by Vernon Loder
“I have heard so, sir,” replied Parfitt, and went on to repeat the conversation he had had at the manse.
Rigby approved. “Good! If Mr. Jones had said that she was a regular attendant, and outwardly devout, it might merely be that he was going by face values. But he said she made no show of it, didn’t he?”
“That was the impression he gave me. Then this business about reading romances of an old-fashioned kind struck me as sound, sir.”
“Quite. Well, we’ll wait and see. Did you get any light on that anonymous letter?”
“I am having inquiries made, sir, but I haven’t had time to go into it myself.”
“And therefore no theories about it?”
Parfitt did not assent to that. “I have a suspicion, sir, that it wasn’t written by an illiterate person, such as the wording suggests. The paper was good, too.”
“The terminology, eh?”
“Yes, sir. I shall look into it to-morrow.”
The coroner put in a word. “Is it possible that the murderer of Mr. Hayes can have killed the girl?”
“She drove alone to the lake, sir.”
“When she started, yes. But isn’t it possible she was joined by someone on the way?”
“I hardly think so, Mr. Bass,” said the Chief Constable. “A man who intended to kill her, would hardly take a place in the car by her side. You may go over the mountain fifty times without being seen, but you can’t count on it—especially at this season, with so many walking parties about. Oh, by the way, Parfitt,” he added, turning to the Inspector, “I had a telephone message from the man I sent to London. He wanted to know if he was to extend his inquiry about Mr. Chance and Mr. Bow further than the last year or so. I told him to get as much as he could.”
The coroner rose. “Well, I must go. But I have my own opinion, though you mayn’t agree, Rigby. Good night—good night, Inspector.”
Chapter XI
Hoad Seems Disturbed
“WHAT’S the matter with that young man Hoad?” Joan asked, as she and Harry Wint started off after sunset towards the lower bridge.
“Matter? I’ve not noticed anything, but I didn’t look at him much,” he replied. He’s not exactly an interesting study—very young and callow.”
“I know. But he’s frightfully nervous, far more so than when I saw him first this evening. He hardly ate any dinner, and he fidgeted with his plate, and knife and fork, and looked as if he were sitting on hot bricks. If he had been any of the others, I should have said he had something on his mind.”
Wint reflected. “Well, he had a pool next Hayes, but I would no more suspect him of murder than I should you. To put it vulgarly, he hasn’t the guts to commit one. He reminds me of a boy at school with me, who was always threatening to write home to his father, but never did. He would bluster about Hayes, no doubt, when Hayes tried the paternal with Mason, but that’s about all.”
“Then do you think he’s worrying about the possibility of being suspected?”
“Frankly, I don’t. He was on this side of the river, he doesn’t wear waders, or carry a gaff. And the Inspector practically takes no notice of him.”
Joan nodded. “Well, he isn’t behaving like a jack-in-the-box for nothing. You watch him and you’ll see that he is excited about something, and worried, too. Can he know anything and be hiding it?”
“If he’s as bad as you say, there may be something in that. But look here, Joan, he’s only wrapped up in two people, from what I hear—Miss Mason and himself. She went back to the hotel early, and we don’t suspect him. Who could he be trying to shield?”
Joan did not reply. She thought she heard feet behind them, as if someone was coming up fast. Wint heard the footsteps too, and turned.
“Dashed if it isn’t Hoad!” he grumbled. “He’s trying to catch us up. We don’t want him following us. He’s waving now.”
Joan shrugged. “Leave him to me. I’ll get rid of him after a little. If he’s full up with something, he may want a safety-valve. That sort of boy would. Wint stood still, offering his cigarette-case to Joan, who refused a cigarette. He had just lit up when Hoad came to them.”
The young man was flushed, and certainly looked unhappy. He forced a smile, said he was going down the road for a short stroll, and asked if he might join them.
“I can’t stick all this discussion about that rotten business,” he added naively.
Joan smiled encouragingly. “Of course not. Rather morbid, isn’t it?”
