Fire in the Thatch

by E. C. R. Lorac

  Macdonald showed this letter to Bolton; the Superintendent studied it carefully.

  “Any chance she had a hand in the matter herself?” he enquired. “She seems a cool card and very anxious to persuade you it was all an accident. She’s mighty keen on getting this Lannerdale place, isn’t she? And she claims her brother made a will in her favour.”

  “All quite true,” agreed Macdonald. “Do you imagine she borrowed Mr. Thomas Gressingham’s car and took two of her brother’s petrol tins and dumped them by the wayside some miles away?”

  Bolton rubbed his chin: “Maybe if she was stranded for petrol she got it out to her own car that way,” he said, and then brought his fist down on the table with a bang. “Dash it all, Chief, the further we get with this story the crazier it becomes,” he declared. “Come to think of it, what evidence—solid honest-to-God evidence—have we which leads us to assume Vaughan was murdered? Two empty petrol cans and a driving glove in a spinney. Isn’t it possible there’s a simple explanation of everything?”

  “I could give you a dozen simple explanations,” said Macdonald cheerfully, “but none of them would be really convincing. Commander Wilton made one very good point when he reminded me that a sailor like Nicholas Vaughan does wake up pretty quickly if anything goes wrong. He’d be the last man in the world to sleep while his house is on fire. Then, remember this: Colonel St Cyres walked right past the front of the house, along the cobbles at half-past nine that evening. Wouldn’t Vaughan have looked out to see who was on his property?”

  “Well, if he looked out, he kept mum about it.”

  “Yes, and my guess is that Nicholas Vaughan was dead before Colonel St Cyres walked along the cobbles—but, admittedly, I haven’t proved it yet.”

  Bolton picked up Elizabeth Vaughan’s letter. “So it looks as though she’ll inherit if that’s the way of it, Chief…but you check up on her just to make sure.”

  “Yes. I seem to spend my life ‘just making sure,’” rejoined Macdonald, “and it’s time I got on with it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  1

  Mr. William Tothill, Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths, was an old-established and much respected legal practitioner in Mallowton. He and his father before him had drawn up leases and agreements, negotiated disputes, engrossed wills, advised on settlements and the management of property for nearly a century, working in the same dusty office, which looked out on to Mallowton High Street. Mr. Tothill was known as a very “safe” man. When irate clients demanded immediate legal action to redress their grievances, Mr. Tothill always advised settlement out of court. He was, as he explained, “anti-litigious.” He held it a failure if he could not induce would-be litigants to compromise without going to the extreme of taking their cases to court.

  Mr. Tothill was now seventy years of age—a dry, precise little man, not to be hurried in speech or action. It was to Mr. Tothill that Nicholas Vaughan had gone when he took the lease of Little Thatch, saying frankly that he had no knowledge of land tenures in Devonshire, and that he wished to have his agreement “vetted” by a local man of law.

  Hoping for information, though hardly expecting it, Macdonald called on the lawyer. It was a new experience for Mr. Tothill to have a Scotland Yard man in his office: such a thing had not occurred before, either in his lifetime or his father’s, and he told Macdonald so frankly. Concerning Nicholas Vaughan the lawyer spoke with approval and regard.

  “Speaking from the short experience I had of him, I should say that Mr. Vaughan was a man unusually well endowed with common sense, practical and straightforward in his dealings. He knew that agreements about tenancies are not always the simple matters they appear to be, and he saw to it that each clause dealt fairly by both tenant and owner, and that no loophole was left for future misunderstandings.”

  “I take it that he gave you to understand that he meant to settle at Little Thatch for a considerable period?” queried Macdonald, and the solicitor nodded, peering at Macdonald over the top of his old-fashioned, gold-rimmed glasses.

