Murder at the Open

by Angus MacVicar

  Debbie had been put in a small private ward. There were three beds in the room, the other two being unoccupied. One half of the French window was open, and plain grey curtains were moving in the night breeze from a garden.

  When we came in, she was propped up in bed, tiny against bulging pillows and wearing a pastel blue wrap which, in spite of her paleness, made her look lovelier than ever. On a chair in a corner sat Gordon Cunningham, wearing his business suit and nervously wiping his pince-nez with a white handkerchief. He greeted us with a darting, animal-like look which might have been interpreted as a plea for understanding and mercy. With his back to the window, frowning with responsibility, stood Blackstock, one of the plainclothes men.

  The matron and a nurse fussed to find us seats.

  Big Sam and Aidan faced Debbie from behind a flimsy table. O’Donnel and I lowered ourselves gingerly on to one of the empty beds near the window.

  Erica Garson was about to take the chair at Debbie’s side, when Bill said, almost roughly, “Do you mind?” Then he sat down grimly, glowering at the rest of us — and at Debbie — as if defying us to shift him.

  The secretary made light of the incident and took another chair at the foot of the bed.

  As the matron and the nurse went out, their faces understandably full of anxiety and curiosity, Sergeant McCrimmon closed the door and took up a position with his back to it.

  No doctor showed up; but in the corridor, before we’d come in, I’d heard Big Sam telling a houseman that the business wouldn’t take long and that in any case, if Debbie showed any sign of undue strain, he’d call for help at once.

  I was surprised that the medicos had co-operated so thoroughly with the law. The only conclusion to be drawn was that Debbie had made a much quicker recovery than had seemed possible a few hours before.

  She looked pinched and fragile; but her eyes were clear, and any sickness and pain she might have experienced were now evidently behind her.

  As the door clicked shut, she said, “What kind of an inquisition is this, Inspector McLintock?” Her voice was thin and penetrating, like a winter wind.

  “We have come to explain how and why your uncle was killed,” replied Big Sam. “And to identify his killer.”

  The inward hiss of her breath was loud in the quiet ward. Her left hand fluttered on the pink coverlet. Bill caught it and held it close in both of his.

  I glanced round at the faces of the others. Beside me, O’Donnel hunched himself forward on the edge of the bed, anxiously licking his lips like an actor awaiting his cue. Erica Garson sat up straight, a black silhouette against one white, antiseptic wall, her head held high like a champion. Cunningham sighed and kneaded his hands together between skinny knees.

  Big Sam was about to continue, when — quite unexpectedly — Bill said: “I’m not a bloody fool, you know! You’ve come here to make Debbie confess, haven’t you?”

  “In a way,” said Big Sam, mildly.

  “Right, Well, she needn’t confess to anything as far as I’m concerned. It’s obvious why she won’t tell me what’s worrying her. She’s being blackmailed.”

  Debbie’s cheeks were suddenly stained with red. “Bill, please. I — ”

  “Don’t upset yourself, darling.” His tenderness went oddly with a grim expression. “They meant to shock you into betraying yourself. To shock me into doing something — ”

  “Now, just a minute, Mr Ferguson.” Big Sam cleared his throat. “What you say is inaccurate”

  “Inaccurate my foot!” I was fleetingly aware that Bill, after all, had the makings of a highly successful business tycoon. “Darling,” he went on, turning to Debbie again, “I know what’s in your mind. In spite of your denials, I know that the handwriting expert wasn’t mistaken and that the scrap of paper found in your uncle’s hand did come from a letter of yours. “ … easily carried away … never again … ” They’re words that suggest a youthful indiscretion — possibly with a man.” His voice was steady. “Therefore I’m fully prepared for whatever you’re going to tell these people. It won’t shock me — and don’t let it worry you, either. You see, Debbie,” he pointed out, with unembarrassed simplicity, “I love you. No matter what happens, nothing will alter that.”

  “Oh, Bill!” Debbie was crying now. “Oh, Bill, you don’t understand”

  “I do understand. Or at any rate I will understand when I know exactly what it’s all about. Darling, I love you. What you have to tell will make no difference as far as that’s concerned. I love you — and I want you to marry me.” He leant across the bed, and her fair head came to rest on his shoulder. She went on crying, but tension seemed at last to be draining out of her.

