"I'd gathered that he was a broker. There are one or two copies of letters to him amongst Fletcher's papers, and a few of his replies. I haven't had time yet to go through them carefully. What took him down to see Fletcher at nine o'clock at night?"
"That's where the narrative got what you might call abstruse," replied the Sergeant. "Nor, if you was to ask me, should I say that I actually believed all that Budd told me. Sweating very freely, he was. But then, it's been a hot day, and he's a fleshy man. However, the gist of it was that owing to the difficulty of hearing very well over the telephone there was some sort of misunderstanding about some highly confidential instructions issued by the late Ernest in - er - a still more highly confidential deal. Our Mr. Budd, not wishing to entrust any more of this hush-hush business to the telephone, went off to see the late Ernest in person."
"It sounds very fishy," said Hannasyde.
"That's nothing to what it smelt like," said the Sergeant. "I had to open the window. But bearing in mind that the man we're after isn't Budd, I didn't press the matter much. What I did see fit to ask him, though, was whether the aforesaid misunderstanding had led to any unpleasantness with the late Ernest."
Hannasyde nodded. "Quite right. What did he say?"
"Oh, he behaved as though I was his Father Confessor!" said the Sergeant. That may have been on account of my nice, kind personality, or, on the other hand, it may not. But he opened right out like a poppy in the sun."
"I can do without these poetical flights," said Hannasyde.
Just as you say, Chief. Anyway, he took me right to his bosom. Fairly oozed natural oil, and what I took to be highly unnatural frankness. He didn't keep a thing from me - nothing I'd already got wind of, at any rate. There was a little unpleasantness, due to the late Ernest's having assumed that certain of his instructions had been acted on, which, owing to the telephone and one thing and another, they hadn't been. However, once the late Ernest had got over his naughty temper, all became jake again, and they parted like brothers."
"Oh!" said Hannasyde. "Quite plausible. It might be true."
"Yes, but I'll tell you a funny thing," said the Sergeant. "I've been swotting flies all day, but the whole time little Abraham was with me I never saw a fly settle on him, not once."
"Oh!" said Hannasyde again. "Like that, is he?"
"Yes," replied the Sergeant. "He is. What's more, Super, though you and I may not see eye to eye about Psychology, I know when a man's got the wind up. Little Abraham was having quite a job to keep his feet down on the ground. But I'm bound to say he did it. He answered all my questions before I'd even had time to ask them, too. Gave me a word-picture of his state of mind when he read about the late Ernest's death that was a masterpiece. First you could have knocked him down with a feather; then he thought, why, it must have happened not half-an-hour after he had left the late Ernest. After that he hoped he wouldn't get mixed up in it, and from there it was only a matter of seconds before he remembered handing the late Ernest's butler his card; and, on top of that, having Ernest address him in a loud and angry voice. Finally, it struck him like a thunder-clap that the late Ernest had shown him out by the side gate, so that no other person had witnessed his departure. Having assembled all these facts, he perceived that he was in a very compromising situation, and the only thing to be done was to come straight round to the kind police, whom he was brought up to look upon as his best friends."
Hannasyde was frowning. "It's almost too plausible. What did you do?"
"Gave him a piece of toffee, and sent him home to his mother," answered the Sergeant promptly.
Hannasyde, who knew his Sergeant, apparently approved of this somewhat unorthodox conduct, for he said: "Yes, about the best thing you could do. He'll keep. Now, what about this Charlie Carpenter you spoke of over the telephone?"
The Sergeant abandoned flippancy for the moment. "A packet!" he said. "That's where we come on the second unexpected feature of this case. As a matter of fact, I thought we were going to draw a blank on those fingerprints. But this is what we've got." He picked up a folder from the desk as he spoke, and handed it to his superior. It contained a portrait of a young man, two sets of photographed finger-prints, and a brief, unsentimental record of the latter career of one Charlie Carpenter, aged twenty-nine years, measuring five feet nine inches, weighing eleven stone six pounds, having light-brown hair, grey eyes, and no distinguishing birth-marks.
