The Sussex Downs Murder

by John Bude

  With a slight nod of thanks the man sidled into a chair and sat down, whilst Legge dismissed the constables with a little lift of his hand. Meredith moved across to the front of the desk and leaned back against it, with the light shining over his shoulder full on to Renshaw’s features.

  “Cigarette?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Match?” Meredith held out the tiny point of flame.

  “Thanks.”

  Legge drifted round until he was between Renshaw and the door.

  “Well,” began Meredith, “I won’t beat about the bush. You’re not bound to answer my questions, but I needn’t tell you that it will be for your own good if you do. There are one or two things here I should like you to identify. It’s possible you may have seen them before. If you care to make a voluntary statement you may, but I must warn you that anything you may say will be taken down in writing and used as evidence.” Meredith suddenly stooped down and unclasped his suit-case. He drew out the blood-stained tweed cap. “Ever seen that before, Mr. Renshaw?” The man shook his head. “No? Very well. Then what about this?” Meredith slowly spread out the three articles of the plus-four suit on the Superintendent’s desk. “Know anything about those?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sure?”

  “Quite…sure,” faltered the bearded man with a defensive thrust of his jaw. “I’m still at a complete loss why I have been detained like this. I was told it was to do with the murder of William Rother. I’m a respectable citizen and I can’t see—”

  “Quite,” broke in Meredith with a slow smile. Then, after a pause: “Ever heard of Brook Cottage?” he rapped out sharply. “Or Jeremy Reed? Well—come on, Mr. Renshaw—what are you hesitating for? Ever heard of ’em? Come on! You’ve got a tongue in your head, haven’t you?”

  “No…of…course not,” stuttered Mr. Renshaw. “I mean,” he added with a weak smile, “that I’ve naturally never heard of them.”

  “Never seen this before, eh?” snapped out Meredith, diving into his suit-case and holding up the skull. “Come on! Answer! Ever seen it before?”

  “I…don’t…” began the bearded man in a shaken voice. “I…no…perhaps—”

  “You have seen it before? Haven’t you, eh? It’s no good lying, Renshaw. We know too much. Come on—out with it! Let’s have the truth.”

  Suddenly all the fight went out of that stocky figure. His shoulders hunched, his eyes evading Meredith’s unflinching stare were fixed on the floor; the colour drained out of his normally ruddy cheeks. He just humped there, twisting his bowler hat, unable at first to utter a single word.

  Then: “My God!” he whispered brokenly, aghast at the position in which he found himself. “How did you find out? I thought I was safe. In heaven’s name how did you find out?”

  Meredith smiled faintly.

  “Isn’t it enough that we have?”

  “And you know…who I am?” demanded the bearded man in a quavering voice.

  Meredith swung round on the Inspector.

  “Do you, Legge?”

  “Well, he gave his name as Jack Renshaw, but I’m quite ready to believe that that was an alibi.”

  Meredith nodded.

  “You’re right. It is. In the same way that Jeremy Reed was an alibi.”

  Legge stepped forward and stared at Meredith, bewildered.

  “But, good heavens, I thought Jeremy Reed had been identified by you as being one and the same person as—?”

  “As John Fosdyke Rother,” concluded Meredith. “You’re right again, Legge. You see…”

  Meredith deliberately left his sentence hanging in mid-air. He glanced toward Renshaw. The man nodded slowly.

  “You see,” he explained in a choking whisper, “I am John Fosdyke Rother.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Reconstruction of the Crime

  “Mind you,” said Aldous Barnet, “you’ve let me have little glimpses of the case, here and there, but frankly, Meredith, I still can’t help marvelling. After all, when I’m working out the plots for detective yarns, however complex, I’m in the happy position of knowing as much about the murder as the murderer himself. Even then it’s quite easy to trip up on minor details and let your detective utilize some clue which he hasn’t even discovered. But you’ve got to start from scratch. You’ve got to prove yourself right at every step, test every theory, corroborate if possible every scrap of evidence. How the devil do you do it?”

