“Miss Fordingbridge had known her nephew intimately, and she had identified him straight off, it’s true. But we’ve heard of that kind of thing before. You remember how Roger Tichborne’s mother identified Arthur Orton as her son, and stuck to it through thick and thin. Hallucinations of that sort do occur. And one couldn’t help noticing Miss Fordingbridge’s talk about spiritualism and so forth, all tending to show that she had a sort of fixed idea that her nephew would turn up sooner or later. That discounted the value of her identification a good deal, but it didn’t discredit it completely, of course.
“Now go back a stage. The thing was a two-man job at Peter Hay’s. Therefore, whether the claimant or Fordingbridge was our man, we had to find a second fellow for the accomplice’s part. The claimant we knew nothing about at that stage; and I proposed to look into his affairs later. If Paul Fordingbridge was one of the murderers, on the other hand, then, who was his accomplice? ‘Cui bono?’ again. If the claimant could be kept out of the succession, who was next on the list? Stanley Fleetwood’s wife.”
Careless of the inspector’s feelings, Wendover broke out at this point:
“You won’t persuade me you were such an ass, Clinton, as to suppose that young Fleetwood helped in a murder merely for the sake of cash or any other reason?”
“It wasn’t my business to make pets of anyone, and exclude them from suspicion merely because I liked them in private life, squire. Many murderers are most amiable persons—Crippen, for example. ‘A fair field and no favour’ is the only motto for a conscientious detective.
“Before we had time to delve further into the Peter Hay case, however, the Staveley murder occurred. There’s no need to go into the whole business; it’s fresh in your minds; but I’ll tell you the main points that struck me when we’d finished our examination of the scene of the murder.
“First, Staveley had banged his wrist and stopped his watch at 11:19. But, of course, that didn’t prove he’d been killed at that moment. Second, his clothes were wet under his rainproof; and, he’d been shot through both rainproof and jacket, it must have rained before he was shot. Third, since the car-tracks had gone back on a dry road for a while before the rain came on and made them clearer, Staveley was killed after the car had gone off; and the people in the car weren’t mixed up in the actual killing. Fourth, there was only one cartridge-case to be seen—the one on the rock. There was no cartridge-case at the groyne when I searched the place. Besides, that track at the groyne belonged to the man in the car, and he was cleared completely by the rain question. If I was right in my inferences, then the murder must have been committed by one of three people: the woman with the neat shoes, Billingford, or someone who had left no tracks on the sand.
“The letter we found in Staveley’s pocket showed the business; and you worked up the case against them that Mrs. Fleetwood had been to meet him on the previous night at the rock; and, as she was acting in conjunction with a man, there wasn’t much trouble in inferring that young Fleetwood might have been on the spot also, as soon as we heard that the Fleetwoods’ car had been out all night: You, inspector, jumped to the conclusion that the Fleetwoods were at the back of the business; and you worked up the case against them very convincingly. But, as I told you at the start, the case wasn’t sound. I wanted all the data I could get, of course, so I didn’t discourage you too much; and you eventually dragged out a lot of interesting material about the events of the night.
“Meanwhile, we’d come to a blank end with the Fleetwoods and had turned to Billingford. My impression was that he seemed genuinely surprised by the news of Staveley’s murder; but he might have been acting, for all one could tell. What we did get out of him was the general impression that Flatt’s cottage was inhabited by a gang of rogues. How many were there? Three, if one took Billingford at face value; four, if one believed the story the claimant blurted out when we questioned him at the cottage.
“Anyone could see that the fourth man was a dark horse. He might be the murderer whom they were shielding, possibly. But there was another explanation of his disappearance; he might be someone well known to the local people, and whom it was desirable to keep under cover. How would that fit in with things? Suppose the claimant was an impostor; he wouldn’t be very anxious to meet the villagers more than he could help, for fear of dropping on someone who might trap him and expose him. The less he saw of his neighbors the better; and his disfigurement gave him a fair excuse for keeping indoors in the daytime. Staveley was well enough known to the villagers also; and perhaps he had good reason for not wishing his presence known. If the fourth man was in the same boat, then none of them would care to go shopping and so forth, and yet supplies had to be got daily. Hence it might be convenient to have a man like Billingford as the nominal host, to act as go-between for them in their public transactions. That’s how it appeared to me. Naturally, I was curious about the fourth man, and I got you, inspector, to set a watch and see if he could be recognised.
“That left me with a fair suspicion that these fellows were hatching some devilment or other at the cottage. Then I noticed the card-index; and I saw light to some extent. A card-index implies the need for ready reference. The
