I opened the grave under the falling water and dug two feet into the
loose stuff, for that was deep enough. Then I carried him and my
clothes from the bungalow, interred them, heaped back the soil and
left the eternal percolations from above to do the rest. By the
following morning it had demanded very keen eyes to discover any
disturbance at that spot even had search been instituted at
Foggintor. But I did not desire a search and my subsequent measures
prevented it. A Ganns might have discovered clues, no doubt; a
Brendon was more easily deluded.
I stood now free of the vital object in a murder--the corpse, and it
remained for me to create the false appearance of reality with which
these operations have always been so successfully enshrouded. I
donned Redmayne's clothes. We were men nearly of a size and they
fitted closely enough, though too large in detail. I then adjusted
my wig and mustaches, drew Robert's cap over my head--it was too
large, but that mattered not. I next obtained the sack, touched it
in blood and put into it my handbag and a mass of fern and litter
to fill it out. Then I fastened it behind the motor bicycle--an
unwieldy object designed to create the necessary suspicion.
There was now nothing of either Redmayne or myself left at
Foggintor. The gloaming had long thickened to darkness when I went
my way and laid the trail through Two Bridges, Postbridge and
Ashburton to Brixham. Once only was I bothered--at the gate across
the road by Brixham coast-guard station; but I lifted the motor
bicycle over it and presently ascended to the cliffs of Berry Head.
Fate favoured me in details, for, despite the hour, there were
witnesses to every step of the route; I even passed a fisher lad,
descending from the lighthouse for a doctor, where no witness might
have been hoped for or expected. Thus my course was followed and
each stage of the long journey correctly recorded.
On the cliff I emptied my sack, cast its stuffing to the winds,
fastened my handbag to the bicycle, thrust the bloodstained sack
into a rabbit hole, where it could not fail to be discovered, and
then returned to Robert Redmayne's lodging at Paignton. There a
telegram had already been sent informing the landlady of his return
that night. The place and its details I had gleaned from Redmayne
himself; therefore I knew where he kept his machine and, having put
it in its shed, entered the house about three o'clock with his
latchkey and ate the ample meal left for his consumption. Only a
widow and her servant occupied the dwelling and they slept soundly
enough.
I did not venture to seek Bob's bedroom, for I knew not where it
might lie; but I changed into the serge suit, cap and brown shoes of
Doria and packed Redmayne's clothes, tweeds and showy waistcoat,
boots and stockings into my handbag with the wig and mustaches and
my weapon. Soon after four o'clock I left--a clean-shorn, brown
sailorman: "Giuseppe Doria," of immortal memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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