The Ha-Ha Case Read online

  “And if your brother had driven the hardest bargain he could, would he have got £25,000 out of the estate, do you think?”

  Jim reflected for a few moments.

  “I haven’t got the figures at my finger ends,” he said in a tone of some uncertainty. “I should doubt, though, if his share would have come to that figure, if he had taken the course I’ve sketched out.”

  The inspector tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as though thinking deeply.

  “What it comes to is this, then,” he said at last. “I’m sorry to put it crudely, Mr. Brandon, but your statement boils down to this, doesn’t it? If your brother died, it was worth £25,000 in hard cash to the holder of the policy; whereas if he lived, he might secure a sum round about £25,000, and that sum would go into his own pocket, to do what he liked with?”

  “I hadn’t looked at it in that way, quite,” Jim admitted reluctantly, “but that’s what it amounts to in fact.”

  The inspector nodded, and put another question.

  “Suppose this assignment turns out to be invalid, where will the £25,000 go?”

  “I suppose my father gets it. My brother died intestate, of course, and my father would be his next of kin, I expect. I don’t know definitely, but I believe that’s correct.”

  “I see,” said Hinton. “That’s right, I think.”

  He pushed his notebook over for Jim to initial, after reading the notes. Then, putting the book in his pocket, he picked up the diary.

  “You’ve no objection to my borrowing this?” he asked. “And keeping these guns a little longer? Thanks. And, Mr. Brandon, about that assignment . . .”

  “The executors will contest it, you may be sure of that,” Jim assured him with a rather ugly smile.

  Inspector Hinton took his leave without further ado. When he had left the room, Una turned a strained face to Jim.

  “What’s he thinking, Jim? He didn’t say anything, but . . .”

  “Thinking!” Jim retorted savagely. “He’s thinking just what I think myself, and what I’d have thought straight away if I’d known about that insurance policy before. He’s thinking what you’re thinking yourself, Una. You needn’t deny it! It’s too plain for that pretence. Hinton thinks that swine Laxford was responsible for Johnnie’s death, and I hope he proves it! Once I heard of that policy, I saw through the whole game. A child could grasp it. Poor Johnnie! And that was the hound he trusted so much.”

  As a mind-reader, Jim was unusually successful in this case. Inspector Hinton left Edgehill in higher spirits than he expected. That intuition of his about blackmail had brought in a far better harvest than he had hoped for. The trapping of Johnnie accounted neatly for the hurried completion of the valid assignment on that fatal morning. That would be a nasty bit of evidence to set before the jury; and the defence wouldn’t be able to shake it. Brandon was a good witness, from what the inspector had seen of him. And there was no saying what Hay and Laxford’s wife might not let out under cross-examination. Against that, the only snag in the affair was Brandon’s insistence that his brother had denied signing anything that morning. But the inspector brushed that aside in his mind. Let the defence dig it out for themselves, if they could; he wasn’t going to help them. And besides, he had an idea that what a dead man said wasn’t evidence. Nothing in it, nothing whatever.

  Pushing his good luck, he dropped into Copdock’s shop on his way back. It chanced to be empty at the moment, and the dealer, with a mysterious air which annoyed Hinton intensely, produced a dirty piece of paper and handed it across the counter. The inspector opened it and read a single name: “P. J. Pluscarden.” He fumbled in his pocket, produced an envelope and handed it over to Copdock, who, not to be outdone in caution, held it up to the light to see that it really contained a Treasury note.

  “P. J. Pluscarden.” The name conveyed nothing to the inspector at the moment, but he had means of enlightenment. He turned into the village post office, secured the telephone booth, rang up the public library in Ambledown, and within a few minutes the librarian had consulted the London Directory and informed him that P. J. Pluscarden described himself as a financial agent.

  “A moneylender! I thought as much,” Hinton said to himself as he hung up the receiver. “This affair’s shaping better than I thought, a day or two ago.”

  But even then the inspector’s run of luck persisted. At the police station, he found a communication from Scotland Yard in answer to a letter which he had written. He tore it open and muttered some of its phrases as he glanced through it.

