When the Wind Blows

by Cyril Hare

  Whatever Trimble’s opinion of the story, he kept it to himself. Instead, he picked up the sheet of brown paper and examined it closely.

  “This doesn’t look as if it would be particularly helpful,” he remarked.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Ventry agreed. “Block letters for the address, very thick writing. Looks to me as if it had been done with a match-stick dipped in ink instead of a pen. Postmark, Markhampton Central. The box is home made, I should say. It might have been cut down from——”

  “All these things will be examined in due course,” said the inspector curtly, putting the bundle of paper and cardboard to one side.

  “Sorry I butted in. Not my business, I know. Well, there it is.” He rose. “Anything I can do to help you fellows——”

  “Yes, there is. Please sit down again, Mr. Ventry. I have another question altogether to ask you. How did you go to the City Hall on the night of the concert?”

  “Oh, but I’ve told you that one already. By bus.”

  “Which bus?”

  Ventry stared at the inspector for a moment without speaking, and then a slow grin spread across his face.

  “Oh, Lord!” he said. “Has somebody been talking?”

  “I asked you, sir, which bus?”

  “This is where my reputation goes below zero,” said Ventry in a resigned voice. “It was a 5A.”

  Sergeant Tate, sitting in his corner, could not suppress a gasp of satisfaction.

  “A 5A,” Ventry repeated, turning towards him. “And more by token, the conductor had one of those wild Battle of Britain moustaches. I’d know him again anywhere. I only hope he’d know me. I’m afraid you’ll want to have anything I say checked up, after all the trouble I’ve given you,” he explained.

  “Then you did not go to the concert direct from your house?”

  “I did not. I never went near my house from the time I left the rehearsal till the concert came to its sticky end.”

  “Your car was stolen——”

  “Oh, my car was stolen all right. That was the trouble.”

  “Your car was stolen,” the inspector repeated, “not from your house but from outside No. 6, Fairfield Avenue.”

  “It was. You’ve got the whole thing taped, Inspector, and I’ve been lying like a trooper about it—all for the love of a lady. Who says the age of chivalry is dead?”

  “I think, Mr. Ventry,” said Trimble coldly, “that it is about time we heard the truth from you.”

  “Right-oh!” said Ventry cheerfully. “Though I think you’ve found out pretty nearly all of it off your own bat. You see, I’ve been making passes at Nicola Dixon for quite a time now, and just lately she’s been responding more than a little. From something I overheard at the rehearsal I knew that the coast would be clear the rest of the evening so far as that codfish of a husband of hers was concerned, so I decided to try my luck. I rang her up, and she was in. I drove up to her house, and everything went according to plan. We had a few drinks, we had a bite of supper, we had some fun and games, and then, a bit late in the day, we found out that her clock was twenty minutes slow.”

  “Her bedroom clock?”

  “Saving your presence, it was her bedroom clock. That was a bit of a shock, knowing what a stickler Evans is for starting his shows on the dot, but there was just time still, and I was pretty sure I could make it comfortably in the car. The real shock came later. Nicola’s car was in the drive and she got in first. Mine was in the road, tucked away against the hedge so as not to be too conspicuous. At least, that’s where it had been. When I got there, it wasn’t. I shouted to stop Nicola—she was only just out of the drive—but she was in low gear and couldn’t have heard me. So there I was, planted. And the rest of my story,” he concluded with simple pride, “is perfectly true.”

  “Thank you,” said Trimble. He sat silent for a moment and then went on, “I won’t ask you, sir, why you have chosen to conceal the truth until now, because the reason is as obvious as it is disreputable.”

  “I am a damned disreputable fellow,” Ventry agreed cheerfully. “By the way, does Dixon know about this?”

  “He does, sir. You will have to face the consequences of that.”

  “Oh, consequences! One thing I can be sure of. He’ll never divorce Nicola on my account!”

  With this enigmatic observation the interview terminated.

  18

  The Truth About K.504

  “There are two steps down,” said the Chief Constable. “And mind your head.”

  He spoke just too late. Pettigrew negotiated the steps fairly successfully, but the low beam caught him sharply on the top of his skull. When he recovered he found himself in a small, square, panelled room, half filled by an enormous desk. It was the first time that he had ever penetrated into Mr. MacWilliam’s tiny, medieval house, squeezed between two Palladian residences in a corner of Markhampton Cathedral Close.

  The Chief Constable was busy with a corner cupboard behind the desk.

  “With the Dean on one side of me and the Chancellor of the Diocese on the other, I live in what might be called a desirable neighbourhood,” he observed, emerging from the cupboard with a decanter, a siphon and two glasses. “None the less, I make it a point of honour not to invite anybody to this house over five feet six in height, if it can be avoided. The ancestors of the English must have been a squat race.”

  Pettigrew took the glass extended to him.

  “I am sorry I couldn’t invite you to my place,” he said. “But my wife had asked some friends in to play bridge, and I thought you would prefer not to risk meeting them. Mrs. Basset was one of them,” he added.

  MacWilliam opened a bulky portfolio and took from it a mass of papers which he arranged upon the desk. Their appearance was depressingly familiar to his visitor. Then he opened a long envelope and added its contents to the pile.