The three set off again. Young Hoad lit a cigarette, puffed at it, threw it away, and returned to the subject from which he professed to have fled.
“I say, it’s beastly about that girl bolting, isn’t it? I wonder what made her run away?”
“Don’t you think she was friendly with Mr. Hayes?” asked Harry Wint, staring hard at Hoad.
“Yes, I know she was. I mean to say I thought I saw them down the river once. You think—you really think she went off because she had heard he was killed? I mean to say, she was in love with him.”
“How could Mr. Wint tell?” Joan asked calmly. “No one can answer a question like that. But it is quite certain that if she had been in love with him grief might drive her away. She wouldn’t want to stop and hear the murder discussed day and night, would she?”
“Oh, you think it was that?” said Hoad, looking much relieved. “I wondered.”
“You think it was likely that she could have murdered him?” Joan asked bluntly.
“No, of course not. You don’t murder people you’re fond of.”
“I am afraid our pathological novelists wouldn’t agree with you,” Wint remarked dryly. “They seem to take it for granted that love is an excellently natural motive for murder.”
“Oh, novelists!” cried Hoad with scorn.
Joan had been observing him closely. “How interestingly you put it, Mr. Hoad. It’s what they call a process of elimination, isn’t it? But is there any other reason for her going away like this except the two you spoke of.”
“There may——” he began eagerly, then stopped.
“Do tell us what it is?”
He looked nervous and hesitant again. “Oh, I don’t know. It may be rot. I meant his wife coming down and so on.”
Joan opened wide eyes. “No one seems to have known that he was married.”
“Someone did,” said Wint. “What about that anonymous letter?”
“I suppose he put letters to post on the table at the hotel,” Joan suggested.
Hoad nodded. “Yes, he did. I saw one myself when I put mine there once. I couldn’t help seeing the address.”
Harry Wint smiled. “My dear fellow, are you married?”
Hoad started and coloured ingenuously. “Rather not—not yet, I mean. Why do you ask?”
“I suppose your mother is alive?”
“Oh, yes, rather. My guv’nor died some years ago, dear old chap; but the mater’s going strong, I’m glad to say.”
“And someone seeing your letter home might take it that Mrs. Hoad was your wife,” said Wint.
“Oh, I see. Jolly good! Of course, Mrs. Hayes might have been Hayes’s mother. She’d be pretty old, though, wouldn’t she?”
Joan smiled faintly. “Is that why you took it that he must be writing to his wife?”
“At his age, I thought it would be a wife, of course,” said Hoad.
Wint was looking thoughtful now. Joan went on again serenely.
“You know, Mr. Hoad,” she said, after a short pause, “isn’t it possible that something else was getting on that girl’s nerves? But I suppose it couldn’t be. We heard about the anonymous letter, but she didn’t.”
Wint shook his head. “My dear girl, that’s a wild idea. Even if she had known, who worries about beastly things like that.”
Hoad stared. “I often wonder what the idea is in the—er—people’s mind, who send them. I suppose one or two—here and there, you know—mean well?”
“And often do all the damag
e the mean-wells can do,” said Wint. “Your idea is that some are sent as a sort of warning; to save other people from fretting into a mess?”
Hoad gulped. “Yes, something like that. I mean to say, if you saw someone going to push someone else over a cliff, you might have to do something. And if they were likely to resent it, you might have to. There! I’ve got muddled. But perhaps you know what I mean.”
Joan said nothing. Wint replied quietly. “There may be cases of the kind, Hoad. But the trouble, when anonymous letters crop up in a murder case, is that the writer may be suspected of the crime.”
“Well, of course, Inspector Parfitt has the letter, and will soon find out,” said Joan. “You see, Harry, I suppose he will have the note-paper traced, and get a handwriting expert to examine the contents. I’m jolly glad we both came too late to have written it.”
Hoad gulped again. “But suppose the writer hadn’t killed anyone? I don’t know what you people think, but it seems to me that Hayes was a bad hat, and someone may have thought he was doing harm, getting someone into trouble, and that sort of thing.”
