The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [99]
As to the Superintendent’s chief objection to the theory of murder, namely, that murder was impossible since no murderer could have got away and yet no murderer had been found, Rudge was not disposed to bother too much about that. He already had a theory to account for that. Rudge did not believe that the murderer had got away at all.
His meal finished, he got up from the table and began to wander aimlessly about the room. He felt restless. Something must be done, and he did not know quite what. Finally he went down to his car and drove out to Rundel Croft. He would smoke a quiet pipe in the boat-house, looking out over the river, and see if that would help matters.
It did, but the pipe was hardly needed. Quite automatically the Inspector, as soon as he arrived in the boat-house, cast an official eye over the Admiral’s skiff, and something took that same eye immediately. Caught in between two of the planks in the bow was something of a vivid red colour. Rudge bent over it. It was a head of valerian, drooping and sad, but not withered.
“Humph!” said Rudge.
This was extremely interesting. He knew where he had seen valerian last: that very afternoon, in Sir Wilfrid Denny’s garden. There was a big clump of it growing close to the water, at one end of the landing-stage. And, so far as Rudge knew, there was no other on the river. But the really interesting thing was that this head had not been there when the boat was examined on the morning after the murder (Appleton would never have missed it in any case), as indeed its comparatively fresh condition showed. There were only two possible inferences: one, that the boat had been taken out to-day and had picked up the flower by accident, and the other that the latter had been deliberately placed there.
Rudge considered these for a moment; then he picked the flower out. The stem came out in a straight line from the little crevice in which it had been lodged; by no possible chance could it have got in there just like that as the boat brushed past the clump. The second inference was the correct one: somebody was trying to throw suspicion upon Sir Wilfrid Denny.
Rudge became very active. He knew perfectly well who had put that piece of valerian in the boat. He went up tc the house. Constable Hempstead was there, cherishing busily as usual. Rudge asked one question of the company assembled in the kitchen, and it was Constable Hempstead who was able to answer it.
“Has that reporter from the Evening Gazette been up here to-day?”
“Yes, sir. I saw him from the other bank this morning. Near the boat-house, he was.”
Rudge took his car, drove as fast as he dared to the nearest magistrate, and obtained a search-warrant. Then he headed for the Lord Marshall.
“Is that reporter from the Evening Gazette in?” he asked the porter.
“Mr. Graham? No, Mr. Rudge. He went out after dinner.”
“What’s the number of his room?”
“Seventeen.”
“Thanks. No, don’t come up. And say nothing about this to anyone.”
The porter nodded importantly.
Rudge was busy for over half an hour, undisturbed. When he left, however, he had in his pocket nothing but a piece of paper on which he had laboriously typed a few sentences from a portable typewriter which stood on a table near the window.
As he passed unobtrusively out into the street he looked about him. On the other side of the road a man was lounging. Rudge nodded to him, and the other followed him round a corner.
“They’re both in,” he said in a low tone, as he reached the Inspector. “Had their dinner there, and haven’t been out since.” Since the discovery of the blood-stained frock, Mr. and