“I can’t believe it,” declared Mr. Titer. “I can’t believe it. Do you mean that—that Sir Basil has never been Sir Basil. . .?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Budd, “that’s exactly what I do mean.”
“But . . . Of course you can produce proof of this astounding assertion?” said Mr. Titer. It was obvious that he had received the greatest shock of his somewhat uneventful life.
“I can produce all the proof that’s necessary,” answered the stout superintendent. “I don’t know whether you are aware of it, you may be and you may be not—it doesn’t really matter—but when Francis Conyers was at Oxford he suffered an accident to his left knee. A cricket ball hit him an’ fractured the knee-cap. . . .”
“Yes, yes, I remember,” said Mr. Titer.
“There was an operation,” continued Mr. Budd, “an’ the knee-cap had to be fastened with silver wire. It didn’t affect his walking when once he’d recovered, but the silver wire remained. I’ve seen the surgeon who performed the operation an’ I’ve got his testimony, signed an’ witnessed.”
“I still don’t quite understand,” began Mr. Titer frowning.
“Those silver wires ’ud show in an X-ray photograph to this day,” continued Mr. Budd. “In fact they do show.”
He unwrapped a parcel which he had been carrying under his arm, took out a large photographic film and held it up to the light.
“This is an X-ray photograph of the left knee of the man who was killed—the man everyone believed was Sir Basil Conyers. If you look, you’ll see the dark marks in the knee-cap where the fracture was originally fastened with the silver wire.”
Mr. Titer peered at the photograph.
“I can see certain marks,” he admitted cautiously, “but . . .”
“The radiologist who took this photograph will testify that those marks are the silver wires, sir,” said Mr. Budd. “I think that’ll be sufficient proof that the body is that of Francis an’ not Sir Basil Conyers.”
Mr. Titer fingered his chin.
“It seems to be fairly conclusive,” he said reluctantly. “But . . . really the whole thing is incredible—incredible. Surely we should have noticed the difference between Sir Basil and his brother?”
“I don’t think you would—I don’t think anyone would,” said Mr. Budd. “They were very much alike an’ nobody had seen Francis for several years. The greatest difference was that Francis was clean shaven an’ Basil had a moustache. . . .”
“But . . . Good gracious!” exclaimed the lawyer as a sudden startling thought struck him. “If, as you affirm, the man who has been living here all this time was Francis, what happened to Basil?”
“Accordin’ to my theory,” said Mr. Budd quietly, “Basil is dead. . . .”
“I concluded something of the sort,” said Mr. Titer dryly. “I can hardly imagine that he would have let his brother annex the estate if he had been alive. Is it your suggestion that—he was killed?”
The stout superintendent nodded.
“I believe he was murdered—by Francis,” he said.
Mr. Titer, in receipt of this further shock, obviously felt unable to deal with it standing up. Pulling out a chair, he sat down, motioning to Mr. Budd to do the same.
The big man did so and was promptly followed by Leek, who never remained standing if he could help it.
“Now,” said the lawyer, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his face carefully, “I should be obliged if you would be a trifle clearer. What are you suggesting happened exactly?”
Mr. Budd coughed.
“Well, sir,” he said, “what I believe happened was this. For some time before Sir Thomas Conyers died, Basil Conyers was abroad—in Switzerland, I think. It’s my opinion that while he was there he met his brother Francis who had fled abroad, earlier, after the trouble over the forged cheque. I believe they were both in Switzerland when the news of Sir Thomas’s death reached them. I think that Francis travelled back with Basil when Basil came to claim his inheritance. Probably Basil, who from what I can discover from people who knew him in the past, was a good-natured sort of chap, suggested that he should. Likely enough he offered to help him now that his father was dead. The suggestion may have come from Francis, we’ll never be able to say definitely, but I’m convinced that he had already got the idea in his mind of doing away with his brother an’ taking his place.”
“This is all conjecture, isn’t it?” interrupted Mr. Titer.
