Seeing is Believing

by E. X. Ferrars

  ‘Of course it will. Dead? Murdered? Do you mean it? Frances, how terrible. Have they any idea who could have done such a thing?’

  ‘It's too early to say,’ I said.

  ‘Can I help in any way? Is there anything I can do? I suppose you were going to phone round all the people who should have been at the rehearsal. Can I do that for you?’

  ‘Oh, would you do that, Hugh? I'd be so grateful.’

  ‘Telling them about the murder?’

  ‘We were going to say that Peter's been taken ill, but if you feel like telling them the truth, I don't see anything against it.’

  In fact, I thought it the best thing to do, as long as it was not I who had to do it.

  ‘Only I don't know anything about it,’ Hugh said. ‘What actually happened?’

  ‘You could say it looks as if someone broke into the house and killed Peter when he caught him. That's as much as anyone knows at the moment.’

  ‘All right, I'll go ahead with it. And if there's anything else I can do, let me know. How's Avril?’

  ‘In a state of shock, I think. She seems confused about what is and what isn't important. But we're looking after her. She's going to spend the night here.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  He rang off. I put the telephone down and returned to the sitting room.

  ‘That was Hugh,’ I said. ‘He's going to do the phoning for us.’

  ‘And now what about a bit of supper?’ Malcolm said. ‘There's no point in waiting for the police. They may not come round for hours.’

  In fact, they came about half an hour later. Detective Inspector Holroyd, I thought, looked even more like an outsize garden gnome than I remembered, and he had a sergeant with him, a slim, trim-looking, wide-shouldered young man, with a fresh pink face which he took care to keep expressionless. They interviewed us one by one in the dining room, beginning with Avril and ending with me. The sergeant took copious notes in a notebook. By the time that my turn came, the notebook looked pretty well filled. They were both sitting at the table and the inspector gestured to me to take a seat facing them.

  ‘Your husband told us you have something of interest to tell us,’ he said.

  ‘Didn't he tell you himself what it was?’ I asked.

  ‘He told us one or two things, but I'd be grateful if you would tell us about it yourself. Something about hearing a shot, and seeing a man at the Loxleys’ gate. Can you describe him to us?’

  ‘I can do more than that,’ I said. ‘I can tell you who he was.’

  ‘Ah, that's something your husband didn't tell us. He said he preferred to leave it to you to tell us. Quite correct, too. Can you name him then?’

  ‘He's called Fred Dyer, and he lives with a girl called Sharon Sawyer in a flat in the old vicarage. He turned up in Raneswood a few months ago and seems to make a living of a sort doing odd jobs about the village.’

  ‘And you saw him at the Loxleys’ gate as you came home from shopping?’

  ‘Yes, and I think the time was just about twelve o'clock, because Mrs Henderson, who does the cleaning for the Loxleys, was just coming out of the house, and she always leaves the house exactly at twelve o'clock. She'll corroborate what I can tell you.’

  ‘And you're sure this man you saw was Fred Dyer?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘You couldn't possibly be mistaken about that?’

  ‘No, why should I be?’

  ‘You know him quite well?’

  ‘Yes, he's worked for us from time to time.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Only to say hello in passing.’

  ‘But there's no possibility you could be mistaken about who it was?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact…’ I hesitated. ‘No, it's just a sort of an idea I had, it doesn't mean anything.’ But something had been worrying me and I was half inclined to tell him about it, though I felt it would only sound ridiculous. ‘It's just that there was something unusual about the way he behaved, but I suppose that was only to be expected if he was intending to commit a murder.’

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted me.

  ‘Well, he didn't look at me, but sort of turned away as I came by, and he did the same with Mrs Henderson,’ I said. ‘And he'd come on foot instead of in the van he usually uses.’

  ‘But you're sure all the same it was Benyon — I mean — Dyer, whom you saw?’

  I felt that he had deliberately made the mistake to see how I would react to it.

