"This is a remarkable story, Mr. Colwyn," said the chief constable,
breaking the rather lengthy silence which followed the conclusion of the
detective's reconstruction of the crime. "It has been quite entrancing
to listen to your syllogistical skill. You would have made an excellent
Crown Prosecutor." The chief constable's official mind could conceive no
higher compliment. "Your statements seem almost too incredible for
belief, but undoubtedly you have made out a case for the further
investigation of this crime. What do you think, Galloway?"
"The question, to my mind, is what Mr. Colwyn's discoveries really
represent," replied Galloway. "He has built up a very ingenious and
plausible reconstruction, but let us discard mere theory, and stick to
the facts. What do they amount to? Apart from Penreath's statement in
the gaol that he saw the body carried down stairs----"
"You can leave that out of the question," said the detective curtly. "My
reconstruction of the crime is independent of Penreath's testimony,
which is open to the objection that it should have been made before."
"Exactly what I was going to point out," rejoined Galloway bluntly.
"Well, then, let us examine the fresh facts. There are five as I see
them. The recovery of Penreath's match-box, the discovery of the door
between the two rooms, the wound on the innkeeper's forehead, the
additional key, and the finding of the pocket-book in the pit. Exclude
the idea of conspiracy, and the recovery of the match-box becomes an
additional point against Penreath, because it strikes me as guess work
to assume that he had no other matches in his possession except that
particular box and the loose one he found in his vest pocket. Smokers
frequently carry two or three boxes of matches. The discovery of the
hidden door is interesting, but has no direct bearing on the crime. The
wound on the innkeeper's head looks suspicious, but there is no proof
that it was caused by his knocking his head against the gas globe in the
murdered man's room on the night of the murder. As Mr. Colwyn himself
has pointed out, there is not much in Benson having a second key of
Glenthorpe's room. Many hotel-keepers and innkeepers keep duplicate keys
of bedrooms. The significance of this discovery is that Benson kept
silence about the existence of this key. Undoubtedly he should have told
us about it, but I am not prepared to accept, offhand, that his silence
was the silence of a guilty man. He may have kept silence regarding it
through a foolish fear of directing suspicion to himself. That theory
seems to me quite as probable as Mr. Colwyn's theory. There remains the
recovery of the money in the pit. In considering that point I find it
impossible to overlook that Penreath returned to the wood after making
his escape. That suggests, to my mind, that he hid the money in the pit
himself, and took the risk of returning in order to regain possession of
it."
"You are worthier of the chief constable's compliment than I, my dear
Galloway," said Colwyn genially. "Your gift of overcoming points which
tell against you by ignoring them, and your careful avoidance of
tell-tale inferences, would make you an ideal Crown Prosecutor."
"I don't believe in inferences in crime," replied Galloway, flushing
under the detective's sarcasm. "I am a plain man, and I like to stick to
facts."
"What was the whole of your case against Penreath but a series of
inferences?" retorted Colwyn. "Circumstantial evidence, and the
circumstances on which you depended in this case, were never fully
established. Furthermore, your facts were not consistent with your
original hypothesis, and had to be altered when the case went to trial.
Now that I have discovered other facts and inferences which are
consistent with another hypothesis, you strive to shut your eyes to
them, or draw wrong conclusions from them. Your suggestion that Penreath
must have hidden the money in the pit because he was arrested near it is
a choice example of false deduction based on the wrong premise that
Penreath hid the money there on the night of the murder. He could not
have done so because he had no rope, and how was he, a stranger to the
place, to know that the inside of the pit was covered with creeping
plants of sufficient strength to bear a man's weight? The choice of the
pit as a hiding place for the money argues an intimate local knowledge."
"You have not yet told us how you came to deduce that the money was in
the pit," said Mr. Cromering, who had been examining the pocket-book and
money.
"While I was examining the mouth of the pit the previous afternoon I
found this piece of paper at the brink, trodden into the clay. Later on
I recognised the peculiar watermark of waving lines as the Government
watermark in the first issue of Treasury war notes. From that I deduced
that the money was hidden in the pit. It was all in Treasury notes, as
you see."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you now," said the chief constable,
with a puzzled glance at the piece of dirty paper in his hand. "This
piece of paper is not a Treasury note."
"Not now, perhaps, but it was once," said the detective with a smile.
"It puzzled me at first. I could not account for the Treasury watermark,
designed to prevent forgery of the notes, appearing on a piece of blank
paper. Then it came to me. The first issue of Treasury notes were very
badly printed. Ordinary black ink was used, which would disappear if the
note was immersed in water. It was an official at Somerset House who
told me this. He informed me that they had several cases of munition
workers who, after being paid in Treasury notes, had put them into the
pockets of their overalls, and forgotten about them until the overalls
came back from the wash with every vestige of printing washed out from
the notes, leaving nothing but the watermarks. It occurred to me that
the same thing had happened in this case. The murderer, when about to
descend to the pit to conceal the money, had accidentally dropped a note
and trodden it underfoot, and it had lain out in the open exposed to
heavy rains and dew until every scrap of printing was obliterated."
"By Jove, that's very clever, very clever indeed!" exclaimed Galloway.