  “I agree,” he said. “Your wife’s guests were better avoided on this occasion, particularly Mrs. Basset. However, we should not be disturbed here this evening. I have given orders that I am not to be sent for except in an emergency. And I do not think there is much risk of one of my ecclesiastical neighbours dropping in.” He leaned back in his chair and fixed Pettigrew with his candid open-eyed stare. “Talking of ecclesiastics,” he went on, “you were perfectly right about the Surrogate.”

  “Oh,” said Pettigrew.

  “In fact, you were perfectly right all along.”

  “Oh,” said Pettigrew again.

  “Perhaps you would like to look at the papers to satisfy yourself that they are all in order.”

  “I suppose I might as well,” said Pettigrew unenthusiastically. When he had glanced through them he said: “Yes, they seem to be quite conclusive. They certainly bear out my suggestions as to what happened.”

  “I congratulate you.”

  “Thanks.” Pettigrew’s tone was one of the deepest despondency.

  “On the other hand,” the Chief Constable went on in level tones, “the latest reports from Trimble don’t seem to carry the matter very much farther.”

  Pettigrew, rapidly running through the reports, agreed that they did not. “In fact,” he said, “we are exactly where we were when we started.”

  “Now there,” said MacWilliam placidly, “I am unable to agree with you. We have done a great deal. We have established the truth of what seemed at first—you will forgive me for saying so—a wild and highly improbable theory. In so doing we have proved a number of highly suggestive facts. And the facts seem to me to point to one inescapable conclusion—namely, that we have identified at least one of the persons responsible for this crime. I think that is quite a lot to go on with.”

  “And where, my good Chief Constable,” cried Pettigrew, losing his patience, “where do you go on from here? What is the good of all your suggestive facts and your inescapable conclusions when you know perfectly well that at the end of it all you can’t say who committed the murder or how it was done? You say that I have been right a
ll along, and so I have. But please to remember that this is exactly the situation which I foretold would arise when you dragged all this stuff out of me. Here we are with a mass of facts which may or may not concern the crime. We have no means of proving whether they do or don’t. So we are left with the prospect of living here for the rest of our lives with a fellow-citizen whom we suspect of having committed a murder, although the suspicion may be quite baseless. I wish to God I had obeyed my instincts and kept out of this business altogether!”

  The Chief Constable’s only reply to this tirade was to pick up the decanter and pour a generous helping into Pettigrew’s glass, adding a minute quantity of soda-water. Pettigrew gratefully accepted the peace offering and the two men sat in silence for a moment. Then, as MacWilliam was about to speak, the quiet was broken by the ringing of the front door bell.

  MacWilliam rose quietly, drew the window curtain aside and peered out.

  “This is rather awkward,” he murmured, returning to the middle of the room. “Inspector Trimble is outside. It must be something important, or he wouldn’t have come here in view of my instructions. My servant is out, so I shall have to let him in myself.” He looked round the room in mock despair. “I ought to have devised a bolt-hole from this place,” he went on. “There’s nowhere in it where a rat could hide. Perhaps, though, I could see him in the hall, and you stay here till he’s gone.”

  “No, no,” said Pettigrew resignedly. “Let him come in, by all means. It will make the perfect end to a delightful day.”

  MacWilliam still hesitated.

  “It’s the man’s feelings I’m thinking about,” he said.

  “Damn the man’s feelings! I don’t see why I should be the only one to suffer over this diabolical affair.”

  The ring at the door was repeated, and the Chief Constable, with a shrug of his shoulders, went out of the room. Pettigrew heard the front door being opened and the sound of Trimble’s voice in the hall.

  “You will forgive my troubling you, sir, but it is a matter of such importance——” he was saying as he expertly negotiated the two steps down and with the ease born of long practice ducked his head at the right moment. He stopped short at the sight of Pettigrew. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said stiffly. “I was not aware you had a visitor. Perhaps you would prefer me to——”

  At this point the inspector’s eyes fell on the damning evidence laid out on the desk. It was a painful moment. A deep flush spread across his face as his superior’s iniquity slowly dawned upon him. “I was not aware,” he repeated, “—not aware, sir, that you—that Mr. Pettigrew …”

  With something approaching horror Pettigrew perceived that there were actually tears in the man’s eyes. His heart smote him, and he vainly sought for words of consolation, but no words came. One can apologize for most things, he reflected, but injury to a fellow man’s professional pride is an offence almost beyond expiation.

  The Chief Constable had his own remedy for this, as for almost every other, emergency. He reached quickly into the corner cupboard, found another glass, filled it and pressed it into Trimble’s hand.

  “Thank you, sir, but I do not drink,” said the inspector coldly.

  “I am aware of that, but on this occasion you do. You’re in need of a dram. Drink it up, and sit down—or better, sit down first.”

  He pushed a chair behind Trimble, just in time. The inspector sat down so abruptly that the contents of the glass were in danger of being spilled. He seemed to be in a daze, and automatically carried the glass to his lips and took a long drink. The strength of the spirit caught him completely by surprise, and his first essay at dram drinking ended in a prolonged and violent fit of coughing.

