by Vernon Loder
But Joan, though horrified at the news, shook her head. “It’s pretty ghastly, but I don’t want to go home at once,” she said. “I suppose you must stay till it’s cleared up?”
“I think I ought to,” he replied. “Of course, there is no reason why we shouldn’t fish—say the day after to-morrow, and naturally I’ll be delighted to have your company. Still, it’s a rotten thing to be mixed up in.”
“What is happening to-morrow?” she asked.
“The inquest. He won’t be buried here, I understand.”
Joan nodded. “I see. You say his wife is here?”
He explained some of the theories which were floating about in the air, and she shrugged with distaste.
“It seems to me that Mr. Hayes won’t be a national loss, Harry! What a loathsome type! But surely this local girl wouldn’t be fascinated by an elderly man like that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. He wasn’t exactly elderly—middle-aged I should say; as ages go nowadays, and he looked rather distinguished. There may be a good deal of beauty even in a whited sepulchre, Joan. The dry bones aren’t apparent from outside.”
“But if this girl was ambitious, and fascinated, why kill him? I am taking the theory for what it is worth.”
“There, of course, I am at a loose end. It may be that the inspector has only gone up to the farm to ask the girl what she knew about Hayes. Then there is the poacher who had a row with the man. In fact, there are quite a lot of people who disliked Hayes.”
Three people now got into the bus, and the driver climbed up into his seat, after taking the fares. Joan and Wint did not talk again till they were able to discuss the matter under cover of the noise of the engine.
“It seems to me,” she began, “the night-fishing business here made anything possible. Here you had half a dozen people within about half a mile, and not one seems to have seen the others, or known what they were doing.”
He nodded. “That is so. I went out for a little, and it was quite an eerie business. A lot of fallen rocks cut off one pool from another, and the rapids and waterfalls make a dickens of a noise. You have a sort of dark compartment to yourself.”
“I suppose this local man Davis knew the girl who tied flies?” she said.
Wint started. “Most of them are his patterns, I believe. By Jove! I never thought of that.”
Joan turned to look at him. “I was merely wondering if she tied the fly found on Mr. Hayes’s cast. You said it was not tied on by an expert.”
He had thought she was hinting that the crime might be the result of jealousy on the part of Davis, and received this new theory with relief.
“I see. But Davis pointed out the funny knot on the fly, Joan. And neither he nor Miss Tysin would make a silly slip-knot when tying on a ‘Jock Scott.’”
The bus was now running along the road near the river, and Joan pointed. “Oh, there’s a railway. Is this the one that goes through the tunnels?”
He nodded. “Yes. It goes about two miles under the mountain, and runs out here in the open for about two hundred yards, then there is a fifty yard tunnel under a spur of the cliff, and then another open cut. It leaves the tunnels altogether about a quarter of a mile above the village.”
“Do many trains run?”
“Only two a day each way—none at night.”
“I suppose it would be possible for someone to walk through from one end to the other. I mean to say, would they be stopped?”
“No. I don’t think so. You see, there are few stations. I know lots of the people fishing walk through the tunnels at the upper end here—the short ones.”
“But why?”
“Well, if they are in a hurry to get to the lower pools on the far bank. It isn’t ideal walking on the ballast between the rails, but it’s a jolly sight quicker and easier than keeping to the river bank. That’s covered with stones and boulders of all sizes, and you have to watch your step.”
Joan saw that. “Suppose Mr. Hayes wasn’t killed by anyone here, but by someone who came up from Cwyll by the tunnel after dark?”
“It’s possible. But we don’t know that he had a row with anyone at Cwyll.”
“You don’t really know whom he knew, or who were his enemies,” she argued. “That’s what annoys me about detective stories. They always take it for granted that the people on the spot killed the victim.”
“That’s for fair play to the reader,” he said, smiling.
“It may be, but it isn’t like life,” she retorted. “There’s no need to assume that someone here killed Hayes, just to keep the silly old novelists’ rules, is there?”
