Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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"THE very person I've been wanting to see. I rang up your rooms, and your man told me you'd probably be dining in your club."
I glanced up from my coffee. A man by the name of Mervyn Davidson was standing by our chairs. I only knew him slightly, but Ronald Standish had shot with him once or twice.
"Could you possibly come down to my place tomorrow," continued Davidson, "or are you too busy?"
"Do you mean professionally?" asked Ronald.
"Yes," said the other, pulling up a chair. "Do you mind, at any rate, if I tell you the story?"
"Fire right ahead," said Ronald, lighting a cigar.
"The thing happened yesterday," began Davidson, "and at first everybody thought it was an accident. However, as you don't know any of the people concerned I'd better start by putting you wise to them and to the locality. You've been down my way, I think?"
"Only once," said Ronald. "So take it that I'm quite ignorant."
"I will," said Davidson. "My house is just five miles from the sea, and as you may perhaps remember, the River Ling forms one boundary to the property."
Ronald nodded.
"Yes, I recollect that. Tidal, isn't it, as far as you?"
"For three or four miles farther up-stream. A muddy bit of water, but unfortunately it plays a big part in the tragedy which concerns my next-door neighbour, a retired business man named Yarrow. Do you want my estimate of the gentleman, or would you prefer to keep an open mind?"
"I want everything that bears on the case," said Ronald.
"His character certainly does that," said Davidson, "but I didn't want to bias you in any way. In short, then, he was a most unpleasant individual."
"Was?" Ronald raised his eyebrows.
The other nodded.
"I'm coming to that. Yes, he was a most unpleasant man, and one of the incomprehensible things of life is how his perfectly charming wife came to marry him. She is years younger than him, and an extremely pretty woman. He must have been well over fifty, whereas she is on the right side of thirty. Exactly what his business was I can't tell you: he was one of the most morose and uncommunicative men I've ever met. But it must have been lucrative, as there was no shortage of money about the ménage. I've dined with them off and on, and I know the style they lived in.
"It was not, however, an entertainment I indulged in more than I could help, because the atmosphere of the household was so damnable. He was frequently rude to her in front of the servants, and even if he wasn't that he had that cold, sarcastic manner that made one long to hit him.
"He had one hobby, and one hobby only, so far as I know—fishing in the Ling. Everyone to his own taste, and if it appeals to a man to sit on the bank of a muddy river fishing for uneatable fish with a worm and a float, by all manner of means let him do so. He certainly did, for hours on end. The river flowed past his place, but between it and his boundary was a right of way. And it was at one particular spot on this path that he always took up his position.
"Now, though the path is a right of way, it is very little used. Probably not more than two people go along it a day, though sometimes on Sundays the customary loving couples walk there. But on weekdays it is practically deserted. Well, it so happened that the day before yesterday I was down near the river giving instructions to my gardener about one or two things, when I saw a man called Stapleton coming along the path. His trousers were dripping with water, and the instant he saw me he gave a shout.
"'For God's sake come, Davidson. Yarrow has been drowned.'
"The gardener and I went at once, and sure enough it was so, Wedged against a sunken tree by the pressure of the water was his body, and a glance was sufficient to show that it was too late to do anything. His hat was on the bank, and a camp-stool and creel.
"'I tried to get him out,' said Stapleton, 'but he was too heavy for me.'
"'When did you find him?' I asked.
"'Five minutes ago,' he said. 'I was walking from Briggs's farm and as I passed I saw that hat, which I recognised as his. So I looked over the edge and there he was.'
"Between us we hoisted the body out and laid it on the bank. I sent my gardener back for a hurdle, and while he was away we made an attempt at doing some artificial respiration. But it was utterly hopeless, and we both knew it.
"'How on earth did it happen, I wonder?' I said after we had desisted.
"'The only thing I can think of,' said Stapleton, 'is that he fainted, or had a fit, and fell in. The water is comparatively shallow; if he'd been conscious he'd have had no difficulty in getting out.'
"Which was perfectly true, as the bank though steep was not high. No one would have had the smallest trouble in scrambling out, and it seemed to me that his solution must be the correct one.
"At last the hurdle arrived, and we put him on it. And then it struck me that somebody had better go on in advance to prepare Mrs. Yarrow for the news. Stapleton evidently did not want to, so I said I would. I didn't relish the job: with a woman, one never knows. He had treated her like a dog during his life, but for all that you can't tell how they'll take things. To my intense relief she kept perfectly calm. She turned white and swayed a bit; then she asked me quite quietly what to do.
