THE church bells were ringing next morning when Gore passed out through the front door of the Riverside to survey from its steps approvingly the as yet immaculate whiteness of a snow-wrapt world upon which the sun shone dazzlingly. Behind him in the hall, Percival and the hall-porter gazed speculatively at an elaborate apparatus which had arrived late on the preceding afternoon from Messrs. Wright and Hardman, the photographers in the Mall. The hall-porter had never seen such a large camera before; and after some contemplation of it he went out on to the steps to inform Colonel Gore respectfully of the fact.
‘One of my boys goes in for it a bit, sir,’ he explained. ‘I expect he’ll be out this morning with his camera, like a good many more. Always is a lot out with their cameras when we get a bit of snow. Though it’s animals my boy goes in for mostly. I suppose you did a lot of photographing when you were in Africa, sir. I see that film of yours—’
He paused as Dr Melhuish’s car, its brasses winking violently in the sunlight, came round the corner out of Aberdeen Place and drew up at the foot of the Riverside’s steps.
‘This for you, sir?’
‘Yes. Dr Melhuish has kindly lent me his car for this morning. Can you get that stuff aboard for me?’
While the hall porter and Percival carried down the camera and its stand and several plate-packs, and deposited them in the car, Gore descended the steps with a pleasant nod in return to the chauffeur’s salute.
‘Good-morning, Thomson,’ he explained. ‘I want to try to get some pictures before this sun thaws things out too much.’
‘Yes, sir. So the doctor told me.’
‘I rather think of trying the glens running down towards the river.’
‘Beside Valley Road, sir?’
‘Yes. Let’s have a look round there first. All in, Percival?’
‘All in, sir.’
The powerful car purred up Albemarle Hill, swung left-hand across Linwood Gardens, and descended the long, curving sweep of the Promenade. As it approached the Fountain Gore leaned forward.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll try that path along the edge of the cliffs. I ought to get some pretty bits along there. Carry on up the hill. Left, then.’
‘Right, sir.’
Save for a few early Sabbath morning strollers, black against the snow, the expanse of the Downs was deserted. At the top of Fountain Hill the car turned left-hand, and a couple of hundred yards farther towards the river, drew up, in accordance with Gore’s directions, at the head of the narrow winding path which led back through the wilderness of thorn and gorse-bush towards Prospect Rock. Gore got out, lighted a cigarette, and possessed himself of the camera and its stand.
‘Now, how am I going to manage those plate-packs?’ he mused. ‘I wonder if you’d mind fetching them along for me, Thomson. The car will be all right here, won’t it?’
‘I suppose so, sir,’ said the chauffeur, rather dubiously. ‘I hardly like leaving her.’
‘Oh, she’ll be all right,’ Gore assured him. ‘I shan’t be going farther back than the Rock.’
‘Very well, sir.’
As they made their way along the rocky path—treacherous going that morning—Gore turned his head to take in with appreciation the beauty of the view across the gorge. The sky was gladdest blue. Against its gladness the sombre winter woods that crested the opposite ridges made a pleasing note of contrast. The russets and grays of the gashed cliffs that descended precipitously to the river, always admirable, were that morning delightfully diversified by clinging patches of snow. The river, in flood and swirling blackly for a while between white banks, twisted abruptly and dramatically into fullest sunshine as it swept round the foot of the cliffs to westward for a space. The gulls wheeled and swooped in the sunlight. A cargo-boat, dropping cautiously downstream, supplied the requisite point of human animation. The effect, Gore thought, was quite Norwegian that morning.
‘Rather topping, isn’t it?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Ever been in Norway, Thomson?’
‘No, sir.’
A pale, spectacled young man in very dark clothes came up the path, aimed a small Kodak at the scenery hurriedly, and went on his way.
