Hoggett nodded, and turned away. Macdonald put down a solid breakfast in quick time; he knew that no man does a better day’s work for an empty stomach. Then he went out again into the sunlit dales and walked along beside the river. He could see for a long way, up and down the peaceful valley: not a soul was in sight and he thought how often the dales must be solitary like this. The chances against meeting anyone here must be considerable.
Having assured himself that no one was in the vicinity, he began to go over the ground they had covered last evening. It was too wet to have held any traces, for the ground was still waterlogged, but he remembered where he had been when he first spotted Vintner running towards the woods, and he squelched methodically back and forth searching the ground. He hardly expected to find anything, but it was almost instinctive to search, and as he walked he put together the few facts which had emerged in this first unofficial period of detection. Gordon Ginner had been seen in the valley with a fishing rod on August 31st. Mr. Hoggett had found traces of wheels (probably the bogie) between the cottage and the river on September 15th: he had also found a torn fragment of curtain material caught on the thorns. Mr. Willoughby’s hut had been broken into. The cottage had been entered by somebody who had used the key.
It was at this stage in his thoughts that Macdonald found a tin. It was lying in the grass some twenty yards from where Vintner had been running last night. It was a cylindrical tin, still bright, though patches of rust were beginning to show on it. Macdonald picked it up gingerly by its edges and observed that solder had been used to fasten the lid on. The tin weighed some ounces, but Macdonald thought from its size it would probably float in water. He had no idea if it was in any way connected with his case, but decided to carry it back to the cottage and examine it there. He remembered the odd fact that Vintner had appropriated the old cigarette tin which had yielded Ginner’s prints.
***
Macdonald carried his tin back to the cottage, and when he emerged again, he heard footsteps coming down the brow. He turned and met Bord and a young constable, both of them looking quite out of place in the dappled light and shade of the rough path. Navy blue and white metal buttons looked odd there, pondered Macdonald – and then he remembered that he hadn’t shaved and that his own shoes and flannel bags showed very recent contact with flood water and mud and slime. The C.I.D. man probably looked a bit odd to his spruce colleagues of the County force.
***
It was full moon before Macdonald knew all that could be learnt from examination of the contents of the sack which had been moored to the recess in the river bank. It contained Gordon Ginner’s body, and Ginner had been dead for a good many days. He had been killed by one heavy blow on the back of his head, a blow which had smashed through the skull as a coal-hammer smashes a lump of coal.
“Well, it’s probable he didn’t know anything about it, anyway,” said the Police Surgeon who first examined the body. “It was as quick as shooting him. . .”
This disposal of the body had been very careful. It was fully clad, in a nondescript tweed suit and brown brogued shoes, and the limbs had been lashed together with salmon line. The sack containing the body was tied round again and again with cord (clothesline), and the iron dogs had been skilfully attached to the cord with salmon line. The sack had been chained to the willow roots in one of the only stretches in the river where the scarp of the bank was never uncovered, even when the river was at its lowest.
Bord watched Macdonald during his examination: together the two men considered the knots which had secured the cord and the salmon line, and it was Bord who said:
“Those are sailors’ knots. The chap who did this has probably been at sea at some time.”
“Not of necessity,” replied Macdonald. “Sailors’ knots are used almost universally. Firemen use them. The Civil Defense men – in London at any rate – were taught to make nearly all these knots during their training – the firemen taught them. Then scaffolders use knots to secure their scaffold poles. Packers in certain industries use them, such as clothes balers. The knots used here would be known to a great many types of artisan.”
They went carefully through the pockets of the clothes in the sack, but found nothing. The pockets had been emptied, tailors’ marks cut from the clothes, laundry marks erased from the underclothes.
Macdonald considered all this and then said:
“In the ordinary course of events, the body would not have been found for months, perhaps not for years. The only way of finding it was by diving in toward the bank. Very few people bathe in the river. The Hoggetts and their friends swim in the summer, but they wouldn’t have gone bathing again this year. By the time the body had been found, taking all probabilities into account, it should have been unidentifiable.”
