The Cornish Coast Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (12 page)

The Inspector, saluted and met by Grouch, who had been shown into the hall, stepped out on to the drive.

“Well?”

“A message has just come through from divisional headquarters, sir. They've traced Mr. Hardy's car.”

“Already! That's quick work!” It was only a matter of two hours since he had phoned through to Greystoke from the Constable's cottage, a description of the missing man and the car. “Where was it?”

Grouch grinned.

“A hundred yards from headquarters, sir, in Fenton's Quick Service Garage in Marston Street next to the main-line station. Mr. Hardy left his car there late last night and caught the Paddington express. Chap at the booking-office recognised Hardy from the description you sent. Looks as if he's bolted to London, sir.”

The Inspector smiled grimly.

“Looks like it! He
has
! No doubt about it. If a man wants to stage a quick-vanishing trick he invariably heads for London. There's nothing much we can do about it from this end. It's a matter of routine for the Metropolitan crowd now. They may be able to trace his movements after he left Paddington. I think I'd better get on to the Superintendent again and see if he's done anything about it. You may as well shove that bone-shaker of yours in the back seat and come down with me to the village, Grouch.”

“Bone-shaker, sir?”

“Yes—that suicidal contraption of yours there!” exclaimed the Inspector, pointing to where Grouch's bicycle was leaning against the wall of the Vicarage.

CHAPTER VIII

WAS IT RONALD HARDY?

A
FTER
the Inspector's visit the Reverend Dodd drew up his chair at the desk and restarted work on Sunday's sermon. He always roughed out the themes of his “talks,” as he preferred to call them, on Tuesday afternoon, and to obviate any vital interruption, the maid always crept in with the tea-tray at four-thirty prompt and slid it silently on to his desk. But somehow, on that particular Tuesday, his inspiration proved stubborn. He courted it in vain. No sooner had he settled down to write a sentence or two, than his thoughts shot away at a tangent and he found himself running over the interview which had just terminated.

The Inspector's collection of data, and above all his perfectly logical suspicions, disturbed him. He had not realised until faced with Bigswell's notes how deeply Ruth was involved in the mystery surrounding her uncle's death. Now that he was alone and no longer forced by sympathy to contest the Inspector's opinions, he began to see that there was something cryptic and peculiar about the girl's behaviour. It was not that he mistrusted his intuition, which urged him that Ruth was innocent, but rather that he felt her actions were prompted by an unfortunate set of circumstances about which she intended to remain reticent. He hadn't the faintest idea what the circumstances were. He was not even certain that his diagnosis of her strange behaviour was correct. He only sensed that Ruth, forced by a difficult situation to adopt subterfuge, was hiding something both from Inspector Bigswell and himself.

That it was a necessary and praiseworthy concealment he did not doubt. Altruism was Ruth's strong point. She had always been the kind of girl to study other people's feelings in advance of her own. A champion of the weak. A shielder of the unwary and the headstrong. Time and again her own loyalty and practical common sense had averted trouble on local committees. Time and again she had shouldered somebody else's blunder and carried it without a murmur, accepting the resultant criticism as all in the day's work. Did this regard for others, or for another, explain away the oddity of her statements and her actions? The Vicar wondered.

He returned with a sigh to his sermon. For twenty minutes, blessed with great fluency, he wrote at breakneck speed and then, once again, his inspiration dried up and the facts of Tregarthan's murder began to revolve like a flock of blackbirds about his head.

The clock struck six. The St. Michael's chimes joined in, the vibrant strokes floating off down the wind. For a long time the Vicar stared at the half-completed sheet of writing before him then, unable to stomach his aridity of thought any longer, he went out into the hall, snatched up his tweed shooting-hat, selected a thick ash stick from the spray in the umbrella-stand and strode off down to the cliff. Dinner was not until seven-thirty. There was ample time for him to take a walk along the cliff-top as far as Towan Cove and return via the main road to the Vicarage.

