The Cornish Coast Murder (British Library Crime Classics) Read online

  “Pendrill,” he said, sharply. “Come here. Look at that!”

  He was pointing to an indifferent yet graphic oil-painting of a full-rigged windjammer diving head-long into a watery abyss. The canvas, a large one, was fixed high up on the wall, and puncturing the stormy sky about an inch from the gilt frame was the unmistakable mark of a bullet.

  “Bullet No. 1,” said Pendrill. “The left-hand window.”

  “And over here?” demanded the Vicar, indicating a splintered hole in an oak beam just under the ceiling.

  “No. 2,” said Pendrill. “The right-hand window.”

  “And the third?” asked the Vicar.

  “Probably somewhere about the room. Spent, of course. The bullet went clean through the brain. I made sure of that.”

  “Possibly this has something to do with it,” said the Vicar as he ran his fingers over a deep dent in the face of an oak sideboard. The bullet's on the ground somewhere. Perhaps we——”

  He was cut short by a further clanging of the front-door bell, announcing the fact that P.C. Grouch, after a stiff ride up the hill, had arrived at Greylings. Cowper showed him in and, at a nod from Pendrill, returned to his whiskey in the kitchen.

  The Boscawen constable was panting with exertion after pedalling his thirteen-odd stone up the long rise from the cove. He was not cut out for speed and the unaccustomed need for haste, coupled with the alarming news that Tregarthan had been shot, had left him somewhat out of breath. He removed his helmet, wiped round the inside of it with his handkerchief, dabbed his forehead and nodded to the two men.

  “Evening, gentlemen. Nothing been moved, I take it?”

  “Nothing, Constable,” said the Doctor. “Not even the body.”

  “He was dead when you got here, I suppose, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  The Constable crossed over and took a long look at the body. It was the first time in the whole of his career that he had been called in to investigate a possible murder and he was not inclined to underrate the importance of the occasion.

  “Umph,” he said. “Shot through the head. No chance of it being suicide, I suppose?”

  The Vicar pointed to the bullet holes in the window.

  “Exactly,” said Grouch. “No man could shoot himself through a window. What about accident, gentlemen?”

  “Hardly,” interposed the Doctor. “One shot—yes—but not three. Three shots have entered the room.”

  “Who first found the body, sir?”

  “Miss Tregarthan. She's lying down in her room. I sent her there until you arrived, Constable. I've warned her that she may have to answer a few questions.”

  “Quite right, sir. I'll need a statement. Anybody else in the house at the time?”

  “The Cowpers. Mrs. Cowper is upstairs with Miss Tregarthan. Cowper is in the kitchen.”

  “I'll want a word with them, too,” said Grouch. “I've phoned police headquarters at Greystoke. They're sending over an Inspector. In the mean-time ...” He pulled out his note-book and flicked it open with a thumb. “Suppose we have a few words with Miss Tregarthan.”

  “Perhaps you would like me ...” said the Vicar, edging a little toward the door.

  “No, it's all right, sir. I dare say the Inspector would like to ask you a few questions. Besides, I'm sure the young lady will feel more at home with you gentlemen in the room.”

  Ruth came down, still obviously shaken, but now more in control of her feelings. Some of the colour had drained back into her cheeks. The Doctor was about to place a chair for her when the Constable shook his head.

  “Perhaps there's another room available,” he said, with a quick nod toward the body. “The dining-room, perhaps.”

  In the more ordinary atmosphere of the dining-room, where a fire was still flickering, the air was cleared of a good deal of its tension. Ruth sank at once into an arm-chair, whilst Pendrill and the Vicar drew up a couple of chairs at the table. Grouch placed his helmet on the sideboard and took up his position opposite Ruth on the hearth-rug.

  “Now, Miss Tregarthan, I understand from the Doctor that you were the first to discover the deceased. Have you any idea as to what time that would be?”

  “I know almost to the minute,” replied Ruth, in a restrained voice. “When I came in I remember the hall clock striking the quarter.”

  “And you went directly into the sitting-room?”

