“Well, as I say, ma’am, I’m not convinced you’ve got the right pig by the ear, but you have suggested some fresh ideas and lines of approach, and I’m obliged to you because, on present evidence, we’re not going to get that boy convicted.”
“Well, I hope you are not. The lad is hotheaded, unlettered, and foolish, and he may be capable of murder, but—”
“Funny you should say that, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Oh,” said Dame Beatrice, “so that’s why he is alarmed at the sight of woods and groups of trees! I thought it must be something of the sort.”
“Now, ma’am, you mustn’t try to pump me,” said the inspector amiably, “but if a nod is as good as a wink, you’re welcome. The lad was under the age when, according to the law, he could commit a crime. I’ll tell you that much, but I can’t say any more.”
“No, but he can. I shall use my authority as psychiatric adviser to the Home Office to interview him.”
“It can’t do any good, ma’am. It was all over and done with years ago. You’ll only distress the lad, I would think, and to no purpose. Still, if you choose to make it an official visit, of course I can’t stop you.”
“I’m glad of that, Inspector.”
Dave eyed his fantastic visitor with obvious apprehension.
“I don’t want no tracks,” he muttered, stirring uncomfortably before her sharp black eyes.
“Tracks, Mr. Holley?”
“I don’t want none. I been saved free times already, and I don’t go for no gospellers no more.”
“Ah!” said Dame Beatrice, enlightened. “That’s quite all right. I am not a gospeller and I do not peddle tracts. I am the grandmother of your lawyer and I believe I can be of some help to you in your present predicament.”
“Don’t see ’ow. Vey got me where vey wants me, I reckon.”
“Who have?”
“Vem rozzers. Don’t know right from wrong, so long as vey can get you sent up. Vat’s all vey cares abaht.”
“I think you do them an injustice. The fact that the magistrates have remanded you again must mean that the facts are not clear and, until the facts are clear, nobody is going to commit you for trial. I wish you would tell me how you came to meet Mr. Gracechurchstreet. I know how and why you bcame acquainted with Gorinsky, but I have no objection to hearing it repeated if it will assist you in your narrative.”
“What you want to know for?”
“Well, what else have the police got against you besides the suspicion that you killed Gorinsky?”
“Nuffink as I knows on.”
“You see, if all you did was to knock Gorinsky down . . .”
“I outed ’im.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s very doubtful whether that was enough to kill him.”
“Vey never said it was. Vey reckon I kicked ‘is ‘ead in and ven crahned ’im wiv a bottle.”
“It’s been proved that you did not kick his head in. As for the bottle, well, the doctor did not want to commit himself about that, you know.”
“Vere’s a bottle missin’, ain’t vere?”
Dame Beatrice began to wonder whether the boy was as brainless as Toby had led her to think.
“So long as it hasn’t your fingerprints on it when they find it, that can’t incriminate you, can it?”
“It ’as got me dabs on it,” sad Dave sullenly.
“You mean you stole it from Mr. Smetton’s stock?”
“No, vat I never! What you tike me for?”
“What happened, then?”
“I dunno.”
“All right, then, I will surmise.”
“No. O.K. I’ll tell you. Vey slipped it to me while I was locked up in me room, before us all wented up to Lunnon.”
“Who slipped it to you.”
“I dunno.”
“Oh, come, now, Mr. Holley! Having said so much, you can surely tell me the rest. Why haven’t you mentioned this to your lawyer?”
“Didn’t fink nuffink of it, ’til it come aht abaht the bottle. Vey unlocks the door and ’Arry slides it in, and ’Arry says, ‘Come orf the boil, cockie, and tike a swig of vis. It’ll do you good.’ ”
“So you took his advice?”
“Ah. Vere was some piper rahnd the top and a stopper as you can pull aht, so I ahts it and takes a swig, and ven I ’ears ’em lock the door again.”
“Did you like the Dubonnet?”
“Not much. Funny kind of taste. Made me feel as if I’d frow up if I took much more, so I never.”