Hannasyde's brows went up as he read, for the record was one of petty rogueries, culminating in a sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment for false pretences. "This is certainly unexpected," he said.
"Doesn't fit at all, does he?" agreed the Sergeant. "That's what I thought."
Hannasyde was studying the portrait. "Flashy-looking fellow. Hair probably artificially waved. All right, Sergeant: I can see you're bursting with news. Let's have it.
"Newton handled his case," said the Sergeant. "He doesn't know much about him, beyond his little lapses. Young waster with no background, and a taste for hitting the high spots. Dances and sings a bit; been on the stage, but not what you'd call noticeably; at one time did the gigolo act at a cheap dance-hall in the East End; seems to have gone pretty big with the ladies: you know the type. Not in the late Ernest's walk of life at all. In fact, I was just thinking I'd hit on the greatest discovery of the age, which was that Bertillon had made a mistake after all, when Newton said something that opened out a whole new vista before me."
"Well?"
"He said that at the time of his arrest, which took place, as you'll notice, in November of 1934, Charlie was living with an actress - that means front row of the Beauty Chorus - of the name of Angela Angel!"
Hannasyde looked up. "Angela Angel? Wasn't there a case about a year ago to do with a girl called Angela Angel? Suicide, wasn't it?"
"It was," said the Sergeant. "Sixteen months ago, to be precise." He opened the case in which he had borne Ernest Fletcher's papers away from Greystones, and picked up a photograph that was lying on the top of a pile of documents. "And that, Super, is Angela Angel!"
Hannasyde took the photograph, and recognised it at once as the one which had struck an elusive chord of memory in the Sergeant's brain earlier in the day.
"As soon as Newton mentioned the name, which he only did because of the girl having been a case herself, poor kid, I remembered," said the Sergeant. "Jimmy Gale was in charge of her little affair, which was how I came to hear a bit about it at the time. Did herself in for no particular reason that anyone ever discovered. She wasn't in trouble, she'd got a job in the chorus of the cabaret show at Duke's, and quite a bit of money put by in the bank. All the same, she stuck her head in a gas oven one night. Well, looked at as a case, there was nothing to it. But there were points which interested Gale in a mild sort of a way. For one thing, she didn't leave any letter behind, explaining why she'd done it, which, in Gale's experience, was unusual. Nine times out of ten a suicide'll leave a letter behind which'll make some poor devil feel like a murderer for the rest of his life, whether he deserves to or not. She didn't. What's more, they never found out what her real name was. She even opened her bank account under the name of Angela Angel. She didn't seem to have any relations, or if she had they never came forward to claim her; and she wasn't, by all accounts, one of those who tell their girlfriends the whole story of their lives. None of the rest of the chorus knew much about her when it came to the point. But what they did know was that about seven or eight months before she killed herself she got off with a very nice gentleman, who set her up in style in a smart flat with the usual trimmings."
"Fletcher?"
"Taking one thing with another, and adding up a few simple figures, that's what it looks like, Chief. Not that I've got his name yet, for I haven't. There are two girls still dancing at Duke's who were there in Angela's time, but they neither of them seem to think they ever heard what her boy-friend's real name was. All they could think of was Boo-Boo, which was what she called him, but which doesn't so
und to me the sort of name any self respecting man would put up with except from a girl he happened to have gone nuts over. So that's not much help."
"Any description?"
"Yes, he was middle-aged, dark, thin, and natty. The late Ernest to the life. A lot of other people to the life too, if you come to think of it, but it'll do to go on with. Well, as I say, he set Angela up in the best of style, and she chucked dancing for a life of gilded leisure. That was a matter of six months after friend Charlie had gone to gaol. Nothing more was heard of Angela at Duke's for the next six months, which brings us to the end of December 1935, when she turned up again, wanting her old job back."
"Cast off?"
"That," said the Sergeant guardedly, "is the inference, but the fair Lily -'
"Who?"
