She opened the front door wider and the two detectives stepped into the hall whose floor was newly polished.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, as she closed the door.
“Dust powder over all likely surfaces…” began Walsh.
“Put powder everywhere? Oh, dear, I can’t possibly have that.”
Kerr remembered how thoroughly she had been cleaning Blether’s room when he had last called here and he realised something that should have been obvious from the very beginning — she was a very house-proud woman. He smiled. “I can promise you, Mrs. Sparrow, that the moment Detective Constable Walsh has finished I’ll clear everything up and after we’ve gone you won’t even know we’ve been. I’m a very good duster.”
She stared at him. “Do you… Do you have to put powder everywhere?”
“I’m afraid we do.”
She sighed.
It was a long, tedious job that took the rest of the day and part of the evening. They found no fingerprints other than those of Mrs. Sparrow and Mr. Riggs. Kerr was not surprised. How could any fingerprint long hope to survive Mrs. Sparrow’s attentions?
*
Braddon spent the day at the offices of the Moxon Security Company, helping Rowan and a D.C. from H.Q. check for prints all armoured trucks, the steel strong-boxes, the equipment, the walls and other surfaces of the washrooms, tea room, general room, and anywhere else that Blether might have gone or touched. All prints were checked against comparison prints and any not identified were photographed. By nine o’clock that evening, even Braddon was certain the task was a hopeless one. Endless smudged prints for which there were no comparison ones had come to light and endless photographs had been taken: it seemed as if half the population of Fortrow must visit the place.
*
The clothes, books, washing things, and other possessions of Blether that had been in Mrs. Sparrow’s house and which she had asked the police to remove before Riggs arrived were taken from Fortrow, where they had been kept, to the laboratories at Barstone.
They were checked for fingerprints. Such surfaces as would have taken prints were all wiped clear. Not for a second could Blether really have believed his possessions would be checked, yet he had had the imagination to wipe them all clear of prints just in case.
The clothes had all been bought in Fortrow, at various of the cheaper stores.
In the wash-bag were denture cleaner, flannel, soap, and a worn-out sponge. The twenty-six books were all light fiction and, with one exception, paperbacks. They yielded nothing except an indication of Blether’s poor taste in literature.
*
Tuesday brought another sudden change in the weather. Gone were the grey clouds and the rain: woolly puffs of cumulus scurried across the sky in front of the strong south-west wind and the sunshine restored a sense of cheerfulness.
Fusil left his house at eight-thirty and drove to the station where he checked on the mail and the night’s crime lists, had a quick word with Superintendent Passmore, and then returned to his car and drove through Fortrow to the offices of the security company. A detective sergeant from county H.Q. should have been there to meet him, but wasn’t. Fusil went up to the manager’s office.
Weaver was in a pathetic state of worry. “I’m having terrible trouble with my London office. I didn’t confirm Friday’s list with them and the general manager has just rung me up and been very rude. I tried to tell him that the police had been upsetting simply everything, but he wouldn’t listen. It’s not my fault, really it isn’t.”
Fusil stared at the other’s flushed face. Weaver, he thought with a trace of scorn because he could not understand weakness, was one of those men who was incapable of standing up for himself against authority. “I’ll give this bloke a ring, if you like, and explain things.”
“Will you? Will you really?” Weaver was pathetically grateful. “Tell him that it’s not my fault that this office has been upside down.” He slowly sat down behind his paper-littered desk. “What’s happening, Inspector Fusil? I just don’t understand why you’ve all come back.”
“We’re making a few more routine enquiries,” replied Fusil. Since he hadn’t been offered a chair, he helped himself to one.
“But one of your men asked for a photograph of George Blether?”
“That’s right.”
“Our company doesn’t hold photos of the employees. Why on earth should you want one?”
“It’s just a general check: nothing to worry about. Now, are you quite certain there’s no chance of turning one up?”
“Quite, quite certain.” Weaver took off his spectacles and very earnestly polished the lenses with a handkerchief that had a frayed edge. “We naturally keep a file on each man, but we never bother with photographs.”
“Would you have anything at all in your file on Blether that you haven’t passed on to my officers?”
“There can’t possibly be anything. Please, you’ve got to tell me what all this is really about?”
He looked, thought Fusil, like a scared puppy, uncertain whether a blow or a pat was coming. “It’s nothing you need fuss about. All we’re trying to discover is who Blether really was.”
“Who he… really was?”
“That’s right.”
“But… Wasn’t he George Blether?”
“No.”
“Oh, my God!” Weaver jammed his spectacles back on. “I didn’t interview his referee so it’s not my fault. They can’t blame me. I’ll tell the general manager…”
“Right now, I don’t want you telling anyone anything. The whole matter is strictly confidential.”
“But if head office gets on to me…”
“Refer them to me.”
Weaver seemed to gain a crumb of reassurance from this.
“Will you go over the procedure again of how a reference is checked?” asked Fusil.
