Murder Jigsaw

by E.

  “I’m afraid that you cannot help overmuch, Sir Edward, but we must be sure that no point is missed. Franky says you were fishing the top beat, so you would hardly have much contact with the colonel. I suppose you drove round by the road to the water?”

  Sir Edward cast a rueful look at the three men. “That, Doctor, is just what I did not do,” he said quietly. “I’ve put myself right in this business, up to the neck. The previous day I had fished the beat the colonel was now on and I dropped, somewhere along the bank, my leather cigarette case. It has a sentimental value, so I thought I would walk along the bank and keep a lookout for it on the way to my water. I guessed I would be bound to come across the colonel. I wasn’t keen on that, but if I found the case it would be worth it. So I drove up to the farm as usual, left the car there, and struck across the field to the river.”

  “Did you find the case?”

  “Yes, I found it.”

  “What about the colonel?”

  “I never saw him.”

  “You walked along his beat? I suppose you must have done to reach your own beat?”

  “As you say, I walked all along his beat. Never saw a sign of him.”

  “What time would that be, Sir Edward?” It was Superintendent Burns who asked the question.

  “As near as I can say, about 11.15 o’clock. I was a little late in starting out that day.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Superintendent Burns caught the eyes of Doctor Manson in a questioning glance. The scientist nodded slightly. The superintendent resumed his questioning.

  “Now we know, Sir Edward, that the colonel reached the water about 10.30 o’clock. Mr. Emmett left the bottom of his water about a quarter of an hour later, which makes the time a quarter to eleven. Then he fished for half an hour, finally walking up past the Round Pool to find the colonel fishing in his (Emmett’s) beat. That would be, by the process of simple addition, at 11.15. He says that the colonel, after their few words over the poaching, walked up into his own water. Yet, you reach that water at precisely the same time, as far as you can say, but saw nothing of the colonel.”

  “Dammit, Superintendent, that’s a queer business.” Sir Edward’s surprise had a convincing note of naturalness about it. “But I can assure you I did not catch a glimpse of the colonel, and I certainly walked along his beat.”

  “Sir Edward,”—Manson took up the questioning—“I take it that from the Gorge you would pass through the wood and strike the road which runs parallel, a field’s distance away, with the beats of Mrs. Devereux and the major, further up?”

  The baronet agreed.

  “Did you see Mrs. Devereux or the major?”

  “Never saw a soul, Doctor. I thought I saw the tip of a rod waving on the major’s beat, but if he was in the water, you know, I would hardly be likely to see him. There’s a four-foot bank along most of that stretch.”

  “That’s true. Where did you find your cigarette case?”

  “Where I thought it might be—at the hollow tree almost in front of the Meeting Pool. I remembered having had a cigarette there at tea-time.”

  “How about your return walk?”

  “I left about half past four, walked to the gorge wood, and then struck diagonally across the fields to the farmyard, picked up my car and drove home.”

  “See anybody then?”

  “Nobody I could recognise. I saw the figure of a man on, I thought, Mrs. Devereux’s stretch, but who he was I couldn’t say. Probably one of the farmer’s men. I didn’t notice a rod.”

  “I suppose you didn’t see the colonel’s landing net en route, at all?”

  “No—and I certainly didn’t bring it to the hotel, Doctor. I wouldn’t have been seen dead with the abortion.”

  “What suit would you have been wearing that day, Sir Edward?” The superintendent waited anxiously for the answer.

  “Suit? What the deuce does that matter, Superintendent?” He wrinkled his brows in memory. “My tweeds, I think.”

  “They would be Donegals, I suppose?” Manson’s question came jestingly, since Sir Edward was a fervent Irishman.

  “They are,” was the reply.

  Superintendent Burns’s jaw dropped, and Doctor Manson chuckled.

  Sir Edward was succeeded by Major Smithers. He listened to the formal inquiry precis; and replied in the crisp, workman-like, method and tone which he had been wont to use on the barrack square.