  “I gathered that he intended to stay there for ten years,” replied Tothill. “That was the period to which his option applied. As you probably know, he was spending money and time on improving the amenities of the property, and I suggested to him that it was not always desirable to spend money on a property held on lease. He replied that the improvements he was making would probably be out-moded in ten years’ time, and that he would have his money’s worth out of them. With regard to improvements in the land, tillage and so forth, there was a clause in the lease to reimburse him at the close of his tenancy. As I have told you, I found him a shrewd, level-headed client, well versed in rural usages, and fully alive to his own interests and responsibilities as tenant. The agreement, to which he himself suggested some reasonable additions, was mutually satisfactory to both parties and was signed with a minimum of delay. Beyond supervising the agreement, I had no further dealings with Mr. Vaughan.”

  “Have you any idea if he had employed the services of any other solicitor at any period?”

  “Mr. Vaughan stated quite explicitly that he had never needed legal advice, and had no solicitor in charge of his affairs. He owned no real estate, and his capital—a matter of a few thousand pounds—was well invested. I gather that Little Thatch was the first property he had taken on his own account, though, as I said, he was well informed on the subject of tenancies, particularly farms and small holdings.”

  “Did he never mention the subject of his Will?”

  Mr. Tothill looked primmer than ever, his lips pursed up as though he deprecated such plain speaking.

  “The matter of his Will was mentioned. He told me that he had made a Will and that he had drafted it himself, a mistake made by many otherwise business-like persons. He also said that he intended to make another Will shortly, and put the drafting in my hands. Unfortunately, he had not carried this intention into effect, neither had he given me any instructions about the matter. It is probable that his Will was destroyed in the fire at Little Thatch, since he had not deposited the document here nor at his Bank. The Manager of the Western Counties Bank enquired of me as to whether I held Mr. Vaughan’s Will, or if I had any knowledge of his testamentary dispositions, and I regretted that I was unable to give any information. The result is that deceased died intestate and no indication of his wishes can be known to guide his heirs.”

  “Did he ever mention to you the fact that he intended to marry?”

  “He did not; we had little or no personal intercourse.”

  Macdonald, realising that he could learn nothing further along these lines, changed his angle of approach with deliberate abruptness.

  “Have you met a gentleman named Mr. Thomas Gressingham?” he enquired, and the lawyer stared at him for some seconds as though assessing the real meaning of this enquiry. Macdonald sat tight and waited, and at length Mr. Tothill replied,

  “A gentleman of that name, who has been staying at Hinton Mallory, called on me to enquire if I had any knowledge of properties likely to come on the market in the near future. Speaking confidentially, Chief Inspector, and without witnesses, I am willing to tell you that the impression made on me by Mr. Gressingham was not favourable.” Pressing his finger tips together, Mr. Tothill continued: “Mr. Gressingham seemed to have an idea that I should be willing to discuss my clients with him and give him a leader concerning possible sellers. He held the belief, it appeared to me, that everything and everybody had a price. My interview with him was brief, and he has not sought another one.”

  Macdonald allowed himself a chuckle. “I have no doubt you dealt faithfully with him, sir. Do you suppose that he visited all the legal men in the county in order to pursue his enquiries?”

  “That I cannot tell,” replied Mr. Tothill. “In my case he came with an introduction. Mr. Howard Brendon wrote to me asking me to assist Mr. Gressingham with any information I wa
s able to give.” Again Mr. Tothill paused and then went on: “Since you have mentioned Mr. Gressingham’s name to me, Chief Inspector, I may take it that your interest in him is official?”

  “Speaking confidentially, as you put it, sir, I admit that such is the case. I have nothing positive against Mr. Gressingham, but I admit he arouses my curiosity. I can’t fit him into the picture, if you follow me?”

  Mr. Tothill nodded judicially. “I follow you very well indeed. It is only natural that conjecture is rife over this matter. I have had occasion to rebuke several persons who carried conjecture too far. I think it only right to put you in possession of any facts known to me. I first heard of Mr. Gressingham from Mr. Howard Brendon. The latter, you may know, has a property in the Dulverton district. I think I may say without breaking confidence that Mr. Brendon’s property is coming into the market. He has been trying to sell it privately for some months past—I gather he has bought another property in the Midlands—and I think he hoped that Mr. Gressingham would buy the Dulverton place. The latter, however, did not care for it, and preferred to seek a property in the south of the county. All this is open and legitimate business, and I should have been happy to act for Mr. Gressingham over negotiating the purchase of any property on the market. What I resented was his implication that I was willing to discuss the financial status of my clients with him, so that he might be in a position to jockey them into selling property. Frankly, Chief Inspector, I found him an unpleasant person, and one with whom I had no wish to have any transactions.”

