That night as French was writing up his diary the question he had
asked Domlio recurred to him. “Tell me, Colonel,” he had said, “did it
not strike you as strange that Mrs. Berlyn should stumble at just the
point which ensured her falling into your arms?” He had asked it to
test the colonel’s belief in the incident. Now it occurred to him that
on its merits it required an answer.
Had the incident stood alone it might well have passed unquestioned.
But it was not alone. Two other matters must be considered in
conjunction with it.
First there was the coincidence that at the precise moment a watcher
armed with a camera should be present. What accident should take a
photographer to this secluded glen just when so compromising a tableau
should be staged? Was there here an element of design?
Secondly, there was the consideration that if suspicion were to be
thrown on Domlio he must be made to take out his car secretly on the
fatal night. And how better could this be done than by the story of
the photograph? Once again, did this not suggest design?
If so, something both interesting and startling followed. Mrs. Berlyn
was privy to it. And if she were privy to it, was she not necessarily
implicated in the murder? Could she even be the accomplice for whom
he, French, had been searching?
There was, of course, her alibi. If she had been at the party at her
house at ten o’clock she could not have drugged Gurney’s tea. But was
she at her house?
Experience had made French sceptical about alibis. This one certainly
seemed watertight, and yet was it not just possible that Mrs. Berlyn
had managed to slip away from her guests for the fifteen or twenty
minutes required?
It was evident that the matter must be tested forthwith, and French
decided that, having already questioned Mr. Fogden, he would interview
the Dr. and Mrs. Lancaster whom Lizzie Johnston had mentioned as also
being members of the party. They lived on the Buckland road half a
mile beyond the Berlyns’, and next morning French called on them.
Dr. Lancaster, he had learned from Daw, was a newcomer to the town, a
young LL.D. who had been forced by a breakdown in health to give up
his career at the bar. He received French at once.
“I want to find out whether any member of the party could have left
the house about ten o’clock for fifteen or twenty minutes,” French
explained. “Do you think that you or Mrs. Lancaster could help me
out?”
“I can only speak for myself,” Dr. Lancaster smiled. “I was there all
the time, and I’m sure so was Mrs. Lancaster. But I’ll call her and
you can ask her.”
“A moment, please. Surely you can speak for more than yourself? Were
you not with the others?”
“With some of them. You see, what happened was this. When we went in,
Mrs. Berlyn said that she had been disappointed in that three London
friends, who were staying at Torquay and whom she expected, had just
telegraphed to say they couldn’t come. That made our numbers wrong.
She had intended to have three tables of bridge, but now, as some of
us played billiards, she suggested one bridge table and snooker for
the other five. She and I and—let me see—Fogden and a Miss Pym, I
think, and one other—I’m blessed if I can remember who the other
was—played snooker. So I wasn’t with the other four between the time
that we settled down to play and supper.”
“What hour was supper?”
“About half past ten, I think. We broke up when it was over—rather
early, as a matter of fact. We reached home shortly after eleven.”
“And you played snooker all the evening until supper?”
“No. After an hour or more we dropped it and played four-handed
billiards.”
“Then some player must have stood out?”
“Yes. Mrs. Berlyn said she must go and see how the others were getting
along. She watched us play for some time, then went to the drawing
room. She came back after a few minutes to say that supper was ready.”
“Now, Dr. Lancaster, just one other question. Can you tell me at what
time Mrs. Berlyn went into the drawing room?”
“I really don’t think I can. I wasn’t paying special attention to her
movements. I should say perhaps half an hour before supper, but I
couldn’t be sure.”
“That’s all right,” said French. “Now if I could see Mrs. Lancaster
for a moment I should be done.”
Mrs. Lancaster was a dark, vivacious little woman who seemed to
remember the evening in question much more clearly than did her
husband.
“Yes,” she said, “I was playing bridge with Miss Lucy Pym, Mr. Cowls,
and Mr. Leacock. I remember Mrs. Berlyn coming in about ten. She
laughed and said: ‘Oh, my children, don’t be frightened. I couldn’t
think of disturbing such a serious game. I’ll go back to our snooker.’
She went away, and presently came back and called us to the library to
supper.”
“How long was she away, Mrs. Lancaster?”
“About twenty minutes, I should think.”
