Death of a Commuter

by Bruce, Leo

  “Never mind then, sir,” said Sergeant Beckett forgivingly.

  “He came up…”

  “On your off side?”

  “Naturally. And in passing me scraped my offside wing…”

  “Whoa. Whoa. What made him do that? Anything coming in the opposite direction?”

  “Nothing. He just misjudged the distance, I suppose.”

  “Very unusual that Unless …” The sergeant’s eyes brightened. “Unless he was driving under the influence of alcohol.”

  “I should scarcely think so, at ten o’clock in the morning. But of course I have no means of judging. The impact with my car seemed to be slight, but I could feel it and saw the motor-cyclist swerve and nearly overturn.”

  “What do you mean by ‘nearly overturn’?”

  “He looked as though he was going to. But he righted himself and rode on.”

  “Ah.”

  “I sounded my horn …”

  “Sufficiently, you think?”

  “Quite sufficiently. I made the hell of a noise. But the motorcyclist seemed only to accelerate.”

  “You took his number, of course?”

  The sergeant looked anxiously at Carolus.

  “I tried to. I took a number. But he was moving fast now.”

  “So you can’t swear to the number you took being accurate?”

  “Not absolutely for certain.”

  The sergeant looked superior.

  “It’s no good taking a number when you’re not absolutely certain,” he said loftily.

  “I’m pretty certain. I said I couldn’t swear to it. I regard an oath a serious thing.”

  “So we all do,” said the sergeant unctuously. “Anyway, you took a number. Did you write it down?”

  “Yes. I stopped immediately and wrote it down. Here it is.”

  The sergeant studied it carefully.

  “BYY 018,” he said. “I suppose we shall have to do the best we can with this. Now, were there any witnesses of the accident?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “No passing vehicles?”

  “Not for some minutes, I think.”

  “No one who might be able to identify this motor-cyclist? No? That’s unfortunate. It’s always best to have the testimony of a third party.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Carolus, who was getting tired of this game. “I’ll try to arrange it another time.”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic, sir. I was only saying that a case like this is easier to deal with when you are able to name one or more independent witnesses. Now may I see your driving licence and insurance certificate?”

  Carolus produced them.

  “Thank you, sir. What steps did you take to report the accident at the first possible moment?”

  “I reversed at the road running up to the Great Ring, which was about a hundred yards ahead of where the accident happened, and came here to report it.”

  “Quite right. There is no other information you are able to give us?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s not very satisfactory, is it? We shall have to trace this number and ascertain if possible whether this motor-cycle could have been in the vicinity at the time stated.”

  “Exactly. Will that take long, do you think?”

  “It doesn’t depend on us,” said Sergeant Beckett. “It has to go through the proper channels. We’ve had cases like this before where the complainant has not been able to give us satisfactory details. But the matter will receive immediate attention. Have you an address in this neighbourhood?”

  “I’m staying at The Royal Oak.”

  “I see. You expect to be there for some days?”

  “Till this has been settled, yes.”

  “Very good, sir. We will take the necessary steps and let you know at the first moment possible.”

  “Good. Mind telling me your name so that I may know who is in charge of the investigation?”

  “It’s not usual but I see no reason against my telling you. Sergeant Beckett is my name.”

  Carolus rose to go but the sergeant raised a restraining hand.

  “We haven’t quite finished yet,” he said. “I must ask you to indicate the supposed site of the accident.”

  “But there were no marks or anything,” said Carolus.

  “Better let Us judge of that, don’t you think, sir? We are not without experience in these cases. We shall wish to take measurements.”

  “Of what?” asked Carolus innocently.

  “It’s a matter of procedure. Now if you will accompany me in the police car?”

  “I’d prefer to drive my own. I was on my way to Buttsfield when this happened.”

  “Very well, sir. There is no objection to that. It would be best if you preceded us and stopped just short of where you calculate the accident took place.”

  Carolus led the way to his car and Sergeant Beckett with another man prepared to follow him in a police car.

  “Take it easy now, sir,” the sergeant warned. “We don’t want to pinch you for speeding in a built-up area.”

  He passed the Three Thistles and about three hundred yards from the turning which led to the Great Ring Carolus pulled up and waited.

  “Must have been about here,” he told Sergeant Beckett when he arrived.

  “This is where the incident occurred is it? How near would you say you were from the kerb?”

  “Oh, the usual distance. A yard or four feet.”

  “And from the crown of the road?”

  “Perhaps another yard,”

  “This is all very unsatisfactory, isn’t it? Now exactly to what point had you arrived when the motor-cyclist attempted to pass you?”

  “I’ve no idea. When I stopped I was a couple of hundred yards or so short of the turning.”

  The sergeant shook his head sadly and turned to his assistant.

  “No skid marks?” he said.

  “Nothing visible to the naked eye,” said the man in the same jargon.

  “You say the motor-cyclist nearly overturned. Where would you say he was in relation to the kerb when that took place?”

  “Some way out, I should say. It seemed to send him out across the road.”

  “Fortunate there was nothing coming in the other direction,” commented the sergeant.

