Murder Jigsaw

by E.

  “The crux of the matter, as I see it, is this: What happened between the time the bruise was inflicted and the time the man went under the water? The two were not caused at one and the same time. That is certain. There is a hiatus, and I agree with Doctor Manson that it invites serious inquiry. I have on many occasions tried to impress on the Home Office that the men who conduct these post-mortems should be not merely sawbones, but pathologists. This case is an excellent example of the need for some standard of knowledge on the part of police surgeons.”

  Mr. Abigail dropped his spectacles from the end of his nose and lay back in his seat.

  It was some moments before the Assistant Commissioner spoke. He sat, leaning forward, left elbow on his desk and the hand cupping his chin. His right hand drummed a pencil on the blotting pad in front of him.

  “I am in a difficult position,” he said at last. “But I think that I must accept the opinion of both of you. That means that there is something to investigate. Without committing myself to admitting that Colonel Donoughmore was killed, I shall inform the Chief Constable of Cornwall that there are very unsatisfactory aspects of the inquiry, which we feel cannot be allowed to pass without investigation; and that Doctor Manson is authorised by the Commissioner to proceed with those investigations, originally asked for by the Cornish police. Many thanks for the assistance you have given, Mr. Abigail.”

  “A privilege, I assure you, Mr. Assistant Commissioner,” was the reply, as the Home Office Expert left the room.

  “Well, Harry, that’s that. You’re going to be a trifle unpopular in Cornwall. Was the local doctor really as bad as you said?”

  When they were alone together, the Assistant Commissioner and Manson were Harry and Edward, or “A.C.” together. The two were firm friends and members of the same club, and formality was dropped between them.

  “He was even worse, A.C.,” was the scientist’s retort. “His examination on the river bank was no examination at all. He would not have taken the temperature of the body, had I not asked for it to be done, although I, then, had no authority to make the request. The sergeant naturally knew nothing of how vital the time and temperature may be.”

  “And the post-mortem?” the Assistant Commissioner asked.

  “Farcical. The sergeant and constable had told him what they thought had happened and he accepted it. He went to the post-mortem to look for all the things of which he had been told, and of course, he found them. But he didn’t find anything else, because he wasn’t looking for anything else.”

  “That’s a queer thing about the fishing line and the fly, isn’t it, Harry?”

  “Most peculiar, to my mind. It was the second thing to excite my suspicions. I’m keeping the thing quiet for the time being. It will give me more time for inquiries.”

  “And then there is the landing net.”

  “True. If everything was above board someone would surely have come along to admit having seen the net lying on the bank, and to have brought it back to the hotel. It’s a perfectly natural thing to do, take a found net to the headquarters of the water.”

  “Anybody in mind, Harry?”

  Manson shook his head. “I haven’t looked round yet, you know,” he answered. “The colonel seems to have been a pretty nasty type of man. Nobody I have spoken to has a good word to say for him.”

  “Well, good luck, Harry. I expect you’ll find things a little uncomfortable with the police down there now. If you want any help from here we can spare you a couple of men.”

  “Thanks, Edward. I think I shall be able to square Burns, anyhow. He owes me something, you know.”

  CHAPTER VII

  JIGSAW BASE

  During the absence of his chief in London, Sergeant Merry was occupying his time in laying a foundation for future inquiries. Having read and re-read the notes made during his talk with Manson, and having studied the mise-en-scène of the tragedy, he decided that the start of any investigations must be with the people who had access, or could have had access, to the colonel during his last hours of life. The obvious possibilities were those who had that day fished the River Tamar. The sergeant accordingly sought their identities.

  Franky was disturbed, to say the least, at the sergeant’s questions. He had known his guests for almost as many years as he could remember; and could conceive none of them in the role of a killer of a fellow guest, however obnoxious that guest might be. It was unfortunate, and he said as much to the sergeant, that there should have been so cordial a dislike between the colonel and the rest of the hotel crowd, because fishermen, as a rule, are a cordial company, and angling seemed to bring about a comradeship and camaraderie more than any other sport he knew of.

