Mysterious Behaviour of the Old Gentleman
Bredon and his wife looked at one another in astonishment. It was
impossible that the funeral should yet be over; impossible, surely,
that Brinkman, whose place in the pageant was such a prominent one,
should have absented himself from the ceremony unnoticed. There was no
doubt as to the path which the self-betrayed listener must have taken.
From behind the wall, there was a gap in a privet-hedge, and through
this there was a direct and speedy retreat to the back door of the
inn. The inn itself, when they went back to it, was as silent as the
grave—indeed, the comparison forced itself upon their minds. It was as
if the coffin from upstairs had taken all human life away with it when
it went on its last journey, leaving nothing but the ticking of clocks
and the steaming of a kettle in the kitchen to rob solitude of its
silence. Outside the sun still shone brightly, though there was a
menacing bank of cloud coming up from the south. The air felt
breathless and oppressive; not a door could bang, not a window rattle.
The very flies on the window-panes seemed drowsy. The Bredons passed
from room to room, in the vain hope of discovering an intruder;
everywhere the same loneliness, the same stillness met them. Bredon
had an odd feeling as if they ought, after all, to be at the funeral;
it was so like the emptiness of his old school when everybody was out
of doors except himself on a summer day.
“I can’t stand much of this,” he said. “Let’s go down toward the
churchyard, and see if we can meet them coming back. Then at least we
shall be in a position to know who _wasn’t_ here.”
The expedition, however, proved abortive; they met Eames almost on the
doorstep, and down the street figures melting away by twos and threes
from the churchyard shewed that the funeral was at an end. “I say,
come in here,” said Bredon. “I want to talk things over a bit, Mr.
Eames.” And the three retired into that “best room” where tea had been
laid on the afternoon of the Bredons’ arrival. “You’ve just come back
from the funeral?”
“This moment. Why?”
“Can you tell us for certain who was there? Was Brinkman there, for
example?”
“Certainly. He was standing just next me.”
“And Mr. Simmonds from the shop—do you know him by sight?”
“He was pointed out to me as the chief mourner. I had a word with him
afterward. But why all this excitement about the local celebrities?”
“Tell him, Miles,” said Angela. “He may be able to throw some light on
all this.” And Bredon told Eames of the strange eavesdropping that
went on behind the mill-house wall; something, too, of the suspicions
which he and Leyland entertained, and the difficulty they both found
in giving any explanation of the whole tragedy.
“Well, it’s very extraordinary. Pulteney, of course didn’t go after
all”——
“Pulteney didn’t go?”
“No; didn’t you hear him say, soon after luncheon, that his good
resolutions had broken down, and that he wasn’t going to the funeral
after all? I thought it rather extraordinary at the time.”
“You mean his sudden change of plan?”
“No, the reason he gave for it. He said the afternoon was too
tempting, and he really must go out fishing.”
“Is that a very odd reason for Pulteney? He’s an incalculable sort of
creature.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t happen to be true. Can’t you feel the thunder in
the air? If you can’t, the fishes can, And when there’s thunder in the
air they won’t rise. Pulteney knows that as well as I do.”
“Would you know his rod if you saw it?”
“Yes, I was looking at it with him just before luncheon.”
“Come on.” They went out into the front hall, and Eames gave a quick
glance round. “Yes, that’s it, in the corner. He’s no more out fishing
than you or I.”
“Edward!” said Angela as they returned to the best room. “To think it
was my Edward all the time.”
“Oh, don’t rag, Angela; this is serious. Now, can’t it have been
Pulteney listening all along?”
“He was there, you know, when you and Leyland arranged to go out to
the mill-house after breakfast. And he was there at luncheon, though I
don’t think either of us mentioned that we meant to go there. Still,
he might have guessed that. But what on earth is the poor old dear up
to?”
“Well, one or two things are clear. About Brinkman, I mean. Whatever
his idea may have been when he took me out for a walk to the gorge and
talked about geology he wasn’t ‘reacting’ on Leyland’s suggestion,
because it wasn’t he who was listening behind the wall when the
suggestion was made. And there’s another thing—this bit of paper
Leyland found lying about in the room upstairs. If Brinkman put it
there, then Brinkman did it on his own; he wasn’t playing up to the
suggestion which Leyland made about wanting clues to incriminate
Simmonds with.”
