“We’d rather talk to Mr. Harrison alone,” answered Sam, doggedly.
“Very well,” said Griskin; “I think I ought to stay, but I leave it to Mr. Harrison himself.”
“I think you can trust me not to let the police down,” said Harrison.
“That means you want me to go,” said Griskin, with a smile. “All right. Goodnight, sir, and I’ll see you in the morning, I hope.”
The sergeant went up the stairs while Flick said not a word and Sam finished his cooking.
“There’s no need to be so suspicious of Griskin,” said Harrison. “He’s doing all he can for you.”
“Flick’s frightened of him,” explained Sam. “Flick wouldn’t talk at all if he stayed.”
“Does he talk, then?” asked Henry, with the greatest surprise.
“You bet he does,” answered Sam. “Don’t you, Flick?”
“Right again, Sam,” said Flick.
Sam took the frying-pan from the fire while Flick produced some plates and cups and put them on the table.
“Have a sausage, sir?” asked Sam, as he started doling them out.
“I’m afraid I’m not hungry, Sam, thank you,” said Harrison, although he had to admit that the odour given off from them was certainly most appetising.
Sam looked at Henry, who immediately answered, “Sure you can spare it? I can’t resist a sausage. Never could.”
Sam, Flick and Henry settled down at the table while Harrison remained by the fire and lit a cigar.
“Now,” said Harrison, “before you start telling me all those things you did not want to tell Sergeant Griskin, I might as well ask you a few questions just to get it all straight to start with. Can you describe the man who came here last night?”
“Well, sir,” answered Sam, “I’m not good at that sort of thing. There’s no doubt that’s him at the place in Millhead. He wasn’t tall. He hadn’t a moustache and that’s about all I remember of him.”
“How did he speak?”
“He was a gentleman, no doubt of that, sir,” was the reply. “He tried not to talk like it to start with, but Flick and me laughed at him. Pretended he was like us, but we soon told him off. Gentlemen talk different, and you can tell it a mile away. So he gave that up and then he spoke just like you, sir.”
“Did he talk much?”
“Fairly chatty he was, sir,” answered Sam. “We wanted to know something about him, of course. It doesn’t do to open up to anybody. Flick won’t trust anybody who can’t say something for himself. Will you, Flick?”
“Not on my life,” said Flick.
“So we made him say something about himself. He was a waiter down on his luck. Had been drinking a bit and had lost his job and couldn’t get another. We told him we didn’t believe him. It didn’t sound right somehow, sir; we’ve never met a waiter on the road before. That’s a fact. Flick said straight away that he was a writer, and was spying on us for something to write about, and the Jogger told him he’d better clear out. He said he’d prove himself a waiter by telling us of the places he’d been to.”
“And he did?”
“Well, the Jogger said it was all right,” was the reply. “He certainly seemed to have been in France and Germany and Spain and all sorts of other places.”
“That may be important,” said Harrison.
“And he spoke the languages, too,” said Sam. “At least the Jogger said they were right. Came out with them in the funniest way. Flick and I laughed, but the Jogger said they were OK and proved he must have been a waiter as he said.”
“Was he hungry?” asked Harrison.
“He said he was. Hadn’t eaten anything for days,” replied Sam.
“Wanted something with a cork in it,” commented Flick.
“That’s about right, sir,” said Sam. “We offered him something and he turned his nose up at it.”
“Surely it wasn’t sausages?” said Henry.
“You bet it was,” commented Flick.
“Impossible,” said Henry, with conviction. “Nobody could refuse your sausages.”
“Well, he did,” answered Sam, with a gratified smile at the tribute to his cooking. “He thought that proved he was a waiter somehow. Being used to special hotel food and all that.”
“You can get a sausage at the best hotels,” said Henry.
“You don’t say,” said Flick.
“Still, he didn’t do it in a nice way, so to speak,” continued Sam. “All superior like about it.”
