“All right. Well, don’t worry; we’ll sort it out. I can think of two concrete points in your favour, so we’ve plenty of breathing space. There’s nothing else it would be as well to tell me while I’m here, is there?”
“No.” Lesley shook her head. “You’ve heard the whole sordid story.” Flecker looked down on her and felt the last of his anger fade. “Never mind,” he said vaguely and, “I expect that dam’ fool Barclay gave you all the wrong advice.” He went slowly downstairs, cursing his profession for having forced him to appear in the role of accuser rather than protector. An unaccountable depression possessed him as he crossed the stable yard in search of Browning. He would be almost glad now, he thought, to find that he had based the whole case on a false premise, for that would go some way towards clearing Lesley. Yet what other conclusion could one draw from the firing of the two shots?
He found Browning in the stable adjusting the back brake of Anthony Carlson’s bicycle. “Are we off?” he asked, looking up.
“No rush; finish the job,” Flecker answered and, finding himself a precarious seat on the edge of a wooden wheelbarrow, he relapsed into thought. It was Anthony’s “Thanks awfully” which brought him back to reality and he rose quickly. “We must be on our way,” he said, to forestall further repairs.
“Well, mind how you go. Don’t forget that it’ll act a good bit sharper now,” Browning told Anthony. “And, if we’re up this way again, I’ll take a look at that front brake; it’s not all it might be.” He wiped his hands on a rag and then followed Flecker across the yard.
In the car Flecker related Lesley Carlson’s story, to which Browning listened in shocked surprise. “And she seemed such a straightforward little person,” he observed when Flecker finished, “and young Anthony’s as nice a boy as you could find. Well, and where do we go from here?” he asked, to rouse Flecker from the torpor into which he had fallen.
“God only knows.” Flecker pushed ineffectively at his hair and added in depressed tones, “I shall have to think.”
“A nice cup of tea is what we need,” said Browning taking charge. “We’d better go down to The Swan. It’s quiet there and we can soon pop back here again if we need to.”
The tea revived Browning, but Flecker remained depressed. His head felt heavy and stupid and incapable of solving anything; he knew from experience that if he relaxed and thought of other things his subconscious mind would work for him, but he couldn’t relax; Lesley Carlson’s predicament nagged and nagged.
“Look, you go out and see the sights or hit the highspots or something,” he told Browning. “I’m going to retire to my room and try to think things out a bit.”
“There’s a couple of good programmes on the television tonight; they’ll keep me occupied, and then if you do want me, you’ll know where to find me. What time do you want dinner? About half-past seven?”
“Oh, come and rout me out between the programmes; I don’t mind when I eat.”
Flecker went upstairs and, opening his bedroom window as wide as it would go, he sat down on the bed and pulled out his envelopes. The time-table of the Barclay Land Rover came out with them and he gave it a cursory glance. The Land Rover had divided most of its time between Stones Farm and Home Farm, with The Paddocks, the Old Forge and the Old Rectory as its other ports of call. There was nothing there to help Lesley . . . He spread the envelopes all over the bed, but they didn’t help either, and Lesley Carlson’s face was a definite hindrance, swimming in and out of his mind and interrupting his thoughts.
He got up and crossed the room to the window. Below, the backyards and gardens of East Street joined those of parallel New Street. They were all neat and well-kept; there were tiny beds of spring flowers, strips of cherished lawn, tubs and window boxes, everyone seemed to have reared his own bit of spring for private contemplation. Revenge wouldn’t seem sweet now, he thought, but last week, before Spring took her pilgrim steps? And then there was mother love; supposing Hilda Schmidt had threatened to tell Anthony about his father? Still, there was one bright spot; old Barclay had died first, he was moderately sure of that, and why waste time trying to disprove the thing he most wanted to believe? He would try a new line, think at a tangent. With a sigh he sat down on the bed and gathering up the envelopes into an untidy heap, began to consider them anew.
