Richardson Scores Again (12 page)

“Oh, he told you that, did he? I should have thought that he'd like to forget about it.”

“Why? Did you have a disturbed night?”

Chapman burst into a laugh. “A disturbed night is a mild thing to call it. I suppose, Mr. Foster, that anything I tell you will be treated confidential. You see, my neighbour Jackson is Vicar's churchwarden, and it would cause a world of trouble if it got out. Jackson had bought his own farm that afternoon and nothing would satisfy him but to celebrate the occasion. He's not a drinking man, and I suppose he doesn't carry liquor well for that reason. Anyway, we had an awful job with him getting him safe to the hotel, and there was a room short. As none of the others would have him in with them, I helped him upstairs to my room and gave him the bed while I dossed down in the chair for a sleep. Lord! Mr. Foster, you've never heard Jackson sing, have you? No, of course you haven't. His ‘Amen' in church after each prayer is nothing to his singing, nor the hyena-house at feeding-time at the Zoo neither. I tried my hardest to get him to drop singing hymns, but he wouldn't, and then all of a sudden he stopped, rolled off the bed and stuck his hat on. By that time he had sobered down a bit. He kept feeling in his pockets and muttering, ‘I've left my money somewheres.' I told him to lie down and sleep, but he wouldn't listen to me—just sticks his hat on his head wrong side before, and clatters down the stairs into the street. It wasn't safe to let him go out like that, and I had to go after him, if only to save him from getting run over.”

“Did you catch up with him?” asked Foster.

“No, because he started running. I never knew before how a drunken man could run, but I managed to keep him in sight as the streets were pretty empty; and a fine dance he led me! Street after street we went through until we came to a street of big houses standing back in gardens. He went through the gate of one of them.”

“You didn't notice the name of the street?”

“No, I didn't. It was too dark to read names. I stayed by the gate to see what he'd do, and saw him floundering about among the flowers. He picked himself up though, and the next thing I saw was him standing on the doorstep, pulling at the bell. I could hear it ringing from where I was standing, but nobody came. So then I went in and got him by the arm and asked him what he thought he was doing, ringing folks up after midnight. He began to cry then, and said that he'd spent a lifetime saving up that money, and that he was sure he'd left it in the house and the people wouldn't open the door.”

“Was he carrying a walking-stick when he went out?”

“Yes, he'd taken my stick instead of his own when he went out, and it was all I could do to get it back from him. Luckily for us, an empty taxi overtook us, and I shouted to the driver. That's how I got him back to the hotel.”

“He'd sobered down?”

“Yes, he was crying like a child in the taxi until he fell asleep. It cost me four and nine, did that journey, but what could I do? He's paid me back since, but to this day he says he doesn't remember a thing about it.”

“You got your stick back though. Can I see it?”

“Certainly you can. Fetch it from the lobby, Mother, will you?”

Mrs. Chapman went out for the stick—a stick with a crook handle. Foster took it with a smile and examined the ferrule, which was much worn down on the side opposite to the crook.

“You have no luck with this stick, Mr. Chapman. I'm going to ask you for the loan of it for a day or two.”

Mrs. Chapman was bursting to ask the reason for this strange request, but Foster forestalled the question.

“It's to clear Mr. Jackson of any suspicion, madam. There was a burglary in that house that night, and we've come across marks in the flowerbeds that might have been made by the burglar, but which this stick may explain away. You shall have the stick back without fail.”

“Did the burglar get away with Mr. Jackson's money?” asked the lady, round-eyed with horror.

“I'm afraid that he did.”

Here was material for exciting gossip for a fortnight if she dared to use it, but her husband foresaw the danger. “Not a word of this to any of the neighbours, Mother, or you'll end by setting poor Jackson against us. Not a word, eh?”

Mrs. Chapman drew herself up. “Have you ever known me to gossip, Dad? What do you take me for?”

