(4) Possibly D. merely wished to slip out of society (heavy drug taker). But circs. seem unnecessarily elaborate.
Personal characteristics—D. is reputed slow, lazy, and unimaginative; fond of low friends. Talks French well. Bets and gambles considerably. N. gives himself out Bolshevist, etc.; some brains, talent for acting; Bohemian pose (?); friends say not to be taken seriously.
Next destinations.—D. apparently expected to return to London flat, where letters were to await arrival. N.’s letters were to be forwarded to same address. Did N. mean to stay in London with D.? No other address given to Oxford lodgings; luggage only marked (railway label) “Paddington.”
Possibility of murder by persons unknown.—It does not appear D. had any violent or bitter enemies. No one had any motive for killing him except N. Add, however, the possibility of someone interested in Mrs. Coolman’s money. Mrs. C. has a protégé, E(dward?) Farris, orphaned son of friends, who has been brought up by and lived with her. Some chance that she may have left property to him by will; perhaps contingently; if so, he might have motive for disposing of (one or both) Burtell cousins. (N.B. Letter from Mrs. C. to D., found among his papers in London, expresses strong desire for D. and N. to be reconciled, since they were reported to her as having quarrelled. Perhaps significant.)
Leyland had, of course, jotted down other notes, but these, for the most part, would be no news to the reader. Bredon, as he read, admired both the thoroughness of his method and the directness of his mind; you could see Leyland’s suspicions leaping up (he said to himself) like the little numbers on an automatic cash register. Then his thoughts turned to Mr. Quirk, his solitary companion at the inn. What did Mr. Quirk suspect, what did he wish it to be thought he suspected? It would be interesting, if it were in any way possible, to sound Mr. Quirk on the subject, without giving away (in Leyland’s absence) their discoveries on the island, and the doubts which those discoveries had corroborated or suggested. Perhaps, after all, an appeal to the man’s vanity was simplest. Anyhow, it would be no harm trying. He went down into the “Inglenook Room,” shuddering as he passed under that inscription. Mr. Quirk was not there, but a smoking cigarette-end, and a novel carelessly laid aside page-downwards, proved that he had only just left it. Bredon picked up the novel, wondering what volume in the limited and old-fashioned library of the Gudgeon would have appealed to the American’s tastes. It was Warren’s Ten Thousand a Year. “Yes,” said Bredon to himself, “that clinches it.”
Mr. Quirk himself entered a moment or two later. “Ah, Mr. Quirk,” said Bredon, “I was just running through some notes of the case which Leyland made, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind my mentioning one fact which might help us to solve our little difficulty of yesterday. Did you know that the Burtell cousins had a great-aunt who was very much concerned about their rumoured dislike of each other? And that only a little over a week ago she was urging them to a reconciliation?”
“Why,” said Mr. Quirk, “that’s a very interesting fact; but as far as my observation goes, what we do in life is one thing and what our great-aunts want us to do is another.”
“I agree. But this great-aunt was in some ways out of the common. She was very rich, and she had nobody else to leave her money to—nobody in the family, at any rate. Further, since her name was Alma, I think it’s a safe guess that the year of her birth was not much later than 1854.”
“You mean that her testamentary dispositions were on the way to becoming a practical problem. Why, that’s so. And you think these young men kind of faked their river trip so as to give auntie the idea they were old school chums.”
“Well, it’s at least possible. Now, suppose that they have a quarrel. From all that one hears of them, nothing is more likely. Supposing, on the last day of their trip, that the elder, Derek, said he couldn’t bear it any longer—got off the canoe before their night stage was reached, and went off to an inn by himself. The younger would have no impulse to call him back; he goes on to their arranged destination; and then, on his way up to the hotel, he has a sudden doubt. What if Aunt Alma—she lives not very far from Oxford—should make inquiries about their trip, and find that after all they finished up in two separate hotels? Is it worth running the risk, when a comparatively little ingenuity will create the impression that two travellers spent the night there?”
“I should be the first to compliment you, Mr. Bredon, on your very remarkable piece of analysis. But if you ask me, I think it would need some more powerful motive than that to account for the young man’s behaviour. I’ve studied the records of crime a good deal; and it’s my conviction that people don’t resort to desperate shifts unless they’re in desperate situations. Now, when you find this kind of juggling going on on the very eve of a great fatality, doesn’t it suggest itself to you, as it suggests itself to me, that that fatality was foreseen, and that the juggling was practised in an effort to avoid it?”
“Yes; that’s sound; that’s quite sound. Don’t invoke coincidence if you can help it. You think Derek Burtell knew he had enemies on his track? As far as I know, we’ve no record of any such enemies existing.”
“That young man seems to have lived in the Bohemian world a deal more than was good for him.
