part0012

THAT same evening there was quite a conclave of “regulars” in the bar-parlour of the “Chancton Arms” at Washington. There was only one topic of conversation—the murder of John Rother and the consequent findings of the Coroner at the inquest on the previous day. The morning papers had been quite verbose about the crime, and many of the pictorials included, for some irrelevant reason, a picture of Chanctonbury Ring. From the central theme the talk branched out into all sorts of ramifications; free advice was offered to the police; theories were expounded; heads nodded in agreement over this and that suspicious fact; anecdotes were told of John and William; tankards were lifted to the arrest “o’ the murderer chap, an’ may ’ee ’ang, durn it, as all murderer chaps should be ’ung”. There seemed to be no doubt in the “Chancton Arms” as to the efficacy of capital punishment.

“Right an’ proper it be that they as takes a life should lose a life,” observed old Garge Butcher, to the concerted approval of those assembled. “A h’eye for a h’eye an’ a tooth for a tooth as the Book ’as it. A rare nice chap was Mister John, as you’ll all agree, an’ Oi for one wouldn’t be back’ard in upping an’ ’itting his ill-doer on the ’ead if ’ee were to walk in at that very door this same second.” And with an outstretched tankard of mild and bitter old Garge indicated the bar-parlour entrance with such dramatic effect that all heads turned towards it, expecting the murderer to enter.

The door, in fact, did at that moment open, and a thin, hatchet-faced youth with lank hair and a receding chin pushed his features inquiringly toward the company. A roar of laughter greeted the appearance of this queer apparition, who was known locally, with all the directness of bucolic nicknames, as “Crazy” Ned.

“Up an’ ’it ’im, Garge!”

“There stands the chap as done in Mister John!”

“T’were better to confess now as that you done it, Ned—constable been looking for ’ee, ’ee ’as.”

As the laughter rose and fell Ned stood eying the crowd with humorous toleration. He was quite used to being the butt and, in his simple way, was proud of the rôle.

“What be it all about, then?”

“Now don’t ’ee say as you haven’t ’eard, Ned,” said old Garge. “You may be simple in the ’ead but not as simple as that.” Garge appealed with a wink to the rest of the bar-parlour. “Oi reckon ’ee knows ’oo done it, eh? Don’t ’ee, Ned?”

“I do, then!” contested Ned, nodding slowly to bolster up his own conviction.

“ ’Oo then, Ned?”

“ ’Er,” said Ned with admirable brevity.

“An’ ’oo may she be, then?”

“Mister Will’s wife.”

Another laugh greeted this opinion, whilst Ned shuffled his feet and glanced defiantly at one to another of the villagers .

“Oi tell ’ee, Oi knows. Oi see’d ’er putting they bits o’ body on the kiln. Same night as parson run ’is Whist Drive it was.”

“What did you see then, Ned?”

“Oi see’d Mrs. Will come out o’ the gate up at Chalklands with a gurt big parcel under ’er arm.”

Old Garge humoured him. “And they were the bits o’ body, eh, Ned?”

Ned nodded with absolute conviction.

“For what else would she be a-coming out of ’er gate well past midnight if ’tweren’t to put they bits o’ body on the kiln?”

Tom Golds, the village baker, and considered a clever, well-educated man, broke in: “Maybe there’s something in what Ned says. It certainly do seem a strange thing for a woman to come out of her house well past midnight with a parcel. ’Taint as if she could post it. Are you sure ’twere a parcel, Ned, an’ not the cat? That would be more necessitous as ’twere an’ explain things like.”

Ned obstinately upheld his opinion.

The baker went on: “How came it that you were so late ’ome, Ned?”

“Parson asked me to stay an’ ’elp clear up the Legion ’All. ’Twere mucky after the Whist Drive with all they chaps a-knocking out their pipes. So Oi stays to sweep up and set the chairs straight. ’Twere after twelve when Oi sets off up the street.”

“An’ did she see ’ee, Ned?”

“Nay—Oi ’id in the shadders until she went by to the kilns. Gave me the shudders, it did then, to see ’er with that bit o’ body tucked under ’er arm like a brelly.”

“Hey!—wait a bit, Ned! That there Whist Drive were last Thursday week. How did you come to know about they bits o’ body when ’twas only set out in the newspapers this marning?” Old Garge looked round with a triumphant air at the exhibition of this piece of cunning. “Oi got ’ee there, Ned. Ah!”

“Oi guessed as they were bits o’ body,” answered Ned in a surly voice, upset at having his story crabbed by disbelief.

