“Perhaps he’d had a look at the place first. But of course, we know he did. That must have been what he was doing when Potty Peake saw him and Thoday in the church. He spotted the place then, and came back later. Though why he should have waited five days I couldn’t tell you. Possibly something went wrong. Anyway, back he came, armed with his hook, and hitched the necklace out. Then, just as he was coming down the ladder, the accomplice took him from behind, tied him up, and — and then — and then did away with him by some means we can’t account for.”
The Superintendent scratched his head.
“You’d think he might have waited for a better place to do it in, wouldn’t you, my lord? Putting him out here in the church, and all that bother of burying him and what not. Why didn’t he go while the going was good, and shove Cobbleigh into the dyke or something on the way home?”
“Heaven knows,” said Wimsey. “Anyhow, there’s your hiding-place and there’s the explanation of your hook.”
He thrust the end of his fountain pen into the hole. “It’s quite a deep — no, by Jove, it’s not! it’s only a shallow hole after all, not much longer than the peg. We can’t, surely, have made a mistake. Where’s my torch? Dash it! (Sorry, padre). Is that wood? or is it—? Here, Blundell, find me a mallet and a short, stout rod or stick of some kind — not too thick. We’ll have this hole clear.”
“Run across to the Rectory and ask Hinkins,” suggested Mr. Venables, helpfully.
In a few minutes’ time, Mr. Blundell returned, panting, with a short iron bar and a heavy wheel-spanner. Wimsey had shifted the ladder and was examining the narrow end of the oaken peg on the east side of the beam. He set one end of the bar firmly against the peg and smote lustily with the spanner. An ecclesiastical bat, startled from its resting-place by the jar, swooped out with a shriek, the tapered end of the peg shot smartly through the hole and out at the other side, and something else shot out with it — something that detached itself in falling from its wrapping of brown paper and cascaded in a flash of green and gold to the Rector’s feet.
“Bless my heart!” cried Mr. Venables.
“The emeralds!” yelled Mr. Blundell. “The emeralds, by God! And Deacon’s fifty pounds with them.”
“And we’re wrong, Blundell,” said Lord Peter. “We’ve been wrong from start to finish. Nobody found them. Nobody killed anybody for them. Nobody deciphered the cryptogram. We’re wrong, wrong, out of the hunt and wrong!”
“But we’ve got the emeralds,” said the Superintendent.
III.
A SHORT TOUCH OF STEDMAN’S TRIPLES
(Five Parts)
840
By the Part Ends
561234
341562
621345
451623
231456
Treble the Observation.
Call her the last whole turn, out quick, in slow, the second half turn and out slow. Four times repeated.
(TROYTE)
THE FIRST PART
THE QUICK WORK
The work of each bell is divided in three parts, viz. the quick work, dodging, and slow work.
TROYTE On Change-Ringing.
Lord Peter Wimsey passed a restless day and night and was very silent the next day at breakfast.
At the earliest possible moment he got his car and went over to Leamholt.
“Superintendent,” he said, “I think I have been the most unmitigated and unconscionable ass that ever brayed in a sleuth-hound’s skin. Now, however, I have solved the entire problem, with one trivial exception. Probably you have done so too.”
“I’ll buy it,” said Mr. Blundell. “I’m like you, my lord, I’m doing no more guessing. What’s the bit you haven’t solved, by the way?”
“Well, the murder,” said his lordship, with an embarrassed cough. “I can’t quite make out who did that, or how. But that, as I say, is a trifle. I know who the dead man was, why he was tied up, where he died, who sent the cryptogram to whom, why Will Thoday drew £200 out of the bank and put it back again, where the Thodays have gone and why and when they will return, why Jim Thoday missed his train, why Cranton came here, what he did and why he is lying about it and how the beer bottle got into the belfry.”
“Anything else?” asked Mr. Blundell.
“Oh! yes. Why Jean Legros was silent about his past, what Arthur Cobbleigh did in the wood at Dartford, what the parrot was talking about and why the Thodays were not at Early Service on Sunday, what Tailor Paul had to do with it and why the face of the corpse was beaten in.”
“Excellent,” said Mr. Blundell. “Quite a walking library, aren’t you, my lord? Couldn’t you go just a step further and tell us who we’re to put the handcuffs on?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that. Dash it all, can’t I leave one little tit-bit for a friend?”
“Well,” said Mr. Blundell, “I don’t know that I ought to complain. Let’s have the rest of it and perhaps we’ll be able to do the last bit on our own.”
Lord Peter was silent for a moment. “Look here. Super,” he said at last. “This is going to be a dashed painful sort of story. I think I’d like to test it a bit before I come out with it. Will you do something yourself, first? You’ve got to do it in any case, but I’d rather not say anything till it is done. After that, I’ll say anything you like.”
“Well?”
“Will you get hold of a photograph of Arthur Cobbleigh and send it over to France for Suzanne Legros to identify?”
“That’s got to be done, naturally. Matter of routine.”
“If she identifies it, well and good. But if she’s stubborn and refuses, will you give her this note, just as it is, and watch her when she opens it?”
“Well, I don’t know about doing that personally, my lord, but I’ll see that this Monsieur Rozier does it.”
“That will do. And will you also show her the cryptogram?”
“Yes, why not? Anything else?”
“Yes, said Wimsey, more slowly. “The Thodays. I’m. a little uncomfortable about the Thodays. You’re trailing them, I suppose?”
“What do you think?”
“Exactly. Well, when you’ve put your hands on them, will you let me know before you do anything drastic? I’d rather like to be there when you question them.”
“I’ve no objection to that, my lord. And this time they’ll have to come across with some sort of story, judge’s rules or no judge’s rules, even if it breaks me.”
“You won’t have any difficulty about that,” said Wimsey. “Provided, that is, you catch them within a fortnight. After that, it will be more difficult.”
“Why within a fortnight?”
“Oh, come!” expostulated his lordship, “Isn’t it obvious? I show Mrs. Thoday the cipher. On Sunday morning neither she nor her husband attends Holy Communion. On Monday they depart to London by the first train. My dear Watson, it’s staring you in the face. The only real danger is—”