by Various
‘Don’t look at me!’ exclaimed Toby. ‘That rifle has nothing to do with it. Brenda wasn’t shot.’
‘Sir,’ said Dr Fell with much patience, ‘I am aware of that.’
‘Then what are you hinting at?’
‘Sir,’ said Dr Fell, ‘you will oblige me if you too don’t regard every question as a trap. I have a trap for the murderer, and the murderer alone. You fired a number of shots – the maids heard you and saw you.’ He turned to Joyce. ‘I believe you heard too?’
‘I heard one shot,’ answered the bewildered Joyce, ‘as I told Dan. About seven o’clock, when I got up and dressed.’
‘Did you look out of the windows?’
‘No.’
‘What happened to that rifle afterwards? Is it here now?’
‘No,’ Toby almost yelled. ‘I took it back to Ireton’s after we found Brenda. But if the rifle had nothing to do with it, and I had nothing to do with it, then what the hell’s the point?’
Dr Fell did not reply for a moment. Then he made another hideous face. ‘We know,’ he rumbled, ‘that Brenda Lestrange wore a beach-robe, a bathing-suit, and a heavy silk scarf knotted round her neck. Miss Ray?’
‘Y-yes?’
‘I am not precisely an authority on women’s clothes,’ said Dr Fell. ‘As a rule I should notice nothing odd unless I passed Madge Wildfire or Lady Godiva. I have seen men wear a scarf with a beach-robe, but is it customary for women to wear a scarf as well?’
There was a pause.
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ said Joyce. ‘I can’t speak for everybody, but I never do. It was just one of Brenda’s fancies. She always did.’
‘Aha!’ said Dr Fell. ‘The murderer was counting on that.’
‘On what?’
‘On her known conduct. Let me show you rather a grisly picture of a murder.’
Dr Fell’s eyes were squeezed shut. From inside his cloak and pocket he fished out an immense meerschaum pipe. Firmly under the impression that he had filled and lighted the pipe, he put the stem in his mouth and drew at it.
‘Miss Lestrange,’ he said, ‘goes down to the beach. She takes off her robe. Remember that, it’s very important. She spreads out the robe in King Arthur’s Chair and sits down. She is still wearing the scarf, knotted tightly in a broad band round her neck. She is about the same height as you, Miss Ray. She is held there, at the height of her shoulders, by a curving rock formation deeply bedded in sand.’
Dr Fell paused and opened his eyes.
‘The murderer, we believe, catches her from the back. She sees and hears nothing until she is seized. Intense pressure on the carotid arteries, here at either side of the neck under the chin, will strike her unconscious within seconds and dead within minutes. When her body is released, it should fall straight forward. Instead, what happens?’
To Dan, full of relief ever since danger had seemed to leave Joyce, it was as if a shutter had flown open in his brain.
‘She was lying on her back,’ Dan said. ‘Joyce told me so. Brenda was lying flat on her back with her head towards the sea. And that means—’
‘Yes?’
‘It means she was twisted or spun round in some way when she fell. It has something to do with that infernal scarf – I’ve thought so from the first. Dr Fell! Was Brenda killed with the scarf?’
‘In one sense, yes. In another sense, no.’
‘You can’t have it both ways! Either she was killed with the scarf, or she wasn’t.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Dr Fell.
‘Then let’s all retire to a loony bin,’ Dan suggested, ‘because nothing makes any sense at all. The murderer still couldn’t have walked out there without leaving tracks. Finally, I agree with Toby: what’s the point of the rifle? How does a .22 rifle figure in all this?’
‘Because of its sound.’
Dr Fell took the pipe out of his mouth. Dan wondered why he had ever thought the learned doctor’s eyes were vague. Magnified behind the glasses on the broad black ribbon, they were not vague at all.
‘A .22 rifle,’ he went on in his big voice, ‘has a distinctive noise. Fired in the open air or anywhere else, it sounds exactly like the noise made by the real instrument used in this crime.’
‘Real instrument? What noise?’
‘The crack of a blacksnake whip,’ replied Dr Fell.
Edmund Ireton, looking very tired and ten years older, went over and sat down in an easy chair. Toby Curtis took one step backwards, then another.