  “I can’t help at all, Doctor,” he announced. “I drove along the upper road, parked my car in the gateway of the field I usually park in, and went straight to the water, and fished all day. Did I see anybody? Well, I caught a glimpse of Sir Edward walking along the road. I was whipping the bit just past the pylons and came in to the bank to put on a new fly. Just saw Sir Edward’s head. Time? I should say about 11.15. Then, about two o’clock, I saw Mrs. Devereux—at least, I suppose it was Mrs. Devereux. She had a rod and was standing at the Avenue, the other side of the pylons.”

  “You did not see the colonel, I suppose?”

  “Couldn’t, Doctor. I never went near that side of the gorge.”

  “It may seem a funny question, Major, but what suit were you wearing that day?”

  “Suit? Always wear fishing tweeds, Doctor, and was wearing them that day.”

  “Harris?”

  “What! In July? No! Donegals.”

  Manson looked across at the superintendent and grinned wickedly. It was a grin that developed into a wide smile at the entrance of Mr. Braddock. For he was wearing a suit of Donegal tweeds as he stalked in. The superintendent scratched his head.

  “Now, Mr. Braddock,” said Manson, “you are not a fisherman, are you?”

  “Never fished in my life, sir. Never wanted to.”

  “And, so far as we know, you were not near the water when the colonel met his death? But you will remember that on the night of the tragedy you said that you hoped he had fallen in the Tamar and ‘drowned his damned self.’ Well, apparently he DID fall in, and drown himself. We do not suppose, for one moment, that the two things are related, but we think it only fair to you to give you an opportunity to convince those who heard you make the statement that you know nothing about his death. How do you feel about that?”

  “Well, that’s very good of you, gentlemen, I’m sure. I was not near the colonel on that day. I have no interest in fish, except as a course at dinner; but I am sure glad that the colonel did fall in and drown himself, so why hide it?”

  “We won’t discuss that, Mr. Braddock. Our task, at the moment, is to find the motive for murder, which is what we believe happened to the colonel. For instance, Mr. Emmett quarrelled with the colonel over poaching on his beat; but fishermen do not push one another in the water because one of them has taken a fish that the other might have caught. Now you were suggesting, were you not, that the colonel had other interests here besides fishing? You have probably heard the phrase ‘Cherchez la femme’ as an elementary step in detection. What can you tell us about the colonel and a lady?”

  “Nothing—except that he was pestering a woman here and there if you want exact details, one of them was the daughter of the carpenter, and acts as an extra chambermaid in this hotel. And it was the same with another chambermaid. And I’ve heard things about a woman somewhere near the hotel. Apart from that the colonel was as nasty a card-player as ever I’ve struck, and I’ve seen a few bad losers in my time. In fact, he was a man much better dead than alive.”

  “Where were you on the afternoon of that day, Mr. Braddock?” asked the superintendent.

  “I walked over to Callington through the woods.”

  “Many thanks, Mr. Braddock.”

  “And to you, gentlemen.” And Mr. Braddock left the room.

  “Now Superintendent, we come to the last one—the lady,” said Manson, as Braddock closed the door behind him. “You have a go at her, and I will hold a watching brief until such time as I see a point I may want to make. We have to remember that she was on the beat next to t
he colonel, the same as Emmett was on the other side.”

  The three men rose to their feet as Mrs. Devereux swept in and took an armchair. She settled herself comfortably, one silken-sheathed leg crossed over the other, displaying a length of hose which caused Merry to edge a little forward. Then, having lit a cigarette and nestled down into the cushions, she spoke. “I do not know why you gentlemen want me, or what you expect me to say,” she began. “But perhaps I should tell you that I am shortly to marry Sir John Shepstone, and he is furious at the idea of my being connected with this business . . .”

  “We are not connecting you with this business, Mrs. Devereux,” Manson broke in. “We are only asking you, as a citizen, to help the Law if it is within your power to do so. You see, you had been allotted the beat next to Colonel Donoughmore, and we are seeking information as to the times you might have seen the colonel during the day, in order that we can lessen down the inquiries from the time that he was last seen. Quite simple, really.”

  “As you put it, sir, it IS quite simple—for me. I cannot help you at all in the inquiry, I am afraid. I did not see the colonel, nor did I see Major Smithers or Sir Edward, or anybody else there. I did not see them for the simple reason that I wasn’t there to see them I wasn’t fishing.”

  “What!” The ejaculation came from the superintendent.

