But that meant collusion between Mark Lester and Harrison, collusion that must be of recent growth, for Bobby thought it certain that Mark and Harrison had met for the first time that evening in the ‘The Green Man’.
‘Can they have fixed something up together then, right under my nose, while I was looking?’ Bobby asked himself bewilderedly. ‘It doesn’t seem possible, but then nothing seems possible in this case. Unless it is that Mark Lester is really the guilty man, and that Harrison knows it, and that Lester’s afraid he’ll tell. That might account for the way Lester looked just now.’
Bobby thought it best to tell his taxi-man to wait, and as it was evidently of little use to continue this riot of doubt and speculation in which he found his mind involved, he went to the house and knocked. He had to wait for a reply; and when at last a woman came Bobby felt more certain than ever from her manner that he was expected, and that Mark had been before him with a warning.
Mr Harrison lived here, the woman admitted. She was Mrs Harrison, she said, and her husband was ill in bed and could see no one.
‘The gentleman who called just now saw him, I think,’ Bobby retorted.
‘That was a friend,’ Mrs Harrison explained, but uneasily. ‘He only came to see how my husband was getting on.’
‘Then what made him look the way he did when he left?’ Bobby demanded; and then realizing that it was only futile to stand there questioning the woman, he explained who he was, produced his warrant card, and told her it was necessary he should see her husband at once.
She still persisted that he must wait, at least till the doctor had been. They hadn’t sent for the doctor before but they had now. It was a ‘nervous breakdown’, she explained, when Bobby asked what was the matter; and as that is an expression which may mean just anything or nothing, Bobby was not very much impressed. Apparently this breakdown of Mr Harrison’s nerves had happened on the very night of the visit to ‘The Green Man’, and at last when Bobby still insisted and showed he meant to have his way, Mrs Harrison agreed to go and consult her husband.
Bobby warned his taxi-driver to see no one attempted to escape by the windows – for by now he was wrought up to be prepared for anything, and himself kept a careful watch from the foot of the stairs. He did not mean Harrison to slip away a second time, as he had done that night at ‘The Green Man’. These precautions, however, proved unnecessary, for presently Mrs Harrison came out and took him back into the bedroom, where he found her husband sitting up in bed and looking very sulky and determined, so that Bobby knew at once it was going to be difficult to get a word out of him.
He was a small, pale, worried-looking man, with thin, grey hair and whiskers, two light-blue watery eyes, a long, thin nose, and a tight-lipped, obstinate mouth above a small pointed chin. The whole impression was that of a man who would not easily give up his aims, but who would seldom attain them, because, though certain of his aim, he would never be so of his means. He greeted Bobby ill-temperedly enough.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded. ‘I’m not well, I don’t want to be worried, what do you want to come worrying me for? Why can’t you leave me alone?’
‘I’m sorry to hear you’re unwell,’ Bobby answered.
‘Have you been unwell ever since you met Mr Lester at “The Green Man”?’
‘What do you mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ retorted Harrison with a mixture of discomfort and defiance in his voice.
‘I think you do,’ Bobby answered. ‘What did Mr Lester come to see you for just now?’
‘That’s my business,’ Harrison retorted sullenly.
‘It’s our business, too,’ Bobby told him; ‘and I’m afraid if you won’t talk you will find yourself in a rather serious position. Are you able to come to Scotland Yard with me?’
‘No, I’m not,’ snapped Harrison very emphatically.
‘I believe the doctor’s coming to see you, isn’t he?’ Bobby asked. ‘We’ll have to wait and see what he says about that and if you really aren’t fit to come to Scotland Yard, then I suppose Scotland Yard will have to come to you. There’s good reason to believe you know something about the murder of Sir Christopher Clarke–’
The effect of these last words was startling and unexpected. The little man sat bolt upright, his scattered locks of grey hair tumbling over his forehead, the sudden light that flashed into his pale and watery eyes transfiguring him entirely with a certain wildness of appearance. Thrusting out a long, skinny arm straight at Bobby, he cried:
‘Yes, I do know something, I know who did it, and. by God, I’ll never tell.’
