Ask a Policeman

by The Detection Club

  “I shall drop out of the case,” Wimsey said savagely. “I don’t care a hang about the Home Secretary, or anyone else. It’s the only decent thing to do.”

  “You’re quite certain it was blackmail, then? “asked Miss Climpson, a little timidly.

  Wimsey told her about the missing document.

  “And the joke is,” he said, brightening a little, “that Mills and Farrant each think the other’s got it. They’re both of them hedging on their stories now, because there’s a partnership in the air to pool the paper and split results but each of them still believes the other’s got it.”

  “And who has got it? “Miss Climpson asked.

  “Hope-Fairweather, of course,” said Wimsey.

  Miss Climpson buttered a second scone with deliberation. “Then do you know what I should do? I should go to Sir Charles Hope-Fairweather and have a talk with him.”

  “Miss Climpson,” said Wimsey with enthusiasm, “doesn’t it ever give you a pain in the head, a kind of swelling pain, being always right?”

  (VI)

  The idea of seeking an interview with Sir Charles had, of course, been in Wimsey’s mind already. He had put it aside, because he had no wish to drag out of that unfortunate man a truth which he would much prefer to leave unconfirmed. Now he saw that things could not be left quite as they were. The best thing would be to see Sir Charles, drop a hint or two about what he knew, and at the same time mention his decision to retire from the case, and then drop another hint or two about what he might do were he in Sir Charles’s place. For Wimsey not only had every sympathy with Sir Charles, he had every sympathy, too, with the lady whom he had referred to as Sir Charles’s girl friend. If people will go a-blackmailing, and in a particularly dirty way, they must be prepared to be shot; and Wimsey was not going to lift a finger against their executioners. On that point his determination was now firm.

  Wimsey had not been quite so open with Miss Climpson as to be indiscreet. He had told her very little more than what she was bound to learn shortly from the newspapers. Not for a moment had he let her guess that the name of Sir Charles’s girl friend was perfectly well-known to him, as indeed was the lady herself.

  Already, on the chauffeur’s description, he had had his suspicions; the second of the two telephone calls which he had put through on reaching his flat, had confirmed them. It had been to Maggioli’s restaurant. Maggioli’s had the reputation of being extremely discreet. But discretion does not always pay, and a successful restaurant proprietor is not he who knows how to be discreet, but he who knows when not to be discreet. Maggioli was a very successful restaurant-proprietor. He knew all about Lord Peter Wimsey; and he had not the least hesitation in informing his lordship, in the strictest confidence, that the lady with whom Lord Comstock had dined, in a private room, the night before his death, was Mrs. Arbuthnot. And Mrs. Arbuthnot was not only Sir Charles Hope-Fairweather’s niece, but she was the sister-in-law of Freddie Arbuthnot; and if the other had not settled it, that did.

  Wimsey saw Sir Charles late that evening, when he got back from the House. He had been waiting in the big library in Eaton Place for over an hour, and with every minute he disliked more the interview ahead of him. But Miss Climpson had been perfectly right. It was one of those things which have to be done.

  Sir Charles came in just before midnight. He looked tired, and Wimsey thought the lines on his face more deeply incised than when he had seen him last. Quite obviously he was not too pleased to see his visitor.

  “Ah, Wimsey. You want to see me? Not been waiting long, I hope. You’ve got a drink? It’s about this Comstock business, I suppose.”

  Wimsey nodded. “‘Fraid so, Sir Charles. Sorry to bother you, and all that.”

  “Oh, I’m getting used to it,” said Sir Charles, mixing himself a drink and dropping into a chair. “I’d better not be so unofficial as to say straight out that this is a fool idea of Brackenthorpe’s, calling the police off and all you other chaps on, but if it isn’t, I’d like to know what a fool idea is. All right, get on with your questions.”

  “I haven’t come to ask any questions, Sir Charles,” Wimsey said softly. “Ask, and it shall be answered unto you. I don’t want to be answered.”

  Sir Charles lifted his eyebrows. “Eh? Don’t get you, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m retiring from the case.”

  “Oh!”

