“You remember the remark in The Importance of Being Earnest, that to lose one parent may be an accident, to lose both looks like carelessness? So it was with Mottram and the taps. Two taps turned on meant, and would be understood to mean, an accident. But, and this is worth remembering, if all three taps were found on, it would look like suicide. Brinkman acted on the spur of the moment; he was in a hurry, for the atmosphere of the room was still deadly. He wrapped his handkerchief round his fingers, so as to leave no mark, then, in his confusion, he turned the wrong tap! He meant to turn tap B on; instead, he turned tap A off. That sounds impossible, I know. But you will notice that whereas tap A and tap B are turned off when they are at the horizontal, tap C is turned off when it is at the vertical, When Brinkman, then, saw the three taps, B and C were both horizontal, and A was vertical, it was natural, in the flurry of the moment, for him to imagine that if all three taps were in the same position (that is, all horizontal) they would all be turned on. Instinctively, then, he turned tap A from the vertical to the horizontal. And in doing so he left the whole three in the same position in which they were before Mottram lit his match. No gas was escaping at all. The result of Brinkman’s action was not to corroborate the theory of suicide, but to introduce a quite new theory—that of murder. Half-stifled, he rushed from the room, locked the door on the outside, and took the key away with him up to his room.”
“Steady on,” put in Angela, “why did he lock the door?”
“It may have been only so as to keep the room private till he had thought the thing out, and the Boots may have come round too soon for him. Or, more probably, it was another deliberate effort to encourage the idea of suicide. Anyhow, his actions from that moment onward were perfectly clearheaded. He helped to break down the door, and, while Ferrers was examining the gas, while the Boots was lighting a match, he thrust the key in on the inner side of the door. It was only when he had done this, when he thought that he had made the suicide theory an absolute certainty, that he was suddenly confronted with the horrible mistake he had made in turning the wrong tap. It was a bad moment for him, but fortunately one which excused a certain display of emotion.”
“And he thought he would be run in for the murder?” asked Leyland.
“Not necessarily. But your arrival worried him badly; you got hold of the murder idea from the start.”
“Why didn’t he skip, then? There was the car, all ready provisioned.”
“The trouble is that Brinkman is, according to his lights, an honest man. And he hated the idea of the Euthanasia money going to the Bishop. I was a godsend to him; here was a nice, stupid man, briefed to defend the thesis of suicide. As soon as I came, he tried to take me out for a walk in the gorge.”
“Why in the gorge?” asked the Bishop.
“So that I should find the letter. Yesterday he did manage to take me to the gorge, and actually drew my attention to the ledge. I saw a bit of paper there, but it never occurred to me to wonder what it was. Poor Brinkman! He must have thought me an ass!”
“But why didn’t he get the letter himself, and bring it to us? Or leave it lying about?”
“That was the maddening thing, the poor little man just couldn’t reach it. The wind of Monday night had blown it a bit further away, I suspect. Of course, he could have gone out with a stepladder, or rolled stones up to stand on. But, you see, you were watching him, and I’m pretty sure he knew you were watching him. He thought it best to lead us on, lead me on rather, and make me find out the envelope for myself. When he’d drawn me right across the trail of it, and I’d failed to see it, he was in despair. He decided that he must bolt after all. It was too horrible a position to be here under observation, and fearing arrest at any moment. If he were arrested, you see, he must either tell a lie, and land himself in suspicion, or tell the truth, and see the Euthanasia money fall into Catholic hands.
“He ordered a car from the garage to meet the train which arrives at Chilthorpe at 8:40. He determined to meet it on the way to the station. I don’t think the thought of the car lying at the garage, with the ‘sangwiches’—I mean the sandwiches—and the whisky on board, occurred to him for a moment. He is an honest man. But on his way to meet the car he would go through the gorge, and make sure that he was followed; he would draw attention to the document, and then disappear from the scene. He had not much luggage; he had only to clear up a few papers, mostly belonging to Mottram. Among these was the unsigned
