The Letter
Followed by Wendover and the inspector, Sir Clinton mounted the
platform of Neptune's Seat, which formed an outcrop some twenty yards
long and ten in breadth, with the landward part rising sharply so as
to form a low natural wall. The body of the murdered man lay on the
tiny plateau at the end nearest the groyne. It rested on its back,
with the left arm slightly doubled up under the corpse. Blood had been
welling from a wound in the breast.
“Anybody claim him?” inquired Sir Clinton. “He isn't one of the hotel
guests, at any rate.”
Armadale shook his head.
“I don't recognise him.”
Sir Clinton lifted the head and examined it.
“Contused wound on the back of the skull. Probably got it by falling
against the rock as he came down.”
He turned to the feet of the body.
“The boots have rubber soles with a pattern corresponding to the
tracks up yonder. That's all right,” he continued. “His clothes seem
just a shade on the flashy side of good taste, to my mind. Age appears
to be somewhere in the early thirties.”
He bent down and inspected the wound in the breast.
“From the look of this hole I guess you're right, inspector. It seems
to have been a small-calibre bullet—possibly from an automatic pistol.
You'd better make a rough sketch of the position before we shift him.
There's no time to get a camera up here before the tide swamps us.”
Armadale cut one or two scratches on the rock as reference points, and
then, after taking a few measurements, he made a rough diagram of the
body's position and attitude.
“Finished?” Sir Clinton asked; and, on getting an assurance from the
inspector, he knelt down beside the dead man and unfastened the front
of the raincoat which clothed the corpse.
“That's interesting,” he said, passing his hand over a part of the
jacket underneath. “He's been soaked to the skin by the feel of the
cloth. Did that rain come down suddenly last night, inspector?”
“It sounded like a thunder-shower, sir. Dry one minute and pouring
cats and dogs the next, I remember.”
“That might account for it, then. We proceed. I can see only one wound
on him, so far as the front's concerned. No indication of robbery,
since his raincoat was buttoned up and the jacket also. Help me to
lift him up, inspector, so that we can get his arm free without
scraping it about too much. If he wore a wrist-watch, it may have
stopped conveniently when he fell, for he seems to have come rather a
purler when he dropped.”
Armadale raised the left side of the body slightly, and Sir Clinton
levered the twisted arm gently into a more normal position.
“You're right, sir,” the inspector exclaimed, pointing to the strap on
the dead man's wrist. He bent forward as though to turn the hand of
the body, but the chief constable stopped him with an imperative
gesture.
“Gently, inspector, gently. We may need to be cautious.”
Very carefully he manœuvred the dead man's wrist until they could see
the face of the watch.
“It's stopped at 11.19,” Armadale pointed out. “That gives us the
moment when he fell, then. It doesn't seem of much use to us yet,
though.”
Wendover detected a flaw in the inspector's assumption.
“Some people forget to wind up their watches now and again. Perhaps he
did, the night before last; and it might have stopped of its own
accord at 11.19, before he was shot at all.”
“Dear me, squire! This is a break-away from the classics with a
vengeance. I thought it was always taken for granted that a watch
stopped conveniently at the very moment of the murder. But perhaps
you're right. We can always test it.”
“How?” demanded Wendover.
“By winding it up now, counting the clicks of the rachet as we do it;
then let it run fully down and wind up again, also counting the
clicks. If the two figures tally, then it's run down naturally; if
they don't it's been forcibly stopped. But I doubt if we'll need to
bother about that. There must be some better evidence than that
somewhere, if we can only lay hands on it.”
Wendover's eyes had been ranging over the surface of the rock; and, as
Sir Clinton finished his exposition, Wendover drew his attention to a
shiny object lying at the other end of Neptune's Seat.
“Just have a look at it, squire, will you? I'm busy here just now.
Now, inspector, it seems to me as if some of this watch-glass is
missing. There doesn't seem enough to cover the dial. Let's have a
look under the body and see if the rest's there.”
Armadale raised the dead man sufficiently to enable Sir Clinton to
examine the spot where the watch had struck the rock.
“Yes, here's the rest of the glass,” the chief constable reported.
“And there's a faint scrape on the rock surface to show that he must
have come down with a bit of a thud. Thanks, inspector, you can let
him down again.”
When Armadale had let the body drop back into its original position,
Sir Clinton knelt down and unstrapped the wrist-watch, after which he
wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief. The fragments of glass he
handed to the inspector, who stowed them away in an envelope.
Meanwhile Wendover had made a discovery.
“Come here, Clinton. That yellow thing was the brass case of a
discharged cartridge.”
