‘There’s something in that, I dare say, sir. But why should Bogan and Andrew Restorick flit just when and where they did?’
‘In London, they knew they were being tailed, it’d be difficult and dangerous to shake off the C.I.D. chaps. But down here escape would be relatively easier. Why they did it when they did is much harder to understand. Perhaps they had some reason for believing that Will Dykes’ “arrest” was dangerous to them.’
‘I should have thought they’d feel much safer after an arrest had been made.’
‘Yes. Unless they saw through my little stratagem.’
‘Well, sir. I’d better go and see how my men are getting on upstairs. I told ’em to give Andrew Restorick’s room a thorough search.’
The superintendent went out, and Nigel began to realize how thin his own theory sounded. The next hour he spent in talking to members of the household. Charlotte Restorick seemed to have recovered from the shock she had received, but she was still bewildered and uneasy at the turn of events. Nigel questioned her closely about Andrew’s behaviour since his recent arrival. He had been very distressed by the news of Dykes’ arrest, she said, as indeed they all were, but he had given no indication of being able to do anything about it. In fact, he had spent a good deal of his first afternoon at Easterham teaching John to shoot with an airgun he had brought down from London for him. Charlotte assured him again that the hot drinks she had prepared on the previous night could not possibly have been tampered with in the kitchen.
Hereward Restorick was no more informative, except for saying that his brother had seemed rather ‘keyed-up’ yesterday. Nothing of significance had been said by Bogan when he had shown the doctor to his room on the previous night. It was Eunice Ainsley who gave Nigel the first hint of the truth, though at first he did not realize it. They were talking about Will Dykes, she told Nigel; she had said she knew all along he must be the murderer – he was insanely jealous about Elizabeth – those quiet, dim little men always turned out the criminals – look at Crippen. And so on. Andrew, she went on, had not been very forthcoming. At last, however (goaded out of his reticence by this rather tiresome female, thought Nigel), Andrew had said, ‘Don’t you be so cocksure, my dear Eunice. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed this time if you think Dykes is going to be hung.’
‘As though I wanted the poor little man hung,’ added Eunice in a tone of grievance.
Nigel disengaged himself from her as quickly as politeness allowed, and went outside the house. Marching up and down the snow-covered terrace, quite unconscious of his surroundings, he meditated this new development.
It suggested what he had believed all along – that Andrew had been withholding some vital information about the murder. Dykes was not going to be hung, declared Andrew, that must surely mean he knew who the real murderer was. Nigel’s stratagem had worked, then. But why had Andrew disappeared? The only reasonable answer seemed to be that, after they had all gone to bed last night, he had taxed X with the crime, that X had killed him and made away with the body.
But why has Bogan skipped too? Easy. Any schoolboy could tell you. Because Bogan is X, the murderer. But, for once, any schoolboy would be wrong. The sleeping-draughts muck up that theory altogether. Even supposing Bogan could have doped the Ovaltine, why should he? He’d only just that minute arrived in the house. Andrew’d had no time for a show-down.
No. That doesn’t follow. Andrew might have hinted his knowledge of Bogan’s guilty secret while they were both still in London, when he invited Bogan down for the week-end, perhaps. You’d better come down to the Manor, or I shall reveal all. It’s been fun blackmailing you, but now the party’s over. I can’t let the wrong man be hung. Yes, blackmail might possibly be the explanation of Andrew’s secretive behaviour. A new experience for Bogan – being at the wrong end of the blackmail. He might well decide that Andrew must be removed, and lay his plans accordingly.
Well then, if this theory’s on the right lines and Bogan took advantage of the Ovaltine to put the household to sleep, what follows? Obviously, he refuses to take any sugar himself (mem.: find out if anyone noticed his refusal). He goes to Andrew’s room, kills him while he is asleep, comes downstairs to eliminate the constable and give himself a clear run, carries Andrew’s body out to the garage, and away to Buenos Aires, dropping the body into a nice deep snowdrift en route.
O.K., O.K., said Nigel’s imaginary interlocutor. You’re marvellous. But if Bogan killed Andrew while he was asleep, why did Andrew’s room look as if a dozen all-in wrestlers had been holding a jam session in it?
