As though reminded that he was holding one of them, Len took a step forward and his voice bayed: ‘Ain’t anybody gonna shift that bleedin’ car?’ His face was red. A crash-hat can get very warm.
I don’t think anybody even glanced at him. I was too busy, myself, watching Bella. Every word was a blow and life was draining from her by the second. But she could not tear herself away.
‘I’d be more convinced,’ said Messingham, clearing his throat and delicately tapping his lips with a knuckle, ‘if there’d been alibis for nine o’clock. Mine hasn’t produced one.’ He paused, cocked an eyebrow. ‘Has yours?’
‘But she will,’ cried Rogerson.
A chill crept past me and swept over Bella. She whimpered.
Messingham looked discouraged. He raised his head and peered over towards us. ‘Victor Abbott,’ he said, ‘have you got anything to say to this?’
‘No,’ said George, one of his throaty growls. He emerged from one of the few shadows. ‘But I have, damn it.’
‘Who asked you?’ Then Rogerson turned back to Messingham. ‘Come on, man, it’s time. Show ’em we can do our own timing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘At just about this minute, Patterson’s making his arrest of Dulcie Colmore for the murder by shooting of Marilyn Trask. So make your own arrest, Messingham.’
The inspector sighed. ‘Victor Abbott, I arrest you … ’ Then he stopped.
He had raised his hand as though to place it on Abbott’s shoulder, notwithstanding that there was a Dolomite and four feet of drive between them. Exasperated, wild at the complete lack of interest in himself, Len had first flung his helmet at the offending car and then fired one wild shot. A hole appeared in Messingham’s palm, which at once began to flow with blood.
He stared at his hand. The rest of us turned to face Len and at the same time, from behind us, another car entered the drive.
This one was coming just as fast as Tasha had driven the Sceptre, lights on dip. As it rounded the sweep, the lights caught Len starkly. He’d swung at the sound of the engine and stood with feet apart, transfixed. There was no slackening of speed as the driver saw he was armed, was even bringing up the gun to the car. Its line veered towards him. He took one pace sideways. The line held him. Then frantically he fired off one shot, followed at once by two quick ones.
I was aware that George was roaring something and that a small hole, barely starred, had appeared in the windscreen. Wildly the car veered, as Len sprang clear. Its speed seemed to increase. No attempt was made to brake and it crashed solidly into the back of the Dolomite. Glass tinkled, then there was silence, except for the hiss of escaping steam.
George was standing over the still body of Len. The gun was in George’s hand. Len stirred. With a sudden oath, George turned away and ran for the Cortina. He tried the passenger’s door, but it was stuck, and I was at the driver’s, which wasn’t.
There was a long, ragged groove along the side of her brow and into her hair and she’d crashed forward into the shattering glass. Her face was a mess, but it wasn’t that I was worrying about — her chest was hard into the wheel and she was unconscious.
Then George tore me away. ‘Dulcie!’ One single cry into the night. I turned away. Messingham was at my shoulder, a handkerchief round his hand.
‘Ambulance?’ I croaked.
He nodded. ‘My driver’s radioed in.’
Rogerson came up, breathing hard. Messingham halted him with a bloody finger on his chest.
‘And there’s yours. Your men obviously failed to make their arrest.’
Abbott stood, transfixed, in the porch. From somewhere in the house, Bella was wailing.
EIGHT
GEORGE COE
I sat on the porch step. After a while somebody put out the lantern. The ambulance came and went, but I was barely aware of it. Dulcie was alive, but they hadn’t let me go with them. Somewhere behind me in time, but throbbing in my brain, there was a sense of termination, but I could not locate it. The throb in my left arm was an annoyance, which would not go away.
From somewhere, Dave was shouting my name. I didn’t answer. What was the point in asking me questions? He knew it all, must have by that time. Why couldn’t he leave me alone? They’d all gone into the house. The night was cooler. I took a number of deep breaths, as they’d taught me when I was a rookie, hoping they’d clear my brain. If they didn’t, I couldn’t see how I was going to get to my feet.
‘Oh, here you are, George. What the hell’re you doing here?’
I stared up at him.
‘She’s locked herself in,’ he said.
