“Did you find a fourth for bridge, Tom?” enquired Potter, but Gressingham shook his head.
“Sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t. I’d counted on Howard Brendon, but he couldn’t come. Tiresome of him. He’s been coming over twice a week for some time past, and he’s a damned good bridge player.”
“Brendon? Is it true his wife’s left him?” asked Rummy, who had been manipulating the cocktail shaker, and Gressingham replied,
“God knows, I don’t. I’ve never seen the lady. I did my best to get a fourth for you, Bill. I went and asked the bloke at Little Thatch.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed June, “you must be mad! Did you really imagine the hermit could play bridge? You’re an optimist—and if he did, he’d come in corduroys and reek of cow dung, and lick his fingers every time he played a card. Why, the creature’s simply uncouth!”
“Why? Been trying to do the glamour girl at Little Thatch?” enquired Gressingham, and Radcliffe put in:
“Little Thatch? That’s the hovel up the hill, isn’t it? In the layout I was planning I should make that cottage the lodge—I can see it all.”
“Who’s the creature you’re talking about?” enquired Potter, and Tom Gressingham replied:
“He’s the tenant of Little Thatch. He’s uncouth to look at, I grant you, but he’s an educated man, and he’s been in the Navy—and some of those naval blokes are very hot bridge players.”
“You make me tired!” laughed June. “He couldn’t have been anything but a common rating.”
“No matter. Takes all sorts to make a world,” said Rummy amiably. “I should like to have had a word with him. If we get things going according to plan, an ex-naval man at the lodge might be useful.”
“Useful as chucker-out?” enquired June. “Look here, Tom. It’s time you left off leading your friends up the garden path. You know you can’t get any land round here. It all belongs to my father-in-law, and he’d die rather than sell you any land.”
“Keep cool, darling. Your pops isn’t the only landowner in the county. Rummy’s a bit premature in his plans, but he’s always like that. I can’t tell you how many properties I’ve seen him reorganise—on paper. It’s a hobby of his, and believe me, some of his ideas come off.”
“Don’t you play bridge, Mrs. St Cyres?” enquired Potter, but June answered, “I do—but my bridge isn’t out of the top drawer, and I’m not going to play with you three. I’m too lazy to concentrate. I’d rather play vingt-et-un or roulette.”
“That’s okay by me,” said Rummy amiably, and Gressingham put in:
“Toddle home and put on a pretty frock, darling, and come and dine with us. Safety in numbers, and we’ll see you home.”
“A lovely idea!” said June. “Put on a long frock and pretty slippers and splash through the mud or walk down the field to get here, and then remember Manor Thatch is locked up at ten o’clock. If I stay out after that Anne will sit up until I come in, and offer me hot cocoa when I arrive. No thanks. I said I was lazy, and I am. It’s too much bother to argue with them. I’ve tried it and I’m beaten.”
“Darling, don’t say that,” expostulated Gressingham. “We shall have to get you out of this. Can’t have your spirit broken.”
“I shall be all right when I live in a civilised place again,” said June. “I’m not intending to stay here indefinitely.”
She took a few steps in tune to the radio, which was producing dance music, and Bill Potter slipped an arm round her and they slithered in and out between the heavy furniture.
Rummy filled his glass again and addressed Gressingham, “Who is that chap at Little Thatch? I saw him back his car in when I passed. Big hulking brute, what? Think I might go and have a word with him. You never know. That cottage of his might come in very useful.”
“You can try to have a word with him if you like, Rummy, but I tell you it’s no go. The chap’s bats—or else he’s a ticket-of-leave man. The one thing he’s quite determined about is that he’s going to steer clear of everybody. If you go and see him he’ll only be offensive.”
“That so? Well, a ticket-of-leave man might have his uses. When I’m on to a scheme I’m always out to employ local talent, and, if a fellow’s got something to hide, in my opinion it’s policy to find out what that something is.”
Gressingham shrugged his shoulders and called across the room to June,
“Have another one, honey—just a little one!”
