No Wind of Blame Read online

  Hemingway looked at Sergeant Wake. ‘Do you remember those scratches on that sapling?’ he demanded. ‘Do you remember I said we’d keep them in mind? They’ve got a bearing on the case! In fact, I’ve a strong notion I know what caused them. If that rifle wasn’t fired by hand, it had to be rigged up somehow, and what’s more, rigged up nice and securely, because if it wasn’t held hard, the recoil would spoil the aim. What about one of those vices they use for cleaning guns? Clamp that to a handy young tree, get your rifle sighted along the bridge, and that’s one problem solved.’

  ‘Wait a bit, sir!’ said Wake. ‘I’ve seen those vices. You can tilt the rifle any way you please in them, so even allowing for the bridge’s being a good way below the sapling, why would anyone fix the rifle up so close to the ground? For the grazes weren’t but a foot or two up, were they?’

  Hemingway was not in the least put out of countenance by this. He said briskly: ‘We’ll probably find there was a reason for that. As a matter of fact, I’ve found it already. There’s a drop of seven or eight feet to the level of the bridge, and it stands to reason our bird wanted to get as low a trajectory as possible.’

  ‘There was something more than a vice there,’ said Cook, thinking it over. ‘The vice didn’t fire the rifle. Why – why, now we begin to understand that hair-trigger pull!’

  ‘You cast your mind back again, and see if there isn’t another peculiar circumstance which you begin to understand,’ recommended Hemingway.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Miss Fanshawe’s dog didn’t bark,’ said Hemingway. ‘And why not? Because there wasn’t anyone there to bark at. Funny how simple things are as soon as you stop looking at them from the wrong angle!’

  ‘I certainly think you’re on to something,’ admitted Cook. ‘I suppose I ought to have been on to it myself.’

  ‘You? Why, it’s taken me long enough!’ said Hemingway. ‘I don’t blame you for not spotting it. You got the gun, and there wasn’t a ha’porth of reason why anyone should have tumbled to it that it wasn’t fired by some bloke who dropped it, and made off.’

  ‘Well, it’s very kind of you to say so, I’m sure,’ responded Cook, a little dubiously.

  ‘I don’t see that the case is solved, not by a long chalk,’ remarked the Sergeant. ‘It’s all very well: and I grant you you’ve pieced it together a fair treat, sir, but what I want to know is, what is this mysterious gadget which set the rifle off just at the right moment?’

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Hemingway, ‘isn’t what is it, because we’ll find that out all in good time, but where is it?’

  There was a pause. Inspector Cook said in a disgruntled tone: ‘Yes, and don’t we hope we may find it! Ten to one, he took it up to the house with him. He’s had plenty of time to get rid of it since Sunday.’

  Hemingway tapped his teeth with a pencil, pondering. ‘No,’ he said presently. ‘That’s bad psychology. What you want to do is to put yourself in his place. To start with, you’ve got a vice to carry. On top of that, there must have been some bit of mechanism which actually fired the gun. Now, supposing you were to take a chance of getting them hidden away in the house: what happens if you go and run into someone on the way?’

  ‘Well, he’d have to take some chances. The maid was out, anyway.’

  ‘This bird take chances?’ said Hemingway scornfully. ‘I fancy I see him! Supposing Miss White had come up to the house for brandy, or bandages, or something, and had run into him carrying that ironmongery? She might easily have done it.’

  ‘Well, if it comes to that, how was he going to explain himself to Miss White, if he’d run into her without his gadgets?’

  ‘Easy!’ said the Sergeant promptly. ‘He could have pitched a tale about hearing someone in the shrubbery, and running after him. You bet he had all that planned!’

  ‘Then you say he hid the vice, and whatever else it was, down a rabbit-hole, or some such place?’

  ‘What was wrong with that pool I saw?’ inquired Hemingway. ‘It seems to me that if he had to dispose of something in a hurry, the pool was the quickest and the safest place. All he had to do was to climb that sandy bank, heave his gadgets into the pool, and be off up to the house to put through those telephone-calls.’

  ‘What about the splash?’ suggested Cook. ‘I grant you they might not have heard it on the bridge, seeing that it’s round the bend, and a bit of a distance off, but wouldn’t you have expected Miss Fanshawe, or that dog of hers, to have heard it?’

