The Santa Klaus Murder (20 page)

Rousdon had left us in the middle of this story to answer the telephone in the study. I had been watching Jennifer. It was evident, from the way she followed Carol's words, anxiously and with some disgust, that the story was new to her. I was shocked at the way these young people lied or prevaricated on the slightest excuse and then came out with another tale and confidently expected to be believed.

Carol stood up and looked round at us.

“Now, will you let me go and look for Ashmore? If there is anything to be found out from him, I'm sure I can get more out of him than any of your policemen, and I believe I could find him, too. I feel it in my bones. Really, it's desperately serious. And it's no good sending anyone who doesn't know him by sight. Descriptions are so hopeless. You know yourself that you could never recognize anyone from one of those descriptions issued by the police; medium height, fresh complexion, and the rest of it. If you get a photograph of him it's bound to be ten years old at least, and the man looks awful now, an absolute wreck, not a bit like he did a few years ago.”

I never knew anyone like Carol for overwhelming one with good reasons for any course of action she wants to pursue. I dismissed her and Jennifer so that I could discuss the situation with Rousdon.

“I'll be ready to go at any minute!” she declared before she went. “I can drive the Sunbeam, or George's car, if you don't want to send Bingham.”

“No one can go to-night, in any case,” I decreed. “It's ridiculous to set out in the dark to hunt for a possible case of lost memory in the Wye Valley. I'll do whatever seems best, but I must ask you not to stage any melodramatic attempt at escape, against which I shall take every precaution.”

Rousdon came to tell me of the rather queer report which had just been telephoned to him by the man who had followed Jennifer and Bingham in the Sunbeam. During Carol's story quite a new picture of the murder had been taking a shape in my mind and it was the first solution into which it seemed possible to fit all the known facts. I now laid it before Rousdon and, leaving him to confirm a few details, I returned to Twaybrooks. I hoped that the “homework” might provide me with some of the missing links in this new chain of evidence and if Kenneth had really spent the afternoon in intensive study of the untidy mass of manuscript, he should be able to find the answers to my questions.

He had done his job well, so well that it seemed unfair to keep him in the dark and I told him everything that would help him to put the story together for himself.

The result of our deliberations was that I rang up Flaxmere that night and after some conversation with Rousdon I told Carol to be ready at eight o'clock next morning, when Kenneth would call for her in his own car. I also arranged that a detective officer in plain clothes should have a seat in the back of that car, but I did not tell Carol this.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” she said in a low voice. “I do hope we shall be in time.”

Chapter Twenty

Excursion to Tintern

by Kenneth Stour

The Tollards' household in which I was a guest rose (that is exactly the right word) in splendid style to the effort of tearing me from my bed, putting nourishment into me and packing me into my car by half-past seven on Saturday morning. A grim morning it was at that stage, only half lighted, dank and raw. At the entrance of the Flaxmere drive I picked up the plain-clothes man, who settled himself gloomily into a corner of the back seat.

“Didn't understand that it was an open car, sir!” he muttered sadly, pulling the rug about him.

Carol was standing on the steps of the house when I crested the steep drive. I was glad to see her fur coat. She looked at the unhappy passenger and asked me in a low voice, “Is he coming?”

Learning that he was, she dashed back into the house and soon returned with a capacious old leather coat, which she threw at him unceremoniously, saying, “You'll need it!”

As we swept down the drive she whispered, “Who is he?”

“A detective,” I told her. “And since you had to ask, it's evident that he's fulfilling his intention of appearing to be just an ordinary man.”

“I knew. I only asked to make sure. I was surprised that the Colonel allowed me to go with you, but now I understand. However, I don't grudge him the coat. It's an old one of George's that I've often borrowed. I've got Jenny's to-day. Now, there's something I think I ought to tell you, though I don't know that it's any good, since we've started.”

She then related what Jennifer had not told Colonel Halstock on her return from Bristol, but had divulged to Carol later; Mrs. Ashmore's accusation of Bingham and Bingham's own explanation to Jennifer. The fact that Mrs. Ashmore had screeched out some reproaches and that Bingham on the way home had stopped the car and spoken to Jenny, who had then moved into the front seat, had all been reported to Rousdon by the man deputed to follow the Flaxmere car, but I thought the additional information might be helpful, so stopped at the next telephone box and rang up the Colonel. Carol was rather indignant at the delay.

“I almost wish I hadn't told you,” she said. “But I did promise to tell the Colonel everything I knew and after I'd done that he let me come, so I felt it was a bargain and it wouldn't be fair to keep this back, though of course Jenny ought to have told him really.”

“Your conversion to a belief in telling all the truth is rather sudden, isn't it?”

“I've come to the conclusion that it's best,” she replied haughtily. “We really did get ourselves into a bit of a mess by trying to select—though we had perfectly good reasons.”

