Five Red Herrings (21 page)

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Authors: Dorothy L. Sayers

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‘Bunter,’ said Wimsey, ‘this case resembles the plot of a Wilkie Collins novel, in which everything happens just too late to prevent the story from coming to a premature happy ending.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘The trouble about this, Bunter, is that it completely destroys our theory, and apparently lets out Farren.’

‘Quite so, my lord.’

‘And unless your friend Betty is lying, it lets out Gowan too.’

‘That appears to be the case, my lord.’

‘Because, if he was hiding at home all Monday night and Tuesday morning, suffering from an accident, he couldn’t have been painting pictures beyond Newton Stewart.’

‘I quite see that, my lord.’

‘But is Betty telling the truth?’

‘She appeared to me to be an honest young woman, my lord. But you will recollect that it was not until before lunch-time on the Tuesday that she saw Alcock enter the Bluebeard’s Chamber, if I may use so fanciful an expression, and that the sick man was not seen by her in person until early on Wednesday morning.’

‘True,’ said Wimsey, thoughtfully. ‘We have no evidence that he was there on Tuesday at all. Alcock will have to be interrogated. And in my opinion, Alcock is a man of considerable resource and sagacity.’

‘Exactly so, my lord. And, what is more, Alcock had disappeared also.’

CHIEF INSPECTOR PARKER

The mystery of the car turned out to have a perfectly simple explanation. It was reported from a small hotel at Brig of Dee, a village a few miles out on the Kirkcudbright side of Castle Douglas. A visit by the police discovered Messrs. Alcock and Hammond calmly seated at lunch. Their story was a straightforward one. Mr. Gowan had written from London, suggesting that, in his absence, they should take a holiday, and giving them his permission to use the car. They had decided on a little fishing excursion, and here they were. They had started late, on account of some small repairs which Hammond had had to make to the engine. The muffled-up person who had got in was Alcock himself. Certainly the Inspector could see Mr. Gowan’s letter. Here it was, written from Mr. Gowan’s club, the Mahlstick, on the club’s own paper, and posted in London on the Wednesday.

As for Bunter’s story, Alcock denied it altogether. The girl Betty was a foolish and hysterical young person, who imagined a great deal of nonsense. It was perfectly true that Mrs. Alcock had forbidden her to go into the disused part of the house. Betty was a great deal too fond of wasting her time. There were a lot of old magazines kept up there in a box-room, and the girl was always sneaking in there to read them when she ought to be engaged on household duties. Mrs. Alcock had had occasion to speak about it before. As regards the Tuesday, it was a fact that he (Alcock) had gone up there with hot water. One of the dogs had been hurt in a rabbit snare. He had made it a bed in the disused room and washed the wounds out with disinfectant. Mrs. Alcock would show the dog to the police if they cared to call. As for the alleged apparition on Wednesday morning, it was quite obvious that the girl had merely been suffering from nightmare, due to her own ridiculous fancies about corpses. There was no sick person there and never had been. Mr. Gowan had left Kirkcudbright, as previously stated, by car on Monday evening to catch the 8.45. The person whom Bunter had seen entering the car on the Thursday night had been Alcock. Hammond and Mrs. Alcock could confirm all this.

They could, and did, confirm it. The injured dog was produced and found to be actually suffering from a nasty sore in the leg, and Betty, when closely questioned, admitted that she had frequently got into trouble through reading magazines in the box-room.

As against this, there was the evidence of a garage proprietor at Castle Douglas that a gentleman, giving his name as Rogers, had telephoned the previous evening for a fast car to catch the 12.2 express at Dumfries. He had got ready a 14 h.p. Talbot, which was a new and speedy car, and at about twenty minutes past eleven, the gentleman had walked into the garage. He was tall and had dark eyes and what the proprietor described as a ‘rabbity’ face. The proprietor had himself driven Mr. Rogers to Dumfries and set him down at the station at four minutes to twelve precisely.

The booking-clerk at Dumfries confirmed this up to a point. He remembered selling a first-class ticket for Euston to a gentleman who had come in just before midnight. He did not remember the gentleman very distinctly — he was much like other gentlemen, but he agreed that he had rather a big nose and stick-out teeth.

