Dixon rubbed the end of his nose pensively. “Which doesn’t help us in our problem very much, does it? Or, if it does, it points more than ever to Miss Farraday. How did hair from Hexley’s head get in her handbag clasp unless she did as she said and hit him?”
“It could have been specially put there so that we’d find it,” Calthorp suggested. “Yet somehow...oh, I don’t know,” he sighed. “I’m getting more stuck every minute, and I freely admit it between ourselves. It is Miss Farraday’s willingness to confess to the crime that baffles me, because I’m inwardly sure that she did not commit it. I’d get on firmer ground if I could find some bloodstain comparisons, but in that direction I’ve done badly. There isn’t a thing in the studio that has bloodstains on it. I can only think that Hexley jammed wadding into his palm, and kept it there until he got to the doctor—which fact the doctor has as good as verified for me. He, unfortunately, has no bloodstained material for examination either. Once he had dressed Hexley’s wound he burned the rough and ready swabs in the ordinary way.”
“So we’re no nearer? We can’t prove that the bloodstains on the bag belong to him?”
“Apparently not. We know that they’re AB, and their rarity would make it unusual for them to be duplicated—but on the other hand it could happen. If we could only once prove that he had an AB blood-group we’d be entitled to believe it is his blood on the handbag. As things are, we’re stymied.”
Dixon got up and poured himself a cup of tepid tea from the pot on the tray. He drank it slowly and pondered meanwhile. Calthorp returned the mounted hairs to the locker, lighted a cigarette and drew at it slowly as he returned to his desk.
“I had further words with Miss Vane this morning whilst I was about it,” he said. “The more I see of that girl the more convinced I become that she didn’t commit this murder. She’s somehow too loyal to Hexley—or at least to his memory now that she assumes, as we do, that he’s been killed somehow. Besides, practically all of her movements can be checked.”
“Several of Draycott’s can’t,” the sergeant remarked.
“I know that, but in none of the times mentioned—which are not provable—would Draycott have had the opportunity to go to Surrey, commit murder, dispose of the body, and, come back. His theatrical engagement just would not have permitted him. And Hexley was last seen in Surrey, don’t forget, on the afternoon of the day he cut his hand. I don’t think he came back to London, where Draycott might have disposed of him, because the station-master at Midhampton can’t remember ever seeing Hexley above once. As for Hexley’s car, it’s still in the public garage where he kept it, so he didn’t use that. Again it narrows down to something which happened to Hexley, in or near Midhampton.”
“The only possible conclusion, sir, is that Miss Farraday did kill him, though not perhaps quite in the way she said. Since her story is open to so many doubts she perhaps invented it so that it would seem to give her grounds for pleading self-defence. Had she given the real story it might have proven her an out and out murderess.”
“The point that puzzles me,” Calthorp confessed, “is that, as a thriller-writer with a knowledge of police procedure, she should be so determined to admit her guilt and expect to be arrested. She must know that without the body being produced she just cannot be. I can’t think how to link those two points up.”
“If you ask me, sir,” Dixon said, in some disgust, “that Miss Farraday is a puzzle no matter how you look at her. Dressed up like a kid, playing with dolls, choosing the moment when her boy friend splits his hand to break off her engagement to him, confessing to murder when she’d no apparent need— I give up!” He frowned for a moment, then a thought seemed to strike him. “Just a minute! Maybe we’ve missed something. What about that chap we found her with last evening? What was his name now—Hargraves?”
“Well, what about him?’
“I was just thinking—Miss Farraday did say he was a very great friend of hers. He must have been to be in the house with her like that. Perhaps she is engaged to him, or something.”
Calthorp waited for the sergeant to unravel himself.
“I mean sir,” Dixon went on, “that a man as closely attached to Miss Farraday as Hargraves seems to be might have had a reason for wanting Hexley out of the way—maybe so that he could get her for himself. He lives in Midhampton, so if we’ve nothing else we have at least another suspect.”
“Uh-huh,” Calthorp admitted, reflecting.
