‘Rennell said that, when Oswald left him, he saw him walk over here. It was about twelve-twenty. You were sitting up. You didn’t hear anything, I suppose? It seems odd that Oswald should come to this house—get this far—and then go away again without trying to see any one.’
‘He would not want to see me,’ said Janet darkly, staring down at her hands which lay like two rocks in her lap. ‘That’s why—’ She broke off.
‘Yes?’
‘I think I can explain it. I didn’t tell the police because it went out of my head; and afterwards, when I remembered, it seemed too trivial: besides, I assumed at the time it must have been my imagination.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, it was about ten minutes before my husband returned from his walk; I thought I heard the door open—the courtyard door. I was sitting in my boudoir. I went to the boudoir door and called quietly, “Is that you, Robert?” I was expecting him back, you see, any moment. But there was no reply. So I naturally thought I’d been mistaken. How horrible! Do you suppose that man actually tried to get into the house?’
‘It’s an explanation. He recognised your voice, didn’t want you to know he was here, and slid off again.’
‘But I can’t understand it? Whom did he want to see? What did he come here for at all?’
‘We’ve not much choice, have we?’ said Nigel gently. ‘He’d hardly have come to meet Lionel, or Vanessa.’
Janet’s prominent eyes opened affrightedly. Then she closed them and at last lay back in the chair, her fists clenched on the arms of it—the pose of a flogged boxer in his corner at the end of a punishing round. She said faintly:
‘Not Robert. I won’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Robert wouldn’t be so insane as to invite that man to the house. There must be some other explanation.’
And after all that, a day passed, another, two more, with a deepening sense of anticlimax for Nigel. The case seemed to hang fire. There was no news from Blount. Inexplicably Lionel and Mara were not found: they had disappeared as thoroughly as if spontaneous combustion had seized them. Sergeant Bower kept Nigel in touch with events. The car was discovered, the morning after their flight, in Foxhole wood: it had been driven off the road, down one of the drives deep into the wood, then tastefully camouflaged with fern and branches, and abandoned. The police theory was that the fugitives had lain up in the wood till darkness came, and then set off on foot. A watch had been set on the roads and railway stations in the area and the station staffs warned, within half an hour of their leaving Plash Meadow. Under-staffed though he was, Inspector Gates had at once set on foot inquiries at the houses of all their friends in the neighbourhood. Nor, this time, was the church vault forgotten. But no report came in from any station along the main or branch lines; no cars had been hired or stolen; not a trace of the fugitives could be found for four days. Inspector Gates could only suppose they had thumbed a lift on a lorry that first night. Investigation at Plash Meadow showed they had taken with them two haversacks, some toilet necessities and food for about three days.
On the fourth day, Blount telephoned Gates from Bristol, suggesting he should call off the search locally. Lionel and Mara were posted in the list of Wanted Persons in the Police Gazette. Apart from this, which meant that the eye of every policeman in England would be lifting for them, no more time was to be wasted on the couple.
On the fifth day, a young man with an incipient beard and a tramp-like appearance, but otherwise answering to the description of Lionel Seaton, was spotted in a market-town in the next county. He leapt on a bicycle standing by the pavement, evaded the constable who had challenged him and got away again in spite of the hue and cry that was raised. As Bower said, ‘Those young chaps trained for the Airborne and Commandos, they’re a proper bastard to lay your hands on.’ It seemed pretty clear that the pair had separated; in Nigel’s opinion, Lionel was putting on an Elusive Pimpernel act intended to have a nuisance value only. However this might be, Nigel now believed that the young man’s escapade—if it were only an escapade—had been aimed at impressing his father no less than Mara. Robert Seaton was a being, no doubt, of sweetness and light. But a towering, deep-rooted genius must overshadow all lesser growths around it, and impoverish the soil for them: the children of a man so consecrated, so self-sufficient could not be altogether normal; the stronger the parent stock, the more violent and eccentric would be their efforts at times to assert their own personality. When a father was loved, as Robert was, these efforts would tend towards impressing him, not rebelling against him. What Lionel Seaton had in effect been saying, when he ‘confessed’ to the hiding of Finny Black, when he did his Wild West turn in the Old Barn, was ‘Look, father, I’m a man too, I can do something for you.’ And his reward, could he have heard it, was in the tone of Robert’s voice, disconcerted, fond and admiring, when he had said: ‘Oh, dear me, he shouldn’t have done that.’
