A Grave Case of Murder

by Roger Bax

  “I am,” said the young man.

  “Well, I’m Chief Inspector James of Scotland Yard, in charge of the investigation into Neville Hutton’s death.” James rattled it off, watching for the wince of sudden shock or the tenseness of knowledge that must be hidden.

  He was disappointed. Gwynn’s blue eyes met the inspector’s frankly. “I heard the police were here,” he said. “Is it true what they’re saying—that he was murdered? I’ve only just heard about it.”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “What a ghastly thing to happen! It seems incredible. Poor Barbara, how absolutely frightful for her! I simply can’t believe it.”

  “M’m.” James had a sensitive and practiced ear, and it struck him that the young man was a shade too voluble.

  “As a matter of fact I was just going up to the house to see if there was anything I could do,” Gwynn volunteered. “They must be in a dreadful state.” He shook his head in a dazed fashion. “Who could possibly have done it? Why, it seems only a few hours ago that I saw him striding across the fields.”

  “Oh—when was that?” asked James sharply.

  “About half-past six yesterday evening.” Gwynn glanced up at the church tower. “I saw him from up there.”

  “From the tower? How did you come to be up there?”

  “I was doing some work. I’m an architect, and we’ve been asked to make a structural survey of the belfry. There’s dry rot and other trouble. Pretty bad, as a matter of fact.”

  James was gazing up at the tower. “There must be a very good view from the belfry?”

  “Oh, there is—you can see Ely Cathedral on a clear day. It looks very fine with the stone tracery as a kind of frame.”

  “Most interesting. And where exactly was Hutton when you last saw him?”

  “He’d just left the churchyard by the stile—on his way home, I suppose.”

  “Was he carrying anything?”

  Gwynn seemed to ponder. “I think so—I believe he was carrying a gun. Was that how he was killed?”

  “He was shot, yes.”

  “Poor devil.… This’ll just about knock Barbara out, you know.”

  “Yes.” James looked thoughtfully at the young man. “Did you see Miss Rutherford while you were in the tower?”

  “I only caught a glimpse of her. She was sitting with Hutton over there on the grass when I first went up.”

  “You didn’t, I suppose, happen to hear any of their conversation?”

  Gwynn looked shocked. “Good lord, no. You don’t imagine I went up there to snoop? Anyway, I was too interested in the job. You may not have noticed, but that church happens to be a unique building—medieval masonry superimposed on Norman foundations.”

  “I see you’re an enthusiast,” said James dryly. “Well, did you happen to see anyone else about while you were up there?”

  “I don’t think so. Oh, I did see the old gentleman walking near the house earlier. No one else.”

  James leaned back against a tree as though he had the whole of the day before him. “I understand you know the family quite well,” he remarked conversationally.

  “Yes, very well.”

  “And Neville Hutton—did you know him, too?”

  “I’d met him,” said Gwynn laconically.

  “As a close friend of the family and an acquaintance of Hutton, can you think of any reason why anyone should want to kill him?”

  Gwynn shook his head. “I haven’t a clue. To tell you the truth, I’ve been rather out of touch with the family lately—I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Since Miss Rutherford’s engagement, I expect?”

  Gwynn gave him a rather sullen glance. “It wasn’t only that.”

  “No? Tell me, Mr. Gwynn, what did you think of Hutton?”

  The young man faced the inspector squarely. “I suppose you’ve been told that I wanted to marry Barbara Rutherford myself. Well, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean that I had to dislike Hutton. I had nothing against him, and I dare say he was the better man, if it comes to that.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a very generous attitude. By the way, when you left the tower about half-past six yesterday evening, where did you go?”

  Gwynn looked surprised. “I went home.” He pointed across the flat fields. “That’s where I live, the house beyond the windmill.”

  “Which way did you go?”

  “Over the stile and across the fields.”

  “The same way as Hutton, in fact. Did you see anything more of him?”

  “Not a sign. He must have got right ahead.”

