Case for Sergeant Beef

by Bruce, Leo

  ‘Footprints, you said,’ prompted Beef.

  ‘Yes. They were interesting. There were the dead man’s coming from Barnford and stopping short on the footpath about half-way across the clearing. There were Jack Ribbon’s coming from Barnford and turning off to go to the tree on which he sat down for a smoke that night before he found the corpse. And the only other ones were-guess!’

  ‘Joe Bridge’s,’ I said at once, remembering how astutely I had already secured his name as a suspect.

  Chatto positively goggled at me.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

  ‘Never mind Mr Townsend,’ said Beef rudely. ‘He’d say anything.’

  ‘I’m interested,’ the inspector told him. ‘We have heard about this young Joe Bridge. Had a row with Shoulter, didn’t he? Know any more?’

  I had to admit that at present I did not know any more.

  ‘Well, there were some of Bridge’s. But it looked as though he had simply walked down the path from Copling. There were some more interesting ones than that. The footprints we particularly noticed were those of Miss Shoulter. the dead man’s sister. And your client,’ he added with a rather malicious smile.

  ‘Were they new?’ said Beef. ‘When had it rained last?’

  ‘Night of the twenty-third – twenty-fourth,’ said Chatto. ‘These had all been made on Christmas Eve. Of course,’ he conceded as though he wanted to be kind. ‘Of course the clearing could have been approached by other ways which would have left no footprints at all. You could come up between the trees and if you were careful and avoided patches of mud you wouldn’t need to leave a mark.’

  ‘I see. Now what about this Shoulter?’

  ‘The dope on him is coming in every day. Masses of it. No good at all. Goes in for professional punting and has been mixed up with some pretty shady lots on the racecourse. Started as a chemist. Was bookie’s clerk for a time. A drunk and a sponger. He was a parents’ darling as a child and when the old people died went rotten. Ran through what they left him and did his best to get the little bit left to his sister. One report says that he’s not above blackmail. No loss, and anybody’s victim.’

  ‘How long had he been in Barnford?’

  ‘Arrived that morning from London on a train that gets in at two-fifty. Too late for a drink, but went to the back door of the Feathers and asked the landlord, a man named Brown, if he could have one. Brown says he refused and that Shoulter walked off at once. But of course we can’t be sure about that. He may have sat there drinking all the afternoon. We only know for certain that he came off the train at two-fifty. No one except Brown admits to having seen him alive again.’

  ‘I see,’ said Beef. ‘That’s all very clear and interesting.’

  ‘There’s a lot more stuff,’ said Chatto.

  ‘Yes. I was just going to ask about the gun.’

  ‘Your client’s again,’ smiled Chatto. ‘But she did report to the police about seven days before the crime that she had lost it. Taken from her front hall. Says she had no idea when it went. The last time she had seen it to her knowledge was when her brother had been down a month ago. He had taken it out one afternoon to try and get a rabbit. She can’t be sure that he put it back in its usual place in the hall. She only knows that about a week before Christmas she noticed that it wasn’t there. She asked young Ribbon and he said that he hadn’t seen it for some days. The last time he positively remembers seeing it was when she told him to clean it once in October. He put it back after that.’

  ‘What about cartridges?’

  ‘Potter’s Fesantsure were in the gun,’ said Chatto. ‘The local firm, Warlock’s of Ashley, say that they supplied these to most of the people round here who had licences. That includes Miss Shoulter, a man named Flipp who lives in the wood, a retired watchmaker named Chickle who lives at a bungalow called ‘Labour’s End’ at the Barnford end of the footpath through the wood, a solicitor named Aston with an office in Ashley and a bungalow at Copling, and your friend Joe Bridge.’

  ‘Any interesting fingerprints?’

  ‘None. The gun had been wiped dry and then gripped by the dead man, presumably after death by someone holding his hand round the barrel. None on anything else that we’ve found. Gloves, of course.’

  ‘Any idea when the shots were fired?’

