"Everything fits in beautifully," said Superintendent Galloway
confidently. "I never knew a clearer case. All that remains for me to do
is to lay my hands on this chap Ronald, and an intelligent jury will see
to the rest."
The police official and the detective had dined together in the small
bar parlour on Colwyn's return from driving Mr. Cromering and Sir Henry
Durwood to Heathfield Station. The superintendent had done more than
justice to the meal, and a subsequent glass of the smugglers' brandy had
so mellowed the milk of human kindness in his composition that he felt
inclined for a little friendly conversation with his companion.
"You are very confident," said Colwyn.
"Of course I am confident. I have reason to be so. Everything I have
seen to-day supports my original theory about this crime."
"And what is your theory as to the manner in which this crime was
committed? I have gathered a general idea of the line you are taking by
listening to your conversation this afternoon, but I should like you to
state your theory in precise terms. It is an interesting case, with some
peculiar points about it which a frank discussion might help to
elucidate."
Superintendent Galloway looked suspiciously at Colwyn out of his small
hard grey eyes. His official mind scented an attempt to trap him, and
his Norfolk prudence prompted him to get what he could from the
detective but to give nothing away in return.
"I see you're suspicious of me, Galloway," continued Colwyn with a
smile. "You've heard of city detectives and their ways, and you're
thinking to yourself that a Norfolk man is more than a match for any of
them."
This sally was so akin to what was passing in the superintendent's mind
that a grim smile momentarily relaxed his rugged features.
"My thoughts are my own, I suppose," he said.
"Not when you've just given them away," replied Colwyn, in a bantering
tone. "My dear Galloway, your ingenuous countenance is a mirror to your
mind, in which he who runs may read. But you are quite wrong in
suspecting me. I have no ulterior motive. My only interest in this
crime--or in any crime--is to solve it. Anybody can have the credit, as
far as I am concerned. Newspaper notoriety is nothing to me."
"You've managed to get a good deal of it without looking for it, then,"
retorted the superintendent cannily. "It was only the other day I was
reading a long article in one of the London newspapers about you,
praising you for tracking the criminals in the Treasury Bonds case. The
police were not mentioned."
"Fame--or notoriety--sometimes comes to those who seek it least,"
replied the detective genially. "I assure you that article came unasked.
I'm a stranger to the political art of keeping sweet with the
journalists--it was a statesman, you know, who summed up gratitude as a
lively sense of favours to come. Now, in this case, let us play fair,
actuated by the one desire to see that justice is done. This case does
not strike me as quite such a simple affair as it seems to you. You
approach it with a preconceived theory to which you are determined to
adhere. Your theory is plausible and convincing--to some extent--but
that is all the more reason why you should examine and test every link
in the chain. You cannot solve difficult points by ignoring them and, to
my mind, there are some difficult and perplexing features about this
case which do not altogether fit in with your theory."
"If my mind is an open book to you perhaps you'll tell me what my theory
is," responded Superintendent Galloway, sourly.
"Yes; that's a fair challenge." The detective pushed back his chair, and
stood with his back against the mantelpiece, with a cigar in his mouth.
"Your theory in this case is that chance and opportunity have made the
crime and the criminal. Chance brings this young man Ronald to this
lonely Norfolk inn, and sees to it that he is allowed to remain when the
landlord wants to turn him away. Chance throws him into the society of a
man of culture and education, who is only too glad of the opportunity of
relieving the tedium of his surroundings in this rough uncultivated
place by passing a few hours in the companionship of a man of his own
rank of life. Chance contrives that this gentleman shall have in his
possession a large sum of money which he shows to Ronald, who is greatly
in need of money. Opportunity suggests the murder, provides the weapon,
and gives Ronald the next room to his intended victim in a wing of the
inn occupied by nobody else.
"Your theory as to how the murder was actually committed strikes me as
possible enough--up to a certain point. You think that Ronald, after
waiting until everybody in the inn is likely to be asleep, steals out of
his own room to the room of his victim. He finds the door locked.
Chance, however, has thoughtfully provided him with a window opening on
to a hillside, which enables him to climb out of his own window and
into the window of the next room. He gets in, murders Mr. Glenthorpe,
secures his money, and, finding the key of his bedroom under the pillow,
carries the body of his victim downstairs, and outside, casting it into
a deep hole some distance from the house, in the hope of preventing or
retarding discovery of the crime. Through an oversight he forgets the
key in the door, which he had placed in the outside before carrying off
the body, intending when he returned to lock the door and carry the key
away with him.
"Next morning you have the highly suspicious circumstance of the young
man's hurried departure, his refusal to have his boots cleaned, the
incident of the £1 note, and the unshakable fact that the footprints
leading to and from the pit where the body was discovered had been made
by his boots.
