The Ha-Ha Case Page 24

  “He had a hand in part of the affair undoubtedly,” Sir Clinton admitted without demur.

  He smoked for almost a minute in silence, evidently thinking over the points which Hinton had laid down. Then he threw the end of his cigarette into the fireplace and took a fresh one from his case.

  “The weak spot in your whole case,” he said abruptly, “is the fact that you can’t prove definitely which of the guns fired the fatal shot. If I were for the defence, I’d adopt the accident hypothesis I sketched for you. Laxford shot the boy by accident and in the flurry of realising how bad it looked, with this £25,000 in the wind, he told a lot of lies which he’ll retract in the witness-box. You can’t disprove that except by establishing beyond a doubt which gun the shot was fired from—and keeping your thumb on that until he brings the wrong gun into his tale. He must say whether the accident happened with young Brandon’s gun or the one Hay was carrying. If you can prove the boy wasn’t killed with the one he chooses for his story, you’d prove your case. Otherwise, the worst Laxford has to fear is a few years for manslaughter, and perhaps not even that.”

  “It can’t be done from finger-prints, sir, if you’re thinking of that,” the inspector pointed out in a slightly superior tone. “About everybody at Edgehill had handled these guns just before and after the business. It wasn’t even worth looking for prints on them.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of finger-prints,” Sir Clinton assured him blandly. “By the way, Inspector, when you searched the ground you didn’t notice a small piece of wire-gauze, did you? A little bit about a couple of inches square, or thereby?”

  The inspector evidently suspected that the Chief Constable was pulling his leg.

  “I saw nothing of the sort,” he said surlily. “I couldn’t have missed it if it had been on the grass. And after I’d gone over the place myself, a constable searched it for hours. There was nothing of that sort there, sir.”

  “I hardly expected it,” Sir Clinton admitted. “I don’t think the thing was done quite in that way.”

  The inspector happened to glance at Wendover and saw from his expression that the mention of wire-gauze had touched some chord in his memory. But despite this, Wendover seemed not much wiser than Hinton, so far as his features showed.

  Sir Clinton rose from his chair.

  “Just send these guns up to me at the Grange,” he said, indicating the weapons stacked against the wall. “And that fragment of bone. Wrap it up carefully and seal it. And . . . oh, yes, send up young Brandon’s diary also.”

  Outside the police station, a big car was waiting. Wendover took the wheel.

  “Where away now?” he asked as Sir Clinton got in beside him.

  “As near that glade in the Long Plantation as you can manage,” the Chief Constable directed. Then he reconsidered his proposal. “No, make it Edgehill—the house, Squire. Brother Brandon will be up in town, I expect, so we needn’t bother about him. But if we can pick up that gardener—Stoke is his name—he may be useful. You’d better do the talking. I don’t want to advertise myself too much.”

  Wendover agreed with a nod and drove on. He seemed slightly ruffled, and the cause of this appeared when he spoke.

  “That inspector of yours didn’t like my being there.”

  “Hinton? Oh, he’s new to the district, Squire, and hasn’t had time to fall under your charm,” the Chief Constable replied soothingly. “These zealous beggars don’t like interference. In fact, I’ve got a feeling that he’s wishing me at the other end of the county.”

  “I had a suspicion of the sort myself, from his manner,” Wendover commented drily.

  “I have a suspicion that you think he’s a bonehead,” Sir Clinton retorted with a grin. “He’s not that. I should say that he has the knack of seeing the obvious just a shade quicker than most people.”

  Wendover smiled in his turn.

  “That compliment would please him, no doubt, though it’s a bit restricted. By the way, Clinton, what made you ask about wire-gauze? I’ve used it myself in shooting, sometimes, but I haven’t your friend’s knack of seeing the obvious. And now I think of it, he didn’t seem to grasp the great idea immediately either.”

  “That was just to make sure of stopping every burrow. Wire-gauze didn’t come into the thing, I was sure. Still, one has to ask, just to be on the safe side. That was all.”

  Their arrival at Edgehill interrupted the conversation. Wendover successfully obtained the services of the gardener by sending a message to Una through the maid who answered the door. They picked up Stoke, and under his direction, drove down the back road towards the glade.