  ‘Pretty contradictory. Both Flipp and a woman named Mrs Pluck who is housekeeper to Chickle, whose first name, by the way, is Wellington -’

  ‘Wellington?’ shouted Beef.

  ‘Wellington. After the Iron Duke.’

  ‘Blimey, you haven’t half got some names round here.’ And he gave a rude stare at Watts-Dunton.

  ‘I was saying that Mrs Pluck, Flipp, Chickle himself and Miss Shoulter say they heard a double shot at about twenty past three. Mrs Pluck, Miss Shoulter, and Flipp heard the same thing about an hour later, but Chickle says that was himself potting at a hare. Then Chickle and Mrs Pluck, but not Miss Shoulter or Flipp, heard another shot, which might have been two barrels fired simultaneously, at exactly six-five. They’re sure about the time as Chickle was putting away his gardening things just then and called Mrs Pluck’s attention to the fact that someone was poaching.’

  Mm. Now what I’d like to know is this. Suppose Shoulter was shot with the gun he was holding, is there anything to make us certain of that? Could he have been shot with one gun, then this one discharged and put by him by the murderer?’

  ‘He could. Nothing to prevent it. But no reason to think so. Why should the murderer use two guns?’

  ‘I was wondering perhaps whether Shoulter borrowed his sister’s gun last time he was down and had it with him that afternoon. She can’t swear to seeing it since he was in the house before. The murder might have been done with another gun, then this one fired off in the air and used to fake the suicide.’

  ‘Conceivable,’ agreed Chatto. ‘And it had occurred to me. There’s nothing final against it, but two reasons why I don’t think it’s likely. First the ticket-collector remembers seeing Shoulter when he got off the train but does not remember his having a gun. He says he believes he had a golf bag, so I admit it could have been in that, but it doesn’t seem very likely. However, I still have an open mind. The second reason is that none of the double reports heard came near enough to one another. I mean, if he was going to fake it to look like suicide he – or she – would surely attend to that at once. There was nearly an hour between the first double report and the second, and an hour and a half between the second and third.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Beef slowly. ‘If it was premeditated, and someone knew Shoulter would be coming off that train and walking up to his sister’s house, he could have fired the barrels of Miss Shoulter’s gun the day before in readiness.’

  ‘True – though there are a lot of ifs. And why would he do that? Why not use the gun first for the murder, then leave it there for the faked suicide?’

  ‘No reason. I was just looking all round, if you know what I mean. How about alibis?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t touched on that much, as we haven’t got a suspect yet. Of the people who lived round about, for what they’re worth, very few have an alibi for much of the time, and none for all of the time. Miss Shoulter went out on her bicycle at about four and says she went to Copling (which you can reach by road from her place). She went to post a letter and can’t remember whom she may have met, if anyone. Joe Bridge was with his cowman till about five, then drove off in his car. He was in the Crown soon after opening-time, which is six o’clock around here. Aston, the solicitor -’

  ‘Why have you got him in?’ asked Beef.

  ‘Well, he has a gun, some Fesantsure cartridges, and he is a solicitor.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make him a murderer, surely? Though I dare say there’s many a solicitor must feel like murder with the silly things people come to them with.’

  ‘No. But it does mean that he might have had red tape in his pocket,’ said Chatto, and left this to sink in.
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br />   ‘Yes,’ said Beef after a moment. ‘And who else?’

  ‘Little Mr Chickle left his house at three-thirty, and was back at ten to five. His housekeeper’s a sort of walking alarm clock, and notices all his times of coming and going. Then Mrs Pluck went off to the pictures in Ashley at six-thirty and young Jack Ribbon finished work at four. Flipp has no one to testify to his movements at all. His. wife’s away and he’d let their servants, two sisters from Ashley, go home for Christmas. Says it was his only chance of keeping them for another month or two. He says he was indoors all day. Never left his house at all. Of course you understand these are not our suspects. They’re really the only people whose movements could seem of the least possible interest. You may find some more whom we’ve not yet come on.’

