Have His Carcase (45 page)

would take me a bit over an hour, you know, so I must have started from

Wilvercombe about one o’clock.’

‘Where did you stay the night before?’

‘In Wilvercombe. At the Trust House. You’l find my name there al right.’

‘Rather a late start, wasn’t it, sir?’

‘Yes, it was; but I didn’t sleep very wel. I was rather feverish. Sunburn, you

know; it takes me that way. It does some people. I come out in a rash – most

painful. I told you my skin was sensitive. It was the hot sun that last week. I

hoped it would get better, but it got worse, and shaving was an agony, realy an

agony. So I stayed in bed til ten and had a late breakfast at eleven, and got to

Darley about two o’clock. I know it was two o’clock, because I asked a man

there the time.’

‘Did you indeed, sir? That was very fortunate. We ought to be able to

substantiate that.’

‘Oh, yes. You’d find him easily enough. It wasn’t in the vilage itself. It was

outside. It was a gentleman that was camping in a tent. At least, I cal him a

gentleman, but I can’t say he behaved like one.’

P.C. Ormond almost jumped. He was a young man, unmarried and ful of

enthusiasms, and he had falen into a state of worshipping admiration for Lord

Peter Wimsey. He worshipped his clothes, his car and his uncanny skil in

prediction. Wimsey had said that the gold would be found on the body; and lo!

it was so. He had said that, as soon as the inquest had established the time of

death, Henry Weldon would turn out to have an alibi for two o’clock, and here

was the alibi arriving as true to time as moon and tide. He had said that this new

alibi would turn out to be breakable. P.C. Ormond set out with determination

to break it.

He asked, rather suspiciously, why Mr Perkins had inquired the time of a

casual stranger and not in the vilage.

‘I didn’t think about it in the vilage. I didn’t stop anywhere there. When I got

out of it I began to think about my lunch. I’d looked at my watch a mile or so

back and it said five-and-twenty to two, and I thought I’d push along to the

shore and have my meal there. When I looked at it again it stil said five-and-

twenty to two, and I found it had stopped, so I knew time must be getting on. I

saw a kind of little lane going down towards the sea, so I turned down that

way. There was an open space at the foot of it with a motor-car and a little

tent, and a man doing something to the car. I hailed him and asked what the

time was. He was a big man with dark hair and a red face, and he wore

coloured spectacles. He told me it was five minutes to two. I set my watch

going and thanked him and then I just said something pleasant about what a

nice camping-place he had found. He grunted rather rudely, so I thought

perhaps he was put out by his car being out of order, so I just asked him –

most politely – whether there was anything wrong. That was al. I can’t think

why he should have taken offence but he did. I expostulated with him and said I

only asked out of politeness and to know if I could help him in any way, and he

caled me a very vulgar name and –’ Mr Perkins hesitated and blushed.

‘Wel?’ said P.C. Ormond.

‘He – I am sorry to say he forgot himself so far as to assault me,’ said Mr

Perkins.

‘Oh! what did he do?’

‘He – kicked me,’ said Mr Perkins, his voice rising up into a squeak, ‘on my

– that is to say, from behind.’

‘
In
deed!’

‘Yes, he did. Of course, I did not retaliate. It would not have been – fitting. I

just walked away and told him that I hoped he would feel ashamed of himself

when he thought it over. I regret to say that he ran at me after that, and I

thought it would be better not to associate with such a person any longer. So I

went away and had my lunch on the beach.’

‘On the beach, eh?’

‘Yes. He had – that is to say, I was facing in that direction when the assault

took place – and I did not wish to pass this unpleasant person again. I knew by

my map that it was possible to walk along the shore between Darley and

Lesston Hoe, so I thought it better to go that way.’

‘I see. So you had your lunch on the shore. Whereabouts? And how long

did you stay there?’

‘Wel, I stopped about fifty yards from the lane. I wished to let the man see

that he could not intimidate me. I sat down where he could see me and ate my

lunch.’

P.C. Ormond noted that the kick could not have been a painfuly hard one.

Mr Perkins could sit down.

‘I think I stayed there for three-quarters of an hour or so.’

‘And who passed you on the beach during that time?’ demanded the

constable sharply.

‘Who passed me? Why, nobody.’

‘No man, woman or child? No boat? No horse? Nothing?’

‘Nothing whatever. The beach was quite deserted. Even the unpleasant man

took himself off in the end. Just before I left myself, that would be. I kept an

eye on him, just to see that he didn’t try any more tricks, you know.’

P.C. Ormond bit his lip.

‘And what was he doing al that time? Tinkering with his car?’