Chapter Five
1
“Colonel Wragley suggested I should come and have a talk with you, Chief Inspector. My name’s Wilton, and Nick Vaughan was a friend of mine. I gather you are going to take over that case at the Mallorys.”
“How do you do, Commander. I’m very glad to see you, though I didn’t know—officially—that I was going to take over in the case you mention.”
Chief Inspector Macdonald, C.I.D., stood up to greet his visitor, and the two men took stock of one another. Wilton was a short, squarely built, grizzled fellow, with blue eyes and weather-beaten face: Macdonald was nearly six inches the taller and considerably slimmer, dark haired, grey eyed, with a lean face which had acquired tired lines on it of recent months. According to Macdonald’s own comment to one of his colleagues, “chasing criminals all day and dodging buzz-bombs all night is bound to affect a man’s temper eventually”; the colleague’s reply was worth relating: “If you’d said chasing buzz-bombs all night you’d have been nearer the mark. Never known such an enthusiast for sticky jobs, Jock: rescue squad jobs seem to draw you like a magnet.”
In spite of those same tired lines, Macdonald’s face looked about ten years younger than Wilton’s—they were both close on fifty—so it might be assumed that life on a destroyer detailed for Russian convoys was an even more wearing experience than the London blitz.
Wilton shook hands and added, “Well, I’m not letting any cats out of bags when I tell you that you’ll be proceeding to Devon before many hours are over—and about time too.”
“The delay hasn’t been of my making,” said Macdonald. “The trouble is that the County men haven’t been able to make up their minds if they’ve got a case or not.”
Wilton growled something inarticulate as he lowered himself into his chair, and then asked, “You’ve had a report on the business?”
“Yes,” replied Macdonald, “though not a very full one. I know that Nicholas Vaughan’s body was found in the burnt-out débris of his cottage on May 1st. The cottage was a thatched one and was completely burnt out, the walls collapsing as well as the roof. The local men incline to attribute the outbreak of fire to faulty electric wiring, and the fierceness of the fire to the fact that deceased had a considerable store of paraffin, petrol, and paint on the premises.”
“Quite correct, and the first assumption was that Nick was asleep and was overcome by smoke and never woke up, and that his skull was cracked by a falling beam. I don’t believe that assumption. That’s why I’m here,” said Wilton, and Macdonald nodded.
“Quite—and that’s why I shall be going to Devon. Now I always believe in first-hand evidence. You were not at Little Thatch when the fire occurred, but you know Nicholas Vaughan, so say if you tell me all you can about him. Nobody knows anything much about him at Mallory Fitzjohn.”
“Right. Now stop me if I wander on too much, but I’d like to give you a clear picture. I first met Nick Vaughan ten years ago. He was a keen sailor, and we met while we were both sailing our own boats up round the Summer Isles. I liked him, though he was only a youngster. He was only twenty then, and he’d the qualities which make a good sailor—endurance, common sense, manual dexterity, and imagination. I add that because it does something to explain why a man chooses the discomforts and hazards of cruising in a small boat entirely by himself for a holiday.”
Macdonald nodded, and held out his tobacco pouch. “I get you,” he said, and Wilton
took the pouch and filled his pipe as he continued:
“Nick was born in 1914. His father was the son of a small landowner on the borders of Westmorland and Lancashire—Kirkby Lonsdale way—know it?”
“Aye,” said Macdonald.
“Nick’s father was killed on the Somme, and his mother died in 1918. Nick was brought up by his uncle and aunt in Lannerdale, on their farm. He went to a north-country grammar school and later to Glasgow University, where he read engineering—marine engineering. He was an able fellow and got a first in his finals. I tell you all this to explain the two qualities in him—he cared for two very dissimilar occupations, seafaring and agriculture. He never saw a garden without wanting to dig in it, and he never saw a seafaring craft without wanting to tinker with it. He could scythe and plough and milk and tend beasts, and he loved doing it. In 1939 he was 25: he’d done his engineering course and he had a job on Clydeside, and a year later he volunteered to take small craft over to Dunkirk. You’ll know that story?”
