Five Red Herrings

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  The policeman shifted on his chair and glanced uneasily at Dalziel. He had an obscure idea that he was going to let himself in for a wigging, but he stuck manfully to his guns, and opened fire with a flourish.

  GRAHAM: GOWAN: WATERS

  ‘Them twa theories,’ said P.C. Duncan, ‘is jist fine, an’ I’m no sayin’ the contrair’, but, mon! they’re jist awfu’ complicated. It mak’s ma heid spin only tae think o’ them. I wadna wish tae be puttin’ masel’ forrit, but I wad like fine tae know how Sir Maxwell Jamieson thinks that yon plan could ha’ been a’ talked oot in three-quarters o’ an hour.’

  ‘Well,’ replied Sir Maxwell, ‘those times are very elastic. Provided we get Strachan up to Falbae before it’s too light for tumbling into mines, I don’t mind how late you make him start.’

  ‘But no matter for that,’ put in the Fiscal, seeing that Duncan looked a little discouraged. ‘If you have a better and simpler idea to offer, by all means put it forward.’

  ‘I was jist thinkin’, then,’ said Duncan, ‘and beggin’ your pardon, Dr. Cameron, whether it was not, after all, possible that the mon was kill’t the same day he was found. Ye’ll no be offended, doctor?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Dr. Cameron, heartily. ‘Speak out your mind, man. This business of speaking to the precise time of death is not so easy as ye’d think by reading detective novels. In my experience, the older a medical man gets, the less willing he is to make ex cathedra pronouncements, and the more he learns that Nature has her own way of confounding self-confident prophets.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ve jist been readin’ a wee buik aboot the subject. It’s a gran’ buik, an’ it was gied me by my feyther for my last birthday. My feyther was an’ awfu’ weel-eddicated mon for his station in life, an’ he wad always be tellin’ me that studyin’ was the road tae success.’

  He laid a large, square, brown-paper parcel on the table as he spoke, and slowly untied the stout string with which it was secured.

  ‘This here,’ said he, as the last knot yielded and the paper was turned back to disclose the ‘wee buik’ – a formidable volume nine inches long by six inches across and thick in proportion – ‘this here is ca’ed Forensic Medicine and Toxicology by Dixon Mann, an’ there’s gran’ readin’ in it for a man in oor profession. Noo, there’s a passage here as I’d like tae get your opinion on, doctor. I’ve pit a wee bit paper tae mark the place. Ay, here ’tis, page thirty-seven. This is aboot the death-stiffenin’.’

  ‘Rigor mortis,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Ay, that’s what it is, only here it’s ca’ed Cay-day-verric Rigeedity, but ’tis that same rigor he means. Yon’s jist his difficult name for’t. Noo, here’s whit this man says, an’ he’ll be a great authority, for my puir feyther paid a terrible deal o’ money for the buik. “Under ordinary circumstances the’ – och, dear! – the s-k-e-l-e-t-a-l, the skeeleetal muscles begin tae stiffen, in fra’ fower tae ten hours after death.” Fower tae ten hours. Noo, that’ll gie us what ye might ca’ a margin o’ six hours error in estimatin’ the time o’ death. Wull’t no, doctor?’

  ‘Other things being equal,’ said the doctor, ‘yes.’

  ‘Ay, an’ here again: “It is fully developed,” that is, the rigor, ye onnerstand, “in fra’ twa tae three hours.” That’ll gie us anither hour’s margin.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Ay, “This condition last for a period varyin’ from a few hours tae six or eight days.” There’s a terrible big difference there, doctor!’

  ‘So there is,’ said Dr. Cameron, smiling slightly, ‘but there are other things to be taken into consideration besides rigor mortis. You’ll not be suggesting the body was six or eight days old?’

  ‘Not at all, doctor. But it gaes on tae say, “Twenty-four tae forty-eight hours may be regarded as the average duration of ca-da—” that is, o’ this rigor. Ye’ll allow, maybe, that this great authority isna so varra preceese tae twa-three hours. Noo, then, doctor, when ye saw this corpse at 3 o’clock o’ the afternoon, how stiff was he?’

