‘The disappearance was remarkable–unaccountable. It was not till the following day that the distracted wife called in the police. As you know, they have not succeeded in solving the mystery.’
‘There have, I suppose, been theories?’ asked Mr Quin.
‘Oh! theories, I grant you. Theory No. 1, that Captain Harwell had been murdered, done away with. But if so, where was the body? It could hardly have been spirited away. And besides, what motive was there? As far as was known, Captain Harwell had not an enemy in the world.’
He paused abruptly, as though uncertain. Mr Quin leaned forward.
‘You are thinking,’ he said softly, ‘of young Stephen Grant.’
‘I am,’ admitted Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Stephen Grant, if I remember rightly, had been in charge of Captain Harwell’s horses, and had been discharged by his master for some trifling offence. On the morning after the homecoming, very early, Stephen Grant was seen in the vicinity of Ashley Grange, and could give no good account of his presence there. He was detained by the police as being concerned in the disappearance of Captain Harwell, but nothing could be proved against him, and he was eventually discharged. It is true that he might be supposed to bear a grudge against Captain Harwell for his summary dismissal, but the motive was undeniably of the flimsiest. I suppose the police felt they must do something. You see, as I said just now, Captain Harwell had not an enemy in the world.’
‘As far as was known,’ said Mr Quin reflectively.
Mr Satterthwaite nodded appreciatively.
‘We are coming to that. What, after all, was known of Captain Harwell? When the police came to look into his antecedents they were confronted with a singular paucity of material. Who was Richard Harwell? Where did he come from? He had appeared, literally out of the blue as it seemed. He was a magnificent rider, and apparently well off. Nobody in Kirtlington Mallet had bothered to inquire further. Miss Le Couteau had had no parents or guardians to make inquiries into the prospects and standing of her fiancé. She was her own mistress. The police theory at this point was clear enough. A rich girl and an impudent impostor. The old story!
‘But it was not quite that. True, Miss Le Couteau had no parents or guardians, but she had an excellent firm of solicitors in London who acted for her. Their evidence made the mystery deeper. Eleanor Le Couteau had wished to settle a sum outright upon her prospective husband, but he had refused. He himself was well off, he declared. It was proved conclusively that Harwell never had a penny of his wife’s money. Her fortune was absolutely intact.
‘He was, therefore, no common swindler, but was his object a refinement of the art? Did he propose blackmail at some future date if Eleanor Harwell should wish to marry some other man? I will admit that something of that kind seemed to me the most likely solution. It had always seemed so to me–until tonight.’
Mr Quin leaned forward, prompting him.
‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight. I am not satisfied with that. How did he manage to disappear so suddenly and completely–at that hour in the morning, with every labourer bestirring himself and tramping to work? Bareheaded, too.’
‘There is no doubt about the latter point–since the gardener saw him?’
‘Yes–the gardener–John Mathias. Was there anything there, I wonder?’
‘The police would not overlook him,’ said Mr Quin.
‘They questioned him closely. He never wavered in his statement. His wife bore him out. He left his cottage at seven to attend to the greenhouses, he returned at twenty minutes to eight. The servants in the house heard the front door slam at about a quarter after seven. That fixes the time when Captain Harwell left the house. Ah! yes, I know what you are thinking.’
‘Do you, I wonder?’ said Mr Quin.
‘I fancy so. Time enough for Mathias to have made away with his master. But why, man, why? And if so, where did he hide the body?’
The landlord came in bearing a tray.
‘Sorry to have kept you so long, gentlemen.’
He set upon the table a mammoth steak and beside it a dish filled to overflowing with crisp brown potatoes. The odour from the dishes was pleasant to Mr Satterthwaite’s nostrils. He felt gracious.
‘This looks excellent,’ he said. ‘Most excellent. We have been discussing the disappearance of Captain Harwell. What became of the gardener, Mathias?’
‘Took a place in Essex, I believe. Didn’t care to stay hereabouts. There were some as looked askance at him, you understand. Not that I ever believe he had anything to do with it.’