  Merry appreciated the repugnance of the hotelier at discussing his guests in such circumstances, and hastened to apply healing balm to the wound.

  “I am not suggesting that any of them are concerned, Franky,” he explained. “I can’t see any fisherman going round killing even Colonels when there are trout waiting to be killed. But we cannot ignore their presence near the scene of death. In point of fact, the quickest way to dismiss all of them from the business is to get their alibis as quickly as possible.”

  Franky acknowledged the point. He fetched his fishing diary and weight book, and opened them at the day of the tragedy. “As you know full well, Sergeant, there are five beats on the Tamar,” he said. “All of them were allotted for that day. Now, Mr. Emmett had the bottom beat—that is the one from the lowest extent of my water up the shallows and to as far as can be fished of the Round Pool. You cannot fish all the pool; you have to walk past it and start again at the top end, and take in the Gulley. The next beat starts a hundred yards from the Gulley, going upstream, takes in the Rostrum Pool and the Meeting Pool, where another stream joins the Tamar, and ends at the Gorge. That is the beat the colonel was fishing.”

  “And in which he went into the water, eh?”

  “And in which he went into the water,” the hotelier agreed. “Then there is another break because the Gorge is unfishable owing to its depth, and the fact that the banks rise so sheer that one cannot walk along the water edge. Also, it is too thickly lined with trees for casting. So the next beat starts beyond the Gorge and runs up wide shallows until it enters the Avenue. That’s the stretch you yourself have often fished. There it runs pretty deep wading again—up above the waist—for a good distance. Mrs. Devereux had that beat. It ends near the Pylons. From there, the fourth beat goes in timbered and open country up to the Farm. The major was fishing that one; and Sir Edward had the deep water beyond, up to the end of my stretch.”

  Sergeant Merry visualised the river. “So that, one side of the colonel—the lower side—Emmett was fishing; and on the other side—above—Mrs. Devereux, with the major next to her again?”

  “That’s it, Sergeant.”

  “Now, about the landing net, Franky. Is it certain that the colonel took it with him that morning?”

  “Absolutely certain.” Franky grimaced. “I handed it to him after he had got into the bus that took him down to the water. It was strapped to his rod.”

  “And you’ve no idea how it came to be in the umbrella stand in the hotel lounge?”

  Franky shook his head. “I’ve asked all the staff. Nobody saw it brought in, though there was hardly a moment when one of them wasn’t in the lounge.”

  “Urn. Well, somebody brought it in, anyhow.” Merry looked across at the landing net carefully hung on the wall of the room. “We shall have to see what it’s like for fingerprints,” he said.

  “Now while you are here, Franky, we might as well draw a map of the river. It will give the Doctor a bird’s-eye view of the scene, as it were.” He drew a sheet of official paper towards him. “Let’s see, now. Hadn’t you used to give a plan of the water to newcomers as a guide to their beat?”

  Franky nodded. He rummaged in his pockets, and produced a folded sketch map of the hotel’s waters. “That’s it, Sergeant,” he said.

  “G
ood! Then we’ll draw it out, large-scale, and mark in all the beats and pools and the spot where, as the newspapers say, ‘the foul crime was committed’.”

  The plan completed and checked up, Merry pasted it on a large sheet of cardboard and laid it on the Doctor’s desk for reference.

  “And now, Franky—” Merry reached for his hat—“and now, supposing you wanted to hear a bit of gossip about this township and its people, where would you go, and to whom?”

  Franky let a broad smile break over his face. “Well, now, you are an outlander, as they call strangers round this part, and you’re a presentable kind of man with a pair of trousers on. They do say that a couple of young ladies, waitresses at the tea-shop round the corner of the Market Place, by the old church, have a bit of time to spare about 10.30 o’clock, before a few of the business men drop in for a cup of coffee; and they do say that the young ladies talk rather a lot. And then there’s old Tom Tregarron, him that sits in the ticket office of the old ruins; he seems to know a lot about the people round here. How he gets to know, sitting there in a one-roomed eyrie, I don’t rightly know, but he does. I shouldn’t be surprised but what you’d hear quite a lot of things, if so be you went in there.”

