The Hunter and the Trapped

by Josephine Bell

  And if she could say, she wouldn’t, he decided. He had got something and it was important. He couldn’t use old Miss Skinner in a witness box, but she had given him a very valuable clue. And Fawcett had given the name of Gordon, not Marshall, as the Pontley doctor. Genuine loss of memory or a deliberate lie? Did Gordon mean anything special to him as Beltonston seemed to do?

  On the way back to London he explained all this to Sergeant Clay and on arriving there put his next inquiry into action. He wanted to know what Dr. Marshall had written in the certificate he sent to the Medical Board that had examined Fawcett on call-up and had rejected him. The records must still be in existence somewhere. They should be available. If necessary the Home Office must intervene to make them available. Dr. Marshall was dead. His personal records of past patients who had left the practice and the district were most unlikely to have been kept by his successor. Fawcett’s illness had begun five years before the National Health Service came into being. No records there. The man himself had said he was hardly ever ill now and was not registered with any London doctor. So the Medical Boards records were the only available proof of Fawcett’s asthma or whatever else he was suffering from.

  Mont no longer believed in the asthma story. It had no support anywhere. Oxford, for instance. It was difficult to get any account at all of Fawcett in Oxford. His name was there, he had taken a degree. But he seemed to have made no mark on the place and no friends. ‘A very quiet gentleman’ said the elderly head porter of his college, who alone remembered him clearly.

  A very different report had come in dealing with Fawcett’s record at Summermoor. He had been a popular and successful teacher and had never been absent from the school for a single day on account of illness. He had given complete satisfaction to the headmaster and governors of the school. He had been liked and respected by the staff generally and had made one particular friend, a Mr. George Clark. It was thought to have been the latter’s resignation to take up a different nonteaching post in London that had influenced Mr. Fawcett’s own resignation. They had been very sorry to lose him.

  “Glowing,” said Mont, bitterly. “Positively glowing. Much the same as Clark’s opinion. Know what?”

  “No, sir,” said Sergeant Clay.

  “Clark’s a sensible chap. Scientist. Feet on the ground. But a bit inexperienced, I’d say. Not much imagination. Doesn’t come across the seamy side or doesn’t notice it. Get my meaning?”

  “He isn’t likely to meet Mr. Fawcett at his off moments, in a mood, or whatever Mrs. Sewell meant when she described him as peculiar. Or perhaps Mr. Clark doesn’t pay attention to it.”

  “That’s right. Doesn’t pay attention. And there’s another thing. That so-called asthma seems to have left him altogether. Very unlikely indeed, from what I know of it, if it really was asthma.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Clay, who knew too little of the disease to venture an opinion.

  Feeling he could do nothing very positive until he had the Medical Board report the Chief-inspector decided to tackle Mr. Fawcett again about the detail of his behaviour on the morning of Mrs. Morris’s death. He found him at home, apparently studying his time-table for the new term at the college, due to begin in the following week.

  Simon welcomed his visitor cordially, not attempting to hide a quiet amusement.

  “Back again?” he said, as he drew up a chair to the fire. “I thought you’d captured the murderer. Wasn’t it her husband after all?”

  “Morris says she was alive when he left her.”

  “So I read in the papers. He admitted stealing her handbag, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did. He couldn’t very well deny it.”

  “She wouldn’t have given it up quietly,” Simon told him, with a curious gleam in his eyes. “From what I know of her she’d have run after him screaming blue murder.”

  He stopped with a jerk, then laughed.

  “Blue murder. That was what she got, wasn’t it? Not the husband.”

  Mont was repelled by the callous mirth, but Simon’s words had reminded him of something Morris had said several times and stuck to, in spite of close questioning.

  “She was waiting in the yard to see someone, according to Morris,” he said, watching Simon closely. “She told him so. Perhaps she didn’t want to pass that up. Perhaps she anticipated getting a larger sum at that interview than she had in the handbag her husband had taken from her.”

  “It’s an ingenious theory,” said Simon, with frank admiration “I should never have thought of it. And who do you think she was waiting to see. Me?”

