Bodies from the Library 4, page 28
‘And if you want further,’ Sir Christopher said with a shrug, ‘I draw your attention to this.’ He picked up the undamaged ball he had found in the chaise and passed it with the pistols to Mr Easton, ‘Now, sir. You ram that into the barrel if you can.’
Mr Easton tried, but it was patently impossible. The ball was too big.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said Mr Easton, shaking his head.
‘Why, it’s clear as daylight, Sir Christopher,’ Mr Amble put in, ‘Vaughan could not have shot the man with these pistols.’
‘Vaughan did not shoot him.’
‘Then who did? You spoke of three balls, sir?’ Mr Amble demanded excitedly. ‘You have cleared Vaughan beyond doubt. But can you convict another?’
Sir Christopher turned to the surgeon.
‘You have the third ball, Mr Ives?’
‘It is here, sir.’
‘Will you weigh it against the others?’
Mr Ives obeyed. The squire and Mr Amble stared in fascination. The ball tallied precisely with the first two that Sir Christopher had produced.
‘Yes. It is the same,’ Mr Amble said, as if to himself. ‘There is no doubting it.’
‘Where did that come from?’ Mr Easton demanded anxiously.
‘I extracted it from Jem Vaughan’s arm this morning,’ Mr Ives replied.
‘What?’ Mr Amble cried. ‘You can swear to that?’
‘I can swear to it, sir.’
‘You have in your notes of evidence a confession of the man who fired that ball, Mr Easton,’ Sir Christopher said.
Mr Easton made no answer, but Mr Amble’s eyes opened wide.
‘Good God!’ he exclaimed slowly. ‘Bond. From his own lips. Bond killed the man. But why?’
‘Ah, that is a matter,’ Sir Christopher said, ‘on which I’d not venture an opinion.’
Mr Amble went on, ‘Bond! It’s incredible. You know the man, Mr Easton; he is a tenant of yours.’
‘I find it hard to credit,’ the squire answered gruffly. ‘A very civil, honest man, who pays his rent regularly. You must be mistaken, Sir Christopher,’
‘I have but offered you the evidence,’ Sir Christopher said, extending his hands.
‘Then what of Chale?’ the lawyer said in a bemused way. ‘Was he in league with Bond?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘How do you come by this extraordinary conclusion?’ Mr Easton demanded.
‘It was quite simple, Mr Easton; I did but add two and two and make it come to four,’ Sir Christopher said with an engaging smile, ‘and I offer you the evidence. Now I must ask you to excuse me. for I have a chaise at the door and I have a tiresome journey before me. But I shall return tomorrow, Mr Amble, to be present at your inquest.’
Sir Christopher rose and bowed.
It was to the saturnine Lord Camber that Sir Christopher told the full story of his investigations some hours later; Lord Camber, dragged from the card-table at the Cocoa Tree Club in the early hours of the morning. In his talon-like fingers he held the document that had been found on Nicol’s body. It bore a list of names of men and women, many of them well known in the great world, some even at court itself. Sir Christopher had guessed their significance. They were names of Bonaparte’s chief agents in England, the advance guard of his long-dreamed-of army of occupation. Nicol’s was the fourth life to be lost in securing those names, and Sir Christopher himself had investigated the secret activities of more than one of them, at Lord Camber’s request.
He told his story briefly.
‘As you will appreciate, my lord,’ he said when he had finished the outline of the affair, ‘it was obvious from the first that the fellow Vaughan was innocent and that there were half a dozen things to proclaim an unusual crime. Vaughan was not of the type to engage upon such a crime, he had robbed the man of nothing, yet the man was killed. Your highway robber does not kill unless he meets with resistance and it was clear that Nicol offered no resistance. The man’s full powder flask confirmed my surmise. When I found the ball and realized at once that it could not have come from his pistols, it was proof.’
The old peer nodded. He was ever ready to listen when Kit Hazzard spoke of his methods of detection.
‘But, my lord, certain other facts emerged, and—er—possibilities presented themselves in the course of my investigations. Doubtless you have noted some discrepancies.’
‘Eh? What are you starting now?’ Lord Camber said, leaning forward.
