Death Comes to Cambers (34 page)

‘It's about all the old man could do,' the station-sergeant told Bobby confidentially, ‘not to have you put on the wanted list. Hopping he's been about you stopping away so long – fair hopping.' He paused, and a vision rose before Bobby's eyes of the stout and dignified Colonel Lawson hopping up and down, to and fro, hopping endlessly, persistently, tirelessly. Gratified to observe how impressed the young Londoner looked, the station-sergeant went on: ‘Rang up London to ask if you had gone back there, and spoke sarcastic about our discipline in the country being no doubt different from London ideas. Hope you've got something to smooth him down with, because at the moment he's – well, hopping.' 

‘I think I've got my case complete at last, if that'll do,' Bobby said.

‘Well, we all know that already, don't we?' asked the station-sergeant. ‘When a bird comes along and says he saw it all – well, there you are, aren't you? They've been putting him through it good and hard and he hasn't varied his story one scrap. Didn't you see the cars waiting out in front? The old man's just starting to take in Sir Albert Cambers, Esq., Baronet. Something for the papers, eh? “Baronet Arrested on Murder Charge. Sensation of the Century”. Some headlines, heh?'

‘Colonel Lawson must let me see him first.' Bobby said, speaking with authority. ‘I have some facts to put before him.'

The station-sergeant stared, hesitated, and then said: ‘Well, they're just off, but he's certainly been wanting to see you pretty bad all afternoon – ever since he brought Jones back from London.'

He got up from his desk as he spoke, disappeared, and then came back.

‘Says he'll give you just two minutes,' he announced, grinning. ‘I'll warn you – when the old man gets going, he can say a lot in two minutes.'

To the chief constable's private office Bobby was now accordingly conducted, and there was greeted by Colonel Lawson with a restrained and ominous politeness.

‘I understood you were instructed to keep in touch,' he said coldly.

‘Yes, sir,' answered Bobby. ‘There are some points I'm anxious to put before you, before you proceed to the arrest of Sir Albert. It does look so bad, sir, doesn't it, when a man is arrested and then has to be released again immediately?'

‘Released?' thundered the colonel. ‘What do you mean? You reported Jones's statement yourself. It's been thoroughly tested. Why, there's hardly ever yet been a murder case when an eyewitness could be produced.'

‘No, sir, and this isn't one,' Bobby answered. ‘Jones's statement won't hold water for a moment.'

‘You mean he's lying?'

‘It's a nice point,' said Bobby. ‘I should put it he is letting his imagination convince him he saw something he is quite certain actually happened – he's so sure of it he now almost feels as if he did see it. But he didn't.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean he thoroughly and sincerely and honestly believes, and has done from the first, that Sir Albert is guilty. The moment he heard what had happened he felt certain it was Sir Albert; he got into a panic and ran for it for fear of being brought in as an accomplice. That's why he disappeared in such a hurry. Back in London he began to wonder what he ought to do. Probably his first idea was to lie low. I dare say he thought of coming to us. And then he had the idea of blackmailing Sir Albert. Remember, he was quite sure Sir Albert was guilty. But to make it sound more convincing, and Sir Albert more willing to pay up, he put in that bit about having seen it all. What he really meant was that he would have been an eyewitness if he had been there to see what he was so sure had happened. Very likely by now he has thought about it so long, and imagined every detail so vividly, he has almost convinced himself he did see it. Imagination. He has,' said Bobby musingly, ‘the making of a first-class novelist in him – he can imagine things so clearly he can persuade himself he saw them and describe them as if he had.'

‘First-class lying I should call that,' said the colonel distrustfully, and paused, and Bobby went on: ‘Jones states he climbed out of his window that night after he had got back to the inn without anyone seeing him.'

‘He explains how in detail, all correct,' interposed the colonel. ‘I checked them with him on the spot. He showed me just how. Quite practicable, though it doesn't look so at first.'

