Five Red Herrings (26 page)

‘Why not?’ said Wimsey. ‘It would be like buying a weekend wedding-ring.’

‘Yes — just as tedious as if it was 22-carat. And signing the hotel register and wondering if the reception-clerk believed you. Wimsey, you’re rich and there’s nothing to stop you from doing what you like. Why do you trouble to be respectable?’

‘Just because there’s nothing to stop me from doing what I like, probably. I get my fun out of it.’

‘I know you do,’ said Farren, looking at him in a puzzled way. ‘It’s odd. You create an illusion of liberty. Is it money? Or is it being unmarried? But there are plenty of unmarried men who don’t—’

‘Aren’t we wandering slightly from the matter in hand?’ said Wimsey.

‘Perhaps. Well — I went into a little inn — a one-horse little place — and had a drink in the four-ale bar. There was a young fellow there with a bike and side-car. He said he was going through to Carlisle. That gave me an idea. I asked him if he’d take me and he said he would. He was a decent bloke and didn’t ask any questions.’

‘What was his name?’

‘I didn’t ask, nor did he. I said I was on a walking tour and that my belongings were waiting for me in Carlisle. But he didn’t seem to bother. I never met such a reasonable man.’

‘What was he?’

‘I gathered that he had something to do with the second-hand motor trade and was taking the bike in part-exchange for something. I shouldn’t have known that, only he apologised for its internals not being in perfect trim. In fact, something went wrong with them on the road, and I had to hold an electric torch for him while he put it right. He didn’t seem to have many ideas beyond plugs and things. He didn’t talk. Said he’d been thirty-six hours on the road, but I needn’t worry, because he could drive in his sleep.’

Wimsey nodded. He knew the helots of the second-hand-motor trade. Grim, silent, cynical, abroad at all hours and in all weathers, they are men accustomed to disillusionment and disaster. To deliver their melancholy screws to their customers and depart before inconvenient discoveries are made; to scramble home with their surprise-packets of old iron before the patched radiator bursts or the clutch gives way — this is their sole preoccupation. Always dog-tired, dirty and prepared for the worst, habitually hard-up and morose, they are not likely to be inquisitive about stranded travellers who offer to pay for a lift.

‘So you got to Carlisle?’

‘Yes. I slept most of the time, except, of course, when I was holding the torch. I enjoyed the bits when I was awake. Not knowing who he was made it better. Do you know, I hadn’t been in a side-car before. It’s not like a car. Cars fascinate me, too, though the only two or three times I tried to drive one I didn’t get much kick out of it. I like being driven — and this side-car business gets my imagination. The power is outside you, and you are pulled along — in tow, so to speak. Like being eloped with. You seem to notice the strength of the machine more than you do in a car. Why is that?’

Wimsey shook his head.

‘Perhaps I was imagining things. Well, anyhow, we got to Carlisle in the morning and I had some grub in a sort of teashop place. Then, of course, I had to decide on something. I bought a clean shirt and some socks and a toothbrush and so on, and a knapsack to shove them into. It was only then that I thought about money. I’d have to cash a cheque somewhere. But that meant telling people where I was. I mean, the bank people would have to ring up Kirkcudbright and all that. I thought it would be more fun to pay my way. I’d still got enough to buy paints with, so I went into an art-dealers’ and got a box and a palette and some brushes and colours—’

‘Winsor & Newton, I observe,’ said Wimsey.

‘Yes. You can get them easily in most places, you know. I usually get my stuff from Paris, but Winsor & Newton are perfectly reliable. I thought I’d make my way down into the Lake Country and paint little pictures for tourists or something. It’s fearfully easy. You can knock off two or three in a day — hills and water and mists, you know — and idiots will give you ten bob a time, if the stuff’s sentimental enough. I knew a man who always paid for his holidays that way. Didn’t sign ’em in his own name, naturally. It’s a form of mass-production.’

‘Hence the idea of a Mr. H. Ford?’

‘Oh, you’ve been to the Bull at Brough? Yes — the idea rather tickled me. Well, after I’d bought the paints I had just about enough left to bribe another lorry-driver. But I didn’t. I found a man with a Riley — Oxford fellow — a frightfully good sort. He was heading south and told me I could go as far as I like with him and damn paying for it. He talked all right. His name was John Barrett and he was just fooling around amusing himself. Didn’t know where he was going. Had just got the new car and wanted to see what she could do. Damn it, he did, too. I was never so frightened in my life.’

