‘Them Pollocks and Moggeridges are the biggest liars in creation,’’’ he observed, ‘and if there’s been murder done, it’s good proof that they’re all concerned in it,’ said he. ‘But as to how Alexis got there; you can set your mind at rest. We’ve found six witnesses who saw him at various points along the road between 10.15 and 11.45, and unless there’s some other fellow been going about in a black beard, you can take it as proved that he went by the coast-road and no other way.’
‘Did none of the witnesses know him personally?’
‘Well, no, ‘the Inspector admitted, ‘but it isn’t likely there’d be more than one young fellow in a blue suit and a beard going about at that time, unless somebody was deliberately disguised as him, and where’d be the point of that? I mean to say, the only reasons for anybody impersonating.him would be to make out either, that he was in that neighbourhood at that particular time when he was really elsewhere, or that he was really alive some time after he was supposed to be killed. Now, we know that he was in that neighbourhood all right, so that disposes of number one and we know that he really was killed at two o’clock and not earlier, and that disposes of number two. Unless, of course,’ said the Inspector, slowly, ‘the real Alexis was up to some funny business between 10.15 and two o’clock, and this other fellow was making an alibi for him. I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I suppose,’ said Wimsey, ‘that it really was Alexis who was killed. His face was gone, you know, and we’ve only the clothes and a photograph to go upon.’’
‘Well, it was somebody else with a real beard, anyhow,’ said the Inspector. ‘And who would Alexis be wanting to kill, do you suppose?’
‘Bolsheviks,’ suggested Wimsey, lightly. ‘He might make an appointment with a Bolshevik who meant to murder him, then murder the Bolshevik.’
‘So he might — but that doesn’t make things any easier. Whoever it was did the murder, he had to get away from the Flat-Iron. And how could he have managed to change clothes with the victim? There wasn’t time.’
‘Not after the murder, certainly.’
‘Then where are you? It’s only making things more complicated. If you ask me, I think your notion of the mare having been ridden down there at some other time by some mischievous young fellow is a good one. There’s nothing against it except that ring-bolt, and that might quite well have been put there for a quite different purpose. That washes the mare out of the thing altogether and makes it all a lot easier. Then we can say that either Alexis did away with himself or else he was murdered by some person we don’t know of yet, who just walked along the coast on his two feet. It doesn’t matter, that those Pollocks didn’t see him. He could have been hiding under the rock, like you said. The only trouble is, who was he? It wasn’t Weldon, it wasn’t Bright, and it wasn’t Perkins. But they’re not the only people in the world.’
Wimsey nodded.
‘I’m feeling a bit depressed,’ he said. ‘I seem to have fallen down a bit over this case.’
‘It’s a nuisance,’ said Umpelty, ‘but there, We’ve only been at it a fortnight, and what’s a fortnight? We’ll have to be patient, my lord, and wait for the translation of that letter to come through. The explanation may be all in that.’
Chapter XXVIII. The Evidence Of The Cipher
‘I know not whether
I see your meaning: if I do, it lies
Upon the wordy wavelets of your voice,
Dim as an evening shadow in a brook.’
— Fragment
Friday, 3 July
THE letter from ‘Clumps’ at the Foreign Office did not arrive till the Friday, and then was a disappointment. It ran:
‘DEAR WIMBLES,
‘Got your screed. Old Bungo is in China, dealing. with the mess-up there, so have posted enclosure off to him as per instructions. He may be up-country, but he’ll probably get it in a few weeks. How’s things? Saw Trotters last week at the Carlton. He has got himself into a bit of a mess with his old man, but seems to bear, up. You remember the Newton-Carberry business? Well, it’s settled, and Flops has departed for the Continent. What-ho!
‘Yours ever,
CLUMPS.’
‘Young idiot!’ said Wimsey, wrathfully. He threw the letter into the waste-paper basket, put on his hat and went round to Mrs Lefranc’s. Here he found Harriet industriously at work upon the cipher.’ She reported, however, total failure.
‘I don’t think it’s a scrap of good going on with these marked words,’ said Wimsey. ‘And Bungo has failed us. Let’s put our great brains to the business. Now, look here. Here is a problem to start with. What is in this letter, and why wasn’t it burnt with the rest?’
‘Now you mention it, that is rather odd.’
‘Very. This letter came, on the Tuesday morning. On the Wednesday, bills were settled up, and on the Wednesday night, papers were burned. On Thursday, morning, Alexis set out to catch his train: Is it too much to suppose that the instructions to do all this were in the letter?’
‘It looks likely.’
‘It does. That means that this letter probably made the appointment for the meeting at the Flat-Iron. Now why wasn’t this letter burnt with the rest?’
Harriet let her mind range over the field of detective fiction, with which she was moderately well acquainted.
‘In my own books,’ she remarked, ‘I usually make the villain end up by saying “Bring this letter with you.” The idea is, from the villain’s point of view, that he can then make certain that the paper is destroyed. From my point of view, of course, I put it in so that the villain can leave a fragment of paper clutched in the victim’s stiffened hand to assist Robert Templeton.’
‘Just so. Now, suppose our villain didn’t quite grasp the duplicity of your motives. Suppose he said to himself: “Harriet Vane and other celebrated writers of mystery fiction always make the murderer tell the victim to bring the letter with him. That is evidently the correct thing to do.” That would account for the paper’s being here.’
‘He’d have to be rather an amateur villain.’
‘Why shouldn’t he be? Unless this is really the work of a trained Bolshevik agent, he probably is. I suggest that somewhere in this letter, perhaps at the end, we shall find the words “Bring this letter with you” and that will account for its presence.’
‘I see. Then why, do we find it tucked away in an inner pocket and not in the victim’s hand as per schedule?’
‘Perhaps the victim didn’t play up?’
‘Then the murderer ought to have searched him and found the paper.’
‘He must have forgotten.’
‘How inefficient!’
‘I can’t help that. Here is the paper. And no doubt it’s full of dangerous and important information. If it made an appointment, it must be because it would then almost amount to a proof that Alexis didn’t commit suicide but was murdered.’