“Three or four miles off the coast. It was empty—just as we saw it.”
“And you think—?”
“I’m sure! Listen. In the hall I reconstructed a bit of yesterday for you. Now I’m going to reconstruct some more… It’s queer, Wade. Sometimes you get the beginning of a story and work forwards, and sometimes you get the end and work backwards. I’m getting the middle—and I’ve got to work both ways! Backwards for the sense, and forward for the justice. There’s a noose at the end of this, you know, for somebody. Yes, but it’s another rope I’m more interested in for the moment. Damn!”
“What?”
“Hard road. The track’s gone… No, there it is! Good. God bless British mud! Now, then… Seven men appear from the horizon yesterday. I don’t know what time. Morning? Afternoon? Evening? Not evening. I’ve an idea it’s the morning. Anyway, they row towards our creek—they don’t sail, because the sail’s not useable—they row into the river mouth, and they tie up at the landing-stage there.”
“Why didn’t that young feller see them?” interposed the sergeant. “Hazeldean?”
“For the very good reason that he wasn’t there. He only arrived this morning.”
“So he did. But he could have seen the boat.”
“I’m telling you why he didn’t. The boat was made fast with a rotten rope. One end you’ve just seen. The other is still round the post. Possibly when the last of those seven people landed there was some excitement or emotion, and the rope couldn’t stand it. Anyhow, the boat got loose, and has been floating around unattended till Jessop found it.”
“Wait a bit,” Wade interrupted again. “Why didn’t somebody else find it before Jessop, if they arrived in the morning, and it got loose then?”
“A good point. We must dispose of it. First, they may not have arrived in the morning. Second, if they did arrive in the morning, the boat need not have broken loose till the afternoon or evening. Third, there was a sea mist off this coast yesterday. The fog signal was still going this morning. I think No. 3 would dispose of your objection without Nos. 1 and 2. The boat drifted away in the mist. By the time the mist cleared and visibility became normal, it had reached the spot where Jessop found it. How does all that sound to you?”
“Pretty good,” admitted the sergeant.
“And tell me if you think this is pretty good, too,” went on Kendall. “That mist—it’s going to help us again. If those seven people landed at the creek by accident—that is, if they were at the mercy of the mist, and simply drifted to that landing-stage, then they arrived some time after lunch, because the mist came on, roughly, at about two. Is that correct?”
“Quite,” answered Wade. “Only we don’t think they came by accident—do we?”
“We do not,” replied Kendall. “The accident that followed would be far too much of a coincidence! And therefore, Wade, that boat arrived in the morning. Before two, anyhow. If they had been looking out for the creek mouth, they could never have found it in the mist.”
“Yes, but what about this, sir?” said the sergeant. “The theory is that they died in the evening, isn’t it?”
“Certainly—though always remember that a theory is something not yet proved.”
“But we’re working on it?”
“I think we’ll find it correct.”
“All right. Then if they died in the evening, and arrived in the morning—”
“Why did they waste several hours before entering oblivion? Why didn’t they drop down dead on the spot, to oblige a couple of policemen?… I say, Wade, this bicycle of ours is setting a long trail! Which way now? Straight on, or over the bridge?… Over the bridge, I think. We’ll try it, anyway.” The car swung round to the right and crossed the water. Beyond, in a sandy lane, the cycle marks began again. “Good. Now, then. Our seven doomed people land in the morning—yesterday morning. What do they do? Go straight to the house? Not necessarily, if some big business is on. It seems to me more likely that they would wait till the evening. And the arrival of the mist would help to conceal them. They wait in the boat—”
“But the boat’s gone!”
“I don’t blame you, Wade. It’s your job to trip me up. But why should the boat have drifted away just yet? Still, if it has gone off and left them, we’ll picture them waiting, not in the boat, but on the landing-stage. And it’s a picture, too, isn’t it, sergeant? Seven strangers—strangers? One knew the way! Seven doomed people already half-blotted out on a misty landing-stage just inside an isolated creek mouth. Or perhaps only six.”
He paused, and forced Wade’s question: “Where’s the seventh?”
“In the little wood. Or on the lawn. Watching the house. A shadowy figure. Or maybe there are two shadowy figures. One at the back, one at the front… and five on the landing-stage… Where am I getting? Is this sense?… And someone inside the house, watching for the shadow’s, eh?… Not Miss Fenner. She’s gone. She went away early… Cricket ball. Wade, that damn cricket ball. What the blazes has a cricket ball to do with it?”
“Hey!” exclaimed Wade. “Isn’t it to the left here?”
The car stopped abruptly at forked roads. Kendall jumped out and looked along both forks, then went a few paces along both.
“Yes—I think you’re correct,” he nodded as he returned. “It isn’t saying much, sergeant, but you’re not quite the fool you look.”
“Very kind of you to say so,” grunted the sergeant.
“Not at all. Haven’t you noticed how full of compliments I am?”
The car moved on again slowly.
“Wade, we don’t know what happened between the arrival of that boat named Ferndale and the time when the seven occupants called at Haven House. Haven! My God, what a haven! We don’t know what time the boat broke away. I’m not sure that it matters very much. For we know this: they entered the house—someone let them in—”
“Do we know that, sir?” interrupted the sergeant sharply.
