Читать книгу Nine Strings To Your Bow - Maurice Walsh - Страница 7

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When Con Madden told Peter Falkner that he and his partner had had a look round and about at the murder of Marcus Aitken, it was in the nature of an understatement. For the look had been thorough, and Con Madden, after three weeks in the town of Eglintoun, had the facts on his mind as clear as a photograph. And the main fact was that Mark Aitken had been brutally murdered a year ago, shot through the spine from close up and his brains blown out as he lay on his face. That was the medical evidence.

There were other facts. The facts Con Madden had learned about Mark Aitken himself. That Mark had managed to survive to the age of sixty was only explained by the theory that the devil takes care of his own. On the surface Mark had been a big business man and sportsman, mill owner, company director, landed proprietor, justice of the peace, patron of racing, horse and cattle breeder, everything that makes a man the backbone of the country—for his own good! Actually Mark Aitken was a full-blooded blend of libertine, regency buck, racketeer and spendthrift, with enough Scots in him to make him a patient gatherer, enough Irish to make him a bold gambler, and enough English to make him think he was by the Lord appointed. A big sanguine-hued, blond, tempered man, afraid of nothing on two feet or four, in this world or the next. A hard drinker, a hard fighter, a hard lover, and a hard bargainer all his life, and at the age of sixty he possessed all the lustful virility of Augustus the Strong of Poland. He’d married and buried two women, had no direct heir, but by all accounts did not lack natural progeny.

But Mark Aitken had acquired three heirs. Two of them were a twin brother and sister, a nephew and niece. ... Toby and Barbara Aitken. They were about twenty-five, or thereabouts. Toby was a big ash-haired, ash-eyed hulk of a lad, whose main pursuits were the drinking of double whiskies and the playing of first-class golf. He was a plus two man, and it was said he would cheat to win side bets. An unmoral young hound was Toby.

Barbara, as Con Madden could attest, was a looker, of the slender but not angular type. Five foot six with nice eager lines, and the curves circumspect but in the right places. Brown haired and on the dark side, she was, and there were red lights in her hair of which she had plenty. The huntress type—Diana of the Uplands with the greyhounds, like the famous painting.

These two lived with Mark in the manor, Danesford House, where Barbara acted as chatelaine.

The third heir was Peter Falkner himself. Peter was the son of Mark’s own sister and a Scotsman of the name of Robbie Falkner. It was Robbie who married Mark’s sister over violent protest and whisked her off to Canada where Peter was born. It was five years ago, when Robbie and Mark’s sister both died, that Peter wrote his uncle informing him of their deaths, and had received an offer from his uncle to come back to Eglintoun. Uncle and nephew had an interview, and as a result of that interview Peter had been appointed estate manager, under a written contract for five years. And beginning then and for the next five years these two had rowed until it brought down rain. At the trial Peter had claimed that underneath the quarreling was a mutual fondness and respect, but those who had heard the rowing wondered—especially when Mark’s body was found on the path between Danesford House, and the Home Farm where Peter, as manager, lived. He was found there by Peter himself. The finder of the corpus delicti is usually the first object of suspicion, and a few of them have been hanged.

More particularly there was the final row Peter had with his Uncle Mark. The five years of his contract as estate manager were up and Mark wanted to renew, but Peter had refused. He had said he was going back to Canada. Old Mark had been extraordinarily mild about it and had offered to double his salary, so that he could settle down and find himself a wife. Peter had said, irritatingly, that he didn’t want the salary or a wife and that he was leaving for Canada on the Monday. After that Uncle Marcus ran true to form. He bellowed and most of his bellowing was abusive. He threatened to cut Peter out of his will. It was all heard by the servants and members of the family. Peter left the big house and stormed off to the Home Farm by himself.

The terms of the will which Mark Aitken had threatened to change did not help Peter’s case. There was every reason why Peter shouldn’t have wanted it changed. In Superintendent Mullen’s mind it clinched matters. Mark had made two wills, the first about ten years ago. In that one he left his estate between Peter, Barbara and Toby. But six months before his death he made a new will, the one which was valid now. Under its terms Toby was left three hundred pounds a year, to be paid out of the estate at the rate of twenty-five pounds a month as long as he lived, and the testator expressed the opinion that he would not live long. Barbara Aitken was left six hundred pounds a year until her marriage, at which time the annuity was to cease. The residue of the estate was left to Peter Falkner, and there were no strings attached to it. That residue was reasonably estimated as worth two hundred thousand pounds.

Con looked across the tops of the fresh tankards which Michael had brought to Peter Falkner. “I would like for once,” he said, “to hear your own account of what happened after that last quarrel with your Uncle Mark. I’d like to hear it without the objections and interruptions of the Crown Prosecutor.”

