by J F Straker
Was that a hint? What he really wanted was to talk to Michael, to find out what had gone wrong. But had they finished with Michael? Was he free to leave?
‘Not just yet,’ Pitt said, when the question was put to him. ‘I don’t think I should wait if I were you, Mr Farrel.’
Desmond nodded awkwardly to Michael, and left the room. Pitt went with him to the front door, and stood watching him as he crossed the road and disappeared into the darkness of the common. Then he walked thoughtfully back into the station.
Michael had maintained a gloomy silence during the Inspector’s short absence. He sat hunched forward on a hard chair, the lock of hair over his face, and greeted the Inspector’s return with a scowl.
‘Fifty pounds, Mr Lane,’ Pitt said. ‘Well, that accounts for part of the money. Where did the rest come from?’
But Michael had taken his cue from Desmond.
‘That happens to be my own, Inspector. It wasn’t enough for — for what I needed, so I borrowed the rest from Mr Farrel. I’d have explained that at the office if Mr Farrel had not asked me to keep it to myself.’
‘H’m! Mr Farrel is obviously a gentleman who likes to do good by stealth. What did you want the money for, sir?’
‘That’s my business,’ Michael said firmly.
Pitt admitted that it was, though he did not say so. After a few more questions they let him go, albeit reluctantly. ‘He’s the boy, all right,’ Pitt said when, some minutes later, he and Jim Watkins came out of the police station. ‘But there’s not enough evidence yet to charge him. We couldn’t have made it stick.’
The Sergeant agreed, shivering at the sudden blast of cold air that greeted them. ‘There was about thirty quid in the envelope,’ he said. ‘If that’s his own, and he did bust open the safe at The Elms, then — Hey! What’s that?’
‘That’ was the sound of shouting that came from the direction of the common. ‘Could be trouble,’ Pitt said, breaking into a run. ‘Come on, Jim. Let’s see you move.’
Jim moved, streaking ahead of his superior officer. But they found, as Elizabeth had found on the previous night, that it was not easy to hurry over the uneven, rutted ground. The shouting had ceased, but they stumbled on, their torches flashing erratically as they went — until a beam of light shone suddenly, and behind it they glimpsed the figure of Desmond Farrel.
He looked and sounded angry. His hair was tousled, his upper lip was already beginning to swell. The string of oaths with which he greeted their arrival caused Jim Watkins to revise his views on the aristocracy and gaze at him in admiration mixed with envy.
‘What happened?’ asked Pitt, flashing his torch in a circle over the common.
‘Some bastard cantered up to me out of the dark and socked me on the mouth. Never gave me a chance, blast him.’ He bent to dust his knees. ‘Thanks for coming to the rescue. But don’t waste your time looking for him. He’s well away by now.’
‘Who was it?’ asked the Sergeant.
‘Damned if I know. I never got a proper squint at him. Dropped the torch in the first round.’
‘You mean he waltzed up to you, exchanged a few blows, and then cleared off? Just like that?’ Pitt said sceptically.
‘Yes. And exchanged is right, Inspector. He didn’t have it all his own way; I fancy he’ll have a black eye tomorrow. If you see one knocking around let me know. I’d like to black the other.’
‘Who did the shouting?’
‘I did.’ Desmond touched his lip gingerly. ‘That’s going to be sore tonight, damn it!’ A cautious grin spread over his face. ‘It was good of you chaps to join the party, but I rather fancy it’s a private one. A domestic issue, you might say.’
He said goodnight and stalked off jauntily into the darkness. In silence the two detectives watched the beam of his torch until it vanished.
‘Becoming quite a battleground, the common,’ Watkins said.
‘It is indeed.’ Pitt sounded thoughtful. ‘How long after Farrel left the station did we hear him shout?’
‘Seven or eight minutes, I’d say.’
‘H’m. And three minutes at the most to get this far. What was he doing after that?’
‘A little light sparring, according to him.’
‘For four minutes? Not him. A little argument first, I fancy. The sparring came later.’
‘So he’s lying, eh?’