  ‘Oh, Mr Hewlett's been telling you that he thinks Dyer is a man he knew in Edgewater called Benyon,’ I said, without sounding too interested. ‘I don't know anything about that, except that when Dyer saw Mr Hewlett when we were bringing him home from the station, he looked very startled, as if he recognized him. But that could have been a mistake.’

  ‘Quite so, except that we've been keeping an eye on Dyer since he came here. The Edgewater people tipped us off. They knew where he went when he left Edgewater. In fact, I think he told them himself where he was going. He told them he couldn't stand the atmosphere of suspicion that had developed around him in Edgewater, and that he was going to change his name. But you understand why I'm anxious to know if your identification of him as the man at the gate is absolutely positive, because it looks as if he was the victim of one false identification a little while ago. Not that we're absolutely certain it was false. He may have been the Edgewater murderer, though I've believed all along that he was innocent. He's a too normal sort of man to go in for the kind of murders that happened there.’

  ‘But not too normal to do some straightforward shooting?’ I said.

  ‘It would be a curious change in MO, if he was guilty of both kinds of killing,’ he said. ‘However, it isn't impossible that he was. To return to what we were saying, you're absolutely certain it was Dyer you saw at the gate?’

  Each time he asked me that, I felt less certain. The uneasiness that I had felt from the start about that meeting had developed into a definite doubt.

  ‘I suppose I just could be mistaken,’ I said uncertainly. ‘He did keep his face turned away. But he's a distinctive looking man. That red hair of his and his build — he's tall and very well-made — it wouldn't be easy for anyone to disguise himself as Dyer.’

  ‘But not impossible?’

  ‘All right, I'll say it's not impossible, but I don't believe it.’

  ‘And I'm sure you're right. This is just a matter of routine, you know. Tomorrow we'd like to have you sign a statement about it. Now, about the shot you heard, as your husband told us.’

  So I told him how I had heard a shot, but had taken no notice of it, and after that he thanked me for being so cooperative and let me go. A few minutes after that, he and the sergeant left, and I went out to the kitchen to put together the supper which I had begun on when the two men arrived. We had cold chicken and salad and biscuits and cheese. No one was hungry and no one was much inclined to talk. But as we were finishing, Malcolm said, ‘About the things that Avril will need, if she'll make a list of them I'll go over and do my best to find them.’

  ‘I think it would be better if I went,’ I said. ‘I'm more likely to be able to find them. But a list would be useful.’

  Avril made a list of the few things that she would need for the night, with some notes of where she kept them, and I was about to set out to collect them, when Brian said, ‘I'll come with you.’

  ‘It's all right, I don't mind going alone,’ I said. ‘The lane's still crawling with policemen. I imagine you could hardly find a safer place.’

  ‘All the same, I'll come,’ he said. ‘You may have to argue your way into the house and I might be useful.’

  So we set out together, Brian carrying a small suitcase while I had Avril's list of what she wanted. She had not even dropped a suggestion that she might get them herself and none of us expected her to do so, but as Brian and I started down the path to the gate, I found myself wondering how long she would actually be staying with us. What we we
re to collect that evening would be sufficient for one night, but next day, assuming that she would not dream of going back to live in her home, a new supply would be needed. And afterwards, what would she do? She was welcome to stay with us for the present, but she was unlikely to want to do it for long, and where else would she think of going?

  It might be necessary for her to remain in Raneswood, at least until after the inquest, but it seemed to me unlikely that she would want to stay on, now that she was alone and with a house on her hands in which she could not face the thought of living. I thought that she might move to London, except for the problem of the dogs. She and Peter had their small flat there, and that could be a refuge at least for a time, until she had got over the worst of the shock of Peter's death and was able to think lucidly about what she wanted to do with her life.

