What Was in the Lake
“I was afraid of it,” Sir Clinton observed, as he lifted the dripping
pole with which he had been sounding the water of the lakelet. “The
net will be no good, Inspector. With these spikes of rock jutting up
from the bottom all over the place, you couldn’t get a clean sweep;
and if there’s anything here at all, it’s pretty sure to have lodged
in one of the cavities between the spikes.”
It was the morning after the masked ball at Ravensthorpe. The Chief
Constable had made all his arrangements overnight, so that when he
reached the shore of the artificial lake, everything was in readiness.
The decrepit raft had been strengthened; a large net had been brought
for the purpose of dragging the pool; and several grapnels had been
procured, in case the net turned out to be useless. Sir Clinton had
gone out on the raft to sound the water and discover whether the net
could be utilized; but the results had not been encouraging.
Inspector Armadale listened to the verdict with a rather gloomy face.
“It’s a pity,” he commented regretfully. “Dragging with the grapnel is
a kind of hit-or-miss job, Sir Clinton; and it’ll take far longer than
working with the net.”
Sir Clinton acquiesced with a gesture.
“We’d better start close in under the cliff-face,” he said. “If
anything came down from the top, it can’t have gone far before it
sank. One of the people last night was watching the pool and he saw
nothing on the surface after the splash, so it ought to be somewhere
near the cave-mouth. You can pole over to the shore now, Constable;
we’ve done with this part of the business.”
The constable obeyed the order and soon Sir Clinton rejoined the
Inspector on the bank.
“It’s likely to be a troublesome business,” the Chief Constable
admitted as his subordinate came up. “The bottom’s very irregular and
the chances are that the grapnel will stick, two times out of three.
However, the sooner we get to work, the better.”
He considered for a moment or two.
“Tack a light line to the grapnel as well as the rope. Get the raft
out past the cave and let a constable pitch the grapnel in there. Then
when you’ve dragged, or if the grapnel sticks, he can pull the hook
back again with the light line and start afresh alongside the place
where he made the last cast. But it’s likely to be a slow business, as
you say.”
The Inspector agreed and set his constables to work at once. Sir
Clinton withdrew to a little distance, sat down on a small hillock
from which he could oversee the dragging operations, and patiently
awaited the start of the search. His eyes, wandering with apparent
incuriosity over the group at the water’s edge, noted with approval
that Armadale was wasting no time.
Having made his instructions clear, the Inspector came over to where
the Chief Constable was posted.
“Sit down, Inspector,” Sir Clinton invited. “This may take all day,
you know, and it’s as cheap sitting as standing.”
When the Inspector had seated himself, the Chief Constable turned to
him with a question.
“You’ve seen to it that no one has gone up on to the terrace?”
Inspector Armadale nodded affirmatively.
“No one’s been up on top,” he explained, “I’d like to go and have a
look round myself; but since you were so clear about it, I haven’t
gone.”
“Don’t go,” Sir Clinton reiterated his order. “I’ve a sound reason for
letting no one up there.”
He glanced for a moment at the group of constables.
“Another thing, Inspector,” he continued. “There’s no secrecy about
that matter. In fact, it might be useful if you’d let it leak out to
the public that no one has been up above there and that no one will be
allowed to go until I give the word. Spread it round, you understand?”
Slightly mystified, apparently, the Inspector acquiesced.
“Do you see your way through the case, Sir Clinton?” he demanded.
“You’ve given me the facts, but we’ll need a good deal more, it seems
to me.”
Sir Clinton pulled out his cigarette-case and thoughtfully began to
smoke before answering the question. When he spoke again, his reply
was an indirect one.
“There’s an old jurist’s saying that I always keep in mind,” he said.
“It helps to clarify one’s ideas in a case:
Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando?
That puts our whole business into a nutshell.” He glanced at the
Inspector’s face. “Your Latin’s as feeble as my own, perhaps? There’s
an English equivalent:
What was the crime, who did it, when was it done, and where,
How done, and with what motive, who in the deed did share?
How many of these questions can you answer now, offhand, Inspector?
The rest of them will tell you what you’ve still got to ferret out.”
Inspector Armadale pulled out a notebook and pencil.
“Would you mind repeating it, Sir Clinton? I’d see through it better
if I had it down in black and white.”
The Chief Constable repeated the doggerel and Armadale jotted it down
under his dictation.
“That seems fairly searching,” he admitted, re-reading it as he spoke.
“Quite enough for present purposes. Now, Inspector, how much do you
really know? I mean, how many answers can you give? There are only
seven questions in all. Take them one by one and let’s hear your
answers.”
