The Movements of Mr. Davenant
Gordon felt that he was in a favourable position for inquiring into
the whereabouts of the mysterious Mr. Davenant. He was himself little
known at Paston Whitchurch, since he had only been a month at the
dormy-house, and his walks abroad had not carried him much farther
than the links. On the other hand, he knew a good deal, from club
gossip, about the habits of Mr. Davenant. The Hatcheries was not one
of the red-tile-and-rough-cast monuments with which a modern architect
had improved the scenery in the neighbourhood of the links; it was a
substantial cottage where, in grander days, the home fisherman of
Paston Oatvile Park used to live, and look after all that was liquid
in the property. It was now occupied permanently by a morose gentleman
called Sullivan, who acted as green-keeper to the Club and did a
little market gardening at home, and occasionally (that is, during the
week-ends) by the scratch player and mystery man, Mr. Davenant.
Legally speaking, the cottage was Davenant’s property and Sullivan was
the caretaker; actually, it would be a clearer account of the position
to say that Sullivan rented the cottage from Davenant, and Davenant,
every week-end, became the lodger of his own tenant.
It was, then, as a member of the Club that Gordon must approach his
interview with Mr. Sullivan, and he was not left much choice of
disguises or of excuses. He decided that on the whole bluff would pay
best. Accordingly, as soon as Sullivan opened the door in answer to
his ring, he began:
“Did Mr. Davenant leave any message for me this morning before he
left?”
“What’s that?”
“I met Mr. Davenant yesterday on the platform, and tried to make some
arrangements with him about having a game next Sunday, and he said
he’d leave a note for me at the dormy-house, but it isn’t there, so I
thought perhaps he’d left it here instead. Did he say anything to you
about it?”
“He did not. It’s not since Monday morning I’ve set eyes on Mr.
Davenant.”
“But he was here yesterday, surely?”
“He was not.”
“That’s very extraordinary, because I met him on the train, and I
certainly understood him to say he was coming here. Could he possibly
have been staying at the Club-house?”
“He might.”
“Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you. Good evening.”
Gordon had the definite impression that when Sullivan came to the door
he was not simply answering the bell; there had been no time for him
to hear the bell—he had been going out anyhow. There was a thick hedge
at the end of the path which led to the Hatcheries; and behind this
hedge, I am sorry to say, Gordon concealed himself. He was the most
placid and regular of men, but the ardour of the hunt was beginning to
lay hold of him. It was only about a minute and a half later that
Sullivan came out, carrying a small bag, and took the path that led to
the links. For a moment the watcher thought of shadowing him, then
decided that it would be silly. If he went over the golf-links, the
open ground would make it quite impossible to follow without being
noticed; besides, the links would be full of people whom he knew, and
he might easily get delayed. He resolved suddenly on a still more
heroic course. Nobody else lived in the cottage—why not try to force
an entrance while Sullivan was out, and satisfy himself on
circumstantial evidence whether Davenant had really been in the
cottage or not?
Breaking into a house is, as a rule, a difficult proceeding, even if
it is your own and you know the ropes. To break into a stranger’s
house, when you are not even certain whether a dog is kept; is a still
more heroic affair. The door had locked itself; the ground-floor
windows were shut and snibbed. The only chance seemed to be crawling
up the roof of a little outhouse and through an open window on the
first floor; a bathroom window, to judge by the ample sponge which was
drying on the sill. With rubber on his shoes, Gordon made a fairly
good job of the outhouse roof. The window was a more serious
proposition; it was very narrow, and encumbered on the inside by an
array of little bottles. It is easy to put your head and shoulders
through such a window, but that means a nose-dive on to the floor. To
put your legs through first is to court the possibility of promiscuous
breakage. Very carefully Gordon removed all fragile objects out of
range, and then with extreme discomfort squeezed his legs through the
opening. Even so, there was a moment at which he felt his back must
necessarily break, when he was just half-way through. Landing at last
without misfortune, he set out quickly on a tour of the silent
cottage.
It was only Davenant’s part of the house that interested him—the
bathroom, a bedroom, a small dining-room, and a study. They all bore
the marks of recent inhabitation; but was this anything to go by?
