The Polo Ground Mystery (30 page)

Turning to Fanshaugh, Degerdon added:

“In describing events to you subsequently, ‘Fruity,' I purposely omitted all mention of Peach. I had given my word of honour to him and couldn't possibly break it even for you, old boy. I think I'm absolved of my oath now that the poor fellow's gone.”

For some dramatic moments the men looked at one another without speaking. Then Vereker, in a curiously even voice, said: 

“The missing link in my chain of evidence at last! Your story, Degerdon, makes everything clear to me now. Let me heartily congratulate you on having completely missed your man!”

“I never could understand how Ralph ever hit him at twenty-six yards,” remarked Fanshaugh, with a grim smile.

“Missed my man? What do you mean?” asked Degerdon in a bewildered tone. “I've been wishing to God ever since that awful morning I'd missed him and he'd hit me instead!”

Vereker clearly explained to the dazed Degerdon that, standing as they did, it would have been an impossibility for him to inflict the wound which Sutton had received on the right side of his abdomen. Then he asked, “Of course you didn't see what Peach was doing after he had shouted the word ‘Attention!'?”

“Good heavens, no! my eyes were glued on Sutton, and I was in such a frenzy of excitement that he seemed to have shrunk to something ludicrously small. All I could distinguish was his automatic pistol, which had suddenly swelled to the size of a Big Bertha. I could have walked down the muzzle!”

“It's absolutely conclusive,” continued Vereker, “now that he has confessed, that Peach, after the word ‘Attention,' must have drawn an automatic, possibly the very one that is missing from Collyer's drawer, and shot Sutton when both your attentions were riveted on one another. He had already threatened to kill Armadale and was only waiting for a favourable opportunity. The gods could not have sent him an occasion better suited to his purpose!”

“But what about poor Ralli?” asked Fanshaugh, with a sudden start. “Full of our own damned affairs, we've completely forgotten to ask about him.”

“He's badly but not fatally hurt,” replied Degerdon. “The shot passed through the upper part of his left shoulder well clear of anything vital. Collyer, the keeper, happened to be near and ran to his assistance, while Heather dashed off in pursuit of Peach. On the inspector's return, Ralli asked him what had happened to Peach. ‘Put a bullet through his own brain, sir,' replied the inspector. ‘Remarkably good shot, Heather!' was Ralli's sole comment.”

“Thank God, Basil's not badly hurt!” remarked Fanshaugh. “It's damned bad for horses to be changing masters every week. He's just the man we want at Vesey Manor. I don't know any youngster who's shaping better in the hunting field.”

“Look here, ‘Fruity,' since I've learned that I haven't killed a man, I'm feeling tons better; but what about you, old boy?”

“Well, that's a secret between the three of us. We know that Sutton put himself out of pain by proxy, but it will be sufficient for the world to know that he simply put himself out of pain,” replied Fanshaugh, and after some minutes of silence he asked, “Will you both stay to lunch? There's no whisky, so we'll just have to behave like lions—not the British variety, I'm afraid!”

After lunch, Vereker left Degerdon and Fanshaugh together at the bungalow and returned to the “Silver Pear Tree.” Inspector Heather was resting after a hearty meal and seemed at peace with the world.

“Well, Heather, I suppose I'm to congratulate you on successfully clearing up the Armadale murder mystery. First one for a long time too!” said Vereker.

“Well, it was such a simple affair that I blush at congratulations,” replied the inspector smugly. “I was on top of my man from the word ‘go,' and I'm glad I didn't leave him. This will do me a heap of good. The
Evening Bulletin
has already got a reporter on the job, and the captions are rather interesting. ‘Millionaire's murderer shoots himself on eve of arrest after abortive attempt on nephew!' I thought it sounded as if the murderer had had a go at his own nephew, but the journalist simply said that it wouldn't do any harm if the public read it that way for a start. ‘Full Confession Before Death'; ‘Smart Detective Work by Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard'; ‘Inspector shot at but Missed!'”

“The last sentence is about the most astonishing of all,” remarked Vereker, glancing comprehensively at his friend. “I suppose an abortive burglary came into the story?”

