Sir Giles bowed gravely.
“Sir Giles has told me no more than that you were in charge of the case.”
“In that case, I repeat that I think he was murdered. I said so at the time, but Sir James Fell—Colonel Mowbray’s predecessor—practically told me to keep my mouth shut and forget all the fancy ideas I had. I had no wish to be retired for any cooked-up reason, and so I obliged and obeyed, but I still think that Marlin was pushed down the steps!”
“What gave you that impression, Johnson?”
The Inspector left his desk and went to the safe. He returned with two photographs.
“I took these myself. I needn’t explain that one is a photograph of Marlin’s body lying at the foot of the steps, and the other is a close-up of his supper-table. Any questions at this stage?”
Knollis shook his head. “Tell me the story in your own way. I think we understand each other.”
The Inspector relaxed in his chair, and clasped his hands across his stomach. He was a stoutish man, and blew out his cheeks before beginning: “Let me tell you Marlin’s story. He entered the Merchant Navy in nineteen-thirteen, and went right through the last war on a minesweeper without getting a scratch. Three months after the armistice he was still sweeping off the East Coast when he hit his first mine. He was picked up by a sister ship, and taken to hospital in a serious condition. His life was saved, but—did you ever meet him?”
“No,” replied Knollis. “I know Jessop, but I never met Marlin.”
“Well, he came out of dock with a badly disfigured face. He really was a mess! There was no such thing as plastic surgery in those days, of course, and Marlin came back to his native village, two miles from here, a soured and despondent man.”
“And turned hangman?” asked Knollis.
The Inspector shook his head. “You are going too fast. No, he turned day-gardener. Most of the gentry in the district were sorry for him, and they gave him all the work they could. Now he had one small daughter, Mildred. She would be about three then—I’m only guessing from my memory.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “The next part of the story is rather nasty, but you need it to complete the picture. His wife was both shocked and repulsed by his physical appearance, and she refused to—well, have anything to do with him. That made him more bitter than ever, and acting on his own advice he took her to court for restitution of conjugal rights. That is why I know so much about him. The case went in his favour, and the usual moralising magistrate dressed Mrs. Marlin down well and truly, pointing out that her husband was more or less of a hero, and that his disfigurement was the result of fighting to protect her and the child. She left the court in an hysterical condition, and had to have medical attention, but she returned to her home.”
The Inspector grimaced. “A son was born eleven months later, and he was born with a twisted face—”
“My God!” Knollis exclaimed. “That—never mind!”
“What on earth is striking you?” Inspector Johnson exclaimed in turn.
“Go on, man. Go on,” said Knollis. “I’ll do my explaining later.”
“Well, as I said, the boy was born with one side of his face twisted to hell—just like the old man’s. For the next fortnight Mrs. Marlin lay in bed and wept, and screamed, and moaned, and went silent in turns. Two days after she left her bed she drowned herself in the village pond, and I came into their lives and deaths again.”
He paused to relight his pipe before continuing his story.
“The next phase started with the inquest. The Coroner, also a moralising so-and-so, took it out of Marlin this time. He dwelt at some length on the frail mental and spiritual make-up of Woman, and quoted a piece about dealing gently with your brother Man and still more gently with your sister, Woman. He denounced Marlin for taking his wife to court, and then denounced him for taking her to bed. It sounded a bit like the curse in the Jackdaw of Rheims. He cursed him in sitting, and lying, and eating, and drinking, and every other way he could think of. Could he not have taken his time and re-wooed her? Could he not have done this, and that, and the other? His sermon made me go red in the face, and I’d been married eighteen years then! Marlin walked out of that court with his jaw clamped as tight as a vice, with a verdict ringing in his ears of Suicide While of Unsound Mind, with a rider to the effect that Marlin’s treatment was directly or indirectly responsible for the state of her mind.”
“And then?” Knollis almost whispered.
