by John Bude
Boot blacking! So that was it! The test had not failed. It was certain now that the man who had murdered Clayton was an employee at the Nonock depot—otherwise, how had he known that the discarded hose was in the dump? It looked as if Messrs. Bettle and Prince were booked for an uncomfortable half-hour when next he questioned them!
But had he accumulated enough evidence against the men to warrant a further cross-examination? The time factor still demanded an explanation. Rose might have made a false entry in the last column of the black-bound book, but what about Dancy’s corroboration? Unless he was part and parcel of the conspiracy he would not have troubled to lie about the matter. And somehow Meredith felt that Dancy was not mixed up with the mysterious doings of Rose, Higgins, Wick and the lorry-men. For one thing, he had not refused to let him inspect the manager’s books, although strictly he would have been within his rights if he had done so. He could easily have forced Meredith to procrastinate his search by pretending that the manager had gone off with the sole key to the office. That would have given Rose time to decide on a line of action and allow him to cover up all discrepancies between the lorry’s deliveries and his own entries in the ledger. Again, hadn’t Dancy been quite open about the length of worn-out hose? If he was in league with the murderer or murderers, to draw Meredith’s attention to the hose would have been little short of lunacy. Combining these facts with his own judgement of the man’s character, the Inspector came to the conclusion that Dancy had been speaking the truth. The lorry had arrived back at the depot at 8.35. In other words, Bettle and Prince seemed to have an unassailable alibi.
Meredith was loath to omit that little word “seemed” from his conclusion. He knew how unreliable these unassailable alibis could turn out to be. But unless he could shake that alibi, wasn’t he forced to relegate both Prince and Bettle, as potential murderers, to the background?
Now, as Meredith saw it, the only other persons who would be likely to know of the existence of the discarded hose on the dump were Rose, the remaining ten lorry-men and possibly Higgins. And although a certain amount of suspicion had accumulated about the manager of the depot and the proprietor of the Derwent, it was impossible for either of them to have actually committed the murder. They may have been in league with the murderer, but they couldn’t possibly have been anywhere near the Derwent at the estimated time of Clayton’s death. Between the hours of 7.30 and 9.30, the vital hours in the case, Higgins had been at the Beacon, and Rose was in his office at the depot. Dawson had vouchsafed for Higgins, and Dancy, whose evidence Meredith had every reason to trust, had sworn that the manager had been working solidly at his books until the arrival of No. 4 lorry at 8.35. Even on a high-powered motor-cycle, Rose could not possibly have got over to the Derwent, administered the drugged whisky, waited twenty minutes for it to take effect, placed the body in the car, started up the engine and got clear of the premises before Luke Perryman’s arrival at the garage, shortly before 9.30.
That left the other ten lorry-men, and, as much as the Inspector felt inclined to dismiss them, he realized dismally that the movements of every one of them on Saturday night would have to be followed up. He decided to get the Penrith police on to the job early the following morning.
Such were the thoughts which occupied Meredith’s mind as he drove slowly back to the police station. Coupled with his ruminations about the murder, were further thoughts pivoting on the nature of problem number two, the illegal business which was obviously being run by Rose in conjunction with the two garages. He knew now that Wick had lied to him that morning at the Lothwaite. Why, he could not say—at least, not at the moment, and he determined to shelve the second puzzle until such times as he could give it his undivided attention.
On his return, the Sergeant had good news for him. Not only had he run to earth two people who had noticed the stationary lorry on Jenkin Hill, but a third had offered a voluntary statement that, although they had not been over to the football match, they had seen a Nonock lorry pass through Threlkeld just before eight on Saturday night.
Meredith, although more interested in the second half of the lorry’s journey than the first, dealt with the statements in their proper order.
“And your first two witnesses thought the lorry was in trouble of some sort?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Sergeant. “Hobson—that’s the local reporter for the Cumberland News—actually stopped his car and asked what was up. The driver told him it was carburettor trouble, but they thought they’d nearly got matters right. The bonnet was up and the driver’s mate was shining a torch on to the engine.”
“Good enough,” was Meredith’s brief comment. “Now what about this Threlkeld information. Reliable?”
“Perfectly, sir. I got it from Frank Burns, who farms that big stretch of land under Gategill. I happened to see him up the town this afternoon, and knowing he was a football fan, thought I’d have a word with him. Seems lucky that I did, sir.”
“Very. Go on, Sergeant.”
“Well, sir, just before eight, Burns was standing outside the Legion Hall, talking to the Vicar. There was a whist drive on—Women’s Institute or something like that. They were standing a bit out in the road it appears. Suddenly one of them Nonock tankers comes hell for leather round the corner and nearly runs them down.”
“Speeding, eh?” was Meredith’s sharp comment. “How did Burns know it was just on eight?”
“The Vicar had just looked at his watch, sir. He was due to start the ball rolling at the whist drive at eight o’clock, and he’d just told Burns that it was time he was going when the lorry dashes round the corner.”
Before the Sergeant had finished speaking, Meredith had spread out his Bartholomew’s map on the desk.
“Let’s see—from here to Threlkeld?”
