V. THE FAD OF THE FISHERMAN
A thing can sometimes be too extraordinary to be remembered. If itis clean out of the course of things, and has apparently no causesand no consequences, subsequent events do not recall it, and itremains only a subconscious thing, to be stirred by some accidentlong after. It drifts apart like a forgotten dream; and it was inthe hour of many dreams, at daybreak and very soon after the end ofdark, that such a strange sight was given to a man sculling a boatdown a river in the West country. The man was awake; indeed, heconsidered himself rather wide awake, being the politicaljournalist, Harold March, on his way to interview various politicalcelebrities in their country seats. But the thing he saw was soinconsequent that it might have been imaginary. It simply slippedpast his mind and was lost in later and utterly different events;nor did he even recover the memory till he had long afterwarddiscovered the meaning.
Pale mists of morning lay on the fields and the rushes along onemargin of the river; along the other side ran a wall of tawny brickalmost overhanging the water. He had shipped his oars and wasdrifting for a moment with the stream, when he turned his head andsaw that the monotony of the long brick wall was broken by a bridge;rather an elegant eighteenth-century sort of bridge with littlecolumns of white stone turning gray. There had been floods and theriver still stood very high, with dwarfish trees waist deep in it,and rather a narrow arc of white dawn gleamed under the curve of thebridge.
As his own boat went under the dark archway he saw another boatcoming toward him, rowed by a man as solitary as himself. Hisposture prevented much being seen of him, but as he neared thebridge he stood up in the boat and turned round. He was already soclose to the dark entry, however, that his whole figure was blackagainst the morning light, and March could see nothing of his faceexcept the end of two long whiskers or mustaches that gave somethingsinister to the silhouette, like horns in the wrong place. Eventhese details March would never have noticed but for what happenedin the same instant. As the man came under the low bridge he made aleap at it and hung, with his legs dangling, letting the boat floataway from under him. March had a momentary vision of two blackkicking legs; then of one black kicking leg; and then of nothingexcept the eddying stream and the long perspective of the wall. Butwhenever he thought of it again, long afterward, when he understoodthe story in which it figured, it was always fixed in that onefantastic shape--as if those wild legs were a grotesque gravenornament of the bridge itself, in the manner of a gargoyle. At themoment he merely passed, staring, down the stream. He could see noflying figure on the bridge, so it must have already fled; but hewas half conscious of some faint significance in the fact that amongthe trees round the bridgehead opposite the wall he saw a lamp-post;and, beside the lamp-post, the broad blue back of an unconsciouspoliceman.
Even before reaching the shrine of his political pilgrimage he hadmany other things to think of besides the odd incident of thebridge; for the management of a boat by a solitary man was notalways easy even on such a solitary stream. And indeed it was onlyby an unforeseen accident that he was solitary. The boat had beenpurchased and the whole expedition planned in conjunction with afriend, who had at the last moment been forced to alter all hisarrangements. Harold March was to have traveled with his friendHorne Fisher on that inland voyage to Willowood Place, where thePrime Minister was a guest at the moment. More and more people werehearing of Harold March, for his striking political articles wereopening to him the doors of larger and larger salons; but he hadnever met the Prime Minister yet. Scarcely anybody among the generalpublic had ever heard of Horne Fisher; but he had known the PrimeMinister all his life. For these reasons, had the two taken theprojected journey together, March might have been slightly disposedto hasten it and Fisher vaguely content to lengthen it out. ForFisher was one of those people who are born knowing the PrimeMinister. The knowledge seemed to have no very exhilarant effect,and in his case bore some resemblance to being born tired. But hewas distinctly annoyed to receive, just as he was doing a littlelight packing of fishing tackle and cigars for the journey, atelegram from Willowood asking him to come down at once by train, asthe Prime Minister had to leave that night. Fisher knew that hisfriend the journalist could not possibly start till the next day,and he liked his friend the journalist, and had looked forward to afew days on the river. He did not particularly like or dislike thePrime Minister, but he intensely disliked the alternative of a fewhours in the train. Nevertheless, he accepted Prime Ministers as heaccepted railway trains--as part of a system which he, at least, wasnot the revolutionist sent on earth to destroy. So he telephoned toMarch, asking him, with many apologetic curses and faint damns, totake the boat down the river as arranged, that they might meet atWillowood by the time settled; then he went outside and hailed ataxicab to take him to the railway station. There he paused at thebookstall to add to his light luggage a number of cheap murderstories, which he read with great pleasure, and without anypremonition that he was about to walk into as strange a story inreal life.
