The Mystery At Lover's Cave

“Of course,” said Roger, disposing of a large mouthful of veal-and-ham pie, “of course when I say murderer, I may be exaggerating a trifle.”

“You haven’t told me yet who he is, sir,” said the inspector patiently. It was the seventh time he had said something like this, and his curiosity was still ungratified.

“Perhaps it would be safer to say, for the present, that it’s the thumb-print of a man who knows how Mrs. Vane met her death,” went on Roger, who was taking a malicious joy in deliberately thwarting his professional rival’s inquisitiveness. “Anyhow, there it is.”

“Did you say it was a man in the village?” asked the inspector innocently.

“He that searches diligently shall find,” Roger replied irrelevantly, “and he that is on the right tack shall make all the thrilling discoveries. Likewise, to him that hath shall be given; so give me some more of this excellent pie, Anthony.—No, a slice just about twice as big as the one you’re meditating.”

“Who is this man, Mr. Sheringham, sir?” demanded the inspector in desperation.

Roger gazed at him blandly. “Inspector, I’m not going to tell you! You may arrest me for obstructing the police in the dereliction of their duty, for arson, fraud, petty treason, or anything you darned well like, but I’m not going to tell you. You insinuated yourself, as I now realise, into my confidence this morning and very neatly picked my brains, without giving anything in return. All along I’ve been making you free presents of my discoveries, and got practically nothing in exchange for them. This time I’m hanging on.”

The inspector refilled his tankard and applied himself to it with gusto. He set it down and wiped his moustache. “Serious business, sir,” he observed, apparently unmoved.

“Obstructing the police?” Roger agreed heartily. “Yes, jolly serious, isn’t it? But awfully interesting. I’ve never obstructed one before. I rather like it.”

The inspector laughed. “You’ve got something up your sleeve, sir, I know. What do you want me to do?”

“Send that thumb-print up to headquarters and see if they can tell you anything about its owner,” Roger said promptly. “Seriously, there may be nothing in this at all, but there may be rather a lot. I’ve got my own ideas, but I want to verify them before I tell you anything definite. That’s all.”

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t highly irregular, sir; it is. By rights you ought to tell me just what you’ve discovered and let me be the judge of whether it’s worth following up or not. Still, knowing you,” the inspector concluded handsomely, “I’ll take the risk.”

“That’s right,” Roger approved. “And I promise to tell you the whole story as soon as you’ve got the report, even if it’s a negative one. By the way, if you jump to it you’ve just got time to get it into the post to-night.”

“That’s true,” conceded the inspector, casting a reluctant eye on his tankard. He rose to his feet. “You won’t be gone when I come back?”

“No, I shall be here, even though I can’t say the same for my cousin. That little two-seater I saw outside wouldn’t have anything to do with you, Anthony, of course?”

Anthony coloured slightly. “Well,” he began, “I⸺”

“Enough!” Roger interrupted kindly. “You haven’t taken it back yet, therefore you’re proposing to use it again. Well, the country looks very charming by moonlight, I’m told. Bon voyage!— Oh, Inspector!”

Inspector Moresby paused, his hand on the door-knob. “Yes, sir?”

“Did you find anything out about that shoe, by the way?”

Inspector Moresby continued to pause. “Do you expect me to tell you that, Mr. Sheringham, when you’re withholding your own information?”

“A promise,” said Roger smugly, “is a promise, Inspector.”

“Well, and I can’t say it wasn’t made in return for services rendered. Very well, sir, I’ll return good for evil. I traced that pair of shoes (we found the other one all right, I should say).”

“Traced it, did you?” said Roger with interest. “Do you mean, found out whom it belonged to?”

“Just that. The inner soles, with the name of the maker, had been torn out, but it wasn’t a difficult job. The servant-girl recognised ’em at once, and the mistress admitted to ’em without hesitation.”

“Stop this cat-and-mouse act!” Roger implored. “Whose were they?”

The inspector gazed at him stolidly for a moment, enjoying his impatience. “Mrs. Russell’s, sir,” he said, and withdrew.

As the door closed Roger emitted a long whistle of astonishment. “Mrs. Russell’s! Good Lord, that’s an unexpected development. How on earth—? What do you make of that, Anthony?”

