Afterwards Hazard was in time to join his chief in the room where the pair who had been picked up in a stolen car waited to give their explanations, and to hear Drury say, ‘What were you doing in Croft Avenue the night of the murder, Miss Wilson?’
Carol choked and her eyes grew large, and Rollo did his best to gain a little time for her.
‘Look, Superintendent,’ he began, ‘I phoned you. Remember that? If you’re in a hurry — ’
‘Hurry!’ snapped Drury, biting the word through. ‘Half the damned West London Salvage Corps has been searching the debris of a gutted warehouse for your remains. They didn’t find them, and for a thundering good reason. You’re running around the countryside in a stolen car with a young woman we’re very anxious to interview. Damn it, you wouldn’t have rung me if the local police hadn’t caught you in that car.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Rollo protested.
‘It isn’t? I’ll tell you how fair it is. Your fingerprints have been taken from the passenger’s seat of that stolen car while you’ve been waiting. They match prints found on a gun in Western Avenue earlier today beside the body of a man who had been shot.’
‘Vince Pallard.’
‘Naturally, you would know who it is, wouldn’t you?’
‘Not because I saw him and not because I killed him.’
Drury pulled his chin back on to the knot of his tie. He regarded Rollo archly.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll all make ourselves comfortable and then we’ll hear the story Mr Hackley has to tell us.’
No one was smiling. Not even Bill Hazard.
Rollo said, ‘There’s something I’d like to know first.’
‘I can guess,’ Drury growled, leaning back in the chair he had selected. ‘What happened to Moore?’ Rollo merely stared at him. ‘He did all right. Drop Tom Moore down a sewer and he’ll come up smelling of Chanel No. 5, none of your sweet violet stuff. He jumped into the Grand Union, frightened the hell out of a woman on a houseboat, who gave him tea and toast while he dried his clothes. If she gave him anything else Moore didn’t say, but any man without his clothes on a houseboat would have a hard time convincing any normal husband about why he was there.’
Bill Hazard was grinning again. He had made a note to be sure to tell Tom Moore. Drury caught his interest again when he said with his former snap, ‘I’m not forgetting you in Croft Avenue, Miss Wilson, but let’s have Mr Hackley’s story first. Okay, I’m listening,’ he nodded to Rollo.
Beginning at the beginning, the young journalist told the Yard man all he knew. He knew this was the only chance he would be given for levelling with Drury and getting off a very uncomfortable hook. If later Drury found he had held out on any important detail the Superintendent wouldn’t be friendly, and at the moment Carol had too many avowed enemies.
Drury interrupted the account with an occasional question to show that he was fitting what he was being told to what he already knew, but for the most part Rollo was heard in a rather glowering silence.
When he finished Drury said sharply, ‘That the lot?’
‘The lot, Superintendent. Now you’ve got the chance to round up the gang at Thaxstead Hill Barn. That’ll stop a break-in at some branch of the National City Bank.’
‘So you tell me,’ Drury said. From his tone it was anyone’s guess whether he believed what he had just been told or held some very pertinent reservations. The Yard man turned to Carol. ‘So according to Mr Hackley, you haven’t been having a secret rest cure, Miss Wilson. Perhaps now you’re ready to tell me just what you have been doing.’
Carol’s face puckered, and Rollo thought she was on the point of bursting into tears, but the grimace changed into a look of twisted anger that surprised him, as did the vehemence of her first words.
‘Very readily, Superintendent Drury. But first let me tell you how much I loathe this strange and frightening man who married my Aunt Peggy, my mother’s sister. Neither of my parents are living now. They were killed in a plane crash on a charter flight to Majorca. My mother had some money of her own, and in her will she left two thousand pounds to her sister Margaret, who had married a Humphrey Peel. It was the first time I’d heard her husband’s full name. The few times I’d seen my aunt had been with my parents and they’d always talked of her as being married to someone who was out of the country a great deal. It would have been more truthful if they’d said in the country, for I know now that this uncle of mine by marriage had been in and out of jail regularly. My parents lived in Chester and until I was eighteen I was away at school and was only at home during the holidays.’
