Stiff-necked from hunching over the tiny print and streaked with ink from rubbing our weary faces, after scrutinizing Saturday’s and Monday’s editions we had nothing to show for our efforts beyond a burglary at a manor house outside Linlithgow where a collection of Italian drawings had gone missing.
‘What a very law-abiding bunch these Lothianites are,’ said Alec. ‘Very slim pickings.’
‘And even that can’t really be worth considering,’ I said. ‘There would be no earthly reason not to do it some other time instead. The place was shut up under dust sheets and one day was as easy as the next. Besides, why would the gang need a carpenter?’
‘To get them out of their frames?’ said Alec, but he was wincing even as he spoke at how feeble this sounded.
‘Ludicrous,’ I said.
‘Well, let’s keep at it anyway,’ said Alec, shoving today’s Evening News towards me, and opening the last of the Scotsmans. I sighed and followed suit.
‘Tommy has missed his chance,’ I said, finding the advertisement for steerage to New Zealand again. ‘I’m so bored I could have joined him.’
‘What?’ said Alec.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a joke. Ignore me.’
He did and all was peaceful except for the occasional turning over of a page and the sounds of Bunty’s dreams until Alec exclaimed in a loud voice: ‘Dandy!’
‘Wha-… have you found something?’
‘You’re reading an advertisement for dress patterns. Really!’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Alec, but this is a complete waste of time. I’m sure of it. It’s all wrong for the character of Robert Dudgeon to imagine that he’d commit a crime and even if it weren’t it doesn’t make sense of the last minute turn-around on Thursday evening. You can’t suddenly find out with only twelve hours to spare that you’re going to need an alibi. You don’t “find out” something like that, do you see? And that’s very much how it seemed to me when I spoke to Dudgeon. Something had come up, something had unexpectedly moved forwards, or backwards, making an unforeseen clash. It happens to me all the time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, you know,’ I said. ‘You say to yourself I’ll spend next week on Christmas shopping and then the week before Christmas on writing letters and going round the tenants and I’ll just be able to fit it all in, and then you look at your diary and you realize that next week is the week before Christmas which means there’s exactly half as much time as you thought there was and you haven’t a hope in hell.’
‘Well, if it were a diary clash of some sort – and I can’t really see what sort, I must tell you – why wouldn’t Dudgeon just tell Cad about it?’
‘Any number of reasons,’ I said. ‘It could have been very personal or something he didn’t feel particularly proud of. But it needn’t be the kind of thing that gets into the papers. We’ve scoured every inch of them barring the Births, Marriages and Deaths!’
‘I’m not willing to settle at “any number of reasons”, Dandy,’ said Alec. ‘Name some; name at least one thing that must suddenly be done and can’t be left undone and is worth all the rigmarole of the stand-in Burry Man to get it done, because I can’t think of any.’
‘Nor can I,’ I admitted, ‘except speaking of births, marriages and deaths…’
‘What?’ said Alec.
‘Just that,’ I said. ‘One has to register them by a certain date and when the date comes round it can’t be put off any further.’
‘But anyone can register a death,’ said Alec. ‘Within reason. And I suppose the same goes for a birth too. It’s only a marriage that needs the principals to – What is it?’
‘Listen!’ I said. ‘Don’t look at me like that. On Saturday – no, Sunday – one of the times I was at the Dudgeons’ cottage anyway, do you remember? Mrs Dudgeon was holding forth about not being able to register Robert’s death the next day, because the registry office was shut. Her sisters tried to shout her down but she held to it adamantly, maintaining that it had been open the week before on the August Bank Holiday to let everyone who had business then get it done while they were off their work, and that it was shut this Monday – i.e. yesterday – to let the staff have their holiday too. Alec, I think that’s it! Why would Mrs Dudgeon know all the ins and outs of the registry office holiday times unless she had just found out with a terrible jolt that it was shut when she thought it would be open? That’s it. Dudgeon found out on Thursday afternoon that the office was closed on Monday and that Friday was the only chance to go, but he couldn’t tell anyone why he had to go there.’
Alec blinked.
‘But she was wrong,’ he said. ‘And even if she wasn’t, why did he have to go there? We’ve already said it couldn’t be to register a birth or death.’
‘Well, it must have been to register a marriage, then,’ I said.
‘Whose?’ said Alec. He sounded terribly irritated and I supposed I was looking rather smug, but for one thing it had been his idea to sit up until we were both tired beyond the point of politeness and for another I had just thought of something. An explanation both plausible and easily checked.
‘His,’ I answered. ‘It had to be. Because if anyone can register a birth or a death the same goes for witnessing a marriage. It’s only the principals in each who aren’t interchangeable. He was getting married.’
‘But… if you’re right – although I am sure you’re not – who was he going to marry?’
‘Mrs Dudgeon?’ I suggested. ‘Or the woman we’ve been calling Mrs Dudgeon.’
‘If he was going to legitimize his marriage to his wife,’ said Alec, ‘she would have to know that they weren’t actually married already.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘In fact, I think she did know. When I blurted out to her – during that same conversation – that she would have to look out his certificates, meaning his birth and marriage certificates and his passport – she flew into a complete panic. And her sisters twittering round asking if she had lost the certificates and offering to look for them only made her worse. And – Oh my, Alec! This must be right – do you remember? She was beside herself when the body wasn’t brought home. She kept asking about his things, asking if they had gone through his pockets and looked at all his things. I couldn’t work out for my life what it was that she could be so very worried about being seen, but imagine if he had some document to do with the marriage and someone read it. What a scandal that would be.’
‘Indeed it would,’ said Alec. ‘Which raises the question: how could they possibly not be married? They’ve lived here all their lives, surrounded by brother and sisters all of whom were probably at their wedding. And it will be recorded large as life in the parish register for all to see. Also, if it was such a dark secret, who did they let into the plan?’
‘Why need they let anyone in?’ I said.
‘X?’ said Alec. ‘Remember X? Someone was in on it. Someone who was willing to step into Robert Dudgeon’s shoes. And anyway if he were going to marry Mrs Dudgeon she’d need to be there. And she wasn’t, she was sitting in Craw’s Close in her little cart.’
‘So maybe he was going to marry someone else,’ I said.
‘Who?’ said Alec. ‘Why? And if he was going to marry someone else, Mrs Dudgeon would hardly help him.’ He stretched luxuriously in his armchair and dumped the lapful of newspapers off his lap. ‘I think this is one of those ingenious explanations which occur in the small hours and seem quite hopeful until one looks at them again in the light of day. And it doesn’t explain anything about Dudgeon’s death.’