Case for Three Detectives (17 page)

“I'm afraid I don't. Do you, Townsend?”

Waste of time though I considered it, I did my best to remember, but without success. “No. I can't think. Why? Is it important?”

“Very important,” said Beef solemnly. “Very important indeed.”

“I really can't see how it possibly can be,” I returned, for I had an idea that Beef was only asking questions because the others had done so, and to establish his position in our eyes.

“Well, it is. And now, another thing. How long do you think these larks had been going on?”

“Really, Beef. What ‘larks'?” asked Williams.

“Why, between Mrs. Thurston and Fellowes, of course.”

Williams stood up. “Look here, Beef. The best thing you can do is to forget about that. We don't want it discussed in every public bar in the village. There was probably nothing in it in any case. Mrs. Thurston was a very kind-hearted and sometimes indiscreet lady. But there was nothing there to feed the local scandalmongers.”

“I'm not in the ‘abit,” said Beef, with elephantine dignity, “of discussing matters like that in the village. And it ‘appens to be needful for my enquiries that I should know.”

“I can't tell you, I'm afraid,” said Williams sharply. “I have said already that there was nothing in it.”

“Oh yes there was,” said Beef more hotly, “else what
about that letter? That wasn't just kind-'eartedness.”

“That letter? It may have been anything, It may may have been written years ago. It may have been to her husband.”

“Well, Stall was able to put the screws on with it, anyway. There was more in that than met the h'eye.”

Williams turned to me. “I think it's disgusting how all sorts of things are dragged out in these cases, and made sordid. Plimsoll's largely to blame. You knew Mary Thurston, Townsend. You will bear me out when I say that she was a good woman, and that all this sort of thing was quite foreign to her?”

“Certainly I will.”

“What I should like to know,” said the Sergeant, “is whether the Doctor ‘ad any notion of what was in the wind.”

Williams was thoroughly angry. “Beef,” he said, “you are using your position to try and ferret out some nastiness which does not exist. I shall certainly complain to the Chief Constable of this. It is outrageous that a man of your type should be able to come up here and try to infect a tragedy with his own dirty-mindedness. Once and for all I tell you that whoever murdered Mary Thurston, and for whatever motive, there was nothing discreditable in her life to have caused it. I have known her and her husband for many years, and they were decent, upright and devoted in a way that you could probably never realize. Now please say nothing more of that kind.”

“I'm only doing my duty, sir,” said Beef. And a rather awkward silence followed.

At last the Sergeant turned to me. “There is one question I would like to ask you, sir.”

“Well?”

“It's about when you went to look round the grounds. Ow long would you say you was out there?”

“Ten minutes or so, I should say.”

“And Mr. Norris and Mr. Strickland went with you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, sir. And now I'll say good night.” To our relief he closed his note-book, and took himself off.

When Mgr. Smith had gone up to bed, I faced Williams. I had sympathized deeply with him in his defence of Mary Thurston's good name. “Look here, old man,” I said, “as between you and me, have you got any suspicions?”

He shook his head. I saw now, standing close to him, that he looked ill and tired.

“Once or twice it has seemed to me that you and I and Thurston are the only three who have kept sane through all this. They've all seemed a bit hysterical to-night, haven't they?”

“It was pretty gruelling. I'm glad we didn't have to go through it. But these detective fellows seem to be pretty confident.”

“Oh, they'll get the right man, of course. They never fail.”

“No. Not if there
is
a right man.”

“Why, what on earth do you mean?”

“Well, Townsend. I've told you before. I'm the last man to start tinkering with the supernatural. But when reason ends, what are you to do? With my own eyes I saw Mary Thurston lying murdered on her bed. With my own eyes I searched the room while you stood in the doorway. I looked out of the window within ninety seconds of that last scream. And there was no one. I tell you, however you may laugh at me, I don't, I cannot believe that we're dealing with a human murderer. Or if we are, he has a means of moving which is as yet unknown to science.”