“If perhaps Miss Farraday is in love with Hargraves,” Dixon insisted, “which she apparently was not with Hexley—or she would not have smashed up the engagement as she did—she might be shouldering the blame for him, knowing that he is the murderer. She knows you can’t do anything without the body, but to make sure you don’t even suspect Hargraves she’s taking the blame herself. Maybe a sort of—of protective instinct.”
“Yes, it has possibilities,” Calthorp assented, after considering for a while. “Maybe we have been a trifle lax in regard to Hargraves. First thing in the morning we’ll go over to Midhampton again, track him down, and see what he has to say for himself. Since I don’t want to ask Miss Farraday for his address, and so give away our moves, you’d better find a directory for the Surrey area and see if it’s listed.”
Dixon nodded and headed for the office door.
* * * * * * *
In possession of Clem Hargraves’ address, Calthorp and Dixon arrived at it in their car at eleven the following morning—a quiet suburban house in one of the village’s side roads. An elderly, meticulously clean lady opened the door to them.
“Mr. Hargraves at home?” Calthorp inquired after identifying himself.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. He’s a commercial, you know, and leaves fairly early, so he—”
“Perhaps, then, you’ve some idea when he’ll be back?”
“I expect him at lunch time. He said he wouldn’t be going more than ten miles today.”
Calthorp nodded his thanks and raised his hat. “We’ll be back then,” he promised.
And he was, with Dixon beside him. This time they were successful in catching Hargraves. He came into the front room, apparently still masticating part of his midday meal.
“You want to see me, gentlemen?’ he asked in surprise. Then as he saw the faces of his visitors, and Dixon’s uniform, he gave a start. “Why, I met you the other evening at—”
“At Miss Farraday’s, sir,” Calthorp acknowledged, rising, and for the sake of confirmation he displayed his warrant-card for a moment. “If you can spare a moment I’d be grateful.”
“Yes, of course I can.” Hargraves closed the door. “Though this is a bit of a shock,” he confessed. “My landlady didn’t say the police: she just said two men. Being discreet, I suppose.”
“Possibly,” Calthorp agreed. Then: “I believe you are a good friend of Miss Farraday’s?”
“I am indeed!”
“Would you say an—intimate friend?”
“Depends what you infer by ‘intimate,’” Clem Hargraves answered guardedly. “I’ve known her for some years, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yes.” Calthorp gave a slow nod. “That is what I mean. About how many years, Mr. Hargraves?”
“Oh—three or four.”
“And after three or four years you are on terms intimate enough to be invited into her home, with only Miss Farraday herself present?”
Clem Hargraves face darkened a little. “What the devil do you mean by that? Trying to make something out of it?”
“Not at all; I’m drawing natural conclusions.” Calthorp’s cold grey eyes did not move. “I’m suggesting, Mr. Hargraves, that your relationship with Miss Farraday comes pretty close to being that of fiancé.”
“Quite right,” Hargraves agreed, without hesitation. “I’ve always been extremely fond of Miss Farraday. I was on the point of becoming engaged to her when she met Mr. Hexley and in a sudden emotional tailspin fell desperately in love with him—or s
o she said. Then she realized her mistake, discarded him, and now.... Well, we’re right back where we started. Very soon I hope to become engaged to her officially, once this business of Hexley is cleared up and her mind is at rest.”
“Am I to understand,” Calthorp asked, “that you took her engagement to Mr. Hexley with good grace? The sort of faithful watchdog attitude, wanting only her happiness regardless of your own?”
“Anything but it!” Hargraves retorted. “When I found that she had ditched me for Hexley I got mad—madder than I’d ever been in my life. After all, it was enough to make me! She never even hinted what she was up to, then one evening when I was on my way as usual to call for her in the car for our little Thursday evening jaunt into town, she was coming along the lane as large as life with Hexley beside her. To my face she told me that she had forgotten all about my calling, and Hexley said he was her fiancé. What would you have done?”
“I am more interested in what you did, sir,” Calthorp answered unemotionally.
