“In fact, he just waited for the funeral, and then made off?”
“No, he waited until he thought he wasn’t watched. It’s a rum business, shadowing a man; you don’t want him to see exactly who is shadowing him, or where the man is who is shadowing him; but you do, very often, want him to know that he is shadowed, because that makes him lose his head and give himself away. Now, Brinkman didn’t know what I suspected and didn’t, I think, know about my two men at the Swan. But I contrived to let him see that he was under observation, and that it wasn’t safe for him to go far out of my sight. It’s an old game: you give a man that impression, and then you suddenly let on that he is free—for the moment at any rate. He seizes his chance, and, with luck, you catch him. He really thought yesterday evening that you were the only person watching the front of the house. But he was clever enough, confound him, to see that there might be danger for him in the garage. So he rang up, ordering a car to meet the 8.40 at Chilthorpe Station, and then made his arrangements—uncommonly good ones—for boarding the car en route. And nobody’s to blame, exactly, but I gravely fear that the murderer has got off scotfree.”
As if in confirmation of his words, the maid came in with a telegram. He opened it and crushed it in his hand. “As I thought,” he said; “they searched the train at the terminus and didn’t find their man. They may watch the ports, but I doubt if they’ll get him now. It’s a rotten business.”
“I don’t think you’ve explained everything,” said Bredon, “I mean, about Brinkman’s movements after the murder. Indeed, I know for a fact that you haven’t explained everything; partly because you don’t know everything. But I think your account of Brinkman’s movements that night is extraordinarily ingenious, and I only wish it were true. I wish it were true, I mean, because it would have brought us up, for once in our lives, against a really clever criminal. But, you see, there’s one thing which is fatal to all your theory. You haven’t explained why the gas-tap showed the mark where Mottram turned it on and didn’t show the mark where Mottram turned it off.”
“Oh, yes, I admit that’s puzzling. Still, one can imagine circumstances”——
“One can imagine circumstances, but one can’t fit them onto the facts. If the gas had been quite close to Mottram’s bed, and he had had a stick by his side, he might have turned off the tap with the stick; I’ve known slack men do that. But the gas wasn’t near enough for that. Or, again, if Mottram had gone to bed in gloves, he might have turned off the tap with gloves on; but he didn’t. The tap was stiff; it was stiff both when you turned it on and when you turned it off; and there must, in reason, have been some slight trace left if that gas was turned off by a man’s naked fingers. Therefore it wasn’t turned off by a man’s naked fingers. Therefore it wasn’t turned off by Mottram, or by anybody who had any business to turn it off. It was turned off by somebody who had a secret end to serve in doing so.”
“You mean a criminal end?”
“I didn’t say that. I said a secret end. Your view doesn’t explain that; and because it doesn’t explain that, although I think you’ve told us an extraordinarily ingenious story, I don’t think it’s worth forty pounds. . . . Hullo! What’s this arriving?”
The taxi from the garage had drawn up outside the inn’s door, and was depositing some passengers who had obviously come by the early morning train from Pullford. They were not left in doubt for long; the coffee-room door was opened, and, with “Don’t get up, please” written all over his apologetic features, the Bishop of Pullford walked in. Eames followed behind him.
“Good-morning, Mr. Bredon. I’m so sorry to disturb you and your friends at breakfast like this. But Mr. Eames here has been telling me about your alarums and excursions last night, and I thought probably there would be some tired brains this morning. Also, I felt it was important to tell you all I know, because of Mr. Brinkman’s hurried departure.”