Blood and Judgement

by Michael Gilbert

  “He was more than a lover,” said Petrella. “He was a safe deposit as well. He was hiding the jewellery for her which her husband had stolen and had entrusted to her before he went to prison. He had made a cache for it in the kitchen.”

  He told Haxtell about that.

  “And you spotted this when you were on one of your – er – night-diving operations.”

  “I ran my finger into the butt end of the screw,” said Petrella. “There’s the scar. I didn’t connect it with anything in particular at the time. It might have been something to do with the gas or electricity. And anyway it was empty.”

  “All right,” said Haxtell. “Let’s try to sort it out a bit. Start on Saturday afternoon. Take it slowly.”

  “I think,” said Petrella, “that Rosa didn’t go straight from her flat to the reservoir. According to Mrs Fraser, she was out of the house by three o’clock, but I don’t think she got to the reservoir much before dusk.”

  “Because she’d have been seen climbing in.”

  “Yes, and because it was their routine. She’d go in much the same way that we did, across the far corner of the recreation ground, through the broken gate, and to a pre-arranged rendezvous among the bushes.”

  “You think they’d met there before.”

  “Oh, I think so, yes. That was where he made love to her. One of the places.” Petrella announced this with such curious conviction that Haxtell looked at him, but only said, “Well, we know she didn’t go absolutely straight to the reservoir.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “She must have stopped somewhere to buy an evening paper. That edition she was carrying is on the streets, in the West End, at three o’clock, but it doesn’t get up to these parts much before four.”

  “Right. And she’d taken out the middle sheet, with the piece about her husband on it, ready to show to Ricketts. And folded the rest of the paper away, out of sight. I think she was in a very dangerous frame of mind. Frightened, and angry. Angry with Ricketts, because he’d got her into trouble. Now that her husband was loose, it really was trouble. And angry because she’d begun to suspect that he’d been short-changing her about the jewellery.”

  “Selling it for his own account?”

  “Yes. That was one thing I noticed about the jewellery sales. The only ones which are definitely tied up with Howton took place after the murder.”

  “And were quite small pieces. The idea being that he – all right, don’t let’s jump the gun. Go on. She’s lying among the bushes, in a bad frame of mind, waiting for Ricketts to appear.”

  “Which he does. I think she stopped for something else too. I think – but this is pure guessing – that she met her husband. They arranged it when they spoke on the telephone the night before. I should think he wanted to see her a lot more than she wanted to see him, but she couldn’t very well say no.”

  “You mean, she was afraid he might have heard about her and Ricketts? About the baby?”

  “I don’t honestly think that he would have cared very much if he had. It wouldn’t have made him any fonder of Ricketts, I agree, but there was only one thing on his mind at the moment, and that was ready money. The money that she was supposed to have from the sale of the jewellery he had left with her, and which, as she had begun to realize lately, she was seeing very little of. Because Ricketts was doing the actual selling, and Ricketts was hanging on to most of the money.”

  Haxtell took time out to consider this. Then he said, “Do you suppose she told her husband about that?”

  “I don’t think she had any option. The one thing she couldn’t explain away was that she ought to have had a lot of ready money – which he desperately needed at that moment – and she couldn’t produce it.”

  “It’s conjecture,” said Haxtell. “But I think it’s reasonable. So what did they plan to do?”

  “What would you have done, sir?”

  “Gone and shaken Ricketts down.”

  “And that was what they were going to do, too. She would go to her usual rendezvous with him, at dusk. That would give Monk a chance to get into the cottage. For that’s where the remains of the jewellery and the ready money were. No doubt about that. If Ricketts had a hoard, it was in the cottage. Once he had been drawn away from the cottage, Monk was on to a good thing to nothing. Either he found what he was looking for. Or, if he didn’t, he waited till Ricketts came back. There’d have been ways of making him talk.”

  “Yes. And what went wrong?”

  “What must have gone wrong,” said Petrella, “is that Ricketts bought himself an evening paper too.”