‘I think his details apply to other occasions,' Bobby said. ‘I think there's no doubt he did get out that way sometimes without the people of the inn knowing anything about it. But not that night. On Sunday night the landlord was sitting up with a sick cow in the shed just opposite Jones's window. He is prepared to swear Jones could not possibly have got out that night without his seeing him. Again, Jones says in his statement he changed his clothes. I have evidence he had no spare suit with him to change into. Thirdly, the times don't agree. Lady Cambers was murdered before midnight – probably somewhere about half-past eleven. The rain started about a quarter to eleven and lasted about half an hour. There is a small margin of error in all these times, of course, since no one used a stopwatch. Jones was back at the inn somewhere about eleven – after the rain had started, for he was wet through, and before it stopped. He went straight to bed and asked for a glass of hot whisky-and-water, which was served him about half-past eleven, and for his wet things to be put in the kitchen to dry. But his statement says that he was suspicious of Sir Albert's intentions, waited for his arrival, followed him, and that that is how he came to see the murder committed. Obviously he can't have been watching Sir Albert from before eleven till after midnight and yet been back at the Cambers Arms about eleven and drinking hot whisky – and-water in bed at the half-hour. Treasury counsel wouldn't even put him in the box to tell a tale so full of holes. I think Sir Albert is telling the truth when he says he told Jones to keep out of the way. I think Jones didn't intend to at first, but when the rain came on – he has had a bout of rheumatic fever and is scared of another attack – he gave up his first idea of watching to see what happened, scuttled back to the inn, and had no idea there was anything wrong till morning. And when he heard he got into a panic and ran for it, quite convinced Sir Albert was guilty and afraid of being thought an accomplice.'

Colonel Lawson was thinking deeply, breathing more deeply still. Presently he said: ‘Well, even if you're right about all that and Jones's story can't stand, there's plenty more to suggest he was right in his guess.'

‘May I go over the case with you, sir?' Bobby asked. ‘I've come to a conclusion I would like to put to you, if I may. Even if you don't agree, and still decide to arrest Sir Albert, I shan't keep you long and he can't get away. He is still in bed for one thing, and then your two men are on watch.'

‘Eh?' said Lawson, surprised.

‘Thought it best, sir,' explained Moulland, lifting his blue, puzzled eyes from the papers he was diligently examining at a desk behind, ‘to take all precautions. The officers have strict instructions not to say what they are there for.'

‘Oh,' said the colonel, a little doubtfully. ‘Go on,' he said to Bobby.

‘I think we can all agree,' Bobby went on, consulting his notes now, ‘the murder must have been committed by one of the people connected with Lady Cambers. The burglar idea is consistent with the disappearance of the jewellery but quite inconsistent with the murder having happened a mile or so from the house. All our investigations have failed to show any sign of any unknown person being concerned. Those we know of surrounding her, one of whom is certainly the murderer, include her husband, Sir Albert; her nephew, Tim Sterling; her butler, Farman; her maid, Amy Emmers; her protégé, Eddy Dene; her tenant's son, Ray Hardy; the vicar, Mr. Andrews; her neighbours, Mr. Bowman and his sister, Miss Bowman; and her rival jewellery-connoisseur, Mr. Tyler. As it happens, there seems adequate motive for murder in nearly each case. She had managed to make a good many enemies. The picture I have built up of her in my mind is that of a strong-willed, not very intelligent woman, very fond of interfering in other people's lives, confident that she always knew what was best for everyone else, not too scrupulous how she used the power her wealth gave her to enforce her will on others. And thoroughly well-meaning with it all. She was fond of her husband, anxious to keep him with her, and had behaved very generously to him in money matters when he got into some sort of financial tangle. But she probably meant to use her generosity to give her still more completely the upper hand. There was also a dispute about the ownership of the jewellery.

‘I think we must remember her personality, strong and narrow, as both the background and the explanation of the tragedy.

‘With Sir Albert, then, it stands that he wanted a divorce to marry Miss Bowman and that there was a good deal of feeling between him and his wife, especially over money matters.

‘Tim Sterling was her heir and her debtor, and stood in danger of being disinherited and of having his loan called in, if she found out that he could not marry the girl she had chosen for him as he was already married to her maid, Amy Emmers.'

‘What? What's that? That's something new,' interposed the chief constable. ‘Are you sure of that?'

