The Dormy-house,
Paston Oatvile,
Binver
My dear Gordon,
Reeves has just been in to inform me that Davenant has been hung. A
laughable misconception, of course; he has not been hung, he has been
hanged.
I write as you asked me to write, to supply what information I can
about the actual course of events in connection with what is locally
called the Links Mystery. I have put it together with some difficulty;
part of it, of course, came out at the trial; part I had from Miss
Rendall-Smith, part from the priest at Paston Bridge, upon whom I
called specially for the purpose. A not unintelligent man, who seemed
to me to know more about the neighbourhood and the people who live
here than Marryatt will ever know. He was, of course, debarred by
professional scruples from telling me one or two things about which my
curiosity prompted me to ask, but he did not appear to be unduly
distressed about Davenant. “Depend upon it, Mr. Carmichael,” he said,
“there’s others do worse and never get found out. A nice, clean death
he’ll make of it. Goes to Communion every morning, you know—an example
to all of us.” I told him, of course, that I was not narrow-minded,
and could see good in all religions.
Well, the outlines of the thing seem to have been very simple indeed.
Davenant saw that Brotherhood meant to persecute the lady because of
the money, and determined to try and dissuade him. Brotherhood was
just leaving the office when Davenant reached it; Davenant hailed a
taxi, and followed him. Brotherhood did not go straight to the
station; he went to a flat somewhere out Chelsea way—no doubt this was
where he used to spend his weekends. No doubt he had decided that this
double life must come to an end, now that it was necessary for him to
live on his wife’s money, and therefore wanted to collect all his
personal effects. He came out in about ten minutes’ time, cramming an
old-fashioned watch into his waistcoat pocket—presumably, in the hurry
of the moment, he wound up this watch, which had been left about in
the flat, mistiming it by an hour. With the help of the taximan he
managed to get an enormous trunk on to the cab and then set out for
the station. He was nipping pretty freely from a flask in his pocket.
Davenant shadowed him all the way at a distance: he could not have
kept up with him if he had not heard his orders to the taxi-driver.
When he got to the station, Brotherhood bought a third-class ticket,
and crammed it in his waistcoat pocket. The purpose of this appeared
when he was having his trunk labelled—it was cheaper than paying
excess luggage. He had his season-ticket in his great-coat pocket. By
the way, why did we not question ourselves more over the singular fact
that Brotherhood’s body was found without umbrella or great-coat, on
such an inclement day? He got into a first-class carriage, already
occupied; and Davenant, seeing that there was no chance of a personal
interview, travelled third himself, always hoping that something would
turn up.
At Paston Oatvile something did turn up—Brotherhood got out of the
train decidedly the worse for drink. Davenant, it is clear, had up to
this time no sinister intentions, for he talked to one of the porters
when he alighted, and then went up to Brotherhood and hailed him as an
acquaintance. Brotherhood was far too muzzy to be afraid of him; he
hailed him as good old Davenant, and suggested that they should have a
drink between trains at the inn opposite the station. Davenant knew
that drinks were not served at that hour, but he accompanied him
willingly enough; they wasted a little time trying the door, and then
saw the train for Paston Whitchurch steaming out of the station. You
will observe that Brotherhood was by now artificially deprived of his
luggage. His box went on to Binver, so did his great-coat (with the
season-ticket in it) which he had thrown into the 4.50 from the
platform. Both were afterwards recovered by the police, but were of
little use to them.
Had Brotherhood been sober, he would have gone back to the station, no
doubt, so as to telegraph to Binver about his things. As it was, he
willingly fell in with Davenant’s suggestion that they should walk
across to Paston Whitchurch by the field path, crossing the valley by
the railway viaduct. They walked, then, through the fog, not much
behind the train; perhaps Davenant may even have suggested the
possibly of overtaking it if it were held up by the signals. They did
not, in fact, overtake it. Davenant began to commiserate with
Brotherhood upon his bankruptcy, at which Brotherhood became extremely
cheerful, and explained that he had a wife, a deuced fine woman, who
had got a lot of his money in her own name, and he was going back to
her. Davenant expostulated, threatened, implored; nothing would
disturb the drunkard’s irritating good temper. Finally, Brotherhood
became lyrical over the charms of his wife just as they began to cross
the viaduct. It was too much for Davenant; in a fit of disgusted rage,
he turned and threw his gross companion over the edge of the slope.
