Jack on the Gallows Tree (21 page)

“I did find the motive eventually, otherwise we should not be here. But I am not sure that I can explain how I came to perceive it.”

Carolus stopped and re-examined his notes. For the first time, when he looked up his face was less clouded.

“Let's have a drink,” he said and called Napper, who had been put on duty for the occasion.

Conversation in the room was not animated at this point. As Mr Gorringer pointed out to Carolus, he had told them nothing yet.

“I have disposed of a few false trails, surely,” said Carolus between sips of his customary whisky and soda.

“I told you my lilies would come into it,” said Mrs Gosport loudly. “He's already been on about those and I haven't heard anything of anyone in a cloak calling at the house.”

Mrs Plummer, sitting not far away, smiled, seeming to say that her time would come.

“Better bring another pair of those,” Charlie Carew told
the waiter. “While we've got the chance. Don't you think so, Ben?”

Ben Johnson, beside him, nodded.

“Speed it up a bit,” whispered Rupert Priggley to Carolus. “You're spinning it out like one of your history lessons. And what about the questions you were going to ask?”

Carolus ignored this. He had arranged that those present should be his guests this evening and was looking round to see that all who wanted a drink were supplied.

“Go and ask Thickett what he'll have,” he said to Rupert, “and anyone else who hasn't got one.”

“I trust this solicitude does not mean that we have some new shock to bear?” suggested Mr Gorringer jovially. “Ah, but I must ask no questions. Your health, Deene. We eagerly await some more substantive information.”

But when Carolus resumed he seemed even less substantive.

“I am trying to explain,” he said, “how I came to realize the murderer's motive. It did not come to me in the way fashionable among modern detectives, in a blinding flash of insight. But it did not come through reasoning, either. I think it was when I had reached the brick wall I have described. All possible theories seemed out. And suddenly, yes quite suddenly, I realized that I was thinking exactly as the murderer wanted me to.

“Now that was the point. The murderer had prepared for every eventuality, including investigation, both the expert investigation of the police and the more imaginative but probably less reliable kind of investigation of someone like myself. I was doing just what he wanted me to do—looking for someone with a motive for both murders and finding no one at all.

“Then I saw it. Whoever had murdered these two women had a motive for one murder and not for the other and by murdering both he had cleared himself of suspicion. You see the point? If he had only murdered the woman
he wanted dead he would have been discovered at once. At least he would have been identified at once and the evidence to incriminate him would almost surely have been found. But by gratuitously murdering the other he had covered himself. He had made the police and me and everyone else believe that either the murders were the work of a maniac or that someone must be found who had a motive for both. Ingenious? It was the most devilishly ingenious idea and it nearly came off.”

John Moore sat staring fixedly at Carolus and unconsciously he slightly nodded his head.

“T
HIS
discovery of mine, or if you like this notion, this probability, this theory, narrowed the field of suspects down to three. There were three people who had most evidently the traditional and sure essentials, Motive, Opportunity and Capacity, to do these two murders. I was irreverently reminded of the lines which I quoted to Mr Gorringer:

… Three wild lads were we;

Thou on the land, and I on the sand,

And Jack on the gallows-tree!

“Now, since two of these who qualified as suspects are in this room I feel I must ask permission from you, Mr Carew, and you, Mr Westmacott, to talk as if you were not here. An explanation like this can be of no interest if it has to respect people's susceptibilities. I am sure you see the logic of that.”

Charlie Carew, who had finished his pair of drinks, grinned beerily.

“I don't mind what you say,” he agreed.

“Go on,” said Dan Westmacott.

“Considering people we know as suspects must always seem somewhat fantastic, and murders like this in a small town in which people are known to one another, at least by repute, make it tough for the investigator. I do not mean that those three were the only possibilities, for Colonel Baxeter and Bickley could be said to have motives of a sort and their only alibis depended on the testimony of their wives, while even Wright had some kind of motive and nothing but the word of his fiancee to show that he could not have been at the two places at the relevant times. I also had to bear in mind the possibility that I was wrong in my analysis of motive, in which case others entered the field. But I decided to follow the theory I had formed and study the procedure of the murderer.