Soon, leaving Greylings on his right, he struck on to the cliff-path and began to walk at a brisk pace toward the hidden cottages, which dotted the rocky foreshore of the inlet. The air was clear and keen, blowing in with a salt-tang from the leaden sea. A few silver, yellow clouds of incredible brightness stretched along the dark rim of the seaward horizon, splintered with a few misty rays of the lowering sun. A steamer was ploughing along about a couple of miles from the land, with a tattered smudge of smoke clinging about her funnel. Overhead the gulls cried mournfully or circled down to brush their breasts against the surface of the water, lifting and bobbing on the creamy swell like white corks. It was a scene, deep and tranquil, far removed from the ominous and ugly atmosphere which shrouded the grey house standing out on the blunt ness behind him.

Yet it was about Greylings that his thoughts, clarified by the brisk exercise, hovered. He could not rid himself of that insistent question—a question, no doubt, that the whole of Boscawen was asking itself—who had murdered Tregarthan?

Not Ruth. Oh most certainly not Ruth! Then who? Ronald Hardy? And if Ronald—why?

Here again the accumulated evidence collected by the indefatigable Bigswell did indeed make the case against the young man look extremely black. Suppose Ronald, madly in love with Ruth and determined to marry her, had found in Tregarthan an unmovable opposition? Unmovable, that was, without resorting to the terrible expedient of murder. Was it possible that a man of Ronald's intelligence and character would descend to such inhuman means to gain his ends? And why should Tregarthan have such a vital say in their affairs? Ruth was twenty-five and Ronald at least seven years older. There was nothing to prevent them from taking matters into their own hands. As far as he knew Ronald had a small private income plus the money accruing from his writings, whilst Ruth, doubtless, had had an annuity settled upon her by her father. So it could not be money which stood in the way. And if not money, then what? Had Tregarthan some pull over Ronald Hardy? Had he possessed an unsavoury secret concerning the man's past and threatened to divulge it unless Ronald left his niece alone? Or perhaps Tregarthan knew of an hereditary taint in the Hardy family, of which Ruth herself was ignorant. From all accounts, whatever the reason, Tregarthan had seemed violently opposed to the match. It could not be through reasons of sentiment because it was well-known in Boscawen that Ruth and her uncle did not get on well together. Then why was Tregarthan so emphatic in his opposition?

Apart from that, suppose Ronald Hardy, in the throes of an emotional storm,
did
murder Tregarthan—surely when he returned to a more normal frame of mind he would recognise the hideousness of his action and brave the consequences? He was no coward. His war service was indicative of that. He had been twice mentioned in dispatches. Moreover his character was fine and sensitive, founded on an almost fanatical sense of honesty and forthrightness. He could not hope if he had murdered Tregarthan to continue his friendship with Ruth, and even if the crime was never levelled against him, was he the type to delude himself that marital happiness could be culled from a life of lies and concealment? It was fantastic. The young man was no fool. Ruth was no fool. Sooner or later that sort of spurious paradise would collapse like a house of cards about his head.

Yet he
had
disappeared. He had gone off suddenly, leaving no clue as to his present whereabouts, the very night that Tregarthan had been found shot. Was it possible—the Vicar was horrified by the very suggestion of such a thought—that Ruth had killed her uncle and Ronald was trying to shield her by drawing suspicion on himself? Such things had happened before in the annals of crime. But Ruth? Ruth? That child?

The Vicar hated himself for advancing such an abominable theory. It was absurd. Unthinkable! For a long time he stood pondering, staring out over the darkening Atlantic.

Then what if the boot was on the other foot? What if Ronald had killed Tregarthan and Ruth, with full knowledge of the fact, was trying to shield Ronald? Terrible as the idea seemed it was certainly more acceptable than the other theory. Had Ruth by some means or other obliterated Ronald's tracks on the cliff-path and then, aware that her uncle might still be alive, rushed straight into the sitting-room, hoping against hope that it was not too late. She had snatched the revolver from Ronald, perhaps, hidden it in her mackintosh pocket, smuggled it up into her bedroom, and later that night slipped out of the house and thrown the revolver into the sea. That would account for her strange and apparently stealthy exit from the house. And the shots were scattered because Ronald, in the grip of a mental maelstrom, scarcely knew what he was doing. It would account for the revolver which, according to the Inspector, was missing from its holster in Ronald's desk. Yes—that theory would account for many things. But was it the truth? Was it really possible? Ronald-Ruth in collaboration?

