“Then why on earth—”began Knollis.
Sir James cut him short. “I know! I know! You are going to accuse me of dereliction of duty, and want to know why I didn’t take up Johnson’s evidence. I’ll tell you, eh? Duty is duty, but there are times when other considerations must be entertained. Hadn’t the two children suffered enough from the old rascal’s twisted mind? Hadn’t they, heh? Perhaps you don’t agree, but I don’t care! You can institute an enquiry into my handling of the case if you like—and what good will it do you?”
Knollis coughed behind his hand.
The old man nodded. “Cough away, Inspector! I’m old, now, and my memory is failing. So are my other powers. If you take me into a court of law I’ll gibber and saliva. Everybody will cry you down for bullying such a poor and decrepit old man.”
He chuckled.
“There are many compensations for old age, Inspector! If I don’t want to hear, I don’t hear, and they think I’m deaf, and don’t worry me further. My eyes are too weak to read what I don’t want to read, and my legs won’t walk where I don’t want to go. Be old, and be wise, Inspector! I know nothing. Johnson is a clever man who never got his chance, but you’ve left it too late. May I bid you good day?”
Knollis and Sir Giles made their adieux. Once more seated in the car, they turned to each other and laughed. “Stalled, by jiminy,” said Sir Giles.
“We can’t do much with him,” agreed Knollis.
“I take it that you are going to try to find Mildred’s brother next, Inspector?”
Knollis looked at him in astonishment. “You really mean to say that you haven’t seen the obvious? You don’t know where Daniel Marlin is?”
Sir Giles started, and the car leapt across the road. He drew it back to the left again, and then brought it to a halt beside the grass verge. “Good lord!”
Knollis ignored the erratic driving, and pushed his hat to the back of his head. “I have to prove it, of course, but if Daniel Marlin isn’t Desmond Brailsford I’ll eat this hat.”
“You know,” said Sir Giles, “I never thought of that one. You don’t suppose that the twisted features of both could be a remarkable coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Knollis. “The modern definition of the word is almost synonymous with the word miracle, whereas it really means exactly what it says: coincidence. Unless I am very much mistaken, it is no accident, nor yet a fluke of fortune, nor a miracle that brother and sister are living in the same house. There is a reason for it somewhere, and I am going to find out what it is.”
CHAPTER XII
THE MATTER OF TEMPLE’S BEER
Knollis picked up his own car at Knightswood, and drove to the village inn. It was open for the noon session, and the landlord was able to supply him with cold lunch. Knollis placed his notebook on the table beside him and studied it as he ate. An idea occurred to him. He unscrewed his pen and wrote at the foot of the notes: “It isn’t what people say that is important, but the significance behind their words.” He studied his home-made aphorism and was satisfied that he had written the truth. A puzzled frown came over his lean features. Why had he written it? Was there, yet once again, some statement, or part of a statement, that had a significance which he had not realised? This was his third murder case, and in each of the previous two this queer tendency of his mind to work for him without conscious direction had surprised him.
He tossed all the facts of the case over and over as if he was searching in a newly mown hayfield for some small item which he had lost. He was mainly concerned at the moment with the manner in which Temple had been doped. That might have seemed queer to a layman, considering that he had just heard a story which laid bare vital evidence regarding the mentality of the Marlin family, and it could logically have been expected that he would follow up the evidence without delay, but Knollis was learning the full capabilities of his own mind, and learning that the new ways being indicated to him were safe ways, and useful ones. And so he had put the whole Marlin story into his mind, and intended that it should stay there for some hours before he further examined it. Whatever the nature of the queer depths of his mind, it seemed that they were more capable of sorting and classifying his material than was he, as a conscious and reasoning being.
Temple, then, was to be the subject of present thought. How had the dope been administered? It would be a risky proceeding in a public house, which, if not actually full, was reasonably so. And yet, at the moment, he could see no other possibility, and it must be explored.
He rang the bell, and requested the landlord’s presence, if it was convenient. The landlord wasted no time in accepting the invitation, probably hoping to learn more of the Baxmanhurst case than was yet public property.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked eagerly.
“I do,” said Knollis. “Perhaps you will have a drink with me while we are talking?”
The landlord would, and did. Knollis asked him to close the door, and then pushed back his plate and folded his arms on the table.
“You can distinctly remember Temple’s arrival on Tuesday afternoon?”
“Distinctly. As I told you before, sir, he came in about one o’clock.”
“Where did he sit?”
“He didn’t, at first,” the landlord replied. “He stood against the counter. You’ll have noticed that the bar is placed centrally, with windows giving on to the tap-room, saloon-bar, passage, and smoke-room. Temple was in the tap-room, and he stood there for his first two pints, carrying-on about Manchester. I judged that there had been another row between them. He said that he had told him off good and proper. I didn’t believe him, because I’ve generally noticed that when a fellow has worked off his steam in a row he hasn’t any left for telling him off when he isn’t there.”
“A penetrating observation,” said Knollis. “You think as I do, that Temple stood there and took it without saying a word?”
