The Second Shot (2 page)

In the meantime I have a peculiar circumstance to report. Detective Sergeant Berry, whom I had detailed to keep Mr Pinkerton under observation, followed him last evening shortly after 11 p.m., when it had just become dark, to a piece of land on a steep part of the hillside known as ‘the moorland field’, about a quarter of a mile southeast of the house buildings. This field is about two acres in extent and is covered with bracken, gorse, and brambles, and is consequently useless for grazing purposes and is little used. Detective Sergeant Berry, unobserved by Mr Pinkerton, saw the latter bury something in circumstances of secrecy among the roots of a gorse bush. Detective Sergeant Berry waited until Mr Pinkerton had returned to the house and then retrieved the object. It was a flat metal waterproof box containing several sheets of closely written paper. Detective Sergeant Berry reported the discovery to me, and I sent a staff constable with a knowledge of shorthand at 4.30a.m. this morning to take a shorthand transcript of the manuscript. I have had two copies typewritten and attach one to this report. The manuscript is in the nature of an account of the matters preceding the death of the deceased, and I have already found it of great assistance to me in clearing up of several points which had been obscure. I shall of course be careful to check all statements of fact and have already done so with many and found them hitherto quite correct. It will be seen that Mr Pinkerton states his intention of proceeding with this writing, and I shall therefore continue to have transcripts taken of any additions he may make from day to day and attach them to my reports. I have reprimanded Detective Sergeant Berry for carelessness in allowing Mr Pinkerton to observe that his effects had been searched.

I have refused permission for any of the persons at present staying at Minton Deeps Farm to leave the neighbourhood for the time being, and trust you will find this in order.

I have only one other circumstance to report. Mr Pinkerton was observed to be at the telephone for some time this morning, and Detective Sergeant Berry was able to hear that he was endeavouring to ascertain the address of R Sheringham, Esq. This was obtained for him by the post office in Budeford from a copy of the London Telephone Directory, and Mr Pinkerton at once telephoned the following telegram:

It is therefore clear that Mr Pinkerton has an idea of my suspicions, but this cannot be helped; and if he is the guilty party it is only natural.

A telegram was subsequently telephoned from Budeford to Mr Pinkerton signed ‘Sheringham’ that the sender was arriving this evening. There can be no doubt that this is Mr Roger Sheringham, who has been attached for duty once or twice to Scotland Yard. I shall see him tomorrow and ask if that is the case now, and if not I should be glad to have your instructions as to how you wish me to treat Mr Sheringham and whether I am to regard him as likely to assist our inquiries or the reverse.

I am still confident that it will not be necessary for us to ask help from Scotland Yard in this matter, and hope to have it cleared up within a few days.

I have the honour to be,

Your obedient servant,

J
AMES
H
ANCOCK
.

Superintendent.

Enclosure: 1 memorandum.

                  1 transcript of manuscript by Cyril Pinkerton, Esq.

MR PINKERTON’S
MANUSCRIPT

I have often thought of writing a detective story.

The authors of these works all seem to me to make the same mistake: their stories are invariably told from the angle of the detached onlooker. This may make for a good puzzle, but it certainly does not make for human interest. And in the art of fiction, even in so low a form of it as the detective story, human interest should to my mind be a
sine qua non.
It is here, I think, that the writers of detective stories overlook a great opportunity: for however absorbing the detached onlooker’s interest may be (whether in fiction or in real life) in the detection of a crime, there is one person to whom that interest must be far more absorbing, not to say vital, and that person is the criminal himself.

Another error I have noticed on the part of the detective-story authors is that they begin their narratives in almost all cases with the discovery of the crime itself. This is palpably absurd. It is the preceding circumstances which make the crime. Why not, instead of allowing these circumstances to be laboriously brought out in the body of the story, show the puppets in action before the criminal offence instead of merely after it? That, I submit, is not only more fair to the reader (which I understand is one of the main points by which these authors are judged), but is surely more likely to make a better novel.

