“Awareness of human nature,” said Macdonald quietly, “and much greater powers of observation than townspeople ever realise. Countryfolk study human nature as they study the weather, and they’re more often right than either the psychologists or the meteorologists. They did their best for him. Some of them risked a criminal charge to try to get him out of the mess.”
“Because they were fond of him. Good man or bad, he’d doctored them for half a lifetime. He was part of their village.”
Macdonald nodded, looking down at old Dr. Brown’s face, so still and grey, as he lay on the floor.
“Can’t you understand . . .” broke out Ferens.
“Oh, I understand—but it’s no good,” said Macdonald. “And you know it’s no good,” he concluded. “The thing he did was worse than the thing he tried to escape from. There’s no all-clear via murder.”
CHAPTER XVIII
“I tell you, I didn’t know,” persisted Raymond Ferens stubbornly.
“All right. Have it your own way,” replied Macdonald placidly. The four of them—Raymond, Anne, Macdonald, and Reeves—were sitting on the lawn of the Dower House. Reeves was lying prone, his hands busy with the making of a daisy chain, and Anne Ferens watched him with amused eyes. It was she who took up the argument:
“What is knowledge? It’s as elusive as wisdom. If you put me in the witness box and I said, I know she was wicked,’ you would demand proof, chapter and verse. If I said, I have an extra sense, and it tells me when a person is wicked—by the pricking of my thumbs,’ wouldn’t the judge rebuke me for levity and say that feelings are not evidence?”
“Probably,” replied Macdonald, and Reeves put in, sotto voce:
“Depends on the judge. He wouldn’t admit your feelings as evidence, but he’d make a mental note. Some of them are both sensible and sensitive. Sorry. Don’t mind me.”
Macdonald took up his tale. “When I first called on you, Dr. Ferens, I expected you to say quite a lot about Dr. Brown: to quote his opinion, refer me to him for evidence, give the usual unsolicited testimonial by which medical men uphold their mutual probity. But during the whole of that conversation you did not mention Dr. Brown once. And about Gramarye you would only say, ‘It was not my business. I made it clear from the outset that I took no interest in Gramarye.’ It seemed plain to me that you did not want to talk about Dr. Brown. And as for your insistence that from the first you took no interest in Gramarye—well, shall I adopt Mrs. Ferens’ useful allusion and say I wondered if your thumbs had pricked when you first made the acquaintance of that ancient charity, its Warden, and its Medical Officer?”
“Of course, you’re perfectly right, Chief Inspector,” said Anne Ferens. “Raymond is constitutionally honest and not at all unobservant, and the two qualities often cause him mental indigestion. He felt at once that there was something phony about ‘that ancient charity, etc.’ I know he did. If he were one of those chatty husbands who tell their wives all, he’d have said to me: ‘That damned old fool must have got in a mess with that ghastly female at some stage in their lives, and she’s got a hold over him.’ But he didn’t say so. Not even to me. Although I knew he thought it.”
“How did you know?” demanded Raymond indignantly.
“Because of the way you ticked me off when I said Sister Monica was wicked. You were horrified. Therefore, you insisted on an extra degree of punctilio from me. It was to be hands off Sister Monica. So I was sure there was something.”
Reeves sat up here. “This isn’t evidence, but it’s a darned sight more interesting than most evidence is. What people think is far more relevant than our police methods allow for.”
“That’s enough from you,” said Macdonald firmly. “And Mrs. Ferens has produced evidence of a negative sort. What people avoid saying is just as informative as what they do say. And, finally, Dr. Ferens was all in favour of a verdict of accident. So now, having cleared the decks of all that, let’s get down to evidence which could be entered in an official report. We’ll take the findings at the autopsy first.”
“The most relevant being a bruise on the occiput, some alcoholic content in the cadaver, and the state of being non virgo intacta,” said Ferens.
Macdonald nodded. “And then there was the additional fact of deceased’s capital investments. All these facts were equally important. The bruise on the back of the head could most easily have been caused by the swinging of a heavy stick; a strong walking stick with a heavy crook or knob would have served, because if you swing a walking stick grasping the ferrule end, its velocity makes up for lack of weight. Neither Reeves nor I believed the bruise could have been caused by the head hitting the handrail of the bridge.”
“I’m still hoping you’ll offer to come and do another experiment on that bridge, sir,” said Reeves to Ferens. “You just try to hit the back of your head on that handrail. It’s almost impossible for a tall person to do it.”
“I was of that opinion the whole time,” said Ferens, “but I maintain that my opinions are not evidence.”
“Well, we won’t get bogged down in controversy at the moment,” said Macdonald. “I have dealt with the first fact—the bruise on the back of the head. Next, the traces of alcohol. I did not suggest at any time or to any person that the analyst’s report stated that deceased was either an alcoholic addict or was inebriated when death occurred. In my own mind I was quite sure that she was nothing of the kind. The path from Gramarye to the mill is both steep and dangerous, unless you watch your step. If deceased had been drunk when she walked down that path, the probability
