by Leo Bruce
“Then he had what he thought was another piece of luck—we were going to London that day ourselves and would see him go there. And this is where I have to confess to a piece of blindness which may have cost a human life. For some reason it never occurred to me that he was going down to Folkover. I was pretty sure of my man by this time. I even saw Freda Ducrow’s danger and begged her not to talk of suicide. But I never dreamed that Gray would strike before Rudolf’s arrest, and I never thought of him going up to London then down to Folkover. Mr. Townsend could explain that psychologically. Something to do with their being in opposite directions. But there you are, I’ve got to own I missed it.
“What Gray did, of course, was to leave us at the station, have lunch at his club or at some place where they would remember him, then get out Rudolf’s car and make for Folkover. He parked round the corner, as I knew later from the infant prodigy whose hobby was car-spotting, then waited for Freda to leave Mr. Wickham’s office.
“He did not know she was meeting Gulley at six, but when she told him he could soon talk her out of that. He had been so worried about her, he said, that he had come down to find her and talk things over.
“His next two hours were the most difficult. He had to wait until about nine to be sure of Greynose Point being deserted, but he daren’t go to any bar with her for fear of being recognized afterwards. There was only one answer with Freda Ducrow and he had prepared for it. A bottle of whisky in the car. He had only to suggest that they should drive up on the downs and drink it and the thing was easy. By nine o’clock Freda Ducrow was hopelessly drunk in her own car on the grass near Greynose Point and so far as anyone could know, Theo Gray was in London.
“It’s not pleasant to think of the next part. I imagine he took no chances. First he made sure that no one was in sight—and in any case he had turned the car lights off hours earlier. Then I think he probably rendered Freda Ducrow unconscious, for no blow on the head that he gave her now would be distinguishable after that fearful fall through space. Then all he had to do was start the car, put off the handbrake and shove it over. There was a slight downward slope towards the cliff edge at the spot he chose which would have made it easy.
“There was a risk of the car bursting into flames and attracting attention at once. But even then, he calculated, an elderly gentleman with an umbrella taking an evening stroll would attract no notice. And in any case, it didn’t catch fire.
“Now his course was clear—but as usual he slightly overdid the taking of precautions, and his open umbrella as he passed the Greynose Point Hotel was remembered by George. But he had an easy drive back to London in time to be at the flat, as it happened, when we phoned through at midnight to tell him that Freda Ducrow was missing. I still had no idea that he had had anything to do with it, and not until Rudolf’s car was found at Cinderhurst Station, where he had left it before getting on a Hawden train that morning, did I see how he could have been there.
“Of course, he was clever enough to join with the rest of you in saying that it could not be suicide, knowing that his opinion would not make any difference one way or the other when the police came to decide. That was his policy, just as it had been his policy to say that Rudolf would not have killed Cosmo. Subtle, that’s what he was.”
28
“I saw it all,” said Beef, “but there was not a chance of getting a conviction. Even if I could prove that Cosmo had committed suicide and that Gray had made it look like murder it would not help much. I might have been able to prove that much, because the person who burnt the mallet could have been no one else. Everyone had an alibi for that time—except Zena Ducrow, perhaps. But it would not have given me much satisfaction to get him on a minor charge. As for the murder of Freda—I hadn’t a hope of proving it. I might produce evidence that Gray had left Rudolf’s car in London and taken it out that day. I might even show that he had been in Folkover with it. But there would be no way of making a jury believe beyond doubt that he had deliberately stunned Freda and pushed her car over Greynose Point. My own evidence for that was highly circumstantial.
“But I was not going to let him get away with it altogether, and I worked out this little scheme by which he would at least do a few years in prison for attempted murder, even if we should achieve no more.
“I had to take someone into my confidence, so I went to Bomb Mills and between us we fixed up the little gadget which three of you saw used. We made a sort of rough waistcoat of sailcloth coming to a loop behind, then looped a steel cable round the chimney stack. The cable had a spring hank on it so that all I had to do when I was ready was to attach the hook to the loop in the small of my back and there we were.
“Then I had to show Gray that I had got him taped. I got a little bit tiddly, pretended to be a good deal more, and brought out in my conversation that I knew about the burnt croquet mallet, about him and Cosmo going downstairs that night and about Rudolf’s car in the car-park at Folkover. Also I made it clear that I had not yet reported these things to the police. That was quite enough. He saw, as I wanted him to do, that his only chance of avoiding arrest was to kill me this evening.
“You may think I was underrating the intelligence of a man who had shown himself a very clever murderer. I don’t think so. You see, with a man like that I can be sure of one thing—he will underrate me. Mr. Townsend always writes up my cases as though I was a half-wit who luckily tumbles on the solution, and though Gray did not think quite that, he didn’t suppose I was much of a match for him. And, as I say, I was a little drunk—he saw I wasn’t acting the part.
