As I saw the picture take form, as I recognized the essential rightness of each detail, it seemed impossible to argue any longer or to doubt H.M.’s version. And can you doubt, even if you wish, the evidence of a consulate which shows you passports and visas?
But, even granting this were so, why was it necessary to curse and thrash at the memory of Rita? As H.M. had suggested, the thing was absolutely characteristic of Rita. She brought down destruction; but she meant well. She had nearly killed Alec; but that had not been her intention. If it was essential to praise Alec, was it also essential to blame Rita?
‘As for Mrs Wainright and Sullivan – we’ll call him Sullivan – you can see what they had to do,’ continued H.M. ‘She had to get a new passport. He had to bring his car down here from London, and hide it away in the studio, so they could slip quietly away when the trick had been worked.’
‘Away, sir?’ prompted Superintendent Craft.
‘Sure. First up to Liverpool. Then, gettin’ rid of the car, across to Ireland and Galway. Next, they had to destroy every photograph of themselves. Why? Lord love a duck! They were shortly goin’ to figure as the victims of a terrible tragedy. The newspapers would come snoopin’ after photographs to print.’
Craft nodded.
‘I see, he said thoughtfully. ‘They couldn’t have someone – from the American Consulate or the British Passport Office, for instance – see the newspaper pictures and say, “Here! That’s not Mrs Alexander Wainright and Mr Barry Sullivan. That’s Mr and Mrs Jacob McNutt, who are now on the high seas headed for America.”’
H.M. spread out his hands.
‘If you want any more evidence,’ he growled in my direction, ‘just think of what happened on Saturday night.
‘Who chose a Saturday night, which was the maid’s night off? Rita Wainright. Who had the gardener Johnson sacked, because he was a snooper? Rita Wainright. Who vetoed her husband’s suggestion to make the party bigger, and insisted on just you four? Rita Wainright.
‘Finally, what time did these love-birds choose for their dramatic hocus-pocus? Nine o’clock, naturally. And why? Because Alec Wainright is a news-fiend. As soon as the soothin’ voice of Joseph Macleod or Alvar Liddell is heard in the land, he becomes deaf and blind to everything else. He wouldn’t interfere when they left this room. Nobody would interfere. The husband was too engrossed, and the guest was too embarrassed.
‘Mind you, Rita’s conduct then wasn’t all actin’. Not by a jugful! All that emotionalism, all that carryin’ on, was almost as real to her as though she meant to kill herself. When she stroked the hair on her husband’s head, she meant it. When the tears started streamin’ out of her eyes, she meant that too.
‘In a sense, gents, she was leaving this life. She was sayin’ good-bye. She was cutting off, with what she thought was a sharp knife, her old life and her old associations. You can call it affected nonsense, if you like; but the point is that she didn’t see it as that. Oh, no. Out she goes. And the handsome Sullivan – who’s a little bit nervous about walkin’ off with five or six thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds – goes after her.’
H.M. scowled, and cleared his throat.
Ferrars, who was lighting the familiar cherrywood pipe, glanced up briefly. The glow of the match showed his sinewy wrists, and the hollows under his cheek-bones as he drew in smoke.
‘Tell me one thing, governor.’ He blew out the match. ‘About this Barry Sullivan, or Jacob McNutt.’ Again the catlike smile flickered under the long nose. ‘Was he really in love with the woman, or was he only interested in diamonds?’
‘Well … now. I never met the feller. Judgin’ from the descriptions of him, notably his wife’s –’
‘You mean Belle?’
‘Yes. I should sort of hazard a guess that it was a good deal of both. His conscience didn’t prevent him from doin’ what he oughtn’t to do; it just prevented him from enjoying it. But you can follow their conduct on Saturday night. They rushed out of this room. And then …’
Superintendent Craft spoke softly.
‘Yes, sir. And then what?’
‘I don’t know!’ roared H.M. ‘I haven’t got the ghostiest trace of a notion. The old man’s completely stumped and flummoxed.’
