A Gun to Play With

by J F Straker

  ‘It narrows quickly,’ Bostrell told him. ‘The road runs due east and the wire north-east.’

  Herrod nodded, and pointed to a rutted track just outside the wire that led, through bushes and brambles, to the dark interior of a copse. ‘How about that? Right on their route, and a handy spot in which to hide the car. I’ll try that myself.’

  He waited for the men to spread out, and then, at the given signal, began to advance along the track. The Chief Constable went with him. On their right a constable picked his way with difficulty along the humped bank that bordered the wire. On their left they could hear, and occasionally see, men battling their way through the thick undergrowth and brambles that caught and pulled at their uniforms.

  ‘Tough on those fellows,’ Herrod said, his eyes searching avidly.

  ‘Don’t look now,’ the Chief Constable warned him, ‘but it’s going to be tough on us too. This is a dead end.’

  It was true. Scraps of paper, cigarette packets, and rusting tins showed where a succession of picnickers had rested briefly and untidily. Beyond them the tree-studded ground sloped gently upward to a knoll obscuring the wire. And beyond the knoll were the brambles.

  ‘Gloomy spot for a picnic,’ Herrod said, mounting the slope. ‘Some people —’

  The constable on his right shouted excitedly, bent to peer down into the hollow between the bank and the wire, and then straightened. As he turned to face them he put a whistle to his lips and blew shrilly.

  The two officers hurried towards him. Behind them another whistle shrilled. There was the sound of men crashing through the bushes, pain and discomfort disregarded in the anticipation of success.

  Silently they clustered on the bank, gazing down at the remains of what had once been a man. The dead lips were parted in a snarl; dirt filled eyes and mouth and nostrils. The blue suit was crumpled and stained, the brown shoes no longer held a polish. His hair was matted, entwined with twigs and snippets of bramble. On his left hand was a dirty chamois glove.

  And from the uncovered right hand the middle finger was missing.

  ‘Landor!’ Herrod said. His voice conveyed neither surprise nor triumph. ‘Landor!’

  *

  A few idlers had gathered on the road. Drivers of passing cars stopped, inquired of the watchers what was toward, and then, either from lack of interest or the need for haste, went on their way. An amateur photographer was busy with his camera, snapping police, the track, even the bystanders. ‘Editors pay big money for news pictures,’ he told them. ‘This may be quite a scoop.’

  A big Buick came down the road from the south. The driver’s foot was pressing on the brake as the car rounded the slight bend, his hand was already at the gear lever. Then he saw the line of cars by the roadside, the numerous blue-clad figures, the patient, watchful spectators. His foot moved from the brake to the accelerator. As he passed the track he glanced quickly down it; but the light was beginning to fade, and the track was merged in the shadows.

  ‘So they’ve got around to it at last, have they?’ he muttered to himself, a grim expression on his ugly, misshapen face. ‘A few more hours and I’d have made it, blast them! Now — well, it’s going to depend on how fast a policeman can think. I hope to hell this one’s slow!’

  14

  ‘What next?’ asked Crossetta. ‘I’m not going to sit drinking all the evening. I want to do something.’

  ‘It’s pleasant here,’ Toby said. They had already done enough for one day, he thought. ‘Don’t rush me.’

  They were sitting in the saloon bar of the Palmeira Hotel in Hove. It was a pleasant place in which to relax, thought Toby, sipping his third whisky; snug and comfortable, with a warm, friendly atmosphere. A pity Crossetta was in a restless mood. For his part he would have been happy to stay there until closing time.

  It had been an eventful day, he reflected. Lewes and the accident to the Riley in the morning, the visits to Watson’s house and Cardiff Street in the afternoon. And even then Crossetta had not let him rest. They had gone to Caffyn’s Garage after tea to have a look at the Riley; after which, much to his surprise, Crossetta had insisted they should go for a walk. Not along the front, since the wind bothered her, but up the hill towards the Dyke golf course. Toby had never loved his Riley so dearly as then, when he had to do without it; he was not a happy walker. It had been a relief to turn and come downhill, and a still greater relief to accept the welcome that the Palmeira had offered.

