Pick Up the Pieces

by J F Straker

  ‘That’s what I was wondering,’ said Inspector Pitt.

  As he left the office Forthright knew that the policeman was still watching him. I was a damned fool, he thought angrily, to drop a clanger like that. I talked myself out of it, but it’s bound to leave a doubt in the man’s mind. He nodded curtly to Doris and went through to the garage, wondering how much to say to the others. No point in putting the wind up them — they were jittery enough already —but they had to be warned.

  But Loften was there. And Loften gave him no option.

  ‘Did the Inspector ask you about Dave’s glasses, Harry?’ he said; and when Forthright nodded he went on, ‘I must say, I couldn’t understand what he was getting at. Not until afterwards, when I’d had a chance to think it over. Tell me how — did you know this morning that Dave had broken them?’

  ‘Bert told me, Mr Loften.’

  ‘But you told me about it before Bert arrived.’

  Here goes, thought Forthright. If I can convince Loften he was wrong, maybe he’ll help me to convince the police. ‘That’s what the Inspector seemed to think,’ he said casually. ‘Got the idea from you, I suppose. But, as I pointed out to him, you must have been mistaken.’ He turned to Wickery. ‘It was you told me about Dave, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wickery.

  ‘That’s right,’ Wells agreed, uncertain of the point at issue but anxious to confirm any statement made by the other two. ‘I was there. I heard him.’

  Forthright smiled. ‘You see, Mr Loften?’

  Loften looked from one to another of the three men. Then he too smiled. ‘I see very well,’ he said, and went back to the office.

  Forthright gazed reflectively at the closed door. ‘I hope we’re not going to have any trouble with him,’ he said. ‘That’d be the last straw.’

  When he went home to lunch that morning Wells went with him. ‘What’s all this to-do about Dave’s specs?’ asked the little man, as they took the track they had used the previous night. ‘I don’t get it.’

  Forthright told him. ‘It’s not important in itself,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t prove anything, and it’s our word against Loften’s. But it’s made that damned Inspector suspicious.’

  ‘He’ll go through our alibi with a tooth-comb,’ Wells said unhappily.

  ‘Let him. It’ll get him nowhere.’ Forthright stopped. ‘This is where Dave fell over on the way back last night. He must have tripped over that root. Perhaps we’d better pick up the pieces before the police do it for us. Now we’ve told them he broke his specs in the field it wouldn’t look too good if they found the glass here.’

  They searched diligently for some minutes, but there was no glass visible. ‘This can’t be the place,’ said Wells.

  ‘But it is. I know this damned path backward. And Bert said both lenses were broken when he picked them up, so there ought to be plenty of glass around. Come on, let’s have another look.’

  But although they got down on their hands and knees and scraped the soil with their fingernails, the second search was no more successful than the first.

  ‘What’s the meaning of that?’ asked the bewildered Wells, as he stood up and brushed the dirt from his trousers.

  ‘I don’t know. But as the cops can’t have been here first — we’d have seen them from the garage — it looks to me as though Dave was lying.’

  ‘Lying? How could he be lying? You saw his specs afterwards, didn’t you? You saw they were broken?’

  ‘They were broken all right. What I mean is, he didn’t break them here. He just wanted us to think he did.’

  Wells was about to protest again when footsteps sounded on the path behind him, and he turned. It was Wickery, looking harassed and distraught.

  ‘I meant to come with you,’ said Wickery, ‘but I had to see to Doris first. She’s gone home.’

  ‘Didn’t she want you to go with her?’

  ‘Yes. But I thought it was important that I should have a talk with you two first.’

  Wells and Forthright looked at each other, but said nothing. The three men walked in silence to the cottage, and while Forthright was upstairs with his mother Wells told Wickery of their fruitless search for the broken lenses. ‘Harry seems sure it was the right place,’ he said, ‘but I can’t help feeling he’s wrong. Why should Dave want to pull our legs over a thing like that?’

