The 12.30 from Croydon (41 page)

‘Very good,’ Byng approved. ‘This is really very interesting, inspector. It also definitely proved Weatherup’s innocence of the theft?’

‘Yes, sir, quite definitely. It was now beginning to look as if Weatherup had come out to keep some appointment: I couldn’t see any other reason for his leaving the house. As I was worrying over this, the question of the keys occurred to me. If Weatherup had come out to keep an appointment, he would have intended to return, and he would therefore have had the key of the study window in his pocket. Obviously the murderer had taken it from him in order to get in himself. Then I wondered whether as a further corollary he could have brought Weatherup out simply with the object of getting the key.

‘On the whole I thought this last was not a tenable idea. No one would have committed a murder simply to have obtained a key. No, there was more in it than that.

‘Then something very significant struck me. How had the murderer obtained access to the boat-house, which is normally kept locked? Here again it was easy to guess. The meeting had been arranged to take place in the boat-house and Weatherup had therefore brought out the key. This seemed good enough to go on with.’

‘It seems to me quite likely,’ Quilter remarked as French made a slight pause.

‘Yes, sir, but see what followed from it. The murderer, going to The Moat to commit his burglary, took back with him the key of the boat-house. He would naturally do so in order to divert attention from the boat-house and lake. But what did he do then, that is, if I’m correct so far? He hung it on its nail in the hall, the proper place where it was kept.’

The others were listening with gratifyingly close attention. No one spoke, and French went on:

‘Now that would have been a splendid move if attention had not been directed to the boat-house. As it was, it proved the most complete give-away that can be imagined. How did the murderer know that the key was kept in that place? At once – always if I was right so far – at once I saw that the murderer was intimately acquainted with The Moat.’

Once again a little ripple of movement passed over French’s hearers. This was a point they could appreciate, and they said so with no uncertain sound. French paused and Quilter once more filled up the glasses. Byng took a fresh pencil from his pocket.

‘As I explained before,’ French went on, ‘I was at this time fairly well convinced that Swinburn had murdered old Mr Crowther, though I hadn’t as yet got all my proof. At once I naturally thought: were we right at first, that this murder of Weatherup was connected with the Crowther murder, and was Swinburn guilty of this one also? He, at all events, I learned from casual inquiry, knew where the boat-house key was kept.

‘Then came the inquest on Weatherup, and by arrangement with me the coroner put up the theory that Weatherup had heard and followed a burglar, who had then murdered him. This was to prevent Swinburn from imagining we suspected him, and it seemed to have that effect.’

‘Wily birds,’ Heppenstall commented.

‘You couldn’t be up to them,’ agreed Byng.

French grinned. ‘The assumption of Swinburn’s guilt enabled me to form a provisional theory of what might have happened on that night. Swinburn and Weatherup have some secret business. They decide to discuss it at night and Swinburn chooses the boat-house. Perhaps it is something which requires a light, and he can therefore suggest the interior of a building without raising suspicion. They meet in the boat-house – the only such building available – and there Swinburn murders the butler. He then takes from him the key of the study window, sinks the body in the lake, goes to The Moat, burgles the desk and replaces the key of the boat-house. I’m leaving the motive out of account for the moment and considering only what might have happened.’

‘It’s certainly very convincing.’

‘I thought so, sir. I was sure I was on the right track, and I turned next to see if I could get any proof.

‘I had three clues: I am not giving you all the things I thought of and rejected: only what led to results. I had a pretty good impression of the heel of the jemmy in the softish wood of the desk, I had the two pieces of lead pipe, and I had the cord with which these were tied to the body.

‘I made inquiries and found that Swinburn was going to Newcastle, and when he was away I went up to his house and had a look round with his servant on the excuse of asking for some dates. I saw then that Swinburn had a workshop. I presently left, but when the servant had disappeared I slipped back to the workshop and had a look round. At once I got what I wanted. There was the jemmy, and even without a magnified photograph I could see that the irregularities on its heel fitted the impression on the desk. I found a ball of string of identical kind to that used to tie the pipe to the body, and I got convincing proof about the pipe also.

