The Floating Admiral

“I say, Inspector,” cried Peter, “can’t we help in any way? Haven’t you got a job for us of any kind? Fancy old Penistone, of all people, to get murdered!”

“Why do you say ‘of all people,’ young gentleman?” enquired the Inspector.

“Oh! I don’t know.” The boy flushed. “He was so very—well, correct and nautical. All present and shipshape! Sort of old fellow who’d look at you if you forgot to call him ‘sir’ even once.”

“A martinet and a disciplinarian, eh?”

“I suppose that’s what I mean. Years behind the times.”

“I don’t think he was a bad old geezer,” said Alec tolerantly.

The Inspector turned to Appleton.

“What about the coat?”

“The Admiral, sir, was not wearing a coat when he came to dinner last night.”

“Rather not,” said Peter. “Just nip across the river and there you are. Why should he wear a coat? The Fitzgerald hadn’t got one either.”

“Wasn’t she sweet?” minced Alec. “All in white like a blushing bride. And old as the hills really.”

“Well,” said Rudge. “I must be getting along.”

“Oh, but, Inspector, what about us?”

Rudge smiled indulgently.

“Suppose you two young gentlemen have a look for the weapon,” he suggested. “It wasn’t in the wound. Somewhere along the river bank maybe. …”

He retreated, smiling to himself.

“That’ll keep ’em busy,” he said to himself. “And do no harm either. They might even come across it—stranger things have happened.”

As he got into his car and drove in the direction of Whynmouth, his brain worked busily. The evening paper was now accounted for. The Admiral must have returned to the house some time between ten o’clock and midnight, donned an overcoat and slipped the evening paper into his overcoat pocket. Then he had gone out again—where?

Had he taken the boat? Had he gone either up-stream or down-stream to keep some appointment? Had he walked to some house near by?

As yet, the whole thing was a mystery.

On arrival at Whynmouth, Rudge pulled up opposite the Lord Marshall Hotel.

The Lord Marshall prided itself on its old-world air. The hall was dark and narrow and an intending visitor was bewildered by finding no one to whom to apply. Usually, deceived by the general dimness, application was made to a guest who repulsed the new-comer frostily. On the walls were sporting prints of a humorous nature and several glass cases containing fish.

Rudge knew his way about the Lord Marshall well enough. He crossed the passage and tapped at a door marked “Private.” The high-pitched voice of Mrs. Davis bid him enter.

At sight of him the lady took a deep breath and began without wasting a minute:

“Inspector Rudge, isn’t it? And it’s well I know you by sight, as indeed for the matter of that I know everybody in these parts. And not only by sight, too, for we’ve passed a remark now and again though I dare say you don’t remember. But there, as I always say, to be well known to the police isn’t what you might call a compliment and I’m just as well pleased that we haven’t, as you might say, really met before. And I can tell you this, Inspector Rudge, you couldn’t have done a wiser thing than come straight to me this morning! Seeing that you’re a new-comer in the place—only been here two years, haven’t you, or is it three?—I declare time does run away. That’s what I’m always saying. No sooner is one meal over than it’s time for another. And dinner I will have served to time. These newfangled people arriving in cars, eight o’clock, nine o’clock, even, and wanting dinner. Cold supper, I can manage, I says, but dinner is served at seven o’clock, and then everyone’s free to walk about and very pleasant it is around the harbour on a summer evening, and so the young people think—and even the older ones!”

Feeling the need of refilling her lungs, Mrs. Davis paused for an infinitesimal moment. She was a jolly, good-humoured-looking woman of fifty, dressed in black silk. She wore a gold locket and several rings.

Without allowing Rudge a chance to speak, she swept straight on:

“You needn’t tell me what you’ve come about. It’s Admiral Penistone. Got the news half an hour ago, I did. And ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.’ But not gone this way, most of us—or so I devoutly hope. Stabbed to the heart with a narrow instrument, that’s right, isn’t it? And depend upon it, that’s a stiletto, that’s what I said! One of those nasty, murdering Eyetalian stilettos. Wops they call them in New York—the Eyetalians, I mean, not the stilettos. And you mark my words, you’ll find out that whoever murdered the Admiral had been in Italy. Naturally it couldn’t have been an Eyetalian—he’d have been noticed. Used to sell ice cream, they did, in my young day. But now they have Walls and those others and much more wholesome stuff, I dare say. No—we don’t have many foreigners in Whynmouth—except of course Americans—and they’re not really what you’d call foreigners—just a kind of queer English, that’s how I look upon them! And the stories those boatmen tell them—why you’d think they’d be afraid of a judgment—and the poor innocents lapping it up—but there, I’m getting away from the subject. And a sad subject it is.” She shook her head, but with no overdone air of melancholy. “Not that you can say the Admiral was one of us yet. Why, he’d only passed through Whynmouth half a dozen times. Barely knew him by sight, we did. And his niece! A most peculiar young lady, if you ask me, Mr. Rudge! Very odd things I’ve heard about her. Her young gentleman’s actually stopping in the house now. Came down last evening by the 8.30. And if you ask me, I say ‘No.’”

