Bones in the Barrow (24 page)

“In the meantime,” said David. “I must get on to St. Edmund's. Jill was much relieved you didn't want her in Boxwood. She was dreading it. Not because of what she had to do so much as at the thought of having her hair washed by a strange shop. Let me know at the Medical School when you have got the dope from Shirley G.”

“I will,” said Johnson. Just as David was leaving he added: “That motor-bike wasn't Hilton's. His is still in Boxwood at that garage he goes to.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said David. “It might have taken us off on a tiresome false trail.”

“Why don't you name me?” Johnson grinned at him. “I'm converted, you know, Doctor. Hilton is in the clear as far as I'm concerned.”

“Poor devil. I don't suppose he cares much either way.”

Johnson drove down to Boxwood in a police car, sitting beside the driver, with Janet Lapthorn alone on the back seat. David went to St. Edmund's Hospital, where he spent the morning at his usual work in his department and in the wards. As far as possible he put the Hilton case from his mind. But below the surface its main problems nagged at his intelligence. The scattered threads had drawn together, but they seemed more like the hard core of disorder in Jill's knitting bag than a neatly made-up skein of reasoning. And there were gaps, large gaps, even in the story of events.

At eleven he went with some of his colleagues to have coffee in the refectory of the Medical School. While he sat, hardly taking in what they said, a messenger came to tell him he was wanted on the outside line. David left his coffee, and hurried away.

The call was from Johnson and he had news. He had found the girl, Shirley Gardiner, at the hairdresser's shop to which Mrs. Lapthorn had directed the police car. He had spoken to her employer at once, explaining that his inquiries were necessary, but only involved the girl indirectly. Shirley was asked to see him in the room behind the shop.

“She tried to hold out at first, but not for long,” Johnson reported. “I told her enough to make her see sense. The brooch was given her as a present a couple of months ago by her boy friend. She called him Eric Ford.”

“Isn't that his name?”

“Could be. Or could not. She always goes home to London, to the hostel, I mean, by the 5.45 train you caught yesterday. You were right about that. She met Eric Ford on the train. She says she knows he works in Boxwood, but she doesn't know where. A white-collar job, anyway. She tried to ask him once or twice but he didn't tell her. On the other hand he always goes up on that train, or nearly always. She was surprised he wasn't on it yesterday.”

“Almost as if he knew I was going to be on it,” said David.

“So likely.”

“If he's the man I think he is, it would be quite likely.”

“And that Shirley would sit down next to you?”

“That was luck, but not so extraordinary. There were very few passengers waiting besides ourselves, and we and this girl all got into the central coach, the new open kind with nice new upholstery. As it was moderately full already we sat in an empty bay, all together.”

“Well, never mind that. The point is, the man lives in London, meets her in London, after working hours, and she knows him as Eric Ford.”

“And you can't find an Eric Ford employed in Boxwood.”

“Precisely.”

“This lets out Basil Sims, doesn't it?”

“Yes, if he was ever really in the running.”

“Not seriously. What about the brooch?”

“It is Mrs. Hilton's, all right. The girl was wearing it again. Says she always wears it because it is so pretty. Mrs. Lapthorn is prepared to swear to it, so is Hilton himself and Mrs. Mason. She says it is one of the pieces Mrs. Hilton took away in November.”

“Ah!”

“Yes. It looks as if she thought she might want to cash in on it, but never got round to that. Unless we're wrong, and Eric Ford happened to buy it, secondhand.”

“There's always an innocent explanation for every darned thing that happens in this case,” said David, irritably. “Uphill, uphill, all the way.”

“Yes, to the very end,” said Johnson, with bitter emphasis.

“Never mind. We know the boy friend lives in London and goes to Boxwood every day. That's a gain. I can do a little piece of research on the strength of that. And Shirley, what have you done with her?”

“Daren't let her go back to the shop in case she can't keep her mouth shut. She's kicking her heels at the Willows, waiting for the 5.45 this afternoon.”

“Going to use her as a decoy?”

