Postman's Knock (Inspector Pitt Detective series Book 1)

by J F Straker

Despite Mr Toogood’s assurance, William Harris did not look like an innocent man when he was shown into the room which the firm had placed at the officers’ disposal. He glanced at the postal orders in the Inspector’s hand and nodded, his fingers beating a rapid tattoo on his thumbs.

  ‘How did you come by these, Mr Harris?’ asked Pitt, after cautioning him. He took the nod as an acknowledgement that Mr Toogood had spoken the truth.

  The man did not answer. Pitt repeated the question.

  ‘I — a neighbour gave them to me,’ mumbled Harris.

  ‘Mr Morris?’

  He nodded. ‘He asked me to cash them for him.’

  He looked the epitome of guilt. Pitt turned to the Sergeant. ‘Get Morris,’ he said curtly. ‘We’ll clear this up here and now.’

  Sergeant Ponsford was at the door when Harris spoke again.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Morris didn’t give them to me. They were in a letter addressed to him which the postman delivered at my place by mistake. Friday afternoon, that was. I opened it, thinking it was for me. And when I saw the money—’ He paused. The words had come jerkily before, as though each one caused him a separate and acute pain as he uttered it. Now they poured forth in spate. ‘I didn’t mean to keep it, Inspector. But it’s Christmas, and I’m broke. There’s nothing in the house, no presents for the wife and kids. I thought I’d borrow it until after Christmas so that I could buy them a few things. Morris wouldn’t miss it; he’s always got plenty of money. I could give it back to him later, spin him some sort of a yarn. And being pushed through my letter-box like that, it seemed I was meant to have it. But I never thought of it as stealing, Inspector, honest I didn’t. I was only going to borrow the money.’

  ‘The law regards it as stealing,’ said Pitt.

  ‘But I haven’t spent the money!’ Harris cried eagerly. ‘It’s all there, isn’t it?’

  ‘That makes no difference, Mr Harris.’

  Inspector Pitt eyed the man thoughtfully. Was he speaking the truth? Or was his confession a blind, an attempt to conceal a more serious crime? No. 17 was the last house at which Laurie was known to have called on Friday afternoon. The significance of that fact, however, was lessened by Archer’s assertion that he had seen the postman pass No. 19.

  ‘Mr Harris — when we spoke to you on Friday evening you told us you had not been out of the house that afternoon.’

  ‘That’s right.’ The man seemed genuinely surprised.

  ‘And you didn’t see the postman?’

  ‘Oh! Sorry, I’d forgotten. Yes, I did see him. At first I thought I’d better call next door and give Morris his letter. There was some idea in my mind he might lend me the money — that’s why I didn’t mention it to my wife. I got as far as the gate and then — well, I changed my mind.’

  ‘Where did you see the postman?’

  ‘When I got to the gate. He was just riding off on his bike.’

  ‘You saw him quite plainly?’

  ‘His back, yes. There was a car coming down the road at the time.’

  That car again. ‘What make of car?’ asked Pitt.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to it.’

  ‘I see. Were you in Lexeter on Saturday?’

  ‘In the morning, yes. I was out with the service van. Why?’

  Pitt did not enlighten him. They took him to the police-station, where he was formally charged with the theft. Pitt felt rather sorry for the man. He had seen the poverty apparent at his home, and if Harris was speaking the truth the sight of the money must have been a great temptation.

  ‘I fancy he’s more a fool than a knave,’ he said to Dick. ‘I don’t like him, but I think he’s innocent as far as Laurie is concerned.’

  Later he had another talk with Harris. He wanted further information about Morris, and argued that Harris must have known the man fairly intimately to have contemplated borrowing money from him.

  But Harris was disappointing.

  ‘We’re just neighbours, Inspector. We have a chat when we meet, which isn’t often. But I’ve never been inside his house or met any of his friends.’

  ‘What’s his job?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he’s retired. He never talks about himself.’

  ‘Hm! A bit of a mystery, eh? Does he have many visitors?’

  ‘Not many, to my knowledge.’

  ‘What sort of people are they?’

