‘You’re right; he would. Always supposing he wanted the body found. Of course there are lots of reasons why he should want; it found. If he inherited under a will, for instance, and had to prove the death.’
‘I don’t fancy friend Alexis will have left much in his will. In fact, I’m pretty sure he didn’t. And there might be other reasons for wanting to tell the world he was dead.’
‘Then you think that when I’d gone, the murderer just totted off home to Lesston Hoe? He can’t have gone the other way, unless he deliberately kept behind me. Do you think he did that? He may have followed me up to see what I was going to do about it.’
‘He might. You can’t say he didn’t. Especially as you left the main road quite soon after, to go up to the farm.’
‘Suppose he missed me there and went on ahead of me along the road to Wilvercombe. Would it be possible to find out if he had passed over the level-crossing at the Halt, for instance? Or I say! Suppose he’d’ gone along the main road and then turned back again, sows to pretend he’d come from Wilvercombe?’
‘Then you’d have met him.’
‘Well, suppose I did?’
But — oh! lord, yes — Mr What’s-his-name from London! By Jove!’
‘Perkins. Yes. I wonder. Could anybody be genuinely as foolish as Perkins appeared? He was a rat of a man, too, quite small, and he was sandy-haired.’
‘He was short-sighted, didn’t you say, and wore glasses. Merryweather didn’t’ say anything about Bright’s wearing them.’
‘It may have been a disguise. They may have been quite plain glass. I didn’t examine them, a la Dr Thorndyke, to see whether they reflected a candle-flame upside-down or right way up And, you know, I do think it’s awfully funny the way Mr Perkins simply evaporated when we got to the village shops. He was keen enough to come with me before, and then, just as I’d got into touch with civilisation, he went and vanished. It does look queer. If it was Bright, he might just have hung round to get some idea of what I was going to say to the police, and then removed himself before the inquiry. Good lord! Fancy me, meekly trotting along for a mile and a half hand in hand with a murderer!’
Juicy,’ said Wimsey, ‘very juicy! We’ll have to look more carefully into Mr Perkins. (Can that name — be real? It seems almost too suitable.) You know where he went?’
‘He hired a car in the village and got himself driven to Wilvercombe railway station. He is thought to have taken a train to somewhere, but the place was full of hikers and trampers and trippers that day, and so far they haven’t, traced him further. They’ll, have to try again. This thing is getting to look almost: too neat. Let’s see how it goes. First of all, Alexis arrives by the 10.15 at the Halt and proceeds on foot or otherwise, to the Flat Iron. Why, by the way?’
‘To keep an appointment with Perkins, presumably. Alexis wasn’t the sort to take a long country walk for the intoxicating pleasure of sitting on a rock.’
‘True, O Queen. Live for ever. He went to keep an appointment with Perkins at two o’clock.’
‘Earlier, surely; or why arrive by the 10.15?’
‘That’s easy. The 10.15 is the only train that stops there during the morning.’
‘Then why not go by car?’
‘Yes, indeed. Why not? I imagine it was because he had no car of his own and didn’t want anybody to know where he was going.’
‘Then why didn’t-he hire a car and drive it himself?’ ‘Couldn’t drive a car. Or his credit is bad in Wilvercombe. Or — no!’
‘What?’
‘I was going to say: because he didn’t intend to come back.; But that won’t work, because of the return-ticket. Unless he took the ticket absentmindedly, he did mean to come back. Or perhaps he just wasn’t certain about it. He might take a return-ticket on the off-chance — it would only be a matter of a few pence one way or the other. But he couldn’t very well just take a hired car and leave it there.’
‘N-no. Well, he could, if he wasn’t particular about other people’s property. But I can think of another reason for it. He’d have to leave the car on top of the cliff where it could be seen, Perhaps he didn’t want people to know that anybody was down on the Flat-Iron at all.’
‘That won’t do. Two people having a chat on the Flat-Iron would be conspicuous objects from the cliff, car or no car.’
‘Yes, but unless you went down close to them, you wouldn’t know who they, were; whereas you can always check up on a car by the number-plates.’
‘That’s a fact — but it seems to me rather a thin explanation, all the same. Still, let it stand. For some reason Alexis thought he would attract less attention if he went by, train. In that case, ‘I suppose he walked along the road — he wouldn’t want to invite inquiry by taking a lift from anybody.’
‘Certainly not. Only why, in the world he should have picked on such an exposed place for the appointment—’
‘You think they ought to have had their chat behind a rock, or under some trees, or in a disused shed or a chalk quarry or something like that?’
‘Wouldn’t it seem more natural?’
‘No. Not if, you didn’t want to be overheard. If you ever need to talk secrets, be sure you avoid the blasted oak, the privet hedge and the old summer-house in the Italian garden — all the places where people can stealthily creep up under cover with their ears flapping. You choose the middle of a nice open field, or the centre of a lake — or a rock like the Flat-Iron, where you can have half-an-hour’s notice of anyone’s arrival. And that reminds me, in one of your books
‘Bother ‘Bother my books! I quite see what you mean. Well, then, some time or the other, Bright arrives to keep his appointment. How? And when?’