There was one startled cry, and then nothing but silence and the fog.
Up to that moment Davenant had no plans; he had not thought of murder
even as a contingency. It is true, he had to confess to having sent
the cipher warning: but this, he insisted, had been a mere threat; he
was anxious to prevent Brotherhood doing anything before he could have
a talk with him. By the way, Brotherhood was at home the week-end
before his death, contrary to his usual custom. Mrs. Bramston does not
abide our question, otherwise we might have elicited the fact from
her. Davenant travelled up in the same train with him, and saw him
beginning Momerie’s _Immortality_—that was on the Monday morning; he
bought a copy himself at the bookstall and sent the cipher to him,
thinking he would probably be still reading the same book the next
day. The whole idea of the cipher, he says, was a mere foolish whim on
his part.
He now found himself in urgent need of plans. He did not know whether
his victim was dead: yet it would be risky to go right down into the
valley, and perhaps find that a corpse had already been discovered. He
determined to go and hide until he got more news about this.
Meanwhile, the fog prevented him from seeing whether he had made a
clean job of it. He searched a little, and found Brotherhood’s hat a
little way down the slope; that meant that he had not fallen sheer—he
might have left his stick behind too as he fell. This, however,
Davenant could not see in the fog. He took the hat to the point at
which the viaduct railing began, and a little further, secure that
this, at any rate, would fall clear. He then measured a few yards
back, and dropped a golf-ball to mark the spot. He thought, you see,
that he might want to go back there in better weather and look for the
stick. Then he turned back along the line and took the path down to
the dormy-house. The fog was beginning to lift, but he met nobody. He
knew the secret passage from his boyhood, and thanked his stars that
he had never mentioned its existence to any one in the Club. He had a
confederate, of course, among the Club servants—Miss Rendall-Smith
says she thinks it was an old servant of his family’s; and this man,
whose name has never appeared, helped him to hide in the passage and
brought him, by arrangement with Sullivan, the necessities of living.
It was from our own conversation—a singular thought!—that he got most
of his news. His confinement, by the way, was not very irksome, since
he knew the habits of the members so well. He used to shave in the
Club washing-room, for example; and got pickings from the food that
went down to the kitchen. More than once, when he knew there was no
danger of interruption, he came out into the billiard-room and played
a game, right against left. He could keep in touch with all that went
on, and it was his intention, I gather, to come out of his
hiding-place in any case on the Saturday afternoon, play a round in
the evening, and go back to the Hatcheries that night as if nothing
had happened. That was, of course, when the verdict of suicide at the
inquest made it seem as if he was free from all suspicion.
But our proceedings bothered him badly. Especially the photograph; he
guessed from our talk that it must be Miss Rendall-Smith’s, and knew
that it was likely to direct attention to her. He did not hope to
steal it, because the loss would be too obvious, but he could not
resist putting his arm through the sliding panel while we were playing
Bridge and just taking a look at it. He had himself a photograph of
Miss Rendall-Smith in his pocket, taken at the same sitting: when he
first heard us talking about photographs, he pulled this out to make
sure he had not lost it; and when he had the second photograph in his
hands he switched on his electric torch for an instant (a risky thing
to do) and compared them. Then, in the dark, he put back the wrong one
by mistake.
Why he was so anxious to get back the copy of the cipher, he did not
explain. I fancy when he first contemplated the idea he imagined that
we had the original; and to that, as we shall see, he did attach
importance. But he did not think he took much risk when he purloined
the cipher and put it back again on finding it useless, or when he
came out at night to see what souvenirs of Brotherhood Reeves had got.
I think he was afraid of some fresh clue which might inculpate Miss
Rendall-Smith; and he imagined, of course, that the watch at the door
was the only thing he had to be frightened of.
