“Oh, hell! I told you that Littleton—” Gambrell began;at which moment the door opened and Miss Head half. entered.
“Sir Philip’s just rung up,” she said. “He wants you to go round at once, Mr. Gambrell—”
Gambrell swore again, and hurried from the room. Anderson took up the telephone and requested the Exchange to get him on to Major Littleton, at his house.
“So you’ve been into it, have you, Anderson?” the Home Secretary asked. He had had a good morning—the Cabinet had shown itself readier to listen to him than to the President of the Board of Trade, and on top of that he had had an excellent lunch. “And you have come to the conclusion that I ought to see Major Littleton?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Anderson.
“H’m. And you say that he wants to see me?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Anderson again.
Sir Philip found a space on his blotter which was comparatively free from geometrical design. He frowned at his rhomboid, wishing that his private secretary would be a little more forthcoming, without having to have his opinions dragged out of him. But what could one expect of a Civil Servant?
“You said something about self-contradictory statements made by the police, didn’t you, just now, Anderson? I think you had better tell me rather more of what you have in mind.”
“I said the authorities,” Anderson corrected him.
The Home Secretary looked up quickly, and half fancied (but it seemed incredible) that he had caught Anderson smiling to himself at his remark.
“Go on,” Sir Philip told him testily.
“I am unable to accept, sir, the statements made by or attributed to the police-constable who was knocked down by Major Littleton’s car and who is still in hospital.”
“Oh!”
Sir Philip’s pencil stopped abruptly in mid-tracery.
“I don’t so much mean his first alleged statement. You may recollect” (he fancied that Sir Philip would do nothing of the kind; he never read a file carefully) “that he is supposed to have said to his wife, “I was on my right side.”
“Well? Go on.”
“If he was bicycling towards Winborough, then he certainly was on his right side-but was he?”
“I really don’t know.”
The Home Secretary sounded impatient. His secretary no longer concealed his smile.
“You ought to, Sir Philip. The man is also alleged to have said that he rode past your car. Now you, sir—this, of course, is pure theory—stopped your car and stood on the running-board and looked over the wall at Lord Comstock.”
“That’s the idea-but as I told you, you needn’t take the whole of my—er—confession seriously.”
“I don’t, Sir Philip, any of it” (at which Sir Philip raised his eyebrows), “but if you had done what you say in your memorandum, you, being also bound for Winborough, would have stopped on—as it were—your wrong side of the road; on the right-hand side, the way you were going.”
“Obviously.”
“The constable’s second story is-or is alleged to be—that he drew out to pass your car and just then you drove on; and before he could get back to his proper side, out of Lord Comstock’s drive came first one and then another car, each on its wrong side, and so he never got back to his own side of the road.”
“Well?”
“I could perhaps swallow that if you hadn’t been going in the opposite direction to the constable. But since he wasn’t really ‘passing ‘you but meeting you, obviously he had time and space to get back to his proper side. For that matter,” Anderson added thoughtfully, “I should have expected you to go outside him, over to your left.”
Anderson paused, but the Home Secretary made no comment. He seemed to be absorbed again by his blotter-drawings.
“I would add two comments, Sir Philip. First of all, in so far as your and Sir Charles’s stories fit together, they suggest that your car was standing well out towards the end of the Hursley Lodge grounds, and not bang opposite the study window; so that the story of the two cars dashing out on the wrong side of the road wears very thin. In the second place—” he hesitated.
“Go on,” Sir Philip’s voice sounded sorrowful, rather than angry.
“We know you weren’t there at all,” Anderson continued, “and therefore the policeman’s story won’t do at all.”
“Unless there was another car, not mine, and another man, not me, peering over. …”
Anderson shook his head.
“No?” said Sir Philip.
“No, sir. I don’t think so. You see, this second statement of the constable’s wasn’t heard of till after Lord Peter Wimsey had been to see Sir Charles Hope-Fairweather. Of course, it might be difficult to trace the telephone call from Sir Charles’s house to yours, but there would be no such difficulty over your toll call to the Winborough police-station.”
The point of Sir Philip’s pencil broke. Anderson was satisfied that he need not in fact request the London Telephone Service to give details of the call; he was sure now that it had been made, and that was enough.
“A career of crime requires a great deal of planning,” said Anderson. The Home Secretary smiled, remembering how he had battered the President of the Board of Trade, the ceaseless advocate of National Plans.
“I was a little hasty,” he admitted, “but I could not resist the temptation of arranging an interruption of Wimsey’s slumbers, in exchange for the bad night he had given Hope-Fairweather and me.”
“Very well then,” Anderson resumed briskly. “We now know that the constable’s second story wasn’t his story at all, but a fake.”
