A Grave Case of Murder

by Roger Bax

  “He might have been tied up and gagged,” Maddox suggested hopefully.

  “If he’d been tied up all that thoroughly, there’d have been marks left when the ropes were removed and Drake would have found them. You know, Sergeant, I don’t believe anything like that happened at all. It just doesn’t carry conviction. I don’t believe that anyone would have thought of trying to murder a man in that way, and in that place, in the dark, with a road running by and a house not far off. We’re right off the rails, I’m sure of that. We’re floundering.”

  In tense silence, he began to turn over in his mind each bit of evidence that had so far come to hand, testing each link of the chain. As far as it went, it seemed sound enough. The evidence of the battered watch, of the blood and the pellets in the grave, of the relative position of watch and body, proved conclusively that Hutton had been shot in the grave. He had been alive at the time, because it was there that his lifeblood had drained away. Very well, when had he been shot? After six-thirty, because he had been seen alive then—and before ten, according to Drake. Say after seven, because it could hardly have happened before dusk.… James stirred uneasily. If only the watch had stopped when the pellets had hit it! If only there had been some reliable physical indication of the time of death! He pictured the scene on Saturday evening—the empty grave, the watch lying there, Hutton walking away across the fields just after six-thirty, the rain coming on …

  Suddenly, James became rigid in concentration. Rain—didn’t that help? It often did. He remembered a case where the time of a murder had been fixed by the four dry marks under a car’s tires after it had been left standing out on a rainy day. What about the grave? The bottom of the grave, underneath Hutton, had been wet … No, that didn’t lead anywhere. With water running down the sides all night and seeping along the bottom, and Hutton not actually lying flat but sort of crumpled up in a heap, the earth would have got pretty wet in any case. What about the body itself? There had been that comparative dryness about the front parts of the clothes, but he might have been protected from the rain in some way until he was in the grave. What about the …

  He frowned. “I say, Maddox …” he began. Vague recollection hardened into certainty. “The watch, Maddox, surely we’ve been forgetting the watch?”

  “What about the watch, Chief?”

  “That chamois leather bag the watch was in—it was practically dry when I saw it here yesterday. Was it wet or dry when you found it?”

  Maddox thought hard. “Pretty dry, sir, I’d say. Dampish on one side, I remember, where it had been in contact with the ground, but not what you’d call soaked. And quite dry on the other side, of course. After all, it was protected from the rain by the body.”

  James slapped the table excitedly. “Sergeant, we’ve been a couple of dolts. I ought to be fired, and you ought to be put back on a beat. Don’t you see?—it’s elementary. It began to rain about seven o’clock on Saturday evening—a sudden downpour, the superintendent said. The watch was in the grave then. If the chamois leather was dry on top when you picked it up, that means the body must have been covering it when the rain started. You know how that wash leather stuff holds water; once wet, it would never have dried during the night. Sergeant, Hutton must have been lying dead in that grave before seven o’clock.”

  Maddox stared at him. “But that’s not possible. It would have been daylight. Nobody would have shot him then—slap in front of the road, too.”

  “It sounds unlikely, I agree,” said James, “but it’s a damn sight less unlikely than a good many of the things we’ve been considering. Anyway, facts are facts, and we’ll hang on to this one until we find a theory that fits.”

  Maddox gave a shrug of resignation. “I just don’t get it, Chief. What was Hutton supposed to be doing in the grave at that hour—playing hide-and-seek or something? Blessed if I can see how he could have got in.”

  “I suppose,” said James slowly, “he might have been pushed in by someone he had no reason to distrust.”

  “Blimey!” said Maddox.

  For a while, the inspector sat pondering the new situation. In spite of the questions that clamored for an answer, he could imagine the possible scene much more clearly now. The most unlikely elements had disappeared—the gangster stuff, the almost superhuman feat of getting a conscious man to the grave, the stupidity of bringing a body to a place where it was bound to be discovered almost at once. The actual occurrence, he now saw, had been much less bizarre than had at first appeared. A shooting in daylight, in what was obviously a dangerously public place, suggested a spur-of-the-moment job—a quarrel, or a snap decision anyway, possibly regretted immediately afterward. A fortuitous encounter by the grave, perhaps, with the murderer so desperate that he didn’t care who saw him, or so angry that he didn’t stop to think. Certainly no one in his right mind would plan to take that risk.

  James frowned as he tried to reconstruct the scene in his mind. There were a lot of snags. In the first place, how could Hutton have been near the grave at all? Both Barbara Rutherford and young Gwynn had said they had seen him starting off across the fields, and Gwynn had actually gone along the same path a few minutes later without catching sight of him. Gwynn’s story obviously needed looking into again. Perhaps he had lied. Perhaps he had caught Hutton up and somehow persuaded him to turn back with him. Things didn’t look so good for Gwynn.

