Busman’s Honeymoon (25 page)

  ‘Kind hearts,’ Kirk was saying, ‘are more than coronets; him as said that lived to wear a coronet himself. Mind you, I ain’t saying as you been any way neglectful of your dooty but it do seem a pity as a young fellow should have his career broke, all for want of a bit of ’elp and guidance. Not to speak of this other suspicion which it’s to be hoped won’t come to anything.’

  This was more than Foster could stomach in silence. He explained that he had offered help and guidance at the time of Sellon’s marriage; it had not been well received; ‘I told him he was doing a foolish thing and that the girl would be the ruin of him.’

  ‘Did you?’ said Kirk, mildly. ‘Well, then, perhaps it’s no wonder he didn’t turn to you when he was in a fix. I dunno as I would myself in his place. You see, Foster, when a young fellow’s made up his mind, it ain’t no good calling the young woman names. You only alienates him and puts yourself in a position where you can’t do no good. When I was courtin’ Mrs K., you don’t think I’d have ’eard a word agen her, not from the Chief Constable himself. Not likely. Just you put yourself in his place.’

  Sergeant Foster said briefly that he couldn’t put himself in the place of making a fool of himself over a bit of skirt still less could he understand taking other people’s money, defection from duty and failure to make proper reports to one’s superior officer.

  ‘I couldn’t make head or tail of the report Sellon sent in. He dropped it in, didn’t seem able to give a proper account of himself to Davidson, who was on duty at the station, and now he’s off somewhere and can’t be found.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He’s not been back home,’ said Sergeant Foster, ‘and he’s neither rung up nor left a message. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’d made tracks.’

  ‘He was over here, looking for me at 5 o’clock,’ said Kirk unhappily. ‘He brought a report from Pagford.’

  ‘He wrote that out in the station, I’m told,’ said Foster. ‘And he left a bunch of shorthand stuff; they’re typing it now. Davidson says it doesn’t seem to be complete. I suppose it breaks off at the point where—’

  ‘What do you expect?’ retorted Kirk. ‘You don’t suppose he’d go on taking down his own confession, do you? Be reasonable.... What’s worrying me is, that if he was here at five, we ought to have passed him between here and Paggleham, if he was a-going home. I hope he ain’t rushed off to do something rash. That ’ud be a nice thing, wouldn’t it? Maybe he took the ’bus—but if he did, where’s his bike?’

  ‘If he took the ’bus he didn’t get home by it,’ said the Sergeant, grimly.

  ‘His wife must be worrying. I think we’d better have a look-see into this. We don’t want nothing of an unfort’nate nature to ’appen. Now—where could ’e a-got to? You take your bike—no, that won’t do—takes too long, and you’ve had a pretty hard day. I’ll send Hart on his motor-bike, to see if anybody’s seen Sellon round Pillington way—it’s all wood round there—and the river—’

  ‘You don’t really think—?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. I’m going over to see his wife. Shall I give you a lift over? Your bike can be sent back tomorrow. You’ll get the ’bus at Paggleham.’

  Sergeant Foster could find nothing to resent in this offer, though his voice sounded injured in accepting it. As far as he could see, there was going to be an unholy row about Joe Sellon, and Kirk, characteristically, was taking steps to see that whatever happened he, Foster, should get the blame. Kirk was relieved when they overtook the local omnibus just outside Paggleham; he could drop his austere companion at once, without suggesting that they should go to Sellon’s place together.

  He found Mrs Sellon in what Mrs Ruddle would have called ‘a state of mind’. She looked ready to drop with fright when she opened the door to him, and had evidently been crying. She was fair, pretty in a helpless sort of way, and delicate looking; Kirk noticed, with irritation as well as sympathy, that there was another baby coming. She asked him in, apologising for the state of the room, which was indeed somewhat disorderly. The two-year-old whose arrival in the world was the indirect cause of all Sellon’s misfortunes was ramping noisily about, dragging a wooden horse, whose wheels squeaked. The table was laid for a tea now long overdue.

  ‘Joe not come in yet?’ said Kirk, pleasantly enough.

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Sellon. ‘I don’t know what’s gone of him.

