Unnatural death
“Oh, the law says it’s a crime, fast enough,” said Wimsey. “But do you
honestly think it’s very bad? I know you’d call it a sin, of course, but
why is it so very dreadful? It doesn’t do the person any harm, does it?”
“We can’t answer that,” said Mr. Tredgold, “without knowing the ways of
God with the soul. In those last weeks or hours of pain and
unconsciousness, the soul may be undergoing some necessary part of its
pilgrimage on earth. It isn’t our business to cut it short. Who are we
to take life and death into our hands?”
“Well, we do it all day, one way and another.
Juries—soldiers—doctors—all that. And yet I do feel, somehow, that it
isn’t a right thing in this case. And yet, by interfering—finding things
out and so on—one may do far worse harm. Start all kinds of things.”
“I think,” said Mr. Tredgold, “that the sin—I won’t use that word—the
damage to Society, the wrongness of the thing lies much more in the harm
it does the killer than in anything it can do to the person who is
killed. Especially, of course, if the killing is to the killer’s own
advantage. The consequence you mention—this thing which the sick person
wants done—does the other person stand to benefit by it, may I ask?”
“Yes. That’s just it. He—she—they do.”
“That puts it at once on a different plane from just hastening a
person’s death out of pity. Sin is in the intention, not the deed. That
is the difference between divine law and human law. It is bad for a
human being to get to feel that he has any right whatever to dispose of
another person’s life to his own advantage. It leads him to think
himself above all laws—Society is never safe from the man who has
deliberately committed murder with impunity. That is why—or one reason
why—God forbids private vengeance.”
“You mean that one murder leads to another.”
“Very often. In any case it leads to a readiness to commit others.”
“It has. That’s the trouble. But it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t started
trying to find things out. Ought I to have left it alone?”
“I see. That is very difficult. Terrible, too, for you. You feel
responsible.”
“Yes.”
“You yourself are not serving a private vengeance?”
“Oh, no. Nothing really to do with me. Started in like a fool to help
somebody who’d got into trouble about the thing through having
suspicions himself. And my beastly interference started the crimes all
over again.”
“I shouldn’t be too troubled. Probably the murderer’s own guilty fears
would have led him into fresh crimes even without your interference.”
“That’s true,” said Wimsey, remembering Mr. Trigg.
“My advice to you is to do what you think is right, according to the
laws which we have been brought up to respect. Leave the consequences to
God. And try to think charitably, even of wicked people. You know what I
mean. Bring the offender to justice, but remember that if we all got
justice, you and I wouldn’t escape either.”
“I know. Knock the man down but don’t dance on the body. Quite. Forgive
my troublin’ you—and excuse my bargin’ off, because I’ve got a date with
a friend. Thanks so much. I don’t feel quite so rotten about it now. But
I was gettin’ worried.”
Mr. Tredgold watched him as he trotted away between the graves. “Dear,
dear,” he said, “how nice they are. So kindly and scrupulous and so
vague outside their public-school code. And much more nervous and
sensitive than people think. A very difficult class to reach. I must
make a special intention for him at Mass to-morrow.”
Being a practical man, Mr. Tredgold made a knot in his handkerchief to
remind himself of this pious resolve.
“The problem—to interfere or not to interfere—God’s law and Cæsar’s.
Policemen, now—it’s no problem to them. But for the ordinary man—how
hard to disentangle his own motives. I wonder what brought him here.
Could it possibly be—No!” said the vicar, checking himself, “I have no
right to speculate.” He drew out his handkerchief again and made another
mnemonic knot as a reminder against his next confession that he had
fallen into the sin of inquisitiveness.
CHAPTER XX
Murder
Siegfried: “_What does this mean?_”
Isbrand: “_A pretty piece of kidnapping, that’s all._”
Beddoes, _Death’s Jest-Book_
Parker, too, had spent a disappointing half-hour. It appeared that Miss
Whittaker not only disliked having her photograph taken, but had
actually destroyed all the existing portraits she could lay hands on,
shortly after Miss Dawson’s death. Of course, many of Miss Whittaker’s
friends might be in possession of one—notably, of course, Miss
Findlater. But Parker was not sure that he wanted to start a local
hue-and-cry at the moment. Miss Climpson might be able to get one, of
course. He went round to Nelson Avenue. Miss Climpson was out; there had
been another gentleman asking for her. Mrs. Budge’s eyes were beginning
to bulge with curiosity—evidently she was becoming dubious about Miss
Climpson’s “nephew” and his friends. Parker then went to the local
photographers. There were five. From two of them he extracted a number
of local groups, containing unrecognisable portraits of Miss Whittaker
at church bazaars and private theatricals. She had never had a studio
portrait made in Leahampton.
Of Miss Findlater, on the other hand, he got several excellent
likenesses—a slight, fair girl, with a rather sentimental look—plump and
prettyish. All these he despatched to Town, with directions that they
should be broadcast to the police, together with a description of the
girl’s dress when last seen.
