Case for Sergeant Beef (4 page)

I remember when I was a boy at school we used to be given essays on set subjects–'Duty', ‘A Day in the Country', and so on. A teacher told us one week to write an essay on any subject we liked. At first the very thought of this was thrilling. What scope! What a choice! But as we sat down to think it over, hesitating between one subject and another, each so attractive, we found it almost impossible to decide. I spent two days puzzling my head over it, and in the end did my essay on ‘A Day in the Country' or ‘Duty', or one of the old stock subjects, I forget which. It's like that now. I have a complete choice of time, place, method, and victim, and I find myself veering round inevitably to precedent, to planning my alibi and foreseeing police inquiries just as other murderers must have done.

However, other murderers had not the genius with which I approach the problem.

The gun for instance. Suppose I just shoot a stranger at that point on the path I have chosen. Well, it might have been Flipp with his gun, or anyone else with Flipp's gun, Miss Shoulter with her gun, or someone else with her gun, or someone using my gun, or someone altogether different with another gun. Nothing anyway to suggest that it could be me.

But another more interesting possibility occurs. Suppose the stranger, whoever he is, is found with a gun beside him from which both barrels have been fired, and suppose there are strings attached to the triggers and his fingerprints on the barrels, who could possibly suggest that it wasn't
suicide? After all, I could make sure that I shot him from in front and at very close range – and that would conform perfectly. Everybody, for some queer reason, is more ready to believe in a man taking his own life than someone else's.

What about the gun, in that case? It mustn't be mine, that's certain. But it could very easily be either Miss Shoulter's or Flipp's. Both keep them very carelessly. With any luck I could come into possession of one or the other a week or so before the Great Day. The chances are that they would never even notice that the gun had gone, and if they did and reported it, well, I can always postpone the murder and start on a wholly different tack. It's all getting very interesting, and I scarcely ever need to read at night now. I just sit in the garden and dream of my triumph.

Yes, that's how I'll do it. It's all clear now. A fortnight before the provisional date I'll get hold of either Miss Shoulter's or Flipp's
12
-bore. This I will hide under the leaves in Deadman's Wood, wrapped up in an old piece of mackintosh I have. Then, on the appointed day, I will await my victim. If he comes, that is to say if anyone who is a stranger to me comes down the path, I will do it. If not, I will wait till another day, or another, till just the right person comes at just the right time. Then I will get him quite near me. I can think of many ways of doing that. I could pretend to have sprained my ankle and be flat on the ground waiting till he came close to me. Or I could show him something I was going to shoot and as he is looking let off the two barrels in his face. Half a dozen ways. Then get the other gun out of hiding and fix up the string as though he had shot himself.

Or maybe I might actually shoot him with the other gun. Why not? I should rather like to use my own trusty old
12
-bore, but it would save an extra shot to use the other, because it would have to be fired off, anyway. I will consider the pros and cons of this. But anyway, that's the broad idea.

As soon as autumn comes I shall start going for a stroll
with my gun every evening towards dusk, and bringing home a rabbit or two. This must be known qs my daily custom. I must let off a few shots, too, even if I don't see a rabbit so that people get used to the sound of a gun. And, of course, I shall have to take the normal precautions – footprints, fingerprints, and so on. Those will be child's play to me. And the question of time – I'll be careful of that. I shall have to make sure that a shot is fired after I've come in for the evening. At present I don't quite see how I'll do that, but I shall think of a way.

September already. How this summer has flown. I think time does pass quickly, though, when one has some absorbing interest.

I've had a brilliant idea during the last few days. It is about the gun. I realized that a shot must be heard in the wood after I had returned to ‘Labour's End' on the Great Day. How could I be sure of this? My idea is simple, but very effective. Suppose a gun were fixed to the branch of a tree a little way into the wood, and a ball of thin strong string passed round the trigger. All I would need to do would be to pull the string while I actually remained at ‘Labour's End.' Complicated? Not a bit. The place for the gun would be about ten paces into the wood, far enough away for the report to come
from
the wood. I am quite sure Mrs Pluck could not gauge the actual distance. She would simply say she heard a shot in the wood. It must be in a straight line from the house – I don't want my string passing over anything. As for the string – its length inside the wood is no problem at all – I could ‘lay' it on the night before the murder. The length of string across the lawn would be another matter. That afternoon I would be planning and laying out flower-beds and have a line running right across from my window to the wood, marking the edge of a path or a bed, or whatever you please. When it grew dusk I would tie this line to the double ends of the string already round the trigger of the gun. I would remain in the
Just as I was going away I picked up one of the woman's shoes.

‘That's a big size,' I said. ‘I wonder who wore those?'

The curate's sister seemed to enjoy the mild malice in her reply.

‘Miss Shoulter,' she whispered. ‘Huge feet. Haven't you noticed?'

‘No, I haven't,' I said with just a suggestion of rebuke in my voice. ‘I never notice that sort of thing.'

But my head was singing with excitement. Now I shan't even leave tracks on the Great Day. My feet will go into these easily and I'll keep them in the wood ready. On the afternoon I'll change into them for the task itself, then back into my own when it's over. The police, if they manage to find any footprints, will only know that Miss Shoulter has been near the scene of the crime.

So now I have defence in depth. The first line is suicide. The second Miss Shoulter. No one can even break through to my citadel. And there's always Flipp who has the same kind of gun.

Every day now I conscientiously take my walk in the afternoon with my gun. Now and again I get a rabbit and I've shot one pheasant already. I have met almost everybody in the course of these walks – Flipp and his wife, Miss Shoulter, the curate, the postman and a number of other people. Everyone knows that it's the custom of that nice old gentleman Mr Chickle to take a stroll with his gun in the afternoon. Just as it should be.

