When the Wind Blows Read online

  “That is very helpful, sir.” The inspector’s tone, to MacWilliam’s disguised amusement, had become positively patronising. “Now we come to an odd point: Dixon then and there, in the presence of you and a number of other people, purported to ring up Farren’s garage for a car to meet the seven twenty-nine train at Eastbury Junction. But Farren is positive that the message he received was to meet the seven fifty-nine train. Moreover, he says that the message came at five twenty, whereas Mrs. Basset is prepared to swear that Dixon telephoned in her presence at five ten. Up to now I’ve gone on the line that either Farren or Mrs. Basset or both were mistaken. It looks now as if they were right. Somebody did, later on, tell Farren to meet the wrong train. That, of course, must have been Dixon. The message which you heard Mr. Dixon send, sir, must have been a fake, sent to some other number on the Markhampton exchange.”

  “By Jove!” said Pettigrew.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “I have just remembered something. Not only was the message a fake, but it was spotted as such by one of those present at the time it was made, even though he did not realize the effect of his own observation.”

  “You spotted it at the time, sir?”

  “Not I—but Clayton Evans certainly did. If you had got so far in your last interview with him he might have told you. Let me recall exactly what occurred. Dixon said: ‘I am going to ring up Farren’s,’ or words to that effect. (He had let me do the telephoning up to then, of course, but this time he was careful to do it himself.) He then repeated the number—2203— and proceeded to dial. But of course he didn’t dial that number, but another one. We shall see in a moment which that number really was. Now if you listen to a number being dialled on an automatic telephone you can tell, if you are sufficiently interested to notice, whether the digits composing the number are long or short by the time taken for the dial to come back to its position. Obviously our old friend 999 would take much longer to dial than 111, for instance. If you have a very keen and observant ear trained to notice exact gradations of speed, I dare say you could tell the difference, say, between dialling 99 and 98. Of course, I haven’t an ear like that—but Evans certainly has. Well, as he left the room just after the bogus telephone call had been made I noticed that he looked distinctly puzzled. Somebody asked him if anything was the matter, and he said that something had been bothering him—he wasn’t quite sure what, but he thought it was a question of tempo. Of course it was. He had been expecting to hear Dixon dial 2203 and what he had heard in fact was the sound of dialling 2381. Without realizing it consciously he felt that something was wrong with the timing and it upset him, just as an orchestra playing out of time would have done.”

  “2381,” said the Chief Constable. “That is Dixon’s own telephone number, is it not?”

  “Yes. There is only one person to whom he could have possibly given that fake message and that was his wife—as it is convenient to call her. We aren’t in a position to prove it, of course, but if Ventry is asked I shall be surprised if he doesn’t say that a telephone call came through to her at ten minutes past five.”

  “Ventry,” repeated the inspector, who obviously felt that he had been kept from the centre of the stage quite long enough. “I was just coming to him. Dixon had still his third hurdle to get over—he had to prevent the items at the concert being played in their proper order. The obvious way to do that was to arrange for Ventry to turn up late at the concert, and rely on Mr. Evans’s anxiety not to keep the audience waiting. Well, we know where Ventry was, all right. He was having what he calls ‘fun and games’ with Mrs. Dixon. She, no doubt, had told him that the coast would be clear that afternoon and early evening—Yes?” he broke off impatiently, as Pettigrew showed signs of speaking again.

  “I am sorry to butt in once more,” said Pettigrew humbly, “but I am a witness of fact on that point also. Dixon made it very clear to me, in Ventry’s hearing, that he would not be coming home between the concert and the rehearsal. When the shemozzle over finding another clarinettist began Ventry weighed in with the suggestion that Clarkson should be approached. Dixon fairly bit his head off, and thereupon Ventry beetled away with what I now recognize to have been a ‘You Have Been Warned’ expression on his face.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Trimble graciously. “Dixon and his wife between them baited the trap and Ventry fell into it. Once at the house, it was her business to keep him there. She was able to do that by setting her clock twenty minutes slow and only leaving the house just in time to drive down to the concert before it was due to begin. Ventry followed her out, and found that his own car was gone.”

