A Gun to Play With

by J F Straker

  He gripped the wheel fiercely, and swore.

  Lewes police station stands at the junction of several narrow streets, but Toby was in no mood to bother about possible parking regulations. He pulled up squarely in front of the building and made for the door indicated by the familiar blue lamp. At the counter (rather like the reception desk at an hotel, he thought) a short, square-looking man was talking to the elderly constable.

  ‘I was on my way home from Eastbourne,’ the square man was saying. ‘I parked the car outside the Crown at about one-fifteen and went in to lunch. When I came out a few minutes ago the damned thing had gone.’

  ‘One moment, sir.’ The constable came round the side of the counter and opened the door of a room opposite. ‘Would you mind waiting in here, please?’ he said to Toby. ‘I won’t keep you long. Or is your business urgent?’

  Toby hesitated. No doubt the police would say it was extremely urgent. They would want to go dashing off to take fingerprints and photographs, to hunt for clues among the corn, to send out terse radio messages to other policemen and issue carefully worded statements to the Press. But what was to be gained by all that? It might give the murderer a few more minutes of unhappy freedom, but it would not bring the dead girl back to life.

  ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘No, it isn’t urgent, I guess.’

  The constable eyed him speculatively and then went out, closing the door behind him. Toby knew that his argument was ill-founded, that he was being foolish and selfish. He was greedily hugging his secret when he should have been confiding in the police. He began to wish that he had answered differently.

  How tough could a British policeman get?

  ‘Name and address, please?’ he heard the constable say, and noticed that the door of the waiting-room was ajar. The latch must be defective, he thought. Then came the square man’s voice. Waide. George Waide. No. 15 Havelock Drive, Haywards Heath. I’m the Southern Area representative for Gay and Wyatt, the soap people.’

  ‘And the number and make of the car, Mr Waide?’

  ‘XYKC 71. A black Austin A40.’

  ‘Were the doors locked?’

  ‘No. Silly of me, I know. But I forgot.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  Toby heard the constable repeating the details over the telephone, and his thoughts drifted back to the dead girl. He was not interested in the square man’s missing car. Who was she, where had she come from? She would be about his own age, he thought, or perhaps a little younger. He had seen no ring on her left hand. There would be no husband or fiancé to mourn her.

  He found himself wishing he could have seen her eyes.

  ‘We will inform you as soon as the car is found, Mr Waide,’ the constable was saying. ‘Are you returning to Haywards Heath now?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be there for the next fortnight. Just starting my holidays and with no car, damn it! The wife will be furious.’

  Toby was suddenly impatient, and a little fearful. He had been a fool to delay his report. No doubt the police would take a pretty bum view of his behaviour.

  They might even suspect him of the murder.

  This last thought was so alarming that he immediately opened the waiting-room door and went into the passage. The square man was just turning away from the counter. He had a round, tanned face, with a snub nose and little sunken eyes. His grey hair was beautifully waved. Toby thought it odd that a middle-aged man with a bulging waistline and no good looks should go to such trouble over his hair.

  He waited until Waide had gone before he said, with some diffidence, ‘I’ve found a body. A girl.’

  The constable looked shocked and reproachful.

  ‘We should call that urgent here, sir,’ he said. ‘You are sure she is dead?’

  ‘Quite sure. She’s been shot in the back. Must have been dead for at least some hours, I guess.’

  The constable asked a few pertinent questions, and then said, ‘You had better see the Divisional Detective-Inspector, sir. Come this way, please.’

  They went along corridors and up a flight of steps into a small, bright room containing a table and two chairs. There the constable left him. ‘Detective-Inspector Kane will be with you shortly,’ were his parting words. Toby, now fully conscious of his guilt, wondered whether they constituted a threat or a promise.

  But there was nothing threatening in Inspector Kane’s appearance. He was a pleasant-spoken, spruce-looking man in a well-fitting grey suit, with matching tie and handkerchief. Toby thought him something of a dandy, but was relieved at his apparent mildness.

  ‘You seem to have been rather dilatory in reporting this, Lieutenant,’ Kane said, not unkindly. ‘The telephone would have been quicker.’

