Dead Man's Bluff

by Roderic Jeffries

  He began to draw on paper, trying to work out the possible way in which the gun had been fired and the fire started. For a time his drawings were highly complicated, then he realized that the simplest way was by far the best and that this called for two cup hooks. A weight was suspended by running string through a cup hook and securing the end of the string. A second length of string, slack, was taken from the weight on the opposite side and up to an eye hook and then down to the gun and made fast to the triggers. The bottle of sulphuric acid was tied to the first, and taut, string and the potassium mixture was placed directly underneath. When the acid dripped down, a violent fire started. The string was burned through. The weight came on to the second string and the jerk fired both triggers …

  He lit a cigarette. Theorizing with the aid of known facts was one thing, proving the theory was another. How to prove Shear and Hazel Clews had murdered Knott? He remembered something. At the trial, Mrs Knott had broken down and eventually confessed she had seen the two of them get on to the Parqueton train only a few days before the murder: wouldn’t they normally have taken great care not to be seen together before the murder and didn’t this journey therefore probably mean it had had something to do with their plans?

  Clayton jerked himself upright in the chair and used the internal phone to speak to Morris. ‘George, I want those mug shots of Alf Shear we had.’

  ‘Right, sir, I’ll see if we can find them.’

  Clayton reached across his desk for the morning’s copy of the Daily Express. On one of the inside pages was a report of the trial and a photo of Hazel Clews. He cut out the photo with a pair of scissors. He spoke to Burrows over the phone and told him he was to accompany him to Parqueton.

  Morris came into the room and handed him a copy of the official photograph of Alf Shear. ‘I’m off to Parqueton with Burrows,’ Clayton said. He indicated the papers on his desk. ‘Deal with them, will you?’

  ‘I’ve a lot of work … ’ began Morris.

  ‘Now you’ve got a lot more.’ Clayton picked up his mackintosh and hurried out of the room.

  *

  After a quick word with the divisional superintendent of B division to say they were in the other’s territory, Clayton and Burrows began their boring and wearying task: Clayton to question the staff of ironmongers, chemists, and gunsmiths, Burrows to question stores which dealt in the luxury trades. Neither had to remind himself of the odds against success. Hazel Clews and Shear might have got off at one of the five stations before Parqueton, or have travelled to any of the seven beyond: this might not have been the trip on which they bought the tools they needed for the murder: some of the things they might have bought would be so ordinary that no shop assistant could be expected to remember their being bought. Yet, knowing this, both worked on patiently, endlessly.

  Parqueton, a cathedral town, was very crowded. Records from the Middle Ages referred to the narrow, crooked streets filled to overflowing with honest pilgrims and the rogues who preyed on them — today, pavements were solid with pedestrians, the roads with cars. Shop assistants were overworked and frequently ill-tempered. ‘Cup hooks? Do I remember selling some cup hooks to those two in the photos? Have you any idea how many cup hooks I sell in a week? How do you expect me …’ or too eager to help, ‘Isn’t she the girl who was going out with the man who was murdered and whose wife did it? I’m sure I’ve seen her. I said so to Viv. No, I can’t remember what she bought and …’ or else were just unable to help, ‘No, I’ve sold no cartridges to either of them.’

  At four-fifteen Clayton found himself outside a tea-shop. He disliked such places on principle, unjustly claiming they were all run by refugees from South Kensington, but he went in. He ordered bread and jam, cakes, and coffee. He ate all the bread and jam, and the cakes, and had three cups of coffee although it tasted vaguely nasty.

  Refreshed, he resumed his work, pushing his way through crowds which even seemed to have grown in volume, questioning assistants who became less and less helpful as they grew tireder. He stopped in front of a library and lit a cigarette. His feet were hot and aching and he was beginning to feel really tired. He sighed at the thought that his present discomfort was all of his own making, walked on, and entered a do-it-yourself shop, filled with everything any handyman could need. He explained to the owner what he wanted and passed the photos across.

  The owner was completely bald, with a very high-domed head, large ears, and a pair of hom-rimmed spectacles. He fingered his round chin. ‘I’ve seen her,’ he said.

  ‘Can you be certain?’ asked Clayton excitedly, suddenly no longer feeling tired.

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Have you any idea when it was?’

  He puffed out his cheeks. ‘That’s difficult.’

  A woman came into the shop and asked for the set of chair-legs her husband had ordered. The owner served her. When he returned to where Clayton stood, he said: ‘It was just before I went on holiday — maybe one week, maybe two.’

  ‘So when does that place it?’

  ‘The beginning or the middle of August.’

  ‘Was this bloke with her?’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘Can you remember what they bought?’

  ‘I can indeed. They wanted two cup hooks. I offered’em a packet of a dozen and they said they only wanted two and the others would be wasted. I told’em I only bought them in packets these days.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I opened a packet and sold’em two. It’s no good turning away customers — even the likes of them.’

  Thank God for meanness, thought Clayton. If they’d been content to buy ten more cup hooks than they were going to need for the murder, they’d not have been remembered.