“Marlin kept to his house for a full month. A nurse was found for the boy, and a part-witted girl who could not think was taken on as housekeeper. Marlin was a handy sort of fellow who could turn his hand to nearly anything, and he opened a shop as boot-repairer. Six months later I received a confidential enquiry from You-Know-Where about Marlin’s character. He had applied for the position as executioner’s assistant. He gave as his reason the necessity of withdrawing from public life, and he had given his service records and all that to help on his application against those applicants from the ranks of the prison warders. Well, what did I know against his character? Nothing from our point of view. He had lived a clean life, he was trustworthy, silent, and honest. I wanted to help the poor devil, and so I gave him a clean bill.”
“Some story—what?” Sir Giles murmured to Knollis.
“Damned horrible!” said Knollis. “Go on, Johnson!”
The Inspector fiddled with his pipe. “It was difficult, I admit, but as I saw it the affairs of his marital life were nobody’s concern but his own. What was it that Shaw said about marriage?”
“Something about giving the maximum provocation with the maximum opportunity, wasn’t it?” Sir Giles suggested.
Johnson nodded. “Something like that.”
“What happened to the children?” Knollis asked.
“The kids? They went to the village school until they were fourteen. Mildred then went to one of the near-by houses as a maid, and three years later the boy got a job with a local butcher.”
“He did, did he?” Knollis murmured grimly. “What was his Christian name, Johnson?”
“Daniel—and that was another sidelight on his father’s character. It was his idea of a joke. Marlin asked me to be the godfather, because he said that I was the only person who had stood by him in his troubles, which was a mis-statement. I asked why he was going to call him Daniel, and he said he’d have to dare to be a Daniel, and dare to stand alone, with a face like that! So Daniel it was—although we never told the reason to the parson. Somehow, I don’t think he’d have stood for it.”
“Definitely a ghastly type of humourist.” Sir Giles grimaced. “I don’t think I should have liked Marlin.”
“Well, perhaps not, Sir Giles,” said the Inspector, “but you must look back to the beginnings to see the affair straight. All that followed was the logical effect, or effects, of that first cause—the blowing-up of the minesweeper, and it was inevitable. Anyway, Marlin came to see me and asked me to keep quiet about the executioner job, which I did. A couple of years later old Lenten died, and Marlin stepped into his position as hangman.”
“And the children?” Knollis asked again.
“Mildred learned the truth when she was eighteen, and by accident. Marlin left some papers lying around. She wept her eyes out, and left home. Daniel cleared out six months later, as a boy of fifteen or so, and I’ve never laid a glance on either of them from that day to this. Marlin stayed on in the village. He became a taciturn sort of fellow, half-feared and half-admired, because by now the village knew of his other trade. He was a good boot-repairer, and he made a steady income. Most nights he would slink into the local, and occupy a corner which became his own, and in which nobody else would dare to sit, and so the years rolled on, as they say in books. And then came the night when one of my constables ’phoned through to say that he had found Marlin lying at the foot of the cellar steps with his neck broken. You know the rest!”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Knollis. “Tell me; how di
d the constable come to discover him?”
“He was on night patrol, and found the cottage lit up and the front door standing open. He went in, and saw the table set for supper. Marlin had apparently left the meal half-way through to go down the cellar—a fact corroborated by the post-mortem examination of his tummy. There was no apparent reason why he should have gone down the cellar at that moment. There was a full scuttle of coal beside the fire in case he wanted to build it up. There were two bottles of beer on the table, together with a glass, so it wasn’t beer he was fetching! No food was kept in the cellar, so it wasn’t that. As far as I could make out there was only one reason why he should have left his meal and gone down at that particular moment. . . .”
“And that was?” asked Knollis.
“He was lured down by a noise, or a voice.”
Knollis stared at the ceiling. “Did you discover anything that might substantiate your theory, Johnson?”
