Information Received

by E. R. Punshon

  His evening he spent at ‘The Green Man’, equally without success, and then went on to ‘The Cedars’ to assure the household there that protection was still being extended to them, to consume some more of Lewis’s excellent whisky, and to listen for an hour or so to gossip and chatter from which he learned little, except that a marriage licence had been procured, that the wedding was fixed for the coming Saturday, and that Miss Laing seemed very happy about it.

  ‘Different she is from what she used to be so you wouldn’t hardly know her,’ asserted Lewis. ‘It’s just as if she had been – well, thawed out, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Same,’ confirmed the cook, ‘as if her young days had come back to her, like it was before her poor mother died.’

  ‘It’s love ’as done it,’ said the ‘tweenie’ in a whisper, her eyes shining, ‘it’s because they worship the ground they tread on – I mean,’ she added, perceiving a slight confusion here, ‘the ground each other treads on.’

  ‘Well, don’t you get worshipping the ground the baker’s young man treads on,’ the cook warned her tartly, ‘not if it makes you spend half an hour taking in the bread when you ought to be washing up the breakfast things.’

  ‘Ah, all that,’ said Lewis benevolently, coming to the rescue of the blushing ‘tweenie’, ‘is before marriage. But afterwards – well, look at them other two, Mr Carsley and Miss Jennie that was.’

  ‘Why? Are they quarrelling already?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Lewis answered cautiously, ‘only there’s – well, there’s something if you know what I mean.’

  ‘It’s only the worry and the trouble,’ the cook protested; ‘the gentlemen from the papers always here, and the police that aren’t all quite the gentleman like Mr Owen, and even when they try to be, it would get on anyone’s nerves to be asked questions hour after hour and all put down in writing, too, which makes it all so much worse, because when you say a thing, you just say it, but when it’s all put down in writing, it’s different altogether to my mind, so what I say is it’s no wonder if Mrs Carsley and Mr Carsley look like ghosts risen from the dead or worse still – especial,’ she added with an indignant look at Lewis, ‘when there’s some as isn’t above dropping hints and insinuations, without ever saying what’s in their minds.’

  ‘And there’s some,’ retorted Lewis, helping himself again to the whisky, ‘as know very well what they mean, which, if others don’t, that’s their affair.’

  ‘What we want,’ Bobby pointed out, ‘are facts. If we could identify the man who escaped over the wall next door, or even if we could trace the revolver used, it would be different. Facts are what we want.’

  ‘If it’s facts,’ Lewis said, ‘it’s a certain fact none can deny that Mr Carsley – well, drink I should have put it down to, only for there not being time, because, though drink could do it, drink’s not so quick as that. But if that man hasn’t something on his mind that he never gets rid of by day or by night, then I’ – he sought for a comparison tremendous enough, and, not finding it, concluded rather lamely – ‘then I’m wrong, that’s all. But you can always tell when there’s something on anyone’s mind – didn’t we all know it from his guilty ways when the gardener that was here before Mr James was taking the grapes out of the conservatory home to his sick wife? And when I was with the old Duchess of Kew, didn’t we all know there was something heavy on her mind and weren’t we shown right when she up and married the piano tuner – though there was finer men on her own staff if she had had the eyes to see.’

  Bobby was aware already that Peter looked strangely ill and worn, but he was not inclined to attach much importance to that, for he knew, what these good people did not, of the conflict raging in the offices of the firm between the two partners. It was enough to give anyone a worried and a troubled air.

  He talked a little longer and then took his leave earlier than usual, alleging as an excuse that he was tired from a long day’s fruitless tramping to and fro. His way led him round the house into the drive and when he reached it he found the two stepsisters there, Brenda and Jennie. He guessed at once that they knew of his nightly visits and were waiting for him, and he heard Jennie say:

  ‘He’s here again to-night, just as they said.’

  Bobby thought it well to stop and offer an explanation. ‘Your servants are still a little nervous,’ he said; ‘they asked me to look in sometimes, so that they could feel safer in a way, if they knew we were watching the house.’

