by John Creasey
‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ asked Sydney Richardson. ‘I’m at your disposal, Superintendent.’
‘Nothing more now,’ Roger said, ‘but I’d like to be sure by the morning that nothing is missing and that no damage was done.’
‘What kind of damage?’
Roger said: ‘I don’t know. I’d just like to be sure that nothing happened here last night that you haven’t discovered.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Richardson said jerkily. ‘We would know, I assure you.’
‘Thinking of the guillotine?’ asked Tenterden.
‘I suppose that put it in my mind,’ agreed Roger.
‘We have breakdowns frequently,’ Richardson said. ‘Some minor, some major. It is some time since the big guillotine was out of order, but it is used a great deal, Superintendent, there must be allowances for wear and tear. That is why we keep a large staff of engineers.’
‘Was the guillotine all right the night before?’
‘Presumably.’
Roger said rather sharply: ‘I think that ought to be checked, Mr Richardson. We know that one and possibly two men broke into the premises last night and murdered the night-watchman, and we want to try to find out if there is any motive connected with this factory, or whether the crimes have a personal motive. Who would be able to tell us about the guillotine?’
‘I see your point,’ conceded Richardson. ‘The chief operator, a man named Malloy, has gone home – I saw him drive past just now. His deputy is in charge. Malloy and Blake would be the most likely men to tell you what caused the trouble with the guillotine. Most unfortunately, everything has been set aside so as to complete the African text-book order, but …’ He changed the subject abruptly. ‘If you would like Malloy’s address—’
‘I know it, thanks,’ said Tenterden.
‘Then I needn’t worry you again tonight, Mr Richardson,’ Roger said. ‘We’ll be working in the wages office and searching the whole works by night, so I don’t think you need worry about a night-watchman until tomorrow.’
‘Very well,’ said Richardson. ‘I arranged for two of our part-time workers to come back, but if you don’t require them—’
‘No reason why they shouldn’t come,’ Roger said.
Then a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman appeared, and said: ‘Sir Lancelot is on the telephone, sir.’
‘My partner is in London,’ Richardson explained. ‘I arranged for him to call me at this time. He is anxious to know if there is any information about the murder.’
‘No more, yet,’ said Roger. ‘Be very guarded in anything you have to say, please.’
‘I will be guarded,’ Richardson promised stiffly, and turned round. As he did so, a door which appeared to communicate with another office opened, quite sharply, and a girl appeared. She seemed taken aback to find Richardson so close, but Roger saw more than momentary surprise in her expression; he saw concern. The first glimpse showed him that she was tall, slim, nicely built, and very fresh in appearance; the English county type. She wore a white linen blouse and a green skirt with a broad black belt, her hair was rather fluffy, and brushed straight back from her forehead. Even at the first glimpse, Roger noticed her beautifully clear blue eyes.
Like Richardson’s.
‘Sorry, Daddy,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you were coming home yet.’
‘I shall be a little late tonight, I’m afraid,’ Richardson said stiffly. ‘Apologise to your mother for me. I will be home in time for dinner.’ He gave the girl a mechanical smile; she was obviously troubled by the message and his manner, but said nothing. She glanced from him to the others, as if expecting an introduction, but Richardson went on: ‘You get along home. No need for you to stay.’
He went into the office beyond this one, almost pushing his daughter in front of him, and closed the door on Roger and Tenterden.
Tenterden was looking thoughtfully at Roger as the door closed.
‘Nice-looking girl,’ Roger remarked. ‘Did I hear her say “Daddy”?’
‘Yes. She’s Rose, Richardson’s only child. One of the best,’ Tenterden added. ‘Best-liked girl in Corby, without exception.’
Roger could have asked: ‘What’s she worried about?’ but didn’t. He wasn’t sure what Tenterden was getting at, what was in his mind. But he knew that Blake had been in anguish, that he hadn’t reported that his wife had been missing all night and that she had died by strangulation.
What else did Tenterden know about Blake and the people here?