Bord nodded.
“That’s quite true. We’ve got you to thank for the promptness of the discovery.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. You’ve got to thank Giles Hoggett. If it hadn’t been that he was an observant man – and a very shrewd one – I shouldn’t have done anything about it.”
“I should never have put him down as a man who was particularly observant,” mused Bord. “He looks rather a slow fellow. You were saying just now that the Hoggetts wouldn’t have gone bathing again this year. It’s equally probable that the cottage wouldn’t have been used again this year, either – in which case Mr. Hoggett wouldn’t have noticed the loss of his iron dogs and salmon lines until after the winter, by which time he might not have remembered anything about them. Don’t you think it all points to the murderer being a local character?”
“Yes, at first glance it does – but we’ve got to remember that Ginner was seen in the valley. He isn’t a local, not of recent years, anyway. Whet was he doing in Wenningby dales, why did he ever go inside the cottage? While the obvious reading is that a native of these parts committed this crime, it’s worth remembering that someone ‘from away,’ as Hoggett says, may have got to know this lonely stretch of river, and thought it was an ideal place to commit a crime without fear of observation. There’s a lot of work to be done before we can risk any generalization on the matter. Meantime we’ve got to consider the Inquest – and the less information that’s published, the better. Identity not being in doubt, we’d better get it deferred for a bit.”
Bord nodded. He was thinking deeply:
“I’m thinking about that question of yours: why did Ginner ever come to Wenningby? He left his lodgings in the middle of August, of his own free will, apparently. Your evidence shows that he meet some of his friends a day or two after he’d left home.”
Macdonald nodded, and Bord went on:
“Do you think he and his pals had tumbled to it that the police were on to their coupon racket?”
“Yes. They’d realized that all right.”
“Very well. Ginner cleared out, and he’d have looked around for some place where he could lie low. One of your witnesses testified that Ginner had lived in Kendal at some time. You put his age at forty-five. Assuming that he got to know Lunesdale as a young man, he might have known of that cottage in the dales then. It has been kept as a holiday cottage by the Hoggetts for years, and in winter it was seldom inhabited. Is it possible that Ginner thought he might have lain low there for a bit without being noticed?”
“Yes, I should say it was, because Ginner was a townsman. Townsfolk never realize how observant countrymen are. No native of the valley would make the mistake of thinking he could live in that cottage for very long without being noticed. Although the farmers don’t often come down to the dales, they do come regularly to inspect their beasts – and someone would have noticed something.”
“Yes, that’s true. We want to find out when Ginner came to Lunesdale, and where he stayed before he came to the cottage. It’s not going to be easy, because you see we have been watching out for him since we got your notification.”
“He was seen in the dales with a fishing rod on August 31st. It’s probable he got
some sort of permit for fishing, because a man who knows he’s wanted by the police doesn’t risk carrying fishing tackle without a permit of some kind. I must talk to Hoggett. He knows all the ins and outs of the fishing rights; and he knows Lunesdale as only a native can. It’s from him and the other farmers I shall get the information I need most.”
“Well, good luck to you. You’ll find you can’t hurry them.”
“I know that, but at least they’re sure of what they do know – and they know much more than most townsmen realize.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS late that same afternoon that Macdonald reached Thorpe Intak. It was a small holding consisting of rough pasture reclaimed from the falls, and it was such poor land that even the optimists of the War Agricultural Committee had not suggested ploughing any of it. Ten of the fifteen acres was leased to Mr. Strongways of Farfell, who grazed sheep on the scrubby fell side. Of the remaining five acres, two seemed to be in possession of a donkey and a goat, both the property of Anthony Vintner, whose henhouses straggled forlornly over the fields immediately around his dwelling. Macdonald lifted back the gate, which still leaned drunkenly from broken sockets. As he walked over the sour grass toward the house, he found himself leading a procession; two hens, one of them almost bald, three ducks, and a goose in a bad way followed him hopefully; then the goat joined in.