  “That heap of stones is where young Mr. Brandon was lying when I saw the body,” Stoke explained when they reached the scene of the tragedy. “He was lying with his head that way, with his gun beside him in the grass and a pool of blood just at his head. He’d slipped his foot when he was walking up the sunk fence, you see, sir, and fallen over the edge, just here. Then the gun went off and killed him, and they lifted him up on to the grass where the stones are.”

  “You didn’t see them lift him?” Sir Clinton asked.

  “No, sir. That was done before I came. He was lying on the grass when I saw him first.”

  Sir Clinton walked to the north side of the glade and examined the spot where the twigs had been broken by the shot. He faced about and took a prismatic compass from his pocket.

  “Just stand at that heap of stones, for a moment, Wendover,” he directed. “And you, Stoke, please stand on the top of the ha-ha at the place where you said Mr. Brandon stumbled. Thanks. Just a moment. . . . You might turn your head a bit to your left, Stoke. . . . That’ll do, thanks. By the way, you’re facing a bit to the left of me now, aren’t you? I mean when you look straight in front of you, I’m a shade to the right of the bull’s eye. . . . Thanks. That’s all.”

  He jotted down the bearings of Wendover and Stoke from his own position. Then, coming down to the sunk fence, he took Stoke’s place as exactly as he could.

  “What did you see in front of you when I told you to stand fast?” he asked.

  “That silver birch trunk, sir, as near as might be.”

  Sir Clinton made a slight turn to the left until his eyes came full on the birch, then with evident accuracy, he made a right turn and took a further bearing which he jotted down. After a moment’s calculation, he turned slowly to his right and looked through his compass, though without putting any figures in his notebook.

  “Just point out the places where Mr. Dunne and Mr. Laxford were said to have got into the glade,” he said to Stoke. “Go to them in turn, please.”

  Stoke did so, and Sir Clinton took the bearing of each position from the little cairn and the point on the ha-ha where the slip was supposed to have occurred.

  “What makes you so sure about these places, Stoke?”

  “Well, sir, they’re both places where paths lead into this little bit of a clearing.”

  Sir Clinton nodded and put his compass back into his pocket.

  “I think that finishes us here. I only wanted to see the place with my own eyes. We can get home now.”

  As they were making their way through the wood towards the car, Stoke betrayed signs of some suppressed desire; and after some preliminary fidgeting and false starts, he summoned up his courage to make a suggestion.

  “Do you think, sir,” he asked Wendover, “that Sir Clinton would care for to look at my little museum? It might interest him, perhaps. You’ll be passing the door.”

  Sir Clinton caught the eagerness, diffidence, and modest pride which somehow managed to express themselves in Stoke’s face; and he good-naturedly fell in with the proposal. Kindness costs little, and the man was so evidently anxious to exhibit his treasures that it would be hard-hearted to refuse.

  “We’ve a while yet, before lunch,” he said glancing at his watch. “If it won’t take too long, I’d be very glad to see it. We do a little collecting ourselves, you know, in our Black Museum at Headqu
arters.”

  Stoke’s obvious pleasure was a reward in itself.

  “I’d be very proud if you’d give mine a look-over, sir. Some people like it very much. I was trying to get Inspector Hinton to come and see it, one day he was up here, but he didn’t seem much interested. He wouldn’t look at it.”

  “Well, you can tell him you’ve had a visit from the Chief Constable,” Wendover pointed out. “Perhaps he won’t find it beneath his notice then.”

  The car took them to Stoke’s cottage in a few moments, and the gardener ushered them into a room which he had set apart for his ‘museum.’ Wendover had seen it all before, and Stoke attached himself to Sir Clinton in the capacity of cicerone, keeping up a running commentary as they passed from object to object.

