The Second Cartridge-Case
The chief constable had a fresh task on his hands as soon as Armadale
took his leave. It seemed to him essential to get the body of the dead
man identified by someone in addition to the group at Flatt's cottage.
Stanley Fleetwood was unable to move, even if he had wished to do so;
and Sir Clinton had no particular desire to confront Cressida with her
late husband's corpse. Paul Fordingbridge had known Staveley well; and
it was to him that the chief constable turned in this difficulty.
To his relief, Paul Fordingbridge showed no annoyance at the state of
affairs. He consented at once to go with the chief constable to
inspect the body and give his evidence as to its identity. Wendover
accompanied them in the car; and in Lynden Sands village the
formalities were soon over. Fordingbridge had no hesitation in the
matter; he recognised Staveley at the first glance.
Until they were clear of the village again, Sir Clinton made no
attempt to extract any further information; but when the car crossed
the neck at Flatt's cottage and was running beside the bay, he slowed
down and turned to Fordingbridge.
“There's a point you might be able to throw light on, Mr.
Fordingbridge,” he said tentatively. “Quite obviously, Staveley was
supposed to have been killed in the war. Could you give me any
information about his earlier history? You came in contact with him at
times, I understand.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed in no way put out by the request.
“I can tell you all I know about the fellow easily enough,” he
answered readily. “You'll have to go elsewhere for any real
information about his past; but, so far as I'm concerned, I met him
here. My nephew, Derek, brought him home to spend his leave with us at
Foxhills. That was in 1916. In the spring of '17, he was slightly
wounded; and we asked him down again to stay with us when he was
convalescent. He married my niece in April 1917. The marriage wasn't
a success—quite the other thing. The fellow was a scoundrel of the
worst brand. In September 1917 we learned privately that he had got
into the black books of the military authorities; and my private
impression—it's only that, for I really don't know—my private
impression was that he ran the risk of a firing-party. What I heard
was a rumour that he'd been given a chance to rehabilitate himself in
the field. There was a big attack being mounted at the moment, and he
was sent in with the rest. That was the last we heard of him. After
the attack, he was posted as missing; and a while later still the War
Office returned some of his things to my niece. It seems they'd found
a body with his identity disc on it. Naturally we were relieved.”
He halted for a moment; then, seeming to feel that he had put the
matter in an unnecessarily callous way, he added:
“He was a thoroughly bad lot, you understand? I caught him once trying
to forge my name to a cheque for a good round figure.”
Sir Clinton nodded his thanks for the information.
“Then I suppose one has to assume that in some way or other he managed
to escape, after exchanging identity discs with somebody who was
really killed,” he suggested. “It's not difficult to see how that
could be done.”
Wendover interposed.
“More difficult than it looks at first sight, Clinton. How do you
imagine that he could conceal himself after the battle? He'd have to
give some account of himself then.”
“Oh, I expect he went amongst people who didn't know his substitute by
sight. That wouldn't be difficult.”
“He'd be picked up and sent back to his supposed unit very soon—the
dead man's unit, I mean. And then the fat would be in the fire.”
“Obviously he wasn't sent back, then, squire, if you prefer it so,”
Sir Clinton conceded, turning to Fordingbridge. “What we've heard just
now accounts well enough for Staveley being associated with your
nephew lately—I mean the man who's living at Flatt's cottage.”
“Is there a nephew of mine at Flatt's cottage?” Paul Fordingbridge
questioned coldly. “I don't know with certainty that I have a nephew
alive at all.”
“He calls himself Derek Fordingbridge, if that's any help.”
“Oh, you mean that fellow? I've no proof that he's my nephew.”
“I should like to hear something more about him, if you don't mind,”
Sir Clinton suggested.
“I've no objection—not the slightest,” Paul Fordingbridge responded.
“My nephew Derek was in the Army from 1914. He was captured on the
West Front in the same battle as the one I've been speaking about. We
learned later on that he'd been sent to the prisoners' camp at
Clausthal. He got away from there almost at once and made a good try
to get over the Dutch frontier; but they got hold of him at the last
moment. Then he was sent to Fort 9, Ingolstadt. He hadn't been there a
week before he got away again. My impression is that most probably he
was shot in trying to get across the Swiss frontier, if not earlier;
and they failed to identify him. We heard no more about him, anyhow;
and when the prisoners were released after the Armistice, he wasn't
among them. If this fellow were really my nephew, it's hard to see why
he's let so long a time go by without communicating with us. If he
really is my nephew, there's a lot of money waiting for him; and he's
an enterprising chap, as you can see from his escape attempts. And yet
we've had no word from him of any sort since before the attack in
which he was captured.”
