The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [91]
“I knew she knew something!” exclaimed Rudge.
“Why do people keep damning evidence against themselves?” Major Twyfitt asked.
“Lucky for us they do, sir,” said Hawkesworth. To Rudge he added: “Mind you, I don’t think she was in it from the start. But she’s an accessory after, all right. And that gives us another pointer. See it?”
“Oh, yes,” nodded Rudge. “The brother, Walter. I’ve had him in mind from the beginning.”
“You have, eh?” said the Superintendent, somewhat discomfited. “Why didn’t you ever say so, then?”
“No evidence,” replied Rudge smugly.
“Anyhow, it seems clear enough now,” interposed the Chief Constable. “We can assume, I think, that if anyone has been impersonating the Admiral, either in Hong Kong or here, it must have been this Walter Fitzgerald. There must have been a strong resemblance. We’ve got evidence of that too, Rudge. Two witnesses who saw a man in Whynmouth on the day of the murder whom they mistook in the distance for the Admiral, and only realised when they were quite close that it was a younger man.”
“Yes, sir? And that gives me another idea. May I put through a telephone call to London?”
“Of course.”
Rudge consulted his note-book, and then gave the number of Friedlander’s Hotel and asked for priority. The connection was made in less than two minutes. Rudge explained who he was, and said: “You remember telling me that Mrs. Arkwright only had one regular visitor, a tall man with a bronzed forehead? Did this man wear a beard? He did? Thank you.” He rang off.
The other two looked at him enquiringly.
“That connects up something more.” Rudge was unable to conceal his satisfaction. “The man who ran off with Mrs. Mount, the man whose name the Vicar never knew—that was Walter Fitzgerald too.”
“Ah!” said two breaths simultaneously.
“It’s beginning to work in.”
The Superintendent cleared his throat. “Now, my theory of what happened that night is this. This man, this Walter Fitzgerald, came down—Yes? What is it? Oh, come in.” A loud knock at the door had broken him off in mid-sentence.
Police Constable Hempstead entered, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. In his hand he held a short length of manilla rope, knotted to another short length. “Hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” he said to Major Twyfitt, “but thought you’d like to know at once. I’ve searched both banks thoroughly this morning, from Rundel Croft to the sea, and found nothing except this.”
“The missing bit of the painter!” exclaimed Rudge. “Where was it? Sorry, sir,” he added perfunctorily to the Chief Constable, who nodded good-humouredly.
“Caught up in some bushes, ’bout half-way down, on the Vicarage side.”
“Good man,” said the Chief Constable as he took the rope, and even Hawkesworth grunted approval.
“Did you make any enquiries at the cottages?” asked Rudge.
“Every one, sir. Nobody heard or saw anything. But I’ve found out something else.”
“You have, eh? What?”
“Well, you remember that set of photos you gave me, sir, of the finger-prints on the oars in the Admiral’s boat? Well, I believe I’ve identified them.” Hempstead produced a piece of paper, which the Superintendent took before anyone else could reach it.
He whipped another set of the photographs out of his pocket and pored over them for a minute. Then he looked up. “That’s the man. Who is it, Hempstead?”
Hempstead beamed with self-importance. “Neddy Ware, sir.”
5
When Rudge left the police station for a belated lunch he had a good deal to think about. The business was getting altogether too wide-spread for his liking. Half the inhabitants of Lingham seemed now to be implicated in the