The Circle sat on for some time after Moresby had gone. There was a
lot to discuss, and everybody had views to put forward, suggestions to
make, and theories to advance.
One thing emerged with singular unanimity: the police had been working
on the wrong lines. Their theory must be mistaken. This was not a
casual murder by a chance lunatic. Somebody very definite had gone
methodically about the business of helping Sir Eustace out of the
world, and that somebody had behind him an equally definite motive.
Like almost all murders, in fact, it was a matter of _cherchez le
motif_.
On the exposition and discussion of theories Roger kept a firmly
quelling hand. The whole object of the experiment, as he pointed out
more than once, was that everybody should work independently, without
bias from any other brain, form his or her own theory, and set about
proving it in his or her own way.
“But oughtn’t we to pool our facts, Sheringham?” boomed Sir Charles.
“I should suggest that though we pursue our investigations
independently, any new facts we discover should be placed at once at
the disposal of all. The exercise should be a mental one, not a
competition in routine-detection.”
“There’s a lot to be said for that view, Sir Charles,” Roger agreed.
“In fact, I’ve thought it over very carefully. But on the whole I
think it will be better if we keep any new facts to ourselves after
this evening. You see, we’re already in possession of all the facts
that the police have discovered, and anything else we may come across
isn’t likely to be so much a definite pointer to the murderer as some
little thing, quite insignificant in itself, to support a particular
theory.”
Sir Charles grunted, obviously unconvinced.
“I’m quite willing to have it put to the vote,” Roger said handsomely.
A vote was taken. Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming voted for all
facts being disclosed: Mr. Bradley, Alicia Dammers, Mr. Chitterwick
(the last after considerable hesitation) and Roger voted against.
“We retain our own facts,” Roger said, and made a mental note of who
had voted for each. He was inclined to guess that the voting indicated
pretty correctly who was going to be content with general theorising,
and who was ready to enter so far into the spirit of the game as to go
out and work for it. Or it might simply show who already had a theory
and who had not.
Sir Charles accepted the result with resignation.
“We start equal as from now, then,” he announced.
“As from the moment we leave this room,” amended Morton Harrogate
Bradley, rearranging the set of his tie. “But I agree so far with Sir
Charles’s proposition as to think that any one who can at this moment
add anything to the Chief Inspector’s statement should do so.”
“But can any one?” asked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.
“Sir Charles knows Mr. and Mrs. Bendix,” Alicia Dammers pointed out
impartially. “And Sir Eustace. And I know Sir Eustace too, of course.”
Roger smiled. This statement was a characteristic meiosis on the part
of Miss Dammers. Everybody knew that Miss Dammers had been the only
woman (so far as rumour recorded) who had ever turned the tables on
Sir Eustace Pennefather. Sir Eustace had taken it into his head to add
the scalp of an intellectual woman to those other rather
unintellectual ones which already dangled at his belt. Alicia Dammers,
with her good looks, her tall, slim figure, and her irreproachable
sartorial taste, had satisfied his very fastidious requirements so far
as feminine appearance was concerned. He had laid himself out to
fascinate.
The results had been watched by the large circle of Miss Dammers’s
friends with considerable joy. Miss Dammers had apparently been only
too ready to be fascinated. It seemed that she was living entirely on
the point of succumbing to Sir Eustace’s blandishments. They had
dined, visited, lunched and made excursions together without respite.
Sir Eustace, stimulated by the daily prospect of surrender on the
following one, had exercised his ardour with every art he knew.
Miss Dammers had then retired serenely, and the next autumn published
a book in which Sir Eustace Pennefather, dissected to the last
ligament, was given to the world in all the naked unpleasingness of
his psychological anatomy.
