by Leo Bruce
“I should like to be the barrister defending him. I don’t think you have a chance of convicting him on what you’ve told me.”
“But you take no account of the experts’ evidence. That is all to come. I shall be surprised if it isn’t conclusive.”
“If it is, I shall have nothing more to say. I’m the last to under-rate the importance of expert evidence in a case like this. I’ve got nothing to show against it. But I’m going to ask you one thing, John, in return for what I’ve been able to tell you tonight. It’s all-important to me. Will you let me know whether your experts agree on one point? That Bella Lobbin was killed by the hammer found beside her; that is, the hammer from the shop?”
“You want to introduce a new hammer?”
“Not necessarily. But I do want an answer to that. It can be no breach of confidence, because that evidence would have to come out in Court afterwards. If it wasn’t, if some other weapon was used, I may have something worth putting to you. If it was, my notions are probably wrong.”
“I’ll remember your request,” said Moore guardedly.
“One other thing. Was anyone else seen approaching Lobbin’s shop this evening?”
“That’s a foolish question, Carolus. It’s a busy little street. Even if anyone had been watching it all the evening they could only say that a number of people had passed. Most of those you observed in the pub for instance.”
“And was anyone watching?”
“Not that I know of. There’s a woman who keeps the sweetshop opposite whom I questioned this evening, but she says she saw nothing, never looked out of her window, heard nothing, knows nothing and wouldn’t tell us anyway if she did. She was prosecuted for selling short weight some months ago and has a violent hatred for the police. But I gained the impression she really didn’t see anything, even Lobbin’s going out or return. You can try her, if you like. Mrs Cocking, her name is. I wish you luck with her.”
“Thanks. I will.”
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Carolus, or what wonderfully abstruse theory you are going to pull out of your hat, but you can’t get away from motive. It’s the key which opens everything. Only one man, as I have told you, had the opportunity and motive in the first murder. Only one man had opportunity and motive in the second murder. And it’s the same man. What more do you want?”
“Evidence,” said Carolus.
“We’ll get that tomorrow when our reports come in. Even bloodstains.”
“What bloodstains?”
“On Lobbin’s overcoat. When he returned to the pub.”
“Presumably he made sure that his wife was dead.”
“There wasn’t much need for that,” said Moore.
“Still, it’s not extraordinary that someone who discovers a corpse in that condition should afterwards find that somehow or other …”
“All right, Carolus. Only you talked about evidence. That’s the sort of evidence a jury wants. They love bloodstains.”
“Are we talking about the same thing? I want to find the truth. You seem to be interested chiefly in a conviction.”
“That’s not fair, Carolus.
“Perhaps not. But you can’t help being a policeman, John. I don’t mean by that that you’d try to get a man hanged unless you were convinced. Only you naturally want to tidy up every case you handle with a conviction. It’s your job. However, it’s past one o’clock and I suppose you mean to be up bright and early.”
John Moore detained him a few minutes longer, however.
“You said just now you might have what you called something worth putting to me. Does that mean you have a theory?”
“The beginnings of what may become one.”
“Does it cover both the crimes?”
Carolus seemed to consider this before answering.
“Yes,” he said at last. “It does. At least it will if it comes to be tenable. At present it seems too fantastic, even to me.”
“Does it involve Lobbin?”
“I think you would be wise to hold Lobbin.”
“When are you going to put it to me?”
“That depends on your answer to my question about the hammer. Good-night, John.”
When he reached the Queen Victoria hotel he had to ring for a long time before a very sleepy George opened the door. But the porter’s manner, even at this hour, remained foxy and rather ingratiating.
“There’s been someone on the phone for you,” he said. “Wants you to call as soon as you come in.”
“Did he give his name?”
“Yes. Grainger or Gorilla or something. The number’s Newminster 9966.”
“Gorringer,” said Carolus absently. “As soon as I came in?”
“It was only about ten when he rung. I expect he’s asleep by now,” said George.
“I shall faithfully carry out his request,” said Carolus and went to the phone-box.
Mr Gorringer was one of those people who think it necessary to shout on the telephone, as though the thing were still in its infancy. It took him some minutes to answer and when he did so the ear-piece rattled.
“Deene? But it is one-thirty a.m!”
“You asked me to call you,” said Carolus innocently.
“I had no idea you would disturb me in the small hours of the morning. However, since you have done so, I must tell you that I have received a call from Mrs Dalbinney. She tells me that so far from easing the anxieties of herself and her family, you have spent your time asking them irrelevant questions while another murder has been committed.”
“Another what?” asked Carolus mischievously.
“Murder! “bellowed Mr Gorringer, then aside—”No, no, my dear. I was talking to Deene.”
“Didn’t she say it lets her out?” asked Carolus.
“Your words are meaningless to me. The fact is that one of our most respected parents is distressed by your conduct. And by the course of events.”
“She needn’t be. She’s a silly self-important woman …”
“I must ask you not to speak in that way of one of the most valued of the school’s supporters. I feel, in the circumstances, that my presence in Selby-on-Sea is highly advisable. Further complications must be avoided at all costs.”
