Five Red Herrings (5 page)

‘H’m!’ said Wimsey. ‘And very nice, too. Well, I’ll be getting on.’

He paid his bill and came downstairs, accompanied by the landlord.

‘How’s Andy?’ he asked, casually.

‘Och, fine,’ said the other. ‘He’s in a great way, though, today. Some fellow’s pinched his push-bike. An’ the worst is, he had juist fitted it wi’ new tyres on both wheels.’

Wimsey, with the thumb on the self-starter, paused, electrified.

‘How’s that?’

‘It’s his ain fault. He will go leavin’ it aboot the place. It’ll be some o’ these trampin’ fellows that sells carpets, verra like. There’s naebody in Gatehouse wad du sic a thing.’

‘When did he miss it?’

‘This mornin’, when he was aff to schule. It’s a gude thing it wasna the motor-bike he’s always after me to be givin’ him.’

‘I daresay somebody’s just borrowed it,’ said Wimsey.

‘That’s so. It may turn up yet. Well, gude day to your lordship.’

Wimsey did not cross the bridge, but turned up the road to the railway station. He passed the turning on the left leading past Anwoth Old Kirk to the Creetown road, and followed the course of the Fleet till he came to a small lane on the right. At the end of this stood two little detached cottages, side by side, looking over a deep pool — in fact, the famous disputed pool in which Jock Graham had ducked the deceased Campbell.

Under normal circumstances, Wimsey would have expected to find both doors confidingly on the latch, but today the lower cottage, which was Campbell’s, had been locked — probably by the police. Wimsey peered in through all the ground-floor windows in turn. Everything seemed peaceful and in order as the charwoman had left it that morning. There was a sitting-room of bachelor appearance in front and a kitchen behind — the usual but and ben with a bedroom over. In addition, a glass-roofed studio had been built out beyond the kitchen. At the right-hand side, the shed that had housed the Morris stood empty, a fresh set of tyre-tracks in the dust showing where the car had been taken out that morning. Just beyond, a wooden gate led into an untidy little garden. From the end of the studio a party-wall of rough stone ran down, separating the yard and garden from those belonging to the other cottage, and Wimsey noticed a breach in the wall and the pile of debris which marked where Campbell had backed injudiciously while turning into the garage, and given cause for so much unneighbourly feeling.

Ferguson’s cottage was the mirror-image of Campbell’s, but his garden was neatly cared-for, and his garage was brand-new and built, regrettably, of corrugated iron. Wimsey pushed open the door and was confronted by a new and shining two-seater of a popular type.

This surprised him for a moment. Ferguson had taken the early train to Glasgow, and Gatehouse Station is six and a half miles from the town. Why had Ferguson not taken the car? He could easily have left it at the station till his return. It appeared to be a new toy; perhaps he had not cared to leave it in strange hands? Or perhaps he meant to be away a long time? Or perhaps —?

Wimsey lifted the bonnet thoughtfully. Yes, that was the explanation. A gap and some loose connections showed that the magneto had been taken away. Quite probably Ferguson had carried it off with him to Glasgow for repairs. How, then, had Ferguson got to the station? A friendly lift? the ’bus? Or a bicycle? The simplest way was to go and ask. At a small country station no passenger goes unnoticed, and one might as well make sure that Ferguson really had travelled by that train.

Wimsey closed the bonnet and shut the garage-door carefully after him. The house-door was open and he walked in and glanced around. It was as neat and non-committal as any house could be. Everything had been swept, dusted and tidied up by Mrs. Green, including the contents of the studio; for when the artist is away the charwoman will always play among the paint-pots, and no amount of remonstrance will prevent it. Wimsey glanced at some figure-studies piled against the wall, squinnied up his eyes at an elaborate and mannered piece of decorative landscape on the easel, noted casually that Ferguson got his painting materials from Roberson’s, glanced along a row of detective novels on the sitting-room bookshelf, and tried the lid of the writing-bureau. It was unlocked, and disclosed an orderly row of pigeon-holes, with everything in its place. Wimsey put down Ferguson as a man of an almost morbidly exact mentality. There was nothing here to throw any light on Campbell’s death, but he became all the more anxious to get hold of Ferguson. The way in which the cottages were built, detached and sharing one common entrance yard, ensured that everything which was done in the one could be overlooked from the other. If anything unusual had happened to Campbell the previous night, Ferguson could scarcely have failed to see something of it. And, on the other hand, if Ferguson had not seen it, then nobody had, for the two little houses stood remote from all the other neighbours, hidden at the bottom of the rough, leafy lane, with the Water of Fleet lipping by at the bottom of the gardens. If Jock Graham, indeed, had been fishing Standing-Stone Pool that night — but no! He was supposed to have gone to Loch Trool. Ferguson was the man. It would be advisable to get quickly upon the track of Ferguson.

