Late in the evening he was roused to fresh fears by the entry of a page-boy.
“Number eighty-nine! Number eighty-nine! Number——”
“Here, boy!” Sir Clinton signalled to the page. “What is it?”
“You Sir Clinton Driffield, sir? Message from Mr. Cargill, sir. He wants you to go up and see him. His number’s 103, sir.”
Sir Clinton was obviously annoyed.
“Tell him I’m here if he wishes to see me. Say I’m playing bridge.”
The boy seemed to enjoy springing a sensation on them.
“Beg y’r pardon, sir, but he can’t come. He’s upstairs in bed. He’s been shot. Mrs. Fleetwood brought him back in her car, sir, a few minutes ago; and they had to carry him up to his room. The doctor’s been sent for.”
Sir Clinton laid down his cards, and made a brief apology to the others for interrupting the game.
“You’d better come along with me, squire. We have to break up the table, in any case.”
Followed by Wendover, he ascended to the Australian’s room. They found Cargill lying on his bed with some rough bandages round his ankle, and evidently in considerable pain.
“Sorry to hear you’ve had an accident,” Sir Clinton said sympathetically, as he bent down and inspected the dressings. “That seems good enough to serve until the doctor comes. Who put it on for you?”
“Mrs. Fleetwood,” Cargill answered. “She seemed to know a bit about first aid work.”
Sir Clinton, rather to Wendover’s surprise, asked no leading question, but awaited Cargill’s explanation. The Australian did not keep them in suspense.
“I sent a message down for you because you’re the Lord High Muck-a-muck in the police hereabouts; and the sooner the police get hold of the beggar who tried to do me in, the better I’ll be pleased. It’s no advertisement for a new hotel to have one of its guests half murdered within a week of his arrival.”
“True. Suppose you explain what happened.”
Cargill seemed to see that he had hardly approached the matter in a tactful manner.
“I’m a bit sore at present, and perhaps I sounded peevish. But it’s enough to make one lose one’s rag a bit, I think. Here’s what happened. This evening, after dinner, I strolled across the bay to pay a visit to my friend Fordingbridge at Flatt’s cottage. We sat there for a while, playing cards; and then I thought I might as well be getting home again. So I said good-bye to them——”
“Who was there?” Sir Clinton interjected.
“Fordingbridge and Billingford,” Cargill replied. “I said good-bye to them, and set off for home——”
“Did anyone see you off the premises?” the chief constable interrupted once more.
Cargill shook his head.
“I’m an old pal of Fordingbridge’s, so he didn’t trouble to come to the door with me. I put on my hat and coat and gave the cottage door a slam after me, to let them hear I was gone. Then I walked down that muddy path of theirs.”
“You didn’t notice if anyone followed you?”
Cargill reflected for a moment.
“I didn’t notice particularly, of course; but I can’t think that anyone did. I mean I can’t remember anything that suggests that to my memory, you understand?”
Sir Clinton nodded to him to continue his story.
“When I got down to the road, I turned off in this direction. Now, that’s the point where I do remember someone behind me. I heard steps. After a yard or two, I looked round—you know how one does that, without having any particular reason. But it was a heavily clouded night, and the moon didn’t light things up much. All I could see was a figure tramping along the road behind me—about a couple of dozen yards behind, I should think.”
“No idea who it was, I suppose?” Sir Clinton questioned.
“Not the foggiest. I thought it might be one of the hotel people, so I slowed down a trifle for the sake of company. No one except some of the hotel crowd would be walking in this direction at that time of night. The next thing I heard was the sound of steps coming up behind me, and then there was the crack of a pistol, and down I went in the road with a bullet in my leg.”
“Whereabouts were you at the time?”
“About fifty yards along the road from the path to Flatt’s cottage, I should say. But you’ll find the place all right in daylight. I bled a good deal, and it’ll be all over the road where I fell.”
“And then?”