"'I think the best thing would be to put the body in the billiard-room,' I said. 'You realise, Mrs. Yarrow, that he'll have to be seen by a doctor, and possibly the police may come into it. But, of course, it will be entirely a formality. It's obvious what happened.'
"I repeated Stapleton's theory, and she listened in silence. And then, in view of subsequent developments, she made a rather strange remark: 'My husband has never fainted in his life.'
"At the time I thought nothing of it; they were just carrying in the body, and I went to see if I could be of any assistance. We laid it on the floor, and Stapleton put the hat and the creel on the table. And then we waited a bit awkwardly, nobody quite knowing what to do next. I dismissed the gardener and the man who had helped him, and Stapleton and I talked in the hushed tones one uses in the presence of death. Little pools of water were forming on the floor under him, but it seemed indecent to move him again.
"'I liked him, you know,' said Stapleton, 'though I know he was not popular. But it's a pretty mouldy end! And to think that I took a photograph of him on my way out to Briggs this morning. I never thought that the next time I saw the poor devil he'd be like this.'
"Half an hour later Dr. Granger arrived, and Stapleton and I left him to do what was necessary. Mrs. Yarrow had gone to her room, and I gave a message for her to the butler, to say that if there was anything I could do to help she must have no hesitation in ringing me up. Then, since there was nothing more to be done, I suggested to Stapleton that he should come over to my house and have a drink. I felt I badly needed one.
"An hour passed when suddenly the telephone rang. I went to it, and heard the voice of Sergeant Grayson at the other end. Being on the Bench, I knew him very well; a good man, distinctly above the average local policeman in intelligence. Would I go up to the Yarrows' house, and take Stapleton with me: some startling developments had taken place.
"We went immediately, wondering what on earth they could be, and the butler showed us into the billiard-room. The doctor was still there, with the sergeant and a constable, and all their faces were very grave.
"'Sorry to trouble you, sir,' said Grayson to me, 'but it was unavoidable. May I ask both you gentlemen to tell me all you know.'
"We did so, and when we'd finished he looked significantly at the doctor, who nodded.
"'The fact is, Davidson, said Granger, 'that this is not a simple case of drowning. Yarrow was drowned all right, but it was the result of foul play. He didn't faint or have a fit, which was what I, too, first thought: he was stunned by being hit a heavy blow with some weapon on the base of his skull. He then pitched forward into the water, and probably was drowned almost instantaneously.'
"'Good God!' I cried, aghast. 'Are you sure, doctor?'
"'Quite sure, I'm sorry to say. The bruise is there plain for all to see, and by the feel of it I think something is chipped or broken inside. So you can guess how fierce the blow was.'
"'But who did it?' I said, staring at him.
"'That, sir,' said the sergeant, 'is what we've got to try and find out. And we have one very valuable piece of evidence. Mr. Yarrow's watch stopped at half-past two. Which proves conclusively that the poor gentleman met his end before that hour. Now, sir'—he turned to Stapleton—'as you seem to have been one of the last people to see him alive, can you add anything to what you have already told us?'
"'I can't, Sergeant,' answered Stapleton. 'I passed Mr. Yarrow just as he was packing up for lunch. It must have been about one o'clock, as I reached Briggs's house at ten minutes past. I had one film left in my camera, and as I wanted to get the roll finished I asked him to pose in the most characteristic attitude I could think of—sitting on his camp-stool fishing. I then had lunch, and the rest you know. I left Briggs's farm between five-and-twenty and twenty to three, and found the body in the river. I went in and tried to get him out, but I couldn't. And then Mr. Davidson came on the scene.'
"'Don't you think, Sergeant,' I put in, 'that it would be a good thing to get hold of the butler and find out about times from him?'
"So the butler was sent for, and it's his evidence that has brought me to you, Standish. I can't believe the boy did it, but I'm bound to say things look just about as black as they can be—Sorry: I'm jumping ahead too fast.
"It appears that Yarrow came in to lunch shortly after one to find a youngster called Christopher Stern having a cocktail with Mrs. Yarrow. And now comes the part that has got to be told, though naturally the butler said nothing about it. He knew, of course—we all did: you can't keep things like that dark in the country. Young Stern is in love with Mrs. Yarrow and has been for years, though what her feelings are on the matter I don't know.
