“Certainly. I’m an easy-going chap by and large, not irritable or quick-tempered, but I do admit I was a bit nettled over the letting of Little Thatch. I wrote to Colonel St Cyres, and I made him a very generous offer for the tenancy, or for purchase—very generous. He replied with a curt announcement that the property was not on the market. When I came down here, I found that big tough already in possession, and I tell you I was a bit mad. I did make some enquiries—why not? No one knew the chap and he looked a queer guy to me. I did no more about it—obviously there was nothing I could do, but I’ve always believed there was more to it than met the eye.”
Again Macdonald sat and pondered. It was all very well for Howard Brendon to deride Gressingham’s ideas, but Macdonald did not believe that Gressingham was any sort of fool. He was much more astute than Colonel St Cyres, for instance. Thoughts flashed through Macdonald’s mind very swiftly: Vaughan had typed all his letters…he had had no friends to visit him…his relatives were not sufficiently interested in him to come to his funeral…
“Well, Chief Inspector?” asked Gressingham, and Macdonald replied:
“I note your point, Mr. Gressingham: you postulate both fraud and crime. The man who lived at Little Thatch was not Nicholas Vaughan at all—so presumably the latter had been disposed of at an earlier date. Is that it?”
“I don’t know. All I’m doing is to ask questions in return for some of those you asked me. Can you tell me this? When was the last date that Nicholas Vaughan was seen by someone who really knew him?”
Macdonald was very wary: he needed to consider his answer, because it was quite probable that Gressingham knew the right answer.
“I think I require notice of that question, Mr. Gressingham, but, broadly speaking, the answer is in December last.”
“December, eh? I don’t expect you study the West of England newspapers, do you? No reason why you should. I like local papers myself, they’re well worth reading. There’s a cutting I kept from the North Devon Observer, of January 20th last. I’ll show it to you later. It describes the coroner’s inquest on the body of a man washed up from the sea on the Devon-Cornwall borders. The police surgeon gave it as his opinion that the body had been in the sea for at least three weeks—quite unrecognisable, of course, and not a shred of clothing left on it: the corpse was that of a big man, probable age between thirty and forty. Well, there it was. Nothing to be made of it. Corpses are washed up these days, nothing to be surprised at in that. An order for burial was given and the poor chap interred. An open verdict, of course. See?”
“Yes. I see,” replied Macdonald. “You’ve quite a feeling for correlating events, Mr. Gressingham.”
“If that’s a polite way of saying I’m fond of making up stories I don’t resent the imputation, Chief Inspector, but bear the old saying in mind: ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’”
“I’m well qualified to know that,” rejoined Macdonald. “I have been interested in your ideas, Mr. Gressingham—they will be looked into. Now, have you any more suggestions?”
“Lashings of ’em,” replied Gressingham cheerfully, “but I’m thirsty. Will you join me in a drink? Listening, like talking, is much easier when you’ve got a glass in your hand.”
“Not for me, thanks,” replied Macdonald. “I’m on duty, you know, and you could report me for drinking on duty.”
Gressingham grinned. “That’s a really nasty back-hander, Chief Inspector. I don’t deserve that one. I’m a good-natured chap, taking me all round. Better natured than our Colonel Ramrod up yonder.” He was pouring himself out a good generous whisky, and he turned and waved it gaily at Macdonald. “Here’s how! If I were asked to lay a bet on the reason why you have a tendency to believe I’m a liar, I wouldn’t mind risking a fiver on the guess that somebody in the Manorial Thatching gave their opinion that one Thomas Gressingham is a very dirty dog. I don’t expect you to affirm or deny that; I’ll save you the trouble, but, believe me, I’m not a liar, nor yet a hundred per cent fool. I’ve a great respect for intelligence, and you are an intelligent man. The—er—corollary is obvious! Good word that.”
2
Macdonald was in no hurry to get Mr. Gressingham back to the main subject of their conversation: he was too much interested in the man himself. Obviously Tommy Gressingham was not the type of man to inspire Colonel St Cyres with anything but repugnance: he was too complacent, too impudent, too blatantly well-off, but Macdonald had met many men of the same type before. The manner which St Cyres would have described as “bounding” was in one sense a camouflage. It served to conceal the speaker’s thoughts. No one could have guessed the thoughts behind that persistently amiable countenance. Nevertheless, Macdonald knew enough about such men to know that it was a mistake to assume that they were either dishonest or ill-natured au fond—they simply left you guessing, they might be anything.