“And where is the bottle now?”
“I dunno.”
“I mean, what did you do with it?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Your room was one of the attics. Had it a window that you could look out of?”
“Ah.”
“And did you look out of it?”
“Wasn’t much else to do, was vere?”
“Could you see the road?”
“Ah.”
“Both ways?”
“Sure.”
“And what did you see while you were looking out?”
“I’ll tell you what I didn’t see,” said Dave. “I never see Gorinsky drive off in vat little car, like vey told the beaks, and I never see no ambulance come to tike ’im to the ’orspital, like vey told me.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“’Course I’m sure.”
“But you weren’t looking out of the window all the time, were you?”
“No, but I got ears, ain’t I? I was listenin’ when I weren’t lookin’, on account I fought Gorinsky might send for the rozzers. ’E was a mean old skunk and I’d ’it ’im and kicked ’im, see, and you can get into trouble for vat unless you’re a toff. Vey can do wot vey likes, but it’s different for us.”
“I think that is largely a misconception, but we need not debate the matter. Have you told your lawyer that no car left the inn while you were incarcerated?”
“Locked up, you mean? No, I never. The uvvers vey all says different, so who’s goin’ to believe what I says?”
“I am prepared to do so, and for reasons of my own. Tell me, Mr. Holley, did any of the attic windows overlook the landlord’s garage or the parking space at the inn?”
“No, vey all looked aht on the road.”
“I see. Why are you afraid of woods and groups of trees?”
“You better ask vem rozzers. Vey knows. Scouse told me vey did. ‘Vey knows you was too young to be prosecuted, else you’d be in Borstal,’ ’e told me, ‘but you done it, and you knoo what you was a-doin’ of,’ ’e said. So vey’ll ’old it against me, see? I knows vey will.”
“How old were you when you did whatever it was?”
“Goin’ on eight, so vey couldn’t do nuffink to me ven, see, but vey will nah. Vey’ll ’old it against me, and it don’t gimme no chance, see?”
“I am still not clear what you did, but of one thing I am certain. A crime committed by you at the age you say you were, cannot possibly be held against you now. I suppose you think the police hope to extort a confession from you on the strength of a report from Scouse, but I can assure you that they would never dare to exceed their duty to such an extent, and I doubt very much whether Scouse has mentioned the matter to them. He would get very short shrift, I imagine, if he did. Officially, you see, whatever it was you did was never recorded as a crime and could not possibly be used in evidence.”
“It were a sin, vough, weren’t it?”
“Is that why you caused yourself to be ‘saved’ three times?” She cackled and, for the first time, Dave grinned. “Well, what did you actually do?”
“Well, it was vis way, see? We goes on a Sunday School treat, see? And vey takes us be train out in the country, and we ’aves our grub on a sort of a common, see, wiv pine trees and ’evver and vat. Ven vey starts us in playin’ games wiv a bat and ball and all chasin’ abaht, but us little uns, well, we gets cheesed of
f, see, ’cos it were too bleedin’ ’ot and us wasn’t gittin’ nuffink of the gime, on’y the big uns, see, so me and a coupla kids, we takes it on the lam and gets in a sort of a wood, and ven we comes to a fence, so we climbs it, and ven we climbs the trees and ven an old bloke come along, see, and ’ollers at us to come on dahn, so we frows bits of stick at ’im, see, and ven I loses me grip and I falls, and when I gets up ’e come arter me, see, so I scarpers, and just when he comes to grab ’old of me ’e trips over a bit of a tree-trunk, like it might be a dirty great log, see, and I’m scared of ’im, see, cos ’e got a dirty great stick in ‘is ’and, and vere’s a big stone, see, so I lays a-holt of it and as ’e’s alayin’ vere I goes kind of crazy, I reckon, so I bashes ’im on the conk and vere’s a lot of blood, so I scarpers, see, but one of the big boys as was at the treat, well, ’e was in the woods wiv a skirt, see, so ’e tells on me, ’cos ’e finks I’ll tell on ’im and the gal what vey was up to, but I doesn’t, and it turns aht the old bloke conks before vey can get ’im to the ’orspital, so vere I am, see, but vey can’t charge me on account I’m too young, but vey’ll remember it against me, vat’s what, see?”