‘Do you mean you wish to protect a murderer, Mr Harrison?’ Bobby asked gravely.
‘It wasn’t murder,’ Harrison answered sullenly, ‘it was killing, but no murder. The swine got no more than he deserved, no more than I would have given him if I had had the chance.’
‘Was it Mark Lester?’ Bobby asked.
Exhausted, Harrison fell back on his pillow.
‘Never you mind,’ he said. ‘What I know I’ll never tell. Do your own job.’
‘Do you know, too,’ Bobby asked grimly, ‘what is meant by being an accessory after the fact?’
‘You don’t frighten me,’ Harrison retorted. ‘The swine got no more than he deserved and I wish it had been me did it, but it wasn’t, as I can prove all right. Only when I say I know, I only mean I know because I can put two and two together, because I’ve got eyes in my head and some sense as well. I don’t know anything I could swear to. I mean I don’t know facts I’m keeping back. Only what I know, I know, and I know I’m right, too.’
‘You mean it was Mark Lester but you did not actually see him do it?’ Bobby suggested, but Harrison only shook his head and looked more feebly obstinate than ever.
‘You’ll get nothing out of me,’ he said, ‘and it wouldn’t do you any good if you did. There’s nothing I could say you could tell a jury. Why do you come worrying me? Why don’t you try old Belfort? He was hanging about there, for I saw him. Go and ask him.’
‘Mr Belfort?’ Bobby repeated, at a loss for a moment, and then remembering. ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said; and it seemed to him this piece of information might be as important as any of whatever it was Harrison was withholding, for this was the first hint they had had that Mr Belfort had been on the scene of the murder before it occurred. ‘Oh, we’ll attend to him all right,’ he said, ‘but what we want to know now is what you told Mr Lester that made him leave here looking as he did.’
‘I only told him I would do what he wanted,’ Harrison replied slowly.
‘What was that?’
‘Hold my tongue and mind my own business,’ Harrison retorted. He added slowly: ‘But there’s one thing I will tell you – you had better look after Mr Lester, you may be sorry if you don’t.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded Bobby crossly, for here was yet another vague and doubtful warning. ‘Do you think he’s going to murder Carsley? Or that Marsden’s going to murder him? Or all of them murder each other? Or what?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of anything like that,’ Harrison replied, in the same slow voice, ‘but I daresay it might happen that way – I think in this affair anything might happen to anyone at any time. Did you know Mr Lester is to be married on Saturday?’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s only an idea but if you ask me – well, I don’t much think that marriage will come off, then or ever.’
‘Why not?’ Bobby asked, shrugging his shoulders at this fresh strange warning. ‘They’ve got a licence, everything’s arranged, nothing to stop them, is there? They seem fond of each other, too,’ he added, remembering suddenly and vividly their parting he had been a witness to. ‘They are fond of each other,’ he repeated.
‘Yes, they are, that’s why,’ Harrison replied. ‘I think they’re fond of each other more than most people ever are... very likely it wouldn’t last but it’s like that now... when you see them together you know that
much without being told. He’s fond of her, he’s all there is to her, all she lives for... well, all the same, you mark my words, there’ll be no marriage and that’s the reason why.’
‘I don’t see why that should prevent it,’ Bobby said. ‘I don’t see why anything should prevent it,’ but all the same there was a certain uneasiness in his mind, as he remembered the look Mark had given him as he flashed by in his car.
CHAPTER 23
MARK’S WAY
The doctor who had been sent for arrived. His verdict was that Harrison was emphatically not fit even to leave his bed, and he looked very serious and shook his head. He always did so when he saw a patient for the first time; one would not have a patient think one had been called in unnecessarily. To-morrow, he thought, Mr Harrison might be better or he might again be worse, but in any case he must stay where he was for the present; if the authorities wanted to interview him, then they must come to him.