“I am quite sure it was that,” said Joan promptly. “I feel that it was written by someone who knew Mr. Hayes was making a fool of this girl Tysin, and wanted to stop it before it was too late. Or, of course, the writer may have been jealous.”
Hoad turned red. “But who would be jealous?”
Wint laughed. “My dear fellow, we are newcomers. But didn’t the Inspector say that the letter referred to a girl in the hotel as well?”
Hoad glared. “Miss Mason?”
“Oh, was it Miss Mason Hayes took an interest in?” asked Joan.
“She told him off about it,” said Hoad resentfully.
“There you are,” said Wint. “Miss Mason may have discovered the kind of fellow Hayes was, and wanted to save the other girl before it was too late. If she did that, she ought to tell Parfitt.”
“Or burn her note-paper, if she still has any of it,” said Joan.
Hoad stopped and turned. “That reminds me, I had a letter to write, and forgot it,” he said hastily. “I’d better cut back and make a start.”
He raised his hat, turned, and walked quickly back along the road. Joan turned her face to the high cliffs on the other side of the river where the buzzards still mewed, circling against the darkling sky.
“There’s your boy at school, Harry,” she said after a moment. “We always take it that it’s a very caddish thing, but this throws a new light on some cases.”
Harry Wint thought it over. “So that’s what he was fidgeting about? Well, I’m hanged! Yes, I think I can see some excuses for him too. He’s young, and not very plucky, and he was head over ears in love with the Mason girl, and did not know what to do about it. That sort of egotistical young fellow only sees his own side of the case. He wanted to scare off the rotter, but it didn’t seem to occur to him that the rotter’s wife would get it in the neck at the same time. Luckily, Mrs. Hayes knew all about her husband. It would have been more tragic for her if the letter had come as news.”
Joan agreed. “What will he do now?”
“I think he’ll do the right thing now. Apart from the hint you gave him, that his beloved might be suspected, he’ll think it over, and tell Parfitt. You can see he’s not a bad sort; only confoundedly timid and muddle-headed. I never saw what you were getting at till you worked in Miss Mason.”
Joan smiled. “Well, Harry, the letter was meant to be that of some illiterate, wasn’t it? It might have led the Inspector to suspect one of the locals, and stick the murder on him—that postman for example. They say he was courting Miss Tysin, and he would know where letters from the hotel were directed.”
“Oh, I’m glad you found it out,” he returned. “I only hope we’ll come on something in the tunnels that will be a help too. By the way, there isn’t a soul fishing this evening.”
“And the constable who was on guard at that pool has been taken off,” said Joan, looking back at the river. “I wonder why the police never thought of the tunnels?”
“Haven’t had time. Besides, Hayes was found in the river. If he had been killed in the tunnel, there would have been stains on the stones when he was carried to the pool.”
“He couldn’t have been killed at the other end of the tunnel, nearer Cwyll, and brought up by someone on one of those what-d’ye-call-thems?”
“You mean trolleys worked by a hand lever?”
“Yes.”
Wint shook his head. “They don’t seem to know where Hayes went when he left Cwyll early that evening. Of course, they will find out. Did he get a bus back, or what?”
“No. I asked the Boots. He said the driver had been in for a moment, and said he had not brought Hayes back. He may have got a lift, of course. Plenty of cars passing along this road.”
“If Parfitt hadn’t had to rush off to Llynithen, he would have got all that by now, Joan. But here we are at the bridge. I never saw this spot so deserted.”
“They’re all waiting at Pengellert for the latest news,” she returned, as they crossed the bridge over the rushing river. “Isn’t it somewhere near here that Miss Tysin might have parked her old car?”
“We’ll have a look at that before the light goes completely,” he replied. “It’s just up this road a little, a sort of laneway into an old quarry.”