  “Joseph Hay, alias Flash Joe, alias Deal-’em-out Hay . . . confidence trick . . . card-sharper . . . twice charged, no convictions . . . ostensible occupation, agent for a moneylending firm. . . .”

  Hinton smiled in a satisfied way as he filed this letter.

  “Lives by his wits, does Mr. Hay,” he commented to himself. “What we used to call a ‘lumberer’ or a ‘workman.’ Just so. And if he’s a tout for a moneylender, really, then that moneylender’s name’s Pluscarden, or you can dye me green.”

  Putting the file back on the shelf, he consulted the telephone directory and gave a number to the exchange. In a very short time he had ascertained from the agents for the Edgehill estate that Laxford had actually approached them. But all he had done was to ask over the telephone what price they wanted for Edgehill. When he heard the figure he had said he would think over the matter. They had not heard from him since. His telephone call had been made on 29th July.

  “And on 16th August, neither Laxford nor his missus had a stiver in the bank,” Hinton recalled, as he hung up the receiver. “That inquiry was a flam. But what did he make it for?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Cartridge-Case

  INSPECTOR HINTON was not afraid of the Chief Constable, yet he never felt entirely at his ease with him. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that Sir Clinton looked on him much as he himself looked upon the common run of humanity; and it rankled with him that his chief showed no sign that he regarded Inspector Hinton as a particularly bright star. Like many cynical people, the inspector had a strong dislike of cynicism in others; and he took no pleasure in Sir Clinton’s occasional exercises in the sardonic.

  The Chief Constable’s eye roved round the inspector’s dingy little office, resting momentarily in turn on the guns in one corner of the room, the shot-torn papers which Hinton had pinned on the wall, the minor exhibits on the desk, and the folder which lay before him. He handed a couple of sheets of notes back to the inspector for replacement in the file and glanced at Wendover who, much to Hinton’s annoyance, had been a silent spectator at this interview.

  “That brings me up to date,” he said as Hinton closed the file. “I’ve read all your previous reports. Very good, inspector. You put things clearly.”

  Hinton accepted this tribute without undue gratification.

  “And now you propose to take out a warrant and arrest Laxford?” the Chief Constable pursued.

  “Well, sir, I think it advisable to act at once.” Hinton’s ‘official’ vocabularly was a shade stilted. “Laxford is leaving this district next week, I learn. It’ll save trouble if we lay our hands on him before he vanishes.”

  “I agree with you,” Sir Clinton said, rather to the inspector’s relief. “You’ll get your warrant. Mr. Wendover’s a J.P. and can give us one. I prefer that Mr. Wendover should issue it, you understand?” he added with just enough emphasis to make his statement a veiled order.

  Hinton nodded. Of course, he reflected sulkily, Driffield would want to flatter this dilettante crime-monger by giving him a finger in the pie, just because he happened to be staying at Wendover’s house. The inspector had no use for these would-be-wise amateurs.

  “Another thing,” Sir Clinton went on. “Better get into touch with the London people and ask them to pick up this fellow Hay. If they can’t manage it any other way, they can detain him on suspicion and hand him on to us. Give them a couple of days’ grace. So long as
we have him here before Laxford’s arrested, it’s quite sufficient. I may want to ask him a question or two myself.”

  “Very good, sir,” Hinton concurred morosely.

  Of course! he reflected angrily. Just when all the hard work had been done, Driffield proposed to step in, ask a question or two, and take all the credit. Bad luck that he should have landed in the neighbourhood at this juncture. Worse luck that he should be putting his finger into ‘the big case’ that was to make Hinton’s name. These fellows higher up were all like that. Grabbers, every man jack of them!

  The Chief Constable seemed to be something of a thought-reader, or else he knew his subordinate thoroughly.

  “This is your case, Inspector,” he said in a studiedly ‘official’ tone. “The credit will be entirely yours—and the responsibility.”