“Best part of four and a half miles, sir.”
“That’s about six and a half from the Derwent. Which means that if the lorry left the Derwent at 7.35 and passed through Threlkeld, say at 7.55, it must have covered the distance in about twenty minutes. How does that strike you, Sergeant?”
“About right, sir.”
Meredith nodded.
“And Burns’s information just about fits in with the lorry’s arrival at the depot at 8.35.” He folded up the map and put it away in a drawer of the desk. “It looks as if we’ve now got that confounded lorry’s movements taped out to a second. But even now, I’m hanged if I can see why it went up that side-turning!”
Alone at his desk, Meredith pondered that question again. It now appeared to be the one suspicious fact associated with the lorry’s homeward run from the Derwent. And apart from that one inexplicable fact it seemed certain that neither Bettle nor Prince could be incriminated.
Realizing that he could get no further with that problem for the moment, Meredith switched his mind over to the second puzzle. Why had Wick spoken about those 200 surplus gallons when they weren’t in the tank? Why hadn’t his order for the 400 gallons been entered in the order book at the office? And why had the pipe been connected with the tank of the petrol pump that morning? Wick’s order had not been recorded, so on whose authority had that delivery been made?
Leaning back in his chair, with narrowed eyes, the Inspector smoked and pondered, cursed under his breath, and returned to his smoking and pondering.
Then suddenly he sprang up, knocked out his pipe, and began to pace quickly up and down the room.
Why the devil hadn’t the idea occurred to him before? But that was always the case—when an explanation was simple, one overlooked it just because it was simple. It was like searching a wood for a pair of dropped spectacles, when all the time they were pushed up on to one’s forehead.
The Nonock Company dealt in petrol. So did the garages. Then wasn’t it obvious that if the two factions were combined in the nefarious job of making illicit profits, that those profits would most likely accrue from the sale of pe
trol? What could be simpler? Rose sent out an unordered surplus with the lorry and this surplus was discharged into the tanks of the dishonest garages. The load was not paid for and the profits from the sale of the petrol to the public were divided between the manager and the garage proprietors. In that case it was Ormsby-Wright who was the plucked pigeon. How Rose managed to balance the amount in store with the sale returns of the amount which had gone out of store, Meredith could not imagine. But if he was clever enough to cook his books in one direction he was probably clever enough to cook them in another.
The petrol, so Meredith had learnt from his talk with Dancy, was despatched by rail from the dock-side depot. On arrival at the local siding it was transferred to the storage tanks by means of an underground pipe. There would be two checks on the amount consigned by rail. One kept by the manager at the wharf-side, the other recorded by Rose when the consignment was run out of the tank-car into storage. How then, was Rose to fake his books so as to make an illicit profit, when the amount in storage was known to the dock-side manager? Meredith, after a prolonged bout of hard thinking, had to acknowledge himself beaten on this point. Unless Rose was in league with the dockside manager, it was beyond his powers to say how the fraud was worked. The only plausible explanation which did finally occur to him was that Rose omitted to enter up the full amount consigned to him by the dock-side depot, whilst his colleague at the wharf made a similar error in his record of the load consigned. After all, both the managers were in a position of trust and unless Ormsby-Wright grew suspicious of fraud, he naturally wouldn’t trouble to compare his manager’s figures with those relative to the shipments received at the port. And if an identical omission was made throughout in the company’s books, the accounts could not be challenged by the auditors. There was an element of risk, of course—but in view of the owner’s personal disinterest in the company, by no means a fatal one!
Tired out after his strenuous day, the Inspector went home to his high tea, in a mood vacillating between extreme optimism and the blackest despair. He was perfectly ready to acknowledge that he had made progress during the last twelve hours, but he was beginning to think that the more he found out in this peculiarly perplexing case, the more complex and baffling the case became. It was something to have forged that unbreakable link between the Derwent and the depot, but until fresh links could be fitted into his broken chain of evidence, the hose-pipe clue was valueless. It was now Friday. Nearly a week had gone by—a crowded, tiring week of investigation, cross-examination and theorizing, and yet he really had very little to show for it. He had narrowed down the search for the murderer. That was something. But the second mystery, for all his ideas about fraudulent profits being made from the sale of Nonock petrol, was still a long way from a definite, proof-positive solution. It was all very well to expound suppositions, but the cleverest supposition in the world was quite worthless in the eyes of the law, unless backed by proof. To reconstruct a crime was fairly simple but to prove the truth of that reconstruction was a task that called for tremendous patience, acute observation and the devil’s own amount of hard work!
Chapter XII
Fraud?
By the time Meredith was astir the following morning, the enthusiastic Tony had already left for Penrith on the 7 o’clock bus. It was a clear, cold day and there was no reason why he should not succeed in getting some really excellent photos. Over breakfast Meredith busied himself with planning out his day’s work.
Shortly after nine he was in touch with Sergeant Matthews at Penrith. After giving him a rough idea of his progress in the Clayton case, he came to the business in hand.
