And Death Came Too

by Hull, Richard

  Then, remembering that the car had been a necessity if she was to visit him in the kind of way she herself had originally suggested, she shrugged her shoulders and set herself to find out as unobtrusively as possible to what extent it had been traced. She repeated the date aloud, musingly.

  “I don’t think I took my car out that night. Did someone else?”

  “To be honest, miss, perhaps it isn’t you at all. All I know is—and I suppose I oughtn’t to say this, only I think it will save trouble in the long run—is that some lady had a car of something like the size of yours near a place called Trevenant on that night, and that its number was ten, but the rest of the letters they don’t seemingly know. Consequently, every car which is a number ten has got to be accounted for.”

  “Rather a long job, isn’t it?” Maud Westbury asked innocently.

  “Not really so bad. It goes this way—”

  “Just a minute, officer. Sit down, won’t you?”

  “Thank you, miss.” The constable put his considerable bulk on to a not-too-solid garden seat and, before going on, turned a little sideways so that the sun should not be straight in his eyes. “The police of Treve, they sent round the request to every police force in the country. My sergeant, he says that he reckons there are only about four thousand cars which are number tens and some of those will be lorries or buses, and things like that. Then, though they aren’t very definite, because they didn’t get a very clear impression of the wheelmarks, he says we can cut out the very big cars. Result is, we cut down in this county the number to be checked-up to only a bit over one in three of the number tens. Now, if that’s a fair guide, the police of the whole county have only got to look at about fifteen hundred cars and find out what they were doing.”

  “So I am one of fifteen hundred suspects?”

  “Perhaps less, miss. Because it’s a lady they’re looking for, and they’ve got some sort of a description of her.”

  “Does that fit me, too?”

  “I couldn’t say, miss.” Caution descended a little late on the constable, but he completely failed to prevent his eyes from going to his note-book into which, quite obviously, the description had been copied. So far as he could see it didn’t fit at all badly, either. “Now, as to your car, miss?” he asked.

  “I haven’t driven it out at night.”

  “Would you be able to prove that?”

  “It’s not easy to prove a negative, but you can ask my maid.”

  “I will, if you don’t mind, miss.”

  “By all means. I don’t know what time I am supposed to have taken it out, but I hope it will be early enough for her not to have gone to bed.”

  “Would anybody else know if you had driven it out?”

  “I don’t think so. This cottage is outside the village, and there is only she and I. I have to employ a gardener but he lives in the village.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of thieves, miss? I ought to have been keeping a special watch, perhaps, but I can’t be everywhere at once, and the lady who lives here normally keeps a dog.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t like dogs. No, I don’t fear burglars much. They don’t come to small places like this, and if they did there would be nothing for them to steal. I didn’t bring any jewellery of any value. Perhaps you might casually let that be known, if there are bad characters in the village.”

  “Not many that way, but they might steal the car.”

  Maud Westbury seemed lost in thought for a minute, as if the suggestion that someone else might have driven the car had not already come from her.

  “Yes, I suppose they might. The garage is at the back of the house, and I might not hear them drive off. Of course, it’s locked up, but it isn’t a very elaborate lock. You, being a policeman, probably know more about picking locks than I do, but I should think it could be done with a bit of wire quite easily.”

  “I see.” The constable did not seem to appreciate entirely the suggestion that the police knew all about picking locks. “Well, miss, I’m much obliged to you and now, if you please, I should like to talk to your maid. You see,” he went on confidentially and, as he hoped, tactfully, “I should like to save you further trouble by being able to prove that it wasn’t you.”

  “And I’m not eliminated yet?”

  “Not really, miss. You see, it is a number ten. No doubt it’s quite true that you didn’t take it out that night but it isn’t what you might call proved yet. And—” He stopped abruptly.

  “And,” Maud Westbury went on for him, “the description does, to some extent, correspond with me? Come, officer, I should like to hear what I look like to the police.”

  “It wouldn’t be that, miss.”

  “No, of course it wouldn’t. But I should like to hear a police description which you think might apply to me.”

  “It isn’t exactly flattering.”

  “I didn’t think it would be.”

  “Well, miss, it says ‘Height five feet four inches, fair complexion, fair hair, dresses well but rather flashily. Last seen wearing a purple hat and bag with a yellow dress and coat and yellow knitted gloves. Very high-heeled shoes.’”

  “It sounds horrid,” Maud Westbury interrupted, looking down at the rather simple blue-flowered cotton frock which she had on, “or would the fact that I have a backless dress on be called ‘flashy’, too?”

  “I don’t know, miss. Purple and yellow sounds rather bright to me. It might be very nice, though.”

  “Yellow and purple! Nice!” A shudder rippled delicately over her. “But go on.”

  The constable coughed and looked a little embarrassed.

  “General appearance rather slatternly and careless. Impressed observers as being perhaps foreign. Rather faded and incompetent. Age probably about thirty. One tooth stopped with gold.”