This, evidently, was what bothered him. Immense in his purple-bordered toga, apparently forgetting his toe altogether, he lumbered up and down in front of the fireplace. He removed the laurel-wreath, eyed it distastefully, and put it on the radio. Then he said:
‘Now follow this, my fatheads. This is what we know. Between nine o’clock and nine-thirty, those two walked out to Lovers’ Leap. There they disappeared. But they didn’t jump and they didn’t mean to jump.’
Craft nodded, though he had a dubious frown.
‘Son, there are two possible explanations,’ H.M. pursued fiercely. ‘Either (a) they somehow got down the face of the cliff. Or (b) they somehow walked back to the house again, ready for their getaway in Sullivan’s car.’
Craft sat up abruptly. Ferrars glanced at me in a puzzled way, taking the pipe out of his mouth, but I could only shrug my shoulders.
‘Stop a bit!’ the superintendent urged. ‘In that case, what becomes of the murders being committed on the edge of the cliff?’
H.M. made a face.
‘Oh, my son! You don’t still think the murders were committed on the edge of the cliff?’
‘It’s the assumption I’ve been proceeding on, yes.’
‘Then it’s a wrong assumption.’
Craft came as near a sputter as the intense gloominess of his expression would permit. He tapped the point of his pencil on the notebook.
‘I’d like to hear some proof of that, sir.’
‘All right. We’ll try a little.’ H.M., hitching up the toga as though he were carrying a load of bed-linen, turned to me. ‘Doctor, you were sittin’ in here with Professor Wainright. The back door of this house was open. Between you and the outside there was only that thin swing-door to the kitchen’ – he pointed – ‘with a space under it where you could feel a draught. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘If those two were shot on the edge of the cliff, a Browning .32 automatic was fired twice out there. Did you hear any shots?’
I thought back. ‘No. But that’s not necessarily unusual or anything like proof. It’s fairly windy up here. When the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, to carry sound away …’
‘But the wind wasn’t blowin’ in the wrong direction, dammit! You yourself kept saying, several times, how the wind blew straight in your face when you went out there. You even felt it in here.’ H.M.’s sharp, disconcerting little eyes fixed on me. ‘How was it the sound of the shots didn’t carry? Oh, and if anybody starts gibberin’ about silencers, I retire to bed.’
There was a long silence.
Craft tapped the point of his pencil on the notebook.
‘What’s your idea, sir?’
‘It’s this,’ H.M. returned with hideous earnestness. ‘Those two love-birds thought they had an aes triplex, fool-proof method of provin’ they’d committed suicide. And so they had.
‘They went out and worked it. It probably didn’t take ’em long. Then they’d go away from here, away from this district, to get their car and hop it. They were probably gone at shortly past nine o’clock. But the murderer caught ’em. The murderer shot both of ’em at close range, and pitched the bodies into the sea.’
‘H’m,’ said Craft.
‘Y’see, it’s not the conduct of the murderer that’s puzzling to the point of the magical. This murderer is a fairly straightforward chap. You notice what he had to do on the followin’ night, Sunday? He had to get rid of Sullivan’s car, so that nobody would suspect any hanky-panky on the love-birds’ part, and the business could still pass as a suicide-pact. So he drove the car out to Exmoor and ran it into quicksand. Don’t you remember that Belle Sullivan saw “two little booklets like road-maps, one blue and the other green, stuck into the side pocket”?�
��
‘Well, sir?’
‘They weren’t road-maps. They were passports. A blue British and a green American. But Belle Sullivan had never travelled abroad, so she couldn’t tell.’
H.M. sniffed.
Hurling one corner of his robe over one shoulder, he took a broad and challenging look at all of us, and sat down again. His manner remained as earnest as ever.
‘Let me repeat,’ he insisted. ‘It’s not the scheme of the murderer that’s baffling to the point of the magical. Here we got a reverse twist. What we want to know is the scheme of the ruddy victims.’
Ferrars tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. ‘You mean to go out there and not come back?’
‘Sure. Son, it’s really got the old man dizzy this time. I said a minute ago that they either (a) somehow got down the face of the cliff. Or (b) they somehow walked back again without leavin’ any trace. I know, I know!’ He shushed Craft with a fierce gesture as the superintendent started to protest. ‘Both of those explanations are absolute eyewash.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘I’m dead sure of it. A fly couldn’t get up or down the sheer face of that cliff. As for the footprints …’
Superintendent Craft spoke with decision.
