Dead Man's Quarry (28 page)

There was a silence. John looked through a gap in the trees over the sloping fields to the far blue hills. For a moment he was daunted. But then he saw Morris Price again as he had seen him at the inquest—arrogant, ill-tempered, baffled and at bay.

“Thank you, Syd,” he said quietly at length. “I think I have been rather shutting my eyes to what we're up against. You've made me realize there's no time to lose.”

Rampson threw away his cigarette and looked at his friend, half smiling, half frowning.

“No time to waste in what?”

“In finding the murderer.”

Rampson sighed, laughed, shook his head and turned back to the wheel.

You see,” said John, “I just can't believe that Morris Price is the murderer, and that's all about it. Until the inquest I was inclined to think he had done it. Half-way through the inquest, I was uncertain. But at the end, you remember, when he told the foreman of the jury not to be a fool, I was sure that he was innocent. He wasn't acting. And there was something in his face— stupefied and yet indignant—that seemed to me simply to shout his innocence. I can't forget it.”

“I'm sure I hope you're right,” said Rampson, as the car slid forward. As for me, I've got no choice but to think him guilty, and that's why I've decided to go back to London to-morrow. I've been trying hard to see some solution of the case that wouldn't involve Morris Price, and I can't. And for me, that raincoat and cigarette-end we found on the Forest simply clinch matters. And I don't feel very comfortable, living under what I suppose is his roof and thinking him a murderer. So I'm off, John. It's high time I was back, anyhow.”

“We'll see,” replied John. “I'm going up to London myself to-morrow. But I rather wanted you to stay at Rhyllan and hold the fort for me. We'll talk it over later. That's Hereford, I suppose. We must be nearly there.”

The Queen's Arms proved to be a fair-sized, rather florid-looking hotel facing on the market square. John left Rampson in the car and went up the steps into a small square lounge full of wicker chairs and tables. A Sabbath peace brooded over the place. A porter who had been standing with folded arms contemplating the barometer sprang to life as John approached, and the young woman in the booking-desk raised a dreamy eye from the novel she was reading. After a cursory glance at the two of them, John decided on the porter. He had a jovial, intelligent and essentially tippable face. John beckoned to him.

“Can you tell me where I can get some petrol?”

A look of faint surprise came into the porter's pink and healthy face. He glanced across the square.

“There, sir. At the petrol station.”

“Oh, yes, so I can. Wait a minute. There's something else I want to ask you. We may as well come straight to the point.” John put his hand into his trouser-pocket and the man's natural expression of good-humour became accentuated.

“Willin' to tell ye anythink I can, sir. But I ain't the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”

His accent struck gratefully on John's ears. The cockney was a good observer.

“You're a Londoner, aren't you?”

“Wish I'd stayed there. This place gives me the 'oly blues. Not the 'otel, I don't mean,” he hastened to add, scenting a possible visitor, “but the town. But a job's a job in these days, and it ain't so bad in the summer. What was it you wanted to arst me, sir?”

“Were you on duty here last Monday afternoon?”

The other stared, then laughed.

“Funny thing! You're the second as 'as arst me that!”

“Oh?”

“A copper with a face as long as me arm came in 'ere yesterday, and arst me that very identical question. 'E didn't give me nothink for answerin' of it, though.”

“Oh!” John thought rapidly. Was Superintendent Lovell also following up the movements of the mysterious Clytie Price? Or had Morris broken his silence and given an account of his doings in Hereford? The porter's next remark seemed to dispose of the second question.

“You ain't the tall, dark gent as the copper was looking for, are yer, sir? No, I see you ain't. You ain't old enough. Wanted to know, 'e did, if a tall, dark gent'd bin in 'ere on Monday afternoon. Well, we 'ad a good many people in on Monday afternoon, as it 'appened, and tall, dark gents as thick as fleas on a pillow. So 'e whips out a photograph and shows me. ‘No,' I ses, ‘I ain't ever seen a face like that, to my knowledge.' And Miss 'Arfitt she ses the same. So then 'e wants to know if there's bin a big green car, a Daimler, outside the 'otel. ‘There may a bin, or there may not,' I ses, ‘but if there was, I never seen it.' So 'e didn't get nothink out o' me.”