  Merry put on his hat. . . .

  And went!

  * * * * *

  The Ivy Tearooms were an innovation in Tremarden; they were also the most modern “contraption” in the eyes of the older portion of the populace. In fact, they were so modern, set amidst the ruins of the past, as to appear even to the visitor somewhat incongruous. Visitors coming on the tearooms suddenly, as they emerged from the older parts of the town, were apt at first to shy away like a startled horse.

  To reach the Ivy, those who fancied its contents walked across the east side of the Market Place and down a cobbled back street, until the ancient church, with its flint-built walls, came into vision. There, on the left, stood open a vividly green door. Futurist curtaining looked out from the panes, set over window boxes of gay geraniums. The geraniums nodded their plumes at ivy-covered ruins across the way, which were all that remained of what had been the wall of the old fortress town. Hence the “Ivy” name in the Tearooms.

  The young ladies of the Ivy were also gay to the point of incongruity. “Outlanders” they were in the sight of the townspeople. There was nothing much in that, because old William Porter, who was nearing seventy-five, and had lived in Tremarden for forty years, was still an “outlander.” However, even he looked askance at the hair à la Garbo or Grable, and the Ivy girls’ abbreviated, bright blue silk skirts that did not even pretend to hide the sheer silk of the beautifully filled hose beneath. The bloodied, lacquered finger-nails, designed to allure, seemed to confirm the opinion of the good women of Tremarden that them girls at The Ivy were hussies. The opposite sex, however, did not share the opinion; and the Ivy Tearooms did a good business in coffee and cakes, teas, luncheons and discreet little dinners.

  Merry first tried the coffee and cakes, and as the Synthetic Glamour placed them before him, he endeavoured to display the interest he really felt in the ministering angel. He felt pretty sure that there was no need for originality here. He opened the attack frontally, so to speak. “It’s a lovely day,” he said.

  “Yes,” drawled the languid one. “Pity to be inside a day like this. Of course, it will rain to-morrow—that being our closing day.”

  Merry was away!

  “You don’t belong to Tremarden, surely?” he ventured. “You sound more like a Londoner.”

  “Oh. ’Ow could you tell? Are you from London?” was the reply.

  “Yes. Down on a few days’ business.”

  “Lucky you!” The damsel sighed. “I’ve got to stop here till the winter. My place in town was closed down, and as I wanted a change, and a gentleman friend of mine knew this place, I came down. But I don’t like it. Too much fresh air to suit me. Give me London and quiet.”

  Merry jumped to it. “But you must do a good business here; and you must meet lots of nice people.”

  She looked around, and seeing no more “coffees” crossed one foot over the other and, one arm leaning on the back of a chair, settled down for a chat.

  “Oh, yes, we get some very nice gentlemen come in here. Mostly them as come down for a holiday, though what they can see in this place beats me.”

  “Fish,” Merry explained. “They mostly come to catch trout and salmon. All right in the daytime, but the place must be pretty dull in the dark period. No theatre, cinema twice a week, and no other amusement.”

  “That’s all you know.” A broad wink accompanied the remark.

  “What!” Merry looked startled. “Why, this is the goody-goodiest place I’ve ever been in. Can’t even speak to anything in petticoats.”

  “That’s what you think. Hypocrites these people are. Place is full of them. But you’ve got to know ’em, see? All go-to-meeting on top, but, boy, when you’ve got underneath! Could I tell you something about other men’s wives! And other wives’ husbands!”

  “No!” Merry moved his chair nearer.

  “It’s mostly the visitors, of course. I expect they’re your fishermen, ’cos they’ve been coming every year. It’s a good job the men round here don’t know what their wives are doing when they expect ’em to be at a sewing-bee, or something. And the girls! We have one here who’s got a fine old sugar-daddy; just like on the pictures, believe me.”

  “You don’t say,” protested Merry, after the whispered story. “Well, I’d never have thought it. Now how about the girl with the sugar-daddy? Who is she?”