Roger pictured Richardson’s daughter again. She had opened the door very quickly, almost impatiently, as if on edge to find out what they had been talking about.
The way she had looked at her father told of real anxiety.
Rose Richardson was certainly anxious about her father, and in a way she had a guilt complex about it, because until the big strike some time ago she had simply taken him for granted. Before then, school in England, a finishing school in Paris, tennis, riding, dancing, spending a lot of time in London, had filled her life, and her father had been a ‘funny old thing, but rather sweet’. Her mother had been, too, in a different way – placid, patient, undemanding, proud of her husband and her daughter.
The change in her father after the strike had shocked Rose into talking about him to her mother.
‘He’s too conscientious, dear,’ Mrs Richardson had said. ‘It’s been his weakness ever since I’ve known him. If anything goes wrong he always blames himself.’
‘But he couldn’t blame himself for a nationwide strike, surely. Practically every printing firm was affected, all over the country.’
‘It was the worst I can remember,’ agreed Mrs Richardson, ‘but your father never believed our men would come out, it was a great shock to him. Rose, you know he’d like you to help out at the office for a few months. Why don’t you? Then you might find out if there’s anything special worrying him.’
‘Can’t you be sure that something is?’
‘No,’ Mrs Richardson had answered. ‘He’s always been nervy and over-zealous, that’s really the word, and the strike was such a blow to him. But he’s got so bad, I’m really worried about him.’
Rose was, too – now much more than ever; and taking a job as his personal assistant had been the obvious way to try to help.
She knew that her father still slept badly, and that what little sleep he did get was due to drugs which Dr Arnold gave him. The nervous movement of his hands and the twitch at his right eye became worse. They seemed a clear indication of deep anxiety which neither she nor her mother yet understood.
Rose had known the factory all her life as ‘the works’, and knew the office and some of the departments well, knew and was known by many of the workers, but it wasn’t until she began to work on the welfare and personnel side that she understood the complexity of the business, of the plant itself, or the intricacy of the work. For a while she had wondered if it were not simply overwork which was worrying her father, but now she had no doubt at all that something went much deeper.
The Richardsons lived in a converted farmhouse about three miles east of Corby, and nearer the sea. It was on rising ground, with a view of much of the surrounding countryside, and it was possible to see the tops of the chimneys in the factory grounds, as well as the top of Soley’s silo. She did not know anything about the finding of the body in the silo, although on her way home she saw the policemen working outside it, and wondered why they were so interested in that particular spot. She swung off the narrow road towards the farmhouse, left her car – an old red MG – and went briskly towards the front door, which stood ajar. Her mother came hurrying; there was no need to wonder what was in her mind. ‘How is he taking it, dear?’
‘He doesn’t seem too upset about the actual murder,’ Rose answered, ‘but he can’t think of anything else, and the police have been positively badgering him. It was bad enough when Superintendent Tenterden was here alone, but there’s a man from Scotland Ya
rd, and—well, I can’t help it, Mummy, I just get a feeling that he’s terrifying Daddy.’
‘But Rose, what do you mean?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Rose said uneasily. ‘It’s something in the way Daddy talks to him, in the way he looks at him. I can’t really make out what he feels about Jensen, either. He didn’t know the man very well, did he?’
‘He gave him the night-watchman’s job because of his injury,’ her mother answered. She was a slighter, shorter woman than her daughter, and after nearly thirty years, still a little surprised that she had married one of the Richardsons. The daughter of a local tradesman, she had been Rose’s grandfather’s secretary, quiet, pretty, and efficient. At the time of the marriage, Sydney had risked his father’s anger, and defied threats to throw him out of the firm. Yet in his last years the old man had depended on Sydney’s wife.
‘I’ll try to persuade him to talk tonight, Rose,’ she said, ‘but he may just shut up if you’re in.’
‘I’ll spend the evening with Lucy,’ Rose Richardson said. ‘But I don’t think he’ll tell you anything, Mummy. I think he’s buried it in himself.’
