He collected his driving coat and made for his battered but reliable car.
Up in his room Saxon Marsh sat peering at the little watery-eyed clerk who stood quaking before him.
“Yes, sir. Hintlesham, sir,” he was saying. “I saw it with my own eyes. Hintlesham in Kent.”
Saxon Marsh hesitated. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if the young policeman had appeared impressed by his masterly imitation of his old acquaintance, Colonel Cream; but Saxon Marsh was above everything discreet, and contented himself with a nod to the clerk and a word to his secretary to fetch his coat and order his car.
CHAPTER XIII
Police Net
DAVID SPED OUT of Westbourne, his ancient but still reliable car settling into her stride for the night’s journey.
On the corner of Head Street, where the bright lights of the town give place to the suburbs, he passed the police headquarters, and the pressure of his foot on the accelerator wavered for an instant in response to an impulse to pause and look in on Inspector Winn.
The big uncurtained windows of his office on the second floor were wide, for the night was very warm. The lights were blazing as David glanced up, and he all but changed his mind and called in.
However, he recollected the length of his journey and the peculiar request for secrecy which the eccentric chief constable had impressed upon him, and, leaving police headquarters behind, he sped on into the darkness just as Saxon Marsh had intended him to.
Meanwhile, the scene in the big airy police office was one so interesting that it was a thousand pities that he had missed it.
Inspector Winn, spruce, sharp-witted, and unfriendly, sat behind his large flat-topped desk. Behind him a young constable, hot but stolid-looking, sat writing at a table in a corner, his helmetless head bent over his work.
Yet another constable, bland and exceedingly square, stood across the doorway, while Sergeant McCabe, a large, sensible person with mild eyes and enormous hands and feet, stood on the hearthrug.
McCabe was Winn’s immediate subordinate, and like his superior officer was considerably excited and exasperated by the Deane case.
One civilian, a visitor to this odd police party, lounged in a chair which had been set for him in the very centre of the room, directly opposite the inspector’s desk.
He was not altogether a prepossessing person, being slight, fair, and insignificant of feature, but at the moment he was very pleased with himself and there was a self-satisfied smirk on his peaky face, while his round black eyes were bright and inquisitive as a sparrow’s.
It was not often that Nifty Martin found himself visiting a police station of his own free will. He was finding it a delightful experience. He had evidently dressed up for the occasion, and his white flannels, if cheap and somewhat fanciful in cut, were at least new and speckless.
He leant back in the chair, his pointed tan-and-white shoes very much in evidence.
But if Inspector Winn was impressed by these sartorial details he did not show it.
“Look here, Martin,” he said, “doesn’t it occur to you that we might think it rather odd that you should keep quiet for twenty-four hours before you come forward with any of this precious information of yours? Why didn’t you come down to see us immediately?”
Nifty Martin looked aggrieved.
“I’ve got me own sweet life to live, Inspector,” he remarked, “without taking on other people’s jobs. I wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t been such a friend of the Major’s. Known each other for years, we had. I was quite cut up when I heard he was dead.”
Winn was contemptuous. “Very touching, I’m sure,” he said. “I suppose you both graduated from Borstal in the same year? But that won’t cut any ice with me. You came here because you hoped to get a reward, and if you put us on the right track I don’t say you won’t get one. But if you’ve got anything to say, out with it, and the sooner the better.”
Nifty Martin rose to his feet, picked up his straw boater, and turned towards the door. The bland constable did not move, and Winn’s voice rapped out like a gunshot:
“Don’t be a fool, Martin. Sit down. You’ve come here to tell your story, and you’re not going until you do.”
Nifty Martin hesitated, but he was a small man, and the room was full of policemen. He fell back on sarcasm.
“Nice lot you are,” he said. “So friendly. So reasonable. When a fellow comes round here with a really useful piece of information, something that’ll save you weeks and weeks of work, how d’you treat him? Like a blinking lord, I don’t think. The way you’re treating me you’d think you’d dragged me in, not I’d come up to you on a friendly visit to give you the lowdown about the death of an old pal.”
