The Cornish Coast Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (15 page)

“You had a pocket-torch?”

“A lantern, sir. But when I was half-way along the cliff between Towan Cove and Mr. Tregarthan's house the wind blew the candle out. Mr. Withers had lit the lantern for me before I left his cottage and I hadn't any matches. Luckily, after I'd been walking for about ten minutes, the last of the storm blew over and the moon came out.”

“How near were you to Greylings then, Mrs. Mullion? Could you see the house?”

“I could see a light coming from a lower window—but I couldn't see much else, sir.”

“And you don't think anybody, say, standing in the garden of the house, could have seen you?”

“No, sir, I'm certain they couldn't. As a matter of fact it wasn't until I was within a stone's-throw of the garden myself that I noticed Miss Ruth.”

“Miss Ruth Tregarthan!” exclaimed the Inspector. “You're quite certain about that?”

“Positive. She was standing on the cliff-path at the bottom of the garden and the light from the window was shining straight onto her face.”

“Did she see you?”

“No, sir—she didn't. There's a clump of furze bushes just beside the path before you come to the garden wall, and when I saw what she had in her hand, I was so surprised that I stopped dead and sort of drew back into the shadow of the bushes.”

“Something in her hand?” The Inspector had the greatest difficulty in concealing his excitement and elation. “What exactly do you mean by that, Mrs. Mullion?”

“A revolver, sir. She was turning it over in her hand and looking at it.”

The Inspector's elation increased. Mrs. Mullion's evidence, if it was accurate—and there was little reason to doubt the truth of her statement—fitted in perfectly with his theory. This was exactly what he had expected. Ronald Hardy had dropped the revolver on the cliff-path and the girl had picked it up.

“She had it in her hand you say? You didn't by any chance see if she had picked it up off the path?”

“She might have done,” acknowledged Mrs. Mullion. “But when I first noticed her she had it in her hand. I can tell you, Sergeant”—the Inspector smiled—“it gave me quite a turn when I saw what it was!”

“What happened then, Mrs. Mullion?”

“Well, Miss Ruth had a quick look round, sort of frightened like, and ran round the corner of the wall and let herself into the house by the side door.”

The Inspector nodded. The little bits were dovetailing together with commendable neatness. He was growing more and more certain in his mind that Ronald Hardy had killed Tregarthan, and that Ruth Tregarthan was his accomplice in the crime. Mrs. Mullion's evidence seemed to exclude, finally, the supposition that Ruth Tregarthan was innocent of any complicity. If she were innocent, then why hadn't she come forward at once with information about her discovery of the revolver on the cliff-path? She must have realised that it was the weapon which had discharged the fatal shots and yet she had said nothing about it. It was possible, of course, that she recognised it as Ronald Hardy's revolver and, without having anything to do with the crime herself, had decided to conceal the weapon to shield him from suspicion. Foolish, without a doubt. Dangerous, too. But there it was—a woman in love was always a foolhardy and unreasonable creature, though not devoid, as the Inspector realised, of a certain inspired cunning.

He felt that it was imperative, considering how much depended on the midwife's evidence, to make sure that she had not been mistaken.

“I must warn you, Mrs. Mullion, to be very, very careful on this point,” he said with deliberate solemnity. “You were quite sure
at the time
that it was a revolver? What I am getting at is this—last night when you returned from Porth you learnt for the first time that Mr. Tregarthan, whilst standing in the sitting-room window, had been shot through the head. On Monday night you saw Miss Tregarthan standing on the cliff-path with something in her hand. Now I want your assurance that the suggestion that this object
might
be a revolver didn't occur to you
after
you knew Mr. Tregarthan had been murdered. The association of ideas, you see?”

Mrs. Mullion's reply was blunt and emphatic.

“No, sir. I knew it was a revolver at once, long before I knew anything about this awful tragedy up at Greylings. I'll swear to that.”

“Well, Mrs. Mullion,” went on the Inspector after a moment's silence, “what you've told me is of the utmost importance. I must ask you to keep this information to yourself. I'm afraid it means you'll receive an official summons to attend the inquest to-morrow. I'm very glad that you've seen fit to come forward and I don't think I need trouble you any further.” As Mrs. Mullion rose from her seat at the fire, the Inspector added: “Oh, just one other point. When you were coming along the cliff from Towan Cove, did you hear any unusual sounds—any revolver shots, for example?”

