The Cornish Coast Murder (British Library Crime Classics)

by John Bude

  Ruth glanced at the Inspector and seeing him looking keenly at her dropped her gaze and remained silent.

  “A private matter?” suggested the Inspector. “Something you would rather not talk about?” Ruth nodded. “Well that's all right, Miss Tregarthan. I'm only here to investigate the crime and collect such evidence as may enable me to lay hands on the criminal. You're not bound to answer my questions, you know. Now can you give me any idea as to what time you left the house?”

  “I can't say exactly. But I should think somewhere about eight-thirty. Perhaps later. I know we didn't sit down to dinner till eight-fifteen. My uncle had been out and didn't return until after eight, which is out usual dinner-time.”

  “I see. And you went straight out?”

  “Yes. I slipped on a mackintosh and a hat, and left the house by the side-door.”

  “It was raining at the time, of course?”

  “Yes.”

  “You're apparently not frightened by storms, Miss Tregarthan.”

  “No—one gets used to being out in them, living in the country.”

  “Quite so. When you left the house where did you go?”

  “Toward the village along the cliff-path.”

  “It's a short-cut, I take it?” Ruth agreed. “Did you by any chance visit anybody in the village? I mean were you taking an idle walk, or did you intend to visit a friend when you reached Boscawen?”

  Ruth hesitated for a moment, bit her lip, pondered and finally decided on the form of her answer.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged in a low voice. “I did intend to see somebody.”

  “Can you let me have their name?”

  “Is it necessary?”

  “I'm afraid so, Miss Tregarthan. You see time is always an important factor in a case, and if you visited somebody last night they may know what time you left their house. Now this would be corroborative evidence as to the time you reached Greylings. We know how far away the village is by the cliff-path and can estimate, roughly, how long you took to walk the distance. You see, miss?”

  “Yes,” said Ruth. “I quite understand. I went to Cove Cottage—one of the first houses between here and Boscawen. It's owned by Mrs. Peewit, a widow. Since her husband's death she's been forced to let rooms for a living.”

  “And you went to see Mrs. Peewit?”

  “No—not exactly. I went to see her present lodger—Mr. Hardy.”

  The Inspector scribbled a few hurried notes in his book and went on casually.

  “I suppose Mr. Hardy is a single gentleman? I mean Mrs. Peewit attends to his wants and so forth?”

  “That's right. He's an author—a novelist, as a matter of fact. He's been with Mrs. Peewit for about two years now.”

  “I see. And last night, Miss Tregarthan, you thought that since you were out for a walk you'd visit Mr. Hardy?”

  “Yes. It was raining pretty heavily, and as I know him fairly well I thought I'd drop in for a chat.”

  “And you found him in?”

  Again Ruth hesitated.

  “No—as a matter of fact, I didn't,” she said slowly. “I saw Mrs. Peewit, of course, but Mr. Hardy was out.”

  “Nothing unusual about that, I suppose? After all he didn't expect you?”

  “Oh, no. He often goes down to the Men's Club at the Legion Hall and plays billiards in the evening. Knowing this I didn't trouble to wait. I left a message with Mrs. Peewit to say that I'd called on Mr. Hardy, and came straight home.”

  “By the cliff-path?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see, Miss Tregarthan. Well, that's been a very helpful little talk.” Inspector Bigswell rose. “I'm sorry that you should have been put to all this trouble. Let's hope the affair will soon be cleared up. There'll be an inquest on Wednesday or Thursday and I'm afraid you will be handed an official summons to attend. Probably at the local inn. We thought it would be more convenient than here. More room. Now d'you mind if I upset the routine of your house a little and have a chat with Mr. and Mrs. Cowper?”

  “No, Inspector. You can have this room if you like. The Vicar rang through early this morning and asked me if I would care to stay at the Vicarage for the time being. His sister, whom I know quite well, is coming down to-day. If you've no objection I should like to accept.”

  “By all means. And the Cowpers?”

  “They'll stay on here, of course.”

  “Well, Miss Tregarthan, if you take my advice you'll pack your things as soon as possible. Your uncle's solicitor has been informed of his death, I suppose?”

