The Casebook of Jonas P. Jonas and Other Mysteries

by E. X. Ferrars

  “Ah, yes, a murderer needs an eye for detail, too.” Uncle Jonas said.

  “I don’t think I should have made that mistake,” I said.

  He did not reply to that, and for some reason, as he looked at me thoughtfully, his gaze seemed suddenly to become uneasy.

  CUSTODY

  Ray Bagstock did not murder Mrs. Moira Crane. The crime that he had in mind was something quite different. Not that he thought of it as a crime. He regarded it simply as the righting of a shocking injustice. Murder was something that he had never contemplated, even during the long days which he had devoted, whether working or idle, to hating Lucille. Yet when Mrs. Crane was found dead by one of her lodgers from upstairs there was enough circumstantial evidence against Ray to frighten him very horribly.

  Mrs. Crane owned a house in a narrow back street of the small town of Dillingford, which is about fifteen miles from Oxford. She lived on the ground floor with a notice in her window saying Bed and Breakfast. Neither the beds that she offered nor the breakfasts were particularly attractive, but they were cheap and they were in a locality which Ray had believed would fit in with his plans. She was a stout, red-faced old woman who took an interest in her lodgers and liked having them in to her room to have a drink with her.

  That was how it happened that the police found Ray’s fingerprints on a glass on her table and also on the poker that had been used to smash her skull. The true explanation of that was that while he was having a drink with her she had asked him to poke her fire, for in spite of the stooping that it entailed she still preferred coal to gas or electricity in her room, though there were gas fires in all her lodgers’ with greedy meters that swallowed ten-pence pieces. And it had been the opening and closing of her door which had been heard by Mr. Patel, the Indian who lived in the room above hers, and which the man had sworn had been the sound of Ray entering the room when in fact he had been leaving.

  Leaving in a very exasperated state of mind, because he had thought that while he had the drink with his landlady his plan for the afternoon had been ruined. However, that had not been what had been significant about Mr. Patel’s error. It was simply that it misled the police as to who had been with Mrs. Crane when she was killed. This had actually happened after Ray had left the house and not while he had been in her room. The time of her death was thought to have been 2.27, because that was the time when the clock on her mantelpiece had been smashed, together with a good many other things in what was assumed to have been a frantic search for the money which the lodger who found her body, an elderly retired schoolteacher who had lived in the house for fifteen years, told the police that she knew the old woman kept hidden there.

  Certainly there was no money to be found when the police searched the room. There were only Ray’s fingerprints on the glass and the poker and the sworn statement made by Mr. Patel that he had heard Mrs. Crane’s door opened and closed at ten minutes past two.

  If it had not been for the murder Ray’s delay in leaving the house would actually have been very fortunate for him. He would normally have regarded it as incredible good luck, for if he had left the house at a quarter to two, as he had intended, he would not have had the glimpse that he did of Lucille crossing the end of the street outside. And to find Lucille was the reason why he was in Dillingford. He had traced her from Finchley to Birmingham, then to Oxford, and there had been given fairly reliable information that she was probably in Dillingford. But if he had not seen her for that instant as he was strolling towards the market square, it might have taken him days or even weeks to find her.

  She had been on her way to the supermarket on the far side of the square. He hurried after her. But at the entrance he stood still, wondering whether to follow her in or to wait for her in the street. It was important that she should not know that he had found her. In the end he put on his dark glasses, turned up his coat-collar, and relying on the beard that he had grown since she had left him to help disguise him, went into the store. After all, it might have some other exit by which she could leave and he might lose her. Picking up a wire basket and trying to look as if he was intending to buy something, he edged his way through the crowd inside, looking for her.

  Because it was a Saturday, the place was very crowded, but after a minute he saw her at the vegetable counter, gathering onions, carrots, a cauliflower and apples into the trolley that she was pushing. Then she bought a packet of detergent, bread, pork pies, long-life milk and a large bag of frozen chips. Then, near the exit, she bought two bottles of whisky. So she’s still at it, he thought. Two bottles of whisky for a weekend was a good deal, even for her.

  But it might be her supply for the whole week. Perhaps she came out shopping as seldom as she could because of the problem of finding someone to look after the children while she was out. If she troubled to find anyone. That was one of the things that he would have to find out. It would have been like her to lock the door on them and trust to luck that they would not set the house on fire and be burnt to death while she was gone. He wondered what she was using for money.

  He was only three or four people behind her at the check-out counter. It was taking a risk, standing so close to her, but she did not look round. She had changed very little since he had seen her last. She was still as slim as ever and was still wearing the overcoat that she had worn on the day when she had been granted her divorce with custody of the children, though her splendid red-gold hair then had been curling loose on her shoulders and today was covered by an old headscarf. He knew that the scarf was old because once it had belonged to him. So perhaps, in spite of the two bottles of whisky, she had not really much in the way of money. Certainly what he paid to her lawyer, and sometimes failed to pay, would not go very far. Of course, she might have a job. But in that case, what was she doing about the children? It always came back to that. That was what he had to find out. What was she doing about them?

