This attention to detail, thought Foster, was the secret of Jackson’s success in being able to buy his own farm. The farm-buildings were as well-cared for as the fields. They reminded him of his father’s farm in Arbroath.
Five minutes later Jackson emerged from the byre, putting on his coat. “Now, sir,” he said, “I’m at your service.”
“I must explain that I’m a superintendent from Scotland Yard.”
Jackson’s face showed surprise, but no trace of alarm or confusion.
“I have a question or two to ask you about that money you paid over to Mr. MacDougal in Hampstead the other day.”
“Come, you’re not going to tell me that the sum wasn’t right? Mr. MacDougal and I counted it over together.”
“No, I’ve called to ask you whether there were any five-pound or ten-pound notes among the rest.”
“Why come to me? Mr. MacDougal could have told you that.”
“Didn’t you see in the papers that there’s been a burglary there the same night?”
Jackson gave a short laugh. “I’ve too much to do on my farm to have time to study the papers. I leave that to my missus. A burglary, was there?”
“Yes, and all that money was stolen.”
Here Jackson’s face did betray consternation. “Well, how does that affect me? I’ve got Mr. MacDougal’s receipt for the money. He can’t go back on the sale, can he?”
“I’ve come to you for information that may us to trace the thief. I’ve nothing to do with the sale and who stands to lose the money.”
“I’d help you if I could, but the whole of the money was in Treasury notes. There wasn’t a Bank of England note among them.”
“Ah, that’s a pity. Treasury notes are not like Bank of England notes which can be traced.”
“Why can’t you trace Treasury notes?”
“Because the banks don’t keep a record of their numbers.”
“That may be, but I don’t trust my money to banks. More often than not when I put a note away I put my name on it, see? Just ‘E. Jackson,’ so’s I’ll know it again.” A look of unspeakable cunning showed in his eyes.
Foster made a mental note of this information.
“Well, you’ll be able to help me in one direction. We don’t want people to start hinting that you went back to the house the same evening—”
Jackson’s face reddened with anger. “Who’s saying that? Tell me, and I’ll cram the words down his throat.”
“You’ve nothing to hide, Mr. Jackson, and the best way to stifle any talk of that kind is to agree to what I ask. You might let me see the boots you were wearing when you went to Mr. MacDougal’s house to pay that money for the farm.”
“My boots?” exclaimed Jackson in an astonishment that Foster felt sure was not feigned. “Why, I was wearing the boots I’ve got on me now. You see, five or six of us went up together to have a look at the beasts in Smithfield, and as there was likely to be mud about we went dressed as I am now—in our workaday clothes, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re sure that you were wearing these boots? Let me have a look at them.”
“That’s all very well, mister, but what’s all this leading up to? Anyone would think that I was under suspicion of something.”
“Nonsense. If you’re under suspicion it isn’t from me. I want to be in a position to clear you if any fool should start putting things about. Hold up your foot and let me look at the sole.”
Still grumbling, Jackson put out one foot after the other and Foster examined the soles. The plate on the heel of the left foot had a piece missing as in Richardson’s plaster cast, but Foster continued in his ordinary tone, “You’ve got another pair, I suppose.”
“Yes, upstairs. But what’s the game?”
“Only that I want you to lend me this pair for a day or so. I may want them to stop any gossip.”
“Dang it: that’s the limit. I’m not going to give any man my boots. I wonder at your asking such a thing.”
“Come, Mr. Jackson, you must be reasonable. You don’t want it to be said that you obstructed the police in the execution of their duty. That would set people talking. You shall have the boots back.”
The obstinacy began to die out of Jackson’s face. “All right, then, but I’ll have to go indoors to change them.”
He turned towards the house, but Foster detained him with another question. “Were you carrying a stick when you went to London?”
Jackson’s eyes grew rounder with astonishment. “You’ll be asking me next whether I was wearing kid gloves. Certainly I took a stick with me, and if you want to see it, come along to the house and I’ll show it to you. The missus will be glad to give you a cup of tea while I’m changing my boots.”
