‘Question is, sir,’ Boyce said, ‘was it Hardene who used it?’
The Chief Constable frowned. His glance went around the table and came to rest upon Tremaine.
‘I must say,’ he commented, ‘that it looks rather as though Hardene was the chap we were looking for. There’s more to this than Masters, after all.’
There was no asperity in his tone and Boyce thought he saw his opportunity.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t been to tackle him yet, sir. I’ve been trying to get things sorted out a bit more clearly first.’
‘H’m. Yes. Quite.’ The Chief Constable coughed vigorously. ‘All right, you know your own business best, Chief Inspector. I’m not going to be awkward about it. What’s the general situation at the moment?’
Relieved, Boyce consulted his note-book.
‘As far as we can tell, sir, Hardene didn’t go out in response to a telephone call from any of his patients. We’ve checked on all the likely people and it’s certain that none of them rang him up. It may be, of course, that the call came from someone outside his usual practice who wanted a doctor in a hurry. An appeal in the local papers might clear up that question, although since nobody’s come forward to tell us about it I daresay it’ll merely confirm what already seems certain—that the call wasn’t from a patient at all but from someone else who wanted to get in touch with him. And someone who had enough influence with him to make him go out fairly late in the evening without wasting any time about it.’
Mordecai Tremaine pushed up his pince-nez and leaned forward.
‘There is one other possibility,’ he put in diffidently, ‘and that is that Doctor Hardene didn’t have a telephone message at all.’
The Chief Constable turned his sharp eyes upon him.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The telephone isn’t in Doctor Hardene’s surgery; it’s in the reception room, next to the hall. You’d think it could be heard by anybody in the kitchen almost equally as well as by anybody in the surgery. Mrs. Colver, the housekeeper, was quite used to taking calls after Miss Royman had gone and she was probably in the habit of listening subconsciously for the telephone whilst she was doing other jobs. But she says she didn’t hear anything. The first she knew about it was when Doctor Hardene came out of the surgery into the kitchen and told her that he’d been called away.’
‘Yes, that’s right enough,’ Boyce said. He looked at the Chief Constable. ‘There’s a point there, sir.’
Sir Robert Dennell’s brows were drawn together. He looked a little less amiable, as though he was resenting the fact that the suggestion had come from the amateur.
‘If he didn’t have a call what made him go out?’
‘He’d already made an appointment to meet someone. He didn’t want to give the housekeeper the real reason for his going out at such a time so he used the excuse about having had an emergency call from a patient. I suppose,’ Tremaine added, ‘he could just as well have said that he was going out to a political meeting but if he’d done that there’d have been a chance that Mrs. Colver would have stumbled on the truth and he didn’t want that to happen.’
‘I daresay,’ Boyce interposed, ‘that he’d been in the habit of leaving his whereabouts with the housekeeper in case anything turned up that needed his attention. He’d need to tell her a convincing story. He couldn’t be sure that a genuine call wouldn’t come while he was away.’
‘What you’re saying,’ the Chief Constable observed, his eyes still on Tremaine, ‘is that Hardene deliberately went out to meet somebody and that the meeting was fixed up beforehand.’ He hesitated for an instant or two. And then: ‘Any ideas about who it was?’ he asked, and there was a challenge in his manner.
‘An idea—yes,’ Tremaine returned, almost apologetically. ‘It isn’t any more, of course.’
‘Well?’
There was an odd moment of tension before Tremaine’s answer came.
‘I think it might have been Fenn.’
The Chief Constable relaxed.
‘H’m. Still trying to link it up with Marton, eh?’ He looked at Parkin. ‘Anything fresh on Hardene’s past?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Well, I suppose it could have been Fenn.’ The Chief Constable’s pencil traced idle designs upon the pad in front of him. ‘His tale about spending the night at the Mission hasn’t been corroborated yet. What about it, Parkin?’
