by Leo Bruce
“Of course it was true. I don’t lie. I was here only for a few minutes and noticed nobody. I wanted a quick drink before my evening with Isobel.”
“And when you heard about the murder? What then?”
“I was sorry. I knew that once again Ernest had broken his word. I guessed he had come down here to put pres sure on the family. I saw it all. Yet I was sorry. It was a dreadful way to die.”
“Yes. Did you eventually tell your family you had been in touch with Ernest?”
Emma smiled rather sadly.
“I think they guessed it,” she said.” or rather Bertrand did. He knew I was fond of Ernest. It was just like an awful repetition of some situation in our childhood when I had managed to help him secretly. Or Bertrand may have heard about it at the bank—we’re both friendly with Mr Bargiter the manager. Ernest asked for the money in cash so I drew it out and sent it to him by ordinary post. Bertrand told me I was a fool to send Ernest money, just as he used to tell me I was a fool to help him as a child.”
“Bertrand knew you’d sent money, then?”
“Only afterwards. They none of them knew anything at all till after poor Ernest’s death.”
“Did you tell them then?”
“Bertrand seemed to know. He has always been able to see through me. He wasn’t cross about it, though. Just told me I was silly to do it.”
“Why didn’t you admit it to me or to the police?”
“It seemed to involve us all more. Although I never dreamt that Ernest was in Selby that night, if they knew I was aware of his presence in the country they might have thought I’d told my family. Then the family would have been involved.”
“And you really didn’t tell the family or anyone, Miss Rafter? Honour bright?”
“Honour bright.”
“I believe you,” said Carolus.
“Do you imply that thousands wouldn’t?”
“No. On the contrary I think the detective inspector investigating the case would.”
“Would he? Bertrand wanted me to tell him frankly. Bertrand thinks nothing, anyhow, can involve the family and that I ought not to keep it from the police that I sent Ernest money.”
“I think he’s right. If I may so, Miss Rafter, it doesn’t take a very shrewd person to know that you’re speaking the truth. I don’t think it will help the police much to know about that money, but it won’t do you or your family any harm for them to know.”
“Then I’d better tell them. Now I must run. I’m spending this evening at Isobel’s.”
“Please give her my Christmas wishes,” said Carolus. “and young Paul.”
“I will. You lunched with Bertrand today. How do you get on with Molly?”
“I think she’s delightful.’
“So do I,” confided Emma, “but of course Isobel disapproves. She won’t divorce her own husband either.”
“Catholic?” asked Carolus.
“High Church. So she has rather got it in for poor Molly, though they’re very polite when they meet. Isobel, Paul, Peter and I went out to Locksley’s today for our Christmas din. Tonight Isobel and I hope for a quiet evening. We look at television and play bezique. At the same time.”
“Excellent,” said Carolus.
When Emma had gone, Carolus went across to the counter.
“There you are!” said Doris in her warm, welcoming way. “I was wondering when you’d come across.” She leaned over the counter, inviting Carolus to do the same. “There’ve been such ructions round at Lobbin’s,” she whispered. “Poor fellow, on Christmas day, too. He didn’t tell me what it was about, but you should have seen his face when he came in. It is a shame, really, and such a nice quiet fellow. She can’t leave him alone for five minutes. But today it must have been something out of the common because when he came in he looked like doomsday. He’s only been here about half an hour. So now I suppose he’ll mope in here all the evening till it’s turning-out time. Look who’s just come in! “It was Bodger. “I suppose on Christmas night I can’t refuse to serve him, but he’s got a cheek coming in after the last time. Yes, Mr Bodger?
“Bodger had a pint.
“There you are,” said Doris, “but don’t let me hear you say anything out of place, that’s all.” She returned to Carolus but not in whispered confidence. “We shall get a lot in tonight,” she said “Always do, Christmas evening. That’s Mr Stringer, just come in.”
“Yes, I know him.”