Chapter Seven
A Little Knowledge
As Roger and Tenterden walked away from the wages office towards the gates the girl they had seen a few minutes before walked past them; and by the time they had reached the spot where the men were working on the broken bicycle-lamp glass she passed them at the wheel of a scarlet MG. The engine snorted, and it was almost as if she were saying how much she disliked the way the police had talked to her father. Tenterden was frowning when he said: ‘That girl will get into trouble if she drives too fast – things are a bit feudal round here, Handsome.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ Roger said. ‘But what made you say it this time?’
‘She’s got one bad habit – of driving at fifty on the roads leading out of Corby, and sometimes along Factory Road at weekends. Safe enough, I daresay, but if anyone else were to do it our chaps would charge ’em. She gets away with it.’
‘Does Richardson get away with anything?’
‘I wouldn’t like to be sure,’ answered Tenterden. ‘What worries me is that if the local coppers will let Rose get away with speeding, what will they let others get away with?’
What would Tenterden himself wink at, for instance.
‘Who are the feudal lords and masters?’ asked Roger.
‘Only two of them really – Sydney Richardson and Sir Lancelot Key – he’s the senior partner, by about five years in age and half a million pounds in stock. Richardson’s a nephew on the Richardson side, the Keys are the real big shots, although Richardson is in control down here. Funny set-up, really. Sir Lancelot has a son in London, at the London office most of the time. Young Peter Key isn’t a go-getter like Rose Richardson, he’s a stickler for rule and regulation – you never catch him out doing thirty-five where he ought to be doing thirty. Old Key’s a widower and Mrs Richardson isn’t a feudal type, so really and truly there’s Sir Lancelot Key, Richardson, and Rose who might throw their weight about. They’d do it as a kind of natural right, you know. Be shocked if they realised they were doing it.’
‘No one else but these three?’
‘There’s Paul, the family black sheep,’ Tenterden answered. ‘Half-brother to Peter – Sir Lancelot Key’s son by his first marriage. He used to be one of the directors, but he’s out of the business, and seldom comes near here now. If he did he’d throw his weight about all right. At one time it looked as if he and Rose were going to make a match of it, but Richardson put a stop to it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno,’ said Tenterden, ‘but I think it was because of this Paul Key’s reputation for wine, women, and horse-racing. Anyhow, he’s been out of the company for a long time. Richardson and the other Keys bought him out.’
‘Bought him out, did they?’ remarked Roger, and then changed the subject by asking: ‘Any idea why Blake didn’t report his wife was missing?’
‘I can’t believe that Charlie—’ Tenterden began, then broke off, without labouring the point that he was too deeply involved with the natives to be wholly detached about any of them. He led the way more briskly towards the spot which had been cordoned off, without answering Roger’s question. Here, several uniformed policemen were keeping a crowd of fifty people away from the cordon, and Brown and several detectives were searching the ground. The broken glass had been put on a sheet of paper, and marked ‘Believed to be bicycle-lamp glass, found at point marked 9 on diagram’, and was dated and timed. A youngish man who looked too small to be a policeman or a member of the local Criminal Investigation Department was standing at a small blackboard with a sheet of white paper attached to it, and he had prepared the diagram, with numbered spots showing where the glass, the pump, the tracks, the heel marks, and other things had been found; there were several items new to Roger. A handkerchief had been found in the long grass, a man’s heel-print close to the bicycle, the footprints of three men near the spot where a car had been parked the previous night. There were notes, too: the tyres were Dunlop, size 5.50 x 15, and might have been fitted on any small car. Little used was noted in parenthesis against the tyre size. Brown was in his element.
‘No need for me to stay here,’ said Roger, and looked farther along towards the silo, where a fire escape was standing, skeletonlike against the sky, with two men on it. A larger crowd of people had gathered there, and Tenterden said: ‘I told them to cover the girl up so that no one would know who she was, but the firemen will know, and they’ll talk. If you want to see Blake before he knows his wife’s body’s been found, you’d better be quick.’
