Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

Roy Vickers The Color of Truth

Good News: The first new Department of Dead Ends story in five years!...

Better News: and this new DDE novelet is first-rate — an excellent example of Roy Vickers’ technique by which he projects the events leading up to the tragedy so realistically, and the events leading up to the solution so convincingly, that again you will think you are reading the facts in a true case...

Best News: and, most exciting of all, Mr. Vickers has promised that this story will be the first of a new series about the never-say die, elephant-memoried DDE...

Welcome back, Department of Dead Ends — welcome home!

It is unreasonable to call a murder successful merely because the murderer cannot be apprehended. No sane man plans a murder only to escape detection. He plans to alter the pattern of his own life — for his own future enjoyment — and the murder is but a troublesome and dangerous preliminary. By a murderer’s scale of values, he owes it to his victim to have a good time on the proceeds.

Harry Finchmoor failed to have a good time even when the money rolled in and the “unsolved mystery” was comfortably tucked away in the Department of Dead Ends — and it was this failure which led to his undoing.

The murder had been occasioned by the victim, John Chester Brendwright, playing dog-in-the-manger with nearly a square mile of poor agricultural land which had suddenly acquired a high industrial value. There was no “dirty work” in the deal. If Brendwright had been as ready as Finchmoor and the rest to make a large and legitimate profit, he would not have been murdered.

The murder, clumsy enough in itself, was covered with some ingenuity, but Finchmoor can hardly be credited with this. He lurched along a path paved by the personality of his victim. It was as if Brendwright had plotted to get himself murdered.

Brendwright was close to seventy, unmarried, his only relation was a niece who lived in London. He was entitled to call himself Colonel but refused because the Army had offended him. For three centuries his family had owned this comparatively poor estate situated at Thaleham, a village some forty miles from the edge of London. A crank and a dreamer, he pictured himself as the ideal landlord, loving the land for its own sake.

A landlord he certainly was, but on a time lease. At the death of his father he had been unable to meet the duties. He was compelled to sell the land — but contrived to cling to it. He sold it below its low value — on the condition that he should remain tenant for life. The purchaser was a London businessman, then resident in the neighborhood — Harry Finchmoor’s father.

When Finchmoor senior died, Harry inherited the family business in London and the title deeds to all the land at Thaleham except the manor house which Brendwright had retained. Harry would step into complete ownership on Brendwright’s death. While Brendwright was alive, neither could sell a square foot of the land without the others consent.

When the big chance came, Brendwright refused his consent.

Harry Finchmoor did not know that the big chance had come until the niece, Lorna Brendwright, rang him at his office.

“Lorna Brendwright here. Harry, can I talk to you about Uncle John?”

“Lorna!” He was embarrassed. “First, tell me how are you.”

“That’s civil of you, Harry, but it’s about Uncle John. May I come to your office?”

“Lunch would be nicer. What about the Besc Chinar?”

In their teens at Thaleham he had adored her — until she repulsed him and in no gentle manner. There had been no resentment, only a hangfire shock to his self-esteem. He had no craving to see her again. For ten years he preserved the memory of her as she was when she was living with her mother at Rose Cottage — it could not escape that name, there really were roses round the door.

Was she as good-looking as he had thought her? He was still uncertain when they met in the restaurant. He noted that she was dressed with a disciplined femininity that suggested a good office background.

“You still look like a tennis star,” she greeted him. “Why have you avoided me?”

“I was once fool enough to fancy my chances, Lorna.”

Lorna tended to take that kind of remark at its face value.

“You mean that day when we were on a wander? You were showing me an outworked gravel pit when you suddenly grabbed me. I was frightened.”

“Not half as frightened as I was. I’m glad you told me. Now I shall enjoy my lunch.” He added, “Is your uncle ill?”

“I don’t know. He says the doctor told him he can’t live another two years. It’s not the way doctors generally talk.” She spoke with indifference, and then: “Harry! Graun Limited intend to set up a factory at Thaleham. They will want housing for two thousand families. Semi-detached houses with gardens. A square mile of them.”

The Big Chance. Ushered in by Lorna, as if she intended to take charge. He held back the obvious questions until he had ordered lunch.

“Yesterday,” resumed Lorna, “was my birthday. Uncle John always comes up to London and takes me out to dinner. We talk about his land, ignoring the fact that it’s really your land.” Her voice had a pleasing tone but she spoke as if to a younger brother. “He then gives me five pounds which he cannot afford and which I do not need. As we part, he takes me by both hands — very awkward because my bag always gets in the way — and reminds me that all that he has will one day be mine — which means the manor house, mortgaged to the hilt, which is all he owns.”

He could barely listen. “Why didn’t they approach me first?”

“Please!” Lorna did not like to be interrupted. “Last night the land talk was wilder. I was offered the story of King George III staying at the manor house to learn about farming from Uncle’s ancestor. In time he told me that a man from the County Council had informed him that the Council intended to welcome the factory and to facilitate the building program. If necessary, the Council would itself step in under the Compulsory Purchase Act.”