‘So he’s lying. He knows damned well who his assailant was. But why deny it?’
‘There’s a school of thought,’ Watkins said, ‘which believes in a man fighting his own battles. I admit it’s out of fashion these days, but maybe Farrel is old-fashioned enough to belong to it.’
‘Perhaps,’ Pitt admitted. ‘He seems a self-reliant young man. All the same, I’d like to know just how domestic the issue was.’
* * *
Ted Williams was a man with a grievance. The murder of Charlotte Lane had erupted into his life like a bright and shining star promising untold glory. He it was who had first suspected that a crime had been committed (that Walter and Mrs Green might justly claim this distinction was of no account); he it was who had made the first inquiries, had taken upon himself to search the house; he it was who had actually found the body. Yet where was the expected praise, the hints at preferment? A Sergeant had usurped his charge, and he himself was back with the drunks and the motorists, pedalling the lanes as if nothing had occurred to break the law-abiding monotony of Milford Cross.
At that moment he was not pedalling, but pushing; his bicycle had developed a puncture. The dark lane that bordered the west side of the common was as gloomy as his thoughts. But two hundred yards ahead of him, at the corner of Bells Lane, was the first street-lamp, and beyond that the village. He would be able to dump the useless cycle at the station, and perhaps warm himself with a cup of tea.
A man crossed the road hurriedly from the common and paused under the lamp to fumble in his raincoat pockets. Williams recognised him as Michael Lane; and, because everything and everybody connected with Charlotte Lane was of interest to the constable, he quickened his step. Something fell from the young man’s pocket, there was the flare of a match as he lit a cigarette; and then he was off down Bells Lane towards his home.
Reaching the corner, Williams propped his cycle against the lamp-post and picked up the object which Michael had dropped. It was a glove. He put it in his pocket; the young man would be almost home by now, and the constable had no intention of making a detour to return his property. That could be done in the morning.
He had already resumed his plodding when memory jolted him into activity. Almost dropping the cycle in his haste, he whipped the glove from his pocket and examined it by the light of his torch.
The fastener was missing.
No longer plodding, the light of battle in his eye, Constable Williams made for the police station. If that glove didn’t demonstrate his worth to his superior officers nothing ever would.
Chapter Eleven
A Nice Choice in Lies
As he went down the corridor Desmond saw his father come out of Elizabeth’s room. Surprised, he slipped hastily into his own; he did not wish to meet his father just then. With his ear to the door, he stood listening to the receding footsteps. Not until they were well down the stairs did he come out.
Elizabeth was up and dressed. She exclaimed in dismay when she saw him.
‘What have you done to your lip, Desmond? It’s all swollen.’
He told her what he had told the Inspector; he had considered being more explicit, but had rejected it as unwise. Elizabeth would insist on his telling the police all he knew — might even, if he refused, tell them herself — and this was something he had to handle alone.
‘You don’t think it was the same man who attacked me, do you?’ she asked, troubled.
‘Could be.’ He did not want to discuss it. ‘What did the old man want?’
‘He didn’t want anything.’ Elizabeth looked pleased. ‘He’s really rather a pet, darling,
when you get to know him. That sounds silly, doesn’t it — me telling you, I mean? But he always used to scare me, and now he doesn’t. He was sweet this afternoon. He came in to see how I was, and we chatted for ages. You know, I think he’s beginning to like me.’
‘So he should. What did you talk about?’
‘Oh, all sorts of things. You, him, me, the hotel. I didn’t realise he could be so so human. And considerate.’ She picked up a small bottle from the bedside table. ‘He gave me these.’
‘What are they?’
‘Sleeping tablets. I told him I wasn’t sleeping well; this wretched bruise keeps me awake half the night.’ She touched her forehead gingerly. ‘I like to sleep on my tummy. Did you know that?’
‘No. That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to discovering. Where did he get the tablets from?’
‘They’re his. He says they act like magic. The doctor gave them to him for his insomnia.’
‘I didn’t know he suffered from insomnia,’ Desmond said. He wondered how many other things about his father were unknown to him. Theirs was not an intimate relationship.
