Suspects—Nine

by E. R. Punshon

  “We’ll have to try to look into all these people, see what they have to say and where they all were round about nine o’clock last night. If there’s one with a good sound foolproof alibi, that’ll probably be our man—or our woman. This Martin fellow, too. What’s he hanging round here for at this time of night? You said his name was Martin?” he added to Bobby.

  “Yes, sir. Will Martin. He is employed by Eternal Vigilance, Ltd.”

  “Hum—yes—I know that lot,” said the superintendent. “Nothing much against them, is there?”

  “No, sir. They’ve sailed a bit near the wind often enough but never gone quite over—as far as is known. Martin’s crooked all through in my belief but he’s a downy bird. Knows the law. He used to be in a solicitor’s office, and he’s as tough as they make ’em. I do know the Eternal Vigilance people themselves don’t trust him. But he’s useful.”

  “We’ll put him through it,” said the superintendent with a confidence that Bobby felt was likely to meet presently with rude shocks, for Mr. Martin had been put through it so often, and with such poor results, that now it had about as much effect on him as has a shower of rain on a duck.

  “I understand, sir,” Bobby ventured to ask, “that it is quite certain the knife wound was inflicted after death?”

  “To make sure,” said Newton, and Bobby felt he nearly added: “I’ve a hunch.”

  The superintendent was looking at some papers before him.

  “Medical report makes that clear,” he said. “Three bullet wounds, one on the left cheek, only slight; one above the left eye, fracturing the skull and probably, but not certainly, fatal; one in the throat, severing the right carotid artery and causing heavy bleeding. Certainly fatal within three or four minutes. The knife wound was in the chest, penetrating the lungs. It was delivered with considerable force some time after death had taken place.”

  “Difficult to understand,” mused Bobby. “With three bullet wounds—and it must have been plain the one in the throat would be fatal—why was it necessary to make sure and why after a long delay? A murderer goes on stabbing and shooting, perhaps, in a kind of frenzy, but he doesn’t stop and start again.”

  “Well, he did this time,” said the superintendent. “That’s the evidence. Probably hung around looking for that hundred pounds you talk about, and found it; or didn’t find it, and gave a parting stab as a sort of farewell. Coldblooded but it’s all like that. Thought out, or why was Munday there?”

  “Was there any sign of a search having been made?” Bobby asked.

  “None noticed, but we didn’t know anything about that hundred pounds then. It’s pretty late but I think we had better look into that. Just possible the money is still there, under that flat stone mentioned in the anonymous letter. Like to come with us?”

  Bobby, in answer to this suggestion, said he would be glad to, and the superintendent remarked that as the Yard car was ready and waiting perhaps they might make use of it, if they could all pile in together.

  After all, thought the superintendent, though he did not say so, only smiled most amiably, every little counts, especially when it’s petrol a Watch Committee, gone economy mad, doles out almost drop by drop. So it seemed to him that that used in visiting Weeton Hill to-night might as well as not be provided by the London police.

  Accordingly they all started off. Weeton Hill was not far distant and on arrival they left the car by the roadside, at the spot where a dense, impenetrable growth of bracken covered much of the lower southern slope of the hill. A rough footpath skirted the bracken and led them to the summit whence east and south there was a famous view. To the west London was visible. To-night it showed as a distant luminous glow, the radiance of its myriad lights reflected from the drifting clouds above.

  Even in the darkness Bobby could make out that once the bracken ceased there was no shelter. Any one approaching could in day time have been seen for miles around, and any one who had managed to penetrate the bracken far enough for concealment would have had, after emerging, nearly half a mile of steep and rough ascent to cover before reaching the summit.

  A place well chosen for secret meetings, Bobby thought.

  A yard or two away, lower down on the northern side, however, he could distinguish where, as a deeper shadow among others, showed the thin and feebly-growing gorse bush the anonymous letter had spoken of. Still lower, in a small hollow formed by a fold in the ground, was the spot, marked out by cord, where Munday’s body had been found.