Inspector Winn sighed. But if he was a hasty man he was not a complete fool, and he had had some experience of gentlemen of Nifty Martin’s type.
“I assure you we appreciate all you’re doing, Martin,” he said gruffly.
The little man permitted a gratified smile to pass over his face. “Well,” he said, “first of all, you’re on the wrong track completely. You’ve got your bloodhounds out after the wrong man. You think it was Lionel Birch who did the Major in. Well, let me tell you, you’re wrong. It wasn’t, see? I happen to know.”
“Indeed?” Winn drawled. “How do you know so much about it?”
Nifty Martin shrugged his shoulders.
“Unbelieving lot, aren’t you?” he said. “I happen to know because I saw everything—or nearly everything.”
There was a smothered exclamation from Sergeant McCabe, and Winn leant forward.
“Do you mean to tell me you were in the room?” he demanded.
“In the room? Oh dear me no!” Nifty laughed. “If I ’adn’t got a perfect alibi I wouldn’t be sitting ’ere. I’m not barmy. I know enough about the police to expect them to be suspicious. I was in a room on the opposite side of the street, and there’s two or three people who can bear witness that I was there the whole evening. I was kneeling on a couch, leaning on the windowsill in me shirtsleeves, like any other gentleman at the seaside.”
McCabe stepped forward and murmured a word or two in Winn’s ear. A few scattered phrases were audible.
“That little boarding house in White Horse Alley . . . runs along behind the hotel . . . alibi verified.”
Winn nodded testily, and the sergeant withdrew.
It was quite obvious to Winn that Nifty himself could have had nothing to do with the murder, or wild horses would not have forced him to come forward unasked.
The inspector cleared his throat noisily.
“All this you tell me is extraordinarily interesting, Martin,” he said. “Suppose you make yourself quite clear. You say you were leaning out of the window in your boarding house behind the hotel all the evening? What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I was there from nine o’clock until about midnight. Ask my landlady. Ask her daughter. Ask any of ’em.”
“I will,” Winn promised. “Did you see Johnny Deane shot?”
Nifty hesitated. “Well, I did and I didn’t,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you about it. I’d come down to see Johnny, and there were reasons why we couldn’t stay at the same hotel. We were quite friendly, mind. It was just that he had a bit of business on hand, and I promised to keep out of the way although near enough if I was needed, if you see what I mean.”
A grim smile spread over the sergeant’s face, and even Inspector Winn looked down at the papers on his desk. It was evident that Nifty Martin did not wish to go into too many details, and as policemen they could guess what his reasons were.
“Well, I stayed at the boarding house, and I chose a room that overlooked Johnny’s,” said Nifty, gratified that the most awkward part of his story had gone by without question. “On the night that he was killed Johnny was going out to see the man he was doing a bit of business with, and he said to me, ‘I don’t like it, Nifty. I’ve a good mind to throw in me hand.’ I said to him, ‘Don’t d
o anything rash, Johnny,’ but he wouldn’t listen to me, and all he said was, ‘You wait up at the window, and when you see me come in I’ll signal to you how things are going, and perhaps we’ll meet out somewhere for a drink.’ ”
An incredulous expression came into the inspector’s eyes.
“Do you mean to tell me that you waited at your window from nine o’clock until midnight in the hope of Johnny Deane signalling to you to come out for a drink?” he demanded. “Are you sure you’re not just wasting our time?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! Let me get me story out.” Nifty was annoyed. “I wasn’t only waiting for Johnny, if you must know. I was keeping an eye on a gentleman that Johnny was interested in. The same gentleman that’s interested you lately. Mr. Lionel Birch, ’e called ’imself. Johnny wanted me to let ’im know if the old boy was in ’is room when Johnny came back, because ’e wanted to have a word with ’im.”
Winn turned round and looked up at the sergeant, and the two men exchanged meaning glances. Lionel Birch was fitting into the puzzle at last.
