica
and a whiskey-and-soda, and let's get to bed. All I know is, that it's
perfectly useless for me to try and detect things. You're always off the
mark before me."

The real sting of this episode lay in its tail. Inspector Macpherson
came in next day after lunch in an irritable frame of mind. Not only had
his rest been broken the previous night by an alarm of burglars at a
house on the outskirts of the town, which turned out to be purely
fictitious, not only had he thereby missed the scoop about Gowan, but
the Chief Constable had bungled matters somehow. Though he had (or so he
said) immediately telephoned descriptions of the car and its occupants
to Castle-Douglas, Dumfries, Carlisle and all the intermediate stations
up to Euston, nothing whatever had been seen of any of them. Inquiries
in the Stranraer direction had proved equally useless.

"It's fair rideeculous," said the Inspector. "It's pairfectly feasible
that the car shuld ha' stopped on the outskirts of Castle-Douglas or
Dumfries tae let Gowan tak' the train on his ain feet, but that they
should ha' missed Gowan is no thinkable--and him so conspicuous wi' his
big black beard an' a'."

Wimsey suddenly uttered a loud yelp.

"Oh, Inspector, Inspector! He's done it on us! What dolts and ninnies we
are! And now I suppose that damned photograph has been circulated all
over the country. Show Bunter the specimen, Inspector. I told you we
ought to have done that before we did anything else. This will be the
death of us. We shall never hold up our heads again. The specimen,
Inspector, the specimen!"

"By God!" said the Inspector, "I believe your lordship's right. Tae
think o' that, noo. An' me sae sairtain that it was Farren!"

He drew out his notebook and handed the bunch of curly black hair to
Bunter.

"My lord," said the latter, reproachfully, "it is most regrettable that
I did not see this before. Without presuming to speak as an expert, I
may say that on several occasions I had the opportunity of examining the
beard of a person belonging to the Mohammedan persuasion. You are
doubtless aware, my lord, that the strict followers of this sect
consider it unlawful to trim the hair of the face, with the consequence
that the beard is extremely silky in texture, each hair preserving the
natural tapering point."

Wimsey, without a word, handed Bunter his lens.

"Your lordship has doubtless observed," pursued Bunter, "that this
specimen conforms in every particular to this description, and having
seen Mr. Gowan's beard, I do not hesitate to give it as my personal
opinion--subject to expert correction--that Mr. Gowan will now be found
to be deprived, in whole or in part, of that facial adornment."

"I'm afraid you're right, Bunter," said Wimsey, sadly.

"Now we know who the mysterious stranger was, and what he was suffering
from. You'll have to revise your time-scheme, Inspector, and put Gowan
in the leading rle."

"I must go and send off a corrected description at once," said the
Inspector.

"Just so," said Wimsey. "But have you the slightest idea what Gowan
looks like without his beard? Inspector, I venture to prophesy that it
will be a shock to you. When a man grows a jungle of face-fungus up to
his cheek-bones and half-way down his chest, he had generally something
to hide. I have known revelations----" he sighed. "Do you realise? my
dear man, that you have never seen _anything_ of Gowan, except his eyes
and a somewhat exaggerated nose?"

"We'll catch him by his nose," said the Inspector, without the slightest
humorous intention. He bustled away.

"Bunter," said Wimsey, "this case resembles the plot of a Wilkie Collins
novel, in which everything happens just too late to prevent the story
from coming to a premature happy ending."

"Yes, my lord."

"The trouble about this, Bunter, is that it completely destroys our
theory, and apparently lets out Farren."

"Quite so, my lord."

"And unless your friend Betty is lying, it lets out Gowan too."

"That appears to be the case, my lord."

"Because, if he was hiding at home all Monday night and Tuesday morning,
suffering from an accident, he couldn't have been painting pictures
beyond Newton-Stewart.

"I quite see that, my lord."

"But is Betty telling the truth?"

"She appeared to me to be an honest young woman, my lord. But you will
recollect that it was not until after lunch-time on the Tuesday that she
saw Alcock enter the Bluebeard's Chamber, if I may use so fanciful an
expression, and that the sick man was not seen by her in person until
early on Wednesday morning."

"True," said Wimsey, thoughtfully. "We have no evidence that he was
there on Tuesday at all. Alcock will have to be interrogated. And in my
opinion, Alcock is a man of considerable resource and sagacity."

"Exactly so, my lord. And, what is more, Alcock has disappeared also."




                              CHAPTER XVI


                         CHIEF INSPECTOR PARKER

The mystery of the car turned out to have a perfectly simple
explanation. It was reported from a small hotel at Brig of Dee, a
village a few miles out on the Kirkcudbright side of Castle-Douglas. A
visit by the police discovered Messrs. Alcock and Hammond calmly seated
at lunch. Their story was a straightforward one. Mr. Gowan had written
from London, suggesting that, in his absence, they should take a
holiday, and giving them his permission to use the car. They had decided
on a little fishing excursion, and here they were. They had started
late, on account of some small repairs which Hammond had had to make to
the engine. The muffled-up person who had got in was Alcock himself.
Certainly the Inspector could see Mr. Gowan's letter. Here it was,
written from Mr. Gowan's club, the Mahlstick, on the club's own paper,
and posted in London on the Wednesday.

As for Bunter's story, Alcock denied it altogether. The girl Betty was a
foolish and hysterical young person, who imagined a great deal of
nonsense. It was perfectly true that Mrs. Alcock had forbidden her to go
into the disused part of the house. Betty was a great deal too fond of
wasting her time. There were a lot of old magazines kept up there in a
box-room, and the girl was always sneaking in there to read them when
she ought to be engaged on household duties. Mrs. Alcock had had
occasion to speak to her about it before. As regards the Tuesday, it was
a fact that he (Alcock) had gone up there with hot water. One of the
dogs had been hurt in a rabbit snare. He had made it a bed in the
disused room and washed the wounds out with disinfectant. Mrs. Alcock
would show the dog to the police if they cared to call. As for the
alleged apparition on Wednesday morning, it was quite obvious that the
girl had merely been suffering from nightmare, due to her own ridiculous
fancies about corpses. There was no sick person there and never had
been. Mr. Gowan had left Kirkcudbright, as previously stated, by car on
Monday evening to catch the 8.45. The person whom Bunter had seen
entering the car on the Thursday night had been Alcock. Hammond and Mrs.
Alcock could confirm all this.

They could, and did, confirm it. The injured dog was produced and found
to be actually suffering from a nasty sore in the leg, and Betty, when
closely questioned, admitted that she had frequently got into trouble
through reading magazines in the box-room.

As against this, there was the evidence of a garage proprietor at
Castle-Douglas that a gentleman, giving his name as Rogers, had
telephoned the previous evening for a fast car to catch the 12.2 express
at Dumfries. He had got ready a 14 h.p. Talbot, which was a new and
speedy car, and at about twenty minutes past eleven, the gentleman had
walked into the garage. He was tall and had dark eyes and what the
proprietor described as a "rabbity" face. The proprietor had himself
driven Mr. Rogers to Dumfries and set him down at the station at four
minutes to twelve precisely.

The booking-clerk at Dumfries confirmed this up to a point. He
remembered selling a first-class ticket for Euston to a gentleman who
had come in just before midnight. He did not remember the gentleman very
distinctly--he was much like other gentlemen, but he agreed that he had
rather a big nose and stick-out teeth.

The ticket-collector on the train was not helpful. Gentlemen on
night-trains tended to be sleepy and muffled-up. Several first-class
gentlemen had joined the 12.2 at Dumfries. Certainly he had seen nobody
remotely resembling the photograph of Gowan. Was there anybody at all
like what Gowan would be if clean-shaven? Well, there now, that was
asking something, that was. Had the Inspector any idea what a 'edge-'og
would look like without its spikes? No, nor he didn't suppose nobody
had, neither. He was a ticket-collector, not a puzzle-picture expert.
The booking-clerk at Dumfries expressed a similar opinion, still more
forcibly.

Inspector Macpherson, whom this dreary investigation had carried as far
as Euston, then turned his attention to the club from which Gowan was
supposed to have written. Here the news was a little more cheering. Mr.
Gowan had certainly not been staying there. One or two letters had
arrived for him, which had been collected by a gentleman presenting Mr.
Gowan's card. The gentleman had signed a receipt for them. Might the
Inspector see the receipt? Certainly he might. The signature was J.
Brown. The Inspector wondered how many J. Browns there might be among
London's four million, and turned his weary steps towards Scotland Yard.

Here he asked for Chief Inspector Parker, who received him with more
than official cordiality. Any friend of Wimsey's was entitled to
Parker's best attention, and the complicated story of Gowan and the
spanner, Farren, Strachan and the two bicycles, was sympathetically
listened to.

"We'll find Gowan for you all right," said Parker, encouragingly. "With
the very precise details you have produced for us it ought not to take
long. What do you want done with him when we've got him?"

"Weel, noo, Mr. Parker," said the Inspector, deferentially, "do ye think
we have enough evidence tae arrest him?"

Parker turned this over carefully.

"I take it," he said, "that your idea is that Gowan met this man
Campbell in the road between Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright and killed him
in a quarrel. Then he got frightened and decided to fake up the
accident. His first step was to cut off his own very conspicuous beard,
in the hope, I suppose, of getting through the Gatehouse end of the
business unrecognised. It must have been an awkward bit of barbering.
Still, he might have managed to produce a fairly good imitation of a man
who hadn't shaved for a fortnight. Then he went through all the
movements which you originally ascribed to Farren. He hid the body up
the side-lane and drove Campbell's own car back to Gatehouse. Now why
should he have done that?"

"There!" said the Inspector, "yon's the great deeficulty. Wherefore did
he no tak' the corp back wi' him? It was verra weel understandable when
we supposed that the murderer was Farren in Strachan's car, because we
had the theory that he meant at first tae pit the blame on Strachan, but
what for should Gowan du sic a fulish thing?"

"Well, let's see," said Parker. "He had to get Campbell's car back
somehow. Ferguson might have noticed if the wrong car came in. But he
didn't take the body with him on that journey, because, again, Ferguson
or somebody might have spotted him with it. Gowan's car was a
two-seater. Perhaps the dickey wasn't big enough to hide the corpse
properly. He decides that it's better to risk leaving the corpse and his
own car in the lane than to drive openly back to Gatehouse with a dead
man upright in the seat beside him. Very well. Now he's got to get back
to the scene of the crime. How? On foot?--No, this, I take it, is the
point at which the bicycle was pinched from the what-d'ye-call-it
hotel."

"Verra like," said the Inspector.

"You may have to alter your times a trifle here, but you've still got
ample margin. You had 10.20 as the time for Campbell's car to arrive at
Standing Stone Pool. Now then. Your man has still got to do the journey
back on a bicycle. But he hasn't got to waste time going on foot to
Strachan's house. So, if anything, he will get to the scene of the crime
a trifle earlier than we supposed. He picks up his own car, puts the
bike in the dickey--we've got to allow that--however, it would be pretty
dark by that time and probably no one would notice. By the way, I see
that this fellow Ferguson says that Campbell's car came in a little
after 10 o'clock. Well, that fits your first time-table all right. It
means that the murderer brought the car straight away in after the
crime. But I see you've made an alteration here."

"Ay," said Macpherson. "We thocht he wad ha' lodged Campbell's car
somewhere on the road an' transferred the body tae't on his second
journey. It wad be suspicious like for a second car tae come in tae
Campbell's place."

"True; but if Ferguson is right about his times, that can't be the case.
Is Ferguson an exact man?"

"Ay; they tell me he has a gran' memory for details."

"Then the murderer _must_ have come in a second time with the body in
his own car. It's odd that Ferguson shouldn't have heard the second car
either come or go."

"Ay, that's a fact."

"The second car--when would it have got in? Between five and six miles
on a push-bike--say half-an-hour. That brings it to 10.50. The bicycle
put into the dickey and five or six miles back in a fast car--say
fifteen minutes at the outside. That gives us 11.5 for the second time
of arrival. Ferguson says he went to bed shortly after 10. He must have
been asleep, that's all. And still asleep when the car went out
again--the murderer's car, I mean. No, that won't do. How and when did
Gowan--if he was the murderer--get his car back to Kirkcudbright? He had
to be on the spot in Gatehouse to look after the body and prepare his
fake for the next morning. I suppose he _could_ have driven his car home
to Kirkcudbright during the small hours and then walked or push-cycled
back to Gatehouse."

"Ay, there's nae doot he cud ha' done it. But it wadna' be necessary.
The chauffeur Hammond cud ha' driven him over again."

"So he could. That makes Hammond rather definitely an accomplice. But
there's no reason why he shouldn't be. If Gowan committed the murder,
all his servants, except possibly Betty, are obviously lying like
Ananias, and one degree of guilt more or less makes no difference. Well,
that explains that all right, and we've only got to suppose that Gowan
carried out the rest of the scheme according to plan, changed over into
the London train at Ayr and is now lurking in London till his beard's
grown again. And that explains--what would otherwise seem rather
odd--why, having faked the murder, he didn't disarm suspicion by showing
himself openly in Kirkcudbright."

"Ay," said Macpherson, excitedly, "but dinna ye see it explains naething
at a'? It disna fit the description o' the man in the grey suit that tuk
the bicycle tae Ayr. Nor it disna explain Betty's tale to Bunter, nor
the muffled-up man escapin' fra' Gowan's hoose at deid o' nicht, nor the
rabbity-faced fellow in the train fra' Castle-Douglas tae Euston. An'
hoo aboot yon man that came knockin' on Campbell's door o' Monday
midnicht?"

Parker rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

"It's funny about the description of the man," he said. "Perhaps Gowan
contrived to disguise himself in some way, with a false fair moustache,
or something. And the girl's story may, as Alcock suggests, be partly
imagination. Gowan may have returned to Kirkcudbright on Tuesday
afternoon instead of going straight through to London, though I can't
think why he should, and the letter sent from the Mahlstick certainly
suggests that he was in London on the Wednesday. And the rabbity man may
be somebody different altogether. And I'm inclined to think that the man
who knocked at midnight _was_ somebody different altogether."

"But," said the Inspector, "if that man gaed into the hoose and found
Campbell dead and Gowan there, why hasna he come forward tae say so?"

"Possibly he was after no good," suggested Parker. "He may, as you
previously remarked, have been a lady. Still, I admit that there are
awkward gaps in the story. I think we'd better get on the tracks of
Gowan and the rabbity man separately, and try to find out definitely
which way Gowan really went. And when we do catch Gowan, I think perhaps
we'd better not arrest him, but merely detain him on the ground that he
can give information. After all, Inspector, we don't even know for an
absolute certainty that it was he who met Campbell on the road. There
may be other people with black beards."

"There's nae ither _artist_ wi' a black beard like yon," said
Macpherson, stubbornly. "Not in a' the district."

"Hell! yes," said Parker. "He's got to be an artist, of course. Well,
anyhow, we'll detain Gowan."

Inspector Macpherson thanked him.

"And now there's this man Farren," went on Parker. "Do you want him too?
Supposing he's not down a mine."

"I'm thinkin' he did ought tae be found," said the Inspector. "He was
heard tae utter threats--an' forbye, he's disappeared, which in itself
is distressin' tae his family an' friends."

"True. Well, we'll make inquiries for him as a lost, stolen or strayed.
That will do no harm. But I daresay you've got him up your end
somewhere. Who else is there? The Englishman--what's his name?--Waters.
How about him?"

"I'd forgot Waters," replied Macpherson, frankly. "I canna see how he
comes intae 't at a'."

"Nor do I," said Parker. "Well, we'll leave him out. And of course we're
watching that bike at Euston to see if anybody's fool enough to come for
it. And you'd better send somebody down to identify it, because it may
not be the right one at all. Is that all? Suppose now we go and have a
drink after all this talking? Oh, by the way, can you tell me what
school Gowan went to? No? Oh, well, it doesn't matter. He's probably in
the reference-books."

The Inspector still seemed a little unhappy.

"What is it?" said Parker.

"Ye havena----" he began. And then added, impulsively, "if we canna find
somethin' sune, I'm thinkin' ye'll be hearin' officially fra' the Chief
Constable."

"Oh!" said Parker. "But I don't see any need for that. You have lost no
time, and you seem to me to be doing very well. We have to give you help
at this end, of course--just as you would help me if one of my pet-lambs
escaped to Scotland--but surely there's no call for us to take over the
management of the case. It seems to be a matter in which the local man
has all the advantages on his side."

"Ay," said the Inspector, "but it's an awfu' big job."

He sighed heavily.




                              CHAPTER XVII


                           LORD PETER WIMSEY

"Strachan!" said Lord Peter Wimsey.

Mr. Strachan started so violently that he nearly pitched himself and his
canvas into a rock-pool. He was perched rather uneasily on a lump of
granite on the Carrick shore, and was industriously painting the Isles
of Fleet. There was a strong wind and the menace of heavy storm, which
together were producing some curious cloud effects over a rather
fretful-looking sea.

"Oh, hullo, Wimsey!" he said. "How on earth did you get here?"

"Drove here," said Wimsey. "Fresh air and that kind of thing." He sat
down on a convenient knob of rock, settled his hat more firmly on his
head and pulled out a pipe, with the air of a man who has at last found
an abiding-place.

Strachan frowned. He did not much care for spectators when he was
painting, but Wimsey was working away in a leisurely manner with his
tobacco-pouch, and appeared impervious to nods and winks.

"Very windy, isn't it?" said Strachan, when the silence had lasted some
time.

"Very," said Wimsey.

"But it's not raining," pursued Strachan.

"Not yet," said Wimsey.

"Better than yesterday," said Strachan, and realised at once that he had
said a foolish thing. Wimsey turned his head instantly and said
brightly:

"Tons better. Really, you know, you'd think they'd turned on the
water-works yesterday on purpose to spoil my sketching-party."

"Oh, well," said Strachan.

"Well, perhaps it was rather a wild idea," said Wimsey, "but it appealed
to me rather. That's rather nice," he added, "how long have you been on
that?"

"About an hour," said Strachan.

"You use very big brushes. Broad, sweepin' style and all that. Campbell
used the knife a lot, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Is it quick work with a knife?"

"Yes, generally speaking, it is."

"Do you work as fast as Campbell?"

"I shouldn't work quite as fast as he would with a knife, if you mean
that, because I should fumble it a bit, unless I had practice with it
first. But using my own methods, I could probably produce a finished
sketch nearly as fast as he could."

"I see. What do you call an ordinary time for a finished sketch?"

"Oh--well, what size of sketch?"

"About the size you're working on now."

"I shall have done everything I want to this in another half-hour--or
perhaps a little bit longer. Provided the whole show doesn't carry away
first," he added, as a fresh gust came drumming off the sea, making the
easel vibrate and rock, in spite of the heavy stone slung between its
legs.

"Oh, you're well ballasted. But I wonder you don't use a sketching-box
on days like this."

"Yes; I don't know why I don't, except that I never have done and am not
used to it. One gets into habits."

"I suppose one does."

"I'm rather methodical, really," said Strachan. "I could lay my hands on
any of my tools in the dark. Some people seem to like muddle, and all
their stuff chucked into a satchel anyhow. I lay everything out before I
begin--tubes of colour in the same order on my tray, dipper just here,
spare brushes hung on there--even my palette is always made up in the
same order, though not always with the same colours, of course. But,
roughly speaking, it follows the order of the spectrum."

"I see," said Wimsey. "I'm not methodical myself, but I do admire
method. My man, Bunter, is a marvel in that way. It is such a grief to
him to find all kinds of odds and ends bulging my pockets or chucked
helter-skelter into the collar-drawer."

"Oh, I'm terrible about drawers, too," said Strachan. "My tidiness
begins and ends with my painting. It's just habit, as I said before. I
haven't a tidy mind."

"Haven't you? Aren't you good at dates and figures and time-tables and
all that sort of thing?"

"Not the least. Hopelessly unobservant. I haven't even got a good visual
memory. Some people can come back from a place and make a picture of it
with every house and tree in its place, but I have to see things before
I can draw them. It's a drawback in a way."

"Oh, I could do that," said Wimsey. "If I could draw, I mean. F'r
instance--take the road between Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright. I could
make a plan of that, here and now, with every corner, every house,
practically every tree and gate on the road marked. Or if you drove me
along it blindfold, I could recite to you exactly what we were passing
at every moment."

"I couldn't do that," said Strachan. "I've been over it hundreds of
times, of course, but I'm always seeing things I hadn't noticed before.
Of course I get the fun of having perpetual surprises."

"Yes; you're safeguarded against boredom. But sometimes an eye for
detail is a good thing. If you want to tell a good, plausible,
circumstantial lie, for example."

"Oh!" said Strachan. "Yes, I suppose it would be--under those
circumstances."

"Your little story of the golf-ball on the links, for example," said
Wimsey. "How much better it would have been if surrounded and supported
by stout, upstanding, well-thought-out details. It wasn't a fearfully
good lie to start with, of course, because it really left rather _too_
much time unaccounted for. But since you stood committed to it, you
should have made more of it."

"I don't know what you mean," said Strachan, stiffly. "If you doubt my
word----"

"Of course I doubt it. I don't believe it for a moment. Nor would
anybody. For one thing, you didn't tell your wife the same story you
told me. That was careless. If you're going to tell a lie, it should
always be the same lie. Then you omitted to mention what hole you were
playing when it happened. There never was a man telling a golfing story
who didn't buttress it about with every kind of geographical and
historical detail. That was poor psychology on your part. Thirdly, you
said you were up at the golf-course all morning, quite forgetting that
there might be plenty of witnesses to say you'd never been near the
place, and that, as a matter of fact, you'd instructed Tom Clark to roll
the greens that morning. He was on the ninth, as a matter of fact,
between 10 and 11 o'clock, and can swear that you didn't come in, and if
you'd gone up later, you'd hardly have called it 'after breakfast.'
Besides----"

"Look here," said Strachan, with a lowering brow, "what the devil do you
mean by talking to me like this?"

"I'm just wondering," said Wimsey, "whether you cared to suggest any
other explanation for that black eye of yours. I mean, if you liked to
give it to me now, and it happened to be--well, say, anything in the
nature of a domestic fracas, or anything, I--er--I might not need to
pass it on, you see."

"I don't see at all," said Strachan. "I think it's damned impertinence."

"Don't say that," pleaded Wimsey. "Look here, old man, your midnight
revels are nothing to me. If you were out on the tiles, or anything----"

"If you take that tone to me, I'll break your neck."

"For God's sake," cried Wimsey, "don't use any _more_ threats."

Strachan looked at him, and slowly flushed a deep crimson from brow to
throat.

"Are you accusing me," he demanded, thickly, "of having anything to do
with murdering Campbell?"

"I'm not accusing anybody," said Wimsey, lightly, "of murdering
him--yet." He suddenly scrambled to his feet, and stood poised on the
rock, looking out away from Strachan over the sea. The clouds had blown
together into one threatening mass, and the waves were lipping along
cold and yellow, showing snarling little teeth of foam. "But I do accuse
you," he said, turning suddenly and leaning back against the wind to
keep his balance, "I do accuse you of knowing a good deal more about it
than you have told the police. Wait! Don't be violent. You fool! _It's
dangerous to be violent._"

He caught Strachan's wrist as the blow glanced past his ear.

"Listen, Strachan, listen, man. I know I look tempting, standing here
like this. Damn it, that's what I did it for. I'm a smaller man than you
are, but I could chuck you into eternity with a turn of the wrist. Stand
still. That's better. Don't you _ever_ think two minutes ahead? Do you
really suppose you can settle everything by brute force in this
blundering way? Suppose you _had_ knocked me down. Suppose I had split
my head open, like Campbell. What would you have done then? Would you be
better off, or worse off? What would you have done with the body,
Strachan?"

The painter looked at him, and put the back of his hand up against his
forehead with a sort of desperation in the gesture.

"My God, Wimsey," he said, "you deadly devil!" He stepped back and sat
down on his camp-stool, shaking. "I meant to kill you then. I've got
such a hell of a temper. What made you do that?"

"I wanted to see what sort of a temper you had got," said Wimsey,
coolly. "And you know," he added, "as a matter of fact, if you had
killed me, you would have run very little risk. You had only to go away
and leave me, hadn't you? My car would have been here. Everybody would
have thought I'd just been blown off my feet and cracked my skull--like
Campbell. What evidence would there have been against you?"

"None, I suppose," said Strachan.

"You think that?" said Wimsey. "Do you know, Strachan, I almost wish I
had let you knock me over--just to see what you would do. Well, never
mind. It's starting to rain. We'd better pack up and go home."

"Yes," said the other. He was still very white, but he started meekly to
put his painting materials together. Wimsey noticed that, in spite of
his obvious agitation, he worked swiftly and neatly, evidently following
out some habitual order of working. He secured the wet canvas in a
carrier, mechanically putting in the canvas-pins and pulling the straps
tightly, transferred the brushes to a tin case and the palette to a box
and then collected the tubes of paint from the ledge of the easel.

"Hullo!" he said, suddenly.

"What's up?" said Wimsey.

"The cobalt's not here," said Strachan, dully, "it must have rolled
off."

Wimsey stooped.

"Here it is," he said, extracting it from a clump of heather. "Is that
the lot?"

"That's the lot," said Strachan. He laid the tubes in their box, folded
up and strapped the easel and stood, as though waiting for orders.

"Then we'd better make tracks," said Wimsey, turning up his coat-collar,
for the rain had started to come down heavily.

"Look here," said Strachan, still motionless in the downpour, "what are
you going to do?"

"Go home," said Wimsey. "Unless"--he looked hard at Strachan--"unless
there's anything you want to tell me."

"I'll tell you this," said Strachan. "One of these days you'll go too
far, and somebody _will_ murder you."

"I shouldn't be in the least surprised," said Lord Peter, pleasantly.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


                         MRS. SMITH-LEMESURIER

All this time there was a gentleman who was feeling rather hurt and
neglected, and that was the young constable who had so signally failed
in interviewing Mr. Jock Graham. This young man, whose name was Duncan,
was keen about his profession, and he was acutely aware that he was not
being given a proper chance. Graham had laughed at him; Sergeant
Dalziel, importantly rushing about after bicycles and railway-tickets,
had callously ignored his suggestions and left him to deal with drunks
and motoring offences. Nobody took P.C. Duncan into his confidence. No
matter. P.C. Duncan would pursue a line of his own. Perhaps, when he had
shown them what he could do, they would be sorry.

There was no doubt at all in Duncan's mind that Jock Graham's movements
required investigating. There were rumours. Hints were dropped in bars.
Fishermen had been seen to nudge one another and fall suddenly silent
when Graham's name was mentioned. Unfortunately, it is hardly possible
for a local policeman in a country place to snoop about, wheedling
information out of the inhabitants after the manner of Sherlock Holmes.
His features are known. He is a marked man. Duncan played a little with
the idea of getting himself up (when off duty) as an aged clergyman or a
Breton onion-seller, but a glance in the mirror at his stalwart frame
and round, ruddy cheeks was enough to rob him of his self-confidence. He
envied the Scotland Yard detective, who, lost among a multitudinous
population and backed by a powerful force, can go about, impenetrable
and unknown, hob-nobbing with thieves in the East End or with dukes and
millionaires in Mayfair night-clubs. Alas! in Creetown and
Newton-Stewart he had only to poke his nose round the door to be known
and avoided.

He made persistent inquiries, cajoling and even threatening one or two
people who appeared to know more than they should. Unhappily, the
Scottish peasant has a remarkable talent for silence when he likes and,
unhappily also, Jock Graham was a popular man. After several days of
this kind of thing, Duncan did, however, contrive to unearth one piece
of definite information. A farmer who was passing along in a cart
towards Bargrennan at 11.30 on the Tuesday morning, had seen a man
walking along the farther side of the Cree as though coming from the
scene of the crime. The man had immediately ducked down as though to
escape observation, but not before the farmer had definitely recognised
him as Graham. But further than this, Duncan succeeded only in hearing
and raising rumours. A journalist on the _Glasgow Clarion_, to whom he
had rather rashly said more than he ought, came out with an unfortunate
article, and P.C. Duncan received a severe rebuke from his harassed
superiors.

"An' if Graham was as guilty as sin," said Sergeant Dalziel
angrily--this occurred on the same day that the porter at Girvan
developed appendicitis, and the Sergeant was quite ready to take it out
of somebody--"what for wad ye be tellin' him that he's suspectit, an'
givin' him the chance to make up an alibi? Wull ye look at this, noo?"
He flapped the _Clarion_ before Duncan's unhappy eyes. "'Reason tae
suppose that the crime was committit by an airtist.' Isna yon precisely
the fact that we was wishfu' tae conceal frae the suspecks? 'Weel-known
airtist interviewed by oor correspondent.' Whae tell't ye tae send yon
fellie speirin' round at Graham's place? If ye canna lairn discretion,
Charlie Duncan, ye wad du better tae fin' some ither profession."

However, this indiscretion had its consequences. On the Saturday
morning, Sergeant Dalziel was seated in his office when a lady was
ushered in, demurely dressed in a black costume and close-fitting hat.
She smiled nervously at the Sergeant, and murmured that she desired to
make a statement in connection with Campbell's murder.

Dalziel knew the lady well enough. She was Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier, an
"in-comer" of some three years' standing in Newton-Stewart, and giving
herself out to be the widow of an African civil servant. She lived,
simply and inexpensively, in a small converted cottage, with a French
maid. Her manner was plaintive and artless, her age rather more than it
appeared, and young men who knew no better were apt to see in her a
refreshing revelation of an unfashionable womanliness. Why she should
have chosen to settle in this out-of-the-way spot was never explained.
Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier herself was accustomed to say that the rents in
Scotland were so low, and that she had to do the best she could with her
poor little income. It did not matter where she lived, she would add,
sadly; since her husband's death she was all alone in the world. Lord
Peter Wimsey had been introduced to her the previous year at a small
sale of work which was being held in connection with the Episcopalian
Church. He had afterwards expressed the coarse opinion that the lady was
"out for blood." This was ungrateful, since Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier had
devoted herself to him very charmingly throughout what must have been to
him a tedious afternoon, and had sold him a green silk sachet with
"Pyjamas" embroidered upon it with her own hands. "I can't give money,"
said Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier, smiling shyly up at him, for she was a
dainty little person, "but I can give my work, and it's the intention
that counts, isn't it?"

Sergeant Dalziel placed a chair for his visitor, and softened his rugged
tones as he inquired what he could do for her.

Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier hunted in her vanity-bag for some time, and
eventually produced the cutting from the _Glasgow Clarion_ which had
brought P.C. Duncan so much trouble and reproof.

"I just wanted to ask," she said, raising her speedwell-blue eyes
pleadingly to the policeman's face, "whether there is any foundation
for--for the dreadful insinuations in this."

Sergeant Dalziel read the paragraph through as carefully as though he
had never seen it before, and replied cautiously:

"Ay, imph'm. That's as may be."

"You see," said Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier, "it says that the m-m-murder must
have been committed by an artist. Wh-what makes them say that?"

"Weel," said the Sergeant, "I'll no be sayin' that there mightna be some
evidence tae point in that direction."

"Oh!" said the lady. "I hoped--I thought--I fancied perhaps this
reporter was making it all up out of his own head. They are such
terrible people, you know. Did he really get that idea from--from the
police?"

"I couldna verra weel say," replied the Sergeant. "He'll maybe ha'
caught it fra' some ither irresponsible pairson."

"But the police do think that?" she insisted.

"I'll no be sayin' so," said Sergeant Dalziel, "but seein' as the
deceased was an airtist himsel' and that the most of his friends was
airtists, there is always the possibeelity."

Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier fumbled with the clasp of her bag.

"And then," she said, "it goes on to mention Mr. Graham."

"Ay, it does so," said the Sergeant.

"Surely, surely"--the blue eyes again sought the Sergeant's--"it can't
be that you--that you actually suspect Mr. Graham of this dreadful
thing?"

Sergeant Dalziel cleared his throat.

"Och, weel noo," said he, "there is always some groonds for suspeecion
when a crime is committed an' a pairson willna state juist whaur he was
at the time. I wadna say that there was what they ca' a violent
presumption of guilt, but there's groonds for what we may ca' a general
suspeecion."

"I see. Tell me, officer--supposing--supposing anybody were to clear
your mind of this--general suspicion against Mr. Graham--it wouldn't be
necessary to--to--to make the explanation public?"

"That depends," said Dalziel, eyeing his visitor rather more closely,
"on the nature of the explanation. If it was such as tae remove a'
possibeelity of this gentleman's bein' consairned, an' if it was weel
supportit by proofs, an' provided that the maitter never cam' tae trial,
there wad be nae need tae mak' onything public at a'."

"Ah! then, in that case--oh, Mr. Dalziel, I can rely on your discretion,
can't I? It's such a dreadful thing to have to tell you--just
consider--but I'm sure you will understand--in my sad, lonely
position--I--oh! I don't know how to say it."

Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier dragged out a wispy handkerchief and temporarily
veiled the light of the speedwell eyes.

"Come, noo," said the Sergeant, gently, "there's no call tae fash
yoursel'. We hear an awfu' lot o' things, in oor profession, that we
niver think twice on. Forbye," he added, helpfully, "I'm a mairrit man."

"I don't know that that doesn't make it worse," bleated Mrs.
Smith-Lemesurier. "But I'm sure," she added, peeping hopefully up over
the edge of the handkerchief, "you're a kind, understanding man, and
wouldn't make it worse for me than you could help."

"'Deed, no," said the Sergeant. "Dinna fash yersel'. Mrs.
Smith-Lemesurier. Juist tell me a' aboot it, as if I micht be your
feyther."

"I will, thank you, I will. Mr. Graham would never say anything, of
course, he's too kind and too chivalrous. Mr. Dalziel--he couldn't tell
you where he was on Monday night--because--he was--with me."

Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier paused with a little gasp. Sergeant Dalziel, for
whom this revelation held by this time no element of surprise, nodded
paternally.

"Ay, imph'm, is that so? That's a verra guid reason for him tae keep
silence, a verra satisfactory reason indeed. Can ye tell me, Mrs.
Smith-Lemesurier, at whit time Mr. Graham came tae your hoose and left
ye again?"

The lady squeezed the filmy handkerchief between her small, plump hands.

"He came to dinner, at about 8 o'clock. And he left me again after
breakfast. That would be a little after 9."

The Sergeant made a note on a slip of paper.

"And did naebody see him come or gae?"

"No. We were--very careful."

"Ay. How did he come?"

"I think he said a friend had given him a lift into Newton-Stewart."

"Whit friend wad that be?"

"I don't know--he didn't say. Oh, Mr. Dalziel, shall you have to find
out? My maid can tell you when he arrived. Is it necessary to bring this
other person into it?"

"Maybe no," said the Sergeant. "An' he went aff again after 9 o'clock?
Your maid can witness that tu, I'm thinkin'."

"Yes, of course."

"An' he was in the hoose a' the time?"

"He--he was never out of my sight," moaned Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier, again
overcome by the painfulness of this confession.

The Sergeant looked at her shaking shoulders and hardened his heart.

"An' whit makes ye think, ma'am, that this story provides Mr. Graham wi'
an alibi for the murder o' Campbell, that was fund wi' his heid dunted
in at 2 o'clock o' Tuesday afternoon?"

Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier gave a little shriek.

"Oh!" She stared at him wildly. "I didn't know. I thought--look at that
horrid newspaper. It said Mr. Graham refused to state where he was the
previous night. I don't understand. I imagined--oh! don't, don't say it
doesn't clear him after all!"

"I'll no gae sae far as tae say that," said the Sergeant, "but ye'll see
for yersel' that it disna cover a' the groond. Mr. Graham was twa days
missin'. Ye dinna ken whaur he went after he left your hoose?"

"No--no--I've no idea. Oh, my God! Why did I ever come here? I made so
certain that it was an alibi for the Monday night you wanted."

"Weel, that's a' tae the guid," said the Sergeant, comfortingly. "It's
verra like, when he kens that the Monday nicht is accountit for, he'll
tell us aboot the ither maitter. Noo, I'll juist rin ye back tae your
hoose in my car and get a wee word fra' your maid, by way o'
corroboration. Dry your eyes, ma'am. I'll no say a word mair than is
necessary. It's verra courageous of ye tae ha' come tae me wi' your
story, an' ye can coont upon ma' discretion."

The maid's story agreed word for word with that of the mistress--as,
indeed, the Sergeant had expected it would. He did not care for the
woman--a sly foreign creature, he thought her--but he could not shake
her on any essential point.

The whole episode was disquieting. No sooner had that infernal paragraph
appeared in the paper than he had expected an alibi to be produced. He
had said as much to the unhappy Duncan. But why this particular alibi?
The woman's story was not improbable in itself, given Jock Graham and
given Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier, only--why the alibi for the Monday night
only? He read the newspaper cutting again. "--Mr. J. Graham, the
distinguished artist, who laughingly refused to state where he had been
between Monday night and Wednesday morning." No; nobody could have
deduced from that that Monday night was the crucial period. Wimsey must
have been talking. God knew what he had been blurting out in the course
of his unofficial inquiries. If it was not Wimsey----

If it was not Wimsey, then nothing but guilty knowledge could possibly
account for that alibi, so neatly covering the time of Campbell's death.
And if Jock Graham had guilty knowledge, then what became of the
beautiful theory about Farren, and the hopeful imbroglio about the
bicycle?

