‘Why, yes, that’s mine,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Have you any idea where you lost it?’ Bobby countered cautiously.
‘I’ve been wondering,’ the vicar answered. ‘I was reading it on Sunday night when I heard the rabbit crying I told you about.’ He paused and blushed slightly. ‘I amuse myself in odd moments,’ he explained, ‘by attempting a fresh translation of the Odes. Purely for my own amusement, you understand. After the intense strain of Sunday, with its very strong emotional experiences, I – I don’t know that I should like some of my brethren of the church to hear me say so, but I find something calm, cooling, even refreshing, in what is I am afraid Horace’s very earthly philosophy. It seems to call one back from what is at times perhaps a somewhat dangerous exaltation of spirit. While we remain in the flesh we are not meant, I think, entirely to forget the flesh – and Horace certainly reminds one of it very effectively and even agreeably, in a way. So I have got into the way of often reading him on a Sunday evening. One feels, somehow, less risk of being – well, carried away. One relaxes the tension – loosens the bow.’
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Bobby, though in fact he found it a little difficult to take in this view of Horace as a kind of cold-water bandage to be applied to a head too fevered by strong religious emotion. But he supposed it might be effective. ‘You can’t remember what you did with the book when you went out?’
‘I can’t be sure. I didn’t miss it till the next day. Then I thought perhaps I had put it in my pocket and it had dropped out. I remember when I was sheltering in the old hut by the Low Copse I took my coat off to give it a shake, as some raindrops had fallen on it before I got inside. I thought perhaps the book dropped out then, but when I went back to the hut to look, it wasn’t there.’
‘It had been picked up,’ Bobby explained. ‘The finder gave it me; that’s how I got it. There’s one little point – I think I’ve heard you don’t smoke on Sundays?’
‘It’s a busy day; there is not time,’ Mr. Andrews answered. ‘That’s all. Over Horace I often do indulge myself with a pipe.’
‘Were you smoking when you went out to look for the rabbit?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Why? I remember lighting my pipe, though, as I was leaving the hut after the rain stopped.’
Bobby thanked him for what he had said, asked him to regard their conversation as confidential for the present, returned him the book, thanked him again for information he astonished the vicar by saying might prove of value, and then made his way to Cambers House, where Farman admitted him, and informed him that Sir Albert was still in bed, though making a good recovery.
‘Nasty turn it’s been,’ Farman said. ‘Touch of pleurisy. Might easily have turned to pneumonia, the doctor says; and that’s always touch-and-go.’
‘I should like to have a little talk with him,’ Bobby explained. ‘There are one or two points he might be able to clear up.’
Farman said he would inquire, and came back presently to show Bobby to the room where Sir Albert was still in bed, though he had been promised permission to get up that afternoon.
‘Got any news? Found out anything yet?’ he greeted Bobby, as soon as the young detective entered the room.
‘Well, sir, there have been some very remarkable developments,’ Bobby answered, ‘and at present I am trying to clear away the accessories, so to say. If we can only get to the bare facts, we shall know where we are.’ He paused for a moment, wondering to himself what the other would say if he knew that these developments included a statement of an eyewitness who claimed to have seen Sir Albert himself commit the murder. ‘There are one or two points I should like to put to you,’ he went on.
‘Wish I had been able to get about,’ Sir Albert remarked. ‘Rotten luck being tied up like this.’
‘If I may say so,’ Bobby observed, ‘it was only to be expected after spending a few hours in wet clothes in the midst of dripping rhododendrons.’
Sir Albert jerked to a sitting position as if under the impulse of sudden physical pressure. His eyes had fear in them, and he moistened with his tongue his lips that had become suddenly very dry. Bobby made no comment, but watched him steadily. After a time, Sir Albert muttered: ‘I was going to tell you... of course... I was a fool not to at first... how did you find out?’
‘It would have been better to be open about it,’ Bobby said, ignoring this last question. ‘Why weren’t you?’