“It’s a pretty stiff catechism,” said the Inspector, looking again at
his notebook. “I’ll have a try, though, if you give me time to think
over it.”
Sir Clinton smiled at the qualification.
“Think it over, then, Inspector,” he said. “I’ll just go and set them
to work with the dragging. They seem to be ready to make a start.”
He rose and walked down to the group at the edge of the pool.
“You know what’s wanted?” he asked. “Well, suppose we make a start.
Get the raft out to about ten yards or so beyond the cave-mouth and
begin by flinging the grapnel in as near the cliff-edge as you can.
Then work gradually outwards. If it sticks, try again very slightly
off the line of the last cast.”
He watched one or two attempts which gave no result and then turned
back to the hillock again.
“Well, Inspector?” he demanded as he sat down and turned his eyes on
the group engaged with the dragging operations. “What do you make of
it?”
Inspector Armadale looked up from his notebook.
“That’s a sound little rhyme,” he admitted. “It lets you see what you
don’t know and what you do know.”
Sir Clinton suppressed a smile successfully.
“Or what you think you know, perhaps, Inspector?”
“Well, if you like to put it that way, sir. But some things I think
one can be sure of.”
Sir Clinton’s face showed nothing of his views on this question.
“Let’s begin at the beginning,” he suggested. “‘What was the crime?’”
“That’s clear enough,” the Inspector affirmed without hesitation.
“These three electrotypes have been stolen. That’s the crime.”
Sir Clinton seemed to be engrossed in the dragging which was going on
methodically below them.
“You think so?” he said at length. “H’m! I’m not so sure.”
Inspector Armadale corrected himself.
“I meant that I’d charge the man with stealing the replicas. You
couldn’t charge him with anything else, since nothing else is missing.
At least, that’s what you told me. He wanted the real medallions, but
he didn’t pull that off.”
Sir Clinton refused to be drawn. He resorted to one of his indirect
replies.
“‘What was the crime?’” he repeated. “Now, I’ll put a case to you,
Inspector. Suppose that you saw two men in the distance and that you
could make out that one of them was struggling and the second man was
beating him on the head. What crime would you call that? Assault and
battery?”
“I suppose so,” Armadale admitted.
“But suppose, further, that when you reached them, you found the
victim dead of his injuries, what would you call the crime then?”
“Murder, I suppose.”
“So your view of the crime would depend upon the stage at which you
witnessed it, eh? That’s just my position in this Ravensthorpe affair.
You’ve been looking at it from yesterday’s standpoint, and you call it
a theft of three replicas. But I wonder what you’ll call it when we
know the whole of the facts.”
The Inspector declined to follow his chief to this extent.
“All the evidence we’ve got, so far, points to theft, sir. I’ve no
fresh data that would let me put a new name to it.”
“Then you regard it as a completed crime which has partly failed in
its object?”
The Inspector gave his acquiescence with a nod.
“You think it’s something else, Sir Clinton?” he inquired.
The Chief Constable refused to be explicit.
“You’ve got all the evidence, Inspector. Do you really think a gang
would take the trouble to steal replicas when they could just as
easily have taken the three originals—that’s the point. The replicas
have no intrinsic value beyond the gold in them, and that can’t be
worth more than twenty or thirty pounds at the very outside. A
mediocre haul for a smart gang, isn’t it? Hardly Trade Union wages, I
should think.”
“It seems queer at first sight, sir,” he admitted, “but I think I can
account for that all right when you come to the rest of your rhyme.”
Sir Clinton showed his interest.
“Then let’s go on,” he suggested. “The next question is: ‘Who did it?’
What’s your answer to that, Inspector?”
“To my mind, there seems to be only one possible thief.”
Sir Clinton pricked up his ears.
“You mean it was a single-handed job? Who was the man, then?”
“Foxton Polegate,” asserted the Inspector.
He watched Sir Clinton’s face narrowly as he brought out the name, but
the Chief Constable might have been wearing a mask for all the change
there was in his features as he listened to the Inspector’s
suggestion. As if he felt that he had overstepped the bounds of
prudence, Armadale added hastily:
“I said ‘possible thief,’ sir. I don’t claim to be able to bring it
home to him yet.”
“But you think it might even be ‘probable’ instead of only ‘possible,’
Inspector? Let’s hear the evidence, please.”
Inspector Armadale turned over the leaves of his notebook until he
reached some entries which he had previously made.