  ‘He was quite stiff,’ replied the doctor. ‘That is, to employ the stately language of your great authority, the cadaveric rigidity was fully established. This made it probable that the man had then been dead not less than six hours and probably – taking the appearance of the bruises, etc., into account – considerably longer. Taking Mr. Dixon Mann’s pronouncement as the basis of a diagnosis, you will see that it would allow death to have taken place as much as thirteen hours earlier – ten hours to start the rigor and three to develop it fully. That is, the death might have taken place as late as 9 a.m. or as early as midnight, and the body would still have been stiff at 3 p.m., without its being necessary to presume anything abnormal in the onset or development of the rigor.’

  ‘Ay, but—’ began Macpherson, hastily.

  ‘Ay, that’s jist what I—’ began Duncan, at the same moment.

  ‘One minute,’ said the doctor. ‘I know what ye’re about to say, Inspector. I’m not fully allowing for the case that the rigor might have been completely established some time before I saw it. Supposing the rigor had come on slowly and had been fully developed, say, at 1 o’clock. That would make it possible that the death took place as early as 10 p.m. the day before. I told you before that that was not impossible.’

  Macpherson gave a satisfied grunt.

  ‘Campbell was a man in vigorous health,’ went on the doctor, ‘and he died from a sudden blow. If you’ll consult that authority of yours a bit farther on, Duncan, you’ll see it says that, under those conditions, the onset of cadaveric rigidity is likely to be slow.’

  ‘Ay, doctor,’ persisted the policeman, ‘but ye’ll see also that when the subject is exhausted an’ depressed in his physical strength, the rigidity may come on verra quick. Noo, I was thinkin’ that yon Campbell must ha’ passed an awfu’ exhaustin’ nicht. He was fightin’ wi’ Mr. Waters at 9 o’clock or thereabouts, he was fightin’ again wi’ Mr. Gowan at 9.45, an’ he had his inside fu’ o’ whuskey forbye, which is weel known tae be depressin’ in its effects – that is,’ he added hastily, catching a slight grin on Wimsey’s face, ‘after the high speerits o’ the moment is wore off. Then he’s away oot airly in the mornin’ wi’oot his breakfast, as was established by examination o’ his insides, an’ he drives his car twenty-seven mile. Wad he no be sufficiently exhausted wi’ a’ that tae stiffen up quick when he was killed?’

  ‘You seem to have thought this out, Duncan,’ said the doctor. ‘I see I shall have to be careful, or I shall be caught tripping. I will only say this. The average duration of rigor mortis is from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Campbell’s body was rigid when I saw it on Tuesday afternoon at 3 o’clock, and it was still rigid on Wednesday night when it was put into its coffin. On Thursday evening, when I examined it in the presence of a number of you gentlemen, the rigidity had entirely passed off. That gives a fairly average duration for the rigor. In general, a quick onset is followed by a short duration, and a slow onset by a long duration. In this case, the duration appeared average to slow, and I conclude that the onset would also have been average to slow. That is why I finally gave it as my considered opinion that the most probable time of death was somewhere round about midnight, and this agreed with the general appearance of the body and the bruises.’

  ‘How about the contents of the stomach?’ asked Sir Maxwell.

  ‘The contents of the stomach was whiskey,’ said the doctor, drily, ‘but I’m not saying how late on Monday night the deceased would be drinking whiskey.’

  ‘But,’ said Duncan, ‘supposin’ the murder didna take place till 9 o’clock or so on the Tuesday, that wad shorten the duration of the rigor.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said the doctor. ‘If he didn’t die till Tuesday morning, that might bring the duration of the rigor down to a little over thirty-six hours. I can only speak to the period between 3 p.m. on Tuesday and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, when I handed it over to the undertaker.’

&nb
sp; ‘Well, the point appears to be,’ said the Fiscal, ‘that, though the appearances suggest to you a death round about midnight, you may be in error to the extent of an hour or two either way.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Could you be in error to the extent of eight or nine hours?’

  ‘I would not like to think so,’ replied the doctor, cautiously, ‘but I would not say it was impossible. There’s very few things impossible in Nature, and an error in diagnosis is not one of them.’

  ‘Weel,’ said Dalziel, eyeing his subordinate with some disfavour, ‘ye hear what the doctor says. He’ll no say it is impossible an’ that’s mair nor ye could ha’ expectit, an’ you tae be question-in’ his great experience, with your rigor mortis an’ your auld feyther, an’ your wee buik an’ a’. ’Tis tae be hoped ye can gi’e a gude reason for your presumption. Ye’ll kindly excuse him, doctor. Duncan is a gude lad, but he’s ower zealous.’

