Have His Carcase (40 page)

contradicted by the evidence of Wiliam Bright and Mrs Lefranc.

In short, here was a man of Russian birth and temperament, troubled by

emotional entanglements and by the receipt of mysterious letters, and obviously

in an unstable condition of mind. He had wound up his worldly affairs and

procured a razor. He had been found in a lonely spot, to which he had

obviously proceeded unaccompanied, and had been found dead, with the fatal

weapon lying close under his hand. There were no footprints upon the sand but

his own, and the person who had discovered the body had come upon it so

closely after the time of the death as to preclude the possibility of any murderer

having escaped from the scene of the crime by way of the shore. The witness

Polock had sworn that he was out in deep water at the time when the death

occurred, and had seen no other boat in the neighbourhood, and his evidence

was supported by that of Miss Vane. Further, there was no evidence that

anybody had the slightest motive for doing away with the deceased, unless the

jury chose to pay attention to the vague suggestions about blackmailers and

Bolsheviks, which there was not an atom of testimony to support.

Wimsey grinned at Umpelty over this convenient summary, with its useful

suppressions and assumptions. No mention of clefts in the rock or of

horseshoes or of the disposal of Mrs Weldon’s money. The jury whispered

together. There was a pause. Harriet looked at Henry Weldon. He was

frowning heavily and paying no attention to his mother, who was talking

excitedly into his ear.

Presently the foreman rose to his feet – a stout person, who looked like a

farmer.

‘We’re al agreed, for certain sure,’ he said, ‘as deceased come to his death

by cutting of his throat, and most of us thinks he took his own life; but there’s

some’ (he glared at the Empire Free-Trader) ‘who wil have it as it was

Bolsheviks.’

‘A majority verdict is sufficient,’ said the coroner, ‘Am I to understand that

the majority is for suicide?’

‘Yes, sir. I told you so, Jim Cobbley,’ added the foreman, in a penetrating

whisper.

‘Then your verdict is that deceased came to his end by cutting his own

throat.’

‘Yes, sir.’ (A further consultation.) ‘We should like to add as we think the

police regulations about foreigners did ought to be tightened up, like, deceased

being a foreigner and suicides and murders being unpleasant in a place where

so many visitors come in the summer.’

‘I can’t take that,’ objected the harassed coroner. ‘Deceased was a

naturalised Englishman.’

‘That don’t make no difference,’ said the juror, sturdily. ‘We do think as the

regulations ought to be tightened up none the more for that, and that’s what we

al say. Put it down, sir, as that’s our opinion.’

‘There you are,’ said Wimsey, ‘that’s the breed that made the Empire. When

empire comes in at the door, logic goes out at the window. Wel, I suppose

that’s al. I say, Inspector.’

‘My lord?’

‘What are you doing with that scrap of paper?’

‘I don’t quite know, my lord. Do you think there’s anything to be made of

it?’

‘Yes; send it up to Scotland Yard and ask them to get the photographic

experts on to it. You can do a lot with coloured screens. Get hold of Chief

Inspector Parker – he’l see that it’s put into the right hands.’

The Inspector nodded.

‘We’l do that. It’s my belief there’s something for us in that bit of paper, if

we could only get at it. I don’t know when I’ve seen a queerer business than

this. It looks just about as clear a case of suicide as you could wish, if it wasn’t

for one or two things. And yet, when you look into those things separately, they

seem to melt away, like. There’s that Bright. I thought we’d got him on one

point, anyhow. But there! I’ve noticed that these landsmen, nine times out of

ten, haven’t the least notion whether the tide’s in or out or where it is. I think he

was lying; so do you – but you couldn’t expect a jury to hang a man for murder

on the ground that he didn’t know High Water from Low Water. We’l try to

keep an eye on the felow, but I don’t see how we’re going to detain him. The

verdict’s suicide (which suits us wel enough in a way), and if Bright wants to

move on, we can’t stop him. Not unless we offer to pay for his board and

lodging for an indefinite period, and
that
wouldn’t suit the rate-payers. He’s got

no settled address, and seeing what his business is, we can’t hardly expect it.