Wimsey went back to his car and started away up the long hill road to Gatehouse Station, which lies at the edge of the Galloway hill-country, looking away over the Fleet Valley and the viaduct and frowned on by the lofty scarp of the Clints of Dromore.

The railway-station at Gatehouse is approached by one of those gates so numerous in the Border Country, which provide some slight restraint upon straying cattle but to the impatient motorist appear an unmitigated nuisance. As usual, however, at this point, an obliging old gentleman emerged from the little group of cottages by the wayside and let Wimsey through.

Immediately beyond the gate, the road branches right and left into a rough, stony track, of which the left-hand side goes deviously down to Creetown, while the right-hand side wanders away to Dromore and ends abruptly at the railway viaduct. Wimsey crossed this road and kept straight on down a steep little approach, heavily masked by rhododendrons, which brought him to the station.

The line from Castle-Douglas to Stranraer is a single one, but boasts of two sets of rails at Gatehouse Station, for the better convenience of passengers and to allow of the passing of trains. Wimsey approached the station-master, who was profiting by a slack period between two trains to study the Glasgow Bulletin in his office.

‘I’ve been trying to find Mr. Ferguson,’ said Wimsey, after the usual greetings, ‘to fix up a fishing-party at Loch Skerrow, but I’m told he went away this morning by the 9.8. Is that so?’

‘Ay, that is so. I saw him mysel’.’

‘I wonder when he’ll be back. Was he going to Glasgow, do you know, or only to Dumfries?’

‘He mentioned he was gaun to Glasgow,’ said the station-master, ‘but he’ll maybe be back the nicht. Angus here will be able to tell ye if he took a return ticket.’

The booking-clerk, who shared the station-master’s office, remembered Mr. Ferguson very well, because he had taken a first-class return to Glasgow, an extravagance somewhat unusual among the artist community.

‘But of course,’ said Wimsey, ‘the ticket is available for three months. He’s not bound to return today. Did he leave his car here, I wonder?’

‘He didna come by car,’ said the clerk. ‘He tell’t me the magneto was broken down, and he was obliged to take the train from here, instead o’ drivin’ to Dumfries.’

‘Oh, then he bicycled up, I suppose,’ said Wimsey, carelessly.

‘Nay,’ said the station-master, ‘he’ll have come with Campbell’s ’bus. He arrived aboot that time, did he no, Angus?’

‘He did that. He was talkin’ with Rabbie McHardy when he came in. He’ll maybe have told him how long he thocht to be stayin’ in Glasgow.’

‘Thanks,’ said Wimsey. ‘I’ll have a word with Rabbie. I wanted to charter a boat for tomorrow, but if Ferguson isn’t going to be back, it’s not much use, is it?’

He chatted for a few minutes more, giving them a suitably censored account of the Campbell affair, and then took his leave. He had not got very much farther, except that he seemed to have more or less eliminated Ferguson from his list of suspects. He would have to check him up, of course, and see that he really had arrived in Glasgow. This might present a little difficulty, but it was merely routine work for Dalziel and his myrmidons.

Wimsey looked at his watch. Jock Graham was at present the most promising candidate for criminal honours, but since he had disappeared, there was nothing to be done about him for the present. There was, however, still time to go and interview Strachan, and so round off his inquiries in Gatehouse.

STRACHAN

Strachan lived in a pleasant, middle-sized house handily situated for him a little way out of Gatehouse on the road that goes up to the golf-course. The neat maid who came to the door smiled kindly upon the visitor and said that the master was at home and would his lordship please step in.

His lordship stepped accordingly into the sitting-room where he found Mrs. Strachan seated by the window instructing her small daughter Myra in the art of plain knitting.

Wimsey apologised for calling just before dinner, and explained that he wanted to fix up with Strachan about a foursome.

‘Well, I don’t quite know,’ said Mrs. Strachan, a trifle doubtfully. ‘I don’t think Harry is likely to be playing for a day or two. He’s had rather a tiresome — oh, well! I really don’t know. Myra, dear, run and tell Daddy Lord Peter Wimsey is here and wants to talk to him. You know, I never like to make any sort of arrangements for Harry — I always manage to put my foot in it.’

