by Vernon Loder
“I see. Well, be good enough to look through her bag. If it is locked, of course, I must ask her for the key.”
Miss Pole seemed uncomfortable. “But what am I to look for?”
“I only want you to look at her handkerchiefs. If there is anything——”
“But what would be on her handkerchiefs?” she interrupted.
“If you see anything out of the ordinary, let me know,” he replied. “Now, if you would ask the lady to come to me in the billiards-room.”
Parfitt’s elderly superintendent was down at the police station interrogating Davis. Afterwards, he was to go down to the pool where Hayes’s body had been found. The Inspector was glad he had the affair to himself.
As he seated himself again in the empty billiards-room, he was considering the question of Miss Pole finding something. For himself, he was only at the beginning of his investigation, and had no suspicions with regard to Mrs. Hayes. But he did know that nose-bleeding as the result of a blow requires staunching. Either it is a flow that is stopped and intercepted by a handkerchief, or leaves obvious signs. The fact that there were only a few drops on Mrs. Hayes’s skirt suggested that she had used a handkerchief with uncommon promptitude. He would know later when Miss Pole had had a look round.
A few minutes with Constable Griffiths, on his first arrival had put him au courant with the rather disturbing minor occurrences at the hotel prior to Hayes’s death. He had not seen the latter when he went to Cwyll to complain about an assault, but he had heard of the complaint, knew that several men at the “Horn” had quarrelled with the dead man, and was aware that Davis had had a violent scene with him.
But he did not allow these episodes to prejudice him yet. There are millions of quarrels, and violent ones at that, to every murder in this country. If there can be a good motive for any murder, a display of temper over angling precedence does not provide one. The motive and the murderer might both be alien to Pengellert, and, if so he would get the best information from the dead man’s wife.
Mrs. Hayes apparently felt composed enough to see him. When he got a chair for her, he took a little time arranging his note-book, and glancing at her with a deceptive mildness, concluded that she was a very capable and intelligent woman.
After he had murmured sympathy, and pleaded the dictates of duty for troubling her, she gave him immediate proof of that.
“I understand. I am quite willing to tell you anything I know,” she said. “It is very little, of course.”
“You arrived very late last night, I understand?” he said, taking her at her word. “You had not booked a room in advance.”
“No. My husband was here.”
“And knew you were coming?”
“No. I came down hurriedly.”
“I only asked you that, madam, because he might have a single room, and then these hotels at this time of year are often full.”
“I might have telephoned, of course.”
He looked apologetic. “Do you mind telling me what brought you down here so hurriedly? Had your husband written to say that he was in any trouble?”
She shook her head. “He said there were some—disagreeable men here, that was all.”
“But not that he feared violence from any of them?”
“Of course not. He gave me the impression that they were merely ill-mannered. But I am afraid he was rather easily upset.”
He repressed a start. Was that, or was it not, the sort of remark an affectionate wife would make about her dead husband? It was difficult to say. There was something intense about this woman and her face wore a curious expression, as if some irrepressible indignation still seethed in her mind, in spite of the sobering tragedy.
“Quarrelled readily?” he suggested.
“Perhaps not exactly that. He was too Olympian with men, and they found it annoying.”
The classical allusion passed over Parfitt’s head, but he could see clearly enough now that Mrs. Hayes’s intention was ironical. Irony about a dead husband did not suggest a happy past.
“May I ask did you come here suddenly for any reason?” he ventured. “You need not answer that if you do not wish to.”
“You mean that I should have announced my arrival if there was no reason to conceal the reason?” she said calmly. “You are quite wrong. I should have told my husband, of course.”
Parfitt nodded vaguely. “I see.”
Mrs. Hayes drew a deep breath. “l suppose you are looking for motives, Inspector? That’s your duty, isn’t it? Would you call jealousy a motive?”
Parfitt repressed some excitement. Was she going to confess something?
“It’s led to a good many murders, madam,” he replied, after a moment’s reflection. “May I ask you what you are suggesting?”
