Ask a Policeman

by Detection Club

  Sir Philip looked up. “What makes you think such a thing, Wimsey?”

  Wimsey told him.

  “But this is just guess-work,” was Sir Philip’s comment.

  “At present. That’s all a theory really is, you know. But if it’s right, I expect a whole lot of it could be proved. Whereas,” said Wimsey brightly, “if it’s wrong, I expect it couldn’t.”

  “You haven’t even traced the possession to me of one of those pistols.”

  “No,” Wimsey admitted. “That is the snag, of course.” His shining face took on an expression of interested inquiry. “How did you get hold of it?”

  “We’re talking nonsense,” said Sir Philip briefly, and made a movement as if to get up.

  Wimsey leaned back and beamed at him. “You know, I had my suspicions about you from the beginning.”

  “From the beginning?” Sir Philip sat back again, abruptly.

  “Yes; when you called Scotland Yard off and put the amateurs on. That looked dashed fishy to me. But it was a clever move. Scotland Yard won’t catch up now. But you shouldn’t have given away the fact that you knew Comstock, you know; it would have come out, no doubt, but you needn’t have advertised it; because to know him, I imagine, was to loathe him. By the way, how did you get hold of the pistol?”

  Sir Philip looked at him.

  “I’m only asking for your own good,” Wimsey said plaintively. “I just want to make sure you haven’t done anything silly.”

  Sir Philip looked at him.

  “Am I to hand the theory over to Parker, then?” asked Wimsey.

  “I thought,” said Sir Philip slowly, “that you had come here to tell me you had retired from the case.”

  “I have. The only question now is whether I hand it over to Parker or whether I don’t.”

  There was a long silence. Sir Philip began to draw a most elaborate pattern, based on a rhomboid.

  He looked up from it. “The pistol was sent to me, fully loaded, by an anonymous correspondent, with a message inside which ran, if I remember rightly, ‘This is just one of a good many that are going to make you wish you’d never been born.’ I get a lot of things like that.”

  “And where is it now?”

  “At the bottom of the sea.”

  “Does anyone know you had it?”

  “No. It arrived just as I was setting off for Winborough. It was marked ‘Private and personal—urgent,’ so my butler gave it to me personally instead of handing it over with my other correspondence to my secretary. I opened it actually in the car. Nobody but myself has seen it.”

  “Then you ought to be all right,” said Wimsey cheerfully.

  Sir Philip extended one side of the rhomboid to form the base of a would-be isosceles triangle.

  “In a way,” he remarked, “it wasn’t really murder.”

  “Not at all,” Wimsey agreed politely. “It was a legitimate function of your office. A bit unconventional, perhaps, but none the worse for that.”

  “I’d been wondering on the way down,” Sir Philip pursued, “whether I’d stop at Hursley Lodge and have a word with Comstock myself. The man was becoming a public pest. The harm he had done to this country, abroad as well as at home, was already incalculable. For the national good he had to be silenced. I was meditating something in the nature of a personal appeal, backed by threats, before proceeding to sterner measures. I had already made up my mind that if he forced us to do so, we would deal with him on no less a count than high treason. I was anxious, however, that any interview I might have with him should be a complete secret, with no witnesses even as to my own arrival. I therefore stopped my car, as you deduced, by that wall, got out on the running-board, and looked over to see whether the place seemed deserted or not. I saw Comstock standing in a window, quite a short distance away from me. The pistol was in my pocket. I felt very strongly about the man, so strongly that I hardly realized the insane thing I was doing. I took out the pistol and had a shot at him. I can say quite truthfully that I had not the very faintest expectation of hitting him. Indeed, the idea of hitting him hardly occurred to me. I am not merely an indifferent shot with a pistol, I have never even fired one before. The ridiculous idea in my mind, I think, was just to give him a severe fright. But I did hit him; and if I were a religious man I should sincerely believe that a divine guidance had directed that bullet. I saw him collapse, and continued to watch, in a sort of trance of horror. Then to my astonishment I recognized Littleton bending over the body. That brought me to myself. I got back into my car and drove off. I never saw the policeman you mention.”

