Police at the Funeral

Chapter 15 The Outside Job

It was almost three o'clock when the Inspector, who had made the library his headquarters, neared the end of his investigations at Socrates Close for the day. Mr Bowditch and a police photographer had completed their work on the footprint, and now stood beside the Inspector contemplating an array of shoes on the ground before them. Stanislaus had procured a pair from every member of the household, including the two Christmases, father and son, who lived in a small cottage on the edge of the estate.

At the moment matters were at a deadlock. The Inspector was depressed, the photographer puzzled and the irrepressible Bowditch quite unable to restrain his amusement.

'Well,' he said, 'we've got a metric photograph and we've got a plaster cast. Here are the measurements. It doesn't look as though Cinderella is among this lot.' He indicated the row of shoes before them. 'There isn't one here that isn't nearly an inch out in both dimensions.'

Stanislaus grumbled. 'I suppose we ought to have a barefoot parade,' he said, 'and I would if the discrepancy was the other way about. But it's useless to pretend that anyone could have a foot like that without it being known.'

Bowditch laughed noisily. 'That's a fact,' he said. 'Even old Tubby Lane at Bow Street hasn't got trotters like that. It looks to me like something out of the Natural History Museum.'

Stanislaus frowned. 'I suppose there's no doubt at all about it being genuine?' he suggested.

But Bowditch was convinced upon this point. 'Oh, no, that's real all right,' he said. 'You can see the nail marks quite clearly, and there's a thread or two of blue worsted in the heel of the cast. You'll find that's a real foot all right, whatever you might be led to believe. And what a foot! It's the first time I've come across anything so funny in the whole of my official life.'

The Inspector scowled. He was still contemplating the shoes. 'The nearest in size are these over here,' he remarked. 'They belong to young Christmas. You'd better go over and have a look at his feet, Bowditch. Take some measurements. Don't laugh; behave like a policeman.'

The prospect of possibly seeing the original of the print in the flesh was too much for Mr Bowditch. His face grew redder and his small blue eyes filled with unshed tears of laughter.

'I'm there already,' he said. 'You'd better come along, governor,' he added, turning to the photographer. 'We'll have them photographed, and framed.'

'Consummate imbecile,' said the Inspector to Campion as the door closed behind the hopeful Bowditch and his assistant. 'I don't mind a man having a sense of humour, but that fellow carries on like a halfpenny comic.'

Mr Campion made no direct comment. 'Do you still think it was a joke?' he ventured after a pause.

'I don't think,' said the Inspector bitterly. 'I gave that up when I discovered the mess it gets one into. As if we hadn't got enough trouble already without some flatfooted fool complicating things by scribbling on the window-pane! All these shoes can go back now. Come in!'

His last remark was occasioned by a gentle tapping on the door. Marcus entered in response to his invitation. The young man looked weary and considerably aggrieved. He raised his eyebrows at the array of footwear, but did not remark upon it, a circumstance which endeared him to the Inspector.

'I'm tremendously sorry,' he said, 'but Mr Faraday sticks to his story about the cat.'

The Inspector grunted. 'Did you point out to him that he would be on oath in the coroner's court?' he said.

'Yes,' Marcus admitted. 'But he seems to believe in the story. But, after all this incident hardly comes into your province, does it?'

Oates did not answer immediately. The thrust had gone home.

'You haven't got to protect Mr Faraday from me, Mr Featherstone,' he remarked presently. 'If he needs to be protected from anyone it's himself.'

It was Mr Campion who took the news of Uncle William's obstinacy to heart.

'I see I shall have to go on a pub-crawl on Uncle William's behalf,' he said, with a meaning glance towards the Inspector. 'Marcus, there's a job for you and me. You've written to Sir Gordon Woodthorpe, of course?'

Marcus, who had answered this question once before, glanced at his friend in astonishment, but he caught sight of the Inspector's face and answered immediately.

'Of course,' he said.

The Inspector's depression increased. 'I shall leave that mark on the window for the time being,' he said. 'You can reassure the household. There'll be a couple of plain-clothes men in the garden tonight.'

'Then you're inclined to think this thing's not a hoax, Inspector?' said Marcus, jumping at any straw which pointed away from the awkward subject of Uncle William.