“Aye,” said Macdonald. “It’s my chief grouse this war that I wasn’t on one of those small craft.”
“Oh well—can’t do everything,” said Wilton. “It was a story, though, gad, it was a story!” Wilton puffed away at his pipe and then went on: “Nick made himself useful in that racket: he volunteered as a rating afterwards, and soon found himself in one of those damned-queer shore establishments we improvised to train naval officers. He wrote to me from there, and later he joined my ship. He was one of the most useful chaps I’ve ever had. He got laid out eventually through trouble with one of our own guns. It was the only turret which could still fire—and then it jammed. It was nearly red hot anyway, and the engineers worked like hell to get it going again—we were under fire the whole time. Then something happened—most of the gun crew got their ticket and I thought Nick had got his, but he lived, and the surgeon wallahs saved his eyes. He was invalided out—for months he was blind, and it was unlikely his eyes’d ever be very useful again. I went and saw him while he was in hospital, and he told me he’d made up his mind to get a small holding and go on the land. I happened to know Colonel St Cyres—he’s a distant relative of mine—and I got news of Little Thatch from him, and that was that. Nick loved it at sight, and I reckon he had four happy months there. Now some blackguard has done him in, and it’s up to you to find out who.”
“Right,” said Macdonald. “I haven’t had enough opportunity to examine the evidence to tell you whether I shall agree with your assumption eventually, but let’s use it as a working hypothesis. You believe Vaughan was murdered. Can you tell me your grounds for that assumption?”
“Take the police theory and examine it,” replied Wilton. “They suggest the fire started from faulty wiring. If Nick did that wiring you can take it from me it wasn’t faulty. He was not only a skilful mechanic, he was a scrupulously careful one. He wouldn’t have run any risk in that cottage of his: if the fire was caused by the wiring, then somebody tampered with the wiring. Then the next bit is about the petrol and paraffin and paint stored in the cottage. I tell you it’s all wrong. Nick never kept quantities of petrol and paraffin in any place where he had a kitchen range going. He had an allowance of petrol for his pump and plant, I grant you, but he’d have stored it in the outbuildings. If there was petrol to help the cottage burn—well, it was planted there without Nick’s knowledge. Finally, he didn’t wake up when the fire started and was asphyxiated in his sleep. Kindly remember that Nick was a sailor—he had the knack we all get of waking up when anything happens. If he had been a farm labourer and nothing else, I’d have believed he might have slept while his roof burnt over his head, but for a sailor to do that, a man who has been trained to an alertness which smells danger before it occurs—tell me that man stayed asleep to be burnt in his bed—rubbish! He stayed asleep because his skull was cracked before the fire got going, not afterwards.”
“Yes, I can see all the points you’ve made, and they’re good points,” admitted Macdonald. “I could put up a counter-argument if I wanted to, but I’m not out to argue with you at the moment. I’m out to collect information. You say Vaughan was murdered. If so, by whom and for what reason? In other words, do you know if he had any enemies, or was there anybody who had a reason to murder him?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. If I knew of anybody who was out for his blood I should have told you so.”
“Was Vaughan a quarrelsome man?”
“No, certainly not—not in the sense of picking quarrels, but he was a damned difficult beggar if he got a down on anybody. If Nick believed a man was a wrong’un he’d watch out and pin him down somehow—and I’ve never known him mistaken in his judgment. It’s difficult to tell you much about him because he was one of those reserved fellows—never talked about himself or his own affairs. I told you I’ve known him for ten years and been shipmate with him for three, but I know precious little about him. I know he was straight, and he was a man I could rely on, utterly. He was incapable of letting you down.”
“Did he write to you at all? I take it’s some months since you saw him?”
“I saw him last December, when I had a week’s leave. It was then I told him about Little Thatch, and I damn well wish I hadn’t.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At my cousin’s place at Culverton, Okehampton way. I knew Nick was out of hospital and due for discharge, so I got George to ask him along—I’m a bachelor myself. Nick had written telling me that he was looking out for a place in South Devon.”
