Dorothy Sayers - Five Red Herrings

Macpherson hurried out, and was seen to vanish into the next-door cottage with Mrs. Green. Presently he returned, smiling broadly.

‘Verra gude, my lord,’ he said, ‘she’s tellt me it a’ luiks fine: jist precisely as it did the mornin’ Campbell was missin’.’

‘Good,’ said Wimsey. He finished his breakfast, packed the burberry into the attaché-case, and made a tour of inspection round the house, to make sure that nothing looked suspicious. With the exception of the mysterious remains of four extra breakfasts in the kitchen, everything seemed normal. He strolled out, met Mrs. Green in the front of the cottages, had a word with her, mentioning that he was catching the station ’bus and strolled down to the end of the lane.

Shortly after 8.30, the pant of the omnibus was heard coming along the road. Wimsey flagged it and got in. The police car followed on behind, much to the interest of the other passengers in the omnibus.

At 9 o’clock, or a little after, ’bus and car drew up in the station yard. Wimsey alighted and came across to the car.

‘I want you, Inspector, to come across to the train with me. When the rain has gone, come out and join Dalziel here. Then get out on to the road and pick up the other car.’

The two officers nodded, and Wimsey strolled into the station with the Inspector at his heels. He spoke to the station-master and booking-clerk and bought a first-class return to Glasgow. After a few minutes, the train was signalled, and a general exodus took place to the opposite platform. The station-master marched across, carrying the staff under his arm; the signalman came down from his lofty perch and crossed also, to perform the duties of a porter. The passengers from the ‘bus streamed across the line, followed by the ’bus-conductor on the look-out for return passengers with parcels. The booking-clerk retired into his office and took up a paper. Wimsey and the Inspector crossed over with the other passengers.

The train came in. Wimsey wrung the Inspector’s hand affectionately, as though he were not going to see him again for a month, and stepped into the first-class compartment which the porter was holding open for him. The station-master exchanged staffs and a pleasantry or two with the guard. A crate of poultry was wheeled along and dumped into the van. It suddenly occurred to Macpherson that this was all wrong. He ought to have been travelling with Wimsey. He darted to the carriage-window and looked in. The compartment was empty. The whistle blew. The guard waved his flag. The porter, with great bustle, urged Macpherson to ‘stand away’. The train moved out. Macpherson, left gazing up and down the line, perceived that it was empty.

‘By God!’ said Macpherson, slapping his thigh. ‘In at one side and oot at t’ither. The auldest dodge in the haill bag o’tricks.’ He ran precipitately across the line and joined Dalziel.

‘The cunning wee b—!’ he exclaimed affectionately. ‘He’s did it! Did ye see him come across?’

Dalziel shook his head.

‘Is that what he did? Och, the station buildin’s is between us. There’s a path through the station-master’s garden. He’ll ha’ come by that. We’ll best be movin’.’

They passed up the station entrance and turned along the road. In front of them went a small grey figure, walking briskly. It was then ten minutes past nine.

LORD PETER WIMSEY

The corpse was repacked into the car. Wimsey put on Campbell’s hat and cloak, again wrapping a muffler closely about his chin so that very little of his features was visible beneath the flapping black brim. He backed the car out on to the road and drove gently away towards Creetown. The road was stony, and Wimsey knew that his tyres were a good deal worn. A puncture would have been fatal. He kept his speed down to a cautious twenty miles an hour. He thought as he drove how maddening this slow progress must have been to Ferguson, to whom time had been so precious. With a real corpse in the back seat, it must have been a horrible temptation to go all out at whatever risk.

The road was completely deserted, except for the wee burn which chuckled along placidly beside them. Once he had to get down to open a gate. The burn, deserting the right-hand side of the road, ran under a small bridge and reappeared on their left, glimmering down over stones to meander beneath a clump of trees. The sun was growing stronger.

Between twenty and twenty-five minutes past nine they came down at the head of the steep little plunge into Creetown, opposite the clock-tower, Wimsey swung the car out to the right into the main road, and encountered the astonished gaze of the proprietor of the Ellangowan Hotel, who was talking to a motorist by the petrol-pump. For a moment he stared as though he had seen a ghost — then he caught sight of Macpherson and Dalziel, following in the second car with the Fiscal, and waved his hand with an understanding smile.

‘First incident not according to schedule,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s odd that Ferguson shouldn’t have been seen at this point — especially as he would quite probably have liked to be seen. But that’s life. If you want a thing, you don’t get it.’

He pressed his foot on the accelerator and took the road at a good thirty-five miles an hour.

Five miles farther on, he passed the turn to the New Galloway road. It was just after half-past nine.

‘Near enough,’ said Wimsey to himself. He kept his foot down and hurried along over the fine new non-skid surface which had just been laid down and was rapidly making the road from Creetown to Newton Stewart one of the safest and finest in the three kingdoms. Just outside Newton Stewart, he had to slow down to pass the road-engine and workers, the road-laying having now advanced to that point. After a brief delay, bumping over the new-laid granite, he pushed on again, but instead of following the main road, turned off just before he reached the bridge into a third-class road running parallel to the main road through Minnigaff, and following the left bank of the Cree. It ran through a wood, and past the Cruives of Cree, through Longbaes and Borgan, and emerged into the lonely hill-country, swelling with green mound after green mound, round as the hill of the King of Elfland; then a sharp right-turn and he saw his goal before him — the bridge, the rusty iron gate and the steep granite wall that overhung the Minnoch.

He ran the car up upon the grass and got out. The police-car drew up into the shelter of a little quarry on the opposite side of the road. When the observers came up with him, Wimsey was already rolling back the rug and pulling out the bicycle.

‘Ye’ve made verra gude time,’ observed the Inspector. ‘It’s jist on 10 o’clock.’

Wimsey nodded. He ran up on to the higher ground and surveyed the road and the hills to left and right. Not a soul was to be seen — not so much as a cow or a sheep. Though they were only just off a main road and a few hundred yards from a farm, the place was as still and secret as the heart of a desert. He ran down again to the car, flung the painting-kit upon the grass, opened the door of the tonneau and clutched ruthlessly the huddled form of the Chief Constable who, more dead than alive after his disagreeable journey, hardly needed to feign the stiffness which was cramping him in every limb. Hoisted in a dismal bundle on Wimsey’s back, he made a last lurching stage of his progress, to be dumped with a heavy thud on the hard granite, at the edge of the incline.

‘Wait there,’ said Wimsey, in a menacing tone, ‘and don’t move, or you’ll fall into the river.’

The Chief Constable dug his fingers into a bunch of heather and prayed silently. He opened his eyes, saw the granite sloping sharply away beneath him, and shut them again. After a few minutes, he felt himself enveloped in a musty smother of rug. Then came another pause, and the sound of voices and heartless laughter. Then he was deserted again. He tried to imagine what was happening and guessed, rightly, that Wimsey was secreting the bicycle somewhere. Then the voices came back, and a few muttered curses suggested that somebody was setting up an easel with unpractised hands. More laughter. Then the rug was twitched from his head and Wimsey’s voice announced, ‘You can come out now.’