If Williams had said all this last night it might have disturbed me more. But now I thought of little Mgr. Smith. And I knew that what I called in his talk ‘mystic' he would
call ‘matter-of-fact'. And I knew, somehow, that superstition could not live in his presence, that whatever else he did he would dissolve the uncharacteristic nonsense that Williams was talking.

“Come along,” I said, “let's get some sleep.”

I
SPENT
a very bad night. Looking back on the whole gruesome business, I think that the worst part of it-was this period in which we three, who were neither investigators nor suspects, were left in an unpleasant state of doubt, not knowing whom to suspect. Unless one is naturally malicious it is horrible to think of the people round one as potential murderers.

I woke before dawn, and after tossing about miserably for some hours, I dressed, and got downstairs to find the fires only just lit, and having that cheerless smokiness which makes even a position in front of them unencouraging. But looking out of the long windows I saw that it was a glorious morning—warm and still, as though autumn had turned back regretfully for a day. I decided at once to walk down to the hotel, and see Lord Simon. He, I felt, could put my mind at rest. He had admitted that he had suspicions, and his suspicions, I had reason to know, were as good as other people's certainties.

Stall was in the hall, and said good morning much as though this were a normal week-end, and I an ordinary guest. I knew for certain that Stall was at any rate a blackmailer, if he was nothing worse, so that it need be no mere suspicion in his case. I scarcely nodded in reply, and said that I should not be in to breakfast.

It was pleasant walking down the familiar village street in the clear morning air, and my spirits revived a little. This evening, at all events, would put an end to our mistrust, and we would be able to return to our normal lives. And in the meanwhile it was a lovely day.

The man Miles was cleaning brass at the door of the
hotel. I asked him if Lord Simon was up yet.

“Oh yessir,” he replied, with none of the defiance that had been in his voice last night. “His lordship has been up some time. His man has just come down to fetch his lordship's breakfast. You'll find him in the sitting-room at the top of the stairs.”

“Thank you, Miles,” I returned. Again, this unpleasant doubt as to how one should behave. I had no wish
to
hobnob with a murderer, but the fellow was civil enough.

Against a wildly incongruous background, Lord Simon sat waiting for his breakfast. The room was crowded with a chilly miscellany of knick-knacks and ornaments, gewgaws and trumpery of every kind which had been popular towards the end of the last century. Lord Simon's head was a sober shape against an enormous case of stuffed birds, perched in a grotesque parody of naturalness on litfhen-covered branches. Lace was festooned over baize along the mantelpiece, which supported an overmantel as intricate as an Oriental building. A firescreen painted with garish overgrown carnations had been laid aside, a woolly black rug was before the fire, and a bunch of pampas grass stood in a tiled urn in one corner. The table had a green and tasselled tablecloth on it, the furniture was of bloated mahogany, there were muslin curtains on great brass rings and foot-stools in unlikely places.

“Come in—if you can bear it,” said Lord Simon, when I hesitated for a moment. “You see what one has to suffer in the cause of truth? Have you ever seen anything like it? It can't be true!” he said, glancing about him. “Had breakfast?”

I explained that I had not waited up at the Thurstons' house—f had been too anxious to see him as soon as possible.

“Good. We'll breakfest together.” And Butterfield, entering at that moment with a tray, was sent to get another breakfast.

“I came to see you at this early hour, because I really hoped you might be able to tell me something. You know, it is most unpleasant suspecting everyone in the house in turns. I scarcely slept last night.”

Lord Simon nodded, and helped me to kidney and bacon. “I know. Bally awkward. You're just going to ask someone to “have a round of golf and you remember that he may be a murderer. Or someone suggests a harmless stroll and you find yourself wonderin' whether you'll ever come back from it.”

“That's just it,” I said. “And since you understand so well, perhaps you'll clear it all up for me. Who do you think did kill Mary Thurston?”

Lord Simon looked pained, as indeed any famous investigator might, at being faced with so flat a question, and since Butterfield returned at this point with another tray, he became very busy in serving out more breakfast.

