by John Rhode
When he got to the police station he found Sergeant Cload in charge. ‘Good-morning, sergeant,’ he said. ‘Any fresh developments since I’ve been away?’
‘Nothing very much, sir,’ Cload replied. ‘The body’s been brought down to the mortuary and it’s lying there now. The super’s given orders that a man is to remain on duty at the doctor’s house until further orders. I think that’s about all, sir, except that we’ve got Alfie Prince locked up in the cells here. I don’t know what we’re going to do with that chap, I’m sure.’
‘What’s he been up to now?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Stealing an overcoat, sir. It was like this. Just after you left last night, Linton was on his way up to the doctor’s house to relieve me. On his way up there he passed Alfie and noticed that he was wearing a brand-new overcoat. He thought that was a bit queer, for Alfie’s never been seen in such a thing before. So he jumped off his bike and asked Alfie where the coat came from and Alfie told him that he’s just found it.’
Jimmy smiled. ‘Not a very likely story,’ he said.
‘So Linton thought, sir. So he brought Alfie back here, took off his coat and had a look at it. He found a label sewn on to it with the name of Murphy’s, the outfitters in Middle Street. They usually have a row of coats hung up outside the shop in fine weather, especially on Saturday evenings. So Linton took the coat round to Murphy and asked him if he’d sold it to Alfie. He said that he hadn’t but that he’d just missed one from the row. So Linton charged Alfie and the super said we’d better put him in the cells till Monday morning.’
‘Did Alfie make any further statement?’
‘Well yes, he did, sir, but he talks in such a rambling way that you can hardly understand him. He said it was quite true that he’d found the coat for he’d seen it hanging up in Middle Street and taken it. When he was asked why he had taken the coat, he said because he wanted a new one as he had sold his old one the night before for half a crown and a packet of fags. Of course, that was nonsense, for you never saw anything so filthy and ragged as his old coat in your life. Nobody would have given him twopence for it, let alone half a crown. But that’s just like Alfie. He’s not quite right, as I’ve said all along.’
‘What’s his job when he feels like doing a spot of work?’
‘He’ll take anything that comes along, sir. He used to work as a bricklayer’s labourer at one time, and got on very well, I’ve been told. But he wouldn’t stick to it, and since then he’s picked up jobs here and there just as suited him. There are plenty in the town who are glad to give him work from time to time, for he puts his back into it while the fit’s on him.’
‘There’s no objection to my asking him a few questions, I suppose?’
‘None at all, sir. But whether you’ll be able to make any sense of what he tells you is another thing. I’ll bring him along in here, if you like, sir.’
Cload went off in the direction of the cells, to reappear a few minutes later with the errant Alfie. The latter was a man of middle height, apparently in the early forties, with a round and rather childlike face. Beneath a tangled shock of red hair was a pair of deep-set blue eyes which seemed to be inhabited by some demon of restlessness. Without invitation he sat down in the nearest chair and scrutinised Jimmy keenly.
‘You don’t come from these parts, master,’ he said confidently.
‘All right, let him be, sergeant,’ said Jimmy. ‘No, I don’t, Alfie, you’re quite right. But I dare say we shall manage to get on all right together in spite of that. Have a cigarette?’
Alfie took the proffered case, emptied it into his hand, and put all the cigarettes but one into the pocket of his tattered coat. ‘I knew you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on you,’ he said complacently. ‘And the sergeant, who’s another, will give me a match, I dare say.’
The sergeant having provided the necessary light, Jimmy began his interrogation. ‘Tell us the story of your old coat, Alfie,’ he said encouragingly.
Alfie chuckled as though at the memory of some pleasant interlude. ‘Ah, he was a good one in his time, he was,’ he said. ‘For nigh on twenty years I’d worn him, wet or fine, rain or sun. But all things come to an end, as my old mother says. He was getting as full of holes as a length of rabbit netting, and that’s a fact.’
‘So you thought it time to get rid of him?’ Jimmy suggested.
