The Twenty-One Clues

by J. J. Connington

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” the inspector assured him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Double-Florin

  “MATE in three moves, Squire,” Sir Clinton announced. “Your mind doesn’t seem to be on this game. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this Barratt case,” Wendover confessed. “You’ve shown me the evidence, but it all seems so disjointed that I can’t make a single pattern out of it. It looks like two or three independent crimes superimposed on each other. A puzzling affair.”

  Sir Clinton glanced at his watch before answering.

  “We needn’t start a fresh game, then,” he decided. “It’s no fun playing with you when you’re in that state. Too much like taking toffee from a child, for my taste.”

  He swept the pieces into a drawer of the chess-table as he spoke.

  “Besides,” he went on, “I’m expecting a young visitor—perhaps two young visitors.”

  “Not Peter Diamond?” queried Wendover, apprehensively.

  “Calm yourself, Squire. No, it’s not Peter. Though why you have such a dislike of the Dwarf I can’t make out. The worst you can say about him is that he’s young and therefore a bit cocksure. You’ll be sorry to hear that my expected visitor’s even younger and not half so nice. Rather a bad lot, I’m afraid.”

  “Who is he?” asked Wendover. “Anybody I know?”

  “No, you don’t know him. You weren’t on the Bench when his case came up. That was a little while ago. But we’ve got a few minutes in hand, so I’d better begin at the beginning. You may remember, among the evidence in the Barratt case, the matter of a Jubilee double-florin, the property of a Miss Legard. Peter unearthed that for us, so Peter has his uses, you must admit. Miss Legard put that double-florin into the collection the night of the Barratt-Callis tragedy; and Barratt carried it off in his black bag with the rest of the money. The collection cash disappeared from Callis’s car, though the bag was left behind. We’ve been on the hunt for that Jubilee double-florin since then; and now we’ve got it. Old Wilmot—a fellow who set up in town a few weeks ago as a curiosity-dealer—had it offered to him, and through him we got on the track.”

  “He could describe his client well enough for that?” interjected Wendover in a sceptical tone.

  “No,” admitted Sir Clinton. “All he could tell us was that it was a red-haired boy about sixteen or so, with a rather cheeky manner. But we had other evidence to help us. Callis’s car had obviously been snatched by someone who took it away from the lovers’ nook and after driving about the country for a while, wrecked it in Granby Holt while escaping from the police patrol. We get epidemics of this car-snatching from time to time, unfortunately. So we looked back in our records for any red-haired youngster who’d been caught in a prank of that kind and we were lucky enough to find one. Rufford picked him up, and old Wilmot identified him as the boy who offered him the double-florin. Simple enough. Rufford’s bringing him up here now, and possibly we shall have a second person to interview, later. I don’t feel sympathetic towards the young man. He’s been in trouble before, as I told you; and he’s been mixed up in other misdeeds as well.”

  “Some young guttersnipe?” asked Wendover.

  “No, and that makes it worse. He’s the only child of quite decent middle-class people. I’m sorry for them, if not for the boy himself. But he’s a wholly useless creature, bitten with the idea that he’s rather a daredevil. I’d like to come down on him—hard. But unfortunately we’ll need his evidence; and if we get that, I suppose we’ll have to overlook his present peccadillo. I must ask him questions, and I can’t do that if we’re going to bring a charge against him which is covered by the questions. You’re a magistrate, Squire, and can see fair play. That’s one reason why I’ve had him brought here this evening.”

  “He doesn’t sound very attractive,” Wendover commented.

  “You’ll like him even less, I expect, when you hear more about him,” Sir Clinton affirmed. “But that’s someone at the front door. Rufford and his captive, no doubt. It’s as well we didn’t start a fresh game.”

  In a few seconds, Inspector Rufford and his prisoner were ushered into the room.

  “H’m! This is the boy, is it?” said Sir Clinton in no friendly tone. “Stand over there. You’d better sit down, inspector, and take notes—shorthand ones, I think. You’ll find paper over yonder on the writing-desk.

