by John Bude
“Well, there was a head wind, of course, but I’m pretty sure I could do the distance in twenty minutes.”
Meredith nodded and made a few rapid notes of these all-important facts. He looked up after a second and observed: “So you think it’s pretty safe to say that you saw Clayton at 7.35 on Saturday night?”
“That’s it.”
“When you said ‘Good night’, did he answer?”
“He didn’t say anything. Just gave me a sort of ‘Cheerio’ with his hand, if you see how I mean.”
“You didn’t notice if there was anybody else hanging around when you passed the garage?”
“I didn’t notice anybody—no.”
This terminated Meredith’s visit to the Hare and Hounds and a few minutes later he and the constable were speeding through the misty rain towards Keswick. On their way they passed the local ambulance returning from the garage to the mortuary and Meredith could not help thinking that the inanimate object inside that vehicle had set him a problem that might prove extremely difficult to solve.
Back in his office he lit his pipe, stretched out his feet to the stove, and ran over the results of his morning’s investigations.
One thing now appeared certain—at 7.30 on Saturday night Clayton was still alive. Old Luke Perryman had discovered the tragedy about half-past nine, which meant that Clayton had lost his life sometime between 7.30 and 9.30. Meredith deliberately employed the phrase, “lost his life”, because he realized that it was still impossible to rule out the theory of suicide. On the other hand at six o’clock, according to the Braithwaite postman, Clayton was as “merry as a cricket”, joking about his forthcoming marriage, in fact. Did that suggest suicide? And again at 7.30 when Fred Hogg cycled past, Clayton was to all accounts standing about idly in the entrance to the garage. Then what about the waiting meal? Surely with the tea already in the pot and the kettle on the boil, Clayton would slip off at the first slack moment to have his meal? Then there was the matter of the hose-pipe. At first sight that favoured the suicide theory because Clayton was one of two people who knew that the hose was there and that it would fit exactly over the exhaust-pipe of his car. But to counteract this there was the puzzling fact that his hands were clean. This seemed to suggest that it was Higgins who had fitted the hose on to the exhaust, but Higgins had already left for Penrith on his motor-cycle.
One thing obtruded in Meredith’s mind—the complete absence of motive. Not only for the murder, if such it was, but for the suicide. Clayton was enjoying perfect health. He was free from money worries, as far as the Inspector had been able to ascertain, and about to marry the girl of his choice. Why then had he put an end to his life? The motive was equally indeterminate if it was a case of murder. Higgins might have committed the crime for the sake of the money which would come to him, but, once again, Meredith found himself up against that unassailable alibi.
Yet he now felt pretty certain in his mind that there had been foul play. His next move, therefore, was to try to reconstruct the crime from the meagre data available. Firstly, Clayton must have been overpowered in some way, dragged or carried to the car, placed in the driving-seat with the mackintosh over his head. The hose was then fixed and the car started. The murderer, probably in a car, then made himself scarce. That Clayton was still alive when sitting at the wheel of his car was certain. The cause of death, according to Dr. Burney, was asphyxia, due to the inhalation of carbon monoxide—that is to say, exhaust fumes. How then had Clayton been overpowered? Three methods occurred to Meredith. He could have been stunned, given an anæsthetic or drugged. The first could be ruled out on Dr. Burney’s evidence. It is impossible to stun a man without leaving some form of bruise or abrasion. An anæsthetic, on the other hand, was possible, though rather improbable. All anæsthetics have powerful and characteristic odours, which are inclined to impregnate the clothes of a victim. Neither he nor Dr. Burney had noticed any smell of chloroform or ether clinging about Clayton’s person. Not that this precluded the use of anæsthetics—it merely suggested that if Clayton’s death had been arranged to look like suicide, the slightest hint of anæsthetic would defeat the whole cleverly thought-out scheme. Meredith’s inclination was toward drugs. They are easily administered and certain in result. Clayton might have been persuaded to take a drink with the murderer and——
Meredith suddenly clicked his fingers and let out an exclamation of pleasure. Clayton had taken a drink! Hadn’t Dr. Burney said that the man’s lips smelt of whisky? Well, here, thank heaven, was something fitting in with his theory! And if Clayton had been drugged it would be a perfectly simple matter to come to a decision over this point. It would merely mean official permission to have an autopsy. And if traces of a drug were found in the stomach or intestines, that would settle all doubts as to whether Clayton had taken his own life or not!