“I certainly do, sir. Anyway, I put up with him for two pints, and then asked him to sit down because he was getting in my way while I was trying to serve. He went and sat in the corner against the fireplace, and stayed there until three o’clock, when I called time.”
“Was he drinking with anyone?” Knollis asked. “No, sir. He was snubbed by being told to move from the counter, and he just sat and sulked.”
“Now tell me,” said Knollis; “were any other members of Baxmanhurst in here, either staff or otherwise?”
The landlord considered. “No,” he said eventually, “I don’t think they were.”
“Mr. Brailsford, for instance?”
“That’s him with the twisted face. No, I’m certain he wasn’t, or I’d have noticed him. He seldom comes in alone, anyway. He’s usually with Manchester on a Saturday night.”
“Oh!” Knollis said glumly.
“You were hoping he’d been in, sir?” the landlord asked quietly.
“Expecting, not hoping,” Knollis replied. “Look, I take it that you know how to keep your mouth closed? I don’t mean that remark offensively.”
“A landlord has to keep his mouth shut, or he’d soon lose his custom, sir. He has neither religion nor politics—nor opinions, for that matter.”
“I suppose that is true,” said Knollis. “Very well, I’ll take you into my confidence, because I think you can help me. You are satisfied in your own mind that Temple was not in a state that you could describe as any worse than fuddled?”
The landlord thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Fuddled is how I would describe him. No worse, certainly.”
“Temple,” said Knollis, “was doped.”
The landlord started. “Doped! In here!”
“That is what I am trying to discover,” Knollis explained. “He left here at three o’clock, and apparently went to the woodshed at the rear of Baxmanhurst to sleep off the beer. It was midnight when he was found, and he was still unconscious. Somebody, somewhere, and somehow, had given him knock-out drops.”
The landlord bridled. “It wasn’t done in my house! I’ll swear to that!”
Knollis shook his head. “You can’t swear to it. No matter how well you may conduct your house, you can’t be responsible for the actions of all the people who come into it. Now can you—reasonably?”
“No-o, I suppose not,” the landlord admitted reluctantly. “And yet—”
Knollis brushed his objections aside. “I can quite well appreciate your attitude, and yet the fact remains that Temple was doped somewhere, and he did drink his beer in this house. That is why I asked you who was drinking with him.”
“Wait here,” said the landlord. He left the room, to return a few minutes later with a sturdy, red-faced British working man in cord trousers.
“This is Jake Meadows. He was sitting next to Matt Temple on Tuesday, weren’t you, Jake?”
“That’s right. He came next to me when he moved from the counter,” said Meadows.
“He was talking to you?” asked Knollis.
“Only for a few minutes. He was grumbling about being moved. Then he settled down and scowled at the table for the rest of the time, except when he went up for more beer.”
“No one approached him to speak to him?”
“That they didn’t, sir. There were about fourteen of us in the tap-room, and I know ’em all. All of them know Matt, and they don’t interfere with him when he gets one of his bouts on.”
“Damn!” said Knollis. “Thanks, Meadows. And thank you, too,” he said to the landlord. “Please draw a pint for Meadows at my expense.”
He was left alone once more, and his eyes narrowed as he went through the pages of the notebook again.
“If he wasn’t doped here . . .” he said aloud, and then pushed back his chair, went to pay his score, and drove down to Baxmanhurst.
It was now that he paid his first visit to the woodshed, although the Trentingham men had already examined it. It was a crude affair, knocked together from any old planks and posts which had laid about when it was being built, and the door swung open crazily as Knollis twisted the home-made wooden turn-button. The farther wall was stacked high with firewood. The left wall was well supplied with three-inch nails from which hung shears, hoes, spades, and the rest of Temple’s gardening impedimenta. Two sacks lay at the foot of the right-hand wall, behind the door, and obviously constituted Temple’s sobering-off couch.
The light was dim in the shed, and Knollis returned to his car for a torch. On his return he examined the earthen floor thoroughly, scraping a handful here and a handful there, and sniffing it. At last he seemed to find what he wanted, for he emptied the contents of his matchbox into his pocket, and refilled the box with earth. He went out, found a constable, and sent him post-haste to Trentingham in the car, instructing him to take the sample of earth to the laboratories and ask the staff to analyse it and let him have the result as soon as they conveniently could. “And bring my car back!” he added. “I may need it in a hurry. The game is warming up.”
He then went to the kitchen, knocked on the door, and accepted Mrs. Redson’s invitation to enter.
“Like a cup of tea, Inspector?” she asked. “I just happen to have made one.”
“It’s a fine habit you have.” Knollis smiled. “I could drink one, and while you are pouring it out I’d like to talk to you about beer.”
Mrs. Redson turned to him with astonishment written across her kindly red face. “Beer? I never touch the stuff. Mind you, I don’t mind a nice milk stout, but beer! Ugh!”
“Is there any beer in the house, Mrs. Redson?” asked Knollis.
“Oh yes, we have a dozen-case every week. The Master used to have a bottle with his lunch.”
“Mr. Brailsford drink beer?”
She shook her head. “He’s all for whisky.”
“And the ladies?”
“Madame won’t touch any intoxicants. She has cider. Miss Dana has port and sherry,” she replied. She looked closely at Knollis. “This another official matter, Inspector?”