‘Well, maybe I wouldn’t have parted with him just yet. He’d been a good friend to me, master. But I wanted a fag that badly that I’d have given the cove the very boots off my feet for one.’
‘Who was this cove and where did you meet him?’
‘The night afore last it was. I was walking along down by Weaver’s Bridge and it must have been after hours, because the Shant was closed and I couldn’t get anybody to open the door to me.’
‘Weaver’s Bridge is outside the town, sir,’ Cload explained. ‘It’s about a mile and a half round by the road but rather less if you go up Gunthorpe Road and cut through Mark Farm. There’s a beerhouse there which is always known as the Shant, though its proper name is The Prince of Wales, and closing time in this division is half-past ten, at this time of year, sir.’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Carry on, Alfie,’ he said. ‘You were taking an evening stroll round about Weaver’s Bridge. Is that when you met the cove?’
‘That’s how it was. He comes along towards me smoking a fag, so I says to him, “Good-evening, merry chum,” just like that. “Good-evening, merry chum, it’d be a fine bright night if the moon hadn’t gone to bed with his wife. And perhaps you’ve got a fag or two to spare for a poor man who’s got four little kiddies and not a crust among them.”’
‘And what did the cove say to that?’ Jimmy asked.
Again Alfie chuckled. ‘He didn’t say nothing, and that was the joke of it. Maybe I’d startled him a bit, for it was main dark and he couldn’t see me under the shadow of the hedge, like. He takes one of them dratted flashlamp things out of his pocket and turns it on to me. “Oh it’s you, Alfie, is it?” he says.’
‘He knew you, then?’
The reply displayed the pride of a famous man. ‘There aren’t many folk in these parts who don’t know Alfie Prince.’
‘And did you know him?’
‘How should I know him in the dark? “I’ll give you a packet of fags, Alfie,” he said. “But I want that old coat of yours in exchange, and I’ll give you half a crown into the bargain.” And that’s how it happened, as true as there are angels playing on their harps up above us. The cove went off a-humming of a tune and wearing my old coat, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him.’
‘What did you do then, Alfie?’
‘Why, I got the fags, and funny-tasting things they was. So I come through Farmer Hawkworth’s land and settled down for the night in that field of grass at the end of Gunthorpe Road.’
‘You mean the field that’s for sale in building plots, I suppose?’
‘That’s it. I know of a corner alongside that brick wall at the end. But I missed my old coat, for all that I got them fags and half a crown in my pocket.’
Jimmy nodded to Cload, who thereupon escorted Alfie back to the cell. ‘What did you make of him, sir?’ the sergeant asked on his return.
‘I agree with you that he’s not quite all there. You can tell that by the way he talks. But I’m pretty certain that he didn’t invent that story about his old coat. It’s too circumstantial for that. I’d very much like to know who it was that he met and why he wanted Alfie’s old coat. You know Colonel Exbury pretty well, I expect?’
‘Oh yes, sir, I’ve always got on very well with the colonel.’
‘Then I wish you’d ring him up and ask him if Alfie was wearing his old coat when he came to his house yesterday.’
Cload put the call through and reported the result. ‘The colonel says that Alfie wasn’t wearing the coat, sir. He noticed that particularly for he’d never seen him without it before.’
‘Then Alfie’s story may be true
. If so, he spent Friday night within a few yards of the doctor’s house. He said something about his mother. Is she still alive?’
‘Oh yes, sir. She’s a very respectable woman who keeps a little ham and beef shop in Middle Street. Alfie lodges with her when it suits him, but as often as not he sleeps out somewhere, especially in the summer.’
‘She might be able to tell us something about Alfie’s movements on Friday and Saturday. Better get one of your men to go and have a chat with her, sergeant. Linton was on duty last night up at the doctor’s house, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right, sir. He was relieved by one of the other chaps this morning.’
‘Then he won’t come to the surface again until this afternoon. I’m going up Gunthorpe Road to have a look round, and I’ll be back here before lunch time.’
