by John Bude
As an imaginative man, fond of the open air, Meredith had grown to love the sweep and the grandeur of the valleys and the hills. Even the realistic and often sordid nature of his job had failed to take the keen edge off a naturally poetic appreciation of his surroundings. Often he would tramp for miles over the fells with no other companions than his pipe and his thoughts. He was thinking then, as he sped between the age-old, grey, stone walls—not of the patch of watery sunlight on the distant slope of Clough Head, nor the blue shadow caught in the trough of a far-off valley, but as to why a certain Nonock lorry had parked up a side-turning on the night of Clayton’s murder.
Try as he would he could not see how Prince or Bettle could have found time to do their dastardly work and arrive back at the depot before nine o’clock. If only he could lay his finger on the weak spot of his reconstruction of the crime! Was it, he wondered suddenly, that Bettle had returned alone to the depot? Had he left Prince to do the job and return to Penrith by train or bus? If so, what was the point of Bettle waiting up the side-turning? It would have been far better for him to have dropped Prince a little way up the road from the Derwent and driven directly back to Penrith.
Still turning these problems over in his mind, Meredith drew up in front of the corrugated-iron gates and dismounted. As on his previous visit he found the gates ajar. Ignoring the apparently closed office, he crossed the yard to the big garage in which a light was burning. Inside he found a man in blue overalls, engaged in swilling down the cement floor with a length of hose.
Meredith’s first impression was of a quiet, respectable individual, who would probably prove to be a conscientious and efficient employee. In age he looked to be fifty or a little over.
At the Inspector’s unheralded appearance the man looked up quickly.
“Hullo, sir! And what may you be wanting?”
“Manager about?”
“No, sir. He won’t be back till five. Anything I can do?”
“Yes,” replied Meredith brusquely. “I’m Inspector Meredith—county police. You can probably help me. Won’t keep you a minute.”
The man laid the bubbling hose on the floor, and, walking over to the tap, turned off the water.
“Now, sir?” he said, turning to the Inspector.
“What’s your position here?” asked Meredith.
“Yard-man. Odd-job man if you like—it more or less amounts to that. If there’s anything extra to be done they drops on me to do it.”
“Name?”
“Dancy—Robert Dancy.”
“What time did you leave here last Saturday night?”
“Darn late,” answered the man promptly. “I should have got away by seven, but No. 4 had trouble on the road and didn’t get in until near on nine.”
“No. 4?”
“That’s the Keswick–Cockermouth lorry, sir.”
“I see. Was the lorry checked in?”
“Yes, sir. By Mr. Rose. He’s the manager.”
“Could I see the book?”
The man hesitated, obviously reluctant to interfere with something that was strictly outside his province.
“Well?” demanded Meredith. “Yes or no?” Then realizing the man was still undecided he determined to try a bluff. “You realize that I could get a search warrant anyway, don’t you? But I don’t want to waste time on that. There’s no need for your boss to know that you’ve let me have a look at the book, if it’s that what’s troubling you.”
“All right,” agreed Dancy. “Since you put it like that, Inspector.”
The yard-man pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket and Meredith followed him over to the little, brick-built office. Unlocking the door Dancy preceded the Inspector to a knee-hole desk near the window and picked up a black-bound book.
“Here you are, sir. This is what you’re after.”
Meredith took the book and soon found the page in which he was interested. He noted that each page was ruled into several columns, headed respectively—Date. Lorry No. Time Outgoing. Load. Deliveries At. Time Incoming. On Saturday, March 23rd, Lorry No. 4 had apparently left the depot at 9.10 with a load of 1,000 gallons. Deliveries were to be made at five various garages en route, including the Derwent. There was, however, no mention of the Lothwaite. The lorry had arrived back at the depot at 8.35. Five minutes earlier, in fact, than his own estimate for a direct run, allowing that the lorry had left the Derwent at 7.30. So unless Rose had cooked his books Prince and Bettle had told the truth.
“I see that No. 4 got in at 8.35 on Saturday,” observed Meredith to the yard-man. “Does that strike you about right?”
“Within a minute or so, I reckon. Since I was kept hanging about I looked at the yard clock pretty frequently, and that check-in just about fits in with my idea of the time, sir.”
“Who regulates the yard clock?”
“I do.”
“Tell me, Mr. Dancy—when a lorry goes out with a load does it only deliver to order? Or do the men carry enough surplus to deliver an order on request?”
