Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime Classics)

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  “But,” put in another don, Miss Purden, “surely no man would have done all that unless he was guilty. Ought it not to be a verdict of murder against a person unknown?”

  “I can’t see that we’ve got real evidence for that,” replied Miss Steevens impatiently. “We must work on the facts we’ve heard.”

  They agreed upon this and returned a verdict accordingly.

  The coroner paid the usual tribute to the subject of the inquest.

  “You have lost a valued and respected colleague and will wish me to express our profound sympathy with the relatives of the deceased. Miss Denning’s long record of devoted work on behalf of her college is well known, and not only the university, but the city also, owes her a debt for her energetic action towards the preservation of some of the green and pleasant land around us from the defacement of ill-considered building.”

  Sally, listening to the stilted, conventional phrases, thought: “Poor Pamela! It doesn’t do her much good. She’d probably much rather have her aunt alive and building skyscrapers all over the city of Oxford!” Looking round for the object of her sympathy, Sally noticed that Pamela, Betty and Basil had quietly slipped away.

  The assembly dispersed, with a general feeling that the inquest had been rather disappointing. No sensation and nothing decided. Jean Steevens and other members of the senior common-room of Persephone College were inclined to be breezily fatalistic about Miss Denning’s death. Very unfortunate and all that, but we must just make the best of it. They could not feel any real regret for the loss of Miss Denning, much as they deplored the manner of it and paid tribute to her competence. The bursar’s hard efficiency in her own affairs and indifference to those of other people, and the curious satisfaction she seemed to find in her solitary and sometimes peculiar occupations, had not attracted friendship. Only Miss Cordell had penetrated to something softer and more tolerant in her colleague. Perhaps it was because the principal, with her uncertain grasp of business matters and affairs of organization, had provided the bursar with an opportunity for domination which she had enough discretion to exercise tactfully.

  Miss Cordell was sensitive of the unsympathetic attitude of the rest of her staff; she longed to talk things over with someone who could understand her distress of mind and the difficulty of presenting a placidly dignified face to the world. That Scotland Yard man, she felt, really seemed more understanding than anyone else; it did not occur to her that his genius for giving people this impression was the secret of professional success. There he was, talking to Draga again, and he seemed to have a wonderful influence on that girl.

  “Were you able to carry out that little test for me?” Braydon was asking Draga.

  “That is so,” Draga replied, very pleased with herself. She handed him a scrap of paper. “I wrote down the times, that I might not forget. Twenty minutes I walked from Sim’s to our college.”

  “And you started some minutes after a quarter to four? May I see your watch?” He compared it with his own and found it, to his surprise, correct.

  “It is a good watch, and I take great trouble that it shows me the right time,” Draga told him, “because it is so important here that one should be always punctual.”

  “That’s good. Did you time yourself from Sim’s gateway?”

  “Yes, from outside the gate.”

  “So you would have arrived at Persephone College at about ten minutes past four on Friday?” Braydon asked.

  Draga thought a moment. “I think so. Not sooner.”

  “And you are sure you met no one?”

  “In the Parks I am not sure, but from that tall bridge to our door, no one.”

  “Do you know Mr. Mort, who coaches Miss Watson?”

  Draga considered. “Ah, yes! The gentle one, from Sim’s.”

  “Gentle!” Braydon commented doubtfully. “You really know him?”

  “I know what he looks like,” Draga maintained. “He has light hair and a look as if he were worried.”

  “You didn’t meet him on your walk on Friday? Not even in the Parks?”

  “Oh, no; I would remember that, because I know him,” Draga declared.

  “Thank you very much,” said Braydon. “That is what I wanted to know.”

  He returned with Wythe to the superintendent’s room at the police station.

  “That girl’s story is one more point in the evidence against Mort,” said Braydon, after telling Wythe what Draga had said. “Miss Watson confirms the fact that he left the college a minute or two after four, but he wasn’t seen anywhere on the way to Sim’s between ten to four and ten past.”