‘If Mr Harrison goes out to-night I will not be answerable for the consequences,’ declared the doctor, and hearing that immemorial phrase, before whose vague terrors all must bow, Bobby knew there was no more to be said.
So he resorted to the nearest call box, whence he recounted his experiences to headquarters and asked for instructions. He was told to return at once to the Yard to report in more detail. As for the invalid Mr Harrison, the local people would be rung up and told to keep an eye on him, so that Bobby was freed from responsibility in that matter.
Back at the Yard, Bobby was questioned at length by Inspector Gibbons – Mitchell had not yet returned – and then was told he might go off duty.
‘It’s too late to do much to-night,’ Gibbons decided, ‘even if Mr Mitchell were here, and anyhow we must wait to know what he thinks. And it won’t do any harm to give Harrison a night to think it over. I’ve told them out there to let themselves be seen, watching the house. That’ll help to make Harrison understand it’s pretty serious, though I don’t suppose he’ll go on holding his tongue once Mitchell gets after him. But he may be only talking through his hat, just a lot of vague notions and suspicions Treasury Counsel wouldn’t look at for a minute. Still, it’s one up to you we’ve been able to trace him at last, and I daresay Mitchell won’t think you’ve done so badly.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Bobby, flushing a little at this praise. He ventured to add, though official superiors do not much encourage comment: ‘I’m wondering a little what Harrison meant when he said Mr Lester’s wedding wouldn’t come off to-morrow. I thought myself Mr Lester looked very strange when he went by in his car.’
But Gibbons did not seem much impressed.
‘I don’t see what we can do,’ he said, ‘except make sure to-morrow whether there is a wedding or not. Most likely Lester only looked scared because he saw you and knew you would realize he had been to warn Harrison. Evidently there’s some connexion. That’s certain, and it’ll have to be cleared up, but we must wait to know what Mr Mitchell thinks. I shouldn’t wonder myself if you aren’t right, and the truth is that Lester’s guilty, and Harrison knows it, but won’t tell if he can help it, because he’s so bucked at Lester doing what he would have liked to do himself if he had had the guts for it.’
‘Only there doesn’t seem any motive,’ said Bobby doubtfully, ‘at least, I can’t see any.’
‘In my humble opinion,’ declared Gibbons, ‘it’s a mistake to worry too much about motives. I’ve heard Mitchell say you can never tell a man’s motive till you know it – and that’s time enough. Lester may have thought the forty thou. Miss Laing was to have was only a put-off, and that if her stepfather died intestate she would take a half, or he may have had an idea that Miss Laing had been ill-treated in some way, or he may not have known about the proposed settlement, and thought because of the new will she was being left out altogether – or – or anything,’ he concluded a little vaguely, ‘and anyhow, we must wait for Mitchell.’ With that Bobby found himself dismissed, but his mind was restless and troubled as he walked away. He still remembered how wildly Mark Lester’s eyes had seemed to stare as his car flashed by, how it had seemed as if he rushed in that speeding car to meet some unutterable doom. Nor had the impression then made been anything but heightened by Harrison’s vague and uncertain warning. Bobby had had a long day, on his feet nearly all the time, much of it standing about in a way more wearying by far than straightforward walking would have been. But tired though he felt, and glad though he would have been of a rest, there had taken full possession of him by now that sombre passion of the chase the dreadful hunter knows when his quarry is man. Instead therefore of returning home to the bed and supper waiting for him, he made his way to the district where he knew Mark lived with his mother.
When he reached the house, it looked dark and deserted; in one room only, on the first floor, a light showed; and Bobby was leaning over the garden gate, watching it, when there came someone softly to his side.
‘Hullo, Owen,’ the newcomer said. ‘I thought it was you. Anything fresh?’
Bobby started, for the soft voice had broken rudely on his troubled thoughts. But he recognized one of the C.I.D. men he had met during the course of the investigation. He had known, naturally, that Mark was under observation, though the fact was one that for the moment he had forgotten.
‘That you, Jones?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were on the job. Nothing new that I know of.’