A little before sunset he arrived, with his light suitcase in hand,before the gate of the long riverside gardens of Willowood Place,one of the smaller seats of Sir Isaac Hook, the master of muchshipping and many newspapers. He entered by the gate giving on theroad, at the opposite side to the river, but there was a mixedquality in all that watery landscape which perpetually reminded atraveler that the river was near. White gleams of water would shinesuddenly like swords or spears in the green thickets. And even inthe garden itself, divided into courts and curtained with hedges andhigh garden trees, there hung everywhere in the air the music ofwater. The first of the green courts which he entered appeared to bea somewhat neglected croquet lawn, in which was a solitary young manplaying croquet against himself. Yet he was not an enthusiast forthe game, or even for the garden; and his sallow but well-featuredface looked rather sullen than otherwise. He was only one of thoseyoung men who cannot support the burden of consciousness unless theyare doing something, and whose conceptions of doing something arelimited to a game of some kind. He was dark and well dressed in alight holiday fashion, and Fisher recognized him at once as a youngman named James Bullen, called, for some unknown reason, Bunker. Hewas the nephew of Sir Isaac; but, what was much more important atthe moment, he was also the private secretary of the Prime Minister.
"Hullo, Bunker!" observed Horne Fisher. "You're the sort of man Iwanted to see. Has your chief come down yet?"
"He's only staying for dinner," replied Bullen, with his eye on theyellow ball. "He's got a great speech to-morrow at Birmingham andhe's going straight through to-night. He's motoring himself there;driving the car, I mean. It's the one thing he's really proud of."
"You mean you're staying here with your uncle, like a good boy?"replied Fisher. "But what will the Chief do at Birmingham withoutthe epigrams whispered to him by his brilliant secretary?"
"Don't you start ragging me," said the young man called Bunker."I'm only too glad not to go trailing after him. He doesn't know athing about maps or money or hotels or anything, and I have to danceabout like a courier. As for my uncle, as I'm supposed to come intothe estate, it's only decent to be here sometimes."
"Very proper," replied the other. "Well, I shall see you later on,"and, crossing the lawn, he passed out through a gap in the hedge.
He was walking across the lawn toward the landing stage on theriver, and still felt all around him, under the dome of goldenevening, an Old World savor and reverberation in that riverhauntedgarden. The next square of turf which he crossed seemed at firstsight quite deserted, till he saw in the twilight of trees in onecorner of it a hammock and in the hammock a man, reading a newspaperand swinging one leg over the edge of the net.
Him also he hailed by name, and the man slipped to the ground andstrolled forward. It seemed fated that he should feel something ofthe past in the accidents of that place, for the figure might wellhave been an early-Victorian ghost revisiting the ghosts of thecroquet hoops and mallets. It was the figure of an elderly man withlong
whiskers that looked almost fantastic, and a quaint and carefulcut of collar and cravat. Having been a fashionable dandy fortyyears ago, he had managed to preserve the dandyism while ignoringthe fashions. A white top-hat lay beside the Morning Post in thehammock behind him. This was the Duke of Westmoreland, the relic ofa family really some centuries old; and the antiquity was notheraldry but history. Nobody knew better than Fisher how rare suchnoblemen are in fact, and how numerous in fiction. But whether theduke owed the general respect he enjoyed to the genuineness of hispedigree or to the fact that he owned a vast amount of very valuableproperty was a point about which Mr. Fisher's opinion might havebeen more interesting to discover.
"You were looking so comfortable," said Fisher, "that I thought youmust be one of the servants. I'm looking for somebody to take thisbag of mine; I haven't brought a man down, as I came away in ahurry."