  ‘Young chaps, mostly. They—’ He stopped. ‘It’s not right to question me about him, Inspector. Morris’s affairs are none of my business. I’ll not say any more.’

  Pitt did not press him. He decided to have a chat with Mrs Gill. If she had any information on Morris or his friends she would not be as reticent as Harris.

  *

  Mr Templar was distressed at the continued disappearance of Laurie. ‘Where the devil can he have got to?’ he asked the Inspector. ‘You wouldn’t think a fellow in postman’s uniform could go unnoticed for more than two whole days.’

  ‘He could hide out with friends,’ said Pitt. ‘And if his disappearance was planned I’ve no doubt he’d arrange for a change of clothing.’

  The main purpose of his visit had been to inquire about the Alsters, and here the postmaster was able to help him. From December 12 (the day on which Laurie had disappeared) until the end of the month all their mail was to be redirected to a Scarborough hotel.

  ‘It looks as though that Austin may have been theirs,’ Pitt said hopefully to Dick. ‘It couldn’t have been Carrington’s if he was in Town. I’ll get the Scarborough police to check.’

  That afternoon they visited Rawsley. It was a small village, and the Red Lion was on the outskirts. The letter-box described by the blackmailer was in a country lane; a few yards past it, on the opposite side of the road, was a large country house named Goshawks. This was an isolated building with fields and woodland on either side of it. Farther still the lane ran steeply downhill and then up again, through thick woodland, for some five hundred yards; after which it veered right towards Rawsley village through flat fields in which a new housing estate was already well under way.

  The box was due to be cleared at 3.45 in the afternoons, about half an hour after Avery, if he carried out the blackmailer’s instructions, would post the money on Wednesday. Inquiries at Lexeter (Pitt deemed it unwise to question the village postmistress) elicited the information that the box was cleared by the postman making the afternoon delivery. Goshawks was the last house on his round, and after leaving it he cycled back to the village through the new estate.

  Back at Tanmouth they discussed the possibilities.

  ‘If it’s Laurie I still think he may clear the box himself,’ said Pitt. ‘But Laurie or no Laurie there’s an alternative. Why shouldn’t the men, whoever they are, waylay the postman as they may have waylaid Laurie? Either before he clears the box — in which case they take his keys and clear it themselves — or after. It’s just another mail-robbery; only this time they have ensured the tidy sum of two hundred quid as part of their haul. Or think they have.’

  Dick nodded. ‘Could be. But it would have to be after the box is cleared, not before. Too many houses that side. A likely spot would be on the uphill stretch through the woods. The postman would have to dismount there.’

  A constable came in with a message. ‘A man named Bullett to see you, sir,’ he said.

  Dick Ponsford groaned. ‘I wondered how long it would be before he turned up again. Get rid of him, Willett. Say we’re out, or sick of the palsy. Anything you like as long as you get rid of him.’

  ‘No,’ said Pitt. ‘Sorry, Dick. I know you think he’s a menace, but this time we may be able to use him.’

  Michael Bullett was all smiles and affability. The Sergeant wondered whether he had got wind of the blackmail. Or was it Harris?

  But Bullett had a surprise for them. ‘Why so glum, Sergeant?’ he bantered. ‘Not pleased to see me?’

  ‘We’re busy, Mr Bullett,’ said Dick.

  �
��Well, that’s something, anyway. I was beginning to think that the affair of the missing postman had dried up on you. What’s new?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the Inspector. ‘Nothing for the papers, anyway.’

  ‘The same old secrecy,’ complained the reporter. ‘No cooperation. Well, never let it be said that a Bullett failed in his duty. Let me heap coals of fire on your head, Inspector, and tell you that I have news for you.’

  ‘What news, Mr Bullett?’

  He grinned at them impishly. ‘I’ve had a letter from John Laurie,’ he announced. ‘Yes, I thought that would make you both sit up.’

  ‘Let me see it, please,’ said Pitt.

  The note was typed. Amateurishly typed, with uneven spacing and several erasures and cancellations. And it was short. It reminded Michael Bullett that the writer had once done him a service by pulling him out of the water. Since the writer was forced to be absent from home, would Mr Bullett now repay that service by keeping an eye on his wife?

