A Gun to Play With

by J F Straker

  ‘Knowing who Landor was, Taylor must have been out of his mind if he got into a car with him,’ Baker said.

  ‘He may have had no choice. The important point, to my mind, is that Landor has the gun. He shot this poor chap, he shot the girl — and he probably shot Caseman too. I was all wrong. Past record or no past record, it was Landor, not Catherine Wilkes, who was the killer. And still is.’

  ‘Always assuming that Taylor was shot with the same two-five,’ Baker said. ‘That isn’t yet certain.’

  ‘No. But I bet he was. I may have been right up to a point; the gun may have belonged to the girl originally, she may even have used it to kill Caseman. Perhaps that put ideas into Landor’s head.’ Herrod kicked moodily at a tuft of grass. ‘But after that — well, wherever they went they went together. They didn’t separate, as I supposed.’

  ‘But they did separate,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Catherine Wilkes was with Mrs Kermode in the pub that night. But not Landor. And he didn’t get a lift in Waide’s car. So how and where did they meet later?’

  ‘Some prearranged spot, no doubt,’ Baker said. ‘They may have decided it was safer not to be seen together during the day. Perhaps she even picked him up in Waide’s car after she’d pinched it.’

  Herrod nodded. It was a reasonable assumption.

  ‘Well, this is where I start again,’ he said. ‘And the first thing is to trace Taylor’s movement’s last night. His wife may know what he was up to — if he has a wife. He had no keys, no wallet, and no papers on him; Landor took those, no doubt. There was some loose change in his trouser-pockets, and that’s all. Where did he live? Hailsham?’

  ‘Inspector Bostrell would know,’ said the Chief Constable.

  ‘Polegate, sir,’ said Sergeant Wood, who had joined them. ‘It was on his statement.’

  ‘I’ll ring Bostrell and get the exact address,’ said the Chief Constable.

  ‘Thanks. Ask him to meet me there in half an hour, will you?’

  In the car Herrod sat moodily in his corner. It had been such an excellent theory; he had had such complete faith in it. It was a jolt to his self-esteem to find that he could reason so sensibly and be so wrong. He looked across at Wood. Wood had the right idea; he stuck to simple arithmetic, he put two and two together before he made four. He didn’t juggle with symbols and probabilities.

  The Taylors’ house was a small red-brick villa on the outskirts of Polegate, one of a cluster of similar houses in a road that still retained something of the character of a country lane. Inspector Bostrell, tall and soldierly, was awaiting their arrival. With him was the local police sergeant.

  ‘Anyone at home?’ Herrod asked. He spoke briskly. With the prospect of action his moodiness had disappeared.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. We’ve seen no one since we got here, but we haven’t called at the house. The Chief Constable said to wait for you.’

  ‘H’m! Well, you and I had better do that now, Inspector. You’ve heard about Taylor?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry. He seemed a decent chap.’

  They left the two Sergeants in the lane and walked slowly up the narrow concrete path. ‘We get some unpleasant tasks,’ Herrod said, pausing for a moment before the cream-painted front door, ‘but this is the one I hate most. Well, let’s get it over.’

  He lifted the iron knocker and gave a double knock. Then they waited, both men a little apprehensive. A minute passed, and the Superintendent knocked again, louder this time. But there was no sound of movement within the house, no hurrying feet.

  ‘Let’s take a look round the back,’ Herrod said.

  Outside the back door stood a pint-sized milk-bottle, full — a mute answer to their search. Through the ground-floor windows they could see dirty crockery stacked on the draining-board in the kitchen; in the living-room the ash-trays were full, newspapers and periodicals littered the chairs and the floor, a tea-cup sat in its saucer on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Doesn’t look as though there’s a woman around,’ Herrod said. ‘What has happened to Mrs T, I wonder? Perhaps the neighbours can tell us something.’

  ‘They usually can,’ said Bostrell.

  Mrs Moss, the Taylors’ immediate neighbour, was a plump little woman who showed alarm at the Inspector’s uniform — alarm which was presently tempered by satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had known, she said, that something was wrong.