But Foster drew the line at accepting hospitality from a possible suspect. “No, thanking you all the same, Mr. Jackson, I won’t come in. I can’t spare the time. Just run in and change your boots, and bring the stick you took up to town that day with you.”
Foster spent the next five minutes in watching the pigs squealing over their supper, and then Jackson reappeared with a neat brown-paper parcel containing his boots, and a straight walking-stick such as cattle-drovers use. It had no ferrule.
“Thank you, Mr. Jackson. I’ll borrow this stick too, if you don’t mind. You shall have it back tomorrow. I’ve only one or two more questions. You spent the night in London, I suppose?”
For the first time during the interview Jackson began to show symptoms of disquiet. “Yes, we all stayed in London until the morning.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“Oh, at a little hotel. It was a poor little place, and it was so full that I had to share a room with another chap.”
“Who was that?”
“Just a neighbour of mine—Joe Chapman is his name.”
“Where does he live?”
“Just a little way down the road. You must have passed the farm coming here. But what’s Joe Chapman got to do with this?”
“Nothing that I know of. I asked his address simply to use in case there was further gossip. Well, Mr. Jackson, I must not waste your time any longer. You shall have your boots and stick back in a day or two. I’m much obliged to you. Good afternoon.”
In leaving the farm, Foster abandoned short cuts over fields and went into the high road, where in the first hundred yards he had the good fortune to encounter a postman on his afternoon round.
“Mr. Joseph Chapman, sir?” he said. “You’ll find the farm about a hundred yards on the way you’re going—on the right. You can’t miss it.”
The farm was of old red brick: the farm-house looked very neat and tidy with its steps new-whitened and curtains in the windows. Foster rang the bell, and straightway found himself face to face with an old acquaintance—the farmer’s wife whose parcels he had carried for her.
“Glad to see you, sir. You’ve just come in time for a cup of tea. Did you find Mr. Jackson all right?”
“Thanks to you, madam, I did. You are Mrs. Chapman, are you not? I called to have a word or two with your husband.”
“You’ll excuse me asking, sir, but are you the new insurance agent?”
“No, madam,” laughed Foster; “I’ve not come to worry you with business. I want to ask Mr. Chapman a question or two about his recent visit to London.”
The lady’s curiosity took fire; it would have been volcanic if she had known that she was speaking to an officer from Scotland Yard. Foster was quick to see her curiosity and to ascribe it to its actual cause—the fact that her husband had been less communicative about his adventures in London than she considered she had a right to expect.
“Won’t you come in and sit down, sir? My husband is somewhere about. I’ll send one of my girls to fetch him in. Bella!” she cried.
A flapper of fifteen, as solidly built as her mother, came running from the dairy.
“Run and tell your Dad that there’s a gentleman here waiting to see him. Tell him he’s to come just as he
is. Kindly step this way, sir.”
She led Foster into a sitting-room, evidently reserved for guests of distinction, such as the parson or the squire. It was painfully tidy and unlived in, and the colours of the upholstery swore with the paper and with each other. The problem was how to secure five minutes alone with the husband without shattering the domestic peace of the household by appearing to have secrets with him which the wife was not to share. He had little time for making up his mind how to act, for hard upon the heels of the flapper daughter with the teapot followed her father—a jolly, round and ruddy farmer in his shirt-sleeves. When the introductions were made, Foster took his decision in a flash. There must be no secrets.
“Bella tells me that you were the gentleman who helped the Missus home with her parcels this afternoon, sir. I thought it was my neighbour Jackson you were going to see.”
“I’ve seen him, thank you, Mr. Chapman, and now—only one lump, please—and now I’ve come on to see you. Wonderful scones these, Mrs. Chapman. I haven’t tasted better since I left Scotland. I’ll bet that you baked them yourself.”
The lady blushed with pleasure. “Sit down, Dad, and drink your tea like a Christian.”
“Oughtn’t I to have a wash first?”
“Not a bit of it. If this gentleman don’t mind, I’m sure I don’t. He’s never told me his name.”