‘By walking through the edge of the water, from any point you like to suggest. As for the time, I can only suggest that it was while you, my child, were snoozing over Tristram Shandy; and I fancy he must have come from the Wilvercombe side, otherwise he would have seen you. He’d hardly have taken the risk of committing a murder if he knew — positively that somebody was: lying within a few yards of h
‘I think it was pretty careless of him not to take a look round the rocks in any case.’
‘True; but apparently he didn’t do it. He commits the murder, anyhow, and the time of that is fixed at two o’clock. So he must have reached the Flat-Iron between 1.30 and 2—or possibly between one o’clock and two o’clock because, if you were lunching and reading in your cosy corner, you probably wouldn’t have seen or heard him, come. It couldn’t be earlier than 1 p.m., because you looked along the shore then and were positive that there wasn’t a living soul visible from the cliffs.’
‘Quite right.’
‘Good. He commits the murder. Poor old Alexis lets out a yell when he sees the razor, and you wake up. Did you shout then, or anything?’
‘No.’
‘Or burst into song?’
‘No.’
‘Or run about with little ripples of girlish laughter?’
‘No. At least, I ran about a few minutes later, but I wasn’t making a loud noise.’
‘I wonder why the murderer didn’t start off home again at once.’ If he had, you’d have seen him. Let me see. Ah, I was forgetting the papers! He had to get the papers!’
‘What papers?’
‘Well, I won’t swear it was papers. It may have been the Rajah’s diamond or something. He wanted something off the body, of course: And just as he was stooping over his victim, he heard you skipping about among the shingle. — Sound carries a long way by the water. The baffled villain pauses, and then, as the sounds come nearer, he hurries down to the seaward side of the Flat-Iron and hides there.’
‘With all his clothes on?’
‘I’d forgotten that. He’d be a bit damp-looking when he came out, wouldn’t he? No. Without his clothes on. He left his clothes at wherever it was he started to walk along the shore. He, probably put on a bathing-dress, so that if anybody saw him he would just be a harmless sun-bather paddl
ing about in the surf.’
‘Did he put the razor in the pocket of his regulation suit?’
‘No; he had it in his hand, or slung round his neck. Don’t ask silly questions. He’d wait in his little niche until you’d gone; then he’d hurry back along the shore-’
‘Not in the direction of Wilvercombe.’
‘Blow! Obviously, you’d have seen him. But not if he kept close to the cliff. He wouldn’t have to bother so much about footprints when the tide was coming in. He could manage that all right. Then he’d come up the cliff at the point where he originally got down, follow the main road towards Wilvercombe, turn back at some point, or other, and meet you on the way, back., How’s that?.
‘It’s very neat.’
‘The more I look at it, the more I like it. I adore the thought of Might’s being Perkins. I say, though, how about this lop-sided, hunch-backed business. Was Perkins upright as a willow-wand, or how?’
‘Not by any means. But I shouldn’t have called him actually crooked. More sloppy and round-shouldered. He had a rucksack on his back, and he was walking a bit lame, because he said he had a blister on his foot.’
‘That would he a good way of disguising any one-sidedness in his appearance. You’re always apt to hunch up a bit on the lame side. Bright-Perkins is our man. We ought to get the police on to this right away, only I do so want my lunch. What time is it? Four o’clock. I’ll slip along in the car and telephone to Glaisher, and then come back. Why should we give up our picnic for any number of murderers?’
Chapter X. The Evidence Of The Police-Inspector
‘My life upon ‘t some miser,
Who in the secret hour creeps to his hoard,
And, kneeling at the altar of his love,
Worships that yellow devil, gold.’
— The Bride’s Tragedy
Monday, 22 June
‘You may say what you like, my lord,’ said Inspector Umpelty, ‘and I don’t mind admitting that the Super is a bit inclined to your way of thinking, but it was suicide for all that, and if I was a sporting man, I wouldn’t mind having a bit on it. There’s no harm done by tracing this fellow Bright, because, if the identification of the razor is correct, that’s who this Alexis must have brought it from, but there’s no doubt in my mind that when the poor chap left his lodgings on Thursday, he never meant to come back. You’ve only got to look at the place. Everything. tidied away, bills all paid up, papers burnt in the grate — you might say he’d regular said good-bye and kissed his hand to everything.’
‘Did he take his latch-key with him?’ asked Wimsey.
‘Yes, he did. But that’s nothing. A man keeps his key in his pocket and he mightn’t think to put it out. But he left pretty well everything else in order. You’d be surprised. Not so much as an envelope, there wasn’t. Must have had a regular old bonfire there. Not a photograph, not a line that would tell you anything about who he was or where became from. Clean sweep of the lot.’
‘No hope of recovering anything from the ashes?’
