The great voice quivered and boomed, and at such close quarters was well-nigh pulverizing.
‘What did he do? He saw the night was clearer. He thought of his car. He thought of the cool roads, the open fields, little remote villages – freedom, solitude. He went round to the garage and because it was his habit, because he wanted complete obedience from his car, he switched on the engine, intending to let it run for a while so that the cylinders should be warm, the oil moving smoothly and evenly.
‘And at that time he was completely unaware that his car had been, or was going to be, used by some enemy to destroy the very man to whom the woman he loved was tied. Unfortunately for him he did not take the car straight out of the garage. Instead he remembered the key of the yard gate and went to his lonely little flat to fetch it.
‘Imagine the thoughts which must have come into his mind as he entered that room and realized that she was above him, closeted – so he thought – remember, with the husband who neglected and had no respect for her.
‘Then, just as he was about to take the key, what happened? The telephone bell rang and he heard her voice. He went down, turned off the car, and these two young people went out together. Is that the sort of man who would have gone to see a moving picture if he knew that down in the strong-room beneath the office, in the very house next to the one in which he was going to sleep that night, a man lay suffocated to death? Of course not! It is not feasible!’
He allowed the last word to die away and then quite surprisingly dropped his artificial manner and became a different sort of person altogether.
‘That’s the truth, you know,’ he said. ‘That’s what happened.’.
John pulled a crisp white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead.
‘I think you’re right about Mike,’ he said. ‘You convinced me.’
A smile, pleased and schoolboyish, appeared upon Cousin Alexander’s handsome face.
‘It’s effective, isn’t it?’ he said, including Campion in the question. ‘Awfully effective, and true. But we can’t possibly use it.’
Mr Campion said nothing. A purely academic consideration concerning the importance of technique in all phases of modern life had sprung unbidden to his mind.
‘Not use it?’ said John in exasperation.
‘Oh, no, we couldn’t use it.’ Sir Alexander was quite definite. ‘Not in this case, not in London. It’s not suitable. We simply must not admit any love at all. In law love is suspicious. Bendix – he’s going to be one junior and is devilling for me at the moment – points out that that is absolutely without question, and I see that he’s right. I was only telling you privately why I know Mike’s innocent. We’ll think of something else. But that’s the truth of that point, I’m sure of it. Who is that?’
The final remark was made with a trace of his old manner and both John and Mr Campion turned towards the door, through which faint sounds, as of a slight scuffle, reached them.
‘Come in,’ said John peremptorily and, the handle turning abruptly, the door burst open and Mr Rigget was precipitated into the room.
It was evident at once that something more than the business of the Accounts Department had occasioned his sudden appearance. He was neat, as usual, but considerably more pink and clearly a little above himself. He was also breathless.
At the sight of the K.C. he wavered and for a moment it seemed as though his determination would desert him, but a glimpse of John’s stony face seemed to pull him together.
‘I thought it my duty to come to you at once, sir,’ he said in a squeaky rush, his eyes snapping behind his pince-nez and his phraseology oddly stilted. ‘I reached the decision to tell something of which I had become cognizant to the police only this morning and now that I have done so I thought it would be only fair to tell you as well.’
He stood for a moment wavering. John was looking at him as though he were some particularly unpleasant species of life, repellent but not dangerous.
Cousin Alexander, on the other hand, was staring over his head, no doubt considering Truth from yet another angle. Mr Campion alone remained politely interested.
From pink Mr Rigget became crimson and a dappling of sweat appeared upon his forehead.
‘I’ve just told Sergeant Pillow about the quarrel I heard,’ he said sulkily. ‘It was on the Wednesday morning before the Thursday on which Mr Paul was killed. The door between Mr Paul’s room and the File Copy Office was ajar and I didn’t like to shut it.’
Cousin Alexander bent his gaze upon the wretched man for the first time.
‘Eavesdropping?’ he inquired blandly.