“Compulsory Purchase!” Harry repeated. That was a blow and she was playing it up. Her old game of trying to lead him. But he was older now and could take care of himself. “That means his tenancy and my land would be bought at agricultural valuation. And the Council would build the houses for Graun’s.”

“That will happen,” she said, “unless you can give guarantees — within one month — that the houses will be built by private enterprise. The Council will send you a sort of ultimatum in a few days.”

His spirits rose. Lorna, he supposed, knew nothing of the mechanism of high finance. “I can get a financial company to come in and fix the whole thing.”

“But, Harry, you can’t do anything at all to that land without Uncle’s consent. And he won’t give it. He loves not giving it. He says he’ll be dead before the houses can be built and while he’s alive he intends to be loyal to his land. And I shall get the manor house and the mortgage. You see, I’m not wholly disinterested.”

“Leave it to me, Lorna.” To soften it he added, “Your uncle doesn’t understand that I shall buy back the tenancy from him — at a substantial profit to himself.”

She gave him the look that had intimidated him in his teens.

“Rose Cottage!” she exclaimed. “It needed repair when we were there. It’s much worse now. Well, he has scraped together fifty pounds to start restoring—”

“Surely, we need not bother about Rose Cottage—”

“Harry! Do you remember the elaborate set-up he ordered for Mother’s funeral? His ‘kinswoman,’ of course. Yesterday he said that as soon as the cottage was restored he wanted Mother and me to five in it again.”

“Momentary absent-mindedness.”

“No. It’s dissociation — it’s been creeping on him for at least a year. He cannot wholly distinguish between his dream of himself and the real life going on around him. I don’t think he fully realizes that he has signed away his ownership of that land.”

“Then I’ll show him his own signature. The title deeds, correspondence, and whatnot are at the Safe Deposit. I’ll get ’em out after lunch. I’ll go down by rail — so’s I can sort out the papers in the train.”

“I hope he will listen to you,” she said, but without conviction. Her doubt of his ability stung him to boastfulness.

“He must. I’ll drench him in money talk — offer him a juicy cut. He can’t be so mad as to throw it away for the love of talking tosh about his ancestors. It’ll be all right, Lorna.”

In the train he was less cocksure of his ability to knock sense into the old man. But the nearest he came to planning murder was to weigh up what the doctor was alleged to have said. If Brendwright could not live for two years, for how much less would he live? Twenty-three months less than two years? Nothing else would be any good.

He opened the deedbox he had brought from the Safe Deposit, separated the Thaleham papers from other interests, and put his selections on top. A bundle of stodge, but he would do his best.

His thoughts returned to Lorna. It was tactful of her to say she had been frightened that day when he had grabbed her in the outworked gravel pit and fumbled a kiss. But in fact she had not been frightened. She had been amused. In ten years he had not forgotten her amusement. But now, of course—

At Thaleham the stationmaster-parter greeted him as an old acquaintance and immediately spoke of the proposed factory.

“I hear say that Mr. Brendwright is against it — though he needs the money as much as anybody. It’ll be a shame if Thaleham gets left out again.”

“It isn’t so easy to stop a thing as big as this, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Ah!” Hawkins eyed the deedbox as if it were a doctor’s bag. “I hope you’ve got a cure for his trouble in there, Mr. Harry.”

Very encouraging! The whole countryside wanted the factory. Carrying the deedbox awkwardly by one of the side handles, he stepped out on the five-minute walk through the village, passing Rose Cottage, which now suggested only decay.

As he entered the drive of the manor house he came on Brendwright, pushing a barrow. He had not aged unduly — in fact, he looked good for another ten years, though the barrow was making him puff.

“Ha!” He glared at his visitor. “Don’t tell me. I knew you at once. You’re young Harry Finchmoor.”

“Correct. I hope you are well, Mr. Brendwright.”

“I look well, don’t I!” He drew himself up, posing. “My doctor could tell you a different tale. Never mind that. I expect you’ve heard about this wildcat scheme to turn my land into a filthy slum.”

“My” land! Finchmoor let it pass. His offer to push the barrow to its shed was declined. Brendwright washed his hands at an outside tap, dried them on sacking. He opened the front door with a latchkey of modem type.

The house had the air of having slunk unobserved into the twentieth century, achieving a bedraggled character of its own. It had sixteen rooms but Brendwright had his on the ground floor — assisted, three days a week, by a woman from the next village. In the hall a huge sideboard sustained a telephone and a silver tray on which a single letter awaited posting.

“Miss-is Harbutt!” It was a parade-ground bellow that snarled Finchmoor, but the next words were an ingratiating plea. “Will you please serve tea for two?”

The one-time dining room, now an all-purpose living room, had kept its massive table that could have seated thirty. Beside an eighteenth-century fireplace hung a Victorian bell-rope whose tassel touched an almost-new radio set. A Louis XV escritoire, a set of carved footstools, and a gilt settee cohabited with one armchair and four cane-backed uprights.

