Chapter Eighteen

IT was late. The yellow Bentley---dispatched as a gesture of official recognition in response to a brief announcement of success---waited at the gates. Appleby, already overcoated, Dodd, still faintly bewildered, and Gott, largely appreciative, were consuming liqueur brandy from enormous rummers in the latter’s rooms. And Appleby was summing up.

“Umpleby was murdered pat upon the changing of the Orchard Ground keys---in other words under conditions which made access to him possible only to a small group of people. There were various possible explanations of that obtrusive point. One was that the conditions of access were not as they seemed: that the murderer had some hidden means of access and was utilizing the surface conditions to mislead. Another was that he had arranged things as he did for fun: that he was one of the group indicated by the conditions and was giving us a fair start that way. And yet another was that he was one member of the group wishing to plant the crime on another member and taking a first step by limiting the possible suspects to the group. And the theory of planted murder proved of course to be the key to the case. Everything that turned up fell in with it---only far too much turned up.

“First came the strong suggestions of a plant against Haveland. And soon I came to couple with that idea the name of Pownall. Pownall was concerned to point at Haveland: he had pointed at Haveland during a scene which subsequently turned out to have made manifest the pattern of the whole affair; and he pointed at Haveland later when putting up a story to explain his own strange conduct. It seemed reasonable to suspect that in that story Pownall was ingeniously turning the facts upside down. According to his version, Haveland had murdered Umpleby and attempted to plant the murder on him, only setting his own signature to it with the bones in a fit of craziness after his plan had been foiled. In reality (I conjectured), Pownall had murdered Umpleby and planted the crime on Haveland. When it became apparent that both the time and place of the murder had been fudged I was able to see a likely motive for both deceptions. By fudging the time Pownall was making sure of Haveland’s having no alibi; by fudging the place he was contriving a particularly striking fulfilment of the rash wish that Haveland had once expressed.

“I allowed this more or less simple case against Pownall a long run. But it didn’t seem good enough. For one thing the revolver had significantly given itself the trouble to turn up and I had been prepared to find it faked in some way to represent another link in the chain against Haveland. On the contrary it had Pownall’s prints; if Pownall had shot Umpleby with it he seemed to have been almost unbelievably careless. Again, I had a very distinct impression about the interview I had had with Pownall---the impression that his story had been a complicated mixture of truth and falsehood. This complication, and much else that I felt as having a place in the case, my theory so far failed to cover.

“I was, for instance, convinced that in some way or another both Titlow and Empson came in. With both these I had had what I felt were significant interviews. Titlow, an erratic person it appeared at all times, was strung up to believe some specific person guilty. He had it all curiously involved with a philosophy of history---was obviously in a state of unwonted intellectual confusion---but it came down to this: if there was anything incredible about the idea of X having murdered Umpleby then he, Titlow, had some duty before him. . . . And then he gave me the strange reference to Kant: I was to turn upside down the contention that the duty of truthfulness overrides the duty to protect society from murder.

“There was something here which any theory of the crime must elucidate and incorporate. And that consideration held also of the results of my interview with Empson. Empson too had an X in his mind; was shocked that, contrary to the expectations of science and experience, X should have murdered Umpleby---that, at least, was what I read into his attitude. And his X was, of course, not Haveland; there was something like passion in his assertion of Haveland’s innocence. And there were two other points. When the possibility came up that the shot heard from the study might have been faked he was anxious to know if any trace of a contrivance for effecting such a fake had been discovered: he was inquiring, in fact, for what would be evidence against Titlow. The last point was his hesitation over the telephone call. That was enigmatical until the revolver was revealed as bearing Empson’s prints as well as
Pownall’s. That revelation brought, of course, the suggestion of a plant against Empson and a faked telephone call fell into place as another attempted piece of evidence against him. Why had Empson almost denied making that call, when he knew the porter would seem to expose such a denial? And the answer came: because he knew such a call had been planted on him and he had been on the verge of taking the line of saying so. . . . At the same time I saw how Empson’s finger-prints at least might have been got on the revolver. I remembered that the revolver had tried to tell me something, so to speak, the moment I saw it. It was a slight little weapon with a slim curved ivory handle---uncommonly like the handle of Empson’s stick. I could imagine it tied to some actual stick and thrust into Empson’s hand for a moment in one of those dark lobbies before being withdrawn with an apology for the mistake. The result, almost certainly, would be the slightest and most imperfect of prints---more imperfect even than the prints cautiously got by Titlow from the sleeping Pownall. But very poor prints---the impress of quite a dry finger on an indifferent surface---can be made susceptible of identification nowadays. Here we had an instance of a technical advance in criminology being exploited not once but twice in the same case. Which is as good as a word of warning, perhaps, in the field of ‘scientific’ detection.