“Up to a point it is,” admitted Mr. Budd, “but there’re certain bits of evidence to back it up, an’ I think there’ll be a final, conclusive, bit later. You see, what put me on to this, when I was searching for a theory that ’ud fit the facts, was the behaviour of Sir Basil.”
“The behaviour of Sir Basil?” questioned Mr. Titer frowning.
“All this gambling and women chasin’,” replied Mr. Budd. “It wasn’t in character—not from what I gathered from his early life. But it was in the character of his brother, Francis. He’d always been a gambler an’ a scoundrel. Why had Sir Basil suddenly changed after he’d come into the property?”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Mr. Titer nodding. “That was rather shrewd of you Superintendent. We all thought it rather surprising but we never imagined the real reason.”
“Francis Conyers took his brother’s place, married, an’ settled down at Marbury Court,” continued Mr. Budd. “But he had a flat in London in the name of Danesford . . .”
“A flat in London,” echoed Mr. Titer.
The big man nodded.
“That’s a proved fact,” he said. “The manager of the estate agents who let it to ’im recognized his photograph. I should say he took the flat in another name so that he could carry on as he liked without his wife knowing. He didn’t want any trouble with her because of her money. But trouble was comin’ to him quick enough. Sam Sprigot made a mistake an’ broke into the wrong flat one night. It was Danesford’s. Danesford wasn’t there—he was down at Marbury Court in his own character of Sir Basil—but there was certain things there which interested Sam very mightily. There was snapshots of Francis Conyers—a lot of ’em—snaps which had been taken at Marbury Court as Sir Basil an’ Sam recognized an old friend. He’d known Francis in the old days before the forged cheque business had driven him abroad an’ he thought, now that he was back in England, he’d look him up. Unfortunately for Sam he was pinched as he left the flat an’ sent to prison for a stretch. But he’d made up his mind what he was goin’ to do when he came out of stir, an’ he did it. He came down to Greystock—” Mr. Budd carefully refrained from mentioning Miss Titmarsh “—an’ he managed to get hold of Sir Basil somehow. Prob’ly met him when he was out. Sam greeted him as an old friend, an’ although Sir Basil tried to bluff that he was Sir Basil an’ not Francis, Sam wasn’t fooled. He wanted a cut in his former friend’s good fortune an’ he meant to have it. Francis was at his wits end. He had very little money of his own fortune left—not enough to satisfy Sam’s demands—an’ to add to his troubles his wife, somehow or other, had begun to suspect the truth—that he was really Francis.
“He was in a pretty dangerous mess, an’ he knew it. He managed to stall Sam off by promising to pay him what he wanted if he’d wait for a few months. Sam was a bit reluctant but he eventually agreed. One of the conditions Francis made was that he should clear out of Greystock, which he did an’ took a room with Mrs. Bagley off the Waterloo Road. But he didn’t trust Francis. He knew that Francis had somehow or other done away with his brother, an’ Sam was scared that he might try the same with him.
“In the meanwhile, Francis was gettin’ in a panic. He’d tried to borrow money from his wife but she’d refused, an’ he didn’t know which way to turn. There was, as far as he could see, only one way out—Lady Conyers would have to die. But, unless he was very careful, he’d be bound to be suspected. Sam Sprigot for one, would definitely guess who was responsible for her death and that would give him a greater hold than before.
&nb
sp; “There was only one really safe way. Sam would have to die too, an’ his death must be made to link with the death of Lady Conyers. Francis laid his plans an’, when he was ready, he wrote Sam makin’ an appointment in Jackson’s Folly. On the same night he put cyanide in the glass of water which he knew Lady Conyers always used to take her sleeping tablet.
“Sam was scared of Francis but he was greedy and he came. What happened to him you know. Francis killed him, scrawled that bit out of the nursery rhyme on the front door of Jackson’s Folly so that, when the other bit o’ the same rhyme was found on the door of the room in which Lady Conyers was lying dead, there’d appear to be a connection between the two deaths. To link his dead wife still more with Sam’s murder, Francis left her scarf on the post of the staircase in Jackson’s Folly.”
