The Dartmoor Enigma (8 page)

The bravado was not crushed out of her. “You think yourself very clever, don't you? But there's nothing to show that I wrote those letters.” She picked up the photograph of the letter addressed to the Chief Constable of Scotland Yard from Tavistock. “Why, look here, the writing in this letter is sloping backwards. The other isn't.”

“It isn't.”

“Well then, how can you have the face to fix the writing on me?”

“Only because if you were to copy this letter in a hand sloping backwards, your writing would be just like this. People can't disguise their handwriting by sloping words backwards. No, Miss Susie, you committed no offence by writing the letters; on the contrary you were doing your best to help the police. Why not help them a little further? You don't want a murderer to get off, do you? You don't want people to try to attribute the murder to Dick Pengelly. Why not tell us the whole story, exactly as it happened?”

“I suppose you thought it was a clever game to trap me into making that written statement. All you wanted was to get a specimen of my handwriting. It was a dirty trick.”

“Well you see, Miss Duke, we had to get evidence as to who wrote these anonymous letters because the writer, whoever she was, was likely to be an important witness in the case. You think that we are trying to fasten the guilt on to Dick Pengelly. You're quite wrong. I, for one, don't believe that he had anything to do with the murder and I'll tell you why. The weapon used was a heavy walking-stick with a silver band round it—not the kind of stick that a quarryman would care to buy—and that rules out Pengelly as the man who struck Dearborn. As an eye-witness you are in a position to support my view, and so you ought not to hold anything back.”

“My! But aren't you detectives clever to think of that walking-stick being a way of clearing Dick Pengelly!” There was real admiration in her voice now. “Very well, I'll tell you the truth and you can believe it or not as you like. Dick didn't want to drive through Duketon; the policeman there hasn't enough to do and so he's a busybody, always poking his nose into other people's affairs.”

“Why did Pengelly drive the lorry at all if he hadn't a licence?”

“Well, you see, my brother was going to drive him into Tavistock with his luggage to look for a job there. But when Ernie was taken ill he said, ‘It's rotten luck for you, but why shouldn't you take the lorry and drive her yourself, with Susie to keep you on the right road. She has to go to Tavistock to get the money the fruiterer owes me. You can leave the lorry at the garage for me to call for when I'm better.'”

“But when you turned off towards Sandiland it wasn't only because Pengelly was afraid of the Duketon constable. He must have had another reason.”

“Well, as soon as he saw Mr. Dearborn's car, he thought he'd stop him down the road and tell him off, so we drove on down the hill a bit of the way, parked the lorry there, well into the roadside, and then him and me went back up the hill to a place where we got a clear view of the top. We got off the road and sat down among the heather to wait for Mr. Dearborn. Dick says to me, ‘As soon as his car comes in sight I'll step out into the middle of the road and hold up my arms; that'll stop him; he won't dare drive over me.'”

“And then?”

“Well, then a funny thing happened. Just as Mr. Dearborn's car came in sight on the top of the hill, another chap jumped out of the heather and stuck out his arms just like Dick meant to, and he had a whacking great stick in his hand. He didn't see us.”

“What happened then?”

“It was all so quick that it was difficult to see exactly. Mr. Dearborn jumped out of his car with the starting-handle in his hand, and there was a bit of a set-to between them. I saw the fellow with the stick bring it down with a whack on Mr. Dearborn's head, and I saw Mr. Dearborn drop the starting-handle. The man picked it up and threw it into the heather. He'd broken his stick and he threw the pieces away, after the starting-handle. Then he made off down into the gully, and there was Mr. Dearborn lying beside the car.”

“Didn't you go up the hill to help him?”

“I wanted to, but Dick wouldn't let me. He said, ‘They'll blame me for this, that's certain. We must get out of it as quick as we can and keep our mouths shut.' And he took me by the arm and dragged me down to the lorry. I don't believe we spoke a word till we got well-nigh into Tavistock.”

