THE WRATH OF RONALD THOYNE
“I WANT you to come with me to Midlington,” I said to Pepster, whom I met
soon after I reached home. “I am going to try a long shot, and I would
like you to be there.”
“A long shot at what?” he demanded.
“Well,” I replied, “I don’t quite know. I can’t quite reckon it up yet,
but it seems worth trying, anyway.”
Pepster nodded, and waited for me to continue.
“Those anonymous letters,” I went on. “We are going to see their
writer.”
“Oh. And who may he be?”
“Grainger, the chemist.”
“But that’s—well, anyway, I’m ready. Shall we go now?”
We found Mr. Grainger behind the counter of his shop, but I was just in
time to see a skirt flashing through the door that opened into the little
room behind. That it was Nora Lepley I felt sure, though I did not see
the face.
“Mr. Grainger,” I began, “we have come to see you about those letters you
wrote to the police.”
He shrank back against the shelves behind him, and his face went suddenly
grey. He pulled himself together immediately.
“I know nothing of any letters,” he said, moistening his lips. “I don’t
understand.”
“Oh, yes,” I responded cheerfully, “you promised to provide the evidence
if—”
“Has Ronald Thoyne been arrested?” he broke in, with hardly concealed
eagerness.
“Ronald Thoyne?” I echoed. “Did I mention Thoyne?”
“No, no,” he said, “you were referring to the—to Sir Philip
Clevedon—yes.”
“I don’t think I even mentioned Clevedon,” I replied.
Grainger passed his hand wearily across his forehead, then faced me once
more.
“No,” he said, almost as if he had made up his mind on a point on which
he had been in some doubt. “I know nothing of any letters.”
“And you are not ready with the evidence you promised—?”
“I don’t understand,” he returned.
“Of course, I know you promised that if Thoyne were arrested you would
provide—but then, in point of fact, there is nothing against Thoyne, and
we must have the evidence in advance. If you know anything it is your
duty to help us, surely. You say you have evidence against Thoyne—”
“I have not said so.”
“Oh, yes, you said so in that letter you wrote to the police at
Peakborough.”
“I wrote no letter.”
“You see, if we did arrest Thoyne, as you suggested, and then your
evidence failed, we might be in a very awkward position. Now, if you
could give us some idea of its—”
“I know nothing of it.”
The door from the little room behind the shop slowly opened, and Nora
Lepley came out.
“What is it you want?” she demanded. “Why are you badgering the—Mr.
Grainger in this fashion?”
I turned smilingly towards her.
“Not at all,” I responded equably. “Mr. Grainger wrote to the police and
told them that if they would arrest Mr. Thoyne, he would produce evidence
that he—Mr. Thoyne, I mean—murdered Sir Philip Clevedon.”
She blazed up in very queer fashion, and wheeled suddenly upon the old
man.
“Did you say that?” she demanded.
“I wrote no letters,” he responded half sullenly. “I don’t know what
they are talking about. It isn’t true.”
He had gone very white, and his hands were trembling violently.
“I think you’d better go,” Nora said quietly. “He will be ill if you
worry him any more. I will talk to him, and let you—and see you again.
But you’d better go now.”
I nodded to Pepster, who followed me out of the shop.
“He wrote those letters,” Pepster said, as we walked along.
“Yes, that seems fairly evident.”
“But what does it all amount to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why should he accuse Thoyne?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Thoyne murder Clevedon?”
“I don’t know.”
“But there must be some reason for those letters.”
“Oh, yes, the reason is plain enough—he had a bitter grudge against
Thoyne. His daughter seems to have come a cropper, and he suspected
Thoyne—yes, that is why he wrote the letters.”
I told him in a few words what Stillman had discovered regarding Thoyne
and Mary Grainger.
“It’s a rum story,” Pepster said thoughtfully. “Of course the child is
Thoyne’s, and that would account for the grudge, as you say. But it
doesn’t explain why he should accuse Thoyne of murder. He must have had
something at the back of his mind. It can’t be wholly an invention.”
“I saw Tulmin a day or two back.”
“Gad! and where is he?”
“In London. I asked him who murdered Philip Clevedon, and he replied
that Thoyne did it.”
“He replied—what!”
“That Thoyne did it.”
I recounted as much as I thought proper of my interview with Tulmin. But
Pepster shook his head.
“The thing’s beyond me,” he said. “It wants a lot of sorting out. But
Tulmin’s evidence would go for nothing, and Grainger, if he knows
anything, won’t speak. We must wait a bit yet.”
On my way up to Cartordale from the station I overtook Thoyne going in
the same direction.
“I am bound for White Towers,” he said. “I am staying there with Sir
Billy and his wife.”
“Do you happen to know,” I said, when our preliminary conversation
languished a little, “of anyone who has a grudge against you?”