“I wish you’d answer a purely personal question, Mr. Gressingham,” said Macdonald, and the other said:
“Ask away. ‘There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience deserves a corner.’ Can you place that one, Chief Inspector?”
“Shakespeare. Henry VIII,” replied Macdonald. “You won’t misunderstand me when I say I never accept that statement at its face value.”
Gressingham laughed—a cheerful roar: “A pity you won’t have a drink, old man. The more I see of you the better I like you. What’s your question? Double or quits I can guess.” He tossed half-a-crown on the table. “What made you so anxious to come to live in these remote parts, Mr. Gressingham?”
Macdonald allowed himself to laugh that time. The mimicry of Colonel St Cyres was so excellent, even to the little nervous cough which punctuated so many of his sentences.
“Yes, you have won, but I didn’t take the bet,” said Macdonald. “What’s the answer?”
Mr. Gressingham sighed, and then put down the larger part of his drink. “Haven’t you all got one-way minds?” he asked. “Here am I, Tommy Gressingham, a Londoner, born and bred there, brought up on stock markets and tape machines, sucking in sophistication with my mother’s milk. If I want to live in the country, there’s Surrey and Berks and Bucks and Herts—nice and snug and suburban, eh? I tell you there’s no snob in the world like your country snob. To him, the City man’s a nasty smell, something the cat brought in. It’s all wrong, you know. Whatever I’ve bought it’s always been genuine and good of its kind. My Surrey place is good of its kind—hundred per cent gent’s suburban resort plus a little larch wood, a garden designed by a Chelsea snob landscape wallah, and central heating throughout. Now what’s to prevent me wanting a real country property, primitive and robust, redolent of farmyard stinks, no refinery nonsense about it? Why not? I like experience: I believe in doing everything once, even to spreading muck in a sou’westerly gale. But I like to see a friend or two about. I’ve known that pretty little girl, June St Cyres, since she was fifteen—and a damn’ pretty fifteen, too. She wrote and said she was lonely and bored, Why not come down here? So I came. She was glad to see me, and believe me she looks a hundred per cent happier since I came and imported a spot of life into the place.”
He finished his drink and took up his story again: “One more bit of the confidential, old boy, and I’m through. Then I’ll get on with the shorter catechism again. Why wouldn’t old Colonel Ramrod let me have Little Thatch? I’ll tell you for why. Because he’s got a very nice-minded daughter. God defend me from nice-minded women with Puritanism in their blood. They’ve got really nasty minds. That one—Sweet Anne of Manor Thatch—decided I wasn’t a nice person to know. Familiar, y’know. A born seducer of young wives. God save the King! Did I need to come down here to seduce young wives? Queues of ’em in London if I’d been that way disposed. I tell you it was Anne put a spoke in my wheel. Do I bear a grudge? Not I! She just makes me laugh. Well, that’s that. On with the dance, let joy be unconfined! I’m not drunk, y’know. Not on one whisky.”<
br />
“No. I’m quite sure you’re not,” said Macdonald. “I put down the effervescence to what Bergson called the élan vital.”
“I say—you’re not getting intellectual, are you? Take my advice and don’t. Intellectuality leaves me stone-cold. Well, I’ve given you Solution No.1—the chap who got the lease of Little Thatch was not Nicholas Vaughan at all.”
“Duly noted—but who was the corpse?” enquired Macdonald.
“You can pay your money and take your choice. If you care to disregard the shipwrecked mariner washed ashore at Morwinstow, you can make a good case for the corpse being Vaughan himself. It was probably conveyed in one of those crates which arrived on the coal lorry or in farm carts at regular intervals.”
“I see—but while admitting the ingenuity of the idea, I am not convinced. You see, the man who took Little Thatch knew that Commander Wilton, for instance, might arrive to look him up any time, and then the band would have played.”