“No, sir. I heard nothing—except the thunder. There were one or two very loud cracks right over my head just after I'd left the cove—but I didn't hear anything else.”

The Inspector got down from the high stool and ushered Mrs. Mullion out of the Constable's office.

He was more than pleased with the result of the interview. It was going to be easier than he had first anticipated to back up his theory with the necessary circumstantial evidence. If only it were possible to ascertain the exact time Tregarthan had been shot, his confidence would have been even greater. But so far nobody seemed to have heard the shots fired. There was, he realised, a feasible explanation of this fact. If the revolver had been discharged—the three shots in rapid succession—at the same moment as a loud burst of thunder, it was more than probable that the reports had been covered by the major explosion. Mrs. Mullion had commented upon the fact that several loud thunder-cracks had greeted her ears when she first left Towan Cove. According to his estimate one of these thunder-cracks might easily have muffled the revolver shots.

He summoned Grouch and gave him a brief account of Mrs. Mullion's evidence. He also ran over the points of his pet theory with the Constable, who manifested an undisguised admiration for his superior's astuteness.

“There's just one thing, sir. Them hurdles.”

“What about them?”

“If they'd been laid flat on the mud, wouldn't they have left an impression on the ground? We didn't notice that on Monday night, did we, sir?”

“The same point occurred to me, Grouch. But remember—they were wattle hurdles and after their removal it rained pretty heavily. The impressions would be shallow in any case and the rain, in my opinion, would soon flatten out any indentations. When Hardy walked over them the weight would be spread, not concentrated as in a footprint. There is one thing, though,” added the Inspector after a moment's thought, “there might be mud on the first three or four hurdles in the pile. It's worth satisfying ourselves upon that point. Of course, the rain may have diddled us again, but I think we'll slip up to Greylings now and make sure.”

He called for Grimmet, and the three of them got into the car. The mist was still thicker and it was only by the exercise of extreme care and a great deal of patience that they climbed the twisting hill out of Boscawen and thus up on to the open road. Leaving the car on the roadside near the Greylings drive-gate, Grouch and the Inspector walked down the sloping common towards the cliff. The hurdles were still piled against the north wall of the garden.

“What about these?” asked the Inspector, pointing to the hurdles which Grouch had used as barriers to the cliff-path. “You took them off the top of the pile, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir. The first two.”

The Inspector went over the wattled surfaces with the greatest care, then returned to the little stack and examined the hurdles one by one. He was disappointed in the result of his search. There was no trace of mud on the wattle-work, nor was there any suggestion of an imprint left on the muddy surface at the corner of the wall. In this particular instance there was, he realised, no direct evidence to back up his theory.

Walking along the cliff-path, however, he came to the point where Ruth Tregarthan had stopped and looked towards the sitting-room window. Crouching low, he made a minute examination of the spot where he estimated Ronald Hardy had dropped the revolver from the wall. This time he gave a grunt of satisfaction and drew the Constable's attention to a curious indent in the soft mud, which Ruth Tregarthan's footprints, by a stroke of luck, had not obliterated.

“Well, Grouch, what d'you make of that?”

“I can't rightly say, sir. It looks as if something heavy's been dropped there. There's a sort of outline.”

The Inspector agreed.

“The outline of a revolver, if you ask me! See—there's the curve of the butt. No mistake about that. And this looks like the ribbing of the magazine. I doubt if the barrel would leave much of an impression because the magazine-wheel of a Webley projects a good bit beyond it.”

He took out a small, pliable, steel rule and measured up the width and breadth of the impressions, entering the measurements in his note-book. It would be an easy matter to verify his suspicions as to the nature of these impressions later on. If his measurements coincided with those of a Webley, he would be justified in supposing that Ronald Hardy had accidentally let slip the revolver and that Ruth (later seen by Mrs. Mullion) had picked it up. He felt rather annoyed with himself for not having spotted this rather obvious clue before. On Monday night, of course, he had not expected to find an impression of the revolver on the path, because he had not then formed his theory. It was easy to find a clue when one expected it to be there, and easier still to overlook it when one did not! Still, it was a reprehensible oversight. He had wasted much valuable time in trailing after wrong explanations.

