For the fraction of a second Parry hesitated. This was the question he was expecting. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered.
The sergeant looked at him keenly.
‘That you shouldn’t know, sir, under the circumstances, I can well understand,’ he said smoothly. ‘But I should be very much surprised indeed to hear you say you had no suspicion.’
‘I’m afraid, sergeant, that’s what you’re going to hear. I neither know nor suspect.’
The sergeant made a movement as if settling himself more permanently in his chair.
‘Now, sir, I’m afraid I must ask you to help us better than that. You will see for yourself that we must find this caller. He may have brought news to the deceased which caused him to take the action he did. I’m sure the man would come forward with his information if he realised its importance. But in case he may not, we must go ahead and find him. Think again, Mr Parry. Have you no idea who it might have been?’
‘It might have been anybody; that’s just the trouble. I didn’t see the face, and I don’t know.’
The sergeant turned to his companion. ‘Slip over to that other office, Forster, and get me a list of everyone who has a key for it.’ Then, to Parry. ‘An unfortunate business, this, sir, particularly coming on the top of that other tragedy, the accident to Mr Ackerley.’
‘I know,’ Parry said in a low tone. ‘He was my greatest friend on the railway.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ The sergeant spoke sympathetically. ‘I think— Are you not the gentleman who was on the engine?’
‘Yes, Mr Bragg and I.’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘It must have given you a nasty shock, and I’m therefore the more sorry to have to trouble you over this affair.’ He paused as the constable entered and laid a sheet of paper before him, then continued: ‘Now, I’m depending on your help in this, Mr Parry, and we’ll try elimination. This list is headed by Mr Lowell’s name. Can you,’ he looked very searchingly at Parry, for all his suave manners, ‘can you say definitely that the figure was not Mr Lowell’s?’
Parry hesitated as he considered the question. Then he answered firmly: ‘I can’t say it was not, sergeant, but still less can I say that it was.’
The sergeant was very persistent. He went through every name on the list, engineers, clerks, timekeeper, and storesmen. In every case Parry returned the same answer. Once again the sergeant shook his head.
‘I think you ought to able to do better for me than that, Mr Parry,’ he declared. ‘Now, see here. How high up the window did the man’s head come? Don’t you see? Some of the men on this list must be as much as six feet and others can be little over five—I’ve seen them all. Come now, that should be a help to you. If you can’t eliminate from memory, I’ll light up that window tonight and get all these people to walk past it tonight while you look on.’
Though Parry had been interrogated by the police on the occasion of the Ackerley tragedy, he was impressed with the thoroughness with which the sergeant was making his inquiries. On the officer’s suggestion he went out and looked at Carey’s window while the constable walked past it. ‘I hadn’t thought of that question of height,’ he declared. ‘The man was pretty tall; nearly as tall as the constable.’
This, then, eliminated Pole and two of the clerical staff, leaving Carey himself, Lowell, Templeton, and one clerk as possibles. The sergeant then got on to the question of the shape of the hat, but Parry could give no information as to this. Finally, the sergeant, with a civil word of thanks, took his leave, first telling Parry to hold himself in readiness to attend the inquest on the following day.
When he had gone, Parry went again to the contractors’ office. He had not yet heard the details of the affair, and he wanted to see Lowell or Pole. The police, however, were still in charge. An ambulance had arrived and was standing beside the hut, and it was evident that the remains had just been moved into it, for the door was being closed. Two cars were also drawn up close by and, as Parry approached, a man whom he knew by sight as a local doctor named Willcox, emerged from the hut and drove off in one of them. Immediately after the ambulance followed. Then the police got into the other car and also drove off.
Parry crossed to the hut. In the drawing-office were Lowell, Pole, and Templeton. They looked worried and upset and were talking together in low tones. They nodded to Parry.
‘Tell me about it,’ Parry said in a similar low tone. ‘I’ve not heard any details as yet.’