They stood in a bow window, looking over the land that had grown com, passed to mixed farming, then to market gardening, and now was no more than pasture. The fading light of an October afternoon dealt kindly with the remains of the farm buildings.

“All sorts and conditions of men have stood where we are standing now, Young Harry. Poets — preachers — generals — admirals — statesmen. Why, even royalty — George III had the intelligence to study fanning. Did I ever tell you?”

“I think not, sir. I’d like to hear the yam if you feel inclined.” Finchmoor was ready to let him blow off steam.

Mrs. Harbutt came in with the tea. She set down the tray, switched on the lights, drew the curtains, then interrupted the story of George III.

“It’s just five now, sir, and I’ll be going if there’s nothing else you want. I’ve made a cottage pie out of what was left of the joint — for your luncheon tomorrow. Remember to light the gas in good time and it’ll be nice and hot And there’s plenty o’ bits an’ pieces to carry you over to Thursday morning.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Harbutt.” Again the ingratiating tone. “Will you please post the letter on the hall table?” To Finchmoor he added, “Rose Cottage. I’ve just written an order to start restoring it.”

Rose Cottage, at worst, was better than George III. After tea Finchmoor managed to reach bedrock. Brendwright took the armchair, and Finchmoor one of the uprights. Between them on the floor was the deedbox. Finchmoor unlocked it and arranged his papers on the inside of the lid.

First was a handwritten letter of several sheets.

“You wrote this to my father, Mr. Brendwright. Your deal with him was based on that letter.”

Brendwright regarded the letter with admiration. “Handwriting firm as a rock. And legible.”

“I’d like you to reread it, please, Mr. Brendwright. It will remind you of your general position in regard to the land. I have brought with me the documents, abstracts, and correspondence.”

“I remember it all as if it were yesterday.” Glowing with good humor he returned the letter. “The general position, as you say. I went into all that with the man from the Council.” He chuckled elaborately. “I was very polite to him, Young Harry. I told him I would give earnest consideration, see my lawyer, and explore every avenue.”

“Splendid.” Finchmoor was puzzled. “There’s nearly a month—”

“Nearly a month? You haven’t heard the rest of it. My lawyer tells me it takes a full year to obtain a compulsory purchase order, even when there’s no opposition. And there’s going to be plenty of opposition. I shall conduct my own case. With one point after another I can keep it hanging about the High Court for two or three years. The factory people can’t wait all that time. They’ll build their precious factory somewhere else.”

So that was what the chuckle had meant. Finchmoor felt himself cornered. By the time he had paced the room and come to rest on the hearthrug he had decided to damp down on diplomacy.

“In a few days, Mr. Brendwright, that man will approach me—”

“Then he’ll be wasting his time. Nothing can be done with my land as long as my tenancy continues. They’ll have to break that up, first.”

“Suppose we break it up ourselves, Mr. Brendwright? You and I as partners. I could get a financial company to build these houses for Graun’s.”

“I don’t follow you, Young Harry.” It was a growl but Finchmoor ignored it.

“Then we’ll start at the other end. As of today you own this house and garden — marginally. Nothing else of the estate — not even Rose Cottage. Forgive me for suggesting that you must have many financial anxieties. Join hands with me and you will enjoy a comfortable retirement.”

“Retirement from what?” demanded Brendwright.

“From the misery of squeezing a bare living out of this land. For your life tenancy you paid my father two thousand pounds in the form of reduced purchase price. I will pay you two thousand the day you surrender the tenancy to me. Further, I will allot to you one-fifth of the shares allotted to me by the financing company. Wait, please!” He broke off as Brendwright rose from his chair. “Tell me your objections when you’ve heard what you’re objecting to. I don’t know what your share will be worth. You can be reasonably certain that it won’t be less than ten thousand pounds and it might well be substantially more. This land has become a little gold mine—”

Finchmoor’s voice sank as he saw that he was getting nowhere. The big chance was slithering into the mud. He was failing. Lorna would again be amused.

“So I am to hand my land over to the hucksters and take my thirty pieces of silver!” There was hatred in the old man’s eyes — he was goading himself into fury. On the off chance that Mrs. Harbutt might still be available to create a diversion, Finchmoor pulled the Victorian bell-rope.

The full length of the bell-rope came away in his hand.

“Clown! Get out of my house — d’you hear, get out! And take your lawyer’s bag o’ tricks with you.”

Brendwright kicked the deedbox, spilling the contents.

Then he turned his back.

Finchmoor looped the bell-rope.

Little gold mine or not, it was the animal violence of kicking the deedbox that had sparked an explosive mixture of emotions in Finchmoor.

The hysteria passed when part of him became certain that Brendwright was dead. Emotionally exhausted, Harry stood erect, stretched himself, and yawned as if waking from sleep.

He dropped into an armchair and lit a cigarette.