Peter sucked on the stem of his pipe, which had gone dead. “After that row with my uncle,” he said, “I needed a bit of calming down. I had in mind a discussion I’d had with Barbara. She and Hughes Everitt, to whom she’s engaged, were going fishing for salmon early the next morning. I told her the salmon would not be biting. She stubbornly insisted they would. It gave me the thought of fishing, which is as good a way as I know to cool off from a row. While I knew the salmon could not be had, I also knew that the sea trout could.

“About five-thirty I set out. It was grand fishing, and the trout were tricky and game and tender in the mouth. I kept at it until the light went about ten-thirty. By that time I had a bag full of eighteen beauties, averaging about a pound and a half. I found that I was at a bend of the river only a couple of fields away from the golf club. I decided to cross over and get one of the stewards to cook me a dish of bacon and eggs. In order to lighten my burden and to save my catch from some of the sharks at the club, I hid my fishing bag under the overhang of a sally-bush and laid my rod among its branches.”

“You weren’t afraid someone would find them and take them?” Con asked.

“It was all posted land,” Peter explained. “The only danger of that was from Charley Wells, the local poacher, and I wasn’t much worried about him. I’d run him off the place with a good beating a while back and I didn’t think he’d be in a hurry to catch another.”

“Go on,” Con said.

“I went to the club and had my supper. As a matter of fact I talked to several friends about my catch of fish. Among them was Hughes Everitt. He’s my best friend, you know. I swore him to secrecy, knowing he was going fishing with Barbara in the morning. She’s so blasted stubborn. After she’d failed to get any salmon I intended to produce my catch of trout to rub her nose in the dust. I meant to stop on my way home to pick them up. But that didn’t happen.”

“And why not?” Con asked.

“I got into a poker game in the club manager’s back room. It lasted until six in the morning. After that I shaved and bathed and got into some clean things I kept in my club locker. Then I started for Danesford House. You understand, it was a custom for us all to have Sunday breakfast at the big house.”

“How did it happen,” Con asked, “that your Uncle and cousins Barbara and Toby live at Danesford House, and you a mile away at the Home Farm? Not very clubby, was it?”

Peter took a deep drink from his tankard. “When I came back from Canada my Uncle and I were stepping round each other like two fighting cocks. I wasn’t forgetting he’d disapproved of my father, and suspected he disapproved of me. When he offered me the job of estate manager I took it, but it was a business contract. He expected me to live as a member of the family at Danesford House, but I chose to live at the Home Farm, which was built for the estate manager. I wanted no favours. I lived at the farm with Denis Buckley, the foreman. My one concession to the family tie with Uncle Mark, was those Sunday breakfasts.”

“I see. So you headed for Danesford House instead of the Home Farm when you left the club.”

“Right,” Peter Falkner said. “On the road Barbara and Hughes Everitt caught up with me in Barbara’s car. They’d been after their salmon and as I’d predicted, they’d got none. That reminded me of my own catch, and that I must get it after breakfast. Hughes winked at me when Barbara cursed out the salmon. He’d been a good fellow and kept my secret.”

“As I recall,” Con Madden said, “Marcus Aitken was not, after all, on hand for that Sunday’s breakfast.”

Peter nodded, frowning. “I thought nothing of it. It wasn’t unusual for him to be off on a tramp with his two wolfhounds. After breakfast I left Barbara and Hughes and started back along the mile of path to the Home Farm. I decided to send one of the farm boys to the bend in the stream to retrieve my fish and tackle.

“I was walking along the path at a good clip when I saw my uncle’s two wolfhounds lying down on the edge of a copse. I wasn’t surprised to see them, but I was surprised not to see my uncle about. Not that I wanted to, mind you. We’d probably only have renewed the quarrel of the day before. Then I noticed something. There was grass fringing the path, and I noticed the hounds were lying unusually high, as if they were resting on something. I walked through the grass to see what it might be. As I approached, the dogs showed their teeth and hackled and growled, fiercely. I was puzzled. Ordinarily they were friendly to me. As I drew closer they grew more savage. Then I saw they were lying on the body of a man.” Peter’s mouth drew together in a hard line.

“You didn’t recognize who it was at first?” Con asked.

“No. My first thought was that the dogs had turned man-killer and done in Charley Wells, the poacher. Then I saw the brown heather-mixture of the tweed jacket on the body, and I knew it was Uncle Mark.

“I couldn’t approach closer, with those two red-eyed angry dogs standing guard. I had to get help, and a gun with which to deal with the dogs if necessary. I was still thinking it was the dogs who had done him in. I ran to the Home Farm. My double barreled shotgun, which usually rested on hooks behind the door, was gone. I thought only at the time that some one of the farm hands had borrowed it for rabbit shooting. I phoned the police at Eglintoun. I told them where the body was and to bring a gun with which to deal with the dogs, as mine was missing. I started back for the scene of what I still thought was an accident, and was overtaken before I got there by the police, in the persons of Superintendent Mullen and Inspector Myles.

