Crossword Mystery (7 page)

“You didn't give evidence at the inquest?”

“Yes, I did. I told them he was as likely to drown as a fish would have been. They wouldn't listen; talked about facts. I know better than their fool facts; cramp and heart failure and so on was what they babbled about, especially so on.”

“But couldn't cramp account for it?”

“No. Any doctor will tell you cramp is nothing for anyone to be afraid of; all you do is turn on your back and float till it's over. As for heart failure, Archy's heart was as sound as a bell. His doctor had to admit that; so had the other doctor fellow who examined the body after it was found.”

“I understand both doctors declared the injuries the body showed had been inflicted after death.”

“They admitted they couldn't be sure.”

“Had your brother any enemies?”

“No; no more than most people.”

“But if there was no motive...” Bobby said patiently.

He was quite sure now that there was something his companion knew but did not wish to tell. Well, he supposed it was his business to get it out of him, but he had a feeling the process would be long and difficult. “Information received” was always according to the maxims of Superintendent Mitchell, what a detective had chiefly to rely upon, but here it seemed all information would be withheld as far as that could be done. “Information extracted,” it was going to be this time, he told himself. Winterton was still silent and Bobby repeated:

“You can give me no idea of any possible motive...”

“That's what I want you to find out,” Winterton said then.

“Of course,” Bobby pointed out quickly. “That means there is something you know – that you have suspicions...”

“Not suspicions,” Winterton corrected him. “There are certain facts. I don't know what relation they have, if any. I want to see if they strike you, and what you think.”

“Mr. Winterton,” Bobby said gravely, “if you deliberately withhold information in a case of this kind, you are interfering with the course of justice. You know as well as I do that that is a serious matter.”

“My good young man,” Winterton said irritably, “I've been all over this with Markham and I don't want to go over it again with you. I'm not going to make what are possibly entirely unfounded accusations against other people, and I'm not going to betray third persons either. Other people's interests I'm bound to protect. I'm expecting a letter in a day or two that may alter things perhaps, but until then there's nothing I can say beyond what I've told you already. Meanwhile I want you to form your own opinion.” Bobby felt profoundly dissatisfied, and yet felt it would be only waste of time to press Mr. Winterton further at the moment. Later on perhaps. Or Mr. Mitchell, or even Major Markham, might be more successful, with their greater weight of authority and standing. But, all the same, he made one more effort.

“Mr. Winterton, if you really believe you are in danger from whatever destroyed your brother,” he said, “you are making the risk much worse if you won't tell us what it is.

“We can't undertake to protect you from some threat we know nothing about – either its nature or what direction it may come from.”

“I don't know that myself,” Winterton answered, “only I know – just know, that's all – that Archibald was murdered, and I suppose it may be my turn next. But it mayn't. What happened to Archibald may have nothing to do with me – or it may. Sleeping dogs may lie still; they say it's best to leave them sleeping, but sometimes they won't stay that way themselves. What I told Markham I wanted was someone to try to find out all he could about my brother's death and at the same time to do what he could to see that nothing happened to me. That was what we agreed was to be your duty here.”

“That's all very well,” Bobby grumbled, “but it's like asking me to make bricks and refusing me not only straw, but clay as well. I shall have to report to my superiors that I can't possibly accept responsibility for guarding against a danger when all information about it is flatly refused.”

Winterton made no reply to this. Bobby, after waiting a moment or two to let his remarks sink in, continued:

“Going back to Mr. Archibald's death, have you any idea how murder could have been carried out? I don't quite see at present how murder was possible in the circumstances. It is agreed, I suppose, that his wife and the servants are above suspicion, besides there being the evidence of all of them that none of them left the house that morning. And the children are all quite young, and there were no visitors. It did strike me there might just possibly have been something wrong with the coffee in the thermos flask he took down to the beach with him, but that's hardly likely in the first place, and, in the second I think the evidence showed it hadn't been touched. It was there unopened with the clothing and dry towels, according to the evidence at the inquest, wasn't it?”

“Yes, that's so,” Winterton agreed.

“Also the dog was there – it's the same one I saw, isn't it? Towser, you call him.”

“Yes, I told you I took him when my sister-in-law moved.”

“He would have been heard barking if any stranger had approached?”

“He would have barked the place down,” Winterton agreed. “No, I don't know how a murder could have been carried out. But I am sure it was, all the same.”

“I believe a strange motor-launch has been seen in the Cove...?”

“Oh, that was weeks before,” Winterton answered. “Careful inquiries were made; it was one of the first things thought about. It was fairly well proved that no strange boat of any kind was anywhere near at the time. It was very fine, calm weather; full moon, too; any strange craft would have been seen.”

“There was an assault on the local constable at the same time, wasn't there?”

Winterton did not answer for a moment, and Bobby was conscious that he was smiling faintly to himself. When he spoke, there was a touch of amusement in his voice:

“Oh, yes,” he said; “poor Jennings, our wireless expert; yes, he had a sack thrown over his head and was tied up to a tree. Beastly shame. But I daresay he bears no malice.”

Bobby found himself wondering what amused Mr. Winterton. Was it merely the idea of an officer of the law having been treated in so undignified a fashion, or was there some local joke behind – some jest that Winterton knew of but did not care to repeat? Or some not-jest, perhaps? Anyhow, apparently, it could not be connected with any foul play that might have taken place, since Archibald Winterton's death had occurred some time later.

Bobby tucked it away in his mind as a point possibly worth consideration later on, but for the moment he felt it would be useless to question his companion more closely. It would be better to wait a little; he might another time be in a more communicative mood, and Bobby, too, might presently have more facts to go on. He tried another line of inquiry.

