“That’s very interesting, Mr. Thewles,” said Sir Clinton thoughtfully. “A very reasonable attitude on your part. Now officially, of course, this evidence ought to go to Inspector Severn, who’s in charge of the matter. Would it be too much if I asked you to repeat to him what you’ve told us? It’s only a formality, you understand? but . . .”
His gesture suggested that red tape was abhorrent but still indispensable.
Thewles, evidently not ill-pleased to find that his tale had attracted attention, took his leave when he found that no one encouraged him to stay longer. When he had been shown out, Sir Clinton glanced at his watch.
“And now, Squire, what about the Simple Simon business?”
“Simple Simon?” Wendover repeated, in a puzzled tone.
“Never heard of him, Squire? Education neglected from the very cradle, evidently. Tut! Tut!
“Simple Simon went a-fishing,
For to catch a whale.
“My ideas are more modest than Simon’s, but my purpose is similar. Care to join me?”
“You’re not going to waste the afternoon on trout?” Wendover demanded, for he had not taken seriously Sir Clinton’s earlier remarks about fishing.
“Did I mention trout? No, the fish I’m out to catch will need a grapnel for a hook, and some light rope for a line, if you have such tackle on hand.”
“You’re going to drag the lake?” cried Wendover, suddenly enlightened. “Was that what you meant by all this talk about deep waters?”
“Well, I meant it both literally and metaphorically. And now, do I take you or the constable? I warn you that we may have Simple Simon’s luck; and if we do catch anything, you may not like the look of it. Don’t come unless you want to.”
Wendover’s mind swung back to the abandoned car. Its unknown owner was one of the missing pieces in the puzzle. Sir Clinton’s project seemed to suggest where that owner might be found. Then Wendover recalled that Sir Clinton had spoken of fishing long before the information about the car had come to hand.
“Of course I’ll come,” he said. “We can get a small grapnel and a light line at the boathouse.”
“And I think you’d better add some sandwiches, a flask, and a couple of flash lamps,” Sir Clinton suggested. “And postpone dinner till we get back, whenever that happens to be. This may be a long business.”
It turned out to be longer business than Wendover had anticipated. At the boathouse, Sir Clinton fitted the outboard motor to one of the larger boats and saw that the tank was full before starting. Then began a wearisome systematic cruise with the boat kept rigidly on bearings which were changed ever so slightly at each crossing of the lake. Sir Clinton began in the shallow water at the shore nearest the Grange and kept their craft moving on a series of almost parallel lines to and fro across the lake, so that practically every foot of the bottom was raked by the grapnel in its passage. It was a tedious business, and as time went by with no signs of success, Wendover’s initial enthusiasm cooled until at last it was replaced by something akin to boredom and hopelessness. The sun sank lower and lower, and still the monotonous trips continued without an incident of any sort to break the rhythm. North; keep her in the bearings; stop; pull in the grapnel; throw it inshore; turn south; keep her in the fresh bearings. . . . It seemed to last for ages. The only breaks were when Sir Clinton surrendered the tiller or took it over again from Wendover.
“If we go on much longer, we sha’n’t have light enough to see our marks,” the Squire protested at length.
By this time they had reached a line rather to the west of Friar’s Point. Sir Clinton glanced at the sky.
“Another half-dozen trips, then,” he stipulated. “It’s round about here that we’re most likely to make a strike; but I wanted to be systematic instead of groping wildly all over the place. Besides, I’m not sorry that it’s into the dusk. If we do catch anything, nobody will see what we’re after very clearly now.”
On the third trip, the grapnel caught something and the boat’s way was suddenly checked.
“Gently, Squire,” Sir Clinton recommended from the tiller, as Wendover caught at the line. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. We don’t want to lose the catch, whatever it is.”
