The Makings of a Trap
It was Bredon and Leyland, this time, who took their evening walk
together. To Bredon, events seemed to be closing in like a nightmare.
Here was he pledged to uphold the theory of suicide; and he had
depended largely for his success on Leyland’s inability to produce a
suitable candidate for the position of murderer. But now there seemed
to be a perfect _embarras_ of murderers. Macbeth wasn’t in it.
“Well,” he said, “at least we have something positive to go upon now.
Brinkman’s part in this business may be what you will, but he
certainly takes an unhealthy interest in it, to the extent of hanging
about round corners where he’s no business to be. At least we can
confront him with his behaviour, and encourage him to make a clean
breast of the whole thing. I imagine you will have no objection to
that, since it’s not Brinkman you suspect of the murder?”
“I’m afraid,” said Leyland, “that’s not the way we go to work. The
force, I mean. It’s quite true Brinkman is not the man I have under
suspicion at the moment, but I’m only working on a theory, and that
theory may prove to be a false one. I’m not certain of it yet, and I
should have to be certain of it before I acquitted Brinkman.”
“But, hang it all, look at the question of motive. Simmonds, I grant
you, had a reasonable motive for wanting to make away with his uncle.
He had grounds for thinking that his uncle’s death would mean a clear
half-million to him. He had quarrelled with his uncle, and thought he
had been treated badly. He disapproved of his uncle, and regarded him
as a bloodsucker. The fact that Mottram was down at Chilthorpe was an
excellent opportunity, and a rare opportunity, for young Simmonds to
get at him. Seldom the time and the place and the hated one all
together. But your Brinkman, as far as we can see, was only affected
by the death in the sense that he has lost a good job and has now to
look out for another one, with no late employer to supply him with
testimonials. Personally, I believe Brinkman did know about the
alteration in the will; at least he knew about the uncertainty of
Mottram’s health. Can you suppose that, even if Simmonds offered to go
halves with him, he would consent to be an accomplice in what might
prove a wholly unnecessary crime?”
“You’re assuming too much. We don’t know yet that Brinkman has no
financial interest in the affair. Look here—this is far-fetched, I
grant you, but it’s not impossible: Everybody says Mottram had no
family; whose word have they for that except his own? Where did he
pick up Brinkman? No one knows. Why did he want a secretary? There was
some talk of writing a history of Pullford, but nothing ever came of
it. Why, then, this curious interest which Mottram takes in Brinkman?
I don’t say it’s likely, but I say it’s possible that Brinkman is
Mottram’s son by a clandestine marriage. If that’s so, and if Brinkman
didn’t know about the codicil, he may himself be the next of kin who
is preparing to step into the half-million. And a clever man—Brinkman
is a clever man—might find it convenient to get Mottram out of the
way, and get some one else to do it for him. He is afraid that Mottram
will live to be sixty-five, and the policy will leave no benefits
behind it. Or he is afraid that Mottram is going to make a new will.
What does he do? Why, he goes to Simmonds, and points out to him that
as the next of kin he would score by putting Mottram through it.
Simmonds does so, all unsuspecting; and here’s Brinkman, only waiting
to step in and claim the half-million on the strength of his mother’s
marriage-lines!”
“You’re too confoundedly ingenious. Things don’t happen like that.”
“Things have happened like that before now, and with less than half a
million to give grounds for them. No, I’m not going to leave Brinkman
out of my calculations, and therefore I’m not going to take him into
my confidence. But this eavesdropping of his does give us a very
important chance, and we’re going to use it.”
“I don’t quite see how.”
“That’s because you’re not a professional, and you don’t know the way
things are done in the force. The outside public doesn’t, and we don’t
mean it to. We don’t show our workings. But half, or say a third at
least, of the big businesses we clear up are cleared up by bluff, by
leading the suspected man on and encouraging him to give himself away.
Sometimes it isn’t a very pretty business, of course; we have to use
agents who are none too scrupulous. But here we’ve got a ready-made
chance of bluffing our man, and bluffing him into betraying himself.”
“How, exactly?”