“Eh!” said Rudge, completely bewildered by this sudden dramatic stop interrupting the flow of speech.

“I say ‘No,’” repeated Mrs. Davis, nodding her head very violently.

“No to what?” asked the Inspector, still puzzled.

“I say, if you ask me if he’s the murderer, I say ‘No!’”

“Oh! I see, but I never suggested anything of the kind.”

“Not in words, but it’s what it comes to. Cut the cackle and come to the horses, as Mr. Davis used to say. I’m never one for beating about the bush.”

“What I was going to ask you was—”

Mrs. Davis interrupted serenely.

“I know, I know, Mr. Rudge. Whether Mr. Holland went out or not last night, I cannot tell you. Bit of a rush we had with the charabancs, and you can’t notice everything. What I mean to say is, you can’t be in two places at once. And what with the gas being poor and one thing and another, I’m putting in the electricity this year. Old-world is old-world, but some things people won’t stand. Hot water system last year and electricity this. But there, I’m wandering off the point again. I was just going to say—what was I going to say?”

The Inspector assured her that he had no idea.

“Admiral Penistone was a friend of Sir Wilfrid Denny, was he not?” he asked.

“Now there’s a nice gentleman for you—Sir Wilfrid Denny. Always a cheery word and a joke. A shame he should be so hard up, poor gentleman. Oh! yes, he and the Admiral were acquainted. They do say that’s why the Admiral came down here to live. But I don’t know about that. There’s those who say that Sir Wilfrid was none too pleased when he heard his friend was coming down here to live. But there, people will say anything, won’t they? I’m never one to say a word myself. Too much harm done by gossiping. Keep a still tongue in your head and you can’t go far wrong. That’s my motto. And one thing I will say is a wicked shame. To take the Vicar’s boat to do their dirty work in. Trying to drag him into it, poor gentleman. As if he hadn’t had trouble enough in his life.”

“Had a bit of trouble, has he?”

“Well, it’s a long time ago now. Six and four the little boys were, and how she could do it! Depend upon it, a woman who leaves her husband and her children—well, there’s not much to be said for her—not when it’s a good Christian husband like the Vicar. (There’s some I could name as deserve to be left.) Leaving her little children, that’s what I can’t get over. And a pretty gentle lady too, by all accounts. I never saw her myself. It happened before Mr. Mount came here. And who it was she went off with, I’ve forgotten. But a very handsome gentleman, I’ve always heard. Those handsome ones have a way with them, there’s no denying it. Well, well, I wonder what’s become of her? Dear, dear, life’s a sad mix-up. And if I haven’t gone right away from the subject again! Talking about Mr. Holland we were—and he’s a handsome fellow if you like. And yet they say Miss Fitzgerald doesn’t seem to think so, for all they’re engaged to be married.”

“So that’s what they say?”

Mrs. Davis nodded very significantly.

“And what the Admiral wanted to see Mr. Holland about, I’ve no idea,” she went on. “But it’s crossed my mind that maybe the young lady wanted the engagement off, and sent her uncle to do the dirty work for her. Though why it couldn’t have waited till the morning … I dare say that’s exactly what the Admiral thought, and why he changed his mind and said he had a train to catch.”

Inspector Rudge made a valiant effort and interpreted this cryptic pronouncement.

“Do you mean,” he said, “that Admiral Penistone called here last night?”

“Why, of course he did. Asked the Boots for Mr. Holland. And then, just as the man was going off, called him back again, hemmed and hawed and looked at his watch, and said he had a train to catch, there wouldn’t be time for him to see Mr. Holland.”

“What time was this?”

“I couldn’t say exactly. It was after eleven o’clock. I was in bed, and glad to be there. Such a day as we’d had. Really, these charabancs—they do take it out of one! There were a lot of people about still. These warm nights you can’t get the people to bed.”