  “Did you meet anyone along the path, or pass anyone?”

  “No, I don’t think I saw a soul.”

  “Do you pass Hutton’s cottage on your way home?”

  “No, that’s to the right—I turn to the left.”

  “And who was at home when you arrived?”

  Gwynn was beginning to look uncomfortable. “No one, as it happened. My people are away for the week end. I had the place to myself.”

  “Did you go out again?”

  “No. It turned into a filthy night. I stayed in, and wrote up my report on the church tower.”

  “I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Gwynn. I mustn’t detain you any longer.”

  The young man seemed reluctant to go. “I hope,” he said, “that you don’t imagine I had anything to do with this horrible business?”

  “At this stage of an investigation,” said James, “I make a practice of suspecting everyone—without exception. Good day, Mr. Gwynn.” He turned and strolled off toward his car. Just before he reached the road he looked back. Gwynn, he saw, had turned too, and was retracing his steps, mooching along in an indecisive manner. He appeared to have had second thoughts about going to the Farm.

  Chapter Nine

  On his return to police headquarters in Judiford the inspector learned that Dr. Drake had not yet completed his examination of the body. Apparently there had been a delay in bringing it to the mortuary. Maddox was waiting in a state of some excitement.

  “We’d have got it here a lot earlier,” he explained, as James joined him in the office, “but when we moved it we made a discovery.” He pointed to a small object on the table. “That was under the body.”

  James said, “Aha!” and examined it with lively interest, rotating the piece of paper on which it lay. “Any prints?”

  “Only smudges,” said Maddox. “No help at all, I’m afraid. They’re working on the photographs now.”

  James gave a satisfied grunt. In matters of detail, he could always rely on Maddox. “It’s a good watch,” he said, as he slipped it out of its soft chamois leather bag. “A gold hunter, eh? You don’t see many timepieces like that about these days. Hallo, it’s been damaged. Look here.” He pointed to a deep dent at the extreme top edge of the case and another on the gold knob. There were corresponding marks near the opening of the mud-splashed leather bag.

  “I know, sir.” The cause of Maddox’s excitement was now clear. “If you ask me, that watch has been struck by a couple of lead pellets. There’s a fragment of something that looks like lead in one of the dents.” He pushed a magnifying glass across the table.

  James scrutinized the speck and sat back, frowning over the new development. “Extraordinary,” he said. He put the watch to his ear, but it wasn’t going. The hands pointed to a quarter to twelve. “I wonder if it was put out of action when the pellets hit it? Have you tried winding it?”

  “No, sir.”

  James took a pair of tweezers from his bag, opened the back of the watch and gave the winder a few turns. He listened again, and now there was a regular, businesslike tick. “No, it was only run down,” he said disgustedly. “I thought at least it might tell us when the shot was fired.” He put it back on the table. “Well, come on, where exactly did you find it?”

  “Under Hutton’s left shoulder, sir.” Maddox, with the air of a conjuror, produced some still-damp photographs. “I had these taken before
I touched it. The local chaps have made a good job of them—very co-operative.”

  James fingered through the prints, studying first the pictures of the body in the grave as he had seen it and then of the watch in the grave after the body had been removed. “Good work, Maddox,” he said.

  “I put a peg in the grave to mark the exact spot,” said the sergeant.

  James nodded. “Nothing else there, I suppose?”

  “Not that I could see. I didn’t make a close examination—after what you said I thought I’d better leave it for you to go over.”

  “Right.” James was still examining the photographs. “Well, we’ve got one piece of solid evidence, that’s something. All the same, I’m blessed if I see how a watch would come to be damaged just because a fellow’s shot in the head.” His thoughts played eccentrically with new fashions in watch-wearing. “I wonder whose watch it is. Not Hutton’s, surely?—a young fellow wouldn’t carry a thing like that about with him these days.”

  “It’s definitely not Hutton’s,” said Maddox. “I put a call in to Monks Farm and inquired. They say he never owned a gold hunter. Apparently the old man owns one—William Appleby—and Thomas Appleby said he’d find out if it was missing and let me know. He sounded a bit huffy.”

