寓所谜案24

Twenty-three

On the way back, I proposed to Griselda that we should make a detour andgo round by the barrow. I was anxious to see if the police were at workand if so, what they had found. Griselda, however, had things to do athome, so I was left to make the expedition on my own.

I found Constable Hurst in charge of operations.

“No sign so far, sir,” he reported. “And yet it stands to reason that this isthe only place for a cache.”

His use of the word cache puzzled me for a moment, as he pronouncedit catch, but his real meaning occurred to me almost at once.

“Whatimeantersay is, sir, where else could the young woman be goingstarting into the wood by that path? It leads to Old Hall, and it leads here,and that’s about all.”

“I suppose,” I said, “that Inspector Slack would disdain such a simplecourse as asking the young lady straight out.”

“Anxious not to put the wind up her,” said Hurst. “Anything she writesto Stone or he writes to her may throw light on things—once she knowswe’re on to her, she’d shut up like that.”

Like what exactly was left in doubt, but I personally doubted MissGladys Cram ever being shut up in the way described. It was impossible toimagine her as other than overflowing with conversation.

“When a man’s an h’impostor, you want to know why he’s an h’im-postor,” said Constable Hurst didactically.

“Naturally,” I said.

“And the answer is to be found in this here barrow—or else why was heforever messing about with it?”

“A raison d’être for prowling about,” I suggested, but this bit of Frenchwas too much for the constable. He revenged himself for not understand-ing it by saying coldly:

“That’s the h’amateur’s point of view.”

“Anyway, you haven’t found the suitcase,” I said.

“We shall do, sir. Not a doubt of it.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I’ve been thinking. Miss Marple said it wasquite a short time before the girl reappeared empty-handed. In that case,she wouldn’t have had time to get up here and back.”

“You can’t take any notice of what old ladies say. When they’ve seensomething curious, and are waiting all eager like, why, time simply fliesfor them. And anyway, no lady knows anything about time.”

I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalize. General-izations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate. I havea poor sense of time myself (hence the keeping of my clock fast) and MissMarple, I should say, has a very acute one. Her clocks keep time to theminute and she herself is rigidly punctual on every occasion.

However, I had no intention of arguing with Constable Hurst on thepoint. I wished him good afternoon and good luck and went on my way.

It was just as I was nearing home that the idea came to me. There wasnothing to lead up to it. It just flashed into my brain as a possible solution.

You will remember that on my first search of the path, the day after themurder, I had found the bushes disturbed in a certain place. They proved,or so I thought at the time, to have been disturbed by Lawrence, bent onthe same errand as myself.

But I remembered that afterwards he and I together had come upon an-other faintly marked trail which proved to be that of the Inspector. Onthinking it over, I distinctly remembered that the first trail (Lawrence’s)had been much more noticeable than the second, as though more thanone person had been passing that way. And I reflected that that was prob-ably what had drawn Lawrence’s attention to it in the first instance. Sup-posing that it had originally been made by either Dr. Stone or else MissCram?

I remembered, or else I imagined remembering, that there had beenseveral withered leaves on broken twigs. If so, the trail could not havebeen made the afternoon of our search.

I was just approaching the spot in question. I recognized it easilyenough and once more forced my way through the bushes. This time I no-ticed fresh twigs broken. Someone had passed this way since Lawrenceand myself.

I soon came to the place where I had encountered Lawrence. The fainttrail, however, persisted farther, and I continued to follow it. Suddenly itwidened out into a little clearing, which showed signs of recent upheaval.

I say a clearing, because the denseness of the undergrowth was thinnedout there, but the branches of the trees met overhead and the whole placewas not more than a few feet across.

On the other side, the undergrowth grew densely again, and it seemedquite clear that no one had forced a way through it recently. Nevertheless,it seemed to have been disturbed in one place.

I went across and kneeled down, thrusting the bushes aside with bothhands. A glint of shiny brown surface rewarded me. Full of excitement, Ithrust my arm in and with a good deal of difficulty I extracted a smallbrown suitcase.

I uttered an ejaculation of triumph. I had been successful. Coldlysnubbed by Constable Hurst, I had yet proved right in my reasoning. Herewithout doubt was the suitcase carried by Miss Cram. I tried the hasp, butit was locked.

As I rose to my feet I noticed a small brownish crystal lying on theground. Almost automatically, I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.

Then grasping my find by the handle, I retraced my steps to the path.

As I climbed over the stile into the lane, an agitated voice near at handcalled out:

“Oh! Mr. Clement. You’ve found it! How clever of you!”

Mentally registering the fact that in the art of seeing without being seen,Miss Marple had no rival, I balanced my find on the palings between us.

“That’s the one,” said Miss Marple “I’d know it anywhere.”

This, I thought, was a slight exaggeration. There are thousands of cheapshiny suitcases all exactly alike. No one could recognize one particular oneseen from such a distance away by moonlight, but I realized that thewhole business of the suitcase was Miss Marple’s particular triumph and,as such, she was entitled to a little pardonable exaggeration.

“It’s locked, I suppose, Mr. Clement?”

“Yes. I’m just going to take it down to the police station.”

“You don’t think it would be better to telephone?”

Of course unquestionably it would be better to telephone. To stridethrough the village, suitcase in hand, would be to court a probably unde-sirable publicity.

So I unlatched Miss Marple’s garden gate and entered the house by theFrench window, and from the sanctity of the drawing room with the doorshut, I telephoned my news.

The result was that Inspector Slack announced he would be up himselfin a couple of jiffies.

When he arrived it was in his most cantankerous mood.

“So we’ve got it, have we?” he said. “You know, sir, you shouldn’t keepthings to yourself. If you’d any reason to believe you knew where the art-icle in question was hidden, you ought to have reported it to the properauthorities.”

