Ask a Policeman

by Detection Club

  Anderson shook his head.

  “No?” said Sir Philip.

  “No, sir. I don’t think so. You see, this second statement of the constable’s wasn’t heard of till after Lord Peter Wimsey had been to see Sir Charles Hope-Fairweather. Of course, it might be difficult to trace the telephone call from Sir Charles’s house to yours, but there would be no such difficulty over your toll call to the Winborough police-station.”

  The point of Sir Philip’s pencil broke. Anderson was satisfied that he need not in fact request the London Telephone Service to give details of the call; he was sure now that it had been made, and that was enough.

  “A career of crime requires a great deal of planning,” said Anderson. The Home Secretary smiled, remembering how he had battered the President of the Board of Trade, the ceaseless advocate of National Plans.

  “I was a little hasty,” he admitted, “but I could not resist the temptation of arranging an interruption of Wimsey’s slumbers, in exchange for the bad night he had given Hope-Fairweather and me.”

  “Very well then,” Anderson resumed briskly. “We now know that the constable’s second story wasn’t his story at all, but a fake.”

  “Which leaves us with the first story, that he was on his right side—on the left of the road—and going towards Winborough.”

  “Not necessarily, sir. It is quite a common thing for people to pronounce the ‘y’ in ‘my’ like—er—like the ‘i’ in ‘this.’ Consequently ‘my right’ and ‘the right’ frequently sound very much alike. And in this case the words are supposed to have been the constable’s first utterance on his recovery of consciousness.”

  “Please go on, Anderson. This philology is most interesting, but—”

  “The man was bicycling from Winborough, not to it, and he was on the wrong side of the road when Major Littleton crashed into him; Major Littleton being on his proper side, and at the same time no blame attaching to the policeman.”

  “But if he was on the wrong side—”

  “He was there in the execution of his duty.”

  “Major Littleton is here,” said Gambrell, poking his head round the door in the corner.

  . . . . . .

  “Certainly, Sir Philip,” said Major Littleton. “It was obvious to me from the start that the all-important witness was the constable, I hadn’t actually got the Green Bicycle Case in mind, but, of course, the two affairs are almost exactly similar. In this case, the peculiar feature was, I think, that the ground rises inside the hedge of the property opposite Hursley Lodge, so that the lad who was fooling about with his air-rifle, calibre?15, happened to have a clear field of fire right over the road, into Comstock’s study.

  “Of course the constable didn’t realize what the effect of the shot had been; he merely warned the boy—in other words, gave him a telling-off—for loosing off across a public highway. But, in fact, he actually saw the shot fired which polished off Comstock.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. The Home Secretary felt that an apology was expected of him, but he did not feel in the mood to give it. After all, Littleton had been behaving most indiscreetly when the accident happened, and no one would have expected Comstock to be shot by accident, by a boy of fourteen, home from school, convalescent from mumps, and fooling about with an air-rifle that was anything but a toy.

  “I don’t know why I wasn’t told—”

  “You hardly gave me—or the C.I.D. as a whole—much opportunity.”

  Sir Philip was not finally defeated yet.

  “I suppose you refer to my handing over the inquiries to other persons. In that connection, haven’t my instructions been disregarded? You say it has been established that the bullet was fired from this air-rifle. …”

  “As to that, I would remind you that the C.I.D. were only—suspended—while the amateurs had their forty-eight hours. And I may add that the instructions to the local police to take the constable’s statement, now that he is able to talk properly and freely, and subsequently to examine the bullet and the air-rifle came direct from the Home Office. From Anderson, I believe.”

  There was another pause. Major Littleton felt that his last remarks had sufficiently recognized that if it had not been for Anderson he himself would never have realized how intelligent as well as humane he had been to take such care of the injured constable.

  “If I may say so,” he went on, determined to get a little of his, and the C.I.D.’s, own back, “Anderson was extremely wise to realize that in a matter of this kind, it is usually advisable—well, to ask a policeman.”

  . . . . . .

  “Not a doubt about it,” Anderson was telling Gambrell. “Of course I didn’t know what the policeman would say. I merely came to the conclusion that very likely the shot had been fired from outside, but not by Briggs, or Betty, or Brackenthorpe, and from a rather greater distance—which, of course, implied a different sort of weapon. Then I saw that there was a bank the other side of the road, and a point more or less level with the study window where there were no trees between the study and the bank. And then I saw that the place where the policeman was knocked over wasn’t far off that line—and it struck me that it might do no harm to find out what the policeman really had to say about it. In a way it was a forlorn hope, for if he’d seen anything sensational he’d surely have reported it when he came to, and was fully himself again; and then it struck me that he might not realize what a sensational thing he had seen. At all events it seemed to me to be —to put it mildly—worth while passing on the hint to Littleton. … After all, that was the regular thing to do.” Gambrell sighed.

  “I very nearly spotted it this morning,” he said. “I was just getting there when you put me off by saying that there was something which both Mills and I forgot.”

  “Put you off? That ought to have helped you. Just think again of the order of events, with the times, accurate or approximate, omitted. Exit Archbishop. Pause. Enter Hope-Fairweather—and at that moment Comstock swings round, away from the Chief Whip, in his revolving chair. Never even sees Hope-Fairweather, I fancy. And at that very second—over he goes, chair and all.”

  “But the noise—there were only two crashes, and the second was Hope-Fairweather’s tray of papers.”

  “Who says there were only two? Mills was at the front door when Comstock was shot. Littleton apparently never heard the first crash; why should he hear the second? Or if he heard it, he thought nothing of it. The butler and cook had moved on, after the Archbishop’s departure. Only Hope-Fairweather heard it.”