  If she did not think of doing that herself, I thought, I would suggest it to her. Not immediately, of course. I was ready to be a good neighbour for a while. But I was a little afraid that she might find Malcolm and me comfortable sort of people to cling to in her troubles. She and her dogs. I did not much like the idea of giving her dogs a home. How different it would have been if there had been children, I thought. The children that according to Lucille she ought to have had. Of course, it was not too late for her to do something about it now. If she were to remarry and if no children came, might not another husband be ready to adopt a child? There had been a time when Malcolm and I had considered adoption, but he had always had more than enough children to cope with in his work, and I, though I always liked them once they were five or six years old and able to converse rationally, had never had really strong maternal feelings.

  We were at the gate when Brian said, That policeman knew all about Fred Dyer.’

  ‘Yes, so he told me,’ I answered. ‘But he wanted me to say I wasn't sure that it was Fred I saw at the Loxleys’ gate, and he put such pressure on me to say it that I almost did.’

  ‘But you didn't?’ Brian said.

  ‘I'm not sure. I believe I admitted it was possible I was wrong, or something near it.’

  ‘And what do you think now?’

  ‘Oh, I'm sure it was Fred. That's to say …’

  ‘Well?’ he said, as I paused.

  ‘I suppose it just could have been someone dressed up as Fred. I mean, someone in a red wig, and of course his black leather jacket and jeans. You see, there were several rather peculiar things about the situation if it really was Fred. One is that he may have known that Avril was going to be in London, and gone into the house to steal what he could, but he'd have known that Peter would be there. The place wouldn't have been empty.’

  ‘The motive wasn't robbery,’ Brian said. ‘The inspector told me that there were a hundred and twenty pounds in Peter's wallet, and Avril's jewellery hadn't been touched. No, someone went to that house with the single intention of killing Peter, and when she's more herself Avril may be able to tell us more about that — if she will.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Only that it could have been convenient for her to be in London when it happened and that she knows more about it than she's likely to tell us.’

  ‘Brian, what a perfectly horrible idea!’

  ‘I'm not very serious about it,’ he said as we reached the Loxleys’ gate, ‘only in any case of murder I believe the first person to be suspected is always the husband or wife. And you must admit it's convenient for her to have such an unbreakable alibi.’

  ‘Perhaps Fred has an alibi too.’

  ‘So you aren't too sure the man you saw was him.’

  ‘I don't know, I don't know!’ I was bewildered and a little angry. ‘Let's not talk about it. It only confuses me. Let's get Avril's things and go home.’

  But getting Avril's things was not so very easy. There were a number of men in the house, but Detective Inspector Holroyd was not there, nor was the young sergeant who had accompanied him when he came over to us, and we had to convince a sceptical uniformed sergeant that we were the neighbours with whom Mrs Loxley was staying and that we had only come to collect a few things for her.

  In the end, he let us in, but when we went upstairs to the bedroom that she had shared with Peter, a man followed us up to it and stayed inside the room, watching us as I packed a nightdress, a dressing gown, slippers, a brush and comb and a toothbrush and toothpaste that I found in the bathroom that opened out of the bedroom, into the suitcase that Brian had carried. I did not try to select any of the cosmetics from the array of them on the dressing table. She had not put them on her list. But I added a cardigan that I found lying on a chair, in case she should need it in the morning, and some handkerchiefs. If she suffered any more wild storms of weeping, she might need them, I thought. The man watched me stolidly, and followed us when we went downstairs and along the lane to our gate. He did not leave us until he had seen us go safely in at it.

  Visitors had arrived during our absence. Lucille Bird was seated on the sofa, from which she had displaced the retriever, which had gone into a corner of the room to sulk. Kevin, of course, had come with his mother and was sitting beside her. They must have walked up from their house in the heart of the village, as their Mercedes was not in the lane. It did not surprise me to see them there, as Lucille would never want to be left out of a drama. She gave Brian and me a brief nod as we came into the room, but did not interrupt what she was saying.