“That's the idea. She understands the seriousness of what's happened, and she's read the papers, and Hilton has talked to her about Felicity.”

“Humane treatment, for once.”

“More often than you think.”

“I wasn't serious. Good luck to you. If my own show goes reasonably well, you can expect to see me at Boxwood Station, also waiting for the 5.45. With Terry Byrnes, most likely. And, Johnson, when you're looking for Eric Ford, don't neglect the public services. Jill said the newsagent at the station had the right build.”

“So has the postman who does Grange Road,” said Johnson, and rang off.

David went back to his room at the Medical School. He had no teaching work on hand, and his ward round was over. If he was to help Johnson in the final round he must move fast.

He lit a cigarette and went over to the window. He worked on the third floor up, and from where he stood he looked across a vista of roofs, repetitive and soothing.

A time-table, he thought. Rust's, Goode's, Ford's time-table, from the date on which he took the lodging at Mrs. Hunt's house in Waterbury Street. Work it backwards. Rust came home at seven at night. He went out at seven in the morning. Now, he works in Boxwood, and goes up from there on the 5.45, which gets in to Waterloo at 6.15. He had three-quarters of an hour in which to reach Mrs. Hunt's, pushing the barrow. Except on one or two occasions a week, when he is said to have brought in big supplies of cat's meat for the refrig; this is according to Mrs. Hunt. There wouldn't be time for him to go to the house in Battersea and push the barrow back from there to Waterbury Street in three-quarters of an hour. Nor to push it to Battersea and get back from there to Waterloo in time to get down to Boxwood about eight, as he must have done. Those trains don't stop at Queen's Road, Battersea, so he couldn't work it that way.

Therefore, said David to himself, still gazing with unseeing eyes at the roofs of London, he must have pushed the barrow to the vicinity of Waterloo Station in the morning and collected it from there in the evening. But where could he leave it?

This, as David knew well, was no easy problem, for the officials of the Southern Region were jealous of their property, and not willing to allow parking by any vehicle not connected with the railway or the taxi-cab profession. He decided to go down at once and investigate.

Conditions were just as he expected. The long ramp from the Westminster Bridge end was too exposed, the dark turn-round off the Waterloo Road much too congested. Besides, it was unlikely that Rust would leave his barrow unattended where it might be stolen or, worse still, searched by the policeman on the beat. Where then could he put it?

He began to ask for the nearest car-park, and after visiting one or two where he found no answer to his question, came at last to one that commonly served the Old Vic Theatre.

And there was the answer. The car-park attendant on duty remembered quite clearly a man who asked to leave his barrow in a corner of the park while he was away on a daily job. They didn't open the park very early, the man explained, so he wasn't sure of the time the bloke left his cart, but it must have been early.

“What time of day was it when he first saw you?”

“Oh, that was one evening. To ask if 'e could leave it the next day. Two bob a week we charged 'im. Very reasonable.”

And the item would not appear on the accounts of this licensed park, David felt certain. But it did not appear in the tariff, so why shouldn't the men get the benefit?

“He just left an empty handcart?” David went on. “Did you know what he used it for?”

“No. 'E never said. It 'ad a few sacks on it most days, and a little weighing machine and weights, and 'e always 'ad a bunch of fresh papers under 'is arm when 'e come for it, evenings.”

“What sort of papers?”

“Newspapers.”

David remembered seeing the notes of Mrs. Hunt's early statement to Inspector Cole. When he brought the handcart to Waterbury Street it had sacks on it and a supply of clean newspaper and a weighing machine. It had not occurred to Cole to wonder where the clean newsprint had come from. Nor to Johnson, apparently. Nor to himself until now, when it only confirmed what he already guessed.

“You must have wondered what his trade was?”

“Not particular. They sells most things on barrers, don't they?”

“How long did this go on for?”

“Month or six weeks. Round about.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“Not a sign.” The man leered at him. “What's 'e done? Shall I 'ave my name in the papers?”

“I shouldn't wonder,” said David, and strode away, leaving the astonished car-park attendant staring after him.