  There was a long silence, while Haxtell turned it all over in his mind. At the end of it, he let his breath out slowly, like a man who has come up from deep water, and said, “It’s an idea. That would be why he took a loaded gun with him to his rendezvous. A war souvenir, that he kept, all greased up and loaded, and tucked away under another floorboard. Do you know, I’m beginning to get the impression that Mr Ricketts isn’t a very nice character.”

  “His first wife was afraid of him,” said Petrella. “And he impressed himself so powerfully on Jean Fraser, who, as far as we know, never even met him, that she wasn’t prepared to say a word against him until she thought he was dead.”

  “I like this story,” said Haxtell. “Go on, Patrick.”

  “I don’t know whether Rosa lost her temper with him or whether he deliberately provoked her, but there certainly came a moment in their talk when she pulled out the folded page of the paper, and pushed it in his face, and said, ‘You’re not dealing with a helpless woman now. My husband’s out, and he’s in the cottage waiting for you, so you’d better come clean, or else – ’”

  “So he shot her.”

  “Yes. Quietly, there and then, all among the grass and the flowers, and shovelled a lot of leaves on her, and let her lie.”

  “And then went back to the cottage and dealt with Monk too.”

  “I think so. It was either that or give up the money. He’d killed once. He’d nothing to lose by killing again. I should think he had everything pretty well packed up for a getaway. An escape route mapped out. A hideout arranged.”

  “Yes. And it’s clear why he dumped the second body in the reservoir. It would be a lot less messy and leave fewer traces than dragging it up into the bushes. And if he was going to dump the body, it was sensible to dump the gun as well. What I can’t see is why, having dumped them, he didn’t come back, tie up the boat, and walk quietly out of the front – oh, yes I can, though. The rest of the boys had turned up.”

  “That must be the answer, sir. There he is, sitting quietly, resting on his oars, in the middle of the reservoir, when – he hears something – sees a light in the cottage, perhaps. He can’t go back, so he goes on. He’d know all about that back way out. He’d probably reconnoitred it earlier, with the idea of making a quick getaway. “

  “And Howton? How much did he know or guess about all this?”

  “He certainly didn’t know about Rosa and Ricketts. He’s got a tongue in his head, and if he’d known about it, it would have been one of the first things he’d have told his lawyer. My guess would be that Monk had simply told Howton he was going to the reservoir to meet his wife.”

  “Or he was seen – or followed. And Howton arrived too late, but in nice time to carry the can for everything. He’d ransack the cottage, no doubt. And he found what was left of the jewellery – the odds and bits that hadn’t been worth selling before. And being a greedy bastard, he couldn’t resist selling them himself. Thus wedging his ugly head firmly into a noose.”

  They walked around the structure for a bit, prodding it and picking at it.

  “It’s a nice build-up,” said Haxtell. “Very creditable. How did you think of it all?”

  Petrella nearly said that he’d seen the essential parts of it in a dream, but he realized in time that this would only increase his growing reputation for eccentricity.

  “It came to me in bits and
pieces,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I don’t like it better than the official version, really,” said Haxtell.

  “Of course you do,” said Petrella indignantly. “This is the truth.”

  “They’re both theories. There’s just one thing will clinch yours and destroy the opposition. Find Ricketts and fingerprint him. If it’s his print on the gun – there’s no argument.”

  “That’s not going to be all that easy,” said Petrella. “Even if Central showed more signs of co-operating, which they aren’t.”

  Haxtell felt unable to pursue that one. But he knew, quite well, that a nationwide search with the drive of Scotland Yard behind it was a great deal more likely to be successful than any efforts they could organize themselves.