‘I happened to hear certain words,’ said Mr Rigget indignantly. ‘And,’ he added, a suggestion of a snarl appearing for a fleeting instant across his mouth with the surprisingly white teeth, ‘I thought it was my duty to repeat them to the police.’
‘Get out!’ said John, suddenly losing his temper. ‘Get out! Get straight out of the office.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Cousin Alexander’s voice had become pleasant again. ‘Let’s hear what this gentleman has to say. You’ve come here to help us, haven’t you? That’s extremely kind of you. My cousin appreciates it. What did you hear when the door was ajar? First of all, who was speaking? You were sure of the voices, were you?’
‘Yes, I was,’ said Mr Rigget, considerably taken aback by this mercurial change in the magnificent-looking old gentleman in front of him. ‘Besides, I’d seen Mr Paul and Mr Mike when I went through the room first.’
‘Mr Paul and Mr Michael …’ said Cousin Alexander soothingly. ‘And what were the words you heard?’
‘Well, they’d stopped talking when I went in first,’ said Mr Rigget truculently, ‘and then I suppose they thought the door was shut, so they went on with their quarrel.’
‘Or conversation,’ murmured Sir Alexander pleasantly. ‘And then what?’
Mr Rigget swung round on John. There was intense satisfaction upon his ignoble face.
‘Mr Paul said, “You mind your own damned business, Mike. She’s mine and I’ll manage my own life in my own way.”’
There was complete silence in the room after he had spoken and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had achieved a sensation.
‘And did you hear anything else?’ Cousin Alexander’s voice was cloying.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Rigget, blushing to the roots of his black hair. ‘He said, “Make love, to her if you want to – God knows I’m not stopping you.”’
‘And then?’
‘I didn’t hear any more,’ said Mr Rigget. ‘I came out then. But I could see what Mr Mike was thinking.’
‘That’s not evidence,’ said Cousin Alexander.
CHAPTER XI
Fuse Cap
AFTER A TEDIOUS magisterial hearing Michael Wedgwood was committed for trial, and on the afternoon before the day on which he was to appear at the Old Bailey, Mr Campion, with Ritchie at his side, steered the Lagonda through the traffic in New Oxford Street. It was one of those warm blowy days when every street corner is a flower garden presided over by a stalwart London nymph still clad in the wools and tippets of winter and the air is redolent with an exciting mixture of tar, exhaust and face powder.
However, neither of the men in the big car was in the mood to appreciate the eternal hopefulness of Spring. Ritchie was talking, curbing his gestures with considerable difficulty because of the confined space.
‘Want you to see her,’ he said. ‘Don’t like her like this. It’s getting her down, Campion. She’s fond of him, you know. Loves him and probably feels responsible. Women always take responsibility. It’s a form of vanity. Can’t help it. Natural with them.’
His anxiety seemed to have loosened his tongue and the fact that he now considered Campion an old friend made him more coherent.
‘Bound to get him off, don’t you think?’ he added, cocking a wistful eye at the young man beside him. ‘Terrible experience anyway. All terrible,’ he went on, waving a tremendous a
rm between Mr Campion’s eyes and the windscreen. ‘All this. All these people. They’re all in prison. All miserable. All slaves. All got to work when they don’t want to, eat when they don’t want to, sleep when they don’t want to. Can’t drink until someone says they may. Can’t hide their faces, got to hide their bodies. No freedom anywhere. I hate it. Frightens me. Knew a man once who chucked it. I couldn’t.’
‘It’s a feeling one does get sometimes,’ Mr Campion conceded.
‘I always feel like it,’ said Ritchie, and hesitated on the brink of some further confidence, but thought better of it and was silent.
They found Gina sitting by the open window in the big studio, and Campion, who had not seen her for some weeks, was shocked by the change in her. She was harder, more sophisticated, older. Nervous exhaustion had been replaced by general deterioration. She looked less chic, less graceful, less charming.
