Suspects—Nine (23 page)

“You've no right, you hand that over, you hear me, hand that over.”

“Ask me, sweetheart, something else,” said Bobby gently, “but ask me not that.”

“You got no right,” shouted Martin.

“Tut, tut,” murmured Bobby, “what do rights matter in a world like this? You can complain to the Commissioner, if you like. Very sympathetic man, the Commissioner. Or you can bring an action. The courts are open to all, you know. In the interval, I've got to ask you to come along with me.”

“Not me,” said Martin, “you've no warrant.”

“Found,” explained Bobby, “on enclosed premises in circumstances—” Bobby paused and pointed to a window on the ground floor near the back door that stood wide open. It had no shutters as had those in the front of the house and fresh marks on the sash suggested that it had just been prised open “—circumstances of some suspicion,” concluded Bobby.

“That wasn't me,” said Martin quickly. “It was like that when I got here. That's what it was done with.” He pointed to an old tyre lever lying near. “My finger-prints on it, very like,” he added, “along o' me picking it up when seeing what had happened. Bit of a shock and I didn't think.”

Bobby did not think the tyre lever would carry prints very easily though it certainly looked as though it were the instrument used. He said nothing and Martin continued,

“I just wanted a word with Mr. Patterson—private business. So when I couldn't get any answer at the front I walked round here, and there was the window open, same as now. I reckon I disturbed the bloke. Done a bunk when he heard me coming and lucky for him he did, too,” declared Martin, looking virtuous, “or I would have nabbed him, sure as ninepence. Or maybe he's in there now, slipping out by the front while you and me's talking here. I'll watch the front if you like, while you have a look round.”

“You can tell that yarn at the police station,” said Bobby unsympathetically, though well aware that Martin's story, however improbable, had yet about it a certain air of plausibility that would, in fact, make it very difficult to charge him. “What were you up to at the dustbin?”

“Nothing,” declared Martin. “It was like that, same as now.”

Bobby went across to look. The refuse had been carefully sorted over. He noticed a small pile of torn-up fragments of what seemed announcements of steamship companies.

“Going to do a bunk, if you ask me,” said Martin. “Kenya and them parts.”

There was another little pile of scraps of torn-up paper. Martin had, apparently, collected them with care from the contents of the dust-bin. Bobby gathered them up. Martin watched him closely, putting on an air of unconcern it was easy to see he did not feel. The bits of paper were of envelopes, addressed in a handwriting Bobby knew, that of Flora Tamar. But what interested him more was that by putting together some of the odd scraps, bits showing here an ‘H', there a ‘K', then an ‘–and' and again an ‘–en', it was easy to make out that the envelopes had been addressed not to Judy but to Holland Kent

And that to Bobby seemed a hard thing to understand. Why should Holland Kent have letters addressed to Judy's cottage, for that they had been sent to this cottage was also plain, and why should Judy have agreed to take them in? And did the fact that, apparently, the letters had been opened and read here, show that Holland Kent, also, frequented the cottage? Was he, perhaps, a partner or associate of Judy's in his gambling exploits? But that quite frankly seemed to Bobby utterly incredible, both from what he knew of Holland Kent's character and of the routine of his life. Yet what other explanation could there be? 

It was a question Bobby tucked away in the recesses of his mind. He saw that Martin was grinning at him, with a kind of secret triumph, as if he knew the answer and, at the same time, was sure Bobby would never guess it.

“This what you were after?” Bobby asked, putting the bits of paper carefully away in an envelope he had with him.

“Me? no, nothing to do with me,” protested Martin, still grinning with that air of secret knowledge which was making Bobby long to lay violent hands upon him. “Lady's fist, if you ask me,” he added. “Wonder if hubby knows. Wonder if he would like to know.”

“Thinking of blackmail?” asked Bobby. “Or what?”

“Not me,” protested Martin. “Nothing to do with blackmail, never, not me. No harm in giving a gent the straight tip, I suppose?”

“Perhaps that's what Munday thought,” observed Bobby, and Martin lost his grin and looked uneasy now.