  The signature was also typed. John Laurie.

  ‘I’ll be frank with you, Inspector,’ said Bullett. ‘If I could see any way of using that letter myself I wouldn’t have brought it to you. But I can’t, and — well, there it is.’

  ‘When did this come?’ asked Pitt.

  ‘By this afternoon’s post. I found it in my room when I returned from the office.’

  ‘And the envelope? Where’s that?’

  ‘Burnt,’ said Bullett. ‘All right, don’t say it. But how was I to know that the bloody thing would be important? How many envelopes are? I chucked it into the fire before I read the letter. If I’d known it was from Laurie…But I didn’t, and you can’t take it out of me for that.’

  ‘Did you notice the postmark?’

  ‘No. That’s all there is, Inspector, so make the most of it.’

  There was no address, no introduction of any sort. The paper was flimsy, the kind used for carbon copies. It would be impossible to trace.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bullett. ‘I know how you feel. Sore, eh?’

  ‘I’ll keep this, Mr Bullett,’ said Pitt, too annoyed at the other’s carelessness to respond to his apology. He knew he was being unreasonable; Bullett’s action had been perfectly natural. But that postmark might have given them a lead to Laurie.

  ‘That was the general idea,’ the reporter answered carelessly.

  Behind the cheerful, brash exterior of the man Dick detected a note of nervousness.

  ‘Are you publishing Laurie’s letter in your paper, Mr Bullett?’ he asked.

  ‘To tell the truth, Sergeant, our readers aren’t greatly interested in John Laurie,’ said Bullett. ‘He was news when he disappeared and he’ll be news when you find him. But until then…’ He shrugged. ‘Apart from the people who didn’t get their letters on Friday, the general public couldn’t care less.’

  ‘You knew him well, didn’t you?’ asked Pitt.

  ‘I suppose so. As well as most people.’

  ‘We may be seeing him on Wednesday,’ the Inspector told him. ‘Care to come along?’

  The reporter gazed incredulously from one to the other of the two policemen. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ he declared eventually. ‘What’s the big idea? You wouldn’t be wearing out your backsides in this office if you knew where to lay your hands on Laurie.’

  ‘And you’re jumping to conclusions,’ answered Pitt. ‘We don’t know where he is now. But we know where he may be on Wednesday afternoon.’

  Incredulity gave way to amusement. ‘You do, eh?’

  ‘We do. Our trouble is that we wouldn’t know him if we saw him. That is why I’m inviting you to come along.’

  Bullett hesitated. Then: ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Count me in, Inspector. I always was a sucker for fairy tales.’

  Harris came up before the magistrates on the Tuesday morning. He pleaded guilty. Morris was in court, and caused a ripple of surprise by offering to pay his neighbour’s fine if one was imposed. The chairman talked at length about turning the other cheek, complimented Morris on his offer, and bound Harris over on payment of costs.

  The two neighbours left the court together.

  ‘Thank goodness that’s over,’ said Pitt. ‘And no awkward reference to Laurie, praise the Lord!’

  ‘I wouldn’t have cast Morris in the role of Good Samaritan, despite his geniality,’ said Dick. ‘It just shows how one can be mistaken.’

  That afternoon, with Hennessy’s assistance, they completed their plans for the arrest of the blackmailer. Avery was uneasy when told that he would have to carry out the instructions given in the letter. ‘I hope to goodness nothing goes wrong,’ he said fervently. ‘What about the money? Have I actually got to find two hundred quid?’

  ‘That’s up to you, sir. Personally, I would suggest newspaper.’

  ‘Newspaper it is, then. Anything else?’

  ‘No. But catch that bus tomorrow, Mr Avery, and don’t hang around after you’ve posted the parcels. Leave that to us. It is your job to get back to the Red Lion and catch the next bus home. If my guess is right you’ve no need to worry.’

  Avery stood up and held out his hand.

  ‘I shall, of course. So would you in my place. But I’ll be there, Inspector — and good luck to you.’

