The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  Maurice stood up. He looked less confident than usual. “Did you tell this safe young man where I lived?” he asked drily.

  “I don’t think he was interested.”

  Maurice walked round the room, and then said it was time for him to go. Wade accompanied him to his car, and then looked around the garden with a torch. As Hester had said, there was no stranger in the garden now.

  Investigation (5)

  The story, as they remembered it, was like a damaged fossil found in the rocks: the story they offered was a handful of broken stone. Inspector Lewis sat now, patiently assembling the fragments.

  “That’s all, absolutely all, about Wednesday?” he asked. “What happened about this Jackie?”

  “We gave him a camp bed in the attic, in the room over Morgan’s.”

  “This man in the garden—he said he was following Maurice Reid?”

  “Yes, I told you.”

  “Is that all you can tell me about him?”

  They watched Hester gliding into the shelter of her secret thoughts.

  “His name is Marryatt,” Wade explained. The words sounded like the prelude to a statement, but the statement didn’t follow.

  “Do you know where we can find him?”

  Hester shook her head.

  Moira Ferguson leant forward. “Is he that dark young man who has been staying in the pub? The Australian?”

  “Very possibly,” Hester said.

  “Because if he is, he’s still there. I know about him, because we heard him come back in the middle of the night.”

  “What night?” Lewis asked.

  “Thursday night.”

  “Let’s leave Thursday until we come to it,” Hester suggested.

  “I don’t know what he’d been doing. It must have been one o’clock.”

  “Hardly the middle of the night,” Hester said contemptuously.

  “We heard him, because we live next the pub, and old Barnes was leaning out of the window, shouting. Harry said he, the Australian, Marryatt I mean, had probably been murdering Maurice. And something about murdering sleep.”

  “Macbeth, sir,” Sergeant Young said in his low, explanatory voice to the inspector, while Hester stared at Moira as if she was looking for a place to insert a knife.

  “Harry said Marryatt was staying there just to get his hands on Maurice, and it was lucky for Maurice he was going to Dublin on that plane. But it wasn’t lucky for him after all,” Moira said.

  “Can you tell us more about this Marryatt?” Lewis asked Hester stolidly.

  “I can’t. Not like that. One thing is always bound up with another. I don’t want to say any more about him. Give him a chance to explain his own actions. If he’s at The Running Fox, why not see him there? Or bring him here, and let him hear her repeat what she has to say,” Hester said.

  “I think we’ll have to get hold of this Marryatt,” Lewis said. He looked at his watch. “We mustn’t keep you people from your lunch,” he said in a hungry voice. “Suppose we ask this Marryatt to come here after lunch, for a friendly discussion? Or do you object? Would you sooner I saw him alone, at the station?”

  “I’d sooner he was here and heard what Mrs Ferguson has to say against him,” Hester said.

  Lewis levered himself out of his chair. “Then we’ll see you all after lunch. You were awake at one o’clock on Thursday night, on Friday morning, that is, Mrs Ferguson?”

  “I had to be,” she said shortly. “Harry came back with us when we left here, and somehow, I don’t know how it happened, we all began to play Donegal Poker.”

  “Oh,” said Hester, with so much pain in her voice that Prudence stood up protectively.

  “Let’s get on with Thursday,” she said wildly. “It’s mostly Morgan, I think. Let’s not stop for lunch. Oh, there’s the phone.”

  They all listened to the telephone.

  “Answer it, please, Prudence,” Hester said.

  “Newspapermen again,” Prudence said wisely. “Leave them to me. I’ll think of some falsehood.”

  They heard her lift the receiver and answer, and protest, and then she came back in the room.

  “It’s for you,” she said to Inspector Lewis. “Don’t let it worry you. We like you to use our telephone. I told them you didn’t want to be interrupted, but they said you did.”

  “Sergeant Young, please,” Lewis said, and the sergeant went out to the telephone. Everyone waited with a feeling that some revelation was imminent, that the man who had missed the plane had been discovered at last.

  The sergeant returned with his face stiff with excitement.