  “I thought I spoke quite plainly. I said that I was not fishing there at all that day.”

  “But the Ma. . . .”

  Manson broke in hurriedly before the superintendent could complete the sentence. “We understood from Mr. Baker that you were on the beat between the colonel and Major Smithers, Mrs. Devereux?” he said.

  “I was allotted that beat the previous night, Doctor Manson, but when the morning came I did not feel inclined for fishing in the circumstances, so I decided to spend the day elsewhere. Therefore I was not at the water, and did not see the colonel at all.”

  “Um . . . er . . .” The superintendent recovered from the shock. “Then it doesn’t seem that you can be of very great help to us, Madam.”

  “I cannot help you at all.”

  She rose to go, but Doctor Manson pursued the subject. “I was wondering, Mrs. Devereux,” he said, “whether, from the tone of your voice, the fact that the colonel was fishing the next beat to you had anything to do with your disinclination to fish that day?”

  If the question was presumptious, the smile and air of assumed deference which accompanied it, changed the answer which the woman had started indignantly to make. “That, sir, has nothing to do with you . . .” she started, but stopped. “It might have made the fishing less desirable,” she said, mollified by Manson’s manner. “He was not a nice man.”

  “No? Now, we understood that he was something of a lady’s man.”

  “Indeed!” was the retort. “I did not like the colonel. I hated the sight of him. I never DID like him, and I don’t know a woman who did.” The words poured from the woman in a torrent which swept the men before her into momentary silence.

  Manson’s eyes narrowed, and the puckers appeared on his brow. “I understood that you met the colonel only when you came to the Tremarden Arms, Mrs. Devereux,” he said. “Do we understand that you had known him previously?”

  The startled look which appeared in her eyes, only to vanish in an instant, and the stammering reply, served to intrigue the scientist, for he watched her closely from behind his half-closed lids.

  “I . . . I . . . I . . . Of COURSE I did not know him previously,” Mrs. Devereux protested. “What I meant to say was that I never did like the colonel from the first day I met him here. You do not know much about my sex, Doctor Manson, if you cannot appreciate the fact that a woman can, and does, sum up a man within a few minutes of meeting him. Surely it was noticed that the women in this hotel avoided the company of the colonel. His attentions towards us were objectionable.”

  “Had he been annoying you, Mrs. Devereux?” asked the superintendent.

  Doctor Manson was writing on a slip of paper. He passed the note over to Merry who, after a moment’s hesitation, left the room. He sat back in time to hear Mrs. Devereux’s answer.

  “He was always pestering me—inside the hotel and outside it. I think his death is an advantage to the feminine guests in this hotel, and the women in this town. If he was killed—as people are saying he was—I hope you never find the person who did it.”

  “I am afraid you are pretty well correct in your estimation of the late Colonel, if what we hear is true, Mrs. Devereux,” said Manson. “By the way . . .” he spoke affably and charmingly . . . “you are the only angler in the hotel whom I have not met at some time or other. Most of them have fished the waters with me for years. Is this your first visit to Cornish waters?”

  “It is, Doctor—the very first.”

  “And what do you think of the fishing?”

  “Well, really, you know, I haven’t had enough of it, so far, to be able to say. And this business has rather spoiled things.”

  “True! It is a pity that your first impressions should be so unfortunate. What kind of fisherman are you, Mrs. Devereux? I mean, have you any fads about it?”

  “If you mean do I fish wet fly or dry fly, Doctor, I assure you I am no purist. I fish to catch trout—and I don’t care whether I do it on a dry or a wet fly, or on a spinner, so long as I catch them. It is fish I go out for, not foolish fancies. I have generally caught more brace than anyone else in the party, and that is what I like.”

  “Yes, there is something in that,” agreed Manson; and the men in the lounge below, could they have heard the smooth expression of the scientist, would have written him down a blasphemous heretic!

  “Well, Mrs. Devereux, it has been very pleasant to meet you, although I wish it had been under more pleasant circumstances. Perhaps, when this is all over, you will, if you are still here, allow me to show you the secrets of the waters. Oh, by the way, the superintendent had better have your complete alibi, if you don’t mind me using that nasty word. We must have things in order, you know. Where did you spend the day on which you should really have been fishing?”

