“At last!” Michael said, as Wilson entered their sitting-room at the
Old Malting House very late for dinner next day. “We were just going
to begin without you. Any news?” He was sitting with Edna Loring and
Mark Warden, who had been invited to celebrate Wilson’s last evening
in Essex.
“Potts has decided to confess,” Wilson replied. “That’s what kept me.
But that, coupled with Kershaw’s statement, gives the Crown a very
easy job.”
“Then may we hear what really happened?” Warden begged. “There are
so many red herrings flying about, that one doesn’t know what to
believe.”
“Oh, Mark!” Edna reproached him. “Do let Mr. Wilson get something to
eat first. He looks absolutely worn out. And besides--I want to know
how he did it.”
“Beer,” said Wilson. “Lots of beer. Then I’ll tell you.”
It was not, however, until the meal was finished, and they were
leaning back comfortably in their chairs, that he began his story.
“The real trouble about this case was that it was not one, but
two--the misappropriation of your funds, Warden, and the murder
of Meston. Kershaw was the only link between them, and he was
practically an accidental link--except that his moral habits and
the financial difficulties which in part arose out of them no doubt
helped him to fall an easier prey to Loring.
“At first sight, Hanborough, I’ll admit, appeared to me much the
likeliest culprit, after my first meeting with you, Warden. It was
too much to believe that the senior partner had not been able to find
out in several months who was tampering with his funds, and it was
pretty clear that all his efforts had been directed to keeping you
and Meston off the trail. The obvious conclusion was that Meston had
found out more than he should, and had to be killed. But then--how
did Kershaw come in? From the moment we discovered the cause of
death, and still more from the date of the inquest, it became clear
that Kershaw _could not_ conceivably be innocent--no innocent man
could have been so careless. And the murderer, further, seemed to
require an accomplice. But what had Kershaw to do with Hanborough? I
could find no connection--nor any motive for Kershaw to act on his
own.
“I hadn’t, naturally, lost sight of the other possible motive--which,
of the two, was most likely, on the face of it, to lead to murder,
since nothing but Meston’s death would suffice to set his wife
free. The difficulty there was that there seemed to be such an
embarrassment of persons to choose from, and, until we heard of John
Loring’s return, no reason to pick one rather than another. There was
for a start, Burden, Mackenzie, Leslie Buckton--and Godfrey Loring.”
“What? You suspected Godfrey--then!” The question came from Edna.
“No; I certainly couldn’t say that,” said Wilson, searching for
phrases in which to clothe his opinions of Godfrey without too much
hurting Godfrey’s sister. “I had merely noticed him when he came to
pick up Mrs. Meston, and again at the inquest, and had observed that
he was obviously in love with her, and that he would be a dangerous
man to cross. I wondered for how long his affections had been
directed to that quarter--whether possibly it was before his brother
departed for China----”
“I think it was,” Edna said. “I wondered once or twice--but I wasn’t
paying much attention. And Godfrey never said a word. But do you
mean--did you think he would have killed John?”
“No. I only thought that possibly he might have had something to do
with his sudden flight, which appeared to have taken every one by
surprise. And I also thought it odd that in all this hive of gossip
nobody seemed to have coupled his name with Mrs. Meston’s. This
seemed to suggest he was keeping his feelings very dark, which, with
a man of his type, is apt to lead to an explosion. That was all.
“Then came Machin’s story, Mrs. Meston’s flight, and all the other
evidence against John Loring. Mrs. Meston, of course, had clearly
run away either to avoid questioning or to warn her lover--both, as
it turned out; and it looked as though things were going to arrange
themselves very blackly for him. You will remember that it was on the
same day that we discovered--or thought we discovered,” he smiled at
Edna, “that Hanborough had an alibi for the critical period.
“Well, it began to work out very neatly, for a time. But somehow I
didn’t quite trust it. The crime, you see, was so premeditated that
it was rather difficult to fit John Loring, from what people said
of him, into the part, even with Kershaw to help him. I couldn’t
convince myself; and, when I actually saw the young man, I was less
convinced than ever. I saw, not the callous, clever young desperado
who would have been necessary, but a hot-headed, indiscreet youth who
was obviously in despair of the world, but who was yet determined
to keep silence on some vital point. I deduced a final quarrel with
his young woman and a determination to keep her name out of it; and
eventually Sylvia Meston kindly told me I was right. But it didn’t
add up to a murderer.