“Oh, rather,” said Gressingham, “but don’t you think it’s probable these Naval wallahs have a very good idea about how long their cruise will last? Wilton probably said, ‘So long, dear old boy. See you again on May Day,’ or words to that effect, and by May Day the balloons had gone up. However, I have an open mind. Take your own idea on the subject, and postulate that Vaughan was the tenant of Little Thatch. I still maintain he had reasons for secrecy. He did not want to be observed by anyone outside the Mallorys. Very good. We return to my original question: ‘How do you know the corpse found at Little Thatch was the corpse of Nicholas Vaughan?’”
“And I have admitted that I have no irrefutable proof,” rejoined Macdonald.
“Then you’ve got to admit that the possibility exists that Vaughan took a comparatively simple way of paying off an old score,” persisted Gressingham. “He left a corpse in the ashes which he could bet would be taken for his own, and off he goes to some other nice little tenancy elsewhere. I bet he never foresaw the snag that his dear old pal, Wilton, would mess the whole show up by demanding a further police enquiry. That’s what I call a bit hard.”
3
At this stage in Gressingham’s narrative, another person strolled into the room. Macdonald had observed him hovering about in the garden for some minutes past—a preposterously fat man, one of those men who seem fated to look ridiculous.
“I say, forgive me if I’m butting in,” he said. “Hate to interfere, but could I possibly get to the phone. I want to book a long-distance call.”
“Come in and get on with it, Rummy. Sorry we’ve kept you out. This is Chief Inspector Macdonald—Raymond Radcliffe.”
Radcliffe surveyed the C.I.D. man through the enormous lenses of his glasses, and Macdonald found himself thinking, “This one isn’t stupid either, he only looks stupid.”
“I’m honoured, Chief Inspector. I’ve always wanted to meet one of you big noises at the Yard. I hope you haven’t been taking Tommy too seriously. He’s got imagination, I’ll say that for him—but he overdoes it. By the way, Tommy, did you tell the Chief Inspector about Vaughan’s telephone code? I think he’d be interested.”
“I certainly should,” said Macdonald. “What’s the story?”
“Well, it’s my story, really,” said Radcliffe. “You see, if Vaughan wanted to have a telephone message left for him, he got Mrs. Hesling to take down the message and send one of the farm boys up with it. I answered the phone one day and a lady asked for Mrs. Hesling. I said she was out, could I take the message, and she said, ‘Will you ask her to be kind enough to send a message to Mr. Vaughan at Little Thatch and say that Mrs. Jones would be glad if he could leave the ducks’ eggs at six to-morrow.’ I asked where he was to leave them and she said, ‘Oh, he knows the address,’ and rang off. Well, that seemed all plain and above board and I thought no more about it until a fortnight later I answered the phone again, and the same voice said that Mrs. Jones wanted her eggs left at half-past seven that day. Well—I ask you—nice neat bit of code work. Neat and not noticeable. You ask Mrs. Hesling if she often got messages from Mrs. Jones.”
The fat man lighted a cigarette (it was a Churchman, Macdonald noted) and added, “Mind if I use that phone? it’s in the cupboard there. Rum place to have a phone, but there it is.”
Macdonald got up to go. He felt he had had his money’s worth. Gressingham walked to the door with him and said, “Come in again some time. Always glad to see you. Don’t play bridge by any chance?”
“Not by any chance,” said Macdonald firmly.
Chapter Nine
1
Macdonald walked out of Hinton Mallory by way of the farmyard, passing the open kitchen door as he did so. Mrs. Hesling did not seem to be about, and the C.I.D. man crossed the farmyard where ducks and hens waddled and clucked, cats preened themselves in the sunshine and a very ancient sheep-dog thumped its tail in response to a greeting. It was getting on for milking time and the milking cows had assembled at the gate of their pasture and were telling the world that they needed attention: they lowed at Macdonald as he emerged from the fold-yard, and he wished—as he had wished on other occasions—that farming had been his lot.
As he shut the gate he was startled by the sound of an engine just behind him—a good full-throated roar as somebody “revved” the engine up, and on turning he saw Howard Brendon bending over the open bonnet of his big Sunbeam.
“Still here, Mr. Brendon,” said Macdonald, and the other replied:
“Yes. Choke in the feed. This Pool petrol’s death to any decent engine. Taken me all this time to clear it. Can I give you a lift anywhere? You don’t know the meaning of the word mud if you haven’t traversed this road.”
