The Long Arm of the Law

by Martin Edwards

  “Indication of what, Mr Spencer?”

  “That she would do away with herself! She—she agreed that as I knew about the boy I couldn’t be expected to lose sight of him. It’s dreadful. It—”

  “Mrs Pirro was murdered, Mr Spencer.”

  “Oh, my God,” breathed Charles Spencer. “Oh, my God.” Then, as if the words were wrung from him: “She said he’d kill her if he ever found out.”

  ***

  Roger went into Cortland’s office about six o’clock that evening.

  “Still no sign of Pirro,” he said abruptly. “Will you give the okay to put that call for him all over the country?”

  “Can do. What’s worrying you?”

  “I’d rather he didn’t kill himself before we get him,” Roger said, brusquely.

  Cortland gave the order on the telephone.

  “Now, what’ve you got so far?”

  A summary of the investigation took twenty minutes in the telling. Cortland listened attentively, and made little comment, beyond:

  “Well, it’s all adding up. You’ve found two neighbours who saw Spencer go there yesterday morning, three who heard last night’s quarrel, two who saw Pirro leave just after nine-fifteen. Any doubt about that time?”

  “No. It was just after a television programme. The neighbours, husband and wife, took their dog for an airing.”

  “Seems straightforward enough,” Cortland said. “We’ve had a few false reports that Pirro’s been seen, but that’s all. Seldom went anywhere else, as you know; just a home bird!” Cortland handed over some papers. “We’ve got his history.”

  Roger scanned the papers.

  Pirro’s parents had settled in England a little before the war; when they had died, he had been sixteen, and had already spent most of his life in England. There were details about people he and his parents had known, much to show that Pirro had always been regarded as wholly trustworthy. During the war, he had worked with the Civil Defence.

  “None of the people who knew him then seem to have kept in touch,” said Cortland. “But you know pretty well all there is about him since he got married, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” admitted Roger. “We’ve got an even-tempered, home-loving man, no outside interests, nice wife, apparently thoroughly happy, who comes home one night and is heard shouting and raving, for the first time ever. That morning, the wife’s old lover had appeared, and we now know he was the child’s father. So—”

  “If Mrs Pirro decided to tell her husband the truth, that could explain what happened,” Cortland interrupted. “Enough to drive a man of Pirro’s kind off his rocker, too, and it’s easy to go too far. We’ll soon pick him up, and he’ll—”

  “I hope we don’t pick his body out of a river,” Roger said gruffly. “I’m trying to think where a man in his position would go in such a crisis. Home wrecked and life wrecked. Where—” He broke off, and snapped his fingers. “I wonder where they spent their honeymoon.”

  “Margate, probably,” Cortland commented drily.

  “Mrs Frost would know,” said Roger. “I’ll have the Division ask her.” He saw Cortland’s grin at his impatience, but that didn’t worry him. All he wanted was an answer, and one soon came: the Pirros had honeymooned in Bournemouth.

  It was almost an anti-climax when Pirro was picked up on the cliffs at Bournemouth late that evening.

  “All alive, too,” Cortland jeered.

  “That could be a good thing,” Roger said. “Does he know why he’s been picked up?”

  “No.”

  “When did he go, has he said?”

  “Last night’s mail train—10.42 from Waterloo. He went to Putney Station, was seen hanging about for twenty minutes or so, caught a train to Waterloo for the 10.42 to Bournemouth, with a few minutes to spare.”

  “I’ll go down and get him,” said Roger.

  5

  Pirro was smaller than Roger had expected, but even better-looking than in his photograph, a short, compact man with jet black hair, and fine, light blue eyes which made him quite striking. His lips were set and taut and his hands were clenched as he jumped up from a chair when Roger and a Bournemouth detective entered the room where he was guarded by a uniformed policeman; but he didn’t speak.

  “Good evening, Mr Pirro,” Roger greeted mildly. “I am Chief Inspector West of New Scotland Yard, and I would like you to answer a few questions.”