Meredith felt elated. Here was daylight at last. It might be difficult to persuade the Chief Constable that his suspicions warranted an autopsy, but he was determined to go all out to get it.
He had just reached this point in his ruminations when the ‘phone bell rang on his desk. He took up the receiver.
“Penrith station—Sergeant Matthews speaking. About those tickets. I’ve traced the bookings all right. Clayton had reserved two second-class berths on the Ontario—sailing Liverpool on April 7th. The tickets were paid for on the 20th of this month—by cheque, signed J. D. Clayton. Any good to you, sir?”
“Excellent. That’s just what I wanted.”
Meredith rang off.
“So that clears up that loose end,” he thought. “Clayton must have been playing square with the girl. No doubt now that he did intend to sail for Canada. Otherwise he wouldn’t have paid for the tickets. The 20th—let’s see?—that’s three days before his death. Looks to me as if the suicide idea hadn’t crossed his mind then.”
With an energetic stride the Inspector crossed into the outer office.
“I want you to get this notice into all the usual local rags,” he said to the Sergeant on duty. The Sergeant took up his pencil.
“Will anybody who called at or passed the Derwent garage between the hours of 7.30 and 9.30 on the night of Saturday, March 23rd, kindly communicate with the Keswick police station at the earliest possible moment. Got it? Good. By the way, what about the Portinscale and Braithwaite constables? Anything to report?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid, sir. Usual number of private cars and lorries on the road, but nothing of any suspicious nature to report. I’ve been in touch with the A.A. people, but without any result either.”
“Well, let’s hope that appeal of mine will bring somebody forward. It’s a curse that it was raining. It keeps people indoors.”
“Any luck so far, sir?” asked the Sergeant, respectfully.
The Inspector shook his head.
“Nairy a bite, I’m afraid, Sergeant—a few nibbles perhaps, but that’s all. It’s a puzzling business, take it all round.”
CHAPTER IV
CLUE AT THE BANK?
WITH his usual routine work to be tackled and a number of other commonplace little jobs to be attended to, Meredith had to shelve his investigations for that afternoon. But all the time his mind kept on straying back to the Clayton affair. One word continually reoccurred in his thoughts; a word which to him constituted the crux of the problem. Motive.
He now felt certain that the suicide theory could be abandoned. Clayton, for some reason, had been murdered and the murderer or murderers had so arranged the scene as to suggest suicide. But why had Clayton been killed? Several ordinary reasons for murder occurred to Meredith—jealousy, financial gain, revenge. He couldn’t credit that it was a crime passionnel. The whole affair had been too cleverly thought out for that. What then about jealousy? Had there been another aspirant to the hand of Lily Reade? That must be one line of inquiry. Another line to be followed up was the real state of the dead man’s finances—quite apart from the rather scrappy information already obtained from Higgins. Meredith felt that this
was a matter which it might pay him to investigate as soon as he was finished at his desk.
At five o’clock, therefore, he rang through to the Pickford’s branch in Penrith and asked for information about the cheque they had received from Clayton for the Canadian tickets. As far as the clerk could remember, the cheque had been drawn on the Keswick branch of Barclays. This was a bit of luck, Meredith realized, as the manager, Burton, was rather a friend of his. Anxious to waste no time he put on his cap and strolled round to the bank in the hope of catching Burton before he left for tea. The manager was still in the building and a few minutes later Meredith had obtained exactly what he was after—a confidential report as to the state of Clayton’s finances.