  There was a grim little silence. Wimsey sipped his drink and stared straight ahead of him.

  Sir Charles said quietly:

  “Care to explain why?”

  “I don’t think I need, need I? We’ll say, if you like, that I prefer not to find out the truth.”

  ,’All!”

  “But it’s probable, you know,” Wimsey said gently,

  that someone else may. Dashed probable. And what I’ve really come for is to say that if there’s anything I can do. …

  “Ah,” said Sir Charles again, unhelpfully.

  There was another little silence. Wimsey was determined not to break it. He had said all he meant to say, and more quickly than he had expected; and if the other wanted to leave it at that, Wimsey was quite ready to do the same.

  “Am I to gather,” asked Sir Charles with some care, “that you consider the world well rid of Comstock?”

  “What I have found out,” Wimsey answered, with no less care, “makes me rather anxious not to find out any more.”

  Sir Charles took a sip of his whisky-and-soda. “You think I shot the fellow? “he asked, in a more conversational tone.

  “Oh no, I don’t. On the contrary, I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”

  “Then why all this hush-hush business?”

  Wimsey laughed. “Sorry if I’ve been turning melodramatic. Enter Wimsey, the Masked Bandit, disguised as a sleuth; fly, all is discovered. No, but seriously, sir, and without trying to butt in, I do hope that document’s safely destroyed.”

  “What document?”

  “The letter, or whatever it was, that you nicked out of the drawer in Comstock’s desk. A pretty smart piece of work, Sir Charles, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

  “Ah,” observed Sir Charles again, and lit a cigar rather elaborately. “You trying to pump me? “he asked, when the cigar was drawing nicely.

  “No. I told you, I’d retired from the case.”

  “Have you got any idea as to who shot Comstock? I’d rather like to hear it, if you have. Because, I can tell you, it beats me.”

  “Ah,” said Wimsey.

  Sir Charles glanced at him sharply. “Don’t believe that, eh?” “It doesn’t matter what one believes, does it?” Wimsey said evasively. “The point is, I don’t know.”

  Sir Charles shifted his position in his chair. “Look here, Wimsey, we’re talking at cross-purposes. You’ve evidently got some notion in your head, and I’m pretty sure it’s a wrong one. Anyhow, is this pow-wow official or not?”

  “If you mean, will anything you spill to me now go any farther, it won’t. But take my advice, sir, and don’t spill it.”

  “No,” said Sir Charles; “I think I will. I’m going to tell you something I deliberately kept back from Brackenthorpe; and I kept it back because I doubted very much whether he’d believe it, and in any case I didn’t see that it would help matters. The truth is, young feller, that I’m in a bit of an awkward position. I know that, of course; and I’m going to tell you this because it’s a case of who is not for me is against me, and you seem to be busy informing me that you’re among the pros. Anyhow, I’m going to let you in on what I actually saw happen; and if you can make anything of it, go ahead and do so-so long, of course, as you don’t give me away.”

  “I won’t give you away,” Wimsey promised gravely, “or Mrs. Arbuthnot. I thought,” he added, “that you’d better know that I know that.”

  “I was afraid it would come out,” said Sir Charles equably; but the sudden tightening of his fingers on the cigar showed what his voice was so careful to conceal.

  “So
far as I know, that piece of information is exclusive to me,” Wimsey soothed him.

  “Ah I Well, let’s hope it remains so. Betty’s had trouble enough already without getting mixed up in this business,” Sir Charles pronounced.

  Wimsey raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, but did not speak.

  “Anyhow, here’s what’s happened. I went down there that morning to get those letters out of Comstock, by hook or by crook. I needn’t go into details, but Comstock was about as low as they make ’em where women were concerned. And he’d got hold of these letters of-of someone whose name we needn’t bother about. She’d come here late the night before and told me the whole rotten story. She was pretty well desperate; just been having dinner with him, and he’d put things to her. Well, I knew there was no time to waste, so down I went the next morning. She insisted on coming too. I knew where the letters were; I think he’d told her, or she’d seen ’em; and I was quite ready to knock the fellow out, if I could, to get them.

