The Blind Side

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Well now, Mrs. Rush, I just want a word with your husband here, and I hope I’m not disturbing you coming in like this, but to tell you the truth I’m right down sick of that room upstairs, and I thought I’d like to make your acquaintance.”

  He crossed to the foot of the bed and turned to Rush.

  “There’s a matter that came up just now, and I’d like to know what you’ve got to say about it. I’ve been told that you and Mr. Craddock had words on Tuesday afternoon-something about his papers having been disturbed.”

  “Who said so?” said Rush with a growl.

  “Someone who heard what passed. Come, sergeant, tell me about it yourself if you don’t want me to take someone else’s story.”

  “Albert-” said Mrs. Rush in a pleading voice.

  “There’s nothing to tell!” said Rush angrily. “Mr. Ross, he forgot himself. Thirty years I been in this job, and the first time anyone ever said or thought but what I did my duty! Mr. Ross, he forgot himself, and now that he’s dead I’ve no wish to bring it up.”

  There was a rough dignity about his squared shoulders and the set of his head. “If he isn’t an innocent man, he’s a very good actor,” thought the Inspector. He said,

  “That does you credit. But I’ve got my duty too, you know, and I’ll have to ask you what took place between you.”

  Mrs. Rush looked up from her knitting.

  “Now don’t you be so disobliging, Father.”

  Rush scowled at her. A completely meaningless mannerism as far as she was concerned, it having quite ceased to intimidate her after the first month of their marriage.

  “A lot of busybodying going on over this business, it seems to me.” The Inspector was getting the scowl now. “First and last of it was, Mr. Ross called me into his room and said someone had been mucking about with his papers. Then he forgot himself and said it was me-said there was papers missing, and something about blackmail. And I told him he’d forgot himself and I come away.”

  “Why should he think it was you? You haven’t got a key to the flat, have you? Why didn’t he suspect Peterson?”

  “No, I haven’t got a key-and if I had a hundred I wouldn’t touch his papers. But Sunday Peterson had the day off and I had his key. And seems Mr. Ross forgot his bunch of keys that day-left them lying on his table. He’s uncommon careless with them. And I told him straight I saw them, and I never touched them nor I never touched his papers, and if anyone says so, alive or dead, he’s a liar!”

  “Did he threaten you with dismissal?” said the Inspector.

  Rush glared at him.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Sure of that?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  The Inspector was watching him closely.

  “When a murder has taken place, anyone who has had a serious quarrel with the murdered man is bound to come under suspicion.”

  A deep flush ran up to the roots of Rush’s thick grey hair. He breathed heavily. Then he said,

  “You’re suspecting me?”

  Mrs. Rush said, “Oh, sir!” She let her knitting fall and clasped her hands. “Oh, sir! Oh, Albert! Oh, sir-he never did! Oh, Albert-you’ve got to tell him now. It’s not right-not if they’re going to think it’s you. And if he’s innocent it won’t hurt him, and if he’s done it it’s not for us to stand in the way of the law-”

  “Here,” said Rush, “you’re upsetting her-that’s what you’re doing. And I won’t have it! Come into the kitchen!”

  Mrs. Rush began to tremble very much.

  “Not a step!” she said. “Albert, you come right over here and let me get a hold of you!”

  “All right, all right-nothing to put yourself about like that, my girl.”

  She leaned back against her pillows.

  “Give him the case, Albert,” she said.

  “Have it your own way,” said Rush.

  He opened a drawer, took out a silver cigarette-case, and landed it to the Inspector.

  “I was going to give it back to him on the quiet,” he said. “Found it laying by the side of the stairs Wednesday morning when I come to do the hall. Didn’t think anything about it at first, no more than what he’d dropped it, and I put it away to give it back to him or to Miss Mavis.”

  The Inspector looked at the case-an ordinary engine-turned affair with a medallion for initials. The initials were R. F. He pressed the catch and the case fell open on his palm. There were cigarettes on one side, but on the other side there was a photograph of Miss Mavis Grey.