  ‘That’s where White was luckier than he knew,’ answered Hemingway. ‘Five minutes earlier, Miss Fanshawe was down by the stream, and would have seen the whole thing. But she told me that after she heard the shot, she turned into one of the paths leading up the slope. Now, I reckon that between the firing of the rifle, and White’s heaving the vice and what-not into the pool (if that’s what he did do) must have been all of five minutes, and very likely more. Miss Fanshawe would be out of earshot by that time, or if not absolutely out of earshot, far enough away for a splash not to catch her attention.’

  ‘Yes, and supposing all this did happen like you say, sir,’ put in the Sergeant. ‘White’s had plenty of time to fish his gadgets out of that pool, and dispose of them for good and all.’

  ‘Time, yes, if he’d thought it necessary, which he probably didn’t. But there’s one thing you’re forgetting: it’s muddy down by the water, and Mr White couldn’t get anything out of the pool without leaving some nice, deep footprints. What’s more, it ’ud be a pretty risky thing for him to go wading about in the pool when at any moment someone might have seen him from the Palings’ side. No, if he threw his apparatus into the pool, it’s there still, and that’s where we’ll find it.’

  Half an hour later, two constables, with their trousers rolled well above their knees, were painfully stubbing their toes on all the foreign bodies sunk into the mud at the bottom of the pool. When the police-party had arrived at the Dower House, only Florence, the maid, had been in, and she had raised no objection to the Inspector’s pursuing investigations in the shrubbery. As long as he didn’t come getting in her way, she said, with a sniff, she was sure he could do as he pleased, for it was no concern of hers.

  The first haul taken from the bed of the pool was disappointing. It consisted of two glass jam jars, and something that looked like the handle of a saucepan. Then the younger of the two constables cut his foot on a broken plate, and swore loudly; and, a moment later, his companion bent, and plunged his arm into the water, and pulled out something that had been half sunk in the mud. ‘I’ve got it, sir!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a vice, sure enough!’

  He waded to the bank, and handed his find to Hemingway. Hemingway betrayed not the smallest sign either of surprise or of gratification, but his Sergeant was visibly impressed, and regarded him with a good deal of awe. ‘My word, sir, you were right all along!’ he said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have credited it!’

  ‘I’m always right,’ said Hemingway superbly. ‘Keep going, Jupp! You’ll find something more, or I’m a Dutchman.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a sardine-tin, would it, sir?’ inquired Jupp, with a grin. ‘Fisher’s just cut his toe on one.’

  ‘You stop larking about, and get on with it!’ ordered the Inspector, somewhat unfairly. ‘Come on, Cook, we’ll see how this fits those grazes on the sapling.’

  Both Inspectors were recalled presently by the sound of tumult by the pool. They hurried up the sandy bank, and found that the cocker-spaniel, Prince, discovering strangers in a pool which he regarded as his own, had plunged into the water, not, indeed, to evict the interlopers, but to join them in aquatic sports. He bore with him a large stick, a circumstance which induced Hemingway to shout out: ‘Never mind about playing with that dog! Get on with it!’

  ‘We’re not playing with the brute, sir!’ called Fisher, stung into a retort. ‘We�
��re trying to shoo it off !’

  ‘You leave it alone, and it won’t do you any harm!’ said Hemingway. ‘You’re only exciting it, waving your arms about like that. Here, come here! Good dog, bring it here, then!’

  ‘Well, well, well!’ said a voice from the farther bank. ‘What’s this? A regatta?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, sir?’ said the Inspector, casting an unfavourable eye over Mr Hugh Dering. ‘Well, perhaps you’ll call your dog off, since you happen to be here.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Hugh, visibly enjoying the sight of the constables wrestling with Prince’s advances, ‘would give me greater pleasure, if he were my dog. But he isn’t.’

