Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (27 page)

“Yes,” agreed the inspector with a rueful air. “Yes, you’re certainly one up on me there, Mr Sheringham.”

“That’s good,” said Roger with undisguised satisfaction. “Well, to continue. Apart from the information about Mrs Vane’s visit, two other facts emerged: one, that Meadows changed his pipes once a week, to which no significance appears to attach, the other, that he was a very small smoker – and that’s very important indeed. I found out from the village shop, you see, that he bought a quarter of a pound at a time, but only smoked it at the rate of an ounce a week. As he evidently emptied the whole lot into that tobacco jar in his room which you sent away to be analysed, that would mean that the bottom of the contents of the jar would remain in place for between three and four weeks. For anybody conversant with his habits, this knowledge might be very useful indeed.”

The inspector nodded slowly. “Very ingenious, sir; very ingenious.”

“Glad you think so, Inspector,” Roger smiled. “I’m quite sure that praise from you is praise worth having. Well, that’s my theory. Mrs Vane and Meadows, to cut a long story short, were both planning to murder each other. Meadows believed in direct methods; Mrs Vane was more painstaking. Both their motives are obvious, I think. Meadows had been threatening her with exposure, no doubt, if she didn’t satisfy his financial demands, which, as Mrs Vane with her knowledge of the type must have realised, would gradually grow bigger and bigger. She had retaliated by threatening to inform the police of his whereabouts, knowing that he was badly wanted by them on more than one charge. The result was that both had succeeded in thoroughly frightening the other, and each decided on the other’s elimination as the only escape from an intolerable situation. That’s perfectly reasonable, I think?”

“Perfectly,” assented the inspector at once.

“Damned cunning,” commented Anthony warmly.

“Thank you, Anthony. Well, Mrs Vane was the more painstaking of the two. She elaborated her plan with, I think, considerable ingenuity. Her knowledge of poisons, you see, was probably twofold; her father was with a firm of wholesale chemists, you said, and she might well have picked up a few tips from him, apart from what she could have got out of her husband’s books. She knew enough at any rate to recognise aconitine as pre-eminently her requirement. And she hit upon poison in the first place, I should have said, because she had an unlimited supply of all brands ready to her hand. What did she do, then? Simply this: having made an excuse for visiting her real husband’s rooms (necessarily in circumstances of profound secrecy), she sent him out of the room on some pretext, slipped the stuff into the
bottom
of his tobacco jar, and went calmly away to await developments.”

“Which turned out to be somewhat different from what she’d expected,” supplied the inspector.

“Very much so. But of course she thought she was on velvet. She knew the fact of her having been to Meadows’ rooms that night would never leak out, because it was to his advantage to keep quiet about it (though it certainly was short-sighted of her to talk loudly enough to waken the landlady); and having placed the poison at the bottom of the jar, with two or three ounces of harmless stuff on top of it, she knew that it would be at least a fortnight before he would reach it, and by that time she would be miles away with a complete alibi established.”

“Ah, but how do you know that, sir?” asked the inspector, with the air of one who puts his finger on a weak point.

“Because Miss Cross happened to mention it casually to Anthony!” Roger returned triumphantly. “I’d got as far as that in my reasoning, you see, when it occurred to me that the only possible purpose Mrs Vane could have in delaying the death was this one, to provide herself with an alibi. If I could find out, I felt at that stage, that Mrs Vane actually
had
expressed her intention of going away in the very near future, then my case was as good as clinched. And up pops Anthony with the very information I wanted!”

“So I haven’t lived in vain after all, Inspector, you see,” murmured Anthony facetiously.

“Well, hitherto I’d been working entirely on guesswork, but that seemed to give me the one bit of proof I wanted. After that it was simply a case of using one’s imagination to reconstruct what must have happened. And what did happen can be put blandly in a couple of sentences. Before Mrs Vane’s ingenious scheme could take effect, Meadows had pushed its author over the cliff. Result, Meadows murdered Mrs Vane and Mrs Vane murdered Meadows, in spite of the handicap of being already dead herself. I should think that must be the first time in Scotland Yard’s history that a man had been murdered by a corpse, Inspector, isn’t it? If I wanted to make a detective story out of it and was looking for a nice lurid title, I should call it The Dead Hand’. Well, now, comments, please. What have you got to say about it all?”

