Five Red Herrings Page 18

  Inspector Macpherson, whom this dreary investigation had carried as far as Euston, then turned his attention to the club from which Gowan was supposed to have written. Here the news was a little more cheering. Mr. Gowan had certainly not been staying there. One or two letters had arrived for him, which had been collected by a gentleman presenting Mr. Gowan’s card. The gentleman had signed a receipt for them. Might the Inspector see the receipt? Certainly he might. The signature was J. Brown. The Inspector wondered how many J. Browns there might be among London’s four million, and turned his weary steps towards Scotland Yard.

  Here he asked for Chief Inspector Parker, who received him with more than official cordiality. Any friend of Wimsey’s was entitled to Parker’s best attention, and the complicated story of Gowan and the spanner, Farren, Strachan and the two bicycles, was sympathetically listened to.

  ‘We’ll find Gowan for you all right,’ said Parker, encouragingly. ‘With the very precise details you have produced for us it ought not to take long. What do you want done with him when we’ve got him?’

  ‘Weel, noo, Mr. Parker,’ said the Inspector, deferentially, ‘do ye think we have enough evidence tae arrest him?’

  Parker turned this over carefully.

  ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘that your idea is that Gowan met this man Campbell in the road between Gatehouse and Kirkcud-bright and killed him in a quarrel. Then he got frightened and decided to fake up the accident. His first step was to cut off his own very conspicuous beard, in the hope, I suppose, of getting through the Gatehouse end of the business unrecognised. It must have been an awkward bit of barbering. Still, he might have managed to produce a fairly good imitation of a man who hadn’t shaved for a fortnight. Then he went through all the movements which you originally ascribed to Farren. He hid the body up the side-lane and drove Campbell’s own car back to Gatehouse. Now, why should he have done that?’

  ‘There!’ said the Inspector, ‘yon’s the great deeficulty. Wherefore did he no tak’ the corp back wi’ him? It was verra weel understandable when we supposed that the murderer was Farren in Strachan’s car, because we had the theory that he meant at first tae pit the blame on Strachan, but what for should Gowan du sic a fulish thing?’

  ‘Well, let’s see,’ said Parker. ‘He had to get Campbell’s car back somehow. Ferguson might have noticed if the wrong car came in. But he didn’t take the body with him on that journey, because, again, Ferguson or somebody might have spotted him with it. Gowan’s car was a two-seater. Perhaps the dickey wasn’t big enough to hide the corpse properly. He decides that it’s better to risk leaving the corpse and his own car in the lane than driving openly back to Gatehouse with a dead man upright in the seat beside him. Very well. Now he’s got to get back to the scene of the crime. How? On foot? – No, this, I take it, is the point at which the bicycle was pinched from the what-d’ye-call-it hotel.’

  ‘Verra like,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘You may have to alter your times a trifle here, but you’ve still got ample margin. You had 10.20 as the time for Campbell’s car to arrive at Standing Stone Pool. Now then. Your man has still got to do the journey back on a bicycle. But he hasn’t got to waste time going on foot to Strachan’s house. So, if anything, he will get to the scene of the crime a trifle earlier than we supposed. He picks up his own car, puts the bike in the dickey – we’ve got to allow that – however, it would be pretty dark by that time and probably no one would notice. By the way, I see that this fellow Ferguson says that Campbell’s car came in a little after 10 o’clock. Well, that fits your first time-table all right. It means that the murderer brought the car straight away in after the crime. But I see you’ve made an alteration here.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Macpherson. ‘We thocht he wad ha’ lodged Campbell’s car somewhere on the road an’ transferred the body tae ’t on his second journey. It wad be suspicious like for a second car tae come in tae Campbell’s place.’

  ‘True; but if Ferguson is right about his times, that can’t be the case. Is Ferguson an exact man?’

  ‘Ay; they tell me he has a gran’ memory for details.’

  ‘Then the murderer must have come in a second time with the body in his own car. It’s odd that Ferguson shouldn’t have heard the second car either come or go.’

  ‘Ay, that’s a fact.’

