Ask a Policeman

by The Detection Club

  It was rather late in the evening when Roger got to Kensington. Dr. Slater had finished his day’s work and was, in fact, just sitting down to dinner. He was, however, kind enough to see Mr. Sheringham at once.

  “Scotney?” he said. “Oh, yes. An excellent servant and a most reliable man. I was very sorry to lose him, especially at a moment’s notice like that. But the wages were nearly double what I could afford to give him, and I didn’t want to stand in his way. I sincerely hope he’s not in any trouble.”

  Roger sincerely hoped that he was, but made a noncommittal reply, to the effect that Scotney’s employer had died suddenly, and left him out of a job.

  “Can you tell me what he was doing before he came to you?”

  “As a matter of fact,” replied the doctor, “I believe he had been some sort of a journalist.” “A journalist!”

  Roger’s ears pricked up. Like Job’s war-horse, he pawed the ground and said ha! in the midst of the trumpets.

  “He was a patient of mine,” went on Dr. Slater. “At that time I had a practice in a rather poor quarter of Islington, and Scotney was on my panel. He had had a very bad illness, poor chap-pneumonia, actually, but chiefly brought on by worry, semi-starvation and lack of clothes, and so on. His wife had died in child-birth just before. A very bad case. I gathered that he had been very badly treated.”

  Roger uttered a sympathetic croak.

  “I don’t know if you know anything about Fleet Street,” said the doctor, “but if you do, you’ll know how it can break a man’s strength and heart. It was all right in the old days, I dare say, but now, these great syndicates get hold of a young, promising man, work him till he drops, squeeze his brains dry, and throw him away like a sucked lemon. I’ve seen it happen scores of times. It doesn’t matter to them, they’can always get another man. The street’s full of these wrecks and ghosts-men who were pulling down their twenty, thirty, fifty pounds a week a year or two ago, and who’re thankful now to pick up a few shillings to write another man’s column for him. You may think I’m getting too worked up about it, but when I think of one or two good old friends of mine-well, never mind that. I was going to say that, knowing what the fate of a crocked-up journalist was likely to be, I got rather interested in Scotney. There wasn’t a lot I could do for him, for I’m not a rich man by any means, but when he said he’d done with journalism and was ready to take any sort of job, I told him that, if he knew how to drive a car, he could come and drive mine. He stayed three years with me, as I told you, and then he got a chance of a job at a much better wage, so I released him at once, naturally.”

  “Did he tell you whose house he was going to?”

  “I don’t think he did. He asked me for a reference, of course, and I gave him an open letter—you know—to whom it may concern ‘-that kind. Wait a moment. Somebody rang me up on the ‘phone afterwards. Who was it? Some name like Miller, no, Mills-that was it.”

  “You didn’t know, then, that Scotney had gone to Lord Comstock?”

  “Comstock? the newspaper man? No, I certainly didn’t. Why, that was the man who—”

  The doctor stopped abruptly, as though a hand had been clapped over his mouth.

  “Who—?” prompted Roger.

  “Who has just been murdered, I was going to say.”

  Roger received the impression that that was not at all what the doctor had been going to say. However, he replied:

  “Yes, that’s the man.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Dr. Slater. “Poor Scotney’s good job didn’t last very long, then. I wonder if he would come back to me. Or-I was forgetting—perhaps you have already made your own arrangements with him, Mr.-ah-Sheringham?”

  “I haven’t exactly fixed anything up yet,” replied Roger, “but I’m very much interested in your account of Scotney. Is Scotney his real name, by the way?”

  Dr. Slater shot a sharp glance at him. “No, it isn’t,” he said, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you the real one. I only learnt it because I was his doctor, and it would be a breach of professional confidence.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Roger. “I just wondered, that’s all. I suppose he wouldn’t care to ‘chauff’ under his own name, if it was at all well known.”

  “Probably that is so,” said the doctor in a non-committal tone.

  “It’s funny, though,” said Roger cunningly, “that he wasn’t afraid of Comstock’s recognizing him-to say nothing of his old pals on the staff. He would often have to drive Comstock up to the office.”

