The Second Shot (30 page)

‘Hell, I told you
I
shot him!’ cried De Ravel, but his tone was now rather anxious than passionate.

‘There seems positive competition for the post,’ Sheringham observed mildly.

‘Oh, dear,’ murmured Ethel distractedly. ‘What
is
all this about?’

‘It’s all right, Mrs Hillyard. I’m just collecting confessions for the police, that’s all. We’ve bagged four to date.’

Colonel Grace, who had been looking just as puzzled as Ethel, if not so distressed, uttered an exclamation. ‘Sheringham, are you pulling our legs? Are you going on to say that this double confession means just the same as the last: that Mr and Mrs de Ravel each had a suspicion of the other, and therefore neither of them can be the – the person we’re looking for?’

‘I might,’ Sheringham smiled. ‘On the other hand, I might have been going on to say that that is what the guilty one counted on me saying, as I said it before.’

This is getting very complicated,’ sighed the colonel.

‘It is. But it’s a complicated case, isn’t it? I thought we’d all agreed on that. Though it might simplify matters a little if Mr and Mrs de Ravel would tell us the truth about their movements that afternoon.’

‘Don’t you really suspect either of us then?’ inquired Mrs de Ravel lazily. ‘How terribly disappointing!’ She blew the ash off the end of her cigarette onto the carpet, and contemplated the glowing butt with her magnificent head slightly on one side, in dreamy approval.

‘No, I can’t say I do really. It was just an experiment. Quite unjustifiable, but more successful than I dared hope. I apologize; and in the same breath I suggest that you both now tell us the truth.’

‘I’m damned if I’ll tell you a thing,’ exploded De Ravel, but more in relief than anger.

‘How silly of you, Paul,’ murmured Mrs de Ravel to the ceiling. ‘Of course we’ll tell them, if they really want to know. I was on the hillside, asleep in the sun. Was that very dreadful of me? I can’t prove it, you know. I told Paul, but he never believed me. He thought I’d shot Eric. Too absurd. I believe he even tried to frighten Mr Pinkerton into giving me away, but it didn’t come off; because, of course, there was nothing to give away. But that only seemed to make Paul all the surer. So I tried just the same thing, and that was no good either. Did you ever hear anything more ridiculous? But Paul was rather sweet about it, I must say, and told me he’d confess to the crime (it was a crime, to shoot Eric, I suppose? How odd!) – he’d confess to the crime himself if any suspicion fell on me. Too honest,
I
thought, because of course I was quite sure he’d done it himself all the time. You see, he was in a terrible temper that afternoon, and – oh, you tell them yourself, Paul, where you said you were.’

I could not help smiling, tense though the situation was. Mrs de Ravel was now playing the modern bright young person, with all her silly tricks of expression, amused for a time by being suspected of murder but soon bored again. Perhaps it was the best part she could have selected. At any rate I was thankful she had not chosen to be a tragedy queen.

‘Oh, very well,’ growled De Ravel, to whom of course this lightly expressed request was a command. ‘If you must know, I did go to the bathing pool first of all, and then I moved a little along the stream. I was impatient, I suppose, and got on the move earlier than necessary. I had to hang about on the way. I wanted to catch Scott-Davies before he went up.’

‘Tell them why, Paul,’ ordered his wife lazily.

‘No, I will not,’ retorted de Ravel, rebelling for once.

‘Then I will.’ Mrs de Ravel brought her gaze down from the ceiling and swept it slowly round the circle, opening her eyes very wide. ‘He wanted to challenge him to a duel. Did you ever hear such a thing? Too thrilling. But too silly too, as I told him, because Eric would certainly have chosen Indian clubs, or pickaxes, or something quite impossible, and where would poor Paul have been then? Anyhow, he didn’t catch him at all, because he arrived just at the moment when poor Mr Pinkerton was running away from Eric’s dead body, and Paul heard him telling John all about it. So he rushed back to tell me (this is only what he says, mind; I don’t suppose he can prove it for a minute), and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. And of course I wasn’t, because one of the shots had woken me up and I’d gone down to the pool to look for Paul, and
he
wasn’t there. But he never thought of going back there to see if I had, poor dear, so we didn’t see each other till just outside the house, where Paul told me most excitingly to swear I’d been with him all the time at the bathing pool, and I said I wouldn’t say anything so absurd, and Paul said if I didn’t I’d get hanged, so I said I would; but I really quite thought afterwards that it was all bluff and he’d only wanted me to say it to provide a good alibi for himself. Too terribly silly, all of it, don’t you think?’ She dropped back in her chair as if exhausted.

