Case Without a Corpse (19 page)

“And you gave him back his letters?”

Smythe turned on Mrs. Walker. “That's you again,” she said. “What business was it of yours?”

But Stute was not going to allow arguments.

“Did you?” he repeated.

“Well, yes.”

“When?”

“Before we left
her
house.”

“What did he do with the letters?”

“Burnt them.”

“Where?”

“On that Common place. I made him stop. I was getting bumped to death on the back of that awful machine. I wasn't used to that sort of thing. If any gentleman has wanted to take me anywhere …”

“That'll do. So you stopped on the Common?”

“Just for a moment. There was nothing in it.”

“In what?”

“Oh, go on. You know what I mean. We only stopped for two ticks.”

“But long enough for him to burn the letters?”

“Yes. He put petrol over them. Well, he didn't want to go home with them in his pocket. Then he walked back to the motor-bike.”

“And rode into Braxham?”

“Well, not quite. He
would
wait just outside for a time.”

“Why was that?”

“Cheek, it was. He said he wanted to slip me up to the train at the last moment. He was carrying on, as I very well knew, with that dreary little Cutler piece, and I suppose he was afraid that she or her mother would hear of it.”

“Anyone come by while you were waiting?”

“No. I don't think so. Oh yes there was, though. A porter on a bicycle. Haven't you asked enough questions yet?”

“Not nearly. What happened next?”

“Nothing. He took me up to the station, and I caught the train.”

“And you come right up to London?”

“Of course I did. And glad I was to get back. I never could stand the country. All slush and muck everywhere. Can't keep your shoes decent two minutes.”

“Did Rogers say what he was going to do that evening?”

“He was meeting his girl, I believe.”

“He didn't say anything else?”

“Not that I can remember. Why? D'you think he told me who he was going to do in?”

“Did he say anything about his having been followed?”

“Followed. No. Not to me he didn't.”

“How much did he give you for the letters?”

“That's my business.”

“How much?” Stute's tone never changed.

“Really. I should like to know what business you've got coming here and questioning me like this.”

“How much?”

“Not much, really.”

“I'm waiting.”

“About £20.”

“About
£20?”

“Well, £20.”

“Where d'you suppose he got that from?”

“How should I know? Though he did say something about having sold some lottery tickets or something.”

“Did he say to whom he had sold them?”

“No.”

“Did he mention a men called Fairfax?”

“No. Not that I can remember.”

“Had you any idea that he was running drugs into the country.”

“No. Indeed I hadn't. I shouldn't have approved of that. Not drugs, I shouldn't.”

“Why did he stop and buy rope in Chopley?”

“To tie my attaché case on the carrier. It
was slipping about all over the place. I told him it was dangerous.”

“When you read in the papers that Rogers had murdered someone, who did you think it would be?”

“Hadn't the remotest. I know who I wish it had been,” she added with a glance at Mrs. Walker.

“You say you came up to town on the six o'clock train. What proof have you?”

“Proof? What do you mean? I did come up on that train.”

“What did you do when you got up here?”

“Went to see some friends of mine.”

“Name?”

“I don't see why I should drag them into this.”

“When I remind you that a murder was committed in Braxham that evening I think you'll understand that you had better explain your alibi—if you've got one.”

That seemed to startle the girl a little. “They were Miss Renée Adair, and Mrs. Wainwright.”

“Address?”

“Sixty-six Ararat Street, Covent Garden. Top flat. I was with Renée for the rest of the evening.”

“Have you been in this room long?”

“A few weeks.”

“Since that day, in fact. You found it advisable to change your address, instead of coming forward with what information you could.”

“I didn't want to be mixed up in it.”

“No. I don't suppose you did. And if everyone acted as you have our work would be twice as hard as it is now.”

“Can't help your troubles,” said Miss Smythe airily.

There was a pause, during which Stute seemed to be considering his future line of attack.

“Finished now?” asked Smythe. “I've got things to do, you know.”

“How did you get that £20 out of Rogers? Told him there was a baby, I suppose. All right. Don't answer.”

Another long pause, during which Mrs. Walker fidgeted irritably.

“Look here, Miss Smythe,” said Stute suddenly, in a more civil tone of voice, “I believe you when you say that you knew nothing about the murder. Now you won't hear any more of me after this if you'll do your best to help me now. Just rack your brains and see if you can think of anything else that might help us. Rogers left you, and went straight off, so far as we can make out, and committed a murder. Now tell us if you can remember anything he said or did that would help us.”

“I'm trying to think,” the girl replied. “Honestly I am. No, I really can't remember another thing. I was as surprised as everyone else when I read how he'd done for someone, and killed himself. He seemed full of beans that night.”

Stute rose. “Very well then,” he said, “we'll leave it at that.” And he turned to go.

I thought for a moment that there was going
to be some discordance between the two women, but both seemed to prefer an attitude of exaggerated hauteur to one of violence. Mrs. Walker made her exit royally, and Miss Smythe pretended to yawn again.

Not until we were in the car, and at her mercy, did Mrs. Walker release her pent-up feelings.

“There you are!” she said. “That's what comes of being good to anyone. And to think of that girl being alive the whole time! Deceitful, I call it. She might have told anyone and saved all that searching for her. And £20 too! If I'd have known she'd got all that, things would have been very different. But there you are. Well, now you know
she's
alive, so I suppose you've got to find out who was murdered.”

“Yes,” said Stute, “I have. And if you would be good enough to remain silent for a moment I might have a chance of concentrating what wits I have left on the subject.”

“There. That's a nice thing to say to anyone. And after I've come all this way to help you. Still, it's what one must expect from the police I suppose. I shall be glad when we're home.”

