Georgette Heyer

by Why Shoot a Butler?

  ‘Don’t ask me questions! Try to think!’ snarled Amberley. ‘Did you see anyone?’

  ‘No. I don’t know what happened. I was sitting here waiting for the young lady. Somebody must have hit me.’

  ‘My God, you’re a fine policeman!’ Amberley said savagely. He got to his feet. ‘Do you mean to tell me you didn’t hear anything? No footstep? No car?’

  The unfortunate Tucker tried to concentrate his mind. ‘A car. Yes, I heard a car. But it went up to the farm. It didn’t stop.’

  ‘What sort of a car? Did you see the number plate?’

  ‘No. No, I only got a glimpse as it passed the gate. I think it was a closed car. It was a big one.’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘I couldn’t see, sir. It was too dark to see.’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Amberley said. ‘There’s a cake of mud on the table in the living room. You’ve got to take that to the police station. There’s an imprint on it. Understand?’

  Tucker nodded and managed to get up. Mr Amberley turned and strode towards the gate. Bill’s desperate whines made him look over his shoulder. ‘Look after the dog. There’s a leash in the kitchen.’

  He was gone. Tucker heard the car start and sat down on the seat to recover his equilibrium.

  Amberley drove the car into Upper Nettlefold and through the High Street to the Market Square. There was a garage at the corner with petrol pumps displaying globes lit by electricity. He ran the car under one of these, said curtly to the man in attendance: ‘Fill her up!’ and got out, slamming the door behind him.

  The police station was on the opposite side of the square. Sergeant Gubbins was behind the door marked PRIVATE, and Mr Amberley walked in without troubling the constable on duty to announce him.

  The sergeant looked up austerely but broke into a smile when he saw who was his visitor. ‘Evening, Mr Amberley. Anything new?’

  Amberley had no answering smile for him. ‘Sergeant, instruct that constable outside to ring up all surrounding police stations to stop and search a blue Vauxhall limousine, number PV 80496.’

  The sergeant knew his Mr Amberley. He did not stop to ask questions, but got up and went to the door and repeated the order to the constable in the outer room. Then he turned and said: ‘What’s happened, sir?’

  ‘The girl’s been kidnapped. Can you come with me at once?’

  The sergeant stared. ‘Good Lord, sir!’ he ejaculated. ‘Kidnapped? Where’s Tucker?’

  ‘At the cottage. Someone knocked him out. He saw nothing, heard nothing. My only consolation is that he’s feeling something. Are you coming?’

  ‘Half a moment, sir, and I’m with you,’ said the sergeant, and pushed through into the outer room and conferred briefly with the constable, who was already sending out the message. By the time he had finished and had got his helmet and a revolver, Amberley had left the station and recrossed the square to the garage.

  The sergeant followed him and climbed into the car while Amberley was paying for his petrol. As Amberley put his foot on the self-starter he asked where they were going.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Amberley, and swept round the square and out of it to the crossroads above the Boar’s Head.

  The constable on point duty, who had taken his number half an hour earlier, saw the Bentley coming and held up his hand to stop it. It drew up alongside him, and Amberley leaned out to speak to him.

  ‘Has a dark blue Vauxhall, five-seater limousine passed during the last hour? Number PV 80496. Think, man!’

  The constable said grimly: ‘I don’t need to think for what I’m going to do. I’ll trouble you for your name and address.’

  Amberley sat back. ‘Speak to the fool,’ he said.

  The sergeant was already preparing to do so. He spoke a language the constable could easily understand and had heard before.

  ‘But – but, Sergeant, I ’ad my hand up, and he went past me like a streak of lightning. He must ’ave seen it, but he never took no notice. He went…’

  ‘The wonder to me is he could see what was behind it,’ said the sergeant unflatteringly. ‘You answer him and be quick about it. He’s Mr Frank Amberley, that’s who he is.’

  ‘I didn’t know who ’e was,’ said the constable resentfully. ‘All I know was he disregarded my signal to him to stop.’

  ‘Get on with it! You can charge me some other time,’ said Amberley. ‘A Vauxhall limousine, PV 80496.’