"As a further contributory link in the chain of evidence against Ronald,
you intend to use the fact that he was turned out of the Grand Hotel,
Durrington, the previous day because he couldn't pay his hotel bill,
because this fact, combined with the fact that Mr. Glenthorpe showed him
the money he had drawn from the bank at Heathfield, supplies a strong
motive for the crime. In this connection you intend to try to establish
that the Treasury note which Ronald left to pay his inn bill was one of
those in Mr. Glenthorpe's possession, because it happens to be one of
the First Treasury issue, printed in black and white, and all Mr.
Glenthorpe's notes were of that issue, according to the murdered man's
own statement. That, I take it, is the police theory of this case."
"It is," said Superintendent Galloway. "You've put it a bit more
fancifully than I should, but it comes to the same thing. But what do
you make out of the incident at the Grand Hotel, Durrington, yesterday
morning? You were there, and saw it all. Does it seem strange to you
that Ronald should have come straight to this inn and committed a murder
after making that scene at the hotel? Do you think it suggests that
Ronald has, well--impulses of violence, let us say?" Superintendent
Galloway poured himself out another glass of old brandy and sipped it
deliberately, watching the detective cautiously between the sips.
Colwyn was silent for a moment. He was quick to comprehend the
double-barrelled motive which underlay the superintendent's question,
and he had no intention of letting the police officer pump him for his
own ends.
"Sir Henry Durwood would be better able to answer that question than I,"
he said.
"I asked him when we were driving over here this afternoon, but he shut
up like an oyster--you know what these professional men are, with their
stiff-and-starched ideas of etiquette," grumbled the superintendent.
A flicker of amusement showed in Colwyn's eyes. Really the
superintendent was easily drawn, for an East Anglian countryman. "After
all, it is only Sir Henry Durwood's opinion that Ronald intended
violence at the _Grand_," he said. "Sir Henry did not give him the
opportunity to carry out his intention--if he had such an intention."
"Exactly my opinion," exclaimed Superintendent Galloway, eagerly rising
to the fly. "I have ascertained that Ronald's behaviour during the time
he was staying at the hotel was that of an ordinary sane Englishman. The
proprietor says he was quite a gentleman, with nothing eccentric or
peculiar about him, and the servants say the same. They are the best
judges, after all. And nobody noticed anything peculiar about him at the
breakfast table except yourself and Sir Henry--and what happened?
Nothing, except that he was a bit excited--and no wonder, after the
young man had just been ordered to leave the hotel. Then Sir Henry
grabbed hold of him and he fainted--or pretended to faint; it may have
been all part of his game. Sir Henry may have thought he intended to do
something or other, but no British judge would admit that as evidence
for the defence. This chap Ronald is as sane as you or me, and a deep,
cunning cold-blooded scoundrel to boot. If the defence try to put up a
plea of insanity they'll find themselves in the wrong box. There's not a
jury in the world that wouldn't hang him on the evidence against him."
This time Colwyn could not forbear smiling at the guileless way in which
Superintendent Galloway had revealed the thoughts which had been passing
through his mind. But his amusement was momentary, and it was in a
grave, earnest tone that he replied:
"The hotel incident is a puzzling one, but I agree with you that it
doesn't enter into the police case against Ronald. It is your duty to
deal with the facts of the case, and if you think that Ronald committed
this murder----"
"If I think that Ronald committed this murder!" Superintendent
Galloway's interruption was both amazed and indignant. "I'm as certain
he committed the murder as if I saw him do it with my own eyes. Did you,
or anybody else, ever see a clearer case?"
"It is because the circumstantial evidence against him is so strong that
I speak as I do," continued Colwyn, in the same earnest tones. "Innocent
men have been hanged in England before now on circumstantial evidence.
It is for that very reason that we should guard ourselves against the
tendency to accept the circumstantial evidence against him as proof of
his guilt, instead of examining all the facts with an open mind. We are
the investigators of the circumstances: it is not for us to prejudge.
That is the worst of circumstantial evidence: it tends to prejudgment,
and sometimes to the ignoring of circumstances and facts which might
tell in favour of the suspect, if they were examined with a more
impartial eye. It is for these reasons that I am always careful to
suspend judgment in cases of circumstantial evidence, and examine
carefully even the smallest trifles which might tell in favour of the
man to whom circumstantial evidence points.
"Have you discovered anything, since you have been at the inn, which
shakes the theory that Ronald is the murderer?"
"I have come to the conclusion that the case is much more complex and
puzzling than was at first supposed."
"I should like to know what makes you think that," returned
Superintendent Galloway. "Up to the present I have seen nothing to shake
my conviction that Ronald is the guilty man. What have you discovered
that makes you think otherwise?"