‘It’s obvious that Nicol’s business was known. He was remembered. I discovered, at the “Bear” as a traveller who had passed that way before. It is not wise, my lord, for one engaged on secret missions to adopt regular habits.’
‘You are right,’ Lord Camber frowned.
‘It is clear, too, that the man was watched. He delayed some time at the “Bear” for refreshment. I would surmise in that time Chale contrived to send word to Bond of his arrival. Were I investigating further I would seek to know where Bond had been that night. and maybe I should find that he had been no farther than some neighbouring Ashmarket tavern. I would surmise, too, that on getting word from Chale he rode on forthwith to a point close by Mr Easton’s lodge gates, on reaching which point Chale halted his chaise. Indeed there were hoof marks, such as would be made by a waiting restless horse, to be seen yesterday beneath a clump of beeches not a hundred yards from the lodge.’
‘So it is not all surmise?’
‘All is surmise until it be proved. Such as my surmise that when the chaise stopped, Bond came forward and committed his crime; that he began his search for Nicol’s papers and was disturbed by the unexpected appearance of Vaughan; that he drew off for some moments to reload, then came at the man and shot him, intending to make him the scapegoat, But after that, my lord, I surmise something of greater significance.’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘For the first time Fratton, the lodge keeper, is apprised of the affair, as Chale has stated. And yet Fratton, being questioned, tells me another tale. He had already gone to the scene of the crime, being aroused by two shots—two shots only, mark you—and on being told by Chale to hasten to the constable’s saw his own master, Mr Easton, emerging from the lodge gates.’
Lord Camber’s heavy eyebrows lifted.
‘I thought it curious that. Mr Easton, a bucolic squire, should be up so late at night when he had entertained no company as I established from his own lips, more curious that he should have heard three shots within his house so far from the road on a boisterous windy night. For, in fact, four shots were fired, but he only knew of three—so he heard three.’ Sir Christopher smiled dryly. ‘And two of those four were fired within the chaise. Even Fratton heard but the exchange between Bond and Vaughan, and Vaughan heard neither of the first two shots at all.’
He paused for a moment, then continued:
‘But it was more curious that Fratton should be sent for a surgeon to attend a man about whose death there could be no doubt, and’—again he paused—‘that when the surgeon arrived, the chaise with the body should already have been driven to Mr Easton’s stables, and as Mr Ives avows the body’s attire in such disarray as to surprise him. Indeed, my lord, I would surmise that the search interrupted by Vaughan was continued in those stables, and that the surgeon was summoned to justify the searching of the body should the question be raised.’
‘What? You suggest that your bucolic squire—’
‘Was cognisant of the whole affair,’ Sir Christopher broke in. ‘Indeed I would add his name to that list you hold in your hand, for, as I see it, though Bond’s was the hand that fired the fatal shot, Charles Easton’s was the brain that instigated it.’
Lord Camber rose abruptly. There was a savage light in his dark eyes.
‘By God! I’ll deal with the scoundrel,’ he said hotly. ‘Sir Christopher, I call on your help.’
Sir Christopher too had risen.
‘You will find me at the Bear Inn at Ashmarket,’ he said. ‘I am returning there at once, for, in faith, I am concerned about the fellow Vaughan. I took a strange liking to that rascal, yet if I be not careful Mr Easton will get him hanged for all my proof.’
‘But what of the man Bond?’
‘I would surmise,’ Sir Christopher answered, ‘that Bond and Chale will be found to have vanished when I reach Ashmarket and that my bucolic squire will have propounded a theory that they have been removed by confederates of Vaughan’s to prevent them giving evidence against him. The fellow’s cunning as a fox. Already he had planted the idea that Vaughan was but one of many concerned in my good attorney’s mind.’
‘We must kill that fox,’ the old peer said grimly.
‘For once, my lord,’ Sir Christopher responded, ‘I shall be glad to be in at the death.’
RICHARD KEVERNE
‘Richard Keverne’ was the pen name of Clifford James Wheeler Hosken (1882–1950), who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, where his father, James J. Hosken, was head of the Norwich branch of the Post Office.