  Then there was the problem of Wanda Thornton—how did she fit into the new picture? If she had been in the churchyard in daylight, surely her presence would have been noticed by someone? For that matter, why should she have been there? She could hardly have expected to meet Hutton there, and if she had merely been on her way to the Farm, wouldn’t she have gone through the front gate in the ordinary way? Was it possible, after all, that she had had nothing to do with the murder? And if she hadn’t, whose was the footprint in the churchyard, and why had she run away?

  Again, what about the track from the Twenty Foot? Was that also nothing to do with the crime? James had always realized that the trail was thin—he didn’t actually know that the boat had been used on Saturday, or that there was anything sinister about the marks on the bank, or that the solitary, intriguing footprint was relevant to the case. Even the depression in the grass by the grave was suggestive rather than conclusive. If Hutton had been shot in the grave in daylight, the whole of that laboriously constructed theory that embraced the cottage, the Twenty Foot and the track became worthless. James felt reluctant to discard so much—but, as he’d said, facts were facts.

  One thing that puzzled him more than ever now was how the scratches had got on the backs of Hutton’s hands. As long as he’d been able to assume that they had been sustained either during a quarrel preceding the murder or during the transport of the victim, he had been content to shelve them for the time being. But if Hutton, after leaving Barbara Rutherford, had walked pretty well straight to his death, when and how had he been scratched? James remembered that he hadn’t asked anyone at the Farm about the scratches—indeed, he hadn’t known about them when he’d been there. He must put that right. The girl should be able to tell him something about them.

  “You know, Sergeant,” he said presently, “from now on we’ve got to concentrate much more on the Farm and the local people. The situation has changed completely. If the murder took place in daylight, it’s quite possible that a passerby may have seen someone or something that could help us. I think it would be a good thing to spread the idea around the neighborhood that we’d be interested to talk to anyone who happened to be near the churchyard between half-past six and seven on Saturday. Will you do that? I suggest a pub crawl early this evening.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” said Maddox. “Perhaps we ought to think again about the gun, too. We agreed it might have been hidden practically anywhere, but if Hutton was shot in daylight I don’t see that it can be so very far away after all. The murderer wouldn’t have dared to carry it off—he’d have wanted to get rid of it the very insta
nt he’d fired the shots. If I’d just done the job, I’d have dropped the thing like a hot potato.”

  James gave an approving nod. “I believe you’ve got something there, Sergeant. All right, we’ll concentrate the search party a bit nearer home. The only thing is, of course, that the murderer would have had plenty of opportunity to change the hiding place afterward if he’d wanted to.”

  “There’s been someone on duty at the churchyard ever since the body was found,” Maddox reminded him.

  “I know, but what about Saturday night, before the body was discovered? The murderer could have hidden the gun almost anywhere temporarily—why, he might even have dropped it into the grave on top of the body!—and after dark he could have retrieved it and concealed it again in some really safe spot. Still, he may not have. We’ll have a good look for it, anyway.”

  “A nice clear fingerprint on the trigger wouldn’t come amiss just now.”

  “It would not,” James agreed. “And that reminds me—just in case we do find the gun around, I think we’d better have a complete range of prints ready for comparison. Will you see to that? Don’t forget the maid, and the old man.”

  “Right, sir. What about Gwynn?”

  “Later, Sergeant. I think I’ll have a little talk with Mr. Gwynn right away.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The offices of Wetherby and Gwynn, Architects and Surveyors, were situated barely a couple of hundred yards from Judiford police station, but the plate outside was so discreet and the ancient half-timbered building which accommodated them was so like a private dwelling that James had some difficulty in finding it. The interior smelled faintly musty, and the old man who shuffled out in response to the inspector’s tinkle on a small handbell looked more than faintly moribund. The junior partner, it appeared, was engaged. For the next ten minues James paced up and down a tiny waiting room, unable to work up the least interest in the blueprints of dream houses which covered the walls.

  Presently Gwynn himself came out. “Hullo, Inspector,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting—I was bogged down in a war damage claim. Come in.” He led the way through to his office, motioned James to a comfortable leather chair, offered him a cigarette, which was declined, and sat down behind a large mahogany desk covered with plans and papers. “Well, what’s it about this time?” he asked, smiling a little and puffing at a big pipe. He seemed, James thought, more sure of himself in these surroundings—or perhaps it was just that the shock of Hutton’s death had worn off. Anyhow, today he looked neither indecisive nor moody.

  James opened on a quietly conversational note. “So you didn’t call at the Farm yesterday after all?” he said.

  Gwynn looked a bit surprised. “No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. I decided that I’d probably be in the way.”

  “I think you were wise. From what I saw of Miss Rutherford, she was hardly in the mood for visitors.” James cleared his throat. “Since yesterday, we’ve learned quite a bit about how Neville Hutton met his death.”

  The blue eyes were steady. “You have?”

  “Yes. We’ve discovered that he was shot in the grave between half-past six and seven.”