  ‘… fingerprints,’ she was saying. ‘Of course they'll look for fingerprints. But that's normally useless nowadays. We've all read too much about them in detective stories to know that one should never set out to commit a crime without wearing gloves. Ask Kevin. He's always reading the things. He'll tell you no one would think of committing a murder, or even a burglary, without gloves. Isn't that true, Kevin?’

  ‘Yes, Ma, dear, quite true’ he answered. Her stern, sharp-featured face managed to produce a small smile, as if it were a minor triumph to have induced Kevin to agree with her. In fact, I had never heard him do anything else. But his plump, pink cheeks looked paler than usual and it seemed to me that his air of wilting under her gaze was particularly pronounced.

  ‘I think they've been looking for fingerprints,’ I said. ‘There was a lot of a greyish sort of dust everywhere. But if they find Fred's fingerprints in the house, it won't mean anything, will it, Avril? Didn't you generally give him a cup of tea when he was working for you. So his prints would be there as a matter of course, at least in the kitchen.’

  She gave a heavy sigh. It looked as if she had been crying again while we had been gone. Her face looked drained and blank, with reddened eyelids.

  ‘Yes, I always made him a cup of tea and he'd come in for it and we'd generally sit and have a gossip in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘But he's been all over the house, doing odd jobs for us at different times. He put a new washer on one of our bathroom taps, and hung a few pictures we'd bought in the drawing room, and mended the electric lamp in the hall when the flex got broken. If it's true that Frances saw him at the gate and he went into the house and murdered Peter, he'd no need to wear gloves.’

  ‘But was this man you saw wearing gloves, Frances?’ Lucille asked me, her tone sounding as if she were putting me through an examination.

  ‘I don't think so,’ I said. ‘I don't know. I didn't notice …’ But there I stopped, because all of a sudden I seemed to see the man clearly, and something that had been worrying me obscurely about him ever since I had seen him became certain in my mind. He had been wearing gloves. And that, in Fred Dyer, had seemed very strange. ‘Well, perhaps he was,’ I said. ‘Really I'm inclined to think so after all.’

  ‘You aren't sure?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘Not a hundred per cent. But I believe he may have been.’

  ‘Then that makes it even less certain that the man at the gate was really Dyer,’ Malcolm said. ‘As Avril said, he'd have had no need to conceal his fingerprints. But if he was someone else got up to look like Dyer, it could have been impo
rtant for him to leave no prints behind.’

  The doorbell rang.

  I went to answer it, expecting more policemen.

  But the two people on the doorstep were Fred Dyer and Sharon Sawyer.

  ‘You needn't look so afraid of me,’ Fred said. ‘I'm not a murderer. Sharon can prove it.’

  CHAPTER 4

  I took them into the sitting room.

  Lucille gave an exclamation that sounded almost like a small scream. Kevin got to his feet and stood looking helpless and bewildered, as if he were waiting for his mother to tell him how to behave. Malcolm and Brian also rose. The Belgian shepherd barked. The retriever growled. The Labrador was too deeply asleep to take any notice of the newcomers.

  Malcolm introduced Fred and Sharon to Brian. That Lucille and Kevin knew them he took for granted. But he need not have introduced Fred to Brian. Fred gave him a sardonic smile and said, ‘Evening, Mr Hewlett.’

  ‘Evening, Jack,’ Brian responded.

  ‘Fred in the present company, if you don't mind,’ Fred said.

  ‘It won't make much difference,’ Brian said. ‘I've told them of our previous acquaintance.’

  ‘I might have known you would. But you haven't had a chance yet to tell it to my girlfriend. Sharon, this gentleman knew me before I came to Raneswood. He can tell you some things about me I've never got around to telling you.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Brian asked. ‘Have you really not got around to telling the poor girl about your past?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Fred asked. ‘I came here to get away from it, didn't I? And just what is that past that I should have told her about? That I worked in a garage and that some stories got around about me that I didn't like. You don't need telling, do you, Mr Hewlett, that there was never any evidence against me?’