  Aidan smiled approval. “I’m glad, Bill — that you love her, I mean — because obviously she’s very much in love with you. She was ready to give you up altogether — even to die — rather than have you despise her.”

  “I’ll make it up to her,” said Bill, glaring round as if he wanted to murder somebody — which at that moment was, I believe, the literal truth. “I’ll make her happy. I’m not such an adolescent idiot as everybody seems to imagine.” She moved closer to him, looking up into his face with a kind of astonishment. “Bill, you’re so kind to me,” she whispered.

  “Look,” said Aidan, sharply taking the initiative and diverting romance into more prosaic channels, “the Inspector has indicated that we know how and why the murder was committed. And by whom. This is our reconstruction of what happened.”

  The ward grew quiet again — so quiet that the movement in the curtains became audible. Debbie’s soft weeping was stilled. No one else dared to make a sound.

  “Debbie,” Aidan continued, “suffered the demands of the blackmailer from the time Bill here came on the scene. It began in New York, when Conrad Lingstrom took Bill under his wing — in a business sense. The only rational explanation of the so-called theft of Debbie’s diamond brooch is that she took it herself, to raise money to pay the blackmailer. Only Lingstrom and Miss Garson were supposed to know how to work the safe, and Debbie always asked one of them to open it when she wanted the brooch. But on some occasion she could easily have watched more closely than usual and taken a note of the combination. Am I not right?” he said.

  Debbie nodded. Bill put an arm about her and held her tightly against him.

  “Very well,” remarked my friend, accelerating his mental stride, “let us take logic a few steps further. Debbie sold or pawned the brooch and handed over the proceeds. But of course the blackmailer wasn’t satisfied — blackmailers never are. So at last, in desperation — probably at the party here on Saturday night — she went to her uncle and told him what was going on. You agree?” he said, gently.

  Again Debbie nodded.

  “I thought so.” Somehow Aidan’s smugness was less insufferable than usual, maybe because of a certain sympathy in his voice. “Lingstrom spoke to the blackmailer,” he went on, “and made the offer of a substantial final payment. He suggested that after the party they should meet at the Road Hole — an unmistakable rendezvous for two experts in golf — with a view to discussing details in complete privacy. The blackmailer agreed.”

  “Lingstrom took his 4-iron with him. He may have had some idea of intimidating the blackmailer with it — that’s something we’ll never know. In fact, all this part of our reconstruction is sheer guess-work, but the murderer may presently confirm most of it.

  “When they met, Debbie’s uncle asked to see her letter, the key to the whole sorry business. The blackmailer produced it, probably with a remark which made Lingstrom lose that brittle temper of his. He threatened to expose the whole racket to the police, then attacked the blackmailer with the club. But the blackmailer, suddenly angry in turn — and very likely panic-stricken as well — found it easy to knock him down, take the club from him and kill him. As Lingstrom fell, however, he snatched at the letter and, unknown to the blackmailer at the time, tore off a corner of it.”

  Big Sam stirred himself and pla
nted decisive elbows on the table plainly determined to assert his authority and get into the act. “Then,” he said, taking up the recital like an alto sax interrupting a long violin solo, “then the blackmailer buried the body in the bunker, hoping to dispose of it more efficiently the following night. Finally the killer cleaned the iron club thoroughly — as far as fingerprints were concerned at any rate — and returned it to Lingstrom’s bag. Or to what, in the dark, this person imagined to be Lingstrom’s bag. In fact, it was Miss Garson’s. But this we consider to have been a simple mistake, caused by haste and anxiety.”

  “Quite.” Aidan sounded a trifle curt. “The murderer, therefore, was someone who knew exactly where Lingstrom’s clubs were kept. Another pointer to a closed-circuit crime.”

  There was a silence. Outside in the corridor, behind the door, a trolley bearing tinkling glass-ware rumbled by.

  Big Sam shrugged. Heavily intent, he said: “With his knowledge of psychology and my professional know-how, the Professor and I worked well together. His help in this investigation has been invaluable. For instance, his deduction that Miss Lingstrom would be in danger as soon as the murderer heard we’d identified her handwriting and realised that a confession from her would put us directly on the trail — that was exceedingly useful.”

