“So he told you that he was tramping over into the Yorkshire dales,” said Macdonald. “I climbed half up Ingleborough this afternoon, racking my brains as to where he went and what he did. That’s a long stretch of hill, is Ingleborough.”
“Did y’ think he might have dropped something handy for you to pick up whiles you did your detecting?” asked Staple, and Macdonald laughed.
“To look for a clue on Ingleborough has got the proverbial needle in a haystack beaten hollow,” he said, “but maybe I did hope I’d find summat as you say. Aren’t there any Ramblers’ Associations I could persuade to go over the ground for me, and save my own legs?”
“You’d better try the chaps who go exploring the potholes,” said Staple. “There’s a fair company of them—make a hobby of going down those great holes.”
“No accounting for tastes,” said Macdonald. “Now I’ve got a job I want you to do for me, and some more questions for you to answer. The job is this: come up the fell with me and show me exactly where you saw Richard Garth and talked to him.”
“Aye, I’ll do that right now—but you won’t find him there now.”
“No. I don’t expect I shall, but I want to see the place. Now for the questions. Where were you when you were told those stirks were missing from the Home Farm, and who told you about them?”
“Miss Marion told me. ’Twas the morning of the fox hunt. I looked in to see young Malcolm, to get some of that heather honey if so be he’d got any to sell. I was talking to him in the fold yard and Miss Marion called to me from the barn.”
“Was old Mr. Garth anywhere about at the time?”
“Aye. He was nearby—at the grindstone if I remember rightly.”
“Any one else within earshot?”
“I can’t rightly say—but any one could have heard. Miss Marion called to me from the barn—sung her question out, so’s I could hear.” Staple pondered, and said at last, “You’re thinking it was that took the old man to the hull, to get a post to mend the fence where the cattle had broken through?”
“I think it’s probable, Mr. Staple—don’t you?”
“Aye. It’s a good plain bit o’ reasoning. Shows sense—and you’re no farmer, neither.”
“No—I wish I were. Tell you what, I’ll try to come up here next hay time and lend a hand with the carting, and you can tell me how I shape. Now come along—I’ll drive you up the fell as far as the car will take us, and you can show me where you saw Richard Garth.”
Five minutes in the car and then ten minutes rough walking brought them to the wall where Staple had stood and talked to Richard. With the keen wind in his ears, Macdonald stood and faced north, looking over the valley to the opposite fell side. He had to turn his head away from the wind to hear Staple’s words when he spoke.
“If you’ve reasoned right about the old man making up his mind to mend that fence when Marion spoke o’ they stirks, then you can’t say Richard was there to hear.”
“I can’t be certain, Mr. Staple. I’ve played in my uncle’s barn in the Highlands, and I’ve hidden in the hay in the loft when I’d earned a leathering… I tell you it’s not impossible.”
“Meaning he lay hid in that loft for days and listened, biding his time? Nay, lad, you’re wrong. You’ve got a good head on you, but you’re wrong there.”
Macdonald turned away and looked over the wall. Malcolm’s bee-hives were in a wired-off enclosure just beyond the wall. In one spot, where the heather grew high and the wall broke the wind there were signs that someone had been there not many days ago. The heather was bent and broken where a tall man might have rested at full length. Into Macdonald’s mind came Marion’s statement to Layng, “Malcolm was probably up by his hives… He often goes to sleep up there.”
Before Staple realised what he was doing, Macdonald had got over the wall without disturbing a stone. He looked down at the bent heather and saw a small book lying half hidden by the wall. It had been drenched with rain, and was still limp and damp—a little copy of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.
Putting it in his pocket, Macdonald called to Staple, “What direction did the wind blow from last Monday when you were up here?”
“Nor’west. ’Twas a keen wind, caught my rheumatism. It veered to full west later, and the rain came on as we finished carting. Nine o’clock that was. We worked by moonlight to get the oats in—aye, and we got a proper drenching.”