‘I’m not the only pebble on the beach,’ Gore remarked pleasantly. ‘Ever done any photography, Thomson? I suppose you have—like everybody else. Now, I rather think that when we get round the next bend there’s a rather striking bit—’
The path, turning aside sharply as it touched the very verge of the precipice at their right hand, became a mere staircase of footholds in the flank of the outcropping ridge known as Prospect Rock. As they came in view of this slight eminence, a man rose from the seat placed there at the inner side of the path for the benefit of sightseers, and stood against the sky in the narrow passage between the railing and the bushes, looking down at them. At sight of that tall figure the chauffeur halted.
‘Mr Arndale, sir—’ he said doubtfully, perceiving that Gore had turned about and was regarding him with a curious intentness. Gore nodded gravely, and stood aside to allow him to pass to the front.
‘Yes. Carry on, Thomson. You can put those things down by that seat on top. No … Don’t do anything foolish. I’ve got a man behind. Carry on to Mr Arndale.’
Thomson cast a swift glance behind him, and saw, some thirty yards back along the path, a sturdy and very determined-looking individual armed with a stout stick, who barred his retreat in that direction. At one side was a dense tangle of thorn-bushes through which flight at any speed was an impossibility. At the other was the railing and a sheer drop of three hundred feet.
‘What the hell’s this?’ he demanded.
‘Carry on,’ Gore repeated blandly. ‘We’ll discuss all that in a moment. If you want a scrap, you can have it—with pleasure. But you haven’t a dog’s chance, you know.’
It took Thomson some further moments of calculation to convince himself of the truth of that statement. Finally, however, he did accept it, with a calmness which extorted Gore’s admiration. Not the faintest stir of emotion pierced through his self-control as he faced Arndale’s contemptuous greeting at the summit.
‘You’re a pretty scoundrel,’ his former employer broke forth.
‘And you?’ he retorted coolly.
With a gesture Gore checked Arndale’s angry rejoinder.
‘Let’s have this out quietly. Now, first of all, Thomson—before we sit down—will you just show us this bower of love in which you and Miss Rodney were sitting about ten o’clock—I believe I am exact enough in saying ten o’clock—on the night of February the third, nineteen-nineteen? Where is that—to begin with?’
Thomson stared.
‘Who the hell told you about that?’ he asked. ‘That—?’
‘Now, now. No flowers of speech, Thomson, please. All we want is a plain, unvarnished narrative. And understand this. That’s all we do want. Nothing more. You understand? Absolutely nothing more. You may swing for what you’ve done—you deserve to. But that’s not our business. At least we’re going to assume that it isn’t. Understand? There is not the slightest use in calling Miss Rodney names. She has, I admit, given you away as thoroughly as it is in her power to give you away; it’s only fair to tell you that. But you must realise that she finds herself in the awkward position of an accessory after the fact. You must make allowances for her. Now, where is this nesting-place she has told me about? I seem to remember that there are a good many of them hereabouts, amongst these bushes. You won’t tell us? Very well, then, we’ll take that for granted for the moment. Sit down there, on that seat.’
Again Thomson’s narrowed eyes made a swift calculation. Then, with a shrug, he obeyed.
‘Certainly.’
A nursemaid and two rosy-cheeked children came up the path and passed the three men as they seated themselves. The nursemaid lingered a moment to look down timorously over the railings into the abyss below, holding her charges each by a hand. Then, after a curious glance about her, reminiscent, no doubt, of the recent tragedy, she turned about and went back in the direction from which she had come. The children, excited by the snow and the slipperiness of the path, laughed and babbled joyously.
‘Now, let us start from that night,’ Gore said, when the little party had passed out of earshot, ‘the night of February the third, nineteen-nineteen. At that time you were in Mr Arndale’s employment as chauffeur. You were also, I understand, carrying on, more or less, with Miss Rodney. I believe there was some talk of your marrying her at that time—however, the point is not of importance. The pertinent fact is that on that night you took her for a walk, as you seem to have been in the habit of doing just then, brought her up here, and sat with her in this bower of bliss amongst the bushes. While you were in there, so Miss Rodney has informed me, you saw Mr Arndale come along this path. Your bower of bliss must have been very close to the path—otherwise you could hardly have recognised him at ten o’clock on a February night. But perhaps you heard his voice. At any rate, you recognised him. He was accosted just here by a woman—’
‘He accosted her,’ said Thomson.