  The constable scratched his chin. ‘There was a Morris Oxford went down the Lumsden Road,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t be it.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Amberley. ‘A large car, man! Bonnet with two scoops out of it.’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen it,’ said the constable as though he were glad to be able to say so. ‘I seen Mr Purvis’ Daimler, but I haven’t seen no other big car, not during the past hour I haven’t.’

  Mr Amberley’s hand found the gear-lever. ‘Hold up that cart; I’m going to turn,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t stand there goggling, hold it up!’ commanded the sergeant. ‘Lor’ I never see such a fat-headed lout! Right away, Mr Amberley, sir, and for Gawd’s sake mind that perishing cyclist!’

  The Bentley went round the constable with a growl and shot off down the High Street. The constable, still holding up the horse and cart like a man in a trance, heard the infinitesimal check of the gears changing, then the hum of a high-powered car travelling at speed away into the distance, and came back to earth to hear himself being rudely addressed by the carter.

  ‘Where’s the nearest constable on point duty past Ivy Cottage, Sergeant?’ asked Amberley.

  ‘There ain’t one. There’s an AA man about a mile on, at the Brighton Road crossing, but he won’t be on duty now. It’s too late.’

  ‘Damn. What are the turnings?’

  ‘None, till you get to the Brighton crossing, if you don’t count the lane leading to Furze Hall. I’ll tell you what, sir! They’re widening the bridge at Griffin’s corner, before you reach the crossing. There’ll be a man there directing the traffic.’

  ‘Well, pray God he’s not a fool,’ said Amberley, swerving to avoid a careless pedestrian.

  The sergeant clutched the door and righted himself. He refrained from comment but said: ‘I dunno, sir, but if you ask me it ain’t what you’d call a brainy job, turning a signboard round and waving a lantern. Look out, sir, there’s a bend coming!’

  ‘You leave me to drive this car my own way,’ said Mr Amberley.

  The sergeant held his breath as the car swung round the bend, and ventured to relax again. ‘I’ve been in this district some years now, sir,’ he said slowly.

  ‘You won’t be here much longer,’ said Amberley.

  ‘Not if you’re going to drive at this pace, I won’t,’ retorted the sergeant. ‘But what I was going to say was, I know a good few of the cars about here.’

  ‘Bright of you.’

  The sergeant ignored this. ‘And I know who owns a blue Vauxhall limousine, Number PV 80496. And I can tell you this, Mr Amberley, you’ve got me fair gasping. That’s the bridge ahead, sir! Go easy!’

  The youth on duty there was moodily swinging a green lamp, but Amberley pulled the car up. The sergeant was nearest the youth, and he leaned out and inquired whether the Vauxhall had passed over the bridge.

  The youth turned out to be typical of his generation. Very few cars passed him which he did not closely inspect and appraise. He was not interested in number-plates, but he had held up a big Vauxhall about three quarters of an hour earlier to let a lorry come over the bridge from the other side. He began to enter into a detailed description of the horsepower and year of the car, but was cut short.

  ‘I don’t want to buy the car,’ said the sergeant. ‘Which way did it go?’

  The youth was looking admiringly at the Bentley. His lips moved in a silent enumeration of her points, but being in awe of policemen, he dragged his gaze away from it and answered Sergeant Gubbins. ‘It went over the bridge, first, then I s
een it turn off at the crossing.’

  Amberley spoke. ‘Who was in it?’

  The youth shook his head. ‘I dunno, sir.’

  ‘I mean, a man, or a woman, more than one person?’

  ‘I dunno, sir.’

  ‘It’s no good talking to him, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘I got a nephew like him. If a kangaroo happened to be driving the car he wouldn’t notice. Sickening, I call it. Jabber about differentials all day long that sort do, but take a bit of interest in something that don’t move on wheels, oh no! Not them!’

  The Bentley moved forward. ‘The Brighton crossing,’ Amberley said. ‘Heading south. I think – I very much think – I’ve got you, my friend. Sergeant, we shall have to travel rather quickly.’

