CHAPTER XX. Colson’s “Imagination”
The maid who opened the door looked a little surprised when she found herself confronted with the four men.
“I think the Canon is engaged,” she began, “he has someone——”
“Oh, he’s expecting us—one of us, at least,” said the Chief Constable. “I think he’ll see us. Who is with him?”
“Mr. Norwood, sir.”
“Very well, will you show us in, please? Except this gentleman—he will wait in the hall.”
The Canon rose from his seat as the three policemen entered. Neither of them was in uniform. Major Renshaw, a punctilious man, wore evening dress. He always dressed for dinner.
Francis Norwood, seated in an arm-chair near the fire, also rose when he saw Major Renshaw. The Canon held out his hand in greeting.
“This is a surprise,” he said; “I hardly expected——”
“You must forgive this intrusion, Canon,” interrupted the Chief Constable. “Sergeant Colson mentioned that he was going to see you this evening, and we’ve taken the liberty of coming with him.”
As he spoke he did not take the Canon’s proffered hand. Instead, he bowed stiffly to him and Francis Norwood—who sat down once more. Indeed, the whole attitude of Major Renshaw savoured of officialism. The Canon apparently, noticed it. He stiffened slightly.
“Won’t you sit down?” he asked.
The Chief Constable and the superintendent took the chairs he offered near the middle of the room. Colson, who had one hand behind his back, sat down in a chair near the door. When he had done so, he stooped to lay down his hat and stick, which he placed on the floor, behind a sofa.
“If I’m in the way, Fittleworth——” began Norwood.
“Not at all,” broke in the Chief Constable; “don’t let us disturb you.”
Canon Fittleworth sat down again, wiped his pince-nez with his handkerchief, and adjusted them on his nose, and said, addressing the Major:
“Well now, Major, I don’t know the purpose of your visit, but can only presume you have some news to impart. Is it about my late cousin?”
“Yes, it is—something you ought to know.”
“In that case,” said the Canon, “Mr. Norwood will be interested too.”
Norwood nodded his head slightly, and said in his judicial manner:
“Naturally. My business with the unhappy affair ended, of course, with the verdict that was returned. But, as a private individual, I may be allowed some curiosity. Is there anything fresh, Major?”
“There is,” said the Chief Constable, but addressing his remarks to the Canon as he spoke. “Detective-Sergeant Colson, as you know, has had the case in hand, and I’m going to ask you to let him tell you in his own way.”
“Very well,” said the Canon to Colson, “we shall be pleased to hear you.”
Colson’s face flushed slightly; he glanced round the room, and finally fixed his gaze on Canon Fittleworth. It was some moments before he began—the Chief Constable had even to say to him:
“Go on, Colson.”
“Well, sir,” said Colson, addressing the Canon, and never looking at anyone else, “this has not been an easy case at all, and I don’t mind confessing that I’ve blundered considerably.”
“You’ve done your best, sergeant, I’m sure. And no man can do more.”
It was Norwood who spoke, but Colson took no notice of him. He only seemed to be aware of Canon Fittleworth’s presence. He went on:
“My initial mistake, which led to others, was in taking it for granted that robbery was the motive for the murder—I allude to the diamonds. There were three persons who came under suspicion—there were ugly facts against each of them, especially as one of them was possessed of cigars of the same brand as those which you smoke, sir. And, in spite of the band being changed—or, rather, because of it—we felt quite sure that this individual was our man.”
“What do you mean by the cigar band being changed?” asked Norwood.
But the detective never removed his eyes from the Canon.
“Yes—it was changed,” he said. “I’ll come to that later on. Well, as I was saying, these three men were cleared of all complicity with the crime. As for your cigars, Canon Fittleworth” —and he took a paper from his pocket— “I have a list here of all the persons to whom you gave any of those particular cigars, and I am satisfied that not one of them committed the murder, or knew anything about it.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” said the Canon, a little uncomfortably, for the detective’s fixed gaze was beginning to fascinate him strangely.
“It’s true,” went on Colson. “Well, the time came when I dismissed from my mind the idea that the robbery of the diamonds was the motive. I had to begin all over again. And now, Canon Fittleworth, I want to tell you how I imagine in my own mind that your cousin was done to death.”
“Do you know?”
“I said ‘imagine,’ sir. Few people have ever witnessed the actual committal of a murder. Mr. Templeton, I think, was killed because he was a very foolish man. I would go so far as to say that he probably brought it on himself.”
“But——” began the Canon.
“Please, sir,” said the detective, holding up his hand, “let me tell my story in my own way. I want you to follow your cousin’s movements in your mind from the time he left this house on the Saturday night.”
“This is all imagination, I think you said?” asked Francis Norwood.