‘In South Africa,’ said Dr Fell, ‘I have never seen the very long whip which drivers of long ox spans use. But in America I have seen the blacksnake whip, and it can be twenty-four feet long. You yourselves must have watched it used in a variety turn on the stage.’
Dr Fell pointed his pipe at them.
‘Remember?’ he asked. ‘The user of the whip stands some distance away facing his girl-assistant. There is a vicious crack. The end of the whip coils two or three times round the girl’s neck. She is not hurt. But she would be in difficulties if he pulled the whip towards him. She would be in grave danger if she were held back and could not move.
‘Somebody planned a murder with a whip like that. He came here early in the morning. The whip, coiled round his waist, was hidden by a loose and bulky tweed jacket. Please observe the jacket Toby Curtis is wearing now.’
Toby’s voice went high when he screeched out one word. It may have been protest, defiance, a jeer, or all three.
‘Stop this!’ cried Joyce, who had again turned away.
‘Continue, I beg,’ Mr Ireton said.
‘In the dead hush of morning,’ said Dr Fell, ‘he could not hide the loud crack of the whip. But what could he do?’
‘He could mask it,’ said Edmund Ireton.
‘Just that! He was always practising with a .22 rifle. So he fired several shots, behind the bungalow, to establish his presence. Afterwards nobody would notice when the crack of the whip – that single, isolated “shot” heard by Miss Ray – only seemed to come from behind the house.’
‘Then, actually, he was—?’
‘On the terrace, twenty feet behind a victim held immovable in the curve of a stone chair. The end of the whip coiled round the scarf. Miss Lestrange’s breath was cut off instantly. Under the pull of a powerful arm she died in seconds.
‘On the stage, you recall, a lift and twist dislodges the whip from the girl-assistant’s neck. Toby Curtis had a harder task; the scarf was so embedded in her neck that she seemed to have been strangled with it. He could dislodge it. But only with a powerful whirl and lift of the arm which spun her up and round, to fall face upwards. The whip snaked back to him with no trace in the sand. Afterwards he had only to take the whip back to Mr Ireton’s house, under pretext of returning the rifle. He had committed a murder which, in his vanity, he thought undetectable. That’s all.’
‘But it can’t be all!’ said Dan. ‘Why should Toby have killed her? His motive —’
‘His motive was offended vanity. Mr Edmund Ireton as good as told you so, I fancy. He had certainly hinted as much to me.’
Edmund Ireton rose shakily from the chair.
‘I am no judge or executioner,’ he said. ‘I – I am detached from life. I only observe. If I guessed why this was done —’
‘You could never speak straight out?’ Dr Fell asked sardonically.
‘No!’
‘And yet that was the tragic irony of the whole affair. Miss Lestrange wanted Toby Curtis, as he wanted her. But, being a woman, her pretence of indifference and contempt was too good. He believed it. Scratch her vanity deeply enough and she would have committed murder. Scratch his vanity deeply enough —’
‘Lies!’said Toby.
‘Look at him, all of you!’ said Dr Fell. ‘Even when he’s accused of murder, he can’t take his eyes off a mirror.’
‘Lies!’
‘She laughed at him,’ the big voice went on, ‘and so she had to die. Brutally and senselessly he killed a
girl who would have been his for the asking. That is what I meant by tragic irony.’
Toby had retreated across the room until his back bumped against a wall. Startled, he looked behind him; he had banged against another mirror.
‘Lies!’ he kept repeating. ‘You can talk and talk and talk. But there’s not a single damned thing you can prove!’
‘Sir,’ inquired Dr Fell, ‘are you sure?’
‘Yes!’
‘I warned you,’ said Dr Fell, ‘that I returned tonight partly to detain all of you for an hour or so. It gave Inspector Tregellis time to search Mr Ireton’s house, and the Inspector has since returned. I further warned you that I questioned the maids, Sonia and Dolly, who today were only incoherent. My dear sir, you underestimate your personal attractions.’
Now it was Joyce who seemed to understand. But she did not speak.
‘Sonia, it seems,’ and Dr Fell looked hard at Toby, ‘has quite a fondness for you. When she heard that last isolated “shot” this morning, she looked out of the window again. You weren’t there. This was so strange that she ran out to the front terrace to discover where you were. She saw you.’
