‘An outsider would say,’ French remarked as they strolled through the streets of the little town, ‘that with our excellent police organisation the first place for us to go would be the police station. But as a matter of fact I go there last.’ He glanced across at M’Clung to see if that worthy followed his argument.
‘How’s that, sir?’ the sergeant said tactfully.
‘It’s hard to put it in words,’ French answered. ‘It’s not that local men are officious exactly, but application to them involves a lot of wearisome explanations, and you lose your free hand. Of course often one can’t do without the local force, but when one can, one does, or at least I do. Now there are two ways, so far as I can see, that we can get to work. We can go to the police here and ask them if they saw a new Morris six on that Wednesday morning. That’s one way.’
‘That’s the way I should have adopted,’ M’Clung declared.
‘You may be right and we may have to come back to it. But there is another way that I’m going to try first. When it works it’s the best way. It’s to sit down and think where those men are likely to have gone and then to check up if they did so. Now just start in, M’Clung, and do a bit of guessing. Where do you say we should look?’
M’Clung hesitated and French went on.
‘Begin by going over what we know about them.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘One, Coates had travelled from London. Two, the train that he came by stops at Dumfries, Castle-Douglas and Newton-Stewart. Three, Teer came by motor from Carlisle, or said he did. Four, they left in Teer’s car about nine-thirty. Now, what do you make of it?’
Once again M’Clung hesitated and once again French went on.
‘What direction did they go in?’
‘Well,’ the sergeant suggested, ‘they didn’t go towards Carlisle, because that’s where they both came from.’
‘Right,’ French approved. ‘I see you have the root of the matter in you. That’s the method. Always eliminate. Now you’ve eliminated the Carlisle direction. And note, of course, that that includes intermediate places except those close to Stranraer. They would have stopped at Castle-Douglas or Newton-Stewart if their destination had been easier got at from these places. So we may say that they did not go east. Very well?’
‘And they didn’t go west, because that’s where the sea lies.’
‘Right again. Roughly speaking, therefore, they went north or south. Now which was it?’
‘I would think south, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if they had been going north, they would hardly have come to Stranraer at all, unless of course it was to somewhere fairly close, But if it was any distance, say to Girvan or beyond, they would have gone by the line from Dumfries towards Glasgow.’
‘I agree, though, mind you, that’s not so probable as your first two guesses.’
‘I know that, Mr French. Well then if they went south there’s a likely place you’d think of at once, and that’s Portpatrick. It’s a tourist place where people do go and through Stranraer is the natural way, I would guess Portpatrick, sir.’
‘And so should I,’ French approved. ‘That’s quite good, M’Clung. We may both be wrong, but we’ll try it out. Let’s get up to that town station and look up trains. Or there may be a bus.’
Their visit to the station was opportune and half an hour later they were walking down the hill into Portpatrick. The little town looked very attractive on this pleasant October day. French, who had never been there before, was agreeably surprised. ‘The next time I want a quiet holiday,’ he told M’Clung, ‘this is the place for me.’
‘It used to be a more important place than it is now,’ M’Clung observed. ‘In old times it was the port for the north of Ireland. I remember my grandfather telling me about his seeing the mail packet sailing from here to Donaghadee. See the money that’s been spent on this harbour and it’s the same at Donaghadee. Only there the place is half silted up.’
‘Not very far across, is it?’
‘I think about twenty-three miles, but I’m not just certain.’
They continued discussing the changes time had brought about in travel until presently French returned to the subject of their quest.
‘Going to that hotel turned out lucky in Stranraer. Suppose we try the hotels here to begin with.’
Climbing the hill to the large building above the harbour, they soon were stating their business to the manager. French made no secret of his profession, showing his official card and explaining that he was on a murder case. Unfortunately the manager could only say that the persons described had not visited his hotel. On French’s suggestion he called in several members of his staff, but these merely confirmed his own statement.
From the Portpatrick Hotel the detectives visited the smaller hotels in the town and then the garages and petrol supply stations, in every case with the same result.
‘Looks like the police station after all,’ French declared. ‘We passed it on the way down from the train. Let’s go back.’
The local sergeant was visibly impressed by a visit from so important a man as Inspector French. But unfortunately he had seen no one resembling either of the strangers, and though he questioned his entire force, nothing that could help French came out.
‘That’s all right,’ French said, as the man expressed his regret. ‘It’s evident they didn’t come to Portpatrick and to have learned that is progress. We can’t expect to get them first shot. We’ll try north up towards Girvan.’
Having to wait nearly an hour for their train, the two detectives strolled down once more to the front and had another look at the harbour. Though French imagined the latter might be hard to enter during bad weather, there could be no doubt that when once inside even the smallest boat would be supremely safe. The inner basin indeed looked less like a harbour than a great square stone tank. In the middle, moored by a bow anchor and warps which swung up in easy curves from the stern to the wall of the basin, lay a small steam yacht, and here and there without seeming arrangement were a few row boats and a couple of smacks. Whatever greatness the place might have formerly had certainly passed away. As a port it was dead. But there was the usual group of jersey-clad longshoremen leaning against a low wall and smoking stolidly.