"At any rate, it was quite clear from what the butler implied that his master was not at all pleased to find Stern there, and when he discovered that his wife had asked the boy to lunch he was even less pleased. Looking back now I remember having heard from other sources that Yarrow was very jealous of his wife, and it was obvious from what the butler said that the lunch was not a great success. We pressed him to be more explicit, but he is a good servant. And the most we could get out of him was that Yarrow was in a bad temper.
"Now comes the damning part. At a quarter past two Yarrow gathered his fishing tackle together, and the butler saw him standing in the hall talking to Stern. He was speaking angrily, though the butler did not hear what he said. But it ended in the two men leaving the house together and taking the direction of the river."
Davidson paused, and beckoning a waiter, ordered drinks. "More than that," he continued, "the butler could not say, but it was enough to make things begin to look ugly for Stern. And the boy's own statement of what happened didn't help much. We telephoned for him and he came round at once. And I think we all watched him as he came into the room. He saw the body, turned as white as a sheet and clutched the table as if he was about to fall.
"'What's happened?' he muttered.
"'I want you to tell me, sir' said the sergeant, 'exactly what took place this afternoon after you left this house with Mr. Yarrow!'
"'But I don't understand,' stammered the youngster. 'I know nothing about it.'
"After a while he pulled himself together and his story tallied exactly with the butler's. Yarrow and he had had words after lunch—he refused to say what about, but we all of us knew—and it had finished up with Yarrow forbidding him the house. They had gone out together and he had walked with Yarrow as far as the river. And there he had left him to his fishing.
"'Where did you go?' asked the sergeant.
"'Along a path somewhere: I really forget,' said Stern.
"'And what time did you leave Mr. Yarrow?'
"This again Stern couldn't remember: he supposed he'd stayed two or three minutes.
"'So, Mr. Stern,' said Grayson gravely, 'you know nothing about Mr. Yarrow's death?'
"'Absolutely nothing.'
"'You didn't have a struggle with him or strike him with anything?'
"'Good God! no. Why do you ask?'
"'Was anyone else there while you were with him?'
"'I saw no one.'
"'And you didn't pass anybody as you went along the path?'
"Again he shook his head.
"'Not that I'm aware of,' he said. And then, after a moment, he added: 'But I was all worked up and I might not have noticed. Anyway,' he cried wildly, 'what is it all about? Why are you asking me all these questions?'
"'I am asking you these questions, Mr. Stern,' said Grayson, 'because so far as we know at present you are the last person who saw Mr. Yarrow alive. And Mr. Yarrow was murdered.'
"'Murdered!'
"The word was just breathed—barely audible, and once again Stern clutched the table.
"'Who by? But—but, it looks as if he'd been drowned.' And then, wildly: 'Great Heavens! you don't suspect me?'
"Grayson stared at him.
"'I didn't say I did, Mr. Stern. But you left the house at a quarter past two with Mr. Yarrow; you must, therefore, have arrived at the river at about twenty past. You tell me you remained talking for two or three minutes.' He paused impressively. 'And Mr. Yarrow was murdered before half-past.'
"'You keep on saying he was murdered,' said Stern. 'How do you know that?'
"'He was hit on the back of the head and stunned,' answered Grayson. 'Then he fell into the water and was drowned.'
"And at that it was left for the time. Whether or not they have actually arrested young Stern yet, I don't know, but it's only a question of hours before they do so. And I wondered, Standish, if you would come down and run your eye over the country, so to speak. I'd like to do everything I can for Stern—he's an extra ordinarily nice boy. But I must confess it looks pretty hopeless to me.
"You think, then, that he did it?" said Ronald.
"What else can one think? We know that he was with Yarrow just before it happened; we know that they were having a quarrel over Mrs. Yarrow. We know also that the place where they were is usually entirely deserted, so that the chances of someone else being there are remote."
Davidson shrugged his shoulders.
"I am quite prepared to believe," he continued, "that Stern didn't even know he'd killed him. That in a moment of ungovernable rage he hit Yarrow and knocked him out, and that then, after he had gone, Yarrow rolled over and fell in the water and was drowned. In which case it might be possible to make it a case of manslaughter only."
"What does Mrs. Yarrow say?" asked Ronald.
"Nothing at all, so far as I know. I gather that she has admitted that her husband did not like Stern, but we knew that already. In fact, with regard to yesterday, the butler knows far more than she does."
