Death by the Gaff_Black Heath Classic Crime

by Vernon Loder

  “And Bow never seemed to take any notice of her when she came.”

  “I wasn’t here when he first saw her. In any case, apart from the look on his face, why should she make a gesture? I don’t have to wave to men who see that I am making for the bathroom.”

  “No,” said Wint. “That is certainly odd. It does suggest that they knew each other before they came here. Hayes would probably mention the other guests in his letters to his wife.”

  “But she may have known Bow, and her husband not.”

  “Yes, and it isn’t very straight for them to pretend not to know each other. I don’t see why there is any need for it.”

  Joan nodded. “I think we should tell the Inspector. You can see that most of the people here think that poor girl killed Hayes, and it isn’t fair to let her memory lie under that.”

  “No,” said Wint, “it wouldn’t be.”

  Chapter XIII

  Whose Gaff?

  PARFITT’S men were busy for a long time in the tunnel without coming on anything more significant than the stain on the sleeper. Parfitt himself, before they started, explained the position to his sergeant, and told him what to look for.

  “In the first place,” he said, “it’s obvious that if Hayes had been killed just here, there would have been a great many more signs of it than we see. That doesn’t say that he could not have been killed further back and carried here. We want to know if, for some unexplained reason, he walked back from Cwyll through the tunnel. Every sleeper must be looked at, if it takes you a day.”

  “But if this stain is blood, sir, how does it come here if it wasn’t from Mr. Hayes?”

  “My dear fellow, it may be venous, or arterial, blood. I am going to shave off the top of the sleeper, and have it submitted to the analyst.”

  “Venous blood, sir?”

  “From the veins. Mr. Hayes was wounded in the jugular. It makes all the difference. By the way, has no one found out yet how Mr. Hayes left Cwyll?”

  “Yes, sir, on foot. He was seen going though Glynthomas. Unless he got a lift after that we don’t know what he did.”

  “Perhaps some strange motorist. I’ll phone for them to advertise at once,” said Parfitt. “But wait a moment. You know that road that runs across the second bridge below here to Pendreath. It’s a beastly track, but cars do go up it occasionally.”

  The sergeant nodded. “I know, sir. Why”—he stared at the Inspector—“it loops round again within half a mile of Miss Tysin’s farm.”

  “And was, at one time, the only road near it,” said Parfitt. “It is just on the cards that Miss Tysin was coming towards Cwyll earlier that evening, saw Hayes, and took him up that road to the farm. He may have come down to the river over the hill after dark again, and looked for his rod.”

  “You mean, sir, that she may have been out in the car then and made an appointment to meet him again by the river later on?”

  “That’s it. Evidently no one saw them, but that does not prove it wrong. I must make inquiries to find out if she knew Hayes had had that row with Chance, and gone to Cwyll about it.”

  “If she heard, she may have gone along to hear what happened.”

  “The postman might have told her,” said the sergeant, “and he may have made it sound worse than it was. Yes, yes, indeed.”

  While they were talking a constable came up from Cwyll and approached them.

  “We asked about that ring, sir,” he said, saluting. “Mr. Jenkins didn’t sell it.”

  “What did he say about the diamonds. Valuable?”

  “No, sir; indeed, he says they are not diamonds at all. Sapphires, he said. White sapphires that look like diamonds, sir. People give them, he says, that want to make a show, that won’t cost so much.”

  Parfitt whistled. “Anything else?”

  “Well, sir,” he said, “Camfoll’s of Birmingham make that kind of ring, and have it in their catalogue. He looked it up, and there was one like it.”

  Parfitt nodded. “Get back as quick as you can, and see that the ring is sent registered post to Camfoll’s. They may have some private mark on it that will tell them to what retailer it went.”

  When the constable had gone, and the sergeant had returned at the double to his men searching, Parfitt left the first tunnel, and went up with his torch to the short tunnel above the pool where Hayes’s body had been found.