“You have three nephews, Mr. Winterton. There are Mr. Colin Ross I met to-night, Mr. Miles Winterton, and Mr. James Matthews, I think?”

“Yes. What about them?”

“You are on good terms with them all?”

“I caught young Miles flirting with my typist the other day – Miss Raby,” Winterton answered. “I told him to get out; I wasn't going to have that sort of thing going on. I didn't want him to play the fool with her or go marrying a girl whose father's a railway porter or something like that. She's a clever girl and all that, excellent typist and a great help, and a really remarkable
flair
for crosswords. But I don't want her for a niece.”

“I see,” said Bobby, deciding that it might be worth while to look up Mr. Miles's record and recent movements. “There was no ill feeling between him and Mr. Archibald, I suppose?”

“Oh, dear, no. The boys generally stay with me because I've more room at my place than Archy has – had. And then his wife was a little inclined to be strict in some of her ideas; liked early hours and so on. But if they generally stayed at Fairview, they were often over at Archy's place during the day.”

“And Mr. James Matthews?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, he's in Paris; he has a studio there; does all his work in Paris. We only see him occasionally; he hasn't been over since Christmas, I believe. If he can make a living painting, it's all right, but I'm not going to support him.”

“He has asked you for money?”

“Well, he's always wanting me to buy his pictures. I don't pretend to know much about art, but I do know what I like, and I told him I wouldn't touch his stuff with a barge pole. Archy took one or two things. I wanted to know which was right side up, and James had the cheek to say a pattern remained a pattern whether you stood on your head or your heels. I told him he had better get back to the city where you always stand on your heels. But he has a little money of his own, and so long as that lasts I expect he'll go on with his painting. If you ask me, he's no taste for work.”

“Mr. Colin Ross seems very interested in racing?”

“Makes a business of it,” Winterton said. “I think he's a fool to waste his time like that. But he's of age and his own master.”

“Do you know if he has lost money? Has he tried to borrow any, for example?”

“He didn't get it – not from me. Archy lent him some, I believe, but it was paid back all right.”

“He owed none, then, at the time of the accident?”

“Murder,” corrected Winterton grimly. “You don't believe it now, but you will.”

And this prophecy he uttered was one that Bobby was destined to recall upon a certain occasion now not far away.

“Can you tell me,” he asked, “where all your three nephews were at the time – it – happened?”

“Miles was in London. He had gone up to see Frazer's, the big contract people. Miles is a P.W. man – public works, that is – you know. Frazer's have promised him a job at Liverpool, but they won't be starting for some time yet. Colin was attending some race-meeting somewhere. I don't remember which, but whatever racing was on that date, he would be there. James was in Paris, I suppose. He didn't come over for the funeral; laid up with a cold or influenza, I think it was.”

“None of them had any expectation of benefiting under Mr. Archibald's will?”

“They each had a small legacy of two hundred and fifty, duty free. That's all. Most of his money went to his wife and the children, naturally.”

“May I ask about your own will?”

“Well,” Winterton answered, a little slowly, a little uncomfortably, and yet evidently feeling the question was one that ought to be answered, “I suppose the fact is, I ought to make a new one. I've been meaning to for long enough, but I've kept putting it off. When my brother and I started in business, we made wills leaving everything we had to each other. That seemed fair at the time, because of our business relations when the death of one might have ruined the other. Archy made a new will, of course, when he got married. I ought to have made a new one, too, but I kept putting it off.”

“Do you think your nephews know about that?”

“They might; I don't suppose so; they may perhaps. I've never said anything about it, and of course they haven't either.”

“In the event of anything happening to you, then,” Bobby said slowly, “I take it the will would be void, the person to whom you left your property having died before you?”

“I don't know; I hadn't thought of that,” Winterton answered. “No, I think the lawyer who drew them up for us put in something about the money going to heirs and assigns. I think I remember now. We both wanted to avoid any intestacy; there was a relative we were on bad terms with at the time. We wanted to make sure he didn't cut in. But he's been dead these twenty years or more.”

 “Then I take it that means none of your nephews stand to benefit by your will unless you make a fresh one?”

“You mean, perhaps, I had better not make one just now?” Mr. Winterton asked.

“That is for you to decide, sir,” Bobby answered gravely.

From where they were standing the village and the road leading from it to Fairview were plainly visible. Hitherto, the electric lights had been shining along the road and in the windows of some of the cottages, but now they all went out together. Mr. Winterton gave a little laugh.

“That's Mrs. Cooper,” he said, “and half past ten by her kitchen clock. She thinks no one in the village ought to want a light after then, and no one at all ought to be out of doors any later. So out go the lights. She would like to do the same thing for Fairview, too, I daresay, but I drew the line there. Well, shall we go back now?”

It was a question that made Bobby feel not quite certain that Mr. George Winterton was not rather more subject to the authority of his housekeeper's clear, direct mind than he himself either realised or would ever have acknowledged. For indeed there are so few of us who really know what we want that the influence of a mind and will that does is often very great. Without waiting for a reply, Mr. Winterton began to walk back towards the house, and when they had gone a yard or two they heard someone calling. Mr. Winterton paused.

That's Cooper,” he said; “he's calling the dog.”

“Towser?” Bobby asked.

“Yes; he can't have got back. Funny; he never goes far from the house alone.”

They both stood still and listened. Again they heard the call, and this time the name “Towser” was quite clear. It was a woman's voice, and it sounded very clear and a little strange, a long-drawn, wailing cry.

“That's Mrs. Cooper now,” Winterton said. “I wonder what can have happened to the dog?” He shivered slightly. “Come on,” he said; “it's growing cold.” 

There was one other point on which Bobby wished enlightenment, but he had been careful to leave it till the last, for he was not quite sure how any mention of it would be received.