“I should be very glad of any information, sir,” replied Marshford, almost mechanically. He was not greatly disposed to listen to any further theorisings that night, and he wanted to write his letter to Chivvins. “Is there something you can tell?” he asked.
Mr. Pitt-Carnaby smiled.
“That is a very definite question,” he answered. “Perhaps I can’t reply to it quite so definitely. However, I will say what I came to say. Has it ever struck you, in the exercise of your calling, that imagination is a very valuable asset?”
Marshford was not quite clear as to his visitor’s meaning, and he said so.
“Some people,” continued Mr. Pitt-Carnaby, “bring science—in some shape or other—to bear on these things; I believe that imagination is a surer thing—eh?”
Marshford began to fear that he was in for a very long dissertation from an obvious crank. Nevertheless, it was impossible to get rid of Mr. Pitt-Carnaby in summary fashion.
“I suppose you have some theory, sir?” he said, thinking it best to put a direct question.
But the visitor was evidently not the sort of man to be forced into answering direct questions.
“I have allowed my imagination to play round the closing hours of my unfortunate friend’s life,” he said. “Perhaps the result is a theory, though I won’t call it so. Instead, I will invite your attention to a few facts. And please to understand that I am not going to mention any names. If I make suggestions, I shall leave you to follow them up.”
Marshford’s face lightened; suggestions and facts—especially facts—were things with which he could deal. He left the mantelpiece, against which he had been leaning, and took a chair close to his visitor. Mr. Pitt-Carnaby noticed the sudden revival of interest and smiled.
“Very well!” he said. “The late Mr. Walshawe was, like myself, a collector of books, curiosities, and antiquities. On the evening before his death he entertained some friends—myself amongst them—at dinner. Our conversation during the evening turned very largely on a sale by auction which was to be held next day at a certain country house in this neighbourhood. Many interesting articles were to be offered; the late tenant of the house in question had been a great collector. Amongst those articles was a jar, fashioned of malachite, which, as you may or may not know, Mr. Marshford, is a mineral scientifically known as basic cupric carbonate. This jar was of the finer quality of malachite—the malachite found in a certain district in Siberia, which is used in the manufacture of mosaics and ornaments. Also, it has a well-authenticated history—it had once belonged to Peter the Great of Russia, and it was given by him, during his stay in England in 1698, to an ancestor of the gentleman whose effects were being disposed of. Mr. Walshawe was very anxious to acquire this malachite jar. He had a collection of articles which had belonged to Tsars and Tsarinas of Russia during the past two centuries, and he wished to add this to it. Concentrate your attention, then, Mr. Marshford, on the fact that on the evening before his death Mr. Walshawe’s mind was fixed on buying a certain malachite jar which was to be offered for sale nearly twenty miles away at about one o’clock next day.”
Marshford nodded silently. He was beginning to think that something might come out of this. And Mr. Pitt-Carnaby saw his increasing interest, and went on with his story.
“I repeat,” he said, “for it is a highly important point, that Mr. Walshawe was absolutely determined to buy this antique. At dinner that night he talked of it a great deal; he said what figure he would go to—a heavy one. He anticipated a certain amount of opposition, for the jar was famous, and there were likely to be competitors from London, and even from Paris. However, Mr. Walshawe was, as you know, a man of very large means, and he meant to outbid anybody and everybody. When I left him, a good deal after midnight, he was still gloating over his determination to carry home the malachite jar in triumph from the sale.”
“And he never went to the sale,” remarked Marshford reflectively.
“He never went to the sale—true!” replied Mr. Pitt-Carnaby. “We know, of course, that when that sale began, my unfortunate friend was dead. But I went to the sale, as also did several of my fellow-guests of the previous evening. We expected to meet Mr. Walshawe there, but he never arrived. One o’clock came—he was still absent. At a quarter-past one the famous malachite jar was put up—Mr. Walshawe was not there to bid for it. There were many competitors—there were competitors from London and from Paris, as we had thought likely. The bidding began at five hundred guineas and advanced to two thousand guineas, at which sum the malachite jar was knocked down.”