  Oh, be quiet, Arthur, do!—He’s not been in all day aid his supper’s spoiling.... Oh, Mr Kirk! Joe ain’t in any trouble, is he? Martha Ruddle’s been saying such things—Arthur! you bad boy—if you don’t give over I’ll take that horse away from you.’

  Kirk captured Arthur and stood him firmly between his own massive knees.

  ‘Now, you be a good boy,’ he admonished him. ‘Grown a lot, ain’t he? He’ll be getting quite a handful for you. Well, now, Mrs Sellon—I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you about Joe.’

  Kirk had the advantage of being a local man, having in fact been born at Great Pagford. He had not seen Mrs Sellon more than twice or thrice before; but he was at least not completely strange and therefore not completely awe-inspiring. Mrs Sellon was induced to pour out her fears and troubles. As Kirk had suspected, she knew about Mr Noakes and his missing note-case. She had not been told of it at the time, naturally; but later, when the weekly payments to Noakes had begun to press heavily on the exchequer, she had wormed it out of Joe. She had gone about in a state of anxiety ever since, fearing that something dreadful would happen. And then, a week ago today, Joe had had to go and tell Mr Noakes he couldn’t pay that week, and came back ‘looking awful’, and saying ‘they were done for now for good and all’. He’d been ‘very queer in his ways’ all the week, and now Mr Noakes was dead and Joe was missing and Martha Ruddle told her there’d been a dreadful quarrel and, ‘oh, I dunno, Mr Kirk, I’m that terrified he may have done something rash.’

  Kirk, as delicately as he could, asked whether Joe had said anything to his wife about his quarrel with Noakes.

  Well, no, not exactly. All he’d said was, that Mr Noakes wouldn’t listen to nothing and it was all up. He wouldn’t answer no questions—seemed regular fed-up like. Then he’d suddenly said he thought the best thing would be to chuck everything and go out to his elder brother in Canada, and would she go with him? She’d said. Why goodness gracious, Joe, surely Mr Noakes wasn’t going to tell on him after all this long while—it’d be a wicked shame, and after he’d paid all that money! Joe had only said gloomily. Well, you’ll see tomorrow. And then he’d sat with his head in his hands, and there wasn’t nothing to be got out of him. Next day they heard that Mr Noakes had gone away. She had been afraid he’d gone to Broxford to tell on Joe; but nothing happened, and Joe cheered up a bit. And then this morning, she heard Noakes was dead, and she was that thankful, you couldn’t think. But now Joe had gone off somewhere and Martha Ruddle came in with her talk—and since Mr Kirk had found out about the note-case, she supposed it had all come out, and oh, dear, what
was
she to do and where was Joe?

  None of this was very comforting to Kirk. It would have cheered him up a good deal to learn that Sellon had spoken frankly to his wife about the quarrel. And he didn’t at all like the reference to the brother in Canada. If Sellon really bad done away with Noakes, he would have had about as much chance of escaping to Canada as of being made king of the Cannibal Islands, and reflection must have told him so; but that his first blind impulse should have been to flee the country was unpleasantly significant. It occurred to Kirk, incidentally, that whoever did the murder must have been going through a pretty trying time. For it seemed very unlikely that he or she had thrown Noakes down the cellar steps—else why was the door left open? The murderer, having clubbed Noakes and left him for dead, would have expected—what? Well, if he had done it in the sitting-room or the kitchen or any room downstairs, the body might have been seen the next time anyone happened to look in at the windows—Mrs Ruddle, or the postman, or an inquisitive lad from the village, or the vicar, on one of his visits. Or Aggie Twitterton might have come over to see her uncle. At any moment the discovery might have been made. Some poor devil (Kirk really felt a passing twinge of pity for the culprit) had been sitting for a whole week on the safety-valve, wondering! At any rate, the body must have been found the next Wednesday (that was today) because of Crutchley’s weekly attendance. If, of course, the murderer knew about that, as he or she was bound to do; unless the crime could be traced to a passing tramp or somebody—and what a good thing if it could!

