But now his chaotic thoughts had begun to settle. As yet it was only half-formed; as yet he was still groping in the darkness towards a coherent entity to which he could point with the confidence of knowledge. Nevertheless, fantastic though the solution seemed, the truth was slowly being revealed to him.
He rose to his feet and strolled slowly down the garden path, admiring, even as his mind worked busily in other directions, the neat orderliness of Paul Russell’s flower-beds. He came up to the little potting shed and he stood for a moment or two eying it thoughtfully. Yes—that, too, was possible.
He went into the house and collected his panama. Paul, as he knew, was busy with his morning surgery and Jean had her hands full with the affairs of the household. Tremaine poked his head into the kitchenette where she was busy superintending the cooking preparations and at the same time trying to keep an eye on the maid-of-all-work who hailed from the village and was willing but unpredictable in her actions. He announced his intention of going out for an hour or so. Jean tried to give him a friendly smile but succeeded only in managing a harassed look. She had, Tremaine reflected, been very far from her usual placidly efficient self since the news of Paul’s legacy.
He strolled slowly down the road. He did not expect to meet Jonathan Boyce, or, if he did meet him, he did not expect that the inspector would have any time to spare in conversation. A second murder before the first one had been solved was not the best of publicity for a Scotland Yard detective. Boyce was unlikely to be in the happiest of moods.
The one bright glow amid the prevailing gloom was the fact that he had been in the village when Philip Hammond’s body had been discovered and that no time had been lost in setting the machinery of investigation in motion. The hall had been subjected to an intensive examination. Photographers and fingerprint experts had been at work in a matter of minutes. Boyce had recognized the crisis and he had risen fighting to meet it. He had turned the full powers of the complex organization at his command on to the task of measuring, searching, questioning, recording. He had left nothing to fate.
The routine facts of the murder had been quickly unearthed. Philip Hammond had died nearly forty-eight hours before his body had been discovered. The murderer had struck him a violent blow on the back of the head with a hammer which had been used for minor repair work in the hall and which had been kept in one of the rooms behind the stage, where, incidentally, free of fingerprints, it had been found. The blow, in the opinion of the police surgeon, had been sufficient to stun but not to kill. Hammond’s unconscious body had then been dragged into the largest of the three rooms, his head and shoulders lifted into the gas oven and the taps turned on. Carbon monoxide poisoning, said the surgeon, had undoubtedly been the cause of death. The pink discoloration of the skin, he had pointed out, with a certain macabre if professional relish, was typical of such cases.
Suicide, he had gone on to state, was possible. Hammond could, after having recovered from a decidedly heavy blow on the head which must have been delivered by a second party, have then made up his mind to kill himself and thereupon turned on the gas taps and placed himself in the stove. But on the other hand it didn’t seem reasonable to suppose that, being dead, he had then turned the gas taps off again and settled down in the trunk to await discovery.
Seeing the look upon Inspector Boyce’s face, the surgeon had added hastily that he was merely endeavouring to bring out all the possibilities. Of course, as a second person had clearly been necessary to deliver the hammer blow and a second person had obviously been equally necessary to turn off the taps and deposit the dead man in the trunk upon the stage, it was practically a certainty that this same person had also turned the taps on. Suicide was really so improbable that he had only raised the subject so that it could be dismissed once and for all.
What was left was cold-blooded murder. It had been no heat-of-the-moment crime. The killer had stood callously by, waiting for his unconscious victim to die under the gas fumes.
A little way ahead of him Tremaine saw the tall figure of Barry Anston. He increased his pace and in a few moments he had overtaken the other.
‘Hullo,’ he said slyly. ‘Listening to the hushed voices?’
The journalist turned towards him with a puzzled expression.
‘Hushed voices?’
‘You remember—no children playing in the sunlit roadway and everybody going around waiting for the day of judgment!’
Anston gave him a dubious glance, and then he saw the twinkle in Tremaine’s eyes and his face cleared.
‘Oh, you’ve read it? I suppose it was a bit lurid in places, but the public likes a certain amount of colour now and then.’
‘It was the touch about the sunlit roadway which amused me,’ remarked Tremaine. ‘Since the murder was only discovered last night it must have been dark when you wrote that because you obviously had to telephone it straight away in order to get it in this morning’s edition.’
‘Call it intelligent anticipation,’ said Anston. ‘After all, the sun’s shining now and I haven’t seen carefree youth disporting itself in the village street so far. As a matter of fact, the place seems to have become full of policemen.’
‘I gathered from your account,’ observed Tremaine, ‘that you’ve been out collecting impressions from the local inhabitants.’
‘I’ve been around,’ agreed the journalist. ‘After all, that’s my job.’ He hesitated for a moment or two, looking at his companion a little uncertainly. And then: ‘You know, Tremaine,’ he added, ‘I didn’t write all that with my tongue in my cheek. There really is something queer about this place. Maybe it isn’t quite so spooky as I made out—I’ll admit that I deliberately played up that stuff about the atmosphere of terror and so on—but I’m convinced that all of it isn’t moonshine.’
