There Came Both Mist and Snow Page 17

  Appleby leant forward. ‘A motive is always useful,’ he said gravely. ‘But could you let us have a little evidence as well?’

  ‘Evidence?’ Lucy looked most surprised. ‘But I confess.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Chigwidden, I am afraid that your confession, however vigorous, will never get you convicted. Evidence of some sort there must be.’

  ‘Lucy, my dear’ – Hubert Roper spoke for the first time – ‘don’t look so put out. We will all think you up some evidence if you want it. And what about this? Wilfred was most inefficiently shot. It is increasingly clear that the major puzzle of the affair is in that. If one wants to kill a man one goes for his head or his heart. Yet this shot, fired at a few paces, gets Wilfred in the right side.’ Hubert paused and looked round the room. ‘Now, could anyone except Lucy make quite such a muddle? Who hasn’t seen her dip her pen in the cream jug and put sugar in her soup? Isn’t she the only person one can imagine as getting things exactly the wrong way round – mistaking one man for another and his right side for his left?’ Hubert turned to Appleby. ‘Search no further,’ he said lazily. ‘You’ve got your man.’

  I suppose Lucy’s performance may be said to have done credit to her motherly heart. In the abstract world which she largely inhabited tears were no doubt a symbol of guilt, and she had accepted Anne’s in that sense. Her attempted confession, however, had a woolly quality which I found irritating – though not so irritating as Hubert’s trivial and untimely embroidery upon the mystery. With Hubert – and for reasons which must presently appear – I felt really angry. So did Horace Cudbird. Cudbird stood up. ‘I am going to explain,’ he said, ‘what happened last night.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Voice muttering urgently to Leader. He may have been insisting – very reasonably – that in point of explanations we had already reached l’embarras de richesses. His expostulations, however, ceased abruptly: I imagine at some sign from Appleby. Cudbird was allowed to proceed. But not before Anne, whose power of recovery from emotion was rapid, had re-established herself as ironic chorus.

  ‘A little bird has told Mr Cudbird all about it. Doubtless a canary.’

  Cudbird nodded his head emphatically. ‘Yes, the canaries have had a hand in it, I don’t deny. But for studying their ways I doubt whether I should have hit on the truth. Or but for that and an awakening interest in art.’

  ‘New interests everywhere.’ Automatically, Geoffrey chimed in on Anne’s note. ‘Has everyone heard of Cecil gathering rosebuds while he might? One wonders if Rose fell.’

  With considerable presence of mind the Voice bent a severe eye upon the constable who was inclined to snigger. For a moment Geoffrey’s joke hung uncomfortably in the air and then Cudbird went on.

  ‘The trouble clearly starts with Sir Basil’s proposal to sell Belrive and put most of the proceeds into an expensive expedition. A good many people might be worried by that.’ Cudbird paused. He was speaking with a deliberation that accorded impressively with a natural weight in the man. I felt my heart beating faster; I was convinced that he really had something to say. ‘A good many people might be worried. Quite suddenly, and as the result of what might very well appear a whim, a sizeable fortune is going – as somebody put it – to be fired at the moon. Or, at any rate, to melt away in the blizzard and the snow.’

  Appleby, who had been staring into the fire, transferred his gaze to the ceiling.

  ‘Mr Roper, here’ – and Cudbird nodded curtly at Hubert – ‘might be worried. He is the heir. I don’t suppose he would lose every expectation under Sir Basil’s proposed dispositions. But certainly he would lose a good deal – including the actual estate, to which he may very well be more attached than his brother.’

  Appleby lowered his eye, caught my own, and nodded gravely. Then he returned to the contemplation of the plaster above his head.

  ‘Mr Roper might be worried, one can clearly see. And now about my canaries.’ Cudbird squared his shiny jacket on his shoulders and swept the room with his oddly compelling eye; he enjoyed this abrupt transition. ‘There are times when one of the creatures has to be put in a cage by itself. And often, poor thing, it is inclined to mope… And now, I am afraid, I must get a bit personal. I want you all to take a look at Sir Basil, there.’