‘Well, he does.’ Her expressive face was suddenly troubled. ‘Desmond, do you think some one knows about our being married — some one other than Dulcie, I mean — and that’s why you and I have been singled out for attack? Otherwise — well, why should it just be us and not the others?’
‘Their turn may come,’ he said. And then, again heading her off, ‘Why are you all dressed up? Expecting visitors?’
She laughed. ‘Only you. Don’t you approve? I’m a little tired of pyjamas.’
He grinned. ‘I saw nothing wrong with them,’ he said, kissing her.
Mr Farrel was more polite than Dulcie; he knocked before entering. ‘I don’t know what you and that Inspector are up to, Desmond,’ he said plaintively, ‘but he’s here again. And young Michael Lane is with him.’
‘But it’s only about an hour since I left them,’ Desmond protested.
Mr Farrel winced at the sight of his swollen lip. ‘You apparently had quite an argument with them, too,’ he said.
Again Desmond told his story. Then, to forestall further comment, he said quickly, ‘What does the Inspector want, Dad?’
‘To see you.’ Farrel turned to the girl. ‘You too, my dear. Do I send them up, or will you come down?’
Elizabeth glanced at her husband. He said, frowning, ‘Better send them up. It’ll be easier for Elizabeth.’
His father studied them for a moment. Then he nodded and left.
Desmond said quickly, ‘I don’t know what all this is about, darling, but I do know that Michael seems to be in trouble. That’s why the police sent for me earlier. I hoped I’d put him in the clear; but if I didn’t —’ He shrugged. ‘Well, Michael’s not a very stable character, is he? If they really put the wind up him he may have talked out of turn.’
Elizabeth nodded. She knew Michael even better than did Desmond. But to her it did not seem to matter greatly what Michael might tell the police. From the start she had maintained that truth could not hurt them. The truth about their hoax on Aunt Charlotte, that was; she could appreciate the wisdom of saying nothing about her marriage. And that had come later, it could have no connexion with the murder.
And yet — would she have been willing to tell the whole truth about Aunt Charlotte?
‘Do they think Michael killed Aunt Charlotte?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’
Inspector Pitt looked menacingly angry. With him was Michael, wild of eye yet guiltily defiant, and behind them Alan Torreck. At Desmond’s and Elizabeth’s surprised greetings Alan shook his head. He was as mystified as they.
Pitt gave them no opportunity for consultation. ‘I understand there has been a conspiracy of silence in connexion with Charlotte Lane’s murder,’ he said, his voice unpleasantly terse. ‘Some kind of stupid practical joke, Mr Lane tells me. He has refused to elaborate except in the presence of you all, and so —’
‘I had to tell them,’ Michael burst out. His dark skin looked more grey than olive, there was a desperate appeal in his voice and eyes that Elizabeth, although she had no love for him, found it difficult to resist. ‘I know I should have warned you first, but they didn’t give me a chance. They found out that I was in Aunt Charlotte’s house that night, and . . . and . . .’ He turned fiercely on Desmond and Alan, who were sitting on the bed with Elizabeth. ‘Stop looking at me like that I couldn’t help it, I tell you. It was that or —’
Pitt said sharply, ‘That will do, Mr Lane.’
Michael turned to stare at him. For a moment it looked as though he were about to offer physical violence. Then the wild eyes became dull, and he nodded and sat down abruptly.
The others were stunned; not so much at his treachery as at the guilt his admission seemed to imply. Was he now trying to implicate them?
Alan said, ‘If this is to be the showdown, Inspector, one member of the gang is missing. Did you know that?’
Pitt nodded. ‘Mr Poulton will be here directly,’ he said.
Bruce was. He came in with Sergeant Watkins, looking nervous as well as mystified. His nervousness increased when he saw them. Even Bruce’s wits were quick enough to grasp the significance of that assembly.
Pitt was impatient. Scarcely waiting for the door to close, and indifferent to the fact that there were not enough chairs in the room, he said briskly, ‘Well, gentlemen, do I get the truth now?’
