Five Red Herrings (8 page)

He frowned over Wimsey’s list of suspects — a disagreeable document, he thought, and savouring strongly of the libellous. All these people were highly respected citizens. Take Gowan, for instance — a leading inhabitant of Kirkcudbright for over fifteen years, well known and well liked, in spite of his small vanities and somewhat overbearing manner. He was wealthy, kept a good house, with an English butler and housekeeper, and owned two cars, with a chauffeur to drive them when required. Was it likely that he would be found knocking his fellow-artists on the head and tumbling them into salmon-rivers in the neighbouring county? What possible motive could he have for it? There had been talk of some disagreement about a picture, but, in Sir Maxwell’s experience, artists frequently disagreed about pictures, with no more consequences than a little cold-shouldering or the formation of a clique. Waters, again — a pleasant young man enough, though inclined to irritate his neighbours by his South-country mannerisms. It was unfortunate that he should have fallen out with Campbell, but surely he was not the man to harbour murderous resentment for a hasty word spoken over a drink. And Farren—

Sir Maxwell paused there, in justice to Wimsey. Where women were concerned, you never knew. Campbell had been rather a frequent visitor at the cottage by the old mill. It was said — there had been talk — threats had been uttered. If there was anything in it, there might be some difficulty in getting at the truth here. Farren’s suspicions had probably been quite unfounded, for one could hardly look at Mrs. Farren and believe evil of her. Still, wives tell lies and provide alibis, even for the most unreasonable of husbands, and indeed, the more virtuous the wife, the more obstinate the liar, under such conditions. With considerable discomfort, Sir Maxwell admitted to himself that he could not undertake to say that the Farrens were, in the nature of things, clear of all suspicion.

Then, of course, there were those people over at Gatehouse. Jock Graham — a harum-scarum, word-and-a-blow fellow if ever there was one. Clever, too. If it came to picking the man with the brains to plan an ingenious crime and the coolness to carry it through, then Graham was the man for his money, every time. Graham had had plenty of practice in the execution of practical jokes, and he could tell a circumstantial lie, looking you square in the eyes with the face of an angel. Ferguson was notoriously on bad terms with his wife. Sir Maxwell knew nothing else to his disadvantage, but he noted it, in his upright Presbyterian mind, as a discreditable fact. Strachan — well, Strachan was secretary of the golf-club and weel-respectit. Surely Strachan, like Gowan, could be ruled out.

The telephone rang. Wimsey pricked up his ears. Sir Maxwell raised the receiver with irritating deliberation. He spoke; then turned to Wimsey.

‘It’s Dalziel. You had better listen in on the extension.’

‘Is’t you, Sir Maxwell?. . Ay, we have the doctor’s report. . Ay, it supports the theory of murder richt enough. There was nae water in the lungs at a’. The mon was deid before he got intae the burn. ’Twas the scart on the heid that did it. The bone is a’ crushed intae the brain. Och, ay, the wound was made before death, and he must ha’ deid almost immediately. There’s a wheen mair blows to the heid an’ body, but the doctor thinks some o’ them will ha’ been made after death, wi’ the body pitchin’ doon the burnside an’ washin’ aboot amang the stanes.’

‘What about the time of the death?’

‘Ay, Sir Maxwell, I was juist comin’ to that. The doctor says Campbell will ha’ been deid at least six hours when he first saw the body, an’ mair likely twelve or thirteen. That’ll pit the time o’ the murder in the late nicht or the airly mornin’ — at ony rate between midnicht and nine o’clock. And a verra suspeecious an’ corroboratin’ circumstance is that the man had nae food in his wame at a’. He was kilt before he had ta’en ony breakfast.’

‘But,’ said Wimsey, cutting in on the conversation, ‘if he had had his breakfast early, it might have passed out of the stomach before lunch-time.’

‘Ay, that’s so. But it wadna ha’ passed oot o’ him a’-’gither. The doctor says his interior was as toom as a drum, an’ he will stake his professional credit he hadna eaten onything sin’ the previous nicht.’

‘Well, he ought to know,’ said Wimsey.

‘Ay, that’s so. That’s his lordship speakin’, is’t no? Your lordship will be gratified by this support for our theory.’

‘It may be gratifying,’ said Jamieson, ‘but I wish very much it hadn’t happened.’

‘That’s so, Sir Maxwell. Still, there’s little doot it has happened and we maun du the best we can by it. There is another remarkable circumstance, an’ that is that we can find no recognisable finger-prints upon the artistic paraphernalia, and it has the appearance as if the user of them had been doin’ his pentin’ in gloves. An’ the steerin’-wheel o’ the car is wiped as clean as a whistle. Ay, I’m thinking the case is weel substantiated. Is it your opeenion, Sir Maxwell, that we should mak’ the fact o’ the murder public?’