Jimmy left the police station and went to the doctor’s house. But he did not enter the gate, merely glancing down the carriage-way, noticing that the garage doors were shut and that no car stood in front of them. Then he went on for a few yards until he reached a convenient gap in the hedge bordering the building plot. He passed through this to find himself in a field of standing grass. It was immediately obvious to him that he was not the first to pass that way. The tall grass was trodden down into a track which led along the inside of the hedge until it reached the wall, on the other side of of which was the doctor’s carriage-way. And at the end of this track, in the corner formed by the hedge and the wall, lay a discarded garment. And at the sight of it Jimmy came to a sudden stand. It was a very old army greatcoat, easily recognisable as such, though it was stained and rent in countless places.
Very gingerly Jimmy picked it up. Beneath it lay five cigarette ends which Jimmy collected, packed in a piece of paper, and put in his pocket. Then he noticed a second track at right angles to the first, running along the inside of the wall. He followed this track to find that it ended abruptly fifty-three paces from the hedge.
He returned to the point where he had found the coat, laid it down, and left the field by the gap in the hedge. Then he walked to the drive gate of the doctor’s house and paced fifty-three yards down the carriage-way. The end of this fifty-third pace brought him exactly opposite the cloakroom window.
There must be some significance in the fact that the track in the field terminated exactly level with the window. Could the criminal have used this means of approach? Jimmy had already satisfied himself that Mr Fransham could not have been attacked from the top of the wall. But could his assailant have climbed the wall and dropped into the carriage-way? Such a feat would not have been beyond the powers of an exceptionally active man. But surely Coates, however much his attention might have been distracted at the moment, would have heard or seen something of this performance?
Jimmy began to examine the wall to see if it contained any crevices which might have afforded foothold. But the wall was comparatively new, and the pointing was still almost perfect. It was a nine inch wall, built in English bond with alternate headers and stretchers. And, as Jimmy scrutinised its surface, he noticed that round one of the headers the texture of the mortar was slightly different from elsewhere. He applied his finger to the place, and found that the surface yielded to his touch. A little further investigation proved that the joint was not made of mortar at all, but of plasticine. Jimmy pressed his hand against the header, which immediately slid back.
He left it at that, and hurried back through the gap in the hedge to the farther side of the wall. Here he found one of the bricks protruding an inch or so. It was an easy matter to grasp it and pull it right out. He bent down and looked through the hole thus formed in the wall. Its line of vision passed horizontally through the opening of the window into the cloakroom beyond. When Mr Fransham bent down over the basin, the top of his head must have been exactly in front of the hole.
Jimmy very soon satisfied himself of the way in which the brick had been removed. The mortar round it had been patiently scraped away, probably by some instrument in the nature of a long screwdriver. A few particles of this mortar lay at the foot of the wall among the roots of the grass. The brick had then been taken out and the walls of the cavity scraped smooth. But if the brick had then been reinserted, the absence of the mortar would have left a space all round it, which would have been noticed at once. An ingenious method had been adopted to get over this. The brick had been carefully wrapped in several thicknesses of gummed paper until it exactly fitted the cavity. The ends of this paper had then been masked with plasticine, coloured so as to match the mortar exactly. Upon replacement of the brick no visible sign remained of the wall having been tampered with.
Jimmy examined the paper in which the brick had been wrapped. He saw at once that it consisted of sheets of some periodical. On removing one or two layers, he found a sheet upon which the name of the periodical appeared. It was the British Medical Journal of the preceding May 22.
He put the brick back very carefully in its place. Then he picked up the army greatcoat and made his way back with it to the police station.
Sergeant Cload’s face stiffened as he caught sight of his burden. ‘Wherever did you find that, sir, if I may ask?’ he exclaimed.
‘In the very spot where Alfie says he spent last Friday night,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Bring him along here again for a minute, will you?’
Alfie reappeared and Jimmy held the coat up before his eyes. ‘Did you ever see this before, Alfie?’ he asked.