  “Is it not time you answered questions?” Pirro demanded, with restrained anger. “Why am I kept here? Why am I treated as a criminal? I demand an answer.”

  His English had a slight trace of an accent, and was a little too precisely uttered; that was all.

  There was only one way; to use shock tactics. Roger used them, roughly, abruptly:

  “Anthony Pirro, it is my duty to arrest you in connection with the murder of your wife, Mrs Evelyn Ethel Pirro, at about ten o’clock last night, and I must inform you that anything you say will be written down and may be used in evidence.”

  Pirro started violently; then his expression and his whole body seemed to go slack, and suddenly a new expression came into his eyes. Did he will that expression? Had he carefully and cunningly prepared for this moment of crisis?

  His next reaction took both Roger and the Bournemouth men by surprise. He leapt forward as if to attack, snatched at Roger’s hands and gripped his wrists tightly.

  “You are lying. She is not dead,” he said fiercely. “You are lying.”

  His body quivered, his white teeth clenched, his fingers dug into Roger’s wrists.

  “You know very well she is dead,” Roger said coldly, nodding the Bournemouth man to stand back.

  “No!” cried Pirro, as if real horror touched him now. “No, she is not dead, she cannot be. I pushed her away from me, that is all. I felt that I hated her, but dead—”

  It was an hour before he could talk rationally, and much that he said was obviously true. His wife had told him the truth about the child, and in the rage and hurt of the revelation, Pirro had wished both her and himself dead, had raved and cursed her, had struck her and stormed out of their home. But—

  “I did not kill her,” he said in a hushed voice. “When I came here I knew she remained everything to me. I could not live without her…

  “I cannot live without her,” he went on abruptly. “It is not possible.” Then calmness took possession of him, as if he knew that further denials were useless, and did not really matter.

  “The child?” Roger asked.

  “He is not mine,” said Pirro. “I have no wife and I have no son.”

  6

  “Well, you’ve got everything you can expect,” Cortland said, next afternoon, at the Yard. “Motive, opportunity, and an admission that he struck her. He could have had a brainstorm and not remember choking the life out of her. Don’t tell me you’re not satisfied.”

  “I’m still not happy about it,” Roger said. “Pirro closed up completely when he realised his wife was dead, and behaved as if nothing mattered after that. He hasn’t said a word since. We’ve checked that he caught the 10.42 from Waterloo to Bournemouth. He seems to have retraced the steps he and his wife took on their honeymoon. They loved each other so much for so long that I feel I must find out exactly what happened to cause all this.”

  “If he won’t talk, who will?” Cortland demanded.

  “The child might,” Roger said slowly. “I wanted to avoid it, but I’m going to question him.”

  ***

  Little Tony Pirro looked up into Roger’s face, his own grey eyes grave and earnest. He stood by the chair in the living-room of the bungalow, and Roger sat back, a cigarette in his hand, aware that Mrs Frost was anxious and disapproving in the kitchen, with the door ajar. Tony had said: “Good morning, sir,” with well-learned politeness, and waited until Roger said:

 
“Do you know who I am, Tony?”

  “Yes, sir. You are a policeman.”

  “That’s right. Do you know why I’m here?”

  “Aunt May said you were going to ask me some questions.”

  “That’s right, too. They’re important questions.”

  “I know. They’re about my mummy being ill.”

  “Ill?”

  “Yes, she’s very ill, you know. The doctor said she was going to die,” announced Tony, with no inflection in his voice, “but it won’t hurt her.”

  Damn good doctor!

  “It won’t hurt at all,” Roger assured the child. “Did you see her last night?”

  “No; I was living here, with Mrs Frost.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Oh, lots of times.”

  “Can you remember the very last time?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “When was it, Tony?”

  “Not last night, but the night before that.”

  “Where were you?” asked Roger, almost awkwardly.

  “In my bedroom.”

  Roger’s eyes widened as if in surprise.