  Sir Clinton had a penchant for helping subordinates in their difficult cases, but he never took the slightest public credit for the assistance which he gave. His reward in the matter was the intellectual pleasure of pitting his wits against those of a criminal, a slight recompense for the hours spent in the dull routine of his office. But in return for his help, he expected a certain amount of friendly co-operation on the part of the man he was assisting. Reading Inspector Hinton like a book, he saw that little co-operation could be expected from him. That would make things less pleasant. Wendover would be the chief sufferer. There would be none of these friendly confabulations à trois which the Squire had enjoyed in some earlier cases. A pity, that, but apparently unavoidable.

  Sir Clinton pulled out his cigarette-case and offered it to the inspector, who rejected it with very thinly veiled scorn.

  “No, thanks, sir. I never touch them. I’m a pipe-smoker,” he explained with an air which suggested that cigarettes were fit only for children.

  “Ah,” said Sir Clinton interestedly. “Mr. Wendover smokes cigars. It takes all sorts to make a world. Have a cigar, Wendover? You’ll find one in your own case. Light your pipe, Inspector. I don’t mind the odour.”

  Hinton, vaguely suspicious that he was being ‘got at,’ declined with a grunt and a nod.

  “Now about this case of yours,” Sir Clinton went on briskly. “There’s a little bit of doggerel I’ve found useful sometimes. There’s a Latin original, but I’ll give you an English version. . . .”

  “I can construe Latin,” Hinton interrupted.

  He hated those university fellows with their assumption that they were the only educated people in the country. They thought nobody knew Latin unless he’d been birched at their old school. He’d been at a secondary school himself and was as well educated as they were.

  “Oh, very well, if you’d rather have the original,” Sir Clinton concurred blandly, “here it is: ‘Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando?’”

  “Who, what, where . . .” the inspector translated. “It doesn’t make sense, sir. There isn’t a verb in it.”

  “Oh, it’s sensible enough,” Sir Clinton assured him, tactfully ignoring Hinton’s obvious discomfiture. “Here’s an English version. It’s easier0 to remember, because it rhymes:

  ‘What was the crime? Who did it? When was it done and where?

  How done, and with what motive? Who in the deed did share?’

  Now, Inspector, let’s test your case by putting these seven questions in turn. ‘What was the crime?’”

  “The murder of young Brandon,” Hinton declared boldly.

  “Murder?” Sir Clinton queried in a doubtful tone. “The shooting of young Brandon’s beyond dispute, I admit. But what makes you so sure it’s murder? Why not suicide, or accident?”

  “It couldn’t have been either,” Hinton declared bluntly, as he had thought over these possibilities a good deal and felt sure of his ground. “The position and the direction of the wound, sir, absolutely preclude either accident or suicide. I’ve gone into it carefully. He was shot standing up, with the gun almost horizontal. Now look here, sir.”

  He picked up one of the guns from the corner of the room and illustrated the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of anyone holding and firing a gun in the required direction.

  “Yes, suicide would be difficult,” Sir Clinton admitted without ado, “I’m merely testing all sides of your case. “But what about accident?”

  “If his gun had slipped out of his hand and fallen, the shot from it would have had to go upwards to hit him. The wound’s horizontal. Therefore it wasn’t accident,” Hinton declared positively.

  Sir Clinton looked at him with a faintly quizzical smile.

  “Not if he was shot with his own gun,” he said drily. “But somebody else’s gun might have gone off by accident and killed him. Your reasoning doesn’t rule that out. It fits it, in fact.”

  The inspector had difficulty in repressing a movement of vexation. This was a mere quibble, he felt; and yet he had never taken that possibility into account and he had no reply ready.

  “All the evidence tells against it,” he said sullenly.

  “You mean the verbal evidence,” Sir Clinton corrected him. “The evidence of Mr. Laxford who’s such a stickler for truth, and the evidence of Mr. Dunne whose testimony is so reliable that you can’t put him into the witness-box. No good, Inspector.”

  Hinton’s attitude betrayed clearly enough that he had not foreseen this line of attack, and it was several seconds before he found a counter-suggestion.

  “But if Laxford shot him by accident, sir, why didn’t he say so?”