Sir Albert lay back in the bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘Makes it worse I didn’t, I suppose,’ he said. ‘There was a kind of choking feeling round the throat I had that stopped me when I thought of telling you. Besides, why should I? And then my head was going like a traffic roundabout, and I could hardly think. If you ask them, they’ll tell you I was a bit delirious that Monday evening. But I was going to explain the whole thing as soon as I felt up to it.’
It was a statement concerning whose accuracy Bobby felt some doubt. Still, he supposed the sharp attack of influenza Sir Albert had suffered did to some extent excuse his silence. He had certainly been in no condition to consider calmly his course of action.
‘If you care to tell me all you can now, it may be useful,’ Bobby said slowly. ‘But I must warn you first that you will most likely be asked soon to make a formal statement. Certain of the developments I spoke of just now are very grave, and, I think you ought to know, seem to point to your own guilt.’
Sir Albert nodded gloomily.
‘Just my luck,’ he said. ‘Things always happen like that for me. The only time I’ve ever tried to catch anyone out in my life, and of course I get caught out myself. I know I was a fool to try to keep things quiet. I’ve been thinking that all the time I’ve been lying here. God knows, poor Lotty was enough to drive anyone mad with her, “Just think it over and you’ll see I’m right,” and her, “Of course, that’s what you must do, so you had better start at once,” but I would never have thought of hurting a hair of her head. Then there’s the jewellery that’s been stolen. I am not likely to have stolen my own property, am I? Of course, you’ll say I was trying to make it look like a burglary. And then, what the blazes was Lotty doing out at that time of night, unless it was to meet young Dene? And I’m told now, there’s proof he was in his room at home when it happened.’
‘You suspected there was something between Lady Cambers and Eddy Dene?’ Bobby asked. ‘I haven’t come across anything to make me think that was so. Had you any reason?’
‘It was Oscar Bowman put me up, first, to what was going on,’ Sir Albert replied. ‘When Lotty took Dene up, I thought it was just one of her fads – just someone else to boss; someone else’s life to manage and arrange.’ He said this with a certain bitterness, and then, after a short pause, went on: ‘She spent money on him like water. If I wanted a pound or two it was: “Why? What for? What have you done with what you had?” – as if I were at school still, and had spent too much at the tuck-shop. But when Dene wanted anything, she drew whacking big cheques without a murmur. Oscar Bowman told me right out there was more to it than I thought. Then one day...’ Again Sir Albert hesitated, looked embarrassed, finally made up his mind, and continued with a rush: ‘I dare say you’ve heard about Miss Bowman. She always understood me much better than Lotty did. When she wanted help and advice, she got into the way of turning to me quite naturally – Lotty never did that. Oscar felt he ought to tell me certain things he had heard, and then there was an open breach – a scene, in fact – when Lotty had the bad taste to walk right into the Bowmans’ drawing-room without a by-your-leave, or with-your-leave, or anything – just walked straight in. That made me feel things had become intolerable, and I decided to take a flat in London, and then I got more information backing up what Oscar said that Lotty and this grocer’s assistant she was infatuated with were being seen together in West-End restaurants. I felt that had to be looked into – after all, Lotty bore my name still – and I made up my mind if I got the evidence I would go into the divorce-cou
rt with it. Oscar said it was my duty, and I felt he was right. I sent an agent down here, and he told me there was no doubt about it, and he had reliable information that they would be meeting late on Sunday night in the sort of hut she put up for him on the pretence it was needed for what he called his pot-holes. It was settled I was to see for myself. I was to wait outside the house, and, when she came out to keep the appointment, I was to follow her. I felt I had a right to know the truth, and I wrote to Miss Bowman to tell her I hoped we should be free to marry soon, and I borrowed her car – one I had given her myself only just before. I had the key to the garage where she kept it. On the way I took a wrong turning in the dark, and that delayed me, and then there was the rain. It came down in sheets. I drew in to the side of the road to wait till it was over. You could hardly see a yard before you, it was so thick – like a curtain. Where I had drawn up there was a dip in the road – at the West Leigh cross-roads. It was flooded in no time, and a big Rolls-Royce went by, making such a wave, the water came right over the footboard. I moved on and sheltered again, and it must have been close on midnight before I got here.’
‘When you arrived, you hid in the rhododendrons near the front-door of the house?’ Bobby asked.
