by Bruce, Leo
As though prompted to action by these thoughts Carolus rose. Out of consideration for Gil he refrained from speaking to anyone and with a nod to the landlord left the pub. Four motor-cycles were drawn up outside like chorus boys waiting for their turn.
When he reached the car park where he had put his car out of sight of those entering, he was surprised to see Gil waiting for him. He had evidently come out by the back door of the pub, perhaps leaving his friends with an excuse or perhaps not bothering to explain himself.
‘This your barrow?’ asked Gil.
Carolus said yes.
The boy looked embarrassed and shame-faced. He did not seem able to speak for some minutes then he came out with the sudden remark, ‘I didn’t kill Dutch,’ and was again silent.
‘Do you know who did?’ Carolus asked calmly.
‘I may have got an idea.’
‘Well?’
‘Nothing to go on. I can’t really say anything at all. Only if I was you I shouldn’t look among the youngsters like us.’
‘Someone older, you think?’
‘I’m not going to say anything because I don’t know. But if I was you that’s where I should look.’
‘Not among your lot?’ suggested Carolus.
‘I’m not saying some of us wouldn’t have liked to. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. It took more than thinking he was a ——ing greaser to bring anyone to that. Someone must have had more reason than what any of us had. See what I mean?’
‘Vaguely, yes. I shall get at the truth anyway. It may take a bit of time…’
‘What about the Law? Don’t you think they’ll beat you to it?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. I’m learning all the time.’
‘Learn anything this evening?’ asked Gil.
‘Quite a lot. You don’t cover up very well, Gil.’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, I’ve got nothing to cover up.’
‘No?’
‘Another thing. You have a look at that Swindleton. If you don’t get something out of him himself you’ll learn a lot from his place, the Spook Club.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carolus.
‘There’s a girl there called…’
From across the yard someone was shouting—‘Gil! Come on Gil, we’re pushing off.’
‘Shall have to run,’ Gil said. ‘See you again some time.’
‘What was the girl called?’
‘June!’ called Gil from a few yards away. ‘June Mockett.’
He dived under the railing of the car park and could be heard swearing amicably at his friends near the back door.
Chapter Seven
Carolus was not superstitious and was not greatly troubled by what Mrs Stick called ‘the creeps’ ‘the shivers’ or ‘a turn’. But somehow that evening when he went to drive back to Newminster by the road beside which he had found, guided by Stick, the body of the boy known as Dutch, he was filled with uncomfortable presentiments. It was a cold windy night, for one thing, one of those autumnal nights on which the trees seemed to be moved by angry unrest and their noise by the side of the road sounded like animals trying to break out rather than the placid vegetation, which all through the summer had given shade. Twice on his way he stopped the car to listen to this, not in any ordinary sense frightened but thinking that on such a night the dark landscape seemed to be alive about him.
The case he was investigating was not one which carried threats or any articulate kind of horror, but there was a morbidness and a cruelty about it which perturbed him. No one cared anything for the young boy who had been killed, even Leng, Carolus thought, showed only a professional interest in Dutch Carver as a singer and seemed to have no time to spare for him as a human being. Herbert Carver, nagged if not dominated by the Farnham woman, made it clear that he wanted to be troubled as little as possible by what should have been to him a tragic event, while the silly vain mother of the boy, in a modern phrase, couldn’t have cared less. Even the investigating policeman confessed that he had not long been in the CID and that he was being given his first opportunity to find out the truth about a murder.
Altogether, Carolus decided, it looked like being one of those cases which barely attained newspaper space and would soon be swept under the forensic carpet. He was quite alone in being determined not to let that happen.
After he had passed through Boxley and was approaching the very stretch of road by the side of which Stick had indicated the body of Dutch, he half decided to pull up again and have another look at the place. What possible object this could serve he did not know. All traces of the incident had long since disappeared and skilled police examiners had been over the ground which had since been exposed to the weather. Yet there was a sort of fascination in the idea, perhaps like that mysterious fascination to murderers which is supposed to attract them to the scene of their crime.
He was about to dismiss this as absurd and to accelerate when he became aware of something real but inexplicable. On the grass verge, across which by his own account Stick had been rudely pushed by a car, Carolus saw an object—or was it a creature? At all events the shape of a man lying full length. Carolus pulled up short so that his headlights shone towards whatever it was that attracted his attention. Was it a man or no more than an artfully arranged bundle of rags, a sort of prone scarecrow? At all events nearby lying on its side was a motor-cycle.
Carolus felt sure, sitting there staring at these, that the two objects were not the result of an accident. The man had not been thrown from the saddle of his motor-bike, the motor-bike was not lying there after a crash. They were altogether too deliberately placed. It would be too much of a coincidence if of all the roads in England this particular one, and this particular length of it had been the scene of a crash within ten days of the finding of Dutch Carver’s dead body.
