The Mystery At Lover's Cave

The next day was a Sunday, and Roger made it a day of rest. He did not welcome inactivity, but pending the arrival of Scotland Yard’s report on the thumb-print he did not quite see what there was to do. During the morning he lay on the little grassy ledge and lazily discussed the case and life in general with Margaret and Anthony; during the afternoon he lay there alone, with a book, while Margaret and Anthony discussed other aspects of life somewhere else by themselves. The inspector appeared to be busy on some trail of his own, and was not in evidence.

In the evening Roger and Anthony both went to supper at Dr. Vane’s. It appeared that the doctor had taken a liking to Roger, and the invitation had come from him. He even went so far as to close the laboratory altogether from six o’clock onward, which Roger rightly interpreted as a compliment of the first magnitude. They passed a pleasant if quiet evening, and no reference was made by anybody to Mrs. Vane, her death or the resulting investigations. “In fact,” as Roger confided later to Anthony during their walk home, “if one hadn’t been told it was a house of mourning, one would never have guessed for an instant that the mistress of it died violently less than a week ago.”

Roger found himself returning Dr. Vane’s liking almost with interest. The big, burly man was so genuine, so sincere, and (as Roger felt) so transparently honest. His predilections he did not attempt to disguise, and where he hated Roger was sure he would be no less candid. Summing up his impressions on their rather silent walk home, Roger found himself convinced that, whatever his feelings may have been once, the doctor had very little affection for his wife at the time of her death. Equally certainly his attitude toward Miss Williamson was one merely of rather impersonal camaraderie.

“A disheartening business for any modest girl who’s trying as hard as that lady is, I should imagine,” Roger told himself.

The next day was also a period of enforced rest. On this occasion, however, Roger had not only himself but Anthony as well to amuse. Margaret, it transpired, burdened by the household duties of a Monday, was unable to devote a single minute to anything outside them. Roger, fancying that he was able to appreciate these tactics, watched a restless Anthony moodily kicking small stones on the road in front of the inn till eleven o’clock, when the second post brought no official envelope for Inspector Moresby, and then carried him off in the hired two-seater to spend the day in Sandsea. They got back at half-past seven (the two-seater, which was of a decidedly decrepit nature, having behaved not at all well by the roadside) and found the inspector awaiting them in the sitting-room.

“Hullo, Inspector,” Roger said at once. “Any news by the last post?”

The inspector regarded him benevolently. “Yes, sir; I’ve heard from headquarters.”

“Have you? Any luck?”

“Luck, sir?” said the inspector with maddening deliberation. “Well, it depends what you call luck, doesn’t it? Are you two gentlemen ready for supper? I’m so hungry, I could eat an ox. Funny thing, the heat always seems to make me hungry. My wife says⸺”

“Inspector,” Roger interrupted rudely, “I’m sorry for your wife and family. Very sorry. They must suffer a good deal. By the way, did you say you had heard from Scotland Yard?”

“Yes, sir; I have. Why?”

“I refuse to play mouse to your cat, Inspector Moresby,” Roger said with dignity. “So hand over that report, before I break your head. Even a mouse will turn, you know.”

“I thought we could talk about it after supper, Mr. Sheringham,” the inspector remarked innocently.

“Did you? Well, think again. Report, please Inspector!”

“He’s an impatient sort of gentleman, your cousin, isn’t he?” the inspector observed to Anthony, grinning maddeningly.

“Yes, but he’s awfully dangerous when roused. We always humour him in the family.”

“Is that good for him though, in the long run?” asked the inspector with an air of earnest enquiry. “Now my experience of these impatient people is that you ought to⸺”

Roger opened the door and called downstairs. “Landlord, empty the flowing bowl! We shan’t want our supper till midnight!”

“I give in, sir,” said the inspector hastily. “Here’s the report!”

“Fill the flowing bowl, landlord,” Roger countermanded in stentorian tones. “We’ll have supper at once.”

The report was all that Roger could have desired. Its laconic wording ran as follows:—

“The impression is of the right thumb of Sam Field, alias Slippery Sam, alias The Shrimp, alias The Sky Pilot, alias Herbert Peters, alias Herbert Smith, etc. etc. Served two years, 1909–11, for robbery with violence; three years, 1913–16, for burglary; five years, 1918–23, for fraud and embezzlement. Wanted now on three similar charges. Small, dark, mole on right cheek, blue eyes, large nose; good education, speaks well, ingratiating manners. Fond of disguising himself as a solicitor, clergyman or other member of the professional classes.”

