The Hunter and the Trapped

by Josephine Bell

  When he had gone Nelson stumbled to the telephone and rang a number that was not his own doctor’s. He had to have a shot, and quickly.

  At the Yard Sergeant Clay had an encouraging report for the Chief-inspector. Morris had been seen in Great Yarmouth.

  “Yarmouth!” Mont exclaimed. “What in hell does he think he’s doing there?”

  “It’s where Charlie Pike went to work in a pub after he left the nick in April. Charlie was one of his old-time buddies.”

  “So he was. Yarmouth, is it? You’ve been working, young Fred.”

  “You told me to find him, sir. After I’d done with that drug enquiry among the doctors. Cor, that was fierce. Like trying to open a rusty lock.”

  “They train them to keep their mouths shut. Never mind, it paid off. Mrs. Morris had ten quid in her bag over and above her four quid wages. Blackmail. Nelson.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Now, about Morris. Is he doing a job or what?”

  “I don’t know. He was seen on the pier there. May have left again. That’s all I’ve got so far.”

  Mont went into action and was lucky. Mr. Morris, blustering but frightened was arrested as he was embarking in a trawler about to set off for a fortnight’s deep-sea fishing. He had signed on as a deck hand, to replace a member of the regular crew who had fallen ill at the very last minute before sailing. Morris had always been a man to seize his opportunities, Mont explained to the local superintendent, when he went down to Yarmouth to question the captive.

  “Has he ever been a seaman?” the superintendent asked. “If not the skipper’ll be in trouble with the union.”

  “Not now we’ve nicked him. The captain of the trawler wouldn’t have known until they were at sea. He’d spin all the right stuff when they took him on.”

  “But he wouldn’t have any papers.”

  “I thought this was a quayside emergency?”

  “You’re right. They were nearly missing their tide.”

  “There you are, then.”

  Morris had never seen Mont before, but he needed very little prompting to realise the seriousness of his position and the need for frankness.

  “We know you handled that bag,” Mont told him. “We know it was empty and that there’d been at least fourteen quid in it. So you took that, didn’t you?”

  “She give it me. I swear to God she give it me. I’d not bin out two days …”

  “You went home first and there was a row because she didn’t want you in the house. Right?”

  “There’s some’ll give anything to please you cops.”

  “There was a row, wasn’t there? Look, we needn’t waste time over this. You went off to Bermondsey and told your friends there all about it.”

  “All right, guv. There was words. She ’ad a nasty tongue right from the start.”

  “She didn’t give you what you wanted – cash. So you waylaid her outside the flats the next morning and took her into the yard where you strangled her and stole her handbag.”

  Morris started up out of his chair with a great bellow of rage.

  “I never!” he shouted. “You can’t prove it! You’ll never prove it! I don’t deny I let ’ er ’ave it now and then, but do ’ er that way!”

  He collapsed on his chair with a sick look on his face.

  “I never!” he repeated hoarsely. “Go on, prove it! You can’t!”

  “But you took the bag and the money,” persisted Mont.

  “What if I did? She stood there as I left cursing and swearing – you should’ve ’ eard ’ er – the language! No wonder the kids got ideas.”

  Mont nodded. The man had not been shocked or frightened when he was accused of murder. He had simply been angry. This did not prove his innocence but it certainly did not confirm his guilt.

  “You got nothing on me,” Morris continued. “My wife’s earnings are due to me, aren’t they?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve every right to my split. She was instrumental in shopping me on that last job. She owed me a packet for that if nothing else.”

  “I see. Perhaps you’d like to explain in more detail exactly what she did to get you shopped?”

  “And perhaps I wouldn’t.”

  Morris shut his mouth firmly and sat glowering at his questioner. Mont said, patiently, “You tell me your wife was shouting bad language at you. Did no one in the flats or in the street hear you? Did no one look into the yard to see what was going on? Did no one in the flats look out of a window?”

  “You’d better ask them,” Morris answered. “I wasn’t in a mood to notice.”

  And the caretaker was away, Mont remembered, which was probably why Mrs. Morris had taken her husband into the yard, knowing their inevitable quarrel would not be overheard.

  “Why did you go with her into the yard? In order to rob her? Did you expect a fight?”

  “Me go with … You got that one wrong, guv. It was she was there when I went in.”

  “In the yard?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you go into the yard yourself?”

  “To ask for ’er at the back door. Where else?”

  “But you never got as far as asking?”

  “I told you. She was there, waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Said she expected a visitor. Don’t know ’oo. Never asked ’ er.”

  Waiting to meet someone by appointment. Mr. Nelson, for instance? He would know that the caretaker was away, and so, for that matter, would the other tenants, probably. But Morris did not know. It was a point in his favour.

  “Do you swear that your wife was alive and well when you left, after robbing her of her handbag?”

  “She was. I’ll swear to that till I’m blue in the face.”

  Nothing would shake him. In the end Morris was charged with the larceny, pleaded guilty in the magistrate’s court and was remanded in custody for a week. Mont began another series of interviews at the flats.