  (While thinking this out. Kirk was talking soothingly in his slow speech, saying that something unexpected might have called Joe away; he had sent a man out to hunt him up: a constable in uniform couldn’t very well get lost; it didn’t do to imagine things.)

  It was queer that Sellon ... Yes, by God, thought Kirk, that was queer; queerer than he cared to think about. He must take that away and chew it over. He couldn’t think properly, with Mrs Sellon’s lamenting voice in his ears.... And the time didn’t fit, because Crutchley had been over an hour in the house before the body was discovered. If Joe Sellon had been hanging round there at, say, eleven o’clock instead of past twelve. Coincidence. He breathed again.

  Mrs Sellon was wailing on. ‘We were that surprised when Willy Abbot come up with the milk this morning, to hear as a gentleman had taken Talboys. We didn’t know rightly what to make of it. I said to Joe, “Surely,” I said, “Mr Noakes wouldn’t go away like that and let the house”—because, of course, we thought he’d let it like he often done before—“not without letting someone know,” I said. And Joe looked awful excited. I said, “D’you suppose he’s gone off somewhere?” I said. “It looks queer to me,” I said, and he said, “I don’t know, but I’ll soon find out.” And off he went. And he came in afterwards and wouldn’t hardly swallow his breakfast, and he said, “I can’t hear nothing,” he said, “only there’s a lady and gentleman come and Noakes ain’t turned up,” he said. And he went out again, and that’s the last I see of him.’

  Well. thought Kirk, that puts the lid on. He’d forgotten the Wimseys, coming in and upsetting everything. Though he was not an imaginative man, he could see Sellon, startled by hearing that there was someone in the house, rushing out to learn the news, perplexed beyond expression by the fact that no body had been found, not daring to go and make open inquiries, but hovering round the house, manufacturing excuses for talking to Bert Ruddle—and he didn’t like the Ruddles—waiting, waiting for the summons he knew must come, to him, to the only man in authority, hoping that the people in the house would leave it to him to examine the corpse, remove all evidences—

  Kirk wiped his forehead, saying apologetically that he felt the room a little hot. He did not hear Mrs Sellon’s reply; he was imagining again.

  What the murderer (better not call him Sellon), what the murderer found in that house was—not a helpless pair of London holiday-makers, not some vague artistic couple without practical common sense, not some pleasant retired schoolmistress coming to the country to enjoy a few weeks of fresh air and fresh eggs, but—a duke’s son who cared for no man and knew exactly where the local bobby got off, who had investigated more murders than Paggleham had known in four centuries, whose wife wrote detective stories, and whose manservant was here, there and everywhere on swift and silent feet. But supposing, just supposing, the first people who arrived had been Aggie Twitterton and Prank Crutchley—as in rights they ought to have been? Even a local bobby could do as be liked with them; take charge, turn them out of the house, arrange things as he chose—

  Kirk’s wits were slow-moving, but when they took hold of a thing they worked with an efficiency which dismayed their owner.

  He was trying to make some sort of commonplace rejoinder to Mrs Sellon, when there was the sound of a motor-cycle drawing up at the gate. Looking out of the window, he saw it was Police-Sergeant Hart with Joe Sellon behind him, like two knights templars on one mount.

  ‘Well!’ said Kirk, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling, ‘here’s Joe back, anyhow, safe and sound.’

  But he didn’t like the beaten, exhausted look on Sellon’s face as Hart steered him up the little garden path. And he didn’t look forward to questioning him.

  Why, how now, friends! what saucy mates are you,

  That know nor duty nor civility?

  Are we a person fit to be your host;

  Or is our house become your common inn

  To beat our doors at pleasure? What such haste

  Is yours, as that it cannot wait fit times?

  Are you the masters of this commonwealth

  And know no more discretion?

  JOHN FORD:
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.

