Wimsey asked what he had done with the razors.
‘Gave ’em to the gardener,’ said the Colonel. ‘Very decent man. Comes in twice a week. Wife and family. War pensioner with a game leg. Helps with the dogs. Quite a good man. Name of Summers.’
‘When was that, sir?’
‘What? Oh! when did I give ’em to him, you mean. Let me see, now, let me see. That was after Diana had whelped – near thing that – nearly lost her that time, poor bitch. She died two years ago – killed – run over by a damned motorcyclist. Best bitch I ever had. I had him up in court for it – made him pay. Careless young devil. No consideration for anybody. And now they’ve abolished the speed-limit—’
Wimsey reminded the Colonel that they were talking about razors.
After further consideration, the Colonel narrowed down the period to the year 1926. He was sure about it, because of the spaniel’s illness, which had given Summers considerable trouble. He had made the man a present of money, and had added the razors, having just purchased a new pair for himself. Owing to the illness of the mother, only one puppy out of the litter had been successfully reared, and that was Stamford Royal, who had proved a very good dog. A reference to the stud-book clinched the date conclusively.
Wimsey thanked the Colonel, and asked whether he could interview Summers.
By all means. It was not one of Summers’ days, but he lived in a little cottage near the bridge. Wimsey could go and see him and mention the Colonel’s name. Should the Colonel walk down with Wimsey?
Lord Peter was grateful, but begged the Colonel would not take the trouble. (He felt, indeed, that Summers might be more communicative in Colonel Belfridge’s absence.) With some trouble, he disengaged himself from the old soldier’s offers of hospitality, and purred away through the picturesque streets of Stamford to the cottage by the bridge.
Summers was an easy man to question – alert, prompt and exact. It was very kind of Colonel Belfridge to give him the razors. He himself could not make use of them, preferring the safety instrument, but of course he had not told the Colonel that, not wishing to hurt his feelings. He had given the razors to his sister’s husband, who kept a hairdressing establishment in Seahampton.
Seahampton! Less than 50 miles from Wilvercombe! Had Wimsey struck it lucky with his very first shot? He was turning away, when it occurred to him to ask whether there was any special mark by which either of the razors might be recognised.
Yes, there was. One of them had been accidentally dropped on the stone floor of the cottage and there was a slight, a very slight crack across the ivory. You wouldn’t hardly notice it without you looked closely. The other razor was, so far as Summers knew, quite perfect.
Wimsey thanked his informant and rewarded him suitably. He returned to the car and set his course southward. He had always thought Stamford a beautiful town and now, with its grey stone houses and oriel windows bathed in the mellow afternoon sunshine, it seemed to him the loveliest jewel in the English crown.
He slept that night in Seahampton, and on the Sunday morning set forth in search of Summers’ brother-in-law, whose name was Merryweather – a name of happy omen. The shop turned out to be a small one, in the neighbourhood of the docks. Mr Merryweather lived above his premises, and was delighted to give Wimsey information about the razors.
He had had them in 1927, and they were good razors, though they had been badly treated and were considerably worn when they came into his hands. He had one of them still, and it was doing good service. Perhaps his lordship would like to look at it. Here it was.
Wimsey, with a beating heart, turned it over in his hands. It was the exact duplicate of the razor that Harriet had found on the shore. He examined it carefully, but found no crack in the ivory. But what, he asked, almost afraid to put the question for fear of disappointment, what had become of the fellow to it?