Tom Golds, however, seemed to take a more serious view of what Ned persisted in saying he had seen. He realized that, whatever the parcel contained, it was a curious thing for Janet Rother to have come out of the Chalklands drive-gate at some time well past midnight.

“I reckon,” he said at length, after a general debate, “that Ned ’ere may have seen something that wants an explanation. We all know Ned do see some quare things at night, but he seems pretty certain about it being Mrs. Will. What’s more, he remembered it was on the night of the Whist Drive. I reckon that Ned ought to see the constable.”

“Ay—’ee ’ad then,” asserted old Garge, now completely won over to the official point of view. “The law’s the law—there’s no ’voiding that fact, Ned. You ought to see Constable Pinn.”

Ned shook his head loosely and backed away with an alarmed look in his roving eye.

“Nay—not Oi. Oi don’t go making trouble, then! Constable might lock Oi up.”

“I’ll see that he won’t do that, Ned,” urged Tom Golds. “You come with me to-night and see if the constable’s at home.”

“Oi don’t like it,” hedged Ned with great uneasiness.

“ ’Tis a murder case, Ned,” pointed out old Garge. “ ’Tis as much as ’ee owe to Mister John to see the constable.”

“Oi still don’t like it,” protested Ned.

“I’ll stand you a pint o’ bitter if you do,” said Tom Golds diplomatically.

“Make it two,” put in old Garge.

“Three!” said Charlie Finnet .

“Four!” added Cyril Smith.

“Oi’ll go,” said Ned promptly. “Oi’ll do it.”

It seemed that sometimes Ned was far less simple than he appeared to be on the surface of things.

His decision was, in consequence, responsible for Meredith’s early appearance at Washington on the following morning. The constable had rung him up late the previous evening and the Superintendent had arranged for Ned to be at the Washington police-station at 9.30. The two officials were now seated in the hot, stuffy little room, with its wooden bench, kitchen clock, official-looking desk, and varnished walls plastered with police notices.

“And how much can one rely on this man’s evidence?” Meredith was asking.

“Well,” began Constable Pinn cautiously, “ ’ee’s crazy in one sense and in another ’ee’s not. ’Ee’s simple over ordinary things like money and politics and farming. ’Ee doesn’t understand rightly about any of them things. On the other hand, I don’t reckon Ned has brain enough to make up a story like that about Mrs. Rother. ’Ee couldn’t have fitted it in so plausible like with the fact of the Whist Drive and the Vicar asking ’im to stay back and help. On the whole, sir, I reckon you can rely on Ned’s evidence in a general sense, though perhaps not in detail. But quiet!—’ere ’ee comes now, sir, so you can question ’im yourself.”

Ned’s entry into the police-station was not accomplished without a great deal of pantomime. First he looked up the street, then down, drew out a watch, put it back in his corduroy waistcoat, made as if to retrace his steps, tiptoed to the window, saw the waiting police, touched his forelock, grinned, and once more made off down the hill.

“Hi!” yelled Constable Pinn from the doorway. “There’s a gentleman here wants a word with ’ee, Ned. There’s nothing to fear. ’Ee won’t bite you. ”

Ned, somewhat reassured, came a few paces up the hill and asked in a humble voice: “Can Oi go as soon as Oi tells ’im about what Oi sees?”

“Of course, Ned.”

“An’ ’ee won’t lock Oi up?”

The constable laughed.

“Come on! Come on! There’s a good lad,” he wheedled, as if trying to entice a dog through the door. “The gentleman can’t wait ’ere all the morning, Ned.”

Finally reassured, Ned came into the little room, sat down without invitation on the desk-chair, undid his waistcoat buttons, and stuck out his booted legs at a wide angle.

“Now, Ned,” began Meredith with a sort of easy familiarity, “what’s all this I hear about you seeing Mrs. Rother? When was this, eh?”

Ned explained once more about the Whist Drive, whilst Meredith took a few notes in order to impress upon the yokel the importance of his evidence. After sifting a lot of chaff from the few grains of wheat, he finally elicited these fairly reliable facts. On Thursday, July 25th, four days after the tragedy had been discovered, Ned had seen Janet Rother unlatch the drive-gate at Chalklands and make off in the direction of the lime kilns. Under her arm she carried a parcel wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a half-bushel basket. Ned had not followed her, so he could not say for certain that she had gone to the kilns. He reckoned the time was about twenty past twelve, a fact which Constable Pinn had already been able to verify before breakfast that morning by a visit to Hope Cottage, where Ned lived with his uncle. Ned’s uncle had also been to the Whist Drive, but had gone direct home with his wife, there waiting up for Ned’s return. His nephew had arrived home at 12.30, which meant that he had passed Chalklands about ten minutes earlier .