I’ve killed a man, ran his thoughts. Lorna was right — hell, Lorna didn’t say I was to kill him. I did it myself and I don’t feel any of the things I ought to feel. I must be a pretty low type, and the most ghastly fool. What’s the next step? Pretend I didn’t do it. How? Who benefits by this man’s death? I do. Where were you at six o’clock yesterday? They wouldn’t need any clues.

Before the cigarette was finished he was making a sober assessment of his position. If he felt no remorse he certainly felt no panic — it was all too stark for panic. Time — place — motive — those were the three rocks. The hour of death could be revealed by the corpse — but not after the lapse of a few days. Therefore he must conceal the corpse for a few days. That would cover “place” — and he need not deny that he was at the manor house at six. So “time” was all right.

Blueprint for getting away with murder.

He might be caught in the act of moving the corpse. But he would certainly be caught if he did not move the corpse. And that would apply to every act. Therefore: take risks cheerfully and bluff that everything was going according to plan.

Bluff everybody — including Lorna. Better to start on Lorna at once, before his nerve failed. He hurried to the telephone in the hall.

“Harry speaking from the manor house. It’s all right, Lorna. Your uncle has accepted the terms I offered and will surrender the tenancy at once — I’m to see the lawyers tomorrow.” He waited while she expressed somewhat guarded congratulations. The bluff must be heated up. “Would you like to say a word to him — tell him you’re pleased?”

“I will, if you think it advisable.”

“Hang on while I ask him.” He put down the receiver noisily and “...Nothing doing. Your uncle said he’s too tired.”

“Did he? It’s very unlike him to admit it.”

“It was a bit of a shake-up for him. For me, too — but I thought you’d like to know at once.”

Lorna accepted his news. Her chatter about it would not be factual evidence, but it would be good color.

Next: move the body before daylight. That would mean going back to London for his car. There was a train at 6:20 from Thaleham. He glanced at his watch — twelve minutes past six. It was of great importance that he should catch that train — and it was at least five minutes walk to the station, maybe a bit extra lugging the large deedbox.

He felt no emotion while he possessed himself of the dead man’s latchkey, but it took time — and more time to detach the key from the bunch. It was now fourteen minutes past six.

The deedbox was upside down, spreadeagled, about half its contents scattered. It would take, say, another minute to collect the papers — and he would probably miss the 6:20.

“If anyone comes into this house before I’ve moved the body I’m sunk, whatever I do,” he said aloud. “The deedbox can wait until I come back. Good murderers don’t panic.”

What about the lights? Better put them out. Before switching off in the hall he observed that the stamped letter was no longer on the tray — posted, presumably, by Mrs. Harbutt. No concern of his.

“If anyone sees me leaving he may wonder why there was no light in the hall. That’s the sort of risk I shall have to keep on taking.”

As he reached the end of the drive and was about to step onto the road a light flashed in his face — from the lamp of a bicycle.

“Why, it’s Mr. Harry Finchmoor! You haven’t forgotten George Dobson, Mr. Harry?”

“Of course I remember you, George!” Again he had beaten off panic. Here was merely another witness that he was leaving Thaleham at this time. “I’ll be down again next week and we must have a drink. As it is, I have to hurry for the 6:20.”

“You won’t make it.” George was looking over the valley and could see the lights of the train at the bend. “I’d say you’ve only got three minutes. Here, you take the bike, Mr. Harry, and I’ll pick it up at the station.”

Finchmoor thanked him profusely and accepted the offer. In this business of cop dodging, luck cut both ways and would tend to cancel itself out. He had not ridden a bicycle since boyhood. The first twenty yards were perilous, but at worst it was faster than walking — if he could stick on.

The train was at the platform and the stationmaster was holding a door open for him.

“Hop in, Mr. Harry. Any luck?”

“Smiles all the way, Mr. Hawkins,” grinned Finchmoor. More color. But did the police take any notice of color?

In the train he contemplated the problem of hiding the corpse. He could return after the village had gone to bed. There was always a little through traffic at night. Barring accidents, it would be easy enough to get away.

And then? This would be the difficult bit. He was no hand with a spade. What a pity he could not consult Lorna.

Lorna!

You grabbed me in an outworked gravel pit — That gravel pit was in the Wey Valley, about fifteen miles from Thaleham — off the main road on a patch of derelict land with a “cliff” of about twenty feet and a thick undergrowth of brambles. Just what he needed!

What about Lorna’s own reactions when that gravel pit came into the news? Risky — but not half so risky as cruising about the countryside in the dark, looking for somewhere to hide his cargo.

Arrived in London, he dined at his club — signing his bill, as did most members, to be settled by monthly check. He chose a single table so that he could elaborate the Blueprint, which seemed to him to be shaping up very well. All the details were arranging themselves neatly. Rain had started, but he always carried rubbers and a plastic mackintosh in the car. By eleven he was turning into the short drive of the manor house.

He entered the house with a certain complacency, but when he had replaced the latchkey on its ring he had a sharp reaction of self-pity. An abominable thing had happened to him, causing him to prowl at night, performing ghoulish acts in order to erect a barrier of deceit between himself and the kind of people he respected and liked — the men he met in business — at the club — women like Lorna Brendwright. Well, at least he would do the job intelligently — so that the whole horror could be forgotten in a week or two.