“Well, sir, for the most part they only deliver to orders received in advance. The garage writes in to Mr. Rose, stating the number of gallons required, and the load is usually made up so as to cover these advance orders. On the other hand when there’s only half a load, we usually shove in another three or four gallons in case it may be wanted. On a round of that sort it’s usual for our chaps to visit all our customers on their route.”
“I see. What about Saturday’s load on No. 4?”
“I can tell you about that all right, sir, because I helped to run it in. It was made up exact to advance orders. No surplus, see? Thousand gallons, I think it was.”
Meredith’s interest quickened. Something was wrong there! Wick had spoken that morning about wanting four hundred gallons on Saturday for delivery at the Lothwaite. But according to him there was only a surplus of 200 gallons in the tank and so he had asked for the full load to be delivered that morning. But how could there have been a surplus of 200 gallons if Saturday’s load was made up exact to orders? When the lorry reached the Lothwaite there should have been just enough petrol left in the tank for the advance order at the Derwent.
Another point flashed through Meredith’s mind. He hastily turned the pages of the black-bound book. Yes—there was to-day’s entry. He went through the list of garages under the heading of “Deliveries At”. The Lothwaite was not there! But it should have been there! Wick had given an order on Saturday night for 400 gallons. Why hadn’t the order been entered in the book? Hadn’t he himself seen the lorry making the delivery that morning?
“Is there an order book, Mr. Dancy?”
“There,” said Dancy, pointing to a foolscap-size ledger lying in a wire tray. “All the advance orders are posted up in that book by Mr. Rose.”
The Inspector examined the more recent entries with the closest attention. Saturday’s order from the Derwent was there all right, but there was no record of Wick’s order for the 400-gallon delivery to be made that morning.
“Tell me this, Mr. Dancy—if one of your lorry-men gets a verbal order en route, does he have to report it to Mr. Rose?”
“Of course. Otherwise the office wouldn’t be able to keep a proper check on the outgoing loads. Every advance order received, sir, is shown in that ledger.”
“Thanks. Now do you think I could just take a look round the premises?”
Dancy, although obviously puzzled by the Inspector’s interest in the depot, readily assented. The two men set off on a brief tour of the place, the yard-man explaining things as they went along. But Meredith found nothing out of the ordinary to interest him. The place was well kept, roomy and so constructed as to minimize any risk of fire or explosion.
“Tell me, Mr. Dancy—what’s the procedure from the moment a petrol consignment arrives at the port of entry until it reaches here?”
“It’s like this, sir,” explained the yard-man. “We’ve got our own store down at the dock-side. The petrol’s discharged from
an oil-tanker alongside the storage tanks in our own wharf-depot, see? As it’s run in from the ship the Excise people check up on the amount and levy the necessary duty. When we find ourselves getting low here we let ‘em know down at the dock-side store. We then get an advice note to say that a tank-car has been despatched to us containing so-and-so gallons of petrol. When the tank-car arrives here, the railway people shunt it off on to our own siding round the back of this place. From there, by means of that pump I showed you just now, we empty the tank-car into our own storage tanks. There’s an underground pipe from the siding which runs into the tanks via the pump.”
“I see. Very interesting,” commented Meredith. “Can you tell me the capacity load of one of your lorries?”
“Thousand gallons, sir. Same in each case. All our bulk-wagons—that’s the trade name for the lorries—are built to the same pattern. They’re three-compartment jobs. Two compartments holding four hundred gallons each and the remaining one two hundred gallons.”
Satisfied that he now had a fairly extensive idea as to the modus operandi of the petrol company, Meredith accompanied Dancy back to the garage, where he thanked the yard-man for his attention and cautioned him to keep quiet about the visit.
“I’m afraid I’ve kept you from your job,” he concluded, with his usual politeness.
“Oh, that’s all right, sir,” Dancy assured him. “With this new, high-pressure nozzle I can wash down the yards in half the time. Ever seen the gadget? Neat, isn’t it?”
The Inspector, after a quick examination of the patent, agreed that it was—very neat. He noticed, too, that the length of hose to which the nozzle was attached was also brand new. It started a sudden train of thought coursing through his mind.
“New hose as well, I see. No chance of my getting hold of the old length for my garden, is there?”
The yard-man chuckled.
‘Well, if you like to patch up the holes in it, you can have it for the asking, Inspector. I chucked it over the fence on to the dump about a fortnight back. Daresay it’s the worse for wear now!”
“I only wanted a short length,” explained Meredith glibly. “Perhaps I could cut off a sound piece and take it with me. You must use at least a forty foot hose to cover the yard from one tap, eh?”
“Thirty feet,” corrected Dancy. Still, if you only want a dozen feet or so I daresay you’ll find what you want.”