“Might be,” he said. “Well, now, I thought that, too.”

“Had chats with Munday at times, hadn't you?” Bobby asked, guessing that that would almost certainly be so, since, apparently, Martin had been in the service of Lady Alice to watch Flora, and, of course, the butler would have been a natural source of information.

“Close he was,” Martin mumbled, “thought he was smart, see where it landed him.”

“Why have you been keeping out of sight?” Bobby asked.

“Me?” exclaimed Martin. “Why, I haven't. If I had known you wanted me—”

A vague gesture completed the sentence. Bobby said,

“What did you find in the bracken on Weeton Hill that morning you were there so early?”

For the first time Martin looked disconcerted, even alarmed. But he recovered almost immediately.

“Nothing,” he said. “I had a look, all right, I don't deny it. How did you tumble to it?” Bobby did not answer for he had no intention of explaining that it was the landlord of the Barnet public house who had given him the hint. Martin continued, “Nasty job, too, crawling about in all that bracken. Pair of trousers spoilt. I suppose the Yard wouldn't stand a new pair, would they?”

Bobby ignored this piece of impudence.

“What did you find?” he asked again.

“Nothing, same as I said before,” Martin insisted. “Search me, if you like. Search everything I possess. Just nothing. But maybe,” he added slowly, “if I looked again I might have better luck.”

“You mean you did find something but you think you've got it well hidden now?”

“Smart, aren't you?” Martin sneered.

“Dangerous, you know,” Bobby said. “You'll find yourself in the dock, yet. Or where Munday is, for I think he played the game you're trying to play.”

“He was only an amateur,” Martin said contemptuously.

“And you're a wide boy,” Bobby said. “Is that it? Is that why you got rid of him?”

“I never did,” Was the quick, sullen response.

“Was it the weapon you were looking for in the bracken?” Bobby asked. “Did you know it was there because it was there you hid it? Now have you got it again to hide it somewhere else?”

“Smart, aren't you?” Martin sneered again. “You've got it all wrong.”

“Have I? Anyhow, you'll come with me for further questioning but first we'll have a look round inside just to make sure everything's all right.”

Martin shook his head vigorously.

“Not me, guv'nor,” he said. “Try again. All very well for you, you're a cop, you can get away with it. Not me. Suppose Mr. Patterson comes back and you grab me and let on how you've just found me there. Sorry, but I can't risk it. I'll wait here for you,” he added cheerfully.

“Nothing doing,” retorted Bobby. “You might remember you had to see a man about a dog and be gone when I got back. I'll handcuff you to that garden roller, if you like, till I've finished.”

Martin did not appreciate the suggestion.

“You're hard on a bloke,” he sighed. “Tough, you are. No human sympathy. O.K. What you say, goes.”

“It does,” agreed Bobby, “and don't you try the ‘goes' part.”

He put Martin through the open window first and then followed. Everything seemed in perfect order. It was a small scullery they were standing in, but one fitted up with an oil cooking stove of the latest pattern, and with a general appearance of lavishness and disregard of expense in its fittings by no means characteristic of the customary cottage scullery. There were even two rugs of first-class quality on the floor. They went through into the next room, one of fair size, originally the kitchen, and the only other room on the ground floor. As it was in something more than semi-darkness, owing to the heavy shutters and curtains over the windows, Bobby got out the pocket electric torch he always carried. Its beam showed a room very comfortably and even expensively fitted up. There were various arm-chairs, a small writing-bureau by the window, a round mahogany table, half a dozen chairs drawn up to it, a small sideboard, well provided with glass and china, a fine Brussels carpet with a pile so thick the feet sank into it. The coal cooking range had been removed, and to provide light and heat there were oil fittings of the newest type. On the walls were two or three sporting prints. The whole room gave an impression of comfort, almost of luxury, and, at the same time, it had an efficient and business-like air.

“As nice a little hide-out for a private do as ever I saw,” declared Martin with enthusiasm. “I'll bet lots of the right stuff has gone across that table into Mr. Judy Patterson's pockets—he's a wide boy all right, if you like, and maybe, Munday knew it.”

