The Floating Admiral

The Vicar took it and looked at it.

“Yes; certainly it is.”

“Then would you mind telling me if you remember when you had it last?”

“That is quite simple. To be absolutely accurate, at twenty minutes past ten last evening.”

“And where?”

“You are very mysterious, Inspector. But I’ll tell you. My neighbour who lives opposite was dining with us last evening, with his niece. They left just about ten. I went down to the river to see them off, and put my hat on. After the Admiral had crossed the stream in his boat with his niece I sat down in that little summer-house and smoked a pipe. I took off my hat and laid it on the seat beside me—and, absent-mindedly, I forgot to put it on again when I returned to the house. It was then that I set my watch by the clock in the hall—twenty minutes past ten. But will you tell me why you ask me this—and what you have all come about?”

“I will, sir. This hat was found in your boat early this morning. Your boat was drifting with the tide up-stream. And in her was the dead body of your opposite neighbour, Admiral Penistone—murdered, Mr. Mount.”

CHAPTER II

By G. D. H. and M. Cole

BREAKING THE NEWS

“MURDERED! Good God!” the Vicar said—and it was well known, the Inspector reflected, that the Vicar of Lingham had a ridiculously exaggerated respect for the Third Commandment. He had stepped back a pace at the shock of the news, and some of the colour was fading from his cheeks. “But—murdered. … How—what do you mean, Inspector?”

“I mean,” said Rudge, “that Admiral Penistone was stabbed to the heart some time before midnight last night—and his body placed in your boat.”

“But what—why … ? How could he have been?”

“And your hat,” the Inspector remorselessly amplified, “was lying in the boat beside him. So you see,” he added, “that the first thing I had to do was to make enquiries at your house.”

The Vicar turned on his heel abruptly. “Come into my study,” he said. “We can talk better there—I don’t suppose you want my sons, at present?” The Inspector shook his head, and followed him into a quiet, brown room with wide sash windows, the very model of what a clerical study, owned by a none too tidy cleric, should be. As he led the way in, the Vicar stumbled over something, and with a little gasp caught hold of the table for support. “You—you must excuse me,” he muttered, as he motioned the Inspector to a chair and sank into one himself. “This is—a very great shock. Now, will you tell me what I can do for you?”

Rudge scanned him a minute before replying. Undoubtedly he had received a very great shock. He was pale; his hands were none too steady; and his breath was coming and going quickly. Whether the cause was merely the sudden impact of violent death on a sheltered clerical life, or whether there was some graver reason, the Inspector did not know enough to decide. At any rate, there was no sense in causing further alarm at the moment. So when he spoke it was in a gentle reassuring tone.

“What I want to find out immediately, Mr. Mount, is exactly what happened last night, as far as you know it. Admiral Penistone, you say, came over to dine with his niece—what is the lady’s name, by the way?”

“Fitzgerald—Miss Elma Fitzgerald. She is his sister’s daughter, I understand.”

“About what age?”

“Oh—I should say a year or two over thirty.”

“Thank you. They arrived—when?”

“Just before seven-thirty. In their boat.”

“And left?”

“Slightly after ten. I can’t fix it to the minute, I’m afraid; but they were just taking their leave when the church clock struck, and Admiral Penistone said, ‘Hurry up, I want to get back before midnight’—or something of that sort; and within a very few minutes they were gone.”

“And you saw them off?”

“Yes. I went down to the landing-stage with them, and Peter—that’s my eldest son—helped them to start. It’s sometimes a little awkward getting off, if the current is running strongly.”

“Did you actually see them land?”

“Yes. It wasn’t dark. I watched them take the boat into the Admiral’s boat-house, and then, a little later, I saw them come out of the boat-house, and go up to the house.”

“I should have thought those trees at the back of the boat-house would have screened them from you,” said the Inspector, who had made good use of his eyes. “Or do you mean they were crossing the lawn?”

The Vicar looked at him with respect. “No, they were in the trees,” he said. “But Miss Fitzgerald had on a white dress, and I saw it showing through them.”

“But Admiral Penistone hadn’t a white dress?”

“No. … I suppose,” the Vicar reflected, “that now you mention it I couldn’t say I saw the Admiral leave the boat-house—but seeing his niece I naturally concluded he was with her.”

“Very naturally,” Rudge concurred soothingly. “And you yourself stayed out smoking until—?”

“Twenty past ten.”

“And then?”

“I locked the house up and went to bed.”

“And you heard nothing more of your neighbour?”

“Nothing,” said the Vicar. “Nothing at all,” he repeated more loudly.

“What about your sons? Or your servants? Would they have heard anything?”

“I don’t think so. They had all gone to bed when I came in.”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Mount, can you tell me this? Did Admiral Penistone seem in his usual spirits during the evening?”

The question appeared to distress the Vicar. “I—I don’t think I can really answer that,” he said. “You see, I haven’t known the Admiral at all long. He has only recently come to the neighbourhood. … I really hardly know him.”

“But still,” Rudge persisted, “you might have noticed if he seemed distressed, or worried in any way. Did he?” And, seeing the Vicar still hesitated, he pressed his point. “If you did notice anything, Mr. Mount, I really think you should tell me. It’s of the highest importance that we should find out everything we can about the poor gentleman’s state of mind at the time—and I assure you I know how to be discreet.”

“Well,” said the Vicar, fidgeting a little. “Well … it’s nothing, probably. But I should say—yes—that the Admiral was perhaps a little worried. He was not as—as amiable as usual. And he was generally a very pleasant man—not at all snappish.”

“He was snappish with Miss Fitzgerald, perhaps?” the Inspector suggested quickly; and the Vicar blinked.

“Oh, no … hardly … I shouldn’t say that at all.”

“But he acted as though there was something on his mind. … I suppose you’ve no idea what it was?”

“I think—I don’t know—it may have been his niece’s marriage. He said something about it. Nothing much.”

“Oh, she’s getting married, is she? Who to?”

“Somebody called Holland, Arthur Holland. From London, I think. I don’t know him.”