“Either someone from head office or a branch manager visits the referee and asks him to confirm that he actually wrote the reference — you’d be surprised how often they’re forged — and tries tactfully to make certain that it’s genuine. Sometimes employers give good references when they shouldn’t, just to get the employee off their hands.”
“So in Blether’s case, a visit would have been made to the Rickstone police either by someone from your head office or the local branch manager?”
“That’s right.”
“And would whoever made the visit have then seen Blether in person?”
“Almost certainly not. Rickstone is up north so probably it was one of the northern branch managers who went along. He wouldn’t have come down here.”
There was a knock on the door and the detective sergeant from county H.Q. came in. “Sorry I’m late, sir,” he said breezily to Fusil. “Hell of a lot of traffic on the road.”
Fusil looked at his watch. There couldn’t have been that much traffic.
The detective sergeant was carrying a case in which was the identi-kit equipment. After Fusil had explained what he wanted, Weaver tried to give a word picture of Blether. The detective sergeant picked out cards which reproduced the main physical features.
The face gained shape and cohesion and was shown to Weaver. He shook his head. Patiently, the detective removed the cards until only the primary ones remained. Another chin was tried, another set of cheeks, another moustache. Again, Weaver shook his head.
“He was more… more…” Weaver fiddled with his spectacles, adjusting them to a different position on his nose. “He was more alive than that.”
Fusil silently swore.
The detective sergeant brought out fresh cards that altered the line of the forehead, adjusted the curve of the hair-line, added a straighter tip to the nose. Weaver said: “That’s a bit more like him. Yes, that really is. You couldn’t mistake him.”
*
“That?” said Fish, as he stood in the room immediately below Weaver’s office and looked down at the identi-kit picture. “That’s George? No, sir.
”
If the man had a swagger-cane, thought Fusil, he’d now have it tucked under his arm at the exact angle and height laid down in Queen’s Regulations.
“The old boy upstairs reckons this was like Blether,” said the detective sergeant.
Fish spoke contemptuously. “Quite likely.”
“But you don’t agree?” asked Fusil.
“No, sir, I do not. George had a much rounder face than that. His moustache had a twist at each end and he didn’t look a bit soft — he was a bloke who wasn’t going to get pushed around.” The detective sergeant, having noted the numbers, took off some of the cards and replaced them with others. “How’s that then?”
Fish tilted his head slightly to one side as he studied the image. “That’s better. But try a broader nose.”
The detective sergeant tried a broader nose.
“That’s good. And don’t forget he had a pair of very pale blue eyes. They were the first thing about him I noticed. I’ve never liked pale eyes.”
*
“That bloke there looks like George?” Young sneered.
“Fish says it does,” snapped Fusil, as he stood in the centre of the sitting room of Young’s house.
“Then that old fool’s even more doddery than I thought.”
The detective sergeant proved himself to be a man of dogged determination who could maintain a good humour in the face of all odds. “Where d’you reckon it’s gone wrong?”
Young put his hands on his hips and stared down with cocky disdain at the picture. “I reckon it’d be easier to say where it’s gone right. His face weren’t round like that, his ’tash drooped, and his nose was square.”
The detective sergeant altered the cards and gradually a fresh image was built up.
“That’s him,” said Young.
The detectives left the house. Just before they separated to go to their cars, Fusil said: “Get all three faces set up and recorded, will you?”
“Right, sir.”
“Looks pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, sir. For my money, though, it was the old boy who most knew what he was talking about.”
“Fish? You could be right. As quick as you like with the photos.”
Fusil climbed into his car and drove back to the station. Once in his office, he called Braddon in and said he would be leaving in the late afternoon to go up north to Rickstone.
“What if Mr. Kywood wants you, sir?” asked Braddon.
“Tell him I’ve disappeared.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“Nothing more.”
Having caught the night train, Fusil, feeling as unwashed and unshaven as he looked, the following morning sat in the corner seat of the carriage and stared out through the window at the countryside they were passing through.
There was just one lead left, one chance to go out into the world and grab Blether, whoever he might be, wherever he was. One fact was obvious when you thought about it — the bogus Blether must have known the real Blether not long before the latter left Rickstone. How else would he have known that Blether’s wife had died, that Blether had left the police force and moved right away and that therefore the police could be named referee? Since the bogus Blether must be a villain, it followed that the odds were very heavily in favour of his having met the real Blether because he had been through the police’s hands and had learned his information when under arrest. Would the records of the Rickstone police indicate which of the thousands of criminals they had dealt with was the bogus Blether?
The train arrived at Rickstone Central at half past seven that morning. Since no barber was likely to be open before eight-thirty or nine, and he certainly wasn’t going to go to the police station until he had had a wash and a shave, Fusil went into the buffet, where he paid a lot of money for some stale sandwiches and a cup of vile coffee. The barbers opposite the railway station opened at nine and he paid one and six for the use of an ancient razor.
Shaved, he returned to the station and had a wash in the cloakroom. As he combed his hair and studied his reflection in the mirror, he decided he was once more feeling human.