In 1911, Hosken married an American woman, Emma Harris Foster, and on the outbreak of war, he and his elder brother enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps, with Hosken ending the war in a nursing home. While in the airforce, he had written and been published as a freelancer: for example, ‘Stories of the Iron Duke’ appeared in the London Magazine in 1915 and ‘Blood-stained Thrones’ was published in the Penny Pictorial in 1916.
On being demobbed, Clifford and Emma Hosken moved to London where he got a job with the Daily Mirror, a national newspaper for which—using his own name and the pen name of ‘Richard Keverne’—he wrote lightly humorous and sometimes provocative editorials on all manner of subjects, such as golf, the joy of labour-saving devices, the weather, horticulture, the risks and benefits of a ‘Channel Tunnel’ between England and France, healthy eating, tobacco and ‘the horrors of shaving’, horse racing, war memorials, aviation and (something of an obsession for Hosken) oysters. One editorial—‘Are Americans afraid of their wives?’—was published in 1920 just after the introduction of prohibition in the United States, and was the subject of much debate.
Outside work, Hosken was something of an amateur historian and he became involved with the restoration of Chelsea Old Church where, in 1922, he was responsible for the rediscovery of a fourteenth-century stained-glass window that had been hidden from view for nearly 300 years.
Around this time, Hosken began writing novels. As ‘Richard Keverne’, his stories were serialized in the Daily Mirror. The first, The Secret of John Bastian (1923), concerns a famous actor who stages his disappearance and his attempts to build a new life; The Greater Sacrifice (1924) is ‘a vivid and unusual story of temptation, surrender and final triumph’ and The Forsaken House (1925) is on similar lines. The novels published under his own name were serialized in the Mirror’s sister paper, the Sunday Pictorial: The Treasure of Truce Haven (1923) deals with a young doctor’s mysterious legacy, The Harrington Heiress (1924) a young woman’s battle to save her ancestral home and My Lady Madcap (1925) the escapades of ‘a vital, warm-hearted and impulsive young girl whose innocence and disregard for convention land her in piquant situations’. All six books were written on predictable lines, but for his fourth ‘Keverne’ serial, Hosken put the emphasis on mystery. Promoted by the Daily Mirror as a story of ‘smuggling, love, detection and mental patients’, Michael Carteret’s Dilemma (1925) was very well received and for the first time Hosken saw one of his novels published in hard covers, as Carteret’s Cure.
Each of Hosken’s next three serials was a ‘novel of modern life’. Two appeared under his own name: The Climber (1926), ‘a young man’s fight to live down his early associations’, and the self-explanatory Cinderella (1927). The third, a ‘Keverne’, was The Gate to Fortune (1927), touted by the Mirror as ‘a breathless romance’.
As with the first six serials, none attracted much notice beyond the newspaper’s readership, so with his next ‘Keverne’ novel he decided to write a thriller, the genre dominated at that time by Edgar Wallace. By this time, the couple was living in Suffolk, the eastern England county that provided the setting for Michael Cartaret’s Dilemma and many of his other novels. These include The Havering Plot (1927), in which a new design of military aircraft is under development on an island off the east Anglian coast; William Cook, Antique Dealer (1928), which deals with smuggling and fences; and The Secret of the Tower (1928), published as The Sanfield Scandal whose focus is the sinister Burgrave Castle, based on Suffolk’s Orford keep, a tower whose restoration was managed by a board of trustees, one of whom was Hosken.
While he would continue to publish as ‘Richard Keverne’ for another thirteen years, Hosken published only three more novels under his own name: The Shadow Syndicate (1930), the Ruritanian The Pretender (1930) and the superb Missing from His Home (1932), about the search for a vanished spy. Among his many ‘Keverne’ titles, two are outstanding: Behind the Shutters (1931), later published as He Laughed at Murder, and Open Verdict (1940), in which a man is suspected of killing his uncle a few hours after meeting him for the first time.
There are several collections of short stories, as well as many uncollected ones, and Keverne also authored Tales of Old Inns (1939), a marvellously atmospheric tour of English hostelries, which was revised in 1946 by Hammond Innes to take account of the destruction wrought by the Second World War.
