by Alan Hunter
‘Sir . . .?’
He returned to the hall: Warren was leaning over the bannister.
‘Sir, the spare room has been occupied. Someone has stripped the bed.’
It was a small, barely furnished room overlooking the back garden. Sheets and pillowcase had been taken from the bed and dumped carelessly in a corner.
‘Have you handled much?’
‘No sir. And the door stood open.’
‘Tomorrow, have it checked for latents.’
‘Yes sir. I’ll warn the others.’
Next door was the tiny bathroom, also looking to the rear – a five-foot bath, washbasin and a WC, with bare standing room. Also neat, and smelling of lavender. No sponge bag hanging behind the door. No soap, no facecloth, no toothbrush in a glass on the shelf . . .
‘Sergeant!’
‘Yes sir?’
‘Put this on the list.’
But it was a long shot at that.
Then her bedroom across the landing. This was a more interesting room – a handsome bed with a plumply padded headboard, fitted wardrobe and dressing table, and white-and-gilt chairs. Also a bookcase – it was full of classical translations – and a bedside cabinet stuffed with paperbacks. The floor was furnished with a spongy pink carpet and the windows draped in old-rose brocade.
‘What’s in the wardrobe?’
One of the DC’s was seated on the floor, surrounded by drawers. The other had lugged a store box from under the bed and was on his knees, rummaging through blankets.
‘Plenty of clothes, sir . . .’
But also empty hangers, three of them, just inside the door; and among the dresses and skirts, no coat; and no suitcase, no brushes.
The room had a powdery odour, faintly sour, like privet. Of two pictures one was a line drawing, apparently of herself, and unsigned.
An interesting room . . . Yet the component parts were nothing if not commonplace. Perhaps the interest arose from his having just read the poems, stared into the unequal eyes of the writer . . .
Aspall joined him.
‘Not very much here, sir.’
After their expectations, the cottage was a let-down. Its innocence was depressing – all they had found here they might have guessed without crossing the threshold.
‘At least we know now that she left voluntarily.’
‘Well yes, sir, there is that . . .’
And the poem, of course, with its overtones of crisis – though it might equally well refer to a lover’s tiff!
‘Who’s searched the loft?’
No one, it seemed. The entry to the loft was rather awkward: a trap door in the ceiling, more over the stairs than over the landing.
‘Sergeant Warren and one of you . . .’
They fetched a chair and Sergeant Warren mounted. Armed with the hand lamp, he disappeared, and they could hear his wary tread on the rafters. A distant clang doubtless signified a collision between the hand lamp and the plumbing, then there was silence, with only a faint gleam from the lamp visible above.
‘Anything there?’
‘Just a minute, sir . . .’
His voice sounded stifled; one imagined him bent double, his fingers groping through the dust of ages. A moment later his footsteps returned.
‘Someone to take something, sir . . .’
What he handed down was a very dusty Walther ·22 target-pistol.
* * *
It was handed by a pencil inserted in the barrel, and by the pencil Gently took it. But its film of fluffy dust suggested that useful latents would be unlikely. Very delicately, he pressed the catch and eased out the magazine. Loaded, with one shot gone. The shells matched the shell they had found at the scene.
‘Where was it lying?’
A grimy Warren swung from the trap to make a clumsy landing.
‘Over by the tank, sir. I reckon someone slung it there. The dust on the rafters wasn’t disturbed.’
‘What else is up there?’
‘Nothing, sir. Just the tank and a load of muck.’ He flicked at himself distastefully and wiped his blackened hands.
Meanwhile Aspall was staring at the Walther. ‘Look sir . . . on the barrel!’
On the barrel were smeared stains, rusty brown, still tinged with red.
‘Blood . . .’
Small doubt of that! In his haste, the killer had neglected to wipe it. It had been thrown down, to be perhaps forgotten until the wet smears had dried. First, he’d had to get rid of the body, and there couldn’t have been much time. At any moment, after Middleton had left, he could expect the hue and cry . . .
