Halliday considered for a moment. “It could be done, of course. I’m only thinking what would be the best way of getting a move on. I suppose you’re not working alone on this case?”
“No; Chief Inspector Richardson is in charge of it.”
“Well, wouldn’t he be the man to see my chief and make a formal request?”
“He would if he were here, but he’s shot off an inquiry in London and he won’t be back for a day or two.”
“I‘ll tell you what I can do—see my Inspector and tell him that you want to see the Chief on a very confidential matter connected with the Dearborn murder. That’ll make him sit up and take notice, and you can tell him exactly what you want. Sit tight while I dig out Inspector Piggott.”
Halliday did not return alone; he brought the Inspector with him. Sergeant Jago stood to attention.
“You want to have a word with the Chief Constable, I understand. Tell me what it’s about and I will see whether it can be arranged.”
“It’s about the man concerned in that Dearborn murder case, Inspector.”
“And have you been sent down by the Yard?”
“Yes; I’m assisting Chief Inspector Richardson.”
“Come along then; I dare say the Chief would be glad to hear how you’re getting on.”
They went upstairs; the Inspector knocked at the Chief Constable’s door and was called in. He came back and beckoned to Jago, who went into the sanctum and shut the door behind him. At the desk in the middle of the room sat a slim, well-groomed man, who seemed young for the duties imposed upon him. He opened the business at once.
“You are one of the officers engaged in that murder case up on the moor?”
“Yes, sir; Sergeant Jago.”
“And you think that the murderer escaped into the rough ground on the south side of North Hessary Tor?”
“Yes, sir; we have two witnesses to prove it.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“We think that the man was probably a Londoner, or at any rate that he intended to make his way to London. There is every probability that in the dusk he may have got bogged in the rough ground at the bottom of the Tor. He had broken his stick over the head of the man he killed, and if he didn’t have a stick and got bogged he must have been in a terrible mess. I was wondering whether it would be possible for you, sir, to have inquiries made around hotels and boarding-houses for information about a man who gave a suit of clothes and a pair of boots to be cleaned on Saturday, the 29th September.”
The Chief Constable drummed on the table with his fingers, thinking. “If we did find there had been such a man in Plymouth it doesn’t seem to me that it can help you very much.”
“It would, sir, if it resulted in our getting a description of him and how he left—whether by train or car.”
“Well, I’ll see what can be done. If you like to call here to-morrow morning I’ll let you know the result.”
“As time is of importance,” said Jago, “I wonder if you would mind telephoning to the Winterton police station if anything is found out this afternoon. I would then come down and see the people myself, sir.”
“Certainly. That shall be done, Sergeant.”
Nothing appeared to have been happening in Winterton when Jago reached the police station, but while he was tidying up his notes of the case the reserve constable who kept his ear on the station telephone, put his head in at the door and said, “A trunk call for you, Sergeant.”
Jago hurried to the instrument and recognized the voice of his chief. “Is that you, Sergeant Jago? Chief Inspector Richardson speaking. I’ve been to C.O., and Mr. Morden wants us to carry on.”
“Have you had any luck, sir?”
“I can’t tell yet, but I’ve that interview for this afternoon. I’m ringing you up to say that I hope to be back to-morrow morning. I suppose you are tired of kicking your heels with nothing to do.”
“I’ve not been entirely idle, sir. I’m carrying out a little inquiry in Plymouth which may possibly lead to something. It’s too long to tell you over the ’phone.”
“Good, but you must be careful not to queer our pitch. If you want me you must ring C.O. and I’ll get the message. Good-bye.”
Lunch-time was approaching; Jago walked down to the hotel, leaving a message with the telephone man to take down in writing any message that might come through for him during his absence. He felt a strange confidence in the promise of the Chief Constable in Plymouth.
On his return to Winterton he learned that a message had been received from the police at Plymouth, telling him to ring them up when he got back from lunch. When he had established the connection a strange voice informed him that it would be well if Sergeant Jago were to report himself at police headquarters as soon as possible.
“Is that in connection with my interview with the Chief Constable this morning?”
“Yes,” replied the voice. “We have something to tell you that may be of interest.”
Jago decided that he had no right to strain Mr. Carstairs’ kindness by asking for the loan of the police car. He glanced at the station clock and found that if he was quick he might catch the 1.17 train to Millbay station. He set out at once. From Millbay station he covered the ground to the Town Hall almost at a run. On giving his name to the reserve officer on duty he was shown into the Inspector’s room.
“Sergeant Jago from the Yard? I’ve a message for you in connection with that inquiry you asked to have carried out this morning. It was quick work. We got the information you wanted within the first half-hour. Here it is.” He caught up a slip of flimsy paper. “On 29th September a man staying at the Globe Hotel came in very late when no one was left on duty but the night-porter. His clothing and boots were in a terrible state. He said that he had been bogged on Dartmoor, and that as this was the only suit of clothes he had with him, would the porter clean and brush them and do the same for his shoes. The night-porter will be sent for if desired by the police.”