Lowell indicated the private office with a twist of his head. ‘It was in there,’ he said, speaking as if with an utter repugnance and distaste. ‘He had taken the rope off one of those bundles of big pegs—you know, the three by three centre line pegs—and hanged himself to the beam of one of the roof principals. He had evidently stood on his stool and then kicked it aside. We didn’t see him, thank goodness. When we got here the police were in charge and had cut him down.’
‘But you saw the body?’
‘Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it.’
Parry glanced at Lowell with a feeling of slight surprise. He seemed very much upset. A considerable amount of agitation was, of course, natural, indeed inevitable. He, Parry, felt it himself. But somehow Lowell appeared to be struggling with more emotion than Parry would have expected. He seemed not only shocked and sorry, but also nervous, as if he foresaw the possibility of trouble for himself arising out of the tragedy. Parry ignored his somewhat short manner and asked when the affair was supposed to have taken place.
‘Last night, they think. Several hours ago at all events.’
‘Then he came back here in the evening?’
‘Came back?’ Lowell returned. ‘Why do you say that? Do you know where he was?’
‘I? No. Did he not dine with you?’
‘No. We never saw him all the evening. We supposed he had met someone and had gone to dine elsewhere.’
‘And he didn’t come in later?’
‘No, but no one knew that till this morning. Everyone went to bed, you see. Carey had his own latch-key.’
‘Of course.’ Parry seemed a little bit puzzled. ‘Then it is supposed that he never went anywhere last night, but did it when he got back here from our office?’
‘I believe so,’ Pole returned. ‘The police didn’t say so, but from their questions it looked as if they thought so.’
This, Parry thought, would explain the sergeant’s interest in the silhouetted figure. He glanced involuntarily at Lowell.
‘It’ll upset the Vanes,’ he said presently, ‘particularly Mrs Vane. Lucky it didn’t happen there.’
‘I think,’ said Lowell, ‘now that the police have gone and we’re free, I’ll slip down and give them the details. They only just know that it had happened.’ He swung out of the door and they heard his quick footsteps as he tramped off.
‘It’s upset Lowell too,’ Parry remarked.
‘Well, of course it has,’ Pole returned. ‘It has upset us all. What gets me is this, it’s so surprising. There was no reason, so far as any of us know, why Carey should have wanted to commit suicide. He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t in trouble. He had plenty of money. He liked the work and the people. There was nothing wrong. All that, of course, so far as we know. That’s what gets me: why did he do it?’
‘It’s what gets me too,’ said Templeton, who had not yet spoken. ‘I knew Carey longer than any of you, and since ever I’ve known him he’s been the same. I mean, there’s been no change of manner lately or anything of that sort. He was absolutely normal up to the end.’
Parry wondered if he should tell them of the silhouetted figure. He thought it better. Why make a mystery out of nothing?
‘Neither of you chaps were back in the office last night, I suppose?’ he said.
‘That’s what the sergeant asked us,’ Pole replied. ‘We weren’t.’
‘Nor Lowell?’
‘No.’
‘Well, someone was,’ and Parry went on to tell his story.
Both men
seemed impressed. ‘Dash it, I wonder who it could have been?’ said Pole, while Templeton believed that it proved that there was something more going on than anyone had suspected. ‘You know,’ continued Templeton, ‘Carey was a bit of a dark horse. None of us knew much about him.’
‘That’s what I had to tell the sergeant when he was pumping me,’ Parry said.
‘We all had to,’ Pole admitted.
‘Well,’ said Parry, turning away, ‘this’ll settle Lowell’s trouble about Brenda Vane at all events. Unless she thinks because of this that she was fond of Carey.’
‘I don’t believe Brenda ever cared tuppence for Carey,’ Pole declared. ‘Lowell thought she did, but I believe it was only panic and jealousy.’
‘He was jealous, was he?’
‘Jealous as they make them. A silly ass about it, threatening to murder Carey and all that.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Didn’t he, though.’
