Case with No Conclusion by Leo Bruce Page B

the other hand I liked Peter and found in him that rare quality in any modern—sincerity. Beef liked him too, and Beefs instincts were apt to lead him well.
    3.
Wakefield.
In character, the nearest thing I could recognize as a potential murderer, at any rate among those I had met in the case, but again with no known motive.
    4.
Duncan.
Duncan had hanged himself, but I was induced to take the police view that he had done this rather than reveal all he knew, and not because he was ashamed of some act of his. I couldn’t see Duncan jabbing at Benson with that knife in any case. And if he had committed the murder, how was it that Stewart had, apparently, shown Benson out of the front door himself?
    5.
Mrs. Duncan.
Well, if ever a woman were capable physically of committing a murder, this one looked as though she were. But what conceivable motive could shehave? And why should she be suspected rather than anyone who had passed the Cypresses at any time on foot? It was true she was one of those in the house, and the only one of them (except Stewart of course) who looked powerful enough to have done it. But that was all that one could say.
    6.
Rose and Freda.
It would really have been very far-fetched to think of these two as possible murderesses merely because they were employed in the house where a murder had been committed.
    7.
Ed Wilson.
If anyone in this tangle might be considered a suspect, he had to be. But again, one could see no possible motive. He had been more sympathetic in his attitude towards Benson than any of the others, who cordially disliked the man. And although he had no alibi, he stood to gain nothing so far as one could see.
    8.
The mechanic.
He had admittedly been up to the house at twelve o’clock that night, but beyond that had no connecting point. I liked his easy manner and open face, and personally refused to suspect him.
    9.
Wilkinson.
Now there was a man one felt physically, morally and mentally capable of murdering another man with very little concrete motive. He had the sourness and strength of the old type of villain, and from the first moment that Beef had gone into his pub and seen how badly kept and uninviting it was, how the beer pipes from the cellar needed cleaning, and the beer itself was none of the best, from that moment Beef had decided that he was an “unsatisfactory character” and had had, he assured me, “an eye on him from the start.” He admittedly went up to the house at frequent intervals, and would not tell us when he had last been there, but again there was no known motive. If Beef’s pretty interpretation of Omar Khayyam’s reference to thesurly Tapster had anything in it, this man’s connection with the murder might yet be established.
    10.
Sheila Benson.
She had given us our most puzzling interview. Her blatant disregard for decency was so conspicuous as almost to be thought a bluff. Her evidence had been perfectly clear, but it conflicted with so much else that we had heard. Was she really in love with Peter, as she said? Could she really have scarcely known Stewart, as she claimed? And when she told us that the doctor was indifferent to her infidelities, was she speaking the truth? Those seemed important questions to probe.
    11.
The old man.
I remembered Ed Wilson’s admission of having met, on the morning after the murder, an old man leaving the main gate. Had he any connection with the “second figure” seen by Rose from the landing window? Or was he some harmless tramp who had slept in the summerhouse that night? If the former, it seemed possible that he was the murderer. If the latter, he might have very valuable information.
    12.
Orpen, or Oppenstein.
He had no connection with the murder, of course, but was a name I remembered, since it had interested Beef, and been remembered by the cook.

Chapter XIII
    W HEN Beef was what he somewhat ambiguously called “on the job,” his old habits were apt to return to him,