‘Where did he live?’

‘Oh, London, somewhere. He told me the place, but I can’t remember it now. He asked a lot of questions, too, but I just said I was a travelling artist and he thought it was a fearfully good wheeze. I didn’t mind telling him that, because by that time it was true, you see. He asked what one could make out of it and all that and I gave him all the stuff I’d had from my friend, and he asked me where I’d been last and I said in Galloway. It was just as easy as that. But when we got to Brough, I said I’d get off there. I felt I was too young to die — just as I was starting off on an adventure, too. He was a bit disappointed, but he wished me luck and all that. I went to the Bull, because it looked less grand than the other place, and that was where I got the idea about the sign. Good thing I did, too, because the weather turned nasty the next day, and I hadn’t altogether reckoned with that when I made my plan about doing the hills and lakes and things. So that was that, and here I am.’

Farren took up his brushes again and renewed his assault upon the Dog and Gun.

‘Very jolly,’ said Wimsey. ‘But you know, it all boils down to this, that you can’t produce a single witness to say where you were between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon at 3 o’clock.’

‘Oh! no — I’d forgotten about all that. But, I mean, all this isn’t serious, really? And, after all, I’ve got a perfectly natural, straightforward explanation.’

‘It sounds natural enough to me, perhaps,’ said Wimsey, ‘but whether the police will take that view—’

‘Damn the police! I say, Wimsey—’

The shadow of something cold and deadly crept into the painter’s eyes.

‘Does this mean I’ve got to go back, Wimsey?’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Wimsey, ‘I’m very much afraid—’ He was looking back over Farren’s shoulder at the back door of the inn, from which two squarely-built men in tweeds were emerging. Farren, catching the infection of uneasiness, turned his head.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘It’s all up. Bagged. Trapped. Prison.’

‘Yes,’ said Wimsey, almost inaudibly. ‘And you won’t escape this time — ever.’

STRACHAN’S STORY

‘Bicycles?’ said Inspector Macpherson. ‘Dinna ye talk tae me o’ bicycles. I’m fair fed up wi’ the name o’ them. Wad ye believe that there could be sic a stour aboot twa-three bicycles? Here’s ane o’ them at Euston and anither up at Creetoon, and as if that wasn’t enough, here’s Waters’ bicycle vanished and naebody kens whether we should arrest Waters for murder or make a sairch for a bicycle-thief.’

‘It’s very trying,’ said Wimsey. ‘And I suppose nobody saw Waters go aboard at the Doon?’

‘An’ if onybody had seen him,’ said the Inspector, wrathfully, ‘wad I be fashin’ masel’ the noo? There’s a mon saw anither mon wadin’ across the sand, but he was half a mile off, an’ whae’s tae sae it was Waters?’

‘I must say,’ said Wimsey, ‘that I never in all my life heard of such an unconvincing bunch of alibis. By the way, Inspector, did you check up that story of Ferguson’s?’

‘Ferguson?’ said the Inspector, in the resentful accents of a schoolboy burdened with too much homework. ‘Oo, ay, we havena forgot Ferguson. I went tae Sparkes & Crisp an’ interviewed the employees. There was twa of them remembered him weel eneugh. The lad doonstairs in the show-room couldna speak with sairtainty tae the time, but he recognised Ferguson from his photograph as havin’ brocht in a magneto on the Tuesday afternoon. He said Mr. Saunders wad be the man tae see tae that, and pit a ca’ through on the house telephone tae Mr. Sparkes, an’ he had the young fellow in. Saunders is ane o’ they bright lads. He picked the photograph at once oot o’ the six I showed him an’ turned up the entry o’ the magneto in the daybook.’

‘Could he swear to the time Ferguson came in?’

‘He wadna charge his memory wi’ the precise minute, but he said he had juist come in fra’ his lunch an’ found Ferguson waitin’ for him. His lunch time is fra’ 1.30 tae 2.30, but he was a bit late that day, an’ Ferguson had been waitin’ on him a wee while. He thinks it wad be aboot ten minutes tae three.’

‘That’s just about what Ferguson made it.’

‘Near eneugh.’

‘H’m. That sounds all right. Was that all Saunders had to say?’

‘Ay. Forbye that he said he couldna weel understand whit had happened tae the magneto. He said it looked as though some yin had been daein’ it a wilfu’ damage.’