Chapter Ten
It was with a certain trepidation that Flecker entered Crossley police station on Tuesday morning. It was easy enough, he thought, to break a date with a chief constable when the scent was warm or your emotions were aroused, but not always wise; they could get their own back with unpleasant reports to central office and that might mean working for Bolton again. To his surprise, Inspector Miller, his red face beaming with affability, assured him that the Chief Constable had quite “understood” and would be in the neighbourhood again today if there was anything new to report. Dobson’s remark that if the Chief Inspector had woken up he supposed it was something, Miller discreetly kept to himself.
“We’ll do our best for him,” said Flecker. “I really think we are beginning to get somewhere at last. I’ve thought up some more questions for Mrs. Carlson so we’ll go up there first. I don’t suppose your people have found anyone who saw Willis yet?”
“No, not yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as ever we do.”
“Thank you very much. I don’t suppose it’ll affect things one way or the other now,” said Flecker thoughtfully. “Still, it’s as well to be sure, isn’t it?” He grinned at Miller. “Well, we’ll be on our way.”
“Observe the unexpected fruits of treating chief constables rough,” Flecker said to Browning as they drove towards Winmore End. “Evidently the rougher you treat them the better they like you; why didn’t I stumble on this strange truth before?”
“I don’t know that I should make a habit of it,” cautioned Browning; “the next one mightn’t take it the same way.”
“Oh, they all fancy themselves as judges of character, but really they take you at your own valuation. If you want to get on, throw your weight about, that’s the truth of the matter.”
Flecker grinned at the look of disapproval on Browning’s face.
“I reckon we do all right in our own quiet way,” said Browning, stopping the car at the Old Rectory stable gate. “Hullo, someone’s beaten us to it.” He pointed to a car parked inside the yard, taking advantage of the dense pool of shade cast by the chestnut tree. “Nice job too—Austin-Healey,” he remarked appraisingly.
“Probably someone viewing the house,” said Flecker fishing in his pocket for his envelopes. “Look, will you pop round to the post office and check up on the times of the outgoing posts? The Saturday evening post is the one I’m particularly interested in, and if they can remember whether it was cleared punctually on the night of the murder, it might help us a bit. I imagine that Crossley is their head office, but you’d better check that too. Though, no doubt, when the post office proves to us the exact time the letter would reach Longmead if it caught the post, the headmaster will be unable to say with certainty whether he got it on Monday or Tuesday.”
“Shall I take the car?” asked Browning after a moment or two, for the Chief Inspector sat on in the passenger seat, deep in thought.
“Yes, of course,” Flecker said scrambling out amid a flurry of envelopes. “See you later,” he added, as he gathered them up.
Lesley Carlson answered his ring and then stood in the doorway looking at him doubtfully. “Oh dear, Dr. Hedley’s here,” she said, as though that explained everything.
“Would you rather I came back later?” asked Flecker.
“No, I don’t mind, but I’m afraid he’s very angry with you. You see he’s an old friend. No, not really an old one, a good friend, perhaps; I worked as his secretary for a time. Last night I felt that I must have a shoulder to weep on, so I rang him up and told him everything.”
Flecker said, “I’m sorry about the need for a shoulder, but I did tell you not to worry.”
Hedley didn’t answer Flecker’s “Good morning.” At the sight of him, his face turned slowly red and he began to shake with suppressed rage. He came very close to Flecker and his usual mutter had taken on a sinister sibilance. “What do you mean by coming here yesterday and bullying Mrs. Carlson?” he demanded. “You thought that just because she was a woman on her own, you could bully and browbeat her. You never had the decency to suggest she sent for her solicitor or to explain that what she had told you would be used in evidence against her. Filthy dirty gestapo tactics! I’ve always understood the British police were above them, but I’ve found I’m mistaken and, my God, I’m going to publicize your low-down, underhand, sneaking methods.” The words came out of the corner of his mouth with cold venom that was far more telling than noise. Flecker, at first taken by surprise at the sudden onslaught and then rather indignant at the charges, told himself that this was no dispassionate citizen upholding the cause of British justice, but a man in a panic about a woman for whom he bore, well, at least affection.