She unclosed one hand, which she had kept clenched till then, and disclosed a folded and crumpled sheet of notepaper. “I received this the day before yesterday,” she remarked, handing it to him, and watching him unfold and spread it out on the billiards-table. “It’s sufficiently unpleasant.”
Parfitt read the loathly thing with care, read it again, and looked at Mrs. Hayes sympathetically.
The matter on the paper was printed with a pen in Roman capitals, and read:
YOU OUGHTER COME ERE YOUR OLD BUFFER OF AN USBAND AS BEEN CARRYING ON SHOCKING. THE LADY IN THE HOTEL ISNT THE ONLY ONE HE MEETS A GIRL OUT HERE TOO NIGHTS. A NASTY DOG HE IS.
“I am inclined to think this sort of thing is better ignored madam,” he murmured. “It’s generally silly spite that’s behind it.”
He could not be mistaken in thinking that Mrs. Hayes had now begun to think little of his intelligence.
“Does it not strike you as rather odd that I should come down here in a hurry just because some spiteful person wrote me an anonymous letter?” she demanded. “I am nearly fifty, Inspector. One ought to know something at that age.”
Parfitt acknowledged the rebuke. She was making her meaning plain now. She was not a green girl, roused to foolish suspicions by a hint that her husband was flirting, but a woman who already knew so much that conviction used its own legs without needing to be carried.
“You think the murder may have been committed by someone who was jealous of your husband—the writer of this note, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea. I merely suggest that the note hints at a woman here.”
“And the woman’s lover, perhaps?”
“If you can trace the writer, no doubt you may learn something.”
He bowed. “I shall have the matter looked into at once. But I had better hear a little more first. You live at Lomington?”
“Cedar Court, Lomington.”
“How far is that from here by road?”
“One hundred and eighty miles. I set out at eleven, lunched at Hereford, and stopped for dinner at Llangollen. I left Llangollen at a quarter to nine. Do you wonder why I left so late?”
“You had a considerable distance to cover, madam, part of it over mountain roads.”
She smiled coldly. “I have no interest in fishing, Inspector, but my husband had. He insisted on my hearing all about it. I am quite aware that most of the fishing was done here after dark.”
Inspector Parfitt was not used to such directness from witnesses, or to wives who preserved few illusions about their husbands. “You could hardly claim to have proof that your husband was not fishing, madam.”
“I have had proof time and again,” said this surprising creature. “I had a reputation for placidity in my youth. It’s a fatal reputation to have! People play on it. The camel driver only put the last straw on his beast because he expected it to put up with it.”
Parfitt let that pass without comment. It was strange to learn that the middle-aged, over-dignified Mr. Hayes was a whited sepulchre to his wife, a mausoleum of ugly little pasts.
“Since a lady in the hotel here is mentioned——” he began.
“A pretty girl, and I only saw one answering to t
hat description when I arrived—Miss Mason,” she interrupted.
Parfitt knew that there had been no reference to prettiness in the anonymous letter, and took it that she referred to something her husband had written her. “Seems unlikely,” he said in a businesslike tone. “I understand that some of the other guests signed a Round-robin—in fact, it was shown to me—and among the names was that of Miss Celia Mason. There was a suggestion that Mr. Hayes should be asked to leave.”
Mrs. Hayes made a tiny grimace. “I put up with him for twenty-five years,” she said. “They were evidently not so patient!”
“Still, madam, that rather disposes of the suggestion that Mr. Hayes was—paying attentions to Miss Mason.”
“Do you think so? I don’t! These things are sometimes one-sided, Inspector. From what I have seen of Miss Mason, I should think this one was. I have been told that my husband’s paternal manner was apt to wear off, having served its turn. Perhaps Miss Mason will tell you.”
The Inspector hardly knew what to make of her. Most of the people he knew were so imbued with the idea that dead men’s memories are always white that they would even practise deception to keep them so. The measure of Mrs. Hayes’s revelations was the measure of her hatred for the dead man. She was not of those who think that a little hypocrisy forms a fitting label for funeral wreaths.