The only really cheerful members of the party at the “George” were the
second policeman, who had been having a pleasant gossip with various
garage-proprietors and publicans, with a view to picking up information,
and the Chief Constable, who was vindicated and triumphant. He had been
telephoning to various country police-stations, and had discovered that
XX9917 had actually been observed on the previous Monday by an A.A.
scout on the road to Crow’s Beach. Having maintained all along that the
Crow’s Beach excursion was a genuine one, he was inclined to exult over
the Scotland Yard man. Wimsey and Parker dispiritedly agreed that they
had better go down and make inquiries at Crow’s Beach.
Meanwhile, one of the photographers, whose cousin was on the staff of
the _Leahampton Mercury_, had put a call through to the office of that
up-to-date paper, which was just going to press. A stop-press
announcement was followed by a special edition; somebody rang up the
London _Evening Views_ which burst out into a front-page scoop; the fat
was in the fire, and the _Daily Yell_, _Daily Views_, _Daily Wire_ and
_Daily Tidings_, who were all suffering from lack of excitement, came
brightly out next morning with bold headlines about disappearing young
women.
Crow’s Beach, indeed, that pleasant and respectable watering-place, knew
nothing of Miss Whittaker, Miss Findlater, or car XX9917. No hotel had
received them; no garage had refuelled or repaired them; no policeman
had observed them. The Chief Constable held to his theory of an
accident, and scouting parties were sent out. Wires arrived at Scotland
Yard from all over the place. They had been seen at Dover, at Newcastle,
at Sheffield, at Winchester, at Rugby. Two young women had had tea in a
suspicious manner at Folkestone; a car had passed noisily through
Dorchester at a late hour on Monday night; a dark-haired girl in an
“agitated condition” had entered a public-house in New Alresford just
before closing-time and asked the way to Hazelmere. Among all these
reports, Parker selected that of a boy-scout, who reported on the
Saturday morning that he had noticed two ladies with a car having a
picnic on the downs on the previous Monday, not far from Shelly Head.
The car was an Austin Seven—he knew that, because he was keen on motors
(an unanswerable reason for accuracy in a boy of his age), and he had
noticed that it was a London number, though he couldn’t say positively
what the number was.
Shelly Head lies about ten miles along the coast from Crow’s Beach, and
is curiously lonely, considering how near it lies to the watering-place.
Under the cliffs is a long stretch of clear sandy beach, never visited,
and overlooked by no houses. The cliffs themselves are chalk, and
covered with short turf, running back into a wide expanse of downs,
covered with gorse and heather. Then comes a belt of pine-trees, beyond
which is a steep, narrow and rutty road, leading at length into the
tarmac high-road between Ramborough and Ryders Heath. The downs are by
no means frequented, though there are plenty of rough tracks which a car
can follow, if you are not particular about comfort or fussy over your
springs.
Under the leadership of the boy-scout, the police-car bumped
uncomfortably over these disagreeable roads. It was hopeless to look for
any previous car-tracks, for the chalk was dry and hard, and the grass
and heath retained no marks. Everywhere, little dells and hollows
presented themselves—all exactly alike, and many of them capable of
hiding a small car, not to speak of the mere signs and remains of a
recent picnic. Having arrived at what their guide thought to be
approximately the right place, they pulled up and got out. Parker
quartered the ground between the five of them and they set off.
Wimsey took a dislike to gorse-bushes that day. There were so many of
them and so thick. Any of them might hold a cigarette package or a
sandwich paper or a scrap of cloth or a clue of some kind. He trudged
along unhappily, back bent and eyes on the ground, over one ridge and
down into the hollow—then circling to right and to left, taking his
bearings by the police-car; over the next ridge and down into the next
hollow; over the next ridge—
Yes. There was something in the hollow.
He saw it first sticking out round the edge of a gorse-bush. It was
light in colour, and pointed, rather like a foot.
He felt a little sick.
“Somebody has gone to sleep here,” he said aloud.
Then he thought:
“Funny—it’s always the feet they leave showing.”
He scrambled down among the bushes, slipping on the short turf and
nearly rolling to the bottom. He swore irritably.
The person was sleeping oddly. The flies must be a nuisance all over her
head like that.
It occurred to him that it was rather early in the year for flies. There
had been an advertising rhyme in the papers. Something about “Each fly
you swat now means, remember, Three hundred fewer next September.” Or
was it a thousand fewer? He couldn’t get the metre quite right.
Then he pulled himself together and went forward. The flies rose up in a
little cloud.
It must have been a pretty heavy blow, he thought, to smash the back of
the skull in like that. The shingled hair was blonde. The face lay
between the bare arms.
He turned the body on its back.
Of course, without the photograph, he could not—he need not—be certain
that this was Vera Findlater.
All this had taken him perhaps thirty seconds.
He scrambled up to the rim of the hollow and shouted.
A small black figure at some distance stopped and turned. He saw its
face as a white spot with no expression on it. He shouted again, and
waved his arms in wide gestures of explanation. The figure came running;
it lurched slowly and awkwardly over the heathy ground. It was the
policeman—a heavy man, not built for running in the heat. Wimsey shouted
again, and the policeman shouted too. Wimsey saw the others closing in
upon him. The grotesque figure of the boy-scout topped a ridge, waving
its staff—then disappeared again. The policeman was quite near now. His
bowler hat was thrust back on his head, and there was something on his