  “You’ll feel better for that,” said MacWilliam, when the fit had subsided. “And now, Mr. Trimble, I owe you an apology.”

  The inspector shook his head. “I am sure, sir,” he said faintly, when he was able to speak, “that you are entitled to do anything you think proper to——”

  “I am not entitled to go behind the backs of members of my force in a criminal investigation. If I did it on this occasion it was for a particular reason. It won’t occur again.”

  The inspector looked at the Chief Constable as though he were seeing him for the first time. In fact, it was the first time that he had ever been confident that his chief’s words meant exactly what they said and nothing more.

  “That is very generous of you, sir,” he said.

  MacWilliam had only one reply to remarks of this nature. “I am not a generous man,” he said curtly. “It is a matter of simple justice.”

  “Perhaps at this point I should say something,” Pettigrew observed. “Mr. MacWilliam thought fit to ask me, as a complete amateur, to consider the facts in this case, because he thought that my special knowledge might be of assistance in matters quite outside the ordinary run of police investigation. Well, I did what I was asked to do, and as a result I suggested a line of enquiry which has been carried out. The results of that enquiry have just come in and will, I have no doubt, be put before you as the officer in charge of the case”—he looked towards the Chief Constable, who nodded emphatic agreement—“for you to take such action on them as you may think proper. But I am bound to give it to you as my personal opinion—as I have just been giving it to the Chief Constable—that the knowledge so obtained is completely and absolutely useless. It is interesting in itself, perhaps, but it wholly fails to solve the problem presented by this case. That, Inspector, is what you might expect from calling in an amateur; and speaking for myself, I can heartily endorse what Mr. MacWilliam has just said—it won’t occur again. And now,” he concluded, rising to his feet, “I gather that you have something of importance to discuss. I shall only be in the way, so I will say good night.”

  Before MacWilliam could say anything Trimble interposed: “I’d rather you stayed, sir, if you don’t mind. This case has given me a great deal of trouble, and what I came to tell the Chief Constable this evening seems to me to make it more difficult than ever. I—I’m a bit out of my depth, sir, and that’s a fact. I had it at the back of my mind to ask the Chief to call in the Yard, but since you are here, perhaps you’ll be able to save us from doing that. I thought I could run this show on my own, but it seems I can’t, so I shall be glad of all the help I can get, and if you can give me a hand I shall be grateful.”

  Probably nobody but Trimble himself could have told just how much this avowal had cost him, but Pettigrew was sufficiently aware of the position to find the appeal irresistible.

  “Of course I shall stay, if the Chief Constable will allow me,” he said. “I have already given you my opinion on the value of amateur detection, so you have been warned.” He settled down again in his chair, refused the whisky which MacWilliam immediately pressed upon him, and prepared to listen.

  “Well, Inspector,” said the Chief Constable, reverting to his official manner, “I understand you have a report to make to me.”

  “Not a report exactly, sir,” said Trimble. “That is, I haven’t had time to put the whole of it into writing. But in view of the importance of the matter I thought it best to bring it to your notice at once. You will have had the reports and statements dealing with this case up to yesterday, so you will be aware of the state of the enquiries to date.”

  “The last report before me covers your second interview with Mr. Ventry,” said MacWilliam.

  “Precisely, sir. Well, when I had reached that point I found myself fairly at a dead end. It seemed to me that I had pursued every line about as far as it would go, and I couldn’t see which way to turn. That being so, with the assistance of Sergeant Tate” (here the inspector coughed in a somewhat self-conscious manner) “I went right through the whole case from the beginning, to see if there was anything that might have been missed. On rereading the papers, sir, it struck me that there was one witness whose evidence was in a marked degree unsatisfactory. I am referring, sir, to Mr. Clayton Evans.”

  “Clayton Ev
ans, eh?” said MacWilliam. “This is very interesting, Mr. Trimble. Please go on.”

  “I would remind you, sir, of the second statement made by this witness. That statement contains a highly important disclosure as to the last time that Miss Carless was known to be alive, which he had entirely omitted from his first statement. His excuse for doing so was that he had not been asked for that particular piece of information in so many words, and when I suggested to him that this was an unreasonable attitude he went on to make a variety of wild and intemperate observations, sir, which you will find summarized in my report.”

  “I recollect them perfectly.”

  “Well, sir, it occurred to me that in view of Mr. Evans’s rather exceptional approach to these matters there was quite a chance that he might still possess information of importance, which he had never bothered to disclose. So this evening I made an appointment with him and interviewed him for the third time. I decided to take no risks, but to question him precisely as to everything that had occurred within his recollection on the evening previous to and on the day of the concert. He displayed some considerable irritation during the course of the interview, sir, but I am bound to say that he answered my questions fairly, and his powers of memory appeared to be good. Nothing of importance transpired, however, until I reached the point in my examination where I was dealing with the scene that took place at the rehearsal as the result of which the Polish player retired from the orchestra. At this point, sir, Mr. Evans made a disclosure which seemed to me to be of first-class importance, so much so that I broke off the interview at once and came to consult you. I made a note of the relevant questions and answers immediately after the interview, sir, and though they are made from memory only, I think that they are approximately accurate.”