  “You’re quite safe from him,” said Wimsey. “I don’t think anyone will connect that car with Comstock’s death for a time yet; and if they do then, the scent will be too cold.”

  Sir Philip smiled faintly. “You know, I can’t regret it.”

  “Regret it?” said Wimsey with indignation. “I should think not. If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, Sir Philip, it’s the best thing you ever did in your life. It’s a pity we can’t tell the world, so that you can go down in posterity and become a legend. With weepin’ and with laughter still is the story told, how well Sir Philip pipped his man in the brave days of old. But, alas! we must keep it under our hats.

  “Not,” added Wimsey thoughtfully, “that you’re in any real danger, because if the worst came to the worst and they did nab you for it, you could always give yourself a reprieve, couldn’t you? Or couldn’t you? It’s a nice legal point. I must remember to put it to Murbles next time I see him.”

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CONCLUSIONS OF MR. ROGER SHERINGHAM

  RECORDED BY DOROTHY L. SAYERS

  “IT’S not a bit of good, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” said Chief Inspector Moresby. “I have put you in possession of the facts as notified to me for that purpose, and further than that I cannot go. Indeed,” he added, with an air of aggressive virtue, “further than that I am not permitted to go. My instructions being, Mr. Sheringham, that the amateurs are to have a free field, entirely unhampered by the incompetent conjectures of the police.”

  “Yes, but, dash it,” lamented Roger Sheringham, “I don’t know how to start on a job like this. It’s so in-human—all this grisly great bunch of documents. I’ve never met any of these birds. You know my methods, Moresby—how can I buzz round and be my bright, inquisitive self among people like the Archbishop of the Midlands and Sir Charles Hope-Fairweather?”

  “You have your authority, sir, same as one of us,” the Chief Inspector pointed out austerely.

  “That’s not the same thing,” said Roger.

  “Possibly not, Mr. Sheringham, and possibly that may account to some extent for this official blundering that we hear so much about. A great many of our inquiries, when you come to think of it, lie among people who aren’t exactly disposed to be chatty and communicative. However, the Home Secretary seems to have made up his mind that a gentleman like yourself, with a public-school education and all that, ought to make a better job at tackling archbishops and such than a common or garden bobby. And no doubt,” added Moresby, “he is very right.”

  “Now you are being bitter, Moresby.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Sheringham. I only meant that these educational advantages must be good for something or other. Beyond, of course, making it easier to obtain money under false pretences, and write begging letters and so forth. And even then, the judge usually makes some remark about its being a peculiarly bad case, on account of accused having wasted the advantages which ought to have taught him better, and adds a bit on to his sentence for luck, as you might say. Why, only the other day, Mr. Sheringham, we pulled a young fellow in for running a bogus charity. An old Harrovian he was, and been up to Oxford and everything, and he was posing as a clergyman, if you please—said he had been chaplain to the Suffragan Bishop of Balham, and wheedled the money out of the old ladies like—”

  “Muggleton-Blood!” cried Roger triumphantly.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Sheringham?” The
Chief Inspector, having caught the syllables imperfectly, took them for an expletive, and was mildly astonished.

  “I said Muggleton-Blood, meaning that you are right, as you always are. There are advantages, and one of them is that I had the honour of being at school with the Rev. Hilary Muggleton-Blood. One of the Shropshire Muggleton-Bloods, Moresby, but quite a decent fellow, for all that.”

  “And what,” inquired Mr. Moresby, “has the Rev. Mr. Muggleton-Blood to do with the case?”

  “He enjoys the responsible but dignified post of chaplain to the Archbishop of the Midlands,” replied Roger, “and while His Grace himself is, perhaps, a cut above us, it is not impossible that the Rev. Hilary may be induced to unbend a little, if I approach him arrayed in humility and an old school tie. It is, at any rate, worth trying—though I must admit that, on the occasion of our last personal encounter, he chastised me severely because my person was not meticulously cleansed as to the ears. He was a robust lad at that time and I remember the incident very clearly.”

  “No doubt you do, sir,” said Moresby, with a grin.