“What made you write the anonymous letters?”

“I knew one of the jurymen at the inquest, and he told me that they'd brought it in as death from an accident. Well then I thought, ‘Here's a pretty state of affairs. A man's murdered in broad daylight on the moor and the murderer gets away with it. It might be our turn next.' So I just sat down and dropped a line to the Superintendent. And then when I thought what a slow lot they were in Winterton, I dropped a line to the big man in Scotland Yard.”

“But you posted one letter in Moorstead and the other in Tavistock.”

“That's right. A friend of mine was going that way and I asked him for a lift. I wanted to find Dick Pengelly and get him to come with me to the police. I tried the garage, but they'd never seen him since the day we left the car there. So I bought a sheet of paper and an envelope and a stamp and wrote the letter in a tea-shop and posted it.”

Sergeant Jago had been making notes of her admissions and was embodying them in the form of a statement. Richardson read this over to her.

“Lord! I didn't know that I'd told you all that,” said she; “but it's gospel truth.”

“You don't want to add anything?”

“No.”

“Then will you sign it?”

“What! Sign another statement?”

“Yes. The first would be no use in a court of law.”

“Do you mean that you're going to have me up as a witness?”

“Not until we catch the man who used the stick. When we do catch him, both you and Pengelly will be wanted to give evidence.”

“You mean I'll have to go to Exeter Assizes and swear to all this and have my picture taken in the newspapers and be badgered by a barrister in a wig?”

“You'll get all your expenses paid by the Crown.”

“I dare say. You'll be telling me next that the King will want me to come up to Buckingham Palace to be thanked for what I've done. No, I tell you straight; it's not good enough.”

“It's the duty of everyone to do what is best for the country. None of us want murderers to be at large.”

“When I told you all this, it was because you'd told me about that walking-stick and somehow, I don't know why, I trust you, though you are a policeman, and I'm sure you'll do your best to keep Dick Pengelly out of this business, because you know as well as I do that he had no hand in it. Now then, where am I to sign?”

Richardson indicated the place, blotted the ink and stowed away his writing materials. “You've nothing to fear, my girl, and I'm sure that we are all very much obliged to you. Good-bye.”

They found the police car waiting at the corner of the lane.

“Have you had any luck?” asked Richardson.

“No, Chief Inspector. I've been round to every shop where they sell walking-sticks; they all told me the same thing. The only place where you would be likely to find a stick like that would be in Plymouth or Exeter. You wouldn't even find one in Tavistock.”

“Good. Then we've cleared up one point. Now we had better get back to Winterton.”

Richardson found Superintendent Carstairs in his office.

“You've been busy to-day,” said the Superintendent.

“Yes, Mr. Carstairs; we have. We've seen Pengelly, and we've cleared up the question as to who wrote those anonymous letters. It was a young woman in Moorstead.”

“The devil it was! Who is she?”

“The daughter of the woman with whom Pengelly lodged.”

“What was her object in writing them?”

“She has made a long written statement which I have here. You had better read it.”

The Superintendent read the statement and shook his head over it. “All the way through she has apparently been shielding Pengelly. Perhaps there's a love-affair between them?”

“I think there is.”

“Well then, this statement of hers is so much waste paper. You know what women are, Mr. Richardson, quite as well as I do. They do the wildest things when they're in love.”

“They do, but what motive could she have had in writing those letters if they weren't true? All she had to do, if she wanted to shield Pengelly, was to keep her mouth shut. Then there's the question of that walking-stick. We got the driver of your car to make a round of the shops in Moorstead where sticks are sold, and the answer was always the same—that you can't buy a stick like that nearer than Plymouth or Exeter.”

Carstairs stroked his beard. “Everything points to Pengelly having been the guilty one—motive, opportunity and character. All the girl does is to introduce another character and make him do exactly what she saw Pengelly do. As for the stick, it may have belonged to the murdered man himself; he could have bought it in Plymouth when he went to the bank there, or he may have had it for years. I don't want to queer your pitch, Chief Inspector, but if the case were mine, and there was any danger of Pengelly clearing out of the county, I should lay him by the heels on the charge of motoring without a licence, and see whether the truth couldn't be shaken out of him.”

