Book Read Free

No Wind of Blame ih-1

Page 27

by Джорджетт Хейер


  "Maybe you're right, sir. But the more I think about it the more it seems to me that if White was responsible, then the mechanism used was nothing more nor less than his son's hands. Now, you just consider! Wasn't it young White who spilled that story about his father's plan to buy up part of Frith Field? Very unnatural thing for a man's own son to do. I thought so at the time."

  The Inspector accorded this suggestion his consideration. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I'm bound to admit there may be something in that. All a put-up job between father and son. No, I don't think there's so much in it, after all. Young White doesn't get on with his father. We'll see what Cook has to say."

  Inspector Cook, delighted to be summoned to a conference, was much more impressed than Sergeant Wake had been by the disclosure that Harold White was now the heir to Clara Carter's fortune; and although, casting his mind back over all the circumstances of the murder, he said that he couldn't for the life of him see how White could have had any part in it, he was perfectly ready to work over every inch of the ground again.

  "Though whether I'll be able to remember all that Miss White said, I doubt," he warned Hemingway. "There was precious little that seemed to have any bearing on the case, and you know how she talks!" He drew up a chair to the table, and sat down to refresh his memory with a glance through the folder that contained his own report. "Taking it from when Miss White came out of the house, there was her, and Samuel Jones, and White sitting round the tea-table outside the drawingroom.

  "In full view of the bridge," interpolated Hemingway.

  "That's right. The garden's pretty overgrown with flowering shrubs, but there's a strip of lawn running down to the bridge which has only a bed of dahlias in it.

  Clear view of the bridge, and of the thicket on the Palings side, of course. I took note of that. You can catch a glimpse here and there of the paths they cut at Palings. And, of course, you can see the roof of Mrs. Carter's house, through the trees. Now you'll have to let me think ;i moment. Yes, here it is." His finger traced the typewritten words: "Miss White was the one that called attention to Carter. She caught sight of him, coming down one of the paths, where the bushes aren't so thick, and she got up, and said she'd go and make the tea."

  "I remember that. The maid was out. White was sitting by the table all this time?"

  "Yes, but according to Miss White, it was then that he asked her why she hadn't brought any cigarettes out."

  "It was, eh? After Carter had been seen?"

  Cook raised his eyes from the folder, and gazed frowningly into space. "Yes, after Carter had been seen. She said she'd go and get the cigarettes, but he told her not to bother, and walked over to his study window, which, as you know, Inspector, is hidden from the hedge by a bed full of flowering currant bushes, and the like."

  "Go on," said Hemingway. "What happened next?"

  "Miss White said she was standing looking down to the bridge, when suddenly the shot sounded, and she saw Carter fall. I asked her particularly, at the time, if she'd noticed any movement in the shrubbery, and she said no, she hadn't noticed anything."

  Hemingway looked a little disappointed. "No," he said, scratching his chin, "that won't do. Not as it stands. There must have been something else happened after White went to the study window, and before Miss White saw Carter fall. If there wasn't anything, then I'll have to own I don't see how White could have done it."

  "Well, nothing did happen," said Cook. "I remember Miss White saying that she was just standing there, not thinking of anything in particular," He stopped. "Now, just a moment! The gate! She said she was thinking that the hinges on it ought to be oiled, or something of the sort. They certainly do creak badly. I wonder: would that sort of fit in?"

  "It might. The creak of the gate being the signal, in a manner of speaking. Though it doesn't explain how White could have fired that shot. However, there's no sense in trying to rush things. What happened when Carter fell?"

  "Miss White screamed," replied Cook. "White asked her what the devil was the matter - he's a testy chap, you know - and she must have told him, I suppose, for he came over to her, to see for himself. Yes, and he had a box of cigarettes in his hand right enough, for he chucked it on to one of the chairs, and I saw it there myself, with the cigarettes spilled all round it. No hanky-panky about that. He said he was going to reach in through the study window for a box of cigarettes, and that's just exactly what he did do."

  "While his son shot Carter," interjected Sergeant Wake.

  Cook turned his head. "What's that? Young White? I don't see him doing it myself."

  "Wake's got a notion it was a put-up job between the two Whites," explained Hemingway.