  ‘Of course we haven’t been, have we?’ said the sergeant. He waited until the car had turned on to the secondary road leading southwards, and then seeing no immediate danger in front of them, said: ‘Now, sir, if you don’t mind, where are we, so to speak? It seems to me you know a sight more than what I do. We’re chasing a certain Vauxhall limousine which has got three quarters of an hour’s start of us. I got my own idea who’s in that car, but how he had the nerve to come by it I don’t know. I’ve often noticed the quiet ones is the worst. It looks to me like a nasty case. Has he done in the young lady, sir, do you think?’

  There was a moment’s silence, and the car seemed to leap forward, like a horse given the spur. The sergeant, looking round at Mr Amberley’s profile, saw it so grim that he confessed later it gave him a turn.

  ‘If he has,’ said Amberley in a very level voice, ‘if he has, he won’t trouble the hangman.’

  This sinister pronouncement, coupled with the look on Amberley’s face, led the sergeant to infer that he had discovered something interesting, though not of much value as a clue. Feeling that the occasion was one for a display of tact he made no comment on his discovery, but merely requested Mr Amberley to go easy. ‘No use meeting trouble halfway, sir,’ he said. ‘If you was to go and do a murder, where’d I be?’

  Amberley gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Making a sensational arrest, I expect.’

  ‘I’d be in a very awkward position, that’s where I’d be,’ replied the sergeant. ‘If I thought you meant it I’d be obliged to take away that gun you’ve got sticking into my hip at this very moment.’

  ‘I’m more likely to choke the life out of the swine,’ Amberley said. ‘I don’t think he’s done it yet. I’m pinning my faith to that – keep a lookout for a constable. Another killing would be fatal to him. Mark Brown’s death passed for an accident, but another accident would be suspicious, to say the least of it. Shirley is to disappear. No body, no conviction, Sergeant.’

  ‘I get you, sir. Taking her for a ride and bumping her off miles from Upper Nettlefold?’

  ‘Not unless he’s a fool. If he does that, and the body’s found, it will be traced back to him. Miss Brown doesn’t own a car. How did she get so far afield? Any jury would assume that she had been taken there by her murderer. Much too dangerous. The body must be disposed of. Put yourself in the murderer’s place, Sergeant. How is that to be done?’ Various gruesome visions came before the sergeant’s eyes, but he thought it wiser not to advance a suggestion. A gentleman who had fallen in love with a young lady wouldn’t take kindly to the thought of dismembered corpses or charred fragments. ‘We don’t want to start talking horrors, sir,’ he said severely.

  ‘I see,’ said Amberley. ‘Quicklime. No. No.’

  ‘Of course not, sir. Whoever heard of such a thing?’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Amberley said. ‘I know you’re wrong. He’s heading south. The sea, Sergeant, the sea!’

  The sergeant considered the suggestion and came to the conclusion it was probably correct. ‘Seems to me, sir, we’d better hurry up,’ he said gruffly. ‘Unless… Anyway, we’ve got to catch him, and that’s all there is to it.’

  The car roared through a hamlet; the needle of the speedometer was creeping up.

  ‘He won’t have killed her yet,’ Amberley said. The sergeant had the impression that he was trying to reassure himself. ‘He daren’t run the risk. Supposing he had a slight accident? Supposing he was held up, and the car was searched? If the girl’s alive they can’t get him for murder. He’ll think of that. He’s bound to think of that.’

  The sergeant agreed, though he felt a little dubious. In his experience murderers seldom laid such careful plans. However, the killing of Mark had certainly been very cleverly planned, so perhaps Mr Amberley might prove to be right.

  The lights of a village twinkled ahead of them; the car slowed to a more respectable pace, and the sergeant espied a constable on point duty at a crossroad in the middle of the main street.

  Amberley pulled up beside him, but let the sergeant do the talking. The constable, unlike the one they had left in Upper Nettlefold, was an alert young man. Not many cars had come by him during the last hour, and he was almost sure that the only one of any size had been a Vauxhall limousine. But the number was not PV 80496. That he could swear to. The Vauxhall he had seen bore the letters AX. He was not prepared to state the number, but he thought it began with a nine.

  The sergeant looked inquiringly at Amberley. ‘Don’t quite fit, sir.’

