by J F Straker
‘A girl?’ hazarded the other.
Miss Mytton pursed her lips. ‘If you can call Gwen Colling a girl.’
Miss Justin shook her head in complete bewilderment. A hairpin fell unnoticed to the floor, and a coil of grey hair slipped and started to unfurl.
‘But William has never shown the slightest interest in girls, Emily. And if he were meeting her regularly someone would have seen them and spread the news. Yet there’s been absolutely no gossip. You can’t deny that.’
Miss Mytton said she had no intention of denying it.
‘Then what makes you so sure? And why Mrs Colling? It seems a most unlikely pairing. For one thing, I should say she’s the elder by several years.’
‘I’ll tell you why, Clara. As I was leaving the Wests’ I met the daughter Vera, the younger one. She’s quite pretty, and I had thought it might be her William was meeting. Only then there would have been no call for secrecy; Mary would be delighted to have William as a son-in-law, I imagine. Particularly with the wages you pay him.’ Miss Justin frowned, but said nothing. ‘However, we chatted for a few minutes — and to cut a long story short, it seems she saw William outside the Collings’ garage yesterday evening.’
‘From the Harbords’, I suppose,’ said Miss Justin, still frowning. ‘They live opposite the garage. She looks after their two children. But what significance is there in that? For all we know, William could simply have been waiting for Vera.’
‘That’s what Vera thought. She saw him from the window as she was putting the children to bed; he was standing with his bicycle on the Harbords’ side of the road. Then George Colling drove off in his taxi, and almost immediately William crossed the road and went into the garage. And according to Vera he was there for at least half an hour,’ Miss Mytton ended triumphantly.
Miss Justin shook her head, and the coil slipped a little lower.
‘I just can’t believe it. Of course, we know the kind of woman Mrs Colling is, and I suppose you could call her attractive. To men, anyway. You know what men are.’
‘I do not, Clara. Not from first hand experience, anyway. But I’m learning. First Cluster, and then William; not to mention poor George.’ Miss Mytton snorted. ‘I can’t think how she manages to fit them all in.’
‘Had Vera ever seen him at the garage before?’
‘No. But then she wouldn’t, would she? If they were lovers (I use the word in the broadest sense) they’d find somewhere else to meet. That he actually visited her at the garage shows he had something of great urgency to discuss.’ Miss Mytton paused. ‘John Cluster’s murder, for instance.’
Her friend ignored the dramatic finale.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘How would they arrange to meet? It could only be when Mr Colling is out, and the Wests aren’t on the telephone. And she’s certainly never rung William at my place.’
Miss Mytton was impatient of such details, and said so. ‘It’s more important to consider what happened on Sunday. As I see it, Gwen has been meeting Cluster and William in turn, hoping that neither would find out about the other. But somehow or other they did; hence the fight in the Arms on Saturday. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?’
Miss Justin reluctantly agreed that it was. ‘According to Jacob, Mr Cluster didn’t mean to spill whisky over the Colonel. Jacob thought it was accidental.’
‘Exactly. And William seized on it as an excuse to pick a quarrel. I know — I spoke to Jacob myself.’ Miss Mytton brushed the palm of one hand against the palm of the other in a wide sweeping gesture, as if physically disposing of any lingering doubt in her friend’s mind. ‘And so we come to Sunday. Obviously William was here as well as Cluster (his meeting with Ernest clinches that), and just as obviously they weren’t alone. There must have been a third person to let them into the cottage. Someone who knew where I kept the key.’
‘Mrs Colling?’ hazarded Miss Justin.
‘Or her husband. We can rule out the others; none of them had any direct connexion with William and Cluster. But George — well, what would he be doing here with the two of them? What would he be doing here at all, come to that?’
‘It doesn’t really make sense, does it?’ Miss Justin said.
‘It doesn’t. Which means that the third person has to be Gwen. No doubt this isn’t the first time she’s met one of them here. I’ve been away quite a lot lately.’ Miss Mytton frowned. ‘That’s a very unpleasant thought, Clara. I’d no idea my home was being used as a — a—’
As she stumbled for the word Miss Justin supplied it. ‘A brothel,’ she suggested, with unusual candour. And blushed.