‘That’s funny. That would be the mechanic’s report, of course. Did you see the mechanic at all?’

The Inspector admitted that he had not done so, not seeing what bearing it could have upon the case.

‘Was you thinkin’, maybe,’ he suggested, ‘that some felonious body was interested in seein’ that Ferguson didna take oot his car that mornin’?’

‘Inspector,’ said Wimsey, ‘you are a mind-reader. I was thinking exactly that.’

Farren had returned to Kirkcudbright. His dream of escape had vanished. His wife had forgiven him. His absence was explained as a trifling and whimsical eccentricity. Gilda Farren sat, upright and serene, spinning the loose white flock into a strong thread that wound itself ineluctably to smother the twirling spindle. The story had been told to the police. Sir Maxwell Jamieson shook his head over it. Short of arresting Farren, they must remain content with his story or else disprove it. And they could not very well arrest Farren, for they might want to arrest Waters or Gowan or Graham or even Strachan, all of whose stories were equally odd and suspicious. It would be preposterous to arrest five people for one crime.

The porter at Girvan was still desperately ill. He had — out of pure perversity, no doubt — developed peritonitis. The Euston bicycle had been duly identified as the property of young Andrew of the Anwoth, but what evidence was there that it had any connection with Campbell? If Farren were the murderer it had obviously no connection with it at all, for Farren could not have taken the Ayr train at Girvan and been in New Galloway at 3 o’clock. And that part of Farren’s story was true, anyway, for they had checked it. No, Farren, like the rest, must have rope given him. So Farren sat sulkily in his studio and Mrs. Farren span — not a rope, perhaps, but fetters at any rate — in the sitting-room with the cool blue curtains.

The Chief Constable took upon himself the task of interviewing Strachan, who received him with politeness, but without enthusiasm.

‘We have obtained a statement from Mr. Farren,’ said Sir Maxwell, ‘with reference to his movements on Monday night and Tuesday morning, which required your corroboration.’

‘Indeed,’ said Strachan. ‘In what way?’

‘Come,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘you know very well in what way. We know, from Mr. Farren’s story, that you have not told us all the facts about your own movements at that time. Now that Mr. Farren has given his explanation, you have no longer any reason for reticence.’

‘I don’t altogether understand this,’ said Strachan. ‘Mr. Farren, as I am told, went for a holiday trip to England and has returned. Why should I answer any questions about his private affairs? To what is the inquiry directed?’

‘Mr. Strachan,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘I do most earnestly beg you not to take up this attitude. It can do no good and only creates difficulties and, if I may say so, suspicion. You are perfectly well aware that we are inquiring into the circumstances of Mr. Campbell’s murder, and that it is absolutely necessary for us to obtain information about all the persons who saw Mr. Campbell shortly before his death. Mr. Farren saw him at 6 o’clock on Monday week, and he has given us an account of his movements since that time. This account requires your corroboration. If you can give it, where is the point of refusing?’

28

‘The point is,’ said Strachan, ‘that Mr. Farren is going about at liberty, and that therefore, presumably, you have nothing against him. In that case, I am not bound to answer any impertinent queries about his behaviour or his personal affairs. If, on the other hand, you intend to accuse him or me of anything criminal, it is your duty to say so, and also to warn us that we are not obliged to answer your questions.’

‘Of course,’ said Sir Maxwell, smothering his annoyance, ‘you are not in any way bound to answer if you think that by so doing you will incriminate yourself. But you cannot prevent us from drawing the natural conclusion from your refusal.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘Certainly not. It is a warning.’

‘And if I thank you for the warning and still decline to make a statement?’

‘In that case, well—’

‘In that case your only alternative is to arrest me and charge me with murder, or with complicity. Are you prepared to go as far as that?’

The Chief Constable was not by any means prepared, but he replied, curtly:

‘You will have to take your chance of that.’

Strachan paused, tapping his fingers on the table. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, and the voice of Myra floated in from the garden, playing at tig with her mother and the nurse.

‘Very well,’ said Strachan, at last. ‘What does Farren say that wants my corroboration?’

Sir Maxwell Jamieson was annoyed again at the obviousness of this trap.

‘I am afraid that won’t do, Mr. Strachan,’ he said, a little acidly. ‘It will be better, I think, that you should begin from the beginning and give me your own account of what happened.’

‘What do you call the beginning?’