  We looked at Basil, wondering what connection might exist between him and the moping canary. It afforded me some satisfaction to see that Appleby was looking frankly puzzled.

  ‘There’s a resemblance – a family likeness – between Sir Basil and his nephews, Cecil and Wilfred. That I’ve already remarked to some of you here. But it’s not a strong resemblance. Wilfred, from what I saw of him, is uncommonly like Cecil; the two of them are – though less markedly – like Sir Basil. It would be easier to take Wilfred for Cecil or Cecil for Wilfred than it would be to take either for Sir Basil.’ Cudbird paused to let this sink in. ‘And now let me recall something that Mr Roper said a few minutes back. He said that Mrs Chigwidden here is the only person one can imagine as getting things exactly the wrong way round. But that’s just what the canary can do when you give it a bit of mirror.’

  Cudbird had made his effect. Hubert jerked suddenly upright in his seat, his laziness or affectation of laziness gone. The rest of us stared in fascination at the little brewer.

  ‘When the bird is lonesome I’ve tried sometimes giving it a piece of mirror for companionship’s sake. Two things happen. It pays a great deal of attention to the mirror. And it gets thoroughly confused. These two things are just what Mr Roper has been doing.’

  ‘That,’ said Hubert Roper, ‘is true.’

  ‘Look at his sketches. They are obviously the work of months. And they are all taken up with mirrors: one mirror, two mirrors, three mirrors – even four. Sketches of the reflection of a reflection – a fascinating technical exercise I don’t doubt.’

  I remembered that odd scene between Hubert and Geoffrey when Geoffrey had offered advice on the composition of Cecil’s picture. Hubert had said something about slaving at just such sketches till he felt like Alice in the looking-glass. In this particular at least there was no doubt that Cudbird was on the spot. And there was a deadly effectiveness in the way he was developing his thought. It made everything that we had heard so far appear the merest beating in the air.

  ‘You see the relevance of this to the grand puzzle in the whole affair: the fact that Wilfred Foxcroft was shot through the right lung. Work with an artist’s intense concentration day after day at these tricks of reflection and you may very well find yourself thoroughly confused in a crisis. Constantly you have been putting on paper or canvas a left which you know is a right or a right which you know is a left. And then you step up to a brightly lit window and try to get a man in the heart. If you get his right lung instead – well, I for one won’t be surprised.’

  ‘Nor I.’ Hubert was pale, but he was looking at Cudbird steadily enough. ‘I doubt if I’ve heard anything more plausible in my life.’

  ‘But that’s not all. I have said that Cecil and Wilfred are alike, and that each bears a less marked resemblance to Sir Basil. Here we have something else that fits. Wilfred is shot; Wilfred is like Cecil; Mr Roper has been studying Cecil – in a mirror. Now, there is a curious fact about human physiognomy – I think that’s the word – which may be studied with the aid of photographic negatives. It is the fact of the asymmetrical nature of the human face. Take a photograph full-face and cut the negative vertically through nose and chin. You can then print three distinct faces: the normal once, using the two halves; a face made of the left side used twice; a face made of the right side used twice. But the relevant point here is one that I have learnt once more from the canaries. It is this. Asymmetrical characters may be inherited in a transferred position. And there is a particular sort of family likeness – the so-called ‘baffling’ sort – which is the result of this. If you will think for a minute you will see what follows. The resemblance between two such people will become closer if one is viewed in a mir
ror.’ Cudbird paused. ‘And it will become less close again if a second mirror is introduced. Mr Roper, then, trying out now one system of mirrors and now another for his portrait of Cecil, is intensively studying an appearance which is now more and now less like Sir Basil. And as Wilfred is so like Cecil, the effect would be just the same had it been Wilfred whom he was painting. I think I need hardly labour the point of how confusing all this is.’

  Leader, who had got tied up in a forlorn endeavour to transfer Cudbird’s reasoning to his notebook, nodded emphatically. Appleby had put his hands in his trouser pockets; I remembered his bet with Cudbird and found myself expecting him to produce five shillings there and then. He did no more, however, than ask a question.

