‘Well, sir, no. As a matter of fact, after I’d heard that comic fairy-tale Mrs Bradley was handing out to you all in her garden, I got quite one or two new ideas on the subject of that murder. Of course, I knew it wasn’t the vicar. Hasn’t got it in him. Besides, one or two of Mrs Bradley’s ideas were entirely up the loop, and I knew it, and she knew it too, I reckon, and was just trying it on!’
‘But how the deuce did you hear her ideas at all?’ asked Jim, handing his cigarette-case to the police officer. Inspector Grindy laid his uniform cap on the table and stretched out a massive mahogany hand.
‘Thank you. I will. Just to show there’s no ill-feeling,’ he said.
They lit up. Then Jim said:
‘Where did you say you were?’
‘Oh, behind that clump of laurels. At Mrs Bradley’s invitation,’ replied the inspector jovially. ‘And I certainly got a knock-out over that silver tobacco-case. You see, sir, she pulled my leg about that case quite a long time ago. Told me the murderer had collected some of Sethleigh’s blood in it and poured it over the Stone of Sacrifice. Though, mind you, there was nothing like enough blood on that Stone for a murder! Of course I knew that was only her funny idea of a joke, so I took no notice; but, upon my soul, I was startled to see the vicar hike that case out of his pocket. Sifting it out, though, it seems as though he must have –’
‘Acquired it?’ suggested Jim, grinning.
‘Thank you, sir. Yes, and a long time before the murder. Mrs Bryce Harringay remembers hearing Mr Sethleigh enquiring after it, and the servants all remember being questioned about it upwards of six or perhaps eight weeks ago, so I expect the vicar pouched it in that at sent-minded manner of his, and that’s that. Then the clothes. We investigated the idea that Wright handled the body, and that bit is quite true. How the devil she tumbled to that, I don’t know. I hadn’t seen the significance of that scrap-up in the “Queen’s Head” all along, but that old woman got a strangle-hold on it right away. I’ll hand her that. Well, Wright broke down under our interrogation and confessed he’d seen a headless corpse. Mark that, sir! The skull again, you see! Then we made him produce the trousers which he’d been wearing on and off ever since the murder. They were Sethleigh’s, which was really a bit of a knock-out, because I’d put that bit of the old girl’s yarn down as sheer piffle. Funny thing is, he’s sticking to it that he didn’t take ’em off the corpse at all! He’ll go a long way if he isn’t hanged. Time and again he must have had ’em on and stood and talked to me. It’s a proper knock-out, that is! They’re Sethleigh’s flannels right enough. Tailor’s mark on ’em and everything. Well, of course, the rest of the clothing wasn’t dropped in the river at all, and Mrs Bradley never really thought it was. It seems as though it really must have been shoved into that suitcase with the head, and that’s where those bloodstains must have come from. Well, the suitcase affair altogether was a bit tricky. I’m not dead sure I’ve got it right now, and we certainly haven’t found the shirt and things. But it seems as though it was lent by Sethleigh to the vicar. Then the maid at the Vicarage packed some laundry in it and sent it to that daisy that hangs out with Savile and Wright in the Cottage on the Hill. From there the murderer pinched it. Had ample opportunity, it seems, because he was very sweet on Mrs Lulu, and used to visit her as often as he could crowd it in. Wonderful how many patients a country practitioner can – acquire was your word, sir, I think?’ – he guffawed heartily – ‘and what a devil of a time it takes him to get round to see ’em all!’
‘Country practitioner?’ said Jim, puzzled. ‘What on earth are you getting at?’
‘Why, Dr Barnes, sir, of course. He’s the chap we’ve arrested. I just told you we’d made an arrest. Don’t you remember little Miss Barnes saying her father was at the major’s that Sunday evening? And Mrs Bradley’s peculiar answer struck me all of a heap. She said they could prove whether that was so later on – or some words of that sort. Evasive, I said to myself. There’s something behind that, I said. Well, it turns out on investigation that he was never at the major’s at all! What do you make of that, sir? And then – another thing,’ he added, before Jim could reply; ‘the dismembering of the corpse! Child’s play, sir, to a surgeon! And wouldn’t disgust him and upset him like it would ordinary folks. Just science to him, cutting up a body. Just science. And Mrs Bradley confided to me herself what a tidy beggar the murderer must be! Now, sir, I ask you! What could be tidier than cutting up a body as neat as that, and hanging up the bits out of the way?’
Jim looked as he felt – sick.
‘Then, again,’ pursued the inspector, ‘look at the motives! Two motives, in fact, and both different. Mixed motives, as we call it. His daughter and the blackmail business.’
Jim, rather tired of Rupert’s wide reputation as a Don Juan of the baser sort, merely nodded.
‘Well, three, if you count Mrs Lulu,’ said the inspector, working it all out. ‘Both sweet on her, you see, Sethleigh and him were. Jealousy, and all that. Wonderful what a bit of passion will do to a man’s character, you know. Anyway, he could have done the deed in the time; he wasn’t at the major’s; and we trapped him into saying he’d been in the Manor Woods before he knew what we were after. So how’s that? As for the deed itself – well, Mrs Bradley talked of the vicar’s penknife, but a doctor would be neater. Tidy again, sir, you see! She certainly put me on the track there again! His scalpel. And it could be put away with his other instruments and nobody any the wiser! Then the head. Takes a doctor to dissect a head nicely and leave just the bare skull like we found. The police surgeon says the head was split half-way down, and boiled to leave the bone, but you know what these surgeons are, sir – must have their nasty little jokes! Anyway, that’s a small point. Well, then, sir, the Stone of Sacrifice. If you say “doctor” where Mrs Bradley said “vicar”, you’ll be about right. I should say that to the doctor that big slab suggested an operating-table! Something in that, sir, don’t you think? And perhaps he could have done something about the quantity of blood. There wasn’t enough for a stab in the neck, you see. That’s the only flaw in our theory.’
Jim nodded.
‘I see,’ he said, still trying to readjust his thoughts sufficiently to take hold of the idea that the large, robust, ruddy, rather offensively loud-voiced and didactic Dr Barnes was a murderer.
‘And then the slug business.’
‘How much?’ said Jim, puzzled.
‘Miss Barnes’s own words, sir. The man that came crawling out of the bushes like a great black slug. She confessed that the form seemed somehow familiar, you remember? Well, sir, what could be more familiar than the sight of her own father? That’s who she saw, and the doctor can’t deny it!’
‘And why should he deny it?’ asked a rich voice at the open French doors. ‘Of course it was Dr Barnes, and of course Margery did not recognize him, although his figure seemed familiar. It is a great pity she did not, for otherwise quite a number of muddles could have been cleared up by this time.’
And Mrs Bradley stepped into the library and seated herself in its most comfortable chair. Jim turned to her in perplexity.
‘I’m damned if I can make this business out at all, Mrs Bradley,’ he confessed frankly. ‘Of course, we all knew that you were drawing the long-bow about the vicar yesterday, but really, to push the murder off on to the doctor seems almost as bad to me. I mean, all the people here have known the chap for years, and I’m sure he must have lived down any scandal there ever was connected with his son.’
‘Cleaver Wright is that son,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Oh, really? I’ve heard rumours of it, of course. Still, there’s a sight of difference between going off the end about some woman or other and doing a blooming great murder, isn’t there?’