The inspector was ill-at-ease, as though he had been hoping that this moment wouldn’t come and yet had known that it was inevitable. A slight flush was beginning to rise from the region of his collar.
‘As a matter of fact, sir,’ he said awkwardly, ‘there’s been a bit more news about Fenn. Somebody at the Mission says he remembers him going out and that he’s sure he didn’t come back again until late. This chap says he was sleeping in the next bed in the dormitory and that he’s certain about it because he waited for him to come in so that he could ask him about some money he was owed over a game of billiards they’d played earlier. It seems that he wasn’t there when the first enquiries were made—didn’t turn up again until this morning.’
Boyce turned to face the local man.
‘That makes things look a bit different.’
‘The news only came in a few minutes ago,’ Parkin explained. ‘I couldn’t let you know about it before.’
‘What does Fenn say about it?’ Sir Robert Dennell asked. ‘I suppose you’ve pulled him in?’
Parkin was looking very unhappy.
‘Well, no, sir,’ he admitted. ‘The fact is—we’ve lost him.’
‘Lost him!’ The Chief Constable threw his pencil down with a gesture of irritation. ‘Damn it, man, you were supposed to be keeping an eye on him!’
‘I know that, sir. He must have got wise to it. He gave us the slip yesterday afternoon. Went into one of the big stores in King’s Avenue and must have slipped out through a side entrance before our man could catch up with him.’
‘Scared,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘Obviously. Must have known the balloon was going up and made up his mind to run for it. Well, you’d better get busy, Parkin. I want that fellow laid by the heels.’
‘I’ve laid everything on, sir. We’ll pick him up again.’
Tremaine looked thoughtfully over his pince-nez. The Chief Constable did not seem to be going to display any more than that momentary irritation, but he did not think it was an opportune time to mention his sight of Fenn on the downs.
Boyce cleared his throat tactfully.
‘Sounds as though it could be that it was Fenn who was prowling around Hardene’s house last night.’
The Chief Constable’s gaze swung back from Parkin.
‘Prowler?’ he queried sharply. ‘Man?’
‘So the housekeeper says. She gave the alarm and whoever it was made himself scarce before the man on duty at the front of the house could get on to him.’
Sir Robert Dennell nodded.
‘Daresay he made off down the lane behind. The housekeeper heard him, d’you say?’
‘That’s right, sir. It looks to me,’ Boyce said, ‘as though she was expecting something of the sort.’ He darted a swift glance at the still discomfited Parkin. ‘There’s quite a promising list of suspects up to now,’ he added. ‘Might almost say a bit too promising, sir.’
The Chief Constable raised his eyebrows.
‘You mean you think the housekeeper might have had something to do with it?’
Tremaine smiled inwardly at the way in which Boyce’s red herring had accomplished its purpose. The Yard man’s face, however, revealed no sign of elation.
‘We’ve only her word for it,’ he observed soberly, ‘that she didn’t go out after the doctor in order to see what he was up to. That doesn’t make it certain that she did go, of course, but it does mean that we can’t afford to leave her out of the picture.’
‘What about motive?’ the Chief Constable said.
‘I’ll admit that’s the snag,
sir. There doesn’t appear to be one—not at the moment, anyway. With Miss Royman, though, it’s a different story.’
He mentioned his visit with Tremaine to Hardene’s solicitor and the legacy which had been left to Margaret Royman. Sir Robert Dennell’s eyes narrowed.
‘Seems a lot of money to leave to a secretary, or a receptionist,’ he commented. ‘If that’s all she was.’
His tone was significant.
‘As far as I can make out, sir, he wanted their relationship to become a little more—personal. But the lady wasn’t having any—so she says.’
The Chief Constable looked unconvinced. He tapped the table softly with the end of his pencil.
‘Hardene seems to have been quite a ladies’ man. I suppose the girl’s telling the truth?’
Boyce shrugged.