‘And I say again,’ he declared, ‘that there was no funny business about those footprints. Mrs Wainright and Mr Sullivan walked out there, and they didn’t come back. That’s what I say.’
‘Agreed,’ said H.M.
‘But look here,’ protested Ferrars. He spoke from behind a cloud of smoke, with a gleam in his eyes which might have been malicious amusement or a real desire to help. ‘Do you realize that this bit of enlightenment leaves you in a worse position than you were before?’
‘I do, anyway,’ snapped Craft.
‘First you only had a murderer who could walk over soft soil without leaving a track. Now you’ve got TWO levitating bodies. Or worse. You’ve got a man and a woman who can walk out to Lovers’ Leap and there vanish like soap-bubbles, only to reappear somewhere else… .’
‘Stop it!’ said Craft.
Ferrars put his head against the back of the chair and blew up a smoke-ring. I could see the cords in his neck, and the gleam from under his half-closed eyelids. Resting his elbow on the arm of the chair, he drew a slow circle in the air with his pipe-stem.
‘This intrigues me,’ he remarked.
‘Thanks,’ said H.M. ‘I hope we’re amusin’ you.’
‘I meant that seriously.’ The pipe-stem described another circle. ‘Do you mean to say that we – the collection of intelligence assembled here – can’t solve a problem set by Rita Wainright and Barry Sullivan? With all due respect to them, they weren’t exactly intellectual giants.’
Superintendent Craft was brooding in a corner, with folded arms; I might have guessed what was going on in his mind; but he roused himself to ask a question here.
‘Were you well acquainted with those two, Mr Ferrars?’
‘I knew Rita pretty well, yes.’ Ferrars’ eyelids raised towards the picture. He put the pipe into his mouth, and puffed reflectively. ‘Sullivan I hardly knew at all. I’d met him once or twice. He struck me as being a good-looking, well-meaning moron. Why a girl like Molly Grange should see anything in him …!’
Ferrars’ face seemed to assume sharper lines and angles, ending in an expression of cynicism as he bit at the stem of the pipe.
‘But he did have one talent,’ the painter went on, ‘which people like that often have. He was damned good at puzzles.’
‘That’s it!’ I exclaimed.
They all turned to look at me.
‘That’s what?’ H.M. inquired suspiciously.
‘I’ve been trying to think when and where I’d heard mention of puzzles in connexion with those two. It was from Alec himself. When he invited me out here for the famous Saturday night, he said that both Rita and Sullivan were fond of puzzles; and that we might have some puzzles.’
‘Professor Wainright,’ grinned Ferrars, ‘seems to have been prophetic. And he kept his word like a gentleman.’
‘He’s a wallopin’ hand at puzzles, I expect?’ demanded H.M.
‘He was very good, yes, before he started to go to pieces. But it was that mathematical stuff which bores me green. You know the kind of thing. A crafty nuisance named George comes in and says, “I have a certain number of hens in my fowl-house. If I have twice the number of hens that I had yesterday, and three and one half times as many hens as my Aunt Matilda had on Tuesday, how many hens have I got today?” You want to reply, “For God’s sake, George, don’t make life so complicated. You know how many hens you’ve got, don’t you?’
Again Ferrars blew up smoke, drowsily.
‘But this isn’t mathematical. This calls for some real imagination. What the not-very-clever Sullivan devised, we ought to be able to solve by the simple process of examining the tracks.’
‘Simple,’ groaned H.M. ‘Oh, my eye! The brashness of youth! Simple!’
‘I stick by my guns. Our Mr Sullivan’ – Ferrars’ nose wrinkled – ‘is not going to beat me. I propose to settle his hash. If the maestro admits he’s in trouble’ – he nodded towards H.M. – ‘I’ll have a shot at it myself. What do you think, Superintendent?’
Craft was still brooding. His face smoothed itself out as he looked up. But his arms remained folded, and it was as though he were bracing himself.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I can tell you short and sweet what I think. I’m still not convinced that any murders were committed at all.’