Somehow he did not like it. He liked generosity and forgiveness when people were gone. “If your suspicions are correct, it is possible that Miss Mason resented his attentions,” he agreed. “But to go a little further, madam. Did Mr. Hayes mention any men here he particularly disliked, and give you any reason for that dislike?”
She nodded. “He mentioned a Mr. Bow and a Mr. Chance. He appears to have met Mr. Chance years ago, and spoke of Mr. Bow, too, as a former acquaintance. Parfitt pricked up his ears. Chance at least had had a fracas with the dead man. “Do you think the dislike was formed before Mr. Hayes met the two men here?”
“I cannot say. With Mr. Bow it may have been. My husband said he knew something of him. Of course, I am not suggesting that either of them had anything to do with this affair.”
He nodded. “May I ask if you stopped your car last night on the road between the bridge and the hotel?”
“No. My only stop was an involuntary one, some distance from here. I could not describe it, as it was dark when I had the slight accident.”
“Did you see anyone on the road near here as you approached?”
“No one at all. I thought I heard a voice down by the river, but I am not sure. The water makes a great noise.”
Parfitt wrote that down, passed his notes to Mrs. Hayes, asked her to read them, and sign, and initial, each sheet if she found them sufficiently correct. She read carefully, nodded agreement, and put down her name.
Parfitt thanked her, and added that he might not find it necessary to trouble her again. When she had gone, he rang the bell, and asked the waiter who answered it if he might see Miss Celia Mason. Celia came in almost immediately, and took the chair he put ready for her.
“In a case of this kind, Miss Mason,” he began gravely, “I am sure you will not mind answering one or two questions. In the first place, did you see much of the late Mr. Hayes since you came here?”
She coloured a little. “He was more friendly with me than the others,” she admitted. “At first, at any rate.”
“Did he adopt a sort of paternal attitude?” asked Parfitt, making use of his last witness’s revelations.
She started, and stared at him, obviously surprised. “How did you know that?”
“He gave that impression to some people, Miss Mason. Could you tell me exactly what you mean by a paternal attitude?”
She looked uncomfortable. “He patted my hand, if you must know, and well, that sort of thing.”
“You disliked that manner, or I take it that you wouldn’t have signed the Round-robin I saw?”
Her embarrassment grew. “No, I didn’t resent it. I don’t suppose he was really old, but he seemed old to me, and I thought it was genuine.”
“But not at the last?”
“No—Inspector, he’s dead now. I don’t like to say any more.”
Parfitt was sorry, but firm. “I can’t force you, Miss Mason. But this was a murder, you know, and we don’t want an innocent person suspected of it.”
She saw that, and blurted out a little. “He was hateful! I told him he was a beastly hypocrite! That’s all I can say.”
Parfitt took down that, asked her to read and sign his notes, as he had asked Mrs. Hayes, and dismissed her with thanks.
He sat and thought a little after that. Here was proof now that the late Mr. Hayes was an elderly Don Juan of an offensive sort. Mrs. Hayes had come down hastily to take action. But what kind of action had she taken, or intended to take?
He wanted a word with Mr. Bow now. Bow had known Hayes before, and it was prior knowledge of Mr. Hayes that might be the most important. He was about to ring for the waiter to have Bow sent in, when an afterthought led him to call for Miss Pole, the secretary.
“What did you find?” he asked her, when she entered and closed the door, “anything?”
“I hope I shan’t be asked to search any of the other guests’ rooms,” she replied, with a faint air of resentment. “It made me terribly nervous.”
“I am much obliged to you,” he told her. “I can promise you that any further searches will be made by myself.”
She pursed her lips. “At any rate, she has half a dozen handkerchiefs with her. They were all clean.”
“That is all I wanted to know, thank you,” he said. “Sorry I had to trouble you.”