‘Now that, my lord,’ said Mr Merryweather, ‘I unfortunately cannot show you. Had I known it would be wanted, I certainly would never have parted with it. I sold that razor, my lord, only a few weeks ago, to one of these tramping fellows that came here looking for a job. I had no work for him here, and to tell you the truth, my lord, I wouldn’t have given it to him if I had. You’d be surprised, the number of these men who come round, and half of them are no more skilled hairdressers than my tom-cat. Just out for what they can pick up, that’s what they are. We generally give them a few razors to set, just to see what they’re made of, and the way they set about it, you can tell, nine times out of ten, that they’ve never set a razor in their lives. Well, this one was like that, and I told him he could push off. Then he asked me if I could sell him a second-hand razor, so I sold him this one to get rid of him. He paid for it and away he went, and that’s the last I saw of him.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Oh, a little rat of a fellow. Sandy-haired and too smooth in his manner by half. Not so tall as your lordship, he wasn’t, and if I remember rightly he was a bit – not deformed, but what I might call crooked. He might have had one shoulder a trifle higher than the other. Nothing very noticeable, but he gave me that impression. No, he wasn’t lame or anything of that kind. Quite spry, he seemed, and quick in his movements. He had rather pale eyes, with sandy eyelashes – an ugly little devil, if you’ll excuse me. Very well-kept hands – one notices that, because, of course, when a man asks for a job in this kind of establishment, that’s one of the first things one looks for. Dirty or bitten nails, for instance, are what one couldn’t stand for for a moment. Let me see, now. Oh, yes – he spoke very well. Spoke like a gentleman, very refined and quiet. That’s a thing one notices, too. Not that it’s of any great account in a neighbourhood like this. Our customers are sometimes a roughish lot. But one can’t help notice, you see, when one’s been used to it. Besides, it gives one an idea what kind of place a man has been used to.’
‘Did this man say anything about where he had been employed previously?’
‘Not that I remember. My impression of him was that he’d been out of employment for a goodish time, and wasn’t too keen on giving details. He said he was on his own. There’s plenty of them do that – want you to believe they had their own place in Bond Street and only lost their money through unexampled misfortunes. You know the sort, I expect, my lord. But I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the man, not liking the look of him.’
‘I suppose he gave a name.’
‘I suppose he did, come to think of it, but I’m dashed if I know what it was. Henry! What did that sneaking little red-haired fellow that came here the other day say his name was? The man that bought that razor off me?’
Henry, a youth with a crest like a cocktaoo, who apparently lodged with his employer, laid aside the Sunday paper which he had been unsuccessfully pretending to read.
‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I don’t remember, Mr Merry-weather. Some ordinary name. Was it Brown, now? I think it was Brown.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Mr Merryweather, suddenly enlightened. ‘It was Bright, that’s what it was. Because don’t you remember me saying he didn’t act up to his name when it came to setting razors?’
‘That’s right,’ said Henry. ‘Of course. Bright. What’s the matter with him? Been getting into trouble?’
‘I shouldn’t wonder if he had,’ said Wimsey.
‘Police?’ suggested Henry, with a sparkling countenance.
‘Now, Henry,’ said Mr Merryweather. ‘Does his lordship here look as if he was the police? I’m surprised at you. You’ll never make your way in this profession if you don’t know better than that.’
Henry blushed.
‘I’m not the police,’ said Wimsey, ‘but I shouldn’t be surprised if the police did want to get hold of Mr Bright one of these days. But don’t you say anything about that. Only, if you should happen to see Mr Bright again, at any time, you might let me know. I’m staying at Wilvercombe at the moment – at the Bellevue – but in case I’m not there, this address will always find me.’
He proffered a card, thanked Mr Merryweather and Henry, and withdrew, triumphant. He felt that he had made progress. Surely there could not be two white Endicott razors, bearing the same evidence of misuse and the same little crack in the ivory. Surely he had tracked the right one, and if so –
Well, then he had only to find Mr Bright. A tramp-barber with sandy hair and a crooked shoulder ought not to be so very difficult to find. But there was always the disagreeable possibility that Mr Bright had been a barber for that one performance only. In which case, his name was almost certainly not Bright.
He thought for a moment, then went into a telephone call-box and rang up the Wilvercombe police.
Superintendent Glaisher answered him. He was interested to hear that Wimsey had traced the early history of the razor. He had not personally observed the crack in the ivory, but if his lordship would hold the line for a moment. . . . Hullo! was Wimsey there? . . . Yes, his lordship was quite right. There was a crack. Almost indistinguishable, but it was there. Certainly it was an odd coincidence. It really looked as though it might bear investigation.