The result astounded him. Clayton’s account, a current account, showed a credit balance of something over £2,000! His pass-book gave no clue as to the source of this unexpected affluence. Amounts, varying from £50 to £100, had been paid in at odd intervals during the last seven years, but in every case they had been paid in in ordinary £1 treasury notes. Burton was certain that the money had not come from the profits in the garage—in the first place he felt certain that Clayton’s share in the profits would not amount to £300 a year. If it did, it meant that the concern was showing a clear profit of some £600 a year, a possibility which the manager flatly refused to accept. In the second place, Burton knew that the garage account was in the hands of the Westminster bank. Clayton’s account at his own bank was purely a personal account.
A further examination of the books showed that Clayton had first opened his account at the Keswick branch some eight years previously with a balance, transferred from Manchester, of £40 odd. For the first year only small amounts had been paid in and then, suddenly, the £50 and £100 entries began to appear. This fact seemed significant to the Inspector.
How, and from whom, had Clayton obtained the money?
“Do you happen to know the manager of the Westminster?” Meredith asked of Burton. “If so it would be doing me a favour if you could get his permission for me to run my eye over the garage account.”
Burton knew him well, as they were members of the same golf club, and after a short phone conversation, the Inspector, puzzled and excited, left for the Westminster. Goreleston proved to be a little more reticent over his client’s affairs than Burton, but after Meredith had briefly outlined the facts of Clayton’s death, he seemed willing to do all he could to help. But this time Meredith drew a blank. The garage showed a fluctuating profit of about £6 a week. In the summer months the amounts paid in by the proprietors of the Derwent rose to as much as £12 to £14 a week, then gradually declined to as little as £2 or £3 a week in January and February.
“I suppose you couldn’t tell me how the partners draw their money out?” asked Meredith.
“Nothing simpler,” replied Goreleston. “Once a month Clayton presented a cheque for £16 and it was paid out to him in £1 notes. There was an arrangement, as a matter of fact, that not more than £16 could be drawn out by either of the partners in any one month. Both Mr. Clayton and Mr. Higgins of course, had an equal right to examine the dual-account whenever they wanted to. To tell you the truth, I don’t ever remember seeing Mr. Higgins in the bank. He certainly never drew a cheque on his own signature, though there was nothing to prevent him from doing so, provided he kept to the conditions I’ve just mentioned. I suppose the monthly withdrawal of £16 was divided equally between the partners.”
“I see.” Meredith rose and extended his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Goreleston. You may rest assured that I shall make no mention of this interview and I trust you’ll be equally reticent over what I’ve told you.”
Wasting no time, Meredith hurried off through the wintry streets to his office, where he had soon put through a call to Messrs. Harben, Wilshin and Harben, the Penrith solicitors. Mr. Harben, the senior partner of the firm, flatly refused to divulge the nature of Clayton’s will.
“After all, Inspector, it will be public property in a few days. I really can’t see why I should disclose the terms of the will before it is formally declared!”
To this Meredith had no reply. He realized that he was treading on delicate ground and even if he had strong suspicions that Clayton had been murdered, a solicitor was the last person in whom to confide these suspicions. Rather nettled, he rang off and put himself to thinking about that astonishing nest-egg of £2,000. The first thought that entered his mind was theft. Was it possible that Clayton was a professional thief, whose activities spreading over some seven years had been attended with singular good fortune? But the record of local burglaries was disappointingly small. Besides, the amounts seemed to have been paid in fairly regularly about four times a year, and in every case in notes. Meredith could not conceive a clever thief being such a fool as to pay in the proceeds of his thefts in notes. Notes are numbered and often, when suspicion is aroused, easily traceable. Clayton would have to work in conjunction with a receiver and if any of the notes could have been traced back to a receiver the fat would have been properly in the fire.
Blackmail was a more feasible explanation. But if so, who was the victim? Surely not Higgins? That, at any rate, would supply a motive for the murder. Driven to desperation by Clayton’s continual threats of exposure Higgins might have decided that the only way to regain peace of mind was to get rid of his partner. But once again Meredith found himself up against that alibi. Thoroughly disheartened, he at length abandoned all attempts to solve the problem of Clayton’s bank-balance and decided to concentrate on the major problem of his death. Rather nervously he took up the phone and got through to Superintendent Thompson at Carlisle.