“First of all, sir, Polegate must have known the value of these
medallions—the originals, I mean. Second, he learned that they would
be on show last night; and he knew where they’d be placed in the
museum. Third, it was after Polegate came by this knowledge that the
practical joke was planned. Fourth, who suggested the sham burglary?
Polegate. Then fifth, who gave himself the job of actually taking the
medallions? Polegate again. Sixth, where was Polegate immediately
after the robbery? We’ve only his own word for it that he was
strolling about, having a smoke. He might have been elsewhere, easily
enough. Seventh, he was dressed up as a Harlequin when you saw him:
but he might quite easily have slipped on a white jacket and a pair of
Pierrot’s trousers over his Harlequin costume. He could disguise
himself as a Pierrot in a couple of ticks and come out as a Harlequin
again just as quick. So he might quite well have been the man in white
that they were all busy chasing last night. Eighth, he knows the
ground thoroughly and could give strangers the slip easily enough at
the end of the chase. And, ninth, he didn’t appear when you wanted him
last night. He only turned up when he’d had plenty of time to get home
again, even if he’d been the man in white. That’s a set of nine points
that need looking into. _Prima facie_, there’s a case for suspicion,
if there’s no more. And there isn’t anything like so strong a case
against any one else, Sir Clinton.”
“Well, let’s take the rest of the first line,” said the Chief
Constable, without offering any criticism of the Inspector’s statement
of the case. “‘When was it done, and where?’”
“At 11.45 p.m. and in the museum,” retorted Armadale. “That’s beyond
dispute. It’s the clearest thing in the whole evidence.”
“I should be inclined to put it at 11.44 p.m. at the latest, or
perhaps 11.43 p.m.,” said Sir Clinton, with an air of fastidiousness.
The Inspector looked at him suspiciously, evidently feeling that he
was being laughed at for his display of accuracy.
“I go by Miss Rainhill’s evidence,” he declared. “She was the only one
who had her eye on her watch, and she said she pulled out the switch
at 11.45 precisely.”
“I go by the evidence of Polegate and young Chacewater,” said Sir
Clinton, with a faint parody of the Inspector’s manner. “They were
taken by surprise when the light went out, although they expected it
to be extinguished at 11.45 p.m.”
“Oh, have it your own way, sir, if you lay any stress on the point,”
conceded the Inspector. “Make it 11.44 or 11.45; it’s all the same, so
far as I’m concerned.”
Armadale seemed slightly ruffled by his chief’s method of approaching
the subject. Sir Clinton turned to another side of the matter.
“I suppose you say the crime has been committed in the museum?” he
inquired.
The Inspector looked at him suspiciously.
“You’re trying to pull my leg, sir. Of course, it was committed in the
museum.”
Sir Clinton’s tone became apologetic.
“I keep forgetting that we’re not talking about the same thing,
perhaps. Of course, the theft of the replicas was committed in the
museum. We’re quite in agreement there.”
He threw away his cigarette, selected a fresh one, and lighted it
before continuing.
“And on that basis, I suppose there’s no mystery about the next query
in the rhyme: ‘How done?’”
“None whatever, in my mind,” the Inspector affirmed. “Polegate could
take what he wanted, once the light was out.”
Sir Clinton did not dispute this point.
“Of course,” he said. “And now for the next query: ‘With what motive?’
Where do you stand in that matter, Inspector?”
But here Armadale evidently felt himself on sure ground.
“Polegate’s a rackety young fool, sir. This is where local knowledge
comes in. He’s got no common sense—always playing practical jokes.
He’s been steadily muddling away the money his father left him. I
shouldn’t be surprised if he’s hard up. That’s the motive.”
“And you think he’d steal from his oldest friends?”
“Every man has his price,” retorted the Inspector, bluntly. “Put on
the screw hard enough in the way of temptation, and any man’ll fall
for it.”
“Rather a hard saying that, Inspector; and perhaps a trifle too
sweeping.” Sir Clinton turned on Armadale suddenly. “What would be
_your_ price, now, if I asked you to hush up this case against young
Polegate? Put a figure on it, will you?”
Armadale flushed angrily at the suggestion; then, seeing that he had
been trapped, he laughed awkwardly.
“Nobody knows even their own price till it’s put on the table, Sir
Clinton,” he countered, with a certain acuteness.
The Chief Constable turned away from the subject.
“You’re depending on there being a fair chance of Polegate getting
away with the medallions without being suspected. But when young
Chacewater and Miss Rainhill were in the scheme as well as Polegate,
suspicion was sure to light on him when the medallions vanished. The
other two were certain to tell what they knew about the business.”