  ‘I know. But I figured secrecy was more important than time,’ Toby defended himself.

  ‘Not much secrecy about murder. Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean I know, but I can’t pinpoint the exact location. About four miles from here on the Polegate road.’

  He went on to describe the lane and the barn, and the Inspector nodded. ‘I know the place,’ he said. ‘We’ll go out there. Excuse me while I put through a telephone call first.’

  Left alone, Toby began to wonder about his lunch. Would they still be keeping it for him at the hotel? It seemed unlikely that he would ever eat it, unless Mrs Buell dished it up again for dinner.

  The Inspector did not keep him waiting long. They drove down the steep High Street, past the lights and over the river, and at the bottom turned right along South Street. Once out of the traffic the car speeded up.

  Toby found himself being questioned about his own movements that day. Where had he come from, where had he stopped en route, at what time had he left the pub in Alfriston? ‘You can’t identify the girl, I suppose?’ asked Kane. ‘Never seen her before?’

  No, said Toby, he had never seen her before. I wish I had, he thought sadly, his mind enriching itself once more with a vision of her beauty. He was wrapped in a romantic dream, so that the veiled suspicion in the other’s words were lost on him. Inspector Kane looked at him pensively. Seems a nice young chap, he thought, and probably on the level. But his wits seem temporarily to have deserted him. No doubt corpses are scarce in his life, and that’s how they take him. And Americans — well, one never knew quite how tough or how sentimental they could be. An odd mixture.

  ‘Been over here long, Lieutenant?’ he asked.

  ‘Nearly two years,’ Toby said.

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Normally he was enthusiastic about England, but now the conversation barely touched the fringe of his mind.

  Since polite conversation seemed likely to be one-sided, the Inspector returned to the job in hand. ‘How is the girl dressed?’ he asked. Soon he would see for himself, but it did no harm to test the young man’s powers of observation.

  Toby told him.

  For a moment there was silence in the car. Then Kane said, his voice taut, ‘Say that again, will you?’

  ‘Dark blue sweater and dark blue corduroy pants,’ Toby repeated obediently, surprised at the interest shown in such a trivial point. What did it matter how the girl was dressed? She was dead; that was what mattered.

  ‘And her hair? How about that?’

  ‘Dark, and cut short. Kind of brushed forward, the way a lot of girls do it nowadays. I wouldn’t know for sure what they call it. I’m not well up in hair-styles.’

  ‘Poodle cut,’ suggested the other, who thought he was. He leaned forward and told the observer to contact Control on the radio. Then he scribbled a message on a pad and gave it to the man to put through.

  ‘This is it,’ Toby said.

  As they moved slowly down the track the observer was transmitting, giving a map reference and describing the way in which the girl was dressed. Toby heard a reference to Scotland Yard, but he was not greatly interested. He wondered if he would see the girl again before they took her away. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted to. Not in that
company.

  He did not see her again. From behind the wall he pointed to where she lay, and then returned to wait by the cars. Men from the second car began erecting canvas screens round the body; a woman and three children, attracted by the unusual activity, appeared to gape. A policeman brought him his rug.

  Other cars continued to arrive; with more policemen, he supposed, although only a few of the men were in uniform. There were photographers and a doctor. Sick at heart, he watched them all disappear behind the barn; in unhappy imagination he saw them mauling her about, prying and probing and searching. To them she was not just a beautiful girl lying quietly among the Sussex corn; to them she was a corpse, a body to be identified, the victim of a crime which it was their duty to investigate. She was, in fact, only another job. There would be little pity in their hearts, no romance in their souls.

  A van came slowly down the track, turned, and backed close to the wall. Two men lifted from it what looked like a coffin, and Toby shuddered and turned away.

  ‘I’m sending you back to Lewes now, Lieutenant,’ said Inspector Kane, appearing suddenly from behind. ‘You will have to wait at the station for us, I’m afraid. We haven’t quite finished with you yet.’