“Goodness knows,” said Anthony frankly.

Roger mused, helping himself abstractedly to gooseberry-pie and cream. “Well, I suppose it’ll fit in all right. I shall have to think that over.”

“Are you going to keep me in the dark too about the bird with the thumb-print?” Anthony asked.

“You?” Roger recalled himself from his meditations. “Oh, no. I’ve got to tell somebody or bust. Anthony, I’ve had a heartrending day. Man, woman and child, I’ve been cross-questioning them all till my throat, hardened as you might think it, nearly collapsed under the strain; and not a helpful word could I elicit. And then at the very last gasp, quite literally, a little child led me toward the light. I found an urchin who’d actually been on the spot and seen just what I wanted him to have seen.”

“Good egg!” quoth Anthony.

“I had a job to charm his information out of him, as his business on the cliffs (I never did discover what it was) seems to have been of an illicit nature; however, fearful oaths of secrecy and a couple of half-crowns did the trick. He was close to the top of the nearer flight of steps at half-past three that afternoon, apparently in hiding, and saw a man go down them and walk along the ledge. He is even prepared to swear, Anthony, that the man had a paper in his hand which didn’t seem to be folded quite like a newspaper and might well have been a copy of London Opinion.”

“Coo!” said Anthony. “And were you able to make out who the cove was?”

“There was no need to do that. The urchin very kindly supplied that information himself. Anthony, my lad, who do you think it was? Just about the very last person you’d expect.”

“Who?”

Roger regarded his companion with triumphant eyes. “That blighted little parson, with a face like a goat—the Rev. Samuel Blinking Meadows!”

“What!”

“Yes, that’s a bit of a facer, isn’t it? So off I made in a bee-line for Samuel. He’d pressed me to drop in whenever I got the chance, so there was no difficulty about that. I dropped. He was delighted to see me—oh, delighted! And I was delighted to see him. We were both delighted. We almost wept on one another’s necks with delight. It was a touching scene. He wanted to discuss the murder, but I didn’t. I wanted to discuss something quite different. Theology, Anthony.”

“Ah!” said Anthony.

“Quite so. I discussed theology. He didn’t. He didn’t even know the name of Moses’s father-in-law, Anthony. Shocking ignorance for a clergyman, wasn’t it? Of course I didn’t let him see how shockingly ignorant I thought him. I was a model of tact. I told him that Omar Khayyám was my favourite among the minor prophets, and he never turned a hair. I remarked that if Queen Elizabeth hadn’t written the Athanasian Creed, Cardinal Manning would never have condemned Joan of Arc to a diet of worms, and he batted no eyelash. Oh, we did enjoy ourselves.”

“What you’re getting at, I suppose,” observed Anthony acutely, “is that the chap isn’t a parson at all.”

“Anthony, you read my thoughts. No, the chap isn’t a parson at all.”

“Good!” said Anthony.

“So all I had to do then was to get his finger-print in the orthodox manner, and come swiftly away. So that’s that.”

“How did you manage the finger-print?”

“Oh, that was simple enough. He was reading a newspaper when I was shown in. I professed to find something extremely interesting on the page he had been perusing, and he readily gave me permission to tear it off and take it away. To hold a newspaper it is of course necessary to grip the edge quite firmly. For a clergyman, Mr. Meadows evidently doesn’t wash his hands as often as he might. It has also been a hot day. Nicely planted in the margin was the perfect impression of a somewhat greasy thumb. Thank you, Mr. Meadows.”

“Very cunning,” Anthony approved.

“I rather thought that, too,” Roger admitted.

“And you’re not going to say anything about it to the inspector?”

“For the time being, no. I like having Moresby on toast for a change, I must say, but also I don’t want to commit myself. If anybody’s going to solve this pretty little mystery, I want it to be Roger Sheringham; so I’m not giving any information away unnecessarily. Of course it may turn out that this chap had nothing to do with it, but candidly, I don’t see how that can possibly be the case.”

“And you think they’ll know about him at Scotland Yard?”

“It seems a reasonable inference. People don’t go about masquerading as clergymen just as an interesting concomitant of their summer holiday. He may never have been in the hands of the police at all, but there’s always the hope.”

“It’ll make a better case against him if he has.”