Читать книгу The Cornish Coast Murder - Ernest Elmore - Страница 4

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Greylings, the house toward which Doctor Pendrill was heading in his car, stood close to the sea. It was a square, unimaginative building of grey stone and green-grey slate, materials which were, of course, quarried in the locality. It was an isolated place, shrouded on the land side by a few weather-stunted beeches, with its western windows looking out directly on to the slow swell of the Atlantic. The ground which intervened between the road and the house shelved considerably, whilst linking one with the other was a steepish drive about a quarter of a mile in length.

On the sea side of the house was a little walled-in rectangle of lawn edged with untidy flower borders, beyond which ran the cliff-path. On the far side of the path, the cliff, some fifteen feet high at this point, dropped sheer into deep water. There was never any foreshore visible along this stretch of the coast, for the simple reason that the land curved out from the village and formed a broad ness, upon the most seaward tip of which old Tregarthan, Ruth’s grandfather, had elected to build his house. The windows were in rough weather continually wetted by the spray, for the Atlantic breakers pounding against the cliff-face rushed up like sheets of glass, their ragged crests whipped by the wind. Ruth’s grandfather had declared that if his bedroom had only been large enough to swing a lead sinker, he could have fished from his upper windows. A justifiable boast seeing that his little patch of lawn was barely the length of an average fisherman’s cast.

From the moment the cliff-path passed to the bottom of the Greylings garden, it began to recede in a slow arc toward Boscawen itself. The village, in fact, clustered about a sandy, rock-strewn cove typical of that particular coastline. Greylings was, by the cliff-path, three-quarters of a mile from the cove, though somewhat more by road, since the drive and the road itself formed two sides of a triangle.

At the point where the Greylings drive debouched into the road, but on the other side of it, stood the Vicarage. From the window of Dodd’s study Greylings appeared between the Vicarage and the Atlantic, though considerably below it owing to the steep drop of the land. Adjoining the Vicarage was the church, a Norman edifice with a stout, square keep, and, of course, the famous chiming clock presented by one of the present Lady Greenow’s ancestors. Whether the original architects of the church had placed it a mile from the village as a test of their affirmed faith, it is impossible to say. In any case Sunday in Boscawen always saw a straggling cavalcade of faithful Christians plodding along the bleak, treeless highway, to be mildly harangued at the end of their journey by their extremely affable pastor, the Reverend Dodd.

The Doctor, therefore, had only a few hundred yards to cover before he drew up in front of the unlighted porch of Julius Tregarthan’s house. The rain had ceased and a smoky moon appeared, fitfully, among the shredding clouds. Thunder still grumbled inland, but it was obvious that the storm had passed over and was now spending its energies elsewhere.

During those few minutes of transit, however, Pendrill’s brain was active with speculation. Why had Julius Tregarthan been shot? Pendrill drew a blank. He certainly had no great personal regard for Ruth’s uncle, a feeling that was generally rife in the village, but there was a wide gulf between disliking a man and murdering him. Tregarthan was reserved, secretive even, liable to fits of ill-temper, which alternated with moods of surly cynicism and a general disregard for other people’s feelings. On the other hand, he was a man of judgment and, as far as Pendrill knew, of absolute integrity. He was a Parish Councillor, a church-goer, president of one or two local clubs and a J.P. on the Greystoke Bench. As a man of independent means he had given generously, though spasmodically, to the various charitable organisations of the district. There was no mystery about his past. He had lived in Greylings ever since the death of Ruth’s father, fifteen years ago and since Ruth’s mother had died in her early childhood, Julius had been left sole guardian of his niece’s welfare—a rôle which he had apparently filled with good sense and a full measure of generosity. Ruth had been educated at a boarding-school, spent a couple of years travelling on the Continent and had returned to Boscawen perfectly satisfied to make Greylings her permanent home until such time as she should, if ever, marry.

And now, into the placid routine of this very ordinary household, tragedy had broken.

No sooner had Pendrill slammed the door of his saloon than Ruth flung open the front-door and came to meet him, Pendrill was shocked by her appearance. All the colour had drained from her cheeks. Her usual practicality and common sense seemed to be atrophied by an excess of strong emotion. When she grasped hold of his hand he noticed that she was trembling violently. Without a word, slipping her hand through his arm, he strode into the lighted hall, threw his hat on to the telephone table and went into the sitting-room.