‘Take me to him, will you?’ asked Roger.
Tenterden nodded, and still did not answer the question: why had Blake failed to report that his wife had been missing all night? Instead, he said: ‘Blake lives in a cottage he took over forty years ago, nothing could ever persuade him to move. He could afford a much better place, of course, but he hates changes.’
Roger said: ‘Oh.’
They drove straight towards Corby, through the town, where everyone paused to stare, to point, and to comment, and to another terrace of small, red-bricked Victorian cottages. At the back, Roger saw, were tiny gardens and a service road. A few people were in the street, Park Terrace, and three small cars and two motor scooters were parked outside cottages. Tenterden pulled up outside Number 17. Roger watched the curtains at the small front window, but nothing seemed to move. Neighbours watched as they reached the front door, and Tenterden rattled the letter-box; there was neither bell nor knocker. Footsteps sounded immediately, and Charlie Blake opened the door.
Tenterden said clearly: ‘Charlie, we want a word with you about that guillotine,’ so that the nearby people could hear, and after a pause, Blake said: ‘Please come in.’ There was scarcely room in the small passage for all three men, and Blake opened the door of the front room. The ceiling was so low that Roger ducked. Blake looked exactly as he had at the factory, even against a background of flowered wallpaper, framed photographs, old-fashioned saddle-back armchairs, thick lace curtains, and a wide mantelpiece with several small silver cups on it – sporting trophies of some kind.
‘What is it you would like to know?’ Blake asked.
‘Do you service the guillotine regularly?’ asked Roger.
‘Once every week, without fail.’
‘When did you last service it?’
‘On Tuesday,’ answered Blake.
‘Was it in perfect condition?’
‘Yes, I would say that.’
‘What was the cause of the breakdown today?’
‘One of the holding bolts worked loose, so the blade wasn’t cutting clean,’ answered Blake. ‘With a machine like that you have to have it exactly right, it’s a precision instrument. A thousandth of an inch out can give it the wrong angle for cutting, and once that starts the edges of the book get rough, so the angle error gets greater.’ Blake spoke mechanically, as if
his mind wasn’t really on what he was saying.
‘Has that bolt ever worked loose before?’ asked Roger.
‘I’ve known it happen.’
‘Did you check it yourself?’
‘Yes, Mr West, I did,’ answered Blake, and he drew himself up. ‘That’s a very dangerous machine, if it goes wrong. If the guillotine were to fall a second too soon, or if one of the bolts gave way, it could cut a man’s fingers off, even cut his hand off. I don’t take any chances with the guillotine, and I do everything to it myself. But the bolt can work loose. There would be a little too much oil, or some dust, which prevents a proper tightening, that’s why Malloy – the guillotine operator – checks it every morning and reports to me if he thinks there’s anything wrong. And it has been working very heavily of late. There is a big order going through for urgent delivery, and the machine trims twice as many as the small one.’
‘What time was it reported this morning?’ asked Roger.
‘Just after eight o’clock,’ said Blake. He closed his eyes, and hesitated, and then went on: ‘I was an hour late at the works this morning, I—I had a restless night. So I didn’t see the report until nine o’clock, otherwise I would have put it right sooner. It’s my fault that the guillotine was held up for so long.’
‘Not often you’re late, is it?’ asked Tenterden.
‘No.’
‘Why did you have a bad night, Mr Blake?’ asked Roger. Blake didn’t answer.
‘Any special reason, Charlie?’ Tenterden could not keep in the background for long.
Blake closed his eyes again, and clenched his hands, and there was no doubt that he was a man suffering from some great strain. He moistened his lips, began to speak, stopped, and then said huskily: ‘Yes, there was. My wife didn’t come home. She wasn’t here when I got back from the Rose and Crown last night, and—she stayed away all night.’ He broke off, and seemed to be fighting against a breakdown; when he spoke again his voice was almost inaudible. ‘I’ve been afraid that she would leave me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been afraid that she would leave me for a younger man.’