“I don’t think I did, you know,” he answered mildly. He looked at Lesley, who’d retired pink with embarrassment to the window, and back to Hedley. “I admit I was rather cross with Mrs. Carlson,” he said. “I thought she ought to have told us all she knew about Miss Schmidt a good deal earlier, but I don’t think I bullied or browbeat her.”
“No, he didn’t, Alexander, really.”
Hedley ignored Lesley’s interruption. “Why didn’t you advise her to get hold of her solicitor before you wormed out every damaging fact you could? Or at least caution her; I thought you were compelled to do that by law.”
“I didn’t ask her for a statement,” Flecker told him. “Our talk was off the record; there was no witness and I took no notes. Mrs. Carlson could deny every word this morning if she wanted to. Not that there is much point in denying facts.”
“Oh,” Hedley said, less sure of himself, “but why? From what Lesley—Mrs. Carlson—told me . . .”
“Perhaps I panicked,” suggested Lesley. “Yesterday the Chief Inspector seemed so serious.”
“I was serious, I’m still serious, but I did tell you not to worry and that I would sort it out.”
“Yes, I know you did, but after you’d gone I couldn’t see why you should believe a word I said. I couldn’t understand why you hadn’t arrested me at once; that was when I telephoned Dr. Hedley.”
“You and Mr. Paul Barclay seem to share a strange idea that my object in life is to clap someone in gaol quite irrespective of whether he or she has committed murder. That isn’t the way we work; we want the murderer and we’re quite prepared to be patient and painstaking to get him—or her.”
“It was Barclay who got you in this mess, I suppose,” muttered Hedley angrily.
“No, be fair,” protested Lesley. “I’m in this ‘mess’ because years ago I employed Hilda Schmidt and she and Charles went off together. That’s right, isn’t it?” she said, turning to Flecker.
“Basically, yes,” he answered. “But I think Barclay has been your evil genius; I suspect him of recommending suppression of the truth as a plan of action.”
“He didn’t know about Hilda and Charles until after you’d been to see me on Friday. When he came round, he was in such a state at having ‘dragged’ me into it, that I told him about them to show that I was irretrievably mixed up in the case already.”
“Did it console him at all?” asked Flecker.
“No; for some reason it made everything worse still.”
“And you weren’t advised to do the only sensible thing and tell the police?”
“No, but then I don’t for a moment suppose I should have taken that sort of advice.”
“Really, Lesley.” Hedley sounded shocked.
“Well, now I know the Chief Inspector better, it’s different,” Lesley explained, “but one can’t tell a crowd of unknown policemen how one’s husband went off with the German home help. Or at least it’s not very easy.”
Flecker grinned at her. “The particular is so much cosier than the general,” he said. “Women always prefer it. However, that doesn’t alter the fact that your friend Barclay needs a pi-jaw in words of one syllable on honesty being the best policy. I did think that having had his own whoppers about chickens and guns found out would have jolted some sense into him, but evidently not.”
Hedley said, “I don’t know whether I’m being obtuse, but I should have thought this gun business would have let Lesley—Mrs. Carlson—out. A Barclay gun in a Barclay Land Rover doesn’t seem to point to her, and then she can’t shoot.”
“Supposing we sit down?” suggested Flecker. “I’ve some more questions to ask Mrs. Carlson and they may clear the air a bit.”
“Oh yes, do. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” Lesley left the window to sit on the sofa and Hedley took up a protective attitude beside her. Flecker felt a spasm of irritation; attitudes wouldn’t be much use if his superiors learned how the case stood at the moment. He scuffled angrily among his envelopes.
“First of all,” he asked, “have you seen anyone unexpected in the stable yard?”
“No,” Lesley answered with certainty. “Only us and the tradesmen delivering and the Willises coming in and out with jumble.”
“And on Saturday Anthony went out to tea. What time did he go?”
“About four; they were having tea and then going to the cinema.”
“And you didn’t leave the house until you went to the post?”
“No, it was a horrible evening, cold and windy. I tidied up a bit and then I had tea by the fire; afterwards I wrote to the headmaster of Longmead, taking the job I told you about.”
