Mitchell flung an expert and practised hand into the thick of one of the paper jungles before him, extracted a paper, and looked at it.
‘Two hundred and twenty-five pounds,’ he said. ‘Stated by Dr Gregory to have been repaid. No trace of this alleged repayment can be traced in Sir Christopher’s accounts either private or at the office, but his private accounts seem only rough notes. Dr Gregory produced an I.O.U., torn in half and with pen drawn through. States same was returned to him when payment was made. States same was cash payment.’ He put the paper back and looked at Bobby. ‘Any information to add to that?’ he demanded ominously.
‘No, sir,’ said Bobby, and before Mitchell could hurl the thunderbolt he evidently had in readiness, Bobby proceeded with a brief account of his expedition in Mark’s company to ‘The Green Man’ the night before and of the results.
Mitchell put his thunderbolt by, listened attentively enough, and when Bobby had finished said:
‘Go away. Write out a full report. Come back with it.’
Bobby took a document from his pocket and laid it on the table.
‘The report, sir,’ he said.
Mitchell took it up and looked at it.
‘When you’ve been a bit longer than three years in the Force,’ he observed, ‘you’ll know better than to forget the red ink ruling – this has none at all.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Bobby, a trifle dashed.
‘You’ll never get on in the Force,’ Mitchell told him, ‘if you forget your red ink. Is this sketch the one you say you made of the man Mr Lester talked to?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have to get it reproduced,’ said Mitchell. ‘Been more useful if it had been a photograph, though. Still, have to do the best with what we’ve got – important to trace him. Got any idea what it all means?’ And then as Bobby hesitated, he added: ‘Out with it, never mind how silly it is.’
Thus encouraged, Bobby obeyed.
‘It did just occur to me as possible,’ he said, ‘that it was Lester himself who shot Sir Christopher. Miss Laing’s first story was that she saw him outside the drawing-room window just before the murder was committed, and though she denies it now, it may be true all the same. Lester seemed extraordinarily keen on discovering the murderer and it struck me that might be merely an attempt to mislead us. If that’s so, and it’s really Lester himself who’s guilty, is it possible that the man in “The Green Man” knows, and told Lester so, and that’s why he was so frightfully upset – at finding his guilt was known. If so, that would be why he got the man away before I had a chance to speak to him.’
‘It’s possible,’ agreed Mitchell, ‘but doesn’t seem very likely. I don’t know, though. At any rate, it’s clear this man knew something that Lester had no idea he knew. We’ve got to find him somehow and find out what it is he does know. But if that’s the way of it, why should that make Lester rush off to get Miss Laing to marry him immediately?’
‘I heard Lester say something about going abroad. He might think the marriage would be an excuse for getting out of the country. Or he might think it would help to divert suspicion if he married the dead man’s daughter.’
‘Stepdaughter,’ corrected Mitchell. ‘What motive could he have if he’s guilty? Sir Christopher’s death apparently means that Miss Laing gets nothing instead of the very large sum she would have been entitled to, if he had lived long enough to complete the settlement he intended. One doesn’t murder in order to deprive the girl one’s going to marry of a fortune – at least, I never heard of a case.’
‘Would Lester realize that, sir?’ Bobby asked. ‘Is it possible he thought he would take a bigger share of the estate if Sir Christopher died intestate?’
‘Most people would know better,’ Mitchell remarked. ‘Most people know stepchildren aren’t blood relatives.’ He dived again into the piled-up papers before him and successfully extracted the one he wanted. ‘Miss Laing was aware of her stepfather’s intentions,’ he said. ‘She knew that in the case of his death intestate, she would not be entitled to anything. Miss Laing has shown documents proving that she knew all that. Presumably if the girl knew, Lester would know, too. Are you quite sure Lester was really as disturbed and troubled last night as you say?’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Bobby with conviction. ‘I can’t describe it. Whatever it was he found out... it wasn’t that he seemed afraid exactly or just surprised or anything like that... the barmaid said he had the “horrors” and so he had – but not from drink. It was what he had been told had given him the “horrors”, and he looked it, too. The “horrors”, that was it.’
