Five Red Herrings (18 page)

‘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 would 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 tomorrow 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 carloads 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 just 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 redoubted 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.

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 attaché-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 questions 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.

19

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-room 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 certain that the bicycle could not have been re-labelled before the train left.