“They had to kill the dogs, finally, to get to the body. It was then they found that Uncle Mark had been shot through the spine and the back of the head, and that it had been no accident. It was murder.” Peter hesitated.

Con knew the next stages of the story well.

The police surgeon arrived. It was 8:30 Sunday morning. The body was warm. The first thing the surgeon did was to take the internal temperature of the body. It was 90°, or eight degrees less than normal. In ordinary circumstances cooling of a body after death takes place at the rate of about two degrees per hour, and that seemed to fix the time of death at about four o’clock that Sunday morning. But the circumstances were not ordinary, not by any means.

The police surgeon pointed at the carcasses of the dead dogs and asked a question: “How long were these lying on the body?” No one could tell him. The surgeon shook his head. “Then I can’t tell you when Mark Aitken died. If these dogs discovered the body shortly after death and lay on it at once, the warmth of their bodies, somewhat above the normal human temperature, would slow down cooling and rigor mortis to an extent I’m not aware of. It might be anything from four to twelve hours.”

The surgeon never did find out. No one had found out, neither the prosecution nor the defense at the trial. Superintendent Mullen had seized on this uncertainty. He had heard of the rowing between Peter and his uncle. He began hounding Peter. He demanded his alibi for the whole of the possibly critical time before Mark’s death. Peter went over the night before. He’d been playing poker at the club. And before that? He’d been fishing. Alone? Yes. Anyone see him? Peter was not aware. Caught anything? A dozen and a half first run sea trout. Where were the fish now? Peter told his story of catching them by the brook. Mullen had one-track persistence. He would stick to Peter till Peter had established his alibi. They went to look for the fish. They weren’t there. They searched every sally-bush in the radius of a hundred yards. There was no scale of a fish to be found, nor any rod or bag.

Mullen asked if there were anything in the bag but fish. Peter explained there was a telescope gaff in the netted front, a leather-bound fishing book with parchment leaves and pockets and felts. He said it contained several good casts for trout and salmon and a valuable collection of flies, many of them dressed by himself. He was an expert fly dresser. Neither rod, nor bag, nor fishing book was ever recovered. So much for Peter’s fish story. It was no alibi at all.

Finally, there was other evidence. Three men going home from a local pub a little after ten claimed they’d heard two shots fired from the direction of the path where Mark Aitken had died. At the trial Barbara Aitken claimed to have heard two shots at a much later time; at around four in the morning to be exact. Her date with Hughes Everitt for fishing was at five, but she had waked early and decided to go out to the stream ahead of time. It was about four, and she heard the shots as she first started out. A few moments later, through the woods, she saw the hurrying figure of a man in brown. At the time, she coupled the shots and the figure she saw, and added them up to Charley Wells. Later, Hughes Everitt claimed to have seen the same figure. He had been late for his date with Barbara, his alarm clock having failed him. It was nearly six when he joined her, and on the way to their meeting place he, too, saw the figure in brown.

If Barbara’s story held up, and the figure in brown had murdered Marcus Aitken at 4 a.m., then Peter had an alibi, for he’d been playing poker at the club at that hour. Some of the jury must have believed her, for they disagreed. But most people thought Barbara and Hughes were simply trying to save Peter by their story.

So, with no alibi, with his fantastic fish story unsubstantiated, with Mullen hanging onto him stubbornly as the only suspect, Peter had stood trial ... had stood trial three times, and three times the prosecution had failed to make its case stand up. Yet there was no case nor any evidence against anyone else.

“This man in brown,” Con said to Peter, “whom Barbara and Hughes saw at different times ... under oath they said they couldn’t identify him. But do they have ideas who he might have been?”

Peter shrugged. “They both thought at the time of Charley Wells. But you must know, if you’ve followed the case, Con Madden, that Charley Wells has an alibi.”

“I know,” Con said, “though Mullen never tried too hard to break it. There are two more points, Peter Falkner. Your missing gun was found?”

“The police found it before mid-day of that Sunday,” Peter said. “It was in the first place they searched ... the copse where Uncle Mark’s body was found, hidden carelessly under some undergrowth. The hider had been careful enough not to leave any fingermarks. There were two empty brass-cased cartridges in the breach, and they had been fired recently, and they had been loaded with No. 6 shot, the kind which had done for Uncle Mark.”

“And the fishing tackle?” Con asked.

“They were found later at a distance from where I’d hidden them, but they weren’t intact. There wasn’t a scale of a fish in the bag. The telescope gaff was in the net all right, but the fishing book was missing.”

“It was a valuable book?”

“The contents were. A good salmon cast costs three half dollars, and a good salmon fly the same. There were at least fifty salmon flies in the leaves, many of which I’d dressed myself.”

“Then you could have identified them for certain if they’d ever been found?”

“Beyond a question of a doubt,” Peter said.

Con was silent for a long time and then he emptied his tankard. “It’s a man-sized job my partner and I are undertaking, Peter Falkner. But we’ll give it a man-sized try.”