‘In joke, it must have been,’ Parry suggested.
‘Precious little joke about it, if you ask me,’ Pole returned. ‘What do you say, Templeton?’
‘Did you hear it too?’ put in Parry.
‘Everyone in the office heard it,’ Templeton answered. ‘They had a row; not the noisy sort of row, but a deep, silent, cursing-beneath-the-breath row. Lowell was a silly goat. He lost his head and said things he never should have. For the moment he was all worked up, but of course when he cooled down it was all right. Then it happened a second time at “Serque”’.
Parry moved close to the others.
‘I suppose,’ he said confidentially, ‘this thing couldn’t have happened because of Brenda? What if Carey had proposed and she had refused him? Was he far enough gone to take it to heart like that?’
‘Not my idea of Carey, at all events,’ Templeton declared. ‘Carey was too fond of Number One to injure himself for a thing like that. Though he was fond of Brenda, all right.’
‘Well, anyone might be that. She’s a damned fine girl.’
‘She’s all right,’ Pole admitted. ‘But there’s just about an ocean of difference between being fond of her and committing suicide because of her. I say, I’m a bit bothered about whether we oughtn’t to close down for today because of this affair. Lowell thought not, but he wasn’t very sure.’
‘I shouldn’t, if I were you,’ Parry declared. ‘I think the less fuss you make in the case of a suicide, the better.’
‘I agree with Parry,’ said Templeton. ‘In any case, it’s Lowell’s say.’
‘That’s right in a sense,’ Pole returned, ‘but it doesn’t seem quite the thing to take no notice of it. For instance …’
Parry left them arguing, and returned to his own office. There he rang up Lydmouth, got through to Marlowe, and gave him all the details he had learned. Finally, with a despairing sort of effort, he settled down to deal with his correspondence.
During the whole day, Parry was haunted by the thought of the tragedy. He finished the essential portions of his clerical work, then finding he could not settle down to his usual routine in the office, he went out on the job. But he did not see a great deal of what was going on. That swinging figure in the contractors’ hut held his attention.
Only twice, however, was he actually reminded of what had happened. After lunch a constable arrived with a summons for him to attend the inquest at 10.30 on the following morning. It was to be held in the carpenters’ shop, which would be cleared for the occasion. The second time was in the afternoon, when he called for a moment at the Vanes, formally to express his regret at what had happened.
When he joined his train at Redchurch next morning he found Bragg in it. Bragg had been interviewed by a constable on the previous afternoon and had also received a summons to be present at the inquest. Bragg seemed a good deal upset by the tragedy. Of all the railway officers he had known Carey best, and of all those on the Widening, he had probably liked him best. His comments were much the same as those of Pole and Templeton.
‘The last man in the world to do such a thing, I should have said,’ he declared. ‘It shows how one may be mistaken in people. Suicide is usually the coward’s way, and whatever Carey was, he was no coward. I tell you, Parry, I can scarcely believe it. I didn’t know Carey extraordinarily well, but I thought I knew him well enough to swear he would never have committed suicide. And what possible cause could there have been?’
‘That’s what everybody’s asking,’ said Parry.
‘When we were talking to him that night there were no signs of anything being wrong, and from what we hear, he must have done it just after leaving us. I tell you, Parry, it’s incredible. There’s something more behind it that we don’t know.’
‘Did you hear that I had seen someone going into his office?’
Bragg heard the story with interest. ‘There you are,’ he declared when Parry had finished, ‘that’s what I said. There’s something more in it than we’ve heard.’ He paused, then went on with a little side glance. ‘There was something about one of those Vane girls, wasn’t there?’
‘The others were talking about that. They said there was nothing in it.’
‘But they didn’t know?’
‘I suppose not, but they seemed pretty sure of it.’
Bragg shrugged. ‘Well, I expect we’ll hear in an hour or so. By the way, Marlowe has agreed to give that notion of ours a trial,’ and he went on to talk business.