“To whom?” asked Marshford, eagerly.
Mr. Pitt-Carnaby rose, and picked up his Scotch cap, his stout stick, and his hand-knitted gloves.
“I said I should mention no names,” he said with a smile, “but one name I must mention. The malachite jar was sold for two thousand guineas to John Pethington, the house and estate agent in our High Street. Of course, Pethington bought for somebody else. Well, I must now say good-night, Mr. Marshford.”
“But,” exclaimed Marshford, surprised at this sudden termination of the visit, “but—what do you expect me to do? What—”
Mr. Pitt-Carnaby wandered towards the door.
“Oh, what you please!” he answered. “Of course, if I were in your case, I should find out from Pethington the name of the person for whom he bought the malachite jar.”
“And then?” asked Marshford.
Mr. Pitt-Carnaby laid his hand on the door and turned with a sharp look.
“Then?” he said. “Then you will have the name of the man who poisoned Septimus Walshawe!”
5
The Plain Truth
Marshford looked at his watch when Mr. Pitt-Carnaby had departed. It was close upon ten o’clock. He believed that most people in Flamstock went to bed at ten o’clock; nevertheless, there was a possibility that some did not. Anyway, it would do him no harm to take a stroll up the High Street. And he threw the scarcely begun letter to Chivvins into the fire, and, putting on his ulster and a travelling cap, went out into the night.
There were lights in the windows of Mr. Pethington’s house, and when Marshford rang the bell, Mr. Pethington, a fat-faced, stolid-looking man, answered the summons in person. As the light of his hall-lamp fell on Marshford’s face Pethington silently moved aside, motioning the detective to enter. When Marshford stepped within, Pethington just as silently showed him into a small room near the door. He turned up a solitary gas-jet, and looked at his visitor with the calm interrogation of a man who expects to be asked questions.
“You know me, Mr. Pethington, and what my business is?” said Marshford, in a low voice. “I can take that for granted, of course?”
Pethington leaned back against his desk, and put his hands in his pockets.
“I don’t know what it is at present,” he answered, “I know what you’re after in the town, of course.”
“I want to ask a very simple question,” said Marshford. “It’s one which you’ll have to answer sooner or later, and I wish you’d answer it now. For whom did you purchase that malachite jar? You know what I mean.”
Pethington showed no surprise. Instead, he merely nodded, as if he had expected to have this question put to him, and he pulled out his watch, noting the time.
“Instead of asking me to answer that question, Mr. Marshford,” he said, “I wish you’d just step round to the police-station.”
Marshford stared at this unexpected reply.
“Why?” he exclaimed.
“Because I think you’ll get an answer to it there,” replied Pethington, dropping his watch into his pocket.
The two men exchanged looks. Then Pethington nodded.
“You’ll find I’m right,” he said.
Marshford went away from the house without a word. He walked rapidly up the deserted High Street towards the town hall, wondering what t
his sudden development implied. And suddenly, rounding a corner, and in the full light of a street-lamp, he ran into Peasegood.
“I was just coming to you,” said the solicitor. “Well, the truth’s out at last—just got it. Good heavens, what a world this is!”
“What is it?” demanded Marshford. “You don’t mean that somebody’s confessed to poisoning Walshawe?”
“That’s just what I do mean,” replied Peasegood; “the last man in the world I should have suspected, too!”
“Who, then?” exclaimed Marshford.
Peasegood took off his hat and wiped his forehead. Then he spoke one word—a name:
“Thorney!”
“What!” said Marshford. “The doctor?”