  Mr. Roger Sheringham found no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the Rev. Hilary Muggleton-Blood. The latter, whom Roger recollected as a brawny youth in the first Rugger XV, had turned into a stout, florid ecclesiastic of vigorous middle-age, with a muscular handshake and a throaty intonation.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed, wringing Roger’s fingers in a painful grip, “ha! Whom have we here? If it isn’t Snotty Sheringham! This is an unexpected pleasure. And what have you been doing with yourself all this long time, young Snotty? Sit down, sit down.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Mr. Sheringham, annoyed. He had, until that moment, forgotten his own nickname, but he did distinctly remember that the Lower School had called the Rev. Hilary “Bloody-Mug.” With a great effort he refrained from recalling this circumstance aloud; he felt that it would be hardly politic. All the same, he was hurt that Mr. Muggleton-Blood should require information about his, Roger’s, recent activities. He had thought—but no matter. He modestly mentioned his criminological interests and his connection with the crime at Hursley Lodge.

  “It just occurred to me,” he said, “that his Grace might have mentioned to you some little point or other which might throw light on the mystery. No doubt he would tell you a great deal more than he would tell the ordinary inquirer.”

  “Quite so, quite so,” agreed the Rev. Hilary. He leaned back in his chair, placed his plump hands finger-tip to finger-tip across his well-rounded clerical waistcoat, and beamed pleasantly at Mr. Sheringham. “What sort of thing exactly did you want to know?”

  “Well, for one thing,” said Roger, to whom this point had occurred early in the investigation and proved very puzzling, “how did the old bird come to go down to Hursley Lodge all by his little self? I thought you never let Archbishops stray about the country unchaperoned.”

  “Nor do we,” replied Mr. Muggleton-Blood, “nor do we. I myself accompanied His Grace as far as Winborough, where I had a small matter of purely diocesan interest to discuss with Canon Pritchard. The Archbishop preferred to go on from there alone, thinking that this might give his visit a less formal and more friendly appearance.”

  “I see,” said Roger. “Then you knew all about this visit beforehand?”

  “Naturally,” said Mr. Muggleton-Blood, opening his rather gooseberry eyes very wide. “My good Snotty, you surely do not suppose that an Archbishop can make unexpected and surreptitious excursions without the knowledge of his entourage. His Grace is an extremely busy man—every moment in his time-table is allotted weeks beforehand. It was really with great difficulty that I was able to squeeze in this little expedition, and then only at the cost of putting off a deputation from the United Christian Fellowship for the Preservation of the Rubric. And I must admit,” added the chaplain, with a touch of human feeling, “that I heartily wish now that we had preserved the Rubric and given the New Paganism a miss. However, as Dr. Pettifer was extremely earnest in the matter, and I was able to obtain the appointment, and the United Christian Fellowship were prepared to adjourn their deputation till the following week, I felt bound to respect His Grace’s wishes.”

  “What did you say?” cried Roger. “You made an appointment?”

  “Of course I made an appointment. Dr. Pettifer’s time is, as I have explained, very valuable. One would hardly expect him to sacrifice the greater part of the morning merely on the chance of seeing this fellow Comstock.”

  “But—” gasped Roger. “With whom did you make the appointment?”

  “With the secretary—I forget his name—Pills, or Squills, or something of that kind.”

  “With Mills? But Mills says that the Archbishop’s arrival was totally unexpected, and that Lord Comstock had given strict injunctions that no visitors were to be admitted.”

  “Ah!” said the Rev. Hilary. He smiled, with an expression which was almost sly. “I fear that is not altogether correct. Not altogether. And perhaps I expressed myself a little ambiguously. Yes—I must confess to a slight suppressio veri, though it scarcely, I think, amounts to a suggestio falsi. I said, I made the appointment with Mr.—ah—Mills; I made no mention of Lord Comstock. The fact is that, when I rang up Hursley Lodge, the secretary informed me that Lord Comstock was, if I may so express it, in retreat, but would be at home upon the morning in question, and that, if His Grace cared to call, he himself would undertake to bring about a meeting between them. He suggested, however, that it would be better if His Grace’s visit appeared to be entirely unpremeditated, and indeed, insisted upon a promise that his obliging interference should not be mentioned to Lord Comstock. His Grace fell in with this suggestion.”

