A Night of Errors (26 page)

Mrs Marple appeared. She was a massively bosomed woman smothered in soap-suds; she waddled forward surrounded by a waddling entourage of her Khaki Campbells; of these some made gobbling noises while others hissed; Mrs Marple gave over shouting and fell to gobbling too. It presently appeared that these new articulations were expressions of civility addressed to Mr Greengrave. Mrs Marple dried her soapy arms on her apron, scattered the curs with two well-directed kicks, delivered a number of threatening remarks in the direction of the now silent cottage, and led the way to what she evidently regarded as the scene of an important crime. Three nights before, the sleeping quarters of the Khakis had been broken into and two of the birds removed. ‘Felony!’ said Mrs Marple with a dramatic gobble. ‘Felony stalking my own ’earth and ’ome. ’Itlerism in the midst.’

Appleby surveyed the scene with no very lively interest. ‘Are you much troubled by tramps?’ he asked.

Mrs Marple nodded. ‘Tramps and ’ikers,’ she said, ‘and lowclarse picnickers out of cars. Felons and fornicators, the lot of ’em – and you can take my word for it.’

‘You get a good deal of motor traffic this way?’

‘Motor traffic!’ Mrs Marple stared down the empty road that skirted her domain. ‘It’s my opinion the King ’imself don’t look out on more cars and sherry-bangs nor we do. Come back to the ’igh-road this way, they do, after turning orf to Abbots’ Posset, the same being a beauty-spot with good ’igh teas. I done ’igh teas myself at one time, as parson ’ere knows. But I gave it over on account of the felony. For, believe it nor not, while wife and young would be ’ogging it in my parlour at ’arf-a-crown, cut and come again, the man would be out behind an ’edge, a-nicking of one of the fowls. Shameful, I calls it. As I said to young Timmins the constable, all I arsks for is the rule of law.’

‘Quite right, Mrs Marple. And it is the rule of law that I am here to assert.’ Appleby nodded as impressively as he could. ‘Now, did you see anything of the man who you suppose took the two Khaki Campbells?’

‘See him! ’Asn’t ’e been lurking in spinney there these three days past – and the smell of the creatures nicely broiled awafting over to my ’ungry little ones?’

Mr Greengrave took off his straw hat and mopped his forehead. ‘Dear me,’ he said, ‘you told me nothing of this. And here have I been suspecting young Ted Morrow.’

‘Ted Morrow!’ Mrs Marple’s scorn was massive. ‘As if I wouldn’t ’ave gone arfter Ted Morrow with a broomstick. But I told young Timmins – confidential-like, as is proper when felons is to be dealt with. And wot did Timmins do? Did he go into that spinney and beard the ruffian in his lair? ’E did nothing but make pretence of writing in his notebook and took ’imself orf to ’is supper.’

‘That sounds very bad.’ And Appleby shook his head. ‘So a tramp has been lurking in that spinney and devouring your poultry? Just when did you see him last?’

‘Only last night I seen ’im. And money ’e must ’ave ’ad, for ’e were as drunk as a Lord ’Igh Chancellor and ready to drop into a ditch.’

‘He would be making his way from the road there to his encampment in the spinney? Then I think we will first find his hide-out and then cast around. And we mustn’t interrupt your wash-day further. I think it unlikely that you will be troubled by this particular tramp again.’

Mrs Marple, having offered some further observations on felony and the rule of law, retreated to her domestic occasions. Appleby and Mr Greengrave searched the spinney. There was no doubt that a tramp had been sleeping there. There was no doubt that he had regaled himself on Khaki Campbells; the creatures’ feathers and carcasses were a conclusive testimony. Appleby searched the whole spinney with extraordinary care. Then he shook his head. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘we might take up the notion of his being drunk enough to fall insensible by the roadside or into a ditch. I dare say you know all the pubs round here?’

Mr Greengrave looked slightly taken aback. ‘I certainly know their location. But I fear that any more intimate knowledge–’

‘Capital. The point is to find the fellow’s route if he was returning here from one or another of them. We’ll work on that.’

For some fifteen minutes they cast about them and then their search was rewarded. In a dry ditch by the roadside, plainly evident in the long grass, was the impress of the body of a man. Appleby climbed down. ‘Not a doubt of it,’ he called back presently. ‘Here Mrs Marple’s visitor lay. There’s even another of those feathers.’

Mr Greengrave peered down. ‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘this is most dramatic. You don’t by any chance see the other boot?’