At the conclusion of the interview, which was to Meredith irritatingly prolonged, he left at once for Chalklands. Janet Rother was over at Storrington, according to Kate Abingworth, and would not be back until late that evening.

“Who cleans Mrs. Rother’s shoes?” asked Meredith.

“I’d like a word with the young woman,” said Meredith, adding casually: “By the way, Mrs. Abingworth, you’ve never seen Mrs. Rother leave the house at night since your master disappeared, have you?”

“Who tidies her bedroom?”

“And you’ve never noticed a peculiar smell in that room?” Kate Abingworth shook her head. “Or come across any article of attire, a piece of paper, a handkerchief or anything like that which showed any blood-stains?”

“Lord no , surr!” was the emphatic denial.

“Right—now let’s have a word with Judy.”

“If you’ll follow me—she’s in the wash-house, surr. But I doubt as you’ll get anything out of ’er. She’s a stupid gurl.”

Meredith, on the contrary, found the seventeen-year-old Judy an excellent and intelligent witness. She remembered things in clear detail for the simple reason that so little out of the way ever cropped up in her life, and when it did the unusual event was recorded on her mind with all the exactitude of a photographic print. She had particularly noticed that during the week following Mr. John’s disappearance her mistress’ walking-shoes had been thick each morning with a coating of chalk dust. “Just as if she had been out helping the diggers,” as Judy put it. She had thought it strange, but made no mention of it as her mistress often walked on the downs, which would have a similar effect on her shoes. On the other hand, her mistress did not walk on the downs every day and Judy was certain that her shoes had been covered with chalk “six days out of the seven”. She was also certain that the shoes were in this condition only during the week following her master’s disappearance. Since then they hadn’t needed more than “a spit an’ polish like”.

Satisfied, yet deeply puzzled by the new trend of his investigations, Meredith went down to where the lime-burners were digging the lime out of the brick arches and loading it on to the waiting wagons. A few brisk questions and answers satisfied him upon another point. Each night a heap of broken chalk and a heap of “cullum” coal was left ready at the mouth of each kiln for the early-morning replenishment. It was customary for the men to leave the shovel leaning up against the stone wall which edged the upper level of the kilns. A watering-can with a rose was also left on the spot.

“Why?” asked Meredith, interested.

“Because the cullum has to be damped down, see, before it’s shovelled on to the chalk.”

“Where do you get the water from?”

“The duck-pond close handy.”

“And this is done every day?”

Meredith thanked him for his information and, with eager strides, made for the upper level of the kilns. This unexpected piece of lime-burning lore had stimulated a new train of reasoning. If water were poured every day on to the heap of “cullum” then the ground round about the mouth of the kilns would be pretty moist. Was it too much to hope that among the hobnails, he might find the imprint of a feminine brogue? He went back into the farmhouse, praying that he would not meet William Rother on the way because of explanations, and routed out Judy. No, her mistress was not wearing her walking-shoes that day. She had put on a more fancy pair for the visit to her friends in Storrington. The brogues, in fact, were waiting to be cleaned under the wash-house bench.

Keyed up with the anticipation of a practical clue in a case that was over-packed with theory, Meredith picked up a shoe and hurried back to the kiln-mouth. There he went down on his hands and knees, luckily unobserved, and made a prolonged and careful study of the chalky mud which was blackened with specks of coal-dust. A minute later, exhilarated by the discovery, he found exactly what he had been looking for—a perfect footprint near the edge of the chalk heap into which Janet Rother’s brogue exactly fitted!

“Thank heaven,” he thought, “that it hasn’t rained since July 20th! I’d have missed this if it had.”

It was curious that up until that moment he had blamed the drought for a lack of clues in the vicinity of the actual assault. Now, at this point, the powdered chalk, moistened by the surplus water which had trickled from the base of the coal-heap, had since been hardened by the hot sun into the likeness of plaster. Janet Rother’s footprint was as clearly defined, therefore, as if a sculptor had made a meticulous cast. But he only discovered, alas, this single imprint.

Having returned the shoe to the wash-house Meredith decided to tramp up to Chanctonbury Ring and back before going on to see Rodd at Findon. He wanted to puzzle and reason and theorize, and he always found the rhythm of a steady walk conducive to mental action. Perhaps he had evolved this habit when he had been stationed in Cumberland, where a long trudge over the fells always had the effect of clarifying his thoughts. He filled his pipe, therefore, blessed the fact that he was in mufti since the day was hot and, skirting the chalk-pit behind the farmhouse, began the ascent through a series of ripening cornfields. Soon he came to a wire fence in which there was a creaky iron gate, beyond which, in a wonderful upsweep, rose the brown-green flank of the down. Gradually, as he mounted, the village of Washington came into view on his left, deep down in its bosky valley. Behind it a windmill stood sentinel over a red sand-pit, whilst the north horizon was fringed with the serrated ridge of a pine forest. It was a magnificent view, expansive yet somehow intimate; the chequered fields, dotted with isolated, red-tiled barns and homesteads, with here and there a tree-edged road winding between the pasturage.

