curiously.)
‘It’s the only one a coroner’s jury will accept. You see that? Also, it’s the true one. The suicide-note confirms it. The facts confirm it. We all like Dr Luke –’
Craft grunted.
‘– And we appreciate his good intentions. But the danger of it!’ said Steve. ‘The unfairness of it! A whole mess of scandal and unpleasantness, a whole trial and badgering of perfectly innocent people, can be avoided if Dr Luke will just admit he told a white lie.’
Once more there was a silence. Craft unfolded his long length from the chair and peered down at me. All three of them were looking at me with a significance and speculation it was impossible to mistake.
‘B UT I DIDN’T DO THAT !’ I found myself shouting at them.
How to explain? How to explain that I only wished it had been like that? That I should cheerfully have lied if any good purpose could be gained by it? But that this was murder, the murder of a friend, and such things are to be avenged.
‘No, sir?’ intoned Superintendent Craft, in a very odd tone.
‘No!’
‘Luke, my dear old chap!’ remonstrated Steve. ‘Remember the state of your health!’
‘Damn and blast the state of my health! I hope I may drop dead this minute’ – here Steve put out a protesting hand – ‘if every word I’ve told you hasn’t been the gospel truth. I don’t want to hound anybody. I don’t want to rake up scandal; I hate scandal. But truth is truth, and we can’t tamper with it.’
Craft touched my shoulder.
‘All right, Doctor,’ he said in a friendly voice which sounded even more ominous. ‘If you say so, that’s that. Let’s just go outside and talk it over, shall we?’
‘I tell you –’
‘Unless Mr Grange has got anything more to tell us?
‘No, I’m afraid not.’ Steve got up. ‘You’ll stay to tea?’
But, when we declined this invitation, he was clearly relieved.
‘Well, perhaps you’re right. I do think the doctor here ought to go over and lie down. When is the inquest?’
‘Day after tomorrow,’ said Craft, ‘at Lynton.’
‘Ah!’ Steve nodded and consulted his watch. ‘I’ll have a word with Mr Raikes. He’s the coroner, isn’t he? A great friend of mine. I’ll tell him one or two of our ideas, and I’m sure he can persuade the jury to see the truth. Good afternoon, gentlemen; a very good afternoon. There’ll be a great load off my mind this night.’
And he stood in the front door, almost jauntily, his hands in his pockets and a breeze smoothing his hair, as we pushed H.M. down the path to the street.
NINE
‘F OR the fiftieth and last time, Superintendent Craft, I did not .’
‘But you hear what Mr Grange said, Doctor. That’s the only way it could have happened!’
‘You thought it was murder, this morning.’
‘Ah! Because I wasn’t smart enough to think of that explanation. See here, now.’
Craft’s patience, undoubtedly, was wearing thin. He and I were sitting in the front seat of the big police car, bowling out along the main road towards the Wainrights’ bungalow.
We had piled H.M. and H.M.’s wheel-chair into the tonneau: the chair placed sideways, H.M. himself on the back seat. His thick arms were folded across his barrel chest; and, with the top down, the wind blew up like horns the two tiny tufts of hair on each side of his bald head. For two miles or more he had not said a word. Superintendent Craft was doing the talking.
‘It works, don’t you see?’ he persisted, his good eye rolling towards me. ‘There’s not a single objection to it. Here are three lines of footprints’ – he illustrated – ‘going out to the edge of the cliff –’
‘Keep your hands on the wheel!’
‘Right. Theirs end on a little bit of coarse grass, maybe four feet across: the only grass on that cliff. Yours end in a kind of splosh where you crawled out on your stomach. The tracks are parallel, it’s true. Yours are six feet away from theirs, it’s also
‘It’s the only one a coroner’s jury will accept. You see that? Also, it’s the true one. The suicide-note confirms it. The facts confirm it. We all like Dr Luke –’
Craft grunted.
‘– And we appreciate his good intentions. But the danger of it!’ said Steve. ‘The unfairness of it! A whole mess of scandal and unpleasantness, a whole trial and badgering of perfectly innocent people, can be avoided if Dr Luke will just admit he told a white lie.’
Once more there was a silence. Craft unfolded his long length from the chair and peered down at me. All three of them were looking at me with a significance and speculation it was impossible to mistake.
‘B UT I DIDN’T DO THAT !’ I found myself shouting at them.
How to explain? How to explain that I only wished it had been like that? That I should cheerfully have lied if any good purpose could be gained by it? But that this was murder, the murder of a friend, and such things are to be avenged.
‘No, sir?’ intoned Superintendent Craft, in a very odd tone.
‘No!’
‘Luke, my dear old chap!’ remonstrated Steve. ‘Remember the state of your health!’
‘Damn and blast the state of my health! I hope I may drop dead this minute’ – here Steve put out a protesting hand – ‘if every word I’ve told you hasn’t been the gospel truth. I don’t want to hound anybody. I don’t want to rake up scandal; I hate scandal. But truth is truth, and we can’t tamper with it.’
Craft touched my shoulder.
‘All right, Doctor,’ he said in a friendly voice which sounded even more ominous. ‘If you say so, that’s that. Let’s just go outside and talk it over, shall we?’
‘I tell you –’
‘Unless Mr Grange has got anything more to tell us?
‘No, I’m afraid not.’ Steve got up. ‘You’ll stay to tea?’
But, when we declined this invitation, he was clearly relieved.
‘Well, perhaps you’re right. I do think the doctor here ought to go over and lie down. When is the inquest?’
‘Day after tomorrow,’ said Craft, ‘at Lynton.’
‘Ah!’ Steve nodded and consulted his watch. ‘I’ll have a word with Mr Raikes. He’s the coroner, isn’t he? A great friend of mine. I’ll tell him one or two of our ideas, and I’m sure he can persuade the jury to see the truth. Good afternoon, gentlemen; a very good afternoon. There’ll be a great load off my mind this night.’
And he stood in the front door, almost jauntily, his hands in his pockets and a breeze smoothing his hair, as we pushed H.M. down the path to the street.
NINE
‘F OR the fiftieth and last time, Superintendent Craft, I did not .’
‘But you hear what Mr Grange said, Doctor. That’s the only way it could have happened!’
‘You thought it was murder, this morning.’
‘Ah! Because I wasn’t smart enough to think of that explanation. See here, now.’
Craft’s patience, undoubtedly, was wearing thin. He and I were sitting in the front seat of the big police car, bowling out along the main road towards the Wainrights’ bungalow.
We had piled H.M. and H.M.’s wheel-chair into the tonneau: the chair placed sideways, H.M. himself on the back seat. His thick arms were folded across his barrel chest; and, with the top down, the wind blew up like horns the two tiny tufts of hair on each side of his bald head. For two miles or more he had not said a word. Superintendent Craft was doing the talking.
‘It works, don’t you see?’ he persisted, his good eye rolling towards me. ‘There’s not a single objection to it. Here are three lines of footprints’ – he illustrated – ‘going out to the edge of the cliff –’
‘Keep your hands on the wheel!’
‘Right. Theirs end on a little bit of coarse grass, maybe four feet across: the only grass on that cliff. Yours end in a kind of splosh where you crawled out on your stomach. The tracks are parallel, it’s true. Yours are six feet away from theirs, it’s also
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