‘I see,’ said Sheringham. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs de Ravel. Too illuminating. So what do you think of all that, Colonel?’

‘Oh, I must reserve judgment, Sheringham. I must reserve judgment, you know,’ replied the colonel, but I could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye.

‘Well, that’s four people who shot Scott-Davies,’ meditated Sheringham. ‘Let’s see if we can find some more. What about Hillyard here, for instance? He was prowling about the woods all alone, and with a gun. He admits firing one shot. He’s got no shadow of an alibi. Who’s to say he didn’t fire the other shot too? Certainly not I.’

‘Oh, Mr Sheringham!’ said Ethel faintly.

‘Not that I believe for a moment he did, Mrs Hillyard. But he can’t prove he didn’t, and that’s what the law seems to require nowadays.’

‘Well, I’m not going to oblige with a confession for your collection, Sheringham,’ John smiled. ‘But you’re quite right. Who
is
to say I didn’t? No one. But then, who’s to say I did?’

‘Not I,’ Sheringham laughed. ‘And not, I hope, the superintendent either. So shall I tell you who really did, Superintendent?’

‘I’d be interested to hear, sir.’

‘Very well, then. What about the farmhand – Morton? What do you say to him?’

‘Morton?’

‘Certainly. You know he was working in the end field. What was to prevent him slipping along, meeting Scott-Davies, and slipping back again? He had just as good an opportunity as anyone else. And I happen to know he’s really a first-class shot with a rifle.’

‘But – motive, sir. Morton had no motive.’

‘Hadn’t he?’ said Sheringham, quite grimly. ‘I can promise you he had. I don’t know whether you know about a daughter of his, who was a housemaid here once and had an illegitimate child. She was a pretty girl, and Scott-Davies took an interest in her when he was staying here once. They were seen by one of the other maids kissing in the passage. Her child was born nine months later. Is the inference justified? I think so. And for a short time afterwards, I’m told, she went to the bad; though fortunately she pulled up, and her father’s now taken her back. Is it too much to assume that Morton knew the name of the child’s father? Hardly, I should imagine. There’s the motive, and a very strong one too.’

‘Well, I’m blessed,’ said the superintendent helplessly, and looked at his chief constable.

‘That’s true, is it, Sheringham?’ John asked quietly.

‘About Scott-Davies? Perfectly.’

‘Oh,’ said Ethel, with a little moan, ‘what Elsa has escaped!’

I saw Sheringham glance at her in rather a curious way, but could not interpret his expression.

‘But look here, Sheringham,’ demurred the colonel, ‘it may be as you say – probably it is – but the paternity of the child can’t be inferred from that. There is such a thing as coincidence, you know.’

‘Then do as I did. Ask the girl. She may not admit it to you, but she did to me.’

‘She did, eh?’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘Old Morton,’ muttered the superintendent. ‘It’s a possibility. But it’s only theory, sir, isn’t it? There’s no proof at all.’

‘None whatever,’ Sheringham replied cheerfully. ‘And I don’t imagine for a moment that he did it. The setting of the scene for accident, wiping his fingerprints off the gun, and all the rest of it – that doesn’t square with old Morton at all. But I’ll give you a much more interesting possibility, if you like.’

‘Do, sir. I’ve been wondering when you’re going to tell us who really did it.’

‘Oh, I never promised to go as far as that,’ Sheringham said lightly. ‘But while we’re dealing in possibilities, what about Mrs Fitzwilliam? I understand, from hints which Mrs de Ravel let drop and which she may care to elaborate to you, that there had been bad blood at one time between her and Scott-Davies. What would have been easier than for her to nip down that path after Pinkerton, conceal herself in the thicket while he was busy saying “Hi!” in the glade, shoot Scott-Davies as he passed her, and wait for an opportunity to nip up the path again unseen? Nothing. I present you with Mrs Fitzwilliam.’

‘But you don’t really think she did it sir?’

‘I do not. Not for a minute. But she might have done; and so might Mr Hillyard; and so might Morton; and so might any of the four people who you’ve heard actually confess to doing it; and so, I dare say, might anyone in the wide world. But never for a minute can you, or anyone else, actually
prove
that any of them did. So there you are, Superintendent.’

