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“And that’s that!” exclaimed Meredith as he carefully replaced the folded sheets in the envelope. “About as conclusive a collection of evidence as one could wish for. I never thought of that inspection-pit when I was searching the outbuildings. Not that it matters a damn either way now, eh, sir?”
“Don’t be too hasty,” warned Major Forest. “You’ve got to check up. You’ve got to see if this confession fits in with every one of the known facts. It rings true. Personally, I think now that there’s no doubt William Rother killed his brother. But you can’t just bring forward that letter, Meredith, and write ‘Finis’ to the case. We ought to corroborate some of his statements with facts. That skull, for instance—the burial of the cabin-trunk. Know where Heath Common is?”
Meredith pulled out his inch-to-a-mile map.
“Soon find out, sir. Yes—here we are, to the north of the village. A pretty extensive stretch of woodland by the look of it.”
“We’ll get out a squad to comb through, anyway. Pity he was so vague about that skull. Curious, too, since he has been so exact in all the other details. ‘A near-by wood’—that’s how he put it, wasn’t it? Might be anywhere. The whole damn’ locality is full of woods. Do our best, Meredith. Can’t do more.”
Meredith nodded and jerked out suddenly: “By the way, sir, there’s another curious point.”
“Eh?”
“Why didn’t anybody detect the odour of burning flesh?”
“You mean from the kiln?”
“Yes—at night.”
“What was the prevalent direction of the wind the week following July 20th?”
“Can’t say off-hand, sir. Kate Abingworth may be able to help us there with old newspapers.” Meredith called down to the advancing figure of Constable Pinn, who was returning from the house after seeing the body stretched out on a sofa in a lower room. “Hi! Pinn! Cut in and ask the housekeeper if she keeps the old newspapers. We want all those from July 22nd to July 28th. Understand?”
“Ay, sir.”
The Chief refilled his pipe and threw his pouch across to Meredith.
“Now—what about the time factor?”
“Fits in,” said Meredith promptly. “If you remember, when I tried to reconstruct the crime with William as the central figure I worked out his movements exactly as he has set them down in his letter.”
“Smart reasoning.”
“Thanks.” Meredith grinned and went on more seriously: “Fact is, sir, apart from a few extra details I seem to have anticipated most of this confession. Luck, I dare say—but important because it makes Rother’s statement seem more genuine. Further—Janet Rother can now more or less be wiped off the slate. I mean her husband’s evidence about what happened on the night of the 25th tallies exactly with her own story. She said she was burning paper on the kiln and William states that he saw the charred remnants of paper. That’s conclusive, isn’t it? Mrs. Rother has told us the truth.”
There was a silence punctuated by the scratch of a match as Meredith lit his pipe and handed the pouch back to Major Forest.
“You’re conveniently forgetting something, Meredith.”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Why did you suddenly abandon the theory that William was the guilty party? At one time you were ready to put your shirt on him as the murderer.”
Meredith let out a violent oath and snapped his fingers.
“The Cloaked Man? You’re right, sir. Clean forgot about him. Where does he enter into the case? Just a matter of coincidence, perhaps, that he was near the scene of the crime that night?”
“Possibly. But a powerful coincidence. Remember that his cloak and hat were found by that kid at Steyning. The cloak subsequently proved to have human blood-stains on it.”
“But Rother has made no provision for him in his statement.”
“Precisely.”
“Which means?”
“As I said before—that this confession needs a lot of careful checking up.” Major Forest looked up as the solid stump of boots approached along the path. “Ah, here’s Pinn. Got them, Constable? Good. Now then Meredith, take a look and let’s have the verdict.”
“What wind there was—due east, sir,” said Meredith after he had carefully gone through the weather-reports.
The Chief tackled the constable.
“Now then, Pinn—if you were standing at the mouth of the kilns and the wind were due east, in which direction would the smoke be blowing?”
“To the west, sir.”
“I know that, you idiot—I mean to which part of the landscape.”
“T’ward Highden Hill, sir. Out over the valley.”
Meredith suddenly recalled the unexpected expanse of countryside which had greeted him when he had first visited the kilns.
