Late, Late in the Evening

brother.

'No resemblance at all,' said Mrs Kempson firmly, and Mr Price agreed with her.

And a man past middle age doesn't change all that much in appearance in five years,' he said. Yet, strangely enough, when Mrs Landgrave had been taken to view the body, without hesitation she had identified it, as her husband had already done-for they were taken separately to view it-as that of her late lodger.

That is Mr Ward,' she said. Later, I asked Mrs Kempson, who was now both puzzled and shocked, which of the two men was more like what she remembered of her brother. I reminded her that she had said she did not recognise the first Mr Ward as such, and at their first meeting she had decided, until her lawyers advised against it, to contest his claim.

'So far as I remember my brother before he went to America,' she said, 'neither of them reminded me of Ward. I am beginning to think that neither of them was Ward, that the news of his death was correct and that these two men must have been friends or, more likely, fellow-prisoners of his. But how strange that they should both have conceived this idea of impersonating him, particularly as neither seems to have been prepared to claim the inheritance. Perhaps they dared not go so far as that.'

I suggested to her that she and Mr Price should give the police as full a description of the first Mr Ward as their memories would allow them to do. You will have come to the same conclusion as I did, I think, dear Sir Walter. Whoever had murdered Merle Patterson, there was no doubt in my own mind that the first Mr Ward had dramatically reappeared after five years and, for some reason known only to himself, had killed Mrs Landgrave's lodger, the second Mr Ward.

The verdict at the inquest was the anticipated one. Murder by person or persons unknown was a certainty, and so here we are, the police and I, with two unsolved crimes on our hands and a minor mystery to unravel as well.

As you will appreciate, it is difficult to envisage two murderers living in this small, obscure village, and yet there seems so little connexion between the two deaths as to suggest that they are entirely unrelated. The only link appears to be Mrs Kempson herself, but it is so weak that it hardly merits serious examination.

My first theory was that Mr Ward was murdered because he had been an involuntary witness of the slaughter of Merle Patterson, but what we learned at this second inquest has disposed of any such idea. The medical evidence now insists that Mr Ward was killed first, probably one or two days earlier than the young woman. This coincides, of course, with the Landgraves' assertion that Mr Ward had not slept in their house on either the Friday or the Saturday night.

Apart, therefore, from another theory of mine that Mr Ward himself (mentally unstable, as Mrs Landgrave had shown him to be) had murdered Miss Patterson wantonly and for no reason which would be entertained by a sane person, it is now clear that neither could he have been a witness to her death.

It seems reasonable to proceed, therefore, on the assumption either that there are two murderers living, if not actually in or near the village, at least with access to and knowledge of it, or that there is some connexion, most unlikely though it seems, between the two deaths. Otherwise there is a homicidal maniac in this neighbourhood, a most unwelcome idea.

Mrs Landgrave tells me that people are careful to lock their doors and fasten their windows at night, and to keep their children indoors in the evenings (although these are still long and light), and the gypsies are spoken of with more than the usual mistrust and suspicion.

There are two reasons why I am anxious to test my theory that the first Mr Ward is a murderer. First, I cannot think why he has waited for more than five years before killing the second Mr Ward; second, and connected with it, I wonder why he permitted the second Mr Ward to live in comfortable lodgings (which I can assure you these most certainly are) with good food and five pounds a week to spend as he pleased, when he himself might have been enjoying these benefits. One is forced to the conclusion that he had to be seen and known in haunts other than the village street and public house, and that his plans required a substitute in Mrs Landgrave's reputable home.

I should be grateful to have the benefit of your thoughts upon all this, as the experience of a great advocate would be most valuable in such a puzzling case. The explanation of its mysteries may be staring me in the face and is probably perfectly simple, but at the moment it is baffling the police as well as myself and there is talk of calling in Scotland Yard. For more reasons than one, such a proceeding would be quite in order, especially as the dead girl was a Londoner and so the solution of one of our problems may well lie in London and not in this village.

It might be worth while to remember that on the night of Merle Patterson's murder five persons, not including little Lionel, have no alibi, so far as we know, for the time of that crime. Doctor Tassall was called out to a confinement, Nigel Kempson went into the town to pick up the photographer, Mrs Kempson went upstairs (she says) to bed and Mr and Mrs Conyers retired (they say) to their own quarters.

* * *

I am grateful to note, dear Sir Walter, that your mind marches with mine. Since my last letter there have been some interesting developments. Scotland Yard have been in touch with New York and there seems no doubt now that the woman who wrote to Mrs Kempson was right and that the real (or shall we call him, for the sake of clarity, the third) Mr Ward died out there as the woman stated.

I have decided, therefore, to drop the enquiry into Mr Ward's death (I mean, by this, the murdered Mr Ward) and to concentrate on the death of Merle Patterson. The problem here, as you point out, is to determine whether she was killed in her own right, so to speak, or whether she was mistaken, as we have suggested, for Lionel Kempson-Conyers.

I obtained the Pattersons' address from Mrs Kempson, who had issued the invitation to the birthday party to Merle's brother, and went to see them at their London home. It was obvious they have not recovered from the shock of their daughter's death but were anxious to do anything in their power to bring her murderer to book.

From them I obtained the address of the school where their son is a junior master and here, my dear Sir Walter, the story takes a most unhelpful turn. The young man is as anxious as his parents are to have his sister's killer apprehended. Unfortunately his evidence has blown what I thought was my case completely to pieces.

He states that it was quite untrue that he had received an injury on the cricket field which had left him temporarily incapacitated. He had accepted the invitation to the party and had fully intended to drive his three young female friends to Hill House when he received a letter from his sister. In it she begged him to think of some way in which she could get herself invited to the party. Not to weary you with unnecessary details, the fact was that she had been engaged to young Doctor Tassall before he met and fell in love with Amabel Kempson- Conyers.