“Well, I was considerably surprised,” said Cargill drily.
“Very natural in the circumstances,” Sir Clinton admitted, giving Cargill humour for humour. “What did you think had happened?”
“I didn’t know,” the victim continued. “You see, I’m a total stranger here. Fordingbridge is the only person in the place who’s met me before. No one that I know of could have a grudge against me. That’s what surprises me in the business.”
He paused, evidently still pondering over the mystery.
“It beats me still,” he continued, when his reflection had produced no solution. “But at that moment I hadn’t much time to think over it. The next thing I heard was the sound of steps coming closer; and that gave me a start, I can tell you. It looked too much like the fellow coming to finish his job at close quarters. He must have been a damn bad shot—or it may have been the dark that troubled him. But I’d no longing to have him put a pistol-muzzle to my ear, I can tell you. I just let out a yell.”
He winced, for in the excitement of his narrative he had unconsciously shifted his wounded ankle.
“That seems to have been the saving of me; for of course I couldn’t stand, much less get away from the beggar. I suppose the racket I raised scared him. You see, they heard me at Flatt’s cottage, and there might easily have been other people on the road as well. So he seems to have turned and run at that. I kept on yelling for all I was worth; it seemed the most sensible thing to do. Just then, I heard the sound of a big motor-horn down the road at the corner where the path to the cottage comes in; and almost at once a couple of blazing head-lights came up.”
“Mrs. Fleetwood’s car, I suppose?”
I believe that’s her name. Pretty girl with dark hair? That’s the one. She pulled up her car when she saw me all a-sprawl over the road; and she was down from the driving-seat in a jiffy, asking me what it was all about. I explained things, more or less. She made no fuss; kept her head well; and turned on an electric horn full rip. You see, I explained to her I didn’t want to be left in the road there all alone. She’d proposed to go off in her car and get assistance, but I wasn’t keen on the idea.”
Sir Clinton’s face showed his approval of this caution.
“In a minute or two,” Cargill continued, “Fordingbridge and Billingford came up. They’d been roused by my yells and the electric horn. I don’t know what the girl thought when she saw Fordingbridge in the light of the motor’s lamps—it must have given her a start to see a face like that at close quarters in the night. But she’s a plucky girl; and she never turned a hair. Billingford proposed taking me down to the doctor in the car, but she insisted on bringing me back here. More comfortable, she said. And between the lot of them they got me bundled on board her car, and she drove me home.”
“You left the other two there, then?”
“Yes. She didn’t invite them on board. Then, when we got here, she fixed me up temporarily”—he nodded towards the bandages—“and then she went off in her car again to hunt up a doctor.”
Sir Clinton seemed to find nothing further to ask. Wendover stepped into the breach.
“Would you recognise this gunman if you saw him again?”
Cargill shook his head.
“In that light you couldn’t have told whether it was a man or a woman, much less recognise ’em.”
Before Wendover could say anything more, the door opened and Dr. Rafford came in, followed by Inspector Armadale.
“H’m!” said Sir Clinton. “I don’t think we need trouble you any more just
now, Mr. Cargill. By the time the doctor’s fixed you up you’ll not want to be bothered with an inquisition, I suspect. I’ll drop in to-morrow and see how you’re getting on. Good night. I hope it’s not a bad business.”
He turned to Armadale.
“You needn’t worry Mr. Cargill, inspector. I’ve got the whole story, and can tell you what you need.”
Wendover and Armadale followed him from the room, leaving the doctor to do his work undisturbed. Sir Clinton led the way to his own room, where he gave the inspector the gist of what they had learned.
“And now, inspector,” he concluded, “perhaps you’ll tell us how you managed to pop up so opportunely. How did you come to hear of this affair?”
