The Deductions of Colonel Gore
Page 31
‘I don’t know when you put the piece of the handkerchief and the knife in that rabbit hole. Probably very early next morning. You would recover your motorcycle from its hiding place then, too. Then—this morning you left those guiding pieces for someone to find. Quite clever of you to select a rabbit hole on the path by which the children go across the heath to school.
‘I’m still wondering about the fire? Did that wire fuse accidentally—or did you help it?’
Spain paid no attention to the question.
‘Go on,’ he said, curiously. ‘Where did I blunder? Did I blunder—or is this just guesswork?’
‘Just guesswork. But you did blunder. You used a quite unnecessary adjective this morning—the adjective Sophoclean. Unfortunately for you, I came upon that adjective as I was glancing through the pages of one of your friend, Mr Furlonger’s novels. That struck me as odd.
‘I asked you if Furlonger was a nom de plume. You took just a little too long to say that it wasn’t. That was a blunder, too. Because it started me just guessing quite seriously about you and your motorcycle. I couldn’t very well ask you to hang yourself. So I went back to London and saw Mr Silas Furlonger’s publishers.
‘They also told me that his real name was Ferdinand Miler—which would have been a keen disappointment if they hadn’t described his personal appearance with perhaps unkind accuracy. They passed me on to Messrs Wright, his literary agents. I found Mr Wright an extraordinary kind-hearted and sympathetic person—quite unfitted, I should have thought, to be a literary agent. He told me all about Ferdinand Miler and his books.
‘“Very original, very clever” he said, “but absolute failures.” He told me also about the plays which had not been produced, and the poems and stories and essays which could not be sold.
‘But I had to keep on just guessing until Mr Wright told me of Ferdinand Miler’s worst failure. His wife left him, I understand—for someone who could feed her—a scoundrel, no doubt—but he did feed her—for a while. Then she came back to you—I believe?’
‘I was living on half a crown a week, then. Why should she stay?’
There was a silence.
‘Then you discovered that Sir Maurice Gaul wanted a secretary. You contrived to get the post—by representing yourself as Mr Spain who had already acted as secretary to another literary man—Mr Silas Furlonger, whose real name was Ferdinand Miler?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well—at that point I had to jump to a conclusion. One nearly always has to in this job. I wanted the why of the thing. So I put one foot on Failure who had lost everything—even the little fortune had given him—and the other foot on Success who had everything—and I jumped.
‘I don’t know how much envy, how much hatred, how much despair made of Maurice Gaul for you an incarnation of Success—always there before you, sleek, prosperous, self-satisfied—an infuriation from morning to night. But—if I had been you, that is how he would have seemed to me. Am I right?’
‘Quite,’ Spain shrugged. ‘After all—how deplorably obvious.’
‘By the way—that fused wire—?’
‘I had luck with that.’
‘Another little blunder,’ mused Gore, ‘was that accurate little summary of Arling’s character. But your attitude with regard to Sir Maurice was admirably thought out. I’m afraid I must ring up Mortfield police station now.’
‘Well,’ the secretary said. ‘I am willing to pay. Every chance was in my favour—Gaul’s absence, the servants’ outing, everything. But I forgot that there are people in the world who regard the adjective Sophoclean as unusual.’
‘Lots of us are very stupid,’ said Gore grimly. ‘Perhaps that’s why we sometimes succeed.’
THE END
ALSO BY LYNN BROCK
NIGHTMARE
Simon Whalley is an unsuccessful novelist who is gradually going to pieces under the strain of successive setbacks. Brooding over his troubles, and driven to despair by the cruelty of his neighbours, he decides to take his revenge in the only way he knows how—by planning to murder them …
Lynn Brock made his name in the 1920s and 30s with the popular ‘Colonel Gore’ mysteries, winning praise from fans and critics including Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot. In 1932, however, Brock abandoned the formulaic Gore for a new kind of narrative, a ‘psychological thriller’ in the vein of Francis Iles’ recent sensation, Malice Aforethought. Advertised by Collins as ‘one of the most remarkable books that we have ever published’, the unconventional and doom-laden Nightmare provided readers with a disturbing portrayal of what it might take to turn an outwardly normal man into a cold-blooded murderer.
‘Ambitious and genuinely distinctive … I’d be surprised if any of Brock’s other books are as good as this neglected gem.’
MARTIN EDWARDS
THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT’S LAST CASE • TRENT INTERVENES
E. C. BENTLEY & H. WARNER ALLEN • TRENT’S OWN CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE WYCHFORD POISONING CASE • THE SILK STOCKING MURDERS
ERNEST BRAMAH • THE BRAVO OF LONDON
LYNN BROCK • NIGHTMARE
BERNARD CAPES • THE MYSTERY OF THE SKELETON KEY
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD • THE BIG FOUR
WILKIE COLLINS • THE MOONSTONE
HUGH CONWAY • CALLED BACK • DARK DAYS
EDMUND CRISPIN • THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE CASK • THE PONSON CASE • THE PIT-PROP SYNDICATE • THE GROOTE PARK MURDER
MAURICE DRAKE • THE MYSTERY OF THE MUD FLATS
FRANCIS DURBRIDGE • BEWARE OF JOHNNY WASHINGTON
J. JEFFERSON FARJEON • THE HOUSE OPPOSITE
RUDOLPH FISHER •THE CONJURE-MAN DIES
FRANK FROËST • THE GRELL MYSTERY
FRANK FROËST & GEORGE DILNOT • THE CRIME CLUB • THE ROGUES’ SYNDICATE
ÉMILE GABORIAU • THE BLACKMAILERS
ANNA K. GREEN • THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
DONALD HENDERSON • MR BOWLING BUYS A NEWSPAPER • A VOICE LIKE VELVET
FERGUS HUME • THE MILLIONAIRE MYSTERY
GASTON LEROUX • THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM
VERNON LODER • THE MYSTERY AT STOWE • THE SHOP WINDOW MURDERS
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE RASP • THE NOOSE • THE RYNOX MYSTERY MURDER GONE MAD • THE MAZE
NGAIO MARSH • THE NURSING HOME MURDER
G. ROY McRAE • THE PASSING OF MR QUINN
R. A. V. MORRIS • THE LYTTLETON CASE
ARTHUR B. REEVE • THE ADVENTURESS
JOHN RHODE • THE PADDINGTON MYSTERY
FRANK RICHARDSON • THE MAYFAIR MYSTERY
R. L. STEVENSON • DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE
J. V. TURNER • BELOW THE CLOCK
EDGAR WALLACE • THE TERROR
CAROLYN WELLS • MURDER IN THE BOOKSHOP
ISRAEL ZANGWILL• THE PERFECT CRIME
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