Fatal Venture

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  The information about Percy Luff caused French both surprise and misgiving. He had practically made up his mind that Luff must be guilty, not only from the unsatisfactory nature of his story, but also by the method of elimination. But now it looked as if he had been telling the truth after all.

  It appeared that three or four doors from the Corona teashop in New Row was a haberdashery presided over by a young lady with a strong interest in well-dressed young representatives of the opposite sex. Trade was slightly below normal on the afternoon in question, and the lady was reduced for her entertainment to observation of the somewhat restricted traffic of New Row. As a rule she knew all, or nearly all, of those who passed – which had the advantage of enabling her to speculate as to their business – but on this afternoon there swam into her vision a stranger: just such a youth as she had often pictured, but had never yet met. This young scion of the nobility, as she considered him, appeared just before four o’clock, and at intervals during a solid hour he was to be seen pacing up and down, a growing disillusionment on his face. These facts she had disclosed to a youthful and good looking member of Nugent’s staff, and had finally clinched her story in the time-honoured manner – by picking out the wanderer’s photograph from the usual dozen. Needless to say, it was Luff’s.

  Certainty once again! The murder had been committed between four and five, and if Luff was at Coleraine during that period – well there was no more to be said.

  With growing anxiety, French turned to the next lot of papers, those concerned with Bristow. Here, in the nature of the case, there could not be direct evidence of the type obtained in connection with the others. He examined with considerable interest the information Nugent had amassed.

  First came a strip of cinematographic film with twelve tiny pictures and then twelve large photographs, enlarged from the others and all admirable views. Seven were of various people in the act of driving and all of these had immortalised interested spectators; the other five were pictures of a ruin, four taken from a distance and one a close up. With them was a report saying that all the golfing pictures contained residents of Portrush as well as members of the cruise. All the residents had been approached and all had agreed that the photographs numbered 1 to 4 inclusive had been taken near the Club House after lunch on the Monday in question, while those numbered 10 to 12 inclusive had been taken later on the same afternoon, immediately after tea. No. 3 contained Bristow himself, it having been taken for him by another of those present.

  Bristow’s statement as to his having been met at the boat-slip by two temporary members of the Golf Club, his purchase of the films, his game of golf, his lunch at the Club, and the times and places at which he had left and rejoined the party, had been amply corroborated.

  Of the photographs of the ruin, numbered 5 to 9, Nos. 5 to 8 were taken from about twenty feet away from south-east, south-west, north-west and north-east respectively. No. 9 was from about three feet away, and represented some carving on the north-west side. French could see for himself that all the views occurred on the strip in the order which Bristow’s story required: first, the four golfing ones taken after lunch, then the five of the ruin and, lastly, the three golfing ones taken after tea.

  There was here as much corroboration of the man’s story as could possibly be expected. Bristow’s entire day was vouched for except the time during which he left his golfing friends. The photographs were taken during that time. It was, in fact, a complete alibi for Bristow except for the one point – whether or not he himself had been the photographer.

  French frowned. He would have accepted the alibi without question had it not been for the fact that Bristow was becoming very nearly his last hope. Though he had found no motive, there might, of course, have been one which so far he had missed.

  He picked up and re-examined the photographs and suddenly his attention focused on something which he had seen before but had dismissed as immaterial. On No. 6, that of the ruin taken from the south-west, there was stretching across the level foreground a shadow – the shadow of the photographer. It was a blemish to the picture, but if on a sunny day a man takes views from all round a given object, he cannot prevent his shadow from showing in one of them. Here was unexpected evidence: could he identify the man from his shadow?

  It stretched, long and narrow, across the smooth grass area around the building, which the Ancient Monuments Department of the Government of Northern Ireland had levelled and enclosed. It showed the operator from the waist up, bending forward over his camera. On the left of the picture was a bit of the surrounding railing with a stretch of flower bed inside it. This latter looked about two feet wide.

  French thought for a while, then got up and strolled about the deck. The ship was almost, though not quite, deserted. The Isle of Man excursion had proved popular and most of those who had remained on board were down in the gaming rooms. The day was perfect, warm and calm and sunny. They were moving gently along the coast, about six miles out.

  One of the deck-tennis courts supplied French with what he sought – twenty feet of clear space, with a deckhouse in one direction and the sun in the other. He paced various short distances, made a few chalk marks on the deck, and walking to the nearest telephone, rang up Bristow and Morrison.

  By a stroke of luck both were on board, and they agreed to join him immediately, Bristow promising to bring his camera. Meeting the purser, French pressed him also into the service. Five minutes later the four men had assembled, and French was delighted to find that Bristow was wearing the identical suit and hat shown in photograph No. 3.

  “I want your help, gentlemen,” French explained to his little audience, “I’m trying a small experiment. You’ll perhaps be good enough not to ask questions at this stage, though I promise that if anything comes of it you’ll hear the whole story.”

  “Delighted to do anything we can,” the purser assured him and the others nodded.