"Nor have I, for that matter," replied the duke, with some pride. "Inever do. If there's one animal alive I loathe it's a valet. Ilearned to dress myself at an early age and was supposed to do itdecently. I may be in my second childhood, but I've not go so far asbeing dressed like a child."
"The Prime Minister hasn't brought a valet; he's brought a secretaryinstead," observed Fisher. "Devilish inferior job. Didn't I hearthat Harker was down here?"
"He's over there on the landing stage," replied the duke,indifferently, and resumed the study of the Morning Post.
Fisher made his way beyond the last green wall of the garden on to asort of towing path looking on the river and a wooden islandopposite. There, indeed, he saw a lean, dark figure with a stoopalmost like that of a vulture, a posture well known in the lawcourts as that of Sir John Harker, the Attorney-General. His facewas lined with headwork, for alone among the three idlers in thegarden he was a man who had made his own way; and round his baldbrow and hollow temples clung dull red hair, quite flat, like platesof copper.
"I haven't seen my host yet," said Horne Fisher, in a slightly moreserious tone than he had used to the others, "but I suppose I shallmeet him at dinner."
"You can see him now; but you can't meet him," answered Harker.
He nodded his head toward one end of the island opposite, and,looking steadily in the same direction, the other guest could seethe dome of a bald head and the top of a fishing rod, both equallymotionless, rising out of the tall undergrowth against thebackground of the stream beyond. The fisherman seemed to be seatedagainst the stump of a tree and facing toward the other bank, sothat his face could not be seen, but the shape of his head wasunmistakable.
"He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's fishing," continuedHarker. "It's a sort of fad of his to eat nothing but fish, and he'svery proud of catching his own. Of course he's all for simplicity,like so many of these millionaires. He likes to come in saying he'sworked for his daily bread like a laborer."
"Does he explain how he blows all the glass and stuffs all theupholstery," asked Fisher, "and makes all the silver forks, andgrows all the grapes and peaches, and designs all the patterns onthe carpets? I've always heard he was a busy man."
"I don't think he mentioned it," answered the lawyer. "What is themeaning of this social satire?"
"Well, I am a trifle tired," said Fisher, "of the Simple Life andthe Strenuous Life as lived by our little set. We're all reallydependent in nearly everything, and we all make a fuss about beingindependent in something. The Prime Minister prides himself on doingwithout a chauffeur, but he can't do without a factotum andJack-of-all-trades; and poor old Bunker has to play the part of auniversal genius, which God knows he was never meant for. The dukeprides himself on doing without a valet, but, for all that, he mustgive a lot of people an infernal lot of trouble to collect suchextraordinary old clothes as he wears. He must have them looked upin the British Museum or excavated out of the tombs. That white hatalone must require a sort of expedition fitted out to find it, likethe North Pole. And here we have old Hook pretending to produce hisown fish when he couldn't produce his own fish knives or fish forksto eat it with. He may be simple about simple things like food, butyou bet he's luxurious about luxurious things, especially littlethings. I don't include you; you've worked too hard to enjoy playingat work."
"I sometimes think," said Harker, "that you conceal a horrid secretof being useful sometimes. Haven't you come down here to see NumberOne before he goes on to Birmingham?"
Horne Fisher answered, in a lower voice: "Yes; and I hope to belucky enough to catch him before dinner. He's got to see Sir Isaacabout something just afterward."
"Hullo!" exclaimed Harker. "Sir Isaac's finished his fishing. Iknow he prides himself on getting up at sunrise and going in atsunset."
The old man on the island had indeed risen to his feet, facing roundand showing a bush of gray beard with rather small, sunken features,but fierce eyebrows and keen, choleric eyes. Carefully carrying hisfishing tackle, he was already making his way back to the mainlandacross a bridge of flat stepping-stones a little way down theshallow stream; then he veered round, coming toward his guests andcivilly saluting them. There were several fish in his basket and hewas in a good temper.
"Yes," he said, acknowledging Fisher's polite expression ofsurprise, "I get up before anybody else in the house, I think. Theearly bird catches the worm."
"Unfortunately," said Harker, "it is the early fish that catches theworm."