I couldn’t understand what he meant. ‘Gimme a hand, Dave.’
‘You look rotten. Come inside and I’ll get you a brandy.’
‘Who’s locked themselves … ’
‘Bella Abbott. In their bedroom.’
‘She’ll be upset.’ I looked at him. ‘I can manage. You don’t have to shove.’
He got me down on a hallstand thing. There was a whispering, agitated group outside a door farther along.
‘Upset!’ said Dave. ‘You don’t know half of it, George.’
I rubbed my face with my right hand. ‘Was something said about a drink?’
In a moment or two he disappeared, then returned with half a tumbler of brandy. The activity by the door was becoming frantic. Somebody was banging on it.
‘George, didn’t I explain? This Bella’s a tight-strung woman. All her life’s bound up with Abbott and just the thought that he might have been meeting Dulcie … George, I told you … ’
‘No.’
‘We had quite a scene here.’
‘You phoned,’ I recalled, ‘asking questions. Telling me nothing.’
‘She was breaking up, George. I had to persuade her that Abbott hadn’t met your Dulcie at Parkway, otherwise I think she’d … And now — Lord, George, to hear that stupid oaf Rogerson say they had actually been in collusion to kill Marilyn Trask and Colmore … what d’you think that’s done to her!’
The spirit was stirring sluggish movement in my veins. ‘A shock.’ I nodded, forgetting the splitting headache.
‘So she’s gone and locked herself in the bedroom.’
‘That the bedroom, is it?’ I squinted at the group. I saw Abbott, and Messingham and his driver, Miller with the girl … ‘Why don’t they leave the poor woman alone? Let her cry herself to sleep.’
‘It’s in there he keeps his guns, George.’
Dave left me, to join the group. I gathered, from his abrupt attitude, that he hadn’t been pleased with my insensitive attitude. I wasn’t in the mood. But somehow I managed to get to my feet without spilling the glass and wandered along to join them.
‘But does she understand guns?’ Messingham was asking.
Something, some hand, had wiped dark patches under Abbott’s eyes and sucked in his cheeks. He was having difficulty in controlling his mouth.
‘I showed her once … how to load. Took her down … she … didn’t care for it.’
‘And what’s holding the door?’
‘A bolt. A stupid, bloody, idiot of a … of a … ’ Abbott spluttered. ‘A bolt,’ he managed to say.
‘Then why not,’ I said, ‘put a shoulder to it, Frank?’
Messingham looked at me quickly with a pale, grey flash of his old humour. ‘You remember, then, George?’
‘Remember kicking your fat behind all round the square. Thought you’d prefer to forget.’
‘Your shoulder, George?’
I shook my head. ‘Ask Dave. I’m carrying a glass.’
Abbott gibbered: ‘She’ll use the gun!’
I grinned close to his face. ‘Why then — if she hasn’t up to now? You wanna wait till she does?’
‘All right, George,’ said Dave. ‘I’ll try it. But listen, only me. Nobody crowding in. Understand?’
We stood back. Dave gave it only two feet. The door shuddered, then flung itself open. He staggered a little, his impetus carrying him a yard or s
o inside.
It was a pretty, feminine room, with a two-tone pink carpet and two-tone red curtains. The maroon door of the wall safe matched the Regency striped wallpaper. It was open. In a far corner, crouched away as far as she could get, on a straight-backed wooden chair, sat Bella, with her heels up on the cross stave, her chin low on arms crossed over her raised knees, and with a .22 target revolver hanging loosely in the fingers of her right hand. Deep-set, hunted eyes were centred on our door. At Dave’s abrupt entrance she made no move to straighten, but her fingers slowly clasped the pistol more firmly, as though recalled from a long way away to their duties.
For a few moments Dave made no movement. Then at last he spoke lightly.
‘Now come on, Bella. This isn’t doing any good.’
The eyes snapped at him, but she said nothing. By the lift of Dave’s shoulders I could tell he was smiling and that always melts the females. But not this time. When he began to move, it was sideways, not towards her, and I saw his intention — to present no danger to the crowd in the doorway if she fired in a panic and missed him. There was also a satin-seated stool in front of a fancy dressing-table, which attracted him.
