“Just what I feel about singing, laughter, and love,” Hester said.
“Are you quoting someone?” Prudence asked suspiciously. “I mean someone like Harry?”
Hester looked at her watch. “He may be in Brickford now. In just over an hour he’ll be in the plane for Ireland. I don’t suppose he’ll ever come back,” she said in a low voice that acknowledged the humiliation of being deserted. “Prudence, don’t worry me today. I must go to Father. He’s not well.”
Prudence was left alone to contemplate the endless horrors of a day in which no one would help her to tango.
Friday (2)
At eleven o’clock Prudence was kneeling on a green sward of cotton, looking hopelessly at the instructions which were supposed to map her course around the strange peninsulas of the human form.
“Bring Fold to meet perforations at F, gathering lower back to meet notches. Leave open at G,” she read in despair. “Who’s that? Oh, Jackie. There’s no G, and I’ve lost all the notches. Attach collar to waist? It can’t mean anything.”
“It’s eleven o’clock, Miss. The plane will have gone.”
“The plane? To Ireland, you mean. I wish I’d gone too. I’ve just had about enough of dress-making. But I don’t want to go to Ireland. I’d like to go to Italy, or Spain. Somewhere hot, some country where people had feelings, and did things, and weren’t so dull as they are here. I go back to school in ten days, Jackie. Oh, it’s going to be so boring. What would you really like to be, Jackie, if you had the chance? I’m just going to go ahead and cut this, even if it’s all wrong.”
“I always wanted to be in a dance band,” Jackie said dreamily.
Prudence slashed at the material. “Can you play anything, Jackie?”
“No, Miss, I never had the chance.”
Prudence stood up, looking in amazement at what she had cut out.
“They’re flying now. I wouldn’t care if they stayed in Ireland for ever. Except Harry. Who’s quite funny sometimes.”
Jackie pulled the roses out of his shirt and dropped them in the wastepaper basket.
“Salmon for lunch, Miss?” he said, beginning to back out of the room. “You could have it straight from the tin, and no cooking.”
“Can you tango, Jackie?” she called after him. He didn’t hear. “Well, it was only a policy of desperation,” she muttered, kneeling down again with the scissors.
Quarter of an hour later she looked out of the window. Jackie, wearing his yellow pullover, now, was hurrying through the garden. He was carrying a bulging brown paper shopping bag by its string handle. Prudence assumed he was going to the village to buy some food for lunch. She wondered where he had found the money.
When she went into the kitchen, the housekeeping money, a meagre enough remnant, was intact. Underneath the opened tin of salmon was a sheet of paper, stained with the dismal grey oil of the dark, repellent fish.
“Dear Miss,” it said.
“I have gone to see my Mother in Hospital. (Being visiting Day) Love Jackie.”
Jackie didn’t come back. Hester and Prudence ate the tinned salmon alone. Later, when they heard the news about the aeroplane, they had no thoughts to spare for Jackie, or to wonder why he had gone away.
Explanation (1)
“That’s all,” Hester said. “It’s the whole story. So you see…”
“What do I see?” Inspector Lewis demanded, not yet aware how much he ought to see.
“I don’t know what you see. But it’s the whole story,” Hester repeated. “Isn’t it, Father?”
He looked at her with a stricken smile, guilty as a man who has survived a disaster but has seen his friends drown. She crossed the room quickly and sat on the arm of his chair.
“Father, we’ve told all the truth. There’s nothing more we can do now.”
“You can answer a few questions, Miss Wade,” Inspector Lewis said. “There’s some information I’d like. About Maurice Reid, for instance. Now, Mr Wade. You gave him a cheque. Was it a sizeable cheque?”
“It was for all I’ve got. No, that’s not quite true. I have a very small income from a trust fund.”
“The amount of the cheque?”
“It was for nine thousand, five hundred.”
“You’ve stopped this cheque, of course?”
Wade squirmed. “Actually—I—I was going to stop it, that Friday. Then we had the news. Then, then I thought everything was over. So—so I haven’t.”