It was Alan who told him, after a quick glance at Desmond for confirmation. Listening to him, the Inspector studied the five young people in turn. The girl’s eyes were fixed intently on the speaker’s face, as though she were seeing him for the first time and needed to impress every feature on her memory. She must have heard his voice; but the words he spoke seemed to be of little moment to her, for the soft half-smile on her lips never faded. Desmond Farrel stared fixedly ahead; occasionally he frowned at some particularly damning revelation, but he did not turn his head or his eyes. Bruce Poulton leaned heavily against the wall, obviously uncomfortable in both mind and body. He too watched the speaker’s face, nervously anticipating each point, his eyes darting to the Inspector as it was made in an attempt to estimate its effect. Michael Lane sat slumped forward in his chair, staring glassily at the carpet, his head supported by his hands.
Alan spoke quietly and well, attempting neither to minimise the more damaging points nor to stress the redeeming. He dealt only with the plans they had made, and his own part in trying to carry them out. Not once did he refer to the others for confirmation, and not once was he interrupted.
When he had done Pitt said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and was again silent. None of the others spoke. The silence became oppressive; there were protesting squeaks from the bed as the bodies on it moved restlessly, the squeal of Bruce’s rubber-shod sole as he shifted his position against the wall. Their breathing seemed suddenly louder.
‘Murder never aroused much hilarity in me,’ Pitt said grimly. ‘I don’t see it as a subject for joking. Particularly when, as in this case, the wish appears to have fathered the thought.’ Elizabeth was not sure what he meant by this; but he was looking directly at her as he spoke, and she flushed guiltily. ‘Fathered the deed as well, apparently,’ he added.
It was Alan, not the girl herself, who came to her rescue. ‘Miss Messager was against it from the beginning,’ he said, with more heat than before. ‘It was to please her that we watered it down. Don’t start accusing her.’
‘I’m not accusing anyone yet,’ Pitt said. He turned to Michael, who still sat staring at the floor. ‘You sent that telegram, Mr Lane?’
At the sound of his own name Michael started and looked up. ‘I got a friend in Town to send it for me,’ he said sullenly.
His sullenness seemed to jerk the Inspector into anger.
‘As I understand it, that completed your obligations under the conspiracy. You had no occasion to call at The Elms on Thursday evening. Why did you?’<
br />
He rapped the question out so sharply that Michael, whose morale had already been sapped by two previous grillings that day, became paralysed by terror. He stared at the Inspector wild-eyed, the lock of flopping hair unheeded. His mouth was working, but the sounds that came from it were unintelligible.
His friends watched him, sickened yet fascinated. For all of them it was their first glimpse of what fear could do to a man. But it was no new spectacle to the two detectives; they waited patiently, unmoved. And presently the shuddering limbs were still, the slack mouth tightened. Haltingly at first, more smoothly as his self-control returned, Michael began to talk.
Up to a point his story was the same as he had told it to Desmond the previous night. Where it differed was in the later stages. After seeing the six forty-five train depart he had caught the six fifty-two bus back to Milford Cross. But he had left it at the outskirts of the village, realising that, since Aunt Charlotte had not been on the train, she was probably still at home.
‘So you got to the house at about ten past seven,’ said Watkins, who by now knew most of the local bus timetable by heart.
‘Yes.’ Michael paused, trying to recapture the thread thus broken. ‘The house was in darkness, but I rang the front-door bell just the same. I thought, you see, that Elizabeth must be in; she was expecting some of us. But no one answered the bell.’
‘And then?’ Pitt asked.
‘I went round to the back. I thought she might be in the kitchen. But there were no lights showing at the back either.’ He stopped, glanced quickly at the Inspector and away again, and said, ‘The back door was open.’
‘Open — or unlocked?’
‘Well, closed. Not locked. It opened when I pushed it.’
‘So you went in. And then?’
‘Then’ was the hard part, the part he didn’t want to tell. He licked his lips furtively and said, ‘There was no one in the downstair rooms; I had the house to myself. And when I went into the study and saw Aunt Charlotte’s picture —’