Macdonald went and knocked on the door of the house, but got no answer. Trying the handle and finding the door open he went in and found himself in a kitchen which was like a domestic representation of chaos. Dirty plates, pans, cups and saucepans disputed possession of floor and table space with painting and modeling materials and empty cans. The fire in the range was out, but the range was still warm.
Macdonald went to the room door and called:
“Anyone at home?” He got no answer and found the door opened directly into what was now a studio. Canvases stood stacked everywhere. On the easel was a study which Macdonald recognized easily enough. It was the picture of moonlight over the river valley which Mrs. Hoggett had described as “arbitrary.” The adjective was a just one, inasmuch as the picture was composed in a deliberate series of conventional planes, but Macdonald found it beautiful. Somehow he forgave the painter for the squalor of his kitchen in looking at that cold vision of white light over the flood water.
Rather regretfully turning his back on the easel, Macdonald glanced at the canvases tacked around the walls. Anthony Vintner was a portrait painter of something more than competence. Here, unfinished, were portraits of half the inhabitants of Wenningby. Richard Blackthorn was there, with his jutting nose and far-sighted eyes. Giles Hoggett’s long face and gray eyes stared studiously into Macdonald’s own, and Mr. Shand’s black eyes and white hair were treated with the wicked skill of the caricaturist. Couldn’t the chap market his work, pondered Macdonald. He was skillful enough – and then, as he turned a canvas away from the wall he got a real surprise. This was a townsman’s face, a pale, crafty, smiling, unpleasant fellow, with a leering mouth and a sly stare – and the face was the face of Gordon Ginner.
***
A noise in the kitchen made Macdonald jump for the door; it sounded as though all the piled crockery and cans had cascaded suddenly on to the stone floor, and then followed a silly surprised sound as the tremulous goat expressed the emotion which had overcome her as her hopeful nose had caused the landslide of kitchen utensils.
“Ba ba-ba-be-bee-e,” she bleated, and was answered by a human voice.
“Ba-ba to you with knobs on, confound you! It may be utility, but I will not have goats in the kitchen. Get out, Belinda. I know you’re hungry, you poor old fool, but you can’t eat tin cans.”
Macdonald, standing by the door, said sympathetically, “Why not love her some mangolds or potatoes? You can get those easily enough.”
“Good God!” said the painter feebly. “You didn’t bring any in that car, did you? It’s Hoggett’s car; I felt hopeful when I saw it. He’s a very decent bloke is Hoggett. The trouble here is that there’s something wrong with the pasture; if it makes a goat sick it must be pretty bad. Mrs. Hoggett said it might be because she’d eaten the rhododendron bush – Belinda I mean – or else the yew berries. I’d no idea what a lot poisonous stuff grew in a place like this. Have you come to sit? I haven’t got canvas, but I could start a study on the wall.”
“No, I haven’t come to sit. I’ve come to talk. Shall we go in the studio?”
“Studio? Sounds good. I’ll draw the bolt to discourage Belinda, although it doesn’t really matter. She’s smashed everything that was left. God, what a muck!”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Anthony Vintner turned his back on the representation of chaos and accompanied Macdonald into the further room.
“Not got a fag on you, have you? The fact is I’m broke. I haven’t a bean left.” He pulled out the pockets of his trousers and shook them: “Not even a fag-end,” he observed.
Macdonald offered a packet of Players and lighted Vintner’s. Then he said:
“My name’s Macdonald. I am an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, and I am here on duty. I am going to ask you certain questions. You have not got to answer them, but if you refuse to I may have to take you into custody. That being so, it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say may be used as evidence.”
Anthony Vintner sat down suddenly on a backless chair as though his legs would no longer hold him.