“Do you mean another murder?”
“I am speaking of the unfortunate tracasserie which seems to have broken out between you and Mrs Dal-binney. My modest gift for pouring oil on troubled waters seems urgently in demand. I shall make the journey tomorrow.”
“Just as you like, headmaster. How will you come?”
“Hm, I am informed by Hollingbourne that he has purchased a small but reliable motorcar. You may expect me towards lunchtime.”
“I shall be in the bar of the Queen Victoria,” said Carolus. “Are you bringing your wife?”
“Mrs Gorringer has other engagements of a more congenial character.”
“You’ll just arrive for the kill,” said Carolus.
“The what?” shouted Mr Gorringer in horror.
“The dénouement” said Carolus.
“Eh bien. A demain, alors” said the headmaster, to whom a piece of anglicized French was always a challenge.
18
AT ten o’clock next morning Carolus stood outside Mrs Cocking’s shop and wondered at its survival, a sweetshop of the old kind. So you could still buy liquorice sprinkled with hundreds and thousands? And great sticky bullseyes and coloured fruit drops? He would have thought the modern child had lost its taste for such simple pleasures.
Mrs Cocking was diminutive but solid, like a stumpy thick piece of the Selby Rock she sold. A faint dark moustache, a husky voice and a pair of short muscular fore-arms were all noticeable to Carolus.
“Good morning,” he said bravely. “Could I have half a pound of sugared almonds please?”
Mrs Cocking examined him with a scowl but did not move to fulfil his order.
“You don’t want sugared almonds,” she said with unconcealed hostility.
�
��As a matter of fact I don’t,” said Carolus cheerfully, forgetting her reason for resentment.
Mrs Cocking’s form of attack was interrogatory.
“I knew it. As soon as you walked in the shop I knew what you was after. Thought you were going to make another fine out of me, didn’t you? Got your little scales and measures all ready, haven’t you? Waiting to say there was one sugared almond short, weren’t you? Nasty creeping snooper, aren’t you? Well, you can take yourself off out of here. I’m not serving you.”
“I’m not interested in weights and measures,” said Carolus.
“What is it this time, then? Going to say I sold a bar of chocolate after hours, are you? Thought you’d scare me into saying anything that suited you, did you? Want to have me up in Court while you swear on the Bible I’ve broken the law, do you? You can try those tricks on someone else.”
“Mrs Cocking, I am not a policeman or an inspector of any kind. I dislike them quite as much as you do.”
Mrs Cocking gave a loud grunt.
“Then what did you come here for, asking for sugared almonds which you didn’t want? Answer me that.”
“I came to ask you for some information.”
“Oh so that’s it. You think I’m going to grass some other poor soul who happens to have a set of scales that wants seeing to? You think I’m going to help get someone else in trouble, do you? All to help the police, do you?”
“On the contrary, if you have the information I want it will not help the police at all. They won’t be pleased, in fact.”
“Oh,” said Mrs Cocking, still on the defensive but more interested.
“They intend to charge Lobbin with the murder of his wife,” said Carolus.
“Just like them!” said Mrs Cocking. “After the way that bitch screeched and yelled at him all day till he didn’t know what he was doing. He ought to have a medal for it, if you ask me. And the police have locked him up for it, have they?”
Carolus smiled patiently.
“It’s not a question of whether or not Lobbin had provocation, but whether or not he murdered his wife. The police think he did.”
“They would!” said Mrs Cocking darkly. “They’d think anything if it suited them.”
“I don’t believe he did,” said Carolus and waited for the effect.
“You don’t? Well, I must say I hadn’t thought …”
“You took it for granted the police were right?”
“Right? I wouldn’t demean myself by thinking about them.”
“But over Lobbin?”
“Well, I mean to say, the way she’s gone on at him.”
“Mrs Cocking, may I explain that I think there is the gravest doubt as to whether Lobbin killed his wife. It could have been someone different.”
It was clear that Mrs Cocking would have been glad to incline to this theory but found it difficult to adopt.
“Of course if you say so,” she said dubiously.
“It depends very largely on you.”
“Me? How do I come into it?”
“You told the police you had seen nothing last night.”
“I should think I did! I told them more than that. I told them not to let me catch them crawling round here again. Always trying to get someone in trouble.”
“And not always the right person.”
“Right person! What do you mean? Could I help it if my scales wanted seeing to?”
“I was thinking about the murder.”
“Oh that. Well it had to come some day. I’ve said so a hundred times.”
“Mrs Cocking, when you told the police you had seen nothing last night you were helping them to convict Lobbin.”
This seemed at last to go home.
“I wouldn’t do that, poor fellow,” said Mrs Cocking. “He’s had enough to put up with as it is without being hanged on the top of it.”
“Then will you try to think back to last night?”
“I don’t need to think back to it. I remember it all perfectly well.”
“You were watching?”
“As it happens I was just taking a peep to see everything was all right before I went to bed. I’d heard them on at one another earlier, but that was nothing unusual. We’re accustomed to that in this street. It’s a pity there’s not a china shop because it would have done a roaring trade with them every time she started on the smash. So I saw this person go to the door …”
“What person?” asked Carolus breathlessly.