  ‘Who are your suspects?’ asked Beef.

  Chatto hesitated.

  ‘Frankly,’ he said at last, ‘we haven’t any. Of course, Miss Shoulter’s footprints do take some explaining, and she’s not helpful. She says that she never used the footpath that day. The only time she went out was on her cycle. Quite positive about it, she is. A very downright woman. But I don’t suspect her. I cannot see what possible motive she could have had. Shoulter had no money. And she appears to have been quite fond of the wretched man.’

  ‘Then the police,’ I put in with a disarming smile, ‘are what the newspapers called baffled?’

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Chatto complacently. ‘But I think we shall get at something from the other end, as it were. When we’ve learnt all there is to learn about the dead man we shall know that someone here had a motive. We shall start from there. Motive’s the thing, every time. You can’t go wrong if you find the motive.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Beef. ‘Only sometimes there’s a lot of motives, and a lot of people with them.’

  ‘Yes, there is that,’ admitted Chatto.

  Beef stood up.

  ‘Very grateful to you,’ he said. ‘And now I suppose I get to work. But I’ve got no big ideas, inspector. In fact I’ve got only one idea at present, and it’s this. I think we’re going to find this case a lot more difficult and a lot more interesting than it looks. Anyway, I’ll come and see you again. And if I should hit on anything I shan’t forget that you’ve let me in on this.’

  Inspector Chatto gave us his ready little smile again. But my ears burned when I thought what he must be saying to Constable Watts-Dunton about Beef when we had left the house.

  Beef disgusted me further by turning back to the Crown.

  ‘Quite enough for to-day,’ he said. ‘I want to think. Besides, it’s opening time.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Flipp was not at Home

  BUT Beef was up and busy early next morning as is his infuriating habit. He will let everything wait overnight while he plays his eternal darts and drinks his beer, then expect me to start the day’s work with all the cheerfulness and enthusiasm of a young boy.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, while I was still sitting at the breakfast table. ‘We’ve got to go and see Miss Shoulter.’

  I rose unwillingly and we started off for Deadman’s Wood. We had learnt from willing informants in the bar on the previous evening, informants whom Beef had tried to impress with talk of ‘private investigations’, that we could reach her bungalow by the fatal footpath, passing first ‘Labour’s End’, the home of the retired watchmaker with the absurd name, and then the spot where the crime had actually been committed.

  On our way through the village we met Inspector Chatto who gave us a friendly greeting.

  ‘On the job, eh?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Beef. ‘There was one point I wanted to ask you about. Those footprints. You said they were Miss Shoulter’s. What made you so sure? Was there something special about them which corresponded to a pair of her shoes?’

  Chatto laughed outright.

  ‘Wait till you see her feet!’ he said. ‘Couldn’t mistake ‘em. I doubt if there’s another woman in the county who takes that size.’

  ‘Large, are they?’

  ‘Large? You’ve never seen such plates of meat in your life. The footprints were hers, all right. Rubber soles which she always wears, I understand, and an outsize. But women’s shoes with semi-high heels.”

  ‘I’ve got you,’ said Beef, and we walked on.

  We passed ‘Labour’s End’ and noticed an old gentleman at work in his garden.

  ‘That must be Wellington Chickle,’ I whispered.

  ‘We’ll see him later,’ promised Beef. ‘It’s Miss Shoulter I want to talk to now.’

  We were stopped again by our arrival at what Beef called ‘the Spot’. It was a pleasant place. It seemed a pity that it should have been defiled by a brutal crime. It was a clearing about twelve or fifteen yards wide, and the path ran right across it. To our left as we walked was a fallen tree, about six yards back from the path on the verge of the wood itself. It was behind this that the corpse had been found.

  There was nothing to see here now, as Beef himself admitted, for it was nearly a week since the murder, and dozens of people had tramped about since then. There were some scratches about six feet from the ground in the bark of a tree to our right which had been marked with chalk, and Beef decided these had been caused originally by shot and examined by experts.