  The Inspector pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle. Then he said,

  “And who were you going to give it back to?”

  The porter and his wife spoke together. Rush said, “Mr. Bobby Foster,” and Mrs. Rush said, “Miss Mavis’s young man.”

  Chapter XXIV

  About twenty minutes later the Inspector hung up the receiver and faced Detective Abbott across the writing-table.

  “Inquest tomorrow at two-thirty. We’ll have ’em all there, and perhaps it’ll put the wind up some of ’em. But we shall have to ask for an adjournment unless we get a bit of luck.”

  “Like the murderer walking in and saying ‘Please, sir, I did it.’ ”

  The Inspector frowned.

  “Lintott’s gone to check up on Mr. Foster. I want his fingerprints. If they correspond with the lot we couldn’t account for on the banisters and on this door, then it looks pretty black against him.”

  “What did the Ducks and Drakes say?”

  “Oh, he was round there on the Tuesday night, but he was so drunk they wouldn’t let him in. Tried three times-asked for Miss Grey and said he’d got to see her. The porter says Mr. Renshaw put him into a taxi and sent him home. Well, suppose he got home and got drinking some more, and then came round here to have it out with Mr. Craddock-I don’t mind telling you it begins to look like that to me. I’ve told Lintott to find out at his rooms when he came in, and whether anyone heard him go out again-” He broke off because the sitting-room door was pushed open and Peter Renshaw came in.

  “Am I interrupting?” he said.

  “As a matter of fact I wanted to see you, Mr. Renshaw. I am informed that you met Mr. Foster-Mr. Bobby Foster-as you came out of the Ducks and Drakes on Tuesday night, and that after some conversation you got him into a taxi and sent him home.”

  “All correct.”

  “Well now, Mr. Renshaw, I have an account of that conversation from the porter at the Ducks and Drakes. He says Mr. Foster had been backwards and forwards asking for Miss Mavis Grey and wanting to know whether she was there with Mr. Craddock.” The Inspector made a significant pause, and then asked, “Was Mr. Foster drunk?”

  “It depends on what you call drunk. He was walking and talking, but I didn’t take much notice of what he said.”

  “Ah, but the porter did. He says Mr. Foster used threatening language-says he offered to knock Mr. Craddock’s head off and kick it in the gutter-says he used the expression that shooting was too good for him. How’s that, Mr. Renshaw?”

  Peter groaned inwardly. Bobby would go and say things like that about a man who was going to get himself murdered. Gosh-what a mess! Aloud he said,

  “Bobby is a most awful ass, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “I take it that he did say those things then?”

  “Look here,” said Peter, “I don’t know what put you on to Bobby Foster, but it’s damned nonsense your suspecting him. He was annoyed because his girl had gone out with another fellow, he’d had-well-one or two over the eight, and he was shooting off his face. If you’re really going to murder someone you don’t go and have a shouting match about it on the steps of a popular night-club with the porter hanging out both ears to listen-well, it’s absurd, isn’t it?”

  Out of the depths of his experience the Inspector commented on this to the effect that a drunk would do anything-“And I take it, Mr. Renshaw, that you heard Mr. Foster say, ‘Shooting’s too good for him’-meaning Mr. Crad
dock.”

  Peter smiled affably.

  “Rather assuming that, aren’t you? Now,, leaving this somewhat controversial subject, I really came to tell yotf that I have been talking to my cousin Miss Lucy Craddock.”

  “You rang her up?”

  “She rang me up. She wants to make a statement.”

  “She wants to make a statement?”

  “Apparently. It seems to surprise you. She-” he hesitated for a moment-“well, she’s a very conscientious person and she thinks she ought to. But she’d had a shock, and she’s naturally timid, and-well, in fact she wants me to be there.”

  The Inspector considered the point.

