CHAPTER IX
"Everything fits in beautifully," said Superintendent Gallowayconfidently. "I never knew a clearer case. All that remains for me to dois to lay my hands on this chap Ronald, and an intelligent jury will seeto the rest."
The police official and the detective had dined together in the smallbar parlour on Colwyn's return from driving Mr. Cromering and Sir HenryDurwood to Heathfield Station. The superintendent had done more thanjustice to the meal, and a subsequent glass of the smugglers' brandy hadso mellowed the milk of human kindness in his composition that he feltinclined for a little friendly conversation with his companion.
"You are very confident," said Colwyn.
"Of course I am confident. I have reason to be so. Everything I haveseen to-day supports my original theory about this crime."
"And what is your theory as to the manner in which this crime wascommitted? I have gathered a general idea of the line you are taking bylistening to your conversation this afternoon, but I should like you tostate your theory in precise terms. It is an interesting case, with somepeculiar points about it which a frank discussion might help toelucidate."
Superintendent Galloway looked suspiciously at Colwyn out of his smallhard grey eyes. His official mind scented an attempt to trap him, andhis Norfolk prudence prompted him to get what he could from thedetective but to give nothing away in return.
"I see you're suspicious of me, Galloway," continued Colwyn with asmile. "You've heard of city detectives and their ways, and you'rethinking to yourself that a Norfolk man is more than a match for any ofthem."
This sally was so akin to what was passing in the superintendent's mindthat a grim smile momentarily relaxed his rugged features.
"My thoughts are my own, I suppose," he said.
"Not when you've just given them away," replied Colwyn, in a banteringtone. "My dear Galloway, your ingenuous countenance is a mirror to yourmind, in which he who runs may read. But you are quite wrong insuspecting me. I have no ulterior motive. My only interest in thiscrime--or in any crime--is to solve it. Anybody can have the credit, asfar as I am concerned. Newspaper notoriety is nothing to me."
"You've managed to get a good deal of it without looking for it, then,"retorted the superintendent cannily. "It was only the other day I wasreading a long article in one of the London newspapers about you,praising you for tracking the criminals in the Treasury Bonds case. Thepolice were not mentioned."
"Fame--or notoriety--sometimes comes to those who seek it least,"replied the detective genially. "I assure you that article came unasked.I'm a stranger to the political art of keeping sweet with thejournalists--it was a statesman, you know, who summed up gratitude as alively sense of favours to come. Now, in this case, let us play fair,actuated by the one desire to see that justice is done. This case doesnot strike me as quite such a simple affair as it seems to you. Youapproach it with a preconceived theory to which you are determined toadhere. Your theory is plausible and convincing--to some extent--butthat is all the more reason why you should examine and test every linkin the chain. You cannot solve difficult points by ignoring them and, tomy mind, there are some difficult and perplexing features about thiscase which do not altogether fit in with your theory."
"If my mind is an open book to you perhaps you'll tell me what my theoryis," responded Superintendent Galloway, sourly.
"Yes; that's a fair challenge." The detective pushed back his chair, andstood with his back against the mantelpiece, with a cigar in his mouth."Your theory in this case is that chance and opportunity have made thecrime and the criminal. Chance brings this young man Ronald to thislonely Norfolk inn, and sees to it that he is allowed to remain when thelandlord wants to turn him away. Chance throws him into the society of aman of culture and education, who is only too glad of the opportunity ofrelieving the tedium of his surroundings in this rough uncultivatedplace by passing a few hours in the companionship of a man of his ownrank of life. Chance contrives that this gentleman shall have in hispossession a large sum of money which he shows to Ronald, who is greatlyin need of money. Opportunity suggests the murder, provides the weapon,and gives Ronald the next room to his intended victim in a wing of theinn occupied by nobody else.
"Your theory as to how the murder was actually committed strikes me aspossible enough--up to a certain point. You think that Ronald, afterwaiting until everybody in the inn is likely to be asleep, steals out ofhis own room to the room of his victim. He finds the door locked.Chance, however, has thoughtfully provided him with a window opening onto a hillside, which enables him to climb out of his own window andinto the window of the next room. He gets in, murders Mr. Glenthorpe,secures his money, and, finding the key of his bedroom under the pillow,carries the body of his victim downstairs, and outside, casting it intoa deep hole some distance from the house, in the hope of preventing orretarding discovery of the crime. Through an oversight he forgets thekey in the door, which he had placed in the outside before carrying offthe body, intending when he returned to lock the door and carry the keyaway with him.
"Next morning you have the highly suspicious circumstance of the youngman's hurried departure, his refusal to have his boots cleaned, theincident of the L1 note, and the unshakable fact that the footprintsleading to and from the pit where the body was discovered had been madeby his boots.
