Suspects—Nine (16 page)

“Very good, sir,” said Bobby, a little bitterly as he thought of that scarcely-diminished pile of official forms on his desk and reflected that, apparently, it was considered that his time was quite unoccupied.

He found Holland Kent in the room where he was waiting, giving a very fair imitation of a tiger pacing its den as it waited for dinner. He paused in his walk— prance might have been a more appropriate word—and glared at Bobby. Bobby put on his most amiable smile, the one that Olive said always made her reach for her engagement ring to throw it at his head.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “I understand you have some information with regard to the Weeton Hill murder. I am sure the South Essex police who are dealing with the matter will be most grateful for any help—”

But here Mr. Kent erupted—the really appropriate word this time.

“I'm not here to help,” he thundered. “It is none of my business. I am here to complain.” He paused and looked hard at Bobby. “Haven't I seen you before?” he said more mildly. “Weren't you at Mrs. Tamar's the other day?”

“You have a good memory for faces,” observed Bobby.

“Not so bad, I never forget a face,” agreed Holland Kent, evidently pleased. “People like it if one remembers them. Satisfactory to find one is talking to a gentleman here.”

“Not me,” said Bobby hurriedly. “I'm a policeman.”

Holland Kent waved this aside.

“A gentleman is always a gentleman,” he declared. “He knows what is due to a lady, for instance.”

“Mr. Kent,” said Bobby gravely, “here we do not deal with ladies and gentlemen but with men and women.”

“Who are first of all,” retorted Holland Kent even more gravely, “ladies and gentlemen—English ladies and gentlemen,” he added to make it more impressive, and Bobby understood that Holland Kent's reputation rested largely on his complete inability to understand any point of view but his own and a consequent complete self-confidence ensuring a general acceptance in a world where it is often better to be certain and wrong than hesitant and right.

“I do not know,” continued Holland Kent after a short, impressive pause, “if I am seriously suspected of murdering the butlers of any friends, but I have been—Questioned. I do not object to that in the least, of course,” said Holland Kent in a voice that indicated he objected very much indeed, “but when I explain that I was dining that evening with a friend, I do object to being pressed to give names. I will not bring any friend of mine into such a matter or subject them to police inquiries. As a gentleman, I decline, and I wish it to be understood I should like you to make it quite clear to your superiors—”

“I am so sorry,” interrupted Bobby, “but I am afraid there is a misunderstanding. No inquiries have been made from here. The South Essex police are handling the case, not us.”

Mr. Holland Kent waved this aside. Bobby had the impression that he often waved difficulties and objections aside and, no doubt, thus waved aside, they often settled themselves—or were settled by other people. An intense respect for Holland Kent developed in Bobby's mind, he was so evidently of the type that commands success and at once it comes, for success is of a feminine type and loves to be bullied.

“I have preferred to come to you,” Holland Kent went on, “rather than to take legal steps or to use my influence in circles that are-not without importance. If necessary, I shall arrange for an interview with the Home Secretary.”

All Bobby's sympathies went out to the Home Secretary, at least if that gentleman had one-half as many official forms waiting to be dealt with as still encumbered Bobby's own desk.

“We,” he said slowly and clearly, trying to put it in words of one syllable, so to speak, “have nothing to do with the case. The South Essex police alone are responsible. I should suggest your consulting your solicitors if you have any complaint to make.”

“That,” said Mr. Holland Kent sharply, “I do not wish to do. I was dining with a friend on Friday night. My friend's name must not be mentioned. Is that clear?”

“Quite clear,” said Bobby. “I take it you mean your friend was Mrs. Tamar?”

Holland Kent gasped, looked rather sick, stammered,

“How dare-—dare—dare—?”

“Not at all,” said Bobby politely. “You mentioned there was a lady. You said respect was due to a lady. I understood you to mean Mrs. Tamar. Nothing to do with us, of course. May I repeat, it is in the hands of the South Essex police. My advice is to tell them all they want to know before they find it out for themselves. They'll inquire at every restaurant in England if they have to, you know.”