“Well, I am sure you are mistaken, but let us go back to a previous point. I asked how you became acquainted with Mr. Gracechurchstreet.”
“Him and Mr. Maverick teamed up wiv Gorinsky, vat’s ’ow.”
“Before you went into training at the Swan Revived?”
“Vat’s what I dunno.”
“Why don’t you? How long had you been in training with Gorinsky before you met the other two?”
“I dunno nuffink abaht it.”
“Well, I think I do. Let me tell you my thoughts, and perhaps they will assist your memory. I think you met Mr. Gracechurchstreet and Mr. Maverick before you met Mr. Gorinsky.”
“ ‘Ow d’yer know vat?”
“At the risk of hurting your feelings, I must suggest that you are not really much of a boxer, are you?”
“Vat’s as may be.”
“Quite. I think Mr. Gracechurchstreet and Mr. Maverick wanted a good-looking young man to take part in a film they were planning. I know that they attended performances of amateur dramatic societies to see whether there were any likely prospects, and I see no reason why they should not also have made a round of boys’ clubs.”
“You’re guessin’, ain’t you?”
“Not altogether. I know, for example, that they got in touch with Mr. Sparowe on the strength of his having written the story they intended to use as the basis of their film, and I know that one of them—Mr. Maverick, I think—attended a performance of a play by Mr. Sparowe.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“That much appears to be fact.” She fixed her sharp black eyes upon the boy and leered kindly at him. Dave flinched.
“Oh, all right, ven, I’ll tell yer,” he said. “I did spot Mr. Maverick and Mr. Gracechurchstreet dahn at the club one night. Vey watched me box, and ven vey comes up and speaks to me and arsts me a lot of questions about where I works and all vat. Next fing I knows, vere’s vis competition, see, and vat’s when Mr. Gorinsky comes into the dressin’ room and puts it up to me to turn pro. Well, I’d ’ad a bit of a toss-up wiv me dad, so I finks it’ll spite the old man if I goes off and leaves ’im flat, me workin’ for ’im, see, and it bein’ on account of me wages, what wasn’t no more van flippin’ pocket-money what he paid me, so I agrees to go wiv Mr. Gorinsky, but, of course, I never knoo I was goin’ out into the bleedin’ country for me trainin’, else I never would of signed on, nor I didn’t know, ’til vey turned up at the pub, vat Mr. Gracechurchstreet and Mr. Maverick was all in it, too.”
“Well, that appears to be a reasonable statement, Mr. Holley,” said Dame Beatrice briskly, “and I thank you for it. It now remains to establish what the connection was between Mr. Gracechurchstreet and Mr. Gorinsky prior to their appearance on your ill-starred scene. Once I know that, why, then, as my secretary would say, I think we shall be home and dry.”
“You means you can git me orf?”
“I see little reason to doubt it. You will have to make another appearance in court, but that, I think, should be the end of your present difficulties, unless (and this you must be prepared for) the police ask for a further remand in custody. Do not allow this to disturb and alarm you. It will simply mean that your lawyer and I need a little more time to pursue our own enquiries, which will be independent of, but, I hope, complementary to, those envisaged by the police, especially when they are made conversant with my theories. Do you understand me?”
“I dunno. I ain’t got to git windy if, when I sees the beaks, vey puts me back ’ere in the nick, but you finks I won’t ’ave to fice the judge. Is vat it?”
“Your intelligence has been sadly underrated, Mr. Holley, and I shall say so to all concerned. So now, a stout heart and an optimistic outlook will be the best friends you can have, except, of course, for my grandson and myself, and the chivalrous and kindly Mr. Sparowe.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tobias and the Angels
“And I in such a poverty of grace
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps.”
