'Most certainly I do, and all criminological history supports me - as you ought very well to know. David Stratton's just exactly the type that does commit murder.'
'I thought you were saying last night that Chalmers was? They're as different as - as . . .'
'Chalk from cheese. Yes, of course they are. Don't be so dense, Colin!' Roger thumped the brick parapet beside him and hurt his hand. 'Can't you see the difference in what I'm suggesting for them? Chalmers could never possibly commit a murder on his own behalf; David Stratton couldn't conceivably commit one for somebody else. But Philip Chalmers can be imagined as doing for his David what he wouldn't do for himself; and David, as I said, is own brother to hundreds of excellent, long - suffering husbands married to domestic pests, who just couldn't stand it any longer and reached for the meat chopper.'
'Well, I'll be fair with you,' Colin conceded. 'I'll grant you that. Crippen.'
'Crippen, precisely. A charming little man, driven completely off his balance by that terrible wife of his. Though in his case of course there was the extra motive in ... Colin!' Roger stared at the other with sparkling eyes.
'What's the matter now?'
'I happen to know that David's in love with another woman. He had motive enough without that.'
'How do you know?'
'I was told, last night. As a matter of fact someone let it out - I needn't say who. But I'd stake my income on its truth.'
'Now see here, Roger,' Colin said, not without heat. 'I'm not going on with this if you're going to try to fasten it on that poor chap, I'm not going on with it, and that's flat.'
'You didn't in the least mind it being fastened on me, though,' Roger said bitterly.
'You fastened it on yourself. But if you're going to prove that David did it, then let's not do anything of the kind. I don't want to know if he did or he didn't; but if he did, in heaven's name let's leave him in peace. He must have been goaded pretty far.'
'Ah, so you're beginning to admit the possibility?'
'I just don't want to have anything more to do with it.'
'And be at liberty to drop hints for the rest of your life, I suppose, that I did it? No, Colin, I'm afraid that's not good enough for me. And in any case I can't quite see what your trouble is. Are you afraid of knowing that a friend of yours has committed murder, just like the ostrich husband who'd much rather not know that his wife has kicked over the traces? Where ignorance is bliss - is that your idea? And yet it didn't seem to shatter you when you jumped to the conclusion that I had.'
'That was different,' Colin growled. 'You can look after yourself. David can't.'
'Oh, stop being an old hen,' Roger said impatiently, 'and discuss it reasonably. I didn't say we were bound to act on anything we discovered. In any case, I doubt very much whether we could prove it, as the police consider proof, since I moved that chair. You needn't be so frightened on behalf of your poor wee David. I'm quite prepared to shield him, if it does turn out that he made away with her. I'll even shake his hand and congratulate him, if you like. But I must know.'
'Why must you know?' Colin asked plaintively.
'Because, dash it,' Roger shouted, 'you've accused me, and I didn't do it. You've nibbled at the roots of my self - respect, you - you wireworm, and I've got to restore them.'
'Oh, well,' Colin grumbled. 'All right then. Get on with it.'
Roger moved himself along to another patch of sun - warmed brickwork and, thus comforted, took up his rede. 'It's quite plain, Colin, that you're going to disagree with every single thing I say this morning, so you'd better take up the position of counsel for the defence at once, and I'll prosecute. First of all, then, I'd like to hear from you why you thought David behaved in that very strange manner last night, after we'd found the body. Or didn't you consider his manner strange?'
'It was a terrible shock to the man, naturally. What do you expect?'
'Not quite what I saw, I think,' Roger said meditatively. 'It would have been a shock, of course. On the other hand David must have detested his wife; and it can't be such a shock to lose a wife you detest as to lose a wife you love. Though I'll grant you that the first reaction, for an innocent man of course, would probably be horror. After all a wife is a wife, even if you do detest her; and there must be times and moments to which one instinctively looks back with emotion. Even with Ena Stratton there must have been such times, or David would never have married her. And why the deuce he ever wanted to do so, is more than I can say. Nevertheless, he evidently did.
'But David's manner last night didn't strike me quite as a result of that natural and innocent feeling. There was shock, but somehow I shouldn't have said that it was the shock of loss. Am I unconsciously influencing myself now if I think that it was much more like the shock of fear?' demanded Roger oratorically. 'Quite possibly. But there was no doubt about Ronald. He was clucking round David just like an old hen. What, I wonder, is there about David that causes perfectly strong men to cluck like hens? I don't know. Ronald, anyhow, was much concerned about David. Why, Colin?'
'I don't know.'
'Nor do I. But would you jump down my throat if I suggested that it was because Ronald knew what David had done, and was frightened out of his wits that David might give himself away to the police? Would you be extremely angry if I put that forward as the reason why Ronald should have nipped in and answered the questions addressed by the inspector to David almost before his brother could open his own mouth? Would you, Colin?'
'Oh, so we've got a brand - new accessory after the fact, as well as a new murderer, have we?' Colin asked sarcastically.
'It looks as if we might have,' Roger admitted. 'I hope so, for David's sake. Well, there's the question of David's reactions, as expressed in his manner. As a matter of fact David might be said to have had two manners, an early and a late. In his early manner he appeared to be dazed, no doubt by shock; possibly by the shock of loss, possibly not. His later manner was exactly the opposite. When he was allowed by Ronald to answer the inspector's questions, he almost barked out his replies. They were curt to the point of rudeness.
'Now I actually did have during that interview two rather interesting thoughts. It seemed to me that David had been rehearsed in what he was to say to the inspector, and perhaps hurriedly and sketchily rehearsed at that; and it seemed, too, that he was concealing an emotion of some kind. Both these suppositions fit in very well with David's guilt.'
'But great snakes, man, it's all so vague. It's only possibly this, and perhaps that. Not a fact in the lot of it,' complained Colin vigorously.
'Yes, I know. We haven't got on to the facts yet. I'm dealing first with the tiny straws. We'll come to the trusses in a minute.
'So far, then, we've established that David had an overwhelming motive beforehand and an uneasy manner afterwards. And now, if you want facts, here's a very big fact indeed, and I'd like to hear you explain it away if you can: Why did David ring up the police about his wife before it was ever known that anything had happened to her at all?'
'Ach, come now, Roger. You know why he did that.'
'I know what he gives as his reason for doing it.'
'To warn them that an irresponsible woman was loose in the countryside.'
'Yes, that's what he said at the time: in case of suicide. And yet David Stratton, as an intelligent man, must have known that the chances of his wife committing suicide were extremely remote. He must know as well as I do that the people who chat impressively about committing suicide aren't the people who do it. That was the very first thing that made me really suspicious about the death. But doesn't it strike you as a very cunning move, Mrs. Stratton were (as indeed she was) actually dead and the stage set for suicide, to suggest to the police the fear of suicide in advance?'
'I'm not sure that it does. Wouldn't it be just as likely to make the police more suspicious?'
'I don't think so, with all the evidence for suicide that was waiting for them to collect. The police, you see, don't bother about psychological probabilities. Like you, it's facts they want. And the fact is that Mrs. Stratton had been braying her intention of committing suicide all the evening. Very nice.'
'It seems to me,' said Colin, 'that for David to go and do a thing like that, when all the time he'd really murdered her, would be just like those detective stories where the murderer himself goes rushing off for the Great Detective and begs him to take up the case, which only proves that he was daft as well as a murderer.'