“Now tell me about the quarrel,” said Harrison.
“Well, sir, he kind of led up to it, if you understand me,” said Sam. “Of course he may not have meant it that way, but Flick and me both thought it looked like it.”
“I don’t quite understand,” answered Harrison. “But please explain it in as much detail as you like.”
“When we were sitting round the fire again, said Sam; “that is, after the Jogger, Flick and me had had our supper. He wouldn’t touch anything, not even a bit of bread or a drop of tea. He says he’s told us all about himself and now he’d like to know something about us. We tells him a few things and then, all natural like, he asks where the Jogger got his name.”
“You think it was too natural?”
“That’s just what we did think, sir. But the Jogger thinks a bit of himself and his knowledge, and he told the stranger first go. ‘Very interesting,’ says the stranger. ‘I’m a bit that way myself.’ And he starts mentioning all sorts of places, and the Jogger tells him where they are. Comes out pat with them—I never thought the Jogger knew all that. Then the stranger says something like this: ‘Now for an easy one,’ he says; ‘can you tell me where Yarmouth is?’”
“Not bad,” said Harrison.
“Not bad, as you say, sir,” continued Sam. “The Jogger laughs and tells him. Then the stranger laughed himself, a nasty laugh, and says—”
“It was in the Isle of Wight,” said Harrison.
“Lord help us,” said Flick.
“It is Lord help us, Flick,” said Sam, “for that’s just what he did say, sir. How did you know?”
“I guessed,” replied Harrison.
“Pretty smart of you, sir,” said Sam. “That riled the Jogger, sir, and they had a few words. The Jogger said he knew her was right. He’d been there hundred of times himself, so had Flick and me, for the matter of that. But the stranger laughed his nasty, sneery laugh again, and said he was right. I thought the Jogger was going to hit him but we talked them both quiet and then got our mattresses and went to sleep.”
“And then?”
“In the morning he and the Jogger were ready to go off before Flick and me. He asked the Jogger where he was going, and said he was going the same way.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Sam. “He certainly did. The Jogger didn’t want to go with him, but he’s the sort of man who can’t be angry long, and so off they went together.”
“And that’s the whole story?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But you told all that to Sergeant Griskin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why did you want to see me?”
“Well, sir,” explained Sam, “Flick here did something which the Sergeant might not have liked.”
“I went through his pockets,” said Flick, with unassuming directness.
“I suppose it isn’t right, sir,” said Sam, “and the sergeant might take it rather seriously. But with a stranger like that we like to know all about him. Flick here is rather good with his fingers, and so, quite unknown to him, he had a good look at his belongings—and that was easy enough in all conscience.”
“You mean he had so little,” said Harrison.
“That’s right, sir,” answered Sam. “Practically nothing, so to speak. No money at all, and nothing in any of his pockets but this.”
He pulled out of his pocket a flat disc, made of some material like ivory, about the size of half-a-crown, on which wa
s stamped the figure “5”.
“Let me see it,” said Harrison. Sam passed the ivory disc to him and he examined it carefully.
“The first clue to the stranger,” said Harrison.
“Flick and me couldn’t make head or tail of it,” said Sam. “He said he’d been in foreign parts, and we thought it might be French or German money or something like that.”
“Maybe,” answered Harrison; “I think I’d better keep this, don’t you?”
“You really think it’s important, sir?” asked Sam.
“I certainly do,” was the reply.
“Will you have to tell Sergeant Griskin, sir?” asked Sam.
“I expect so,” answered Harrison, “if I am to help at all.”
“You really think you can help, sir?” asked Sam, eagerly.
“I’m going to try,” said Harrison.
“Flick and me’s not good at thanking people,” said Sam, “but we mean it all the same. Don’t we, Flick?”
“Don’t we, Sam?” echoed Flick. “Tell him, Sam.”
“Well, sir,” started Sam, “me and Flick hasn’t much money. Really we haven’t any. But we know we can’t expect anything for nothing and if we can earn a bit later and then try and pay you back, we’ll do it.”