  "Well, that would surprise me!" said Cook. "Why, it's common knowledge young Alan loathes his father! And as for him firing a rifle, I doubt if he'd know how. He's a regular wet, that chap: doesn't hold with bloodsports, and talks a lot of half-baked stuff about Bolshevik Russia, and that kind of thing."

  Hemingway lifted an eyebrow at his subordinate. Wake said obstinately: "It's wonderful what a difference money can make to a man. Supposing that quarrel he and his father had at lunchtime, on the Sunday, was just a blind to make us think they weren't on good terms?"

  "Then by all accounts they've been putting up those blinds ever since they came to the district," said Cook dryly. "No, I reckon that's straight enough: there's no love lost between White and his son."

  "Does White hate his son enough to send him out to murder Carter for him?" asked Hemingway.

  "Good Lord, no, Inspector!" replied Cook, quite shocked. "Why, that would be downright wicked! Things aren't as bad as that! Stands to reason they can't be, or they wouldn't live in the same house."

  "That's what I thought. Go back to the moment when White chucked the cigarettes into the chair, will you? What happened next?"

  "He shouted to Jones and Miss White not to stand staring, but to come down to see what they could do for Carter, and set off for the bridge. They ran after him, of course, but Carter must have been dead before they got there."

  "In fact," said Hemingway, "White got his two witnesses out of the way, for it's not to be supposed they'd pay attention to anything except Carter's body, once they'd been set on to look after him."

  "You can put it that way if you like," Cook said, staring.

  "Seems to me a natural thing for them all to run down to the bridge."

  "It's too natural," said Hemingway. "The whole of it. There's something fishy about this chain of highly plausible circumstances. There was a very good reason for asking Carter over in the first place, and that same reason made it lookk as though White was the last person to want him dead."

  "Yes, but that's twisting things round, sir!" protested Wake.

  "Maybe, and maybe it's doing exactly the opposite. You keep quiet! What about the fair Ermyntrude's instinct? Go on, Cook! What happened on the bridge?"

  "White told Miss White to try and stop the bleeding, and ran back to the house to get hold of a doctor, and to ring us up.

  Hemingway nodded approvingly. "And very right and proper, I'm sure! Where's the telephone?"

  "In the hall. I saw it," replied Cook.

  "You don't say! So that it would be highly natural for Mr. White to run round the corner of the house, so as to go in by the front door, thus disappearing from sight of the bridge, behind those rhododendrons?"

  "Yes," Cook said. "Yes, it would. You think he went into the shrubbery, once the other two couldn't see him? Well, now you put me in mind of it, Miss White said that it seemed ages before he got back to them. I didn't set much store by that, for no doubt it would seem ages, under the circumstances. But even supposing you're on the right track, I still don't see how he can have fired that rifle in the first place. Of course, I realise there would have had to have been a bit of mechanism used, which he'd got to get rid of quick. That's plain enough. What isn't plain at all, not to my way of thinking, is what actually fired the rifle. It can't have been the opening of the gate, now,
can it?"

  Hemingway looked at Sergeant Wake. "Do you remember those scratches on that sapling?" he demanded. "Do you remember I said we'd keep them in mind? They've got a bearing on the case! In fact, I've a strong notion I know what caused them. If that rifle wasn't fired by hand, it had to be rigged up somehow, and what's more, rigged up nice and securely, because if it wasn't held hard, the recoil would spoil the aim. What about one of those vices they use for cleaning guns? Clamp that to a handy young tree, get your rifle sighted along the bridge, and that's one problem solved."

  "Wait a bit, sir!" said Wake. "I've seen those vices. You can tilt the rifle any way you please in them, so even allowing for the bridge's being a good way below the sapling, why would anyone fix the rifle up so close to the ground? For the grazes weren't but a foot or two up, were they?"

  Hemingway was not in the least put out of countenance by this. He said briskly: "We'll probably find there was a reason for that. As a matter of fact, I've found it already. There's a drop of seven or eight feet to the level of the bridge, and it stands to reason our bird wanted to get as low a trajectory as possible."

