Sweeping away this false assumption had enabled him to answer the second series of questions relative to the placing and exploding the charge.
Suppose the crime, instead of being a partial failure, had been a complete success. Suppose that Haviland and Mairs had been killed, but not Samson; why? Because Samson had killed the others!
This idea, French saw at once, cleared away all his difficulties. Samson, and Samson only, could have arranged the whole affair.
Samson had unlimited facilities for secret access to the launch. It was his property, and he could without comment go out in it or work at it in the boathouse at any time that he chose. He could easily have hidden a bomb in the stern, with a string attached, which could have been led forward to the bows. A pull on the string at the correct moment would have caused the explosion.
But was such a thing likely? French thought so: for several reasons.
First, there was the overwhelming reason that, so far as he could see, it was the only way in which the thing could have been done. This in itself was proof, but there were a number of other supporting facts.
If Samson were not guilty, it was certainly a strange coincidence that the small anchor, or grappling, should break loose, and Samson should go forward to make it fast, at just the moment that the explosion should occur, and moreover that the launch should at that moment be close to another vessel.
French pictured what might have happened. Before leaving Chayle, Samson sets his bomb and lays his cord, arranging them so that neither will be seen. When he considers the time propitious he spins his yarn about the grappling, goes forward, stoops down so as to be protected by the motor casing, and pulls his cord. The bomb goes off and a hole is blown in the bottom of the boat, which sinks. Samson has taken the precaution to have a lifebuoy at hand, to which he clings till he is picked up. He undoubtedly runs some risk of drowning, but for this very reason he is sure he will not be suspected of murder.
To French all this seemed entirely satisfactory. It brought him, however, direct to the question of motive. Had Samson a motive for wishing the deaths of the other two men?
On this point French knew nothing, but he remembered noticing a curious feature of Samson’s manner. The man had always seemed sullen and as if nursing a grievance, particularly against Haviland. Here was a likely line for investigation, which he must undertake at once.
Among the routine details given him by Hanbury were the names of Haviland’s and Mairs’s solicitors. French thought that a visit to both was indicated.
Both lived at Cowes, and Carter rang them up and arranged interviews for that morning. French and he took the next boat, duly presented themselves at Messrs Dacre & Johns, and asked if they could see Mr Dacre.
French soon realised that it was not going to be easy to get his information, and he was therefore careful not to demand it, but to ask for the solicitor’s help as a favour.
‘I want you to keep it to yourself, Mr Dacre,’ he said confidentially, ‘but I should tell you that there is a suspicion amounting almost to a certainty that this affair was not an accident, but that murder was committed.’ Mr Dacre made a sharp exclamation, but French went on. ‘If so, you, as the representative of the late Mr Haviland, will doubtless be as anxious as I am to get the murderer brought to justice. It is with this in view that I should like to ask you a question or two. I very much hope, sir, that you can see your way to give me this help, which both of us know you are not bound to do.’
Dacre was sincerely shocked at the news. It appeared that he was a personal friend of Haviland’s as well as his man of business, and he had evidently had no idea that the affair could have been anything but an accident.
‘I should be glad to help you,’ he said when he had duly expressed his feelings. ‘But you know, Chief-Inspector, that in these cases it is usually wise to say nothing. However, let me hear what you want, and I’ll do what I can for you.’
French wanted a general statement of Haviland’s position, chiefly from the financial point of view. He wanted to see his will. He wanted to know whether he had enemies, and if so, the reason for their enmity. In fact, he wanted any information which might indicate a motive for the crime.
Mr Dacre appreciated the position, but exhibited the caution of the legal mind. Finally he said he found himself unable to produce the will, but that otherwise, broadly speaking, he would answer his visitor’s questions.
But when he had done so, French found that he was little the wiser. Haviland had been comfortably off, if not rich, though of course, Dacre pointed out, such terms were relative. He was married and all his money, with the exception of a few trifling bequests, went to his family. His only son was going to be a doctor, and there was no one who could replace him at the works. As to enemies, Mr Dacre knew of none, nor could he give any information which would account for such a crime.
Mr Lewisham, Mairs’s solicitor, upon whom French and his satellite next called, was not such a stickler for etiquette. Under the circumstances he made no difficulty about answering French’s questions. Mairs, it appeared, had been unmarried and had had no near relatives. He had left his property, which was not large, in roughly equal thirds to Haviland, Samson and a distant cousin, a captain in the merchant service. Lewisham scouted the idea that his client’s death could have been due to foul play, saying he was a good sort, liked by everyone. He certainly knew of no enemies, and he didn’t believe there had been any.
From all this it seemed to French that not only would Samson come in for a small amount of money on the death of Haviland and Mairs, but he would become practical chief of the business. It was not a company, and by paying Haviland’s executors their share of the profits, Samson would apparently be able to do as he liked. For this he might well have risked a good deal.