At the feel of the line, Wendover’s excitement rose, for it was clear that they had hooked some heavy mass. He pulled in carefully and the weight on the grapnel was so great that their boat moved slightly towards the point of attachment, until at last they were almost vertically above it. Then, exerting more strength, Wendover hauled in, while Sir Clinton trimmed the boat. Foot by foot the line came in, until at last Wendover knew that he had only a yard or so overboard.
“The flash lamp,” he said, and when Sir Clinton passed it to him, he held the line with one hand while with the other he turned the flash-light beam down into the water. As he did so, a half-stifled exclamation escaped him. A couple of feet below the surface, clear as in a mirror, appeared a girl’s face, set and marble-white under her chestnut hair. Wendover’s involuntary movement of amazement disturbed the boat; its librations ruffled the water; and the vision dissolved into the lambent reflections of the flash light from the ripples.
“Good God, Clinton! It’s a girl’s body.”
“Ah!”
Sir Clinton, at least, did not seem surprised. His tone suggested rather the feelings of a chess expert who has discovered the key move in a problem. Wendover, still under the emotion of the moment, resented this.
“It’s damnable!” he exclaimed.
“We’d better get her into the boat,” Sir Clinton suggested prosaically. “Don’t let that grapnel lose its hold in your excitement, Squire. I’ve no wish to begin all over again.”
Wendover, revolted by his friend’s businesslike attitude in the face of the tragedy, sullenly gave his assistance. As they lifted the body, he noticed a band passing around the waist; and a moment later he found that this attached to the corpse the missing parts of his gramophone.
“I told you the thief attached great weight to that motor, Squire,” was Sir Clinton’s only comment, as they turned the boat’s head towards the dock.
“Damn your funniments. They’re too gruesome for my taste,” said Wendover, whose feelings were jarred by Sir Clinton’s rather macabre turn of humour at that moment.
Sir Clinton seemed in no way depressed by this rebuke; but he apparently decided to reserve further comment for a more suitable season. When they reached the boathouse, he summoned the constable who was on guard there; and the girl’s body was carried up into the lounge. Sir Clinton, with more gentleness than his recent grim humour foreshadowed, had composed the dead face; and he now stood beside the body, intently studying the features and evidently striving to recall something which they suggested.
Wendover had felt few qualms when he was called to the scene of Horncastle’s murder; but this fresh tragedy made a far deeper impression on him. He stood beside the Chief Constable and gazed down at the pitiful thing which lay at his feet.
Quite young, he saw, twenty-five or so. Wonderful chestnut hair and a transparent skin which must have flushed and paled: when she was alive, she must have been a beauty, he reflected sadly. Even in death, there was a slight droop at the corners of the mouth, not exactly plaintive and yet curiously appealing in some manner. If ever he had seen an innocent face, this was one; and his anger blazed up at the thought of something so young and fair being swept ruthlessly out of existence.
His eyes left her face and he noted mechanically that the young figure was as perfect as the features. Then, at the back of his mind, a vague feeling made itself apparent. Something seemed to be wrong somewhere in the tout ensemble. What was it? He began a more minute inspection of detail, hoping to trace the thing which jarred on him. Her shoes were expensive and showed her arched feet to advantage. It wasn’t that. The stockings which covered her slim ankles were obviously real silk. Not that, either. Her clothes were evidently cut by a first-class tailor; they must have cost her a good deal.
And yet, somehow, the effect was by no means all that it should have been.
Sir Clinton had given up his private problem and was now watching Wendover out of the corner of his eye.
“Expensively dressed and yet just a shade dowdy; is that what’s puzzling you?” he demanded. “Well, think of the fashion of four years back. Wouldn’t she have been just ‘it’ in those days?”
The words solved Wendover’s problem for him. He had some difficulty in recalling the exact fashion to which Sir Clinton referred; but now that his eyes were opened, he could see that the girl’s skirt was of no recent cut. An up-to-date shopgirl would have disdained to be seen in such a costume, expensive though it evidently was.