“Which leaves us with the first story, that he was on his right side—on the left of the road-and going towards Winborough.”
“Not necessarily, sir. It is quite a common thing for people to pronounce the ‘y’ in ‘my ‘like—er—like the ‘i’ in ‘this.’ Consequently ‘my right ‘and ‘the right ‘frequently sound very much alike. And in this case the words are supposed to have been the constable’s first utterance on his recovery of consciousness.”
“Please go on, Anderson. This philology is most interesting, but—”
“The man was bicycling from Winborough, not to it, and he was on the wrong side of the road when Major Littleton crashed into him; Major Littleton being on his proper side, and at the same time no blame attaching to the policeman.”
“But if he was on the wrong side—”
“He was there in the execution of his duty.”
“Major Littleton is here,” said Gambrell, poking his head round the door in the corner.
“Certainly, Sir Philip,” said Major Littleton. “It was obvious to me from the start that the all-important witness was the constable. I hadn’t actually got the Green Bicycle Case in mind, but, of course, the two affairs are almost exactly similar. In this case, the peculiar feature was, I think, that the ground rises inside the hedge of the property opposite Hursley Lodge, so that the lad who was fooling about with his air-rifle, calibre 15, happened to have a clear field of fire right over the road, into Comstock’s study.
“,Of course the constable didn’t realize what the effect of the shot had been; he merely warned the boy-in other words, gave him a telling-off-for loosing off across a public highway. But, in fact, he actually saw the shot fired which polished off Comstock.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. The Home Secretary felt that an apology was expected of him, but he did not feel in the mood to give it. After all, Littleton had been behaving most indiscreetly when the accident happened, and no one would have expected Comstock to be shot by accident, by a boy of fourteen, home from school, convalescent from mumps, and fooling about with an air-rifle that was anything but a toy.
“I don’t know why I wasn’t told—”
“You hardly gave me—or the C.I.D. as a whole—much opportunity.”
Sir Philip was not finally defeated yet.
“I suppose you refer to my handing over the inquiries to other pe
rsons. In that connection, haven’t my instructions been disregarded? You say it has been established that the bullet was fired from this air-rifle. …”
“As to that, I would remind you that the C.I.D. were only—suspended—while the amateurs had their forty-eight hours. And I may add that the instructions to the local police to take the constable’s statement, now that he is able to talk properly and freely, and subsequently to examine the bullet and the air-rifle came direct from the Home Office. From Anderson, I believe.”
There was another pause. Major Littleton felt that his last remarks had sufficiently recognized that if it had not been for Anderson he himself would never have realized how intelligent as well as humane he had been to take such care of the injured constable.
“If I may say so,” he went on, determined to get a little of his, and the C.I.D.’s, own back, “Anderson was extremely wise to realize that in a matter of this kind, it is usually advisable-well, to ask a policeman.”
“Not a doubt about it,” Anderson was telling Gambrell. “Of course I didn’t know what the policeman would say. I merely came to the conclusion that very likely the shot had been fired from outside, but not by Briggs, or Betty, or Brackenthorpe, and from a rather greater distance-which, of course, implied a different sort of weapon. Then I saw that there was a bank the other side of the road, and a point more or less level with the study window where there were no trees between the study and the bank. And then I saw that the place where the policeman was knocked over wasn’t far off that line-and it struck me that it might do no harm to find out what the policeman really had to say about it. In a way it was a forlorn hope, for if he’d seen anything sensational he’d surely have reported it when he came to, and was fully himself again; and then it struck me that he might not realize what a sensational thing he had seen. At all events it seemed to me to be—to put it mildly—worth while passing on the hint to Littleton. … After all, that was the regular thing to do.” Gambrell sighed.
“I very nearly spotted it this morning,” he said. “I was just getting there when you put me off by saying that there was something which both Mills and I forgot.”
“Put you off? That ought to have helped you. Just think again of the order of events, with the times, accurate or approximate, omitted. Exit Archbishop. Pause, Enter Hope-Fairweather-and at that moment Comstock swings round, away from the Chief Whip, in his revolving chair. Never even sees Hope-Fairweather, I fancy. And at that very second—over he goes, chair and all.”
“But the noise-there were only two crashes, and the second was Hope-Fairweather’s tray of papers.”
“Who says there were only two? Mills was at the front door when Comstock was shot. Littleton apparently never heard the first crash; why should he hear the second? Or if he heard it, he thought nothing of it. The butler and cook had moved on, after the Archbishop’s departure. Only Hope-Fairweather heard it.”
“According to the time-table—”
“Yes, but I’m pretty sure the intervals given on the famous time-table are too long. Hope-Fairweather was in the hell of a hurry-Comstock was dead, he had got his precious papers, dear Betty was outside in the car—he didn’t spend three minutes murmuring polite nothings to a fellow like Mills.”
