The Twenty-One Clues

by J. J. Connington

  “You’ve had half a minute,” he said at length. “I think there ought to be a time-limit, otherwise we’ll be sitting here all night, waiting for the great brain to work. Come on! Spit it out.”

  “I resign,” said Wendover, reluctantly. “I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Say you so? Then it’s between us, now, Driffield. À nous deux! Your turn.”

  “Mine, is it?” said Sir Clinton. “Oh, well, then, I suggest the brush and comb that Mrs. Callis forgot to take with her.”

  “Thrilling!” said Peter, ironically. “Then, just to put us square I’ll suggest the pistol which she didn’t forget to take with her.”

  “Variation of the same theme,” said Sir Clinton. “I suggest the wire which Mrs. Longnor didn’t send. And you, Peter?”

  But Peter, like Wendover, seemed to have come to the end of his resources. He lay back in his chair, ruffled his hair, glared at Sir Clinton who was ostentatiously taking the time.

  ‘Oh, I give up,” he growled, at last. “I can’t think of anything else just at this moment. You win, all right. But I bet you couldn’t go any further yourself, if you tried.”

  “Think so?” retorted the Chief Constable. “I’m not so sure about that. Let’s try. What about this fellow Kerrison and his cat-shooting exploits?”

  The expressions of Wendover and Peter betrayed that to them this was a wholly unexpected idea.

  “You’re not hinting that these two people were killed by stray shots, surely?” Wendover demanded. “That’s a nonsensical notion, Clinton. The cartridge-cases were found close to the bodies.”

  “They were. Too many of them, in fact. No, I was thinking of something quite different, Squire. I’m going to interview Kerrison to-morrow. That’s what brought his cat-shooting into my mind. As he lives close to the bracken-slope, he may have heard something that night.”

  “Oh, is that all?” said Peter, rather contemptuously. “I don’t think that should count, then. It isn’t a clue. Not in the proper sense, anyhow.”

  “Very well, then, I’ll give you another instead,” said Sir Clinton amiably. “You were allowed to spring a fresh one on us; I’ll give you a new one myself, to balance the account. I’ve seen Dr. Fanthorpe’s report on the results of his P.M. examination of the bodies. He found that Barratt’s last meal had been made up, partly at any rate, from bread, boiled eggs, and cheese, which fits in well enough with what we know of the Barratt ménage. Dr. Fanthorpe’s always cautious, and he won’t tie himself down to anything definite beyond a surmise that Barratt’s death occurred probably three hours after his supper. That’s more or less of a guess. You can’t gauge the rate of digestion accurately. It varies from individual to individual and the process often goes on even after death has taken place.”

  Wendover got up, walked across to a book-case, took down a volume of Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence and came back with it to his chair.

  “Your library’s handy, Clinton,” he said, turning over the pages. “Ah! here it is. Bread: time for digestion, two hours. Soft-boiled eggs: time, three hours; hard-boiled eggs, half an hour longer. Cheese: three hours and a half. What did he find in the case of Mrs. Callis?”

  “Cooked apples, fowl, boiled potatoes, and bread,” explained the Chief Constable. “It looks like a cold meal, with potato salad, perhaps.”

  “Apples: an hour and a half; fowl: four hours; boiled potatoes: three hours and a half; bread: two hours,” Wendover read from the table which he was consulting. “As you say, Clinton, there’s a pretty wide margin of error. I don’t know that one could lay too much stress on the point. But what guess did he make in her case?”

  “He put the death roughly about a couple of hours after her last meal,” Sir Clinton explained. “But neither he nor I attach over-much importance to the figure. It’s all guesswork, really.”

  Wendover walked across the room and restored the volume to its place on the shelf.

  “What about the inquest?” he asked, as he came back to his chair. “It was adjourned, wasn’t it, after evidence of identification had been given?”

  “Yes,” said Sir Clinton. “I’ve seen the coroner. To-morrow he’s going to take Fanthorpe’s evidence and then adjourn further.”

  “Are you bringing a definite charge of murder against anyone?” Wendover inquired. “That would mean an adjournment until the criminal case is finished.”