Mr Satterthwaite helped himself to steak. Mr Quin followed suit. The landlord seemed disposed to linger and chat. Mr Satterthwaite had no objection, on the contrary.
‘This Mathias now,’ he said. ‘What kind of a man was he?’
‘Middle-aged chap, must have been a powerful fellow once but bent and crippled with rheumatism. He had that mortal bad, was laid up many a time with it, unable to do any work. For my part, I think it was sheer kindness on Miss Eleanor’s part to keep him on. He’d outgrown his usefulness as a gardener, though his wife managed to make herself useful up at the house. Been a cook she had, and always willing to lend a hand.’
‘What sort of a woman was she?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite, quickly.
The landlord’s answer disappointed him.
‘A plain body. Middle-aged, and dour like in manner. Deaf, too. Not that I ever knew much of them. They’d only been here a month, you understand, when the thing happened. They say he’d been a rare good gardener in his time, though. Wonderful testimonials Miss Eleanor had with him.’
‘Was she interested in gardening?’ asked Mr Quin, softly.
‘No, sir, I couldn’t say that she was, not like some of the ladies round here who pay good money to gardeners and spend the whole of their time grubbing about on their knees as well. Foolishness I call it. You see, Miss Le Couteau wasn’t here very much except in the winter for hunting. The rest of the time she was up in London and away in those foreign seaside places where they say the French ladies don’t so much as put a toe into the water for fear of spoiling their costumes, or so I’ve heard.’
Mr Satterthwaite smiled.
‘There was no–er–woman of any kind mixed up with Captain Harwell?’ he asked.
Though his first theory was disposed of, he nevertheless clung to his idea.
Mr William Jones shook his head.
‘Nothing of that sort. Never a whisper of it. No, it’s a dark mystery, that’s what it is.’
‘And your theory? What do you yourself think?’ persisted Mr Satterthwaite.
‘What do I think?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t know what to think. It’s my belief as how he was done in, but who by I can’t say. I’ll fetch you gentlemen the cheese.’
He stumped from the room bearing empty dishes. The storm, which had been quitening down, suddenly broke out with redoubled vigour. A flash of forked lightning and a great clap of thunder close upon each other made little Mr Satterthwaite jump, and before the last echoes of the thunder had died away, a girl came into the room carrying the advertised cheese.
She was tall and dark, and handsome in a sullen fashion of her own. Her likeness to the landlord of the ‘Bells and Motley’ was apparent enough to proclaim her his daughter.
‘Good evening, Mary,’ said Mr Quin. ‘A stormy night.’
She nodded.
‘I hate these stormy nights,’ she muttered.
‘You are afraid of thunder, perhaps?’ said Mr Satterthwaite kindly.
‘Afraid of thunder? Not me! There’s little that I’m afraid of. No, but the storm sets them off. Talking, talking, the same thing over and over again, like a lot of parrots. Father begins it. “It reminds me, this does, of the night poor Captain Harwell…” And so on, and so on.’ She turned on Mr Quin. ‘You’ve heard how he goes on. What’s the sense of it? Can’t anyone let past things be?’
‘A thing is only past when it is done with,’ said Mr Quin.
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‘Isn’t this done with? Suppose he wanted to disappear? These fine gentlemen do sometimes.’
‘You think he disappeared of his own free will?’
‘Why not? It would make better sense than to suppose a kind-hearted creature like Stephen Grant murdered him. What should he murder him for, I should like to know? Stephen had had a drop too much one day and spoke to him saucy like, and got the sack for it. But what of it? He got another place just as good. Is that a reason to murder a man in cold blood?’
‘But surely,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘the police were quite satisfied of his innocence?’
‘The police! What do the police matter? When Stephen comes into the bar of an evening, every man looks at him queer like. They don’t really believe he murdered Harwell, but they’re not sure, and so they look at him sideways and edge away. Nice life for a man, to see people shrink away from you, as though you were something different from the rest of folks. Why won’t Father hear of our getting married, Stephen and I? “You can take your pigs to a better market, my girl. I’ve nothing against Stephen, but–well, we don’t know, do we?”’