“One thing about crime,” he commented, “it gives you an appetite.” And he concentrated on the kidneys.

“But look here …” I began again.

“Tell you what I have done,” said Lord Simon cheerfully, “I've found Sidney Sewell.”

“You have? Where? At the Thurstons'? Or somewhere else?”

“In the perfectly obvious reference book. Where I ought to have looked in the first place.”

“You mean the
London Telephone Directory?
Or
Who's Who?
”

“No. No. In the Gazetteer.”

“In the Gazetteer? You mean he … it's a
place?”

“That's it. It's a village about forty miles from here. I'm going there presently. Like to come?”

“But—I don't understand. If it's not a person, but only the name of a village, what's the point in going?”

“Shouldn't ask too many questions,” cautioned Lord
Simon, rather archly. “It's not done in the best detective circles. But I don't mind tellin' you this much. I think our visit would clear up another little matter that's troublin' me. This stepson. Elusive sort of bloke. I rather want a word with him.”

“And you think …”

“That's all I think for the moment,” said Lord Simon, lighting his first cigar of the day.

“Well, I'd certainly like to come, it if will elucidate things any quicker.”

“That's right. And now …” he turned to a heap of papers beside him, “there's a sale at Hodgson's to-day. I really ought to be there. It's awkward confusin' one's interests.”

He found the catalogue for which he was looking, and began to study it carefully. Then he rang for Butterfield.

“Look here, Butterfield. Run up to London, will you? One or two lots we might as well have. Nothing terribly special—but there's not much for you to do down here. I've put my limits against the books I shouldn't mind your buying. Here you are. There's the original manuscript of Chaucer's
Parlement of Fowles.
You can get that. Oh, and there's a Faust Bible—the early edition without a date, supposed to be about 1450. Interesting story to that book, Townsend. It caused the whole bag of tricks of the legend about Dr. Faustus. All he was, poor old bloke, was a rather snappy bookseller. He printed his Bibles, nipped 'em across to Paris where nobody had heard of printing, and sold them as manuscript Bibles at sixty crowns a time. This caused a strike among the Bible scribes, who couldn't copy 'em out for less than three hundred crowns, poor devils. It was thought that Dr. Faust was in league with the devil, because he could produce as many as he could sell at this price. The red lettering was supposed to be his blood. So they searched his rooms, and seized his stock. Awkward, wasn't
it? And all because he palmed 'em off as manuscripts. Anyway, here's a copy of the bally thing, Butterfield, which we may as well have.
Biblia Sacra Latina Vulgata.
Then I see there's Caxton's
Chronicle of England,
the 1480 edition. Shouldn't mind that. They've got a Shakespeare first folio, too. Mm—nice tall copy, 13£ by 8, so you may just as well bring it along. Not much of a sale, on the whole, after some I've attended. Still, I think it's worth your while going up, Butterfield.”

Butterfield nodded gravely. “Very well, my lord,” he said. “Oh, and here are the photographs you required, my lord. I trust that they are all satisfactory. The one of Mr. Town-send is particularly clear, I think.”

“Of me?” I said incredulously.

“A formality, old man,” said Lord Simon soothingly.

He took the large envelopes which Butterfield handed to him and drew out a number of portraits. I saw, staring unsuspectingly up at me, first Fellowes, then Miles, then Strickland, Norris, and finally an outrageously vulgar likeness of myself.

“Really, Plimsoll,” I said.

“Don't worry, Townsend. We had to have snaps of everyone within the age limit. Embarrassin', of course. Have much difficulty in getting them, Butterfield?”

“None at all, my lord. I found a vantage point from which they were framed nicely, one after another, my lord, and I just waited.”

Lord Simon enquired no further.

Presently I began telling him about the odd questions which Sergeant Beef had put to Williams and me last night, after he had gone. I said that we could not understand what he was getting at.

“You don't know the police as I do,” chuckled Lord Simon.

“But he seems pretty certain that he knows who is guilty.”

“Of course he does. He has to. The police are always certain, till it is proved that they're wrong.”