The Documents in the Case (24 page)

I could find nothing further of any interest at ‘The Shack’, though I spent a whole day there. I passed the night at the inn, and next day departed to Bovey Tracey to check Lathom’s movements.

My first interview was with the taxi-driver. This man’s name is William Johnson and he lives in the High Street. He perfectly recollects having driven to Manaton on Thursday, 17th October, and taken Lathom to catch the 8.13. The circumstances had been strongly impressed upon his mind by the catastrophe that followed it closely, and the fact that he had actually visited ‘The Shack’ and seen the victim, only two days before the discovery of the body, has naturally made him a kind of local hero.

He is positive that my father and Lathom parted on the best of terms. They shook hands, and my father said: ‘Well, hope you have a good journey. See you back on Saturday. What train do you think you’ll catch? Lathom answered that he wasn’t quite sure, and added: ‘Don’t wait up for me if I’m late.’

This answers one of our questions, and makes it quite clear that at least one person besides my father knew that Lathom was expected back on the Saturday.

My next question was, At what time had Lathom ordered his taxi? The man remembered this too. A telephone message was put through to him from Manaton at about nine o’clock on the Wednesday evening. He can verify this, if necessary, by his order-book.

This is interesting. It makes it seem likely that Lathom only decided to make this trip to town at the last moment — in fact, after hearing my father express his intention of gathering Amanita rubescens the following day.

Finally, I inquired whether Johnson had actually seen Lathom get into the train. By a stroke of good fortune he was able to answer this question definitely. He had put a parcel on the train for a printer at Bovey Tracey, and, while doing this, he had seen Lathom take his seat in a third-class smoker. As the train went out, Lathom leaned out of the window and shouted something to a porter — some question, he thought, about changing at Newton Abbot.

I hired this man’s taxi, which was a reasonably good one, and interviewed the railway staff at the three intermediate stations between Bovey Tracey and Newton Abbot. Here, as was natural, the men found some difficulty in remembering the events of three months ago. I could not find anybody who recollected seeing Lathom. In each place I asked for a name of anybody in the village who might be likely to have a car or motor-cycle for hire, and went to see the proprietors of the vehicles, but without result. Nowhere could I find any record of such a transaction.

Newton Abbot is a larger place, and I anticipated difficulty. On the contrary, and greatly to my surprise, I got on to Lathom’s trail almost immediately. No sooner had I mentioned his name to the station-master than he said at once:

‘Oh, yes, sir — that was the gentleman who lost a pocket-book last October. Did he ever find it?’

Taking this cue as it presented itself, I replied that he had not, and that, being in the neighbourhood, I had promised to call and ask about it.

‘Well, sir,’ said the station-master, ‘we made inquiries all down the line, and had several men out searching, but they never found it. They would have brought it to me if they had, for they were all decent fellows and Mr Lathom offered a reward. I’m afraid some tramp must have picked it up, sir. There’s a lot of them about these days and they’re not over-honest.’

‘No doubt that was it,’ said I. ‘Let me see — whereabouts did he say he lost it?’

‘Said he thought it must have fallen out from his breast-pocket when he was leaning out of the window. He couldn’t say exactly where, but he thought it must be just the other side of Heathfield. Here’s the note I made in my book, you see, sir, and here’s the gentleman’s name and address that he wrote down himself.’

I recognised the handwriting in which Lathom had written out Munting’s address for me.

‘Well, it was very tiresome,’ I said, ‘but I am sure you did all you could. There was money in the pocket-book, I suppose?’

‘Yes, sir, and the gentleman’s ticket to town. He was in quite a way about it, because he said he hadn’t enough money on him to book again. So I spoke to the ticket-collector, and he said he would make it all right on the train, and Mr Lathom could settle it with the Company when he got to town.’

These inquiries had taken the greater part of the day, so I decided to stay that night in Newton Abbot and interview the ticket-collector the next day. He was still on the same train and perfectly recollected the affair of Lathom and his ticket. I went on up to Paddington with him, and there the friendly collector directed me to the official in the Inquiry Bureau who had dealt with the matter on the previous occasion. After considerable referring back and forth and ringing up the head office, it was clearly established that Lathom had duly arrived by the 1.15, without his ticket, had explained the circumstances and had left his name and address, promising to send the ticket on if it turned up. As a matter of fact, it never turned up, but as the booking-clerk at Bovey Tracey had clearly remembered issuing it and had identified Lathom on his next visit as being the person to whom the ticket had been issued, the Company accepted the explanation and allowed the matter to drop.