“Lost his memory, perhaps?” Wendover suggested.
“It might be possible,” Paul Fordingbridge answered in a frigid tone
which damped further speculation on Wendover's part. Turning to Sir
Clinton, he added:
“Unless there's any further information you want, I think I'll get
down here and walk back to the hotel. I'd be glad of a chance to
stretch my legs.”
As Sir Clinton showed no desire to detain him, he stepped out of the
car; and they soon left him behind.
“Barring the girl,” Wendover confided to Sir Clinton as they drove on,
“that Fordingbridge family seem a damned rum crew.”
“You surprise me, squire. You even capture my interest. Proceed.”
“Well, what do you make of it all?”
“I'll admit that my vulgar curiosity is piqued by their highly
developed faculty of reticence. Miss Fordingbridge seems the only one
of them who has a normal human desire to talk about her own affairs.”
“Did you see anything else?”
“They seem a bit at sixes and sevens. But you've a much acuter mind
than I have, so I suppose you spotted that quite a long time ago.”
“I had a glimmering of it,” Wendover retorted sarcastically. “Anything
more?”
“Oh, yes. For one thing, Mr. Paul Fordingbridge seems to have a
singularly detached mind. Why, even you, squire, with your icy and
well-balanced intellect, seem to be more affected by his niece's
troubles than the wicked uncle is. Quite like the Babes in the Wood,
isn't it?—with you in the rôle of a robin. All you need are some
leaves and a red waistcoat to make the thing go properly.”
“It's hardly a thing to laugh at, Clinton.”
“I'm not laughing,” Sir Clinton said soberly. “Hanging's no joke.
Remember the _Ballad of Sam Hall_—
“Then the parson he will come. . . .
and all the rest of the gruesome ceremonial? It would be a bad
business if the wrong person got hanged by mistake.”
Before Wendover could reply, the car drew up before the front of the
hotel.
“You can get out here, squire. There's no need to go round with me to
the garage.”
But as Wendover was prepared to get down, they saw the Australian,
Cargill, hurrying towards them. He had been sitting on one of the
garden-seats, evidently on the look-out for their arrival.
“I've been hunting for you for ever so long, Sir Clinton,” he
explained as he came up to the car. “I missed you at lunch-time; and
when I tried to get hold of you, I found you'd gone off. I've got
something that seems important to show you.”
He fished in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a tiny glittering
object which he handed over to the chief constable. Wendover saw, as
it passed from hand to hand, that it was the empty case of a .38
cartridge.
“I've seen things of this sort before,” Sir Clinton said indifferently
as he glanced at it. “I doubt if the loser's likely to offer a
reward.”
Cargill seemed taken aback.
“Can't you see its importance?” he demanded. “I found it down on the
beach this morning.”
“How was I to know that until you told me?” Sir Clinton asked mildly.
“I'm not psychic, as they call it. I just have to be told things
plainly. But I shouldn't shout them, Mr. Cargill, if they really are
important.”
Cargill dropped his voice at the implied rebuke.
“You remember I was down bathing this morning before breakfast? And
you warned me off the premises—wouldn't let me come nearer than the
groyne. I sat down on the groyne and watched you for a while; then you
went away. I wasn't in a hurry to bathe just then, so I sat for a bit
on the groyne, just thinking things over and trying to put two and two
together from what I could see of the footmarks on the sands. I
suppose I must have sat there for a quarter of an hour or so. When I
got up again, I found I'd been kicking up the sand a bit while I was
thinking—shuffling about without noticing what I was doing with my
feet. And when I looked down—there was this thing shining on the sand
at my toes. It was half hidden; and until I picked it up I didn't spot
what it was. By that time your party had cleared out. So I made a
careful note of the spot, put the thing in my pocket, and set off to
look for you. Unfortunately, you weren't to be found just then; so
I've been waiting till I could get hold of you.”
He looked at the chief constable eagerly as though expecting some
display of emotion as a reward for his trouble; but Sir Clinton's face
betrayed nothing as he thanked Cargill.