  “During your interview did Mr. Gressingham mention Little Thatch?”

  “Certainly he did. He said he wanted to buy it, together with the farm where he is staying, but I told him that I had no knowledge of the properties save that they were not for sale.”

  Macdonald pondered for a moment, then he said: “I am surprised to learn that Mr. Brendon is selling his property. I had thought of him as being firmly established in the district.”

  Mr. Tothill hesitated a moment and then said: “If you lived in this locality you would soon hear a considerable amount of discussion about him. A few years ago he had a dispute over a Right of Way through his parkland. He closed a path, and his gates were broken down. Unwisely, in my judgment, he took his case into court, and he won the case. As so often happens, it was a barren victory. If you live in the country you must live on reasonably good terms with your neighbours. Since winning his case I believe it correct to say that he has been ostracised by his neighbours. He is very wise to seek another home. This is gossip, Chief Inspector, but it is current gossip, such as you would hear in any market town around here.”

  “I believe that Mr. Brendon is a married man,” observed Macdonald, and old Tothill stared at him with his shrewd, long-sighted old eyes.

  “That is so,” he observed, and then made a comment which puzzled Macdonald a little. “If you are connecting Mr. Gressingham with that matter, as I believe some ill-intentioned gossips have done, I think you are at fault. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Brendon and Mr. Gressingham are business acquaintances, nothing else. Being a man who believes in speaking his mind, I told Mr. Brendon that I was not favourably impressed with his friend, and Mr. Brendon said that I should be ill-advised to make hasty judgments. Though Gressingham might on occasion lack discretion in his speech, he was a man of probity in his business dealings.”

  “I gather that you have a respect for Mr. Brendon’s judgment, sir?”

  “Certainly I have. I have had various dealings with him, and found his judgment was to be trusted.”

  “You might be interested in these facts,” said Macdonald, and gave a terse account of the discovery of the petrol cans and the traces of Mr. Gressingham’s Daimler.

  Mr. Tothill listened intently, and then said: “I find this evidence a little bewildering. Do you deduce that Mr. Gressingham has been obtaining petrol illicitly and that the late Mr. Vaughan connived at the transaction? I find it difficult to credit. It seems quite out of character for Mr. Vaughan to have acted in such a manner. I could more easily believe that the petrol had been stolen—though I am aware that such an allegation would be slanderous.”

  “The idea of theft had occurred to me,” said Macdonald. “In the first instance it might have been suggested as a rag—one of those pieces of foolishness which grown men have been known to commit when they have had a drink too many. If Nicholas Vaughan discovered that his petrol had been stolen, I can imagine him making a good deal of trouble for the thief.”

  Mr. Tothill nodded. “I see your trend, Chief Inspector. You believe that Nicholas Vaughan met his death through foul play, and you are seeking for a motive.”

  “That’s it. I am pretty sure in my own mind that Nicholas Vaughan was murdered, and I am hunting for a motive. I have told you the connecting link which brings Mr. Gressingham into the picture, and I have been interested in hearing your opinion of him. You have also told me that Mr. Gressingham came to you with an introduction from Mr. Brendon. I wish you would give me your opinion on this point. I have it in mind to go to see Mr. Brendon and to put these latest facts before him, and to ask for his co-operation. Do you consider that in doing so I shall be defeating my own ends? Will Mr. Brendon be likely to act in a legal capacity for Mr. Gressingham?”

  The lawyer chuckled, a dry sound but full of amusement.