  While the inspector was making his preparations, Wendover examined the boy. He was, as Sir Clinton had said, no guttersnipe. Rufford would have put him in the £ 1,000 per annum class of society. Tall for his age, wearing a good plus-four suit, with the cap of one of the best schools in the town crumpled up in his hand, he stared sullenly at the carpet, with an occasional swift side-glance at the officials who had got him in their grip. Wendover disliked his heavy features and the irregular teeth which showed occasionally in an uneasy smile of defiance.

  “What’s your name?” demanded Sir Clinton sharply, as soon as he saw that Rufford was ready to take notes.

  “Oley,” muttered the boy, without looking at his interrogator.

  “Speak up,” ordered the Chief Constable. “What’s your full name?”

  “Patrick Turnbull Oley.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “At 35 Airedale Avenue.”

  The boy seemed to be plucking up his courage, since the preliminary questions were so simple. He lifted his head and stared curiously at Wendover, whom he evidently could not recognise.

  “You, and a few other little boys, have got up some sort of society, haven’t you? What do you call it?”

  “The Wrecking Club.”

  “What are the objects of this precious club?”

  Oley shuffled his feet and stared at the carpet without answering.

  “Don’t take that line with me,” warned the Chief Constable. “This is going to be serious for you, Oley, if you give us trouble.”

  The boy evidently gathered from the Chief Constable’s tone that he would stand no nonsense. With marked reluctance, he gave his answer.

  “We used to go into newly-built houses and cut some of the lead pipes; or else we broke window-panes; and sometimes we lit a fire on the floor and then rang up the fire brigade to see the fun. And we used to go out with a pot of black paint and paint over the tail-lamps of any cars we found parked by the roadside. Things like that.”

  “Not very amusing,” commented Sir Clinton. “Some of your friends were caught I think, but we didn’t lay hands on you, unfortunately. Another of your pastimes was car snatching, wasn’t it? You were caught in the act in that.”

  Oley nodded sullenly, with an angry look in his eye.

  “You got off then, as a first offender,” Sir Clinton continued. “He promised to reform, didn’t he, inspector?”

  Rufford confirmed this with a nod.

  “Instead of reforming, you went from bad to worse,” the Chief Constable pursued. “You took to associating with a girl. What’s her name?”

  “Polly Quickett,” said Olley, surlily.

  “Her parents complained about your doings in that affair,” Sir Clinton went on. “You were had up in Court, weren’t you for stealing money to buy things for her and take her to the pictures? And you were sentenced to six strokes with the birch for your behaviour. You got off lightly, Oley. And you gave your promise not to see that girl again, didn’t you? Have you kept that promise?”

  Oley shuffled from one foot to the other, avoided the eyes of his audience, and at last admitted sulkily:

  “No.”

  “Your father promised to see that you were indoors by nine o’clock in the evening. What about that, inspector?”

  “Mr. Oley saw to that, sir. But he and Mrs. Oley are away from home at present. The boy’s been on his own since they went off.”

  “H’m! And as soon as their backs were turned, you took up with this girl again? What age is she?”

  “About fifteen,” Oley admitted.

/>   “You’ve been with her frequently since your parents went away? On one occasion you and she went to a spot between the Hermitage and the railway. Tell us exactly what happened that evening.”

  “I won’t tell you anything about it,” snarled Oley. “You’ve no right to ask me questions like that. It’s up to you to prove anything you can against me. Our solicitor told me that, when you had me up last time. So there!”

  Sir Clinton looked him over coldly, and under that steady inspection the fight began to ooze out of Oley.

  “I don’t see why you should be so down on me,” he complained, twisting his school cap in his hands. “I can’t help it. I’ve tried to keep away from her—I really have. But I can’t manage it, when I get a chance.”