"But the early man catches the fish," replied the old man, gruffly.
"But from what I hear, Sir Isaac, you are the late man, too,"interposed Fisher. "You must do with very little sleep."
"I never had much time for sleeping," answered Hook, "and I shallhave to be the late man to-night, anyhow. The Prime Minister wantsto have a talk, he tells me, and, all things considered, I thinkwe'd better be dressing for dinner."
Dinner passed off that evening without a word of politics and littleenough but ceremonial trifles. The Prime Minister, Lord Merivale,who was a long, slim man with curly gray hair, was gravelycomplimentary to his host about his success as a fisherman and theskill and patience he displayed; the conversation flowed like theshallow stream through the stepping-stones.
"It wants patience to wait for them, no doubt," said Sir Isaac, "andskill to play them, but I'm generally pretty lucky at it."
"Does a big fish ever break the line and get away?" inquired thepolitician, with respectful interest.
"Not the sort of line I use," answered Hook, with satisfaction. "Irather specialize in tackle, as a matter of fact. If he were strongenough to do that, he'd be strong enough to pull me into the river."
"A great loss to the community," said the Prime Minister, bowing.
Fisher had listened to all these futilities with inward impatience,waiting for his own opportunity, and when the host rose he sprang tohis feet with an alertness he rarely showed. He managed to catchLord Merivale before Sir Isaac bore him off for the final interview.He had only a few words to say, but he wanted to get them said.
He said, in a low voice as he opened the door for the Premier, "Ihave seen Montmirail; he says that unless we protest immediately onbehalf of Denmark, Sweden will certainly seize the ports."
Lord Merivale nodded. "I'm just going to hear what Hook has to sayabout it," he said.
"I imagine," said Fisher, with a faint smile, "that there is verylittle doubt what he will say about it."
Merivale did not answer, but lounged gracefully toward the library,whither his host had already preceded him. The rest drifted towardthe billiard room, Fisher merely remarking to the lawyer: "Theywon't be long. We know they're practically in agreement."
"Hook entirely supports the Prime Minister," assented Harker.
"Or the Prime Minister entirely supports Hook," said Horne Fisher,and began idly to knock the balls about on the billiard table.
Horne Fisher came down next morning in a late and leisurely fashion,as was his reprehensible habit; he had evidently no appetite forcatching worms. But the other guests seemed to have felt a similarindifference, and they helped themselv
es to breakfast from thesideboard at intervals during the hours verging upon lunch. So thatit was not many hours later when the first sensation of that strangeday came upon them. It came in the form of a young man with lighthair and a candid expression, who came sculling down the river anddisembarked at the landing stage. It was, in fact, no other than Mr.Harold March, whose journey had begun far away up the river in theearliest hours of that day. He arrived late in the afternoon, havingstopped for tea in a large riverside town, and he had a pink eveningpaper sticking out of his pocket. He fell on the riverside gardenlike a quiet and well-behaved thunderbolt, but he was a thunderboltwithout knowing it.
The first exchange of salutations and introductions was commonplaceenough, and consisted, indeed, of the inevitable repetition ofexcuses for the eccentric seclusion of the host. He had gone fishingagain, of course, and must not be disturbed till the appointed hour,though he sat within a stone's throw of where they stood.
"You see it's his only hobby," observed Harker, apologetically,"and, after all, it's his own house; and he's very hospitable inother ways."
"I'm rather afraid," said Fisher, in a lower voice, "that it'sbecoming more of a mania than a hobby. I know how it is when a manof that age begins to collect things, if it's only collecting thoserotten little river fish. You remember Talbot's uncle with histoothpicks, and poor old Buzzy and the waste of cigar ashes. Hookhas done a lot of big things in his time--the great deal in theSwedish timber trade and the Peace Conference at Chicago--but Idoubt whether he cares now for any of those big things as he caresfor those little fish."
"Oh, come, come," protested the Attorney-General. "You'll make Mr.March think he has come to call on a lunatic. Believe me, Hook onlydoes it for fun, like any other sport, only he's of the kind thattakes his fun sadly. But I bet if there were big news about timberor shipping, he would drop his fun and his fish all right."