He thought it as simple as that because he had never interested himself in the literature of crime and knew nothing of the subsidiary problems facing a murderer, and he knew next to nothing of the methods of the police — except that they used fingerprints. In a couple of minutes his complacency returned and he proceeded to make one mistake after another — mistakes that did not have to be made.

He went to the kitchen quarters, first pulling on a pair of light gloves. His fingerprints in the dining room and the hall would be expected, but there must be none elsewhere.

He found Mrs. Harbutt’s cottage pie on a shelf in the gas cooker. He turned the regulator to full heat and then, somewhat awkwardly in gloves, applied a match. When the potato crust had been browned, he served a portion on a plate and then flushed the portion, leaving a dirtied plate and fork on the table. According to the Blueprint this would convince the police that Brendwright had been alive at midday on Wednesday. Later, Mrs. Harbutt, of course, was able to assure the police that if anyone had eaten part of the pie it was certainly not Mr. Brendwright — and the police noted an attempt to fake a “time” clue.

Finchmoor had thought of Mrs. Harbutt only in connection with the Victorian bell-rope whose absence from the wall she would be certain to notice. He removed the rope from the body — some eight feet of it with a large tassel at the bottom and a large rosette at the top. The bell-rope, he discovered, was a dummy, secured with four wall-plugs, one of which was missing. He cobbled the rope back into position without it. Later, police routine found the missing wall-plug in the fringe of the hearthrug. Routine, too, led from the wall-plug to the wall, then to the bell-rope, which was detached and sent to Laboratory. Thus, Finchmoor’s little flourish made the police a present of the murder weapon and of an attempt to fake a clue as to “place.”

He collected his papers from the floor, locked the deedbox, and put it in the car. Then came the labor of stowing the body and hiding it from passing lights. He returned to the house for a final check-up, though there was really nothing, in Harry’s opinion, to check. He dawdled, as if he were reluctant to leave — a superstitious feeling, perhaps, that everything was proving too easy.

He drove the fifteen miles to the outworked gravel pit and stowed the body in the brambles.

By four in the morning he was back in his flat in Wengrove Square, which is in West London. The square is an open car park and he was as confident as he was entitled to be that no one in London had observed his movements with the car.

The Blueprint gave place to a formula — that on the Tuesday afternoon Brendwright had accepted Finchmoor’s detailed offer. Thus, on the following morning, Wednesday, Finchmoor went to his office as usual. After returning the deedbox to the Safe Deposit he instructed his lawyer to start the ball rolling.

On Thursday morning his secretary handed him a telephoned message from Lorna: Re Thaleham: please ring my flat He guessed her news Re Thaleham. He did not ring. In half an hour he was on his way to her flat in West Kensington.

“Uncle John is missing.” She spoke as if telling him gently that he had bungled. “Mrs. Harbutt rang me before I left for the office.” Presently she was describing the functions of Mrs. Harbutt.

“She’s a very sensible woman. This morning she found the house empty. There was some rigmarole I couldn’t follow about a pie which he had or had not eaten. For some reason the pie incident upset her. His bed had not been slept in Wednesday night — she poked about and found that he must have left the house in the clothes he was wearing. So I rang the local police and told them what I suspected.”

That revealed to him some of his mistakes.

“And what do you suspect?”

He had to wait for her answer.

“This is going to be difficult, Harry. Please be patient with me,” she pleaded. “I was staggered when you told me on the telephone that he had accepted your offer. You had been in the house for less than two hours. In that short time you cured him of his obsession. I tried to believe it.”

“Go on,” he invited. This was getting very near the knuckle. “What did you believe instead?”

“That he was putting on an act. He saw that the land would be taken from him — your payments would seem to him a sort of sellout of his honor. I believe his mind was upset and that he went out and drowned himself.”

She would soon learn that it had not been suicide. And she would still not believe that he had talked the old man over. His position would need some strengthening.

“I don’t think suicide was in his mind,” he said weightily, “but I think death was. Perhaps that doctor really did scare him. Anyway, he said that if he were to die while our deal was still being dolled up by the lawyers I must promise to transfer the whole deal to you, as beneficiary. I gave him my promise.”

Like the traditional pirate, he was dumping some of his cargo in the hope of shaking off his pursuers. Not as a bribe — you couldn’t bribe Lorna. He was paying — say, £ 12,000 — to give his statement the color of truth.

“He was a pathetic old dreamer!” There was compassion in her voice and gentleness in her eyes. “The obsession again! Like Mother, I am his ‘kinswoman.’ He wanted to provide for me in this left-handed way.”

“Very sensible of him, I’d say.”

“Uncle John was not very sane. And of course I shall not hold you to that promise.”

“You could not hold me to that promise and you cannot release me,” he said. He had come near to bluffing himself that he was behaving in an honorable and generous manner. “My lawyers will handle it — if your uncle really is dead.”