“Of course, sir. I remember now. There’s nothing but space to the west of the kilns. Just a deep valley which rises up to the downs on the far side of the main road. I reckon there wouldn’t be a house of any sort for miles in that direction.”
“Hence the fact that the odour was not noticed,” concluded Major Forest glumly.
“By the way,” he added, as the three of them moved down toward the farmhouse, “I’m sending a few of our men out from headquarters this afternoon, Pinn. I want you to meet them at the local station here and take them out to Heath Common.” He turned to Meredith. “What about Mrs. Rother? Will you see her? She doesn’t realize yet that it’s suicide.”
“All right, sir. I’ll have a word with her and meet you at the car. She’ll take it badly, I’m afraid, coming on top of the other upset.”
But Janet Rother seemed to have reached that point where shock so dulls the senses that the mind seems incapable of taking in the full import of events. She accepted the fact of her husband’s suicide, if not without emotion, at least without any unnecessary outward display of feeling. She just sat there nodding, and at the conclusion of the interview thanked Meredith in a quiet voice for his sympathy and showed him out on to the verandah.
Back once more in Lewes the Chief hurried off to a lunch appointment, whilst Meredith slipped into his office before going on to Arundel Road. A memorandum-slip lay on his desk. It was from Rodd at Findon.
Re Rother case. John Rother’s Hillman seen on Findon-Worthing road evening of July 20th. Witness–Harold Bunt, Wisden House, Findon. Knows the Rothers personally. Witness states that at 9.5 p.m. the Hillman passed him about half a mile out of Findon going in direction of village. Car driven by John Rother himself. Emphasize this point as in our last interview you anticipated car might have been driven by man in cloak. Available on ’phone till one o’clock today.
Rodd.
Meredith glanced at his watch. Ten to. He picked up the receiver, stated his number, and was put through to Findon by the internal exchange.
“That you, Rodd? Meredith speaking. Just read your ’phone message. No doubt about this matter, I suppose? Your witness is certain that it was John Rother?”
“Dead certain. He says Rother acknowledged him as he went by. Since then I’ve had corroborative evidence from Wilkins the postman here. He was just clearing the box on the main road when he saw Rother go by in the Hillman. He happens to know Rother well because they’re both on the Washington Flower Show committee. Wilkins lives just inside the parish boundary there.”
“And the time?”
“Just after nine.”
“Excellent.” Meredith was unable to keep the satisfaction out of his voice.
“Yet—but I thought—”
“I know you did, Rodd. But I’ve progressed a bit since then. Thanks. Good-bye.”
So John Rother, coming from the direction of Worthing, had passed through Findon just after nine o’clock. What time had William arranged for that faked rendezvous with his wife? 9.15, wasn’t it? So one would expect John to be passing through the village at the time he was seen.
“One more bit of evidence,” thought Meredith, “to prove the validity of that confession.”
With certain reservations, Meredith could not help feeling that the end of the case was now in sight. It was only necessary to check up on that confession and the investigation could be dropped. The one inexplicable point now seemed to be the furtive behaviour of the strange man in the cloak. Why hadn’t he stopped when the shepherd called out to him? And why had his cloak been found with blood on it? William obviously had no place for him in his meticulously thought-out scheme of things. No confederate was necessary. Yet somehow Meredith found it impossible to dissociate the man’s actions from the murder. Was William Rother holding something back?
Leaving this question in mid-air Meredith returned to his Saturday lunch, determined to put his feet up over the week-end and take a well-deserved rest. Before leaving headquarters, however, he passed on the Chief’s order for the squad to be sent out to Heath Common that afternoon. He also got in touch with the Coroner, and the inquest was arranged for the following Tuesday. At the Coroner’s suggestion it was to be held at the farmhouse, and the usual routine was set in motion for the various witnesses to be subpoenaed and for the calling of a jury.
But Meredith’s luck was ill-starred where that restful week-end was concerned. In the cool of the evening as he was watering the rectangle of lawn in his back garden, his wife came out in a fluster through the french windows and announced that a gentleman had called to see him. With a rare concern she hustled Meredith into his coat, told him to run a comb through his hair, straightened his tie, and preceded him back to the drawing-room. Seated in one of the big plush arm-chairs was Aldous Barnet, the Washington writer of crime stories. He rose, shook hands, and apologized for intruding on the Superintendent’s leisure. Meredith grinned.