Tregarthan was lying on his side by the uncurtained french windows. One arm lay curled beneath him. The other projected at right angles from his body like a signal-arm. His massive head lay in a spreading pool of blood which had already trickled some feet over the polished boards along the edge of the skirting. The heavy jowl was thrust forward like the prow of a ship, whilst his teeth, tightly clenched, were bared in a hideously unnatural grin. Slightly to the left of his high forehead was a neat, black-rimmed hole.

There was no doubt that Tregarthan was dead. Death must have been instantaneous. Pendrill knew that as far as medical aid was concerned this man had passed beyond the reach of it.

During his cursory examination of the body, Ruth collapsed on to the settee, hiding her face in her hands, whilst Mrs. Cowper, the housekeeper, who had been hovering wide-eyed in the background, kept up a ceaseless flow of verbal consolation.

Cowper, the gardener and odd-job man, came forward deferentially and proffered his help.

Pendrill shook his head.

“There’s nothing to do, Cowper, until the police arrive. He’s dead right enough.” He turned to Mrs. Cowper and cut short her inane babbling with an incisive air of authority. “Now, Mrs. Cowper, I want you to take Miss Ruth to her room.” He approached the girl and helped her to rise from the settee. “There’s no point in your remaining here any longer, my dear. I’ll deal with the police when they arrive. They will want to see you later, but until then I should just lie quietly on your bed. Understand?”

Ruth, somewhat calmed by the Doctor’s matter-of-fact voice, nodded, speechless, and dutifully did as she was told. As Mrs. Cowper was following her out of the room, the Doctor called her back.

“Hot milk and a good stiff dose of brandy in it,” he said. “And see that she drinks it. No nonsense. It’s been a big shock.”

Alone with Cowper, the Doctor closed the door and made a rapid examination of the room. He turned his attention first to the windows. These were in three sections; two fixed and one in the form of a door which opened outward on to the little rectangle of lawn. Each panel was subdivided into six panes. Three shots had starred the glass—one high up in the right-hand fixed window; one about six feet from the base of the door; and the third midway in the left-hand fixed window. It was obvious that the shot which had struck Tregarthan in the head was the one which had drilled its way through the central panel.

The curtains, which divided in the middle, were drawn right back. Pendrill turned to Cowper, who had followed him in watchful silence about the room.

“These curtains, Cowper—is that usual? I mean was it Mr. Tregarthan’s habit to sit here with the curtains undrawn?”

“No, sir. That’s just what I didn’t understand when I first come in here. My wife always draws the curtains most particular before she serves the coffee.”

“And to-night?”

“Oh, they were drawn, sir. I came in with a trudge of logs just after Mr. Tregarthan had finished his coffee. They were drawn then—I’ll swear to it, sir!”

“You can do that later ... to the police,” said Pendrill. “That sounds like the Constable now,” he added, as the front-door bell jangled in the silence of the house. “Let him in, Cowper.”

But it was not the Constable. It was the Vicar.

“My dear Pendrill, I had to come down. I’ve rung Grouch. He’s on his way. I had to come. I was thinking of Ruth. Perhaps I can ...” His eye encountered the body of Tregarthan slumping by the window. “So it’s hopeless,” he added quietly. “Poor fellow.”

Cowper drifted up looking a trifle green about the gills.

“If there’s nothing more, sir ... it’s upset me ... this.”

“No. Go and have a stiff whiskey. But mind you—the police will want to question you when they arrive.”

With a grateful nod Cowper drew his fascinated stare away from the body and stumbled quickly out of the room.

Pendrill pulled out his pipe and lit it. The Vicar, on careful feet, was ambling slowly about the room, peering at things through his gold-rimmed glasses.

“You’ve noticed these?” he said, pointing to the windows.

“Yes—three shots. The middle one got Tregarthan. No doubt about that.”

“None at all, provided he was standing. But why should he stand at an uncurtained window when there’s nothing outside to look at?”

“There was the lightning,” suggested Pendrill. “He may have drawn the curtains to watch the effect of the storm over the sea.”

“He did not draw back the curtains, I suppose?”

The Doctor told him about Cowper’s statement.

“Curious,” said the Vicar as he drifted away from the window to the far side of the room.