“You bet. ‘Burglar Baffled'; ‘Misses £20,000 Necklace'; ‘No Connection with Murder!'”

“What's it to be, Heather?”

“I'll let you off with beer this time, Mr. Vereker; besides, I don't care for champagne. I had a lot of luck, a lot of luck. I'm jolly sorry you went so far off the track, but you're young and romantic. Instead of going on hard facts, you will keep taking a swig at that psychology bottle, and you persist in getting tied up with all sorts of sugar stuff about lovers and duels and elopements and unhappy marriages!”

“Lots of luck, did you call it, Heather? Pure luck from beginning to end! Even that burglary simply took its hat off to you and faded out of the picture exactly at the right moment. No, Heather, you didn't beat me this time, old boy. You were simply the darling of the gods, and it's your turn to stand the champagne.”

“Two halves of bitter, madam,” called the inspector to the landlady.

“All right, Heather. I've got a nice little report here about the duel, and how Peach, acting as director, drew an automatic and shot his late employer. The
Daily Report
will simply make a scoop with exclusive news about the whole grim tragedy of robbery, jealousy, and murder.”

“Perhaps you'd prefer whisky to beer,” suggested the inspector.

“No, Heather. Paradoxically enough, it's champagne for silence this time, and not wedding champagne either. Special cuvée or nothing!”

“It's a bad attempt at blackmail, but I'll pay up. Can you lend me a couple?” said the inspector, and as he thought he suddenly burst into loud laughter and shook till the tears streamed from his good-natured eyes. “It was the luckiest case in all my career!” he added.

“By the way, Heather, was the pistol used by Peach the one Collyer missed from his drawer?”

“It was, and had his initials, S.C., scratched on the barrel.”

“What are you going to do about the one you found in Wild Duck Wood, the one Degerdon flung away?”

“I shall rule out that evidence as inadmissible. It had nothing whatever to do with our case, Mr. Vereker.”

“There were three shots, Heather, as you first suspected,” continued Vereker thoughtfully.

“There are only two now,” replied the inspector laconically, “and there's still a cartridge case missing, according to your high-falutin story. I really think you ought to go and look for it.”

“I would if it were necessary, but I don't require any further evidence at this solemn hour. I've finished with the Armadale case. My feelings are not quite those of unmixed satisfaction, but then we foolishly ask for perfection in the world, in our fellow-men, in police inspectors, without troubling to seek it in ourselves. Some day I hope to paint a picture without a flaw, to solve a mystery without making one wrong deduction, without taking one false step. Vain hope! I've always thought it strange, Heather, that we may be conscious of the futility of our aspirations and yet be driven relentlessly on by some secret urge which regards us personally as if we were merely insignificant factors in some fantastically majestic scheme! You and I, Heather, you and I—rather remote, rather disparate, altogether inexplicable, wholly insignificant—simply nothing in a world of unintelligible symbols...”

The inspector coughed noisily and said, with a note of complaint:

“Why don't you drink comfortable like? Here am I happy as a little bird in spring, just about mating-time, and you start mooning about like a chap who's about to commit suicide because his pension's going to die with him. I won't let you help me in any more of my cases if it's going to upset you like this. Here's to your future improvement. Fill up and drink comfortable like!”

Early in the evening, Anthony Vereker retired to his own room. He was in a thoughtful mood, and his preoccupation arose from the fact that his work on the Armadale case had proved completely unsatisfactory. He had convinced himself in the closing stages of his investigation that Ralph Degerdon had fired the shot which had killed Sutton Armadale. Degerdon had told a convincing enough story about a duel in which he had fired his shot at the financier and killed him in a fair fight, if a duel under the entirely unorthodox conditions described by him could be called fair. The story of that duel had been to Vereker's mind completely at variance with the nature of the wound which Sutton Armadale had received. He had been perfectly certain that the financier had been shot by some one standing to the right of him and probably at fairly close quarters. On Captain Fanshaugh's description of the duel, he had at once seen this discrepancy and had immediately concluded that Degerdon had lied to Fanshaugh. Swiftly reviewing the matter, it had appeared to him that Degerdon had probably shot Sutton Armadale after the latter had handed him his automatic pistol for the combat, but had subsequently cleverly adapted his story for Fanshaugh's consumption.