Inspector Johnson regarded the photographs intently. “Those photographs are my best answer, plus one other fact. You know how cellar gratings are fastened from the inside by a chain that is locked through a staple on the wall? That was hanging loose, as if someone had—but let me give you my reconstruction of the whole affair. The rear kitchen window is one of those old-fashioned slide-aside things, and the brass thumbscrew which fastens it was missing. Suppose that someone entered that way, and unfastened the chain in the cellar, and then left again by the window? Suppose that he waits until the old boy was having his supper, which was half-past ten-ish, because he stayed at the local until after closing time that night; suppose that he waits, then, and then quietly lifts off the grate and lowers himself into the cellar—”
“Or has a confederate who lifts the grating, rattles the chain, and so lures the old boy to the top of the steps,” interrupted Knollis, his quick mind seizing on the possibilities.
“And then,” went on Inspector Johnson, “as the old man starts to descend the steps—”
“The major partner in the crime pushes him,” said Knollis.
“One person could have done it,” said Johnson.
“How?” asked Knollis, creasing his brows.
Johnson smiled. “That was what I was trying to tell you, only you would jump to conclusions! I found a length of stout cord behind the cellar door. Now the door opens outward. That is, you pull it towards you to open it. Assume that it was already open, and the cord is hanging slack? The old boy stands at the top of the steps, wondering about the noises in the cellar. The house was only lit by lamps, and he might as well have been in the darkness for all the light that filtered from the living-room. And so he stands, listening, and the fellow at the bottom gathers up the slack in his hands, and then gives a heave! The door slams on Marlin’s back. There is no handrail or other projection at which he could cling to save himself, and so he falls head-first down the steps. The murderer makes sure that he is dead, mounts the steps, detaches the cord, and leaves by the rear window—reached by an unlighted passage and a kitchen in which no lamp is burning.”
“I see . . .” Knollis said slowly. “And you never heard of either of the children being in the district at that time?”
“No,” said the Inspector. “I tried to trace them, but was unsuccessful. I was told by one of the local gentry that he and his wife had got a position for her with a family by the names of Gates, in Berkeley Square, but when I enquired Mrs. Gates said that Mildred had left, and she did not know where she had gone.”
“The date of Marlin’s death?” asked Knollis.
“September the fourteenth, nineteen-thirty-eight.”
“Thanks. Now where can I find Sir James Fell?”
“I can take you to him,” said Sir Giles. “He’s a doddering old fellow of eighty-odd years, and a bit crusty.”
“Well, Knollis,” said Inspector Johnson, “if there is anything more I can do for you, just let me know. I’ll leave you to decide whether there is anything in my theory or not. You are the murder-specialist, and I’m only the poor country bobby with a penchant for recovering stolen bikes.”
Knollis grinned as he rose. “You are too modest, Johnson! Thanks for everything.”
“By the way,” the Inspector said slowly. “You haven’t told me how this Marlin affair ties up with the Bowland job.”
“Sir Giles will tell you that,” Knollis replied. “I nearly jumped out of my boots when he supplied the link.”
Johnson looked anxiously at Sir Giles.
“The daughter of the murdered man, before she married Manchester, was Mildred Marlin,” Sir Giles said dramatically.
“Hell, no!” Johnson exclaimed.
“Hell, yes!” Sir Giles corrected him. “It’s true.”
“How did you get to know?” Knollis asked curiously.
“Dana Vaughan told me on the q.t.”
Knollis’s jaw dropped. “Dana Vaughan! How the devil did she know?”
Sir Giles grinned, almost stupidly. “I thought you’d ferreted all this out, Inspector. As you haven’t, I’d better tell you the whole story. Do you know who wrote The Hempen Rope?”
“Er—Leslie Danvers, surely?”
“Exactly,” replied Sir Giles, “and Leslie Danvers is Dana Vaughan. The play is based on the lives of Marlin and his daughter.”
Knollis cast his mind back to the play, which he had seen three times. “Yes-es, it sounds possible,” he admitted, “but I’m damned if I get it yet.”