Sir Clinton knelt down beside the body, lifted one of the hands, and inspected the fingers closely. Wendover, craning over his shoulder, was surprised to find that they were rough, with nails which obviously had not been manicured regularly.
The Chief Constable rose to his feet again and it was plain that he was still engrossed in an attempt at identification. Wendover had no such troubles. He was positive that he had never seen the girl alive.
Sir Clinton, with a gesture of vexation, put his problem aside for the moment.
“I’m almost certain I know the upper part of her face,” he said mechanically. “I’ve seen her, or her portrait, at some time or another. But I can’t place it. That doesn’t matter. We’ll have her identified in a few hours, without the slightest bother, I hope.”
He stooped down and tried the fit of one of the dead girl’s shoes.
“They took a risk there. One of these things might have loosened and drifted ashore. They’re fairly tight-fitting though, and as things turned out, the risk didn’t amount to anything.”
“How do you think she was killed?” Wendover asked.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Ask me another,” he said frankly. “There’s no wound apparent. She may have been poisoned; or knocked on the head, perhaps; or there may be another explanation. We’ll need to wait for the P.M. before we can say for certain.”
He turned to the constable who was in the room with them.
“Inspector Severn and the police surgeon will be here soon. I’m going to send for them when I get back to the Grange. Once this body’s been removed, there’s no need for you to wait here any longer. I don’t want the place guarded after this. You understand?”
With a gesture to Wendover he left the boathouse. As they drove back to the Grange, Wendover had time to fathom this last move.
“You were afraid that the murderer might come back in the night, fish up the body from the lake, and dispose of it elsewhere?”
“Yes, there was always the chance of that happening last night, if we hadn’t taken precautions.”
“So you knew there was a body in the lake all the time?”
“No,” Sir Clinton admitted with a smile; “I merely made a guess at that. Hence my thoughtfulness in leaving the Inspector out of the fishing expedition. I didn’t care to take the risk of drawing a blank in his company. One must save one’s face if one can, Squire.”
Wendover passed to a fresh aspect of the question.
“These clothes puzzle me,” he admitted in his turn. “That girl quite obviously could afford to dress perfectly—and yet, as you said, she was hopelessly behind the times. The impression I got was that the material was quite new, too, though it’s hard to be sure after all that soaking in water.”
“These are just the points I’m banking on for an identification,” Sir Clinton confessed. “And now, here we are, Squire, and the first thing I want is the telephone.”
In about ten minutes he came into the smoking room where Wendover was impatiently awaiting him.
“I’ve rung up Severn. He’s to get the police surgeon and go up to examine the body at once. The surgeon ought to be able to tell us, after his P.M., whether that girl was drowned or was dead before they put her into the water.”
“What practical difference does that make?” Wendover demanded. “She’s been killed, anyhow. That’s the main point.”
“It might make a difference in the charge,” Sir Clinton pointed out, “especially in one case, which seems just within the bounds of possibility in this affair. There were no marks of violence on the body, so far as I could see: no throttling, or wounding, or anything of that sort. She may have been sandbagged, of course.”
He did not pause to explain further, but continued the summary of his conversation with the Inspector.
“I’ve ordered Severn to take her fingerprints and see if they lead to anything. We’ll know about that to-morrow, probably. Then Severn reported that he’s traced the origin of the telephone call which wrought such a surprising change in young Keith-Westerton’s habits last night. It came from an A.A. box on the London road, about ten miles from here.”
“That leaves no clue to the person who rang up, then, except that that person had an A.A. key,” Wendover commented. “It was a woman’s voice, the maid said. Was it that poor girl, Clinton? She must have come here in the car we found derelict.”
“I suppose you think that since she had old-fashioned clothes she would have an old-fashioned car to match?” Sir Clinton asked in a flippant tone. “Well, there might be something in it.”
“Then . . .” Wendover found himself unable to formulate his charge. Instinct was against him. At the last moment he changed his sentence. “Then I’m sorry for Mrs. Keith-Westerton. It’s going to be a bad business.”
