A Blunt Instrument (15 page)

"Well, well, well!" said the Sergeant. "No deception? All quite open and above-board?"

"Apparently. He paused to exchange a word with the hall porter on his way in at 8.30; when he went out the porter offered to call a taxi, and he refused, saying he would walk."

"Who saw him come in later, Chief?"

"The night porter. He says that he caught sight of North stepping into the lift."

"Well, for a man who impressed you as having a head on his shoulders he doesn't seem to me to be doing so very well," said the Sergeant. "What was the use of his telling you he'd spent the evening at his flat when he must have known you could bust the story wide open at the first blow?"

"I don't know," Hannasyde replied. "Had it been Budd, I should have thought that he had got into a panic, and lost his head. But North wasn't in a panic, and I'm quite sure he didn't lose his head. What I do suspect is that for some reason, best known to himself, he was stalling me."

The Sergeant thought it over. "Stalling you till he could have a word with his wife. I get it. I'd call it a risky game to play, myself."

"I don't know that I think that would worry him much."

"Oh, that sort, is he?" said the Sergeant. "A little course of Ichabod wouldn't do him any harm, by the sound of it."

Hannasyde smiled, but rather absently. "He wasn't at his office this morning, and as his secretary didn't seem to think he was going there today, I came down to see him here. But he's going to be difficult, just because he doesn't say a word more than he need."

"So is young Neville going to be difficult," said the Sergeant. "But not, believe me, for the same reason. That bird talks so much you have a job to keep up with him. What do you make of him having the nerve to tell me he climbed out of his bedroom window, and over the garden wall, the night the late Ernest was murdered, just to go and tell Mrs. North all about it? Said he was her accomplice over the business of those IOUs of hers."

Hannasyde frowned. "Cool hand. It might be true."

"Cool! I believe you! Brass isn't the word for what he's got. However, I'm bound to admit I've got a soft corner for him. He laid old Ichabod out with the neatest right counter you ever saw."

"What?"

"Figure of speech," explained the Sergeant. "He landed a Biblical text which Ichabod wasn't expecting, and which pretty well crumpled him up. But that's nothing to go on. I wouldn't put it above him to bump his uncle off, if it happened to suit his book. Though, now I come to think of it," he added reflectively, "it would be more in his line to have stuck a knife in his ribs. No; if it weren't for the fact that there's no trace of the weapon, and not one hiding-place that I could spot, I wouldn't fancy him at all for the role of murderer. Which brings me to the only bit of useful evidence I picked up. The hall clock is a minute slow, Chief."

Hannasyde looked at him. "If that is so," he said slowly, "it makes Mrs. North's evidence practically valueless."

"The second batch, you mean? It does look like it, doesn't it? Not that I ever set much store by it myself, from what you told me of her. Mind you, I don't say the murder couldn't still have happened but what I do say is that the man Glass saw - call him Charlie Carpenter - couldn't have done it. It must have been Budd, which I don't think, young Neville, North, or the dizzy blonde herself."

Hannasyde shook his head. "I can't swallow that, Hemingway. If we are to assume that Mrs. North's evidence was true, it means that Fletcher did not re-enter the study until 10.01. You yourself put the time it would take him to sit down at his desk again and start to write his letters at two minutes at the least. That leaves two minutes for the murderer to walk in, kill him, and get away again. Less, for though Glass didn't actually enter the study until 10.05, he must have had the window in view for quite a minute, on his way up the path."

"Yes, that's what he said," replied the Sergeant. "I admit it would be cutting it a bit fine. What's your idea, Chief? Think Mrs. North's first story was the true one?"

"No," said Hannasyde, after a pause. "I think she did go back into the study. If she didn't let herself out of it as she described, I don't see how her finger-prints came to be on the panel. But the fact of the hall clock's being slow points to a discrepancy somewhere in her story. She stated that the man X left the study with Ernest at 9.58, that she went back into it, and left it as the hall clock struck 10.00. Now, the only times we know to be correct are 10.02, when Glass saw X making off; and 10.05, when he discovered Fletcher's body. That left us with a difference of four minutes, between the time Mrs. North said X left and the time Glass actually saw him leave. We could just, and only just, account for that by assuming that X doubled back to the study, murdered Fletcher, and again made off. But if Fletcher returned to the study not at 10.00, but at 10.01, then there is no possibility of X's having returned, committed the murder, and reached the gate again. So either X left by the side gate at 9.58, to be followed in four minutes by a second man - Y, if you like; or the first man, X, was a pure fabrication of Mrs. North's."