  He departed cheerfully enough, but he was not so happy on Wednesday, when he boarded the Rawsley bus at twenty minutes past two in the afternoon. The confidence Inspector Pitt had inspired in him had begun to evaporate soon after leaving the police-station on Tuesday. By the morning, following a sleepless night, he was nervy and despondent. He had been foolish, he thought, to consult the police. Better to have scraped around and raised the money rather than jeopardise his whole future. The police were gambling on a hunch; but what were they staking? Absolutely nothing. It was he who would have to pay if their hunch was wrong.

  By lunchtime he had convinced himself that the plan must fail. Susan would get Eve’s letters, and he would lose his job. Only the realisation that it was now too late to raise the money made him go through with it.

  He carried the two packages conspicuously in his hand as he mounted to the top deck of the bus and took a seat at the back. The arrival of each fresh passenger caused him momentary alarm. He could not know if he was being watched, if the blackmailer perhaps intended to travel on the same bus. He even experienced an odd feeling of guilt towards the unknown man. He was deceiving him, luring him into a trap. Not for the first time he wondered if the phoney packages looked what they were. Just how thick was a wad of one hundred one-pound notes?

  Since he had subconsciously assumed that the blackmailer would be a man, he gave no heed to the women passengers.

  He did not look at the woman on the seat in front until she turned and spoke. Only then did he recognise his neighbour, Mrs Gill.

  ‘Fancy meeting you on a bus, Mr Avery! I thought you went everywhere by car.’

  He was annoyed that she should be there. Apart from his dislike of the woman, he did not want a witness to whatever might happen that afternoon. And certainly not such a busybody as Mrs Gill.

  ‘The car’s in dock,’ he answered shortly, his eyes on a tall, shabby-looking man who had just boarded the bus.

  ‘How trying,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘But it always happens, doesn’t it? They let you down when you need them most. Are you going to Rawsley?’

  He nodded. The shabby man had sat down on the other side, a few seats ahead. Avery was sure that he had glanced back at him before doing so.

  His hands began to sweat.

  ‘So am I,’ said Mrs Gill. She found considerable satisfaction in having her neighbour at her mercy, unprotected for once by that supercilious wife of his. ‘I’m going to visit my daughter. Her husband has a fruit-farm there, you know. Doing very nicely, too. One child, they’ve got a boy. And a real imp of mischief if ever there was one. Business or pleasure, Mr Avery?’

  The question was so out of context that Avery, whose attentio
n was still focused on the shabby man, looked at her in bewilderment. But Mrs Gill, who normally never deserted a topic until she had pursued it to the bitter end, had already forgotten this one. She was on her feet and with bulging, excited eyes was gazing down over his shoulder into the street.

  ‘Heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s that man again!’

  To Avery at that moment there could be only one man. Forgetful that his neighbour was ignorant of his secret, he jumped to his feet and looked fearfully in the direction in which the woman pointed.

  ‘Where?’ he asked quickly. And then, realising his mistake: ‘What man?’

  ‘The one who was watching my house Saturday afternoon,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘Look! There he goes! Outside Lewis’s.’

  Avery looked. But the pavement was crowded with shoppers, and he could not tell which was the man Mrs Gill had indicated.

  ‘I’m sure it was him,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see his face, but it was the way he walked. I ought to have told the Inspector about that, didn’t I? Pity I never thought of it.’

  Her glance left the street and came to rest on Avery’s white, strained face. For a moment she looked at him speculatively.

  ‘Maybe the Inspector was right,’ she said, as the bus started jerkily. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t my house he was watching. It could have been yours — couldn’t it, Mr Avery?’

  6—Maybe Murder to Follow

  Mike Bullett glanced at his watch, at the silent constable behind him, and then once more fixed his gaze on the letter-box. From his viewpoint in the attic at Goshawks he could see it clearly — could see also a hundred yards or so up the lane. It was that way the postman would come; that Laurie might come, the Inspector had said. Beneath the box the lane was obscured from his vision by the high stone wall of the house and the tall trees that fringed it. But what happened below the box did not matter. Not to him, unless it were to provide him with copy; although he was sceptical of that also. It was the box itself he must watch; it was the box and the lane above it that would hold all his interest in the affair.

  If he had any interest. But then, why should the police try to fool him? There must be a cogent reason behind their preparations.