Sir Giles chuckled. “Well, you’re the detective, and I’m not propounding a solution to the riddle. I’m only supplying the facts. And here are a few more. Dana, Mildred, and Freddy all met on a Mediterranean cruise some five years ago. Mildred had apparently progressed from ’tween-maid to governess, and had the entree to all the best houses. That is why Freddy married her. He wanted to be a Somebody, and he thought that she was a suitable stepping-stone.”
“He didn’t know that she was Marlin’s daughter?”
“Of course not!” exclaimed Sir Giles. “Milly wanted money, and lots of it. If you were in that position, and had her outlook on life, would you tell the prospective bank-balance that your father was a hangman? Would you blazes!”
Knollis licked his lips. He crammed his hat on his head. “Take me to Sir James Fell—and thanks again, Johnson. I’ll remember you in my report, and if I can get your case reopened, I’ll do it.”
“Thanks!” Johnson called after him.
Sir Giles drove, and sent the car chasing down the main road to Trentingham at a pace that alarmed Knollis.
“Happy?” asked Sir Giles.
“It depends what you mean by happiness. . . .”
“That is Joad’s line!” Sir Giles replied. “Perhaps I should have asked you if you were satisfied with life.”
“More satisfied than I was a few hours ago, but is it necessary to travel at this astounding pace? We are doing over seventy.”
Sir Giles slowly eased his foot from the accelerator, and the car attained a respectable forty.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a victim of the age. It’s the instinct of imitation, vide MacDougal. The first time I was aware of it working in myself was a few months ago when I went to London. When I left the station I was astounded by the way in which Londoners rushed about, as if the bus coming up the road, or the Tube train coming out of the tunnel, was the last one for hours instead of the last one for two minutes. I felt sorry for them for allowing themselves to be caught up in such an idiotic race. Two days later I discovered myself running down an escalator to catch a train that wasn’t even signalled in. Silly, isn’t it? One sheep goes through the gap in the hedge, and all the others follow. There’s a moral in it somewhere.”
Knollis nodded sadly. “Yes, I’m afraid that the human race is more notorious for its stupidity than for anything else. I was reading an article on Edgar Wallace the other day, and the author was lauding the wordage he had turned out. It set me thinking about Charles Dickens, and the number of books he wrote with a q
uill pen. We seem to be rushing to destruction as fast as our legs can take us.”
“I wonder when it all started,” Sir Giles murmured pensively.
“Oh, that’s a simple question,” Knollis replied. “It started on the day when Crippen’s description was wirelessed across the Atlantic. That dramatic event started the ball rolling, and it has been gaining speed ever since.”
“And that is Sir James’s house showing white through the trees. Want me to come in with you?”
“If you will, please,” said Knollis. “You can act as my ice-breaker. Hang you, Sir Giles! You nearly had that gate-post! Have you no pity for my nerves?”
“Mea culpa! Pax vobiscum! The brake is applied, and the gentleman may step out all in one piece.”
“Which is more due to Providence that to the driving of Sir Giles Tanroy,” said Knollis. “Nice place Sir James has!”
Sir James Fell was an aged gentleman with very little hair, a drooping white moustache, bent shoulders, and a shortage of teeth. He appeared to be in the early stages of senile decay.
“Scotland Yard?” he grumbled. “I hoped that I had finished with the police. I want peace, dammit, for my last years. What is it you want, anyway?”
“I understand that you were the Chief Constable of Trentingham at one time, Sir James,” Knollis said in a soothing voice. “Also that you remember the death of Marlin, the hangman.”
The old man blinked blearily. “So that’s turned up again! Yes, I remember it—what the devil do you want to know about it?”
“I’ve had a chat with Inspector Johnson, at Frampton, and it seems that he had certain suspicions.”
“Certain suspicions!” bawled Sir James. “The man was mad. Said that Marlin had been murdered! Murdered indeed!”
“I consider that he had reasonable grounds for his suspicions, Sir James!” Knollis said firmly.
The old man looked up, blinked again, and wiped his moustaches away from his mouth with the back of his hand. “You do, eh? Well, so do I if it comes to that. Either his son or his daughter did it. Nobody else had a motive.”
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