  They had sat there for nearly two hours now, and night was already closing down on the city. They had eaten their way steadily through a pile of freshly cut sandwiches. Toby, after quenching his thirst with beer, had switched to whisky; Crossetta, as usual, had drunk little. It bothered him that she should be so abstemious. A little more gin, he thought, might soften her heart towards him. It wasn’t fair that someone so lovely should be so cold.

  ‘Let’s have one for the road,’ he said hopefully, seizing her glass. ‘Then we’ll go.’

  ‘Not for me.’ She put out a hand to stop him. ‘And not for you either. You’ve had quite enough for one evening. Sit down and make a suggestion.’

  The suggestion he would like to make, Toby thought, would earn him a slap on the face. He put it regretfully from his mind. ‘How about the movies?’ he said. In the cinema there would be proximity. And darkness.

  ‘No. I don’t want to sit and watch. I told you, I want to do something.’

  ‘Well, how about a nice walk? That would make a pleasant change.’

  She laughed. ‘Careful! I might take you up on that.’

  ‘Or a dance?’ he said hastily.

  She considered this.

  ‘Yes, that’s an idea. Though I warn you I’m a rotten dancer.’

  That surprised him. She was slim and agile, and all her movements were graceful. ‘I bet you dance like an angel,’ he said, leaning towards her.

  She looked at him doubtfully. ‘You’re not tight, are you? You’ve had a lot to drink.’

  Was he? A little, perhaps. ‘Me? Good heavens, no!’

  ‘All right, then. Where do we dance?’

  ‘The Regent, I guess.’ A vision of the dance-floor, of music and soft lighting, came to him, and suddenly he was filled with a desire to be there, holding Crossetta in his arms. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He stood up, gulping down his drink. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  As he helped her into her coat his fingers brushed the soft skin at the nape of her neck, and he shivered ecstatically. Perhaps it’s the whisky, he thought, or maybe I’ve been working up to this ever since I met her; but I’ve a hunch that tonight’s the night. And I figure she owes it to me, too.

  He pondered on the dark interior of a taxi. Then he had a better idea. His knowledge of the town should be put to use.

  ‘We’ll cut down through St Anns Well to Western Road,’ he told her, as they left the hotel. ‘We can take a bus from there.’

  He did not mention that they could more easily have caught a bus outside the Palmeira.

  He made no attempt to take her arm.

  As they walked down Somerhill Road Crossetta chattered gaily, but Toby spoke only when he had to. His conscience was fighting a losing battle with desire.

  It annoyed him that there should be this battle. Isn’t it perfectly natural, Desire said to Conscience, that a man should take a pretty girl in his arms and kiss her? Perfectly natural, Conscience agreed, provided the girl does not object; otherwise he’s behaving like a heel. That’s all very well, said Desire; but how is he to know unless he tries? Sometimes he can’t, Conscience admitted, but this time he can. He knows darned well she’ll object.

  Okay, Toby told himself. Just for once I’ll be a heel. I’ve made up my mind to kiss her, and kiss her I will. A girl as pretty as Crossetta just has to be kissed.

  St Anns Well has tennis courts and a pavilion at the northern end. For the rest it is mainly grass, hilly and tree-studded, and intersected by winding paths. As Toby took her arm and steered her t
hrough the wide gates the girl looked up at him and then away.

  It’s a short cut,’ he said, and wondered if his voice sounded as odd to her as it did to him.

  They walked down the path without speaking. At the pavilion it divided, and Toby took the right fork. It was darker there, with the trees on their right and the pavilion shielding them from the lights of Nizells Avenue. Toby’s mouth was dry. A pulse throbbed madly in his forehead, his heart beat so loudly that he thought she must hear it.

  His grip on her arm tightened suddenly.

  Crossetta turned to look at him. Her face was a white gleam of enchantment, picked out by a stray beam of light filtering through the trees. Without a word he swung her towards him, his arms went round her, and he bent to kiss her lips.

  Caught off her guard, for a too brief moment Crossetta stayed passive in his embrace. Then she strained away from him, and every fibre and muscle in her slim body went into action as she struggled to free herself.