‘Not a thing. Naturally, Mrs Lefranc — that’s the landlady — had had the grate cleaned out on the Thursday morning, but she told me that everything had been broken down into black finders and dust. And there was a rare old lot of it. I know, because she showed it me: in the dust-bin. There certainly — was nothing there you could have made out with a microscope.’ As you know, my lord, generally these folk aren’t thorough — they leave a few bits half-burnt, maybe, but this chap had gone the right way about it and no mistake. He must have torn’ everything into small scraps first, and burnt it on a hot fire and beaten it into atoms with the poker. “Well,” I said to Mrs Lefranc, “this is a nice set-out, this is!” And so it was, too.’
‘Any books or anything with writing in the fly-leaves?’
‘Just a few novels, with “Paul Alexis” inside, and some with nothing at all, and one or two paper-backed books written in Chinese.’
‘Chinese?”
‘Well, it looked’ like it Russian, maybe. Not in proper letters, anyhow. You can’ see them any time you like but I don’t expect you’ll get much out of them. One or two history-books there was, mostly about Russia and that. But no writing of any kind.’
‘Any money?’ ‘No.’
‘Had he a banking account?’
‘Yes; he had a small account with Lloyds. Matter of a little over three hundred pounds. But he drew the whole lot out three weeks ago.’
‘Did he? Whatever for? It wouldn’t cost him all that to buy a razor.’
‘No, but I said he’d been settling his debts.’ ‘Three hundred pounds worth of them?’
‘I don’t say that. Fact is we can’t trace more than twenty pounds odd. But he may have owed money in lots of places.
As he’s burnt all his papers, you see, it’s a bit difficult to tell. We shall make inquiries, naturally. But I shouldn’t be: surprised if those hundred pounds had gone to some girl or other. There’s that Leila Garland — a hard-boiled little piece if ever there was one. She could tell a lot if she liked, I daresay, but we aren’t allowed to ask anybody any questions these days. If they say they won’t answer, they won’t and there’s an end of it. You can’t force ’em.’
‘Leila Garland — that’s the girl he used to go with?’
‘That’s it, my lord, and from what I can make out she turned Mister Alexis down good and hard. Terrible cut — up he was about it, too, according to her. She’s got an fellow now — sort of friend of Alexis, but a cut above him, as far as I can make out., Sort of dago fellow; leads the orchestra down at the Winter Gardens, and makes a pretty good thing out of it, I fancy. You know the sort, all la-di-dah and snake-skin shoes. Nothing wrong with him, though, as far as that goes. He was quite frank about it, and so was the girl. Alexis introduced, them, and, presently the young woman got the idea that she could do better with the dago than with Alexis. She says Alexis was getting very close with his money, and didn’t seem to have his mind as, much on Miss Leila as he might have. Possibly he had his eye on somebody else all the time and that was where the money went. Anyhow, Leila makes up her mind to give him the push and takes up with the dago, Luis da Soto, instead. Of course there was a scene, and Alexis threatens to make
away with himself — Did he say anything about throat-cutting?’
‘Well, no, he didn’t. Said he’d take poison. But what’s the odds? He said he’d make away with himself and he’s done it, and here we are.’
‘Did you, by any chance, find any poison — you know, sleepy stuff or anything of that sort in his room?’ ‘Not a thing,’ said the Inspector, triumphantly.
‘But Inspector,’ put in Harriet, who had been listening to this conversation in becoming silence, ‘if you think Alexis had another girl in tow, why should he commit suicide when Leila Garland turned him down?’
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure, miss. Maybe the other one turned him down as well.’
‘And left him a low, lore crittur, with all the world contrairy with him,’ said Wimsey.
‘Yes, and then there was this Mrs Weldon. We found out about her through these other girls. Wouldn’t you say a prospect like’ that was enough to make any young fellow cut his throat?’
‘He could have gone away,’ said Harriet.
‘And suppose he owed her money and she turned crusty and threatened to put him in court? What about that?’
‘Perhaps the three hundred pounds—’ began Wimsey..
‘Oh, no, no!’ cried Harriet indignantly. ‘You mustn’t think that. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Why, the poor woman was infatuated with him. He could have turned her round his little finger. She’d given him anything he wanted. Besides, she told me he wouldn’t take her money.’
‘Ah! But supposing he’d have given her the go-by, miss. She might have cut up rough about that.’
‘She would have been the one to kill herself then,’ said Harriet, firmly ‘She wouldn’t have harmed him for the world, poor soul. Put him in court? No
nsense!’
‘Now you know very well, miss,’ said Inspector Umpelty, ‘that it says In the Bible that the infernal regions, begging your pardon, knows no fury like a woman scorned. I’ve always remembered that from my school-days, and I find it gives a very useful line to follow in our way of business. If this Mrs Weldon—’
‘Rubbish!’ said Harriet. ‘She’d never have done anything of the sort. I know — she wouldn’t.’
‘Ah!’ Inspector Umpelty winked in a friendly manner at Wimsey. ‘When the ladies get to knowing things by this feminine intuition and all that, there’s no arguing with it. But what I say is, let’s suppose it, just for the moment.’
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