“Then I began to notice one or two other things. I noticed, first,
that Godfrey Loring had been very anxious to inform the police
of his brother’s whereabouts; then--from his correspondence with
Kershaw--that he had some close and unpleasant connection with the
latter. When Mrs. Meston turned up again, she further informed me
that Godfrey was very anxious to ‘protect’ her, and--which was more
important--that he had deliberately advised her to leave the place,
to write a very stupid, incriminating letter to Brandreth, and sent
her very carefully to an address where he knew John Loring could not
possibly be. Of course, at this stage I’d nothing like proof against
him, and really very little general grounds of suspicion.
“Then came something more concrete. Lockwood, you know, was in the
habit of discussing the case regularly with the Squire as chairman
of the bench, and one of my great difficulties at that stage was
that I dared not breathe a whisper of my suspicions to the Chief
Constable. In one of these conversations, Lockwood let out that I was
unsatisfied with the evidence against John, chiefly because there
was nothing, at the place where he met Mrs. Meston, to indicate
that it was the scene of the crime. At this point, I fear, we must
say definitely that Godfrey Loring had decided to fix the crime on
his brother--whose return, of course, had made Meston’s murder quite
useless to him. He then hit on the idea of a duplicate rope, which
Potts was instructed to ‘find’ and bring in. We have the name of the
man who sold Potts the rope. Potts, however, who acted throughout
with a loyalty worthy of a better cause, unfortunately chose to
hide the rope in a spot which I happened to have actually searched
myself; so that, as soon as I came to think things over, I realised
that whether or not the rope were the rope we were looking for, its
finding by the alder stump was a plant. This, of course, implicated
Potts, and probably Potts’s master, and I began to ask myself, as I
ought to have done long ago, why, if the murder had been committed up
at the boathouse, nobody had noticed the body on its way down-stream.
At this point, I was able to evolve a fair idea of how the crime
might have been committed, though I could not get anything in the way
of proof until I found it in the loft.”
“And how was it committed?” Michael asked.
“Pretty much as I suggested yesterday. According to Potts, the
plot was laid as soon as it was known that Meston had taken up his
quarters at the Old Malting House. Potts was brought in, by the way,
because he was known to have himself a deep-seated private grievance
against Meston, who had interfered a long time before in one of his
village amours.”
“Meston’s crusades on behalf of public morals seem to have served him
singularly ill,” Michael observed. “Didn’t he win Kershaw’s ill-will
by somewhat the same means?”
“He did. He was one of those unfortunate people, poor fellow, who
gain nothing but unpopularity for themselves. And Potts never
forgot--he has that patient vindictiveness which is so often the
other side of animal loyalty.
“Well, the pulley was purchased and got into place some days
beforehand, and the date of the murder fixed to coincide with that
of the party, when it was hoped that nobody’s absence for an hour or
two would be noticed. Some time between midnight and one o’clock, the
murderers got into the inn, and Potts woke up Meston with the story
that his wife was injured at the Grange and asking for him. Meston
(who must have packed his bag over-night, though where he was going
we shall never know) got up and dressed; and when they thought they’d
given him long enough, they let down that chestnut which puzzled you
so, Michael, and tapped on his window with it. He looked out; they
called him from above; and Loring, who is a good hand with a lasso,
dropped the rope over his head. When he was dead they tied the trunk
to him, and let him down, as they thought, to everlasting oblivion in
the river. But they forgot the pier.”
“And _Godfrey_--_Godfrey_ did all this? And then tried to get John
hanged for it!” Edna whispered.
“I’m afraid,” said Wilson, with deeper sympathy in his tone than in
his words, “that he did. You must remember that one crime is almost
bound to lead to another, by the mere efforts of the criminal to
extricate himself. And I feel, though I don’t know the facts, that
the Squire’s past cannot but have led up directly to his attack on
Meston.”
“Yes, I--I think it did,” Edna said, very low. It was obvious that
she had had few illusions about her brother, though their sudden
final shattering could not but have been a heavy blow. Warden put his
arm round her without speaking, and Michael, to ease the tension,
asked, “But how about Kershaw? How did he come in?”
“He was the witness. That is to say, he was coming from his house
to Billings’s cottage, along the tow-path, when he looked up at
Meston’s lighted window, and saw the owner looking out. Then he saw
the lasso come down, and catch the man and draw him up--in fact, he
saw the whole thing, though, of course, it was too dark to recognise
the actors. He went round to the Old Malting House, intending,
possibly, to give the alarm, and on the way met Warden. No wonder
he was looking shaken when you saw him, Warden, after assisting at
such a show! But when he got to the inn, he saw Potts and the Squire
creeping out by the side-door, and it was pretty obvious they’d been
up to something. So he tackled Loring at once, and Loring, not having
had any idea, of course, that he had been observed, was for once in
his life at a loss. Eventually he offered Kershaw five hundred pounds
to hold his tongue--I can’t tell you at the moment which side that
suggestion came from, and quite possibly we shall never know. He
had Kershaw half under his thumb already, you see, because of that
incident of which John Loring told us.