Inspector Armadale glanced once more at his notebook in order to
refresh his memory of the rhyme.
“That really comes under the final head: ‘Who in the deed did share?’”
he pointed out.
“Pass along to the next caravan, then, if you wish,” Sir Clinton
suggested. “What animals have you in the final cage?”
The Inspector seemed to deprecate his flippancy.
“It’s been very cleverly done,” he said, seriously. “You objected that
suspicion was bound to fall on young Polegate; and so it would have
done, if he hadn’t covered his tracks so neatly. He’s set every one on
the hunt for a gang at work, or at least for an outside criminal. Now
I believe it was a one-man show from the start, worked from the
inside. Polegate planned the practical joke—that gave him his chance.
Then he forced himself forward as the fellow who was to do the actual
stealing—and that let him get his hands on the medallions while young
Chacewater held the keeper up for him. Without the hold-up of the
keeper, the thing was a wash-out. The joke helped young Polegate to
enlist innocent assistance.”
“But still suspicion would attach to him,” Sir Clinton objected.
“Yes, except for a false trail,” the Inspector agreed. “But he laid a
false trail. Instead of waiting for the switch to be pulled out, he
fired his shot from the bay, extinguished the light and then rushed
out of the bay and went for the medallions.”
“Well?” said Sir Clinton in an encouraging tone.
“When he’d smashed the glass of the case, he took out the whole six
medallions, and not merely three of them as he told you he’d done.”
“And then?”
“He pocketed the replicas and stuck the real things under the case
with plasticine. Then he continued the false trail by bolting out of
the house. He was the man in white. When he got clear of the people
who were chasing him, he came back to the house again, ready to play
his part as an innocent practical joker. And he had his tale ready, of
how some one was beside him at the case, wearing a Pierrot costume.
That stamped the notion of an outside gang on everybody’s mind. Both
sets of medallions had gone. He—the innocent practical joker—could
have produced the replicas from his pocket and sworn they were all
that the gang had left in the case by the time he got to it.”
“And . . . ?”
“And then, a few days later, he’d have managed to get into the museum
on some excuse—he’s a friend of the family—and he’d have had no
difficulty in taking the real medallions from under the case where
he’d left them. He’d have to take the chance that they’d been
overlooked. The false trail would help in that. He’d hardly expect a
close search of the museum after the man in white had got clear away.
And by running the business on these lines, he’d avoid any chance of
being caught with the stuff actually in his pocket at any time.”
“But in that case, why did he hand over the real things to me like a
lamb as soon as I challenged him?”
The Inspector was ready for this.
“Because as soon as he came into the museum last night, he found that
you apparently knew everything—or a good deal more than he’d counted
on. Anyhow, he didn’t know how much you knew; and he felt he’d got
into a tight corner. He just let the whole thing slide and made up his
mind to get out before things got too hot. So he pretended that so far
as he was concerned, the practical joke was the thing; and he gave up
the real medallions and kept the replicas in his pocket.”
“Why? He might as well have given up the lot.”
“No,” the Inspector contradicted. “He’d got to keep the false trail
going, for otherwise there would have been awkward questions as to why
he diverged from the prearranged programme. I mean the shooting out of
the light, the lies about the man in white, and so forth. So he stuck
to the replicas and made out that there was an outsider mixed up in
the affair. But thanks to the practical joke, the outsider had missed
the real stuff; and Polegate was really the saviour of the Leonardo
set.”
Sir Clinton seemed to be pondering over Armadale’s version of the
affair. At last he gave his own view.
“A jury wouldn’t look at that evidence,” he pointed out.
“I don’t suppose they would,” Armadale admitted. “But there may be
more to come yet.”
“I expect so,” Sir Clinton agreed.
He rose as he spoke, and, followed by the Inspector, went down to the
edge of the lakelet.
“No luck yet?” he inquired.
“None, sir. It’s a very difficult bottom to work a grapnel over. It
sticks three times out of four.”
Sir Clinton watched the line of the drag which they were making.
“It’ll take a while to cover the ground at this rate,” he commented,
noting the smallness of the area they had searched up to that moment.
As he turned away from the water-side, he noticed Cecil Chacewater
approaching round the edge of the lakelet, and leaving the Inspector
to superintend the dragging, he walked over to meet the newcomer. As
he came near, he could see that Cecil’s face was sullen and downcast.
“’Morning, Sir Clinton. I heard you were here, so I came across to say
good-bye before I clear out.”
Sir Clinton could hardly pretend astonishment in view of what he knew
about the state of affairs at Ravensthorpe; but he did not conceal his
regret at the news.