  “If we send you to a reformatory or an industrial school, you’ll be out of temptation,” Sir Clinton said, reflectively. “You don’t like the idea? But that’s what it’s coming to, if you go on like this, Oley. That’s fair warning. You understand?”

  Oley evidently realised that there was some possibility of escape offered to him. The threat of the reformatory had shaken him badly. He seemed to feel that anything was better than that.

  “If you don’t do anything to me this time, sir, I’ll try to go straight. And I’ll tell you anything you want to know; I will, really. I’ll do anything you want, sir, if you’ll let me off this time.”

  Sir Clinton examined him again in silence for a second or two, as if making up his mind.

  “You haven’t given us much satisfaction in the past, have you? No. Still, we’ll give you this last chance, if you make a clean breast of things. Tell us exactly what happened that night.”

  Oley took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Evidently he had been on the brink of tears, despite his obstinate front.

  “I’ll tell you what happened, sir. That evening, I said to our maids that I’d got a headache and was going to bed to try and sleep it off. I’d arranged to meet Polly Quickett at eight. When I heard the maids shut up in the back premises, I sneaked downstairs again and got out of the front door. I had tennis-shoes on, so I made no noise. I’ve got a latchkey and I could shut the front door without making any noise by slamming it; and the kitchen windows look out to the back, so the maids couldn’t see me getting out. I met Polly where we’d fixed up to meet, at the drinking-fountain in Mapesbury Road. We’d arranged what we were going to do, take a bus out to the Half Way House and go to that bracken-patch that runs down from the Hermitage garden. We’d been there before once or twice, because nobody can see you there, amongst the bracken. So we took the tram, got off at the stage at the Half Way House and walked along the lane there, towards the railway. There was nobody in sight when we got there, so we cut up the slope and lay down amongst the bracken. . . .”

  To Oley’s evident relief, the Chief Constable had no immediate interest in the peccadillos of adolescents. He interrupted the boy’s tale with a curt question:

  “While you were there, did you see anybody in the neighbourhood?”

  Oley hardly hesitated before answering:

  “Just after we’d sat down, we saw two people—a man and a woman—drive up in a car on the lane below. They stopped the car and got out, but they didn’t lock the doors or take away the ignition key.”

  “What time was that, do you know?” demanded the Chief Constable.

  Oley, by this time, had recovered his courage, since he apparently realised that something more important was in view than his own escapade. He was evidently taking pains to give what evidence he could, with the hope of placating the Chief Constable by frankness.

  “It was just a little after nine o’clock, sir. I know that, because we had to keep an eye on the time. I’d promised Polly that she’d be home before half-past ten at the very latest, so I was taking a look at my watch now and again.”

  “Was it still light enough to see things clearly?”

  “Well, it was getting on for dusk, sir, but I could see fairly clearly.”

  “You could see that they didn’t take the ignition key with them when they left the car?”

  Oley hesitated before answering.

  “Perhaps I was wrong about seeing that, sir. I think I must be thinking about what I found, later on. No, I didn’t actually see that. But it was light enough to see that they didn’t lock the car door. They stood beside the car for a little while, talking, and then they came up towards us. They didn’t see us amongst the bracken, and they sat down quite close to us—about twenty yards or so away from us.”

  “Could you recognise them if you saw them again?” asked the Chief Constable.

  “No, sir, I don’t think I could. When they came near enough for that, Polly and I lay down amongst the bracken so as not to show ourselves, and so I didn’t get a look at the two of them close at hand. The woman was wearing a dark dress, not black, but some dark stuff; and the man had a dark suit and was wearing a soft black felt hat—the kind that clergymen sometimes wear.”

  Sir Clinton was obviously not satisfied with this account.

  “You’ve heard, of course, that the Rev. Mr. Barratt was found dead at that place,” he said. “Now, be careful, Oley. Aren’t you letting your memory get muddled up with what you’ve read in the newspapers? Wasn’t it from them that you got this notion about a clergyman’s hat?”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t,” Oley declared definitely. “He was wearing a black hat, right enough. I’m dead sure of that.”