  “That’s a white starling, sir. You won’t see a thing like that twice in a blue moon. I stuffed it myself. . . . Yes, these are flint arrow-heads. They came from a friend; he found them on the South Downs. . . . That duck’s egg with the coloured design on it, sir? Yes, I did that myself. I drew the design in grease and then boiled the shell in water with cochineal in it; that was how it was done. . . . That’s a curious candle-extinguisher, sir. You won’t see a thing like that often, nowadays. You see you dig that spike into the candle, and when it burns down to that height the trigger works and the extinguisher pops on and puts out the candle. Very ingenious, I’ve always thought, sir. . . . This pear inside the lemonade bottle, sir? You put the pear in when its small enough to go through the neck and tie the bottle to the branch. The pear goes on growing and you cut off the twig and fill the bottle with methylated spirits. It puzzles a lot of people, sir. . . . So does this ship in the bottle. I made that myself, sir. The masts and rigging are hinged so that they lie flat while you slip the ship into the bottle. Then you pull a thread and bring the masts upright, and it’s too big to come out through the neck. Very few people guess how it’s done, sir. . . . That picture of Napoleon III, sir? Take it down from the nail and turn it upside down, and you’ll see it makes a donkey. . . . These are Norwegian wedding spoons; wooden they are and the chain between them’s wooden, too. At the wedding breakfast the bride and bridegroom take a spoon each and eat out of the same dish, sir. A sailor friend brought me those. . . . Here’s a robin’s nest in a tin can, sir, very curious. I found it quite near here. . . . Yes, I stuffed them myself. . . . And this is a very good collection of huntsmen’s buttons, sir. My father had that. He came from a hunting county, sir. . . . That’s a German note for a million marks, sir. Fifty thousand pounds it would be worth if it was its right value, sir. . . . I made that snake out of postage stamps, as you can see, sir. It’s six feet long, and when you hold it by the tail it moves about very life-like. I’ll just show you. . . .”

  But that demonstration was never given. Sir Clinton’s eye, roaming along the shelf, had fallen upon a little object which riveted his attention: an empty cartridge-case propped against a label with the lettering: “CARTRIDGE THAT KILLED JOHN BRANDON, ESQ. 28th Aug., 1924.”

  “Where did you get that?” the Chief Constable demanded, with extended forefinger.

  Stoke was completely taken aback. He had forgotten the existence of that particular exhibit when he invited Sir Clinton to his museum.

  “I took it out of his gun, that morning, sir,” he confessed guiltily.

  Much to his relief, the Chief Constable seemed more interested than angry.

  “How did you come to get hold of it?” he asked, picking up the case and eyeing it curiously.

  Stoke, rather relieved at not being severely blamed, made a clean breast of the whole affair.

  “And you replaced it in Mr. Brandon’s gun by another cartridge case, from Mr. Hay’s gun, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s it.”

  Sir Clinton turned the little object about in his fingers and examined the brass end.

  “I don’t think the Brandon family would be very well pleased if they knew you were exhibiting this, Stoke,” he pointed out. “It might lose you your job, quite likely.”

  Stoke was evidently full of contrition.

  “I’m downright sorry, sir. I never gave a thought to that side of it; but I see now it wasn’t the thing at all.”

  “Well, you can’t go on exhibiting it, that’s plain. I’ll take charge of it. You’d recognise it again? Just write your initials on it—here’s a pen—to make sure.”

  Stoke, who moment by moment was becoming more conscious of the bad taste of his proceedings, was glad enough to comply. Sir Clinton let the ink dry, and then put the case into his pocket.

  “We’ll say no more about it, Stoke. Just thoughtlessness, wasn’t it? ‘Of course, of course,’ as a friend of mine would say. And thanks for letting me see the rest of your collection. It’s been well worth a visit.” He glanced at his watch. “Time we thought of moving, isn’t it, Wendover?”

  Stoke showed them out, his heart full of gratitude for the kindly way in which Sir Clinton had dealt with the matter. He was beginning to realise what might have happened had Inspector Hinton been in the Chief Constable’s place.

  “Stoke’s a decent fellow,” Wendover said defensively as they drove off. “These people have no imagination, you know, Clinton. He didn’t realise in the least what annoyance that exhibit of his might have given to the Brandons.”

  “I’m not blaming him,” Sir Clinton assured him. “In fact, it’s on the cards that he’s done us a good turn without knowing it.”

  “If your inspector hadn’t turned up his nose at Stoke’s invitation, he’d have got ahead of you there,” Wendover pointed out with a spice of malice. “With his talent for noting the obvious, he couldn’t have missed seeing that exhibit.”