"One of the chorus. She stated at the time, and today, when I saw her, that Angela was as close as an oyster about the whole business. Sifting the grain from the chaff, which isn't as easy as you might think when Lily starts talking, I came to the conclusion that the late Ernest (or substitute) was by way of being the great passion of Angela's life. Only he'd cooled off. But taking into account the fact that she wasn't in trouble, and had quite a bit of money put by, I'm bound to say it looks to me as though he didn't treat her so badly. However, the fair Lily sticks to it that she'd got a broken heart, and couldn't seem to fancy any of the other fellows who were floating around. After a couple of months she decided she couldn't live without the late Ernest, so she put her head in a gas oven, and that was the end of her."
"Poor girl! The more I discover about Fletcher the less I like him."
"Now, be fair, Chief!" begged Hemingway. "This isn't one of your seduction rackets. If Angela didn't know what was likely to happen she ought to have. But that's neither here nor there. What I want to know is, where and how does Charlie Carpenter fit into the scenario?"
"Have you been able to discover anything about his movements since he was released from prison? When exactly was that?" He consulted the dossier on the desk. "June 1936! A year ago, in fact. What's he been up to all this time?"
"You can search me," said the Sergeant. "He hasn't got pinched for anything, that's all I can tell you. Funny, isn't it? If he was out to pull a big revenge act, what's he want to wait a year for?"
Hannasyde looked at the photograph again. "Revenge? Does he give you that impression?"
"No, he doesn't. Silly, weak kind of face, and by all accounts he was a selfish young bounder, not given to putting himself out for anyone but himself. No, what it looks like to me, at first glance, is an attempt to put the black on the late Ernest. Not much of an attempt either, which is about what you'd expect, judging from his record."
"Yes," Hannasyde agreed. "And then we come up against the murder."
"Slap up against it," nodded the Sergeant. "And it doesn't fit."
"Several loose ends somewhere. He fits the description given by Glass and Mrs. North, though - but I admit they were too vague to be of much use."
"Oh, so Mrs. North was there, was she?"
"She was there, and unless I am much mistaken she thinks it was her husband who killed Fletcher."
The Sergeant opened his eyes at that. "You do see life in the suburbs, don't you? Nice goings-on! Whatever does Ichabod say about it?"
"As I haven't told him anything about it, he hasn't yet favoured me with his opinion."
"You wait till he gets wind of it. He'll learn a whole new piece to say to us. But this line on Mrs. North's husband is very confusing. What's been happening your end, Chief?"
Hannasyde gave him a brief account of his two interviews with Helen North. The Sergeant listened in silence, his bright, penetrating eyes fixed on his superior's face with an expression in them of gradually deepening disgust.
"What did I tell you?" he said, when Hannasyde had finished. "The whole stage is getting cluttered up with supers. I'll tell you something else, too; by the time we're through we shall have had just about all we can stand of this North woman. I wouldn't mind betting she thinks we've got nothing better to do than run round in circles while she gets on with this three-act problem play of hers. I'm surprised at you, Chief, letting yourself get dragged into her differences with her husband. What's more, where's the sense of her hiding all this IOU business from him? He's bound to find out in the end."
"I daresay, but I can't see that it's any part of my job to tell him."
The Sergeant sniffed. "What's the husband like? Give any reason for coming home a week before he was expected?"
"None. He's a good-looking chap. Got a bit of a chin, and thinks more than he says. Determined fellow, I should imagine; not easily rattled, and by no means a fool."
"I hope we bring it home to him," said the Sergeant uncharitably. "From the sound of it, he's going to be as big a nuisance as his wife. No alibi?"
"So he said. In fact, he made me a present of that piece of information."
The Sergeant cocked an eye at him. "He did, did he? Did it strike you he might be fancying himself in the part of a red herring?"
"It's a possibility, of course. He may suspect his wife of having killed Fletcher. It depends how much he knows about her dealings with the man."
The Sergeant groaned. "I get it. A nice game of battledore and shuttlecock, with you and me cast for the shuttlecocks. Of course, our heads won't really start aching till Mrs. North gets on to it that the man she saw may have been Charlie Carpenter. We'll have her eating all that evidence of hers about the late Ernest showing him off the premises then. Probably boloney, anyway."