  “I don’t see any objection.” He considered still further. “I’m very anxious to get a statement from Miss Craddock, and I’m thinking of sending Abbott to take it down. If she’s an elderly lady and timid, my coming in on her after a shock and all-well, it might, so to speak, dry her up. But there’s something about the young ones, especially if they’ve got fair hair, that’s wonderfully disarming with old ladies. Just bits of lads they think them, and they get the feeling they’re setting them to rights. It loosens their tongues a lot, I’ve noticed.”

  When they were in a taxi Peter said,

  “Look here, Fug, is it possible to have an unofficial conversation with you? I mean, are you on duty all the time, or could there be some sort of a hiatus?”

  Abbott shook his head.

  “My superior officer has made a point of reminding me that a policeman on a murder case is a policeman all the time-he doesn’t, properly speaking, come off duty at all. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Nothing, if it’s going to be your duty to take it all down in shorthand and decode it for old Lamb. As a matter of fact, it’s nothing confidential. It’s only-hang it all, man, can’t you see what an infernal mess this is for all of us? I thought if we could talk like human beings and get rid of the condemned cell sort of atmosphere it might do both of us a bit of good.”

  Fug Abbott looked out of the window.

  “I don’t take shorthand notes all the time. If you want to talk, talk-only don’t forget you’re talking to a policeman.”

  Peter laughed a little angrily.

  “I wasn’t going to offer you a nice, neat confession. What I really wanted to do was to talk to you about my cousin Lucy Craddock. You’re going to get a statement from her, and I want you to realize what sort of person she is. She’s very easily frightened, and when she’s frightened she dithers and goes to bits, but-and this is what I want you to get hold of-however frightened she was, or however much in bits, it wouldn’t be possible to induce her to tell a lie. She might hold her tongue about something, but what she says will be the truth.”

  Abbott said, “I see.” What he thought he saw was that Peter was very anxious for him to believe what Miss Lucy Craddock was going to say. He said without any expression in his voice,

  “You know what her statement is going to be?”

  “No, I do not. Horrible minds you policemen have. She rang me up, and I’ll tell you exactly what she said to me. First of all she said she was better, and then she said Mavis Grey had been to see her, and how dreadful it all was, and perhaps she ought to make a statement, but please would I come too, because she was afraid she might get flustered and she would like to feel I was there-‘and I won’t say any more on the telephone, dear boy, because you never know who may be listening.’ There, Fug, I give you my solemn word of honour that that is every word she said as far as I can remember. There’s one thing more. I told you that whatever Lucy said would be the truth. Well, one reason for that is that she was brought up to tell the truth, and another is that she definitely wouldn’t know how to make a story up. She’s got what I call a photographic mind-quite accurate, quite uninspired, no imagination at all. There-that’s all. Now tell me why you are a policeman.”

  Abbott continued to look out of the window. He said laconically,

  “I was reading for the Bar. My father died. There wasn’t any money.”

  “Any prospects?”

  “Quite good, I think. I should probably never have got a brief anyway.”

  Chapter XXV

  Miss Challoner opened the door to them herself, and at once remarked, “I disapprove of all this very much. Lucy is not at all fit to be worried by the police. Dr. Clarke said she was to be kept extremely quiet. I fail to see how anyone can maintain that making statements to the police about a murder is an occupation suitable for an invalid. However, she insists on seeing you, so I have no choice.”

  She opened her sitting-room door and ushered them in.

  “Well, Lucy, here they are-and if you have thought better of it, I shall insist on their going away again.”

  Miss Lucy Craddock held out both hands to Peter. She was ensconced upon the sofa, fully dressed, but looking very white and shaky.

  “Oh, my dear boy-I am so glad you have come,” she said.

  Peter kissed her. Her hands clung to his.

  “Well, Lucinda, what have you been up to? Look here, if you’re going to tremble, Miss Challoner will turn us out. There’s nothing to be frightened about. This is Frank Abbott who used to be my fag at school, and he’s come to take down anything you want to say.”

  Lucy Craddock said, “How do you do?” Then she turned to Miss Challoner.

  “Phoebe, dear, if you would kindly leave us-”

  “Certainly not!” said Miss Challoner. “You are not at all fit to be left with two young men. Suppose you were to feel faint. I shall certainly not go.”