‘Sir, you were right . . .’
Gently grunted. He’d played so many hunches before! But Aspall was staring at the bloodstains as though they were signs and marvels.
‘Chummie must have put the gun to Sternfield’s head . . .’
‘The blood could have got on it afterwards.’
‘My God . . . what did happen out there!’
‘Someone shot Sternfield. With his own gun.’
But Aspall was seeing it for the first time, mirrored there in the brown smears: there was a dazedness in his eyes and his rubbery mouth drooped.
‘Give me a bag.’
Campsey handed him one, together with a label to go in it. Everyone was crowding on the small landing, shoving to get a glimpse of their find. With them, too, it was sinking in – now they were no longer chasing moonbeams! That body they’d been going through the motions of searching for really existed, was to be found . . .
‘Get this to forensic.’
‘Yes sir.’
Warren took the bag and hurried down the stairs.
‘The room at The Fisherman will be the incident room. I want one of you to man the phone.’
One of the DC’s followed Warren. In a moment, they could hear an engine starting. Gently leaned on the landing rail and comfortably filled and lit his pipe.
All was well! The cottage, after all, had yielded its vital clue.
Now he was ready to talk to Rushmere . . . but there was no hurry about that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN FACT IT was after eleven when they bumped down the lane in Campsey’s Panda. A light was still showing, however, in the bird warden’s red-curtained window. He must have heard the car, because the curtain twitched, and there was a brief glimpse of his curious face. Then, at Gently’s rap, the door flew open and they found themselves staring into the muzzle of a shotgun.
‘Stand back or I fire!’
‘We are the police, Mr Rushmere.’
‘I don’t know that. Stand back! If you’re a policeman, show your warrant.’
He must have recognized Gently by now, but the gun remained pointed firmly. And the eyes, apparently so inadequate by day, seemed now to be functioning in their proper element. When Gently moved his hand to his pocket the muzzle shifted, covering.
‘Hold it to the light.’
On the wall behind Rushmere a small oil lamp glimmered. Gently thrust the warrant towards it. The birdman barely gave the paste board a glance.
‘So what do you want – at this time of night?’
‘Couldn’t we talk inside, Mr Rushmere?’
‘No we can’t – till I know your business! And you’ve no right to force your way in.’
‘We think you can help us with information.’
‘What – it needs four of you for that?’
‘Also, we have a warrant to search the premises.’
‘That’s very likely. Who would give you one?’
Gently shrugged and presented the search warrant. This time Rushmere’s perusal was keener. But his gaze was divided between it and Gently, and the muzzle of the shotgun kept thrusting.
‘And if I say you can’t?’
‘We shall enter anyway.’
‘Don’t think I shall hesitate to pull this trigger. What you are doing is most irregular. You aren’t supposed to come here in the middle of the night.’
Campsey eased
forward into the lamplight. ‘Now you know me, Mr Rushmere,’ he said. ‘All this business is quite in order. You don’t have to keep us out with a gun.’
‘I don’t know these other men!’
‘They’re policemen, sir. I wouldn’t be here with them if they weren’t. And that’s my car down at the gate. And that gun isn’t loaded, sir – is it?’
And suiting action to words, the excellent Campsey held out his hand and took the gun. Unhurriedly he broke it. The breech was empty. He snapped it shut and gave it back to Rushmere.
‘But I still regard this as gratuitous harassment!’
He had backed off now into the cottage’s parlour. It was a room of character, perhaps made the more so by being lit only by an antique brass lamp. A log fire smouldered in the brick hearth and books crowded among the shadows. On the table under the lamp lay an open sketch pad, surrounded by tubes, brushes, palette and pots. A warm room: it struck you with its atmosphere of woodsmoke and paraffin oil.
‘Are you living alone here?’
‘What? Of course!’
‘Then you won’t mind if we begin the search.’
‘Oh yes I do—!’