"As a further contributory link in the chain of evidence against Ronald,you intend to use the fact that he was turned out of the Grand Hotel,Durrington, the previous day because he couldn't pay his hotel bill,because this fact, combined with the fact that Mr. Glenthorpe showed himthe money he had drawn from the bank at Heathfield, supplies a strongmotive for the crime. In this connection you intend to try to establishthat the Treasury note which Ronald left to pay his inn bill was one ofthose in Mr. Glenthorpe's possession, because it happens to be one ofthe First Treasury issue, printed in black and white, and all Mr.Glenthorpe's notes were of that issue, according to the murdered man'sown statement. That, I take it, is the police theory of this case."
"It is," said Superintendent Galloway. "You've put it a bit morefancifully than I should, but it comes to the same thing. But what doyou make out of the incident at the Grand Hotel, Durrington, yesterdaymorning? You were there, and saw it all. Does it seem strange to youthat Ronald should have come straight to this inn and committed a murderafter making that scene at the hotel? Do you think it suggests thatRonald has, well--impulses of violence, let us say?" SuperintendentGalloway poured himself out another glass of old brandy and sipped itdeliberately, watching the detective cautiously between the sips.
Colwyn was silent for a moment. He was quick to comprehend thedouble-barrelled motive which underlay the superintendent's question,and he had no intention of letting the police officer pump him for hisown ends.
"Sir Henry Durwood would be better able to answer that question than I,"he said.
"I asked him when we were driving over here this afternoon, but he shutup like an oyster--you know what these professional men are, with theirstiff-and-starched ideas of etiquette," grumbled the superintendent.
A flicker of amusement showed in Colwyn's eyes. Really thesuperintendent was easily drawn, for an East Anglian countryman. "Afterall, it is only Sir Henry Durwood's opinion that Ronald intendedviolence at the _Grand_," he said. "Sir Henry did not give him theopportunity to carry out his intention--if he had such an intention."
"Exactly my opinion," exclaimed Superintendent Galloway, eagerly risingto the fly. "I have ascertained that Ronald's behaviour during the timehe was staying at the hotel was that of an ordinary sane Englishman. Theproprietor says he was quite a gentleman, with nothing eccentric orpeculiar about him, and the servants say the same. They are the bestjudges, after all. And nobody noticed anything peculiar about him at thebreakfast table except yourself and Sir Henry--and what happened?Nothing, except that he was a bit excited--and no wonder, after theyoung man had just been ordered to leave the hotel. Then Sir Henrygrabbed hold of him and he fainted--or pretended to faint; i
t may havebeen all part of his game. Sir Henry may have thought he intended to dosomething or other, but no British judge would admit that as evidencefor the defence. This chap Ronald is as sane as you or me, and a deep,cunning cold-blooded scoundrel to boot. If the defence try to put up aplea of insanity they'll find themselves in the wrong box. There's not ajury in the world that wouldn't hang him on the evidence against him."
This time Colwyn could not forbear smiling at the guileless way in whichSuperintendent Galloway had revealed the thoughts which had been passingthrough his mind. But his amusement was momentary, and it was in agrave, earnest tone that he replied:
"The hotel incident is a puzzling one, but I agree with you that itdoesn't enter into the police case against Ronald. It is your duty todeal with the facts of the case, and if you think that Ronald committedthis murder----"
"If I think that Ronald committed this murder!" SuperintendentGalloway's interruption was both amazed and indignant. "I'm as certainhe committed the murder as if I saw him do it with my own eyes. Did you,or anybody else, ever see a clearer case?"
"It is because the circumstantial evidence against him is so strong thatI speak as I do," continued Colwyn, in the same earnest tones. "Innocentmen have been hanged in England before now on circumstantial evidence.It is for that very reason that we should guard ourselves against thetendency to accept the circumstantial evidence against him as proof ofhis guilt, instead of examining all the facts with an open mind. We arethe investigators of the circumstances: it is not for us to prejudge.That is the worst of circumstantial evidence: it tends to prejudgment,and sometimes to the ignoring of circumstances and facts which mighttell in favour of the suspect, if they were examined with a moreimpartial eye. It is for these reasons that I am always careful tosuspend judgment in cases of circumstantial evidence, and examinecarefully even the smallest trifles which might tell in favour of theman to whom circumstantial evidence points.
"Have you discovered anything, since you have been at the inn, whichshakes the theory that Ronald is the murderer?"
"I have come to the conclusion that the case is much more complex andpuzzling than was at first supposed."
"I should like to know what makes you think that," returnedSuperintendent Galloway. "Up to the present I have seen nothing to shakemy conviction that Ronald is the guilty man. What have you discoveredthat makes you think otherwise?"