“There was a row-royal between Maurice and me this morning,” Cecil
explained, gloomily. “Of course this medallion business gave him his
chance, and he jumped in with both feet, you know. He abused me like a
fish-wife and finally gave me permission to do anything except stay at
Ravensthorpe after to-night. So I’m off.”
“I wish you hadn’t got mixed up with that silly practical joke,” Sir
Clinton said in some concern. “I can’t forgive that young blighter for
luring you into it.”
Cecil’s resentment against his brother was evidently too deep to let
him look on the matter from this point of view.
“If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Any excuse
would have served his turn, you know. He’d have flung me out sooner or
later—probably sooner. I’ve felt for long enough that he was itching
to clear me off the premises. Foxy’s little show only precipitated
things. The root of the trouble was there long before.”
“Well, it’s a sad business.” Sir Clinton saw that it was useless to
dwell on the subject. “You’re going up to town? Any address you can
give me?”
“I’ll probably put up with a man for a day or two. He’s been inviting
me to his place once or twice lately, but I’ve never been able to fit
it in; so I may as well take him at his word now. I’ve got to look
round for something to do, you know.”
“If you want some one to speak for you, Cecil, refer them to me when
you apply for anything. And, by the way, if you happen to run short,
you know my address. A letter will always find me.”
Cecil thanked him rather awkwardly.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” he wound up. “Something may turn up
sooner than one hopes.”
Sir Clinton thought it well to change the subject again.
“By the way, Cecil,” he asked, “do you know anything about this man
Foss? What sort of person is he?”
It seemed an unfortunate topic. Cecil’s manner was anything but
gracious as he replied:
“Foss? Oh, you know what sort of a fellow he is already. A damned
eavesdropper on his hosts and a beggar with a tongue hinged in the
middle so that he can talk with both ends at once. I’d like to wring
his neck for him! What do they call the breed that runs off and splits
to the police? Copper’s narks, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t exactly that side of him that I wanted to hear about,
Cecil. I’m quite fully acquainted with his informative temperament
already. What I want to know is the sort of man he is socially and so
forth.”
Cecil curbed his vexation with an effort.
“Oh, he seems to have decent enough manners—a bit Yankee, perhaps, in
some things. He must do well enough out of this agent business of his,
acting for Kessock and the like, you know. He arrived here with a big
car, a chauffeur, and a man. Except for his infernal tale-bearing, I
can’t say he’s anything out of the ordinary.”
Sir Clinton, apparently feeling that he had struck the wrong vein in
the conversational strata, contented himself with a nod of
comprehension and let Cecil choose his own subject for the next stage
in their talk. He was somewhat surprised when it came.
“Have you heard the latest from the village?” Cecil demanded.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“I’ve had very little time to collect local gossip this morning,
Cecil. I’ve been busy getting things started for this bit of work in
the lake, you see.”
“If you’d been down in Hincheldene village you could hardly have
missed it. I went down this morning to get some tobacco and I found
the whole place buzzing with it. That was before I’d seen Maurice,
luckily.”
“Suppose you tell me what it is,” Sir Clinton suggested, drily.
“Do you remember my telling you about the family spectre, the White
Man?” Cecil asked. “Well, it seems that the village drunkard, old
Groby, was taking a short cut through our woods last night—or rather
this morning, for he’s a bit of a late going-to-rooster—and he got the
shock of his life in one of the glades. He swears he saw the White Man
stealing about from tree to tree. By his way of it, he was near enough
to see the thing clearly—all white, even the face. What a lark!”
“You certainly seem to take your family spectre a bit lightly, Cecil.
What’s the cream of the jest?”
Cecil’s face took on a vindictive expression.
“Oh, it gave me a chance of getting home on Maurice, after he’d given
me the key of the street. I told him all about it and I rubbed in the
old story. You know what I mean? The White Man never appears except
when the head of the family’s on his last legs. Maurice didn’t like it
a bit. He looked a bit squeamish over it; and I came away leaving that
sticking in his gills.”
Sir Clinton hardly concealed his distaste for this kind of thing.
“You flatter yourself, I expect. Maurice is hardly likely to waste any
thought over superstitions of that sort.”
Cecil’s expression still showed a tinge of malice.
“You’d wonder,” he said. “It’s all very well for you to sneer at these
affairs; but it looks a bit different when you yourself happen to be
the object of them, I guess. It’s easy to say ‘Superstition’ in a
high-minded way; but if there’s one per cent. chance that the
superstition’s going to hit you personally, then, you know, it rankles
a bit. Anything to give pain is my motto where Maurice is concerned.”