  ‘They can tell the distance from them,’ he remarked. And when he had gazed long at the wood about us he added that anyone could have approached the spot without using the path, and left no footprints at all.

  We stood there in silence for a long time, and I wondered whether Beef was expecting a flash of inspiration to descend on him and reveal the murderer’s identity. I asked him as much.

  ‘No. Just thinking,’ he said, and we walked on.

  Miss Shoulter greeted us from her kennels in her ringing voice.

  ‘Hullo!’ she shouted, and when she had joined us at the gate, added, ‘I’m glad you’ve come. The damn fools think it’s me now.’

  Beef took this very seriously.

  ‘Inspector Chatto’s no fool,’ he said. ‘And what makes you think he suspects you?’

  ‘Tell it a mile off,’ said Miss Shoulter, slapping her jodhpurs with a stick. ‘Keeps asking me what I was doing in the wood that day. Never went near the place.’

  ‘Do you think there is somewhere we could go to talk a little more discreetly?’ I asked, hoping she might take the hint and lower her voice.

  ‘Not a soul here except Ribbon and he’s all right. My kennel-boy, you know. Came on the body on his way to church.’

  ‘Yes, but others might be within earshot,’ I said, lowering my own voice as an example to her. I was thinking privately that earshot was a wide term when it referred to Miss Shoulter’s vocal powers.

  ‘Come in then,’ she invited. ‘No one in the house. Haven’t got any servants.’

  ‘Expensive, aren’t they?’ suggested Beef.

  ‘It’s not that so much. Between you and me I could have afforded a good many things I did without. It was that brother of mine. I had to pretend to be broke or he’d have had it out of me. He couldn’t keep money, poor chap….’

  ‘We’ll come to that in a minute,’ said Beef. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you first. I understand that you engaged me because the police thought your brother’s death was suicide and you wanted this disproved. Well, I am breaking no confidence when I tell you that the police are now convinced that it was not suicide, and that at the inquest to-day there will probably be a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown. So perhaps you’ll no longer require my services.’

  ‘Good Lord, yes,’ said Miss Shoulter. ‘I tell you the fools think I did it. I don’t want to face a murder charge. You’d better keep going and find out who did do it.’

  Beef coughed.

  ‘In that case you understand that what I shall be looking for is the truth. I could not undertake a case with any special axe to grind.’

  Miss Shoulter laughed.

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nbsp; ‘That’s all blah,’ she said. ‘I’ve read that stuff in detective novels. You know perfectly well I didn’t do it.’

  S.B.— 3

  ‘You’ll forgive my pointing out that we know nothing of the sort,’ I put in. ‘Of course we don’t think you did it. But what Sergeant Beef wants to say is that he will bring to book whoever murdered your brother.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Miss Shoulter. ‘Now ask what questions you like.’

  ‘There are rather a lot, I’m afraid,’ said Beef. ‘First of all about the footprints -’

  ‘Footprints?’

  ‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have mentioned that. But the police found footprints near the place where the body was found which corresponded to your own.’

  Miss Shoulter stared.

  ‘Must have been old ones,’ she said.

  ‘It rained the night before.’

  ‘Can’t have been mine then. Yet I should have thought my feet were pretty unmistakable. I have to have my shoes made specially.”

  ‘Exactly,’ I murmured.

  ‘But I didn’t go down the wretched path. Dammit, I’d tell you if I did.’

  Beef spoke slowly.

  ‘In that case there’s only one possible explanation and it makes this crime look uglier than ever. Have you ever missed a pair of shoes?’

  ‘No. Can’t say I have.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d just go and check on what you’ve got.’

  ‘That’s easy. I’ve only got three pairs.’

  She left us.

  ‘Do you think she’s lying?’

  ‘No,’ said Beef. ‘She’s speaking the truth.’

  She was soon back.

  ‘None missing,’ she said.

  ‘Think back carefully, now. Over the last year, say.’