He was experiencing a peculiarly mixed set of emotions. Horror and dismay at the tragedy which had come so swiftly out of the night and put an end to Julius Tregarthan’s life. A compassionate pity for the girl who had been so unexpectedly bereaved. But beyond these perfectly natural reactions he was fired with an ardent glow of curiosity and interest. One side of him warred with the other. He felt that it was abhorrent to look upon crime, especially murder, as anything more than foul and unthinkable. At the same time this little devil of curiosity kept on tugging at his sleeve demanding attention. Yes—he must confess it. Apart from the tragic human aspect of the case he was deeply absorbed in an explanation of the mystery. The detective element in him was spurred to new energy now that he was in the midst, not of a mystery story, but a murder in real life. It was wrong of him, of course, sinful even, but that little devil was stronger than his conscience. He wanted to find out. He wanted to solve the problem of Julius Tregarthan’s death, if indeed there proved to be a mystery attached to the crime. Of course the police would take things out of his hands. It was their job to apprehend criminals. It was his job to instil his fellow-men with a brotherly love which would make criminals impossible. The argument was good. But the little imp of curiosity was better.

“Pendrill,” he said, sharply. “Come here. Look at that!”

He was pointing to an indifferent yet graphic oil-painting of a full-rigged windjammer diving head-long into a watery abyss. The canvas, a large one, was fixed high up on the wall, and puncturing the stormy sky about an inch from the gilt frame was the unmistakable mark of a bullet.

“Bullet No. 1,” said Pendrill. “The left-hand window.”

“And over here?” demanded the Vicar, indicating a splintered hole in an oak beam just under the ceiling.

“No. 2,” said Pendrill. “The right-hand window.”

“And the third?” asked the Vicar.

“Probably somewhere about the room. Spent, of course. The bullet went clean through the brain. I made sure of that.”

“Possibly this has something to do with it,” said the Vicar as he ran his fingers over a deep dent in the face of an oak sideboard. “The bullet’s on the ground somewhere. Perhaps we——”

He was cut short by a further clanging of the front-door bell, announcing the fact that P.C. Grouch, after a stiff ride up the hill, had arrived at Greylings. Cowper showed him in and, at a nod from Pendrill, returned to his whiskey in the kitchen.

The Boscawen constable was panting with exertion after pedalling his thirteen-odd stone up the long rise from the cove. He was not cut out for speed and the unaccustomed need for haste, coupled with the alarming news that Tregarthan had been shot, had left him somewhat out of breath. He removed his helmet, wiped round the inside of it with his handkerchief, dabbed his forehead and nodded to the two men.

“Evening, gentlemen. Nothing been moved, I take it?”

“Nothing, Constable,” said the Doctor. “Not even the body.”

“He was dead when you got here, I suppose, sir?”

“Yes.”

The Constable crossed over and took a long look at the body. It was the first time in the whole of his career that he had been called in to investigate a possible murder and he was not inclined to underrate the importance of the occasion.

“Umph,” he said. “Shot through the head. No chance of it being suicide, I suppose?”

The Vicar pointed to the bullet holes in the window.

“Exactly,” said Grouch. “No man could shoot himself through a window. What about accident, gentlemen?”

“Hardly,” interposed the Doctor. “One shot—yes—but not three. Three shots have entered the room.”

“Who first found the body, sir?”

“Miss Tregarthan. She’s lying down in her room. I sent her there until you arrived, Constable. I’ve warned her that she may have to answer a few questions.”

“Quite right, sir. I’ll need a statement. Anybody else in the house at the time?”

“The Cowpers. Mrs. Cowper is upstairs with Miss Tregarthan. Cowper is in the kitchen.”

“I’ll want a word with them, too,” said Grouch. “I’ve phoned police headquarters at Greystoke. They’re sending over an Inspector. In the mean-time ...” He pulled out his note-book and flicked it open with a thumb. “Suppose we have a few words with Miss Tregarthan.”

“Perhaps you would like me ...” said the Vicar, edging a little toward the door.

“No, it’s all right, sir. I dare say the Inspector would like to ask you a few questions. Besides, I’m sure the young lady will feel more at home with you gentlemen in the room.”

Ruth came down, still obviously shaken, but now more in control of her feelings. Some of the colour had drained back into her cheeks. The Doctor was about to place a chair for her when the Constable shook his head.

“Perhaps there’s another room available,” he said, with a quick nod toward the body. “The dining-room, perhaps.”

In the more ordinary atmosphere of the dining-room, where a fire was still flickering, the air was cleared of a good deal of its tension. Ruth sank at once into an arm-chair, whilst Pendrill and the Vicar drew up a couple of chairs at the table. Grouch placed his helmet on the sideboard and took up his position opposite Ruth on the hearth-rug.

“Now, Miss Tregarthan, I understand from the Doctor that you were the first to discover the deceased. Have you any idea as to what time that would be?”

“I know almost to the minute,” replied Ruth, in a restrained voice. “When I came in I remember the hall clock striking the quarter.”