  The two men were seated one afternoon, shortly after the sensational arrest of John Rother, under the gigantic chestnut which towered over the lawns at Lychpole. They were lounging back in deck-chairs in the deep shade, with cooling drinks placed ready at their elbows. At Barnet’s invitation Meredith had run out on his first half-day to enlighten the crime writer about the details of his successful investigation.

  “He’ll respect your confidence,” the Chief had told Meredith. “I’ve known Barnet for years. He’s longing to get his teeth into the case. Those fellows have got an insatiable appetite for what they politely call ‘copy’, Meredith, and, since he’s been a lot of help to you, I think it’s only fair to let him into a few of your professional secrets.”

  So Meredith had arrived at Lychpole perfectly prepared to give a detailed account of the Rother cases from A to Z. Barnet’s honest admiration was very flattering, he felt.

  “How the devil do you do it?” asked Barnet.

  Meredith laughed.

  “You make our work sound very much more sensational and complicated than it actually is. At least seventy per cent of it is pure routine in which, if necessary, we have the co-operation of the whole of the police organization. I reckon one’s personal contribution is patience and common sense, aided by a trained observation. Take this case, for example… .”

  Barnet stretched out his long legs, settled his gaunt frame deeper in his chair, and unobtrusively slipped a notebook out of his breast-pocket.

  “That’s just what I’d like to do. I’d like to follow your train of reasoning from beginning to end. Would you like to put the whole thing before me?”

  “If it won’t bore you,” smiled Meredith.

  “Bore me! My dear chap—my one hobby is crime. This is a heaven-sent opportunity for me to get a bird’s-eye view of an actual murder investigation from the discovery of the crime to the arrest of the murderer. You talk and let me take notes. Perhaps, by altering a few names and details, I could work this case up into a novel. You yourself reckoned that it might make a darned good story.”

  “All right. Where shall I start?”

  “July 20th,” snapped Barnet without hesitation. “That’s when the whole thing started, wasn’t it?”

  “Very well then—July 20th—the day that John Rother set out for Harlech. But before we deal with the actual events I think it would be as well to analyse the relationship existing between the three principal figures in the drama: John, William, and Janet Rother. In one respect, Mr. Barnet, you were wrong when we discussed this matter. You had an idea that, although John was wildly in love with Janet, she didn’t return the compliment. Personally I think she was even more deeply in love with John than he was with her. She married William, but she could never have really cared for him. They might have hit it off all right if domestic economics hadn’t forced them to live at Chalklands. If they could have had a place of their own I dare say this tragedy could have been avoided. Unfortunately they were forced to set out on a married career in a domicile which included John, a man who dominated his brother and, from all accounts, had a very strong attraction for women.

  “When John set out, or rather, pretended to set out, for Harlech, things had reached a climax in that unfortunate household. The plot to get rid of William had been hatched, not weeks before, but for the best part of eighteen months. The means by which this was to be accomplished had been thought out to the minut
est detail, a scheme in which Janet and John were to play an equal part.

  “One of the first essentials in this scheme was for John to work up an unassailable alibi. It was necessary for him to be able to disappear after his supposed murder under Cissbury to a spot where his presence would arouse no comment. Hence the Jeremy Reed trick and the purchase of Brook Cottage. You’ll agree with me that it was a stroke of genius to work up this alibi within a few miles of his own doorstep. For one thing, he had to reach his hide-out as soon as possible after he had staged the murder under Cissbury, for another he hadn’t the time to travel very far afield over the week-ends. He appeared first in Bramber about January a year ago, where he cleverly suggested that he was an eccentric recluse with an interest in butterflies. His disguise, to my mind, was badly overdone, but it seemed to go down with the more gullible villagers. The old man’s arrival was a seven days’ wonder, but by the time I went down there to investigate the interest in him had more or less died down. They accepted the fact that he was a queer bird and left it at that. This was due, of course, to John’s cunning in introducing Jeremy Reed to Bramber a long time before his scheme was put into operation.

