Find the Innocent

by Roy Vickers

  “Will the newspapers print a cooked-up story?” asked Jill.

  “Yes or no, according to how you look at it, Miss Aspland. They won’t draw any conclusions. They’ll use only statements which can’t be disproved. Take this wedding ring story, f’r instance.”

  “Look—” interrupted Veronica. “There isn’t any wedding ring story!”

  Curwen looked at the wedding ring as if he disliked it.

  “The trouble is that one wedding ring is very like another—”

  “Not Mrs. Brengast’s,” cut in Jill, receiving an angry glance from Veronica. “It’s engraved.”

  “That’s good news!” exclaimed Curwen. “Stranack didn’t tell me that. Perhaps you would let me examine that ring, Mrs. Brengast, and I can tick it off.”

  “I’d really rather not!” protested Veronica. “My husband was a romantic-minded man, Inspector, and the inscription is very personal.”

  “Veronica,” warned Jill, “you really must show it. Otherwise you’ll be obstructing the Inspector.”

  “Oh, very well! I don’t care! It says ‘Vevey/Piggy’. And the date of our wedding. Now laugh!”

  She handed the ring to Curwen, who read the inscription and copied it before returning the ring.

  In the meantime Jill was reaching a conclusion.

  “Mr. Curwen, please tell me if I’m wrong. A ring may have been taken from a woman’s hand and thrown into the river. But it cannot have been that ring?”

  “I can’t see how you can be wrong, Miss Aspland,” answered Curwen, guardedly. Memory threw up a mental image of Stranack, naked, about to dive into the river—let that pass, for the moment. “If Stranack ever had that ring in his keeping he had only to hand it to me to prove his tale. That’s common sense.”

  “Then are you not bound to believe Mrs. Brengast’s assertion that she was not at the lockhouse?”

  “Just a minute! Let’s see first how strong a case Stranack has got for the newspapers. The wedding ring story will just be a bit of romantic colouring. He’ll tell them, Mrs. Brengast, that you used that telephone in the small hours to call a car and that you went by Wheatley Junction to Salisbury. How do we kill that?”

  “Wouldn’t it be simplest to ask my sister?”

  “The local police did that for us. Your sister says she was in bed and asleep when you knocked and she didn’t notice the time. So that doesn’t help us. And another thing—I’d almost forgotten! We’ve found the man who gave you a lift from Diddington. He’s staying in the town here.”

  “And he has told you that he did not drive me to Renchester!” flashed Veronica. “I got out of his car a long way before Renchester. If he told you why I got out, you’ll know why I didn’t tell you. A woman who explains that she’s so irresistible that men misbehave themselves gets a nasty laugh, Inspector.”

  “Not from a policeman in a murder case, Mrs. Brengast.”

  “And, besides, it made no difference,” continued Veronica, with the same impatience. “Within a few minutes I got another lift. I don’t suppose I lost as much as ten minutes.”

  “But you did not take the number of the second car and you do not know the name of the owner. So as far as the newspapers are concerned you can’t disprove Stranack’s version.” Curwen was not overawed by anybody’s impatience.

  Jill held it against Veronica that she had not mentioned the change of cars—if there had been a change of cars—it revived the doubt which had wilted when the wedding ring story was discounted.

  “Can’t we get the B.B.C. to call that man?” asked Jill. “Or do the police have to do that?”

  “I think we can kill Stranack’s story without that,” answered Curwen, “if Mrs. Brengast will co-operate.”

  “Of course I will co-operate in everything!” The impatience dissolved into glowing comradeship. “What must I do, Inspector?”

  “Just sit where you are,” Curwen went to the intercom. and engaged the manager’s office. “Benjoy? … Send him up.”

  Jill perceived that this was a trap of some kind. As if the police would concern themselves with what the newspapers printed about Veronica!

  “This is the set-up,” said Curwen to Jill, as if she were a colleague. “Each of these three men claims that he himself was the one who stayed in the lockhouse. We don’t know which of ’em is telling the truth. One of them won’t admit or deny that a lady was with him—”

  “He sounds the nicest of the lot!” said Veronica.