In spite of the natural police dislike of lay questioning, Mr Oates did not snub him. On the contrary, he answered civilly, albeit non-committally.

'I am quite satisfied that the foot that made the print on the bed outside could not have worn any of the shoes here,' he said. 'I can't say any more than that.'

Mr Campion, who had moved to the window and now stood looking at the red chalk sign thoughtfully, spoke without turning round.

'Supposing for one moment that it's all perfectly genuine?' he said. 'It's clearly a message of some sort to someone inside. Following this line of reasoning, where do we arrive? At two interesting conclusions. One, that the writer did not know the house, because this room, as you know, is hardly ever used, and two, that he is only friendly with one member of the household, since otherwise he would surely have come to call in the ordinary way.'

He wheeled round and faced them, a slight inoffensive figure against the window-panes.

'A message like this must necessarily be very simple,' he said, 'and I suggest to you, Stanislaus, that it means one of three things--"Come and meet at the usual place", or "Something has been done", or, more simply, "I am on the scene again".'

'No one in the household admits to ever having seen that mark before, and there's only one known prevaricator in the place,' said the Inspector viciously.

Further conversation was interrupted by the return of Bowditch. He was slightly crestfallen.

'Not a hope,' he said. 'I measured his right foot. Length, twelve and three-quarters, width across the ball nearly five inches. Now this cast, you know, is thirteen and a quarter by six and a tenth.' He mentioned the figures with pride. 'Harrison's going over the garden looking for any other tracks,' he added. 'But it's all this short well-kept grass, and there was rain in the night, so it's not easy. It's only the house that protects the print we have got.'

Mr Oates nodded. 'All right,' he said resignedly. 'Well, I must be getting back.'

Campion escorted the Inspector and his jovial aide to their car, Marcus tactfully remaining in the library.

'Got all your bits and pieces?' Campion inquired as he helped the policeman into his raincoat. 'Rope, and what not?'

'I have,' said Stanislaus shortly. 'And you're not as bright as you think you are, my lad. Here's a thing you ought to have found out.' He took a key from his pocket and placed it in the young man's hand. 'That belongs to your own door,' he said. 'But it also fits any lock on the first floor. All those locks are alike and the keys are interchangeable. I didn't notice it yesterday, but I ought to have guessed. Lots of houses are like that. Good-bye.'

Mr Campion pocketed the key, not in the least discomforted. 'I shall come and see you tomorrow,' he said, 'to hear all the news, always supposing some great flat-footed monster hasn't devoured me, of course.'

The Inspector snorted and switched on his engine. 'You're all alike, you untrained youngsters,' he said. 'You all go for the picturesque. That's a hoax, you'll find, I bet.'

'I'll take you,' said Campion.

'All right. I'll go my limit--five bob.'

'Done,' said the younger man. He returned to the house and Marcus met him in the hall. He was worried and still aggrieved by the turn events had taken.

'That mark on the window, Campion,' he said. 'What exactly does it mean? Is there any explanation for it?'

They wandered back to the library. 'Well, there's only one obvious inference, isn't there?' said Mr Campion, pulling down the blinds. 'And that is that there is someone else on the scene. The footmark means what it meant to Robinson Crusoe; there's a Man Friday about.'

Marcus brightened. 'If you ask me, that's something to be thankful for,' he said. 'William's attitude alarms me. I don't know why he of all people should try to make things more difficult.'

'Uncle William is a very attractive bad old hat,' said Mr Campion. 'Stanislaus is only taking this attitude because it's the orthodox police attitude. They always take the most obvious line and follow it up. If it leads them nowhere they abandon it and take the next most obvious, and so on. That's why they're practically inescapable in the end.'

'But you,' Marcus persisted, 'what do you think?'

Mr Campion was silent. His own theorizing had been partially forgotten in the excitement of the past two hours. Now, however, his face grew grave as the possibilities of the case returned to him. Marcus was still waiting for an answer, and he was only saved from an embarrassing situation by a knock on the door behind them.

'Mr Campion, may I trouble you for your arm?'