  “On the whole,” said MacWilliam, “I think that was the most ingenious part of the entire scheme. Dixon had to ditch Ventry. At the same time he wanted a car to meet Jenkinson’s train and ditch him. He killed two birds with one stone in the simplest possible fashion, by taking Ventry’s car and using it to get Jenkinson out of the way. I am bound to say I rather admire him for thinking of that.”

  “At the same time,” Trimble went on, “he was throwing suspicion on Ventry, who was naturally reluctant to tell the truth about his adventures that evening. The rest of the story is quite straightforward. Dixon drove to Eastbury Junction, met Mr. Jenkinson there, landed him at Didford Parva and then came back to Markhampton, timing himself to arrive just as the concert was due to begin. He entered the Hall by the artists’ entrance. By that time, of course, the back of the Hall was deserted, as the orchestra was all assembled on the platform. While the National Anthem was being played he made his way into the soloist’s room and strangled Miss Carless with one of his wife’s nylon stockings, which he had brought with him. Presumably he was successful in taking her by surprise, but if there was any struggle the sound of it would be drowned by the noise of the music. Then he slipped into his place in the orchestra and sat there quietly, in full view of the audience, while the symphony was being played. In the confusion that followed the discovery of the crime it was quite easy for him to slip out, remove his very simple disguise and reappear in his ordinary capacity as secretary to the Society. Naturally, nobody thought of asking him where he had been that evening,” the inspector added defensively. “As secretary he would, of course, be expected to be here, there and everywhere up to the time of the concert and to have a seat somewhere in the hall while it was going on.”

  “Exactly,” said Pettigrew. He was recollecting how he had sat in the gallery of the City Hall, and chatted amiably with the accomplice of a murderer, while she airily explained that her husband “had a seat downstairs, somewhere near the back”; how he had eagerly looked along the rows of musicians and seen their ranks joined by the very murderer himself fresh from his crime. His mind reverted again to Nicola Dixon. How sparkling and alive she had been! As he contemplated the real causes of her eager excitement on that evening, he shuddered.

  Aloud he said: “I congratulate you, Inspector. It has been a most complicated affair, but your reconstruction of it appears to me perfect.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Trimble modestly. “I think it is pretty clear now. And, if I may say so, your assistance has been most valuable.”

  The Chief Constable choked over his fifth whisky and soda.

  20

  Da Capo

  “I call upon the secretary,” said Mrs. Basset in her high, neighing voice, “to read the minutes of the last meeting.”

  In his time Francis Pettigrew had aspired to, and even applied for, a number of appointments of different kinds. He had, in fact, held not a few, most of them honorary. But the last job that he had ever expected to come his way was that of honorary secretary to the Markshire Orchestral Society. None the less, fate and the operation of law, had between them created a gap which he had had no option but to fill. With deep distaste he opened the book and read from the late secretary’s neat script: “At a meeting held at Mrs. Basset’s house on the 15th of July …”

  About the Author

  Cyril Hare was the pseudony
m for the distinguished lawyer Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark. He was born in Surrey, in 1900, and was educated at Rugby and Oxford. A member of the Inner Temple, he was called to the Bar in 1924 and joined the chambers of Roland Oliver, who handled many of the great crime cases of the 1920s. He practised as a barrister until the Second World War, after which he served in various legal and judicial capacities including a time as a county court judge in Surrey.

  Hare’s crime novels, many of which draw on his legal experience, have been praised by Elizabeth Bowen and P. D. James among others. He died in 1958 – at the peak of his career as a judge, and at the height of his powers as a master of the whodunit.

  By the Same Author

  *

  TENANT FOR DEATH

  DEATH IS NO SPORTSMAN

  SUICIDE EXCEPTED

  TRAGEDY AT LAW

  WITH A BARE BODKIN

  for children

  THE MAGIC BOTTLE

  Copyright

  First published in 1949

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2012

  All rights reserved

  © Cyril Hare (Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark), 1949

  The right of Cyril Hare (Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark) to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–28875–5