"Well, I wonder," said Horne Fisher, looking sleepily at the islandin the river.
"By the way, is there any news of anything?" asked Harker of HaroldMarch. "I see you've got an evening paper; one of those enterprisingevening papers that come out in the morning."
"The beginning of Lord Merivale's Birmingham speech," replied March,handing him the paper. "It's only a paragraph, but it seems to merather good."
Harker took the paper, flapped and refolded it, and looked at the"Stop Press" news. It was, as March had said, only a paragraph. Butit was a paragraph that had a peculiar effect on Sir John Harker.His lowering brows lifted with a flicker and his eyes blinked, andfor a moment his leathery jaw was loosened. He looked in some oddfashion like a very old man. Then, hardening his voice and handingthe paper to Fisher without a tremor, he simply said:
"Well, here's a chance for the bet. You've got your big news todisturb the old man's fishing."
Horne Fisher was looking at the paper, and over his more languid andless expressive features a change also seemed to pass. Even thatlittle paragraph had two or three large headlines, and his eyeencountered, "Sensational Warning to Sweden," and, "We ShallProtest."
"What the devil--" he said, and his words softened first to awhisper and then a whistle.
"We must tell old Hook at once, or he'll never forgive us," saidHarker. "He'll probably want to see Number One instantly, though itmay be too late now. I'm going across to him at once. I bet I'llmake him forget his fish, anyhow." And, turning his back, he madehis way hurriedly along the riverside to the causeway of flatstones.
March was staring at Fisher, in amazement at the effect his pinkpaper had produced.
"What does it all mean?" he cried. "I always supposed we shouldprotest in defense of the Danish ports, for their sakes and our own.What is all this botheration about Sir Isaac and the rest of you? Doyou think it bad news?"
"Bad news!" repeated Fisher, with a sort of soft emphasis beyondexpression.
"Is it as bad as all that?" asked his friend, at last.
"As bad as all that?" repeated Fisher. "Why of course it's as goodas it can be. It's great news. It's glorious news! That's where thedevil of it comes in, to knock us all silly. It's admirable. It'sinestimable. It is also quite incredible."
He gazed again at the gray and green colors of the island and theriver, and his rather dreary eye traveled slowly round to the hedgesand the lawns.
"I felt this garden was a sort of dream," he said, "and I suppose Imust be dreaming. But there is grass growing and water moving; andsomething impossible has happened."
Even as he spoke the dark figure with a stoop like a vultureappeared in the gap of the hedge just above him.
"You have won your bet," said Harker, in a harsh and almost croakingvoice. "The old fool cares for nothing but fishing. He cursed me andtold me he would talk no politics."
"I thought it might be so," said Fisher, modestly. "What are yougoing to do next?"
"I shall use the old idiot's telephone, anyhow," replied the lawyer."I must find out exactly what has happened. I've got to speak forthe Government myself to-morrow." And he hurried away toward thehouse.
In the silence that followed, a very bewildering silence so far asMarch was concerned, they saw the quaint figure of the Duke ofWestmoreland, with his white hat and whiskers, approaching themacross the garden. Fisher instantly stepped toward him with the pinkpaper in his hand, and, with a few words, pointed out theapocalyptic paragraph. The duke, who had been walking slowly, stoodquite still, and for some seconds he looked like a tailor's dummystanding and staring outside some antiquated shop. Then March heardhis voice, and it was high and almost hysterical:
"But he must see it; he must be made to understand. It cannot havebeen put to him properly." Then, with a certain recovery of fullnessand even pomposity in the voice, "I shall go and tell him myself."
Among the queer incidents of that afternoon, March always rememberedsomething almost comical about the clear picture of the oldgentleman in his wonderful white hat carefully stepping from stoneto stone across the river, like a figure crossing the traffic inPiccadilly. Then he disappeared behind the trees of the island, andMarch and Fisher turned to meet the Attorney-General, who was comingout of the house with a visage of grim assurance.
"Everybody is saying," he said, "that the Prime Minister has madethe greatest speech of his life. Peroration and loud and prolongedcheers. Corrupt financiers and heroic peasants. We will not desertDenmark again."
