Have His Carcase (17 page)

‘No; he had it in his hand, or slung round his neck. Don’t ask sily questions.

He’d wait in his little niche until you’d gone; then he’d hurry back along the

shore—’

‘Not in the direction of Wilvercombe.’

‘Blow! Obviously, you’d have seen him. But not if he kept close to the cliff.

He wouldn’t have to bother so much about footprints when the tide was coming

in. He could manage that al right. Then he’d come up the cliff at the point

where he originaly got down, folow the main road towards Wilvercombe, turn

back at some point or other, and meet you on the way back. How’s that?’

‘It’s very neat.’

‘The more I look at it, the more I like it. I adore the thought of Bright’s being

Perkins. I say, though, how about this lop-sided, hunch-backed business. Was

Perkins upright as a wilow-wand, or how?’

‘Not by any means. But I shouldn’t have caled him actualy crooked. More

sloppy and round-shouldered. He had a rucksack on his back, and he was

walking a bit lame, because he said he had a blister on his foot.’

‘That would be a good way of disguising any one-sidedness in his

appearance. You’re always apt to hunch up a bit on the lame side. Bright-

Perkins is our man. We ought to get the police on to this right away, only I do

so want my lunch. What time is it?
Four
o’clock. I’l slip along in the car and

telephone to Glaisher, and then come back. Why should we give up our picnic

for any number of murderers?’

X

THE EVIDENCE OF THE POLICE-INSPECTOR

‘My life upon ’t some miser,

Who in the secret hour creeps to his hoard,

And, kneeling at the altar of his love,

Worships that yellow devil, gold.’

The Bride’s Tragedy

Monday, 22 June

‘You may say what you like, my lord,’ said Inspector Umpelty, ‘and I don’t

mind admitting that the Super is a bit inclined to your way of thinking, but it was

suicide for al that, and if I was a sporting man, I wouldn’t mind having a bet on

it. There’s no harm done by tracing this felow Bright, because, if the

identification of the razor is correct, that’s who this Alexis must have brought it

from, but there’s no doubt in my mind that when the poor chap left his lodgings

on Thursday, he never meant to come back. You’ve only got to look at the

place. Everything tidied away, bils al paid up, papers burnt in the grate – you

might say he’d regular said good-bye and kissed his hand to everything.’

‘Did he take his latch-key with him?’ asked Wimsey.

‘Yes, he did. But that’s nothing. A man keeps his key in his pocket and he

mightn’t think to put it out. But he left pretty wel everything else in order.

You’d be surprised. Not so much as an envelope, there wasn’t. Must have had

a regular old bonfire there. Not a photograph, not a line that would tel you

anything about who he was or where he came from. Clean sweep of the lot.’

‘No hope of recovering anything from the ashes?’

‘Not a thing. Naturaly, Mrs Lefranc – that’s the landlady – had had the

grate cleaned out on the Thursday morning, but she told me that everything had

been broken down into black flinders and dust. And there was a rare old lot of

it. I know, because she showed it me in the dust-bin. There certainly was

nothing there you could have made out with a microscope. As you know, my

lord, generaly these folk aren’t thorough – they leave a few bits half-burnt,

maybe, but this chap had gone the right way about it and no mistake. He must

have torn everything into smal scraps first, and burnt it on a hot fire and beaten

it into atoms with the poker. “Wel,” I said to Mrs Lefranc, “this is a nice set-

out, this is!” And so it was, too.’

‘Any books or anything with writing in the fly-leaves?’

‘Just a few novels, with “Paul Alexis” inside, and some with nothing at al,

and one or two paper-backed books written in Chinese.’

‘Chinese?’

‘Wel, it looked like it. Russian, maybe. Not in proper letters, anyhow. You

can see them any time you like, but I don’t expect you’l get much out of them.

One or two history-books there was, mostly about Russia and that. But no

writing of any kind.’

‘Any money?’

‘No.’

‘Had he a banking account?’