  Gwynn took his pipe out of his mouth, gently tapped it on the ash tray, and laid it down. If he knew anything, thought James, he must have nerves of steel. “That’s extraordinary,” he said.

  “In view of what you told me yesterday, it is. Are you quite sure that the man you saw crossing the fields at half-past six was Hutton?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “And he was going away from the churchyard?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then how do you account for the fact that a very short time afterward he was shot in the grave?”

  Gwynn shrugged. “It’s hardly my job to account for things, Inspector. I suppose he must have worked his way round somehow and got back to the churchyard—if you’re right, that is. As I told you, I didn’t see him again.”

  “I remember that’s what you told me. It puzzles me a good deal.” The inspector’s tone was quiet, unaggressive. Suddenly it changed as he fired another question. “Where were you when the rain started? Quickly, please.”

  Gwynn frowned. “I—er—I was nearly home. I had to run the last fifty yards or so.”

  “Yes, I understand it fairly tumbled down. It began to rain, I’m told, at five minutes to seven precisely. How long does it take you to walk the mile-and-a-half across the fields to your home?”

  “I suppose—well, about twenty minutes.”

  “You’re evidently a fast walker. In that case, you must have left the churchyard not later than twenty-five minutes to seven.”

  “Probably about that. I didn’t notice exactly.”

  “And you told me it was just after six-thirty when you saw Neville Hutton from the tower?”

  “That’s right,” said Gwynn steadily.

  “In fact, you were less than five minutes behind him, and you now suggest that he somehow managed to double back in the open fields without your catching a glimpse of him. Come, Mr. Gwynn!”

  “I suppose you think that’s very clever, Inspector. Well, it leaves me cold. I’ve told you the position. I didn’t see him again.”

  James slowly shook his head. “It won’t do, you know. Did you hear any gunshots?”

  “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be absolutely certain about that. In the country, a gunshot just before dusk is such a common thing that you barely notice it.’

  “You notice it if you fire it.”

  Gwynn’s lips tightened and he reached for his pipe. “If you’re still barking up that tree, Inspector, I suppose I’d better get myself a solicitor. Damn it all, I wish I’d never told you I was up in the church tower. I didn’t have to, you know. If I’d shot Hutton, do you really imagine I’d have stuck my neck out like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  James pushed his chair back and got up. “People do the oddest things—particularly murderers. I’ll never forget the case of a chicken farmer who was suspected of having killed his fiancée. He positively pleaded with us to dig up his chicken run. In the end, of course, we obliged.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Her body, Mr. Gwynn. Good day.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  James paused for a moment outside the architect’s office, considering what was next to be done. Then he walked to his car and told the chauffeur to drive to Monks Farm.

  At the Farm, he learned that everyone was out except Barbara Rutherford, who was reading a newspaper to the Ancient in his room. He sent up a message, and after about five minutes she joined him in the sitting room. Her appearance had improved since his first visit, though make-up—however skillfully applied—couldn’t hide the weariness in her eyes.

  “Please sit down,” she said. Her voice still had the even, expressionless quality that he had already noticed. “I was in the middle of an article and William insisted on my finishing it. He’s rather a tyrant.” She looked questioningly at the inspector.

  “I just wanted a few words with you, Miss Rutherford—and perhaps later on with old Mr. Appleby, if he’s well enough to see me. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet.”

  “Oh, he’ll be glad to see you,” said Barbara. “He likes new faces. He’s not ill, you know. It’s just that—well, we thought he’d be better in bed. He mustn’t be allowed to get overtired.”

  “I quite understand,” said James. “He must be a remarkable old gentleman.”

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” asked Barbara quietly. “Have you—have you found out anything? Do you know who did it?”

  “Not yet,” said James, “but I think we’ve made a little progress. We’ve established that Mr. Hutton was shot in the grave between half-past six and seven.”

  Barbara stared. “How on earth could he have been? He was on his way to the cottage then.”

  “He must have turned back. You don’t know any reason why he should ha
ve done so, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m very surprised.” She sat still, her face thoughtful. “But that alters everything, doesn’t it … ? It was daylight, and we were all so near. It seems hard to believe.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s what happened. And as you say, it alters everything. It makes it rather important that I should know exactly where all the members of the family were at that hour. Just routine, of course—you mustn’t jump to wrong conclusions. I’d be glad if you could help me.”

  “Well,” said Barbara, “I was indoors, as I told you, and I’m pretty sure I heard Aunt Marion in the kitchen when I came in. I don’t know where William was. Uncle Thomas came in just after me—he called out to me when I was in the bathroom and asked me not to use all the hot water. In any case, it’s quite ridiculous …”

  “Did you by any chance hear any shots fired?”

  “Not that I remember. I wouldn’t, of course, in the bathroom, and even if I had I doubt if I’d have paid any attention. I’d only have supposed it was Neville after a rabbit.”