The Nine Possible Solutions
The police machinery under Sir Clinton's control always worked
smoothly, even when its routine was disturbed by such unpredictable
events as murders. Almost automatically, it seemed, that big, flexible
engine had readjusted itself to the abnormal; the bodies of Hassendean
and the maid at Heatherfield had been taken into its charge and all
arrangements had been made for dealing with them; Heatherfield itself
had been occupied by a constabulary picket; the photographic
department had been called in to take “metric photographs” showing the
exact positions of the bodies in the two houses; inquiries had
ramified through the whole district as to the motor-traffic during the
previous night; and a wide-flung intelligence system was unobtrusively
collecting every scrap of information which might have a bearing on
this suddenly presented problem. Finally, the organism had projected a
tentacle to the relief of Inspector Flamborough, marooned at the
bungalow, and had replaced him by a police picket while arrangements
were being made to remove Mrs. Silverdale's body and to map the
premises.
“Anything fresh, Inspector?” Sir Clinton demanded, glancing up from
his papers as his subordinate entered the room.
“One or two more points cleared up, sir,” Flamborough announced, with
a certain satisfaction showing on his good-humoured face. “First of
all, I tried the lever of the window-hasp for finger-prints. There
weren't any. So that's done with. I could see you didn't lay much
stress on that part of the business, sir.”
The Chief Constable's nod gave acquiescence to this, and he waited for
Flamborough to continue.
“I've hunted for more blood-traces about the house; and I've found two
or three small ones—a track leading from the room to the front door.
There was less blood than I expected, though.”
He produced a blood-soaked handkerchief.
“This was picked up near the corner of Lauderdale Avenue, sir, this
morning after the fog cleared away. It has an H in one corner. You
remember we found no handkerchief on Hassendean's body. Evidently he
was using this one to staunch his wounds, and he probably let it drop
out of the car at the place where it was found. The doctor said there
might be very little external bleeding, you remember; and the
handkerchief's mopped up a fair amount of what happened to ooze out.”
Sir Clinton again acquiesced, and the Inspector proceeded.
“I've taken the finger-prints from all three bodies, sir. They're
filed for reference, if need be. And I've had a good look at that
side-window at the bungalow. There's no doubt that someone must have
been standing there; but the traces are so poor that nothing can be
done in the way of a permanent record.
“One can't even see the shape of the man's boot, let alone any fine
details.”
“Anything more?” Sir Clinton inquired. “You seem to have been fairly
putting your back into it.”
Flamborough's face showed his appreciation of the compliment implied
in the words.
“I've drafted an advertisement—worded it very cautiously of
course—asking Mr. Justice to favour us with some further information,
if he has any in stock. That's been sent off already; it'll be in the
_Evening Observer_ to-night, and in both the morning papers
to-morrow.”
“Good! Though I shouldn't get too optimistic over the results, if I
were you, Inspector.”
Flamborough assented to this. Putting his hand into his breast pocket
he produced a paper.
“Then I've got a report from Detective-Sergeant Yarrow. I sent him
down to the G.P.O. to find out about Mr. Justice's telegram. It's
impossible to get a description of the sender, sir. The telegram
wasn't handed in over the counter: it was dropped into a pillar box in
the suburbs in a plain envelope, along with the telegraph fee; and
when it was taken to the G.P.O. they simply telegraphed it to our
local office round the corner.”
“H'm!” said Sir Clinton. “There doesn't seem much likelihood of your
advertisement catching much, then. Mr. Justice is obviously a shy
bird.”
“He is indeed, sir, as you'll see in a moment. But I'll finish
Yarrow's report first, if you don't mind. When he heard this story at
the G.P.O., he asked for the postman who had brought in the envelope
and questioned him. It appears the thing was dropped into the
pillar-box at the corner of Hill Street and Prince's Street. That's
nowhere near the Lizardbridge Road, you remember—quite on the other
side of the town.”
“Five miles at least from the bungalow,” Sir Clinton confirmed. “Yes,
go on, Inspector.”
“The postman made his collection, which included this envelope, at 7
a.m. this morning. The previous collection from the same box was made
at 8 p.m. last night, Yarrow elicited.”