‘There’s nothing to say she isn’t. On the other hand, I daresay they’d have been careful to keep it quiet if there was any—er—dalliance going on. When I tackled the housekeeper about it she said something about there not being any smoke where there wasn’t any fire, but she didn’t come out with any open accusations—not of that sort. What she did say was that Miss Royman’s boy friend was taking a poor view of the doctor’s attempt to poach on his preserves and that they’d had words about it.’
Watching him, Tremaine thought that he could see in the Chief Constable’s face an odd reluctance, as though he realized that he was expected to follow up the line of enquiry Boyce had opened to him, but would have preferred not to do so.
‘Have you discovered anything about him?’
‘The boy friend, sir? Quite a lot,’ Boyce returned. ‘His name’s Linton. As a matter of fact, he’s the reporter on the local paper—the Evening Courier—who’s been given the job of covering the story.’
Sir Robert Dennell’s face registered surprise, but it was an automatic reaction with no real feeling behind it. He seemed distant and preoccupied.
‘It’s pretty clear that there’s a great deal to be cleared up,’ he said, with an obvious effort to bring his mind back to the conference table. ‘Well, you go ahead in your own way, Chief Inspector. You seem to have things under control.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t like the sound of that legacy. Obviously you’ll have to make sure about Linton and the girl. But unless we have to I don’t think we need make too much fuss about Hardene’s affairs with women. It can’t do any good.’
He looked embarrassed. For an experienced man of the world he seemed to be making heavy weather of what he had to say.
‘No need to start digging up any local scandal,’ he went on, in explanation. ‘The tidier we can keep things the better.’
‘I understand, sir,’ Boyce said, without a flicker of emotion. ‘What I’d really like to get settled is this business of why Hardene was carrying the gun that killed Marton. And I’ve a feeling that it’ll help us to get a line on things when we can find out something about what Hardene was doing before he came and settled down here in Bridgton.’
‘Maybe so,’ the Chief Constable said. ‘Maybe so.’ His voice rose a shade on a note of enthusiasm. He turned to Parkin with a trace of eagerness. ‘What’s the position?’
‘We’ve done all we can this end, sir. Just a case of waiting for results.’
Tremaine had contented himself with following the exchanges between Boyce and the Chief Constable, but now he leaned forward.
‘There’s something else it might be interesting to learn,’ he remarked quietly, and three pairs of eyes turned upon him.
‘Yes?’ the Chief Constable queried, amicably.
‘The housekeeper said she saw a man prowling about at the back of the doctor’s house a day or two before the murder. I’d like to know who he was and what he was after.’
‘Did the housekeeper give a description of him?’ Parkin asked.
‘Well, not really. She was rather vague. She only said that it wasn’t Rex Linton.’
‘Pity,’ Parkin said. ‘Doesn’t give us much to go on, does it?’
‘No,’ Tremaine said. ‘No, I’m afraid it doesn’t.’
He glanced up to find Sir Robert Dennell’s eyes upon him. Just for a moment the other’s feelings were plain, and he knew himself for an object of thorough dislike.
14
THE ATMOSPHERE TENDS TO IMPROVE
THE OPEN SPACES of the downs offered both a solace and an opportunity of uninterrupted thought. Tremaine paced slowly over the grass, hands clasped behind him and his pince-nez drooping ever lower.
There had been no developments of an active character since the conference with the Chief Constable and Inspector Parkin on the previous afternoon, but that did not mean that the case had been standing still. On the contrary, ideas and theories had been tumbling over themselves to find expression in his brain.
Tremaine sighed wearily. Crime detection could be an exhausting business even if one was involved in no physical violence.
He wondered whether today would bring any fresh information in answer to the enquiries Inspector Parkin had sent out. He glanced up at the empty, leaden sky of late autumn and around him at the lonely reaches of the downs, fringed by the grey roofs of the houses half a mile away.
It was an odd thought that a few thousand miles across the world people were consulting files and making telephone calls in order that the results of their activities might converge upon this place. For it did not seem that this quiet solitude had any connection with the world of violence and passion with which those activities were linked.