  Superintendent Kirk was spared the greater part of his ordeal; Sellon was in no fit state for undergoing a long interrogation. Sergeant Hart had picked up his trail in Pillington, where he had ridden through on his bicycle about half-past six. Then a girl was found who had seen a policeman following the field path on foot in the direction of Blackraven Wood—a favourite resort of ramblers and children during the summer months. She had particularly noticed him, because it was an unusual place in which to see a uniformed policeman. Following, as he said. this indication, Hart had found Sellon’s bicycle propped against a hedge near the entrance to the path. He had hastened in pursuit rather uneasy when he remembered that the little wood ran down to the bank of the Pagg. It was darkish by that time, and quite dark among the trees. With the aid of his torch, he had searched about for some time, calling as loudly as he could. After about three-quarters of an hour (he admitted that it had seemed a lot longer) he came upon Sellon, sitting on a fallen tree. He wasn’t doing anything—just sitting. Seemed dazed-like. Hart asked him what on earth he thought he was about, but could get no sense out of him. He told him, pretty sharply, that he must come along at once—the Super was asking for him. Sellon offered no objection, but came without protest. Asked again what brought him there, he said he was ‘trying to think things out’. Hart—who knew no details of the Paggleham affair—could make neither head nor tail of him; he didn’t think he was fit to be trusted to ride back alone, and therefore took him up on the carrier and brought him straight home. Kirk said he couldn’t have done better.

  This explanation took place in the sitting-room. Mrs Sellon had got Joe into the kitchen and was trying to coax him into eating a bit of something. Kirk sent Hart back to Broxford, explaining that Sellon was unwell and in a spot of trouble, and warning him not to say too much about it to the other men. He then went in to tackle his black sheep.

  He soon came to the conclusion that Sellon’s chief trouble, beside worry, was sheer exhaustion and lack of food. (He remembered now that he had had practically no lunch, though ham sandwiches and bread and cheese had been liberally provided at Talboys.) Sellon’s account of himself, when Kirk got it out of him, was that, after interviewing Williams and writing his report, he had gone straight over to Broxford, expecting to find Kirk already there. He hadn’t liked to go back to Talboys, on account of what had happened—seemed to him he was better out of the way. He’d waited about half an hour for Kirk; but the men kept asking him about the murder, and what with one thing and another he couldn’t stick it. So he’d left the station and gone down to the canal and walked about a bit by the gas-works, meaning to come back later. But then it ‘came over him’ how he’d been and gone and done for himself, and even if he could clear himself of the murder charge there were no hopes for turn. So he’d taken his bike again and gone off, he couldn’t rightly remember where or why, because he couldn’t get his mind clear, and he thought if he could just go and walk about somewhere, maybe he could think better. He remembered going through Pillington and walking over the fields. He didn’t think he’d had any special reason for going to Blackraven Wood—he’d only wandered about. He might have fallen asleep. He had had a sort of notion about chucking himself into the river, but he was afraid it would upset his wife. And he was very sorry, sir, but he couldn’t say no more than that, only that he didn’t do the murder. But, he added, oddly, if his lordship didn’t believe him, then nobody else would.

  This didn’t seem quite the moment for going into his lordship’s reasons for disbelief. Kirk told Sellon he was a young fool to go rambling away like that, and that everybody was ready to believe him so long as he was telling the truth. And he’d better go to bed and try and wake up more sensible; he’d frightened his wife quite enough as it was, and here it was close on 10 o’clock (Crumbs! and the Chief Constable’s report not written yet!); he would be over in the morning and would see him before the inquest.

  ‘You’ll have to give evidence, you know,’ said Kirk, ‘but I’ve seen the coroner and maybe he won’t press you too hard, on account of the investigation being in progress.’

  Sellon only put his head in his hands, and Kirk, really feeling that there was little to be done with him in this state, left him. As he went out, he said what cheering things he could to Mrs Sellon, and advised her not to fidget her husband with too many questions, but to let him rest and try to keep in good heart.

  All the way back to Broxford, his mind was churning over his new ideas. He couldn’t get out of his head that picture of Sellon, standing at Martha Ruddle’s cottage door, waiting—

  There was only one thing that gave him comfort—a comfort altogether irrational: that one curious sentence, ‘If his lordship won’t believe me, then nobody else will.’ There was no reason why Wimsey should believe Sellon, if it came to that—there was no sense in it at all—but it had sounded, well, genuine. He could hear again Sellon’s desperate cry: ‘Don’t
you
go, my lord! My lord,
you’ll
believe me!’ Kirk, rummaging the filing-cabinet of his mind, found words which seemed to him apt. Thou hast appealed unto Caesar; unto Caesar thou shalt go. But Caesar had disallowed the appeal.

