Читать книгу Ronald Standish - Herman Cyril McNeile - Страница 7

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“I’m blowed if I see how you did it, Mr. Standish.”

It was three hours later, and Inspector Savage was gazing at Ronald in undisguised admiration.

“By starting with a theory diametrically opposed to yours,” said Ronald. “You were convinced Hubert Daynton had done it; I was convinced he hadn’t. Then who had? My first idea was that the murderer was some man Power had wronged—probably over some woman. He had been hiding near by, and had taken advantage of the quarrel he heard to do the deed and throw the suspicion on someone else. Then I suddenly realised the enormous significance of the fact that the door creaked, and shut of its own accord.

“Now, Power was sitting at his easel some four yards from the door. Suppose the door was shut when the murderer entered; it would creak as he opened it. Suppose it was being kept open by the stone with which the deed was done; it would creak as it shut, after the stone was picked up. In either event it would creak.

“Now, what does anybody do who hears a door creak behind him—especially if there has just been a quarrel and the creak may mean that the other person has returned? He looks over his shoulder to see who it is. And if he sees some enemy of his, some man he has wronged, he does not continue his job with his back to the new-comer. But Power went on with his painting. Therefore the person he saw he did not regard as an enemy, but looked on as a friend. So much of a friend, in fact, that he did not object to this new arrival walking about behind his back—always an uncomfortable sensation unless your mind is completely at rest. And at once a very different complexion was put on the matter.

“Then came my interview with Mr. John Playfair, and the question of the two separate pictures of different views of Comber Ness on the one plate—the point that puzzled you so much, Bob. You remember that when I said it might be because he couldn’t take a stereoscopic picture, you countered by saying that in that case he equally could not have taken the two separate views. Which was right, up to a point. He couldn’t have taken either, but that doesn’t prevent a negative appearing on a plate.

“The man was a skilled photographer, and he was faced with the necessity of proving to the world that he had been to Comber Ness. If he could do so he was safe. But since he had no intention of going anywhere near Comber Ness, what was he to do? He knew that if you take a negative and make a positive from it, you can produce a second negative in a dark room on exactly the same principle as you produce a print. But he had no stereoscopic picture of Comber Ness; he’d only just bought the machine. What he had got were two separate views taken with his smaller camera.

“So he makes two positives—you remember Miss Moody told us he was fiddling about in the dark room all the afternoon before the murder—and then he takes out his last stereoscopic plate. You see the importance of its being the last one; that accounted for his having to put them both on one plate. And that was why he took three unnecessary photos of his own grounds. On to that last plate he clips the two positives, side by side, exposes it in his dark room, and returns the plate to the camera. There is his alibi. He need never go near Comber Ness, and, in fact, he never did.

“He had Wilkinson’s evidence that twelve was the number showing—you noticed there, Bob, the slight discrepancy between Playfair’s statement and the butler’s. He had the chemist’s evidence that the plates were handed over to him to be developed; he had the hotel evidence that he lunched at Barminster.

“Exactly what he did we shall never know. He drove away at eight-thirty, and presumably concealed his car in some lane. Then he returned and hid near the summer-house. He was taking no risk up to date; if he was found there was no reason why he shouldn’t be in his own grounds. And everything came off. He murdered Power, and drove quietly over to Barminster, where he lunched.”

“But why this cold-blooded murder of a man he apparently liked?” I asked.

“The usual reason,” he answered. “Once or twice after dinner last night I caught the look in his eyes as they rested on the girl. He was in love with her himself, which can account for many things. Why he took up Power at all I can’t tell you—possibly at the beginning he had some idea of choking off Daynton by making him jealous. Then he may have feared that instead of doing that the artist’s attentions to the girl might have the opposite result and bring Daynton and the girl closer together. Or perhaps he may have become jealous of Power himself. Anyway, he saw his opportunity of getting rid of both of them. And but for the astounding piece of luck of my finding that steam-roller where it was, he’d have gone darned near doing it. Being a clever man, he realised at once that his whole alibi had become worse than useless—it had become a rope round his neck. For what possible reason could there be, save the true one, for his saying he’d been to Comber Ness when he hadn’t? That was why I was so off-hand to-day. At the first hint of suspicion he would have destroyed the plate and never given me the prints, trusting to the chemist’s evidence that it had been a view of Comber Ness.”

“Well, I’m sure I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Standish,” said the Inspector. “Mr. Daynton has already been released.”

“And doubtless will provide the necessary consolation for Miss Moody,” said Ronald, with a smile. “For I don’t think we need waste one second’s pity on that singularly cold-blooded murderer.”

And it wasn’t until we were driving into London that he turned to me thoughtfully.

“I think the lie was justified, Bob, don’t you?”

“What lie?” I said.

“That steam-roller only arrived at Comber Ness early this morning.”