This seemed to French to be all that he wanted. However, he thought it
wise to get the key of the Berlyns’ house and have a look at the
layout. The drawing room was in front, with the library behind it, but
between the two there was a passage with a side door leading into the
garden. He felt satisfied as to the use to which that passage had been
put on the night in question. He could picture Mrs. Berlyn fixing up
the uneven number of guests, among whom would be some who played
billiards and some who did not. The proposals for snooker and bridge
would almost automatically follow, involving the division of the party
in two rooms. Mrs. Berlyn as hostess would reasonably be the odd man
out when the change was made from snooker to billiards. The result of
these arrangements would be that when she slipped out to the works
through the side door, each party would naturally assume she was with
the other, while if any question as to this arose, her reëntry at
supper-time would suggest to both that she had gone out to overlook
its preparation.
These discoveries justified French’s theory, but they did not prove
it, and he racked his brains for some test which would definitely
establish the point.
At last an idea occurred to him which he thought might at least help.
In considering Mrs. Berlyn as her husband’s accomplice he had been
doubtful whether there would have been sufficient time for the various
actions. If after Berlyn’s arrival at the works with the body Mrs.
Berlyn had driven the car back to where it was found, changed the
magneto, and made the footprints, he did not believe she could have
walked home in time to wake the servants at the hour stated. Nor did
he believe that Berlyn, after disposing of the body in the works,
could have been able on foot to make Domlio’s in time to hide the
clothes in the well before the sergeant’s call.
He now wondered whether Mrs. Berlyn’s bicycle could have been pressed
into the service. Could the lady have brought the machine to the
works, lifted it into the tonneau of the car, carried it out on the
moor, and ridden back on it to the works? And could her husband have
used it to reach first Domlio’s and then Plymouth or some other large
town from which he had escaped?
To test the matter, French returned to Lizzie Johnston and asked her
if she knew what had become of the bicycle.
But the girl could not tell him. Nor could she recall when or where
she had seen it last. She supposed it had been sold at the auction,
but in the excitement of that time she had not noticed it.
“Where did Mrs. Berlyn get it, do you know?”
“From Makepeace’s. He has bicycles same as motors. He’ll tell you
about it.”
Half an hour later French was talking to Mr. Makepeace. He remembered
having some five years earlier sold the machine to Mrs. Berlyn. He
looked up his records, and after considerable trouble found a note of
the transaction. The bicycle was a Swift, and number 35,721. It had
certain dimensions and peculiarities of which he gave French details.
French’s next call was on the auctioneer who had conducted the sale of
the Berlyn effects. Mr. Nankivell appeared _au fait_ with the whole
case and was obviously thrilled to meet French. He made no difficulty
about giving the required information. A bicycle had not been among
the articles auctioned, nor had he seen one during his visits to the
house.
This was all very well as far as it went, but it was negative. French
wanted to find some one who could say definitely what had happened to
the machine. He consulted with Sergeant Daw and at last came to the
conclusion that if Peter Swann, the gardener-chauffeur, could be
found, he might be able to give the information. Daw believed he had
gone to Chagford, and he telephoned to the sergeant there, asking him
to make enquiries.
In the afternoon there was a reply to the effect that the man was
employed by a market gardener near Chagford, and French at once took a
car over to see him. Swann remembered the bicycle well, as he had had
to keep it clean. He had seen it in the woodshed on the day before the
tragedy, but next morning it was gone. He had looked for it
particularly, as he wished to use it to take a message to the town and
he had wondered where it could have got to. He had never seen it
again. He had not asked about it, as he had not considered that his
business.
Once again French experienced the keen delight of finding his
deductions justified by the event. In this whole case he had really
excelled himself. On several different points he had imagined what
might have occurred, and on a test being made, his idea had been
proved correct. Some work that! As he did not fail to remind himself,
it showed the highest type of ability.
The next thing was to find the bicycle. He returned for the night to
Ashburton, and next morning went down to see the superintendent of
police at Plymouth. That officer listened with interest to his story
and promised to have a search made without delay. When he had rung up
and asked for similar enquiries to be made in the other large towns
within a cycle ride of the moor, French found himself at a loose end.
“You should have a look round the place,” the superintendent advised.
“There’s a lot to see in Plymouth.”
French took the advice and went for a stroll round the city. He was
not impressed by the streets, though he admired St. Andrew’s Church,
the Guildhall, and some of the other buildings in the same locality.
But when, after wandering through some more or less uninteresting
residential streets, he unexpectedly came out on the Hoe, he held his
breath. The promenade along the top of the cliff was imposing enough,
though no better than he had seen many times before. But the view of
the Sound was unique. The sea, light blue in the morning sun,
stretched from the base of the cliff beneath his feet out past Drake’s
Island and the long line of the Breakwater to a clear horizon. On the
right was Mount Edgcumbe, tree clad to the water’s edge, while far
away out to the southwest was the faint white pillar of the Eddystone
lighthouse. French gazed and admired, then going down to the Sutton
Pool, he explored the older part of the town for the best part of an
hour.