“Still,” objected Angela, “we never proved that it was Brinky who left
that old clue lying about. We only assumed it, because we thought it
was Brinky who was listening behind the wall.”
“You mean that if Pulteney was listening, and Pulteney was—well, was
somehow interested in confusing the tracks of the murder, it may have
been he who left the bit of paper under the table.”
“I didn’t say so. But it seems quite as much on the cards as anything
else in this frightful business.”
“Let’s see, now, what do we know about Pulteney? We know, in the first
place, that he was sleeping in the house on the night when Mottram
died. Actually, he had the room next door to Mottram’s—between his and
the one we’ve got now. According to his own evidence, he slept soundly
all night, and heard nothing. On the other hand, his own evidence
shewed that he went to bed after Mottram and Brinkman, and we’ve
nothing, therefore, to confirm his own account of his movements. He
was woken up the next morning after the tragedy had occurred, and when
he was told about it all he said was—what was it, Angela?”
“‘In that case, Mrs. Davis, I shall fish the Long Pool this morning.’”
“That might almost be represented as suggesting that he wasn’t exactly
surprised when he heard of Mottram’s death, mightn’t it? All his
references to Mottram’s death since then have been rather—shall we
say?—lacking in feeling. He, no less than Brinkman, seemed to be
anxious that we should interpret the death as suicide, because it was
he who suggested to me that idea about Mottram having brought down the
wrong flies, as if he never really had any intention of fishing at
all. He has been rather inquisitive about when Brinkman was leaving,
and when we were leaving too, for that matter. That’s all you can
scrape together, I think, against his general behaviour. And against
that, of course, you’ve got to put the absence of all known motive.”
“And the general character of the man,” suggested Eames.
“I suppose so. . . . What impression exactly does he make on you?”
“Why, that he is out of touch with real life. All that _macabre_
humour of his about corpses and so on is an academic thing—he has
never really felt death close to. I don’t say that a superb actor
mightn’t adopt that ironical pose. I only say it’s far more natural to
regard him as a harmless old gentleman who reflects and doesn’t act.
It’s very seldom that you find the capacity for acute reflection and
the capacity for successful action combined in the same character. At
least, that’s always been my impression.”
“Well, granted that we acquit him of the main charge, as Leyland would
acquit Brinkman of the main charge. He still comes under the minor
suspicion of eavesdropping. He’s as good a candidate for that position
as Brinkman himself, only that it was Brinkman’s brand of cigarette we
found behind the wall yesterday.”
“Edward had run out, you remember,” suggested Angela. “He might have
borrowed one from Brinky, or pinched it when he wasn’t looking. And to
be accurate, we must remember that the first time we were overheard,
when we were talking in my room, the listener had disappeared before
you got into the passage, and the next room to ours is Edward’s.”
“And besides, we know now that it wasn’t Brinkman, this time at any
rate. Because he was away at the funeral. Whereas Pulteney shirked the
funeral on an obviously false ground; didn’t go to the funeral and
didn’t go fishing either. Assuming that the listener is the same all
through, it looks bad for Pulteney.”
A knock at the door suddenly interrupted their interview. “May I come
in?” said a gentle voice, and following it, flushed as with hot
walking yet still beaming with its habitual benevolence, came the face
of Mr. Pulteney.
“Ah, Mr. Bredon, they told me I would find you in here. I wanted a
word with you. Could we go outside, or”——
“Nonsense, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela firmly. “What Mr. Eames and I
don’t know isn’t worth knowing. Come in and tell us all about it.”
“Well, you know, I’m afraid I’ve got to make a kind of confession.
It’s a very humiliating confession for me to make, because I’m afraid,
once again, I’ve been guilty of curiosity. I simply cannot mind my own
business.”
“And what have you been up to now?” asked Angela.
“Why, when I said I was going out fishing this afternoon, I’m afraid I
was guilty of a prevarication. Indeed, when I announced my intention
of going to the funeral, I was beginning to weave the tangled web of
those who first practise to deceive. You see, I didn’t want Brinkman
to know.”
“To know what?”
