Эрик Эмблер - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 42, May 1947

Before he died, he wanted to see his daughter. Even more than that, he wanted to know whether Henshawk’s taunt had any foundation. In short, he would go at once to the cottage and see Ruth, whether she wanted to see him or not.

In his baggage were some things he had left her in his will — a photograph album of snapshots he had taken during their first year, a packet of her letters to him before marriage, a rare edition of Canterbury Tales which her father had given him. In half an hour he had sorted them out.

He put them in the dispatch case on top of the drawing, which no longer had any importance. In his sense of defeat, he thought only that he had been a fool for his pains in bringing it away. He had forgotten that Ruth would be sure to recognize the photograph of the model at once. And she would remember Henshawk’s name.

He would take no further precautions against arrest. He would not even shave his mustache.

By the middle of the morning, he was in the train for Hallery-on-Thames. There was no taxi at the little station and no car to be hired in the village, so he had to walk the half mile along the towpath and then tackle the stiff climb up the hillside.

He was hot when he arrived at Whiddon Cottage, and stopped to rest a minute by the oaks. While he was getting his breath, he reflected, with the self-conscious wistfulness of one who believes that his days are numbered, that the beauty of Whiddon was even greater than his memory of it. Set high on a hill on the edge of the Berkshire Downs, there was a clear view of undulating country for fifteen miles. To the rear of the cottage the downland sloped half a mile in a green carpet to the Thames. And now for Ruth.

She opened the door to him. She was a tall woman who had once been pretty and was now handsome, but with an air of masterfulness that was not romantically attractive. Yet at sight of him, he thought, she had looked afraid.

“Harold! Why have you come?” Her tone was reproachful, but not unfriendly.

“I want to see Aileen. I imagine you will not raise objections.”

“Of course not! But she’s away for a few days with friends.”

“I also wanted to see you. May I?”

It was ridiculously formal, not in the least as he had planned. It chilled them both into small talk. She offered him lunch, and he said he had already lunched, which was untrue. They chattered about Canada and London. He congratulated her on her success as an author.

“Well, of course, only students read my books and only a few of those, though I get good reviews. Harold, is that man who has been murdered the Henshawk you used to know?”

“Yes. You’ve seen the paper, I gather. I rather took it for granted that you had already notified Scotland Yard. I knew you must recognize the picture, in spite of the pigs and hens and that preposterous cow.”

“Harold?”

“Yes, Ruth — I killed him.” She had guessed before he said it. He added. “Did you know that he married Valerie Carmaen?”

She winced at the name. “No. But that was no reason for killing him.”

“He knew that woman had borne false witness against me. I accused him of building his marriage on the ruin of mine. And I lost my temper when he said that you, too, knew it was false — that you had jumped at the chance of getting rid of me. Did you, Ruth?”

She was long in answering. His own tension had vanished. It was as if he were no longer interested in her answer.

“I believed her evidence at the time. But after a few years I began to suspect I was wrong. It would be meaningless to say that I am sorry. As young lovers — well, we were not successful, Harold. In our maturity, I can feel deep friendship as well as gratitude for your generosity.”

“Well, my dear, that’s that! This case—” he placed the dispatch case by the side of the huge open hearth “—contains a few purely personal knicknacks you might like to keep. I’ll leave it.” He got up to go.

“Will you be caught, Harold?”

“Yes, I think so. Someone will bring them to this cottage, and then they’re bound to find me. I wish I could have seen Aileen.”

“If they come here I shall do everything I can to put them off. You may say you do not wish me to make sacrifices on your behalf. I am thinking of Aileen and — frankly — my public, small though it is. If you are tried, and if you give your reason for — doing what you did — the scandal will hurt us both. I want to do everything we can both do — to ensure your escape.”

Three quarters of a mile away, the village police sergeant was advising Scotland Yard of the existence of the seventeenth century cottage, known as Whiddon Cottage, identical in appearance with that in the published picture.

There are more seventeenth century cottages in England than many Englishmen would believe. By midday, local police had reported eighty, of which thirty-three were “possibles.” By the end of the week, the grand total for all Britain stood at one hundred and seventy-three “possibles.”

In sorting, three features beside the cottage itself were deemed essential: oaks on left of cottage; contiguous, sloping meadow; brook from which it would be possible for an animal, such as a cow, to drink. Sixty of the hundred and seventy-three contained these essentials. But the balance included cottages, of the correct period and dimensions, whose oaks had been felled, whose meadow had been built over, whose brook had been diverted.

Within a week, the sixty “probables” had been inspected, without noteworthy result. In another fortnight, the balance of “possibles” had been eliminated. Detective Inspector Karslake felt that he had been handed a raw deal.

Within twenty-four hours identification of the cottage had become the solitary line of investigation. The comb had been run through all Henshawk’s business and social acquaintances. The telegram to Mrs. Henshawk had been telephoned from a call box at the Redmoon Restaurant. This started new hope — until a client reported that he had lunched there with Henshawk, who had excused himself for a few minutes before lunch in order to telephone.

At the end of the month the Press, somewhat grudgingly, complied with the request to reprint the photograph of the model and the police appeal. They helped its newsvalue and at the same time got their own back by writing up the absurdity of such a cottage being untraceable. The comic artists were allowed free play. There was a rather unkind picture of a cow goggling at a model of Scotland Yard on an outstretched palm.

In short, Karslake was unable to advance in any direction. At the end of April the case was allowed to drift into the Department of Dead Ends.

By its very nature it was impossible for the Department to originate any investigation. Cases sent there were, in effect, put into cold storage against the chance of some other case accidentally criss-crossing, the chance of some unrelated circumstance happening to throw a sidelight.

A day or so after the statuette of Henshawk, the model under its glass dome, and the empty picture frame had been sent to Detective Inspector Rason, Karslake made a perfunctory inquiry and received a somewhat voluble answer.

“Well, sir, since you ask me, I think that, instead of looking for the cottage, we ought to have looked for that cow.”

It was a dangerous moment, for there had been a comic picture in the Daily Record rather in that sense.

“I mean, I think there’s something funny about this case — something psychological, if you understand me.”

“I don’t,” said Karslake.

“There’s that remark in the girl’s statement about what he calls ‘that damned cow.’ Why was it a ‘damned’ cow? And why should it spoil the whole thing? A cow is just what you’d look for in those surroundings. You’d miss it if it wasn’t there. Now, suppose that man had been frightened by a cow when he was very little — too young to remember? All his life, though he doesn’t know why—”