Foster took leave of his host and hostess with mutual expressions of goodwill. The last he heard of them was a jocose injunction from the farmer to be sure and not leave his stick in the train.

Foster was doing well in his favourite process of elimination. All the marks in the front garden were now innocently accounted for, and he smiled as he thought of his next interview with Richardson on the subject of the little holes left in the soft earth of the rose-beds, which he had noticed while his subordinate was pouring plaster of Paris into the footprints. They did not teach everything in the detective class of which Richardson had been such an assiduous member; for example, they had not taught him that a straight walking-stick wears evenly all round the ferrule, whereas a stick with a crook handle wears down on the side opposite the crook.

This had been puzzling him ever since he had examined the ferrule of Jackson's stick, for the holes he had examined had all been made by a ferrule worn down on the side towards the toes of the footprints. Farmer Chapman had furnished him with the explanation: Jackson had borrowed his stick. Foster's satisfaction was natural. There had been no detective class in his young days: every detective had had to accumulate the science of clues by hard experience, and this was one of his own discovery, or so he believed.

R
ICHARDSON
was at his table in the detective-sergeants' room, writing his report of his visit to Portsmouth when Willis, Charles Morden's messenger, came in with an air of business about him. He looked at the bowed heads at the tables and made a bee-line for Richardson's.

“Here's a little job for you, Richardson. Mr. Foster's out, and there's a gent in with Mr. Morden who wants a statement taken from him.”

Richardson pushed back his papers with an air of resignation. “Can't the man write down what he has to say? One of these time-wasters, I suppose.”

“Mr. Morden is sending him to you because he's brought some information about the Hampstead murder—at least that's what I gathered from what he was saying to the gent when I answered his bell. Take care that your head doesn't get too big for your hat. He said, ‘I'll get you to tell all this to one of the officers engaged on the case. He's a junior, but he's about the smartest junior I've got.' Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and never call him a time-waster again. He's a barrister.”

“Right, bring him in, but I wish to God Mr. Foster was here to deal with him.”

Willis retired and returned almost immediately with Dick Meredith, who appeared disconcerted when he found himself in a room with five detectives, all busily writing.

“This is Sergeant Richardson, sir,” said Willis, bringing him up to the table.

“Good morning, sergeant. Look here, can't we have a room somewhere, just you and I?”

“Is there anyone in the waiting-room, Willis?” asked Richardson.

“No, you could have that to yourselves.”

“You see, sir, we are growing out of this building already,” apologized Richardson as he gathered up writing materials. “If you don't mind a small room we shall be alone there.”

He led the visitor along the passage to a tiny room on the left of the main entrance. They sat down on opposite sides of a little table.

Dick Meredith opened his business. “I must begin by telling you that I have been instructed to represent Lieutenant Eccles in the police-court proceedings at Bridgwater—for being in possession of a stolen car and assaulting the police.”

“Yes, sir?” Richardson's heart had missed a beat, but his manner remained that of the polite listener. “I did not hear your name, sir?”

“Richard Meredith: you'll find it in the Law List. Mr. Morden told me that you were engaged on a case of burglary and murder in Hampstead, and I have brought you something which is not a clue, of course, but may be of interest to you nevertheless.” Dick took a folded newspaper from his pocket and opened it out. “Mr. Eccles tells me that the man who induced him to enter that stolen car, and posed as a detective, was carrying this in his pocket and left it on the driving-seat when he absconded. You will see that one of the paragraphs is marked in blue pencil—presumably by a member of the gang.”

Richardson read the paragraph carefully, and looked up with inquiry in his eyes. “Can you suggest any connection between the marking of this paragraph and the Hampstead case, sir?”

“No, I confess that it beats me, but I think that you ought to keep the paper in case some connection turns up later.”

“I will, sir. One never knows in such a case as this what may turn up. It's an awkward mix-up for Lieutenant Eccles.”

“It is, because the murder took place in his uncle's house; but there is another coincidence, though a slender one. It was about that coincidence that Mr. Morden asked me to make a statement. The story reached me through a personal friend, and therefore at this stage it is only second-hand.”

