Fire in the Thatch

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “I will leave you to talk to Miss Vaughan here. If there is anything I can do, you have only to call me.”

  Elizabeth Vaughan set about her explanation to Macdonald with the straightforward clarity which was characteristic of her, ending up by saying: “I should like to say that I have no sympathy with Commander Wilton’s views: I think he is trying to make more trouble and create a melodrama from a wretched accident. I hope you have found that the straightforward explanation is the most probable one.”

  “The trouble is that I don’t seem able to produce a straightforward explanation,” replied Macdonald. “There were two suggestions put forward to account for the fire; one was that the electric wiring was faulty, the other was that the kitchen chimney was at fault. Neither of these is tenable. The wiring could not have been to blame because there was no current—the storage batteries were not charged. I have spent most of to-day finding an old builder who once repaired the kitchen chimney, and he has assured me that no beam impinged on the stone chimney. The latter was almost a separate structure, built out clear of the cob walls in the way characteristic of the period, so I am farther than ever from finding a straightforward explanation.”

  Elizabeth Vaughan sat silent, a frown on her smooth forehead. “So you believe the cottage was deliberately fired?” she asked.

  “I am afraid that such a view must be considered. Why should that cottage have caught fire? I think it probable that the kitchen fire had not even been lighted on the Saturday of the fire, and from what I have been told of your brother, he was not the type of man to be careless with candle or lamp. He was said to have returned home shortly after nine o’clock in the evening. At half-past nine, when Colonel St Cyres walked through the garden, there was no light in the windows. In short, the theory of accident has nothing to uphold it.”

  Elizabeth Vaughan sat very still, and when she answered her voice was tense.

  “Do you suppose that my brother went to bed and to sleep and that somebody set light to the cottage without waking him?”

  “No. If his death were due to foul play, I think he must have been killed first, and the cottage fired afterwards to conceal the crime. I may be quite wrong, but such a possibility exists. Will you answer a few questions about him?”

  “Of course”

  “Have you any idea why he came to live in Devon?”

  “The only answer to that seems to be that Commander Wilton suggested this place and Nick liked it.”

  “Would you have expected him to settle in Devon?”

  “Certainly not. I should have expected him to go back to Lannerdale. They would have been glad to have him there: Uncle Joe was an old man and needed help.”

  “Your brother was fond of Lannerdale?”

  “He loved it. We both did.”

  “Then can you make any suggestion as to why he came and settled in Devon and at the same time told his family nothing of his doings? Was there any reason to keep him from Lannerdale?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Next, about his intended marriage. Have you any idea whom he meant to marry?”

  “No idea at all. He never mentioned anything of the kind to me.”

  Macdonald sat back in his chair and went on: “Doesn’t it seem reasonable to connect the two topics—his choice of abode and his choice of a wife? Isn’t it probable that his wife-to-be was either a Devonshire woman, or else a woman who did not want to go and live up north in Lannerdale?”

  “That’s quite a reasonable supposition, but what has it got to do with his death?”

  “I have been thinking about this problem from every angle, Miss Vaughan. Your brother seems to have been a very straightforward person. I can only find two points concerning him which aren’t easy to answer; one is his choice of Devon as a place to live in, one is the identity of the woman he hoped to marry. If there is any mystery about his death, it may well be concerned with those points. Can you remember any woman he cared about up north?”

  “I don’t know. My brother was a very reticent person and did not discuss his affairs with anybody. I think when he was an undergraduate he was in love with a girl over at Kirkby Lonsdale—but I believe she got married to someone else. Since then I’ve never known Nick to show any interest in a woman.”

  “Can you remember her name?”

  “No. I never knew her. Her first name was Molly, or Mary or Maggie—something commonplace. She wasn’t a native of our parts: she used to stay with some people we knew in the holidays. I imagine she was a teacher. Oh, it’s all ages ago—and what can it have to do with the fire at Little Thatch?”

  “Possibly nothing, but will you try to find out her name and who she married?”

  “Yes. If you want me to. How furious Nick would have been about all this! He simply loathed people who ran round asking questions.”

  “I’m sorry, but questions have got to be asked. Another point: did your brother always type his letters?”

  “Of late years, yes. His handwriting was execrable. He took to typing when he first got things published. He wrote a bit, mostly journalistic stuff, but he produced one book—pretty good. He didn’t tell me about it—that was just like him—but I got it out of the library and recognised what he was writing about. It was called Simon the Dalesman—it was all about Lannerdale.”

  “I read that book,” said Macdonald. “I’d been on a job up north, near Lancaster, and I enjoyed reading about the country I’d just been in. Then your brother, Nicholas Vaughan, was the Henry Heythwaite who wrote Simon the Dalesman?”

  “Yes. I only told you that because you asked about his typing. I expect when he settled at Little Thatch he meant to do some more writing.”

  “Next,” went on Macdonald, “I think you had better tell me about the cousins who were to inherit Lannerdale if your brother predeceased his uncle.”