While interviewing solicitors, French thought he might as well see Messrs Dagge & Trimble also, the solicitors for the Chayle firm. The office was close by, and he and Carter turned in and presently were received by Mr Trimble.
Trimble, however, was giving nothing away. He pointed out that he was now solicitor for Mr Samson, and as such must await Mr Samson’s instructions before discussing business.
‘Well,’ said French, ‘in saying that you’ve really answered my principal question. I wanted to know who I have to deal with in connection with Chayle. Is Mr Samson in sole charge, or are there other partners in the background who must be considered?’
Trimble thought over this and evidently considered it innocuous. ‘You have to deal with Mr Samson,’ he answered. ‘There’s no one else at present. Presumably the Haviland interest will put in a representative later, but for the moment Mr Samson is the works.’
Here, then, was an undoubted motive. At the same time, it did not satisfy French. Firstly, it seemed scarcely adequate, and secondly, it did not account for that undoubted air of grievance which Samson had always borne. French wondered could he get anything out of the man himself.
‘Nothing like trying,’ he thought, and getting a car, was driven with Carter out to the works.
Samson saw them at once and French lost no time in getting to business.
First with impressive seriousness he pledged Samson to silence. Then he told him that his suspicion had been practically confirmed that the launch affair represented an attempt on the lives of its three occupants. Further progress however was made difficult by the fact that Haviland and Mairs had both seemed such extraordinarily good fellows, straight and generous and openhanded, making friends everywhere and without a serious enemy in the world. Samson became less enthusiastic at this, and as French continued to lay on the soft soap, he could restrain his feelings no longer and fell into the trap.
‘They weren’t such saints as all that,’ he said at last. ‘They were like you and me and the next man—just ordinary.’
French thought the time was not ripe and continued his adulation. Samson reacted better than he could have hoped.
‘Ah nonsense, man,’ he protested at last
. ‘They could do the dirty like anyone else. Who have you been talking to?’
Here was something definite at last. French seized on it like a bulldog. What did Mr Samson mean by that? He must have known of some instance or he wouldn’t have spoken in such a way.
Samson became suddenly wary and would have withdrawn. But it was no use. French stuck to it, and at last forced the engineer into the dilemma of either replying or taking the responsibility of keeping back apparently vital evidence. At last the whole thing came out.
Samson had been deeply and bitterly resentful against both the dead men, but specially against Haviland. He had been treated badly, he considered, about the process. He had worked at it almost day and night, for over four years. Practically all his spare time had been put into it, as well admittedly as a good deal of the firm’s, though not, he swore, to the neglect of his ordinary work. When he had completed his invention he had informed the others. On the excuse of considering the plant which would be required to work the process, they had learnt the details, and Haviland had then turned round (the phrase was Samson’s) and told him that the work had been done in their time and the experiments carried out with their materials and apparatus, and the resulting invention was not his, Samson’s, but the firm’s. Samson had seen with bitterness that he was in the other’s hands. He had no money to develop his process apart from Chayle, while if he had approached another firm, Haviland might have prosecuted him for selling Chayle property.
Haviland however had not acted so badly in the end. When the process became a going concern, Samson was made a partner, the process being taken as representing his share of the capital. But Samson had felt that this concession had only been made to keep him at Chayle, and his sense of grievance had remained keen.
French saw that here was all the motive he required to build up his case. On the one hand there was hatred and a rankling sense of injustice against the two dead men, and on the other a material financial gain as well as an increase of freedom and prestige if they were out of the way. Yes, the motive was now entirely adequate.
And the other great essential of a police officer’s case against a suspect was equally met. As well as motive there was opportunity. Samson could have obtained the necessary gelignite and detonator from the Chayle quarry, he could have placed it in the launch, and at the proper moment he could have exploded it, while taking the necessary precautious for his own safety.
As to proof, the third desideratum in such cases, French was not on such sure ground. There was the negative proof that he believed there was no other way in which the crime could have been carried out. Negative proof however was always unsatisfactory, and incidentally went no distance with a jury. But where to get positive proof French did not see.
One other consideration occurred to him, which, though not in the nature of proof, was entirely consistent with the theory of Samson’s guilt. Might not Samson have deliberately chosen the run from Joymount to Chayle in the hope of throwing on to Joymount any suspicion which might be aroused? He would be aware that the police would learn of the negotiations in progress with Joymount, and that they already knew of the existence of the process. Would it be too much to suppose that he would have foreseen the very theory being reached, which French had been working on? French thought he would be bound to foresee it. And if so, the launch disaster would undoubtedly suggest that Joymount had taken this way to rid themselves of their enemies.
This suggestion, added to the apparent fact that Samson himself had had the narrowest escape from drowning, would tend very efficiently to transfer any suspicion from Samson to Joymount.
All the same French was still not satisfied. He wanted positive proof, something that would directly connect Samson with the crime. How was he to get it? He did not see.