Arndale shrugged his shoulders, and Gore passed the point.
‘At all events, he spoke to a woman and a woman spoke to him. Then a man appeared on the scene, and the woman cleared off. The man made a certain accusation against Mr Arndale, and Mr Arndale struck him and knocked him down. He got up—or tried to get up—and Mr Arndale struck him again. He caught Mr Arndale by the legs and pulled him down, and they fought for a bit on the ground. Then Mr Arndale got an arm free and struck him again, and he slipped under the railing and went over the edge of the cliff. I don’t know exactly how much of all this you saw—but that, Mr Arndale informs me, is what happened.’
‘More or less,’ commented Thomson coolly. ‘It’s a matter of phrases and words. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by simply saying that Mr Arndale threw the chap over the cliff.’
‘You suggest—deliberately?’
‘I say deliberately.’
‘It’s a lie,’ broke out Arndale. ‘I meant only to get clear of him. I didn’t know we were so close to the railing. If you thought I had murdered the man—deliberately thrown him over—why did you say nothing about it? Why did you remain in my service?’
Thomson laughed.
‘I had a good job. I wasn’t in a hurry to lose it. Besides, I always had an idea it might pay me better to hold my tongue.’
‘Oh? You had that idea before you came across Mr Barrington, had you?’ Gore asked. ‘That’s rather interesting. Well, now, let us get on to your association with Mr Barrington.’
‘I never had any association with him.’
‘Oh, yes, you had. You left Mr Arndale’s employment at the beginning of June, nineteen-nineteen, and went from him to Mr Harry Kinnaird, at 26 Hatfield Place. Now, Mr Barrington had just moved into 27 Hatfield Place then. I presume he had a car at that time—and I presume that you must have begun to look after his car for him very shortly after you went to Mr Kinnaird. If I’m wrong, please say so. Miss Rodney has supplied me with a good deal of information—but there are gaps. Now, when did your intimacy with Barrington reach such a stage that you were able to discuss with him this affair of Mr Arndale’s up here on the night of February the third?’
‘I never discussed it with him. I was never intimate with Mr Barrington.’
‘Yes, you were. Some time or other before the beginning of September of that year, nineteen-nineteen, either you or Miss Rodney must have told Barrington what you had seen that night. Because it was at the beginning of September of that year that Barrington began to blackmail Mr Arndale. According to Miss Rodney’s account, you and she and Barrington frequently discussed what you had seen—though she denies positively that she knew anything whatever about the blackmail scheme—’
‘It was she who first suggested it to me, the—,’ said Thomson. ‘She was carrying on then with Barrington—though I didn’t find that out until a bit after that. He got her to make the suggestion to me. It was Barrington’s idea from beginning to end. I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Come, come. He was paying you considerable sums of money regularly from that September onwards. Why was he doing that? You don’t suggest that he paid you something like five hundred a year regularly, merely for looking after his car in your spare time?’
‘How do you know he was paying me considerable sums of money, as you call them?’
Gore smiled.
‘Well, someone whose initials were F. T. was getting them, you know. By the way, that reminds me. If you’ve got any more collars or things that are still marked F. T., I should alter those F’s to A’s myself, if I were you. That is, if you think it at all worth while. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t quite certain that you were F. T. until I discovered that Miss Rodney had been busy with her marking-ink.’
‘Some Sherlock Holmes,’ laughed Thomson placidly. ‘I might have known that slut would give me away.’