“And no one telephoned?”
“No.”
“But you were expecting Paul Barclay; when did you arrange the meeting?”
Lesley thought for a moment. “Oh, the day before, when we looked over Well Cottage. We hadn’t finished arguing when the time came for me to fetch Anthony so I said Paul had better come over the next evening—I knew Anthony was going out. Then I found I’d made up my mind and arguing wasn’t going to get us anywhere, so I posted the letter before Paul came . . .” It was a knock at the door which caused Lesley to let the end of her sentence fade. She looked inquiringly at Flecker. “Come in,” he called. Browning’s head appeared. “Mr. Barclay’s waiting outside, he wants to see Mrs. Carlson. Is it all right for him to come up?”
“Yes, of course,” Flecker answered.
Dr. Hedley looked far from pleased. “I’ve been telling Mrs. Carlson that if I were her I should fight shy of Barclay in future,” he muttered.
Flecker grinned. “She’s heavily chaperoned at the moment,” he pointed out. Then he turned to Browning. “What luck with the PO?” Browning produced his notebook, opened it and handed it over without a word; Flecker handed it back as Paul Barclay came into the room.
“Good morning,” he said, looking round and then, rather anxiously, at Lesley. “It’s another lovely day, but we do need the rain.”
Flecker turned to Lesley. “If we could find Mr. Barclay and Sergeant Browning chairs,” he said, “then we could carry on with our—er—discussion and I’ll try to answer Dr. Hedley’s questions about guns.”
“Yes, of course. Do sit down everyone. Paul, you don’t mind the stool, do you?”
“Not a bit,” said Barclay, pulling it out from under the writing table.
Flecker pushed rather wearily at his forelock and assembled his envelopes. “Now,” he said, looking round at them all, “the question Dr. Hedley asked me was whether this ‘gun business’ didn’t let Mrs. Carlson out. ‘A Barclay gun in a Barclay Land Rover,’ he said, ‘and then she can’t shoot.’ Correct?” he asked, looking at
Hedley.
“Word perfect,” muttered the doctor.
Flecker gnawed his pencil and seemed to consider the matter. “No,” he said at length, “it doesn’t let her out. Definitely not. Look, I don’t think it would do any harm to consider the case against Mrs. Carlson as a whole.” He looked at the top envelope. “First of all, we’re agreed that she had a perfectly adequate motive to murder Miss Schmidt. There’s revenge, and there’s mother love—Miss Schmidt could have threatened to tell Anthony the facts which were being so carefully concealed from him. Then the weapon. Well, Mrs. Carlson was with Mr. Barclay when he left his gun and cartridges in Well Cottage; she knew of and had access to the jumble, which is important for a reason I won’t explain. There is no one to confirm her statement of how she spent the time between five-thirty and six-fifteen and, as for the gun being in the Land Rover, well Mr. Barclay was already up here when Mrs. Carlson returned from posting her letter and the Land Rover stood in the stable yard; what could have been easier than to push the shotgun in among the junk in the back?”
“But I wouldn’t have done that,” objected Lesley. “Even if I had killed Hilda I shouldn’t have wanted to involve Paul.”
“These psychological niceties don’t mean anything to the police,” Hedley told her. “Don’t you see, Lesley? You were there; you had access to the Land Rover; that’s all they care about.”
“Not strictly true,” said Flecker. “A great many policemen, and this one in particular, are devoted to psychological niceties. Still, they can’t alter facts and you do see that the situation is serious?” He looked round their faces.
“Well, I do,” said a voice from the doorway and they all turned to see Dobson’s spare figure, sandy hair and lined face. “It sounds very bad to me, very bad indeed.”
“Good morning, sir,” said the detectives, getting to their feet.
Dobson looked at Flecker. “Dr. Hedley telephoned me this morning. Complained very bitterly of your treatment of Mrs. Carlson. Miller told me you were here so I thought I’d look in; the boy showed me up.”
They Died in the Spring Page 14