"It may be, but she spoke the truth about her fingerprints being on the door. I verified that before I left Marley. The real discrepancy is in the time. At 9.35 p.m. Budd left Greystones by the garden-gate. I think we can take that as being true. Mrs. North was walking up Maple Grove at that time, and states that she saw a fat man come out of Greystones."
The Sergeant jotted it down on a piece of paper. "That checks up with his own story: 9.35 p.m. Budd leaves; the North dame arrives."
"Next we have Mrs. North leaving the study at 9.45."
"Short visit," commented the Sergeant.
"She and Fletcher had a row. She admitted to that the second time I saw her. Also at 9.45 we have the unknown man entering the garden by the side gate."
"X," said the Sergeant. "That's when Mrs. North hid behind the bush?"
"Yes. X entered the study, we suppose, a minute later. That isn't important. Now, according to her first story, Mrs. North then left by way of the garden-gate. According to her second version, she remained where she was, until about 9.58, when X, accompanied by Fletcher, came out of the study, and walked down the path to the gate. She then slipped back into the study to search for her IOUs, heard Fletcher returning, and escaped through the door into the hall. She was in the hall as the clock began to strike 10.00. At 10.02, Glass, on his beat, saw a man corresponding to Mrs. North's description of X coming out of the garden-gate, and making off towards the Arden Road. He entered the garden and reached the study at 10.05 p.m., to find Fletcher dead, and no sign of his murderer to be seen. What do you make of it?"
"I don't," said the Sergeant flatly. "It's looked like a mess to me from the start. What I do say is that all this stuff of Mrs. North's isn't to be trusted. In fact, there's only one thing we've got to hold on to, which is that at 10.05 p.m. Glass found the late Ernest with his head bashed in. That at least is certain, and what's more it makes Mrs. North's evidence look a bit cock-eyed. Glass saw X leaving the premises at 10.02, which means that if he was the murderer he must have done Ernest in between 10.00 and 10.01, allowing him a minute to get out of the study and down the path to the gate."
"All right: that's probably a fair estimate."
"Well, it doesn't fit - not if you're accepting Mrs. North's evidence. According to her, it was just on 10.00 when she heard Ernest coming back to the study. You think of it, Chief: Ernest has got to have time to get into his chair behind the desk again, and start to writ
e the letter that was found under his head. It was obvious he was taken by surprise, which means that X didn't come stampeding up the path directly behind him. He waited till Ernest was in the house: it stands to reason he must have. Once Ernest has settled down he gets to work - enters, strikes Ernest with some kind of a blunt instrument, not once, mark you! but two or three times - and then makes off. Well, if you can cram all that into two minutes you're cleverer than I am, Super, that's all. Take it this way: if Ernest saw him off the premises, he pretended to walk away, didn't he?"
"You'd think so."
"I'm dead sure of it. While Ernest is strolling back to the house, he comes back cautiously to the gate. If he'd made up his mind, as he must have, to kill Ernest, he didn't open that gate till Ernest had reached the house again, which was at 10.00 p.m. He wouldn't have run the risk of Ernest hearing him. No point in it. Does he stride up the path bold as brass, thus advertising his presence? Of course he doesn't! He creeps up, and if it takes a minute to reach the study from that gate, walking ordinarily, as we know it does, it's my belief it took X a sight longer to do it in the dark, treading warily. By the time he's in the study again it must be a couple of minutes after 10.00, at which time, mark you, Glass saw him coming out of the garden-gate."
"I'm afraid you've got a fixation, Skipper," said Hannasyde gently. "We don't know that X was the murderer."
The Sergeant swallowed this, replying with dignity: "I was coming to that. It could have been Budd, come back secretly, and lying in wait in the garden till the coast was clear; or it could have been Mr. North. But if X, whom Glass saw, was Charlie Carpenter, what was he doing while Ernest was being knocked on the head?"
"There's another possibility," said Hannasyde. "Suppose that North was the murderer -'
"Just a moment, Super! Is North X?" demanded Hemingway.
"Nobody is X. Assuming that North was the man Mrs. North saw coming up the path, we have to consider the possibility of Fletcher's having been killed at any time between 9.45 and 10.01."
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