  “I want four photographs of this deckhouse, if you please,” French continued; “one to be taken by each of us. The photographer to stand here” – he pointed to a chalk cross – “and the picture to include the whole height of the house and the deck back to this chalk line.”

  “Do you mean you want us all to take the identical same view?” Bristow asked, with some show of incredulity.

  “That’s the idea. It sounds mad, but it isn’t really. Will you start, Mr Bristow?”

  “Oh, all right,” said Bristow, “anything for a quiet life.” He moved to the chalk cross, focused for some little time, operated his shutter, moved the film, and stepped back.

  “Thanks,” French returned. “Now, if you please, Mr Morrison.”

  Morrison, Grant and French himself took their turns and French then intimated that the proceedings were over.

  French’s luck held, for when he went to the photographer’s cabin with the camera, he found the photographer had not gone ashore either.

  “There are four exposures on this film,” French told him. “I’d be grateful if you’d develop them and print me four enlargements. Could you possibly do them at once?”

  “It just happens that I can,” the photographer replied. “You’ve come at a good time.”

  “Please don’t cut the views apart on the film,” went on French. “Their order is important and no doubt of it must be allowed to creep in.”

  Later that evening the four prints and the piece of film were delivered. French shuffled the prints, and without looking at their backs spread them out on his desk.

  At once he was interested to find that the four shadows on the deck displayed marked variations. Clothes, shape of hat, way of standing, type of figure; all were different. To a much greater extent than he had imagined possible, each view was characteristic.

  His eagerness increased as he reached the last stage in the test. Taking the view of the ruin with the operator’s shadow, he compared it with the others.

  The conditions under which the two sets had been taken were not identical. The
grass round the ruin was smooth and level, but naturally neither so smooth nor so level as the deck. Nor had French achieved his angles with absolute precision, while the sun was higher over the ship than over the ruin. But these factors diverged but slightly, and French believed adequate allowance could be made for them.

  But even without making any such allowances, the result was clear. The ruin shadow matched that of one of the four deck views in every essential and differed in important points from the other three. And when French turned over the prints he found that the likeness was with No. 1.

  The shadow on the ruin photograph was therefore Bristow’s beyond doubt or question. As French considered what this meant, his heart sank.

  It meant that Bristow, like all his other suspects, was innocent. It meant that a fortnight’s hard work had left him exactly where he had started, not only having failed to discover the murderer, but being entirely unable to suggest his identity. It meant more: it meant that the outlook was less hopeful now than previously, and that for two reasons: first, he had eliminated all his suspects, and secondly, the scent was now cool.

  There were, of course, Nugent’s notes on Morrison’s statement still to be examined, but French no longer suspected Morrison. And when he read the notes he suspected him still less. Morrison had had a genuine appointment with the manager of the Causeway Hotel just before lunch. He had walked round the Causeway before it, and had had lunch at the hotel after it. He had been called to the telephone and had left the hotel and arrived at the ship’s boat, all exactly as the man himself had stated.

  The last item on Nugent’s report concerned the buttons. “The two buttons,” it ran, “Exhibit 37 handed to you by Morrison and Exhibit 38 cut by yourself from Luff’s sleeve, are identical. They are, however, turned out by the hundred, and this similarity alone might not be convincing. But the thread attached to each is also identical, which makes the presumption that they came from the same coat overwhelming. Further, Exhibit 37 contains between the leather plaiting traces of the same kind of clay as is to be found at Point A in McArtt’s Hollow.”

  This matter of the button had worried French a good deal. At first it had seemed clear proof of Luff’s guilt. Then when the Mercer letter had proved a forgery, it began to look less convincing. If the letter were a trick, why not the button also? Its position, after all, was suspicious; it had been deposited where there was no chance of its being overlooked.

  Now that Luff’s presence in Coleraine during the critical period had been established, it followed that the button had been planted, presumably by the murderer, to throw suspicion on Luff. French wondered if this fact might not prove a clue.

  He began to work out in his mind how the thing might have been done. As the button could not have been removed while the coat was being worn, someone must have slipped into Luff’s cabin to secure it. And he had not simply cut it off: this might have aroused suspicion. Luff had noticed it loose. It was unlikely that it had conveniently loosened itself. Therefore the murderer had probably visited the cabin twice – once to loosen it and once, probably the evening before the crime, to remove it.

  Immediately French began a new enquiry to find out whether anyone had been seen entering or leaving Luff’s cabin and before long he obtained some information. Luff’s steward had on two separate evenings noticed a man leave the cabin, in both cases in a secretive way.

  “Did you recognise the man?” French asked.

  “On the second occasion, yes,” the steward returned, “not on the first.”

  “Who was he?” went on French, with obvious interest.

  “Yourself, sir,” was the answer.

  French stared, then broke into a shout of laughter. “That’s rather a blow,” he grinned, “I thought I had been extra careful. I was, as you can now guess, after the first man. What was he like? Can you not describe him?”

  Except that he was tall and in evening clothes, the steward could not. Nor could French obtain any further information.

