Case Without a Corpse (15 page)

W
E
must have covered about eight miles at a very fair speed before either of us spoke. The evening had darkened and one could see little more than the shining surface of wet tar ahead of us. I had momentarily forgotten our problems as I thought of the dingy little Rector and his wife.

“Do you still think our visit to Long Highbury wasted?” Stute asked suddenly.

“Well, we don't seem much forrader,” I returned. “All we know now is that the Free-mans went from there to France.”

“You are really a splendid foil, Mr. Townsend. I wish you had taken it into your head to describe one of my cases, instead of Beef's.”

I thought this rather rude. “Do you know so much more?” I asked.

“I certainly
don't
know that the Freemans went from Long Highbury to France. But I
do
know why they went to Long Highbury. And I've a pretty good idea of how to get hold of them, or of her, now.”

“Remarkable, I'm sure,” I snapped with sarcastic incredulity. “If you've learnt all that from our interview in that very unventilated room, I congratulate you.”

“My dear Townsend, surely you must see for yourself? Here we have a known criminal,
a man engaged in an extremely remunerative traffic which may bring him at any moment under arrest. He suddenly, under a new name, goes down to the country and takes a cottage, explaining rather vaguely that he is a retired accountant of sorts. He takes care to make friends with the Rector, and to support him rather lavishly in any appeal he may make. Then he casually decides to go abroad, and gets the Rector to sign his application for a passport. What is the inference?”

I shrugged.

“Well, he was arranging what the Americans call a hideout. He was planning for a rainy day. When trouble arose he, Ferris or Fairfax, whom nobody had reason to associate with a Mr. Freeman who once lived at Long Highbury, would have a perfectly authentic passport ready for him. And it was the
only
way he could get that passport. The office does not, except in certain cases, confirm details of birth, etc., given to them. Provided the application is signed by a responsible person, they issue the passport. So that our friend spent six months of his life in preparing for the dangerous moment when he would want to vanish. And vanish he could, completely. I have often wondered why more criminals don't take this simple precaution. It may be the church-work which puts them off.”

“Good Lord! You really think….”

“I am certain of it. Why else did Ferris-Fairfax-Freeman spend that time in a village with that sort of parson? Why else? And we know that he got his passport, and having got
it, disappeared leaving no address which quite distressed the Rector and his wife who thought him ‘charming.'”

“Clever idea. He must have been a pretty deep sort of blackguard.”

“Yes. Or corking for one. I'm inclined to agree with our friend in Buenos Aires about a ‘big power' behind this somewhere. Our record of Ferris was of a fairly ordinary type of criminal.”

“But you said that you had an idea as to where he is now, if he's still alive. What is that?”

“His passport was made out for France, and France only. I imagine his reason for having that was an idea of his, possibly mistaken, that an application for a passport for France only would not be scrutinized as carefully as one for all countries in Europe. Remember that if the Passport Office had taken it into their heads to ask for a birth certificate, he was sunk. Anyway, presuming that he used that passport he has gone to France, and to get any further he would have to apply to a British Consul.”

“That's true.”

“So that if we apply to the French police, and at the same time notify our consulates in France, there is a good chance of coming up with him. Always, of course, providing that he's still alive.”

“You're quite right, of course. How you people cover the loop-holes.”

“Just a matter of being a little bit methodical, and not neglecting any chance of gathering
information. You see? That was why I went to Long Highbury. It was a chance—and it has come off. Meanwhile, Ferris-Fairfax-Freeman, if he
is
alive, can have no idea that we have linked him with Long Highbury. Why should he? It was a hundred to one against that woman in the basement noticing what firm had moved him. Only the invincible curiosity of people who live in houses that are divided into flats about the inhabitants of other strata, happened to come to our rescue. A little luck, and a lot of care! That's detection.”