  “The Hawkins. Sidney Herbert Hawkins—our pet abomination. He was something to do with shipping. He lived at Barrow when we were young, then he moved to Liverpool, and of recent years he’s lived in Southampton or Portsmouth, I believe. If you want to know about him you can write to uncle’s lawyers—Prestwich & Bonner of Sledbergh. I can’t imagine Sidney Herbert killing Nick in order to inherit Lannerdale. He despised the place.”

  Macdonald sat silent for a moment, then he said: “One of the reasons, among many others, that a case like this has to be fully investigated is this: to kill the gossip which always rages round any unsolved problem. Do you know that an enterprising journalist has wormed out the fact that Colonel St Cyres went to Little Thatch at half-past nine that Saturday evening, and has insinuated that St Cyres was responsible for the subsequent disaster because Nicholas Vaughan was making love to his daughter?”

  “How loathsome! Why, the old man is a dear—the kindest, straightest person.”

  “So I believe,” said Macdonald, “but stories like that make me determined to find out what did happen.”

  “Oh dear!” Elizabeth Vaughan sighed. “All this fuss and gossip about Nick who hated fuss and gossip—and he probably forgot to blow his candle out when he went and got some paraffin from the cupboard.”

  “I don’t see him doing that—not if he was the man I imagine him to be,” replied Macdonald.

  Chapter Twelve

  1

  “Tommy, do you know that there’s a story going round that you were out in your car on the night Little Thatch was burnt?”

  It was June St Cyres who spoke. She had walked down to Hinton Mallory for her evening cocktail, and Gressingham was filling their glasses.

  “My dear, if you collect every story that’s going round the countryside dealing with that subject you’ll have enough material to fill several volumes, and to provide actions for libel and slander sufficient to keep the courts busy for a year.”

  Gressingham sounded as cheerful as ever as he carried over June
’s glass, saying “Try this one—and happy days.”

  June sipped her drink thoughtfully. “Yes. That’s all right,” she said. “All the same, Tommy, I should kill that yarn stone dead. It’s all very well to sound so happy and confident, but you’re not getting a good press among the natives, so to speak, and this long-chinned Scots inspector is still snooping around.”

  “Let him snoop, sweet child. That’s okay by me. I was not out in my car on the night in question—and that’s that. Who said I was anyway, and if so, why?”

  “That filthy evacuee brat at Dickon’s. He’s got a swollen head because the police have asked him so many questions. He boasts he can recognise the sound of every car in the district as it passes Corner Cottage, and he says your car passed after dark that evening.”

  “Well, he’s wrong,” replied Gressingham. “What that lad wants is a thrashing, and, by gad, he’ll get one if he goes on telling lies about me. Actually, I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if the young devil knows a lot more about the fire than he’s admitted. Brats of that type have indulged in arson many a time before this.”

  June sipped her drink thoughtfully: “Aren’t you a bit inconsistent, Tommy?”

  “How so, angel? You’re the last person who should say that.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that,” she replied. “I mean about this beastly fire. You keep on producing fresh ideas. First you say that the tenant at the cottage wasn’t Vaughan at all: then you say the corpse might be someone Vaughan himself bumped off.”

  “Quite true. I only say might, mark you. There isn’t a ha-porth of proof anywhere.”

  June paused a moment, fiddling with her rings, then she went on: “Well, I wish you could prove that your car was not taken out that night. Everyone’s asking what you were doing on the road after you’ve said you didn’t go out after ten.”

  “They are, are they?” asked Gressingham, and for once he sounded nettled. June went on hastily:

  “You’ve said yourself how country people gossip, and it’s true. Since the Yard man came here everyone is talking harder than ever. Because you’re a Londoner they’re all beginning to say that you know more about it than you’ve admitted.”

  “And who are ‘they,’ June?”

  “The farm labourers and the butcher and baker and oilman, and all the rest. I know, because even Pops is getting a bit fed-up about it. It was he who said it’d be a good idea if you could prove that your car was not taken out that night.”

  “Did he, by jove! Very thoughtful of him. Perhaps he’d like me to prove that he was not the last person known to have been at Little Thatch before the fire.”

  “Oh, don’t be tiresome, Tommy. He’s a crashing bore, I know that, but he’d never do anything he didn’t think right. Tommy, can’t you prove, bang out, that your car didn’t pass Dickon’s cottage between ten and eleven o’clock? Ridd’s saying he saw it now.”

  Gressingham shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I can’t stop these clodhoppers inventing things, June. You know I walked back to the Manor with you that Saturday, and I left you on the terrace about twenty past nine. I walked through the spinney to the post box and back here by the road. It must have been about ten o’clock when I got back.”

  “Did you look in your garage?”

  “Of course not. Why should I?”

  “Then how do you know the car was there?”

  “It was there next morning, none the worse.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything. How do you know somebody didn’t borrow it?”

  “What on earth for? I wish you’d tell me what you’re really thinking about, June.”

