“But why should the two thousand have come from a bank?” asked Sergeant Whittaker, clinging to logic.
“Why not? I can’t see any man in his right senses walking about with two thousand in ones when there are banks who’ll take care of it for him…”
Richard jumped in and seized his chance desperately, though his voice was languid enough.
“I agree a person of average sagacity wouldn’t walk about with two thousand in ones, Garth — but I’d place Williams as the kind of man who has saved all his life and maybe put the notes in an old biscuit tin. Lots of people don’t trust banks. Then he drifted down this end of the world and, for reasons best known to himself, decided to blue most of it. House — furniture — car. It’s natural enough when you come to think of it.”
“Natural enough for a genuine lower middle-class man setting out on a new line of life,” Garth agreed; “but I doubt that Rixton Williams is — or was — a genuine lower middle-class man. I have the impression that he created the character purely to kill Valerie Hadfield and the chauffeur, and then disappear. The limp in particular is very amateur; easiest gag in the world. These things being taken into account we are not looking for Rixton Williams but for the person who behaved as him. And that person, I insist, would in all probability have a bank account.”
“Why?” Richard persisted.
“Because Valerie Hadfield was not the kind of girl to be mixed up with a man who hadn’t!” Garth sat back, beaming.
“Think back on what Timothy Potter said — “I cannot understand a woman of Miss Hadfield’s obvious style eloping with him. It seemed to me — unnatural.” Quite right! Why should she fall for such a specimen to the extent of eloping with him? Not she! The probability is that she only stayed beside him because she knew his real identity but not his villainous purpose, and we know from reports that socially she was hardly the kind of woman to tolerate anybody who could not advance her…”
Garth paused and selected a cheroot. “No, she would never fall for a man who had no bank account! Therefore I insist that this unknown, hoping to make himself safe, refrained from having the money withdrawn in fivers and tenners which could be traced, and instead used one pound notes — but they in their own innocent way can be even more obvious. I’ll have the banks check up on it the moment I get back to my office…And don’t forget the letter we found, which had never come through the Twickenham mail. I’ll gamble that Rixton Williams had had that letter by him for long enough and simply took advantage of the absence of date.”
Richard sat stunned, bewildered by the fact that the bank evasion he had adopted had turned right round on him.
Garth turned to Chalfont. “Now, Super, I want you to get the exact times — or as near as you can — when Williams came and went from his home, the bank, the agent’s, everywhere. Get as near a full resume of his actions as possible. From the times we may get a lead on where he actually came from. Since he arrived at three-thirty one afternoon and about the same time the following afternoon it seems to suggest a given period to cover a certain distance on each occasion.”
“London maybe,” Sergeant Whittaker said. “It would take about that long by car, leaving after lunch.”
“Perhaps,” Garth agreed. “Anyway, Super, check up on it.”
“I will, sir, and I’ll let you know as soon as possible. Anything else?”
“For you, no. You made arrangements to have the car brought to your headquarters here? Well, that’s all for now. I’ve a few things to do on my own. Coming, Dick?”
Set-faced, Richard got to his feet slowly, keeping a hold over himself. On the way back to London he sat motionless as an image, lost in thought. Garth looked at him curiously.
“Something wrong?”
“Eh? No, I was just thinking. This case is pretty intricate, isn’t it? But I’ve got an idea about it…I’ll think it out and let you know my opinions. Meanwhile, however, I don’t think I’ll tag round with you any more today. I’ve things to do at home. Maybe I’ll turn up again tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Garth gave a grin. “But I notice you’re clearing off just as you see that I’ve made a crack in the armour!”
Richard smiled, said nothing. At the corner of Whitehall he got out of the car and returned to his Jaguar parked on a public ground. Sliding into the driving seat he sat meditating. He had slipped — horribly, and if he didn’t think of a logical explanation for the withdrawing of two thousand in ones from his bank — which the manager would be sure to remember — he might find a rope not very far from his neck.
