“Plinlimmon? Oh, I saw in the newspaper that the old fool had drowned himself. Drunk, and tumbled overboard, I imagine.”
“May I ask how you come to be acquainted with Plinlimmon, Mr. Carmichael?”
“Me? Acquainted with him? Well, when you use the same river . . .”
“Mr. Carmichael, we have established that until he undertook his last trip up the Thames, Plinlimmon was established by the Chelsea Embankment, where he got his living by servicing other people’s craft and doing various odd jobs there.”
“Well, what of it?”
“I spent time and trouble in attempting to establish that you had lived in Chelsea before you came here just over two years ago. I was unable to do so for what I consider to be a very good reason. You have changed your name.”
“Ridiculous!”
“Then please furnish me with this information: if you have not changed your name, why was I unable to trace you on the electors’ register?”
“I’ve never bothered to vote. I have not the faintest interest in politics.”
“But you have lived in Chelsea and you knew Plinlimmon well.”
“I have never lived in Chelsea—that is to say, not exactly lived there. I have Bohemian friends—literally, as it happens—Czechs. I used to visit them frequently. They introduced me to Plinlimmon.”
“And when you visited these friends, you made considerable use of the Chelsea public library?”
“I—yes, I suppose I did.”
“The Chelsea public library, Mr. Carmichael?”
Phlox stared angrily at his interlocutor.
“I wish I could see the point of your questions,” he said.
“When I was researching in Chelsea, Plinlimmon gave away the fact that he knew you. He also gave me the tip to visit the Fulham public library. There was no doubt that he knew you pretty well . . .”
“I’ve explained that.”
“. . . and that he had serviced the boat you used to keep at his moorings. There is no doubt, either, that, after my visit, Plinlimmon tipped you off by telephone—we have traced the call—informing you that I had seen him and questioned him. You knew him so well as a double-crossing petty scoundrel that you thought it necessary to eliminate him before he could obtain a reward as informer by giving us some really substantial information about you?”
“Such as?”
“I can think of several things that we should have been glad to know. It would have saved us from having to ferret them out for ourselves. However, we have ferreted them out. Now, Mr. Carmichael, I would like your explanation of the following facts: first, Plinlimmon took his cruiser up as far as Abingdon. The cruiser has been identified and Plinlimmon recognised from my description. You also were recognised on those upper reaches. You are known to have been there.”
“I made the trip? All right.”
“Plinlimmon’s body was found off Chiswick Eyot.”
“So I learned from the newspapers.”
“But his motor-cruiser is lying, with a great many similar boats, at Maidenhead. What is the explanation of that?”
“How on earth should I know?”
“Mr. Carmichael, I am not satisfied with your attitude. You have not resolved my doubts.” With this, Gavin got up from his chair. “I must see whether your sister cannot help me.”
“You smooth swine!” said Phlox, hysterically. “You leave my sister alone! Leave her alone, I say! Leave her alone!” His face worked as though he was going to weep. Then he controlled himself. “Marigold is a congenital liar,” he said coldly. “I wish you joy of any information she gives you!”
“Then perhaps you would like to sign my notes before I see her.”
Phlox was silent, except that he tapped his finger-nails irresolutely against the wooden arm of his chair. He gazed down at the strip of matting on the floor. Plainly he was gathering his thoughts.
“You’ve questioned me in what I consider to be a grossly unfair manner. I protest very strongly against your methods. Unfortunately for you, you elected to come here alone, so that there are no witnesses to this conversation.”
“You are fortunate in that the conversation has not been recorded,” said Gavin drily. “I suggest that you accompany me now to the Culminster police station where you can make your own statement in front of witnesses and where it can be taken down and signed. I have cautioned you, remember.”
Phlox nodded.
“That is agreeable to me,” he said. He rose. Gavin followed him ashore and drove him to Culminster. He left him in an ante-room with a constable to keep him company and went in himself to speak to the Superintendent.
“I’ve brought Phlox Carmichael,” he said. “He’s prepared to make a statement.”
“How did you manage it?”
“By asking some rather awkward questions and by threatening, in my best blackmailing manner, to dig the truth out of his sister.”
“So that’s why you went alone?”
“Yes, it is. Now I want to ask Dame Beatrice to come here. As soon as she arrives, we can bring Carmichael in and have his yarn taken down.”
Dame Beatrice did not keep them waiting long. It was not many miles from the Stone House to Culminster police station. As soon as she arrived, Phlox and a shorthand writer came in and the statement was taken down. It began reasonably enough, Dame Beatrice thought, considering the kind of people the Carmichaels were and where their interests lay. After stressing that he had been under undue and unfair pressure from the police, and so thought it imperative to make “my voluntary and true account of what really has occurred in this neighbourhood—that is to say, in and around the village of Wandles Parva, where, as some people know” (he met Dame Beatrice’s eye) “the vicar and his wife are my very good friends—what has occurred, I say, since the twenty-second of May.” He paused, as though to assemble the material of his speech in his mind, and then continued:
“On that day, my sister and I decided to go down to Wandles Parva, although we knew that we could not be put up at the vicarage, our accustomed hostelry, until the end of the week.