  “Sir, the landlady, Mrs Crewe at Brickford I mean, has found the two bitters. They are on their way to the station now.”

  “Lunch-time,” Lewis said jovially. “We must be off. Just get in touch with this Running Fox place first, Sergeant. Ask them if they have a visitor by the name of Marryatt. If you can get him on the phone and arrange for him to meet us here in about two hours, then that’s so much time saved.”

  Sergeant Young seeped out of the room.

  “Poor Harry,” Moira said. “He was so happy that night. He won five pounds at Donegal Poker. Then suddenly he said he had other things to do, and left. I’m sorry for him. It’s not like Maurice or Morgan. As for Joe—he didn’t fly. I’m sure. Don’t ask me to explain. I’m just certain he didn’t fly.” She dabbed her eyes.

  “Your husband had no business worries, Mrs Ferguson?”

  “It depends what you call business worries,” she said. “He was ruined, if that’s what you mean. He said he was going to be bankrupt, or taken over any day. But he wasn’t worried.”

  “No?”

  “No. I was the one who did the worrying. I always wanted to sell one of the cars, live in an hotel instead of the flat, you know, economise,” she said, making a wide gesture. “But Joe believed in expansion. He said the creditors did too.”

  “Is there any possibility that your husband’s affairs were in such—such confusion, that he might have wanted to disappear?”

  “Do you mean he didn’t go on that plane? That he’s only hiding?” she asked, her soft face hardening in thought.

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Oh, Joe wouldn’t do that. He’d much sooner pay sixpence in the pound than nothing. Joe was so—so honest,” she said, groping for the right word and finding it.

  “On Friday morning you drove him into Cheltenham, early. Did you see anyone you knew, there, when you were together?”

  “I don’t believe we did,” she said absently. “They’d know at the station. Why don’t you ask them at the station?”

  “We’d thought of that,” Inspector Lewis said ironically. “They didn’t know. They sell a lot of tickets, in Cheltenham.”

  Moira took a mirror from her handbag and studied her face.

  “I’m so ignorant of police methods,” she said apologetically. “I’m a child in the affairs of this world. That’s what Joe said about me, always. But even though I’m ignorant, it does sound to me as though you’re suggesting I didn’t drive Joe to Cheltenham—or perhaps all you mean is that he didn’t take the train from Cheltenham to Brickford? If you’re really, seriously, suggesting one of these things then… I wonder what Joe would have said? I know. He’d have told me to get hold of a lawyer before I said another word. And I think that’s what I’ll do. So please don’t expect me to tell you another thing about Thursday, about Harry or Joe or Maurice or the Australian, until I have a lawyer sitting by my side. I know Hester’s sitting there thinking that only guilty people want lawyers. I will relieve your mind, Hester. I drove Joe to Cheltenham, and I saw him buy a ticket for Brickford.” She pushed the mirror back in her handbag and looked defiantly round the room.

  “Wait till you see that Australian, Marryatt. He’s someone who really does need a law
yer,” she said maliciously, her voice accepting everyone in the room as an enemy. “Doesn’t he, Hester?”

  Sergeant Young came back from the telephone, and for the next two hours the Wades were left in peace.

  Investigation (6)

  Inspector Lewis dropped the file of letters on his desk. “Nothing here, Sergeant Young. The public, anxious as ever to help, has seen one or all of the missing men in the Channel Isles, Edinburgh, Penzance, and a great many spots between. Next thing, we’ll have a newspaper offering a prize. There’s a letter about that old, reliable friend of the family, Maurice Reid. Here you are.”

  The sergeant picked up the letter and read:

  “Dear Sir: I see from the papers you want information about Maurice Reid. He was the most vile and loathsome creature that ever polluted the earth. I won’t be the only one to say so. You’ll find out soon enough. If he was killed in that plane I believe at last that there is justice in heaven. There will be others to come forward. I’ve no need to expose my name.”