“I called her a two-timer, let Hexley see what I thought about him, and then returned to my rooms here in a boiling temper. But in time my anger cooled off, and when I found out the sort of spot she seemed to have got herself into—with Hexley missing—I went to see her and patch up our differences. That was the evening you came.”
“I see. And now your differences are reconciled enough for you to contemplate engagement to her?”
“Well, yes—but she’s holding off for some reason. She said she didn’t feel like getting married just at present. The Hexley business hanging over her, I suppose.”
Calthorp studied the room absently for a moment, then: “Was the occasion in the lane the only time you saw Mr. Hexley?”
“It was—and quite enough too!”
Calthorp said: “Obviously the disappearance of Hexley must be puzzling you as much as it is the police. Have you any suggestions to offer? Any theories to explain what might have happened to him?”
“I can only think of one possibility—that he may have wandered into Barraclough’s Swamp, like many before him, and lost his life because of it, nobody knowing what happened to him. Not much of a theory, I know, but it is at least possible.”
“Yes indeed. In fact anything is possible.... I’m afraid I am going to seem a nuisance, Mr. Hargraves,” Calthorp continued, “but I’m going to ask you to let me have a detailed statement of your movements from about three o’clock on Friday week last, the day Hexley was last seen alive, up to today, stating where you have witnesses to prove it. Think it out carefully and send it on to me at the Yard.”
“What in the world for?” Hargraves asked in amazement. “It sounds as though I’m on your list of suspects!”
Calthorp gave his wintry smile. “I’m afraid you are. But that is nothing to be alarmed about, surely? All people connected—or known to have been connected—with a missing or dead person become suspect whilst the investigation is proceeding. I’m sure you’ll be able to satisfy me.”
“What reason do you think I’d have for wanting to kill Hexley, anyway?”
“Isn’t that a trifle artless, sir, when you have just said that you let Hexley know what you thought about him? With your intended fiancée snatched from under your nose, so to speak, without you even being consulted, you could hardly have liked Mr. Hexley, I imagine! See how it is? So—just you fix up that itemized list and let me see it. Routine: it has to be done.”
Hargraves sighed, his homely face worried. “All right, inspector, if that’s the way you want it. Fortunately I can prove most of my actions. Take it from me, I didn’t kill Hexley—nor do I really know what has happened to him. I can only guess.”
“Quite so.... Tell me, has Miss Farraday made any suggestions as to what might have happened to Hexley?”
“She, too, seems inclined to think that the swamp is the only answer. She has the idea that Hexley might have been on his way to see her, and mistaking the swamp for a field made an attempt to cross it, thereby cutting some distance off his journey down the lane. He could easily have taken the wrong path through the swamp and gone down.” Hargraves meditated for a while and then added, “The Council should do something about that swamp, you know. Notices are put up regularly, but they sink. So do all efforts at providing railings. Doesn’t seem any way to warn anybody. If signs are put on the solid grass little boys simply pull them down. Since everybody in this district knows the swamp and its danger I suppose the Council doesn’t bestir itself as much as it might.”
Calthorp nodded slowly and then gave his slow, indecisive smile once again.
“Thanks for the various suggestions, Mr. Hargraves—and don’t forget that itemized list as soon as you can. I think that covers everything for the moment, and I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“Quite okay. Wish I could have helped a bit more.”
The chief inspector and sergeant took their departure and in the car they glanced at each other in mutual inquiry.
“Think he had anything to do with it, sir?” Dixon questioned.
“Hanged if I know—but I’ve certainly nothing much to go on. He had motive, and no doubt opportunity; yet though I imagine he might be an impulsive young man he doesn’t strike me as the type who would let impulse get so far out of hand as to make him commit murder. Further, if he did commit the murder I hardly think he would have been so free in his admission that he didn’t like Hexley.... No, Dixon,” Calthorp sighed, “we’re not much nearer. Nor do I think we shall be even when we get his itemized statement.”
“Then we’re back to Miss Farraday?”