“I’ll say this, sir,” replied the inspector without hesitation. “It’s as clever a bit of constructive reasoning as I’ve ever heard.”

“And the idea had never occurred to you?” pursued Roger, pleased.

“Never,” admitted the inspector handsomely. “And so after all this excitement the public is to be disappointed of an arrest, eh?”

“Well, I’m afraid so.”

There was a little silence.

“Of course it isn’t capable of what you might call
proof,
Mr Sheringham, is it?” remarked the inspector thoughtfully. “Not the kind of proof to satisfy a court, I mean.”

“No, it isn’t; I know that. But as they’re both dead, justice isn’t going to be cheated.”

“You’re going to publish your solution in the
Cour
i
er,
after the facts have come out at the inquest next Thursday?”

“Yes, but only as an interesting theory, of course. I don’t know whether there’s any law about libelling the dead, but in any case I couldn’t very well do more than put it forward as a workable solution, in the complete absence, as you say, of all proof.”

The inspector smoked a few more minutes in silence.

“I think, sir,” he said slowly, “that you’ll find the official explanation of the whole thing, for the benefit of the public, will be that Mrs Vane’s death was an accident and Meadows committed suicide.”

Roger nodded. “Yes, I’d rather expected that. It’s tame, of course, but it’s safe. Do you mean, you don’t want me to attack that too fiercely in the
Cour
i
er?
”

“Well, we don’t want to stir up mud which it’s impossible to clarify,” replied the inspector, in somewhat deprecating tones.

“I see that. Very well, I promise not to be sarcastic. You must let me put my theory forward, just as an interesting piece of deductive reasoning, but I won’t insist upon its being the truth – and after all,” Roger added, “I can’t defend it, except on the grounds of probability and common sense. However convinced we ourselves may be that it’s the right solution, we’re always up against this unfortunate absence of decisive proof.”

The inspector nodded as if satisfied. “I think you’re wise, Mr Sheringham, sir,” he said.

“Well, well,” remarked Anthony robustly. “What about a drink?”

“Anthony,” observed his cousin, “your ideas are sometimes nearly as good as mine.”

Anthony removed himself to the lower regions and returned with the wherewithal for celebrating the occasion fittingly. In the intervals of celebration, they continued to discuss the case, the inspector now paying ungrudging acknowledgments to his unprofessional rival’s acumen and ingenuity. Roger decided that after all he really liked that hitherto somewhat maddening man very much indeed.

Half an hour or so later the recipient of Roger’s new affection put down his glass with a sigh and looked at his watch. “Well,” he said with deep regret, “I suppose I’ll have to be getting along.”

“To interview Woodthorpe?” said Roger in some surprise. “But surely there’s no hurry about that?”

“When a man bothers to confess to a double murder, the least one can do is ask him why,” the inspector pointed out. “It’s merely a matter of form, I know, but I think I ought to get it done tonight. I’ve got a motor bicycle outside; it won’t take me a minute. By the way, Mr Sheringham, how do you account for that, I wonder?”

“Woodthorpe’s confession?” said Roger thoughtfully. “Yes, that is a little puzzling, I admit. But you do get all sorts of comic people confessing to crimes they haven’t committed, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, sir; they’re always doing it. Sort of muddled mentality, I suppose. But you wouldn’t call Mr Woodthorpe a comic person, would you?”

“No, I certainly shouldn’t. There’s only one other explanation that I can see – a super-quixotic sense of chivalry. The village gossip must have reached him, and he would naturally be acquainted with the other members of the Vane
ménage.
”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head again,” the inspector agreed. “That must be the explanation. No doubt the report in the village is that I’m going to make an arrest at any minute.”

“But super-quixotic, for all that,” Roger smiled. “Now if it had been Anthony who had made the confession I should have understood it much better.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked that gentleman in high bewilderment. “This is all Greek to me.”

“Then Greek let it remain, Anthony,” replied his cousin kindly. “Greek let it remain. That shows the advantage of a classical education.”

The low hum of a distant engine floated in through the open window, increasing rapidly to a loud roar.