She stopped, her breast heaving with the violence of her resentment.
‘It’s cruel, cruel, that’s what it is,’ she burst out. ‘Stephen, that wouldn’t hurt a fly! And all through life there’ll be people who’ll think he did. It’s turning him queer and bitter like. I don’t wonder, I’m sure. And the more he’s like that, the more people think there must have been something in it.’
Again she stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Mr Quin’s face, as though something in it was drawing this outburst from her.
‘Can nothing be done?’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
He was genuinely distressed. The thing was, he saw, inevitable. The very vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of the evidence against Stephen Grant made it the more difficult for him to disprove the accusation.
The girl whirled round on him.
‘Nothing but the truth can help him,’ she cried. ‘If Captain Harwell were to be found, if he was to come back. If the true rights of it were only known–’
She broke off with something very like a sob, and hurried quickly from the room.
‘A fine-looking girl,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘A sad case altogether. I wish–I very much wish that something could be done about it.’
His kind heart was troubled.
‘We are doing what we can,’ said Mr Quin. ‘There is still nearly half an hour before your car can be ready.’
Mr Satterthwaite stared at him.
‘You think we can come at the truth just by–talking it over like this?’
‘You have seen much of life,’ said Mr Quin gravely. ‘More than most people.’
‘Life has passed me by,’ said Mr Satterthwaite bitterly.
‘But in so doing has sharpened your vision. Where others are blind you can see.’
‘It is true,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘I am a great observer.’
He plumed himself complacently. The moment of bitterness was passed.
‘I look at it like this,’ he said after a minute or two. ‘To get at the cause for a thing, we must study the effect.’
‘Very good,’ said Mr Quin approvingly.
‘The effect in this case is that Miss Le Couteau–Mrs Harwell, I mean, is a wife and yet not a wife. She is not free–she cannot marry again. And look at it as we will, we see Richard Harwell as a sinister figure, a man from nowhere with a mysterious past.’
‘I agree,’ said Mr Quin. ‘You see what all are bound to see, what cannot be missed, Captain Harwell in the limelight, a suspicious figure.’
Mr Satterthwaite looked at him doubtfully. The words seemed somehow to suggest a faintly different picture to his mind.
‘We have studied the effect,’ he said. ‘Or call it the result. We can now pass–’
Mr Quin interrupted him.
‘You have not touched on the result on the strictly material side.’
‘You are right,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, after a moment or two for consideration. ‘One should do the thing thoroughly. Let us say then that the result of the tragedy is that Mrs Harwell is a wife and not a wife, unable to marry again, that Mr Cyrus Bradburn has been able to buy Ashley Grange and its contents for–sixty thousand pounds, was it?–and that somebody in Essex has been able to secure John Mathias as a gardener! For all that we do not suspect “somebody in Essex” or Mr Cyrus Bradburn of having engineered the disappearance of Captain Harwell.’
‘You are sarcastic,’ said Mr Quin.
Mr Satterthwaite looked sharply at him.
‘But surely you agree–?’
‘Oh! I agree,’ said Mr Quin. ‘The idea is absurd. What next?’
‘Let us imagine ourselves back on the fatal day. The disappearance has taken place, let us say, this very morning.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr Quin, smiling. ‘Since, in our imagination, at least, we have power over time, let us turn it the other way. Let us say the disappearance of Captain Harwell took place a hundred years ago. That we, in the year two thousand twenty-five are looking back.’
‘You are a strange man,’ said Mr Satterthwaite slowly. ‘You believe in the past, not the present. Why?’
‘You used, not long ago, the word atmosphere. There is no atmosphere in the present.’
‘That is true, perhaps,’ said Mr Satterthwaite thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it is true. The present is apt to be–parochial.’