Thoyne regarded me frowningly for a moment or two.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “there is nobody. I can say that, Holt,
freely enough. Clevedon—but he is dead, anyway, and there’s no one
else.”
“Did you ever hear,” I asked, “of a girl named Grainger?”
He gave me a quick glance sideways.
“Yes,” he said. “I knew Miss Grainger very well.”
We relapsed into silence which lasted for several minutes.
“Shall I tell you the story?” I asked softly, “or will you tell me?”
“What story?” he demanded roughly.
“The story of Mary Grainger,” I returned.
“There is no story,” he said. “The poor girl is dead. Let her rest.”
“Yes, but—”
“I tell you I won’t talk about it—about her. She is dead, and death ends
all stories. Leave it there.”
“But if I have a story—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“The Clevedons might be interested.”
“It is no business of theirs.”
“They might not agree with that.”
“I tell you it has nothing to do with them. The girl’s dead.”
“But there is more in it than that—her father isn’t dead.”
“Well, what of her father?”
“He says you murdered Philip Clevedon.”
He stood speechless for a moment or two, then turned away with a short
laugh.
“What the devil do you mean?” he shouted. “What blasted foolery have you
in mind now? You are a damned fool, the damndest of damned fools. I
have never seen Miss Grainger’s father, and he has never seen me. I am
getting sick of the very sight of you about. You persistently follow me
up as if you thought that I killed Clevedon. Well, if you do think so,
why not arrest me and have done with it. I would sooner face a jury and
take my trial than put up with this perpetual persecution.”
“It is your own fault,” I returned equably. “You will tell me nothing,
and your whole attitude is a challenge. You kept secret your knowledge
of Clevedon’s past, but I found that out. You did not tell me where
Tulmin was, but I tracked him down. You have said nothing about Mary
Grainger. Then there was Clevedon’s visit to you on the night of his
death, and the medicine you handed him which—”
“I never have committed murder,” he cried, turning on me with a savage
intensity which betokened the inward strain, “but I am nearer to it at
this moment than I ever thought I should be. If I stay here I shan’t be
able to trust myself. I—”
He left me abruptly, and vaulting a low rubble wall, made off at a quick
pace across some fields which gave him a short cut to White Towers.
But in something under two hours he had joined me at Stone Hollow.
“I apologise,” he said, as he strode into my study. “I apologise for
everything I said. You were right, and I was a fool. You told me that
Grainger had accused me of murdering Clevedon. Well, now he has written
to Billy—”
“About the murder?” I asked.
“No, damn the murder—something a lot worse than that,” he responded. “He
accuses me of bigamy—says I have a wife living. It’s got to be sorted
out now—because of Kitty—and I’ve come to you.”
He took a fragment of paper from his pocket.
“There’s a copy of the infernal thing,” he said. “Read it.”
The letter was terse, and to the point.
“_Sir_,
“_Mr. Ronald Thoyne_, _who_, _I understand_, _is engaged to marry
Miss Kitty Clevedon_, _has been guilty of bigamy_. _He may have a
wife now living_, _but I cannot say that for certain_. _All I know
is that he married my daughter under false pretences_, _and then_,
_when he had tired of her_, _told her he had a wife living in
America_. _He is keeping her child_—_his child_. _I advise you to
institute careful inquiries into these statements_, _which you will
find can easily be substantiated_. _The child is being cared for by
some people named Greentree_, _who live at Long Burminster_, _and Mr.
Thoyne is contributing two pounds a week for her maintenance_.
“_Yours truly_,
“_Robert Grainger_.”
“Well,” Thoyne demanded, “and what do you think of it?”
“It is true about the child and the two pounds a week?”
“Yes.”
“And the other?”
“No.”
“Does anyone know the real story?”
“Yes, Nora Lepley knows all about it. She is at White Towers now. I
want you to come back with me and straighten it out. Then we will see
Grainger together. It has got to be cleared up now.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I’ll come. And, Thoyne, did you ever suffer from
sleeplessness?”
“What the devil has that to do—?”
“Perhaps nothing, but did you?”
“Yes—at intervals. It is a legacy from the war, a result of being
gassed. Perhaps for a fortnight I may not be able to sleep, and then it
passes, and I am all right for months.”
“Do you take anything?”
“Not if I can manage without. I have a horror of drugs. But
occasionally a dose of Pemberton’s Drops—”
“Have you any by you now?”
“No, I gave the last bottle to Clevedon. He looked rotten, and, I think,
felt worse even than he looked. I hated the fellow, but I couldn’t help
pitying him.”
“He called on you earlier on the night of the—”
“Yes, he did.”
“And that was when you gave him the bottle of Pemberton’s Drops?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“Nothing. Let us get on to White Towers, and have a word with Nora
Lepley.”
But on our way I called at the post office and had a long conversation on
the telephone with Detective Pepster.