Have His Carcase (32 page)

ought not to look for anything from me. After al, I was stil quite a young

woman when my husband died, and George – he was a very fair-minded man,

I wil say that for him – always said that I should be quite within my rights in

spending my own father’s money as I liked and marrying again if I chose. And I

have lent Henry a great deal of money, which he has never repaid. I told Henry,

when I got engaged to Alexis, that I should make him a free gift of everything

that I had lent him, and make a wil, giving him the life-interest in £30,000, the

capital of which was to go to Henry’s children, if he had any. If he hadn’t any,

then the money was to come back to Paul, if Paul outlived Henry, because, of

course, Paul was the younger man.’

‘Were you going to settle al the rest on Mr Alexis?’

‘Why not, my dear? It was not as though I could have had any more

children. But Paul didn’t like that idea – he used to say, so charmingly and

absurdly, that if I did that what would happen to me if he ran away and left me?

No, what I was going to do was this. I was going to settle £30,000 on Paul

when we were married. It would have been his, absolutely, of course – I

shouldn’t like my husband to have to come and ask me for permission if he

wanted to alter the investments or anything. Then, at my death, Henry would

have had the income from the other £30,000 and his debts washed out, and

Paul would have had al the rest, which would have been about £100,000

altogether, including his own £30,000. Because, you see, Paul might have

married again and had a family, and then he would need the money. I don’t see

that there was anything unfair about that, do you?’

Harriet felt that a great deal might be said about an arrangement which cut off

the only son with the life-interest on £30,000, with reversion to a young step-

father, and left ful control of over three times that sum to the step-father; and

which also placed the hypothetical family of the son in a vastly inferior position

to the equaly hypothetical children of the step-father by a hypothetical new

wife. Stil, Mrs Weldon’s money was her own, and Alexis had at least stood

between her and the major foly of stripping herself of every farthing in his

favour. One expression had caught her attention, and she returned to it.

‘I think you showed considerable judgement,’ she said – not specifying

whether the judgement was good or bad – ‘it would be much better for your

son, if he is inclined to squander his money, only to have the life-interest in his

share. Then he would always have something to fal back upon. I suppose that

arrangement stil holds good under your present wil.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Weldon. ‘At least, it wil do so. I must confess that I

have been a little remiss up to the present. I haven’t actualy made a wil. I have

always enjoyed such wonderful health – but it wil have to be done, of course.

You know how one puts things off.’

The old story, thought Harriet. If al the wise wils projected in people’s

minds were actualy executed, there would be fewer fortunes inherited only to

be thrown away. She reflected that if Mrs Weldon died the next day, Henry

would step into sole control of something over £130,000.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think I should make that wil if I were you. Even the

youngest and healthiest people may get run over or something.’

‘Yes, yes – you’re so very right. But now that poor Paul is dead, I don’t feel

that I have the energy for business. It would matter more, of course, if Henry

were married and had a family, but he says he doesn’t mean to marry, and if so,

he may as wel have the money first as last. There’s nobody else now. But I’m

afraid I’m boring you, my dear, with al this chatter. You were asking about

poor dear Paul, and I’ve been led away into teling you al these sily private

affairs. What I was trying to say was that Paul simply
couldn’t
have been

worrying about speculations. He knew he was going to have plenty of money.

Besides,’ added Mrs Weldon, with perfect justice, ‘you can’t speculate much

without capital, can you? Money breeds money, as a stock-broker I once

knew used to say, and Paul never had any money to start with. I don’t think he

would have known anything about speculating either; he was too romantic and

unworldly, poor dear boy.’

‘Maybe,’ said Harriet to herself, ‘maybe. But he managed to get on the right

side of the person who had it.’ She was a little surprised. ‘Wealthy’ is a

comparative term – she had imagined Mrs Weldon to possess about three

thousand a year. But if her money was decently invested – and she spoke as if

it was – she must have at least twice that amount. A pauper like Alexis might be

excused for wedding £130,000 at whatever price in convenience and self-

respect; had he realy intended the marriage after al? And if, on the other hand,

he had meant to forgo it and flee the country, what was the enormous threat or

inducement which could make him abandon such a golden prospect for the

much lesser glitter of three hundred sovereigns, genuine metal though they might

be?

And Henry? Even when the death-duties had been subtracted, £130,000

was a pleasant sum, and men had done murder for less. Wel, Lord Peter had

undertaken to look into Henry’s affairs. She became aware that Mrs Weldon

was talking.

‘What a curious face that Monsieur Antoine has,’ she was saying, ‘he seems

to be a nice young man, though I’m sure he is far from robust. He spoke most

kindly to me yesterday about Paul. He seems to have been very much attached

to him, sincerely so.’

‘Oh, Antoine!’ thought Harriet, a little reproachfuly. Then she remembered

the mad mother and the imbecile brother and thought instead, ‘Poor Antoine!’

But the thought was stil an unpleasant one.

‘It’s al very wel for Lord Peter,’ she grumbled to herself, ‘
he’s
never

wanted for anything.’ Why Lord Peter should be brought into the matter, she

could not explain, but there is undoubtedly something irritating about the

favourites of fortune.