“So you see what I’m after, Sergeant? I must find out if those ten men were in or about Penrith on Saturday night. My suggestion is this. Send up a man to quietly waylay Dancy, the yard-man, on his way home to lunch. You can’t mistake him. There’ll only be him and Rose at the depot at mid-day. Rose is a shortish chap, with horn-rimmed glasses and weak eyes. So all your man will have to do is to avoid the manager and cotton on to the other chap. Whatever happens, don’t let Rose see your man interviewing Dancy. Get that? With any luck, Dancy will be able to give the addresses of the ten men. If he can’t do so on the spot, get him to find out without Rose’s knowledge, from the pay-book in the office. Once you’ve got those addresses it should be fairly simple to find out something about the men’s movements. I daresay Charlie Dawson at the Beacon may be able to help you. A lot of the Nonock fellows drop into his bar of an evening. At any rate, Sergeant, keep at it until you get results. It’s absolutely essential that I should find out, and the sooner the better. Speak to the Superintendent about it, of course, when he comes in. But make him realize that it’s very important. Understand?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Get hold of Dancy’s address, too, will you? I may want to question him myself later on and I don’t want to do it at the depot. Give me a ring here.”
“Right, sir. Is that all?”
“No, wait a minute! There’s another thing. I want you to get in touch with all the Penrith banks and find out if Mark Higgins or Gurney Wick…no, Wick! W. I. C. K. Got it? Good. Find out if either of them run a banking account over there. Phone that through with Dancy’s address, if you will. That’s all. Good morning, Sergeant.”
Meredith’s next call was through to the Cockermouth police, where he made a similar request in regard to the banking accounts. This done he got a local directory and compiled a list of the Keswick banks. These he dealt with himself, but neither Burton, the Barclays manager, nor Goreleston at the Westminster, nor any of the other branch managers numbered Higgins or Wick among their customers.
About ten-fifteen, Tony walked into his father’s office and made his report.
“I’ve got ’em all right,” he announced with justifiable pride. “I recognized the chaps from the descriptions you gave me, Dad, but to make quite sure I took a photo of every blessed chap that arrived. I’ll develop and print them off at once and then you can pick out the two you want.”
“That’s smart work, Tony. What about Rose—did you see him again?”
“Yes—but it was lucky I got a snap of him yesterday. He came out by bus and was round the other side of it before I could count two.”
Meredith grinned.
“I slipped up on that, Tony! It was lucky none of the lorry-men happened to arrive the same way. We’d have been properly in the soup if they had! How many chaps, as you persist in calling them, turned up at the depot?”
“Thirteen, I counted. Not including the Rose chap.”
“Good lad—that’s the lot. Now hop off and hurry through those prints.”
The moment Tony had departed, Meredith got through to Carlisle.
“Inspector Meredith—Keswick station speaking. The Superintendent in?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll put you through,” answered the distant voice.
In a few seconds Meredith was in touch with his superior.
“Well, Inspector, what’s the trouble now?” demanded Thompson in bantering tones. “Not another post mortem, I hope?”
“Not yet, sir,” replied Meredith with a short laugh. “But if this Derwent case gets any more complicated I shouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Burney has to perform on me!”
“I’ve just been through your report, which came in early this morning. You’ve done some neat work over that hose-pipe. Congratulations, Meredith!”
“That’s all very well, sir,” objected Meredith, “but it doesn’t get us anywhere. As far as I can see it at the moment—my investigations of the murder have come to a dead end. Unless anybody else comes forward with new information, I don’t see what I’ve got left to work on.”
“I see. So what do you want me to do?”
“I want your permission, sir, to concentrate on problem number two. I’m beginning to think that until we learn something more about this illegal business, we shan�
��t get any forrader with the murder case. What’s your opinion, sir?”
“Well, frankly, at this instant, I haven’t got one! But suppose you come over here and have lunch with me. Then we can talk things over and decide on our next line of action. Let’s say twelve-thirty at the Royal Star—that’s the biggish hotel in Botchergate. Know it?”
Meredith acknowledged that he did, thanked the Superintendent for the invitation and rang off.
When an hour and a half later Meredith reached the imposing façade of the Royal Star, he found Thompson, in plain-clothes, waiting for him in the reception-hall. They went through, at once, to the dining-room, and after an excellent lunch found a quiet corner in the deserted lounge and began their conference. At the end of twenty minutes Meredith had detailed all the facts of his discoveries in Rose’s books, drawn the Superintendent’s attention to the unauthorized delivery at the Lothwaite and elucidated his theory about the fraud which Rose, in conjunction with the two garages, was practising on the Nonock Petroleum Company.
“So you see, sir, I couldn’t help feeling that our next move should be to follow up this discrepancy in the amount of petrol going out of store and the amounts recorded in the advance order book and, presumably, the sale-returns.”
The Superintendent pondered the question for some minutes in silence. He was still loath to abandon the murder investigation and direct the energies of the police to the solving of the second problem. On the other hand, he was inclined to agree with Meredith that little progress could be made, at the moment, with the inquiries centring on Clayton’s death.
At length he looked up and asked: “What do you propose to do now, Inspector? I mean, if we decide to shelve the murder problem and concentrate on the other? Have you thought of a new line of inquiry?” Meredith nodded.