“I do not,” said Alec firmly.
“Nor do I,” confessed Roger. “Not the very faintest glimmering of one. I’m much afraid we’re off on a wild goose chase, Alec.”
He was careful, however, to give no inkling of this foreboding to the distracted girl when they joined her in the other room. During their hasty tea he let her talk as much as she would about the case, both because he realised that it was a safety valve for her overcharged emotions and because he hoped that some new fact would come out to help him. But of this there was no sign. Claire Meadows knew her brother was innocent because he could not possibly be anything else; but of solid evidence to support this contention there was not a jot. Roger’s feeling of hopelessness increased rather than diminished.
They got into the car and set off.
The girl was a good driver, and the mental strain upon her seemed to be lessened while the wheel was in her hands. Roger knew that she was tired already and by the time they reached their destination would be almost played out, but he thought that this would be no bad thing for her; she would sleep the sleep of exhaustion that night at any rate.
The drive was rather a silent one. Before they reached Basingstoke it had been settled that Roger and Alec were to stay at Manor Regis, the Meadows’ home, Roger’s feeble protestations about the proprieties being swept scornfully aside. Alec, who was feeling somewhat out of place, suggested that they should drop him at Winchester and let him make his way to his own home by train, but Roger expressed such an urgent desire for his help that he allowed himself to be persuaded, by no means unwillingly.
They stopped an hour for dinner in Winchester, and then pushed hurriedly on again, but it was not till nearly eleven o’clock that the car swept at last through that same broad street of Monckton Regis where the tragedy had occurred, and drew up, five minutes later, before the solid Georgian front of Manor Regis.
Obviously there was nothing to be done that night, and Roger expressed a tactful desire to go to bed at once so that he could begin operations as early as possible the next morning. The butler showed them to their rooms, which were adjoining, and Roger, having waited till the coast was clear, stole into Alec’s and sat there, smoking cigarettes and discussing the case interminably, till the small hours. But though he and Alec each succeeded in producing several quite fantastic theories to account for young Meadows’ innocence, not a single line of profitable research had suggested itself to either of them when Roger retired to his own room just before two.
At breakfast the next morning, from which their hostess had sent a message excusing herself, Roger was no nearer a method of approach. “All I can do,” he told Alec in despair, “is to go ahead blindly and trust to something turning up. And as the first thing, obviously, is to hear what young Meadows has to say about it, I shall borrow the car and go into Bridport.”
“Will they let you see him?” Alec queried doubtfully. Alec’s sympathies were engaged perhaps more closely than ever before. Claire Meadows! Dash it all, he’d often heard of her. Seen her play once or twice, too, for that matter. And a very sound ball she hit. Quite unthinkable that the brother of a girl who could play tennis like that should have committed a murder!
“I’m dam’ well going to see him,” said Roger grimly. “And I’ll take a pair of scissors with me to cut their red tape.”
In the end, however, the scissors were not needed. Roger explained himself and the semi-official connection he had had from time to time with the police, and offered to ring up Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard if the superintendent was not satisfied. But the superintendent was satisfied. He had heard all about Roger and was interested to meet him, and he did not worry about red tape. Within a surprisingly short time Roger found himself in the prisoner’s cell, confronting a white-faced boy with a shock of black hair and frightened eyes peering through tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.
Roger explained his mission and a ray of hope illuminated the pale scholarly face, but of help Roger could get none. All the boy could do was to reiterate over and over again that he had been the whole time in Tommy Deaton’s Hole and knew nothing about anything.
“With your car?” Roger asked desperately.
“With my car,” affirmed the other.
Roger stayed half an hour, but got nothing more.
“Went berserk, or whatever they call it, I suppose,” said the superintendent, not unkindly, as he saw him off the premises. “Ran amuck. If I can’t have her, then no one else will. That sort of thing. Pity. Nice young fellow. But highly strung, Mr Sheringham, sir. That’s his trouble. Not a shadow of doubt he did it, of course, if that’s what you were hoping.”