“Well, that I was rather suspicious about his movements. You see, I’ve
asked him several times when he means to leave Chilthorpe, and he
always talks as if he was quite uncertain of his plans. He did so at
breakfast, you remember. But this morning, when I went up to get a
sponge I had left in the bathroom, I saw Brinkman packing.”
“Packing?”
“Well, he was wandering about the room clearing up his papers, and
there was a despatch-box open on the table, and a suitcase on the
floor. And, as I knew he was due to be at the funeral, I thought this
was rather a funny time for him to want to leave. Especially as he’d
given no notice to Mrs. Davis. So I wondered whether, perhaps, there
was anything behind it.”
“You did well to wonder,” said Bredon. “So what did you do?”
“Well it stuck in my head that Mottram, when he came down here, came
in a motor-car. Mrs. Davis, though her trade announcement advertises
good accommodation for man and beast, does not run to a garage. There
is only one in Chilthorpe; you can just see it down the road there.
Now, thought I, if by any chance Mr. Brinkman is meditating a
precipitate disappearance, it would be like his caution to have made
all arrangements beforehand. And if I went down to the garage and had
a look at the car, it might be that I, though heaven knows I am no
motorist, should be able to see whether he had got the car in proper
trim for a journey.”
“You must have talked very nicely to the garage people,” suggested
Angela. “It would never do if you were suspected of being a
motor-thief.”
“Well, I had to do my best. I changed my mind about going to the
funeral, and made the excuse that I wanted to go fishing. I heard you
gasp, Mr. Eames; but Brinkman knows nothing about fishing. Then, when
you had started, I went off to the garage by myself. Fortunately, very
fortunately for my purpose, it proved that there was nobody in. There
are only two men, in any case, and they neglect their business a good
deal. I had an excuse if one was needed, but when I found myself alone
in the garage I flung caution to the winds. There was a cardcase
inside which shewed me which was Mottram’s car. My investigations led
me to the conclusion that the car was in readiness for an immediate
and secret departure for some considerable journey.”
“Do tell us what they were,” said Angela demurely. “Just for the
interest of the thing.”
“Well, I removed with some difficulty a kind of cap from that thing
behind, which put me in a position to examine the interior of what is,
I suspect, called the petrol-tank. The careful insertion of a pencil
shewed that the tank was quite full; which suggested that a refill had
been obtained since they arrived.”
“They might have run short on the journey down, a mile or two out,”
suggested Angela. “But this was not all?”
“No, there was a map lying on the driver’s seat, somewhat carelessly
folded up. I thought it a point of interest that this map did not
include Pullford, and seemed to contemplate an expedition to the west
or southwest.”
“There’s not a great deal in that,” said Bredon. “Still, it’s
suggestive. Anything else?”
“Well, you know, I lifted up one of the seats, and found there a
collection of sandwiches and a large flask of whisky.”
“The devil you did! But they might have been for the journey down
here. Did you taste the sandwiches to see if they were fresh?”
“I took that liberty. They seemed to me, I must say, a trifle on the
stale side. But who was I to complain? I was, as it were, a guest.
Meanwhile, let me point out to you the improbability of Mottram’s
loading up his car with sandwiches for a twenty-mile drive.”
“That’s true. Were they properly cut? Professional work, I mean?”
“I suspected the hand of the artist. Mrs. Davis, no doubt. The whisky
I did not feel at liberty to broach. But the idea suggested itself to
me that these were the preparations of a man who is contemplating a
considerable journey, and probably one which will not allow him time
to take his meals at a public-house.”
“And why a secret departure?”
“Why, somebody had induced a coat of black paint over what I take to
be the number-plate of the car. I am a mere novice in such matters,
but is that usual?”
“It is not frequently done. And was the paint still wet?”
“That is a curious point. The paint was dry. I supposed then, that
Brinkman’s preparations for departure were not made yesterday or the
day before.”
“It’s awfully kind of you to take all this trouble, and to come and
tell us.”
“Not at all. I thought perhaps it might be worth mentioning, in case
you thought it best, well, to lay hands somehow on Brinkman.”
“Why, Mr. Pulteney,” said Angela, bubbling over, “we were just
preparing to lay hands on you!”