  “You’ve seen Stranack. The one that’s coming up is Canvey. His tale is much the same as Stranack’s—except that he claims he doesn’t know the lady’s name and address. Whatever he says in here, he’s certain to scotch Stranack’s tale to the newspapers.”

  Oh no, the Inspector didn’t care all that about the newspapers! To Jill it was clear that he believed Veronica was the “Mystery Girl”—that Canvey would fail to identify her and so reveal that he had not been at the lockhouse.

  She was certain of this when Curwen himself answered the knock on the door with a loud “Come in”, which drowned Veronica’s voice. As he did so, he stepped aside so that, when Canvey opened the door, the first person he saw was Veronica.

  “Caroline!” exclaimed Canvey. Catching sight of Curwen. “Hullo, Inspector! Splendid!”

  “My name is not Caroline—”

  “I know it isn’t. What does that matter! Perhaps it’s insulting to thank you for coming forward, but I do thank you. I’m terribly sorry it was necessary.”

  “You see!” said Veronica to Curwen. “It’s the same thing over again. It’s failed.”

  Curwen strode forward.

  “What is this lady’s name?”

  “I don’t know. Why this obsession with names? We used names of our own. Caroline, you don’t know my name, do you?—unless the Inspector has told you.”

  “I did not know your name until a minute ago,” said Veronica. “For one reason, because I have never seen you before.”

  Jill was watching Canvey. He was comically bewildered, like an actor in a farce. Yet he did not look ridiculous. He had created in her a bias in his favour so that, irrationally, she was angry with him for floundering.

  He edged nearer Curwen, as if seeking an ally.

  “Which side are we on, Inspector?”

  Curwen ignored him and spoke to Veronica.

  “Are you quite certain you have never seen Mr. Canvey before, Mrs. Brengast?”

  “Never!” said Veronica.

  “Mrs. Brengast!” cried Canvey. “Good Lord! Does that mean that you’re WillyBee’s wife?”

  No one felt the need to answer.

  “Mr. Canvey, do you still assert that this lady was with you at the lockhouse last night?”

  “That’s a formal question, I suppose, because you can see darned well I do. The answer is—yes. Now, here’s a formal question for you, Inspector. Am I under suspicion of murder because I cannot prove that I was at that lockhouse?”

  “I can’t answer questions like that.”

  “You could have said ‘no’ if it weren’t so.” Veronica’s indifference was unruffled when he stood close to her. “I was detained on suspicion this morning. I’ve been released on a legal technicality. The suspicion remains. I broke my promise involuntarily as I came into this room. I took for granted that your honour had compelled you to come forward. I still do.”

  Jill liked that. His attitude now seemed more convincing than Stranack’s.

  “Inspector, this is ridiculous!” said Veronica. “Do I have to keep on saying I’ve never seen him before?”

  “I’ll tell you what happened and you can do the proving. She turned up at about dusk and stayed until a bit after two.”

  “What was she wearing?” asked Jill.

  “Hullo! Are you in on this?” He turned as if he had not noticed her before, looking fixedly at her and added: “But you can’t be!”

  “You were going to tell us what she was wearing.”

  “I was not. I can’t.
I know only that her clothes were of very fine material. She had been walking for some distance. She was exhausted. I revived her with a drink.” He snapped his fingers. “She had gin and orange juice. We don’t drink orange juice. I opened the only bottle—wrapped in cellophane. There’d be finger prints on that bottle, Inspector—not that it actually proves anything.”

  “There are prints on that bottle—but they’re not yours,” said Curwen and added, “Not that it proves anything, as you say.”

  “I can’t account for that!” Canvey frowned and was silent.

  “Anything else?” asked Curwen.

  “Nothing at all that will stand up to this kind of question.” His eyes were on Jill. “Our friendship, let me say, grew very rapidly. We both thought it something unique and worthwhile. We were both mistaken.”

  “How long did you sit talking over the drinks?” asked Curwen.