“Then came the twisted wire found by Kellett thrust down a drain. You might have guessed that, Dodd. It was the crumpled cousin to the wire contraption you had seen me make to protect possible finger-prints on the revolver! Enclosed in a little cage like that, the revolver could be handled and fired readily enough without obliterating or marring previous prints.

“By that time there was a most embarrassing wealth of clues of the possibly or probably planted sort. Against Haveland: the bones. Against Empson: finger-prints and a faked telephone call. Against Pownall (accepting some truth in his story): the bloodstains, the diary pages and---again---finger-prints. Against Titlow alone of the Little Fellows’ group there seemed to be nothing planted. So I tried him out for a bit as sole villain. I toyed with the idea of his trying to incriminate all three of his Little Fellows’ colleagues. Then, taking it another way, I tried to see him concerned to establish his own alibi. I brought in Edwards’s suggestion of the fireworks and my own observations of the candle-grease on the bookcase there. But I didn’t much like it and presently---I suppose for the sake of schematic completeness---I began to explore the possibility of the candle-grease being the sole remaining evidence of a plant against Titlow. I got as far, in fact, as seeing the possibilities of the planted faked shot as an instrument for incriminating him. But there I knew I was on very speculative ground.

“What I had got was the four Little Fellows’ men involved in some queer chain of events. I began to search for a direction to it. A minute ago I said that, quite early on, Pownall had pointed at Haveland. That was in the common-room on my first night. But more had happened on that occasion. It would not be too much to say that the air had been heavy with insinuation. And an analysis of what had been said or hinted produced this: Pownall had pointed at Haveland, Haveland had pointed at Empson, Empson had pointed at Titlow, and Titlow had pointed at Pownall. Nothing could well be more schematic than that: it gave what was certainly a chain, and it gave a direction in which the chain went. Could I find any start to it all? Was there any correspondence between the way the pointing went and anything known or suspected as to the direction of the planted clues? I could get at only one correspondence: Haveland’s insinuations were against Empson---and I had some reason to regard Haveland both as the likely imitator of Empson’s voice (he had a talent for it) and as the person who had planted Empson’s prints on the revolver (he had been concerned to know if the revolver had been found).

“So I made another tentative start there. Haveland killed Umpleby and attempted to lay the blame on Empson. That turned out to be correct. But I went on from it to another guess which turned out to be wrong. Titlow had suspected Haveland’s guilt and had arranged the bones as a means of bringing the crime home to him---and he was now very properly worried over the morality of such a procedure and was anxious as to the certainty of his belief. But presently I had to discard that---for Titlow’s insinuations had been directed against not Haveland but Pownall. . . .

“But what I was not immediately prepared to abandon---having got so far---was Haveland’s guilt. For, paradoxically enough, the notion of somebody’s faking a case against Haveland now removed the chief obstacle to seeing Haveland as really guilty. A case faked against Haveland was really protecting him---because it was unconvincingly faked: Haveland, as Empson knew, was not the man to sign his deed in the way suggested.