  He was glad to go. He did not want to see them take her away — he wanted to remember her as he had last seen her. But back in the familiar waiting-room at the police station he began to analyse his emotions, to chide himself for his foolishness in seeking romance in such an episode. The girl is dead, he told himself; she may be beautiful, but she’s dead. You can’t get het up over a girl who’s dead — who, as far as you are concerned, was never even alive.

  Dead! Dead! Dead! He hammered the word into his brain, hoping thus to cure his sickness.

  He had to wait some time. When Inspector Kane returned he had with him a companion whom he introduced to Toby as Detective-Superintendent Herrod of Scotland Yard. Toby looked at the newcomer with interest. Back in the States he had read plenty about Scotland Yard.

  Maurice Herrod was forty-six; an inch or so under six feet, of medium build and inclining to stoutness. His dark hair was flecked with grey, there were creases at the corners of his startlingly blue eyes. He had a hawk-like nose, large protruding ears, an almost walnut complexion, and the slightly impatient air of a man who is always in a hurry. Apart from the walnut complexion, he reminded Toby of an American business friend of his father’s.

  ‘An unfortunate start to your leave, Lieutenant,’ Herrod said. His voice was low-pitched, sympathetic. He reached for a chair and sat astride it, his arms resting on the tall back. ‘Well, we won’t keep you much longer. Just a few routine questions.’

  If they were routine they were certainly probing, Toby thought. He felt quite exhausted when at last they were done, and he was out in the open again with Inspector Kane. As he climbed into the Riley he said, ‘I hope you are satisfied, Inspector. I don’t want to spend the next two weeks dodging in and out of police stations. Hadn’t you best check the car for fingerprints, just to know for sure that I didn’t kill her?’

  Inspector Kane grinned at him.

  ‘That, sir, has already been taken care of,’ he said cheerfully.

  *

  Superintendent Herrod held a conference that evening in the office hastily prepared for him at divisional headquarters. At the Chief Constable’s request he had been deputed by Scotland Yard to assist the county police in dealing with the Forest Row murder. Now, with the discovery of the second murder, he had moved south to Lewes. ‘It would seem that the two crimes are connected, sir,’ he had told the Chief Constable. ‘In which case I’ll be better placed here than at East Grinstead. There’s not much more to be learned at that end, I fancy.’

  There were a large number of police officers in the room: Baker, the County Detective-Superintendent; the Superintendents and Detective-Inspectors of the Lewes and Uckfield divisions; Inspector Bostrell and Detective-Sergeant Greenley from Hailsham; Detective-Sergeant Wood, of Scotland Yard, Herrod’s assistant; and several less senior officers. Both Herrod and the Chief Constable believed in keeping everyone fully informed. Nor were they alike only in this. Although dissimilar in appearance — the Chief Constable was tall and slim and, although older than the detective, looked considerably younger. Both men were impatient of delay or incompetence, and expected of those under them the keenness which they themselves displayed. And, because they were of the type who inspire others, they usually got what they wanted.

  ‘Landor seems to be our man,’ Herrod was saying. ‘His prints are on the Daimler (not on the wheel, but there is a good set upside down on the off-side door made when he closed it, no doubt), and his description tallies with that of the man seen by Taylor at the ‘Dayanite’ Café. John Caseman was shot at approximately one o’clock on the morning of the 12th; and three-quarters of an hour later Landor pulled up at the ‘Dayanite; twenty-five miles away. And Landor, remember, has been missing from his lodgings since the evening of the 11th.’ He picked up a photograph and handed it to the Chief Constable. ‘That’s him, sir. I’m having it circulated. It ought not to be long before we pick him up.’

  ‘I hope not. Brighton and Eastbourne are on the look-out for him. So are West Sussex.’

  ‘Were the girl’s prints on the car?’ asked Baker.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then there’s little to connect her with Landor, is there? Nor with the Forest Row job?’

  Not specifically. But she answers the admittedly vague description of the ‘man’ seen by Mrs Caseman; short, wearing dark trousers and jersey. Five foot six is short for a man, though not for a woman. And both she and Caseman were killed by bullets fired from a .25 automatic. We haven’t had the ballistics report yet, but no doubt we shall find that they were fired from the same gun.’

