Suspects—Nine (26 page)

“First letter looks like a ‘B' to me,” Judy said.

“So it does,” agreed Bobby. “That's an idea.” He paused, and looked excited. “I believe that explains whose writing it is,” he exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” asked Judy. “How does the first letter of a postmark looking like a ‘B' tell you anything about handwriting?”

They went back into the house to get a bit of string Bobby wanted. When he had the wrapping papers secured to his satisfaction, he said,

“There's another thing I want to ask you about.” He produced the dried-up lipstick of once vivid hue he had found in the upstairs bedroom. “This,” he said, “was in a drawer of the dressing-table.”

“What about it?” asked Judy. “Thought you said you didn't do any snooping or disturb anything?”

“Not while I was looking round officially,” Bobby answered. “Martin's my witness. But after our—er— misunderstanding, after you had dumped me upstairs, I messed about a bit, bathing my chin, and I found this.”

“What if you did?”

“Flora Tamar's, I think. Are you in love with her?”

“Did it sound just now as if I was? You heard us.”

“I think she is in love with you,” Bobby said.

Judy looked extremely uncomfortable.

“I don't think it's that exactly,” he said hesitatingly. “I don't know. I told her from the start. She was just another woman to me. She was willing and so was I. Shocked?”

“I'm not a judge of morals,” Bobby answered.

“I think now she may have taken what I said as, a kind of challenge,” Judy went on slowly. “I don't know, though. I think at first I was just another man to her. Eating, drinking, sex, it's all part of nature. She couldn't see a man, I think, without wanting to make him feel her power. Power. That's what it was. If you didn't go on your knees to her, it was a challenge and an insult. If you did, she lost interest. You were one of the crowd. If you didn't, then she got after you. She got after me. I didn't mind. One woman had had me down but I didn't mean any other to. Quite willing to give them their fun and to take my own fun, too. That's all.”

“Is it all?” Bobby asked. “Because it never is, you know.”

“No, I suppose it isn't: Never,” Judy agreed. “The more I held off, the more she came on. I never meant it to last, I told her so. She meant it to last, though—at least, I mean, she didn't want me to be the one to tire first. Lost her head a bit, sort of insulted, I suppose. Woman scorned and all that. Well, you heard her yourself. Talked like a couple of Covent Garden porters, didn't we?”

“Much worse,” said Bobby. “They've generally some idea of decency.”

“Oh, well,” Judy continued, “Look here. She'll get over it. It's just her vanity hurt. I wasn't the first man and I don't suppose I shall be the last. Look here. All this is rather rotten. You heard part of it and you seem to have got hold of the rest. I don't know how. But it's nothing to do with Munday's murder that I can see. Why not leave it alone?”

“Exactly because it may have something to do with Munday's murder. It is murder, not morality, we're concerned with. Only it just happens that if you throw morality out of the window, murder may come in at the door.”

Judy said nothing. Bobby said,

“A beginning's one thing, but the end's another.”

“Oh, well,” Judy muttered. “It's pretty beastly.”

“Touching pitch and all that,” said Bobby. “What made Mrs. Tamar jealous? Because you met Ernie Maddox?”

“You heard what she said,” Judy muttered. “All rot, of course.”

“Are you in love with Ernie Maddox?” Bobby asked.

“No,” shouted Judy.

“Is she in love with you?”

“Leave her name out of it,” Judy shouted again. He was on his feet once more. “Leave her out of it or I'll —I'll—”

“Now, now, we've got it fixed up about the gym,” Bobby reminded him. “Wait for that. What beats me, though, is how you can put up even a half decent show at poker when you go in off the deep end every two minutes?”