William Shakespeare—As You Like It
“Poor old Dave!” said Toby. “So that accounts for his ‘foby.’ I suppose you realized from the beginning that something of the sort was the explanation?”
“The fact that it was woods and groups of trees and not open spaces which distressed him seemed to offer scope for investigation.”
“Will he be all right now?”
“Judging from his irreligious grin after he had informed me that he had been ‘saved’ three times, I do not think psychiatric treatment will be necessary. This trouble he is in may prove to be a blessing in disguise, since, without it, he might never have been able to bring his mental conflict into the open.”
“Is there anything I can do to help him?—in a practical way, I mean.”
“There is one thing, but it may not be to your taste.”
“It isn’t really to my taste to write articles for my aunt’s paper, you know, so please don’t worry. I’m well schooled.”
“This is something rather different, but it does concern women.”
“Oh, Lord! You’re not going to ask me to start chasing this mysterious damsel whom Gorinsky introduced into the Swan Revived the night before he was murdered, are you?”
“I am not unrealistic.”
“How do you mean?”
“Be discreet enough not to repeat this, but I am still not at all convinced that the girl exists.”
“But I thought Smetton said . . .”
“Mr. Smetton is in an unenviably tight place, I fear. He has enmeshed himself.”
“Smetton? But I should have thought a more law-abiding citizen never existed.”
“I know. I am afraid it is a case of, ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.’ ”
“Deceive whom? About what?”
“The police, about what happened to Gorinsky’s body.”
“You can’t mean Smetton murdered him? I’ll never believe that!”
“You do not need to strain the limits of your credulity. I am convinced that Smetton did not kill Gorinsky, but I am equally convinced that he took the body to Heathcote Fitzprior.”
“But why should he do as daft a thing as that?”
“We must remember that, for various reasons, his mind was in a turmoil when he did it. There had been the quarrel between Holley and Gorinsky, at the conclusion of which he had had Maverick leaping down the stairs at him and calling for brandy; then he had heard the very considerable noise (I take it) of Holley being hustled up to the attics and locked in; then he had received the news that the party was on the point of most unexpectedly leaving the inn; then he realized (possibly not until after they had all gone off in Gorinsky’s car) that
Gorinsky was not with them; then he had discovered that Maverick’s car was still at the inn and, what was most horrifying, contained Gorinsky’s dead body.”
“Enough, you think, to cause anybody to flap, and I couldn’t agree more. But how do you know all this?”
“I do not know it in the sense that I could prove it, but it is the only theory which seems at present to fit the facts.”
“Do you mean to say that it was Smetton who took the body to the stone quarries and tossed it in?”
“No, I do not think he went as far as that. I think his only object was to get the body off his own premises and on to those of somebody who could not possibly be implicated in the murder.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Spreadapple. She had never been to the inn, but he knew of her by repute as a courageous, ill-tempered, managing type of woman, and he left the small car on her grass verge, knowing that she could be left to deal with it and the body.”
“And she took the body to the stone quarries?”
“No. Without knowing anything about the body, she told her son to drive the trespassing car there and dump it and leave the owner to find it.”
“But it was found in London.”
“I know. My theory is that her son, who was a soldier on embarkation leave, discovered, when he pulled up at the stone quarries, that the car contained more than its log-book, shall we say. Not wishing to explain to the police that he had driven the car away without its owner’s knowledge or permission, he acted with soldierly promptness and modern unscrupulous disregard for the conventions, tipped the body into a disused quarry, drove the car to Yelton, where he had once lived, and abandoned it. It was a coincidence—nothing more—that Maverick’s party was to join the travelling fair on Yelton Common, but, naturally, it helped for a time to obscure the truth about how the little car came to be abandoned outside the Yelton town hall.”
“But how do you know all this?”
“My knowledge comes from a conversation I had with George and another with Mrs. Spreadapple; my deductions, as the White Knight would say, are my own invention, but the credit for them is entirely due to my chauffeur.”
Gory Dew (Mrs. Bradley) Page 18