Mr Campion caught the Inspector glancing furtively at the old man’s feet and was unable to repress a grin of delight. Uncle William’s little fat pads were quite incapable of being the origin of the colossal mark on the flower-bed.
The invalid smiled faintly at Campion and nodded brusquely to the Inspector.
‘What’s the trouble now?’ he said. ‘I’m a sick man and I don’t want to be worried any more than I can help. I don’t know if you can find yourselves chairs? I don’t resent this intrusion, you know, but I’d like to get it over as soon as possible.’
They found themselves chairs, and the Inspector went over the points of Mr Campion’s revelations of the morning. On the whole, Uncle William behave remarkably well. He admitted to the amnesia and the visit to Sir Gordon Woodthorpe. He was a little more touchy on the subject of the gun, but the Inspector was patient, even sympathetic, and Uncle William, finding that he had a good audience, forgot his trepidation and began to speak freely.
The interview progressed most favourably, Marcus carrying his client with real skill over the embarrassing points of his story, and it was not until the Inspector cleared his throat and, prefacing his question with a word of apology, that Uncle William’s obstinacy began to show.
‘That hand of yours, sir,’ the Inspector began innocently. ‘I understand that there was a little trouble here last night. I wonder if you would tell me in your own words how you came to have such a wound?’
For the first time a dangerous expression came into Uncle William’s little bleared eyes.
‘A most trivial business,’ he said petulantly. ‘But I suppose even the silliest incident becomes important when you people get to work. It was the most simple thing in the world. I told Campion here and I told my young niece.’ He cleared his throat and regarded the Inspector severely. ‘I sleep with my window open at the bottom, don’t you know, and late last night I was awakened by a great hulking cat scratching about the place. I hate cats, so I hopped out of bed, caught the creature by the middle and pushed it through the window. In its resentment it scratched me. I went out to put some iodine on my hand, and unfortunately roused the house. That’s all there is to say.’
Marcus seemed worried and Campion regretful, but the Inspector showed no change of expression whatsoever. He jotted down some hieroglyphics in his private note-book and then glanced up.
‘Can I see the hand, sir?’ he said.
Uncle William blew out his cheeks. ‘That’s rather irregular – er – officer, isn’t it?’ he demanded.
The Inspector ignored the gratuitous insult, and Campion experienced a return of the admiration he had always felt for this quiet, grave man with the penetrating grey eyes.
‘I’d like to see it, sir.’ The Inspector’s tone was at once respectful and commanding.
For one moment it looked as though Uncle William was about to refuse point-blank, but Marcus tactfully stepped forward.
‘Perhaps I can help you with the bandage?’
The old man looked up balefully. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Have it your own way. But if you get into trouble from old Lavrock don’t blame me. He told me I was lucky not to have cut an artery, and I didn’t know,’ he added, muttering the words under his breath, ‘that it was considered etiquette for a lawyer to assist the police in jockeying his unfortunate client in the very midst of a bereavement.’
‘It’s a lawyer’s duty to do all he can to protect his client’s interests, sir,’ said Marcus, with some asperity.
‘Huh!’ said Uncle William ungraciously.
By this time the outer bandages had been removed, and with consummate care Marcus lifted off the strip of oiled silk which lay beneath. When he came to the lint matters proved more difficult, and it was not until warm water had been procured and gently applied that the wound lay revealed.
Stanislaus rose to examine it, and a certain sternness became evident in his manner.
‘Three stitches, I see,’ he said. ‘One single cut. Thank you, Mr Faraday. That’s all I want to see, Mr Featherstone.’
Uncle William, in spite of his indisposition, was quite sufficiently in possession of his wits to know that this display of his wound had not strengthened his story. He devoted himself ostentatiously to the business of rebandaging, and it was some considerable time before the wrappings were arranged to his satisfaction.
Meanwhile the Inspector waited, patient and polite. Finally, however, his moment came.
‘Would you mind telling me once more, sir, how you got that cut?’