  “Well, then, there was that trouble about seeing him at all. I tried to get rid of that secretary chap with a message to the car, but it didn’t come off—luckily, as it happened. Then, when I heard the Archbishop being shown out, I thought I’d better nip in and tackle Comstock before Mills could get busy again. I remembered the lie of the rooms at Hursley Lodge well enough to know that I could get into Comstock’s study without showing myself in the hall, so I waited till the voices died away, and then went through.

  “Comstock was standing by the window. He turned round when I came in from the office and looked a bit surprised, but said ‘hullo ‘civilly enough. I went straight to the point-told him he was a blackguard, and that I wanted those letters. He began sneering, and I was just on the point of going for him when suddenly he crumpled up without a word, and sort of slithered via the chair to the floor, upsetting it on top of him. I thought he’d had a stroke, and to tell you the truth I didn’t care what he’d had, because it had given me the chance to get those letters. The drawer was actually open, and the packet was lying on the top. I simply grabbed it, had a quick look out into the garden to make sure that no one had seen me through the window, and beat it back to the secretary’s office. I was trying to get through to the waiting-room, but my sleeve caught a tray of papers and crashed it on to the floor. While I was picking them up, the fellow came in. Luckily I must have pulled the study door to behind me. You know the rest. But I can tell you, Wimsey, when I heard in Brackenthorpe’s room that Comstock had been shot, it gave me a nasty moment. I simply hadn’t the faintest idea.”

  “Well, I’m dashed! “said Wimsey. “You know, Sir Charles, that’s an uncommonly interestin’ story.” He was trying to pick out the vital facts. One in particular stood out. “You say you looked out into the garden within a few seconds of Comstock’s crumpling up. Who was there?”

  “No one! That’s the astonishing thing. Comstock must have been shot from the garden. Everything goes to prove that. It was the left temple, wasn’t it? Well, that fits; he was standing sideways on to the window, facing me; his left temple was towards the garden. But I’ll swear that when I looked out there was nobody within sight except the gardener, and Betty just crossing the drive.”

  “Mrs. Arbuthnot was just crossing the drive?” Wimsey repeated innocently. “I wonder if she saw or heard anyone.”

  “No. I’ve asked her. She says she’d just walked on to the lawn, feeling anxious, and then decided that she had better not be seen, got in a bit of a panic and hurried back to the car. She swears, too, that there was nobody else in the garden. But she has got a vague notion that she might have heard a subdued crack as she was stepping on to the drive, because she remembers looking back at the gardener under the impression that he’d broken a rake or something.”

  “She was going away from the house when you saw her?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Ah,” said Wimsey. If Betty Arbuthnot had been crossing the drive fifteen seconds after Comstock had been shot, with the gardener between her and the house, then it was quite impossible that Betty Arbuthnot could have fired the shot. Of course Sir Charles might be shielding her, but on the whole Wimsey thought he was speaking the truth. “Here be mysteries,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you what I think, Wimsey. It wasn’t any of the people who are known to have been in and around the place that morning, who shot Comstock. The crime was carefully planned, and the murderer was hiding somewhere in the garden. He’s left no clue, nobody’s got the least idea who he was, and he won’t be found. And I for one shan’t be sorry if he isn’t.”

  “On the whole,” said Wimsey, “I’m inclined to agree with you.”

  He asked the other a few more questions, but could elicit nothing more that looked helpful. Now that his first theory seemed to be disproved, his investigating instincts were once more roused. He had told Sir Charles that he was retiring from the case, and so he would, officially; but perhaps unofficially he might still retain a paternal interest in it.

  “It’s lucky,” he remarked, “that you were so quick off the mark, isn’t it? Otherwise, as things turned out, you’d have lost those letters. Bis rapit qui cito rapit.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact it was on my way. I was going to Winborough that morning in any case. The by-election, you know. There was a big lunch-hour meeting that day, with Brackenthorpe speaking, and a lunch afterwards. I only had to start a bit earlier. The only trouble was putting Brackenthorpe off. His chauffeur was laid up and he wanted me to drive him down. Brackenthorpe hates driving himself. However, I managed to get out of it.”