Quite oblivious of Sir Clinton’s rather disgusted expression, he
laughed softly to himself for a moment or two.
“And the funniest thing in the whole affair,” he went on, “is that I
know all about this White Man. Can’t you guess what it was?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Why, don’t you see?” Cecil demanded, still laughing. “What old Groby
came across must obviously have been Maurice himself in his white
Pierrot dress, coming back from the burglar-hunt! That’s what makes it
so damned funny. Fancy Maurice getting the creeps on account of
himself! It’s as good a joke as I’ve heard for a while.”
He laughed harshly.
“You don’t seem to see it. Well, well. Perhaps you’re right. And now I
must be getting back to the house. I’ve a lot of stuff to collect
before I go off.”
He shook hands with Sir Clinton and moved off towards Ravensthorpe.
The Chief Constable gazed after him for a moment or two.
“That young man’s in a most unpleasant frame of mind,” he commented to
himself. “He’s obviously quite off his normal balance when he’d make a
point of that kind of thing. I can’t say I take much stock in
brotherly love; but this is really overdoing the business. Both of
them seem to have taken leave of ordinary feelings. It’s just as well
they’re parting, perhaps.”
Rather moodily he retraced his steps to where the Inspector was
directing the operations by the bank of the lakelet; but by the time
he reached the group his face had taken on its normal expression.
“Fishing still poor?” he demanded, as he came up.
“Nothing so far, sir,” the Inspector confessed. “These rocks are the
very deuce to work amongst. I’ve been running the grapnel over the
same track two or three times, just in case we miss the thing the
first shot. We’ve had no luck at all—unless you count this as a
valuable find: a bit of limestone or something like that.”
He kicked a shapeless mass of white stone as he spoke. Sir Clinton
stooped over it: a dripping mass about the size of a man’s fist. The
Inspector watched him as he examined it; but Sir Clinton’s face
suggested neither interest nor satisfaction.
“Might be a bit of marble that got swept over the top when they were
putting up the balustrade in the old days,” the Inspector hazarded.
Sir Clinton looked at it again and shook his head.
“I doubt it,” he said. “However, since it’s the only thing you’ve
fished up, you’d better keep it, Inspector. One never knows what may
be useful. I might make a paper-weight out of it as a souvenir.”
The Inspector failed to see the point of the joke, but he laughed as
politely as he could.
“Very well, Sir Clinton, I’ll see that it’s put aside.”
He glanced over the Chief Constable’s shoulder.
“Here’s Mr. Clifton coming, sir.”
Sir Clinton turned round to find that Michael Clifton had approached
while he was engaged with the dragging operations. Leaving the group
by the bank, he walked slowly to meet the advancing figure.
“Good morning, Mr. Clifton. Come up to see how we’re getting on, I
suppose. There’s nothing to report, I’m afraid.”
“Drawn blank?” Michael inquired, needlessly. “There ought to be
something there, all the same.”
“It may have been only a stone,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “You heard a
splash; that’s all we have to go on. And a stone would make that as
well as anything else.”
“That’s true,” Michael admitted. “None of us saw the thing hit the
water, so we’ve no notion what it was like. It might have been a stone
for all we can tell. But why should the fellow pitch a brick into the
water? That’s what puzzles me.”
Before Sir Clinton could reply, a shout came from the bank, and the
Inspector waved to them to come down.
“We’ve got something, sir,” he called, as they drew nearer.
Followed by Michael, Sir Clinton hurried up to the group at the
water’s edge. The Inspector was kneeling down, carefully disentangling
the grapnel from something white. At last he rose and held out his
capture. Michael gave an exclamation.
“A white jacket!”
A little further shaking of the material showed that it was a complete
white Pierrot costume, except for the cap and shoes. The Inspector
spread it out on the grass to dry, after holding the jacket outspread
in the air so that they could gauge its size by comparison with his
own body.
“That’s what I’ve been hoping to get hold of, Inspector,” Sir Clinton
said. “I doubt if you’ll find much more in the pool. But perhaps you’d
better go on dragging for a while yet. Something else might turn up.”
He examined the costume carefully; but it was quite evident that there
were no identifying marks on it. During the inspection, Michael showed
signs of impatience; and as soon as he could he unostentatiously drew
Sir Clinton away from the group.
“Come up here, Mr. Clifton,” the Chief Constable suggested, as he
turned towards the hillock he had chosen earlier in the morning. “We
can keep an eye on things from this place.”
He sat down and Michael, after a glance to see that they were out of
earshot of the dragging party, followed his example.
