Nemesis at Raynham Parva (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  “An acquaintance?” he repeated heavily. “You didn’t know him long, then?”

  Francia shook his head definitely.

  “I met him on the ship coming from Buenos Ayres.”

  Sir Clinton was following the interview with a certain mild amusement. Quite obviously, Francia had made up his mind to volunteer no information; and the sergeant was finding his task more difficult than he had expected.

  “I thought perhaps you might have had some information about him,” Ledbury confessed, with an air of disappointment. “You see, sir, in this country one doesn’t lend one’s car to chance acquaintances. It’s not usual.”

  Again there was an almost undetectable pause before Francia replied.

  “I think I had better be quite clear,” he suggested. “Mr. Quevedo was not a friend of mine, you understand? But we had some business dealings—private business transactions—and naturally I went, perhaps, a little out of my way to oblige him in the matter of the car. A business acquaintance, that is how I should describe him.”

  “Quite so,” Ledbury answered, as though the point had been cleared up to his satisfaction. “I quite see how it is, sir. You’ll have his home address—I mean, his business premises in America—of course?”

  This time the pause was a shade longer than before.

  “No,” Francia said, at last, “I don’t remember it. I had his address in London at one time. But when he came down here to stay at the Black Bull Hotel, I threw his London address into the wastepaper-basket—having no further need of it—and I cannot recall it now.”

  At this answer, the sergeant’s face brightened slightly. The information seemed to have taken a weight off his mind.

  “I see, sir,” he said briskly. “This Mr. Quevedo, then, was nobody of much interest to you personally? That’s all the better; for I’m sorry to say he was killed in this motor-smash. Very sad, isn’t it?” he added perfunctorily.

  Sir Clinton, knowing that this revelation was bound to come sooner or later, had kept his eyes on Francia’s face; but the Argentiner betrayed no particular sorrow at the news of Quevedo’s fate.

  “Very sad,” he agreed, in an almost formal tone. “How did it happen?”

  “A skid, sir. It took him smash into a stone wall. He’s been badly cut about by the glass of the windscreen. Later on, perhaps, we’ll need to ask you to identify him, just for form’s sake, sir. But that won’t be immediately.”

  Francia nodded as though agreeing to this.

  “I’m quite at your service,” he volunteered.

  Then, as though a thought had struck him, he inquired:

  “Was anyone else hurt in the accident?”

  Ledbury shook his head.

  “Nobody, sir.”

  He seemed to have elicited all that he wanted from Francia at the moment.

  “I think that’s all just now, sir. I’ll let you know later on about the identification.”

  He turned to Sir Clinton, but seemed doubtful about dealing with him so long as Francia was present. Sir Clinton saw his difficulty and helped him out.

  “I think you wanted to speak to me about something, sergeant? Right! Then I tell you what we can do. I’ve got my car in the garage, and I’ll run you down to the village. Save you a bit of a walk, and you can do your talking in the car. That suit you?”

  Ledbury accepted the invitation eagerly; and, taking leave of Francia, they walked round to the garage. As Sir Clinton drove down the short approach to the house, he turned to the sergeant.

  “I don’t know this neighbourhood—only arrived last night after dark. You’ll need to pilot me.”

  Ledbury nodded.

  “Turn to the left at the gate, sir, and then, if you don’t mind, you might take the first on the left. The fact is, I’d like you to see the state of affairs with your own eyes; and then perhaps you’d be good enough to give me your advice. You’ve had experience, sir, and I’d be very glad if you’d give me the benefit of it.”

  Sir Clinton turned an innocent face to his passenger.

  “Advice? What do you want advice for, sergeant? I gather a man’s been knocked out in a car accident. Well, the coroner will have to look into it. You know the routine, surely?”

  Ledbury fidgeted slightly in his seat before replying.

  “It’s not quite so simple as all that, sir.”

  Sir Clinton made no effort to restrain his smile.

  “Ah, I see, sergeant,” he suggested, “It’s this murder case you have in your mind—Teddy Barford, I suppose?”

  The sergeant was evidently taken aback.