Chapter VII
The Wrong Knot
FIVE people left the hotel by three o’clock; Mr. and Mrs. Harmony, and Mr. Bone, were among them. It was obvious that they had no possible connection with the murder, and they had been dismissed, and fled. Notoriety alarms some people much more than danger. The Harmonys were plucky and kind people, but the idea of being mentioned In the papers in a murder case drove them away.
Inspector Ivor Parfitt was glad to get rid of them. He had quite enough people to handle as it was. After interrogating Celia Mason, and learning the truth about Mrs. Hayes’s handkerchiefs, he had been called to a conference with his Chief Constable, Mr. Donald Rigby. Rigby heard what he had to say, and determined that they must know more about Chance and Bow. Both were Londoners. He drove off to Cwyll in his car to despatch a sergeant to town to make inquiries.
“The fact is that Chance assaulted the man, and both of them, according to Mrs. Hayes, met the dead man years ago. We don’t know what passed then, Parfitt, but we do know that they made a dead set at him when they came here,” he said, as the Inspector saw him off. “Inquiries can do no harm.”
Parfitt wished that the same could be said of Chief Constables. Mr. Rigby was very agreeable, but incurably officious. He liked, he said, always to tackle things logically. When you get two men working together whose ideas of logic are fundamentally opposed, there is trouble.
As the car drove off the Inspector noticed the man Davis at the other side of the road, looking at him. He came over at once when he saw the officer’s eye on him.
“Could I speak to you a bit?” he asked, as Parfitt acknowledged his greeting.
“Come in,” said Parfitt, turning on his heel, and re-entering the station. “Didn’t you see the Superintendent this morning?”
“He doesn’t fish!” said Davis.
The Inspector made him sit down. “Well, what is it?”
“The fly the gentleman was using, and the knot,” said Davis briefly; “I showed it to the other two gents.”
Parfitt got up. “Wait a moment. We’ve got the rod here, with the other exhibits.”
He came back with the rod, still up, disjointed it carefully, and placed it on the table. Drawing into a loop the last yard of line, to which the cast and fly were attached, he laid it on the table, too, and took the body of the salmon-
fly between his fingers.
“Now then, Davis, is it your idea that someone knotted a fly on to the cast, and put up the rod, to suggest that Mr. Hayes had been fishing?”
“That’s it, Inspector, You know how a fisherman knots an eyed fly on, and it isn’t this way.”
Parfitt nodded. “No, it isn’t. Whoever did it just put the gut through the eye, and made a double slip-knot; wrong side of the eye, too.”
“Then it’s a ‘Jock Scott,’” said Davis. “I had a talk with Mr. Hayes when he first come, before he got so nasty, and he as good as told me he never used that fly whatever.”
“That’s important,” said Parfitt, looking up. “But take a look at this other knot, Davis. The one that connects the line with the cast. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
Davis looked, and agreed that it was. “Beats me, sir,” he added, “unless Mr. Hayes tied that on himself.”
“Some fisherman did,” Parfitt murmured. “Well, that gives us the line and the cast mounted, when Mr. Hayes came back along the river and found his rod.”
“It would be so, sir. Mr. Chance he met Mr. Hayes fishing, and they had a scrap. Mr. Hayes bolted off and forgot his rod. He’d been fishing for sewins when they ran up against each other, and he’d have a sewin-fly on. Yes, indeed.”
Parfitt saw that the man was capable of stringing ideas together. “I see. But what’s the point? So far we have someone coming along, either before or after Mr. Hayes’s death, taking off a sewin-fly and putting on a salmon-fly. What was the good of that?”
But Davis seemed incapable of helping him there. He shook his head. “It doesn’t seem sense.”
Parfitt lit a pipe, and cogitated for a little. “There’s just a chance that it does mean something; though it’s a long shot, Davis. If we had found a sewin-fly on the cast we would have taken it for granted that Mr. Hayes wouldn’t carry a gaff.”
“Not for sewins, sir.”
“But if we believed he went out to try for a salmon, that would account for a gaff. No one could land a salmon in the pool where he was without a gaff. You couldn’t tail a fish there or strand it.”