  The South, Essex superintendent, lighting their steps by the powerful electric torch he had brought, showed Bobby another spot, also marked out by cords, where Munday had been standing when first shot. He must have fallen there and then got to his feet and staggered to the spot where he had finally collapsed. Bloodstains and tracks on the grass made that much clear, the superintendent explained.

  “And after that, there was a knife wound inflicted,” Bobby mused. “To make sure? A final gesture of hate? Or what? difficult to know. I suppose no cartridges were found.”

  “No, nothing,” the superintendent answered, “and the whole place thoroughly trampled over before we got here. It was a picnic party of about a dozen found the body and they seem to have spent all their time running about. They didn’t see the body at first. It was hidden in that hollow where it was lying. Only the bloodstains were noticed and followed up and then they all had hysterics. Fortunately, they were too scared to touch the body; but if there were any other clues, they have trampled them out of existence all right. I suppose you can’t blame ’em. Bit of a shock, no doubt.”

  “Munday must have been standing a yard or so below the actual summit. His head and shoulders would show up most plainly against the sky line,” Bobby remarked. “Probably that’s why all the bullet wounds are in the head. I wonder if other shots were fired and missed. I suppose no one heard anything?”

  “Not that we know of. Of course, that’s being followed up.”

  “Have the doctors settled the time of death? I think you said it was about nine?”

  “Between, eight and ten, they say,” the superintendent answered. “They call those the outside limits with round about nine as the actual moment. So the murderer must have been here from about nine to half-past, if the knife wound was inflicted about half an hour after death.”

  “As no cartridges were found, probably a revolver was used. An automatic would eject them, wouldn’t it?” Bobby commented.

  “Might have been picked up,” the superintendent pointed out, “That may have been what the murderer was doing, if he hung about for half an hour. Then when he had collected them all he gave the dead man a kind of farewell in the shape of a stab with a knife, to make sure, as Newton says, and pushed off. He could be back in town by eleven and in bed by twelve. Anyhow, no chance of finding anything more here, the way the place has been trampled over. Might have been a herd of cows let loose. That’s one reason why I didn’t leave a man on guard. Nothing left to guard and we’re too shorthanded to take on anything that’s not essential.” He added a little uneasily, as if to defend himself against any charge of negligence, “Not likely that the Martin bird has been here.”

  Bobby thought it quite likely the ‘Martin bird’ had been precisely there but saw no reason for saying so. Not his place to criticize and very likely, even had a constable been left on guard, he would have seen nothing of the wily and prudent Martin. But Bobby wondered a good deal why Martin had been in the neighbourhood—whether for some specific reason or merely from a general desire to find out anything that might be useful.

  Or had Martin and Munday had business together and had there been a quarrel and was Martin then the murderer they sought? A possible solution, Bobby thought, and not one to be easily lost sight of.

  “I suppose,” he remarked, “there’s no report of any suspicious characters seen in the neighbourhood?”

  “A Mr. and Mrs. Atkins driving over to a friend’s to play bridge noticed a man in plus fours, wearing a broa
d-brimmed, soft felt hat, standing by a small car, a Bayard Seven they think, consulting a map on the direct road here. They did not see his face. A man answering the same description was seen by a young labourer cycling to meet his girl. Said he thought it was a foreigner; on account of the broad-brimmed hat, I suppose. No special notice taken, no description of the car, number not noted, no reason why it should be. No one else saw anything so there’s not much to go on.”

  “Not much,” agreed Bobby, “but there is a young fellow, Julius Patterson, they call him ‘Judy’, who is friendly with Lady Alice and often wears a broad-brimmed hat.”

  “Have to look into that,” said the superintendent. “Anything to do with Munday?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Nobody has,” sighed the superintendent. ‘‘Murdered out of the blue, apparently.” He got out his note-book and noted down such particulars as Bobby knew, which were not many. Nor did Bobby say anything about Miss Maddox, since, indeed, concerning her there were no relevant facts that he knew of.

  “Good,” said the superintendent. “Another line to follow up—you never can tell. We’ll have a look now and see if we can find the big, flat stone your anonymous letter talked about.”

