The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [31]
“I fancy he was, from what I’ve heard of him,” replied Rudge. “Well, Ware, I’m much obliged to you for what you’ve told me. By the way, you’ll have to give evidence at the inquest, you know. You’ll get a summons to attend in due course. And I’ll drop in for another yarn sometime, if I may?”
“Aye, you’re always welcome,” said Ware cordially. “And if you’re a fisherman, I’ll take you to a spot where there’s some fine sport to be had. It’s private by rights, like all the fishing here, but no one minds about me.”
Inspector Rudge left the old man’s cottage, and started up his car. It was time to pay his deferred visit to Sir Wilfrid Denny. As he drove towards West End, his thoughts were busy with the problem of how to discover whether or not Admiral Penistone had rowed down-stream the previous night. If he had he was not likely to have been observed. The river ran out of sight of the road for the greater part of its course. Only at one point, Fernton Bridge, was it visible. There were certainly a few cottages close to its banks, but their inhabitants were pretty certain to have been in bed by ten o’clock. There was, therefore, only the faint possibility that someone had crossed Fernton Bridge at the moment that the Admiral had passed beneath it.
The fact that his journey was not likely to have been observed had another bearing on the matter. His murderer must either have known of his intention, or must have seen him by chance, either at Fernton Bridge or in Whynmouth. But if he had met him by chance, how did he happen to be provided with a suitable weapon? People didn’t as a rule carry about with them daggers capable of inflicting such a wound. No, the casual meeting did not seem to fit in, somehow. The crime must have been premeditated. But until he could learn more of the Admiral’s associates it was impossible to guess who could have known of his plans. There was always the likelihood, of course, that the murderer had arranged the rendezvous.
As he crossed Fernton Bridge, Rudge stopped the car and looked over the parapet on either side. He found that he could see a few hundred yards, both up- and down-stream, before bends hid the river in either direction. On a clear night a boat would show up against the water for some distance. Having satisfied himself of this he continued his journey.
West End was a suburb of Whynmouth on the harbour side of the river, and consisted mainly of red-brick villas, each standing in its square of garden. But one older stone-built house remained hidden from its neighbours and the railway to the north by a high shrubbery. This, as Rudge had ascertained, was called Mardale, and was the residence of Sir Wilfrid Denny. The drive gate was open, and he drove in, to be struck at once by the neglected and overgrown appearance of the lawn that sloped down to the river, and the state of dilapidation into which the house had been allowed to fall. He remembered Mrs. Davis’s hint as to Sir Wilfrid’s lack of means, which had apparently been fully justified.
There seemed to be nobody about as he rang the bell, but, after a long wait, an elderly and rather forbidding-looking dame appeared, and looked enquiringly at him.
“Is Sir Wilfrid Denny at home?” he asked.
“No, he ain’t,” replied the woman. “ ’E was called to London hunexpectedly, and left by the first train this morning.”
CHAPTER VI
By Milward Kennedy
INSPECTOR RUDGE THINKS BETTER OF IT
A TACTFUL question or two elicited the facts that the “call” had been a telephonic one, and that it was not Sir Wilfrid’s habit to go often or regularly or, above all, early to London. He was not, it seemed, a city magnate, but a retired civil servant—“one of those conciliar officers,” the woman explained. The Inspector began to understand the untidiness of the drive; for whilst your Business Man usually acquires his knighthood at the height of his prosperity