A Grave Case of Murder

by Roger Bax

  “He has indeed.” Thomas dropped heavily into a chair. “My sister told us the whole story, you know, while you were in there with him. A lamentable story, Inspector. My grandfather was very old, and it’s only charitable to suppose that he didn’t realize the trouble he was causing by not speaking up, but I can find no excuse for my sister’s unaccountable behavior. She appears to have been completely in his confidence, and knowing as she did that the whole thing was an accident it seems to me that the suppression was not merely inexcusable but totally unnecessary. It has been a great shock to me to learn the truth, and I feel I owe you a deep apology.”

  “The responsibility doesn’t rest entirely with your family,” said James. He turned severely to Gwynn. “Have you finally made up your mind what you saw from the tower that evening, Mr. Gwynn?”

  “I’m sorry, Inspector,” said the young man, with every appearance of contrition, “but I simply had to do it. It wasn’t exactly a pleasure to tell all those lies but I couldn’t bear to give William away. I felt sure that he’d speak up of his own accord in the end.”

  “You actually saw him shoot Hutton?”

  “Yes, I saw everything. I can confirm Miss Appleby’s account in every particular.”

  “Even if you saw everything, you could hardly know whether it was an accident or not, could you? Unless, of course, you’re a thought reader.”

  Thomas intervened. “Inspector, I would be the last person to attempt to deflect you from what you conceive to be your duty, but is there really any point in further speculation? I am myself convinced that my grandfather would never have shot Hutton deliberately, however strong his feelings, but even if I’m wrong, nothing can now be proved. Moreover, he’s dead, poor old man, and beyond your reach. Surely this is the point at which to close the case?”

  “I wish it were,” said James fervently.

  “I don’t understand. Aren’t you satisfied with the evidence? You have a written confession, which no doubt corresponds in all respects with what my grandfather told my sister verbally. Gwynn assures us he actually saw the whole thing take place. What more could you want?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting Mrs. Thornton?”

  “Mrs. Thornton?” Thomas looked bewildered. “Why, what has she to do with the case now?”

  “A great deal, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, I wish you’d explain.”

  James hesitated. It couldn’t do any harm, he thought, and he had to kill time until Maddox arrived. “Very well, sir—but I don’t think I need detain Mr. Gwynn.” He waited while the young man reluctantly removed himself, and then turned again to Thomas. “You see, Mr. Appleby, we found Mrs. Thornton’s car today—it was lying upside down in Judy’s Lode.”

  “Good gracious me!” There was a moment’s silence while Thomas digested this unexpected piece of information. “But surely you don’t still think that she … ?”

  “We don’t think that Mrs. Thornton had anything to do with Hutton’s death, no. She wouldn’t have had the local knowledge to hide the gun in the tree, and from the moment of its discovery we ruled her out. But don’t you see, sir, what follows from that? If she was innocent of any crime, she had no reason to try to cover her tracks, or to disappear. She had no need to dispose of the car, and all the evidence suggests that she didn’t. We found a pair of her shoes inside it, almost certainly the ones she was wearing when she was down here. She would hardly have planned to leave the district barefoot. Again, if she’d wanted to ditch the car for any reason, she’d never have driven it into the Lode—as a complete stranger, she wouldn’t have been sure enough about the depth of water. The only reasonable conclusion is that someone else disposed of the car. And that means, I’m very much afraid, that you will not see Mrs. Thornton alive again.”

  Thomas stared at him in horror. “You mean that she’s been murdered, too?”

  “I haven’t any doubt about it, sir.”

  “But she was here on Friday, and …” Thomas broke off, baffled.

  “Exactly. She was alive at midday on Friday, but she isn’t now. Sometime in between, she was killed, and it’s not hard to know when it happened. You see, sir, the headlight switch of the car was still turned on when we dragged the vehicle from the water. That means that whoever drove it over the bank needed the headlights to see what he was doing—I suppose he didn’t bother to switch them off because he knew they’d be extinguished directly the car went under. Anyhow, the conclusion is plain—it happened at night, and there’s not much doubt about which night. The wheels of the car made track marks in the soft ground bordering the stream, but otherwise there were practically no impressions. The earth beside the road, therefore, must have been pretty well rock-hard at the time. It wouldn’t have been rock-hard on Saturday night, would it, after all that rain? The car was therefore driven into the stream on Friday night, by which time we must suppose that Mrs. Thornton was already dead.”