‘One of the mysteries I can never get to the bottom of is how those fellows live,’ French observed. ‘You see them at every watering place, a group of them just like that. You never see them move about or do any work. They seem to stand there smoking all day. How do they do it?’
M’Clung chuckled.
‘Some of them are fishermen, Mr French. They’re out at night mostly. And it’s no joke, their job, I can tell you. I’ve been out and I know.’
‘Well, if the ones I’ve watched are out all night they never sleep, unless you’d call that standing there sleeping.’
Again M’Clung chuckled.
‘That’s all right, sir, but they’re not asleep, whatever they may look. I bet you they know all about us already, when we came and where we’ve been and maybe our business as well. There’s not much they miss, I can tell you.’
‘That so?’ said French. ‘Well, if they’re so wide awake as all that, slip over and ask them if they’ve seen Teer’s car.’
M’Clung crossed what had once been a busy wharf and mingled with the group. None of the men moved except to fix him with their cold, fish-like eyes. He spoke and one shrugged his shoulder slightly and murmured some reply. M’Clung spoke again and the man nodded slowly. Finally M’Clung beckoned across the road. French went over.
‘These men saw the car, Mr French,’ M’Clung said, and French silently commended the total lack of interest or eagerness in his manner. ‘It stopped and parked just here and the two men went aboard a motor launch which had just come in.’
In spite of himself French started. A motor launch! Victor Magill’s story of his holiday leaped into his mind. Could it be that this was Victor’s launch and that Coates was Victor’s friend—what was the name he mentioned? Oh, yes, Joss. Could Coates be Joss? As French rapidly recalled what Victor had said, the idea began to grow more and more likely. The launch had arrived at Portpatrick at about ten in the morning in question and had there picked up the remaining two members of the party. That tallied. One of these members, Joss, had travelled by the night train from Euston, the train by which Coates travelled, for French remembered pointing out to Victor that his friend must have used the same train as Sir John. The other friend, whose name Victor had not mentioned, had come by motor, as Teer had done. If these two men were not members of Victor’s party, there was here a very remarkable coincidence.
And if they were? … French suddenly found a vista opening before him, a vista both suggestive and sinister …
But there was no time to consider it now. He must collect all the information he could. Later he could try piecing it together.
French gave the men an offhand greeting. Obviously he also was neither eager nor particularly interested in the affair. But if the men had really anything to tell him, well, talking was dry work and was there no place where they could get a drop of something to help the tale? It seemed there was, and not far away. The group adjourned in a body.
It would not be correct to say that the whisky which each man asked for loosened his tongue, but it did produce occasional monosyllabic replies to French’s questions. However, by dint of a laborious interrogation, mostly veiled, and a second treat all round, a considerable amount of information was obtained. Whether it was all that was available, French did not know, but it was all he could get.
It seemed that between 9.30 and 10.00 o’clock on Thursday, 3rd October, a motor launch had come into the harbour. Portpatrick is one of those blest places which have neither a harbour master nor dues, each visiting mariner anchoring where it seems right in his own eyes. The spot which had seemed right in the eyes of the master of this launch was just inside the inner basin, and there he had dropped his anchor.
The master—the longshoremen did not know whether or not he was the owner—was a short, pleasant-looking man of middle age. There was another man on board whom, however, they had not seen, as he kept below. But they had heard his replies to the short man.
A few minutes after the launch had anchored a motor had appeared, a new brownish-yellow Morris six. From this car had descended two men, both tall and well-built, in fact one was almost a Hercules. He was dark, but his companion’s hair was of a particularly bright shade of red. The two men had walked across to the basin, and seeing the launch, had hailed it. The short man had pointed to a boat which was tied to the steps and they had called for a volunteer to put them aboard. The boat was the property of one of the longshoremen and he had rowed them across.
French asked if they had said anything while in the boat.
It had seemed hard enough to extract mere facts from the circle, but this proved child’s play compared to the difficulty of getting a report of the conversation. However M’Clung managed it at last.
While being rowed the few yards to the launch the two newcomers had discussed the question of which of them should take the car back—they didn’t say to where. Then the short man had greeted them, saying that they were in good time as that he himself had only just arrived. One of the others had next asked where old Viccy was and the short man had said, ‘Casualty. Fell down the companion steps and crocked up his knee.’ Hercules had asked if the victim of this disaster was aboard, to which the other had replied that he was, and that he couldn’t get out of his bunk. Hercules had then gone below and the boatman had heard greetings and the beginning of a conversation, until the short man had told him he was going ashore in half an hour and to come back for him.
When the half hour was up he, the boatman, had returned and he then rowed both Hercules and the short man ashore. The two had immediately driven off. A couple of hours later Hercules had returned alone and had gone aboard. But it was not till dark—between seven and eight—that the short man had turned up. He also had immediately gone aboard. That was the last occasion on which there had been any communication between launch and shore.
‘Did the launch go out that night?’ French asked.
About midnight, the men said. It was a calm night and all had heard her, while a couple of them had seen her creeping out past the lighthouse.