  Mont was disconcerted. He said, angrily. “We have to consider all the possibilities. Various tenants in these flats …”

  He broke off, collected himself again and took Simon over his movements on that morning. The details and the times corresponded exactly with Fawcett’s previous statement and with what Clark had told him.

  After a pause he said, “You had your lunch very early that day, didn’t you? You’d have had ample time to come back here before catching your train at Victoria.”

  “Only I happened to be buying a shirt and looking at pictures at the Tate.”

  “Which cannot be proved.”

  Simon shrugged. Anyone who was fool and knave enough not to take his word deserved silent contempt. The Chief-inspector resented the arrogance but had no remedy. He was baffled, but at least he had not been trapped into showing his true hand. He had not mentioned asthma. He had not referred to Pontley “By the way,” Simon said, as Mont was leaving. “George – George Clark, I mean, tells me you were a bit mixed up about where my parents lived. Pontley, Inspector, not Beltonston. Pontley, in Warwickshire. I told you. Shakespeare’s country.”

  “You told me Beltonston, sir.”

  “But that’s in Gloucestershire, far from Shakespeare’s home. As you should have known.”

  He wagged a playful finger at Mont, who began to lose his temper for the second time.

  “Beltonston was what you said,” he insisted. “I’m not all that conversant with literary allusions. Not my line of country. But you certainly said Beltonston.”

  “That’s not possible,” Simon rebuked him, gently. “Even though the Sewells were such very close friends there would be no possible reason for my making such a mistake.”

  Mont did not answer. He had now one very good, very convincing reason for the mistake; the overburdened conscience of a guilty, unbalanced mind. The key word leaping up from the abyss of the sub-conscious. Wasn’t that the way the trick-cyclists talked?

  He hurried away, and hardened as he was a cold dread took hold of him at the thought. Cold, because he had no proof. Cold and vague, too, because he did not know how his suspect would act. So far in his own interviews with Fawcett he had not been able to detect the slightest hint of a violent temperament. Quite the opposite. An educated, cultivated man, who had his feelings very well under control, who seemed if anything of a frivolous turn of mind. He could not imagine Fawcett tense, frenzied, or in any other mood that could lead to violence.

  In his quandary, still possessed by that nagging fear of further crime, Mont went over the whole case again. It was Sergeant Clay who produced the next positive idea.

  “I’ve been thinking about that cheque in Mrs. Morris’s bag,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “D’you think she was trying a spot of blackmail on Fawcett with it? I mean, had an appointment with him to sell it back to him?”

  “He wouldn’t fall for that. It had no value as blackmail. The girl and Fawcett both say it was to pay for her holiday. It can’t be proved it wasn’t.”

  “We know that. But did he? Lecturers aren’t supposed to seduce the students, are they? He couldn’t risk getting in bad with the college authorities. Mrs. Morris might have threatened to expose his rather close friendship with the girl.”

  Perhaps Clay was right, Mont considered. Perhaps, as blackmail, to one vitally concerned to preserve his post at the college –


  “Miss Dane’s quite a dish, sir, isn’t she?” Clay went on. “I was never all that sold on the holiday payment yarn, myself.”

  “If you’re right, he’d be more likely to come up with the lolly than she would.”

  “Yes. Fair enough. You’d certainly think so.”

  “Still, Mrs. Morris was always one to smell out a scandal where one didn’t exist. Or didn’t seem to exist. Look at Nelson. We’d never have got on to him, without her blackmail.”

  “Fawcett’s information about him led us to find that out.”

  Mont gestured impatiently.

  “You had something to suggest?”

  “About that cheque. If Mrs. M. wanted to sell it him. He goes to the yard behind the flats with the money. She hasn’t got the cheque.”

  “I see what you mean.” Mont was interested. “He doesn’t believe her. Thinks she’s double-crossed him. Loses his temper …”

  “Goes for her …”

  “That’s just it,” Mont cried, banging his desk with his open hand. “Is that chap ever likely to lose his temper to such an extent?”

