The Dusky Hour

by E. R. Punshon

  The garage attendant was accordingly summoned but had little to say. He did not seem a very intelligent or observant person, and was plainly on the defensive and afraid of saying too much for fear of getting into some difficulty or trouble or another. Apparently he half expected to be arrested on the spot. He admitted reluctantly that there had been a quarrel; he believed a pistol had been produced; certainly threats had been uttered. But that was all. After lunch, gentlemen were sometimes inclined to be excitable and to lose their tempers over nothing. He had hardly seen anything of it himself. Someone had told him there was trouble and so he had gone along to see what it was all about, and there were the two gentlemen rowing at each other. Someone had shouted a warning about a pistol, and one of the gentlemen had laughed and said something about the other wanting to murder him, only probably he would wait for a better opportunity, with fewer people about. Then they had both driven off, and he, the garage attendant, had returned to his work, having plenty to do and no help – this last with a reproachful glance at Mr. George.

  Bobby pressed him about the registration numbers of the cars. The garage attendant scratched his head and finally recollected that one number – that of the car belonging to the disputant who had expressed a fear that murder was to be his fate – had ended in three sevens. Bobby and the colonel exchanged quick glances, for the number of the car found at the bottom of the Battling Copse chalk-pit had also ended in three sevens. That seemed to prove one of the two disputants had been the unlucky Bennett, and his fear of murder but too well founded. The garage attendant had no recollection of the number of the other car, but, stimulated by the interest now shown in his statements, remembered that when they were all talking about the affair afterwards, a waiter had remarked that one of the gentlemen concerned had left his card on the table.

  The garage attendant had in fact seen the card in this man’s hand. But he hadn’t looked at it. Didn’t matter to him. Waiters liked to know names, if possible, so they could address their customers by name. If they could do so, customers were often pleased, and that might mean a bigger tip. But names were nothing to him in the garage.

  The colonel, his hopes now roused to the highest, asked for the waiter to be sent for. But his hopes were promptly dashed, for it seemed that the pessimism of the manager was justified and this man one of the two who had left. But Mr. George thought it just possible the card might have been put away in the man’s locker – possible, but unlikely; and might still be there – also possible, but still more unlikely. However, search should be made, and – unexpectedly – it was successful. There was the card, very dirty and thumb-marked, and, what was more, there was noted on it the wine that had been supplied: a Liebfraumilch hock.

  “Wanted to show he remembered if he ever served the same customer again,” Mr. George remarked. “Sound idea enough.”

  But the colonel was hardly listening, for it was Mr. Pegley’s name and address he was looking at.

  “Have to see what Mr. Pegley can tell us,” he remarked, but, much to Bobby’s satisfaction, thought also that as all this had taken up time, and it was getting near the dinner-hour, they might dine first.

  “Begins to look,” said the colonel, enjoying an excellent dinner – for there is little a road house will not do to win a chief constable’s favour – ”begins to look to me as if we were on the right track at last – thanks to Mr. Moffatt.”

  After dinner, they drove on to London, and found Mr. Pegley’s address was on the top floor of a new and very smart block of service flats. By good fortune, Mr. Pegley was at home, and he received them amiably enough, though with a certain visible nervousness, in his luxury flatlet, as the management described it – meaning thereby, apparently, that a room not much larger than a cupboard was provided with telephone, built-in cocktail cabinet, refrigerator, radio, in fact with every modern device that could be thought of, though not with those old-fashioned commodities known as light, air, and space.

  Mr. Pegley agreed readily that he had lunched that day at the road house in question, reminded them they had already been informed of that fact, but denied firmly and emphatically that he had ever been concerned there at any time whatever in any sort or kind of dispute or unpleasantness. Incidentally, he had had beer with his lunch, not hock. As a matter of fact, he must, he said, have left about half past one, since he had that day an appointment at two-fifteen, so certainly had been nowhere near the road house at two o’clock or any time thereafter.

