“Photographs?”
He shook his head.
“Well then, any gifts of a personal nature. Anything inscribed? Would she keep a diary?”
He thought of the brooch; but he’d bought it on a trip up north—not Cartier’s after all—and paid for it in cash. No reason why they should ever trace that to him. As for a diary you could count that out. I’d sooner die than harm you, Louie had said once. And so she had—so she had.
* * *
The police were out after evidence as brisk as mushroom-pickers who must get their goods while the dew’s still on them. Pretty soon they assembled a dossier of information about the dead woman. They knew that Cameron was her maiden name and in law she was Mrs. George Duffy. There was no record of a divorce and none of the said Duffy’s demise, so there he was in the middle of the picture, since the surviving partner’s always the first suspect in cases like these.
“Still, she doesn’t seem to have had much truck with him for the past six or seven years, at least she’s been calling herself Cameron for that time,” Inspector Langdon reflected.
A neighbour, a Miss Clarry, gave them another lead. She said she’d come in to see the deceased a few hours before her death. About a blouse that she wanted in a hurry; and to give an order for another. But Louie had seemed a bit distrait, said she couldn’t take any more orders at the moment.
“I didn’t stop long,” said the spinster. “She was expecting someone, you could see that. Fresh hairdo and she was wearing the brooch.”
“The brooch?”
Miss Clarry described it.
“Didn’t she usually wear it?”
“I only saw it once before. Well, it was a bit conspicuous for everyday wear. I thought perhaps it was that man... .”
“Man?”
“Well, she had a friend, no, I don’t know who it was. I’m not nosey. But I’ll tell you this, that brooch was the real thing.” She gave them a description. Her father, she explained, had been in the trade. You couldn’t fool her.
“Well,” reflected Langdon, “she wasn’t wearing a brooch when we saw her.”
They contacted the window-cleaner. He hadn’t noticed a brooch either.
They made the routine enquiries, but he was never really on their list of suspects. For one thing it takes some nerve to remove a brooch from a corpse and then phone the police, and for another she must have been dead for hours when he came in—he explained that when she was out she always left the back door on the latch for him—and he had an alibi for the previous evening when, according to medical evidence, death must have taken place. No finger-prints on the paper-knife, of course. No convenient dropped buttons, not even a cigarette-end.
So they got after the husband. There was always the chance he was the chap who was doing the twilight visiting, though they didn’t really believe that either. They didn’t find the letter, but that wasn’t their fault, because Louie had destroyed it.
They struck oil almost immediately. Ben Purkiss, the licensee of The Haystack at Hamp Wood, came round to the station to say he’d seen the papers and a chap calling himself George Duffy had been at The Haystack that evening.
“Our darts tournament night,” he explained. “Chaps come from a long way, chaps we’ve never set eyes on.”
“And Duffy was one of them?”
“That’s right.”
“Told you his name?”
“Come to think of it, he did. Self-advertising type, handing out dud tips for to-morrow’s winner, unemployed barker I shouldn’t be surprised, anything to get a free drink. According to him he was quite something with a dart himself, but if he wasn’t any sounder at that than picking winners he’d be a millstone round any team’s neck.” He stopped to light a fag, then went on, “Walked in and leaned on the bar, called me George as if he’d known me all his life. You’re going one better than my mum and dad, I told him. They never knew George was my name. Call everyone George, he said. My name,
see. George Duffy. Ask on any racecourse—Georgie Duffy—and if you want a tip for to-morrow’s three o’clock you can’t go far wrong on Bucephalus. Of course, we get a lot of chaps here like that, hoping for a free drink, but they might as well save their breath.”
“Anyone take his tip?”
“Not that I know. One of our chaps, Sid Parker, put his shirt on the winner, though. Made a packet.”
* * *
May Purkiss remembered a telephone call coming for this chap, Duffy, later in the evening. Very urgent, the fellow on the other end had said.