  The doctor was not to be caught.

  “If,” he said evenly, “Scotney’s duties ever did take him among his old Fleet Street pals, he would probably rely on the changes brought about by time and sickness, the disguising effect of the uniform, and the fact that people don’t expect their old pals to turn up again as chauffeurs.”

  “No doubt you are right,” said Roger. “You advise me to engage Scotney, then?”

  “I can only say,” replied Dr. Slater, “that I should be only too glad to take him back myself if he was available, and that nobody could wish for a better or more trustworthy servant.”

  Chief Inspector Moresby had hoped that his day’s work was ended. It had been long and tedious. The wretched Little Cadbury case had stretched out a tentacle and drawn him in, and his head ached, and he felt heartily sick of Scotland Yard. So that when Mr. Roger Sheringham was announced at close on eight o’clock, he felt that Heaven had created too many human beings, and that Mr. Roger Sheringham was the one too many.

  “Well, Mr. Sheringham,” he said, making a great bustle of pulling on an overcoat and taking his bowler hat from the peg, “you’ve just got here in time. Two minutes more, and I should have been away to my dinner, and high time too. Perhaps you’d do me the favour of stepping dong and having a bite with me.”

  “When you hear what I’ve got to say, Moresby,” said Roger, “you’ll forget all about your dinner. Take off that silly overcoat-you don’t want one on a night like this-and take a look here.”

  So saying, Roger proudly pulled out the handkerchief which distended his jacket-pocket, and, unwrapping it, displayed the pistol to Moresby’s astonished eyes.

  “Dear me, Mr. Sheringham,” said Mr. Moresby, “if that isn’t yet another of ’em! And where did you get that, if I might ask?”

  “You’ll be surprised when I tell you.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if I was, Mr. Sheringham. There’s a lot of surprising things about this case. In fact,” added Mr. Moresby in a ruminating tone, “the longer I live, the more I find that everything in this world is surprising.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” said Roger, who was in no mood for philosophy. “Is there anybody left in the finger-print department, Moresby?”

  The Chief Inspector summoned a myrmidon and instructed him to take the pistol away and examine it for finger-prints.

  “This, too,” said Roger, producing the photograph of Lady Phyllis Dalrymple which he had shown to Scotney. “You may find one or two of mine on it, but you needn’t bother with those.”

  “In that case, Mr. Sheringham, you had better let us have a set of your own, for comparison. If you were to run along with Brunton, now—”

  “We’ll both go along,” said Roger, taking Moresby affectionately by the arm. The Chief Inspector, seeing his dinner recede from him into a dim and hungry future, uttered a hollow groan, but yielded.

  Fortunately, finger-print men are quick workers. Before very long, Roger’s prints had been taken, the photograph and the pistol had been dusted with yellow powder, and photographic enlargements of all three results were laid, damp and shining, upon the table.

  “H’m! “said Moresby. “Looks as though somebody had had a shot at wiping the pistol, and not done it very thoroughly.”

  “That’s right,” said the finger-print expert. “He’s cleaned the stock, but forgotten the barrel. That’s a thumb, there, all right, and it isn’t Mr. Sheringham’s, either. Let’s have a look at the lady
; easy to look at, too. Who is she?”

  Chief Inspector Moresby whistled, and darted a sly glance at Roger.

  “She’s nothing to do with the case,” said Roger, airily. “I asked-a certain person to see if he could identify her; but, of course, he couldn’t.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Moresby, “if you took this photograph along for the purpose of getting finger-prints off it, it’s a pity you didn’t think to clean it first. It’s a regular what-you-call.”

  The photograph was, indeed, a regular palimpsest where finger-prints were concerned, but the expert was not much bothered by it.

  “Here’s your pistol bloke, all right,” he announced, *’ down here in the bottom corner, quite easy to recognize. Rather an unusual pattern, with a double loop.”

  “You’re sure of that? “asked Roger. He was swelling with pride and joy.

  “,Of course I’m sure,” said the finger-print man. “Quite unmistakable. Is that all? Or do you want us to consult the Habitual Criminals’ Register?”