That’s simple, replied Nigel. Bogan turned the room upside down to make sure that Andrew had not left any damning evidence against him in writing.
How very eccentric! He moves heaven and earth to destroy any possible evidence of his first murder, and then runs off in such a manner as to convict him of a second one.
But he never meant us to take it like that. He expects us to believe that he and Andrew have skipped together, both alive-oh.
Thereby tacitly admitting they were accomplices in the first murder?
Oh, don’t be so difficult!
Nigel addressed his devil’s advocate with a question of such violence that the odd-job man, passing below the terrace, stopped dead and inquired if the gentleman wanted anything.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Nigel. ‘I want just one straightforward clue. It isn’t much to ask, I should have thought. But no one ever gives it me.’
The odd-job man shook his head sympathetically, and started to move away, back bent and covered with sacking. As he did so, John Restorick came skirmishing round the corner of the house with his air-gun.
‘Hey, Master John! Hev ’ee pinched my shovel? Out of the boiler-room? Hev ’ee seen it anywhere?’ bellowed the odd-job man.
‘No. I don’t know where it is. Watch me shoot that blackbird!’
‘Varmints,’ muttered the man. ‘That wur a good shovel. Don’t understand what’s going on round here. They puts Mr Robins behind my boiler, and they takes my shovel. Sodding Hitler!’
Nigel gazed affectionately at the man’s retreating back. An answer to prayer, at last. Must make certain that the shovel really has been taken, though.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘Earth could not hold us both, nor can one Heaven
Contain my deadliest enemy and me!’
SOUTHEY
‘WELL, STRANGEWAYS, YOU’VE put your foot in it this time. I said it was a wild-cat scheme, and I was right. Two of our suspects gone, and nothing to show for it.’
Blount was in his dourest temper. The eyes behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez glared stonily at Nigel.
‘I wouldn’t say there was nothing to show for it. We’ve pushed ’em out into the open. And you’ll find them soon enough: it’s extremely difficult to get out of the country nowadays. You’ve circulated their descriptions by now, I expect?’
‘Uh-huh. Making more work for me. Next week we’ll be getting reports in from all over the country from people who claim to have seen a man with a beard. I know.’
‘It’ll take your mind off the war. Anyway, that’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?’
‘There are times when I’d like to have you poisoned. Just quietly put out of the way.’
‘Well, if that’s how you feel, I shall refuse to co-operate. I shall refrain from telling you where to look for the body of Andrew Restorick.’
‘Is this a confession? Would you like a stenographer in the room?’ inquired Blount sourly. He played for a few moments with his gold pencil. ‘The body of Andrew Restorick, you said?’
‘Yes. The body.’
‘H’mphm! Well then, where is it?’
‘Buried in a snowdrift.’
‘That’s – e’eh – very helpful. Which snowdrift? It may have escaped your notice that there’s more than one of them lying about the countryside.’
‘Don’t be flippant. A shovel is missing from the boiler-room here. The odd-job man swears he us
ed it yesterday evening. The local constable was put away in the boiler-room. Just before being knocked out, he felt his assailant’s beard. There’s only one way to reconstruct this. Bogan killed Andrew, and took the shovel so that he could bury the body. But the ground is frozen hard. Therefore he could not dig a proper grave. Therefore, he used the shovel to dig a hole in a snowdrift. The snow that was falling would help to smooth over his work. I shall never love the snow again since Maurice died.’
‘That may be so,’ commented Blount, relenting a little. ‘But it doesn’t get us much nearer the body.’
‘You’ll have to wait till you find the car he went away in. If there’s blood or hairs or anything in it, you’ll know Bogan didn’t bury Andrew in the grounds here. Your chaps who are following up the tyre-tracks will give you some idea of the direction he went in.’
‘It’d not be surprising to find Andrew’s hairs in the car, considering that it’s his car,’ Blount remarked.
‘Well, you can’t have everything. I’m just trying to be helpful. I know I’m only a half-witted Oxford graduate.’
‘Quite so. Perhaps you can tell me why Bogan killed Andrew, then?’
‘With pleasure. Because the supposed arrest of Will Dykes made Andrew come out into the open with Bogan.’
