Gory Dew (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “She wasn’t down to breakfast, and neither was Mr. Gorinsky,” said Daffy. “I know that. Neither was they in my bedroom, because I went there with early tea, having swallowed my temper and thinking, if there was a young lady, she might like a cuppa before she got up, seeing they mostly do.”

  “And neither of them was there?”

  “Neither of them.”

  “And had the bed been slept in?”

  “Well, it was kind of rumpled, but that’s not to say it had been slept in—not by two people, anyway, I wouldn’t have said.”

  “What you mean is that neither of them may have slept in it, do you, Miss Daffy?”

  “Well, there you are,” said Daffy. “I never thought nothing to it at the time, except to think it wasn’t like Mr. Gorinsky’s style to go for a walk before breakfast, but when he wasn’t at breakfast neither, and Tommy—that’s Mr. Smetton—asks me whether the young lady was coming down, and, of course, she never, and neither Dora—that’s Mrs. Smetton—nor me had so much as set eyes on her at all, both of us being in bed when she arrived, well, that’s when I began to wonder.”

  “Wonder what, Miss Daffy?”

  “Oh, just wonder.”

  “But he did come back from Morchester with the girl and Scouse?” said Toby, turning to the landlord.

  “Oh, yes, they come back all right. Round about midnight or a bit before, it would have been,” said Smetton.

  With plenty to think about, Toby went home and telephoned Morchester for the self-driven car. It arrived at half-past three and by half-past five he was in Southampton. The problem was to locate his own car, and the first place to look for it was at the docks, if Dave had intended to stow away on board ship.

  Toby had taken a car several times on to the Channel ferry, and was acquainted with the position, near Number Seven Gate, of the port office of the Automobile Association. He drove along Town Quay, Platform Road, and Canute Road, therefore, and in at Number Five Gate. At the office he gave the number, make, and colour of his car and, to his immense surprise, upon the production of his driving licence and other identifying documents, he was given the car keys which Dave had left at the office, and was told in which car park he would find his property.

  Dave, apparently, had explained that Toby had lent him the car and would sooner or later wish to pick it up. He had even given a tolerably recognizable description of Toby himself. There remained the question of getting the hired car back to its owners in Morchester, but the A.A., efficient and helpful as ever, could cope with that small problem and proceeded to do so. Toby regained possession of his own car and, still surprised, impressed, and rather touched by Dave’s concern that his property should be restored to him with the minimum of inconvenience, drove thankfully homewards, stopping for a meal on the way.

  He pondered, all that evening and again the next morning, on Dave’s unnecessary and foolhardy flight. If, at the resumed inquest, the verdict was wilful murder, all of Gorinsky’s associates would be wanted for questioning, and Dave’s absence, supposing that he had been successful in getting aboard a ship, was bound to look extremely suspicious, particularly as his attack on Gorinsky was certain to be mentioned by the others. He wondered where they were, and to what extent they would attempt to pin the guilt on the defenceless boy. Then another idea struck him. From what he knew of Dave’s mentality, it seemed surprising that he should have had the intelligence to hand in the car keys at the A.A. office, report the whereabouts of the car, and give a description, sufficiently clear to be recognizable, of the car’s owner. Toby’s suspicions crystallized. He thought he saw the mysterious hand of Gracechurchstreet behind all this legerdemain. That meant that Gracechurchstreet and Dave had never lost touch with one another. It might even mean that the gang had never really broken up and scattered.

  Whether any of this was true, only time would show. There was nothing for it but to try to settle down to work again—a pained letter from his aunt which had arrived by the morning post at ten-thirty reminded him that she had not received his last week’s article and that this week’s was overdue—and wait with what patience he could for the next move by the police, for that they were “pursuing their enquiries” could not be in doubt in view of the adjourned inquest.

  In spite of his desire to put the whole thing out of his mind until there was more to work on, Toby found, between his bouts of literary composition, that he was thinking about the purloining and the restitution of his car. If Gracechurchstreet was a party to Dave’s flight, it might have seemed expedient to him that a neutral car (so to speak) had to be involved. The mini, so far as Toby knew, was still in the hands of the police, and Gorinsky’s big car was red-hot if one of the gang was the murderer.

  From this it seemed to follow that Dave, far from intending to stow away on board ship, had accompanied Gracechurchstreet as a legitimate, fee-paying passenger, and by this time the two of them, probably accompanied by Maverick, were halfway to America. The likely theory was that the impresario and his friend had quarrelled with Gorinsky over the boxing bouts. They wanted the boy whole and comely for their film. Gorinsky wanted some gate-money from the exhibition contests before the young boxer was taken over to the States. Words could have become blows, Gorinsky could have been killed at the inn, his body hidden in the mini and taken to the stone-quarry, and the driver whom Mrs. Spreadapple had reported to the police could have been the murderer. This driver could then have been either Gracechurchstreet or Maverick.