“Have you any idea why he wanted to live in Devon?”
“No, I don’t think I have. I never questioned it. Seemed a good choice to me—Devon’s my own county. It’s fertile, good climate and that, wonderful pasture, and you’re not too far away from the sea. There’s good sailing around Salcombe, and you can get across to Falmouth and the Cornish ports.”
“Did he mention sailing when he talked about settling in Devon?”
“No, but it wouldn’t have been far from his thoughts. Why do you ask?”
“Only this. You’re a Devonian. I’m of Highland extraction. I like Devon for a holiday, but I could never settle there. Too warm and lush, with those deep sunken lanes and dense vegetation. I happen to know the country where Vaughan was reared—just to the west of the Pennines. It’s grand hill country, where you can see for miles with the limestone hills clear against the skyline. A clean, clear, cold, untrimmed country. I can’t understand anybody reared in sight of Ingleborough going to live in Devon.”
“Then your judgment’s at fault, because Nick did so choose. It wasn’t I who suggested Devon, it was he who asked me about it.”
“Right. Next, did you have any letters from him while he was at Little Thatch?”
“Yes. I had a couple of long screeds—both typewritten. I’ll show them to you sometime. The first was all about his property and the work he was doing. The second mentioned some of the folk at the Mallorys—and there’s a point worth noting in it. He mentioned a chap staying at Hinton Mallory and called him a proper chiser—that for Nick was equivalent to saying a bad lot. He may have spotted some queer goings-on. You’ll be looking round the place yourself, so you can see if there’s anything in it. No names mentioned in his letters.”
“I’ll certainly look around. Now think over this next question carefully. You say Vaughan was a fine engineer, and that he got a first. You also say he had imagination. Do you think it was likely that he was doing any original work which might have been valuable?”
“Designs, patents and that? No, I don’t. To begin with, you need equipment—workshop, lathe, materials: you work on models. Paper work doesn’t get you far. It’s the model which tells you the snags. Then there’s his eyesight to remember. It was still weak—that’s why he typed in preference to writing. And you’ve got to remember the amount of work he put in on the house and land. He worked in the garden till dusk: then he got busy ho
use painting. In addition to all that he cooked his own meals, tended his stock, fetched all the goods he needed in that Heath Robinson car of his, and he’d fitted an old petrol engine to the pump, put up a greenhouse and assembled an electric plant. No. He’d have had no time for anything else.”
Macdonald sat and meditated, then he said: “It comes to this: a peaceful, law-abiding agriculturist is suddenly murdered for no reason that anybody can provide. Before you can convince any jury that the man was murdered you’ve got to provide a reason—a motive—for murdering him. That will be my first job—to look out for a motive. Meantime, since you’re the man who is shouting murder, it’s up to you to give every possible detail to help the enquiry. So far as is known at present, Vaughan hadn’t got anything of value in his cottage. It’s known he kept no cash on the premises—his banker can assure us of that. There were no portable valuables, silver or plate, and the cottage wasn’t really furnished. His bedroom and kitchen had only the minimum of equipment. So far as it’s possible to ascertain, robbery is ruled out. Any comment to make on that?”
“No. Nick had a limited amount of capital—”
“Yes. It’s still intact, barring what he’d spent on equipment for the cottage. He was a methodical soul and his bank statement covers every item of expenditure. His living expenses cost him a pound a week. Other cheques drawn covered his petrol pump, electric plant, and greenhouse—all bought second-hand. He paid cash down for his stock and feed.”
“Gad, you seem to have made a few enquiries,” said Wilton, and his naive expression caused Macdonald to laugh a little.
“Yes, just a few. The Royal Navy isn’t the only competent service on His Majesty’s pay-roll. I’m not being offensive when I say this: I am about as competent to query the manner in which you command your craft as you are competent to criticise police-work. We don’t make a song about it, but the amount of honest conscientious enquiry carried out by every country bumpkin of a police constable is a thing of which I have a right to be proud.”
Fire in the Thatch Page 6