After that we drove on in silence for a time. My conscience was pricking me a little in the matter of Sergeant Beef. After all, it had been as his friend that I had first been introduced to the case, and I had neglected him disgracefully. But Stute was more interesting to watch. His keen, forceful mind, his habit of pigeonholing all his information with infinite care, his unhurried but resolute progress, his swift trained senses, were so obviously superior to the ponderous calculations of Beef that I was beginning to doubt the Sergeant.

However, I said to myself, as we eventually approached Braxham, perhaps my old friend may have unearthed some useful information for Stute during our absence. He would at least have plodded on with his search.

At the police station Constable Galsworthy was waiting for us.

“Sergeant Beef asked me to go and fetch him when you arrived, sir,” he told Stute. “I understand he has something to report.”

“Where is he?” the Inspector asked, with the asperity he always showed to this constable.

“He told me to tell you, if you should ask, sir, that he would be prosecuting some of the enquiries you had suggested.”

“Oh yes,” said Stute, unable to repress his grim smile. “All right. I'll wait here.”

We sat down and smoked in silence, both of us very tired. It must have been a quarter of an hour later that Beef hurried in, perspiring slightly, but quite pleased with himself.

“Well, Beef?” said Stute at once.

“You're a marvel, sir!” said the Sergeant loudly. “'Ow you can 'ave known I can't make out.”

“Known what?” asked Stute rather coldly.

“Why, that I should get that information from Sawyer wot you told me to go for.”

Stute nodded. “What is it?”

“Well, 'e didn't want to say nothink at first. But seeing that you'd told me to go an' cross-examine 'im again, I knew there must be some-think 'e could tell. Besides, I could see in 'is eye 'e was 'iding it. So I kep' on at 'im. And after a lot of questioning 'e outs with it.”

“What?” asked Stute impatiently.

“Why about 'is brother, sir.”

“His brother? Sawyer's brother? What about him?”

“Don't you know, sir? I thought you must 'ave to 'ave sent me down there. Why, 'e's disappeared. Clean vanished.”

Stute groaned. “Not another murderee!” he begged.

“I'll tell you wot 'e told me. This 'ere brother of 'is is married. And when I say married—well, she's a reg'lar Tartar. You know, takes 'is wages orf 'im an' all that. If 'e so much as goes near a pub she's arfter 'im. I've seen 'er myself when she's been over 'ere with 'im at the Dragon. Really narsty she gets.”

Stute sighed. “They didn't live here?” he asked wearily.

“No, sir. Ower at Claydown.”

“How far away is that?”

“It'd be about fifteen miles. It's the best shopping centre round here. Sawyer's brother was a painter and decorator with a little business of 'is own. 'E'd of got on nicely if it 'adn't been for that wife of 'is.”

Stute's eyes were closed, but Beef wasn't to be hurried.

“On that Wednesday 'e came in to the Dragon….”

“Time?” said Stute.

“I was coming to that. Round about seven o'clock. Not long after young Rogers 'ad gone out. And he calls 'is brother aside. ‘Fred,' 'e says, ‘I've run away.' ‘Run away?' says Sawyer. ‘Yes,' 'e says, ‘from 'er.' ‘Good Lord!' says Sawyer, not 'ardly blaming 'im, you understand, but took aback all the same. ‘What you going ter do?' 'e asks. ‘Well,' says 'is brother, ‘she's got the business. She'll keep the two men on and do just as well as if I was there.' Sawyer said 'e could quite believe that. But what 'is brother wanted was for 'im to lend 'im some money. See, she wrote all the cheques
an' that. 'E couldn't draw nothink without 'er. See?”

“And did he?” sighed Stute.

“Yes. Ten quid 'e lent 'im. And 'is brother promised to write to 'im. 'E'd left a note for 'is wife, saying 'e couldn't stick the sight of 'er no more.”

“That wasn't very polite,” remarked Stute.

“Well, if you'd of seen 'er, sir! Anyway, off 'e goes.”

“What time?”

“Sawyer couldn't say for certain, but it must of been about an hour after 'e come in.”

“I
see. Well, what do you expect me to do about it?”

Beef seemed taken aback. “You arst me to find out from Sawyer….”