  "There was something more than a vice there," said Cook, thinking it over. "The vice didn't fire the rifle. Why why, now we begin to understand that hair-trigger pull!"

  "You cast your mind back again, and see if there isn't another peculiar circumstance which you begin to understand," recommended Hemingway. "What's that?"

  "Miss Fanshawe's dog didn't bark," said Hemingway. "And why not? Because there wasn't anyone there to bark at. Funny how simple things are as soon as you stop looking at them from the wrong angle!"

  "I certainly think you're on to something," admitted Cook. "I suppose I ought to have been on to it myself."

  "You? Why, it's taken me long enough!" said Hemingway. "I don't blame you for not spotting it. You got the gun, and there wasn't a ha'porth of reason why anyone should have tumbled to it that it wasn't fired by some bloke who dropped it, and made off."

  "Well, it's very kind of you to say so, I'm sure," responded Cook, a little dubiously.

  "I don't see that the case is solved, not by a long chalk," remarked the Sergeant. "It's all very well: and I grant you you've pieced it together a fair treat, sir, but what I want to know is, what is this mysterious gadget which set the rifle off just at the right moment?"

  "What I want to know," said Hemingway, "isn't what is it, because we'll find that out all in good time, but where is it?"

  There was a pause. Inspector Cook said in a disgruntled tone: "Yes, and don't we hope we may find it! Ten to one, he took it up to the house with him. He's had plenty of time to get rid of it since Sunday."

  Hemingway tapped his teeth with a pencil, pondering. "No," he said presently. "That's bad psychology. What you want to do is to put yourself in his place. To start with, you've got a vice to carry. On top of that, there must have been some bit of mechanism which actually fired the gun. Now, supposing you were to take a chance of getting them hidden away in the house: what happens if you go and run into someone on the way?"

  "Well, he'd have to take some chances. The maid was out, anyway."

  "This bird take chances?" said Hemingway scornfully. "I fancy I see him! Supposing Miss White had come up to the house for brandy, or bandages, or something, and had run into him carrying that ironmongery? She might easily have done it."

  "Well, if it comes to that, how was he going to explain himself to Miss White, if he'd run into her without his gadgets?"

  "Easy!" said the Sergeant promptly. "He could have pitched a tale about hearing someone in the shrubbery, and running after him. You bet he had all that planned!"

  "Then you say he hid the vice, and whatever else it was, down a rabbit-hole, or some such place?"

  "What was wrong with that pool I saw?" inquired Hemingway. "It seems to me that if he had to dispose of something in a hurry, the pool was the quickest and the safest place. All he had to do was to climb that sandy bank, heave his gadgets into the pool, and be off up to the house to put through those telephone-calls."

  "What about the splash?" suggested Cook. "I grant you they might not have heard it on the bridge, seeing that it's round the bend, and a bit of a distance off, but wouldn't you have expected Miss Fanshawe, or that dog of hers, to have heard it?"

  "That's where White was luckier than he knew," answered Hemingway. "Five minutes earlier, Miss Fanshawe was down by the stream, and would have seen the whole thing. But she told me that after she heard the shot, she turned into one of the paths leading up the slope. Now, I reckon that between the firing of the rifle, and White's heaving the vice and what-not into the pool (if that's what he did do) must have been all of five minutes, and very likely more. Miss Fanshawe would be out of earshot by that time, or if not absolutely out of earshot, far enough away for a splash not to catch her attention."

  "Yes, and supposing all this did happen like you say, sir," put in the Sergeant. "White's had plenty of time to fish his gadgets out of that pool, and dispose of them for good and all."

  "Time, yes, if he'd thought it necessary, which he probably didn't. But there's one thing you're forgetting: it's muddy down by the water, and Mr. White couldn't get anything out of the pool without leaving some nice, deep footprints. What's more, it 'ud be a pretty risky thing for him to go wading about in the pool when at any moment someone might have seen him from the Palings' side. No, if he threw his apparatus into the pool, it's there still, and that's where we'll find it."

  Half an hour later, two constables, with their trousers rolled well above their knees, were painfully stubbing their toes on all the foreign bodies sunk into the mud at the bottom of the pool. When the police-party had arrived at the Dower House, only Florence, the maid, had been in, and she had raised no objection to the Inspector's pursuing investigations in the shrubbery. As long as he didn't come getting in her way, she said, with a sniff, she was sure he could do as he pleased, for it was no concern of hers.