The porter grinned and seemed rather to relish his inability to supply the police with information.

“Answerin' questions and answerin' questions,” he remarked, “an' all you gets at the end is a nod. Is it the same tall, dark gent you're after, sir?”

“No. I'm after a tall, middle-aged lady, probably dressed in black, with ear-rings and probably a veil over her eyes, who was here at three o'clock on Monday afternoon.”

The porter pondered, scratching his chin.

“Now was it Monday? It was a busy day, I know. Yes, you're right, it was Monday. There was a lady like you've described sittin' 'ere in the lounge, smokin' and 'avin' coffee and liqueurs all the early part of Monday arternoon. All by 'erself, she was, I remember noticin' 'er. She arst me for a match. She 'ad lunch 'ere, I fancy. She was sittin 'ere from two o'clock till about three. And then suddenly, off she went, and dropped a lighted cigarette on the floor, she was in such an 'urry. Sittin' in that chair and looking out o' the door all the time she was, not readin' nor nothin'. And then she seemed to see a friend or somethin' in the square, and up she gets and off she goes. She'll be the lady you're after, depend on it. A tall, 'ansome lady, with big eyes and ear-rings and a lot o' powder and scent. No chicken.”

“Thank you.” Two half-crowns passed from hand to hand. “Did the policeman who came here ask you anything about a lady?”

“No, sir, thank you, sir. A tall, dark gent was all 'e wanted, and 'e seemed to want 'im very bad. But 'e didn't get 'im. Not out o' me 'e didn't.”

Clytie Price, it seemed then, had not yet appeared upon Superintendent Lovell's horizon. His inquiries at the hotel for news of Morris were probably part of a routine investigation of the prisoner's movements.

“Just one thing more,” said John, turning back as he was about to depart. You had a party of cyclists staying here last Sunday night, didn't you?”

“Lor bless yer, sir, we'ad the gentleman who's bin murdered—Sir Charles Price an' 'is party! Didn't know it at the time, we didn't, owing to the rooms bein' booked in the name o' Dr. Browning. But we seed it in the papers two days arterwards. Emma, Miss Harfitt, that is, you could a knocked 'er down with a feather. And I 'ad a bit of a turn, thinkin' o' them all 'ere so frisky an' jolly, and then that to 'appen. 'Ad breakfast early, they did, and I fetched their bikes round sharp at eight o'clock, and orf they went. And then to think of what was to come! Poor chap! There don't seem much doubt about who did it, do there, sir? Funny thing, when I read in the paper about the wrong bike bein' found in the quarry, I thought to meself, well, p'raps young Smiler's right after all.”

Young Smiler?”

“Lad as works 'ere—runs messages and that. Funny thing, 'e 'ad 'is bike stolen the same morning, and in 'e comes, all red in the face an' near cryin', an' ses the nobs have gone off on 'is bike by mistake. But I knew they 'adn't, 'avin' wheeled their bikes round from the shed meself, and knowin' young Smiler's bike by sight. Obstinate, 'e was, and 'e would 'ave it 'e'd left 'is bike a-standin' alongside o' the others, and one of them 'ad took it by mistake. ‘Well,' I ses, ‘use yer eyes, me lad,' I ses, ‘if one of them 'as took it by mistake, where's the bike they mistook it for? And use yer sense, me lad,' I ses, ‘none of them didn't go off ridin' two bikes at once.' ‘Did you see 'em?' 'e ses, obstinate-like. And as it 'appened, I 'adn't actually seen 'em go, bein' called inside to fetch some luggage down. So I gives 'im a good cuff and tells 'im not to be a young fool. But 'e never got 'is bike back. Some tramp must 'a' pinched it. 'Ard luck on the lad, it was, 'im 'avin' bought the bike second-'and not long before. And 'e's a good lad, though saucy.”

“Did he inform the police?” asked John.

“That 'e did, rushed off straight away. But Lor' bless yer, sir, what can they do? One bike's like another bike, and once they're stole, they're stole.”

John returned thoughtfully to Rampson and the car and was silent so long that Rampson was constrained to ask, as they left the town behind:

“Well? Our friend the porter seemed a chatty soul. Did you collect any clues?”