‘I quite agree,’ said Gore, with conviction. ‘Very well, then. From September, nineteen-nineteen, this nice little arrangement went on quite smoothly until just the other day. Barrington took the risk, and you received a dividend on the profits. I said quite smoothly, but, as a matter of fact, it didn’t go on quite smoothly, did it? There was some little ill-feeling over Miss Rodney, wasn’t there? Barrington had cut you out there completely, I understand. Also, you began to think that your dividends were not large enough—considering that you had supplied the capital, so to speak—the information upon which the bleeding of Mr Arndale depended. You had some sort of row, finally, with Barrington—at the end of October of this year—a row which ended with his death on the night of November the sixth, in Aberdeen Place. Now, why did you kill Barrington, Thomson—exactly?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘Oh, yes, you did.’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ Thomson repeated doggedly. ‘The swine had bad heart-disease. We had a bit of a row, and he got excited and drew a knife on me. I took it from him—and then I found he was dead. I swear it was his rotten heart killed him—nothing I did to him.’
‘If you believed that, why didn’t you get a policeman? Why did you do what you did? Why did you take him away and hide him that night and get rid of him the way you did next day? If you believed that, why were you so afraid of Frensham that you killed him, too, to silence his tongue? Why did you take the pains to get hold of a knife like the one you had used for the first job—the one that had done the first job so expeditiously? Nonsense, man. You knew—you know as well in your heart of hearts that you took Barrington’s life as you know that you took Frensham’s here … between this seat and that railing there. Mind, I don’t say you killed Barrington deliberately. I don’t believe you did.’
‘I’ve told you twice already that I didn’t kill him,’ Thomson said once more impatiently. ‘He got a scratch on his hand from the knife. But that couldn’t have killed him. I didn’t want to kill the blighter. Why should I? Here—as you’ve found out so much, you may as well know the lot. Barrington was to have paid me fifty pounds on the last day of October. He didn’t pay it. He kept putting me off with one excuse or another, and I wanted the money. He had promised it without fail for that Monday, and I was determined to have it. I knew he was dining at Dr Melhuish’s house that night, so I waited outside the house until he came out—with you.’
‘Where did you wait for him?’ Gore asked.
‘Down the area steps of an empty house, five or six doors from Dr Melhuish’s. We talked there for a bit under a lamp, and then he asked me to go to this house with him. I went, and we had a drink or two. He was in a hell of a temper because his missus was out, and he gave me the benefit of it. But he said that he was to get a hundred and fifty that night from Mrs Melhuish and that I should have my fifty out of it next morning. I said that wasn’t good enough, and that I’d go with him and wait for him. He changed, and went to Aberdeen Place in his car, and he told me to wait for him over by the bar at the back of the Riverside. He was to meet a friend there, he said—Frensham was the friend—and he was to come across there as soon as he’d got the money from Mrs Melhuish. I went to the door beside the bar and whistled, and Betty opened the door and asked me where Barrington was. Frensham was with her, and I spoke to them for a moment or so, and they asked me to go in and have a drink. But I wanted to keep an eye on Barrington, so I went back to Aberdeen Place again and waited at the top of the area steps of the empty house. While I was waiting there some chap came up Aberdeen Place from Albemarle Hill and stopped outside Dr Melhuish’s house. Barrington must have left the hall door open, for the chap just pushed it open and went in. After a moment he came out again, and went across into Selkirk Place.’
‘Any idea who he was?’ Gore asked.
‘No. It was too foggy then to see him clearly. He was a big fellow. I thought, when I saw him going in, that there was trouble coming to Barrington.’
‘Well—after that?’
‘After that I waited for a little while, and then I went down to Dr Melhuish’s door. It was standing open a little, and I heard Barrington—’
‘Don’t bother about that. I know what you heard. After a little while Barrington came out. Then, I suppose, you asked him for this money—this fifty pounds he owed you?’
‘Yes. He said that he had been paid by cheque, and that he couldn’t give me the money then. I knew that was a lie, and we had a row. He threatened me with that poisoned knife—’
‘How did you know it was poisoned?’