It was Great-aunt Caroline, frail and vivid as ever, in a magnificent Maltese cap and fichu. She smiled at Marcus.

'You will find Joyce in the morning-room,' she said. 'I wish you would go and talk to her. I am afraid she has had a very trying afternoon with poor Catherine.'

These instructions were delivered with grace and something of regal condescension. The next moment Mr Campion found himself escorting the old lady to her sitting-room. He had to stoop a little to allow her small hand to rest comfortably upon his forearm.

Great-aunt Caroline did not speak until she was safely seated in her high-backed walnut chair, with Campion standing on the hearth-rug before her. She sat regarding him approvingly, her little bright eyes resting on his face, a slightly amused smile on her mouth.

'Emily is quite right,' she said. 'You are a clever young man. I am very pleased with you. You are handling this disturbing business very well, especially poor William. Poor William is a very difficult man--a very silly man--yet some of my husband's brothers were quite as foolish as he. The police, of course, still suspect him.' She glanced at the young man sharply and Mr Campion met her gaze.

'I think they do,' he said, and hesitated.

She smiled at him. 'My dear young man,' she said, 'I shall say nothing, whatever you tell me.'

Mr Campion took off his spectacles and for the first time a little weariness was apparent in his face. He returned her smile.

'I shall remember that,' he said, and added quietly, 'my position here is invidious, as you know, and things are a little awkward. But this morning I obtained what I am perfectly certain will turn out to be positive proof of Mr Faraday's innocence. I haven't told this to anyone yet, and I do not want to, since I thought it might work out best for all concerned if the police went on in their own way at the moment.'

The old lady's expression was inscrutable. 'That's very good news,' she said. 'I won't ask you any more than that. By the way, I am afraid I have been guilty of an indiscretion; concealing evidence.'

Her smile deepened at the expression on his face, and she continued in her soft small voice.

'I have a letter here which came for Andrew some two or three days after his disappearance. I ought to have handed it over to the police, I know, but fortunately I took the precaution of reading it first, and as the writer has some little position in the world to keep up, and the letter did not seem to be very important, I thought it a pity that she should be dragged into this affair. So I kept the note, but it has been weighing on my conscience. Here it is.'

She unlocked a tiny drawer in the bureau and drew out a thick white envelope addressed to 'Andrew Seeley, Esq.', in a precise feminine hand. Great-aunt Caroline unfolded the sheet it contained with little bony fingers almost as white as the paper itself.

'I don't know if you follow the scholastic world at all,' she said, 'but the writer of this letter is Miss Margaret Lisle-Chevreuse, Principal of the Templeton College for Women at York, one of the finest posts in the country. You will understand that hers is a position to which any sort of notoriety would be most injurious. She is a maiden lady, of course, and since I remember her here about twenty-five years ago she is now, I suppose, almost fifty. Perhaps you will read the letter. I think it speaks for itself. I had never any idea that she knew Andrew at all well.'

Mr Campion took the paper with a certain amount of embarrassment and began to read.

As he finished reading, Mr Campion folded the letter thoughtfully between his fingers. Aunt Caroline came to his rescue.

'She will have seen about his death in the papers, poor soul,' she said. 'Poor unfortunate Andrew! He seems to have been on the verge of behaving like a gentleman for once in his life--unless he was thinking of his future. But we mustn't be uncharitable. I hope you don't blame me for not turning this over to the police, "Mr Campion". What shall we do with it?'

The young man glanced meaningly at the dancing fire. The old lady nodded.

'I think so, too,' she said.

When the last remnants of the envelope and its contents had been consumed by the flames, Mrs Faraday sighed.

'As you grow older, young man,' she said, 'you will find that not the least surprising thing in life is the fact that every man, however unworthy, can engender an undying spark of affection in the heart of some unlikely woman. Well, I have nothing more to confess. I am very relieved by what you have to tell me concerning poor William. You see, I happen to know, beyond any doubt whatever, that he is not guilty.'

The last words were spoken with such conviction that Mr Campion started. The little old lady sat looking up at him, her black eyes smiling and very shrewd.

'Good-bye until dinner,' she said. 'Would you mind sending Alice in to me? I am afraid this bell is out of order. I don't know how I should get on without Alice.'