The Three Taps

will which had been drawn up, ready for Mottram’s signature, on the Monday night. This he burned; it could be no use to anybody now. He burned it standing at the window, and the last, unburnt piece escaped from his fingers, and fluttered down through a second window into the room below⁠—this room, which had been Mottram’s. That was your find, Leyland. And the odd thing is that it was through this absurd detail that I got onto the track of the whole thing; because one of my patience cards fluttered down through a ground-floor window; and as I was carrying it upstairs I realized that was how the scrap of paper came to be lying about in Mottram’s room. Then I began wondering what the will was, and why Brinkman should have been burning it, and suddenly the whole truth began to sketch itself in my mind, just as I’ve been telling it you.

“Brinkman had bad luck to the last. I dropped that card just after he started out with his despatch-box; he saw that I’d disappeared from the window, and supposed, with delight, that I was following him. With delight, for of course I was the one man who was interested in proving the death to be suicide. He went back to the cache in the gorge, leading me (as he supposed) all the way; then he waited for a flash of lightning, and jumped up so as to draw attention to the envelope. As he came down again he looked round, and, in the last rays of the lightning flash, saw that it was Eames, not I, who was following him. Eames⁠—the one man who would certainly make away with the precious document! But there was no time to be lost; he could hear the taxi already on the hill. He ran round to the road, leaped on board the taxi, and, in desperation, sent a note to me by the taxi-man telling me to make Eames show me what he had found. I don’t know where Brinkman is now, but I rather hope he gets clear.”

“Amen to that,” said Leyland; “it would be uncommonly awkward for us if we found him. What on earth could we charge him with? You can’t hang a man for turning the wrong gas-tap by mistake.”

“Poor Mr. Simmonds will be relieved about this,” said Angela.

“By the way,” said the Bishop, “I hear that Mottram did leave some unsettled estate after all, and that, I suppose, will go to Simmonds. Not a great deal, but it’s enough for him to marry on.”

Angela swears that at this point she heard, on the other side of the door, a scuffle and the rustle of departing footsteps. She says you can’t cure maids of their bad habits, really.

“My own difficulty,” said the Bishop, “is about my moral claim to this money. For it was left to me, it seems, by a will which the testator did not mean to take effect.”

“On the other hand, you’ve earned it, My Lord,” suggested Bredon. “After all, poor Mottram was only waiting to find out whether you would prove to be an honest man or not. And I think you’ve come out of the test very well. Besides, you can’t refuse the legacy; it’s in trust for the diocese. I hope Pullford will see a lot of Catholic activity now.”

“The church collections will be beginning to fall off almost at once,” said Eames, with a melancholy face.

“I wish I had scrutinized those motor-cushions more closely,” said Mr. Pulteney. “It seems to me that I get nothing out of all this.”

“Which reminds me,” said Leyland, “I suppose the bet’s off.”

“And Mr. Bredon,” added the Bishop, “will get no thanks from his company. I’m afraid, Mr. Bredon, you will have carried nothing away with you from your visit to these parts.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Bredon.

List of Illustrations

1. The three taps as Brinkman found them

2. The three taps as they were found in the morning

Colophon

The Three Taps
was published in 1927 by
Ronald A. Knox.

This ebook was produced for
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Under the Lamp,
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