“Still, it’s not enough to have a general impression that a man is a wrong ’un, and hang him on the strength of it. You must discover a motive for which he would have done the murder, and a method by which he could have done it. Are you prepared to produce those?”
“Why, yes,” said Leyland. “I don’t profess to have all the details of the case at my fingers’ ends; but I’m prepared to give what seems to me a rational explanation of all the circumstances. And it’s an explanation which contends that Mottram met his death by murder.”
XXIII
Leyland’s Account of It All
“Of course, as to the motive,” went on Leyland, “I am not absolutely sure that I can point to a single one. But a combination of motives is sufficient, if the motives are comparatively strong ones. On the whole, I am inclined to put the thousand pounds first. For a rich man, Mottram did not pay his secretary very well; and at times, I understand, he talked of parting with him. Brinkman knew that the sum was in Mottram’s possession, for it was he himself who cashed the cheque at the bank. It was only a day or two before they came down here. On the other hand, I doubt if Brinkman knew where the money was; plainly Mottram didn’t trust him very much, or he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to sew the money in the cushions of the car. When I first found the cache, I assumed that Brinkman knew of its existence, and that was one of the reasons why I felt so certain that he would make straight for the garage. Now, I’m more inclined to think he fancied he would find the money among Mottram’s effects, which he must have hoped to examine in the interval before the arrival of the police.”
“Then you don’t think the Euthanasia had anything to do with it after all?” asked Bredon.
“I wouldn’t say that. There’s no doubt that Brinkman was a rabid anti-clerical—Eames was talking to me about that—and I think it’s quite likely he would have welcomed, in any case, an opportunity of getting Mottram out of the way provided that the death looked like suicide. The appearance of suicide would have the advantage, as we have all seen, that the Indescribable wouldn’t pay up. But he wanted, in any case, to give the murder the appearance of suicide, in order to save his own skin.”
“Then you think both motives were present to his mind?”
“Probably. I suppose there is little doubt that he knew of the danger to Mottram’s health, and the consequent danger, from his point of view, that the money would go to the Pullford Diocese. But I don’t think that motive would have been sufficient, if he hadn’t reckoned on getting away with a thousand pounds which didn’t belong to him.”
“Well, let’s pass the motive,” said Bredon. “I’m interested to hear your account of the method.”
“Our mistake from the first has been that of not accepting the facts. We have tried to fit the facts into our scheme, instead of letting the facts themselves guide us. From the first we were faced with what seemed to be a hopeless contradiction. The locked door seemed to make it certain that Mottram was alone when he died. The fact that the gas was turned off seemed to make it clear that Mottram was not alone when he died. There was ground for suspecting either suicide or murder; the difficulty was to make the whole complex of facts fit into either view. We had made a mistake, I repeat, in not taking the facts for our guide. The door was locked; that is a fact. Therefore Mottram was alone from the time he went to bed until the time when the door was broken in. And at the time when the door was broken in the gas was found turned off. Somebody must have turned it off, and in order to do so he must have been in the room. There was only one person in the room—Mottram. Therefore it was Mottram who turned the gas off.”
“You mean in his last dying moments?”
“No, such a theory would be fantastic. Mottram clearly turned the gas off in the ordinary way. Therefore, now, mark this, it was not the gas in Mottram’s room which poisoned Mottram.”
“But hang it all, if it wasn’t in his room—”
“When I say that, I mean it was not the gas which turned on and off in Mottram’s room. For that gas was turned off. Therefore it must have been some independent supply of gas which poisoned him.”
“Such as?”
“Doesn’t the solution occur to you yet? The room, remember, is very low, and the window rather high up in the wall. What is to prevent a supply of gas being introduced from outside and from above?”
“Good Lord! You don’t mean you think that Brinkman—”
“Brinkman had the room immediately above. Since his hurried departure, I have had opportunities of taking a better look round it. I was making some experiments there early this morning. In the first place, I find that it is possible for a man leaning out of the window in Brinkman’s room to control with a stick the position of the window in Mottram’s room—provided always that the window is swinging loose. He can ensure at will that Mottram’s window stands almost shut, or almost fully open.”
“Yes, I think that’s true.”
“I find, further, that Brinkman’s room, like Mottram’s, was supplied with a double apparatus, with a bracket on the wall and with a movable standard lamp. But whereas the main tap in Mottram’s room was near the door, and the tube which connected the gas with the standard lamp was meant to allow the lamp to be put on the writing-table, in Brinkman’s room it