  It was apparently known that Blodwen Tysin had been in the habit of meeting Hayes after dark. But there was no particular proof to show that anglers from the hotel had met them on the bank. It was far more likely that Hayes had laid down his rod when Blodwen had arranged to meet him, and had a rendezvous with the girl in the tunnel above.

  Parfitt had a talk with the police-sergeant at Cwyll. There was no question now in either of their minds that the girl was other than an innocent romantic, who had fallen in love with the man Hayes, whose motives were a thousand times more dubious than the girl’s morals. That she was in danger while Hayes made love to her was evident, but that was all.

  Parfitt felt pretty sure that Hayes had just recently bought the sapphire ring. From its design it was an engagement ring, and the inference behind the gift was that Hayes had offered the girl marriage. That might have been a usual part of his campaign. He had at least cut expenses by buying stones which looked a great deal more valuable than they were.

  “He’d have made a fool of her if he’d lived long enough, Parfitt,” the doctor said. “Perhaps she chose the best way out. She must have been madly in love with him.”

  Parfitt thought of that saying now. It fitted in with his theories about the girl, combined with what the local minister had said about her. It was the romantic making a final tragic gesture. He could imagine the girl, stunned by Hayes’s death, perhaps in her innocence, even more stunned by the revelation that he was a married man, dashing off to that lonely tarn, flinging her ring away, and then drowning herself. But why not in the river at home. He wondered.

  Then he remembered her reading; the old novels one finds in every country village; rather stilted, full of dying heroes, swoons, acts of folly romanticised until they looked like natural actions, and, above all, lonely lakes and dismal tarns. No heroine of those novels would have thought of jumping into a reservoir, or a placid river. Dark tarns were the fashion then. It was all of a piece.

  As he entered the shortest tunnel, that above the pool, Parfitt found that it was not quite dark, but filled with a twilight gloom. Still, he had to switch on his torch to see distinctly, and walked on, carefully, switching the beam from side to side.

  He had almost reached the further end when he came on a flat butt of a cigarette. It was one of those smoked by Mr. Hayes.

  It was, of course, possible that it had been there by day, when the man used it as a short cut to the bridge.

  Just beyond this solitary find, however, Parfitt came on six or seven cigarette ends, and, what was more significant, an old cushion from a car, placed at the rock side of the tunnel, and resting on two stones, so that it was raised about fifteen inches from the ground.

  He marked the spot, picked up the cushion, and carried it into the daylight beyond the tunnel to examine it.

  It was from the back seat of a car, covered with imitation leather, and stuffed with horsehair. There was no indication on it, of course, of the owner, but Parfitt felt sure that Miss Tysin had brought it down from the farm to sit on. It came, most probably, from the Ford which had preceded the car she had left up at Llynithen.

  This assumption, confirmed by the cigarette ends left by Hayes near the seat, told him plainly enough that Hayes and the girl had made this tunnel their rendezvous. There were no night trains on the little railway, and there they could sit in quiet, undisturbed by the sportsmen on the river below.

  Hayes had literally got it in the neck this time, Parfitt mused, as he carried the cushion back to the other tunnel, and handed it over to his men to be taken to Cwyll. But he was still unconvinced that Blodwen had handled t
he gaff that killed the man.

  He left that part of the river ten minutes later, and went up to see Davis. The man did not seem surprised to see him, but was anxious to hear about the girl’s suicide, of which he had heard several conflicting accounts.

  Parfitt could see that he was deeply affected by the tragedy. The girl had discouraged his advances from the first, but his feeling for her had gained strength by being damned up. He was one of those quiet, undemonstrative men, who deceive people into believing that they are emotionally insensitive.

  “Pity the —— wasn’t killed sooner, Inspector!” he told Parfitt, when he had heard all. “Vermin he was, indeed! She was a good girl that.”

  “No question of it,” said Parfitt. “There’s no black mark against her so far. But there is something I want to know, and you can tell me perhaps better than anyone. Old Tysin left a gaff behind him. It isn’t up at the farm now. Do you know who has it?”