The door by which Dr Fell had entered was still open. His voice lifted and echoed through the hall.
‘Come in, Sonia!’ he called. ‘After all, you are witness to the murder. You, Inspector, had better come in too.’
Toby Curtis blundered back, but there was no way out. There was only a brief glimpse of Sonia’s swollen, tear-stained face. Past her marched a massive figure in uniform, carrying what he had found hidden in the other house.
Inspector Tregellis was reflected everywhere in the mirrors, with the long coils of the whip over his arm. And he seemed to be carrying not a whip but a coil of rope – gallows rope.
Chapter and Verse
Ngaio Marsh
When the telephone rang, Troy came in, sun-dazzled, from the cottage garden to answer it, hoping it would be a call from London.
‘Oh,’ said a strange voice uncertainly. ‘May I speak to Superintendent Alleyn, if you please?’
‘I’m sorry. He’s away.’
‘Oh, dear!’ said the voice, crestfallen. ‘Er – would that be – am I speaking to Mrs Alleyn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Yes. Well, it’s Timothy Bates here, Mrs Alleyn. You don’t know me,’ the voice confessed wistfully, ‘but I had the pleasure several years ago of meeting your husband. In New Zealand. And he did say that if I ever came home I was to get in touch, and when I heard quite by accident that you were here – well, I was excited. But, alas, no good after all.’
‘I am sorry,’ Troy said. ‘He’ll be back, I hope, on Sunday night. Perhaps—’
‘Will he! Come, that’s something! Because here I am at the Star and Garter, you see, and so—’ The voice trailed away again.
‘Yes, indeed. He’ll be delighted,’ Troy said, hoping that he would.
‘I’m a bookman,’ the voice confided. ‘Old books, you know. He used to come into my shop. It was always such a pleasure.’
‘But, of course!’ Troy exclaimed. ‘I remember perfectly now. He’s often talked about it.’
‘Has he? Has he, really! Well, you see, Mrs Alleyn, I’m here on business. Not to sell anything, please don’t think that, but on a voyage of discovery; almost, one might say, of detection, and I think it might amuse him. He has such an eye for the curious. Not,’ the voice hurriedly amended, ‘in the trade sense. I mean curious in the sense of mysterious and unusual. But I mustn’t bore you.’
Troy assured him that he was not boring her and indeed it was true. The voice was so much coloured by odd little overtones that she found herself quite drawn to its owner. ‘I know where you are,’ he was saying. ‘Your house was pointed out to me.’
After that there was nothing to do but ask him to visit. He seemed to cheer up prodigiously. ‘May I? May I, really? Now?’
‘Why not?’ Troy said. ‘You’ll be here in five minutes.’ She heard a little crow of delight before he hung up the receiver.
He turned out to be exactly like his voice – a short, middle-aged, bespectacled man, rather untidily dressed. As he came up the path she saw that with both arms he clutched to his stomach an enormous Bible. He was thrown into a fever over the difficulty of removing his cap.
‘How ridiculous!’ he exclaimed. ‘Forgive me! One moment.’ He laid his burden tenderly on a garden seat. ‘There!’ he cried. ‘Now! How do you do!’
Troy took him indoors and gave him a drink. He chose sherry and sat in the window seat with his Bible beside him. ‘You’ll wonder,’ he said, ‘why I’ve appeared with this unusual piece of baggage. I do trust it arouses your curiosity.’
He went into a long excitable explanation. It appeared that the Bible was an old and rare one that he had picked up in a job lot of books in New Zealand. All this time he kept it under his square little hands as if it might open of its own accord and spoil his story.
‘Because,’ he said, ‘the really exciting thing to me is not its undoubted authenticity but—’ He made a conspiratorial face at Troy and suddenly opened the Bible. ‘Look!’ he invited.
He displayed the flyleaf. Troy saw that it was almost filled with entries in a minute, faded copperplate handwriting. ‘The top,’ Mr Bates cried. ‘Top left-hand. Look at that.’
Troy read: ‘Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the County of Kent. Why, it comes from our village!’
‘Ah, ha! So it does. Now, the entries, my dear Mrs Alleyn. The entries.’
