“I can’t tell you about that,” she said at last.
“Can’t you, by God?” snapped Mr. Blundell. “Well, now, will you tell me—?”
“It’s no good, Mary,” said Will. “Don’t answer him. Don’t say nothing. They’ll only twist your words round into what you don’t mean. We’ve got nothing to say and if I got to go through it, I got to go through it and that’s all about it.”
“Not quite,” said Wimsey. “Don’t you see that if you tell us what you know, and we’re satisfied that your wife knows nothing — then there’s nothing to prevent your marriage from going through straight away? That’s right, isn’t it, Super?”
“Can’t hold out any inducement, my lord,” said the Superintendent, stolidly.
“Of course not, but one can point out an obvious fact. You see,” went on Wimsey, “somebody must have known something, for your wife to have jumped so quickly to the conclusion that the dead man was Deacon. If she hadn’t already been suspicious about you — if you were perfectly ignorant and innocent the whole time — then she had the guilty knowledge. It would work all right that way, of course. Yes, I see now that it would. If she knew, and told you about it — then you would be the one with the sensitive conscience. You would have told her that you couldn’t kneel at the altar with a guilty woman—”
“Stop that!” said Thoday. “You say another word and I’ll — Oh, my God! it wasn’t that, my lord. She never knew. I did know. I’ll say that much, I won’t say no more, only that. As I hope to be saved, she never knew a word about it.”
“As you hope to be saved?” said Wimsey. “Well. Well. And you did know, and that’s all you’ve got to tell us?”
“Now, look here,” said the Superintendent, “you’ll have to go a bit further than that, my lad. When did you know?”
“When the body was found,” replied Thoday, “I knew then.” He spoke slowly, as though every word were being wrenched out of him. He went on more briskly: “That’s when I knew who it was.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?” demanded Blundell.
“What, and have everybody know me and Mary wasn’t married? Likely, ain’t it?”
“Ah!” said Wimsey. “But why didn’t you get married then?”
Thoday shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, you see, my lord — I hoped as Mary needn’t ever know. It was a bitter hard thing for her, wasn’t it? And the children. We couldn’t ever put that right, you see. So I made up my mind to say nothing about it and take the sin — if it was a sin — on my shoulders. I didn’t want to make no more trouble for her. Can’t you understand that? Well, then — when she found it out, through seeing that there paper—” He broke off and started again. “You see, ever since the body was found I’d been worried and upset in my mind, like, and I daresay I was a bit queer in my ways and she’d noticed it — when she asked me if the dead man was Deacon after all, why, then I told her as it was, and that’s how it all came about.”
“And how did you know who the dead man was?”
There was a long silence. “He was terribly disfigured, you know,” went on Wimsey.
“You said you thought he was — that he’d been in prison,” stammered Thoday, “and I said to myself—”
“Half a mo’,” broke in the Superintendent, “when did you ever hear his lordship say that? It wasn’t brought out at the inquest, nor yet at the adjournment, because we were most particularly careful to say nothing about it. Now then!”
“I heard something about it from Rector’s Emily,” said Thoday, slowly. “She happened to hear something his lordship said to Mr. Bunter.”
“Oh, did she?” snapped Mr. Blundell. “And how much more did Rector’s Emily overhear, I’d like to know. That beer-bottle, now! Who told her to dust the fingerprints off it — come, now!”
“She didn’t mean no harm about that,” said Will. “It was nothing but girl’s curiosity. You know how they are. She came over next day and told Mary all about it. In a rare taking, she was.”
“Indeed!” said the Superintendent, unbelievingly. “So you say. Never mind. Let’s go back to Deacon. You heard that Emily heard something his lordship said to Mr. Bunter about the dead man having been in prison. Was that it? And what did you think of that?”
“I said to myself, it must be Deacon. I said, here’s that devil come out of his grave to trouble us again, that’s what I said. Mind you, I didn’t exactly know, but that’s what I said to myself.”
“And what did you imagine he had come for?”
“How was I to know? I thought he’d come, that’s all.”
“You thought he’d come after the emeralds, didn’t you?” said the Superintendent.
For the first time a look of genuine surprise and eagerness came into the haunted eyes. “The emeralds? Was that what he was after? Do you mean he had them after all? Why, we always thought the other fellow — Cranton — had got them.”
“You didn’t know that they had been hidden in the church?”
“In the church?”
“We found them there on Monday,” explained his lordship, placidly, “tucked away in the roof.”
“In the roof of the church? Why, then, that was what he — The emeralds found? Thank God for that! They’ll not be able to say now as Mary had any hand in it.”
“True,” said Wimsey. “But you were about to say something else, I rather fancy. ‘That was what he—?’ What? ‘That was what he was after when I found him in the church.’ Was that it?”
“No, my lord. I was going to say — I was just going to say, that was what he did with them.” A fresh wave of anger seemed to sweep over him. “The dirty villain! He did double-cross that other fellow after all.”
