Trial and Error (16 page)

“Yes, and that was
my
gun,” cried Mr Todhunter desperately. “I exchanged it surreptitiously for Mr Palmer's, the morning after. I—er—I was trying to get rid of the evidence, you see. I never thought he would be seriously suspected. It—it was culpable of me—criminally culpable. But that's what I did.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“I can prove it. There was a witness. Mrs Farroway was there at the time. It was in Miss Farroway's . . .” Mr Todhunter's voice died away. The sergeant, that grim man, was actually smiling.

“Well, anyhow, what about that bracelet, sir?” smiled the sergeant.

“The bracelet, yes. Well there's no getting round that, at any rate,” said Mr Todhunter almost defiantly and turned back to the drawer.

Two minutes later the contents of the drawer were on the floor. Three minutes after that the contents of all the other drawers had joined them there.

Finally Mr Todhunter could keep up the pretence of searching no longer.

“It's gone,” he announced hopelessly. “I can't understand it. It—it must have been stolen.”

“Gone, eh?” said the sergeant. “Well, and I must be going too. Good afternoon, sir.”

“But I had it,” cried Mr Todhunter shrilly. “It's preposterous. I shot the woman. You must arrest me.”

“Yes sir,” said the sergeant with remarkable stolidity. “But I don't think we'll arrest you just yet awhile. In fact, if I were you, sir, I wouldn't think any more about it.”

One minute later Mr Todhunter, watching miserably from a window, saw the sergeant rejoin the driver of the police car. He also saw him touch his forehead significantly and jerk a thumb back towards the house. The sergeant's opinion was only too painfully obvious.

2

Ten minutes after the fiasco Mr Todhunter was ringing up his solicitor.

“The document you left with me?” said the latter, his voice a little surprised at the curtness with which Mr Todhunter cut short his greetings, but dry and efficient as ever. “Yes, of course I remember it. I have it still, yes. . . . You want me to do
what
?”

“I want you to take it round to Scotland Yard this minute,” repeated Mr Todhunter loudly. “This minute, you understand. Ask for some high official—you'll know someone. Explain how the document came into your hands, and the precise date. If necessary take along a clerk to confirm it. Make the chap read it in your presence. Go though it with him if you like. And then please come along here to me.”

“What is all this about, Todhunter?”

“Never mind what it's about,” snapped Mr Todhunter. “Those are your instructions. It's a matter of vital urgency and importance, that's all I can tell you. Will you do it?”

“Very well,” agreed the solicitor imperturbably. “No doubt you know what you're doing. Then I'll be at Richmond as soon as I can. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Mr Todhunter.

He hung up the receiver with relief. Benson was a sound chap. Benson could be relied on. If anyone could drum sense into the heads of those idiots, Benson could.

He sat down to await Benson's arrival.

It was nearly three hours before Benson came, neat and irreproachable in correct black coat and striped trousers. Mr Benson, senior partner in Benson, Whittaker, Doublebed and Benson, was the very model and pattern of a family solicitor.

“Well?” said Mr Todhunter eagerly.

With the privilege of a family solicitor, Mr Benson proceeded to speak his mind. He looked Mr Todhunter up, and he looked Mr Todhunter down, and he spoke.

“You're mad, Todhunter,” said Mr Benson.

“I'm not mad,” shouted Mr Todhunter. “I shot the woman.”

Mr Benson shook his head and sat down without an invitation. “We'd better discuss this matter,” he said, superimposing with some care one creased trouser leg upon the other.

“We certainly had,” agreed Mr Todhunter savagely. “Whom did you see?”

“I saw Chief Constable Buckleigh, whom I happen to know slightly. I'm sorry now that I did. I assure you, if I'd known the contents of your precious document, I would never have gone there with it at all.”

“You wouldn't?” sneered Mr Todhunter. “You think it of no importance to ensure justice being done?”

“On the contrary, I do, my dear fellow. And that's why I'm going to prevent you from doing anything foolish. I understand that you've been at Scotland Yard yourself this afternoon, trying to get yourself arrested. It's a pity you didn't consult me first.”