"Hold on, Super! I'll have to see it on paper," said the Sergeant. He wrote for a moment or two, and regarded the result with disgust. "Yes, that is a hopeful-looking mess," he remarked. "All right - X is out. So what? We know the North dame hid in the garden, because we found her footprints. Yes, I get it. Y, who is obviously North, was with the late Ernest; she recognised his voice - or maybe she didn't: I haven't worked that bit out. Anyway, Y killed Ernest while Mrs. North was in the garden, and bunked. Mrs. North then entered the study to have a look-see, and - for reasons which I won't attempt to fathom - made off by way of the front door. You can make the times fit if you juggle with them. Someone may have passed down Maple Grove when Y reached the gate, which would mean that he'd have to wait till whoever it was had cleared off before making his getaway. Or, if you prefer it, Mrs. North didn't leave at 10.01, but later. Though why she should make that bit up, I don't quite see. That eliminates X, and fits the only facts we know to be certain."

"You can eliminate X if you like," interposed Hannasyde, "but you can't eliminate Charlie Carpenter. Where does he fit into this otherwise plausible story?"

The Sergeant sighed. "That's true. If we've got to have him in, then he's Y, and North is X - eliminated. Yes, that's all right. Mrs. North didn't recognise his voice, but she caught a glimpse of him, and thought he might be her husband. Hence her erroneous evidence. How's that?"

"Not bad," conceded Hannasyde. "But if North is eliminated, will you tell me why he stated that he spent the evening in his flat, when in actual fact he did nothing of the kind?"

"I give it up," said the Sergeant despairingly. "There isn't an answer."

Hannasyde smiled. "There might be. It's just possible that North had nothing to do with the murder, but suspects that his wife had."

The Sergeant stared at him. "What, and deliberately chucked his own alibi - if any - overboard, so as to be all set to leap in and take the rap for his wife? Go on, Super! You don't believe that!"

"I don't know. He might. Rather that type of man."

"Regular film star, he sounds to me," said the Sergeant, revolted. "Red blood, and hair on his chest, too, I should think." He turned his head, as the door opened, and encountered the solemn stare of PC Glass. "Oh, so you're back, are you? Well, if you're working on this case, I suppose you'd better come in. I daresay I'll be able to think up a job for you."

Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, come in, Glass. I want you to cast your mind back to the night of the murder. When you were walking along Vale Avenue, on your beat, do you remember seeing anyone, beyond the man who came out of the side gate of Greystones? Anyone who might, at about 10.00 p.m., have been passing the front entrance to Greystones?"

Glass thought deeply for a moment, and then pronounced: "No, I remember no one. Why am I asked this question?"

"Because I have reason to doubt the truth of Mrs. North's statement, that she left Greystones by the front door, at a minute after 10.00. What I want is a possible passer-by, who may or may not have seen her."

"If that is so, the matter is simple," said Glass. "There is a pillar-box at the corner of Vale Avenue and Glynne Road, where she dwells, which is cleared at 10.00 p.m. each night. I do not doubt that the postman saw her, if she was indeed upon her way home at that hour."

"Nice work, Ichabod!" exclaimed the Sergeant. "You'll end up in the CID yet."

A cold eye was turned upon him. "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet," said Glass, adding, since the Sergeant seemed unimpressed: "Even the eyes of his child shall fail."

"Well, don't sound so cocky about it," said the Sergeant. "And as it happens I haven't got any children, so now where are you?"

"We won't discuss the matter," interposed Hannasyde in a chilling tone. "You will please remember, Glass, that you are talking to your superior officer."

"To have respect of persons is not good," said Glass seriously. "For, for a piece of bread that man will transgress."

"Oh, will he?" said the indignant Sergeant. "Well, he won't - not for fifty pieces of bread! What next!"

"That'll do," said Hannasyde, a tremor in his voice. "Get hold of that postman, Glass, and discover at what time he cleared the box, whether he saw Mrs. North, and if so, whether she was carrying anything. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, that's all. Report here to me."

Glass withdrew. As the door closed behind him,

Hannasyde said: "Why do you encourage him, Skipper?"

"Me? Me encourage him?"

"Yes, you."

The Sergeant said: "Well, if you call it encouraging him to tell him where he gets off-'

"I believe you enjoy him," said Hannasyde accusingly. The Sergeant grinned. "Well, I've got to admit it adds a bit of interest to the case, waiting for him to run dry. You'd think he must have got pretty well all he's learnt off his chest by now, wouldn't you? He hasn't, though. I certainly have to hand it to him: he hasn't repeated himself once so far. Where do we go from here?"