“Where is the Globe Hotel, Inspector? I never heard of it.”
“It’s not one of the first-class hotels; it’s in Emmett Street.”
“Thank you. I’ll go down there at once.”
“Will you want any of us to go with you?”
“Just as you like, Inspector. If you’re shorthanded I think I could make the inquiry by myself.”
“We’re always short-handed here. You’ll find the people at the Globe very obliging.”
The Globe was certainly not one of the smart hotels of the town, and a man who had been bogged on Dartmoor must have been thankful that it was not. As soon as the lady who presided at the receipt of custom in the hall learned who her visitor was, she showed a vivacious interest. She rang a bell; a page who had grown out of his uniform emerged from some secret hiding-place, rubbing his eyes.
“Go and call Richards, the night-porter,” ordered the lady; “gentleman wants to see him.”
Richards, the night-porter, was an obliging, active man of about forty-five. Jago felt that he could not conduct his inquiry with two curious people listening to every word.
He turned to the lady. “I should like to see the night-porter alone, ma’am, if you have a room vacant.”
“Certainly; there’s no one in the coffee-room at this hour. Richards will take you there.”
As soon as every door was shut Jago pulled out his note-book and began his interrogation. “They say that you remember the evening of Saturday, September 29?”
“Yes, I remember it well. You mean the night when a gent came in late with his clothes and boots thick with mud and asked me to clean them. Nice gentleman, he was, and what he wanted messing about in the bogs on the moor I don’t know. He told me that he’d been trying for a short cut; that’s how they all get bogged up there—trying a short cut, and it’s the longest cut in the end.”
“Did he say what part of the moor it was where he got bogged?”
“I understood him to say that it was on the south si
de of North Hessary, and that he plumped right into the bog before he knew what it was. He said he lost his pocket-book when he fell and wasted a lot of time feeling for it in the mud, and then that his matches were wet and his watch had stopped, and Lord bless me! If you’d heard the things that had happened to him you’d have said he was daft to have gone there.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, how he went deeper and deeper and the more he struggled to get out the deeper he went, and then he had the sense first to sit down in the liquid mud and then to lie full length; that stopped him sinking head under. Lord! But he was in a mess, I can tell you. I made him undress and get into his pyjamas, and then I took all his things down to the furnace house to get them dried. It took me the best part of the night with a stick and a clothes-brush to get his things to look like decent clothes, but in the end I did it and I don’t mind telling you that he tipped me handsome.”
“Did you notice anything special about him?”
The porter reflected. “Well no, I don’t know that I did, except that he was a gentleman all right. You could tell that from the way he talked.”
“What age was he, do you think?”
“That’s hard to say. I should put him between thirty and forty.”
Jago now pressed the porter for a personal description of the man, and found how very little most of us notice about the strangers we meet. This stranger was just a gentleman with nothing particular about him.
“Did you notice anything special about his clothes?”
“I don’t know that I did; they were good clothes made of good cloth, with the name of the tailor inside like all good clothes have.”
“Do you remember the name of the tailor?”
“No, I took no particular notice of that, but I do remember one thing, the tailor’s address in London. Sackville Street it was; I remember it because I was footman to a Mr. Sackville twenty years ago.”
“When the gentleman left the hotel, do you know where he went?”
“I don’t, but I dare say they’ll tell you that at the desk. Stop though, I ought to know, because, of course, the first thing I had to do with the clothes was to empty the pockets. The gentleman had taken out his pocket-book and his watch and keys, and I suppose his money too, but in a little pocket I found a return half of a ticket to Paddington, and I remember taking it to him and saying, ‘You ought to be careful of this, sir.’”
“What class was he travelling?”
“Third, like the rest of us.”
Jago thanked him and slipped half a crown into his palm. The porter thanked him effusively; half-crowns were not slipped into one’s palm in the Globe Hotel every day of the week.
Jago addressed his next inquiry to the lady at the desk.
“I hope that our night-porter gave you the information you wanted,” she said brightly.
“Yes, thank you, and now I want to ask you to give me a little more. Will you look up your register for September 29 and read out the names of the people who were staying here.”
She read out the list.
“Did any of these leave by an early train on the next day, Sunday?”
“Three of them left us on Sunday—Mr. Ellis, Mr. Biddlecombe and Mr. Wise—but I don’t remember what time they left.” She corrected herself. “Yes, of course I do. Mr. James Ellis left in the morning to catch the London train, and the other two had lunch here.”
“Was Mr. Ellis the man who had had to have his clothes dried by the night-porter?”
“Yes, that was him.”
Jago returned to Winterton not ill-pleased with the additional information he had obtained. There was, of course, nothing to show that the man who committed the murder was identical with the man who got bogged on Dartmoor, but there could surely not have been two so foolish as to tempt Providence by making a short cut to Plymouth by the south of North Hessary Tor. Probably Ellis was an assumed name; that would not help, nor perhaps would the address of a Sackville Street tailor; still he thought he would acquire merit in the eyes of his chief for having employed his time usefully.