But whilst one shred of reasonable doubt remained the law could not operate. That doubt might be made to function and throw Chief Inspector Garth off the track. An idea began to form in his mind.
After lunching at a restaurant, Richard drove on home. He told Baxter he was not requiring anything and would be leaving again almost immediately. He went to his study, took a stamp album out of the safe — an exquisite affair of leather with gold clasp and edges — wrapped it in brown paper and then hurried out again to his car.
Half an hour later he had the album on the desk of M. Cardieux, one of London’s most eminent philatelists.
A desk light glowing down in a cone upon the stamps, M. Cardieux himself sat with his polished thinning grey hair swept back from his forehead, lens screwed in his eye, breathing harshly through thin-edged nostrils.
“Magnifique!” he commented at last, sitting back with a sigh and taking the lens from his eye. “And Monsieur wishes to dispose? But why? The longer you keep a collection like this the more value it will accrue.”
“I just don’t want it,” Richard answered, coming forward to the desk. “I came across it among my late father’s effects and I realised it was of some value. So I came to you…What is it worth?”
The dealer considered, then: “To me, Monsieur, three thousand pounds. No more.”
“That suits me and I’m not going to bargain — but I will ask a favour of you. Let me have two thousand of it in pound notes and the remaining thousand in fives or tens.”
“Monsieur does not trust me?” asked the philatelist dryly.
“Nothing of the kind, M. Cardieux. It is simply that I have a special reason for wishing to have the money in that form.”
The philatelist got to his feet and nodded. “Very well, Mr. — er — ?”
“Graham,” Richard said briefly. “Thomas Graham.”
“Very well, Mr. Graham. I will have a receipt made out for the stamps, which will contain an undertaking for the money to be paid in the form you ask — tomorrow morning. Naturally it is too late now for the bank to oblige us.” Richard compressed his lips as he glanced at his watch. “Yes, I suppose it is. A pity…Very well, I’ll call first thing after the banks have opened.”
M. Cardieux excused himself gracefully, then returned presently with the receipt and undertaking in his hand, duly signed. Richard studied them, then put them in his wallet.
“Tomorrow morning then, M. Cardieux. And thank you. Good day.”
Richard left the establishment unobtrusively, walked along the block and down a side street to his car. By detouring routes he made his way back home again.
The car he left in the driveway, then hurrying up to his bedroom he got into the old suit and overalls he used while performing dirty jobs and returned downstairs to the outdoors. The mild, intermittently sunny afternoon was just right for further garage work, and the Baxters who had heard him come in saw him next through the back windows as he set the concrete mixer going and, half an hour later, began to add the necessary two inches of height to the garage floor with the wet, cloying substance, beating it down with the flat of the shovel.
Altogether he worked for about an hour, and in that time completed the flooring — the previous day he had worked mainly on the walls — then he returned inside to wash, shave, and change for his appointment with Joyce at quarter-to-five…It was just on the quarter-hour when he drew up his Jaguar outside the Blue Shadow
in London to find the girl, in neat blue costume and hat, approaching from the opposite end of the short street.
“Timed to perfection,” she laughed, as he got out of the car.
He smiled, took her arm, and they went inside together. The inevitable Alberti was hovering beside the dried palms.
“Ah, Meester Harvey, gooda afternoon…An’ Mees Prescott! Thees way…Same place? But of course!”
After Richard had given their order and Alberti departed, Joyce asked a question.
“How about your engagements? Did you cancel them?”
“Er — yes, except for a small one tomorrow morning. That I have to keep otherwise I’m free. And I’ve been thinking — before long I’d better be seeing the verger about the banns. No use dragging the engagement on, is there? Unless we use a special licence.”
Joyce shook her auburn head. “Not for me, Ricky…I — I mean Dick. I want a full dress wedding. It’s an important event to a woman, remember.”
“Either way suits me,” Richard smiled; then he became silent as Alberti reappeared with his big, loaded tray.