“Our reasons for going there at that time were that the weather was fine enough for us to begin a project we had often discussed with the vicar, that is the tracing of an indicated but undiscovered Roman road, and we also wanted to see some finds of Roman origin which had been dug up fortuitously on a local smallholding. We had heard of these by letter from the vicarage.
“We traced the known part of the road, but it seemed to peter out, so we made our way to Wandles, with the intention of obtaining accommodation for the nights of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, until we could take up lodging at the vicarage. Our plan was changed by circumstances which we could not have foreseen. We met and accompanied a school party which was going to carry out further excavations on the smallholding. This, we thought, might be interesting and might even result in further finds, or even in the discovery of the foundations of a villa. The vicar has long held the theory that a Roman villa existed in the neighbourhood of Wandles Parva. However, nothing was found at the time.
“Later on, we watched while a party of girls in charge of two religious took up the cudgels—or, rather, of course, the spades and trowels. These young people had obviously been taught the rudiments of correct procedure in excavating the site, but the results of their labours were negligible. However, the upshot of it all was that my sister was enabled to live at the convent until the following Saturday morning, whilst I myself slept under the stars. Fortunately the weather remained clement, and I joined my sister on the Saturday, as we had arranged.
“The vicar, intent upon his Roman road and still convinced, in spite of the abortive efforts of the pupils, that a villa had existed in the neighbourhood, took us along with him on the following Monday to dig on the smallholding. We found a skeleton. I now know it to be the skeleton of a woman. At the time I believed it to be that of a Roman or, more probably, a Saxon—a man, of course—slain in battle, since the skull was cleft
as though with a heavy sword.
“Later, after it had been established that the skeleton had but recently been the framework of a living person, I was closely questioned by the police, as I had been present when it was uncovered, and I was able to call upon the vicar in support of my statement that, although I had been present, mine was not the initial discovery of the cadaver.
“Since that discovery, I seem to have been under the constant supervision of one person and another, some authorised, possibly, to follow my movements”—he gave the Superintendent a slight bow—“others very definitely not so authorised.” He gazed fixedly at Dame Beatrice, who returned his look with a basilisk stare which caused him involuntarily to lower his eyes.
“I have been followed,” he continued, “and deliberately spied upon; my every movement, it seems to me, has been noted, and a wrong construction, in most cases, has been put upon it. I demand that this persecution be withdrawn before my whole reputation is in shreds. Every advantage has been taken of the fact that, troubled by the aspersions cast upon me after the discovery that the skeleton was of recent date, my delicately balanced nervous system began to play tricks and I consulted one whom I believed to be not only a psychiatrist of repute but one of whose probity I could be certain. I have been deeply disappointed. A flippant approach was made to my malady, which was one of temporary mental derangement, and from which I am by no means recovered, and, since that time, suspicion after suspicion has been laid upon me.
“Upon information derived by the police from this same source, I am now accused of having been concerned in the death of a man named Plinlimmon for the flimsy, if not downright ridiculous reason that I happened to hire this man to take me in his motor cruiser up the river so that I might visit the historic town of Abingdon. Of the fact that the body was found off Chiswick no note whatever has been taken.”
“Oh, yes, it has,” said Gavin, under his breath. Phlox appeared not to have heard him. He continued:
“Further, the discovery of another dead body at the Manor House in Wandles Parva has given rise to another accusation that I knew the dead woman and had killed her. Both suggestions are worthy only of the scorn in which I hold them. That is all I have to say.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carmichael,” said the Superintendent, in a dangerously mild tone. “The constable who has taken down your statement in shorthand will now type it out in full and perhaps you will be good enough to stay and sign it. If, of course, you wish to amend it in any way before you sign, you are at liberty to do that.”
He was shown out.
“Well?” said Gavin, looking at Dame Beatrice.
“A certain amount of sub-editing is required before we accept his statement,” she replied.
“Right. Hand out the dope.” He drew out a notebook. “Where do we go from here?”
“Having checked his statement, we then examine it for errors of omission. In fact, I think we must take the omissions first. The most interesting one, perhaps, is that he has failed to mention those meetings with Hilary Beads on Wednesday, May twenty-second.”
“I mentioned them to him, though! He knows we know of them.”
“He admits that he slept in the open on that and the two succeeding nights, but he does not mention where.”
“Well, we’re pretty sure it was in the grounds of the Manor House, if not in the house itself.”
“He mentioned the trip he took with Plinlimmon, but makes no attempt to explain why, if Plinlimmon’s body was found off Chiswick Eyot, his boat was found by you at Maidenhead.”
“He’ll have to tell us a great deal more about that trip before we’re satisfied.”
“What about his disposal of Hilary Beads’ handbag in the river? He didn’t mention that, either.”
“There was nothing in the handbag to incriminate him, of course. When you handed it over I examined it most carefully.”
“There must have been, at one time. Did you notice that the handbag had a slightly torn lining?”
“Yes, and there had been what I believe to be a visiting-card in it. It got thrown away, you tell me.”