“As the author of detective yarns you ought to know that we poor devils don’t have any leisure, sir. We’re like the members of the medical profession—always on tap. Well, Mr. Barnet, what is it? Something important, I reckon, to bring you over here for a personal interview.”
“It is important,” agreed Barnet in a grave voice. “Vital, in fact. It’s to do with the death of William Rother. I only got back to Lychpole at tea-time and found a note from Mrs. Rother. Suicide, eh? What makes you think that?”
Meredith ran briefly through their reasons for this assumption. At the conclusion of his story Barnet pulled a letter out of his pocket and slapped it down on Meredith’s knee.
“If, as you believe, William committed suicide because he felt he was under suspicion, how do you account for that? It arrived by post yesterday morning. Read it.”
Meredith slipped the single typewritten sheet out of the torn envelope.
Dear Barnet [he read],
I am in an awful predicament and don’t know which way to turn for help. As I value your judgment on matters I have decided to take you into my confidence and ask your advice. It concerns the murder of my brother. Terrible as the indictment may sound, I have strong reason to believe that my wife is in some way mixed up with this horrible affair. I was, in fact, the unseen witness of certain of her actions on the night of July 25th—actions which in the light of what came out at the inquest, appear to me both damning and incriminating.
Tell me, Barnet, what am I to do? I am faced with the awful duty of going to the police with this information about my wife. I have wrestled with my conscience, turned things over and over and over in my mind, and still I am incapable of coming to a decision. My wife knows nothing of what I saw that night. On you must rest the onerous task of deciding for me. I will accept your advice without reservation, but I feel I must have this second opinion.
I will make no move until I have heard from you.
Ever yours,
William Rother.
“Well, I’ll be—” began Meredith as he looked up from this extraordinary epistle. “What are we to make of that? What the devil does it mean?”
“It’s hardly the letter of a man who is contemplating suicide, is it?” asked Barnet. “I mean, why let me into this incriminating secret if he intended to kill himself a few hours later? The secret would have died with him. Death would have done away with the necessity of making a decision.”
“Quite.” He decided that it was imperative to take Barnet into his confidence over that confession. As luck would have it, Meredith had brought the document from his office, intending to re-examine it over the week-end. “Before we talk this over, perhaps you will read this, sir.” Meredith held up the confession by one corner. “Do you mind nodding, sir, when you want me to turn over. I’ve got to be careful of extraneous finger-prints.”
There was a long silence. Eventually Barnet looked up.
“Incredible! I can’t make head or tail of William’s state of mind. In this confession he actually draws attention to what he obviously wished to hide. Was he mad? Did he do it? Had the murder unhinged his mind?”
“Did he murder John Rother?” demanded Meredith forcibly. “That’s what we’re up against now. These two letters aren’t consistent.”
Almost unconsciously he spread them out side by side on a near-by table and stood gazing at them. Suddenly he let out a sharp exclamation, caught Barnet by the arm and dragged him over to the table.
“Here, take a close look! Do you notice anything? Anything peculiar?”
Barnet after a careful examination shook his head.
“Both the letters look in order to me.”
“Sure?”
“Well, the two signatures look identical anyway.”
“The signatures—yes. That’s possible even if one of them happens to be a careful fake. It’s the type that interests me.” Meredith went on with the enthusiasm of an expert. “I’ve made a study of typewriting—trained myself to notice little discrepancies in work from the same machine. These letters, for example—I should say that they’re both written by a portable Remington. The Remington, I take it, which I noticed in the farmhouse kitchen. But the ‘touch’ is different. Take the capitals. In one case they’re struck boldly with the full force of the keys. In the other they’re quite faint. In one letter—the confession—the full-stop almost punctures the paper. In the other it’s normal. Notice how in the letter to you the small a is always weak and the small e strongly defined. This doesn’t happen in the confession. Yet in each particular letter these eccentricities are consistent. They occur with the regularity of clockwork. You see what I’m getting at, Mr. Barnet?”
“That the letters were—”
“You’ve got it!” cut in Meredith. “Written by two entirely different people. Which tells us something at once. Something vitally connected with William Rother’s death. In short, one of these letters is faked!”