  “No,” said Roger. “I don’t think you’ll find him there.”

  “And who is he, when he’s at home?” inquired Moresby. In spite of everything, he sounded impressed.

  “I don’t think I’ll tell you yet:” said Roger. “I still have one or two links of my chain to test. I expect to have these all fixed up by the morning, and then I’ll let you know.”

  “Very good, Mr. Sheringham. As you know, we’re always ready to help. And I must say,” added the Chief Inspector generously, “you’ve done remarkably well, sir, in finding this pistol.”

  “Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed,” said Roger, much gratified. “By the way, I want to keep the pistol overnight. 1’11 take care of it and not rub off the evidence.”

  “It doesn’t much matter if you do, sir, now we’ve got the record. Then 1’11 see you to-morrow, Mr. Sheringham?”

  “You will,” replied Roger patronizingly, “you will. And I think you will admit, Moresby, that amateurs occasionally discover something.”

  Early the following morning. Roger sought the palatial building which housed the Comstock Press, and on showing his card, was wafted aloft and deposited in the office of one Mr. Blundell Theek, chief crime reporter on the Daily Bugle. Mr. Theek was much interested in the pistol.

  “Yes,” he said, “it’s exactly like the one I got from Jimmy the Scrag. Funny the way they seem to keep turning up.”

  “How long have they been in use? I understand that the Sussex police captured one a couple of weeks ago at Lewes. races.”

  “Then you may be pretty sure,” replied Mr. Theek, with a grin, “that they’d been in the country sometime before the police got wise to it. They were about a week behind us, as they usually are, and I don’t suppose we exactly took delivery at the ports.”

  “Say a month or so?” suggested Roger.

  “Oh yes-I dare say there were several knocking about as long ago as that.”

  “That’s what I expected. Now, here’s another thing.” Roger produced the photograph of Scotney. “Dis-regarding the chauffeur’s uniform and all that, have you ever seen that man before? I’ve reason to believe he was knocking around Fleet Street some three or four years ago.”

  Theek glanced at the photograph, then at Roger, and then back at the photograph.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked in a changed tone.

  “Never mind that,” said Roger. “I see you do recognize it. Who is he?”

  Mr. Theek rang a bell without replying, and an elderly man came in.

  “Dawson,” said Mr. Theek, “do you know who this is?”

  “Why, of course I do,” replied Dawson. “That’s Mr. Hardy. I’ve often wondered what became of him. He’s altered a good bit, but I couldn’t possibly mistake him.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Mr. Theek. “All right, Dawson, that’s all we want.”

  “And who is Mr. Hardy?” demanded Roger, when Dawson had retired.

  “Hardy used to be in this department; replied Mr. Theek. “He was junior crime reporter to the Bugle for several years, and a jolly good one, too. I knew him slightly;I was in the news editor’s office then.”

  “Why did he leave you?”

  “Fell down on a story,” said Mr. Theek briefly. “I don’t think it was altogether his fault, but there you are, You know what Comstock was, Hardy made a bad gaffe and was fired. He was in a bad state of health at the time, and that put the lid on him, and he went all to pieces. It would be-let me see—four years ago, now. He hung about Fleet Street for six months or so after that, but you know how it is. Once a man gets a name for being unreliable, he’s done. Besides, he started to drink too much. Then he disappeared, and I haven’t seen him since. He was a nice fellow, and a first-class journalist.”

  “Was he making much money?”

  “Yes, pretty good, but he spent it all. Everybody does. I’m afraid journalists are like actors-they get a good job and think it’s going to last for ever. Still, you know, I always thought, between you and me, that Hardy wasn’t too well treated. Northcliffe wouldn’t have done it quite like that, but then those days were different. Nowadays it’s catch-as-catch-can. Make a mistake and out you go-there are hundreds more ready to snap up your job. I say, Mr. Sheringham, for God’s sake don’t let anybody know I’ve said all this. I don’t want to go the same way as Hardy.”

  “’Of course not; but there’s just one thing more. Did Hardy feel any personal resentment against Comstock?”