On the sixth day, Blount returned to Ferry Lacey. The Superintendent looked grave, but triumphant.
‘We found it at last,’ he said to Nigel. ‘Where Oswald Seaton lay up when he got to England. And we found a letter, inviting him to come down here. Aye, I reckon the case is over.’
‘A letter? From whom?’
‘From Robert Seaton.’
Chapter 13
Robert Seaton Explains
NIGEL STRANGEWAYS EXAMINED the sheet of writing-paper which Blount had laid before him.
‘There is no question of a forgery,’ said Blount. ‘Our handwriting experts have been on to it.’
‘Oh, no, it’s his writing. I should know it by now.’
‘And you see it’s cheap thin paper, torn off a block; not the stuff they generally use here, headed with the address. He was trying to safeguard himself—just in case.’
The letter certainly had neither address nor date on it.
Dear Oswald. This is an incredible surprise to me. Of course I shall make no difficulties. But why didn’t you write long ago to let me know you were alive? By all means let us meet. There is a train from Bristol that gets to Chillingham Junction at 10.58 p.m. Travel by this on Thursday. I’ll leave the courtyard door unlocked and be waiting for you in the drawing-room—don’t enter the house unless or until you see the drawing-room lights are out—I’ll try to get J. to go to bed early, though. You realise she would not welcome your presence, and might make things very awkward for you. I shall not mention your return to her, therefore, till you and I have had a good talk. You must have your rights, I agree: but the matter is very ticklish because of that affair ten years ago. I would try and talk J. over; also Rennell and M. But in the meantime we must go very cautiously. So it is essential that you should destroy this letter and not advertise your arrival here. I rely on you to follow these instructions.
Your affectionate brother,
Robert.
‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said Blount, as Nigel finished reading the letter.
‘It looks bad, certainly. I don’t wonder Oswald took all the precautions he did.’
‘He didn’t take enough, though,’ Blount grimly replied. ‘Except to keep Robert Seaton’s letter. And that didn’t save him.’
‘How did you find it?’
According to the Superintendent’s account, Oswald Seaton had arrived at Bristol the Saturday before he came to Ferry Lacey. He had worked his passage on a tramp steamer from North Africa under the name of Roger Redcote: he must have been living under this name for some time, since his papers were all in order. On arrival at Bristol, he had taken a room in a house of very dubious reputation: its landlady was already on bad terms with the local police, and this was why they had had no success at first in their efforts to trace him. Finally, however, through the belated evidence of a young person who was one of this landlady’s clients, the presence of ‘Roger Redcote’ in the house, for several days before the murder of Oswald Seaton, was revealed. Blount interviewed the landlady: she was soon induced to part with a suitcase, belonging to Roger Redc
ote, which she had been keeping in lieu of her unpaid bill; she also told Blount that her lodger had received a letter (Oswald had evidently told Robert to write to him under his alias) on the Wednesday, and had disappeared the following evening.
On forcing open the suitcase, Blount had found the letter from Robert Seaton in the pocket of a coat.
‘And what else did you find in the suitcase?’ asked Nigel.
‘Besides the jacket, there was a pair of trousers, two pairs of socks, a shirt, some cheap underwear, a copy of No Orchids for Miss Blandish, a pair of slippers, pyjamas, a rough towel, a tie—all pretty shabby.’ Blount reeled off the list as if he had learnt it by heart.
‘Was that all?’
‘That was all.’
‘Ah.’
‘Exactly,’ said Blount, with a keen look at Nigel.
‘Yet Oswald was clean-shaven at this time?’
‘Just so.’
‘He expected to be fitted out when he got to Plash Meadow. He wouldn’t bother to bring his worn-out old clothes. But he didn’t leave his shaving things behind at Bristol, or his toothbrush—supposing the horrible creature used one.’