  She pushed her glass away and sat with her elbows on the table and spoke slowly: “I believe the police suspect that somebody killed Vaughan in the cottage after he got back and then set light to the place. That must have been done after most people hereabouts had gone to bed. Say, if the man who did it came down here and borrowed your car in order to get somewhere else to prove an alibi and then returned the car later. It’s not impossible. You’ve always said that anyone could open the padlock on the shed where you keep the car.”

  “Well, well! You’ve been thinking it all out in the best detective story style, angel. That means that it was done by somebody who knew all about my car.”

  “I know, but everyone knows you’ve got a car down here. Tommy, did you see Rummy Radcliffe when you got in that night?”

  “No. He went up to bed early, like he does sometimes, the lazy devil. You remember he said to you he was going to turn in to read in bed.”

  “Oh, bother!” she cried. “Why did he want to go to bed early on that night for? It just means you can’t prove anything.”

  “Steady on, sweet! I wasn’t aware that I’d got to prove anything.”

  “I know, but it would be much more comfortable if you could, Tommy. It’s all so beastly. You see, you did dislike Vaughan, and so did I. I loathed him. You remember that day he met us when we were down by the Mallow? He didn’t say anything, but you could tell from his face what he thought, the puritanical beast! I didn’t tell you, but that farm labourer—Joe Buck—was down in the river meadows that afternoon, and he saw you and me and Vaughan. He’s quite likely to say that you and Vaughan quarrelled.”

  “Good God! I never realised you were worrying about it like this, angel. Is it any use telling you that I did not kill Vaughan and set fire to his cottage—because I assure you I did not!”

  “Don’t be an idiot! I know you didn’t, but I wish we could prove that all this gossip is a lie. It simply gives me the horrors.”

  “My poor child!” Gressingham sounded really concerned for once. “Would you rather I went away for a bit? I can’t have you bothered like this.”

  “No, no! Of course you can’t go away, people would only gossip more. It might be a good idea if Meriel came here for a bit though. If your wife were here people could see…it’s all right and we’re all friends.”

  Gressingham shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, sweet, but I’m afraid Meriel might not oblige. She’s rather taken to paddling her own canoe—and I’ve just let her go her own way…You did know that, angel. You can’t have it all ways, you know. I don’t want to remind you about all the things we discussed—not now, when things are a bit complicated by all this mess, but you did agree, June. I just left Meriel to do as she liked—and she has her own life to live, you know.”

  June St Cyres sat silent, and for once her face was frightened. “What had we better do?” she asked, and Gressingham replied:

  “Do nothing at all. Why should we? We’re not involved in this business, and there’s no need to get in a state of nerves about it.”

  2

  It was at this juncture in the conversation that a very unwelcome interruption occurred. Mrs. Hesling showed Chief Inspector Macdonald into the room, and Gressingham at least wished him at the devil. June St Cyres’ face was a study, and to anybody observant of human physiognomy it was a study in fear—and Gressingham knew it. Rising in his slow, rather clumsy way, Gressingham spoke with his customary nonchalance.

  “Good-afternoon, Chief Inspector. Have you met Mrs. St Cyres—the Colonel’s daughter-in-law. I was just going to walk back to the Manor with her. Can you wait for just a few minutes?”

  “Of course you needn’t bother to walk back with me,” protested June, but her voice was strained and unnatural. “I had better get back because Michael will be wanting me. Give my love to Meriel, Tom, and tell her to try to come down for a few days. She must be needing a rest after all that driving, and she always loves this place. Good-bye for now—and thank you for the drink.”

  She was out of the room before Gressingham had time to reply, and he turned to Macdonald with a gesture of irritation.

  “This business at Little Thatch seems to be getting on everyone’s nerves,” he said. “Mrs. St Cyres is worrying hersel
f because she’s heard the yokels are saying that my car was seen on the road the night of the fire.”

  “Yes. It’s partly on that account that I came to see you,” replied Macdonald. “I take it you can give an assurance that your car was not on the road that night?”

  Gressingham sat down deliberately and faced the other.

  “I can give you my assurance that I did not take my car out that night, and to the best of my knowledge and belief my car was locked up in the garage—or shed, to be more accurate—all that night and the following day.”

  “When did you last take your car out?”

  “The previous Thursday, when I came back here. I have only recently had a car down here: there is, as you know, no alternative transport for some miles, and the taxi-hire business is very unsatisfactory. I brought the car down here so that I could get into Exeter on necessary business if occasion demanded it.”

  “Quite—that does not come within my province, but I want to get at the root of this story about your car being on the road on the Saturday night. You say you had not had it out since the previous Thursday. Do you know how much petrol was in the tank then?”

  “Yes. Four and a half gallons, approximately. I put in three when I brought it through Mallowton, and there were two gallons in the tank before I refilled. It took something under half a gallon to drive it here from Mallowton. The answer is the four and a half which remains.”

  “You say the car was in its place all the Saturday night—”

  “Steady on, Inspector. What I said was that I believed it was in its place. I hadn’t used it that day and I had no reason to go and look at it on the Saturday evening. The shed was padlocked and the key is in my possession. If the car was taken out it was done without my knowledge. No one heard it being taken out, and the petrol shows it couldn’t have been run far, if at all.”