Meredith sighed. He wasn’t up there for enjoyment. He must forget the landscape, shut away all sound and scent and colour from his senses and concentrate on the ever-increasing complexities of this accursed Rother case.

Now, more than ever, he was at a loss. From a strong suspicion that William had killed his brother he had now been forced to take up a less certain viewpoint. First there was the strange behaviour of the Cloaked Man to be considered—his part in the mechanism of the crime. Secondly this new, astonishing evidence about Janet Rother. How was she implicated? Was she a third partner in this devilishly conceived murder plot? It was obvious that Ned had seen her that Thursday night following the murder, however simple the fellow was in some directions. That she was carrying something under her arm was equally certain. Further, she was making toward the kilns. She had been at some time in the vicinity of the kiln-mouth, a fact to be deduced from that footprint. Finally, her shoes had been more than usually chalk-dusted during the week which directly followed July 20th.

The first bones had come to light on July 31st, and the remainder had been discovered in loads of lime sent out from the Chalklands kilns between July 22nd and July 26th—a fact which Meredith had ascertained from his copy of the order-book. Portions of the body, therefore, had been placed on the kilns during five consecutive nights. It was obvious that this unpleasant task had been prolonged so that only medium-sized portions of the body would have to be concealed beneath the extra layers of chalk and “cullum” shovelled in at night by one of the partners-in-crime. Further, it was necessary that the residual bones should not appear in the lime in noticeable quantities.

The question remained—had Janet Rother been utilized by the murderer to perform this gruesome task? If William was the murderer it seemed curious that he had not undertaken the job himself. In any case, argued Meredith, if Janet were implicated it was certain that she and her husband must have acted in collaboration. Janet could not possibly have committed the murder and transported the body from Cissbury herself. For one thing she had walked up on to the down that vital evening, and for another there was no car available for her to use in the Rother garage. John’s was under Cissbury—William had taken his for that trip to Littlehampton.

Meredith drew up short with a grunted exclamation, clicked his fingers, relit his pipe and started off again up the rise. But during that brief hiatus in his walk a new idea had suddenly flashed into his mind.

Janet Rother and the Cloaked Man? Was that the criminal combination, with William left out of it? Had that telegram been sent from Littlehampton solely to get William out of the way, so that Janet could help smuggle the body back to Chalklands without her movements being checked?

Hastily Meredith tugged his inch-to-a-mile map out of his breast pocket, where providentially he had placed it only that morning. Janet had left the farm ostensibly to climb up to the Ring. What was there to prevent her from making a start in that direction and then working down in a big détour to some point on the Washington-Findon road? There she could have hidden herself until she had noticed William rush by on his way to Littlehampton. At some prearranged spot, a little further up the road, the Cloaked Man could have been waiting with a car. What then? Janet gets in, they drive to Bindings Lane, arriving there shortly after 7.30. John Rother has already been set upon and killed, the body already dissected. In the Cloaked Man’s car——

Meredith’s thoughts stopped dead and then shot off again at a tangent. How could the Cloaked Man have had a car when he was seen late that night “legging” it over the downs? If he had a car then he must have got rid of it by then—a difficult and dangerous procedure. Yet a car was essential to his scheme. How the devil, then, had he managed it? Borrowed? Stolen? Hired?

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the Superintendent suddenly. “Why not Rother’s Hillman?”

In a flash he saw the whole thing. John Rother set upon and killed. The dissected body hidden inside a rubber sheet among the gorse bushes. The Hillman driven out to pick up Janet, then back again to Cissbury. The remains, still wrapped in the rubber sheet, dumped on the floor of the Hillman’s front seat, where an extra stain or so of blood would cause no comment. Then, with Janet acting as guide, these gruesome remains driven out to Chalklands in William’s absence and hidden in some pre- arranged spot—perhaps a metal-lined cabin-trunk. Whilst Janet kept an eye on Kate Abingworth, the Cloaked Man could have secretly carried Rother’s remains to the prearranged hiding-place and stowed them away in the trunk. The Cloaked Man then drives back to Cissbury, leaves the car where it was discovered the next morning, and makes off over the downs towards Steyning. Moreover, thought Meredith, wouldn’t this account for the extra petrol used in the Hillman? Rother had gone to Cissbury direct, and it was due to the three extra runs after Rother’s death that over a gallon of spirit had been burnt. The mileage, Meredith reckoned, would not quite account for the full gallon and a quarter, but the engine might have been left running when stationary—perhaps when the Cloaked Man was waiting for Janet on the Washington-Findon road.