  ‘The second car – when would it have got in? Between five and six miles on a push-bike – say half-an-hour. That brings it to 10.50. The bicycle put into the dickey and five or six miles back in a fast car – say fifteen minutes at the outside. That gives us 11.5 for the second time of arrival. Ferguson says he went to bed shortly after 10. He must have been asleep, that’s all. And still asleep when the car went out again – the murderer’s car, I mean. No, that won’t do. How and when did Gowan – if he was the murderer – get his car back to Kirkcudbright? He had to be on the spot in Gatehouse to look after the body and prepare his fake for the next morning. I suppose he could have driven his car home to Kirkcudbright during the small hours and then walked or push-cycled back to Gatehouse.’

  ‘Ay, there’s nae doot he cud ha’ done it. But it wadna’ be necessary. The chauffeur Hammond cud ha’ driven him over again.’

  ‘So he could. That makes Hammond rather definitely an accomplice. But there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. If Gowan committed the murder, all his servants, except possibly Betty, are obviously lying like Ananias, and one degree of guilt more or less makes no difference. Well, that explains that all right, and we’ve only got to suppose that Gowan carried out the rest of the scheme according to plan, changed over into the London train at Ayr and is now lurking in London till his beard’s grown again. And that explains – what would otherwise seem rather odd – why, having faked the murder, he didn’t disarm suspicion by showing himself openly in Kirkcudbright.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Macpherson, excitedly, ‘but dinna ye see it explains naething at a’? It disna fit the description o’ the man in the grey suit that tuk the bicycle tae Ayr. Nor it disna explain Betty’s tale to Bunter, nor the muffled-up man escapin’ fra’ Gowan’s hoose at deid o’ nicht, nor the rabbity-faced fellow in the train fra’ Castle Douglas tae Euston. An’ hoo aboot yon man that came knockin’ on Campbell’s door o’ Monday midnicht?’

  Parker rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s funny about the description of the man,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Gowan contrived to disguise himself in some way, with a false fair moustache, or something. And the girl’s story may, as Alcock suggests, be partly imagination. Gowan may have returned to Kirkcudbright on Tuesday afternoon instead of going straight through to London, though I can’t think why he should, and the letter sent from the Mahlstick certainly suggests that he was in London on the Wednesday. And the rabbity man may be somebody different altogether. And I’m inclined to think that the man who knocked at midnight was somebody different altogether.’

  ‘But,’ said the Inspector, ‘if that man gaed into the hoose and found Campbell dead and Gowan there, why hasna he come forward tae say so?’

  ‘Possibly he was after no good,’ suggested Parker. ‘He may, as you previously remarked, have been a lady. Still, I admit that there are awkward gaps in the story. I think we’d better get on the tracks of Gowan and the rabbity man separately, and try to find out definitely which way Gowan really went. And when we do catch Gowan, I think perhaps we’d better not arrest him; but merely detain him on the ground that he can give information. After all, Inspector, we don’t even know for an absolute certainty that it was he who met Campbell on the road. There may be other people with black beards.’

  ‘There’s nae ither artist wi’ a black beard like yon,’ said Macpherson, stubbornly. ‘Not in a’ the district.’

  ‘Hell! yes,’ said Parker. ‘He’s got to be an artist, of course. Well, anyhow, we’ll detain Gowan.’

  Inspector Macpherson thanked him.

  ‘And now there’s this man Farren,’ went on Parker. ‘Do you want him too? Supposin
g he’s not down a mine.’

  ‘I’m thinkin’ he did ought tae be found,’ said the Inspector. ‘He was heard tae utter threats – an’ forbye, he’s disappeared, which in itself is distressin’ tae his family an’ friends.’

  ‘True. Well, we’ll make inquiries for him as a lost, stolen or strayed. That will do no harm. But I daresay you’ve got him up your end somewhere. Who else is there? The Englishman – what’s his name? – Waters. How about him?’

  ‘I’d forgot Waters,’ replied Macpherson, frankly. ‘I canna see how he comes intae ’t at a’.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Parker. ‘Well, we’ll leave him out. And of course we’re watching that bike at Euston to see if anybody’s fool enough to come for it. And you’d better send somebody down to identify it, because it may not be the right one at all. Is that all? Suppose now we go and have a drink after all this talking? Oh, by the way, can you tell me what school Gowan went to? No? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. He’s probably in the reference-books.’

