Anthony Berkeley

“ Thinking things over in bed last night, away from your magnetic influence, I was suddenly struck by this bright thought: why does Inspector Moresby go to such pains to plant in my mind the idea that both murders were committed by the same person, and to give me the impression that this is what he himself thinks? He’s a reticent sort of devil; he’s never volunteered any ideas of his own worth speaking of before; he knows that in a way we’re rivals here; the last person he’d want to help toward a solution is Roger Sheringham—why? ”

“ Suicide had smoothed all difficulties away; suicide had explained both deaths in the simplest possible terms, reduced them to a common denominator; in spite of superficial appearances surely in some way it must be suicide. Not until the inspector had patiently, and for half-a-dozen times in succession, pointed out that the very last place in which a voluntary consumer of aconitine would put the poison was among the contents of his tobacco-jar, and the very last way he would choose of imbibing it was through the stem of his pipe, did Roger reluctantly admit that, hang it! ”

“ Roger found himself returning Dr. Vane’s liking almost with interest. The big, burly man was so genuine, so sincere, and (as Roger felt) so transparently honest. His predilections he did not attempt to disguise, and where he hated Roger was sure he would be no less candid. Summing up his impressions on their rather silent walk home, Roger found himself convinced that, whatever his feelings may have been once, the doctor had very little affection for his wife at the time of her death. Equally certainly his attitude toward Miss Williamson was one merely of rather impersonal camaraderie. ”

“ It was a warm walk into the village, and they were glad enough to plunge into the gloom of the little old-fashioned inn which stood in the middle of the small cluster of houses which constitutes the nucleus of the village. A smart rap or two on the counter brought the landlord, a large man of aspect not unlike a benevolent ox and perspiring almost audibly.
“Can’t serve you, gents, I’m afraid,” he rumbled cheerfully. “Leastaways lemonade you can have, or ginger-beer, for the matter of that; but nothing else.”
“That so?” said Roger. ”

“ Roger loved the inspector, and the inspector loved Roger.
Roger chose his moment and struck.
“Look here, Inspector,” he said quite casually, “about this Mrs. Vane business, by the way. I wish you’d look on me not as a reporter but as an amateur criminologist, extraordinarily interested in the way the police go about the solving of a mystery like this and only too ready to put any small brains I may have at their assistance. I do happen to be writing this thing up for a newspaper, it’s true; but that’s only by the way. ”

“ Inspector Moresby was as unlike the popular idea of a great detective as can well be imagined. His face resembled anything but a razor, or even a hatchet (if it must be compared with something in that line, it was far more like a butter-knife) ; his eyes had never been known to snap since infancy; and he simply never rapped out remarks—he just spoke them. Let us not shirk the fact: a more ordinary-looking and ordinarily behaved man never existed.
To proceed to details, the inspector was heavily-built, with a grizzled walrus moustache and stumpy, insensitive fingers ”

“ Roger had waited for her and she walked slowly on, but still gazing down into the turmoil as if fascinated. Anthony watched her with a nameless anxiety: there were people (weren’t there?) who got a bit rocky on heights and as often as not threw themselves over from sheer fascinated funk. “Better not walk so near the edge, Margaret,” he called out to her above the roar of the waves. ”

“ Woodthorpe dropped back into his seat. “I—I don’t understand,” he muttered.
“You’ve got no salad, sir,” said the inspector in tones of some concern. “Help yourself and then pass the bowl across to me.—Well, well! So it’s you who’s been giving us all this trouble, is it?”
“If you like to put it that way,” replied Woodthorpe stiffly. Certainly it must be galling to any conscientious murderer, who has just brought off a neat right and left, to hear his exploit described merely as ‘troublesome.’ There is nobody like an inspector of police for showing things up as they prosaically are. ”

“ It was this state of mind which had caused him to receive with ominous disapproval Roger’s pointed information about the girl cousin and her ten thousand pounds. A girl, to Anthony’s mind, should not be mentioned in the same breath as the word murder. Girls were things apart. Murder concerned men; not girls. Girls might be and very often were murdered, but not by other girls. If it were distasteful to hunt down a man suspected of murder, how impossible would it not be to harry a wretched girl in the same circumstances? ”

“ It is not to say that the train does not go fast when it is going, but stations seem to demoralise it completely; it sits down and ruminates for a matter of twenty minutes in each one before it can bring itself to go on to the next. “What’s the name of the best pub in Ludmouth?”
The combination chuckled hoarsely. “The best pub?” he echoed with considerable amusement. “The best pub, hey? Oho! Hoo!”
“I’ve said something funny,” Roger pointed out to Anthony. “You see? The gentleman is amused. I asked the name of the best pub, so no wonder he’s convulsed with mirth.” ”

“ It’s easy enough to twist the facts, when they’re so few, into meaning exactly what we want them to mean, and away from meaning exactly what we don’t want them to mean. It’s only in those detective stories, where the inspector from Scotland Yard always shows up so badly, that there’s only one inference drawn from a set of facts (not one fact, I’m meaning; a set) and that’s invariably the right one. The fact of the matter is, sir,” the inspector added in a burst of confidence, “that what I said about Miss Williamson might just as well apply to anyone. ”

“ Roger asked, with his most winning smile.
“Well, sir, I’m not a one for scandal,” said the landlady rapidly; “never have been, and please God never will be. But this I must and will say: if it’d been anybody else but the Rev. Meadows I should’ve gone down to them then and there, in bed though I was and goodness knows tired enough already. My house has always been respectable and I look upon it as me duty to keep it respectable, but seeing it was the Rev. Meadows—well, what’s wrong for other people would be right for him, I thought. Being a clergyman does make a difference, doesn’t it, sir? ”