“Not the least,” he agreed, adding as the bus slowed: “Well, here we are, at the hotel. I’m sorry you’ve run into such a gloomy haunt. What a pity we didn’t both come down last week instead of this.”
“Still, it will be exciting,” said Joan. “Don’t think me horrid for saying that, will you?”
“Most of us seem to have an atavistic taste for the gruesome,” he observed. “We’d better blame Nature ‘Red in tooth and claw’, you know!”
There was no one in the hall when, the Boots having taken charge of Joan’s luggage, they went to the office, and spoke to Miss Pole. Then Joan went to her room to change, and Harry Wint sat in the lounge and lit a cigarette.
He had hardly been sitting there five minutes when Celia Mason came in excitedly, and crossed to his side.
“Have you heard the news?” she cried at once. “Everyone’s talking about it. The whole village is buzzing like a hive.”
Wint jumped up.
“Since when? The Boots didn’t tell us. But what is up?”
She sank into a chair, with the eager face of one who can talk of something new. “About that girl who tied flies for you men. She’s gone! At least that’s what they say. Inspector Parfitt wouldn’t tell anyone, but rushed through into the police station, and——”
“Wait a moment, please,” he begged, “do you mean she’s dead too—murdered? Surely not.”
Celia shook her head. “No, of course not. Gone! Bolted, they say. The Inspector went up to talk to her and she wasn’t to be found. I wonder why?”
Wint was astonished, but did not explain his views as to the possible reason for the girl absconding, if indeed it was true that she had left.
“You know as much as I do,” he said evasively.
“Did Parfitt rush back to Cwyll? We didn’t meet him on the way, I’m sure.”
“Oh, I forgot. You went to meet a friend there—no. The Inspector was in a sidecar with his sergeant. They drove up the side road towards Llynithen.”
While they were still discussing the event, Joan came down, and was introduced to Miss Mason. Harry Wint told her the latest news, and she stared at him significantly. Celia rushed to the office to tell Miss Pole, and Wint made Joan sit down.
“There’s three-quarters of an hour before dinner, and I expect it will be late this evening, anyway,” he said. “What about a stroll?”
Joan agreed. They did not go to the village, but cut across a field belonging to the hotel, and found themselves on the river bank. Farther down on this side there was a small farm-house. One of the four sons was a local postman, and he came along the bank on his way home, as Wint and Joan reached the path that ran along the river side.
As he wished them good evening, Wint stopped him to ask him if there was anything further about Miss Tysin.
The man replied good-humouredly that everyone was asking him that. All he had heard was that the girl was gone, but when she left he could not tell. He had taken two letters up to the farm that morning and handed them to her. There had been no occasion to go to the farm again, and he knew no more than anyone else what had happened to her.
“I don’t suppose her going has any connection with this other affair, anyway,” Wint observed, offering his cigarette-case. “What do you think?”
The postman thanked him, took a cigarette, and reflected for a few moments. “Do
n’t see how it can, sir,” he said at last. “Time I saw her, no one knew what had happened, so she couldn’t either, look you!”
Chapter IX
Another Missing
THERE was a faint significance, Wint thought, in the way the man stressed the time of his meeting with Blodwen Tysin. What difference did it make if the girl had known of the finding of Mr. Hayes’s body when the postman delivered the letters?
Joan seemed to have the same thought, for she glanced in a puzzled way at the speaker. “Do you mean that she looked worried?” she asked quickly.
The postman lit his cigarette before he replied very carefully: “Well, indeed, I wouldn’t say she was worried, then. I went to the hotel, and heard there Mrs. Hayes had come late, and I said so when I gave her her letters. Yes, yes.”
Harry Wint felt sure there was more behind this. “That wouldn’t worry her at all, of course,” he said speculatively.
Obviously the postman thought otherwise. “Well, indeed, sir, she was worried when I told her. Yes, she was very worried; though I couldn’t tell why it was; and who would know?”