Mr. Titer gently stroked his chin. He had received a shock and, although his habitual calmness had not quite deserted him, it had been considerably shaken.
“You—er—appear to have worked it out very well, Superintendent,” he said after a pause. “But, as I said before, the greater part of what you say is pure conjecture. . . .”
“It can’t be anythin’ else,” agreed Mr. Budd, “but it fits the facts we have got, an’ every fresh fact that I’ve managed to get hold of confirms it.”
“There is one thing,” said the lawyer frowning, “that rather upsets your theory—I don’t say it destroys it but it requires an explanation. . . .”
“I know what your goin’ to say, sir,” broke in Mr. Budd. “You’re goin’ to say, if all this other part is true, who killed Francis?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Titer.
“I’ll be comin’ to that later,” said the big man. “It seems to me that there’s only one person who could’ve done that. But I’d rather not go into it at present. . . .”
Mr. Titer gave him a shrewd glance.
“I can anticipate the trend of your thoughts,” he said. “I hope that I may be wrong. . . .” He shook his head. “With regard to your—er—theory regarding the—er—exchange of identity between Basil and Francis. Where do you imagine this took place?”
“Do you mean where did Francis murder his brother?” said Mr. Budd, and the lawyer nodded. “Well,” continued the big man slowly, “It’s my opinion, an’ we’ll be able to put it to the test pretty soon, that Francis killed his brother not so very far from here. . . .”
Mr. Titer looked at him sharply.
“You mean . .?” he began and stopped abruptly.
“I mean,” finished Mr. Budd, “that it’s my belief that he killed him in Jackson’s Folly an’ we’ll find the body buried somewhere in the ruins of that old house.”
*
There was a great deal of activity amid the dust and decay of Jackson’s Folly. A small army of men with picks and shovels, spades and crowbars, invaded the old ruin and set to work to prove Mr. Budd’s theory.
The news that something was afoot ran round the village like a streak of wild-fire and they had a job to keep the curious sightseers at a distance.
Mr. Budd, himself, conducted operations, accompanied by the lugubrious Sergeant Leek, and if he felt any anxiety as to the result of the operations he had started, it didn’t show on his bovine, stolid face.
To a certain extent his reputation was at stake. He had, unlike anything he had done before, built up his theory on pure conjecture, founded on a few definite facts. He had imagined what might have happened from the meagre information at his disposal and was now trying to prove that he was correct.
So far he had been proved right. His idea that Francis had taken his brother’s place and passed himself off as Basil Conyers had been right. When the idea had first struck him he had racked his brain to find some method of proving it. Was there anything that would show the difference between the two brothers? Anything that could have survived the years? And he had been lucky when inquiries had brought to light the fractured knee-cap. There was no argument about that. It was something that even the most sceptical of juries would have to believe.
Would the rest of this theory receive the same proof?
It was, he admitted to himself, a long shot in the dark to conclude that Francis had killed his brother in Jackson’s Folly and hidden the body there, but it was founded on a little more than just a probability.
The murder had to take place somewhere where it was possible to dispose of the body so that it was unlikely to be found. There was, of course, the possibility that Francis had killed Basil abroad, but the difficulty of concealing the body would have been much greater than if he had waited until they reached England. Francis must, in his younger days, have often seen the old house, falling to ruins, when he had been at Marbury Court. What more logical conclusion than to suppose that when the idea of doing away with his brother and taking his place had first come to Francis, and he was seeking for a means of concealing his crime, that the old house should have occurred to him?
It would have been easy to find some excuse for getting Basil, on their way to Marbury Court, to go to Jackson’s Folly. Francis was clever enough to have arranged it that their arrival should be after dark and it was a hundred chances to one that anyone would see them. Having disposed of Basil and hidden the body, he could have gone back to London, waited a few days—he must have already allowed his moustache to grow—and then turned up at Marbury Court as though he had just arrived from abroad.
Nobody was likely to question his identity. He was sufficiently like Basil to pass with most people, and nobody was likely to make inquiries as to the exact date and means by which he had arrived in England.