  “Besides,” he added, “I’ve told you before I never set eyes on the poor devil you’re inquiring about. I know I can’t prove an alibi for four that afternoon, if that’s when he was done in. I haven’t the least idea where I was exactly at four and I don’t see why you should expect me to know. Could you say where you were at four any day last week? You can’t reasonably suppose I murdered a man who was a total stranger to me. Anyhow, I can prove I kept my appointment.” It was, he explained, as he had told them before, a call made on a lady living in the neighbourhood for a chat about investments. “Nothing decided,” he went on, “but she can tell you all about it.” He gave details that could evidently easily be checked. “And I hope,” said Pegley, “that will satisfy you I had nothing to do with any row at the road house. What makes you think I had?”

  The colonel produced the visiting-card he had brought away from the road house.

  “Our information,” he said, “is that this was left on his table in the restaurant by one of those concerned in the quarrel.”

  “It’s mine all right,” Pegley agreed, examining the card with interest. “All over finger-prints, too, if that’s any good to you. Trace anyone by finger-prints, can’t you? I suppose that’s why you’ve got it wrapped up so carefully” – Bobby had placed it in one of his cellophane envelopes before they left the road house. “Very interesting. Got this address on it, you notice, and I’ve only been here three weeks. Temporarily, you know. I am looking out for a little place in the country – not too big, not too small. Takes some finding. Now, who have I given a card to recently?” He paused, trying to remember, and then suddenly burst out: “Why, yes, of course, young what’s-his-name was there – at the road house, I mean. Lunching. He didn’t know me, but I did him. I had seen him with the old man. I remember now. I spoke to him as I was leaving; told him who I was; said we should meet at dinner. I remember quite well I put my card down on the table by his side. He must have forgotten and left it there.”

  “Who is young what’s-his-name?” the colonel asked, though he felt he knew already.

  “Young Noll Moffatt,” answered Pegley. He looked very astonished, even disturbed. He whistled softly. “It must have been young Moffatt had the row with Bennett you’ve been talking about.” He whistled again. “Now, what does that mean?” he muttered.

  CHAPTER 24

  CAT AND DOG STORY

  It was altogether too much for Colonel Warden. He flung out his hands in a gesture of despair, and he was not a man of many gestures. He said loudly:

  “Young Moffatt now. Much more of this and I shall go off my head.”

  “Well, it looks like that young man, doesn’t it?” Pegley said cheerfully.

  “Talk about a will-o’-the-wisp, talk about a wild-goose chase,” muttered the colonel, who was beginning to look a little wild.

  But Pegley had an air of enormous relief. His previous apparent uneasiness had dropped away. His eyes were bright, his look alert and smiling; he had the manner of a man who sees suddenly vanish a danger he had deeply feared. Bobby watched him with puzzled interest, asking himself why a suggestion that the Moffatt boy might be guilty should bring him such relief. Pegley turned to the built-in cocktail cabinet and produced bottles and glasses.

  “We’ll celebrate,” he declared. “Ought to have known it all the time. Jealousy. Just jealousy. Nothing else after all.” He began to be busy preparing cocktails. “What shall it be?” he asked, beaming on them. “White Lady? Gin Fizz? Or one of my own private particular poisons?�
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  “Why are you so – relieved, Mr. Pegley?” Bobby asked.

  Pegley turned sharply, shaker in hand, and stared at him.

  “What’s that?” he demanded.

  “Why are you so relieved, Mr. Pegley?” Bobby asked again.

  Something of his previous nervousness came back to Pegley’s manner. His eyes lost their smile and grew watchful and suspicious. He looked at Bobby distrustfully. He said:

  “Well, now then, pretty plain who did it, isn’t it? Well, then – well, it lets the rest of us out, doesn’t it? Jealousy. That’s all. Over that Molly Oulton girl. Noll Moffatt smitten with her. So was Bennett. Been some sort of kick-up with Bennett before – at the Cut and Come Again, I think.”

  “Oliver Moffatt had nothing to do with that,” Bobby remarked.