  Wickery said nothing. His brain registered the information and stored it away, but at that moment it had something bigger and more vital to cope with than a few pieces of broken glass. When Forthright returned Wells looked at him expectantly. Forthright frowned. He knew they had to have it out with Bert, that time was pressing; but he knew, too, that it wasn’t going to be easy.

  His reluctance to broach the matter made his voice harsh.

  ‘Well, Bert?’ he asked. ‘How about it? Are you with us, or aren’t you?’

  ‘I gave the right answers to the Inspector, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ Wickery said tonelessly.

  Wells breathed a sigh of relief. Bert wasn’t going to be awkward, after all. But Wickery soon shattered his complacence. Fists clenched, he turned on them furiously.

  ‘I wish to God I knew which of you three devils killed White! Didn’t I say, over and over again, that he wasn’t to be touched? And didn’t you agree — all of you, even Dave? Do you think I’d have had any part in it if I’d known this was going to happen?’

  ‘Take it easy, Bert.’ Wells put a friendly hand on the other’s arm. ‘The chap what done it may not have meant to kill him. But if White woke up and recognized him — well, he had to do something about it, didn’t he? It’s unfortunate, but —’

  ‘Unfortunate!’ Wickery shook his hand off impatiently. ‘That’s a damned cool way to describe murder, I must say! And don’t give me any of that tripe about not meaning to do it. Of course he meant it; why else did he take that spanner upstairs with him? And now I’m expected to lie, to risk my neck to save his, damn him! Why the hell should I?’

  ‘One of us killed White, Bert, don’t forget that. One of us four. If you go to the police you’ll give us all away, yourself as well. You wouldn’t want to do that.’

  ‘It seems to me you don’t object to White being killed,’ Forthright said contemptuously. ‘All you’re worried about is your own ruddy neck. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, damn you, it isn’t! And even if it were, what difference does that make?’

  ‘A hell of a difference. Personally, I’m damned glad White was killed —he’s better out of the way. But I don’t wish to swing for him any more than you do, and that’s why I’m going on with this the way we planned it. It’s our only hope. And if you don’t appreciate that then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.’

  ‘I’m a fool, all right,’ said Wickery. ‘I ought to have guessed, the way you and Dave kept harping on murder, that you weren’t going to stick to what we’d agreed.’

  Forthright’s face flushed angrily. He took a step forward. ‘Are you saying I killed White, damn you?’

  Wickery did not move.

  ‘You or Dave,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Pop.’

  Wells looked anxiously at Forthright. In this mood Harry could be dangerous. ‘I think it’d be best —’ he began, slipping between them. But Forthright pushed him aside. He went up to Wickery and stood facing him, fists clenched, unshaven chin thrust pugnaciously forward.

  ‘You’d better get this straight, Bert Wickery.’ His voice was even and controlled and coldly menacing. ‘I say I didn’t kill White. Do you believe me? Of course you don’t — no more than I believe you. All your silly prattle about how one of us is risking your blasted neck doesn’t cut any ice with me. For all I know it’s just a lot of hot air to conceal the fact that it was you who killed White. Yes, you,’ he said fiercely, as Wickery opened his mouth to speak. ‘Who’ll get White’s money? Doris, as like as not. You had the strongest motive of all of us to get rid of him, and you kn
ow it. I’m not saying you did kill him; but you can cut out all that sanctimonious humbug; it gets you nowhere as far as we’re concerned. At some time or another we’re all going to protest our innocence, and none of us is going to believe the others. And certainly none of us is going to believe you.’

  For a few moments Wickery confronted him, his face working. Then his whole body seemed to sag. He shuffled wearily to the table and slumped into a chair, burying his face in his hands.

  ‘It isn’t only me,’ he said brokenly. ‘There’s Doris — and the kid. It’s what’s going to happen to them that worries me.’

  Nothing’ll happen to them if you pull yourself together,’ said Forthright, relieved. Until the last week or two, when Bert had begun to assume a disquietening air of authority and purpose, he had never failed to impose his will on the other. He was glad to see that he could still do so. ‘Believe me, mate, our only chance is to carry on the way we planned it. There’s more at stake now, but the risk of discovery’s no greater. White’s murder doesn’t upset our alibi in any way. So long as that hangs together, we’re safe.’

