Fatal Venture (27 page)

At once the opinion he had formed from a cursory glance was confirmed. The letter was a forgery. It was full of those tiny shakes which showed it had not been written boldly, but had been carefully drawn in.

Unfortunately, this proof of what he had already suspected got him no further. It was reasonable to suppose that the forger was the murderer, but there was nothing to show whether Luff was or was not the man.

French next saw Mrs Mercer, who luckily had not gone ashore on this day. She denied absolutely having written the letter or knowing anything whatever about it except what Luff had told her. French then got her to rewrite the note from his dictation, and was interested to find that the hands were dissimilar. The murderer therefore had not had access to her handwriting. But again this did not help. Luff had not known it either.

But the letter evidently
had
been copied. Probably not from a complete draft. It would have been dangerous to have such a thing made, as, had it been read in court, the writer might have heard of it and come forward. It was more likely to have been built up word by word from the other writings of some women, for the hand was undoubtedly feminine. Certainly the writing could not have been assumed or designed. It was a natural hand.

Was there not here a clue? If he could find this woman, he would be on the track of the murderer.

However, that must wait. His first job was to prepare a surprise packet for Nugent. He put in copies of all the statements he had received, asking for local checking of details. He enclosed the Mercer-Luff letter (having first photographed it) suggesting that Nugent might find someone who wrote a similar hand. He sent Bristow’s roll of films, demanding enlargements of the critical views and a check-up on the sites. He asked for interrogations of the staff of the Causeway Hotel as to Morrison’s movements, of the drivers at the garage halfway along the Portstewart main street for the man who drove Wyndham to Portrush, of after-lunch bus drivers from Portrush to Portstewart, of people who had been to the mouth of the Bann on that afternoon, if any could be discovered, and of shopkeepers and others in New Row, Coleraine, who might have seen Luff hanging about.

“That’ll be tit-for-tat,” French thought with satisfaction. “When they get this those folk won’t be so pleased that they unloaded their beastly job on me.” He went down to dinner with the consciousness of good work well done.

French didn’t think that there was much that he could do on board until he received Nugent’s answers to his questions. Indeed, he knew of only one enquiry which he might usefully make. The pattern for the Mercer-Luff letter had probably been written by someone on the ship. If he could find the handwriting, it should prove a clear pointer to the murderer.

Having missed Killarney on the previous day, he was strongly tempted to postpone this not very urgent job and go ashore. The excursion was from just inside Roche’s Point up Cork Harbour, past Cobh and Ringaskiddy and Monkstown and Passage West to the city, then from Blarney to Lismore by coach and by river steamer down the Blackwater to Youghal.

Duty, however, prevailed, and when the shore party had left, he began work by a visit to the Purser. From him he was able to obtain samples of the handwriting of practically every woman on board, and in the few instances in which this source failed, queries about bills or other small subterfuges quickly produced the needful. The result was negative. After a lot of work, French became satisfied the writer was not on the ship.

It was on that same evening that he received his first openly official letter from the Yard, Sir Mortimer having evidently realised that Forrester was dead and that French had come to life in his place. It contained two interesting items of information. First, it gave a
précis
of John Stott’s will, obtained (with difficulty) from his solicitors. This showed that French’s previous information was correct: that John was worth about a million, and that, subject to the payment of a number of small legacies, including a not unsubstantial remembrance to each other member of the family, Wyndham was his heir.

The second item cleared up a point which had puzzled French. It was not usual, of course, either for the Royal Ulster Constabulary to apply to Scotland Yard for help nor for the Yard to give it. In this case apparently, the RUC had not asked for it, but only for information as to the status of the
Hellénique
. But Sir Mortimer had immediately offered French’s help, and that with the utmost cordiality. Now came the explanation. “I hope,” wrote Sir Mortimer, “that you will prosecute your
Hellénique
enquiries into this murder to good purpose.” To anyone who knew Sir Mortimer, the meaning was clear. It was to give French a better opportunity to investigate the shipboard life and the gambling that he had been pitchforked into someone else’s job.

French felt he had a distinct grievance in the matter. He now had two cases to worry over instead of one. Sir Mortimer’s action, he believed further, had been a profound mistake. It had not helped him about the gambling. On the contrary, all that it had done had been to put the ship’s officers on their guard against him.

However, that was not his pigeon and he must not look at the dark side of the affair. The bright side was pleasanter, and the bright side was that, until he heard from Nugent, he could with a clear conscience go ashore.

This blissful state of affairs lasted for three days. On the first they landed at Dunmore at the mouth of Waterford Harbour and drove to Howth, through Waterford, New Ross, Woodenbridge, Glendalough, the Wicklow Hills and Dublin. Next day was spent in Dublin and its surroundings, while on the third they went from Dundalk through Newry and round the Mourne Mountains to Belfast. All were charming excursions and luckily the weather was excellent. French enjoyed every minute of the time.

On the next morning came a voluminous reply from Nugent. The
Hellénique
was off the Isle of Man and the excursion was from Peel to Douglas, going practically round the island. Having seen his Em off, French pulled a deckchair into the secluded place he loved between the two boats, and proceeded to digest his despatch.

It was at once evident that the DI had spared neither himself nor his staff. Indeed, French was astonished to receive so much information at such short notice, even though he had not forgotten what he had noticed on his earlier cases in Northern Ireland: how closely the local constables keep in touch with the people of their districts. If information is required, they usually know where it is to be found, and, unless political considerations forbid, they can generally obtain the hint they need. Here Nugent had drafted his replies separately about each suspect and French took the reports in turn.

The first was about Malthus and Mason, and as French read it he saw that the theory of their guilt must be abandoned. Their statement, it appeared, was true and their alibi sound.