“Yes,” agreed his lordship. “I’m afraid there’s not much to be said in favour of the late Mr. Deacon. I’m sorry, Mrs. Thoday, but he was really rather an unsatisfactory person. And you’re not the only one to suffer. He married another woman over in France, and she’s left with three small children too.”
“Poor soul!” said Mary.
“The damned scoundrel!” exclaimed Will, “if I’d have known that, I’d—”
“Yes?”
“Never mind,” growled the farmer. “How did he come to be in France? How did he—?”
“That’s a long story,” said Wimsey, “and rather far from the point at issue. Now, let’s get your story clear. You heard that the body of a man who might have been a convict had been found in the churchyard, and though the face was quite unrecognisable, you were — shall we say inspired? — to identify him with Geoffrey Deacon, whom you had supposed to have died in 1918. You said nothing about it till your wife, the other day, saw a bit of Deacon’s handwriting, which might have been written at any time, and was — shall we again say inspired? — with the same idea. Without waiting for any further verification, you both rushed away to town to get remarried, and that’s the only explanation you can give. Is that it?”
“That’s all I can say, my lord.”
“And a damned thin story too,” observed Mr. Blundell, truculently. “Now, get this. Will Thoday. You know where you stand as well as I do. You know you’re not bound to answer any questions now unless you like. But there’s the inquest on the body; we can have that re-opened, and you can tell your story to the coroner. Or you can be charged with the murder and tell it to a judge and jury. Or you can come clean now. Whichever you like. See?”
“I’ve nothing more to say, Mr. Blundell.”
“I tell thee all, I can no more,” observed Wimsey thoughtfully. “That’s a pity, because the public prosecutor may get quite a different sort of story fixed in his mind. He may think, for instance, that you knew Deacon was alive because you had met him in the church on the night of December 30th.”
He waited to see the effect of this, and resumed:
“There’s Potty Peake, you know. I don’t suppose he’s too potty to give evidence about what he saw and heard that night from behind Abbot Thomas’ tomb. The black-bearded man
and the voices in the vestry and Will Thoday fetching the rope from the cope-chest. What took you into the church, by the way? You saw a light, perhaps. And went along and found the door open, was that it? And in the vestry, you found a man doing something that looked suspicious. So you challenged him and when he spoke you knew who it was. It was lucky that the fellow didn’t shoot you, but probably you took him unawares. Anyway, you threatened to give him up to justice and then he pointed out that that would put your wife and children in an unpleasant position. So you indulged in a little friendly chat — did you speak? — In the end, you compromised. You said you would keep quiet about it and get him out of the country with £200 in pocket, but you hadn’t got it at the moment and in the meantime you would put him in a place of safety. Then you fetched a rope and tied him up. I don’t know how you kept him quiet while you went to fetch it. Did you give him a straight left to the jaw, or what?… You won’t help me?… Well, never mind. You tied him up and left him in the vestry while you went round to steal Mr. Venables’ keys. It’s a miracle you found them in the right place, by the way. They seldom are. Then you took him up into the belfry, because the bell-chamber was nice and handy and had several locks to it, and it was easier than escorting him out through the village. After that you brought him some food — perhaps Mrs. Thoday could throw some light on that. Did you miss a quart bottle of beer or so about that time, Mrs. Thoday? Some of those you got in for Jim? By the way, Jim is coming home and we’ll have to have a word with him.”
Watching Mary’s face, the Superintendent saw it contract suddenly with alarm, but she said nothing. Wimsey went on remorselessly.
“The next day you went over to Walbeach to get the money. But you weren’t feeling well, and on the way home you broke down completely and couldn’t get back to let Deacon out. That was damned awkward for you, wasn’t it? You didn’t want to confide in your wife. Of course, there was Jim.”
Thoday raised his head.
“I’m not saying anything one way or other, my lord, except this. I’ve never said one word to Jim about Deacon — not one word. Nor he to me. And that’s the truth.”
“Very well,” said Wimsey. “Whatever else happened, in between December 30th and January 4th, somebody killed Deacon. And on the night of the 4th, somebody buried the body. Somebody who knew him and took care to mutilate his face and hands beyond recognition. And what everybody will want to know is, at what moment did Deacon cease to be Deacon and become the body? Because that’s rather the point, isn’t it? We know that you couldn’t very well have buried him yourself, because you were ill, but the killing is a different matter. You see, Thoday, he didn’t starve to death. He died with a full tummy. You couldn’t have fed him after the morning of December 31st. If you didn’t kill him then, who took him his rations in the interval? And who, having fed him and killed him, rolled him down the belfry ladder on the night of the 4th, with a witness sitting in the roof of the tower — a witness who had seen him and recognised him? A witness who—”
“Hold on, my lord,” said the Superintendent. “The woman’s fainted.”
THE FOURTH PART
THE SLOW WORK
Who shut up the sea with doors… and brake up for it my decreed place?
JOB, xxxviii. 8, 10.
“He won’t say anything,” said Superintendent Blundell.
“I know he won’t,” said Wimsey. “Have you arrested him?”