  ‘He went off yesterday afternoon,’ she told them. ‘About two o’clock, it’d be. Asked me to take a small white for him when the baker called — which I did. But he never came to collect it, and when my husband took it round before he went to the pub he couldn’t get no answer. Nor I haven’t seen him this morning, either.’ Her round face was a ball of curiosity. ‘And his van’s been in the garage, so he couldn’t have gone to work last night. And I see the milk’s not been took in this morning. I said to Bert (that’s my husband), ‘Geoff Taylor’s had an accident,’ I said. ‘Why else would he have stayed away from home?" She put the question that had been in her mind all the time she had been talking. ‘What’s happened, sir? Has he been run over?’

  ‘Not run over,’ Herrod said. ‘But an accident, yes. That was why we wanted to see his wife.’

  ‘She’s away. Been away some days now.’ She spoke hurriedly, anxious for further information. ‘Is he bad?’

  ‘Yes. Any idea where I can find his wife?’

  ‘No. They might know where she works.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘In Eastbourne somewhere,’ said the woman. ‘She never told me the name of the firm. Mrs Taylor’s not one for talking about herself.’

  There was a faint note of resentment in her voice that had not been there when she spoke of the man.

  ‘When did she leave home?’ Herrod asked.

  ‘Thursday night.’ The answer came promptly. ‘Leastways, it was Friday morning Geoff told me she’d gone.’ She said, her voice hesitant and tinged with fear, ‘He — he’s not dead, is he?’

  Herrod nodded. There was nothing to be gained in concealing the truth, and he told her what had happened. Her face lost its colour as she listened, and her eyes filled with tears. When they left she stood at the door and watched them until they were out in the road, dabbing at her eyes and occasionally shaking her head with a quick, nervous movement.

  ‘Nice old thing,’ Herrod said. ‘Genuinely fond of Taylor, I should say, but dislikes his wife. Well — what now?’

  ‘We might try the café,’ Bostrell suggested. ‘Taylor had a partner — a man named Ellis. He should know something.’

  The Superintendent disliked Charlie Ellis on sight. Ellis was tall and thin, with carroty hair and restless eyes and a neat little moustache. His voice was unctuous, aping an educated accent that was obviously foreign to it and occasionally came unstuck. And he oozed good-fellowship and affability.

  But he wasn’t feeling affable about Geoff Taylor. Taylor, he said, had let him down badly. He didn’t know where Geoff had gone or what he’d been up to, but he did know that he’d failed to turn up for the night shift. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen can tell me why,’ he said gravely. ‘But it’ll have to be something pretty serious to excuse his behaviour. I don’t like a chap that lets his pals down.’

  ‘Taylor has been murdered,’ Herrod said. He waited for the other to recover from this broadside (I hope he considers murder serious enough, he thought grimly), and listened rather impatiently to the oily, conventional expressions of sorrow and regret that followed. But when Ellis embarked on what were intended to be a few well-chosen words in memoriam of his late partner the Superintendent cut him short.

  ‘I understand Mrs Taylor is away,’ he said. ‘Can you help us to get in touch with her?’

  No, Ellis said, he could not. Geoff had told him his wife was away — on business, he had said, and hadn’t seemed too pleased about it. But where — no, he couldn’t help them there. Nor did he know when she would be back.

  ‘Who are her employers in Eastb
ourne?’

  Ellis couldn’t tell them that either. ‘She worked in an office, I believe, not a shop. And it was near the station. I remember driving her to work once —’ his eyes flickered oddly, and he moistened his lips with his tongue — ‘and she asked me to drop her by the station.’

  The Superintendent looked at him, not liking what he saw. When he asked for a description of Mrs Taylor Ellis gave it in great detail, describing her charms with obvious relish. But it did not help greatly. It was a description that could have been fitted to most attractive young women of the same build and colouring.

  On the journey back to Lewes, Wood said, ‘Did you watch Ellis’s face while he was talking about Mrs Taylor? I fancy he won’t be shedding any tears over her husband’s death.’