“I examined this in some detail.

“It was plain that he decided on his plan a considerable time ago, but like most clever murderers he avoided that greatest of all give-aways, hurry. A plan like this, though it might entail speedy action in its final execution, needed time to mature.

“He decided, I think early, that one of his two murders would be an outside affair, the other would be done indoors. How quickly he chose his victim for what I think we may call the false murder I do not know, but again I think some considerable time ago. He fixed the date only approximately, meaning to leave the choice of occasion to circumstances. The two deaths had to occur in a single night and be linked by similar methods and appearances if his plan was to succeed, for they must be seen to be the work of a single agency. It did not matter which he planned to make first, the true or the false, and he decided to kill Miss Carew before Mrs Westmacott.

“He had to find a place where the corpse would be discovered soon, but not too soon. It would never do for the corpse to be found before he had committed the second murder; on the other hand it must be discovered soon afterwards, or his plan would misfire badly and dangerously. So he hit on the quarry.

“But how was he to get Miss Carew out there? He was fortunate in that about this time an unlikely event took place—Mr Raydell acquired an ocelot and was indiscreet enough to take it into the bar of the Dragon.”

“Indiscreet!” Miss Shapely could not help interrupting indignantly. “It was simply scandalous. Poor Mr Sawyer is upset every time he thinks of it. If ever such a thing should happen again …”

“Scarcely likely is it?” suggested Rupert Priggley. “There can't be a lot of ocelots.”

“Priggley!” warned Mr Gorringer, and Carolus continued:

“Miss Carew was a lover of animals and as I heard from Colonel Baxeter frequently visited the Zoo. So when the evening came he could phone her (since he was acquainted with her) and suggest that they should run out to Lilbourne in her car and see the creature. He phoned from a call-box, as Colonel Baxeter observed, and while speaking to the Colonel disguised his voice. He made the arrangement, probably suggesting that Miss Carew should not tell her hosts at Dehra Dun lest they should wish to accompany her.”

“A thing I should never have done,” put in the Colonel. “My wife and I disapprove of keeping wild animals in captivity.”

“Miss Carew was amused and pleased with the idea, but decided to phone Mr Raydell to confirm that he had no objection. We know of both ends of that conversation, for the Colonel remembered her shouting as if to someone deaf and Mr Raydell told me of Miss Lightfoot's reception of it.

“Our friend was picked up by Miss Carew at some appointed place where he would not be seen getting into the car on that dark night, and since she had as usual brought her Kerry Blue terrier Skylark and this dog, as Colonel Baxeter said, invariably sat in the front seat of the car, he was able to climb in behind without seeming to do anything unusual.

“On the way he asked her to stop for some reason, probably so that he could answer a call of nature, and when the car came to a halt he swiftly strangled her from behind, probably with her own scarf, perhaps with his. The dog did not realize what was happening and before he did anything else he chained the dog in the car. I imagine, since Miss Carew was going out to a farm, her dog would have a lead on him. Did you happen to notice that, Colonel Baxeter, when Miss Carew went out?”

“I did not, but it was invariable. Skylark was unaccustomed to traffic and never left the house, even for the car, unless on a lead—a thin chain it was.”

“Thank you. So the dog was chained in the car and the body could be dragged across without interference. In the course of that Miss Carew's hat fell off and was found by Thickett next morning. What was more significant, perhaps, was that Mrs Goggs heard the dog barking furiously. It is a pity that she had not a clock, as then we should have known the time of the murder.”

“You can't have everything,” said Mrs Goggs sulkily, and no one ventured to dispute this profound truth.