“Powerful sort of car, that,” Roger commented.

“That isn’t a car engine,” remarked Anthony, with all the scorn of the mechanically-minded for those not similarly gifted. “That’s an aeroplane, you ass.”

The inspector jumped hastily to his feet. “An aeroplane, did you say?”

Anthony cocked an ear towards the now shattering din. “Yes,” he was forced almost to shout. “Nearly overhead, and flying low. Making for the sea apparently. Young Woodthorpe celebrating his escape from arrest, I expect. You can tell it’s a –”

“I must go and look into this,” observed the inspector shortly, and vanished with rapidity. A minute later the noise of a motorcycle engine drowned that of the swiftly receding aeroplane.

“What on earth’s the trouble now?” wondered Anthony.

“Heaven knows,” replied Roger philosophically. “Probably friend Colin is still trying to make himself look guilty by pretending to do a bolt for the Continent. Dear me, what a handicap to a man a superdeveloped sense of chivalry must be! It’s as bad as a disease.”

The next hour passed pleasantly enough; there was plenty for the cousins to discuss, and Roger had not by any means yet got over his elation at triumphing over the inspector. He talked at considerable length. The second hour passed more slowly. By a quarter to twelve both were frankly yawning.

At ten minutes past twelve the buzz of a distant engine heralded Inspector Moresby’s return. They heard him pushing his bicycle round into the yard at the back, and then his heavy tread on the stairs outside.

“Thought you’d gone for the night,” Roger greeted him. “Well, was I right? Has Colin bolted for the Continent?”

“He has, sir,” replied the inspector, shutting the door and advancing into the room.

“Ah!” said Roger, not without satisfaction.

The inspector was looking decidedly grim. He did not return to his chair, but stood in the middle of the room, looking down on the other two. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you, Mr Walton,” he said slowly. “Mr Woodthorpe hasn’t gone alone.”

Anthony stared at him. “What do you mean?” he asked, in a curiously high voice.

The inspector looked still more grim. “Miss Cross has gone with him,” he said shortly.

“Miss Cross!” exclaimed Roger.

The inspector continued to address himself to Anthony. “You must be ready for a bit of a shock, I’m afraid. It’s Miss Cross that Mr Woodthorpe has been engaged to all the time. She’s been just amusing herself with you. She’s –”

“I think I shall go to bed,” observed Anthony abruptly, and rose from his chair. “It’s pretty late. Goodnight, you two.”

He went.

The inspector watched the door close, then dropped into his seat. “It’s a nasty smack for him,” he said sympathetically. “But he’s young. He’ll get over it.”

Roger found his tongue. “But – but that is almost incredible, Inspector!”

The inspector looked at him quizzically. “Is it, sir?”

“I can’t believe it of her. Are you sure you’re not making a mistake?”

“Perfectly. I’ve known it for some time as a matter of fact, but I couldn’t very well drop a hint to your cousin.”

“Of course,” Roger said slowly, readjusting his ideas in the light of this startling development, “of course, this makes Woodthorpe’s confession a good deal more understandable.”

“Oh, yes, I knew what he was getting at.”

“She must have shown him she was frightened,” Roger pursued, thinking rapidly. “But the last time I saw her she seemed quite all right. Something must have happened since then. Inspector – you’re looking guilty! Out with it!”

“I had a long interview with her this morning,” the inspector admitted. “Perhaps I
did
press her pretty closely. I knew she was concealing her engagement from me, you see, so she might have been concealing other things as well. Yes, I certainly did press her pretty closely.”

“What you really did, I suppose, was to convey to her quite obviously that you still suspected her after all and that if she couldn’t produce a better explanation of certain matters, she’d be finding herself very shortly in distinctly hot water?”

“We have to do these things, you know, sir,” confessed the inspector almost apologetically.

“Well, thank goodness I’m not a policeman,” retorted Roger, making no effort to conceal his distaste. “No wonder you frightened the poor girl out of her wits. I suppose you practically told her you were going to apply for a warrant against her. The rest was inevitable, of course. So what do you suppose is going to happen now?”

“Perhaps when she finds there isn’t a warrant out against her, Mr Woodthorpe will bring her back the same way as he took her away.”