“I see. I wondered how you would arrange things,” said Macdonald. “It’s an ingenious idea: your ideas are ingenious, and you have a great sense of detail. I suppose that you have arranged to stay at that hotel in Taunton, as you did before? The outside lock-ups for cars are just what you need for your plans.”
Brendon stared back, and Macdonald could see the small muscles twitching round his eyes and the pulses of his temples throbbing. He answered at last, his curt voice rather hoarse: “Yes, just what I wanted. You’re intelligent. I realised that the moment I set eyes on you, but you’ve the usual defect of the Scots—you’re too sure of yourself. It’s conceit that has finished you. You came here alone, thinking you could be master of the situation, and I’ve got you covered. You’re quite helpless. I’ve noticed the way you prefer to work alone. I’ve been watching you quite a lot—just as I watched Vaughan. Creature of habit, you know. Men tend to grow like that.”
“Yes,” agreed Macdonald. “That’s quite true. I realise the situation all right, but I’d like you to know this. I’ve got my duty to do, no matter what my position may be, and it’s my duty to caution you that anything you say can be used in evidence against you.”
Brendon laughed. “You haven’t much sense of humour, have you? Keep your hands on that chair. I’m not risking anything. Whoever gives evidence, it won’t be you. This house is well and truly secured. There are shutters at all the windows and the doors are good ones. They’ll burn eventually—but not for a long time. I’ve got it all arranged.”
“Then before you stage the final act, wouldn’t you like to hear a reconstruction of the story? This is a unique situation, isn’t it?”
Again came that short, rasping laugh and the queer twitch of the eyes. “I’d say it is. I’ll give you five minutes. I shall enjoy hearing you talk. I promise I won’t repeat any confidences.”
“That’s for you to decide. When I’ve finished you can tell me where I went wrong. I think the crucial point was the matter of Gressingham’s car. Somebody used it that night, and somebody obtained about a gallon of petrol from Little Thatch—counting what was left, after refuelling the Daimler. Now it seemed unreasonable to suppose that Gressingham took his car out. If he did the job at Little Thatch he had no need of a car. Even supposing he had killed Vaughan in that spinney where the petrol cans were dumped, there was Vaughan’s Morris to bring him back to Mallory Fitzjohn. The man who took the Daimler out did it in order to take a little petrol to refuel his own car, which had run short. He couldn’t go to a garage to refuel, could he? It was essential for him not to be seen about. Theoretically he was in his room at a hotel in Taunton—and he had got to get back there so that he could be seen in the lounge as soon as possible—say about eleven o’clock. I worked it out like this: Vaughan reached the spinney at 6.15, in response to the telephone message. He was killed in the spinney. He had backed his own car into a recess in the road where road metal had been dumped. The killer drove back to Taunton and had dinner at his hotel—it was only a twenty-mile drive. He went into the lounge from seven-thirty to eight-thirty, and then said he was going to work in his room. He slipped out of the hotel, got out the car he had hired for the purpose, and drove to the spinney again, putting on Vaughan’s coat and hat. He then drove back to the Mallorys in Vaughan’s Morris. It was twilight, and he risked sounding the horn and waving in Vaughan’s habitual manner at Corner Cottage. The rest he managed skilfully—but he had a lot of luck when he dragged a sack unseen into the cottage.”
Brendon’s face twitched more than ever. “That was the difficult part,” he said. “I can use my brains—but it took a lot of muscle to move that sack…”
Macdonald went on in his even voice: “Having completed all that it was necessary to do at Little Thatch, the killer went down to Hinton Mallory. It was getting dark now, and he risked walking in Vaughan’s old coat and his ancient hat. He got the Daimler out without being observed, drove up the hill and picked up the petrol he had dumped, and drove back to the spinney. He put some petrol in his own tank, and drove back to Taunton. I know that because he was seen in the hotel there at half-past eleven. I think he must have left Gressingham’s Daimler parked by the spinney where the petrol cans were concealed. Very few people pass that way, and none of the folk at the farm near by went out that evening after dusk. This plan necessitated another drive: leaving the Taunton hotel in the small hours he drove back to the spinney and returned the Daimler to the shed at Hinton Mallory, with added fuel in its tanks. Then, a walk back to the spinney and a final drive in to Taunton, and the matter of getting back into the hotel again by the bedroom window—not too difficult for a determined man. It was very well thought out.”