  “If he’s a nut, he is. That’s what they do, isn’t it? He did it before to that boy at Beltonston, if he’s the chap they want down there?”

  “We’re going round in circles,” Mont said, wearily. “I think I’ll have a word with the girl’s father. Dane won’t give anything away about his daughter but he might know something we haven’t heard about Fawcett.”

  Hubert Dane was not at all surprised to have a visit from the Chief-inspector. He meant to turn it to good account if he could. This, with practised skill, he brought off in less than half an hour of careful insinuation, reservation and clearly defined discretion.

  “Mind you, I’m not speaking from a personal experience of the man,” he said, earnestly. “I haven’t often met him and then only in company, when he is at his best. And a very charming best that can be,” he said, with a smile that damned the charm utterly. “Besides, he’s a friend of some very dear friends of mine. I wouldn’t dream of saying anything that might raise suspicion, incredible in the circumstances, against anyone of his – well – acknowledged standing. All the same,” He paused effectively. “I can’t help remembering a rather frightening experience – You were asking me about violence, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I didn’t have this experience personally, so I’m not going to describe it to you. I can only suggest that you see …”

  He stopped, heightening, as he intended, the Chief inspector’s curiosity.

  “Yes, sir? Who should I see?”

  “Lieutenant John Allingham,” said Hubert. “He’s in the Navy and serving at present in H. M.S. Excellent at Portsmouth.”

  “Thank you, sir,”

  “Tell him I have not betrayed his confidence. He is still at liberty to conceal what he knows. You will have to persuade him in your own way, inspector. If you think he can help you.”

  If John will play, Hubert thought, as he turned from seeing Mont off, they’ll have to go after that devil. Only Penny must be kept out of it. She’d learned her lesson, he’d been told, and her punishment was sufficient without this. The Allinghams too. They must be kept right out. There was more danger there than anywhere. Could he trust John to keep Penny out? Of course he could. He might refuse to say anything. That wouldn’t matter. It would only help to confirm what he hoped he had planted in the inspector’s mind. That Fawcett was a dangerous man and capable of any crime in the calendar.

  Chapter Eight

  Chief-inspector Mont behaved exactly as Hubert wished. He followed up the latter’s obvious hints all the more eagerly for knowing that the evidence he had gathered so far was shaky in the extreme. The Beltonston case was history: it still existed in police files, and the two finger-prints, he had learned, could be produced for comparison. But those finger-prints were blurred and the date of the Fawcetts’ visit existed only precariously in the memory of one old woman. Without supporting evidence he could hardly make out a direct case against Fawcett for the long forgotten crime.

  On the other hand recent evidence of violent behaviour on the man’s part would at least suggest the possibility that he was implicated in the Morris murder. And then … ? Well, then it would be a question of getting hold of Fawcett’s fingerprints and breaking him down about his illness.

  For Mont had suffered another setback in that direction. The records of the Medical Boards for the Pontley area had been searched and there was nothing whatever in them relating to Simon Fawcett. Or rather there were papers relating to him, the appropriate form with a line drawn through it and the single remark, ‘Unfit to attend. Letter attached.’ There was no letter. Perhaps it was lost, perhaps destroyed. At any rate Fawcett had never been examined medically on call-up. He had been excused attendance and there was nothing whatever to show why.

  Old Miss Skinner had provided an answer, but it had no medical support. It might convince him, but it would be worthless in a court of law. Mrs. Fawcett had been highly successful in protecting her son and concealing his disease, whatever it was. Had she, by doing so, brought about the deaths of an innocent child and a criminal hag? Mont’s frustration roused him to unaccustomed fury at the hidden lawlessness, independence, arrogance or whatever else you could call it of the respectable and respected professional class.

  Coming to himself, he decided that anger would get him nowhere and he had better find John Allingham in Portsmouth. This he proceeded to do. The young man was unwilling to talk about Simon Fawcett and quick to realise why the Chief-inspector had come to him.