“A thought occurs to me,” Joyce said as she poured out the tea. “You gave me an engagement ring on Saturday night” — the girl studied it on her finger — “and it seems to me that if this other woman is still wearing hers too, and is asked about it, she might say that you gave it her. If that happened some folks round our neighbourhood might get to hear of it and they’d rise up and say they had just cause and impediment.”
Richard laughed softly. “You don’t have to worry, dearest. The woman in question will not give us away. That’s as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise.”
“Oh is it?” Joyce raised her level dark eyes to him for a moment. “I don’t think I could ever be that sure of a woman’s silence — knowing women where a man is concerned, I mean.”
“I can,” he answered. “You have my word that she will never speak, and she returned my ring. I wouldn’t insult you by giving it to you, of course. Yours is a different one.”
“And what became of hers?”
“I — er — I got rid of it. Seemed the safest, though it was costly.”
Joyce said nothing, but he noticed a frown on her forehead as she began to eat.
“Look, Dick,” she said at last, “I have tried everything to convince myself it doesn’t signify. I’ve asked dad what he thinks and he simply says I have my own decisions to make; and I’ve resolved to trust you to the end because I love you. But…I can’t understand why I feel as though I ought to hold back. I wonder if it is because we’ll not be happy together after all? That the thought of this past shadow will always be cropping up?”
“Why should it?” he asked harshly. “People divorce each other and marry other people, and they live happily. I was only engaged to her, and a pretty offhand sort of business at that. It’s childish to feel slighted because another woman happened to see me before you did!”
He expected sudden anger, but instead she nodded composedly.
“That must be what it is,” she decided. “Childish! All right, the matter drops from here on.”
Richard wondered if it would. It seemed as though she sensed there was something criminal, something diabolical, somewhere and could not quite put her finger on it. He must never breathe so much as a hint of the name of Valerie Hadfield, never reveal how utterly he had destroyed her and everything belonging to her which could conceivably point back at him. He must keep quiet about her for the rest of his life.
Suddenly he felt appalled. Such an exacting punishment had never occurred to him. The eternal necessity of never using a word out of place in order that the vultures of the law could pounce on it and tear it to shreds…
The remainder of the time during and after tea he kept the conversation on commonplace topics. When darkness had settled outside they departed to the good wishes of the ebullient Alberti and went out to the Jaguar. Half an hour later the car was parked and they were seated in the Dress Circle of the Regal Theatre — Joyce well groomed and smiling, Richard trying to look genial.
What if he talked in his sleep? Or talked in the delirium of illness? Two thousand in one pound notes! The fact that Valerie’s letter had been written a year ago and had never been delivered through the mails! Joyce’s innate feeling that all was not well… Though Joyce smiled as she listened to the songs, laughing openly now and again, he remained stone-faced, his eyes fixed on the stage. For some reason he kept thinking he was looking at Valerie when he saw the bright limes trained on the white-gowned soprano with the voice of a bird. Valerie who had died, whom he had murdered, whose body was…
To him, the two and a half hours had never seemed longer. As the girl and he went up the gangway steps with the press of warm, talkative people he glanced down at her.
“Drinks before supper? In the bar?” he asked.
“Why not?”
When they reached the top of the steps he escorted her into the long Spanish galleon type of bar with brass-banded tubs for tables.
“Well, I thought it was a lovely show,” Joyce said, sitting back in her chair and waiting. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I — ”
“Well, well, Dick — hello! My turn to meet you for a change, eh?”
Richard glanced up, pulses racing. Chief Inspector Garth’s voice!
“Hello, Garth,” With a smile that looked ghastly in the amber lighting Richard got to his feet. “Been to the show?”
“Yes. Even the police like to relax sometimes.”
“Er — May I introduce Miss Prescott? My fiancée. Dear, this is Chief Inspector Garth of Scotland Yard, a good friend of mine.”