“ Making the best of a bad business, Anthony had watched with a cold eye his cousin’s undignified behaviour and unhesitatingly refused to follow such infantile deportment.
“How can Woodthorpe have been telling the truth?” he repeated, as Roger showed signs of being less interested in his question than in a limpet which was sturdily countering all his efforts to dislodge it from its native rock. “That copy of London Opinion clinches that. If the inspector’s got any sense at all, he’ll draw the same deduction from it as we did and arrest the fellow right away, before he bolts.” ”

“ There’s something about these big Georgian country houses, you know, Inspector, that does stir the imagination. Can’t you just see that carriage-sweep stiff with huntsmen in red coats and jolly red faces, all engulfing a couple of gallons of home-brew before going off to give Reynard the run of his life?”
“It’s a tidy bit of property,” the inspector agreed. “But they’re child’s-play for burglars, these old houses are.” To every man his own point of view.
“I wonder what it is that always makes one associate Georgian houses with hunting scenes,” Roger mused. “Must be the red, I suppose. ”

“ The inspector’s voice did not show the slightest surprise at this unexpected piece of news; Roger’s face, on the contrary, betrayed the liveliest astonishment. “And where was the meeting held, sir? What, in fact, is ‘the usual place’?”
“A little cave we knew of on that ledge, quite near the place she was killed. I discovered it about a year ago; and was struck with its privacy. Anyone who didn’t know of it would never find it. The mouth is at an angle in the rock, and there’s a big boulder masking it. We’ve been in there heaps of times when people have passed by outside without spotting us.” ”

“ He was perfectly self-possessed.
“Inspector Moresby?” he asked with a little smile, picking out Roger’s companion without hesitation.
“That’s me, sir,” assented the inspector in his usual genial tones. “Sorry to bother you, but duty’s duty, as you know. I hope that butler of yours didn’t make too much pother. I told him not to. Scotland Yard has a nasty sound in the ears of the old people, I know.”
“Oh, no,” laughed the young man. “As a matter of fact I was alone, though it was very kind of you to think of warning him. Well, what’s it all about, Inspector? Sit down, won’t you? Cigarette?” ”

“ We mustn’t do him out of that, or he’d be awfully disappointed.”
“Poor Anthony!” Margaret laughed. “Roger, I think you’re horrid.”
“Not horrid,” Anthony said lazily. “Just an ass. But pretend not to notice it, Margaret. We always try to ignore it in the family.”
“Reverting to the topic in hand,” Roger observed, unperturbed, “there’s one thing that I really must impress on both of you. Rather a nasty thing, but we’ve got to face it. From the facts as we know them at present, there’s simply only one deduction to be drawn; if we want new deductions, we must have new facts.” ”

“ Anthony concurred.
“Yes, there’s no doubt about that,” Roger said thoughtfully. “But it’s all so infernally vague. If one could only get hold of a definite thread to follow up, however tiny! You’ve widened the area of enquiry enormously with what you’ve told us about your cousin, but even now we’re quite in the dark. All we know is that, instead of nobody having a grudge against her, any number of people might. Isn’t there one single definite pointer you can get hold of for us? Somebody might have a cause for hating her, say, or a reason for wanting her out of the way. Rack your brains!” ”

“ Anthony stared at her in dismay. It was bad enough that she should have burst into tears at all, without the terrible significance of her last words. He was certain that Margaret Cross was not the sort of person to give way to tears unless matters had reached an acute crisis; the fact that she had done so impressed him with the seriousness of the situation even more than had her decision to confide in himself, a complete stranger. She must be not only utterly alone in the world ”

“ Margaret laughed bitterly. “Quite a number of people think that. Elsie took good care that they should. Isn’t there a saying about speaking only good of the dead? Well, I never have been a conventional person. Elsie was one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed!”
“Oho!” said Roger softly. “She was, was she? Talk about new facts! This looks like opening up a whole new field of enquiry. Perpend, lady! Why was Elsie ‘one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed’?” ”

“ Roger asked curiously. “I thought you didn’t need a warrant for an arrest on suspicion of murder.”
“But I’m not going to arrest him on suspicion of murder, sir.”
“You’re not?” Roger said in surprise. “Why not?”
“For several reasons,” the inspector returned non-committally. “For one thing it’s handier, when there are other reasons for arresting a man, not to do so on the murder charge. They’re more liable to give themselves away than if you’ve started off by frightening them to death already. We usually find it pays. ”

“ Roger returned, somewhat discomfited.
Anthony had been watching this exchange without joy. When one has been anointed ass enough to suspect, on grounds of mere material evidence, a particularly high-souled young woman, it would only be decent, to Anthony’s mind, on finding one’s self confronted with the said high-souled young woman at least to exhibit signs of uncontrollable embarrassment and gloom. Yet so far from exhibiting any such signs, the inspector had completely ignored the high-souled young woman’s existence. ”

“ Lunch was waiting for them when they arrived back, hot and thirsty, at the inn—huge plates of cold beef, a salad, a white loaf and pleasantly salt butter, raspberry tart and cream. Inspector Moresby was also waiting for them, his face completely obscured at the moment of their entering the room by the bottom of one of their host’s satisfactory tankards (one cannot realise too strongly the fact that, when not standing at street corners or arresting unarmed the most dangerous criminals, members of the British Police Force are utterly and completely human) . ”