"Well, there are certainly one or two very significant points," said Ronald, lighting a cigarette. "So, if you like, Davidson, Bob and I will come down to-morrow. I suppose there's a pub some where handy."
"My dear fellow, I wouldn't dream of letting you do that. I can put both of you up with the greatest of pleasure in the world. But I'm afraid it's pretty hopeless for young Stern. There's a good train from Liverpool Street at ten. I'll meet you at the other end."
"What do you make of it, Bob?" said Ronald, as Davidson went off to write a letter.
"Told as he's told it, I must say I agree with him. It looks black for Stern. Motive, opportunity, time—everything seems to fit."
"Almost too well," said Ronald. "However, we'll see?"
TRUE TO HIS PROMISE, Davidson met us at the station. "They've arrested him," were his first words. "I'm afraid it's a waste of time for you, Standish."
"When did they do it?" asked Ronald.
"Immediately after the inquest this morning. Hallo! there's Stapleton—the man who found Yarrow's body."
He waved his hand, and a good-looking, slightly-built man of about forty, who had just come out of a photographer's shop, came over to the car.
"Bad affair this," he said, "about young Stern. Still, I suppose it was only to be expected."
Davidson introduced us, and Stapleton looked at Ronald with interest.
"I've heard of you, Mr. Standish," he said. "Tom Ponsonby, who is a distant cousin of mine, is never tired of singing your praises."
"That's very nice of him," said Ronald.
"Have you come down here over this business, or merely to stay with Davidson?"
"A little of both," said Ronald, with a smile. "I hear they've arrested Stern."
The other nodded.
"I don't see how they could avoid it," he replied. "If ever there was an obvious case this is it."
He fumbled in his pocket.
"By the way, Davidson, I've just had that roll of films developed. Here is the last photograph of the poor chap taken an hour and a half before his death. Good, isn't it?"
"Very," said Davidson, passing it to us.
It showed Yarrow seated on his camp-stool watching his float. His face was in profile; his hat and creel were on the bank beside him.
"I'm glad I got it," said Stapleton simply. "It's just the pose I'd like to remember him by."
"I wonder if you would allow me to keep this," said Ronald "Or perhaps you would let me have another print made. My reason is that it helps one to visualise the scene in a way that mere imagination can't do."
"By all manner of means keep it," cried Stapleton. "I can easily have another done."
"I suppose, Mr. Stapleton, that you saw no sign of any weapon on the bank when you found the body?"
"It never dawned on me to look for one. I assumed it was a common or garden case of drowning. The possibility of foul play never entered my head."
"Naturally not," said Ronald. "It wouldn't."
We stayed there talking for a few moments; then Stapleton got into his car and went off.
"Have you formed any plan of campaign, Standish?" asked Davidson. "Or do you think the thing is too hopeless to worry about?"
"Far from it," said Ronald.
Davidson glanced at him in surprise.
"You mean that you think young Stern has a chance?"
"I most certainly do," answered Ronald. "But until I've seen one thing I can't say more than that."
"And what is this thing you want to see?" asked Davidson curiously.
"The dead man's watch," said Ronald. "I take it you can manage that for me."
"I suppose Grayson has it," said Davidson. "It's a vital piece of evidence for the prosecution."
"Or for the defence," remarked Ronald with a faint smile. "However, we'd better wait and see."
"For the defence!" spluttered Davidson. "What on earth are you driving at, my dear man?"
But Ronald refused to elucidate further, or even to discuss the matter while we had lunch. But after the meal was over he suggested an immediate move.
"Let's go first to the place where it happened," he said. "And then if you'd ring through to him, Davidson, we'll go along and interview Sergeant Grayson."
"Certainly," answered our host. "I'll take you there at once. And I'll have the car waiting in the drive so that we'll waste no time."
He left us to go and telephone, and I tackled Ronald about the watch. But he was in one of his uncommunicative moods, and I could get nothing more out of him than the illuminating statement that it was damned rum. Then Davidson returned and we started for the river.
"That is where I was when I first saw Stapleton," said our host, pointing to a clump of trees in his park. "We've got about another quarter of a mile to go."
We turned into the path that ran along the bank. On our right through the bushes which fringed the river we could see the muddy waters of the Ling; on our left ran more bushes and a fence.
"Yarrow's property," remarked Davidson. "You'll be able to see the house soon through the trees."