Joan felt that he did know, but did not intend to speak. It was unlikely that the girl opened and read her letters while the man was gossiping to her, so it was not their contents that had caused her emotion.
“But Mrs. Hayes has never been here before, has she?” she asked.
“The lady was never here before, no,” he replied. “Well, good-bye now, sir,” he added, hurriedly, as if anxious not to be questioned further, and saluting them, went off in the direction of his home.
Wint waited till he was out of earshot, then: “Parfitt will want to have a heart-to-heart talk with that chap,” he said. “I don’t think that the girl was very emotional, so she must have gone rather off the deep end if he noticed it. But why?”
Joan shook her head. “It’s hard to say. He spoke so indirectly about it. But he gave me the impression that he gave the girl a shock when he told her that Mrs. Hayes had come.”
Wint frowned. “I don’t suppose he told her out of malice. A new-comer here, especially one who arrives in the middle of the night, is something to talk about. He may just have mentioned it casually.”
“Perhaps she didn’t know there was a Mrs. Hayes,” Joan suggested.
He raised his eyebrows. “By Jove! If there is anything in it, that’s it. A girl living by herself on a hill-farm would create any amount of scandal if she gave the least cause for it, but Miss Tysin seemed to be generally respected: even if no one had any affection for her.”
“You mean that she may have fallen in love with Mr. Hayes?”
“I mean that, if she was mixed up with him, she may have taken it for granted that he was a single man.”
“But wouldn’t it be known that he wrote letters to Mrs. Hayes?”
Wint nodded. “That may be, but ‘Mrs. Hayes’ isn’t necessarily the wife of Mr. Hayes. She might be his mother, and, for all we know, he may have let the girl think she was.”
“I do see that. But it will make things awkward for her if it is known that she was infatuated with Hayes—I mean her bolting.”
“Yes. I am afraid so. One of the possible motives for the murder was jealousy. But she didn’t hear about Hayes’s wife till this morning. That was what the postman was trying to suggest to us, without actually saying so. He mightn’t want to hint at the other thing before you.”
“A nice natural delicacy, not very common nowadays,” said Joan. “But he wouldn’t want to hint at that unless he knew that there was some link between the two, would he?”
“No. I think you are right. There may have been gossip about it in the village, which didn’t get so far as the hotel. We most of us know what we think of other people, but we don’t know what they think of us. I say, it makes it worse for her if they can prove that she was down the river last night in her old car.”
Joan pursed her lips. “I can’t see a girl doing a murder of this sort, Harry. Wouldn’t someone have heard them talking, if she had met Hayes on the river?”
“That’s doubtful,” he observed. “The water makes a noise in some places to drown an ordinary voice. Of course they might have met in one of the short tunnels.”
“I somehow feel sure she is innocent,” Joan remarked earnestly. “You see, she was only worried when she heard Mrs. Hayes had come. Do you think she would give herself away to the postman, by showing herself to be shocked, if she had committed a callous murder the night before? Take it that she had. The postman saw her, and did not observe anything out of the common in her looks. In other words, she could kill a man, and be quite calm after it; but get upset the moment someone mentioned that he had a wife.”
They turned and began to walk back across the field to the hotel. Wint thought there was a good deal of common sense in Joan’s remarks. There was no proof that the infatuation had been a guilty one on Blodwen’s part, whereas it was quite likely that an experienced and conscienceless Don Juan—even an elderly one like Hayes—had pretended to be a bachelor when paying attentions to the girl.
“I quite agree,” he said, after a little. “Still, her bolting is suspicious.”
“If it was bolting,” she assented. “But we can’t tell yet. Suppose I happened to be in love with a man who was found dead. I might be upset, and go away for a little to get over it, but you wouldn’t talk of my ‘bolting,’ would you?”
“No. That’s true. But surely that would be apparent to the Inspector. He seems a decently educated chap, and decidedly intelligent. But he hurried off immediately after his visit to the farm. I wonder if she had a gaff up there?”