  “Ah, yes.” To some of those listening, Aidan’s show of satisfaction must have seemed out of place, even bizarre. But I knew well enough that it was meant to increase the pressure on the murderer and gave him and Big Sam full marks for good stage management. “At the same time,” he went on, “the police take most of the credit for the final identification of the killer. It was the Inspector who thought of examining Debbie’s bedroom. It was the Inspector who found the glass on the carpet and confirmed my hunch about Lingstrom’s wrist-watch. It had occurred to me, you see, that when the watch was broken, some of the glass might have been caught in the murderer’s clothing, but I overlooked the simple possibility that it could have been brushed off during the first abortive attempt on Debbie’s life.”

  Listening fascinated to this display of mutual admiration, I refrained from pointing out that it was I who had seen the murderer entering Debbie’s room by way of the rone-pipe and that at the time they had both been snoring. I refrained from mentioning, either, that in their subsequent unofficial attempts to flush the killer, their roles had been purely academic, while I had been exposed to all the real danger. I didn’t grudge them their little show of triumph, because I knew it was part of an act calculated to corrode the resistance of the murderer and that soon now any question of praise or blame might be irrelevant.

  Big Sam took up the running.

  “From the beginning,” he said, “we were fairly certain that Mr Lingstrom was killed by someone close to him. He had no enemies outside his immediate circle — none that we could find in this country at any rate — and there was no indication that his death had been due to a hit-and-run attempt at robbery. We were side-tracked for a time by finding a tattoo-mark on his upper arm — a representation of the badge of the John Rich Society. But our inquiries in this direction led us into a cul-de-sac, and we eventually gave up any idea that he might have been killed by an outside agency.

  “Those close to him were yourselves — you five. Miss Lingstrom, Miss Garson, Mr Ferguson, Mr O’Donnel, Mr Cunningham. One of you had to be the murderer.”

  For the first time Cunningham spoke. “Inspector, I had nothing to do with it! I’m innocent. I’ve confessed my other — my other sin, but how could I — ”

  “That will do, sir! I will have no interruptions. Is that clear?”

  “Y-yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Justice will be done. You can be sure of that.”

  The lawyer cringed back in his chair. He was due to appear before a magistrate in the morning, charged with embezzlement, and his position was dangerous. At the same time, he must have felt an urgent need to placate and keep on the right side of the police. So he became silent and let the Inspector’s voice roll on.

  “Professor Campbell and I took stock of the situation. From a physical and moral point of view, Mr Cunningham didn’t appear to us a likely killer, though his opposition to the merger between Golf Products and Ferguson & Son did indicate a possible motive. However, it was established that on Saturday night, following the party, he and Mr Ferguson engaged in a long discussion in Mr Ferguson’s room on the subject of the merger — a discussion which lasted from a quarter to midnight until two o’clock. This gave him an alibi — for the following reason. Mr Lingstrom’s broken wrist-watch had stopped at ten minutes to two. This suggested a definite time for the killing, because it fitted in with the doctor’s estimate that when the body was found at seven in the morning Mr Lingstrom had been dead for about five to seven hours.

  “By the same token, Mr Ferguson appeared to have an excellent alibi as well.”

  A chair scraped on the polished parquet floor. The sound echoed in the austere spaces of the ward, making my nerves tingle. I looked up and saw that Bill was containing his anger only with an effort. His face was flushed, and Debbie was trying to calm him by tugging at the lapel of his sports jacket. In the corner, Cunningham was sitting bolt upright, his furtive look banished by a cunning little smile.

  The Inspector scratched his wrestler’s jaw with a pencil. “In point of fact — as Professor Campbell remarked on one occasion — alibis were ‘thicker than leaves in Vallambrosa’. From the beginning, Mr O’Donnel was evidently in the clear. He had been drinking with his bookie pals from shortly after twelve until five in the morning, and Ringo Jenks and the others were prepared to give evidence to that effect. In addition, we could find no possible motive in his case. Mr Lingstrom had been a good friend to him, and his rather cushy job depended a great deal on his master remaining alive.”