“This is all imagination, yes. But imagination often helps to reconstruct a crime. Well, sir, he left your house to keep an appointment.”
“With whom?” asked the Canon.
“Ah,” replied Colson, “there is no one to tell us that. There were no witnesses, we will suppose. Imagination, sir! He kept the appointment then. In Frattenbury. As this is imagination, we will call the person with whom he had an appointment ‘Mr. Blank.’ The end of this appointment was, that he and ‘Mr. Blank’ walked back together to Marsh Quay.”
“Why?” asked the Canon.
“Probably—for I don’t know—because your cousin asked him to go,” said Colson. “I told you he was a very foolish man. I believe he had faced many dangers in the course of his life, but he was never in so much danger as when he took that walk back to his yacht. Shall I tell you the way the two men went? Yes? Imagination, remember, sir! Well, they didn’t start along the well-lighted South Street. They went down the parallel street—only two lamps in it, sir—and hardly a soul there at that time of night. Then they went on to the Canal Basin—‘Mr. Blank’ had chosen the route—turned sharply to the right, crossed the main road, and took the field path leading to Marsh Quay.
“When they reached the shore your cousin pulled ‘Mr. Blank’ out to the yacht in his dinghy. ‘Mr. Blank’ was smoking a cigar at the time—or lighted it when he got on board the yacht.”
“Why do you imagine that my cousin took him on board?”
“My fancy, sir, if you like. Let us say that there was something on board which your cousin had promised to show ‘Mr. Blank’—or to give to him. And as soon as he produced it, ‘Mr. Blank,’ who, I think, must have armed himself with a weapon for the purpose, killed your cousin.”
“But why——”
“Stop a moment, sir. Hear me out. ‘Mr. Blank,’ who had not noticed that the band had dropped off his cigar, very quickly relieved your cousin of any papers he had on him—we will imagine there was a reason for this—then he rowed ashore in the dinghy and did a very curious thing—it puzzled my imagination—at first. But I thought out a reason for it. He got hold of a canoe and took the dinghy back to the yacht again, making her fast, and finally paddled himself to shore in the canoe and walked back to Frattenbury, where he let himself into his house before, we will imagine, the theatrical performance at the Town Hall was quite over. Well, sir, that’s my theory of how your cousin was murdered.”
He paused. The Chief Constable and the superintendent sat like two statues. Francis Norwood leaned a little forward in his chair, and remarked, with a touch of sarcasm:
“A very lucid story, sergeant. I hope you may be successful in tracking down this ‘Mr. Blank.’ ”
But, again ignoring the coroner, Colson went on—to the Canon:
“What do you think of it, sir?”
“I don’t know what to think. It’s so very strange. But, to confine ourselves to your definition, can you imagine the motive?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Colson, very quietly. “I think I can.”
“What was it?”
“Something that the law would call by a very ugly name—‘blackmail.’ That’s what I think, sir.”
“Blackmail!—this ‘Mr. Blank’?”
“No, sir. Mr. Templeton!”
“My cousin a blackmailer!” exclaimed Canon Fittleworth. “Preposterous!”
“I said that’s what the law would call him, sir. Please—let me go on. I haven’t quite finished. Let me imagine something further.”
For the first time since he had begun to speak, he took his eyes off the Canon, and gave a rapid glance at Superintendent Norton. Then he looked at the Canon again.
“What I am about to imagine now,” he said slowly, “is first that the Dean gave ‘Mr. Blank’ one of the Canon’s cigars, secondly that ‘Mr. Blank’ was a left-handed man, and thirdly that he made one fatal mistake—he left his walking-stick in the dinghy—and this is it!”
He lifted the walking-stick, suddenly, from behind the sofa and held it out to the Canon. Then he turned in a flash, and sprang across the room.
“Mr. Norwood, I arrest you for the murder of Reginald Templeton.”
There was a flash of steel and a click. Francis Norwood, who had risen to his feet when Colson had darted towards him, stood there, the handcuffs on his wrist.
“Damn you!” he exclaimed, for once losing his frigidity. “What do you mean? That isn’t my stick. I had one like it, it is true, but I know that isn’t mine—I——”
“Norwood,” broke in the Chief Constable sternly, “it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence.”
“It is your stick,” said Colson gravely. “Your housekeeper recognised it this evening. I’ve had it from the first. The one you removed from the dinghy the next night was a dummy. I put it there.”
The astonished Canon looked from one to the other, and exclaimed to Major Renshaw:
“Is this—is this extraordinary action countenanced by you, Major?”
“I fear it is, Canon,” replied Major Renshaw. “Knowing what we do—and there is a great deal more—I have no option in the matter.”
“But this is terrible—terrible!”
Francis Norwood, still deadly pale, recovered a little from the shock.
“This is unpardonable of you, Major Renshaw. I demand an explanation.”