“Golly!” observed Roger, and handed the report to Anthony.

“I thought you’d be interested, sir,” said the inspector blandly. “So it’s the Rev. Samuel Meadows, is it? I thought I’d seen that man’s face before, if you remember. Must have had a photograph of him through my hands.”

“Herbert Peters!” Roger murmured raptly. “Do you know, I guessed right inside me that he’d turn out to be Mrs. Vane’s husband, but I daren’t put it into words; it seemed too good to be true. But I thought you said you’d got no information about Herbert Peters?”

“Yes, that was a bad bit of routine work,” the inspector admitted handsomely.

“You’ve got no doubts about it now, I suppose?” Roger persisted.

The inspector did not reply directly. “What do you imagine his motive was?” he asked instead.

“Well, he was blackmailing her, obviously. It was a gift for him. She married the doctor when he was in the middle of that five years’ stretch, evidently hoping that he wouldn’t be able to trace her. Oh, yes; it was a gift for friend Peters.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question, sir,” the inspector pointed out mildly. “That would be a motive for her murdering him, not he her. What do you imagine his motive was?”

Roger helped himself to pickled onions. “Well, it’s impossible to say definitely, isn’t it? I daresay I could think of half-a-dozen perfectly good motives, but this one strikes me as the most obvious: she knew there were two or three warrants out against him, so she countered his threat of blackmail with a threat of her own, to hand him over to the police. He got the wind up and pushed her over the cliff in a sudden panic. How’s that?”

“That’s quite plausible,” the inspector agreed.

“After you with the potatoes, Anthony,” said Roger. “Well, what do you think about it, fair coz?”

“Seems clear enough to me. We know he was there, and as you say, he probably had plenty of motives. Perhaps he was really in love with her and frightfully jealous. Then he might have sort of seen red when she told him what she’d done, mightn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Roger agreed. “No blackmail at all, you mean. And that fits in with what Margaret said about her being frightened of somebody a week or two before her death. By the way, Anthony, you can tell Margaret now that she needn’t bother about searching any more in Mrs. Vane’s papers.”

“What’s that, sir?” queried the inspector.

Roger explained how he had been trying to approach the identity of the mysterious stranger by two different routes.

“Going behind the backs of the official police, eh?” the inspector commented. “Well, well, reporters will be reporters, I suppose.”

“And officials will be official. Well, what are you going to do about it all, official one? You’ll arrest him, of course?”

“Am I talking to a reporter?” asked the inspector cautiously.

“Not unless you want to. ‘Important developments are expected at any minute.’ Is that what you mean?”

“For the time being, if you please, sir. I shan’t arrest him to-night, you see.”

“Not to-night?”

“No. I’ll go along and see a magistrate and get a warrant after supper, but I shan’t arrest him till to-morrow morning. There’s no hurry, and it’s more convenient in a little place like this. He can’t have taken alarm at your interview with him on Saturday, or he’d have cleared out before now, and I’ve already made sure he hasn’t done that.”

“But why trouble to traipse off to a magistrate and get a warrant?” Roger asked curiously. “I thought you didn’t need a warrant for an arrest on suspicion of murder.”

“But I’m not going to arrest him on suspicion of murder, sir.”

“You’re not?” Roger said in surprise. “Why not?”

“For several reasons,” the inspector returned non-committally. “For one thing it’s handier, when there are other reasons for arresting a man, not to do so on the murder charge. They’re more liable to give themselves away than if you’ve started off by frightening them to death already. We usually find it pays. And besides, it gives us an excuse for holding them when our murder evidence may not be quite complete.”

“I see. I’m learning things about our official criminologists.”

“We’re nasty people to get into the hands of, sir,” the inspector said jovially.

“You are indeed. I shall think quite seriously before committing my next murder. And you imagine you’ll be able to induce Meadows to give himself away?”

“We have our ways of making people talk,” observed the inspector darkly.

There was a short silence.

“Well, I must be getting along now,” said Anthony, and went.

Roger regarded the closed door for a moment. “It’s nice to be young,” he said, from the depths of his thirty-six years.

“Humph, yes; but there’s a rude awakening coming, I’m afraid,” replied the inspector with surprising gloom.

“Your profession seems to have made a pessimist of you, Inspector,” Roger smiled.

The inspector meditated this. “Well, perhaps it has; but there’s one thing I have learnt—things are seldom in reality as they appear on the surface! And that’s a thing youth never has and never will learn.”