“We’ll leave it at that, then,” answered Harrison, taking the suggestion quite as seriously as Sam had intended it. “I’ll do my best with Griskin and if you have to give any evidence about this object, you’ll have to tell the truth—even if the judge has a few words to say on your bad habits.”
“Safety first,” said Flick.
“I know,” replied Harrison. “You wanted to know all about the company you were keeping. Still there are other ways of looking at it. Now that’s about all you have to tell me, is it?”
“I think so, sir,” said Sam.
“I want to get things quite straight,” said Harrison, “so you don’t mind a few questions?”
“Go ahead, sir,” said Sam.
“First of all, and I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but is Mr. Flick here pretty thorough in the kind of job you just mentioned?”
“Meaning going through people’s pockets, sir?”
“Exactly.”
“First rate,” said Sam, emphatically.
“Have to be,” commented Flick.
“He wouldn’t miss anything?” asked Harrison.
“Not likely.”
“And you both feel certain that the stranger had nothing else at all in his pockets?”
Both men nodded vigorously.
“Now think this over carefully,” said Harrison. “Suppose he had something—a pound note or something like that—in the lining of his coat or hidden anywhere else like that, could Mr. Flick have missed it?”
“Not on your life, sir,” answered Sam. “That’s just what Flick expects. He knows where to look—and feel—does Flick.”
“Then that’s settled,” said Harrison. “Now for the next question. Do you think the man you call the Jogger would murder anybody?”
“No, sir.”
“Not for any reason?”
Sam hesitated.
“That means you do think so,” said Harrison. “Now tell me why. I must know everything to be able to help at all.”
“Well, sir,” replied Sam, reluctantly, “it sounds rather hard on the Jogger, but he was a bit touchy about his knowledge and I do believe, even last night, if the man had stood him out too long about Yarmouth the Jogger might have turned nasty.”
“So if there had been another quarrel on the road you think it is just possible the Jogger might have seen red?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam, mournfully.
“Don’t be depressed about it,” said Harrison, “you only think it’s just possible. A jury would take some convincing of it, too. But the Jogger wouldn’t kill anybody for money.”
“He wouldn’t,” answered Sam.
“You feel quite certain about that?”
“You bet I do, sir,” said Sam. “The Jogger never worried about money. If he had it, he spent it. If he hadn’t any, he whistled. He never cared at all. He used to say the road would provide. It does, sir, you know.”
“That settles number two,” said Harrison. “Now for my last question. Do you know of anybody else who saw the stranger?”
Both Sam and Flick thought for a moment.
“I can’t think of anybody, sir,” said Sam.
“The Grump,” said Flick.
“Oh, yes, she might have seen him,” said Sam; “I never thought of her.”
“Who is she?” asked Harrison.
“Miss Rich, sir,” answered Sam.
“Hardly a pleasant name for somebody who tries to help you,” said Harrison, while Henry smiled broadly.
“Sorry, sir,” answered Sam. “She’s good-hearted and does what she can, but she’s not a patch on Miss Docket. Miss Docket’s an angel from heaven, but the other’s always coming down here to tell us how lucky we are. She rubs it in hard, too. Doesn’t say an awful lot, maybe, but she catches you every time. Started getting a bit religious once, and the Jogger spoke to Miss Docket about it. He stopped that all right. She wasn’t so bad last night.”
“So she came down last night?”
“Yes, sir, she wasn’t here very long, though.”
“Did she speak to the stranger?”
“No, sir,” was the reply. “She didn’t speak to any of us—to call it speaking. She just said good evening and smiled and went away again.”
“Did she notice the stranger, do you think?”
“I should hardly say so,” answered Sam. “She could hardly have seen anything of him from where she was standing. He was sitting by the fire, with his back to her.”
“Did he seem as if he didn’t want to be noticed?”