A
T
dinner that night Stute was in good spirits, but I fancied that there was irony in his amusement.

“Really,” he said, “this thing is going too far. It seems we have only to start enquiries for one of the people we supposed murdered, to find them safe and sound, and quite willing to tell us all they know. I've never had such a case. Do you know that for the first time in ten years I've been thinking of getting someone else in?”

“I don't think you should do that,” I said. “After all, it is narrowing down.”

“Narrowing down! I should think it was. It will fade away altogether soon. But what can I do? If I go to my chief and say I don't believe that anyone was murdered, he will instantly ask why young Rogers committed suicide. And whom he had stabbed with that knife. And whose blood it was. After all, even if nobody's dead, young Rogers believed there was. Where is that person?”

I sighed. “Don't ask me,” I begged, “I've been out of my depth from the beginning.”

“There is this about the facts that we've collected—they are gradually establishing the time of the murder. Now that we have found the girl it can be assumed that it was done
after Rogers left the Dragon at twenty to seven. I am going to concentrate everything on the next hour and a half—that is before he got back to confess to old Rogers at eight o'clock. I've instructed that constable….”

“Galsworthy, do you mean?”

Stute nodded irritably. “I've sent him to question the commissionaire and box-office girl at the Cinema, to see if they remember Molly Cutler waiting there at seven o'clock. And we'll go to-morrow to see the people living on either side of old Rogers's shop, in the hope of discovering whether young Rogers came in while his uncle was out between six-thirty and seven fifteen. But it's all hearsay. All reports from townspeople. Nothing to go on. Give me an honest murder with a body to it, and I'll find your man. A couple of bloodstained carpets and a telegram from Bournemouth, and we'll have a hanging. But damn it—where are you in a thing like this? It doesn't need a detective but a fortune-teller, or a water-diviner, or a medium.”

“You know very well you're enjoying it,” I said.

“Well, it's unusual. But they're getting a bit impatient at the Yard. They need me in this Rochester affair.”

“You've still got the foreigner,” I reminded him, “and Mr. Sawyer's brother.”

“And a thousand other people who haven't been seen lately. I dislike the idea of even making enquiries about the publican's brother. It will make a fool of me, because no one would
believe afterwards that I wasn't certain it was he. And also because I don't want to be the one who sends that poor devil back to his wife. I'm a married man myself.”

“And so?”

“So we must just go on hammering away. Collecting facts and sorting them out. At any rate we have established that it was
not
Fairfax and
not
the girl, who was murdered.” And again he smiled somewhat bitterly.

Next morning several reports had come in. Fairfax's alibi was in order. The shop at which he had bought the two hand-bags was able to find the purchase in their books for that Wednesday, and a record of their having been sent to Hammersmith that night. The assistant even claimed to recognize the photograph shewn him. The barmaid at the Sword on the Cross remembered the incident referred to by Fairfax and on seeing his photograph said that he often came in. But she could not, of course, fix the date. However, since Fairfax had been at Brax-ham for some days before, and had, presumably, gone to France the morning after, this added weight to his story. The most concise and satisfactory confirmation came from the Flintshire Hotel, who remembered Fairfax and had a record of his having stayed there that night under the name of Fortescue.

“Nice 'ow it all fits in,” commented Beef.

“I think we can take it as proved,” Stute admitted more dryly.

Then Galsworthy had to tell us that both the commissionaire and the box-office clerk at
the Cinema clearly remembered Molly Cutler having waited about in the foyer for “at least an hour” on the day of the suicide, and had often commented on it since. Galsworthy was about to go into details of how upset she had been when Stute cut him short and dismissed him.

“'E's a decent young fellow,” Beef said. “Ts trouble is 'e keeps too much to 'imself. Never gets among the other fellows. 'Owever, wot with this training….”

“There are more important matters to be discussed, Beef, than the idiosyncrasies of your assistant. Have you done as I asked you and questioned the various garages where Rogers might have bought petrol?”

“Yessir. 'E 'ad some in at Timkins's near the station at some time just before three, but that's all.”

“Very well. And now we will go round and see the people living beside old Rogers's shop, to see whether they remember hearing the motorbike that night.”

The houses of the High Street were old, and as so often happens behind the clearly divided shop fronts, the living quarters were chaotically arranged. The yard of one house would be set behind the back windows of another, while behind a lock-up shop would be the whole of a dwelling-house which was reached by a passage running down beside it.

We went first to old Rogers himself, who left his workshop to show us where his adopted nephew had kept his motor-bike. Between
Rogers's shop and the next, a dingy furniture store, was a public passage leading right through to another street, and in the wall of this was a wooden doorway into Rogers's back-yard.

“He had fixed that door with a spring catch behind it, and a Yale lock, so that when he went out on his bike he left the latch of the lock up, and when he came back he had only to kick the door and it would stay open for him. You can see the place on the paint-work where he used to kick it. Then he could ride right in, across the yard, and into that shed, where he kept it. It was a heavy machine, and he didn't like wheeling it,” old Rogers explained.

“Very ingenious,” said Stute. “But noisy for you if you were sitting in your room behind the shop.”

“Oh, we didn't mind that,” said old Rogers with a smile. “We were used to noise when he was about.”

“I see. So that if, when he came in at eight o'clock that evening, he had come on his motorbike, you would certainly have known it?”

“Oh yes. But I'm sure he didn't. Unless by any chance he wheeled it in on purpose. Even if he'd ridden it up the passage I should have noticed, because it used to resound between those two walls.”

“So that I am to understand that he came in on his motor-bike between half-past six and seven while you were out, and then went out again on foot?”

“That's what it certainly looks like. His bike was in the shed next morning, anyway.”