“There’s nothing out of the way in all that. Why did you call him peculiar?”
“Well, just his living alone. He doesn’t have much to say to the neighbours, by all accounts. Then he catches insects about the moor and sits up half the night writing about them. They say he’s writing a book.”
“What age is he?”
“About forty-five, I should say.”
“Well, that’s all we can do here. Let’s get on to Tavistock.”
French enjoyed the remainder of the drive as much as any he had ever taken. He was immensely impressed by the mournful beauty of the scenery. They passed Two Bridges, presently striking off from the Plymouth road. On the left the great grey buildings of the prison appeared, with rugged North Hessary Tor just beyond and the farm staffed by the prisoners in the foreground. The road led on almost due west until after passing the splendid outlook of Moorshop and descending more breakneck hills they reached cultivated ground and Tavistock.
They had driven fast, and less the time they had stopped on the road, the run had taken just sixty-three minutes. The car had behaved excellently, and if French had really been contemplating its purchase he would have been well satisfied with the test.
“I want to find out how long the radiator took to cool on that night,” French said. “The point is whether the car would have done any further running, after its trip from here to the place where it was abandoned. If it takes three hours or more to cool, it couldn’t; if less, it might.”
“I follow, but I’m afraid that won’t be easy to find out.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it depends on the weather and specially the wind. I used to drive and I know something about it. If there’s a wind blowing into the radiator it’ll cool about twice as quickly as if the same wind was blowing from behind the car.”
“I can understand that,” French admitted. “How was the wind that night?”
“A very faint westerly breeze—scarcely noticeable.”
“That would be behind the car. Then if we try it today in any pretty sheltered place we ought to get, roughly speaking, the same result? The temperature’s about the same today as it was that night, I should think?”
“That’s so, sir, the weather conditions are as good for a test as you’ll get. But even so, it will be only a rough guide.”
“We’ll try it, anyway. Park somewhere and we’ll go and have some lunch.”
They left the car in front of the fine old parish church while they lunched and explored the town. Then returning to the car, they sat down to wait. At intervals they felt the radiator, until, just three and a half hours after their arrival, the last sensation of warmth vanished.
“That’s three hours and thirty minutes,” Daw declared, “but I don’t think you would be wise to take that too literally. If you say something between three and four hours you won’t be far wrong.”
“I agree, Sergeant. That’s all we want. Let’s get home.”
That evening French sat down to write up his notes and to consider the facts he had learned.
The more he thought over these facts, the more dissatisfied he grew. It certainly did not look as if his effort to connect the Berlyn-Pyke tragedy with the crate affair was going to be successful. And if it failed it left him where he had started. He had no alternative theory on which to work.
He recalled the four points by which he had hoped to test the matter. On each of these he had now obtained information, but in each case the information tended against the theory he wished to establish.
First there was the breakdown of the car. Was that an accident or had it been prearranged?
Obviously, if it had been an accident it could not have been part of the criminal’s plan. Therefore, neither could the resulting disappearance of Berlyn and Pyke. Therefore, the murderer must have been out after some other victim whose disappearance he had masked so cleverly that it had not yet been discovered.
Now, Makepeace had stated definitely that the breakdown could not have been faked. Of course it would be necessary to have this opinion confirmed by the makers of the magneto. But Makepeace had seemed so sure that French did not doubt his statement.
The second point concerned the movements of the car on the fatal night. French began by asking himself the question: Assuming the murdered man was Pyke, how had his body been taken to the works?
He could only see one way—in the car. Suppose the murder was committed on the way from Tavistock. What then? The murderer would drive to the works with the dead man in the car. This, French believed, would be possible without discovery, owing to the distance the works lay from the town. He would then in some way square the night watchman, unpack the duplicator, put the body in its place, load the duplicator into the back of the car, drive off, somehow get rid of the duplicator, return to the road near Colonel Domlio’s house, make the two lines of footprints and decamp.
At first sight this obvious explanation seemed encouraging to French. Then he wondered would there be time for all these operations?
Taking the results of the tests he had made and estimating times where he had no actual data, he set himself to produce a hypothetical timetable of the whole affair. It was a form of reconstruction which he had found valuable on many previous occasions. It read:
| Tavistock depart A fast daylight run had taken 63 minutes—for night say 70. Add for actual murder 5 minutes. Then |
p.m. | |
| Veda Works arrive | a.m. | |
| Open gates and get car placed under differential, close gates | a.m. | |
| Square watchman and lift out body | ” | |
| Open crate carefully so as not to damage lid | ” | |
| Lift out duplicator and place it in car | ” | |
| Take outer clothes off body | ” | |
| Place body in crate | ” | |
| Make good the lid of crate | ” | |
| Take car out of works |
