A Blunt Instrument (23 page)

"Nor it will," said the Sergeant, discomfited. After a moment's thought, he perked up again. "All right! Say Carpenter went back, to see what this other chap was up to. He saw the murder done, and he legged it for the gate as hard as he could."

"And the other man?"

"Like I said before. He heard Ichabod's fairy footfall, and hid himself in the garden, and slipped out as soon as Ichabod reached the study. The more I think of it, Chief, the more I see it must have been like that."

"It does sound plausible," Hannasyde conceded. "What was the unknown man's motive? Angela?"

"Yes, I think we'll have to say it was Angela, on account of Charlie's being linked up with him."

"Yet her friend - what was her name? Lily! - whom you questioned didn't mention any man but Carpenter and Fletcher in connection with Angela, did she?"

"Not what you might call specifically. She said there were plenty hanging round the poor girl."

"Doesn't seem likely that an apparently unsuccessful admirer would go to the lengths of killing Fletcher, does it?"

"If it comes to that, nothing seems likely about this case, except that we'll never get to the bottom of it!" said the Sergeant crossly.

Hannasyde smiled. "Cheer up! We've not done with it yet. What did you manage to find out today?"

"Nothing that looks like being of any use," the Sergeant replied. "We've got hold of one of Carpenter's relations, but he couldn't tell us much. Wait a bit: I've got it all here, for what it's worth." He picked up a folder, and opened it. "Carpenter, Alfred. Occupation, Clerk. Aged 34 years. Brother to the deceased. Has not set eyes on deceased since 1935."

"Did he know anything about Angela Angel?"

"No, only hearsay. According to him, Charlie was never what you'd call the hope of the family. Sort of kid who pinched the other kids' belongings at school. He started life in the drapery business, and got the sack for putting the petty cash in the wrong place. No prosecution; old Carpenter - he's dead now - paid up. After that, our hero joined a concert-party. Seems he could sing a bit, as well as look pansy. He stuck to that for a bit, and then he got a job on the stage proper - male chorus. By that time what with one thing and another, his family had got a bit tired of him, and they gave him order of the boot from home, and no mistake. Then he went and got married to an actress. Name of Peggy Robinson. The next thing the family knew was that he'd waltzed off into the blue, and his wife was on their doorstep, calling out for his blood. Alfred didn't take to her. Said that was one thing he didn't blame brother Charlie for, leaving a wife that was more like a raging tigress than a decent woman. They managed to get rid of her, but not for long. Oh no!! She went off on tour, and though Alfred says they had news that she was properly off with another fellow, that didn't stop her coming back to tell Charlie's people how she'd heard that he was in town again, and living with a girl he'd picked up somewhere in the Midlands. Seems he'd been on tour likewise. What the rights of it was I don't know, and nor does Alfred, but there doesn't seem to be much doubt about it that the girl was none other than Angela Angel."

"Where is the wife now?" interrupted Hannasyde.

"Pushing up daisies," replied the Sergeant. "Died of pneumonia following influenza, a couple of years ago. Alfred knew Charlie had been to gaol, but he hadn't had word of him since he came out, and didn't want to. He never saw Angela, but he says he was pretty sure she wasn't on the stage when Charlie picked her up. From what the wife told him, he gathered it was a regular village-maiden story. You know the sort of thing. Romantic girl, brought up very strict, falls for wavy-haired tenor, and elopes with him. Well, poor soul, she paid for it in the end, didn't she?"

"Did Alfred Carpenter remember what her real name was?"

"No, because he never knew it. But taking one thing with another, it looks to me as though one mystery's solved at least, which is why no one ever turned up to claim Angela when she did herself in. If she came from a strait-laced sort of home you may bet your life she was cast off, same as Charlie was. I've known people like that."

Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, but it doesn't help us much. Did you dig anything out of Carpenter's landlady, or the proprietor of the restaurant he worked at?"

"What I dug out of Giuseppe," replied the Sergeant acidly, "was a highly talented performance, but no good to me. How these foreigners can keep it up and not get tired out beats me! He put on a one-man show all for my benefit, hair-tearing, dio-mios, corpo-di-baccos, and the rest of it. I had to buy myself a drink to help me get over it, but he was as fresh as a daisy when he got through, and starting a row with his wife. At least, that's the way it looked to me, but I daresay it was only his way of carrying on a quiet chat. Anyhow, he doesn't know anything about Charlie."

