Five Red Herrings (19 page)

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 attaché-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 2.25. 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 you bicycle o’ Mr. Farren’s lying 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 practicable 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.

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 going 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.

20

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.’