‘What I see is blood – quite a lot of it.’ Appleby hunted further. ‘And two distinct sets of footprints. And signs of one person being hauled out as a dead weight and with his heels trailing.’ He climbed back to the roadside. ‘Well, we’ll find nothing further. And it does fit another expected piece of the puzzle into place. Let’s get back to the car.’

Mr Greengrave stepped back upon the road. ‘Am I right in thinking that this wretched man is now probably dead?’

‘I am afraid there is almost no question of it.’

‘Yet another addition to the holocaust!’ Mr Greengrave moved irresolutely forward. ‘And the body has been carried off?’

‘Precisely so. The body has been carried off for a purpose which has probably become fairly clear to you.’

‘I see.’ Mr Greengrave, having advanced a few paces by Appleby’s side, now halted again and stared before him in some perplexity. ‘I think I
do
see. Only–’ He hesitated. ‘Well, I almost hate to point it out. But in fact the body has not been carried off. I am looking at it now.’

Appleby glanced ahead. In a corner of the same ditch, a few yards before them, lay the body of a man. It was clothed in rags and sprawled with its feet cocked in air. One foot was shod in a battered boot. The other was naked.

Mr Greengrave continued to be embarrassed. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that this does not – well, upset your view of the case?’

‘It has its disconcerting side.’ Appleby gazed down at the body. ‘At least it should teach me to eschew prophecy. We were going to detect the signs of a struggle, and nothing else. I think that was it?’

‘I certainly have the impression that you said something of the sort. But, of course, in so complex an affair it is understandable–’

‘Help me haul him out.’

They heaved up the body. The tramp was a miserable wisp of humanity. A diet of Khaki Campbells could have come his way but seldom. The ignoble discretion shown by Constable Timmins had surely been wholly unnecessary. Mr Greengrave gently closed the eyes. ‘I suppose,’ he ventured, ‘it could not be a matter of natural death? He scarcely looks as though he could have had much life in him, poor fellow.’

‘What life there was has been knocked out of him by a blow on the back of the head.’ Appleby was carefully examining the body. ‘I see!’ he said suddenly. ‘Do you know, this criminal of ours is an uncommonly observant fellow, as well as an uncommonly able one? Look at the right hand.’

Mr Greengrave looked. ‘Two fingers missing.’

Appleby nodded grimly. ‘This particular body proved not up to standard. Its remains even when incinerated could not without slight risk be passed off as someone else’s – the missing joints might be noticed. So it has been – well, say returned to stock.’

‘Good heavens!’ Mr Greengrave was appalled. ‘Surely that does not mean that another–’

‘I am afraid it does. And we may notice that there is also at work a queer instinct of tidiness. This body has been to Sherris, as the boot witnesses. It must have been there that the missing fingers were noticed and that it was consequently turned down as not good enough. It was of course desirable to remove it, so that it might have no appearance of connexion with the Dromio affair. But why return it just here? The neurotic’s exaggerated sense of orderliness is the answer. Our criminal is of the rather over-anxious type.’

‘Our criminal is an abominable maniac!’

‘Abominable – yes. But whether he is a maniac remains to be seen. I think we’ll simply put the body in the back of the car and drive back to Sherris. It’s a little irregular, but time is getting on. I doubt whether the last act in the affair is timed for much after noon. I must be getting off to town.’

‘To town!’ Mr Greengrave was quite dismayed. ‘I hope you have no engagement which prevents your following out these horrors to the end? Inspector Hyland is a most efficient officer, I do not doubt. But I am quite sure the only chance–’

‘Will you take him under the arms? That’s right. And what you were going to say is probably true. Through what was not much more than a freak of association the solution does seem to have come my way. And it may be doubted whether it would now come to anybody else… Just let him slump down on the seat. As for my run up to town, I hope I may be back again this evening.’

‘With some conclusive piece of evidence?’

Appleby settled himself behind the wheel. ‘I have very considerable hope of it. The weather has been fine for some weeks and there should be very few common colds about.’

Mr Greengrave stared blankly at Appleby. ‘I hardly see–’

‘But it’s not a question of seeing. It’s a question of smelling.’ Mr Greengrave sighed. ‘At this stage, at least, it can hardly be a matter of smelling a rat.’

‘A rat? Dear me, no. Say rather a hyena or a tiger.’

