“Henry,” said Rosemary, “I’m still dreadfully muddled. Can’t you tell us exactly what did happen—over the robbery and everything?”
“Of course,” said Henry. “It’s a pathetic story really, of a smallish crime that snowballed into a series of more and more horrible ones. I don’t suppose there’s ever been a more reluctant murderer than Sir Simon Trigg-Willoughby. It all started with the division of property between Sir Simon and Priscilla after their father’s death. The old man knew that Priscilla was mad about the family jewels, while Sir Simon had a positive obsession with the house. So—very sensibly, on the face of it—he left each of his children the thing that they loved most. What he didn’t reckon with was that in these days of inflation and taxation, there would be nothing like enough money to maintain Berry Hall. As Sir Simon said, Priscilla got the imperishables, while he got a load of bills and responsibilities. The obvious solution, to him, was to sell the one to pay for the other. But Priscilla wasn’t having any.
“So, in desperation, Sir Simon resorted to a course which he had convinced himself was justified. He took Priscilla to the Hunt Ball, and allowed her to get thoroughly drunk. He took her home, waited until she was in bed and asleep in an alcoholic stupor—very likely assisted by some sleeping pills. Then he stole the keys from the chain round her neck, unlocked the safe, and abstracted the jewellery, leaving the open boxes in Priscilla’s dressing room, and replacing the keys. He put a ladder up to the window, making it look like a clumsy outside job. He left his own footprints, in his own sea boots, which confused everybody. Then he took the boat out and buried the loot in Steep Hill Sands. He’s a boating man—or he was—and we can be sure he got the idea from Captain Voss.”
“But I thought everyone agreed that Priscilla had left her jewels out that night?” said Rosemary.
“That was what made me suspect an inside rather than an outside job,” said Henry. “I became convinced that Priscilla was telling the truth when she said she had put the jewels in the safe. She was certainly drunk that night, but she was coherent enough to be able to put herself to bed, and even drunken people go through the routines of a lifetime automatically. When I heard that she had even put her hair in curling pins as usual, it was unthinkable that she shouldn’t also have locked up her precious jewellery. Then there was another thing. Everybody knew which was Priscilla’s bedroom window, because she had a habit of shouting to visitors out of it. A thief would surely conclude that the jewellery would be there. Why should he climb in through the window of the next room? How would he know either that it was her dressing room, or that she would leave the jewels in there? From Sir Simon’s point of view, however, there was always the danger that his sister might wake. He preferred to work in the dressing room. The more I read the police reports, the more suspicious I grew. Then there was the question of the gin which was being bootlegged to her by Riddle. Somebody was paying for that—paying to keep the poor woman in a state of semi-stupor so that nobody would believe her rambling about having locked up her jewels. Besides...” Henry paused. “I once said that crimes were committed for love or money. In this case, who got the money? A mythical thief apparently got the jewellery, but was doing nothing about disposing of it. But Sir Simon got the insurance money.”
“It was soon after the robbery that he had the East Wing completely restored,” said Hamish thoughtfully.
“Exactly. He had the ready cash he needed to indulge his obsession, and for some months all went well. But then the inevitable happened! The insurance money ran out. The situation, for him, was maddening. He had the jewels, but he hadn’t the faintest idea of how to turn them into cash. It was about this time that, by bad luck, Bob Calloway took over The Berry Bush.”
“Bob Calloway?” echoed Alastair, surprised. “Is he...?”
“He’s under arrest,” said Henry, “and this time I’m damned if he’s going to get away with it. He’s been under suspicion as a fence for years, but we’ve never been able to prove anything. We’ll never know, I suppose, how Sir Simon heard of his reputation, but I suspect that it may have been through Herbert, who was indulging in some faintly illegal deals with Calloway himself. Anyway, Bob and Sir Simon got together. It had to be very discreetly done. They would, I imagine, take trips in Priscilla to discuss their business. It must have been Bob we saw in the boat with Sir Simon, the day he seemed so anxious to avoid us, and denied having been out at all. Sir Simon was wise enough not to let Bob into the secret of Steep Hill. He merely brought the jewellery to the pub, piece by piece, to be disposed of. But Bob was taking more than his share of the profit, and the bills were mounting. At the time of Pete’s death, Sir Simon’s financial situation was in a bad way. And the tides were running against him.”
“Henry, you’re getting poetic in your old age,” said Emmy.
“No, I’m not,” said Henry. “I mean that literally. Sir Simon only dared to go out to his buried treasure on a moonless night, when the tide was low in the small hours of the morning. He knew that channel from the boathouse like the back of his hand, and he could easily manage it in the dark. But just then, low tide fell at seven o’clock one day, eight the next, nine the next. Even the following week, when low tide was at two or three in the morning, the moon was full. I’ve looked it all up in Reid’s,” he added, with a modest pride.
“So when the fog came down—” Hamish began.
“Sir Simon was in Ipswich with his solicitor at nine,” said Henry. “He saw the fog come down, and he saw his chance. Instead of hanging round in Ipswich, as he told us, he came hurrying back—driving as fast as he dared, because visib
ility was worsening all the time. By about half past ten, he was home: and Priscilla knew that. She saw him arrive. He went straight down to the boathouse, and after the three of you had been ashore and gone back on board, he took Priscilla out and made for the sandbank.”
“I think I heard his motor,” said Alastair thoughtfully.
“Either his or Herbert’s, or both,” said Henry, with a smile. “Herbert was out on a dubious mission of his own, which doesn’t concern us. Anyhow, Sir Simon beached his boat some way from where the jewels were buried, because the tide was very low by then. He made his way across the sands to the marking stone, and began to dig. Of course, he hadn’t the faintest idea that Pete was there, within a few yards of him. I suppose it must have been the noise of the shovel that attracted Pete’s attention. He walked a few paces from his own boat through the fog—and caught Sir Simon red-handed. And so the comparatively innocuous crime of robbery grew into murder. One can imagine that Pete was probably too puzzled by what he saw to realize his danger. He very likely expected that there was a reasonable explanation. It was foggy, and hard to see. Easy enough for Sir Simon to attack Pete—probably with the shovel—before he knew what was happening. Damn it, he nearly succeeded with me, and I was prepared for him.”
Henry paused, and Emmy took his hand and held it tightly.
“We know what happened then,” Henry went on. “Having knocked Pete out, Sir Simon dislodged Blue Gull’s boom, and hit the unconscious man again with it. A pity for him that he didn’t notice the racing burgee—but he had other things to think about.”