‘Did you happen to notice her name?’ French asked.
They had. She was the Sea Hawk and was registered in Barrow. She was about fifty feet long, well decked over, with plenty of freeboard, and looked a good sea boat. But she was old and from the sound of her motor it was old too.
‘I think that about does us in Portpatrick,’ French observed as they left the little harbour. He swung round suddenly on his companion.
‘I say, M’Clung, what in the blessed earth were you and I thinking about not to spot that Coates belonged to Victor Magill’s party? Bar myself, I think you’re the biggest fool in Scotland!’
M’Clung could only murmur helplessly. He should have thought of it, but—he just didn’t.
‘There’s not much excuse for either of us. When do we get a train out of this darned place?’
‘In fifteen minutes.’ M’Clung had spent the few moments of their wait at Stranraer in studying the time-table.
‘Good. That’ll just give us time to go to the post office. I want to send a wire.’
His message ran:
‘To Victor Magill, Lurigan, Larne, Co. Antrim.
‘Please wire your present address. Am anxious to see you. Reply King’s Arms Hotel, Stranraer. French.’
Conversation waned between the two men as they travelled to Stranraer and again as they strolled about the town or sat in the lounge of the hotel. French’s mind was full of the suggestive information he had obtained and M’Clung, seeing his companion’s preoccupation, tactfully kept his own counsel.
The double connection between Sir John Magill and the launch party puzzled French completely. That Victor Magill happened to be on a trip along the Scottish coast at the time of his uncle’s death had, if stated alone, no significance whatever. That Joss should be on his way to join a yachting party when he travelled with Sir John also had no significance, even considering the peculiar episode of the adjacent sleeping berths and the false name. But when it turned out that Victor and Joss were members of the same party, that is, that there was a connection between Sir John and the cruise, firstly, through Victor and secondly, through Joss, the relative significance of these facts was profoundly altered.
Was it possible, French wondered, that there could really be any connection between the linen magnate’s death and the yachting trip? It seemed an utterly farfetched idea, and yet …
French considered once again Sir John’s extraordinary actions on the day of his death and the more he did so, the more he felt that any explanation which covered the facts must be extraordinary too. He need not therefore refrain from accepting theories because they were either far-fetched or peculiar. He need not rule out a connection between the murder and Victor’s cruise simply because such a connection seetned absurd.
So far, so good. Assuming that there might have been a connection, what could it consist of?
Not that Sir John could have been murdered by the launch party; they were at Portpatrick at the time of the crime. Of alibis French was usually sceptical, but this was one which admitted of no doubt whatever. It was true that one member of the party, Victor, had not actually been seen at Portpatrick, though he had been heard. While French had no doubt that Victor was there, he took a mental note to make further inquiries into the matter.
But if Sir John had not been actually murdered by the party, were its members not out of the picture? Could any of them be even remotely involved? French thought and thought and thought, and at length found himself forced to the conclusion that they could not. None of the four could have helped to bring about the old man’s death. Except that Joss had acted in a somewhat mysterious way, there was nothing sinister about the cruise. French turned to his companion.
‘What do you make of it, M’Clung?’
The sergeant took his pipe out of his mouth and gave it a little wave.
‘Nothing, Mr French,’ he answered decisively. ‘I think I see what’s been in your mind; that there may be a connection between this launch trip and Sir John’s death. Is that not it, sir?’
French nodded.
‘Well, I thought maybe there was at first, but I don’t think so now. Joss was up to something right enough, but Joss was at Portpatrick when the murder was committed so he couldn’t have done it. And there was nothing to connect Victor with it at all. Besides he was at Portpatrick too. I don’t believe we’ll get anything out of the cruise.’
‘If,’ said French slowly, ‘you see a man coming out of a bar, you have no evidence that he has been drinking. If a man wipes his mouth when passing you on the road, it means nothing.’ M’Clung grinned, but French continued unmoved. ‘But if you see a man coming out of a bar and wiping his mouth; you see? It’s not exactly an original example, but it’s a good one for all that. Now there’s what’s bothering me. It’s the cumulative effect of both Victor and Joss being connected with Sir John and with the cruise, added to Joss’s little games on the journey down. I agree with you that I can’t get a connection between the trip and the murder, but I just don’t feel altogether happy about it. Do you?’
M’Clung felt happy, enough. He was sure they would ‘get nothing out of’ the cruise. But he thought they should have an explanation from Joss before dropping the matter.
‘Well naturally,’ said French. ‘What do you think I wired to Victor for?’
‘Here’s the answer anyway,’ M’Clung returned, as a telegraph boy opportunely appeared at the door.
There were two wires, both for French. The first read:
‘Victor returned to 116B St John’s Wood Road. Malcolm Magill.’
The second:
‘Glad if you could let M’Clung return as soon as possible. Rainey.’
French grunted.
‘Ring up and get a couple of berths reserved for us tonight,’ he directed; ‘mine on the train to town and yours on the steamer for Larne. Then we’ll go and amuse ourselves at this Earl of Stair’s place. No reason why we shouldn’t improve what’s left of our minds. Goodness knows they need it.’