“Then all we really know is that the thing was dropped into the box
between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.”
“Yes, sir. Yarrow secured the original telegram form,” Flamborough
continued with a glance at the paper in his hand. “The envelope had
been torn open carelessly and dropped into a waste-basket; but Yarrow
succeeded in getting hold of it also. There's no doubt about its
identity, sir. Yarrow ascertained through whose hands the envelope and
the enclosure had passed while they were in charge of the Post Office;
and he persuaded all these people to let him have their finger-prints,
which he took himself on the spot. He then brought all his material
back here and had the envelope and its enclosure examined for
finger-prints; and the two documents were photographed after the
prints had been brought up on them with a powder.”
“And they found nothing helpful, I suppose?”
“Nothing, so far, sir. Every print that came out belonged to the
postman or the sorter, or the telegraphist. There wasn't one of them
that could belong to Mr. Justice.”
“I told you he was a shy bird, Inspector.”
The Inspector put his paper down on the desk before Sir Clinton.
“He's all that, sir. He hasn't even given us a scrap of his
handwriting.”
The Chief Constable leaned forward and examined the document. It was
an ordinary telegram despatch form, but the message: “_Try hassendean
bungalow lizardbridge road justice_,” had been constructed by gumming
isolated letters and groups of letters on to the paper. No handwriting
of any sort had been used.
Sir Clinton scanned the type for a moment, running his eye over the
official printed directions on the form as well.
“He's simply cut his letters out of another telegram blank,
apparently?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rather ingenious, that, since it leaves absolutely no chance of
identification. It's useless to begin inquiring where a telegraphic
blank came from, even if one could identify the particular sheet that
he's been using. He's evidently got one of these rare minds that can
see the obvious and turn it to account. I'd like to meet Mr. Justice.”
“Well, sir, it certainly doesn't leave much to take hold of, does it?
Yarrow's done his best; and I don't see how he could have done more.
But the result's just a blank end.”
Sir Clinton looked at his watch, took out his case and offered the
Inspector a cigarette.
“Sit down, Inspector. We're talking unofficially now, you'll note. I
think we might do worse than clear the decks in this business as far
as possible before we go any further. It may save time in the end.”
Inspector Flamborough thought he saw a trap in front of him.
“I'd like to hear what you think of it, sir.”
The Chief Constable's smile showed that he understood what was passing
in Flamborough's mind.
“I'd hate to ask a man to do something I didn't dare to do myself,” he
said, with a faint twinkle in his eye. “So I'll put my cards on the
table for you to look at. If the spirit moves you, Inspector, you can
do the same when your turn comes.”
The Inspector's smile broadened into something like a grin.
“Very good, sir. I understand that it's purely unofficial.”
“On the face of it,” Sir Clinton began, “two people got their deaths
at the bungalow last night. Young Hassendean didn't actually die
there, of course, but the shooting took place there.”
Flamborough refrained from interrupting, but gave a nod of agreement.
“Deaths by violence fall under three heads, I think,” the Chief
Constable pursued—“accident, suicide, and homicide, including murder.
Now at the bungalow you had two people put to death, and in each case
the death must have been due to one or other of these three causes.
Ever do permutations and combinations at school, Inspector?”
“No, sir,” Flamborough confessed, rather doubtfully.
“Well, taking the possible ways of two people dying one or other of
three different deaths, there are nine different arrangements. We'll
write them down.”
He drew a sheet of paper towards him, scribbled on it for a moment or
two, and then slid it across the table towards the Inspector.
Flamborough bent over and read as follows:
Hassendean Mrs. Silverdale
1.—Accident ..... Accident
2.—Suicide ...... Suicide
3.—Murder ....... Murder
4.—Accident ..... Suicide
5.—Suicide ...... Accident
6.—Accident ..... Murder
7.—Murder ....... Accident
8.—Suicide ...... Murder
9.—Murder ....... Suicide
“Now, since in that table we've got every possible arrangement which
theoretically could occur,” Sir Clinton continued, “the truth must lie
somewhere within the four corners of it.”