  This time he wanted to discover which of the inmates could have arranged to see Mrs. Morris on the morning of her death. The result of this was not very helpful. Nelson remained under suspicion, for he was on the premises. Mrs. Hyde could be written off, though her bedroom window on the first floor did overlook the yard. Of the rest only one of the clerks was in at the relevant time.

  But was Nelson really likely to have wanted to see Mrs. Morris again that day? He had paid her the wages, he had paid her blackmail. Surely that was enough? Unless he was planning her murder. But surely Mrs. Morris herself would not have been willing to see him again? She might not have suspected him of violent intentions, but she would certainly suspect that he wanted to get his money back. No, it had to be someone else, if Morris was to be believed. Somehow Morris’s story had that kind of inconsequence that was so often the truth.

  Painstakingly, with Sergeant Clay assisting, Mont went through every statement, every note that had been taken from the beginning of the case. It was the sergeant who found the discrepancy.

  “This Mr. Fawcett, sir,” he said. “Left the flats at nine-thirty for Victoria. Arrived at his friends’ place two-thirty. Fifteen minutes in their car from the station the other end. Train arrived two-fifteen. That train was a fast one, leaving Victoria at one-five. What was he doing between nine-thirty and one-five?”

  “Shopping and having lunch, he says,” Mont answered.

  “He doesn’t give any details?”

  “No. Except looking at some pictures at the Tate gallery.”

  “There’d have been time, if he’d gone back to the flats at twelve or even just after …”

  “To do Mrs. Morris and catch his train? You’re right. All the same, if it was a premeditated murder, a clever chap like Fawcett would never leave such a wide-open hole in his alibi, would he?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t premeditated?”

  “Then why go back? He had all the morning before him. Why not stop in and see her, if he wanted to, before he left? I
t doesn’t make sense, either way, really, does it?”

  “It was this idea of Morris’s she was waiting for someone.”

  “He’s a born liar. Still, I’m inclined to believe him for once.”

  “Will you have another go at Fawcett, sir?”

  “Not directly. He’s one of these clever blokes. Very quick in the uptake. I think I’ll make a few tactful inquiries at the college.”

  Wisely, Mont got an interview with the President, himself. It would not do to start rumours in such a place and after all he had nothing against Fawcett, who had not behaved in the least like a guilty man. Not that that meant much with the intelligent criminal.

  The President was on his guard at once, anxious at all costs to steer this inquiry away from the college. Mont had to explain rather more than he intended before he could get any information at all.

  “I can’t see why you come to me,” the President complained. “Surely Mr. Fawcett is the right person to give you what you want.”

  “We are obliged to check statements that are made to us, sir.”

  “There are lists,” said the other, vaguely.

  “They don’t always tell us the right things,” Mont persisted. “I know Mr. Fawcett has been here six years. That should mean the college is entirely satisfied with his work. Am I right?”

  “Perfectly right. Though I don’t see …”

  “Is he well thought of? Well liked and so on?”

  “He is very popular indeed,” the President said, hoping that his answer to the second question would absolve him from answering the first. He was disappointed.

  “Do you and his other colleagues think well of him?”

  “His work is admirable. He gets on very well with everyone.”

  “Has he any particular friend or friends on the staff?”

  “I should say, probably no.”

  “Outside the college?”

  “I am not in the habit of studying the private lives of the staff. Or of the students.”

  The President had not intended to say this, to link the two. He saw at once that Mont took it the wrong way.

  “Any particular students?” the Chief-inspector asked, quietly.

  “I don’t understand you. We are talking about Mr. Fawcett, I think.”

  “Look, sir,” Mont said, losing patience. “This is a murder inquiry. The dead woman was well known to the police. She had a nose for scandal and how to profit by it, if you take my meaning. Was there ever any episode connected with Mr. Fawcett and the college or anyone who works there that might have come to her knowledge?”

  “Certainly not,” said the President, in a panic. The Dawson boy, the Dane girl. He had been told of these episodes, as the Inspector would call them, but in neither case as far as he knew had Fawcett transgressed any of the accepted rules. His private life, as he had said to this prying policeman, was his own affair. The President’s personal dislike of the man was irrational, he felt, and beside the point.

  “Most certainly not,” he repeated.

  Mont left the college with a firm conviction that the President was lying. There was something not so nice about Simon Fawcett after all and he could not look for enlightenment at his place of work.

  But he still had one last source, or rather two. Miss Dane’s father and the friend Fawcett had met for his early lunch before catching the train at Victoria.

  “It was coffee as far as I was concerned,” George Clark told him. “Much too early for my lunch.”

  “What time would it be, sir?”

  “Oh, not much after eleven. He said he’d missed out breakfast because he was packing and anyway didn’t want to bother with clearing it away. But he was hungry and his train went at an inconvenient time for lunching at the usual hour.”

  “The one-five?”

  “Was it? I expect he told me. I don’t remember.”

  “Where did you have this – er – meal, sir?”

  “Near Victoria. He’d parked his bag there. Had to buy a shirt, he said. Forgotten to put in a clean one. And wanted to see some special collection they’re showing at the Tate.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  “No. Pictures aren’t in my line.”

  “What time did you leave him?”