  She pushed her trolley through to the entrance. Ray had a moment of panic then. What she had bought was plainly too much for her to carry, so perhaps she had a car waiting outside, in which case he would lose her again, since there was not much hope of his being able to find a taxi in a hurry close to the store. But then he saw that she was packing her purchases into a shopping-trolley which she had left by the door. She was going to walk home and he would be able to follow a little way behind her and find out where she was living. He paid for the two or three things that he had bought so as not to be conspicuous and went out into the street.

  He saw her walking along the pavement and pause to look into the window of a small dress shop and stand gazing there for a little while, but she did not go in. But then she did go into a chemist’s that was next door to it. This time Ray did not follow her. There was no crowd inside and no risk that she might vanish. In about five minutes she came out again and strolled on along the pavement. She came to a stationer’s and went in and Ray, gazing through the window, saw her buying a packet of envelopes. As she went to the counter to pay he withdrew quickly so that she should not see him when she came out.

  After that she went into an ironmonger’s. He could not see what she bought there, but when she came out she crossed the street and almost immediately took a turning to the left, now making, he was sure, for home. But this street had only a few people in it, so he stayed further behind her than he had in the busy main street. Now that he had tracked her so far he did not want to risk her turning and suddenly seeing him. He was close enough, however, to see at which door she stopped.

  The moment she opened it the children came rushing out at her. The younger one clutched her convulsively as if he had been afraid that she might not return. The elder one seized the trolley, delving into it to see if she had bought anything interesting to him. Lucille went into the house and closed the door. The event had taken only a minute, but it had told Ray something that he wanted to know. As he had thought likely, she left the children alone in the house when she went out shopping, or to whatever work she might have been d
riven to do since she had lost touch with her lawyer and given up drawing the money that Ray occasionally sent her.

  That this might be dangerous for them was something to which she had probably never given a thought, and though it filled Ray with anger for the moment, at the same time it pleased him. If he could discover when she had a habit of going out it would make it all the easier for him to carry out his plan. And if Saturday afternoon was her usual time for shopping, it would be very convenient, for it would give him now a whole week in which to make the necessary arrangements.

  Thinking this over as he walked slowly back to Mrs. Crane’s house, he was filled with deep satisfaction. It had not been easy to trace Lucille from the flat in Birmingham where she had gone to live for a time with a friend after the divorce and from which she had taken flight after his first attempt to kidnap the children. But a neighbour there had talked to him rashly of her having mentioned Oxford, so he had looked for her there and in one of the pubs after two or three weeks of useless inquiry, he had happened to get into conversation with an elderly man who remembered some chats that he had had with a young woman with curly, red-gold hair who had asked him a number of questions about Dillingford, as she was finding living in Oxford too expensive. Ray had had one photograph of her and the man had thought that was who it might have been. And now, due to the glass of beer with Mrs. Crane that Ray had not wanted and that had delayed him, he had seen her walking ahead of him within only three days of starting to look for her. Seen her and seen the children. It was going to work out this time.

  But why was there a police car standing at Mrs. Crane’s door and why were there several uniformed policemen as well as two men in plain clothes, who could only be policemen, going in and out of it?

  Ray stood still for a moment, then walked hesitantly forward.

  When he paused just before reaching the open doorway one of the policemen moved as if to make room for him to pass, then had second thoughts and stood in Ray’s way, looking at him questioningly.

  “What’s going on here?” Ray asked.

  “Who are you?” the constable countered.

  “My name’s Bagstock,” Ray said. “I’m staying here.”

  “Is that so?” The constable turned towards the door and shouted, “Sir, there’s a man here who says his name’s Bagstock and he’s staying here.”

  One of the men in plain clothes, who had just gone into the house, re-emerged.

  “Your name’s Bagstock?” he said.

  “Yes,” Ray answered.

  “And you’re staying here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been staying here?”

  “Three days, but what’s that got to do with you?” Ray asked.

  They took him inside and made him look at the old woman.

  He was nearly sick on the spot, for he had never been able to stand the sight of blood and Mrs. Crane’s shattered skull and the old purple cardigan that she always wore were sodden with it. The rest of the room was in chaos, chairs tipped over, cushions slashed, drawers pulled open, their contents spilled on the floor, most of her cheap little ornaments, including her clock, swept on to the carpet, and the cupboard where she kept her clothes broken open. The poker with which Ray had stirred the fire for her, with some thick dark stains on it, was lying near her. Only two empty beer cans and two glasses stood undamaged on the table.

  The man in plain clothes who appeared to be in charge introduced himself to Ray as Detective-Inspector Standish and edged Ray right into the room when he tried to turn in the doorway and flee back into the street. He was holding his handkerchief to his mouth because he thought the vomit was coming. But somehow he swallowed it back and let himself be pushed forward near to the fireplace, though the room was swimming round him and when they asked him what time he had been in the room he could only answer in total confusion that he did not know.

