15: Cowper makes a Statement

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INSPECTOR Bigswell was immensely puzzled. At every step the case was becoming infinitely more complicated. He was forced to confess to himself that for all his tireless investigation, he was little nearer the truth of Tregarthan’s death than he had been when he first stepped into the Greylings sitting-room and found the man lying with his head in a spreading pool of blood. Two recent factors had entered in and upset the theory which he had expounded to the Superintendent---the theft of the notes, with the possibility that Cowper was the murderer, and the discovery of Hardy’s revolver in the ditch. And now, after the Coroner’s inquest, a third snag confronted him.

Had Mrs. Mullion really been mistaken about that revolver? That’s what puzzled him. She had been so emphatic as to the absolute veracity of her evidence when she had first delivered it at the Constable’s office. She had made an equally emphatic statement at the inquest. It was quite obvious that the midwife really believed that Ruth Tregarthan had a revolver in her hand---and that, before she knew Tregarthan had been murdered. On the other hand, the girl was equally emphatic in her statement that it was not a revolver, but a pocket-torch.

Ruth Tregarthan’s explanation was both simple and feasible. She had set out along the cliff at the height of the storm---what more natural than for her to be armed with an electric torch? The further fact that she had stopped, looked at the torch, turned it over in her hand, had also been satisfactorily accounted for. Which statement, therefore, was he to accept? As the Coroner had rightly said, it was a case of the midwife’s word against the girl’s. In the Coroner’s case, he had justly decided against the acceptance of Mrs. Mullion’s story, since the light was none too good and the woman was standing some little way off. But was he, the Inspector, justified in dismissing the woman’s story without further thought? Surely not.

The girl’s explanation of her escapade on Monday night was thin, extremely thin. He could not get away from the idea that her stealthy exit from the house that evening was connected with the revolver which she had picked up on the cliff-path. Of one thing he felt reasonably certain---the revolver which Tom Prattle had found in the ditch was not the weapon discharged by the murderer. A further minute examination of the Webley had revealed the fact that the inside of the barrel, although thinly speckled with rust, had not been fouled by a recent discharge. Why then had Hardy taken the revolver from its holster on the night of the murder and later, for no apparent reason, thrown it into the road-side ditch?

Was it possible that not one man, but two unconnected persons, each with an entirely different motive, had decided by some strange freak of chance to murder Tregarthan on the same night? And that one of them, Hardy, had failed, whilst the other had succeeded. And was the successful one Cowper? Cowper was a constantly recurring image in his mind. Guilt had been written all over the man’s features at the inquest, but whether on account of the theft, the murder, or the theft and the murder combined, it was impossible to say. He decided, however, before returning to Greystoke to make further enquiries at Greylings.

When he arrived at the house, the Cowpers had just returned and Cowper, himself, was seated before the kitchen range removing his boots. Any doubts as to the identity of the broken foot-marks on the polished stool in the pantry no longer remained. The heel of the boot which Cowper was in the act of removing was studded with a horse-shoe of projecting nails.

“That’s a good sensible pair of boots,” Bigswell remarked casually. “Comfortable, too, by the look of them.”

Cowper eyed the Inspector with unconcealed suspicion. Mrs. Cowper, however, was in a more amiable and talkative mood. Although nervous, she had been flattered by the publicity afforded her at the recent inquest.

“Oh, they’re comfortable all right,” she assured the Inspector. “But I wish he wouldn’t wear the great, clumping things in the house. Laziness, that’s what’s the matter with him. Why only on Monday night, sir, just before----”

“A chap can’t change ’is boots when ’e’s always popping in and out of the place,” cut in Cowper surlily. “I’m neither fish, fowl nor good red ’erring here. Odd-job man! That’s what it amounts to. A ’ibrid---’alf gardener, ’alf butler. It’s sickening.”

“What happened on Monday night, Mrs. Cowper?” asked the Inspector, ignoring her husband’s lament.

“Only that he clumped all over my nice clean kitchen in those very boots.”

“And your nice clean sitting-room carpet as well, eh? By the way, Cowper, you were wearing those boots in the butler’s pantry, weren’t you?”

“Well---what of it?” asked Cowper, immediately on the defensive.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the Inspector lightly. “Only I still can’t see why you climbed on to the stool when you could easily have opened the pantry window from the ground. That’s all.”

The result of this shot in the dark far exceeded, in the violence of its effect, the Inspector’s most sanguine anticipations. Cowper, livid with anger, sprang to his feet and hurling his boot into the fender, swung round on Bigswell.

“What d’you mean by that, eh? What the ’ell are you after with me? You’ve done nothing but peer and pry into my doings ever since Monday night. What have you got on me? What if I did open the window? What if I did climb on to that stool? You can’t prove nothing by that! If it’s the money that’s biting you----”

“The money!” exclaimed the Inspector.