  “Yes—Mr. Dodd phoned him and he's coming over from Greystoke this afternoon.”

  “Good.” He held out his hand. “I'll let you know the moment there is anything to report.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. You can't realise how much this has upset me. I can't understand it! My uncle has no enemies. I can't see what anybody has to gain by this horrible crime.”

  And keeping back her tears with an effort Ruth crossed to the door and went out.

  The Inspector then dealt with the Cowpers, having them into the dining-room one at a time. He did not trouble to verify the statements which the Cowpers had offered Grouch, but concentrated on questions which dealt with the relationship existing between Ruth Tregarthan and her uncle. Here, as Bigswell had expected, Mrs. Cowper was far more informative than her husband. It seemed in fact that where Cowper was content to accept the Tregarthans as his employers, Mrs. Cowper was devoured with an insatiable curiosity as to their private affairs and actions. She did not deliberately listen at closed doors or go out of her way to pry upon Ruth or her uncle, but she kept her ears and eyes abnormally wide open.

  Stimulated to volubility by a few well-interposed questions, Mrs. Cowper declared that Miss Ruth and her uncle had never really got on since the girl had grown old enough to have a mind of her own. There had been frequent quarrels, of a verbal rather than a physical nature, often resulting in days of freezing silence between them. Of late these quarrels had grown more violent and Mrs. Cowper had entertained a fear that Mr. Tregarthan, a headstrong man when roused out of his normal reserve, would do his niece some physical injury. But as far as she knew this had never actually happened. Miss Ruth would often leave the house and go for long walks after one of these outbursts, which Mrs. Cowper considered was a sensible thing to do, as it gave them both time to cool down and get over their unreasonableness.

  The Inspector then came to the quarrel at the dinner-table on the night of the murder. Did Mrs. Cowper know exactly what this quarrel was about? Mrs. Cowper didn't like to repeat the inner goings-on, as it were, of the family, but she did have a very shrewd idea as to what this particular row was about. The Inspector thereupon eased her somewhat elastic conscience and explained that all the information which he received was of a strictly confidential nature, and that Mrs. Cowper could speak up without fear of reprimand.

  “Then,” said Mrs. Cowper, taking a large breath, significant of a large and imminent flood of information, “it was about Mr. Ronald. Mr. Ronald Hardy, that is, what lives down at Cove Cottage with Mrs. Peewit. Very friendly he was with Miss Ruth, though never coming to the house when Mr. Tregarthan was there, as there didn't seem to be much love lost between them. The saying is, in the village, that Mr. Ronald is sweet on Miss Ruth and that she's biding her time like a sensible lass before saying ‘Yes.’ ‘Course, I don't know if it had gone as far as that, mind you. But this much I do know.” And here Mrs. Cowper grew emphatic. “Mr. Tregarthan would have objected to the marriage and make no mistake about it. Why he was so against Mr. Ronald, I don't know. He always seemed nice enough the few times I chanced to meet him in the village, though he was an author and a bit queer sometimes in the head because of him being shell-shocked in the war. But a nicer, better-spoken, well-set-up sort of lad you'd have to go a long way to find, to my way of thinking. Well, last night, just before I took in the joint, the door being open I couldn't help overhearing a bit of the conversation. It was about Mr. Ronald—
that much I'll swear to—though his name was never actually mentioned.”

  “What made you think it was to do with Mr. Hardy then, Mrs. Cowper?”

  “Because of what was said. First I heard Mr. Tregarthan say something about ‘It's got to stop once and for all! I forbid you to see him again!’ I heard him thump the table as he said it enough to crack the glasses. He appeared half off his head with anger. I can tell you, it frightened me to hear him talking that roughly.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I heard Miss Ruth say—‘You've no right to interfere. I'm old enough to do as I please with my own life. It's a matter between him and me!’”

  “And then?”

  “And then I coughed behind the door and walked in with the joint. Later when I was out of the room I heard them start all over again. Then I heard Miss Ruth come out into the hall in a hurry, get into her outdoor things and go out by the side door.”