“Would you mind getting aboard?” he asked immediately. “I'd like to
see just where you found this thing.”
Then, as a concession to Cargill's feelings, he added:
“You must have pretty sharp eyes. I thought I'd been over that ground
fairly carefully myself.”
“Probably the thing was buried in the sand,” the Australian pointed
out. “I saw it only after I kicked about a while.”
Sir Clinton turned the car and took the road leading down to Neptune's
Seat.
“What do you make of it, Mr. Cargill?” he inquired, after a moment or
two.
“I haven't thought much about it,” Cargill answered. “It seems
straightforward enough. Somebody must have been behind the groyne and
fired a shot. It's within easy shooting distance of the rock where the
body was found.”
Wendover opened his mouth as if to say something. Then, thinking
better of it, he refrained.
When they reached the shore, the tide was sufficiently far out to
allow Cargill to show them the spot at which he had picked up the
cartridge-case. Wendover still had a mental map in his head, and he
recognised that the shot must have been fired by the man behind the
groyne at the time when he was nearest to Neptune's Seat. If Stanley
Fleetwood was even a moderate shot with an automatic, he could hardly
have missed Staveley's figure at the distance.
Sir Clinton seemed to become more keenly interested when they reached
the shore. His detached manner thawed markedly, and he thanked Cargill
again for having brought the evidence to light.
“Oh, it was only an accident,” the Australian protested. “I wasn't
looking for anything. It just chanced to catch my eye. Does it throw
any light on things?”
Sir Clinton obviously resented the question.
“Everything helps,” he said sententiously.
Cargill saw that he had been indiscreet.
“Oh, I'm not trying to stick my oar in,” he hastened to assure the
chief constable. “I just asked out of mere curiosity.”
He seemed rather perturbed lest he should have appeared unduly
inquisitive; and in a moment he changed the subject completely.
“By the way, I heard someone mention in the hotel that a man called
Derek Fordingbridge is staying somewhere hereabouts. Know anything
about him? I came across somebody of that name in the war.”
“He's staying at that cottage across the bay,” Wendover explained,
pointing out Flatt's cottage as he spoke. “What sort of person was
your friend?—in appearance, I mean.”
“Oh, about my height and build, clean-shaved, hair darkish, if I
remember right.”
“This looks like your man, then,” Wendover assured him. “But you'll
probably find him a bit altered. He's had some bad wounds.”
“Has he? Pity, that. I say, I think I'll just go across the bay now
and see if he's at home. I'm half-way there already.”
Sir Clinton offered him a lift in the car; but on finding that it
would be taking them out of their way, Cargill refused the invitation
and set off alone across the sands. Before he started, Wendover gave
him a warning about the quicksand near the wreck, lest he should
stumble into it unawares.
“That's an interesting find,” Wendover volunteered as they climbed the
beach. “I didn't say anything in front of Cargill, but it occurred to
me that his cartridge-case clears up one of the difficulties of the
evidence.”
“You mean that Billingford couldn't tell the inspector whether there
was a single shot or a pair?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“Yes. That looked funny at first sight; but if the two shots were
fired almost simultaneously, then it would have been a bit difficult
to say whether there was a double report or not.”
“That's so squire. You're getting devilish acute these days, I must
admit.”
But, from his friend's tone, the compliment did not sound so warm as
the words suggested. Wendover imagined that he detected a tinge of
irony in Sir Clinton's voice; but it was so faint that he could not
feel certain of it.
“I'm getting too much into a groove,” the chief constable went on.
“This was supposed to be holiday; and yet I'm spending almost every
minute of it in rushing about at Armadale's coat-tails. I really must
have some relaxation. There's some dancing at the hotel to-night and I
think I'll join. I need a change of occupation.”
Wendover was not a dancing man, but he liked to watch dancers; so
after dinner he found his way to the ballroom of the hotel, ensconced
himself comfortably in a corner from which he had a good view of the
floor, and prepared to enjoy himself. He had a half-suspicion that Sir
Clinton's sudden humour for dancing was not wholly explicable on the
ground of a mere relaxation, though the chief constable was
undoubtedly a good dancer; and he watched with interest to see what
partners his friend would choose.