  “I see your point, Chief Inspector. If you want information likely to lead to the arrest of a miscreant, you would hardly expect to be provided with it by the latter’s legal adviser. Mr. Howard Brendon is a solicitor, but he has not practised his profession for many years. He would not act for Mr. Gressingham—but he might advise him. If you want my opinion of Mr. Brendon, I can tell you that he has a name in the county for being a man of his word. He may be disliked by those who find him a hard man, but he is not mistrusted. Those who have had dealings with him can tell you that if he has given his word, he will abide by it, even to his own disadvantage: if he has said he will follow a certain course, he follows it.”

  “While I admire consistency, I deprecate mere obstinacy,” observed Macdonald, and Mr. Tothill nodded, acknowledging the shrewdness of the oblique remark.

  “You are right,” he said. “I mentioned the matter of Mr. Brendon’s lawsuit over the Right of Way. He would have been a wiser man if he had been willing to compromise, but because he claimed that he would close the path in question, because he claimed the full rights of the property owner, he went to the extreme of a lawsuit which alienated him from his neighbours. Now, in this matter of consulting with him over his friend Gressingham. If Mr. Brendon has undertaken to help Mr. Gressingham with advice—to back him, in other words—you will undertake a fruitless errand if you seek information from him which may inculpate his friend.”

  “Surely if Mr. Brendon be the law-abiding character you have indicated he would not hold a brief for a man who may have committed a crime?” asked Macdonald.

  Old Tothill replied: “I have had a few words with Mr. Brendon on this matter and he stated his opinion very clearly. He believes that Nicholas Vaughan met his death by accident in a fire whose cause was accidental. Mr. Brendon regards the enquiry you are undertaking as an unjustifiable expenditure of public money to gratify the prejudice of a naval officer who cannot accept plain evidence. I tell you this to indicate that there is very little probability that he will be prepared to co-operate with you in the way you suggest.”

  Mr. Tothill paused again, and Macdonald waited patiently: the old solicitor’s pauses seemed worth respecting, because in his dry, precise way he was capable of making interesting suggestions. The small rasping voice went on again at length.

  “As you know, Chief Inspector, this case of yours is being debated in every house in the town—in every shop and bar, in the Council Chamber and the Chamber of Commerce, in every club and at every meeting. The public does not regard Mr. Gressingham with a kindly eye—in the minds of some he has
been tried, sentenced and hanged already—but there is another individual who finds even less favour in public esteem, and that is Mr. Raymond Radcliffe. When it comes to misappropriating petrol…” Mr. Tothill fell silent, looking at Macdonald intently, with pursed-up lips, and the Chief Inspector allowed himself another chuckle.

  “I rather favour the public judgment there,” he said. “I might ask Mr. Brendon’s opinion of the fellow. Meantime, many thanks for sparing me so much time, and for giving me some good advice, both explicit and implicit, Mr. Tothill.”

  2

  At the same time that Macdonald was talking to Mr. Tothill, Thomas Gressingham came into his sitting-room at Hinton Mallory and found Raymond Radcliffe sitting at an old-fashioned writing bureau going through the papers which were stacked in the pigeon holes. Gressingham closed the door quietly behind him and advanced into the room with his hands in his pockets.

  “What the devil do you think you are doing, Rummy?” he enquired. “That desk is mine, in the sense that I use it. Its contents are certainly mine.”

  “I know, old chap, I know,” replied Radcliffe calmly. “Don’t imagine I’m laying claim to anything, or that I take any interest in your papers. I don’t. The fact is I’ve mislaid one or two letters of my own and I want to find them. The probability is that I left them about and Mrs. Hesling bunged them in here amongst yours.”

  “I keep that desk locked. It was locked when I went out,” said Gressingham and Radcliffe nodded.

  “Quite right, old chap, but, you see, the key of the bookcase above it fits the desk as well. Mrs. H. would know that and she probably just shoved any odd letters in. All these tidying up females are a menace—just can’t leave things put.”

  Gressingham sat very still, and the expression on his face was not amiable. “It didn’t occur to you to ask me if I’d seen any of your letters before I went out, Rummy, or to wait to ask me when I came in?”