  “But Mrs. Thornton was at her flat on Friday night. I understood that there was quite a bit of evidence to that effect.”

  “There was no evidence that couldn’t have been faked,” said James. “What did she do—according to the evidence? She took a bath in her flat, packed her going-away things, left a message for the tradesmen, and posted a letter first thing on Saturday. But nobody actually saw her. In fact, as I say, she couldn’t have been there—so it must have been someone else who did those things. Obviously, her murderer. He would have had access to her keys after he killed her. He could have driven up to town, let himself into her flat, taken a bath to indicate to the neighbors that she was there, left the note for the tradesmen, posted a letter that he’d discovered in her handbag or in the flat, and taken away some of her things to give the impression of flight. The whole purpose of the visit, of course, would be to account for her subsequent disappearance and to deflect inquiries from the actual time of her death.”

  “Yes, I see. But the letter, Inspector—I understood it actually mentioned her plans for going abroad.”

  “The postscript did. At first we had no reason to doubt the genuineness of it, but today, after it began to appear likely that Mrs. Thornton had been murdered, I had the handwriting checked by an expert at the Yard and I got his report just before I came here. The postscript was added by someone else. The note to the tradesmen was also forged.” The inspector’s shoulders lifted in a barely perceptible shrug. “You will recall that Neville Hutton was, among other things, a convicted forger. Now you can see, sir, how far the case is from being closed.”

  “I can see that it’s much more complicated than I thought. Have you any idea what—what happened to Mrs. Thornton?”

  “I have a very good idea …” James broke off, thinking he could hear footsteps outside the house, but he was mistaken. “It was pretty obvious,” he continued, “that she was killed in this district, because otherwise her car would hardly have been ditched in the Lode. All the evidence suggested that Osier Cottage was the scene of the crime. There were indications of a struggle there. The handrail of the bridge over the stream was snapped off. There were severe scratches on both Hutton’s hands that looked as though they might have been made by a woman’s fingernails. There was a pair of wet trousers in his wardrobe, suggesting immersion and a subsequent attempt to conceal the fact. A shirt with bloodstains at the wrists—clearly the one Hutton had been wearing when he received the scratches—was also wet. It seemed more than likely that all these things were the result of one incident. I don’t pretend to know exactly what happened, of course, but it looks as though Hutton attacked Mrs. Thornton, got a bit mauled himself during the struggle, fell through the bridge rail, and perhaps carried her in with him. Anyhow, whatever happened, at the end of it all he was alive and she wasn’t.”

  “What a ghastly thing!” muttered Thomas. “That poor, misused girl—how frightful!” He looked somberly at James. “What did he do with the body?”

  “Well,” said the inspector slowly, “there’s some evidence on that point too
. He had a boat handy. There are marks on the bank of the Twenty Foot consistent with a corpse having been carried up there and across to the churchyard. There’s a depression in the grass which looks as though a body might have been rested there—and we know that it couldn’t have been Hutton’s body that made it, because he was shot in the grave. I should say myself that he undoubtedly took the dead woman to the churchyard to bury her there.”

  “What a macabre idea! But wouldn’t there be signs—indications of digging … ?”

  “Not necessarily. We found, of course, suggestive marks on Hutton himself. His fingernails were badly broken—he’d evidently engaged recently in heavy manual labor of a hurried, desperate sort. The question is …”

  There was a loud double knock at the front door. “That’ll be Maddox,” said James.

  Thomas went into the hall and opened the door. Sergeant Maddox stumped in, with an apologetic glance at his boots. His forehead was glistening with sweat, and his face was unusually solemn.

  James shot him a questioning glance and caught his faint nod. “Okay, Sergeant,” he said, “you can tell us your news.”