  “It’s not for me to say,” said Mr. Theek, “but if I had been Comstock, I’d have hated the thought of meeting ‘Hardy at night, in a dark alley and armed with a spanner.’”

  “So should I,” said Roger, “in his place. And yet, I’ve got evidence that he did meet Hardy,, time and again, and showed no particular apprehension—”

  “Very likely,” said Theek; “but he mightn’t have known him if he did see him. I doubt if Comstock would know me, though I’ve been a good many years on the staff. The Skipper was a great man, but he hadn’t the royal touch with him. I mean, he didn’t make a point of personally knowing everybody, from the chief sub. to the office-boy. His slogan was, ‘Show me a man’s work, and that’s all I want to know about him.’ I don’t think it’s as good a way as the other, but it has its points and it certainly saves time and trouble.”

  “He wasn’t perhaps the sort of man who’d take a friendly interest in his chauffeur, for instance?”

  “I don’t suppose he’d ever look at him, unless the fellow drove him into the ditch and he wanted to tick him off.”

  “That explains quite a lot,” said Roger.

  “So there, Moresby, is my case,” said Mr. Sheringham. “As I see it, it works out like this. This poor devil Hardy, cherishing his violent grievance against Comstock, sees an advertisement for a chauffeur at Hursley Lodge. He applies for the job, and gets it, thanks to Dr. Slater’s recommendation. He’d be interviewed by Mills, who had certainly never seen him before, and Comstock wouldn’t take very much notice of him one way or another. Before taking up the post, Hardy gets hold of this handy little pistol-probably from some crook or-other whom he got to know while he was on the crime-reporting job. He keeps it about him and bides his time.

  “Then, last Tuesday, for some reason, he boiled over; or he saw what he thought was a good opportunity, when all sorts of strangers were sculling round the place. He came into the house, in the ordinary way, at 1a.15. He heard Mills and Hope-Fairweather in the office, and knew that Littleton was in the drawing-room.”

  “How did he know that, Mr. Sheringham?”

  “Well, possibly he didn’t know it, but he would listen for a moment at the study door and find that all was quiet inside. Then he gently opened the door. If any-body had been there, he could always have apologized and gone away again. But he saw Comstock there alone. Possibly, when he went in, he didn’t intend to kill Comstock, but only, to have a row with him. But when he saw Comstock sitting there alone at h
is desk, he saw his opportunity and shot him dead. Then he hurriedly wiped the pistol, pushed it up on to the cornice over the door, and went innocently back to the kitchen. Emily didn’t see him; she was putting the forks and spoons away in the sideboard; Mills was occupied with Hope-Fairweather; Littleton, immediately afterwards, came through the concealed door, and found Comstock’s body. The whole thing needn’t have taken more than a minute. And that,” concluded Mr. Sheringham, “is my solution, and the finger-prints are there to prove it.”

  “Well, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” said Chief Inspector Moresby, “that’s all extremely ingenious. I think you are very much to be congratulated. It’s wonderful, the way you’ve worked it all out so quick.”

  “And you think it’s the truth, don’t you, Moresby?” A something in the Chief Inspector’s tone rang ominously in his ears, and filled him with an odd foreboding.

  “Well, Mr. Sheringham,” said Chief Inspector Moresby, “as regards its being the truth—”

  1 The pen-name, as is now pretty generally known, of that charming man, Mr. Percy Robinson. This distinguished writer took an important part in the unravelling of The Poisoned Chocolate Case, as will be ascertained on reference to the novel of that name, which work (since I did not write it myself) I have pleasure in recommending to lovers of detection. The author in Mr. Anthony Berkeley, a gentleman for whom I have the utmost esteem.

  INTRODUCTION TO PART III

  “DEAR JOHN RHODE,

   “Do you remember how you propounded a Problem to fit Arthur Barker’s title? Well, here are four solutions-and each of them selects a different Murderer.

  “I must say that the Solvers have been more than good-natured. Even if they have introduced a touch or two of parody, they have made their fellow-sleuths extremely ingenious. In fact it seems plain to me that each of the four solutions is the right one.