David was not very sure of the whereabouts of Waterbury Street, but he knew in which part of Lambeth it lay, so he set off in the right direction, walking at about the pace he thought he would employ if he were pushing a handcart. He took thirty minutes to find the street, making several mistakes on the way there. And then, after inquiring the shortest route to Waterloo, he walked back again, still at the same restricted pace. He took only twenty minutes this time. His theory was feasible, and backed by the evidence of the man at the car-park.

Having reached Waterloo for the second time that morning David decided to have a quick lunch there before going down to Boxwood. But first he rang up St. Edmund's to know if he was wanted there, and afterwards he rang up Jill to tell her he did not know what time he would be home that day.

“But what about this woman?” asked Jill.

“What woman?”

“Didn't you get my message?”

“What message?”

“Oh, darling, do stop being a parrot. The message I told them at St. Edmund's to give you immediately.”

“I haven't been there the last hour and a half. I'm speaking from Waterloo.”

“Oh!” There was a pause while Jill considered. “She's in answer to your advertisement,” she said, at last.

“Oh, hell! I've got to go to Boxwood as soon as possible. If I come out home I may lose an hour or more.” He thought rapidly. “Never mind, I must come. Is she any good, do you think?”

“She has two suitcases, she says. Not with her, of course.”

“Hold her! I'll be with you in twelve minutes. And Jill, listen carefully, darling. Try to get Terry Byrnes on the phone and tell him if he can possibly make it, to get leave at four this afternoon. In connection with the case. His boss knows he started the whole thing, and that we might want him at any time. Tell Terry I'll pick him up at the front doors of his insurance prison.”

“That palatial building!” laughed Jill. “Anything less like—”

But David had rung off. So she went back to her visitor to explain that the Free Advice was even now on its way.

David drove into the city at the appointed time. In the back seat of the car were Jill and an elaborately dressed woman whose name was Mrs. Bracegirdle and whose address was in Prince of Wales Road, Battersea.

Terry was standing on the steps of his great office building when David drove up. He got in beside him and was introduced to Mrs. Bracegirdle.

“She knows all about it,” David explained to him. “She is coming with us to see if she can recognize the man we suspect.”

“Do you really suspect anyone, sir?” said Terry.

“I do. But Inspector Johnson may by now have found someone quite different.”

“I back you, sir,” said Terry. “Every time.”

“That's very flattering,” said David, with a laugh. “But it may be rash. The reason I asked you to come, Terry, is in case you might possibly recognize the man yourself.”

“I didn't see his face.”

“I know. You only saw a hand and arm. But you saw the gesture, and you might feel it was familiar if you saw a similar movement.”

“I hope not,” muttered Terry.

“Oh, nobody is going to be laid out. I just wanted to try everything I could think of.”

David drove first to the Willows and was thankful to find Chief-Inspector Johnson there, with Hilton, Mrs. Lapthorn, and a very nervous, pale-faced Miss Gardiner. All three were trying to read papers or periodicals in the pleasant sitting-room with the big windows; they were not having much success. Mrs. Mason, very much in her element, let the newcomers in, looking with approval at David's additions to the growing list of witnesses.

Johnson took Mrs. Bracegirdle away with him into another room, and presently was in conversation with Scotland Yard. The photograph of Felicity Hilton was brought from the sitting-room and Mrs. Bracegirdle identified it. But the name the landlady had known was Norris. Felicity Norris and Peter Norris. Oh, yes, she had called her husband Peter.

“At last,” said David, when Mrs. Bracegirdle, in possession of the salient facts, had joined the waiting party, and he was alone with the chief-inspector.

“At last,” said Johnson. He had listened to David's tale of his researches near Waterloo, and he felt quite pleased with the sum of the day's activities.

“We go into action at five-thirty,” he said. “Mrs. Mason had better give us a cuppa in preparation.”

“What action?” asked David, as the inspector came back into the room, after issuing his order.

“The capture, we hope, and identification of Eric Ford, alias Philip Goode, alias Harold Rust, alias Peter Norris.”