This was something of a blow. I had really reckoned more than I realised on finding that Lathom had left the train at some point and doubled back to Manaton. There was just one possibility. He might have hurried across to the down platform and taken the 1.30, which would land him back at Bovey Tracey at about half-past six. This would have meant very quick work, for the explanation to the authorities at Paddington must have taken him nearly ten minutes. And at the other end he would have had to get, somehow or other, to Manaton and then do the three miles out to ‘The Shack’, and then snatch his opportunity to rush in unseen, and drop the poison into the stew while my father’s back was turned. It seemed almost impossible. Apart from everything else, it was inconceivable that he should not have been seen, either at Newton Abbot or at Bovey Tracey. He would have had to pass the barrier, and he would have had to hire a car, for nothing else would have got him to ‘The Shack’ before supper-time.

I turned it over and over in my mind and could make nothing of it. It seemed that I must abandon this whole theory. I returned to my hotel in a mood of deep depression, and found there, waiting for me, a letter from Munting, which I append here in its place.

1. John Munting to Paul Harrison
   

Dear Harrison,

A damnably awkward thing has happened. Lathom turned up here last night. The girl showed him straight into my study and I was caught without hope of escape.

He looked nervous and irritable, and came straight to the point.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘has this fellow Harrison been round to see you?’ I hesitated, and he went on at once, ‘Can’t you say yes or no? What’s the good of lying about it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he came round.’

‘What did he want?’

I said you were naturally anxious to have all available details about your father’s death.

‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ he cut in angrily. ‘What have you been saying to him? Have you been discussing my private affairs?’

‘I don’t think,’ I answered cautiously, ‘I told him anything that he didn’t know already.’

‘Have you been spreading scandals about Mrs Harrison and me? Come on, out with it!’

‘Sit down,’ I said, ‘it’s no good shouting at me like that.’

‘Sit down be damned! I suppose you’ve been chattering as usual. I should have thought you would have the decency to shut up about what wasn’t your business. I warned you about him, didn’t I? Why couldn’t you keep the fellow out?’

‘My dear man,’ I said, ‘if I’d refused to see him, he’d have thought there was something very suspicious about the business.’

‘So I suppose you blabbed it all out like a good, virtuous little boy.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘he seemed to know all about it.’

‘Nonsense! How could he know, unless you told him?’

‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘he gathered it from your manner, or from Mrs Harrison. Besides,’ I added, feeling that attack was my only possible form of defence, ‘I thought you told me it was all over and done with. Isn’t it? I assured Harrison that it was. I had only your word to go on. If it wasn’t all over, what the devil did you mean by taking me down to Devon with you? You know perfectly well that if I’d known it was still going on, wild horses wouldn’t have taken me down there.’

This brought him up all standing.

‘Yes, well,’ he said, ‘of course it’s all over. But why did you have to tell him anything about it at all?’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you’ve not been straight with me, and I don’t believe you now. I’ve had quite enough of this. You’ve dragged me into this business again. I’ve been your scapegoat once and I’m fed up. Do you expect me to go on taking the blame for your idiotic love-affairs? I’ve got my wife to consider.’

I was afraid he would go back to the very difficult question of how you got to know about the intrigue. I didn’t want to tell him about the letters, which you had shown me more or less in confidence, and yet I felt a perfect cad for not warning him of his danger. It seemed abominable to have listened to such suspicions against a man, without giving him the chance to clear himself. Fortunately, he abandoned this point.

‘What does the fellow want?’ he went on. ‘What’s he think he’s going to find out? The thing’s clear enough, isn’t it?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘to tell you the truth, Lathom, when I came to consider the thing I couldn’t help suspecting—’

‘Suspecting! My God, you’ve got your beastly suspicions now. What in the devil’s name do you suspect?’

‘I couldn’t help suspecting,’ I went on, as steadily as I could, ‘that old Harrison had found out something and committed suicide.’