He realized that he was slipping into an unhealthy introspection that would reward him with nothing more desirable than an attack of depression and quickened his steps, trusting to exercise to prevent his brain from seeking forbidden channels.
A short distance ahead of him lay one of the paths that traversed the downs in the direction of the river. He came up the gentle slope that had so far restricted his view and saw the figure of a man moving along the path.
It was Martin Slade. He was leaning heavily upon his two sticks, his progress a painful shuffle.
Tremaine hesitated. Their previous meeting had not been marked by any great cordiality on the other’s part and he was in no mood at present to spend any time in the man’s company.
But there was no hope of avoiding the encounter with dignity, for Slade had already seen him. With an inward sense of resignation Tremaine went forward.
Slade had stopped. He was standing in the middle of the path, his weight bearing upon his sticks. He was breathing hard and his face bore signs of his exertions.
‘Good morning,’ he called, as Tremaine approached. ‘I see you’re making a habit of a stroll on the downs!’
‘I thought the opportunity was too good to miss,’ Tremaine returned. ‘I see you had the same idea.’
‘Oh, I do sometimes come out this way,’ Slade told him. ‘It’s about the only real exercise I can get now—not that I can indulge in much even of this,’ he added with a grimace.
He sounded a great deal more affable and he seemed ready to talk. Tremaine regarded him with a little more friendliness. It was possible after all, that yesterday he had caught the other at a bad moment—maybe he had been suffering a great deal of pain and it had naturally tended to make him unsociable.
Slade had turned and was beginning to work slowly along the path in the direction from which he had come.
‘Got my car waiting over here,’ he explained. ‘Sage—my chauffeur—usually brings me to the end of the path and then turns me loose for half an hour or so. That’s about as much as these confounded legs of mine will stand.’
Tremaine fell in at his side and adjusted his pace to fit in with his companion’s awkward and painful movements.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘An accident of some kind?’
‘Yes,’ the other returned briefly. ‘My own fault. Ought to have known better. Too late now, though. No use kicking about it. Anyway, you can get used to anything in time—even to the knowledge that you’re
going to be a useless cripple for the rest of your life.’
‘Isn’t there anything to be done?’
‘No.’ The monosyllable was incisive. ‘No good refusing to face facts. It doesn’t help. I’m done for as far as walking again is concerned.’
‘I thought maybe Doctor Hardene was hopeful about things. Wasn’t he arranging for you to see a specialist?’
‘Oh, he was doing his best—as far as he could,’ Slade said. ‘But a man knows without his doctor telling him whether there’s any hope for him or not and I’m certain enough where I stand.’
‘I take it you’ll be keeping your appointment, though, despite what’s happened?’
Slade shook his head with a determined gesture.
‘No. I only agreed to it because I didn’t want to let Hardene down. Not after the trouble he’d taken. But there wasn’t a definite appointment made. We’d only got as far as my saying that I’d keep one if he made it. I don’t suppose he was able to do any more about it. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing’s finished.’
There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice and Tremaine did not pursue the question. It was a delicate matter, after all, to argue with a man who no longer had the normal use of his legs.
They went on in silence for a few moments, but it was clear from Slade’s expression that he had something on his mind. He said at last:
‘Your speaking of Hardene gives me a chance to say this. I’m afraid I haven’t been as sociable as I might have been. I’m sorry. Put it down to the short temper of an old fool who’s generally in pain and doesn’t always know what he’s saying. Besides, the shock rather knocked me over—I mean Hardene’s being killed like that. We had our disagreements but I liked him. He did more for me than some of the others in his profession with a string of letters after their names and precious little inside their heads.’
The irascible note began to creep back into his voice. Aware of it, he tried to hold himself in check and searched for the right words.
‘I just wanted to make my apologies,’ he said, awkwardly for him. ‘Bad business to act as I did.’
In At The Death Page 14