  “Yes.”

  “I take it you'd been out?”

  “Yes.”

  “You discovered the body, then, at nine-fifteen.”

  “Exactly nine-fifteen by the hall clock.”

  “Which way did you come into the house, miss? Down the drive?”

  Ruth hesitated for a moment, looked down into the fire and said quickly.

  “No—along the cliff-path. I'd been out for a walk.”

  The Constable glanced up sharply.

  “Ah!—the cliff-path. You didn't notice anybody suspicious hanging about?”

  “No.”

  “I suppose you realise, miss, that Mr. Tregarthan was shot from the side of the house?”

  “Yes, I realise that now,” returned Ruth quietly.

  “From which way did you approach the house?”

  “From the village.”

  “And you met nobody on your way here?”

  “Nobody.”

  “And you heard nothing out of the ordinary—shots, for example—no firing?”

  “Nothing.”

  The Constable sighed and drummed his pencil on the mantelshelf. That particular line of enquiry seemed to have drawn a blank.

  “You entered the house, miss——?”

  “From the side door. There's a path——”

  “I know,” cut in Grouch. “The path runs at right-angles to the cliff path along the garden wall.” He smiled benignly. “You see, miss, I knew this place long afore you were born.”

  There was a pause, during which the Constable seemed to be working out his next line of approach.

  “When you passed the bottom of the garden by the cliff-path did you notice the curtains were undrawn?”

  Ruth nodded.

  “But you didn't know anything was amiss?”

  “Why should I?” asked Ruth quietly.

  “Exactly. You didn't. You were wearing a mackintosh?”

  “Yes—it was raining as you know.”

  “I take it, miss, that you got pretty wet?”

  “I was soaked,” agreed Ruth, puzzled by these seemingly irrevelant questions.

  “And yet,” went on the Constable, “you came straight into the sitting-room, without taking off your wet things and without realising that there was anything amiss with Mr. Tregarthan?”

  “Yes—no—that is ...”

  “Well?”

  Pendrill and the Vicar were startled by Ruth's sudden hesitation. So far she had answered the Constable's questions without pausing to consider her replies. But this apparently innocent question about a wet mackintosh, for some strange reason, seemed to disturb her.

  “Well, miss?” reiterated Grouch.

  “I don't think I was worried about my clothes at the time. I'm used to the wet. It wasn't unusual for me to go in to my uncle before taking off my outdoor things.”

  “I see. Now, Miss Tregarthan, will you describe what you saw when you entered the room?”

  Ruth did so in a low voice, pausing every now and then to regain control of her emotions. She still seemed on the verge of an hysterical breakdown, though her evidence was clear and concise.

  “And after finding your uncle apparently dead what did you do?”

  Ruth went on to describe how she had summoned the Cowpers and then rushed to the phone and called up the Doctor at Rock House. Learning that he was dining at the Vicarage, she had phoned there and told him of the tragedy. She had then returned to the sitting-room and ascertained, as far as she was able, that her uncle was dead. At the sound of the Doctor's car on the drive she had rushed out to meet him.

/>   At the conclusion of her story the Constable turned to Pendrill.

  “Could you give me some idea, sir, as to the time you received the phone call?”

  The Doctor thought for a moment.

  “I'm afraid I can't. It was after nine. I know that, but the Vicar and I were talking——”

  “Wait a moment,” cut in the Reverend Dodd excitedly. “I think I can help you, Constable. The telephone bell rang about twenty minutes past nine. I happen to know because it's one of my—er—idiosyncrasies to listen to the church clock during a storm.” He then went on to explain about his fears for the safety of the tower. “Subconsciously I suppose I was waiting for the quarter chimes while I was talking with Doctor Pendrill. I distinctly remember hearing them. The tower, as you know, is only a stone's throw from the Vicarage and when the wind is in the right direction ...”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Grouch, with an appreciative nod in the Vicar's direction. “I think that more or less fits in with Miss Tregarthan's idea as to the time she found the body.” He turned to Ruth, who was now lying back with closed eyes in the armchair, as if trying to shut out the abnormal spectacle of a policeman in the Greylings dining-room. “Thank you, miss. I don't think there's anything more I want to ask you. You've been very helpful, Miss Tregarthan, and in an unofficial capacity I should like to offer you my sincere sympathy for what has happened.” As Ruth, escorted by the Vicar, crossed unsteadily to the door, the Constable added: “Now, sir, would you mind calling Mrs. Cowper. I'd like to hear what she has to say.”