“You mean that window at the back through which that poor miserable thief entered this morning? Wouldn’t there have been a fingerprint or two—besides his—if seven others had got in through that back window? Haven’t we combed the window frame, outside and in? And the ledge? Everywhere we could think of? No, they didn’t enter through the back, Wade. They entered through the front. And someone let them in. And they went into the shuttered drawing-room—the shutters being nailed. They went in… If they were suspicious—if—why did they all go in so obediently?… Yes, yes, yes, but one of ’em became suspicious! Eh? The person who showed ’em in went out again into the hall—X. You remember? X. You were X. And I was the old man with the revolver. And X and the old man had a bit of a fuss at the door. And the old man fired a shot before X locked him and his companions in and got down to his devilish work through the keyhole… Whew!… And all the old man hit with his bullet was the picture of the child… Wade, put your hand very carefully into my side pocket and take out what you find. It’s a faded picture—so faded that one can hardly recognise it. Still—got it? Have a try?”
“I’m blowed!” muttered the sergeant as he stared at the little piece of pasteboard. “It’s—the kid!”
“That’s what I thought,” murmured Kendall. “It was in that boat… Hallo! Our track goes into this big flat field… Wade! Wade! Do you see anything in that clump of bushes? It isn’t a bicycle, is it?”
Chapter XIX
And Another Begins
It was a bicycle. A Hercules. It had been shoved into the clump of bushes unceremoniously. A little more ceremony would have made for complete oblivion; even as it was, the machine would have been difficult to spot unless somebody had been looking for it. Kendall and Wade had been looking for it for several miles.
“I’m blowed!” said Wade.
“You shouldn’t be,” answered Kendall. “This is what we’ve come after, isn’t it?”
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“You don’t always find what you come after,” hedged Wade.
“Then your surprise is uncomplimentary to your profession, and should be kept dark. You don’t always arrest a man you’re after, but when you stick on the bracelets you don’t say, ‘Well, fancy that!’ You pretend there had never been any doubt about it from the start… X didn’t ride into those bushes, Wade.”
“Are we still going on calling him X?” asked Wade.
“We might as well, in case we have to say ‘I’m blowed!’ when we actually discover who X is. He got off the bicycle, and then he heaved it in here. Was in a bit of a hurry, I should say.”
“I’ll bet he was in a hurry! Someone was after him!”
“Who?”
“Eh?”
“Who was after him—then?”
“Well, you said he was in a hurry,” the sergeant pointed out.
“If you weren’t smarter than your conversation, Wade,” replied Kendall, “I’d heave you in the bush to join the bicycle. Fortunately, during the past few hours I’ve found out that you are much more useful than you sound, even if sometimes it’s only by accident. But do try to avoid weak defences. Of course X was in a hurry. He was also in a flurry, which creates illusions and confuses logic. Get inside X’s mind, Wade—”
“I’ve had enough of being X, thank you.”
“I don’t want you to be him this time, but to imagine him. Let’s continue with his story. That’ll give us a clue to his feelings, when last night he stood where you and I are standing now. After the little incident you and I reconstructed in the hall of Haven House—after the picture has been shot, the drawing-room door locked, and the filthy gas sent through the keyhole—X leaves the house. He rushes to the bicycle shed. He knows that seven people are dead or dying in the house he is fleeing from. Hurry? My God! Those seven ghosts are after him! He upsets his lamp in his flurry. We saw the oil marks. On the bike he jumps, along the river to the lane, along the lane to the bridge, over the bridge, and good-bye to the river, but not to the seven ghosts that are pursuing him. Out of the lane into this field… Why into this field? He has no more use for the bicycle. Why has he no more use for the bicycle?”
“P’r’aps he has no more use for himself,” suggested the sergeant.
“That’s one of the best remarks you have ever made,” answered Kendall. “Not that I believe there’s anything in it. Let’s search these bushes.”
But X was not in the bushes. They found no sign of him anywhere.
After five minutes Sergeant Wade made another bright remark.
“What I say is this,” he observed. “If X came into this field, and if he isn’t here now, he must have left it.”
“So all we’ve got to do,” replied Kendall, “is to find how he left it.”
“On his feet.”
“I have the size and the shape of his feet—provided X is who we think he is. Come on, Wade. We’ll see whether there are any other marks along the lane.”
“You mean, he might have got rid of the bicycle here, and then walked?” asked Wade, as they went back to the road.
“Yes, isn’t that what you meant? We may be wrong in assuming the trail ends here. Where the bicycle trail ends, the boot trail may begin.”
The only footprints they found were going in the wrong direction, and they did not fit Kendall’s measurements.
“These may be our spoon-thief’s,” grunted Kendall. “Anyhow, they’re not the ones I’m looking for. Hallo—what’s this?”
He stooped, and picked up a small, neat little portion of brown crepe hair. One side was smooth, the other hard and messy. He examined and smelt the messy side.
“Spirit-gum,” he said. “Somebody’s lost a side-whisker.”
“Disguise!” exclaimed Wade quickly, to get the word in first.