“I shouldn’t say that, sir,” said Sam. “He just seemed to go on in the same way. When she went away again, he laughed his nasty laugh and said he was sorry for her husband. That was all, sir.”
“Good,” said Harrison. “So that’s everything?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam eagerly; “and you’ll get the Jogger out?”
“I can’t promise yet,” answered Harrison. “You mustn’t forget that things are pretty black against the Jogger at present. The police will charge him with murder to-morrow, and I’ve got to find out a great deal more before anyone is going to believe he didn’t do it.”
“That’s true,” said Flick. “And you’re going to.”
“I’m going to try,” said Harrison. “We’ve got precious little to go on at present.”
“We trust you, sir,” said Sam, simply.
“Don’t talk at all,” said Harrison. “What you’ve told me tonight mustn’t go any further at present. You understand?”
“You bet, sir,” said Sam.
“And, most important of all, not a word about this,” Harrison held up the small ivory disc. “It may mean everything to the Jogger. Good night.”
Harrison and Henry retraced their way up the steps and out behind the back of the house. Here they worked back along the route they had followed with the sergeant and arrived at the front door once more. A small light was burning in the ball, but the rest of the house seemed to be in darkness.
“Very quiet, Henry,” said Harrison, turning the handle gently while Henry followed with audibly exaggerated caution.
They had hardly crossed the threshold, however, when Miss Docket reappeared and led them back into the room they had been in before.
“You shouldn’t have waited up for us, Miss Docket,” said Harrison.
“I said it was going to be an all-night job for me,” she replied, “and, also, have you any idea where your rooms are?”
“I have ample faith in Henry finding anything out,” said Harrison.
“Now what have you to tell me?” asked Miss Docket.
“I ought to say something very serious to you,” replied Harrison.
“Not really, Mr. Har
rison?” said Miss Docket, with a twinkling eye.
“A lady, even one as attractive as yourself, who deliberately makes plans for me behind my back,” said Harrison, “and sets cunning traps to ensnare my good nature—”
“I see you’ve forgiven me, Mr. Harrison,” said Miss Docket.
“You admit you took advantage of me?” asked Harrison.
“For a good cause,” was the answer. “Now, what did they tell you?”
“Nothing much,” said Harrison.
“Enough to make you believe in the Jogger?”
Harrison paused. “Yes, I think so,” he said cautiously.
“You think there’s no time like the present, don’t you, Miss Docket?” he added.
“Why, yes,” answered Miss Docket, wonderingly.
“Well,” said Harrison, “they told me enough to want to get Miss Rich out of bed.”
“That certainly is asking rather a lot,” answered Miss Docket.
“Your Nemesis,” said Harrison with a smile.
“Very well,” said Miss Docket and went out of the room.
It was not long before she returned, a little breathless, but with a slight suspicion of the conquering hero.
“She’s coming,” said Miss Docket; “but under great protest. I was very firm, and refused to be talked down. Quite a new experience, and really rather fun. I seem to be having the night of my life.”
Miss Rich soon followed her mistress, not exactly bristling but coldly resentful of Harrison’s summons. She was wrapped in a dressing-gown of astonishing length and of a vague colour which, to Henry’s mind, would have needed a greater detective, even than his own beloved Clay Harrison, to identify with accuracy. Her head was effectively concealed in a boudoir cap beneath which doubtless lay an artillery of pins tightly intent on their allotted task. Of only just medium height, she stood clutching the dressing-gown to her like a Roman toga, while her vague air had mainly given way to her obvious indignation.
“Am I a criminal?” she asked Harrison.
“Of course not, Miss Rich,” was the reply. “I want to ask you a few questions.”
“I did not think you sent for me to dance a tango,” said Miss Rich, icily. “I repeat my question. Am I a criminal? I gather it is the custom to question suspected persons at this hour of the night.”
“You may be able to help me,” said Harrison.
Death on the Highway Page 4