‘We shall take great care. Your belongings will not be unnecessarily disturbed.’
He stood glaring helplessly while they dispersed and began methodically to take the cottage apart. Not that it was an easy one either, when there was no lighting in any of the rooms! Gently strolled through. A cold-water kitchen, with a zinc bath hanging on the wall – the sink a qualified antique, and pemmon floor tiles that smelled of carbolic. Then the bedroom, cold as nip, and no sign of any heater: a single bedstead with coloured blankets and, lying on them, a sleeping bag. Tidy, bleak and primitive described the bird-warden’s cottage. All the comfort was in the parlour: to the parlour Gently returned.
‘So have you pried round everywhere?’
Gently shrugged and went to warm himself at the fire. ‘Do you mind if I smoke . . .?’
‘Does it matter if I do mind?’
The birdman was quivering with frustrated rage.
Gently lit his pipe from the fire: a jar of spills stood in the grate. He stood puffing, gazing round the room. It was certainly a hotchpotch of a place! In one corner stood a roll-top desk smothered with leaflets, notebooks, letters; in another a small bench with an embossing press, boxes, and an unusual pair of pliers. And books . . .! Mostly on ornithology, with Witherby holding pride of place. But no pictures. A Scotsman calendar was all that decorated the distempered walls.
Gently nodded to the sketch pad. ‘You’re an artist, then.’
‘What can that matter to you?’
‘In Miss Stoven’s bedroom hangs a drawing of herself. I suppose it wouldn’t be one of yours?’
Rushmore checked, his eyes searching. ‘When were you in that room?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘She . . . she’s back, then?’
Gently puffed and moved to the table.
‘Yes . . . this resembles the style. Same feeling and quality of line. With a faint echo of Beardsley. She’s an admirer of Beardsley, isn’t she?’
‘Is she back?’
‘Of course, in this job . . . these are the avocets, aren’t they? I mean, you can spend all day taking notes . . . and who’s to bother you of an evening?’
‘Will you answer me!’
‘Where’s your bird register?’
‘My what?’
‘Your record of bird movements. You keep one, don’t you?’
Rushmere’s mouth gaped and he rocked slightly, his fingers snatching.
‘Yes, I keep one! What about it?’
‘Over here is it – on the desk . . .?’
The birdman moved smartly to grab for a plastic-bound notebook, but somehow Gently’s hand got there first.
‘Yes . . . this is what I was after. This would be part of the job, wouldn’t it? Keeping an eye on the bird population, movements, numbers, departures, arrivals . . .’
‘Just give it here!’
‘No – wait. Look, you’ve missed something out on Saturday. Movements of geese, waders, buntings etc. – but no mention of the stork.’
‘So I didn’t record it!’
‘Why not? Wasn’t it the high spot of the day?’
‘It – it didn’t actually enter the reserve. It was on some fields, out behind here.’
‘I see. Where only you would have seen it.’
‘Perhaps you’re forgetting Miss Stoven.’
Gently tossed the notebook back on the desk. ‘No, I’m not forgetting Miss Stoven. But I can’t help wondering about the value of her evidence. Do you think I should rely on it?’
‘What – what has she said?’
‘That’s just the problem,’ Gently mused. ‘She hasn’t said anything. Miss Stoven is as silent as the grave – she couldn’t say less if she were dead.’
Rushmere jerked his face away. ‘She hasn’t come back, has she?’ he said. ‘You’re trying to bluff me, that’s all. You think I may say something that will damage her.’
‘Is there any way she can be damaged?’
‘At least, you seem to think so! Haven’t you just been searching her cottage?’
Gently stared at him. And nodded.
The fire had been allowed to burn low, but there was a basket of sawn logs by the hearth. Gently selected a fat cylinder of pine and set it squarely in the ashes. Rushmere watched. His eyes were very distant. Little blue flames began to play along the log.
‘Why don’t we sit down . . .?’