  “Anonymous, you see,” the inspector said. “No need to pay any attention to that. When are those two bitters coming in? If they don’t turn up, we’re wasting our time here, eating dry sandwiches, giving the Wades the chance to plot out the next sequence. What do you think of the Wades anyway? The father looks to me as though he’d assassinated the Archbishop of York and was working round to a confession.”

  “Miss Wade, Miss Wade looked—looked very upset,” Sergeant Young said, flushing.

  “She’s a pretty girl. Don’t be taken in by looks, Sergeant,” Lewis said sharply. “Here they are, at last.”

  The two bitters were ushered in; they gave the impression they were trying to hide behind each other. One was a dark, earthy man in his middle years; the other was old and dusty.

  The sergeant took their names. The younger was called Benson; the older, Smith. Benson stared at his feet; Smith’s wavering glance explored the corners of the room, as though he expected to find a guillotine somewhere. He was a grocer, and his appearance suggested that his shop was very small, and that the articles wanted by customers could only be reached by ladder. Benson was a nursery gardener.

  “You were in the Fairway Arms around half-past ten on Friday morning?” the inspector suggested.

  They looked at each other, and nodded.

  “And there were three men having a drink,” Benson muttered.

  “We’ve talked it over. We can’t describe them,” Smith said in a voice that whined on a high note, like the wind in the chimney.

  “You see, we go out to have a drink,” Benson said.

  “We’d no reason to think they were anyone special,” Smith said.

  “They weren’t anyone special if they hadn’t got killed,” Benson said. “Who is?” he added sombrely.

  “We were talking. You don’t think of other people in the bar when you’re talking.”

  “Nor when you’re being talked at,” Benson said.

  “And why did they get killed?” Smith asked. “I’ll tell you, because they hadn’t taken trouble with their horoscopes. Ten to one, their horoscopes would have told them to keep their feet on the ground that day. You want to find the one that wasn’t there, don’t you, Officer, don’t you now? You get, their horoscopes, get the horoscopes of the four of them, and you’ll find the one who’s still got two feet to walk on.”

  “Their birthdays…” Lewis began, but was interrupted.

  “Don’t talk to me about birthdays,” Smith said. “You’ve got to have it right, to the hour and the minute. It isn’t child’s play, you know, astrology’s a serious thing.”

  “Do you believe in astrology, too, Mr Benson?” Lewis asked despairingly.

  “Astrology,” Benson repeated contemptuously. “I’ve no time for that nonsense. I’m a numerologist.”

  “And can you plant potatoes, by numerology. Can you tell when night frosts will end, by numerology?” Smith asked wearily.

  Benson scowled sideways at the policemen. “It was this kind of talk he was at, in the pub that morning. Just let him run on. You’ll get the idea.”

  “You’re in the habit of having a drink together in the morning?”

  “The habit’s arisen,” Benson agreed. “Gets on my nerves,” he added viciously.

  “Have you an arrangement to meet?”

  “When things are propitious and trade’s slack, I leave the shop to my daughter. Then if walking past I see him on his knees among his spindly plants, I invite him to have a drink. An invitation he’s always seemed glad enough to accept, although if there’s one thing he wants more than another, it’s to be taken for a tee-totaller. Fear. That’s his daily diet. With astrology a man knows his place and what he can do. Astrology lets a man walk through the world without fear. Witness my presence in this place,” he added, wiping his pink eyes with a tea-coloured handkerchief.

  “You didn’t observe the appearance of the three men. You didn’t hear anything they said?” Lewis asked Benson, who seemed more like an average man.

  Benson shook his head.

  “And you, Mr Smith?”

  “Ah,” Smith said, “I’ve been thinking. Not having had time since he rushed me here at the bidding of Mrs Crewe.”

  “And what have you been thinking about, Mr Smith?”

  “Astrology,” Smith said.

  They waited.

  “You know, Friday morning, it was the last time I was in that pub until today. So it’s not that my thoughts are confused, but they’re distant. Now I went in talking to him, and he said he’d buy the drinks, and I sat down. He stood at the bar until old Crewe had served the drink.” He stopped and looked defiantly at Benson.