Nugent’s men had visited Dungiven and seen Mrs Hetherington and Miss Dormer. Malthus and Mason had called with them for lunch and tea on the day in question and the ladies had accompanied them for a couple of miles on their way back to Portrush.

The police had gone carefully into the question of the hour at which the party had left Dungiven. It was half past four. Lunch had been taken in the house, but, owing to the specially fine day, they had had tea in a summer house in the garden. After tea they had started almost immediately. Both ladies had looked at the sitting-room clock before going out to the car and it pointed to half past four. The clock was right that evening with the nine o’clock time signal.

Nugent’s men had driven back from Dungiven to Portrush at a high rate of speed – an average of over forty miles an hour – and found that it had taken them forty-four minutes. This was only six minutes less than Malthus and Mason had claimed to have taken. Further, their statement as to their time was correct, as they really had reached the garage in Portrush at 5.20. They had complimented the proprietor on the running of his car, telling him where they had come from and at what hour they had left. He had noted the time of their arrival particularly, in order to work out their speed. Lastly, if they had done all this – which was unquestionable – it was utterly impossible for them to have visited the Hollow and committed the murder.

Though this was not what French had hoped to learn, he was at least glad to achieve certainty on some point in the case. With a sigh, he turned to the next name on the list – Wyndham Stott’s. Here also he soon found that the man could not possibly be guilty.

The conductor of the Portrush-Portstewart bus did not remember him, but two of the passengers did. These were a young married couple who had recently come to stay at Portrush. The husband was recovering from a nervous breakdown, and as they were not golfers, they took long walks on fine days. These two had noticed Wyndham on the bus, and had walked behind him to the Strand. They had seen him continuing on his way towards the mouth of the Bann, though they had not themselves gone so far. In addition to this evidence, the officers had found the man who had driven Wyndham from Portstewart to Portrush to catch the boat, and he confirmed the hour of the trip. Both the married couple and the driver had picked out Wyndham’s photograph from a number of others.

This was proof positive. If Wyndham had walked to the Strand, he could not have committed the murder. Once more French was pleased at reaching certainty.

Of Elmina and Margot there had been no real suspicion, but the next two reports cleared them equally decisively. There was ample evidence that Elmina had played golf all that afternoon, and that Margot really had been with the Donnellys at Castlerock.

The information about Percy Luff caused French both surprise and misgiving. He had practically made up his mind that Luff must be guilty, not only from the unsatisfactory nature of his story, but also by the method of elimination. But now it looked as if he had been telling the truth after all.

It appeared that three or four doors from the Corona teashop in New Row was a haberdashery presided over by a young lady with a strong interest in well-dressed young representatives of the opposite sex. Trade was slightly below normal on the afternoon in question, and the lady was reduced for her entertainment to observation of the somewhat restricted traffic of New Row. As a rule she knew all, or nearly all, of those who passed – which had the advantage of enabling her to speculate as to their business – but on this afternoon there swam into her vision a stranger: just such a youth as she had often pictured, but had never yet met. This young scion of the nobility, as she considered him, appeared just before four o’clock, and at intervals during a solid hour he was to be seen pacing up and down, a growing disillusionment on his face. These facts she had disclosed to a youthful and good looking member of Nugent’s staff, and had finally clinched her story in the time-honoured manner – by picking out the wanderer’s photograph from the usual dozen. Needless to say, it was Luff’s.

Certainty once again! The murder had been committed between four and five, and if Luff was at Coleraine during that period – well there was no more to be said.

With growing anxiety, French turned to the next lot of papers, those concerned with Bristow. Here, in the nature of the case, there could not be direct evidence of the type obtained in connection with the others. He examined with considerable interest the information Nugent had amassed.

First came a strip of cinematographic film with twelve tiny pictures and then twelve large photographs, enlarged from the others and all admirable views. Seven were of various people in the act of driving and all of these had immortalised interested spectators; the other five were pictures of a ruin, four taken from a distance and one a close up. With them was a report saying that all the golfing pictures contained residents of Portrush as well as members of the cruise. All the residents had been approached and all had agreed that the photographs numbered 1 to 4 inclusive had been taken near the Club House after lunch on the Monday in question, while those numbered 10 to 12 inclusive had been taken later on the same afternoon, immediately after tea. No. 3 contained Bristow himself, it having been taken for him by another of those present.

Bristow’s statement as to his having been met at the boat-slip by two temporary members of the Golf Club, his purchase of the films, his game of golf, his lunch at the Club, and the times and places at which he had left and rejoined the party, had been amply corroborated.

Of the photographs of the ruin, numbered 5 to 9, Nos. 5 to 8 were taken from about twenty feet away from south-east, south-west, north-west and north-east respectively. No. 9 was from about three feet away, and represented some carving on the north-west side. French could see for himself that all the views occurred on the strip in the order which Bristow’s story required: first, the four golfing ones taken after lunch, then the five of the ruin and, lastly, the three golfing ones taken after tea.

There was here as much corroboration of the man’s story as could possibly be expected. Bristow’s entire day was vouched for except the time during which he left his golfing friends. The photographs were taken during that time. It was, in fact, a complete alibi for Bristow except for the one point – whether or not he himself had been the photographer.

French frowned. He would have accepted the alibi without question had it not been for the fact that Bristow was becoming very nearly his last hope. Though he had found no motive, there might, of course, have been one which so far he had missed.

He picked up and re-examined the photographs and suddenly his attention focused on something which he had seen before but had dismissed as immaterial. On No. 6, that of the ruin taken from the south-west, there was stretching across the level foreground a shadow – the shadow of the photographer. It was a blemish to the picture, but if on a sunny day a man takes views from all round a given object, he cannot prevent his shadow from showing in one of them. Here was unexpected evidence: could he identify the man from his shadow?