  “I suppose Mr. Dane has been talking?” he said, with annoyance.

  “I asked him for any assistance he could give me,” said Mont, stiffly. “As I’m asking you, sir.”

  “Dane has a definite, personal grudge against Fawcett that can’t possibly have any bearing on your case.”

  “That’s for me to judge.”

  “Not in this instance, I think. I know he was ready to go to extraordinary lengths to catch Fawcett out in some behaviour – anything at all – that would ruin him at the college.”

  “Indeed? Mr. Dane must have a legitimate motive for such an extreme course.”

  “He’s a very prejudiced man, if you call that a legitimate motive.”

  “I don’t quite understand you, sir.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help that. I just mean that anything Dane may have said to you about Fawcett is likely to be coloured by his prejudice.”

  “Yes. Well, let me put it another way. Mr. Fawcett normally appears to be a quiet, self-controlled man. Have you ever seen him behave in such a way to present quite a different picture?”

  A picture? Oh yes, a picture of Simon, eyes glaring, teeth bared, coming at him with a long knife ready to strike downward into his neck.

  John wiped the picture from his mind but Mont had been watching him closely and saw the quick look of tension, followed by angry disgust.

  “Cases of gross instability,” he said, carefully, “don’t even come to court. Unfit to plead,” he hinted.

  John knew perfectly well what the man meant. Hadn’t he already gone over the whole incident himself, again and again, usually coming to the conclusion that was evidently growing in this cop’s mind?

  But to describe his brief fight with Simon would inevitably lead to the disclosure of its cause. Penny would have to be brought in, the real reason for what he had called Dane’s prejudice would be laid bare, the whole of Fawcett’s rottenness linked forever with Penny. That was unthinkable.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “If Mr. Dane thought I could help you he was mistaken. I hardly knew Fawcett. I met him for the first time this summer. I believe I’ve only seen him once since then.

  “Would that be at his flat?”

  John hesitated. Had one of the other tenants seen him on the stairs. Better not to lie.

  “Yes. It was.”

  “Did you quarrel? Did he offer you vio
lence?”

  This was too much. Hubert must have broken his word. It was monstrous of him to let his hatred of Fawcett endanger his own daughter.

  “If Mr. Dane has broken his word to me why did you come to me at all?”

  “Mr. Dane betrayed no confidence, sir. But I think you have answered my question.”

  So that was that, Mont thought, as he took an icy farewell of the furious young man. The detail at this stage did not really matter. Fawcett had been violent. That was enough.

  “Is it really, sir?” Sergeant Clay asked, when he heard the result of the Portsmouth visit. “I mean to say, if two chaps blow their tops and one goes for the other it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s bats, does it?”

  “Of course not.” For a moment the Chief-inspector wondered if he was going up the wall himself. “And that’s exactly what would be said in court. All the same, think it gets us a bit further.”

  Clay still looked very doubtful.

  “Where do we go from here, sir?” he asked.

  “Back to Kilburn. To get Fawcett’s dabs. And ask him bit more about that asthma of his.”

  Mont’s intention, however, could not be carried out immediately. Fresh news arrived from the flats. Mr. Nelson had been found by the caretaker dead in his bed. And pen note addressed to the coroner showed that the man had taken his life deliberately. It also suggested that the police had hounded him to such an extent that there was nothing left for him to do. This report had come direct to the local divisional headquarters from the coroner, who wanted an explanation.

  “The answer to that is a guilty conscience,” said the divisional superintendent.

  “I wonder,” Mont answered. He was upset by the news, but felt innocent of any conduct that could be described as ‘hounding’.

  “He must have thought you were on his tracks and catching up with him.”

  “He can’t have. I checked on his drug dealings and warned him. He couldn’t deny he was being blackmailed by Mrs. Morris. But that was all. He never was an important suspect.”

  “He will be now. In the Press, and in the eyes of the public. Probably of the coroner, too. You see what he says. Nelson could have done it, you know. He could have wanted to get his money back and when he found she hadn’t got it, lost his temper and did her in.”