Have His Carcass lpw-8

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘I’ll’ be damned,’ said Mr Newcombe.

  ‘And so will I,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘What can have come over her-’ said Mr Newcombe.

  ‘I know what’s come over her all right,’ said Wimsey, ‘but well, never mind, we’d better go back’

  They rode slowly homewards, Wimsey did not stay to examine the break in the cliff. He did not need to. He knew now exactly what had happened between Darley and the Flat-Iron Rock. As he went, he put the whole elaborate structure of his theories together, line by line, and like Euclid, wrote at the bottom of it:

  WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE.

  In the meantime a constable Ormond was also feeling a little blue.. He had suddenly bethought him of the one person in Darley who was likely to have kept tabs on Mr Perkins. This was old Gaffer Gander who, every day, rain or shine, sat on the seat of the little shelter built about the village oak in the centre of the green. He had unaccountably overlooked Gaffer Gander the previous day, owing to the fact that — by a most unusual accident — the Gaffer had not been in. his accustomed seat when Ormond was making his inquiries It turned out that Mr Gander had actually been in Wilvercombe, celebrating his youngest grandson’s wedding to a young woman of that town, but now he was back again and ready to be interviewed. The old gentleman was in high spirits. He was eighty-five come Martinmas, hale and hearty, and boasted that, though he might per haps be a trifle hard of hearing, his eyes, thank God, were as good as ever they were.

  Why, yes, he remembered Thursday, 18th Day as the poor young man was found dead at the Flat-Iron. A beautiful day, surely, only a bit blowy towards evening. He always notices any strangers that came through. He remembered seeing a big open car come past at ten o’clock. A red one it was, and he even knew the number of it, because his greatgrandson, little Johnnie — ah! and a bright lad he was — had noticed what a funny number it was. 01 0101—just like you might be saying Oy, oy, oy. Mr Gander could call to mind the day when there wasn’t none o’ them things about, and folks was none; the worse for it, so far as he could see. Not that Mr Gander was agin’ progress. He’d always voted Radical in his young days, but these here Socialists was going too far, he reckoned. Too free with other folks’ money, that’s what they were. It was Mr Lloyd George as give him the Old Age Pension, which was only right, seeing he had worked hard all his life, he didn’t hold with no dole for boys of eighteen. When Mr Gander was eighteen, he was up at four o’clock every morning and on the land till sunset and after for five shillings week and it hadn’t done him no harm as he could see: Married at nineteen he was, and ten children, seven of them still alive and hearty. Why, yes, the car had come back at one o’clock. Mr Gander had just come out from the Feathers after having a pint to his dinner, and he see the car stop and the gentleman as was camping in the lane get out of it. There was a lady in the car, very finely rigged out, but mutton dressed as lamb in Gaffer’s opinion. In his day, women weren’t ashamed of their age. Not that he minded a female making the best of herself, he was all for progress, but he thought they were going a bit too far nowadays. — Mr Martin, that was the gentleman’s name, had said good morning to him and gone into the Feathers, and the car had taken the Heathbury road. Why, yes, he’d seen Mr Martin leave. Half-past one it were by the church clock. A good clock, that was. Vicar, he’d had it put in order at his own expense two years ago and when they turned the wireless on, you might hear Big Ben and the church clock striking together quite beautiful. There hadn’t been no wireless in Mr Gander’s day, but he thought it was a great thing and a fine bit of progress. His grandson Willy, the one that was married on a woman over to, Taunton, had give: him a beautiful set. It was that loud, he could hear it beautiful, even though his hearing was getting a little hard… He’d heard tell as they were going to show you pictures by wireless soon, and he hoped the Lord might spare him long enough to see it., He hadn’t nothing against wireless, though some people thought it was going a bit far to have the Sunday services laid on like gas, as you might say. Not but what it might be a good thing for them as was ailing, but he thought it made the young folks lazy and disrespectful-like. He himself hadn’t missed going to Sunday church for twenty year, not since he broke his leg falling off the hayrick, and while he had his strength, please God, he would sit under vicar. Why, yes, he did remember a strange young man coming through the village that afternoon. Of course he could describe him; there wasn’t nothing wrong with his eyes, nor his memory neither, praise be. It was only his hearing as wasn’t so good but, as Mr Ormond might have noticed, you had only to speak up clear and not mumble as these young people did nowadays and Mr Gander could hear you well enough. One of these rickety-looking townbred fellows it was, in big glasses, with a little bag strapped to his back and along stick to walk with, same as they all had. Hikers, they called them. They all had long sticks, like these here; Boy Scouts, though, as anybody with experience could have told them, there was nothing like a good crutch-handled ash-plant to give you a help along when you were walking. Because, it stood to reason, you got a better holt on it than on one of they long sticks. But young folks never listened to reason, especially the females, and he thought they was going a bit far, too, with their bare legs and short pants like football players. Though Mr Gander wasn’t so old neither that he didn’t like to look at a good pair of female legs. In his days females didn’t show their legs, but he’d known men as would go a mile to look at a pretty ankle.