Carol paused as a sharp rap sounded on the door, which opened to admit the head of a uniformed constable, who asked, ‘Any coffee? The inspector would like to know.’
‘Four please,’ said Bill Hazard promptly.
The door closed and Drury asked the girl, ‘When you say it was the first time you’d heard of the husband’s full name, just what do you mean? You knew your aunt was married and her name was Mrs Peel.’
‘I mean,’ said Carol, ‘it wasn’t until my mother’s will was read that I heard of Aunt Peggy’s husband as a real person named Humphrey Peel. She had a husband, yes, but he wasn’t talked about and I never thought of him.’
‘But you did when your aunt received that legacy from your mother?’
‘Yes, she told me the truth, but insisted it need never make any difference to me because she would keep out of my life. She said she owed that to Fred and Betty, my parents, for making a terrible mistake.’
‘Did she keep out of your life?’ Drury inquired.
‘Yes, until I became ashamed for letting her. I kept wondering what sort of life she had, married to a criminal, and because I’d become engaged to Rollo it seemed I owed her a chance to get some happiness, have someone tell her she was wanted. Can you understand that?’
The Yard man didn’t have to answer an appeal to his emotions for Rollo said quickly, ‘I can. I think it was a splendid thing for you to do, to overcome your fears and to make the effort to make your aunt feel wanted by her own family.’
Carol smiled at him. It was a sad smile, clouded with a knowledge he did not share.
‘It was a foolish and impulsive act, Rollo. I wanted to keep from feeling bad about her, to be able to tell myself she hadn’t been neglected. To that extent it was a selfish act.’
Drury coughed, as though to remind the speaker this was a police interview and not a meeting arranged for lovers to adjust their outlooks. However, Carol took no notice of Drury.
She went on, ‘And it was foolish because my letter was never delivered. I received a reply from Humphrey Peel. He said his wife had died while he was in prison and he had had no way of getting in touch with me. That could have been true. Anyway, it was a shock. I spent days wondering what to do, and finally I went to see the solicitors who had handled my affairs after the death of my parents. They suggested I should have inquiries made.’
‘So you went to the Temple-Moore agency.’
‘Yes, on the solicitors’ recommendation.’ Carol turned from Rollo to Drury. ‘The curious thing is that the day after I saw Mr Temple and insisted on paying him in advance to procure details about Humphrey Peel I met my uncle.’
‘Just a moment,’ Drury broke in. ‘When you saw Temple, did he tell you at the time that he knew of your uncle?’
‘No. After all, there could be a dozen men named Humphrey Peel.’ Carol shrugged. ‘In any case, even if he’d suspected, he had to make sure, didn’t he?’
‘He didn’t say he had received a cautionary word from the solicitors?’
‘No. Would they do that? After all, I could have changed my mind.’
‘It is possible they might have thought of protecting your interests. Detective agencies sometimes act more circumspectly when they know a solicitor is watching over the interests of a client. I don’t say that would have made any difference to the agency you chose, Miss Wilson,’ Drury went on hurriedly, ‘b
ut it could have been a precaution.’ He leaned forward. ‘Why did you insist on paying in advance?’
‘I merely wanted information. I didn’t want the inquiry to be continued, and I thought if I paid first there would be no question of having further inquiries made.’
Drury nodded. ‘Very well, Miss Wilson. Now this meeting with your uncle. Let’s have that.’
The knock on the door was repeated. The uniformed constable came in with a black plastic tray decorated with very solid-looking pink roses. The tray held four cups of coffee in thick cups. He placed the cups of coffee on the table, collected the tea-cups and the plates with the cake crumbs and returned to the door, where he turned his head to say, ‘They’re out of biscuits temporarily in the canteen.’
‘That’s all right, constable,’ said Hazard. ‘The coffee will do nicely.’
Drury pushed two of the coffees towards Rollo and Carol, then felt for the pipe and pouch he usually carried with a packet of cigarettes. He offered the cigarettes with the coffee, and then produced a lighter. After lighting her cigarette Carol resumed as though there had been no interruption.