  “He could get over that by saying that he followed the lane all round Ferry House, instead of crossing the stile,” Wythe pointed out. “And I think you said, sir, that he didn’t state definitely to you that he did cross the stile?”

  “He did say that he had never been round by the lane,” Braydon recalled. “But we’ve really got remarkably little evidence, and yet the case is as clear as daylight.”

  “That housekeeper must know something,” Wythe mused. “But I suppose she’s not saying anything. When you arrest a real low-down criminal there are plenty with a grudge against him who’ll fall over each other in their anxiety to tell you something, but with a man like this it’s different.”

  Braydon nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t mind confessing that I hate to lay hands on him.”

  “I quite understand, sir. We’re used to running in an undergrad now and again for a minor offence, but with one of these dons it’s different. However, it’s got to be done.” He half-rose, with an inquiring look towards Braydon.

  “A few minutes makes no difference,” said Braydon. “I’m anxious to hear the doctor’s report on that hair from the trousers.”

  “My men have got that house, the Back End, guarded as if it was the Crown jewels,” Wythe declared with some pride. “So it’s all right as far as that goes.”

  “Whilst we’re waiting I want to have a look at that account book of Miss Denning’s which you’ve discovered for me and at Mort’s pass-book,” Braydon said.

  Wythe took from a drawer two pass-books and a cheap, red-covered note-book and handed them to Braydon, who turned over the pages, comparing one book with another.

  “I’ve checked Mort’s withdrawals of sums in notes, generally a hundred pounds at a time, with Miss Denning’s payments of cash into her account over the last two years,” said Wythe, “and they seem to tally.” He handed over a page of neat figures.

  “And Miss Denning, in this private account book of hers, seems to have recorded—without giving away any names—all those sums received and every penny she spent on her niece, and all the balance which she invested from time to time. What a meticulous woman! Undoubtedly honest in her own way. I wonder if she ever showed Mort this note-book or whether she preferred to leave him in uncertainty as to whether all his money was really being used for his daughter’s benefit?”

  “If you’ve a minute or two to spare, sir, there’s one or two things I don’t quite understand yet,” said Wythe diffidently. “That man Coniston——?”

  “His story is quite true,” said Braydon. “It struck me first of all that anyone who had to invent a story would normally invent something more easily credible. On the other hand, I realized that Coniston is clever; clever enough to invent a story so fantastic that you feel almost sure no one would invent it and hope to be believed. It did pass through my mind at one time that Mort knew or suspected that Coniston was involved and might be trying to shield a member of his own college.”

  “You say you got a line on Mort when you saw him on Sunday morning. That was after Bayes’s evidence, which all pointed downstream, as it were,” Wythe suggested.

  “All the time I was looking for a clue above the bridge which would fit in with the time the watch stopped, which suggested that the drowning happened about half an hour’s paddle upstream. Bayes mentioned a rug and thought there was something under it. He was inclined to wi
thdraw that when we questioned him, you remember, but my impression was that he did notice a rug covering something, and if Miss Denning was drowned above the bridge, the something could only be her body, and the murderer in her hat and coat was presumably paddling the canoe.”

  “And yet you suggested yourself, sir,” cried Wythe in reproach, “that it was only the spare paddle under that rug!”

  “Yes, I know. It might have been only the spare paddle. I wanted to test every possibility. There was still old Lond to be accounted for, and Lidgett. But when I came to work out the times they fitted extraordinarily well, taking the earlier time, as given by Lidgett, for Bayes’s second crossing of the bridge. And then I happened to hear that Bayes, when he told his story to his friends, said that when first he saw the canoe coming down the river he thought there was a man paddling it.”