  “I’m twenty-five. And look.” For a fraction of an instant she opened her mouth, and long before the constable could really see anything, which in any case would have been difficult in the shade of the umbrella, she shut it again. “No gold tooth, is there? But I’m sorry you think I look slatternly and careless about my dress. And I’m also sorry you think I might be thirty.”

  “Oh, no, miss. I said it didn’t really apply.”

  “Thank you.” Very lazily she stretched out her bare legs and looked at her sandals. Then she rang a little bell that was by her side.

  “Oh, Mary,” she said to the elderly woman who answered it with commendable promptitude. “The officer here wants to know if I drove out late at night a few evenings ago in the car. Would you tell him?”

  The constable looked cross. It was hardly a fair way to put the question but there was no denying the definiteness of the negative which he received.

  “Well, miss,” he said, after a few more questions, “I must go back and report. I hope the sergeant will let me cross you off the list, but he’s a bit pigheaded sometimes. Thank you very much, miss.” He made his way to the garden gate.

  Maud Westbury looked at his retreating back contemptuously.

  “Bah!” she said. “Why do they tell imbeciles like that so much? However, well done, Marie. It was much better he should know nothing.”

  “Bien, Madame,” the woman spoke French as if it was more natural to her, “but I hope there will not be many occasions when I shall have to answer to ‘Mary’.” She shook her head angrily, as if she had been slightly insulted.

  “Not many, I hope,” was the answer. “We shall get out of this country as soon as possible, but to go at once would have all the appearance of flight. All the same, I think I shall go to London and see a dentist. Heigh-ho! It’s a worrying life and no wonder I look more than my age.”

  Had she but known it the Treve police were not getting quite as much help as might have been expected from the police of the county in which she was. Over most of the area the inquiries were proceeding in a perfectly proper way; as a matter of routine, it is true, but as one to be dealt with officially. But luck had been with her in th
e sub-district in which she was, where there lingered an old grievance arising out of a request of a similar type a year or two before, which had been met rather grudgingly by Sergeant Evans. It was this, really, which had caused his senior officer to tell the village constable so much and had resulted in the inquiry being conducted by far too junior a man, with the consequence that many obvious questions had gone unasked, and that awkward points had not been pressed.

  Far too readily, too, Marie’s evidence had been accepted, and the time after which she was to deny that her mistress had gone out had been supplied to her quite freely and, on the other hand, no inquiries had been made as to where Maud Westbury had come from or who she was, nor had there been any attempt made to find if she was in possession of clothes resembling the description given by Scoresby. In fact a piece of routine work had been partly scamped and partly carried out in an indifferent manner.

  Nevertheless, on the list which was sent to Scoresby of all the cars in the county with the registration number ten, Maud Westbury’s name appeared. It was true that beside it was written the note, “Able to prove that car was not used that night,” but there was also the note, “Has some, though not striking, resemblance to description given except, probably, in matter of gold tooth.”

  “I wonder what that means,” Scoresby said, when he read it. “I suppose that whoever saw her did not like to peer too closely into the horse’s mouth, and got only a fleeting glimpse. Well, I won’t put her on List A, but she had better remain on List B.”

  With that he added another line to one of the already lengthy pair of documents which he was compiling—List A, those about whom he would like to know more at once, and List B, the reserves, so to speak, if List A produced no useful result. They were both, unfortunately, by no means short lists, since so often, even when the car was owned by a man, it had been ascertained that his wife drove, “and unfortunately,” as Scoresby said to Flaxman, “it is not unlikely that this woman drove to Y Bryn without the knowledge of her husband—that is, if she is a married woman. It would be a reason for slipping in by the back in the hopes of being seen by no one except Yeldham, and for slipping out again still without speaking.”

  “It might be,” Flaxman had agreed without conviction, “but the point is that so far as we know none of the people on either of your lists have the slightest connection with anybody this end.”

  “None whatever. I thought, sir, that with your leave I would work this way. First of all, we must ask all other districts to give us some more particulars as to all the people on these two lists. They will have to do it quietly without letting the people know; otherwise there might be some unpleasant things said—”

  “There might,” Flaxman interrupted, “and we shall be sufficiently unpopular with the police of Great Britain as it is.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. They all know that today we’re asking them to help us and tomorrow it will be the other way round. I shouldn’t hesitate about that for a minute, sir.”

  “No, I shan’t. And in any case it has got to be done. Now, while that is happening—”

  “Just a minute, sir. We must give them a line as to what information we want. If any of those people could be proved to know Salter or the Hands or even Lansley or Miss Carmichael, it would be something to work on. Or again, if they were in any way connected with Finchingfield College, that ought to be investigated.”

  Flaxman nodded.

  “You might add,” he suggested, “Hands’ Machine Gun Company, and perhaps the battalion he was in before.”

  “Yes, sir,” Scoresby agreed, “and while that is going on, I want to go on finding out more about several of the people we have mentioned, and I should like to find the weapon. For another thing, I want to see Salter’s service agreement.”

  “I don’t quite see why you want the last.”