‘And yet he wouldn’t tell you what it was,’ Mitchell mused, ‘and denied there was anything at all and went off full tilt to persuade the girl to marry him as soon as possible? Can’t see much sense to it. Most likely the explanation is simple enough, but what is it? Bear looking into, anyhow.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bobby.
‘Pity,’ Mitchell remarked, ‘you let “The Green Man” fellow get away. Once you had traced him you ought to have stuck to him.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bobby.
‘Suppose you think you couldn’t guess Lester would behave like he did, getting the fellow away on the quiet after being so keen on asking you to help him, and so it’s no fault of yours?’
‘Well, sir,’ Bobby answered, considering, ‘it wouldn’t happen like that again, and so I suppose it oughtn’t to have happened like that then.’
‘But it did,’ Mitchell pointed out severely. ‘The fact is, you made a bloomer, young man.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bobby meekly.
‘When I find one of my men who doesn’t make bloomers,’ declared Mitchell, ‘I’ll put him in a glass case, along with a harp and crown, and leave him there. I believe I’ve read somewhere that it’s the general who makes the fewest mistakes who wins the war. Well, it’s the detective who makes the most bloomers who gets to the superintendent’s chair – “believe the man who knows”. Because why? Because the man who makes the most bloomers makes the most successes as well, the two being naturally twins.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bobby.
‘I suppose you didn’t notice what size feet he had?’
‘Short, broad, and rather on the small side,’ answered Bobby. ‘He couldn’t possibly have made the footprint in “The Cedars” garden.’
‘Anyhow, I suppose you would have recognized him, if he had been identical with the man who spoke to Doran; I forgot for the moment you saw him, too. But who was that old boy and where does he come in? And if that was his footprint, what was he doing in “The Cedars” garden? Possibly he had nothing to do with it, only then why did he tell Doran it was suicide? Then you say your “Green Man” chap said it wasn’t murder and that Carsley said the same thing? What’s that mean?’
‘It must be murder,’ Bobby pointed out, ‘a man can’t shoot himself twice through the heart, either by accident or on purpose.’
‘I know that,’ retorted Mitchell. ‘The point that’s worrying me is why so many of them seem to want to go out of their way to say it wasn’t murder. You say that Lester, after being told whatever he was told in “The Green Man”, went straight to find Miss Laing? Is it possible there’s something she knows? Does he want to marry her with the idea of preventing her from giving evidence against him? I wonder if that can be it. Only what can she know? There’s fairly strong evidence she was playing the piano the whole of the time. It’s just possible there was a break nobody noticed, but her stepsister says there wasn’t, and the parlourmaid girl seems quite sure – says she’ll take an oath there was no break and that she was listening the whole time. Then there’s Gregory. He owed Sir Christopher money, but Sir Christopher was a valuable patient – a hundred or more every year. You report he was a long time before giving the alarm. That might be to give someone a chance of escape, only why should he? Then there’s Peter Carsley. With him, we always come back to the fact that he had a good solid reason for wanting the
old man out of the way. That Sir Christopher was shot that day meant to Carsley he had married a rich woman instead of a pauper. Do you think there’s anything in this talk of his about his partner being likely to murder him?’
‘Haven’t an idea, sir,’ Bobby answered. ‘Doesn’t seem likely and yet somehow I thought he meant it.’
‘Nasty for us if it happens after we’ve been warned and practically asked for protection,’ mused Mitchell. ‘I must send Gibbons or someone to have a chat with him and report. Or I wonder if it means that he intends to murder Marsden and that’s the first step.’
‘But why should he?’ Bobby asked, startled, for this was an idea quite novel to him.
‘Why should anyone?’ retorted Mitchell. ‘People commit murders for all kinds of reasons, but never for a really adequate reason, because there is no adequate reason for committing a murder. But in this case, it is possible Marsden may know something; apparently he has been dropping hints like that to some of our men, only with the usual addition that he can’t say anything till he’s sure. But if he does, Carsley may mean to do him in and then claim it was self-defence and call us to prove he had asked for protection. When are you for duty next?’