On his return to Winterton he learned that a telephone call had come through from Chief Inspector Richardson, saying that he would not be back at Winterton next morning because he had been called away to Abbott’s Ashford near Bristol.
Chapter Twelve
CHIEF INSPECTOR RICHARDSON arrived at Bristol too late to do anything that night. He put up at the station hotel, and ordered breakfast for as early as it could be served the following morning. While waiting for his meal he scrutinized the time-table of the motor-bus services to the neighbouring villages, and found that by leaving at 10 a.m. he would be in Abbott’s Ashton at 12.30. It seemed to him a favourable time for his visit on a Sunday morning. The whole family would be at home. The father, unless he were a sidesman at the church, would be in slippers and unshaved; the mother not yet making preparations for the Sunday dinner.
Abbott’s Ashton proved to be a village of little more than a single street. One had only to walk from end to end to find “Chatsworth,” the chef-d’oeuvre of the local builder, expressed in red brick with a bay window for the family sitting-room, and a miniature brick tower surmounting the staircase. But Richardson was no architectural critic; he supposed that when the Dearborn family made its entry into this ambitious dwelling, with its pitch-pine staircase and tiled front hall, with its sitting-room in which no one ever sat and its dining-room in which the family sat all day, it considered that it had taken a step upwards in the social scale and was inclined to look down its nose at its neighbours. He rang the bell; a scuttering of feet on the staircase and the whispers of a family in consultation were borne faintly to his ears, for on Sunday morning it was rare for neighbours to drop in.
The door was opened by a young man in the early twenties, who recoiled a little on seeing the tall form of Richardson.
“Do Mr. and Mrs. Dearborn live here?” asked the visitor.
“Yes.”
“And you are Mr. Dearborn’s son?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I could see your father for a minute?”
“I’ll ask him if you like. Who shall I say?”
“Just say that Mr. Richardson would like to speak to him for a few minutes.”
The young man seemed to remember the laws of hospitality practised by his elders, and asked the visitor to come in and take a seat. He led him into the swept and garnished sitting-room and went to find his mother.
“There’s a gent asking to see one of you,” he announced in the bedroom upstairs. “I’ve shown him into the parlour.”
“Can’t be the gas man,” remarked the mother. “He wouldn’t come on a Sunday.”
“No, he isn’t the gas man, he’s a gentleman from London, I should say by the look of him.”
“Funny thing,” she grumbled; “what’s a gentleman from London want with us on a Sunday morning?” Then she brightened. “I know what it is; one of those life insurance gentlemen who wanted to be sure to catch us at home. Well, your dad won’t be fit to be seen. I’ll have to go down myself. If he minds waiting, he shouldn’t have come.”
The lady prepared herself to be a family sacrifice, as Richardson could tell from the quaking of the ceiling above him and the jingling of the glass chandelier. The builder had saved money on the rafters. Presently the footfalls were transferred to the pitch-pine staircase, which seemed to be the solidest part of the house. The door opened and Mrs. Dearborn stood before him. He rose to greet her. She was a comfortable-looking matron, nearly sixty, grey-haired, well preserved and pleasant-mannered. Richardson knew this type of mother well; he guessed that she would not be communicative with a stranger about her son until her confidence had been won.
“I may be bringing you bad news, madam,” he began; “a Mr. Charles Dearborn died two weeks ago in South Devon and I am anxious to trace his relatives.”
For a moment a startled look of horror showed on her face and then she asked, “Are you s
ure that it was two weeks ago?”
“Yes; it was on the 29th of September.” Her look of relief did not escape Richardson’s keen gaze.
“He couldn’t have been a relative of ours.”
“It was to make sure of that that I have called.”
“How did you find out our address?”
“Your daughter-in-law gave it to me.”
Mrs. Dearborn was too well brought up to snort; she made an inarticulate sound which was an equivalent.
“Oh, she told you, did she?”
“Yes; there would be no breach of confidence if I told you that she is trying to prove that the Mr. Dearborn who died a fortnight ago was her husband.”
“Ah! She wanted to know that, did she? You’ll excuse me, but I don’t quite understand how you come into the business, unless, of course, you’re her lawyer.”
“No, madam, I’m not acting for her, but for the other Mrs. Dearborn, the widow of the man who died. You see, she doesn’t like to think that her late husband committed bigamy in marrying her.”
“Oh, that daughter-in-law of mine wouldn’t mind what unhappiness she brought into the homes of other people.”
“Can you tell me where her husband, your son, is now?”
He saw a look of obstinacy hardening her face.
“I’m sorry I can’t. We haven’t heard from him for six years.”
“Did you send anyone—your other son, for instance—down to Devonshire to ask whether the dead Charles Dearborn was a relation?”
“No, I knew we hadn’t lost any relation.”
“Then you know that your son Charles is alive, “said Richardson, with a smile to turn away the wrath of a woman who has fallen into a trap.
“Now look here, I see what it is. She’s sent you down here to find out where Charles is. She’s been trying all along to find him, and now that she’s made a pot of money on the films she’s employing other people.”
The Dartmoor Enigma Page 11