  “Hinton is a little lacking in human sympathy,” the Chief Constable admitted. “Anyone could see how proud that gardener is of his grotesque collection, and it didn’t cost much to pay it a visit. See how virtue is rewarded! Still, Hinton writes a first-class report, you know.”

  “I don’t quite see what you expect to get out of that cartridge-case,” Wendover mused. “It came out of young Brandon’s gun, apparently. But you’ve got the gun itself, and you could fire a shot from it yourself any time.”

  “Just what I’m going to do, Squire. Your appreciation of the obvious runs Hinton neck and neck, if I may say so.”

  They were running into the village, and before Wendover could reply, Sir Clinton gave a sudden exclamation:

  “Here! Stop, Squire. I want to buy a bottle of Milton. Where can I get it?”

  “At Copdock’s, I expect,” Wendover answered, drawing up the car before the door of the shop.

  Sir Clinton went in and returned again in a few moments with a little parcel.

  “Get it?” Wendover inquired, as he let in the clutch.

  “Yes,” Sir Clinton said as he stowed the bottle in his pocket.

  “What do you want it for?” demanded Wendover inquisitively.

  “Eye-wash.”

  “Eye-wash?” Wendover exclaimed incredulously. “You aren’t going to put hypochlorite in your eye, are you?”

  “A slip of the tongue,” Sir Clinton apologised gravely. “I’m going to see if it will take out a stain, really. And I can always use the rest as a mouthwash. Waste not, want not.”

  “Brilliant idea!” said Wendover crossly, as he recognised that his friend had given the facts without the explanation.

  When they reached the Grange it was still early for luncheon. Sir Clinton went to his room and came back with a slim volume, in which he at once became engrossed. A casual glance showed Wendover that the dust-cover bore an arresting picture of a brown-faced individual with green eyes, holding a talisman.

  “A thriller?” he inquired.

  Sir Clinton shook his head impatiently at the interruption and shifted his hand so that Wendover could read the lettering: “THE PROPHECIES OF THE BRAHAN SEER.”

  “Oh, that thing?” he said, enlightened. “There was a copy of it knocking about the house when I wa
s a boy. I remember reading it then. But it was a pamphlet bound in dull green with a white label. Nothing so flamboyant as this affair you’ve got.”

  “This is a new edition, Squire. Came out this year, luckily, or I might have had a devil of a hunt for a second-hand copy. I’m going to Fairlawns this afternoon, and I’m refreshing my memory to make sure of getting on the right side of friend Dunne. Damn this stone of Coinneach’s! Sometimes they say it was white, sometimes they say it was blue.”

  “It’s green, according to the picture on the jacket,” Wendover pointed out helpfully. “That gives you plenty of choice.”

  “So far as I’m concerned, it’ll have to be just ‘a stone’ until I get a look at friend Dunne’s talisman and see what colour it ought to be. And kindly remember, Squire, if you come along with me, you’ll have to be a true believer. I want none of this nasty sceptical atmosphere about, when I’m dealing with a reincarnation of Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche. Take your cue from me and be surprised, but not too much surprised, at anything he gives us. And now, just shut up, please, and let me get on with my lithomantic studies.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Stone and the Bone

  “I’VE heard it objected, Mr. Dunne, that some of Coinneach’s prophecies could have been made by an exceptionally shrewd man without any supernatural insight to help him. Take that one about full-rigged ships sailing round the back of Tomnahurich Hill, for instance. Admittedly it was made a century and a half before the Caledonian Canal was cut. Still, there were the three lochs in a straight line between the Inverness Firth at one end and Loch Linnhe at the other. A clever man might easily have foreseen that a little cutting would make the whole system into one water-way.”

  The Chief Constable spoke in the tone of one who would like to believe if he could, but who was still hampered by some last doubts. Mr. Dunne rose to the bait.

  “But would any ‘natural shrewdness’ cover the other prophecy about Tomnahurich?” he demanded. “Dun Kenneth foretold that it would be put under lock and key, and the spirits would be secured within. Could anyone in his day have guessed that, a couple of centuries later, Tomnahurich would be a cemetery, enclosed and locked and with the spirits of the dead within its bounds?”