“He’s very quiet, really. Likes a joke now and again, but never anything out of turn. Guinness, Mr Stringer? That’s right.”
“Reverend Morsell’s coming in,” said Stringer. “Just to show.”
To show what, Carolus wondered. The flag? Willing? A leg? But he said nothing.
The Bullamys greeted him and wished him a happy Christmas. George came in to do the fire. Then, as if to complete the tally, Sitwell walked in wearing plain clothes and having a young woman with him. He gave Carolus a long stare in which there was no friendliness at all and sat down with his girl at a table.
Mr Morsell was alone and Carolus regretted this, for he had rather liked Beryl Morsell.
“My dear old chap,” “Dear fellow,” “My dear man “he distributed like largesse to the males in the bar and from Carolus asked heartily but not loudly how it was going.
“You haven’t been to see me, dear old fellow,” he said “I wish you’d come and have a natter over it. I’m full of ideas. Full of them. For instance, have you thought of those gardens?”
“Constantly,” said Carolus. “They need iris stylosa”
“I don’t think you can have realized their potentialities vis-a-vis the crime. No thanks. I daren’t. Just a ginger ale. Example, you see.”
From over his shoulder Carolus heard Doris.
“I should, Mr Lobbin. Just for a moment to see she’s all right. Christmas evening and that. She surely won’t start again if you pop round there and speak nicely. You take my advice and nip in. It won’t take you a second. If she starts again you can always fly back. Go on, now. Slip round there and get it over. She can’t be as bad as you say, and if you hop in to show you’ve got over it, I’m sure it will be all right. Christmas-time.”
Lobbin gave a preoccupied nod and picking up his overcoat left the bar.
16
THERE is something frightening about a sudden silence and tenseness falling on a room full of noisy people. Carolus believed afterwards that it came in the bar of the Queen Victoria hotel that evening before the re-entry of Lobbin as though in premonition of that. A babble was abruptly hushed, the last sound audible being the raucous laugh of Mrs Bullamy cut short.
Then there was Lobbin standing inside the door, his eyes staring vacantly out of a deathly white face.
“She’s dead,” he said loudly, yet to no one in particuar, “she has been murdered.”
The silence continued for perhaps five seconds, before Mr Morsell rushed forward.
“Brandy, quick,” he said and pushed Lobbin into a chair.
Carolus looked at his watch. It showed 8.27. Lobbin had been gone, he calculated, no more than five minutes.
Only three people in the room seemed to have the least idea what to do. Mr Morsell was in his element, telling people, quite unnecessarily, to stand back and give the man air, holding the brandy glass to his lips, saying ‘feel better, old chap?’ and generally taking charge of the situation.
Sitwell knew, too. He left the young woman with whom he had been sitting and went to the hall, evidently to
telephone. This time there was to be no question about his efficiency when he had the luck to be first on the scene.
Carolus, if his conduct seemed callous, behaved at least consistently. Having noted the time he went up to Lobbin, ignoring Mr Morsell’s protests, and said, “How had she been killed?”
Lobbin made a last attempt to concentrate before he lost what little of his senses were left to him.
“The hammer,” he said, “the hammer from the sho
p.” He did not speak again for a long time.
Then Carolus became more human. Looking over to the bar he saw that both Doris and Vivienne were gaping at Lobbin in a fixed and stupefied way and judged them to be very near hysteria.
“Doris,” he said, then repeated it more loudly and peremptorily, “Doris!”
She tried to focus her attention on him.
“Do what I tell you, Doris. Pour out a whisky for me and a gin for yourself and one for Vivienne.”
Doris’s lip began to tremble.
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“Pour them out,” insisted Carolus and rather falteringly she obeyed. “Now drink that!”
Doris’s was the saddest ‘Cheerio’ ever spoken. Vivienne drank too.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.
“No, you’re not,” Doris told her kindly. “Not in here, Vivienne. You swallow that and you’ll feel better. D’you think it’s true what he said, Mr Deene?”
