Free Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers Page A

course, there were those people over at Gatehouse. Jock Graham — a harum-scarum, word-and-a-blow fellow if ever there was one. Clever, too. If it came to picking the man with the brains to plan an ingenious crime and the coolness to carry it through, then Graham was the man for his money, every time. Graham had had plenty of practice in the execution of practical jokes, and he could tell a circumstantial lie, looking you square in the eyes with the face of an angel. Ferguson was notoriously on bad terms with his wife. Sir Maxwell knew nothing else to his disadvantage, but he noted it, in his upright Presbyterian mind, as a discreditable fact. Strachan — well, Strachan was secretary of the golf-club and weel-respectit. Surely Strachan, like Gowan, could be ruled out.
    The telephone rang. Wimsey pricked up his ears. Sir Maxwell raised the receiver with irritating deliberation. He spoke; then turned to Wimsey.
    ‘It’s Dalziel. You had better listen in on the extension.’
    ‘Is’t you, Sir Maxwell?. . Ay, we have the doctor’s report. . Ay, it supports the theory of murder richt enough. There was nae water in the lungs at a’. The mon was deid before he got intae the burn. ’Twas the scart on the heid that did it. The bone is a’ crushed intae the brain. Och, ay, the wound was made before death, and he must ha’ deid almost immediately. There’s a wheen mair blows to the heid an’ body, but the doctor thinks some o’ them will ha’ been made after death, wi’ the body pitchin’ doon the burnside an’ washin’ aboot amang the stanes.’
    ‘What about the time of the death?’
    ‘Ay, Sir Maxwell, I was juist comin’ to that. The doctor says Campbell will ha’ been deid at least six hours when he first saw the body, an’ mair likely twelve or thirteen. That’ll pit the time o’ the murder in the late nicht or the airly mornin’ — at ony rate between midnicht and nine o’clock. And a verra suspeecious an’ corroboratin’ circumstance is that the man had nae food in his wame at a’. He was kilt before he had ta’en ony breakfast.’
    ‘But,’ said Wimsey, cutting in on the conversation, ‘if he had had his breakfast early, it might have passed out of the stomach before lunch-time.’
    ‘Ay, that’s so. But it wadna ha’ passed oot o’ him a’-’gither. The doctor says his interior was as toom as a drum, an’ he will stake his professional credit he hadna eaten onything sin’ the previous nicht.’
    ‘Well, he ought to know,’ said Wimsey.
    ‘Ay, that’s so. That’s his lordship speakin’, is’t no? Your lordship will be gratified by this support for our theory.’
    ‘It may be gratifying,’ said Jamieson, ‘but I wish very much it hadn’t happened.’
    ‘That’s so, Sir Maxwell. Still, there’s little doot it has happened and we maun du the best we can by it. There is another remarkable circumstance, an’ that is that we can find no recognisable finger-prints upon the artistic paraphernalia, and it has the appearance as if the user of them had been doin’ his pentin’ in gloves. An’ the steerin’-wheel o’ the car is wiped as clean as a whistle. Ay, I’m thinking the case is weel substantiated. Is it your opeenion, Sir Maxwell, that we should mak’ the fact o’ the murder public?’
    ‘I hardly know, Sergeant. What do you think yourself? Have you consulted with Inspector Macpherson?’
    ‘Weel, sir, he thinks we maun gie some gude reason for makin’ our inquiries. . Ay, we’ll best gae cannily aboot it, but there’s folk talkin’ a’ready aboot the quarrel wi’ Waters. . ay, an’ wi’ Farren. . ay. . ay. . an’ there’s a story about Strachan bein’ over in Creetown the nicht of the crime speirin’ after Farren. . I doot we’ll no be able to keep the thing hushed up.’
    ‘I see. Well, perhaps we had better let it be known that there is a possibility of foul play — that we are not quite satisfied, and so on. But you’d better not tell anybody what the doctor says about the time of the death. I’ll be over presently and have a word with the