"To North's house," replied Hannasyde. "I must see if I can get out of him what he was doing on the night of the murder. You, I think, might put in a little good work in the servants' hall."

But when he arrived at the Chestnuts Hannasyde was met by the intelligence that North had left the house immediately after lunch. The butler was unable to state his master's destination, but did not think, since he was driving himself in his touring car, that he was bound for his City office.

After a moment's consideration, Hannasyde asked to have his card taken to Mrs. North. The butler accepted it, remarking repressively that he would see whether it were convenient for his mistress to receive him, and ushered him into the library.

Here he was presently joined by Miss Drew, who came in with her monocle screwed firmly into her eye, and a cigarette stuck into a long amber holder. "My sister's resting, but she'll be down in a moment," she informed him. "What do you want to see her about?"

"I'll tell her, when she comes," he replied politely.

She grinned. "All right: I can take a snub. But if it's about that epic story Neville Fletcher burbled into your Sergeant's ears, I can tell you now you're wasting your time. It leads nowhere."

"Epic story? Oh, you mean his adventures on the night of his uncle's death! No, I haven't come about that."

"I quite thought you might have. I shouldn't have been altogether surprised had you asked to see me."

"No? Are you concerned in those adventures?"

"Actually, I'm not, but Neville, who, you may have noticed, is rather reptilian, told the Sergeant, in his artless way, that I had plans for opening Ernie Fletcher's safe."

"And had you?"

"Well, yes and no," said Sally guardedly. "If I'd had my criminal notebook with me, and time to think it out, I believe I could have had a stab at it. But one very valuable thing this case has taught me is that in real life one just doesn't have time. Of course, if I'd been writing this story, I should have thought up a perfectly plausible reason for the fictitious me to have had the means at hand of concocting the stuff you call soup. I should have turned myself into a scientist's assistant, with the run of his laboratory, or something like that. However, I'm nothing of the sort, so that wasn't much good."

Hannasyde looked at her with a good deal of interest. "Mr. Fletcher's story was true, then, and not an attempt to keep the police amused?"

"You seem to have weighed him up pretty accurately," commented Sally. "But, as it happens, he really did come here to tell Helen (a) that his uncle had been murdered, and (b) that he hadn't managed to get hold of her IOUs. That, naturally, looked very bad to me. Of course, it was idiotic of my sister to co-opt Neville in the first place: she'd have done better to have put me on to it. You won't misunderstand me when I tell you that I was all for abstracting those IOUs from the safe before you could get your hands on them. Unfortunately, there was a policeman mounting guard over the study, which completely cramped my style."

"I quite see your point," said Hannasyde. "But if you've made a study of crime you must know that it would have been quite culpable of you to have abstracted anything at all from the murdered man's safe."

"Theoretically, yes; in practice, no," responded Sally coolly. "I knew that the IOUs had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Naturally you can't be expected to know that, and just look at the trouble they're causing you! Not to mention the waste of time."

"I appreciate your point of view, Miss Drew, but, as you have already realised, I don't share it. It seems to me that the IOUs may have a very direct bearing on the case."

She gave a chuckle. "Yes, wouldn't you love me to pour my girlish confidences into your ears? It's all right: I'm going to. If you're toying with the notion that my sister may have been the murderess, I can put you right straight away. Setting aside the fairly evident fact that she simply hasn't got it in her to smash anyone's head in, there wasn't a trace of blood on her frock or her cloak when she came home that night. If you want me to believe that she could have done the deed, and not got one drop of blood on her, you'll have to hypnotise me. Of course, I don't expect you to pay much heed to what I say, because I'm bound to stand by my sister, but you can interrogate her personal maid, can't you? She'll tell you that none of my sister's clothes have disappeared, or have been sent to the cleaners' during the past week." She paused, extracted the end of her cigarette from the holder, and stubbed it out. "But, as I see it, you don't really think she did it. The man you suspect is my brother-in-law, and I'm sure I don't blame you. Only there again I may be able to help you. You can take it from me that he doesn't know of the existence of those IOUs. I've no doubt that sounds a trifle fatuous to you, but it happens to be true. And -just in case you haven't grasped this one - he doesn't suspect my sister of having had any what-you-might-call improper dealings with Ernest Fletcher." She stopped, and looked critically at him. "I'm not making a hit with you at all. Why not? Don't you believe me?"