‘I was sitting in a café when a man with dark glasses came in, looked round, and sat down across from me. He wasn’t really dressed like a hippie, though one might have thought so at first glance. He had mod gear and longish hair and those dark sunglasses. There was no grey in his hair, though that doesn’t mean anything these days of hair colouring, but the Fu-Manchu whiskers altered the shape of his chin and face generally. All I knew was I’d never seen him before. He didn’t smile, he didn’t scowl. He just sat there looking at me until I was ready to get up and leave. Then he spoke. ‘I’m your uncle, Carol,’ he said. ‘I married your mother’s sister Margaret.’ That was all, and then he sat there waiting for a big reaction. I’m afraid he was disappointed.’ Carol drank some coffee. ‘Well, he certainly had the answer to that. He knew how to get a reaction.’
Drury was puffing at his pipe. His cup of coffee was pushed aside, apparently forgotten.
‘He told you about himself?’
‘Not only about his police record, but he claimed my father had been involved with him in some of his forgeries. I didn’t believe him, but I suddenly wanted to know why he should seek me out and make this preposterous claim.’
‘You should have told me, Carol,’ said Rollo. ‘After all, we were engaged.’
‘That’s why I couldn’t.’
‘You should have asked Dick Temple for advice,’ Hazard pointed out.
‘Perhaps I’d be stirring muddy waters. I had to know first before I could do anything. I felt I had to know. So I agreed to meet him. At a place he chose and at night. I went. It was some discothèque behind the King’s Road, Chelsea, where he looked like a dozen others, all wearing those stupid glasses indoors. He told me he wasn’t the man he had been. He had plans, but needed a woman to help him. I asked about my aunt, that’s when I heard what had happened. He seemed to know a great deal about me. He told me I’d best break off my engagement or Rollo would be dealt with, as he put it. I had to leave my job, get Mellie Smallwood out of our flat — oh, he had it all pat. When he said he had plans I didn’t know just how he had involved me in them, but those plans were thorough, I’ll say that for him.’
‘He was bluffing,’ Rollo insisted.
She shook her head. ‘No, Rollo. He not only convinced me he meant what he said. He frightened me. If I didn’t get Mellie out of our flat something would happen to her. Well, first I did that, and then I broke with Rollo. After that I had to be where Rollo couldn’t reach me — or Mellie. He arranged for me to stay at Thaxstead High Barn, which was a kind of headquarters for a small gang he had collected, all of whom were afraid of him, even the man who escaped from Walton Jail.’
Hazard was about to break in, but Drury waved him to silence.
‘When he tricked me into telling him about going to the Temple-Moore agency he was so angry I shook with fright. He was like a maniac. Later he forced me to write to Mellie, asking her to go to the flat and forward any mail to the Burroughs Hotel. Vince Pallard was a contact man for him. I saw him first when he called at Thaxstead. I didn’t take to him or the way he had of looking at me, as though he was keeping a secret from me. It was when my uncle was shouting at Vince Pallard that I crept downstairs and listened to what they were quarrelling about. They were talking about a murder. I stood there in the dark of the hall feeling sick and so damned helpless.’
Carol stopped to drop the butt of her cigarette in the dregs of her coffee before she went on, ‘The victim was to be some man named Clayson, and when the address in Croft Avenue was mentioned I realized the house was in a district I knew. Rollo’s aunt and uncle live not far away. There were several cars at Thaxstead. I took one and drove, as I thought, ahead of my uncle. But there was another of those power cuts. You might find this hard to believe, but I lost my way and I had to park the car some distance away so as not to run into my uncle, who has a cat’s eyes in the dark. He would have recognized the car. But I arrived too late, and was in the front garden when some middle-aged man came out of the house.’
‘Was there light in the house?’ Drury asked.
‘No. This power cut was on, and the man had a torch.’
‘You saw his face?’
‘I had an impression of it,’ she told the Superintendent. ‘He was a stranger, but I think I might recognize him again if I saw him.’
Drury nodded. ‘Go on, Miss Wilson. What then?’
‘He had a handkerchief in his left hand. There was blood on it. I could see this clearly when he used it to open the gate and the torch shone on his left hand.’ Carol took another of Drury’s cigarettes and the Yard man flicked his lighter for her.