  “I think she works in a hotel here. But they had that table in the corner several nights a week, she and him did. And somebody else had it with him the other nights. But I’ve done very well out of their suppers. Now he’s gone.”

  “Gone? What, left?”

  “No. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. Damned nuisance if you ask me. Can’t think how the silly old codger fell in the river. You must have heard about him. Whole place is talking about him. Old Colonel, he was.”

  “I’ve only just come, you know.”

  “Oh well, it’s a funny business. . . .”

  It was an hour before Merry left.

  * * * * *

  “So, as far as I can see, Harry, the colonel seems to have been a gay Lothario; and things don’t look too good for one or two people in these parts.”

  The sergeant’s wanderings had taken him well over the lunch hour. On his return to the hotel he had found Doctor Manson back from his London trip and swallowing a cup of after-luncheon coffee. To him he sketched an outline of his morning’s verbal angling in the Tremarden gossip waters.

  “Is it fact or just spiteful gossip, do you think, Jim?” The scientist’s voice carried a doubting note. “You know, or perhaps you do not, the vicious scandal-mongering in these small towns. They’ll probably be saying to-morrow that you have designs on the tea-shop girls, especially as you seem to have spent the greater part of the morning there.”

  “Oh, I think it’s true enough, Harry,” was the reply. “I set one or two booby traps for the girl, but the story hung together. Anyway, it seems to be pretty well talked of behind the scenes. As to old Tom, he says, quite definitely, that the carpenter’s daughter met the colonel in the castle ruins after dark on several occasions. Used to wait in the shade of the old gateway to the tower. Says he used to watch ’em. You know the type.”

  “Still, Jim, I don’t see that meeting the carpenter’s daughter in the dark is any reason why she should murder the colonel. She seems to have had no objection to the meetings.”

  “No. But, you see, someone else had.”

  The sergeant waited in tantalising invitation for Manson’s inevitable question. It came, sharply insistent: “Who?”

  “Mrs. Devereux.”

  “What!”

  “Mrs. Devereux, Harry. According to Tom she was walking along the path from the lower part of the town, and was near the
entrance to the ruins when she must have spotted the colonel and the girl. Tom says she suddenly stopped, slipped behind a tree, and stood watching them. Tom had just locked up the office, after counting the takings, and was about to start for home when he saw what he described as ‘queer goings-on.’ He propped his door open—it was fairly dark, you know—sat back in the room and waited. He says he didn’t know who Mrs. Devereux was, not then; and didn’t know who she was watching until the colonel walked past his door. The Trepol girl followed about a minute afterwards, and when she reached a spot opposite the tree out jumped Mrs. Devereux. The couple of women had a ‘hell of a going-to-it,’ in Tom’s language. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, mind you, but it was a row all right. Then the girl flew out of the gate, and Mrs. Devereux followed more slowly.”

  “I see. And how did Old Tom know that it was Mrs. Devereux?”

  “He didn’t, until a couple of days later, when he passed the hotel as Mrs. Devereux came out. He saw her, and recognised the scarf she was wearing as that worn by the woman in the ruins. It’s a yellow scarf with dogs scattered all over it. He had noticed it as the woman of the ruins passed close to his peephole after she had parted from the girl.”

  “That seems pretty conclusive, Jim.”

  “There is something in it, Harry, I think, because the Tea-room couple say that the Trepol girl said she was friends with the colonel, and that her father had threatened he’d give her a hiding if she saw him again. She said she didn’t care, and would see the colonel whenever she wanted to.”

  “It doesn’t seem very sensible to me, Jim, if you are suggesting that Mrs. Devereux killed the colonel. If she wanted the colonel, it doesn’t make sense that she should go shooting him into the river.”

  “May not have been intended, Harry. And you’ve got to allow that she was on the water on the beat next to him. You’ve seen the map I sketched out?”

  “Yes, thanks. Well, we’ll have to look into it, of course. I think we should have a talk, after dinner, with all the fishing folk. You had better arrange that before the meal, and tell Superintendent Burns. Meanwhile, perhaps we had better do a bit of investigating here.”