Fanshaugh was his friend and knew that the fight was to take place. Degerdon, astute as he was, had failed, however, to perceive that the angle at which the bullet had penetrated Armadale's body would prove conclusively that his story was pure fabrication to a man trained in observation and with a knowledge of gunshot wounds. And then had come this bombshell of a confession by Peach that he had fired the fatal shot! With that confession all the fabric of his carefully constructed theory had been swept away like leaves in a whirlwind. It was disappointing; but, after all, disappointments were of the texture of life on this imperfect planet.

In a restless mood he glanced at his watch. It was eight o'clock. The night was young, and sleep in his present frame of mind a remote possibility. Picking up his hat and stick, he left the inn and walked up to Vesey Manor with the intention of inquiring after Basil Ralli. On his arrival, he was at once conducted to the patient's room. To his surprise, he found Ralli sitting up in bed propped up comfortably with pillows and placidly reading a book.

“Hello, Vereker, I'm damned glad you've called. I expected you and gave instructions that you were to be admitted at once. It's frightfully dull sitting here all by myself and being cosseted like an invalid when I'm perfectly all right except for a bit of torn tissue. Tomorrow I shall be all right; Trixie has promised to come and nurse me. Amazing business this of Peach's; what do you think about it all?”

“To tell the truth, Pm feeling a bit fed up with it all at the moment and want to forget it. I've been walloped all along the line. Perhaps it's good for my self-conceit, but like all medicine it's rather unpleasant to swallow. What's this preposterous yarn about Angela's necklace?”

Ralli smiled rather wanly and replied:

“It's somewhat fragile, so we must handle it delicately. Still, all's well that ends well. Miss Cazas found it, as you probably know, behind a chest of drawers in Angela's room when looking for her lost diary. The maid who had searched the room on the day after the burglary was perhaps one of the most amazed and annoyed people in the world that the pearls should have been so simply retrieved. She came to me afterwards to give notice that she was leaving, and told me emphatically that she'd moved that chest of drawers out purposely to search behind it on the morning of the loss of the pearls. I pacified her by telling her I believed her word before any foreigner's born, and asked her for my sake to say nothing further about the matter.”

“I wonder what caused the foreigner to make such an unexpected and magnanimous restitution,” remarked Vereker ironically.

“That's a simple story. The night before she came to bid me good-bye, I wrote to her telling her that we had discovered a codicil to Sutton's will, made only last Wednesday, and witnessed by Dunkerley and Frederick. In that codicil my uncle had bequeathed to her in case of his death all the jewellery which Angela had returned to him. I think Mademoiselle, after careful consideration, thought that a certain restitution might be tactful, to say the least of it!”

“Very neat, very neat!” exclaimed Vereker, laughing heartily. “She beat me by her long nose on the post, but in extenuation of my failure I must say she had all the luck of the draw. There's a touch of sardonic humour in the fact that she risked so much to pinch her own pearls, and it makes me feel heaps happier!”

“And, as for Sutton's murder, I suppose recent revelations have put the lid on all your sleuthing, Vereker?” said Ralli.

“It was a disappointing finish to a fine race from my point of view,” replied Vereker, and related the whole story of the case as it was known to him to an attentive and amazed listener.

“The inspector's a decent sort, and I'm jolly glad for his sake,” said Ralli, and the conversation turned on Ralph Degerdon.

“He came up to see me this afternoon shortly after the accident,” continued Ralli. “I'm sorry for Degerdon. He's still a bit upset and has made up his mind ‘to sile awye' to Australia. I told him I thought it wasn't a bad plan to put a few thousand miles between himself and the charmer who was indirectly the cause of his latest trouble. I also promised to ‘shove out the boat' from a financial point of view. But there's one thing I particularly want to ask you. Let's change the subject from murders to marriages. Trixie and I have fixed up the date in November. Will you be my best man?”

“Glad to, Ralli,” replied Vereker.