Sir Clinton stepped across the rock and picked up the tiny object,
marking its position as he did so by scoring a cross on the stone with
his penknife.
“It's a .38 calibre, apparently,” he commented, after a glance at it.
“You'd better keep it, inspector. Hullo! Here's the boat coming in.”
A rowing-boat manned by the two fishermen was approaching Neptune's
Seat.
“That's good. We can finish our examination on the spot now. The tide
won't rise to the level of the rock for a while yet; and it doesn't
matter if we do get cut off, now that the boat's here. Bring her close
in, please, if there's water enough.”
The fishermen, nothing loath to get a closer view of the proceedings,
brought the boat's bow up to the natural quay formed by the rock; and
then, shipping their oars, they sat down to watch what was going on.
“We may as well go through his pockets next,” Sir Clinton suggested,
returning to the body. “Go ahead, inspector.”
Armadale began his search, reporting each object discovered.
“Raincoat pockets—nothing in either. Left-hand breast pocket of
jacket—a handkerchief. Right-hand breast pocket—a note-case.”
He handed this over to Sir Clinton, who opened it.
“Fifteen-ten in notes. Nothing else. Well, it wasn't a case of
robbery, apparently. Go on, inspector.”
“Right-hand upper waistcoat pocket,” the inspector droned obediently,
“a pocket diary.”
Sir Clinton took it, skimmed over the pages, and put it down.
“It's a calendar diary—blank. A book of stamps, with some stamps
missing, in the cover. Not much help there. Go ahead.”
The inspector continued his search.
“Other upper pocket—a pencil and fountain-pen. Lower waistcoat pocket,
left hand, a silver match-box with monogram—S and N intertwined.
Right-hand pocket—a penknife and a cigar-cutter. Trouser
side-pockets—some money, mostly silver, and a nail-trimmer, and a
couple of keys. Hip-pocket—a cigar-case.”
He handed the various articles to the chief constable.
“Nothing in the ticket-pocket. Outside jacket pockets. Left-hand
pocket—there's a pipe and a tobacco-pouch. Right-hand pocket—ah,
here's something more interesting! Letter-card addressed to ‘N.
Staveley, Esq., ℅ Billingford, Flatt's Cottage, Lynden Sands.’ So his
name was Staveley? That fits the S on the monogram. And here's another
bit of paper; looks like a note of some sort. No envelope to it.”
He held out the two papers to Sir Clinton, who examined the
letter-card first.
“Posted two days ago in London—W.1. H'm! Nothing much to take hold of
here, I'm afraid. ‘Dear Nick,—Sorry to miss you on Tuesday. See you
when you get back to town.’ No address, and the signature's a scrawl.”
He turned to the single sheet of note-paper, and as he unfolded it
Wendover saw his eyebrows raised involuntarily. For a moment he seemed
in doubt; then, with a glance at the two fishermen, he carefully
refolded the paper and stowed it away in his pocket-book.
“That will keep for the present,” he said.
Over the chief constable's shoulder, Wendover caught a glimpse of a
figure advancing along the sands from the direction of the hotel
bathing-boxes. A towel over its shoulder showed the reason for the
appearance of the stranger on the beach before breakfast. As it
approached, Wendover recognised the gait.
“Here's Cargill, that Australian who's staying at the hotel, Clinton.
He's come down for a bathe, evidently. You'd better do the talking for
us.”
Cargill had evidently recognised them, for he hastened his steps and
soon reached the groyne.
“I shouldn't come any farther, Mr. Cargill,” Sir Clinton said
politely. “There are some tracks there which we may want to look at if
we have time; and I'd rather not have them mixed up with yours, if you
don't mind.”
Cargill halted obediently, but looked inquisitively at the group on
the rock.
“Is that where the murder happened?” he inquired.
“How do you know about it?” Sir Clinton replied, giving question for
question.
“Oh, the news came up to the hotel with the milk, I expect,” the
Australian answered. “I heard it from a waiter as I came through on my
way to bathe. The whole staff's buzzing with it. I say, who Is it?”
“Couldn't say yet,” Sir Clinton returned with an air of candour. Then
he added: “I'm sorry we haven't time to talk it over just now, Mr.
Cargill. This tide will be all round us in a minute, if we don't get a
move on.”
He turned to the fishermen.
“We'll shift the body into your boat now, and then you can row slowly
along towards the village. Don't hurry; and don't go ashore till you
see Inspector Armadale there. He'll take the body off your hands. You
understand? Thanks.”
The boat was brought close alongside the natural quay and the body of
Staveley put aboard without mishap. At a sign from Sir Clinton, the
boat put out into the bay. Armadale seemed a little at a loss over the
procedure; but he made no audible protest. Cargill remained on the
other side of the groyne, obviously taking the keenest interest in the
whole affair.