  “I can’t remember. But he had ample time for his programme.”

  Ample time, Mont thought, and for variations on it. No good to ask him about the collection at the Tate. He’d know. You couldn’t expect them to remember him there. Always queues for these special showings now-a-days. There’d been pickpockets in the queues, so he knew.

  “You’ve been a friend of Mr. Fawcett’s for a very long time, I understand?” he asked, trying to find some new approach.

  “Years. I taught at the same school, Summermoor grammar. Simon had been there a couple of years before I arrived. I was there three years and left to go into my present job. He left himself a couple of years later to come up to the college here in London. We’d kept in touch. I see a fair amount of him.”

  “Yes.” This all tied up with Fawcett’s own account.

  “So you are very old friends,” Mont said, slowly. “Did you ever go to his home in Beltonston?”

  “Beltonston?” George was astonished. “They didn’t live there! Pontley. Yes, I went to stay weekends sometimes at Pontley vicarage. Not after his mother died. He couldn’t bear the sight of the place after that. Then his father gave up the living and went to stay at a guest house on the south coast. I forget where. The old man died soon after his wife. Very sad. Nice old boy.”

  “Where is Pontley?” asked Mont, cautiously.

  “Warwickshire. Small village. About seven miles from Stratford. Shakespeare country.”

  Shakespeare country. That was what Fawcett had said, describing his home. Warwickshire. Shakespeare’s county. He had never looked up Beltonston.

  George was staring at the Inspector with a puzzled expression.

  “You’ve got a bit mixed, haven’t you?” he said. “Beltonston was where the Sewells lived. Old family friends of the Fawcetts. In Gloucestershire, not far from the Malvern hills. Didn’t Simon tell you about them? No, why should he? They were really his parents’ friends, not his.”

  Chapter Six

  “Then why did he say it was his home town?” Mont asked Sergeant Clay, when he got back to the Yard and described his latest information. “It was a routine question and Fawcett answered it pat. No hesitation. Routine answer. Why give the wrong one?”

  “Didn’t want you to know the real one, I suppose.”

  “But that’s childish. He must know I’d check sometime.”

  He was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “According to Mr. Clark, the home where he was brought up, in Pontley, was the vicarage, so naturally it hasn’t been in his family since his father died. I doubt if we’ll find anyone there that knew him or them.”

  “Why should he want to conceal his real home? Anything to do with getting out of the call-up?”

  “Might be that. We’d have to locate his doctor. Probably gave us the wrong name for him, too.”

  “Do you want me to check, sir?” But Mont only said, again, “Why Beltonston?”

  Sergeant Clay had no more suggestions to make and after a pause Mont said, “We’ll have to go down there, Fred, and find out.”

  “How? How find out, I mean?”

  “Mr. Clark said there are some people there called Sewell, very old friends of the Fawcetts. Let’s hope they aren’t all dead, too.”

  “Mr. Fawcett himself would know that, sir, wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t propose to ask him; not at this stage, anyhow.”

  They went down together to Beltonston, a small town in the valley, not far from Tewkesbury. Having paid a courtesy call at the police station and learned from the superintendent there that three families called Sewell lived in the place, they began their inquiries.

  The first call was unproductive. The owners of the house were an elderly couple who
had retired to Beltonston from Manchester. The second address took them to a newly developed housing estate, which was obviously wrong, though they made sure of this. The third was the house they wanted.

  “Which we might have come to first if the Super had told us what it was like,” said Clay.

  “Probably doesn’t know. He’s not been here himself all that long.”

  It was not a large house, but it was a fair example of mid-victorian middle-class comfort, standing in its own fair-sized garden in the older residential part of the town. It was well-preserved, the gravel sweep before the front door free from weeds, the bushes and shrubs neatly trimmed.

  A youngish woman in a flowered overall opened the door and on hearing their inquiry called over her shoulder, “Mrs. Sewell, two gentlemen would like to speak to you.” She then retreated into the hall, leaving the door open.

  Mrs. Sewell, a little breathless from hurrying downstairs, asked on the doorstep, “What is it you want?”

  Chief-inspector Mont, having made sure of her identity, said, “We are police officers, madam. We want to ask you a few questions about some friends of yours.”

  “Ask me – friends of mine – what an extraordinary thing! How do I know … ?”

  She heard a movement behind her and turning saw the flowered overall moving away.

  “Come in, please,” she said.

  She led them into a pleasant room overlooking a lawn that sloped away to a screen of thick bushes, with trees beyond. This part of the garden, like the front, was well-kept, though there were not many flowers to be seen. The room, too, with its polished, old-fashioned furniture and well-chosen ornaments, suggested a firm background of wealth, not great, but sufficient.

  “Now,” Mrs. Sewell said. “You say you are police officers. Not local, are you?”

  “No, madam. From Scotland Yard.”

  Mont produced his card which Mrs. Sewell took, examined carefully and handed back.

  “Which friends of mine are you inquiring about?” she asked.

  “A family of the name of Fawcett.”

  Mrs. Sewell was astonished.

  “But they don’t live here! Never did.”

  “I am aware of that. But I understand they are great friends of yours.”