“Yes, _somewhere_,” said Flamborough in an almost scornful tone.
“If we take each case in turn, we'll get a few notions about what
_may_ have happened,” Sir Clinton pursued, unmoved by the Inspector's
obvious contempt for the idea. “But let's be clear on one or two
points to start with. The girl, so far as one can see at present, died
from poison and was shot in the head after death. Young Hassendean
died from pistol-shots, of which there were two. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Flamborough conceded without enthusiasm.
“Then let's take the cases as we come to them. Case 1: The whole thing
was accidental. To fit that, the girl must have swallowed a fatal dose
of poison, administered by mischance either by herself or by someone
else; and young Hassendean must either have shot himself twice by
accident—which sounds unlikely—or else some third party
unintentionally shot him twice over. What do you make of that?”
“It doesn't sound very convincing, sir.”
“Take Case No. 2, then: A double suicide. What about that?”
“These lovers’ suicide-pacts aren't uncommon,” the Inspector admitted.
“That might be near the truth. And I suppose he might have put a
bullet through her head before shooting himself, just in case the
poison hadn't worked.”
He drew a notebook from his pocket.
“Just a moment, sir. I want to make a note to remind me to see about
young Hassendean's pistol license, if he had one. I think he must have
had. I found a box and a half of ammunition in one of the drawers when
I was searching the house after you'd gone.”
Sir Clinton paused while the Inspector made his jotting.
“Now we can take the third case,” he continued, as Flamborough closed
his pocket-book. “It implies that Mrs. Silverdale was deliberately
poisoned and that young Hassendean was shot to death intentionally,
either by her before she died or by some third party.”
“Three of them seems more likely than two,” the Inspector suggested.
“There's the man who opened the window to be fitted in somewhere, you
know, and there were signs of a struggle, too.”
“Quite true, Inspector. I suppose you can fit the shot in Mrs.
Silverdale's head into the scheme also?”
Flamborough shook his head without offering any verbal comment on the
question.
“Then we'll take Case 4,” the Chief Constable pursued. “Mrs.
Silverdale deliberately poisoned herself, and young Hassendean came by
his end accidentally. In other words, he was shot by either Mrs.
Silverdale or by a third party—because I doubt if a man could shoot
himself twice over by accident.”
Flamborough shook his head again, more definitely this time.
“It doesn't sound likely, sir.”
Then his face changed.
“Wait a bit, though,” he added quickly: “If that's what happened, she
must have had a motive for suicide. Perhaps someone was on her track,
somebody pretty dangerous; and she saw the game was up. I don't
profess to know how that could happen. But if the man on her heels was
the fellow who did the work with the tourniquet at Heatherfield last
night, she might have thought poison an easier way out of things. It's
a possibility, sir.”
“It leaves us hunting for the clue to a purely hypothetical mystery,
though, Inspector, I'm afraid. I don't say you're wrong, of course.”
“I daresay it's complicated enough already,” Flamborough admitted
without prejudice. “Besides, this Case 4 of yours has another flaw in
it—several, in fact. Unless you take the idea I suggested, it's hard
to see why the girl should have had a supply of poison handy at all.
It sounds a bit wild. And you've got to assume that a third party shot
young Hassendean twice by accident, if a third party came into the
business at all. To my mind, that won't wash, sir. It's not good
enough. Whereas if it was a case of Mrs. Silverdale shooting him by
accident, there was no need for her to commit suicide because of that.
No one knew she was here. She could simply have walked out of the
front door and got clear away with no questions asked. And if she'd
already taken poison, she wouldn't need to shoot herself in the head,
would she?”
“Grave objections,” Sir Clinton admitted. It amused him to see the
Inspector entering so keenly into the game. “Now we proceed to Case
5.”
“Oh, Case 5 is just bunkum,” the Inspector pronounced bluntly. “She
gets accidentally poisoned; then she gets accidentally shot; then
young Hassendean suicides. It's too thick altogether.”
“I like the concise way you put it,” Sir Clinton answered with
simulated admiration. “So we go on to No. 6, eh? She was deliberately
murdered and he was accidentally shot. What about that?”