  “Which he did in as nice and friendly a manner as a prison warder waiting on table at Wormwood Scrubs,” Benson said.

  “So he stood at the bar. I waited at the corner table. Now there was these other men, but my back was to them. If anyone was to see them, it was Benson here, who was facing.”

  “I hadn’t a thought in my head but to swallow my drink and get back to work,” Benson said. “I’m not interested in drinking.”

  “But while I was waiting for the drink, and with my mind running on the unhappy hour of Benson’s birth, and before I was deafened by his talk of numbers, I may have heard a word from these men behind me I couldn’t see.”

  “Who were three, which was all I saw,” Benson said. “And from the time I sat down with him there wasn’t a gap in his conversation. So what could I hear but him and his conversation?”

  “If it hadn’t been for my interest in astrology, what would I be able to say now?” Smith demanded. “And the word caught my ear because I’m an astrologist.”

  Lewis began to fidget with a ruler.

  “Are you trying to tell me, Mr Smith, that these men were discussing astrology?”

  “They must have been,” Smith said. “They used a term that brought me up short in my tracks. Astrology, I thought, and I’ll turn round and see what they look like, but then he came back with the drinks.”

  “And what was the word?” Lewis asked in a voice of grinding patience.

  “Now, it was on the tip of my tongue. I was about to say it when you interrupted me. But it’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “It was a term, as they might have said in opposition, or ascendancy, or constellation. Or azimuth? Now I wonder if it was azimuth?” he asked infuriatingly. “I was just going to bring it out, when you spoke.”

  “Would it have been a name?” Sergeant Young asked encouragingly. “Like Gemini, or Mars?”

  “Might have been, might have been, might not have been.” Smith smiled through the gaps in his teeth, and sat back to enjoy the privileges of age.

  “Taurus? Aquarius?” the sergeant suggested.

  “I see you’re a man of education,” Smith smiled ap
provingly while Benson sneered.

  “Virgo? Pisces?”

  “Pisces? Now, that’s a strange thing. It might have been something about Pisces, but it wasn’t. Pisces? No. That was before, I’ve got it.”

  “Yes!”

  “They were talking about fishing.”

  “Fishing?”

  “That’s it.”

  “But you said astrology?”

  “That’s a different thing again.”

  “What kind of fishing?” Lewis asked. His face was impassive, but his voice was beginning to show the strain.

  “Not salmon fishing. Not trout. Fishing in one of them far-off places. India was it?”

  “Well, was it?”

  “No. It wasn’t India.”

  “They were smoking,” Benson suddenly volunteered. “One of them had some cigarettes, and as I walked over with the drinks he offered cigarettes to the others.”

  “A packet or a case?”

  “Now you mention it, I—” He closed his eyes. “I’m sure it was a case. Yes, I’d take my oath it was a case. I couldn’t tell you what kind of case. It wouldn’t have been gold, anyway. I’d have noticed that. Now I see it. It was a long, silver case. He opened it at both of them, and one of them took a cigarette. Or did they both? Now, I can’t remember. Anyway, someone lit the two cigarettes with a lighter. I remember it was a lighter, but I don’t know if it was the first man who used it. One man didn’t smoke. Now, it’s queer I noticed that, except that I’m trying to give up smoking myself, so I saw that this man didn’t smoke.” He licked his lips and began to fidget with his hands. “It’s not to say he was a non-smoker. He might not have wanted one at the time.”

  “You may smoke, if you like, Mr Benson.”

  Benson took out a packet and lit a stub. “It’s got so I can’t smoke a whole cigarette,” he said apologetically. “It’s keeping it down to twenty a day, does it.”

  “If you’ve finished,” Smith said, “I’ll go back to thinking. You’d like a pinch of snuff, Inspector?” He took out a little tin, and it opened with a flurry of snuff that drifted across the desk to the inspector.

  “I’ll sit here and think,” Smith said, applying the snuff to each nostril. “And what do you suppose I’ll think about? It will be my daughter doesn’t know the price of oatmeal, or she’ll be giving them icing instead of caster sugar. I’ve got responsibilities, you know.”