  This concluded, as far as the Inspector was concerned, the valuable part of Mrs. Cowper's evidence. What followed was mere gossip and hearsay, which the Inspector put an end to as soon as was tactfully possible. Cowper merely corroborated his wife's statement that Miss Ruth and her uncle were always “chewing their rag,” as he put it.

  Satisfied that he was at last getting somewhere in his investigations the Inspector ordered Grimmet and the burly Constable to make an exhaustive search in the grounds of the house and on the surrounding part of the common, in the hope that some further clue might come to light. Bigswell, himself, returned at once to the cliff-path and went over the ground which he had covered the night before. There was, as he saw at once, a new series of footprints which served to corroborate Ruth's story of the previous evening. These he dismissed for the time being as extraneous and concentrated his attentions on the earlier footprints made by Ruth before Tregarthan had been discovered dead. This time he was struck, as the Vicar had been struck, by those two curious and interesting facts—(1) That Ruth Tregarthan had walked to about midway along the cliff-path at the bottom of the garden, stopped, apparently, and, by the direction of the toes, stared into the uncurtained room, and then run at a high speed toward the side door. (2) That she was wearing at the time high-heeled shoes.

  But why had she run? She, on her own statement, did not realise that anything was wrong with her uncle. Taking up his position mid-way along the wall the Inspector saw at once, by reason of the wide window-frames and the position of a small arm-chair, that Tregarthan's recumbent body would have been invisible from the cliff-path. And yet the girl had apparently taken one look at the window and bolted helter-skelter to the side door. And more than that—rushed without removing her wet attire, straight into the sitting-room. Why?

  Inspector Bigswell hoisted himself up on to the low stone wall, filled his pipe, lit it fastidiously and began to evolve the first outlines of a theory, which would account for the manner in which Julius Tregarthan had been murdered.

  His theory was something like this:

  Ruth Tregarthan had quarrelled violently with her uncle over this love-affair between her and Ronald Hardy. For some reason (at present unapparent) Tregarthan had been dead against the match. Ruth had gone at once to Ronald, probably to let him know of this final fracas and to make plans for their future actions. She was in a violent temper. The continued opposition of her uncle to the man she loved had driven her, at this final stage, to desperation. Perhaps her uncle's consent to the marriage was, for some financial reason, essential. At any rate, Ruth, finding Ronald out, had returned along the cliff-path and seeing a light in the sitting-room, had snatched up a handful of gravel from the drive, returned to the cliff-path, thrown the gravel, and when her uncle drew aside the curtains she had shot him. Then, horrified by the results of her action, she had rushed, via the side door, into the sitting-room, to find, alas, that her uncle was already dead.

  This was the Inspector's theory. Set out, step by step, in his mind he realised, at once, that though it explained away a good many of the facts of the case, it still left a great deal unexplained. Why, for example, had he found no footprints linking up the cliff-path with the drive, where the girl had gone to get the handful of gravel? It was reasonably certain that she would have used the little track which led through the laurel bushes. Where had the girl got the revolver? At Cove Cottage? She would hardly have had a revolver ready in the pocket of her mackintosh, and according to Mrs. Cowper she would have had no time to get one from elsewhere before she left the house. And what was her reason for that stealthy exit from Greylings on the previous night when she had been ordered by the Constable not to leave the premises?

  The Inspector suddenly sat up straight and took the pipe out of his mouth.

  What if the girl had managed to secrete the revolver in her bedroom during the general upset in the house, and later crept out to rid herself of such a damning piece of evidence? That was a reasonable explanation—far more reasonable than the somewhat halting explanation offered by the girl herself. She had slipped down to the cliff-path and flung the revolver into the sea. As the Vicar had told him the night before, it was deep water under that part of the cliff. Greylings was out on a broad ness and the cliff, though low, slid straight down into the sea.

  The Inspector got off the wall and gazed down over the cliff-edge. He realised at once that it would be a hopeless task trying to recover anything which had been thrown into the water at that point. There was a strong swell round the ness and doubtless swift currents on the sea-bed, to say nothing of jagged rocks between which the revolver might have lodged. Dragging operations would be out of the question. Was it hopeless then to pursue this particular line of investigation? Wouldn't it be better perhaps to find out, not so much what Ruth Tregarthan had done with the revolver, but from where she had obtained it? Once prove that she had a revolver in her possession when she left Cove Cottage and the rest would be a mere matter of collecting further circumstantial evidence.