To Bobby's surprise, Holland Kent looked relieved at this remark, relieved and a little cunning.

“I shall consult my lawyers, then,” he said. “I am sorry I have not found you more helpful. I should have been grateful.”

Bobby did not reply, and Holland Kent retired with a dignity a little less marked than it had been before; while Bobby went off to report to the chief inspector who, with a now completed crossword puzzle in a drawer of his desk, had more leisure this time.

“Afraid of a spot of scandal if it comes out who he was having dinner with,” the chief inspector remarked. “Lord, if he only knew how many spots of scandal we tuck away he wouldn't think we were going to worry a lot over his.”

“No, sir,” agreed Bobby. “He seemed rather relieved when I told him inquiries might be made at every restaurant in London. I don't see why.”

“Not our pigeon,” pronounced the chief inspector, “but let South Essex know. It's little drops of information make a completed case.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, and retired to his forms, whence almost at once he was summoned to meet Inspector Wilkinson, of the South Essex C.I.D. He was a big, smiling, genial man who had chuckled and laughed his way to his present position very largely through the gift he had for telling funny stories.

He told Bobby two at once. The first, chosen because he happened to have heard that Bobby had recently become engaged, was one he had just read in the papers as a quotation from a book on England written by a Chinese resident. It told of ten henpecked Chinese husbands who, meeting together to form a society of mutual support against the monstrous feminine regiment under which they suffered, were interrupted by the sudden appearance of their ten respective wives. Nine of the husbands incontinently fled. The ladies smiled contemptuously and went away. The nine husbands decided that the one of their number courageous enough to remain must be their president. But when they returned to inform him of their decision, they found that he had died of fright!

Bobby did not think this story very funny.

Wilkinson's second story was about the Jew and the Scotsman whose cars collided, whereon the Jew produced a flask of whisky and said, “Well, I don't know who is to blame, but we both need a drink. Have a good pull, it's the best Scotch.” The Scotsman, very pleased, did so, thinking it was not often a Scotsman got a free drink from a Jew. Then the policeman arrived, and the Jew, taking him aside, murmured, “Well, I don't know who is to blame, but just you smell his breath.”

This tale Bobby greeted with appropriate laughter, and then Wilkinson got down to business, beginning by asking a few questions about Lady Alice's knife and the difference in the pattern of the hilt that Bobby had remarked. Bobby told him, also, of the interview just completed with Holland Kent. Wilkinson smiled knowingly when Bobby referred to Holland Kent's apparent unconcern at the suggestion of possible inquiries to be made at hotels and restaurants.

“Dined at the gentleman's flat,” said Wilkinson. “That's why he didn't mind how many restaurants were asked about them. A flat sounds worse, too.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Bobby, but doubtfully, for he hardly thought Holland Kent was as simple as all that.

“Have to go easy with him,” reflected Wilkinson. “Big pot, isn't he?”

“Life size,” agreed Bobby again, and added after a pause, “Larger than.”

“Need handling with gloves,” observed Wilkinson. “Astonishing the dust the big pots can kick up. Go off with a bang, they do. About this knife. Can you swear to its having been changed?”

“Yes,” said Bobby.

Wilkinson rubbed his nose.

“O.K.,” he said, “but it don't take us a step further. Honest witness, says defending counsel, unless he says dishonest, but honest mistake—or dishonest, according to how he thinks the jury looks. Only your memory: Of course, if we could lay hold of the knife that was used, and your sketch agreed—why, then, we should be on velvet.”

“I have been wondering,” Bobby said slowly, ‘if it was really the murderer who inflicted that stab on the body. It may have been some one else altogether. Only why?”

“I know. Why?” said Wilkinson, rubbing his nose so hard one might have thought he wanted to rub it off altogether. “Lots of whys to answer. Why did Miss Maddox go off to spend the day with a man of Martin's character, and why was Lady Alice so worried? Tough old bird, Lady Alice. I was half expecting to see her take the poker to us. Up to it. Well, we've been finding out things, too. By the way, are you taking on the watch-dog job with Tamar, as per their suggestion?”

“I don't know, I hope not,” Bobby answered. “I haven't heard yet.”