With a great effort Mr Todhunter held himself under control. “You showed the man my statement?”

“I did, certainly. Those were your instructions.”

“And what did he say?”

“He laughed. He'd heard about your visit already.”

“It didn't convince him?”

“Certainly not.”

“Nor you?”

“My dear Todhunter, you mustn't believe me so simple.”

“What do you mean?”

Mr Benson smiled, a not uncomplacent smile. “You must remember that I drew up your new will before you sailed. I know of your interest in that particular family, I know that you expected to die very shortly, I know your quixotic nature and—”

“My nature isn't quixotic,” interrupted Mr Todhunter loudly and rudely.

Mr Benson shrugged his shoulders.

“Look here,” said Mr Todhunter more temperately, “do you honestly believe I faked the whole thing?”

“I'm quite sure you did,” replied Mr Benson with a little smile. “As to that document, it is of course valueless. I read it carefully. It contains no information that you could not have got out of the newspapers and not a tittle of evidence. You assert that you have the dead woman's bracelet, but you can't produce even that.”

“Never mind the bracelet. That'll turn up. . . . Benson, whatever you may think, I'm speaking the truth. I admit I can't prove it, but I shot that woman.”

Mr Benson slowly shook his head. “I'm sorry, Todhunter. . . .”

“You won't believe me?”

“I know you too well. I wouldn't believe you if you produced almost incontrovertible evidence. You couldn't shoot anyone, let alone a woman. So. . .”

“Well, I'm going to prove it,” said Mr Todhunter violently. “If I don't, that chap Palmer is going on trial for a crime he never committed. I've got to convince the police—and you've got to help me.”

Mr Benson shook his head again. “I'm sorry, I can't act for you in this.” “What do you mean?”

“What I say. I can't act for you. If you mean to go ahead with such a harebrained idea, you must obtain other advice.”

“Very well,” replied Mr Todhunter with dignity. “Then that's all there is to be said.” He rose.

Mr Benson rose too. By the door he paused.

“I'm sorry, Todhunter. . . .”

“I hope you'll be sorrier still if an innocent man is hanged,” said Mr Todhunter grimly.

3

Mr Todhunter sat alone in his library.

The two elderly cousins had gone to bed with much shaking of their frizzed old heads and wonderings whether the voyage had done dear Lawrence much good after all, he seemed so preoccupied and worried; and at last Mr Todhunter had the place to himself. His head looking rather like an ancient and time-stained ostrich egg as it poked forward on his shoulders, he set himself to consider the situation.

Mr Todhunter was, indeed, very much upset. He knew of course what the trouble was. His reading had shown him that after any particularly notorious crime has been committed the police are much bothered by unbalanced persons coming along and trying to confess to it. They had simply mistaken him for one of these lunatics. It was really excessively galling.

From the point of view of young Palmer it was tragic. He was innocent. It was almost inconceivable that he could be convicted. And yet . . . the police must have some kind of evidence, or they would never have arrested him. What could that evidence be?

Mr Todhunter's mind wavered helplessly from the mythical case against young Palmer to the actual case against himself, and his shockingly bad presentation of the latter. Had it been a mistake to pretend jealousy as the motive for the crime? But what else could he pretend? It was, perhaps, not vitally important to keep Farroway out of it, especially since the Farroway connection must now be known to the police; but the real motive was hopeless to put forward. Mr Todhunter knew, for every criminological volume he had read had told him so, that the police had no imagination. He had therefore decided long ago that to tell them the truth about the motive which had actuated him would be useless. They would never understand. They would never believe that a man would commit an absolutely academic, altruistic murder on behalf of a man and his family whom he scarcely knew at all. There was no getting away from it; put like that, the thing sounded fantastic. And yet it had not seemed at all fantastic in its gradual development.

But the jealousy theme . . . Mr Todhunter could not disguise from himself that he had not played the part well. He did not look like a passionately jealous lover. He did not even know what a passionately jealous lover feels like. Passionate jealousy seemed to Mr Todhunter just silly. No, the choice had not been a good one.

But what, in any case, was he to do now?