  The Superintendent grunted. The Sergeant’s remarks hinted at a new theory for Taylor’s murder; he would not voice it himself, but he was prepared to give his senior a lead. But Herrod was not biting. After his last setback he found theory indigestible fare.

  On reaching Lewes he went at once to county headquarters.

  ‘We must find Mrs Taylor, sir,’ he told the Chief Constable. ‘If the Eastbourne police can locate her employers it’s possible that we may be able to trace her through them. But Ellis could be wrong; she may not be away on business. Her employers may be as much in the dark as we are.’

  ‘There’s the Press,’ the Chief Constable suggested.

  ‘Yes. But how do we use it? We have to discover two things: how Taylor spent yesterday afternoon and evening, and where his wife is. And that means mentioning Taylor by name.’

  ‘H’m! I don’t like that. It’s not the most sympathetic way in which to inform a woman that her husband has been murdered. It might do serious harm, Mr Herrod.’

  ‘I know that, sir. But what else can we do?’

  ‘How about two separate statements? ‘An unknown man’ etcetera — and, elsewhere, an appeal to Mrs Taylor to come forward. Wouldn’t that do the trick?’

  ‘It might. But suppose Mrs Taylor is somewhere she shouldn’t be — with another man, say. Will she come forward immediately if she is unaware of the urgency? The necessity for secrecy may outweigh her curiosity.’

  ‘Urgency can be stressed without mention of murder,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘And isn’t curiosity supposed to be strong in women?’

  Back at divisional headquarters Herrod telephoned Superintendent Farrar at Eastbourne. Farrar promised his help. ‘We’ll try the employment exchange first,’ he said. ‘If that doesn’t work I’ll have inquiries made near the station. Anything else?’

  Herrod said there was nothing else, and asked after Mrs Kermode. But Farrar had nothing worthwhile to report. Mrs Kermode, he said, had stuck mostly to her home; her only outing had been to the shops, her only visitor her sister.

  ‘Did she make a phone-call while she was out, or post a letter?’

  ‘No. But I suppose her sister could have done that for her.’

  As Herrod replaced the receiver the Divisional Superintendent walked into his office. ‘You will have heard about the bullet, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘That it was a two-five? Yes. And I don’t need any ballistics expert to tell me that it was fired from the gun that killed Caseman and Catherine Wilkes. To my mind that’s a foregone conclusion. But it will have to be checked, of course,’ he added hastily, aware that he was once more jumping in the dark.

  ‘Well, here’s something you don’t know, I fancy. Your hunch has paid off.’

  Herrod stared at him. ‘Hunch? What hunch?’

  ‘About the Polegate road. We’ve had a positive response.’

  The stare became fixed. Then an expression of bewilderment spread over the detective’s face.

  ‘But that — that’s old stuff!’ he exclaimed. ‘That was just an idea I had before we knew of Taylor’s death. If I hadn’t forgotten all about it I’d have called it off. It’s out. It doesn’t fit.’

  The other shrugged.

  ‘It may not fit; I wouldn’t know about that. But it certainly isn’t out. The car was seen. Not just any car — but Waide’s Austin.’

  Herrod took a deep breath. ‘This gets madder and madder,’ he said. ‘If I wasn’t involved in the darned thing I wouldn’t believe it. Go on let’s have it.’

  A certain John Ford, said the Divisional Superintendent, who lived near Wilmington and whose house stood only a few feet from the road, had been lying awake in bed on the Thursday night when he had heard a car approach from the direction of Polegate. A few yards short of his house it had stopped, and it had sounded to Ford as though the engine had cut out some distance before that. Since there were no other houses in the vicinity, he had decided that either the stop was involuntary or that here was a visitor for him. He had got out of bed and gone to the window; but the driver had forgotten to switch off his headlights, so that Ford’s vision was blinded. Then he had heard footsteps running down the road. They came from behind the car — and presently there were voices, one of which he was certain was a woman’s. Then the car doors banged, there was some heavy work on the self-starter, the engine eventually started, and the car drove off. Ford watched it pass under his window, and saw enough to recognize it as an Austin.

