Chapter XXVI

It was a glorious day, rather warm, perhaps, for walking, but with a cool breeze that just lifted the burden of the heat. Wilson strolled out along the London road, and took the first favourable turn into the field-paths. Now he was walking along a barely visible track by the side of the smallest imaginable stream, half hidden in brooklime and watercresses. In winter, no doubt, that small stream would spread out subterraneously through the porous earth until the field through which he was walking became simply a swamp, an enlargement of the river’s source; but now the only trace of its wintry activities was the slight dampness of the ground beneath his feet--a phenomenon which merely served to make the walk pleasantly cool. On his right was a copse of grey willows, knee-deep in moon-coloured cow-parsley, and he stared at them vaguely, wondering how this odd, forgotten county so near London could preserve such an air of the unearthly. Even in broad daylight the grey grove might have held any amount of ghosts of deserted ladies, and there was never a sound but the faint undercurrent buzz of an August afternoon. Traffic, and modern civilisation, might have been a hundred miles away; the road, as Essex roads do, had turned off at a crazy right angle, away from the direction in which it was nominally wending, and was now about its business of turning east, west, north, and south at random in order to get, after eight miles of meandering, to Little Friday--a village which he, across the fields, would reach in half that distance. An Essex road, Wilson reflected, got to its destination much as a river does in other counties, and was as little fitted for traffic in a hurry. A pleasant place still--for those without cars.

At the end of the willow copse the straight way was blocked by one of those curious cramped hummocks which make it absurd to speak of Essex as a flat county. To avoid it--though it was not more than a hundred feet high--Wilson crossed the little stream by a bridge of planks and earth, and stood for a moment staring at a little backwater, if a thing two feet across can be so described, which joined it just there. The surface of the backwater was covered with an abundance of duckweed, and Wilson remembered having heard some one say that duckweed on the top always meant clear water below. In an idle mood he pulled aside some of the weed with his stick and gazed down on a dark, but perfectly clear pool, out of which his own reflection looked serenely up at him. Was that an allegory of the Meston case? he wondered, half-attentive. Were all these perplexing clues and counter-clues only duckweed on clear water? and if he could once lift them out of the way, would he see instantly to the bottom of the problem?

His mind turned back to Amory Kershaw and the recollection of his last interview. That the doctor was alarmed, and alarmed with some definite reason, was quite apparent. But what was the reason? He went over in his mind the evidence against Kershaw.

First, he was a doubtful character, a drug-taker, in low water financially, and a man who held an appointment considerably less good than his professional qualifications would have suggested. These two facts were probably connected one with the other. Next, he bore a reputation in his own neighbourhood that was not of the highest. Wilson had not gone deeply into the general opinion of Kershaw; but that letter of Meston’s could never have been written to a strictly moral man. It was also interesting that Kershaw, on his own statement, appeared to have lain down under its imputations. Wilson did not for a moment believe the atmosphere of “too proud to fight,” with which Kershaw had endeavoured to invest his conduct; and he could only surmise that Kershaw had urgent reasons for not wishing to have the matter out with his correspondent.

All this was ancient history. Coming now to the actual circumstances of the crime, the one really damnable thing against Kershaw was that blow on the head--and his behaviour at the inquest. The fact that he had suddenly come into funds whose source he did not wish to explain might easily have no connection with anything Wilson was investigating. A man with Kershaw’s character might receive money from a dozen dubious quarters. It was a coincidence, of course, and a suspicious one. But it need not be anything more. Nor was his unexplained absence at a time which might have coincided with Meston’s murder evidence in itself of complicity. His own explanation of that might be correct--or he might have been drunk in a ditch. He had been at a party at the Grange, and parties at the Grange, Wilson surmised, would be provided with plenty of liquor. There was no sign of any particular motive on his part for murdering Meston--nor of any connection with John Loring, supposing the latter to be the major criminal. The conglomerated effect of that evidence was not enough to induce even the most biassed or muddle-headed magistrate to commit him for trial.

But the blow on the head! That was another matter. It had certainly been inflicted after death, and Wilson’s trust in Michael’s powers of observation was sufficient to make him take his word that it had not been there when the body came ashore. If it was not there then, it must have been inflicted afterwards; and nobody had such an opportunity of inflicting it as Kershaw. But even supposing the most unlikely thing possible, and that somebody else (either the murderer or an accomplice) had succeeded in getting into the mortuary and striking the corpse’s head, how on earth had Dr. Kershaw, a trained medical man, failed to observe that the blow had been inflicted after death? Even if he had managed to overlook that fact, any reasonably careful examination must have disclosed the real cause of death--indeed, unless Dr. Kershaw’s colleague was also privy to whatever devilry was on foot, his concurrence in Kershaw’s medical opinion could only be due either to compulsion or to his not having been given the opportunity to examine the body for himself.