“You and I are going to meet again in that mill-house. And we are
going to talk about it openly beforehand, so that we can be jolly sure
Brinkman will creep up behind and listen to us. And when we’ve got him
comfortably fixed there listening to us, you and I are going to lead
him up the garden. We are going to make him overhear something which
is really meant for his ears, though he thinks it’s meant for
anybody’s ears rather than his own.”
“Oh, I see—a fake conversation. I say, I’m not much of an actor.
Angela would do it far better than I should.”
“There’s no acting wanted. All you’ve got to do is to sit there and
argue pigheadedly about it’s being suicide, the same as you always do.
Meanwhile, I’ll do the fake part—or rather, it won’t be much of a
fake, either. I shall repeat what I told you yesterday, about
suspecting Simmonds. That’s all true enough; I do suspect the man;
though I wish he wasn’t so confoundedly innocent and self-possessed
under examination. Then I shall say that I also suspect Brinkman—not
letting on, of course, about the cigarette and all that, but putting
up some ground or other for suspicion. Simmonds, I shall say, is
clearly the murderer, but I’ve reason to think Brinkman knows more
about it than he ought to do. I shall say that I’m going to have
Brinkman shadowed, and that I’m going to get a warrant for his arrest.
At the same time, I shall say I think he’s a fool not to own up, if
his share in the business is not a guilty one. And so on. Then we just
wait and see how Brinkman reacts.”
“I should think he’d skip.”
“That’s what I want him to do. Of course, I’ve got him shadowed
already. If he makes a determined bolt for it that gives me reasonable
ground for putting him under arrest.”
“What else can he do?”
“Well, if he’s relatively innocent, he might confide in you about it.”
“Oh, I see, that’s the game. Damn it, why did I ever consent to become
a spy? Leyland, I don’t like this job. It’s too—too underhand.”
“Well, you were an intelligence officer, weren’t you? There was no
trick you wouldn’t play, while the war was on, to beat the Germans.
Why should you be more squeamish about it when you’ve the well-being
of society to consider? Your job is to protect the interests of all
the honest men who’ve insured with your company. My business is to see
that harmless people don’t get gassed in their sleep. In any case,
we’ve got to get at the truth. I might even point out that we’ve got a
bet on it.”
“But look here, if Brinkman confides in me, am I to betray his
confidence? That hardly seems cricket.”
“Well, if you’re not a fool, you’d better avoid making any promise of
secrecy. You must act up to your own confounded conscience, I suppose.
But remember, Brinkman can’t get away; I’ve got him watched all right.
If his part in the show is quite an innocent one, you’d better point
out to him that his best plan is to make a clean breast of it.”
“Well, I’ll help you bait the trap. If Brinkman comes to me about it,
I can’t answer for what I’ll do—unless you subpœna me, of course. By
the way, what happens if Brinkman doesn’t react at all? If he simply
does nothing about it?”
“We shall be just where we were before. But I think if we give him a
lead he’s almost certain to take it. After all, there’s no reason why
he should stay on here, but he hasn’t shown any signs of moving yet.
Once the funeral’s over, he’ll be anxious to put things straight, if
only to get a fresh job.”
By now they were on their return journey, on the road leading down the
valley; the twilight was gathering, but the few street-lamps which
Chilthorpe afforded had not yet been lit. It was but natural that on a
summer evening such a road as this should be a trysting-place of
lovers. There is a sentimental streak in all our natures which warns
us that a young man and a young woman sharing a railway carriage must
be left to share it; and equally that a pair of lovers in a lane must
be passed by as hastily as possible, with no inquisitive looks thrown
in their direction. It is our instinct thus to propitiate the Paphian
Queen. It was characteristic of Bredon that, as he passed one of these
couples from behind, seeing their heads close together in earnest
colloquy, he quickened his pace and never looked backward. It was
equally characteristic of Leyland that, although he too quickened his
pace, he did let his eye rest on the pair for a moment—lightly, it
seemed, and uncomprehendingly. But when they were out of earshot he
shewed that his had been no casual glance. “You saw them, Bredon, eh?
You saw them?”