“Foster—Charles Foster, madam. But really, I oughtn’t to be spoiling your tea-party by talking business.”
“Take your tea into the kitchen, Bella. We’re going to talk business—your Dad and me and this gentleman.”
The girl snatched a couple of buttered scones from the dish and went off with a rebellious expression, leaving Foster to open his business.
“I must begin by telling you that I’m a detective-superintendent from Scotland Yard.” He felt, rather than saw, the effect produced by this announcement. “I want you, Mr. Chapman, to help me over a rather difficult case, if you will. I understand that on the night you spent in London last week the hotel was so crowded that you had to share a room with Mr. Jackson.”
“Oh, he told you that, did he? I should have thought that he’d like to forget about it.”
“Why? Did you have a disturbed night?”
Chapman burst into a laugh. “A disturbed night is a mild thing to call it. I suppose, Mr. Foster, that anything I tell you will be treated confidential. You see, my neighbour Jackson is Vicar’s churchwarden, and it would cause a world of trouble if it got out. Jackson had bought his own farm that afternoon and nothing would satisfy him but to celebrate the occasion. He’s not a drinking man, and I suppose he doesn’t carry liquor well for that reason. Anyway, we had an awful job with him getting him safe to the hotel, and there was a room short. As none of the others would have him in with them, I helped him upstairs to my room and gave him the bed while I dossed down in the chair for a sleep. Lord! Mr. Foster, you’ve never heard Jackson sing, have you? No, of course you haven’t. His ‘Amen’ in church after each prayer is nothing to his singing, nor the hyena-house at feeding-time at the Zoo neither. I tried my hardest to get him to drop singing hymns, but he wouldn’t, and then all of a sudden he stopped, rolled off the bed and stuck his hat on. By that time he had sobered down a bit. He kept feeling in his pockets and muttering, ‘I’ve left my money somewheres.’ I told him to lie down and sleep, but he wouldn’t listen to me—just sticks his hat on his head wrong side before, and clatters down the stairs into the street. It wasn’t safe to let him go out like that, and I had to go after him, if only to save him from getting run over.”
“Did you catch up with him?” asked Foster.
“No, because he started running. I never knew before how a drunken man could run, but I managed to keep him in sight as the streets were pretty empty; and a fine dance he led me! Street after street we went through until we came to a street of big houses standing back in gardens. He went through the gate of one of them.”
“You didn’t notice the name of the street?”
“No, I didn’t. It was too dark to read names. I stayed by the gate to see what he’d do, and saw him floundering about among the flowers. He picked himself up though, and the next thing I saw was him standing on the doorstep, pulling at the bell. I could hear it ringing from where I was standing, but nobody came. So then I went in and got him by the arm and asked him what he thought he was doing, ringing folks up after midnight. He began to cry then, and said that he’d spent a lifetime saving up that money, and that he was sure he’d left it in the house and the people wouldn’t open the door.”
“Was he carrying a walking-stick when he went out?”
“Yes, he’d taken my stick instead of his own when he went out, and it was all I could do to get it back from him. Luckily for us, an empty taxi overtook us, and I shouted to the driver. That’s how I got him back to the hotel.”
“He’d sobered down?”
“Yes, he was crying like a child in the taxi until he fell asleep. It cost me four and nine, did that journey, but what could I do? He’s paid me back since, but to this day he says he doesn’t remember a thing about it.”
“You got your stick back though. Can I see it?”
“Certainly you can. Fetch it from the lobby, Mother, will you?”
Mrs. Chapman went out for the stick—a stick with a crook handle. Foster took it with a smile and examined the ferrule, which was much worn down on the side opposite to the crook.
“You have no luck with this stick, Mr. Chapman. I’m going to ask you for the loan of it for a day or two.”
Mrs. Chapman was bursting to ask the reason for this strange request, but Foster forestalled the question.
“It’s to clear Mr. Jackson of any suspicion, madam. There was a burglary in that house that night, and we’ve come across marks in the flowerbeds that might have been made by the burglar, but which this stick may explain away. You shall have the stick back without fail.”