Fisher nodded and turned away toward the towing path, where he sawthe duke returning with a rather dazed expression. In answer toquestions he said, in a husky and confidential voice:
"I really think our poor friend cannot be himself. He refused tolisten; he--ah--suggested that I might frighten the fish."
A keen ear might have detected a murmur from Mr. Fisher on thesubject of a white hat, but Sir John Harker struck it moredecisively:
"Fisher was quite right. I didn't believe it myself, but it's quiteclear that the old fellow is fixed on this fishing notion by now. Ifthe house caught fire behind him he would hardly move till sunset."
Fisher had continued his stroll toward the higher embanked ground ofthe towing path, and he now swept a long and searching gaze, nottoward the island, but toward the distant wooded heights that werethe walls of the valley. An evening sky as clear as that of theprevious day was settling down all over the dim landscape, buttoward the west it was now red rather than gold; there was scarcelyany sound but the monotonous music of the river. Then came the soundof a half-stifled exclamation from Horne Fisher, and Harold Marchlooked up at him in wonder.
"You spoke of bad news," said Fisher. "Well, there is really badnews now. I am afraid this is a bad business."
"What bad news do you mean?" asked his friend, conscious ofsomething strange and sinister in his voice.
"The sun has set," answered Fisher.
He went on with the air of one conscious of having said somethingfatal. "We must get somebody to go across whom he will really listento. He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearlyalways is meth
od in madness. It's what drives men mad, beingmethodical. And he never goes on sitting there after sunset, withthe whole place getting dark. Where's his nephew? I believe he'sreally fond of his nephew."
"Look!" cried March, abruptly. "Why, he's been across already.There he is coming back."
And, looking up the river once more, they saw, dark against thesunset reflections, the figure of James Bullen stepping hastily andrather clumsily from stone to stone. Once he slipped on a stone witha slight splash. When he rejoined the group on the bank his oliveface was unnaturally pale.
The other four men had already gathered on the same spot and almostsimultaneously were calling out to him, "What does he say now?"
"Nothing. He says--nothing."
Fisher looked at the young man steadily for a moment; then hestarted from his immobility and, making a motion to March to followhim, himself strode down to the river crossing. In a few momentsthey were on the little beaten track that ran round the woodedisland, to the other side of it where the fisherman sat. Then theystood and looked at him, without a word.
Sir Isaac Hook was still sitting propped up against the stump of thetree, and that for the best of reasons. A length of his owninfallible fishing line was twisted and tightened twice round histhroat and then twice round the wooden prop behind him. The leadinginvestigator ran forward and touched the fisherman's hand, and itwas as cold as a fish.
"The sun has set," said Horne Fisher, in the same terrible tones,"and he will never see it rise again."
Ten minutes afterward the five men, shaken by such a shock, wereagain together in the garden, looking at one another with white butwatchful faces. The lawyer seemed the most alert of the group; hewas articulate if somewhat abrupt.
"We must leave the body as it is and telephone for the police," hesaid. "I think my own authority will stretch to examining theservants and the poor fellow's papers, to see if there is anythingthat concerns them. Of course, none of you gentlemen must leave thisplace."
Perhaps there was something in his rapid and rigorous legality thatsuggested the closing of a net or trap. Anyhow, young Bullensuddenly broke down, or perhaps blew up, for his voice was like anexplosion in the silent garden.
"I never touched him," he cried. "I swear I had nothing to do withit!"
"Who said you had?" demanded Harker, with a hard eye. "Why do youcry out before you're hurt?"
"Because you all look at me like that," cried the young man,angrily. "Do you think I don't know you're always talking about mydamned debts and expectations?"
Rather to March's surprise, Fisher had drawn away from this firstcollision, leading the duke with him to another part of the garden.When he was out of earshot of the others he said, with a curioussimplicity of manner:
"Westmoreland, I am going straight to the point."
"Well?" said the other, staring at him stolidly.
"You have a motive for killing him," said Fisher.
The duke continued to stare, but he seemed unable to speak.