‘Such a fuss, Bella! I thought we’d had all this out — talked it through. It was quite untrue that Victor met Dulcie at Parkway. You saw that. You’re a sensible woman. But now … really, you disappoint me. Just because that big-headed lout of a policeman had to shout his mouth off … you didn’t have to believe him, you know.’
He had the stool now, one hand under it, gripping the edge. I’d have had it up in front of me and rushed her. But maybe not. The gun wasn’t for Dave. But he didn’t want her worried about the stool. He was handling it casually by one hand, carrying it towards her.
Seeing this, she straightened. The gun now rested in her lap.
‘Go away. You’re always telling lies.’
He settled the stool six feet from her, as she had begun to look agitated, and sat on it, legs apart, hands on his knees where she could see them. I now had him in part profile.
‘What I told you was logic and you know it. This Rogerson … Hell, Bella, there was no logic there. They shout these things when they’re stuck, hoping that anger will break out somewhere and throw them a bonus. Collusion, indeed! To create confusion, he said. What nonsense! Now, don’t you tighten your lips at me, Bella. Would you like me to prove it’s nonsense? By logic?’
‘I don’t trust you.’ No more than a murmur.
‘But you trust order and reason. It’s what you demand from life. So … I’ll offer you the reason. You can judge whether there’s order in it. How’s that?’
‘I’m tired. Please go away.’
‘I’d like you to hear this. What’s upset you is Rogerson’s claim that Victor and Dulcie deliberately planned those two killings.’
I saw her flinch. I saw the gun move. Dave did not budge.
‘And planned them to coincide in time, as close as possible,’ Dave went on. ‘But why should they do that? You’ve got to admit that there’d have to be a very valid reason for going to such trouble as matching shots. There’s only one good reason I know and that’s to create an alibi. Two alibis, if you like. But did Dulcie produce one at all?’
He paused, I thought perhaps for me. I waved the glass. ‘Nothing valid. Not at any time.’ I took another gulp.
‘And your husband … what’s he done in the way of an alibi? Oh, I know, a shooting incident at nine. Our young friend with the ear, who’s now having his jaw wired! That was just a feeble attempt, based on the fact that Victor saw the car clock was at nine. But he couldn’t hope that’d stand up, especially when it turned out that the incident was at ten and not at nine. And … oh yes, you were going to mention that business about meeting at Parkway … ’
She hadn’t been about to mention it. At the very sound of Parkway, her neck had gone stiff and she flinched visibly, the gun jerking.
‘Well now,’ said Dave, ‘I rather hoped we’d finished with that. But now we’re discussing actual collusion … oh yes, we are. And, if collusion could possibly have been on the programme, then Victor would have had to be at Watling at nine and Dulcie at Bentley at the same time. So they couldn’t possibly have collided anywhere that night. There just wasn’t that much time involved. So it was invented. On the spur of the moment, by Victor, when I was really pushing him and he had to find a way out. Remember, I’d accused him of both murders. He stalled. And then he remembered … what? That he’d backed his car into something that day, or the day before, or the day before that? Something like that, and from it he conjured up the Parkway business, hoping that Dulcie would pick up the clue and go along with it. As she did. But it could not have been true. And, if it is not, then the whole idea of collusion has to break down, because there was not one decent alibi anywhere in sight. Bella? You do see that?’
But he wasn’t getting through. She was more deeply distressed than I’d believed. Any connection at all between the two of them was too much to accept. That they’d conspired, planned … it excluded her. They — and this was what cut her to shreds — they could also have conspired to remove Bella herself. It was beyond endurance.
Dave laughed desperately. ‘In any event,’ he cried, ‘how could there be any timing of the two deaths at the same time, when nobody could have guessed Charles Colmore’s movements?’
He stopped. I waited for him to go on. Dave does these things so well, usually. He’d disposed of the collusion, so now, carry it on, Dave.
‘Bella,’ he said, ‘give me the gun.’
She clasped it to her in a forceful way that set my teeth on edge.
‘Please, Bella!’
And they stared at each other. My God, I realized, he’d shot his bolt. Good old Dave!
