Dead End
On his return to Lewes, Meredith found a note on his desk to say that the Chief would like to see him at the earliest possible moment. The Superintendent smothered an oath of irritation, suppressed all thought of an early retirement to his inevitable high-tea, and knocked on Major Forest’s door.
“Well,” barked the Chief without preliminary, “any further?”
Meredith slowly shook his head.
“More evidence and less daylight, sir. That’s the present situation in a nutshell.”
“Sit down. Take a fill of this. Light your pipe, and post me up to date,” ordered the Major.
With an inward sigh Meredith plunged into a detailed recital of his latest investigations, whilst his superior, every now and then, furiously scribbled a note on his desk-pad. At the conclusion of Meredith’s story the Chief studied these notes for about five minutes in a dead silence, rose, snorted, lit a cigar and dumped himself down again with an even louder snort.
“Hopeless, eh? A damned muddle, eh? Complex, what?” Meredith dolefully agreed. “Yet interesting, Meredith. What about the stains on the cloak? Had them analysed?”
“It’s being done now, sir. I’ve asked them to send the report to you here.”
“Good.” The Chief went on vigorously. “You seem to be faced with three possible suspects now—William and Janet Rother, this unknown fellow in the cloak and broad-brimmed hat. That so, eh?” Meredith nodded. “Tell me—what motive would Janet Rother have in helping the murderer of her brother-in-law?”
“Money,” said Meredith. “She must have known that her husband was the sole heir to John’s estate.”
“But damn it, Meredith—she was in love with the chap! Barnet explained that. It’s common property in the village.”
“That’s not exactly the truth, sir,” corrected Meredith politely. “Barnet said that John was in love with Mrs. Rother, but as far as her feelings were concerned he was uncertain. Don’t you see that a faked-up affair with John Rother would provide her with a nice, plausible alibi if she came under suspicion after his death?”
“There is that, of course,” acknowledged the Chief. “But why should she go to the extent of meeting her brother-in-law at the dead of night with a suit-case in her hand? That couldn’t have been done just to produce an illusion that she was in love with him. The girl had no idea that Kate Abingworth or anybody else would witness this escapade, and without a witness it wouldn’t have helped along her pretended infatuation. No, Meredith. That meeting was genuine all right. But Lord knows why she took that suit-case. Why did she, eh?”
“Can’t say, sir. They both turned up at breakfast the next morning as usual.”
“Precisely. And that argues—what? Not a collaboration between Mrs. Rother and the murderer, but between Mrs. Rother and the man murdered.”
“But confound it, sir!” Meredith felt quite heated on the subject. “Look at the evidence I’ve got to the contrary. That footprint by the kiln. Her chalky shoes. Her appearance a few nights after the crime at the Chalklands drive-gate with a parcel under her arm. That curious walk of hers up on to the downs the evening of the murder.”
“Odd, I agree, but not conclusive proof of her guilt. You’ve got a lot against William. You suspected him strongly, Meredith. Now you don’t. What about that?”
There was a rap on the door and a constable entered with a chit.
“From Dr. Allington, sir.”
When the constable had retired Major Forest slit open the note and read its contents.
“Human blood-stains all right. Strikes me that cloak was a lucky find, Meredith. I can’t help feeling now that this unknown man really did the job, even though William and Janet Rother may have been mixed up in the plot. Unfortunately we know nothing about him and therefore can’t lay a finger on the motive.”
“And I have an idea, sir,” went on Meredith, “that Janet Rother was used as the bait to get John under Cissbury Ring. A note, perhaps, arranging a secret rendezvous. That would be a sure-fire trick to get a romantic chap like John Rother to put in a punctual appearance.”
The Chief agreed. “By the way, that brings me to another flaw in your latest theory. Rother, if he had gone direct from the farmhouse to Bindings Lane as you now suspect, would have arrived there about 6.30. The Cloaked Man plus Janet Rother arrive there at 7.30 to pick up the dismembered portions of the body. You know, Meredith, I can’t help feeling that it would take more than an hour for your murderer to kill John and perform his gruesome operations. Professor Blenkings’ skeleton shows a tremendous number of points where the bones were sawn through. Even if your man was an expert I doubt if he could have done it in the time.”
“Strengthening your theory,” suggested Meredith, “that Janet Rother had nothing to do with the actual murder?”
“Quite. I still think you have more reason to suspect William as the collaborator than his wife. In any case you’d better ask that young lady a few leading questions. Her answers should give you some idea whether she’s got a guilty conscience or not.”
“I intended to go out to Chalklands first thing tomorrow, sir. It’s too late now.”
Major Forest laughed.