  The first haul taken from the bed of the pool was disappointing. It consisted of two glass jam jars, and something that looked like the handle of a saucepan. Then the younger of the two constables cut his foot on a broken plate, and swore loudly; and, a moment later, his companion bent, and plunged his arm into the water, and pulled out something that had been half sunk in the mud. "I've got it, sir!" he exclaimed. "It's a vice, sure enough!"

  He waded to the bank, and handed his find to Hemingway. Hemingway betrayed not the smallest sign either of surprise or of gratification, but his Sergeant was visibly impressed, and regarded him with a good deal of awe. "My word, sir, you were right all along!" he said. "Well, I wouldn't have credited it!"

  "I'm always right," said Hemingway superbly. "Keep going, Jupp! You'll find something more, or I'm a Dutchman."

  "It wouldn't be a sardine-tin, would it, sir?" inquired Jupp, with a grin. "Fisher's just cut his toe on one."

  "You stop larking about, and get on with it!" ordered the Inspector, somewhat unfairly. "Come on, Cook, we'll see how this fits those grazes on the sapling."

  Both Inspectors were recalled presently by the sound of tumult by the pool. They hurried up the sandy bank, and found that the cocker-spaniel, Prince, discovering strangers in a pool which he regarded as his own, had plunged into the water, not, indeed, to evict the interlopers, but to join them in aquatic sports. He bore with him a large stick, a circumstance which induced Hemingway to shout out: "Never mind about playing with that dog! Get on with it!"

  "We're not playing with the brute, sir!" called Fisher, stung into a retort. "We're trying to shoo it off!"

  "You leave it alone, and it won't do you any harm!" said Hemingway. "You're only exciting it, waving your arms about like that. Here, come here! Good dog, bring it here, then!"

  "Well, well, well!" said a voice from the farther bank. "What's this? A regatta?"

  "Oh, it's you, is it, sir?" said the Inspector, casting an unfavourable eye over Mr. Hugh Dering. "Well, perhaps you'll call your dog off, s
ince you happen to be here."

  "Nothing," said Hugh, visibly enjoying the sight of the constables wrestling with Prince's advances, "would give me greater pleasure, if he were my dog. But he isn't."

  Vicky's Borzoi bounded into view at this moment, and at once began to bark at the strangers. The two constables showed a marked disposition to leave the pool in haste, but Hugh grasped the Borzoi by the collar, and told him to be quiet. The Inspector began to explain, as tactfully as he could, that neither Hugh's nor the dogs' presence was in anyway necessary to him, but before he had succeeded in making this clear to Mr. Hugh Dering, who was suddenly and unaccountably slow of understanding, Vicky had appeared upon the scene - a demure Vicky, in white organdie with black ribbons.

  "Oh, I shouldn't paddle there!" Vicky said, quite distressed. "It's a very muddy, dirty kind of a pond. My mother never used to let me go in it."

  "Miss, will you call off your dog?" begged Fisher, against whose legs the spaniel was thrusting his stick.

  "Do you mind frightfully if I don't?" said Vicky. "He's bound to shake himself all over me, you see, and I don't much want him to."

  Hugh, who had been interestedly surveying the treasures collected from the bosom of the pool, took pity on the police. "All right, I'll rescue you," he said. "Stand clear, Vicky! Come here, Prince! Bring it!"

  The spaniel, hopeful of finding a more willing playmate, left the pool, laid his stick at Hugh's feet, and shook himself generously over Hugh's trousers. Hugh knotted his handkerchief through the dog's collar, and bade Vicky remove him from the scene.

  "Yes, but I want to watch what they're doing!" Vicky demurred.

  "No, go up to the house," Hugh said. "I'll join you later - when I've discovered what all this is about."

  "Not even a fusty lawyer can just carelessly fling orders at me," said Vicky, as one imparting valuable information.

  "That's all right, ducky: you can play at being the child-wife married to a drunken bully," suggested Hugh.

 

‹ Prev