  “I have it,” said Davis, and he turned and took a long-handled gaff from a corner.

  Parfitt started. “Good! I suppose you picked it up that morning, when you met the gentlemen from the hotel, and looked for Hayes’s body?”

  “No, sir. I have had it a month. I bought it off the postman.”

  Parfitt examined the gaff carefully. “You hadn’t it with you when you were out last with your rod?”

  “No, no. I hadn’t it then. It would be a silly tool, anyway, to kill a man with, look you. A bit of rock would be easier.”

  “I expect it would. Now, Davis, did you suspect that Hayes was meeting the girl and trying to make a fool of her?”

  “Aye, I saw them twice.”

  “Did you speak to her about it? I hear you were fond of her.”

  Davis grunted. “She wouldn’t let me speak.”

  “But you had a shot at it?”

  “I did. I said the man was a rascal—I stopped her in the car to say it. She looked like a knife at me, and drove on.”

  “That was a little while ago, eh? You didn’t know he was a married man?”

  “I’d have broken his neck before if I’d known before any harm came to Blodwen.”

  “No harm came to her, Davis, until she threw herself in the llyn.”

  Davis shrugged his shoulders. “That was enough, indeed. She was a lovely girl, Inspector, a lovely girl.”

  “Did the postman know, do you think?” Parfitt asked.

  “I can’t tell you, sir. He keeps his thoughts to himself. He never said it to me.”

  “Not even to make you jealous? He was after her himself, they say.”

  “We were all clay to her,” said Davis mournfully. “She’d have had more feeling for sods of turf, sir. When she got that education, she never lived here though she was up at the farm. She had ideas about knights, and the like. Yes, yes.”

  Parfitt took possession of the gaff, and went on up to the hotel. He wanted to have a talk with Wint, and was presently closeted with him in the hotel smoking-room.

  “Now, sir,” he began, “I’ve practically settled it that Miss Tysin used to meet Hayes in one of the tunnels. As for that stain you found in the other tunnel, I have had the wood shaved off for analysis. But I am pretty sure that it did not come from the dead man.”

  “You don’t think it was recent, then?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Wint stared. “I hope you don’t mean there was another murder?”

  “No, I don’t think so. What I wanted to ask you was that you and the lady should keep quiet about it. We don’t want all our finds broadcasted.”

  “We won’t tell anyone,” Wint hastened to assure him. “We didn’t want to interfere with your investigations, but I don’t think we did any harm.”

  “No, sir, it was a useful find. We don’t mind taking a tip now and then, so long as you pass it on to us before you make it public. In fact, if you hear anything in the hotel here that may be of use, I shall be glad to know it. It’s everyone’s duty to help in a murder case, and I wish more people recognised it.”

  Wint nodded. “There is something I can tell you. It was not my observation, but Miss Powis’s.”

  “That’s your friend, sir, who came after the murder?”

  “Yes,” Wint replied. “It may be a mistake, it may of no significance, but I’ll tell you what she saw, and you must puzzle it out for yourself.”

  “Go ahead, sir,” said Parfitt eagerly.

  Wint explained what Joan had seen when she was about to leave her room for a bath early in the morning. The Inspector listened interestedly, and did not appear sceptical.

  “It appeared to Miss Powis that those two people knew each other before they met here, sir? Of course, it’s chancy work saying what a person’s expression means when they look at someone else.”

  “She thought so, too. But the gesture is different, we both agreed? Unless you interpret that in an ugly way, which I do not think is warranted by anything we know, it does suggest previous acquaintance.”

  Parfitt agreed. “Funnier coincidences have happened, if it was a coincidence,” he remarked. “Mr. Bow may have communicated with Mrs. Hayes. In any case, her husband appeared to have written to her mentioning other guests.”

  “Still, there must be lots of other men called Bow.”