“And Haveland had always been the likely murderer. In searching for a murderer amid any group of people every detective knows the importance of a history of mental unbalance. In real life murderers are not, on the whole, found among the chief constables and Cabinet Ministers: they are found among the less normal portion of humanity. Anyone may behave more or less fantastically in the face of murder, but the commission of murder is---well---specialist’s work. Deighton-Clerk, I believe, had recognized Haveland as the murderer and had instantly blanketed the fact in his own mind in a manner---as Empson would say---full of scientific interest. The first spontaneous remark Deighton-Clerk made to me showed the subconscious run of his thought. Between Umpleby and Haveland there had been detestation. . . .

“At that point I had pretty well shot my bolt. By following up the chain: Haveland---Empson---Titlow---Pownall---Haveland, I might get things a little clearer in my own mind; might even arrive at a position from which I could begin to extract a little unvarnished truth from people. But of one thing I was almost convinced. I should never see either Haveland or anybody else in the dock. Whatever these four people had been up to they had between them produced a mass of complications which no defending counsel could muff.”

Appleby rose and set down his rummer. “Titlow’s story I was half counting on, but my anonymous observer in Orchard Ground was the simple bit of luck that enabled me to dictate explanations after all. And Haveland’s choosing the way out he did has been a crowning blessing all round. It cuts down the scandal here; and if it deprives Treasury Counsel of considerable fees it spares a harassed policeman a good many sleepless nights.”

Appleby clapped Dodd on the shoulder and moved towards the door. Then he turned and smiled at Gott. “We shall meet again, I hope. And meantime I have a parting present for you.”

“What's that?”

“A title for the book you may never be able to write: Seven Suspects.”

THE END

NOTE:

THE SENIOR MEMBERS of Oxford and Cambridge colleges are undoubtedly among the most moral and level-headed of men. They do nothing aberrant; they do nothing rashly or in haste. Their conventional associations are with learning, unworldliness, absence of mind, and endearing and always innocent foible. They are, as Ben Jonson would have said, persons such as comedy would choose; it is much easier to give them a shove into the humorous than a twist into the melodramatic; they prove peculiarly resistive to the slightly rummy psychology that most detective-stories require. And this is a pity if only because their habitat---the material structure in which they talk, eat and sleep---offers such a capital frame for the quiddities and wilie-beguilies of the craft.

Fortunately, there is one spot of English ground on which these reasonable and virtuous men go sadly to pieces---on which they exhibit all those symptoms of irritability, impatience, passion and uncharitableness which make smooth the path of the novelist. It is notorious that when your Oxford or Cambridge man goes not “up” nor “down” but “across”---when he goes, in fact, from Oxford to Cambridge or from Cambridge to Oxford---he must traverse a region strangely antipathetic to the true academic calm. This region is situated, by a mysterious dispensation, almost half-way between the two ancient seats of learning---hard by the otherwise blameless environs of Bletchley. The more facile type of scientific mind, accustomed to canvass immediately obvious physical circumstances, has formerly pointed by way of explanation of this fact to certain deficiencies in the economy of Bletchley Junction. One had to wait there so long (in effect the argument ran) and with so little of solid material comfort---that who wouldn’t be a bit upset?

But all that is of the past; when I last sped through the Junction it seemed a little paradise; and, anyway, my literary temper is for more metaphysical explanations. I prefer to think that midway between the strong polarities of Athens and Thebes the ether is troubled; the air, to a scholar, nothing more sweet and nimble. And I have fancied that if those Oxford clerks who centuries ago attempted a secession had gone to Bletchley there might have arisen the university---or at least the college---I wanted for this story. . . . Anyone who takes down a map when reading Chapter X will see that I have acted on my fancy. St. Anthony’s, a fictitious college, is part too of a fictitious university. And its Fellows are fantasy all---without substance and without (forbearing Literary reader!) any mantle of imaginative truth to cover their nakedness. Here are ghosts; here is a purely speculative scene of things.