Brendon was breathing heavily, but his pale face was more under control, the twitch around his eyes less noticeable. “You interest me,” he said, and his dry voice was almost his normal curt tone. “You have a hypothetical case, but you have no evidence. It’s all assumption. I should be interested to hear the case put forward by Counsel for the Prosecution and to hear it riddled by defending counsel—as it would be—but it won’t come to that. I’ve thought it all out.”
“Your mistake was in using Gressingham’s Daimler, and thereby bringing Gressingham into it,” said Macdonald. “He began to think, and, unlike you, I never despised his ability. I always thought he was shrewd and observant—and you found that to be true in the end. Gressingham guessed, and you had to finish him, too, to safeguard yourself. You might have got away with the Little Thatch fire, but not with the second business. The case is complete against you—including motive and method.”
“So you boast. Do you think I have planned thus far and not thought ahead? I know what I’m going to do, and I know what I’m going to do with you, too. You’ve come here to see Radcliffe, and you’ll see him—and that will be the end…another fire. I tell you I’ve dreamed of fire, dreamed of it…flames rising higher and higher, flames burning up all that went against me. Nicholas Vaughan thought he could beat me, thought he could win…I tell you I killed him as easily as I could kill a rabbit, as easily as I can kill you…”
The curt voice rose, getting sharper and shriller with each word. Brendon stood there, a pistol in his hand, the light of madness in his eyes, and suddenly there was a sound from the other side of the room as the old door creaked on its hinges as it opened. In the door space stood Bolton and two of his men, and when he saw them Brendon squealed as a rabbit squeals in a trap. He lifted his pistol to his head, and the shot reverberated through the room before the heavier thud of his own falling body.
5
Bolton mopped his forehead and sat down heavily on a chair. “That was an ugly sight, Chief, but you took an almighty risk.”
“No, not much of a risk. When I got his phone message I realised his mind must be going. If he thought he could trick me into coming here alone it meant that his normal mental capacity was failing. When I saw him I knew at once he was mad—and a madman is not dangerous when you’re prepared for him. When the phone here went as we arranged when I came in, he gave me the chance I wanted to open the front door for you to come in. He never noticed that. Now we’d better look for Radcliffe. He’s here somewhere, and I’ve a feeling he’s still alive.”
Radcliffe was found in the dining-room. He was lying back in one of the big leather armchairs, snoring as a drugged man snores.
“He was luckier than his friend Gressingham,” said Macdonald. “I can’t say I’ve ever liked the look of Mr. Radcliffe, but I think he may be useful for once in his life, answering a few questions.”
Chapter Seventeen
1
It was to Colonel St Cyres and his daughter that Macdonald gave an exposition concerning the Little Thatch case. Sitting in the sunlight on the terrace at Manor Thatch, the Chief Inspector talked to the troubled pair, his voice gentle, for he realised that both of his hearers would feel sad for a long time when they thought of th
eir last tenant.
“When Commander Wilton urged his point of view about Vaughan’s death I felt that he had one or two strong arguments,” said Macdonald. “First, in saying that Vaughan was a skilled engineer and a very careful workman: secondly, in urging that a sailor was the last person who would remain asleep while a fire took hold of his dwelling. Examination of the investigation by the local police force showed a very careful piece of work in which there were two gaps which needed to be filled—in my opinion. One was ‘Where did Vaughan go to on the last evening of his life?’ Two, ‘Who was the woman Vaughan hoped to marry?’ The first seemed important to me, because if Vaughan had been to see one of his farmer friends, or had been doing any of the business transacted in the usual run of agricultural life, I was certain that the farmer or merchant he visited would have come forward and said ‘I saw him that evening.’ The fact that nobody did admit having seen him proved, to my mind, that there was probably a secret in a life which had appeared to be open. Then, concerning the woman he hoped to marry: she did not appear. She made no enquiries, and yet I believed that he was preparing a home for his future wife. This again prompted me to believe there was a secret—and in detection, a secret is like a pointer, urging a detective to find out.”