The ticket-collector on the train was not helpful. Gentlemen on night-trains tended to be sleepy and muffled-up. Several first-class gentlemen had joined the 12.2 at Dumfries. Certainly he had seen nobody remotely resembling the photograph of Gowan. Was there anybody at all like what Gowan would be if clean-shaven? Well, there now, that was asking something, that was. Had the Inspector any idea what a ’edge-’og would look like without its spikes? No, nor he didn’t suppose nobody had, neither. He was a ticket-collector, not a puzzle-picture expert. The booking-clerk at Dumfries expressed a similar opinion, still more forcibly.

Inspector Macpherson, whom this dreary investigation had carried as far as Euston, then turned his attention to the club from which Gowan was supposed to have written. Here the news was a little more cheering. Mr. Gowan had certainly not been staying there. One or two letters had arrived for him, which had been collected by a gentleman presenting Mr. Gowan’s card. The gentleman had signed a receipt for them. Might the Inspector see the receipt? Certainly he might. The signature was J. Brown. The Inspector wondered how many J. Browns there might be among London’s four million, and turned his weary steps towards Scotland Yard.

Here he asked for Chief Inspector Parker, who received him with more than official cordiality. Any friend of Wimsey’s was entitled to Parker’s best attention, and the complicated story of Gowan and the spanner, Farren, Strachan and the two bicycles, was sympathetically listened to.

‘We’ll find Gowan for you all right,’ said Parker, encouragingly. ‘With the very precise details you have produced for us it ought not to take long. What do you want done with him when we’ve got him?’

‘Weel, noo, Mr. Parker,’ said the Inspector, deferentially, ‘do ye think we have enough evidence tae arrest him?’

Parker turned this over carefully.

‘I take it,’ he said, ‘that your idea is that Gowan met this man Campbell in the road between Gatehouse and Kirkcud-bright and killed him in a quarrel. Then he got frightened and decided to fake up the accident. His first step was to cut off his own very conspicuous beard, in the hope, I suppose, of getting through the Gatehouse end of the business unrecognised. It must have been an awkward bit of barbering. Still, he might have managed to produce a fairly good imitation of a man who hadn’t shaved for a fortnight. Then he went through all the movements which you originally ascribed to Farren. He hid the body up the side-lane and drove Campbell’s own car back to Gatehouse. Now, why should he have done that?’

‘There!’ said the Inspector, ‘yon’s the great deeficulty. Wherefore did he no tak’ the corp back wi’ him? It was verra weel understandable when we supposed that the murderer was Farren in Strachan’s car, because we had the theory that he meant at first tae pit the blame on Strachan, but what for should Gowan du sic a fulish thing?’

‘Well, let’s see,’ said Parker. ‘He had to get Campbell’s car back somehow. Ferguson might have noticed if the wrong car came in. But he didn’t take the body with him on that journey, because, again, Ferguson or somebody might have spotted him with it. Gowan’s car was a two-seater. Perhaps the dickey wasn’t big enough to hide the corpse properly. He decides that it’s better to risk leaving the corpse and his own car in the lane than driving openly back to Gatehouse with a dead man upright in the seat beside him. Very well. Now he’s got to get back to the scene of the crime. How? On foot? — No, this, I take it, is the point at which the bicycle was pinched from the what-d’ye-call-it hotel.’

‘Verra like,’ said the Inspector.

‘You may have to alter your times a trifle here, but you’ve still got ample margin. You had 10.20 as the time for Campbell’s car to arrive at Standing Stone Pool. Now then. Your man has still got to do the journey back on a bicycle. But he hasn’t got to waste time going on foot to Strachan’s house. So, if anything, he will get to the scene of the crime a trifle earlier than we supposed. He picks up his own car, puts the bike in the dickey — we’ve got to allow that — however, it would be pretty dark by that time and probably no one would notice. By the way, I see that this fellow Ferguson says that Campbell’s car came in a little after 10 o’clock. Well, that fits your first time-table all right. It means that the murderer brought the car straight away in after the crime. But I see you’ve made an alteration here.’

‘Ay,’ said Macpherson. ‘We thocht he wad ha’ lodged Campbell’s car somewhere on the road an’ transferred the body tae ’t on his second journey. It wad be suspicious like for a second car tae come in tae Campbell’s place.’

‘True; but if Ferguson is right about his times, that can’t be the case. Is Ferguson an exact man?’

‘Ay; they tell me he has a gran’ memory for details.’

‘Then the murderer must have come in a second time with the body in his own car. It’s odd that Ferguson shouldn’t have heard the second car either come or go.’

‘Ay, that’s a fact.’

