by John Bude
He then turned his attention to the other half of the lorry’s journey. Surely he could find somebody who had noticed it either on the open road or passing through Keswick? They might not know the exact time they had seen it, but a rough idea would be enough to gauge the truth of the men’s story.
Suddenly the Inspector whistled. Why the devil hadn’t he thought of it before? He knew somebody who could give him the desired information! Hadn’t Freddie Hogg been cycling home from Keswick at a time when the lorry should have been on its way to the depot? Freddie had passed Clayton at the garage at about seven-thirty-five. The lorry had left the garage at seven-thirty. So Freddie must have met the lorry on the road somewhere just outside Portinscale.
Burning with impatience, Meredith searched through the telephone directory. Yes—there it was—Hare and Hounds, Braithwaite. Briskly he dialled exchange and in a few seconds he was through to the public house.
Freddie Hogg himself answered the phone.
“Look here, Mr. Hogg,” said Meredith after he had revealed himself, “I’ve got a question of vital importance to ask you. Think well before you answer. I want you to cast your mind back to Saturday night again. Yes—it’s to do with the Clayton affair. Now, did you on your way back from Keswick pass a Nonock lorry anywhere on the road between Portinscale and the Derwent?”
Freddie seemed to be thinking for a minute, then: “No, Inspector. I’m quite sure I didn’t. There was so little traffic on the road, that if I had, I’m certain I should have remembered the fact.”
“Then what about between Portinscale and Keswick?”
“No. I never passed a Nonock lorry at all. Positive!”
“You went straight from Keswick to Braithwaite—main road all the way?”
“Yes. Where else could I have gone? There’s only the one road, isn’t there?”
“That’s true.” The significance of this fact struck Meredith at once. Hogg was right. There was only one road. “At what time did you leave the picture-house?”
“About five past seven.”
“Thanks,” concluded Meredith tersely. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
For the first time since the case had opened, excitement was Meredith’s predominating emotion. At last he had gained some really substantial information. He could only interpret Freddie Hogg’s evidence in one way—the lorry had left the garage at seven-thirty but before the cyclist could have met it the lorry had turned off the main road and parked, probably without lights, up a by-road. There seemed to be only one plausible explanation for this. Major Rickshaw had called at the garage when the lorry was parked beside the petrol pumps. Bettle and Prince would therefore realize that there was no hope of concealing the fact that they had called on Clayton. What then is their move? They drive off and when the road is clear, park up a side-turning. Prince then returns on foot to the main road and waits there until he sees somebody pass in the direction of Braithwaite. In this case—Freddie Hogg. He realizes that there is every chance of Hogg seeing Clayton, which is exactly what he wants, since the lorry is no longer there. The coast being clear, he then returns, on some pretext or other, to the garage. He probably explains that the carburettor is giving trouble again and asks Clayton to lend a hand. Before they leave the garage, however, Prince gets Clayton to take a drink out of his whisky-flask. Whilst waiting for the trional to take effect, he engages Clayton in conversation and the moment he is unconscious, drags him to the garage, sits him in the car, arranges the hose and mackintosh, starts up the engine and rushes off to rejoin Bettle on the lorry. By driving the lorry all-out they manage to make the depot in plausible time and thus establish an alibi.
So far so good. “Now,” thought Meredith with a wry smile, “for the snags.” He was too old a hand at the game to expect everything to go his own way without difficulties. Almost immediately several objections to his new-found theory reared their undesirable heads.
First he dealt with the time factor. The road was clear for Prince at seven-thirty-five—say, five minutes for him to walk from the first of the side-turnings (the one in which he had found the glass) to the garage. Say another five minutes offering an explanation for his return and getting Clayton to have a swig from his whisky-flask. Twenty minutes, at least, according to Dr. Burney, for the trional to take effect. At least another ten minutes to get the unconscious man into the car, fit up the apparatus and start the engine. Then another five minutes to get back to the lorry. In all—forty-five minutes. That was to say, the lorry would set off for the depot at eight-twenty, arriving there somewhere about nine-thirty. But both Prince and Bettle had assured him that they started at seven-thirty and had a clear run to Penrith; and they must have known that it would be a simple matter to check up on this statement. So it rather looked as if his nice little theory was already knocked on the head.
That Clayton had been given the drugged whisky before the lorry left the Derwent, Meredith refused to believe. It would be too risky. Clayton might easily have collapsed before Prince was able to return to the garage, in which case the chances were that anybody passing by might notice that something was amiss.
Again, would the lorry-men have gone to the trouble of parking up a side-turning and returning to murder Clayton, when the vital point in their alibi was that Clayton should be seen by a chance passer-by? They couldn’t wait up the lane for ever. On the other hand, it was Saturday night. Traffic, though not very heavy, would be fairly frequent along the Cockermouth road at that time of the evening. Meredith reckoned that on an average one vehicle or pedestrian would pass the garage about every ten minutes. He was inclined to think, therefore, that this was a fairly safe gamble for the men to take despite the fortuitous element in their scheme. His final conclusion on this point was that it offered no real objection to his theory.
