Bones in the Barrow (18 page)

David considered.

“I think,” he said, “the man got the wind up at some stage. Either that, or he is deliberately pursuing Hilton. Those bones in the barrow where Hilton was digging must have been planted on purpose to incriminate him, and no other.”

“Unless Hilton put them there.”

“Yes. That is becoming the police view. But I don't somehow feel it is right. Let us assume Hilton is innocent and speaks the truth. Then he is being attacked in an effort to foist guilt on to him.”

“In that case,” said Jill, “the head is going to be transferred to a place where it will count against Hilton.”

“In fact, to the barrow,” said David, “I think it very likely. The next time Hilton goes there to dig. And who will say, this next time, if it is there and is identified, as it could be from the teeth fillings, that Hilton dug up his own wife's head by chance? Or better, that he buried it by chance for the vicar to dig up?”

“How utterly devilish,” said Jill. “Do you know when Hilton is going to Duckington again?”

“I can find out.”

“We'd better be there. David!”

Her husband looked at her suddenly eager face.

“Got an idea, darling?”

“Don't be so surprised. A splendid idea. Find out when Hilton is going down to dig. Don't tell him, but we both go too, and hide near the barrow.”

“Not too easy in broad daylight. There isn't much cover up there.”

“Is he likely to operate in broad daylight?”

“In the ordinary way, yes.”

“But not in an extraordinary way. That would be done in the dark. We wait until he or someone else comes, and surprise them.”

“What? Jump out and say ‘Boo'?”

“Something better than that. The inspector would have to be there and some policemen too, to make the arrest.”

“I hardly think Johnson is likely to fall in with your simple scheme. But I'll mention it to him. I'm afraid we're likely to have to act on our own.”

And so it seemed as the days went by. David was busy again at St. Edmund's about this time, and had no opportunity to get in touch with Scotland Yard until nearly a week had passed.

Then Johnson rang him up. The chief-inspector seemed to have forgiven him for his piece of individual research. He invited David to come to Whitehall. There was a good deal, he said, that would interest him.

The chief-inspector repeated this as he settled David in a chair at his office.

“Because, you see,” he went on, “old man Harding is a dear old friend of ours. Rags and bones may be on the level, and then again they may not. In Harding's case it's about fifty-fifty. When trade is slack, he helps it along, shall we say? Not the direct job; he's too old and corny for that. But the siftings: the unsaleable stuff: the bits and pieces of clothing pulled out of the drawers to wrap up the jewellery. Push it in the sack and give the old boy something for his trouble. It'll be paper pulp before anyone can catch up on it, no questions asked, no traces in a dustbin or a fireplace to upset the applecart.”

He paused to light a pipe, then pointed the stem at David.

“You should have heard the names he called you, when I had my little conversation with him. Said he was right first off you were a dick, and then you called yourself a doctor, and he didn't like to disbelieve a gentleman.”

“He did, though. He made up his mind, soon after that, I was a crook, and the man who borrowed his cart had double-crossed me.”

“I see. No wonder he felt sore.”

“I suppose you got a lot more out of him than I did?”

“Not so much. Only I was able to insist he didn't do all he did for two quid. Not in these days. The underworld has changed its tariff with the inflation, just like the rest of us.”

“Go on.”

“He kept away in Essex because the man told him he might want the cart for longer than four weeks, and something warned the old boy he was better ignorant of the other's business. I believe him there. He still doesn't have an inkling. He'll throw a fit when he knows what's been carried on his barrow.”

“You've proved it, then?”

“I'll come to that in a minute. There was one other thing of great importance. The man not only gave him the money, but a bundle of rags as well.”

“Rags? Don't you mean a woman's clothes?”

“You thought of that, of course. First thing that crossed my mind. Yes, a couple of old blankets, which he says were sopping wet, as if they'd been washed, but not properly dried, and some torn clothes.”

“Wasn't he suspicious? A complete set of women's clothes, appearing out of an empty house, or at any rate, passed over to him by a man, apparently living alone?”