It was a shot in the dark, thought Mr. Budd as he watched his men searching among the debris and rubble but it was based on sound reasoning.
It was a long job. For nearly two days they worked diligently without any result for their labours, and Mr. Budd was beginning to feel that his reasoning had not been so sound as he had imagined.
And then, on the afternoon of the third day, they found what they had been searching for.
It lay in a shallow grave beneath the floorboards of the wrecked drawing-room—an unrecognizable thing in rags of clothing that had nearly rotted away from time and damp. But there was no doubt how death had come. The back of the skull was crushed in. Basil had died in the same way as Sam Sprigot had died—in the same way that his murderer had died—from a heavy blow on the back of the head.
Mr. Budd stared stolidly down at the body
His reasoning had been justified.
Chapter Eighteen
The village of Marbury seethed with excitement. The news of the gruesome discovery was the final touch to the excitement of the last few weeks.
The Reverend Oswald Hornbeam met Major Panting in the High Street soon after the discovery had been made and was instantly button-holed by that excited individual.
“I suppose you’ve heard?” said the major. “By love, what do you think of it, eh?”
The rector shook his head.
“It’s terrible—terrible,” he answered. “I told you that evil had been loosed in the village. . . .”
“They tell me that the body was Basil Conyers,” said Major Panting. “The feller we all thought was Sir Basil was his brother, Francis. . . .”
“Cain and Abel,” said the Reverend Oswald. “Really shocking. . . .”
“Always was a scoundrel,” said the major. “Remember him as a young man. . . .”
“He suffered his deserts,” said the rector soberly. “Poor fellow. . . .”
“Deserved all he got in my opinion,” declared Major Panting. “What I can’t understand, is who killed him. That’s still a bit of a puzzle, eh?”
“No doubt that will come out in time,” said the rector. “It saddens me to think that there should be so much wickedness in my parish. I feel that in some way I have failed. . . .”
“Rubbish,” broke in the major. “Not your fault. People are as they’re made. Pretty nasty most of ’em. . . .”
The Reverend Oswald shook his head sorrowfully.
“I should not like to believe that,” he said. “I always try to seek the good in even the worst of us. . . .”
“But you don’t often find it, I’ll be bound,” said Major Panting. “Precious little good in Francis Conyers. Killed his brother, killed his wife, and I suppose killed the crook feller too. Three murders, eh? Have to seek a long time to find any good in him.”
The Reverend Oswald Hornbeam sighed.
“Human nature is a strange mixture,” he said. “There must have been some good in him somewhere. Nobody is all evil. . . .”
He went on his way, still shaking his head, and Major Panting walked on up the High Street, looking sharply out for somebody else with whom he could discuss the astounding news.
Mr. Budd, after the discovery, had disappeared.
He left Marbury later on the same afternoon and didn’t return until the following morning, when he went up to his room at Kenwiddy’s Farm and was not seen again until later that night. But Sergeant Leek was unusually active. He and Inspector Crutchley spent a long time together and were joined by Superintendent Sones.
All three of them looked very grave. As well they might for the end was approaching and they were all three facing a difficult ordeal.
*
It was a dark night with a high wind and a drizzle of rain, when Harry Bates got out of the train at Marbury, gave up his ticket to the porter on duty, and made his way down the slope to the road.
The wind was cold and he huddled into his heavy overcoat as he walked quickly along. He was not, to judge by the expression on his face, feeling very happy at whatever prospect lay before him.
Along the open country road he trudged along, once pausing to light a cigarette and glance at his watch. It was a quarter to ten. He had nearly an hour before his appointment.
Coming to the cross-roads, he turned into the right hand road, out of which, further along, led the narrow lane which ended at the patch of open country before the gate of Jackson’s Folly. But Harry Bates ignored the mouth of the lane and kept on until he came to the grounds of Marbury Court. At a gate set in a high hedge, he stopped. He could see from here the lights of the village shining dimly and particularly the lights of the Bull.
The Nursery Rhyme Murders Page 13