The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [60]
6. What part did Walter play in the background of these lives? If he was dead, then his influence only persisted in so far as he was keeping Elma out of half of her inheritance; and this, in view of her already comfortable circumstances, seemed a factor that could be neglected. But if he were alive—what would be his influence then? Was he popular with his family, or had the story of his disgrace obliterated all affection? It was odd, when you came to think of it, that a household so connected with a soldier who disappeared in the War should have no photograph of him exposed in study or drawing-room. And yet—there was the scandal of the cheque; awkward, perhaps, to have visitors saying “Who’s that?” If he were alive, what was he doing; what would he be doing? It seemed unlikely that a man of his antecedents would let a fortune pass him by without a struggle. Yet, granted he were alive and were attempting to reinstate himself, what could he stand to gain by committing a crime of this sort, or inducing others to commit it? “Point is, disappearance of valuable uncle,” Rudge found himself quoting. The corpse of one trustee does not make a legacy.
7. Why did Ware think the Admiral had altered since he last saw him? People do change their looks, of course, and a man labouring under a long grievance may be excused for losing something of his old cheerfulness and vitality. But the photographs at Rundel Croft, evidently dating back to the period of Ware’s reminiscences, bore a quite unmistakable resemblance to the man found drowned. Again the wild suggestion of an impersonation flooded across the Inspector’s mind; again common sense told him that a long-sustained impersonation is a practical impossibility. Was it conceivable that Ware did recognise the corpse he fished out; then, for some reason, pretended not to; then, by way of explaining his lapse of memory, invented this story of altered looks? But again, why should Ware pretend ignorance? Why not have said, “I’ve seen the man before somewhere, but I can’t remember the circumstances”? Mem:—Ask Dakers about this.
8. Does Mrs. Davis’s allusion to a runaway wife at the Vicarage lead anywhere? It seemed a long shot; but so far, apart from Elma, there was no woman in the case except the woman in the car, untraced, and this phantom from Lingham’s past, who might surely be expected to give the place a wide berth. It has been suggested that Rudge’s mind ran obstinately in grooves of police experience; and cherchez la femme is almost the first item in the policeman’s decalogue. But how to make enquiries about Mrs. Mount’s history since her elopement? The Vicar could supply the name of his guilty rival, but it would be brutality to ask him; and even so the traces of a ten-years-old disappearance would almost certainly have been obliterated by now. No, Rudge decided, he was becoming fantastic. Mrs. Mount had never lived at Lingham; presumably her husband had never heard the names of Denny or Penistone at the time of her desertion. There was not even a loose thread to be picked up here.
Rudge drew a line across this page. So far, his questions were all questions which might have been asked, though there would have been no reason for the police to ask them, yesterday afternoon, when the river ran peacefully between the Vicarage and Rundel Croft, the two boys sporting in it with no shadow of a tragedy to overawe their high spirits; when the Admiral’s brisk walk and sharp voice proclaimed him very much alive, and no pale corpse rested in the Whynmouth mortuary. Now he must get on to the crime itself; its circumstances and the traces it had left.