At length he paused. We had come to a small clearing.
"Here's the spot," he said. "You can actually see the marks of the legs of his camp-stool in the ground."
Ronald nodded, and stood motionless studying the surroundings. The gap in the bushes on the bank measured about ten yards, and the river was some thirty yards wide. Behind us the undergrowth was dense. Up and down stream the path twisted, so that the place was completely secluded. On the right-hand side of the clearing a tree, half waterlogged, stuck out into the water, and Davidson pointed to it.
"It was against that the body had drifted." he said. "The tide was ebbing at the time and carried it there."
Ronald nodded again.
"I see it's just high tide now," he remarked. "Let's get the depth of the water."
He picked up a long stick and took some soundings.
"Three or four feet close inshore and a muddy bottom."
He straightened up and then for nearly half an hour he crept round on his hands and knees examining the ground at the bottom of the bushes. He went each way along the path, exploring it minutely, while Davidson watched him with curiosity tinged with slight impatience. At length he gave it up and rejoined us.
"I can find nothing," he said. "But, of course, the ground is very hard."
"What did you expect to find?" asked Davidson.
"'Expect' is too strong a word," answered Ronald. "All that can be said is that I thought it possible I might."
He lit a cigarette, and we waited.
"Let us try and size tip the situation," he said. "To start with an obvious platitude, either young Stern did it or someone else did. If it was young Stern we are wasting our time, because frankly, Davidson, your suggestion of manslaughter won't wash. A man who is stunned by a dunt on the head sufficient to break a bone lies where he falls. He doesn't wriggle about afterwards. Therefore, whoever hit Yarrow saw him fall into the river.
"So we'll consider the other alternative—that it was someone else who murdered him. Now, from what you have told us Yarrow was an unpopular man, so he probably had plenty of enemies. You further stated that fishing from this spot was his invariable hobby, a fact which other people must have been quite as well aware of as you were. Suppose, then, that this hypothetical some one else, desirous of seeing Yarrow, came here knowing that he'd find him. Suddenly he hears Yarrow approaching and quarrelling with Stern. He hides in the bushes, waits till Stern goes; then seizing his opportunity bashes Yarrow on the head and watches him drown."
I glanced at Davidson. His face expressed polite interest. And I must confess that I was a bit disappointed myself. Perhaps I had expected too much after such a prolonged examination, but the bald fact remained that an intelligent child of ten could have reached the same conclusion.
"And since," continued Ronald imperturbably, "the betting is four to one that that or something like it is what did take place, I thought I might find traces of his footprints."
And now we stared at him: this was a more positive assertion. "How on earth can you have arrived at that?" demanded Davidson.
Ronald smiled.
"Let's go and see Sergeant Grayson," he said. "And there is only one thing more I've got to say at the moment. If my theory is correct we are dealing with a very clever man, but one who is not quite clever enough."
"You'll be telling us you know who it is next," said Davidson, with mild sarcasm.
"I haven't a notion," said Ronald frankly. "Not the ghost of an idea. But it will be something if we can prove it wasn't young Stern."
Sergeant Grayson was expecting us, and with a genial and tolerant smile he produced the watch.
"I hear you want to see it, sir," he said. "Though what you think you'll get from it bar the obvious fact that it stopped at half-past two is beyond me."
"We'll see, Sergeant," said Ronald cheerfully, as he examined it. "By the way, it was in his waistcoat pocket, I suppose?"
"That's right, sir: attached to a button-hole by this leather guard."
The watch was a thin gold one, and the back fitted so tightly that it was only with the help of a penknife that Ronald prised it open. And when he had done so he sat staring at the works with a puzzled frown.
"Have you had this open, Sergeant Grayson?" he said at length.
"Can't say I have, sir. Why?"
"What do you think made the watch stop?"
"Water getting in, sir, of course."
"Then why is the whole inside bone dry?"
The sergeant scratched his head. "It's two days ago, sir, you know."
"Rot, man," cried Ronald. "If enough water had got into that watch to stop it, it would still be there after two weeks. It couldn't evaporate."
He was idly turning the swivel as he spoke, and suddenly a look of keen concentration came on his face.
"Great Scott!" he almost shouted, "the main spring is broken."
"Must have happened as Mr. Yarrow fell in," said the sergeant. "So that fixes the time exactly."