  The Inspector still seemed a little unhappy.

  ‘What is it?’ said Parker.

  ‘Ye havena—’ he began. And then added, impulsively, ‘if we canna find somethin’ sune, I’m thinkin’ ye’ll be hearin’ officially fra’ the Chief Constable.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Parker. ‘But I don’t see any need for that. You have lost no time, and you seem to me to be doing very well. We have to give you help at this end, of course – just as you would help me if one of my pet-lambs escaped to Scotland – but surely there’s no call for us to take over the management of the case. It seems to be a matter in which the local man has all the advantages on his side.’

  ‘Ay,’ said the Inspector, ‘but it’s an awfu’ big job.’

  He sighed heavily.

  LORD PETER WIMSEY

  ‘Strachan!’ said Lord Peter Wimsey.

  Mr. Strachan started so violently that he nearly pitched himself and his canvas into a rock-pool. He was perched rather uneasily on a lump of granite on the Carrick shore, and was industriously painting the Isles of Fleet. There was a strong wind and the menace of heavy storm, which together were producing some curious cloud effects over a rather fretful-looking sea.

  ‘Oh, hullo, Wimsey!’ he said. ‘How on earth did you get here?’

  ‘Drove here,’ said Wimsey. ‘Fresh air and that kind of thing.’ He sat down on a convenient knob of rock, settled his hat more firmly on his head and pulled out a pipe, with the air of a man who has at last found an abiding-place.

  Strachan frowned. He did not much care for spectators when he was painting, but Wimsey was working away in a leisurely manner with his tobacco-pouch, and appeared impervious to nods and winks.

  ‘Very windy, isn’t it?’ said Strachan, when the silence had lasted some time.

  ‘Very,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘But it’s not raining,’ pursued Strachan.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Better than yesterday,’ said Strachan, and realised at once that he had said a foolish thing. Wimsey turned his head instantly and said brightly:

  ‘Tons better. Really you know, you’d think they’d turned on the water-works yesterday on purpose to spoil my sketching-party.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Strachan.

  ‘Well, perhaps it was rather a wild idea,’ said Wimsey, ‘but it appealed to me rather. That’s rather nice,’ he added, ‘how long have you been on that?’

  ‘About an hour,’ said Strachan.

  ‘You use very big brushes. Broad, sweepin’ style and all that. Campbell used the knife a lot, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it quick work with a knife?’

  ‘Yes, generally speaking, it is.’

  ‘Do you work as fast as Campbell?’

  ‘I shouldn’t work quite as fast as he would with a knife, if you mean that, because I should fumble it a bit, unless I had practice with it first. But using my own methods, I could probably produce a finished sketch nearly as fast as he could.’

  ‘I see. What do you call an ordinary time for a finished sketch?’

  ‘Oh – well, what size of sketch?’

  ‘About the size you’re working on now.’

  ‘I shall have done everything I want to this in another half-hour – or perhaps a little bit longer. Provided the whole show doesn’t carry away first,’ he added, as a fresh gust came drumming off the sea, making the easel vibrate and rock, in spite of the heavy stone slung between its legs.

  ‘Oh, you’re well ballasted. But I wonder you don’t use a sketching-box on days like this.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know why I don’t, except that I never have done and am not used to it. One gets into habits.’

  ‘I suppose one does.’

  ‘I’m rather methodical, really,’ said Strachan. ‘I could lay my hands on any of my tools in the dark. Some people seem to like muddle, and all their stuff chucked into a satchel anyhow. I lay everything out before I begin – tubes of colour in the same order on my tray, dipper just here, spare brushes hung on there – even my palette is always made up in the same order, though not always with the same colours, of course. But, roughly speaking, it follows the order of the spectrum.’

  ‘I see,’ said Wimsey. ‘I’m not methodical myself, but I do admire method. My man, Bunter, is a marvel in that way. It is such a grief to him to find all kinds of odds and ends bulging my pockets or chucked helter-skelter into the collar-drawer.’

  ‘Oh, I’m terrible about drawers, too,’ said Strachan. ‘My tidiness begins and ends with my painting. It’s just a habit, as I said before. I haven’t a tidy mind.’