FIFTEEN
THERE was a minor explosion then. Though both H.M. and I protested, Craft remained unimpressed. He lifted his hand for silence.
‘Just what are the facts now?’ he asked. ‘Sir Henry’s proved, I admit, that those two intended to do a bunk for America.’
‘Thank’ee, son. I’m real obliged.’
‘But he’s trying to turn the whole case wrong-side out. Now he says those two weren’t shot on the edge of the cliff at all. Where were they shot, then?’
‘How should I know?’ howled H.M. ‘Maybe in that private brothel out in the studio. Maybe in one of the caves along this coast. This feller here,’ he nodded towards Ferrars, ‘has been goin’ on about caves.’
‘Do you call that evidence, sir?’
‘Maybe not. But …’
‘It’s evidence I’ve got to have,’ the superintendent pointed out, not unreasonably. ‘And, so far as I’m concerned, the actual evidence in this case hasn’t changed since yesterday.’
‘You mean that they still killed themselves? Oh, my son.’
‘Well, has it changed? Suppose they did intend to run away!’
‘You don’t doubt that, do you?’
‘Wait. I was thinking of a question I asked you yesterday. I said, “Who would murder them when they meant to kill themselves?” And you said it didn’t matter: that they might have intended suicide, but didn’t have the nerve.’
‘Well?’
‘Take it,’ suggested Craft, ‘the other way round. They decide to bolt with the old gentleman’s diamonds. They make all their plans. But at the last moment Mrs Wainright – who’s clearly the moving spirit in this – can’t face it. Dr Croxley tells us, and you admit, how fond she was of Mr Wainright. I may not know much about women, but that “I’d rather be dead!” rings pretty true to me.’
‘Uh-huh. So?’
Craft tightened his folded arms.
‘She changes her mind. She gets Sullivan out to the edge of the cliff. She shoots him, and then herself. Later Dr Croxley, who can’t bear to think of her in connexion with a double suicide, removes the gun from the edge of the cliff and takes it away. Just as we decided yesterday.’
We were back to it again.
It seemed useless for me to break out once more into protests. But this time, I thought, H.M. was on my side.
‘There’s one little detail,’ he rumbled apologetically, ‘that
I hate to trouble you with. It’s only my innate cussed-ness makes me bring it up. Somebody took Sullivan’s car out to Exmoor on Sunday night, and ditched it in some very gooey quicksand. Hadn’t you forgotten that?’
Craft’s slight smile did not extend to his dead eye.
‘No, sir. I hadn’t forgotten it. But there’s one person here who admitted to us yesterday he’s familiar with every corner of Exmoor, and would know exactly where to dispose of that car: which most of us wouldn’t. Excuse me, Doctor, but what were you doing on Sunday night?’
If this can be credited, it took me several seconds to realize what the man meant. Perhaps I am dull, but the thing was so preposterous that it simply didn’t penetrate. It was only when all their eyes turned towards me, and Ferrars burst out laughing, that I did realize. Ferrars had no doubt been posted by H.M. about every detail.
‘You know, Dr Luke,’ remarked Ferrars, going over to knock out his pipe against the top of the fireplace, ‘I could believe that. It’s exactly the sort of damn-fool chivalrous thing you would do.’
I must have made a queer spectacle of myself, for H.M. spoke hastily.
‘Easy, Doctor! Remember your heart!’
‘It’s a fact, though,’ declared Ferrars. ‘I can see him going out in the middle of the night to do just that. Protect a lady’s good name. Destroy the evidence that she was intending to run away with Sullivan.’
I am afraid I raved for some time. Then I said:
‘Whatever I say, you don’t seem to believe it. But do you think anybody with a sense of decency – with a sense of anything – would have left Mrs Sullivan screaming in that car while it went down in quicksand?’
‘Was the young lady hurt?’ asked Craft. ‘I don’t seem to remember it.’
‘Nor I,’ agreed Ferrars. I guessed he was only doing this for devilment, but he was doing it. The smile curved again under his long nose. ‘I should say Belle was treated rather tenderly. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.’
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