“Yes...and from the purely investigative angle I think we have done all we can. It has got us nowhere within reach of the right answer, so I think there’s only one thing for it. Have an expert sum up the business and see what he can make of it.”
Dixon looked surprised. “I don’t see how anybody could be more expert than yourself, sir.”
“I’m thinking of Dr. Castle,” Calthorp told him, musing. “The more I see of this business the more I think that there is something odd about Miss Farraday which we, as laymen, can’t get into focus. A man like Castle might manage it. He’s accustomed to handling queer people and he’s saved our faces on more occasions than I care to admit.... Yes, that’s the next best move,” the chief inspector decided. “Castle’s always on tap when the Yard wants him. We’ll get back to London and I’ll go and see if he’ll interest himself. Get moving, Dixon: I might be able to catch him before he closes his chambers for the day.”
CHAPTER TEN
Doctor Adam Castle, the psychiatrist and neurologist, and a behind-the-scenes expert for Scotland Yard when occasion demanded, had his chambers in Harley Street, and Calthorp and Dixon reached them a little after four o’clock. They had half an hour to wait, then they were shown into Castle’s private office—a warm, luxuriant room with polished mahogany furniture, the shades half drawn over the sun-soaked windows.
“Well, boys, glad to see you!” Castle greeted, heaving up from his swivel-chair and coming forward with lumbering tread. “Nothing like a visit from Scotland Yard to brighten one’s outlook.”
Adam Castle grinned at his own remark as he shook hands, but the faces of the two Yard men remained serious. Both of them were thinking that with the warm weather Castle looked larger than his usual six feet two inches and heavier than ever. With a cherubic smile on his pink, baby-like face he motioned them to chairs and then resumed his own seat.
The sunlight back of him made his silver-white hair assume a halo.
“Well, boys, been getting yourselves tangled up again?” be asked genially. “Or is this a professional call?”
“It concerns the Clive Hexley case,” Calthorp answered. “You have probably read of it.”
“Yes—but off-handedly. I don’t study the details of a crime case unless I’m actively engaged on it. Clive Hexley, eh? That artist chap who’s disappeared so mysteriously?”
“The same,” the chief inspec
tor said. “I’m working on it, along with Dixon here, but there are lots of things about it which, in my opinion, don’t come into straight police work. So I thought I’d have a word with you.... I’m very much puzzled. by the young woman in the case, Elsa Farraday—otherwise known as ‘Hardy Strong’, a writer of thrillers.”
“I’ll help you if I can, naturally,” Castle assented, the corners of his chubby mouth upturned as though he were enjoying himself immensely. “What are the facts?”
The chief inspector gave them to him in a matter-of-fact voice. Castle did not interrupt him. He jotted down notes on the scratchpad with his fleshy hand. When the recital of details was over he sat back in his chair and wheezed asthmatically.
“Quite a pretty little business, eh?” he asked, his blue eyes twinkling.
“From my point of view, a confoundedly puzzling one,” Calthorp answered morosely. “I’m not sure who killed Hexley: I’m not even certain that he’s dead, and I can’t make head or tail of the woman I should suspect. That’s a nice mess for a C.I. to be in, isn’t it? Sooner or later the Assistant Commissioner is going to ask me what I’m playing at, which is why I want action.... Well, doc, there it is. What do you make of it?’
“Well, it’s certainly an interesting business,” Castle said, tugging out a long-stemmed pipe and inspecting the tiny bowl. “As far as Draycott, Miss Vane, and Mr. Hargraves are concerned, it seems to me that their actions are perfectly normal, and their reactions too. Clive Hexley himself remains as something of a problem. As for Elsa Farraday....” Castle became silent, staring into distance as he lighted the pipe. “As for her,” he finished, “I think you’re up against a remarkably complex young woman.”
Calthorp looked somewhat relieved. “I’m glad you say that. I’d felt it all along, which was why I decided to ask you. Her emotions, to me, seem to be all mixed up, as though she’s part child, part woman, part loyal, part vicious.... Damned queer thing!”
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