  This theory, though, required re-examination, for, if it was correct, then something had caused Scouse and Biddle to lie low instead of coming forward with information. There were three possible answers, the third of which (from what he knew of the two men) seemed the most likely. They might have been bribed, for Gracechurchstreet did not seem short of money if the wallet he had shown Toby contained a hundred pounds; or, of course, they might have been threatened (and men who had committed one murder were not likely to be squeamish about another one or two, since the grim result would be the same); or, being ignorant men brought up to regard the police as potential enemies, the two East Enders might simply have decided to opt out and keep their mouths shut rather than become involved with the law.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Further Proceedings

  “. . . but if he was fighting, then he was doing what was unlawful, and your verdict should be against him.”

  Mr. Justice Lindley—R. v. Knock, 1877

  “A letter from Toby Sparowe,” said Laura, handing it over. “They’re bringing the case of that man Gorinsky before the magistrates, as the police are taking proceedings against Dave Holley. I rather think I’d like to go. It seems a queer kind of business and there might be something interesting to hear. What do you say?”

  Dame Beatrice read the letter, re-inserted it in its envelope and handed it back.

  “As you please,” she said. “The evidence may be interesting, as you say, and, so far as I can see, it can hardly be conclusive. A committal will inevitably follow.”

  “Yes, but who will the magistrates commit? That’s what I want to find out. It seems to me, where that gang is concerned, that it’s even money which of them did it, if, as the police seem to think, it was cold-blooded murder.”

  “The proceedings may establish a motive, and that might point to the guilt of one man, a couple in collusion, or even conspiracy on the part of them all.”

  “Not all of them, surely? From what Toby has told us, it looks as though young Dave and poor old Harry Biddle will be in the clear, at any rate, so that reduces the number of possibles.”

  “Why do you exclude those two, I wonder?”

  “Well, Dave was locked in his room, and Harry was on guard outside the door, when the murder was committed.”

  “And whose word have we for that?”

  “You mean the others will deny it?”

  “Who can say? In any case, it will be immaterial if they cling to their story that Gorinsky drove off in Maverick
’s small car with the promise to meet them in Yelton, and that he was alone in the car when he left.”

  “But you think he was killed at the Swan Revived, don’t you? You think that, if they plead as you say, they’ll be telling lies? Of course, they’re out to incriminate the boy, but it seems to me that the landlord and his wife are the material witnesses. They must know more than they’ve said. They surely saw or heard something!”

  “We shall see.”

  The Old Court House in Morchester had been abandoned some years earlier in favour of a pretentious new building which formed the north side of a large square at the western end of the town. The square itself was used as a car park and was bounded on the west by an office block (also newly built), on the south by a Georgian town house and its garden wall, and on the east by a narrow street which petered out at one end in a row of old cottages and at the other formed a one-way outlet from the car park into the High street.

  Except for the public gallery, which was well-filled, the big modern courtroom seemed curiously empty. There were five chairs for the justices on the dais at the far end of the room, but only two were occupied. Below them sat the magistrates’ clerk flanked by a couple of typists. The two press benches held a single representative who was there to report proceedings for the local paper and on the opposite side of the room was the inspector in charge of the case, representing the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, partnered by a uniformed warrant officer. To the inspector’s left was the square witness box. Another warrant officer would accompany the accused and a third was accommodated with a chair and small table below and to the right of the public gallery. At the solicitors’ table sat a solitary man who represented the police, but, before the warrant officer read out the number of the next case, a slim, dark young man slid into a vacant chair.

  Laura caught Dame Beatrice’s eye.

  “Did you brief Sebastian Lestrange?” she asked.

  Dame Beatrice did not reply, and the accused was brought in. The magistrates’ clerk turned the leaves of the register.

  “You are David John Holley?” Dave sullenly agreed.

  “Holley, Your Worship,” said the inspector, “stands charged with causing the death of Reuben Gorinsky at the Swan Revived inn on the twenty-seventh of February this year.”

  To the clerk’s next question Dave sullenly entered a plea of Not Guilty and the prosecuting solicitor rose to address the Bench.

  “May it please Your Worships, I appear for the prosecution. You will hear, in this case, of a quarrel, which is not in dispute, between the accused and the deceased during which the accused, David John Holley, attacked the deceased, Reuben Gorinsky, with sufficient force to render him unconscious. It is further not in dispute that the accused then kicked the unconscious man on the head. In consequence of this, David John Holley stands before you accused of manslaughter, from which a more serious charge, that of wilful murder, may derive. I suggest that there are no extenuating circumstances in this case. The accused is eighteen years of age and must have been aware of the probable consequences of his wilful act. I call Detective-Inspector Cullin.”

  “Call Detective-Inspector Cullin,” said the usher.

  The inspector took the stand and the oath.

  “You are Detective-Inspector Cullin of the Morchester Police? Please tell the court the circumstances in which you arrested the accused, David John Holley, for the mans’aughter of Reuben Gorinsky on or about the twenty-seventh of February this year.”

  “On March third I was informed over the telephone of the discovery of a body in a quarry on Sandy Heath. I proceeded to the spot and verified the information and instructed the removal of the body to Morchester after I had examined the quarry and photographs of the body had been taken in situ. I called a doctor who examined the body in situ and subsequently more thoroughly at the Morchester mortuary. I learned . . .”