Miss Dammers never talked about her “art,” because she was a really
brilliant writer and not just pretending to be one, but she certainly
held that everything had to be sacrificed (including the feelings of
the Sir Eustace Pennefathers of this world) to whatever god she
worshipped privately in place of it.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bendix are quite incidental to the crime, of course,
from the murderer’s point of view,” Mr. Bradley now pointed out to
her, in the gentle tones of one instructing a child that the letter A
is followed in the alphabet by the letter B. “So far as we know, their
only connection with Sir Eustace is that he and Bendix both belonged
to the Rainbow.”
“I needn’t give you my opinion of Sir Eustace,” remarked Miss Dammers.
“Those of you who have read _Flesh and the Devil_ know how I saw him,
and I have no reason to suppose that he has changed since I was
studying him. But I claim no infallibility. It would be interesting to
hear whether Sir Charles’s opinion coincides with mine or not.”
Sir Charles, who had not read _Flesh and the Devil_, looked a little
embarrassed. “Well, I don’t see that I can add much to the impression
the Chief Inspector gave of him. I don’t know the man well, and
certainly have no wish to do so.”
Everybody looked extremely innocent. It was common gossip that there
had been the possibility of an engagement between Sir Eustace and Sir
Charles’s only daughter, and that Sir Charles had not viewed the
prospect with any perceptible joy. It was further known that the
engagement had even been prematurely announced, and promptly denied
the next day.
Sir Charles tried to look as innocent as everybody else. “As the Chief
Inspector hinted, he is something of a bad lot. Some people might go
so far as to call him a blackguard. Women,” explained Sir Charles
bluntly. “And he drinks too much,” he added. It was plain that Sir
Charles Wildman did not approve of Sir Eustace Pennefather.
“I can add one small point, of purely psychological value,” amplified
Alicia Dammers. “But it shows the dullness of his reactions. Even in
the short time since the tragedy rumour has joined the name of Sir
Eustace to that of a fresh woman. I was somewhat surprised to hear
that,” added Miss Dammers drily. “I should have been inclined to give
him credit for being a little more upset by the terrible mistake, and
its fortunate consequences to himself, even though Mrs. Bendix was a
total stranger to him.”
“Yes, by the way, I should have corrected that impression earlier,”
observed Sir Charles. “Mrs. Bendix was not a total stranger to Sir
Eustace, though he may probably have forgotten ever meeting her. But
he did. I was talking to Mrs. Bendix one evening at a first night (I
forget the play) and Sir Eustace came up to me. I introduced them,
mentioning something about Bendix being a member of the Rainbow. I’d
almost forgotten.”
“Then I’m afraid I was completely wrong about him,” said Miss Dammers,
chagrined. “I was far too kind.” To be too kind in the dissecting-room
was evidently, in Miss Dammers’s opinion, a far greater crime than
being too unkind.
“As for Bendix,” said Sir Charles rather vaguely, “I don’t know that I
can add anything to your knowledge of him. Quite a decent, steady
fellow. Head not turned by his money in the least, rich as he is. His
wife too, charming woman. A little serious perhaps. Sort of woman who
likes sitting on committees. Not that that’s anything against her
though.”
“Rather the reverse, I should have said,” observed Miss Dammers, who
liked sitting on committees herself.
“Quite, quite,” said Sir Charles hastily, remembering Miss Dammers’s
curious predilections. “And she wasn’t too serious to make a bet,
evidently, although it was a trifling one.”
“She had another bet, that she knew nothing about,” chanted in solemn
tones Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, who was already pondering the dramatic
possibilities of the situation. “Not a trifling one: a grim one. It
was with Death, and she lost it.” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was
regrettably inclined to carry her dramatic sense into her ordinary
life. It did not go at all well with her culinary aspect.
She eyed Alicia Dammers covertly, wondering whether she could get in
with a play before that lady cut the ground away from under her with a
book.
Roger, as chairman, took steps to bring the discussion back to
relevancies. “Yes, poor woman. But after all, we mustn’t let ourselves
confuse the issue. It’s rather difficult to remember that the murdered
person has no connection with the crime at all, so to speak, but there
it is. Just by accident the wrong person died; it’s on Sir Eustace
that we have to concentrate. Now, does anybody else here know Sir
Eustace, or anything about him, or any other fact bearing on the
crime?”