“Thinking of that high-tea of yours, Meredith? When you’re one of the Big Five the newspapers will seize on that high-tea and make it as famous as Baldwin’s pipe. Well, I won’t keep you from it. I know your wife is a demon for punctuality.”
Meredith joined in the laugh against his very human weakness and cleared out of the building as quickly as he could, making for Arundel Road. His son Tony had now developed an entirely new set of theories to fit the case. He aired them over the tea-table. According to Tony, John Rother had been “slain” (to use his pet expression) by a member of the Russian Ogpu because he was writing a secret treatise on the Soviet atrocities during the Revolution. It transpired after a time that Tony had just read a sensational article on the subject in a lurid weekly, but Meredith could not help feeling that Tony might have been quite as near to the mark as he was himself. He had evidence of sorts, quite a lot of evidence, but somehow none of it seemed to piece together and make sense. He hoped his interview with Janet Rother would tighten things up a bit.
He found her the next morning lounging in a deck-chair under an ash tree, reading a novel. She accepted his unexpected appearance with perfect calm, offered him a cigarette from her own case, and told him to fetch another chair from the verandah. She seemed to have regained a perfectly normal outlook on life. All the strain had vanished from her features, leaving her ready to deal with Meredith as if he had been a family friend dropping in for a little informal chat.
Meredith jumped his first question on her without preliminary.
“Tell me, Mrs. Rother, what were you doing out on the drive late at night on the Thursday following the murder of your brother-in-law?”
“Late at night?” She smiled as if a little bewildered by the suddenness of this cross-examination.
“Yes—with a parcel under your arm.”
“Oh, that!” She laughed and took a leisured puff at her cigarette. “I was destroying some incriminating evidence, Mr. Meredith.”
“What on earth do you mean?” snapped Meredith. “Don’t forget that a police investigation is a serious matter to people concerned in it.”
“Quite. That’s why I’m going to tell you the truth. I don’t know how you found out and I won’t be so tactless as to ask. I’ll just tell you exactly what I was doing.”
She paused for a moment, looked at the tip of her cigarette, blew off the ash, and went on in measured tones: “I dare say you’ve already heard a lot of gossip about poor John and I? Some of it true, some of it gross exaggeration. John was unfortunately one of those men who are quite incapable of hiding the fact when they’re in love with a girl. I say unfortunately, Mr. Meredith, because in this case I was the girl. You’ve heard rumours perhaps?”
Meredith nodded.
“It was very stupid of me. I see that now. But I was rather flattered by John’s attentions, although I realized it might cause a lot of trouble where my husband was concerned. During the time that John and I were—well, how shall I put it?—playing this game of make-believe, I kept a diary, an intimate record of all our outings and meetings. It was all part of the game to me, because frankly I can’t ever look upon it as more than that. John was serious perhaps. He had that kind of nature. But I was sort of acting the part and then sitting back to enjoy my own performance. You see how I mean? When I learned that poor John had met with some sort of tragedy I was worried about that diary of mine. I didn’t know that particular Thursday night that John had been murdered, because the inquest had not been held. I argued rather like this—if by any awful chance John has been murdered and if anybody ever came across this diary of mine, they would immediately suspect that my husband had committed the crime through reasons of jealousy.”
“Quite an understandable supposition,” agreed Meredith, who was deeply interested in the girl’s explanation. “Well?”
“Well, late that Thursday night I crept out of the house, went to the kiln, and burnt the diary.”
“But why choose the kiln?”
“Because in the summer the only other alternative was the kitchen-range, and I didn’t want to run the risk of interruption from Mrs. Abingworth or Judy.”
“I see. How big was the diary?”
“Oh, the usual pocket size.”
“Then why was the parcel under your arm so very much bulkier than that?” rapped out Meredith. “I know that it was. You can’t deny it.”
“I don’t. I decided that as I was going to destroy the diary I might as well clear my desk of a lot of private correspondence and burn that too. I wrapped the whole lot in a piece of brown paper.”
“You realize now, of course, how dangerous your action was in the light of what the police discovered later?”
“Of course. I was worried to death about it at first. Then later I began to realize that if I told the truth everything would be all right. I know it happens to be an almost unbelievable coincidence, but I’ve got enough faith in your judgment, Mr. Meredith, to know that you will believe me.”
Meredith smiled, but without humour.
“I must, Mrs. Rother—unless I can prove things to be otherwise than you have stated.” He went on after a moment’s reflection: “Was that the only occasion you went to the kiln?”
“Of course.”
“Then how do you account for the fact that on several days running your walking-shoes were coated with chalk-dust?”
Janet laughed and replied in bantering tones: “Because up here at the farm we are living on a mountain of chalk. You can’t walk anywhere without picking up the wretched stuff. You must have noticed this yourself, Mr. Meredith.”
