“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“But there’s another thing. Nigel, if it was Nigel, hadn’t been in the water when he climbed that bridge.”
“I don’t see how you make that out.”
“Why, if one’s been in the water one drips. A few drops would have been bound to fall on the steps, and then they would have been reproduced in the photograph. Since there are no marks except the footprints, it’s clear that the prints were made by somebody who had nothing on, or anyhow nothing on his feet, who had not yet been into the water.”
“Why were his feet wet, then?”
“Because he’d been walking in the long grass, which was still wet from the night’s rain. I imagine it had been raining in the night.”
“Why should it have been?”
“Because, if you will look carefully at Exhibit Four, you will see a puddle.”
“Golly, what a man!”
“I suppose, then, that Nigel, if it was Nigel, did leave his clothes a little below the bridge. He walked through the wet grass, and, realizing that his wet feet would leave prints, which might conceivably be examined by some passerby, went up the steps backwards.”
“But I still don’t see what he wanted to photograph the footprints for.”
“I’ve no reason to think that he did want to. All we know is that he did. I don’t know if you often go upstairs backwards, but if you have the habit, you will realize that it’s apt to make your stance a little uncertain. And if you are carrying a camera at the time, it is quite possible for some slight lurch to make you pull the trigger by mistake. Then, realizing that you’ve pulled the trigger, or fearing that you have, you pass on from Number Five to Number Six. Number Five doesn’t look to me like a photograph taken on purpose. It’s all skew-eyed, you see.
“I see. Then he photographed his man first, and murdered him afterwards?”
“I don’t know that he murdered him at all, in the way you mean. I think, after he’d taken the photograph, he let himself down by the framework of the bridge, put the camera on board, and pushed the canoe gently in to the bank, where his clothes were. Then he dressed again, sat down in the stern, and paddled on. I don’t think he dug a hole in the canoe and left the man in it to drown. I think he drowned his man first, tying a weight on him, I suppose, or getting him under a bank somewhere, and then scuttled the canoe. If you look carefully, you can see that the hole in the canoe was made from the outside, not from the inside. It’s bigger on the outside, on the inside it’s quite small, not the size of a threepenny bit. He must have hauled the bows of the canoe out of water to do that, and it would be easier to do it when the canoe was empty. Besides, I take it he didn’t want to run any risks of a rescue. He saw to it, while he was about it, that his man drowned all right.”
“And you do really think it was Nigel Burtell?”
“I do and I don’t. He’s got a perfect alibi, as far as we know. Yet he stood to gain by the whole thing, because the money was coming to him. I love my Nigel with an N, because he was needy. I hate him with an N, because he was nowhere near. I don’t see what to make of it. The old lady at Spinnaker Farm told me that a gentleman came through that morning in a tearing hurry, wanting to catch a train. I suppose that must have been the nine-fourteen. I supposed therefore that the gentleman must have been Nigel. What was he doing at Spinnaker Farm, if he had really come from the weir bridge? On the other hand, how on earth had he the time to do all the things we want him to have done? All this is very perplexing, and I think I am going to have an interview with Nigel.”
“I thought you said that was impossible.”
“Not now, because I’ve got an introduction. I am going to take back his films, which I found lying about in the fields by the river.”
“And ask him for an explanation of Numbers Five and Six? Miles, dear, that’s much more direct than your methods generally are.”
“Why, no. On the spool I shall give him, Numbers Five and Six will have got fogged somehow. Sort of thing that’s always happening.”
“But they aren’t fogged.”
“Never mind; what man has done man can do. Or woman, anyhow. Your camera takes the same size of film as those, doesn’t it? Very well then, you and I are going to take the car over to Lechlade. Or possibly Cricklade.”
The porch at Lechlade was clearly the porch they wanted; it was a matter of more research to find the identical cinema poster, but fortunately it remained unchanged. “We needn’t worry to fake the thing too carefully,” observed Bredon, “it will be easy to make him believe that he made a mistake.” The whole expedition only occupied some forty minutes; before the hour was up, they were on the river again, looking out for the sight, not uncommon on such a hot afternoon, of cows standing about in shallow water. For the sake of appearances, they paddled up a little beyond Shipcote Lock, returning there for tea. It was hardly to be expected that Mr. Burgess would be posing again for his portrait, and it was necessary for Bredon to understudy the part. Numbers Five and Six on the new film were exposed with the camera tilted up in the air, and the fake reel was complete. Angela had made