  “I went over to Tavistock.”

  “By train?”

  “Yes.”

  “You lunched, of course, at the hotel?”

  “No. At the Devonshire Tea Rooms. They’ll remember me I am sure, if you want to check me up. I dropped and broke, very carelessly, a cup and saucer at tea, and left my scarf there at lunchtime—altogether a most unfortunate day.”

  “Accidents will happen, Mrs. Devereux. Good-night, and many thanks.”

  Manson opened the door and bowed her out. Before he could close the door Merry slipped in. He bowed in mock acknowledgment.

  “Thanks for the reception, Doctor,” he said. As he sat down he grinned broadly at his chief and at the superintendent.

  “Well?” demanded Manson.

  “The lady’s fishing costume, according to the chambermaid, is a tweed shooting suit.”

  The superintendent jumped. “You aren’t going to say that she wore Done . . . ?”

  “She did an’ all, Super.”

  Manson, at the sight of the Cornishman’s face, for once in his life lost all decorum. He threw himself back in the chair and roared. “I told you, Superintendent,” he gasped between his laughter, “that you could not take the tweed strands for granted. Now, where are you?”

  “Five people—and every damn one of them in a suit of Donegal tweed!”

  “Not quite so bad as that, Super.”

  “How—not so bad, Doctor?”

  “Only three of them on the river, you know.”

  “That helps a lot, doesn’t it?”

  “It does—by the one reliable method of detection—elimination. Elimination, my dear Superintendent, is the only really conclusive way to solution. When you have eliminated all the suspects to one—then he is your man, and there is no door through which he can get out. He may appear to be perfectly innocent; if you have eliminated eve
rybody down to him, he’s guilty. But that’s enough for to-night. We will call it a day. To-morrow morning, Superintendent, I want to go along the river, and perhaps you will come along with me. If you can get a tin bowl and a quantity of plaster of Paris, I would be glad. I may want a few casts of any footmarks we may find.”

  CHAPTER IX

  THE PATTERN FORMS

  “What I want to do, Superintendent, is to see if the three of us, with your Constable Lee, can reconstruct the scene which occurred here when the colonel went into the water. There are two things which I noted on the day of the tragedy, when we found the body, and I think they will pay for a little investigation to-day.”

  The four men—Merry was, of course, in the company—were standing at the top of the bank down which Colonel Donoughmore had crashed. Constable Lee had rolled back the tarpaulin, with which the marks of the tragedy had been protected from the weather, and from casual observers. They now showed plainly on the grassy slopes, irregular scratches in parallel lines, broken once or twice, but recurring again until they finished some two feet from the water’s edge. Here and there tufts of grass, pulled up by the roots, lay scattered down the slope.

  Doctor Manson went down on hands and knees and peered through his magnifying glass at the scars, taking elaborate care not to disturb them in any way. He followed them to the water-side, comparing each mark with that above it; and it was fully five minutes before he motioned the superintendent to make his examination.

  Burns made an equally close investigation, emulating the scientist’s thoroughness. At the end he stood up and dusted his knees.

  “Well,” asked Manson. “What do you make of them?”

  “Heel marks, Doctor, I should say.”

  “Agreed, Superintendent. But rather queer heel marks, don’t you think? I would like a cast of each set, if your constable will hand over the plaster of paris.”

  Tipping a quantity of the powder into the bowl, the scientist added water from the river and stirred the mixture until it had the consistency of a stiff, creamy liquid. Taking a few pinches from the remaining powder, he sprinkled them in the first set of marks, satisfying himself that the powder covered the base. Then, with the utmost care, he poured a couple of spoonfuls of the liquid into the indentures, making sure that it lay evenly and level in them. Satisfied of this, he filled up the already hardening mould level with the surface. Leaving the plaster to harden, he repeated the operation with the next two sets of marks. Finally, when the plaster had set, the moulds were lifted and turned upside down. A brief inspection, again through his glass, satisfied Doctor Manson that the casts were accurate copies. He marked each one with the position of the indentures on the bank, and the superintendent added his confirming signature. When all the marks had thus been dealt with, they were packed into the Box of Tricks, which had accompanied the Doctor to the river bank.