He expected her to protest that she would refuse the money. But she did not.

“I see that was a foolish remark of mine — I apologize,” she said. “I will not obstruct your lawyers.”

Not even a thank-you. Very reasonable, in view of the explanation he had given her. Most women, he felt, would have fluttered a little — stammering out something about an honorable and generous act. But not Lorna.

After lunch he told his lawyers the little tale about the promise. It would be better, he said, to embody the reversion to Lorna in the Agreement.

On Saturday the local police called in Scotland Yard. On the following Thursday a local constable, patrolling the Wey Valley with a dog, found the body. It missed the evening editions — Finchmoor heard about it from a radio news flash and hurried home to await the police. But his only caller that evening was Lorna.

“I was wrong about suicide,” she said, in a tone in which she might have remarked on the weather.

“Come inside, first. You look tired out.”

She stopped in the doorway of the sitting room.

“He has been murdered — strangled.” Her voice was thin and uncontrolled. “He was found — Harry, the body was found — in an outworked gravel pit in the Wey Valley.”

“Steady!” He led her to a chair and gave her brandy.

She sipped and put down the glass. “I don’t know why I behaved like that. It did not occur to me that it might be our gravel pit until I came into this room.”

She meant that she had suddenly glimpsed the possibility that he might be the murderer, even if she had already put the thought aside. She could suspect him if she liked — the police certainly would. But nobody could now prove the exact time of death.

“Let’s stare this in the face,” he said. “There are at least a couple of hundred ex-gravel pits in that stretch of the valley. Still, it might turn out to be our gravel pit. But can we call it our gravel pit? I don’t really feel sentimental about my act of youthful loutishness.”

“You’re quite right,” she said. “We’ve met again as adults — as different persons.” She talked about her interview with the police. “A Chief Inspector Karslake — a pleasant enough man but asking wearisome questions about Uncle John. Oh! — he asked me if anyone profited by his death and I said I thought you did.”

“Actually, I don’t — but it doesn’t matter — the police will come to see me anyway.”

Karslake called in the morning — at Finchmoor’s flat, before he left for the office. He began by asking the effect of Brendwright’s death on the land development scheme.

“No effect at all on my interest in the deal.” He brought in the little tale about Lorna as beneficiary. “If you want the details, my solicitors will give you the layout.” He could not resist adding another bit of color. “The truth is, Mr. Karslake, the murderer came too late to be of any use to me.”

He was equally ready to account for his movements.

“In my mind the saga begins when I had lunch with Miss Brendwright on Tuesday, when she warned me the Compulsory Purchase was threatening. From the Besc Chinar to the Safe Deposit to collect relevant documents — then Thaleham by train, catching the 6:20 back — dinner at my club — then home, to work into the small hours. Between then and now — office — deedbox back to Safe Deposit — lunch — solicitors — office — home — late work again. Oh, yes, one morning visit to Miss Brendwright’s flat.”

There were gaps, of course, which Karslake probed but without finding a sensitive spot. In short, the alibi stood up.

If Finchmoor had no motive for the murder, who had? Beginning with the owner of the village pub, Karslake found about fifty persons who would benefit, indirectly, but certainly, from the building scheme which Brendwright was known to be opposing.

The medical evidence boiled down to the opinion that death had occurred within twenty-four hours of midday on Wednesday. Police work had established that the murder had been committed in the house, after Mrs. Harbutt had left it at about five on Tuesday afternoon and before she returned at eight on Thursday morning.

There was evidence that clues of time and place had been faked but no evidence of the identity of the faker. There was no evidence that death had been inflicted before Finchmoor left the house on Tuesday evening — nor that his account of his subsequent movements was untrue in any particular.

Moreover, it would have been physically impossible for the same person — say, Finchmoor — to have committed the murder, obtained the use of a car, transported the body fifteen miles and hidden it, and then returned to Thaleham in time to catch the 6:20 train to London.

By the end of a month every line of inquiry had been followed to its end. The dossier was sent to the Department of Dead Ends, together with the Victorian bell-rope and the laboratory report stating that glandular deposits had been present on the rope which would be consistent with the theory that the rope had been used for strangulation.

Detective Inspector Rason was fascinated by the bell-rope, considered as a murder weapon. Some liked a gun, a knife, or a cosh, but this one liked a nice bit o’ bell-rope. It looked more like a woman’s trick.

The dossier lent little support to the suggestion that Lorna Brendwright had strangled her uncle and removed the body. Rason thought no more about the case until a five-line paragraph appeared seven months later in an evening paper. It was headed Thaleham Mystery Echo and stated that the restoration of Rose Cottage had been interrupted by Mr. Harry Finchmoor, who had ordered its immediate demolition. The echo may have been faint, but Rason — as not infrequently happened — heard it as a bellow...