“I said the money, didn’t I? The money what was stolen from Mr. Tregarthan’s wallet. Don’t make out it’s news to you.”

“It isn’t,” said the Inspector in an icy voice. “But it’s news to me that you knew anything about it. Surprising news! Who told you, eh? Come on---out with it! Where the devil did you get your information?”

For a moment Cowper stood with a stupefied look on his face, swaying on his stockinged feet, absolutely dumbfounded. His mouth hung open. His eyes were fixed in a fascinated stare on the Inspector’s grim features. Then suddenly he crumpled up and collapsed in his chair.

“I . . . I was----”

“Well?”

“It was Miss Tregarthan what told me,” announced Cowper in a hoarse voice. Adding weakly: “Over the phone.”

The Inspector smiled at the man’s futile attempts to wriggle out of the predicament in which his own stupidity had placed him. He knew now that Cowper had stolen the notes.

“Well, that’s easily verified,” said the Inspector in brisk tones. He turned to Constable Fenner who stood in the doorway. “Get on to the Vicarage for me, will you, Fenner, and ask Miss Tregarthan if she will spare me a moment.”

As the Constable turned to execute the order, a low groan broke from the man cowering before the fire. He buried his twitching face in his hands.

“All right,” he whimpered. “All right.”

With a wave of his hand the Inspector arrested Fenner’s exit.

“Going to make a clean breast of it, Cowper?” he asked quietly. “Better in the long run, I assure you.”

“What do you mean?” cried Mrs. Cowper, who now stood completely flummoxed by this sudden turn of events. “You’re not trying to make out that Cowper has been stealing, Inspector? From Mr. Tregarthan? And him . . . dead!”

“That’s exactly what I am trying to make out. I’m sorry. It’s a shock for you---but facts are facts. Well, Cowper?”

Cowper scrambled, white-faced and shaky, to his feet.

“I’ve had a bad run of luck these last two months. ’Orses don’t seem to----”

The Inspector cut in quickly.

“You can leave that now, Cowper. I must warn you, however, that anything you may say now will be taken down in writing and used in evidence. I’ll take an official statement over at Greystoke.” He motioned Fenner to take the man in charge. “You’re under arrest, Cowper---understand? Take him out to the car, Constable.”

When the sorry-faced man had lurched silently out of the kitchen, the Inspector turned to the housekeeper.

“I’m sorry for you, Mrs. Cowper, but duty’s duty. I’ll inform Miss Tregarthan about all this. She may want to make some new arrangement about looking after the house. You can’t very well remain here by yourself.”

Mrs. Cowper, on the verge of tears, nodded dumbly. She tried to speak but the words were choked by her rising emotions. Laying a kindly hand on her arm the Inspector murmured something about “I understand” and went out to the car.

Later, over at headquarters, Cowper was led before the Superintendent and formally charged with the theft of the notes. A statement, which ran as follows, was then taken.

“On Monday night, March 23rd, I was washing up the dinner things in the pantry. My wife was upstairs seeing to the soiled linen. Just after nine I realised I hadn’t taken in the trudge of logs to Mr. Tregarthan. I got them from the kitchen and took them into the sitting-room. I found the master lying on the floor near the window. His head was in a pool of blood. I put down the trudge and took a look at him. I saw the bullet hole in his forehead and knew he was dead. There was a wallet sticking out of his inside breast-pocket. I could see a thickish wad of notes in the wallet. I was going to raise the alarm. Then my betting losses came into my mind. I thought I could see a chance of squaring my book-maker, who was pressing me for past debts. I took the wallet out of the master’s pocket, using a handkerchief. I put the notes in my own pocket and stuck the wallet back in his. I noticed the trudge in the middle of the room where I’d left it. I put it by the fire-place, made a note of the time and went out of the room. I returned to the butler’s pantry. Nobody had seen me, my wife still being upstairs and Miss Tregarthan out. I realised I’d got to get rid of the notes before the police came and made enquiries about the murder. I thought they’d connect the theft with the murder. After a bit of thinking, I remembered that one of the stones in the garden wall was loose. I opened the pantry window, got up onto the stool and climbed onto the wall. It was raining. I didn’t want to leave any footmarks. I took out the stone and hid the notes behind it. I then returned to the pantry and closed the window. Later, when Miss Tregarthan found the master dead, I rushed out of the pantry and pretended I knew nothing of the murder.”

When this statement had been taken, the Inspector, after a short conversation with the Superintendent, asked a few questions on his own account. He was not yet absolutely sure in his mind that Cowper was beyond suspicion with regard to the major crime. His story, of course, fitted in very accurately with the facts already known to the Inspector, but there were one or two points that he still wanted to clear up.