The time factor was the real trouble. Even if the apparatus had been previously fitted up in some way—Meredith let out a sudden exclamation! What about Higgins? He could have done it. He knew where the hose was kept, and the dimensions of the exhaust-pipe. What was to prevent Higgins from secreting the pipe and the mackintosh in some prearranged spot, locking the garage and hiding the key with the other objects and then clearing off to Penrith? There was probably only one key to the lean-to, so even if Clayton had wanted to get at his car he would have been unable to do so. Or better still, Higgins could have fitted up the whole deadly apparatus and just hidden the key. That would take at least eight minutes off Prince’s time. But was that enough? Surely it would still leave too much time unaccounted for?
Try as he would, Meredith could not persuade himself into a confident frame of mind over his first reconstruction of the crime. Everywhere there were loose ends lying about. If Prince, in company with Bettle, had murdered Clayton—what was the motive? That was the biggest query of the lot. Then there was the matter of the £2,000, the Lothwaite tragedy, the bits of broken glass, Rose’s nocturnal visits to the garage cottage and the undeniable fact that the Nonock lorry must have returned direct from the Derwent to the Penrith depot.
“As healthy a brood of problems as one could ask for,” thought Meredith as he trudged home dispirited to his long-awaited meal.
Chapter IX
Investigations at the Lothwaite
After a somewhat restless night, in which the various problems surrounding Clayton’s death hovered on the fringe of his consciousness, Meredith returned in an irritable mood to his office. The case, instead of clarifying with the progress of his investigations, grew more complex at every turn. There were now so many different clues to be followed up that the Inspector was at a loss as to where it would best profit him to begin the day’s work. He finally decided to take a look at the Lothwaite, interview the proprietor, and corroborate the lorry-men’s story about the breakdown on Jenkin Hill.
One thing was essential. He must without further delay forward a full description of Higgins, Rose, Prince and Bettle
to Scotland Yard. From their speech he had gauged them to be southerners and, from his knowledge of dialects, Londoners. If any of the men had been convicted of a crime in the metropolitan area then Scotland Yard would be able to give him an idea as to their particular “line”. But how was he to obtain the necessary photographs of the four men? A verbal description was all right as far as it went, but it wouldn’t establish the identity of the men with any degree of certainty.
In the case of Higgins there would be no difficulty. The Cumberland News had already published an excellent portrait of the man in conjunction with their mid-weekly report of the tragedy. But what about the Nonock trio?
Meredith cast his mind back to the depot and its near environs. The picture was quite clear in his mind. On one side of the Penrith road the high, corrugated-iron fence and the tall gates; on the other, directly opposite the entrance, a thick clump of holly bushes. What was to prevent him from posting a man with a camera in the bushes, with instructions to “snap” Mr. Rose as he left the depot at lunch time? He felt quite certain that the manager would return to 32 Patterdale Road for his mid-day meal. Bettle and Prince presented a more difficult problem. They did not return to the depot until after dark, which meant that the only chance of taking their photograph was in the early morning before they started work. The men lived in the town and it was pretty certain that they would either walk or bicycle out to the depot, arriving there a little before nine.
Having decided on this line of action Meredith swung up Main Street to Vernon’s the photographers. The proprietor himself came forward in answer to the shop door bell. When he saw the Inspector he grinned.
“Hullo, Meredith! Your young scallywag been up to something? In for a paternal lecture, is he?”
“Not this time, thank heaven. But I’d like a word with Tony if he’s about.”
“He’s in the dark-room. I’ll fetch him,” said Vernon.
In a short time Tony himself came into the shop obviously at a loss to explain his father’s unexpected visit. Particularly as they had parted at the breakfast table only half an hour before.
“Hullo, Dad? What’s the idea? Nothing wrong at home is there?”
“Rather not, Tony. Listen here a minute.”
In a few brief sentences Meredith explained what he wanted, whilst Tony’s blue eyes grew bright with interest and excitement. This was an adventure after his own heart. A relief from the rather boring routine of the shop at which he was apprenticed.
“Well, Tony? Do you think you can do the job?”
“It’s as good as done,” Tony assured his father with all the bragging optimism of seventeen. “If you can fix it with the boss, Dad, I’ll look out my camera and get on to the job straight away.”
Vernon raised no objections when the Inspector had explained the importance of getting hold of the photographs. And after warning both Vernon and Tony to keep the affair secret, he strode off briskly to the police garage and took out the combination. Shortly after ten he swung right off the Braithwaite road and headed for Bassenthwaite lake. About a hundred yards beyond the turning which led to Braithwaite Station, he drew up at the roadside and consulted his Bartholomew’s map. He reckoned Jenkin Hill to be a little over a mile ahead, at which point the railway line was shown as being some three hundred yards away from the road. This fact was of vital importance to Meredith, as he knew there was a Cockermouth train due in at Braithwaite Station at 6.25 on Saturday evening. So the chances were that the train had passed within a reasonably close distance of the parked lorry. True, it would be dark, but the lorry would be showing lights, and any stationary vehicle at that particular point at that particular time would offer a strong hint as to whether Bettle and Prince had been telling the truth or not. Arriving at Jenkin Hill a quick review of the locality showed that it was not only possible for the lorry to have been seen from the passing train, but probable. The road at that point, for over a quarter of a mile, was raised on a slight embankment and the intervening meadows were as flat as a pancake and destitute of vegetation.