“The dump’s round the back, is it?”
“That’s it, sir. I’ll come round if you—?”
“No—don’t worry, Mr. Dancy. I’ll rummage round on my own.” Just as he was about to walk off, Meredith asked with studied casualness: “By the way, was Mr. Rose in his office until No. 4 lorry returned?”
“Yes, sir—he never left the yard until after nine on Saturday night. He was at his desk making up the books. I could see him through that window.”
“Thanks.”
Leaving the yard-man to make up for lost time, Meredith passed out through the gates, hastily climbed the low wall by the roadside and followed the curve of the corrugated-iron fence to the back of the depot. The dump consisted of all sorts of odd bits of junk—old tyres, dented petrol tins, a couple of rusting mudguards, rotting sacks and empty oil-drums. It did not take the Inspector long to find what he was looking for. Shoving aside some of the rubbish, he pulled out a dirty length of rubber hosing. At first glance his interest quickened. Although the hose was now covered with a thick coating of oil and grime, it was obvious that its original colour had been white. Was his long shot in the dark going to find a billet?
It was the work of seconds to lay out the hose flat on the ground and draw a flexible steel rule from his pocket. With growing excitement he measured up the length—then, with an exclamation of delight, he pulled out his pocket-knife and cut off about six inches from the end of the hose. Rubbing the clean end against the ground, he thrust the remainder back into the dump and pocketed his specimen.
This done, tremendously elated, he returned to the motor-bike, climbed into the saddle and headed full speed for the Derwent.
CHAPTER XI
PROBLEM NUMBER TWO
WASTING no time in Keswick, Meredith drove straight through the town and made for the Derwent. He could hardly suffer a moment to elapse before following up the hose-pipe clue to a definite conclusion. So much depended on a positive result of the test he was about to make. If the test were successful, then there would be no doubt that he had, at last, forged the first definite link between the murder and the murderer.
Reaching the Derwent, he hastily dismounted and took stock of the place. The sliding-doors to the main building were closed and locked, and a large, crudely-written notice announced: “These premises will be closed until Monday next.” Meredith smiled. So his luck was holding! With Higgins out of the way it would make his investigations far simpler. He wondered if he might not be in the cottage, but there again he found the windows shut and the doors bolted.
“So much for that,” he thought. “Now for the shed!”
The wood-shed door was merely on the latch and it did not take Meredith long to unhook the piece of hose-pipe off the nail and measure up. The instant he had done so he realized, with a thrill of excitement, that his theory had been metamorphosed by that simple operation into a fact! Here was the tangible proof he had been looking for! Here, at last, was a blazed trail leading from the Derwent to the Nonock depot at Penrith!
There was no gainsaying the certainty of his test. The length of hose in the wood-shed was just over six feet. The piece which had been cut from it and used over the exhaust of Clayton’s car, was, as he knew from previous measurement, just under eight feet. The length of the piece in the dump was sixteen feet, almost to an inch, and Dancy had assured him that the original hose was thirty feet long. But that was not all! Comparing the bit which he had cut off from the piece on the dump, with the piece in the wood-shed, he saw at once that they were identical. The colour, the thickness of the rubber, the diameter of the pipe itself corresponded exactly. There was no doubt left in Meredith’s mind now, that the hose used to convey the fumes from the exhaust to the mackintosh over Clayton’s head, had been cut from the discarded length on the dump!
But one thing still remained to puzzle him. From his previous examination he had noticed that there was one, clean-cut end to each piece of hose. This meant that if the length used by the murderer in setting up his lethal apparatus were joined to the length in the wood-shed, a complete hose would result. But how could this be if the two lengths at the garage had originally been cut off from the thirty-foot hose on the dump? If this had been done, then one or the other lengths at the garage should show two severed ends.
For a moment Meredith’s elation was usurped by the profoundest despair. Was this after all just another wild goose chase? Another one of those damnable blind-alley investigations? It certainly looked like it.
Then suddenly he asked himself: “But is it? Is it?” Wasn’t it possible that the murderer had so arranged things as to make it look as if the two lengths formed a complete hose? With this in mind he made a careful examination of the length he held in his hand. Acute disappointment was his first reaction. Although one end was startlingly clean, the other was definitely soiled. Almost instinctively he rubbed the soiled end with the palm of his hand. To his amazement a black patch immediately appeared on his skin, and the whiteness of the rubber began to show through. He sniffed at the black patch. The odour was distinctive. At first he could not place it, but the next moment he broke out into a delighted chuckle, which resolved into a deep sigh of relief.
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 cros
s-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.