  “Now let’s return to July 20th. When John left Chalklands that evening there was a perfect understanding between himself and his brother’s wife. She knew well enough that he wasn’t going to Harlech. She knew that it was the arranged date for John’s disappearance. Their initial scheme, curiously enough, did not include the actual murder of William. That was scheme Number Two, only to be put into operation if the first plot went off the rails.

  “Briefly their idea was this—John was to so set the stage that it should appear as if he had been attacked and killed at that lonely spot up Bindings Lane. The fake murder was to be so arranged that suspicion would naturally fall on William. They hoped, of course, that the law would bring about William’s death without their interference. As a matter of fact, at one point, I was pretty well convinced that William was the guilty party. Everything pointed to the fact. The only snag was that a shepherd up near Hound’s Oak had seen a man in a cloak and broad-brimmed hat legging it over the downs just about the time that the ‘murder’ had been committed. This wanted explaining away. We couldn’t arrest William until we had a line on the identity of this stranger. For all that, we had practically decided to issue the warrant when we learnt that William had been found dead at the foot of the chalk-pit.

  “Before I come to the murder that really was a murder I’ll run over the details of what transpired on the 20th. As in every murder investigation the time factor is important. So I advise you, Mr. Barnet, to take a careful note of the various times mentioned if you want to get a really comprehensive view of the mystery. John left Chalklands at 6.15. At 6.45 he reached Littlehampton. At 6.50 he went into the post office and sent the following telegram to Chalklands: Please come at once your aunt seriously injured in accident taken to Littlehampton General Hospital—Wakefield. With more than commendable cunning he addressed the telegram to himself, knowing quite well that, as he was supposed to be on his way to Harlech, William would naturally open it in his place.

  “This telegram reached Chalklands at 7.15. At 7.25 William set off for Littlehampton. A little after 7.30 he stopped at Clark’s garage in Findon and had petrol put in his Morris. Clark saw him take the Littlehampton road. John Rother, in the meantime, had set off via Goring to Worthing. Later, when I had anticipated that he had taken this route, I was able to corroborate the fact on the evidence of a farmer who had noticed John Rother sitting in his car on the front at West Worthing.

  “William arrived in Littlehampton just after 8 o’clock. He went, just as John anticipated he would, first to the hospital, then to Dr. Wakefield, and then on to his aunt’s flat. He left for Chalklands just after nine. This was the only time about which John could not be particularly certain, though he had so planned things to allow himself a fairly wide margin of error on this point. About the same time, as far as I can reason, John left Worthing for Findon and Bindings Lane, arriving under Cissbury some time before 9.30. We know that he was seen by the Findon postman just outside the village shortly after 9. William declared in cross-examination that he had arrived at Chalklands round about the same time, or possibly fifteen minutes later. No matter what time he had left Littlehampton, however, there was no chance of the two cars meeting each other. As you know, the Littlehampton road enters Findon on the north side of the village, whilst John entered from the south side and turned up Bindings Lane before reaching the Littlehampton fork. On the other hand, William could not deny that he had been near Findon, and ipso facto the scene of the supposed murder about the time when the crime was fixed to take place.

  “Now, as to what really happened under Cissbury,” went on Meredith, after pausing for a long draught of cider-cup.

  “Ah!” breathed Aldous Barnet, his pencil ready poised over his open notebook. “Exactly.”

  “All very simple really. John parked his car among the gorse bushes, splintered his windscreen, broke the glass of the dashboard dials, and stopped the clock at 9.55. He reckoned that we should be smart enough to spot that clock, which was an essential clue if we were to suspect William. I mean if the murder could have taken place at six the next morning there was little point in getting William to pass through Findon on the evening before. It was essential to John’s scheme that we should notice that clock. As a matter of fact I nearly slipped that. He nearly overrated our intelligence, eh?” Meredith chuckled and went on:

  “The blood-stains are easily accounted for. John made a deep gash in the back of his left fore-arm, allowed the blood to drip on to the upholstery, the running-board, and the tweed cap. He then placed the cap a few feet away from the car to look as though it had fallen off in a struggle. He bandaged his arm just above the wrist, and apparently the place didn’t heal too well because he was still wearing that bandage when he set out on the night of August 10th to murder William. Two of the Crown witnesses noticed that bandage.