It was only next morning that he found some of my chewing gum on his
trousers, and guessed that a trap had been laid for him. As soon as he
heard our movements upstairs he stepped out into the billiard-room,
and got his confederate to hide him somewhere in the servants’
quarters. It was when news was brought to him that the police were
investigating the cellar entrance that he really took alarm, and
decided to bolt for it. Even then he kept his head, and if Reeves had
been a little less close on his trail he would have come back quietly
to Paston Whitchurch on that slow train, and it would have been very
difficult to incriminate him. As it was, it was only a stiff
door-handle that gave him away.
It was Miss Rendall-Smith who explained to me the mysterious writing
on the back of the cipher. The words were, of course, explained by
what was written on the other half-sheet before the sheet was torn in
two. Miss Rendall-Smith showed me the full text of the thing, and I
confess that at first it meant nothing to me; you, no doubt, would
have taken the point with more readiness. Here it is, anyhow.
S O
C R
H aS socks
IntE rest
SheC hem
M aT tins.
It appears that this forms an acrostic, and is connected with some
kind of competition in the weekly papers. The two first words have not
been successfully identified, the four last have. All we saw on our
half-sheet was the non-significant termination of the last four words.
I took it to Lees-Jones—you remember Lees-Jones, our Acrostic
expert?—and he said it would have been very difficult to reconstruct
the original acrostic from these indications. Your critical faculty
will not fail to be delighted by the mistake we made in reading “rest”
as “vest,” simply because it came next to the word “socks,” which set
up a train of mental association.
It appears that Davenant used to toy with this peculiar sport, and
Miss Rendall-Smith occasionally helped him. On the Sunday before the
murder she sent him the answer, as far as she could decipher it, on a
full sheet of note-paper, and he tore off half of this when he wanted
to write the cipher message to Brotherhood. The writing was Miss
Rendall-Smith’s own, and I fancy it was purely through that, with the
help of the Post Office, that the police got on her track.
The sleeper-coupon was the most misleading clue of all. It appears
certain that Brotherhood himself did not know of his impending
bankruptcy when he applied for it, and merely intended a business
visit to Glasgow; indeed, he was expected there. The correction was
quite a genuine one, necessitated by an error on the part of the
clerk. And that, I think, finishes the list of enigmas. It was, of
course, Miss Rendall-Smith who sent the other wreath. And it was
Marryatt (I found out by tactful questioning) who took the copy of
Momerie from Reeves’ shelves—he was looking for material for his
evening sermon.
The only problem that remains to me is this—Do we really know in full
the part which Miss Rendall-Smith plays in the story? Davenant’s
excessive anxiety to keep her out of the whole business looks to me, I
confess, suspicious. But I know how you distrust theories; and perhaps
since Davenant was content to die in silence it would be ungenerous to
probe further. The police, certainly, have made no attempt to do so.
Reeves has never called on Miss R.-S., or heard from her.
Reeves himself, meanwhile, is entirely changed for the better. He has
forsworn detective work, and succeeded in doing the ninth in four. The
other day I actually heard him start a sentence with the words “When I
was a limpet in the War Office,” so I think there is hope for him yet.
I call him “Mordaunt Reeves, the Converted Detective.”
I hope you will excuse my typewriting this letter; its inordinate
length must be my apology. I hope we shall see you here again before
long, and have less stirring times together. My wife wishes to be
remembered to you very kindly; her rheumatism has almost disappeared.
Yours sincerely,
William Carmichael
Transcriber’s Notes
This transcription follows the text of the edition published by Simon
and Schuster, Inc. in 1926. The following alterations have been made
to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the text:
* “circumstancs” has been changed to “circumstance” (Chapter VII);
* “Reeve’s” has been changed to “Reeves’” (Chapter XII);
* “they’d thing it was” has been changed to “they’d think it was”
(Chapter XVI);
* “Marrayyatt’s” has been changed to “Marrayatt’s” (Chapter XXI);
* “Oatville” has been changed to “Oatvile” (Chapter XXIII).