  ‘Had the girl been interfered with in any way?’ asked the Chief Constable. ‘I’m trying to get at motive.’

  ‘No, sir. And no sign of a struggle. When the gun was fired it could have been only a few inches from her back. It’s my opinion they quarrelled over the money stolen from Caseman’s shop.’

  ‘Or perhaps Landor couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut,’ Inspector Kane suggested. ‘If, as the Croydon report suggests, she was Catherine Wilkes, she had no criminal record and she was not infatuated with Landor. So maybe she boggled at murder.’

  Herrod nodded approvingly.

  ‘Good man. Yes, that’s very likely. No quarrel, then — just a bullet when she had her back turned.’ He frowned. ‘Of course, she may not be Catherine Wilkes; and if she is it may prove difficult to identify her. The Croydon police cannot find anyone who admits to knowing the girl by sight, and Wilkes himself seems to have vanished from the district.’

  ‘They don’t sound like pillars of respectability,’ was the Chief Constable’s comment. ‘But, crook or no crook, Wilkes may come forward when he reads her description in the evening papers. If he connects Landor with her disappearance the news of her murder should make him as anxious as we are to lay Landor by the heels.’

  ‘One of the most puzzling aspects, to my mind, is Landor’s use of the gun,’ Herrod said. ‘He has never been known to carry one before (or so say C.R.O.), and at his age he should have worked himself into a groove. A crook is as liable as any of us to commit murder, given sufficient incentive; particularly when a woman is involved. I grant you that. But what can have prompted him to take a gun with him on this expedition? Neither Caseman’s nor the girl’s death can have been premeditated, surely?’

  The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, and after listening for a moment handed it to the Divisional Superintendent.

  ‘For you.’

  The Superintendent dealt with the call. ‘The Brighton police have picked up that Austin,’ he said, when he had finished. ‘The one that was stolen from outside the Crown early this afternoon. It was found abandoned in a side-street.’

  ‘About that gun,’ Herrod said, annoyed at the interruption, and trying to pick up his tr
ain of thought where he had left it. ‘According to Landor’s record, he doesn’t appear to have been very successful at his chosen profession. He’s had four previous convictions, and two of them after being caught red-handed. Yet on neither of these two occasions did he show any fight. So why the gun now?’ And, having made his point, he asked, ‘What’s this about a stolen car? Anything in it for me?’

  ‘There could be,’ the Chief Constable said, and told him about Waide.

  Herrod was enthusiastic.

  ‘You’re right, sir. It fits in very tidily. They abandoned the Daimler at Jevington at some time between 2 and 6 A.M. yesterday. We thought they were making for Eastbourne. Well, that may have been their original intention, but they seem to have changed their plans. Perhaps they guessed we’d look for them there, and came this way instead. The girl was killed at around two o’clock this morning — which means they had at least twenty hours to get from Jevington to where Vanne found the body. How far would that be?’

  ‘Under ten miles, anyway. And there is a track over the Downs which would take them most of the way.’ The Chief Constable leaned across to indicate a route on the map spread out on the table. It’s a lonely bit of country; ideal from their point of view.’

  ‘And you think Landor came on to Lewes this morning and pinched the Austin?’ said Baker.

  ‘I do,’ Herrod said firmly. ‘If we don’t find his prints on it I’ll eat my hat. Yours too, if you like.’

  The Chief Constable laughed.

  ‘I hope you don’t suffer from indigestion, Mr Herrod,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Baker takes an outsize in hats.’

  3

  Coniston was a small private hotel run on the lines of a guesthouse. Toby Vanne, both as a boy and as a young man, knew it well. His father, as fervid an Anglophile as was his son, had lived for some years in England. Toby had gone to school in Sussex, and had often spent the summer holidays at Coniston with his parents. ‘I like going back to the same hotel,’ Mrs Vanne used to say. ‘It’s so nice to be welcomed as a friend. And there’s no denying Mrs Buell is an excellent cook.’ And on his return to England with the Air Force it had seemed natural to Toby that he should spend an occasional leave at Coniston.