Case with No Conclusion (9 page)

“Well, let's hear what you can tell us,” said Beef. “Have a drink?”

The young man said he didn't mind, and began at once to tell us quite freely what details he could remember. He had heard, it seemed, the story of Stewart and Mrs. Benson, though he could never remember their having driven into his garage together. On the evening of the murder Benson had brought his car in on the way to the Cypresses for dinner. It was missing on one cylinder, he said, and he wanted him, Fred Coleman, to examine it and get it right. If he could have it running before about ten he was to bring it to the Cypresses. If not, Benson would have a taxi home and the car was to be delivered at his own house. It was absolutely essential, Dr. Benson had said, to have it ready for the morning when he had a round to make and several important visits.

Young Coleman had worked on the car for much longer than he had anticipated, and it must have been little short of midnight when he eventually got it going. He knew that it would be no good taking it to the Cypresses at that hour, since Dr. Benson would already have gone home. He didn't mind telling us that he cursed having to work so late on the car, but Benson was a good customer and he didn't like to disappoint him for his morning round of visits. So he drove off to Benson's
house, which was a quarter of a mile away. He could see that the lights were still on in the downstairs windows when he got there, so he rang the front-door bell. The door was opened by Mrs. Benson.

He turned aside at this point of his narrative to inform us that he had always considered Mrs. Benson a smart piece of goods, to which Beef, I'm ashamed to say, gave an understanding “Ah.” And when she came to the door that evening, wearing as he said, nothing but a pair of pyjamas and a bit of a dressing-gown pulled over them, it had given him quite a turn. And what she had told him had been most surprising. Benson was not yet home though he had promised not to be later than half-past ten. She was very worried about him, as she knew he had a heavy day in front of him tomorrow.

She had not, however, as it appeared to young Coleman, looked particularly worried. He might be wrong, he admitted, but he had almost thought that she was on the point of asking him in. Then she had “grown serious” and begged him to drive back to the Cypresses and bring her husband home. The Cypresses, as Beef already knew, was not on the telephone, since Stewart had inherited his father's prejudice.

On his way down the engine had given out again and he had left it at his garage and gone on his bicycle to the Cypresses. He had found the place, so far as he could see, completely in darkness, and no sign of life anywhere in the grounds of the house. It
had looked, he told us, very gloomy at that time of night, and when he had rung the bell and heard it pealing away somewhere in the house with no one taking any notice of it, he had been only too glad to get on his bicycle and cycle away.

Then came his other, more remarkable revelations. It was a bright moonlit night, and as he cycled down the drive, the shadows of the bushes were thrown in his path. He wouldn't be quite sure now, but he thought it was some change in the shape of these shadows which had made him turn his head, and he was almost certain that he had seen someone moving among the bushes behind him. He had got off his bicycle and waited a minute, shouting “Who's there?” or something of the sort. There had been no reply, and after a few minutes he had decided not to delay any further but to get to bed. He did, however, stop at his garage to telephone to Mrs. Benson. He told her that her husband must have left the Cypresses and be on his way home now. He explained that the engine of the car had given out again, and promised to set to work on it first thing in the morning.

Beef had only one question to ask. “Did anyone see you around the house that night?”

“Yes,” returned young Coleman, “there was a policeman on the corner whom I know. I said good night to him as I went past.”

“Well, thank you very much,” said Beef, “your story fits in nicely.”

“If you want to know anything else,” Coleman
told us, “come round to the garage. Only I must get back there now as I've two or three repairs to do this afternoon. Here's the address. I'll be glad to give you any information I can.” He nodded cheerfully and left the bar.

“It strikes me,” I observed, “that that young mechanic may know more about the actual murder than he's going to admit. His story was very well put together, but don't forget he had to find some way of explaining why he was up at the Cypresses that evening after midnight, because the policeman saw him.”

“I'm not forgetting anything,” said Beef, and moved across to the bar.