  “Oh, no,” Sir Clinton explained. “It is merely that the coroner and I agree that it’s best to adjourn the inquest until more evidence is available. There’s no charge against anyone.”

  “Twenty-one clues, if I’ve kept an accurate tally, and our able Chief Constable makes nothing out of them,” said Peter, sarcastically. “I see. Mountain Manufactures Mouse. You’re not much help to a poor journalist, I’ll say that gladly. But when the well’s dry, it’s not much use wasting energy in pumping, is it? I’ll just have to say that the police have an important clue. But the public are getting tired of that remark. It cuts no ice with them.”

  “Then tell them the plain truth,” suggested Sir Clinton helpfully. “Say we’ve got more clues than we know what to do with, and that we’re throwing them out in pairs, as in ‘Old Maid’.”

  “Donnington would never pass that,” said Peter, with obvious regret. “He’d say it was flippant and unsuitable for his readers. I wish I could meet one of these readers he talks about, just to see what it looks like. A dreary article, I can’t help but think. No snap, vim, or yip about it. Now if I were editor . . .”

  “The circulation would grow like bindweed in a garden. Quite so. Pushful Peter Paralyses Population, as you would say. Really, Dwarf, I think things are better as they are.”

  “That began like praise,” complained Peter, “but it didn’t somehow seem to keep on the right note. Perhaps you haven’t a good ear for music. But let that pass. Tell me about your paulo-post-future doings. The next step, in fact.”

  “I don’t mind telling you, if you promise not to hang on to my coat-tails. I’ve various calls in view, to be paid personally or by deputy. First of all, I’m going to make the acquaintance of one Kerrison the Cat-shooter. (This alliteration of yours is infectious, apparently.) Rufford summarised your opinion of Kerrison in his report, and I yearn to hear all about the Lost Tribes and the Great Pyramid. . . .”

  “And this is what we pay you for?” interjected Peter in high contempt. “To run round and complete your education? Well, I . . .”

  “Calm yourself, Peter. You live in rooms, so you aren’t a ratepayer; therefore you needn’t use the editorial We when you talk about my salary. I’m going to see Kerrison because the bodies were found near his house and he may be able to recall something useful, if we give him a chance. Then I’m going to have some inquiries made among the railwaymen. Probably I’ll see Alvington, if I can. And possibly I may drop in and have a chat with Mrs. Barratt, just to form impressions of her at first hand and extract any odds and ends of information which suggest themselves as time goes on.”

  “Quite the social butterfly, you’ll be,” said Peter caustically. “I shan’t dog your heels. My legs aren’t as long as yours and it would keep me on the run if I followed you on that trail. Well, my love to them all. Anything further in view?”

  “I may have a little digging done. It’s said to be good exercise; and it’s part of my duty to look after the health of my constables. Now I see you’re burning to get away, Peter. Don’t let us detain you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Shooter of Cats

  ACCOMPANIED by Rufford, the Chief Constable set out next morning in his car to pay his proposed visit to Kerrison, whom he had forewarned by telephone.

  “First of all,” said Sir Clinton, “we’ll drive round to the place where you found the bodies. I want to have a look at it. We can turn back, after that, and visit the Hermitage.”

  “You could walk straight up the hill to it, if you like, sir, after you’ve seen the bracken-slope,” suggested the inspector
. “It’s no distance. We could leave your car on the road and go back for it after you’ve had your talk with Kerrison.”

  “No,” the Chief Constable decided, after a moment’s consideration. “We’d probably have to climb a fence if we went that way. It would look too much like sneaking in by a back way. This is an official visit. We must be dignified, so we’ll go in by the front door, if you don’t mind. You’d better con me when we get outside the town. I don’t profess to know this by-road to the place; I’ve never gone that way.”

  Twenty minutes’ driving brought them to the turn-off into the lane. Sir Clinton pulled up his car at a signal from Rufford, and they both got out.

  “This is the place, is it?’ asked the Chief Constable. “That’s the bridge down there, and this is the home signal on the line that you mentioned in your report? The bodies were up there, where Loman & Co. cut down the bracken? Well, let’s go up and have a look round. Not that there’s much to look at, I suppose. The bracken seems to have been trampled down all over the place. Sightseers, no doubt.”

