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he either murdered Penistone, or found him murdered by Celia (caught in her act of theft). The Vicar, who was scheduled to keep the Admiral in talk till (say) eleven, was waiting at the boat-house, and ferried Celia across; she told him to go to bed, the chauffeur would pick her up. Actually she returned, stumbling over flower-beds, to the river, cut the painter a second time (she was much shorter than Mount) and rejoined Walter. He, meanwhile, had put Penistone’s body into its greatcoat, and thrust a paper into the pocket to suggest that Penistone had really gone to Whynmouth. He meant to put the body into the Admiral’s boat, but imagined that this would be the one moored by its bows; hence actually he put the body in the Vicar’s boat (where the hat had been left by accident) and, using the Admiral’s boat, towed boat and body out to midstream; then cut adrift. Celia pointed out the mistake when he landed, but it was too late to do anything; Holland’s steps were heard on the gravel. Walter rushed into the study and personated the Admiral, showing Holland the forged consent. He left this in an envelope for Elma (who knew it was a forgery); Holland went home, letting himself in by a door he had left unlocked; Walter and Celia got off in their car.

On the discovery of the body, Elma hastened to marry Holland, thinking that Walter was the murderer and she would lose another chance of marrying; Holland hastened to marry Elma, chivalrously, because he thought she would be under suspicion. Denny, hearing (from Emery) that documents had been taken from the desk, dashed up to London, to know what was being done with those which compromised him. Mount found the extra coil hanging to the mooring-post, did not understand it, but destroyed it to screen his wife, which was also why he obliterated her footmarks on the bed. The white dress (which had been worn by Elma because she wanted to attract the Vicar, hoping to persuade him to divorce Celia) was taken up to London because it was the nearest thing she had got to a wedding-dress.

The precise time of the murder and the precise distance to which the corpse was towed by Walter are to be settled by the tide experts. Walter wanted to make it look as if the boat had been drifted up with the tide all, or most of, the way from Whynmouth. The key was left in the Admiral’s boat by Celia. This was meant to suggest that Penistone had left all locked when he (supposedly) went to Whynmouth; and would have done so but for Walter’s confusion of the two boats. Celia had a false key to the french window, as well as to the desk.

The plotters assumed that Holland’s story would be disbelieved, and that he would be thought to have murdered Penistone at or near Whynmouth round about eleven o’clock.

CHAPTER IX

By Freeman Wills Crofts

ON THE afternoon before the crime, Walter calls on Celia, whom he has fixed up at the Judd Street hotel. After he leaves, she somehow suspects what is going to be done that night. She is horror-struck and resolves at all costs to save Penistone. She will enlist Mount’s help, who, through her confession, knows the circumstances. The five-thirty train has gone, so she travels by the seven to Drychester and motors to the Vicarage. The house seems shut up and before knocking she goes to see if Mount is in the summer-house. While making up her mind to knock, she sees Penistone starting. She grasps the knife and what she thinks is her bag and rushes to the river, shouting as loud as she can. But the Admiral doesn’t hear her. She thinks it may be too late if she goes for Mount, so she follows Penistone herself. If desirable, she can have seen (or felt?) the knife in the summer-house. She cannot untie the painter, so runs back for the knife.

She comes on Penistone’s boat about half a mile down the river. (If it was at the bridge, there would not be time for Walter to get back to personate Penistone.) There she finds Walter and Denny, and the Admiral already murdered. Denny seems almost out of his mind with fear. She is horrified. She fears Walter is guilty, but she doesn’t