I had privately determined, then, that one day I would write such a model detective story from the point of view of the criminal himself, showing his hopes and terrors as the process of detection progresses, the painful anxiety with which he would watch to see whether this or that fact, known only to himself, would be laid bare by the trackers on his trail, and his desperate attempts to extricate himself from the closing trap by laying new, false, and exonerating evidence. In the right hands such a book might be made a really outstanding piece of work; and I saw no reason why the hands should not be mine.

Such was the academic theory I had formed at leisure. And now I have an opportunity of carrying it out in grim practice. For at the very moment while I am penning these words I am actually (it would be affectation to disguise the fact, even from myself) suspected of having murdered a fellow creature. I!

Somebody (probably Voltaire, who seems to have said most of these things) once said that the last thing a man should lose is his head. I am determined to keep mine.

In view of what I have just written this may strike the reader (assuming that this manuscript is ever given to the world) as a somewhat grim jest. That, however, is the mood in which I feel myself. For strangely enough I do not seem particularly frightened, although – again it would be affectation to deny it – I am perhaps actually facing death, and that in its most ignominious form. I am evidently braver than I imagined. (The reader will see that even still I am capable of perfectly detached self-analysis.)

One way in which I am determined to indulge this grim humour of mine is in this very manuscript.

I explained above that I had long intended to write just such an imaginary story as I am now living in deadly reality. Well, why should I boggle at it because I am the victim of the narrative instead of its master? The story is here, and I
shall
write it. In cynical detachment I mean to set down, calmly and impartially, the exact circumstances which have led to my present predicament, omitting (with one single exception, which would bring pain to another) nothing at all, exaggerating nothing, minimizing nothing. In short, I shall endeavour not merely to rise superior to my unfortunate situation but actually to employ it, in the attempt to compile a document which, should it ever be given to the world, might be regarded of real value to literature alike as to life.

I shall not offer to show my manuscript to the police. It is possible that the careful recapitulation of events and reconstruction of the last few days might prove of real value to them in their attempts to discover how Eric Scott-Davies met his death; but I can quite well guess what their attitude would be if I did so. They would look on the action, in their unimaginative way, as an attempt on my part to remove their suspicion from myself; they would realize nothing of the feeling of artistic fitness which almost compels me to pen and paper. No, I shall on the other hand take effective steps to conceal it from them altogether. Not in my bedroom, among my personal belongings. These, I know, have already been ransacked by some clumsy-fingered officer in absurd search for ‘evidence’, and doubtless they will be again. I have a better plan than that.

One last word. I am not a professional writer. I have never before attempted to tell a story on paper. I am not practised in the arts of subtle hint and delicate shades of meaning. But it is one of my maxims that, except in matters depending on mere physique, what man has done man can do; and I see no reason why I should not be able to perform this particular task as well as any other. Without self-flattery, I do not think the intelligence will be lacking: at least, such small degree of intelligence as is required.

With these few words of introduction, then, so that the reader may understand the particularly
piquant
circumstances in which this ‘story’ is written, I will, as the professional writers put it, set out the facts.

Candidly, I had been a little surprised when I got Mrs Hillyard’s letter asking me for a fortnight down to Minton Deeps. Ethel Hillyard is an old friend of mine – that is to say, I have known her since childhood – but I had always had an idea that her husband did not care for me much. Certainly I did not care much for him. He is an uncouth sort of fellow, and I have always considered Ethel wasted on him. Still, Minton Deeps is Minton Deeps, John Hillyard or no, the most charming farm in the whole of Devonshire; and Minton Deeps in June, for those who have eyes to see, is incomparable. I accepted by return.

If I was surprised at having been asked, it was nothing to my astonishment on learning, at my arrival ten days later, who else had been asked too. Minton Deeps Farm is in a remote part of Devonshire, in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest market town, and the Hillyards do not entertain much. But on this occasion they had collected something approaching a regular house party. I had expected to be the only guest; there were actually five others.