‘Yes; he had a smal account with Lloyds. Matter of a little over three

hundred pounds. But he drew the whole lot out three weeks ago.’

‘Did he? Whatever for? It wouldn’t cost him al that to buy a razor.’

‘No, but I said he’d been settling his debts.’

‘Three hundred pounds worth of them?’

‘I don’t say that. Fact is we can’t trace more than twenty pounds odd. But

he may have owed money in lots of places, As he’s burnt al his papers, you

see, it’s a bit difficult to tel. We shal make inquiries, naturaly. But I shouldn’t

be surprised if those hundred pounds had gone to some girl or other. There’s

that Leila Garland – a hard-boiled little piece if ever there was one.
She
could

tel a lot if she liked, I daresay, but we aren’t alowed to ask anybody any

questions these days. If they say they won’t answer, they won’t and there’s an

end of it. You can’t force ’em.’

‘Leila Garland – that’s the girl he used to go with?’

‘That’s it, my lord, and from what I can make out she turned Mister Alexis

down good and hard. Terrible cut up he was about it, too, according to her.

She’s got another felow now – sort of friend of Alexis, but a cut above him, as

far as I can make out. Sort of dago felow; leads the orchestra down at the

Winter Gardens, and makes a pretty good thing out of it, I fancy. You know

the sort, al la-di-dah and snake-skin shoes. Nothing wrong with him, though,

as far as that goes. He was quite frank about it, and so was the girl. Alexis

introduced them, and presently the young woman got the idea that she could do

better with the dago than with Alexis. She says Alexis was getting very close

with his money, and didn’t seem to have his mind as much on Miss Leila as he

might have. Possibly he had his eye on somebody else al the time and that was

where the money went. Anyhow, Leila makes up her mind to give him the push

and takes up with the dago, Luis da Soto, instead. Of course there was a

scene, and Alexis threatens to make away with himself—’

‘Did he say anything about throat-cutting?’

‘Wel, no, he didn’t. Said he’d take poison. But what’s the odds? He said

he’d make away with himself and he’s done it, and here we are.’

‘Did you, by any chance, find any poison – you know, sleepy stuff or

anything of that sort – in his room?’

‘Not a thing,’ said the Inspector, triumphantly.

‘H’m.’

‘But Inspector,’ put in Harriet, who had been listening to this conversation in

becoming silence, ‘if you think Alexis had another girl in tow, why should he

commit suicide when Leila Garland turned him down?’

‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure, miss. Maybe the other one turned him down as

wel.’

‘And left him a low, lorn crittur, with al the world contrairy with him,’ said

Wimsey.

‘Yes, and then there was this Mrs Weldon. We found out about her through

these other girls. Wouldn’t you say a prospect like that was enough to make

any young felow cut his throat?’

‘He could have gone away,’ said Harriet.

‘And suppose he owed her money and she turned crusty and threatened to

put him in court? What about that?’

‘Perhaps the three hundred pounds—’ began Wimsey.

‘Oh, no,
no!
’ cried Harriet indignantly. ‘You mustn’t think that. It’s

absolutely ridiculous. Why, the poor woman was infatuated with him. He could

have turned her round his little finger. She’d have given him anything he wanted.

Besides, she told me he wouldn’t take her money.’

‘Ah! But supposing he’d have given her the go-by, miss. She might have cut

up rough about that.’

‘
She
would have been the one to kil herself then,’ said Harriet, firmly. ‘She

wouldn’t have harmed him for the world, poor soul. Put him in court?

Nonsense!’

‘Now you know very wel, miss,’ said Inspector Umpelty, ‘that it says in the

Bible that the infernal regions, begging your pardon, knows no fury like a

woman scorned. I’ve always remembered that from my school-days, and I find

it gives a very useful line to folow in our way of business. If this Mrs Weldon

—’

‘Rubbish!’ said Harriet. ‘She’d never have done anything of the sort. I
know

she wouldn’t.’