  ‘So’s the murderer, blast him,’ said Wickery, sitting up. ‘That’s what gets my goat — that we’ve got to shield the swine, whether we like it or not. Well, just let me find him out, that’s all. I’ll soon settle his ruddy hash for him.’

  ‘You’re not likely to do that,’ said Wells.

  ‘We took care of that when we planned it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Wickery retorted. ‘What was all that about Dave’s spectacles? If there are no bits of glass where he’s supposed to have broken them, that means he was lying, doesn’t it? Well, there’s only one reason I can think of why he’d need to lie about a thing like that.’

  Wells hurried to the defence of his prospective son-in-law.

  ‘That’s unfair, Bert. You can’t say things like that about Dave when he’s not here to defend himself. It ain’t right. And didn’t we agree not to snoop on each other, not to try and find out who done the actual job?’

  ‘We were discussing robbery then, not murder,’ Wickery said sternly.

  Forthright banged his fist on the table. ‘Who cares about agreements, damn it? I’m not interested in whether Dave killed White — that’s his affair. But it’s our affair if he bust his specs in White’s room. We gave him an alibi, didn’t we? So if the police find the pieces of glass and can trace them to Dave, we’re all sunk. If Dave’s been scattering clues around the place, he’s no right to keep it secret from us.’

  ‘What do you suggest we do, then?’ asked Wells.

  ‘Do? Why, ask him, of course.’

  Knuckles rapped loudly on the front door. Forthright went into the hall, to return with Inspector Pitt and a uniformed constable.

  ‘They want to see Ma,’ he explained. ‘Don’t go, you two. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  *

  Ma Forthright brushed the wisps of grey hair from her forehead and surveyed the two policemen shrewdly.

  ‘You’ll have come about the murder, I suppose,’ she said, in response to the Inspector’s apology for intruding. ‘My Harry’s been telling me.’

  ‘That’s right, ma’am. Just a few questions I’d like to ask you.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t have thought an old body like me could help much. Still, I’m glad to see you; I like new faces, even policemen’s. Folks don’t bother to visit me now; they think I’m that near me grave I’m not worth the trouble. And what with me eyes being bad —well, if it weren’t for the wireless I don’t know what I’d do with meself all day.’

  ‘It’s a great boon to invalids,’ Inspector Pitt agreed. ‘And it was partly on account of the radio that I’ve called to see you.’

  ‘I’ve got me licence, if that’s what you’re after,’ she said sharply.

  The Inspector laughed. ‘I’m sure you have, ma’am. No, it wasn’t the licence. It’s just that, with Mr White being murdered last night, we like to know where everyone was at the time. Your son, for instance.’

  ‘Don’t you go suspecting my Harry. He’s no murderer — he’s a real good man, is Harry. No woman ever had a better son. He’s looked after me since his father died — eighteen years ago, that was — and never a grumble. Many’s the time I’ve told him he ought to get married; but not him. ‘You and me’s got on well enough together all these years, Ma,’ he’d say. ‘We don’t want another woman butting in now, do we?’ Real unselfish, that’s what he is. There was a time about a year ago — no, longer than that it’d be, nearer fifteen months now —when the garage wasn’t doing too well and Mr White had to reduce his wages. But I wasn’t allowed to suffer; if anyone went short it was Harry.’

  The old lady closed her eyes. She loved to talk, and it was seldom she had a fresh listener. But she soon tired. ‘I’m afraid this is rather a strain on you,’ the Inspector said kindly. ‘If you’d prefer to wait —’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot more life in me than people think. Harry’s going to get me away to the sea soon, and I’ll be a different woman there, the doctor says. What was it you wanted to know, Inspector?’

  ‘Just about last night, Mrs Forthright. If your son was here, as he says. He tells me he and his friends were playing cards until quite a late hour.’

  ‘And so they were. I don’t hold with card-playing meself, but you men have to have your pleasures, and I dare say it’s better than the pubs. And they’re a nice lot, I’ll say that for them, even if they do get a bit heated now and again. Young Dave Chitty, he’s rather wild at times. But the other two, Bert Wickery and Mr Wells, they’re real steady-going fellows.’