  “Have you a whole bedroom all to yourself?”

  “Oh, yes.” Tony’s eyes lit up, and he turned and pointed. “It’s over there.”

  “I’d like to see it,” Roger said, and got up. “Will you show me?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Tony eagerly. “It’s a big room, and Daddy papered the walls specially for my birthday.”

  He went, hurrying, to open the door on to the small room, with the Robin Hood motifs on the walls, the bed, the toys, the books. He stood proudly, waiting for Roger’s look of surprised approval, and also waiting on his words.

  “Well!” Roger breathed. “This is wonderful! Robin Hood, too. Look at him! I hope he won’t shoot you with his bow and arrow.”

  “Oh, he won’t; he’s only a picture,” Tony announced, as a statement, not reproof.

  “Oh, of course,” Roger said, and continued to look round for several minutes, before asking: “Did Mummy come in to say good night, the night before last?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like she always does.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she ill then?”

  “No,” said Tony, thoughtfully. “She wasn’t ill, but she wasn’t happy like she usually is.”

  “Oh, what a pity! How do you know?”

  “She was crying.”

  “Did she cry very much?”

  “No, only a little bit; she didn’t want me to see.”

  “Did she cry very often?” Roger persisted.

  “Well, only sometimes.”

  “When did she usually cry, Tony?”

  “When Daddy was ill,” Tony said, very simply. “It was Christmas, and Daddy had to see the doctor.”

  “Did she ever cry when Daddy was well?”

  “Oh, no, never.”

  “That’s good. When she cried the night before last, was Daddy here?”

  “No; Daddy wasn’t home then.”

  “Did you hear him come home?”

  “Oh, yes, I always recognise his footsteps, and Mummy does, too.”

  “Did he come to you and say good night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he crying?”

  “Oh, Daddy doesn’t cry,” Tony said with proud emphasis. “He’s a man.”

  “Of course, how silly of me! Was he happy that night?”

  “He was happy with me,” Tony declared.

  “The same as usual?”

  “Just the same.”

  “Was he happy with Mummy?”

  “Well, he was at first,” Tony said quietly, and then went on without any prompting: “Then he shouted at Mummy, ever so loud. It woke me up, and I listened for ever such a long time. Daddy shouted and shouted, and Mummy cried, and then she shouted back at him. I didn’t like it, so I put my head right under the bedclothes.”

  “That was a good idea. When you took it out again, were they still shouting?”

  “Well, yes, they were.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Well, no,” said Tony, after a pause. “Only Daddy was.”

  “Did you hear Mummy at all?”

  “She was crying again.”

  “Was she crying very much?”

  “Well, quite a lot, really.”

  “How long did Daddy shout at her?”

  “Not long, then. He went out.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, I heard him bang the door, and walk along the street. He was going ever so fast.”

  “Was he by himself?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Didn’t Mummy go with him?”

  “She just cried and cried,” Tony said, quite dispassionately. “And then she went all quiet. I thought she’d gone to sleep; I didn’t know she was ill.”

  “Tony,” said Roger, very softly, “I want you to think very carefully about this. Did your mummy cry after your daddy banged the door?”

  “Oh, yes, like I told you.”

  “Did she cry a lot?”

  “Ever such a lot.”

  “Did she come and see you then?”

  “No; she didn’t.”

  “What did happen?”

  “I just went to sleep,” Tony said, with the same complete detachment, “and when I went to see Mummy in the morning, she wouldn’t wake up.”

  “I see,” said Roger, and he had to fight to keep from showing his excitement to this child. “Thank you very much for answering my questions so nicely. I’m going away now, but I’ll see you again soon.”

  In the next room, he asked the sergeant who had been there with a notebook: “Get all that?”

  “Every word, sir.”

  “Fine!” enthused Roger. “The child says that his mother cried after Pirro left! If that’s true, she was alive when he went out. I’d believe that Pirro would kill his wife in a rage, but not that he’d go out, cool down, and come back and kill her in cold blood.”

