But the vicar, not being Peter’s wife, took the thing otherwise.
‘You mean,’ he said, in a shocked voice, ‘that when Frank Crutchley watered the cactus and wiped the pot-oh! but that is a dreadful conclusion to come to! Frank Crutchley one of my own choirmen!’
Kirk was better satisfied.
‘Crutchley?’ said he. ‘Ah! now we’re getting at it. He had his grudge about the forty pound-and ’e thought he’d get even with the old man and marry the heiress-two birds with one blunt instrument, eh?’
‘The heiress?’ exclaimed the vicar, in fresh bewilderment. ‘But he’s marrying Polly Mason-he came round about the banns this morning.’
‘That’s rather a sad story, Mr Goodacre,’ said Harriet. ‘He was secretly engaged to Miss Twitterton and he-hush!’
‘D’you think they were in it together?’ began Kirk-and then suddenly woke up to the fact that Miss Twitterton was in the room with them.
‘I couldn’t find your fountain-pen anywhere,’ said Miss Twitterton, earnest and apologetic. ‘I do hope-’ She became aware of something odd and strained in the atmosphere, and of Joe Sellon, who was stupidly gaping in the one direction that everybody else was avoiding.
‘Good gracious!’ said Miss Twitterton. ‘What an extraordinary thing! How ever did Uncle’s cactus get up there?’
She made a bee-line for the cabinet. Peter caught her and pulled her back.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, cryptically, to Kirk over his shoulder; and led Miss Twitterton away to where the vicar still stood petrified with astonishment.
‘Now,’ said Kirk, ‘let’s get this clear. How exactly do you make out he worked it?’
‘If that trap was set like that on the night of the murder when Crutchley left at 6.20,’ (Miss Twitterton uttered a faint squeak) ‘then, when Noakes came in, as he always did at half-past nine, to turn on the wireless for the news-bulletin-’
‘Which he did,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘reg’lar as clockwork-’
‘Why then-’
But Harriet had thought of an objection, and whatever Peter thought of her she must put it.
‘But Peter-could anybody-even by candlelight walk a right up to that cabinet without noticing that the cactus wasn’t there?’
‘I think-’ said Peter.
The door opened so quickly that it caught Mrs Ruddle sharply on the elbow-and Crutchley walked in. In one hand he carried the standard lamp, and had, apparently, come in to fetch something on his way to the van outside, for he called back to some invisible person behind him.
All right-I’ll get it and lock it up for you.’
He was abreast of the cabinet before Peter could say:
‘What do you want, Crutchley?’
His tone made Crutchley turn his head.
‘Key o’ the radio, my lord,’ he said briefly and, still looking at Peter, lifted the lid.
For the millionth part of a second, the world stood still. Then the heavy pot threshed down like a flail. It flashed as it came. It skimmed within an inch over Crutchley’s head, striking white terror into his face with its passing, and shattered the globe of the lamp into a thousand tinkling fragments.
Then, and only then, Harriet realised that they had all cried out, and she among them. And, after that, there was silence for several seconds, while the great pendulum swung over them in a gleaming arc.
Peter spoke, warningly:
‘Stand back, padre.’
His voice broke the tension. Crutchley turned on him with a face like the face of a beast
‘You devil! You damned cunning devil! How did you know? Curse you-how did you know I done it? I’ll have the throat out of you!’
He leapt, and Harriet saw Peter brace himself; but Kirk and Sellon caught him as he sprang from under the death-swing of the pot. He wrestled with them, panting and snarling.
‘Let me go, blast you! Let me get at him! So you set a trap for me, did you? Well, I killed him. The old brute cheated me. So did you, Aggie Twitterton, blast you! I been done out o’ my rights. I killed him, I tell you, and all for nothing.’
Bunter went quietly up, caught the pot as it swung and brought it to a standstill.
Kirk was saying:
‘Frank Crutchley, I arrest you…’
The rest of the words were lost in the prisoner’s frenzied shouting. Harriet went over and stood by the window. Peter had not moved. He left Bunter and Puffett to help the police. Even with this assistance, they had their work cut out to drag Crutchley from the room.
‘Dear me!’ said Mr Goodacre. “This is a most shocking thing!’ He picked up his surplice and stole.
‘Keep him off!’ shrieked Miss Twitterton, as the struggling group surged past her. ‘How horrible! Keep him off! To think that I ever let him come near me!’ Her small face was distorted with fury. She ran after them, shaking her clenched fists and crying out grotesquely: ‘Beast! beast! how can you kill poor Uncle!’
The vicar turned to Harriet.
‘Forgive me. Lady Peter. My duty is with that unhappy young man.’
She nodded, and he followed the rest out of the room. Mrs Ruddle, arrested on her way to the door by the sight of the fishing-line dangling from the pot, was illuminated with sudden understanding.
‘Why, there!’ she cried, triumphantly. “That’s a funny thing, that is. That’s the way it was when I come in ’ere Wednesday morning to clear for the sweep. I took it off meself and throwed it down on the floor.’
She looked about her for approbation, but Harriet was past all power of comment and Peter still stood unmoving Gradually, Mrs Ruddle realised that the moment for applause had gone by, and shuffled out. Then from the group in the doorway Sellon detached himself and came back, his helmet askew and his tunic torn open at the throat.
‘My lord-I don’t rightly know how to thank you. This clears me,’
‘All right, Sellon. That’ll do. Buzz off now like a good chap.’
Sellon went out; and there was a pause.
‘Peter,’ said Harriet.
He looked round, in time to see Crutchley hauled past the window, still struggling in the four men’s hands.
‘Come and hold my hand,’ he said. ‘This part of the business always gets me down.’
Epithalamion
Verges: You have always been called a merciful man, partner.
Dogberry: Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man.
– William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing.
Miss Harriet Vane, in those admirable detective novels with which she was accustomed to delight the hearts of murder-fans (see blurb), usually made a point of finishing off on a top-note. Mr Robert Templeton, that famous though eccentric sleuth, would unmask his murderer with a flourish of panache in the last chapter and retire promptly from the stage amid a thunder of applause, leaving somebody else to cope with the trivial details of putting the case together.
What happened in real life, she discovered, was that the famous sleuth, after cramming down a hasty lunch of bread and cheese, which he was almost too pre-occupied to eat, spent the rest of the afternoon at the police station, making an interminable statement. The sleuth’s wife and servant also made statements, and all three were then bundled unceremoniously out while statements were taken from the sweep, the charwoman and the vicar; after which, the police were prepared, if the going looked good, to sit up all night taking a statement from the prisoner. A further agreeable feature was a warning that neither the sleuth nor any of his belongings was to leave the country, or indeed go anywhere, without previously informing the police, since the next part of the procedure might take the form of a batch of summonses to appear before the magistrates. Returning home from the police-station, the sleuth family found the house occupied by a couple of constables taking photographs and measurements, preparatory to removing the wireless cabinet, the brass chain, the hook and the cactus to figure as Exhibits A to D. These were by now the only portable objects left in the house, other than the owners’ personal property; since George and Bill had finished the job and left with their van. There had been difficulty and delay in persuading them to leave without the wireless set; but here the arm of the law at length prevailed. At last the police went away and left them alone.