“Wouldn’t a man who was destroying an important document be apt to take care he didn’t leave any of it lying about?”
“Certainly, if he’d plenty of time to do it in. If it had been Mottram, for example, burning his own will. It seems to me more like the action of a man in a hurry; and I suspect that the man who burned this document was in a hurry. Or at least he was flustered; for he had been committing a murder, and so few people can keep their heads altogether in that position.”
“It’s Simmonds, then, by your way of it?”
“Who else? You see, at first I was in rather a difficulty. We had assumed, what it was natural to assume, that this codicil which Mottram added to his will was kept a secret—that Simmonds didn’t know about it, and that he’d murdered Mottram under the mistaken idea that he would inherit the Euthanasia benefits as the next of kin. Now, if that had been his intention, it would have been rather a coincidence his happening to light on the will and be able to burn it. But you tell me that Simmonds did know about the codicil; very well, that solves the difficulty. It was a double crime not only in fact but in intention. You thought that Simmonds’s knowledge of the codicil gave him a sort of moral alibi. On the contrary, it only fastens the halter round his neck. He determined to destroy Mottram and the will together, and so inherit. The motive is more obvious than ever. The only thing which he unfortunately hadn’t taken into account was the fact that the copy of the codicil which he destroyed was a duplicate, and the original was up in London.”
“But isn’t it rather a big supposition, that Simmonds not only knew the codicil was in existence but knew that it was in Mottram’s possession when he came down here, and that it would be lying about in Mottram’s room, quite easy for him to find?”
“You forget Mottram’s psychology. When Simmonds offended him, he wasn’t content that Simmonds should be cut out of his will; he wanted him to know that he’d been cut out of the will—directed the lawyers to inform him of the fact. When he added that codicil about the Euthanasia, although he made such a secret of it all round, he was careful, as we know, to inform Simmonds that it had been done. Don’t you think it’s likely that he wrote to Simmonds and said, ‘I have willed the Euthanasia policy away to strangers, so as to prevent it coming to you; you can look in on me when I’m at Chilthorpe, and I’ll show you the document’? And Simmonds, not understanding the pernicketiness of lawyers, imagined that it would be the original of the will, not a copy, that Mottram had by him. So, when he came round here on his midnight visit, or rather on his early morning visit, he turned off the gas, flung the window open, ransacked the despatch-box which he found lying on the table, found the will, and burnt it hastily at the open window. Probably he thought the unburnt fragment had fallen out of the window; actually it had fallen under the table, and here we are!”
“It was Angela, I suppose, who told you that Simmonds knew he had been cut out of the will?”
“With the best intentions. Mrs. Bredon thought, of course, that my suspicion of Simmonds could not survive the revelation. As a matter of fact, it all fitted in nicely. Well, it just shows that one should never waste time trying to puzzle out a problem until one’s sure that all the relevant facts have been collated. Here were you and I worrying our lives out over the difficulty, and all because we had never noticed that bit of paper lying on the floor—and might never have noticed it, if I hadn’t happened to go in with the undertaker. Now, there’s only Brinkman’s part of the business to settle. Apart from that, it’s as clear as daylight.”
“You think so? Well, you must think me a frightful Sadducee, but even now I don’t mind doubling that bet again.”
“Forty pounds! Good Lord, man, the Indescribable must pay you well! Or do they insure you against losing bets? Well, it would eat a big hole in my salary. But if you want to throw your money away, I don’t mind.”
“Good! Forty quid. We’d best keep it dark from Angela, though. I say, when ‘Raight-ho’ makes that horrible noise on the tom-tom inside, it generally means that Mrs. Davis has finished blowing the dust off the cold ham. What’s wrong with going in and seeing about a little lunch?”
XVI
A Visitor from Pullford
When they came into the coffee room, Bredon had the instantaneous impression we all get occasionally that the room was too full. Then, on disentangling his sensations, he was delighted to find that the newcomer was Mr. Eames, who was exchanging a word or two with Brinkman, though he seemed not to have been introduced to the others. “Good man!” said Bredon. “I don’t think you met my wife, did you? This is Mr. Pulteney … it was very good of you to keep your promise.”
“As it turned out, I should have had to come in any case. The Bishop had to go off to a confirmation, so, when he heard the funeral was down here, he sent me to represent him. You see, we heard from the solicitors about our windfall—I suspect you were keeping that dark, Mr. Bredon—and he was very much touched by Mr. Mottram’s kindness. He wished he could have come, Mr. Brinkman, but of course a confirmation is a difficult engagement to get out of.”
“I really knew nothing about the