Any expectations he might have had were unfulfilled, however. Sir
Clinton seemed to pay no particular attention to any of his partners;
and most of them obviously could have no connection with the
tragedies. Once, it is true, he sat out with Miss Staunton, whose
ankle was apparently not sufficiently strong to allow her to dance;
and Wendover noted also that three others on Armadale's list—Miss
Fairford, Miss Stanmore, and Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—were among his
friend's partners.
Shortly before midnight, Sir Clinton seemed to tire of his amusement.
He took leave of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, with whom he had been
dancing, and came across the room to Wendover.
“Profited by your study of vamps, I hope, Clinton?”
Sir Clinton professed to be puzzled by the inquiry.
“Vamps? Oh, you mean Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, I suppose. I'm afraid
she found me poor ground for her talents. I made it clear to her at
the start that she was far above rubies and chief constables. All I
had to offer was the purest friendship. It seems it was a new
sensation to her—never met anything of the sort before. She's rather
interesting, squire. You might do worse than cultivate her
acquaintance—on the same terms as myself. Now, come along. We'll need
to change before Armadale turns up, unless you have a fancy to dabble
your dress trousers in the brine down there.”
They left the room and made their way towards the lift. In the
corridor they encountered Cargill, who stopped them.
“Thanks for directing me to that cottage,” he said. “It turned out to
be the man I knew, right enough. But I'd hardly have recognised him,
poor devil. He used to be a fine-looking beggar—and look at him now.”
“Enjoy a talk with him?” Sir Clinton asked politely.
“Oh, yes. But I was a bit surprised to hear that he's quite a big pot
with an estate and all that. I only knew him in the war, of course,
and it seems he came into the cash later on. Foxhills is his place,
isn't it?”
“So I'm told. By the way, did you meet his friend, Mr. Billingford?
He's an amusing artist.”
Cargill's brow clouded slightly.
“You think so?” he said doubtfully.
Sir Clinton glanced at his wrist-watch.
“I'm sorry I've got to hurry off, Mr. Cargill. I'd no notion it was so
late.”
With a nod, Cargill passed. Sir Clinton and Wendover hurried upstairs
and changed into clothes more suitable for the sands. They were ready
just as the inspector knocked at the chief constable's door; and in a
few minutes all three were in Sir Clinton's car on the road to the
beach.
“Got the flash-lamps, inspector?” Sir Clinton demanded as he pulled up
the car at a point considerably beyond Neptune's Seat. “That's all
right. We get out here, I think. We ought to be opposite those two
cairns we built, if I'm not out in my reckoning.”
They moved down the beach and soon came to a long pool of sea-water
extending into the darkness on either hand. Sir Clinton surveyed it
for a moment.
“We'll just have to splash through, I suppose,” he said, and set an
example. “It won't take you over your ankles.”
A few seconds took them through the shallow pool and brought them to
drying sands on the farther side.
“This is a low whale-back,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “When the tide's
full in, this is covered, like all the rest. Then, as the tide falls,
the whale-back acts as a dam and there's a big sea-pool left on the
sands between here and the road. That's the pool we've just waded
through. Now we'll look for the next item.” Wendover and Armadale
followed him across the sands to where a broad stream of water was
pouring down towards the sea.
“This is the channel between our whale-back and the next one,” Sir
Clinton explained as they came up to it. “This water comes from the
pool that we waded; and the cairns are on each side of it, lower
down.”
The night was cloudy, and they had to use their flash-lamps from time
to time.
“What I wanted to note is the exact time when the stream just touches
the cairns on each side. Just now, as you can see, the cairns are in
the water; but the level of the stream's sinking as the head of water
falls in the pool behind. Watch till the stream runs between the two
piles of stone and then note the time.”
Slowly the flow diminished as the water emptied itself from the pool
behind; and at last they saw the rivulet confined to a channel between
the two cairns.
“I make it five past twelve,” Sir Clinton said, lifting his eyes from
his watch. “Now I'm going over to Neptune's Seat. You stay here,
inspector; and when you see my flash-lamp, run your hardest to the
rock and join me.”
He disappeared in the darkness, leaving the others rather puzzled as
to the meaning of these manœuvres. At last Wendover thought he saw the
point.
“I see what he's getting at.”
But just as he was about to explain the matter to the inspector, they
saw the flash of Sir Clinton's lamp and Armadale set off at a
lumbering trot across the sands with Wendover hurrying after him.
“It's simple enough,” Sir Clinton explained when all three had
gathered at Neptune's Seat. “You remember that Billingford's track was
broken where the cairns are—no footprints visible for several yards.