  Constable Ormond put all his energy into his last question.

  ‘What time did this young man go through?’’

  ‘What time? You needn’t shout, young man — I may be a bit hard of hearing, but I’m not deaf. I says to vicar only last Monday, “That was a good sermon you give us yesterday,” I says. And he says, “Can, you hear all right where you sit?” And I says to him, “I may not have my hearing as good as it was when I was a young man,” I says, “but I can still hear you preach, vicar,” I says, “from My Text is taken to Now to God the Father.” And he says, “You’re a wonderful man for your age, Gander,” he says. And so I be, surely.’

  ‘So you are, indeed,’ said Ormond. ‘I was just asking you when you saw this fellow with the glasses and the long stick pass through the village.’

  ‘Nigh on two o’clock it was,’ replied the old gentleman, triumphantly, ‘nigh on two o’clock. Because why? I says to myself, “You’ll be wanting a wet. to your whistle, my lad,’.’ I says, “and the Feathers shuts at two, so you’d better hurry up a bit.” But he goes. right on, coming from Wilvercombe and walking straight through towards Hinks’s Lane. So I says “Bah!’ I says, “you’re one o’ them pussy-footin’ slop-swallowers, and you looks it, like as if you was brought, up on them gassy lemonades, all belch and no body (if you’ll excuse me), that’s what I says to myself. And I says, “Gander,” I says, ‘that comes like a reminder as you’ve just got time for another pint.” So I has my second pint, and when I gets into the bar I see as it’s two o’clock by the clock in the bar, as is always kept five minutes_ fast, on account of getting the men out legal’

  Constable Oemond took the blow in silence. Wimsey was wrong; wrong as sin. The two o’clock alibi was proved up to the hilt. Weldon was innocent; Bright was innocent;

  Perkins was innocent as day. It now only remained to prove that the mare was innocent, and the whole Weldon-theory would collapse like a pack of cards.

  He met Wimsey on the village green and communicated this depressing intelligence.

  Wimsey looked at him. ‘Do you happen to have a railway time-table on you?’ he said at last.

  ‘Time-table? No, my lord. But I could get one. Or perhaps I could tell your lordship—’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Wimsey. ‘I only wanted to look up the next train to Colney Hatch.’

  The constable stared in his turn.,

  ‘The mare is guilty,’ said Wimsey. ‘She was at the Flat-Iron, and she saw the murder done.’

  ‘But I thought, my lord, you proved that that was
impossible.’

  ‘So it is. But it’s true.’

  Wimsey returned to report his conclusions to Superintendent Glaisher, whom he found suffering from, nerves and temper.

  ‘Those London fellows have lost Bright,’ he remarked, curtly. ‘They traced him to the Morning Star office, where he drew his reward in the form of an open cheque. He cashed it at once in currency notes and then skipped off to a big multiple outfitters — one of those places all lifts and exits. To cut a long story short, he diddled them there, and now he’s vanished. I thought you could rely on these London men, but it seems I was mistaken. I wish we’d never come up against this qualified case,’ added the Superintendent bitterly. ‘And now you say that the mare was there and that she wasn’t there, and that none of the people who ought to have ridden her did ride her. Are you going to say; next that she cut the bloke’s throat with her own shoe and turned herself into a sea-horse?’