But not only had Dr. Kershaw failed to observe these facts, he had actually stood up at the inquest and promulgated a theory of the man’s death which he must have known could not possibly be true. And, up to the present moment, Wilson was glad to observe, all the leakings of information that there had been did not appear to have put Kershaw in possession of the true cause of death, or, at any rate, of its discovery. Otherwise, surely he would have shown more apprehension. Yes, Kershaw must, on any showing, have knowingly concealed the real facts about the body. And why? It was an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do. Of course, the man could not have bargained for his own presence on the spot, and Lockwood was fool enough and peace-loving enough for anything. But, in any event, there was the other doctor; there were the police; and there might have been any amount of inconvenient observers, jurymen, and what not. Any one of these could have started a scandal whose only end would have been ruin and penal servitude for Kershaw. He would not have done it, then, unless he had an exceptionally strong motive; either the saving of his own skin (if he were the murderer), or--or what? Shielding some one? Who, and for what? Dr. Kershaw did not look a man likely to be actuated by motives of pure philanthropy, and even five hundred pounds, Wilson felt, would be an inadequate compensation for the risk. But perhaps it was only a first instalment. “I think it will be worth while having the fellow watched,” he said to himself, “to see whether he gets any more, and if so, from whom.”

One link in Michael’s reconstruction he felt had definitely failed to hold good. He did not believe, from Kershaw’s manner, that he was the man who delivered that assumed message to Meston in the dead of night. In fact, he was inclined to think that the man had never been to the Old Malting House at all. When questioned on that point, he had seemed definitely relieved. Of course, this did not mean that he had not sent the message; but that, if he had, some other hand or mouth had delivered it. But whose?

“Hullo, Harry!” At this point his meditations were interrupted by a hail from above him; and, returning to the external world, he found that he had arrived at the end of his journey. Before him the path led through a cabbage-field and up the tiny hill on which Little Friday was built; and at the top of a sloping meadow on his right hand, Michael, with Mark Warden and Edna Loring, sprawled in the sunshine, eating buns and smoking cigarettes.

“Come up and have some tea,” Warden shouted. After a brief hesitation, Wilson complied, and was soon seated beside them and drinking a large cup of strong tea.

“We got it at a shop in the village,” Edna explained. “But it was so stuffy we couldn’t bear to drink it in the shop, so Mark made the woman let us bring it out here.”

“And very nice too,” said Michael, with his mouth full. “These folk caught me up in the car as I was taking a solitary constitutional and wondering where on earth you’d got to, and insisted on taking me for a run.”

“Bus needed airing,” Warden explained to the newcomer.

“It hadn’t had a proper run since we quarrelled,” Edna added, squeezing his arm. “But you’ll be glad to hear we’ve made it all up, Mr. Wilson. I’ve apologised to Mark for interfering and being a foolish female, and _he’s_ apologised for thinking I was one. So everything in the garden’s lovely.” And indeed she looked as though it was. “Tell them about it, Mark.”

“Rot!” said Mark, who looked nearly as happy as his fiancée. “Mr. Wilson doesn’t want to hear about our troubles. He’ll be as pleased as Punch to know we aren’t going to bother him about them any more.”

“But as I was in at the start, in a way,” said Wilson, “mayn’t I be in at the death too? Or is it private?”

“It’s not private in the least,” said Warden. “It’s just an enormous weight off my mind, but I hardly thought that would interest you.”

“Apart from anything else, if it’s connected with your financial affairs, it does,” said Wilson. “You’ll remember at one time you thought Meston’s death was the result of them, and Meston’s death has been interesting me considerably lately.” He looked with an inquiry at Edna, who shook her head. Wilson mentally gave her a good mark for discretion.

“Well, yes, that’s what it is about. And the good news is that it’s all going to be cleared up directly. You know I was in the dickens of a fuss when I came and called on you the other day, because I thought we were all going to be in Queer Street, and I didn’t know what had happened. I thought poor Meston must have made off with the cash and then killed himself. Well, a day or two later it got much worse, because that lousy little brute Strake--I don’t know if you’ve come across him--came oiling up to me, and said he’d got a lot of information he wanted to give me. I told him to take it to Hanborough, who was his employer, and then he started on a lot of greasy hints and suggestions out of which I gathered at last what he meant, and that was that Hanborough and Meston had been in it together, and that _I_ was the sucker not to have seen it. And would I please pay double rates, and he’d pass the information on to me--that was what it amounted to. Well, that was a bit thick, you know--I don’t mean about me being a sucker, but to come there and calmly try and sell me stuff against Hanborough because he thought he’d get a bit more in that quarter. So as soon as I got his meaning I sent him off in double-quick time, and told him that I wouldn’t pay him a single halfpenny.

