“Might be called over-acting,” he said. “I think the straps were torn away deliberately to give the right impression.”
“Could be,” said Reeves, and Macdonald went on:
“I keep on going back to our first assumption; she was knocked senseless somewhere close by the river, because her body was too heavy to be carried far. What we’re supposed to argue from this bag is that the straps broke when the bag was tugged away from her. That implies she was holding on to it very tight. If she’d kept her grip on the bag like that when a tramp was trying to get it from her, doesn’t it stand to reason that she’d have screamed? And if she’d screamed, the dogs would have heard her and barked. They didn’t bark. If they had, half the village would have heard them. Whatever is the explanation of this bag, I’m pretty certain the woman was knocked out without knowing anything about it, silently.”
“And if she’d been knocked out, she wasn’t gripping the bag, because her grip would have gone as she lost her senses,” agreed Reeves, “therefore the straps wouldn’t have broken. I see that point all right. But we don’t know exactly what happened: it’s possible that the bag fell in the water with her body, and was washed downstream and found by somebody not connected with the original assault. The tramp, for instance. We’ve still got that tramp in the offing.” He paused, staring down at the worn black reticule. “You said something to the effect that this village had developed a sort of mystical technique, chief. I’d call it a technique for mystification. At first it was the saintly stuff. Then that wore thin—you knocked the stuffing out of the Venners with plain commonsense. Then it was ‘her went dizzy, poor soul,’ and Ferens knocked that sideways by showing she couldn’t have collapsed on the bridge and knocked her head on the hand-rail without making more row than was indicated. Now somebody’s trying again. ‘’Tis a tramp surely, knocked Sister down and stole her bag. Iss, ’tis a tramp.’ Can’t I hear ’em at it.”
“You’re assuming that the village knows what really happened?”
“Yes. And they’re going to prevent us finding out. I don’t suggest the murder was a co-operative effort: co-operation in murder doesn’t happen in our experience. It’s my belief that the village knew the woman was a menace and feels justice has been done, but whether that’s so or not they’re going to protect whoever it was who did the job—one of themselves, that is.”
“Query, does Ferens know what happened?” mused Macdonald.
“Might do. What do you think yourself?”
“I should say he didn’t know, not as evidence goes. He’s got that sort of professional probity which bars telling plain lies. It isn’t entirely a moral quality. It’s an awareness of the loss of prestige—professional dignity—if found out. That type would hate to be bowled out telling a lie: they prefer to stick to the truth. But Ferens has done some guessing, as you and I are doing some guessing, and it’s my belief he staged that demonstration last night as a warning to somebody, or as a warning to the whole village. It was like saying, ‘You can’t get away with that one.’ That’s my belief, anyway, but he’s not likely to admit it.”
“What’s the betting that this racket with the bag was worked last night—after Ferens’ demonstration?”
“I think that’s quite possible. If so, it involves the fact that somebody had this bag in their possession.”
Macdonald broke off, and was silent for a moment or two. Then he went on: “We’ve got to square the discovery of the bag with the assumptions we’ve made on the earlier evidence. Peel argued that an attaché case, or a box containing documents, had been stolen from the office at Gramarye because he couldn’t find any personal papers. It seems possible to me that deceased carried her personal papers about with her in this bag. It’s large enough to contain quite a lot of stuff.”
“That’s reasonable enough,” agreed Reeves. “Women do carry the most incredible lot of stuff around with them in their bags. I can quite see this Torrington dame being suspicious of everybody at Gramarye, and making a habit of taking this bag around with her whenever she went out of the house. She was evidently a methodical cuss, and a very careful one. She’d never have mislaid the bag, or left it about.”
“Well, if we accept that, it seems probable to me that whoever laid her out would have taken the contents of her bag. We’re arguing she was a blackmailer. If she carried that bag about with her habitually, it might well be argued that she’d got something valuable in it.”
“O.K. The argument following that seems to be that the murderer pocketed the contents of the bag and then tore the straps off it to indicate that it had been snatched, and threw it in the stream—the safest thing to do with it. It might then have been washed down stream and found by somebody else. The latter party put it somewhere to dry, so that it was ready to plant in an emergency, so to speak. And planted it was.”
“It’s a possible reconstruction,” said Macdonald, “but there could be plenty of variations on it. It was a neat enough idea putting it here, and I’m disposed to believe it could have been done last night, ‘after the demonstration’ as you say. Anybody could have known that Greave