Anne St Cyres frowned unhappily. “All that is rather dreadful. Mr. Vaughan seemed such an open person, for all that he was so reserved. I hate the need for prying.”
“I hate it, too, in one sense,” said Macdonald, “but I should have hated more for Vaughan’s murderer to be undetected. A murderer at large is a potential menace. However, to leave that and get on with my problem. I had another argument to go on—a private and personal one with which you would not have agreed. I asked myself ‘Why did Vaughan choose to live in Devon?’ I think all men who have lived and worked in the country grow to love the locality in which they were reared. The countryman tends to take roots. I have seen something of the dalesmen in that part of England where Vaughan was brought up, and their devotion to their locality is profound, though it is seldom put into words.” Macdonald turned to Anne: “Amn’t I right in saying that it would take a very strong motive to make you forsake the West country and go to live in the North? When you saw the colourless limestone and the greyness of the fells, wouldn’t you be sick at heart for your rose-red soil and the deep flowered lanes of Devon?”
“Of course: it would be like transplanting a deeply rooted tree—but I can imagine agreeing to it in some circumstances.”
“Of course you would. So did Vaughan. He settled here, and I guessed the motive which made him do so was concerned with the woman he meant to marry. Either she was Devonshire born, or else she was a woman who had some reason for avoiding Lannerdale and the country around there. That was my guess, and you will see how near it came to the actual facts.”
Colonel St Cyres pulled his pipe out and began to fill it. “I have thought a lot about this same problem,” he said. “I remember when Vaughan first said he would take the cottage I suggested it was only fair to his future wife that she should see it first. Later, when he got to know Anne, I wondered why his wife-to-be wasn’t brought into the picture—but it wasn’t my business to probe into another man’s affairs. I put it out of my mind.”
“Well, there was my starting point,” said Macdonald. “Just an idea, one of these ‘I wonder ifs’ that come into a detective’s mind at the outset of a case. The immediate practical job was to determine the likelihood of the theory of accident, and the more I examined it the less I was convinced of its cogency. Wilton’s case seemed to be strengthened and the accidental explanation shrank into insignificance. That being so, what grounds could I find on which to base a case? It was young Alf who started me in the right direction. I believed him when he said he had heard Gressingham’s car pass Corner Cottage.”
Colonel St Cyres puffed hard at his pipe. “I never liked the chap,” he said unhappily. “I knew I was incapable of being fair to him, just because I didn’t like him. Then there was that business of smelling his cigarette smoke that night…”
“We’ll get that cigarette smoke cleared away at the outset, sir,” said Macdonald. “It always seemed to me in the highest degree improbable that if Gressingham were concerned in the case he would have been so foolish as to smoke in the garden of Little Thatch that night. There was a possibility that the person who smoked Balkan Sobranie cigarettes had done so in order to throw suspicion on Gressingham, but as it turned out the cigarette smoke had a quite different explanation. Radcliffe gave a box of Balkan Sobranies to the land girl he had been amusing himself with, and this girl came out to Mallory Fitzjohn that evening and sat below the hedge of the Little Thatch garden, wondering if Radcliffe would come out to meet her there, as he had often done. She threw the stubs of her cigarettes back over the hedge, where I found them—but Radcliffe did not come to meet her, and the cigarettes had no bearing on the case—except to point to the unfortunate Gressingham.”
“Didn’t you inevitably suspect Gressingham to begin with?” enquired St Cyres.