‘You mean,’ said Tremaine, ‘that you’ve discovered that there’s a feeling of . . . well, of fear, terror, foreboding, what you will . . . which has communicated itself to people living in the village. A feeling that Lydia Dare experienced before she died. Is that what you’ve found?’
Anston looked at him strangely.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s it.’ He added, ‘You seem to know what I mean.’
‘I’ve been around, too,’ returned Tremaine evasively. ‘What,’ he said, changing the subject in an obvious manner, ‘do you think of Hammond’s murder?’
‘If you mean do I know who did it, the answer is that I don’t, but that I can give you a number-one suspect.’
‘Vaughan, of course?’
‘Vaughan, of course,’ agreed Anston. ‘Our friend Boyce is grilling him now. If he doesn’t possess an alibi for last night things are going to look pretty grim as far as he’s concerned.’
‘It will look like an open and shut case,’ said Tremaine. ‘Hammond said publicly that he knew that it was Vaughan who had killed Lydia Dare. He told me that if it was proof we needed he’d see that we got it. I suppose you knew that?’
The reporter nodded.
‘The inspector told me. It sounds bad. Vaughan killed Lydia Dare. Hammond got hold of proof which would have hanged him so Vaughan killed him too in order to keep his mouth shut.’
‘That,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘is the obvious answer.’ He glanced enquiringly at his companion. ‘Have you seen Karen Hammond today?’
‘No—poor kid, she’s taking it badly,’ said Anston slowly. ‘She and her husband were devoted to each other. I don’t envy Boyce his job in questioning her.’ He gave Tremaine a curious, expectant look. ‘I was wondering whether you’d seen her,’ he remarked, and added: ‘Hammond was killed forty-eight hours before his body was discovered. It seems rather a long time for him to be missing without any enquiries being made about his absence.’
‘It does,’ agreed Tremaine.
He knew that Anston was waiting for him to discuss the point, but for some reason which he could not explain he was not willing to discuss it. In a few moments he parted from Anston and walked on down t
owards the village square. Karen Hammond was represented in his mind by a vague feeling of doubt. She fitted into her place in his theory, and yet somehow she didn’t fit. There was something wrong, something missing.
He worried at the problem as he walked. Was he on the wrong track, after all? He had already admitted to himself that the solution he had been building up in his mind was a fantastic one. Was it too fantastic? Was it, in fact, utterly false?
There was an air of activity over the village square. A number of the occupants of the surrounding houses were standing in groups of twos and threes, apparently engaged in casual conversation but in reality eagerly watching for any signs of the latest developments. Plenty of strangers were also in evidence. The newspapermen could be picked out by their manner of joining the village gatherings, evidently in search of local information with which to embellish the reports they would be sending back to their insistent editors; the police officials were equally distinguishable by the way in which, whenever they appeared, they moved purposefully, like men who were engaged upon grim business and had no time to lose.
Outside the village hall, which Boyce seemed to have turned into his headquarters, Tremaine caught several glimpses of the inspector as he conferred with his colleagues. He did not attempt to interrupt him. For the moment Boyce had his hands fully occupied.
As he turned away again and came back down the roadway towards the centre of the village, he saw Pauline Conroy. He had a suddenly instinctive feeling that she had followed him, and as he drew nearer his suspicion was partially confirmed for she smiled at him and made it quite clear that she intended to speak to him.
Tremaine slackened his step.
‘Good morning, Miss Conroy.’
She returned his greeting, and, turning, began to walk along at his side, thereby completely confirming his suspicion that she had been following him.
‘Your friend the inspector is very busy this morning,’ she observed. ‘He’s been at it ever since it was light, poor man.’
‘Inspector Boyce doesn’t waste any time,’ replied Tremaine, wondering what was in her mind. ‘In a case of murder it’s important to begin the search for the murderer immediately. Vital clues are sometimes lost through delay in looking for them.’
‘Yes, I can see that must be so,’ she said.
Her face was puckered into a tiny frown, as though she was giving his words very careful thought. Her always slightly over-emphasized dark beauty was wearing a mood of appeal. Tremaine caught a whiff of some heady yet subtle perfume which stirred his senses even as his reason subjected it to a critical examination. Molyneax? Chanel? Guerlain? He allowed himself a mental smile. Pauline was putting on an act for his benefit.
‘It’s a terrible tragedy,’ she was saying. ‘Poor Philip—who would have dreamed that such a thing could have happened! And the newspapers taking it up as they have done and all those reporters coming down. I seem to have done nothing but answer questions since last night. I suppose it’s publicity, and an actress is supposed to live for that, but I’d rather have no publicity at all, ever, than have it this way.’
Tremaine gave her a cautious, sideways glance.
‘I dare say you’ll find yourself worried by reporters and photographers for a few days. Particularly by the Daily View’s men.’
She looked at him sharply, and for an instant he thought that her pose disintegrated. Touché, Miss Pauline, he told himself. So the Daily View, alert to serve its readers, had already taken advantage of the alluring Miss Conroy’s photogenic qualities. And the lady’s apparent reluctance to reap the benefits of the publicity attendant upon her appearance in a murder play in which the corpse had been a real one was merely an assumption demanded by convention.