“And yet, do you know, Superintendent, I don’t know that he did,” said Roger.
The other stared at him. “Oh, come now, Mr Sheringham. How in the world can you make that out?”
“I can’t,” said Roger mournfully. “That’s the trouble.”
But he repeated his opinion still more forcibly to Alec.
“Alec, he’s telling the truth! I’m sure he is. I feel it in every bone I’ve got. And he’s not the sort that commits murder, not in his wildest moments; and a cold-blooded affair like that—no, that girl’s perfectly right: he simply couldn’t have done it.”
“Well, if he didn’t it’s up to you to prove it,” said Alec, and added, with rare encouragement: “And I bet you will, in the end. Where to now?”
“Tommy Deaton’s Hole, I suppose,” Roger replied gloomily. “We may as well have a look at the place. It’s out Charmouth way; I marked it on the map last night.”
Alec bowled the Morris Oxford out of the town. “He sticks to it that he was there all the time?”
“Yes, and I believe him. But there doesn’t seem a chance of proving it. Nobody saw him, and it’s too late now for obvious things like fresh cigarette ends.”
Roger was right. When at last they did discover the place, he searched it as closely as it could be searched. There were plenty of indications of human visitation at some indefinite time, and car tracks as well, but not a single thing to show that Jimmy Meadows had sat for two crucial hours on a log that Tuesday afternoon, within sight of the very car that was sworn by a dozen witnesses to have been ten miles away.
“Hell!” said Roger morosely, as they turned back for lunch.
The car was stopped for a few minutes at the scene of the crime, but the latter had nothing to offer them, beyond a slight increase of their perplexities. “For why,” as Roger pointed out, “was she shot here, within full view of anybody who cared to take a look? Why didn’t the murderer get her aboard the car and take her somewhere less conspicuous? It looks as if he simply lost his head and really didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Who did?” Alec asked acutely. “Young Meadows?”
“Upon my soul,” Roger had to admit, “I’m beginning to wonder. Even the victim recognised him, you see. The superintendent told me. The men in the field didn’t hear much, but they did hear her call out ‘Jimmy!’ as he stopped the car. How on earth can one get over that? And yet I’d have staked my life that that boy was speaking the truth this morning.”
“I suppose,” Alec said diffidently, “he couldn’t have done it and then had a sort of brain storm and forgotten all about it? Really believed he was somewhere else all the time?”
“Amnesia of some kind?” Roger nodded. “Yes, I’d thought of that myself. And I’m getting more and more sure that it’s the real explanation. But if that’s the case, we’re going to have the very deuce of a job to save him from the gallows.”
And with no more comforting news than this for their hostess, they went back to lunch.
After the meal Roger disappeared. He had a few routine enquiries to make, he said, and thought he could get on with them better alone. Alec was left with the embarrassing task of fending off Claire Meadows’ very pertinent enquiries as to their prog
ress on the case.
Roger did not get back till Alec was dressing for dinner, but looked into the latter’s room for a moment to report, though he had little enough to tell.
“I’ve ferreted out all the witnesses to the shooting, except the two in the other car, and they all tell exactly the same story. They all knew Meadows by sight, too, and I couldn’t shake a single one of them on the question of identification; they’re all positive.”
“It was Meadows,” Alec said helplessly. “There doesn’t seem any doubt of it. We were right: it was Meadows, out of his mind.”
“He certainly must have been out of his mind,” Roger remarked, turning to the door. “He behaved like a lunatic. Not only did he shoot the woman under the eyes of all those people, but before doing so he appears to have raved at her in the most insane way, just meaningless shouts of mad rage. At least, that’s how it struck the witnesses.”
“It’s a rotten business,” Alec opined.
Dinner was not a cheerful meal, and an uninspired evening was spent. Claire Meadows must have guessed at the growing hopelessness felt by her guests, but refrained from asking too many questions.