“It seems you did,” observed Bobby, and Martin looked sideways at him and scowled, evidently finding this remark very little to his taste.

They went upstairs, where the unshuttered windows admitted the daylight. There were two rooms and a bathroom, this last plainly a new addition, with fittings that again showed that no need for exercising economy had been felt. One of the bedrooms was simply but quite comfortably furnished, and Martin grinned unpleasantly when he saw the bed.

“Full size, eh?” he said, grinning again and even more unpleasantly.

Bobby made no comment. Judy's morals, or lack of them, had nothing to do with him. He went into the other room. It was unfurnished and empty, except for a few odds and ends for which it had apparently been used as a receptacle. There was no sign anywhere of anything having been moved or touched. Martin had, evidently, been disturbed before entering and that was all Bobby felt he was entitled to make sure of at present. They went downstairs again and Bobby looked longingly at the small bureau by the window. But that he had no right or authority to examine at present, and, certainly, it would not be wise to go beyond the strictest limits of propriety while Martin was watching. Martin seemed to guess his thoughts and grinned again.

“Why not have a peep?” he asked. “Might find something of interest.”

Bobby thought so, too, but shook his head. Possibly, he might have been tempted had he been alone, but not with Martin watching.

“It was only necessary to make sure,” he said, in his most official tones, “that no robbery had taken place and no unauthorized person was present.”

“Ain't even locked,” said Martin, and jerked open the flap of the bureau.

Within was lying a photograph, unmounted. Martin looked slightly disconcerted when he saw it. Bobby, glancing over his shoulder, saw it was a small motor car standing, apparently, on a country road. Just behind it appeared plainly a young oak with one broken branch. The registration number was plainly visible. It was that of Ernie Maddox's car. Bobby remembered it clearly. Martin shut the bureau in a hurry.

“Nothing there,” he said quickly.

Bobby made no comment. He was asking himself what that photograph meant, what it was doing there, why Martin had been so plainly disturbed on seeing it.

“Hadn't we better be getting out?” Martin asked. “Maybe the bloke will be back soon.”

“Expecting him?” Bobby asked.

Martin did not answer and they went into the scullery, where was the open window. To make sure that Mr. Martin got no chance to secure a flying start, Bobby climbed out first.

“We'll have to nail the window up before we start,” he said, as, once outside, he turned to give Martin a helping hand, and as he did so, there came a roar of rage and a sound of charging feet. Some one was rushing at him across the little concreted yard. He had no time to do more than lift his hands in defence, he was aware of a shouting that died into a sound of many waters, a sound that seemed to come through a great cloud of rising darkness into which he felt himself gently sinking.

Bobby came to himself, conscious at first only of an ache in his head so vast it seemed impossible the world could contain ought else. For a little time he lay still, trying to remember what had happened, and why. He perceived, gradually, that he was on a bed in a room that did not seem wholly unfamiliar and gradually memory began to return.

“That ass, Judy,” Bobby thought fretfully, “and, of course, Martin's done a bunk. I'll get it in the neck all right for having let him go.”

He sat up, cautiously, closing his eyes for a time till walls and furniture showed themselves less inclined to rotate in swift, successive circles.

When it had all begun to settle down into a more normal stability he cautiously put his feet to the ground. Walls and furniture evidently resented this, for at once they began to rotate again, but apparently deciding that he meant no harm, presently settled down once more.

Taking advantage of their quiescence, Bobby got carefully to his feet. Except for one or two convulsive starts, the room decided to permit this. Bobby made his way to the dressing-table by the window and examined, with a thoughtful mien, his bruised and swollen chin.

“Obviously where I took it,” he murmured, and, finding cold water in a jug on the washstand, proceeded to bathe it.

He wondered, as he did so, where Martin was. He wondered what had happened to his motor cycle. If Martin had pinched it, as was so likely, or if Judy had, then he supposed its value would probably be stopped out of his pay.