We’l get out a general cal to have him kept under observation, but that’s about

al we
can
do. And of course, he’l change his name again.’

‘Isn’t he on the dole?’

‘No.’ The Inspector snorted. ‘Says he’s got an independent spirit. That’s a

suspicious circumstance in itself,
I
should say. Besides – he’l be claiming this

reward from the
Morning Star
and won’t need any dole for a bit. But we can’t

force him to stay in Wilvercombe at his own expense, reward or no reward.’

‘Get hold of Mr Hardy, and see if the paper can’t hold the reward up a bit.

Then, if he doesn’t turn up to claim it, we’l know for a certainty that there’s

something wrong with him. A contempt for money, Inspector, is the root – or at

any rate, the very definite sign – of al evil.’

The Inspector grinned.

‘You and me think alike, my lord. There’s something fishy about a bloke that

doesn’t take al he can get. Right you are. I’l speak to Mr Hardy. And I’l try

and fix up with Bright to hang on here a couple of days. If he’s up to anything

queer, he won’t try to bolt for fear of looking suspicious.’

‘It’l look much more suspicious if he consents to stay.’

‘Yes, my lord – but he won’t reason that way. He won’t want to make

trouble. He’l stay for a bit, I daresay. Fact is, I was thinking, if we could pul

him in over some other little matter . . . I don’t know, but he’s a slippery

looking customer, and I shouldn’t wonder but what we might find some excuse

or other to detain him on.’ He winked.

‘Framing him, Inspector?’

‘Good lord, no, my lord. Can’t do that, in this country. But there’s lots of

little things a man may do in the way of breaking the law. There’s street-betting,

and drunk and disorderly, and buying stuff after closing-hours and so on – little

odds-and-ends that come in handy at times.’

‘My conscience!’ said Wimsey. ‘First time I’ve heard a good word for

Dora! Wel, I must be getting along. Hulo, Weldon! I didn’t know you were

there.’

‘Funny business, al this.’ Mr Weldon waved his hand vaguely. ‘Lot of sily

stuff people do talk, eh? You’d think the whole thing was plain as pie, but

here’s my mother stil talking about Bolsheviks. Take more than a coroner’s

verdict to keep
her
quiet. Women! You can talk yourself black in the face

reasoning with ’em and al they do is to go on bleating the same sily nonsense.

You can’t take any account of what they say, can you?’

‘They’re not al alike.’

‘So they say. But that’s al part of this equality nonsense. Now, take Miss

Vane. Nice girl, and al that, and decent-looking when she takes the trouble to

put her clothes on –’

‘What about Miss Vane?’ demanded Wimsey, sharply. Then he thought:

‘Damn being in love! I’m losing my lightness of touch.’ Weldon merely grinned.

‘No offence,’ he said. ‘I only meant – take that evidence of hers. How’s a

girl like that to be expected to know about blood and al that – see what I

mean? Women always get that idea of blood running about al over the place.

Always reading novels. “Walowing in gore.” That kind of stuff. No good trying

to persuade ’em. They see what they think they ought to see. Get me?’

‘You seem to have studied feminine psychology,’ said Wimsey, gravely.

‘Oh, I know women pretty wel,’ said Mr Weldon, with solemn satisfaction.

‘You mean,’ went on Wimsey, ‘that they think in clichés.’

‘Eh?’

‘Formulae. “There’s nothing like a mother’s instinct.” “Dogs and children

always know.” “Kind hearts are more than coronets.” “Suffering refines the

character” – that sort of guff, despite al evidence to the contrary.’

‘Ye-es,’ replied Mr Weldon. ‘What I mean is, you know, they think a thing

ought to be so, and so they say it is so.’