‘I thought something might have turned up to bring you along when I saw you,’ Jones remarked.
‘I didn’t see you,’ Bobby observed.
‘Didn’t mean to be seen,’ returned Jones with a touch of professional complaisance. ‘I had to report I had lost touch a little time ago,’ he added. ‘The chap got out his two-seater and went tearing off at such a pace I hadn’t a chance to follow. But he turned up back again here all right.’
‘I know,’ Bobby said. ‘There’s a lot more going on than we’ve any idea of, I think. I feel somehow as if we weren’t so much doing C.I.D. work as just scuttling about, trying to get good seats from which to watch what happens next.’
‘Ah, you’ve had an education,’ Jones said enviously, ‘that’s what makes you able to talk like that.’
‘I don’t know if it’s education,’ Bobby answered, ‘but that’s how I feel – just like when you’re in the theatre, waiting for the curtain to go up on the last act. But in this play it’s only the second act we’ve seen, we’ve no idea what the first act was, and only God knows how the third act is likely to turn out.’
‘Nobody ever knows how anything’s going to turn out,’ declared Jones. ‘Put a bob on a horse, and do you even know if it’ll start? Not you. Put in a week’s leave at the seaside, and do you know what the weather’ll be? Not you. Same everywhere.’
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Bobby, ‘and that great dark house – it looks to me just like a curtain that might be drawn back any moment when it’s time for the third act to begin. Did you know Mr Lester was to be married to-morrow?’
Jones nodded.
‘Looks to me as if he wanted to hurry it up before we pinched him,’ he suggested. ‘That is, if that’s what we’re after. I’ve got no orders to do more than keep him under observation as far as possible but not to obtrude myself – with chaps like you crowding into the Force the way they are, the language is getting so educated they’ll have to serve us with dictionaries, soon.’
‘We had a warning to-night,’ Bobby remarked, ‘that the wedding wouldn’t come off.’
‘It’s all settled, isn’t it?’ Jones asked. ‘They seem mighty far gone on each other, too. You can tell that much by seeing ’em when they’re together, by the way they shake hands as if no one else had ever done it except them. Why shouldn’t it come off?’
As he spoke there sounded through the still night air a loud and sharp report, breaking upon the silence with a significance they both understood.
‘Good God! What’s that?’ Jones exclaimed.
Bobby began to run towards
the house. Jones followed close behind him. They knocked; there was no answer.
‘Who else lives here? Do you know?’ Bobby asked his companion.
‘Only Mrs Lester and an old housekeeper, besides a woman who comes in daily,’ Jones answered. ‘Mrs Lester went to Brighton yesterday, and it looks as if the housekeeper wasn’t in.’
‘We must get in somehow,’ Bobby said.
One of the windows on the ground floor was open a few inches. With the help of his companion Bobby climbed on the sill and pushed up the sash. He scrambled through into the room and Jones followed. They groped their way into the hall and though the house was very quiet they thought they could detect a faint groaning sound coming from somewhere upstairs.
‘Anyone here?’ Bobby shouted and got no reply.
They shouted again, and when there was still no answer they went up the stairs together, Jones lighting the way with the beam from his electric pocket torch. The house was provided only with gas that they did not stop to light. At the head of the stairs they saw a thread of light showing beneath one of the doors. They went to it quickly and opened it. Within, as they had more than half anticipated, lay Mark Lester, full length upon the floor, moaning faintly, a pistol in his hand, the blood flowing slowly from a wound where he had shot himself through the body.
‘Done himself in,’ Jones said. ‘Knew it wouldn’t be long before we pinched him and thought this way better than hanging.’
Bobby knelt by the prostrate man.
‘He’s not dead,’ he said, and indeed Mark, opening his eyes and looking at him, seemed to be trying to speak. ‘Do you know me?’ Bobby asked. ‘Can you speak? Do you want to say something?’
‘My way... Mark’s way... did it myself,’ Mark muttered and then: ‘Brenda, Brenda,’ he whispered, ‘fetch her, will you? Say... good-bye.’
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