"I do not go as far as that--yet. But I have come across certain thingswhich, to my mind, need elucidation before it is possible to pronouncedefinitely on Ronald's guilt or innocence. To take them consecutively,let me repeat that I cannot reconcile Ronald's excitable conduct at theDurrington hotel with his supposed actions at the inn. In the formercase he behaved like a man who, whether insane or merely excited, hadnot the slightest fear of the consequences. At this inn he acted like acrafty cautious scoundrel who had weighed the consequences of his actsbeforehand, and took every possible precaution to save his own skin.You see nothing inconsistent in this----"
"I do not," interjected the superintendent firmly.
"Quite so. Then, the next point that perplexes me is why Ronald took thetrouble to carry the body of his victim to the pit and throw it in."
"For the motive of concealment, and to retard discovery. But for thefootprints it would probably have given him several days--perhapsweeks--in which to make good his escape."
"Did he not run a bigger risk of discovery by carrying the bodydownstairs in an occupied house, and across several hundred yards ofopen land close to the village?"
"Not in a remote spot like this. They keep early hours in this part ofthe country. I guarantee if you walked through the village now youwouldn't see a soul stirring."
"Ronald was not likely to know that. Next, how did Ronald, a stranger tothe place, know the locality of this pit so accurately as to be able towalk straight to it?"
"Easily. He might have approached the inn from that side, and passed iton his way. And nothing is more likely than Mr. Glenthorpe would tellhim about the pit in the course of his conversation about theexcavations. There is also the possibility that Ronald knew of theexistence of the pit from a previous visit to this part of the country."
"My next point is that Ronald was put to sleep in what he imagined wasan upstairs bedroom. How did he discover that his bedroom, and thebedroom of Mr. Glenthorpe's adjoining, opened on to a hillside whichenabled him to get out of one bedroom and into the other?"
"Again, Mr. Glenthorpe probably told him--he seems to have been agarrulous old chap, according to all accounts. Or Ronald may havelooked out of his window when he was retiring, and seen it for himself.I always look out of a bedroom window, and particularly if it is astrange bedroom, before getting into bed."
"These are matters of opinion, and, though your explanations arepossible ones, I do not agree with you. We are looking at this case fromentirely different points of view. You believe that Ronald committed themurder, and you are allowing that belief to colour everything connectedwith the case. I am looking at this murder as a mystery which has notyet been solved, and, without excluding the possibility that Ronald isthe murderer, I am not going, because of the circumstantial evidenceagainst him, to accept his guilt as a foregone conclusion until I havecarefully examined and tested all the facts for and against that theory.
"The one outstanding probability is that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered forhis money. Now, excluding for the time being the circumstantial evidenceagainst Ronald--though without losing sight of it--the next point thatarises is was he murdered by somebody in the inn or by somebody fromoutside--say, for example, one of the villagers employed on hisexcavation works. The waiter's story of the missing knife suggests theformer theory, but I do not regard that evidence as incontrovertible.The knife might have been stolen from the kitchen by a man who had beendrinking at the bar; indeed, until we have recovered the weapon it isnot even established that this was the knife with which the murder wascommitted. It might have been some other knife. We must not take thewaiter's story for granted until we have recovered the knife, and notnecessarily then. But that story, as it stands, inclines to support thetheory that the murder was committed by somebody in the inn. On theother hand, the theory of an outside murderer lends itself to a veryplausible reconstruction of the crime. Suppose, for example, the murderhad been committed by one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen, actuated by thedual motives of revenge and robbery, or by either motive. Apparently thewhole village knew of Mr. Glenthorpe's intention to draw this moneywhich was in his possession when he was murdered--he seems to have beena man who talked very freely of his private affairs--and the amount,L300, would be a fortune to an agricultural labourer or a fisherman.Such a man would know all about the bedroom windows on that side of theinn opening on to the hillside, and would naturally choose that means ofentry to commit the crime. And, if he were a labourer in Mr.Glenthorpe's employ, the thought of concealing the body by casting itinto the pit would probably occur to him."
"I do not think there is much in that theory," said SuperintendentGalloway thoughtfully. "Still, it is worth putting to the test. I'llinquire in the morning if any of the villagers are suspiciouscharacters, or whether any of Glenthorpe's men had a grudge againsthim."
"Now let us leave theories and speculations and come to facts. Ourinvestigations of the murdered man's room this afternoon gave us severalclues, not the least important of which is that we are enabled to fixthe actual time of the murder with some degree of accuracy. It is alwaysuseful, in a case of murder, to be able to establish the approximatetime at which it was committed. In this case, the murder was certainlycommitted between the hours of 11 p.m. and 11.30 p.m., and, in allprobability, not much before half-past eleven."
"How do you fix it so accurately as that?" asked the police officer,looking keenly at the detective.