“Dear me! We do not seem to be blest by luck, do we?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I think we may soon have enough on him to justify his arrest. Any other omissions?”
“Well, I think he’s been screening his sister.”
“So you’ve suggested before. Laura told me.”
“You see, Phlox and Marigold have always had much in common. Phlox has been the leading spirit, of course, and Marigold has always been more than content to follow him. The wife created a problem, and Marigold, I think, solved that problem in a simple and terrible way.”
“You mean that Marigold hit the wife on the head, and that Phlox bore the brunt and hid the body?”
“I feel certain of it. I am also certain that the murders of Hilary Beads and Jack Plinlimmon were undertaken by Phlox to cover up the murder of Mrs. Carmichael.”
“Would any brother take such a risk?”
“Phlox appears to me to have done so.”
“And Marigold’s ducking in the Thames?”
“I think he was tired of shouldering all the responsibility, and so tried to be rid of her, but, in the end, he had to rescue her. He couldn’t help himself. On the other hand, of course, there’s nothing to rule out accident, or even attempted suicide.”
“Attempted suicide?”
“Marigold is both the stronger and the weaker partner, I feel. By the way, I have had that sliver of brownish stain analysed—the one I took from the conservatory of the Manor House, you know. It is not blood. I did not think it was. Just part of the general trend of the present day towards dirt and destruction.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Flowers of Sulphur
“I confess I have perused them all, and can discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief.”
Ibid (Section 20)
* * *
DAME BEATRICE, in casting her bread upon the waters by rewarding young Eustace Trumble for his information about the drowning of Hilary Beads’ handbag, had had no thought that it might return to her after many days. But while Gavin and Dame Beatrice were in conference, a newly-washed and very bashful boy of thirteen was on his way to the Stone House.
Because he was bashful (for bashfulness does not preclude villainy) he went round to the side door. Here he was met by Célestine, who demanded to know his business. He asked to speak to “the lady, the old ‘un.” Célestine shrugged and told him to stay where he was. She then informed Dame Beatrice of his arrival.
“Ask him his name,” said Dame Beatrice. It appeared that Célestine had already done this. His name was Henry Briggs.
“Turned out of the church choir for bad behaviour the year before last,” commented Dame Beatrice. “I will see him in here.”
Shown in, Henry proved to be a stocky, freckled boy with an untrustworthily ingenuous countenance and a wary eye. He shuffled his feet.
“Well, Henry,” said Dame Beatrice, “what can I do for you?”
Henry cleared his throat and glanced at Gavin.
“Answer Dame Beatrice,” said the latter, with a friendly grin. “Neither of us will eat you.”
Thus encouraged, Henry blurted out:
“You give my mate ‘arf a crown for telling you summat.”
“Your mate being Eustace Trumble.”
“That’s right, mum, your ladyship. He ‘ad ‘arf a crown for telling you about an ‘andbag which Mr. Carmichael chucked in the river.”
“We need no more information about the handbag, Henry, thank you.”
“No, but I seen it in her ‘and when she was talkin’ to Mr. Carmichael the day before, and I ‘eared what she said.”
“How do you know Mr. Carmichael’s name, I wonder?”
“When I was in the choir, Mr. Carmichael used to sing along of us when he stayed at the vicarage; that’s ‘ow.”
“Of course. Sit down, Henry, a
nd let us hear what you have to say.”
Gavin drew forward a chair so that the boy was facing the light. Then he sat by the door and took out his notebook.
“I wasn’t at school that day,” Henry began. “I goes to the County Secondary in Culminster be bus and that morning I isn’t feelin’ too good, so me mum says I can stop at ‘ome and she’ll write a note. By dinner-time I feels better, but I can’t get to school because there isn’t a school bus, see, so I says to me mum as I think I’ll go out for a bit, so she says not to let anybody see me, else she might get into trouble for me bein’ out but not at school.”
“I can appreciate that,” said Dame Beatrice. “So?”
“So I goes along, pretty careful, and, when I sees somebody coming, I gets over the gate and I crawls along be’ind the ‘edge.”
“Yes?”
“Well, then, they meets this posh sort of lady as have stayed at the vicarage before, and Mr. Carmichael and the lady as goes with ‘im, and they haves a bit of a talk.”
“Can you remember what they said?”
“Well, some of it, I reckon. The gentleman asks this other lady for somewhere to stay, and she names Farmer Topps. Then she writes something down and gives it to him. Then she takes off her sun-specs and the gentleman seems to be ever so surprised and the other lady—the one what was with ‘im—she gives a kind of a screech, and then the lady what they met up with, she says as how she must get something out of it . . .”
“Rewarded, do you mean?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Ah. Then the gentleman, he writes something on a little bit of cardboard and gives it to her, and she walks one way and him and the lady with ‘im walks the other way and meets them classy little kids from the payin’ school. But, before that, he says, ‘Let me know when you wants your little reward, won’t you?’ And before that again, she says, ‘I shall expect to be’—I don’t know the next word, but I reckon it meant he’d got to give her something, like what I says before.”
“Recompensed?” asked Dame Beatrice. The boy eyed her shrewdly.
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