  Duncan, thus stimulated, began again, blushing hotly all over his face.

  ‘Weel, sirs, the point I started from was this, that oot of a’ six suspects there’s not one that’s been proved to ha’ been nigh the place where the corpse was found, only Mr. Graham. But we’ve evidence that Graham was actually seen at Bargrennan the verra morning o’ the murder. An’, what’s mair, he admits tae’t himsel’.’

  ‘That’s a fact,’ said the Fiscal. ‘You’ve got in here in your notes that this man Brown saw Graham walking along the banks of the Cree just below Bargrennan at half-past eleven on Tuesday morning. He says that Graham was going upstream, and that when he saw Brown approaching, he scrambled quickly down the bank as though to avoid observation. That certainly looks like a suspicious circumstance.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Duncan, excitedly. ‘An’ when Graham is questioned, what does he say? First of a’, he refuses tae state whaur he’s been. An’ that, mind you, before there’s ony suspicion gi’en oot that Campbell’s death was mair nor an accident. That’s yin thing. Secondly, as sune as it’s known through the papers that it may be a case o’ murder, he comes forrit wi’ a fause alibi for the Monday nicht only.’

  ‘Stop a moment, Duncan,’ said Sir Maxwell. ‘If, as you seem to suppose, Graham did not commit the murder till Tuesday morning, there would be no point in his bringing forward an alibi for Monday night. He’d know it would not cover him.’

  ‘Ay, that’s so,’ said Duncan, screwing up his ingenuous face into an expression of the most concentrated cunning, ‘but it was the leddy brought forrit the alibi, an’ why? Because it had been pit aboot – I’m no sayin’ by whom – that the murder was maist probably committed o’ the Monday nicht. Then the leddy – that kens fine Graham did the murder but isna saw weel informed as tae the time – fa’s heid ower heels intae the trap. She says, “He couldna’ ha’ done ’t; he was wi’ me.” Mr. Dalziel asks her sharp and sudden. “How long was he wi’ you?” She says, “Till past 9 o’clock,” knowing verra weel that if she was tae say till 12 o’clock or some such hour, the next question wad be, “Did nae-body see him leavin’ the hoose?” – which, wi’ a’ the folks astir in the toon is no verra probable. Verra gude. Then Graham hears on’t an’ says tae himsel’, “I maun du better than that. Likely enough I was recognised by that fellow up yonder. I’ll say I was the haill of they two nichts and days up at Bargrennan poachin’ wi’ Jimmy Fleeming an’ Jimmy’ll bear me oot.” An’ that’s when he comes in wi’ his second alibi.’

  ‘Jimmy Fleeming does bear him out, as far as I can see,’ observed the Fiscal, turning over his papers.

  ‘Och, ay,’ said Duncan, ‘Jimmy Fleeming’s the biggest leear in the Stewartry. Forbye, Graham is weel likit by that poachin’ lot. There’s no a man among them that wadna swear to a wee lie or so tae protect Graham.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ said Macpherson. ‘An’ there’s no need for them tae be tellin’ sic a big lie, neither. They’d be up half the nicht wi’ their poachin’ an’ sleepin’ half the day. What’s tae hinder Graham walking off an’ committin’ his murder – ay, an’ pentin’ his bit picture – wi’oot them knowin’? He wad say he’s ta’en a wee walk, maybe. Or maybe they’d be sleepin’ and never notice when he comed or gaed?’

  ‘Your idea, Duncan, is that Campbell came up to the Minnoch – when, exactly?’

  ‘That’s clear enough,’ said Wimsey. ‘We’ve got to take Ferguson’s times, because, on this assumption, there’s no reason for doubting them. Starting at 7.30, and driving at an ordinary speed, he wouldn’t be likely to do the twenty-seven miles in much under an hour. Say he arrives there at 8.30 and sits down and gets his painting things out. Graham taking his morning walk, gets along there at, say, 8.45. They quarrel, and Campbell is knocked into the river and killed. At 9 o’clock, summer time, Graham might reasonably begin to do his painting, it takes him an hour and a half. We know that, because we’ve seen him do it – at least, I have. That brings us to half-past ten. But we know he was still there at five past eleven, so we’ll have to give him till then. That’s quite likely, because if, when I saw him, he was merely copying his own painting, he’d probably do it quicker than if it was his effort. As soon as he’s finished, and the road is free of inquisitive passers-by, he strolls back to his sleeping friends, who will subsequently be ready to swear that they never took their eyes off him the whole time. That’s your theory, isn’t it, Duncan?’