‘I should have explained that of the two pieces of pipe the shorter had been sawn off the longer. Lines across the end had been made by a saw, and the rough edges of the tiny arc that was not sawn but was broken off coincided. Now, in Swinburn’s workshop I found a hacksaw with lead in the teeth, and also some lead sawdust below the vice.’

‘You wouldn’t want much more than that,’ said Heppenstall. ‘You’d have got a conviction without the least trouble.’

‘I think so, sir. However, I may mention here that after the arrest when I was going through Swinburn’s papers, I came on an account from a plumber for work done at the house. I called on the plumber, and he was able to identify the lead pipe as being over from a job he had done in Swinburn’s house. At one end were certain cuts he had made himself.’

‘Excellent! I don’t know when I’ve heard a more convincing exposition,’ Heppenstall declared. ‘Now, there is only one thing left that you haven’t explained.’

French shrugged. ‘I know, sir: the motive. Well, there I’m afraid I fall a good deal short. I can’t prove the motive. I can give a suggestion, but I can’t prove it.’

‘Let us have the suggestion.’

‘You remember that Weatherup reported to me that Swinburn spilled his wine on the night he dined at The Moat? Now, I suggest that Weatherup may have seen more than he told me. Suppose he saw Swinburn actually changing the bottles, or something equally vital. Suppose he thought he would make something out of it and began to blackmail Swinburn. If this had happened the whole of the rest of the facts would be accounted for. Swinburn would know that to murder him would be his only real safeguard, and he could easily ask him to come to the boat-house to receive the money, accounting for the choice of the boat-house on the ground that the light required to count the notes would not be seen from there.’

‘But that doesn’t account for the burglary of the notes.’

‘Unhappily, I know that,’ French smiled. ‘I suggest, again without any proof, that Swinburn was looking for something – something that he thought might give him away. I suggest he found the notes unexpectedly and thought if he took them it might tend to fix suspicion on Weatherup. I suggest that this was an afterthought and not part of the original scheme.’

‘That’s likely enough, inspector. But what could Swinburn have been looking for?’

French shrugged his shoulders. ‘There again I made a guess – which again I couldn’t prove. I thought that Weatherup, knowing Swinburn was a murderer, would scarcely risk dealing with him without some safeguard. I put this forward for what it’s worth. I suggest this safeguard took the form of some kind of sealed document and that Weatherup told Swinburn that he had given it to Morley to keep and to be opened in the event of his, Weatherup’s, death. He had not done anything of the kind; I asked Morley. But I suggest he bluffed Swinburn into thinking he had, and that it was to recover this documentary evidence that Swinburn broke open the desk.’

‘Likely, but unproven?’ Heppenstall smiled.

‘Yes, sir, but I’d remind you that we hadn’t to prove what the desk was broken open for. We had only to prove that Swinburn killed Weatherup, and that was established beyond possibility of doubt.’

‘That’s quite true,’ Heppenstall admitted. ‘Well, inspector, it only remains for us to congratulate you and the super and Inspector Appleby. I don’t know when I’ve heard a better reasoned case. What do you say, Byng?’

Byng said the proper things in the proper manner. ‘By the way, French,’ he added, ‘here’s a point. Shall I call you in my book Inspector French or Chief-Inspector French?’

French, highly delighted, explained that his leg would come off if pulled too hard, and the meeting terminated.

Murder of a Lady

Anthony Wynne

Inspector Dundas and gifted amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey tackle a locked-room mystery in a Scottish castle.

Murder in the Museum

John Rowland

The murder of an academic in the British Museum brings together Inspector Shelley and mild-mannered museum visitor Henry Fairhurst.

Death on the Riviera

John Bude

Counterfeit currency—and murder—darken the sunlit glamour of the Riviera. Detective Inspector Meredith needs to keep one step ahead.

The Secret of High Eldersham

Miles Burton

When a pub landlord is stabbed, Detective-Inspector Young calls on “living encyclopedia” Desmond Merrion to help uncover the secrets of the village.