Fire in the Thatch by Edith Caroline Rivett

Macdonald paused here a moment and gazed across the sunlit valley before he resumed: “Obviously the man I wanted had had to be free at certain hours on April 30th. He had had to be at Tiverton to phone the message purporting to come from Nurse White which Vaughan himself took on the phone at Hinton Mallory—and at the back of my mind all the time was the problem of Gressingham’s car, its errand on the night of the fire, and those petrol cans of Vaughan’s. Who could have needed the car and the petrol? Certainly nobody at the Mallorys—not in connection with the Little Thatch case. But if the murderer came from a distance he might have been desperately pressed for some extra petrol. I began to try to fit Brendon into the scheme of things: could he have been at Tiverton at five o’clock to phone? Yes, since he was not seen in his hotel between four and half-past seven. If he had committed the murder he must have had to drive best part of a hundred and fifty miles to achieve his various appearances at Taunton—but the thing was possible, as anyone can see who looks at any map of the county. The distance from Taunton to the spinney is only just over twenty miles, but it’s a very hilly road and is expensive on petrol: the return journey of forty-three miles would have taken two gallons in Brendon’s car. I tried the following assumption for purposes of argument: that, Brendon, who had booked a room in a Taunton hotel at four o’clock, could have got to Tiverton in time to phone at five, and then could have driven to a spot near the spinney, arriving before Vaughan got there at 6.15. He could have killed Vaughan with a loaded stick as the latter got out of his car, which I assumed that he parked at the roadside a little farther back—before the tar strip. Vaughan’s body was then hidden under a rug in the back of his own car, and Brendon returned to Taunton in his Sunbeam, arriving in time for dinner at his hotel. That is forty-three miles of driving and two gallons of petrol used. Brendon left his hotel again unseen after dinner, drove back to the spot near the spinney where he left his own car, got into Vaughan’s Morris, having donned Vaughan’s hat and coat, and drove to Little Thatch, hooting and waving at Corner Cottage en route. He got Vaughan’s body into the cottage and prepared the fire by means of a slow match and paraffin. Next, he had to get back to his hotel in time to be seen in the lounge before everybody was in bed, so he went down to Hinton Mallory and borrowed Gressingham’s Daimler to cover the six miles from Little Thatch to the spinney, and he took two gallons of petrol from Vaughan’s store, to refuel the Daimler and to help him out if his own tank were running low. This involved having to return yet a third time to the spinney—shortly after midnight—to return Gressingham’s Daimler to Hinton Mallory. It sounds complicated in the telling, but the whole performance was possible on account of the loneliness of the roads. At any rate, I assumed that it could have been done, especially if Brendon knew that he could get in and out of his hotel unseen, and collect his own car from its lock-up without being noticed.”

St Cyres shook his head helplessly. “What beats me is this,” he said. “Why didn’t he leave poor Vaughan’s body in the Morris where he killed him? He hadn’t been seen: there was nothing to connect him with the murder.”