‘If Andrew really had some damning evidence against him, and wanted to free Dykes, why on earth didn’t he tell it to the police?’
‘I don’t know yet. It’s worrying me. That, and how Bogan managed to introduce the sleeping-draught into our Ovaltine. I’ve asked Eunice and the Restoricks, but none of them noticed any hanky-panky on his part.’
Blount took an elaborate apparatus out of his pocket and began rolling himself a cigarette. When he had lit it, and removed several shreds of tobacco from his tongue, he said:
‘The sleeping-draught is an interesting point. You’ve satisfied me that it could only have been administered through the Ovaltine. And the one person who could have safely doped that or the sugar, at leisure, was Mrs Restorick.’
‘Ah, ha!’
‘Well, now. You could construct a theory on that. The Restoricks have failed at their first attempt to murder Andrew. They seize the opportunity of the party’s reassembling to try again. But suspicion must be directed elsewhere. So they kill Bogan as well as Andrew, carry their bodies out to the car – incidentally, the garage was locked last night after Bogan’s car was put away, so I don’t quite see how he could have opened it again – where was I? – oh yes, Hereward drives the bodies away, digs a common grave for them, abandons the car, and walks home, while Mrs Restorick is mauling Andrew’s room about to make it look as if a struggle had taken place. She and her husband would, of course, have already removed and hidden Dr Bogan’s belongings, to subserve the illusion that Bogan had disappeared of his own free will. The Restoricks will now inherit Andrew’s money as well as Elizabeth’s.’
Nigel stared Blount full in the eyes. ‘I do believe,’ he said at last, ‘I really do believe that you are trying to pull my leg. Inspector Blount brings off a joke. Is this a record? Well, well, well. And, oddly enough, this ill-timed pleasantry of yours has rung the bell. You’ve set a very interesting train of thought going in my head.’
Hurrying round to the back of the house, Nigel found the chauffeur leaning, in the dégagé manner of his kind, against the Restoricks’ Daimler. A few questions elicited the information that there were three keys to the garage: one of these the chauffeur kept, and he stated it had been in his pocket last night; a second was in the possession of Mr Restorick; the third was normally kept on a hook just inside the back door. Nigel asked the man to show him this hook. They went indoors.
‘That’s funny,’ said the chauffeur. ‘It isn’t there.’
‘Mr Andrew didn’t borrow your key when he put away Dr Bogan’s car last night?’
‘No, sir.’
Nigel sought out Hereward and asked him the same question. The answer again was ‘no’. Andrew must, then, have used the third key.
‘How long has your chauffeur been with you?’
‘Eh? Oh, three years. Very reliable fellow. Not getting ideas about him, I hope,’ replied Hereward.
Nigel had no time to reply, for there was a tap at the door of the study and Blount entered.
‘I thought you had better know, Mr Restorick. Your brother’s car has just been found, abandoned, three miles away from here, on the Chelmsford road.’
Hereward’s brow creased. ‘They don’t seem to have got very far, then,’ he said. ‘I simply can’t make head or tail of the business.’
‘The car was run into a drift.’ Blount watched Hereward attentively.
‘What? Run into – you mean, it was done on purpose?’
‘Maybe. Maybe an accident.’
‘Very likely, if Bogan was driving. Rotten bad driver, y’know. Always had to get Howells or Andrew to put his car away in our garage for him and take it out. Bit tricky, of course, manoeuvring it in there. I ought to have the yard widened.’
‘I see. Well, we’re having the car taken into Chelmsford, and we’ll run over it there. It may give us a line.’
‘Was it – er – empty when they found it?’
‘Yes. No suitcases or anything, that is to say.’
‘You going into Chelmsford now?’ Hereward, tugging his flaxen moustache, stared at Blount ruminatively. ‘Run you in, if you like.’
‘That’d be very kind of you.’
Sitting in the front seat of the Daimler beside Hereward, as they moved cautiously along the winding, snow-deep lanes, the chains on the tyres clinking, Nigel pondered. Suppose Blount’s little jeu d’esprit turned out to be a correct interpretation of the facts. Andrew’s car abandoned only three miles away. That’d give Hereward quite a short walk back to the house, if it was he who – Glancing covertly at the stiff, correct figure beside him, wrapped in a horsey check tweed coat, Nigel tried to envisage Hereward driving a couple of corpses through the snowstorm in the small hours.