  CHAPTER III

  THE PUZZLE OF THE FOOTPRINTS

  MRS. COWPER came into the room in much the same way as she would have entered a lion's cage. She looked both nervous and apprehensive. Her eyes, reddened with weeping, glanced from the Doctor to the Vicar and then came to rest, with a sort of fascinated glassiness, on the Constable. Grouch waved her unceremoniously into the arm-chair and without wasting time, put the housekeeper through a similar catechism to that which he had adopted in the case of Ruth Tregarthan.

  “Now, Mrs. Cowper, I want you to be pretty sure about what you're going to tell me,” he warned. “It's easy to imagine things at times like these. But I want the facts. That's all. The plain facts. Now—when did you last see Mr. Tregarthan alive?”

  Mrs. Cowper, taking the Constable's warning to heart, considered this question deeply before essaying to answer it. She cast a wary eye at the other inmates of the room as if suspecting a trap and replied with a sort of defiant deliberation.

  “It was when I took in his coffee as usual at a quarter to nine. He was a regular man, was Mr. Tregarthan, and he liked things done regular. Quarter to nine he liked his coffee taken in and a quarter to nine he had it.”

  “Were the curtains drawn to when you went in?”

  “No. I drew them myself. That's usual.”

  “Right across the windows?”

  “Right across, Mr. Grouch,” said Mrs. Cowper decidedly. “No one can lay it up against me that I didn't perform my duties to-night the same as usual.”

  It was obvious that Mrs. Cowper's nervousness was taking the form of an indignant resentment that she was suspected to have been in any way responsible for her master's death. She knew Grouch, unofficially, as Grouch had married her sister-in-law, and this did nothing to ease the abnormality of the situation. Grouch in his official capacity was another being from Grouch sitting over a cup of tea in Annie's parlour down at Laburnam Cottage. A fact which put Mrs. Cowper off her balance.

  “Now that's all right,” said the Constable soothingly. “I'm not trying to incriminate you, Mrs. Cowper. I only want straight answers to straight questions. Understand?” He consulted his note-book. “So you last saw Mr. Tregarthan alive at a quarter to nine or thereabouts. Now, after that time, did you hear any unusual sounds—shots—any firing? Eh?”

  “No—I heard nothing unusual except the storm, of course. All them crashes of thunder right over the chimneys. I remember remarking to Cowper that——”

  “Exactly. Nothing unusual. Now this is a very important question, Mrs. Cowper, and I want you to think carefully. Did you see anybody, a stranger for example, pass any of the windows to-night?”

  “Not that I noticed, Mr. Grouch, seeing it was dark and——”

  “Or anybody hanging about round the house earlier in the evening?”

  “No, I——” Mrs. Cowper broke off suddenly and gaped as if with astonishment at the excellence of her own memory. Pendrill and the Vicar sat up and exchanged a quick glance. The Constable took an eager step forward.

  “Yes?”

  “Now I come to think of it, you putting your question like that, I did see a man. He popped out of the bushes, sudden, like a rabbit and started arguing with Mr. Tregarthan. On the drive it was. I saw it all from the kitchen window when I was making ready to dish up the dinner.”

  “At what time was that?”

  “Just after eight it would be. I mentioned it to Cowper at the time. It being queer seeing a man spring out like that.”

  “He appeared to have words with Mr. Tregarthan?”

  “Yes—violent words. I thought at the time they were that fierce.”

  “You didn't hear what was said, I suppose?”

  Mrs. Cowper shook her head with an air of disappointment, pondered for a moment, and then cheered up at a sudden recollection.