The Sergeant groaned aloud. He might have groaned still more deeply if
he had known that Inspector Macpherson and Chief Inspector Parker of
Scotland Yard were at that very moment engaged in destroying the
beautiful Farren theory in favour of a Gowan theory.

His eye fell upon an object lying on his desk. It was a grey felt
hat--the sole treasure-trove that the search-party had so far brought
back from Falbae. It was not Farren's. Mrs. Farren and Jeannie had both
repudiated it. It bore no name. It was just another puzzle. He turned it
about in his hands discontentedly.

The telephone rang. Sergeant Dalziel lifted the receiver. The speaker
was the police-superintendent at Glasgow.

"We've got a man here who says he is Mr. Waters of Kirkcudbright. Are
you still wanting him? He was just boarding the Dumfries train."

"Whit account does he gie o' himsel'?"

"Says he's just off a yachting expedition. He made no attempt to deny
his identity. What shall we do with him?"

"Detain him," said Sergeant Dalziel, desperately. "I'll be along on the
next train."

"I'll tak' nae mair chances," he added to himself, as he hurriedly
prepared for his journey. "I'll detain the whole bluidy lot o' them."




                              CHAPTER XIX


                             WATERS' STORY

To his great surprise, the Sergeant found Wimsey at the Glasgow
police-station before him. He was waiting placidly in the
Superintendent's office, with his hands clasped over his walking-stick
and his chin on his hands, and he greeted the Sergeant with exasperating
cheerfulness.

"Hullo--ullo--ullo!" he said. "So here we are again."

"An' hoo did yew get here?" snapped Dalziel, his Galloway accent very
pronounced and sharpening his u's almost to the point of menace.

"In a rather roundabout way," said Wimsey, "but, generally speaking, by
train. I spent last night in Campbell's cottage. Arrived in Glasgow by
the 2.16 to see Picture Exhibition. Distressed fellow-countryman wires
to Kirkcudbright that he is in the hands of the children of Amalek and
will I come and disentangle him. Faithful valet sends wire on to Picture
Exhibition. Intelligent attendant at Exhibition identifies me and
delivers wire. Like a mother-eagle I fly to the place where distressed
fellow-countryman, like wounded eaglet, bleeds, metaphorically speaking.
You know my friend, Superintendent Robertson?"

"Oh, yes," said the Superintendent, "Sergeant Dalziel has been over
about this matter before. Well, now, Sergeant, you'd probably like to
see this man Waters straight away. He's told his story to us, but you
had best hear it from himself. Forbes, just bring Waters in here again."

After a few moments the door opened, to admit an exceedingly dishevelled
and exceedingly angry Waters, dressed in a grubby waterproof and very
grubby sweater and flannel trousers. His untidy hair was pushed up into
a dissipated-looking comb by a linen bandage which half covered one eye,
and gave him a rake-helly and piratical appearance.

"Good Lord, man!" exclaimed Wimsey, "what the devil have you been doing
to yourself?"

"Doing to myself?" retorted Waters. "What the devil have all you people
been doing? What's all this damned fuss about? What's all this tripe
about Campbell? What in thunder do these damned idiots mean by arresting
me? What the hell has it all got to do with me, anyhow?"

"My dear man," said Wimsey, breaking in before the Sergeant could speak,
"your eloquence is extremely impressive, but not more so than your
appearance, which is, if I may say so, picturesque in the extreme. Your
absence from your usual haunts has been causing acute distress to your
friends--a distress and anxiety which the manner of your return is doing
nothing to allay. Before embarking on any discussion about Campbell or
any other extraneous subject, will you so far relieve the agony of mind
of a sympathising compatriot as to say where you have been, why you have
not written and why you appear to have been indulging in a free fight,
with extensive damage to your handsome faade?"

"I never knew such a lot of silly fuss about nothing," grumbled Waters.
"I've been yachting with a bloke, that's all--old Tom Drewitt of
Trinity, as a matter of fact. We were running up the west coast, and he
was going to put me off at Gourock on Thursday, only we fell in with a
bit of bad weather and had to run across and hang round the Irish coast
for a couple of days while it blew itself out. I don't know if you fancy
hugging a lee shore full of rocks in a sou'westerly gale. All I can say
is, we didn't. I daresay I am a bit untidy--so'd you be, after five days
in Tom's dirty little wind-jamming beast of a boat. I've no skin left on
my hands, and it's not the fault of that young lout of Tom's that I'm
still alive. He got the wind up--Tom ought to have stuck to the tiller
himself. Boom came across and nearly cracked my head open. Tom wanted me
to go on with him this morning up to Skye, but I wasn't having any. I
told him he could damn well put me off at Gourock and if ever I sailed
with him again it would be when that cub of his was drowned and out of
harm's way."

"See here, noo," put in Sergeant Dalziel. "Let's get a' this story
correct. Ye say ye started oot wi' this man Drewitt on his yacht. When
did ye go aboard, sir?"

"Look here, why all this?" said Waters, appealing to Wimsey.

"Better tell him what he wants to know," said Wimsey. "I'll explain
later."

"Oh, all right, if you say so. Well, I'll tell you exactly what
happened. Last Monday night I was in bed and asleep, when I heard some
fool chucking stones at my window. I went down, and there was Drewitt.
You remember Drewitt, Wimsey? Or was he before your time?"

"I never knew any Trinity men," said Wimsey. "The Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans."

"Of course, you were at Balliol. Well, it doesn't matter. Anyway, I let
Drewitt in and gave him a drink. It was about 11 o'clock at night, I
think, and I was rather fed-up at being rousted out, because I meant to
go up to Glasgow by the 8.45, and I wanted my beauty-sleep. Besides, I
felt rather bloody. You remember, Wimsey--I'd had that scrimmage with
Campbell at the McClellan Arms. By the way, what is this story about
Campbell?"

"Tell you later, old man. Carry on."

"Well, I told Drewitt I was going to Glasgow, and he said he'd got a
better idea than that. Why not come with him? He was running up that
way, and if I wasn't in a hurry I might just as well join him and do a
bit of fishing and get the sea-air. It was lovely weather and his boat,
_Susannah_, he calls her, could make the voyage in two or three days, or
we could muck about a bit longer if we wanted to, and if the wind didn't
hold, we could fall back on the auxiliary motor. Well, it sounded all
right, and it didn't matter to me when I got to Glasgow, so I said I'd
think about it. So then he said wouldn't I go with him anyhow and have a
look at the _Susannah_. He'd got her lying off the Doon."

"That's right," said Wimsey to Dalziel. "There was a boat there on
Monday night, and she went off Tuesday morning."

"You seem to know all about it," said Waters. "Well, I thought I might
as well have the run. It seemed the best way of getting Drewitt out of
the house, so I put on a coat and went up with him. He'd hired a car
from somewhere or other and he ran me along. He wanted me to go aboard
and meet his whelp, but I didn't want to do that. I hadn't made up my
mind, you see. So he brought me back again and dropped me at the corner
of the road where it turns off to Borgue. He'd have come all the way,
only I wouldn't let him, because I knew I'd have to ask him in again and
give him another drink, and I'd had quite as much as I wanted already.
So I walked back into Kirkcudbright, and left it with him that I'd think
it over, and if I wasn't on board at half-past 9, he wasn't to wait any
longer, because I shouldn't be coming and he'd miss the tide.

"Well, I didn't really intend to go, but I turned in and had a good
sleep and next morning when Mrs. McLeod called me, the weather looked
damn good, and I thought why not, after all? So I had my breakfast and
got my bike out and pushed off."

"Ye didna tell Mrs. McLeod whaur ye were gaein'."

"No, there wasn't any need. She knew I was going to Glasgow and might be
away some days, and it was no concern of hers how I went. As a matter of
fact she was out at the back somewhere, and I didn't see her. I bicycled
up to the Doon, signalled to Drewitt and he took me off."

"What did you do with your bicycle?" asked Wimsey.

"I just shoved it into a little shed-place there is up there, among the
trees. I'd often put it there before when I was painting or bathing off
the Doon, and it never came to any harm. Well, that was that. As I was
saying, we had rather bad luck with the weather and one thing and
another, and we didn't get to Gourock till this morning."

"Did ye no touch onywhere?"

"Yes--I can give you the itinerary if you want it. We dropped down the
estuary with the morning tide, passing the Ross Light some time before
10. Then we held on across Wigtown Bay, passing Barrow Head fairly close
in. We had a good south-easterly breeze and made the Mull about
tea-time. Then we followed the coast northwards, passing Portpatrick at
about 7 o'clock, and anchored for the night in Lady Bay, just outside
Loch Ryan. I can't give you more details than that, as I'm no yachtsman.
That was Tuesday. On Wednesday we lazed about and did a bit of fishing,
and then, about lunch-time, the wind started to haul round to the
south-west and Drewitt said he thought we'd better run across to Larne
instead of carrying on up to Gourock as we intended. We put in at Larne
for the night and took some beer and stuff aboard. On Thursday it was
fine enough, but blowing rather a lot, so we sailed up to Ballycastle.
It was a bally place, too. I began to think I was wasting my time. I was
sick, too. Friday was a foul beast of a day, raining like hell and
blowing. However, Tom Drewitt seemed to think it was the kind of day he
liked to be out in. Said he didn't care how it blew, provided he had
plenty of sea-room or words to that effect. We staggered across to
Arran, and I was sick all the time. That was the day I got this crack on
the head, curse it. I made Tom put in somewhere under the lee of the
island, and in the night the wind dropped, thank God! This morning we
got up to Gourock and I shook the dust of the beastly boat off my feet.
No more sailing-boats for me, thank you. For complete boredom and
physical misery, commend me to a small sailing-vessel in a gale of wind.
Have you ever tried cooking fish on a dirty little oil-stove, with your
knees above your head? Oh, well, perhaps you enjoy that sort of thing. I
don't. Nothing but fish and corned beef for four days--that's not my
idea of amusement. Go on up the coast, indeed! Not on your sweet life, I
told him. I got off that damned old wherry as quick as I bloody well
could, and went on by train to Glasgow and got a hot bath and a shave,
and my God! I needed them. And I was just starting off to catch the 5.20
to Dumfries, when these police imbeciles came along and collared me. And
now, _do_ you mind telling me what it's all about?"

"Did ye no see a newspaper all those four days?"

"We saw a _Daily Mail_ at Larne on Thursday morning and I got an
_Express_ in Glasgow this afternoon, but I can't say I read them very
carefully; why?"

"The story tallies all right, what?" said Wimsey, nodding to the
Sergeant.

"Ay, imph'm. It tallies well enough, only for the evidence of this man
Drewitt."

"He'll have to be found, of course," said the Glasgow Superintendent.
"Where will he be just now, Mr. Waters?"

"Oh, God knows!" said Waters, wearily. "Somewhere off Kintyre, I should
imagine. Don't you believe what I'm telling you?"

"Of course; why not?" said the Superintendent. "But, you see, sir, it's
our duty to obtain corroboration of your statement if possible. Did Mr.
Drewitt carry a wireless set on board?"

"Wireless set? The filthy canoe hadn't so much as a spare frying-pan,"
said Waters, crossly. "Do you mind telling me what I'm accused of?"

"Ye're no accused of onything at all," said the Sergeant. "If I'd been
accusin' ye of onything," he added, cannily, "I would ha' warned ye that
ye'd no need tae be answerin' my questions."

"Wimsey, I can't make head or tail of all this. For God's sake, what is
all this mystery?"

"Well," said Wimsey, consulting the Superintendent by a look, and
receiving a nodded permission to speak, "you see, it's like this, old
horse. Last Tuesday morning they found Campbell lying dead in the
Minnoch with a nasty crack in his head, made with a blunt instrument.
And as you had last been seen with your ten fingers on his throat,
threatening to do him in, we rather wondered, you know, what had become
of you and all that."

"My God!" said Waters.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Noo, that," remarked Sergeant Dalziel to Wimsey, some time later, when
Waters had retired to write agitated letters and telegrams addressed to
the _Susannah_ at various possible and impossible ports, "that is a
verra inconvenient piece of evidence. Naiturally, we'll be findin' this
felly Drewitt, an' naiturally the baith o' them will be in the same
story tegither. But even supposin' Waters went on board at the Doon as
he said--an' whae's tae tell that?--he may ha' bin pit ashore again at
any point."

"Wait a minute," said Wimsey. "How about the body? He couldn't very well
have taken that on board with him."

"Ay, that's so. That's verra true. But supposin' Drewitt runs him up in
the night tae the Minnoch----"

"No," said Wimsey. "You're forgetting. The man who threw stones at the
window may have been Campbell or he may have been Drewitt. He can't have
been both. And somebody came back to Waters' bedroom that night and ate
his breakfast in the morning. He can't have been Campbell, and it's
extremely unlikely that it was Drewitt, so it must have been Waters. He
couldn't have got up to the Minnoch and back again in the time."

"But Drewitt might ha' cairrit the corpse away for him."

"That depends. He'd have had to know the country pretty well to find the
right place in the dark. And when was all this planned? If the man at
the window was Campbell, how did Waters get into communication with
Drewitt? If Drewitt was the man at the window, when and where was
Campbell murdered? Hang it all, Sergeant, you can't have it both ways.
If Waters went on board when he said he did, he's got his alibi.
Otherwise, I freely admit that there may be a flaw in the thing. It's
perfectly possible that the _Susannah_ may have picked him up at some
point or other on the Tuesday night. Suppose, for example, that Waters
knew beforehand that the boat would be at Lady Bay that night. He could
have hired a car somewhere and picked the _Susannah_ up there, and the
rest of the tale could have been concocted between them. The point
you've got to prove is that Waters went aboard the _Susannah_ on the
Tuesday morning. There are cottages down at the Doon. Surely to goodness
somebody must have seen him."

"That's a fact," said the Sergeant.

"And the bicycle should be there, too."

"Aweel," said Dalziel, resignedly, "I can see there'll be no kirk for me
the morn. It's awfu', the wark there is in a case the like o' this. An'
there's no train back tae Newton-Stewart the nicht."

"No more there is," said Wimsey. "Life's just one damn thing after
another."

"It is that," said Sergeant Dalziel.




                               CHAPTER XX


                             FARREN'S STORY

Gilda Farren sat, upright as a lily-stalk, in the high-backed chair,
spinning wool. Her dress was medival, with its close bodice and full,
long skirt, just lifted from the ground by the foot that swayed placidly
upon the treadle. It had a square neck and long, close-fitting sleeves,
and it was made of a fine cream-coloured serge which gave her an air of
stately purity. Besides, it had the advantage of not showing the fluff
of white wool which settles all over the spinning-woman and tends to
give her the appearance of a person who has slept in her clothes. Lord
Peter Wimsey, seated rather closely beside her, to avoid the draught
from the whirling wheel, noted this detail with sardonic appreciation.

"Well, Mrs. Farren," he said, cheerfully, "we shall soon have the truant
husband back now."

The long hands seemed to falter for a moment in feeding the flock to the
spindle, and the thread ran fine and thickened again.

"What makes you think that?" asked Mrs. Farren, never turning her
red-gold head.

"All-stations call," said Wimsey, lighting another cigarette. "Nothing
agitating, you know. Anxious friends and relations, and all that."

"That," said Mrs. Farren, "is a very great impertinence."

"I admit," said Wimsey, "that you don't seem frightfully anxious. If it
isn't rude to ask, why aren't you?"

"I think it is rather rude," said Mrs. Farren.

"Sorry," said Wimsey, "but the question remains. Why aren't you?
Abandoned bicycle--dangerous old mine--indefatigable police with ropes
and grappling-hooks--empty chair--deserted home--and a lady who sits
spinning an even thread. It might be thought puzzling."

"I have already said," replied Mrs. Farren, "that I consider all that
story about mines and suicide to be absurd. I am not responsible for the
foolish ideas of country policemen. I resent this inquisitiveness about
my private affairs extremely. The police I can forgive, Lord Peter, but
what business is it of yours?"

"None whatever," said Wimsey, cheerfully. "Only, if you cared to tell me
the facts, I might be able to quell the riot."

"What facts?"

"You might tell me, for instance," said Wimsey, "where the letter came
from."

The right hand paused and fumbled in its task. The thread whisked out of
the left-hand thumb and finger and wound itself up sharply on the
spindle. Mrs. Farren uttered a little exclamation of annoyance, stopped
the wheel, and unwound the thread again.

"I beg your pardon," she said, when she had made the join in the wool.
She re-started the wheel with a light touch of the hand. "What was that
you said?"

"I said you might tell me where the letter came from."

"What letter?"

"The letter your husband wrote you on Thursday."

"If," said Mrs. Farren, "the police have been tampering with my
correspondence, they can probably give you all the information you
want--unless, of course, they also dislike interference."

Her breath was coming short and angrily.

"Well," replied Wimsey, "as a matter of fact they omitted that simple
precaution. But since you admit the existence of the letter----"

"I admit nothing of the sort."

"Come now," said Wimsey. "You are not one of Nature's gifted liars, Mrs.
Farren. Up to Thursday, you were genuinely frightened and anxious about
your husband. On Friday you were pretending to be anxious, but you were
not. To-day I suggest that you received a letter from your husband on
Friday morning, and you leap to the conclusion that the police have been
investigating your correspondence. Therefore you did receive a letter.
Why deny it?"

"Why should I tell you anything about it?"

"Why indeed? I have only to wait a day or two and I shall get the answer
from Scotland Yard."

"What has Scotland Yard to do with it?"

"Surely, Mrs. Farren, you must know that your husband is, or may be, a
valuable witness in the Campbell case?"

"Why?"

"Well, you know, he went off from here looking for Campbell. He was last
heard of inquiring for Campbell in Gatehouse. It would be interesting to
know if he did meet Campbell--wouldn't it?"

"Lord Peter Wimsey!" Mrs. Farren stopped the wheel and turned
indignantly to face him. "Have you ever thought how contemptible you
are? We have received you here in Kirkcudbright as a friend. Everybody
has shown you kindness. And you repay it by coming into the houses of
your friends as a police-spy. If there is anything meaner than a man who
tries to bully and trap a woman into betraying her husband, it is the
wife who falls into the trap!"

"Mrs. Farren," said Wimsey, getting up, with a white face, "if it is a
question of betrayal, then I beg your pardon. I shall say nothing to the
police about the letter or about what you have just said. But in that
case I can only say again--and this time as a warning--that they have
sent out an all-stations call from London and that from to-day your
correspondence _will_ be watched. In telling you so, I am possibly
betraying official secrets and making myself an accessory after the fact
to a murder. However----"

"How dare you?"

"To be frank with you," said Wimsey, taking the question at its
face-value, "I do not think I am running any very great risk. If I did,
I might be more cautious."

"Do you dare to suggest that I believe my husband to be guilty of
murder?"

"If I must answer that, then--I think you have thought so. I am not sure
that you do not think so now. But I thought it possible that you
believed him innocent, in which case, the sooner he returns to give an
account of himself, the better for himself and for everybody."

He took up his hat and turned to go. He had his hand on the latch when
she called him back.

"Lord Peter!"

"Think before you speak," he said hastily.

"You--you are quite mistaken. I am sure my husband is innocent. There is
another reason----"

He looked at her.

"Ah!" he said. "Stupid of me. It is your own pride that you are
sheltering now." He came back into the room, treading gently, and laid
his hat on the table. "My dear Mrs. Farren, will you believe me when I
say that all men--the best and the worst alike--have these moments of
rebellion and distaste? It is nothing. It is a case for understanding
and--if I may say so--response."

"I am ready," said Gilda Farren, "to forgive----"

"Never do that," said Wimsey. "Forgiveness is the one unpardonable sin.
It is almost better to make a scene--though," he added, thoughtfully,
"that depends on the bloke's temperament."

"I should certainly not make a scene," said Mrs. Farren.

"No," said Wimsey. "I see that."

"I shall not do anything," said Mrs. Farren. "To be insulted was enough.
To be deserted as well----" Her eyes were hard and angry. "If he chooses
to come back, I shall receive him, naturally. But it is nothing to me
what he chooses to do with himself. There seems to be no end to what
women have to endure. I should not say as much as this to you, if----"

"If I didn't know it already," put in Wimsey.

"I have tried to look as though nothing was the matter," said Mrs.
Farren, "and to put a good face on it. I do not want to show my husband
up before his friends."

"Quite so," said Wimsey. "Besides," he added, rather brutally, "it might
look as though you yourself had failed in some way."

"I have always done my duty as his wife."

"Too true," said Wimsey. "He put you up on a pedestal, and you have sat
on it ever since. What more could you do?"

"I have been faithful to him," said Mrs. Farren, with rising temper. "I
have worked to keep the house beautiful and--and to make it a place of
refreshment and inspiration. I have done all I could to further his
ambitions. I have borne my share of the household expenses----" Here she
seemed suddenly to become aware of a tinge of bathos and went on
hurriedly, "You may think all this is nothing, but it means sacrifice
and hard work."

"I know that," replied Wimsey, quietly.

"Is it my fault that--just because this house was always a peaceful and
beautiful place--that unhappy man should have come to me to tell me his
troubles? Is that any reason why I should be outraged by vile
suspicions? Do _you_ believe there was anything more than sympathy in my
feelings for Sandy Campbell?"

"Not for a moment," said Wimsey.

"Then why couldn't my husband believe it?"

"Because he was in love with you."

"That is not the kind of love I recognise as love. If he loved me he
should have trusted me."

"As a matter of fact," said Wimsey, "I quite agree with you. But
everybody has his own ideas about love, and Hugh Farren is a decent
man."

"Is it decent to believe vile things of other people?"

"Well--the two things often go together, I'm afraid. I mean, virtuous
people are generally rather stupid about those things. That's why bad
men always have devoted wives--they're not stupid. Same with bad
women--they usually have their husbands on a lead. It oughtn't to be
like that, but there it is."

"Do you consider yourself a decent man when you talk like that?"

"Oh dear no," said Wimsey. "But I'm not stupid. My wife won't have that
to complain of."

"You seem to imagine that infidelity is a trifle, compared with----"

"With stupidity. I don't quite say that. But the one can cause quite as
much upheaval as the other, and the trouble is that it's incurable. One
of those things one has to put up with. I shan't necessarily be
unfaithful to my wife, but I shall know enough about infidelity to know
it when I see it, and not mistake other things for it. If I were married
to you, for example, I should know that under no circumstances would you
ever be unfaithful to me. For one thing, you haven't got the
temperament. For another, you would never like to think less of yourself
than you do. For a third, it would offend your sthetic taste. And for a
fourth, it would give other people a handle against you."

"Upon my word," said Mrs. Farren, "your reasons are more insulting than
my husband's suspicions."

"You're quite right," said Wimsey. "They are."

"If Hugh were here," said Mrs. Farren, "he would throw you out of the
window."

"Probably," said Wimsey. "In fact, now that I've put it to you in the
right light, you can see that his attitude towards you is rather a
compliment than otherwise."

"Go and see him," said Mrs. Farren, fiercely. "Tell him what you have
been saying to me--if you dare--and see what he says to you."

"With pleasure," said Wimsey, "if you will give me his address."

"I don't know it," said Mrs. Farren, shortly. "But the postmark was
Brough in Westmorland."

"Thank you," said Wimsey, "I will go and see him--and, by the way, I
shall not mention this to the police."

                 *        *        *        *        *

At an early hour on Monday morning, a large black Daimler car, with an
outsize bonnet and racing body, moved in leisurely silence down the main
street of Brough. The driver, glancing carelessly from side to side
through his monocle, appeared to be about to pull up at the principal
hotel; then, suddenly changing his mind, he moved forward again, and
eventually stopped the car before a smaller inn, distinguished by the
effigy of a spirited bull, careering ferociously in an emerald green
meadow beneath a bright summer sky.

He pushed open the door and strode in. The innkeeper was polishing
glasses in the bar, and bade him a polite good morning.

"A fine morning," said the traveller.

"Ay, so 'tis," agreed the innkeeper.

"Can you give me a bit of breakfast?"

The innkeeper appeared to turn this suggestion over in his mind.

"Hey, mother!" he bellowed at last, turning towards an inner door,
"canst a' give breakfast to t' gentleman?"

His shout brought out a comely woman in the middle forties who, after
looking the gentleman over and summing him up, reckoned that she could,
if a dish of eggs and Cumberland ham would suit the gentleman.

Nothing could be better, in the gentleman's opinion. He was ushered into
a parlour full of plush-covered chairs and stuffed birds, and invited to
take a seat. After an interval, a sturdy young woman appeared to lay the
table. After a further interval came a large and steaming tea-pot, a
home-baked loaf, a plate of buns, a large pat of butter and two sorts of
jam. Finally, the landlady reappeared, escorting the ham and eggs in
person.

The motorist complimented her on the excellence of the food and fell to
with an appetite, mentioning that he had just come down from Scotland.
He made a few sensible observations on the curing of hams, and gave an
intelligent account of the method used in Ayrshire. He also inquired
particularly after a certain kind of cheese peculiar to the district.
The landlady--in whom the monocle had at first raised some doubts--began
to think that he was a more homely body than he appeared at first sight,
and obligingly offered to send the girl round to the shop to procure a
cheese for him.

"I can see you know the town, sir," she observed.

"Oh, yes--I've been through here lots of times, though I don't think
I've ever pulled up here before. You're looking very smart and all
that--got the old Bull repainted, I see."

"Ah, you noticed 'en, sir. Well, that was nobbut finished yesterday.
'Twas done by a painter gentleman. He came walking into t' bar Thursday
and says to George, Landlord,' he says, 'the signboard would do wi' a
bit paint. If I make 'ee a fine new bull for 'en, will 'ee let me have a
room cheap?' George, he didn't know what to think, but t' gentleman
says, 'Look here,' he says 'I'll make 'ee a fair offer. Here's my money.
Gie me my food and lodging and I'll do my best by t' bull, and if tha
likes 'en when a's done, tha canst allow what tha likes for 'en on t'
bill.' On walking-tour, a' said a' was, and a' had one of these little
boxes full of paints wi' en, so that we could see a' was an artist."

"Funny," said the motorist. "Had he any luggage?"

"A little bag-like--nothing much. But anybody could see a' was a
gentleman. Well, George didn't know what to think."

From what the traveller had seen of George, this seemed very probable.
There was a kind of stolid dignity about George which suggested that he
disliked being flurried.

Apparently, however, the mysterious artist had then and there, with a
piece of black stuff, sketched on the back of an envelope a bull so
rampant, so fierce, so full of fire and vigour, as to appeal very
strongly to George's agrarian instincts. After some discussion, the
bargain was struck, the old bull taken down and the paints brought out.
On Thursday the new Bull had made his appearance on one side of the
sign, head down and tail up, steam issuing from his nostrils, and the
painter had explained that this represented the frame of mind of the
hungry traveller bellowing for his food. On Friday, a second bull was
drawn and coloured on the other side, sleek, handsome and contented,
having fed well and received the best of treatment. On Saturday, the
sign had been set out to dry in the wash-house. On Sunday, the painter
had applied a coat of varnish on both sides and set the board back in
the wash-house. On Sunday night, the varnish, though still a little
tacky, seemed to be dry enough to allow of the sign's being put in
place, and there it was. The painter had taken his departure on foot on
Sunday afternoon. George had been so pleased with the bull that he had
refused to take any money at all from the gentleman, and had given him
an introduction to a friend of his in a neighbouring village, who also
had a sign that needed renewal.

The motorist listened with great interest to this story and carelessly
inquired the painter's name. The landlady produced her visitors' book.

"'Tis wrote here," said she. "Mr. H. Ford of London, but by a's speech
you'd ha' taken 'en for a Scotsman."

The motorist looked down at the book, with a slight smile twisting the
corners of his long mouth. Then he pulled a fountain-pen from his pocket
and wrote, beneath the signature of Mr. H. Ford:

    "Peter Wimsey. Kirkcudbright. Good baiting at the Bull."

Then, getting up and buckling the belt of his leather coat, he observed,
pleasantly:

"If any friends of mine should come inquiring for Mr. Ford, be sure you
show them that book, and say I left my compliments for Mr. Parker of
London."

"Mester Parker?" said the landlady, mystified, but impressed. "Well, to
be sure, I'll tell 'en, sir."

Wimsey paid his bill and went out. As he drove away he saw her standing,
book in hand, under the signboard, staring at the bull which capered so
bravely on the bright green grass.

The village mentioned by the landlady was only about six miles from
Brough, and was reached by a side-turning. It possessed only one inn,
and that inn had no sign, only an empty iron bracket. Wimsey smiled
again, stopped his car at the door and passed into the bar, where he
ordered a tankard of beer.

"What's the name of your inn?" he asked, presently.

The landlord, a brisk Southerner, grinned widely.

"Dog and Gun, sir. The sign's took down to be repainted. Gentleman
a-workin' on it now in the back garden. One of these travelling painter
chaps--gentleman, though. Comes from over the Border by his way o'
talkin'. Old George Wetherby sent him on here. Tells me he's made a good
job o' the old Bull in Brough. Working his way down to London, by what I
can make out. Very pleasant gentleman. Real artist--paints pictures for
the London shows, or so he tells me. My sign won't be any the worse for
a dab o' fresh paint--besides, it amuses the kids to watch him muckin'
about."

"Nothing I like better myself," said Wimsey, "than to hang round while
another fellow does a spot of work."

"No? Well, that's so, sir. If you like to step into the garden, sir,
you'll see him."

Wimsey laughed and wandered out, tankard in hand. He dodged under a
little archway, covered with a tangle of faded ramblers, and there, sure
enough, squatting on an upturned bucket with the signboard of the Dog
and Gun propped on a kitchen-chair before him, was the missing Hugh
Farren, whistling cheerfully, as he squeezed out paint upon his palette.

Farren's back was turned towards Wimsey and he did not turn his head.
Three children watched, fascinated, as the thick blobs of colour oozed
out on to the board.

"What's that, mister?"

"That's the green for the gentleman's coat. No--don't pinch it, or
you'll get it all over you. Yes, you can put the cap on. Yes, that's to
keep it from drying up. Yes, put it back in the box.... That's yellow.
No, I know there isn't any yellow in the picture, but I want it to mix
with the green to make it brighter. You'll see. Don't forget the cap.
What? Oh, anywhere in the box. White--yes, it's a big tube, isn't it?
You see, you have to put a little white into most of the colours--why?
Well, they wouldn't come right without it. You'll see when I do the sky.
What's that? You want the dog made white all over? No, I can't make it a
picture of Scruggs. Why not? Well, Scruggs isn't the right sort of dog
to take out shooting. Well, he's not, that's why. This has got to be a
retriever. All right, well, I'll put in a liver-and-white spaniel. Oh,
well, it's rather a pretty dog with long ears. Yes, I daresay it is like
Colonel Amery's. No, I don't know Colonel Amery. Did you put the cap on
that white paint? Dash it! if you go losing things like that I'll send
you back to Mother and she'll spank you. What? Well, the gentleman has a
green coat because he's a gamekeeper. Possibly Colonel Amery's
gamekeeper doesn't, but this one does. No, I don't know why gamekeepers
wear green coats--to keep them warm, I expect. No, I haven't got any
brown paint same as that tree-trunk. I get that by mixing other colours.
No, I've got all the colours I want now. You can put 'em away and shut
the box. Yes, I can tell pretty well how much I want before I start.
That's called a palette knife. No, it isn't meant to be sharp. It's
meant for cleaning your palette and so on. Some people use a knife to
paint with. Yes, it's nice and wiggly, but it won't stand too much of
that kind of treatment, my lad. Yes, of course you can paint with a
knife if you want to. You can paint with your fingers if it comes to
that. No, I shouldn't advise you to try. Yes, well, it makes a rougher
kind of surface, all blobs and chunks of paint. All right, I'll show you
presently. Yes, I'm going to begin with the sky. Why? Well, why do you
think? Yes, because it's at the top. Yes, of course that blue's too
dark, but I'm going to put some white in it. Yes, _and_ some green. You
didn't know there was any green in the sky? Well, there is. And
sometimes there's purple and pink too. No, I'm not going to paint a
purple and pink sky. The gentleman and the dogs have only just started
out. It's morning in this picture. Yes, I know, on the other side
they're coming home with a lot of birds and things. I'll put a pink and
purple sunset into that if you're good and don't ask too many questions.
No, be a good girl and don't joggle my arm. Oh, Lord!"

"Hullo, Farren!" said Wimsey. "Finding the young idea a bit too eager
for information, eh?"

"My God!" said the painter. "Wimsey, by all that's holy! How did you get
here? Don't say my wife sent you!"

"Not exactly," said Wimsey. "And yet, now you mention it, I believe she
did do something of the sort."

Farren sighed.

"Come on," he said. "Spit it out and get it over. Run away to your
mother, bairns. I've got to talk to this gentleman."

"Look here," said Wimsey, when they were alone. "I want to say, first of
all, that I haven't the faintest right to ask questions. But I'd be
damned glad if you'd tell me exactly what you've been up to since Monday
night."

"I suppose my conduct is being harshly criticised at Kirkcudbright,"
said Farren. "Deserting the home, and all that?"

"Well, no," said Wimsey. "Your wife has stuck to it that there's nothing
unusual in your disappearance. But--as a matter of fact--the police have
been hunting for you everywhere."

"The police? Why in the world----?"

"I think I'll smoke a pipe," said Wimsey. "Well, the fact that you were
talking rather wildly about suicide and other things, don't you know.
And then your bicycle being found close to those old mines up beyond
Creetown. It--suggested things, you see."

"Oh! I'd forgotten about the bicycle. Yes, but surely Gilda--I wrote to
her."

"She isn't worried about that, now."

"I suppose she must have been rather anxious. I ought to have written
earlier. But--damn it! I never thought about their finding that. And--by
Jove! old Strachan will have been in a bit of a stew."

"Why Strachan, particularly?"

"Well, surely he told people--didn't he?"

"Look here, Farren, what the devil are you talking about?"

"About Monday night. Poor old Strachan! He must have thought I'd really
gone and done it."

"When did you see Strachan, then?"

"Why, that night, up by the mines. Didn't you know?"

"I don't know anything," said Wimsey. "Suppose you tell me the story
right end foremost."

"All right. I don't mind. I suppose you know that I had a bit of a row
that night with Campbell. Oh! that reminds me, Wimsey. Didn't I see
something funny in the paper about Campbell? Something about his being
found dead?"

"He's been murdered," said Wimsey, abruptly.

"Murdered? That wasn't what I saw. But I haven't looked at a paper for
days. I only saw--when was it?--Wednesday morning, I think--something
about 'well-known Scottish painter found dead in a river.'"

"Oh, well, it hadn't got out then. But he was bumped off, as a matter of
fact, some time on Monday night or Tuesday morning--up at the Minnoch."

"Was he? Serve the beggar right. Oh, by the way, I seem to see something
behind this. Am I supposed to have done it, Wimsey?"

"I don't know," said Wimsey, truthfully. "But there is a feeling that
perhaps you ought to come forward and say something. You were looking
for him, you know, on Monday night."

"Yes, I was. And if I'd met him, there _would_ have been murder done.
But as a matter of fact, I didn't meet him."

"You can prove that?"

"Well--I don't know that I can if it comes to that. This isn't serious,
is it?"

"I don't know. Let's have the story, Farren."

"I see. Well. Well, I came home about six o'clock on Monday and found
that blighter making love to my wife. I was fed up, Wimsey. I hoofed him
out and I dare say I made a bit of an ass of myself."

"Wait a minute. Did you actually see Campbell?"

"He was just making off when I came in. I told him to clear out, and
then I went in and spoke my mind. I told Gilda I wouldn't have the
fellow there. She stuck up for him, and that annoyed me. Mind you,
Wimsey, I haven't a word against Gilda except that she can't and won't
understand that Campbell is--was--a poisonous sort of hound and that she
was making me a laughing-stock. She's got an idea about being kind and
sympathetic, and she can't see that that sort of thing doesn't work with
fellows like Campbell. Dash it all, I _know_ the blighter was crazy
about her. And when I tried, quite nicely, to point out that she was
making a fool of herself, she got on her high horse and---- Damn it,
Wimsey! I don't want to talk like a pig about my wife, but the fact is,
she's too good and too full of ideals to understand what the ordinary
man is like. You do see what I mean?"

"Perfectly," said Wimsey.

"Because my wife really is a wonderful woman. Only--well, I daresay I
said a lot of silly things."

"I know exactly the sort of thing you said," observed Wimsey. "She
didn't tell me, but I can imagine it. You stormed about, and she told
you not to have coarse ideas, and you got hotter, and she got colder,
and you said things you didn't mean in the hope of bringing her to your
arms, so to speak, and then she said you were insulting and burst into
tears, and then you worked yourself up into half-believing the
accusations you'd only made to annoy her, and then you threatened murder
and suicide and went out to get drunk. Bless your soul, you're not the
first and won't be the last."