‘I have date and place,' Bobby answered. ‘If Miss Emmers herself is in any way guilty, her motive would be to protect her husband. Farman's motive would be the vulgar one of robbery. His character is not too good; he knew all about the Cleopatra pearl; he knew there would be a good market for it with Mr. Tyler. Mr. Tyler himself is said to have shown an unreasonable anxiety to secure the pearl, and to have been seen twice in the vicinity of the house when he had no obvious reason for his presence. Mr. Andrews and Ray Hardy had both uttered threats, and Mr. Andrews is accused of a fanaticism that would stop at nothing. Mr. Bowman, again, had a strong interest in seeing his sister become Lady Cambers. The scandal hadn't done him any good in his business, which wasn't very flourishing anyhow. If his sister had become Lady Cambers, both his business and his social position would have been much improved – and very likely he would have come in for the estate business as well. Eddy Dene...'

‘I suspected him from the first,' put in Lawson, ‘but you can't get away from two things – first, he lost in Lady Cambers his chief financial support; and, secondly, there is a very strong alibi. His mother swears she knocked at his door at about half-past eleven that night. She didn't see him, but she heard him moving about, and when she knocked and asked what was the matter he told her through the door that he had the toothache and she wasn't to worry him. She says – it's a homely touch – he was always ready to bite her head off when he had toothache, and we know that next day he had a tooth pulled out by a Hirlpool dentist. Also our own man, Constable Norris, confirms that he heard Dene moving about in his room till about three, when he saw him put his light out. And he can't very well have been prowling about his room with an attack of toothache and murdering Lady Cambers at the same time. You see,' added the chief constable with a touch of complacence, ‘we've been doing a bit of investigating ourselves down here – and, by the way, we have found out something rather curious about Mr. Bowman.'

‘Indeed, sir. May I ask what it is?' Bobby asked. ‘There's an unexplained time-gap between his discovery of the body and leaving the shed in Frost Field about a quarter to eight or so and his return to his house at nine. The actual hour – nine – is fixed by the evidence of his cook. What was he doing during that hour? It may mean something.'

‘Yes, sir,' agreed Bobby, ‘but I understood from the cook that she sat up till midnight, doing some sewing, and is certain Mr. Bowman could not have left the house without her knowing.' 

‘Can't be sure of that,' declared Lawson. ‘He might have managed it somehow. Anyhow, what do you want us to do? Arrest the lot? You seem to have proved they all had good reasons for wanting to be rid of the poor soul.'

‘Strong reasons, sir, not good ones,' Bobby ventured to say. ‘If you will allow me, I'll take one by one the people I've mentioned. If I can show we must, by force of fact and logic, rule them all out but one, then I submit that one must be guilty. And some can be ruled out easily enough. Farman's story is that he was smoking at his window at the time of the murder. There is corroboration by a witness, and further corroboration in that he was smoking his employer's cigars, a fact he tried to keep to himself. Mr. Andrews and Ray Hardy provide each other with an alibi; they saw each other some considerable distance from Frost Field at the time of the murder. Their evidence is independent, and is corroborated by details about a book Air. Andrews lost and about his lighting his pipe. Besides, Ray Hardy is a sloppy, weak-willed youngster not at all likely to commit a murder of this kind, and Mr. Andrews may be fanatical, but would hardly push fanaticism as far as murder. In any case, their joint alibi is a good one. There is proof Mr. Tyler was nowhere near Cambers the night of the murder – he was in Paris, in fact. Miss Bowman was in London. The time unaccounted for in Mr. Bowman's case is the next morning, several hours after the murder. Besides, why should he commit murder to get rid of Lady Cambers when Sir Albert was talking about getting a divorce? Air. Sterling and Amy Emmers must be considered together. Their story is that they were in Lady Cambers's “den”, as she called it, at the time of the murder. Their story depends on each other's evidence, and is so far unsatisfactory, but it is consistent and is corroborated by small details. It agrees with what in the cipher advertisement Sterling suggested they should do. It explains why the garden door was locked after Lady Cambers had gone out. They had knowledge of Sir Albert Cambers's presence at three Monday morning, and it is difficult to suppose that, if Sterling had committed the murder at half-past twelve, he would hang about till three. It explains why Miss Emmers left the glass and plate Sterling had used on the table without troubling about them, since she expected to have plenty of time to see to them in the morning. It was only when news of the murder arrived that she seems to have thought of finger-prints, seen they might be dangerous, and washed the things. If she had known of the murder before, surely she would have carried out such a simple precaution much earlier?'