“Yes—but I suspected everybody. It was my business to do so. When I first met him I was interested in his reaction to the case. Had he been guilty I should have expected him to avoid any discussion of the case, and to express a strong belief that the jury had been right and accident accounted for everything. Gressingham never struck me as any sort of a fool: I thought he was shrewd, observant, and far-seeing. Had he been guilty he would have realised the risk he took in prolonged discussion of the case—it is so very easy to slip up and show that you know just a little more than an innocent person has any business to know. However, far from avoiding discussion, he fairly spread himself and talked over the matter in all its bearings. He was genuinely interested: he admitted to disliking Vaughan—none of the ‘poor chap…shocking accident’ attitude about him at all. Gressingham was full of enthusiasm for an investigation which, if he were guilty, was fraught with danger to himself. No. If Gressingham had been guilty he would most likely have produced some convincing evidence which would have reinforced the accident theory.”
Anne sighed. “I should never be any good at detection. It’s like chess, you have to suspect what every move leads to.”
“That’s quite true,” agreed Macdonald. “Now I think it was pure chance which determined that Howard Brendon should have been present when I first saw Gressingham, and I was immediately interested in him. He stayed deliberately while I talked to Gressingham, rather in the manner of a solicitor holding a watching brief—but Gressingham didn’t care a snap for the caution advised by Brendon. Gressingham talked and talked, and Brendon was quite unable to hide his own exasperation at the fool who tried to open the doors of the enquiry wider and wider. Brendon was white-faced, tight-lipped, and his eyes were as wary as the eyes of a wild animal expecting attack. It was his eyes that interested me, very light eyes, but very cruel ones. Then there was this point: Gressingham irritated Brendon to the point of fury: it was unmistakable—and also understandable. Brendon was by nature secretive, impatient, not given to suffering fools gladly. He despised the other, and disliked him, yet I learnt a little later that Brendon had been coming over to Hinton Mallory frequently to play bridge with two men whom he despised. I think Brendon himself realised that he had made a mistake in showing his irritation so plainly, for he waited for me on the pretext of adjusting his car, in order to say a few polite things about the man he had shown he despised. I was very much interested in all those three men—Gressingham, Radcliffe and Brendon.”
2
Macdonald paused for a moment and turned to Anne, who sat with bent head, slightly turned away from him.
“You are hating all this,” he said gently. “Wouldn’t you rather go away and not listen?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to listen, and I’m grateful to you for talking to us. I want to understand, so that I need never wake up and wonder again how it all happened.”
“You are very wise in that,” said Macdonald quietly. “To understand is the best way of setting your mind at rest.” He turned to St Cyres again. “Here then was my case. I felt sure that murder had been committed: I had the three men at Hinton Mallory to consider: in addition was the farm-labourer Benworthy, the would-be tenant of Little Thatch; yourself, sir, because you touched the case so nearly, the Heslings at Hinton Mallory—and, using Gressingham’s inverted argument, Vaughan himself. The next thing was to find a motive. One point of real interest emerged from my interview with Gressingham and Radcliffe, and that was the matter of the telephone calls which came from Tiverton. Here was a suggestion of great importance. It seemed probable that Vaughan would act on these messages—go to an appointed place at a given time, and if that place were a secluded place, he could well have been killed there.”
“But what made you believe he was killed in some other place than the cottage?” demanded St Cyres.
“This. From all I could learn, Vaughan never invited anybody—barring Miss St Cyres—inside that cottage. He certainly did not invite Gressingham into it. It was as though his habitual reticence expressed itself in a desire to keep the cottage to himself. I couldn’t see him saying ‘Come in and have a chat’ to any of the trio at Hinton Mallory, and certainly not to Benworthy, the farm-labourer. Farming custom seldom involves going inside another man’s house: the business is more often transacted in the garden. Then there was this: if anybody called on Vaughan, they would have run the risk of being seen in the locality. If they wanted to reach Little Thatch unseen, the idea of driving there in Vaughan’s car, wearing his coat, with his old hat crammed down to conceal the driver’s face, was a good one. It was growing dusk and the risk was very small. That idea came off all right. Alf said he saw Vaughan. What he saw was Vaughan’s car, his coat and hat, and the hand he waved. I believed all along that Vaughan was in the car—but that he was dead long before the car reached Little Thatch.”
Fire in the Thatch Page 22