"Well, you've got it about right," said Farren. "Only I really did begin
to believe it at the time. At least, I believed Campbell was out to do
all the mischief he could. I did get drunk. I had one or two in the
town, and then I barged off to Gatehouse to find Campbell."

"How did you miss him in Kirkcudbright? He was at the McClellan Arms all
the time."

"I never thought of that. I just hared off to Gatehouse. He wasn't in
his cottage, and Ferguson yelled out to me. I thought of having a row
with Ferguson, but I wasn't as drunk as all that. Then I went and had a
few more. Somebody told me they'd seen Campbell go out to Creetown, so I
went after him."

"No, you didn't," said Wimsey. "You went up the road to the golf-links."

"Did I? Oh, yes, so I did. I went to find Strachan, but he was out. I
left a note or a message for him, I think; to tell the truth, I'm not
very clear about it. But I think I told him I was going to Creetown to
do Campbell in and cut my own throat. Some rot or other.... I say, poor
old Strachan! He must have had a time! Did he show that note to the
police?"

"Not that I know of."

"Oh! no, I suppose he wouldn't. Strachan's a good sort. Well, I went
over to Creetown. The pubs were shut when I got there, but I went in and
got hold of a man there--by Jove! no, I suppose he wouldn't have come
forward, either. Well, never mind the man--I don't want to get him into
trouble. The point is that I raised a bottle of whiskey after
closing-time."

"Yes?"

"Well, I'm a bit vague about the next part of it, but I know I remember
going up into the hills, with some vague idea of chucking myself down
one of the pits. I wandered round. I remember wheeling the damned bike
over the rough stuff--and then, damn it all, I came to the mouth of one
of the mines. Nearly fell into it. I sat down and moralised a bit on the
brink, with the help of the whiskey. I must have been damned drunk. I
don't know how long that lasted. Well, then, presently I heard somebody
shouting and I shouted back. I felt like that. Somebody came up, and
started talking. It was old Strachan. At least, my impression is that it
was Strachan, but I freely admit that I may be mixing things up a bit. I
know he talked and talked and tried to get hold of me, and I struggled
and fought him. It was a lovely fight, I do know that. Then I knocked
him down and started to run. I ran like hell. My God! it was fine. Drink
takes me in the head, you know; my legs are always all right. I simply
bounced over the heather, and the stars bounced along with me. Good God!
I remember that now. I don't know how long it went on. And then I lost
my footing and went rolling away down a slope somewhere. I suppose I
fetched up all right at the bottom, because, when I woke it was well on
in the morning, and I was lying in a sort of hollow among the bracken,
quite snug and cosy and without so much as a headache.

"I didn't know where I was. But I didn't care. I just felt that nothing
mattered at all. I didn't want to go home. I didn't care a hang about
Campell. I just felt as if all the cares of the world had tumbled off my
back and left me alone in the sunshine. I walked straight ahead. I was
getting damned hungry by that time, because I'd had no dinner the night
before, but there wasn't so much as a shepherd's hut in sight. I walked
and walked. The place was full of wee burns and I had plenty to drink.
After hours and hours I struck a road and walked along, not meeting
anybody. And then, some time about mid-day, I crossed a bridge and knew
where I was. It was the place they call New Brig o' Dee, on the New
Galloway Road. I hadn't really come so very far. I expect I must have
made a bit of a circle, though I thought I was keeping the sun on my
right all the time."

"The sun moves, you know," said Wimsey, "or appears to."

"Yes--I don't think I realised how long I'd been going. Anyhow, I got
there, and started to walk towards New Galloway. I met some sheep and a
few cows and carts, and at last a fellow with a lorry overtook me. He
took me as far as New Galloway, and I got something to eat there."

"What time was that?" asked Wimsey, quickly.

"Oh, it must have been nearly three. Then I wondered what to do with
myself. I'd got about ten pounds in my pocket and my one idea was that I
didn't want to go back. I was finished. Done. I wanted to go gipsying. I
didn't give a damn if I never saw the Tolbooth spire again. I saw an
empty lorry labelled with the name of a Glasgow firm on it, and I
bargained with the man to take me to Dumfries. They were going that
way."

"What was the name of the firm?"

"Eh? Oh, I don't know. There were two very decent fellows on it and we
talked about fishing."

"Where did they put you off?"

"Just before we got to Dumfries. I wanted to think a bit, you see. It
was a question whether I'd take the train there or put up in some pub or
other. I was afraid of running into some of our crowd at the station.
Besides, some of the railway people there would have known me. I often
go to Dumfries. That was the trouble about the pub idea too.... I don't
know if I can explain how I felt, Wimsey. It was as if I'd escaped from
something and was afraid of being--well, bagged. I mean, if I had met
anyone who knew me, I should have fudged up some tale about fishing or
painting and made everything sound quite ordinary, and then I should
have gone home. You see. It wouldn't have been the same if I'd had to
make up an elaborate deception about it. You're not free when you have
to tell lies to escape. It's not worth it. I can't possibly make you
understand that."

"Why not?" said Wimsey. "It would be like buying a week-end
wedding-ring."

"Yes--just as tedious as if it was 22-carat. And signing the hotel
register and wondering if the reception-clerk believed you. Wimsey,
you're rich and there's nothing to stop you from doing what you like.
Why do you trouble to be respectable?"

"Just because there's nothing to stop me from doing what I like,
probably. I get my fun out of it."

"I know you do," said Farren, looking at him in a puzzled way. "It's
odd. You create an illusion of liberty. Is it money? Or is it being
unmarried? But there are plenty of unmarried men who don't----"

"Aren't we wandering slightly from the matter in hand?" said Wimsey.

"Perhaps. Well--I went into a little inn--a one-horse little place--and
had a drink in the four-ale bar. There was a young fellow there with a
bike and side-car. He said he was going through to Carlisle. That gave
me an idea. I asked him if he'd take me and he said he would. He was a
decent bloke and didn't ask any questions."

"What was his name?"

"I didn't ask, nor did he. I said I was on a walking-tour and that my
belongings were waiting for me in Carlisle. But he didn't seem to
bother. I never met such a reasonable man."

"What was he?"

"I gathered that he had something to do with the second-hand motor trade
and was taking the bike in part-exchange for something. I shouldn't have
known that, only he apologised for its internals not being in perfect
trim. In fact, something went wrong with them on the road, and I had to
hold an electric torch for him while he put it right. He didn't seem to
have many ideas beyond plugs and things. He didn't talk. Said he'd been
thirty-six hours on the road, but I needn't worry, because he could
drive in his sleep."

Wimsey nodded. He knew the helots of the second-hand-motor trade. Grim,
silent, cynical, abroad at all hours and in all weathers, they are men
accustomed to disillusionment and disaster. To deliver their melancholy
screws to their customers and depart before inconvenient discoveries are
made; to scramble home with their surprise-packets of old iron before
the patched radiator bursts or the clutch gives way--this is their sole
preoccupation. Always dog-tired, dirty and prepared for the worst,
habitually hard-up and morose, they are not likely to be inquisitive
about stranded travellers who offer to pay for a lift.

"So you got to Carlisle?"

"Yes. I slept most of the time, except, of course, when I was holding
the torch. I enjoyed the bits when I was awake. Not knowing who he was
made it better. Do you know, I hadn't been in a side-car before. It's
not like a car. Cars fascinate me, too, though the only two or three
times I tried to drive one I didn't get much kick out of it. I like
_being_ driven--and this side-car business gets my imagination. The
power is outside you, and you are pulled along--in tow, so to speak.
Like being eloped with. You seem to notice the strength of the machine
more than you do in a car. Why is that?"

Wimsey shook his head.

"Perhaps I was imagining things. Well, anyhow, we got to Carlisle in the
morning and I had some grub in a sort of tea-shop place. Then, of
course, I had to decide on something. I bought a clean shirt and some
socks and a toothbrush and so on, and a knapsack to shove them into. It
was only then that I thought about money. I'd have to cash a cheque
somewhere. But that meant telling people where I was. I mean, the bank
people would have to ring up Kirkcudbright and all that. I thought it
would be more fun to pay my way. I'd still got enough to buy paints
with, so I went into an art-dealers' and got a box and a palette and
some brushes and colours----"

"Winsor & Newton, I observe," said Wimsey.

"Yes. You can get them easily in most places, you know. I usually get my
stuff from Paris, but Winsor & Newton are perfectly reliable. I thought
I'd make my way down into the Lake Country and paint little pictures for
tourists or something. It's fearfully easy. You can knock off two or
three in a day--hills and water and mists, you know--and idiots will
give you ten bob a time, if the stuff's sentimental enough. I knew a man
who always paid for his holidays that way. Didn't sign 'em in his own
name, naturally. It's a form of mass-production."

"Hence the idea of Mr. H. Ford?"

"Oh, you've been to the Bull at Brough? Yes--the idea rather tickled me.
Well, after I'd bought the paints I had just about enough left to bribe
another lorry-driver. But I didn't. I found a man with a Riley--Oxford
fellow--a frightfully good sort. He was heading south and told me I
could go as far as I liked with him and damn paying for it. He talked
all right. His name was John Barrett and he was just fooling round
amusing himself. Didn't know where he was going. Had just got the new
car and wanted to see what she could do. Damn it, he did, too. I was
never so frightened in my life."

"Where did he live?"

"Oh, London, somewhere. He told me the place, but I can't remember it
now. He asked a lot of questions, too, but I just said I was a
travelling artist and he thought it was a fearfully good wheeze. I
didn't mind telling him that, because by that time it was true, you see.
He asked what one could make out of it and all that, and I gave him all
the stuff I'd had from my friend, and he asked me where I'd been last
and I said in Galloway. It was just as easy as that. But when we got to
Brough, I said I'd get off there. I felt I was too young to die--just as
I was starting off on an adventure, too. He was a bit disappointed, but
he wished me luck and all that. I went to the Bull, because it looked
less grand than the other place, and that was where I got the idea about
the sign. Good thing I did, too, because the weather turned nasty the
next day, and I hadn't altogether reckoned with that when I made my plan
about doing the hills and lakes and things. So that was that, and here I
am."

Farren took up his brushes again and renewed his assault upon the Dog
and Gun.

"Very jolly," said Wimsey. "But you know, it all boils down to this,
that you can't produce a single witness to say where you were between
Monday night and Tuesday afternoon at 3 o'clock."

"Oh! no--I'd forgotten about all that. But, I mean, all this isn't
serious, really? And after all, I've got a perfectly natural,
straightforward explanation."

"It sounds natural enough to me, perhaps," said Wimsey, "but whether the
police will take that view----"

"Damn the police! I say, Wimsey----"

The shadow of something cold and deadly crept into the painter's eyes.

"Does this mean I've got to go back, Wimsey?"

"I'm afraid," said Wimsey, "I'm very much afraid----" He was looking
back over Farren's shoulder at the back door of the inn, from which two
squarely-built men in tweeds were emerging. Farren, catching the
infection of uneasiness, turned his head.

"My God," he said. "It's all up. Bagged. Trapped. Prison."

"Yes," said Wimsey, almost inaudibly. "And you won't escape this
time--ever."




                              CHAPTER XXI


                            STRACHAN'S STORY

"Bicycles?" said Inspector Macpherson. "Dinna ye talk tae me o'
bicycles. I'm fair fed up wi' the name o' them. Wad ye believe that
there could be sic a stour aboot twa-three bicycles? Here's ane o' them
at Euston and anither up at Creetoon, and as if that wasn't eneugh,
here's Waters' bicycle vanished and naebody kens whether we should
arrest Waters for murder or make a sairch for a bicycle-thief."

"It's very trying," said Wimsey. "And I suppose nobody saw Waters go
aboard at the Doon?"

"An' if onybody had seen him," said the Inspector, wrathfully, "wad I be
fashin' masel' the noo? There's a mon saw anither mon wadin' across the
sand, but he was half a mile off, an' whae's tae say it was Waters?"

"I must say," said Wimsey, "that I never in all my life heard of such an
unconvincing bunch of alibis. By the way, Inspector, did you check up
that story of Ferguson's?"

"Ferguson?" said the Inspector, in the resentful accents of a schoolboy
burdened with too much homework. "Oo, ay, we havena forgot Ferguson. I
went tae Sparkes & Crisp an' interviewed the employees. There was twa of
them remembered him weel eneugh. The lad doon-stairs in the show-room
couldna speak with sairtainty tae the time, but he recognised Ferguson
from his photograph as havin' brocht in a magneto on the Monday
afternoon. He said Mr. Saunders wad be the man tae see tae that, and pit
a ca' through on the house telephone tae Mr. Sparkes, an' he had the
young fellow in. Saunders is ane o' they bright lads. He picked the
photograph at once oot o' the six I showed him an' turned up the entry
o' the magneto in the day-book."

"Could he swear to the time Ferguson came in?"

"He wadna charge his memory wi' the precise minute, but he said he had
juist come in fra' his lunch an' found Ferguson waitin' for him. His
lunch-time is fra' 1.30 tae 2.30, but he was a bit late that day, an'
Ferguson had been waitin' on him a wee while. He thinks it wad be aboot
ten minutes tae three."

"That's just about what Ferguson made it."

"Near eneugh."

"H'm. That sounds all right. Was that all Saunders had to say?"

"Ay. Forbye that he said he couldna weel understand whit had happened
tae the magneto. He said it looked as though some yin had been daein' it
a wilfu' damage."

"That's funny. That would be the mechanic's report, of course. Did you
see the mechanic at all?"

The Inspector admitted that he had not done so, not seeing what bearing
it could have upon the case.

"Was you thinkin', maybe," he suggested, "that some felonious body was
interested in seeing' that Ferguson didna take oot his car that
mornin'?"

"Inspector," said Wimsey, "you are a mind-reader. I was thinking exactly
that."

Farren had returned to Kirkcudbright. His dream of escape had vanished.
His wife had forgiven him. His absence was explained as a trifling and
whimsical eccentricity. Gilda Farren sat, upright and serene, spinning
the loose white flock into a strong thread that wound itself ineluctably
to smother the twirling spindle. The story had been told to the police.
Sir Maxwell Jamieson shook his head over it. Short of arresting Farren,
they must remain content with his story or else disprove it. And they
could not very well arrest Farren, for they might want to arrest Waters
or Gowan or Graham or even Strachan, all of whose stories were equally
odd and suspicious. It would be preposterous to arrest five people for
one crime.

The porter at Girvan was still desperately ill. He had--out of pure
perversity, no doubt--developed peritonitis. The Euston bicycle had been
duly identified as the property of young Andrew of the Anwoth, but what
evidence was there that it had any connection with Campbell? If Farren
were the murderer it had obviously no connection with it at all, for
Farren could not have taken the Ayr train at Girvan and been in New
Galloway at 3 o'clock. And that part of Farren's story was true, anyway,
for they had checked it. No, Farren, like the rest, must have rope given
him. So Farren sat sulkily in his studio and Mrs. Farren span--not a
rope, perhaps, but fetters at any rate--in the sitting-room with the
cool blue curtains.

The Chief Constable took upon himself the task of interviewing Strachan,
who received him with politeness, but without enthusiasm.

"We have obtained a statement from Mr. Farren," said Sir Maxwell, "with
reference to his movements on Monday night and Tuesday morning, which
requires your corroboration."

"Indeed," said Strachan. "In what way?"

"Come," said the Chief Constable, "you know very well in what way. We
know, from Mr. Farren's story, that you have not told us all the facts
about your own movements at that time. Now that Mr. Farren has given his
explanation, you have no longer any reason for reticence."

"I don't altogether understand this," said Strachan. "Mr. Farren, as I
am told, went for a holiday trip to England and has returned. Why should
I answer any questions about his private affairs? To what is the inquiry
directed?"

"Mr. Strachan," said the Chief Constable, "I do most earnestly beg you
not to take up this attitude. It can do no good and only creates
difficulties and, if I may say so, suspicion. You are perfectly well
aware that we are inquiring into the circumstances of Mr. Campbell's
murder, and that it is absolutely necessary for us to obtain information
about all the persons who saw Mr. Campbell shortly before his death. Mr.
Farren saw him at 6 o'clock on Monday week, and he has given us an
account of his movements since that time. This account requires your
corroboration. If you can give it, where is the point of refusing?"

"The point is," said Strachan, "that Mr. Farren is going about at
liberty, and that therefore, presumably, you have nothing against him.
In that case, I am not bound to answer any impertinent queries about his
behaviour or his personal affairs. If, on the other hand, you intend to
accuse him or me of anything criminal, it is your duty to say so, and
also to warn us that we are not obliged to answer your questions."

"Of course," said Sir Maxwell, smothering his annoyance, "you are not in
any way bound to answer if you think that by so doing you will
incriminate yourself. But you cannot prevent us from drawing the natural
conclusion from your refusal."

"Is that a threat?"

"Certainly not. It is a warning."

"And if I thank you for the warning and still decline to make a
statement?"

"In that case, well----"

"In that case your only alternative is to arrest me and charge me with
murder, or with complicity. Are you prepared to go as far as that?"

The Chief Constable was not by any means prepared, but he replied,
curtly:

"You will have to take your chance of that."

Strachan paused, tapping his fingers on the table. The clock on the
mantelpiece ticked loudly, and the voice of Myra floated in from the
garden, playing at tig with her mother and the nurse.

"Very well," said Strachan, at last. "What does Farren say that wants my
corroboration?"

Sir Maxwell Jamieson was annoyed again at the obviousness of this trap.

"I am afraid that won't do, Mr. Strachan," he said, a little acidly. "It
will be better, I think, that you should begin from the beginning and
give me your own account of what happened."

"What do you call the beginnning?"

"Begin by saying where you were on Monday afternoon."

"On Monday afternoon? I was out, painting."

"Whereabouts?"

"Up at Balmae. Would you like proof of that? I can show you the canvas,
but of course that won't bear visible signs of having been painted on
Monday. However, I daresay somebody saw the car. I stuck it in a field
and walked down to the edge of the cliff. Subject of the painting, Ross
Island. Price, when finished, 50 guineas."

"What time did you leave there?"

"About half-past seven."

"Did the light remain good as long as that?"

"Good heavens!" said Strachan. "Are the police going to display
intelligence about art? No, it didn't, but I had taken my dinner out
with me. The dinner consisted of cold meat sandwiches, baps, brown
bread, cheese and tomatoes, with a bottle of Worthington. To entertain
myself during the orgy I had a book--a very nice book, all about a
murder committed in this part of the country. _Sir John Magill's Last
Journey_, by one Mr. Crofts. You should read it. The police in that book
called in Scotland Yard to solve their problems for them."

Sir Maxwell took this information without wincing, and merely demanded:

"Did you then return to Gatehouse?"

"I did not. I went on to Tongland."

"Passing through Kirkcudbright?"

"Not being in an aeroplane, obviously I had to pass through
Kirkcudbright."

"I mean, at what time?"

"At about 8 o'clock."

"Did anybody see you?"

"I have no doubt they did. It is my experience that one never passes
through Kirkcudbright or anywhere else without being seen by at least
half a dozen people."

"You did not stop at all?"

"I did not."

"You went on to Tongland. And there?"

"I fished. Total bag, one trout, three-quarters of a pound, one ditto,
seven ounces, and three that were too young to leave home."

"Did you see anybody there?"

"I don't know that I did. The keeper knows me, but he wasn't there. But
I daresay some busybody or other noticed me."

"When did you leave Tongland?"

"Round about 11 o'clock, I think. The fish seemed to have lost
enthusiasm, and so did I."

"And then?"

"Then I went home like a good little boy. I got back some time round
about midnight."

"You could produce witnesses to that, of course?"

"Of course. My wife and my servant. But naturally they would swear to
anything I told them to swear to."

"No doubt," said Sir Maxwell, unmoved by this sarcasm. "What then?"

"I went out again in the car."

"Why?"

"To look for Farren."

"What made you do that?"

"I found a note from him waiting for me."

"Have you still got that note?"

"No, I burnt it."

"What was in it?"

"He told me that he was going to commit suicide. I thought I ought to
follow him and stop him."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"No, but I thought he would probably go up into the hills by Creetown.
We had sometimes discussed the question of suicide, and the old mines up
there seemed to have a kind of attraction for him."

"I see. You went straight over to Creetown?"

"Yes."

"Are you quite sure, Mr. Strachan?"

"Yes, of course."

Sir Maxwell was a cautious man, but there was something guarded in
Strachan's tone which warned him that this was a lie, and a sudden
illumination moved him to risk a bluff.

"Then you would be very much surprised if I told you that your car had
been seen on the road between the Anwoth Hotel and Standing Stone Pool
between midnight and 12.30?"

Strachan was obviously not prepared for this.

"Yes," he said, "I should be surprised."

"It is surprising," rejoined the Chief Constable, "but, as you say,
there is always some busybody about. Anyway, now that you are reminded
of it, you do recollect going in that direction?"

"Well, yes. I had forgotten about it for the moment; I went--I
thought----"

"You went to Campbell's house, Mr. Strachan. As a matter of fact, you
were seen there. Why did you go?"

"I thought possibly I might find Farren there."

"Why?"

"Oh, well--he didn't like Campbell very much, and I thought--it struck
me as just possible that he might have had the idea of getting an
explanation or something from Campbell."

"That was an odd thing for you to think, was it not?"

"Not very. After all, it's no good pretending that Campbell and he were
on good terms. They had had a quarrel that evening----"

"Yes, but you didn't know that at the time, Mr. Strachan. You tell me
that you went straight through from Balmae to Tongland without stopping
or speaking to anybody in Kirkcudbright."

"No, that's true. But of course, if Farren wanted to commit suicide, I
could put two and two together."

"I see. It was just a guess. There was nothing in Mr. Farren's note to
suggest that he might be going to see Mr. Campbell?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Mr. Strachan, I must warn you that if you persist in concealing the
truth, you may involve yourself in very serious trouble. We know the
contents of the note."

"Oh!" Strachan shrugged his shoulders. "If you know, why ask me?"

"We are asking you for independent corroboration, Mr. Strachan, and I
must say that you are making things very difficult for Mr. Farren and
for us by this attitude."

"Well, if Farren has told you----Very well, then, the note did mention
Campbell, and I went along to see if Farren was there, and, if not, to
warn Campbell."

"To warn him? You took Mr. Farren's threats very seriously, then?"

"Well, not very seriously. But they are both excitable men, and I
thought that there might be a great deal of unpleasantness if they met
in that mood, and possibly a really nasty row."

"Did you deliver the warning?"

"The house was empty. I knocked two or three times and then, as
everything was dark, I went in."

"The door was open, then?"

"No, but I knew where to find the key."

"Was that a thing everybody knew?"

"How should I know? I only knew that I'd often seen Campbell hang it up,
after locking the door, on a particular nail hidden behind the
gutter-spout."

"I see. So you went in?"

"Yes. Everything was quite clean and tidy and it didn't look as though
Campbell had been in. There were no supper-dishes or anything about, and
he wasn't in bed, because I went upstairs to see. I left a note for him
on the table and came away again, relocking the door and putting the key
back where I found it."

Only by a great effort of self-control did the Chief Constable keep from
showing the staggering effect of this piece of news. He succeeded in
asking, in matter-of-fact tones:

"What exactly did you say in the note?" As Strachan seemed to hesitate,
he added, with more assurance than he felt:

"Try to make your recollection more precise this time, Mr. Strachan. As
you see, we are sometimes able to check these items."

"Yes," said Strachan, coolly. "As a matter of fact, I've been rather
wondering why I haven't heard about the note before."

"Have you? Didn't you take it for granted that Campbell had received it
and destroyed it?"

"I did at first," said Strachan, "and that was why I thought all this
fuss about Monday night so unnecessary. If Campbell came in after I was
there, then he was alive long after I saw him. He had his breakfast,
didn't he? At least, I understood so--and I supposed he had seen the
note then and got rid of it."

"But you don't think that now?"

"Well, if you've got the note, he obviously didn't. And if you'd found
it on his dead body, you'd surely have mentioned it before this."

"I did not say," said Sir Maxwell, patiently, "_when_ the note had come
into our possession."

For some reason, this remark appeared to unnerve Strachan, and he
remained silent.

"Well now," said the Chief Constable, "do you mind telling me what was
in the note? You have had plenty of time to think it over."

"To invent something, you mean? Well, I'm not going to invent, but I
can't undertake to remember it word for word. I think I said something
like this: 'Dear Campbell,--I am rather anxious about F. He is in a
highly-wrought-up state and is threatening to do you some injury.
However much he may have to complain of your behaviour--and you know
best about this--I think it advisable to put you on your guard.' It was
something like that, and I signed it with my initials."

"You thought it worth while to write that note about a friend of yours
to a man you personally disliked--and you still say you did not take
Farren's threats seriously?"

"Well, you never know. I was thinking more of Farren than of Campbell. I
didn't want him to get into trouble--an action for assault, or anything
of that kind."

"It still seems to me a fairly strong step to take, Mr. Strachan. How
often had Farren seriously threatened to harm Campbell?"

"He had occasionally expressed himself in rather a reckless manner."

"Had he ever attacked him?"

"N--no. There was a slight fuss once----"

"I seem to remember hearing something about a quarrel--about six months
ago, was it?"

"About that. But it didn't amount to anything."

"In any case, you thought the matter of enough importance to write that
note to a man as notoriously indiscreet and fiery-tempered as Campbell.
That speaks for itself, doesn't it? What happened next?"

"I went up to Creetown in my car and turned off up the hill road. I left
the car where the road ends just beyond Falbae, and went along on foot
calling Farren as I went. There was no moon, but it was starlight and I
had my torch with me. I know that road pretty well. At least, it isn't a
road, but a sort of shepherd's path. When I got close to the old mines I
began searching about carefully. Presently I thought I saw something
move and I shouted again. Then I saw that there really was a man there.
He ran away and I followed him and caught him up. I said, 'My God,
Farren, is that you?' and he said, 'What the hell do you want?' So I
caught hold of him."

"Was it Farren?"

Strachan seemed to hesitate again, but finally replied, "Yes, it was."

"Well?"

"Well, I argued with him for some time and tried to persuade him to come
home. He absolutely refused and started to move off again. I took him by
the arm, but he struggled with me and in the confusion he hit me in the
face and knocked me down. By the time I had scrambled up again he had
got away from me, and I could hear him scrambling over some stones in
the distance. I ran after him. It was pretty dark, of course, but the
sky was quite clear and one could see moving objects like lumps of grey
shadow. I caught glimpses of him now and again when he came up on the
sky-line. You know that place--all dips and hillocks. I was getting
pretty well winded and I was thinking about him and didn't look where I
was going. I tripped over a bunch of stuff and found myself falling
head-first--over the edge of the world, it seemed to me. I bumped and
banged against what felt like baulks of timber, and finally brought up
against something. I was completely knocked out of course. Anyhow, when
I came to my senses I found myself at the bottom of a pretty deep place
with black darkness rising up all round me and a patch of starlight at
the top. I felt round very cautiously and tried to get up, but the
moment I was on my feet, I went all sick and giddy and lost
consciousness again. I don't know how long that lasted. It must have
been a good many hours, because when I came to myself again it was broad
daylight, and I was able to see where I was."

"One of the old shafts, I suppose."

"Yes. Lord! it was a place! I don't suppose it was more than forty feet
deep, but that looked quite enough to me, and it went sheer up like a
chimney, with a little square of light twinkling away at the top; it
seemed a mile off. It was narrow, fortunately. By spread-eagling myself
I could get a grip on the sides and hoist myself painfully up by inches,
but it was slow work, and my head was so swimmy and my legs so weak that
I simply tumbled down again after the first two or three attempts. I
yelled and yelled, hoping against hope that somebody might hear me, but
the place was as silent as the grave. I was extraordinarily lucky not to
have broken a leg or an arm. If I had, I suppose I should have been down
there now."

"No," said the Chief Constable. "We should have brought you up on Friday
or Saturday."

"Ah!--well, by that time I don't suppose I should have been in any
condition to worry about it. Well, after resting a bit more I got my
head and legs under better control, and gradually wormed my way up. It
was a slow job, because the sides were smooth and didn't give much
foothold or handhold, and sometimes I'd lose purchase and slip down a
few feet. Fortunately there were horizontal beams across the sides at
intervals, and I was able to catch on to them and give myself a bit of a
breather from time to time. I kept on hoping that the people at the farm
would find my car and come to look for me, but if they did see it, they
probably thought I was fishing or picnicking somewhere and attached no
importance to it. I clawed my way up--happily I'm on the tall and hefty
side--and at last--God! it was a relief--I found myself at the top and
hooked an arm out on to the blessed grass. There was an awful tussle
with that last foot or so--I thought I should never heave myself over
the edge, but I managed it somehow. I dragged my legs out after me,
feeling as though they were made of solid lead, and then I just rolled
over and lay gasping. Ugh!"

Strachan paused, and the Chief Constable congratulated him.

"Well, I lay there for a bit. It was a gorgeous day, very windy and
sunny, and I tell you that the world looked good to me for a bit. I was
quivering like a blanc-mange, and hungry and thirsty--ye gods!"

"What time do you think that was?"

"I couldn't be sure, because my watch had stopped. It's a wrist-watch,
and must have got a bump in the fall. I rested a bit--half an hour,
perhaps--and then I pulled myself together and tried to find out where I
was. The mines are scattered about a good bit, and I couldn't recognise
the place. However, presently I found a burn and had a drink and stuck
my head in the water. After that I felt better, only I discovered that
I'd collected a magnificent black eye when Farren punched me in the
face, and of course I was wrenched and bruised from head to foot. The
back of my head still has a lump on it like an egg; I suppose that was
what knocked me out. The next thing was to find the car. I calculated
that I must be nearly two miles from Falbae, and decided that if I
followed the flow of the burn, I must be going in the right direction,
so I set off downstream. It was damned hot, and I'd lost my hat. Did you
find it, by the way?"

"Yes, but we didn't know what to make of it. It must have got knocked
off in your rough-and-tumble with Farren, and at first we thought it was
his, but Mrs. Farren said it wasn't, so we didn't know quite what to
think."

"Well, now you know. The fact that you found it there ought to prove my
story pretty well, don't you think?"

The Chief Constable had been thinking that very thing, but at the
sharply triumphant note in Strachan's voice, a doubt shot through him.
What would have been easier than to drop a hat at a suitable place, any
time between Tuesday and Friday, as a foundation for this highly
dramatic story?

"Never mind what I think, Mr. Strachan," said he. "Go on. What did you
do next?"

"Well, I kept on down the burn, and after a time I came in sight of the
road and the car. It was just where I had left it, and the dashboard
clock made it a quarter past twelve."

"Didn't you see anybody on the way back?"

"Well, yes--I did see one man. But I--well, I lay doggo till he had
passed."

"Why?"

Strachan looked rather uncomfortable.

"Because--well, because I wasn't exactly ready to answer questions. I
didn't know what had become of Farren. I realised that it looked as
though I'd been in the wars, and if Farren's body was going to be found
down a hole or anything it might look rather queer for me."

"But surely----"

"Yes, I know just what you're going to say. But surely, if I thought
that, I ought to have told somebody and got a search-party going. But
don't you see, it was perfectly possible that Farren had come to his
senses and gone quietly home. It would have been perfectly idiotic to
start a rumpus and make a scandal all about nothing. It seemed to me
that the best thing I could do was to get back quietly and find out what
really had happened. I had a beast of a time starting up the car. I'd
left the lights on the night before, with the idea of finding it again,
and the batteries had run down. I had to swing her over with the
starting-handle, and it was heavy work. Those Chrysler 70's have rather
a big engine. Still, I managed to get her going after about a quarter of
an hour----"

"Surely you could have got help from the farm."

Strachan made a gesture of impatience.

"Haven't I told you that I didn't want to attract attention? As a matter
of fact, I was afraid all the time that somebody would hear me and come
up to see what was happening. But they didn't. Probably they were all at
their dinner. I had an old cap and a motoring coat in the car, so I
tidied myself up as best I could, and got on to the back road--the one
through Knockeans. It crosses the Skyre Burn just beyond Glen and comes
out by Anwoth Auld Kirk. I got back home about half-past one."

The Chief Constable nodded.

"Was your family alarmed by your being out all night?"

"No. I forgot to say that when I got Farren's note I ran up and told my
wife that I'd been called away and that I didn't want anything said
about it."

"I see. What did you do when you got home?"

"I rang up the McClellan Arms in Kirkcudbright and asked them kindly to
send a message up to the Farrens to say, would Mr. Farren ring me up
about a fishing appointment. The call came through in about half an
hour's time, when I'd had a bath and felt rather better. Mrs. Farren had
come down and said Hugh wasn't at home and could she take a message? I
told her to say absolutely nothing to anybody for the moment, but that I
would come over and see her after lunch, as I had something rather
important to tell her. She gave a bit of a gasp, and I said, had Hugh
come home last night, and to answer only yes or no. She said, No. And I
said, Had there been any sort of trouble with Campbell? and she said,
Yes. So I told her to say nothing about that either, and I would come
over as soon as I could."

"How much did you tell your wife about all this?"

"Only that Farren had got himself into a state of mind and left home,
and that she was on no account to say any thing to anyone about it, or
about my having come home so late and in such a pickle. When I'd made
myself reasonably presentable, I had some lunch. I needed it by that
time."

"I expect you did. Did you, in fact, go over to Kirkcudbright
afterwards?"

"No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

There was something about the Chief Constable's dogged "Why?" and "Why
not?" that was irritating as well as disquieting. Strachan shifted
awkwardly in his seat.

"I changed my mind about it."

"Why?"

"I was going to go, of course." Strachan appeared to lose the scent for
a moment and then went off on a fresh cast. "We dine in the middle of
the day on account of my little girl. We had roast jiggot of mutton. It
wasn't ready till past two o'clock. That was later than our usual time,
of course, but they'd kept it back with the idea that I might turn up. I
wanted that mutton, and I didn't want to appear unusual before the
servant. So we took our time over dinner and hadn't finished till nearly
three. About a quarter past three it would be before I was ready to
start. I went down to open the gate for the car. I saw Tom Clark coming
down from the golf-course. Just opposite my gate he met the Gatehouse
policeman. They didn't see me, because of the hedge."

The Chief Constable made no comment. Strachan swallowed hard and
continued.

"The constable said, 'Is the Provost up at the golf-course?' Clark
said,'Ay, he is that.' The constable said, 'He's wanted. Mr. Campbell's
been found lying dead at Newton-Stewart.' After that they moved farther
up the road, and I didn't hear any more. So I went back to the house to
think about it."

"What did you think about it?"

"I couldn't make up my mind what to think about it. I couldn't see how
it was going to affect me. But I didn't feel that it was quite the
moment to go up to the Farrens'. It might cause comment. At any rate, I
wanted time to consider."

"Was that the first you had heard about Campbell?"

"Of course it was. Why, the news had only just come through."

"Did it surprise you?"

"Naturally."

"But you didn't rush out as anybody else would have done and demand
details?"

"No."

"Why?"

"What the devil do you mean, why? I didn't, that's all."

"I see. When Lord Peter Wimsey called later in the evening, you still
hadn't been over to Kirkcudbright?"

"No."

"He brought the news of Campbell's death to your wife. Had she heard
about it before?"

"No. I didn't know any particulars and I thought it better not to
mention it."

"Did you tell Lord Peter that you knew about it already?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I thought my wife would think it odd that I'd said nothing about it to
her."

"Was anything said about your black eye?"

"Yes. I gave a--er--a fictitious explanation."

"Why?"

"I didn't see what business it was of Wimsey's."

"And what did your wife think of that explanation?"

"I don't see what business that is of yours."

"Were you at that time of the opinion that Farren had committed a
murder?"

"There wasn't any question of murder at that time."

"Precisely, Mr. Strachan. That is what makes your behaviour appear so
odd. You went over and saw Mrs. Farren late that night?"

"I did."

"What did you say to her?"

"I told her the events of the previous night."

"Was that all? You did not, for example, say that you expected a charge
of murder to be preferred against Farren and that she was to be very
careful what she said to the police?"

Strachan's eyes narrowed.

"Isn't that one of those questions which you are not supposed to ask,
nor I to answer?"

"Have it your own way, Mr. Strachan." The Chief Constable got up. "You
seem to be well acquainted with the law. You know, for example, that an
accessory to murder after the fact is liable to the same punishment as
the principal?"

"Certainly I do, Sir Maxwell. I also know that you are not allowed to
use threats, either overt or implicit, in interrogating a witness. Is
there anything further I can do for you?"

"Nothing, thank you," replied the Chief Constable, politely.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Indeed, he thought, as he drove back to Kirkcudbright, Strachan had done
quite enough. If the story about the note left on Campbell's table were
true--and he was inclined to believe it--then Strachan had shattered the
whole elaborate theory that the police had been building up. For what it
meant was clearly this. Either Campbell had been alive after Strachan's
visit--in which case there had been no murder on the
Gatehouse-Kirkcudbright road--or else some other person, hitherto
unknown, had entered the cottage after midnight, and that person was
undoubtedly the murderer.