“It wasn't a complete set. Master Peter is careful. There was a topcoat, a hat, very much the worse for wear, a pair of shoes, and an elastic corset belt. That was all.”

“That would leave only a dress or skirt and jumper or blouse, and the other underclothes, which would take up no room at all in these days of nylon. The dress or skirt would be the only thing of substance to handle.”

“There were sacks on the cart when Mr. Rust arrived at Mrs. Hunt's. No one looked inside them. He'd need to use something thick to wrap the—er—meat in when it was fresh.”

“You're getting hardened,” said David, grimly.

“I'm an old hand. Even so, we needed to be tough. We got our fill in that house.”

David gave a sigh of relief.

“Jill was terrified you wouldn't be there in time. She imagines a sinister hand always destroying the evidence just before we reach it.”

“Not a bad summing up. Old Harding only destroyed those clothes at the end of last week.”

“Last
week
?”

“Just so. He was out of business, wasn't he, till he came back? So before he went away he put the bundle with his other stock. That was something Rust didn't think of. Day by day as he got the remains away piecemeal from that ruined house, day by day as he risked exposure by going back there with the barrow, enough evidence to blow him sky-high was lying in the corner of Harding's basement room.”

“Damn Terry Byrnes!” said David fiercely.

“We have,” said Johnson. “Though he's a good kid, really,” he added with a smile. “He'll never hold out on the police again as long as he lives.”

David was not listening.

“Don't you think it's a bit odd no one in that street noticed what this man was up to?” he asked.

“I bet they did notice. But they don't interfere with one another. That's a rule. Don't get mixed up. Don't get into anything, by mistake or otherwise. Probably thought Rust was carrying on Harding's business while he was away, and they must have known Harding's been sent up from time to time.”

“What evidence, exactly, did you get from that house?”

Chief-Inspector Johnson drew on his pipe for a minute or two.

“Blood stains in the angle of the wood on the windowsill. It must have been washed off the sill and the floor. Blood in some of the plaster scrapings from the chimney. As you suggested it was probably only the head that he hid there. We got one or two dark hairs and traces of tissue that may have been skin from the face or scalp. They are making sections of these. Incidentally the blood was of the same group as the specimens we got in Waterbury Street. The skin and so on was at a much lower level in the chimney than the hair.”

“The head would probably shrink after decomposition of the flesh and with drying in the current of air in the chimney; and then come down some way. I wonder you didn't find more. But perhaps there wasn't much decomposition if the drying process was accelerated.”

Johnson nodded.

“We had those gales after the fogs, if you remember.”

“What else?”

“Human remains in the drainage system. They all try to wash things away, and so much always sticks at the bends. Not enough to cause obstruction or bad smells, but enough for our scientists, thank Heaven.”

David took a deep breath.

“So that settles it,” he said.

But Johnson shook his head.

“It settles very little. Not nearly enough. We've proved Terry was right. There's been a murder in that house, I'd take my oath, and by a man who borrowed a handcart on the very day Mr. Rust took one to Waterbury Street. But we haven't got a body, and I very much doubt we'll ever get anything more than a few poor bones. And we'd never convict on that, even supposing we found the man Rust, who is as shadowy as ever.”

“Not quite,” said David. He repeated the theory he had given to Jill. “Give him enough rope in this mad scheme of his to incriminate Hilton, and he'll hang himself in the end. I'd bet you quite a lot on that.”

Again Johnson shook his head.

“Hilton's my chief suspect,” he said. “I by-pass all your highfalutin stuff.”

“Hilton is not Peter.”

“Prove it.”

“I will if you let me.”

David proposed his scheme. But Johnson would not hear of giving him police assistance.

“Waste of time,” he said. “I'd make myself a laughingstock playing amateur dramatics on the downs in broad daylight. Besides, he'd be warned.”