That was the place where he crossed the runnel last night. All we need
to do is to note when the runnel is the same breadth at that point
to-night—which we've just done—and then make a correction of about
forty minutes for the tide being later this evening. It's not exact,
of course; but it's near enough, perhaps.”
“I thought you were after something of the sort,” Wendover
interjected. “Once I got as far as the runnel I tumbled to the idea.”
“Well, let's take the results,” Sir Clinton went on. “The runnel was
in the right state to-night at five past twelve. Make the forty-one
minute deduction—since the tide's forty-one minutes later to-night
than it was last night—and you get 11.25 p.m. as the time when
Billingford crossed that rivulet last night. Now the inspector took
over seven minutes to run from the cairns to Neptune's Seat, for I
timed him. Therefore, even if Billingford had run the whole distance,
he couldn't have reached Neptune's Seat before 11.32 at the earliest.
As a matter of fact, his track showed that he walked most of the way,
which makes the possible time of his arrival a bit later than 11.32
p.m.”
“So he couldn't have fired a shot at 11.19 when Staveley's watch
stopped?” Wendover inferred.
“Obviously he couldn't. There's more in it than that; though I needn't
worry you with that at present, perhaps. But this bit of evidence
eliminates another possibility I'd had my eye on. Billingford might
have walked into the runnel and then waded down the rivulet into the
sea, leaving no traces. Then he might have come along the beach,
wading in the waves, and shot Staveley from the water. After that, if
he'd returned the way he came, he could have emerged from the runnel
at the same point, only on this bank of the channel, and left his
single track up to Neptune's Seat, just as we found it. But that won't
fit in with the shot fired at 11.19 p.m., obviously. If he'd done
this, then his last footmark on the far side would have been made when
the runnel was full, and his first footmark on this side would have
been made later, when the runnel had shrunk a bit; and the two
wouldn't have fitted the banks neatly as we found to-night that they
did.”
“I see all that, clear enough, sir,” said Armadale briskly. “That
means the circle's narrowed a bit further. If Billingford didn't fire
that shot, then you're left with only three other people on the list:
the two Fleetwoods and the woman with the 3½ shoe. If she can be
eliminated like Billingford, then the case against the Fleetwoods is
conclusive.”
“Don't be in too much of a hurry, inspector. How are you getting along
with the shoe question?” Sir Clinton inquired a trifle maliciously.
“To tell you the truth,” the inspector replied guardedly, “I haven't
been able to get at the root of it yet, sir. Only two of the village
girls take that size of shoe. One of them's only a kiddie; the other's
away on a visit just now. It doesn't look like either of them.”
“And the Hay case?” the chief constable demanded.
The inspector made an inarticulate sound which suggested that he had
nothing fresh to recount on this subject.
“And the P. M. on Staveley's body?” pursued Sir Clinton.
Here the inspector had something to report, though not much.
“Dr. Rafford's gone into it, sir. The contused wound on the back of
the head's nothing to speak of. The base of the skull's intact. That
blow had nothing to do with his death. At the most, it might have
stunned him for a minute or two. According to the doctor, Staveley was
killed by the shot; and he thinks that the shot wasn't fired at
absolutely close quarters. That fits in with the fact that I could
find no singeing of the cloth of his rain-coat or his jacket round
about the bullet-hole. Dr. Rafford found the bullet, all correct.
Death must have been practically instantaneous, according to the
doctor's view. These are the main results. He's written a detailed
report for reference, of course.”
Sir Clinton made no direct comment.
“I think that'll do for to-night, inspector. Come up to the car and
I'll run you into the village. By the way, I want some of your
constables to-morrow morning for a bit of work; and you'd better hire
some labourers as well—say a dozen men altogether. Tell them to dig up
the sand between Neptune's Seat and the sea to the depth of about a
foot, and shift it up into a pile above high-tide mark.”
“And how far are they to carry their diggings?” Wendover inquired.
“I really doubt if they'll be able to dig much below low-tide mark.
What do you think?”
“And what do you expect to find there?” Wendover persisted.
“Oh, a shell or two, most likely,” Sir Clinton retorted caustically.
“Would you like to bet on it, squire?”
Wendover perceived that the chief constable did not intend to put his
cards on the table and that nothing would be gained by further
persistence.