“The doctor!” repeated Peasegood. “He’s just told the inspector and me all about it. It was by inadvertence. Dr. Thorney, you must know, is an ardent collector of certain things, as Walshawe was. He was bent on having a certain jar of malachite, with a history attached to it, which was to be put up at that sale I told you of. Walshawe was bent on it, too—vowed he’d have it. Thorney—you know that these collectors spare no pains to steal a march on each other—resolved to play a trick on Walshawe. It turned out that Walshawe took opium secretly, in pills—Thorney knew it, and knew where he kept his pills, in a little case on his desk. That night when we all dined there, Thorney got into Walshawe’s study by himself, took the opium pills out of the case, and substituted veronal which he’d made up himself. His idea was to make Walshawe sleep far into the next day, until he was too late for the sale. If things had gone as Thorney intended, Walshawe would have slept until the afternoon and been all right after. But Thorney forgot one very important thing.”
“What?” asked Marshford, eagerly.
“He didn’t know how many opium pills Walshawe did, or could, take,” answered the solicitor, “and so you see Walshawe took sufficient veronal to poison him. Misadventure, of course, in Thorney’s eyes, but—”
He paused, and looked thoughtfully down the long vista of the High Street as the two men turned away together.
“But—what?” asked Marshford.
“I wonder what the judge will tell the jury to call it?” answered Peasegood.
The Message
on the Sun-Dial
J. J. Bell
John Joy Bell (1871–1934) was a Scot who studied chemistry at the University of Glasgow before becoming a journalist with the Glasgow Evening Times and a sub-editor for the Scots Pictorial. His stories and articles about working-class Scots were often written in the vernacular, and were very popular in their day. Wee Macgregor enjoyed particular success, but Bell’s sentimentalism is unlikely to appeal to fans of gritty realism.
This story provides a pleasing example of a trope of the genre, the “dying message clue”. This is a plot device beloved of detective novelists, and features in many of Ellery Queen’s novels and short stories, as well as in Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Bell makes a good enough fist of the story to make one think it is a pity that his excursions into detective fiction were few and far between.
***
For a good many weeks the morning mail of Mr. Philip Bolsover Wingard had usually contained something unpleasant, but never anything quite so unpleasant as the letter, with its enclosure, now in his hand. And the letter was from his cousin, Philip Merivale Wingard, the man to whom he owed more benefits, and whom he hated more, than any man in the world. Certainly the letter was rather a shocking one to have place in the morning mail of a gentleman; but, oddly enough, it had never occurred to Bolsover, as he was commonly called to distinguish him from the other Philip, that he had long since forfeited his last rights to the designation.
The letter was dated from the other Philip’s riverside residence, and ran as follows:
Cousin Bolsover,
I send you herewith an appeal just received from a deeply injured woman, to whom you have apparently given my name, instead of your own. This ends our acquaintance. If you insist on a further reason, I would merely mention your forgery of my name to a bill for £500, which fact has also been brought to my notice this morning. In the face of these two crimes it does not seem worth while to remind you that for seven years I have tried to believe in you and to help you in a material way.
You will receive this in the morning, and it gives you forty-eight hours to be out of this country. Within that time there is a sailing for South Africa. My banker has received instructions to pay you £500, one half of which you shall send to the writer of the enclosed. On that condition, and so long as you remain abroad, your forgery is my secret. This is your last chance.
Philip Merivale Wingard.
Bolsover, enduring a sickness almost physical, reread the letter. The enclosure did not trouble him, except is so far as it looked like costing him £250. But the discovery of his forgery shook him, for it was a shock against which he had been altogether unprepared. He had not dreamed of the moneylender showing the bill, which was not due for six weeks, to his cousin. What infernal luck!
Bolsover read the letter a third time, seeking some glimmer of hope, some crevice for escape. Hitherto he had regarded his cousin as a bit of a softy, a person to be gulled or persuaded; but every word of the letter seemed to indicate a heart grown hard, a mind become unyielding.
Go abroad? Why, that would simply be asking for it! The clouds of debt were truly threatening, but if he continued to walk warily at home they might gradually disperse, whereas the outcry that would surely follow his apparent flight would, like an explosion, bring down the deluge of ruin.