“The blackmail was duly paid, and Kershaw began to think himself in
clover. He knew how wealthy Godfrey Loring was, and he had visions
of milking him until he had not merely cleared his debts, but made
enough to set him on his feet somewhere else. Then, however, came the
news of the finding of the body by the Old Malting House. Kershaw
was in a panic, knowing perfectly well that Loring, if brought to
trial, would not hesitate a moment to give him away. And when he got
to the river, and found an inquisitive fellow-practitioner fiddling
about with the corpse, he absolutely lost his head, and faked a blow,
trusting to Lockwood’s obtuseness to enable him to carry it through.
Then, on the strength of having made assurance doubly sure, he tried
to get more money out of Loring, who obligingly pointed out that he
had merely put his own head also in the noose. The rest I think you
know.”
“Then my partner had nothing to do with it?” Warden asked.
“Nothing whatever, beyond acting as a red herring.”
“Will they catch him?”
“Personally, I doubt it. Your partner’s a very clever man,
Warden--clever, I mean, not merely ingenious. He all but succeeded in
putting your firm on its feet again, and he must have had plans all
ready laid to disappear in case of necessity. Inspector Bille delayed
his blow just twenty-four hours too long. I’m afraid that’s very hard
on you.”
“Not quite as bad as I expected,” Warden said. “You see, as a matter
of fact, Nick _had_ put some things right before he went. It wasn’t
the funds, but finding out that people were on his trail about the
other thing, that made him levant. He was really going to have
straightened up, I’m sure--and some of it had been straightened
already. And, since it all came out, people have been frightfully
decent--I’m sure I don’t know why. Coxwell, for instance, is giving
me another chance, and so on. You know, I suppose it’s awfully wrong
of me, but I can’t help hoping Nick won’t be caught. I’m afraid I
liked him--there’s something sporting about him, and I should just
hate to have to go and give evidence against him.”
“But surely,” Michael said hastily, to avoid a discussion on the
ethics of this view, “you’ll be a bit put to it for cash, won’t you?”
“Well, as to that,” Warden looked at Edna and blushed very pink, “I
am marrying what they call an heiress, aren’t I, darling? And John,
who’ll--who’ll come into a lot more money--is being frightfully
generous. Of course, I should be quite in the soup if it wasn’t for
them.”
“It’s a mercy the money will be some use to somebody at last,” said
Edna. “It never has been yet. And if it hadn’t been for Mr. Wilson,
it wouldn’t be now. I do think you’re perfectly marvellous, Mr.
Wilson. I can’t imagine how you did it.”
“I very nearly didn’t do it, Miss Loring,” Wilson said. “Another hour
or so, and I should have been too late. And there’s one thing that
riles me still.”
“What’s that?” Michael asked curiously.
“Brandreth! I never got even with that old devil. He had the laugh
right up to the end.”
“Do you think he was mixed up in it?” Warden asked.
“In the murder--no. But he was a fairly close friend of your
Hanborough’s, and I’m pretty certain he knew a lot more than he ever
told about his affairs. I shouldn’t be really surprised, you know,
if he had actually assisted in concealing Hanborough--perhaps on that
occasion when he bolted from you, Michael, to keep a caller out of
his house. But that’s all guesswork. There’s not a thing on him; and
unless Hanborough is caught and explains fully--two very unlikely
contingencies--there isn’t going to be. I’m afraid Brandreth has
given us best.”
“Well,” said Michael, “each to his trade. You’ve got the glory, and
he’s had his joke. What more do you want?”
“Immediately,” said Wilson, stretching himself, “a whisky. Then, I
think, another holiday. But not with you, Michael. Holidays with you
are too much like work.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious punctuation errors have been silently corrected after careful
comparison with other occurrences in this work. Some hyphens in words
have been silently removed and some silently added when a predominant
preference was found in the original work. Except for those changes
noted below, original spellings in the text and inconsistent or
archaic usage have been retained.
Page 14: “tell Doctor Kershaw’s” replaced by “tell Doctor Kershaw”.
Page 238: “clientele hearabouts” replaced by “clientele hereabouts”.
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.