Carolus might have replied that Lobbin was scarcely likely to be playing a practical joke but said, “We shall see. Just carry on as though nothing had happened, there’s a good girl.”
“Oh, isn’t it awful, on Christmas night, and everything. What will happen, Mr Deene?”
“They’ll take Lobbin away in a minute.”
“Take him away? You mean lock him up?”
“Hospital, I expect,” said Carolus. “Now will you both be all right for a little while? I’ve got to go out but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Doris was still near tears, but nodded. “Don’t be long,” she said.
Carolus took the few paces to the door of Lobbin’s shop. He saw that the shop itself was shut, but the door into the passage beside it, by which one entered the private part of the house, was still ajar. A light was on in the room above the shop.
He was about to enter when a police car drove up at speed and John Moore got out, followed by another plain clothes man.
“No, Carolus. I’m afraid not.”
“Hullo, John. You got here quickly.”
“Just as well I did.”
He was through the door when Carolus said, “I’ve got a statement to make about this.”
“Then come to my office presently. You can’t come in here.”
Carolus heard Moore’s feet ascending the thinly carpeted stairs. Then he returned to the bar.
A small dispute was in progress between Mr Morsell and Sitwell.
“My orders are to take him round to the station to make a statement.”
“And I say he’s not in a condition to go.”
“There’s a police car waiting,” said Sitwell.
“I don’t care if there are a dozen. I am a minister of religion …”
“And I am a police officer. I intend to take this man to the police station.”
“I shall not allow it.”
“You would be obstructing the police in the execution of their duty.”
“My duty is to a Higher Authority.”
The argument was settled by Lobbin himself, who looked up wearily and said, “I’m quite willing to make a statement.”
“I don’t think you’re in a condition …” began Mr Morsell.
“You heard what he said,” retorted Sitwell and helped Lobbin to his feet.
“I shall insist on accompanying him,” said Mr Morsell.
“You can do if you want,” conceded the policeman. “There’s plenty of room in the van.”
The three went out.
This brought some easing of the general tension and Carolus’s attention went to the young woman who had come in with Sitwell. He saw now that her hair and make-were in pronounced imitation of a certain film-star. She had an audience.
“Who’d be a copper’s moll?” she asked. “Gone off without even paying for the drinks. Graham seems to have a nose for murder. It was he who discovered that other one a few weeks ago. And now this.”
“He just happened to be here,” said Mr Stringer sourly.
“He just happens to be wherever there’s a murder,” said the young woman with pride.
Carolus noticed that Doris was alone.
“Where’s Vivienne? “he asked.
“Gone to phone her husband,” Doris told him. “She thought he ought to know.”
Doris was sufficiently recovered to have grown talkative.
“What a dreadful thing!” she said. “I shall never get over it, I’m sure. And his face, when he came in, did you ever see anything like it? Well, no wonder when you think of it. Finding her dead like that. It must have been horrible for him. Whoever can have done it, I wonder? Do you think it’s the same as did the other one? He said something about a hammer, didn’t he? Poor fellow, I do feel sorry for him. And only this evening they’d had one of their set-to’s, so he told me. She shouting at him like I don’t know what. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? Vivienne was just as upset as I was, weren’t you, Vivienne?”
“Mmmm,” shuddered Vivienne, who had just returned.
“What did they want to take him away for? Mr Lobbin, I mean?”
“I expect they want a statement from him,” said Carolus.
You don’t think they’d suppose he had anything to do with it, do you?”
“It depends on the evidence.”
“But he can’t have done. He was only gone a couple of minutes.”
“A little more than five. He had the time to do it. That doesn’t mean to say he did.”
“I should think not! A nice fellow like Mr Lobbin. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It would have been small wonder if he’d done it long ago, the way she was always on to him. Anyone else might have but not him. He was far too good to her. You don’t think they’d go and accuse him of it, do you?”