Shortly before half-past ten they walked over to the carpenters’ shop.
9
Inquest Again
As Parry’s thoughts went back to that morning at Redchurch station some four months before, when the inquest had been made into the death of Ronnie Ackerley, it seemed to him that history was about to repeat itself. The carpenters’ shop, the one large room in the immediate neighbourhood, had been prepared for the occasion. The benches had been removed to one end and a trestle table erected in the centre, while chairs, lent from the station, were arranged about it. But though the place was different, the atmosphere was the same as at Redchurch. Similar little groups of people stood about, waiting uneasily; the police were busy superintending everybody and everything and holding hurried conversations among themselves, and everywhere an identical air of expectancy was manifest.
The coroner was the same Mr Latimer who had held the inquest on Ackerley. Only, instead of Sergeant Hart and the Redchurch constables, there were here the Whitness men, Sergeant Emery and his myrmidons. This time, moreover, beside the police sat Inspector French.
The opening formalities of the previous occasion were repeated, except that here no polite speech of condolence was made. The jury were called to their places and sworn. They elected not to view the body and at once the proceedings began. A word or two of introduction from the coroner, and the first witness was called: Hugh Bertram Spence.
‘You, Mr Spence,’ said Mr Latimer, ‘are the junior partner of Messrs John Spence & Sons, the engineering contractors who are carrying out this work on the railway?’
‘I am.’
‘You have seen the remains upon which this inquest is being held?’
Mr Spence had seen the remains, morever, he identified them as those of Michael John Carey, the firm’s resident engineer in charge of the Widening.
‘Now, Mr Spence, will you give a short sketch of the deceased’s career?’
Carey, it appeared, had entered the service of the firm twenty years previously as a lad of eighteen, which would make him at the time of his death thirty-eight years old. He had started as a pupil in the drawing-office. There he had given such satisfaction that on the completion of his pupilage he had been offered a junior post with the firm. While carrying out his work efficiently, he had spent his evenings in study, with the result that he had qualified for Associate Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers. From time to time he had been advanced in both position and salary until, when the contract for this railway widening had been entered into, he had been put in cha
rge. Though not the first, it was the largest job of which he had had charge, and he, Mr Spence, was glad to be able to testify as to the completely satisfactory way in which he had carried out his manifold duties.
‘What, so far as you know, was the state of his health, both bodily and mental?’
‘Both excellent: I wish mine were as good.’
‘You never noticed any tendency towards melancholy or depression?’
Mr Spence had never noticed anything of the kind. Nor had he ever suspected that the deceased might have some secret worry preying on his mind. He could not think of any reason why he might have committed suicide; on the contrary, so far as he could see, Carey had every reason to live and none to die. His prospects were good and his life should have been happy.
‘Did you know anything of his being in financial difficulties?’
‘Nothing, and I don’t believe he was.’
‘Will you tell the jury what salary your firm paid him?’
‘Seven hundred and fifty,’ Mr Spence answered after a slight hesitation, ‘but there were certain variable allowances which brought the actual sum considerably above this figure.’
‘Was the deceased married?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
Mr Spence, in fact, could not give any real help to the inquiry, and no one wishing to ask him a further question, he stood down.
The next witness was an elderly man in workman’s clothes, who gave his name as Albert Bradstreet.
‘You are employed by Messrs Spence?’ began the coroner.
‘Yes, sir. For five-and-thirty years, day in, day out, I—’
‘In what capacity?’ interrupted Mr Latimer.
‘Assistant storesman: weighing out stuff, measuring liquids, keeping the store tidy; I knows it all and I—’
‘Quite so. Now, is it part of your duties to sweep out the offices in the mornings and to light the fires?’
‘That’s right, sir. I ’as a general tidy up to do before the gentlemen comes out, I ’as; I pulls up the blinds, an’ sweeps the floors, an’ ’as a dust round, an’ empties the waste-paper baskets, an’ lights the fires, an’ brings in coal, an’—’
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