THE FOURTH MAN

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1935, Page 15

THE FOURTH MAN

(By

R. A. J. Walling)

CHAPTER THREE (continued). “No,” said the inspector sharply, “not there.” “If it were not so late I would suggest Mrs, Pettigrew’s at South Hensington. Miss Pettigrew was here this evening. They are great friends.” “Did you bring a taxi, and did you keep it?” I nodded to this. “Then take Miss Akastei along to Mrs. Pettigrew’s. If they are friends this js the time for them to show it. The girl’s nearly at the end of her tether. Then, sir, come back to me. I shall want you.” The inspector was an emphatic man, who would not be denied. He had taken full charge of the destinies of all of us. When this proposal was put to Evelyn she made no objection. I rather resented the fact that on the driver’s seat of the taxi when we started for the Boltons there was a policeman in uniform. It suggested that the inspector was taking no chances. He wanted me back, and he intended to have me. CHAPTER FOUR. Marple showed up rather well in the two or three minutes before the cab started. He thought of something that had never occurred either to the inspector or to me. It was one o’clock in the morning, and Evelyn had passed through three hours of terrible nervous strain. Marple came down the little drive as we were getting into the taxi carrying a tumbler half-full of sherry—the only, thing he could find on the dining-room sideboard. “Here, Miss Evelyn,” said he, “drink this. You must be exhausted. It will help to keep you up.” The girl was grateful. She drank the wine in two or three gulps.

“If you want any help and I can give it,” said Marple, “I shall be here.” So we went off to South Kensington. To me it was a nightmare ride. The shivering girl who crouched beside me had in those brief hours lost the guardian who was a fathei' in all but name, and was faced with a most awful suspicion, which both of us felt but neither mentioned. Nothing that I could say seemed any use. I tried again and again to think of forms of words. But none would come. She huddled against me and was silent. Neither of us spoke till the cab was slowing up among the gardens of the Boltons. Then Evelyn said, in a whisper: ■

“Did you and Joan see Bernard again?” “No,” I had to say. The policeman, on his own initiative, kept the taxi while we found our way into the place and walked up to Mrs. Pettigrew’s. The lift had longed ceased working. A startled maid answered our long ring at the door of the flat. She recognised Evelyn. “Miss Akaster,” said I, "has been obliged to come and beg Miss Pettigrew to have her for the night. Can you take her to Miss Joan’s room without disturbing Mrs. Pettigrew?” > The maid thought she could. “Then good-night, Evelyn,” said I. "I will come round in the morning.” “Let me know instantly if you hear anything about—” “I understand,” said I. “Good-night, Evelyn.” As I went down the stairs it struck me .as .an incongruous thing that I was going in the company of a policeman to the investigation of a tragedy more comfortably than I had taken that poor girl to her refuge. Of the many kinds of courage I possessed, or thought I did, easy contact with Evelyn’s sort of suffering was not one. On the way out to Waller House again, looking into the back of the stolid policeman, I tried to imagine the ordeal that faced me. I knew that I was in for a long interrogation, and I could guess from the inspector’s manner already “what the tendency of his questions would be.

If Selwyp had been murdered in the garden—and no suggestion of a possible sudcide had been put forward—and if Olver was the last person known to be in the garden, the line the police would take was perfectly clear. My mind went quickly over the day’s events. I determined what to .say and what not to say about them. A good deal depended on anything that Marple might have told the inspector. I could not make up my mind about Marple. Giver’s outburst against him had rather surprised me. It might have been caused by sheer, unfounded jealousy. Marple had never seemed to me a bad sort—just a rather cynical bachelor with a taste for poking fun at the younger generation. If he was what Olver thought, the affair would soon bring out the truth. And Olver?

That scared search for Selwyn in the garden at the last moment. That rush past Evelyn without a word. That disappearance into the darkness. Especially those uncommon words “Good-bye,” instead of his customary “Cheerio!” or “Au’voir!”

