The Lake District Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (10 page)

“Johnson,” smiled the Inspector pleasantly. “But I assure you that... .”

“Impossible,” snapped the manager. “If you doubt my word, you can darn well stay here till six o’clock and see ‘em come in. They’re all out to-day. Six lorries. So you can stand in that gateway and count ‘em. That’s fair enough, eh?”

“Well, really... .” Meredith’s confusion was admirably genuine. “I don’t quite know what to say, Mr. Rose. It looks as if I must have been mistaken. I apologize, of course. Can’t imagine how I could have made an error like that. Your lorries
are
green aren’t they? Green with yellow lettering?”

“That’s settled it! You
have
made a mistake. Blue and red—that’s us !”

Meredith’s apologies grew profuse. He couldn’t imagine how he could have been so stupid. Now he came to think of it, the Nonock lorries had blue tanks with red lettering, hadn’t they? He’d noticed them about quite a lot in the district.

“I expect you’ve got a pretty flourishing connection in these parts? Interesting work, eh?”

“So-so,” said the manager in surly tones.

“Oh, well,” observed Meredith spaciously, “we all think other people’s work more interesting than our own. Now I’m a commercial traveller—at least, I was until I had a nervous breakdown. Haberdashery—that was my line. Ever been on the road, Mr. Rose?”

The manager eyed his interlocutor suspiciously, and nodded.

“Off and on,” was his non-committal reply.

“But now that you’ve got a regular round for your lorries I suppose it means you’re tied to the office?”

“That’s about it.”

Meredith rose suddenly, with an apologetic air, and held out his hand.

“But I mustn’t take up all your time, Mr. Rose. I’m sorry I’ve troubled you. I still can’t see how I made that mistake. Well—good morning.”

“Good morning,” answered Mr. Rose in level tones as he escorted the Inspector down the steps.

Aware that the manager had followed him cautiously to the gates and was now watching his departure, Meredith sauntered casually along the road in the direction of Penrith. There was no bus due for another forty-five minutes, so he decided to walk into the town and improve the shining hour at the Beacon. Once round the bend of the road, screened by a high stone wall, Meredith swung into a brisk stride, a form of exercise which always acted as a stimulant to his brain.

He was delighted with the result of his visit to the depot. He now felt sure that there was some definite connection between the manager and the partners of the Derwent. That it was a purely business interest Meredith dismissed. Rose had as good as told him that his work lay solely in the little brick office. The Nonock company had already worked up an excellent connection with the garages in the surrounding areas, as witness the number of places which sported their blue and scarlet pumps. He had already noticed a pump of this description at the Derwent. So it hardly seemed probable that Rose’s nocturnal visits to the cottage could be connected with a desire to further the trade of the petrol company. What, then, was the basis of the intimacy between the two factions? Was the Chief right in his theory? Were these men united in the running of some nefarious concern under cover of their respective trades?

Meredith could not suppress a chuckle when he recalled the shock he had received when Rose had confronted him in the office door. Thank heaven his powers of invention hadn’t failed him at the crucial moment! As Mr. Johnson, the retired commercial traveller, he had at least gained a glimmer of useful information, which would most certainly have been denied him if Rose had guessed his real identity. Complications had accrued, of course. He would now have to interrogate the lorry-men away from the depot. It would never do for Rose to see him cross-examining the men. That would immediately put him on his guard.

And why had the lorry been seen at the Derwent at seven-twenty when he had the manager’s assurance that all the Nonock transport was in the depot by six o’clock? The significance of this discrepancy struck Meredith at once. Did it mean that the lorry-men were vitally concerned with Clayton’s death—in brief,
were they the murderers
? It was a possibility, but a possibility discounted by Freddie Hogg’s evidence. The lorry was no longer there when he passed at seven-thirty and Clayton was definitely alive. The men might have parked the lorry up a side-turning and returned on foot to the garage. That was another possibility. If only he could have established the time at which the lorry reached the depot on Saturday night! On the other hand, why not follow up the supposition that the lorry had parked and make an exhaustive examination of the probable side-turnings up which it could have been concealed? Meredith decided that this, coupled with a cross-examination of the lorry-men, must be his next move.