“No, my lord, I haven’t. I’ve sent him home and told him to think it over. Of course, we could easily get him on being an accessory after the fact in both cases. I mean, he was shielding a known murderer — that’s pretty clear, I fancy; and he’s also shielding whoever killed Deacon, if he didn’t do it himself. But I’m taking the view that we’ll be able to handle him better after we’ve interrogated James. And we know James will be back in England at the end of the month. His owners have been very sensible. They’ve given him orders to come home, without saying what he’s wanted for. They’ve arranged for another man to take his place and he’s to report himself by the next boat.”
“Good! It’s a damnable business, the whole thing. If ever a fellow deserved a sticky death, it’s this Deacon brute. If the law had found him the law would have hanged him, with loud applause from all good citizens. Why should we hang a perfectly decent chap for anticipating the law and doing our dirty work for us?”
“Well, it is the law, my lord,” replied Mr. Blundell, “and it’s not my place to argue about it. In any case, we’re going to have a bit of a job to hang Will Thoday, unless it’s as an accessory before the fact. Deacon was killed on a full stomach. If Will did away with him on the 30th, or the 31st, why did he go to collect the £200? If Deacon was dead, he wouldn’t want it. On the other hand, if Deacon wasn’t killed till the 4th, who fed him in the interval? If James killed him, why did he trouble to feed him first? The thing makes no sense.”
“Suppose Deacon was being fed by somebody,” said Wimsey, “and suppose he said something infuriatin’ and the somebody killed him all of a sudden in a frenzy, not meaning to?”
“Yes, but how did he kill him? He wasn’t stabbed or shot or clouted over the head.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Wimsey. “Curse the man! He’s a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I’d killed him myself. Perhaps I did. Perhaps the rector did. Perhaps Hezekiah Lavender did.”
“I don’t suppose it was any of those,” said Mr. Blundell, stolidly. “But it might have been somebody else, of course. There’s that Potty, for instance. He’s always wandering round the church at night. Only he’d have to get into the bell-chamber, and I don’t see how he could. But I’m waiting for James. I’ve got a hunch that James may have quite a lot to tell us.”
“Have you? Oysters have beards, but they don’t wag them.”
“If it comes to oysters,” said the Superintendent, “there’s ways and means of opening ’em — and you needn’t swallow ’em whole, neither. You’re not going back to Fenchurch?”
“Not just at present. I don’t think there’s very much I can do down there for a bit. But my brother Denver and I are going to Walbeach to open the New Cut. I expect we shall see you there.”
* * *
The only other thing of interest that happened during the next week or so was the sudden death of Mrs. Wilbraham. She died at night and alone — apparently from mere old age — with the emeralds clasped in her hand. She left a will drawn up fifteen years earlier, in which she left the whole of her very considerable estate to her Cousin Henry Thorpe “because he is the only honest man I know.” That she should cheerfully have left her only honest relative to suffer the wearing torments of straitened means and anxiety throughout the intervening period seemed to be only what anybody might have expected from her enigmatic and secretive disposition. A codicil, dated on the day after Henry’s death, transferred the legacy to Hilary, while a further codicil, executed a few days before her own death, not only directed that the emeralds which had caused all the disturbance should be given to “Lord Peter Wimsey, who seems to be a sensible man and to have acted without interested motives,” but also made him Hilary’s trustee. Lord Peter made a wry face over this bequest. He offered the necklace to Hilary, but she refused to touch it; it had painful associations for her. It was, indeed, only with difficulty that she was persuaded to accept the Wilbraham estate. She hated the thought of the testatrix; and besides, she had set her heart on earning her own living. “Uncle Edward will be worse than ever,” she said. “He will want me to marry some horrible rich man, and if I want to marry a poor one, he’ll say he’s after the money. And anyway, I don’t want to marry anybody.”
“Then don’t,” said Wimsey. “Be a wealthy spinster.”
“And get like Aunt Wilbraham? Not me!”
“Of course not. Be a nice wealthy spinster.”
“Are there any?”
“Well, there’s me. I mean, I’m a nice wealthy bachelor. Fairly nice,
anyway. And it’s fun to be rich. I find it so. You needn’t spend it all on yachts and cocktails, you know. You could build something or endow something or run something or the other. If you don’t take it, it will go to some ghastly person — Uncle Edward or somebody — whoever is Mrs. Wilbraham’s next-of-kin, and they’d be sure to do something silly with it.”
“Uncle Edward would,” said Hilary, thoughtfully.
“Well, you’ve got a few years to think it over,” said Wimsey. “When you’re of age, you can see about throwing it into the Thames. But what I’m to do with the emeralds I really don’t know.”
“Beastly things,” said Hilary. “They’ve killed grandfather, and practically killed Dad, and they’ve killed Deacon and they’ll kill somebody else before long. I wouldn’t touch them with a barge-pole.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep them till you’re twenty-one, and then we’ll form ourselves into a Wilbraham Estate Disposals Committee and do something exciting with the whole lot.”
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