“Then, you know, after he’d gone I began to have blue fits. First, I began to wonder--you know the idiotic way one does--whether there could conceivably be anything in it, and whether I really was the greenest greenhorn in England. I began to think over all I knew of Nick, and whether he could possibly be double-crossing me. And I didn’t know--I just got more and more muddled. Then it suddenly dawned on me that whatever I thought, I ought to have got to the bottom of it, and at least gone and asked Nick about it. Because I couldn’t expect that little blighter not to try and get what he called his money’s worth out of the business, and there were probably plenty of people, in a hole like this, who’d pay him money to get hold of scandal about the Archbishop of Canterbury, if it came his way. I went cold when I realised I was responsible for letting that little worm loose in the place, with all his stories going bad on him, so to speak; and I didn’t know what the hell I was to do. I went mad for a moment. I rushed down to Steeple Tollesbury and tried to find Strake, and make him cough up something, but he’d disappeared. Then I tried to get hold of Nick and warn him what was afoot, and ask him if there was anything in it, but I couldn’t find him either. And Saturday night was the beastliest I’ve ever spent in my life, what with wondering what on earth had happened, and still more what was going to happen.

“Then, to crown it all, I met Edna on Sunday morning, and she began to tell me that everybody was asking questions about Nick, and, of course, I thought it was all Strake’s doing. And somehow it seemed to have got mixed up with Meston’s death, and I thought the next thing would be that we should all be getting arrested. I really don’t know what I said; I expect I was pretty hairy--Edna says I was, anyway. But I’d only one idea in my head, and that was by hook or by crook to get hold of Nick, and find out whether I was standing on my head or my heels. So I dropped her----”

“I believe you did it on purpose, pig,” Edna interrupted.

“On my honour, I didn’t,” Warden protested. “I was more miserable than ever when you’d gone. But since you had, I thought I wouldn’t let things get any worse, so I buzzed off to Nick’s house. He wasn’t in, but his wife was, and she said he’d faithfully promised to be in that night, and would I wait. Well, I couldn’t wait, because I’d promised to be back home, and they get into such a bait if I don’t come; but I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him, so far as I knew it, all that Strake had been at, and asking him to let me know what he meant to do about it. Then I buzzed home, feeling a bit better, as though I’d done something at last, and this morning, first thing, I got a letter from him.”

“Saying what?”

“Well, saying, in effect, that I’m not to worry, and that he’s got it all in hand. I’d show it you if I’d got it,” said Warden; “but I’ve left it in my other suit. He says, though, that he’s been pretty well aware of what Master Strake has been doing all the time; and that what he’s really found is traces of _his_ investigations into where the money’s been going--Nick’s, I mean. Also, he apologises for not letting me know sooner; he says he would if he’d guessed I was worrying, and anyhow he was going to tell me it all in the next few days, when he’d got his proofs complete. Anyway, he seems to have got it all settled. He says it’s too long to put in a letter, but it’s quite clear now who’s the guilty party, and it’s one of the last either of us would have suspected. _And_ he’s made an appointment with me at the office to-morrow--he says he’s sorry he won’t be able to get there to-day--and tell me all about it.

“I tell you, I never was so relieved in my life. I’d really begun to think I must be going mad or something. So when I got this letter I felt I must tell Edna, and I rushed up to the Grange with it, and we decided we must celebrate. And we’d just done lunch when I ran into Dr. Prendergast, and he agreed to come and celebrate too.”

“So you haven’t put in an appearance at the office to-day?” Wilson said, smiling almost in spite of himself at the two care-free faces.

“Well--no.” Warden looked like a truant schoolboy. “I haven’t exactly. I felt the occasion was almost worth a holiday, you know. Besides--to tell you the truth, I shouldn’t have known how to face the fellows there, knowing that one of them was a wrong ’un, and not knowing which.”

“Yes; I see it might have been awkward. Tell me, have you any idea who is the guilty party?”

“Not an atom,” Warden said promptly. “Ever since I got Nick’s letter I’ve been racking my brains to think who it could be, and I’m blowed if I can find the answer. _Everybody_ seems perfectly impossible; in fact, if you’d asked me before, I’d have sworn I was the most corruptible one among them. But there you are; I suppose I’m ignorant of human nature. Of course, if Nick really meant what he said literally--that it’s the last one either of us would have suspected--I suppose old Davis fits the part best. But I simply can’t believe it.”