"I hope you had a motive for killing him," continued Fisher, mildly."You see, it's rather a curious situation. If you have a motive formurdering, you probably didn't murder. But if you hadn't any motive,why, then perhaps, you did."
"What on earth are you talking about?" demanded the duke, violently.
"It's quite simple," said Fisher. "When you went across he waseither alive or dead. If he was alive, it might be you who killedhim, or why should you have held your tongue about his death? But ifhe was dead, and you had a reason for killing him, you might haveheld your tongue for fear of being accused." Then after a silence headded, abstractedly: "Cyprus is a beautiful place, I believe.Romantic scenery and romantic people. Very intoxicating for a youngman."
The duke suddenly clenched his hands and said, thickly, "Well, I hada motive."
"Then you're all right," said Fisher, holding out his hand with anair of huge relief. "I was pretty sure you wouldn't really do it;you had a fright when you saw it done, as was only natural. Like abad dream come true, wasn't it?"
While this curious conversation was passing, Harker had gone intothe house, disregarding the demonstrations of the sulky nephew, andcame back presently with a new air of animation and a sheaf ofpapers in his hand.
"I've telephoned for the police," he said, stopping to speak toFisher, "but I think I've done most of their work for them. Ibelieve I've found out the truth. There's a paper here--" Hestopped, for Fisher was looking at him with a singular expression;and it was Fisher who spoke next:
"Are there any papers that are not there, I wonder? I mean that arenot there now?" After a pause he added: "Let us have the cards onthe table. When you went through his papers in such a hurry, Harker,weren't you looking for something to--to make sure it shouldn't befound?"
Harker did not turn a red hair on his hard head, but he looked atthe other out of the corners of his eyes.
"And I suppose," went on Fisher, smoothly, "that is why you, too,told us lies about having found Hook alive. You knew there wassomething to show that you might have killed him, and you didn'tdare tell us he was killed. But, believe me, it's much better to behonest now."
Harker's haggard face suddenly lit up as if with infernal flames.
"Honest," he cried, "it's not so damned fine of you fellows to behonest. You're all born with silver spoons in your mouths, and thenyou swagger about with everlasting virtue because you haven't gotother people's spoons in your pockets. But I was born in a Pimlicolodging house and I had to make my spoon, and there'd be plenty tosay I only spoiled a horn or an honest man. And if a struggling manstaggers a bit over the line in his youth, in the lower parts of thelaw which are pretty dingy, anyhow, there's always some old vampireto hang on to him all his life for it."
"Guatemalan Golcondas, wasn't it?" said Fisher, sympathetically.
Harker suddenly shuddered. Then he said, "I believe you must knoweverything, like God Almighty."
"I know too much," said Horne Fisher, "and all the wrong things."
The other three men were drawing nearer to them, but before theycame too near, Harker said, in a voice that had recovered all itsfirmness:
"Yes, I did destroy a paper, but I really did find a paper, too; andI believe that it clears us all."
"Very well," said Fisher, in a louder and more cheerful tone; "letus all have the benefit of it."
"On the very top of Sir Isaac's papers," explained Harker, "therewas a threatening letter from a man named Hugo. It threatens to killour unfortunate friend very much in the way that he was actuallykilled. It is a wild letter, full of taunts; you can see it foryourselves; but it makes a particular point of poor Hook's habit offishing from the island. Above all, the man professes to be writingfrom a boat. And, since we alone went across to him," and he smiledin a rather ugly fashion, "the crime must have been committed by aman passing in a boat."
"Why, dear me!" cried the duke, with something almost amounting toanimation. "Why, I remember the man called Hugo quite well! He was asort of body servant and bodyguard of Sir Isaac. You see, Sir Isaacwas in some fear of assault. He was--he was not very popular withseveral people. Hugo was discharged after some row or other; but Iremember him well. He was a great big Hungarian fellow with greatmustaches that stood out on each side of his face."
A door opened in the darkness of Harold March's memory, or, rather,oblivion, and showed a shining landscape, like that of a lost dream.It was rather a waterscape than a landscape, a thing of floodedmeadows and low trees and the dark archway of a bridge. And for oneinstant he saw again the man with mustaches like dark horns leap upon to the bridge and disappear.