“I'd want to see some motive for the murder, sir, before accepting
that as a possible basis. And if she was deliberately poisoned, what
was the good of young Hassendean dragging her off to the bungalow?
That would throw suspicion straight on to him if he poisoned
her. . . .”
Flamborough broke off and seemed to think hard for a moment or two.
“That's a fresh line,” he exclaimed suddenly. “I've been assuming all
along that either she or young Hassendean used the poison. But it
might have been a third party. I never thought of it in that light,
sir.”
He pondered again, while Sir Clinton watched his face.
“It might have been someone else altogether, if the poison was a
slow-acting one. Someone at Heatherfield perhaps.”
“There was only one available person at Heatherfield just then,” Sir
Clinton pointed out.
“You mean the maid, sir? Of course! And that might help to account for
her death, too. It might be a case of Judge Lynch, sir. Somebody
squaring the account without bothering us about it.”
New horizons seemed to be opening up in the Inspector's mind.
“I'll admit there's something in this method of yours, after all,
sir,” he conceded gracefully.
“I like your ‘after all,’ Inspector. But at any rate you seem to find
the method suggestive, which is something, at least.”
“It certainly puts ideas into one's mind that one mightn't have
thought about otherwise. What about the next case?”
“Case 7? That's the converse of the last one. He was shot deliberately
and she died by accident. What about it?”
“That would mean, sir, that either she took an overdose of the drug by
mistake or someone gave her a fatal dose, ditto. Then either she or a
third party shot young Hassendean.”
“Something of the sort.”
“H'm! It's no worse than some of the other suggestions. I wonder,
now. . . . She didn't look like a dope-fiend, so far as I could see;
but she might have been just a beginner and taken an overdose by
accident. Her eye-pupils were pretty wide-open. That wouldn't fit in
with her snuffing morphine or heroin, but she might have been a
cocaine addict, for all we know. . . . This method of yours is very
stimulating, sir. It makes one think along fresh lines.”
“Well, have another think, Inspector. Case 8: he suicided and she was
murdered.”
“That brings us up against the missing motive again, sir. I'd like to
think over that later on.”
“Case 9, then: He was murdered and she committed suicide. What about
that?”
“Let me take it bit by bit, sir. First of all, if he was murdered,
then either she did it or a third party did it. If she did it, then
she might have premeditated it, and had her dose of poison with her,
ready to swallow when she'd shot young Hassendean. That's that. If a
third party murdered young Hassendean, she might have suicided in
terror of what was going to happen to her; but that would imply that
she was carrying poison about with her. Also, this third party—whoever
he was—must have had his knife pretty deep in both of them. That's one
way of looking at it. But there's another side to the thing as well.
Suppose it was one of these suicide-pacts and she took the poison as
her part of the bargain; then, before he can swallow his dose, the
third party comes on the scene and shoots him. That might be a
possibility.”
“And the third party obligingly removed the superfluous dose of
poison, for some inscrutable reason of his own, eh?”
“H'm! It seems silly, doesn't it?”
“Of course, unlikely things do happen,” Sir Clinton admitted. “I'm no
stickler for probability in crime. One so seldom finds it.”
Flamborough took his notebook from his pocket and entered in it a copy
of Sir Clinton's classification.
“I'll have another think about this later on,” he said, as he finished
writing. “I didn't think much of it when you showed it to me at first,
but it certainly seems to be one way of getting a few ideas to test.”
“Now let's look at the thing from another point of view,” Sir Clinton
suggested. “Assume that young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale were in
the room of the bungalow. There were traces of somebody at the
side-window, and someone certainly broke the glass of the front
window. By the way, Inspector, when you went over young Hassendean's
clothes finally last night, did you find a key-ring or anything of
that sort?”
“He had a few keys—the latchkey of Ivy Lodge, and one or two more.”
“You'll need to make sure that the key of the bungalow was amongst
them, because if it wasn't, then he may have had to break in—which
would account for the window. But I'm pretty certain he didn't do
that. He'd been up beforehand with these flowers in the afternoon,
getting the place ready. It's most improbable that he hadn't the key
of the front door with him.”
“I'll see to it,” the Inspector assured him.