  ‘Crossetta!’ he murmured, as she moved her head from side to side to avoid his kisses. ‘Crossetta, honey. Please!’

  A hissing sound escaped her clenched teeth, but she did not speak. Her arms were pinioned, and with an effort she swung her handbag upward to hit him on the back of the head. The bag flew open, scattering its contents on the path.

  The blow did not hurt, but it brought him to his senses. Fearful that she might run away from him, he did not let her go; but his grip loosened. Ashamed, he looked anxiously down at her.

  ‘I — I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘You were right, I must have had too — much to — drink; I —’

  He had spoken hurriedly at first, anxious to placate her. But the end of the sentence came haltingly; his voice faded to a whisper and finally died. He was staring wide-eyed at something that lay on the ground, something that gleamed wickedly where the light found it. It must have fallen from her handbag. But what —

  ‘Good God!’ His hands moved from her waist to grip her arms. ‘Crossetta, you —’

  The girl’s knee came up sharply, viciously. It caught him in the groin, and he fell away from her, his body doubled up in agony.

  Vaguely, as from a great distance, he heard her voice. What she said he did not know; nor, even when the pain began to ease, did he greatly care. Horror had assaulted his brain even more forcibly than his body had been assaulted.

  Slowly he straightened.

  Crossetta stood a few feet away from him. The light flickered on her face as the wind moved the branches of the trees; grotesque and shadowy patterns chased each other across the whiteness of her coat.

  She stood very still. Only the slight tremor of the gun held in her right hand betrayed her agitation.

  *

  ‘Yes,’ Watson said. ‘Yes, that’s Claire.’

  Herrod took the photograph from him and tucked it away in his pocket. It was strange, he thought, how, after a week of disappointments and vain searching, success should suddenly be heaped on success. It was only that morning that Vanne had come to him with his confession — and how much had been achieved since! His own long-odds fancy had proved a winner, they had found Landor, and now Watson was talking. For the local police force had caught up with Sparks ... and Sparks, as Herrod had hopefully anticipated, had proved to be Harry ... and Harry had shown no fight at all. Like the small-time crook he obviously was, he had sold Watson all down the line.

  And Watson knew it, knew there was no way out, knew he could save nothing from the wreck. Harry had proved himself a competent Judas. When the time came, Watson thought grimly, he would reckon with Harry. What mattered now was to clear himself of the charge of murder. At least they shouldn’t pin that on him.

  ‘I did think it might be her,’ he said. ‘Just at first. But then the papers said it was this other girl, and I couldn’t see’

  ‘We won’t go into that again,’ Herrod said brusquely.

  Despite the success that now seemed to be crowning his efforts, there was an undercurrent of unease in the Superintendent’s triumph. His instructions to Inspector Dainsford had been given too late; Vanne and the girl had already left the hotel. And now it was nearly nine o’clock — and still no news of them.

  And Wilkes. Wilkes too was missing. Since he had dropped Vanne in Lewes that morning Wilkes had vanished completely. Where was he? What was he up to? Herrod would have given much to know.

  But he couldn’t know. Not until one or other of the three swam into the vision of a policeman and was snatched up in the net that had been spread in and around the town. Until that happened he could only wait. There was nothing else.

  Except Watson. Herrod thought he knew most of what Watson had to tell him, but it was as well to be sure.

  The other caught his eye. ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘But what is it you want? I said I was ready to talk, didn’t I?’

  ‘I want to know about Claire Taylor,’ Herrod said. ‘I’m not interested in your various criminal activities except where they concern her. The local police will deal with you on the other counts. Was it on your instructions that Mrs Taylor pinched that car?’

  ‘No. She suggested it herself. She and the woman Anna had worked it once before. Anna took the man back to her flat for the night, and Claire brought the car over here.’

  ‘Why? Was she in love with you, or was it all in the way of business?’

  ‘She wanted the money,’ Watson said. ‘She was always wanting money. When we went away together it cost me a packet.’

  ‘A gold-digger, eh?’

  ‘I suppose so. Though she never made any bones about it, she told me straight she was on the make.’ He sighed. ‘But I didn’t care. She was a lovely girl.’