A high-pitched squawk of exasperation escaped Uncle William. ‘Am I to spend the rest of my life repeating the story of a perfectly ordinary incident?’ he said bitterly. ‘Are you in the full possession of your senses, sir? I told you, a cat came into my room last night and it scratched me. I don’t know what this country is coming to. Damned incompetence, where-ever you go.’
The Inspector remained unruffled. ‘Describe the cat,’ he said resignedly.
Uncle William blustered, but none of the three men looked at him, and finally he took the plunge.
‘Quite a large cat,’ he said. ‘Darkish. I didn’t go examining it, don’t you know. It was my idea to get it out of the room – not to make a pet of it.’
Still no one spoke, and he continued, floundering further and further into the morass.
‘I’ve seen cats like it in South Africa. Very fierce and rather large.’
‘Known to you?’ The Inspector’s tone was impersonal.
Uncle William was crimson, but he stuck to his guns.
‘How d’you mean – known to me?’ he demanded belligerently. ‘I don’t go about making the acquaintance of stray cats. No, I’d never seen it in my life before as far as I know. Does that satisfy you?’
‘Was your light on or off when you picked the cat up?’ said the Inspector, writing busily.
‘Off,’ returned Uncle William triumphantly.
‘How did you know it was a cat?’ said the Inspector stolidly. Apart from the fact that he now omitted the word ‘sir’, he gave no sign of his growing irritation.
Uncle William’s blue eyes were glassy. ‘Eh?’ he ejaculated.
‘How did you know it was a cat?’ the Inspector repeated.
Uncle William blew up. Much subterranean rumbling was followed by an explosion in a much higher key than he or anyone else had expected.
‘Because it mewed at me!’ he bellowed. ‘Said “Meeow, meeow,” like that. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, coming here and asking these damfool questions. Featherstone, you’re a rotten lawyer if you can’t protect me from this sort of thing. I’m a sick man in no condition to be badgered by a pack of imbeciles.’
Marcus cleared his throat. ‘Mr Faraday,’ he began gently, ‘in my official capacity I must advise you to tell the Inspector all you know. In your own interests, it is imperative that the police should hear the whole truth.’
This interruption had a quietening effect upon Uncle William without in any way lessening his obstinacy. He continued to grumble.
‘I don’t know why you can’t take a plain statement,’ he said. ‘The whole thing is nothing to do with you, anyhow. I knew it was a cat because it mewed and because I felt its fur, I suppose. It may not have been a cat. It may have been a young tiger, for all I know.’ He laughed bitterly at his own joke.
‘You’re not sure if it was a cat,’ said the Inspector, with some satisfaction, and wrote again in his book. ‘Are you sure it was an animal?’
Uncle William, having once erupted, seemed to have spent most of his power.
‘Whatever it was, I put it out of the window,’ he said shortly.
The Inspector rose, crossed to the window and looked out. It was a straight drop to the flower-bed beneath. He said nothing, but returned to his seat.
Uncle William began to mutter again. ‘You know, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I get the impression that you don’t believe a word I say. That’s my story, and I’ll stick to it. Very insu
lting to be disbelieved in one’s own house.’
Mr Oates chose to ignore this remark. ‘Can you give me the address of your doctor, sir?’ he said.
‘What the devil for?’ said Uncle William, his little eyes opening wide. ‘He won’t tell you much. Doctors don’t blab, you know. Still, I’ll tell you something to save you bullying him. He is as stupid about the cat as you are. Asked me if it was a one-clawed cat, silly fool. His name is Lavrock, if you must worm out the whole of my private affairs. That’s all I’ve got to say.’
The Inspector rose to his feet. ‘Very well, sir,’ he said. ‘I may as well warn you that you’ll probably have to tell the coroner all this. He may feel that it has some bearing on the case.’
Marcus also rose. ‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘you won’t go for a moment or two, will you? I should like to have a word with my client before you’re out of reach.’
For the first time during the interview a smile appeared on Mr Oates’s face.
‘I shall be about the house for some time, Mr Featherstone,’ he said.
He and Campion left Marcus with his recalcitrant client, and when they reached the corridor the Inspector paused.