There was, of course, the possibility that there never had been any
note, and that Strachan had found Campbell at home and killed him. This
agreed with Ferguson's evidence. But in that case, why invent the tale
about the note at all, unless to throw suspicion on Farren? That was
ridiculous, because the only reasonable explanation of Strachan's
conduct otherwise was that he was either shielding Farren or in league
with him.

Some other person--some other person. Who could that be? So far,
Ferguson's story had been amply borne out. The first arrival of the car
with the body, the second arrival of Strachan--if a third person had
arrived, how unfortunate that Ferguson should not have heard him come!
Ferguson----

Ferguson.

Yes, well, what about Ferguson?

He, of all people, could have entered Campbell's cottage unnoticed. He
had only to walk round and open the door with that convenient key, which
he must have seen Campbell hide a hundred times.

But then, that was absurd. Not only had Ferguson got an alibi--the Chief
Constable did not set any undue value on alibis--but this theory left
one huge question unanswered. _Where had Campbell been when Strachan
came in?_ If Strachan had found him there, why should he not have said
so?

Suppose Strachan had found Campbell lying there dead--killed by Ferguson
at some earlier moment. What then? Was Strachan in league with Ferguson?

Here was a real idea at last. All their difficulties had arisen from
supposing that only one artist had been concerned in the crime. Ferguson
could have committed the murder and established an alibi by going to
Glasgow, while Strachan remained behind to concoct the faked accident
and paint the picture.

All that story about fighting Farren and tumbling down a mine was very
thin. Strachan had been up at Newton-Stewart all that time. His return
by the by-road between Creetown and Anwoth Kirk could probably be
proved, and agreed reasonably well with the time necessary for taking
the body to the Minnoch, painting the picture and making his escape.

Only--why bring Farren into it? Could Strachan not have invented some
better excuse for being out all night than one which involved his best
friend? One, too, which was so suspicious in itself? It argued a degree
of cold-blooded villainy that one would hardly expect from Strachan.

A clever fellow, though. One who saw the drift of your questions before
you asked them. A keen, canny, cautious devil. A man who could think a
plan like this out beforehand.

Clever, to think of taking that hat up to Falbae and leaving it there on
the edge of the mine-shaft. But he had shown his triumph a bit too
openly there.

The Chief Constable felt more satisfied than he had done for some time.
He unbent so far as to go and look for Wimsey, to tell him all about it.
But Wimsey was not at home.




                              CHAPTER XXII


                             GRAHAM'S STORY

"I do wish, Wimsey," said Waters, irritably, "you would get something to
do. Why not go fishing, or take the car out for a run? I can't paint
properly with you snooping round all the time. It puts me off my
stroke."

"I'm sorry," said Wimsey. "It fascinates me. I think the most joyous
thing in life is to loaf round and watch another bloke doing a job of
work. Look how popular the men are who dig up London with electric
drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings--people will
stand there for hours on end, with their ear-drums splitting--why?
Simply for the pleasure of being idle while other people work."

"Very likely," said Waters. "But the row fortunately prevents them from
hearing the workmen's comments on their behaviour. How would you like me
to sit round and watch you detecting things?"

"That's different," said Wimsey. "The essence of detection is secrecy.
It has no business to be spectacular. But you can watch me if you like."

"Right-ho! You run away and do some detecting, and I'll come and watch
you when I've finished this panel."

"Don't disturb yourself," said Wimsey, pleasantly. "You can watch me
now. There's no charge."

"Oh! are you detecting now?"

"Like anything. If you could take the top of my head off, you would see
the wheels whizzing round."

"I see. You're not detecting me, I hope."

"Everybody always hopes that."

Waters glanced at him sharply and uneasily, and laid his palette aside.

"Look here, Wimsey--you're not suggesting anything? I've told you all
about my movements, and I suppose you believe me. The police may be
excused for seeing nothing but the obvious, but I should have thought
that you at least had commonsense. If I had been murdering Campbell,
surely I should have taken care to provide myself with a better alibi."

"It depends on how clever you are," replied Wimsey, coolly. "You
remember Poe's bit about that in _The Purloined Letter_. A very stupid
murderer doesn't bother about an alibi at all. A murderer one degree
cleverer says, 'If I am to escape suspicion, I must have a good alibi.'
But a murderer who was cleverer still might say to himself, 'Everyone
will expect the murderer to provide a first-class alibi; therefore, the
better my alibi, the more they will suspect me. I will go one better
still; I will provide an alibi which is obviously imperfect. Then people
will say that surely, if I had been guilty, I should have provided a
better alibi.' If I were a murderer myself, that is what I should do."

"Then you would probably come to a sticky end."

"Very likely; because the police might be so stupid that they never got
beyond the first step in the reasoning. It's a pity about that bicycle
of yours, isn't it?"

Waters took up his palette again.

"I don't want to discuss this stupid business."

"Nor do I. Go on painting. What a lot of brushes you've got. Do you use
them all?"

"Oh, no!" said Waters, sarcastically. "I keep them there for swank."

"Do you always keep everything in this satchel? It's just like a woman's
vanity-bag, all higgledy-piggledy."

"I can always find things when I want them."

"Campbell used a satchel, too."

"Then that was a bond of union between us, wasn't it?" Waters snatched
the satchel, rather impatiently, out of Wimsey's hands, ferreted out a
tube of rose madder, dabbed some paint on his palette, screwed up the
tube and tossed it back into the bag again.

"Do you use rose madder?" said Wimsey, inquisitively. "Some people say
it's such an awkward colour."

"It's handy sometimes--if you know how to use it."

"Isn't it supposed to be rather fugitive?"

"Yes--I don't use much of it. Have you been taking an art course?"

"Something like it. Studying different methods and all that. It's very
interesting. I'm sorry I never saw Campbell at work. He----"

"For God's sake, don't keep harping on Campbell!"

"No? But I so well remember your saying that you could do a perfectly
good imitation of Campbell if you liked. That was just before he was
bumped off--do you remember?"

"I don't remember anything about it."

"Well, you were a bit tight at the time, and I don't suppose you meant
it. There's a bit about him in the _Sunday Chronicle_ this week. I've
got it somewhere. Oh, yes--it says he is a great loss to the artistic
world. 'His inimitable style,' it says. Still, I suppose they have to
say something. 'Highly individual technique'; that's a good phrase.
'Remarkable power of vision and unique colour-sense placed him at once
in the first rank.' I notice that people who die suddenly generally seem
to be in the first rank."

Waters snorted.

"I know that fellow who does the _Sunday Chronicle_ stuff. One of the
Hambledon gang. But Hambledon _is_ a painter. Campbell took Hambledon's
worst tricks and made a style out of them. I tell you----"

The door of the studio burst open and Jock Graham tumbled in,
breathless.

"I say, is Wimsey here? Sorry, Waters, but I must speak to Wimsey. No,
it's all right, I don't want to take him away. Wimsey, old man, I'm in
the most ghastly hole. It's too awful. Have you heard about it? It's
only just been sprung upon me."

"Go to, go to," said Wimsey, "you have heard what you should not. Put on
your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Campbell's dead;
'a cannot come out on's grave."

"I wish he could."

"Wake Duncan with thy knocking? I would thou couldst."

"Oh, stop drivelling, Wimsey. This really is damnable."

"O horror, horror, horror," pursued Wimsey, staggering realistically
into a corner, "tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name it. Where
got'st thou that goose-look?"

"Goose is right enough," said Graham, "That's exactly what I'm looking
like just now."

"Geese are made to be plucked," said Wimsey, eyeing him shrewdly, "and
so are you."

"Was that a lucky shot, or did you mean it?"

"What is all this about?" asked Waters, peevishly.

"I don't mind your knowing," said Graham. "It'll be all over the county
in half a moment if something isn't done about it. My God!" He wiped his
forehead and dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

"Well, well," said Wimsey.

"Listen! You know all this fuss there is about Campbell. That constable
fellow, Duncan----"

"I told you Duncan came into it somewhere."

"Shut up! That fool came asking questions about where I'd been on
Tuesday and so on. I never took the thing seriously, you know. I told
him to run away and play. Then something got into the papers----"

"I know, I know," said Wimsey. "We can take that part as read."

"All right. Well--you know that female at Newton-Stewart--the
Smith-Lemesurier woman?"

"I have met her."

"God! so have I. She got hold of me this morning----"

"Jock! Jock!"

"I couldn't make out what she was driving at first of all. She hinted
and smiled and languished at me and said that whatever I had done
wouldn't make any difference to her friendship, and talked about honour
and sacrifice and God knows what, till finally I had almost to shake it
out of her. Do you know what she's done?"

"Oh, yes," said Wimsey, cheerfully. "All is known. A lady's reputation
has been sacrificed on the altar of affection. But, dear old boy, we do
not blame you. We know that, rather than compromise a noble woman, you
would have gone to the scaffold with your lips locked in a chivalrous
silence. I do not know which is the nobler soul--the woman who without a
thought of self--I seem to be dropping into blank verse."

"My dear Wimsey, don't say you ever thought for one moment that there
was a word of truth in it."

"Frankly, I never did. I have known you do many rash things, but I gave
you credit for seeing through Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier."

"I should hope so. But what on earth am I to do?"

"It's awkward," said Wimsey, "it's awkward. Short of admitting where you
really were that night, there is nothing for it but to accept the
sacrifice, and with the sacrifice, the lady. And I greatly fear the lady
means matrimony. Still, that's a thing that overtakes most of us, and
most of us survive it."

"It's blackmail," groaned Graham. "And after all, what have I done to
deserve it? I tell you that beyond a passing compliment or so I've
never--dash it all!"

"Not so much as a squeeze of the hand?"

"Well, possibly a squeeze of the hand. I mean to say, hang it, one must
be civil."

"Or a kiss or so--meaning no harm?"

"No, no, Wimsey. I never went as far as that. I may be a bad lad, but I
have some instincts of self-protection. No, really."

"Well, never mind," said Wimsey, consolingly. "Perhaps the love will
come after marriage. When you look at her over the coffee-pot and say to
yourself, 'To this noble woman's pure affection I owe my life and
freedom,' your heart will reproach you for your coldness."

"Life and freedom be damned! Don't be a fool. Just imagine how frightful
it was. I had to be absolutely brutal before I could get away."

"Did you repulse the dear little woman?"

"Yes, I did. I told her not to be a damned idiot, and she burst into
tears. It's appalling. What those people there will think----"

"What people where?"

"At the hotel. She walked in there and asked for me, and I left her
howling on the drawing-room sofa. God knows what she's telling people! I
ought to have seen her off the premises, but I--my God, Wimsey, she
frightened me. I fled for my life. People ought to be had up for making
scenes in public places. That old padre who's staying there barged in in
the middle, just as the water-works were in full play. I'll have to
leave the place!"

"You don't seem to have played your cards very well."

"I shall have to go and make it right with the police, of course. But
what's the good? Nobody will ever believe that there wasn't something in
it."

"How true that is! What are you going to say to the police?"

"Oh, I shall have to tell them where I was. That part's O.K. But don't
you see that the mere fact of that woman's having trotted out that tale
will be proof enough that I'd given cause for it? She's absolutely got
me taped, old man. Scotland isn't big enough to hold both of us. I shall
have to go to Italy or somewhere. The more I prove that story to be a
lie, the more obvious it will be that she couldn't have told such a lie
unless we were on terms of the most damnable intimacy."

"Isn't life difficult?" said Wimsey. "It all shows how careful one
should be to tell the police everything at the first possible moment.
Had you only been frank with that zealous young constable, all this
would have been avoided."

"I know, but I didn't want to get anybody into trouble. You see, Wimsey,
the fact is, I was out poaching with Jimmy Fleeming, up at Bargrennan. I
thought it would be good fun. We were netting the pool just below the
fall."

"Oh, were you? That's the Earl of Galloway's water."

"Yes. We were out all Monday night. We had a damn good time, only I had
more whiskey than was good for me. But that's by the way. There's a
little sort of hut-place up there. It belongs to one of the men on the
estate. We camped there. I wasn't feeling altogether so good on the
Tuesday, so I stayed up there and on Tuesday night we had another go at
it, because Monday had produced more fun than fish. We did rather well
on Tuesday. Some of these fellows are damn good sorts. I get a lot more
kick out of that crowd than I do out of what's called our own class.
Jimmy Fleeming has an amazing collection of good stories. And the
sidelights you get on the lives of respectable citizens! Besides, men
like that know a damn sight more than ordinary educated people. What
they don't know about fish, flesh and fowl isn't worth knowing. And
they're all damn good friends of mine. It makes me sick to think of
giving them away to the police."

"You are an ass, Graham," said Wimsey. "Why the hell didn't you come and
tell me about it in the first place?"

"You'd have had to tell the police."

"Oh, I know--but that could have been squared. Are these fellows
prepared to give evidence now?"

"I haven't said anything to them. How could I? Dash it, I'm not such a
swine as to go and ask them. I've no doubt they'd back me up, but I
can't ask them to. It isn't done."

"The best thing you can do," said Wimsey, "is to go straight to Sir
Maxwell Jamieson and cough it all up. He's very decent, and I bet he'll
see that your friends don't suffer. By the way, you're sure they can
answer for you on Tuesday as well as Monday night?"

"Oh, yes, Jimmy and another bloke were hanging round most of Tuesday
morning off and on. But that doesn't matter a damn. The thing I want to
get clear is this business about Monday night."

"I know. But Tuesday morning is what's going to interest the police."

"Good Lord, Wimsey--this rot about Campbell isn't serious, really?"

"That's what I say," struck in Waters, grimly. "We seem to be in the
same boat, Graham. I am supposed to have faked an alibi, suborned my
friends and played merry hell generally. As far as I can see, Wimsey,
Graham is just as clever a murderer as I am. However, no doubt you are
the super-detective who can see through both of us. We can't both be
guilty, anyhow."

"Why not?" said Wimsey. "You may be accomplices for all I know. Of
course, that makes you not quite so clever, because the best murderers
don't have accomplices, but one can't always expect perfection."

"But really and truly, Wimsey, what is the evidence about the murder, if
it is one? Everybody seems to be full of mysterious hints, but you can't
get out of anybody why it is murder, or when it is supposed to have
happened, or what it was done with or why, or anything about it--except,
according to the papers, that it was done by an artist. What's the
point? Did the assassin leave his finger-prints behind in paint, or
what?"

"I can't tell you," said Wimsey. "But I don't mind saying this, that the
whole thing turns upon how quickly Campbell could have got that sketch
done. If I could have had that painting-party we planned----"

"By Jove, yes! We never did that stunt," said Graham.

"Look here, let's do it now," said Wimsey. "Both you and Waters claim to
be able to imitate Campbell's style. Start off now and do something and
I'll time you. Half a jiff! I'll run round to the police-station and
borrow the sketch for you to copy. It won't be quite the same thing, but
it will give us an idea."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Inspector Macpherson released the canvas without demur, but without
enthusiasm. He seemed, indeed, so much depressed that Wimsey paused to
ask what was the matter with him.

"Maitter eneugh," said Macpherson. "We've found a mon that saw
Campbell's car goin' up tae the Minnoch on Tuesday mornin', an' the
time-table's a' went tae hell."

"No!" said Wimsey.

"Ay. There's yin o' the men as is workin' at the road-mendin' on the
Newton-Stewart road, an' he saw the car wi' Campbell in 't--that'll be
the pairson that was got up tae luik like Campbell--pass the New
Galloway turnin' on the road betune Creetoon and Newton-Stewart at five
an' twenty meenuts tae ten. He disna ken Campbell, but he described the
car an' the hat and cloak, an' he tuk parteecular notice o't because it
was goin' fast an' nearly ran him doon as he was comin' away on his
bicycle tae deliver a message for the foreman."

"Five-and-twenty to ten," said Wimsey, thoughtfully. "That's a bit on
the late side."

"Ay. We was calculatin' on him startin' oot at 7.30 fra' Gatehouse."

"Oh, I don't mind that," said Wimsey. "He must have cleared off before
Mrs. Green came, and parked the body somehow, though why he should have
taken such a risk I don't know. It's the other end of the business
that's worrying me. At that rate he wouldn't be up at the Minnoch much
before ten. We reckoned that to catch the train at Girvan, he'd have to
start off again at about 11.10. He'd have to be pretty quick with his
picture."

"That's so, he would that. But there's more to it. We've found a man
that passed yon bicyclist on the way tae Girvan, an' it's juist
impossible that he could have caught the train at all!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Wimsey, "he must have caught it, because he
did catch it."

"That's so, but it must ha' been anither man a'tegither."

"Well, then," said Wimsey. "If it was another man altogether it wasn't
our man at all. Do be logical."

The Inspector shook his head, just as a constable knocked at the door
and, putting his head in, announced that Sergeant Dalziel was here with
Mr. Clarence Gordon to see the Inspector.

"Here's the verra man," said Macpherson. "Ye'd better wait an' see what
he has to say."

Mr. Clarence Gordon was a stout little gentleman with a pronounced
facial angle, who pulled his hat off in a hurry at the sight of Wimsey.

"Be covered, be covered," said that gentleman, graciously. "I fancy you
may be asked to make a sworn statement."

Mr. Gordon spread out his hands deprecatingly.

"I am thure," he said, pleasantly, "that I thall be only too willing to
athitht the polithe in any way and to thwear to vat ith nethethary. But
I athk you, gentlemen, to take into conthiderathon the interrupthon to
my bithneth. I have come from Glathgow at conthiderable
inconvenienth----"

"Of course, of course, Mr. Gordon," said the Inspector. "It's verra gude
of ye."

Mr. Gordon sat down, and, spreading the four fat fingers of his left
hand upon his knee, so as to display to full advantage a handsome ruby
ring, raised his right hand, by way of adding emphasis to his statement
and began:

"My name ith Clarenth Gordon. I am a commerthial traveller for the firm
of Moth & Gordon, Glathgow--ladieth' dretheth and hothiery. Here ith my
card. I travel thith dithtrict on alternate Mondayth, thpending the
night at Newton-Thtewart and returning on Tuethday afternoonth by the
Bargrennan road to Girvan and Ayr where I have many good cuthtomerth.
Latht Tuethday week I thtarted from Newton-Thtewart in my limouthine ath
uthual after an early lunth. I patht Barrhill at a little after
half-patht twelve. I remember theeing the train go out of the thtathion
jutht before I got there. That ith how I know the time. I had patht
through the village when I thaw a bithyclitht in a grey thuit riding
very fatht along the road in front of me. I thay to mythelf: 'There ith
a man in a great hurry in the middle of the road--I mutht blow my horn
loudly.' He ith vobbling from thide to thide, you underthtand, with hith
head down. I thay to mythelf again, 'If he ith not careful, he will have
an acthident.' I blow very loud, and he hearth me, and drawth to the
thide of the road. I path him, and I thee hith fathe very vite. That ith
all. I do not thee him again, and he ith the only bithyclitht I thee on
all that road till I get to Girvan."

"Half-past twelve," said Wimsey. "No--later--the train leaves Barrhill
at 12.35. You're right, Inspector, that can't be our man. It's twelve
miles, good, from Barrhill to Girvan, and the man with the grey
suit--_our_ man, I mean--was there at 1.7. I don't think he could
possibly do it. Even a good bicyclist could hardly manage twenty-four
miles an hour over twelve miles along that road--not on the Anwoth Hotel
bicycle, anyhow. You would want a trained man on a racing machine. You
are quite sure, Mr. Gordon, that you didn't pass another bicyclist
further along the road?"

"Not a tholitary one," replied Mr. Gordon, earnestly, raising all his
fingers protestingly and sawing the air, "not a thingle thoul on a
bithycle at all. I thould have notithed it, becauth I am a very careful
driver, and I do not like puth-thyclithtth. No, I thee nobody. I take no
notith of thith man at the time, of courthe. But on Thunday my vife
tellth me, 'Clarenth, there wath a call come through on the vireleth for
travellerth by the Bargrennan road to thay if they thaw a bithyclitht
latht Tuethday week. Did you hear it? 'I thay,' No, I am travelling all
the week and I cannot alwayth be lithening to the vireleth.' Veil, my
vife tellth me what it ith, and I thay, 'Veil, when I have time I go to
tell the polithe what I have theen. And here I am. It ith very
inconvenient and not good for bithneth, but it ith my duty ath a
thitithen. I tell my firm--the both ith my brother--and he thay,
'Clarenth, you mutht tell the polithe. It cannot be helped.' Tho I came,
and here I am and that ith all I know."

"Thank you verra much, Mr. Gordon; ye have given us some valuable
information an' we're much obliged tae ye. Now, there's juist one other
thing. Could ye tell us if the man ye saw is one o' these, sir?"

The Inspector spread the six photographs out on the table, and Mr.
Clarence Gordon bent dubiously over them.

"I hardly thaw the man, you know," he said, "and he vore thpectacleth,
and there ith no photo here with thpectacleth. I do not think it wath
thith one, though." He set Strachan's photograph aside. "That man hath a
military look, and I thould thay he vould be a big, heavy man. Thith
wath not a very big man, the man I thaw. And he did not have a beard.
Now _thith_ man "--Mr. Gordon gazed at the photograph of Graham very
intently--"thith man hath very remarkable eyeth, but with thpectacleth
he might be anybody. You thee? Thpectacleth vould be a good dithguithe
for him. Thith one it might be altho, but he hath a mouthtathe--I cannot
remember if the man I thaw had one. It wath not a big one, if he had.
Thith might be he and tho might thith or thith. No, I cannot tell."

"Never mind, Mr. Gordon, ye have done verra weel, an' we're greatly
obliged to ye."

"I may go now? I have my bithneth to conthider."

The Inspector released him and turned to Wimsey.

"Not Strachan and not Gowan," he said. "Gowan's a verra big man."

"Not the murderer at all, apparently," said Wimsey. "Another red
herring, Inspector."

"The place is fair lousy wi' red herrings," mourned Inspector
Macpherson. "But it's a miracle to me that yon bicycle should ha' got
itself tae Euston an' have no connection wi' the crime. It's no
reasonable. Where did the Girvan man come from? And he had the grey suit
and the spectacles an' a'. But--twelve miles in thirty minutes--I'm
wonderin' could it no be done after all? If ony of our men was trained
as an athlete----"

"Try _Who's Who_," suggested Wimsey--"it may throw some light on their
hideous pasts. I must run away now. I've got two artists straining at
the leash. Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war. It's curious how
blank verse seems to come natural to me to-day. It just shows how blank
my mind is, I suppose."

                 *        *        *        *        *

On returning he found that Waters had supplied Graham with canvas,
palette, knife and brushes and was arguing cheerfully with him about the
rival merits of two different kinds of sketching easel.

Wimsey stood Campbell's sketch up on the table before them.

"Oh, that's the subject, is it?" said Graham. "H'm. Very characteristic.
Almost ultra-characteristic, don't you think, Waters?"

"That's exactly what one expects from the Campbells of this world," said
Waters. "The trick degenerates into a mannerism, and they paint
caricatures of their own style. As a matter of fact, it's apt to happen
to anybody. Even Corot, for instance. I went to a Corot exhibition once,
and 'pon my soul, after seeing a hundred or so Corots gathered together,
I began to have my doubts. And he _was_ a master."

Graham picked the canvas up and carried it across to the light. He
frowned and rubbed the surface with a thoughtful thumb.

"Funny," he said, "the handling isn't altogether ... How many people
have seen this, Wimsey?"

"Only myself and the police, so far. And the Fiscal, naturally."

"Ah!--well! Do you know, I should have said--if I didn't know what it
was----"

"Well?"

"I should almost have thought I had done it myself. There's a slight
flavour of pastiche about it. And there's a sort of--just look at those
stones in the burn, Waters, and the shadow under the bridge. It's rather
more cold and cobalty than Campbell's usual style." He held it away at
arm's length. "Looks as though he'd been experimenting. There's a lack
of freedom about it, somehow. Don't you think so?"

Waters came up and stared over his shoulder.

"Oh, I don't know, Graham. Yes, I see what you mean. It looks a bit
fumbled here and there. No, not quite that. A little tentative. That's
not the word, either. Insincere. But that's exactly what I complain of
in all Campbell's stuff. It makes its effect all right, but when you
come to look into it, it doesn't stand up to inspection. I call that a
thoroughly Campbellish piece of work. A poor Campbell, if you like, but
full of Campbellisms."

"I know," said Graham. "It reminds me of what the good lady said about
_Hamlet_--that it was all quotations."

"G. K. Chesterton says," put in Wimsey, "that most people with a very
well-defined style write at times what look like bad parodies of
themselves. He mentions Swinburne, for instance--that bit about 'From
the lilies and languors of virtue to the raptures and roses of vice.' I
expect painters do the same. But of course I don't know a thing about
it."

Graham looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, and shut it again.

"Well, chuck it here," said Waters. "If we've got to copy the beastly
thing, we'd better start. Can you see all right there? I'll put the
paints on the table here. And please don't throw them on the floor in
your usual dirty way."

"I don't," said Graham, indignantly. "I collect them neatly in my hat,
if I'm not wearing it, and if I am, I lay them handily in the grass. I'm
not always fumbling about for them in a satchel among my sandwiches.
It's a miracle to me that you don't eat your colours and put the
bloater-paste on the canvas."

"I never keep sandwiches in my satchel," retorted Waters. "I put them in
my pocket. The left-hand pocket. Always. You may think I'm not
methodical, but I always know where to find everything. Ferguson puts
tubes in his pockets, and that's why his handkerchiefs always look like
paint-rags."

"That's better than going round with crumbs in your clothing," said
Graham. "To say nothing of the time when Mrs. McLeod thought the drains
were wrong, till she traced the stink to your old painting-coat. What
was it? Liver-sausage?"

"That was an oversight. You don't expect me to go about like Gowan,
carrying a sort of combined picnic-basket and sketching-box, with a
partition for each colour and a portable kettle, do you?"

"Oh, Gowan? That's pure swank. Do you remember the day I pinched his box
and filled all the partitions up with wee fush?"

"That was a good riot," said Waters, reminiscently. "He couldn't use the
box for a week because of the fishy smell. And he had to stop painting,
because it put him out to have his arrangements upset. Or so he said."

"Oh, Gowan's a man of method," said Graham. "I'm like a Waterman pen--I
function in any position. But he has to have everything just so. Never
mind. Here I am, like a fish out of water. I don't like your knife, I
don't like your palette and I simply loathe your easel. But you don't
imagine trifles like that are going to put me off. Not on your life.
Have at it. Are you standing by with the stop-watch, Wimsey?"

"Yes. Are you ready? One, two, three--go!"

"By the way, I suppose we can't expect you to tell us whether the object
of all this is to incriminate us? I mean, do we get hanged for being
quick or for being slow?"

"I haven't worked it out yet," said Wimsey, "but I don't mind telling
you that the less you dawdle the better I shall be pleased."

"It's not altogether a fair test," said Waters, mashing up his blue and
white to the colour of a morning sky. "Copying a canvas isn't the same
thing as painting direct. It's bound to be rather quicker."

"Slower," said Graham.

"Different, anyhow."

"It's the technique that's a nuisance," said Graham. "I don't feel handy
with so much knife-work."

"I do," said Waters. "I use the knife myself quite a lot."

"I used to," said Graham, "but I've chucked it lately. I suppose we
needn't follow every scratch and scrape exactly, Wimsey?"

"If you try to do that," said Waters, "it will certainly make you
slower."

"I'll let you off that," said Wimsey. "I only want you to get somewhere
about the same amount of paint on the canvas."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The two men worked on in silence for some time, while Wimsey fidgeted
restlessly about the studio, picking things up and putting them down and
whistling tuneless fragments of Bach.

At the end of an hour, Graham was a little farther advanced than Waters,
but the panel was still incomplete as compared with the model.

After another ten minutes Wimsey took up his stand behind the painters
and watched them with a maddening kind of intentness. Waters fidgeted,
scraped out something he had done, put it in again, cursed and said:

"I wish you'd go away."

"Nerves cracking up under the strain," commented Wimsey,
dispassionately.

"What's the matter, Wimsey? Are we behind time?"

"Not quite," said Wimsey, "but very nearly."

"Well, you can reckon on another half-hour as far as I'm concerned,"
said Graham, "and if you flurry me it'll probably be longer still."

"Never mind, do the thing properly. Even if you upset my calculations,
it doesn't matter. I shall probably be able to get round it somehow."

The half-hour dragged to an end. Graham, glancing from the model to the
copy, said, "There, that's the best I can make of it," threw down his
palette and stretched himself. Waters glanced across at his work and
said, "You've beaten me on time," and painted on. He put in another
fifteen minutes or so and announced that he had finished. Wimsey
strolled over and examined the results. Graham and Waters rose and did
likewise.

"Not bad efforts, on the whole," suggested Graham, half-shutting his
eyes and retiring suddenly on to Wimsey's toes.

"You've got that stuff on the bridge very well," said Waters.
"Thoroughly Campbellian."

"Your burn is better than mine and better than Campbell's, if it comes
to that," replied Graham. "However, I take it that intrinsic artistic
merit is not important in this particular case."

"Not a bit," said Wimsey. He seemed to have suddenly grown more
cheerful. "I'm frightfully obliged to you both. Come and have a drink.
Several drinks. I rather want to celebrate."

"What?" said Waters, his face going very red and suddenly white again.

"Why?" said Graham. "Do you mean to say you've got your man? Is it one
of us?"

"Yes," said Wimsey. "I mean, I think I've got the man. I ought to have
known long ago. In fact, I never was in very much doubt. But now I know
for certain."




                             CHAPTER XXIII


                             GOWAN'S STORY

"A call for you from London, sir," said the constable. Inspector
Macpherson took up the receiver.

"Is that Inspector Macpherson of Kirk-kud-brite?" demanded London in
ladylike tones.

"Ay," said Inspector Macpherson.

"_One_ moment, please."

A pause. Then, "You're through," and an official voice:

"Is that Kirkcudbright Police Station? Is that Inspector Macpherson
speaking? This is Scotland Yard. _One_ moment, please."

A shorter pause. Then:

"Is that Inspector Macpherson? Oh, good morning, Inspector. This is
Parker--Chief Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard. How are you?"

"Fine, thank you, sir. An' hoo's yersel'?"

"Blooming, thanks. Well, Inspector, we've found your man for you. He's
come across with quite an entertaining story, but it's not quite the
story you want. It's certainly important. Will you come and have a look
at him or shall we send him up to you, or shall we just send the story
and keep an eye on him?"

"Well, what does he say?"

"He admits meeting Campbell on the road that night and fighting with
him, but he says he didn't kill him."

"That's only tae be expectit. What does he say he did wi' him?"

A long chuckle rippled over the four hundred miles of wire.

"He says he didn't do anything with him. He says you've got it all
wrong. He says _he_ was the dead body in the car."

"What!"

"He says he was the body--Gowan was."

"Och, tae hell wi' 't!" exclaimed the Inspector, oblivious of etiquette.
Parker chuckled again.

"He says Campbell knocked him out and left him there." "Does he so, sir?
Weel, I'm thinkin' it'll be best I should come an' see him. Can ye keep
him till I come?"

"We'll do our best. You don't want him charged?"

"No, we'd better no charge him. The Chief Constable has thocht o' a new
theory a'tegither. I'll be takin' the next train."

"Good. I don't think he'll object to waiting for you. As far as I can
make out, there's only one thing he's really scared of, and that's being
sent back to Kirkcudbright. Right; we'll expect you. How's Lord Peter
Wimsey?"

"Och, he's jist awfu' busy wi' yin thing an' anither. He's a bright lad,
yon."

"You can trust his judgment, though,' said Parker.

"I ken that fine, sir. Will I bring him with me?"

"We're always glad to see him," said Parker. "He's a little ray of
sunshine about the old place. Invite him by all means. I think he would
like to see Gowan."

                 *        *        *        *        *

But Lord Peter Wimsey refused the invitation. "I'd adore to come," he
said, "but I feel it would be mere self-indulgence. I fancy I know what
story he's going to tell." He grinned. "I shall be missing something.
But I can really be more useful--if I'm useful at all, that is--this
end. Give old Parker my love, will you, and tell him I've solved the
problem."

"Ye've solved the problem?"

"Yes. The mystery is a mystery no longer."

"Wull ye no tell me what ye've made o't?"

"Not yet. I haven't proved anything. I'm only sure in my own mind."

"An' Gowan?"

"Oh, don't neglect Gowan. He's vitally important. And remember to take
that spanner with you."

"Is't Gowan's spanner to your way of thinkin'?"

"It is."

"An' them marks on the corpse?"

"Oh, yes, that's all right. You can take it those marks come from the
spanner."

"Gowan says----" began the Inspector.

Wimsey looked at his watch.

"Away with you and catch your train," he said, cheerfully. "There's a
surprise waiting for you at the end of the journey."

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Inspector Macpherson was shown into Parker's room, there was a
dejected-looking man seated on a chair in the corner. Parker, after
greeting the Inspector warmly, turned to this person and said:

"Now, Mr. Gowan, you know Inspector Macpherson, of course. He's very
anxious to hear your story from yourself."

The man raised a face like the face of a sulky rabbit, and Inspector
Macpherson, wheeling suddenly round upon him, fell back with a startled
snort.

"Him? Yon's no the man."

"Isn't he?" said Parker. "He says he is, anyhow."

"It's no Gowan," said Macpherson, "nor onything like him. I never saw
yon ferrety-faced fellow in my life."

This was more than the gentleman in question could put up with.

"Don't be a fool, Macpherson," he said.

At the sound of his voice, the Inspector appeared to suffer a severe
internal upheaval. The man got up and came forward into the light.
Macpherson gazed in speechless bewilderment at the cropped black hair,
the strong nose, the dark eyes, which gazed with an expression of blank
astonishment from beneath a forehead denuded of eyebrows, the small,
pinched mouth, with the upper teeth protruding over the lower lip, and
the weak little chin which ran helplessly away to a long neck with a
prominent Adam's-apple. The whole appearance of the apparition was not
improved by a ten days' growth of black beard, which imparted a
suggestion of seediness and neglect.

"It's Gowan's voice, right eneugh," admitted the Inspector.

"I think," said Parker, smothering his amusement, "that you find the
removal of the beard and moustache a little misleading. Put on your hat,
Mr. Gowan, and wrap your scarf about your chin. Then, perhaps----"

The Inspector gazed with a kind of horror, as this metamorphosis was
accomplished.

"Ay," he said, "ay, ye're right, sir, an' I'm wrang. But losh!--I beg
your pardon, sir, but I couldna ha' believed----"

He stared hard, and walked slowly round the captive as if still unable
to credit his own eyes.

"If you've quite finished making an ass of yourself, Macpherson," said
Mr. Gowan, coldly, "I'll tell you my story and get away. I've other
things to do than fool around in police-stations."

"That's as may be," said the Inspector. He would not have spoken in that
tone to the great Mr. Gowan of Kirkcudbright, but for this unkempt
stranger he felt no sort of respect. "Ye have given us an awfu' deal o'
trouble, Mr. Gowan, an' them servants o' yours will find theirsel's
afore the Fiscal for obstructin' the pollis in the pairformance o' their
duty. Noo I'm here tae tak' yer statement, and it is ma duty tae warn
ye----"

Gowan waved an angry hand, and Parker said:

"He has been already cautioned, Inspector."

"Verra gude," said Macpherson, who by now had regained his native
self-confidence. "Noo, Mr. Gowan, wull ye please tell me when an' where
ye last saw Mr. Campbell that's deid, an' for why ye fled fra' Scotland
in disguise?"

"I don't in the least mind telling you," said Gowan, impatiently,
"except that I don't suppose you'll be able to hold your tongue about
it. I'd been fishing up on the Fleet----"

"A moment, Mr. Gowan. Ye wull be speakin' o' the events of the Monday,
I'm thinkin'."

"Of course. I'd been fishing up on the Fleet, and I was driving back
from Gatehouse to Kirkcudbright at about a quarter to ten when I nearly
ran into that damned fool Campbell at the S-bend just beyond the
junction of the Kirkcudbright road with the main road from
Castle-Douglas to Gatehouse. I don't know what the man thought he was
doing, but he had got his car stuck right across the road. Fortunately
it wasn't at the most dangerous bit of the bend, or there would probably
have been a most unholy smash. It was on the second half, where the
curve is less abrupt. There's a stone wall one side and a sunk wall the
other."

Inspector Macpherson nodded.

"I told him to get out of the way and he refused. He was undoubtedly
drunk and in a very nasty mood. I'm sorry, I know he's dead, but it
doesn't alter the fact that he always was one of Nature's prize swine,
and that night he was at his very worst. He got out of his car and came
up to me, saying that he was just about ready for a row, and if I wanted
one I could have one. He jumped on my running-board and used the foulest
language. I don't know now what it was all about. I had done nothing to
provoke him, except to tell him to take his cursed car out of the way."