Yet what in heaven’s name was the idea? The trees about him were torn by the wind and Carolus felt an almost irresistible urge to get out of the car and go to examine what he could see. His hand was on the door handle when it suddenly occurred to him, with a force much stronger than his own curiosity, that this—getting out of the car and going to whatever was lying there—was exactly what he was intended to do, that the whole thing was an elaborate trap, baited by the sight which had aroused his interest as it was meant to do. Who would not go to the assistance of a fallen motor-cyclist beside the road? He would need to be a Levite with an extraordinarily thick skin to pass by on the other side.
Still he hesitated then backed his car and drove it forward so that the lights fell exactly on the prone figure. Then suddenly, after watching a moment, he drove away, accelerating with all the force of his engine. He did not look back but covered some three miles at speed, till he was approaching a roundabout he knew.
Here, still maintaining a fair speed, he swerved round the circle and started following the road by which he had just come. He was not surprised to find that at the point where a man had lain beside a motorbike there was nothing at all to be seen. Rider and motor-bike had completely disappeared.
Carolus did not attempt pursuit. It would be useless and he knew that between here and Boxley there were several by-roads and forks. Besides, an idea was growing in his mind that he knew the identity of the rider and with that knowledge he would be in a fair way to discover who had killed Dutch Carver. He decided to drive on to Newminster.
At home Mrs Stick was waiting up for him.
‘Stick remembers where he saw that young man before,’ she announced with no preliminaries.
Carolus obligingly asked where.
‘He came into the Star one night some weeks ago. Stick remembers because the Star isn’t the house he usually goes to because he never liked the People that had it, only they left some months ago and now some New People have got it and Stick thinks they’re all right only they’re very strict about who they serve. Anyhow this young fellow who was lying dead in the ditch the other night came in with some girl he’d picked up…’
Carolus
interrupted, finding Mrs Stick too uncharitable in her judgments and phrases.
‘How do you know he’d picked her up?’ he demanded.
‘You could Tell,’ said Mrs Stick. ‘I mean, it was written all over her, Stick says. So the new landlord waited to hear what the young fellow would ask for and then said—“I’m sorry, son. We don’t serve them here as young as you are.” Stick says this fellow looked as though he was going to make trouble only the girl got hold of his arm and started whispering to him and the two of them walked out. I expect they went to the Bell; they’d serve anyone there. But these New People at the Star are very strict.’
‘Did Stick recognize the girl?’
‘He says he’s seen her before. He feels quite sure of that. Only it won’t come to him now. He’ll tell you if it does. Then that fellow’s been round again.’
‘Which fellow?’
Mrs Stick was never willing to use any of the accepted terms for the police; to say ‘a police officer’ would have choked her, as indeed it would a great many people, while ‘a copper’ ‘a rozzer’ ‘a flattie’ ‘a constable’ ‘a busy’ ‘a bluebottle’ or ‘a dick’ would have seemed undignified, not towards the police but in her own manner of speaking.
‘That fellow that came to see you about the murder,’ she said at last.
‘Oh, Detective Sergeant Grimsby,’ said Carolus.
‘That’s him, whatever name he calls himself. He wanted to know where you were but of course I wouldn’t tell him. I mean it’s no business of his where you are, is it?’
Carolus smiled.
‘You might have said I was over at Hartington,’ he said. ‘Though I expect he guessed, anyway.’
‘He said he’d be back this evening. Though he said when I asked him that there was nothing in particular he wanted to see you about.’
Ten minutes later Grimsby arrived.
‘I don’t think your housekeeper likes me much,’ he said when the two men were alone.
‘I must apologize for Mrs Stick. She has been sorely tried by my interests. Policemen and criminals are about equally distasteful to her.’
‘So they are to a good many people I’m afraid. How have you been getting on, Carolus?’
‘Oh not bad. Someone meant to have a go at me tonight.’
‘Where?’ asked Grimsby sharply.
‘At the point where Stick found the body. Quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Except that you and I have been long enough at this game to know that there are no coincidences.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was driving back from Hartington when I had a quite unaccountable urge to have another look at the place where Dutch Carver’s body was found. But I didn’t need that urge—I saw a man lying beside an overturned motor-bike on the verge in front of the very place.’
‘Did you examine him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that was exactly what I was meant to do. It was a trap—a clever one because almost anyone would have jumped out of his car to have a look before he had considered the consequences.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘I don’t claim much credit for that. I backed the car so that the lights were full on the man’s figure.’
‘Recognize him?’
‘No. But I saw two things about him. One was that he was wearing goggles, and two—though I’m not quite certain of this—that he had what looked suspiciously like a revolver in his hand. Something metallic anyway. I certainly was not going to hang around and find out. And I was right. I drove up to the roundabout and back along the road I had come by. When I reached the spot both the man and the motor-bike had gone.’
‘You’ve no idea who it was?’
‘No idea. Or at least none that I’m going to suggest to you. We agreed that I should tell you facts, not theories. This would be nothing but the wildest theory. Remember, the man…’
‘Sure it was a man?’
‘No. Not at all sure. It was lying in a way that prevented one from guessing. I was going to say that It—if you like—was wearing goggles. I could not guess the sex.’