When he presently reached the police station he was delighted to find
that news had just then come in. The bicycle had been found. It had
been pawned by a man, apparently a labourer, shortly after the shop
opened on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th August; the morning, French
reminded himself delightedly, after the crime. The man had stated that
the machine was his daughter’s and had been given two pounds on it. He
had not returned since, nor had the machine been redeemed.
“We’re trying to trace the man, but after this lapse of time I don’t
suppose we shall be able,” the superintendent declared. “I expect this
Berlyn abandoned the machine when he reached Plymouth, and our friend
found it and thought he had better make hay while the sun shone.”
“So likely that I don’t think it matters whether you find him or not,”
French returned.
“I agree, but we shall have a shot at it, all the same. By the way,
Mr. French, it’s a curious thing that you should call to-day. Only
yesterday I was talking to a friend of yours—an ass, if you don’t mind
my saying so, but married to one of the most delightful young women
I’ve ever come across. Lives at Dartmouth.”
“Dartmouth?” French laughed. “That gives me a clue. You mean that
cheery young optimist, Maxwell Cheyne? He is an ass right enough, but
he’s not a bad soul at bottom. And the girl’s a stunner. How are they
getting along?”
“Tip-top. He’s taken to writing tales. Doing quite well with them,
too, I believe. They’re very popular down there, both of them.”
“Glad to hear it. Well, Superintendent, I must be getting along.
Thanks for your help.”
French was full of an eager optimism as the result of these
discoveries. The disappearance of the bicycle, added to the breakdown
of the alibi, seemed definitely to prove his theory of Mrs. Berlyn’s
complicity.
But when he considered the identity of the person whom Mrs. Berlyn had
thus assisted, he had to admit himself staggered. That Berlyn had
murdered Pyke had seemed an obvious theory. Now French was not so
certain of it. The lady had undoubtedly been in love with Pyke. Surely
it was too much to suppose she would help her husband to murder her
lover?
Had it been the other way round, had Phyllis and Pyke conspired to
kill Berlyn, the thing would have been easier to understand. Wife and
lover against husband was a common enough combination. But the
evidence against this idea was strong. Not only was there the
identification of the clothes and birthmark, but there was the strong
presumption that the man who disposed of the crate in Wales was
Berlyn. At the same time this evidence of identification was not quite
conclusive, and French determined to keep the possibility in view and
test it rigorously as occasion offered.
And then another factor occurred to him, an extremely disturbing
factor, which bade fair to change his whole view of the case. He saw
that even if Pyke had murdered Berlyn it would not clear up the
situation. In fact, this new idea suggested that it was impossible
either that Pyke could have murdered Berlyn or that Berlyn could have
murdered Pyke.
What, he asked himself, must have been the motive for such a crime?
Certainly not merely to gratify a feeling of hate. The motive
undoubtedly was to enable the survivor to claim Phyllis as his wife
and to live with her in good social standing and without fear of his
rival. But the crime, French reminded himself, had a peculiar feature.
The staged accident on the moor involved the disappearance of _both_
actors, the murderer as well as the victim. If, then, the murderer
disappeared, he could not live with Phyllis. If either Berlyn or Pyke
were guilty, therefore, he had carried out the crime in a way which
robbed him of the very results for which he had committed it.
French saw that he was up against a puzzling dilemma. If Berlyn had
murdered Pyke, it was unlikely that Mrs. Berlyn would have assisted.
If, on the other hand, Pyke had murdered Berlyn, Mrs. Berlyn’s action
was clear, but not Pyke’s, for Pyke could get nothing out of it.
French swore bitterly as he realised that in all probability his
former view of the case was incorrect and that he was once again
without any really satisfactory theory on which to work. Nor did some
hours’ thought point the way to a solution of his problem.
At least, however, he saw his next step. Mrs. Berlyn was the
accomplice of _some one_. That some one was doubtless alive and biding
his time until he thought it safe to join the lady. If so, she was
pretty sure to know his whereabouts. Could she be made to reveal it?
French thought that if in some way he could give her a thorough
fright, she might try to get a warning through. It would then be up to
him to intercept her message, which would give him the information he
required.
This meant London. He slept the night in Plymouth, and next day, which
was Saturday, travelled up to Paddington.