  “Well, you do seem to know more than one expects! It’s what I’d heard about you, sir, if you don’t mind my saying it. How . . .”

  Sir Clinton had no desire to encourage a roving inquiry into the sources of his information. He changed the subject abruptly and decisively.

  “You didn’t say anything about a murder to Mr. Francia, I noticed?”

  Ledbury seemed to take the hint.

  “Well, sir,” he explained, “when you’re out to get all the information you can, it seems to me there’s two ways of doing it. One’s to pretend you know all about it before you start, and let on you can check every fact as it comes out. That wants a good bluffer to work it properly. Then there’s the other way: to pretend you know nothing at all and take all you get as if it was a treat to get it. That’s the sympathetic way, and the stupider you look while you’re working it, the more you’re likely to fish up. I’m more fitted to look stupid than to bluff well, sir; so I take the easiest line.”

  “Ah,” commented Sir Clinton, “then that would account for the laborious pencil-licking and so forth, I take it?”

  Ledbury recognised that he had met a kindred spirit.

  “Just so, sir. It all helps, you see. When people see me licking away at my pencil, they put me down as a blank idiot, naturally; because anyone with a grain of common sense would sharpen the point before it got to that state. I’ve thought out one or two things of that sort: like scratching your ear as if you were puzzled, or breathing noisily, or losing your place in your notebook. It’s easier to pretend that you’re stupider than you are than that you’re cleverer than you are.”

  “A bit involved, that last sentence. But I get a dim notion of your drift, I think. Now suppose, sergeant, that for a moment or two you contrive to be just as clever as you are, no more and no less; and kindly tell me what it’s all about.”

  The sergeant struggled for a moment with a nascent grin and succeeded in repressing it at last. Sir Clinton’s reputation had led him to expect this kind of thing; and he was pleased to find himself ready for it.

  “Turn to the left here, sir,” he directed, as they came to a cross-road.

  Sir Clinton obediently swung the car round; and as he came into the fresh road, he recognised that it was the one which had brought him into Raynham Parva on his arrival. The pine spinney on the left was where he had left Staffin with her suitcase. She had evidently sent him on a long wild goose chase by her mis-directions.

  “Well, sergeant?” he prompted.

  “This is what happened, sir. About a quarter to one this morning, Constable Peel was cycling home along this road a bit farther up—coming in this direction. He’d been out to some spree or other—he’s young and unmarried—and he’d stayed pretty late. Of course he was off duty.”

  “It sounds like it. Go on.”

  “He was pedalling along, not expecting anything on the road at that hour of the morning; and he’d come within a few hundred yards of the lodge gate of Screvesby Manor. There’s a stone wall on each side of the road there, sir, with a deepish ditch.”

  Sir Clinton nodded as though accepting information; but he had no difficulty in recalling the long high wall past which he had driven on the previous night.

  “He turned a corner, sir,” the sergeant continued, “and in front of him was the glare of a motor’s headlights. He expected it to be down on him in a second or two; but it tu
rned out that the car was standing; so he cycled along towards it. By the time he came level with it, he was pretty dazzled by the lights, but as he passed the car, he saw it was empty and the door was open. Then, a few yards farther down the road, he made out—after he’d got his eyes free from the glare of the lamps—something big on one side of the road, and somebody standing beside it.”

  “Was that near the lodge gate?” Sir Clinton demanded.

  “A couple of hundred yards on the other side of it from here,” Ledbury explained, “You’ll see it all for yourself in a few minutes, sir.”

  Sir Clinton nodded, and the sergeant went on with his tale.

  “When Peel got his eyes a bit undazzled, he made out that the thing in the ditch was a car, pretty badly smashed up. So he got off his bike and wheeled it over to where the man was standing. Peel recognised him, of course, at the first look. It was Teddy Barford. So Peel, not rightly understanding what was afoot, spoke up and asked Teddy what it was all about and if anyone was hurt in the smash. Meanwhile, he was peering about as best he could with his dazzled eyes, trying to see for himself. I always keep one eye shut myself, when I’m passing motor-lights; but Peel never thinks to do a simple thing like that.”