“Well, why can't you leave me alone?” Judy muttered. He wiped his forehead and his wrists, they were damp with perspiration. He said, presently, “When you play poker, well, you know where you are and you know the other chaps and you know what it's all about and what you've got to do, but when you lie awake at night thinking—I do that now, I never used to—thinking how different everything might have been if you hadn't been such a fool—and it's not even fun being a fool—you lark about and then you find you're trapped for life—it isn't fun seeing all your life go down the drain.” He paused: “You meet a girl and what's the good? What's the good of drawing two kings if you've thrown away the two dealt you? It's when a girl looks at you, and you know you've done the dirty often enough without doing it on her as well. You know she'll forget. That's one thing sure. So will Flora. And all the time you know the police are working all round you, asking questions, watching, finding out things, twisting things, waiting till they've got you where they want you. Gets on your nerves. I never knew I had nerves before. It's only since I met Ernie. I didn't care before. I do now. That's the difference. Once I wouldn't have cared for all the coppers in creation.” He began to laugh, not very naturally. “I suppose it's got me down,” he said. “Done in. Poker, too. Damn funny, that. I can't play now. Lose when I try. I've dropped over three hundred since this started. I put up such a rotten show the other night I swore I would never touch a card again. I think I meant it, too. I don't know but I think I meant it. Perhaps I shan't have the chance, though, when you are through with your job.”

“Did you kill Munday?” Bobby asked.

“No, but I think I shall confess soon. I know now why chaps confess to things they never did. Like those Russian johnnies. You get so you want to end it and you don't care how. Suppose I told you I had killed Munday. What would you do?”

“Ask you to make a statement.”

“And then?”

“Check it up in every detail and prosecute—-either on a charge of murder or else on a charge of public mischief.”

“Well, then, I won't say it.”

“Who do you think is guilty?”

“Don't know.”

“You said it was Flora Tamar?”

“Only trying to be nasty.”

“Rather mean.”

“I know. I felt that way.”

“There's reason to believe she and Holland Kent were out together that Friday evening for dinner. We can't tell where they dined. Apparently, not at any restaurant. Inquiries have been made. Would it be here?”

“Here? No. Certainly not. Nothing to eat for one thing.”

“They could have brought things, tinned stuff, some of the big shops make up lunch and dinner baskets.”

“There would have been something to show. There wasn't. Besides, the place was locked up and they had no key.”

“Mrs. Tamar had no key?”

“No. If she was coming I met her and brought her along.”

“You haven't told me, yet, why she sent letters here addressed to Holland Kent?”

“Ask her.”

“I will. Though I think I can guess.”

“The devil you can,” muttered Judy, disconcerted. “Have you a pistol?”

“No. I suppose I should say so, anyhow, but I haven't.”

“I heard you say you had taken one from somebody at one of your poker parties?”

“Oh, that. Yes, I did. I dumped the thing in the river. Over Westminster Bridge.”

“You showed one once in a Soho café to a gang there, didn't you?”

“Good Lord,” exclaimed Judy, startled, “who told you that? You do get hold of things. It was only a toy. Scared 'em all right, though. No guts unless they're ten to one, like Nazis kicking a Jew. Anything else you want to ask?”

“I don't think so,” Bobby said, getting up. “So long till we meet again.”

“At Philippi?” asked Judy.

“At the gym,” retorted Bobby as he departed.

From Judy's cottage, so ingenuously named ‘Whatah Ope', Bobby proceeded on his fortunately recovered motor-cycle no one had disturbed to the nearest police station, whence by 'phone he reported briefly what had happened. He suggested, too, that Martin might now be placed on the list of the ‘wanted', on the ‘found on enclosed premises' charge.

Afterwards he went on, at the best speed possible—and a good motor-cycle is probably the fastest of all road vehicles with its high speed and its power of slipping through gaps in the traffic where the large and powerful car has no chance to penetrate—to Scotland Yard, where he reported again, left the snapshot of Martin to be developed, and then, having obtained permission to try out the idea that had occurred to him when Judy suggested, that the first letter of the postmark on the photograph wrapping was a ‘B', continued to Barnet and the public house where he had called before.

The somewhat dusty motor cyclist, in riding kit and goggles, was not recognized at first, and Bobby, ordering a drink, said to the barmaid who served him and who was the one he had seen before,

“Mr. Martin got back yet?”

“Mr. Martin?” repeated the barmaid, ‘registering', to borrow a useful word from the cinema, a somewhat too marked surprise. “Who is that? Some one you know?”