  “I should prefer it, Phoebe.”

  Detective Abbott opened the door.

  “I am afraid, Miss Challoner,” he said, “that it would be quite out of the question for you to remain. I shall do my best not to alarm Miss Craddock.”

  “I shall inform Dr. Clarke!” said Miss Challoner indignantly.

  The door closed behind her.

  “Dear Phoebe,” said Miss Craddock-“she has been so very kind. Now, Mr. Abbott, will you make yourself quite comfortable? I don’t know what I ought to do, but you will help me, won’t you?” Her voice trembled perceptibly. “I don’t have to take an oath, do I?”

  “Oh, no, Miss Craddock. Peter will sit by you, and I will bring this chair up to the foot of the couch. I can write on my knee, and all you’ve got to do is just to tell me what you know about Tuesday evening.”

  “It wasn’t the evening,” said Lucy Craddock faintly. “It was the dreadful, dreadful night.”

  Frank Abbott brought up his chair, opened a notebook, and said in an encouraging voice,

  “Now I am quite ready. Just tell me anything you want to.”

  “It is all so dreadful,” said Lucy Craddock. “I don’t know where to begin, indeed I don’t. You know I was going away on a cruise. We had been having a very sad time with my sister Mary’s death-but Peter will have told you-”

  “Yes, he knows all that, Lucinda.”

  “So I was going away-for a little change. Things had been very disturbing and worrying, and my sister had wanted me to go-but then on the other hand I felt as if I ought to be on the spot. It was all so very difficult.”

  “Well, you started off for Victoria, Lucinda, and we know you got there, because that’s where you met Lee and handed her over the key of your flat. She left you at the barrier. Now suppose you begin there and tell us what happened after that.”

  “It’s so difficult,” said Lucy Craddock. “You see, there was a private matter that was very much on my mind, and when it came to the point I felt that I really could not get into the train and go away. I felt that I had not done all I might. It was quite a private matter, Mr. Abbott.”

  “My poor Lucinda,” said Peter-“nothing is private in this affair. Everyone knows that you were unhappy about the way Ross was running after Mavis.”

  “Oh, my dear!”

  Peter patted her shoulder.

  “I know-but it can’t be helped. Brace up! We’ve al
l got to get used to living in public. Now get back to where you felt you couldn’t go away without having another shot at making Mavis see reason.”

  “I felt I must,” said Lucy Craddock with sudden energy. “I was going to spend the night with Maggie Simpson at Folkestone-Professor Simpson’s daughter, a very old friend-so I thought I could see Mavis, and catch an early morning train and cross by the same boat as the others. It was a conducted tour, you know. So I put my luggage in the cloakroom and sent off a telegram.”

  “Yes?”

  “And then-yes, I think I had a sandwich and some milk, because I didn’t want to arrive in the middle of their dinner. And then I started out to go to Holland Park.”

  “Mavis Grey lives out there with an uncle and aunt,” said Peter.

  Abbott nodded,

  “Yes-I’ve got the address. What time did you get there, Miss Craddock?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Abbott. It was getting dark. It took me a long time, because I got on to the wrong bus. And when I got there my niece had gone out-so dreadfully disappointing.”

  “Darling Lucinda, why didn’t you telephone?”

  “I never thought of it, my dear.”

  “What did you do after that, Miss Craddock?”

  “I came round here to see if Phoebe could put me up, but she was out too. She only has a maid in the morning, and there was no one to answer the door, so I went away. And I went into a cinema because I was getting so dreadfully tired, but I can’t remember what the picture was or anything aboutit.”

  “Why didn’t you go home to your own flat, Lucinda?”

  Lucy Craddock clasped Her hands.

  “I felt that I must see Mavis-I didn’t seem to be able to think of anything else. I stayed in the cinema until it shut, and then I went back to Holland Park and walked up and down waiting for Mavis to come home. I just felt I couldn’t go away without seeing her. And then it came to me-suppose she doesn’t come home.”