"And the landlady?"

"She doesn't know anything either. Says she's one for keeping herself to herself. That doesn't surprise me, either. She's not my idea of a comfortable body anyone would confide in. And there we are. It's Neville or no one, Chief. And if you want to know what he did with his weapon, how about him having slid a stout stick up his sleeve?"

"Have you ever tried sliding a club up your sleeve?" inquired Hannasyde.

"Not a club. Call it a malacca cane."

"A malacca cane would not have caused those head injuries. The weapon was heavy, if a stick a very thick one, more like a cudgel."

The Sergeant pursed his lips. "If it's Neville we don't have to worry about the weapon he used to do in his uncle. He had plenty of time to get rid of that, or clean it, or whatever he did do with it. As far as the second murder's concerned - I suppose he couldn't have got that paper-weight into his pocket, could he?"

"Not without its being very noticeable. The head of the statue on top must have stuck out."

"Might not have been noticed in the bad light. I'll get on to Brown again - he's the chap with the coffee-wagon - and that taxi-driver. Not but what I'm bound to say we questioned them pretty closely before. Still, you never know."

"And the hat?"

"The hat's a nuisance," declared the Sergeant. "If he hasn't got an opera hat, perhaps he borrowed the late Ernie's, just because he knew no one would expect him to wear one. He could have carried it shut up under his arm without the butler's noticing it when he left the house. When he changed hats, he must have stuffed his own into his pocket."

"Two bulging pockets now," observed Hannasyde dryly. "Yet two witnesses - we won't commit the girl; she was too vague - said there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. And that raises another point. The taxi-driver, who seemed to me quite an intelligent chap, described his fare's appearance as that of an ordinary, nice-looking man. He didn't think he would know him again if confronted with him. When pressed, he could only repeat that he looked like dozens of other men of between thirty and forty. Now, if you met Neville Fletcher, do you think you'd recognise him again?"

"Yes," said the Sergeant reluctantly. "I would. No mistaking him. For one thing he's darker than most, and not what I'd call a usual type. He's got those silly long eyelashes too, and that smile which gets my goat. No: no one in their senses would say he's like dozens of others. Besides, he's younger than thirty, and looks it. Well, what do we do now?"

Hannasyde drummed his fingers lightly on the desk, considering. The Sergeant watched him sympathetically. Presently he said in his decided way: "Angela Angel. It comes back to her. It may sound far-fetched to you, Skipper, but I have an odd conviction that if only we knew more about her we should see what is so obstinately hidden now."

The Sergeant nodded. "Sort of a hunch. I'm a great believer in hunches myself. What'll we do? Advertise?"

Hannasyde thought it over. "No. Better not."

"I must say, I'm not keen on that method. What's more, if her people didn't come forward at the time of her death it isn't likely they will now."

"I don't want to precipitate another tragedy," Hannasyde said grimly.

The Sergeant sat up with a jerk. "What, more headbashings? You don't think that, do you?"

"I don't know. Someone is pretty determined that we shan't penetrate this fog we're groping in. Everything about the two murders suggests a very ruthless brain at work."

"Maniacal, I call it," said the Sergeant. "I mean, just think of it! You can understand a chap cracking open another chap's head if he was worked up into a white-hot rage. At the same time you'd expect him to feel a bit jolted by what he'd done, wouldn't you? I don't reckon to be squeamish, but I wouldn't like to have done the job myself, no, nor to have seen it done. Nasty, messy murder, I call it. But our bird isn't upset. Not he! He waltzes off and repeats the act - in cold blood, mind you! Think that's sane? I'm damned if I do!"

"All the more reason for being careful not to hand him a motive for killing someone else."

"That's true enough. But if we are dealing with a lunatic, Super, it's worse than I thought. You can catch up on a sane man. His mind works reasonably, same as your own; and, what's more important, he always has a motive for having committed his murder, which again is helpful. But when you come to a madman's brain you're properly in the soup, because you can't follow the way it works. And ten to one he hasn't got a motive for murder - not what a sane person would consider a motive, that is.

"Yes, there's a lot in what you say, but I don't think our man's as mad as that. We've a shrewd idea of what his motive was for killing Carpenter, and presumably he had one for killing Fletcher."