  Herrod was unaffected by the sigh. A crook’s illicit desire for his gold-digging paramour was no cause for sentiment, he thought.

  ‘Let’s hear what happened that Thursday night,’ he said curtly. ‘Or what you expected to happen.’

  Bit by bit he got the story. A fortnight ago, Watson said, Claire had suggested that she and Anna should lift another car when the opportunity offered. He had agreed, but had told her not to take the car to his house, as she had done on the previous occasion, but direct to Cardiff Street. Since she did not know the district he had given her a map, so that she might find her way there without asking.

  At about eleven-thirty on the previous Thursday night Claire had telephoned to say that she had the car and was on her way over. Why not stay the night? he had said. Why not stay several nights? Till the Monday, say. They might spend a few days in London, as they had done before. She could leave a note for her husband and at the office to say she would be away on business.

  Claire had agreed, and he had gone to Cardiff Street to meet her.

  ‘But she never turned up,’ Watson said, spreading his arms in a gesture of despair. ‘I waited hours, but she never turned up.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Herrod.

  ‘It had me worried. I didn’t know whether she’d been pinched, or done the dirty on me, or what. Next morning I phoned the office, and they told me about the note. That didn’t make the situation any clearer. I even thought of contacting her husband. But I hadn’t the nerve.

  ‘Then I read in the papers about this girl who had been murdered.’

  ‘And you thought it was Mrs Taylor, eh?’ said Herrod.

  ‘Well, I did and I didn’t. It would explain why she never turned up, of course, but I couldn’t understand the jersey and trousers. Claire would never dress like that. She was going away for a gay weekend, and Claire was fussy about clothes. She could afford to be, too, on the money she wheedled out of me.’

  ‘So you sat on the fence.’

  ‘More or less,’ Watson agreed cheerfully. He had been sullen and angry when they had first brought him to Hove police station, but talking seemed to have restored his geniality. ‘I went over to Eastbourne Saturday morning, but there was nothing new at the office. And I couldn’t go to the police, could I? Not the way things we
re.’ He grinned at the detective, unabashed. ‘I wasn’t half relieved when I read in the papers that the dead girl had been identified as someone else.’

  ‘But you still didn’t know what had happened to Mrs Taylor.’

  ‘Well, I knew she wasn’t dead. Or I thought I knew. That was something. Got a cigarette on you, Superintendent? I’ve run out.’

  Herrod handed him a packet.

  ‘What about Anna Kermode?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t she get in touch with you? She knew the dead girl was Mrs Taylor. She saw the body.’

  ‘Anna didn’t know about me. We’d never met. She and Claire fixed it between them.’

  ‘Didn’t you pay her?’

  ‘Claire saw to that out of what I gave her. It was nothing to do with me.’

  The hands of the clock were creeping round towards nine-thirty. What the hell’s happening? wondered the Superintendent, his irritation growing. Why haven’t any of them been picked up yet? Where have they got to, damn them?

  ‘Monday,’ he said sharply. ‘What happened that evening?’

  ‘You mean Taylor, eh?’ Watson grimaced. ‘Yes, that was a bit awkward. I imagined he’d come over with news of Claire. It shook me no end when he showed me the note she’d left for him — the one I’d told her to write — and demanded to know where she was.’

  ‘Had he no suspicions of what you and Mrs Taylor had been up to?’

  ‘Well, Claire always said he hadn’t. He trusted her implicitly, she said. But he wasn’t in a very trusting mood that evening, I can tell you. Threatened me with the police if I didn’t produce her.’

  ‘I appreciate your predicament,’ Herrod said politely.

  Watson grinned. ‘Tricky, wasn’t it? I couldn’t afford to have you fellows poking your noses into my business. On the other hand, I couldn’t oblige him by producing his wife. So what was I to do?’

  ‘Drive him over to Peacehaven and put a bullet in him,’ Herrod said evenly.

  The grin vanished abruptly.

  ‘That’s a damned lie!’ Watson leaned forward, gripping the seat of his chair. ‘I took him to the station, as I told you this morning. I didn’t kill Taylor, Superintendent, and you know it. What’s more, I can prove it. Harry —’