She Died a Lady (18 page)

‘I’m dead sure of it. A fly couldn’t get up or down the sheer face of that cliff. As for the footprints …’

Superintendent Craft spoke with decision.

‘And
I
say again,’ he declared, ‘that there was no funny business about those footprints. Mrs Wainright and Mr Sullivan walked out there, and they didn’t come back. That’s what
I
say.’

‘Agreed,’ said H.M.

‘But look here,’ protested Ferrars. He spoke from behind a cloud of smoke, with a gleam in his eyes which might have been malicious amusement or a real desire to help. ‘Do you realize that this bit of enlightenment leaves you in a worse position than you were before?’

‘
I
do, anyway,’ snapped Craft.

‘First you only had a murderer who could walk over soft soil without leaving a track. Now you’ve got
TWO
levitating bodies. Or worse. You’ve got a man and a woman who can walk out to Lovers’ Leap and there vanish like soap-bubbles, only to reappear somewhere else… .’

‘Stop it!’ said Craft.

Ferrars put his head against the back of the chair and blew up a smoke-ring. I could see the cords in his neck, and the gleam from under his half-closed eyelids. Resting his elbow on the arm of the chair, he drew a slow circle in the air with his pipe-stem.

‘This intrigues me,’ he remarked.

‘Thanks,’ said H.M. ‘I hope we’re amusin’ you.’

‘I meant that seriously.’ The pipe-stem described another circle. ‘Do you mean to say that we – the collection of intelligence assembled here – can’t solve a problem set by Rita Wainright and Barry Sullivan? With all due respect to them, they weren’t exactly intellectual giants.’

Superintendent Craft was brooding in a corner, with folded arms; I might have guessed what was going on in his mind; but he roused himself to ask a question here.

‘Were you well acquainted with those two, Mr Ferrars?’

‘I knew Rita pretty well, yes.’ Ferrars’ eyelids raised towards the picture. He put the pipe into his mouth, and puffed reflectively. ‘Sullivan I hardly knew at all. I’d met him once or twice. He struck me as being a good-looking, well-meaning moron. Why a girl like Molly Grange should see anything in him …!’

Ferrars’ face seemed to assume sharper lines and angles, ending in an expression of cynicism as he bit at the stem of the pipe.

‘But he did have one talent,’ the painter went on, ‘which people like that often have. He was damned good at puzzles.’

‘That’s it!’ I exclaimed.

They all turned to look at me.

‘That’s what?’ H.M. inquired suspiciously.

‘I’ve been trying to think when and where I’d heard mention of puzzles in connexion with those two. It was from Alec himself. When he invited me out here for the famous Saturday night, he said that both Rita and Sullivan were fond of puzzles; and that we might have some puzzles.’

‘Professor Wainright,’ grinned Ferrars, ‘seems to have been prophetic. And he kept his word like a gentleman.’

‘
He’s
a wallopin’ hand at puzzles, I expect?’ demanded H.M.

‘He was very good, yes, before he started to go to pieces. But it was that mathematical stuff which bores me green. You know the kind of thing. A crafty nuisance named George comes in and says, “I have a certain number of hens in my fowl-house. If I have twice the number of hens that I had yesterday, and three and one half times as many hens as my Aunt Matilda had on Tuesday, how many hens have I got today?” You want to reply, “For God’s sake, George, don’t make life so complicated. You know how many hens you’ve got, don’t you?’

Again Ferrars blew up smoke, drowsily.

‘But this isn’t mathematical. This calls for some real imagination. What the not-very-clever Sullivan devised, we ought to be able to solve by the simple process of examining the tracks.’

‘Simple,’ groaned H.M. ‘Oh, my eye! The brashness of youth! Simple!’

‘I stick by my guns. Our Mr Sullivan’ – Ferrars’ nose wrinkled – ‘is not going to beat me. I propose to settle his hash. If the maestro admits he’s in trouble’ – he nodded towards H.M. – ‘I’ll have a shot at it myself. What do you think, Superintendent?’

Craft was still brooding. His face smoothed itself out as he looked up. But his arms remained folded, and it was as though he were bracing himself.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I can tell you short and sweet what I think. I’m still not convinced that any murders were committed at all.’

T
HERE
was a minor explosion then. Though both H.M. and I protested, Craft remained unimpressed. He lifted his hand for silence.

‘Just what are the facts now?’ he asked. ‘Sir Henry’s proved, I admit, that those two
intended
to do a bunk for America.’

‘Thank’ee, son. I’m real obliged.’