As Macdonald got back over the wall again, Staple was still talking half to himself. “Ould Mr. Garth, he came to help me cart my oats, and he worked three hours that evening, tossing them hattocks. How many landlords ’d do that for their tenants, and him an old man over eighty?”
“Aye—that’s a good memory,” said Macdonald. “You won’t forget that, Mr. Staple.”
“I shan’t forget…and I tell you this, though you’re a London detective and you’ve got a head on your shoulders, ’twas as likely I shot the old man myself as that Richard did. You can think and think again, but all your thinking won’t make sense o’ that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Macdonald drove Staple back to his farm, and then went on to the nearest telephone call-box and put a call through to Layng, asking him to arrange certain matters for the next day—Sunday. This particular course of action had been suggested to Macdonald by a remark of Staple’s. He then drove back to Garthmere, left his car close to the old hull, and went in by the fold yard gate.
There was nobody about. Macdonald paused to consider. It was Saturday, and probably Jem and Bob Moffat had both knocked off at middle day, since both haymaking and harvest were over, and there was no urgency over lifting potatoes or turnips. The milking would be done, the cattle turned out to pasture again, and probably the Garths were having a belated tea.
Macdonald went into the barn by the side door and waited until his eyes grew accustomed to the half-light. It was a fine structure, the great roof beams more impressive than those of many an ancient church: regarding them thoughtfully, Macdonald decided he liked the beams all the better because they were not shaped to a smooth finish, but showed the original irregularities of the wood. The open space of the barn where he stood held bins and chests and gear; at the farther end, beyond the double doors which admitted the hay carts, was an open loft, loaded with hay to the pent roof above, save at one side where a ladder ran up to give access to the store. Below the loft the floor of the barn was some feet lower than the main parts: here were the cow stalls or shippon, where a dozen cows could be tied up at milking time or housed in the winter months. They were empty now, and the shippon door stood wide open.
Macdonald walked across the rough floor of the barn and mounted the ladder leading up to the loft. There was no window here, but high above, just under the angle of the pent roof, a small space had been left open to admit daylight. It was twelve feet above Macdonald’s head, but he found another ladder lying by the wall, presumably used when the hay had been piled up to the roof. Not without difficulty Macdonald upended the ladder against the hay, tested its stability and mounted it. As he had expected, the gap up in the gable was a fine view point: he could see over tree tops and hedges and irregularities in the ground, right to Lawson’s Wood in the distance, and to the door of the old hull nearer at hand.
“Here a little and there a little,” he said to himself as he descended to the loft floor.
He had just set foot on the rungs of the lower ladder when a change in the light told him that someone was standing at the side door of the barn, impeding the daylight. A cool voice said:
“And what the dickens do you think you’re doing?”
Macdonald reached the ground and turned before he answered the unfamiliar voice. A tall, lanky lad stood by the door, regarding Macdonald with amused dark eyes. The latter answered:
“Are you Malcolm Garth? My name’s Macdonald.”
“Scotland Yard in the Shippon,
or The Corpse in the Hay Loft,” responded the other. “Have you found anything?”
“Only what I expected to find—a good view,” replied Macdonald. He pulled from his pocket the damp little copy of The Ancient Mariner he had found by the wall on the fell side.
“I think this is probably yours. I found it in the heather,” he said.
“Oh damn… I mean, thank you very much,” replied Malcolm. “I am a fool! I like that book—and look at it now.”
“Yes. Distinctly damaged,” replied Macdonald. “Considering the way it rained on the Monday night and all day Tuesday, it’s only surprising that the book’s recognisable as a book at all.” He paused and then went on, evenly and deliberately, “How much of the conversation did you hear when John Staple talked to Richard Garth up on the fell side near your hives last Monday?”
Malcolm stood quite still, his pale face curiously white in the half-light of the barn. “I heard most of it—but I wasn’t much the wiser,” he replied, and his voice was quite steady. “You won’t be much wiser, either,” he continued, “because although I listened-in, I’m not going to repeat what I heard.”