Janet Rother said she had come down off Chanctonbury at a quarter to ten—a time which she realized the housekeeper could verify. The Cloaked Man must have left Chalklands, therefore, shortly after that time. The shepherd, Mike Riddle, had seen the strange figure on the path to Hound’s Oak at (about) ten o’clock. Was it possible for the man to have covered the distance in fifteen minutes?

“Confound it,” thought Meredith, disheartened, “he couldn’t. He couldn’t have done it under twenty-five minutes at least.”

Had Janet Rother lied about the time of her re-entry into the farmhouse, with the deliberate idea of providing the Cloaked Man with an alibi? Perhaps she had gambled on the fact that Kate Abingworth would not have looked at the clock. It only needed Janet to arrive fifteen minutes earlier for Meredith’s theory to hold water. He would have to question the housekeeper now before seeing the Findon sergeant.

For all that Meredith determined to reach the Ring before descending again to Chalklands. He had heard that the view from the huge clump of beeches was unique and never-to-be-forgotten. Passing a dew-pond, at which one or two sheep were drinking, he covered the half-mile of the final hump with a swinging stride. A little later half Sussex seemed to be under his feet, with the chequered weald on one side and a quicksilver glimpse of the sea far away on the other. Sitting at the bole of a great, silver-barked beech, he spread out his map on his knees and began to register the various places of interest—the Devil’s Dyke out toward Brighton, the faint blue ridge to the north which was Box Hill in Surrey, Steyning in a near-by valley, Wiston Park under his feet, Washington, and beyond that the distant roofs of Storrington.

At that precise moment, only a couple of miles away, a small girl in a yellow frock was clambering about on Steyning Round Hill in search of wild flowers. She was a solemn child and had high hopes of carrying off the first prize in the “Wild Nosegay” section at the annual flower show which was to be held in a few days’ time. She returned home somewhat earlier than her parents had anticipated, so weirdly garbed that the child’s grandfather, who had a kitchen-chair out in the sun, let out a high-pitched bark of astonishment and dropped his clay pipe on the brickwork. On her head the child wore a large, broad-brimmed black hat. From her thin shoulders, entirely concealing her gawky legs, hung a voluminous black cloak.

Ten minutes later her father was plodding up the street in search of the Steyning constable. He had noticed rust-coloured stains on the dark material, stains which, as an ex-serviceman, he recognized as dried blood. This fact, combined with the police notice which he had read only the previous day in the local paper, had aroused his suspicions.

When Meredith reached Findon after his visit to Mrs. Abingworth, Rodd, whom he had ’phoned early that morning, had already collected this new evidence and handed it to his superior in a brown-paper parcel. He explained where and how it had been discovered.

“Which,” he added with a pleased smirk of self-congratulation, “corroborates old Mike Riddle’s story.”

Meredith agreed. He was in an optimistic frame of mind because in his interview with Kate Abingworth, the housekeeper had stoutly upheld that Mrs. Will had come into the farmhouse “not later than the strike of half past nine”. Did it mean now that William Rother was out of the running and that Janet Rother plus the Cloaked Man were the perpetrators of the crime?

“Strange,” he thought, “how suspicion in a case of this sort swings about from one direction to another. I’ll end by suspecting myself soon, or the Chief Constable! After all, in these detective yarns it’s always the most unlikely person who has committed the murder!”

“By the way,” he added aloud to Rodd, “have you found anybody who saw William Rother round about Findon on the evening of the twentieth?”

Rodd shook his head.

“Only Clark up at the Filling Station—but you knew about that already.”

“Well I’ve got a new slant now,” explained Meredith. “I want you to nose around and find out if anybody saw John Rother’s Hillman pass through the village at any time between 7 and, say, 9.30. Probably driven by the same chap that Riddle saw up near Hound’s Oak.”

“Wearing his hat and cloak?” asked Rodd with a meaning grin.

“A bit too conspicuous, eh, Sergeant? Just as I thought. No— I reckon that hat and cloak act was performed solely for our benefit. He used that disguise simply to take himself from Bindings Lane over the downs to Steyning. By the way, did Steyning say anything about having seen a stranger on the roads late that night—I mean when you collected the cloak this morning?”