"My dear sergeant," remarked Ronald quietly, "I will, if you like, have a small bet with you. I will obtain for you a hundred different watches. You will go to the bank of the river or any similar spot and fall in a hundred times, with a different watch in your waistcoat pocket on each occasion. And if one mainspring breaks, I will present you with a bag of nuts."
"Well, it did this time," said the sergeant stubbornly.
"Look here, Grayson," said Ronald, "what makes a mainspring snap? Over-winding—ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Are you going to tell me that Mr. Yarrow during a heated interview with young Stern pulled out his watch and started to wind it up? It's ridiculous."
"Not more ridiculous than that someone else did," remarked Davidson.
"That's just where you're wrong," cried Ronald. "Last night I carried out a small experiment. I got into a warm bath wearing a waistcoat—and deuced absurd I looked, too," he added, with a grin. "In my waistcoat pocket was a watch. I stopped in the water for twenty minutes, and the watch was still going when I got out. It's the point that struck me the instant I heard your story, Davidson. This watch stopped too soon. If young Stern had done it, a watch that fits as tight as this one would have been still going at three."
No one said a word: we were all too keenly interested. "When I opened the back," he continued, "I expected to find it full of water. I was then going to suggest that we should have it thoroughly dried and carry out my experiment of last night with it. The murderer, however, was evidently unable to open it—you saw the difficulty I had—and he was in a hurry. So instead of filling it with water, he deliberately overwound it, thereby breaking the mainspring, and hoped it would not be noticed. Then he set the hands at half-past two, and replaced it in Yarrow's pocket."
"But why should he put them at that hour?" said Grayson.
"Expressly to incriminate Stern," cried Ronald a little irritably. "That surely is obvious."
But the sergeant had become mulish.
"Theory—all theory," he snorted. "You go your way, Mr. Standish, and I'll go mine. And when you lay your hands on the man who, having just committed a cold-blooded murder, had the nerve to do what you have suggested, Mr. Stern will be free within five minutes."
"It's your funeral, Sergeant," said Ronald quietly. "But I tell you in all seriousness that you are barking up the wrong tree. The bit of evidence that you think most damning is, in reality, what completely exonerates young Stern. Who did it, I don't know; but it wasn't him."
The trouble of it was that it remained at that. Exhaustive inquiries in the neighbourhood failed to reveal the presence of any stranger, and so far as the local residents were concerned, it was impossible to single out anyone in particular. Moreover, since public opinion was unanimous that Stern was the murderer, interest in the case had flagged with his arrest.
Ronald grew more and more irritable. He spent hours on the river bank searching for possible clues without the smallest result. And, at length, even he began to give up hope.
"There absolutely nothing to give one a pointer, Bob," he cried to me in despair before lunch one day. "I am as convinced as ever that Stern didn't do it, but who the devil did? I feel it's leaving the youngster in the lurch, but there doesn't seem much use in our stopping on here. We're doing no good."
And Davidson agreed. Though he pressed us to stay as long as we liked, I think, at the bottom of his mind, he had come round to Grayson's opinion, that it was just theory. And so we took our departure, though it was like getting a dog away from a bone, so far as Ronald was concerned. He had told Stern's solicitor to subpoena him as an expert witness, but I knew he felt uneasy about the result.
"Even if he gets off, and I don't think they'll hang him, it's going to be a damnable thing for the youngster. If the trial was in Scotland, the utmost I should expect would be a verdict of Non Proven. They can't bring that in here, but it's what it will practically amount to. Not one person in a hundred will believe he is innocent, and he'll be under the stigma for the rest of his life."
IT WAS the evening before the trial, and I was round with him in his rooms. Never have I known him so depressed, and it was not difficult to understand. He felt he had failed, and though it was through no fault of his, the result was the same. And then, quite suddenly, the most amazing change came over his expression.
"My sainted aunt!" he shouted. "Let me think a moment." I glanced over his shoulder: he was studying the snapshot of Yarrow taken by Stapleton.
"What time was it when you and I and Davidson reached the river that first day we were down there?"
"We left the house at a quarter past three," I said. "So it must I have been half-past, as near as makes no odds!'
"Get Vickers on the 'phone," he cried. "Proof, Bob—proof under my nose all these weeks and I never saw it!"
Vickers was the K.C. defending Stern, and I got through at once.