‘I crept to the road to see him walking fast, the torch waving ahead of him. The road was deserted. I saw him stop, lift the torch, and enter a telephone kiosk. I walked nearer to get a better view. He was dialling a number when I stopped. He wasn’t long on the phone, and when he left the kiosk he stood with his back to me and lit a cigarette. Then he started walking again, continuing down the road, but more slowly.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I followed him until I saw a car approaching. It stopped when he crossed into the road and waved an arm. The driver was a woman.’
‘You saw her clearly?’
‘Not clearly. Not much more than an impression.’
‘But you’re sure it was a woman, not a long-haired male?’
‘It was a woman who opened the passenger door for him,’ Carol said with finality. ‘He got in, the car made a three-point turn and went back the way it had come.’
‘Leaving you with no alternative, as you saw it, but to go back to the house,’ Drury said.
She stared at him through a coiling cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘I could have gone back to my car,’ she said.
Drury’s smile was a wintry effort. ‘But you didn’t.’
She sighed. ‘No, I didn’t. I’d come too far, and besides I wanted to know if this man Clayson had been murdered. If so, where was my uncle?’ Drury replaced his thin smile with a more encouraging look as he nodded. ‘I reached Holly Lawn and found the front door open. I went inside, pushed the door to, without latching it, and started up the stairs, using my lighter. I was halfway up when the phone rang. I was going down, like a fool, to answer it when I stopped myself. It seemed to go on ringing for a long time. I stood on the stairs in the darkness, clutching my lighter. Suddenly the phone stopped and then the lights came on. I ran up the stairs, fearing what I’d find because no one had answered the phone. I saw the man in the brown suit lying with a knife in his back. That was another time I was nearly sick. I turned round and ran out of the house, but I didn’t reach the front gate before I saw a car draw up, and this time someone I recognized got out and walked into the house.’
‘Dr John Cadman,’ Drury said. ‘What size shoes do you take, Miss Wilson?’
‘Four and a h
alf. Why?’
‘You left prints in the front lawn, and in the house you left something else when you ventured to open a door and investigate.
Carol looked suddenly warm. ‘My brooch!’
‘It’s being taken good care of,’ Drury told her, tapping the cold ash from his pipe into the saucer of his untouched cup of coffee. ‘You drove back to Thaxstead of course.’ Carol nodded. ‘Probably in a stolen car. Just a minute.’ He turned to Hazard. ‘Ask the inspector about that number-plate.’
Hazard went out and was back three minutes later.
‘The car you drove tonight, Miss Wilson,’ said the big Yard man after receiving a signal from Drury, ‘was stolen some days ago. But it’s number-plates had been recently returned after being removed, probably when false ones were used. An examination of the screw threads attaching it to the body shows as much. So when you stole that car and helped Mr Hackley to escape you were running into trouble.’
Rollo swore. ‘The cunning bastard. That’s why he didn’t overtake you, Carol. He knew what we were running into.’
Carol looked bewildered. ‘But he also knew we’d talk.’
‘Sure we’d talk. But I bet Thaxstead is already deserted except for evidence you’d stayed there, and this uncle of yours is in another bolt-hole, one he had waiting. He told me — remember? — he didn’t use the same cover twice.’
Drury rose. ‘All right, we’ll get this down on paper later. I’ve still got to reach Thaxstead. What about you two?’
‘I’m taking Carol to my Aunt Judy’s,’ Rollo said promptly. ‘She’ll be safe there for the next few days.’
An hour and a half later three police cars turned off the Horsham by-pass and kept heading for Shipley, where Hilaire Belloc’s repainted mill was white in a thin wash of moonlight. Twenty minutes later they entered a deserted house set back from a lane. The double gates had a name-plate on each. The left one read ‘Thaxstead,’ the second ‘High Barn’.
‘Well,’ grunted a disgusted Frank Drury, ‘we had to be sure, even if it was a waste of time. We’ll have the place gone over in daylight. Drive carefully on the way back, Bill. I’m going to get some shut-eye.’
Killer in the Shade Page 8