‘A good word,’ said Mr Quin.
Mr Satterthwaite gave a funny little bow.
‘You are too kind,’ he said.
‘Let us take–not this present year, that would be too difficult, but say–last year,’ continued the other. ‘Sum it up for me, you who have the gift of the neat phrase.’
Mr Satterthwaite thought for a minute. He was jealous of his reputation.
‘A hundred years ago we have the age of powder and patches,’ he said. ‘Shall we say that 1924 was the age of Crossword Puzzles and Cat Burglars?’
‘Very good,’ approved Mr Quin. ‘You mean that nationally, not internationally, I presume?’
‘As to Crossword Puzzles, I must confess that I do not know,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘But the Cat Burglar had a great innings on the Continent. You remember that series of famous thefts from French châteaux? It is surmised that one man alone could not have done it. The most miraculous feats were performed to gain admission. There was a theory that a troupe of acrobats were concerned–the Clondinis. I once saw their performance–truly masterly. A mother, son and daughter. They vanished from the stage in a rather mysterious fashion. But we are wandering from our subject.’
‘Not very far,’ said Mr Quin. ‘Only across the Channel.’
‘Where the French ladies will not wet their toes, according to our worthy host,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, laughing.
There was a pause. It seemed somehow significant.
‘Why did he disappear?’ cried Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Why? Why? It is incredible, a kind of conjuring trick.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Quin. ‘A conjuring trick. That describes it exactly. Atmosphere again, you see. And wherein does the essence of a conjuring trick lie?’
‘The quickness of the hand deceives the eye,’ quoted Mr Satterthwaite glibly.
‘That is everything, is it not? To deceive the eye? Sometimes by the quickness of the hand, sometimes–by other means. There are many devices, the pistol shot, the waving of a red handkerchief, something that seems important, but in reality is not. The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing–nothing at all.’
Mr Satterthwaite leant forward, his eyes shining.
‘There is something in that. It is an idea.’
He went on softly. ‘The pistol shot. What was the pistol shot in the conjuring trick we were discussing? What is the spectacular moment that holds the imagination?’
He drew in his breath sharply.
‘The disappearan
ce,’ breathed Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Take that away, and it leaves nothing.’
‘Nothing? Suppose things took the same course without that dramatic gesture?’
‘You mean–supposing Miss Le Couteau were still to sell Ashley Grange and leave–for no reason?’
‘Well.’
‘Well, why not? It would have aroused talk, I suppose, there would have been a lot of interest displayed in the value of the contents in–Ah! wait!’
He was silent a minute, then burst out.
‘You are right, there is too much limelight, the limelight on Captain Harwell. And because of that, she has been in shadow. Miss Le Couteau! Everyone asking “Who was Captain Harwell? Where did he come from?” But because she is the injured party, no one makes inquiries about her. Was she really a French Canadian? Were those wonderful heirlooms really handed down to her? You were right when you said just now that we had not wandered far from our subject–only across the Channel. Those so-called heirlooms were stolen from the French châteaux, most of them valuable objets d’art, and in consequence difficult to dispose of. She buys the house–for a mere song, probably. Settles down there and pays a good sum to an irreproachable English woman to chaperone her. Then he comes. The plot is laid beforehand. The marriage, the disappearance and the nine days’ wonder! What more natural than that a broken-hearted woman should want to sell everything that reminds her of her past happiness. The American is a connoisseur, the things are genuine and beautiful, some of them beyond price. He makes an offer, she accepts it. She leaves the neighbourhood, a sad and tragic figure. The great coup has come off. The eye of the public has been deceived by the quickness of the hand and the spectacular nature of the trick.’
Mr Satterthwaite paused, flushed with triumph.
‘But for you, I should never have seen it,’ he said with sudden humility. ‘You have a most curious effect upon me. One says things so often without even seeing what they really mean. You have the knack of showing one. But it is still not quite clear to me. It must have been most difficult for Harwell to disappear as he did. After all, the police all over England were looking for him.’