‘Two p.m. to-day, sir.’
‘I’ll ring up your inspector and ask him to put another man on in your place. You can spend your time hanging round “The Green Man”, trying to see if you can find the man you saw last night or anything about him. It’s important to know what he really said to Lester. I’ll circulate your sketch but you will have the best chance to identify him as you’ve seen him. Keep up your connexion with the servants at “The Cedars” too. It may be useful. Report to-morrow to Inspector Gibbons. I’ve had enough,’ said Mitchell, sighing gently, as he regarded the neglected piles of paper on his desk, ‘of telling you to report to me personally.’
CHAPTER 18
GOSSIP OF THE PAST
So the rest of the day Bobby spent hanging about ‘The Green Man’; flirting with the barmaid, who brought to that operation a mechanical dexterity that would have enabled her, one felt, to flirt with the Albert Memorial had professional exigencies required it; in chatting with other customers on such matters of current interest as the last football season, the coming football season, and the newest rumour of the latest attempt to dope the most recent greyhound favourite; and in drinking beer till he was reduced to the incredible condition of actually loathing the sight of the stuff!
His persistent efforts, however, met with no success. The barmaid confirmed the statement that the customer Bobby seemed to think might be the dear old friend he had not met for years had been occasionally in possession of complimentary theatre tickets, but for what theatre she did not know. For her part, she preferred the pictures – Constance Bennett, now, and for a moment the barmaid almost forgot her professional poise and dignity in a touching human enthusiasm. One or two of the other customers had also chatted with him occasionally, and could report that he was rather fond of muttering vague threats against someone against whom apparently he cherished a grievance, but as there is nothing on earth so absolutely devoid of all interest as other people’s grievances no one had paid him any attention or had any idea to what or to whom he referred. Nor did it seem that here he had ever spoken of, or made any reference to, that murder of Sir Christopher Clarke, about which on the night it happened he had shown himself so excited and so interested at the other ‘Green Man’. Bobby thought it barely possible this silence was not without its significance. But no one knew anything else about him, or had any idea of either his name, his address, or his occupation.
It was therefore with the knowledge that he would have little to report to Inspector Gibbons in the morning that Bobby, after closing time, made a somewhat depressed way to the nearest tube station.
‘They’ll pack me off straight back to my beat, I expect,’ he decided, and then he wondered if he could get permission to make inquiries at the different theatres in the hope that if the man he was looking for was really connected with the stage, he might be traced that way. ‘Wonder,’ he thought, ‘if it could be this old boy who bolted over the garden wall next door the day of the murder – if he did it, the excitement might have made him young and active again for the time. Only then would he have quietly gone off to get a drink and tell everyone it wasn’t a murder? – and what the dickens can they all mean by talking about it’s not being a murder when it’s perfectly certain it was?’
Absorbed in these thoughts Bobby nearly forgot to alight at the station he had booked to, the one nearest to ‘The Cedars’. It was thither he made his way and when he tapped at the back door of the house, he received his usual warm welcome. Evidently they had been expecting him, in spite of the lateness of the hour, and the cook said it made them all feel so safe to know he was always there and always watching. ‘Always there and always watching’ seemed to Bobby somewhat to exaggerate the case, but he made no attempt to correct her.
Then Lewis produced his excellent whisky, the cook consented to join them in a thimbleful, not more – discipline and decorum alike forbade that the parlourmaid, the housemaid or the ‘tweenie’ should be offered any such opportunity – and, on the conversation becoming general, and even animated, Bobby learnt it was now settled that Miss Brenda’s wedding was to take place almost immediately, that it was to be a very quiet affair, that a perfect whirl of preparation was already in full progress. All the household agreed that the difference in Miss Brenda was wonderful. She seemed so much more natural, more human in every way. It was, all the women agreed, a kind of wakening, as though her love for Mark Lester had brought to her a new life, leaving all the old existence behind.