‘I hardly know, Sergeant. What do you think yourself? Have you consulted with Inspector Macpherson?’

‘Weel, sir, he thinks we maun gie some gude reason for makin’ our inquiries. . Ay, we’ll best gae cannily aboot it, but there’s folk talkin’ a’ready aboot the quarrel wi’ Waters. . ay, an’ wi’ Farren. . ay. . ay. . an’ there’s a story about Strachan bein’ over in Creetown the nicht of the crime speirin’ after Farren. . I doot we’ll no be able to keep the thing hushed up.’

‘I see. Well, perhaps we had better let it be known that there is a possibility of foul play — that we are not quite satisfied, and so on. But you’d better not tell anybody what the doctor says about the time of the death. I’ll be over presently and have a word with the Fiscal. And meanwhile I’ll get the Kirkcudbright police on to making a few inquiries.’

‘Ay, sir, ’twill be best for them to sort it their end. I’ve a report here fra’ Stranraer I’ll hae to deal wi’ masel’. They’ve detained a young fellow that was boardin’ the Larne boat. . ay, weel, I’ll ring ye again later, Sir Maxwell.’

The Chief Constable hung up the receiver, and confronted Wimsey with a dour smile.

‘It certainly looks as though you were right,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘But,’ he added, more cheerfully, ‘now that they’ve traced the man at Stranraer, it will probably all be cleared up this morning.’

‘Maybe,’ said Wimsey, ‘but I rather doubt whether the man who fixed that accident up so cleverly would be fool enough to give himself away by making a belated bolt to Ireland. Don’t you?’

‘That’s a fact,’ said Jamieson. ‘If he’d wanted to escape he could have taken yesterday morning’s boat. And if he wanted to play the innocent, he could do it better at home.’

‘H’m!’ said Wimsey. ‘I think, you know, the time has come to talk of many things with Farren and Gowan and Waters — only he’s disappeared — and, in fact, with all the good people of Kirkcudbright. A little tactful gossip, Sir Maxwell, by a cheerful, friendly, inquisitive bloke like myself, may do wonders in a crisis. Nothing unusual in my making my morning round of the studios, is there? Nobody minds me. Why, bless you, I’ve got some of ’em so tame, they’ll let me sit round and watch ’em paint. An official personage like you might embarrass them, don’t you know, but there’s no dignity about me. I’m probably the least awe-inspiring man in Kirkcudbright. I was born looking foolish and every day in every way I am getting foolisher and foolisher. Why, even you, Chief, let me come here and sit round on your official chairs and smoke a pipe and look on me as nothing more than an amiable nuisance — don’t you?’

‘There may be something in what you say,’ agreed Jamieson, ‘but you’ll be discreet, mind. There’s no need to mention the word murder.’

‘None whatever,’ said Wimsey. ‘I’ll let them mention it first. Well, toodle-oo!’

Wimsey may not have been an awe-inspiring person to look at, but his reception at Farren’s house did not altogether justify his boast that ‘nobody marked him.’ The door was opened by Mrs. Farren, who at sight of him, fell back against the wall with a gasp which might have been merely surprise but sounded more like alarm.

‘Hullo!’ said Wimsey, breezing cheerily over the threshold, ‘how are you, Mrs. Farren? Haven’t seen you for an age — well, since Friday night at Bobbie’s, but it seems like an age. Is everything bright and blooming? Where’s Farren?’

Mrs. Farren, looking like a ghost painted by Burne-Jones in one of his most pre-Raphaelite moments, extended a chill hand.

‘I’m very well, thank you. Hugh’s out. Er — won’t you come in?’

Wimsey, who was already in, received this invitation in his heartiest manner.

‘Well — that’s very good of you. Sure I’m not in the way? I expect you’re cooking or something, aren’t you?’

Mrs. Farren shook her head and led the way into the little sitting-room with the sea-green and blue draperies and the bowls of orange marigolds.

‘Or is it scarves this morning?’ Mrs. Farren wove hand-spun wool in rather attractive patterns. ‘I envy you that job, you know. Sort of Lady of Shalott touch about it. The curse is come upon me, and all that sort of thing. You promised one day to let me have a twirl at the wheel.’

‘I’m afraid I’m being lazy today,’ said Mrs. Farren, with a faint smile. ‘I was just — I was only — excuse me one moment.’