What a fool was Philip! It did not occur to Bolsover then that, during all those seven years, he had lived by fooling Philip. And the most maddening thought of all was that had Philip not come back from the Great War he, Bolsover, would be in Philip’s place to-day! That, indeed, was the root of the hatred, planted in disappointment and nourished from the beginning on envy and greed, and lately also on chagrin and jealousy, since Philip had won the girl, as wealthy as himself, whom Bolsover had coveted for his own.
Bolsover’s mouth was dry. He went over to the neglected breakfast-table, poured shakily a cup of the cooled coffee and drank it off. He took out and opened his cigarette-case. His fingers fumbled a cigarette, and he noticed their trembling. This would not do. He must get command of his nerves, of his wits. Raging was of no use. He lighted the cigarette and sat down.
Somehow he must see Philip; somehow he must prevail on Philip to abate his terms—either that, or induce Philip to pay all his debts. But the total of his debts amounted to thousands, and some of them were owing to persons whom he would fain avoid naming to his straitlaced cousin. Still, he must make the appeal, in the one direction or the other. The situation was past being desperate.
***
He knew that his cousin was entertaining a house-party. On the mantelshelf was a dance invitation, received three weeks ago, for that very evening. He did not suppose that Philip would now expect to see him, as a guest; yet for a moment or two he dallied with the idea of presenting himself, as though nothing had happened. But there was the possibility, a big one, too, to judge from this damned letter, that Philip would simply have the servants throw him out!
He looked at his watch—10.20—and went over to the telephone. He ought to have phoned at the outset, he told himself. Philip might have gone out, on the river with his friends, for the day. The prospect of seven or eight hours of uncertainty appalled him.
But at the end of a couple of minutes he heard Philip’s voice inquiring who was speaking.
‘Philip,’ said Bolsover quickly, ‘bear with me for a few moments. I have your letter. I must obey it. But, as a last favour, let us have one more meeting. There are things—’
‘No! I have nothing to say to you; I wish to hear nothing from you.’
‘There are things I can explain.’
> ‘No! Excuse me. My friends are waiting for me. Good—’
‘Philip, let your invitation for to-night stand. Let me come, if only for an hour.’
‘What! Let you come among those girls, after that letter from that unhappy woman? A thousand times, no!’
‘Well, let us meet somewhere, during the evening, outside the house. I shan’t keep you long. Look here, Philip! I’ll be at the sun-dial, at ten, and wait till you come. Don’t refuse the last request I’ll ever make of you.’
There was a pause till Philip said coldly:
‘Very well. But, I warn you, it can make not the slightest difference.’
‘Thank you, Philip. Ten, or a little after?’ Bolsover retained the receiver awhile.
But there was no further word from his cousin.
He went back to his chair and sat there, glowering at space. Undeniably there had been a new firmness in his cousin’s voice. While he did not doubt that Philip would keep the tryst, he could no longer hope that anything would come of the interview. That being so, what was left for him?
To a man like Bolsover the disgrace was secondary; the paramount dread was a life without money for personal indulgence. He had been cornered before, but never so tightly, it seemed, as now. For the first time in his unworthy career he thought of death as the way of escape, knowing all the while that were he in the very toils of despair, he could never bring himself to take the decided step in death’s direction. But he toyed gloomily with the thought, till his imagination began to perceive its other side.
What if Philip were out of the world?
At first the idea was vague and misty, but gradually it became clear, and all at once his mind recoiled, as a man recoils from the brink of a precipice—recoiled, yet only to approach again, cautiously, to survey the depths, searching furtively the steep, lest haply it should provide some safe and secret downward path. And peering into his own idea, Bolsover seemed to see at the bottom of it a pleasant place where freedom was, where fear was not. For while Bolsover had no illusions of inheriting a penny in hard cash from his cousin, he knew that a small landed estate, unencumbered, was bound on his cousin’s death to come to him: and on that estate he could surely raise the wherewithal to retrieve his wretched fortunes. The greatest optimist in the world is the most abandoned gambler.
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