  “Well, John had an attaché-case in the car which contained a long black cloak and a broad-brimmed black hat. These he put on and cut up by Hound’s Oak to a point on the downs above Steyning, where he had already hidden his Jeremy Reed disguise in a suit-case. Unfortunately a shepherd named Riddle happened to spot him making up through the woods there. He called out, but John was not such a fool as to stop and pass the time of the day with this very undesirable witness. On the hills he discarded the cloak and hat, noticed that some of the blood had seeped through the bandage on to the cloak, and decided to bury it under some bracken. The hat and cloak were found later by a Steyning child, whose father informed the police. Rother then changed from his plus-four suit into his Jeremy Reed rig and put on his dark glasses. Rather a stupid thing to do in the middle of the night, perhaps, but he couldn’t risk being recognized, because in that case his whole scheme of incriminating William would have gone up the spout. After all, you can’t have a murder without the murdered man!

  “The plus-four suit John placed in the suit-case, together with the attaché-case which he had taken from the Hillman. He then walked down off the hills into Bramber, where he was seen by Wimble, the carrier, just after midnight. For the next three weeks Rother used Brook Cottage as a hide-out, having already laid in a good supply of food from Fortnum and Mason’s. To strengthen the idea that the cottage was uninhabited he pulled down the blinds, closed all the windows, locked the doors, and stole an agent’s board from a near-by house that happened to be for sale. With this stuck up in the garden he felt pretty safe from intrusion, I reckon. Moreover, he knew that if anybody did inquire at the agents about the property, the agents would deny having Brook Cottage on their books. So much for the events which transpired on the 20th.

  “We now come to the most confusing element in the whole case—the bones. You see, Rother was not going to be content with the discovery of the blood-stained car alone—he wanted to bring the ‘murder’ much
nearer to William’s doorstep. It was essential to his scheme that an inquest should be held and a verdict of murder brought in, and though it is possible to hold an inquest without the remains having been found, it’s by no means usual. So John set to work and did the only thing possible…he supplied the remains! It was on this point that I really blew up. It was not until nearly two months after I had started my investigations that I began to suspect that the bones were other than John Rother’s. It was a chance remark of yours, Mr. Barnet, at an early interview which first put the idea into my head.”

  “Of mine? I don’t remember ever having—”

  “Oh, you’ve probably forgotten by now,” broke in Meredith. “But as luck would have it I’d incorporated that little remark of yours in my written report of that particular day’s work. We were discussing the Rother family in a general sort of way, the day after William’s death, and you happened to mention that John Rother was supposed to bear a remarkable resemblance to his great-grandfather, Sir Percival Rother, who was the last of the family to be buried in the family vault. You mentioned a portrait of the old man which hung in the Chalklands sitting-room.

  “My original suspicions were aroused when we discovered the missing skull wrapped in Rother’s plus-four suit out at Brook Cottage. Professor Blenkings pointed out that this could not possibly be John Rother’s skull, and mentioned, among other things, that the skull had an undershot jaw. The next day, therefore, I came out to you, if you remember, borrowed the Chalklands key, and went and had a look at that portrait. Well, to cut a long story short, Sir Percival had got an undershot jaw, although in build he exactly resembled his great-grandson. That was good enough for me! I drove down to the Vicarage and explained matters to the Vicar, who gave me permission to investigate the Rother family vault. It was just as I had anticipated—Sir Percival’s bones were missing!”

  “Good Lord!” exclaimed Barnet with a shudder. “What a horrible idea!”