“Well, I waited,” Nifty continued. “I waited until close on eleven o’clock, and then I saw Mr. Lionel Birch go into ’is room. It wasn’t so very far off Johnny’s own room, although there was some difference in the numbering, I understand. Anyway, I could just see into it by leaning right out of my window. Fortunately the old boy liked fresh air and kept ’is curtains back and ’is window wide, like you do ’ere, Inspector.
“Well, let me tell you this: Mr. Lionel Birch entered ’is room before Johnny came into ’is, and what’s more ’e didn’t go out of it, because I watched ’im get into bed and lie there readin’. He didn’t seem to realize that ’is room was overlooked from this side of the street, or perhaps ’e never thought about it.”
Winn cut in upon him.
“Of course we’ve only got your word for this, haven’t we?” he said.
“Only mine and me landlady’s,” said Nifty. “Still,” he went on impudently, “I won’t give evidence if you don’t want me to. I’m only trying to put you on the right track, and if it’s the track I know it is, you’re going to sit up before I’ve done.”
In the ordinary way Inspector Winn might have lost interest at this point in the proceedings, but there was something peculiarly interesting in the little man’s voice, and there was a gleam of real shrewdness in the sharp, birdlike eyes.
“Did you see Deane come into his room?” Winn demanded.
Nifty met his eyes. “Yes, I did,” he said. “He came over to the window and signalled to me to wait for a minute. I thought he meant he was coming round to see me, but as I hung there watching I saw him pull his suitcase out from under the bed and start throwing his clothes into it. I didn’t have a very clear view because of the dressing table set across the window in his room, but I could see bits of ’im, if you follow my meaning.
“After a minute or two, while I was standing there watching, I saw ’im leave the suitcase and go over to the door—at least, I imagined it was to the door, I couldn’t actually see it. Then I saw ’im backing slowly with ’is ‘ands ’eld over ’is head. Then ’e disappeared—dropped down out o’ sight. There wasn’t a sound. The fellow used a silencer, I suppose.”
“Did you see the other man?”
“Not too clearly. Only bits of ’im, as I tell you.”
There was no doubt that the man was telling the truth, and the policemen were impressed in spite of themselves.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Nifty continued. “Whoever it was, it wasn’t Lionel Birch,”
“How do you know that?” Winn’s tone was positively belligerent.
“Because I could see ‘im,” said Nifty Martin. “I could see ’im, lying in bed reading, like I told you.”
Winn leant back. “Doesn’t it strike you as being extraordinary, if your story is true, Martin, that you didn’t rush round to see what had happened to your friend?”
Nifty Martin met the other man’s eyes squarely.
“Since my story is true, Inspector,” he said, “it doesn’t strike me as being extraordinary at all. Nor it won’t you, if you think a minute.”
Sergeant McCabe coughed loudly. Nifty had scored a point. Winn leant back in his chair.
“Constable,” he said to the man at the door, “is that girl Ruth Dartle downstairs?”
“Yes, sir. She came over at once when the sergeant phoned through that you wanted to speak to her.”
“Will you bring her up here, then?”
While the man was gone the inspector returned to Nifty.
“As soon as you arrived and told the sergeant that you had a story which might clear Birch I sent for this girl,” he said. “I’d like you to hear what she has to say.”
“Happy, I’m sure,” said Nifty under his breath.
Miss Dartle came in looking even more untidy in her best clothes than in her dressing gown. She was breathless with apprehension and seemed to be in terror that she would be locked up on the spot.
Inspector Winn rose and escorted her to a chair. He fancied he knew how to manage awkward witnesses.
“Miss Dartle,” he said, “it was so good of you to come. I wonder if you’d just repeat the evidence you so kindly gave us last night. It was just before eleven o’clock, if you remember.”
The girl moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
“That’s right,” she said. “Just before eleven o’clock Mr. Lionel Birch met me in the passage at the hotel and asked me the way to Mr. Deane’s room. I’ll swear that, sir.”