Gowan hesitated for a moment.

"I want you to understand," he went on, "that the man was drunk,
dangerous and--as I thought at the moment--half off his rocker. He was a
great, broad-shouldered, hefty devil, and I was jammed up behind the
steering-column. I had a heavy King Dick spanner beside me in the pocket
of the car and I grabbed hold of it--purely in self-defence. In fact, I
only meant to threaten him with it."

"Is this the spanner?" interjected Macpherson, producing the instrument
from his coat pocket.

"Very likely," said Gowan. "I don't profess to know one spanner from
another as a shepherd knows his sheep, but it was a similar spanner at
any rate. Where did you find that?"

"Go on with your statement, please, Mr. Gowan."

"You're very cautious. Campbell had got the door of the car open, and I
wasn't going to sit there to be hammered into a jelly without defending
myself. I pushed out from behind the wheel into the passenger's seat and
stood up, with the spanner in my hand. He aimed a blow at me and I
landed him one with the spanner. It caught him on the cheek-bone, but
not very heavily, because he dodged it. I should think it must have
marked him, though," added the speaker, with appreciation.

"It did that," said Macpherson, dourly.

"I can't pretend to be sorry to hear it. I jumped out at him, and he got
me by the legs and we both rolled out into the road together. I hit out
with the spanner for all I was worth, but he was about three times as
strong as I was. He got his hands round my throat as we struggled, and I
thought he was going to choke me. I couldn't shout and my only hope was
that someone would come along. But by a damned bit of luck the road was
absolutely deserted. He let go my throat just in time not to strangle me
altogether and sat on my chest. I tried to get another one in with the
spanner, but he snatched it out of my hand and threw it away. I was
horribly impeded all this time by having my driving-gloves on."

"Ah!" said the Inspector.

"Ah, what?"

"That explains a lot, doesn't it?" said Parker.

"I don't follow you."

"Never mind, Mr. Gowan. Carry on."

"Well, after that----"

Gowan seemed now to have got to the most distasteful part of his story.

"I was in a pretty bad way by this time," he said, apologetically,
"half-choked, you know. And whenever I tried to struggle, he lammed me
in the face. Well, he--he got out a pair of nail-scissors--and he was
calling me the most filthy names all this time--he got out his
scissors----"

A twinkle--unsuppressible--gleamed in the Inspector's eye.

"I think we can guess at what happened then, Mr. Gowan," said he.
"Forbye we found a nice wee hantle of black beard by the roadside."

"The damned brute!" said Gowan. "He didn't stop at the beard. He took
off hair, eyebrows--everything. As a matter of fact, I didn't know that
till later. His final blow knocked me out."

He felt his jaw-bone tenderly.

"When I came to," he went on, "I found myself in my own car in a sort of
grass lane. I couldn't think where I was at first, but after a bit I
made out that he'd run the car up a sort of cart-way just off the road.
There's an iron gate that you go through. I daresay you know the place."

"Ay."

"Well--I was in a hell of a state. I felt frightfully ill. And
besides--how on earth could I show myself in Kirkcudbright like that? I
didn't know what to do, but I had to do something. I jammed my hat on,
wound a scarf round the lower part of my face, and hared home like hell.
It was lucky I didn't meet much on the road, because I was all to
pieces--couldn't control the car. However, I got home--somewhere about a
quarter past ten, I think.

"Alcock was a brick. Of course I had to tell him everything and he
concocted all the plot. He got me up to bed without meeting his wife or
the girl, and gave me first-aid for cuts and bruises and a hot bath, and
then he suggested that I should pretend to have gone off to Carlisle.
Our first idea was to say I was ill, but that would have meant visitors
and fuss, and we should have had to have the doctor in, and square him.
So that night we decided to pretend I'd gone to Carlisle by the 11.8
from Dumfries. Of course, we never supposed there'd be any inquiry, and
we didn't think it worth while to send the car out specially. My
housekeeper was roped into the conspiracy, but we thought it better not
to trust the girl. She would be certain to talk. It was her night out,
as it happened, so she wouldn't need to know when I came in, or
anything, and the only person who'd know anything would be Campbell. He
might talk, of course, but we had to risk that, and, after all, when he
came to his senses, he might realise that he'd be letting himself in for
a charge of assault if he wasn't careful. Anyway, anything was better
than going about in Kirkcudbright and being commiserated."

Gowan wriggled on his chair.

"Quite so, quite so," said Parker, soothingly. He passed the back of his
thumb carelessly down his own profile as he spoke. It was irregular, but
the chin was reassuringly prominent. He was clean-shaven and could, he
felt, stand it reasonably well.

"Next day," said Gowan, "we heard the news about Campbell's death.
Naturally, we never thought but that it was an accident, but we did
realise that it was just possible somebody might want to ask me whether
I'd seen him the evening before. It was then that Alcock had his bright
idea. Hammond had actually been over to Dumfries the evening before at
about 8.45 to do an errand, and Alcock suggested that he should tell
everybody that I'd taken the 8.45 to Carlisle. Hammond was quite game to
back up the story, and as people would have seen the car go, it all
looked quite plausible. Of course there was the chance that I'd been
seen driving home later than that, but we thought we could bluff that
out as mistaken identity. Apparently the question didn't crop up?"

"Oddly eneugh," said Macpherson, "it didna. At least, not while a gude
bit later."

"No. Well, Alcock was marvellous. He suggested that I should send a
letter off by Tuesday afternoon's post, addressed to a friend in
London--you know, Chief Inspector, Major Aylwin, through whom you got on
my track--enclosing a letter from me to Alcock with directions that it
was to be posted immediately. The letter was written as from my club,
telling Alcock that he and Hammond could take the saloon and go for a
holiday, as I should be detained for some time in Town. The idea was
that they should smuggle me away with them in the car and drop me just
outside Castle-Douglas, in time to catch the train to Town. I knew that
I should never be recognised there without my beard, though, of course,
Hammond or the car might have been identified. The letter duly came back
to Alcock by the second post on Thursday, and we carried out the rest of
the plan that night. Did it work?"

"Not altogether," said Macpherson, drily. "We made oot that part o't
pretty weel."

"Of course, all this time I hadn't the faintest idea that Campbell had
been murdered. Alcock must have known, I suppose, and it would really
have been better if he'd told me. But he knew, too, of course, that I
couldn't have had anything to do with it, and I shouldn't think it ever
occurred to him that I could be suspected. I had so obviously left
Campbell in the rudest of health and spirits."

He made a wry face.

"There's not much else to say. I felt horribly groggy all Tuesday and
Wednesday, and I had gravel-rash all over my face. The brute had rolled
me on the rough ground, blast him! Alcock was a splendid nurse. He got
the wounds clean and put healing stuff on them. Regular professional
touch he had at it, the old scout. Wouldn't touch me without washing
himself elaborately in Lysol--took my temperature three times a day and
all that. I believe he rather enjoyed it. On Thursday night I'd
practically healed up, and was perfectly fit to travel. I got to Town
without any trouble, and have been living all this time with Major
Aylwin, who has been extremely decent to me. I only hope I shan't be
wanted in Kirkcudbright just at present. When Mr. Parker turned up this
morning--by the way, Mr. Parker, how did you spot me?"

"Pretty easily," said Parker, "when we'd written to your old school and
got a photograph of you without your beard. We found the porter who had
taken your luggage at Euston, the taxi-driver who had taken you to Major
Aylwin's flat and the porter of the flats, who all recognised you. After
that, you know, we had only to ring the bell and walk in.

"Good God!" said Gowan. "I never thought about those old photographs."

"The men hesitated a bit at first," said Parker, "till we had the bright
notion of painting out the eyebrows as well. That made the appearance
so--pardon me--peculiar, that they identified you with little cries of
satisfaction."

Gowan flushed.

"Well," he said, "that's my statement. Can I go home now?"

Parker consulted Macpherson by a look.

"We'll have the statement put in writing," he said, "and perhaps then
you will sign it. After that, I see no reason why you shouldn't go back
to Major Aylwin's, but we shall ask you to keep in touch with us and not
to change your address without letting us know."

Gowan nodded, and later, when the statement had been typed out and
signed, took his departure, still with the same startled look upon his
eyebrowless face.




                              CHAPTER XXIV


                       FARREN: FERGUSON: STRACHAN

The Procurator-Fiscal had called a council of war. Sir Maxwell Jamieson
had brought Lord Peter with him. Inspector Macpherson was there by right
of office and so was Sergeant Dalziel. Dr. Cameron was there, to see
that nothing was suggested which would conflict with the medical
evidence. In addition, Constable Ross and Constable Duncan were present
by invitation. This was magnanimous on the part of their superiors, to
whom Duncan had contrived to give a good deal of trouble, but there was
a feeling that, in this confused and disconcerting case, even the
opinion of a subordinate might be worth hearing.

The Fiscal opened the discussion by requesting the Chief Constable to
state his views, but the latter demurred. He suggested that the police
might, perhaps, put forward their theories with greater freedom if they
were not previously biased by hearing his opinion. The result of this
was a polite contest for second place between Macpherson and Dalziel,
which was eventually won by Macpherson, on the ground that, as the body
had actually been discovered in the Newton-Stewart district, Dalziel
had, so to speak, the premier claim upon it.

Dalziel rather nervously cleared his throat.

"Weel noo, my lord, Mr. Fiscal, Sir Jamieson and gentlemen," he began,
somewhat influenced in his opening by the recollection of the procedure
at Football Club dinners, "it wad appear tae be uncontrovairtible that
this puir gentleman met his death some time Monday night by the use of a
blunt instrument, an' that his boady was conveyed tae the place whaur it
was found. Forbye I'm thinkin' we're a' agreed that the pairson as
kill't him wull ha' been an airtist, Lord Peter Wimsey havin' pointed
oot that the verra handsome piece o' pentin' foond at the locus o' the
crime must ha' been projuiced by the murderer himself. Owin' tae the
careful inquiries o' Inspector Macpherson, we are able tae state that a'
the airtists in this district can be accountit for durin' the period
covered by the crime, forbye five, or maybe six, which is Mr. Farren,
Mr. Gowan, Mr. Waters in Kirkcudbright, an' Mr. Strachan, Mr. Graham an'
possibly Mr. Ferguson in Gatehouse. A' these six airtists had a motive
for killin' the deceased, in so far as they had bin kent tae utter
threats against him, and moreover, by a remairkable coincidence, no yin
o' them possesses a satisfactory alibi for the haill period under
consideration.

"A' six o' them hae made statements claimin' tae exonerate themsel's,
an' if we agree that the guilt lies betune the six o' them, yin or mair
o' them must be tellin' lees.

"Noo, takin' everything intae consideration, I am of the opeenion that
oor inquiries should be directit tae the movements o' Mr. Farren, and
for why? Because he had a much bigger motive for murder than the lave o'
them. He seems tae ha' considered that the deceased was payin' too much
attention tae Mistress Farren. I'm sayin' nae word against the leddy,
but that was the idea this Farren had got intae his heid. I canna credit
that ony gentleman wad murder anither for twa-three words about a bit
picture, or for a wee difference of opeenion consairnin' a game o' gowf,
or a couple troot or a quarrel aboot nationalities. But when it's a
maitter o' a man's domestic happiness, there, tae my thinkin', ye have a
gude cause for murder.

"We ken weel that Farren set oot fra Kirkcudbright that night wi' the
fixed intention o' findin' Campbell an' doin' him some damage. He gaed
doon tae the cottage, where he was seen by Mr. Ferguson, an' he gaed up
to Mr. Strachan's hoose, an' by his ain confession he left a letter tae
say as he was away tae find Campbell an' hae't oot wi' him. After this,
he disappears till we find him at 3 o'clock on the Tuesday afternoon on
the New Galloway road.

"Noo, the Inspector and me thocht first of a' that Farren had murdered
Campbell on the road betune Gatehoose and Kirkcudbright, an' we were
puzzled how he cam' there and why he should ha' carried on that queer
way wi' Campbell's car. We were obleeged tae bring Mr. Strachan intil't.
But noo we see as there was no necessity far a' they whigmaleeries. We
ken noo that 'twas Mr. Gowan as met Campbell on the road an' was
assaulted by him, an' that Campbell gaed away hame in his ain car as was
likely eneugh. We ken likewise, fra' Mr. Ferguson's and Mr. Strachan's
evidence, that either Campbell was alive after midnight or that some
ither pairson entered the cottage. It is my belief that yon ither
pairson was Farren, as had been lyin' in wait for Campbell in the
vicinity o' the cottage."

"Just a minute," put in Sir Maxwell. "I take it you accept Strachan's
statement as far as the note and his subsequent visit to the cottage are
concerned."

"Ay, sir, I do that. Bein' friendly wi' Mr. Farren, he wadna hae
inventit sic a tale, an' it agrees fine wi' Farren's ain statement. I'll
tell ye what I think wull ha' been the way o't. I've got it a' writ doon
here on a bit paper."

The Sergeant wrestled with the pocket of his tunic and produced a fat
notebook, from which he extracted a rather grubby sheet of paper, folded
extremely small. He spread this out on the table, flattening it with the
palm of a broad hand, and, having thus reduced it to order, passed it to
the Fiscal, who, settling his glasses more firmly on his nose, read
aloud as follows:--

                          Case against Farren

          _Monday._
             6 p.m. Farren at Kirkcudbright. Finds Campbell
                    in the house. Quarrel with Mrs. Farren.

             7 p.m. Farren proceeds by bicycle to Gatehouse.

             8 p.m. Farren arrives at Standing Stone cottage
                    asking for Campbell, and is seen by Ferguson.

        8-9.15 p.m. Farren in various public-houses, using
                    threats against Campbell.

          9.15 p.m. Farren goes to Strachan's house and leaves
                    note (on bicycle).

          9.25 till after dark. Farren in hiding, probably somewhere
                    on the Lauriston or Castramont Road.

          9.45 p.m. Campbell meets Gowan when returning
                    from Kirkcudbright.

         10.20 p.m. Campbell returns to Standing Stone cottage
                    with car. Heard by Ferguson.

        10.20 p.m.- 12 midnight. Some time during this period
                    Farren proceeds to Campbell's cottage on
                    bicycle. Lets himself in and kills Campbell.
                    Hides body. (Note: Ferguson presumably
                    asleep.) Farren goes out, locking door.
                    Remains in hiding, perhaps in garage.

       12 midnight. Strachan arrives in car (heard by Ferguson).
                    Enters by means of key. Leaves note and
                    departs.

          Monday 12 midnight-Tuesday 7.30 a.m. Farren re-enters
                    cottage, destroys Strachan's note,
                    puts body in car, matures plan of escape,
                    puts bicycle and painting materials in
                    car, prepares and eats Campbell's breakfast.

          7.30 a.m. Farren, disguised as Campbell, starts out
                    from Gatehouse in Campbell's car. Seen by
                    Ferguson.

          9.35 a.m. Farren in Campbell's car seen by workman
                    passing turning to New Galloway road
                    between Creetown and Newton-Stewart.

            10 a.m. Farren arrives at Minnoch with body.

      10-11.30 a.m. Farren paints picture.

         11.30 a.m. Farren throws body into Minnoch and
                    departs on bicycle, using the side road from
                    Bargrennan to Minnigaff. (Note: conjectural;
                    no witness as yet produced.) Eight
                    or nine miles.

         12.30 p.m. Farren arrives at Falbae. Leaves bicycle
                    in vicinity of disused mine.

       12.30-3 p.m. Farren walks by New Galloway road to
                    Brig o' Dee; eleven miles; but he may
                    easily have taken a lift from a passing
                    motorist.

                    The rest of Farren's movements as per his
                    statement.

"That," said the Fiscal, looking round over the tops of his glasses,
"appears to me a very plausible and workmanlike conjecture."

"It's damned good," said Wimsey.

"Really," said Sir Maxwell, "it seems to cover almost everything, and
almost shakes me in my own convictions. It is so beautifully simple."

"Is it no," said Macpherson, "a wee thing too simple? It disna tak'
intae account the remairkable episode o' the bicycle that was sent fra'
Ayr tae Euston."

Sergeant Dalziel, modestly elated by the applause of the three most
distinguished persons in the company, was encouraged to dissent from his
superior's view.

"I dinna see," said he, "why yon bicycle should be took intae account at
a'. I see no necessity tae connect it wi' the maitter o' Campbell. If
onybody was tae steal a bicycle fra' the Anwoth, and if, some gate, it
was sent tae Lunnon by a mistake, that's yin thing, but what for should
we suppose the murderer wad gae oot o' his way tae indulge in such
antics, when there's anither explanation that's plain an' simple?"

"Yes," said the Fiscal, "but why should a man take the trouble to steal
a bicycle from Gatehouse to go to Ayr, when he could easily have gone
the whole way by train? I'll not deny there's something very mysterious
about the story of the bicycle."

"Ay," said Macpherson, "an' how do ye account for the surprisin' length
o' time ta'en to get fra Gatehoose tae the New Galloway road? It's only
seventeen mile by the high road when a's said an' dune."

Dalziel looked a little dashed at this, but Wimsey came to his
assistance.

"Farren told me," he said, "that he had only driven a car two or three
times in his life. He may have got into some difficulty or other.
Suppose he ran out of petrol, or got a blocked feed or something. He
would probably first of all have a shot at doing something himself--sit
about pressing the self-starter or peering hopefully under the
bonnet--before he could prevail on himself to ask anybody for help.
Possibly he merely ran out of petrol, and had to shove the car down a
side-road somewhere and walk to the nearest garage. Or suppose he went
by the old road past Gatehouse Station and got into difficulties up
there. An inexperienced driver might waste a lot of time."

"It's possible," said Macpherson, with a dissatisfied air. "It's
possible. I wadna go farther than that."

"By the way," said the Chief Constable, "on your theory, Dalziel, how do
you account for Strachan's hat and the tale he told about meeting Farren
up at Falbae? Because, if your version is correct, that must have been
pure invention."

"I account for't this way," said Dalziel. "I think it's a fact that Mr.
Strachan searched for Farren at Falbae as he said, an' didna find hide
nor hair on him. An' it may verra weel be that he tummel't intae the
mine as he says he did. But I think that, no findin' him, he was feart
Farren had been up tae mischief, an' when he heard o' the findin' o'
Campbell's boady, he juist added a wee word or twa tae his story, tae
gie Farren some kind of an alibi. 'Deed an' I'm thinkin' 'tis gude proof
o' my theory that Strachan still evidently suspects Farren. Ye ken fine
yersel', Sir Maxwell, that he was awfu' saircumspect in tellin' ye his
tale and wadna ha' tell't ye a single word o' Farren's note if ye hadna
persuadit him ye kenned the truth a'ready."

"Ay," said the Chief Constable, "but I had my own notion about that."

"Well, let's hear your notion, Sir Maxwell," said the Fiscal.

"I was wishful," said Sir Maxwell, "to let the police have their say
first, but perhaps my idea does come in better at this point. Of course,
the very first thing that struck me was the obvious collusion between
Farren and Strachan to conceal something, but I looked at it in rather a
different way. In my opinion, it was Strachan that had the guilty
knowledge, and his difficulty was to protect himself without implicating
Farren too much. Farren, by his behaviour and his threats and his
disappearance, provided an almost perfect screen for Strachan, and it
is, I think, very much to Strachan's credit that he was so unwilling to
make use of it.

"Now, the weak point of your story, Dalziel, if I may say so, seems to
me to occur at the moment of the murder itself. I simply cannot believe
that, if it took place as you say at the cottage, between midnight and
morning, it could have done so without disturbing Ferguson. Campbell was
a powerful man, and, unless he was battered to death in his sleep, there
would have been a noise and a struggle. Given the characters of all the
people concerned, I cannot bring myself to believe that this was a case
of a midnight assassin, creeping stealthily up to Campbell's bedroom and
felling him with one blow, before he had time to cry out. It is, in
particular, exceedingly unlike what one might expect from Farren. On the
other hand, if there was a noisy fight, I cannot understand why Ferguson
heard nothing of it. It was August, the windows would be wide open, and,
in any case, besides the actual noise of the quarrel, there would be a
great deal of going to and fro in the night, taking the corpse out to
the car and so on, that Ferguson could scarcely have failed to hear.

"My theory is this. I think Farren's story is true. It is too absurd and
whimsical a story not to be true, and all Farren's alleged actions are
exactly the sort of daft thing Farren would do. I feel sure that Farren
isn't the man to plan out an elaborate fake like the planting of the
body and the painting of the picture. The man who did that was perfectly
cool and unemotional, and he would have known a great deal better than
to go and lose himself in that suspicious way immediately afterwards.
No. Depend upon it, the man who committed the crime would take the very
first opportunity of reappearing in his usual haunts.

"The way I see it is this. Strachan got that note from Farren and went
down to the cottage as he said. When he got there, one of two things
happened, and I am not perfectly sure which. I _think_ Campbell opened
the door to him and I think that he went in and had an interview with
Campbell which ended in a violent quarrel and struggle. I think Ferguson
was awakened by the noise, and came down just at the moment when
Strachan had knocked Campbell down and killed him. Or possibly he
arrived to find Strachan and Campbell fighting together, and then
himself struck the blow which finished Campbell. There is the third
possibility that the situation was reversed, and that Strachan came in
to find Campbell already dead and Ferguson standing over him red-handed.
I think that is rather less likely, for a reason I'll explain later.

"In any case, I'm sure we have this situation--the two men at the
cottage with Campbell's dead body and one at least of them guilty of
killing him. Now, what would they do next? It is quite conceivable that,
if only one of them had a hand in it, the other should at first threaten
to inform the police, but there might be difficulties about that. Both
men were well known to have quarrelled previously with Campbell, and the
accused man might very well threaten to bring a counter-accusation. In
any case, I fancy they realised that they were both of them in an
exceedingly awkward position, and decided to help each other out if
possible.

"Which of the two had the idea of faking the accident I don't know, of
course, but I should imagine it would be Strachan. He is a man of
particularly quick and keen intellect--just the sort that can think well
ahead and foresee the consequences of his actions. The first bold
outline of the idea would probably be his, but Ferguson no doubt helped,
with his remarkable memory for details.

"They would hope, naturally, that the whole thing would be accepted as
pure accident, but they would remember that, if once a murder was
suspected, they would need alibis to cover the whole period from
midnight to the following mid-day. Obviously, they couldn't both have
alibis for the whole period, but they might do equally well by dividing
the time. Eventually they decided that Strachan was to establish the
alibi for the night hours, while Ferguson did everything necessary in
connection with the body, and that Ferguson would then establish his
alibi for the next morning, while Strachan painted the picture."

The Chief Constable paused and looked round to see how his audience were
taking this. Encouraged by a little hum of appreciative surprise, he
took up his tale again.

"The reason why they worked it that way is, I think, that Ferguson had
already announced his intention of going to Glasgow in the morning, and
that any sudden change of plan might appear odd. They now had to think
of some alibi which Strachan could reasonably put forward at that hour
of the night, and the best thing they could think of was that he should
carry out his original intention of going after Farren."

"But," interposed the Fiscal, "was not that a very difficult and
uncertain plan on which to rely? It was a hundred to one against his
meeting Farren. Would it not have been simpler to knock up some person
with a suitable story? He could, for instance, have communicated to
somebody his fears about Farren, and even taken that person with him as
a witness to his alibi."

"I don't think so," said Sir Maxwell. "That point occurred to me also,
but when I came to think the matter over, I saw that Strachan's plan was
about the best he could have adopted in the circumstances. For one
thing, I believe that it would have been very awkward for him to present
himself in public at that moment. I think that he had already received
that blow in the eye which he afterwards accounted for in another
manner. That is why I said I felt pretty sure that Strachan took part in
the struggle with Campbell, even though he may not have struck the fatal
blow himself. Moreover, suppose he did knock somebody up to inquire
about Farren, and suppose that somebody kindly offered to accompany him
in his search? He would then, as the Fiscal truly says, have an
unimpeachable witness to his alibi--certainly he would. But what if he
could not get rid of the witness in time to do the very important job he
had to do the next morning? What reason could he possibly give for
abandoning his search for Farren and rushing away to Newton-Stewart? And
how could he prevent people from knowing where he was going, if once he
got a hue-and-cry started? Whatever happened, he had to get up to the
Minnoch early the next morning, and he had to do it in secret.

"As a matter of fact, I don't think his plan turned out as he intended.
Indeed, it went very near to miscarrying altogether. I feel sure his
original intention was to find Farren and bring him home--either to
Kirkcudbright or to his own house at Gatehouse. He could then have
explained his black eye as being due to a fall sustained in his search
at Falbae."

"But," objected Wimsey, who had been following all this argument with a
keenness which his half-drooped eyelids scarcely veiled, "he'd still
have to trundle off to the Minnoch next morning, wouldn't he, old
thing?"

"Yes," said Sir Maxwell, "so he would. But if he had dropped Farren at
Kirkcudbright, he could easily have driven straight away again from
there. He would hardly be expected to stay and make a third in the
conjugal reunion. Then he could have gone off where he liked--perhaps
leaving some sort of reassuring message for Mrs. Strachan. Or similarly,
if he had taken Farren to Gatehouse, he could then have gone off for the
ostensible purpose of reassuring Mrs. Farren about her husband. When he
was once away, he could always be detained somewhere, by engine-trouble
or what not. I see no great difficulty about that."

"All right," said Wimsey. "I pass that. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue
ocean, roll."

"Well then, Strachan drove off in search of Farren, leaving Ferguson to
pack the body up and do all the necessary things about the house. And by
the way, I may as well say at this point that I don't think any of you
have paid sufficient attention to these things that were done about the
house. The man who did them must have known a great deal about
Campbell's manner of living. He must have known exactly when to expect
Mrs. Green, for example, and the way Campbell behaved when at
home--whether he was tidy or untidy, for instance, and what sort of
breakfast he usually had, and all that kind of thing. Otherwise, Mrs.
Green would have noticed that something out of the ordinary had
happened. Now, how could Farren or Waters or Gowan or Graham be aware of
all these domestic details? The man who would know them was Ferguson,
who was his next-door neighbour and employed the same daily woman. He
would be the one person who might habitually see Campbell having
breakfast and puttering about the house; and what he didn't know from
his own observation he'd be sure to get from Mrs. Green in the course of
her daily gossip."

"That's a damned good point, Chief," said Wimsey, with the detached air
of an Eton boy applauding a good stroke by a Harrow captain. "Damned
good. Of course, Mrs. Green would be full of information. 'Och, Mr.
Campbell's an awfu' mon wi' his pyjammers. Yesterday he was leavin' them
in the coal-hole an' them only jist back fra' the laundry. An' to-day
I'm findin' them in the stoojo an' him usin' them for a pentin'-rag.'
One learns a lot about one's neighbours by listening to what is called
kitchen-talk."

"Ay, that's so," said Macpherson, a little doubtfully.

Sir Maxwell smiled. "Yes," he said, "when I came to think the matter
over, that struck me very forcibly. But to go on with Strachan. There's
no doubt he did find Farren, and there, I admit, he was rather lucky,
though perhaps the chances against his doing so were not quite a hundred
to one. After all, he had an extremely good idea where Farren was likely
to be found, and he knew the ground about Falbae pretty well."

"Ay, that's so," said Dalziel, "but whit wad he ha' done, sir, if Farren
really had throwed himsel' doon the mine?"

"That would have been rather unfortunate for him, I admit," said the
Chief Constable. "In that case, he would have had to forgo his alibi for
the early morning. All he could have done would be to leave some object
or objects at Falbae to show that he had been there--his hat, for
example, or his overcoat--and carry out his painting job at the Minnoch
as early as possible, returning later to give the alarm and start the
search for Farren. He could explain that he had been searching in some
other place in the interim. It wouldn't have been so good, but it would
have been fairly good, especially as the subsequent discovery of
Farren's body would have been a very good witness to the truth of his
story. However, he did find Farren, so we need not bother about that.

"Unhappily, however, the plan came rather unstuck at this point. Farren,
instead of coming quietly, escaped, and Strachan tumbled into a mine.
This very nearly prevented Strachan from carrying out his part of the
plot at all. He did fall down, he did have a job to extricate
himself--though it didn't take him quite as long as he said it did--and
that was why he was so late in getting up to the Minnoch. If his plan
had worked out properly, he no doubt hoped to be back with Farren at,
say, 3 o'clock in the morning, and then go straight on to pick up the
car and the body where Ferguson had left them ready for him."

"And where would that be?" asked the Fiscal.

"I can't say exactly, but the idea would be for Ferguson to drive
Campbell's car up to some suitable spot--say by the old road through
Gatehouse Station to Creetown--and leave it there to be picked up and
taken on by Strachan. Ferguson would then return on a bicycle----"

"What bicycle?" said Wimsey.

"Any bicycle," retorted the Chief Constable, "except, of course, the
Anwoth Hotel bicycle that we've heard so much about. It's not difficult
to borrow bicycles in these parts, and he would have had plenty of time
to bring it back and leave it where he found it. Ferguson would be back,
say, at 7 o'clock, in good time to eat his own breakfast and catch the
omnibus for Gatehouse Station."

"He must have been full of breakfast by that time," observed the Fiscal,
"having already eaten Campbell's."

"My dear man," said the Chief Constable, rather irritably, "if you had
committed a murder and were trying to get away with it, you wouldn't let
a trifle like a second breakfast stand in your way."

"If I had committed a murder," replied the Fiscal, "I would feel no
appetite even for one breakfast."

The Chief Constable restrained any expression of feeling at this
frivolous comment. Macpherson, who had been jotting words and figures in
his notebook, struck in at this point.

"Then I take it, sir, this'll be your time-table for the crime."

                   Case against Ferguson and Strachan

           _Monday._
           9.15 p.m. Farren leaves note at Strachan's house.

          10.20 p.m. Campbell returns home after encounter with
                     Gowan.

         12 midnight or thereabouts. Strachan returns home
                     and finds note.

          _Tuesday._
          12.10 a.m. (say). Strachan goes to Campbell's cottage;
                     is joined by Ferguson. Murder is committed.

         12.10-12.45 (say). Plan of fake accident evolved.
                     Strachan starts for Falbae, taking Campbell's
                     hat and cloak, painting materials, etc.
                     in car.

            2-3 a.m. During this period Strachan and Farren
                     meet and Farren escapes.

           3.30 a.m. (say). Strachan falls down mine.

              4 a.m. (say). Ferguson arrives at some spot on
                     old road from Gatehouse Station to Creetown,
                     with Campbell's car containing body
                     and bicycle. Leaves car hidden.

            5-6 a.m. Ferguson returns on bicycle to Gatehouse
                     by old road.

              9 a.m. Strachan extricates himself from mine and
                     finds his car.

            9.8 a.m. Ferguson takes the train to Dumfries.

           9.20 a.m. Strachan arrives at rendezvous, transfers
                     himself to Campbell's car. Hides own car.
                     Disguises himself.

           9.35 a.m. Strachan disguised as Campbell seen by
                     workman passing turning to New Galloway.

             10 a.m. Strachan arrives at Minnoch. Plants body
                     and paints picture.

          11.15 a.m. Strachan finishes picture.

Here Macpherson paused.

"How will Strachan get back tae his car, sir? 'Tis fourteen mile gude.
He culdna du't on his twa feet?"

"Farren's bicycle," replied the Chief Constable, promptly. "You should
have made him pick that up at Falbae. Of course, if his original plan
hadn't gone wrong, he would either have borrowed another bicycle or had
time to go on foot, but under the circumstances, with Farren's machine
lying ready to hand, he would take advantage of it."

"Ay, sir; but ye have an answer tae everything." Macpherson shook his
head soberly and returned to his time-table.

            12.45 p.m. Strachan returns on Farren's bicycle to
                       Creetown; abandons bicycle. Transfers to
                       own car.

             1.15 p.m. Strachan
                       returns to Gatehouse by Skyre
                       Burn road.

"That," said the Fiscal, who had been checking this time-table with the
Chief Constable's report of his interview with Strachan, "agrees very
well with Strachan's statement to you."

"It does," replied Sir Maxwell, "and, what is still more important, it
agrees with the facts. We have found a man who distinctly remembers
seeing Strachan passing along the Skyre Burn road between 1 o'clock and
1.20. Moreover, we have traced his telephone-call to the McClellan Arms,
and it was put through at 1.18 precisely."

"You realise," said Wimsey, "that you've only allowed him an hour and a
quarter for painting that picture. I had two of the slickest men in the
district working on it, and the quicker painter of the two couldn't get
the result under an hour and a half."

"That's true," said the Chief Constable, grimly, "but he wasn't painting
for his life, you know."

"I wad like tae be sairtain o' that," said a voice. Everybody was
surprised. P. C. Duncan had sat so silent that they had almost forgotten
his existence.

"Is that so?" said the Chief Constable. "Well, Duncan, you're here to
give us your opinion. Suppose we have it now."

The policeman shifted on his chair and glanced uneasily at Dalziel. He
had an obscure idea that he was going to let himself in for a wigging,
but he stuck manfully to his guns, and opened fire with a flourish.




                              CHAPTER XXV


                         GRAHAM: GOWAN: WATERS

"Them twa theories," said P. C. Duncan, "is jist fine, an' I'm no sayin'
the contrair', but, mon! they're jist awfu' complicated. It mak's ma
heid spin only tae think o' them. I wadna wish tae be puttin' masel'
forrit, but I wad like fine tae know how Sir Maxwell Jamieson thinks
that yon plan could ha' been a' talked oot in three-quarters o' an
hour."

"Well," replied Sir Maxwell, "those times are very elastic. Provided we
get Strachan up to Falbae before it's too light for tumbling into mines,
I don't mind how late you make him start."

"But no matter for that," put in the Fiscal, seeing that Duncan looked a
little discouraged. "If you have a better and simpler idea to offer, by
all means put it forward."

"I was jist thinkin', then," said Duncan, "and beggin' your pardon, Dr.
Cameron, whether it was not, after all, possible that the mon was kill't
the same day he was found. Ye'll no be offended, doctor?"

"Not at all," said Dr. Cameron, heartily. "Speak out your mind, man.
This business of speaking to the precise time of death is not so easy as
ye'd think by reading detective novels. In my experience, the older a
medical man gets, the less willing he is to make _ex cathedra_
pronouncements, and the more he learns that Nature has her own ways of
confounding self-confident prophets."

"Ay," said Duncan, "I've jist been readin' a wee buik aboot the subject.
It's a gran' buik, an' it was gied me by my feyther for my last
birthday. My feyther was an' awfu' weel-eddicated mon for his station in
life, an' he wad always be tellin' me that studyin' was the road tae
success."

He laid a large, square, brown-paper parcel on the table as he spoke,
and slowly untied the stout string with which it was secured.

"This here," said he, as the last knot yielded and the paper was turned
back to disclose the "wee buik"--a formidable volume nine inches long by
six inches across and thick in proportion--"this here is ca'ed _Forensic
Medicine and Toxicology_ by Dixon Mann, an' there's gran' readin' in it
for a man in oor profession. Noo, there's a passage here as I'd like tae
get your opinion on, doctor. I've pit a wee bit paper tae mark the
place. Ay, here 'tis, page thirty-seven. This is aboot the
death-stiffenin'."

"Rigor mortis," said the doctor.

"Ay, that's what it is, only here it's ca'ed Cay-day-verric Rigeedity,
but 'tis that same rigor he means. Yon's jist his difficult name for't.
Noo, here's whit this man says, an' he'll be a great authority, for my
puir feyther paid a terrible deal o' money for the buik. 'Under ordinary
circumstances the'--och, dear!--'the s-k-e-l-e-t-a-l, the skeeleetal
muscles begin tae stiffen in fra' fower tae ten hours after death.'
Fower tae ten hours. Noo, that'll gie us what ye might ca' a margin o'
six hours' error in estimatin' the time o' death. Wull't no, doctor?"

"Other things being equal," said the doctor, "yes."

"Ay, an' here again: 'It is fully developed,' that is, the rigor, ye
onnerstand, 'in fra' twa tae three hours.' That'll gie us anither hour's
margin."

"Well, yes."

"Ay. 'This condition lasts for a period varyin' from a few hours tae six
or eight days.' There's a terrible big difference there, doctor!"

"So there is," said Dr. Cameron, smiling slightly, "but there are other
things to be taken into consideration besides rigor mortis. You'll not
be suggesting the body was six or eight days old?"

"Not at all, doctor. But it gaes on tae say, 'Twenty-four tae
forty-eight hours may be regarded as the average duration of ca-da----'
that is, o' this rigor. Ye'll allow, maybe, that this great authority
isna so varra preceese tae twa-three hours. Noo, then, doctor, when ye
saw this corpse at 3 o'clock o' the afternoon, how stiff was he?"

"He was quite stiff," replied the doctor. "That is, to employ the
stately language of your great authority, the cadaveric rigidity was
fully established. This made it probable that the man had then been dead
not less than six hours and probably--taking the appearance of the
bruises, etc., into account--considerably longer. Taking Mr. Dixon
Mann's pronouncement as the basis of a diagnosis, you will see that it
would allow death to have taken place as much as thirteen hours
earlier--ten hours to start the rigor and three to develop it fully.
That is, the death might have taken place as late as 9 a.m. or as early
as midnight, and the body would still have been stiff at 3 p.m., without
its being necessary to presume anything abnormal in the onset or
development of the rigor."