Davenant, in any case, would not be expected back for a week, and
Sullivan did not strike Gordon as the kind of man who would be
inclined to tidy up on Monday when Friday would do just as well. The
bed, indeed, was made; but the grate in the study had not been cleared
of cigarette-ends; the dining-room table was bare, but Monday’s paper
was still lying across a chair, as if thrown down at random. On the
whole the evidence pointed to Monday as the day of departure; Monday,
not Tuesday, appeared on a tear-off calendar; a letter which had
arrived on Monday evening was still waiting in the hall; and there
were no clothes left in the dirty-clothes basket. Such an authority
did Gordon feel himself to be on the subject of washing since his
experiences at Binver that he investigated equally the clothes which
had come back from the wash, and the list which accompanied them. And
here was a curious phenomenon; the list referred to two collars, two
handkerchiefs, and a pair of socks as having been disgorged by the
Binver authorities, but none of these seemed to have crystallized in
real life. “Binver is doing itself proud,” murmured Gordon to himself,
“or could it possibly be——” He went and looked in the bathroom again:
there was the sponge all right, which seemed to insist that Davenant
kept a duplicate series of what the shops call toilet accessories; but
where was the razor, the shaving soap, the tooth-brush? It seemed,
after all, as if Davenant had packed for the week instead of leaving a
duplicate week-end set behind him. But—Good Lord! This was still more
curious. There was no soap in the bathroom, although there were traces
of its presence still discernible. Surely no one packing after a
week-end in the country took the soap with him? The face-towel, too,
was gone; yet the face-towel was distinctly mentioned in the
washing-list. No, decidedly there was something wrong about Davenant’s
exit.
Another curious thing—there was every evidence that Davenant was a
smoker, and yet not a cigarette, not a pipe, not an ounce of tobacco
left in the study. Of course, it was possible that Sullivan was very
tidy and put them away somewhere, or that he was dishonest, and
treated them as perquisites. But once more Gordon had the impression
that Davenant had packed like a man who is leaving his base, not like
a man who has just week-ended at a Saturday-to-Monday cottage. Like a
man going abroad, even, or why did he take the soap with him? One
piece of supplementary evidence was to be found in the study. A large
and highly ornamented photograph frame stood on the writing-table
there; but it had no photograph in it, and the back was unfastened, as
if the portrait had been recently and suddenly removed. If
circumstantial evidence went for anything, it seemed clear that when
Davenant left the house last—apparently on Monday—he left it in the
spirit of a man who does not expect to return immediately, and carries
all his immediate needs with him.
So far the investigation had proceeded, when Gordon happened to look
out of a front window, and was discomposed by observing that Sullivan
was coming back already down the lane. There was no time to be lost;
he hastily ran downstairs and out at the front door. It would be
taking a considerable risk to trust to the mazes of the back garden,
and he decided to make for the hedge. But before he could reach it,
Sullivan turned the corner into the garden-path and confronted him.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, on the inspiration of the moment, “but could
you tell me what Mr. Davenant’s address is? I shall have to write to
him, and this is the only address they’ve got up at the Club.”
“Mr. Davenant left no address,” said Sullivan, and, try as he would,
Gordon could not determine whether there was suspicion in his tone.
However, the awkward corner was turned, and it was with some feeling
of self-congratulation that he made his way back to the dormy-house.
He came back to find Reeves closeted with Marryatt and Carmichael, to
whom he was explaining the whole story of their adventures. “I hope
you won’t think it a breach of confidence,” was his explanation, “but
the last disappointment I’ve had has made me feel that we must be on
the wrong tack somewhere; and it’s no good for us two to try and
correct each other. It’s like correcting the proofs of a book; you
must get an outsider in to do it. So I thought, as Marryatt and
Carmichael were with us at the start, it would be best to take them
fully into our confidence, and make a foursome of it.”
“Delighted,” said Gordon. “I’ve been prospecting a bit, but I can’t
say I’ve got much forrarder.”
“Did you ask whether Davenant was there yesterday?”
“Yes, I interviewed Sullivan on the subject, and he said ‘No.’”