  Sir Clinton had a suspicion that Constable Peel was not altogether a favourite with his superior.

  “Teddy Barford looked a bit taken aback, it seems, when he saw Peel,” the sergeant proceeded. “He’s rather a rough-spoken man when he’s angry, and I gather he asked Peel what the hell he was doing there—or words to that effect,” Ledbury added hurriedly. “It sounds as if he’d been a bit surprised by Peel turning up like that—hadn’t noticed him coming up, I expect. Anyhow, Peel pushed past him and looked at the smash-up; and there was the body of a man lying, in the ditch, and a lot of stuff that Peel took to be blood. So Peel laid down his bike and had a good look at things. It seems the poor chap was a deader—complete—but quite warm. Knocked out only a few minutes before, by the look of things.”

  Ledbury paused for a moment, as though his last words had completed one section of his narrative.

  “Peel climbed out of the ditch, after he’d seen all he could see with the help of his bicycle lamp; and then it seems to have struck him that Teddy Barford wasn’t doing overmuch to help in the affair. He’d had a good look at the deceased’s face; but it was so cut about with the glass of the windscreen that he made very little of it. So he turned to Teddy and asked if he knew who it was. Teddy glowered at him and said: ‘Yes, it’s that swine Quevedo. That settles the score I had against him.’ And a few more things that showed there’d been bad blood between ’em. Peel pricked up his ears at that.”

  “Death settles most scores,” Sir Clinton commented, with wilful sententiousness.

  Ledbury glanced round as though he detected something more in the phrase than appeared on the surface.

  “Just so, sir,” he agreed. “It might mean that. But Peel, being one of these young fellows that’s keen on promotion and getting their names into the papers, didn’t quite take that out of it all. There’d been a bit of talk about the place lately about Teddy Barford having his nose put out of joint by Quevedo over some girl or other; and Peel, putting one thing to another, made up his mind that likely enough Teddy Barford had lost his temper and gone for Quevedo. Peel’s got one of these leaping intellects, sir, that don’t seem to need to wait for evidence before they get set like a bit of concrete.”

  Sir Clinton smiled covertly at this further revelation of Ledbury’s distaste for his subordinate.

  “Some people go one way to the truth, others go another, you know, sergeant. It takes all kinds to make a world.”

  Ledbury stared suspiciously at his companion. This flood of platitude was hardly in keeping with his preconceived opinion of Sir Clinton.

  “Ah, just so,” he admitted grudgingly, after a slight pause. “Well, the end of it was, he asked Teddy if he’d any objection to being searched—just as a kind of guarantee of good faith, or something of that sort. And Teddy Barford was so mad at the notion, that he fairly damned Peel’s eyes for him—just as I expect I’d have done myself in his place. That made Peel more set on his notions than ever, of course. He’s one of these obstinate fellows—you know, sir. And the upshot of it was that he arrested Teddy Barford there and then for murder. No warrant, of course, and no evidence worth a hen’s whistle.”

  His face showed clearly enough what he thought of the affair. Sir Clinton made no comment; and the sergeant, after waiting for one, decided to go on with his story.

  “He made Teddy take his bike into the car as well as himself, and then they drove into Raynham Parva and got me roused up. By that time, Teddy Barford had got cooled down a bit. He’d had time to think things over. So when I tackled him, he just said that he’d make no statement till he’d seen a solicitor. Wisest thing he could have done, of course; and I didn’t dissuade him. If I’d thought it was murder, I’d have had a turn at him myself, to see if I could get him to talk. But the whole thing was obviously an ordinary motor-smash, from all I could get out of Peel. So I explained to Teddy Barford that he’d better let us lock him up for the rest of the night and it would be all right in the morning, no doubt. He’d sobered up a good bit, and he agreed to this. He knows he’ll get a square deal from me.”

  “Humorous situation you all seem to have got into,” Sir Clinton admitted. “And meanwhile the unfortunate dead man was left by the roadside to horrify the next passer-by?”

