XXXIX

If I hadn’t the jaw-bone of an ox, he’d have broken it,” said Dr. Hammond wrathfully. “Boyce, you’re blithering. Mr. Somers hasn’t murdered anybody. He’s just escaped being murdered by the skin of his teeth, and so have I. Your Mr. Zero, the man who murdered Sir Francis Colesborough and Sturrock and did his damnedest to shoot Mr. Somers and myself, is at the bottom of the quarry, and you’d better send your men down to make sure he’s dead. I’d send two of them if I were you, because if he isn’t dead he’ll be about as safe as a wounded tiger. I’m not going down and that I tell you flat. They can bring him up here to me. I’ve had some and I’m not going down again.” He clutched rather suddenly at Algy and lowered himself on to the grass.

“You’re not hurt, sir?” Boyce’s tone was full of concern.

“Shook up,” said Dr. Hammond rather faintly. He shut his eyes and leaned forward with his head on his knees.

“Perhaps you’ll tell us what’s been happening, Mr. Somers,” said the Inspector. “We went after you to Cole Lester, and when we found you weren’t there, well, it was natural for us to draw certain conclusions.”

“I suppose it was,” said Algy. “But I was only walking over to Railing Place. I wanted to see Mr. Lushington.”

“That’s what William told us. We had just got to the turn where the track comes in, when we heard the shooting and got a move on. Lucky we arrived when we did.”

“Yes. He knew the game was up as soon as he saw you. As long as it was only the Doctor and me, he’d have gone on fighting. He meant it to look as if I’d shot Dr. Hammond and then committed suicide.”

Jim Hammond lifted his head for a moment and nodded.

“He’d got it all planned,” he said. “I’m going to have a lump on my jaw like a turkey’s egg.”

“Will you tell us what happened, Mr. Somers?” said the Inspector.

Algy was tying a handkerchief round his thumb.

“William told me about the short cuts. He told me something else too. His girl heard Sturrock ring Brewster up on Sunday afternoon-she’s the housemaid at the Hand and Flower. That is what I was going to see Mr. Lushington about. I thought he ought to know before anyone else did.”

“I don’t know that you were right about that, sir.”

Algy lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“Well, that’s what I thought. I came round that corner and saw Dr. Hammond’s car, and when I got clear of the car I saw Dr. Hammond. He was standing on the edge of the quarry with his hands above his head and Brewster holding him up with a pistol. I tried to get there without being heard, but he suddenly loosed off his gun and the Doctor went over the edge. I thought he was done for. I don’t know why he wasn’t.”

Dr. Hammond’s head came up again.

“I jumped,” he said with a wry grin. “Brewster said, ‘I’m tired of you. Out you go!’ But I didn’t wait for the word go-I beat the pistol. And those infernal brambles practically skinned me alive.”

“Better alive than dead, sir,” said Inspector Boyce. He looked at Algy with a dubious expression. “Well, sir, all this is a bit awkward for me. You see, what with one thing and another, the evidence had got pretty well piled up against you, and-well-it’s a bit awkward, but I’ve got a warrant for your arrest.”

Dr. Hammond gave a groan.

“Boyce, you continue to blither, and I warn you that I am in no state to be blithered at. That’s my professional opinion. Free, gratis, and for nothing. Here, give me a hand up-I don’t want a crick in the neck as well as a sock on the jaw.” He groaned again as he got to his feet. “Now, Boyce, get this into your head. The, I hope, late Mr. Brewster murdered Sir Francis Colesborough and Sturrock, and did his best to murder Mr. Somers and me. He boasted about Sir Francis and the butler-I heard him. Mr. Somers saw him shoot at me, and I saw him shoot at Mr. Somers. Now what’s your damn fool warrant worth? Hang it all, man, you can’t go arresting him now!”

Inspector Boyce coughed slightly.

“If you were feeling up to it, sir, what I would suggest would be for you and Mr. Somers to go along with me to see the Chief Constable-”

“I don’t feel up to it,” said Dr. Hammond bitterly. “I feel very ill. I require a strong stimulant, a nice hot bath, and a complete change of clothing. But I’m a martyr to duty.”

A hail came up from the quarry. The Inspector went and looked over the edge.

“Found him?” he called out.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that’s going to save everyone a lot of trouble,” said Dr. Hammond.

XL

Darling, I think it went off too marvellously,” said Sylvia Colesborough. She shed her grey fur coat and leaned back in the sofa corner. “Algy darling, ring for tea, will you? I could drink cups, and cups, and cups. I didn’t think anyone could ask so many questions as that Coroner did. But he was rather sweet too. Didn’t you think it was rather sweet of him to say he quite understood how upset I must be feeling?”

Gay giggled-she couldn’t help it. The giggle slid off into something like a sob. They had just come back from an inquest upon the two murdered men and the man who had murdered them, and Sylvia was talking as if she had been opening a bazaar. Sylvia would.

Gay shivered, and was glad when Algy came and sat on the arm of the big chair and put a hand on her shoulder. It had been perfectly horrible, but at least Algy was cleared, and Sylvia was apparently going to get off scot free. She had given her evidence with a good deal of inconsequent charm. She had looked ethereally lovely in her black. Her voice had faltered in all the right places, and she had wept when she described the scene in the yew walk. The Coroner had asked her a great many questions, but neither he nor anyone else had so much as mentioned the Home Secretary’s lost memorandum. As far as this inquest went, it had never been stolen, and Lady Colesborough could not be supposed to have known of its existence.

She had been blackmailed by Mr. Zero on account of a card debt which she did not want to confess to her husband. Sylvia had been very convincing about this. She told the Coroner just how difficult she found it to remember what were trumps. A tear fell when she admitted that Francis had forbidden her to play. And she had played. And she had lost. Five hundred pounds. And she had been so dreadfully afraid that Mr. Zero would tell Francis. So she had taken a packet of letters out of her husband’s safe. And so forth and so on. Not a word about the visit to Wellings and the Home Secretary’s despatch-case. The Coroner led her gently but firmly through the pathetic tale. Sylvia left the court with the admiration and sympathy of everyone present. Tomorrow the Press would feature her as the lovely Lady Colesborough. Really it wasn’t surprising that she should heave that gentle sigh and say how marvellously it had all gone off.

“Monty’s been marvellous too,” said Algy, for Gay’s ear.

Gay stuck her chin in the air.

“I don’t see what he’s got to be marvellous about.”

“Well, it hasn’t been all jam for him. He offered to resign, you know, but they wouldn’t let him. By the way, it puzzled me how Brewster could have known that Monty had got that memorandum and was taking it down to Wellings. You see, we were in the library, Carstairs, Brewster, and myself, and Monty was up in his room. Carstairs went out into the hall, took the envelope from the messenger, and gave it to me to take up to Monty. That’s what started them suspecting me. I had the handling of it. I knew what it was. I could have substituted the blank envelope which was found in the despatch-case at Wellings, or I could have rung up someone who was going to Wellings and told them to go ahead, the paper would be there. Now Brewster was doing statistics at the far end of the library. He never had a smell of the paper, and as far as my knowledge went he couldn’t have known that it had arrived, or that Monty had taken it with him.”