  ‘They told us,’ Brenda said in her slow, deep voice. ‘Of course, that is not why you come.’

  Bobby made no answer. Jennie said with sudden passion that shook violently her slight and slender frame:

  ‘You’re trying to find out things against Mr Carsley, you think it was Mr Carsley and you want to get them to say things... you think it was Peter did it and it never was. Do you think my husband would murder my father?’

  ‘It’s not what we think that matters,’ Bobby answered slowly; ‘we have to do our best, we have to do our duty. When murder’s been done’ – and then something made him add – ‘if it was murder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jennie asked in a quick, puzzled voice, but Brenda said nothing at all, and somehow Bobby thought that she saw a meaning in his words, a meaning that had entirely escaped her stepsister and that even to him himself was not entirely clear. ‘What do you mean?’ Jennie repeated in the same puzzled tone. ‘You can’t think... he would never, never have killed himself. Why should he?’

  ‘It’s not possible he could have done it himself, the doctor’s evidence shows that,’ Bobby agreed, and Jennie said: ‘Well, then.’

  But upon Brenda it appeared that her old cloak of silence and of stillness had descended again, for she did not move or speak, and yet in some way made her presence more vital and more forceful than that of either of the other two.

  Bobby waited, determined to be as silent as she was, and yet aware that his silence was nothing more than silence, but hers was that of a swift, deep-running current. He thought to himself:

  ‘She knows something, there’s something, but is what she knows so tranquilly the same that Carsley knows that makes him look the way he does? And that Mark Lester knows that makes him get drunk at a night club? And that the little man at “The Green Man” knows that made him clear out so quickly?’

  Jennie said:

  ‘You only come to try to get the servants to talk – well, there’s nothing they can tell you.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Bobby agreed, ‘but there are some who could tell us everything if they would.’

  Then Brenda spoke:

  ‘There is always someone who knows, there must be. Only you cannot always tell what you know, not even if you want to, not even if you try.’ She paused and then added: ‘Why do you trouble yourself so much? Murderers are not always hanged, why should they be? But they never escape, never. Always in the end they pay for what they’ve done.’ Again she was silent; and when neither of the others answered, she began to move slowly back towards the house. Jennie followed, a little as if she were compelled to do so. The last glimpse Bobby had of the two tragic stepsisters was as they paused together for an instant on the threshold of the lighted hall before they entered.

  Puzzled and troubled, even more than before, he went on to his lodgings where he found waiting for him a message instructing him to report to Mitchell in the morning. When he did so, he found the Superintendent a good deal worried by the suggestion now put forward by Marsden that Peter might not only be guilty of the first murder, but might also be planning a second, in order to get his wife’s fortune into his own hands.

  ‘It’s a thing that’ll bear looking into,’ he said, rather dismally; ‘but what’s a poor department to do with one fellow saying another chap means to do him in and that other chap declaring on his side that the first fellow means to murder his wife, and all the time the very strong probability existing that the two of them are working together to confu
se the issues, to put us off altogether? How’s this for a theory? Carsley shot the old man, Marsden robbed the safe, and the two of them were working together then and now are working together to fool us? How does that strike you?’

  ‘If it’s that,’ observed Bobby, ‘I don’t see, sir, where the little chap at “The Green Man” comes in, or what he can have told Lester that gave him the horrors, as the barmaid said. I’ve a feeling myself that if only we could lay hands on him...’

  ‘I daresay,’ agreed Mitchell, ‘but we can’t – at least, we haven’t so far. Carry on with “The Green Man” though, he may turn up there, though it looks to me as if he were keeping out of the way on purpose. Perhaps it might be as well to try some of the other pubs in the neighbourhood, he may be using one of them now. Only why does he want to keep away from us? But that’s the worst of this case. It’s not only the facts we can’t get at, we don’t know what motives people have, why one gets drunk, and another comes “unfrozen” as your butler says, and another won’t come forward. There’s that elderly man you saw who left a footprint in the garden and spoke to Doran, we can’t trace him either. You saw the appeals in the paper asking him to come forward?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I suppose he hasn’t responded?’