The chief problem now is that of getting hold of Miss Shoulter's gun. So easy, and yet a matter for great care. A slip over that would be disastrous – not for my safety but for the success of the present scheme.

She keeps it in the little front hall of her house. I consider that most reprehensible, really. A firearm is
not
a thing to leave lying about. But there it is, leant against the wall as though it were a walking-stick. All I have to do is to pick
it up as I leave the house and walk away with it. No. one seeing me on my way back to ‘Labour's End' would find anything odd in it – indeed, it would be the most normal thing since they would not dream that it was not
my
gun. And if by any chance Miss Shoulter herself should see me, or miss the gun so soon after my call that its disappearance would seem connected with me – then all I have to do is to plead absent-mindedness. ‘How silly of me. I'm so accustomed to carrying a gun. Must have picked yours up by mistake.'

I shall have to become very friendly with Miss Shoulter, though. On ‘popping-in' terms. I shall have to make her so accustomed to my visits that she won't even bother to see me out. That will be rather a bore. Her house is painfully untidy. She keeps no servant and her dining-room table nearly always has an opened tin on it. And she shouts so that conversation is trying. But she's a good-natured woman. It won't be difficult to establish the kind of relationship I need.

Of course, when I do take the gun, if anything goes wrong I postpone the whole scheme and then think of a new method altogether. No chances for me. But if she misses it a few days later and informs the police, all the better.
They
will have to discover after the murder how it came into the possession of the man who apparently shot himself with it. That's just the sort of thing that will suit the police. They'll work out some sort of theory to account for it, you may be sure.

Another thing I have to obtain in a way which will prevent its being connected with me is some kind of string, cord, tape, or ribbon with which to fake the suicide. You see how careful I am? Just that piece of cord could hang a man. And I've had a delightful idea about this, too. Red Tape! My victim shall be killed with red tape, just as it will be the red tape of the police force which will prevent his murderer being caught.

There's a lawyer in Ashley, and in a few days' time I will call on him and arrange a new will. I suppose I shall have to
garden and look in at the window of the room to call Mrs Pluck. ‘Oh, Mrs Pluck,' I would say, ‘have you the right time? Half-past six? Thank you,' Then I would pull my line and away in the wood there would be a report. ‘Someone shooting,' I would smile. ‘They've no right to, but let it pass. A rabbit or two won't hurt us, will it, Mrs Pluck?' And later, when the body is found and it is believed that the man had been shot that afternoon – well, there's my alibi! Simple, isn't it?

Of course I shall remark to Mrs Pluck that I've stupidly left my line in the garden. ‘Must bring it in,' I'll say. ‘Someone might trip over it.' Always the considerate old gentleman, you see. Then I'll pop out and draw in the garden line and by drawing only one side of the double string pull in the other one from the gun. Then all I'll have to do is to go out that evening and get the gun or bring it back next day. Wait, though.
I
can choose
my
day. So it will be on Mrs Pluck's evening out, and when she has gone to the pictures over at Ashley – as she always does – I'll bring the gun in. Splendid. I'm beginning to enjoy this.

S.B.—2

Another piece of luck has come my way, this time of a rather amusing kind. That pasty-faced curate came and asked me if I could manage to look in at the Jumble Sale at the Village Hall, and true to my benevolent character I agreed. There was the usual litter of rubbish – old books and clothes and ugly vases – and the usual crowd of tiresome people trying to find something on which they could spend a few shillings without wasting them.

There was a stall for old clothes over which the curate's sister, a plain and meaty girl who resembles her brother, was presiding. Right in front of her I saw a clothes-basket full of old boots and shoes, and on top of them a pair of the most enormous woman's walking shoes I have ever seen. They must have been size twelve at least, though there was a pretence of the feminine in their design. Under them was a pair of carpet slippers of my own size which I picked up and in which I pretended to take an interest.

‘How much are these?' I asked, though my brain was already busy with a new idea suggested to me by the woman's shoes.

‘Well, we were rather hoping to sell the whole basketful. As a lot, you know,' said the curate's sister.

Just what I hoped.

‘Oh, dear!' I said good-humouredly. ‘Whatever should I do with all these? How much would they be?'

‘We hoped to get a sovereign, with the basket.'

‘I think I could manage
that
,'
I
said, and gave her a pound note.

‘It's very good of you,' grinned the curate's sister. ‘All in a good cause, you know.'

leave my money to my cousin's son, Rudolph Gooding. But I'll find a few improbable charities to endow with some of it. Gooding is such a prim conventional young man, engaged to an equally prim and colourless girl. He would never have the imagination to spend a large sum of money at all happily. But for the sake of form I will leave him the bulk.

Now while I'm in the solicitor's office I can surely find some red tape. I've often seen those little spools of it on lawyers' tables. If I don't see any lying about – well, it will just be too bad. I'll think of something else. As I assure myself again,
there's no hurry.
And red tape will add such a picturesque, such an ironic touch to my murder. Quite a treat for the crime reporters.

I think Christmas Eve would be a good time. Unless, of course, there is snow. I do
not
want a so-called white Christmas; it would show altogether too much of my movements. But if it's suitable weather, that would make a very good date, and another idea for the reporters.

All my preliminary preparations are made now, and we're still in November. Everyone is accustomed to seeing me with a gun and to hearing shots in Deadman's Wood. Miss Shoulter is so accustomed to my looking in on one pretext or another that she always leaves me to ‘see myself out' as she calls it. (Actually, I think she thinks I'm in love with her, poor woman.) Flipp and his wife call on her nearly as often, and all three come to see me. The shoes are locked up in a trunk in my room. And Mrs Pluck can be relied on to notice any time at which anything happens, besides being accustomed to seeing me ‘planning the garden' with a line on two pegs which I'm always moving about as I discuss new flowerbeds and paths. In another week's time I can start really active measures.