‘Yet you appear to have guessed the identity?’
‘That could be from another source altogether.’
‘You know, Carolus, this won’t do. You tell me of what you think was an attempt at an attack on you which fortunately did not come off. I’m enough of a conventionally-minded policeman to get out a notebook at information like that. There has been a murder, remember. Not just a crime puzzle in a book. A boy of sixteen or seventeen—even the parents can’t name the age exactly—has been killed and now you coolly tell me that someone, probably the same murderer, tried to…’
‘No, no. I didn’t say tried to kill me. As if he intended to have a go at doing so. Or so I think. I don’t know.’
‘And you refuse to tell me what are your suspicions?’
‘If you were in my class at school, Grimsby, I’d tear a strip off you for inaccurate statements. I don’t refuse to tell you my suspicions—I haven’t any. Only the beginnings of a probably crazy guess. I’m not going to give you that to tear up. And don’t start Quiz games. You know—“man or woman”? That sort of thing. Because I shan’t answer.’
‘In that case I cannot be responsible for your safety.’
‘When have you ever been? I can look after my own safety…’
‘Now, now, gentlemen,’ said the voice of Mr Gorringer who had entered quietly from the hall. ‘You shouldn’t argue, you know. I have felt myself responsible for the safety of Mr Deene over a good many years and I realize it is no light matter.’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Grimsby, Headmaster.’
‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ said Mr Gorringer. ‘May I ask what bone of contention you have between you?’
‘A small one,’ said Carolus. ‘Whether the Arsenal’s last goal last Saturday was a foul.’
Mr Gorringer looked suspiciously from one to the other, but realized that he had to be content with that obvious invention.
‘I, on the other hand,’ he said, ‘came to see whether Mr Deene has made any progress in the investigation he is making. Term-time draws on apace and I am naturally anxious that he should be done with one of his interests before becoming absorbed—as I hope—by the other. What do you say, Deene? Are the handcuffs ready? Does the cell await its murderous inhabitant?’
Grimsby rose to his feet. Perplexed—as well he might be—by Mr Gorringer’s ornate diction, he said a hasty good night and went out.
‘I hope I have not offended your friend by showing too much levity in a grave situation,’ said Mr Gorringer.
Carolus smiled.
‘No. On the contrary, Headmaster. But I haven’t got very far, I’m afraid. It’s turning out to be a tough case.’
‘Dear, dear. The staff meeting with which as you will remember we usually usher in a new term, will be in little more than two weeks and you, Deene, seem occupied, if one may put it like that, in gory details which, as I have repeatedly told you, might well be left to such as the no doubt excellent young man who has just left us.’
‘Yes. He’s capable enough. It’s just that I think I am more deeply interested.’
‘Oh yes. I have no doubt of that. Though I cannot imagine why you should be so. I took the liberty of giving the outline of the case as so far revealed to Mrs Gorringer, and she of course, was not slow in voicing one of her inimitable bons mots.’
Carolus bowed to the inevitable.
‘What was that?’ he asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his tone.
‘It is a pity, she said, that the author of an American best-selling novel has already used the perfect title for this case—The Naked and the Dead.’
Mr Gorringer laughed heartily and in sympathy Carolus could not avoid giving him a swift smile.
‘More seriously she considers, on the strength of details garnered from Mrs Hollingbourne, with whom Mrs Gorringer does some modest shopping from t
ime to time, that this is a case of a Broken Home. The unfortunate youth appears to have been cared for by no one. But doubtless you are aware of that.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Carolus.
‘What you may not be aware of, my dear Deene, is a piece of information I myself have…’
‘Garnered?’
‘Yes. Garnered, for you from a most unexpected source. One of the parents, in fact, whom I met in the High Street the other day…’
‘Who was that?’ asked Carolus.
‘Let him or her be nameless. It is a matter of confidence. But I am in a position to tell you that there is in Hartington an institution called by the curious name of a discotheque.’
‘Which one?’ asked Carolus.
‘I understand that it is known by the ridiculous name of the Spook Club.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Carolus off-handedly and with the intention of riling the Headmaster. ‘Swindleton’s place.’
Mr Gorringer raised his hand to indicate that he had further details to impart.
‘The proprietor, aptly named as you say. Swindleton, is believed to handle drugs, even to traffic in them among the young people who are foolish enough to patronize his … discotheque, if I must use that odious misnomer.’
‘He’s a pusher, you mean? So I’ve heard. I have not met him yet.’
‘Then do so with all haste, my dear Deene. I heard enough—in confidence as I’ve explained—to be certain that the man Swindleton exercises a corrupting influence in the town of Hartington. He should be laid by the heels at once.’
‘Now that is the concern of the police,’ said Carolus.
‘I do not deny it. But surely you who are engaged in the education of the young, will not turn aside in a matter like this?’
‘First things first,’ said Carolus.
‘My informant was able to tell me more. The man Swindleton previously carried on much the same nefarious business in the salubrious town of Brighton.’