“We’ll find him all right,” said Leyland grimly. “If I can get leave, I’ll go after him myself.”
“Go steady with your revolver, then. The Company won’t like it a bit if he’s a corpse by the third of September.”
XXV
A Postscript
September 6th.
Dear Mrs. Bredon,
It was very kind of you to write and ask after me, and I hope it wasn’t mere curiosity that prompted you to do it, as you suggest. I’ve been here, of course, in this rather delightful Belgian country town, ever since the police got news that Derek was here—the result, somebody told me, of a wireless broadcast. Anyhow, it seemed only decent to come out and see that he was being looked after. Though that, indeed, was quite unnecessary, because the nuns have made him comfortable all the time, as far as he could be made comfortable.
To answer your question—yes, I think your husband was exactly right in every particular. One or two explanations have been forthcoming, e.g. why Derek left me so little time to commit my imaginary murder in. It turns out that I was to blame for this, because I took so much longer getting away from Millington Bridge than I was expected to. As he had worked the thing out, we ought to have arrived at Shipcote with a clear half-hour or more for me to catch the train in. As it was, I started out late from the inn; and Derek, though he was annoyed by the delay, couldn’t offer to help me with the paddling, because it was part of his plan to appear very tired and sleepy. If we had been more punctual, my “alibi” would have been singularly imperfect. But then if we’d been more punctual Derek would have passed Farris in the lock-stream, and that would have complicated things all round.
The footprints on the bridge had, after all, a certain raison d’être. Derek meant it to be supposed that I meant it to be supposed that the murderer had come from Byworth, and had made off in the Byworth direction; that he walked backwards as a piece of obvious bluff which the police would see through. (Only a dope-fiend, I imagine, could have worked out that idea of triple bluff, and expected the police to follow two-thirds of the calculation.) You were expected to think that the films dropped from my pocket on the Shipcote bank by accident.
There’s nothing more, I think, for me to clear up except Derek’s movements after he left the river. He did, of course, go via Southampton and Havre, and he travelled straight on to Paris. There he took refuge in a class of society where no questions are asked and shaving is optional. He started growing a moustache and beard, and was listening eagerly for news of my arrest. But when that didn’t happen, and the papers still refused to recognize his death, he left Paris and came here, dropping the name of Wallace as he did so. He had started taking drugs again, and soon after he got here he fainted in the street. He was brought to this hospital, where the nuns had never heard the name of Burtell; and he was too sick to read the newspapers at the time when Aunt Alma died. In fact, he knew nothing more of what was going on here until the police tracked him down.
There’s one other circumstance about Derek which may not interest you, but interested me profoundly. He was engaged to some French girl, who proceeded to turn up at his bedside as soon as she heard of his whereabouts, and I’m blessed if they didn’t get married. Which was all very proper and romantic; but it had the awkward consequence that D. drew up a will in favour of his wife, which he calmly asked me to witness! So Aunt Alma’s legacy will not come into my branch of the family.
However, what I wanted to tell you about was my first interview with Derek. It was almost immediately after I got here; he insisted on seeing me alone; and, though I dreaded the interview, I had to go through with it. He was frightfully broken down, poor chap, whimpering all the time and very nearly crying. He grovelled quite dreadfully about his attempt to let me in for a murder charge; said that he’d been made silly by drugs, and wasn’t really responsible for his actions. He said he didn’t think he’d really have let me swing—which I didn’t believe. And I had to sit there like a fool, saying “Oh, shut up; don’t mention it,” and that sort of thing; and all the time I could see that he was leading up to something—I couldn’t make out what.
At last it came. They had cut him off, of course, from his drug, and he was simply dying to get some. There was some, apparently, hidden away in his luggage, and he hadn’t dared to ask the doctor for it, or any of the nuns. He wanted me to fetch it and give it him. I said, of course, that he was far better without it; that he’d only kill himself if he took more. He said he didn’t mind; he was for it anyhow; what difference could a