"Ay, but----" began Macpherson, hastily.

"Ay, that's jist what I----" began Duncan, at the same moment.

"One minute," said the doctor. "I know what ye're about to say,
Inspector. I'm not fully allowing for the case that the rigor might have
been completely established some time before I saw it. Supposing the
rigor had come on slowly and had been fully developed, say, at 1
o'clock. That would make it possible that the death took place as early
as 10 p.m. the day before. I told you before that that was not
impossible."

Macpherson gave a satisfied grunt.

"Campbell was a man in vigorous health," went on the doctor, "and he
died from a sudden blow. If you'll consult that authority of yours a bit
farther on, Duncan, you'll see it says that, under those conditions, the
onset of cadaveric rigidity is likely to be slow."

"Ay, doctor," persisted the policeman, "but ye'll see also that when the
subject is exhausted an' depressed in his physical strength, the
rigidity may come on verra quick. Noo, I was thinkin' that yon Campbell
must ha' passed an awfu' exhaustin' nicht. He was fightin' wi' Mr.
Waters at 9 o'clock or thereabouts, he was fightin' again wi' Mr. Gowan
at 9.45, an' he had his inside fu' o' whuskey forbye, which is weel
known tae be depressin' in its effects--that is," he added hastily,
catching a slight grin on Wimsey's face, "after the high speerits o' the
moment is wore off. Then he's away oot airly in the mornin' wi'oot his
breakfast, as was established by examination o' his insides, an' he
drives his car twenty-seven mile. Wad he no be sufficiently exhausted
wi' a' that tae stiffen up quick when he was killed?"

"You seem to have thought this out, Duncan," said the doctor. "I see I
shall have to be careful, or I shall be caught tripping. I will only say
this. The average duration of rigor mortis is from twenty-four to
forty-eight hours. Campbell's body was rigid when I saw it on Tuesday
afternoon at 3 o'clock, and it was still rigid on Wednesday night when
it was put into its coffin. On Thursday evening, when I examined it in
the presence of a number of you gentlemen the rigidity had entirely
passed off. That gives a fairly average duration for the rigor. In
general, a quick onset is followed by a short duration, and a slow onset
by a long duration. In this case, the duration appeared average to slow,
and I conclude that the onset would also have been average to slow. That
is why I finally gave it as my considered opinion the that most probable
time of death was somewhere round about midnight, and this agreed with
the general appearance of the body and the bruises."

"How about the contents of the stomach?" asked Sir Maxwell.

"The contents of the stomach was whiskey," said the doctor, drily, "but
I'm not saying how late on Monday night the deceased would be drinking
whiskey."

"But," said Duncan, "supposin' the murder didna take place till 9
o'clock or so on the Tuesday, that wad shorten the duration of the
rigor."

"Well, of course," said the doctor. "If he didn't die till Tuesday
morning, that might bring the duration of the rigor down to a little
over thirty-six hours. I can only speak to the period between 3 p.m. on
Tuesday and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, when I handed it over to the
undertaker."

"Well, the point appears to be," said the Fiscal, "that, though the
appearances suggest to you a death round about midnight, you may be in
error to the extent of an hour or two either way."

"That is so."

"Could you be in error to the extent of eight or nine hours?"

"I would not like to think so," replied the doctor, cautiously, "but I
would not say it was impossible. There's very few things impossible in
Nature, and an error in diagnosis is not one of them."

"Weel," said Dalziel, eyeing his subordinate with some disfavour, "ye
hear what the doctor says. He'll no say it is impossible, an' that's
mair nor ye could ha' expectit, an' you tae be questionin' his great
experience, with your rigor mortis an' your auld feyther, an' your wee
buik an' a'. 'Tis tae be hoped ye can gi'e a gude reason for your
presumption. Ye'll kindly excuse him, doctor. Duncan is a gude lad, but
he's ower zealous."

Duncan, thus stimulated, began again, blushing hotly all over his face.

"Weel, sirs, the point I started from was this, that oot of a' six
suspects there's not one that's been proved to ha' been nigh the place
where the corpse was found, only Mr. Graham. But we've evidence that
Graham was actually seen at Bargrennan the verra morning o' the murder.
An', what's mair, he admits tae't himsel'."

"That's a fact," said the Fiscal. "You've got in here in your notes that
this man Brown saw Graham walking along the banks of the Cree just below
Bargrennan at half-past eleven on Tuesday morning. He says that Graham
was going upstream, and that when he saw Brown approaching, he scrambled
quickly down the bank as though to avoid observation. That certainly
looks like a suspicious circumstance."

"Ay," said Duncan, excitedly. "An' when Graham is questioned, what does
he say? First of a', he refuses tae state whaur he's been. An' that,
mind you, before there's ony suspicion gi'en oot that Campbell's death
was mair nor an accident. That's yin thing. Secondly, as sune as it's
known through the papers that it may be a case o' murder, he comes
forrit wi' a fause alibi for the Monday nicht only."

"Stop a moment, Duncan," said Sir Maxwell. "If, as you seem to suppose,
Graham did not commit the murder till Tuesday morning, there would be no
point in his bringing forward an alibi for Monday night. He'd know it
would not cover him."

"Ay, that's so," said Duncan, screwing up his ingenuous face into an
expression of the most concentrated cunning, "but it was the leddy
brought forrit the alibi, an' why? Because it had been pit aboot--I'm no
sayin' by whom--that the murder was maist probably committed o' the
Monday nicht. Then the leddy--that kens fine Graham did the murder but
isna sae weel informed as tae the time--fa's heid ower heels intae the
trap. She says, 'He couldna' ha' done't; he was wi' me.' Mr. Dalziel
asks her sharp and sudden, 'How long was he wi' you?' She says, 'Till
past 9 o'clock,' knowin' verra weel that if she was tae say till 12
o'clock or some such hour, the next question wad be, 'Did naebody see
him leavin' the hoose?'--which, wi' a' the folks astir in the toon, is
no verra probable. Verra gude. Then Graham hears on't an' says tae
himsel', 'I maun du better than that. Likely enough I was recognised by
that fellow up yonder. I'll say I was the haill of they twa nichts and
days up at Bargrennan poachin' wi' Jimmy Fleeming an' Jimmy'll bear me
oot.' An' that's when he comes in wi' his second alibi."

"Jimmy Fleming does bear him out, as far as I can see," observed the
Fiscal, turning over his papers.

"Och, ay," said Duncan, "Jimmy Fleeming's the biggest leear in the
Stewartry. Forbye, Graham is weel likit by that poachin' lot. There's no
a man among them that wadna swear to a wee lie or so tae protect
Graham."

"That's true enough," said Macpherson. "An' there's no need for them tae
be tellin' sic a big lie, neither. They'd be up half the nicht wi' their
poachin' an' sleepin' half the day. What's tae hinder Graham walking off
an' committin' his murder--ay, an' pentin' his bit picture--wi'oot them
knowin'? He wad say he's ta'en a wee walk, maybe. Or maybe they'd be
sleepin' and never notice when he comed or gaed?"

"Your idea, Duncan, is that Campbell came up to the Minnoch--when,
exactly?"

"That's clear enough," said Wimsey. "We've got to take Ferguson's times,
because, on this assumption, there's no reason for doubting them.
Starting at 7.30, and driving at an ordinary speed, he wouldn't be
likely to do the twenty-seven miles in much under an hour. Say he
arrives there at 8.30 and sits down and gets his painting things out.
Graham, taking his morning walk, gets along there at, say, 8.45. They
quarrel, and Campbell is knocked into the river and killed. At 9
o'clock, summer time, Graham might reasonably begin to do his painting.
It takes him an hour and a half. We know that, because we've seen him do
it--at least, I have. That brings us to half-past ten. But we know he
was still there at five past eleven, so we'll have to give him till
then. That's quite likely, because if, when I saw him, he was merely
copying his own painting, he'd probably do it quicker than if it was his
first effort. As soon as he's finished, and the road is free of
inquisitive passers-by, he strolls back to his sleeping friends, who
will subsequently be ready to swear that they never took their eyes off
him the whole time. That's your theory, isn't it, Duncan?"

"Ay, that's it," said Duncan, gratified.

"It's not a bad one, either, as far as it goes," went on his lordship,
with the air of a man sampling a glass of old port. "It has at least
three snags, but I dare say they could be demolished with a little
goodwill. First, the doctor has got to be all wrong in his calculations,
but, as he doesn't seem to mind that, neither need we. Secondly, who ate
Campbell's breakfast? Well, we can suppose that, having drunk rather
deeply the night before, he nevertheless courageously cooked his egg and
rasher and, having cooked them, didn't like the look of them and shot
them into the fire. Or we can suppose--though I should hate to do
so--that Mrs. Green ate them herself and said she hadn't. Or we can
suppose that Campbell ate them, was promptly sick, and filled up the
void with whiskey. Any one of those suppositions would account for the
conditions as found, eh, doctor?

"Then there are the marks of tar on Campbell's Morris, which we put down
to bicycle-tyres, but they might quite well have been due to something
else. I pointed them out in the first place, but I wouldn't be bigoted
about them on that account. They're not significant enough to wreck a
theory on.

"The big snag in Duncan's ingenious reconstruction is the man who saw
the car pass the New Galloway turning at 9.45. I'm afraid Duncan hasn't
accounted for him at all. Still, we can say he was mistaken. If a doctor
can be mistaken, so can an honest workman. He didn't see the number of
the car, so it may have been another Morris."

"But the piled-up stuff under the rug at the back," said the Chief
Constable, "and the driver's conspicuous cloak. You can't get away from
them."

"Can't I?" said Wimsey. "You don't know me. I could get away from a
galloping fire-engine. You'd been advertising for a Morris car driven by
a man in a loud cloak, with a pile of luggage behind, hadn't you? Well,
you know what happens when you advertise for things. A man sees
something that corresponds to part of the description and imagines the
rest. Probably twenty Morris cars drove over the main road from
Castle-Douglas to Stranraer that morning and probably half of those had
luggage in them. Several of them may have been driven by gentlemen whose
dress was more noisy than discriminating. Your man had no very
particular reason to notice the car at the time, except that he shot out
on it unexpectedly. If the truth was known, he was probably riding
carelessly himself. The car got in his way and annoyed him, and if he
can persuade himself that he had an encounter with a desperado fleeing
from justice, he's not going to stick at remembering a few things that
weren't there. There are plenty of people who are always ready to
remember more than they saw."

"That's awfu' true," sighed Macpherson.

"I will tell you a thing I like about this theory of Duncan's," said the
Fiscal. "It makes it appear likely that the crime was unpremeditated. It
is more likely that Graham, coming suddenly upon Campbell like that,
should quarrel with him and knock him down than that anybody should
contrive a scheme to carry a dead body all those miles and plant it in
so awkward a place."

"The place was more or less forced on the murderer, was it not, by
Campbell's expressed intention of painting there that day?"

"But he might be supposed to have changed his mind, Sir Maxwell."

"To an innocent man," said Macpherson, acutely, "that supposition wad
present no difficulty at all. But a murderer might weel be ower
particular, even tae the point o' riskin' the miscarriage of his plans
by an unnecessary verisimilitude."

"Well, Inspector," said the Chief Constable, "I can see that you are not
altogether satisfied with any of our theories. Let us have yours."

The Inspector brightened. This was his moment. He felt convinced that
he, and no other person, had the right sow by the ear, and was, indeed,
extremely grateful to Dalziel, Sir Maxwell and Duncan for having
produced such inferior animals and refrained from spoiling his market.

"The Sergeant said just noo," said he, "that Jimmy Fleeming was the
biggest leear in the Stewartry. Weel, I ken three that's bigger leears
than him, an' that's Gowan and his pack of English servants. An' ye'll
mind that they three are the only pairsons that's proved oot o' their
own mouths tae be leears, exceptin' Strachan an' his bit tale aboot a
gowf-ball.

"I believe Gowan killed Campbell when they met on the road, an' I dinna
credit one word o' that story aboot his beard.

"Noo, I've written doon the course o' events as I see them, an' I'll ask
ye tae read it out for me, Mr. Fiscal, seein' as ye're better accustomed
tae speakin' in public than I am."

With these words, the Inspector handed over a neatly-written manuscript
which he produced from his breast-pocket, and leaned back with the shy
smile of a poet attending a public reading of his own works.

The Fiscal adjusted his glasses and, in a clear voice, proceeded to do
justice to----

                         The Case against Gowan

    The evidence of the girl Helen Macgregor is that Campbell met
    with another motorist, since proved and admitted to be Gowan, on
    the Gatehouse-Kirkcudbright road at about 9.45 on Monday night.
    That there was a quarrel, and that one of the parties then
    placed the inanimate body of the other party in the two-seater
    car and drove off with it in the direction of Gatehouse. That
    she then became frightened and ran home. This story was
    subsequently substantiated by the finding of a spanner, bearing
    Campbell's finger-prints, close to the locus of the alleged
    assault, and by the discovery of car-tracks tending to show that
    a car had been driven into a grass lane, through a gate some
    fifty yards from the said locus.

    In my opinion, the crime is to be reconstructed as follows.

    Having killed Campbell in the struggle, Gowan's first
    consideration was to remove the corpse to a place where it would
    not be seen by a passer-by. This he effected by placing it in
    his own car, driving up to the gate, and dumping the body
    inside. He selected his own car for this purpose because it was
    the nearest to Gatehouse and could be more readily shifted by
    him. If he had put the body at once in Campbell's car, he would
    have had to move his own car first, to get the other past, and
    someone might have arrived while he was so doing. If such a
    person had found Campbell's car obstructing the road and had
    ascertained upon investigation that it contained a dead body it
    would have a very suspicious appearance.

    He then brought up Campbell's car, drove it through the gate,
    placed the body in it and deposited it at some distance up the
    lane. He then proceeded on foot to his own car, turned it and
    returned in it to Kirkcudbright. He could accomplish this,
    driving _like hell_ [the last two words were carefully ruled
    out] in a reckless manner in rather under five minutes. Say at
    10.10. The girl Helen saw him when he passed her house.

    He would find Hammond on duty and would urge him to return with
    him at once. On reaching the scene of the crime at, say, 10.20,
    he would proceed on foot to the Morris car and drive it out of
    the lane in the direction of Gatehouse, while Hammond would
    return with the two-seater to Kirkcudbright.

    Gowan could be back with the Morris at Standing Stone cottage
    at, say, 10.30. (Note: Ferguson gives the time as 10.15, but he
    only says "about.")

    Gowan then conceives the plan of simulating an accident to
    Campbell. Since his black beard would make it impossible to
    impersonate Campbell, he shaves this off with Campbell's razor,
    carefully cleaning the same, and destroying the hair in the
    fire, except a portion which he reserved for another purpose.

    When Strachan arrived, Gowan was in hiding some place or other,
    probably in the garage. On Strachan's departure, he returned to
    the cottage in a stealthy manner, destroyed the note and
    proceeded with his preparations.

    At 7.30 he would start out with the car, disguised in Campbell's
    clothes and carrying the corpse, the painting materials and the
    bicycle, which he would have taken from the Anwoth Hotel. Now we
    have to account for the long time taken by him to arrive at the
    New Galloway road, where he was seen by the workman. In my
    opinion he proceeded to some town or village not yet
    ascertained, and there instructed Hammond to meet him at some
    point with the two-seater. In my opinion this would be a
    locality in the neighbourhood of Pinwherry. Inquiries have been
    set on foot to trace this telephone message within an area of
    thirty miles round about Gatehouse.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At this point the Chief Constable interrupted the reading.

"Could not the call be readily traced at the Kirkcudbright end?" he
inquired.

"No, no," said Wimsey, before Macpherson could speak. "Hammond would
have been instructed to go somewhere else to get it. A desperate fellow
like Gowan isn't going to take all this trouble only to trip up on a
trifle like a telephone-call, eh, Macpherson?"

"That's so," said the Inspector. "That's jist exactly what was in my
mind."

"Then why did he not tell Hammond what to do when they were together,
and avoid the telephone call altogether?" demanded Sir Maxwell.

"He hadn't made his plan then," said Wimsey. "How fretful you people
are! Do give the man time to think. His first idea is, 'Let's get the
body away off this road that I'm known to have driven along. I'll plant
it somewhere. I don't know where. I'll think it out and 'phone you
to-morrow at 8 o'clock. Go to Lauriston or Twynholm (or Kamschatka or
Timbuctoo or whatever was the handiest place) and I'll put the call
through to you there.' After all, you've got to explain the delay on the
road somehow. Ferguson is a liar, Strachan fell down a mine, Farren--let
me see; oh, yes--Farren was a poor hand with a car and Gowan made a
telephone call. Please go on with the reading, Fiscal."

                 *        *        *        *        *

    Gowan then proceeded to the site on the Minnoch and painted his
    picture. This would occupy him till about 11.30. He then mounted
    the bicycle and rode along the road to Pinwherry and Girvan to
    the spot selected by him. It would be just as he had passed
    Barrhill that he was observed by Mr. Clarence Gordon. Mr. Gordon
    said that the bicyclist was not a very tall man, but Gowan would
    not look so tall if he was bent down over a bicycle and
    pedalling fast. Without his beard, Gowan would not be
    recognisable from his photograph. Hammond would meet him with
    the two-seater some place between Barrhill and Girvan, and he
    would be provided with any necessary tackle for securing the
    bicycle to the car. They would drive together to just this side
    of Girvan, where Hammond would alight, take the bicycle and
    proceed to Ayr, contriving whether by design or mischance to
    lose the bicycle in the station. It will be remembered that the
    person travelling with the bicycle was said to speak like an
    Englishman. Gowan then proceeded with the car to some point from
    which he could write and dispatch his letter to Major Aylwin. He
    would not wish to make his appearance in Kirkcudbright without
    his beard so that he probably did not return till that night.
    Efforts are being made to trace the movements of the car during
    this period.

    With reference to the portions of beard discovered on the
    Gatehouse-Kirkcudbright road. It would occur to Gowan and his
    confederates that the fact of murder might be suspected and his
    own movements investigated. In that case the shaving-off of his
    beard and his disappearance to London might present a suspicious
    appearance. They therefore concocted a story to fit the case,
    and planted the portions of hair by the roadside in order to
    support this invention. This was the story subsequently told by
    Gowan at Scotland Yard, which was very misleading, on account of
    containing so large a proportion of facts. The details of
    Gowan's escape from Kirkcudbright occurred exactly as related in
    his statement. This is the case against Gowan as presented by
    me.

                                       (_Signed_) John Macpherson.
                                                Inspector of Police.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Ingeniouser and ingeniouser," said Wimsey. "There are a good many
details that need verification, but the whole thing is very pretty
indeed. What a shocking set of crooks these English servants are! Not
even murder will turn them from their feudal devotion to the man who
pays!"

The Inspector flushed.

"Ye're tryin' tae make a fool of me, my lord," he said, reproachfully.

"Indeed, no," replied his lordship. "One thing in your story pleases me
particularly, and that is that you have bravely tackled the business of
the bicycle at Euston, which everybody else has fought shy of."

At this point, Constable Ross cleared his throat in so pointed a manner
that everyone turned to look at him.

"I perceive from your manner, Ross," said his lordship, "that to you
also the word bicycle has not been devoid of significance. With the
permission of these other gentlemen, I should greatly like to hear your
version of the matter."

The constable looked at the Chief Constable for his approval, and
receiving a nod, embarked upon his theory.

"The thing that's in my mind," said he, "is this man Waters. Here's a
man wi' a verra unsatisfactory alibi, which is no capable o' proof. We
have not yet established communication wi' this man Drewitt an' his
sailing-yacht----"

"Just a moment, Ross," broke in the Chief Constable. "We got a wire in
from him this morning from Arisaig. We just missed him at Oban. He
wires, 'Waters joined us at Doon 8.30 Tuesday morning. Left yacht
Gourock Saturday. Writing.' He has also, I understand, made a
confirmatory statement to the police."

"Ay," said Ross, not in the least disconcerted, "ay, imph'm. But we
dinna ken what kind o' a man is this Drewitt. He'll be for backin' up
Waters ony gait, tae my thinkin'. He may swear till he's black in the
face Waters went aboard at the Doon, but the fact remains that naebody
saw him to speak to, an' the bicycle has clean disappeared. In my
opinion, yon bicycle is doon in the deep waters betune Arran an'
Stranraer, an' ye'll never see it mair till it rises oot o' the sea tae
bear witness at the great Day of Judgment. Unless," he added, with some
sacrifice of picturesqueness, "ye sairch for't wi' deep-sea tackle."

"What's your idea, then, Ross?"

"Well, Sir Maxwell, 'tis this, an' 'tis awfu' clear an' simple tae my
thinkin'. Here's Campbell, fou' as a puggie an' lookin' for trouble. He
has a row wi' Waters an' says it'll no end there. He's aff away to
Gatehouse, an' he meets Gowan an' gets the better o' him. 'That's fine,'
thinks he, 'it's my night the night.' He's away home an' he gets
drinkin' again, and he thinks to himsel', 'What for wad I no drag that
bastard Waters' (beggin' your pardon) 'oot o' his bed an' finish wi' him
now?' He gets his car oot again an' starts away. Ferguson will be asleep
an' no hearin' him. He admits himsel' he didna hear Strachan gae, an'
what for wad he ha' heard Campbell? He drives ower tae Kirkcudbright an'
chucks stones at Waters' window. Waters looks oot, sees him an' thinks,
'We'll no have a row in the street.' He lets him in an' they talk a bit,
an' yin or 'tither o' them says, 'We'll away up tae the stoojo an' fight
it oot.' They do so, an' Campbell's killt.

"Waters is in an' awfu' pickle and doesna ken what tae do. He's comin'
oot o' the stoojo in a distracted condition when he meets his friend
Drewitt, that's visitin' there wi' his hired car. 'Drewitt,' says he,
'I'm in awfu' trouble. I've killt a man,' he says, 'an' I dinna ken what
tae do. It was a fair fight,' he says, 'but they'll bring it in murder
an' I'll be hangit.' Then they puts their heids tegither an' makes a
plan. Drewitt's away tae Mrs. McLeod's for tae impairsonate Waters. An'
ye'll mind," added Constable Ross, forcibly, "that Mrs. McLeod never set
eyes on her lodger fra' the time he went oot a little after midnicht.
She _heard_ him come upstairs, she heard him ca' oot when she brought up
the water, an' when she came in fra' the back o' the hoose, he'd eaten
his breakfast and away."

"Drewitt would be takin' an awfu' risk," said Macpherson.

"Ay, but murderers maun tak' risks," said Ross. "In the meantime, Waters
is away wi' Campbell's car an' his bicycle at the same time that Drewitt
entered the hoose. Then he does a' the same things as we've suggested
for the other suspects. He's away wi' the body at 7.30. I'm thinkin'
he'll ha' ta'en the auld road through Gatehouse Station an' he'll maybe
have had engine trouble in that lonely place, or burst a tyre an' had
tae change the wheel. The road's wicked wi' the ruts and the stones
thereabouts. Ony gait, he passes the New Galloway turnin' at 9.35 an'
arrives at the Minnoch at 10. He pents his picture, throws the body into
the burn and makes off on his bicycle. He has plenty o' time, for he'll
no be able tae carry oot the rest o' his plan before nightfall. He hides
up in the hills, an' it's here he'll be cursin' himsel', for he'll ha'
forgot tae bring wi' him the sandwiches that was found in Campbell's
satchel. Ay, he'll be fine an' empty before night. When 'tis safe for
him tae move, he rides his bicycle tae the appointed meetin'-place wi'
Drewitt.

"Drewitt will ha' been workin' up the coast, like he said. It will ha'
been Drewitt as was seed tae go aboard at the Doon, an' after that, the
course o' the yacht will agree wi' Waters' statement. In the night,
she'll make across fra' Lady Bay tae Finnart Bay, an' pick up Waters
that's ridden doon by the high road fra' Pinwherry. They take the
bicycle on board an' return tae lie up in Lady Bay. After that they hae
only tae carry oot their original sailing plan, an' land Waters at
Gourock on Saturday mornin', after sinkin' the bicycle some place where
it'll no be easy found. Man! it's as plain as the nose on your face."

"But----" said the Chief Constable.

"But----" said the Inspector.

"But----" said the Sergeant.

"But----" said Constable Duncan.

"Imph'm," said the Fiscal. "All these theories are very interesting,
gentlemen, but they are all conjectural. I congratulate you all
extremely upon your ingenuity and hard work, but to say which theory is
the most probable is a harder choice than that between Portia's caskets.
It appears to me that all are worth being followed up, and that the next
step is to prosecute inquiries which may tend to confirm either one or
the other of them. The movements of all cars upon the roads in the
district must be checked with the greatest possible care. The man
Drewitt must be interviewed and closely questioned, and the persons
living about Finnart Bay and Lady Bay must be asked whether they
observed anything of the movements of the yacht. At least we can feel
certain that one among the five theories presented to us must be the
true one, and that is something. Do you not think so, Lord Peter?"

"Yes, Wimsey," said the Chief Constable. "You told the Inspector the
other day that you had solved the problem. Are you in a position to give
a casting vote? Which of our suspects is the murderer?"




                              CHAPTER XXVI


                              THE MURDERER

"This," said Lord Peter Wimsey, "is the proudest moment of my life. At
last I really feel like Sherlock Holmes. A Chief Constable, a Police
Inspector, a Police Sergeant and two constables have appealed to me to
decide between their theories, and with my chest puffed like a
pouter-pigeon, I can lean back in my chair and say, 'Gentlemen, you are
all wrong.'"

"Damn it," said the Chief Constable, "we can't _all_ be wrong."

"You remind me," said Wimsey, "of the steward who said to the Channel
passenger, 'You can't be sick here.' You can all be wrong and you are."

"But we've suspected everybody," said Sir Maxwell. "See here, Wimsey,
you're not going to turn round now and say that the crime was committed
by Mrs. Green or the milkman, or somebody we've never heard of? That
would be in the very worst tradition of the lowest style of detective
fiction. Besides, you said yourself that the murderer was an artist, and
you even picked out those six artists yourself. Are you going back on
that now?"

"No," said Wimsey, "I wouldn't do anything quite so mean as that. I'll
qualify my original statement. You are all wrong, but one of you is less
wrong than the rest. Still none of you has got the right murderer, and
none of you has got the whole of the method right, though some of you
have got bits of it."

"Don't be portentous and tiresome, Wimsey," said Sir Maxwell. "There is
a serious side to this matter. If you possess any information that we do
not, you ought to let us have it. In fact, you ought to have let us have
it at once, instead of wasting our time like this."

"I did let you have it at once," said Wimsey. "I let you have it on the
day of the crime, only you keep on forgetting it. And I haven't really
been holding anything up my sleeve. I had to wait till all the suspects
were roped in before I could be certain of my theory, because at any
moment something might have turned up to unsettle it. And I haven't
actually proved it now, though I'll undertake to do it any time you
like."

"Come, come," said the Fiscal, "please tell us what it is you're wanting
to prove, and you shall be given every opportunity."

"Right-ho! I will be good. Now we'll have to go back to the discovery of
the body. The crucial point of the whole problem was there, and I
pointed it out to you, Dalziel, and that was the thing that made us sure
from the start that Campbell's death was murder and no accident.

"You remember how we found the body. It was lying in the burn, cold and
stiff, and on the easel up above there was a picture, half-finished,
together with a palette, a satchel and a painting-knife. We went through
all the belongings of the dead man, and I said to you, 'There's
something missing, and if we can't find it, it means murder.' You
remember that, Dalziel?"

"I mind it fine, Lord Peter."

"In Campbell's satchel we found nine tubes of oil colour--vermilion,
ultramarine, two chrome yellows, viridian, cobalt, crimson lake, rose
madder and lemon yellow. But there was no flake white. Now, as I
explained to you at the time, it is absolutely impossible for a painter
in oils to make a picture without using flake white. It is the
fundamental medium which he uses to mix with his other colours to
produce various shades of light and shadow. Even a man like Campbell,
who used a great deal of pure colour, would as soon think of setting out
to paint without flake white as you would set out to catch trout without
a cast. And in any case, the proof that Campbell had been using flake
white that morning was proved by the picture itself, which contained
huge masses of white cloud, wet and fresh and just laid on.

"A glance at the palette confirmed this. It had seven blobs of colour on
it, in this order: White, cobalt, viridian vermilion, ultramarine,
chrome yellow and rose madder.

"Well, you know how we searched for that missing tube of colour. We
turned out Campbell's pockets, we scoured every inch of the ground and
we lifted--or rather, you lifted, because I'd made tracks like a
sensible man--every stone in that confounded stream, right down to the
bridge. I told you the tube would probably be a big one, but that it
might, of course, be nearly empty and therefore rather light. If it had
been anywhere about, I think we may take it that you would have found
it."

"Ay," said Dalziel, "ye may confidently assume that, my lord."

"Very well, then. There was, of course, the faint possibility that,
after Campbell's death, someone had come up and removed the tube, but we
felt that to be too fantastic for consideration. Why should anybody
steal just that one thing and nothing else? And then, there was the
condition of the body, which suggested that death had occurred a good
deal earlier than the amount of work on the picture would lead one to
suppose. And by the way, doctor, I may as well relieve your mind and say
at once that, in spite of Duncan's able and ingenious special pleading,
your estimate of the time of death was perfectly sound."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Yes. Well, the question was, what had happened to the flake white?
Taking all the appearances into consideration, I formed the opinion that
(_a_) Campbell had been murdered, (_b_) the murderer had painted the
picture, (_c_) he had for some reason taken the flake white away with
him.

"Now, why should he take it away? It would be the silliest possible
thing for him to do, since its absence would instantly arouse suspicion.
He must have taken it by mistake, and that meant that he must have
automatically put it in the place where he was accustomed to put tubes
of colour while painting. He hadn't put it in any of the ordinary
places--on the ground, or in a box, or in the satchel or on the tray
attached to the easel. He must have bestowed it about his person
somewhere, and a pocket was the likeliest place. So that from that
moment I felt we ought to look about for a painter with the untidy habit
of dropping paints into his pockets."

"You didn't mention that," said Dalziel, reproachfully.

"No, because I was afraid--forgive me--that if I had, you might possibly
go and make inquiries about it, and if once the murderer had his
attention drawn to this unfortunate habit of his, there would be an end
of the habit and the inquiry. Besides, several painters might have the
same habit. Or I might be entirely mistaken about the whole thing--it
was a slender clue, and I might be straining it too far. I thought my
best plan was to snoop about the studios and watch people at work and
find out what their habits were. That was obviously a job which I, as a
private person, could do better than any official. But I gave you the
pointer, Dalziel, and you put it into your report. Anybody could have
come to the same conclusion as I did. Why didn't anybody?"

"Never mind why we didn't, Wimsey," said Sir Maxwell. "Go on with your
story."

"The next thing," said Wimsey, "was--why all this elaborate fake with
the picture? Why should a murderer hang round the place of the crime
painting pictures? Obviously, to disguise the fact that Campbell had
been killed at--well, whatever time he was killed. Say the previous
night. That meant that the murderer hadn't got a good alibi for the
previous night or whenever it was. But if he wanted to make it look as
though Campbell had been killed that morning, it meant that he must be
preparing himself a cast-iron alibi for that particular morning. So I
decided that I knew four things about the murderer already: (1) he was
an artist, or he couldn't have painted the picture, (2) he had a habit
of putting paints in his pocket, (3) he had a weak alibi for the actual
time of death (4) he would have a good alibi for Tuesday morning.

"Then came the discovery of the tar-marks on the car. That suggested
that the alibi had somehow been worked out with the aid of a bicycle.
But I couldn't get farther than that, because I didn't know when
Campbell was killed, or when he was supposed to have started out for the
Minnoch or how long the picture would take to paint, or any details of
that kind. But what I did know was that Campbell had been a quarrelsome
kind of devil, and that at least six artists in the district had been
going about shouting for his blood.

"Now the confusing thing about this case was that of these six artists,
five had disappeared. Of course it isn't in the least unusual for five
artists to be away from the district at the same time. There was the
Exhibition at Glasgow, to which several people had gone, including
Ferguson. There was fishing, which often takes people out at
night--there were hundreds of perfectly legitimate things they might
have been doing. But the fact remained that those five people were not
available for inquiries. You can't sit round and watch a man painting
when you don't know where he is. The only man I could get hold of at
once was Strachan, and when I came to look into his case, it appeared
that his alibi was anything but satisfactory, not only for the Monday
night but for the Tuesday morning as well; to say nothing of his having
a black eye and a generally dilapidated appearance.

"So that was how the case stood then. Graham, vanished; Farren vanished;
Waters vanished; Gowan gone to London; Ferguson, gone to Glasgow;
Strachan, at home, but obviously telling lies.

"Strachan, I may say, I almost absolved at once, though I thought it
possible that he had some guilty knowledge of some kind. I was looking
for a murderer with a good alibi, and Strachan's was about as bad and
clumsy as it could be. Graham, Farren and Waters had to wait; they might
turn up with excellent alibis; I couldn't tell. Only I had expected
something more obvious and immediate. The two most suspicious people,
from my point of view, were Ferguson and Gowan, because they had alibis
supported by outside people. But if Gowan's alibi was sound, it covered
the night as well as the morning; therefore the man who best fulfilled
all the conditions was Ferguson. He had an alibi of exactly the kind
that I expected. It covered the morning only; it was watertight in every
joint; and it was established by people like station-masters and
bus-conductors, who could have no possible reason for lying about it. If
Ferguson had really travelled by the 9.8 train from Gatehouse to
Dumfries, he _could not_ have painted the picture.

"Well, then the rest of the people began to filter along. Graham turned
up with no explanation at all, and he gave me a bad jolt; because Graham
is the one man of the six who has, not only imagination, but the same
_kind_ of imagination as my own. I could see Graham working out that
train of thought about the alibi and saying to himself that any alibi
would be suspect, and that the biggest proof of innocence would be to
have none. I believe that at that point I suspected Graham more than
anybody else. He said he could imitate Campbell's style of
painting--went out of his way to demonstrate it, too. I had an awful
feeling that we should never be able to pin Graham down to anything. His
manner was perfect. He took exactly the right line about the thing. And
he didn't mean to commit himself until he knew what he had got to meet.

"Then Ferguson came back, with plenty of witnesses to show that he had
really been to Glasgow, and told us a story which gave us at last a few
real times to go upon. I am sure that all the times he gave us were
perfectly correct, by the way, and that he didn't fall asleep or miss
anything. I barged in on him and studied his method of painting and all
that, and got him settled in my mind.

"That was the day we began to get a line on that bicycle business at
Ayr. Now, I don't want to be rude to anybody, but I do think that
bicycle ought to have been taken into account in any explanation of the
crime. The whole affair was so extremely odd that it could hardly be an
accident or a coincidence. It didn't throw any light on the personality
of the murderer, of course, because, though it was a Gatehouse bicycle,
that merely meant that the crime had been worked from Gatehouse, which
was overwhelmingly probable in any case. It was a great pity that that
unfortunate porter at Girvan should have crocked up when he did. If he
could have identified one of those photographs, he might have spared us
a lot of trouble.

"Thursday--what did I do on Thursday? Of course, yes--we got the story
of the row on the Gatehouse-Kirkcudbright road, and the spanner and the
black hair. We rather tripped up on that, Macpherson. If we'd been a bit
quicker, we could have caught Gowan before he eloped and saved several
railway-fares to London. It was my fault, because I was taken up with my
painting idea, and went round to Bob Anderson's to propose a sort of
reconstruction up at the Minnoch. I was going to cart a lot of painters
up there and set them to paint in Campbell's manner and see how long it
took them. Graham and Strachan and Ferguson were there. They all agreed
to try, except that Ferguson thought the idea wasn't in very good taste.
But the weather spoilt that plan.

"What happened then? Oh, yes. I went over to the Carrick shore and
watched Strachan painting, and he started to knock me into the sea, but
thought better of it. By that time it was clear enough that he was
either concealing something or shielding somebody, and the probability
was that he was mixed up in Farren's disappearance. I'd seen him over at
Mrs. Farren's, you know, on the Tuesday night, when I was inspecting
Waters' studio and observing what a handy place the lane was for a
car-park.

"Saturday, I didn't do much, but Waters came back and we got that
remarkable story from Mrs. Smith-Lemesurier. I was still uncertain about
Graham. It was far too stupid a story for him to put up, but, as Duncan
pointed out, the lady might have lost her head and concocted it without
reference to him.

"On Sunday I bullied Mrs. Farren into telling me where to find her
husband. I ran him to earth on Monday and had a look at his painting
methods, just before the official sleuths came along. So now I had only
three more of my painters to inspect. After that, the Chief Constable
got Strachan's story, but I knew all I needed to know about Strachan by
that time.

