‘No – but about James Redsey, now. You see, we can’t prove he dismembered the body even if we think he did the murder. What about the prints on the suitcase?’
‘Too confused to be trustworthy, sir. You see, at least four people have handled that case since somebody stowed it away on the Vicarage dust-heap.’
‘Four people?’
‘Yes. Young Harringay, Miss Broome, the sergeant, and me. And then, you see, it had been buried. That makes a difference.’
‘Yes, I see. Still, as I say, even without the suitcase, the whole thing looks pretty clear to me.’
‘Yes. It’s a darn sight too clear. That’s what I think,’ said Grindy. ‘It’s like picking apples off a tree. Too easy to be interesting. I don’t like that kind of evidence. Murders aren’t solved all that easy, sir, as you should know. That fellow Redsey is quite the sort of young chap as might do a murder – same as any of us – you don’t have to be a criminal to up and kill a man when all’s said and done. The feelings of that are in most of us, say what you please – but all the same, Mr Bidwell –’
‘You come along to my place, and have a bit of supper, Tom,’ said the superintendent kindly. ‘And don’t get highfalutin. You’ve got a bead on your man all right. I’ve thought so all along. You see, there have been nothing but family rows over that property since the grandfather’s time. The brother, this young Harringay’s father, was disinherited by the old man, and the two sisters had a lawsuit over the business – that’s Sethleigh’s mother and Redsey’s mother, you know – and a lawsuit over property in a family means bad blood all round – it doesn’t stop at a sisterly row between the two litigants. And now the trouble has worked downwards, and, in my opinion, young Redsey has just simply gone and cooked it. And, after all, dozens of men have been arrested on less than a quarter of the evidence you’ve got against him.’
‘Yes, I know.’ The inspector stared at the broad toes of his boots. ‘But it could all be explained away pretty easily. I mean, suppose Sethleigh were only stunned after all by that fall? Then, it seems pretty certain Redsey did not dismember the corpse – at least, we can’t prove at present that he did cut it up, and we can’t find an accomplice. Besides, on Monday night, and pretty late at that, it seems that Redsey was seen looking for the body.’
‘Eh?’
‘Well, we can’t prove that’s what he was looking for, but it seems feasible.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, don’t you see, that shows he didn’t know the body was dismembered and in Bossbury. He thought it was still in the bushes where he’d left it on the Sunday night.’
‘H’m! It’s a point. But in view of what you’ve got against him –’
‘Then the point about the will. He says he didn’t know his cousin was going to disinherit him, and we can’t prove that he did know.’
‘There’s that, certainly. But I expect he knew all right. I bet that is what the final row was all about, as a matter of fact. After all, he admits it was about money. You’ve only got to go a step further. After all, to be disinherited –’
‘Yes, I know, but did he know about the will? The alteration of the will, I mean. If he didn’t, you see –’
‘And if he did, Grindy – and I can’t see why he shouldn’t have known –’
‘Yes, sir. It’s a big point, of course. But proof, you see –’
‘Proof! Why, you’ve got your proof! The murder of Sethleigh is the proof! What more do you want?’
‘Somewhere,’ said Grindy slowly, shaking his head and laboriously working it out, ‘there’s a flaw in that argument.’
‘You come and have some grub,’ said the superintendent kindly. ‘That bit of gardening’s upset you!’
II
Aubrey himself, much mystified by the discovery of the suitcase containing his trout, wandered back to the Manor House, and went up to his own room. He picked up his bat and was practising a few late cuts – the kind of stroke, he reflected, that looks so pretty at the nets, but which never seems to come off in a match – when the bell rang for tea.
Aubrey, always ready for his meals, hastily washed his hands and brushed his hair. Then he tore down the stairs, jumped the last eight, and nearly knocked Mrs Bradley flying. Before he could so much as apologize, she gripped his arm and hissed into his ear:
‘Go upstairs again, and bring me the false teeth!’
Aubrey stared at her in stark amazement for a full minute. Then he bolted upstairs again, and shortly returned bearing a small cardboard box. This he handed to her.
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘The trove of the dust-heap shall be paid for in – hard cash?’
Aubrey stuck his hands in his pockets and put his head on one side.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me – let me have a bit of a look-in, will you, Mrs Bradley? There’s going to be a lark, isn’t there?’
‘At six o’clock to-morrow night, so early in the morning, then,’ said Mrs Bradley, nodding and cackling and wagging a yellow forefinger at him. ‘Bring Felicity Broome and James Redsey. I must have James Redsey. Understand?’
‘No,’ said Aubrey, laughing. ‘But it sounds the goods all right. I’ll go and tell Felicity directly after tea.’
‘And I myself will invite James Redsey,’ observed Mrs Bradley, ‘and then he won’t have the requisite amount of nerve to refuse the invitation. That young man is afraid of me! He darts behind potted palms at my approach! I’ve seen him do it! But this time he will not escape!’
She proved a true prophet. The spineless James fell an easy victim to an invitation which he spent the rest of the evening cursing and reviling, but which he had not found the courage to refuse when Mrs Bradley delivered it.
After tea, Aubrey went in search of Felicity Broome and found her lying on the grass in the orchard behind the Vicarage garden. She was weeping bitterly. He stood by her side for a moment and looked down upon her gravely, a tall, thin, brown-faced boy, sympathetic and diffident. At last he coughed.
Felicity raised herself and looked round. Slowly she sat up, and, with woman’s instinct, began to tidy her rumpled hair. Her eyelashes were wet and her cheeks flushed with weeping. She was very lovely.
‘I say,’ began Aubrey, abashed at the sight of woman’s tears. He hesitated. ‘I suppose you know those police johnnies have been nosing round our place again?’ he added awkwardly.
Felicity nodded. A sob escaped her, and she clenched her small teeth viciously. Absurd to let a kid like Aubrey see one cry, and all about a man whom one had only known about – about ten weeks!
‘I’m sure they think – they think that Jimsey –’ she managed to observe in a husky voice.
Aubrey nodded gloomily.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so, too,’ he said. ‘And they found that bally suitcase, too, this afternoon.’
‘Found it?’ Felicity stared at him. ‘The inspector was over here asking about it, but I had no idea they’d found it! Where?’
‘Buried in old Jim’s hole, where we had decided to put it ourselves. Comic, isn’t it? But you don’t want to worry, Felicity,’ he added hastily. ‘I mean, they can’t prove anything, you know. Old Jim has been absolutely square with them. Confessed he knocked Rupert out and everything. That ought to count in his favour, you know. If only we could find out who bunked off with that bally suitcase that night, and then buried it like that!’
‘Why?’ Felicity gave her eyes a last dab and tossed back her hair.
‘Well, don’t you see! It must have been the – the real murderer. After all, if old Jim didn’t carve up the corpse – and he swears he didn’t, and the police don’t believe he did, because I asked the inspector and he said they could check up Jim’s alibi for Monday, when they are pretty sure it was done – unless it was done on the Sunday, when, again, Jim couldn’t have done it – well then, it seems to me that Jim couldn’t have killed Rupert, but only stunned him, as Jim himself said; and then Rupert got up, all woozy from the concussion or whatever it was, and somebody else stepped in and had a soft job finishing the poor blighter off.’