‘I heard Mrs Melhuish telling him some yarn about it—or him telling her one. I forget which. But one or other of them said it was poisoned.’
‘A yarn? You don’t believe it was poisoned? Now—why? Did it fail to work so expeditiously the second time you used it?’
To that Thomson made no reply.
‘Where did you hide Barrington and his car that night? In your own garage, of course?’
‘Yes.’
‘Curious what a long time it has taken me to find that out.’ Gore smiled grimly. ‘And yet I knew that Mr and Mrs Kinnaird and the family were away, and that there was no one in the house but yourself and an old housekeeper. I believe you were kind enough to supply me with that information yourself. Curious.’
A couple of elderly men of the shopkeeper class in their Sunday clothes, followed by two puffed fat women in furs, came up the path and paused in front of the seat.
‘Must ’ave been travelling at some speed when ’e ’it them rocks,’ one of the men remarked, when he had looked down over the railing.
‘Well,’ said the other, ‘say it’s three hundred feet. A fallin’ body acquires an acceleration of, what’s it?—thirty-two feet a second, isn’t it? Well, you can work it out from that. You got to take the mean velocity for each second. Well, say ’e fell sixteen feet in the first second—thirty-two and sixty-four’s ninety-six, half of that—forty-eight feet in the second second—sixty-four an’ ninety-six’s ’undred and sixty, ’alf of that—eighty—lemme see—sixteen, forty-eight, eighty … that’s ’undred an’ forty-four … and so on. You can work it out quite simple. S’pose ’e was travellin’ a good ’undred and fifty miles an hour when ’e landed, any’ow.’
The women, squinting at their powdered noses, made little noises of appreciation.
‘I never knew such a ’ead for figures as ’Enry’s got,’ said one of them. ‘I always say ’e’s wasted in the tobacconist’s business. W’ere was it they found the blood, ’Enry?’
Henry prodded the snow in various carefully selected places. For a moment the party was thrilled by the appearance of a reddish stain beneath the ferule of his stick. Discovering, however, that it was due to a fragment of crumbled sandstone, the second man, visibly a little resentful of Henry’s head for figures, uttered a loud and derisive laugh.
‘Wot’s ticklin’ you now?’ demanded Henry coldly.
‘Me?’ said the other, smiling irritatingly at the view. ‘S’pose I can laugh if I want to, can’t I? Don’t be so touchy.’
‘Touchy?’ retorted Henry. ‘’Oo’s touchy?’
‘Now, now … don’t let us ’ave no more argy-bargyin’,’ urged Henry’s wife. ‘Kickin’ up a piblic row on Sunday mornin’—’
The party went on their way, grumbling and slipping as they descended from the little plateau. Thomson laughed with cynical amusement.
‘Other people get much more value out of these little affairs, don’t they? How long more have I got to sit here?’
‘Not very long,’ Gore assured him.
‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Thanks so much. Well, now you’d like to know about Frensham, I suppose.’
‘Before we come to that—again as a matter of curiosity—you drove Barrington’s car back the following afternoon to Aberdeen Place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had you any special reason for leaving it just where you left it?’
‘Yes, of course. If the knife had killed him … and if it were found … well, it belonged to Melhuish. If he had simply died of heart disease—there was a chance that the whole thing might blow over quietly. I knew he was to have gone to Melhuish that Tuesday afternoon about his heart. He had told me so himself, while I was with him at his house the night before.’
‘I see. Very carefully thought out.’
‘Oh, yes. I thought it out pretty carefully.’
‘Well, then—about Frensham? Frensham and Miss Rodney, she tells me, actually saw you and Barrington having this tussle. Did they see you putting him into the car and driving away with him?’
‘No, they didn’t actually see that. The car was over in Aberdeen Place. The fog was too thick to see across there from where they were. But Frensham suspected at once—in fact, he knew at once.’