“Oh, really?” Joyce smiled up at him as he bowed genially. “But I always thought Chief Inspectors were stern-looking men with bowler hats which they never take off.”
“You mustn’t believe all you see in films, Miss Prescott,” Garth laughed. “You behold a very ordinary human being who spends his time becoming increasingly astonished at the subterfuges of his fellowmen, and whose lack of vigorous exercise makes him a martyr to dyspepsia. Unromantic, eh?” He turned and glanced towards a distant table-tub, motioned. A dark, still-pretty woman nearing middle age got up and came through the smoke haze.
“Your wife?” Richard inquired tautly.
“Yes indeed…Ah, here you are, my dear. Meet Miss Prescott, and here is Mr. Harvey, the chemist who gives us a hand now and again. You’ve heard me speak of him.”
“I have indeed,” Mrs. Garth said, smiling and shaking hands. “My hubby is very fond of you and your chemicals, Mr. Harvey.”
Richard smiled, said nothing. He felt like a man waiting for the shot of a gun in his heart. At any moment Garth might let something slip about Valerie, and not being exactly a fool Joyce would immediately start to put things together…
“Well, I — ” Richard broke off and gestured. “Will you come over and have a drink, Garth?”
“No, seems to me it’s time I ordered something for you. We might as well make a party of it. Hey, there!” He motioned to a waiter dressed as a pirate. “Bring those drinks over here, please.”
The man nodded his scarlet-bandeaued head and came across with two glasses of stout. Garth sat down heavily and beamed, his wife sitting behind him. As Richard crept down into his chair the port he had ordered was brought and set down too.
“I’ll pay,” Garth insisted firmly.
For one piercing second Richard thought of bolting…Then he forced himself to relax. Valerie Hadfield’s body could never be found. And without the corpus delicti the law was impotent…
“…and her top notes were really exquisite,” Joyce was saying, as he drifted back to realities. “Don’t you think so, Dick?”
“I — er — yes indeed,” he acknowledged, picking up his port.
“Your fiancé seems rather preoccupied at present, Miss Prescott,” Garth commented, grinning. “He should be like me — shut up shop completely when he goes out for a change. Only place I ever
talk shop is at the club, and then it’s only to save myself from being bored to distraction by stories of what happened to the old codgers who were in at the relief of Mafeking.”
There was silence for a moment as Garth drank from his glass. His wife said nothing. She appeared to be a happy, understanding woman who preferred to let her husband do the talking.
“You’re working on the Valerie Hadfield case, aren’t you, Inspector?” Joyce asked presently — and Richard set down his glass so clumsily on the tub top he spilt some of the wine.
“Nerves?” Garth asked dryly; then he looked at Joyce and nodded. “Yes, I am — and I suppose you noticed it from the brief announcements in the newspapers. Well, I don’t expect your doctor to tell me the exact state of your health…Now, what about some more drinks?”
Richard found himself breathing hard, partly in relief. Garth had deliberately cut the subject dead. But as long as he remained in the party he was a potential menace, especially with Joyce so obviously curious.
“No more drink for me, thanks,” Richard said, as the pale eyes glanced inquiry at him. “In fact I think we’d better be on our way to supper, hadn’t we, Joyce?”
She looked at her half-empty glass. “I’ll just finish this first.”
She drained it, set it down, then got to her feet. Garth rose too and shook her hand. He was smiling generously.
“Coming down in the morning, Dick?” he asked.
Richard hesitated as he saw Joyce’s dark eyes glance at him curiously.
“I — er — probably,” he muttered. “See how things go, anyway. Good night, Mrs. Garth. ‘Night, Garth.”
He turned aside and caught Joyce’s arm tightly, moved her so firmly she fell over her chair and then stumbled.
“For heaven’s sake, Ricky, what’s the hurry?” she demanded. “I’ve given my leg an awful crack — ”
“Don’t call me that!” he breathed harshly. “You hear? Don’t!”
Except For One Thing Page 13