“What a liberty!” exclaimed May, eyes flashing like fireworks. “This is a pub, not a hotel, I told him. But I put my head round the bar and called,
‘Anyone name of Duffy?’ and this chap came through... . No, I don’t know what they talked about. I had my hands full.”
“Happen to see him afterwards?”
“There was no holding him after that,” put in her husband. “Hamp Wood won, the way we knew he would, and here was this chap wanting to buy
drinks for everyone.”
“Must have been good news,” said May rather dourly.
“Chaps like that,” said Ben, “haven’t got the sense they were born with. Throwing his weight about, a stranger and all.”
Langdon thought Duffy might have had his own reasons, and if so he could share them with the authorities and they better be good. Funny he hadn’t surfaced when he heard about his wife’s death. Still, if Mahomet won’t come to the mountain, the mountain knows what it’s got to do.
They ran George Duffy to earth in a scruffy rooming-house in Paddington. Couldn’t have been doing very well with his tips lately, Langdon decided. Duffy must have been a good-looking chap once, but he’d run to seed now, and reeked of the race-course. Tongue dripping with oil, wings on his feet when his tip never got past the post, take off his hat for half-a-crown, not in a regular job, he admitted, man wasn’t born to be a machine, clock in, clock out, touch your hat and excuse me for breathing. But they knew him on all the race-courses—if the Inspector wanted a tip for to-morrow.... The Inspector didn’t. Just a bit of info, for to-day.
“Such as?”
“Why didn’t you come along to the station when you heard your wife was dead?”
“Well—I couldn’t tell the police anything, could I? And I didn’t really think of her as my wife any more.”
“Just coincidence, then, you were in the neighbourhood the night she was murdered?”
“That’s right. Agreed to go our own ways. Mind you, she could have had a friend... .”
“Didn’t happen to mention his name?”
“I tell you, I didn’t see her.”
“So you did. Nice brooch she had, though.”
“Did she? I don’t know anything about a brooch.”
“Nice little nest-egg, too. Daresay you could do with it.”
“Me?”
“Forgetting she made a will in your favour—oh, umpteen years ago?”
“Mean to say she never changed it? Well, I’ll be ...”
“So you see, you might be interested in the brooch. Part of the estate.”
“Yes. Yes. What was it like, the brooch, I mean?”
“Well, we haven’t seen it, but a lady says it was shaped like a peacock or something—real diamonds.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, she never bought that for herself.”
“Not an anniversary present from her husband either?”
“What do you think?”
“I think I’d like to take a look round. Any objection?”
“What, here? I only moved in six weeks ago. Got a warrant?” “I can get one.”
Duffy shoved his hands in the pockets of his loud check jacket. “O.K. Don’t forget to look up the chimney, will you? And if you take up the floorboards be sure to put them back where you found them. My landlady’s particular.”
“She must be.”
The search began. Not that there was much to examine. A few tatty clothes,
a couple of pairs of scuffed shoes, a betting manual—but you couldn’t hide a ring there. They took the bed to pieces—“Don’t forget to make it again, I need my sleep,” cautioned Duffy. They even examined the shoddy little medicine chest above the basin.
“Get your money’s worth out of the National Health, don’t you?” said Langdon genially. “Hullo!”
“Found something?” asked Duffy.
“You’re a fussy chap. Tooth-paste and tooth-powder.”
He got a sheet of paper and emptied the tin of powder; and there it was, its brilliance dulled but unmistakable all the same, a brooch shaped like a peacock with its tail spread.
“Like you to come along to the station and make a statement,” suggested Langdon. “Mind you, you don’t have to answer any questions, but ...”
“I know,” said Duffy. “It’s all right anyway. I got it fair and square. She wanted me to try and get a price for it.”
“How come?” asked Langdon. “Thought you hadn’t seen her for years.”