Sir Clinton gave a last glance round the rock plateau; then, followed
by his companions, he retreated to the upper sands. Cargill, thus left
alone, hovered uncertainly for a moment or two, and finally sat down
on the groyne, looking idly at the sand around his feet. Evidently he
understood that he was not wanted, but it looked as though he had
still some faint hopes of being allowed to join the party.
“We must carry all this stuff up to the car,” Sir Clinton reminded his
companions. “I'll take some of the casts; you can manage the rest,
inspector. Wendover, the blow-lamp and the rest of the candles are
your share, if you don't mind.”
When they reached the car, he motioned Wendover into the driving-seat
and signed to the inspector to get in also.
“I'm going for a short walk along the road towards the hotel,” he
explained. “Let me get a bit ahead, squire, and then follow on,
slowly. I'm going to have a look at that extra wheel-track at close
quarters. It won't take more than a moment or two.”
He moved along the road to a point just before the groyne, and halted
there for a few moments, examining the faint track left by the turning
of a car. Then he continued his walk towards the hotel, scrutinising
the ground as he went. At the end of a few hundred yards he halted;
and, when Wendover brought up his car, Sir Clinton got into it, taking
the seat in front.
“There are really two tracks there,” he explained, as he closed the
door. “Down by the beach, both of them are very faint, and I noticed
rain-marks on top of them. Then, just a few dozen yards back from
here, one of the tracks is strongly marked, while the second track
remains faint. It's so lightly marked that I expect you missed it this
morning, squire. Now what do you make of that?”
Wendover considered for a few moments.
“Somebody came down the road in a car before the rain and made the
light track,” he suggested. “Then he turned and came back in this
direction; and when he had got this length the rain came on, and his
tracks after that were in mud and not in dry dust, so they'd be
heavier. That it?”
“I expect so,” Sir Clinton acquiesced. “No, don't go on yet. I've
something to show you before we go farther. I didn't care to produce
it before all that audience down at the rock.”
He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the piece of note-paper
found on Staveley's body. Wendover leaned over and examined it as the
chief constable unfolded it.
“Hullo! The hotel heading's on the paper, Clinton,” he exclaimed.
“This is getting a bit near home, surely.”
“It is,” said Sir Clinton drily. “I'll read it, inspector. It's short
and very much to the point, apparently. The date on it is yesterday.
This is how it goes. There's no ‘Dear So-and-so’ or anything of that
sort at the beginning.
“Your letter has come as a complete surprise, as you expected, no
doubt. You seem to know all about what has happened, and I suppose
you will do all you can to make the worst of things—at least I can't
take any other meaning out of what you have written. I shall come to
Neptune's Seat to-night at 11 p.m. to hear what you have to say. But
I warn you plainly that I will not submit to being blackmailed by
you, since that seems to be what is in your mind.”
And the signature,” Sir Clinton concluded, “is _Cressida Fleetwood_.”
The inspector leaned forward and took the letter.
“_Now_ we've got something to go on!” he exclaimed jubilantly. “That
name, coupled with the hotel note-paper, ought to let us lay our hands
on her within half an hour, if we've any luck at all.”
Wendover had been thunder-struck by the revelation of the signature.
His mind involuntarily called up a picture of Cressida as he had seen
her less than twenty-four hours earlier, frank and care-free, and so
evidently happy with her husband. A girl like that could hardly be
mixed up with a brutal murder; it seemed too incongruous. Then across
his memory flitted a recollection of Sir Clinton's description of the
poker-sharp, and the implied warning against trusting too much to
appearances; but he resolutely put them aside. A glance at Armadale's
face tended to increase his bias, for it displayed a hardly restrained
exultation. Quite evidently the inspector supposed that his case was
now well on the road to a satisfactory solution.
“Damned man-hunter!” Wendover commented inwardly, quite forgetting
that a few minutes earlier he himself had been every bit as eager as
the inspector. “I don't want to see her fall into that brute's hands.”
His imagination called up a picture of Cressida, with that fascinating
touch of shyness changed to dismay, faced by the harsh interrogations
of an Armadale determined to force from her some damning statement.
The inspector would see no reason for kindly treatment in the case of
a woman whom he seemed to have condemned already in his mind.
Wendover turned to Sir Clinton in the hope of seeing some signs of
other feelings there. But the chief constable's face betrayed nothing
whatever about his thoughts, and Wendover remembered that Sir Clinton
had known the contents of the letter before he left the beach. It had
not affected him when he read it then, Wendover recalled; for there
had been no change in his manner.