“She didn’t fish, did she?”
“No. But her father was a great old sportsman, they say. Unless his was sold, she may have kept it up at the house.”
When they returned to the hotel they found Chance and Hoad, with Celia Mason, in the lounge. They were talking earnestly of the new development, and Hoad had evidently imparted some fresh information just before their arrival.
“Oh, Mr. Wint, Mr. Hoad says she left a letter,” Celia cried. “I don’t know if it’s true, but most of the people in the village believe it.”
Wint glanced at Celia. “Surely, Miss Mason, if the girl went off for a little holiday, she would leave a note to let people know? I think the grocer used to call, and the butcher. She didn’t always come down to shop.”
“There’s your nice little bubble pricked, Mr. Hoad,” cried Celia.
The young man nodded. “It wasn’t really mine, was it? I only told you what I heard.”
Chance struck in. “It’s all speculation so far. Because Hayes went up once or twice to get flies, we’re having a mysterious romance tacked on.”
“Don’t talk of romance and Mr. Hayes!” cried Celia. “But Mr. Wint is quite right. She hadn’t anyone to consult, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t take a little holiday. It must have been beastly dull up there.
Hoad shook his head. “Llynithen isn’t a holiday resort, if it comes to that. That is the way Parfitt charged off just now.”
Chance smiled. “My dear chap, the two things may have no connection. Isn’t it just possible that, being unable to have a chat with the girl, he went off on some other business connected with the case?”
He stopped, rather embarrassed, for Mrs. Hayes had suddenly come into the lounge, and was listening to them.
“Has anything new turned up?” she asked coldly, as she approached. “If so it is naturally of interest to me.” Chance may have thought that an odd way of putting things, but he turned politely, and said that there was nothing really new.”
“I certainly don’t want to distress you by discussing the affair,” he added, rather resentfully.
“We were only talking about the Inspector going up to Llynithen,” said Celia.
Mrs. Hayes turned to her. “That’s where the lake is, isn’t it?”
“There is a small lake,” remarked Chance, glad to get off the dangerous ground. “But
I don’t think anyone goes there to fish. It’s a tarn more than anything else.”
Mrs. Hayes nodded.
“Is it true that the young woman who used to tie flies for the hotel is missing?” she asked.
So she knew after all! Joan stole a glance at Wint, who, the others appearing disinclined to reply, observed that she had left home, but, of course, that might mean nothing.
“There are so many things in this business that appear to mean nothing,” said Mrs. Hayes evenly. “But why should the Inspector go up to inspect a lonely tarn?”
Celia Mason was surprised into an indiscretion. “You don’t mean that she——” she began, checked herself, and turned red.
“She—what?” invited Mrs. Hayes. “Have you a theory, Miss Mason?”
“No, of course not. I don’t know what I meant,” blundered Celia.
But her idea was plain to them all. She was wondering if Miss Tysin had drowned herself up at Llynithen, and left a letter which set the Inspector on the track. Chance muttered an excuse, and left. Hoad touched Celia’s arm, and drew her away. Harry Wint remarked that it was no use speculating, and Joan quite agreed with him.
Mrs. Hayes made them all uncomfortable. It was difficult to say if she was cold and unsympathetic, or hiding strong emotions under a veneer of composure. She startled them both now by saying that everyone was dreadfully tactful.
“You made me feel like a strange child at a party, where all the others are playing some game she doesn’t understand, and won’t take the trouble to explain,” she added, “though I believe you would be all most delightfully helpful and sympathetic if I went into hysterics.”
“Perhaps you will understand it better if I say that some of us here may be suspected by the police,” said Wint.
She shook her head. “But I don’t believe it at all. People who knock other people down in broad daylight don’t sneak out at night and murder them, I’m sure. And if you want to kill someone you don’t quarrel with them openly in advance. As for Miss Mason, you can see it isn’t in her.”