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Grouch. I did catch the tail-end of it, as it were. Nothing much, mind you. Something about ‘getting even’ or words to that effect.”

  The Constable whistled softly through his teeth.

  “Those were the man's words, not Mr. Tregarthan's?”

  “Yes—he said—drat! It's on the tip of my tongue—he said—‘I'll get even if I swing for it.’ That's it! I didn't think anything much of it then.”

  “Naturally. You've done well to remember, Sarah,” said Grouch, descending from his official Olympus, and granting Mrs. Cowper a broad smile. “It may prove to be valuable information. Now as to this man. Can you describe him?”

  “Well—he was shortish.”

  “Very short?”

  “I suppose so. He looked a real titch beside Mr. Tregarthan, but then, he was a big man.”

  “Yes—can you describe his looks?”

  Mrs. Cowper shook her head.

  “He was standing back in the shadow of the bushes. There was only the light from the kitchen window.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “I can't rightly say.”

  “You noticed nothing particular about his clothes?”

  “Only his gaiters. I noticed he was wearing gaiters when he went off up the drive.”

  “Gaiters! Well, that's something. You've done very well, Mrs. Cowper. I shan't have to bother you any more, unless the Inspector wants to ask you a few questions later on. Will you send your husband in to us now. I won't keep him a minute.”

  The moment Mrs. Cowper had closed the door the Constable swung round on Pendrill and the Vicar.

  “Well, that's something, gentlemen! Very suspicious, eh? A quarrel. High words! Seems that we shan't have to look far for our man after all.”

  Pendrill nodded.

  “You've done well, Grouch. The Inspector should be pleased when he arrives. Eh, Vicar?”

  “Eh? Eh?” demanded the Reverend Dodd, coming out of a brown study. “Inspector—pleased? Very. Remarkable progress, Grouch.”

  And he lapsed forthwith into another deep rumination, wherein he turned the facts of the case over and over in his mind, a little disturbed, considerably bewildered. He wondered, somehow, if the case was going to be quite as simple as it was beginning to appear on the surface.

  Cowper, now in a happier frame of mind, thanks to a stiff whiskey, soon proved to be an unimaginative and therefore reliable witness.

  He corroborated his wife's story about the strange man on the drive, but was unable to give any further details as he had not gone to the kitchen window. He had been engaged in fillin
g a coal-scuttle in the adjacent scullery when his wife had called him to come and look. But, as Cowper rightly said, Mr. Tregarthan's business was not his and he had other things to attend to. With regard to his actions after dinner, he had gone into the sitting-room with a trudge of logs just after his wife had taken in the coffee—that was to say, about a quarter to nine. He thought Mrs. Cowper might have been a little early with the coffee, because Miss Ruth had left the dinner-table half-way through the second course and Mr. Tregarthan had not lingered long over the sweet. He did not think that Mr. Tregarthan had any particular enemies, and as far as he, Cowper, was concerned, the whole thing was a “ruddy mystery.” It had upset him and he felt very sorry for Miss Ruth, who, he reckoned, would take “a packet of days” to get over the shock.

  His evidence concluded, Cowper excused himself to the Vicar for having said anything in the heat of the moment that wasn't right and proper, and shaking the Constable unexpectedly by the hand, saluted the Doctor and went out of the room.

  “And that's that!” said Grouch with an air of conclusion, shoving his pencil back into the binding of his note-book. “I'll have to run over this little lot with the Inspector when he arrives.” He turned to Pendrill. “By the way, sir, how long would you say Mr. Tregarthan had been dead when you made your examination?”

  “I should say fifteen minutes at the outside. Perhaps half an hour, but I doubt it.”

  “And it took you how long to come from the Vicarage?”

  “Oh, two or three minutes.”

  “And say another three minutes for Miss Tregarthan to have got through to the Vicarage via Rock House. That leaves about nine or ten minutes. So in all probability, seeing that Miss Tregarthan found her uncle at nine-fifteen, the chances are that he was shot a few minutes after nine.”