“I haven’t asked you to, laddie,” replied Macdonald. “I’ve heard the gist of it from a pretty reliable witness named Staple.”
“Hell! He never told you he’d seen Richard! I don’t believe it!”
“If it interests you, I knew that Richard Garth had been in the neighbourhood before I asked John Staple about their conversation,” replied Macdonald. “Now I may have a lot of questions to ask you later on. For the moment, one question outweighs the others in importance. That is—how many people did you tell about having seen Richard Garth on Monday?”
“I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Quite a good effort, but it’s not true,” replied Macdonald. “If you’re interested in detection, you might like to know that the motives which make people give untrue answers are among the chief points to elucidate. It’s quite often done from the best intentions, such as shielding someone else.”
“I’m not shielding anybody.”
“No? Then you’re lying from a baser motive—the desire to shield yourself.”
“Damn you, I’m not!” burst out Malcolm furiously.
“Don’t be silly,” replied Macdonald, not condescendingly and quite good-humouredly. “You’ve got plenty of wits,” he went on. “Consider this. I’m more than double your age, and for more than twenty-five years I’ve been interrogating people like yourself—people who have no idea of the amount of patient donkey work which is described as detection. If I hadn’t learnt the elements of my job in that time I should have been kicked out years ago. I have come here to find a murderer, and you know it, and yet you give silly answers which are obviously untrue because you won’t face the issue clearly.”
Malcolm was stubbornly silent, and Macdonald went on: “You can answer my question truthfully now, or you can come into the house with me, wait until I have collected every member of the household, and listen while I interrogate each one of them concerning the question I have asked you. It will probably be a long-drawn-out and rather painful business, because it will involve a detailed account of exactly how every one spent his or her time on Monday evening and on Thursday between dawn and five o’clock.” Still Malcolm was silent, and Macdonald continued: “The word ‘alibi’ has a romantic flavour, but the proving or breaking of an alibi is often a tedious—and generally unromantic—business. But it can generally be done. Now for Thursday afternoon, you have no alibi at all. I don’t know what is your estimate of human nature, but I tell you this. If you stick to your statement that you told nobody about having seen Richard Garth, I shall have no alternative but to arrest you. You may be willing to face that yourself, but do you think every one else is going to be willing to see you charged with murder and make no effort to help you by telling the truth?”
In the silence which followed, the sound of footsteps on the stone flags outside rang out clearly, and next moment another figure was silhouetted against the light at the side door of the barn. Elizabeth Meldon, in a gay cotton frock, called “Malcolm! Do buck up! Whatever are you doing?”
“Oh, go away, Lisa! Go away!”
“Will you come in, Miss Meldon? I am trying to get an accurate answer out of young Garth here, and I’m not making much headway. You know who I am?”
“I suppose you’re the Scotland Yard man,” she said, and Malcolm cried again:
“Go away, Lisa—it’s not your business!”
“I think it may be Miss Meldon’s business,” replied Macdonald. “The question I want answered is this.” He turned to her and asked: “Did Malcolm Garth tell you that he had seen his half-brother Richard on the fell side on Monday? I know that he did see him, and he hasn’t denied it. All I want to know for the moment is—did he tell you that he had seen him?”
Elizabeth soon made up her mind about answering, and her answer was plain: “Yes, he did tell me.”
“Have you repeated that fact to anybody at all?”
“No. Not to a soul. If the Superintendent had asked me, I should have told him, because I don’t believe it’s any good telling lies—but I didn’t see that I’d got to tell unless I was asked.”
“We won’t argue over that,” said Macdonald, and turned again to Malcolm. “Now we’ve got that point clear, will you tell me if you passed the same information on to anybody else?”
Malcolm did not answer, and Macdonald became suddenly aware that the lad was swaying as he stood. It did not need Elizabeth’s cry of “Catch him!” to make Macdonald spring forward and save him from falling. He lowered the boy neatly on to the floor of the barn and lifted his inert wrist.