“It would be more regular, sir, if your friend would come here and make the statement.”

“I couldn't get him to do that, but later on I will bring him to confirm it. Perhaps you will take it down.”

Thereupon Dick Meredith related what his Canadian friend, Jim Milsom, had told him. He was surprised to see the pencil poised in the air almost before he had completed a sentence: Richardson was equally impressed with the succinctness of the story as told by a man with legal training. There was not a word too much or too little. Only at one point did he show that he was more than a mechanical amanuensis.

“Excuse me, sir. By ‘Ralph Lewis' do you mean the young politician whose name is given in this newspaper?”

“Yes, that's the man. No doubt he can take care of himself, but there would be a great outcry if this Canadian monomaniac were to shoot him. The uncomfortable part of the business is that the man has disappeared.”

“Disappeared, sir?”

“Yes; my informant tells me that he rang up the hotel and they told him that his luggage is there, but they haven't seen him for six days, and he hasn't paid his bill.”

Richardson smiled. “That often happens, sir. When visitors to London run short of money they have a way of walking off and leaving the hotel proprietor to pay himself out of the luggage if he can.”

“Quite so, but my friend says that this man would never have gone off without letting him know; that if he had run short of money he would have borrowed from him enough to pay his bill. The people you speak of are those that have no friends in London.”

Richardson was busily writing down this last statement. “Then, sir, for all your friend knows to the contrary this man may be in London at this moment?”

“He may, and I think you will agree that it is always better to prevent a crime than to arrest the criminal after he has committed it.”

“Quite so, sir. I shall pass on your statement at once, and I have no doubt that some action will be taken. If you hear anything of this man, Moore, I hope that you will let us know. I suppose that you feel confident that Lieutenant Eccles will be discharged at the preliminary hearing, or at any rate that if he is committed for trial he will be granted bail?”

“I hope to get him discharged, perhaps with a fine for the assault. In any case he will be granted bail. Have you anything fresh to tell me that would be helpful?”

“I was down at Portsmouth yesterday, sir. The result of my inquiries there was to bear out Mr. Eccles' story. That is all that I can tell you at the moment, sir. It would have helped us if Mr. Eccles had told us frankly who it was that he went to see during the morning of the day he was arrested, but he would not.”

“He has not told me either, but he assured me that it had nothing whatever to do with the case. Well, I mustn't keep you, sergeant. Thank you for taking down my statement so accurately. I dare say we shall meet again in the course of the case.”

“I hope so, sir.”

As Richardson was returning to the detective-sergeants' room, with the marked newspaper in his hand, he encountered Foster in the corridor. “I'm glad you're back, sir,” he said.

“What's that you have in your hand, young man?”

“I've just been taking a statement from Eccles' counsel. He left this paper with me.”

“Step in here, my boy,” said Foster, leading the way into the superintendents' room, “and let me hear what you've been doing, but tell me first whether they taught you anything about the prints of walking-sticks in that detective class of yours.”

Richardson knew his chief in this humour and guessed that he had scored a small success off his own bat. He searched his memory. “No, sir, I don't think they did.”

“They didn't tell you the difference between the marks made in soft ground by the points of straight sticks and sticks with a crook handle? I guessed as much. Well—while you were down at Portsmouth I ran up to Redford and cleared up the mystery of these marks you found in the rose-beds in Laburnum Road. They were made by Jackson, the farmer, who was coming back for his money when he was almost too drunk to stand, and it was the prints of his stick that proved it.”

“So we can rule him out, sir?”

“We can. You'll read it in my report. Now what about your visit to Portsmouth?”

“I've only a few words to add to my report, and you shall have it on your table in the next few minutes.”

“Have you taken Eccles out of the picture too?”

“Yes, Mr. Foster—except for one thing. The loan he had from the money-lender was repaid on the day after the murder.”