"According to Ann, the gentlemen went to their rooms about half-pastten, and she turned off the gas downstairs shortly afterwards, and wentto bed herself. When we examined the room this afternoon, we fou
ndpatches of red mud of the same colour and consistency of the soiloutside the window leading from the window to the bedside, and apool--a small isolated pool--of water near the open window. There were,as you recollect, no footprints outside the window. On the other hand,the footprints from the inn to the pit are clear and distinct. Raincommenced to fall last night shortly before eleven, but it did not fallheavily until eleven o'clock. From then till half-past eleven it was aregular downpour, when it ceased, and it has not rained since. Now, thepatches of red mud in the bedroom, and the obliteration of footprintsoutside the window, prove that the murderer entered the room during thestorm, but the footprints leading to the pit prove that the body was notremoved from the room until the rain had completely ceased, otherwisethey would have been obliterated also, or partly obliterated. Thesefacts make it clear that the murder was committed between eleven andhalf-past, but the pool of water near the window enables us to fix thetime more accurately still, and say that he entered the room during thetime the rain was at its heaviest--that is, between ten minutes past andhalf-past eleven."
"I'm hanged if I see how you fix it so definitely," said thesuperintendent, who had been following the other's deductions withinterest. "The pool of water may have collected at any time, once thewindow was open."
"My dear Galloway, you are working on the rule-of-thumb deduction thatthe rain blew in the open window and formed the pool. As a matter offact, it did nothing of the kind. The wind was blowing the other way,and _away_ from that side of the house. Furthermore, the hill on thatside of the inn acts as a natural barrier against rain and weather."
"Then how the deuce do you account for the water in the room?"
"Surely you have not forgotten the piece of black material we foundsticking on the nail outside the window?"
"I have not forgotten it, but I do not see how you connect it with thepool of water."
"Because it is a piece of umbrella silk. The murderer was carrying anumbrella--and an open umbrella--have you the piece of silk? If so, letus look at it."
The superintendent produced the square inch of silk from his waistcoatpocket, and examined it closely: "Of course it's umbrella silk," heexclaimed, slapping his leg. "Funny I didn't recognise it at the time."
"Perhaps I wouldn't have recognised it myself, but for the fact that apiece of umbrella silk formed an important clue in a recent case I wasengaged upon," replied the detective. "Experience counts for alot--sometimes. See, this piece of silk is hemmed on the edge--prettyconclusive proof that the murderer was carrying the umbrella open, toshield him from the rain, and that it caught on the nail outside thewindow, tearing off the edge. He closed it as he got inside the window,and placed it near the window-sill, and the rain dripped off it andformed the pool of water. The size of the pool, and the fact that themurderer carried an open umbrella to shield him, prove prettyconclusively that he made his entrance into the room during the time therain was falling heaviest--which was between 11.10 p.m. and 11.30.
"We now come to what is the most important discovery of all--the piecesof candle-grease we found in the murdered man's bedroom. They help toestablish two curious facts, the least important of which is thatsomebody tried to light the gas in Mr. Glenthorpe's room last night,and, failing to do so, went downstairs and turned on the gas at themeter."
"What if they did?" grunted Superintendent Galloway, pouring out anotherglass of brandy. He was secretly annoyed at having overlooked the clueof the umbrella silk, and was human enough to be angry with thedetective for opening his eyes to the fact. "I don't see how you'regoing to prove it, and, even if you did, it doesn't matter a dump oneway or the other."
"We'll let that point go," rejoined Colwyn curtly. "Your attitude inshutting your eyes to facts hardly encourages me to proceed, but I'lltry. Would you mind showing me those bits of candle-grease you picked upin the bedroom?"
Superintendent Galloway produced a metal match-box from his pocket,emptied some pieces of candle-grease, a burnt wooden match and a brokenmatchhead from it, and sat back eyeing the detective with a supercilioussmile. Colwyn, after examining them closely, brought from his own pocketan envelope, and shook several more pieces of candle-grease on thetable.
"Look at these pieces of candle-grease side by side," he said. "Yourswere picked up alongside the bed; I found mine underneath the gasburner."
Superintendent Galloway glanced at the pieces of candle-grease with thesame supercilious smile. "I see them," he said. "They are pieces ofcandle-grease. What of them?"
"Do you not see that they are different kinds of candle-grease? Thepieces you picked up alongside the bed are tallow; mine, picked up fromunderneath the gas-globe, are wax."
The Superintendent had not noticed the difference in the candle-grease,but he thought it beneath his dignity to examine them again. "Themurderer may have had two candles," he said oracularly. "Anyway, whatdoes it matter? They're both candle-grease."
Colwyn swept his fragments back into his pocket with a quick impatientgesture. "Both candle-grease, as you say," he returned sharply. "We donot seem to be making much progress in our investigations, so let usdiscontinue them. Good-night."
The Shrieking Pit Page 9