  Beside me, the chauffeur sighed: “Thank God somebody understands!” But I think I was the only one who heard what he said.

  The alto sax played on: “Miss Garson and Miss Lingstrom seemed to have fairly satisfactory alibis, too. They said good night to each other at about half-past twelve, and then went to their respective rooms, and no evidence at all was forthcoming that they ever came out again before morning. Besides, Miss Garson is left-handed, and medical evidence showed that the murderer used the club right-handed, straddling Lingstrom as he lay on his back and striking him three fatal blows on the left side of the head. And to both Professor Campbell and myself it appeared inconceivable that Miss Lingstrom, a slip of a girl, could attack anyone — least of all her uncle — with such savagery.”

  “But look here, Inspector,” — Bill was frowning — “surely there’s a discrepancy —”

  “I know.” Big Sam raised his hand, like an umpire admitting an appeal. “Somebody’s alibi was phoney. The Professor and I saw this at once. One of you five was the murderer all right, and this became even more certain when two — or maybe three — attempts were made on Debbie’s life. One of you climbed a rone-pipe and got into her bedroom. When she sat at a table in the hotel lounge, one of you secretly deposited weed-killer powder in her glass of gin and bitter lemon. Yes, we were fully aware that the murderer was on the prowl, viciously determined to cover his — or her — tracks.”

  Abruptly Erica Garson burst out: “I didn’t try to kill her on the Tower! I didn’t, I tell you! Debbie, you must bear me out!”

  “Of course, Erica. You saved me. For one moment I felt so ill, so hopeless”

  “Ladies, ladies!” It was Aidan who controlled them, smiling his urbane, knowledgeable smile. “Let the Inspector continue, please. In the old phrase, we are now ‘knocking at the gates of truth’.”

  “Damn you and your truth!” exclaimed Bill. “This is torture for Debbie”

  “Which I’m afraid is unavoidable.” Big Sam’s tone contained a warning. “Miss Lingstrom,” he went on, “at this juncture we require some basic evidence from you. Several years ago, when you were at an age to be ‘easily carried away’, didn’t you have a sho
rt-lived and possibly unpleasant love-affair? Didn’t you subsequently write to the man, telling him that ‘never again’ would you have anything to do with him?”

  In dumb misery she bowed her head and was about to say something, when Bill stopped her. “Let them tell the story for you, darling. I want to hear how they worked it out.”

  “Very well,” said the Inspector, “we shall revert to your discrepancy, Mr Ferguson. The murderer, in fact, pulled a conjuror’s trick — and we have to thank Professor Campbell again for drawing our attention to what may have been the most significant aspect in the whole case — the fact that Mr Lingstrom’s wrist-watch was found on the wrong wrist.

  “According to the doctor, Mr Lingstrom died approximately five to seven hours before the body was found at seven in the morning. Ignoring the evidence of the wrist-watch, this makes it quite possible that the killing took place round about midnight or shortly after.”

  I saw the murderer’s fingers bunching together in knuckle-white tension. The case being presented by the Inspector and Aidan was thin — almost non-existent, indeed, as far as legal proof was concerned. But now — at this moment — I suddenly realised it was going to serve its purpose. The murderer was about to crack and, in a moment of self-betrayal, provide all the positive evidence required in a court of law.

  “Working on this hypothesis,” Big Sam went on, “we spotted the mechanics of the trick. The main illusion was bolstered up by other means — improvised means, calculated to confuse and divert suspicion. The rone-pipe climb to Debbie’s room, for instance, which we discovered could have been accomplished not from the ground but from a room above. Also the planting of the weed-killer tin in the boot of Mr Ferguson’s car and the theft of the dust-sheet from the same place.

  “But, even by itself, the original trick might have come off. After the killing, the murderer unfastened Mr Lingstrom’s watch, broke the glass deliberately and moved the hands forward to ten to two. Then he buried the body, got rid of the club, rushed round to his friends in considerable distress — Professor Campbell confirmed this during a conversation with Ringo Jenks — and then made sure he was really drunk at the critical time. What spoilt the illusion, however, was that some of the broken glass fell into the turn-ups of his trousers and that in his haste he put the watch back on the wrong wrist and the club into the wrong bag.”