  He said, “The more I think about Ricketts the more certain I am that he’s that rare sort of criminal, a man who looks ahead. I believe we shall find that he had his hideaway all ready. It’d be a lot easier for him if he had someone to help him. An old mother, or a sister, or a fourth wife, or something of that sort. He’d visit her from time to time, and he’d be known, under some other name of course, as her son or brother or what have you. Then all he’d have to do would be to walk away from the reservoir, put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses or a deaf aid or a toupee, or make some other slight adjustment in his appearance – just enough to cover himself if we decide to publish a photograph – and sink comfortably into his new background. That’s the clever way to run away. Sit still.”

  The two men stared out of the window. It had begun to rain in the cold, vertical manner peculiar to England at this time of the year.

  “He’s careful, all right,” said Petrella. “Almost brilliantly so. That telegram he sent was a real beauty. It worked both ways. If no suspicions were aroused, then it was just Ricketts saying goodbye to his employers. If people ever did get suspicious, then it could be something very different. The man who had disposed of Ricketts, covering up his tracks.”

  “That theory wasn’t going to survive the dragging of the reservoir.”

  “Why not?” said Petrella, “Nothing might have come to light for a year or more. Perhaps until the Water Board made their next two-yearly tidying up of the shrubbery. I know that our fingerprint people are good – but, good heavens, after a year underwater who was going to say that the drowned man wasn’t Ricketts?”

  “It’s no good sitting here telling each other what a damned clever chap he is,” said Haxtell. “What we’ve got to do is to get busy and find him. And we’ve got – what’s today? – Saturday.”

  “And the appeal’s on Thursday.”

  “Then we’ve got five days to do it in. You can do a lot in five days if you give your mind to it.”

  “One thing,” said Petrella, “that I am prepared to bet my bottom dollar on. If we’re right about the sort of man Ricketts is, the very last thing he’s likely to do is answer our advertisement.”

  The telephone rang. Haxtell picked it up, listened for a moment, and said, “What? Yes, he’s with me. He can take the call from here.” And to Petrella, “It’s your lawyer pal.”

  Petrella picked up the telephone, and Haxtell unashamedly picked up the extension receiver.

  “Harrowing here,” said the voice thinly. “I thought I’d ring you, in case you missed it. We managed to get that advertisement in both papers this morning. Did you see it? They can’t usually do it without twenty-four hours’ notice. But I told them it was urgent.”

  “That’s good work,” said Petrella. “I hadn’t seen them. The Times and The Telegraph.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’ll get in touch with us if you hear anything.”

  Mr Harrowing sounded faintly surprised. “That’s why I’m ringing you,” he said. “I have heard something. A Mr Bancroft telephoned me just now. He’s fairly certain from the details in the advertisement that he must be the man it refers to. He certainly managed to convince me. He wanted to know what it was all about. That put me in a bit of a difficulty.”

  “You say he telephoned you. Did he – did he give an address?”

  “Oh, yes. An address in Hammersmith. I checked it. It’s in the telephone directory. We might have thought of that, perhaps.”

  Petrella scribbled down the address and telephone number and said to Mr Harrowing, “Don’t you worry. You’ve done very well. We’ll look after this now.”

  “Can I–?”

  “If anything useful comes of it – useful to your client, I mean, you shall have it at once.”

  When the solicitor had rung off, they sat for a moment staring at each other.

  “Let it be a warning to you,” said Haxtell at last, “never to bet on certainties.”

  16

  Infantry Soldier and Extra Wife

  Riverside Fields, Hammersmith, which looks out across a strip of muddy foreshore at the ever-moving Thames, is a Hogarthian tumble of houses, some of them very big, some quite tiny, and all of them somehow lopsided and disreputable and flung down in a manner which would enchant a painter but distract the tidy heart of a town planner.

  No. 50 was one of the tiny ones, no more than a four-room cottage. It was beautifully kept, its brass gleaming, its paint-work fresh, and Petrella felt no doubt at all that the woman who opened the door to him was Mrs Bancroft herself.

  Equally, he felt little doubt that the small, wiry person who greeted him from a chair by the fire was Mr Bancroft. There was not an ounce of deception about either of them. No place in their lives, you would have said, was hidden from the light of day.

  “It’s about the advertisement,” he explained.