“It is,” Knollis admitted. “I think you can help me a great deal if you will.”
“Well, I will; you know that. I was just a bit vexed by the way you treated Freeman and Smithy the other day, but I got thinking it over and saw that it was just your job—like cooking’s mine. There’s times when folk don’t like the way I go about my cooking, but I always get good results, and I reckon it’s the same with being a detective.”
“That’s good thinking,” Knollis said quietly. “Yes, you can help me. Can I see your beer supplies?”
“The stuff’s in the larder, along the passage. You’d better come with me and have a look.”
She led the way, and pushed open the larder door, at the same time switching on the light. “Them two cases.”
“One is composed of empties, I see,” said Knollis.
“Well, there was one bottle left in that case when the man came on Friday morning, so he left the whole case till next time.”
“So that the last bottle would be consumed on Friday, for Manchester’s lunch?”
Mrs. Redson nodded. “That’s right, sir. I fetched it myself and put it on the tray with the glass. The Master liked to draw and pour his own. Always said as a woman couldn’t do it properly.” She sniffed.
Knollis ticked off the days on his fingers. “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. So there should be four empties in the new case?”
“Ye-es, that’s right.”
“And there are five,” Knollis said shortly.
Mrs. Redson bent over the case to take out the empties, but Knollis caught her hands. “Please don’t touch them. Finger-prints, you know!”
She stared at him. “You are queer this afternoon, Inspector!”
Knollis put his mouth against her ear. “Temple was doped on Tuesday, and nobody knows but you and myself, and nobody else must know.”
“Good heavens! You mean that somebody put something—but he doesn’t have any out of the house, Inspector!”
Knollis closed the door with his foot, and spoke in a normal tone. “He shouldn’t have hid, but I think he did. Some time after three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon somebody took him a bottle to the woodshed—and it was drugged.” He paused a moment, and added honestly: “I think.”
“How are you going to find out?” asked Mrs. Redson.
Knollis grinned. “That is what is worrying me. The first stage is to take these into the kitchen and examine them in daylight. Perhaps you will open the door for me, please?”
He manhandled the case of beers and empties to the kitchen, and planted it on a chair close to the sink. He put on his gloves and carefully took out each of the empty bottles in turn, tipping it so that no more than a drop of the residue fell on the white porcelain surface of the sink. The first three bottles in no way interested him. The fourth one did, for it was clear water that dripped from its lip. He quickly tested the fifth, but put it back in the case.
Mrs. Redson, standing beside him, watched the experiment closely. “Looks as if that one has been rinsed out, Inspector, doesn’t it?”
Knollis nodded grimly. “It does!”
“Now why should anyone want to rinse out a beer bottle?” she ventured.
“Why, indeed?” Knollis answered. “Have you an old duster you don’t care about?”
“I think I can find you one. Wait a minute.”
Knollis wrapped the bottle in the duster, and dropped it back into its compartment in the case.
“Now for that cup of tea, Mrs. Redson.”
“I don’t understand it at all, Inspector,” she said when they were sitting at the table together. “I was in here most of Tuesday afternoon, and I can’t remember anybody going to the larder.”
“And yet somebody must have done,” Knollis remarked. “You can’t account in any other way for the fifth bottle having been consumed? What about Smith? Does he drink?”
She nodded. “He does, but he won’t touch bottled stuff. Says it’s too gassy, and blow
s him up. Freeman is teetotal.”
“Temple wasn’t in the house?” Knollis suggested.
“Not after one o’clock, and I do know that he never went to the larder. Temple knows his place in my part of the house!”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” Knollis said with a smile. “Now look, Mrs. Redson; is there any means of checking the number of empties there were at lunch-time?”
“No-o,” she said hesitantly. “I didn’t count them, of course, but I think I should have noticed if that extra one had gone then. That might sound daft to you, but you don’t know how used I am to keeping an eye on my larder stocks. I sort of notice without noticing, if you know what I mean!”
“I understand perfectly,” Knollis assured her. “Now the next thing is to try to trace the one who took it, and returned it. Is there any time of the afternoon when the kitchen is completely deserted?”
“Well, yes, there is. I was in most of the afternoon, as I told you, but I went for a wash and change about—see, it would be just turned three.”
“That would account for half an hour perhaps?” said Knollis.
“Ye-es, I suppose so, Inspector.”
“Where was Freeman?” Knollis asked quickly.
“She’d be in her room. She has a rest in the afternoons, because I finish after dinner at night, and she attends to anything else that might be wanted.”
“But Tuesday was her evening off,” Knollis pointed out.
“I know, but she still has her afternoon hour.”
“And Smith?”
“He was washing the car down, because the Master had told him they were going into town, and Smithy is awful proud of the car.”
“I see,” said Knollis, “or perhaps I don’t!”
He went out to the garage. Smith was relaxing in the back seat of the car, reading a magazine. He scrambled out on seeing Knollis, and straightened his uniform jacket.
“Relax again,” said Knollis. “I only want to ask you a very simple question. Were you in the kitchen, or the staff passage, between three and four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon?”
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