  Mitchell shook his head.

  ‘No one will tell us anything in this case,’ he complained. ‘How’s a poor detective to find anything out, if no one will tell him anything?’

  ‘It makes it very difficult,’ agreed Bobby. ‘I hope the tickets for the Regency were what you wanted, sir?’ he added as Mitchell seemed to lapse into silence.

  ‘Oh, yes, thanks,’ answered Mitchell, ‘quite good seats, very good show, rather a lot of corpses in the last act, if you ask me, bit of a surprise, too, because I always thought Shakespeare was all spouting blank verse, and that last act had any gangster film I ever saw beat to a frazzle. Yes, a good show – and gave us a lot to think about, quite a lot to think about.’

  That was the end of the interview; and Bobby, finding himself dismissed, went back to his task of inquiring at the theatres for some trace of the man he was looking for. His lack of success was complete, however, and when he had come to the end of his list, he went back to the Regency merely to gratify a piece of private curiosity, for somehow he had got it into his head, from what Mitchell had said, that it was not only entertainment the Superintendent had been in search of in his visit to the theatre. Moreover, Mitchell came from Aberdeen and was not therefore, in Bobby’s considered opinion, very likely to have spent twelve and six on a stall, when cheaper seats were available, unless for some special reason, or unless he hoped to put it down on his expenses list.

  The six-foot-six commissionaire Bobby remembered noticing before was still magnificent outside the Regency, and Bobby introduced himself.

  ‘You remember that sketch I showed you the other day?’ he said. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen anyone like it round here since, have you?’

  But the commissionaire shook his head and looked blank. He did not remember Bobby, he was sure neither Bobby nor anyone else had shown him any sketch, he had not in fact any idea what Bobby was talking about, and Bobby remembered then that in his hurry to get Mitchell the required tickets he had gone straight to the box office and after obtaining them and making his inquiries there about the sketch had hurried away, quite forgetting that he had not questioned the commissionaire. A stupid oversight, Bobby thought with some vexation, though one not likely to be of any importance, and as he began to hunt for his copy of the sketch he still had with him in his pocket-book, he asked a few casual questions from which it appeared that, by good luck, the commissionaire knew Mitchell by sight. He had a nephew in the police who had pointed the famous Superintendent out to him, and he had seen him again when he had had occasion to go to Scotland Yard on some unimportant errand or another. He remembered Mitchell’s visit the other night quite well, having noticed him at once, and was certain he had been accompanied, not by a lady, but by a gentleman, in whom, from the description given, Bobby was sure he recognized the Assistant Commissioner himself.

  And what on earth had made Mitchell and the Assistant Commissioner want to spend an evening together watching a Shakespearian play, was more than Bobby could imagine.

  He gave it up finally as no business of his, and, producing his sketch, showed it. The commissionaire said:

  ‘Why, that’s Mr Harrison; he’s brother-in-law of Mr Lamb at the box office. Not been doing anything, has he?’

  ‘Why, no,’ laughed Bobby, ‘at least, not that we know of. But we think he could give us some information in a case we are interested in. Do you mean he works here?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ answered the other, ‘but he’s come a cropper in the City and now he’s got nothing left – says he was done down by some of them there, skinned and nothing left, so he is glad enough of any little job Mr Lamb can find him, us being so busy with the rush there’s been,’ and the commissionaire puffed out his chest with pride, for proud though author and actor and manager may be of a West End success, their pride is but a poor thing to that of the average commissionaire, who almost visibly grows in stature on those rare occasions when he is able to watch a real rush for the box office window.

  ‘Do you know his address?’ asked Bobby.

  The commissionaire didn’t, but supposed they would know it at the box office, and thither therefore Bobby proceeded.

  ‘When I showed you this sketch the other day,’ Bobby demanded severely of Mr Lamb, ‘why didn’t you tell me it was your brother-in-law, Mr Harrison?’