“How am I to know what person? I couldn’t see his face, if it was a he. Grey overcoat he wore.”
“Why do you say ‘if it was a he’?”
“Well, you never know, do you?”
“Yes,” said Carolus. “So you saw this person go to the door?”
“And her come down and let him in.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
“Not that I know of but I couldn’t see his face. I thought to myself, hullo, I thought, that must be the doctor going to see her to calm her down a bit.”
“How long was he with her?”
“Well, I didn’t actually see him go because I was making myself a cup of cocoa. I heard the door opposite slam and went to see but it was too late. He must have gone.”
“You heard nothing while he was in there?”
“You can’t hear anything from across here,” said Mrs Cocking regretfully, “unless it was when she started on at him, then the whole street could hear it.”
“If that slam was Lobbin’s side-door …”
“Well it was. I’m sure of that. I know the way the knocker rattles when it’s slammed.”
“If that meant the departure of Mrs Lobbin’s visitor, how long do you think he was in there?”
“Ten minutes, I daresay. So near as I could tell.”
“Did you see Lobbin come back?”
“Yes. About a quarter of an hour later. Let himself in. It didn’t take him long to do for her …”
“Mrs Cocking, I don’t believe he killed his wife.”
“You can believe what you like. You’ve never heard how she got on to him.”
“Why are you so sure? Couldn’t it have been the man you saw go in first?”
“What, the doctor? What would he want to do for her for?”
Incorrigible, thought Carolus, but he had the information he had scarcely hoped for.
“You’re quite sure of your facts, Mrs Cocking?”
“Of course I am. And I only hope they help to get him off. After all, it was more than half an accident, I daresay, and after the way she shouted at him he couldn’t hardly have been in his right mind. So along come the police and lock him up and accuse him of this that and the other. I’m sure if there’s anything I can say to help him, I’ll say it. They can’t do anything to me for Speaking, can they?”
Carolus returned to the Queen Victoria to await Mr Gorringer. Until John Moore gave him the information he wanted there was nothing he could do, and he prepared to receive the headmaster with the friendly amusement he always felt for him. But even Carolus could scarcely have anticipated Mr Gorringer’s appearance as it presently manifested itself.
The headmaster wore a large cloth cap, the peak of which came halfway down his forehead. Dark glasses concealed his protuberant eyes and the collar of his overcoat was turned up, though it could not hide his huge hairy ears by which Carolus would have immediately recognized him, even if the whole disguise had been more effective.
“I want you to understand, my dear Deene, that I am strictly incognito here.”
“Yes. You look it,” said Carolus. “Where on earth did you get that cap, headmaster?”
“Not ‘headmaster’, please, Deene. The title must be forgotten for the duration of my stay. I do not wish the fair name of the Queen’s School to be bandied about. Now please tell me how matters stand in this deplorable case.”
“They don’t,” said Carolus. “I’m not certain they ever will. The police are charging the husband of the murdered
woman with the second crime.”
“That sounds logical,” said Mr Gorringer.
“To other married men perhaps,” said Carolus, remembering Mrs Gorringer’s witticisms, “but not to me.”
“Are you proposing once again to vaunt your private opinion in opposition to the results of scrupulous and patient research by the police force?”
“Not yet. I’ve got very little really with which to oppose anyone. I begin to see a possibility but it is vague and fantastic. ‘I see men as trees walking’.”
“In that case, Deene, would it not be the properly modest thing to leave the whole matter to the discretion of those more experienced in practical criminology? I cannot but think that your tendency to opinionativeness smacks of arrogance.”
“Can’t do that,” said Carolus. “I’ve got my obligations to the Rafter family, apart from a sense of justice.”
“But the Rafter family, I gather, would be only too glad to accept the police solution.”
“I don’t think so, if they thought it meant hanging the wrong man.”
“Oh come now. Do not let us use such violent terms.”
“Hanging is a violent business. So is murder, very often.”
Carolus became aware that Doris was calling him into conference.
“I say!” she said. “Whoever’s that? He looks as though he might be the murderer any day. Wherever did you find him?”
“An old acquaintance of mine.”
“The police have still got poor Mr Lobbin. Do you think they’re going to try and hang him? I don’t believe he did it and never shall, whatever the police say about it. He’s far too much of a gentleman to go banging anyone on the head with a coal-hammer. You don’t think he did it, do you, Mr Deene?”
“The police have certainly got a case against him. It’s hard to see, if he didn’t murder his wife, who else had any reason to do so.”
“Anyone might,” said Doris with generous exaggeration. “The kind of woman she was. You never know. There’s more than one must have felt like it before now.”
Carolus returned to the headmaster, who had evidently been studying the quiet mid-day customers with some attention.
“I should be interested to know,” he said in a low voice to Carolus, “whether any of your suspects are present? I sense something sinister in the atmosphere of this bar, Deene, and as you know my instincts are keen in such matters.”