  Vicky’s Borzoi bounded into view at this moment, and at once began to bark at the strangers. The two constables showed a marked disposition to leave the pool in haste, but Hugh grasped the Borzoi by the collar, and told him to be quiet. The Inspector began to explain, as tactfully as he could, that neither Hugh’s nor the dogs’ presence was in anyway necessary to him, but before he had succeeded in making this clear to Mr Hugh Dering, who was suddenly and unaccountably slow of understanding, Vicky had appeared upon the scene – a demure Vicky, in white organdie with black ribbons.

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t paddle there!’ Vicky said, quite distressed. ‘It’s a very muddy, dirty kind of a pond. My mother never used to let me go in it.’

  ‘Miss, will you call off your dog?’ begged Fisher, against whose legs the spaniel was thrusting his stick.

  ‘Do you mind frightfully if I don’t?’ said Vicky. ‘He’s bound to shake himself all over me, you see, and I don’t much want him to.’

  Hugh, who had been interestedly surveying the treasures collected from the bosom of the pool, took pity on the police. ‘All right, I’ll rescue you,’ he said. ‘Stand clear, Vicky! Come here, Prince! Bring it!’

  The spaniel, hopeful of finding a more willing playmate, left the pool, laid his stick at Hugh’s feet, and shook himself generously over Hugh’s trousers. Hugh knotted his handkerchief through the dog’s collar, and bade Vicky remove him from the scene.

  ‘Yes, but I want to watch what they’re doing!’ Vicky demurred.

  ‘No, go up to the house,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll join you later – when I’ve discovered what all this is about.’

  ‘Not even a fusty lawyer can just carelessly fling orders at me,’ said Vicky, as one imparting valuable information.

  ‘That’s all right, ducky: you can play at being the child-wife married to a drunken bully,’ suggested Hugh.

  This immediately caught Vicky’s ever-lively imagination. ‘Yes, or a Roman slave.’

  ‘Or a Roman slave,’ agreed Hugh, giving the end of the handkerchief into her hold.

  From the opposite side of the pool, Inspector Hemingway watched Miss Fanshawe’s departure with undisguised relief. When, however, he saw that Mr Hugh Dering, instead of accompanying her, was walking on towards a point where the stream could be jumped, his satisfaction waned swiftly. He called: ‘Now, look here, sir, I’m busy, and I can’t have you messing about here now!’

  Hugh cleared the stream, and walked towards him. ‘Can’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, of course, if you won’t have me on this side of the stream, I’ll go back and watch you from the other side. I dare say Miss Fanshawe and her mother would like to come and watch, too, though of course I can’t promise that they won’t bring the dogs with them.’

  Sergeant Wake bent a shocked stare upon him. Hemingway said: ‘Oh! Nice state of affairs, I must say, if the police are to be blackmailed by gentlemen of your profession, sir! Now, you know very well you’ve no right to come meddling here!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t meddle. But all this earnest search leads me to suppose that new and startling evidence has cropped up. Moreover, you are holding in your hand, Inspector, something that bears all the appearance of a vice. From which I deduce that, contrary to expectations, the rifle found here was not fired by hand. Correct me if I’m wrong, my dear Watson.’

  Hemingway shook his head. ‘Yes, you’re wasted at the Chancery Bar: I can see that,’ he said. ‘All the same—’

  ‘Hold!’ said Hugh. ‘These things being as they are, I am further led to suppose that you are about to lay bare evidence which will clear the fair name of the lady to whom I am shortly to be joined in holy matrimony. I contend that this gives me a right to be here.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s been fixed up, has it?’ said Hemingway. ‘Well, I’m sure I hope you’ll be very happy, sir. I’ve been expecting to hear of it ever since I came down to these parts.’

  ‘When you first came here I hadn’t the slightest intention of getting married,’ said Hugh. ‘However, don’t let me spoil your good story.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said the Inspector. ‘What you don’t grasp, sir, is that if there is one thing I’ve got, it’s intuition. Besides, it’s been standing out a mile. But as for your having any right to be here, that’s another matter. Still, I can see that Inspector Cook wants me to let you stay, so I suppose you’ll have to.’

  ‘I never!’ Cook exclaimed, taken by surprise. ‘Why, I never said a word!’

  ‘Well, if you don’t want me to let him stay rather than have a couple of women and two dogs getting in the way, I’ve been mistaken in you,’ said Hemingway. ‘What’s more, he knows too much already.’

