‘You’re welcome to search my pockets,’ Dunn assured him. ‘But I warn you, Crook, you’re making a big mistake. Your reputation’s not going to be worth even the bit of a note you found in Smyth’s hand when this story breaks.’
‘I’ll chance it,’ said Crook.
At a nod from the inspector, the police took up Dunn’s burberry and began to go through the pockets. During the next thirty seconds you could have heard a pin drop. Then the man brought out a fist like a ham, and in it was a crumpled ten-shilling note with one corner missing!
‘Anything to say to that?’ inquired Crook, who didn’t apparently mind hitting a man when he was down.
Dunn put back his head and let out a roar of laughter. ‘You think you’re smart, don’t you? You planted that on me, I suppose, when we were coming here. But, as it happens, Smyth’s note was for a pound, not ten shillings. You didn’t know that, did you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Crook, ‘I did—because I have the odd bit of the note in my wallet. One of the old green ones it was. What I’m wondering is—how did you?’
***
‘That was highly irregular, Mr Crook,’ observed the inspector, drawing down the corners of his mouth, after the doctor had been taken away.
‘It beats me how the police even catch as many criminals as they do,’ returned Crook frankly. ‘Stands to reason if you’re after a weasel you got to play like a weasel. And a gentleman—and all the police force are gentlemen—don’t know a thing about weasels.’
‘Funny the little things that catch ’em,’ suggested the inspector, wisely letting that ride.
‘I reckoned that if he saw the wrong note suddenly shoved under his nose he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. It’s what I’ve always said. Murderers get caught because they’re yellow. If they just did their job and left it at that, they might die in their beds at ninety-nine. But the minute they’ve socked their man they start feverishly buildin’ a little tent to hide in, and presently some chap comes along, who might never have noticed them, but gets curious about the little tent. When you start checking up his story I bet you’ll find he’s been buildin’ alibis like a beaver buildin’ a dam. And it’s his alibis are goin’ to hang him in the end.’
His last word in this case was to Tom Merlin and the girl Tom was still going to marry.
‘Justice is the screwiest thing there is,’ he told them. ‘You’re not out of chokey because Norman Dunn killed the Baldry dame, though he’s admitted that, too. Well, why not? We know he got Smyth, and you can’t hang twice. But it was his killing Smyth that put you back on your feet. If he hadn’t done that, we might have had quite a job straightenin’ things out. Y’know the wisest fellow ever lived? And don’t tell me Solomon.’
‘Who, Mr Crook?’ asked Tom Merlin’s girl, hanging on Tom’s arm.
‘Brer Rabbit. And why? Becos he lay low and said nuffin.’ And then they tell you animals are a lower order of creation!”
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Capital Crimes: London Mysteries Page 39