‘This girl who blew the gaffe—she told us he used a cut-throat razor.’
‘Well, there’s your weapon,’ said Nigel. ‘No doubt he was carrying it in his pocket.’
‘You’re taking it all very calmly, I must say.’
‘Do you want me to give a war-whoop? I’m very fond of Robert Seaton. No doubt he said to Oswald, as the thunder rolled and the lightning played, “Could you lend me a razor just a moment, old chap? I left mine in the house by mistake.”’
The Superintendent looked hurt. ‘Oh, come now, Strangeways, you’re not being very co-operative.’
‘I only want you to tell me how the murderer managed to get hold of Oswald’s razor—that’s all: remembering that Oswald didn’t trust a soul here.’
‘Presumably Oswald took off his mac at some point and Robert found the razor in the pocket.’
‘That seems to me very lame. And it suggests that the murder was unpremeditated—that Robert didn’t think of it till it happened upon the razor. But this letter doesn’t incriminate Robert unless it was part of a plan to get Oswald here and kill him. You can’t have it both ways.’
‘Well, if you can give me any other reason why Robert, who had everything to lose by his brother’s resurrection, encouraged him in it—damn it, Strangeways, he could just have ignored Oswald’s letter! Oswald wouldn’t have dared to appear here, with that criminal charge hanging over his head. Yet Robert writes back to him, “of course I shall make no difficulties.” How d’you explain that?’
‘You’d better ask him. But if my theory is correct that it was Janet who blackmailed Oswald out of the country ten years ago, and that Robert had had no suspicions about her share in the proceedings, until Oswald reappeared, then his recent behaviour makes sense.’
‘You mean, he just wanted to make honourable restitution?’
‘Partly that,’ said Nigel. ‘And partly to protect his wife. He’d soon realise that Oswald could make things as hot for Janet, because of her complicity in his “suicide,” as she could for Oswald. I suggest Robert’s idea was to get every one round a table and discuss how a compromise could be reached. At any rate, he’d want to make sure that Oswald didn’t intend to blow the gaffe on Janet; and, in return for Oswald’s silence about this, he’d promise that no action would be taken over the Mara affair—and possibly throw in some hush-money as well. Didn’t you and Slingsby find out anything in Somerset?’
‘We did. And it supports your theory. But it’s still vairy inconclusive.’
Blount summarised the results of this part of the investigation. Inspector Slingsby, following a ten-year-old trail—and one which had petered out to nothing when the police originally followed it, after Oswald’s disappearance—had interviewed scores of people in the Somerset village where Oswald’s seaside cottage was situated. Having talked to every one who had been living there at the time of the disappearance, and discovered nothing inconsistent with the findings of the original investigation, Slingsby then set out pertinaciously to trace various individuals who had left the village since. His diligence was finally rewarded when he hit the trail of a certain Eliza Hanham. This woman had moved to a village near Bridgwater after the death of her brother in 1942: this brother, a R.N.R. man, recalled to the navy at the beginning of the war, had been killed during a dive-bombing attack upon a convoy in the Mediterranean. Eliza Hanham herself had died a few weeks ago: but in her cottage there had been discovered a hoard of money—nearly £150 in notes of small denominations. Both she and her brother were notoriously close; and the brother had owned a small motor fishing boat, which Oswald and his guests used sometimes to hire. Further investigation disclosed that Eliza Hanham had bought her cottage with the money accruing from the sale of her brother’s boat, and that she had no source of income apart from the pension which came to her after his death. It proved impossible to account for the notes found in her cottage, except on the theory that they had been given to her brother in return for services to Oswald, ten years ago, and kept hoarded ever since. At the time, the police had interviewed this John Hanham; but he and his sister both said he had slept at home on the night of Oswald’s disappearance: asked to account for Janet Lacey’s visiting his cottage two days before it—a visit reported to the police by some neighbours—John Hanham explained that she had come to discuss a fishing trip for Oswald’s house-party. The police had naturally kept an eye open, for some time after Oswald’s disappearance, in case any of the local boatmen started flinging money about in a suspicious way. But John Hanham had been much too fly to do that.