“This is Meredith speaking, sir. I want to have a word with you about this Clayton affair.”
At the breezy command of “Fire ahead” Meredith outlined the progress of his investigations, laying particular stress on his theory that Clayton had been drugged before being placed in the car. To his intense relief the Superintendent anticipated his request.
“And now I suppose you want permission for an autopsy? Is that it, Inspector?”
“That’s about it, sir. Any chance?”
“Hang on a minute and I’ll have a word with the Chief. Luckily he’s in his office. Don’t promise, mind you, but I’ll do my best.”
“Thanks.”
Meredith waited apprehensively for the Chief’s decision. So much he felt depended on the autopsy. He was quite certain that he could not persuade a coroner’s jury to bring in a verdict of murder by putting forward his present suspicions; but once prove that Clayton had been drugged and the result of the inquest was a foregone conclusion. Not that Meredith was hankering after a sensational verdict. It was merely that he now felt certain that Clayton had not taken his own life.
The Superintendent’s voice drew him sharply out of his reverie.
“You there, Meredith? I’ve seen the Chief. He was a bit dubious at first. Thought that the reasons you’d put forward for the post mortem were a trifle too thin. But I’m glad to say that I got him round in the end, so you can go ahead with a clear conscience.”
“That’s really good news, sir. I’ll get Dr. Burney on the job straightaway and send through my report early to-morrow.”
“Good. By the way the inquest is fixed for Wednesday next at 2.30. The body’s at the mortuary isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we’ll arrange for the Coroner to sit in the court-room. You’d better subpoena all the witnesses you think necessary. I shall probably be over myself if I can spare the time.”
Immensely pleased with the result of his phone call Meredith had soon fixed up with Dr. Burney, in conjunction with Dr. White, to perform the necessary post mortem. In less than an hour the two doctors were at their gruesome job in the little mortuary adjoining the station. When the Inspector returned from a hastily snatched meal he found the doctors waiting for him.
“Well, gentlemen?”
Dr. Burney smiled.
“You seem
anxious, Inspector!”
Meredith laughed.
“I am. A negative report would make me look a tidy fool after airing my suspicions so strongly at H.Q.”
“Well you won’t lose your beauty sleep on that account. We’ve no reason to alter our opinion as to the cause of death. That’s asphyxia all right. On the other hand we found about thirty grains of trional in the stomach and intestines. You know what that is I suppose?”
“A drug?” asked Meredith on tenterhooks.
Burney nodded. Dr. White, a short podgy little man, cut in wheezily.
“A powerful drug too. Thirty grains of the stuff would send a man off to sleep in a brace of shakes.”
Burney grinned at the older man’s expression.
“I know exactly what you’re going to ask, Inspector. What is a ‘brace of shakes’? Say, in this case anything from twenty minutes to half an hour. That so, White?”
“Twenty minutes in my opinion. Can’t be certain of course. People react differently to drugs. But that’s about it!”
As the doctors were shuffling themselves into their overcoats, Meredith observed:
“No need to tell you, gentlemen, what this means?”
Burney winked.
“It wasn’t suicide—if that’s what you’re after. By the way, when’s the inquest? Is it fixed yet?”
Meredith told them and the doctors drove off together in Burney’s car to write up an official report of their findings.
Left alone the Inspector allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation, then tired out after his day’s work he trudged off through the frost-rimed streets to spend the tail-end of the evening helping his seventeen-year-old son, Tony, to assemble a new five-valve wireless set. Tony was apprenticed to a local photographer, but like Meredith, he had a mechanical turn of mind. A fact which did a lot to further the happy relationship existing between father and son. Meredith was inordinately proud of his only child, a feeling which he secretly believed to be reciprocated, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Meredith, Tony would have long ago been destined for the Force.