"I do not go as far as that--yet. But I have come across certain things
which, to my mind, need elucidation before it is possible to pronounce
definitely on Ronald's guilt or innocence. To take them consecutively,
let me repeat that I cannot reconcile Ronald's excitable conduct at the
Durrington hotel with his supposed actions at the inn. In the former
case he behaved like a man who, whether insane or merely excited, had
not the slightest fear of the consequences. At this inn he acted like a
crafty cautious scoundrel who had weighed the consequences of his acts
beforehand, and took every possible precaution to save his own skin.
You see nothing inconsistent in this----"
"I do not," interjected the superintendent firmly.
"Quite so. Then, the next point that perplexes me is why Ronald took the
trouble to carry the body of his victim to the pit and throw it in."
"For the motive of concealment, and to retard discovery. But for the
footprints it would probably have given him several days--perhaps
weeks--in which to make good his escape."
"Did he not run a bigger risk of discovery by carrying the body
downstairs in an occupied house, and across several hundred yards of
open land close to the village?"
"Not in a remote spot like this. They keep early hours in this part of
the country. I guarantee if you walked through the village now you
wouldn't see a soul stirring."
"Ronald was not likely to know that. Next, how did Ronald, a stranger to
the place, know the locality of this pit so accurately as to be able to
walk straight to it?"
"Easily. He might have approached the inn from that side, and passed it
on his way. And nothing is more likely than Mr. Glenthorpe would tell
him about the pit in the course of his conversation about the
excavations. There is also the possibility that Ronald knew of the
existence of the pit from a previous visit to this part of the country."
"My next point is that Ronald was put to sleep in what he imagined was
an upstairs bedroom. How did he discover that his bedroom, and the
bedroom of Mr. Glenthorpe's adjoining, opened on to a hillside which
enabled him to get out of one bedroom and into the other?"
"Again, Mr. Glenthorpe probably told him--he seems to have been a
garrulous old chap, according to all accounts. Or Ronald may have
looked out of his window when he was retiring, and seen it for himself.
I always look out of a bedroom window, and particularly if it is a
strange bedroom, before getting into bed."
"These are matters of opinion, and, though your explanations are
possible ones, I do not agree with you. We are looking at this case from
entirely different points of view. You believe that Ronald committed the
murder, and you are allowing that belief to colour everything connected
with the case. I am looking at this murder as a mystery which has not
yet been solved, and, without excluding the possibility that Ronald is
the murderer, I am not going, because of the circumstantial evidence
against him, to accept his guilt as a foregone conclusion until I have
carefully examined and tested all the facts for and against that theory.
"The one outstanding probability is that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered for
his money. Now, excluding for the time being the circumstantial evidence
against Ronald--though without losing sight of it--the next point that
arises is was he murdered by somebody in the inn or by somebody from
outside--say, for example, one of the villagers employed on his
excavation works. The waiter's story of the missing knife suggests the
former theory, but I do not regard that evidence as incontrovertible.
The knife might have been stolen from the kitchen by a man who had been
drinking at the bar; indeed, until we have recovered the weapon it is
not even established that this was the knife with which the murder was
committed. It might have been some other knife. We must not take the
waiter's story for granted until we have recovered the knife, and not
necessarily then. But that story, as it stands, inclines to support the
theory that the murder was committed by somebody in the inn. On the
other hand, the theory of an outside murderer lends itself to a very
plausible reconstruction of the crime. Suppose, for example, the murder
had been committed by one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen, actuated by the
dual motives of revenge and robbery, or by either motive. Apparently the
whole village knew of Mr. Glenthorpe's intention to draw this money
which was in his possession when he was murdered--he seems to have been
a man who talked very freely of his private affairs--and the amount,
£300, would be a fortune to an agricultural labourer or a fisherman.
Such a man would know all about the bedroom windows on that side of the
inn opening on to the hillside, and would naturally choose that means of
entry to commit the crime. And, if he were a labourer in Mr.
Glenthorpe's employ, the thought of concealing the body by casting it
into the pit would probably occur to him."
"I do not think there is much in that theory," said Superintendent
Galloway thoughtfully. "Still, it is worth putting to the test. I'll
inquire in the morning if any of the villagers are suspicious
characters, or whether any of Glenthorpe's men had a grudge against
him."
"Now let us leave theories and speculations and come to facts. Our
investigations of the murdered man's room this afternoon gave us several
clues, not the least important of which is that we are enabled to fix
the actual time of the murder with some degree of accuracy. It is always
useful, in a case of murder, to be able to establish the approximate
time at which it was committed. In this case, the murder was certainly
committed between the hours of 11 p.m. and 11.30 p.m., and, in all
probability, not much before half-past eleven."
"How do you fix it so accurately as that?" asked the police officer,
looking keenly at the detective.