‘So he began to threaten you. Why? In order to get money out of you?’
‘Yes. He knew that Barrington was to have got that hundred and fifty from Mrs Melhuish that night—and he guessed, of course, that I had it.’
‘You had it?’
‘Oh, yes. I had it. I have it. You’ll find it in my box—all but two quid.’
‘Thanks. Frensham, then, began to threaten you, because you wouldn’t give up this money. Now, let us come to last Saturday evening. You had thought out everything most carefully again, hadn’t you? You had got the knife—you had selected the place. How did you induce Frensham to come up here—to this lonely place—in the dark—with you?’
‘Simply promised him what he wanted—half that hundred and fifty. He thought he could bluff the lot out of me, then.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘Just by the Fountain.’
‘By arrangement?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
‘I offered him fifty, and we argued the matter out. He didn’t know the Downs. He came up here like a lamb, arguing the whole way along. It was quite simple.’
‘I see. Thanks very much, Thomson. Now, first of all, I want to leave Mr Arndale out at his house across the Downs. Then you’ll drive me to Dr Melhuish’s and put up the car. After that … you are your own master. I have only one warning to give you. And that is this: if you give anyone any trouble—you understand what I mean by those words?—if you give anyone any trouble whatever—no matter what it may cost me or anyone else, I’ll hang you. Now, come along.’
The three men went back silently along the path to the car, passing Stevens, whose disappointment at so tame an ending to the interview expressed itself in an incredulous ‘Wash out, sir?’ as the party went by in single file.
‘Yes, you can bung off, Stevens,’ Gore nodded. ‘I’m going across the Downs with Mr Arndale. I shall be back to lunch.’
Arndale, who, after his first angry outburst, had preserved a moody silence, hesitated before he followed Gore into the back of the car.
‘What about the girl?’ he asked morosely. ‘What guarantee have we that she won’t talk?’
‘None whatever,’ Gore said simply, ‘except her knowledge of the consequences for herself if she does. I’ve explained them to her pretty thoroughly. And that’s really all I or anybody else can do.’
Thomson, who had now started his engine, turned about in his seat.
‘How did you find her?’ he asked. ‘I should just like to know that.’
‘Sorry. I’m afraid you must continue wondering about that, Thomson.’
‘Did you find her—or did she go to you, Arndale? Tell me that.’
‘We found her,’ said Gore. ‘You made the job quite simple for us. Carry on.’
It was not until they had covered nearly half a mile of the straight stretch of road skirting the cliffs at the western fringe of Linwood Down, that Arndale’s eyes turned from their dejected gaze across the gorge to look ahead with uneasiness to the sharply curving S, towards the first loop of which he car was rushing at a pace which had attracted Gore’s attention also.
‘Steady,’ he called out. ‘Don’t drive so fast.’
Thomson made some inaudible response over his shoulder, and slackened speed slightly. But immediately Gore saw him open the throttle again stealthily, and they took the first bend of the S at something closer to forty miles an hour than was at all comfortable. The car executed a mighty skid in the snow, plunged back across the road, straightened, and then hurtled at headlong speed towards the low wall that guarded the road at its most dangerous turn. Arndale rose to his feet.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’ll have us over the cliffs.’ He leant forward and struck Thomson on the shoulder heavily. ‘Pull her up,’ he shouted, ‘Pull her up, you damned fool.’
Thomson turned and laughed up into his face.
‘Don’t be nervous, old cock,’ he said contemptuously. ‘We’re all going home together.’
At that Arndale, after a panic-stricken glance towards the death that was rushing to meet them, turned and scrambled over the back of the car as Gore vaulted into the vacant front seat and grabbed the wheel. For a crazy fifty yards the car swung madly from side to side of the road. A bare six feet from the wall it swung about on two wheels, performed a somersault, and then lay extraordinarily still. A solitary figure, half a mile away across the snow, took off his hat and began to run, his dog barking joyously at his heels.