“And you went directly into the sitting-room?”

“Yes.”

“I take it you’d been out?”

“Yes.”

“You discovered the body, then, at nine-fifteen.”

“Exactly nine-fifteen by the hall clock.”

“Which way did you come into the house, miss? Down the drive?”

Ruth hesitated for a moment, looked down into the fire and said quickly.

“No—along the cliff-path. I’d been out for a walk.”

The Constable glanced up sharply.

“Ah!—the cliff-path. You didn’t notice anybody suspicious hanging about?”

“No.”

“I suppose you realise, miss, that Mr. Tregarthan was shot from the side of the house?”

“Yes, I realise that now,” returned Ruth quietly.

“From which way did you approach the house?”

“From the village.”

“And you met nobody on your way here?”

“Nobody.”

“And you heard nothing out of the ordinary—shots, for example—no firing?”

“Nothing.”

The Constable sighed and drummed his pencil on the mantelshelf. That particular line of enquiry seemed to have drawn a blank.

“You entered the house, miss——?”

“From the side door. There’s a path——”

“I know,” cut in Grouch. “The path runs at right-angles to the cliff path along the garden wall.” He smiled benignly. “You see, miss, I knew this place long afore you were born.”

There was a pause, during which the Constable seemed to be working out his next line of approach.

“When you passed the bottom of the garden by the cliff-path did you notice the curtains were undrawn?”

Ruth nodded.

“But you didn’t know anything was amiss?”

“Why should I?” asked Ruth quietly.

“Exactly. You didn’t. You were wearing a mackintosh?”

“Yes—it was raining as you know.”

“I take it, miss, that you got pretty wet?”

“I was soaked,” agreed Ruth, puzzled by these seemingly irrevelant questions.

“And yet,” went on the Constable, “you came straight into the sitting-room, without taking off your wet things and without realising that there was anything amiss with Mr. Tregarthan?”

“Yes—no—that is ...”

“Well?”

Pendrill and the Vicar were startled by Ruth’s sudden hesitation. So far she had answered the Constable’s questions without pausing to consider her replies. But this apparently innocent question about a wet mackintosh, for some strange reason, seemed to disturb her.

“Well, miss?” reiterated Grouch.

“I don’t think I was worried about my clothes at the time. I’m used to the wet. It wasn’t unusual for me to go in to my uncle before taking off my outdoor things.”

“I see. Now, Miss Tregarthan, will you describe what you saw when you entered the room?”

Ruth did so in a low voice, pausing every now and then to regain control of her emotions. She still seemed on the verge of an hysterical breakdown, though her evidence was clear and concise.

“And after finding your uncle apparently dead what did you do?”

Ruth went on to describe how she had summoned the Cowpers and then rushed to the phone and called up the Doctor at Rock House. Learning that he was dining at the Vicarage, she had phoned there and told him of the tragedy. She had then returned to the sitting-room and ascertained, as far as she was able, that her uncle was dead. At the sound of the Doctor’s car on the drive she had rushed out to meet him.

At the conclusion of her story the Constable turned to Pendrill.

“Could you give me some idea, sir, as to the time you received the phone call?”

The Doctor thought for a moment.

“I’m afraid I can’t. It was after nine. I know that, but the Vicar and I were talking——”

“Wait a moment,” cut in the Reverend Dodd excitedly. “I think I can help you, Constable. The telephone bell rang about twenty minutes past nine. I happen to know because it’s one of my—er—idiosyncrasies to listen to the church clock during a storm.” He then went on to explain about his fears for the safety of the tower. “Subconsciously I suppose I was waiting for the quarter chimes while I was talking with Doctor Pendrill. I distinctly remember hearing them. The tower, as you know, is only a stone’s throw from the Vicarage and when the wind is in the right direction ...”

“Thank you, sir,” said Grouch, with an appreciative nod in the Vicar’s direction. “I think that more or less fits in with Miss Tregarthan’s idea as to the time she found the body.” He turned to Ruth, who was now lying back with closed eyes in the armchair, as if trying to shut out the abnormal spectacle of a policeman in the Greylings dining-room. “Thank you, miss. I don’t think there’s anything more I want to ask you. You’ve been very helpful, Miss Tregarthan, and in an unofficial capacity I should like to offer you my sincere sympathy for what has happened.” As Ruth, escorted by the Vicar, crossed unsteadily to the door, the Constable added: “Now, sir, would you mind calling Mrs. Cowper. I’d like to hear what she has to say.”