  “We couldn’t keep them off it, sir, once we’d finished our own work on the ground. There’s no use your trying to look for the tracks I mentioned in my report. The whole place has been trodden down by these rubber-necks since then.”

  “Evidently,” Sir Clinton agreed, after a casual glance at the slope. “I really wanted to get the general lie of the land into my mind. Who owns that little wood, further along the slope, just above the distant signal?”

  “It’s part of the farm over yonder, sir, I believe. Full of rabbits, they say, and the farmer’s only too glad to let anyone go and shoot them if they care to, just to have them kept down. They do a lot of damage to some of his crops.”

  “Likely enough. Kerrison’s house is up above us, isn’t it, beyond the crest of the slope?”

  “Yes, sir. A hundred or a hundred and fifty yards back.”

  “Just let me see exactly where you found the bodies. Then we can go. There’s nothing to be seen, after all that multitude has trodden everything flat.”

  The inspector was able to show him exactly where the bodies had been found. Then they returned to the car and drove round to the Hermitage. It had a short, ill-tended drive leading to the front door; and the whole place had the appearance of having seen better days. The whitewash on the walls needed freshening; the small garden was neglected; and a hen and some chickens were scratching the gravel at the side of the house. An ancient maid, with a forbidding countenance, admitted them suspiciously.

  Lewis Carroll was one of the Chief Constable’s favourite authors, and he was irresistibly reminded of Tenniel’s drawing of the Frog Gardener when Stephen Kerrison entered the room and confronted his visitors. The big splay feet, the large hands, the general aspect of ill-kemptness, the air of portentous solemnity: all were there. Kerrison did not wait to be addressed.

  “You want to see me about a pistol that I borrowed from Callis, I believe?” he began, without any preliminary greeting.

  “Yes,” Sir Clinton admitted pleasantly. “You see, Mr. Kerrison, you haven’t got a certificate. So I found, when I looked the matter up.”

  Kerrison’s eyes kindled angrily at this.

  “Do I need a certificate?” he demanded, staring at his visitors with barely-concealed hostility. “I’ve only been using that pistol inside my own garden and for killing vermin. No licence is needed for that. I looked it up in the encyclopœdia.”

  “No gun licence, perhaps,” agreed Sir Clinton. “But you’ve forgotten the Fire-arms Act, 1920. You can’t have in your possession, use, or carry any fire-arm or ammunition, unless you hold a special certificate from me.”

  “Oh, indeed? I didn’t know that,” said Kerrison, rather less truculently. “I’m in the wrong, am I? It was quite unconsciously, then. No one’s more of a stickler than I am in the matter of right and wrong. What’s to be done about it?”

  “It depends on whether you want to go on using the pistol,” said Sir Clinton. “If you don’t, then if you hand it back to its owner, we’ll say no more about it. But if you wish to retain it, you’ll have to apply to me for the proper certificate and pay the stipulated fee. You have to show good reason for requiring the certificate. I suppose you want the pistol for destroying vermin about your premises?”

  “Yes, I do,” declared Kerrison, evidently surprised to find the Chief Constable so ready to oblige him. “I’ve been losing a lot of fowls lately with stray cats. I’ve settled the hash of some of them,” he added, with a gleam of satisfaction on his face. “but there are a lot more of them still bothering me. They get into my runs, no matter what I do to protect them; and I don’t raise chickens for the benefit of stray cats.”

  “They are strays, are they? Not neighbours’ pets?”

  “No, they’re half-wild beasts—gone back to nature. They live in that spinney over yonder, I believe, killing rabbits when they can get them; but lately they’ve discovered my chickens, and my losses are quite considerable.”

  “I’d have thought a shot-gun would have served your purpose better,” Sir Clinton suggested.

  “It wasn’t worth while to buy a shot-gun for the sake of killing a cat or two,” Kerrison pointed out. “I borrowed the pistol from Callis. He was quite ready to lend it to me. That saved the price of a gun.”