  Not till Kirk, weary and patient, was writing out his report to the Chief Constable did the great illumination come upon him. He stopped, pen in hand, staring at the wall. Something like an idea, that was. And he’d been on to it before, as near as nothing, only he hadn’t properly followed it up. But, of course, it explained everything. It explained Sellon’s statement and exonerated him; it explained how he had seen the clock from the window; it explained how Noakes came to be killed behind locked doors; it explained why the body hadn’t been robbed; and it explained the murder—explained it right away. Because, Kirk told himself with triumph, there had never been any murder!

  Wait a bit, thought the Superintendent, figuring the thing out in his careful way; mustn’t go too fast. There’s a big snag at the start. How can we get over that, I wonder?

  The snag was that, to make the theory work, one had to assume that the cactus had been removed from its place. Kirk had already dismissed this idea as silly; but he hadn’t seen then what a lot it would explain. He had gone so far as to have a word with Crutchley, among the chrysanthemums, just as he left Talboys. He had managed the inquiry pretty well, he thought. He had been careful not to ask straight out: ‘Did you put the cactus back before you left?’ That would have drawn attention to a point which was at present a secret between himself and his lordship. He didn’t want any tales about that to get round to Sellon before he himself confronted him with it in his own way. So he had merely pretended to have mis-remembered what Crutchley had said about his final interview with Noakes. It took place in the kitchen? Yes. Had either of them gone back into the sitting-room after that? No. But he thought Crutchley said he was watering them plants at the time. No, he’d finished watering the plants and was putting back the steps. Oh! then Kirk had got that wrong. Sorry. He just really wanted to get at how long the altercation with Noakes had lasted. Had Noakes been there while Crutchley was seeing to the plants? No, be was in the kitchen. But didn’t Crutchley take the plants out to the kitchen to water them? No, he watered them just where they were, and wound the clock and came out with the steps, and it wasn’t till he’d done that that Noakes gave him his day’s money and the argument started. It hadn’t lasted more’n maybe ten minutes or so—not the argument. Well, possibly fifteen. Six o’clock was rightly Crutchley’s time to stop work—he charged five bob for an eight-hour day, barrin’ time off for lunch. Kirk apologised for his mistake: the step-ladder had confused him; he had thought Crutchley meant he needed the step-ladder to get the hanging plants out of their pots. No; the step-ladder was to get up to water them, same as he’d done this morning they was above his head—and to wind the clock, like he said. That was all. It was quite ordinary, him using the stepladder, he always did, and put it back in the kitchen afterwards. ‘You ain’t tryin’ to make out,’ added Crutchley, a little belligerently, ‘as I stood on them steps with a ’ammer to cosh the old bird over the ’ead?’ That was an ingenious idea nobody had yet thought of. Kirk replied that he wasn’t thinking anything particular; only trying to get the times clear in his head. He was glad to have given the impression that his suspicions were directed to the stepladder.

  Unfortunately, then, he couldn’t begin by substantiating that the cactus had been out of its pot at 6.20. But now—suppose Noakes had taken it out himself for some purpose or the other. What purpose? Well, it was difficult to say. But suppose Noakes had seen something wrong with it—a spot of mildew, maybe, or whatever these ugly things suffered from. He might have taken it down to wipe it or—But he could have done that easy enough, standing on the steps or, as he was so tall, on a chair. Not good enough. What other things could happen to plants? Well, they might become pot-bound. Kirk didn’t know whether that happened to cactuses (or was it cacti?), but suppose you wanted to look and see if its roots were growing out through the bottom of the pot. You’d have to take it out for that. Or tap the pot to see if—no; it had been given water. But wait! Noakes hadn’t
seen
Crutchley do that. He might have suspected Crutchley was neglecting it. Perhaps he felt at the top and it didn’t seem wet enough, and then—Or, more likely, he thought it was being over-watered. These spiky cactus affairs didn’t like too much damp. Or did they? It was annoying not to know their habits; Kirk’s own gardening was of the straightforward flowerbed-and-kitchen-stuff variety.