  “I dare say—he’s guarding the family good name. Well, Sergeant, I’d better bring you up to date. Quite a lot of things have been happening around here lately.” James lit his pipe, settled himself comfortably, and proceeded to tell Maddox all about Wanda Thornton, and about his own conversation with the family and his visit to the cottage.

  He had just about finished when the door opened and Dr. Drake came in. The pathologist was a wispy little man of sixty or so with a thin, pinched face.

  James greeted him with diplomatic heartiness. “Hello, Doctor. Sorry to drag you out on a Sunday afternoon.”

  Dr. Drake’s acknowledgment sounded rather like a snarl. “I was kicking my heels here for nearly two hours,” he said, putting his bag down with a thump and glaring at Maddox. “Judiford!” His tone could not have been more disgusted if he had been called out on a Sunday afternoon to Sodom and Gomorrah. “Dead and alive hole! Millions of pounds spent on draining the Fens, and what do you get? Judiford!”

  “It’s a bit of a dump, I agree,” said James. “Anyhow, did you discover anything interesting?”

  “I can give you a preliminary report,” Drake said grudgingly. “It’s a pretty straightforward case as far as I’m concerned. Shotgun wound in the back of the head caused death. Here are some of the pellets.” He poured a small pile of shot from an envelope. “I should say the chap who shot him was only a couple of yards away when he fired the gun—perhaps less. There’s practically no spread, and the wads were in the wound. The shot must have struck like a cannon ball.”

  “Any indication of the angle of fire?”

  Drake made a petulant sound. “What do you think I am—a ballistics expert? Why don’t you ask the fellows that are paid to know? There’s old Holloway sitting up in town with his neat little firing range and his fine lab waiting for all the exhibits to be sent up to him, and you expect me to crawl about on my hands and knees working out angles. Bah!”

  “Oh, come on, Doctor. Let’s have your opinion. You know how much I value it.”

  “Well,” said Drake, slightly mollified, “for what it’s worth I should say that whoever fired the gun must have been behind and slightly below the head.”

  “Slightly below?” James looked puzzled.

  “That’s what I said. It’s the sort of angle you’d expect to find if you sat on the floor and fired at someone who was standing up with his back to you a few feet away.”

  “The murderer must have been nuts,” said Maddox. “Sat on the floor to shoot!”

  “This case doesn’t get any easier,” said James.

  Drake grinned. “You haven’t heard everything yet. There’s another wound.”

  “There is?”

  “I thought that would surprise you. Yes, there are two or three pellets lodged in the flesh of the right shoulder. And there are some deep scratches on the backs of the hands. Like to have a look?”

  “I would indeed,” said James. The three men walked across to the little mortuary where the remains of Neville Hutton were laid out on a slab. “I’ve removed bits of him,” said Drake cheerfully. “I’ll be letting you have the routine report about midday tomorrow.” He turned down the covering and revealed the excoriated shoulder.

  “Quite superficial, of course,” he said. “Here’s one of the pellets I took from the second wound.” He produced another envelope. “It’s the same size as the others.”

  James examined the pellets. “H’m—it looks as though the murderer fired off one barrel and almost missed and then finished him with the second. Pretty poor shooting at close range! What about these scratches?”

  Drake lifted Hutton’s hand. Along the back of it, parallel with the tendons, were three or four angry red lines running from the wrist almost to the knuckles. On the left hand the marks were even deeper.

  James studied them closely. “What do you make of them, Doctor?”

  Drake shrugged. “It’s difficult to say—a lot of things might have caused them. I’ve seen similar marks on the hands of a man convicted of attempted rape. Perhaps this fellow got in a bit of a scrap before he was shot.”

  “Could they have been made by dragging him?”

  “You mean through thorn bushes or something like that? Well, there are no bits of thorn in the scratches—they seem quite clean. Barbed wire might have done it, I dare say—but if he’d been dragged, I’d hardly have expected to find scratches on both hands.”