Down at the station he changed his story a bit. It appeared he’d run across her some months before, suggested they might call bygones, bygones, both of them older, bit more sensible, maybe, a woman needs a man.... She’d turned him down flat. There was going to be no hanging his hat on a golden hook in her house. Under pressure he admitted she’d helped him a bit, then the night of the Tournament he found himself with a bit of time on his hands and dropped in to see her.
“Her invitation?”
“I ’phoned. She was expecting someone else, I could see that. Then she gave me the brooch. See what you can raise, she said. Didn’t like to take it anywhere locally, you know how these places gossip. I’ve got a friend... .”
“I’ll say. Does he work as a dentist? Come on, Duffy, what the hell do you think you’re giving us? This isn’t the Children’s Hour.”
“It’s the truth,” Duffy insisted. “I took the brooch—I wasn’t there ten minutes. Then I went on to The Haystack and I was there all evening. They’ll remember me....”
“You saw to that, didn’t you? It still doesn’t explain the brooch, though.” “I couldn’t see my friend that night, I was going the following evening, then I heard about Louie. That made the brooch hot. I was in a spot all right.
Look here, why don’t you get after this chap she was expecting?” “Didn’t happen to mention his name?”
“Oh, be your age,” growled George Duffy. “Anyway, you ask at the pub.” “We have. Put ’em on to Bucephalus, didn’t you? Lucky no one took your tip.”
“He should have won,” George Duffy insisted. “Had a quid on him myself.”
“Got a ’phone call, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. Chap called Flavin. Give you his address. He’ll alibi me all right.”
“Thought of everything, didn’t you? Everything except providing a witness to prove your wife was alive when you left the house.”
* * *
When Charles heard that the dead woman’s husband had been taken for the murder he was like a man whose burden suddenly falls off his back with a whump. His sigh of relief nearly blew the roof off.
“That was a narrow squeak,” he told Harold. “If that chap hadn’t surfaced you’d have found yourself in Queer Street. As it is, no reason why anyone should ever know....”
“Forgetting something, aren’t you?” said Harold. “I happen to know Duffy can’t be guilty, because I know Louie was alive at seven o’clock that night, after her husband reached The Haystack.”
“You mean, you were there? Harold—here, where are you going?” “To the station, of course. That chap’s innocent.”
“But—you didn’t do it? All right, I said you didn’t do it. So where’s the sense replacing one innocent man with another.”
“I shan’t be innocent long, if I let Duffy stay in prison.”
Charles clenched his hands and struck the table. “Can you never think
of anyone but yourself? Your conscience—your peace of mind. You say you can prove this chap didn’t do it. But you don’t know who did. He’ll get a lawyer, and he’ll start looking for X. And since it wasn’t Duffy and it wasn’t you, there must be a third party involved. How about the chap who wrote the letter?”
“The police don’t know about the letter.”
“Since it no longer exists it’s not evidence anyway. And it’s precisely the kind of story you would tell if you were involved in the crime.”
“I told you about it that evening—remember. Of course you do.”
“You’re not dragging me into this as a witness. Can’t you see, that still doesn’t prove the letter ever existed. For Heaven’s sake, Harold, do you want to ruin your own daughter’s life?”
It was Rupert Garden, that enterprising young man, who dragged Arthur Crook into the affair. Harold insisted on confiding in him. Might as well know the sort of family you’re marrying into, he said. And Rupert replied,
“This is just Crook’s cup of tea, about the only kind of tea he ever drinks. I’d give a lot,” he added soberly, “for Meg never to know.”
* * *
Arthur Crook sat in his office at 123 Bloomsbury Street, looking like an immense ginger-coloured spider. The office had no lift, no porter and virtually no mod cons, but Harold hadn’t been there five minutes before his hopes began to rise.
“ ’Tain’t the police’s job to prove you innocent,” Crook said. “That’s what you’re payin’ me for. And I’m like the famous piggy that always brings home the bacon.”