  ‘And what is more,’ the Divisional Superintendent concluded, ‘he saw and remembered the rear number. That is to say, he remembered enough of it to pick Waide’s number out of a prepared list that was shown to him.’

  Herrod leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes, trying to force his puzzled brain to absorb and correctly pigeon-hole this further item of conflicting information. But he did not try to bend it into a theory. For the present theories were out.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a pick-up, certainly. Well, that was what I wanted. The devil of it is, I don’t want it now. The woman’s voice — that would be Catherine Wilkes, of course.’

  ‘I — yes, I suppose so.’ It was hesitantly said, so that Herrod looked at the other keenly. ‘But this chap Ford — well, he’s a blunt, dogmatic sort of chap from all accounts, and I fancy any statement he made would take some shaking. And it seems he is absolutely positive that the running footsteps were those of a woman. Which means, you see, that unless two women were involved Catherine Wilkes was receiving the lift, not giving it.’

  11

  Toby Vanne had spent an uncomfortable day. Apart from the damage to his forehead, which was still painful, Crossetta had been decidedly sulky. There had been no open quarrel — Toby had seen to that; he had not wanted to ruin what he romantically imagined might blossom into a beautiful friendship — but they had argued long and heatedly. Or Crossetta had. He himself had said little beyond assuring her, at regular intervals, that it was too late for argument. He had made up his mind, and nothing she could say would change it. This time he would go to the police.

  ‘When?’ she had asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  But he fancied that she did not believe him. Perhaps the ‘tomorrow’ was responsible for that; why not today? she would ask herself. He did not think it necessary to mention that twice that morning he had telephoned to Lewes police station, and that on each occasion Superintendent Herrod had been out. Nor did he tell her that he had left a message to say he would be over to see Herrod in the morning. It was better that she should not know that. He had given her the truth. If she refused to believe it so much the better; it made the argument more academic than real.

  That evening they went to a cinema in Brighton. It was not, Toby thought, the best method of entertainment for a man with an aching head. But Crossetta had seemed restless after dinner, and he did not want her to go off on her own. He knew where that might lead her. The cinema also put a temporary and welcome end to the argument.

  He bought an evening paper when they came out, and they walked in silence to the car. She had seemed to enjoy the performance, but he suspected she still bore him some resentment for his refusal to capitulate. And his head throbbed too violent
ly for him to want to talk.

  He let her drive, hoping to please her, and she thanked him politely; but with the feel of the steering-wheel in her hands her ill humour soon began to evaporate. The lights were bright along the front; people crowded the pavements and spilled over on to the road. It was a gay, cheerful scene, and Crossetta responded to it.

  She began to hum a tune. It was one Toby did not know, but as the same phrases were repeated again and again it soon formed a pattern in his brain.

  ‘What’s that you’re humming?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know what it’s called.’ She braked suddenly and skilfully as the car in front slowed and swerved to avoid a hurrying pedestrian. ‘But I’ve often heard my —’

  She did not complete the sentence. Toby guessed she had been thinking of her dead husband, and wondered why she would never talk of him. It could not be that her memories were sad ones, for on the rare occasions when he was obviously in her thoughts there seemed to be no curb on her high spirits.

  They were nearing the hotel. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ she said. ‘It’s too early for bed.’

  He did not want a drink, but also he did not wish to check her good humour. ‘Okay. But I must collect a letter from the hotel first. I forgot to post it, and it’s urgent.’

  ‘And I’ll get a woolly,’ she said. ‘It’s turning chilly.’

  He collected the letter and waited for her in the hall, idly scanning the front page of the evening paper. Crossetta was kept talking outside her room by one of the guests, but presently she came running down the stairs, still humming. As soon as she saw his face she knew that something was wrong.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’

  ‘I’ve read about one, I think.’ He handed her the paper, pointing to a paragraph on the front page. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘Another murder, eh?’ she said, noting the headline. She read the paragraph quickly. ‘Well, if it’s supposed to ring a bell I’m afraid it doesn’t. I don’t know anyone at Peacehaven. Do you? Where is it, anyway?’