Then, at my shoulder, Tasha spoke up. ‘Let me talk to her.’ I saw a brief flash of Bella’s eyes, with something in them, hope perhaps, and I glanced at the girl. She wanted to help. I could have kissed her, because in that second she’d told me something important. Between the two women there was some understanding, a sympathy, and I really understood Bella for the first time. She was clinging desperately to a concept of life and only a complete exposition of the truth could save her.
There was something I knew and which Dave didn’t. But my brain was fuddled. I didn’t think I could carry it through.
Dave was getting to his feet. I ambled farther into the room. ‘The glass … where can I … ’ I went over to the dressing-table, which had a glass top, and put it on there. The next part was tricky, because she knew Dave and yet had rejected him. I was a virtual stranger. Dave eyed me with uncertainty, Bella with suspicion tinged with terror.
‘George, ma’am,’ I introduced myself. ‘George Coe. My friend’s been making a botch of this, so let me have a word … eh? How’s about that?’
As the pistol was now settled into a nicely steady line on my chest, her comment would have been superfluous. I took Dave’s place on the stool and shooed him away. He whispered in my ear:
‘Take it easy, George. For God’s sake!’
‘Bella,’ I said, ignoring him, ‘I’ve already got two holes in me from one of those things. Another isn’t going to stop me talking and there’s a lot I want to say. So … let’s have a look at the two murder shots, to start with, and see what we’ve got. Colmore’s mistress was shot at eight minutes to nine and Colmore himself at one minute to. Right? Now, at the Bentley end, there isn’t much you could do to budge the timing. Two people heard the shot and one even heard the bullet strike the brickwork the other side of her living-room wall. But this end … ah, now that’s where it gets interesting. Shall I go on?’
She wasn’t wildly interested, but her eyes held intelligence. This was, to her, Victor’s shot. Of course she was interested.
‘Now, there’s no arguing that the bullet went through the clock face when the hands were at eight fifty-nine precisely. The hour-hand was pressed into the clock face by the bullet and it couldn’t have been mo
ved after the shot. Ah … you see what I’m getting at! I’m already saying that there’s something fishy about that timing. But now you want me to prove it. Is that right?’
There’s nothing like a bit of confidence. But it bounced from her. She clutched the gun to her breast eagerly, a last resort if the big fool in front of her came up with nothing.
‘I’m saying that the clock was wrong when the bullet went through it. But … in what way? Could the clock have stopped? But it’s a clockwork one, wound by the battery, and even if the battery had gone flat the clock would’ve gone on for a few hours. No, it hadn’t stopped. Then maybe it was simply wrong, in spite of the fact that Victor said he kept it correct. But, if it was wrong, then it just happened to be showing a very critical time when the bullet did go through it. Are we going to accept that this was sheer accident? Of course you’re not. If that clock was showing the wrong time before the shot, then it was done deliberately and the time chosen for it to show was also chosen deliberately.’
She was eyeing me now with her head perched in anxious attention. I couldn’t be certain that what she was hearing was pleasing her.
‘You do see that, Bella?’
She licked her lips.
‘You do?’ I persisted.
‘Yes, I see it.’
‘Then we’ll go on to consider the aspects of a deliberate act. The murderer, we’ll say, altered the clock before the murder. But Colmore sat in front of that clock and Colmore, Dulcie would tell you, if she was here … Dulcie’d tell you … ’ I shook my head. ‘She’d tell you that he was a nut about time, always putting clocks right. So probably he’d do it with this one. Certainly, no murderer, if the time was critical enough to him to justify altering the clock, would dare risk it. All right! I see you’re ahead of me. Good. He’d do it, you’d say, if there was no risk of Colmore altering the clock setting. But how could that sort of situation arise? I can think of one way. Perhaps the murderer forced Colmore into putting the clock to eight fifty-nine before shooting him. That’d do it. But look what that one shot’d have to do. It would have to go right through Colmore’s head and then impale the clock’s hour-hand. Yes, I know, Victor might just have done such a thing. But … my dear … to what purpose? Where’s the alibi such a difficult action would produce? I don’t see one, not for Victor, anyway. Dave’s already disposed of all that rubbish. But certainly something was done. So all you’ve got to think is: who was presented with an alibi?’
One Deathless Hour (David Mallin Detective series Book 16) Page 15