“Colson will give you one, Mr. Norwood. But I fear it will not help you.”
He nodded to the detective, who opened the door. A thin, white-faced, emaciated man came into the room. Norwood regarded him with horror.
“Ezra Grice!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “I—I thought he was dead!”
“I know you did,” said Colson, “or you wouldn’t have been so eager to help with that advertisement. Shall I ask Grice to tell his story?”
“No—no,” said the lawyer. “No—yes—I don’t care if he does. It’s all a pack of lies, and he can’t prove anything.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he can or not,” said Colson. “I haven’t arrested you because of something you did twenty years ago. You are charged with murder—not embezzlement. May I go on, sir?” he asked the Chief Constable.
“It is irregular, Colson,” said the Major stiffly.
“I should very much like to know more,” put in the bewildered Canon. “I think I have a right to ask. You’ve arrested one of my friends in my own house—charged with the murder of my cousin. Norwood,” and he went up to the lawyer, “won’t you tell me you didn’t do this awful thing? I can’t believe it!”
“You’ve heard what Major Renshaw said,” replied Norwood. “Anything I say may incriminate me. I have no desire to discuss the matter further at this point.”
“We owe you a further explanation, Canon, as you say,” remarked the Chief Constable, “and with your permission, Colson shall remain—and Mr. Grice.”
The Canon nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “They may stay.”
“Come!” said the superintendent. Between him and the Chief Constable the coroner walked out of the room, and a motor was heard a few moments later. Canon Fittleworth sat down and buried his head in his hands. Presently he said:
“I’m thankful my wife and daughter are not at home.”
“It wouldn’t have happened here, sir, if they had been, I assure you. You told me, you know, that you were alone.”
The Canon nodded.
“Go on,” he said. “I want to hear it all—poor Reginald!”
“It’s a long story, sir, but I’ll try to make it as short as possible. The first idea that set me on the right track was that the murderer was a left-handed man. I found out that Mr. Templeton did not walk with a stick—I mean, didn’t put the point to the ground. There were square tracks of the stick’s ferrule on the path to Marsh Quay, on the left side as you go out.”
“But what made you suspect the stick had anything to do with it?”
Colson told him how the dummy one had been removed on the night after the murder, and then went on.
“I was on the look-out for a left-handed man, and one day I saw Mr. Norwood draw a cork from a bottle. He held the bottle with his right hand and drew it with his left. It seemed preposterous, but when I noticed him another day walking down the street with a stick in his left hand it set me thinking. I got the report of the inquest, and studied it carefully, noting all the coroner’s questions. And it seemed to me that he was particularly anxious to find out whether anyone had an idea as to your cousin’s appointment. Also, when Jim Webb mentioned that he had read the address on the letter to you, he questioned him narrowly as to whether he had read any other addresses. Then he must have felt secure until you produced that cigar band. I thought for a long time that Proctor had changed it, but when I found he hadn’t, I knew it could only have been the coroner himself.”
“Why?”
“There were several old bands off cigars that had been smoked by Grayson, lying in the grate. Don’t you remember that the coroner dropped some papers in the grate, and stooped down to get them? So did Proctor. That’s why I suspected him first. Afterwards I saw it all. While that cigar band was passing round the jury, the coroner picked up one from the grate and changed it. Clever! But it was a foolish thing to do, as it turned out.
“You told me you gave a dozen of your cigars to the Dean. He remembered that when Norwood was dining with him afterwards—just a day or two before the murder—he smoked one of them, and liked it so much that the Dean gave him a couple, which he put in his case.
“Well, in Norwood’s hall, when I went to see him one day, I noticed several queer photographs and old weapons—three or four small daggers among them—hanging on the wall. Then Mr. Crosby was a great help; he put me on the track of finding Ezra Grice. There was a letter partly blotted on Mr. Templeton’s blotting-pad that gave us the clue. And Mr. Crosby also found out the beginning of the whole story, and accidentally discovered that the coroner was speculating heavily—and that had a lot to do with things. He wanted money.”
“Dear me,” said the Canon. “I imagined him to be a wealthy man.”
“So did most people, sir, but after what we heard we made inquiries, and found out a lot about him. And I assure you that even if I hadn’t arrested him to-night, he’d very soon have been in the bankruptcy court.”
“You astonish me.”
“It’s true, sir. Now, when our friend Ezra Grice here arrived from South Africa, he solved the rest of the mystery. We have his sworn statement. Will you tell the Canon, Mr. Grice?”
Grice, who had not spoken hitherto, said:
“Yes, I will. Where shall I begin?”
“At the beginning—twenty years ago.”
“You’ll find it a strange story, sir,” said Colson. “And it will explain why I said the law would have called your cousin a blackmailer.”