‘Difficult road this in the dark, I imagine, with the present lighting restrictions,’ he remarked mildly.
‘Yes. Don’t wonder Bogan piled up. It surprises me he managed to get to us at all, in fact.’
Hereward’s eyes were screwed up, there was a tight frown on his forehead. Well, thought Nigel, that doesn’t mean anything. It might be the dazzle of the snow added to the effect of an overdose of sleeping-draught, or he may just be putting it on; or, for that matter, he could easily have taken the sleeping-draught after returning from a little jaunt with two corpses last night.
‘Didn’t he run a chauffeur?’ Nigel asked.
‘Oh yes, I believe so. Didn’t bring him down here though. Tell you what’s puzzling me,’ Hereward continued, recovering from a skid that sent Nigel’s stomach under the floor-boards: ‘Your asking me about the garage keys made me think of it. How did Bogan open the garage last night?’
‘Used the third key, presumably. The one Andrew had locked it up with.’
‘But that’s the whole point. He’d never put away his car or taken it out while he was staying with us. How could he know where this key was kept?’
‘If he’d planned for a getaway last night, he’d make it his business to find out,’ replied Nigel perfunctorily. He wasn’t thinking about keys any longer. He was wondering why Hereward had let the car get into a skid just now, whether it had been caused by Hereward’s involuntarily starting at his question about the chauffeur. But why should Hereward be alarmed at being asked if Bogan kept a chauffeur?
Fantastic as the snow-patterns on the willows they were passing, a theory crystallized in his head. Suppose Bogan’s chauffeur had in fact driven him down. If Bogan was the chief victim in last night’s proceedings, the criminal would want his chauffeur well out of the way. Andrew ‘putting the car away’; did Andrew put the chauffeur away too? Were he and Hereward accomplices? Once again the pattern of the dramatis personae changed. No, it was impossible. A dozen objections. The sketch
iest inquiry would be enough to reveal that the chauffeur had come down to Easterham with his master – and then where would Andrew and Hereward be?
They arrived at a bend of the road, where an A.A. man was signalling them to slow down. Just round the corner there was a car deeply imbedded in a drift at the side of the road. Andrew Restorick’s car. A sergeant and a constable, standing by it, saluted Blount.
‘Not much doubt about it,’ said Blount after a brief inspection. ‘Look at the depth it’s pushed its way into the drift. It was run into it, by accident or on purpose, before it was abandoned.’
And an escaping criminal, thought Nigel, wouldn’t do it on purpose – not with several miles to walk to the nearest station. At a word from Blount, the police and the garage-men from the relief car started to dig the snow away from the vehicle. Presently it would be towed into Chelmsford, where the experts could get to work on it.
Meanwhile, all the men that Phillips could spare were prodding with sticks and poles and spades into the snowdrifts around, working outwards in a loose semi-circle from the stranded car in the direction from which it had come. Unless the driver had made a wide detour to bury the body or had carried it far away from the lane – a course which the darkness and his natural desire for haste made unlikely – they should find it before long.
Hereward was staring expressionlessly at the abandoned car, tugging his moustache. He looked oddly helpless, as though it were his own car stranded there and no one around to help him out.
‘Don’t worry too much, Mr Restorick,’ said Blount. ‘We’ve not got to the bottom of this yet. There may be some other explanation. Will we be getting along now?’
When they arrived at the police station, there was news for Blount. Phillips’ men had been making inquiries at the railway stations in the vicinity. No one answering to Bogan’s or Andrew’s description had been noticed boarding a train in the early hours of the morning. But a phone call had just come through from Scotland Yard. A ticket-collector at the London terminus of the line, questioned by a C.I.D. man, had recognized the description of Dr Bogan offered to him as that of a passenger who had passed through the barrier off the 5–20 slow train. A bearded man, of sallow complexion, with a stoop. He had particularly noticed this passenger, because he had paid for his ticket at the barrier, saying he’d not had time to buy one at Chelmsford. There had been few passengers on this train, and the ticket-collector, given a description of Andrew Restorick, was prepared to swear that he was not one of them.