  After taking a statement, he left the shop and stood on the pavement. It was reasonable to suppose they’d bought the other things near by and he saw there was a chemist on the cross-roads.

  He went into the chemist’s and spoke to the dispenser, a middle-aged man with the drawn, pinched expression of someone for whom life had always been a struggle.

  The dispenser examined the photographs with care. He shook his head. ‘Can’t say I remember them.’

  ‘They’d have bought something that would start a pretty fierce fire,’ said Clayton. ‘Possibly some kind of phosphorus.’ ‘Practically all phosphorus compounds are on schedule one of the poisons list so they’d have to have had authorization and to sign the poisons register.’

  Clayton shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t have done that. What about potassium chlorate and sulphuric acid? Would you sell anyone those two?’

  ‘Not together, not unless I knew the person well.’

  ‘What about one on its own?’

  ‘I’d do that if the person could persuade me he wanted it for a legitimate reason.’

  ‘Would that be difficult?’

  ‘Not really, I suppose,’ said the dispenser reluctantly. ‘Can you remember selling either sulphuric acid or potassium chlorate to anyone back in August?’

  The dispenser shook his head. ‘It’s a long time ago and … ’ He stopped.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘There’s something at the back of my mind. Someone came in … He wanted sulphuric acid and I offered him a small bottle and he said he didn’t want so much …’ He turned and called to one of the two assistants. ‘Betty, come over here, will you?’

  Betty was a girl of eighteen made up to look at least five years older. ‘What’s up, Mr Potter?’ she asked.

  ‘D’you remember someone coming in here and asking for sulphuric acid and when I offered a small bottle he only wanted a quarter of that, so I had to go to all the trouble of finding a container with a safe top?’

  She shook her head. ‘Can’t say I do.’

  Clayton showed her the photographs.

  She giggled. ‘There’s that lovely man!’

  ‘What?’ said the dispenser.

  She giggled louder. ‘Real mean — with eyes like that, he’d be ex
citing!’ She suddenly looked up. ‘Here, it was him what wanted the acid. I remember now.’ She studied the photo again. ‘Isn’t he sharp?’ She sighed. ‘My Bert’s nothing like him.’

  ‘And a very good job, too,’ snapped the dispenser.

  Clayton questioned her closely, but learned little more. The ‘exciting’ man had been with a woman, but she couldn’t remember her at all. They’d been the ones who bought the acid all right, because Mr Potter had been furious as it had taken so long to find something to put the acid into …

  Clayton left. He visited the other chemists in the area, but none of them particularly remembered selling any potassium chlorate. Shops began to close, a few minutes early in most cases, and he battled his way through the crowds to his parked car. As he lit a cigarette, Burrows approached.

  ‘Any luck?’ asked Clayton, as the other opened the front passenger door.

  Burrows got in and sat down. He took a notebook from his pocket. ‘I went into a furrier’s called Terrence — down Pembroke Lane — and they recognized Hazel Clews. She’d been in and tried on some fur coats, including a mink at sale price. She said she wanted the mink but couldn’t pay for it until the end of the month or the beginning of September and would the shop keep it for her. She never went back. She bought and took away two large plastic bags — the kind fur coats are sometimes hung up in.’

  Clayton smoked. The plastic bags had been used to store Knott’s body in from the place where he was shot to the farm. There was now some proof of intention and means of commission, but the proof wasn’t strong. The brass cup hooks could have been bought for a dozen and one reasons, the sulphuric acid was needed for a battery, the mink was ordered in a rush of unwarranted optimism, the plastic bags were to protect two ordinary coats … If only there were some way of proving Hazel Clews had known all about the insurance swindle and the forty thousand to which she was the beneficiary, in direct contradiction to the evidence she had given in court …

  ‘I wonder!’ he suddenly said aloud.

  *

  Clayton spoke over the telephone to the assistant chief constable for the eastern area.

  ‘Why are you asking me to put this request through to the French police?’ asked the ACC. ‘You’re not in charge of the case.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And so far as we’re concerned, this case is now over?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then any such request is, to say the least, unusual and must come through Detective-Superintendent Akers.’

  Clayton hesitated. ‘Sir,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Superintendent Akers isn’t likely to agree to asking you.’

  ‘Then I fail utterly to understand why you’ve telephoned me.’

  ‘It seemed the only thing to do. Unfortunately, Superintendent Akers believes the county police are a bunch of hicks and that anything they suggest is bound to be stupid.’

  The ACC’s voice became still more clipped. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘He’s told me several times that the county police are capable of investigating chicken thefts, but it needs the experts from London to cope with anything more serious.’

  ‘I see. Then perhaps we should take the opportunity to convince him otherwise. I’ll forward your request to the French police. You will want to travel there yourself, of course?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I wonder if Superintendent Barry should be told?’

  ‘I’ll inform him that I’ve authorized the trip.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I hope you’re right in all you’ve said.’ The ACC’s voice was not without a note of warning.