So far, the evidence was pretty negative. Brother and sister being dead—and a couple who in life had kept themselves to themselves—the source of Eliza’s hoard could be confirmed neither by questioning nor through gossip. However, Slingsby had then started at the other end and sought for corroborative evidence in the bank accounts of Oswald Seaton, Robert and Janet Lacey. Here at first he was met with a blank wall. The original investigations had covered this ground and Slingsby found nothing to contradict its conclusions—that none of the three had withdrawn a large sum just before Oswald’s disappearance, and none of them had a private account elsewhere from which the money could have been withdrawn. Superintendent Blount, turning up at this point, had suggested that Slingsby should inquire next into the affairs of old Mrs Lacey—Janet’s mother. This was the only point which, as far as he could tell from the police records, had not been satisfactorily covered. Slingsby set to work again, tracked down the man who at the time had been manager of the Redcote bank where old Mrs Lacey kept her account, and after consultation with him and the present manager, had come upon a very significant fact. It appeared that, two days before Oswald’s disappearance, the Redcote branch received a telephone call from Mrs Lacey in Somerset. The old lady appeared to be panic-stricken about the imminence of war, and asked for all the money in her current account, £300 odd, to be sent to her in notes. The manager tried to persuade her that, even if war did come the next week, her money would be much safer in the bank than in a stocking under her bed. But she was an obstinate old lady; so, after the bank had received a letter of confirmation from her, the money was sent.
Once again, the evidence could only be called circumstantial. Old Mrs Lacey was dead. There was no proof that her £300 had played a part in the conspiracy which got Oswald Seaton out of the country. But Oswald had been conveyed away. John Hanham had been visited by Janet Lacey just before, and his sister had come into possession of an otherwise unaccountable £150. So it seemed reasonable to suppose that someone, perhaps Oswald himself, more likely Janet, had played upon Mrs Lacey’s fear of war, induced her to take out her money, then ‘borrowed’ or stolen it, to pay John Hanham and to provide Oswald with some ready cash. Blount conjectured that the old lady had been kept quiet, once Oswald’s ‘suicide’ took place, by the assu
rance that she would benefit from Oswald’s estate when Robert, now engaged to marry her daughter, came in for it.
‘Well,’ said Blount at the end of it, ‘we’ve got to have a showdown now.’
‘With Mrs Seaton?’
‘With her husband. The matter of the conspiracy can wait. I’m going to clear up the murder first.’
‘D’you mind if I sit in?’
‘Please yourself. But no funny business. If Seaton wants help, he’ll have to get his solicitor along.’
‘One thing, Blount, I wish you’d ask him or Janet.’ Nigel explained the point about the mackintosh. ‘It seems odd that a woman who fusses over her husband’s health, as Janet does, should have allowed him to go out with her, just when a thunder-shower was starting, without his mackintosh.’
‘She says she borrowed his, eh? Well, I’ll mention it, but it doesn’t seem to me of any significance.’
Five minutes later they were in Robert Seaton’s study. Sergeant Bower, sitting at the poet’s desk, to one side of which was pushed the little black notebook that held Robert’s immortality—the poem had been finished two days ago—licked his pencil. Nigel was perched on the window-seat. The Superintendent, beside the desk, faced Robert and Janet Seaton: he was, Nigel knew, at his most formidable; yet, such were the presence of Janet and the innate dignity of her husband, that even Blount’s burly form seemed to shrink. He might have been just the local bobby come to enlist their help for a police fête or to examine a gun licence.
‘In view of certain new evidence, Mr Seaton, I am going to ask you to amplify your previous statements to the police. What you say will be taken down, and may be used in evidence. You are under no compulsion to answer my questions. And you are entitled to have a legal representative present, if you wish.’
‘I don’t think there’s any need for that,’ said Robert.
‘Very well, then. Will you tell me under what circumstances you wrote this letter to your brother, Oswald.’ Blount moved bulkily over to Robert and held the letter in front of his eyes for a few moments.