Aldous Barnet, now caught up in the same excitement, broke in emphatically.
“But which, man? Which? Don’t you see the crucial fact which must accrue from this answer?”
“Of course I do,” snapped Meredith. “That’s what I’ve been leading up to. If William’s note to you is genuine then it’s pretty well certain that he didn’t commit suicide. He couldn’t have written that confession.”
“And if the confession is genuine?”
“Then what, in the name of thunder, was that letter sent to you for, eh? It’s pointless. Ridiculous.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Barnet, obviously delighted at being able to follow the workings of an official mind at first hand. “How are you going to find out which is the real letter?”
“Easy,” smiled Meredith. “Get a sample of William Rother’s typewriting from the same machine and compare it. Have you got a car here?”
“A car!” Barnet laughed. “I’ve got something better than that. A super-charged Alvis sports with a cruising speed of eighty. Any good?”
“I’ll risk it,” grinned Meredith.
Five minutes later the long, lean automobile was roaring toward the parish of Washington, impatient of 30 limits, pedestrians, and subordinate policemen. Barnet glanced at Meredith’s mufti.
“I wish the devil you were in uniform. I’ll have a whole string of summonses served on me for this.”
“All you need worry about, sir, if you don’t mind, is keeping both eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel. I’ve got a wife and child to think of and a murder case!”
In an incredibly short time, it seemed to Meredith, the car swung off the main road and shot up the rutted incline to Chalklands.
“We’ll park the car in the lane and sneak in the back way, if you don’t mind, Mr. Barnet. I don’t want to upset Mrs. Rother any more. Kate Abingworth will be able to give us what we want.”
As the two men entered the kitchen the housekeeper looked up from her solitary supper.
“Oh Lor’, sir, you did give me a turn. Don’t you be telling me that more trouble’s come to pass. My old ’eart couldn’t stand another shock an’ that’s a fact!”
Meredith reassured her and explained the reason for his visit.
“Well, that should be aisy enough, sir. There’s enough letters on poor Mr. Willum’s desk there to paper a ’ouse with. Dare say you’ll find what you want among ’em. Would I call Mrs. Rother?”
“Better not disturb her,” said Meredith. “In fact I should keep quiet about this visit of ours altogether. Understand, Mrs. Abingworth?”
“Ay, sir.”
Striding over to the large table which served as the farmhouse office, Meredith went carefully through one or two files until he found what he was looking for. Curiously enough it was a signed letter, dated the day before, written by William Rother accepting an invitation to attend a special meeting of the Flower Show Committee in place of his brother. The meeting was arranged for the following Tuesday.
“Another point,” whispered Meredith to Barnet, who was reading the letter over his shoulder, “which suggests that William was not contemplating suicide.” Aloud he added: “Well, Mrs. Abingworth, I’ve found what I was after, thanks. I should just like to borrow this typewriter at the same time if I may. Return it in a few days.”
Once seated in the car, stirred by a growing interest and excitement, the three letters were compared.
“Well?” demanded Barnet with impatience, waiting on the expert’s verdict. “Which is the faked document?”
“Which do you think?”
“The letter to me,” said Barnet promptly.
“You’re wrong,” growled Meredith. “We’re all wrong. The whole case is wrong. I’ve got to start all over again. The confession’s false! Though how the devil all those corroborative details were collected and served up like that beats me. Who wrote that confession? Some of the details are proved facts in the case. How did the writer know that? What’s his big idea?”
“Sure you’re right?”
“Dead sure. Look at William’s capitals and full-stops. Look at his l’s and o’s. See how this letter to the Flower Show Committee matches up with that note to you. Point now is, did that confession come off the same machine? It came off a Remington all right, but was it the same Remington?”
“Can you find that out?”
“Yes—under a microscope.”
“In the meantime,” suggested Barnet, “what about coming along to my place for a drink before I drive you back?”
Seated in the long, beamed sitting-room at Lychpole over a couple of whiskies, Barnet inquired: “What exactly can you deduce from these new facts, Mr. Meredith?”