“But if he sent it direct to his bank, it would form part of his estate. It wouldn’t revert to you.”
“Stop it now, by wire, Father,” Hester said.
He nodded.
“I wonder why you didn’t stop it before? Was it because you thought it would still draw attention to your quarrel?”
“Don’t say a word more. Don’t say a word until you get a lawyer,” Moira advised sharply.
Inspector Lewis hesitated. “Do you want a lawyer to be present, Mr Wade?” he asked formally.
“No. I’ve nothing to say except what is true. I have no complaint, if I’m judged on the truth.”
“I’m not here to judge you, Mr Wade. I’m here to try, with your help, to arrive at the truth. If you wish, I’ll wait until you have a lawyer to advise you. Also, if you prefer it, I’ll continue this interview privately.”
“No, let’s continue as we are,” Wade said, shivering, like a penitent who has chosen his own punishment.
“Then we’ll return to Maurice Reid. He decided to fly to Ireland either because he had been assaulted by you, Mr Marryatt, and feared another attack; or because he had your cheque in his pocket, Mr Wade. It might, you know, seem to some people, although not necessarily to me, that it was in both your interests to get rid of him. If it can be proved that he is the man who didn’t fly, I should very much like to know where he is now.” He turned on Marryatt. “The gun,” he demanded in his most formidable voice. “Where is the gun that Harry sold to Maurice Reid?”
“That’s just the kind of question they’re always asking at school,” Prudence said sympathetically.
“School?” Lewis said incredulously.
“Miss Barker-Smith, she teaches us English, she’s always appealing to our honour to make us tell the truth. Then if we’re simple enough to give it to her, she flies at us with lines and detentions. Now we’ve told you the truth, I can see it’s Dartmoor for us.”
“Prudence!” Hester warned faintly.
Lewis turned away.
“The gun?” he repeated.
Marryatt looked more arrogant than ever. “I couldn’t tell you. It’s not my habit to carry a gun. When I came in, this gun was lying on the fireplace. I picked it up. I might have had the idea of putting it out of Maurice’s reach, though I don’t believe he’d ever have had the guts to use a gun. I’m not sure what I did with it, then. I put it down somewhere. On that table, I think.”
Sergeant Young walked across to the table where the drooping roses stood in the blue vase. He touched them reflectively, listening still to the questions and answers.
“It wasn’t here in the morning when you came in this room?” Lewis asked Prudence, speaking to her coldly, like an acknowledged enemy.
“No. Jackie was in here first, you know.”
“Mr Marryatt, why did you come to this house so late on Thursday night?”
“I didn’t come late. I came early, waiting for him. After I left him on the road, I thought a lot about what was the right thing to do. I mean my idea of what was right. It might not be yours,” he added indifferently. “I’d hit him once or twice. It gave me no satisfaction, or not much. I didn’t want to go on with it. Too much like pulping up a frog by hand. But I wasn’t letting him off. I tell you, I saw him on that train in London by chance, and I thanked God for the chance. I hated him. I’ve often dreamt of killing him. That’
s why I followed him down here. You can use the information just as you like. I wouldn’t be giving it to you if I’d killed him.”
“So you thought of what was right—and you decided?”
“I decided I’d run him out of the country, without the Wades’ money to help him. I was waiting to get hold of him, and—and put my point. Then Miss Wade there got me kind of annoyed. I walked out of the house and went back to The Running Fox. I didn’t try to get in quietly. I shouted to the landlord to open up. You think that’s what I’d have done if I’d just killed a man?” He turned on Hester, challenging her to answer.
Moira jumped up. “Oh, do get a lawyer,” she said impatiently.
“You’re putting it too directly again, Mr Marryatt. No one has accused you of anything,” Inspector Lewis said.
“That’s not the way it sounded to me,” Marryatt said angrily.
“You’re quite certain you left the gun in this room?”