  ‘Would it really work that way? You imply that the shot was not fired at an unidentifiable figure simply because that figure was at Sir Basil’s desk; it was fired because the features of Wilfred Foxcroft – no doubt briefly and imperfectly glimpsed – were mistaken for those of Sir Basil. Surely a painter, however bemused by this mirror business, would be the last man to fall into such an error?’

  I breathed more freely – but only for a moment. Cudbird shook his head. ‘Not this painter. There is nothing that more bores Mr Roper than the human face. He even declares that there is only a handful of human faces extant. He has had to make too much bread and butter out of them, and he dislikes them.’

  Hubert looked up and nodded. ‘Again,’ he said, ‘only too true. I wish I liked the human race; I wish I liked its silly face. But I don’t.’ He regarded Cudbird with a gloomy calm which alarmed me.

  ‘Why all this business of mirrors at all?’ Cudbird went inexorably on his way. ‘Simply so that he can pretend to be painting faces when he is really painting other things. Technical things. Edges, for example – whatever they may be. You might say that Mr Roper is obstinately determined that faces – unlike bricks, apparently – are all alike. And on top of that comes the fact that the actual faces involved have been approximating to each other in the way I have explained. There’s no getting away from it. Hubert Roper is the man.’

  ‘Hubert Roper is the man.’ It was Hubert himself who spoke. He glanced at Lucy. ‘And he may as well confess at once.’

  It was a twist too much to some screw which had steadily been boring into my mind during this protracted and extraordinary scene. Something snapped. I sprang to my feet. ‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘Hubert, for heaven’s sake stop. I will tell them… I will tell them who did it.’

  23

  I looked round the library. ‘Cambrell,’ I said. ‘Cambrell did it.’

  My own voice came to me strangely. I had not meant to make this accusation, and I admit that I would not have made it now had I believed that there was evidence sufficiently strong to secure a conviction. But Hubert’s danger – and I felt that the ingenuity of Cudbird made his danger very real – had roused me and I spoke on the spur of the moment. Doubtless Hubert’s own wilfulness was finally responsible. I can see now that he had no intention of confessing to the crime. His words had merely been an ironic echo of Lucy’s. But for a moment they had clouded my judgement and it seemed to me that if disaster were to be avoided the case against Cambrell must be vigorously put.

  ‘Cudbird’s construction is extraordinarily ingenious. But it is by no means the only case that can be built up to take account of the peculiar manner in which Wilfred was shot. The case against Cambrell, though equally surprising, is simpler and even more convincing.’

  I had been holding Hubert fixed with my eye. Now I paused, fairly well pleased with the manner in which I had modified my first outburst.

  Cambrell took advantage of the silence. ‘I protest!’ he said loudly. ‘I protest against the scandalous irregularity of these proceedings. If Roper here were not virtually incapacitated’ – and he waved his hand at Basil – ‘he would not permit it for a moment. The chief constable shall hear of it. And who the devil is Ferryman to accuse me of criminal behaviour? If the police wish to interrogate me let them say so and I shall send for my solicitor. I came back here as a matter of courtesy. I will not stop to be insulted.’

  And Cambrell stood up as if to go. His attitude, if intemperately expressed, could scarcely be termed unreasonable. It was Appleby who intervened. Appleby had interrupted his contemplation of the ceiling when I had first spoken, and had looked at me with all the appearance of a man who expects the truth to emerge at last. But now the ceiling had claimed him again. He spoke almost absently. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that Mr Ferryman spoke at first in some excitement. From what he now says one gathers that he is not putting forward a charge. All this is exploratory – exploratory merely.’

  Leader gave a supporting nod. ‘We are exploring every avenue,’ he said sententiously. ‘Nothing more than that.’

  ‘We must leave,’ said Appleby, ‘no stone unturned.’

  ‘Routine,’ said the Voice. ‘Hearing the views of those concerned. Mere routine.’

  What these remarks lacked in cogency they made up for in confidence. Cambrell subsided beneath the soothing chorus. ‘Very well,’ he said; ‘I submit. Talk away. But I will not answer questions.’