“So much for that,” thought Meredith, his depression lifting a little. “Now for the Lothwaite!”
Opening the throttle, the Inspector was soon level with the head of the lake. Here the railway line swung in, running close to the right of the road, whilst on the left the fell-sides rose in a spruce-covered slope to a gradually declining ridge. Soon the glorious expanse of Bassenthwaite opened out, shining with the transient beauty of the early spring light; its far shore backed by the sombre immensity of the Skiddaw range. But Meredith had little time to appreciate the subtle loveliness of the landscape, for rounding a corner he came suddenly on a scene which sent him braking and skidding into the side of the road.
Not two hundred yards ahead was the garage and drawn up beside the petrol pumps was a blue and scarlet Nonock lorry! Three men stood talking in the garage entrance, luckily facing in the opposite direction, but even at that distance Meredith had no difficulty in recognizing the bull-necked Mr. Bettle and his loquacious companion, Prince.
The Inspector acted quickly. Running his bike behind a row of tar barrels, which stood on the edge of a little draw-in beside the road, he climbed the low wall at the foot of the fell-side and plunged into the spruce wood. Dodging this way and that among the thick and brambly undergrowth, he worked his way to a position somewhat behind and above the small group of buildings which constituted the Lothwaite. From a quick survey of the lie of the land, he realized with a thrill of excitement that it would be possible for him to get within ten yards of the group without any danger of revealing himself. The garage had been erected in a natural hollow, rather like a small, disused quarry, so that anybody approaching through the trees could look down almost on to the roofs of the building.
At first Meredith was unable to distinguish a single word of the conversation proceeding below, but by dint of further cautious manœuvring he finally succeeded in catching a few isolated sentences. In a flash he had drawn out note-book and pencil and begun to set down the drift of the men’s talk.
First there was Prince.
“Thought we might have something to take in…working overtime…Mark’s naturally out of the running…the Derwent…settled down.”
Then the proprietor—a short, stocky man, Meredith noted, with bowed legs and long arms like a baboon.
“…all very well…the boss can’t expect…up the output…impossible.…”
Then he heard Bettle’s rough voice break in with: “That’s not our fault, Wick. Orders is orders. O.W. gets a bee in ’is bleeding bonnet…not our look-out!”
Then Prince entered in again, but this time in so low a voice that Meredith was unable to catch a word. At the conclusion of his remarks Bettle let out a raucous laugh and the three men moved toward the lorry. Prince uncoupled the union, which joined the lorry’s delivery-pipe to the countersunk pipe attached to the underground petrol tank, and replaced the iron lid of the manhole. He then curled up the flexible tube and laid it in a wooden box parallel to the base of the blue and scarlet lettered container, whilst Bettle climbed up into the driving-seat. After Prince had given the starting-handle a couple of twists the powerful engine broke into a roar, and in a few seconds the lorry had lumbered out of sight.
Wasting no time, Meredith plunged back through the wood, mounted his bike and drove up to the garage. The man whom he had just seen in conversation with Prince and Bettle came forward to attend to his customer’s needs.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’ll take a gallon of Nonock,” said Meredith. “I hear it’s good stuff and I’ve never tried the brand before.”
“It is good stuff,” agreed the man. “The best.”
“Sell a lot of it, I daresay?” asked Meredith innocently, as the man stuck the nozzle of the pipe into the petrol tank and returned to work the handle of the pump.
“Fair bit.”
“You mus
t do,” continued the Inspector, watching the man closely. “Two deliveries in about six days looks like a roaring trade to me!”
“What do you mean?” asked the man sharply.
“This,” replied Meredith. “Last Saturday night a Nonock lorry called here and made a delivery at your pump. This morning, a few minutes back, they made another delivery. Hence my remark—a roaring trade.”
“That’s just where you’re wrong. The lorry called here last Saturday night, but it didn’t make any delivery. I wanted four hundred gallons and they’d only got a couple of hundred surplus left in their tank. So I got ’em to call on their way out this morning with the full load. It was the earliest delivery they could make. Anyway,” added the man with the sudden realization that he’d been drawn unwittingly into giving an explanation where it was not actually due. “Anyway, with all due respects, sir, I don’t quite see what it’s got to do with you.”
“Possibly not,” replied Meredith. “Here, take a look at those and then perhaps you’ll understand.”
The Inspector drew his credentials out of his trench-coat pocket and showed them to the proprietor. The man looked puzzled.
“Police, eh? Sorry, sir! I didn’t realize—you not being in uniform.”
“Quite. Well, I’m Inspector Meredith if you want to know. Let’s see—your name is?”