“To return to our friend,” said Carolus. “He had made two important pieces of preparation. He was possessed of a black cape and wide black hat, and wearing these and dark glasses, he had taken a pair of shoes to be repaired by a shoemaker called Humpling. While in his shop he had stolen a pair of shoes, but he was intelligent enough to choose shoes of his own size. Nothing could divert suspicion from him better than this, for he meant them to be found near the
body. It would naturally be thought that the murderer was a man with much larger or much smaller feet, for who would trouble to steal shoes to leave footprints which might have been his own? This bothered me for a time, but I was beginning to get his measure and see the sort of bluff and double bluff he practised.

“The other thing he had done was, on the previous night, to steal from Mrs Gosport's garden two stems of Madonna lilies, one for each corpse. They were to indicate that one man was responsible for both and with any luck to suggest a homicidal maniac. There is something very odd about leaving those funereal flowers on a woman you have murdered. They achieved this very effectively. As they were found they were, we heard, somewhat crushed. That was to be expected, since he carried them in each case concealed under his coat. He left one on the corpse of Miss Carew and drove back to Buddington. His first murder was comfortably achieved and he had only to carry out the second, a far easier matter. He left the car in the car-park of the Granodeon Cinema with the dog still in it, and either during the night or while near the quarry the poor beast badly scratched at the upholstery in its efforts to get out.

“The hue and cry next day went exactly as he hoped. The corpse of Miss Carew was found almost at once, because Thickett was in the habit of leaving his road-mending tools concealed in the quarry. That of Mrs Westmacott was discovered by Mrs Bickley at almost the same time and the police found themselves with a baffling double murder and two stolen lily stems as almost their only clue. Days began to pass and our intelligent murderer saw his plan being beautifully justified by events.

“I felt myself rather ineffectual at that time. All I could do was to make routine enquiries. I found out a lot and as usual at such times a lot of scum comes to the surface. I found out that Wright, Miss Tissot's chauffeur, used his employer's car to take his respectable young lady out to a quiet
spot on the Lilbourne road, where they doubtless held what I believe is called a …”

“Smooching session, I
hope
you mean,” said Rupert Priggley.

“I also found that Thickett spent his evenings peering into cars parked by the roadside.” Thickett seemed about to speak, but Carolus hurried on. “I heard the early history of Mrs Westmacott and her connection with the Pre-Raphaelite group of painters, and I heard a good deal about Mr Ben Johnson. I learnt of Miss Tissot's snobbishness, of a good many small and invidious differences between neighbours, of Gilling's ailments and Charlie Carew's Language, but nothing which would enable me to come nearer to a discovery of the murderer.

“I was convinced that the only hope of cornering him was to get him to break cover. It occurred to me that if he had committed one false murder to divert suspicion from himself, he might be made to feel it necessary to commit another and this time could be caught. If he was convinced that his plan had partly failed, that neither I nor the police thought the first two murders the work of a homicidal maniac, he might go out to make it more clear. Surely
three
dead women with lilies in their hands would be sufficient to convince the whole police force?

“I made a point of putting it about that the homicidal maniac theory did not hold water with me, and hinted that the police were doubtful about it, too. Meanwhile I persuaded Detective Inspector Moore, who was in charge of the case, to alert his men.

“At first I had no idea who the new victim was likely to be, but this became clear when I went up to town and saw Maurice Ebony. He lives by buying old gold by highly dubious methods, but he was as helpful as could be expected when it came to discussing these crimes. He told me that Buddington-on-the-Hill, once a paradise for gold-clappers in which almost every house had bits and pieces to sell, had
been so milked by his competitors that when he came here his very competent and attractive advance agent was scarcely able to obtain an opportunity for him. However, Colonel and Mrs Baxeter sold to him and recommended Miss Carew to do the same, and during the afternoon he went to Rossetti Lodge and bought from Mrs Westmacott. These were the only two buys he had on his first visit, but while at Westmacotts' he was told by Mrs Bickley that she had a few things to dispose of and on the day previous to my interview with him he had returned to Buddington and bought them.

“Now this was right up our murderer's street. He knew that those investigating had remarked on the fact that one of the few things connecting the two women was that they had both sold gold to Ebony, and he knew, as I very soon discovered, that Mrs Bickley made a third who had sold gold. It must have been irresistible to him.”