"Good heavens!" he cried. "Why, I met the murderer this morning!"
* * *
Horne Fisher and Harold March had their day on the river, after all,for the little group broke up when the police arrived. They declaredthat the coincidence of March's evidence had cleared the wholecompany, and clinched the case against the flying Hugo. Whether thatHungarian fugitive wou
ld ever be caught appeared to Horne Fisher tobe highly doubtful; nor can it be pretended that he displayed anyvery demoniac detective energy in the matter as he leaned back inthe boat cushions, smoking, and watching the swaying reeds slidepast.
"It was a very good notion to hop up on to the bridge," he said. "Anempty boat means very little; he hasn't been seen to land on eitherbank, and he's walked off the bridge without walking on to it, so tospeak. He's got twenty-four hours' start; his mustaches willdisappear, and then he will disappear. I think there is every hopeof his escape."
"Hope?" repeated March, and stopped sculling for an instant.
"Yes, hope," repeated the other. "To begin with, I'm not going tobe exactly consumed with Corsican revenge because somebody haskilled Hook. Perhaps you may guess by this time what Hook was. Adamned blood-sucking blackmailer was that simple, strenuous,self-made captain of industry. He had secrets against nearlyeverybody; one against poor old Westmoreland about an early marriagein Cyprus that might have put the duchess in a queer position; andone against Harker about some flutter with his client's money whenhe was a young solicitor. That's why they went to pieces when theyfound him murdered, of course. They felt as if they'd done it in adream. But I admit I have another reason for not wanting ourHungarian friend actually hanged for the murder."
"And what is that?" asked his friend.
"Only that he didn't commit the murder," answered Fisher.
Harold March laid down the oars and let the boat drift for a moment.
"Do you know, I was half expecting something like that," he said."It was quite irrational, but it was hanging about in theatmosphere, like thunder in the air."
"On the contrary, it's finding Hugo guilty that's irrational,"replied Fisher. "Don't you see that they're condemning him for thevery reason for which they acquit everybody else? Harker andWestmoreland were silent because they found him murdered, and knewthere were papers that made them look like the murderers. Well, sodid Hugo find him murdered, and so did Hugo know there was a paperthat would make him look like the murderer. He had written ithimself the day before."
"But in that case," said March, frowning, "at what sort of unearthlyhour in the morning was the murder really committed? It was barelydaylight when I met him at the bridge, and that's some way above theisland."
"The answer is very simple," replied Fisher. "The crime was notcommitted in the morning. The crime was not committed on theisland."
March stared at the shining water without replying, but Fisherresumed like one who had been asked a question:
"Every intelligent murder involves taking advantage of some oneuncommon feature in a common situation. The feature here was thefancy of old Hook for being the first man up every morning, hisfixed routine as an angler, and his annoyance at being disturbed.The murderer strangled him in his own house after dinner on thenight before, carried his corpse, with all his fishing tackle,across the stream in the dead of night, tied him to the tree, andleft him there under the stars. It was a dead man who sat fishingthere all day. Then the murderer went back to the house, or, rather,to the garage, and went off in his motor car. The murderer drove hisown motor car."
Fisher glanced at his friend's face and went on. "You lookhorrified, and the thing is horrible. But other things are horrible,too. If some obscure man had been hag-ridden by a blackmailer andhad his family life ruined, you wouldn't think the murder of hispersecutor the most inexcusable of murders. Is it any worse when awhole great nation is set free as well as a family? By this warningto Sweden we shall probably prevent war and not precipitate it, andsave many thousand lives rather more valuable than the life of thatviper. Oh, I'm not talking sophistry or seriously justifying thething, but the slavery that held him and his country was a thousandtimes less justifiable. If I'd really been sharp I should haveguessed it from his smooth, deadly smiling at dinner that night. Doyou remember that silly talk about how old Isaac could always playhis fish? In a pretty hellish sense he was a fisher of men."
Harold March took the oars and began to row again.
"I remember," he said, "and about how a big fish might break theline and get away."
The Man Who Knew Too Much Page 5