Nobody responded.
“Then we’re all on the same footing. And now, about our next meeting.
I suggest that we have a clear week for formulating our theories and
carrying out any investigations we think necessary, that we then meet
on consecutive evenings, beginning with next Monday, and that we now
draw lots as to the order in which we are to read our several papers
or give our conclusions. Or does any one think we should have more
than one speaker each evening?”
After a little talk it was decided to meet again on Monday, that day
week, and for purposes of fuller discussion allot one evening to each
member. Lots were then drawn, with the result that members were to
speak in the following order: (1) Sir Charles Wildman, (2) Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming, (3) Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley, (4) Roger
Sheringham, (5) Alicia Dammers, and (6) Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick.
Mr. Chitterwick brightened considerably when his name was announced as
last on the list. “By that time,” he confided to Morton Harrogate,
“somebody is quite sure to have discovered the right solution, and I
shall therefore not have to give my own conclusions. If indeed,” he
added dubiously, “I ever reach any. Tell me, how _does_ a detective
really set to work?”
Mr. Bradley smiled kindly and promised to lend Mr. Chitterwick one of
his own books. Mr. Chitterwick, who had read them all and possessed
most of them, thanked him very gratefully.
Before the meeting finally broke up, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming could not
resist one more opportunity of being mildly dramatic. “How strange
life is,” she sighed across the table to Sir Charles. “I actually saw
Mrs. Bendix and her husband in their box at the Imperial the night
before she died. (Oh, yes; I knew them by sight. They often came to my
first nights.) I was in a stall almost directly under their box.
Indeed life is certainly stranger than fiction. If I could have
guessed for one minute at the dreadful fate hanging over her, I—”
“You’d have had the sense to warn her to steer clear of chocolates, I
hope,” observed Sir Charles, who did not hold very much with Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming.
The meeting then broke up.
Roger returned to his rooms in the Albany feeling exceedingly pleased
with himself. He had a suspicion that the various attempts at a
solution were going to be almost as interesting to him as the problem
itself.
Nevertheless he was on his mettle. He had not been very lucky in the
draw and would have preferred the place of Mr. Chitterwick, which
would have meant that he would have the advantage of already knowing
the results achieved by his rivals before having to disclose his own.
Not that he intended to rely on others’ brains in the least; like Mr.
Morton Harrogate Bradley he already had a theory of his own; but it
would have been pleasant to be able to weigh up and criticise the
efforts of Sir Charles, Mr. Bradley and particularly Alicia Dammers
(to these three he gave credit for possessing the best minds in the
Circle) before irrevocably committing himself. And more than any other
crime in which he had been interested, it seemed to him, he wanted to
find the right solution of this one.
To his surprise when he got back to his rooms he found Moresby waiting
in his sitting-room.
“Ah, Mr. Sheringham,” said that cautious official. “Thought you
wouldn’t mind me waiting here for a word with you. Not in a great
hurry to go to bed, are you?”
“Not in the least,” said Roger, doing things with a decanter and
syphon. “It’s early yet. Say when.”
Moresby looked discreetly the other way.
When they were settled in two huge leather armchairs before the fire
Moresby explained himself. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Sheringham, the
Chief’s deputed me to keep a sort of unofficial eye on you and your
friends over this business. Not that we don’t trust you, or think you
won’t be discreet, or anything like that, but it’s better for us to
know just what’s going on with a massed-detective attack like this.”
“So that if any of us finds out something really important, you can
nip in first and make use of it,” Roger smiled. “Yes, I quite see the
official point.”
“So that we can take measures to prevent the bird from being scared,”
Moresby corrected reproachfully. “That’s all, Mr. Sheringham.”
“Is it?” said Roger, with unconcealed scepticism. “But you don’t think
it very likely that your protecting hand will be required, eh,
Moresby?”
