Eternity Ring (12 page)

Several things happened that afternoon. For one thing, the weather broke in a violent downpour which came on just after Mrs. Caddie had put on her hat and coat and shut the door of Rectory Cottage behind her. She had laid Miss Grey’s tea and left her supper in the larder. The first few heavy drops came spattering down as she latched the garden gate, and then, before she had gone twenty yards, the clouds opened and the rain came down. For a few minutes she stumbled on. Then even the state of dazed misery which for the past ten days had sealed her off from human contact was penetrated by sheer physical discomfort. She had neither umbrella nor waterproof. The rain ran into her eyes and down her neck, heavy as a thunder-plump, and of an icy, searching cold. She turned round and ran back to the cottage, her feet splashing in the wet.

It was about this time that Chief Inspector Lamb, Inspector Smith, and Sergeant Abbott were looking at the fingerprints obtained from Grant Hathaway and Mark Harlow. Frank Abbott was experiencing some relief. Whoever it was who had been meeting Mary Stokes at the Forester’s House, it was not Grant Hathaway—neither was it Mark Harlow.

Lamb grunted.

“That doesn’t get us any forrarder. What about their movements?”

Smith’s fresh-coloured face, never what would be called mobile, now assumed a rather more wooden expression than usual. He had not enjoyed his visit to Deepside, and he did not enjoy having to retail it now. He had wished very heartily that anyone else might have done his errand. If it had been a case of marching into the house and arresting Grant Hathaway—well, he hoped he knew his duty. But to ring the front door bell and ask a gentleman for his fingerprints, it was no use denying it was a bit awkward. The awkwardness was in his voice as he explained himself to the Chief Inspector.

“Well, sir, I started at Deepside, and Mr. Hathaway wasn’t there. Seems he’d been away for the week-end.”

Lamb sat up and took notice.

“The week-end—eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did he go?”

“Well, not till the Sunday morning. Breakfast at eight, and off in his car by eight-thirty. That would be just about the time Mary Stokes’ body was found.”

Lamb grunted.

“Mean anything by that?”

“No, sir. At least what I meant was that he couldn’t have known anything about her being murdered—unless—”

“Unless he did it himself—is that what you’re getting at?”

If Smith’s countenance had lent itself to expression, he would at this point have looked shocked. He said stiffly,

“It was not my intention to make any insinuations. I was merely pointing out that Mary Stokes’ body was not found until well after eight, and the body of Louise Rogers was not discovered in the Forester’s House until the Sunday evening. Such being the case, and Mr. Hathaway being absent from eight-thirty on Sunday until half past eleven this morning, there was nothing unbelievable in his not knowing what had been happening here.”

Frank Abbott saw his Chief’s colour deepen. Smith was beating about the bush, and it was not a pastime which commended itself.

“Oh—he said he didn’t know, did he?”

Smith’s solemn gaze rebuked him.

“Well, it was this way. I got there about twenty-five past eleven, and the housekeeper opened the door to me herself. She said Mr. Hathaway went away Sunday morning and wasn’t back yet. Then while she was saying it he drove up, so I asked if I might have a word with him, and he took me into the study. Rather short in his manner, and wanting me to see he was busy. ‘Well, what do you want?’—that’s the way he spoke— a bit off-hand, I thought. And somehow that’s where it struck me that he wouldn’t know what had been happening whilst he was away. I thought I wouldn’t say anything unless he did, so I put it we were making an inquiry about unauthorized use of the Forester’s House and it would be helpful to us to have the fingerprints of those who lived along the Lane, and also an account of their movements so as to get a check on who had been about on the Friday and Saturday evenings, January eighth and ninth. Mr. Hathaway gave a sort of laugh and said, ‘There’s some cock-and-bull story that girl Mary Stokes has cooked up, isn’t there?’ So I said, ‘That’s what we’re inquiring into,’ and he laughed again and said he supposed we had to find something to do.”

Lamb didn’t laugh.

“Said that, did he?”

“Yes, sir. So then I asked him if he had any objection to having his fingerprints taken, and he said he hadn’t. But when it came to his movements, well, it wasn’t so good.”