  Anyhow, it wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility that Noakes had removed the cactus for some purpose of his own. You couldn’t prove he hadn’t. Say he did. All right. Then, at 9 o’clock, up comes Sellon, and sees Noakes coming into the parlour.... Here Kirk paused to consider again. If Noakes was coming for the 9.30 news as usual, be was before his time. He came in (said Sellon) and looked at the clock. The dead man had worn no watch, and Kirk had taken it for granted that he had come in merely to see how near it was to the news-bulletin time. But he might also have been meaning to put the cactus back and come in a bit early on that account. That was all right. He comes in. He thinks, Now, have I got time to fetch that there plant in from the scullery, or wherever it is, before the news comes on? He looks at the clock. Then Joe Sellon taps at the window-and he comes over. They have their talk and Joe goes away. The old boy fetches in his plant and gets up on a chair or something to put it back. Or maybe be gets the steps. Then, while he’s doing that, he sees it’s getting on for half-past nine, and that flurries him a bit. He leans over too far, or the steps slip, or he ain’t careful getting down, and over he goes backwards and gives his bead a crack on the floor—or, better still, on the corner of the settle. He’s knocked out. Then presently he comes to, puts away the chair or the steps or whatever it was and after that—well, after that, we know what happened to him. So there you are. Simple as pie. No cutting or stealing keys or hiding blunt instruments or telling lies—nothing at all but a plain accident and everybody telling the truth.

  Kirk was as much overcome by the beauty, simplicity and economy of this solution as Copernicus must have been when he first thought of putting the sun in the centre of the Solar System and saw all the planets, instead of describing complicated and ugly geometrical capers, move onward in orderly and dignified circles. He sat and contemplated it with affection for nearly ten minutes before venturing to examine it. He was afraid of knocking the bloom off it.

  Still, a theory was only a theory; one had got to find evidence to support it. One must at any rate be sure there was no evidence against it. First of all, could a man kill himself like that, simply by falling off a pair of steps?

  Side by side with half-crown editions of English poets and philosophers, flanked on the right by Bartlett’s
Familiar Quotations
and on the left by that handy police publication which dissects and catalogues crimes according to the method of their commission, stood, tall and menacing, the two blue volumes of Taylor’s
Medical Jurisprudence,
that canon of uncanonical practice and Baedeker of the back doors to death. Kirk had often studied it in a dutiful readiness for the unexpected. Now he took it down and turned the pages of Volume I, till he came to the running head: ‘Intercranial Haemorrhage—Violence or Disease’. He was looking for the story of the gentleman who fell out of a chaise. Yes, here he was: he emerged with a kind of personality from the Report of Guy’s Hospital for 1859:

  ‘A gentleman was thrown out of a chaise, and fell upon his head with such violence as to stun him. After a short time he recovered his senses, and felt so much better that he entered the chaise again, and was driven to his father’s house by a companion. He attempted to pass off the accident as of a trivial nature, but he soon began to feel heavy and drowsy, so that he was obliged to go to bed. His symptoms became more alarming, and he died in about an hour from effusion of blood in the brain.’

  Excellent and unfortunate gentleman, his name unknown, his features a blank, his life a mystery; embalmed for ever in a fame outlasting the gilded monuments of princes! He lived in his father’s house, so was presumably unmarried and young—a bit of a swell, perhaps, wearing the fashionable new Inverness cape and the luxuriant silky side-whiskers which were just coming into favour. How did he come to be thrown out of the chaise? Did the horse bolt with him? Had he looked on the wine when it was red? The vehicle, we observe, was undamaged, and his companion at any rate sober enough to drive him home. A courageous gentleman (since he was resolute to enter the chaise again), a considerate gentleman (since he made light of the accident in order to spare his parents anxiety); his premature death must have occasioned much lamentation among the crinolines. No one could have guessed that, nearly eighty years later, a police superintendent in a rural district would be reading his brief epitaph: ‘A gentleman was thrown out of a chaise ...’