“Did the burglar get away with Mr. Jackson’s money?” asked the lady, round-eyed with horror.
“I’m afraid that he did.”
Here was material for exciting gossip for a fortnight if she dared to use it, but her husband foresaw the danger. “Not a word of this to any of the neighbours, Mother, or you’ll end by setting poor Jackson against us. Not a word, eh?”
Mrs. Chapman drew herself up. “Have you ever known me to gossip, Dad? What do you take me for?”
Foster took leave of his host and hostess with mutual expressions of goodwill. The last he heard of them was a jocose injunction from the farmer to be sure and not leave his stick in the train.
Foster was doing well in his favourite process of elimination. All the marks in the front garden were now innocently accounted for, and he smiled as he thought of his next interview with Richardson on the subject of the little holes left in the soft earth of the rose-beds, which he had noticed while his subordinate was pouring plaster of Paris into the footprints. They did not teach everything in the detective class of which Richardson had been such an assiduous member; for example, they had not taught him that a straight walking-stick wears evenly all round the ferrule, whereas a stick with a crook handle wears down on the side opposite the crook.
This had been puzzling him ever since he had examined the ferrule of Jackson’s stick, for the holes he had examined had all been made by a ferrule worn down on the side towards the toes of the footprints. Farmer Chapman had furnished him with the explanation: Jackson had borrowed his stick. Foster’s satisfaction was natural. There had been no detective class in his young days: every detective had had to accumulate the science of clues by hard experience, and this was one of his own discovery, or so he believed.
Chapter Eight
RICHARDSON was at his table in the detective-sergeants’ room, writing his report of his visit to Portsmouth when Willis, Charles Morden’s messenger, came in with an air of business about him. He looked at the bowed heads at the tables and made a bee-line for Richardson’s.
“
Here’s a little job for you, Richardson. Mr. Foster’s out, and there’s a gent in with Mr. Morden who wants a statement taken from him.”
Richardson pushed back his papers with an air of resignation. “Can’t the man write down what he has to say? One of these time-wasters, I suppose.”
“Mr. Morden is sending him to you because he’s brought some information about the Hampstead murder—at least that’s what I gathered from what he was saying to the gent when I answered his bell. Take care that your head doesn’t get too big for your hat. He said, ‘I’ll get you to tell all this to one of the officers engaged on the case. He’s a junior, but he’s about the smartest junior I’ve got.’ Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and never call him a time-waster again. He’s a barrister.”
“Right, bring him in, but I wish to God Mr. Foster was here to deal with him.”
Willis retired and returned almost immediately with Dick Meredith, who appeared disconcerted when he found himself in a room with five detectives, all busily writing.
“This is Sergeant Richardson, sir,” said Willis, bringing him up to the table.
“Good morning, sergeant. Look here, can’t we have a room somewhere, just you and I?”
“Is there anyone in the waiting-room, Willis?” asked Richardson.
“No, you could have that to yourselves.”
“You see, sir, we are growing out of this building already,” apologized Richardson as he gathered up writing materials. “If you don’t mind a small room we shall be alone there.”
He led the visitor along the passage to a tiny room on the left of the main entrance. They sat down on opposite sides of a little table.
Dick Meredith opened his business. “I must begin by telling you that I have been instructed to represent Lieutenant Eccles in the police-court proceedings at Bridgwater—for being in possession of a stolen car and assaulting the police.”
“Yes, sir?” Richardson’s heart had missed a beat, but his manner remained that of the polite listener. “I did not hear your name, sir?”
“Richard Meredith: you’ll find it in the Law List. Mr. Morden told me that you were engaged on a case of burglary and murder in Hampstead, and I have brought you something which is not a clue, of course, but may be of interest to you nevertheless.” Dick took a folded newspaper from his pocket and opened it out. “Mr. Eccles tells me that the man who induced him to enter that stolen car, and posed as a detective, was carrying this in his pocket and left it on the driving-seat when he absconded. You will see that one of the paragraphs is marked in blue pencil—presumably by a member of the gang.”
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