Now ensued some days of the hateful worrying type which every investigator knows so well, when any real progress seems quite impossible. French was convinced that there must be some further fact, which if he could only get hold of it, would give him the proof he wanted. But if there were, it remained elusively hidden. French felt badly up against it, and grew short in the temper and a trying companion for the unhappy Carter.
This was not to say that during those wearing days either of them were idle. On the contrary, they worked hard from morning to night. But it was always in following up clues or making enquiries which led to nothing. French saw an immense dossier of facts piling up, but they were all negative facts: they proved that this and that and the other would not support his theories, but not that his theories were right or wrong.
During this period he was also much afflicted by the well-meant efforts of his fellow men. In this case, as in most others, large numbers of people thought they could help him to solve his problem, and wrote him letters and called to see him with mysterious information which, they said, would lead him straight to his goal. This phase of the public mind is usually best seen when the description of a wanted individual has been published. In such cases the individual in question is invariably possessed of the marvellous power of reduplication. He is seen in scores of places simultaneously, details of each appearance being sedulously furnished to the police. The worst of it is that no single one of these communications can be dismissed without investigation, since, however unlikely, it may contain something of value. Many a cul-de-sac of enquiry did French and his helpers explore as a result of the misplaced zeal of the public.
For about a week this state of stalemate went on, and then an idea occurred to French which he hoped would end the deadlock and start him once more on the road he wished to travel.
In the evening he had had a fire put on in his bedroom, and he retired there after dinner with the intention of once again going over the case from the beginning, in the rather faint hope that some hint might become disclosed which up to then had eluded him.
With the utmost concentration he worked through his notes, and he had almost given up in despair, when he came for the nth time to his theory of what had happened in the boat prior to the explosion. He had postulated a cord, running from the bows aft, the pulling of which had exploded the charge. Now it occurred to him that an electric circuit, which would ignite the detonator directly, might have been easier to arrange.
Though at first sight this seemed a quite trivial point, as a matter of fact it proved one of the most important he had yet considered. Indeed he afterwards admitted it formed the start of the line of enquiry which led him eventually to his goal.
His first idea was not so much that the electric circuit would be easier to arrange, but that the cord would be more difficult. Indeed as he thought over it he saw that he had rather taken things for granted. It would, of course, be possible to arrange some apparatus for the cord to work: it might, for example, pull the trigger of a pistol, or it might release a weight or a spring which would explode the detonator. But all such would have more or less serious objections.
In the first place the apparatus would have to be designed and made, and the making of it might be seen and awkward questions might be asked. Next any such apparatus would occupy a certain space—perhaps the pistol the least of any—and as it had to be so hidden that the victims should not see it, size was a matter of importance. Third, at best the apparatus would be experimental and untried, which would be extremely undesirable. In fact French now felt sure a cord would only have been employed if no better method were available.
The electric circuit however supplied an ideal means. Here nothing would have to be designed, as detonators fitted with the necessary wires were to be had by the hundred in the Chayle explosive store. Moreover the space occupied was negligible. It was true that one or more dry batteries would have to be used, but these need not be placed in the stern where hiding space was limited, but could be put anywhere that was convenient. About this plan moreover there was nothing experimental. For decades electric discharge had been in everyday use.
French followed up his idea. Suppose electric discharge had been used, how
exactly would the apparatus have been arranged?
The actual explosive cartridge with the detonator buried in it would be placed in the stern, as was proved by the report of the captain of the Benbolt and the injuries to Mairs’s feet. The switch must have been in the bows for Samson to press. Wires must therefore have been run from bow to stern. The battery would probably have been hidden somewhere in the bows out of sight of the victims.
French recalled Samson’s description of the launch. It had been a fifteen-foot ship’s boat, and was entirely open, save for a couple of feet in the bows, which Samson had decked over as a protection against bad weather. It was broad of beam and an excellent seaboat. Samson had bought it, and had then put in the motor. This he had placed amidships, building over it a removable cover. The screw shaft he had laid along the bottom, covering it with a set of false bottom boards. One of these boards was movable to give access to the bearings. The petrol was stored in a tank in the bows.
French tried to picture just how the connecting wires might have been led, and as he did so, one point seemed to stand out. They would have been made fast to nails or other fixed objects. They would not have been left loose, lest the plunging of the boat should have shaken them out within sight of Haviland or Mairs. Possibly they had been laid beneath the moveable board alongside the screw shaft, or perhaps looped up under the stern side seats.
Now if they had been made fast, they would still be in position. The ends next the explosive would of course have been blown off, but the intermediate section and the switch in the bows should remain in place.
French wondered if an examination could be made of the launch.
If the switch and wires were found, it would constitute absolute proof of Samson’s guilt.
Next morning before leaving the breakfast table French put his conclusions to Carter. By this he not only obtained the sergeant’s opinion, but—which he considered much more important—he still further cleared up his own mind on the various points at issue. Satisfied after their discussion that his ideas were sound, he rang up Hanbury and asked him to arrange an early conference with his Chief Constable.
Mystery on Southampton Water Page 23