Charlie’s amiable countenance expanded into a vast grin when Meredith walked into the hotel entrance of the Beacon.

“Hullo, Inspector. Taking a day off?”

“You’ve said it!” replied Meredith with a wry grimace. “No such luck, Mr. Dawson. Can I have a word with you in the office?”

“Right-o. This way. Mind the mat!” He went to a side-table and poured out a couple of whiskies and sodas. “No need to ask,” he observed with a sly chuckle as he handed Meredith the tumbler. “Here’s luck, Inspector!”

Meredith grinned as he raised his glass.

“I need it,” he answered tritely. “You saw the result of the inquest on Clayton, I suppose?” The manager nodded. “Well, between ourselves, I’ve got a hunch that I’m on to something. Nothing certain. But I believe you’ve got some information that I can do with, Mr. Dawson.”

“Right-o. Go ahead, Inspector.”

“What exactly do you know about the Nonock Petrol Company? That’s my star question.”

Dawson considered the query for a moment, pulling at the lobe of his right ear, a habit of his when thinking.

“Well, I don’t know much,” he acknowledged, at length. “Ormsby-Wright is the owner of the concern. It’s a newish business. Been running about ten years. The company’s well organized and paying their shareholders an annual dividend of seven and a half per cent. As far as I know, there are only two depots—one here and one just outside Carlisle. I can’t tell you anything about the Carlisle place, but I’ve picked up a good bit of information about the local depot.”

The Inspector leant forward eagerly.

“Good—that’s just what I’m after. To begin with, how many people are employed there?”

“Let’s see—there’s Rose, the manager. I’ve mentioned him before, you remember. Then there’s six lorry-drivers and their mates. That’s another twelve. And a yard-man. That’s the lot, I think.”

“There are always two men to a lorry, then?”

“Always—yes. I’m sure of my facts in this case, Inspector, because most of the lorry-men patronize my public bar of an evening.”

“What time do they knock off?”

“Six. They start off at nine in the morning, see? Each lorry has a definite itinerary to cover. If they can do their round in less than the scheduled time then they garage their lorries before six. Actually their itineraries are so worked out that it takes them a full working day to cover the mileage. Fast driving, as you can guess, is not encouraged. They’re heavy machines, at the best of times, and the wear and tear is pretty bad, without the chaps speeding.”

“Quite. Does the same lorry always cover the same itinerary?”

“That’s the idea. There are six lorries, see, and six different districts to be covered. For example, one chap does the Kendal district, another runs between here and Carlisle, a third takes in Keswick, Cockermouth and the coast towns. Get me?”

Meredith nodded.

“You’ve given me some useful information, Mr. Dawson.”

“Always ready to oblige the police,” grinned Mr. Dawson. “Anything more, Inspector?”

“Yes. Do you know the men who work the Keswick–Cockermouth route?”

“Course I do. Bettle’s the driver—big, bull-necked chap with a fist like a leg o’ mutton. Carnera, I call him on the Q.T. Slow-thinking sort of chap he is. Never says much. Just the opposite to his mate, Prince. He’s a lively little box o’ tricks. Wonderful with cards! Sleight of hand and so forth. A darn good mimic, too. I tell you, Inspector, things always look up in the bar when young Prince sticks his head round the door. Talk? He never
stops
talking. Keeps us all in fits.”

“You say that Higgins is often over here. Ever seen Higgins talking to these men?”

“Well, only in a general sort of way. Higgins never seems particularly pally with ‘em. I reckon they’re a cut below his style. Mark Higgins rather fancies himself as a bit of a dandy. Leastways, that’s my opinion.”

“What about Rose?”

“Oh, he knows
him
all right. Whenever Mark Higgins is over from Keswick it’s ten to one that he and Rose will have fifty up in the billiards saloon. Both keen players. Good, too. Why I’ve seen young Mark make——”

Meredith tactfully allowed Dawson the satisfaction of delivering a eulogy on Higgins’s skill with a billiard cue before glancing up at the clock with the information that his bus was due to start in three minutes.