‘I’d like to go up to that attic now,’ he said. ‘I shall want to see that cord and the gun holster.’
‘I’m sorry about Uncle William,’ murmured Mr Campion. ‘You haven’t seen him at his best.’
The Inspector snorted. ‘Witnesses like that make me feel vicious,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t feel that I might not be able to produce this evidence in court I’d have a damned good mind to run him in, telling me a pack of lies like that. That’s a knife wound, probably a sharp pen-knife, by the look of it. He’s shielding someone, of course, in which case he probably knows who did the whole thing.’
Campion shook his head. ‘I don’t think he knows,’ he said. ‘But there’s always the chance he thinks he does.’
‘Take me to the attic,’ said the Inspector, with decision. ‘Routine; that’s the only way to get anywhere. We all fall back on it in the end.’
CHAPTER 15
THE OUTSIDE JOB
IT WAS ALMOST three o’clock when the Inspector, who had made the library his headquarters, neared the end of his investigations at Socrates Close for the day. Mr Bowditch and a police photographer had completed their work on the footprint, and now stood beside the Inspector contemplating an array of shoes on the ground before them. Stanislaus had procured a pair from every member of the household, including the two Christmases, father and son, who lived in a small cottage on the edge of the estate.
At the moment matters were at a deadlock. The Inspector was depressed, the photographer puzzled and the irrepressible Bodwitch quite unable to restrain his amusement.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve got a metric photograph and we’ve got a plaster cast. Here are the measurements. It doesn’t look as though Cinderella is among this lot.’ He indicated the row of shoes before them. ‘There isn’t one here that isn’t nearly an inch out in both dimensions.’
Stanislaus grumbled. ‘I suppose we ought to have a barefoot parade,’ he said, ‘and I would if the discrepancy was the other way about. But it’s useless to pretend that anyone could have a foot like that without it being known.’
Bowditch laughed noisily. ‘That’s a fact,’ he said. ‘Even old Tubby Lane at Bow Street hasn’t got trotters like that. It looks to me like something out of the Natural History Museum.’
Stanislaus frowned. ‘I suppose there’s no doubt at all about it being genuine?’ he suggested.
But Bowditch was convinced upon this point. ‘Oh, no, that’s real all right,’ he said. ‘You can see the nail marks quite clearly, and there’s a thread or two of blue worsted in the heel of the cast. You’ll find that’s a real foot all right, whatever you might be led to believe. And what a foot! It’s the first time I’ve come across anything so funny in the whole of my official life.’
The Inspector scowled. He was still contemplating the shoes. ‘The nearest in size are these over here,’ he remarked. ‘They belong to young Christmas. You’d better go over and have a look at his feet, Bowditch. Take some measurements. Don’t laugh; behave like a policeman.’
The prospect of possibly seeing the original of the print in the flesh was too much for Mr Bowditch. His face grew redder and his small blue eyes filled with unshed tears of laughter.
‘I’m there already,’ he said. ‘You’d better come along, governor,’ he added, turning to the photographer. ‘We’ll have them photographed, and framed.’
‘Consummate imbecile,’ said the Inspector to Campion as the door closed behind the hopeful Bowditch and his assistant. ‘I don’t mind a man having a sense of humour, but that fellow carries on like a halfpenny comic.’
Mr Campion made no direct comment. ‘Do you still think it was a joke?’ he ventured after a pause.
‘I don’t think,’ said the Inspector bitterly. ‘I gave that up when I discovered the mess it gets one into. As if we hadn’t got enough trouble already without some flatfooted fool complicating things by scribbling on the window-pane! All these shoes can go back now. Come in!’
His last remark was occasioned by a gentle tapping on the door. Marcus entered in response to his invitation. The young man looked weary and considerably aggrieved. He raised his eyebrows at the array of footwear, but did not remark upon it, a circumstance which endeared him to the Inspector.
‘I’m tremendously sorry,’ he said, ‘but Mr Faraday sticks to his story about the cat.’