“That I can’t believe,” said Carmichael.
“Why, what about it?” asked Gordon, a little ruffled.
“I’m sure Sullivan didn’t say ‘No.’ Have you never observed that an
Irishman is incapable of saying yes or no to a plain question? If you
say, Has the rain stopped, he won’t say Yes, or No; he’ll say, It has,
or It hasn’t. The explanation of that is a perfectly simple one: there
is no native word for either in Irish, any more than there is in
Latin. And that in its turn throws a very important light on the Irish
character——”
“Oh, go and throw an important light on your grandmother’s ducks,”
said Reeves. “I want to hear about this interview. Was he telling the
truth, d’you think?”
“From his manner, I thought not. So, when his back was turned, I made
bold to enter the house and take a look round for myself.” And he
described the evening’s entertainment in detail.
“By Jove, you are warming to the part,” said Marryatt. “I should like
to see you get run in by the police, Gordon.”
“You say,” Reeves interrupted, “that you don’t think he was there
yesterday, on the Tuesday, that is, because he hadn’t taken the letter
away. He went off, then, on Monday, but when he went off he took with
him all that a man normally takes with him if he’s going to sleep in a
different house that night, plus a piece of soap and a towel, which
are not things one usually carries about in one’s luggage?”
“That’s the best I can make of it,” said Gordon. “And the
photograph—it might be an accident, of course, but I feel convinced
that he put that in his luggage at the last moment.”
“And that’s frightfully important,” said Reeves, “because it obviously
means that on Monday, before anything happened to Brotherhood,
Davenant was reckoning on leaving home for some little time; and not
returning immediately to wherever it is he lives ordinarily, because
he must keep collars and things there. But he also thought he might be
away for some longish time, or he wouldn’t have worried to take the
photograph with him. What was the frame like?”
“Quite modern; no maker’s name on it.”
“I’m afraid that means the murder must have been a premeditated one,”
put in Marryatt. “I hope it’s not uncharitable to say so, but I never
did like Davenant. I don’t think I’m ordinarily a person of very
narrow religious views, and I’ve known Romans that were quite easy to
get on with. But Davenant was a person of quite ungovernable temper,
you must remember that.”
“His ungovernable temper would be much more important,” objected
Gordon, “if the murder were not a premeditated one.”
“But it’s not only that,” persisted Marryatt. “To me, there was always
something sinister about him; he had fits of melancholy, and would
rail at the people and the politicians he didn’t like in a way that
was almost frightening. Surely I’m not alone in that impression?”
“What did Davenant look like?” asked Carmichael suddenly.
“Good Lord,” said Reeves, “you ought to remember that well enough. You
must have met him down here pretty well every week-end, and he was
quite well known.”
“Oh yes,” explained Carmichael. “I know what he looked like. I’m only
asking you to see if _you_ remember. If you were asked in a
witness-box, what would you say Davenant looked like?”
“Well,” said Reeves, rather taken aback, “I suppose one would
certainly say he was very dark. Very dark hair, I mean, and a great
deal of it, so that it made the rest of his face rather unnoticeable.
What I generally notice about a man is his eyes, and I never got much
impression of Davenant’s, because he nearly always wore those heavy
horn-rimmed spectacles. And then of course he was a rattling good
player. If he murdered Brotherhood, as Marryatt seems positive he did,
I can tell you one motive that I can’t accept for his doing it. He
wasn’t jealous of Brotherhood’s golf. Poor old Brotherhood was about
as rotten as Davenant is good.”
“It’s very extraordinary to me,” said Carmichael, “that you should say
all that, and yet not have arrived at the obvious fact about this
mystery. The root fact, I mean, which you have to take into account
before you start investigating the circumstances at all. You simply
haven’t seen that fact, although it’s right under your nose. And
that’s a very curious thing, the way you can look at a complex of
facts ninety-nine times, and only notice the point of them the
hundredth time. The phenomenon of attention——”
“Oh, cut it out,” said Gordon; “what _is_ the fact we haven’t
noticed?”
“Oh, that,” said Carmichael lightly, “merely that Brotherhood is
Davenant, and Davenant is Brotherhood.”