The next morning Roger took Alec aside after breakfast. “We’re going into Dorchester, and I’m going to take that girl with us. If she doesn’t do something active soon, she’ll break down.”
“What are we going to do?” Alec asked.
“Well, I’d thought of buying a camera and taking pictures of the scene of the crime, and Tommy Deaton’s Hole, and any other fauna or flora connected with the case. It can’t do any harm, and it ought to keep her spirits up a bit longer.”
“I say, you don’t think there’s the faintest chance for him?”
Roger shrugged his shoulders. “If they can prove insanity at the trial….”
Claire Meadows accepted the invitation into Dorchester with alacrity, and the camera was duly bought, with a roll of films inside it. As they were coming out of the shop, the girl caught Roger by the arm and jerked him back into the doorway. She indicated a tall, spare man of about forty-five, walking alone on the opposite pavement.
“I’m sorry, but that’s Mr Greyling—that tall, fair-haired man without a hat over there. I don’t want to meet him just now.”
“Of course,” Roger murmured, watching the rather bowed form of the bereaved husband as the sun glinted on his ash-blond hair. “Pure Nordic, eh?”
“Nordic?” said the girl doubtfully.
“A racial type. Fair hair, blue eyes, clear skin, and all that. Is he cutting up rough, by the way?”
The girl flushed. “Very. He’s cutting me too now, dead.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s natural. He was devoted to his wife, and—” She laughed in a forced way. “Well, the impression he gives me is that the only joy he’s got left is to hear that Jimmy’s been hanged. He was positively hounding the police after him, on that dreadful Tuesday. Oh, well; it’s natural enough, if he thinks Jimmy did it. Well, Mr Sheringham, what are you going to photograph first?”
“Mr Greyling,” Roger answered, on a sudden impulse. “After all, he’s a very important part of the case, isn’t he?” Without waiting for an answer he ran across the road ahead of Greyling, strolled down towards him, planted himself exactly in the other’s path, and said suddenly in a loud voice: “Excuse me, sir.” Greyling stopped dead, and Roger whisked the camera from behind his back and snapped the shutter.
For an instant Greyling stood motionless, while his features contorted with anger. Then he lifted his walking stick and aimed a smashing blow at the camera. Roger jumped nimbly aside, murmured: “Sorry. Press photographer,” and hurried back to join the others.
“Rotten thing to do,” he said swiftly as he approached them. “He didn’t like it. I’m not surprised. Stand still, Miss Meadows; I’m going to pretend to take one of you, to soften his wrath.” The girl stood on the pavement, and Roger ostentatiously snapped her. “Stand by, Alec, and look big,” he muttered. Out of the corner of his eye he had caught sight of Greyling approaching them.
Greyling did not mince his words. “You’ll excuse me, Miss Meadows,” he said stiffly, “but I’m sure you have no more desire than I have for publicity in the rag this fellow is touting for. If you publish either of those snapshots,” he added to Roger, after a glance at Alec who was looking as big as he could, “I’ll bring an action against you and your editor. Now clear out.” He turned on his heel and strode away.
“Well, well,” said Roger mildly, and led the way to the car.
For the rest of the morning they took photographs assiduously. Roger arranged a little tableau on the scene of the murder, with Alec enacting the part of the murderer and leaning out of the car window with a pipe levelled at Claire Meadows, and took careful photographs of it from the point of view of each witness. The village street was snapped, and several pictures secured of Tommy Deaton’s Hole. To Miss Meadows’ questions regarding his object in all this, and they were many, Roger preserved a mysterious silence and hinted at surprising theories; but he had his reward in the colour he could see creeping back into the girl’s cheeks and the vanishing of the haunted look from her eyes.
When they got back to the house, Roger had a word or two with Alec as they went upstairs to wash. “Take her out for a walk this afternoon, Alec, and leave the car to me. That business this morning has given me an idea after all.”
“You’re on the track of something?” Alec asked eagerly.
“I can see a bare possibility,” Roger replied, not too hopefully. “It’ll probably come to nothing, but I want to explore it.”