  “We’ve just found the body, Chief. Buried at the bottom of the grave, eighteen inches down. She’s been strangled.”

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Thomas looked at James almost appealingly as he struggled to fit this new horror into the general picture. “It’s ghastly, Inspector, unbelievably ghastly—but surely all this doesn’t affect my grandfather’s statement in the least. Hutton killed Mrs. Thornton by design, and William shot Hutton by accident. It simply means that you have solved two cases.”

  James shook his head. ‘I’m afraid, sir, there’s a further complication. You’ll remember that under the churchyard wall there was the imprint of a woman’s shoe. We’ve established that it was made by a shoe of Mrs. Thornton’s—one of the pair we found in the car. But we also know that Mrs. Thornton was killed at Osier Cottage and that her body was carried to the churchyard. Evidently, therefore, she couldn’t have made the footprint herself. But someone made it—someone who must have been wearing her shoes. It looks very much as though Hutton had help. Mr. Appleby, would you mind asking your sister and Miss Rutherford to join us now—and Mr. Gwynn, if he’s still about? Please say nothing about Mrs. Thornton.”

  Thomas went out without a word. James stood motionless by the window, hating his duty. Presently steps sounded in the hall and Marion entered, red-eyed and apprehensive. Barbara followed behind her—calm, now, and very dignified, like an aristos composed for the tumbril. Thomas and Gwynn brought up the rear.

  “Miss Rutherford,” said James, “I have one question to ask you. Where were you last Friday evening, and what time did you return home?”

  Barbara’s gaze dwelt for a moment on the inspector’s grim, accusing features. “I was with Neville,” she said quietly. “I got home about eleven.”

  “Were you at the cottage during the evening?”

  “For a time, yes.”

  With a wooden expression on his face, James said, “Barbara Rutherford, I now arrest you on a charge of being concerned with Neville Hutton in the murder of Mrs. Wanda Thornton on the evening of Friday, September eleventh. It is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”

  There was a groan from Thomas, a cry of protest and incredulity from Marion. Gwynn was silent, his eyes hard and his lips tight.

  Barbara seemed unmoved. “Have you found Mrs. Thornton’s body?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes,” said James.

  Before she could say anything else, Thomas broke in. “Barbara—not another word! I’ll go and ring O’Grady right away.”

  She detained him. “Please don’t, Uncle Thomas. I don’t want a lawyer. I just want to tell the truth.” She turned to James. “The charge is true, Inspector. I didn’t help to murder Mrs. Thornton, but I was concerned in it. And it was I who shot Neville.”

  “Barbara!” cried Thomas. “You mustn’t say any more—I implore you …”

  “Please, Uncle! There’s nothing I want to hide—nothing. If you only knew what a relief it is to be able to talk …” She glanced at Maddox, who had seated himself at the table and was spreading out his notebook. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “You do understand,” said James again, “the significance of the warning I’ve given you?”

  “Perfectly, Inspector. I know that what I say will be used at the trial.”

  “Very well. Won’t you sit down, please? You others may stay, provided you keep absolutely quiet. Right, Miss Rutherford, go ahead.”

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Barbara seated herself in a leather chair and folded her hands loosely in her lap. “I’ll start right at the beginning of the day,” she said, addressing James, “because that’s where it all starts in my mind.

  “Friday was a lovely day, and Neville called for me early with the car, as we’d arranged. We drove to the sea and stayed there till after tea. We swam and lazed and had an idyllic time—I’ve never been happier in my life. On the way back we stopped for a meal at a little old-fashioned pub, and it was after nine when we finally reached Osier Cottage.… Am I going too fast?”

  “It’s all right, Miss Rutherford,” Maddox said. “I’ll tell you if you do.”

  “We walked up the path,” Barbara went on, “feeling at peace with all the world—at least, I was. Neville opened the door for me and I went ahead into the cottage. It was quite dark, of course, and Neville crossed over to the table to light the lamp. As he turned up the wick there was a noise by the fireplace and someone got up from a chair there. It was terrifying, because it was so unexpected. I cried out, I couldn’t help it, and Neville swore. It was a woman, and she said very quietly, ‘Hullo, Harry.’