"My final job was to get hold of Graham and Waters and put them on to
copying Campbell's painting. That killed four birds with one stone. It
told me how they both used their colours, it gave me the time-factor I
wanted to make my theory complete and, as it happened, they gave me, in
conversation, the information I wanted about Gowan. That was why,
Inspector, I told you that I didn't need to go and see Gowan.

"Now what you are all panting to know is--what did these six people do
with their colours?

"Gowan, it appeared, was a fearfully spick and span fellow. He couldn't
paint without having everything just so. He had a place for everything
and everything in its place. He was the last person in the world to put
paints in his pockets. And besides, to tell you the truth, I feel sure
that he couldn't have produced that imitation of Campbell's style. He is
too set in his methods. Nor do I think he would have the brains to carry
out the fake from first to last. All the clever part of his little
disappearance was planned and executed by Alcock, who has the makings of
a very fine schemer indeed.

"Waters habitually chucks his paints into a satchel. Consequently, with
Campbell's satchel handy, he would naturally have chucked them into it.
And though he boasted of being able to imitate Campbell, he was slow at
copying him, and his imitation was not extraordinarily good. But yet it
wasn't bad enough to look like a deliberate attempt to do it badly. And
neither he nor Graham looked in the least as though they had any
unpleasant associations with the picture.

"Graham--well, Graham is a very clever man. _He_ knew straight away that
the painting wasn't Campbell's. He didn't exactly say so, in so many
words, but he noticed differences in the style and remarked upon them.
That might, of course, have been the culminating point in his scheme of
over-reaching me, but I was pretty sure it wasn't. He seemed genuinely
puzzled and suspicious. He also said that when painting out of doors, he
put his tubes either on the ground or in his hat, and Waters bore him
out in this. Neither Graham nor Waters showed any tendency to drop
paints into their pockets. I watched them for an hour and a half,
without surprising so much as a half-checked movement.

"Farren uses a sketching-box and is particular about putting each tube
back in its place immediately after use. I can't say what he would do
when he hadn't a box handy, but while I was at Mrs. Farren's I inspected
the pockets of his old painting-jacket, and found that they had no tubes
in them and no marks of paint on the lining. Besides, I eliminated
Farren the moment I found that he had no alibi for Tuesday morning. The
whole point of the fake was to support an alibi. If it didn't do that,
it wasn't worth doing.

"Strachan lays his colours out on the tray of his easel, always in the
same order, and he makes up his palette in a uniform order, too--the
order of the spectrum. Now Campbell's palette was not made up like that,
and the tubes of paint were all in the satchel--except, of course, the
flake white. While watching Strachan, I took the opportunity to abstract
a tube of cobalt, but he missed it instantly when he came to pack up,
though he was all of a dither at the time, on account of the things I'd
been saying to him. _He_ wasn't the man to go off with an incriminating
tube of flake white in his pocket.

"And now we come to Ferguson. Ferguson always puts paints in his pocket;
I saw him do it. Ferguson gets his colours from Roberson's, but he had a
pound tube of Winsor & Newton on his table; I saw and handled it. It was
Ferguson's mania for a particular kind of bluish shadow-tint that
puzzled Jock Graham in the faked picture. Ferguson, and nobody else,
faked that picture and established that alibi.

"Wait a minute. There are one or two other points about Ferguson that I
want to make. He is the one man with the alibi that it was the aim and
object of the murderer to establish by means of the fake. He is known to
have a remarkable visual memory for details. It was Ferguson who
objected to the painting expedition to the Minnoch. And I take off my
hat to Sir Maxwell Jamieson for affirming, in the face of all
probability, that Ferguson was the man with the special knowledge to
produce all the right appearances at the cottage to deceive Mrs. Green."

There was a short silence when Wimsey had finished this long speech,
which he delivered with an unaccustomed sobriety of style, and then Sir
Maxwell said:

"That is all very well, Wimsey, and its sounds very convincing, but
unless you can break down Ferguson's alibi, it goes for nothing at all.
We know that he--or somebody--went from Gatehouse to Dumfries with the
9.8 and on to Glasgow. The ticket was clipped at three points on the
journey, and given up at Glasgow. And besides, Ferguson was seen at
Glasgow by those magneto people, and by Miss Selby and Miss Cochran. Are
you suggesting that he had an accomplice to impersonate him, or what?"

"No. He hadn't an accomplice. But he was a student of detective
literature. Now, I'll tell you what I propose to do, with your
permission. To-morrow is Tuesday again, and we shall find all the trains
running as they did on the morning of the alibi. We will go down to the
cottage to-night and reconstruct the whole course of events from
beginning to end. I will undertake to show you exactly how the thing was
worked. If I break down at any point, then my theory breaks down. But if
I get through, I will not only prove that the thing is possible but also
that it was done that way."

"Ye canna say fairer than that," said Inspector Macpherson.

"The only thing is," said Wimsey, "that we must get Ferguson out of the
way. If he sees what we're doing, he'll bolt."

"Let him," said Macpherson, grimly. "If he bolts, we'll ken fine that
he's guilty."

"Good idea," said Wimsey. "Now, look here, we shall want a smallish,
heavyish man to be Campbell. All you police blokes are too big. I'm
afraid it will have to be you Sir Maxwell."

"I don't mind," said that stout soldier, gamely, "provided you stop
short at throwing me into the burn."

"I won't do that, but you'll have to do some very uncomfortable
motoring, I'm afraid. Then we shall want two observers, one to stay with
the corpse and the other to keep an eye on me. They will get a lot of
strenuous exercise. How about you, Fiscal?"

"No, no," said that gentleman, "I'm over old for traipsing about the
country."

"Then it had better be Inspector Macpherson and the Sergeant. You can
come as a passenger, Fiscal, if you like. Then we shall want a bicycle,
since the real bicycle is still patiently sitting at Euston, waiting for
somebody to be fool enough to claim it; eggs and bacon for everybody,
and an extra car to carry the observers."

The Inspector undertook to procure all the necessary commodities.

"Ross and Duncan," he added, "can watch Ferguson. Ye understand.
Whatever place he goes, ye'll shadow him, an' if he tries tae bolt,
ye'll arrest him."

"That's the spirit," said Wimsey. "Sir Maxwell, you will start out from
Kirkcudbright after the pubs close, and you'll be waiting at the S-bend
at 9.45. You, Macpherson, can take the observation car and play Gowan's
part in the business, but instead of returning to Kirkcudbright, you
will follow the Chief Constable down to Gatehouse, so as to be ready to
act Strachan's part when the time comes. You, Dalziel, will cling to me
and watch me like a cat watching a mouse-hole. You, Fiscal, will do as
you like. And we'll all start by having a very good dinner, for we've
got a strenuous bit of work before us."




                             CHAPTER XXVII


                           LORD PETER WIMSEY

"Hullo!" said Ferguson.

"Hullo!" said Wimsey. "This is the Procurator-Fiscal and this is
Sergeant Dalziel of Newton-Stewart, whom I fancy you've met before. We
are making a little experiment in connection with Campbell's death and
we want to use your house, if we may. It's a good place to observe from,
don't you know."

"I trust we will not be putting you out, Mr. Ferguson," added the
Fiscal, courteously.

"Not at all," said Ferguson. "Come in. What exactly do you want to do?"

"We are going to reconstruct the events of the Monday night," said
Wimsey, "and we want you to tell us if we go wrong at any point."

"Oh, certainly, with pleasure. When does the show start?"

Wimsey looked at his watch.

"Eight o'clock. It ought to be starting now. Will you do Farren,
Dalziel, or shall I? You'd better, because then I can stay here under
the Fiscal's eye."

"Verra gude," said Dalziel, and departed.

"Where were you sitting, Ferguson, when Farren arrived?"

"Here," said Ferguson, indicating an armchair by the fire.

"Good; then will you sit there again and do whatever it was you did that
night? The Fiscal shall take the opposite corner and I will sit here
between you."

"Who are you supposed to be?" asked Ferguson, with polite interest.

"Nobody just yet. Later on, I'm going to be the murderer. It's one of
those things I've always wanted to be. Hullo! that sounds like the
racket beginning."

A series of heavy thumps testified to Dalziel's conscientious attack on
Campbell's door.

"Carry on, Ferguson," said Wimsey.

Ferguson, his face a little set and pale in the light of the petrol-gas
lamp, moved across to the window and drew back the curtain.

"Who's that?" he shouted. "For God's sake stop making that filthy row.
Oh, it's you, Farren. What's the matter?"

"Whaur's that ---- ---- Campbell?" roared the Sergeant at the top of his
lungs. "Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but my orders is tae reprojuice the
conversation as reported. Where's Campbell gone?"

"Campbell? I haven't seen him all day. I haven't the faintest idea where
he is. What do you want him for?"

"I'm wantin' tae twist his guts oot," yelled the Sergeant with relish.
"I'll no have the b---- hangin' roond after my wife. Jist yew show me
whaur tae find the lousy ---- an' I'll blow his bloody brains oot."

"You're drunk," said Ferguson.

"I may be drunk an' I may no be drunk," retorted Dalziel with spirit,
"it's no matter to you. I'm not too drunk tae ken a dirty ---- when I
find him makin' love tae my wife. Where is the bastard?"

"Don't be a fool, Farren. You know perfectly well Campell's not doing
anything of the sort. Pull yourself together and forget it. Go and sleep
it off."

"Go an' so-and-so yerself," vociferated the Sergeant. "Leastways, that's
what it's set doon for me tae say. Ye're a couple o' what's-his-names,
the baith o' ye!"

"Oh, go and hang yourself!" said Ferguson.

"Ay, that's jist what I'm goin' tae do," said Dalziel. "I'm away tae
hang masel' jist noo, but I'll ha'e the life oot o' Campbell first."

"Oh, right-oh! hang yourself by all means, but don't come making that
bloody row. Go and do it somewhere else, for Christ's sake."

There was a pause. Ferguson remained at the window. Then a plaintive
voice inquired from outside:

"What'll I do now, sir? My directions is tae hang aboot a bit."

"You kick the door violently," said Ferguson, "and walk round to the
back and make a noise there. Then you come back and let off a lot of
foul language and go off on your bicycle."

"Is that right, sir?"

"Just about right," said Ferguson. "An excellent performance. I
congratulate you."

"Will I go away, now?"

"Put the bicycle in its place," said Wimsey, joining Ferguson at the
window, "and then come back here."

"Verra gude," said Dalziel. His red tail-lamp moved away to the gate and
vanished behind the hedge.

"The worthy Sergeant is enjoying himself," said Ferguson. "His choice of
language is not quite as good as Farren's, though."

"Our presence probably cramped his style a bit," said Wimsey.
"Eight-fifteen. The next act doesn't take place till after ten. What
shall we do, Fiscal? Play cards or tell stories? Or would you like me to
read aloud to you? Ferguson has a fine collection of detective novels."
He strolled over to the shelves. "Hullo, Ferguson, where's that thing of
Connington's _The Two Tickets Puzzle_? I was going to recommend that to
the Fiscal. I think he'd like it."

"I've lent it to the padre at the Anwoth," replied Ferguson.

"What a pity! Never mind. Here's an Austin Freeman. He's always sound
and informative. Try this one, _The Eye of Osiris_. Great stuff. All
about a mummy. Or Kennedy's _Corpse on the Mat_--that's nice and light
and cheerful, like its title. Or if you're fed up with murders, try the
new Cole, _Burglars in Bucks_."

"Thank you," said the Fiscal, in an austere voice, belied by the twinkle
behind his glasses. "I have brought the latest number of _Blackwood_ to
while away the time."

"Crushed again!" said Wimsey. "Ah! here's Dalziel. Come on, Sergeant.
I'll take you on at dominoes for ha'penny points. I'm a great dab at
dominoes."

Ferguson took up a book and sat down by the fire. Wimsey produced a box
of dominoes from his pocket and slung them out on the table. The
Sergeant pulled a chair in beside him. The Fiscal turned over the pages
of _Blackwood_.

The silence became oppressive. The flutter of leaves, the click of the
dominoes, and the ticking of the clock sounded unnaturally loud. Nine
o'clock struck. Wimsey paid the Sergeant fourpence and the game went on.

Ten o'clock struck.

"This is where you start getting ready for bed, isn't it, Ferguson,"
said Wimsey without taking his eyes from the table.

"Yes." Ferguson pushed back his chair and got up. He wandered round the
room, putting away a newspaper here and a book there. One or twice he
dropped things and had to pick them up. He walked over to the shelf and
selected a book, then poured out a glass of whiskey and soda. He drank
this slowly, standing by the mantelpiece.

"Do I put out the light?" he asked, when he had finished.

"Did you put out the light?"

"Yes."

"Put it out then."

Ferguson turned off the petrol-gas. The light dimmed and sank. The
mantle glowed redly for a moment or two, and faded gradually out.

"Do I go to bed?" came the voice from the dark.

"Did you go to bed?"

"Yes."

"Go to bed then."

Ferguson's footsteps passed slowly out of the door and up the stairs.

"My God," said Wimsey, softly. "I had my revolver ready. Listen!"

The hum of a car came down the lane. It drew nearer, louder. The car was
turning in at the gate. The headlights flashed across the window and
passed. Wimsey got up.

"Do you hear that, Ferguson?" he called up the stair.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Campbell's car."

"Can you see it?"

"I'm not looking at it. But I know the sound of the engine."

Wimsey went out into the yard. The engine was still running noisily, and
the driver appeared to be finding some difficulty in backing into the
shed.

"What the bloody hell are you doing, Campbell?" shouted Wimsey. "Mind
where you're going, you drunken ass. You'll have that wall down again."

The reply was an outburst of very military language. Wimsey retorted,
and a handsome slanging-match ensued. Sergeant Dalziel, stealing up the
stairs in his stockinged feet, found Ferguson hanging with head and
shoulders out of the bedroom window.

The voices of the men wrangling below came up loudly. Then there was a
leap and a scuffle. Two dark bodies swayed backwards and forwards. Then
came a crash and a heavy fall, followed by a most realistic groan.

"Was that the way it was, Mr. Ferguson?"

Ferguson turned so sharply that he hit his head a crash against the
window-frame.

"How you startled me!" he said. "No, not in the least. I heard nothing
of that kind. Nothing like that happened at all."

"Och, weel," said the Sergeant philosophically. "We'll maybe be
mistaken. An' by the way, Mr. Ferguson, I was tae ask ye no tae gae tae
yer bed jist noo, because we'll be wantin' the room for the pairpose of
observation."

"What am I to do then?"

"Ye'll jist come doon an' sit wi' the Fiscal in the back room."

"I don't know what you're getting at," said Ferguson yielding to the
Sergeant's clutch upon his arm, "but you've got it all wrong, you know.
And if I'm not to get any rest to-night, I think I'd better go over and
ask for a bed at the Anwoth."

"That's no a bad idea, sir," replied the Sergeant, "but we'll ask ye tae
bide here till 12 o'clock. I'll jist run over tae the hotel an' tell
them tae expect ye."

"Oh, I can do that, Sergeant."

"I'll no be pittin' ye tae the trouble, sir," replied Dalziel, politely.
He had used his torch to guide them down the stair and now led his
victim into the studio, where the Fiscal was once more placidly reading
_Blackwood_ by the light of a candle.

"Sit ye doon, sir," he urged, pleasantly. "I'll be back in a crack. Ah!
here's Inspector Macphairson comin' in wi' the observation car. He'll be
company for ye."

In a very few moments the Inspector came in.

"Whit's happened?" asked the Sergeant, eagerly.

"His Lordship is carryin' on terrible over the corp," said the Inspector
with a grin, "tryin' tae revive it wi' whuskey."

"Will ye bide here a moment, Inspector, while I rin over tae the Anwoth
tae bespeak a room for Mr. Ferguson?"

Macpherson glanced from the frail figure of the Fiscal to Ferguson,
kneading his handkerchief into a ball between his clammy hands. Then he
nodded. The Sergeant went out. There was a long silence.

Sergeant Dalziel went no farther than the gate, where he flashed his
torch. The bulky form of Constable Ross rose silently out of the hedge.
Dalziel dispatched him to the hotel with a whispered message, and then
went to see what was happening in the yard.

Here he found the Chief Constable extended flat on the ground,
apparently receiving frantic first aid from Wimsey.

"Is he deid yet?" asked Dalziel sympathetically.

"As mutton," replied the murderer, sadly. "I daresay we ought to have
spun the riot out a bit longer, but the great thing is that he's dead.
What's the time? Half-past ten. That's good enough. He breathed
stertorously for a few minutes, and then, you know, he died. How did
Ferguson take it?"

"Badly," replied the Sergeant, "but he denies it."

"Naturally he would."

"He's away tae the Anwoth for a quiet night."

"Then I hope he'll sleep well. But we shall want him here till 12."

"Ay, I've settled that."

"Good. Carry on now. I'm supposed to be thinking out my plan of escape."

The Sergeant waited for the return of P.C. Ross, and then went back to
Ferguson's house to announce that all was well.

"How did your bit go, sir?" he asked the Inspector.

"Fine--the time worked out beautifully. We allowed five minutes for the
struggle and five for the hair-cuttin' business."

"Did anyone pass ye?"

"Not a solitary soul."

"That was gude luck. Weel, I'll away tae his lordship."

"Ay."

"But this is all wrong, you know, Inspector," protested Ferguson. "A
thing like that couldn't have happened without my hearing it."

"It'll maybe have taken place in the road," said the Inspector,
diplomatically, "but it's mair convenient tae du't in private."

"Oh, I see."

The Sergeant returned to the yard to find Wimsey laboriously hoisting
the Chief Constable on his back. He carried the inert body into the
garage and dumped it on the floor, rather heavily. "Hi!" said the
corpse. "You shut up," said Wimsey, "you're dead, sir. I couldn't drag
you. It might leave marks."

He stood looking down on the body.

"No blood," he said, "thank God there's no blood. I'll do it. I must do
it. I must think, that's all. Think. I might pretend to be out fishing.
But that's no good. I've got to have a witness. Suppose I just leave him
here and pretend that Farren did it. But Farren may have gone home.
He'll be able to prove he wasn't here. Besides, I don't want to get
Farren into trouble if I can help it. Can't I make it look like an
accident?"

He went out to the car.

"Better put this in," he said, "Farren might come back. If he does, I've
got him. Or he's got me. One or the other. No, that won't do. Anyway, I
can't count on it. The accident's the thing. And an alibi. Wait!"

He backed the car into the garage and switched the lights out.

"Whiskey's the next move, I think," said he. He picked up the bottle
from where he had left it. "Probably, Dalziel, I did my thinking in the
cottage, but just for the moment I'll do it in the garage. I'll just
fetch a couple of glasses and the water-jug."

A smothered shout from the garage indicated at this point that the
corpse was growing restive.

"All right, corpse," yelled Wimsey, cheerfully, "I'm getting drinks."

He fetched the glasses and the water, Dalziel moving doglike at his
heels, and brought the whole consignment back to the garage.

"We'll all have a drink," he said. "Corpse, you may sit up. Now, listen.
It's difficult for me to think this plan out aloud now, because I know
beforehand what it's going to be. But I know that when I was detecting
it, it took me about an hour to hit on the general outline of it, and a
bit more to fill in the details. So we'll give Ferguson all that time to
play with. At about half-past eleven I shall begin to get to work.
Meanwhile I think I'll make out a list of the things I've got to do. It
would be fatal to forget anything."

He switched on the lights again, then switched them off.

"Better not do that. Can't run the risk of letting the batteries run
down. Lend me your torch, Dalziel. I don't want to do it at the cottage,
under Ferguson's nose. He might, of course, betray himself and confess,
but he might not. Besides, I'd rather he didn't really. I've set my
heart on this reconstruction."

He pulled a notebook out of his pocket and began to write. The Chief
Constable and the Sergeant passed the whiskey bottle from hand to hand
and conversed in whispers. Eleven o'clock struck from the church tower.
Wimsey went on writing. At a quarter-past eleven, he read his notes
through very carefully, and stowed them away in his pocket. After ten
minutes more, he stood up.

"I'm supposed to have made my plans now," he said, "more or less, that
is. Now I've got to start work. I've got to sleep in two beds to-night,
so I'll start with Ferguson's. Dalziel, you must be getting ready to be
Strachan."

The Sergeant nodded.

"And the corpse had better stay here. Cheerio, folks. Leave a drink or
two in the bottle for me."

The corpse and the Sergeant stood for a moment at the door and watched
Wimsey's dark figure cross the yard. It was dark, but not pitch-dark,
and they saw him slip through the door. Presently the light of a candle
flickered in the bedroom. Dalziel moved away, got into the observation
car and started it up.

"Ferguson!"

Wimsey's voice sounded a little hoarse. Ferguson rose and went to the
foot of the stairway.

"Come up here."

Ferguson went up rather reluctantly, and found Wimsey with his shoes
off, and in his shirt-sleeves standing by the bed.

"I'm going to lie down and have a rest. I want you to wait here with me
till something happens."

"This is a silly game."

"It is, rather, I'm afraid. But you'll soon be out of it."

Wimsey got into bed and drew the clothes over him. Ferguson took a chair
by the window. Presently the noise of an approaching car was heard. It
stopped at the gate, and footsteps passed hurriedly across the yard.

Knock, knock, knock.

Wimsey consulted his watch. Ten minutes after midnight. He got out of
bed and stood close behind Ferguson, almost touching him.

"Look out of window, please."

Ferguson obeyed. A dark form stood on Campbell's threshold. It knocked
again, stepped back and looked up at the windows, walked round the house
and came round to the door again. Then it moved aside and seemed to
fumble behind the window shutter. Then came the scrape of a key being
fitted into a lock. The door opened, and the figure went in.

"Is that right?"

"Yes."

They watched again. There came a flash of light on the side window of
the downstairs room. Then it passed away and presently appeared in the
bedroom, the window of which faced Campbell's. It moved as though it
were being flashed about the room; then vanished. After a little time it
reappeared downstairs and remained stationary.

"Is that right?"

"Not quite. It was matches, not a torch."

"I see. How did you know that, by the way? I thought you only heard this
person come and didn't see anything."

He heard the hiss of Ferguson's breath. Then:--

"Did I say that? I didn't mean to give quite that impression. I heard
the door open and saw the light upstairs. But I didn't actually see the
person who came."

"And you didn't see him come out again?"

"No."

"And you had no idea who it was?"

"No."

"And you saw nobody else that night?"

"Nobody."

"And you saw Campbell go off in his car at 7.30 next morning?"

"Yes."

"Right. Then you can hop it now, if you want to."

"Well, I think I will.... I say, Wimsey!"

"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing! Good night!"

"Good night."

"He nearly told me then," said Wimsey. "Poor devil!"

Ferguson went out of the house and out of the gate. Two stealthy shadows
crept out from the hedge and followed him.

Wimsey waited at the window till he saw Dalziel leave the next-door
cottage and carefully lock the door behind him, replacing the key in its
hiding-place. When the hum of the car had died away in the distance, he
ran hastily down the stairs, and across to the garage.

"Corpse!" he cried.

"Yessir!" said the corpse, smartly.

"While that ghastly blighter was nosing round--I--in my rle as
murderer, you understand--had an awful thought. All this time you're
getting stiff. If I leave you like that I shall never be able to pack
you into the back of the car. Come out, sir, and be arranged in a nice
hunched-up position."

"Don't you dump me in the car earlier?"

"No, or you wouldn't look natural. I lay you out on the floor to set.
Now, where's that blighter Dalziel? I hope he hasn't buzzed zealously
off to Falbae. No. Here he comes. Dalziel, help me to arrange the corpse
exactly as it looked when it was found. It had the arms folded round in
front, I think, and the head tucked down on them--no! not as far as
that--we mustn't cover up the bruise on the temple. That's here. Now the
legs bundled up sideways. Right. Hold that. That's beautiful."

"Do I stay like this all night?" asked Sir Maxwell, dolefully.

"No--but remember the pose. We shall want it to-morrow. We'll consider
that done. Now we lock the garage door and take the key, for fear of
other visitors. Now we go across to Campbell's place. Hullo, Fiscal!
come to see the fun? And Macpherson? That's the ticket.

"Now we find the key and open the door, locking it, I think, behind us.
We shut the shutters and light up. My God! what's this? A note. _Look
out for F._ Great Jehoshaphat--Oh, no, of course, it doesn't mean me--it
means Farren. Now--do we use that or destroy it? Better destroy it. It's
an accident we're staging, not a murder. We don't want the slightest
suggestion of violence. Besides--must be decent to Farren. Campbell is
alive till 7.30 to-morrow, so he found this and read it. When did he
come in, though? After 12, of course, since Strachan can say he wasn't
here earlier. Yes, but how do I know how many people saw him come in at
10.15? Must say one thing or the other. Better suggest he came in and
then went out again while I was asleep. On foot, perhaps, so that I
didn't hear the car. Damn Strachan! What did he want to come poking his
nose in for, anyhow?

"Well, now--Campbell's bed and Campbell's pyjamas. I don't think we put
on the pyjamas. We shake them out--Tuesday's wash-day, so they've had a
week's use, and we've only got to sprawl them about on the floor to make
'em look natural. Basin--dirty water--wash the hands and face. That does
that and leaves the towel untidy. Bed. Must get into that. Horrid
business, lying in bed when you can't and mustn't sleep, but it's got to
be done. And one can think.

"One can read, too. I've provided some literature. Got it out of
Ferguson's place just now. L.M.S. Timetable. Great work of literature.
Style slightly telegraphic, but packed with interest. Road-map, too,
also from next-door. Does the bed look sufficiently towsled yet? No,
I'll give it half an hour--rather a restless half-hour, I'm afraid."

The restless half-hour over, the murderer crawled out of bed, dragging
half the clothes with him.

"I think that's fairly convincing. Now. Throw dirty water into slop-pail
and dirty a fresh lot. Shaving brush? Toothbrush? Damn it, no. Must do
them later on, or they'll dry up. But I can go down and pack up the
painting kit and lay two breakfast-tables. And meanwhile, you know, I
can still be thinking out my plan. There's a horrible hole in it at
present, and one place where I simply must trust rather to luck. By the
way, my present intention, I may tell you, is to catch the 12.35 at
Barrhill. But that absolutely depends on my getting away in good time
from the Minnoch. Let's pray there won't be many people about."

"But ye didna gae tae Barrhill."

"No; I think something happened to make me change my mind." Wimsey was
busily sorting out crockery. "You'll remember that my over-mastering
necessity is to get to Glasgow somehow. I have announced my intention of
going, and I shall be feeling morbidly nervous about making any change
of plan. If you only knew how my brain is spinning at the moment. There!
there's Campbell's breakfast all laid out ready: tea-pot, cup and
saucer, two plates, knife, fork, bread, butter, sugar. Milk! I must
remember to take Campbell's milk in in the morning, by the way; I know
when to expect it, you see. Eggs, rasher and frying-pan laid out in the
kitchen. Now, over to my own house. Same business here. I believe I had
kippers for breakfast actually, but it doesn't matter. For my own
convenience I will make it a boiled egg."

He chattered on as he laid the breakfast-materials out. Then suddenly,
as though struck by a sudden thought, he dropped the saucepan on the
kitchen floor.

"Curse it! I was nearly forgetting. All this alibi depends on my going
by train from Gatehouse. But I told a whole lot of people yesterday that
I was going to drive to Dumfries and take the 7.35 train from there. Why
should I change my mind? It will look so funny. The car. Something wrong
with the car. Something the local people can't be supposed to put right
in a hurry. Of course--mag. trouble. Yes--I can work that, and it'll
probably help my alibi, too. Steady, old man. Loads of time. Be sure you
finish one thing properly before you start another. Right. Breakfast's
ready. Now then. I've done my bed, but I haven't done the water and
things. Do that now. Pyjamas--there! One lot dirty water. Two lots dirty
water. Happy thought. Clean socks and shirt to go to Glasgow in, and
respectable suit. You must imagine that I'm doing all this. Must be a
grey flannel suit, to match those bags of Campbell's. Here it is, as a
matter of fact, hanging up. I won't put it on, but we might have a look
at the pockets. Hullo, Macpherson, here you are! See the smear of white
paint on the lining of the left-hand jacket pocket? Careless, careless.
A little benzine rids us of this guilt. Well, well, well."

He went swiftly through the motions of changing his garments, while the
police, with satisfaction, examined the grey flannel jacket. Play-acting
was all very well, but this had the appearance of solid evidence.

Presently Wimsey indicated that the change of clothes was supposed to be
accomplished.

"I am spending the night in Glasgow," he went on, "so I must pack an
attach-case. Here it is. Clean pyjamas, shaving-tackle, toothbrush.
Better shave now, to save time. Five minutes for a shave. In they go.
What else? Oh, a burberry. Absolutely essential. But I shall want to use
that first. And a soft felt hat. _Voil!_ A clean collar, no doubt.
There it is. And the magneto will have to go in. That will just about
fill the case. Now we go over the way again."

He led them back to Campbell's cottage, where, after putting on a pair
of thin gloves, he carefully checked and repacked all the articles
contained in Campbell's painting-outfit, which had been brought over by
Dalziel from the police-station for that purpose.

"Campbell would take some grub with him," observed the murderer
thoughtfully. "I'd better cut some. Here is a ham in the cupboard.
Bread, butter, ham, mustard. And a small whiskey-flask, considerately
left in full view. I think I shall be right in filling it up. Splendid.
Now we go out and detach the mag. from our own car. Gently does it. Up
she comes. Now we've got to damage her somewhere. I won't do it really,
but we'll suppose it done. Wrap her up neatly in brown paper. Careful
man, Ferguson. Always keeps odd bits of string and paper and stationery
handy in case they're wanted. Right. Now we'll put this in the
attach-case so that we don't forget it. We shall want an extra cap for
when we cease to be Campbell. We'll put that in the pocket of Campbell's
cloak. Oh, yes. And this pair of spectacles will be a good aid to
disguise. They're Campbell's, but happily they are just sun-glare
glasses with plain lenses so that's O.K. We'll put those in our pocket.
Now then, we're all fit and ready.

"Now comes the moment when we have to trust to a stroke of luck. We've
got to go out and find a bicycle. It may take a bit of time, but the
odds are that if it isn't down one close it'll be down the next. Put out
the lights. Lock both doors and take the keys away. We can't risk any
more Strachans paying visits while we're away."

Suiting the action to the words, Wimsey left the cottages and walked
briskly away down the road, closely followed by his observers. "I told
you there'd be walking exercise," said Wimsey. "You people had better
take the car. I shall have the bike to come back on."

As the cortge arrived opposite the Anwoth Hotel, a bulky form came
cautiously up to meet it.

"He's in there, all right," said P.C. Ross. "Duncan's watching the other
entrance and we've got the Gatehouse policeman sittin' in the back
garden tae see that he doesna' get oot by the windows. Here's your
bicycle, my lord."

"Wonderful!" said Wimsey. "Hit it the very first shot. Anybody'd think
it had been left there on purpose. No"--as the constable obligingly
struck a match. "No lights. I'm supposed to be stealing this, my dear
man. Good night--or rather, good morning. Wish us luck."

It was a little after two when Wimsey got back to the cottages with the
bicycle.

"Now," he said, when he had deposited the bicycle in the garage, "we can
have a rest. Nothing further happens till about 5 o'clock."

The conspirators accordingly rolled themselves up in rugs and coats and
disposed themselves on chairs and hearth-rugs, the couch being voted to
the Fiscal in right of seniority.

The Chief Constable, being an old soldier, slept promptly and soundly.
He was awakened a little before five by a clashing of pots and pans.

"Breakfast for the observers is served in the kitchen," said Wimsey's
voice in his ear. "I am going up to finish off the bedrooms."

At a quarter past five this job was finished, Campbell's toothbrush and
shaving-brush and both sets of soap and towels left wet and the proper
appearances produced. Wimsey then came in to cook and eat his solitary
eggs and bacon in Campbell's front room. The tea-pot was left on the hob
to keep warm.

"I don't know," said Wimsey, "whether he left the fires going or re-lit
them. He did one or the other, and it doesn't matter a hoot. Now,
corpse, it's time I packed you into the car. I probably did it earlier,
but you'd have been so uncomfortable. Come and take up your pose again,
and remember you're supposed to be perfectly rigid by now."

"This may be fun to you," grumbled Sir Maxwell, "but it's death to me."

"So it is," said Wimsey. "Never mind. Ready? Up you go!"

"Eh!" said Macpherson, as Wimsey seized the Chief Constable's cramped
and reluctant body and swung it into the back seat of the Morris, "but
your lordship's wonderful strong for your size."

"It's just a knack," said Wimsey, ruthlessly ramming his victim down
between the seat and the floor. "I hope you aren't permanently damaged,
sir. Can you stick it?" he added, as he pulled on his gloves.

"Carry on," said the corpse, in a muffled voice.

Wimsey slung in the painting outfit--stool, satchel and easel--followed
it with Campbell's cloak and hat, and piled the bicycle on top, securing
it with a tow-rope which he produced from a corner of the garage, and
tucking a large rug round and over his awkward load.

"We'll let the easel stick out a bit," he remarked. "It looks innocent
and explains the rest of the load. Is that right? What's the time?"

"A quarter to six, my lord."

"Right; now we can start."

"But ye've no eaten Ferguson's breakfast, my lord."

"No; that comes later. Wait a bit. We'd better lock the doors again.
Right-ho!"

He drew a cloth cap closely down upon his head, muffled himself
unrecognisably in a burberry and muffler, and climbed into the
driving-seat.

"Ready? Right. Let her go!"

The car with its burden moved gently out into the pale light of the
morning. It bore round to the right at the end of the lane and took the
direction of Gatehouse Station. The observation car swung in behind and
followed it.

Upwards the road climbed steadily, mounting triumphantly past the wooded
beauty of Castramont, ever higher over the lovely valley of the Fleet.
Through the trees and out on to the lofty edge of the moor, with the
rolling hills lifting their misty heads upon the right. Past the quarry
and up still farther to the wide stretch of heather and pasture. Sheep
stared at them from the roadside, and scurried foolishly across their
path. Partridges, enjoying their last weeks of security, rose whirring
and clattering from among the ling. Over to the north-east, white in the
morning, the graceful arches of the Fleet viaduct gleamed pallidly. And
ahead, grim and frowning, stood the great wall of the Clints of Dromore,
scarred and sheer and granite-grey, the gate of the wilderness and
guardian-barrier of the Fleet.

The little cottage by the level crossing seemed still asleep and the
gates stood open. The cars passed over the line and, avoiding the
station entrance, turned sharp away to the left, along the old road to
Creetown. Here, for some distance, the way was flanked on either side by
a stone wall, but, after a few hundred yards, the walls came to a stop.
Wimsey held up a warning hand, stopped, turned his car, with some
bumping, over the grass, and drove it well behind the shelter of the
wall on the left. The police-car halted in the middle of the road.

"What noo?" asked Macpherson.

Wimsey alighted and peered cautiously under the rug.

"Still alive, Sir Maxwell?"

"Only just."

"Well, I think you might come out now and have a stretch. You won't be
needed again till 9 o'clock. Sit down comfortably with the Fiscal and
have a smoke."

"And what do the others do?"

"They walk back with me to Gatehouse," said Wimsey, with a grim smile.

"Mayn't we bring the car?" said Macpherson, mournfully.

"You can if you like, but it would be more sporting to cheer me with a
little pleasant conversation. Damn it! I've _got_ to walk."

Eventually it was arranged that Macpherson should walk with Lord Peter,
while Dalziel brought the car along behind in case the station-omnibus
proved to be crowded. Telling the Fiscal to see that the corpse behaved
itself, Wimsey waved a cheerful hand and started off with Macpherson to
trudge the six-and-a-half miles back to Gatehouse.

The last mile was the most awkward, for the road was getting busy, and
they had to be continually diving over walls and under hedges to avoid
observation. At the last moment they were nearly caught in the lane by
the paper-boy, who passed, whistling, within a foot of them while they
crouched behind a convenient hawthorn-bush.

"Damn the paper-boy," said Wimsey. "Ferguson, of course, would have been
expecting him. In any case, he probably did all this earlier, but I
didn't want to keep the corpse out all night. A quarter to eight. We've
cut it rather fine. Never mind. Here goes."

They took the remainder of the lane at a run, unlocked Campbell's door,
hid the key, performed the motions of taking in the milk and emptying
part of it down the sink, took in and opened letters and newspapers, and
dashed back to Ferguson's cottage. Here Wimsey took in Ferguson's milk,
boiled his egg and made his tea, and sat down to his breakfast with an
air of simple enjoyment.

At 8 o'clock, the rotund form of Mrs. Green was seen waddling down the
lane. Wimsey looked out of the window and waved a friendly hand to her.

"Better warn her, Macpherson," he said. "If she goes into Campbell's
place, she'll have a fit."

Macpherson hurried out, and was seen to vanish into the next-door
cottage with Mrs. Green. Presently he returned, smiling broadly.

"Verra gude, my lord," he said, "she's tellt me it a' luiks fine; jist
precisely as it did the mornin' Campbell was missin'."