The Sergeant hunted amongst the papers before him on the desk, and selected one covered with his own handwriting. "Well, Super, I don't mind telling you that I've had a shot at working the thing out for myself. And the only conclusion I've come to is that the whole thing's impossible from start to finish. Once you start putting all the evidence down on paper you can't help but see that the late Ernest wasn't murdered at all. Couldn't have been."

"Oh don't be absurd!" said Hannasyde rather impatiently.

"I'm not being absurd, Chief. If you could chuck Mrs. North's evidence overboard, all well and good. But, setting aside the fact that she's got no reason to tell lies now she knows that precious husband of hers isn't implicated in the crime, we have the postman's word for it that a woman dressed like her came out of Greystones at just after 10.00 p.m. on the 17th. So that fixes her. If it weren't for his having compared his watch with the clock in the late Ernest's study, I'd say old Ichabod was mistaken in the time he saw a chap coming out of the side gate. But he's a conscientious, painstaking officer, is Ichabod, and he's not the sort to state positively that it was 10.02 if it wasn't. I mean to say, you ought to hear him on the subject of false witnesses. Ticked me off properly, when I tried to shake his evidence a bit. But if you can make his evidence fit Mrs. North's, all I can say is you're cleverer than I am. It wasn't so bad when the only fixed times we had were 10.02, when Ichabod saw the unknown, and 10.05 when he discovered the body of the late Ernest. But the moment we began to collect more fixed times the whole case got so cock-eyed there was no doing anything with it. We're now faced with four highly incompatible times, unless you assume young Neville murdered his uncle, and Carpenter saw it, and bolted for his life. We've .got 9.58, or thereabouts, when Ernest saw Mrs. North's man off; 10.01, when Mrs. North left; 10.02 when Ichabod's man left by the side gate; and 10.05 when Ernest was found dead. Well, it just doesn't add up, and that's all there is to it. Unless you think Neville did it, and Mrs. North's covering him up?"

"No, not a chance. Mrs. North isn't interested in anyone except her husband. But I think the man she saw and the man Glass saw were one and the same. It's by no means conclusive, but we did find a pale grey felt hat amongst Carpenter's belongings."

"All right, we'll say they were the same. Now, we don't know what Carpenter went back for, having been shown out, but there might be scores of reasons, setting aside any violent ones. Suppose he saw young Neville in the study with his uncle, and decided it was no use waiting? Quite reasonable, isn't it? Well, he goes off. The fact that he hurried away doesn't prove a thing. He wasn't up to any good anyway, and he naturally wouldn't want to be questioned by a policeman. All this time Carpenter doesn't know Neville from Adam. But here's where we have the brainwave of the century, Chief! Do you remember young Neville getting his photo in one of the daily picture papers?"

"I do - as the Boots, and under the name of Samuel Crippen," said Hannasyde grimly.

"That wouldn't matter. Suppose Carpenter saw the paper? Stands to reason he'd be following the case fairly closely. He'd recognise Neville straight off. And if he'd seen him in evening dress on the night of the murder he'd know there was something phoney about that story of Neville's being employed as the Boots. My idea is that he saw his way to make a bit of easy money, and sneaked down to make a contact with Neville. No difficulty about that. Only Neville's too sharp to allow anyone to share a secret that would put a rope round his neck, and he proceeded to eliminate Carpenter double-quick. How's that?"

"It's perfectly plausible up to a point, Skipper. But it falls down as soon as it reaches the time of Carpenter's death, for reasons already stated."

"Then Carpenter was murdered by someone else altogether," said the Sergeant despairingly.

"Where's the data you collected about that murder?" Hannasyde asked suddenly. "Let me have a look at it."

The Sergeant handed him some typewritten notes. "Not that you'll be able to make much of it," he remarked pessimistically.

Hannasyde ran his eye down the notes. "Yes, I thought so. Landlady stated Carpenter was alive at 9.30. Dora Jenkins said that the man in evening dress passed by on the other side of the road just before the policeman appeared, coming from the other direction."

"Yes, and if you read on a bit further you'll see that her boy-friend said the policeman came by ages before the man in evening dress. Of the two, I'd sooner believe him. She was simply trying to spin a good tale."