He produced a notebook and read aloud:

“ ‘Friday, January 8th—Mr. Grant Hathaway states he left his house about 5 p. m. and returned to it some time later in the evening. Says he was walking, and doesn’t know what the time was.’ ” He looked up and met Lamb’s stare apologetically. “I didn’t know if you would want me to press him. I was by way of asking him whether he had met or seen anyone up and down the Lane.”

“By way of being tactful?”

“Well, yes. If I may say so, Mr. Hathaway isn’t the easiest person to question.”

“Put the wind up you?”

Smith changed colour.

“I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t find him very co-operative.”

Sergeant Abbott, who was sitting chin in hand looking down at the fingerprints, was suddenly impelled to slide the hand up so that it covered his lips. The Inspector’s euphemism tickled him, and euphemisms of superior officers must not be allowed to tickle a sergeant in the middle of an official interview—at least not obviously.

Lamb had no inclination to laugh.

“What about the staff?”

“No good at all. There’s an old lady that’s been housekeeper there thirty years—Mrs. Barton. She doesn’t have a regular day off, but on that Friday, the eighth, she’d gone down to the village to have supper and spend the evening with the postmistress. And the house-parlourmaid, Agnes Ripley, that generally goes out on a Saturday, she’d changed her day and gone into Lenton, coming back on the bus that gets in at ten to nine. Well then, she went round to the post office, put in a few minutes talking, and walked home with Mrs. Barton. Neither of them noticed the time, but it would be all of half past nine when they got in. Cold supper had been left for Mr. Hathaway, and he had had it, but they didn’t see him. They went to bed about half past ten, and heard him come up half an hour later.”

Lamb grunted.

“Louise Rogers was probably killed round about five o’clock— the medical evidence says between three and four hours after her last meal. We don’t know where she had that meal. She may have brought food from London and eaten it in the car, or we may find someone who noticed her at a restaurant. There’s not much doubt she came down here to find this man who had stolen her diamonds. She thought she had a clue to his whereabouts in the envelope which the porter gave her at the Bull. If she had taken Mr. Ferrand’s very sensible advice and turned the whole matter over to the police, she’d be alive today. I’ve nothing against women in general, but there’s no getting away from it, they get into a lot of trouble through thinking they can do things better than the people whose job it is. This is just another case that proves it. Well now, here’s this woman, with a name and address on an envelope. Say for argument that it was Mr. Grant Hathaway’s name and address. She’s got to find the house. Houses in the country don’t have names on the gates. She’s got to ask her way—she isn’t going to find it by instinct. We’ve got to find the person who told her how to get to Deepside—if it was Deepside. We’ll get the B.B.C. to give us a hand there. Starting on the assumption that the man we’re looking for is Mr. Hathaway, how do the times fit? He goes out of his house about five, and he doesn’t say when he comes back to it. The first we really know of his being back is the housekeeper and the house-parlourmaid saying they heard him come up to bed at eleven o’clock. So far as any evidence to the contrary goes, he had six hours to play with… What about Mr. Harlow?”

Inspector Smith went back to his notebook. The word which had tickled Frank Abbott occurred again almost immediately.

“Mr. Harlow was very co-operative—very pleasant and anxious to do what he could to help. On the Friday, he says, he was working at his composing—he writes songs, you know. He says he was working on one that wouldn’t come right, and in the end he went out to get some air and clear his head a bit. He says he didn’t notice the time. It wasn’t dark yet, but getting on that way, which would put it at between five and half past. He says he came out of his back gate into the Lane and walked straight up the Lane across the main road, and on up the Lane past Deepside. He says as far as he knows he didn’t meet anyone.”

Lamb growled.

“What does he mean, ‘as far as he knows’?”

“I asked him that, and he said his head was full of this song of his which he couldn’t get right, and he might have met anyone or passed anyone and not noticed.”

Frank Abbott murmured, “Our old friend the artistic temperament.”

Smith nodded.

“That’s about the size of it. Well, he says he went on walking till he saw the lights of Lenton. Then he thought he might as well go on. He turned into the Empire cinema, saw the picture, had a snack in the café, and walked back, getting in about ten.”

“What about the staff? What has he got?”

“Mother and middle-aged daughter—very respectable—name of Green. They say he rang up from Lenton to say he was having something to eat there. They heard him come in about ten. Mrs. Green says it wasn’t anything out of the way his going off like that when his music went wrong. She says they were used to it.”

Lamb leaned forward.

“What time did he ring up?”