  “Would they have bled much?”

  “Quite a bit, I should say.” Drake picked up the hand again. “By the way, his nails aren’t in very good shape for a chap of his type.”

  “So I noticed,” said James. “I think he may have been a keen gardener, though—that would account for it. Are there any other signs of violence? Any bruises?”

  “Not a thing,” said Drake confidently. “You’ve got the whole story now.”

  “I wish I had, Doctor! What about the time of death?”

  “Wilson’s guess is as good as mine, in the circumstances. I should say between six and ten, but I’d hesitate to mention a time to a jury. Anything else? Right, then I’ll be getting back to civilization. You can have your Judiford!” He picked up his bag and a couple of sinister-looking parcels and abruptly took his leave.

  James caught Maddox’s eye and smiled. “He doesn’t change, does he, Sergeant? Well, now, while we’re here let’s have a look at Hutton’s clothes.”

  Maddox led the way to a row of garments pegged out on a line and the inspector went over them one by one. “Our friend seems to have done himself pretty well,” he said, studying the well-cut tweed suit, the made-to-measure shirt and the expensive shoes. He noted the three or four tiny pellet holes in the shoulder of the jacket, and corresponding holes in the shirt. All the clothes, he found, were much wetter at the back than at the front. It was possible to squeeze water from the back of the jacket, but the lapels were merely damp and the front in general seemed dry—remarkably dry considering that the man had been thrown into a soaking grave after a wet journey.

  There was a good deal of blood, particularly round the collar of the jacket and shirt, and there were smaller stains at the shoulder. The trousers, however, seemed unspotted. Considering what a vast quantity of blood must have flowed from that head wound, James was surprised that there was not more of a mess. He examined the cuffs of jacket and shirt, but they seemed free from bloodstains.

  He felt far from satisfied. “You know, Sergeant,” he said, “all these things seem remarkably clean. There isn’t even much mud except for a bit at the knees and elbows and toes of the shoes. There must have been a good deal more carrying than dragging.”

  He walked back to the office in silence, puzzling over several knotty problems. The sight o
f the watch lying on the table merely made things worse.

  “I still don’t see how the devil this thing came to be hit,” he said, with a touch of irritation. “It’s pretty obvious now that it was struck by some of the pellets that just missed Hutton’s shoulder, since all the pellets from the other barrel were stopped by the head. But where was the watch at the time, that’s what I want to know.”

  “Well,” said Maddox, straining to be helpful, “if he was shot indoors I suppose it could have happened to be in the line of fire. It might have been on a dresser or cupboard or something.”

  “It doesn’t sound very likely. And why should it finish up in the grave?”

  Maddox made a further effort. “Perhaps the murderer didn’t want to leave it about as it had been hit, so he slipped it into his pocket—or into Hutton’s pocket—and it fell out when he was throwing Hutton into the hole.”

  Before James could make another comment the phone rang. It was a call from the Yard. The inspector listened gravely for a moment or two, glanced up at the clock, said, “Very well, I’ll come up right away,” and rang off.

  “They can’t find Wanda Thornton,” he said. “They think she’s cleared out.”

  “That looks bad, Chief.”

  James grunted. “Anyway, I wanted to go up. I’ll get the lab to go over the shirt and trousers I brought away from Osier Cottage, and I’ll see if there’s anything known about Hutton. If he really was the sort of chap Wanda Thornton alleged, the Record Office may have something on him. While I’m gone, you might check up on the family’s shoes—as discreetly as you can, of course. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have any luck there, though. It struck me that the girl’s feet were rather smaller than the print, and the aunt’s didn’t look neat enough. Still, you’ll see. I’d like you to make sure, too, that Thomas Appleby really was at the Conservative Club dinner all yesterday evening. When you’ve done that, you might have a word with the superintendent and see if you can organize a party to look for the gun. We’ve got to find that gun, Sergeant.”