‘I took shelter there,’ Sir Albert answered coldly, evidently not approving of the word ‘hid’. ‘It was extremely wet, but there was nowhere else where I could be sure of not being seen and yet be positive of seeing myself if Lotty went out to keep her appointment – or came back from it, for that matter. I waited till nearly three, and then I gave it up and drove back home, and I had hardly got to bed when I heard what had happened. I saw at once it was a very awkward position for me. But I had had nothing to do with it. I had seen and heard nothing all night, so what was the good of drawing attention to myself by saying anything?’
It was in character, Bobby thought, for Sir Albert Cambers to adopt always what seemed at the moment the line of least resistance.
‘Have you any suspicion yourself who is guilty?’ he asked presently.
‘I made sure at first it was young Dene,’ Sir Albert answered, ‘but I couldn’t think why. Besides, it seems he was in his room at home at the time. Rather looks as if there hadn’t been any appointment, after all. Only, my agent said he was sure of his facts – reliable information, he said. In the village, Farman tells me they think it was very likely young Ray Hardy. Apparently he had used threats about Lotty. That wasn’t through her doing good to him; it was her doing good to the rabbits – always doing good, Lotty. Then, I know it sounds fantastic, but when you’re lying in bed with nothing to do but think, you think a lot, and I’ve been wondering if it could be Andrews – the vicar, you know. He told me himself Lotty was helping Dene to destroy men’s faith, and couldn’t I stop it, and I told him to stop it himself, only to try stopping the earth going round the sun first, by way of practice. And he said any means would be justified in the sight of Heaven, for men’s souls were in danger. The fellow’s a fanatic, and a fanatic can work himself up to any pitch.’
‘I suppose,’ asked Bobby, ‘while you were – er – waiting in the rhododendrons, you didn’t see or hear anything or anyone, did you?’
‘Farman, smoking my Cabanas,’ said Sir Albert, looking very black indeed. ‘Cigars that work out at three and nine each, buying them by the hundred. I keep them for a special treat, and there was Farman, if you please, leaning out of his window where he sleeps in the little room next the pantry and enjoying them as calm as you please – seven-and-six gone up.’
‘To make a butler’s holiday,’ sympathized Bobby. ‘Too bad; though I wouldn’t grudge him them this time. It may be useful. I take it, you are sure they were your Cabanas?’
‘I could tell one whiff a mile away,’ declared Sir Albert, with emphasis, ‘and then, besides, I got Emmers to bring me the box. I happen to know there were fourteen left. I make it a rule to order a fresh box when they get down to a dozen, and the day before I went away from here to London I counted them to see, and there were fourteen. Now there are ten left. That means four gone – two that evening while I was watching with nothing better to smoke myself than some Bulgarian Tempo cigarettes, and two some other time when Mr. Farman wanted to enjoy himself. I’ll have a word or two with him when I feel a bit stronger.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Bobby said seriously and gravely, ‘I will ask you very specially to say nothing to him at present.’
Sir Albert, who was really still a little weak, had been lying down in his bed during almost all this conversation, but now, again, he jerked himself abruptly to a sitting position, exactly as if someone had suddenly pulled the string that actuated him: ‘Do you mean you think Farman did it?’ he asked eagerly.
CHAPTER 30
APPROPRIATE PENALTY
On leaving Sir Albert, Bobby asked if he might use the library for a few minutes, and there he made notes of their talk, and put his mind to the problem of how far the fresh facts he had learned confirmed, contradicted, or illumined those he had so laboriously collected.
To him his case seemed now fairly complete, and yet he could not feel certain how others would regard it, or whether the logical structure he had built up in his mind might not seem to them to have but shaky foundations. And no erection, mental or physical, is stronger than that whereon it stands. Then, too, he had to admit that in his theory there were two weak points that might be considered fatal to it – one of them being that he had as yet no explanation to offer of the missing jewellery.
He put his note-book away, and, turning to examine the book-lined shelves, soon found a complete set of Walter Scott’s novels. There was no copy of the poems, however, though a gap at the end of the long line of novels suggested one volume might be missing. Bobby went into the hall, and, finding Farman there, said to him: ‘Didn’t Mr. Sterling bring back that copy of Walter Scott’s poems he borrowed?’