“I thought something like this would happen,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of it. . . someone knocking at the door to ask questions. Do you know that picture of the ‘Scapegoat’? Holman Hunt’s, and damn’ clever whatever they say about the pre-Raphaelites. I feel just like that, stupid, bewildered, hurt. . . you know the look on that beast’s face. I know you think I’m as guilty as hell, although I don’t even know what you’re here for. I’m not. I’ve never done a thing to hurt anybody and I always make a mess of everything and get left to hold the baby. What’s it all about?”
Macdonald pointed to the painting of Ginner and asked:
“Who is that?”
Vintner replied: “About him, is it? I’m not surprised. He’s a dirty dog.”
“Who is he?”
“Name of Baring. Thomas Harcourt Baring. I met him in a Morecambe pub. Very chatty. Said he was looking for a peaceful place to doss down in while he wrote a book. I told him he could come here if he liked to muck in with me. A pound a week, share and share alike. He stayed a week – and that was a week too long. When he left he took my notecase and the last packet of fags, damn him.”
“Why didn’t you report it to the police?”
Anthony Vintner stared at Macdonald. “Haven’t you any imagination?” he asked. “What d’you think I’m here for? Or do you always hound us down again?”
“You’ve been in prison? Well, we don’t hound you down. I didn’t know anything about you. I’m here for two reasons first, because you went swimming in Jacob’s Buttery last night, second because the body of your Thomas Harcourt Baring was taken out of they river close to where you were swimming last night.”
“Oh, God. . . It gets worse every time. It happened at school first. I was accused of pinching and expelled. Give a dog a bad name. It’s gone on. I’ve always been landed with the blame. I’m a born fool, that’s why. I thought I should be all right here, right away from anybody. Then I was so damned hard-up. Those ruddy hens began to die – and when Baring offered me rent I thought it was a god-send. . . And he’s got done in. He would. That puts the lid on it. I’m done. You know that theory about certain sorts of events always coming to meet certain types of people? It’s true. I’m one of those blokes who attract disaster – and sordid disaster at that.”
“I know that’s a weak man’s philosophy,” replied Macdonald. “I’ve listened to you. Now you can listen to me. If you’ve done nothing to break the law you’ve nothing to fear from me. You’ve everything to gain by being frank, because it’s as much my job to protect
the honest citizen as to apprehend the rogue. Get that into your head and show a little spunk. I can’t help you if you can’t try to help yourself. You say you’ve done nothing against the law. Very well, answer my questions truthfully. What were you doing in the river last night?”
Vintner hooked across at the canvas on the easel:
“You may not believe me, but it’s true I went down there to see the moonlight, I walked from here, past Hoggett’s place, and the world looked beautiful enough to make a man believe in the goodness of God. Somehow I began to hope again, to think it was worth trying. Then, just as I turned down the brow I heard a car, and then that beast Shand turned his headlights on and yelled out to know what I was doing. That spoiled it all. I hate Shand, he’s a hectoring bully. I climbed over on to what they call the bank – the fields which slope down to the river, and I heard him go crashing down the brow like an elephant. He came a purler at the turn and I laughed like hell. I thought he’d go back, and I waited a little and saw him go into the cotage. Then it was all quiet again and I went on into the dales. You saw it – the moonlight over the flood.”
“Aye. I saw it.”
Macdonald’s voice was quiet, but something in it seemed to encourage Vintner to go on.
“I felt a little mad. It was perfection. This place gets you somehow, even when you’re hungry. I took my coat off, wondering if I dared risk a swim. I knew it’d be cold, but I like swimming. I walked on by the bank and thought of all sorts of things. I wondered if I could drown. It’d have been so easy last night – but I swim too well for that. Then I decided I would go in the river, however cold it was. I took my vest and pants off and went in by the big willow. Then I saw a tin. It was tucked between two branches and it shone. I remembered I’d seen Baring playing about with a tin when he thought I wasn’t looking and I had a crazy idea he might have hidden my money. I got the tin, and then I wondered if he’d hidden anything else.”
The Theft of the Iron Dogs Page 8