“I told you before,” Sir Clinton said patiently, “that Mrs. Keith-Westerton is the centrepiece of the whole affair. If there had been no Mrs. Keith-Westerton, two people might have been alive to-day instead of dead.”
He paused for a moment, as though to prepare Wendover for his final remark:
“I should think that girl’s death may have been very opportune for young Keith-Westerton.”
Despite the lightness of the tone, Wendover was impressed by the sinister suggestion behind the words.
“You mean . . . ?” he began.
“I mean just what I say, Squire, no more, no less. Think it out.”
Chapter Ten
Cincinnati Jean
ON the following morning, Wendover was impatient for the latest news of the fresh field of inquiry which had been opened up by the discovery of the second body. Sir Clinton, however, damped his zeal.
“I don’t want to give Severn the impression that I’m standing over him the whole time and leaving him no initiative whatever, Squire. It’s not fair to him. There’s no shilly-shally about him, so we’re losing nothing by being patient. He’ll report in due course.”
With this, Wendover had to be content throughout the day, for it was not until after dinner that the Inspector put in an appearance. When he arrived, Wendover saw at a glance that he was well pleased.
“I haven’t been able to report before, sir,” he explained, as he took the seat which Wendover pushed forward. “I’ve been in London since last night, and kept pretty busy too. It seemed best to go up myself; for there were one or two things I didn’t care to put into the heads of a sergeant. I’d rather see things with my own eyes.”
“Sound principle,” Sir Clinton admitted. “Another good one is: get to business at once, even in a report,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye.
Severn’s gesture acknowledged the thrust which he saw was not meant to hurt his feelings.
“Well, sir, I took the girl’s fingerprints as you told me; and in addition, since I happen to have a camera, I took one or two photographs of the body. I thought they might be useful for identification purposes.”
“Very sound,” Sir Clinton commended. “My congratulations on the idea. Yes?”
“The police surgeon and I examined the body, sir. There wasn’t a trace of violence on it—nothing whatever to suggest how she came by her death. I’ll come to that again later. I’m taking things in their order, if you don’t mind.”
“Quite right.
Go on.”
“While we were undressing the body, another pearl dropped on to the floor, sir. It must have slipped down inside her dress at the neck, I should think.”
Sir Clinton made no comment, but Wendover saw from his expression that this fact evidently closed a gap in the chain.
“There were no names on her underclothing, no initials even on her handkerchief. There was a laundry mark; and I daresay we might have found that useful if we’d failed on the direct method.”
He put up his finger to stop Wendover, who was pouring out whiskey for him.
“Thanks. I left the police surgeon to examine the body. I developed the photos, took bromide prints in a hurry, and caught the first train up to town.”
“You didn’t find a Yale key, the key of the boathouse door, anywhere among her belongings?” Sir Clinton interrupted.
“No, sir. Nothing of that sort. I found a Yale key, but you’ll hear about it later.”
“Sorry to interrupt. Go on.”
“I went straight to the Fingerprint Department at Scotland Yard. It’s a wonderful system they have there. I’d some general notions about it; but it looks next door to miraculous when you see them actually at work. Simply marvellous, the way they have these complicated affairs indexed. . . .”
“So they managed to identify her for you?” Sir Clinton demanded, cutting into the Inspector’s flow of laudation.
“Yes, sir. Guess who she was.”
“If I’d been able to do that, you wouldn’t have had your trip to London. That face has been tantalising me for the last twenty-four hours.”
“It’s Cincinnati Jean, sir.”
“Cincinnati Jean!” Sir Clinton’s gesture betrayed his vexation. “That’s what’s been bothering me. The only portrait of her I ever saw was a blotchy production in one of the cheap newspapers, nothing like the real face except about the eyebrows and the nose. That accounts for my recognising her vaguely and yet not being able to place her.”
To Wendover, the nickname suggested nothing.
The Boathouse Riddle Page 15