“Who is Davis?”

“Head clerk and cashier. Been with us thirty years or thereabouts, and the most devoted employee you could imagine. I should think it would just about finish my father if----But, of course, it’s nonsense. I only meant that he _was_ absolutely the last person you could suspect.”

“I see.” A silence fell--the silence of a warm summer afternoon. Wilson lay with an unlit pipe in his mouth, his eyes half closed, pondering upon the tangled duckweed of the Meston case. Warden’s voice roused him.

“I say, if I’m not being frightfully inquisitive, is it true what all the gossips are saying--that Meston was murdered? Of course, if you oughtn’t to say, or anything----”

Wilson, after exacting the same promise as he had exacted from Edna Loring, told him just what he had told the girl, namely, that the police were not at all satisfied with the appearance of Meston’s body, and were inclined to think that foul play might have had a share in his death. “That’s why, you see,” he said, “we have been rather carefully investigating the movements of every one who could possibly have been concerned with him that Friday night.”

“Yes, of course. By Jove,” Warden said suddenly, “it may be a good job for Nick Hanborough that this money business is cleared up, since Edna hasn’t got a proper alibi for him after all.”

“Hasn’t she?” Wilson murmured lazily, with a warning glance at Michael.

“Not exactly,” Edna said. “At least, not as much as I told you yesterday. I’d forgotten, when I said Nick was with us all the evening, that he wasn’t there at supper. I ought to have remembered, because he’d booked me to have supper with him, and when the time came, I couldn’t find him anywhere. So I went in with the rest of the crowd. He turned up again afterwards, and I clean forgot to ask him why he’d cut me. That’s all. There’s nothing in it, is there?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Wilson. “What time was supper, by the way?”

“About half-past twelve, as near as I can remember. Nick was back again by half-past one, because I saw him. I don’t know where he was in the meantime--unless he was with you, Mark?”

“I didn’t see him,” Warden responded. “Of course you know _I’ve_ no alibi either, if it comes to that.” He appeared to find the situation humorous.

“No. So I heard. Where were you, in fact?”

“Wandering about. It’s quite simple, really. It was a frightfully hot night for a party, and I’d a pain in my belly. Drink made it worse, so I went out into the park to cool off----”

“_And_ to get your temper back,” Edna put in.

“Well, of course, if you _will_ keep on dancing with all the blighters I can’t bear. Anyway, I ambled on right through the park, and out into the road, without thinking much what I was doing, and suddenly I found I’d got right down to Steeple Tollesbury. By then I was feeling better, but I didn’t particularly want to go in again, so I went up and got the car and went home. I didn’t say good-night, because there didn’t seem anybody in particular there to say good-night to. That’s what I did; but it wouldn’t sound very convincing to a bobby, I dare say.”

“No. I’m surprised you haven’t been asked about it before. But perhaps you met somebody on your way--somebody who could swear where you were at a particular time?”

“I don’t believe I met a soul. It’s not a populous time of night. Wait a moment, though--yes, I did. I met Kershaw.”

“Who?”

“Kershaw. Don’t you know him--the doctor who gave evidence at the inquest?”

“Yes, I know him. Only I thought he was at the party also.”

“By Jove, I believe you’re right. Then he must have come away too. I say, it sounds as if Godfrey’s drink had been a bit wonky, doesn’t it?” Warden laughed.

“Where did you meet him?”

“Right down in Steeple Tollesbury, by the bridge. He was wheeling his bike across it.”

“How did you know it was he? Did he talk to you?”

“No; in fact, he didn’t look much as though he wanted to speak to any one. How I saw him was that just as he came along I thought I’d like a pipe, and I saw his face in the match. He looked pretty green, I thought--almost as if he’d seen a ghost; and he just said good-evening and pushed on. But he must have seen me, so I suppose he’d be able to say so. Not that it would help much,” said Warden, recollecting, “would it? For I suppose Meston, if he was croaked, must have been getting croaked somewhere about there at the same time.”

“Possibly. Which way was Kershaw coming, do you know?”

“Up from the tow-path, as far as I could see.”

“Do you know what time this was?”

“Half-past one, almost exactly. I looked at my watch then, and thought I’d better be getting back. But I didn’t see a sign of Nick anywhere.”

“I say,” Edna said, “if we’re going to get any dinner, hadn’t we better start somewhere? There won’t be anything fit to eat here.”

“Let’s make a night of it, darling. Run up to Romano’s and do a theatre. Won’t you come too?” said Warden hospitably. But this invitation the friends refused, and set off to return to their inn on foot.