I could not bring myself to believe that Olver was capable of murdering anybody, least of all Selwyn, who was his best friend and benefactor. But if Olver was as innocent of any knowledge of the affair as a new-born child, he could not have chosen a more certain way of bringing suspicion upon himself. I was soon to discover what Marple’s attitude had been. When I entered the dining-room again, and found the inspector seated at the table making notes

(To be continued).

in a thick little pocket-book, he was the only person there. “Well, Mi-. Quilter,” said he, "you’ve had a painful job. Get through without much trouble?” “Yes, thanks,” 1 answered. 1 left Miss Akaster with her friend, Miss Pettigrew. I should tell you that I am engaged to be married to Miss Pettigrew, and she and Miss Akaster are old school chums.” “Good! good!” said the old man, wagging his grey beard and looking at me kindly.' “You relieved us in a difficulty. I’m much obliged. I was very sorry for that poor girl. I’m afraid I’m going to be still more sorry for her. She is fond of the young Olver, isn’t she?” “I believe she is,” said I. *1 suppose Mr. Marple has told you about them/’ “Marple? Oh, no, Marple doesn’t seem to know much about it. Can tell me all about the deceased, but not much about the young folks. But the servant girls seem to think that Miss Akaster and Olver are in love. Makes it all the stranger, doesn’t it?” “Makes what all the stranger? I asked, with as perfect air of wonder as I could assume on the spur of the moment. • Good for Marple! He had not sold the pass. He might be counted a friend. He had evidently said nothing of Selwyn’s objections to a love affair between Olver and Evelyn, nothing about the kiss, and nothing about the quarrel, if quarrel there was. “Why,” said the inspector in answer to my question, “that Olver should have killed Selwyn.” “Olver killed Selwyn!” 1 exclaimed. “How absurd! Why should Olver kill Selwyn? They were the closest friends. Selwyn was like a father to Olver—took him into his business, would have done anything for him. And Olver was fonder of Selwyn than any other man on earth.”

“Then,” said the inspector, “why did they quarrel in the library last evening, so violently that their high words were heard by the servants in the kitchen, and why did Olver follow Selwyn into the garden? And why did he run away immediately after? And why has he not returned to his home at Ealing?” The inspector pumped these questions at me as if he were a machine-gun. I blenched a little at the thought that the police had already started the hunt for Olver. But I replied, as coolly as I could: \ “I’m sure I don’t know. I expect it’s all some misunderstanding, inspector. Anyhow, I don’t believe Olvei- did anything of the kind.” CHAPTER FIVE. I stuck to my theory of Giver’s innocence all through the talk with the inspector. I did not feel called upon to know anything of a reason for quarrel. If Marple had said nothing of the embargo on love-making or of Olver’s folly of the afternoon I was not going to reveal anything of these things. My own state of mind was confused. I did not know what to believe. Certainly, the inspector had a strong circumstantial case. And when, in the course of the next half-hour he reconstructed the crime in the course of examining me, I had to confess that the outlook for Olver was desperate. This Was his case: Marple and Selwyn had been talking and smoking in the library after -dinner till a quarter to ten, when Marple left and walked across the path fields to the house of a friend at Acton, reaching there at ten, and staying till half-past, when he walked back the same way.

Immediately after Marple parted from Mr. Selwyn Olver was called to the library, and at ten the servants heard the quarrel. According to the maids, Olver left- the library soon after and went to the dining-room, and one of them who was in the courtyard at the side of the house saw Mr. Selwyn go through the French window and walk down the garden. Afterwards the same girl saw Olver pass out at the diningroom window and go in the same direction, towards the tennis court. Nothing more was heard of him till he left the house. He came up from the garden, wished Miss Akaster “Good-night” in the hall, and that was the last of him—for the present, the inspector added, with a certain emphasis.

There were in this account certain flaws known only to me. I did not repair them. My interview with Olver had not been seen by anybody, and I kept it to myself. The episode of the “Good-night” in the hall had evidently been invented by Evelyn, and the inspector knew nothing of that rush past her, of her startled cry, and of his farewell to us. Some of it made in Olver’s favour. Some of it made against him. At any rate, so far as I was concerned the issue should be left to time.

But the inspector had a complete story. He had built up to his own satisfaction the scene in the garden; and, in the dead stillness of two o’clock in the morning, I walked with him to the place where the dreadful thing had happened. He led the way along the path that followed the little stream, on to the tennis lawn where we had played our lazy game in the afternoon. The inspector stopped at a certain point. “Olver came up behind him on the grass and shot him through the back," said he. “The poor gentleman was knocked forward by the force of the bullet, and fell on his face on the lawn.”