Moira arranged her hair with an absent hand, while she studied Marryatt intently. “Don’t answer that,” she advised. “If you’re not careful they’ll be saying you made that noise at The Running Fox, just for an alibi. They’ll be accusing you of coming out again quietly, a little later, of meeting Maurice, when you were supposed to be in bed.”
“Thanks,” Marryatt said. “I’ll remember you tried to help me, when I’m choosing my last breakfast. Have you got any little word of encouragement, Miss Wade?”
He turned his angry glance on her. It was as though he stood alone, hating everyone in the room, and caring nothing for any of them.
“Yes. I have something to say. I don’t know what all this talk of murder is about. I thought all we were trying to do was find out who didn’t fly on that plane. If it’s to be more than that, why shouldn’t you suspect me? I’d as much cause to kill Maurice.”
Sergeant Young turned away from the table and the roses.
“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” he said apologetically.
“Yes, Sergeant Young?” Lewis asked, not taking his eyes from Marryatt.
“There are only sixteen roses here, sir.”
“Roses?” Lewis repeated in amazement.
“Why is it all Maurice? What about Morgan?” Hester demanded. “He was the kind of man who might hide instead of flying.”
Moira shook a smile on to her face.
“What about Harry, while you’re about it? He was a man who never finished what he’d intended to do. He said so himself,” she said, smiling in a kind of triumph at Hester.
“Any minute, now, Mrs Ferguson, I’ll tell you what you should do,” Marryatt said. “Maybe you’re not feeling too good yourself. But lay off other people. And I’ll tell you something while I’m about it, Mr Inspector Lewis. Leave the Wades out of this. I saw him, Wade, crazy to ring the police and give himself up when he hadn’t even killed the man. As for Miss Wade, she wouldn’t have the heart to throw a stone at a rabbit. Another thing. What about giving us a bit of information? You must know something?”
“You’re not on trial, Mr Marryatt. I’m not obliged to produce any evidence.”
“Too right I’m not on trial. So you answer me just one question, not like a policeman, just like a man. You’ve been to that bar in Brickford, where they met. You’ve been to the airport. You’ve heard something. Are you telling me not one of these men has been identified? No one heard one of them call the other by name? I don’t believe it.”
“You’ll have to believe it. Some of their conversation was overheard. One of them did call another by his name. But the man who heard isn’t willing to swear to anything, except the name began with M. It might have been Maurice, it might have been Morgan, it might have been Montmorency, for all we can get out of the witness. At this point, he simply doesn’t know. Being a numerologist, he observed it was the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, and then he simply turned his thoughts away. So we know that either Morgan or Maurice was at Brickford, and presumably went on the plane. But that’s nothing. We know one of them went on the plane anyway. As only one man didn’t fly, the other three did.”
“I don’t believe that’s all,” Marryatt said violently. “They were in a bar. What did they drink?”
“Give me those notes, Sergeant Young. No, I don’t want them all, complete with the three-thirty at Lingfield. I want the extracts.”
Sergeant Young left the roses with a sigh, opened his coat dreamily, and selected a few pages of typescript from his inside pocket. He glanced absently through the pages, stopped for a second to read, then walked across the room, still reading.
Lewis snatched the papers from him.
“They drank whisky. Three. Twice.”
“Were they all whisky drinkers? I had some drinks with Harry. He drank beer,” Marryatt said.
Moira shook herself with an angry tremble, like an old woman remembering an insult. “Oh, come,” she said. “Harry would drink anything he could get free.”
“But he liked beer?”
“I don’t think that’s in any way conclusive,” Lewis said regretfully. “The others drank whisky on occasion, I suppose.”
“Joe did, sometimes,” Moira said. “I don’t propose to answer any more questions about him,” she added quickly.
“I’ve known Maurice to drink whisky,” Wade said.
“And you should just see the bottles in Morgan’s wardrobe,” Prudence said. “So we still don’t know what happened to Maurice.” She turned her frank unembarrassed stare on Marryatt.
“Oh, yes, we do,” Sergeant Young said reproachfully. “We know for a fact Maurice Reid flew in that plane.”