‘The second car — when would it have got in? Between five and six miles on a push-bike — say half-an-hour. That brings it to 10.50. The bicycle put into the dickey and five or six miles back in a fast car — say fifteen minutes at the outside. That gives us 11.5 for the second time of arrival. Ferguson says he went to bed shortly after 10. He must have been asleep, that’s all. And still asleep when the car went out again — the murderer’s car, I mean. No, that won’t do. How and when did Gowan — if he was the murderer — get his car back to Kirkcudbright? He had to be on the spot in Gatehouse to look after the body and prepare his fake for the next morning. I suppose he could have driven his car home to Kirkcudbright during the small hours and then walked or push-cycled back to Gatehouse.’

‘Ay, there’s nae doot he cud ha’ done it. But it wadna’ be necessary. The chauffeur Hammond cud ha’ driven him over again.’

‘So he could. That makes Hammond rather definitely an accomplice. But there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. If Gowan committed the murder, all his servants, except possibly Betty, are obviously lying like Ananias, and one degree of guilt more or less makes no difference. Well, that explains that all right, and we’ve only got to suppose that Gowan carried out the rest of the scheme according to plan, changed over into the London train at Ayr and is now lurking in London till his beard’s grown again. And that explains — what would otherwise seem rather odd — why, having faked the murder, he didn’t disarm suspicion by showing himself openly in Kirkcudbright.’

‘Ay,’ said Macpherson, excitedly, ‘but dinna ye see it explains naething at a’? It disna fit the description o’ the man in the grey suit that tuk the bicycle tae Ayr. Nor it disna explain Betty’s tale to Bunter, nor the muffled-up man escapin’ fra’ Gowan’s hoose at deid o’ nicht, nor the rabbity-faced fellow in the train fra’ Castle Douglas tae Euston. An’ hoo aboot yon man that came knockin’ on Campbell’s door o’ Monday midnicht?’

Parker rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

‘It’s funny about the description of the man,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Gowan contrived to disguise himself in some way, with a false fair moustache, or something. And the girl’s story may, as Alcock suggests, be partly imagination. Gowan may have returned to Kirkcudbright on Tuesday afternoon instead of going straight through to London, though I can’t think why he should, and the letter sent from the Mahlstick certainly suggests that he was in London on the Wednesday. And the rabbity man may be somebody different altogether. And I’m inclined to think that the man who knocked at midnight was somebody different altogether.’

‘But,’ said the Inspector, ‘if that man gaed into the hoose and found Campbell dead and Gowan there, why hasna he come forward tae say so?’

‘Possibly he was after no good,’ suggested Parker. ‘He may, as you previously remarked, have been a lady. Still, I admit that there are awkward gaps in the story. I think we’d better get on the tracks of Gowan and the rabbity man separately, and try to find out definitely which way Gowan really went. And when we do catch Gowan, I think perhaps we’d better not arrest him; but merely detain him on the ground that he can give information. After all, Inspector, we don’t even know for an absolute certainty that it was he who met Campbell on the road. There may be other people with black beards.’

‘There’s nae ither artist wi’ a black beard like yon,’ said Macpherson, stubbornly. ‘Not in a’ the district.’

‘Hell! yes,’ said Parker. ‘He’s got to be an artist, of course. Well, anyhow, we’ll detain Gowan.’

Inspector Macpherson thanked him.

‘And now there’s this man Farren,’ went on Parker. ‘Do you want him too? Supposing he’s not down a mine.’

22

‘I’m thinkin’ he did ought tae be found,’ said the Inspector. ‘He was heard tae utter threats — an’ forbye, he’s disappeared, which in itself is distressin’ tae his family an’ friends.’

‘True. Well, we’ll make inquiries for him as a lost, stolen or strayed. That will do no harm. But I daresay you’ve got him up your end somewhere. Who else is there? The Englishman — what’s his name? — Waters. How about him?’

‘I’d forgot Waters,’ replied Macpherson, frankly. ‘I canna see how he comes intae ’t at a’.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Parker. ‘Well, we’ll leave him out. And of course we’re watching that bike at Euston to see if anybody’s fool enough to come for it. And you’d better send somebody down to identify it, because it may not be the right one at all. Is that all? Suppose now we go and have a drink after all this talking? Oh, by the way, can you tell me what school Gowan went to? No? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. He’s probably in the reference-books.’

The Inspector still seemed a little unhappy.

‘What is it?’ said Parker.

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