  Saddened, Wimsey went home to the Bellevue and found a telegram waiting for him. It had been despatched from a West-end office that afternoon, and ran:

  DOING BRIGHT WORK HERE. EXPECT RESULTS SHORTLY. COMMUNICATING CHIEF INSPECTOR PARKER. HOPE FIND OPPORTUNITY DESPATCH LOVAT TWEEDS FROM FLAT. — BUNTER

  Chapter XXVII. The Evidence Of The Fisherman’s Grandson

  ‘Has it gone twelve?

  This half-hour. Here I’ve set

  A little clock, that you may mark the time.’

  — Death’s Jest-Book

  Wednesday, I July

  ‘THERE’S one thing that stands out a mile,’ said Inspector Umpelty. ‘If there was any hanky-panky with that horse round about; two o’clock at the. Flat-Iron,’ Pollock and his precious grandson must have seen it. It’s not a mite of use saying they didn’t. I always did think that lot was in it up to the eyes. A quiet, private, heart-to-heart murder they might have overlooked, but a wild horse careering about they couldn’t, and there you are.’

  Wimsey nodded.

  ‘I’ve seen that all along — but how are you going to get it out of them? Shall I have a go at it, Umpelty? That young fellow, Jem — he, doesn’t look as surly as his grandpa — how about him? Has he got any special interest or hobbies?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, my lord, not without it might be football. He’s reckoned a good player, and I know he’s hoping to get taken on by the Westshire Tigers.’

  ‘H’m. Wish it had been cricket — that’s more in my line. Still, we can but try. Think one might find him anywhere about this evening? How about the Three Feathers?’

  ‘If he’s not out with his boat, you’d most likely find him there.’

  Wimsey did find him there, It is always reasonably easy to get conversation going in a pub, and it will be a black day for detectives when beer is abolished. After an hour’s entertaining discussion about football and the chances of various teams in the coming season, Wimsey found Jem becoming distinctly more approachable. With extreme care and delicacy he then set out to work the conversation round to the subject of fishing, the Flat-Iron and the death of Paul Alexis. At first, the effect was disappointing. Jem lost his loquacity, his smile vanished, and he fell into a brooding gloom. Then, just as Wimsey was deciding to drop the dangerous subject, the young man seemed to make up his mind. He edged a little closer to Wimsey, glanced over his shoulder at the crowd about the bar, and muttered:

  ‘See here, sir, I’d like to have a word with you about that.’

  By all means. Outside? Right! — Dashed interesting,’ he added, more loudly. Next time I’m down this way I’d like to come along and see you play. Well, I must be barging along. You going home? I can run you over in the car if you like — won’t take a minute.’

  ‘Thank’ee, sir. I’d be glad of it.’

  ‘And you could show me those photographs you were talking about.’

  The two pushed their way out. Good-nights were exchanged, but Wimsey noticed that none of the — Darley inhabitants seemed particularly cordial to join. There was a certain air of constraint about their farewells.

  They got into the car, and drove in silence till they were past the level crossing. Then Jem spoke:

  ‘About that business, sir. I told Grandad he’d better tell the police how it were, but he’s that obstinate, and it’s a fact there’d be murder done if it was to get out. None the more for that, he did ought to speak, because this here’s a hanging matter and there’s no call as I see to get mixed up with it. But Grandad, he don’t trust that Umpelty and his lot, and he’d leather the life out of Mother or me if we was to let on. Once tell the police, he says, and it ‘ud be all about the place.’

  ‘Well — it depends what it is,’ said Wimsey, a little mystified. ‘Naturally, the police can’t hide anything — well, anything criminal, but—’

  ‘Oh, ’tis not that, sir. Leastways, not as you might take notice on. But if they Bainses was to hear tell on it and was to let Gurney know — but there! I’ve always told Grandad as it wur a fool thing to do, never mind if Tom Gurney did play a dirty trick over them there nets.’

  ‘If it’s nothing criminal,’ said Wimsey, rather relieved, ‘you may be sure I shan’t let anybody know.’