Wimsey spoke again.
Yes, by all means. The Seahampton police should be asked to trace Bright. No doubt it would turn out that Alexis had got the razor off Bright, but it was funny that he couldn’t have bought one in Wilvercombe if he wanted one. About three weeks ago, was it? Very good. He would see what could be done. He would also find out whether Alexis had been to Seahampton within that period or whether, alternatively, Bright had been seen in Wilvercombe. He was obliged to Lord Peter for the trouble he had taken in the matter, and if his lordship thought of coming back to Wilvercombe, there had been recent developments which might interest him. It was now pretty certain that it was a case of suicide. Still, one had to go into these matters pretty carefully. Had the body been found? No. The body had not come ashore, and the wind was still holding the tide up and making it impossible to undertake any operations off the Grinders.
IX
THE EVIDENCE OF THE FLAT-IRON
‘Come, tell me now,
How sits this ring?’
The Bride’s Tragedy
Sunday, 21 June
Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey sat side by side on the beach, looking out towards the Devil’s Flat-Iron. The fresh salt wind blew strongly in from the sea, ruffling Harriet’s dark hair. The weather was fine, but the sunshine came only in brilliant bursts, as the driven clouds rolled tumultuously across the bellowing vault of the sky. Over the Grinders, the sea broke in furious patches of white. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and the tide was at its lowest, but even so, the Flat-Iron was hardly uncovered, and the Atlantic waves, roaring in, made a heavy breach against its foot. A basket of food lay between the pair, not yet unpacked. Wimsey was drawing plans in the damp sand.
‘The thing we want to get,’ he said, ‘is the time of the death. The police are quite clear about how Alexis came here, and there doesn’t seem to be any doubt in the matter, which is a blessing. There’s a train from Wilvercombe that stops at Darley Halt on Thursdays at 10.15, to take people in to Heathbury market. Alexis travelled by that train and got out at the Halt. I think it must have been Alexis all right. He was pretty conspicuous with his black beard and his natty gent’s outfitting. I think we can take that bit as proved. The guard on the train remembered him, and so did three or four of his fellow-travellers. What’s more, his landlady says he left his rooms in time to catch the train, and the booking-clerk remembers him at Wilvercombe. And, dear Harriet, there is a first return-ticket from Wilvercombe to that Halt that was never given up and never accounted for.’
‘A return-ticket?’ asked Harriet.
‘A return-ticket. And that, as you so acutely remark, Sherlock, seems to knock the suicide theory on the head. I said as much to the Super, and what was his reply? That suicides, let alone foreign suicides, were that inconsistent there was no accounting for them.’
‘So they may be, in real life,’ observed Harriet, thoughtfully. ‘One wouldn’t made an intending suicide take a return-ticket in a book, but real people are different. It might have been a slip, or just habit – or he may not have quite made up his mind to the suicide business.’
‘I thought my friend Chief Inspector Parker was the most cautious beggar on the face of the earth, but you beat him. You can knock out habit. I refuse to believe that our dainty Alexis made a habit of travelling to the Halt in order to walk four and a half miles to weep by the sad sea waves. However, we’ll just note the return half of the ticket as something that needs explainin’. Very good. Well, now, there was nobody else got off at the Halt, though quite a bunch of people got in, so we don’t know what happened to Alexis; but if we allow that he could walk at the moderate rate of three miles an hour, he can’t have got to the Flat-Iron later than, say, 11.45.’
‘Stop a minute. How about the tide? When was low water on Thursday?’
‘At 1.15. I’ve been into all that. At 11.45 there would be about five feet of water at the foot of the Flat-Iron, but the rock is ten feet high, and rises gradually from the landward side. At 11.45, or very shortly after, our friend could have walked out dry-shod to the rock and sat upon it.’
‘Good. We know he did go out dry-shod, so that all fits in nicely. What next?’