On their way back to the car, a tall, hulking figure with a dog at his heel loomed up unexpectedly out of the mist. On seeing the Constable he called out and cut across to meet him.

“I've been looking for you, Mr. Grouch,” he said. “I reckon I may be able to tell you a thing or two about Monday night.”

“That's good,” said Grouch. “This is Inspector Bigswell from Greystoke. This is Mr. Bedruthen, sir. He runs the sheep on the common here.”

The two men shook hands.

“You want to make a statement, is that it, Mr. Bedruthen?” asked the Inspector.

“Aye—that's about it, sir. What I have to tell you may not be worth your while listening to. On the other hand——”

“It may,” cut in the Inspector quickly. “Well, if you can spare us a moment now we'll get down to the Constable's office. It's a bit chilly to hold a conference out here, eh?”

The three men climbed into the car and Grimmet drove them back to the village. Once more in the cheerful atmosphere of the little bare-faced office, the Inspector began to cross-question the new witness.

“I take it you're a shepherd, Mr. Bedruthen?”

“That's it, sir. I work all the sheep along this bit of cliff-edge.”

“And you were somewhere near Mr. Tregarthan's house on the night of his death?”

“Aye—I was up in Church Meadows. It's the start of the lambing season now, and I often have to make a late round to see that everything's going along all right. And on Monday night I was attending a few of my ewes in a fold up beside the church. It was a wettish night as you know, sir, and I was surprised when a chap came on me sudden out of the dark and asked for a light. At first I didn't recognise the man, but when he held the match to his pipe I saw it was Ned Salter.” The shepherd grinned broadly. “I daresay Mr. Grouch here has a thing or two to say about Ned, eh?”

“The Inspector's up to date, too,” said Grouch. “We don't need to go into his life-history, eh, sir?”

Bigswell shook his head.

“What time was it when you first saw Salter?”

“Just after a quarter to nine. I was working just under the church clock. It's a fancy affair, sir—chimes the quarters. Presented to the parish by one of Lady Greenow's forebears.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Well, sir, one of the reasons for my coming forward like this was on account of a rumour which I heard down at the ‘Ship’ last night. A lot of folks have it that Ned is somehow mixed up in Mr. Tregarthan's death, him having been seen a few hours before the murder having a violent quarrel on the Greylings drive. Ned himself came into the pub later and a lot of ’em started in to question him about his doings a-Monday night. Well, Ned being what he is, there was a tidy rumpus afore we could calm him down. He swearing all the time that he knew nothing about the manner in which Mr. Tregarthan was murdered. Then it struck me, Inspector, that it might be as well for me to come forward and establish Ned's innocence. As I told ’em last night down at the ‘Ship,’ if Mr. Tregarthan was murdered afore quarter to nine, well and good—Ned might have had a hand in it. If he wasn't, then Ned was innocent, because he wasn't out of my sight from a quarter to nine to pretty near quarter to ten. What's more, sir, Ned Salter was at my elbow when we heard the shot fired.”

“Shot!” exclaimed the Inspector. “You heard a shot fired?”

“Aye. A minute or so after Ned came up to me in Church Meadows we heard it. A single shot.”

“You're sure it was only one shot?”

“Aye—sure of it.”

“Curious,” mused the Inspector. “I suppose you know that three shots were fired at Mr. Tregarthan?”

“That's what I've heard, sir. I couldn't understand it myself. But it was a single shot we heard. I'll swear to it. So will Ned.”

“Where did the shot seem to come from—the direction of Greylings?”

“Well, there I won't be sure, Inspector. It was a windy night as you know and sounds play funny tricks in the wind. It was that way, but to my mind to the left of the house. A bit nearer the village that is.”

“And the time?”

“Ten minutes to nine or thereabouts. Ned hadn't been more than a minute or two with me when we heard the shot.”

“You didn't suspect anything at the time, I suppose?” The shepherd shook his head. “You say Ned Salter was with you until about quarter to ten. What did you do after you heard the shot?”