  Two people might help him over this matter—Mrs. Mullion, the midwife, and Mrs. Peewit, Ronald's landlady at Cove Cottage. He decided without more ado to visit these two ladies.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE MISSING REVOLVER

  RETURNING to the house, however, Inspector Bigswell found Pendrill and the Vicar waiting in the sitting-room, from which the body had been removed. Both of them were anxious to know if any progress had been made since their parting at the Vicarage. The Inspector shrugged his shoulders with a noncommittal air and proceeded to take down Mrs. Mullion's address from the Doctor. He was not yet prepared to state his views of the case. Time enough to do that when he had more pieces of the puzzle in his hand.

  “By the way,” said the Vicar, when the Inspector had finished with Pendrill. “You've heard about my proposal to Miss Tregarthan? The Doctor is taking her and her luggage up to the Vicarage now. Much more pleasant for her I feel. It will enable her, I hope, to regain a more normal outlook on things after this terrible contretemps. My sister will be there—a very understanding woman. It's a handicap for a girl not having a mother. A woman's sympathy is a very present help, I feel, in a time of trouble. Don't you agree, Inspector?”

  The Inspector nodded absent-mindedly. He was only half listening to the Vicar's preamble. He realised that it might be expedient to get hold of Mr. Ronald Hardy and see what he had to say about his relationship with Ruth Tregarthan. He was surprised that the young man, who by now must have heard about Tregarthan's death, had not put in an appearance.

  At that moment Ruth came down followed by Cowper with her suitcases, and joined by Pendrill, the little cortège went out to the car. The Inspector shot an enquiring glance at the Vicar, who remained standing in the middle of the room.

  “Oh, I'm staying, Inspector. Miss Tregarthan has asked me to go through her uncle's papers in case there should be anything relevant to the solicitor's visit this afternoon. I have the keys of his bureau.”

  “I should be very much obliged then,” put in the Inspector quickly, “if
you would take a careful note of any correspondence which may throw light on the reason for Tregarthan's murder. It'll save me a lot of time and trouble. It means an official warrant, of course, and I haven't got one with me. Anything you may show me will be treated in strict confidence of course.”

  The Vicar agreed to this proposal and settled down forthwith to a methodical search of the big rolltop desk which stood, rather out of place in its ugly utility, in a corner of the sitting-room.

  Out on the front drive the Inspector was met by Grimmet and the Constable who reported an unsuccessful morning's work. They had discovered nothing which might serve to elucidate the case in any way and the Inspector, who had rather anticipated this result, ordered Grimmet to start up the car and left the portly Constable in charge of Greylings. Just as the car swung round and headed up the rise of the drive, Grouch hove in sight and started to freewheel swiftly down the slope. The Inspector raised his hand and Grouch, applying his brakes with more fervour than discretion, skidded alarmingly and plunged sideways off his machine. Regaining the upright he saluted smartly.

  “Are these acrobatics necessary, Grouch?” asked the Inspector with a faint smile. “I've got quite enough work in hand for the Coroner without asking him to hold an inquest on you. Anyway, leave your juggernaut here and hop in. You can direct us to Cove Cottage, and after that I want to see Mrs. Mullion.”

  As the car rose and dipped like a veering gull between the gorse-dotted greenness of the open common, the Inspector arranged that Grouch should be dropped at Cove Cottage, so that the Constable could go down and interview the landlord of the Ship Inn. The Chief Constable had been in touch with the Coroner, a Greystoke solicitor, before the Inspector had left for Boscawen that morning and the inquest had been fixed for two o'clock on Thursday. As it was expected that a number of witnesses might have to be subpœnaed, Bigswell had suggested that a room in the local inn might prove more convenient and central than Greylings. He had little doubt in his own mind as to what the Coroner's verdict must be—murder, without a doubt, and in the view of the somewhat conflicting and puzzling evidence so far collected—“murder by person or persons unknown.” For all that he felt distinctly sanguine as to his chances of driving home the crime, by force of carefully gathered circumstantial evidence, to one particular person.