  Sir Clinton seemed satisfied by this.

  “How were they walking, as they came up towards you? In Indian file?”

  “Yes, sir. The bracken’s very stiff. You have to force your way through it. I expect he went first to clear a path for her.”

  “Perhaps. Now what happened next?”

  “I didn’t like the two of them being so near us,” Oley confessed, looking down at the carpet again and flushing. “I whispered to Polly that we’d better get out of that and go over to the spinney—you know the spinney, there, sir? So I told her to wait where she was for a minute or two, till I could be sure the coast was clear; and I set off, crawling through the bracken so as not to show myself.”

  “What did you do that for?” demanded Sir Clinton. “Why didn’t you and the girl go together?”

  “Because there’s often a couple or two up there amongst the bracken and I didn’t want to run any risk of blundering on top of them with Polly. You never know who may be in a place like that, and I didn’t want to run any risk of Polly and me being recognised there together.”

  “Pity you don’t use these wits of yours in a better cause,” Sir Clinton commented drily. “What happened next.”

  Oley had by this time completely recovered his control and had evidently made up his mind that he was safeguarding himself by complete frankness.

  “I crawled through the bracken, sir, keeping well under cover and making for the edge of the spinney. Once, behind me, I heard that woman cry out as if she was startled or frightened; but I didn’t pay much attention to that, because one often hears girls squealing up there in the bracken when they go there along with men. I just thought they were having some fun.”

  “You didn’t hear what she said?”

  “No, I didn’t. The bracken was rustling in my ears and by that time I was a good distance away. Then I heard a couple of thuds, but I took them for shots fired by somebody shooting rabbits, likely, and I paid no attention to them but just crawled on.”

  “You didn’t come across any other couples in this exploration of yours?”

  “No, sir. I was keeping a sharp look-out for that, of course. But there didn’t seem to be anybody about. I was afraid the noise might bring old Kerrison down to investigate. He sometimes comes down and pokes about amongst the bracken in the dusk. Once he nearly caught Polly and me; and that gave us a fright, because he’d have been sure to report us, if he’d found us. But luckily he came across another couple and they nearly had a stand-up fight over some things he said, and after that
he went away and I haven’t seen him down in the bracken since then. But he might take it into his head to start his snooping again, so I was a bit anxious on that score.”

  “Well, go on,” the Chief Constable ordered.

  “When I got through the bracken without corning across anyone, I gave Polly a whistle, so that she could follow along the track I’d left and be sure of not running into anyone. Then we went into the spinney. . . .”

  “I’m not interested in your doings in the spinney,” said Sir Clinton, “unless you heard anything more from the couple in the bracken.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Oley, eagerly, “I didn’t pay any attention to what they were doing.”

  “Then go on to the time you came out of the spinney,” Sir Clinton ordered.

  “I forgot to look at my watch,” Oley confessed shame-facedly. “And when Polly looked at hers, later on, it was later than we thought. It was too late for us to get back to her house by bus and be there by half-past ten. And if she was later than that, there would have been a row, and we didn’t want that at any price, of course. We didn’t want her people starting to ask questions about where she’d been. She was in an awful state about it, and I didn’t know what to do until I remembered about the car that the couple had left in the lane. When it came into my mind, I told Polly I’d get her home all right, and she was quite ready to do anything that would keep her out of a row. So we went down into the lane from the spinney, and we found the car standing there, just as I’d hoped.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Just about ten o’clock, sir. I know that, because Polly had looked at her watch, as I told you. So we got into the car and I drove off, back to town. I had to hurry a bit, but I got Polly back before half-past ten all right. I dropped her quite close to her home. She stumbled over something as she got out. When she’d gone away, I looked to see what had caught her foot, and I found a small black bag on the floor of the car. It was heavy, and when I opened it I found a lot of money in it, mostly coppers. I wanted to buy some things, so I took the money and put it into my pockets and left the bag in the car.”