“Quite, thanks,” said Leyland, grinning. “Good morning, Mrs. Bredon. Good morning, Bredon; I wonder if you could give me ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after breakfast? … No, no porridge, thanks; just eggs and bacon.”
“Yes, rather. We might stroll back to the mill-house, if you don’t mind, for I rather think I dropped a packet of pipe-papers there. In fact, I think I’ll go on there and wait for you. No hurry.”
It was some twenty minutes before Leyland turned up, and almost at the moment of his arrival both men heard a very faint click behind them, as if somebody on the further side of the wall, in walking gently, had dislodged a loose stone. They exchanged an instantaneous glance, then Leyland opened up the prearranged conversation. There was something curiously uncanny about this business of talking entirely for the benefit of a concealed audience, but they both carried off the situation creditably.
“Well,” began Bredon, “you’re still hunting for murderers?”
“For a murderer, to be accurate. It doesn’t take two men to turn on a gas-jet. And when I say I’m hunting for him, I’m not exactly doing that; I’m hunting him. The motive’s clear enough, and the method’s clear enough, apart from details, but I want to make my case a little stronger before I take any action.”
“You’ve applied for a warrant, you say?”
“Against Simmonds, yes. At least, I wrote last night; though of course with the posts we have here it won’t reach London till this evening, and probably late this evening. Meanwhile, I keep him under observation.”
“You’re still sure he’s your man?”
“I can hardly imagine a stronger case. There’s the motive present, and a good motive too, half a million pounds. There’s the disposition, a natural resentment against his uncle for treating him hardly, added to a conscientious objection to his great wealth and the means by which he made it. There’s the threat: that letter of ‘Brutus’ will tell in a law court, if I know anything of juries. There’s the occasion: the fact of Mottram happening to be down at Chilthorpe. There’s the facility: we know that he was hand in glove with the barmaid, who could let him in at any hour of the day or night, who could further his schemes and cover his traces. Finally, there is the actual coincidence of his whereabouts: I can bring testimony to prove that he was hanging round the Load of Mischief at a time when all honest teetotallers ought to be in bed. There’s only one thing more that I want, and only one thing on the other side that would make me hold my hand.”
“What’s the one thing you want?”
“Definite evidence to connect him with the actual room in which Mottram was sleeping. If he’d dropped anything there, so much as a match-head; if he’d left even a fingermark about anywhere, I’d have the noose round his neck. But if you haven’t got just that last detail of evidence juries are often slow to convict. I could tell you of murderers who are at large now simply because we couldn’t actually connect them with the particular scene of the crime or with the particular weapon the crime was committed with.”
Bredon could not help admiring the man. It was obvious that he was still allowing for the possibility of Brinkman’s guilt and was accordingly advising Brinkman, whom he knew to be hidden round the corner, to manufacture some clue which would point to Simmonds, and thereby to give himself away. Bredon could not help wondering whether this was the real purpose of the colloquy, and whether he himself was not being kept in the dark. However, he had his sailing orders, and continued to play up to them.
“And the one thing which would make you hold your hand?”
“Why, if I could get satisfactory proof that Simmonds knew of the existence of that codicil. You see, we know that Simmonds did not stand to gain anything by murdering his uncle, because, in fact, his uncle had signed away all his expectations to the Bishop of Pullford. Now, if I could feel certain that Simmonds knew where he stood; knew that there was nothing coming to him as next of kin—why, then the motive would be gone, and with the motive my suspicions. The fact that he disliked his uncle, the fact that he disapproved of his uncle, wouldn’t make him murder his uncle. It’s a humiliating fact, but you don’t ever get a crime of this sort without some quid pro quo in the form of hard cash. If I felt sure that Simmonds knew he was cut out of the will altogether, then I’d acquit him, or be prepared to acquit him. If, on the other hand, somebody could produce good reason for thinking that Simmonds was expecting to profit by his uncle’s will, then my case would be proportionately strengthened.”
Once more Bredon listened with admiration. The man who was concealed behind the wall had been Mottram’s own secretary, more likely than any other man living to know how the facts stood. And Leyland was appealing to him, if he had any relevant knowledge about Simmonds’s expectations, to produce it; if he had none, to forge it, and thereby give himself away. The game began to thrill him in spite of himself.
“And meanwhile, what of our other friend?”
“Brinkman? Well, as I told you, I don’t suspect Brinkman directly. He had no motive for the crime, as far as we can see. But he is not playing the game, and for the life of me I can’t think why. For instance, he has been ready from the first to back up your idea of suicide. In fact, it seems to have been he who first mentioned the word suicide in connection with this business. He told you, for example, that he thought