“Frankly, sir, I don’t. We’re not in the habit of giving up a case so
long as we think there’s the least chance of finding the criminal; and
Detective-Inspector Farrar, who’s been in charge of this one, is a
capable man.”
“And that’s his theory, that it’s the work of some criminal lunatic,
quite untraceable?”
“That’s the opinion he’s been led to form, Mr. Sheringham, sir. But
there’s no harm in your Circle amusing themselves,” added Moresby
magnanimously, “if they want to and they’ve got the time to waste.”
“Well, well,” said Roger, refusing to be drawn.
They smoked their pipes in silence for a few minutes.
“Come along, Moresby,” Roger said gently.
The chief inspector looked at him with an expression that indicated
nothing but bland surprise. “Sir?”
Roger shook his head. “It won’t wash, Moresby; it won’t wash. Come
along, now; out with it.”
“Out with what, Mr. Sheringham?” queried Moresby, the picture of
innocent bewilderment.
“Your real reason for coming round here,” Roger said nastily. “Wanted
to pump me, for the benefit of that effete institution you represent,
I suppose? Well, I warn you, there’s nothing doing this time. I know
you better than I did eighteen months ago at Ludmouth, remember.”
“Well, what can have put such an idea as that into your head, Mr.
Sheringham, sir?” positively gasped that much misunderstood man, Chief
Inspector Moresby, of Scotland Yard. “I came round because I thought
you might like to ask me a few questions, to give you a leg up in
finding the murderer before any of your friends could. That’s all.”
Roger laughed. “Moresby, I like you. You’re a bright spot in a dull
world. I expect you try to persuade the very criminals you arrest that
it hurts you more than it does them. And I shouldn’t be at all
surprised if you don’t somehow make them believe it. Very well, if
that’s all you came round for I’ll ask you some questions, and thank
you very much. Tell me this, then. Who do _you_ think was trying to
murder Sir Eustace Pennefather?”
Moresby sipped delicately at his whisky-and-soda. “You know what I
think, Mr. Sheringham, sir.”
“Indeed I don’t,” Roger retorted. “I only know what you’ve told me you
think.”
“I haven’t been in charge of the case at all, Mr. Sheringham,” Moresby
hedged.
“Who do you really think was trying to murder Sir Eustace
Pennefather?” Roger repeated patiently. “Is it your own opinion that
the official police theory is right or wrong?”
Driven into a corner, Moresby allowed himself the novelty of speaking
his unofficial mind. He smiled covertly, as if at a secret thought.
“Well, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” he said with deliberation, “our theory is
a useful one, isn’t it? I mean, it gives us every excuse for not
finding the murderer. We can hardly be expected to be in touch with
every half-baked creature in the country who may have homicidal
impulses.
“Our theory will be put forward at the conclusion of the adjourned
inquest, in about a fortnight’s time, with reason and evidence to
support it, and any evidence to the contrary not mentioned, and you’ll
see that the coroner will agree with it, and the jury will agree with
it, and the papers will agree with it, and every one will say that
really, the police can’t be blamed for not catching the murderer this
time, and everybody will be happy.”
“Except Mr. Bendix, who doesn’t get his wife’s murder avenged,” added
Roger. “Moresby, you’re being positively sarcastic. And from all this
I deduce that you personally will stand aside from this general and
amicable agreement. Do you think the case has been badly handled by
your people?”
Roger’s last question followed so closely on the heels of his previous
remarks that Moresby had answered it almost before he had time to
reflect on the possible indiscretion of doing so. “No, Mr. Sheringham,
I don’t think that. Farrar’s a capable man, and he’d leave no stone
unturned—no stone, I mean, that he _could_ turn.” Moresby paused
significantly.
“Ah!” said Roger.
Having committed himself to this lamb, Moresby seemed disposed to look
about for a sheep. He re-settled himself in his chair and recklessly
drank a gill from his tumbler. Roger, scarcely daring to breathe too
audibly for fear of scaring the sheep, studiously examined the fire.