But when he tried to draw the ex-gardener publican into conversation, he was most dismally unsuccessful.

“L
OOK
here, Beef,” I said, as we left the cheerless inn, “it's time we went to see Mrs. Benson.”

“Why? Have you made an appointment with her?” asked Beef.

“No, I mean we need a woman in this case. It's getting too tied up with details and not enough human interest.”

Beef chuckled. “All right,” he said, “we'll go and see her if you feel like that about it, only I don't expect much from this, I don't mind telling you.”

“She sounds attractive.”

“Wait till you see her,” said Beef. “You never want to go on other people's opinions. I've been terribly took in that way before now. Have you got the address?”

I had, and I told it to him. “But don't, for goodness' sake, forget,” I added, “that we are going to see a widow. It won't be the occasion for any of your attempted jokes. And do try to be polite.”

Beef only grunted, and we started to climb the hill towards Benson's house. It was a long and tiring walk through the respectable but gloomy streets of Sydenham, and when at last we stood at the front door of Benson's fair-sized, semi-detached
house, most of my enthusiasm for this interview had been damped. Beef pushed the electric bell, holding his thumb on the button far longer than he should have done. But the door was not opened.

“Funny,” said Beef, and before I could restrain him he had rung again. This time I thought there was some faint sound from the back, but it was not until after Beef's third and most nerve-wracking ring that we could distinctly hear footsteps in the passage, and at last saw the door pulled open.

Sheila Benson wore a dressing-gown. What she had on under it is a subject for discussion between Beef and myself to this day. I'm not going to tell you my theory on this subject, or Beefs crude conclusions, but I must confess that whenever the subject occurs, the Sergeant is apt to guffaw and nudge me painfully and rudely in the ribs.

She certainly was handsome. She was neither pretty nor beautiful, but she had one of those attractive, changeful faces, with biggish lips that smiled very often and quite disarmingly, with a golden warm complexion, dark brilliant eyes, and a frank, unsuppressed vitality.

Beef seemed rather taken aback by this apparition. “I
had
come to ask some questions,” he stuttered.

His reward was a smile. “Why, you must be Sergeant Beef,” said Mrs. Benson; “Peter has told me all about
you.
Come in, won't you?”

Still Beef hesitated. “If I've come at an inconvenient moment,” he began.

“Inconvenient? Not at all,” said Sheila Benson.
“I've been gardening.”

Realizing that this was just what the story needed, I gave Beef a surreptitious shove, and he stumbled into the hall.

“Come in, won't you?” said Mrs. Benson. “This is the old waiting-room. The rest of the house is a bit untidy. I haven't had a servant since the upset.”

“You mean,” said Beef sepulchrally, “since your husband was murdered?”

“That's it,” said Mrs. Benson, without dropping her bright manner.

“If I may say so, madam,” Beef went on, “you don't seem to be very put out by your loss.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Mrs. Benson in the tone of one who genuinely seeks information.

Beef coughed, and was at a loss for a moment, while I wondered how he would extricate himself from the embarrassment into which his own clumsiness had brought him.

“Well, I mean,” he mumbled, “you're not wearing mourning, are you?”

Mrs. Benson smiled. “I'm not wearing anything much, am I?” she said. “What about some tea?”

Beef was relieved. “I could do with a cup of tea,” he said faintly.

“I'll have to make it myself. You two just sit there and wait,” and she gaily swished from the room.

Beef pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “What do you say to that?” he asked in an awed voice.

“She's certainly rather overwhelming,” I admitted.

“A woman who could behave like that just after her lawful husband had been stabbed to death might do anything,” Beef announced, and after a moment added, “Anything.”

When Sheila Benson returned with the tea she was wearing a plain frock, and she had evidently combed her hair.

“Sugar?” she asked Beef. “And what have you come to find out from
me,
I wonder?”

Beef sipped noisily from a teacup which he grasped with both hands. “Was you in love with Stewart Ferrers?” he asked explosively, as he put it down empty.