‘Ah!’ Inspector Umpelty winked in a friendly manner at Wimsey. ‘When the

ladies get to knowing things by this feminine intuition and al that, there’s no

arguing with it. But what I say is, let’s suppose it, just for the moment.’

‘I won’t suppose it,’ retorted Harriet.

‘We seem to have reached a no-thoroughfare,’ remarked Wimsey. ‘Let’s

leave that for the time being, Inspector. You can come and suppose it in the

bar, quietly, later on. Though I don’t think it very likely myself. It’s our turn to

suppose something. Suppose a fishing-boat had wanted to come in at the Flat-

Iron just about low tide on Thursday – could she do it?’

‘Easy, my lord. Some of these boats don’t draw more than a foot of water.

You could bring her in beautifuly, provided you kept clear of the Grinders, and

remembered to reckon with the current.’

‘A stranger might get into difficulties, perhaps.’

‘He might, but not if he was a good seaman and could read a chart. He

could bring a smal boat up within a dozen feet of the Flat-Iron any day, unless

the wind was setting with the current across the bay, when he might get driven

on to the rocks if he wasn’t careful.’

‘I see. That makes it al very interesting. We are supposing a murder, you

see, Inspector, and we’ve thought out two ways of doing it. We’d be glad to

have your opinion.’

Inspector Umpelty listened with an indulgent smile to the rival theories of the

Man in the Fishing-boat and the Man in the Niche, and then said:

‘Wel, miss, al I can say is, I’d like to read some of those books of yours.

It’s wonderful, the way you work it al in. But about that boat. That’s queer,

that is. We’ve been trying to get a line on that, because whoever was in it must

have seen something. Most of the fishing-boats were out off Shely Point, but

there’s a few of them I haven’t checked up on, and of course, it might be some

of the visitors from Wilvercombe or Lesston Hoe. We’re always warning these

amateurs to keep from the Grinders, but do they? No. You’d think some of

them was out for a day’s suicide, the way they go on. But I’ve got an idea who

it was, al the same.’

‘How about those cottages along the coast, where I went to try and get

help?’ asked Harriet. ‘Surely they must have seen the boat? I thought those sort

of people knew every boat in the place by sight.’

‘That’s just it,’ replied the Inspector. ‘We’ve asked them and they’re al

struck blind and dumb, seemingly. That’s why I say I think I could put a name

to the boat. But we’l find a way to make them come across with it, never fear.

They’re a surly lot, those Polocks and Moggeridges, and up to no good, in my

opinion. They’re not popular with the other fishers, and when you find a whole

family boycotted by the rest of them, there’s usualy something at the back of

it.’

‘At any rate,’ said Wimsey, ‘I think we’ve got the actual time of the death

pretty wel fixed by now. That ought to help.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Inspector Umpelty, ‘if what you and the lady tel me is

correct, that does seem to settle it. Not but what I’d like a doctor’s opinion on

it, no offence to you. But I think you’re right, al the same. It’s a great pity you

happened to fal asleep when you did, miss.’ He looked reproachfuly at

Harriet.

‘But wasn’t it lucky I was there at al?’

The Inspector agreed that it was.

‘And taking this question of the time as settled,’ he went on, ‘we’ve got

some information to hand now that may clear matters up a bit. At least, from al

I can see, it just goes to show that this murder-stuff is clean impossible, as I’ve

said it was al along. But if we prove that, then we’re al right, aren’t we?’

The conference was taking place in the Inspector’s cosy little vila in the

suburbs of the town. Rising, Mr Umpelty went to a cupboard and extracted a

large sheaf of official reports.

‘You see, my lord, we haven’t been idle, even though suicide looks more

probable than anything else on the face of things. We had to take al the

possibilities into account, and we’ve gone over the district with, as you might

say, a magnifying glass.’

After an inspection of the reports, Wimsey was obliged to admit that this

boast seemed justified. Chance had helped the police very considerably. An

application had recently been made by the local authorities to the County

Council to have the coast-road between Lesston Hoe and Wilvercombe put