“I saw there were some people there. I didn’t”——
“You wouldn’t. But it doesn’t do to miss these things. The young lady
is the barmaid at our hotel, the lady who always says ‘Raight-ho!’
when you ask for anything. And the young man is our friend Mr.
Simmonds. It looks as if a _mésalliance_ were in contemplation, from
the Simmonds point of view. And it means—well, it may mean almost
anything.”
“Or almost nothing.”
“Well, if you ask me, it seems to be a matter of importance to know
that Simmonds has got his foot inside the door, so to speak, at the
_Load of Mischief_. He had somebody there to let him in and let him
out late at night. He had somebody to cover his traces, if necessary,
when the crime was over. I think our nets are beginning to close at
last.”
“Like to hide behind the hedge and listen to what they’re saying?”
“Why, it might be done. But it seemed to me they had their voices
lowered all the time, not merely while we were passing. No, I think
it’s the bar parlour for me.”
Angela was far more enthusiastic than her husband over the proposed
ambush. “You see, Brinky can’t really be a very nice man, or he
wouldn’t have been listening at our keyhole. Just think, I might have
been ticking you off about your table manners or something. No, if he
will go and hide in the arras he must take what he gets, like
Polonius. And, after all, if he does come to you afterward, and wants
to sob on your bosom, you can always refuse to promise secrecy. The
world would be such a much happier place if people wouldn’t make
promises.”
“None at all?”
“Don’t be soppy. You aren’t in the lovers’ lane now. Meanwhile, I
think it would be a good thing if you overcame your natural bonhomie,
and had a talk with Mr. Simmonds to-morrow. The more necessary, since
you only seem to have brought three hankies here, and it’s you for the
haberdasher’s in any case.”
“All right; but you mustn’t come. You cramp my style in shops. Too
much of the I-want-a-handkerchief-for-this-young-gentleman business
about you.”
“Then I shall console myself by talking to the barmaid, and finding
out if she’s capable of saying anything except ‘Raight-ho.’ Of course
I knew she had a young man all the time.”
“Rot! How could you tell?”
“My dear Miles, no girl ever waits so badly as that, or tosses her
head like that, unless she’s meaning to chuck up her job almost
immediately. I deduced a young man.”
“I wonder you haven’t wormed yourself into her confidence already.”
“Wasn’t interested in her. But to-night, at supper, she was jumpy—even
you must have noticed it. She almost dropped the soup-plates, and the
‘shape’ was quivering like a guilty thing surprised.”
“That was your dressing for dinner.”
“Bunkum! You must have seen that she was all on edge. Anyhow, we’re
going to have a heart-to-heart talk.”
“All right. Don’t bully the wretched girl, though.”
“Miles! You really mustn’t go running after every woman you meet like
this. I shall deal with her with all my well-known delicacy and tact.
Look how I managed them at supper! I should have cried, I think, if
I’d found it was Edward who smoked the Callipoli. Do you think Leyland
has still got his knife into Simmonds? Or do you think he wants to
arrest Brinky, and is only using Simmonds as a blind?”
“He was excited enough when we met Simmonds in the lane. No, I think
he’s out to arrest everybody at the moment; Simmonds for doing the
murder, and Brinkman for persuading him or helping him to do it. He’s
got ’em both shadowed, anyhow, he says—I hope not by the Chilthorpe
police, who look to me too substantial to be mistaken for shadows. But
I’m sure I’m right, I’m sure I’m right.”
“Of course you are. Though, mind you, it looks to me as if Mottram had
only just managed to commit suicide in time to avoid being murdered.
The trouble about Leyland’s Simmonds theory is that it makes the
little man too clever. I don’t believe Leyland could ever catch a
criminal unless he were a superhumanly clever criminal, and of course
so few of them are. They go and make one rotten little mistake, and so
get caught out.”
“You’re getting too clever. It’s quite time you went to bed.”
“‘Raight-ho,’ as your friend the barmaid says. No, don’t stamp about
and pretend to be a caveman. Go downstairs like a good boy, and help
Leyland incriminate the oldest inhabitant. He’ll be getting to that
soon.”