‘Well, what? Whether he cut his own throat or somebody cut it for him when did he die? It’s an awful pity we’ve lost the body. Even if it turns up now, it won’t tell us a thing. It wasn’t stiff, of course, when you saw it, and you say you can’t tell if it was cold.’
‘If,’ said Harriet, ‘there had been a block of ice on that rock at that time, you could have boiled eggs on it.’
‘Tiresome, tiresome. Wait a minute. The blood. How about that? Did you notice whether it was in thick red clots, or whether it was a sort of jelly of white serum, with the red part at the bottom, or anything?’
Harriet shook her head.
‘It wasn’t. It was liquid.’
‘It was what?’
‘Liquid. When I put my hand into it, it was quite wet.’
‘Great Scott! Half a sec. Where was the blood? Splashed all over the place, I suppose.’
‘Not exactly. There was a big pool of it underneath the body – just as though he had leaned over and cut his throat into a basin. It had collected in a sort of hollow in the rock.’
‘Oh, I see. That explains it. I expect the hollow was full of sea-water left by the tide, and what looked like blood was a mixture of blood and water. I began to think—’
‘But listen! It was quite liquid everywhere. It dripped out of his neck. And when I lifted his head up and disturbed the body, it dripped some more. Horrid!’
‘But, my darling girl—’
‘Yes, and listen again! When I tried to take his glove off, the leather wasn’t stiff – it was soft and wet. His hands had been lying right under his throat.’
‘Good lord! But—’
‘That was the left hand. The right hand was hanging over the side of the rock and I couldn’t get at it without clambering over him, which I didn’t fancy, somehow. Otherwise, I should have tried that. I was wondering, you see, why the gloves?’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But we know there was nothing wrong with his hands. That doesn’t matter now. It’s the blood – do you realise that, if the blood was still liquid, he can only have been dead a few minutes?’
‘Oh!’ Harriet paused in consternation. ‘What a fool I am! I ought to have known that. And I thought I was deducing things so nicely! He couldn’t have been bleeding slowly to death for some time, I suppose?’
‘With his throat cut to the neck-bone? Dear child, pull yourself together. Look here. Blood clots very quickly – more quickly, of course, on a cold surface. In the ordinary way it will clot almost instantaneously on exposure to the air. I daresay it might take a little longer on a hot surface like the rock you describe so graphically. But it couldn’t take more than a few minutes. Say ten, to give it an outside l
imit.’
‘Ten minutes. Oh, Peter!’
‘Yes?’
‘That noise that woke me up. I thought it was a sea-gull. They sound so human. But suppose it was—’
‘It must have been. When was that?’
‘Two o’clock. I looked at my watch. And I shouldn’t think it took me more than ten minutes to reach the rock. But – I say!’
‘Well?’
‘How about your murder-theory? That’s done it in absolutely. If Alexis was murdered at two o’clock, and I was there ten minutes after – what became of the murderer?’
Wimsey sat up as suddenly as though he had been stung.
‘Oh, hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘Harriet; dear, sweet, beautiful Harriet, say you were mistaken. We can’t be wrong about the murder. I’ve staked my reputation with Inspector Umpelty that it couldn’t have been suicide. I shall have to leave the country. I shall never hold my head up again. I shall have to go and shoot tigers in fever-haunted jungles, and die, babbling of murder between my swollen and blackened lips. Say that the blood was clotted. Or say there were footprints you overlooked. Or that there was a boat within hail. Say something.’
‘There was a boat, but not within hail; because I hailed it.’
‘Thank God there was a boat! Perhaps I may leave my bones in Old England yet. What do you mean, not within hail because you hailed it? If the murderer was in the boat, naturally he wouldn’t have put back if it had hailed sweet potatoes. I wish you wouldn’t give me such shocks. My nerves are not what they were.’
‘I don’t know much about boats, but this one looked to me a pretty good way out. The wind was blowing in-shore, you know.’
‘It doesn’t matter. So long as there was a good stiff wind, and he could sail close enough to it, he might have made quite a good way in ten minutes. What sort of boat was it?’