“But did Marryatt know anything about Brotherhood’s connection with Miss Rendall-Smith—about his promise to her?”
“We’ll come to that presently. It doesn’t arise yet, if you consider the actual wording of the cipher-message. What it said was, ‘You will perish if you go back upon your faith’—I now read that as a purely theological message, and I know of only one man in the neighbourhood who would have been likely to send such a message.”
“You seem to be pressing words rather far.”
“Next point: Marryatt did travel by the three o’clock train on Tuesday. He made no secret of the fact; he told us about it—why? Precisely because he had arranged the murder so as to look as if it was connected with the 3.47: the three o’clock train was his alibi, and he was determined to get his alibi well rubbed in. Don’t you remember, just before we found the body, the discussion we all had in the smoking-room about crime, and how Marryatt said it was very important for the criminal to behave naturally in company, so as to establish his alibi? Well, that’s what he was doing at the moment.”
“I’d forgotten his saying that.”
“It doesn’t do to forget these things. You’ve probably forgotten that it was Marryatt who started the whole subject, by saying it was the kind of afternoon when one would want to murder somebody. You see, he couldn’t get the subject out of his mind, and he thought the easiest way to get it off his chest was to start talking about murder, quite naturally, in an abstract sort of way.”
“You’re making him out a pretty cool customer.”
“He was, up to a point. Remember, he started out on a round, knowing that the body of his victim lay under the railway arch. Only at the third tee his nerve deserted him, and he pulled his drive.”
“Yes, but hang it all, anybody——”
“I’m only mentioning the fact; I don’t say there was necessarily anything significant about it. Anyhow, I sliced mine, and so we came to find Brotherhood’s body. And that was too much for him; you will remember that at the moment he was quite unnerved. We had to send him off to fetch Beazly—and he wasn’t half glad to go. After that, remember, right up to the time of the inquest, he was in a state of pitiful agitation. He explained that by telling us that he was nervous about whether he’d be allowed to bury Brotherhood or not; but when you come to think of it, does that account for the extraordinary excitement and nervousness he showed about the whole thing? Anyhow, the jury found suicide—and remember, he always wanted us to believe it was suicide—and immediately his trouble vanished. He seemed to lose interest in the business from then on.