“With regard to the time, Cowper---you say you remembered about the logs just after nine o’clock. What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well, just afore I came out of the sitting-room I took note of the time by the clock on the mantelshelf. It was then just on ten minutes past nine---so I must ’ave remembered those logs a bit before.”

“You didn’t move the body at all when you removed the notes?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor move anything in the room?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t see anything unusual outside the uncurtained windows?” Cowper shook his head. “Had you been on the drive at all that evening?”

“Yes---I ’ad.”

“Why?”

“To change the porch lamp. Just afore my missus went in to clear the dinner-table she noticed that the lamp outside the front door ’ad gone out. So I slipped out there and then and attended to the job.”

This, as the Inspector realised, was obviously the truth. Cowper, in giving his explanation, must have realised that it would be easy to verify the truth of his assertion by questioning the housekeeper. Well and good. This accounted, then, for the gravel which had collected between the nails of his boots and which, later, the Inspector had found deposited on the oak stool.

“Ex-service man, Cowper?”

“Yes, sir,” acknowledged Cowper with a pale grin. “Lance-Corporal in the----”

“Ever handled a revolver?” cut in the Inspector quickly.

“Never, sir.”

“Never owned one, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

Inspector Bigswell turned to the Superintendent.

“That’s all, sir. Thank you.”

The Superintendent motioned to the Constable standing in the doorway and Cowper was led away to the cells, there to await his appearance before the local magistrates. It was pretty well certain, however, that his case would come up, eventually, at the quarterly sessions. Particularly as the theft bore some connection with Tregarthan’s murder.

As soon as they were alone, the Superintendent turned to Bigswell, who was seated on the far side of the desk drumming his fingers on his open notebook.

“Well---what d’you make of it, Bigswell?”

“A blind-alley business,” replied the Inspector with a dismal grin. “Waste of valuable time, I’m afraid. The man’s telling the truth. You agree, Sir?”

The Superintendent did.

“A petty criminal type---not the major article,” was his pertinent verdict. “Still it was snappy work, Bigswell. I’ll see that the Chief gets an ungarbled account of your smartness.”

“For those kind words . . . many thanks!”

The two men laughed.

“No news of Hardy, I suppose?” asked the Inspector, obviously expecting a negative answer.

“None. The Yard are engaged in the usual routine comb-out of all the likely places---but so far without result.”

The Inspector sighed, and shutting his note-book got slowly to his feet.

“A trifle depressed, eh, Bigswell?”

“Well, sir, things aren’t turning out any too well. Until I can get hold of Hardy and put him through a bit of third degree I’m, more or less, at a standstill.”

He explained briefly the results of the day’s investigations---the collapse of Mrs. Mullion’s evidence and the discovery of the initialled revolver.

“So you can see what I’m up against, sir. With Cowper and that poacher fellow struck off the list, I’m left with Ronald Hardy. But since Hardy’s revolver has been found in the ditch, fully loaded and with the barrel unfouled, I’m damned if I quite see how he enters into the business now!”

“You don’t think it was a plant?”

“The revolver, sir? But why?”

“Misleading clue. He might have initialled the revolver specially for the occasion, removed the spent cartridges after the murder, reloaded it and cleaned the barrel.”

“Umph! Seems a trifle unlikely somehow. There may be something in it, but I’m still inclined to believe that the Tregarthan girl did have a revolver in her hand when Mrs. Mullion saw her.”

“And perjured herself at the inquest?”

“Exactly.”

“But why?”

“Because she wanted to shield Hardy.”

“Then he must have had two revolvers.”

“That’s just the conclusion I’ve come to, sir. With one revolver he commits the murder. The second, the initialled one, he previously drops in the ditch, perhaps realising that it would be found by Tom Prattle.”

“It certainly seems the only explanation,” agreed the Superintendent without much enthusiasm. “By the way---anybody on duty at Greylings to-night? I see Fenner came back with you.”

“Yes---the local Constable. I saw him before coming over. I’ve also let Miss Tregarthan know about Cowper. The housekeeper is moving up to the Vicarage this evening, which leaves Grouch in sole charge of Greylings.”

“Then you’ll get in touch with him and corroborate Cowper’s statement about the hiding-place of those notes.”

“I was going to, sir.”

“Good.”

“Nothing more, is there, sir?”

“Nothing.”

“Right, sir---then I think I’ll get home and run over my notes. I may have missed something. You never know.”

“In my opinion,” said the Superintendent slowly, “an armchair review of a case is often far more profitable than any number of enquiries and cross-examinations. You get a better perspective. More wood. Fewer trees. You agree, Bigswell? Good night!”