Miss Mytton stared at her. That was one of the strange things about Clara. One thought one knew her — and then, quite unexpectedly, she would do or say something completely out of character. It could be most disturbing at times.
‘Well, yes — I suppose so. Though it wasn’t quite the word I wanted.’
‘You don’t think,’ said Miss Justin, still somewhat confused by her candour, ‘that she arranged to meet them both? Either together, or one after the other?’
‘I do not, Clara. But if she had been in the habit of meeting them here (singly, of course) — and if William knew I was away—’
‘But how could he, Emily? I didn’t even know myself.’
‘Jacob knew. He could have told him. Or Tom or Erich might have mentioned it in the pub.’ Miss Mytton scratched her chin; not from perplexity, but because it itched. ‘Perhaps he tried to telephone Gwen, and found she was out. He would at once suspect she was with Cluster; and although it’s unlikely he knew just where to look for them, this would be one of the places he’d try if he wanted to catch them together.’ She scratched again. ‘You and I are lucky, Clara. I don’t suppose you know any more than I do (from experience, I mean) what a dangerous passion jealousy can be.’
It took Miss Justin a few seconds to grasp the implication of this hypothesis.
‘But that’s as good as saying William killed Mr Cluster!’ she protested. ‘And I told you he didn’t. I know he didn’t!’
‘You don’t know anything of the sort. You’re just shutting your eyes to facts because you don’t want to believe them.’ Miss Mytton eyed her friend sternly. ‘It’s time you got rid of that young man, Clara. You’re becoming as besotted with him as you are with Matt. The difference is that Matt deserves your affection and William doesn’t, only you’re too blind to realize it.’
Never before had she spoken so sternly or voiced her thoughts so frankly to her friend. Miss Justin’s face paled, darkened to a fierce pink, and paled again. Her intertwined fingers writhed and contracted, as though seeking to escape from the hands that held them. Then gradually they came apart and moved to grasp the arms of her chair.
‘I think,’ she said, speaking very distinctly, ‘that it is time I went.’ Slowly she pushed herself up and stood erect. ‘I did not come here to be insulted.’
Miss Mytton realized she had perhaps gone too far. But she was not one to withdraw from an untenable position. She merely pressed on farther.
‘Nonsense, Clara. If you’re going to be offended every time someone indulges in a little plain speaking you’ll be living in a permanent state of annoyance. There was nothing offensive in what I said; it was advice offered as a friend. Whether you choose to take it or not is up to you.’ She smiled a rather toothy smile. ‘Now sit down, my dear, and let’s consider what’s to be done.’
It was not an apology, but Miss Justin decided to accept it as such. She sat down.
Miss Mytton nodded her appreciation of the other’s good sense. Magnanimously she said, ‘Of course, we can’t be absolutely sure that it was your William.’ Miss Justin winced at the ‘your’. ‘It could have been Gwen who actually stuck the knife into the man.’ Miss Justin winced again. ‘But it must have been one of them, and I can’t help thinking William is the likelier of the two. The point is, do we tell the police, or don’t we?’
Miss Justin seized eagerly on th
e choice, ‘We can’t,’ she said, with what firmness she could command. ‘Not until we are absolutely sure.’
Miss Mytton nodded. ‘I agree with you there, of course. We have to be sure. But aren’t we? Where’s the uncertainty? Doesn’t it all hold together?’
‘Not entirely, Emily.’ Miss Justin was frantically searching her mind for a rallying point. ‘It’s true William was seen coming from this direction; but no one saw Mrs Colling, did they? You’re only guessing when you say she was here.’
‘She had to be, Clara. She’s the connecting link between the two men. And why should George lie to me if neither he nor his wife had anything to conceal?’