“You know what?” Lewis asked, turning on him massively. “You know it for a fact, Sergeant Young? Tell me how you arrive at this fact?”
“You remember the evidence of this numerologist, the gardener, Benson, isn’t it? You have the notes, sir. Benson said he saw one of our three men offer the others cigarettes out of his case. Here, sir. ‘One of them had some cigarettes and as I walked over with the drinks he offered cigarettes to the others.’ He was then asked if it was a packet or a case. ‘Now you mention it, I’m sure it was a case. Yes, I’d take my oath it was a case… 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 I’m trying to give up smoking myself, so I saw that this man didn’t smoke.’”
Sergeant Young had been reading from the typed pages. Now he stopped, and looked round the room enquiringly.
“Harry smoked. He didn’t have a case. Morgan didn’t have a case? I thought not. But Maurice Reid did? Was it a long silver case?”
“Yes. I remember it. And Uncle Joe didn’t smoke at all.”
“Now just wait a minute. Not too fast,” Moira said huskily, and everyone turned to look at her. “Joe didn’t smoke cigarettes, but he often carried them to offer to other people. He carried them in a silver cigarette case, and I’m quite sure he wouldn’t go to Ireland without that case. So you see, all you’ve proved is—nothing.”
“Why don’t you keep quiet till you get that lawyer to think for you?” Marryatt asked unpleasantly. “It was a good try, anyway, Sergeant. Let’s have some more.”
Inspector Lewis made an impatient movement, and everyone was silent. He sat still for more than a minute, then stretched out his hand and took the pages from Sergeant Young. He read slowly, while they all watched him. Moira made an effort to speak, but Prudence scowled at her so fiercely that she gave up. Lewis began to smile. He looked as though he was apart from them all, enjoying some unique experience, like listening to a crystal set with the only available earphones.
“Sergeant Young was absolutely right,” he said bene
volently. “Maurice Reid flew on that aeroplane. There really is no doubt at all. This passage, Sergeant.” He handed the pages to the sergeant, who read them in a bemused manner.
“Yes, I see,” he said flatly.
Lewis smiled delightedly. “Are you sure you do, Sergeant? Read the passage aloud. Let them all see.”
“‘There was a word about horses and Ireland, but next thing it was accidents and Australia, or it might have been South Africa, then I lost interest.’ When asked what they said about horses: ‘It was only the Grand National.’ When asked about Australia: ‘Nothing about Australia. It might have been South Africa. It was a place like that. No it wasn’t New Zealand. It was South Africa or Australia. I’ll swear to one of them. I’ve a cousin in one and an uncle in the other, so I’m sure of my facts… One of them says to another that reminds me about something that happened to me once. I had a premonition, he says, or words to that effect, when I was in Australia, or South Africa, and you haven’t been there, have you, he says to that other, crushing the opposition. No, says the other, But I have, says the third man, interrupting, Isn’t it time we left?’”
Sergeant Young put the paper down slowly, and stopped to consider what he had been reading. “I’ll have to look at my notes,” he said doubtfully. “No I won’t. I remember. It’s all there. Oh, sir, that’s a very nice piece of reasoning.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Hester said slowly.
“I do. I do!” Prudence cried, “No, wait. I wish I had a pencil.”
“I don’t think I know all the facts,” Marryatt said. “Harry had been in Australia. Had he been in South Africa? No?”
“No, he hadn’t,” Hester said. “Maurice had been in both. Morgan—”
“You told us,” Inspector Lewis said happily. “You told us all of them. Morgan had been in South Africa, but not Australia. Maurice Reid had been in both. And Mr Ferguson—”
“I’ve told you already. Joe had never been in that part of the world,” Moira admitted cautiously.
“So Maurice was one of the three men there, one of the three men on the aeroplane. I follow,” Marryatt said. “So that’s over.” He didn’t specify what he meant. He spoke in a voice that was hard and sharp, like an iron fence erected quickly to keep other people out of his private world. “I’ll be getting along, then. I think I’d like some fresh air.”
The Man Who Didn't Fly Page 19