“Not unless they had very strong evidence of his guilt.”
“That they couldn’t have. He was in here all the time. Wasn’t he, Vivienne?”
“Mmmm,” said Vivienne with a suggestion of emphasis.
Carolus became aware that at the far end of the room Mr Biggett was standing and holding a glass of beer as though he feared it would be snatched away from him.
“How long has that little stout man been in here? The one by the street door?”
“Him? Oh he came in while you were out just now. He’s been holding that glass of bitter ever since.”
Carolus went to him.
“Good-evening,” he said. “This is a break in your routine, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” said Biggett. “On Christmas evening I always allow myself two half-pints of bitter. I have done so for the last twenty-three Christmases.”
“Will you take your evening walk this evening?”
Biggett looked at him in amazement.
“Of course,” he said. “Why not?”
“There has been another murder,” Carolus pointed out.
“So I understand. It has nothing to do with my movements. I shall walk as usual.”
Baulked of his chance to view the body, Carolus made the most of his observations in the bar. He consoled himself by thinking that the police would learn far more from the body than he would and that already their experts were at work, fixing the approximate time of the attack, collecting material for microscopic examination, carrying out their valuable routine scrutiny of the scene. His analyses were rarely based on such things though he was the last to undervalue them. He knew that although by some flash of insight, or from some haphazard sentence spoken by a suspect, he might be able to name the murderer, only the painstaking methods of the police could obtain the evidence needed to convict him. He was as likely to learn something here as from a visit to the room above the shop.
There were strangers in the room who seemed to behave in a somewhat subdued way though they were discussing the incident. Also there was Bodger, standing alone, and Mr and Mrs Bullamy talking together very earnestly. Mr Stringer seemed almost to be enjoying it as he went from group to group saying—“Terrible thing,
isn’t it? “and “Lucky the Reverend Morsell was here, “and “You’d scarcely think it possible, would you?” Mr Rugley had entered, too, and was now standing quietly near the bar as though watching the interests of his business in this unusual crisis.
Then Carolus thought that in one way this case was unique in that he had stipulated and was to receive a large fee from the Rafter family. He considered that in view of this he would be expected to break the news to them. He decided to call on Bertrand first and then on Mrs Dalbinney, at whose flat he hoped to find both Emma and Paul. He could phone Locksley from one of these homes.
Bertrand opened the door himself and at once asked Carolus to come in.
“I’m delighted to see you,” he said, but there was a hint of interrogation in his voice, for it was little more than three hours since Carolus had left him.
“I’ve some news for you,” said Carolus.
“Come on to the fire. I’ve opened a bottle of Cognac and am delighted to have someone to share it. It’s a rather fine old Remy-Martin.”
Yes, Bertrand would be a brandy man, thought Carolus, noting his host’s velvet smoking jacket and Turkish slippers. He had noticed at lunch today that Bertrand’s sense of quality in things was impeccable. Bertrand had nearly finished the cigar he was smoking and Carolus, who rarely smoked anything but cigars, badly wanted one. At last he pulled out his cigar case, only to find it empty.
“Have one of these,” said Bertrand, though not with much enthusiasm. He opened a silver box of cigars of various kinds and handed it to Carolus. “No, not that. It’s only half a cigar. Take one of these. Now what’s your news?”
“Another murder,” said Carolus, lighting up. “Lobbin’s wife. With a hammer, it seems.”
“Good heavens. When did this happen?”
“I don’t know. It was discovered about half an hour ago.” Carolus saw it was nine-thirty. “Yes, just an hour ago.”
“Who discovered it?”
“Lobbin himself.”
“He’s not suspected, then?”
“I don’t know. But I thought you ought to know about it. No one, after all, can begin talking of your family’s motive this time.”
“I see that. But I am sorry about it, Deene. She was a tiresome woman, I know, but it’s dreadful for the poor fellow.”