In those seven months there had been no hitch in what we may call the business side of the murder. The financial company had allotted 50,000 one-pound shares to Finchmoor, of which he had assigned 12,000 to Lorna Brendwright — effected through lawyers, with no personal acknowledgment by Lorna. The separate sale of the mortgaged manor house — to be used as a clubhouse in the housing development — brought Lorna next to nothing. Rose Cottage, which the developing company did not want, since it was on an isolated site on the other side of the village, remained Finchmoor’s property.

As murders go, this one had turned out very well. Finchmoor congratulated himself on — roughly — everything. There was now no reason why he should not proceed to have a good time.

But there was no good time. Instead, there was Lorna — though she never deliberately did him any harm. In the sense in which Brendwright had provoked his own death, Finchmoor groomed Lorna as “the fatal woman” — a role for which she was singularly unsuited.

The self-congratulation soon staled, if only because he did not value success as a criminal. He was not deeply in love with Lorna and could easily have kept his distance. It would seem that he regarded Lorna’s company at a restaurant or theater as a passport to the civilization he had never wished to repudiate.

Even so, her intelligent chatter had a bitter-sweet quality. She was apt to speak suddenly of the death of her uncle, as if it were always at the back of her thoughts.

“Uncle John actually paid that fifty pounds to start restoring Rose Cottage. I feel I have the duty to him to go on with it Will you sell me the cottage, Harry?”

“Certainly not!” He said it with a smile. “I will restore it to your specifications. I’ll be your landlord, and your rent will be a real peppercorn placed in my hand in the presence of witnesses — it’s probably never been done before.”

At the back of his mind was the thought that they would marry and use it on week-ends. Similar thoughts about her were always at the back of his mind. He now rather liked her slight bossiness. Physically she attracted him, though he was not yet ready to make love — he was waiting for something which he failed to define.

“As you please, Harry.” There was a polite smile at his little joke about the peppercorn. Nothing about preferring to have it on a proper business footing. In a month she sent him a surveyor’s report and specifications. Nothing — not one word — about his kindness. Some weeks later, in a pause following discussion of a film, she remarked, “Mrs. Harbutt says that when she came in with the tea tray that day, Uncle was telling you about George III.”

“Quite right! And very glad I was to see her.” So far, his finesse had always succeeded and he tried it again. “I was amused by the way she instructed him to warm up some food she had prepared for the next day.”

“She told the police that somebody — not Uncle John — had warmed up the pie and pretended to eat it.”

There was no follow-up, nor did she expect him to make any answer. He wondered why she would blurt out that sort of thing, like a feather-head, when she was in fact an uncommonly self-possessed woman. He was not afraid of her. All her blurting could be done in the presence of the police without the possibility of their learning anything dangerous.

The climax came in the eighth month — in a theater, of all inappropriate places. The play was a successful light comedy and both responded to it. As the lights were lowered after the second act, she leaned toward him.

“I drove down to the Wey Valley last Saturday. You said there were at least two hundred outworked gravel pits. There is only one. And it’s our gravel pit.”

He sat through the last act, not hearing a word of it. But he did hear her laughing. She was attending to the play and she smiled and applauded when the cast took their curtain calls.

He gave the taximan his own address. As they entered the flat together, he had the impression that she knew what he was about to say.

“Lorna, dear. Will you please tell me whether or not you believe I killed your uncle?”

“I do not believe that you killed Uncle John,” she answered without hesitation. “Wait, please, Harry. I do have the feeling sometimes — like a sort of waking dream — that you might have, even that you did. I hoped the feeling would pass if we went out together—”

“—While you drop in little bits like that bit about the gravel pit? To see how the puppet dances on the string?”

“That’s unworthy of you. It’s — petty.”

“I know it is, but I can’t help it. You’ve known me from childhood but you’re able to believe that I might turn out to be the kind of uncivilized brute we both despise.”

“It’s not as clear-cut as that — it’s a sort of nervous twitch. Doesn’t it count that I want us to be friends?” She was almost pleading. “Can’t we go on as we are?”

“I don’t think so,” he said carefully. “I can never drive out that — waking dream — of yours, because I am an ordinary man, the ordinary mixture of good and evil. Capable, no doubt, of all sorts of abominations, but not very likely to put them into action. But that’s not good enough, is it?”

“I never guessed it would seem to you like that.” She was grave and unhappy. “Do you want us not to meet again?”

Her words suddenly fanned a passionate desire — as if he demanded her body to prove to himself that he had not forfeited his civilization. Now or never.

“Wrong side up, Lorna. I want us to come closer. I want us to cut out haverings and daytime nightmares. You know that I love you and have been waiting for you to give me a chance to say so.” He dropped onto the settee beside her. “Yes? No?... You don’t know? In a minute we’ll both know.”

As once before, in an outworked gravel pit, he made a scuffle of it. She remained inert while he engaged himself in the unrewarding business of kissing her. Then she stood up and in that moment he knew that it was fear of her contempt that had stampeded him into the murder. Puppet.

“When you’re not offered what you want, you grab it.” Her voice shut out himself and his misery. “Goodbye, Harry.”