She giggled — she was rather a giggly woman at the best of times. Nervousness, Wimsey supposed. Strachan had an abrupt manner which tended to make people nervous, and Wimsey more than suspected him of being a bit of a domestic tyrant.

He said something vague about not wanting to be a nuisance.

‘Of course not,’ said Mrs. Strachan, keeping an uneasy eye on the door, ‘how could you be a nuisance? We’re always so delighted to see you. And what have you been doing with yourself this beautiful day?’

‘I’ve been up to the Minnoch to see the body,’ said Wimsey, cheerfully.

‘The body?’ cried Mrs. Strachan, with a little squeal. ‘How dreadful that sounds! What do you mean? A salmon, or something?’

‘No, no,’ said Wimsey. ‘Campbell — Sandy Campbell — haven’t you heard?’

‘No, what?’ Mrs. Strachan opened her large baby blue eyes very wide indeed. ‘Has anything happened to Mr. Campbell?’

‘Good Lord,’ said Wimsey, ‘I thought everybody knew. He’s dead. He tumbled into the Minnoch and got killed.’

Mrs. Strachan gave a shrill shriek of horror.

‘Killed? How perfectly dreadful! Was he drowned?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ said Wimsey. ‘I think he bashed his head in, but he may have been drowned as well.’

Mrs. Strachan shrieked again.

‘When did it happen?’

‘Well,’ said Wimsey, cautiously, ‘they found him about lunchtime.’

‘Good gracious! And we never knew anything about it. Oh, Harry’ — as the door opened — ‘what do you think? Lord Peter says poor Mr. Campbell has been killed up at the Minnoch!’

‘Killed?’ said Strachan. ‘What do you mean, Milly? Who killed him?’

Mrs. Strachan shrieked a third time, more loudly.

‘Of course I don’t mean that, Harry. How absurd and how horrible! He fell down and cut his head open and got drowned.’

Strachan came forward rather slowly and greeted Wimsey with a nod.

‘What’s all this about, Wimsey?’

‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Wimsey. ‘They found Campbell’s dead body in the Minnoch at 2 o’clock. Apparently he had been painting and slipped over the edge of the granite and cracked his skull on the stones.’

He spoke a little absently. It was surely not his fancy that his host looked exceedingly pale and upset, and now, as Strachan turned his face round into the full light of the window, it was obvious that he was suffering from a black eye — a handsome and well-developed black eye, rich in colour and full in contour.

‘Oh!’ said Strachan. ‘Well, I’m not surprised, you know. That’s a very dangerous spot. I told him so on Sunday, and he called me a fool for my pains.’

‘Why, was he up there on Sunday?’ said Wimsey.

‘Yes, making a sketch or something. You remember, Milly, just on the other side of the burn from where we were picnicking.’

5

‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Mrs. Strachan, ‘was that the place? Oo! how perfectly horrid! I’ll never go there again, never. You may say what you like. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Milly. Of course you needn’t go there if you don’t want to.’

‘I should always be afraid of Myra falling in and being killed,’ said Mrs. Strachan.

‘Very well, then,’ said her husband, impatiently. ‘Don’t go there. That settles that. How did all this happen, Wimsey?’

Lord Peter told the story again, with such detail as he thought desirable.

‘That’s exactly like Campbell,’ said Strachan. ‘He walks about — that is, he used to walk about — with his eyes on his canvas and his head in the air, never looking in the least where he was going. I shouted out to him on Sunday to be careful — he couldn’t hear what I said, or pretended he couldn’t, and I actually took the trouble to fag round to the other side of the stream and warn him what a slippery place it was. However, he was merely rude to me, so I left it at that. Well, he’s done it once too often, that’s all.’

‘Oh, don’t speak in that unfeeling tone,’ exclaimed Mrs. Strachan. ‘The poor man’s dead, and though he wasn’t a very nice man, one can’t help feeling sorry about it.’

Strachan had the grace to mutter that he was sorry, and that he never wished any harm to the fellow. He leaned his forehead on his hand, as if his head was aching badly.

‘You seem to have been in the wars a bit yourself,’ remarked Wimsey.

Strachan laughed.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘most ridiculous thing. I was up on the golf-course after breakfast when some putrid fool sliced a ball about a thousand miles off the fairway and got me slap-bang in the eye.’