Feeling more than pleased with his morning’s investigations, he returned home, ate a hearty lunch, and shortly after two o’clock tramped off across the sodden fields to Portinscale. He had already decided on four possible by-lanes in which the lorry could have been concealed. Two of these, on the righthand side of the road, petered out in farm-yards by the head of Bassenthwaite, whilst the two on the left eventually converged on the main, lakeside road to Grange and Seatoller. Meredith, for obvious reasons, chose to examine the right-hand roads first. The men would have naturally selected a road on which traffic was negligible. Passing the first of the side-turnings, he came to the second, which was a little over a quarter of a mile from the garage. Unobserved, he turned into the narrow, grass-bordered lane and, working up each side, made a close examination of the ground.

Although the lane itself was stony and unyielding, the turf at the sides was still soft from the recent rain. If, then, the lorry had drawn in at all when stopping, it was almost certain that the tyre-marks would be visible. On the other hand, if the driver had his wits about him, this was just the sort of clue he would avoid leaving. So when, at the end of half an hour, Meredith found his way barred by a high gate, he was disappointed but still disinclined to abandon his theory. It was true that there were several vague outlines which suggested the recent passage of traffic up the lane, but the heavy rainfall disallowed any possibility of distinguishing one blurred track from another.

He felt, however, that it was imperative for him to make a number of inquiries at the farm-house, in the hope that one of the inmates had noticed the stationary lorry. But although he questioned some half-dozen people about the place, nobody could give him any information. The owner of the farm, a Mr. Thomas Thornton, felt sure that if anybody had seen the lorry there on Saturday night the news would have soon got around. Anything unusual would certainly be made much of, for the simple reason that unusual happenings so seldom occurred in the district. Meredith felt inclined to agree with this line of reasoning and, after thanking Mr. Thornton for his help and courtesy, he made his way back to the lane.

Whatever faults may be attributed to the British police force by the American or continental critics, a lack of thoroughness is not one of them. And in accordance with his early training, Meredith patiently re-examined every foot of the lane and its grass-grown skirtings. And this time his thoroughness was rewarded! He found something. Not exactly what he was looking for, but something unexpected enough to rivet his attention.

Scattered over an area of about a yard square, almost invisible in the grass, were hundreds of tiny pieces of glass. There was nothing in the shape of a bottle-neck or base to indicate their origin. The individual bits were so tiny, in fact, that Meredith concluded the original object must have been deliberately broken up. Probably with one of the several loose stones lying nearby. With immense patience he at length collected a good handful of the jagged pieces and poured them carefully into an envelope. A cursory inspection of his find had brought one fact to light. A distinct curve was noticeable in the larger pieces, suggesting that the original object might have been a bottle or a globe. But the extreme thinness of the glass puzzled Meredith intensely. Offhand, he could think of no commonplace article which would have been manufactured from such fragile stuff. The idea of an electric-light globe flashed through his mind. But surely the filament was welded into a thick tongue of glass, projecting from the metal holder? A watchglass, too, was out of the question. One wouldn’t collect a large handful of remains from a shattered watch-glass. Meredith therefore decided to call in Dr. Burney to perform, what he mentally registered as, a
post-mortem
!

The rest of his afternoon’s work proved disappointing. Although he spent the best part of two back-aching hours examining the other three turnings he found absolutely nothing in the shape of a clue. If the lorry had parked for a quarter of an hour up any of the four lanes it was obvious that unusual care had been taken to cover up all traces of the fact. That the broken glass had any bearing on the crime, Meredith doubted. Try as he would, he could forge no link which would connect his discovery with Clayton’s death. At a quarter-past five, therefore, he flagged the local bus and returned to Keswick. Before going to his desk he called in on Dr. Burney and asked his opinion about the glass. The doctor, after a meticulous examination, was non-committal.

“It’s the sort of glass that is manufactured for laboratory use—beakers, test-tubes, retorts and so on. But I’m not going to say that the original object belonged under that category. Foreign glass, for example, used for ordinary domestic articles is notoriously thin.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t hazard an opinion as to what the vessel contained?”

Burney laughed sarcastically.

“What? After it’s been lying out there in the rain—probably for days. Rather not. A laboratory test would be waste of time. Sorry!”