While writing fiction was Hosken’s main focus, he took a close interest throughout his life in history and art, for example writing about glass-painting for the Connoisseur in 1924 and photography for The Strand in 1930. And, despite some success as a writer, he never abandoned journalism, contributing editorials to Good Morning, the daily newspaper of the Navy’s submarine service, on issues like the need for leap years, dowsing, the Sutton Hoo hoard and the public houses of his beloved Suffolk.
In 1950, Clifford Hosken died at the age of sixty-seven, and Emma moved back to Florida.
‘The Post-Chaise Murder’ was published in Britannia & Eve on 1 December 1940.
BOOTS
Ngaio Marsh
In the first bedroom of the Trampers’ Club Hut Mrs Marriott lay, half on her face which was turned to the wall. She was curled up in her bunk with one hand under her cheek and the other on the pillow. She always slept in that way: like a kitten.
She was not alone. Three men stood awkwardly watching her: her husband, his brother Kit and their friend Collington. A fourth man waited near the door. A fifth reached down and turned back the bedclothes.
The haft of a sheath knife stuck out freakishly from between her shoulder blades. Kit could hardly believe in it: it looked silly.
‘There! You see!’ her husband said. ‘That’s what I told you, Inspector. Do you want me to show you how I did it? Look.’
‘I’ve already warned you, Marriott.’
‘I know, I know, I know. But I want you to understand.’
‘For God’s sake, shut up!’ said his brother violently. ‘Shut up, Frank. Frank!’
‘But I insist! Don’t take me away yet, Inspector. I want these chaps to hear.’ He turned on the second of his companions.
‘Yes, you too, Collington. It’s your doing as much as mine. You didn’t think I knew, did you? You didn’t think I’d been watching you all these weeks. What fools you were, the two of you! What bloody, complacent fools!’ He looked at his brother. ‘You knew, Kit! You knew—and anyway, you always hated her, didn’t you? All right. Now get this, Inspector.’
He passed his hand over his mouth and went on in a level voice as if he repeated something he had memorized.
‘We were all in the sitting-room. The others said they were going to turn in. I said I’d put my boots on and go for a walk. I went out on the verandah as if I was making for my room. Am I speaking too fast?’ he said anxiously. The detective-sergeant looked up from his notebook and said: ‘You’re doing all right.’
‘Good. Well, I didn’t go to my room. I went into the passage and hid in that curtained-off cupboard near the door. It was as simple as that. I could see, all right. I saw you, Kit. You went into your room. It’s the second one, Inspector. Next to this. And then she came in here. And then he came along. This fellow. Collington’s the name. Into the end room beyond mine. Got it? My wife. Kit. Me. Collington. In that order. All right. So I wait. I wait a long time and at last it happens. Out he comes, this Collington, and opens her door and goes in. I’d got it all worked out. Only a matter of waiting. When he sneaked back, I went in and did it. She never knew a thing.’ He turned as if to go out and came face to face with the sergeant. ‘Got it? he said. ‘God, what a relief.’
Collington said: ‘He’s lying. God knows why, but he’s lying.’
‘Yes?’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘Care to elaborate?’
‘He went for his walk. He’s done it every night since we’ve been here. Half-an-hour to the minute. He went.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because of his boots.’
‘His boots?’ The detective glanced at Marriott’s rubber-soled sneakers.
‘That’s right. We’ve had arguments. Every night he comes in from his walk and dumps his boots. Crashes on the floor against my wall.’
Marriott lifted his head and giggled.
‘Not only that. He winds his alarm clock and lets it clatter and then winds it again. On purpose. To wake me up. It drives me crackers. He did it tonight. Took off his boots and dropped them. And then the alarm.’
‘You were in your room?’ asked the Chief Inspector.
‘I certainly was. And had been. I don’t say there weren’t other occasions. There were. Not tonight, though. She was frightened.’ He turned on Kit. ‘She was frightened of you. You’d got at her. Go on: admit it!’
‘I told her what I thought.’
‘You keep quiet,’ said his brother. ‘You’re out of this.’
‘Is he out of it, though?’ said Collington. ‘Is he?’
The Chief Inspector said to Kit Marriott: ‘These partitions are very thin, aren’t they? Single sheets of wallboard. You must have heard the boots and the alarm?’