“Thanks very much, if I’m not taking you out of your way,” rejoined Macdonald. “I only want to go up to Little Thatch to recover my bike.”
“I’ll take you up there with pleasure. Get in.”
Macdonald got in, and Brendon fastened the bonnet and wiped his hands on a duster before he got into the driver’s seat, and the car moved forward cautiously over the slimy road.
Macdonald risked an enquiry: “What do you make of it all, Mr. Brendon? You must have heard the matter discussed in all its bearings.”
“I’ve heard a bit too much for my patience,” replied Brendon. “I’m afraid my opinion isn’t worth having, Chief Inspector, because I don’t know the facts at first hand, and I wasn’t acquainted with deceased. I do know he had a good reputation among the farmers, and as far as I can gather he was a shrewd, steady-going fellow—not at all the sort of customer to stage a melodrama. Doubtless the police have good reasons for continuing the enquiry, but I regret that it has to continue. The amount of tommy-rot which is being talked makes me sick.” He paused, bending forward as he negotiated a particularly bad patch of road, then he went on, “It’s not my business to volunteer opinions, but I should like to say this: Gressingham isn’t a fool by any means. He’s a very astute man of business, and he’s an honest one, or I should have no dealings with him. The trouble is that he fancies himself in the rôle of detective, and along those lines he just makes a thundering fool of himself.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Macdonald. “He’s a man who could be useful to a detective. He’s shrewd, as you say, he’s observant, and he correlates his facts. I found him interesting, as I said. Take that point about identity of deceased. It’s got to be considered—until we can find definite proof that the remains are the remains of Nicholas Vaughan.”
“Yes, I see that,” answered Brendon. “You want to silence the rumour-mongers, and every decent-minded man is with you in that. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Vaughan was in hospital, wasn’t he? I should think one of the surgeons or physicians could put the thing beyond doubt. Nearly every human being has some deviation from the normal in their bone structure I’m told. Of course, it ought to have been done before. That’s the one criticism I’d make of the cond
uct of the case—it was assumed too easily that deceased was Nicholas Vaughan. I’m quite certain myself that such was the fact—but one has to forestall rumour and sensation-mongers.”
He pulled up the car saying, “The cottage is only a hundred yards away—to the right there.”
“Thanks very much,” replied Macdonald. “Shall I be seeing you again in these parts? Certain questions are bound to arise, concerning the character and bona fides of witnesses, for example. You are a Devonian, I am not. Your judgment might be very valuable to me.”
“I shall be over again within the week. If you are professionally interested in my allowance of petrol I should like to put your mind at rest. I am consulted by the Probate Office on certain valuations, particularly on antiques—furniture, domestic fittings, etc. It is an expert job. I am willing to act if transport facilities be allowed.”
“An excellent arrangement for both parties to the transaction,” said Macdonald. “Good-day, and many thanks for the lift.”
He walked back to the entrance of Little Thatch, noting the wattle screens which had so much annoyed Gressingham. Macdonald wanted to make a fair estimate of all the characters he had encountered in the case so far. He put on one side Gressingham’s theory that the tenant of Little Thatch had not been Nicholas Vaughan. Although a case could be argued along these lines Macdonald did not believe in it. Such a case involved the assumption that Vaughan had been murdered and that his murderer then came and impersonated him at Mallory Fitzjohn. It seemed absurd to imagine that anybody could impersonate Vaughan; the latter had been an expert gardener, experienced with beasts, a good practical engineer and a man of considerable ability in a dozen different ways. Macdonald went and sat on the orchard bank and chewed over his case. Gressingham had insisted that Vaughan had something to hide; the insistence seemed almost naive to Macdonald, for it was obvious that Gressingham was the very type whom Vaughan would have detested. That being so, was it possible that a much stronger enmity existed between the two men than had been observed by anybody else? Anne St Cyres had insisted that their aversion for one another was trivial—but she might not have had an opportunity of observing the real state of affairs. The question which really emerged was this: was there any way in which Vaughan was a danger to Gressingham, or in which the one man menaced the other’s plans or security? Was there anything which Vaughan could have known that would bring such discredit on Gressingham that it was worth the latter’s while to take the risk of murdering him?
Fire in the Thatch Page 11