She went out, and Wimsey heard her speaking to somebody at the back of the house — the girl, no doubt, who came in to do the rough work. He glanced round the room, and his quick eye noted its curiously forlorn appearance. It was not untidy, exactly; it told no open tale of tumult; but the cushions were crushed, a flower or two here and there was wilted; there was a slight film of dust on the window-sill and on the polished table. In the houses of some of his friends this might have meant mere carelessness and a mind above trifles like dust and disorder, but with Mrs. Farren it was a phenomenon full of meaning. To her, the beauty of an ordered life was more than a mere phrase; it was a dogma to be preached, a cult to be practised with passion and concentration. Wimsey, who was imaginative, saw in those faint traces the witness to a night of suspense, a morning of terror; he remembered the anxious figure at the door, and the man — yes. There had been a man there, too. And Farren was away. And Mrs. Farren was a very beautiful woman, if you liked that style of thing, with her oval face and large grey eyes and those thick masses of copper-coloured hair, parted in the middle and rolled in a great knot on the nape of the neck.

A step passed the window — Jeanie, with a basket on her arm. Mrs. Farren came back and sat down in a high, narrow-backed chair, looking out and past him like a distressed beggar-maid beginning to wonder whether Cophetua was not something of a trial in family life.

‘And where,’ said Wimsey, with obtuse tactlessness, ‘has Farren disappeared to?’

The large eyes shadowed suddenly with fear or pain.

‘He’s gone out — somewhere.’

‘The gay dog,’ said Wimsey. ‘Or is he working?’

‘I — don’t quite know.’ Mrs. Farren laughed. ‘You know what this place is. People go off, saying they’ll be back to dinner, and then they meet a man, or somebody says the fish are rising somewhere, and that’s the last you see of them.’

‘I know — it’s shameful,’ said Wimsey, sympathetically. ‘Do you mean he didn’t even come home to his grub?’

‘Oh — I was only speaking generally. He was home to dinner all right.’

‘And then barged out afterwards, saying he wanted some cigarettes and would be back in ten minutes, I suppose. It’s disheartening, isn’t it, the way we behave? I’m a shocking offender myself, though my conscience is fairly easy. After all, Bunter is paid to put up with me. It’s not as though I had a devoted wife warming my slippers and looking out of the front-door every five minutes to see if I ’m going to turn up.’

Mrs. Farren drew in her breath sharply.

‘Yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?’

‘Terrible. No, I mean it. I do think it’s unfair. After all, one never knows what may happen to people. Look at poor Campbell.’

8

This time there was no doubt about it. Mrs. Farren gave a gasp of terror that was almost a cry; but she recovered herself immediately.

‘Oh, Lord Peter, do tell me, what really has happened? Jeanie came in with some dreadful story about his being killed. But she gets so excited and talks such broad Scotch that I really couldn’t make it out.’

‘It’s a fact, I’m afraid,’ said Wimsey, soberly. ‘They found him lying in the Minnoch yesterday afternoon, with his head bashed in.’

‘With his head bashed in? You don’t mean—’

‘Well, it’s difficult to say quite how it happened. The river is full of rocks just there, you see—’

‘Did he fall in?’

‘It looks like it. He was in the water. But he wasn’t drowned, the doctor says. It was the blow on the head that did it.’

‘How dreadful!’

‘I wonder you hadn’t heard about it before,’ said Wimsey. ‘He was a great friend of yours, wasn’t he?’

‘Well — yes — we knew him very well.’ She stopped, and Wimsey thought she was going to faint. He sprang up.

‘Look here — I’m afraid this has been too much of a shock for you. Let me get some water.’

‘No — no—’ She flung out a hand to restrain him, but he had already darted across the passage into the studio, where he remembered to have seen a tap and a sink. The first thing he noticed there was Farren’s sketching-box, standing open on the table, the paints scattered about and the palette flung down higgledy-piggledy among them. An old painting-coat hung behind the door, and Wimsey inspected it inside and out with some care, but seemed to find nothing in it worthy of attention. He filled a cup at the tap, with his eyes roving about the room. The studio-easel stood in its place with a half-finished canvas upon it. The small sketching-easel was propped against the sink, strapped up. Farren had not gone out to paint, evidently.

The water, splashing on his hand, reminded him of what he was supposed to be there for. He wiped the cup and turned to leave the studio. As he did so, he caught sight of Farren’s fishing-tackle standing in the corner behind the door. Two trout-rods, a salmon-rod, net, gaff, creel and waders. Well, there might be a fourth rod, of course, and one can fish without creel or waders. But, standing there so quietly, the things had a look of settled completeness.