“By the way, I'm not sure that Colonel Halstock would appreciate the idea of a bargain. You'd better not suggest it to him, I think.”

“Oh, of course I shouldn't. But you seem to know a lot about everything! You're not the police yourself, are you? I don't see how you can be, unless you're not Kenneth Stour at all, but some one impersonating him.”

I assured her that I really was myself and had not joined the police, but had been doing what I described as clerical work for the Colonel out of kindness, having known him for years.

We were on the main road to Gloucester, speeding along as well as Mr. Belisha would allow us. I had decided that this would be quicker than trusting to the Beachley ferry, about which I had some uncertain information, but the “30” signs had a depressing effect on Carol.

“I suppose you
have
to take notice of them? We shall never get there. When you're on business for the police and it may be a matter of life or death, aren't you allowed to let her rip?”

“Being held up and having to give name and address and all the rest of it, might delay us even more than these thirty touches,” I pointed out.

We drove in silence for some time. I was thinking of the solution I had tentatively worked out in the Colonel's study at Flaxmere during the previous afternoon, with the help of the pile of homework. The Colonel and the police were wandering in a maze of clues; they followed one here and one there, but they could not see which led towards the goal and which were blind. I, not having to concern myself with these misleading details, was able to go back in my mind to the beginning and to draw up a series of questions as to who had at various stages of the case the necessary knowledge and the necessary opportunity. This led on to other questions, on who had, at later stages, taken action to lay a false scent. If one name would answer all the first two sets of questions and some of the last set, I thought we had solved the case.

When Colonel Halstock had arrived home on Friday evening I had a pretty little scheme ready for him, into which the facts of which I was ignorant and which he was able to give me fitted to a T. The Colonel believed that he had reached my conclusion by himself and was very cock-a-hoop about it. That was just as well, because there was a good deal more to do and he would work out the last details with far more enthusiasm if he really believed in the idea as his own. I thought we had a pretty water-tight case, but it depended on whether one or two experiments turned out successfully this morning, and I couldn't help being anxious.

Gloucester's market-day livestock and shoppers and traffic were beginning to cumber the streets as we drove in, but we were through the town and out on the good Chepstow road before nine o'clock.

Carol suddenly asked: “Would you mind awfully if I drove your car? I haven't driven this before but I'm quite a good driver of wide experience.”

“I don't really mind letting you try; if you do it badly I shall take over again. But won't it slow us down a bit? I thought you were all for getting on?”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed; “but after five minutes I don't think I shall be any slower than you, and I can hardly bear to sit still. I'm so worried. It would be an enormous relief to me to be able to drive!”

The astonishing part of it was that she appeared quite composed. No one would have guessed that she was in an agony of anxiety, except perhaps from a strained note in her voice. That did convince me that she was sincere and not merely covetous of the opportunity of sitting at the wheel of a powerful car. I let her change over and noticed a pained query in the chilled expression of the passenger, but soothed him with a nod of reassurance. She handled the car beautifully. It is a joy to drive and Carol appreciated all its points and got the best out of it with amazing skill. I settled down in the passenger's seat with relief.

For some time she concentrated on her work and then she asked suddenly: “Can you tell me exactly why the Colonel did let me come? I know it wasn't really a bargain.”

“Can you tell me in return just why you are so anxious about Ashmore and feel it so necessary to go in search of him? I don't want to imply that you haven't really told the whole truth, but perhaps I haven't heard all of it.”

“There isn't any definite reason,” Carol said slowly. “There are no
facts
that I haven't told that would help you to understand. It's just that it came over me, when I heard that he had gone away, that something frightful was happening. I've been worried about him ever since Mother and I saw him last Saturday. He looked so awful, quite out of control. You see, until he left Flaxmere he had a good safe job and he's not used to the hand-to-mouth existence he has led since. When things went wrong, he couldn't stand the strain. You read in the papers often enough of bodies fished out of rivers and verdicts of
suicide while temporarily insane
, and you can find just this sort of a story behind those verdicts. A man desperately worried by bad times and the insecurity of his position and finally tipped right off his balance by something just as absurd as the suggestion that because he left Flaxmere just after grandfather was murdered, he must have had something to do with it.”

Her summary of the situation seemed plausible. I was only surprised that anyone as young as Carol could have so much insight into the sordid facts.

“We sent him a Christmas hamper and gave him a good feed and a temporary feeling of comfort but that didn't really help him much. We had done nothing at all to relieve his main troubles. That worried me and I don't want to fail him still worse. But I don't think the Colonel believes in my point of view.”

“I think I do,” I told her. “The real reason why you are here is because we believe that Ashmore may be able to tell us something important and you are useful to identify him, to reassure him and to persuade him to tell us what he can.”