“He's agreed to advertise for that ten-shilling note he says he used paying for his coffee on the night of the murder,” Wilkinson said. “It'll be in all the agony columns to-morrow. It'll be something if we find it. You know, it's such a darn flimsy alibi I'm almost inclined to think it's genuine. We're inquiring down there, too, to see if any one remembers him. Only you would think, if he started out to fake an alibi, he would make it reasonably watertight, not so much like a sieve. There's always the fact, though, that there was an appointment he had been asked to keep that night on Weeton Hill.”

“Not exactly,” Bobby pointed out, “the letter asked him to leave the money there, not to be there himself.”

“Yes, that's so, I suppose,'' Wilkinson admitted.

“You said you had made some discoveries?” Bobby hinted.

“Some one's been crawling about in that patch of bracken down by the side of the hill,” Wilkinson told him. “Looking for something, seemingly. What for? Did he find it?”

“Was any one seen?” Bobby asked.

“You mean,” said Wilkinson resentfully, “why wasn't one of our chaps posted on watch? Well, because we hadn't one to spare. Short-handed, and the whole lot of us doing overtime as it is. Only twenty-four hours in the day.”

Bobby made no comment and, after a pause, Wilkinson continued,

“No, no one seen, but looks like the murderer back for something. Another thing. The doctors noticed the dead man's left ear had been grazed. Only a scratch, but showing another bullet had been fired. We calculated range and distance, made some experiments, mobilized a lot of kids on the job, and got four bullets where they had dropped to earth. Not so bad, eh? Means seven shots were fired— murderer pumped away till he had emptied his pistol. Amateur, eh?”

“Experts do that, too, I believe,” Bobby said. “Making sure.”

“Oh, well,” Wilkinson agreed. “Yes. No cartridges. They must have been picked up. None of those concerned seem to have had a pistol. Don't admit it, anyhow.”

Bobby hesitated. He said,

“I've been told Judy Patterson has been seen with a pistol. I asked him once if he had a firearms licence. He didn't answer.”

“Now, that's interesting,” said Wilkinson, slowly. “Back again to that young man, eh? Well, there's something else about him. A woman has been seen at his cottage at night.”

“A woman? are you sure?” Bobby repeated, remembering how Lady Alice had told him Ernie Maddox, Flora Tamar, and she herself all knew of Judy's cottage.

“Common gossip all through the village,” Wilkinson answered, “We've been making inquiries. Most of the time the cottage is empty. Then a number of people will turn up. Men. They come in cars and stay all hours. Champagne bottles and such-like by the dozen to be cleared away next day and the dust-bin full of cards.”

“Cards? Playing cards?”

“Yes, playing cards. Good as new. There's no regular dust-collecting service, but Patterson gives one of the cottagers a shilling or two to cart the stuff away and tip it somewhere.”

“Might be as well,” suggested Bobby, “to have it sorted over.”

Wilkinson looked as if he thought that a new and interesting idea and then tried to look as if it had been thought of long before.

“Oh, that's being done or will be,” he said, airily, “first thing we thought of.”

“Good,” commented Bobby, without belief.

“Seems,” continued Wilkinson, “there are so many cards it's quite easy to sort 'em out and make up a pack. The chap who carts the stuff away does that and sells the packs at sixpence each. Does quite a good trade. Half the pubs near are stocked with 'em—fine quality cards, too, the half-crown sort.”

“Poker,” said Bobby, simply, and Wilkinson nodded agreement. “Any trouble?”

“None reported,” answered Wilkinson, “except once when our man on his beat one night found a fellow crawling out of a pond that's across the road from Mr. Patterson's cottage. He didn't lodge any complaint, said he hadn't been looking where he was going and walked in by mistake.”

“Beats me,” Bobby said, “why no one ever does complain.”

“Afraid,” said Wilkinson. “Respectable business men, and don't want it known they go to poker parties. What would their wives say? Every card-sharper banks on that. People would rather be bled than admit they've been played for suckers.”

“Yes, I know,” agreed Bobby. “There are never any women?”