Alfie’s eyes opened wide in amazement. ‘Why glory hallelujah! If it isn’t my old coat come back to find me,’ he exclaimed. Then he frowned suspiciously. ‘You must be the cove that took it off me,’ he said with an air of finality.
‘Wrong this time, Alfie,’ Jimmy replied. ‘All right, sergeant, take him away.’
By the time that Cload returned, Jimmy was busy drawing a plan in his notebook. He looked up and grinned cheerfully at the sergeant. ‘Jolly case, this,’ he said. ‘It’s absolutely brimful of contradictions. To begin with, how did Alfie’s coat find its way to the corner where its original possessor spent Friday night?’
Cload shook his head. ‘You can’t take any heed of what Alfie says when he’s like this, sir,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was deliberately lying when he told us that story just now. He may honestly have believed that those things had really happened, whereas he had only imagined or dreamt them.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Jimmy, taking the paper containing the cigarette ends from his pocket. ‘I found these lying on the grass under Alfie’s coat just now. Alfie can’t have enjoyed them very much, for in nearly every case he’s left an inch of stump. And if you look closely at them, sergeant, you can see the name of the brand printed on them. Black’s Russian Blend.’
‘Yes, I can see that plain enough, sir,’ Cload replied. ‘But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of them before.’
‘That’s very likely, for they aren’t sold everywhere. You can only get them at one of Black’s shops in London. It seems to me that those cigarette ends to some extent confirm Alfie’s story of the cove he met.’
Cload looked a trifle dubious. ‘When Alfie’s in these moods, he’ll ask anybody he meets for fags. And it doesn’t follow that whoever gave him these asked for his coat in exchange.’
‘It doesn’t follow, certainly. Your theory, I take it, is that Alfie, following his usual habit, accosted some worthy citizen of Adderminster and was given the cigarettes of which these are the ends.’
‘That’s about it, sir. I don’t somehow believe in the man with the flashlamp who bought Alfie’s coat. Whoever could want such a filthy old thing as that?’
‘Ah, that’s just it! But do you know anybody in Adderminster who smokes Black’s Russian Blend?’
‘I can’t say that I do, sir, but that doesn’t count for much. There are plenty of people in Adderminster who go up to London three and four times a week. There’s nothing to prevent any of them from buying these cigarettes at one of the shops you spe
ak of, sir.’
‘I wonder if Dr Thornborough smokes them?’
Cload shook his head. ‘The doctor only smokes a pipe, sir. I’ve heard him say more than once that cigarettes always make him cough.’
Jimmy glanced at the clock. ‘It’s a quarter to one now,’ he said. ‘If I walk up to Epidaurus, I ought to catch the doctor as he comes home to lunch.’
When Jimmy reached the house, Lucy informed him that the doctor had already returned, and showed him into the consulting-room. Here, a minute later, Dr Thornborough joined him. He looked very careworn, and it was easy to tell that the events of the last twenty-four hours had played havoc with his nerves.
‘Well, inspector?’ he demanded curtly. ‘What’s your business?’
‘My business is concerned with Alfie Prince, doctor,’ replied Jimmy quietly.
Dr Thornborough had clearly expected a very different answer. ‘Alfie Prince!’ he said, wearily passing his hand across his forehead. ‘I’d forgotten all about him. You must excuse me, but this terrible affair has shaken me up pretty badly. What do you want me to do about Alfie Prince?’
‘Nothing, just now, doctor. Alfie’s out of mischief for the moment in one of the cells at the police station. You saw him yesterday on your way home to luncheon, didn’t you?’
‘Not to speak to. He merely happened to cross the road in front of me.’
‘How far away from you was he when you saw him?’
‘Oh, a couple of hundred yards, I dare say. Certainly not less.’
‘Did you notice him particularly?’
‘I can’t say that I did. Seeing that it was Alfie, I didn’t take any further notice of him,’
‘Were you surprised to find him wandering about up here?’