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By Root 834 0

the Admiral himself or, more probably, with Elma. If the former were true, nothing could bring the charge home except some record of a message; if it was brought by note, somebody had brought the note; if it was sent by telephone, the call could probably be traced. Also, to be sure, a message sent by telephone to an hotel meant that the receiver would be lifted off by an hotel servant, and the circumstance, at that hour of the night, would probably be remembered. When you came to think of it, the message (if there was one) must have come from Elma, or Holland must have supposed that it came from Elma. Otherwise, he would have had no reason to conceal it; and he could have made his own story much more plausible by admitting it. Mem.—See Mrs. Davis about the message: enquire if necessary at the telephone exchange.

17. Who was the woman who went through Lingham at a quarter to eleven? At least, that was really the wrong way to put it; you could hardly hope to know who she was, at this stage. But it was worth considering whether her arrival could have had any influence on the situation. Her car, which might or might not have contained another occupant, would reach Whynmouth in time to deposit the mysterious visitor at the Lord Marshall. Alternatively, it would have been possible for the occupants of such a car to be at Rundel Croft in time for the murder, even if you dated the murder early. They might have gone round by Fernton Bridge, the enquiry for the Vicarage being merely a blind; or they might have stopped close to the Vicarage, and ferried themselves across by making free with Mr. Mount’s boat. This last plan would have the effect of bringing the Vicarage boat on to the scene of action; a point deserving to be considered, from the detective’s point of view. But Rudge found himself instinctively recoiling from such an explanation. For it would mean that the criminal or criminals came and went by car, their base presumably London. It was not possible for the Whynmouth police to search for suspicious characters in London; Scotland Yard might have to be invoked, and that always meant that the credit went to Scotland Yard.

At this point the Inspector drew a fresh line across his page. He had reached the end of the enquiries which were antecedent, or seemed at first sight antecedent, to the murder itself. It was time now to come on to a fresh set of problems: those created by the circumstances in which the corpse was discovered. The pipe needed to be re-lit; and, for that matter, another tot seemed indicated; the indication was allowed to have full weight. Now for the facts. Human testimony was a slippery and uncertain thing to deal with; what you were told was a photograph fogged, as it were, by the shadow of the man who told it you. But Nature did not lie; tides ran, dew formed, blood flowed, doors opened and shut, on uniform and ascertainable principles. The clues pointed you on to the actions which had produced them, and then hinted entrancingly at the motives which lay behind the actions. Well, then …

18. Here is a man murdered; who had a motive, and what motive, for murdering him? Ordinarily, one would expect a local quarrel; though the knife, as Mrs. Davis acutely noticed, is not the English criminal’s weapon. But a month’s residence hardly gave time for any supposition of the kind here. A Cornish enemy would have found it difficult to track his man down, would have delayed longer to ascertain the lie of the land. The quarrel, then, which found its satisfaction in that grisly wound, must be a quarrel dating from past history in the Admiral’s life. Further, you could assume with some certainty that the murderer either knew the habits, or possessed the confidence, of his victim. A man is found murdered in the Vicar’s boat on the very night when he has been dining at the Vicarage; in his pocket is a copy of that very newspaper to which he is in fact a subscriber; the murder is somehow connected with a visit, alleged or real, to a neighbouring hotel where an acquaintance of the victim is in fact staying. All this betrays