  “In terms of the clock, I don’t know. In terms of advancing a human relationship—about three weeks, I suppose. Before she telephoned Weston’s Garage, she told me—” He paused and turned to Veronica. “I’ve thought of something you told me about your private circumstances—something that can be proved. Do I have to say it?”

  “It makes no difference to me what you say, Mr. Canvey.”

  “She told me—some time after midnight—that she had a marriage settlement in a large sum—which she would forfeit if her presence at the lockhouse were known to her husband.”

  “Anyone could find that out!” snapped Jill. “It’s registered at Somerset House.”

  “Is it! I say, are you a lawyer?”

  “No.”

  “Friend of the Accused? I prophecy the friendship will not outlast this case. I’m going to put a pretty hefty strain on it because now I’ve thought of something that’s not registered anywhere. Ask your friend where her wedding ring is.”

  “Let me guess,” said Jill. “You took it from her finger and threw it into the river.”

  “Well, I’m damned!” Again the comic bewilderment. “It doesn’t make sense. If she told you that, how on earth can you believe she was not at the lockhouse with me?”

  “Don’t answer, Miss Aspland,” said Curwen quickly. “Mr. Canvey, we are satisfied that Mrs. Brengast is wearing her own wedding ring.”

  “That sounds devilish official. I have to accept it. I’ll merely add that Mrs. Brengast told me that her own ring—the one I threw into the lock—was engraved.”

  “What’s the inscription?”

  “I didn’t stop off to read it.”

  “Quite so!” said Curwen. “We’re satisfied, Mr. Canvey.”

  The silence that followed was embarrassing to Jill. Canvey had stultified himself with that wretched wedding ring story! Something which appeared to be happening but was not happening!

  Starting out of his abstraction Canvey looked at her and smiled.

  “You win, Portia!”

  On the way to the door he stopped by Veronica’s chair.

  “I shall probably be arrested now—and possibly convicted.” When Veronica made no acknowledgement he added: “You are fond of money, aren’t you!”

  Jill flinched as the door was shut behind Canvey. Somehow, an opportunity, undefined, had been missed. That Inspector looked like a well-fed cat.

  “Hadn’t we better have the other man in while we’re about it?” said Veronica, petulantly.

  “Eddis is taking care of the lock,” answered Curwen. “And we haven’t quite finished with Canvey. Have you any idea, Mrs. Brengast, how he got to know that your ring is engraved?”

  “None,” answered Veronica. “But I often take it off and leave it about—it doesn’t fit me very well—and he might have got the information from my maid.”

  “He’s hardly that kind of man!” protested Jill.

  “He couldn’t have used your maid, because he didn’t know your name,” objected Curwen.

  “He said he didn’t!”

  “If you’ve never met before, how would he know who you were?”

  “Strangers often recognise me. My photo appears fairly regularly in the fashion papers.” Veronica failed to avoid a suggestion of superiority. “There’s a full page one in The Prattler this week.”

  “Quite right!” approved Curwen. “As a matter o’ fact we found a copy of The Prattler in the lockhouse. Only it hadn’t got your photo.”

  “It was probably last week’s,” said Veronica.

  “Your photo had been torn out.”

  Jill scented trouble. In vain, she signalled Veronica to keep her mouth shut.

  “I suppose I ought to feel flattered—”

  “Not this time, Mrs. Brengast! Your photo had been destroyed. Not burnt. Not thrown in the waste basket. It had been torn in small pieces. By a gloved hand. And the gloved hand had stuffed the pieces into the folds of the sofa—just as though someone had wanted to get rid of that photo quickly and quietly without someone else seeing it.”

  “Cat-and-mouse, Inspector!” cried Jill. “Can we have it straight, please?”

  “Try this, Miss Aspland. We know that in that lockhouse last night there was one man, one woman and a photo of Mrs. Brengast. We are told that the two called each other fancy names—perhaps because the woman did not want the man to know her real name. Tell me as straight as you like who tore up that photo of Mrs. Brengast.”

  “Mrs. Brengast!” cried Veronica.

  Jill froze. Curwen looked like a man who intends to count his change.