A slow smile spread over Winn’s face, and he glanced at Nifty.
“How does that fit in with your story, Martin?” he said. “As far as I can gather from you, Lionel Birch was in his room from half-past ten until after the crime had been committed.”
“So he was,” said Nifty.
“Are you suggesting Miss Dartle is telling an untruth?”
Nifty shrugged his shoulders. “I’d like to ask ’er one question,” he said. “That’s all.”
“Fire away.”
Nifty turned and surveyed the girl slowly.
“Was he in fancy dress, young woman?” he said unexpectedly.
She stared at him.
“Well, yes, of course he was,” she said. “I told you so, Mister Inspector, didn’t I?”
“You did not,” said Winn dryly. “What sort of fancy dress?”
Miss Dartle was quite upset. She burst into tears.
“I was sure I’d told you, and I don’t think it matters anyway. It was a long black dressing-gown thing with a hood. He quite frightened me coming up in the dark passage. I said to ’im that ’e did.”
Winn sighed heavily.
“Suppose you tell me exactly what he said and exactly what you said, as far as you can remember it.”
After some pressing Miss Dartle did as she was requested.
“I said, ‘Oh sir, you frightened me with that ‘ood up,’ and ’e said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just been to a dance at the Arcadian. Didn’t you recognize me? I’m in room fifty.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Mr. Birch, isn’t it?’ and he said, ‘Yes. Can you direct me to Major Deane’s room? He’s an old friend of mine.’ And I said, ‘It’s just along there—number seventy-three, sir,’ and that’s all I remember. Oh dear, have I done anything wrong?”
Some few minutes later, when Sergeant McCabe had conducted the weeping Miss Dartle downstairs, Winn turned to Nifty.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me that the man you saw through the window in Deane’s room was in fancy dress?” he said.
“He had a long black coat affair over his evening clothes,” said Nifty cautiously. “They call ’em dominoes, don’t they? Worn by people who want to join the party but aren’t sporting enough to dress up as Father Christmas.”
Inspector Winn shook his head. “It’s no good, Martin,” he said. “Everything you’ve told us is very interesting, but it’s not evidence, you know.”
�
��All right. Have it your own way.”
Once again Nifty picked up his hat, but again the inspector motioned him to be seated.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I just want to check this. You say that you’re prepared to swear that Lionel Birch was in his room at the same time as Deane was interviewing another man in his bedroom farther along the landing?”
“That’s about it.” Nifty seemed very sure of himself. “It’s not only my word, remember. There was another person, my landlady, looking out of the window at the same time as I was.”
Winn laid down his pencil and looked at the other man steadily.
“Now, Martin,” he said, “suppose we come to hard facts. What prompted you to come here tonight? I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re a conscientious citizen who likes to see justice done? Well, I’m afraid that’s not going to wash. You’ve got a grudge against someone. That’s why you’re here. What is it? Out with it.”
Nifty laughed. “My word, aren’t you clever!” he said derisively. “Smart as paint, you are. You can read the thoughts in the back of a bloke’s mind. . . . ‘The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.’ ”
Winn flushed. It was very difficult to put up with this sort of impudence in front of members of his own staff. Nifty was in an unassailable position, however, and the little man knew it.
“Well, you’re wrong,” he said. “I haven’t come here out of spite. But Johnny was a pal of mine, and, believe it or not, I don’t like to see a fellow getting away with murder just because ’e’s wealthy and because ’e’s got a handle to ’is name. That’s why I’m here. Not but what if there’s a reward going I wouldn’t take it,” he added somewhat hastily.
“Who are you talking about?” said Winn, his curiosity aroused. “You can speak freely, but don’t forget that any unfounded accusations may rebound back on your own head.”
Nifty leant forward in his chair.
“Johnny came down here because ’e was going to do a confidential job for a very wealthy old gent.
It wasn’t the ordinary sort of job, but something very secret. Johnny wouldn’t tell me what it was, but I know ’e thought there was something fishy about it, and it was dangerous.
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