The Inspector grunted. ‘Did you point out to him that he would be on oath in the coroner’s court?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Marcus admitted. ‘But he seems to believe in the story. But, after all this incident hardly comes into your province, does it?’
Oates did not answer immediately. The thrust had gone home.
‘You haven’t got to protect Mr Faraday from me, Mr Featherstone,’ he remarked presently. ‘If he needs to be protected from anyone it’s himself.’
It was Mr Campion who took the news of Uncle William’s obstinacy to heart.
‘I see I shall have to go on a pub-crawl on Uncle William’s behalf,’ he said, with a meaning glance towards the Inspector. ‘Marcus, there’s a job for you and me. You’ve written to Sir Gordon Woodthorpe, of course?’
Marcus, who had answered this question once before, glanced at his friend in astonishment, but he caught sight of the Inspector’s face and answered immediately.
‘Of course,’ he said.
The Inspector’s depression increased. ‘I shall leave that mark on the window for the time being,’ he said. ‘You can reassure the household. There’ll be a couple of plain-clothes men in the garden tonight.’
‘Then you’re inclined to think this thing’s not a hoax, Inspector?’ said Marcus, jumping at any straw which pointed away from the awkward subject of Uncle William.
In spite of the natural police dislike of lay questioning, Mr Oates did not snub him. “On the contrary”, he answered civilly, albeit non-committally.
‘I am quite satisfied that the foot that made the print on the bed outside could not have worn any of the shoes here,’ he said. ‘I can’t say any more than that.’
Mr Campion, who had moved to the window and now stood looking at the red chalk sign thoughtfully, spoke without turning round.
‘Supposing for one moment that it’s all perfectly genuine?’ he said. ‘It’s clearly a message of some sort to someone inside. Following this line of reasoning, where do we arrive? At two interesting conclusions. One, that the writer did not know the house, because this room, as you know, is hardly ever used, and two, that he is only friendly with one member of the household, since otherwise he would surely have come to call in the ordinary way.’
He wheeled round and faced them, a slight inoffensive figure against the window-panes.
‘A message like this must necessarily be very simple,’ he said, ‘and I suggest to you, Stanislaus, that it means
one of three things – “Come and meet at the usual place”, or “Something has been done”, or, more simply, “I am on the scene again”.’
‘No one in the household admits to ever having seen that mark before, and there’s only one known prevaricator in the place,’ said the Inspector viciously.
Further conversation was interrupted by the return of Bowditch. He was slightly crestfallen.
‘Not a hope,’ he said. ‘I measured his right foot. Length, twelve and three-quarters, width across the ball nearly five inches. Now this cast, you know, is thirteen and a quarter by six and a tenth.’ He mentioned the figures with pride. ‘Harrison’s going over the garden looking for any other tracks,’ he added. ‘But it’s all this short well-kept grass, and there was rain in the night, so it’s not easy. It’s only the house that protects the print we have got.’
Mr Oates nodded. ‘All right,’ he said resignedly. ‘Well, I must be getting back.’
Campion escorted the Inspector and his jovial aide to their car, Marcus tactfully remaining in the library.
‘Got all your bits and pieces?’ Campion inquired as he helped the policeman into his raincoat. ‘Rope, and what not?’
‘I have,’ said Stanislaus shortly. ‘And you’re not as bright as you think you are, my lad. Here’s a thing you ought to have found out.’ He took a key from his pocket and placed it in the young man’s hand. ‘That belongs to your own door,’ he said. ‘But it also fits any lock on the first floor. All those locks are alike and the keys are interchangeable. I didn’t notice it yesterday, but I ought to have guessed. Lots of houses are like that. Good-bye.’
Mr Campion pocketed the key, not in the least discomforted. ‘I shall come and see you tomorrow,’ he said, ‘to hear all the news, always supposing some great flat-footed monster hasn’t devoured me, of course.’
The Inspector snorted and switched on his engine. ‘You’re all alike, you untrained youngsters,’ he said. ‘You all go for the picturesque. That’s a hoax, you’ll find, I bet.’
‘I’ll take you,’ said Campion.
Police at the Funeral Page 18