  “He never said that to us!” Wythe declared. “Well, we’ve got a funny lot of witnesses! There’s Bayes, who isn’t sure of anything; he did all right at the inquest, but what’ll he be like when he has to face cross-examination? As for that Yugo-Slav young lady—!” he paused, then continued: “But there’s another thing I don’t quite get at, sir; that is, why Mort parked the canoe under Ferry House garden, as I suppose he did, and then ran the risk of returning to it.”

  “He was evidently pressed for time and the quickest thing was to moor it. If he were more than a few minutes late for a coaching that would certainly be noticed and remembered; he couldn’t risk that. The canoe was safe there, too; no one goes down the New Lode, and Mort probably didn’t even know that Lond sometimes hangs about Ferry House. He had satisfied himself that Lond’s boathouse was completely hidden from chance observation. Then I think his idea may have been, when he went back to the canoe and pushed it off, that it would drift much farther, below the island, perhaps go over the weir, and he thought that would completely confuse the trail.”

  “Yes, I see. Very neat. But if Mort planned this beforehand, he ran it pretty fine—the whole time schedule, I mean.”

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t plan it ahead. In fact, I’m not sure yet that he’s guilty of murder. I’m trying to see some point that may be evidence of that, one way or the other. Of course, concealing what happened and all that, gives ground enough for an arrest.”

  “The evidence of those books,” Wythe remarked, indicating the two pass-books and the red note-book, “gives motive enough for murder, to my way of thinking.”

  “It may show that he had reason to dislike and fear her,” said Braydon slowly. “I shouldn’t expect him to be the kind of man to knock a woman over the head, but it’s conceivable that if he merely threatened, or perhaps pushed her, she may have fallen backwards into that narrow channel and struck her head on one of those stakes on the opposite side.” He paused. “I don’t know. It may be a weakness, but I like to know what I really believe a man to be guilty of before I arrest him.”

  Dr. Odell entered with his report. “Those hairs on the trousers,” he announced, “—there’s more than one—are as certainly the twin brothers of the hairs on Miss Denning’s head as you can ever tell. Of course, no one can prove their identity, one way or the other,” he added helpfully.

  “So now for the Back End,” Wythe suggested.

  The little house, with sunshine printing the blurred arabesque of bare branches on its plastered walls, looked very peaceful in its bushy garden.

  “Mr. Mort’s resting,” the brisk housekeeper told them. “He hasn’t been at all himself these last few days. I gave him your message, sir.” She looked at Braydon. “But you never said anything about when you’d come back. As for that rug, Inspector, Mr. Mort hasn’t made any complaint himself about it being stolen, I’m sure, and it’s not a very big matter if it was.”

  “This is very important,” Braydon informed her. “More important than any stolen rug. I’m afraid we must insist on seeing Mr. Mort. Will you tell him, please.”

  “He gave orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed,” said the woman doubtfully. “Couldn’t you come back later? I think he’s gone off into a nice nap and there’s no doubt but that he needs it.”

  “He hasn’t been sleeping well lately, I expect?” Braydon suggested.

  “Since you say it, and he may have mentioned it to you, sir, I don’t believe he slept a wink last night. Walking up and down he was, all the night long. So you see, sir, I don’t like to disturb him now.”

  “And he’s none too easy a man when orders are disobeyed, I believe?” Braydon continued.

  “It’s not my place to discuss my employers,” the woman replied stiffly.

  “Quite right,” Braydon agreed. “Now will you go and tell Mr. Mort that I want to see him. I’m afraid we must insist. The matter is important and urgent.”

  “Well, if you say so,” she agreed doubtfully and left them in the hall.

  In a few minutes she returned, looking scared.

  “I can’t wake him! He’s taken some sleeping medicine, I think. These things do send you into an unnatural sleep, I’ve heard.” She was obviously trying to allay her own fears. “I don’t quite know—” she added doubtfully.

  “I think we had better see him,” said Braydon gravely. “It may be wise to send for a doctor, but I have some knowledge in these matters.”