  It was easily found for it lay just beneath the gorse bush on the further side and it did not look as though it had been moved recently. The superintendent prised it up and shone the light of his torch on the spot where it had lain. Nothing showed except a patch of damp, bare earth, across which scurried to and fro various small insects disturbed by the lifting of the stone.

  “Nothing here, nothing been left here,” said the superintendent. “Queer business altogether.”

  They went back to the summit of the hill and stood for a moment or two. It was a quiet, still night, clear and not very dark. Overhead stars shone dimly, peeping in and out from behind the drifting clouds. On this hill-top the silence was complete, it seemed a symbol of a peace greater than this world ever knows. Hard to believe that so short a time before, a human soul had here been torn with violence from its appointed habitation. Hard to believe in this solemn immemorial calm that here two had met and one had fled away in guilt and terror but one had stayed for evermore.

  They all went back to where the car waited. The South Essex party was dropped at the police station, and Bobby and his companion sped back to Headquarters, where the driver made out his mileage return and Bobby his report of how he had carried out his instructions.

  It was daylight before finally he got to bed, nor did he wake till it was time for the dinner for which he was more than ready.

  He was still busy with it—though ‘busy’ is but a colourless word to describe his activities of the moment—when his landlady appeared with another ’phone message. It was from Mr. Tamar and he would be much obliged if he could speak to Mr. Owen.

  “You’ve heard about Munday, I suppose,” Mr. Tamar’s voice came over the wire when Bobby went to the instrument. “You’re police. I want to see you at once. I know who did it.”

  “What’s that?” exclaimed Bobby, startled.

  But Tamar had rung off, and when Bobby tried to call him again, there was no reply.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SUMMER-HOUSE

  Bobby went back to his dinner wondering very much why Mr. Tamar had rung off so abruptly and whether he really knew something, or whether, like Inspector Newton of the South Essex police, he had a ‘hunch’.

  Prudence born of much experience bade him first finish his dinner, for a dinner eaten is a dinner eaten, but a dinner lost may never be found again. Then he rang up Olive to tell her he was not sure he would be able to keep his appointment with her for that Sunday afternoon, and in reply she sounded very cross and expressed deep surprise that any girl ever got engaged to a policeman, a mistake, she said, and Bobby said she might have made a mistake but he hadn’t. Policemen couldn’t afford to. So Olive rang off, and next he rang up Headquarters to report the message he had received from Mr. Tamar and to ask for instructions.

  There seemed some doubt and hesitation at the other end of the line and he had to wait nearly half an hour before finally being rung up again and told to proceed forthwith to ascertain what statement Mr. Tamar wished to make.

  Evidently there had been consultation with the South Essex police and some idea apparently that a senior officer should accompany him. But then it had been decided that simple compliance with Mr. Tamar’s request would be the most likely means of discovering if, in fact, he really knew anything of value.

  “If he has any useful information, bring him along,” Bobby was told over the wire. “In any case, make sure that you secure a signed statement.”

  “All very well,” thought Bobby, “only suppose he won’t make a signed statement? My fault if he won’t, of course.”

  Bobby hung up the receiver, reflected once again how wise a man the late W.S. Gilbert had shown himself by his penetrating insight into, and description of, a policeman’s lot, and went out to find a ’bus running in the direction of the Tamar residence.

  He had to alight a little distance, and in another street, and as he turned into that in which the Tamars lived he nearly collided with a stout young man with small indeterminate features, except for big, flapping ears, and with little, peeping eyes, in whom Bobby recognized Roger Renfield, the heir in default of issue to a substantial portion of the Tamar fortune. Bobby noticed, too, that light, agile, indeed graceful step of which Munday had spoken, and which suggested that Renfield, like some other stout people, was an expert and clever dancer.

  The recognition was mutual, for Renfield looked startled, so much so, indeed, that for the moment Bobby half expected him to run. Instead, he said, in a voice a little breathless,

  “Oh, I saw you at Flora’s cocktail party.”

  “Did you?” said Bobby, non-committally.

  “You were going away. That poor devil, Munday, told me who you were. Are you going there now?”

  “Why do you ask?” Bobby countered.

  Renfield took out his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead, which had suddenly grown damp.