  “But you were in here, weren’t you?” the detective said.

  “Yes – oh yes, sometime not long after I had my lunch,” Ray said. “Fish and chips, that’s what it was, I brought it back from the pub on the corner. They’ll remember me. I had quite a chat with the girl there.”

  “It’s later than you did that that we’re interested in,” Standish said. “We’ve been told by Mr. Patel, who lives on the first floor, that he heard you talking to Mrs. Crane in the passage at about ten minutes past two and then you went into her room with her.”

  “No, no, no, that’s when I was leaving,” Ray said. “She came into the passage with me after I’d had a drink with her and we said a few things – the front door’s always left open except at night, so of course no one could have heard that open or shut – and I went out and she went back into her room. I’m sure of it because I wanted to get away and kept looking at my watch to see how the time was going. If she was killed after that you’ll realize I couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”

  “Where were you in such a hurry to go?” Standish asked.

  “Nowhere special,” Ray said. “Just out for a walk. But I – I’d had a drink with my lunch and I didn’t really want another, only I didn’t want to be rude to her, she was a nice old thing, so I went in for a quick one with her and I only stayed about ten minutes. Someone else came into her room, I mean, that’s obvious. Anyone could have got in through that open door.”

  “And you’ve been staying here three days.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where d’you come from?”

  “London, but I’ve been travelling about a bit lately.”

  “What brought you to Dillingford?”

  “Just an idea I had that I’d like to live in the country and I thought this might be a good place to stay while I looked around for somewhere that’d suit me.”

  “And what’s your occupation?”

  “I’m a journalist.” Then as Ray saw the detective preparing to ask him for what paper he worked, he added hastily, “Freelance.” After that he went on in a pleading tone, “Look, if you want to ask me any more questions couldn’t we go upstairs to my room. It’s on the second floor. And it’s so awful in here. I – I don’t feel very well.”

  But the police thought that the best place for him, whether or not he was feeling well, was the police station, where they told him that they hoped that he might be able to help them with their inquiries.

  The story of the murder was in the local evening paper that day, but it was stated that though no one had been charged yet a man was being questioned. Ray’s name was not given, so even if Lucille read the evening paper she would not know that Ray had again been on her trail and when he was freed, as of course he shortly would be, he could still carry out what he had come to Dillingford to do.

  But there were more questions in the police station, questions that he had already been asked and which were repeated over and over again while he sat in a small room with the two detectives whose tones varied from being almost kind and comforting to suddenly fierce and ferocious. He began to wonder if he ought to have a solicitor here to help him, but the only one he knew was in London and was the one who had tried to defend him when Lucille sued him for divorce and who had made such a hopeless mess of it. It had been the man’s fault, Ray believed, that she had been given custody of the children. It was true that he had been given access to them once a week and it had only been Lucille’s sudden removal to Birmingham, from which she had come in the first place, which had upset the arrangement and made Ray determined to get possession of them somehow.

  He had begun to save money after that, in preparation for the flight to Spain where he had managed to borrow a small villa from a friend. He was not really a journalist, he worked in the accountancy department of a big firm of builders and he had managed to embezzle a reasonable sum from them without being discovered before his sudden departure. He could manage on what he had, he thought. But if he brought in that solicitor now, might he not find himself letting on more about his plans to him than would be advisable? The man mi
ght want a coherent story from him about why he had been in Birmingham and Oxford, so close on Lucille’s heels. He might get Ray to tell him more altogether than would be helpful. He decided to go on answering the questions the police were asking him until they had the sense to let him go.

  They wanted to know, of course, where he had put the money belonging to Mrs. Crane which they believed that he had stolen. They searched him and they searched the room in which he had been staying in her house, but naturally found nothing. They also took his fingerprints and presently told him that they matched those that they had found on the empty glass on her table and on her poker. It was when they told him that that he began to feel the beginning of fear, but he still would not believe that anything could be proved against him.

  “Where d’you suppose I could have put that money if I’d taken it?” he asked. “Banks are shut on Saturdays. Anyway, I’ve no account in Dillingford. And the post office is shut too, and I couldn’t have posted it to myself unless it was a very small packet that would go into a letter-box.”

  “We still don’t know where you went this afternoon,” Standish said.

  “Oh, here and there, I can’t remember exactly where,” Ray answered.

  “You said you did a bit of shopping.”

  He had his plastic carrier-bag from the supermarket, which showed that he had been there.

  “Yes, I went for a few minutes into the supermarket in the square,” he said. “Just bought a Cornish pasty and some tomatoes for my supper.”

  “And you were in there only a few minutes?”

  “That’s right, though I had to wait some time in the queue at the check-out counter.”

  “Anyone know when you were there?”

  “The girl at the counter, d’you mean?”

  “Or anyone else?”

  Slightly to his horror, Ray realized that he was hesitating. Then he said firmly, “No one that I know of.”