Sheila Benson had a surprise for both of us. “Good Lord, no,” she said, “I'm in love with Peter. Have been for a year or more.”

Beef gasped. “He never told us,” he blurted out.

“Well,” said Sheila Benson, “men are rather reserved in these matters. It's not everyone who would speak as frankly as I do.”

“No,” admitted Beef, “it certainly isn't. Did your husband know about this?”

“Oh yes, he'd known for a long time,” said Sheila Benson. “It didn't worry him. He wasn't the man to worry over that sort of thing. Now if he lost a lot of money racing, he
did
get annoyed.”

Suddenly, to my horror, Beef put his teacup down and began what I can only describe as a tirade.

“I suppose this is what is called modern morality,” he announced. “Stories going round the place
about you and one brother and all the time you're carrying on with the other. Then your husband gets murdered and you don't seem to care a straw. I quite believe what that young mechanic said about you giving him a come-hither look. I'm thankful I didn't arrive here alone myself this afternoon. I don't know what people are coming to I'm sure. In a respectable place like Sydenham, too. I never expect anyone to be churchy all the time, but I do think you might take it seriously when your husband gets his throat cut. It's not hardly decent. I'm a good mind to throw up the case immediately.”

Sheila Benson smiled. “Oh, don't do that, Sergeant,” she said, “just when you and I were getting on so well.”

Beef seemed slightly, but unwillingly, mollified. “How do you mean, your husband didn't mind?” he persisted.

“My husband, whatever his faults, was a man of some experience,” explained Sheila Benson. “He drank too much, he neglected his work, he was a bully, and I daresay worse things as well, but he wasn't narrow-minded. He saw that Peter and I were in love, and he was quite willing that we should arrange matters in some way. He himself would have preferred, I think, for his own purposes, to be without a wife at home. And he certainly couldn't have expected me to sit at home waiting for him after some of his behaviour.”

“I see,” said Beef. “He was a bit of a dog himself, was he?”

“Too apt,” replied Sheila Benson, “if you knew this district.”

“Then,” said Beef, his manner suddenly brightening as he seized a welcome idea, “you don't believe in this quarrel between your husband and Stewart Ferrers over you?”

“Certainly not,” said Sheila Benson. “I've told you before, there never was anything between Stewart and me. If they quarrelled it was over something else.”

“But your name was mentioned,” said Beef.

“I daresay, but I don't believe it could have been more than casually.”

“Could it,” asked Beef, “have caused a quarrel between Benson and Peter Ferrers?”

Sheila Benson smiled again. “No, not that either. They both understood the position too well, as I have told you. In fact, only that evening I had been talking it over with my husband.”

Out came Beefs notebook. “Oh, you had?” he said, “and what did he say?”

“He said he'd have a chat with Peter about it, and see what could be arranged.”

“Very nice indeed,” returned Beef sarcastically. “You might have been talking over a picnic you was going to have.”

“Well, I don't think any of us saw any reason to get excited,” explained Sheila Benson. “Life's too short for hysteria.”

“And did they have that little chat?” asked Beef.

“No, they never had a chance. Peter brought his
friend Wakefield that evening, a man I rather dislike, and Stewart was there the whole time.”

“What did you think, then, when he didn't come home?”

Sheila Benson laughed outright. “If I had had to think of some explanation every time my husband was late during the years of our marriage, I should have been a lady novelist by now,” she retorted. “I was only a little puzzled after I knew from young Coleman that he hadn't got the car with him.”

“You stayed up for him, though?” said Beef.

At this she smiled ingratiatingly. “Well, I was reading Mr. Townsend's latest book about you, Sergeant,” she said, “and was far too interested to think of bed.”

I could see that Beef was delighted though he did his best to hide it. “I'm glad that someone reads it, even if it's only someone in my new case,” was his involved reply. “What time did you go to bed?”

“I really don't know. It must have been about an hour after Coleman called.”