“Not necessarily. I don't propose to ask Hilton when he's going to Duckington again. There are other ways of finding out without letting him know. And if anyone takes a head to that barrow to plant it for Hilton or the vicar to find, he won't do it in broad daylight.”

“Worse and worse,” Johnson laughed. “Moonlight! Midsummer madness!”

“Quite a good excuse for going up to the downs late,” said David. “Thanks for the idea. And you may have neglected to notice that there won't be a moon next week end. It would be interesting to know if Hilton is going to be away, and who, if anyone, has persuaded him to it?”

There were two ways of finding out if Hilton had any archaeological projects for the near future, David decided. One was to ask him directly, and the other was to ask someone who knew him. Since the housekeeper might be indiscreet, and the only friend of Hilton's he knew of was Basil Sims, he determined to go down to Boxwood, visit Sims's house on some pretext or other, and lead the conversation round to digging. He also decided to take Jill with him: it would make the expedition less formal, and Mrs. Sims had, after all, issued a sort of invitation when he first saw her, and one that included Jill in its rather vague terms.

His heart sank a little as he recalled his encounter with Margaret Sims. He had gone to her house a few days after the burglary at the Willows. He had announced himself as a friend of Hilton's, which was true in intention; a doctor interested in his heart trouble, which was true in fact; and a seeker of news of Felicity. In the course of a conversation as wayward as, though far less brilliant than, the flight of a dragon-fly, he grasped only one helpful fact: that Basil Sims had been confined to the house with tonsillitis the evening before, and the day after, the burglary.

“Anyway, I'm coming, invitation or not,” Jill announced. “How are we going? Car?”

“Unhappily, no,” answered her husband. “They haven't finished tracing the fault in the self-starter. It will be a very expensive trip: we shall have to go by train.”

“You went by train last time.”

“I can't help that. It will mean two return tickets instead of one.”

“Aren't there any day tickets?”

“Starting at four in the afternoon? I should very much doubt it. And not that way round. People are expected to want a cheap day in the Metropolis, bless their deluded hearts, not a cheap day in the country.”

“Suburbia,” said Jill.

“They call it the country, God help them. But it has its advantages; and I don't mean suburbia, I mean going by train. The Simses live reasonably near the station. Nearer than Hilton, though in the same direction.”

“Shall we be seeing him?”

“No. Which means we ought, strictly, not to ring up the Simses. On the other hand it doesn't look so frightfully spontaneous to drop in by train as it would in the car.”

“Very true. So what?”

“I think I will ring them from the station when we get there. I'll think of a story on the way down.”

It was a fairly long story, about a breakdown, and the London garage sending a breakdown van out, and the train up due in half an hour, and could they pay their respects?

Basil wasn't home yet, Mrs. Sims said, if he wasn't on the station now, but please come. Was it too late for tea? Probably. But time for a quick one.

“She's very affable,” said David, leaving the station telephone booth to rejoin Jill. “Quite welcoming. Come along.”

Jill moved forward.

“And leave
Picture Post
behind, unless you've paid for it,” said David.

A polite voice beside them said, “Excuse me, madam,” as Jill turned abruptly. A man was pulling down the front of the station bookstall, to close it for the day.

“Oh, please,” said Jill, diving under the half drawn shutter to replace the magazine she had been reading. She emerged again, rather breathless.

“I'm sure my wife has had quite fourpennyworth of pleasure from that paper,” said David, producing coins. “Even if she has put it back.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the man. He leaned forward in his turn and took out the
Picture Post
again, putting it in David's hand and receiving the money.

Jill and David turned away. At the exit they paused, while David found their tickets.

“It would do,” said Jill, looking back along the platform.

“What would? And what for?”

“It would do for you,” she enlarged, and waved her hand towards the bookstall. “The back view, I mean.”

The newsagent was still closing his stall. He had his back to them, and his build was not unlike David's own.

“Moreover,” said Jill, “I can tell you what he was reading inside his little cubby hole behind the shelves, because I was amusing myself looking through the glass.”