‘But was she the link?’ Miss Justin saw her way clear at last. ‘You’re basing that assumption solely on the short visit he paid to the garage yesterday. But suppose he just needed something for his bicycle? After all, it is a garage; it’s where one would expect him to go. Mrs Colling might have had some difficulty in finding whatever it was he wanted.’ She leaned forward earnestly. ‘It would be dreadful if we were wrong, Emily.’
Miss Mytton frowned.
‘Then why did he wait until George had left? It would be George he’d want to see, not Gwen.’ She paused for consideration. ‘However, it can’t do any harm to hold our horses for a few hours. No point in rushing our fences. As you say, we have to be sure.’
Miss Justin breathed a sigh of relief a relief which Miss Mytton promptly shattered.
‘You must speak to William,’ she said, in a tone that brooked no denial. ‘Tomorrow.’
*
There was no indication, Bert Cummings decided with relief, that the police decision to make the Mytton Arms their headquarters was keeping the customers away. But neither did it lure them in. It was strange how little talk there was of the murder. It cropped up occasionally, but it no longer seemed important, and generated far less heated discussion than football, or the darts league, or even the allotments. The majority had said all they had to say about it, and now only those intimately involved still made it their main topic of conversation.
Shannon and Stolpe were two of the latter. Mostly they only visited the pub at weekends, but they were there that night. They sat together away from the bar and talked of the murder and its effect on their daily lives.
‘Seen Betty yet?’ asked Stolpe. He did not know Elizabeth Cluster well, but Tom had spoken of her so often and so intimately that it seemed natural to him to use the familiar diminutive.
‘Not yet. Thought I’d drop in tomorrow dinner-time. Best for her to get things sorted out a bit first.’
For a while they sipped their beer in silence, listening to the general chatter around them. Then Shannon said, ‘They was on at me again tea-time, blast ’em!’
‘About Sunday?’ No need to ask who ‘they’ were.
‘Yes. Same old thing. Who was I with, where’d I been?’ Shannon grunted. ‘They’re stickers, them chaps. They even got me talking. It was the only way to get rid of ’em.’
‘You told them you were with Betty?’ asked Stolpe, astonished.
‘No. Just said I was in Missemily’s barn with a girl. They made me show ’em exactly where we’d sat. Quite a while they was there, poking around. Had I heard a car? they asked. Several, I said; but I wouldn’t know if they was on the road or the drive, seeing as the barn faces away from both and I had other things on me mind. Then they said, did I realize that if they had the girl’s evidence to support mine it’d be a lot better for me? So I said I did, but that it mightn’t be a lot better for her. Come to that, I said, it mightn’t be so good for me neither if she didn’t like me talking out of turn.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Which she wouldn’t, if I knows Betty.’
Stolpe did not return the smile. He had his own worries, but he knew they were insignificant compared to Tom’s. It amazed him that Tom could smile at all.
At the bar William Bright and Jacob West were listening to Bert’s opinion of his new guests.
‘Very nice, really,’ he told them, polishing the counter. ‘No trouble, but keeps theirselves to theirselves. As they must do, I reckon, in their job. Wouldn’t do for them to get too matey with folks, would it? Not until they’ve caught the chap as done it.’
‘Have they any idea who that is, do you think?’ asked Bright.
Cloth in hand, the landlord planted both elbows on the counter and leaned forward confidentially.
‘Maybe they have and maybe they haven’t,’ he said. ‘They don’t let on none. But if you was thinking of going into the garage business I’d say there might be a tidy little concern coming on the market soon.’
In the small back parlour which Cummings had put at the disposal of the two detectives, Sergeant Norris-Kerr, seated none too comfortably in an ancient Windsor chair, yawned and stretched prodigiously.
‘Why do people talk about being dog-tired?’ he asked plaintively, the words almost smothered in the yawn. ‘Dogs have it easy compared to us. If only I’d listened when they warned me! Think of all the nice soft jobs I could have chosen; coal mining, say, or logging in Canada, or even humping cargo at the docks. But not me. I had to earn my living the hard way.’
Although the inspector was a stickler for discipline in public, he allowed some familiarity from his juniors in private. Now he looked up from the notes he was reading at the table, and smiled.