‘Yes; I grasped that that was what you meant.’ Wimsey thought that if ever

human being had the air of repeating a formula without a clear idea of its

meaning, Mr Weldon was that human being; yet he pronounced the magic

words with a kind of pride, taking credit to himself for a discovery.

‘What you realy mean,’ went on Wimsey, ‘is, I take it, that we can’t rely on

Miss Vane’s evidence at al? You say: She hears a shriek, she finds a man with

his throat cut and a razor beside him; it looks as though he’d that moment

committed suicide, therefore she takes it for granted that he
has
that moment

committed suicide. In that case the blood ought to be stil flowing. Therefore

she persuades herself that it
was
stil flowing. Is that it?’

‘That’s it,’ said Mr Weldon.

‘Therefore the jury bring in a verdict of suicide. But you and I, who know al

about women, know that the evidence about the blood was probably wrong,

and that therefore it may quite wel have been murder. Is
that
it?’

‘Oh, no – I don’t mean that,’ protested Mr Weldon. ‘I feel perfectly certain

it was suicide.’

‘Then what are you grumbling at? It seems so obvious. If the man was

murdered after two o’clock, Miss Vane would have seen the murderer. She

didn’t see the murderer. Therefore it was suicide. The proof of the suicide realy

depends on Miss Vane’s evidence, which shows that the man died after two

o’clock. Doesn’t it?’

Mr Weldon grappled for some moments with this surprising piece of logic,

but failed to detect either the
petitio elenchi
, the undistributed middle or the

inaccurate major premiss which is contrived to combine. His face cleared.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Yes. I see that. Obviously it must have been suicide,

and Miss Vane’s evidence proves that it was. So she must be right after al.’

This was a sylogistic monstrosity even worse than the last, thought Wimsey.

A man who could reason like that could not reason at al. He constructed a new

sylogism for himself.

The man who committed this murder was not a fool
.

Weldon is a fool
.

Therefore Weldon did not commit this murder
.

That appeared to be sound, so far as it went. But what was Weldon

bothering about, in that case? One could only suppose that he was worried

over having no perfect alibi for two o’clock. And indeed that was worrying

Wimsey himself. Al the best murderers have alibis for the time of the murder.

Then, suddenly, ilumination came flooding, stabbing across the dark places

of his mind like a searchlight. And, good God! if this was the true solution,

Weldon was anything but a fool. He was one of the subtlest criminals a

detective had ever encountered. Wimsey studied Weldon’s obstinate profile –

was it possible? Yes, it was possible – and the scheme might quite wel have

been successful, if only Harriet Vane had not turned up with her evidence.

Work it out this way; see how it looked. Weldon had murdered Alexis at the

Flat-Iron at two o’clock. He had had the mare tethered ready somewhere, and,

after leaving the Feathers at 1.30, he had gone down the Lane and got to horse

without a moment’s delay. Then he must have ridden hel-for-leather. Suppose

he had somehow managed to do four miles in twenty-five minutes. That would

leave him half a mile from the Flat-Iron at two o’clock. No, that would not do.

Strain it a little farther. Let him start from Hinks’s Lane at 1.32 and let him

walop a steady nine miles an hour out of the mare – that would almost do it.

Let him, in any case, be within five minutes’ quick walk of the rock at 1.55.

Then what?
He sends the mare home
. Five minutes before Harriet woke, he

could send the bay mare galoping back along the sands. Then he walks. He

reaches the Flat-Iron at two o’clock. He kils. He hears Harriet coming. He

hides in the cleft of the rock. And meanwhile, the bay mare has either run home,

or, possibly, has reached the lane by the cottages and run up it, or –

Never mind the mare; she got back to her own field and stream somehow.

The times were tight; the whole thing seemed absurdly elaborate, but it was not

an absolute impossibility as he had thought at first. Suppose it had been so.

Now, if Harriet had not been there, what would have happened? In a few hours

the tide would have covered the body. Pause there, Morocco. If Weldon was