“Did X disguise himself?” answered Kendall.
“He might do, to get away.”
“Yes… Or to receive his visitors.”
“I don’t get you.”
“I don’t think I get myself. Why should he disguise himself to receive his visitors?”
Wade scratched his head.
“P’r’haps he didn’t want them to recognise him?” he suggested.
“Wade,” said Kendall, “this is getting more and more devilish. We’ll get back to the field.”
“It’s going to take some time to search all that.”
“It won’t be time wasted—provided I don’t miss my aeroplane for Folkestone… Aeroplane. Wade! Aeroplane! You’re right! This is a big field to search! A big, flat field!”
“By golly!” muttered Wade.
“Yes, we’re not looking for a bicycle track this time, but an aeroplane track! X made straight for this spot. Did he expect to find the next stage of his journey waiting for him? And is that why—somebody—didn’t cross to Boulogne by the boat yesterday? Eh?”
Three minutes later, they found the new marks they were searching for. Beginning a third of the way across the field, they continued towards a distant low hedge. They ended a hundred yards from the hedge.
“I don’t think I need any more, for the moment,” said Kendall.
In the car again, their minds were busy. Sergeant Wade expressed his thought first.
“What about that mist?” he asked.
“What about it?” replied Kendall.
“Could the aeroplane get away in the mist?”
“Pretty tricky, I should say.”
“Well, then?”
“Go on.”
“X didn’t get away till this morning.”
Kendall shook his head.
“Do you remember a remark you made to me yesterday evening?” he asked. “‘Hallo—fog’s letting up a bit.’”
“So it did!”
“Between seven and nine. Then it got bad again. But it may not have been so bad near the French coast. I’ll find that out when I get there myself.”
Chapter XX
Victim Number Eight
The lights of France grew more and more distinct as the Isle of Thanet approached Boulogne, rising and falling rhythmically on a sea of deepening grey. A harsh, deafening blast issued from the funnel, heralding the conclusion of another journey. If this had been the boat’s maiden trip the loud egotistical note might have sounded appropriate, and the unfortunate folk near the funnel would have stuffed their fingers into their ears without complaint; but the trip had been made countless times, and the volume of the blast seemed to overrate the achievement.
“Well, I suppose it’s necessary in a noisy age,” muttered a passenger next to Kendall.
“Probably the Ichthyosaurus made a worse noise,” answered Kendall.
“Pardon me,” retorted the passenger, “but there is no specific evidence that Ichthyopterygia made any noise at all! On the other hand, we may presume that when the Mesozoic Allosaur attacked the Brontosaur, it snorted.”
“I’m sorry,” apologised Kendall. “But what I really want to know is whether a cat turns round like a dog before it sits down?”
While his fellow-traveller blinked at him, appearing to find the remark as frivolous as the inspector’s red carnation buttonhole, the boat itself turned round, and backed into the harbour.
Kendall’s inquiries of the passport officials, like his inquiries on the boat and at Folkestone, merely corroborated what he already knew. Dora Fenner had crossed that morning, but no other person of that surname, or answering the description of John Fenner, had been seen or heard of. Passing down the subway out of the station, he paused and looked about him. Expectation was in his eye, but the expectation soon changed to a frown.
“Not here,” he murmured. “What’s happened to the fellow?”
Continuing on his way, he walked slowly along. Dim shapes of ships loomed from the water on his left
. He sought a particular shape, and did not find it. The trip to Boulogne was not beginning well.
At the bridge he stopped again. He lit a cigarette, and tried to make himself conspicuous. No one seemed interested in him. He grunted with annoyance, hailed a taxi, and said, “Commissariat de police.” A few minutes later he was talking to the commissaire.
“I expected to be met,” he said.
“Of course,” answered the commissaire. “But were you not?”
“No one.”
“I do not understand. As soon as we received your request I sent out my best man. I see you wear your buttonhole—he should have found you.” He turned to a man at a desk. “Have you had any report from Gustav?”
“Nothing,” answered the man.
“He has not been back?” The man shook his head. “No news at all?” The man shook his head again. The commissaire turned back to Kendall with a little shrug. “It is unlike him. He is reliable. Something must have happened.”
“Perhaps he had to go some distance,” said Kendall.
“Even so, we should have had a message. The instruction to meet you, or to report if he could not, was definite. Well, what do you suggest? We are at your disposal.”
Kendall did not reply. The commissaire began to repeat his question, then stopped abruptly, and followed his visitor’s gaze. It was fixed on the desk at which the other man was sitting.
“Something interests you there?” he inquired.
“May I go over and look?” asked Kendall.
“But certainly. We have our problems on this side of the water, as you have on yours—otherwise, you and I would be looking for work, eh? An aeroplane—accident.” Kendall noted the little pause before the last word as he crossed the room. “Some of those items on the desk may become exhibits, to use your phrase.”
“It is not a phrase we use in connection with an accident,” commented Kendall.
“That is true,” admitted the commissaire, rather dryly, “but this seems to have been quite an unusual accident.”
Kendall stared at the exhibits. A cigarette-lighter. An unused postcard of a nude lady. A bunch of keys. A pencil. A blood-stained handkerchief…
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