“You see, this is a very difficult case, Mr. Sheringham,” Moresby
pronounced. “Farrar had an open mind, of course, when he took it up,
and he kept an open mind even after he’d found out that Sir Eustace
was even a bit more of a daisy than he’d imagined at first. That is to
say, he never lost sight of the fact that it _might_ have been some
outside lunatic who sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace, just out of
a general socialistic or religious feeling that he’d be doing a favour
to society or Heaven by putting him out of the world. A fanatic, you
might say.”
“Murder from conviction,” Roger murmured. “Yes?”
“But naturally what Farrar was concentrating on was Sir Eustace’s
private life. And that’s where we police-officers are handicapped.
It’s not easy for us to make enquiries into the private life of a
baronet. Nobody wants to be helpful; everybody seems anxious to put a
spoke in our wheel. Every line that looked hopeful to Farrar led to a
dead end. Sir Eustace himself told him to go to the devil, and made no
bones about it.”
“Naturally, from his point of view,” Roger said thoughtfully. “The
last thing he’d want would be a sheaf of his peccadilloes laid out for
a harvest festival in court.”
“Yes, and Mrs. Bendix lying in her grave on account of them,” retorted
Moresby with asperity. “No, he was responsible for her death, though
indirectly enough I’ll admit, and it was up to him to be as helpful as
he could to the police-officer investigating the case. But there
Farrar was; couldn’t get any further. He unearthed a scandal or two,
it’s true, but they led to nothing. So—well, he hasn’t admitted this,
Mr. Sheringham, and you’ll realise I ought not to be telling you; it’s
to go no further than this room, mind.”
“Good heavens, no,” Roger said eagerly.
“Well then, it’s my private opinion that Farrar was driven to the
other conclusion in self-defence. And the chief had to agree with it
in self-defence too. But if you want to get to the bottom of the
business, Mr. Sheringham (and nobody would be more pleased if you did
than Farrar himself) my advice to you is to concentrate on Sir
Eustace’s private life. You’ve a better chance than any of us there;
you’re on his level, you’ll know members of his club, you’ll know his
friends personally, and the friends of his friends. And that,”
concluded Moresby, “is the tip I really came round to give you.”
“That’s very decent of you, Moresby,” Roger said with warmth. “Very
decent indeed. Have another spot.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” said Chief Inspector Moresby.
“I don’t mind if I do.”
Roger was meditating as he mixed the drinks. “I believe you’re right,
Moresby,” he said slowly. “In fact, I’ve been thinking along those
lines ever since I read the first full account. The truth lies in Sir
Eustace’s private life, I feel sure. And if I were superstitious,
which I’m not, do you know what I should believe? That the murderer’s
aim misfired and Sir Eustace escaped death for an express purpose of
Providence: so that he, the destined victim, should be the ironical
instrument of bringing his own intended murderer to justice.”
“Well, Mr. Sheringham, would you really?” said the sarcastic Chief
Inspector, who was not superstitious either.
Roger seemed rather taken with the idea. “_Chance, the Avenger._ Make
a good film title, wouldn’t it? But there’s a terrible lot of truth in
it.
“How often don’t you people at the Yard stumble on some vital piece of
evidence out of pure chance? How often isn’t it that you’re led to the
right solution by what seems a series of mere coincidences? I’m not
belittling your detective-work; but just think how often a piece of
brilliant detective-work which has led you most of the way but not the
last vital few inches, meets with some remarkable stroke of sheer luck
(thoroughly well-deserved luck, no doubt, but _luck_), which just
makes the case complete for you. I can think of scores of instances.
The Milsom and Fowler murder, for example. Don’t you see what I mean?
Is it chance every time, or is it Providence avenging the victim?”
“Well, Mr. Sheringham,” said Chief Inspector Moresby, “to tell you the
truth, I don’t mind what it is, so long as it lets me put my hands on
the right man.”
“Moresby,” laughed Roger, “you’re hopeless.”