  “I thought you said that was unfortunate because we needed a witness?”

  “You know very well what I mean,” said Sergeant Beckett, and indeed Carolus did.

  Chapter Twelve

  CAROLUS WAS CALLED TO THE TELEPHONE THAT EVENING AND AT once recognised Thriver’s high-pitched voice.

  “I’d like to see you, Deene,” he said curtly.

  “I’ll be at the Oak all the evening if you’d like to come round.”

  Thriver sounded distressed.

  “It’s a very confidential matter,” he said. “I hoped you would come round here.”

  “Very well. I’ll be round in a few minutes. But I shall have to hurry back as I’m expecting someone here.”

  It was a bore, he thought But when he reached Thriver’s study and heard what the solicitor had to say, he changed his mind.

  “Most extraordinary thing has happened,” piped Thriver. “The will, Parador’s will! It came to my office. Through the post Unregistered. Just like an ordinary letter.”

  “Any enclosure?”

  “None.”

  “You kept the envelope, of course?”

  “One of my clerks opened it Unfortunately before I reached the office it had been thrown away.”

  “Where was the postmark?”

  “Hickey did not notice. He had perhaps forty or fifty letters to open. But surely the important thing is that we have it back.”

  “The important thing is—who sent it back?”

  “The thief, of course. The man who stole Felix’s brief-case from the car that night. He realised that this was no good to him so decided to post it back.”

  “How would he have known
your address?”

  “It was in one of our envelopes with the name of the firm and the address die-stamped on the flap of the envelope.”

  “I’m a bit sceptical about benevolent thieves. Especially some weeks after the event.”

  “At least it clears up a problem for me. I can now see Magnus, who is the executor, and go ahead.”

  “Yes, I can see it saves you embarrassment. You have told me all the beneficiaries, haven’t you?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Does any member of your own family receive anything?”

  “I thought you understood that. Yes, there is a token to me …”

  “A token?”

  “Five thousand pounds. And a thousand to my daughter. We were school friends, you see.”

  “Quite. Did you want to tell me anything else?”

  “No. Just that. I thought you should know.”

  “You will have to see Henrietta Ballard, I take it?”

  “I shall write to her. She lives in Buttsfield.”

  When Carolus got back to The Royal Oak he found Dogman in the saloon bar fairly drunk. There was no sign of his wife.

  “Evening, Deene,” he greeted Carolus. “Come’n have a drink. Never had a chance to talk to you the other night. Too many people. You’re investigating I hear? Yes, needed investigation. Parador wasn’t the man for suicide. Too self-centred. Thought too much of himself. I’ve known him a long time. Well, ever since I came to live here. Soon after the war ”

  “You didn’t know him before that?”

  “Never seen him in my life till I came to live here. I was in the army. Parador was never in the army. N’telligence, yes; not the army. But the Japs got him. They got everyone out there, you know. Everyone. Same whoever you were. It should have been. Not nice, Deene. Not nice at all. No one bothered then about how a man died. Or why. Different now. I travelled in the train with him every day. Used to sit there doing the cross-word puzzle. You’d never have thought he’d been through anything. Same with me. Wife always says its left a mark on me. S’non-sense. It was damned unpleasant but so are a lot of things. Don’t want to talk about that. Forgotten now, or it ought to be. Yes, I’ll have a gin and ginger ale.”

  Carolus waited for more, but Dogman was now addressing Gray-Somerset.

  “You were never in a Jap prisoner-of-war camp, were you? That’s one place you haven’t been.”

  “I was very near it,” began the landlord. “I just…”

  “Don’t give me that. You can say what you bloody well like. You were Emperor of Japan, if you like. I don’t care what you were. But don’t tell me you were a Jap prisoner-of-war. You wouldn’t be so pleased with yourself if you had been.” Dogman turned back to Carolus. “Yes, I knew Parador well. Ran an account with me. Not a great racing man but when he did have a bet it was a big one. D’you follow racing at all? No? Sensible fellow. S’the hell of a life. Up one minute, down the next. You better have another drink. Somerset closes on the dot, don’t you, Somerset? Right on the dot. Ah well. Cheery-ho.”

  It was not until two mornings later that Carolus received the summons he was expecting. He had just finished breakfast and was going out to his car when he saw Police Officer Brophy standing near it.

  “I was waiting for you,” said the police officer, rather sourly.

  “Really? Why didn’t you come in?”

  “My instructions were to catch you as you came out. Police Sergeant Beckett would like to see you at once. ‘Police Officer Brophy’, he said to me,’ go round and tell Mr. Deene, staying at the Oak, to come round here immediately’, he said.”

  “I hope he’s got the information I want”

  “He’s got something, but what it is I don’t know. He’s in a nasty mood this morning. I don’t know why he couldn’t telephone. Anyway, there you are. I’ve told you.”

  “Yes, thank you, Police Officer Brophy.”

  As he drove to the local police station Carolus passed Brophy cycling stolidly along in the same direction. He found Sergeant Beckett in a somewhat excited state.

  “This is a nice thing, Mr. Deene,” he began at once.

  “What’s the matter? Couldn’t you find the motor-cycle?”