  “Hadn’t he?” said Pegley. “Another victim, was it? Explosive young lady. Girls are like that sometimes, and, when they are, best to have nothing to do with ’em. Don’t care for that sort myself anyhow – like ’em best when you know where you can get off with ’em.”

  “Why is it a relief to you to know that Oliver Moffatt has come under suspicion?” Bobby asked once again.

  “More than suspicion, isn’t it?” Pegley retorted. “I told you, didn’t I? If it’s young Moffatt, it isn’t – well, anyone else. When you blew in to-night I half thought you might be trying to push me in, and now – well, there it is. Not that I’ve anything against the boy. How could I? Hardly know him. I don’t deny I had the old man in my eye as a possible client. Hurt me to think of £100,000 tied up in old consols. I could double, treble the return; more. Nothing doing, though. Trust fund. Did you know? The old boy can’t touch a penny. Don’t know why the devil he couldn’t have said so at first. Dead loss; waste of time; rotten luck all round. Trust funds ought to be illegal. Oh, well, I’ve seen worse. Tough on the old man. Not that I care, but there it is – a row, a threat to murder at lunch, and a corpse by dusk. Pretty plain, if you ask me.”

  He returned to his cocktails. The colonel roused himself from his gloomy and bewildered thoughts.

  “I am much obliged to you for the help you have given us, Mr. Pegley,” he said. “I need not remind you, I’m sure, that all this must be regarded as strictly confidential. Naturally what you have said to us is privileged. Anything said to others would not be so – and might help to defeat the ends of justice.”

  “Right-oh,” said Mr. Pegley. “I don’t want to get in your bad books and I don’t want to run any risk of libel actions either. Nothing to do with me, anyhow, except ” He paused and looked again at Bobby, once more with a certain manner of unease, as if he began to think that possibly he had said too much. “Well, how about it?” he asked, indicating his cocktails. “Just a spot to celebrate?”

  “I am not aware of any cause for celebration,” said the colonel stiffly. “Good night, Mr. Pegley. I regret it was necessary to disturb you, and I thank you again for the information you have given us. Sergeant.”

  He stalked out of the room. Mr. Pegley winked at Bobby.

  “Goes for you, too?” he asked. “That’ll make three for little me. I never could abide waste.”

  “Good night, Mr. Pegley,” said Bobby in his most amiable voice. “You’ve given me quite a lot to think about.”

  Pegley looked at him quickly, as though somehow he did not much like the turn of this last phrase. Bobby was already at the door, hurrying after the colonel. He had it nearly closed, then opened it again.

  “Mrs. O’Brien been to see you to-day?” he asked.

  Pegley’s mouth opened.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  Bobby made no reply. He closed the door and hurried to join the colonel, who was standing by the automatic lift shaft, angrily pressing the button.

  “Celebrate, indeed,” he said indignantly. “What was that about Mrs. O’Brien?”

  “I asked if she had been to see him to-day. Just a guess.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t she?” grumbled the colonel. “What about it? Young Moffatt!” He turned. He said slowly: “Young Moffatt – and his own father sent us here.”

  The lift appeared. They entered it. The colonel growled again:

  “Celebrate, indeed. I felt like rubbing his nose in his own gin.” He added, for he was a fair-minded man: “Natural enough in a way, I suppose. He feels there isn’t any risk of his being suspected now. Relief, no doubt.”

  “I doubt myself,” Bobby said slowly, “if he was ever uneasy about his own position. There’s nothing much to suggest he had anything to do with what happened. If he had been guilty, he would have had a nice little alibi all ready. And I don’t think he is the murderer type, either.”

  “You can never be sure of that,” the colonel said.

  The lift stopped at the ground floor. They made their way to their car and found a stern policeman, watch in hand, standing by it. However, when he understood who they were, he decided thoughtfully that the obstruction caused had not been serious and he might exercise his discretion.

  “Respecters of persons, I’m afraid, the police,” said Bobby disapprovingly, but not till the constable had saluted and gone on his way. He repeated: “Pegley was uneasy, I agree, but not about himself. If he is innocent – well, an innocent man is so sure of his innocence, he generally thinks it must be plain to everyone else as well. If he is guilty, he must know there’s no real evidence against him. I take it that means he was worried about someone he thought might be guilty, and now he’s tremendously relieved to find he was wrong.”