They found the narrow cul de sac, which ended in a broken face of cliff, where splintered shale showed below the clay top, and stared at the ground. Tracks of a good many tyres showed there, mostly making patterned impressions, but one set were those of an ancient pair of treads from which most of the pattern had worn off.
“That’s like an old Ford, backed in and out. High-pressure tyres, and not new,” he told Joan. “But I’m hanged if you could tell when they were made, even if Miss Tysin’s car made them.”
A search where that car had stopped merely revealed a flat cigarette end.
“Expensive Egyptian,” Joan remarked. “‘Bulbul’ in gold letters. But anyone who parked here might have thrown that down.”
“I don’t suppose Miss Tysin smoked them?”
“Well, that’s all to be seen, and I expect it’s all we shall see.”
He laughed. “You had the idea of this expedition, so don’t get cold feet and back out.”
“Oh, I’ll go on. Only before you start detective work, it sounds so easy, doesn’t it? And then you see a lot of things that don’t mean anything. My own opinion is that the police don’t work as we think, but ask millions of questions, and inquire at pubs, and do it that way. I never heard of anyone really solving murders by deduction.”
“I am rather sceptical myself,” he agreed. “But mind your feet from this on. We have to creep down a sort of rock slide to the river bank this side of the bridge, I believe, before we strike the path up. And the path isn’t so much a path as a series of geological accidents.”
There was still enough faint light to enable them to negotiate the descent to the river level, and they set off slowly up the boulder-strewn track among the pines and bracken, that wound at the base of the cliff between rock and water.
“What an eerie sound the water makes,” said Joan, when at last light faded. “When it isn’t crashing and splashing, it seems to be whistling and moaning. I shan’t fish here at night, however long I stay.”
He agreed, as he switched on his torch to disclose a clear ten yards of path ahead.
It was certainly eerie there in the dark, creeping like ants along the tortuous and narrow path below the cliff. It made Joan wonder how any fisherman had the nerve to come out there night after night to fish the black pools between the slippery rocks. And how did they land their fish in that welter of water?
She began to wonder, too, if Mr. Hayes had really been murdered. Suppose he had not been alone, as was thought. Suppose one of the other men had joined him, seen him slip and fall in, and making a wild shot at him with a gaff, have missed his clothing and pierced his neck. She paused in
her climb, and communicated this idea to Wint in a panting whisper.
“It might be young Hoad,” she added.
“But I told you he didn’t carry a gaff.”
“I know. Only you lost yours, and it was found in that pool. We know Hoad better than we did. It was easy to see just now that he has no nerve. He hated old Hayes, but could only think of writing an anonymous letter to his wife. If he’d killed Hayes by accident, he is the sort of ass to get the wind up, scoot back, and say nothing about it.”
“But why? He could have told the truth?”
“Yes, but, you see he had had a row with Hayes. At least it was known they were on bad terms over Miss Mason. He’s the sort to get badly scared and lose his head.”
“Well, Parfitt must look to his own job,” said Wint. “Come on! We are near the first open cut in the railway now. It’s about ten yards above us here. Mind the slippery shale!”
They climbed on again cautiously, and gained the railway line where it first emerged from the tunnel under the shoulder of the mountain.
They went into that tunnel a little way, searching it with the aid of Wint’s torch. But there was nothing to be seen. Coming into the open again, they kept to the ballast between the rails till they reached the mouth of the second tunnel.
This was a short section, not more than fifty yards long. They went right through it without seeing anything of importance until they were within five yards of the farther end. Making sure that no one was on the line beyond, they turned back that fifteen feet, and stood staring rather excitedly at a stain on one of the wooden sleepers.
“May be creosote or something,” said Joan.
“No, it’s blood; not the colour of creosote at all, I’m pretty sure of that,” remarked Wint gravely.
She shivered a little. “Do you think Mr. Hayes was killed here?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell. Let’s go on to the other tunnel. It’s only about sixty feet long, and more or less above the pool where Hayes was fishing. When we’ve seen that, we’ll get home. Parfitt ought to have a look at this stain.”