In the meantime, that wayward sprig of the nobility was trying not to be idle. He

was, in fact, hanging round the police-station, bothering the Inspector. The

reports about Bright were coming in, and they fuly corroborated his story, so

far as they went. He had come to Wilvercombe, as he said, from a lodging-

house in Seahampton, and by the train specified, and he was now living

peacefuly in a cheap room in Wilvercombe, without seeing any strangers and

without showing the least sign of wanting to disappear. He had been taken over

to Seahampton by the police on the previous day, and had been identified by

Merryweather as the man to whom the Endicott razor had been sold some time

previously. In the course of a few hours, his movements for the last few weeks

had been successfuly checked, and were as folows:

May 28th
. Arrived in Ilfracombe from London. Four days’ employment.

Dismissed as incompetent and intoxicated.

June 2nd
. Arrived in Seahampton. Caled at Merryweather’s and purchased

razor. Five days in that town looking for employment (details checked).

June 8th
. Wilvercombe. Caled on Moreton, the barber on the Esplanade. Told

that there might be a job later. Recommended to try Ramage’s in Lesston

Hoe. Same day went on to Lesston Hoe; taken on by Ramage.

June 15th
. Dismissed from Ramages – drunk and incompetent. Returned to

Wilvercombe; informed by Moreton that post was now filed (which it was

not; but his reputation had preceded him by telephone). Tried one or two

other shops without success. Slept that night in free lodging-house.

June 16th (Tuesday)
. Again tried for work; no result. Slept that night in

workmen’s lodgings, where he arrived shortly after midnight. They were

reluctant to admit him, but he showed a £1 note to prove that he could pay for

his bed.

June 17th
. Took 9.57 train to Seahampton. Caled on hairdresser named

Lyttleton and asked for work. Was told that Mr Lyttleton was away, but that

he could cal the folowing morning after 11.30. Visited two more

hairdressers. Took a bed in lodging-house and spent the evening and night

there in company with other residents.

June 18th (day of Alexis’ death)
. Left the lodging-house at 10 a.m. and went

directly to the Public Library, where he had sat for an hour in the Reading

Room, studying the ‘Situations Vacant’ columns in various papers. The

guardian of the Reading Room had identified him. He remembered Bright

perfectly, on account of some questions he had asked about the dates of

publication of the local papers, and also recolected showing him the shelf on

which the local directory was kept. At eleven o’clock, Bright had asked

whether the library clock was right, as he had an appointment at 11.30. At

11.15 he had left, presumably to keep his appointment.

The appointment was, of course, with Lyttleton, who also had no difficulty in

identifying Bright. Lyttleton had returned to Seahampton by the 11.20 train,

and, on reaching his shop, had found Bright waiting to see him. He told Bright

that he could come and try his hand if he liked, and could start at once. Bright

had worked in the toilet-saloon until one o’clock, when he had gone out to

lunch. He had returned just after two o’clock and had remained at his job for

the rest of the day. The proprietor had then decided that his work was not

good enough, and paid him off. It was true that nobody was able to identify him

at the smal restaurant where he claimed to have lunched, but it was perfectly

clear that nothing short of a magic carpet could have transported him forty miles

to the Flat-Iron and back in order to commit a murder at two o’clock.

Whatever part Bright had played in the tragedy, it was not that of First

Murderer.

With regard to Bright’s earlier history, they had made very little progress –

principaly because Bright himself did not even pretend to remember the various

aliases under which he had passed from time to time in the last few years. The

only statement they had so far succeeded in confirming – up to a point – was

that there certainly had at one time been a hairdresser’s establishment in

Massingbird Street, Manchester. The proprietor’s name had been Simpson,

and this agreed with Bright’s story; but Massingbird Street had long

disappeared in the course of town-improvement and, as Bright himself had

warned them, it was difficult to find anybody who remembered what Simpson

the hairdresser had looked like.

‘He must have lived in Manchester al right, some time or other,’ was the

Inspector’s conclusion, ‘or he wouldn’t know al about Massingbird Street; and

it’s quite probable he may be Simpson as he says. But what he’s been doing

with himself between then and now is quite another matter.’

A further item of police information concerned old Polock and his boat. A

young constable, who had only recently joined the Wilvercombe force and was

therefore likely to be unknown to the local fisher-folk, had been sent, disguised

as a holiday-maker, to dawdle about the beach near Darley, in company with

his young lady, and persuade Polock to take them both out for a sail in his

boat. The trip had been an uncomfortable one, owing, in the first place to the

old fisherman’s extreme surliness and, in the second, to the young lady’s

unfortunate tendency to
mal de mer
. They had asked to be taken out as near

as possible to the seaward end of the Grinders reef, ‘as the young lady was that

keen to see them drag for the body’. Polock had grumbled a good deal, but

had taken them. They had kept the shore in view the whole way, but had

finished their outward trip at a point too far from shore to make out clearly the

movements of the search-party, who, at that particular moment, seemed to be

engaged on shore in the immediate neighbourhood of the Flat-Iron. They had

asked Polock to put in close by the rock, but he had refused very definitely to

do so. During the voyage, the constable had examined the boat as closely as he

could for signs of anything unusual. He had gone so far as to lose a hypothetical

half-crown and insist on having the bottom-boards up to see if it could have

slipped below them. He had searched the musty space below thoroughly with a

flash-light and seen no appearance of blood-stains. For the sake of

verisimilitude he had pretended to find the half-crown, and for the sake of

peace had handed it to Polock by way of a tip. On the whole the expedition