Mr. Todhunter felt a sudden spasm of alarm. Suppose his aneurism burst before he had persuaded the police that Palmer was innocent? Suppose Palmer was incredibly convicted . . . hanged horribly for a crime that he had never committed or dreamed of committing! The supposition was too dreadful. At all costs Mr Todhunter must keep himself alive until the truth was established. And to keep himself alive, he must not worry. But how the blazes was he to keep from worrying?

He had a sudden inspiration. A trouble shared was a trouble halved. He would take a lay confidant since Benson had proved useless—enlist a helper. Whom? Instantly Mr Todhunter knew the only person. Furze! He would see Furze tomorrow and put the whole thing before him. Furze had influence too. Furze would settle the whole ridiculous hash.

Much comforted, Mr Todhunter crept up the stairs to bed, pausing on each one to keep himself alive on behalf of young Mr Palmer.

4

“And you say you really shot this woman?”

“I did,” averred Mr Todhunter solemnly.

Furze scratched his chin. “The devil you did! You know, I never for a moment dreamed you were serious.”

“Of course not. It—um—sounded preposterous, no doubt. In fact,” admitted Mr Todhunter, “I'm not sure that I really was serious then. The trouble was, I familiarised myself with the idea of committing murder. So when exactly the right case came along, I suppose I was already more than halfway over the stile.”

“Interesting,” nodded Furze, “There's no doubt that planning a murder is being halfway towards committing it. Perhaps that's why most of us stop short on the right side of the stile: we have the will, but we can't bother to work out the way. Still, about your case I don't know what's to be done.”

“Something
must
be done,” pronounced Mr Todhunter positively. “That fool of a solicitor of mine—”

The two were sitting in Furze's little office in Queen Anne's Gate. Mr Todhunter had been waiting in the anteroom when Furze arrived at ten o'clock.

“I'm afraid I'm interrupting your work,” Mr Todhunter apologised now. “But the matter really is urgent, you know.”

“I see it is. Deuced urgent. But what do you want me to do?”

“I thought perhaps you might be able to persuade the police . . .”

Furze looked thoughtful. “That's not so easy. The only thing that will persuade them is evidence. And that's just what you haven't got. I'll have a word with MacGregor. He's one of the assistant commissioners—belongs to my club. He might be useful. But otherwise . . . well, if we had that bracelet, we might be able to do something.”

“I simply can't imagine what I can have done with that,” admitted Mr Todhunter ruefully. “I could have taken my oath I'd put it in that drawer with the revolver.”

“Well, you'd better concentrate your energies on finding that first of all. And it wouldn't be a bad thing to try to get some connected set of proofs for your story of what you did that night. It's plain that the police don't believe a single word of it. If you could manage to prove without question that you were in the Norwood woman's garden at all that evening, that would be a big point. Look here, why don't you call on Chitterwick?”

“Chitterwick?” repeated Mr Todhunter vaguely.

“Yes, he's done some good work in this line. Murder, you know.”

“Murder? Oh, you mean finding the guilty person. Yes, of course. Yes indeed, I believe I remember seeing something about it. Dear me, yes, of course, I consulted him on the matter myself. My memory's becoming quite shocking.”

“Well, you ring up Chitterwick and see if you can get him on the trail, and I'll sound Scotland Yard through MacGregor. I don't see what more we can do at the moment, but I'm sure something will come of it. I'm assuming, of course, that you're not suffering from a delusion of any kind. You really did shoot the woman?”

“There wasn't much delusion about it,” returned Mr Todhunter with a little shiver, remembering that inert form and the red stain on that splendid white gown.

“Yes, well, knowing what I do, your story sounds more convincing to me than it probably did to the police and your solicitor,” said Furze with his habitual candour. “And of course, if the worst comes to the worst, I can testify that you were meditating murder three months ago. And so can Chitterwick, to a certain extent.”

“You don't think,” asked Mr Todhunter anxiously, “that the worst will come to the worst?”

“You mean, that they'll hang this chap Palmer? No,” said Furze cheerfully, “I don't think so for a moment. With the doubt that your story will throw on the case against him I should say that an acquittal ought to be fairly certain.”