  “Some of you fellows were there,” he said. “Driven up from Essex somewhere. Is there any idea who did it?”

  “The South Essex police are handling the case,” Bobby answered, interested to know they had been to see Mr. Tamar, though, of course, it was only natural they should wish to learn all they could about Munday, his connections and habits. “If there is anything you can tell them, you should do so at once.”

  “Me? Good God, I don’t know anything,” protested Renfield, almost with an air of panic, as though this suggestion had greatly disturbed and even alarmed him. “You’ve no right to say such a thing.” He spoke with a great show of indignation and then paused and looked round nervously as if to make sure of not being overheard. “Look here,” he said, “there’s one thing, only it can’t have any connection.”

  “You never know,” said Bobby. “What is it?”

  “There’s one chap Munday was a bit scared of, some one who had threatened him, threatened to break his neck for him, Munday said. But it can’t possibly have any connection with what’s happened.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Bobby. “Who was it?”

  “Judy Patterson.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby. “Yes. What was it all about?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t tell you anything more. Only Munday said he was a very violent-spoken gentleman and threatened him. Very likely it wasn’t much really. Better ask Patterson. Not my business.”

  With that he darted abruptly across the road, showing again, as he dodged between two taxis and behind a private car, that agility of movement which by an odd contradiction those apparently overburdened with flesh are often able to show. Resuming his way, Bobby wondered if this were the truth, and, if it were, if it accounted for the mixture of agitation and of fear Renfield had seemed to show. He might be nervous of the reactions of that very violent gentleman, Judy Patterson,
if he got to know what the police had been told. The next moment Bobby found that Renfield had darted once more across the road and was again at his side.

  “There’s a summer-house in the garden,” he said, and before Bobby could ask what was meant by this cryptic remark he was off again at full speed.

  Bobby shrugged his shoulders and walked on. Renfield could be questioned further later on, if those in charge of the case thought it necessary. At the Tamar house Bobby was evidently expected. The maid who answered his knock, asked him at once if his name was Owen and then led him, not to the study as he had expected, but to a small, daintily-furnished room at the back of the house, overlooking the extensive garden, extensive, that is for a London house, since it covered a couple of acres or so. As the houses in the parallel street behind possessed also gardens of at least equal size, there was a distance of something like a quarter of a mile between the houses, so that the view from the window of the room into which Bobby had been shown was like that over a peaceful wooded countryside.

  The room bore many signs of feminine occupation and was, in fact, Flora’s special domain, her ‘den’, she called it, ‘boudoir’ would have been the name in Victorian times. The only difference was that the ‘den’ smelt abominably of stale tobacco smoke from innumerable, half-smoked cigarettes, for, to judge from the piles on two or three ash trays, Flora and her friends never smoked a cigarette to its end but always threw it away at half-time, so to say.

  The maid had asked Bobby to wait and he went across to the window thinking how jolly it must be to own such a garden within so short a distance of the fashionable centre of the town. Beautifully kept, too, with its lovely lawn and flower beds and dumps of fruit trees and flowering shrubs. The end of the garden was marked by a row of tall poplars, and much nearer the house, and to one side, Bobby saw a small summer-house that was embedded in, and nearly hidden by, trees and shrubs. Remembering what Roger Renfield had said, Bobby concentrated his attention on it, and made out a thin wisp of smoke rising in the calm air. Evidently some one was sitting there, enjoying a cigar or cigarette, probably the former, or perhaps a pipe, since the smoke seemed rather heavier than that given by cigarettes. The idea came to him that he would like to stroll across and see who was there, but to do that he would have had either to climb through the window or find his way out through a strange house. A little awkward, and then the door opened, and, to his surprise, Flora Tamar came in. She was dressed as smartly as ever in an afternoon gown of one of the new floral silks and she was made up with all the care she always bestowed on that operation. Yet her eyes looked anxious, he thought, and it was as though something of the brightness of her beauty had faded. But the languid grace of her movements, the music of her soft low tones, had all their allure as she came—flowed would almost better describe her effortless, gentle, yet determined progress—towards him.