‘Coppers have been saying that since Peel,’ he said. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and help me sort this lot out. I’ve an itch for bed myself.’
Norris-Kerr dragged his chair round on the threadbare carpet and turned to face his superior officer. ‘I don’t see how we can sort it out,’ he grumbled. ‘Not yet. There’s no evidence against any of the perishers, is there?’
‘No direct evidence,’ Pitt agreed. ‘The only recognizable footprints on the carpet were made by Cluster; the others are vague blurs. No outlines or real impressions. And the fingerprints on the knife are Miss Mytton’s.’
The sergeant considered this last fact.
‘Does that mean the murderer wore gloves, and that therefore the killing was premeditated?’
‘Either gloves, or something wrapped round the handle. But I don’t think we can assume it was premeditated. Not in the sense that the murder was planned before the killer entered the cottage; in that case he would have taken some form of weapon with him, not left it to chance. Only one of our principal suspects was sufficiently familiar with the layout of the cottage to know just where to put his hands on that knife.’
‘Shannon, eh?’ And, when Pitt nodded, ‘Do you think the perisher did it?’
‘I don’t know what I think. There are so many of them to choose from, and all sound, healthy suspects. But I’d put him into Grade One, along with Bright and the Collings.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Norris-Kerr agreed. ‘And which of ’em is tops?’
Pitt took some time to consider.
‘There’s some mystery about this chap Bright,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t say that because he’s a more polished character than the average gardener, but because he’s altogether too darned close for a man with a sound conscience. No one in the village seems to know his history or his background; not even Miss Justin, I’m told, though I haven’t spoken to her yet. I managed to get his dabs, and they’re being checked. He may turn out to have a record of violence. But somehow I doubt it.’
‘He isn’t your Number One, then?’
‘No. He lied about Sunday evening (I’m damned sure he wasn’t out poaching in his best suit), and he had that row with Cluster on Saturday. But what man with his wits about him would stick a knife into a fellow with whom he had quarrelled publicly only twenty-four hours previously? He’d know the police would home on to him like pigeons. And Mr William Bright strikes me as having his wits very much about him. If he wanted to get rid of Cluster he’d be more subtle than that, I fancy.’
‘And Colling?’
Pitt frowned. ‘I wish I could get that couple into a proper pers
pective. The man’s story is a mixture of truth and lies, and the lies are probably a mistaken attempt to protect his wife. If so they’re a failure. They don’t provide her with an alibi for the half hour before ten, and Cluster could have been killed at any time between nine-thirty and ten-thirty.’
‘Maybe he’s not as chivalrous as you think,’ Norris-Kerr said. ‘It could be he’s simply looking after Number One. That story about chasing after Cluster with a book was sheer hooey. More likely he got back at ten, found his wife missing, suspected she was with Cluster, and went out to look for them. And my money says he found them.’
‘Not together,’ Pitt said, with more emphasis than he had so far used, ‘If Miss Mace and the Vicar have got their times right, then Mrs Colling was on her way home just about the same time as her husband pulled up outside the church to light a cigarette.’
The sergeant leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms behind his head.
‘That’s true. All right, he’s shielding his missus. Which means she killed Cluster.’
‘Did she? I wonder. Certainly she’s got some explaining to do. But where’s the motive?’
‘A lover’s quarrel.’
‘You think so? Remember that if she was there at all they were in the bedroom. I can’t see him lying patiently on the bed while she goes downstairs to look for a weapon.’
‘He might have gone to sleep,’ Norris-Kerr said, with no real conviction.
‘Immediately after a quarrel sufficiently violent to engender murder? I think not.’ The frown returned to Pitt’s forehead. ‘It’s as I said — I can’t get that couple into perspective. And I wish to hell I could.’
‘Which brings us back to Shannon.’
Pitt shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘If you want to bet he’s as sound an investment as any, I suppose. Him and the Cluster woman. I’d certainly like to know why she said she was at home all that evening, when we know from Colling that she wasn’t.’
‘Colling could be lying.’