Stute stood up. “All right, Sergeant. I'm sure you did your best. But I really don't see why you should expect me to be interested in Mr. Sawyer's lost brother. I don't suppose he even
knew
young Rogers?”

“A certain amount, 'e did, anyway.”

“Still, even knowing him scarcely seems a reason to be murdered, does it?”

Beef looked sulky. “Well, there you are. I done what you said. And I told you the result.”

“Thank you, Beef,” said Stute, icily. And the meeting was adjourned.

D
AYS
passed again without further revelations. At this point I really began to wonder whether it ever would be discovered whom Rogers had murdered. If Beef's story of Sawyer's brother was to be taken seriously there were now four possibilities. The whole thing was nightmarish, and I was reminded of the time when, a frightened preparatory schoolboy, I used to wake up and find myself trying to work out on my pillow the mathematical problems set in class.

The worst of the case was that nothing seemed absolutely certain. There were probabilities, possibilities, theories, but nothing that one could get hold of.

And then one morning came an event which eliminated one of the possibilities, and at the same time gave new hope of a solution. It was a windy clear day in March, and there were snow-drops in the Braxham gardens, and the first indications of Spring, I remember. And Beef, instead of looking dull and liverish, seemed jovial that morning, and gave a twirl to his moustache instead of sucking it peevishly.

“They've found 'im,” he said excitedly. “This 'ere Fairfax.”

“You mean … his body? It
was
Fairfax?”

“No!” Beef's negative was drawn through a
series of vowels. “Alive an' kicking. Very much alive, I should think. 'E's in Paris.”

Stute, less emotionally, confirmed the news.

“He went to our consulate in Paris,” he said. “It appears that he wanted to move on to Switzerland. We have his address in Paris, and the French police are watching him in the meanwhile. His wife is with him.”

“What will you do next?”

“Run across,” said Stute. “I'm taking Beef with me.”

“Taking me?” gasped Beef. “Wotever for?”

“You know the man. I never trust a photo for identification. I want someone with me who knows him by sight.”

“Gor! ‘N've I gotter goter France?”

“You'd better be ready in half an hour. We must catch the mid-day boat.”

Beef didn't seem able to take it in. “I don't know wot my wife'll say. Me going to Paris. I 'aven't been over since the War.”

“Well, you're going now. Hurry up and change.”

Beef blundered out of the room as though he were dazed.

“Only way,” explained Stute sharply, as though he were trying to convince himself as well as me. “Must have someone who knows the fellow.”

I was, let me confess, wondering whether I should join them. I had been in Braxham just three weeks now, and had seen this case from the beginning. There were no claims on my time, and it really seemed that having stayed
through all these preliminary routine enquiries I ought to follow the thing through to its climax. Besides, there was an element of the grotesque about this proposed expedition which appealed to me. Beef in Paris! The idea was enticing. And Fairfax, after all, was the person whose information would be most likely to be both surprising and useful.

“Would you mind if I came?” I asked Stute.

“Funny chap you are. You weren't anxious to come to Long Highbury because you didn't think it would produce anything. Yet for this, which is far more likely to be a wild goose chase, you're keen. Come if you like, by all means. Only don't be disappointed if it turns out not to be our Fairfax at all. Or if he won't speak. Or if his information, after all, is valueless. I shouldn't be surprised, you know.”

“I won't be disappointed,” I promised.

“But how can you spare the time to follow us round? Don't you ever
do
anything?”

“I write detective novels,” I admitted.

Stute made a curious and I thought rather hostile sound with his lips.

But soon we were tearing across country to catch the mid-day boat. There was a pale blue sky and sunlight which, at least after the winter months, seemed quite warm. And at last we were going somewhere, doing something. I felt really happy.

Beef seemed to feel the same. “This ain't 'arf a lark,” he said, “is it? I mean, 'ere we are off to Paris. It don't seem possible.”

Stute made no reply, apparently concentrating on the road.

“You think, then, Sergeant, that the information we shall get from Fairfax'll clear things up, do you?”