"According to Ann, the gentlemen went to their rooms about half-past
ten, and she turned off the gas downstairs shortly afterwards, and went
to bed herself. When we examined the room this afternoon, we found
patches of red mud of the same colour and consistency of the soil
outside the window leading from the window to the bedside, and a
pool--a small isolated pool--of water near the open window. There were,
as you recollect, no footprints outside the window. On the other hand,
the footprints from the inn to the pit are clear and distinct. Rain
commenced to fall last night shortly before eleven, but it did not fall
heavily until eleven o'clock. From then till half-past eleven it was a
regular downpour, when it ceased, and it has not rained since. Now, the
patches of red mud in the bedroom, and the obliteration of footprints
outside the window, prove that the murderer entered the room during the
storm, but the footprints leading to the pit prove that the body was not
removed from the room until the rain had completely ceased, otherwise
they would have been obliterated also, or partly obliterated. These
facts make it clear that the murder was committed between eleven and
half-past, but the pool of water near the window enables us to fix the
time more accurately still, and say that he entered the room during the
time the rain was at its heaviest--that is, between ten minutes past and
half-past eleven."
"I'm hanged if I see how you fix it so definitely," said the
superintendent, who had been following the other's deductions with
interest. "The pool of water may have collected at any time, once the
window was open."
"My dear Galloway, you are working on the rule-of-thumb deduction that
the rain blew in the open window and formed the pool. As a matter of
fact, it did nothing of the kind. The wind was blowing the other way,
and _away_ from that side of the house. Furthermore, the hill on that
side of the inn acts as a natural barrier against rain and weather."
"Then how the deuce do you account for the water in the room?"
"Surely you have not forgotten the piece of black material we found
sticking on the nail outside the window?"
"I have not forgotten it, but I do not see how you connect it with the
pool of water."
"Because it is a piece of umbrella silk. The murderer was carrying an
umbrella--and an open umbrella--have you the piece of silk? If so, let
us look at it."
The superintendent produced the square inch of silk from his waistcoat
pocket, and examined it closely: "Of course it's umbrella silk," he
exclaimed, slapping his leg. "Funny I didn't recognise it at the time."
"Perhaps I wouldn't have recognised it myself, but for the fact that a
piece of umbrella silk formed an important clue in a recent case I was
engaged upon," replied the detective. "Experience counts for a
lot--sometimes. See, this piece of silk is hemmed on the edge--pretty
conclusive proof that the murderer was carrying the umbrella open, to
shield him from the rain, and that it caught on the nail outside the
window, tearing off the edge. He closed it as he got inside the window,
and placed it near the window-sill, and the rain dripped off it and
formed the pool of water. The size of the pool, and the fact that the
murderer carried an open umbrella to shield him, prove pretty
conclusively that he made his entrance into the room during the time the
rain was falling heaviest--which was between 11.10 p.m. and 11.30.
"We now come to what is the most important discovery of all--the pieces
of candle-grease we found in the murdered man's bedroom. They help to
establish two curious facts, the least important of which is that
somebody tried to light the gas in Mr. Glenthorpe's room last night,
and, failing to do so, went downstairs and turned on the gas at the
meter."
"What if they did?" grunted Superintendent Galloway, pouring out another
glass of brandy. He was secretly annoyed at having overlooked the clue
of the umbrella silk, and was human enough to be angry with the
detective for opening his eyes to the fact. "I don't see how you're
going to prove it, and, even if you did, it doesn't matter a dump one
way or the other."
"We'll let that point go," rejoined Colwyn curtly. "Your attitude in
shutting your eyes to facts hardly encourages me to proceed, but I'll
try. Would you mind showing me those bits of candle-grease you picked up
in the bedroom?"
Superintendent Galloway produced a metal match-box from his pocket,
emptied some pieces of candle-grease, a burnt wooden match and a broken
matchhead from it, and sat back eyeing the detective with a supercilious
smile. Colwyn, after examining them closely, brought from his own pocket
an envelope, and shook several more pieces of candle-grease on the
table.
"Look at these pieces of candle-grease side by side," he said. "Yours
were picked up alongside the bed; I found mine underneath the gas
burner."
Superintendent Galloway glanced at the pieces of candle-grease with the
same supercilious smile. "I see them," he said. "They are pieces of
candle-grease. What of them?"
"Do you not see that they are different kinds of candle-grease? The
pieces you picked up alongside the bed are tallow; mine, picked up from
underneath the gas-globe, are wax."
The Superintendent had not noticed the difference in the candle-grease,
but he thought it beneath his dignity to examine them again. "The
murderer may have had two candles," he said oracularly. "Anyway, what
does it matter? They're both candle-grease."
Colwyn swept his fragments back into his pocket with a quick impatient
gesture. "Both candle-grease, as you say," he returned sharply. "We do
not seem to be making much progress in our investigations, so let us
discontinue them. Good-night."