“What do you make of that?” he demanded eagerly.
Sir Clinton seemed to have little desire to discuss the matter.
“Let’s be quite clear on one point before we begin,” he reminded
Michael. “I’m a Chief Constable, not a broadcasting station. My
business is to collect information, not to throw it abroad before the
proper time comes. You understand?”
Rather dashed, Michael admitted the justice of this.
“I’m a public servant, Mr. Clifton,” Sir Clinton pointed out, his
manner taking the edge off the directness of his remarks, “and I get
my information officially. Obviously it wouldn’t be playing the game
if I scattered that information around before the public service has
had the use of it.”
“I see that well enough,” Michael protested. “All I asked was what
your own views are.”
Sir Clinton smiled and there was a touch of mischief in his eye as he
replied.
“Seeing that my conclusions are based on the evidence—at least I like
to think so, you know—they’re obviously part and parcel of my official
knowledge. Hence I don’t divulge them till the right moment comes.”
He paused to let this sink in, then added lightly:
“That’s a most useful principle, I find. One often makes mistakes, and
of course one never divulges them either, until the right time comes.
It’s curious, but I’ve never been able yet to satisfy myself that the
right time has come in any case of the sort.”
Michael smiled in his turn; and Sir Clinton went on:
“But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t draw your own conclusions and
give me the benefit of them. I’m not too proud to be helped, you
know.”
For a moment Michael kept silence, as if considering what his next
move should be. Sir Clinton had given him what might have looked like
a snub; but Michael had acuteness enough to tell him that the matter
was one of principle with the Chief Constable and not merely a pretext
devised on the spur of the moment to suppress inconvenient curiosity.
“It just occurred to me,” he confessed, “that there’s a possible
explanation of that thing they’ve fished up. Do you remember that I
found Maurice in the Fairy House up above there”—he indicated the
cliff-top with a gesture—“and when I left him there he was still
wearing a white costume like this one?”
“So you told us last night,” Sir Clinton confirmed.
“Now when Maurice turned up in the museum later on,” Michael
continued, “he was wearing ordinary evening clothes. He’d got rid of
the Pierrot dress in the meantime.”
“That’s true,” Sir Clinton agreed.
“Isn’t it possible,” Michael went on, “that after I left him, Maurice
got over his troubles, whatever they were, and pitched his disguise
over the edge here. This may quite well be it.”
“Rather a rum proceeding, surely,” was Sir Clinton’s comment. “Can you
suggest any earthly reason why he should do a thing like that?”
“I can’t,” Michael admitted, frankly. “But the whole affair last night
seemed to have neither rhyme nor reason in it; and after swallowing
the escape of that beggar we were after, I’m almost prepared for
anything in this neighbourhood. I just put the matter before you. I
can’t fake up any likely explanation to account for it.”
Sir Clinton seemed to be reflecting before he spoke again.
“To tell you the truth, I was rather disappointed with the result of
that drag. Quite obviously—this isn’t official information, for you
can see it with your own eyes—quite obviously that Pierrot costume
must have been wrapped round some weight or other, or it wouldn’t have
sunk to the bottom. And in the dragging the weight fell out. I could
make a guess at what the weight was; but I wish we’d fished it up. It
doesn’t matter much, really; but one likes to get everything one can.”
Michael, unable to guess what lay behind this, kept silent in the hope
that there was more to come; but the Chief Constable swung off to a
fresh subject.
“Did you take a careful note of the costumes of the gang who helped
you in the attempt to round the beggar up? Could you make a list of
them if it became necessary?”
Michael considered for the best part of a minute before answering.
“Some of them I could remember easily enough; but not all, I’m sure.
It was a bit confused, you know; and some of the crew turned up pretty
late, when all my attention was focused on the final round-up. I
really couldn’t guarantee to give you an accurate list.”
Sir Clinton’s nod indicated approval.
“That’s what I like,” he said. “I’d rather have a definite No than a
faked-up list that might mean nothing at all. But there’s one point
that’s really important. Did you notice, among your assistants,
anybody in white like the man you were hunting?”
Michael apparently had no need to pause before replying.
“No,” he said definitely, “I saw nobody of that sort. I suppose you
mean Maurice. He certainly wasn’t in the cordon when it went into the
spinney or when it came out on the terrace. I’m absolutely sure of my
ground there. But of course he may have been one of the late-comers.
Almost as soon as we got to the terrace we had to sprint off down to
the lake side, you see; and he might quite well have been a bit slow
in the chase and have reached the top only after we’d come down here.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Sir Clinton, with a finality which
prevented any angling for further information.