Again the Vicar shied away from his explanation. It was, he realised, as full of holes as a cane-chair. Ruth had influence over Ronald. She was a level-headed, practical girl. She could not have connived with Ronald in planning such a dastardly crime, no matter how strong the motive which prompted the initial thought. Something was wrong somewhere. There was a link missing in the chain. There was some dark gulf which needed bridging. But could he, where so far the Inspector had failed, bridge it?

Let him adopt his intuition theory. Where was he then? His intuition forced him to believe that Ruth and Ronald were innocent. That left Ned Salter—the village Bad Man, the black sheep of his flock. He knew there had been trouble between Ned and Tregarthan over the Salters’ evacuation of Rose Cottage. Tregarthan had imprisoned the man for poaching and then, because Salter's wife could not pay the rent, thrown the Salter family, at a moment's notice, out of the cottage. He himself had thought Tregarthan's action, to say the least of it, unpardonable. It was a cruel and unsportsmanlike trick—like kicking a man when he was already down and out. Salter, according to village gossip, had always sworn to get even with Tregarthan. Was this his way of doing so? But if Salter
had
murdered Tregarthan it argued a brilliantly planned and executed scheme, for as far as had come to light the man hadn't left a single clue behind him. Suspicion rested on Salter mainly because he
was
Salter. And because Salter
was
Salter, it seemed incredible that the man could have foreseen all the possible traps which might trip him up and commit, what might be called, the immaculate murder. The poacher had no subtlety—witness his numerous convictions before the Bench. For the most part he had found himself before the magistrates through the exercise of a profound and deep-rooted stupidity. The man was a fool, a born fool. It was inconceivable that he had suddenly shed his fooldom, as a man sheds his overcoat, and emerged as a cool-headed and scientific criminal.

And Ned Salter was the last on the Inspector's “little list.”

The Vicar, with a deep sigh of bewilderment, acknowledged himself defeated. There had been mysteries, more glamorous, more terrifying, more macabre than this in the stories which he had devoured so avidly, but none, he felt, so stubborn in yielding up its solution.

Darkness had fallen and it struck the Reverend Dodd, as he dipped down into the cove, that the mystery of Tregarthan's death was rather like the encroaching night. Here and there little gleams of light still shone out weakly, but even as one looked at them they slowly vanished, and the obscurity thickened until the landscape was of a uniform blackness.

A few lights showed as orange squares in the windows of the half-dozen cottages which dotted the lonely cove. Most of the property belonged, as the Vicar knew, to Tregarthan. Their obvious dilapidation did not speak well of the landlord—here and there stones were missing from chimney-stacks, garden walls were crumbling away and one or two broken windows were stuffed with sacking to keep out the winds. The Vicar wondered if he would call in on Mrs. Withers and see how the twins were getting along, but realising that his unheralded arrival at this hour of the day might cause a domestic panic, he passed her cottage on the left and descended by means of a rocky path to the foreshore.

A lantern was bobbing about on a natural slipway formed by a huge slab of granite, and the Vicar could make out the dim shadow of a man, crouching over a boat. As he approached the man, in rubber waders and a blue seaman's jersey, looked up. His hand went automatically to his forelock.

“Evening, Burdon,” said the Vicar affably. “Baiting your lines?”

He noticed a tin full of clams which emitted a pale, phosphorescent radiance and a line barbed with a number of hooks, coiled in the bottom of the boat.

“Aye, sir,” said Burdon. “Will you be coming out with me one evening? You've always said as you'd like to.”

“Some time, Burdon—when I can spare the time. Fish been behaving themselves?”

The man, a gaunt, rather dour-faced fellow of abnormal height, lifted his shoulders.

“Weather's been against me,” he grunted. “I've not been out for the past ten days. Lucky that I'm not like some of ’em, sir, depending on this for my living.”

Burdon was a quarryman in the slate quarries on the far side of the cove. Towan Cove owed its existence, in fact, to the proximity of these quarries.

The Vicar nodded and wishing the man a good catch, he turned on his heel and started to climb the rough track which linked the cottages with the main road.