  He began pacing the deck, pipe in mouth and head bent forward, as he sought for light on his problem. Surely, surely, with all he knew, he should be able to find the solution. Though his work up to the present had been unproductive, he had still learnt facts which he felt must be vital. He now knew positively, what he had only suspected before, that the murderer was on board the ship; the button episode alone proved that. Further, he must be either a passenger or one of the senior officers, firstly, because he knew details the crew could not know, proved by the Mercer-Luff letter, and, secondly, by the fact that he was ashore at Portrush, for which the crew had no leave. Next he must be one of the narrow circle who had come into personal contact with John Stott, and who wished his death, presumably either from hate or in hope of gain. And, lastly, he must have the necessary selfish, cruel and determined character.

  There could not be many persons who fulfilled these four conditions, and that was what made the affair so tantalising to French. The murderer must be within his reach, probably within his sight in the dining room, and yet he could not identify him. It was exasperating beyond words.

  Slowly his thoughts swung back to Malthus and Mason. In their cases there was at least a satisfactory motive. They had tried to do Stott in the eye and had been bitterly discomfited. And hate resulting from a blow of this kind, which would so severely have hurt their pride, would be of a serious and lasting type. They had, moreover, not only the motive, but the other three requirements as well. They had been on board for some time, and either could have cut the button off Luff’s sleeve. They had every chance to know the ship’s gossip and of Luff’s infatuation for Mrs Mercer, and they probably were aware or could guess the relationships between the various members of the Stott family. Finally, French imagined from his contacts with them, that neither was the type to hesitate about murder, if it would suit his purpose or gratify his craving.

  But their alibi was good. No use in going into that again. Nugent had been quite satisfied.

  But had he himself been? He began checking up on his own mental processes. Had he not been rather ready to accept the alibi because of an idea which he had since learnt was entirely false? Practically all concerned – Wyndham, Bristow, Morrison, even Margot – had told him of the Malthus affair, and the idea they might be trying to divert his attention from themselves had lurked in his mind. Had he allowed this doubt to cloud his critical faculty?

  Pacing up and down, he reviewed the alibi in detail. Malthus and Mason had left Mason’s cousin’s house near Dungiven at 4.30 and arrived back at Somerville’s garage in Portrush, where they had hired their car, at 5.20, catching a boat to the ship at 5.40. Nugent had had the route driven over at a high rate of speed, and found that his man had only been able to do the run in six minutes less time. That meant that the suspects had driven fast, as indeed they had stated.

  It followed absolutely certainly they had not had time to visit McArtt’s Hollow; or, conversely, if they had visited the Hollow and committed the murder, they must have left Dungiven earlier than 4.30. How much earlier it was impossible to say, but his previous estimate, which he saw no reason to doubt, had been half an hour.

  Once again French considered the means by which the hour of that departure had been established. Malthus and Mason had stated that it was the time at which they had decided to leave, and that they had left at it. Mrs Hetherington and Miss Dormer had each confirmed the hour, saying that they had noted it on their sitting-room clock. The clock, they further stated, was correct by the time signal of the Third News that night.

  The hour seemed unshakable, and French felt that his former conclusion had been justified. The point, however, was crucial; his whole case depended on it. If he could discover any trickery about it, he had as good as solved his mystery.

  He went down to his cabin for the dossier of the case, and turning to the pages in question, reread them carefully. Then a point which he had forgotten was brought back to his memory.

  Mrs Hetherington and Miss Dormer
had accompanied the men for a couple of miles along their road, on the ground that they would enjoy the walk back. Was anything to be learnt from that?

  French felt his excitement grow as he grappled with the problem. For some unaccountable reason the conviction was growing in his mind that the solution was there, within his reach, if only he could grasp it. He continued puzzling over it, then suddenly a possibility occurred to him.

  Suppose that earlier in the afternoon one of the men had on some pretext got the ladies out of the sitting room, while the other advanced the clock by half an hour. It would then be by the altered clock that they had timed their start. Suppose, further, that when they were in the car, just on the move, one of the men had declared he had forgotten his gloves. Naturally, he would not trouble the ladies to get them for him, he would borrow their latch-key, and run in for them himself. What then easier than to put the clock back?

  This seemed feasible to French provided the clock was not of the striking variety. It was a point he had omitted to ascertain. He would do it now.

  What other points, he wondered, might throw light on the affair? Methodically he checked them up. There seemed to be nine altogether:

  1. Had the men, or either of them, had an opportunity to put on the clock?

  2. Had they had an opportunity to put it back?

  3. Was the clock a striking one?

  4. Did the ladies, or either of them, think that half past four had come unexpectedly quickly?

  5. Did they think they had returned early from their walk?

  6. Had anyone noticed the car start from their house, and if so, at what hour?

  7. Had anyone seen it along the road to Portrush, and if so, at what hour?

  8. Had anyone seen men or car near McArtt’s Hollow?

  9. Had anyone seen the car entering Portrush, and if so, from what direction?

  Another job for Nugent, French thought with a smile, as he drew out a sheet of notepaper and began to write.