  “We’ve found the motor-cycle!” he said, raising his voice almost to a shout. “We’ve found it all right. Only it’s not the motor-cycle.”

  “I don’t quite follow,” said Carolus.

  Sergeant Beckett made an impatient noise.

  “You came here with a story about your car having been run into by a motor-cycle and the driver not stopping. What’s more you gave us the number of that motor-cycle. We trace that number. And what do we find? We find that motor-cycle belongs to a gentleman in Buttsfield—a Mr. George Catford.”

  “Well, there you are. It was on the road to Buttsfield.”

  “We’re not there at all. That motor-cycle, the one you gave us the number of, couldn’t have been out on the road that morning because it had been in pieces for three days at a garage in the town being decarbonised and I don’t know what else. Our people have seen the garage proprietor who is a thoroughly trustworthy man and is prepared to swear to it him and three of his staff, that at the time in question it was in his garage in a dozen pieces or more. What do you say to that?”

  “Strange,” said Carolus.

  “Strange, you call it? And the owner of the motor-cycle never went out of where he’s staying, where they let rooms, Rosehurst, Brenstead Road, till he left on foot for the estate agent’s where he works, five minutes away, arriving there five minutes later and staying there all the morning with half a dozen witnesses to prove it.”

  “Oh dear. I must have been mistaken, then.”

  Sergeant Beckett looked at him severely.

  “Yes. But there’s something funny about this, Mr. Deene. Something very funny. You come to us with a number …”

  “Mistaken, evidently.”

  “Of a motor-cycle which belongs to a local man. The number’s accurate enough, there it is—BYY 018, but it’s not the cycle that did the damage because it’s under repairs.”

  “Coincidence,” murmured Carolus, who had the information he required, and wanted to be off.

  “It’s a funny sort of coincidence, isn’t it? The very number, right down to the last digit. You couldn’t have been trying to get anyone in trouble, could you, Mr. Deene?”

  “Certainly not. I’ve never seen any George Catford. I simply want the man who damaged my car.”

  “Then what made you give us Mr. Catford’s number?”

  “That’s what it looked like to me,” said Carolus. “I said I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “I wouldn’t have taken any notice,” said the sergeant, “if it hadn’t been the number of a motor-cycle in the district. That’s what gives the case a highly questionable aspect.”

  This, thought Carolus, was where we came in.

  “I must be running along,” he said. “I’m sorry you haven’t been able to find the motor-cycle which did the damage, but of course it’s partly my fault. I must have made a mistake about the number. Ah well. It won’t be a very expensive repair.”

  “I haven’t finished with this matter,” said the sergeant. “If I find …”

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” said Carolus cheerfully and left him.

  Before leaving Brenstead he went to call on Elspeth.

  “I’ve done all I can here,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve come to think your husband did swallow those tablets after all.”

  “Oh, Carolus, I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry. I don’t think I could have borne to go through it all again if you’d found it was someone else’s doing, and yet I should have liked it known that he did not commit suicide.”

  “I shan’t forget it altogether,” said Carolus. “But there’s no more I can do here. Perhaps something will come to light later. I’ll give you my address and phone number. If anything happens you would like to tell me about I’ll come over at once.”
/>
  “That’s nice of you. Will you be seeing Magnus?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Tell him to come over. There are a lot of things I want to discuss with him.”

  “I will. I don’t suppose I’ll see him for a day or two, though.”

  “You have a house of your own in Newminster?”

  “Yes. What’s more my housekeeper’s away at the moment. So I’m not looking forward to going back to it.”

  “Why not stay on in Brenstead till she gets back?”

  “I can’t. I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “But you said you’d finished with the whole case?”

  “Not quite,” said Carolus. “There is someone that you all seem to have forgotten. I want a little chat with him.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man in the railway compartment. The man who said that Felix would not be coming. Remember?”

  “Yes. Of course. I’ve heard all about him. But mightn’t it have been just a casual stranger?”

  “It might. But I don’t think it was.”

  “You don’t mean you’ve traced him? You are clever.”

  “I haven’t talked to him yet, but I know who he is and where to find him. I hope to see him in a day or two. I like tying up the loose ends. Well, good-bye, Elspeth.”

  “Good-bye, Carolus. I wish we could have met in happier circumstances.”

  She came to the front door to let him out. It was a fine spring morning and Carolus thought she looked almost beautiful as she stood there smiling.

  Having the length of Manor Lane to cover, Carolus drove slowly, noticing once again the houses to left and right. It struck him that this piece of high suburbia had been the centre of his investigations. He liked it no more than he had done at first but he had proved to himself that even the dullest and most pretentious houses could be inhabited by people who in a case like this became interesting.

  Approaching the Limpoles’ villa, he saw that once again Edward Limpole was working in the garden, this time not at the trench he intended for a compost heap, but stooping over a bed near the gate. Carolus decided to stop.

  “I’m leaving Brenstead,” he said when he had greeted the stooping figure.

  “You are?” A somewhat cunning smile spread over Edward’s face. “I thought you’d come to find out all about the death of Felix Parador.”