“Some one you know,” retorted Bobby. “I want the parcel he left in your charge.”

The barmaid looked startled, ‘registered' in fact, and involuntarily this time, sufficient doubt and hesitation to make Bobby fairly certain he was on the right track, that the deduction drawn from the postmark and the apparently feminine handwriting on the packet sent to Judy, had been correct. He laid his official card on the counter.

“You addressed a postal packet to a Mr. Patterson for Martin the other day,” he said.

“Why shouldn't I? What's the harm?” demanded the barmaid, who now was registering something very like panic. “How do you know?” she asked, still more uneasily.

“We know a lot at Scotland Yard,” said Bobby, impressively. “Mr. Martin left a parcel in your charge. Please give it me. You shall have a receipt, of course.” The barmaid hesitated, stammered, looked very pale, suddenly fled away. Bobby hoped she had gone to get the parcel he was now sure she had in her possession. It would be awkward if she refused! He could ask but he had no right to demand. Many formalities would have to be gone through before such a demand could be enforced. When the barmaid came back, it was not with the parcel but with the landlord whom Bobby greeted with a cheerful,

“Good evening. You remember me?”

The landlord stared—and shook his head.

“Can't say I do,” he said, for, indeed, this dusty cyclist in no way resembled the over-dressed young swell he had seen before. “What's it all about? My young lady says you want her to give you property left in her charge. Can't do that very well, can she?”

“You know Mr. Martin?” Bobby asked.

“Might if I saw him,” said the landlord, with a great show of candour. “There's many use this house regular I couldn't put a name to.”

“You put a name to him, all right,” Bobby said amiably, “when you were recommending him to me as the very man to help any young gentleman as was a young gentleman and had got himself into a fix. Honest, trustworthy as the day, you said. Told me Scotland Yard often asked his help. News to me, that, but then I'm only a sergeant and I don't know all that goes on, not by a long chalk, so perhaps you are right. Remember all that?”

During this speech the landlord's jaw had dropped and dropped till it could drop no further, his eyes had opened wider and wider; in an almost strangled voice he gasped out,

“Was that young swell you?”

“Well, I believe I had on my Sunday, go-to-meeting best,” explained Bobby apologetically. “Thought I looked rather nice, myself. But as you knew quite a lot about Martin then, please don't try to stuff me that you know nothing about him now. From information received, we have reason to believe Martin left a parcel in the charge of this young lady.”

The landlord turned fiercely on the barmaid as some one handy on whom he could vent his feelings.

“What the devil did you do that for?” he demanded. “Cut along and get it and mind you don't play any more games like that if you want to stop on here.”

“I didn't mean no harm,” protested the barmaid, in tears now.

“My dear young lady,” Bobby assured her—she was probably well over forty but all barmaids are young ladies,
ex officio
, “no one says you did. Nothing wrong in taking charge of a parcel for a friend. But when there is reason to believe the parcel may contain something connected with a murder—”

He left the sentence unfinished but the barmaid squealed faintly and scurried away as fast as she could go. The 
landlord, almost as pale, poured himself out a stiff whisky and soda. He offered one to Bobby, who said he was sorry, but he was on duty and it wasn't allowed. The barmaid returned. They were all now in the landlord's private sanctum behind the bar. The parcel was in brown paper, without any label or address, and was secured with string. It was fairly heavy. Bobby weighed it in his hand. Then he said,

“Any idea what's in it?”

The barmaid shook her head and produced another sob. The landlord said,

“I did hear something about seven shots fired from it so it was O.K., empty, but it wasn't no business of mine.”

“He said that, did he?” Bobby asked thoughtfully.

Evidently the landlord had known the contents of the parcel, was afraid of that being proved, thought it best to protest not so much ignorance of the fact as ignorance of its importance.

But to Bobby it seemed that the landlord's observation might be more significant than the contents of the parcel. He left that point for further consideration. He proceeded to open the parcel. Within was an oblong cardboard box of the type used to pack shoes. Within that, was an automatic pistol, .36 calibre, Bobby guessed. The barmaid emitted a faint shriek. The landlord scowled. He said to her,