“Bredon,” said Leyland, “you’re being very silent. I believe you’ve got one of your ideas—you’re on the track of a solution.”
“Not within miles of one,” admitted Bredon cheerfully. “But I enjoy fresh complications, as long as they’re not off the point. And I don’t think this complication is off the point.”
XII
The Secret of the Island
Bredon did not expand until he and Leyland were alone together. “I’m going to leave it to you,” he said, “how much you take Mr. Quirk into your confidence. Meanwhile, I must tell you that I’ve got Nigel Burtell’s fingerprints; and I’m confoundedly glad that I did. When I called on him to show him those photographs, I took good care that he should finger the envelope in which the photographs were, and that he should return it to me. As soon as I’d left him I took a photo of the prints, and here it is. Unless my memory is at fault, I think it’s the duplicate of the marks on those decanters.”
His forecast was fully justified. “Well,” said Leyland, “we’ve got the facts clear, anyhow. Until Sunday night, according to what you tell me, the Burtell cousins travelled together. On Sunday night Nigel Burtell was the only one who slept at Millington Bridge; and he took particularly good care to let it be supposed that Derek was there too. He must have been at pains, for example, to tumble the bedclothes in Number Three.”
“Yes, and don’t make any mistake about it—you can’t tumble the bedclothes in ten minutes. People do in books, but in real life you can’t make a bed look as if it had been lain on unless you actually lie on it for an hour or more. Nigel Burtell, I take it, must have divided his night between the two bedrooms and the two beds. That night, of course, he climbed out of the window and came back again to the inn door posing as the gentleman with the camera. He had the reputation, you know, of being quite a decent actor as amateurs go. The next morning found him in Number Three—he had locked the door of Number Two when he changed beds in the night. He made a feint of eating the breakfast, washed in that room and then in Number Two, packed, came down and ate his second breakfast, and went off, paying the bill. Not a bad night’s work. But whatever for?”
“I may be a fool,” said Leyland meditatively, “but I believe I’m getting nearer the solution of the whole thing. Look here, let me just rough it out, and see what you think of it. I’m taking it as a fixed certainty—almost the only fixed certainty we’ve lighted on so far—that Nigel Burtell deliberately pretended to be two people on the Sunday night, although his cousin was certainly with him when they paddled down the river next morning. The only strong motive I can see for Nigel’s fantastic behaviour is a fantastic motive. He acted as he acted because he wanted it to be thought that Derek Burtell was alive, whereas in reality he was dead. That means he had already murdered his cousin, on the Sunday.”
“It would be an ingenious idea, certainly. You mean that he left the body in the canoe, and tethered the canoe somewhere where it was not likely to be found?”
“Possibly. Or possibly he sank the body, somewhere where he could get at it again easily. Meanwhile, since there had been two gentleman staying in all the inns they had visited hitherto, he must create the impression that two gentlemen had slept at Millington Bridge. He did that, as we know. But his precautions went further; he was determined to play the old Cid trick with his brother’s body, pretending he was still alive, I mean; and to do that right under the nose of the lock-keeper. He arranged the body in the attitude of a man lying asleep—or possibly drugged—on the floor of the canoe, and then solemnly paddled down to Shipcote Lock. By a piece of luck for him, the water in the lock was at high level. If it had been at low level, the lock-keeper would have come out on to the nearer bridge to turn the winches, and would have been staring right down into the canoe. As it was, the lock-keeper had only to open the gates at that end; and he did so, after the manner of lock-keepers, with his back turned to the audience.”
“Yes, Nigel was taking a risk. But, as you say, the luck was with him.”
“From the further, lower end of the lock there was not much danger. In turning the winches, the lock-keeper still had his back to the canoe; and in a short time, as the water got lower, the canoe itself faded out of sight. Then it was that Nigel stood on the edge of the lock, and began a one-sided conversation with the lifeless figure in the canoe. No answers were audible, but that would not create any surprise in the lock-keeper; between the depth of the walls and the rushing of the water he wouldn’t be likely to hear the other side of the conversation. Only one difficulty remained—how to get the canoe clear of the lock, when the man inside it was dead. This difficulty Nigel solved, rather ingeniously, by pretending that he had remembered something at the last moment—the camera, or something like that—and running down the steps to the canoe. Here, still out of sight, he gave the canoe one good, straight shove, enough to carry it out into the stream, where the wind would catch it and help it along. Then he proceeded to establish his alibi.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile—why, I’m coming round to your idea of a third person, only I believe that third person to have been an accomplice. The accomplice’s job was to dispose, somehow, of the body, and then paddle