“It was a pure accident,” I said. “The idea just happened to occur to me.”

“And that’s a likely tale. Nearly three-quarters of a mile of woodland,and you go right to the proper spot and lay your hand upon it.”

I would have given Inspector Slack the steps in reasoning which led meto this particular spot, but he had achieved his usual result of putting myback up. I said nothing.

“Well?” said Inspector Slack, eyeing the suitcase with dislike and wouldbe indifference, “I suppose we might as well have a look at what’s inside.”

He had brought an assortment of keys and wire with him. The lock wasa cheap affair. In a couple of seconds the case was open.

I don’t know what we had expected to find—something sternly sensa-tional, I imagine. But the first thing that met our eyes was a greasy plaidscarf. The Inspector lifted it out. Next came a faded dark blue overcoat,very much the worse for wear. A checked cap followed.

“A shoddy lot,” said the Inspector.

A pair of boots very down at heel and battered came next. At the bottomof the suitcase was a parcel done up in newspaper.

“Fancy shirt, I suppose,” said the Inspector bitterly, as he tore it open.

A moment later he had caught his breath in surprise.

For inside the parcel were some demure little silver objects and a roundplatter of the same metal.

Miss Marple gave a shrill exclamation of recognition.

“The trencher salts,” she exclaimed. “Colonel Protheroe’s trencher salts,and the Charles II tazza. Did you ever hear of such a thing!”

The Inspector had got very red.

“So that was the game,” he muttered. “Robbery. But I can’t make it out.

There’s been no mention of these things being missing.”

“Perhaps they haven’t discovered the loss,” I suggested. “I presume thesevaluable things would not have been kept out in common use. ColonelProtheroe probably kept them locked away in a safe.”

“I must investigate this,” said the Inspector. “I’ll go right up to Old Hallnow. So that’s why our Dr. Stone made himself scarce. What with themurder and one thing and another, he was afraid we’d get wind of hisactivities. As likely as not his belongings might have been searched. He gotthe girl to hide them in the wood with a suitable change of clothing. Hemeant to come back by a roundabout route and go off with them one nightwhilst she stayed here to disarm suspicion. Well, there’s one thing to thegood. This lets him out over the murder. He’d nothing to do with that.

Quite a different game.”

He repacked the suitcase and took his departure, refusing Miss Marple’soffer of a glass of sherry.

“Well, that’s one mystery cleared up,” I said with a sigh. “What Slacksays is quite true; there are no grounds for suspecting him of the murder.

Everything’s accounted for quite satisfactorily.”

“It really would seem so,” said Miss Marple. “Although one never can bequite certain, can one?”

“There’s a complete lack of motive,” I pointed out. “He’d got what hecame for and was clearing out.”

“Y—es.”

She was clearly not quite satisfied, and I looked at her in some curiosity.

She hastened to answer my inquiring gaze with a kind of apologetic eager-ness.

“I’ve no doubt I am quite wrong. I’m so stupid about these things. But Ijust wondered—I mean this silver is very valuable, is it not?”

“A tazza sold the other day for over a thousand pounds, I believe.”

“I mean—it’s not the value of the metal.”

“No, it’s what one might call a connoisseur’s value.”

“That’s what I mean. The sale of such things would take a little time toarrange, or even if it was arranged, it couldn’t be carried through withoutsecrecy. I mean—if the robbery were reported and a hue and cry wereraised, well, the things couldn’t be marketed at all.”

“I don’t quite see what you mean?” I said.

“I know I’m putting it badly.” She became more flustered and apolo-getic. “But it seems to me that—that the things couldn’t just have been ab-stracted, so to speak. The only satisfactory thing to do would be to replacethese things with copies. Then, perhaps, the robbery wouldn’t be dis-covered for some time.”

“That’s a very ingenious idea,” I said.

“It would be the only way to do it, wouldn’t it? And if so, of course, asyou say, once the substitution had been accomplished there wouldn’t havebeen any reason for murdering Colonel Protheroe—quite the reverse.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That’s what I said.”

“Yes, but I just wondered—I don’t know, of course—and Colonel Pro-theroe always talked a lot about doing things before he actually did dothem, and, of course, sometimes never did them at all, but he did say—”

“Yes?”

“That he was going to have all his things valued—a man down fromLondon. For probate — no, that’s when you’re dead — for insurance.

Someone told him that was the thing to do. He talked about it a great deal,and the importance of having it done. Of course, I don’t know if he hadmade any actual arrangements, but if he had….”

“I see,” I said slowly.

“Of course, the moment the expert saw the silver, he’d know, and thenColonel Protheroe would remember having shown the things to Dr. Stone—I wonder if it was done then—legerdemain, don’t they call it? So clever—and then, well, the fat would be in the fire, to use an old-fashioned ex-pression.”

“I see your idea,” I said. “I think we ought to find out for certain.”

I went once more to the telephone. In a few minutes I was through toOld Hall and speaking to Anne Protheroe.

“No, it’s nothing very important. Has the Inspector arrived yet? Oh!

Well, he’s on his way. Mrs. Protheroe, can you tell me if the contents ofOld Hall were ever valued? What’s that you say?”

Her answer came clear and prompt. I thanked her, replaced the re-ceiver, and turned to Miss Marple.

“That’s very definite. Colonel Protheroe had made arrangements for aman to come down from London on Monday—tomorrow—to make a fullvaluation. Owing to the Colonel’s death, the matter has been put off.”

“Then there was a motive,” said Miss Marple softly.

“A motive, yes. But that’s all. You forget. When the shot was fired, Dr.

Stone had just joined the others, or was climbing over the stile in order todo so.”

“Yes,” said Miss Marple thoughtfully. “So that rules him out.”

 

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