  ‘Harrison?’ repeated Mr Lamb, quite surprised. ‘You don’t mean that’s meant for Joe Harrison? Well, you do surprise me. I hadn’t an idea. If you had showed me a photograph now, but how could anyone tell what that was meant for?’

  He gave a glance of contempt and disdain at the sketch as he spoke and the offended artist picked it up.

  ‘It’s a very good drawing,’ he said firmly, ‘and it’s my belief you knew who it was all the time.’

  Mr Lamb shook his head.

  ‘I am looking at it right way up, aren’t I?’ he asked innocently.

  Bobby put the sketch away.

  ‘I’ll trouble you for Harrison’s address,’ he said coldly, and though Mr Lamb still hesitated a little, in the end he produced it.

  CHAPTER 22

  A STRANGE WARNING

  Bobby’s first act was to get on the phone and report to his superiors that he had discovered at last the name and address of the man they had been looking for so long, and to suggest that it would be wise to follow up the information immediately.

  Neither Mitchell nor Gibbons was at the Yard as it happened, but the officer in charge agreed it was very important that no time should be lost, since nothing was more likely than that his brother-in-law might already be warning Harrison, by phone or wire, that his identity was known.

  ‘Get over there as fast as you know how,’ Bobby was instructed, ‘and bring him along to the Yard. If he wants to make a statement, let him, but don’t press him till Mr Mitchell’s seen him.’

  Taxis are not much in the line of men drawing a constable’s pay, but on this occasion Bobby decided to hire one and risk getting the fare allowed. It seemed to him there was not a minute to lose; it was essential, he thought, to find Harrison and get him to talk before any warning could reach him; and during the long drive to the remote suburb to which he had been directed, Bobby’s mind was all one tumult of conflicting thoughts, theories, fancies. For one thing he felt certain that Mitchell either knew or suspected something, something that had induced him to take the Assistant Commissioner to spend an evening at the theatre, yet how an evening at the theatre could help in the solution of the mystery was more than Bobby could even begin to imagine. He was convinced, too, that Mitchell took seriously, and was a good deal worried – ‘rattled’ was the word Bobby employed – by the twin suggestions that on the one hand Marsden planned to murder Peter Carsley, and that on the other ha
nd Peter himself proposed to complete plans for obtaining full possession of Sir Christopher Clarke’s money by next disposing of his young wife. But then again what could a visit to the theatre have to do with either of these contingencies?

  At last, while he was still racking his brains to find some probable explanation, his taxi turned into the street for which they were bound. The driver slowed down, looking for the number he wanted, and there went by them very swiftly a small, two-seater car in which as it sped by Bobby saw at the wheel Mark Lester. For just that second their eyes met, and there was that in Mark’s expression Bobby never forgot, so full was it of horror and despair, as of one for whom no longer any hope existed. Yet there was something, too, of triumph in the gesture Mark made with one quick, lifted hand, as if to tell Bobby he had come too late. Then he was passed, and gone, and the taxi stopped, and at the open door the driver said:

  ‘Here you are, sir.’

  ‘Did you see that small car go by?’ Bobby said to him.

  ‘Going at a fairish rate,’ agreed the driver, ‘some of these young chaps; nothing under forty m.p.h. is any good to ’em, and I don’t know as that chap wasn’t doing more – fair stepping on it, so he was.’

  Bobby had some vague idea of pursuit in his mind, but he abandoned it, pursuit would evidently have been useless even if he had known what to say or do had it succeeded. But he had nothing to go on, save that one strange, fleeting look which had seemed like that of one who despaired, and the momentary gesture which had appeared like that of one who triumphed.

  One thing he noticed, though, was that the house he was about to visit had no telephone, and certainly no telegram could have beaten Bobby’s taxi. Did that indicate that Mr Lamb, of the Regency box office, had phoned to Mark, and Mark had come on here at once to convey to Harrison the warning that otherwise he could not have received in time?