  ‘False number-plate. Probably no such number exists. Which way did the car go, Constable?’

  ‘It turned off to the right, sir,’ replied the policeman, pointing.

  ‘I see. Where does that lead to?’

  ‘Well, sir, it goes to Larkhurst, but there’s a good many turnings off it.’

  ‘Can you get to the coast by it?’

  ‘No, sir, not exactly you can’t. You’d have to go ’cross country a bit.’

  ‘Turning off where?’

  The constable thought for a moment. ‘Well, if you by Six Ash Corner and Hillingdean, you’d want to turn off at the first pub you come to, past Ketley. On the hand, sir, if you didn’t mind a roundabout sort of way, you could cut down to Chingham and bear on to Freshfield and Trensham, and reach the coast at Coldhaven.’

  Amberley nodded. ‘Thanks. Did you notice whether that Vauxhall was travelling fast?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, sir.’

  Amberley let in the clutch. ‘My compliments; you’re the brightest policeman I’ve met during the past fortnight.’

  The sergeant said with a cough as the car started: ‘Bright for a constable, sir.’

  Amberley smiled, but for once in his life forbore to retort caustically. His attention was all for the tricky road he was following; the sergeant got monosyllabic answers to his questions and wisely gave up all attempt at conversation.

  The trail was a difficult one, often lost. The Vauxhall had left the main roads for a network of country lanes. From time to time Amberley stopped to ask whether it had been seen. Mostly a stolid headshake answered the question, but twice he got news of the car; once from a railway official in charge of a level-crossing, once from a night watchman huddled over a brazier in a wooden hut beside some road repairs. The Vauxhall seemed to be heading south-west and to be maintaining a steady but not extraordinary speed. Obviously the driver was taking no risks of meeting with an accident or a hold-up; it seemed too as though he had no very great fear of being followed.

  The sergeant, who, when they plunged into the second-class roads, pursuing an erratic course, privately thought there was little chance of catching a car bound for an unknown destination and bearing a false name-plate, began after a little time to realise that Amberley was pushing forward to some definite point. When they stopped at Hillingdean and the sergeant conferred with a constable on point duty there, he got out a road map and studied it intently.

  The warning, sent out from Upper Nettlefold, had been received by all the southern stations but bore no fruit. No car of the stated number had anywhere been seen. Amberley cursed himself for having given the fatal number and wasted no more time in inquiring for it.

  There were many circuitous byw
ays that led to the coast, so that it was hardly surprising that the sergeant should consider the chase hopeless. For miles they had no intelligence of the Vauxhall, but Amberley never slackened speed except to read a signpost here and there, and never hesitated in his choice of direction. It became increasingly apparent to the sergeant that he had a fixed goal in his mind, for it could scarcely be due to chance that they picked the trail up again twice when it had seemed completely lost.

  Once Amberley bade him take the map over a difficult piece of country and guide him to some village the sergeant had never heard of. The sergeant ventured to ask where they were going. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the roar of the engine. He saw Amberley give a shrug, and managed to catch the word, ‘Littlehaven.’ It conveyed nothing to the sergeant. As the Bentley rocked over a stretch of lane pitted with holes he said: ‘If you’re sure where he’s gone, sir, why don’t you take the main road?’

  ‘Because I’m not sure, damn you!’ said Mr Amberley. ‘It’s the best I can do.’

  The sergeant relapsed into silence. Except for the discomfort of travelling at a shocking pace over bad roads he was not sure that he wasn’t glad they had chosen deserted lanes. At least they ran less risk of an accident. He shuddered to think what might happen on a main road. As it was he spent most of his time clutching at the door to steady himself, and although his nerves were becoming dulled, he had several bad frights. Once when a bicyclist wobbled into the middle of the road and the Bentley’s wheels tore at the loose surface as it took a sudden swerve round the unwary cyclist, he was moved to shout: ‘People like you, Mr Amberley, didn’t ought to be allowed anything more powerful than a Ford!’

  He had thought it a still night, but the wind whistled past his ears and once nearly swept his helmet off. He jammed it on more firmly and thought Mr Amberley must be fairly scared out of his senses to treat his car in this frightful fashion.