  “It is a bit remote but it’s like this. If Salter had undoubtedly to pay that annuity, and always knew that he would, then he had a very good motive. But if he had reasonable grounds for thinking that he could avoid it in any of the ways which he put forward, then it did not matter so imperatively to him if Yeldham died or not. It mattered more to the college.”

  “You aren’t going to suggest that the murder was done by the governing body? With the aid of the chairman’s lovely daughter or something of that sort?”

  “No.” Scoresby laughed dutifully but without enthusiasm, “but I should like to find that Kinderson was in some way connected with it.”

  “I should love to, and I regret to notice that he is perhaps the real gainer in the whole thing. Do any of those cars by any chance come from the area round Finchingfield?”

  “There are still so many that one of them is bound to, I should think,” Scoresby grumbled pessimistically. “Here’s the list from the county area in which Finchingfield is, and you see there are five—all rather improbable. To tell you the truth, sir, that list arrived about last—it would—and I haven’t as yet looked to see if any of those five addresses are really close to the school. I will, as soon as possible.”

  “Very good.” Flaxman picked up the lists and looked at them.

  “I wish they weren’t so long, because one of these people almost certainly is the woman we want, though not if she stole the car and put it back again. None of the people interviewed have mentioned anything of the sort, and I think that they would. When they next saw the car, there would be some unfamiliar detail—a cushion moved or something knocked crooked—which would make them look carefully and then probably they would notice that the car was muddy or that the mileage on the speedometer was not what they expected it to be.”

  “Most people note the mileage pretty carefully, but not all.”

  “Not all, sir, but it would be bad luck if it was stolen temporarily and the owner never knew it. And if he suspected it even, he would be bound to say so.”

  “Yes. So that brings us back to what I was saying. The name of the missing woman is on the list, in all probability.”

  “In which case a copy of the surnames only might go to the War Office. The Machine Gun Corps doesn’t exist any longer but I suppose its records are somewhere. They ought to be able to find out if any surname coincides.”

  “The common ones are bound to, and may be the merest red-herrings.”

  “That is a risk we shall have to take, sir, and we need not pursue the Smiths too far. Then I thought, sir,” Scoresby went on as Flaxman nodded, “that quite obviously the better line of approach was Finchingfield. There is probably a register of ‘old Finches’ to be got at somewhere. Of course, it being holiday time is awkward, as there will be nobody there.”

  “You might ask Kinderson.”

  “I might, sir.” Both their voices sounded doubtful. “May I think over the best way to get at it, and meanwhile, have I got your leave to go on on these lines?”

  “You have.”

  They did not seem to the chief constable to be very hopeful lines, and after the detective sergeant had left him he could not help wondering how much longer he ought to keep the inquiry in purely local hands. So far there had been no mud thrown at them but they would have to produce some result soon, if nothing unkind was to be said, either by the general public, or the county council of Treve. “But I think,” he said to himself, “I can manage them later. An appeal to their local patriotism will work wonders and, damn it all, it ought to! When all is said and done, quite a lot has been found out. Only some of it contradicts the rest. It may be quite unimportant, I know,” he added meditatively, “but I should like to find the weapon.”

  11

  An Afternoon’s Sport

  “Saturday afternoon,” said Martin Hands cheerfully. “What do we do with it? Try and get somebody to play tennis?”

  “Who?” said Patricia, frowning slightly.

  “One of the Crewe girls would make the fourth. They both play a decent game.”

  “Yes. But I wish you wouldn’t make assumptions. I don’t necessarily want to pla
y with Gerald always. Anybody might want a change from standing up to the net to a rotten service like his.”

  “I’m sorry, but naturally I thought—I mean you are engaged to him.”

  “Yes, I am. But that doesn’t mean that I am never to be allowed to play tennis with anybody else in the world.”

  Martin opened his eyes a bit wide behind his sister’s back. After they were married it would, of course, be a perfectly reasonable attitude, but during the engagement he had always thought that it was exactly what the situation was. “Just as you like,” he began again amiably, “we can think of somebody else. Only there isn’t a variety of young men round here who are any good at the game. Some of them even serve worse,” he added, with a touch of malice.

  “Well, then, don’t let’s play tennis.” Patricia bad-temperedly closed her cigarette case noisily and went on, “Can’t you see why I don’t want him just at present?”

  “To be quite honest, I can’t. I suppose it’s stupid of me.”

  “To be equally honest, I think it is. I really don’t want to see anything of him until this—this Y Bryn business is cleared up. Just at present, whenever I see him, I can only think of that, and it’s worrying me. You must take that as my excuse for snapping at you and everyone else.”

  “I do understand that, at any rate. Poor old girl! I suppose that it has been a worry to you. It was bad luck going round out of pure good-nature and good manners and getting mixed up with a thing like that. But isn’t the right thing to do to forget it? And isn’t doing something else the right way to do that?”

  “I suppose that’s more or less true. Exercise of some sort then be it, but not, I think, tennis.”

  “Walk?”

  “I’ve walked myself silly the last few days.”

  “Drive in the car?”

  “Don’t feel like it.”

  “Well—I say, do you think you ought to go away for a few days so as to forget all about it?”