• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 792 0

know. They tell her Penistone committed suicide. She doesn’t believe it, but she doesn’t know. Weakly, she takes no step. Walter sends her to his car, which is hidden close by. He and Denny row the boats back and shove both into the Rundel Croft boat-house. Denny waits while Walter goes up and steals the papers—which clear Penistone’s character, incidentally revealing the trick Walter and Denny have played on him in China. Walter tells Elma what has happened. She is aghast, but cannot do anything without destroying Walter, of whom she is so rond. She decides to know nothing about what has happened.

Walter has prepared the consent, and this he gives to Holland. When Holland goes, Walter and Denny put the body into the Vicar’s boat, as the best thing they can think of, and send the boat adrift. They had intended to throw it into the river, but the Vicar’s boat seems a better idea. This putting the boats into the boat-house accounts for the boat’s tidal movements, as also the clothing on the body being dry.

Denny then walks home, letting himself in unseen. Walter takes Celia to London, but because he is afraid of her giving the show away he takes her on to Paris till the storm blows over.

It should be explained that Celia took the Vicar’s hat by mistake, and therefore left her bag behind. In this bag Mount found the Drychester and London addresses.

Chronology

The dates appear to be as follows:

Monday, 8th August.—New moon.

Tuesday, 9th August.—Penistone dines with Mount. The murder in the evening.

Wednesday, 10th August.—Discovery of body. Rudge investigates up to end of 39 Articles.

Thursday, 11th August.—Rudge reports to his superiors and investigates lives of Rundel Croft household.

Friday, 12th August.—The inquest. Rudge goes to Drychester and London.

Saturday, 13th August.—Rudge finds Judd Street hotel.

Monday, 15th August.—Rudge goes to Drychester and reports to Super.

CHAPTER X

By Edgar Jepson

WALTER is the murderer. He has a beard and strongly resembles his uncle the Admiral, whom he impersonated at the Lord Marshall. After the crime he returns to Rundel Croft, sees his sister, whose help he enlists by means of some explanation that does not give the real facts, is mistaken by Holland for the Admiral, while he is searching for File X, which contains the truth about the Hong Kong incident and Walter’s share in it, and then goes upstairs to shave off his dangerous beard in the bathroom. By this means he is able to go unrecognised, and keep in touch with the situation, by posing as the reporter for the Evening Gazette.

CHAPTER XI

By Clemence Dane

HERE, roughly, are the points I have made. Célie, the French maid, and the Vicar’s wife are one person. She has been living with Walter, the murderer, or at any rate, there is a tie of some sort between them, and she knows enough to make her dangerous. He knows that she has gone down to consult her former husband (or for any purpose anybody likes to invent) and desires to divert suspicion from himself, and on to the Vicar by a second murder; or, alternately thinks that she intends to give him away. Anyway, he follows her down.

She has gone to the Vicarage, found her husband is out, and the maids also. (A genuine accident this: they had been given a day’s holiday by the Vicar. He and they have gone to a local flower-show at some distance, or a village outing of some sort.) She has also written to the Hollands to meet her there, for purposes of consultation.

Célie, not knowing that the Vicar’s absence is more than temporary, wanders into the garden, and there picks the greengages, then comes back to the house and encounters Walter. There is some sort of an argument. At any rate he murders her, arranging it to look like suicide, and leaves only a few minutes before the Inspector arrives. Walter thinks himself unseen, but later it must transpire that one of the villagers has seen him. He has a perfectly good excuse: he has called to see the Vicar in pursuit of his reporter’s duties, and, like everyone else, has found the house empty. The