  “And lucky you did,” Wimsey said, rising. “Well, Sir Charles, I can promise you none of this will go any farther, and thanks frightfully for marks of confidence and all that in telling me. I agree with you that the chap who shot Comstock was too cunning. I don’t think they’ll get him. No, I won’t have another drink, thanks.”

  It was past one o’clock when Wimsey got home, but Bunter appeared in the little hall almost before the latchkey had ceased to turn in the lock.

  “Bunter,” Wimsey said severely, “I keep telling you not to wait up for me when I’m late, but you will do it. Why won’t you obey me, Bunter? It makes things frightfully awkward for me, you know. Especially this evening, when every prospect pleases, and only Bunter’s vile.”

  “May I inquire, my lord, whether you have solved the Comstock mystery?”

  “Don’t talk like the title of a detective story, Bunter. No, not to say solved it. I had a theory, but it’s just died on me, I’m glad to say.”

  “Indeed, my lord?”

  “Yes, it was a nasty little theory. I never liked it. Nor did Miss Climpson. Have you got a Miss Climpson, Bunter, to take all your troubles to? You should have. What lasting joys that man attend, Bunter, who hath a polished female friend.”

  “So I have always understood, my lord,” said Bunter, mixing a whisky-and-soda from the tray which stood ready on the Sheraton table.

  Wimsey settled himself comfortably on the couch. “Well, it may interest you to hear that I’ve proved that Comstock wasn’t shot from the house, and he wasn’t shot from the garden. Therefore there’s only one place he could have been shot from, and that is the road. You’ve studied the plan of the place? Then you’ll have realized, as I didn’t, that it’s barely thirty feet from the house to the road. I stopped the car there this afternoon and had a peep over the wall. If I was a good shot with a revolver, which I’m not, I could have picked off anyone standing in the study window as easy as falling off a log. What do you think of that?”

  “I must admit, my lord, that it is a possibility which had already occurred to me after a perusal of the plan.”

  “It would have,” Wimsey said bitterly. “I have to go down there and run about with my nose to the ground, of course, to see anything so obvious; but you’re like one of those Austrian professors of criminology, who solve everything without moving out of their studies. Have you ever thought of emigrating to Austria, B
unter? They’d pay you good money there.”

  “I fear, my lord, that life among a foreign people would not suit me for long.”

  “Back flies the homing Bunter, like a swallow to its nest. Anyhow, it’s my belief that this is just what the murderer did. He stopped his car by that wall, waited till Comstock presented a nice easy target, and then pipped him neatly and drove off. Ha I” exclaimed Wimsey, “and I wonder if that’s why the policeman was on the wrong side of the road. I knew there was something significant in that, if only we could see what it was. Had that possibility occurred to you?”

  “No, my lord. I regret to confess that I had overlooked such an obvious conclusion.”

  “Don’t spoil it, just because I’m one up on you. Be generous, sweet Bunter, and let who will be wiser. They haven’t rung up from Winborough, have they? I’m very much afraid, you know, that when that policeman does recover consciousness, there won’t be any Comstock mystery left. If I am right, and the shooting did take place from the road, he probably saw the whole thing. Well, well, we can but wait. Not that it makes any difference to me. I’ve retired from the case.”

  “Indeed, my lord?” “Yes,I’ve decided that I don’t care who shot Comstock. I’m just rather glad that somebody did.” “I have always understood,” said Bunter, “that Lord Comstock was not a very nice gentleman.”

  At four o’clock in the morning Wimsey was roused from sleep. Standing by the bed, Bunter was shaking him respectfully, but with firmness.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord, but the Winborough police-station is on the telephone. Although you gave me to understand that you have retired from the case, I fancied that you would be interested to hear anything they may wish to impart.”

  “Yes,” said Wimsey, struggling with an enormous yawn. “After all, they don’t know I’ve retired, do they?”

  The news from Winborough was interesting. The constable had recovered consciousness and had been able to make a statement.