  “According to the time-table—”

  “Yes, but I’m pretty sure the intervals given on the famous time-table are too long. Hope-Fairweather was in the hell of a hurry—Comstock was dead, he had got his precious papers, dear Betty was outside in the car—he didn’t spend three minutes murmuring polite nothings to a fellow like Mills.”

  Gambrell grunted.

  “And what did I forget? “he asked.

  “The reason why Comstock’s left temple was just nicely placed for the bullet.”

  “Obviously he was swinging round towards the office door.”

  “Obviously not. He’d have swung to his left, and if the bullet had hit him it would have been somewhere in the back of his head. No, I’m sure he never saw or heard the office door open—or just thought it was Mills, and paid no attention.”

  “Give it up,” said Gambrell.

  “What would Comstock naturally do after the Archbishop had gone? After they had had a furious row, in which Comstock had refused to give up his Anti-church stunt? Why, ring up his blessed newspaper, of course, and tell ’em to go for the Church harder than ever, say how he had handled the Archbishop. …”

  There was a pause.

  “Farrant corrected Mills, because he said he had touched nothing in the study. Farrant pointed out that he had stood by the window telephoning. … The private telephone, to the Comstock Press, stood on the window ledge behind Comstock’s chair, and Comstock was swing
ing round, to his right, to pick it up. …”

  Mr. Anderson frowned at the sound of the buzzer. Slowly, reluctantly, he rose to his feet, and walked, through the door in the corner of the room, into the Home Secretary’s presence. …

  Mr. Gambrell remained seated at his desk, a humbler variety of Mr. Anderson’s, and stared through his big, round, steel spectacles, at the fireplace. He wore a worried air.

  “All very nice,” he thought to himself, “and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be true. But there’s only one thing that makes it true, and that’s the fact that the markings on the bullet show that it came from that air-gun. Apart from that—no, there’s really nothing. I imagine that the injured constable has told the truth, and that he did see the boy fire the rifle—it doesn’t follow that the bullet hit Comstock; the constable doesn’t assert that, either.

  “Wait a minute, though. Is there no reason to disbelieve Anderson’s story? The essential, final proof is a thing about which we have to take the expert’s word. Might not the expert—in the public interest and all the rest of it—make a deliberate mistake about the bullet markings if the alternative was to put the police generally—and the Assistant Commissioner in particular—in a very awkward position?

  “And after all if Hope-Fairweather did actually see Comstock shot, and if Littleton only went into the study when Anderson and the rest say he did, it seems to be a toss-up whether the wound could still have been bleeding then.

  “If it wasn’t the boy with the air-rifle, who could it be but Littleton—with a fourth revolver in his possession of which no one knew but himself? How simple, to reveal the one which did not fire the shot, and to get rid of the other; simpler than Mrs. Bradley’s ingenious ‘faking’ of the barrel and hammer—though even that was surely something more than a ‘detective-story notion,’ for, after all, an Assistant Commissioner of Police has a specialized knowledge. …”

  Gambrell’s gaze, still worried and unhappy, left the mantelpiece and travelled to his own desk. What was the use of his spectacles? Thank goodness, it was no concern of his. Anderson had certainly been right when he insisted upon handing the inquiry back to the police at the earliest opportunity. If you couldn’t go to the police in a case like this, well, where were you? When n doubt, whatever you want to know—and in this instance it was certain that the police did know, though whether they would tell. …

  Gambrell’s eye lit up. His sorrow vanished. He had caught sight of a bulky file, on the top of his ‘in’ tray. He seized it and opened it. Yes, there was the paper which he had been trying to collect for the past week, and which it was so important that the Home Secretary should see at once. With no further thought for the tragedy at Hursley Lodge he plunged into a topic which concerned and therefore interested him—the Department’s proposals as to the attitude to be adopted by His Majesty’s Government towards certain proposals for the provision of rest and alternation of shifts in automatic glass works where work is continuous.

  The buzzer sounded twice. Mr. Gambrell frowned, and slowly and reluctantly rose to his feet. …

  FINAL NOTE

  I SHOULD like to testify that all my collaborators not only have been most indulgent towards me, but have been scrupulously fair, and have not wanted to know too much. Miss Sayers has been something more than indulgent, inasmuch as she agreed, at my urgent request, that Roger Sheringham should not show much interest in the police-constable who alone, as I became convinced, could rescue me from my difficulties. This explains why that ingenious gentleman overlooked a point which did not escape Lord Peter Wimsey.

  MILWARD KENNEDY.

  Footnotes

  1. An elastic adjective. I was born in 1890 and wore a dear little sailor suit in the year of the Diamond Jubilee. Eheu, alas! how fast the dam fugaces, to quote the Austin Freeman.—P.W.

  2.See footnote, above.

  3. I cannot account for my having used this vulgar abbreviation, unless it was the result of studying the Comstock Press, which swarms with American journalese and has a regrettable habit of referring to royal personages and female tennis stars by their Christian names, without indication of rank or civil status. But I seem to have been talking at random. I know many Church of England prelates, and nothing could be farther from their truly established minds than a serious belief in Antichrist.—P. W.

  4. The pen-name, as is now pretty generally known, of that charming man, Mr. Percy Robinson. This distinguished writer took an important part in the unravelling of The Poisoned Chocolate Case, as will be ascertained on reference to the novel of that name, which work (since I did not write it myself) I have pleasure in recommending to lovers of detection. The author is Mr. Anthony Berkeley, a gentleman for whom I have the utmost esteem.

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  This 80th anniversary edition published in 2012

  First published in Great Britain by Arthur Barker Ltd 1933

  Copyright © The Detection Club 1933, 2012

  Source ISBN: 9780007468621

  EPub Edition © 2012 ISBN: 9780007468652

  Version 1

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollins.com