  “Quick work,” said Mr Bancroft approvingly. “I only phoned after breakfast. What price the law’s delays?”

  “They can move when they have to,” said Petrella. He added, “I’d better introduce myself. I’m a detective sergeant. I’ll show you my papers, if you want to see them.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Mr Bancroft. The forenoon light was full on his face. He had shown no symptoms of alarm, only a vague interest. “I’d have come up to Lincoln’s Inn myself, but my legs aren’t so good, not when the weather’s cold.”

  “Where do the police come into this?” said Mrs Bancroft.

  “I’m not sure that we do,” said Petrella. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  Mrs Bancroft looked as if she might mind, but her husband said, “Ask anything you like. Why not? It’s a free country. You get us a cup of tea, Minnie.”

  Mrs Bancroft recognized that she was being dismissed and went reluctantly.

  “Women talk too much,” said Mr Bancroft. “Not but that she’ll have it all out of me as soon as you’ve gone. Now then, what’s it all about?”

  “First of all,” said Petrella. “Are you – or were you – Lance Corporal Robert Lowry Bancroft of the 9th Royal South London Regiment, who fought in France during most of 1918 and was mentioned in dispatches?”

  “That’s me,” said Bancroft.

  Petrella took carefully from his pocket a postcard-sized photograph of Howton. He handled it carefully, because the back of the photograph had been specially treated with a substance which, whilst impossible to detect by feel, was particularly receptive of fingerprints. He held it out to Bancroft, who grasped it trustingly.

  “What am I supposed to do?” said Bancroft. “Say ‘snap’?”

  “I was wondering if you happened to recognize the man.”

  “Can’t say I do. Ugly looking customer, ent he? Reminds me a little of the regimental sergeant major in the old South Londons. But o’ course he’d be dead a long time now.” Here he transferred the photograph thoughtfully to his other hand, to get a better light on it.

  “Well, it was just a chance,” said Petrella. He took the photograph gently back, put it into an envelope and dropped the envelope into his pocket. “Here’s another question for you. I don’t want to rake up the past more than I must, but did you get into a spot of trouble during your war
service? Assault, or something of that sort.”

  “Trouble?” said Mr Bancroft. “CMPs – that sort of thing?”

  “It might have started with the Military Police, but it ended up with a charge in a police court. It sounds like the sort of thing that might easily have happened while you were home on leave.”

  Mr Bancroft shook his head.

  “It’s a long time ago, I know,” said Petrella.

  “I wouldn’t forget a thing like that,” said Mr Bancroft. “All us boys had trouble with the Military Police, from time to time. But nothing that wasn’t settled in the orderly room the next morning – and forgotten about a week later. I didn’t have no trouble with the police. You look at my record, sometime. Honorable discharge. Character exemplary.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Petrella, getting up. “There’s been a muddle somewhere. And I’m only sorry you should have been troubled.”

  “No trouble. That bit about ‘something to my advantage’. That was just put in to get an answer.”

  “Yes, it was, really. I’m terribly sorry–”

  Mr Bancroft burst out laughing.

  “I’m not the sort that has long-lost uncles turn up from Australia,” he said. “I only had one uncle, come to that, and he was a lighterman and fell into the Thames at Chiswick and got drowned. I suppose you couldn’t tell me what it’s all about?”

  Petrella felt tempted. Mr Bancroft, who might well have turned nasty, had been so unexpectedly nice that he felt that some sort of reward was due. Discretion prevailed.

  “I can tell you this,” he said. “It’s a nasty case of murder. Double murder. We thought you might be able to help us – I’m quite clear now that it was a mistake – but if you had been the person we thought you were, it might have been very useful. And I’ll come down here myself and tell you all about it as soon as we’ve got hold of the man who did it.”

  Mr Bancroft said unexpectedly, “You mean, that if I’d been able to tell you – something about that thing you were talking about – the case of assault – it might have been useful?”

  “Very useful,” said Petrella.