Suddenly the squire felt isolated from his companions. They were
merely a couple of officials carrying out a piece of work, regardless
of what the end of it might be; whereas he himself had still his
natural human sympathies to sway him in his judgments and tip the
scale in a case of doubt. Almost with surprise, he found himself
disliking Armadale intensely; a great, coarse-fibred creature who
cared nothing for the disaster which he was about to unchain within an
hour.
Wendover awoke from his thoughts to find Sir Clinton looking at him
with an expressionless face.
“Care to step off here, squire? Your face gives you away. You don't
like the way things are trending? Better leave us to finish the job
alone.”
Wendover's brain could work swiftly when he chose. Almost in a moment
he had gauged the situation. If he dropped out, then the two officials
would go forward together and there would be no human feelings among
the hunters. If he stayed with them, he could at least play the part
of critic and shake the inspector's confidence in any weak links of
the chain which he was forging. Further than that he could not go, but
at least he could hold a watching brief for Cressida. His mind was
made up at once.
“No,” he answered. “If you don't mind, since I'm in the thing now,
I'll stay in. You may need an impartial witness again, and I may as
well have the job.”
The inspector made no attempt to conceal his disgust. Sir Clinton
showed neither approval nor objection, but he evidently thought it
right to give a warning.
“Very well, squire. It's your own choice. But, remember, you're only a
witness. You're not to go putting your oar in when it's not wanted.”
Wendover indicated his acquiescence by a curt nod. Sir Clinton
restarted his car and drove along with his eyes fixed on the clearly
marked tracks of the non-skid tyres. At the hotel entrance the studded
print turned inward, and was lost on the gravel of the sweep up to the
hotel.
As he noticed this, the inspector made an involuntary gesture of
satisfaction, whilst Wendover felt that the net had been drawn yet
tighter by this last piece of evidence.
“That's a clincher, sir,” Armadale pointed out with a frank
satisfaction which irritated Wendover intensely. “She took a car down
and back. This is going to be as easy as falling off a log.”
“I suppose you noticed that that car never stopped at all on the road
home,” Sir Clinton remarked casually. “The tracks showed no sign of a
stop and a restart once the machine had got going.”
Only after he had run his car into the hotel garage did he speak
again.
“We don't want any more chatter than we can help at present,
inspector. There's no real case against anyone yet; and it won't do to
rush into the limelight. I suggest that Mr. Wendover should ask to see
Mrs. Fleetwood. If you inquired for her, every tongue in the place
would be at work in five minutes; and by the time they'd compared
notes with each other, it'll be quite impossible to dig out anything
that one or two of them may really happen to know. Everything will
have got mixed up in their minds, and they won't remember whether they
saw something themselves or merely heard about it from someone else.”
Wendover saw the force of the argument; but he also realised clearly
the position into which he was being pushed.
“I'm not so sure I care about that job, Clinton,” he protested. “It
puts me in a false position.”
The chief constable interrupted him brutally.
“Five minutes ago I offered you the chance to get off the bus. You
preferred to stay with us. Therefore you do as you're told. That's
that.”
Wendover understood that his only chance of keeping in touch with the
hunters now depended on his obeying orders. Gloomily he made his
submission.
“All right, Clinton. I don't like it; but I see there are some
advantages.”
Accompanied by the others, he entered the hotel and made his way to
the desk, while the two officials dropped into the background.
“Mrs. Fleetwood?” the clerk repeated, when Wendover had made his
inquiry. “Yes, sir, she's upstairs. Didn't you know that Mr. Fleetwood
broke his leg last night? The doctor's set it now. I think Mrs.
Fleetwood's up in his room with him.”
“What's the number?” Wendover asked.
“No. 35, sir. Shall I phone up and ask if you can see her? It's no
trouble.”
Wendover shook his head and turned away from the desk. As he crossed
the hall, the other two rejoined him.
“It's on the first floor. We'll walk up,” said Sir Clinton, turning
towards the stairs. “You can do the talking, inspector.”
Nothing loath, Armadale knocked at the door of No. 35, and, on
receiving an answer, he turned the handle and entered the room. Sir
Clinton followed him, whilst Wendover, acutely uncomfortable, hovered
on the threshold. On the bed, with his features pale and drawn, lay
Stanley Fleetwood. Cressida rose from an armchair and threw a startled
glance at the intruders.
The inspector was no believer in tactful openings.
“I'm sorry to trouble you,” he said gruffly, “but I understand you can
give me some information about the affair on the beach last night.”