  ‘No, sir. That’s why I, thought I’d like to speak to you, sir. You see, Grandad left a bad impression, the, way he wouldn’t let on what he was doing off the Grinders, and I reckon I did ought to have spoke up at the time, only for knowing as Grandad ‘ud take it out of Mother the moment my back was turned.’

  ‘I quite understand. But, what was it you were doing at the Grinders?’

  ‘Taking lobsters, sir.’

  ‘Taking lobsters? What’s the harm in that?’

  ‘None, sir; only, you see, they was Tom Gurney’s pots.’

  After a little interrogation, the story became clear. The unfortunate Tom Gurney, who lived in Darley, was accustomed to set out his lobster-pots near the Grinders, and drove a very thriving trade with them. But, some time previously, he had offended old Pollock in the matter of certain nets, alleged to have sustained wilful damage. Mr Pollock, unable to obtain satisfaction by constitutional methods, had adopted a simple method of private revenge. He chose suitable moments when Tom Gurney was absent, visited the lobster-pots, abstracted the greater part of their live contents and replaced the pots. It was not, Jem explamed, that Mr Pollock really hoped to take-out the whole value of the damaged nets in lobsters; the relish of the revenge lay in the thought of ‘doing that Gurney down’ and in hearing ‘that Gurney swearing from time to time about the scarcity of lobsters in the bay. Jem thought the whole thing rather foolish and, didn’t care for having a hand in, it, because it would have suited his social ambitions better to keep on good terms with his neighbours, but what with one thing and another (meaning, Wimsey gathered, what with old Pollock’s surly temper — and the possibility of his leaving, his very considerable savings to some other person, if annoyed), Jem had humoured his grandfather in this matter of lobster-snatching.

  Wimsey was staggered. It was as simple as that, then. All this mystification, and nothing behind it but a trivial local feud. He glanced sharply at Jem. It was getting dark, and the young man’s face was nothing but an inscrutable profile.

  ‘Very well, Jem,’ he said. ‘I quite see. But now, about this business on the shore. Why did you and your grandfather persist in saying you saw nobody there?’

  ‘But that was right, sir. We didn’t see nobody. You see, it was like this, sir. We had the boat out, and we brings her along there; round ‘bout the slack, knowin’ as the other boats ‘ud be comin’ home with the tide, see? And Grandad says, “Have a look along the shore, Jem,’ he says, ‘and see as there’s none o’ them Gurneys a-hangin’ about.” So I looks, an’ there weren’t a soul to be seen, leaving out this chap on the Flat-Iron. And I looks at him and I sees as he’s asleep or summat, and he’s none of us by the looks of him, so I says to Grandad as he’s some fellow from the town, like.’

  ‘He was asleep, you say?’

  ‘Seemingly
. So Grandad takes a look at him and says,’”He’s doin’ no harm,” he says, “but keep your eyes skinned for the top of the cliffs.” So I did, and there wasn’t a single soul come along that there shore before we gets to the Grinders, and that’s the truth if I was to die for it.’

  ‘Now, see here, Jem, said Wimsey. ‘You heard all the evidence at the inquest, and you know that this poor devil was killed round about two o’clock.’

  ‘That’s true, sir; and as sure as I’m sitting here, he must ha’ killed himself, for there was nobody come a-nigh him — barring the young lady, of course. Unless it might be while we was taking them pots up. I won’t say but what we might a-missed summat then. We finished that job round about two o’clock — I couldn’t say just when it were, not to the minute, but the tide had turned nigh on three-quarters of an hour, and that’s when I looks at this fellow again and I says to Grandad, “Grandad,” I says, “that chap there on the rock looks queer-like,” I says, “I wonder if there’s sum mat wrong.” So we brings the boat inshore a bit, and then, all of a sudden, out comes the young lady from behind them rocks and starts caperin’ about. And, Grandad, he says “Let un bide,” he says, “let un bide. Us have no call to be meddlin’ wi’ they, he says: And so we puts about again. Because, you see, sir, if we’d gone a-meddling and it was to come out as we was thereabouts with the boat full of Tom Gurney’s, lobsters, Tom Gurney’d a-had summat to say about it.’