I understood the superintendent to mutter something about it beginning to look as if that was where he was, for a fact.

‘Sheringham,’ said the colonel, ‘what’s the idea? You’ve not called us together to tell us who didn’t do it, I’m sure.’

‘Are you, Colonel? Then you’re more sure than I am, because I believe that’s exactly the reason why I did suggest this chat.’

‘I mean, what’s your own opinion? You’ve formed one, I can see.’

‘Yes, I have. Quite definitely. If you’d really care to hear it.’

‘I would, very much.’

‘Well, it’s this. The case is far too open. We’ve got, as I say, seven people, all of whom might have done it, and about an equally strong case can be argued against any one of them. Well, I mean, that’s absurd, isn’t it? In a case of murder such things simply don’t happen. The coincidence that one of those seven people did murder Scott-Davies, and each of the other six might just as well have done so, is really a bit too thick. The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that we’re not dealing with a case of murder at all. And this evening’s business, which was planned for my own benefit just as much as yours, has simply put that conviction beyond any reasonable doubt. Scott-Davies met his death through mere ordinary, prosaic accident.’

‘Humph! You really think so?’

‘I do. And what’s more, I’m sure that counsel could argue a much better case in favour of accident than against any of the seven people I’ve named. Just consider. We know now that Scott-Davies took that rifle down himself, don’t we? It was really lack of just that knowledge which suggested murder first of all, I think; if you’d known that from the beginning I doubt if you’d have considered murder very seriously at all. Of course one can argue that any one of those seven
might
have found the rifle and concealed it for his or her own purposes, as I did just now when I was trying to show murder in its most favourable aspect; but is it so likely as that Scott-Davies left it there himself with the idea of picking it up after the little play for a stroll in the woods before tea? He knew he wouldn’t want it in the garage, you see, and he knew he might want it later: why carry it up to the house and down again?

‘Besides, there are the fingerprints on it. Any amount of them. And convincing ones. Not the kind that would have been made if the gun had been wiped to remove the prints of a second person and then imprinted from the dead man’s fingers. That’s a very big point, isn’t it? Almost conclusive, I should have said.

‘Anyhow, let’s examine the difficulties in the way of the accident theory. There are four, I think, two major and two minor. We’ll take the two major ones first, the horizontal line of the bullet, and the absence of powder marks. Now I don’t think the first is really important. There’s an obvious explanation for that, which exactly fits with what must have happened if the thing was an accident. To have been an accident, Scott-Davies must have been dragging the gun behind him by the muzzle when the trigger caught in some obstruction. Well, what would happen if the stock did catch in some obstruction suddenly? He would be checked in his advance and, if the obstruction were solid enough, his trunk would be pulled back at an angle. That gives your horizontal line for the bullet’s path, doesn’t it? That it happened to go straight through his heart, and the red patch on his coat, was pure chance. Do you agree so far?’

‘Perfectly,’ said the colonel.

‘I think that’s straightforward enough,’ said the superintendent.

‘Good! Well, then, as to the absence of powder marks, I – no! I think I’ll leave that for the moment. I’ll deal with the two minor difficulties first. Scott-Davies told Miss Scott-Davies that he had an appointment, we understand. Your trouble is that no one has come forward to acknowledge any such appointment. That, you argue, is suspicious, and the probability is that the appointment was with his subsequent murderer. Well, now, if my theory is right, Miss Scott-Davies unintentionally misled you. I haven’t put the point to her, because I wanted to do so in front of you. I will now. Mrs Pinkerton, the impression you gave is that your cousin’s words indicated a definite, prearranged appointment, in a particular place. Is that actually what you understood?’

‘How do you mean?’ Armorel asked cautiously.

‘Well, you said that you couldn’t remember his exact words, but that was the gist of them. I take it you still don’t remember his exact words; but what I want to know is, did you understand from them that he had a definitely prearranged appointment, or might he have meant simply that he
hoped
to see a certain person, and merely on that chance would not walk up with you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Armorel said readily. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mention the actual word ‘appointment’. It isn’t the sort of word Eric would have used, you know. No, all he did was to hint very plainly that he didn’t want my company. Naturally I took it to mean that he was expecting someone else’s. That was all.’