"Tell him I'm coming round to see him immediately," said Ronald, and before I had time to speak he had dashed out, and I heard him shouting for a taxi. And that night it was touch and go that I did not find myself arrested on a similar charge to young Stern. For the irritating devil would say nothing. He kept grinning all over his face and rubbing his hands together.
"Wait till to-morrow, Bob," was all I could get out of him. "And then I can promise you the kick of your young life."
The court was crowded, but through Ronald's influence I got a good seat. And a glance at young Stern's face showed that the news, whatever it was, had been passed on to him. The atmosphere was tense, as it always is during a murder trial, but the prisoner seemed the least concerned person in the place. I saw Davidson and Stapleton not far away in the body of the court, but Ronald had been given a seat just behind Vickers. And then the trial began. Counsel for the Crown outlined the case for the prosecution, and though he spoke with studied moderation it was a pretty damning indictment. He admitted freely that the case rested on circumstantial evidence, but pointed out that ninety per cent. of murder cases did. Then he called his first witness—John Stapleton—who went into the box and took the oath.
He looked, I thought, strained and pale, but that was not to be wondered at. Yarrow had been a friend of his, but apart from that, to be one of the principal witnesses when a man's life is at stake is a nerve ordeal. However, he gave his evidence in a calm and steady voice, and when Vickers rose to cross-examine him, Stapleton gave him a courteous bow.
"Now, Mr. Stapleton, we have heard that you lunched with Mr. Briggs on the day of the murder. What time did you arrive at the house?"
"Between ten and a quarter-past one."
"And it is about ten minutes' walk, is it not, from where Mr. Yarrow was fishing?"
"That is so."
"You therefore left Mr. Yarrow at about one o'clock?"
"Yes."
"Before leaving him, did you take a photograph of him fishing?" Stapleton looked surprised, as did everyone else, including the judge; so far the fact had not been mentioned.
"Now you speak of it, I did," said Stapleton. "I'd really forgotten about it."
"But you remember now?"
"Perfectly. I had one exposure to complete the roll and I took one of him fishing."
"At about one o'clock?"
"Yes. It was just before I left him to go to lunch."
"Is this the photograph you took?"
Vickers held up the snapshot and Stapleton studied it.
"Yes. That is it."
"And is that tree that one sees half submerged in the water the one against which you found the body?"
"Yes. It is."
Vickers passed the photograph up to the judge.
"I would ask you to examine it carefully, m'lud. Now, Mr. Stapleton, is that tree down-stream or up-stream from the place where Mr. Yarrow was fishing?"
"Down-stream."
Vickers produced a book and opened it. And suddenly I glanced at Stapleton. Ceaselessly he was wetting his lips with his tongue.
"I have here," continued counsel quietly, "a book which gives the times of high and low water for every day of the year in every part of the country. Would it surprise you to know, Mr. Stapleton, that on the day Mr. Yarrow was murdered, high tide in the River Ling was at one-fifty p.m.?"
"I will take your word for it," said Stapleton in a low voice.
"Therefore, when you took this photograph at one o'clock it was not yet high water; the tide was still coming in?"
"If high water was at one-fifty it must have been."
"Then why, John Stapleton," cried Vickers in a terrible voice, "is it going out in that photograph? You can see the swirl of the water against the tree."
For what seemed an eternity did the man in the box stand there mouthing, and one could have heard a pin drop in the court. Then came a sudden shout of "Stop him," but it was too late. Stapleton had cheated the hangman. And maybe as a point in his favour he confessed before he died.
"The motive—who can tell?" said Ronald, as we waited for lunch at Davidson's house. "But it was a devilish clever crime, though not quite clever enough. Somehow or other Stapleton must have known that Stern and Yarrow had had a row. Somehow or other he must have known that Stern left Yarrow a little before half-past two. The photograph which sealed his fate was probably taken to foster the idea that he and Yarrow were friends. And he forgot about high tide. If you remember, Davidson, it was just on the turn two days later at three-thirty. Now it gets about fifty minutes later every day, so that on the day of the murder high tide was an hour and forty minutes earlier—at one. His one slip. But as to motive..."
He shrugged his shoulders, and at that moment the butler announced Mr. Briggs.
"Won't keep you a moment, gentlemen," he said, "but there's just one point you might like to know. I thought no more about it till the trial to-day. At twenty-past two on the day Mr. Yarrow was murdered, someone rang Stapleton up at my house."
"Who?" said Ronald.
"Mrs. Yarrow."
Roy Glashan's Library
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