  I took a long breath. ‘Cambrell wants to buy Belrive. So does Cudbird. I have reason to know – I fear it is something I overhead – that Cambrell offered the higher figure. Basil refused it; he preferred that Cudbird should have the estate for a lesser sum because he was interested in what Cudbird proposed to do. Cambrell was exceedingly angry. And he seems to have believed – this is again what I overheard – that Hubert, were he the owner of the estate, would be differently disposed. He believed that Hubert would sell – and sell to him. And we know, of course, that if Basil died Hubert would inherit the estate and have the power to dispose of it.’

  Anne interrupted. ‘But, Uncle Arthur, would a man, would an industrialist’ – she looked at Cambrell – ‘would a respectable industrialist really take a gun as a means of possessing himself of land for darker and more satanic mills? As a motive isn’t that a bit steep?’

  ‘Not with Cambrell.’ I am afraid I was beginning to get some enjoyment from my thesis. ‘His mills bound his entire mental horizon. He thinks in terms of nothing else. What another man might do for a woman, or a treasure, he would do for his business. And you must remember that in this matter Cambrell has been in direct competition with Cudbird. A purely human element enters there. I believe he would feel a direct defeat by Cudbird as intolerable. Consider all this and the motive becomes a very likely one.’

  I paused to collect my thoughts. ‘Now, we know that Cambrell was actually in Basil’s study last night. That is a matter of his own confession. But of a confession which was by no means voluntary. He left – and the mistake, as being evidence of haste, is significant in itself – a book of his own and took away one of Cecil’s instead – Law’s Serious Call.’

  Sir Mervyn Wale, who had been sitting huddled and silent in a large chair by the fire, endeavoured to interrupt upon this. ‘Speaking of that, I ought to say–’

  But I was too wound up to pause. ‘He says that he came in by the front door, went directly to the study, found it deserted, decided that he had acted injudiciously, and retreated as he came. I find this not very easy to believe. Consider the book. Cambrell enters the study and finds it empty; he waits for a few moments and then leaves. Is it likely that in this slightly uneasy position he would set down a book he was carrying? But only if he had set it down would it be possible for him to take away another book by mistake. One can, on the other hand, envisage certain circumstances in which he would set down his book.’

  I saw Appleby nod slightly, and felt he approved the reasoning so far as it went. ‘And now I come to something which I saw. As I have told the police, when I went out for a stroll I saw the figure of a man lurking on the terrace. Would this not be Cambrell, waiting to catch Basil? He says that after having left somewhat angrily earlier in the day he felt some awkwardness in presenting himself again so soon to Basil’s serva
nts. If that were so would he not be more likely to slip along the terrace and walk into the study direct? You may well feel it to be inherently probable that Cambrell both came and went that way.

  ‘With what intentions he would come one does not know. But if what I say is correct it is fairly clear that he did not actually enter the study until after the firing of the shot. It seems likely that he walked about in irresolution, or hurried away to get a weapon, and thus failed to mark Basil’s leaving the room and Wilfred’s entering. When he fired it was from behind the curtain; until he got his man he would not want to risk being identified. And then, when Wilfred fell, he would enter the room to make sure. He would kneel by the body – and this is the moment at which he would set down his book. He would find that he had shot not Basil but Wilfred, and that Wilfred was not dead. His one instinct would then be to get clear. He would snatch at his book – or at what he thought was his book – and depart as he had come. And he is a resolute man. What he failed to achieve in the study last night he attempted again in the ruins this morning – and that even after the police had traced something of his yesterday’s movements.’

  I sat back in my chair in what would have been silence but for the sudden scream of Cambrell’s siren calling his operatives back to work. It was far past lunch time. And now Cambrell again made a grab at his hat. ‘If you think,’ he said brusquely, ‘that you are at all likely to gaol me on the strength of that–’

  ‘Not at all.’ I spoke with vigour. ‘Nobody expects anything of the kind. I am merely showing that you are as convincing a suspect as Hubert.’

  Leader laid his pencil on the table before him and shook his head. ‘I don’t know that you can be said to have done that, sir. Mr Cudbird offered us a really clever explanation of the great puzzle: the odd way Mr Foxcroft was shot. Whereas–’