They were at tea in the little low-ceilinged sitting room when I arrived, and for some reason saw fit to greet my appearance with a series of long, shrill howls. I smiled, of course, as one does at the ill-mannered jest of a spoilt child in the presence of its mother, but I was annoyed. In a flash my visions disappeared of long, lazy days in the sun on the steep slopes of Minton Valley among the bracken and gorse, with a rug and a book and a case full of cigarettes, and Ethel occasionally perhaps to listen to me if I felt in the mood for talking. These people would be wanting all the time to
do
things, and they would expect me to do them too.

My heart sank as I accepted a cup of tea from my hostess and dropped into a chair, though still with the same smile of civilized politeness on my lips; for I take pride in being able to conceal my feelings at all times from the oafs and the herd. And here were the oafs and the herd. Eric Scott-Davies was there, a man I particularly disliked, a large, loud-voiced, cocksure fellow, a waster and a chaser after other men’s wives, with all the insufferable superiority of Eton and the self-confident assertiveness of Cambridge (my own school was Fernhurst, and my university Oxford). Beside him John Hillyard, with his pale sandy hair and his large, red, rather vacant face, the typical gentleman farmer, redolent of the manure heap, showed up to positive advantage.

Then there were Paul de Ravel and his wife, a couple for whom I had never much cared, though she at any rate was a joy to look on, a tall, slender wand of a woman with flaming auburn hair and slumberous green eyes which she normally kept half closed but which could flash sparks of passionate green fire when anything roused her. She was English and had at one time been a professional actress; now she was a natural one, and her immediate surroundings were her invariable stage. Her husband, little Paul de Ravel, had married her four years ago while she was still on the stage, and was said to be still as madly in love with her as he had been then. It had always been curious to me that he had never seen through her poses and her affectations. Paul de Ravel is French by birth and English by upbringing and education, and though his English had no sign of an accent the French in him decidedly predominated, both in appearance and characteristics. Personally I have never cared for the French. He was half-a-head shorter than his wife, and followed her about like a pet poodle. Sexual attraction is a very odd thing. Whenever I think of Paul de Ravel I thank Heaven that I have escaped it.

The leader of the howls had been Armorel Scott-Davies, Eric’s cousin and almost sister and a most offensive young woman. It had always seemed to me that she comprised in her person every single thing that the newspapers have to say about the modern girl.

Out of the whole roomful in fact there was, besides Ethel, only one person whom I was really glad to see. This was a young girl whose name, I remembered, was Elsa Verity, a charmingly pretty little thing with soft fair hair and shy blue eyes. I had met her for a short time in London the previous winter, also under Ethel’s auspices. She was, indeed, I had gathered, rather a protégée of Ethel’s, and I seemed to recall vaguely some story of her being exceedingly rich and an orphan, and something about Ethel’s fears of her falling prey to some fortune hunter. I adjusted my pince-nez and smiled at her, and she smiled back with delicious confusion. A more pleasing contrast to the unpleasant Armorel, with her cropped black hair and her foolish aping of the masculine in her clothes, it would have been hard to find.

John Hillyard was talking to Sylvia de Ravel about his turkeys, or some equally uninteresting birds, and I am sure the conversation was boring her as much as it would have me in her place. John has always puzzled me a little; he is, in fact, one of the very few people who do, for I must confess that I have not found it necessary to make a study of my fellow creatures in order to see through most of them as plainly as if they had been made of plate glass; the average human being is wearisomely transparent. John, however, must be slightly more opaque. He looks the typical farmer; his heart is in farming, and farming only; he seldom talks anything but farming, or the scientific slaughter of wild creatures; one would imagine he never thought of anything else. Yet, unable like any other typical farmer to make farming pay, he has turned what should have been his profession into a hobby and makes his living – and a very comfortable living, I understand, too – by writing, of all things, detective stories. And Ethel tells me that he enjoys very large sales, particularly in America. Perhaps I had John in mind when I hinted above that my own intelligence would hardly be inadequate for a similar task; for certainly if John Hillyard can write them successfully, then one would say that anybody can.