John sighed.

“Young Smiler had his bike stolen.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, Lord!” exclaimed John. “I go here and I go there, and everywhere I go I seem to pick up a piece of the puzzle. But no two pieces fit together. It's like an enormous jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces lost! Blow young Smiler and his bike! Where can I fit him in?”

“Probably nowhere. Forgive me, John, but in my view you're much too optimistic about these stray pieces of information.”

“Optimistic! Good Lord!”

“But you are. You're inclined to regard everything you hear and can't easily explain as a clue to this murder. I can't see any reason for attaching any importance to half the stray facts you insist on storing up as clues. You've got a hopelessly romantic, novel-reading way of looking-at things. Think it over. Nora tells you she saw a man looking at her down the passage of the Tram Inn. And immediately you think: a clue. Why? A man stopping for a drink must look in at the door of the Tram Inn several times a day. Miss Whatsername at the Tram sees a man making for the orchard, and lets her eggs boil hard while she looks for him and doesn't find him. A clue? No, not really. For, on her own showing, she's always having apples stolen from her orchard. Then the egg-shells you found in the rabbit-hole. What do they prove except that somebody had stolen some eggs? What reason is there to see the remotest connection between them and Charles's death? I don't know the story of young Smiler and his bicycle, but I suspect it of being no more sound than the rest of these clues. Smiler had his bicycle stolen, did he? And Charles was found dead in the quarry with a bicycle beside him. A bicycle appears in both cases. But that's no reason for connecting them. The world's full of bicycles, and they're very frequently stolen. It's all so imaginary, so hopelessly unscientific! Imagination's an excellent thing, kept under control. It'll arrive at the same conclusion as scientific reasoning, and get there quicker. But really, John, you're letting your imagination run away with you over this murder case! So much so that you're blinding yourself to the obvious. And when you get a really good clue, like that cigarette-end in the shepherd's hut, you ignore it, because you don't like the way it leads. It's the beginning of intellectual ruin when a man starts picking and choosing his facts to suit his private sentiments. It—it shocks me.”

There was a pause, as they moved evenly along under the streaking evening shadows of great trees. Then Rampson glanced round at John. They looked solemnly at one another and laughed.

“It's all very well to laugh,” said Rampson ruefully. “I don't like to see a promising young mind like yours going to the dogs.”

“I'm sure you don't,” agreed John amicably. “It's a terrible sight—the once keen intellect tottering on the verge of lunacy. Seriously, though, Syd, you
are
the heavy parent this afternoon, aren't you?”

Rampson answered gently:

“I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, John, and I want you to be prepared for it.”

A chill descended on John's spirit for a moment with his friend's gentle and serious words. Suppose, after all, the obvious explanation of the mystery were the true one?

But once again he heard the voice of Morris Price, astounded, indignant, suddenly shaken by an unexpected fear: 
“Don't be a fool!”
No. Morris Price was innocent, and the obvious explanation was not the true one.

“I see your point,” said John. “And I admit the justice of your remarks. But, you see, I am convinced that Morris Price is not the murderer. Therefore, the obvious clues, which all point to him, are no use to me. And I have no choice but to follow up others, the best I can get.”

“You admit, then, that the obvious clues all do point to Morris Price? How do you explain that, if he is innocent?”

“Either they point to him by pure chance, or else the murderer took care to plant the crime on him.”

Rampson nodded.

“Either explanation is possible. But the second is by far the more probable of the two. If we accept it, it means that the murderer must be somebody who knew, not only that Charles would be at the Tram Inn on Monday evening, but also that Morris would be there at the same time. Considering that Morris apparently told no one where he was going, and that the cycling party cycled and stopped as the spirit moved them, I don't see that anybody can have known.”

“The crime might have been committed, on the spur of the moment, by somebody who saw them both there, and saw an opportunity of getting away with the murder,” replied John, and his thoughts swung back to Clytie Price.

Rampson shook his head, but said no more.

“Well,” said John, “we can't be far off Moseley, and perhaps when we get there we shall find a clue that will pass the acid test of your scientific mind.”