“Mrs. Fleetwood brought me up in her car, sir. It seems she drove to the doctor’s first of all, and, as he wanted a minute or two to collect bandages and so forth, she brought her car round to the place where I’m staying and asked for me. I was a bit taken aback when I saw her—couldn’t make out what it was all about at the first glance. She got me on board and was off to the doctor’s before you could say: ‘Snap!’ We picked him up and she drove us both up here. On the way she told me her side of the business.”
“And that was?”
“By her way of it, she’d wanted to make sure of catching the first post in the morning—an important letter, she said. She’d taken her car and driven in to Lynden Sands post office to post it, for fear of the hotel post not catching the first collection. Then she was driving back again when she heard someone calling, just as she came to the corner at Flatt’s cottage. She turned on her horn and came round the corner; and almost at once she saw, in the beam of her head-lights, Cargill lying on the road. So she stopped and got down. In a minute or so, up came the gang from Flatt’s cottage; and between the lot of them they got Cargill into the car and she brought him home.”
“Did she see anyone on the road except Cargill?”
“I asked her that, sir. She says she saw no one there. No one was on the road between Cargill and the corner.”
“Slipped off the road, evidently. There are a lot of rocks by the roadside thereabouts, and a man could hide himself quick enough among them, if he were put to it,” Sir Clinton pointed out.
The inspector seemed to find the suggestion unsatisfying.
“There’s just one point you’ve overlooked, I think, sir,” he criticised. “Remember what Cargill told you. With the light as it was, he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman who shot him.”
Wendover flamed up at the inspector’s insinuation.
“Look here, inspector,” he said angrily, “you seem to be suffering from an idée fixe about Mrs. Fleetwood. First of all you insist that she murdered Staveley. Now you want to make out that she shot Cargill; and you know perfectly well the thing’s absurd. You haven’t got a shred of evidence to make your ideas hang together in this last affair—not a shred.”
“I’m not talking about evidence just now, Mr. Wendover. There’s been no time to collect any as yet. I’m just taking a look at possibilities; and this is quite within the bounds of possibility, as you’ll see. Suppose Mrs. Fleetwood came out of Lynden Sands village and drove up the road towards Flatt’s cottage. She could see the door of it as she came up the hill to the corner. You’ll not deny that, I suppose?”
“No,” Wendover admitted contemptuously. “That’s quite possible.”
“Then suppose, further,” the inspector went on, “that just before she reached the corner the door of Flatt’s cottage opened and a man came out. In the light from the open door he’d be fairly plain to anyone in her position—but not too plain.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Wendover demanded brusquely. “Haven’t you Cargill’s own evidence that he knows nobody hereabouts except Derek Fordingbridge? Why should Mrs. Fleetwood want to shoot a total stranger? You’re not suggesting that she’s a homicidal maniac, are you?”
“No,” Armadale retorted, “I’m suggesting that she mistook Cargill’s figure for somebody else—somebody whom she’d a good reason for putting out of the way. She’d only get a glimpse of him as he opened and shut the cottage door. A mistake’s quite on the cards. Is that impossible, so far?”
“No, but I shouldn’t say that it mattered a rap, if you ask me.”
“That’s as it may be,” the inspector returned, obviously nettled by Wendover’s cavalier manner. “What happens after that? She shuts off her lights; gets down off the car; follows Cargill along the road, still mistaking him for someone else. She steals up behind him and tries to shoot him, but makes a muddle of it owing to the bad light. Then Cargill shouts for help, and she recognises that she’s made a mistake. Off she goes, back to her car; switches on her lights and sounds her horn; and then pretends to have been coming up the hill in the normal way and to have arrived there by pure accident at that time. Is that impossible?”
“Quite!” said Wendover bluntly.
“Come now, squire,” Sir Clinton interposed, as the tempers of his two companions were obviously near the danger-point. “You can’t say anything’s impossible except a two-sided triangle and a few other things of that sort. What it really amounts to is that you and the inspector differ pleasantly as to the exact degree of probability one can attach to his hypothesis. He thinks it probable; you don’t agree. It’s a mere matter of the personal equation. Don’t drag in the Absolute; it’s out of fashion in these days.”