  “Why should he be?” the colonel demanded. “He’s nothing to do with any of the rest of them, has he? You don’t mean you think there’s some connection with Mrs. O’Brien, and he suspected her?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t see how it could be Mrs. O’Brien. Or, if it was, why that should worry him. They seem to have been complete strangers.”

  “Well, then, who?”

  “I’m trying to worry that out,” Bobby said with a very worried air.

  “Mr. Moffatt himself?” asked the colonel. “Moffatt’s the only one of the lot Pegley seems to have been in touch with – purely as a client, though. Not much in that, either, especially as Moffatt’s money is all tied up and Pegley can’t get the job of reinvesting it. There’s Larson, but apparently Larson tried to put a spoke in Pegley’s wheel, so he might be rather pleased than not to see him brought in. Thoms? But why should Pegley care about Thoms? Or the Henrietta Towers girl? He talked about her sister, too, but he can hardly have been thinking of them. I expect,” decided the colonel, “all it means is, when he realised one of the party was suspected, it suddenly struck him he might have been in the same boat and he felt jolly glad he wasn’t.”

  “It might be that,” agreed Bobby.

  “If we’ve got to the end at last,” the colonel said abruptly, “and it really is young Moffatt, I’ll resign. I couldn’t stand it. Not a boy like that – known him since he was a kid; his father and sister, too. I’ll have to see it through. Got to. Can’t shirk the job. Then I’ll go.”

  Bobby felt it would be disrespectful, and might be misunderstood as well, to clap his companion on the back and say “Good man,” as he felt inclined to do. Decent sort of chap, the chief constable, though. Wonderful how many of the decent sort you did run across, even in his kind of job. It took him into the valleys often enough, but sometimes to the heights as well. After all, the surgeon, whose job it is to cut off the gangrenous limb, must often have cause to admire the healthiness of the rest of the body. Not his place to sympathise or approve, however, though he did say:

  “Oh, well, sir, I hope it won’t come to that. Nothing like a clear case yet.”

  The colonel only grunted. He was an excellent driver, but now he was so worried he as nearly as possible ran down a pedestrian on a Belisha crossing he had not noticed. The pedestrian, an elderly and peppery gentleman who knew his rights and meant to stand on them, no matter what the risk to life or limb, expressed himself fl
uently and loudly. The colonel offered an undesired and unvalued apology and drove on. He was now not only worried but also extremely annoyed with himself, and Bobby felt the time was appropriate for complete silence. A lightning conductor’s existence is no doubt useful, but must be uncomfortable as well. But presently, when they had driven a good way further and were nearly home again, he ventured to say:

  “I wonder, sir, if you would mind putting me down at Winders Green?”

  “What for?” growled the colonel.

  “I just thought,” Bobby explained meekly, “I would like to get some more details of the car accident Mr. Larson saw there.”

  “All in the report,” the colonel said testily.

  “There wasn’t anything about the cat, sir,” Bobby reminded him. “I feel interested somehow in the cat.”

  The colonel looked at him coldly. But Bobby made no effort to explain. He knew better than to attempt to put before his superiors an only half-baked theory. He preferred his cooking to be thorough and complete before he sent his dishes to table, or he might be met, not only with incredulity, but even with a direct order forbidding further investigation on such unconvincing lines. And Bobby hated to disobey direct orders, unless it was really necessary, and even then only with his heart sometimes in his boots and sometimes in his mouth, but never in its right place. Nor did he ask how the chief constable meant to follow up the information received about young Oliver Moffatt. That, of course, was Colonel Warden’s own responsibility, since in his hands lay the direction of the inquiry. Bobby knew what line he would take himself but knew also he must wait till his advice was asked. The colonel stopped the car.

  “Winders Green,” he said briefly.

  Bobby thanked him, asked for instructions, got none of any interest except to report next day as usual, and so alighted.