And after a bit he added, “I never could refuse a job that starts in a pub.” Charles Garden mightn’t know much about Crook but Ben Purkiss at the Haystack recognized the name as soon as Crook shoved his card across the counter and demanded his opening pint.
“Thought you might be press,” he acknowledged. “Some of them are like Duffy, think we’re in the trade for laughs.”
He watched Crook dispose of that first pint in one gargantuan swallow, and refilled the tankard.
“Understand Duffy was in here the day his ever-loving copped her packet,” Crook explained.
“If you’re acting for him that should put his mind at rest.”
“Let’s say I’m making a few prelim enquiries. You’d know him again?”
“He saw to that.”
“Mm. I noticed that, too. Makes you think, don’t it? How about the ’phone call?”
“You’d best ask the wife. Here, May.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Crook,” said May. (Well, there’s never any harm
having a friend at court.) “I ought to have a record made about this call. The police have been here—wonder they didn’t bring their beds. I can’t tell the story any different.”
“I might get a different idea, though,” coaxed Crook.
“Well, then, I was in the other bar when the call came through. Some chap asking for George Duffy. Very urgent, he said. Understood he might be watching the darts match. I put my head round the door. Phone call for Duffy, I said. Instrument’s on the stairs. And he came along. Never heard a word, though.”
“Would you know him again?”
“Never set eyes on him.”
“I couldn’t be wrong,” put in Ben. “Well—you think he didn’t do it?”
“When a chap’s paying me to act for him he’s always innocent,” said Crook, in a slightly oracular voice. “Well, did he stop on after getting the call?”
“I’ll say. Must have been good news. Wanted to buy everyone drinks.”
“Funny time for a racing chap to get good news. Anyone else likely to remember him?”
“Wait a minute,” said May. “Didn’t Parks say he took the tip and won a packet?”
“Couldn’t be the same man. His horse came in last but one.”
Crook looked round as if he expected Parks to fall out of the ceiling. “Won’t be here to-night,” said Ben. “Goes straight home after work to his tea, and so’d you if you had Mrs. P. breathing down your ne
ck. Looks like a Komodo Dragon in a hat she never takes off. Sleeps in it, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Oh death, where is thy sting?” agreed Crook, amiably. “Likely to be in later? I’ll be back.”
In the meantime, he thought he might as well have a word with Flavin. He proved to be a tall man with a broken nose that had sniffed at some pretty fishy affairs in its owner’s time.
“Well, Mr. Crook,” he said, “didn’t think George ’ud have the sense to pull you in. He can’t ha’ done it, you know. I was talking to him at the Haystack that night.”
“What was so special it couldn’t wait till the match was over?”
“Not a betting man?” Flavin grinned, showing large discoloured teeth, rather like a horse, Crook reflected.
“A nice little mare called Murder sees me through,” he answered. “Still on about the gees, was he?”
“G’s about the only letter in the alphabet Georgie knows. He was asking about changes in the betting for the races next day. Chance that Rainbow Girl mightn’t run, see. That was the 2.30,” he added.
“No changes for the 3 o’clock?”
“No. They might be grateful to him at the Haystack. You don’t get a winner given you every day for the price of a pint and Ladybird romped home at 28-1.”
“Who said anything about Ladybird?” demanded Crook.
“She won,” Flavin insisted.
“Dessay she did, but she wasn’t Georgie’s pick. He was pushin’ Bucephalus, before and after the match. Funny thing, though, one chap there that night did get a tip for Ladybird, put his shirt on it. Be able to buy himself another Komodo Dragon now, I wouldn’t wonder.”
Going down the stairs twice as quick as he’d come up he reflected that Flavin and his chum, Georgie Duffy, would make a champion pair for the Chamber of Horrors.
* * *
Sid Parker was a little dark chap who looked as if the roller had been put over him. He accepted Crook’s offer of a pint with some suspicion. Chaps in the money are always suspicious, they’re so afraid of being parted from it.
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 8