Meredith made no answer to this suggestion, but switched over to another angle of approach.
“On July 20th, Mrs. Rother, you say that you walked up to Chanctonbury Ring and back after your brother-in-law had left in the Hillman.”
“That’s right.”
“Did anybody see you on the hill?”
“Possibly. I don’t really remember.”
“Supposing it was vital for you to produce a witness who could swear to have seen you that evening, could you do so?”
Janet hesitated, looked uncomfortable, and then shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
Meredith glanced down at his open notebook.
“On July 13th, Mrs. Rother, a week before the tragedy, did you by any chance meet your brother-in-law on this lawn late at night?”
“Meet John late at night! What utter nonsense!” Janet broke into a ripple of unaffected laughter. “Where on earth did you get that idea from, Mr. Meredith?”
“You deny it?”
“Utterly. It’s absolute nonsense. Malicious gossip—that’s all. I can’t understand how these absurd rumours get about.”
“Thanks,” said Meredith, pushing himself up out of his chair. “I’m sorry to have bothered you with all this but it’s a very necessary part of our routine. Before I go there is just one other matter on which I should like a little information—a personal matter, Mrs. Rother. You’re not bound to answer the question, though I assure you that I could find out the answer in the long run from a reliable source.” (A boast which Meredith could have in no way substantiated.) “At present I understand that your husband is the sole heir to his brother’s estate. In the case of your husband’s death to whom would the money go? To you, I take it?”
Janet nodded, entirely misled by the Superintendent’s prevarication.
“Unless a codicil has been added to my husband’s will without my knowledge—that is the arrangement—yes.”
Satisfied that he could expect nothing more from the interview, Meredith again thanked the girl for her co-operation, bade her good-bye and got into his car, which was parked in front of the verandah.
On the homeward run, turning over all the evidence in his mind, he felt that he was now at a dead end. He had explored every avenue of investigation and in every case been brought up short by a blank wall. If Janet Rother had been telling lies then she was certainly a superlative liar. If not, then suspicion must swing back once more to her husband and the Cloaked Man.
After lunch at Arundel Road, Meredith returned to his desk and spent the afternoon catching up with the arrears of routine work which had accumulated since the opening of the Rother case. Half that night he lay awake trying to disentangle a few certainties from a confused mass of possibilities, parading the details in his mind and examining each one with the eye of an expert engaged in the job of selecting a genuine masterpiece from a collection of fakes. He returned to headquarters next morning tired, disgruntled, ready to jump on his subordinates’ slightest faults, sick to death of the whole confounded investigation.
When the ’phone-bell rang on his desk he picked up the receiver with a muttered “Damn their eyes!” and snapped out “Yes—what the devil is it now?”
“Toll call just come through for you, sir,” said the level voice of the constable on duty. “Refuses to give a name. Must speak to you direct. Shall I switch them over?”
“If you must,” growled Meredith, settling himself more comfortably in his chair to take the message.
“Hullo—yes. Meredith speaking. What’s that? Who? Yes—I’ve got that. What’s the trouble? What! Good heavens—when?” He was no longer sprawling in his chair, but sitting bolt upright, tense, interested, rapping out his questions with his brain working overtime. “When did you make the discovery? Yourself. I see. Nothing been touched, I take it? Good. I’ll ring through to your local station and get Pinn to come up at once. Yes, I’ll be over myself just as soon as I can make it. Terrible shock for you—you had no idea, of course, that anything like this might happen? No—I must confess it’s given me a pretty considerable jar too. Totally unexpected. Well, I won’t waste time. I’ll get through to Pinn at once. Good-bye.”
As Meredith, now alight with a new energy, swung away from the ’phone, Major Forest stamped into the room and took up a dictatorial position by the fire-place.
“Look here, Meredith—I’ve been chewing things over. Last night, in fact—at it for hours. Got a damned headache now. But here’s the result for what it’s worth. Taking into consideration all the evidence, it’s obvious to me that William Rother was an accessory both before and after the fact. Can’t get away from the evidence. You’re bound to keep him on your list of suspects. No, don’t interrupt, Meredith. You see, if you consider the fact that—What the devil is it? Are you sitting on a tack or what? Come on, man, out with it! What’s the matter with you?”
“William Rother, sir.”
“Well—you agree, eh? Under suspicion, eh?”
“Maybe, sir,” said Meredith slowly, “but we can never make an arrest.”
“What on earth do you mean ‘Never make an arrest’? Why not?”
“Because,” said Meredith grimly—“because William Rother was found dead this morning at the foot of the chalk-pit out at the farmhouse. His wife’s just rung through.”