‘Not that I know of. He didn’t tell me if he did,’ Farman answered, and then began to think, marking the operation by slowly opening eyes and mouth to their widest. ‘How did you know he had it?’ he asked.
‘In the same way,’ Bobby answered severely, ‘that I know you were not telling the whole and exact truth when you said you were smoking your pipe at your bedroom window on Sunday night.’
‘But I was. I don’t know what you mean. Who says I wasn’t?’ demanded Farman, but with a certain uneasiness.
‘I do,’ Bobby retorted. He went on with authority: ‘Now you just listen to me. There are small breaches of duty and discipline that don’t matter very much. Murder is different. You get that?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Farman muttered. ‘I don’t know what you’re after. Anyhow, I’ve my work to see to,’ and he made as if to walk away.
‘Just as you like,’ said Bobby grimly. ‘Only I warn you if you don’t talk to me now, you’ll probably have to talk to someone else later on.’
Farman was beginning to perspire gently. He hesitated. He made a fresh movement to go. Bobby took no notice. Farman came back.
‘I suppose it’s about those damn cigars,’ he burst out.
‘What cigars were those?’ Bobby asked, looking full at him. ‘Oh, you know,’ Farman answered sulkily. ‘Two of Sir Albert’s own I pinched from his box.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Bobby said slowly. ‘But I’m not worrying about them. Pinching your employer’s cigars is one thing. Murder is another. What I’m trying to do is to find out who murdered Lady Cambers, and for that every little detail is important. One item that doesn’t, or does, correspond with another may make all the difference to the theories we are working on.’
‘I don’t see what my wanting to try those cigars has to do with it,’ Farman muttered sulkily. ‘Get me the sack if it was known. I never done such a thing before. It just came to me Sir Albert was away and not likely to come back, and it seemed a shame them lying there wasting, as you might say. Her ladyship told me to offer them to Mr. Tyler when he was here, only he wouldn’t have on
e, preferring his own, so I thought it would be easy to tell Sir Albert, if asked, Mr. Tyler had had them by her ladyship’s orders.’
‘That’s all right,’ Bobby said. ‘I don’t care anything about that. What I want to establish is that you were at your window that night for some considerable time after the rain stopped, long enough to smoke two cigars.’
‘That’s right,’ admitted Farman sulkily.
‘Did you see or hear anything?’
‘No, no-o, nothing, only that I thought I heard a sound of something moving coming from the rhododendrons – I just thought it was a cat or something. I didn’t bother.’
‘When you saw the cigarette-ends in the rhododendrons next morning, you knew quite well it must have been Sir Albert who had been there?’
‘I didn’t know... I just thought... I wondered... it wasn’t my business to say anything.’
‘It’s always wisest to tell the truth,’ Bobby said dryly. ‘It generally comes out in the end.’
‘I didn’t see it was up to me to say anything about what I didn’t know,’ Farman protested. ‘I had nothing against Sir Albert, and it was him I had to look to to keep me on or give me a good reference if he was giving up the place. You don’t know what it’s like these days looking for a new place at my time of life, especial if...’
He paused, and Bobby guessed that what was in his mind was a fear that the old blot on his character – the term he had once served in prison – might be brought up against him. Probably that was the perpetual terror of his life, but Bobby saw no reason to refer to it at present, and waited patiently, as if he had no idea of what that ‘especial’ meant – though it helped to explain why Farman had jumped so quickly at the chance of keeping Sir Albert’s secret, and so establishing a hold upon him. Farman went on: ‘I reckoned if I stood by him, then he would stand by me. You aren’t going to bring up those cigars against me, are you? If that gets out, it’ll be all up with me getting another place. You wouldn’t believe how particular people are about your character when applying – it’s my belief,’ said Farman bitterly, ‘the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn’t stand a chance of placing himself if he had to show a character like us – archangels from Heaven is expected, seemingly, for thirty bob a week, all found.’
Death Comes to Cambers Page 24