He picked up a magnifying glass which was lying on the table, and
closely examined the dirty piece of white paper which Colwyn had found
at the mouth of the pit. "It was once a Treasury note, sure enough--the
watermark is unmistakable. You've scored a point there that I couldn't
have made, and I'm man enough to own up to it. You see more deeply into
things than I do, Mr. Colwyn. And I'm willing to admit that you've made
some new and interesting discoveries about this case, though in my
opinion you are inclined to read too much into them. But I certainly
think they ought to be investigated further. If Penreath's statement to
you this morning is true, Benson is the murderer, and there has been a
miscarriage of justice. But what makes me doubt the truth of it is
Penreath's refusal to speak before. I mistrust confessions made out at
the last moment. And his explanation that he kept silence to save the
girl strikes me as rather thin. It is too quixotic."
"There is more than that in it," replied Colwyn. "He had a double
motive. Penreath heard Sir Henry Durwood depose at the trial that he
believed him to be suffering from epilepsy."
"How does that constitute a second motive?"
"In this way. Penreath has a highly-strung, introspective temperament.
He went to the front from a high sense of duty, but he was
temperamentally unfit for the ghastly work of modern warfare, and broke
down under the strain. Men like Penreath feel it keenly when they are
discharged through shell-shock. They feel that the carefully hidden
weaknesses of their temperaments have been dragged out into the light of
day, and imagine they have been branded as cowards in the eyes of their
fellow men. I suspect that the real reason why Penreath left London and
sought refuge in Norfolk under another name was because he had been
discharged from the Army through shell-shock. He wanted to get away from
London and hide himself from those who knew him. To his wounded spirit
the condolences of his friends would be akin to taunts and sneers. When
Sir Henry Durwood questioned him he was careful to conceal the fact that
he had been a victim of shell-shock. As a matter of fact, Penreath's
behaviour in the breakfast room that morning was nothing more than the
effects of the air raid on his disordered nerves, but he would sooner
have died than admit that to strangers. After listening to the evidence
for the defence at the trial, he came to the conclusion that he was an
epileptic as well as a neurasthenic. He might well believe that life
held little for him in these circumstances, and that conviction would
strengthen him in his determination to sacrifice his life as a thing of
little value for the girl he loved."
"If that is true he must be a very manly young fellow," said the chief
constable.
"Supposing it is true, what is to be done?" asked Galloway, earnestly.
"Penreath has been tried and convicted for the murder."
"The conviction will be upset on appeal," replied the detective
decisively.
"But I do not see that carries us much further forward as regards
Benson," persisted Galloway. "If he is the murderer, as you say, he will
clear out as soon as he hears that Penreath is appealing."
"He will not be able to clear out if you arrest him."
"On what grounds? I cannot arrest him for a murder for which another man
has been sentenced to death."
"True. But you can arrest him as accessory after the fact, on the ground
that he carried the body downstairs and threw it into the pit."
"And suppose he denies having done so? Look here, Mr. Colwyn, I want to
help you all I can, but if I have made one mistake, I do not want to
make a second one. Frankly, I do not know what to think of your story.
It may be true, or it may not. But speaking from a police point of view,
we have mighty little to go on if we arrest Benson. If he likes to bluff
us we may find ourselves in an awkward position. Nobody saw him commit
the murder."
"I realise the truth of what you say because I thought it all over
before coming to see you," replied Colwyn. "If Benson denies the truth
of the points I have discovered against him, or gives them a different
interpretation, it may be difficult to prove them. But he will not--he
will confess all he knows."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because his nerve has gone. If I had confronted him that night when I
saw him in the room I would have got the whole truth from him."
"Why did you not do so?"
"Because I had not the power to detain him. I am merely a private
detective, and can neither arrest a man nor threaten him with arrest.
That is why I have come to you. You, with the powers of the law behind
you, can frighten Benson into a confession much more effectually than I
could."
"I don't half like it," grumbled Galloway. "There's a risk about it----"
"It's a risk that must be taken, nevertheless." It was Mr. Cromering who
intervened in the discussion between the two, and he spoke with unusual
decision. "I agree with Mr. Colwyn that this is the best course to
pursue. I will go with you and take full responsibility, Galloway."
"There is no need for that," said Galloway quickly. "I am quite willing
to go."
"I will accompany you and Mr. Colwyn. It has been a remarkable case
throughout, and I want to see the end--if this is the end. I feel keenly
interested in this young man's fate."
"I should like to go also, but an engagement prevents me," said Mr.
Oakham. "I am quite content to leave Penreath's interests in Mr.
Colwyn's capable hands." He rose as he spoke, and held out his hand to
the detective. "We have all been in error, but you have saved us from
having an irreparable wrong on our consciences. I cannot forgive myself
for my blindness. Perhaps you will acquaint me with the result of your
visit when you return. I shall be anxious to know."
"I will not fail to do so," replied Colwyn, grasping the solicitor's
hand. "We had better catch the five o'clock train to Heathfield and walk
across to Flegne," he added, turning to the others. "It will be as quick
as motoring across, and the sound of the car might put Benson on his
guard. We want to take him unawares."
"He'll have got wind of something already if he finds the pocket-book
gone," said Galloway. "He may have bolted while we have been talking
over things here."
"I've seen to that," replied the detective. "I tied my own pocket-book
to the fishing line in the pit, and left Queensmead watching the pit. If
Benson tries to escape with my pocket-book Queensmead will arrest him
for robbery. I've made a complaint of the loss."
"You haven't left much to chance," replied Galloway, with a grim smile.