Five Red Herrings (16 page)

16

‘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, Righto! but not to disturb hard-working 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.

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 lying 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 darkAnd 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 enquired.

‘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?’

17

‘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’erflowing, 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.’