It was then that another voice spoke from the shadows, the calm sensible voice of Raymond Ferens.
“All right, Venner. Sorry if we startled you. Don’t wake the whole village. We were only trying an experiment. Come down here a minute.”
Macdonald, peering from the shadows, decided to hold a watching brief, and assumed that Reeves was doing likewise. Sanderson, who was evidently a good swimmer, had reached the bank with a few powerful trudge strokes across the current, and by the time he had scrambled out, Ferens was reassuring Farmer Moore, who had appeared in his nightshirt in a surprisingly short space of time, roused by the indignant voices of his young stock in the byre.
Venner came out of doors and turned on Ferens in a fury.
“You did ought to know better, Doctor, giving we a turn like that. Us has had enough without you fooling like a zany——”
“Keep calm, laddy. We weren’t fooling. Listen to a little common sense. If Miss Torrington had collapsed on that bridge and fallen into the water as is generally supposed, she’d have made as much row as Sanderson did. She was as large as he is. I never believed she could have slipped in without a sound, not if she fell from the bridge. She’d have made enough noise to wake your dog, and the dog would have barked.”
“The dog didn’t bark,” said Venner. “Us didn’t hear a sound that night. I told you so, Doctor. Not a sound did us hear, and if you don’t believe me——”
“The whole point is that we do believe you,” put in Sanderson. “What do you think I flopped into the water for? It was to find out how much noise it made. If anybody fell on that bridge at night, and flopped into the water, they’d make noise enough to wake your dog. Your dog barks and wakes the cattle, and the cattle wake Moore’s dog, and so it goes on, like the house that Jack built. Half the village will have been wakened up tonight, you mark my words. We’ve proved what we set out to prove. That’s all. Now I’m going up to have a rubdown. It’s not so warm as you might think.”
Fie turned towards the village street, jog-trotting, and Venner turned again to Ferens. “What good d’you think you’ve done. Doctor?” he asked angrily. “If so be Was an accident, and I reckon ‘twas, what’s the use o’ making it seem harder?”
“I tried to believe it was an accident, Venner. We all did,” replied Ferens, his voice low and deep. “If the police had been willing to accept the accident theory, no one would have been gladder than myself. But the police don’t believe it was an accident, and they’ve put Scotland Yard on to it now. Sanderson and I tried this experiment to prove the thing one way or the other. If your dog hadn’t barked and the cattle hadn’t bawled I’d have gone to the Chief Inspector and said, ‘If you do fall flat on that bridge and flop into deep water at night nobody’d hear you.’ Now I know that isn’t true. You’ve got a trained watchdog and the dog wakes up at any unusual sound.”
“And so you’ll go to the C.I.D. man and tell him what you’ve found out?”
“No, I shan’t. It won’t be necessary. He’ll try the same thing himself. The reason Sanderson and I took a chance tonight is that the C.I.D. men have driven out to the moor and I thought we should have the place to ourselves.” He paused a moment and then added: “Look here, Venner. She didn’t fall when she was on the bridge. She didn’t knock her head on the handrail. If you still believe it was an accident, how else did she fall?”
“Her come over dizzy, on the bank there, maybe, and her fell backwards and knocked herself silly.”
“If she fell backwards, how did she roll into the river?” persisted Ferens. “That’s what they’ll ask, you silly old fool. If you can prove to me any way it could have been an accident, I’ll back you till the cows come home, but going on talking about her being dizzy doesn’t explain how her body got in the river. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now I’m going home to bed.”
He turned to cross the bridge—they’d been standing on the Mill House side of the stream—and Macdonald squeezed back as silently as be could behind the elder bush, for it was evident that Ferens intended to come up the path through the park. Ferens spoke again as he reached the bridge:
“It’s no use getting angry, Venner. I know you feel mad with me, but if you believe that woman drowned by accident, for God’s sake use your wits and think out how the accident happened. Phony explanations aren’t any good. Sanderson and I have blown your blessed theory about the bridge sky-high. You’ve got to think again if you’re going to persuade that C.I.D. chap it was an accident. Good night.”
He crossed the bridge, opened the gate and chained it up again, and set up the path at a good steady pace. Macdonald waited until he heard Venner shut the door and shoot the bolt before he emerged from the thicket which had concealed him so successfully.
3
“Talk about performing apes: I reckon I’ve proved my ancestry,” muttered Reeves resignedly. The two C.I.D. men were sitting in the shadow of the sawmill shed.
“I guessed you’d be under the bridge, waiting for me,” said Macdonald.
“I’d say I was. I heard you come down that path, for all you were as quiet about it as a tom on tiles,” said Reeves. “There’s an echo or something. You chucked a stone, didn’t you? I got a foothold and handhold on the timbers underneath the bridge, close in by the bank, reckoning I could hold on for a brace of shakes. It seemed hours,” he