  ‘Haven’t you? Aren’t you good at dates and figures and timetables and all that sort of thing?’

  ‘Not the least. Hopelessly unobservant. I haven’t even got a good visual memory. Some people can come back from a place and make a picture of it with every house and tree in its place, but I have to see things before I can draw them. It’s a drawback in a way.’

  ‘Oh, I could do that,’ said Wimsey. ‘If I could draw, I mean. F’r instance – take the road between Gatehouse and Kirkcudbright. I could make a plan of that, here and now, with every corner, every house, practically every tree and gate on the road marked. Or if you drove me along it blindfold, I could recite to you exactly what we were passing at every moment.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ said Strachan. ‘I’ve been over it hundreds of times, of course, but I’m always seeing things I hadn’t noticed before. Of course I get the fun of having perpetual surprises.’

  ‘Yes; you’re safeguarded against boredom. But sometimes an eye for detail is a good thing. If you want to tell a good, plausible, circumstantial lie, for example.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Strachan. ‘Yes, I suppose it would be – under those circumstances.’

  ‘Your little story of the golf-ball on the links, for example,’ said Wimsey. ‘How much better it would have been if surrounded and supported by stout, upstanding, well-thought-out details. It wasn’t a fearfully good lie to start with, of course, because it really left rather too much time unaccounted for. But since you stood committed to it, you should have made more of it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Strachan, stiffly. ‘If you doubt my word—’

  ‘Of course I doubt it. I don’t believe it for a moment. Nor would anybody. For one thing, you didn’t tell your wife the same story you told me. That was careless. If you’re going to tell a lie, it should always be the same lie. Then you omitted to mention what hole you were playing when it happened. There never was a man telling a golfing story who didn’t buttress it about with every kind of geographical and historical detail. That was poor psychology on your part. Thirdly, you said you were up at the golf-course all morning, quite forgetting that there might be plenty of witnesses to say you’d never been near the place, and that, as a matter of fact, you’d instructed Tom Clark to roll the greens that morning. He was on the ninth, as a matter of fact, between 10 and 11 o�
�clock, and can swear that you didn’t come in, and if you’d gone up later, you’d hardly have called it “after breakfast”. Besides—’

  ‘Look here,’ said Strachan, with a lowering brow, ‘what the devil do you mean by talking to me like this?’

  ‘I’m just wondering,’ said Wimsey, ‘whether you cared to suggest any other explanation for that black eye of yours. I mean, if you liked to give it to me now, and it happened to be – well, say, anything in the nature of a domestic fracas, or anything, I – er – I might not need to pass it on, you see.’

  ‘I don’t see at all,’ said Strachan. ‘I think it’s damned impertinence.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ pleaded Wimsey. ‘Look here, old man, your midnight revels are nothing to me. If you were out on the tiles, or anything—’

  ‘If you take that tone to me, I’ll break your neck.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ cried Wimsey, ‘don’t use any more threats.’

  Strachan looked at him, and slowly flushed a deep crimson from brow to throat.

  ‘Are you accusing me,’ he demanded, thickly, ‘of having anything to do with murdering Campbell?’

  ‘I’m not accusing anybody,’ said Wimsey, lightly, ‘of murdering him – yet.’ He suddenly scrambled to his feet, and stood poised on the rock, looking out away from Strachan over the sea. The clouds had blown together into one threatening mass, and the waves were lipping along cold and yellow, showing snarling little teeth of foam. ‘But I do accuse you,’ he said, turning suddenly and leaning back against the wind to keep his balance, ‘I do accuse you of knowing a good deal more about it than you have told the police. Wait! Don’t be violent. You fool! It’s dangerous to be violent.’

  He caught Strachan’s wrist as the blow glanced past his ear.

  ‘Listen, Strachan, listen, man. I know I look tempting, standing here like this. Damn it, that’s what I did it for. I’m a smaller man than you are, but I could chuck you into eternity with a turn of the wrist. Stand still. That’s better. Don’t you ever think two minutes ahead? Do you really suppose you can settle everything by brute force in this blundering way? Suppose you had knocked me down. Suppose I had split my head open, like Campbell. What would you have done then? Would you be better off, or worse off? What would you have done with the body, Strachan?’