“You don't think it's anything discreditable to him?” she asked quickly.

“I'm pretty sure it's not. I think the thing that finally tipped him off his balance, as you put it, was a devilish act by someone I am anxious to identify quite definitely.”

At Chepstow we began to make inquiries. Rousdon had sent out information and instructions the night before and the local police had picked up traces of a man who might be Ashmore who had got out of a train on Friday afternoon and asked the way to Tintern. A kindly porter had been sorry for the man's feeble condition and had persuaded him to get a cup of tea and a sandwich, intending to treat him. But the old man produced some money and insisted on paying, saying that he would have no more use for it. The porter “didn't like the look of him,” but he seemed sensible, though a bit dazed, so he directed him on his way. There was no other news.

“You haven't—there hasn't been—anything found in the river?” Carol asked the sergeant who gave us this information.

“You'd be thinking of a body, Miss? Oh, no! Though of course they don't always come up at once. Not that I've much experience myself; this isn't the sort of river they go dropping into much, not this isn't.”

We drove slowly up the Wye Valley. Bare dripping trees clung to the slopes above the river, which swept down to meet us, thick and soupy. Then at last we swung round the corner which showed us the dark, broken relics of the abbey on their green terrace by the river's brink. I believe we were all unreasonably expecting some discovery as soon as the abbey came into sight, but the valley here was just as mournfully empty as it had been all the way up. So we crept on. I had taken the wheel again, so that Carol could more easily jump out to question the occasional wayfarers, which never produced any useful results.

As we rounded the bend Carol, staring across at the swampy meadows gasped, “Slow, slow! Oh, I think it must be! Down there, yes. Oh, stop! But don't shout or do anything sudden. Just stay here and keep
him
here”—a backward jerk of her head indicated our passenger; “and I'll go and talk to him.”

We watched her swing over a gate and pick her way across the boggy grass to an unmoving figure, almost like the hulk of a dead tree, on the river bank.

Nibley, our detective, was anxious and he followed her across the road and stood by the gate, hidden from her behind the hedge. We watched her walk gently up to the figure, which came alive with a jerk and plunged clumsily towards the water. In one instant Carol had seized him by the arm and was dragging at him with all her strength and weight, while Nibley was over the gate, squelching across the meadow. I followed and lost sight of them all until I was over the gate. There were still three of them, Nibley in the middle of the boggy tract and the other two swaying on the very brink of the sweeping current. Before I could reach them, Nibley had them safe and Ashmore stood limp and passive. He trembled violently and was wild eyed.

“Let me go!” he appealed, quite gently. “You don't understand. You ought not to hold me. I should've done it yesterday, but I couldn' do it.”

Carol was panting from her struggle and looked pale and scared, but now she stood in front of Ashmore and said to him, slowly and distinctly:

“Ashmore, don't you know me? I'm Carol Wynford; Miss Carol. Yes, of course you remember. Now listen; there's been a dreadful mistake. You needn't be worried; there's nothing wrong; there was no need for you to come away; no one is going to bother you.”

“Ah, Miss; you don't know. It wasn't my fault, but there's no getting away from the police. You don' know.”

“But I
do
know,” Carol insisted. “And I want to say I'm sorry for what happened and for you being so upset, but it's quite all right now and we can take you home.”

“They'ah be waitin' for me there!” the old man insisted.

“No, they won't. You've got absolutely nothing to worry about.”

He looked doubtful, but his eyes stared at us with more intelligence and with some surprise.

“My feet are damp, standing in this wet place; let's get to the road,” Carol suggested in a matter-of-fact voice, and Ashmore, gently guided by Nibley, moved with us towards the field gate. Remembering a thermos flask of coffee laced with something more inspiriting, which the Tollards' cook had sent out to me, I hurried on ahead and poured some of this into a mug.

We got the shivering old man into the front seat of the car and persuaded him to drink the potion.

Nibley suggested; “As quick as you can back to Chepstow, I would advise, and to the best hotel there, where we could get a private room and a fire and some food.”

Carol got in beside him. He had been so unobtrusive and yet so useful at the right moment, that she was regarding him with less disfavour and there seemed to be some confidential conversation passing between them as we sped back down the valley.

It was Carol who went into the hotel and arranged for our reception. Ashmore looked at the building doubtfully.

“This is a good pub,” I told him. “We all need something to warm us.”

“I hardly touch it,” he said weakly. “But I don' know but that a drop mightn' do me good now.'

Charmed or bullied by Carol—I don't know which—the manageress of the hotel led us quietly to a room with a blazing fire, promised that no one should disturb us and sent, in surprisingly short time, soup for Ashmore and biscuits and drinks. He swallowed the food with difficulty, but gulped down some brandy. Nibley and I moved away a little and left Carol to tackle him.