Five Red Herrings (13 page)

13

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 attaché-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 ticket 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 nearby station and re-booked there, after, perhaps, disguising his apperance 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.

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, hauled 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’ about the country wi’ the ladies 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 and 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 of 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 hill. 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.