  “No longer than I could help, sir. I got hold of another constable and sent him out with a waterproof sheet to make things decent, and I gave him orders to stand by until he was relieved. Much better to leave things as they were until daylight, when we could see clearly.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, of course, by breakfast-time, the whole place was buzzing with the news. I took Peel with me and went down to the smash-up. Once I’d had a look-round in daylight, the thing was clear enough. It was just an ordinary motor-smash. The tracks are plain enough on the road. Quevedo’s car had swerved, hit the ditch, half-overturned with the jerk. He’d gone clean through the windscreen and got frightfully cut about the face and neck by the glass. The car had brought up short against the stone wall—the radiator’s crushed and the bonnet’s all burst. Then, as the tracks show, Teddy Barford had come along behind in his car. His track overlies Quevedo’s car-marks and travels on a bit beyond the place where Quevedo went into the ditch. There’s no doubt he arrived after the smash. He pulled up at the sight of the wreck, got out, and walked back. And then Peel must have come down on top of him before he’d time to do much.”

  “Well, that sounds simple enough,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “What am I doing here, if I may ask?”

  Ledbury grinned at the thrust.

  “It’s this way, sir,” he explained. “The car’s well enough known round here. We’ve all seen Mr. Francia and his wife driving it. So we had to inquire about it, anyhow, in case it had been stolen by Quevedo, or anything of that sort. And we had to let the owner know it had got into a smash. Well, you’d hardly believe it, sir, but even after I’d shown Peel the track of Teddy Barford’s wheels overlying those of Quevedo’s car, he still stuck to it that it was a murder case. He’s got his knife into Teddy hard. They never liked each other; and now, what with a chance of a bit of notoriety and a chance of paying off scores, Peel’s that obstinate that he won’t give in he’s wrong. Now I want to let Teddy Barford out as quick as may be, for the whole thing’s a mare’s nest. But Peel’s obstinate; and he’s been as near insolent as he dare be about my ‘favouring the escape of a criminal’—that’s his way of putting it.”

  To Ledbury’s astonishment, Sir Clinton interjected a question which suggested that his mind was wandering from the main track.

  “What sort of driver is Mr. Teddy Barford? A good one?”

  “Oh, quite good,” the sergeant admitted in a puzzled tone. “He drives hard, but I never knew him come near an accident for all that
. He’s no patience, Teddy, though. I’ve often had a lift in his car; and when he starts off, it fairly jerks the inside out of you.”

  “Let’s the clutch in with a bang, you mean?”

  “Just so, sir. Makes the car jump about two feet as it gets off the mark. Cruel on the machinery, sir.”

  “Sorry I interrupted,” Sir Clinton apologised. “Go on with the story. I’m still unable to see why I’m here.”

  “Well, it’s this way, sir. Peel wouldn’t give way and nothing I could say to him would shift him from his notions. So at last I said to him: ‘There’s no use our arguing this thing up and down any more. You say it’s a murder done by Teddy Barford. I say it’s just a plain motor-smash. Suppose we call in an umpire to settle it one way or the other?’ You see, I’d got word you were coming down to stay at Fern Lodge, sir. So I said to him: ‘You’ve heard of Sir Clinton Driffield that’s just retired from the Police? You’re so keen on the papers that you must have seen that and know all about him. What about asking him to settle who’s right? You won’t go against his opinion, will you? Nor I, either.’ Well, Peel hummed and hawed, but at last he had to give in. ‘You’ll never get him to come,’ he said. ‘If he’s the sort of person I’ve heard he is,’ I said, ‘he won’t refuse. And I’ll go up now and fetch him if he’ll come. You wait here and see no one stands round gaping. And keep your mouth shut,’ I said to him as I went off. And I left him thinking.”

  “You didn’t leave me much chance of refusing, did you?” Sir Clinton pointed out, with a smile. “Well, if it’s really going to be of any help to you, it’s very little trouble to me. But I must have a look round, you know. I can’t hazard an opinion on second-hand evidence in a matter of importance.”

  “Of course, sir. That’s understood. And it’s very good of you to fall in with the idea, sir. Peel won’t have a word to say if you agree with me.”