A taxi took him to the police station. The desk sergeant, who spoke in an accent that was all but incomprehensible to Fusil, used the internal telephone to call the duty inspector.
The latter, a tall, thin Scot, with a mouth that looked as if about to smile but which seldom did, met Fusil in the general room.
“Morning. How was the journey?”
“Lousy,” answered Fusil. “I had to sit up all night. I tried for a sleeper, but they were all booked up.”
“That’s usually the case. The ministries that have just opened up here block-book sleepers in case any of the staff want to travel up or down to London. Half the time, the sleepers aren’t even used.”
“And the poor public can go to hell?”
“That’s usually the case, isn’t it?” The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Still, come along to my room.”
The inspector’s office had nothing in it that was peculiar to himself and would have helped to add a little warmth — no photographs of wife or children, no books other than official ones, no pin-up calendar, no personal possessions of any sort.
The inspector opened a file that had been left exactly in the centre of the blotter. “I’ve discovered what I can since your telephone call and I’ve a couple of constables still searching through the records.”
“Thanks.”
“George Blether left this force three years and five months ago, a month after his wife had died from cancer. His conduct sheet had one divisional highly recommended and his promotion chances were rated as good.”
“Any record of requests for references?”
“I was coming to that. There were two, within a month of each other, from two different firms in totally different parts of the country.”
“Were there! That’s good enough for me!” exclaimed Fusil excitedly.
“You don’t think it possible he tried one job and didn’t find this to his liking, so tried another?”
Fusil brushed aside the objection. “One of those requests came from the bogus Blether. How much have you been able to dig up on Blether and the cases he was directly concerned with?”
“I’ve drawn up a list covering part of his time with us and, as I told you, two constables are still searching.”
“It’s kind of you to go to all this trouble.”
“Aye, it’s been a load of trouble.” The inspector picked out two foolscap pages from the file and passed them across. “There’s a list of cases in which P.C. Blether took an active part. We’ve taken them out of his notebooks. We keep all notebooks for five years and then destroy them, so we can’t go back further than his last two years with us.”
“The villain must have met Blether very close to the end of Blether’s career, since he knew about the death of the wife.”
“News like that gets around.”
“Possibly, but I’ll bet a fortune our bloke turns up in the last few months, even weeks.” Fusil scanned the list, mentally discarding all minor crime — the bogus Blether would have been mixed up with real villaining, not picking pockets or nicking half-crowns from sweet-shop tills.
A uniformed constable came into the room and handed the inspector several more sheets of foolscap paper. The look he gave Fusil before leaving was one of resentment — the task had been a long and boring one.
The new lists were handed to Fusil. The cases were in chronological order and he turned to the last page and the time immediately prior to Blether’s resignation from the force. Petty larceny, peeping Tom, driving without due care and attention, drunk, drunk, child brutality, car theft, Borstal absconder, larceny by trick, car without lights, burglary, larceny, G.B.H., car theft, robbery, indecency, public nuisance… When he had read through the lists, Fusil looked up. “Where are the mug shots of this force kept?”
“County H.Q., regional crime squad H.Q., and Lon
don.”
“Is there any chance you could get them to put out some photos for me and lay on a car to take me to County H.Q.?”
The inspector looked doubtful, but finally agreed that this might be possible.
*
County H.Q. was a ten storey building, concrete and glass but faced with local stone, built in the past five years. Fusil went up to Records which was on the sixth floor. On a table in one corner of the over-crowded room eight folders had been placed ready for him. He looked through them. Two men could be immediately rejected: serving terms of imprisonment. Two more could be rejected, one for age, one for height. Of the photographs of the four remaining villains, one vaguely resembled the identikit image that had been built up by Fish. He re-read the physical description and suddenly remembered that Fish had said the bogus Blether had very pale blue eyes. Alfred Rachan, aged 35, height 5’ 10”, face round, hair brown, teeth false, eyes very pale blue.
“Will you let me have copies of the mug shots of these four?” asked Fusil, indicating the files of the four men who could not be rejected.
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant.
“Right away.”
“As soon as possible,” replied the other, in a tone of voice that said senior officers had to wait their turn, just like ordinary mortals.
*
Fish was relaxing in his home, watching his favourite television show, when the doorbell rang. He swore.
“All right, dear,” said his wife. “I’ll see who it is.”
“Tell ’em to clear off, especially if it’s the Thompsons.”
Fish heard a rising murmur of voices and the noise of the front door being shut. He swore again. Whoever it was had come into the house. Then, Detective Inspector Fusil and Detective Constable Rowan entered the room and he stood up. Just for a second, he was at attention.
Fusil handed him four photographs and asked him if he recognised any of them. He looked through them and the third one was a photograph of Blether: there was no mistaking him, even if he hadn’t a moustache, the shape of his mouth was somewhat different, and he looked to have a lot more hair.
“Thank you very much,” said Fusil, his voice triumphant.
Murder Among Thieves (C.I.D Room Book 3) Page 16