Wendover, despite his animus against Armadale, could not help admiring
the cleverness of this sentence, which took so much for granted and
yet had a vagueness designed to lead a criminal into awkward
difficulties in his reply. But his main interest centred in Cressida;
and at the look on her face his heart sank suddenly. Strain,
confusion, and desperation seemed to have their part in it; but
plainest of all was fear. She glanced from her husband to Armadale,
and it was patent that she understood the acuteness of the danger.
“Why,” he admitted to himself in dismay, “she looks as if she'd really
done it! And she's deadly afraid that Armadale can prove it.”
Cressida moistened her lips automatically, as if she were about to
reply; but, before she could say a word, her husband broke in.
“What makes you come here with inquiries? I suppose you've some
authority? Or are you a reporter?”
“I'm Inspector Armadale.”
Stanley Fleetwood made an evident effort to keep himself in hand, in
spite of the physical pain which he was obviously suffering. He nodded
in acknowledgment of the inspector's introduction, and then repeated
his question.
“What makes you come to us?”
Armadale was not to be led into betraying anything about the extent of
his information.
“I really can't go into that, Mr. Fleetwood. I came to ask a few
questions, not to answer any. It's to your interest to answer
frankly.”
He turned to Cressida.
“You were on the beach last night about eleven o'clock?”
Stanley Fleetwood broke in again before Cressida could make a reply.
“Wait a moment, inspector. Are you proposing to bring a charge against
me?”
Armadale hesitated for a moment, as if undecided as to his next move.
He seemed to see something further behind the question.
“There's no charge against anyone—yet,” he said, with a certain
dwelling on the last word; but as he spoke his eyes swung round to
Cressida's drawn features with a certain menace.
“Don't say anything, Cressida,” her husband warned her.
He turned back to the inspector.
“You've no power to extract evidence if we don't choose to give it?”
he asked.
“No,” the inspector admitted cautiously, “but sometimes it's dangerous
to suppress evidence, I warn you.”
“I'm not very amenable to threats, inspector,” Stanley Fleetwood
answered drily. “I gather this must be something serious, or you
wouldn't be making such a fuss?”
In his reply, Armadale reinforced his caution with irony.
“It's common talk in the hotel that there's been a murder on the
beach. Perhaps the rumour's reached you already?”
“It has,” Stanley Fleetwood admitted. “That's why I'm cautious,
inspector. Murder's a ticklish business, so I don't propose to give
any evidence whatever until I've had legal advice. Nor will my wife
give any evidence either until we've consulted our lawyer.”
Armadale had never seen a move of this sort, and his discomfiture was
obvious. The grand scene of inquisition would never be staged now; and
his hope of wringing damning admissions from unprepared criminals was
gone. If these two had a lawyer at their elbow when he questioned
them, he wouldn't stand much chance of trapping them into unwary
statements. Wendover was delighted by the alteration in the
inspector's tone when he spoke again.
“That doesn't look very well, Mr. Fleetwood.”
“Neither does your intrusion into a sick-room, inspector.”
Sir Clinton evidently feared that things might go too far. He hastened
to intervene, and when he spoke his manner was in strong contrast to
the inspector's hectoring.
“I'm afraid you hardly see the inspector's point of view, Mr.
Fleetwood. If we had the evidence which you and you wife could
evidently give us, then quite possibly we might get on the track of
the murderer. But if you refuse that evidence just now, we shall be
delayed in our work, and I can't guarantee that you won't come under
suspicion. There will certainly be a lot of needless gossip in the
hotel here, which I'd much rather avoid if I could. The last thing we
want to do is to make innocent people uncomfortable.”
Stanley Fleetwood's manners gave way under the combined action of his
physical pain and his mental distress.
“Where do you buy your soap?” he asked sarcastically. “It seems a good
brand. But it won't wash. There's nothing doing.”
Inspector Armadale threw a glance at his superior which suggested that
Sir Clinton's intervention had been a mere waste of time.
“When'll your lawyer be here?” he demanded brusquely.
Stanley Fleetwood paused to consider before replying.
“I'll wire him to-day; but most likely the wire will lie in his office
until Monday. I expect Monday afternoon will be the earliest time he
could get here, and perhaps he won't turn up even then.”
Inspector Armadale looked from husband to wife and back again.
“And you'll say nothing till he comes?”
Stanley Fleetwood did not think it worth the trouble to answer.
“I think you'll regret this, sir. But it's your own doing. I needn't
trouble you further just now.”
Armadale stalked out of the room, suspicion and indignation written
large in every line of his figure. Sir Clinton followed. As Wendover
closed the retreat, he saw Cressida step swiftly across to her
husband's side and slip to her knees at the edge of the bed.