“Well, it was after half past eight, but not much. Mrs. Green says it was just on the half hour the last time she looked at the clock, and it wouldn’t be much after that.”

“H’m. Then as far as time goes, your co-operative Mr. Harlow could have done the job just as well as Mr. Hathaway. Both these men served in the Army, I take it. Either of them in France in ’forty?”

“I believe so.”

Lamb turned to his sergeant.

“Know anything about that?”

“Hathaway was in the retreat at Dunkirk. He was attached to the Blankshires—taken prisoner—did a bolt and got away west. I don’t know about Harlow in detail, but I believe he was in France during the retreat. There was something said about it the other day.”

“Either of them ever serve with Commando troops?”

“Hathaway did—got a D.S.O.”

“Either of them got a mark or a scar on the right hand?”

Frank Abbott began to say, “I don’t know—” and then stopped, because all at once he saw, not Grant Hathaway’s right hand, but his left, with a thin white scar running between the knuckles of the first and the second fingers. And Lamb had got it wrong. It wouldn’t be the right hand—he’d have the torch in his right hand and be rummaging in the suit-case with his left. Or would he? With a shrug he concluded that it might be either way, and said so.

Lamb merely grunted. Smith said in a tentative voice,

“Mr. Hathaway has an old scar on his left hand. Mr. Harlow has a strip of sticking-plaster across the back of his right—says he caught it on some barbed wire.”

Lamb shifted in his chair, turning his heavy body to face Smith again.

“Well, as I said, either of the two could have murdered Louise Rogers, driven her car to Basingstoke, and caught that train back to Lenton. There’s nothing to show that either of them did it, and nothing to show that they didn’t. They had the opportunity, and either of them might have had the motive. That’s as far as we’ve got. And so much for Friday the eighth. Now we come to Saturday the ninth—the day Mary Stokes ran screaming into Rectory Cottage to say she’d seen a corpse. I think we may take it now that she did see what she described, and that the place where she saw it was either inside or just outside the Forester’s House. She was meeting someone there, and she seems to have stumbled on the murderer moving the body to the cellar, where he meant to bury it. Well, I suppose it struck you both that it isn’t so likely the murderer was the chap she was going to meet. You don’t make an appointment with a girl and then bring a murdered body along. That’s one thing. And here’s another. Whoever the murderer was, he knew that cellar was there. You didn’t find it for more than a week, and you wouldn’t have found it then if it hadn’t been for something about the cellar turning up in an old book and Miss Silver getting hold of it. But this chap didn’t have to wait and scratch his head—he knew the cellar was there. We had to chop down the panelling to find the door, but he didn’t have to so much as scratch it— he knew the trick. And that means one thing, and one thing only. It means a local man, or a man that’s in a position to tap local knowledge. That would go for Mr. Grant Hathaway, and for Mr. Harlow too. Either family might have a copy of the old Rector’s book—” He swung round on Frank. “Know if either of them did?”

“Old Mr. Hathaway had one, I believe. They were probably pretty well sprinkled about the neighbourhood.”

Lamb nodded.

“What I said.” He turned back to Smith. “Now what about Saturday the ninth? What were these two gentlemen doing between five-thirty and, let us say, six-thirty to seven o’clock?”

Smith hesitated.

“Well, I put the question rather in a roundabout way, and I didn’t press it. Mr. Hathaway says he started out on a bicycle to go down into Deeping about ten minutes past four. I asked if he saw anyone in the Lane—casually, if you take my meaning— and he said he had a few words with Mrs. Hathaway, who was out with her dogs.”

Lamb’s eyebrows rose.

“His wife?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seems funny to me. Separated, aren’t they? Well, he had a few words with his wife and went on down into Deeping.”

“No, sir, he says he changed his mind and went home.”

“H’m—bit of a queer start. Did he go out again?”

“He says not, sir. Says he had tea, and then wrote letters and did accounts in his study. But of course nobody would know whether he went out or not. The maids wouldn’t disturb him.”

“And Mr. Harlow?”

“He says he had tea at home, played the piano for a bit, and then went out for a short walk—says he didn’t look at the clock, so he doesn’t know what time it was. He says it’s what he does most evenings when he’s at home. He says he went out by his front gate, so he wasn’t anywhere near the Lane. He didn’t meet anybody.”