‘Changed her it has,’ Lewis agreed, ‘so you wouldn’t hardly think it was the same girl. You could almost say it was as if she had just come alive, if you know what I mean.’
‘A week ago,’ declared the cook, ‘I thought she was only taking Mr Lester because the master said so, and of course she had to do what he said, not having nothing of her own like, and her only a stepdaughter he could have turned into the street any minute. But now–’
She paused, and the ‘tweenie’ said ecstatically:
‘Now she worships the ground he treads on.’
‘Don’t you go for to take the words out of my mouth, my girl,’ said the cook crossly, and if only there had been any household task the cook could have thought of that wanted doing, the ‘tweenie’ would have been dispatched then and there to attend to it.
‘But why,’ interposed Bobby, ‘why should he be so keen on Miss Brenda marrying?’
The general opinion seemed to be that Miss Brenda, with her quiet, sombre ways, her trick of remaining still and silent and yet somehow supremely vital and aware, had, as people are fond of saying without quite knowing what they mean, ‘got on Sir Christopher’s nerves’. And Lewis was also of opinion that he felt his own daughter, Miss Jennie, was rather put in the shade by Brenda’s quiet intensity of manner.
‘There was something about her,’ Lewis said, ‘that made you always know she was there and yet she wasn’t either, if you know what I mean.’
Bobby confessed that he didn’t altogether, and Lewis tried again.
‘In the house where I began my career,’ he said, ‘the lady had a daughter what turned into a nun finally, poor soul. But before we knew what was wrong, we used to notice she had that same way of standing very still, of seeming to be there and yet not there, as if there was something so much on her mind there was nothing else that mattered.’
‘Do you mean Miss Brenda is religious?’ Bobby asked.
‘Oh, no,’ said Lewis, and he and the others all smiled a little at the suggestion. ‘Never goes near a church, she don’t. It used to worry Miss Jennie quite a lot. She got the clergy once or twice to come and talk to Miss Brenda, and Miss Brenda would just sit and listen, and never say one word, but just look, and you could see the poor man get more and more hot and red and uncomfortable, and then he would say: “Could
they pray together?” and she wouldn’t say a word, but just look and look, and off he’d go, wiping his forehead most like. I heard one of ’em say once she was the sort they burned for a witch in the old days, and you could tell he was thinking it wasn’t such a bad idea, neither.’
‘You mean she’s a bit absent-minded?’ Bobby asked, doing his best to understand.
But at that they all laughed outright.
‘There’s never a pin dropped but she knows it,’ Lewis declared, ‘and what’s more, you always know she knows.’
‘But always as nice and pleasant a lady as you could want in a house,’ the cook added, ‘a lady as is a lady, which is what some isn’t.’
‘I’ve nothing against either young lady,’ declared Lewis, ‘only with Miss Jennie, you know where you are, you know all about her, but Miss Brenda – somehow you don’t notice the other one if she’s there. What I say is, poor Sir Christopher noticed it, too, and didn’t like it, thought his own girl was being put in the background, if you know what I mean.’
‘But Miss Brenda had no claim on him,’ Bobby remarked; ‘if he felt like that, he could have sent her away any time he wanted to?’
‘He thought too much of her ma to do that,’ asserted the cook.
‘It wasn’t that at all,’ insisted Lewis, whom a third sampling of that excellent whisky was making both talkative and dogmatic, ‘he was afraid of her, that’s what it was. God knows why, but it’s a fact. I’ve seen him pretending to read the paper and watching her all the time, and her sitting there as still and silent as ever, so you felt he could have screamed and run. We were all afraid of her, as far as that goes, if you know what I mean. But not like him.’
‘I should hardly have thought from what I’ve heard,’ Bobby observed, ‘that Sir Christopher was a man likely to be afraid of anyone.’
‘No more he wasn’t,’ declared the cook stoutly, ‘not him, nor us neither, only what is true about him, poor gentleman, is that he wasn’t ever the same after his wife died. That was when Miss Jennie was quite a tiny tot, you know.’
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