‘But he’s trying to turn the whole case wrong-side out. Now he says those two weren’t shot on the edge of the cliff at all. Where were they shot, then?’

‘How should I know?’ howled H.M. ‘Maybe in that private brothel out in the studio. Maybe in one of the caves along this coast. This feller here,’ he nodded towards Ferrars, ‘has been goin’ on about caves.’

‘Do you call that evidence, sir?’

‘Maybe not. But …’

‘It’s evidence I’ve got to have,’ the superintendent pointed out, not unreasonably. ‘And, so far as I’m concerned, the actual evidence in this case hasn’t changed since yesterday.’

‘You mean that they still killed themselves? Oh, my son.’

‘Well, has it changed? Suppose they did intend to run away!’

‘You don’t doubt that, do you?’

‘Wait. I was thinking of a question I asked you yesterday. I said, “Who would murder them when they meant to kill themselves?” And you said it didn’t matter: that they might have intended suicide, but didn’t have the nerve.’

‘Well?’

‘Take it,’ suggested Craft, ‘the other way round. They decide to bolt with the old gentleman’s diamonds. They make all their plans. But at the last moment Mrs Wainright – who’s clearly the moving spirit in this – can’t face it. Dr Croxley tells us, and you admit, how fond she was of Mr Wainright. I may not know much about women, but that “I’d rather be dead!” rings pretty true to me.’

‘Uh-huh. So?’

Craft tightened his folded arms.

‘She changes her mind. She gets Sullivan out to the edge of the cliff. She shoots him, and then herself. Later Dr Croxley, who can’t bear to think of her in connexion with a double suicide, removes the gun from the edge of the cliff and takes it away. Just as we decided yesterday.’

We were back to it again.

It seemed useless for me to break out once more into protests. But this time, I thought, H.M. was on my side.

‘There’s one little detail,’ he rumbled apologetically, ‘that I hate to trouble you with. It’s only my innate cussed-ness makes me bring it up. Somebody took Sullivan’s car out to Exmoor on Sunday night, and ditched it in some very gooey quicksand. Hadn’t you forgotten that?’

Craft’s slight smile did not extend to his dead eye.

‘No, sir. I hadn’t forgotten it. But there’s one person here who admitted to us yesterday he’s familiar with every corner of Exmoor, and would know exactly where to dispose of that car: which most of us wouldn’t. Excuse me, Doctor, but what
were
you doing on Sunday night?’

If this can be credited, it took me several seconds to realize what the man meant. Perhaps I am dull, but the thing was so preposterous that it simply didn’t penetrate. It was only when all their eyes turned towards me, and Ferrars burst out laughing, that I did realize. Ferrars had no doubt been posted by H.M. about every detail.

‘You know, Dr Luke,’ remarked Ferrars, going over to knock out his pipe against the top of the fireplace, ‘
I
could believe that. It’s exactly the sort of damn-fool chivalrous thing you
would
do.’

I must have made a queer spectacle of myself, for H.M. spoke hastily.

‘Easy, Doctor! Remember your heart!’

‘It’s a fact, though,’ declared Ferrars. ‘I can see him going out in the middle of the night to do just that. Protect a lady’s good name. Destroy the evidence that she was intending to run away with Sullivan.’

I am afraid I raved for some time. Then I said:

‘Whatever I say, you don’t seem to believe it. But do you think anybody with a sense of decency – with a sense of anything – would have left Mrs Sullivan screaming in that car while it went down in quicksand?’

‘Was the young lady hurt?’ asked Craft. ‘I don’t seem to remember it.’

‘Nor I,’ agreed Ferrars. I guessed he was only doing this for devilment, but he was doing it. The smile curved again under his long nose. ‘I should say Belle was treated rather tenderly. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.’

‘She was brought back somehow,’ Craft went on ‘though a murderer, you’d think, would have left her lying in the mist on the moor. Not caring particularly whether she caught her death of cold or not. When she woke up, she found she was in that room above the studio. What do you say, Sir Henry?’

H.M. did not appear to be listening. He was bending forward in the chair, elbow on knee and chin on fist. If it had not been for his spectacles, he would have suggested less the Emperor Nero than the late Marcus Tullius Cicero meditating a blast in the Senate.

‘Found she was back in the studio,’ he muttered vacantly. The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘Found she was back in the … oh, my eye!’ Then he woke up. He made fussed gestures and pulled up the spectacles on his nose. ‘Excuse me, son. The old man was wool-gatherin’ a bit. What new dirty work has the doctor been up to now?’