However, his reasoning did not show in his face, which retained an expression best described as one of benevolent blankness.
‘I feel so dreadfully sorry for Karen,’ she went on. She gave an appearance of half-ashamed hesitancy, and said slowly, ‘Perhaps you knew that she and I—that we haven’t been on very friendly terms just lately?’
‘I had heard something of the sort,’ admitted Tremaine, deprecatingly, as if to imply that he had paid scant attention to whatever it was he had heard.
‘It was just a stupid quarrel,’ she told him. ‘Both of us were equally to blame. Of course, I didn’t have any idea that anything like this was going to happen, otherwise I would have forgotten all about pride and tried to make things up between us. I wouldn’t like to feel that Karen still wanted to carry on that silly feud. She has enough to contend with. All this must be terrible for her. She and Philip were so much in love. . . .’
She broke off suddenly. She looked at her companion. Mordecai Tremaine realized that it was his cue and duly obliged.
‘Yes?’ he prompted.
‘I hardly like to say this,’ said Pauline Conroy slowly. ‘Of course, I wouldn’t dream of saying anything about it to the newspapers. But I think perhaps that you—that the inspector ought to know. They seemed such a devoted couple. But there were—things. . . .’
‘Things?’ said Tremaine, responding like an actor with a lifetime’s experience.
‘Philip was away so often. He seemed to be working in London so many times. You could never be certain when he would be home. And he never took Karen up to town; in fact, he hardly took her out at all, considering he was supposed to be so devoted to her. Then there was the night Lydia was murdered—I couldn’t help thinking that it was strange. Karen said that Philip was with her all the time and that the reason why no one saw him the next morning was because he’d gone back to London very early. But I didn’t hear his car going off and I nearly always did.’
‘Nearly always? You could have missed it that one morning, you know, especially if he went off earlier than usual.’
‘Somehow I don’t think I did,’ she said, perhaps with just a shade too much certainty in her tone. ‘I feel sure I would have heard the car if he had used it—I’m a very light sleeper and I would have heard him taking it out of the garage. I’ve been wondering, Mr. Tremaine—wondering whether there was some mystery about Philip, whether he had any enemies, for example, and was leading a sort of—well, a life in semi-hiding.’
‘Have you anything definite in mind which makes you think he might have had enemies? Do you know if he had any trouble with anyone?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t really know anything. There’s that man who’s been hanging about the village for some days, of course—Karen seemed to be frightened of him in some way.’
Evidently it was Hornsby whom she meant. Tremaine had already pigeon-holed the ferrety gentleman’s name for future reference.
‘Anyone else?’ he asked.
‘Well . . .’—again there was that well-acted hesitancy—‘there was some trouble between Philip and Geoffrey Manning at one time. But it all passed over,’ she said hastily. ‘They became good friends again.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘I don’t know,’ she returned. ‘No one knew. It seemed to be serious. They almost came to blows over it. But then it all seemed to be forgotten.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Oh, it must have been two or three months ago,’ she told him. ‘I really don’t think it can be of any importance now.’
They had reached the square again, and two or three hundred yards away, coming down the road which led into it from the opposite side, Tremaine saw the shambling, flannelled figure of Serge Galeski. Pauline Conroy saw him too. She made her excuses and Tremaine watched her as she went to meet the other. Galeski looked in his direction and made a gesture of recognition.
Tremaine almost waved gaily back in reply. He was right. He was sure now that he was right. His theory was working itself out.
In the afternoon he caught the bus to Kingshampton, and his first task on reaching that pleasant seaside town was to seek out the bookshop and typing agency where Edith Lorrington’s friends carried on thei
r business. The shop itself was small, but it was well stocked, and it seemed to be prosperous for it was crowded with customers. The typewriting portion of the undertaking was apparently carried on in the rooms above. Standing near the stairs at the rear of the premises Tremaine heard the busy clicking of the machines overhead.
He chose his moment and approached the elderly, grey-haired woman who seemed to be in charge when she was temporarily free of enquiries.
‘Excuse me,’ he said quickly, ‘but I believe you are a friend of Miss Edith Lorrington who lives in Dalmering.’
She looked at him suspiciously.
‘Are you a newspaper reporter?’
‘Oh no,’ returned Tremaine disarmingly. ‘I suppose you might describe me as a friend of Miss Lorrington’s also. I’m staying in the village for a few days—with Dr. Russell.’
His mention of the doctor’s name proved to be the talisman.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she told him. ‘Since those dreadful murders we’ve been expecting all sorts of persons here because we know Edith—you know what newspaper reporters are like. They ask everyone a dozen questions. Can I help you at all, Mr.—?’
‘Tremaine,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I think you will be able to help me. I’m very interested in a play which they’re producing in Dalmering.’
‘You mean Murder Has a Motive?’ she said. ‘I was reading about it in the newspapers this morning. How dreadful that Mr. Hammond should have been found like that! It must be terrible for his wife, poor soul. I was struck by it because we did the typing of the play here. We run a typewriting business as well as a bookshop, you know.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘I know. As a matter of fact, that is the reason for my visit. I wonder if I could speak to the person who actually did the typing?’
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