  “Quite so, sir. Still, this is a good point, and I am much obliged to you and the lady for letting me know. You might keep it dark, too. If people know they are under suspicion they will take measures to meet it. The inquest is to-morrow, by the way. I am afraid you, though not Miss Powis, will have to come down to it.”

  “At Cwyll? Right! Is that all you want me for?”

  “That is all at the present, sir. I have to go to the telephone now.”

  When Wint had gone, Parfitt visited the office where Miss Pole was making up accounts, and asked her if he could have the private use of the telephone. She got up, showed him the receiver, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Getting on to the police station at Cwyll, Parfitt asked if any messages had come in from the officer who had been sent to London.

  The station-sergeant told him that the Chief Constable had had a message. He was in the Superintendent’s office at that moment.

  “Then ask him to speak to me, please,” said Parfitt.

  “Hello. The Chief Constable speaking—is that you, Inspector?” a voice asked a minute later. “Anything new at your end?”

  Parfitt explained briefly what he had done and seen that day, and added: “I believe you had a message from London, sir?”

  “Yes—just a few minutes ago, Inspector. We haven’t heard yet where Mr. Chance came from, but Mr. Bow, I hear, is a Wiltshire man. He came originally from Morewilton.”

  “That’s near Devizes, isn’t it, sir?”

  “I believe so. Well, I must ring off. The coroner has just come in. You might warn the witnesses we shall require for to-morrow.”

  As he rang off, Miss Pole knocked at the door, and peeped in. “Excuse me, Inspector, but I left a letter here that ought to be posted at once.”

  “Is this it?” he asked, picking up a letter from the desk, and handing it to her. “Yes, I see it is stamped. But just a moment, is Mrs. Hayes in the hotel?”

  “Just gone up to her room.”

  “Would you be good enough to ask her to come here?”

  Miss Pole went out with her letter, and Mrs. Hayes came down a minute later.

  “You wished to see me, Inspector?”

  “Yes, madam, if you please. Sit down. The inquest was fixed for to-morrow, and I am afraid I shall have to ask you to attend. Perhaps you could supply me with a few details about your husband, his place of birth, and so on.”

  She nodded. “He was born in Alnmouth, I think.”

  “Brought up there?”

  “I believe his parents took him to London when he was ten.”

  “Was he living in London when you met him, may I ask?”

  She looked surprised. “No, I met him in the country.
He was staying with some friends near Devizes. But what does it matter? Surely that is far too long ago to have any significance now?”

  He bowed. “In a case of murder, Mrs. Hayes, it is sometimes useful to know something about the past. There have been occasions when revenge has been planned years in advance, and only carried out when an opportunity occurred.”

  She smiled faintly. “I don’t think we have to look far for the culprit, if we can call her that.”

  He stiffened. “You refer to the dead girl? I think it is hardly kind.”

  “Kind?” she laughed now. “Do you think I would blame her? No more than I should blame Charlotte Corday for ridding the world of a wretch! I have been thinking things over, Inspector, and I am afraid I was not quite frank with you.”

  “May I ask you exactly what you mean?” he asked severely.

  She drew a letter from the bosom of her dress, and handed it to him.

  “I should never have shown you this if the poor thing hadn’t been found,” she said coolly. “I agree with you that anonymous letters are better ignored, especially if they tell us nothing new. But I had this before I came down.”

  Chapter XIV

  Mrs. Hayes Explains a Little

  PARFITT unfolded the letter eagerly. It was written in a good hand, and signed “Blodwen Tysin.” He read it with growing surprise.

  “Dear Madam,

  “I am afraid your son would be angry with me if he knew I was writing to you, but I felt I had to. I love him, as I know he loves me, but I know he is rich, and a gentleman, and I don’t want to do anything behind backs.

  “My people were farming people, though he says that does not matter, and that you will not care what they were. He talked so nicely of you that it made me ashamed to meet him in the tunnel, and take his ring, though you were not aware that we were engaged.

  “My idea in writing you was to feel that I need not worry at all, as I do now, for if you are both in love and going to get married, there should be no reason to hide it.