‘I’m not saying anything. I’m not even intimating anything,’ lied Craft. ‘I’m just asking him where he was on Sunday night.’

‘Confound you, sir, I was at home!’

‘I see. What time did you go to bed, Doctor?’

‘Very early. Before nine o’clock. They said I’d been exerting myself too much the night before.’

‘Did you see anybody after that time?’

‘Well … no. I wasn’t supposed to be disturbed.’

‘So you couldn’t prove you were at home, if you had to?’

I clutched at my collar.

‘Now I’ll tell you what it is,’ Craft spoke very seriously, unfolding his arms and pointing a pencil at me. ‘I’ve tried to be reasonable about this; but you won’t give me any choice. Somebody removed that gun from the place where they’d shot themselves, and somebody got rid of that car. All to protect Mrs Wainright. I warn you, Doctor, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble at the inquest tomorrow morning. And I’m going to cause it.’

He turned to H.M.

‘Don’t you see, sir, that all I want is evidence? Just show me some evidence that those two didn’t kill themselves! You say they devised some new way of floating in the air or walking without footprints… .’

‘I still say it.’

‘Then how did they do it?’

H.M. drew a deep breath. ‘Y’know,’ he volunteered offhandedly, ‘I’ve always had a name for this.’

‘For what, sir?’

‘For this kind of situation. I call it the blinkin’ awful cussedness of things in general. And for getting us into this mess’ – H.M. blinked sourly at me – ‘you can thank your persuasive solicitor friend, Mr Stephen Grange. Of all the rare ones I ever heard for poisonin’ coppers’ minds, he’s it.’

‘If you ask me, Sir Henry, I’d say he was the only one who has talked sense,’ Craft objected. ‘And he’s got a lot of influence with the coroner.’

‘I’ll bet he has. At the ringing of the curfew, Dr Croxley is goin’ to find himself in the cooler or I’m a Dutchman. That’s why I’ve got to do some sittin’ and thinkin’.’ Inflating his chest deeply, H.M. glared round at us like a noble Roman wrestler about to enter the arena. ‘There’s nothing else for it. I’ve
got
to find some way of working that levitation trick!’

‘With my able assistance,’ said Ferrars. ‘And I’m going to make a suggestion. In fact, I think I can solve it for you now.’

‘You?’ said H.M., with a sneer so vast that his young friend might have been a worm made articulate.

‘Don’t be so snooty, governor. You’re not the only person in this world who enjoys funny business.’

‘No. But I wasn’t thinkin’ of your particular type of funny business. With Belle Renfrew Sullivan, or …’

To my surprise, colour came into Ferrars’ face. Though he tried to lounge back in the chair, tapping the stem of his empty pipe against his teeth, there was a curious rigidity about his muscles.

‘My dear Commodus,’ he said, ‘there never was anything between Belle and me. I must have had too many drinks late last night, and exchanged confidences over the fire. And look here. I’d rather you didn’t say anything about that to Molly Grange.’

‘So?’

‘Just a whim of mine.’

‘I can’t quite make you out,’ said H.M. ‘Sometimes you talk like the world-weariest rip that was ever bored with life. Other times you talk like a brat just down from Eton for the holidays.’

‘So far as I remember, governor, I was trying to solve your puzzle.’ Ferrars remained urbane. ‘You say our eloping friends couldn’t have climbed down the face of that cliff?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No; but suppose they came down by parachute?’ H.M. regarded him austerely.

‘Don’t gibber, son. I hate gibberin’. Besides’ – he rubbed his nose – ‘I already thought of that.’

‘Is it gibbering?’ Ferrars asked softly. ‘Is it? We’ve seen some amazing things done with parachutes recently. I’m not sure whether you can make one of ’em open enough to hold you in a relatively short drop like seventy feet; but why is it impossible?’

‘Because I say so!’ bellowed H.M., tapping himself on the chest. ‘It might remotely be possible for a trained paratroop, with a special ‘chute and a whole lot of experience at landing on a reasonably smooth surface. What chance would there be for those two, without experience and without ‘chutes as far as we know, jumpin’ down on to rocks in the dark of a windy night? No, son. It won’t do.’

‘Then how in blazes
was
it done?’

‘That’s what we’re goin’ to find out. Come on.’

‘Not in those clothes you don’t!’

‘What’s wrong with these clothes? Hey? You wanted to paint me in ’em, though I got a deep suspicion it was your idea of bein’ funny. And if it was …’