  ‘Hair-trigger,’ said Hugh. ‘You might almost call me your good angel. Hallo, one of your henchmen has caught a fish!’

  The Inspector turned, as Jupp came to the edge of the pool, holding an odd-looking object in his hand.

  ‘Would this be what you’re after, sir?’

  The Inspector took it. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it might be. At any rate, it didn’t grow in the pool. Know anything about these things, sir?’

  ‘About as much as the next man,’ Hugh replied. ‘I know it’s an electro-magnet. I don’t immediately see the connection between it and the rifle, though. Do you?’

  Hemingway shook his head. ‘I’m bound to say I haven’t figured it out. You know a bit about electrical gadgets, Wake: could you fire a rifle with this?’

  ‘No,’ replied the Sergeant. ‘I don’t see any sense to it. Even when you pass current through it, it wouldn’t have any effect on the rifle-trigger. Couldn’t have.’

  ‘Well, go on searching,’ said Hemingway, waving Jupp back to the pool. ‘Maybe you’ll find something more. Though I’ve got a hunch this thing did the trick.’

  He stood for a few moments, silently, and rather abstractedly, watching the two constables, while his Sergeant frowned upon the electro-magnet.

  ‘No,’ said Wake at last. ‘Look at it which way you will, you can’t fit an electro-magnet into it. It wouldn’t work, and that’s all there is to it.’

  Hemingway lifted his head quickly. ‘Magnet!’ he said.

  ‘It sounds like “Eureka!”’ remarked Hugh.

  ‘It is Eureka,’ said the Inspector. ‘Now, don’t you start asking me a whole lot of questions I can’t possibly answer, sir! If I’m right, you’ll know all in good time. All I want you to do now is to keep a still tongue in your head, which I’m sure you will do. All right, you two! That’ll do!’

  Twenty minutes later, in Fritton again, the Inspector produced from a drawer in his desk the magnet he had found in the shrubbery at the Dower House, and bade Sergeant Wake tell him what effect on it an electro-magnet would have.

  ‘It would attract it, of course,’ Wake replied. ‘Soon as you switched the current on. You mean, somehow or other it was fixed so that when it jumped to the electro-magnet, it caught the trigger?’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Cook blankly. ‘Could that have been done? I never heard of such a thing!’

  ‘What we want to go in for now, is a bit of experiment,’ said Hemingway. ‘We’ll rig that rifle up in the vice, and see how it c
ould be made to work.’

  By the time the rifle had been produced, and the vice clamped to the leg of a stout table, Hemingway had discovered an additional reason for the position of the grazes on the sapling. ‘I get it!’ he said. ‘It had to be close to the ground, to get the trigger on the same level as the electro-magnet. Now, if the two arms of the horseshoe magnet had to point towards the electromagnet, that must have been just behind the trigger, about like that. Come on, Wake! How would you manage to get the horseshoe magnet so that there’s nothing to prevent its moving, and so that it’s bound to pull that trigger as soon as it does move?’

  ‘Well, it’s got to rest on something. Couple of blocks of wood, perhaps.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Hemingway. ‘Easily kicked away when finished with. Books will be good enough for us. Hand me down a few!’

  Kneeling on the floor he carefully built up his two little platforms, one on each side of the trigger-guard of the rifle, and close enough together to allow of the horseshoe magnet’s arms resting one on each platform. The magnet he placed so that the round end was within the trigger-guard, and in front of the trigger itself, and the magnetised ends pointing towards the electro-magnet placed under the stock of the rifle. While Sergeant Wake busied himself with a length of flex and a wall-plug, Hemingway tried to cock the rifle. After several abortive attempts, he sat back on his heels and eyed the rifle with dislike. ‘It’s no use: the damned thing won’t cock!’ he said. ‘It goes off the moment you close the bolt. Now, how did he work that trick?’

  ‘The bent’s been filed down so fine that the searnose won’t catch,’ said Cook. ‘I’ve got a brother in the gun-trade, and I’ve seen these things stripped. The bent was filed down to give it that light pull. He’d have had to load it with the trigger pulled back. Let me try, will you, Inspector? I’ve got an idea how to cock it.’