  “Neville said, ‘What the devil … ?’ and went closer to look at her. She smiled at him rather unpleasantly and said ‘Don’t you remember me?’ but he only seemed more puzzled. He asked her who she was and what she thought she was doing there. She said, ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten Wanda, Harry?’ and went on standing there, looking at him, very sure of herself. Neville said his name wasn’t Harry, and that she’d obviously come to the wrong house, and would she please go.

  “She picked up her bag and gloves and for a moment I thought she was going to leave without saying anything more. But then she turned to me and said that she wouldn’t have waited if she’d realized that I should be coming home with Harry, but that as I was there, she might as well tell me that my fiancé’s real name was Harry Thornton and that she was his wife.

  “I didn’t believe her for a moment, of course, and the whole thing was horrible coming on top of the lovely day we’d had, but I had to ask Neville what it was all about. He said that the woman was talking absolute nonsense—he’d never seen her before in his life and obviously she was making a mistake. She said that she wasn’t making any mistake at all, and that he knew perfectly well that they’d been married in Teheran in 1943. When she persisted, Neville began to get annoyed and said that it seemed to be a matter for the police, but she laughed at him. She was very bitter and intense, but quite dignified. She said she was sorry for me, but that perhaps I too would have to learn the hard way—and then she went out.

  “I was absolutely bewildered. I still felt sure the woman was mixing Neville up with someone else, but it was a strange thing to have happened and it came as a dreadful shock. Neville said, ‘The poor thing must be mad—I’d better see her off the premises. Pour me a drink, darling, I won’t be a minute.’

  “While he’d gone I went into the kitchen, still in a daze, to get the drinks and the glasses. I’d just put them on a tray to bring into the sitting room when there was a terrific splash outside and I heard Neville calling me. I rushed down to the Lode, and as I ran there was another splash. It was so dark that I couldn’t see anything at first, but then I heard Neville calling out again from a little way downstream. I raced along the path beside the Lode and I
could just make out a dark shape swimming in the water. Neville was supporting the woman and trying to get to the bank. I was terrified, because the Lode’s very deep just there and it was all so black, and I knew that Neville wasn’t a very strong swimmer. I called out, ‘Are you all right, darling?’ and he gasped out, ‘Yes, I think I can make it—don’t come in.’ He was gradually working his way toward the side and after a moment or two I was able to get hold of the woman’s shoulder and I held her while he clambered out.

  “He seemed about whacked. He bent over her and said ‘God, she’s in a bad way—we’d better get her inside quickly.’

  “We carried her along the path toward the cottage. Neville was beginning to get his breath back but the woman seemed quite lifeless. Just as we reached the cottage door a man rode by on a bicycle—one of the villagers, I suppose—and he must have seen us silhouetted against the light because he called out ‘Good night’ as people do in villages. Neville answered ‘Good night’ automatically. I said, ‘Couldn’t we get that man to go for a doctor?’ but Neville said, ‘We’d better get her in—we shall only waste time explaining.’ And by that time, of course, the man had gone by.

  “We carried the woman into the sitting room and laid her on the floor. She didn’t seem to have any pulse. Neville said, ‘Artificial respiration’s the only thing, and every second counts.’ I got brandy and blankets while he was working on her, and then I took a turn, but there was absolutely no sign of life. Her face looked quite dreadful. After a while Neville said that he’d better go for Doctor Wilson, who lives at the other end of the village, but I said I’d go because he was wet through and obviously worn out. I made him drink some whisky, and then I saw that he’d hurt himself—there was blood on his hands. He said it was nothing—he’d scraped his hand on something as he scrambled out of the Lode. I asked him how the accident had happened. He said that Mrs. Thornton had been just in front of him and that he’d put out a hand to steady her as she’d stepped on to the bridge, but she’d shaken him off angrily and stumbled against the handrail. It had given way, and before he’d been able to grab her she’d fallen into the Lode. He’d called out to me and jumped straight in after her.