Her greeting was artificial and it was not until he had been sitting on the big white sofa for some minutes that she suddenly turned to him with something of her old genuineness.
‘It was good of you to come,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to cry or do anything silly and I shall be perfectly composed in the witness box. It’s not hearing from him,’ she added, her defences suddenly collapsing. ‘No mental contact at all. He’s just gone. He might be dead.’
The natural embarrassment which the confidence might have engendered was swept away by the relief which Campion felt at seeing that her artificiality went no deeper. This was only a warning then of the damage which might be done to her and had not the awful finality of the accomplished fact.
‘You – you haven’t found out what really happened? I know you haven’t. You’d have told me, of course. But haven’t you got just an inkling – haven’t you got a clue? When I asked John he said something about a new witness. Can’t you tell me about that? Or is it all a secret, like everything else?’
The mixture of bitterness and pleading in her deep voice was disturbing. Mr Campion wished in his heart that he had better news for her.
‘The new witness may be useful,’ he said. ‘His name’s Widgeon. I had an awful job getting hold of him. He didn’t want to talk but when he realized how much depended on it he shelved his private considerations like a sportsman and came out with all he knew. He’s employed by the Tolleshunt Press people. They’ve got a small office on the second floor of Number Twenty-one. Apparently he got tight at lunch on the Thursday and it took him all the afternoon to sober up, so that he came to himself about five with a splitting headache and all the afternoon’s work on his hands. So he stayed behind and did it and was still hard at it between six and nine, when Mrs Tripper was making herself cups of tea and coming home from pictures and trotting along to the fried-fish shop.’
He paused and smiled at her encouragingly.
‘His story is that he heard the car start up soon after six – he can’t say how soon – and that the engine was running continuously until eight or thereabouts, and that he didn’t hear it again until ten to nine, when it ran for only a short time.’
‘But that lets Mike out! That bears out Mike’s story!’
For the first time during the interview a faint tinge of colour appeared in her pale cheeks and she seemed to take new life.
Campion looked uncomfortable.
‘It bears out his story,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t let him out. He can’t establish his alibi between six and the time you phoned him, remember.’
‘I see,’ she said. She sank back again, her slender body in the sleek, man-tailored gown lifeless and pathetic.
‘It’ll help,’ said Campion, anxious to be reassuring. ‘Apart from fixing in the jury’s mind that the whole thing probably happened on the Thursday, it refutes the evidence of the Tripper woman, or muddles it at any rate.’
‘And you’ve discovered nothing else?’
‘Nothing of value,’ he confessed. ‘There’s been so little to go upon. Usually in these things you can get your teeth in somewhere and worry the whole thing out, but in this business there hasn’t been a gripping place. I had great hopes of Miss Netley, but either she can’t talk and simply tried to look as though she could out of vanity, or else there’s no earthly reason why she should and she doesn’t want to.’
‘Netley,’ said Ritchie and, getting to his feet, walked out of the room.
His exit was so abrupt that they both looked after him. Gina’s eyes were wet when she returned to Campion.
‘He’s been so kind,’ she said. ‘I used to think he was inhuman, a sort of creature; not a lunatic, you know, but – well, just not quite the right thing; but since – since Paul died he’s been the only person who’s behaved normally, to me at any rate. He’s genuinely sorry for me and terrified for Mike. The others, John and even dear old Curley and Mrs Austin and the doctor and all the other normal people who I always thought were ordinary and real and who I expected to have ordinary human reactions, have their own points of view so strongly that they have no room for mine or Mike’s. D’you know, John’s only thinking about the publicity and the firm, and Curley follows him. Mrs Austin’s thinking about her personal appearance. It’s as though she was going on the stage …’
Mr Campion looked sympathetic.
‘They’re in it, you see, old dear,’ he said. ‘It’s touched their lives.’
She nodded gloomily. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything terrible close to,’ she said. ‘I haven’t shown up very well to myself.’