“With everything ready on the roof and witnesses hidden on the roof of the other wing, I did my stuff downstairs then furtively crept away . . .”
Beef’s expression as he said this resembled that of the demon barber of Fleet Street, and there was a little laughter in the room. He took that in good humour.
“Well, I did,” he said. “Bit staggery on my feet, but furtive as a fox at the same time. That got him, and he followed me upstairs as I hoped he would. When he saw me going out on the roof he must have been tickled to death and thought his luck was in again. I was a few minutes ahead of him, though, and had time to attach the spring hank to the loop before he appeared.”
“I thought you were buttoning your braces!” I said.
Beef spoke with lofty reproof.
“There’s no need to be vulgar,” he said.
Coming from him this was doubly hard to bear, but before I could protest he continued.
“So there I was, ready for him. I had been practising this falling trick with Bomb in the morning, first in the garage and then up here on the roof. I’d got to the point where I could go over the edge without risk, though I’d taken some hard knocks at first. It is not as difficult as it looks. You might try it if you want to be murdered some time.
“One precaution we had taken while you were all in at dinner; we had gone and fired off all the rounds in Gray’s revolver. I had one nasty turn this evening when I thought at first the pistol he brought out was another one. I was pretty relieved when he said where he had got it.
“I had warned the Detective Inspector and the constable, of course, but not Mr. Townsend, because he describes things so much better when they come as a surprise to him, as they nearly always do. I’d had to tell Inspector Liphook to keep him quiet at all costs, though, and once he nearly had to sock him to do it. But as you have all noticed, Mr. Townsend is a gentleman with a keen sense of humour and was not offended.”
What could I do, after this heavy-handed compliment, but take it all in good part? I smiled and nodded, and Beef continued.
“Well, it all worked out a treat. Gray came for me as I stood in front of the parapet and, as far as he ever knew, murdered me. Then, when he saw Inspector Liphook and the constable, he gave us all a surprise and threw himself from the roof. This was unexpected, for as Major Gulley said just now he was too sane and cool a man for suicide.
“That completes the case, ladie
s and gentlemen, and I for one am not sorry. I’ve known a good many murderers, but this one gave me the willies. He was the patient kind, prepared to wait for years to get what he wanted. All the time he lived with you you never saw him as anything but a quiet, pleasant gentleman who would not hurt a fly. I don’t suppose he would unless it got in his way. But the moment he saw his chance—then it was a different matter. His timing was nothing less than brilliant. He could not have chosen a better moment for ridding himself of Freda Ducrow, and he nearly brought off the whole scheme.”
Stute was the first to congratulate Beef, but pointed out that as a free-lance investigator he had been able to use methods denied to the police, also that he had followed what was no more than a hunch in the first place, a thing that was usually to be deplored. Wickham added his congratulations, but with another reservation.
“If we had known your conclusions about Gray,” he pointed out, “we might have saved Freda Ducrow.”
I felt that I should reply to this.
“Surely you are opening up a big question, are you not? And the Sergeant must be exhausted. After all he has practised his fall, got himself partially intoxicated, been thrown from a rooftop and given a long and lucid explanation of the case all in the space of twelve hours. I think he deserves a rest.”
This clinched the matter, and the strange gathering began to break up. For the first time since I had come to Hokestones I slept with an unlocked door and a sense of relief that the evil in the house had gone for ever.
There is little more to relate about the Ducrow Case. The Press and the crime-reading public had a Roman holiday with the sensational events of that night, which was some consolation to them, perhaps, for the loss of an intricate trial for murder. Rudolf, now a very rich man, showed himself a generous one in respect of Beef’s fees, for when his cheque came he had doubled our charges. He and Zena have moved into Hokestones which, I am told, is now full of dogs. The Gabriels have remained with them and Mrs. Dunton has returned to her duties in the house.
There is another aspect of this remarkably happy ending which I record with pleasure. Gulley and his attractive girl friend are to be married as soon as their respective divorces come through. Esmeralda has realized her dream, for the cottage she was to have seen on that night of the 12th is now surrounded with acres of flowers which she grows for “Esmé’s”, her little shop in Church Road.
So Beef is back in Lilac Road waiting, he says, for the next case. “I hope I shan’t have to be murdered again,” he says devoutly. His wife seems less decided on this point, for she has never approved of his work as a private detective and hankers after a little general shop somewhere so that he would not be called out to investigate these nasty messy murders.
“Will’s always been the same,” she says to me. “Playacting half the time and thinking he’s a real detective. I tell him he’ll get into trouble one of these days. Murder’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
I know what she means, so I look quite serious as I reply: “Very funny. Very funny indeed.”
Beef only winks.