  “Put yourself in his place,” advised the Chief Constable. “Laxford stood to gain £25,000 by young Brandon’s death. A bit awkward to come forward and say: ‘I shot him, but it was a pure accident?’ I shouldn’t care to be in that position myself. People are so sceptical about affairs of that sort.”

  He flicked the ash from his cigarette and then continued in a slightly different tone:

  “Well, apparently you’re determined to call it ‘Murder’ and not ‘Manslaughter’ or ‘Accident.’ Pass that, then, and let’s go on to the next question: ‘Who did it?’”

  “Laxford, sir.”

  “Laxford was the only one of the three who had no gun,” Sir Clinton pointed out.

  “He must have used Hay’s gun,” Hinton declared.

  “Or borrowed young Brandon’s own gun for a moment and shot him with that. Or perhaps he had his own gun all the time and handed it to Dunne after the shooting. That’s a possibility, if Laxford knew what Dunne’s mental trouble was. Dunne would remember nothing about it when he woke up and found the gun in his hands.”

  The inspector had difficulty in concealing his vexation. Why had he not thought of Laxford borrowing young Brandon’s gun? Now that it was put to him, he could see how neatly it covered the case, and yet he had missed it completely. A less self-centred man might have said: “That’s clever,” but Hinton’s mental comment was merely: “That’s damned annoying.”

  “Oh, if you think it likely, sir,” he said aloud in a tone which disparaged the Chief Constable’s suggestions without being exactly rude.

  “You pin yourself down to Laxford?” Sir Clinton continued, ignoring the inspector’s manner. “But why not Hay? Or Dunne?”

  “No motive, sir,” Hinton retorted tartly.

  “None needed in Dunne’s case, I imagine.”

  “I suppose not,” Hinton admitted in a sullen tone.

  “Then that question’s still an open one,” the Chief Constable pointed out. “Try the next one: ‘When was it done?’ Suppose we say, ‘On the morning of August 28th, 1924’ and let it go at that. ‘Where?’ is the next query.”

  “In the glade in the Long Plantation,” said the inspector, with the air of an adult consenting to join in a child’s game. “Where else could it have been done?”

  “Well, they might have shot him in some secluded place farther down the wood, wrapped his head in their handkerchiefs to keep the blood from leaving traces, and carried him to the glade. Then when they took off the handkerchiefs, the
blood would have made a pool and the little bit of bone would naturally fall out. That’s a possibility. Still, I’m inclined to agree with you that he was shot in the glade. But the glade’s of some size. Where, precisely, do you claim that he was shot?”

  “Where his brother saw the body when he arrived,” Hinton said quite assuredly. “Nothing else’ll fit.”

  “That hinges conveniently on to the next query: ‘How done?’” Sir Clinton pursued. “What have you to say about that?”

  “He was shot from behind at fairly close quarters, sir, in my opinion. Nothing else fits in with these shot-patterns,” the inspector declared, with a wave of his hand towards the sheets of paper pinned to the wall.

  “H’m!” said the Chief Constable doubtfully. “If the shot came from behind and glanced off his skull, then surely these smashed twigs should have been farther east. In fact, from your little map I’d have assumed that a glancing shot would have gone off up the line of the ha-ha if not still farther to the right of the shooter. However, I haven’t seen the ground yet. Pass that for the present.”

  “If young Brandon had been standing on the edge of the ha-ha, then it makes it worse, on your argument, sir. That’s why I assume he was shot on the spot where his brother found his body.”

  “And that implies that Laxford told a lie when he said they found the body at the foot of the ha-ha?”

  “Of course, sir. There was no blood there. I searched carefully for any trace, but there wasn’t a sign of blood.”

  Sir Clinton nodded without comment.

  “And now: ‘With what motive?’ It meant £25,000 into Mrs. Laxford’s bank account. A good many people would commit murder for much less than that, I admit. If you’re putting Laxford in the dock, then your motive would pass muster. Now the final question: ‘Who in the deed did share?’”

  “Hay must have had a hand in it,” the inspector declared without hesitation. “My view is that he lent Laxford his gun to do the job, which would bring him in as an accessory before the fact. Anyway, he backed up Laxford afterwards in his lies, so he’s an accessory after the fact for certain.”