"Good," said Wimsey. He finished his breakfast, packed the burberry into
the attach-case, and made a tour of inspection round the house, to make
sure that nothing looked suspicious. With the exception of the
mysterious remains of four extra breakfasts in the kitchen, everything
seemed normal. He strolled out, met Mrs. Green in the front of the
cottages, had a word with her, mentioned that he was catching the
station 'bus and strolled down to the end of the lane.

Shortly after 8.30, the pant of the omnibus was heard coming along the
road. Wimsey flagged it and got in. The police car followed on behind,
much to the interest of the other passengers in the omnibus.

At 9 o'clock, or a little after, 'bus and car drew up in the station
yard. Wimsey alighted and came across to the car.

"I want you, Inspector, to come across to the train with me. When the
train has gone, come out and join Dalziel here. Then get out on to the
road and pick up the other car."

The two officers nodded, and Wimsey strolled into the station with the
Inspector at his heels. He spoke to the station-master and booking-clerk
and bought a first-class return to Glasgow. After a few minutes, the
train was signalled, and a general exodus took place to the opposite
platform. The station-master marched across, carrying the staff under
his arm; the signalman came down from his lofty perch and crossed also,
to perform the duties of a porter. The passengers from the 'bus streamed
across the line, followed by the 'bus-conductor on the look-out for
return passengers with parcels. The booking-clerk retired into his
office and took up a paper. Wimsey and the Inspector crossed over with
the other passengers.

The train came in. Wimsey wrung the Inspector's hand affectionately, as
though he were not going to see him again for a month, and stepped into
the first-class compartment which the porter was holding open for him.
The station-master exchanged staffs and a pleasantry or two with the
guard. A crate of poultry was wheeled along and dumped into the van. It
suddenly occurred to Macpherson that this was all wrong. He ought to
have been travelling with Wimsey. He darted to the carriage-window and
looked in. The compartment was empty. The whistle blew. The guard waved
his flag. The porter, with great bustle, urged Macpherson to "stand
away." The train moved out. Macpherson, left gazing up and down the
line, perceived that it was empty.

"By God!" said Macpherson, slapping his thigh. "In at one side and oot
at t'ither. The auldest dodge in the haill bag o' tricks."

He ran precipitately across the line and joined Dalziel.

"The cunning wee b----!" he exclaimed affectionately. "He's did it! Did
ye see him come across?"

Dalziel shook his head.

"Is that what he did? Och, the station buildin's is between us. There's
a path through the station-master's garden. He'll ha' come by that.
We'll best be movin'."

They passed up the station entrance and turned along the road. In front
of them went a small grey figure, walking briskly. It was then ten
minutes past nine.




                             CHAPTER XXVIII


                           LORD PETER WIMSEY

The corpse was repacked into the car. Wimsey put on Campbell's hat and
cloak, again wrapping a muffler closely about his chin so that very
little of his features was visible beneath the flapping black brim. He
backed the car out on to the road and drove gently away towards
Creetown. The road was stony, and Wimsey knew that his tyres were a good
deal worn. A puncture would have been fatal. He kept his speed down to a
cautious twenty miles an hour. He thought as he drove how maddening this
slow progress must have been to Ferguson, to whom time had been so
precious. With a real corpse in the back seat, it must have been a
horrible temptation to go all out, at whatever risk.

The road was completely deserted, except for the wee burn which chuckled
along placidly beside them. Once he had to get down to open a gate. The
burn, deserting the right-hand side of the road, ran under a small
bridge and reappeared on their left, glimmering down over stones to
meander beneath a clump of trees. The sun was growing stronger.

Between twenty and twenty-five minutes past nine they came down at the
head of the steep little plunge into Creetown, opposite the clock-tower.
Wimsey swung the car out to the right into the main road, and
encountered the astonished gaze of the proprietor of the Ellangowan
Hotel, who was talking to a motorist by the petrol-pump. For a moment he
stared as though he had seen a ghost--then he caught sight of Macpherson
and Dalziel, following in the second car with the Fiscal, and waved his
hand with an understanding smile.

"First incident not according to schedule," said Wimsey. "It's odd that
Ferguson shouldn't have been seen at this point--especially as he would
quite probably have liked to be seen. But that's life. If you want a
thing, you don't get it."

He pressed his foot on the accelerator and took the road at a good
thirty-five miles an hour.

Five miles farther on, he passed the turn to the New Galloway road. It
was just after half-past nine.

"Near enough," said Wimsey to himself. He kept his foot down and hurried
along over the fine new non-skid surface which had just been laid down
and was rapidly making the road from Creetown to Newton-Stewart one of
the safest and finest in the three kingdoms. Just outside
Newton-Stewart, he had to slow down to pass the road-engine and workers,
the road-laying having now advanced to that point. After a brief delay,
bumping over the new-laid granite, he pushed on again, but instead of
following the main road, turned off just before he reached the bridge
into a third-class road running parallel to the main road through
Minnigaff, and following the left bank of the Cree. It ran through a
wood and past the Cruives of Cree, through Longbaes and Borgan, and
emerged into the lonely hill-country, swelling with green mound after
green mound, round as the hill of the King of El-land; then a sharp
right-hand turn and he saw his goal before him--the bridge, the rusty
iron gate, and the steep granite wall that overhung the Minnoch.

He ran the car up upon the grass and got out. The police-car drew up
into the shelter of a little quarry on the opposite side of the road.
When the observers came up with him, Wimsey was already rolling back the
rug and pulling out the bicycle.

"Ye've made verra gude time," observed the Inspector. "It's jist on 10
o'clock."

Wimsey nodded. He ran up on to the higher ground and surveyed the road
and the hills to left and right. Not a soul was to be seen--not so much
as a cow or a sheep. Though they were only just off a main road and a
few hundred yards from a farm, the place was as still and secret as the
heart of a desert. He ran down again to the car, flung the painting-kit
upon the grass, opened the door of the tonneau and clutched ruthlessly
the huddled form of the Chief Constable, who, more dead than alive after
his disagreeable journey, hardly needed to feign the stiffness which was
cramping him in every limb. Hoisted in a dismal bundle on Wimsey's back,
he made the last lurching stage of his progress, to be dumped with a
heavy thud on the hard granite, at the edge of the incline.

"Wait there," said Wimsey, in a menacing tone, "and don't move, or
you'll fall into the river."

The Chief Constable dug his fingers into a bunch of heather and prayed
silently. He opened his eyes, saw the granite sloping sharply away
beneath him, and shut them again. After a few minutes, he felt himself
enveloped in a musty smother of rug. Then came another pause, and the
sound of voices and heartless laughter. Then he was deserted again. He
tried to imagine what was happening and guessed, rightly, that Wimsey
was secreting the bicycle somewhere. Then the voices came back, and a
few muttered curses suggested that somebody was setting up an easel with
unpractised hands. More laughter. Then the rug was twitched from his
head and Wimsey's voice announced, "You can come out now."

Sir Maxwell retreated cautiously on hands and knees from the precipice,
which, to his prejudiced eyes, appeared to be about two hundred feet in
depth, rolled over and sat up.

"Oh, God!" he said, rubbing his legs. "What have I done to deserve all
this?"

"I'm sorry, sir," said Wimsey. "If you had been really dead, you know,
you wouldn't have noticed it. But I didn't like to go as far as that.
Well, now we've got an hour and a half. I ought to paint the picture,
but, as that is beyond me, I thought we might have a little picnic.
There's some grub in the other car. They're just bringing it up."

"I could do with something to drink," said Sir Maxwell.

"You shall have it. Hullo! Somebody's coming. We'll give them a start.
Get under the rug again, sir."

The distant clack of a farm-lorry was making itself heard in the
distance. The Chief Constable hurriedly snatched up the rug and froze.
Wimsey sat down before the easel and assumed brush and palette.

Presently the lorry loomed into sight over the bridge. The driver,
glancing across with natural interest at the spot where the tragedy had
taken place, suddenly caught sight of the easel, the black hat and the
conspicuous cloak. He gave vent to one fearful yell and rammed his foot
down on the accelerator. The lorry went leaping and crashing forward,
scattering the stones right and left in its mad progress. Wimsey
laughed. The Chief Constable sprang up to see what was happening and
laughed too. In a few minutes the rest of the party joined them, so
agitated with laughter that they could scarcely hold the parcels they
were carrying.

"Och, mon!" said Dalziel, "but that was grand! That was young Jock. Did
ye hear the skelloch he let oot? He's away noo tae tell the folks at
Clauchaneasy that auld Campbell's ghaist is sittin' up pentin' pictures
at the Minnoch."

"I trust the poor lad will come to no harm with his lorry," observed the
Fiscal. "He appeared to me to be driving at a reckless pace."

"Never mind him," said the Chief Constable. "Lads like that have nine
lives. But I'm dying of hunger and thirst, if you are not. Half-past
five is a terrible hour for breakfast."

The picnic was a cheerful one, though it was a little disturbed by the
return of Jock, supported by a number of friends, to view the phenomenon
of a ghost in broad daylight.

"This is getting rather public," said Wimsey.

Sergeant Dalziel grunted, and strode down to warn the spectators off,
his stalwart jaws still champing a wedge of veal and ham pie. The hills
returned to their wonted quiet.

At 11.25 Wimsey rose regretfully.

"Corpse-time," he said. "Here, Sir Maxwell, is the moment when you go
bumpety-bump into the water."

"Is it?" said the Chief Constable. "I draw the line there."

"It would make you rather a wet-blanket on the party," said Wimsey.
"Well, we'll suppose it done. Pack up, you languid aristocrats, and
return to your Rolls-Royce, while I pant and sweat upon this confounded
bicycle. We had better take away the Morris and the rest of the doings.
There's no point in leaving them."

He removed Campbell's cloak and changed the black hat for his own cap,
then retrieved the bicycle from its hiding-place, and strapped the
attach-case to the carrier. With a grunt of disgust he put on the
tinted spectacles, threw his leg across the saddle and pedalled
furiously away. The others packed themselves at leisure into the two
cars. The procession wound out upon the Bargrennan road.

Nine and a half miles of crawling in the wake of the bicycle brought
them to Barrhill. Just outside the village, Wimsey signalled a halt.

"Look here," said he. "Here's where I have to guess. I guess that
Ferguson meant to catch the 12.35 here, but something went wrong. It's
12.33 now, and I could just do it. The station is just down that
side-road there. But he must have started late and missed it. I don't
know why. Listen! There she comes!"

As he spoke, the smoke of the train came in view. They heard her draw up
into the station. Then, in a few minutes, she panted away again.

"Well on time," said Wimsey. "Anyway, we've missed her now. She's a
local as far as Girvan. Then she turns into an express, only stopping at
Maybole before she gets to Ayr. Then she becomes still more exalted by
the addition of a Pullman Restaurant Car, and scorns the earth, running
right through to Paisley and Glasgow. Our position is fairly hopeless,
you see. We can only carry on through the village and wait for a
miracle."

He remounted and pedalled on, glancing back from time to time over his
shoulder. Presently, the sound of an overtaking car made itself heard.
An old Daimler limousine packed with cardboard dress-boxes, purred past
at a moderate twenty-two or three miles an hour. Wimsey let it pass him,
then, head down and legs violently at work swung in behind it. In
another moment, his hand was on the ledge of the rear window, and he was
free-wheeling easily in its wake. The driver did not turn his head.

"A-ah!" said Macpherson. "It's our friend Clarence Gordon, by Jove! And
him tellin' us he'd passed the man on the road. Ay, imph'm, an' he wad
be tellin' nae mair nor less than the truth. We'll hope his lordship's
no killt."

"He's safe enough," said the Chief Constable, "providing his tyres hold
out. That's a very long-headed young man, for all his blether. At this
rate, we'll be beating the train all right. How far is it to Girvan?"

"Aboot twelve miles. We ought tae pass her at Pinmore. She's due there
at 12.53."

"Let's hope Clarence Gordon keeps his foot down. Go gently, Macpherson.
We don't want to overtake him."

Clarence Gordon was a careful driver, but acted nobly up to expectation.
He positively put on a spurt after passing Pinwherry, and as they
attacked the sharp rise to Pinmore, they caught sight of the black
hinder-end of the train labouring along the track that ran parallel and
close to the road. As they topped the hill, and left the train behind
them, Wimsey waved his hat. They span merrily along, bearing to the left
and winding down towards the sea. At five minutes past one, the first
houses of Girvan rose about them. The pursuers' hearts beat furiously as
the train now caught them up again on their right and rushed past them
towards Girvan Station. At the end of the town, Wimsey let go his hold
on the car, sprinting away for dear life to the right down the station
road. At eight minutes past he was on the platform, with three minutes
to spare. The police force, like the ranks of Tuscany, could scarce
forbear to cheer. Leaving Dalziel to arrange for the safe keeping of the
cars, Macpherson ran to the booking office and took three first-class
tickets to Glasgow. As he passed Wimsey on the platform, he saw him
unstrapping the attach-case and heard him cry to the porter in an
exaggerated Oxford accent: "Heah! portah! label this bicycle for Ayr."
And as he turned away from the booking-window, the porter's urgent voice
came right in his ear:

"One first and a bicycle-ticket to Ayr, and make it quick, laddie. I
must be gettin' back tae my gentleman."

They tumbled out on to the platform. The bicycle was being bundled into
the rear van. They leapt for their carriage. The whistle blew. They were
off.

"Gosh!" said Wimsey, wiping his face. And then: "Damn this thing, it's
like a fly-paper."

In his left hand, concealed by the hat which he had removed for the sake
of coolness, he held something which he now displayed with a grin. It
was a luggage-label for Euston.

"Simple as shelling peas," he said, laughing. "I pinched it while he was
wheeling the bike off to the van. All ready gummed, too. They do things
handsomely on the L.M.S. Fortunately the pigeon-hole was labelled, so I
didn't have to hunt for it. Well, that's that. Now we can take a
breather. There's nothing else till we get to Ayr."

After a stop at Maybole to collect the tickets, the train ran merrily
along to Ayr. Almost before it drew up at the platform, Wimsey was out
of the train. He ran back to the rear van, with Macpherson hurrying at
his heels.

"Let me have that bicycle out, quick," he said to the guard. "You'll see
it there. Labelled to Ayr. Here's the ticket."

The guard, who was the same man whom Ross had interviewed previously,
stared at Wimsey, and appeared to hesitate.

"It's a' richt, guard," said Macpherson. "I'm a police officer. Let this
gentleman have what he wants."

The guard, with a puzzled look, handed out the bicycle, receiving the
ticket in exchange. Wimsey pressed a shilling into his hand and hurried
with the bicycle along the platform to a point near the station entrance
where the end of the bookstall masked him from the view both of the
guard and of the booking-clerk. Dalziel, seeing that Macpherson was
involved in explanations with the guard, followed Wimsey quietly, and
was in time to see him moisten the Euston luggage-label with an
expansive lick and clap it on to the bicycle over the Ayr label. This
done, Wimsey marched briskly out, attach-case in hand, and plunged down
the little side-street and into the public convenience. In less than a
minute he was out again, minus spectacles, his cap exchanged for the
soft felt hat, and wearing the burberry. Passengers were now dashing
through the booking-hall to catch the Glasgow train. Wimsey joined them
and purchased a third-class ticket to Glasgow. Dalziel, panting on his
heels, purchased four. By the time he had paid for them, Wimsey was
gone. The Chief Constable and the Fiscal, waiting near the hoarding at
the head of the side-bays, received a cheerful wink from Wimsey as he
strolled up and planted the bicycle against the hoarding. They were
probably the only people who noticed this manoeuvre, for the Pullman Car
had by now been attached to the train, and the platform was filled with
passengers, porters and luggage. Wimsey, his hands before his face
lighting his cigarette, wandered away towards the head of the train.
Doors slammed. Dalziel and Macpherson skipped into a compartment. Wimsey
followed. The Chief Constable and the Fiscal did likewise. The guard
shouted "Right away!" and the train moved out again. The whole business
had occupied exactly six minutes.

"There's another good bicycle gone west," said Wimsey.

"No," said Macpherson. "I saw what ye'd be after an' I warned a porter
tae send it back to Gatehoose. It belongs tae the constable, and he wad
not care tae be wantin' it," he added, thriftily.

"Splendid. I say--it's all gone rather prettily so far, don't you
think!"

"Charmingly," said the Fiscal, "but you're not forgetting, Lord Peter,
that this train doesn't get into St. Enoch till 2.55, and that,
according to these motor-people--er--Sparkes & Crisp--Mr. Ferguson was
in their show-rooms at ten minutes to three?"

"That's what they say," replied Wimsey, "but Ferguson didn't say that.
He said 'About three.' I fancy, with luck, we may be able to reconcile
those two statements."

"And how about that other ticket you've got there?" put in Sir Maxwell.
"That's the thing that's been worrying me. The ticket from Gatehouse to
Glasgow."

"It doesn't worry _me_," said Wimsey, confidently.

"Oh, well," said the Chief Constable, "if you're pleased, we're
pleased."

"I have not enjoyed anything so much for a long time," said the Fiscal,
who seemed quite unable to get over his delight in the excursion. "I
ought to be sorry to see the net closing round this poor Mr. Ferguson,
but I must admit that I find myself a prey to excitement."

"Yes--I'm sorry for Ferguson too," answered Wimsey. "I wish you hadn't
reminded me, sir. But it can't be helped. I'd be sorrier still if it was
Farren, for instance. Poor beggar! This business will tie him by the leg
for ever, I'm afraid. Opportunity doesn't come twice. No; the only thing
that's really worrying me is the possibility of this train's getting in
late."

The train, however, ran most creditably to time, and drew into St. Enoch
at 2.55 to the minute. Wimsey was out of it at once and led his party
along the platform at a great pace.

As they passed the entrance to the station hotel, he turned to Sir
Maxwell.

"I suggest," he said, "though I don't absolutely know, that it was at
this point that Ferguson caught sight of Miss Cochran and Miss Selby and
their party. They were probably just emerging from their lunch, and he
guessed that their friends had come along to meet their train at
Glasgow."

He broke off to wave frantically to a taxi. The whole five of them
crammed into it, and Wimsey directed the driver to set him down in the
street where Messrs. Sparkes & Crisp had their show-rooms.

"And drive like blazes," he added.

At five minutes past three he tapped on the glass. The driver pulled up
and they all scrambled out on to the pavement. Wimsey paid off the taxi
and headed off at a brisk pace for the motor show-rooms a few yards
away.

"Don't let's all go in in a bunch," he said. "Come with me, Sir Maxwell,
and the others can drift in afterwards."

Messrs. Sparkes & Crisp possessed the usual kind of establishment,
filled with tall show-cases exhibiting motoring gadgets. On the right
was a counter, where a lad was earnestly discussing with a customer the
rival merit of two different brands of shock-absorber. Through an
archway appeared a glittering array of motor-cycles and side-cars. A
frosted-glass door on the left appeared to lead to an inner office.

Wimsey darted silently in with Sir Maxwell and disappeared behind a
show-case. The lad and the customer continued their discussion. After
about a minute, Wimsey emerged again and strode wrathfully to the
counter.

"See here, sonnie," he said, peremptorily, "do you want to do any
business to-day, or don't you? I've got an appointment and I can't wait
here all afternoon." He looked at his watch. "I've been hanging about
here for the last ten minutes."

"Very sorry, sir. What can I do for you?"

Wimsey brought out his brown-paper parcel from the attach-case.

"You're agents for these magnetos?"

"Yes, sir. That will be our Mr. Saunders. Excuse me one minute, sir.
Call him down, sir."

The youth dashed to the frosted-glass door, leaving Wimsey to endure the
furious stare of the specialist in shock-absorbers.

"Will you come this way, sir?"

Wimsey, attaching his party to him with a glance, plunged through the
door and was conducted to a small office where "our Mr. Saunders" sat,
in company with a typist.

Mr. Saunders was a fresh-faced young man with the Eton-and-Oxford
manner. He greeted Wimsey like one welcoming an old school-friend after
many years' absence. Then he glanced beyond him to Sergeant Dalziel, and
his breezy gusto seemed to suffer a slight diminution.

"Look here, old horse," said Wimsey, "you've seen this magneto before, I
fancy?"

Mr. Saunders looked at the magneto and its number rather helplessly, and
said:

"Yes, yes, oh, yes, to be sure. Quite, Number XX/47302. Yes. When did we
have Number XX/47302 through our hands, Miss Madden?"

Miss Madden referred to a card-index file.

"It came in for repairs a fortnight ago, Mr. Saunders. It belongs to Mr.
Ferguson of Gatehouse. He brought it in himself. Defect in armature
winding. Returned to him the day before yesterday."

"Yes--exactly. Our fellows at the shops reported a defect in the
armature winding. Quite. I hope it is quite O.K. now, Mr.--er----"

"After that," said Wimsey, "you may remember getting a visit from my
friend here, Sergeant Dalziel."

"Oh, absolutely," said Mr. Saunders. "Quite so. You're very well, I
hope, Sergeant?"

"You told him then," said Wimsey, "that Mr. Ferguson came in here about
ten minutes to three."

"Did I? Oh, yes--I remember. Mr. Crisp called me in. You remember, Miss
Madden? Yes. But I didn't say that. Birkett said that--the young man in
the show-room, don't you know. Said the customer had been waiting ten
minutes. Yes. I didn't see the chappie when he came in, you know. I
found him waiting when I got back from lunch. I was a little late that
day, I think. Yes. Lunching with a customer. Business, and all that sort
of thing. Yes. Mr. Crisp rather hauled me over the coals, I remember.
Ha, ha!"

"When exactly _did_ ye come in, Mr. Saunders?" asked the Inspector,
grimly.

"Oh, well--must have been about three o'clock, I'm afraid. Yes. Half an
hour late. Business, of course. Mr. Crisp----"

"Wull ye no speak the truth, mon?" said Inspector Macpherson, irritated.

"Eh? Oh--well--as a matter of fact, I may have been a minute or two
later. I--I rather avoided looking at the clock, I'm afraid. What time
did I come in, Miss Madden?"

"A quarter past three, Mr. Saunders," said Miss Madden concisely. "I
remember the occasion perfectly."

"By Jove, was it? Well, I thought it must have been somewhere about
three or a little after. What a memory you've got, Miss Madden."

Miss Madden smiled faintly.

"There you are, Inspector," said Wimsey. "Difference between five
minutes to and five minutes past. All the difference, isn't it?"

"Ye may have tae swear tae this in a court of law, Mr. Saunders," said
the Inspector, sourly. "So I'll trouble ye no tae forget it again."

"Oh, I say, really?" said Mr. Saunders, in some alarm. "Look here, shall
I have to say who I was lunching with? Because, as a matter of fact, it
wasn't exactly business. At least, it was private business."

"That will be your own concern, Mr. Saunders. Ye may like tae know that
we're investigatin' a case o' murder."

"Oh, I _say_! Of course, I didn't know that. Mr. Crisp just asked me
when I came in. I said, about three--because it really was that, you
know, more or less. Of course, if I'd known, I should have asked Miss
Madden. She has such a wonderful memory for details."

"Ay," said the Inspector, "and I wad advise ye tae cultivate the same
yersel'. Gude mornin' tae ye."

The investigators were shown out by Mr. Saunders, who burbled
unconvincingly all down the passage.

"It's not much good questioning this fellow Birkett, I suppose," said
Sir Maxwell. "He probably spoke in perfect good faith. He'd be ready to
swear to-day that he'd kept you waiting, Wimsey."

"Probably. Well, now, we've got to be up at the Exhibition at four. Not
much time. However, I noticed a jobbing printer's on the way up here. I
daresay we shall find what we want there."

He led them at a quick pace along the street, and darted into a small
printing-works.

"I want to buy a few metal types," he said. "Rather like these. Must be
this size, and as near in character as you can supply them." He produced
a sheet of paper.

The foreman scratched his head.

"That'll be 5 point," he said. "The nearest thing to it wad be Clarendon
caps. Ay, we can gi'e ye that, if ye wasn't wantin' a great weight o't."

"Oh, dear, no. I only want five letters--S--M and L--A and D, and a
complete set of figures."

"Will monotype castings do ye?"

"I'd rather have foundry-metal if you have it. I want to use them as
punches for a small piece of leather-work."

"Verra gude." The foreman went to a case of type, extracted the required
letters and figures and wrapped them up in a screw of paper, mentioning
a small price.

Wimsey paid for them and put the little parcel in his pocket.

"By the way," he said, "did you have a gentleman in here, asking for the
same thing, a fortnight ago?"

"No, sir. I wad mind it weel eneugh. Na, na, it wad be a rather uncommon
transaction. I havena been askit for sic a thing since I cam' tae this
business, an' that's twa year next January."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Thanks awfully. Good morning."

"Better get a trade directory, Inspector, and count out all the
printers. And--yes--wait--the people who sell book-binding materials.
Ferguson must have got these--unless, of course, he brought them with
him, which isn't very likely."

Dalziel departed on this errand, while the rest took a taxi and hurried
away to the Exhibition, which they reached a few minutes before four.
Here they dallied till half-past four, making a hasty tour of all the
rooms, and noting one or two striking pictures in each.

"There," said Wimsey, as they passed the turnstile again. "Now, if we
were to meet any inquisitive friends on the doorway, we could persuade
them that we had visited the whole show and used our brains. And now we
had better make tracks for a quiet place. I suggest a hotel bedroom."




                              CHAPTER XXIX


                           LORD PETER WIMSEY

In a remote bedroom in one of Glasgow's principal hotels, Wimsey
unwrapped his little parcel of types, together with Ferguson's
safety-razor, and a small hammer, which he had purchased on the way.

Then, gathering his audience about him, he brought out from his pocket
the outward half of his first-class ticket from Gatehouse to Glasgow.

"Now, gentlemen," said he, we come to the crucial point of our
investigation.

"If you had read that excellent work of Mr. Connington's, to which I
drew your attention, you would have found that it contained an account
of how a gentleman forged a clip-mark on his railway ticket, by means of
a pair of nail-scissors.

"That was on an English line. Now, the Scottish railway authorities,
possibly out of sheer tiresomeness, and possibly with the laudable idea
of making the way of the ticket-forger hard, are not content with a
simple triangular clip.

"The other day I travelled--at great inconvenience to myself--from
Gatehouse to Glasgow by the 9.8 a.m. train. I found that the brutal
ticket-collectors actually inflicted three ferocious punches on my poor
little half-ticket. The first was at Maxwelltown, where they produced a
horrible set of indented letters and numerals, thus:

                                  LMS
                                  42D

At Hurlford, they were content to take a large bite out of the
ticket--not a simple triangular snip, but a disgusting thing like a
squat figure L. Ferguson would probably often have seen these marks, and
having the artist's eye and a remarkable visual memory, would no doubt
be able to reproduce these things from memory. Personally, I took the
precaution of drawing the mark left by the clipper. Here it is:

[Illustration]

Then, at Mauchline, they went all cautious again, and disfigured the
ticket with another cipher-code,

                                  LMS
                                  23A

Now, gentlemen, with your permission and these instruments, we will
proceed to forge the punch-marks on this ticket."

He took up the safety-razor, detached the blade, and, laying the ticket
down on the marble-topped washstand, proceeded to cut the Hurlford
clip-mark out of the pasteboard.

This done, he laid the ticket on the blotting-pad provided by the hotel,
placed the type-metal figure 2 carefully just above the edge of the
ticket, and delivered a smart tap with the hammer. The figure appeared,
when the type was lifted, sharply incised on the face of the ticket,
which, on being turned over, showed a thicker and blunter version of the
figure in relief on the reverse.

"Eh, mon!" exclaimed Macpherson, "but ye're ower clever tae be an honest
mon."

Wimsey added the figure 3 and an A, taking care to keep the feet of the
letters parallel--a task easily accomplished by setting the beard of the
type in line with the edge of the pasteboard. Then, with careful
attention to spacing and uprightness, he punched in the letters LMS over
the 23A. This completed the Mauchline punch-mark. In a third place he
forged the

                                  LMS
                                  42D

for the Maxwelltown mark, and laid his tools aside with a sigh of
satisfaction.

"It's a wee bit groggy here and there," he said, "but it would probably
pass on a casual inspection. Now, there's only one thing to do, and that
is, to get it back into the hands of the railway-company. I'd better
take only one witness to this. We don't want to create a sensation."

The Inspector was chosen to accompany him, and, taking a taxi, they
bustled down to St. Enoch Station. Here Wimsey inquired, in a fussy
manner, for the collector who had been on duty when the 2.16 came in
from Dumfries. The man was pointed out to him at one of the barriers.
Wimsey, wreathing his features into a kind of peevish smile, approached
him with an air of worried kindliness.

"Oh, good evening. I think you were at the barrier when I came in on the
2.16 this afternoon. Now, do you know that you let me get past without
giving up my ticket? Yes, yes, he-he! I might have been defrauding the
company and all that. I really think you ought to be more careful. Yes.
I'm a shareholder on this line, and my cousin is a director, and I _do_
think it's dreadfully careless. There'd be an inquiry when they found a
ticket short at the audit-office, of course, but, you know, he-he, I
could have escaped by that time, couldn't I? Tut, tut--no wonder
dividends go down. But I don't want to get you into trouble, my good
fellow, so I've brought you the ticket, and if I were you I'd just slip
it in with the others and say no more about it. But you'll be more
careful in future, won't you?"

During this harangue, which was poured out all in one breath, allowing
no time for reply, the ticket-collector's face changed gradually from
weary courtesy to astonishment and from astonishment to anger.

"Eh, sir," said the man, the moment he could get a word in edgeways, "I
dinna ken what ye'll be up to, but I'll no be had twice that way within
the fortnight."

Inspector Macpherson here intervened.

"My mon," said he, "I'm a police-officer, an' I'll trouble ye tae attend
tae me. Have ye had this same thing happen tae ye before?"

The ticket-collector, now thoroughly alarmed, excused himself, stammered
and then let out the whole story.

He had been on duty just about this time exactly a fortnight earlier. A
gentleman had come, just as Wimsey had done, and produced a ticket,
explaining that he had somehow slipped through the barrier without
having to give it up. He (the collector) had examined the ticket, and
seen that it had been properly clipped at Maxwell town, Hurlford and
Mauchline, and he had seen no reason to doubt the passenger's story. Not
wishing to be reprimanded for negligence, he had thanked the gentleman,
taken the ticket and carried it to the clerk who was making up that
day's tickets for dispatch to the audit-office. The clerk had obligingly
added the ticket to the appropriate bundle, and no more had been heard
about it. The collector was sorry, but in view of the fact that the
ticket appeared perfectly in order in every way, he had not thought he
could be doing any harm. On being shown the photograph of Ferguson, the
collector rather tentatively identified him as the passenger who had
brought back the ticket.

The clerk confirmed the collector's story, and all that remained was to
visit the audit-office and obtain a view of the ticket itself. This,
owing to the fact that there had already been one police inquiry about
it, was fortunately still in existence. A careful examination showed a
slight difference between the form of the lettering and that of the
correctly-punched tickets in the same bunch, and also that, whereas the
figures purporting to have been punched on it at Mauchline were

                                  LMS
                                  23A

the other tickets bore the cipher

                                  LMS
                                  23B

It was explained that in each case the letter following the numerals
denoted the particular collector who clipped the tickets on that train,
each man having his own pair of clippers. The Mauchline numbers ranged
from 23A to 23G. Therefore, while in itself the punch-mark

                                  LMS
                                  23A

was perfectly correct and in order, it was suspicious that collector A
should have punched only that one ticket out of all the tickets punched
on that train. The previous inquiry had, of course, merely been directed
to ascertain that the ticket had actually reached Glasgow, and therefore
no special attention was paid to the punch-marks. Now, however, it was
evident enough that the punch-marks were forgeries, very neatly
executed.

On their return to the hotel, Wimsey and the Inspector were met by
Dalziel, with additional confirmation. A man corresponding to Ferguson's
description had, on the Tuesday in question, visited a firm that sold
book-binders' tools, and purchased a set of letter-punches, similar in
character and size to the letter on the tickets. He had explained that
he was doing a little amateur book-binding, and wanted the punches for
the spines of a set of volumes, which were to be labelled SAMUEL, 1, 2,
3 and 4--this series containing all the letters and numbers necessary
for faking the ticket-punches. The case against Ferguson was complete.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Wimsey was rather silent as they took the last train back from Glasgow.

"You know," he said, "I rather liked Ferguson, and I couldn't stick
Campbell at any price. I rather wish----"

"Can't be helped, Wimsey," said the Chief Constable. "Murder is murder,
you know."

"Not always," said Wimsey.

                 *        *        *        *        *

They came back to find Ferguson under arrest. He had endeavoured to take
out his car--had found the magneto missing and had then attempted to
make a bolt for the railway-station. Ross and Duncan had then thought it
time to intervene. He had made no reply when arrested and cautioned, and
was then in the Newton-Stewart police-station, awaiting examination. On
being confronted with the forged ticket, he gave in, and, despite the
warnings of the police, decided to tell his story.

"It wasn't murder," he said. "I swear to God it wasn't murder. And I
told you the truth when I said that it didn't happen in the least like
your reconstruction.

"Campbell came back at 10.15, just as I said. He barged into my place
and began boasting about what he had done to Gowan and what he was going
to do to Farren. He had been drinking again after he came in. He used
filthy expressions to me and told me he was going to have it out with
me, once and for all. He was damnably offensive. I tell you, it wasn't
murder. It was Campbell's night to howl, and he got what was coming to
him.

"I told him to get out of my house. He wouldn't go, and I tried to push
him out. He attacked me, and there was a struggle. I'm stronger than I
look, and he wasn't sober. There was a rough and tumble, and I got a
heavy punch in on his jaw. He went over and caught his head on the
rounded top of the studio stove. When I went to pick him up, he was
dead. That was at 11 o'clock.

"Well, I was frightened. I knew I'd often threatened to do him in, and
I'd got no witnesses. Here he was, in my house, dead, and I had
certainly used force to him first.

"Then I began to think that I might make it look like an accident. I
needn't go into the details. You seem to know them all. My plan worked
perfectly, with one exception, and I got over that, and as a matter of
fact, it did me good. I meant to start from Barrhill, but I missed the
train, and then I hung on to old Ikey-Mo, which made my alibi much
better, because it didn't look, on the face of it, as though I could
have got to Girvan in time, especially when I'd heard from Jock Graham
that you knew I couldn't have started from the Minnoch before 11.30.

"It was bad luck, of course, that the body was found quite so soon. I
knew there might be trouble over that rigor mortis business. Was that
what put you on to the idea of murder in the first place?"

"No," said Wimsey. "It was your habit of putting paints in your pocket.
Did you realise that you had carried off Campbell's flake-white?"

"I didn't notice it till I got back home. But it never occurred to me
that anybody would spot that. I suppose you were the intelligent sleuth,
Wimsey. I'd have taken it up to the Minnoch and dropped it somewhere,
only that you had seen it the day you came to the studio. That was the
first real fright I got. But afterwards I thought I could rely on the
alibi. I was rather proud of that ticket-forgery. And I hoped you would
overlook the possibilities of Ikey-Mo."

"There's only one thing I don't understand," said the Chief Constable,
"why didn't you start out earlier from the Minnoch? There wasn't any
need to do such a lot to the painting."

Ferguson smiled faintly.

"That was a big bloomer. You reconstructed the events of the night, and
you know what a lot I had to do? Well--I forgot one thing. I forgot to
wind up my watch, which I usually do at bed-time. I was going to pack up
my painting things, after I'd done a goodish bit, when I heard a lorry
coming along. I waited for that to go by and looked at my watch. It said
half-past ten. I thought I could easily give it another half-hour. I
didn't want to hang about at Barrhill for fear of being recognised. I
estimated another half-hour, and looked at my watch again. It was still
half-past ten.

"That put me into a panic. I booted the body over the bank and packed up
as though the devil was after me. That must have been how I came to
overlook the flake-white. I scorched away as fast as I could, but that
bicycle I borrowed was too small for me and geared rather low. A beast.
I missed the train by a hair's-breadth--it was just moving out of the
station as I got to the station turn. I rode on in a kind of
desperation--and then that car came along and I thought I was saved. But
apparently I wasn't.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill Campbell. And I still say, and say
again, it was not murder."

Wimsey got up.

"Look here, Ferguson," he said. "I'm damned sorry, and I always thought
it couldn't really be murder. Will you forgive me?"

"I'm glad," said Ferguson. "I've felt like hell ever since. I'd really
rather stand my trial. I'd like to tell everybody that it wasn't murder.
You do believe that, don't you?"

"I do," said Wimsey, "and if the jury are sensible people, they'll bring
it in self-defence or justifiable homicide."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The jury, after hearing of Mr. Gowan's experiences, took a view mid-way
between murder and self-defence. They brought it in manslaughter, with a
strong recommendation to mercy, on the ground that Campbell was
undoubtedly looking for trouble, and the beard of Samson was not
sacrificed altogether in vain.






[End of The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers]