From above came the occasional tramp and voice of a searcher. Down here the atmosphere had a sort of thickness, a texture contributed by the lamp.
‘Why should I?’
‘There’s talking to do . . .’
‘But I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
‘Oh yes. You’ve got more to tell me about what happened at Miss Stoven’s on Saturday.’
‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘Take that chair. We may as well have our chat in comfort.’
The birdman gave a pettish little shrug, then plonked himself on the chair. Gently sat too. He relit his pipe and dropped the spill in the flames. For a while he sat gazing at the log, from which yellow resin had begun to ooze.
‘Now . . .’
‘You’re simply wasting your time!’
‘Just tell me exactly when you got to her cottage.’
‘I did tell you – around two o’clock.’
‘No . . . I mean the time when you really got there.’
Rushmere sat back with an affronted expression. There was something quite childish about his beaky face, a sulky naivety. And because of those eyes, you felt he was somehow out of reach . . .
‘All right, then! It could have been a little earlier.’
‘Did Sternfield know you were going to call?’
‘Sternfield . . .? Who is Sternfield?’
‘Miss Stoven’s ex-boyfriend from Wimbledon.’
His mouth gaped open. ‘This is fantasy!’
‘It was him you were going to see, wasn’t it? Once we’ve got rid of the stork-that-wasn’t and an alibi that wouldn’t fool a child?’
‘But that’s pure invention!’
‘I invented Sternfield?’
‘Yes – I know nothing of any such person.’
‘What’s in those boxes standing on the bench?’
‘What – what? They’re aluminium blanks!’
Gently rose and went to the bench. The boxes contained strips in several sizes. He placed one in the press and operated the lever: the strip came out embossed with letters and figures.
‘For ringing the birds . . .?’
‘Exactly!’
‘And these are the pliers you put them on with?’
‘If it’s any concern of yours . . . yes!’
‘When did you last ring birds in the Priory Wood?’
‘I . . . I . . .!’
He jumped to his feet a
nd took several quick steps away from the hearth. For some moments he stood in the shadows, his face turned towards the wall.
‘You’re trying to trap me!’
‘Come and sit down. You do ring birds in the wood, don’t you?’
‘Yes I do – and why shouldn’t I?’
‘No reason at all. So sit down.’
After another pause he swung round defiantly and strutted back to his chair. Gently returned with one of the blanks. He puffed a few times, toying with it.
‘When were you last in the wood, then?’
‘I don’t recall when I was last in the wood.’
‘You’d carry these about in your pocket, would you? I mean, it would be easy to drop one.’
Rushmere clamped his lips tight.
‘In a way, it would be a sort of signature. Nobody else in the village carries these strips, so where we found one, you must have been.’
‘But that proves nothing! I’m often in the wood.’
‘Of course. No reason for it to have been Saturday.’
‘Then why are you hounding me?’
‘We found it behind bushes, just off the track. Where someone might have hidden.’
‘It still – proves nothing!’
Gently puffed. ‘So let’s get back to Eric Sternfield.’
Rushmere’s eyes gazed into nothing, and his small mouth became smaller. Half-lit, half-shadowed, his face looked grotesque: more like a blunt-beaked bird’s than ever. His hands, large but fine boned, were draped angularly across his thighs.
‘Well . . .?’
‘I’ve nothing to say!’
Gently nodded, nostrilling smoke. ‘He’d slept at her cottage a couple of nights. He came here on Thursday. Did you know that?’
‘I know of no such person.’
‘We found his letters. She’d kept them all, tied up with a ribbon. Very emotional. They must have been close, back in the old days at Wimbledon. She was his goddess, he was her shepherd . . . ridiculous, except to those concerned!’
‘I don’t want to hear that!’
‘He was younger, of course – a matter of five years between them. But no woman minds being regarded as a goddess, especially one who saturates herself in Keats. I’d say – from the letters – that he didn’t want for encouragement. He’d found the key to which she responded.’