“All right! But we needn’t be stagey. Let me drive you home.” She had turned her back and was already letting herself out of the flat. “Unless you’re afraid of being grabbed and murdered on the way,” he shouted after her.

That certainly was petty, he reflected. All right, so it was petty. And there would be some more pettiness tomorrow. If she thought she would still get Rose Cottage without even saying thank-you, she would find she had pulled the wrong string. He was not a puppet. Rose Cottage was inconsiderable as a property, and as a symbol it symbolized only — puppetry.

Before he went to bed he wrote an order for its demolition.

A man was behaving in an unusual manner with a cottage. A man had behaved in an unusual manner with a bell-rope. There was nothing to connect the two events — nothing except the mind of Detective Inspector Rason.

From the local contractor he heard the whole story of Rose Cottage, and he enjoyed every word of it. He interviewed various local persons including George Dobson, who told him the bicycle story and other things which were already in the dossier — events which he now re-interpreted by pinning them all on the bell-rope.

A week later he reported to Chief Inspector Karslake.

“Thaleham case. Remember that bell-rope? What does a sane man want with a bell-rope? He wants it to ring a bell. See what I mean, sir?”

“No,” said Karslake. “Do you?”

“Brendwright never agreed to deal. The old loony got hot about it and Finchmoor wanted to ring the bell hoping it would bring somebody to help cool him down — not knowing that the bell-rope was a dummy. Meaning, they quarreled like hell and in the end Finchmoor lassoed him with the bell-rope.”

“Maybe,” grunted Karslake. “Look — unless you’ve got a witness that Finchmoor did not dine at his club at 8:15 and then go back to his flat and stay there—”

“If I’d got that I’d have pulled him in. I wrote him a nice letter, asking him if he could drop in one day this week and tell me why he’s demolishing Rose Cottage. He’s downstairs now. If I may use your intercom I’ll tell ’em to show him into my room.”

“All right,” Karslake conceded, holding himself in, “but if you bring in any of that bell-rope bilge I shall break up the party.”

When Finchmoor was announced Rason admired his stance. Not the slightest trace of anxiety. Indeed, Harry felt no anxiety. He knew that, by the nature of the case, no new event could rivet the time of death to his movements.

Civilities were exchanged. “Mr. Finchmoor has kindly come along to clear up the mystery of Rose Cottage for us,” said Rason.

“It’s not very mysterious,” began Finchmoor. He outlined the facts, beginning with Mrs. Harbutt posting Brendwright’s letter enclosing the check for fifty pounds to start restoration. “When I found Miss Brendwright had lost interest I thought I’d clear the site for a modern house.”

Finchmoor’s self-satisfaction, thought Rason, made it easy to hit him.

“If Brendwright was alive when you left the house — you mustn’t mind my putting it like that, Mr. Finchmoor — why didn’t he write at once to cancel the order and save his fifty quid?” Rason added. “I mean, you tell us he had just made a deal with you which blotted him out from everything except the manor house. Looks as if he didn’t understand what he was doing.”

“He certainly did understand,” asserted Finchmoor. “He was quite clear about his legal position. I had brought all the papers in the case but he only glanced at one letter — he accepted the documents as read.”

“Then try it this way,” persisted Rason. “You expected a bit of an argument. But within a short time you clinched the deal. Weren’t you a bit surprised at your success?”

“I don’t know about that,” smiled Finchmoor. “I certainly expected it to take a bit longer.”

“Then why were you in such a mortal hurry, Mr. Finchmoor, to catch that 6:20 train?”

That told Finchmoor there was more in it than Rose Cottage.

“I hardly know, after all this time. I suppose it was in my mind that I would have to make a digest of our discussion and link it up with the documents — for my lawyers.”

“You would have missed that train but for George Dobson’s bike — you very nearly missed it with the bike. Dobson says you wobbled all over the road.”

“I hadn’t ridden one since I was a boy — but I did manage it.”

“We know that Mr. Finchmoor caught the 6:20,” put in Karslake.

“We do, sir,” beamed Rason. “We checked it by the time at which he dined at his club, didn’t we? But I’m still worried about all those legal documents, et cetera, which Brendwright did not read.”

“He didn’t need to read them, Mr. Rason,” said Finchmoor patiently. “He accepted my statements—”

“Yes, but I mean what did you do about ’em. When you were wobbling about on Dobson’s bike, were you balancing a big heavy deedbox on the handlebars?”

Good murderers don’t panic. Finchmoor’s boast now helped him to keep up appearances.

“I don’t remember.”

Rason kept up the pressure.

“Dobson remembers that you were carrying nothing. So does Hawkins, the stationmaster, who bundled you into the train. So — when you caught the 6:20, you had left your deedbox in the manor house.” Rason shuffled papers from the dossier, but it was only stage business. “The following morning you returned that deedbox to Safe Deposit — you said so yourself. Now, Mr. Finchmoor, how did you regain possession of your deedbox? Did you return that night in your car—”

Finchmoor was not listening. He was thinking about Lorna — and the color of truth...