The Superintendent hesitated a moment before answering. The implications were so unexpected and inexplicable that he wondered if it would be politic to discuss them with a mere layman in crime. He had seen in a flash what that faked confession indicated. Other facts hinted. It only needed further facts to prove up to the hilt. But should he tell Barnet? Then, with the realization that in a few days the whole affair would be public knowledge, he asked: “Are you prepared for a shock, Mr. Barnet?”
“Why?”
“Because I can only deduce one terrible thing from these new clues.”
“And that?”
“Your friend, William Rother, was murdered!”
“Murdered? Impossible!”
“Not a bit of it, sir. I wish it were impossible. But just listen here for a moment. We have two good reasons to suppose that William did not do away with himself. First that letter to you, and secondly that letter we found just now up at the farm. A man contemplating suicide would hardly trouble to accept an invitation to a meeting which he knew he wouldn’t attend. Your own letter we discussed before. Apart from that faked confession there seems to be no proved reason why William should want to commit suicide. As we were driving down here in the car I was hard at it approaching his death from a new angle. I remembered, for instance, that the gash in the man’s temple had no chalk-scratches around it, although, according to Dr. Hendley, it was this wound which had caused his death. Now the impact of his head against a chalk boulder, softened as it would be by weather, seemed in my mind incompatible with this fact. Other parts of his person were thick with chalk-dust and scratches. Moreover, the body had not been moved. Why, therefore, should the wounded temple be uppermost? As the body struck the boulder with such terrific force Rother must have been rendered unconscious instantly. How had he managed to turn over? That’s another point in my non-suicide theory. Accident then? But I knew I could rule that theory out at once. The strands of wire were cut, not broken, and we found the pliers with which the job was done.
“Secondly, the body in the case of accident would have half-slid down the cliff and come to rest at the foot of it. Actually the body lay some six feet away from the base of the cliff. So you see, Mr. Barnet, that I’m bound to suspect the other alternative—murder. The confession was faked, the wires were cut, and the pliers left on the ground to suggest that it was suicide. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth. What d’you think of it?”
Aldous Barnet did not quite know what to think. The very suggestion that William had been murdered had shocked him beyond measure. He could follow the Superintendent’s reasoning quite clearly, but somehow, at the back of his mind, he entertained a hope that this reasoning was wrong. Who could have murdered William? And why had he been murdered? He put these questions to Meredith, but the official was not going to air any more of his theories in front of the amateur. After a full discussion of the Rother family, during which Meredith learnt many interesting facts concerning both past and present Rothers, he tactfully suggested that it was time he got back to Lewes. The ins and outs of William’s death were analysed no further. Meredith had dropped the iron shutter of officialdom.
Driving the Superintendent back to Lewes through the moonlit countryside, Barnet asked: “As a police official and a reader of detective fiction, what exactly is your idea about that type of story? You know, I should value your opinion.”
“Well,” said Meredith, flattered to be asked, “I think every yarn should be based on a sense of reality. I mean, let the characters, situations, and the detection have a lifelike ring about ’em. Intuition is all very well, but the average detective relies more on common sense and the routine of police organizations for results. Take this case, for example. The clues have led me all over the place, and quite honestly I’m very little further after a month’s intensive investigation than I was a couple of days after the crime was discovered. That’s normal. Half the work of a detective is not to find out what is but what isn’t! You might remember that fact in your next yarn, sir. As for the crime itself, choose something neat but not gaudy. The gaudy type of murder is more easily found out. The neat, premeditated crime is by far the most difficult to solve and will provide your readers with a load of neat detection. This crime, for instance. There’s a story to be written round the death of John Rother if you only approach it from the right angle. At least that’s my humble opinion.
“I reckon, Mr. Barnet, that you should let your readers know just as much as the police know. That’s only fair. And one up to the reader who can outstrip the police and make an early arrest. Not guess-work, mark you, but a certainty based on proven facts. That’s only fair to us because we can’t arrest a chap just because we think he’s guilty. Of course a thriller’s a different type of story. But when it comes to a proper detective yarn give me something that’s possible, plausible, and not crammed with a lot of nice little coincidences and ‘flashes of intuition’. Things don’t work that way in real life. We don’t work that way. At least, sir, that’s how it seems to me anyway.”