  The woman’s hostility towards them had vanished and she seemed glad of their presence. She led the way into the library where Braydon had first seen Denis Mort. He lay there now, in a low wicker chair, with one arm bent upwards and the hand beneath the cushion on which his head rested. The sprawled legs, the body turned to one side, were the attitude of a man in a deep sleep. Braydon made a quick examination and turned to Wythe.

  “Will you call Dr. Odell? He has got free.” The last words were spoken quietly and the housekeeper, standing near the door, did not hear them, but she caught the mention of a doctor. She clutched her hands together tightly.

  “Oh, sir, is it—is it——?”

  “Yes,” said Braydon. “There is nothing that a doctor can do now. We must take charge, you understand.”

  The woman gave a sort of gulp and blundered out of the room. Wythe followed her, to find the telephone. Braydon prowled round the room and found on the desk an envelope addressed to himself, which he put in his pocket. The photograph which he had studied so attentively on his first visit was missing.

  CHAPTER XX

  DENIS MORT GIVES A VERDICT

  THE letter opened without preamble.

  “I write to you as a man rather than as a detective, because I feel that some explanation is advisable, and I trust your judgment as much as I appreciate your tact. The chloral hydrate was obtained some years ago in a perfectly regular way, for my mother in her last illness. I have kept it because I have thought more than once of taking this, the weak man’s way out of an unbearable situation. My own weakness has brought misery to myself and worse than misery to others, from first to last.

  “What distresses me most of all now is that this sordid blackmailing story may be made public. I see no way to avoid it. Blackmailing is what it will be called, but it differs from the usual case of blackmail in that I was willing enough to give the money for my daughter’s education and support, and I am satisfied that it has been used, or set aside, for that purpose. I want to be fair.

  “I did not premeditate murder, although murderous thoughts, never translated into a plan of action, have been often enough in my mind. I have tried to force myself into action; not murder, but disclosure of all the story to my daughter, known as Pamela Exe, who was, I thought, old enough now to be trusted with the knowledge. I planned to end Miss Denning’s power over me by wiping out all secrets and to find some way of putting the money in trust for Pamela. But my own weakness and procrastination defeated me again and the power of action only came to me when action was useless.

  “I had asked Miss Denning not to come on that particular Friday afternoon because my time would be limited by that extra coaching. When she came I wan
ted to have time to tell her all this. That, I felt, would be only fair. Nevertheless she came, as I half expected she would, and I was in the garden in case she should come. I was in an evil fury that she should come when I had no time to explain what I intended and that she thus forced me to prolong the situation which I was determined to end. I rushed out at her as she stood at the edge of the backwater. She had seldom seen me in that state of anger and, as I afterwards realized, I had a pruning knife in my hand. She may have feared the violence that was far from my mind. She was certainly startled and stepped back into the water and fell. She lay right across the backwater, with her head just under the water on the far side, but at first, with the splashing and the churning of the mud, I did not realize that her head was under water. I waited for her to begin to struggle out; I felt a kind of mean triumph and then anxiety as to how I could get her into the house and give her the opportunity of obtaining dry clothing without making her visit public.

  “Suddenly I realized that she was not moving; I don’t know what happened but I suppose that she struck her head on one of the stakes that shore up the bank. I actually stepped into the water and then hesitated. Apparently my housekeeper had heard nothing. There was no sign from the house. I turned away and strode about the garden, raging in impotent fury. She has killed herself, I told myself, or if she has not killed herself yet, she is doing so. She has hounded me, taunted me, kept me away from my daughter, shown me no mercy. Why should I go to her help when even the law does not require me to do so?

  “I was unjust, of course; it is I who have spoilt my own life. I had power over it, had I been strong enough to use it.

  “An evil curiosity drew me to the backwater again. There she lay quietly under the water. I was afraid, and I walked in and dragged her out. She was dead. The best plan seemed to be to put her into her canoe, and I had some idea of pushing it out into the river. Her coat lay in the canoe and I removed this and recovered her hat which was floating on the water.