Gambrell grunted.
“And what did I forget?” he asked.
“The reason why Comstock’s left temple was just nicely placed for the bullet.”
“Obviously he was swinging round towards the office door.”
“Obviously not. He’d have swung to his left, and if the bullet had hit him it would have been somewhere in the back of his head. No, I’m sure he never saw or heard the office door open-or just thought it was Mills, and paid no attention.”
“Give it up,” said Gambrell.
“What would Comstock naturally do after the Archbishop had gone? After they had had a furious row, in which Comstock had refused to give up his Antichurch stunt? Why, ring up his blessed newspaper, of course, and tell ’em to go for the Church harder than ever, say how he had handled the Archbishop. …”
There was a pause.
“Farrant corrected Mills, because he said he had touched nothing in the study. Farrant pointed out that he had stood by the window telephoning. … The private telephone, to the Comstock Press, stood on the window ledge behind Comstock’s chair, and Comstock was swinging round, to his right, to pick it up. …”
Mr. Anderson frowned at the sound of the buzzer. Slowly, reluctantly, he rose to his feet, and walked, through the door in the corner of the room, into the Home Secretary’s presence. …
Mr. Gambrell remained seated at his desk, a humbler variety of Mr. Anderson’s, and stared through his big, round, steel spectacles, at the fireplace. He wore a worried air.
“All very nice,” he thought to himself,” and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be true. But there’s only one thing that makes it true, and that’s the fact that the markings on the bullet show that it came from that air-gun. Apart from that-no, there’s really nothing. I imagine that the injured constable has told the truth, and that he did see the boy fire the rifle-it doesn’t follow that the bullet hit Comstock; the constable doesn’t assert that, either.
“Wait a minute, though. Is there no reason to disbelieve Anderson’s story? The essential, final proof is a thing about which we have to take the expert’s word. Might not the expert-in the public interest and all the rest of ‘it—make a deliberate mistake about the bullet markings if the alternative was to put the police generally-and the Assistant Commissioner in particular—in a very awkward position?
“And after all if Hope-Fairweather did actually see Comstock shot, and if Littleton only went into the study when Anderson and the rest say he did, it seems to be a toss-up whether the wound could still have been bleeding then.
“If it wasn’t the boy with the air-rifle, who could it be but Littleton—with a fourth revolver in his possession of which no one knew but himself? How simple, to reveal the one which did not fire the shot, and to get rid of the other; simpler than Mrs. Bradley’s ingenious ‘faking ‘of the barrel and hammer-though even that was surely something more than a ‘detective-story notion,’ for, after all, an Assistant Commissioner of Police has a specialized knowledge. …”
Gambrell’s gaze, still worried and unhappy, left the mantelpiece and travelled to his own desk. What was the use of his spectacles? Thank goodness, it was no concern of his. Anderson had certainly been right when he insisted upon handing the inquiry back to the police at the earliest opportunity. If you couldn’t go to the police in a case like this, well, where were you? When n doubt, whatever you want to know-and in this instance it was certain that the police did know, though whether they would tell. …
Gambrell’s eye lit up. His sorrow vanished. He had caught sight of a bulky file, on the top of his ‘in ‘tray.
He seized it and opened it. Yes, there was the paper which he had been trying to collect for the past week,
and which it was so important that the Home Secretary should see at once. With no further thought for the tragedy at Hursley Lodge he plunged into a topic which concerned and therefore interested him-the
Department’s proposals as to the attitude to be adopted by His Majesty’s Government towards certain proposals for the provision of rest and alternation of shifts in automatic glass works where work is continuous.
The buzzer sounded twice. Mr. Gambrell frowned, and slowly and reluctantly rose to his feet. …
FINAL NOTE
I SHOULD like to testify that all my collaborators not only have been most indulgent towards me, but have been scrupulously fair, and have not wanted to know too much. Miss Sayers has been something more than indulgent, inasmuch as she agreed, at my urgent request, that Roger Sheringham should not show much interest in the police-constable who alone, as I became convinced, could rescue me from my difficulties. This explains why that ingenious gentleman overlooked a point which did not escape Lord Peter Wimsey.
MILWA
RD KENNEDY.
About the Author
The Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G. K. Chesterton, Anthony Berkeley, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, Hugh Walpole, John Rhode, Jessie Rickard, Baroness Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G. D. H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E. C. Bentley, Henry Wade, and H. C. Bailey. John Dickson Carr, elected in 1936, was the first American member. A number of works were published under the club’s sponsorship; most of these were written by multiple members of the club, each contributing one or more chapters in turn.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1933, 2012 by The Detection Club
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5828-5
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