Hobby of Murder (23 page)

‘Why didn’t they simply kill her in the cottage? Why do something so risky as kill her out in the open?’

‘Because they were afraid of being seen going into the cottage. They’re quite well-known hereabouts. If they’d met anyone they knew, it would have spoiled everything. An approach along that quiet lane beyond the lake must have looked far more promising. And then, after dark, they did go to the cottage and hunted for the letter and didn’t find it, probably because it never existed, and Waldron, going into a blind rage, which it must be rather easy to do when you’ve got into the way of committing murder, smashed everything he could find. It was Clancy herself he was killing all over again, because she’d come along and ruined his nice satisfactory life with his sister.’

‘It can’t have been all that satisfactory to her, or she wouldn’t have committed suicide.’

‘No, that’s true. It’s possible the incestuous situation was really more than she could stand. That would explain why she’d tried to kill herself twice before. But she did her best to clear her brother of murder before she tried for the third time. When I saw her last she went into a hysterical state
in which she insisted quite violently that Singleton’s death was suicide and that Eleanor had been killed by some prowling pervert. But perhaps she did that simply because she couldn’t face the fact that she herself had been accessory to two murders and was really as guilty as Waldron. Her solution of the crimes may have been simply what she desperately wished was the truth. Poor woman. A rotten life from the start.’ Andrew paused and gave Roland a quizzical smile. ‘Well, how does it strike you, Inspector? I told you I’d no proof or anything. It’s all just one of my ideas.’

‘Except for the little matter that Sam and Anna were brother and sister,’ Roland said. ‘We can check on that.’

‘Yes, and I think you’ll find there’s no mistake there.’

‘What we need are some witnesses. If you’re right about Singleton’s murder, I doubt if we’ll ever be able to prove it, but we may have better luck with Clancy’s. Anyway, many thanks for your help. It’s been a very interesting conversation. If you should ever feel inclined to take up a hobby, Professor, you might try the solving of crimes of violence.’

To Andrew’s surprise, the witnesses that the Inspector required were in the end forthcoming, though it took them more than a week to make up their minds that it was their duty to tell the police what they had seen. They were a boy of nineteen and his recent girlfriend of fifteen. He came from Rockford and she from Lower Milfrey and they had met at a dance only a few weeks before. At the time of Eleanor Clancy’s murder they had been together in the trees beside the stream that flowed out of the lake, behaving in a way that would have deeply horrified the girl’s parents, and as her father was given to a certain degree of brutality she was terrified of allowing him to know what she had been doing when she and the boy heard Eleanor’s one scream. Even when they heard it, the girl had stayed hidden where
she was, refusing to come out from the trees to see what was happening, but the boy had gone running towards the bridge, to see a man and a woman making off down the lane. He did not know either of them, but later, when he and the girl had decided to face the wrath of her parents and tell the police what they knew, he had picked out Sam Waldron’s photograph from a number that he was shown, and again had picked him out in an identity parade.

That Sam Waldron and Anna had committed incest had told heavily against him, and although he was ably defended when his trial for the murder of Eleanor Clancy eventually came on, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life.

However, as Inspector Roland had predicted, the murder of Luke Singleton was never officially solved. Roland believed that Andrew had arrived at the truth of it, but he was sure that no jury would be convinced of it. In the meantime, as soon as he could after the inquest, which had been adjourned, Andrew had returned to London, and one evening he and his nephew Peter Dilly had dined together once more in a restaurant in Charlotte Street. Peter had been leaving for his villa in Monte Carlo next day and had tried to persuade Andrew to visit him there.

Andrew had felt almost tempted to accept the invitation, but had been checked by a feeling he had had that his life had a way of being more peaceful, calmer, more serene, in St John’s Wood than anywhere else.

‘Well, at least come out for Christmas,’ Peter had said. ‘There’s nothing to keep you here.’

‘Oh yes, there is,’ Andrew had replied. ‘I’ve just started on a new and very interesting study. It takes up all my time.’

‘You mean you’ve actually got a hobby at last?’

‘I suppose you could call it that. Anyway, it’s the sort of thing that really suits me.’

‘What is it?’

‘Just the life of Malpighi. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, even though I don’t know if I shall ever live to finish it.’