  ‘Ay, that’s it,’ said Duncan, gratified.

  ‘It’s not a bad one, either, as far as it goes,’ went on his lordship, with the air of a man sampling a glass of old port. ‘It has at least three snags, but I dare say they could be demolished with a little goodwill. First, the doctor has got to be all wrong in his calculations, but, as he doesn’t seem to mind that, neither need we. Secondly, who ate Campbell’s breakfast? Well, we can suppose that, having drunk rather deeply the night before, he nevertheless courageously cooked his egg and rasher and, having cooked them, didn’t like the look of them and shot them into the fire. Or we can suppose – though I should hate to do so – that Mrs. Green ate them herself and said she hadn’t. Or we can suppose that Campbell ate them, was promptly sick, and filled up the void with whiskey. Any one of those suppositions would account for the conditions as found, eh, doctor?

  ‘Then there are the marks of tar on Campbell’s Morris, which we put down to bicycle-tyres, but they might quite well have been due to something else. I pointed them out in the first place, but I wouldn’t be bigoted about them on that account. They’re not significant enough to wreck a theory on.

  ‘The big snag in Duncan’s ingenious reconstruction is the man who saw the car pass the New Galloway turning at 9.35. I’m afraid Duncan hasn’t accounted for him at all. Still, we can say he was mistaken. If a doctor can be mistaken, so can an honest workman. He didn’t see the number of the car, so it may have been another Morris.’

  ‘But the piled-up stuff under the rug at the back,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘and the driver’s conspicuous cloak. You can’t get away from them.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ said Wimsey. ‘You don’t know me. I could get away from a galloping fire-engine. You’d been advertising for a Morris car driven by a man in a loud cloak, with a pile of luggage behind, hadn’t you? Well, you know what happens when you advertise for things. A man sees something that corresponds to part of the description and imagines the rest. Probably twenty Morris cars drove over the main road from Castle-Douglas to Stranraer that morning and probably half of those had luggage in them. Several of them may have been driven by gentlemen whose dress was more noisy than discriminating. Your man had no very particular reason to notice the car at the time, except that he shot out on it unexpectedly. If the truth was known, he was probably riding carelessly himself. The car got in his way and annoyed him, and if he can persuade himself that he had an encounter with a desperado fleeing from justice, he’s not going to stick at remembering a few things that weren’t there. There are plenty of people who are always ready to remember more than they saw.’

>   ‘That’s awfu’ true,’ sighed Macpherson.

  ‘I will tell you a thing I like about this theory of Duncan’s,’ said the Fiscal. ‘It makes it appear likely that the crime was unpremeditated. It is more likely that Graham, coming suddenly upon Campbell like that, should quarrel with him and knock him down than that anybody should contrive a scheme to carry a dead body all those miles and plant it in so awkward a place.’

  ‘The place was more or less forced on the murderer, was it not, by Campbell’s expressed intention of painting there that day?’

  ‘But he might be supposed to have changed his mind, Sir Maxwell.’

  ‘To an innocent man,’ said Macpherson, acutely, ‘that supposition wad present no difficulty at all. But a murderer might weel be ower particular, even tae the point o’ riskin’ the miscarriage of his plans by an unnecessary verisimilitude.’

  ‘Well, Inspector,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘I can see that you are not altogether satisfied with any of our theories. Let us have yours.’

  The Inspector brightened. This was his moment. He felt convinced that he, and no other person, had the right sow by the ear, and was, indeed, extremely grateful to Dalziel, Sir Maxwell and Duncan for having produced such inferior animals and refrained from spoiling his market.

  ‘The Sergeant said just noo,’ said he, ‘that Jimmy Fleeming was the biggest leear in the Stewartry. Weel, I ken three that’s bigger leears than him, an’ that’s Gowan and his pack of English servants. An’ ye’ll mind that they three are the only pairsons that’s proved oot o’ their own mouths tae be leears, exceptin’ Strachan an’ his bit tale aboot a gowf-ball.

  ‘I believe Gowan killed Campbell when they met on the road, an’ I dinna credit one word o’ that story aboot his beard.

  ‘Noo, I’ve written doon the course o’ events as I see them, an’ I’ll ask ye tae read it out for me, Mr. Fiscal, seein’ as ye’re better accustomed tae speakin’ in public than I am.’