Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

They stared at each other as they tried to adjust themselves to the altered situation.

‘It couldn’t be anyone else,’ said Bobby. ‘He was the only person who had the chance.’

‘Unless, as we said, there were two photographs.’

‘We agreed that that wasn’t likely. If there had been two photographs they’d have tried to identify him by means of both of them – not only one.’

‘Anyway, that’s easily found out,’ said Frankie. ‘We can ask the police. We’ll assume for the moment that there was just the one photograph, the one you saw that you put back again in his pocket. It was there when you left him, and it wasn’t there when the police came, therefore the only person who could have taken it away and put the other one in its place was this man Bassington-ffrench. What was he like, Bobby?’

Bobby frowned in the effort of remembrance.

‘A sort of nondescript fellow. Pleasant voice. A gentleman and all that. I really didn’t notice him particularly. He said that he was a stranger down here – and something about looking for a house.’

‘We can verify that, anyway,’ said Frankie. ‘Wheeler & Owen are the only house agents.’ Suddenly she gave a shiver. ‘Bobby, have you thought? If Pritchard was pushed over – Bassington-ffrench must be the man who did it …’

‘That’s pretty grim,’ said Bobby. ‘He seemed such a nice pleasant sort of fellow. But you know, Frankie, we can’t be sure he really was pushed over.’

‘You have been all along.’

‘No, I just wanted it to be that way because it made things more exciting. But now it’s more or less proved. If it was murder everything fits in. Your unexpected appearance which upsets the murderer’s plans. Your discovery of the photograph and, in consequence, the need to put you out of the way.’

‘There’s a flaw there,’ said Bobby.

‘Why?’ You were the only person who saw that photograph. As soon as Bassington-ffrench was left alone with the body he changed the photograph which only you had seen.’

But Bobby continued to shake his head.

‘No, that won’t do. Let’s grant for the moment that that photograph was so important that I had to be “got out of the way”, as you put it. Sounds absurd but I suppose it’s just possible. Well, then, whatever was going to be done would have to be done at once. The fact that I went to London and never saw the Marchbolt Weekly Times or the other papers with the photograph in it was just pure chance – a thing nobody could count on. The probability was that I should say at once, “That isn’t the photograph I saw.” Why wait till after the inquest when everything was nicely settled?’

‘There’s something in that,’ admitted Frankie.

‘And there’s another point. I can’t be absolutely sure, of course, but I could almost swear that when I put the photograph back in the dead man’s pocket Bassington-ffrench wasn’t there. He didn’t arrive till about five or ten minutes later.’

‘He might have been watching you all the time,’ argued Frankie.

‘I don’t see very well how he could,’ said Bobby slowly. ‘There’s really only one place where you can see down to exactly the spot we were. Farther round, the cliff bulges and then recedes underneath, so that you can’t see over. There’s just the one place and when Bassington-ffrench did arrive there I heard him at once. Footsteps echo down below. He may have been near at hand, but he wasn’t looking over till then – I’ll swear.’

‘Then you think that he didn’t know about your seeing the photograph?’

‘I don’t see how he could have known.’

‘And he can’t have been afraid you’d seen him doing it – the murder, I mean – because, as you say, that’s absurd. You’d never have held your tongue about it. It looks as though it must have been something else altogether.’

‘Only I don’t see what it could have been.’

‘Something they didn’t know about till after the inquest. I don’t know why I say “they”.’

‘Why not? After all, the Caymans must have been in it, too. It’s probably a gang. I like gangs.’

‘That’s a low taste,’ said Frankie absently. ‘A single-handed murder is much higher class. Bobby!’

‘Yes?’

‘What was it Pritchard said – just before he died? You know, you told me about it that day on the links. That funny question?’

‘“Why didn’t they ask Evans?”’

‘Yes. Suppose that was it?’

‘But that’s ridiculous.’

‘It sounds so, but it might be important, really. Bobby, I’m sure it’s that. Oh, no, I’m being an idiot – you never told the Caymans about it?’

‘I did, as a matter of fact,’ said Bobby slowly.

‘You did?’

‘Yes. I wrote to them that evening. Saying, of course, that it was probably quite unimportant.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Cayman wrote back, politely agreeing, of course, that there was nothing in it, but thanking me for taking the trouble. I felt rather snubbed.’

‘And two days later you got this letter from a strange firm bribing you to go to South America?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well,’ said Frankie, ‘I don’t know what more you want. They try that first; you turn it down, and the next thing is that they follow you round and seize a good moment to empty a lot of morphia into your bottle of beer.’

‘Then the Caymans are in it?’

‘Of course the Caymans are in it!’

‘Yes,’ said Bobby thoughtfully. ‘If your reconstruction is correct, they must be in it. According to our present theory, it goes like this. Dead man X is deliberately pushed over cliff – presumably by BF (pardon these initials). It is important that X should not be correctly identified, so portrait of Mrs C is put in his pocket and portrait of fair unknown removed. (Who was she, I wonder?)’

‘Keep to the point,’ said Frankie sternly.

‘Mrs C waits for photographs to appear and turns up as grief-stricken sister and identifies X as her brother from foreign parts.’

‘You don’t believe he could really have been her brother?’

‘Not for a moment! You know, it puzzled me all along. The Caymans were a different class altogether. The dead man was – well, it sounds a most awful thing to say and just like some deadly old retired Anglo-Indian, but the dead man was a pukka sahib.’

‘And the Caymans most emphatically weren’t?’

‘Most emphatically.’

‘And then, just when everything has gone off well from the Caymans’ point of view – body successfully identified, verdict of accidental death, everything in the garden lovely – you come along and mess things up,’ mused Frankie.