  “Yes, Inspector, we will hear the medical evidence later,” said the presiding magistrate.

  “I further learnt from my informant that the landlord of the inn known as the Swan Revived was in a position to identify the remains, and that this he subsequently did.”

  “From your examination of the quarry, did you come to any conclusions?” asked the prosecuting counsel, whose name was Mapp.

  “Not at the time, sir, no. I concluded only that deceased had met with an accident in falling into the quarry, and proceeded on that assumption until I learned from the landlord of the inn of a quarrel between deceased and the defendant which had taken place before witnesses on February twenty-seventh.”

  “What action did you take?”

  “I tracked down, with the assistance of my colleagues in the Yorkshire police and at New Scotland Yard, the said witnesses, Your Worship, and also the accused, whom I discovered stowing away on a ship bound for the United States. I apprehended and questioned him, and as a result of his answers and the statements of witnesses, I charged him.”

  The dark young man who was appearing for the defence rose to cross-examine.

  “You say, Inspector, that you examined the quarry?”

  “Very thoroughly, sir.”

  “Were there traces of blood?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any signs of a struggle, either in the quarry or on the edge of it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So you have no evidence that the deceased was killed there?”

  “No, sir. We think he was killed at the inn.”

  “But you say that the first conclusion to which you came was that there had been an accident and the deceased had fallen into the quarry, thus occasioning his own death.”

  “That was my first conclusion, yes, sir.”

  “But, merely on the strength of hearing about a quarrel at the inn three or four days earlier, you jumped to the conclusion that the deceased had been assaulted there with sufficient violence to cause his death?”

  “Ultimately, yes, sir.”

  “At the inn? I repeat, at the inn?”

  “Failing evidence that the assault had been carried out at the quarry, at the inn, yes, sir.”

  “Have you examined the inn?”

  “Certainly I have, sir.”

  “Did you find traces of blood there?”

  “No, sir. My contention is that the deceased was assaulted at the inn without actual bloodshed, but sustained injury to the head and, as a result of that injury, fell into the quarry when he went over there to relieve himself, leaving his car at the roadside.”

  “Oh, so he was in a fit state to drive a car when he left the inn, was he?”

  “I would not have said so, sir. You will hear that his friends attempted to persuade him not to do so, as they were convinced his injuries would render it injudicious.”

  “What is all this about a car?” asked the Bench.

  “It is not in dispute, Your Worship,” put in Mapp, “that the accused was alive when he left the inn.”

  “I understand,” went on Lestrange, “that the car was found in Yelton.”

  “That is so, sir.”

  “How did it get there, if Gorinsky fell into the quarry and killed himself?”

  “We have no definite information as yet, sir. We are still working on the matter. Our theory is . . .”

  “Theories are not facts, are they?”

  “They sometimes result in facts becoming apparent, sir.”

  “Let the inspector tell his story, Mr. Lestrange,” said the presiding magistrate.

  “If it pleases Your Worship. Very well, Inspector, let the court hear this ‘theory’ of yours.”

  “We think some person or persons came upon the abandoned car, sir, and drove it away. By the time they got to the outskirts of London, the body had been found and they abandoned the car, fearing to get themselves implicated, knowing they had picked up the car near enough to where the body was lying.”

  “That theory goes a long way in covering the facts, Your Worship,” said Mapp.

  “Have the
se drivers-away of unconsidered cars been traced?” asked Lestrange.

  “Not so far, sir. We are still working on it. They can’t give us any help over the death itself.”

  “Unless, of course, they killed Gorinsky in order to steal his car,” said Lestrange.

  “Really, Your Worship,” protested Mapp. “That is a ludicrous suggestion. The car wasn’t worth stealing!”

  “Then why do you think it was stolen?” demanded Lestrange.

  “I do not claim it was stolen, in the exact meaning of the words. I simply suggest that it was driven away.”

  “A culpable offence nowadays and, in this case, no different from stealing, particularly as I understand that its number plates had been changed.”

  “Another matter which is still under investigation, Your Worship,” put in the inspector hastily.

  “Quite so. Have you any more questions to put to this witness, Mr. Lestrange?”

  “I thank Your Worship, no.”

  The inspector resumed his former place in the court and said,

  “Call Clement Smith.” Gracechurchstreet, summoned by the usher, entered the witness box and was sworn.

  “Your name is Clement Smith?”

  “Trade name—I am a theatrical agent and sometime impresario—Clement Gracechurchstreet.” The death’s-head American then added his temporary address, which was in Southwest London, and the enquiry continued.

  “On February twenty-seventh you were at an inn situated two miles or thereabouts from the village of Heathcote Fitzprior?”

  “I was.”

  “The inn is called the Swan Revived?”

  “That is so.”

  “During the course of the morning were you in a first-floor room which was in use as a temporary gymnasium?”

  “I was.”

  “Were you a witness to an argument which broke out between David John Holley and Reuben Gorinsky?”

  “I sure was, if you call it an argument.”