“In the meantime, just let's assume that the broken window represents
the work of a third party. What do you make of things on that basis?”
“What is there to make out of them except one thing?” Flamborough
demanded. “At the side window you had somebody whom you christened
Peeping Tom; at the front window was a second person who got so
excited that he broke into the room. You're not trying to make out
that these two characters were filled by one person, are you, sir?
There would be no point in Peeping Tom leaving his window and walking
round to the front one before breaking in. Either window was good
enough for that. He'd no need to shift his ground.”
“No,” Sir Clinton assured him in a thoughtful tone, “I wasn't looking
at it from that angle. I was merely wondering where Mr. Justice came
in.”
“You mean whether he was Peeping Tom or t'other?”
“Something of that sort,” the Chief Constable answered. Then, changing
the subject, he added: “What bits of information are you going to hunt
for next, Inspector?”
Flamborough ran over some points in his mind and cleared his throat
before speaking.
“First of all, I want to know what this poison was, where it came
from, and how long it takes to act. I expect to get something from the
P.M. results, and we can always send some of the organs for analysis.”
Sir Clinton nodded his agreement.
“I think we'll get two people on to that part of the thing
independently. Say a London man and perhaps one of the chemists at the
Croft-Thornton Institute here. We'll need to see this fellow Markfield
in any case, just to check the statements that Ringwood gave us, and
when we're doing that we can find out if there's anyone capable of
doing the analysis for us. Perhaps Markfield himself might take it
on.”
The Inspector, seeing that Sir Clinton was waiting for him to
continue, proceeded with his list of evidence required.
“I'll put Yarrow on to the matter of young Hassendean's pistol
license. That won't take long to look up, and it will help to clinch
the fact that it really was his pistol that we found on the floor. I
don't suppose for a moment that it was brought in from the outside.
The loose ammunition in the drawer seems convincing on that point.”
“I'm quite with you there,” Sir Clinton admitted.
“Then I want to look into the maid's affairs and see if she had any
grudge against Mrs. Silverdale. It's a pity the second maid's so ill.
We can't get anything out of her for a while, I'm afraid. And I want
her for another thing: to see if Mrs. Silverdale doped herself at all.
But I expect, if she did, that I'll be able to pick up some hint of it
somewhere or other. And of course, if the poison turns out to be a
non-dope kind, that line of inquiry drops into a subsidiary place.”
“Yes?” the Chief Constable encouraged him.
“Then I'll send a man up to try the keys we found in young
Hassendean's pocket on the lock of the bungalow door, just to clear up
the broken window matter. That won't take long.”
“And then?”
“Well, I suppose I'll need to make a try at finding out who Peeping
Tom was and also your Mr. Justice.”
“Quite a lot of suggestions you seem to have extracted from my little
list of possibilities, Inspector. I think you owe it an apology for
the rather contemptuous way you approached it at first.”
“Well, sir, it's been more suggestive than I expected, I admit.”
“One thing's certain, Inspector. The solution of the affair must lie
somewhere on that little table. It's simply a matter of picking out
the proper case. The odds at most are eight to one and they're really
less than that if one discards some of the very improbable
combinations.”
The desk-telephone rang sharply, and Sir Clinton listened to the
message.
“That interests you, Inspector. A report's come in that Mr. Silverdale
came home and has gone down to the Croft-Thornton. He mentioned where
he was going to the constable in charge at Heatherfield, and he very
thoughtfully suggested that as the Croft-Thornton is quite near here,
it would be easy for us to interview him there if we desired to do so.
The perfect little gentleman, in fact. Well, what about it,
Inspector?”
“I suppose I'd better go at once,” Flamborough proposed after a glance
at his watch.
“I think I'll include myself in the invitation,” Sir Clinton
volunteered. “And, by the way, you'd better take that fly-in-the-amber
cigarette-holder with you, if they've finished with it downstairs.
Young Hassendean was working at the Croft-Thornton and someone there
may be able to identify it for us if it was his. I'm not anxious to
trouble his relations in the matter.”
“Very good, sir,” Flamborough acquiesced. “You'll want your car. I'll
give the order for it now.”