At lunch he asked if there was a dark room on the premises, and seemed disappointed at hearing there was not.
The other two did not see him again till late that night. Then he returned in a state of jubilation bordering on delirium and carrying a long thin package under his arm wrapped in brown paper. He marched into the drawing room, where the other two were trying to sustain a disjointed conversation, and beamed on them.
“I’m going to clear your brother, Claire. You don’t mind me calling you Claire, by the way, do you? I think I’ve earned it. Here’s the first piece of evidence—the faked number-plates used by the murderer.” He unwrapped the package and displayed two plates, bearing the same number as that of Meadows’ car, handling them gingerly by the edges. “Don’t touch them. I’m praying there are fingerprints.”
“Good for you, Roger!” almost shouted Alec.
Miss Meadows’ comment was less coherent but no less enthusiastic.
“Found ’em just where I expected, near Tommy Deaton’s Hole,” Roger explained proudly. “It took me four hours of hard searching, but I’ve never spent four hours to better purpose.”
“But why did you expect them there?” asked Claire.
“Well, I reasoned that the murderer would want to get them off his own premises at the earliest possible moment. They’re damning evidence, you see. And where could he hide them better, till he had time to destroy them at leisure, than in a secluded spot like Tommy Deaton’s Hole, far enough away from it so that the chances were a million to one against their ever being found by chance, but near enough to it so that if the millionth chance did turn up the finder would assume that it was your brother who had put them there.” He had been examining them from all angles, and now put them back in their paper with a sigh. “No, as I’d feared. Not a sign of a fingerprint. He’s a cunning devil, this man.”
“But—but who is he?” Claire asked breathlessly.
Roger shook his head. “That, I’m afraid, I’m not yet in a position to say. But I’ve another line on him, which will take me up to London tomorrow, perhaps for a few days. And now, have you got such a thing as a hunk of bread in the house, and even a drop of coffee? The reaction has set in, and I feel human again. Extremely human, in fact.”
But Claire, prudent housewife, had given orders that su
pper was to be left ready in the dining room. Roger fell to with zest, and while he ate questioned Claire closely about her brother’s friends. Had he, so far as she knew, any enemies? Had he, particularly, any enemies with black hair, who could be mistaken at a short distance for himself? So far as Claire knew, Jimmy had no enemies. Then did she know whether Mrs Greyling had any enemies? Or had she any quondam friends who might now be enemies? Had Claire ever seen her about with a young man who might be mistaken for Jimmy? Had she even seen such a young man in the neighbourhood at all?
It was very late before they got to bed, and by that time Claire had not been able to produce a single young man with black hair, or anything else of the least help. But Roger did not seem depressed at her failure. “I’ve got a feeling that I’m on the right track,” he told her as they parted for the night. “And I’ve got another feeling that the truth lies not here at all, but in London. Anyhow, that’s where I’m going up tomorrow to look for it.”
Claire ran them into Dorchester the next morning, and Roger promised to wire her immediately he discovered anything definite, following up his wire if possible with a report in person. It was a very much less distracted girl who drove back along to Monckton Regis than had left it for London two days before.
So far as Monckton Regis was concerned, Roger and Alec ceased to exist for forty-eight hours.
Then came a telegram.
“Case ended have identified man arriving Dorchester tomorrow twelve twenty. Sheringham.”
Trembling with excitement, Claire met the train. A large grin, closely followed by Roger, descended from a first class carriage. He took her hands and pump-handled them with enthusiasm. “It’s all right,” he beamed at her. “I’ve reported the whole thing to Scotland Yard, and given them the evidence. Here, Moresby!”
A large man in a blue suit and a bowler hat, who had followed Roger out of the carriage, joined paternally in the general beaming.
“Chief Inspector Moresby, of the C.I.D.,” Roger explained. “He’s come down, as a personal favour to me, to put things to the local police here. Quite unofficially, of course, because Scotland Yard hasn’t been called in.”
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