  *

  Clayton had no idea that the Hotel Corniche rated two stars in the Guide Michelin and when the manager of the hotel, on his arrival there Monday morning with Inspector Augremy, offered lunch in a private room while they waited, he mentally envisaged something in the order of an omelette and, perhaps, a carafe of wine. How wrong he was was proved when he was offered a menu of truly Lucullan proportions. He was openly perplexed by the magnificence of choice. The manager and Inspector Augremy tried to advise him and then began to argue, becoming quite heated: the manager said a visiting Englishman should have Timbale de langouste au porto whilst the inspector was equally insistent that only cochon de lait de Beaune mode des vendages was suitable to the occasion.

  After lunch, eaten in the manager’s small sitting-room which adjoined the office, and after he had drunk the last drop of fine champagne, Inspector Augremy settled back in one of the two easy arm-chairs, closed his eyes, and apparently fell asleep at once. Hardly the proper way to keep watch, thought Clayton. If an English detective-inspector were to sleep on duty, surely an inconceivable event, there would be hell to pay …

  The telephone awoke him with a start. Inspector Augremy grunted twice and then opened his eyes, reached across to the small table and the receiver. He spoke briefly in French, replaced the receiver, and said in his heavily accented but easily understood English: ‘She is arrived. She is with the manager.’

  They went through to the office. Hazel Clews sat in front of the desk and when she turned and saw Clayton she drew in her breath with a sharp gasp.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Clews,’ he said formally.

  ‘What … what are you doing here?’ she muttered.

  ‘Surely that’s obvious?’

  She struggled to regain her composure. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘A letter was sent to you telling you that certain papers had been posted to this hotel a few days before the twenty-first of August, to await the arrival of a person who had booked a double room for three weeks. That person never arrived and the papers were opened to see if they appeared to be important. Your name and address was the only one to appear and you were asked if you could say what was to be done with them. Is that correct?’

  ‘Well?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘All I’ve done is come here to collect Daniel’s papers.’

  ‘By coming here, you’ve furnished the last link in the chain proving you helped murder him.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ she shouted.

  ‘You rushed here because you were scared those papers might incriminate you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d double-crossed him. That left you wide open to fearing he might have foreseen this possibility and tried to guard against it, despite his wild infatuation for you. You came here to see if you’d been named as a full accomplice in the insurance swindle.’

  ‘I didn’t know of the swindle. I never knew about the life insurance.’

  ‘How did you know to come to this hotel?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you, they wrote me.’

  ‘The letter informed you that the room had been booked in the name of Fergusson. How could you have known Fergusson was Knott?’

  She desperately sought an answer. ‘I hadn’t any idea who Fergusson was. They just said there were some papers here with my name and address in them.’

  ‘A moment ago, you told us you’d come here to collect Daniel’s papers, yet I very carefully never named the writer of them.’

  For a moment, she could not hide her panic. Then she said: ‘All right. When we stayed at hotels, that’s what he said our name was.’

  ‘This booking began the night of the twenty-first and was for three weeks. Neither Mrs Knott, nor anyone else, had any idea he was leaving the country.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was coming to France.’

  ‘Or to this hotel?’

  ‘How could I know that?’

  ‘You’d absolutely no idea?’

  ‘How many more times do I have to tell you I hadn’t?’

  He spoke slowly. ‘Then how did you know which hotel to come to today?’

  ‘The letter told me.’

  ‘The letter was written on unheaded notepaper and posted in Boulogne.’

  She appeared to shiver.

  ‘In court, you swore on oath you knew nothing o
f the insurance swindle — yet you could only have arrived here today if you’d known all about it. You and Shear arranged the murder of Daniel Knott, who was shot when he was cleaning off the prints from the van. Shear did the actual killing after you’d fed him with all the information he needed to set up the murder. When the gun in the storeroom fired at five past three, set off by the time-fuse that also fired the building, you were in the shop and as Shear came and spoke to you fifteen minutes later it seemed clear neither of you could have had anything to do with the murder. You might have got away with it if that box of three shot cartridges hadn’t been left in the house to try to incriminate Mrs Knott, if there hadn’t been three instead of two cartridges missing from the box — by the way, what happened to the gun Shear took there, the murder weapon, not knowing he’d find one on the place? — if the van hadn’t taken forty-five minutes to do a thirty-minute journey; if, once it was clear we no longer believed the murders to be enclosed ones, you hadn’t deliberately told me Mrs Knott knew about your affair; if you hadn’t ordered a mink coat which you never collected from Terrence in Parqueton and bought two very large bags to shove Knott’s body into; and if you hadn’t been so mean as to refuse to buy more cup hooks or sulphuric acid than you actually needed to carry out the murder.’

  She shook her head frantically.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he said, speaking slowly. ‘You helped plan the murder, but it seems at the moment that you didn’t take an active part in it — if that’s really true, you’ll get off more lightly than Shear, who’ll be given a life sentence.’

  He had not misjudged her character. Shown a way of partial escape, she took it. It had been Shear’s idea from the moment she’d first mentioned Knott’s proposed plans. But for him, she’d never have thought of such a horrible thing…