‘Oh!’ said Lathom. ‘Well, what if he did? The man was a—’ (a word which I will spare you). ‘The best thing he could do was to clear out from a place where he wasn’t wanted. Damn good riddance. A good thing if he did have the sense to see it.’

‘That’s a pretty rotten thing to say, Lathom.’

‘Don’t be such a damned hypocrite.’

‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘You’re behaving like an absolute swine. Harrison was damned decent to you, and you seem to think that just because you can paint better than he could, you are perfectly justified in seducing his wife and then accepting his hospitality and driving him to commit suicide.’

‘I hadn’t anything to do with it,’ he retorted, ‘he was all right when I left him. You ask anybody down there who saw him. He was as cheery and friendly as could be. I’m not responsible for what he did behind my back. I was in London all the time. I can prove it.’

‘I don’t see that it needs proving,’ said I.

‘Oh, don’t you?’ he burst out violently. ‘Well, I do. You’ll be saying next that I had something to do with his death.’

He stopped suddenly and I caught him looking sideways at me, as if to see how I should take this suggestion. It turned me quite cold, and I had a curious sensation as if my stomach had turned right over.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if anybody heard you talking like this, they might be excused for thinking so.’

‘Oh, might they!’

‘It’s dangerous to talk about wanting people out of the way, you know,’ I went on, watching him.

‘Punk!’ he said. ‘Now, I’ll tell you, Mr Good Little Moral Boy, I’ll tell you just exactly where I was all the time — all the time, do you hear? And then you can come and beg my pardon.’

‘I don’t want—’ I began.

‘No, but I do. Got that? I do. And you may as well make a note of it. On Thursday, now — Thursday — have you got that? — I was at the dentist’s at two o’clock, see? First thing I did when I got to town. You can verify that, I suppose? Or do you imagine I have bribed the dentist? You’d better write his address down. Get on with it.’

25

‘Really, Lathom—’

‘No, you won’t. Any excuse not to believe me, I suppose. Well, I’ll do it for you. Dentist, two o’clock, name and address, here you are. Seven o’clock — you’ll allow that I couldn’t get to Devon and back between two-thirty and seven, I suppose — or do you imagine I chartered an aeroplane?’

‘I suppose nothing of the sort.’

‘Damn it, suppose what you like. I can give you what I was doing at four o’clock. Come now, that’s close enough, isn’t it? I had tea with Marlowe. He’s a painter, but even you will allow he’s honest enough. Tea with Marlowe, four o’clock. At seven, I dined at the ‘Ben Bourgeois’, and paid by cheque — you can confirm that, you know — and went on to the first night of Meyrick’s show. He saw me there. Is that good enough?’

He was writing all these times and places down, digging the pencil savagely into the paper. I said:

‘You seem to remember it all very clearly.’

‘Yes, that’s one in the eye for you, isn’t it, my lad? Sorry and all that, but you asked for it. I slept that night at the studio. I’m afraid I’ve only Mrs Cutts’s word for it, and, of course, she’d say anything.’

‘Very likely,’ said I.

‘That gives you a gleam of hope, doesn’t it? But seeing I didn’t get home till four ack emma, after celebrating with Meyrick’s crowd — ask them — it doesn’t leave much margin, does it? Particularly as I was up again at nine o’clock.’

‘That’s very unusual,’ I said, trying to speak lightly. ‘Whatever did you get up at nine for?’

‘To spite you. And incidentally, to sign for a beastly registered letter. Providential, wasn’t it?’

‘Obviously,’ said I.

‘At ten-thirty I went to see my agent. You know him, don’t you?’ I admitted knowing the agent.

‘I lunched at Lady Tottenham’s. Went to see her about a sitting at twelve and stayed on. Anything fishy about Lady Tottenham?’

‘Nothing, except her husband’s income. Sardines, isn’t it?’

‘Damned witty. You ought to put that in your next book. Then I went round to Winsor & Newton’s and paid a bill. By cheque. And ordered some stuff. No doubt they will be happy to show you their books.’

I was silent.

‘Dinner at Holtby’s. Very stately and all that. Old boy thinks of presenting a portrait to Liverpool Town Hall. Most respectable party. Went on to the Aitchbone — not so respectable, but full of people. Spent the night with the Goodman boys. Breakfasted there. Came on. Looked you up, and you had me under your own bloody inquisitive eye for the rest of the day. Now then!’