At least the Bentley had returned. And one of the fire-engines had departed – as had the ambulance with the dead or dying Sebastian Dromio. The ladies too had gone, and the huddle of helpless servants. But Hyland still sat at his little table, his constables coming and going about him. He had been provided with a telephone, and he was talking into this as Appleby approached. Behind him the ruins of the great house sullenly smoked, and acrid smells mingled with the dank stench of the emptied lily pond. Firemen continued to play hoses here and there, and near the centre of the main building a group of men were working round a small crane.

Hyland put down his telephone and raised a weary head. ‘And how,’ he asked, ‘was the wild-goose chase after Mrs Marple’s ducks?’

‘Quite a successful bag.’ Appleby sat down. ‘In fact, we’ve brought you another body.’

Hyland groaned. Then he looked hopeful. ‘Geoffrey Gollifer’s?’ he asked.

‘Dear me, no. You must surely have caught Geoffrey Gollifer by this time, even if the mad baronet still eludes you.’

‘We have not caught him. It’s the most damnable mess. The Chief Constable has been very decent, but I can see he’s upset. I’m afraid he thinks Lord Linger may be annoyed.’

‘Bother Lord Linger.’

‘I’m afraid he thinks Lord Linger may think Mr Bottle may think it a reflection on the county as a whole.’ And Hyland shook his head, as if the whole weight of the English social structure were pressing on his shoulders. ‘But what’s this body you were talking about?’

‘Just a tramp’s. The body of a murdered tramp. He was wearing one boot. And the other boot was found by one of your men here in a ditch.’

‘Then I suppose we must somehow fit him in. Probably he was snooping about, poor devil, and saw too much. So the criminal killed him, carried off the body, and dumped it–’

‘Nothing like that, Hyland – nothing like that at all. He was killed over at Mrs Marple’s, and brought here presumably in a car. The criminal was going to pass off his body as another’s, and began to remove articles of clothing which might resist a fire. He got off one boot. Then he noticed something that made the body unsuitable for his purpose. Whereupon – either immediately or somewhat later – he took the body away again and dumped it where he found it.’

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ Hyland took refuge in naïf astonishment. ‘It must be admitted we’re up against somebody uncommonly active.’

‘Quite so. Ceaseless activity – that’s the key to the whole thing. While you and I were sitting in there’ – and Appleby waved his hand in the direction of Sir Oliver Dromio’s vanished study – ‘while you and I were chewing over what we took to be a settled and accomplished crime, there was really a continuing process all around us. A complicated imposture was building itself up step by step. It’s still doing so.’

Hyland groaned. ‘It’s a sort of nightmare. They talk of unravelling a crime. Well, here’s somebody ravelling at one end far faster than we can unravel at the other. One gets the feeling that the affair may go on complicating itself indefinitely.’

‘Not a bit of it. The complications will stop as soon as they have gained their object. And already there are a good many questions to which we can give the answer. Who first killed whom?’

‘Cain first killed Abel.’ Hyland roused himself to a flicker of sarcasm.

‘Whose was the body you and I first saw in the study? Was it the same body that Dr Hubbard and the others saw there later? Is it the same body that is there now? Who provided us with that spectacle of satanic laughter at the crisis of the fire? What is the next spectacle proposed? Who is going to die next?’

‘To die next!’ Hyland rose up in consternation. ‘If the Chief Constable has to tell Lord Linger that he must admit to Mr Bottle that–’

‘Bother Mr Bottle. But how many Dromio brothers were alive a month ago? How many were alive yesterday morning? How many are alive now? In that group of questions there still is an element of doubt, I must admit. However, I’m going up to town.’

‘Splendid!’ An even heavier irony was now Hyland’s sole resource. ‘And if we want to ask you anything more we’ll address you care of the Brains Trust, no doubt. How many Dromio brothers will be alive next Saturday? It all depends on what you mean by Saturday, doesn’t it?’ Hyland threw up his hands. ‘Heaven preserve me from another case of homicide in this country!’

‘Not at all. A beautiful murder.’

‘Really, my dear Appleby.’ Hyland switched deftly to moral indignation. ‘How can you allow yourself such levity with all those poor women–’

‘Then I think I’ll be off. Will your motorized bloodhounds have left any petrol in the Bentley? By the way, I’ll give them a tip.’

‘A tip?’

‘Yes. Let them look out for fire down below. Let them not bother with fire on the level or fire up above – not even if the whole countryside is blazing. Let them keep their noses to the ground until they find fire down below. Good-bye.’