Wendover recovered his temper under the implied rebuke; but the inspector merely glowered. Quite evidently he was more wedded to his hypothesis than he cared to admit in plain words.
“There isn’t much chance of our getting the bullet,” he admitted. “It went clean through Cargill’s leg, it appears. But if we do get it, and if it turns out to be from a pistol that a girl could carry without attracting attention, then perhaps Mr. Wendover will reconsider his views.”
Chapter Eleven
MME Laurent-Desrousseaux’s Evidence
“I shan’t be able to give you a game this morning, squire,” Sir Clinton explained at breakfast next day. “I’ve got another engagement.”
He glanced towards Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux’s empty seat at the adjoining table, and suppressed a grin as he saw the expression on Wendover’s face.
“Need you advertise yourself quite so much in that quarter, Clinton?” Wendover demanded, rather put out by the turn of events.
Sir Clinton’s features displayed an exaggerated expression of coyness, as though he were a boy half inviting chaff on the subject of a feminine conquest.
“I find her interesting, squire. And good-looking. And charming. And, shall we say, fascinating? It’s a very rare combination, you’ll admit; and hence I’d be sorry not to profit by it when it’s thrust upon me.”
Wendover was somewhat relieved by the impish expression in Sir Clinton’s eye.
“I’ve never known you to hanker after semi-society ladies before, Clinton. Is it just a freak? Or are you falling into senile decay? She’s fairly obvious, you know, especially against this background.”
Sir Clinton failed to suppress his grin.
“Wrong both times, squire, making twice in all. It’s not a freak. It’s not senile decay. It’s business. Sounds sordid, doesn’t it, after your spangled imaginings? ‘Chief Constable Sacrifices All for Love,’ and that sort of thing. It’s almost a pity to disappoint you.”
Wendover’s relief was obvious.
“Don’t singe your wings, that’s all. She’s a dangerous toy, by the look of her, Clinton. I shouldn’t play with her too long, if I were you. What she’s doing down here at all is a mystery to me.”
“That’s precisely what I intend to find out, squire. Hence my devotion. There were more brutal ways of finding out; but I don’t share the inspector’s views about how to elicit evidence. You see, she’s studied in the best school of fascination, and she knows a woman can always get into a man’s good graces by leading him on to talk about his work. So she’s secured
a number of horrific details about the dreadful powers of the police in this land of freedom from me. I think she’ll part with the information I want when I ask for it.”
Wendover shook his head disapprovingly.
“Seems a bit underhand, that,” he commented.
“The finer graces do get shoved aside in a murder case,” Sir Clinton admitted. “One regrets it; but there it is. You can’t wear a collar and tie when you’re going to be hanged, you know.”
“Get on with your breakfast, you gruesome devil,” Wendover directed, half in jest and half in earnest. “I expect the next thing will be your luring all your suspects on to the hotel weighing-machine, so as to have the right length of the drop calculated beforehand. Constant association with that brute Armadale has corrupted you completely.”
Sir Clinton stirred his coffee thoughtfully for a moment or two before speaking again.
“I’ve got a job for you to do, squire,” he announced at last in a serious tone. “About eleven o’clock I have an appointment with Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux. We’re going for a walk along the bay. Now, I want you to drive into Lynden Sands, pick up Armadale, and get back again so as to meet us somewhere about the old wreck. It was a spring tide yesterday, and the tide’s just turning about this time in the morning; so we’ll have to keep quite near the road in our walk across the sands. You can hail us from the road easily enough.”
Wendover nodded an acceptance of the task.
“The inspector can bring along a tape-measure in his pocket, and, if he likes, he can drag the blow-lamp and wax with him also, though I doubt if we’ll need them.”
At the mention of the tape-measure, Wendover pricked up his ears.
Mystery at Lynden Sands (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 15