  The Yard and the Division put every man they could spare on to the inquiry. Results weren’t long in coming.

  Charles Spencer had left his father’s Chelsea house at half-past nine on the night of the murder, giving him ample time to get to the Putney bungalow in time to kill Mrs Pirro. His car had been noticed in a main road near the bungalow. He had been seen walking towards Greyling Crescent. No one had actually seen him enter the bungalow, but he had been seen driving off in the car an hour later.

  By middle afternoon of that third day, Roger saw him at the Fenchurch Street office, the man so like his young son, protesting his innocence mildly at first, then indignant, then angry, eventually frightened, his round face reddening, his big, strong hands clenching and unclenching.

  “Mr Spencer, I want to know why you went to see Mrs Pirro that night, and what happened while you were there,” Roger insisted coldly.

  “Supposing I did see her for a few minutes; that’s no crime! I went to see that she was okay. She was perfectly well when I left her. Her brute of a husband had run out on her, she was terrified in case he’d come back and do her some harm. And he came back and strangled her, he—”

  “No, he didn’t,” Roger said flatly. “He walked to Putney Station, waited twenty minutes for a train to Waterloo, then caught the mail train to Bournemouth, the 10.42. He couldn’t possibly have had time to go back to the bungalow. Mr Spencer, why did you kill Mrs Pirro?”

  ***

  “Damn good thing you decided to tackle the child again,” Cortland said, on the following day. “How about motive? Made any sense of it yet?”

  “It’s showing up clearly,” Roger told him. “Spencer always hated Pirro for taking his mistress away from
him. When he discovered the child, all the old resentment boiled up. I doubt if we’ll ever know whether he meant to kill Mrs Pirro; he might have gone there to try to get back to the old relationship, and hurt Pirro that way. Whatever the motive, we’ve got him tight.”

  “Only bad thing left is that kid’s future,” Cortland said gruffly.

  “Pirro’s going to see him tonight,” Roger said, thoughtfully. “A man of his kind of heart-searching honesty can’t throw six years away so easily. You get fond of a child in six weeks, never mind six years. I’m really hopeful, anyhow.”

  “Fine,” Cortland said, more heartily. “Now, there’s a job out at Peckham—”

  Old Mr Martin

  Michael Gilbert

  Michael Francis Gilbert (1912–2006) was for over thirty years a partner in a firm of solicitors as well as an exceptionally talented author, who produced reams of fiction while commuting from Kent to work in Lincoln’s Inn. His eclectic body of work earned him British crime writing’s highest honour, the CWA Diamond Dagger. Both the Mystery Writers of America and the Swedish Academy of Detection honoured him as a Grand Master.

  Gilbert created an impressive variety of appealing series characters, including several very human policemen. Chief Inspector (later Chief Superintendent) Hazelrigg of Scotland Yard appeared in his very first book, Close Quarters (1947), as well as five subsequent novels and nineteen short stories. Patrick Petrella appeared in two enjoyable novels, Blood and Judgement (1959) and—after a remarkably long gap—Roller Coaster (1993), as well as in no fewer than fifty short stories. This one was first published in Argosy in 1960.

  ***

  When Bernard, the taxi driver who parked at the end of Gabriel Street and sometimes drove Inspector Petrella home, said to him, “I suppose you wooden fancy a ton of nice acid drops,” Petrella thought for a moment that he was listening to a piece of south London slang.

  Then he realised that Bernard was speaking comparatively literally.

  “I was past ol’ Martin’s place this morning. The kids’ll miss him, won’t they?”

  “They certainly will,” said Petrella. “And I’d like to get my hands on the thug who ran him down.”

  “Makes you wonder,” said Bernard. “When you think of all the people around today we easily could spare. No one would worry much if a car ran into—” Bernard here named a number of people prominent in politics and the world of entertainment—“but no! He has to go and knock off an old boy like Sam Martin. Like I said, it makes you wonder what Providence is thinking about.”