There was a silence which Mr Campion did not like to break, and presently she spoke again.
‘John brought that man he calls Cousin Alexander up here. I got hysterical and they sent a doctor to me. I didn’t mean to, but he just wasn’t human as far as I was concerned. He was like an author planning a book or a play. They talked about hostile witnesses and witness for the defence not as though they were people but as though they were stray ideas, little pieces of construction.’
‘Sir Alexander is convinced that he’ll get an acquittal,’ said Campion.
‘I know,’ her voice became strident. ‘Insufficient evidence! And what good’ll that be? I talked all this out with Ritchie and he was as appalled as I was when he realized it. Don’t you see an acquittal will only save Mike’s life? The great damage is done.’
She leant forward, her intelligent face turned to him and her eyes very steady.
‘Don’t you see,’ she said, speaking carefully, as though he were a child, ‘if they acquit him without finding the man who did the murder everyone will always believe that Mike did it, and if ever he is seen speaking to me that’ll prove it from their point of view.’
‘I suppose what other people think matters?’ said Mr Campion, weakly.
‘Of course it matters,’ she said angrily. ‘It becomes the truth. What everybody thinks is the truth.’
Mr Campion was silent, knowing from experience that a discourse on ethics is rarely comforting to anyone in genuine distress.
‘Somebody must have done it,’ she said. ‘Who was it? I’ve gone over it again and again so often that I sometimes think I shall go mad and imagine I did it myself. It was someone clever enough to think of arranging an accident, someone who had no idea how clever the police are. Albert, it wasn’t Mike, was it?’
‘No,’ said Mr Campion quietly but with complete conviction. ‘It wasn’t Mike.’
She laughed unsteadily.
‘When you’re alone thinking, you believe anything.’
Her voice died on the last word and she turned round. The door clattered open and Ritchie returned. Because of his excitement he was clumsier than ever and he lurched across the room dangerously.
‘Any good?’ he inquired, dropping something into Mr Campion’s lap.
Mr Campion turned over the battered cardboard-backed book in some astonishment.
‘Post Office Savings Bank?’ he said. ‘Whose is it?’
‘Girl Netley’s.’ Ritchie seemed tremendously pleased with
himself. ‘Might be interesting. Never know. Often thought it funny she brought it to the office. Keep bankbooks at home, not lying about.’
‘Where did you get it from?’ Mr Campion turned over the pages carefully.
‘Out of her bag,’ said Ritchie without hesitation or attempt at mitigation. ‘Can’t be conventional at a time like this.’
Mr Campion made no comment. Something in the book had attracted his attention and he sat for some considerable time turning over the pages and comparing entries.
‘Thrifty kid,’ he said at last. ‘She saves ten bob a week regularly, every Saturday. There it is. It goes back nearly a year. Handed in at the same office just down the road here in Holborn. There were several sums paid in at Christmas – that’s presents, I suppose – and she took out three pounds then, too. I’m afraid it doesn’t tell us much about her, unless – hello ! what’s this?’
Gina rose to look over his shoulder while Ritchie leant back in his chair, his long hands dropping over the arms and his eyes mild and inquisitive like a dog who has brought a parcel and is content to see his master open it.
Mr Campion ran a finger down a paying-in column and traced certain entries across the page to the circular stamp which showed at which office the deposits had been made.
‘These can’t all be birthdays,’ he said. ‘They’re funny amounts, too; so irregular. A pound on October the twenty-second last year, paid in at St. James’s of all places. Ten shillings in the middle of the first week in November at the same place. Then there’s just the ordinary ten shillings until December the first, when she paid two pounds in at the St Martin’s Lane office. Then nothing odd until January, and then there’s quite a lot. Three pounds on the tenth, another three pounds on the thirteenth, two pounds on the seventeenth, then three again on the twentieth and – I say – five pounds on the twenty-ninth. That was the day after Paul disappeared. I wonder …’
Flowers For the Judge Page 15