“Is he liable to fainting fits?” he asked Elizabeth, and she nodded.
“Yes. His heart is funny. He faints if he gets upset or over excited. I’ll go in and get some water and sal volatile. He’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Tell them he’s fainted—I’ll bring him into the house in a little while,” said Macdonald.
He stayed beside the lad in the shadowy barn, and presently saw his eyes open.
“All right. Keep quiet for a moment, you’ll soon be better,” he said.
Malcolm frowned in a concentrated effort of recollection. “She didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said, and closed his eyes again.
Elizabeth came back with a glass in her hand, and Marion Garth followed her. Marion expressed no surprise at seeing Macdonald there; she only said, “We must get him to bed. Can you carry him, or shall I help?”
“I can do it. He doesn’t look very heavy,” replied Macdonald.
He lifted the lad skilfully and took him into the house. There was a settee in the kitchen, and Macdonald obeyed Marion’s injunction and laid Malcolm thereon.
“He’ll be all right after a bit, and then he’ll be able to get upstairs on his own feet,” she said. She walked to the door, beckoning to Macdonald to follow her, and she led him outside into the yard.
“It’s no use talking in there where he can hear us,” she said. “What happened—or can’t I ask that?”
“I think you’ve every right to ask,” replied Macdonald. He told her, very simply and clearly. Marion sat down on the low stone wall as though all the strength had gone out of her.
“Richard…” she said, her voice very low and sombre. “How unbelievable… I still don’t believe it. Charles told me what you said this morning, but we neither of us believed it. Do you know where he came from?”
“He’s in the Mercantile Marine, or so he told Staple.”
She looked up at Macdonald, her heavy eyes lightening a bit.
“Then he will have gone back to his ship?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve got to find out.”
She looked down, her face heavy and brooding: “I suppose that’s what Malcolm has b
een worrying over. He’s looked like a ghost all this time. I was afraid…”
She broke off, and Macdonald said: “Will you go in and ask Miss Meldon to come and speak to me?—and I’m afraid I shall have to wander round the house a bit. Perhaps you had better understand this: I think it’s probable that the gun used for shooting your father was a gun in this house. I shall have to look at them, and study exits and entrances.”
“Do as you like. The whole thing is so horrible I’m incapable of thinking clearly about it. I’ll send Elizabeth Meldon out, and if you want me again, she will fetch me.”
* * *
Elizabeth came out and joined Macdonald in the shadowy evening. “What is it you want to know?” she asked.
“I want to know exactly when, where, and in what circumstances, Malcolm Garth told you that he had seen Richard talking to John Staple.”
“It was on Monday, after tea—about six o’clock. If you’ll come round to the other side of the house, I’ll show you exactly where we talked.”
She led him to a gate at the farther side of the flagged yard, and they then turned the corner of the house.
“This used to be a formal garden in the long ago,” said Elizabeth, “but it’s a very long time since any gardeners worked here.”
“You’ve got a grand crop of onions over yonder,” said Macdonald, and Elizabeth replied:
“Yes. They ought all to be up by now. Miss Garth has been working at them every minute she can spare, but it’s always the same trouble in the country—there isn’t enough time.”
They had passed a stretch of level grass, which had once been a lawn, where some geese were preening themselves happily. On their right was the house, on their left a low wall of dressed stone with smooth slabs on top.
“That’s the window of the ‘parlour’ where we have meals,” said Elizabeth, indicating the long french window. “We had had tea on Monday, and Marion had said that she was going to offer to help John Staple cart his last load of oats. She went to telephone to him, and I was waiting by the window when I heard Malcolm calling to me. He was by the orchard gate—over there. I went over to him, and we walked in the orchard, and he told me how he’d been asleep up in the heather, and had woken up and heard two men talking just on the other side of the wall where his hives are. He listened to them, and realised that it was his half-brother, Richard, talking to John Staple. Soon after they had left he came home here to tea. That was all.”
Fell Murder Page 17