“It's perfectly open to you to do that, Mr. Carstairs, because I shall have to interview him again and put the girl's statement to him. He only told us a quarter of the truth. I should also like to see the widow and ask her whether her late husband possessed a stick such as the broken one.”

Superintendent Carstairs had his full share of the dogged obstinacy that is found among South Devon men. “If you'll excuse my saying so, Mr. Richardson, I think you're giving yourself a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

“I hope not, Superintendent, because I should be very sorry to see you take some step which you would afterwards regret. Of course, you haven't had the advantage of sizing up the girl when interviewing her, as I did.”

“Still, I don't think that the question of that stick is sufficient to clear Pengelly.”

“There's another factor in my mind. Don't you think that if Pengelly had attacked Dearborn after holding up his car, Dearborn would have complained to the police as soon as he recovered consciousness?”

“After a crack on the head like that you can never tell how much a man remembers.”

“But Mr. Dearborn was not suffering from loss of memory; he invented a story for his wife's benefit, that the brakes had refused to act. Yet Sergeant Jago found the brakes in perfect order. Don't you think the girl's story is supported by the fact that Dearborn was anxious to conceal all indications of the attack made upon him? You must remember that he has been mysterious about his past ever since he came to Devonshire. He may have recognized in his assailant some private enemy of whom we know nothing.”

“That's all very well, but it will mean that we have to go chasing all over England for a mystery man, when we have the real assailant right under our noses.”

Richardson tactfully changed the subject. “Did the funeral take place to-day?”

“No, it's fixed for to-morrow morning.”

“And the doctors' report? What did the coroner think of it?”

“Oh, he took the line that now the Yard was investigating the case, there was no need to hold a second inquest. The doctors' report says clearly that the deceased received a heavy blow on the head from a blunt instrument which fractured the skull, which was unusually thin, and that the injury could not have been caused by the head coming into contact with the roof of the car.”

“If the funeral is to be to-morrow, Mr. Carstairs, I should be glad if you would have a telephone message sent to the manager of the Union Bank, who is sole executor to the will. After the funeral he would read the will to the widow.”

“Certainly I will.”

“In the meantime I hope that Mrs. Dearborn will not take it amiss if I call on her this evening to ask her about that stick; whether her late husband ever had one like it.”

“I'm sure she will not object, but what I want to know is whether you intend to question Pengelly at the quarry, or whether you would like me to have him brought down here on the charge of driving without a licence.”

“Wouldn't the procedure be by summons?”

“Not in this case, because there is the danger of the defendant moving out of the jurisdiction.”

Richardson considered. He had to decide in his own mind whether Pengelly would be more communicative as a free man in the quarry than when in custody in a police station. He had to make up his mind quickly.

“Yes, Mr. Carstairs, I should be glad if you would have him brought in. Perhaps you would instruct your officers to tell the foreman that he's wanted only for a motoring offence. And now, if you'll allow me, I'll go and see Mrs. Dearborn.”

He found the lady engaged in her back garden. She had heard the front-door bell and was on her way to receive her visitor. “You must be surprised to find me gardening, Mr. Richardson, but I find that it takes my mind off all this sadness and trouble.”

“I have really come to ask you one question only—whether your husband had a heavy walking-stick with a crook handle and a silver band?”

She shook her head. “No, he had only one walking-stick. Come into the house and I'll show it to you. He never used it after he got the car.”

She showed him a stick of light-coloured wood, which was standing with the umbrellas in the hall. “Have you found out anything more?”

“Yes, we've found out who sent the anonymous letters, but don't let us speak of them now. What I want to get from you is exactly what happened when Dr. Wilson brought your husband here after his accident?”