Michael evidently had no desire to outstay his welcome, for in a few
minutes he rose to his feet.
“I think I’ll go over to Ravensthorpe now,” he said. “I suppose you’re
not going to leave here for a while?”
The words recalled to Sir Clinton the fact that he had not yet
congratulated Michael on his engagement. He hastened to repair the
oversight.
“I was looking for you at the dance last night,” he explained, after
Michael had thanked him, “but before I got hold of you, this burglary
business cropped up, and I’ve had hardly a minute to spare since then.
By the way, if you’re going over to the house, you might tell Joan
that I shall probably have to pay them a visit shortly, but I’ll ring
up and let them know when I’m coming.”
Michael nodded and turned away, skirting the lakelet on his way to
Ravensthorpe. Sir Clinton sauntered over to the waterside and watched
the dragging operations which were still going on. When he made his
way back to the hillock again, Inspector Armadale followed him.
“There’s another point that occurred to me, sir,” he explained. “I
think you told me that Polegate was wearing a Harlequin’s costume last
night?”
“That’s correct,” Sir Clinton confirmed. “And what then?”
“One difficulty I’ve had,” the Inspector went on, “was to explain how
the fellow in white got away from them all so neatly. I think I see
now how it was done.”
Sir Clinton made no effort to conceal his interest.
“Yes, Inspector?”
Armadale obviously took this as complimentary.
“This is how I figure it out, sir. Polegate had a white jacket and
Pierrot trousers on over his Harlequin costume. At the end of the
chase he bolted into the spinney and out on to the terrace above here.
That gave him a breathing-space. It took Mr. Clifton a minute or two
to organize his cordon; and during that time the thief was hidden from
them by the trees.”
“That’s obviously true,” Sir Clinton admitted. “If he did change his
costume, it must have been at that moment.”
“I expect he had a weight of some sort ready on the terrace,” the
Inspector continued. “When he’d stripped off his jacket and trousers,
he wrapped them round the weight and pitched them over into the pool.
That would make the splash they all heard.”
“And after that?”
The Inspector was evidently delighted with his idea.
“That leaves us with Polegate in Harlequin dress on the terrace, with
a minute or two to spare before the cordon was ready to move forward
into the spinney.”
“Admitted.”
“Do you remember the camouflaged ships in the War, Sir Clinton?”
“I sailed in one, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, you know what they were like: all sorts of cock-eyed streaks
and colours mixed up in a regular tangle to destroy their real
outlines. And what’s a Harlequin’s costume? Isn’t it the very same
thing?”
Sir Clinton confirmed this with an historical allusion.
“You’re quite correct, Inspector. As a matter of fact, the Harlequin’s
dress was originally designed to represent Invisibility. Nobody except
Columbine was supposed to be able to see Harlequin, you know.”
Inspector Armadale hurried to his conclusion.
“What was to hinder Polegate, during that breathing-space, getting
back into the spinney? It was a moonlight night. You know what the
spinney would be like under a full moon: it would be all dappled with
spots of moonlight coming through the trees. And against a setting of
that sort the Harlequin costume would be next door to invisible. He’d
only have to stand still in some chequered spot and no one would
detect him. They were all hunting for a man dressed in white. None of
them noticed him. None of them saw him, I guess.”
Much to the Inspector’s surprise, Sir Clinton shook his head.
“I’d be prepared to bet pretty heavily that someone saw him,” he
affirmed.
The Inspector looked at his Chief for a moment, obviously taken aback.
“You think some one saw him?”
Then a flood of light from a fresh angle in his mind seemed to
illuminate the question.
“You mean he had a confederate in the cordon? Some one who let him
through and kept it dark? I never thought of that! You had me beaten
there, Sir Clinton. And of course, now I see it, that’s the simplest
solution of the whole affair. If we can get a list of the people in
the cordon, we’ll be able to pick out the confederate before long.”
Sir Clinton damped his enthusiasm slightly.
“It won’t be so easy to get that list, Inspector. Remember the
confusion of the whole business: the hurry, the effect of moonlight,
the masks, the costumes, and all the rest of it. You may be able to
put a list together; but you’ll have some difficulty yourself in
believing that you’ve tracked down every possible person who was in
the line. And if you miss one . . .”
“He may be the man, you mean? Well, there’s no harm in trying. I’ll
turn a sergeant on to gather all the news he can get.”
“It’ll be a good test of his capacity, then, even if nothing else
comes out of it,” Sir Clinton certified, carelessly.