“Perfectly. He came to meet somebody in secret who desired to make an end of him. Very well. But who then? Not the paralysed one. Not the son - in - law either. It is in evidence that the son - in - law was gone before Farquhar disappeared.”
“That’s right. I verified that,” Bell grunted. “Bernal and his wife left the night before.”
“There we are again,” Dubois shrugged. “Nothing means anything. For certain, it is not a perfect alibi. They went by car; they could come back and not be seen. But it is an alibi that will stand unless you have luck, which you have not yet, my dear Bell, God knows.”
“Not an easy case. No,” Reggie murmured. “However. Possibilities not yet examined. Lyncombe’s on the coast. Had you noticed that? I wonder if any little boat from France came in while Farquhar was still alive.”
Dubois laughed. Dubois clapped him on the shoulder. “Magnificent! How you are resolute, my friend. Always the great idea! A boat from Brittany, hein? That would solve everything. The good Farquhar was so kind as to come here and meet it and be killed by the brave Bretons. And the paralysed millionaire, he was merely a diversion to pass the time.”
“Yes. We are not amused,” Reggie moaned. “You’re in such a hurry. Bell - what’s the local talent say about the tide? When was high water on the night Farquhar disappeared?”
“Not rill the early morning, sir. Tide was going out from about three in the afternoon onwards.”
“I see. At dusk and after, that reef o’ rocks would be comin’ out of the water. Assumin’ he went over the cliff in the dark or twilight, he’d fall on the rocks.”
“That’s right. Of course he might bounce into the sea. But I’ve got a man or two down there searching the shore and the cliff - side.”
“Good man.” Reggie smiled, and wandered away to the cliff edge.
“Yes. It is most correct,” Dubois shrugged. “I should do it, I avow. But also I should expect nothing, nothing. After all, we are late. We arrive late at everything.”
Reggie turned and stared at him. “I know. That’s what I’m afraid of,” he mumbled.
He wandered to and fro about the ground near the cliff edge, and found nothing which satisfied him, and at last lay down on his stomach where a jutting of the headland gave him a view of the cliffs on either side.
Two men scrambled about over the rocks below, scanning the cliff face, prying into every crevice they could reach … one of them vanished under an overhanging ledge, appeared again, working round it, was lost in a cleft … when he came out he had something in his hand.
“Name of a pipe!” Dubois rumbled. “Is it possible we have luck at last?”
“No.” Reggie stood up. “Won’t be luck, whatever it is. Reward of virtue. Bell’s infinite capacity for takin’ pains.”
A breathless policeman reached the top of the cliff, and held out a sodden book. “That’s the only perishing thing there is down there, sir,” he panted. “Not a trace of nothing else.”
Bell gave it to Reggie. It was a sketch - book of the size to slide into a man’s pocket. The first leaf bore, in a flamboyant scrawl, the name Derek Farquhar.
“Ah. That fixes it, then,” said Bell. “He did go over this cliff, and his sketch - book came out of his pocket as he bounced on the ledges.”
“Very well,” Dubois shrugged. “We know now as much as we guessed. Which means nothing.”
Reggie sat down and began to separate the book’s wet pages.
Farquhar had drawn, in pencil, notes rather than sketches at first, scraps of face and figure and scene which took his unholy fancy, a drunken girl, a nasty stage dance, variations of impropriety. Then came some parades of men and women bathing, not less unpleasant, but more studied. “Aha! Here is something seen at least,” said Dubois.
“Yes, I think so,” Reggie murmured, and turned the page.
The next sketch showed children dancing - small boys and girls. Some touch of cruelty was in the drawing - they were made to look ungainly - but it had power; it gave them an intensity of frail life which was at once pathetic and grotesque. They danced round a giant statue - a block in which the shape of a woman was burlesqued, hideously fat and thin, with a flat, foolish face. There were no clothes on it, but rough lines which might be girdle and necklace.
“What the devil!” Dubois exclaimed. “This is an oddity. He discovers he had a talent, the animal.”
Reggie did not answer. For a moment more he gazed at the children and the statue, and he shivered, then he turned the other pages of the book. There were some notes of faces, then several satires on the respectability of Lyncombe - the sea front, with nymphs in Bath chairs propelled by satyrs and satyrs propelled by nymphs. He turned back to the dancing children and the giant female statue, and stared at it, and his round face was pale. “Yes. Farquhar had talent,” he said. “Played the devil with it all his life. And yet it works on the other side. What’s the quickest way to Brittany? London and then Paris by air. Come on.”
Dubois swore by a paper bag and caught him up. “What, then? How do you find your Brittany again in this?”
“The statue,” Reggie snapped. “Sort of statue you see in Brittany. Nowhere else. He didn’t invent that out of his dirty mind. He’d seen it. It meant something to him. I should say he’d seen the children too.”
“You go beyond me,” said Dubois. “Well, it is not the first time. A statue of Brittany, eh? You mean the old things they have among the standing stones and the menhirs and dolmens. A primitive goddess. The devil! I do not see our Farquhar interested in antiquities. But it is the more striking that he studied her. I give you that. And the children? I will swear he was not a lover of children.”
“No: He wasn’t. That came out in the drawing. Not a nice man. It pleased him to think of children dancin’ round the barbarous female.”