  “Naughty, naughty!” said Mr. Sheringham.

  “I scarcely think so,” replied Mr. Muggleton-Blood. “Dr. Pettifer was not called upon to explain to Lord Comstock the precise mechanism by which his visit had been brought about. Nor would it be desirable, nor indeed would it be Christian, to create unnecessary trouble for this man Mills, when he was acting in the interests of Religion in arranging the interview.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Mr. Sheringham. “But why couldn’t Mills have told us this?”

  “That I could not say,” said Mr. Muggleton-Blood. “I fear, such is the weakness of human nature, he may have preferred to pose as the perfect secretary, rather than as the champion of the Church. By the way, my dear boy, I am extremely remiss. I have offered you no refreshment. Allow me to suggest a glass of old sherry.”

  Roger accepted the sherry, which was good.

  “I am afraid,” he said tentatively, “that when the Archbishop got back to Winborough you must have found him a bit upset by Lord Comstock’s reception.”

  “He was considerably upset, certainly,” replied the chaplain, “but chiefly on account of having missed the 12.16. Otherwise “—his green eyes twinkled—” otherwise the interview had passed off quite satisfactorily—considering.”

  “Satisfactorily?” Roger felt that his brain was turning. “Dash it all, I don’t know what the old gentleman’s idea of satisfaction is. Several people overheard them going at one another like hammer and tongs. And when the Archbishop came out, he was in no end of a stew, according to the secretary—too rattled to know what he was doing, and muttering about ‘the wages of sin.’”

  “Muttering about what, my dear fellow?”

  “About ‘the wages of sin.’ Twice over, he said it—and he was so dazed, he didn’t even hear Mills asking if he wanted a taxi till he had repeated the question twice.”

  Mr. Muggleton-Blood’s stout frame began to quiver gently, and a rich chuckle issued from his lips.

  “My dear Snotty—my dear old boy! Have you ever met an archbishop? Have you ever seen one, except upon the stage?”

  “I have heard the Archbishop of Northumbria preach on the Wireless,” said Roger; “a very fruity discourse.”

  “No doubt,” said the Rev. Hilary. “His Grace of Northumbria is
a very eloquent preacher. But whatever makes you imagine, dear boy, that Archbishops in private life go about muttering texts of Scripture? Nothing, I assure you, could be farther removed from their habits. No, no. Believe me, the man Mills was quite mistaken. If Dr. Pettifer was muttering anything, it was probably something about ‘missing the 12.16.’ He did, as a matter of fact, miss it, after making a sprint for the station, which was very bad for a man of his weight and years. As I ventured to point out to His Grace, at his age one should know better than to try and cover a mile in seven minutes. But he explained that he hoped to get a lift on the way, whereas to wait while the secretary telephoned for a taxi would certainly have meant missing the train. Personally, I cannot understand why His Grace was not offered Lord Comstock’s own car. It seems very remiss, and hardly courteous.”

  Roger scratched his head.

  “I suppose,” he said, thoughtfully, “Mills didn’t dare suggest using the car, in case Comstock should want it in a hurry. Comstock was that sort of man. The point had not, I admit, occurred to me.”

  “I asked His Grace why he had not himself thought of asking Lord Comstock for the car. His reply was that, though he had accepted Lord Comstock’s offer in the interests of the Church, he did not feel that he could very well ask the man a favour. Nevertheless—”

  “Accepted what offer?” yelped Mr. Sheringham lamentably. “What are you talking about, Bloody-Mug?” The name slipped unguardedly from the barrier of his teeth in the anguish of the moment.

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Muggleton-Blood, a little stiffly, “I ought not to have spoken so freely. But I gathered —perhaps wrongly—that during this interview, innumerable persons were sitting with their ears glued to the keyhole, and that, in consequence, Lord Comstock’s offer to the Archbishop was common property.”