  ‘They were here the whole evening?’

  ‘They were. I didn’t see them, of course, but I could hear their voices above the wireless. It was close on one when they left — they came up to say good-night to me, same as they always do of a Tuesday. Not Mr Wells — he’d gone about twenty minutes before; his wife had one of her turns, poor thing. Molly — that’s his daughter, you know. Such a pretty little thing. I wasn’t altogether sorry when she and young Chitty broke off their engagement, because she deserves a really good husband —Molly came to fetch him.’

  ‘Did you see or hear her, Mrs Forthright?’

  ‘No. Molly’s quiet, you don’t hear her much. But I heard voices in the hall just before half-past twelve, that was and footsteps on the path, and I reckoned it was one of them going home a bit early.’ She coughed violently, and Pitt waited anxiously for the paroxysm to pass, fearful of the harm it might do her. I ought to have insisted on her son staying in the room, he thought. Odd that he preferred not to. Is that a sign of guilt — or innocence?

  The coughing ceased. ‘You — you won’t be able to blame any of those four for Mr White’s murder,’ the old lady wheezed. ‘They didn’t like him, none of them; but they couldn’t have killed him, could they?’

  ‘Mr White seems to have been rather unpopular, by all accounts,’ remarked the Inspector.

  ‘So I’m told. I never met him meself.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be getting along. Many thanks for your help, ma’am; if your son and his friends were here all yesterday evening, that makes it easier for us.’ He nodded to the constable, and the two men walked to the door. As they reached it the Inspector turned and said, almost casually, ‘Of course, you can’t be expected to know whether they were all here the whole evening. Just going by their voices, you wouldn’t have missed one if he’d slipped out for a while.’

  Ma Forthright thought this over.

  ‘That’s true,’ she agreed. ‘But ask Harry. He’ll know.’

  Pitt said he would do that. He thanked her again, apologized for disturbing her, and went downstairs to where the three men awaited him.

  ‘Your mother looks a very sick woman, Mr Forthright,’ he said. ‘I hope this interview hasn’t been too much for her. I cut it as short as I could.’

  ‘She’s tougher than she looks,’ said Forthright. ‘But thanks all t
he same.’

  The Inspector asked the way to the Loftens’ house. Forthright took him to the door and pointed it out. It lay only a hundred yards down the main road, away from the garage.

  ‘I hope the old lady proved helpful,’ he said, as the Inspector took his leave.

  ‘Yes, I think she did,’ answered the other. ‘Very helpful.’

  Forthright closed the front door behind the two policemen and stood listening to their footsteps fade away down the garden path. Then he turned to Wells and Wickery, who had followed him into the hall.

  ‘I wonder what he meant by that last crack?’ he asked uneasily.

  6 The Growth of Suspicion

  Detective-Inspector Pitt was not normally an imaginative man, but it seemed to him that the Chittys’ front parlour was filled with a secret and sardonic mirth. It was so small that he could almost see it hugging itself. Is it generally so amused, he wondered, or is it laughing at something in particular? Me, for instance? The room was clean and neat and unlived-in, the furniture poor in quality but rich in variety. Perhaps that’s the answer, he thought — and imagined he heard the little room chuckle in appreciation of his discernment. ‘So much care and attention lavished on me, and what do I give in return?’ it guffawed. ‘Nothing. I’m a parasite, I don’t earn my keep. She comes in to dust and clean and polish, but nobody uses me. Nobody ever sits in the chairs, nobody does anything in here. It’s money for jam, chum, money for jam!’

  Inspector Pitt, who had been gazing idly round, promptly sat down in a threadbare armchair, which squeaked loudly in protest and tilted him alarmingly to port. Undaunted, the Inspector righted the list, produced notebook and pencil and laid them in a threateningly business-like manner on the oak-veneered table, and made a mental grimace at the room. That’ll larn it, he thought —and immediately stood up, ashamed of his rather childish behaviour. He was glad there had been no one to witness it.