  “It proves conclusively that I was alone in that lockhouse with Stranack!” Veronica had raised her voice. “Also alone with Canvey! And we mustn’t forget Eddis! And I hereby confess that all three threw my wedding ring into the lock! This wedding ring!”

  “Well done, Mrs. Brengast!” Curwen laughed, but it was a stage laugh and a poor one, to Jill’s ear. “Very funny, as you put it! Three men, each of ’em claiming to have been alone with you at that lockhouse, you said!” He stood up. “But, you see—only two of those three are telling lies about where they were and what they were doing last night. The third is telling the truth.”

  At the door, he added:

  “Talk it over with Miss Aspland.”

  When Curwen had gone Veronica sighed elaborately.

  “After all that, I need a drink. Shall I pour you one?”

  “No thanks!”

  “That Inspector is a disappointment … He’s all right while he’s being an inspector. It’s when he tries to be an uncle that he’s intolerable … Obsequious one minute and impertinent the next … Don’t you think so?”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t listening!” Jill had been trying to adjust her own conception of WillyBee’s marriage. Veronica’s beauty may have been the main factor, but it was not the only one. He had esteemed her enough to teach her a lot—had lent her personality a dignity which had vanished at his death. It may have been a synthetic dignity, but it was effective, in that she had to live up to it.

  “Veronica, I wish you hadn’t funked telling me you had slept with that man—”

  “Which man?”

  “‘Which man?’” echoed Jill, scornfully. “For your own sake, try to stop behaving like a naughty schoolgirl. The Inspector knows you were at that lockhouse. So do I. Let’s start from there. By far the best thing would be to call the Inspector back and tell him the truth.”

  While she was speaking Jill perceived she was making no impression.

  “So you’ve turned against me, just because I’ve had bad luck with cars and trains! All those things add up to nothing—or that Inspector would do something instead of being wistful about it.”

  “You think he’s doing nothing?” challenged Jill. “Because he has not arrested you for shielding the men who killed WillyBee?”

  “What an utterly beastly thing to say to me!”

  “I know you didn’t intend to do that—but that is what you are doing. You didn’t give it a thought. Never mind now! There may still be time to stop the whole thing and avoid the scan
dal—”

  “There will be no scandal touching me. I’ve never been inside that lockhouse. I’ve never seen those men before. Those silly tales about this and that—my wedding ring, for instance—”

  “There’s some trick in that wedding ring. The Inspector can’t see what the trick is, nor can I—”

  “And how you wish you could!” Veronica’s eyes flashed. “To run with it to the police and get my marriage settlement cancelled. Another £100,000 for the residuary legatee!”

  Jill’s stunned silence left her exposed.

  “You’ve planned it all out haven’t you, Jill? You’ll be ever so nice about it, and make me an allowance out of my own money while I’m training for some beastly job.”

  “Take hold of yourself, Veronica! You’ve not had time to get drunk. You’re hysterical.”

  “I’ve never been more clear-headed in my life. Nor have you. You’ve always hated me for taking the attention of your beloved uncle—who wasn’t quite such a nice man as you thought him, if you want to know.”

  “I’ve never hated you. I have always thought of you as I believe he did—as a rather nice kitten. Now you’re biting and scratching, but it doesn’t hurt much and I can’t be as angry as I feel I ought to be … But I shall leave this hotel tomorrow—”

  “And relay all this to the police!”

  “I have nothing to say to the police. I shall tackle each of those three men in turn. And alone. With no police to cramp their style.”

  Chapter Seven

  Veronica, like anybody else who has attained total success in the early twenties, possessed a self-esteem which could be opened like an umbrella to protect her in a sudden shower of criticism.

  On the following morning she awoke in a spirit of wide tolerance of her own weaknesses and those of others, particularly Inspector Curwen—a worthy man doing his duty according to his lights. She refused to think harshly of poor Jill. “When I have an enemy,” WillyBee used to say, quite often, “the first blow I strike is to ask myself what I would do in his place.” If she were in Jill’s place she would have a try for that £100,000. Therefore Jill must not be blamed. It was poor WillyBee’s fault, really, for making her residuary legatee.