They were the recorded births and deaths of a family named Wagstaff, beginning in 1705 and ending in 1870 with the birth of William James Wagstaff. Here they broke off but were followed by three further entries, close together.
Stewart Shakespeare Hadet. Died: Tuesday, 5th April, 1779. 2nd Samuel 1.10.
Naomi Balbus Hadet. Died: Saturday, 13th August, 1779. Jeremiah 50.24.
Peter Rook Hadet. Died: Monday, 12th September, 1779. Ezekiel 7.6.
Troy looked up to find Mr Bates’s gaze fixed on her. ‘And what,’ Mr Bates asked, ‘my dear Mrs Alleyn, do you make of that?’
‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘I know about Crabtree Farm. There’s the farm itself, owned by Mr De’ath, and there’s Crabtree House, belonging to Miss Hart, and – yes, I fancy I’ve heard they both belonged originally to a family named Wagstaff.’
‘You are perfectly right. Now! What about the Hadets? What about them?’
‘I’ve never heard of a family named Hadet in Little Copplestone. But –’
‘Of course you haven’t. For the very good reason that there never have been any Hadets in Little Copplestone.’
‘Perhaps in New Zealand, then?’
‘The dates, my dear Mrs Alleyn, the dates! New Zealand was not colonised in 1779. Look closer. Do you see the sequence of double dots – ditto marks – under the address? Meaning, of course, “also of Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the County of Kent”.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Of course you do. And how right you are. Now! You have noticed that throughout there are biblical references. For the Wagstaffs they are the usual pious offerings. You need not trouble yourself with them. But consult the text awarded to the three Hadets. Just you look them up! I’ve put markers.’
He threw himself back with an air of triumph and sipped his sherry. Troy turned over the heavy bulk of pages to the first marker. ‘Second of Samuel, one, ten,’ Mr Bates prompted, closing his eyes.
The verse had been faintly underlined.
‘So I stood upon him,’ Troy read, ‘and slew him.’
‘That’s Stewart Shakespeare Hadet’s valedictory,’ said Mr Bates. ‘Next!’
The next was at the 50th chapter of Jeremiah, verse 24: ‘I have laid a snare for thee and thou are taken.’
Troy looked at Mr Bates. His eyes were still closed and he was smiling faintly.
‘That was Naomi Balbus Hadet,’ he said. ‘Now for Peter Rook Hadet. Ezekiel, seven,
six.’
The pages flopped back to the last marker.
‘An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold it is come.’
Troy shut the Bible.
‘How very unpleasant,’ she said.
‘And how very intriguing, don’t you think?’ And when she didn’t answer, ‘Quite up your husband’s street, it seemed to me.’
‘I’m afraid,’ Troy said, ‘that even Rory’s investigations don’t go back to 1779.’
‘What a pity!’ Mr Bates cried gaily.
‘Do I gather that you conclude from all this that there was dirty work among the Hadets in 1779?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out. Dying to. Thank you, I should enjoy another glass. Delicious!’
He had settled down so cosily and seemed to be enjoying himself so much that Troy was constrained to ask him to stay to lunch.
‘Miss Hart’s coming,’ she said. ‘She’s the one who bought Crabtree House from the Wagstaffs. If there’s any gossip to be picked up in Copplestone, Miss Hart’s the one for it. She’s coming about a painting she wants me to donate to the Harvest Festival raffle.’
Mr Bates was greatly excited. ‘Who knows!’ he cried. ‘A Wagstaff in the hand may be worth two Hadets in the bush. I am your slave for ever, my dear Mrs Alleyn!’
Miss Hart was a lady of perhaps sixty-seven years. On meeting Mr Bates she seemed to imply that some explanation should be advanced for Troy receiving a gentleman caller in her husband’s absence. When the Bible was produced, she immediately accepted it in this light, glanced with professional expertise at the inscriptions and fastened on the Wagstaffs.
‘No doubt,’ said Miss Hart, ‘it was their family Bible and much good it did them. A most eccentric lot they were. Very unsound. Very unsound, indeed. Especially Old Jimmy.’
‘Who,’ Mr Bates asked greedily, ‘was Old Jimmy?’