  “Ah, quite so. I see your point. But unless you’re a good pistol-shot, it might be expensive in the matter of ammunition.”

  “I’ve managed to kill two of the beasts,” Kerrison explained, with evident gratification. “They won’t give any further trouble to my chickens.”

  “What did you do with the remains?” asked Sir Clinton. “Burn them, or bury them?’

  “I buried them out in the garden, over yonder,” Kerrison explained, indicating the spot through the window.

  “Well, if you wish to use that pistol in future, you must get a certificate, Mr. Kerrison. And now I want to ask you a question about something else. Were you at home here on the night when this tragedy happened just down below your garden?”

  Kerrison considered carefully for a moment or two before answering the question.

  “Yes, I was at home,” he admitted. “I had a sore throat, and my mother was against my going out that day. Otherwise I’d have been at a meeting at the church that evening.”

  “That’s a fair distance to go to church,” Sir Clinton commented. “But I suppose you have a car.”

  Kerrison shook his head.

  “I don’t keep a car,” he said. “We’re not so isolated as you think. There’s a bus route quite near us, only a matter of seven minutes’ walk, and there’s a ten-minute service on it. I can get into town in under half an hour, if I leave here just in time to catch a particular bus. As a matter of fact, I don’t go into town much, except to church and occasional visits to the public library to look up references. I’m engaged in research,” he added, rather pompously.

  “I’ve heard of your work on the Great Pyramid,” said the Chief Constable tactfully.

  “It didn’t get the attention it deserved,” Kerrison declared in a resentful tone. “I spent years of study on that book. And the subject is one of the utmost importance for the proper understanding of history. The problem of the Inch, in itself, is of the most fundamental character for a true realisation of the course of events during the last three thousand years. The adoption of this new-fangled metric system on the Continent ranks almost with the Noachian Deluge in historical significance. It divides the sheep from the goats in the most decisive manner, making a clean cut between the British race and the rest of the world. And what’s very significant, too, is the fact that Inch meant an island in the older British languages. Inchkeith, Inchcomb. It runs through Welsh, Cornish, Irish, Gaelic, with trivial modifications. And the British are an island race, the Race of the Inch, obviously. It’s much more than a mere coincidence that we not only live on an Inch but we use the Inch as the basis of all our measurements. I’ll give you a copy of my book. I
t’s a work that every thinking man ought to read.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Sir Clinton, “but let’s finish our present business first, if you don’t mind. You were at home all that evening? Did you hear any unusual sounds?”

  “You mean reports of firing, I suppose?” said Kerrison. “I did hear something—like two shots coming one after the other—but I’m just a shade hard of hearing and I didn’t pay much attention to them.”

  “What time was that?” demanded Sir Clinton.

  “I can tell you, almost exactly, as it happens,” Kerrison answered. “It was just about ten o’clock, when my mother always goes to bed. I’d gone out to see that my chickens were all safely shut up for the night. I usually go out about that time after she’s gone upstairs, and I walk round the back premises and see that everything’s secured for the night and to make sure that none of these cats are lurking about. I heard two . . . thuds or claps, you might call them.”

  “They didn’t surprise you?” inquired the Chief Constable.

  “No, not particularly,” Kerrison explained. “We hear gunshots quite often here, in the evenings about dusk. That spinney over yonder is full of rabbits, and the farmer who owns the place often sends someone across to shoot them as they come out in the dusk to feed. He finds them very destructive, I understand.”

  “When did you shoot these cats?” inquired Sir Clinton, harking back to a previous subject.

  “I can’t remember what day I shot the first one on,” Kerrison replied, after a short pause for consideration. “But I shot the last one four days ago. I can remember that quite well.”

  “Did you clean your pistol after using it?”

  “No, I don’t know much about pistols except how to load and fire them. I took it to Callis and he cleaned it each time after I’d used it. He said it was an old pistol and it didn’t much matter when it was cleaned; but he’d told me, once, that pistols ought to be cleaned as soon as possible after use, for they deteriorated if this wasn’t done, so I felt that I ought to give him the opportunity of cleaning it.”