‘No. He seemed to finish that quite quickly. He seemed to be doing

something over the fire. I thought he was cooking. Then he went away up the

lane.’

The constable thought for a moment.

‘What did you do then?’

‘I walked rather slowly on along the beach til I came to a lane that runs

down between stone wals on to the beach. It comes out opposite some

cottages. I got on to the road that way, and walked along in the direction of

Lesston Hoe til I met the young lady.’

‘Did you see the man with the dark spectacles again that afternoon?’

‘Yes; when I came back with the lady, he was just coming up out of the lane.

To my annoyance, she, quite unecessarily, stopped and spoke to him. I went

on, as I did not wish to be subjected to any further incivility.’

‘I see, sir. That’s a very clear account. Now I want to ask you a very

important question. When you next had an opportunity of regulating your

watch, did you find it fast or slow, and how much?’

‘I compared it with the clock in the garage at Darley. It was exactly right at

5.30.’

‘And you had not altered it in the interval?’

‘No – why should I?’

P.C. Ormond looked hard at Mr Perkins, shut up his note-book with a snap,

thrust out his lower jaw and said, quietly but forcefuly:

‘Now, look here, sir. This is a case of murder. We
know
that somebody

passed along that beach between two o’clock and three. Wouldn’t it be better

to tel the truth?’

Fear flashed up into Mr Perkins’s eyes.

‘I don’t – I don’t –’ he began, feebly. His hands clawed at the sheet for a

moment. Then he fainted, and the nurse, bustling up, banished P.C. Ormond

from the bedside.

XXV

THE EVIDENCE OF THE DICTIONARY

‘ ’Tis but an empty cipher.’

The Brides’ Tragedy

Tuesday, 30 June

It was al very wel, thought Constable Ormond, to be sure that Perkins’

evidence was false: the difficulty was to prove it. There were two possible

explanations. Either Perkins was a liar, or Weldon had deliberately deceived

him. If the former were the case, then the police would be faced with the

notorious difficulty of proving a negative. If the latter, then a reference to Mr

Polwhistle at the Darley Garage would probably clear the matter up.

Mr Polwhistle and his mechanic were ready and eager to help. They

perfectly remembered Mr Perkins – which was not surprising, since the arrival

of a complete stranger to hire a car was a rare event in Darley. Mr Perkins had

puled out his watch, they remembered, and compared it with the garage clock,

mentioning as he did so that the watch had run down and that he had had to

inquire the time of a passer-by. He had then said: ‘Oh, yes, it seems to be just

right,’ and had further asked whether their clock was reliable and how long they

would take to get to Wilvercombe.

‘And
is
your clock reliable?’

‘It was reliable that day al right.’

‘How do you mean, that day?’

‘Wel, she loses a bit, and that’s a fact, but we’d just set her on the Thursday

morning, hadn’t we, Tom?’

Tom agreed that they had, adding that ‘she’ was an eight-day clock, and that

he was accustomed to wind and set her every Thursday morning, Thursday

being an important day on account of Heathbury market, the centre about

which al local business seemed to revolve.

There seemed to be no shaking this evidence. It was true that neither Mr

Polwhistle nor Tom had actualy seen the face of Mr Perkins’ watch, but they

both declared that he had said: ‘It seems to be just right.’ Therefore, if there

was any discrepancy, Perkins must have been intentionaly concealing the face.

It was, perhaps, a little remarkable that Perkins should so insistently have

drawn attention to the rightness of his watch. Constable Ormond remounted his

motor-cycle and returned to Wilvercombe, more than ever convinced that

Perkins was an unconscionable liar.

Inspector Umpelty agreed with him. ‘ ’Tisn’t natural,’ he said, ‘to my mind,

for a man al upset as he was to start bothering about the exact time the minute

he gets into a place. Trouble is, if he says he saw Weldon, and we can’t prove

he didn’t, what are we going to do about it?’

‘Wel, sir,’ suggested Ormond, with deference, ‘what I’ve been thinking is, if

Weldon or whoever it was rode along the shore between Darley and the Flat-

Iron, somebody ought to have seen him. Have we asked al the people who

passed along the top of the cliffs round about that time?’

‘You needn’t think that hadn’t occurred to me, my lad,’ replied the

Inspector, grimly. ‘I’ve interrogated everyone that went past between one

o’clock and two o’clock, and not a soul of ’em saw hide nor hair of a horse.’

‘How about those people at the cottages?’

‘Them?’ The Inspector snorted. ‘
They
never saw anything, you bet your life

– nor they wouldn’t, not if old Polock was concerned in it, as it’s our belief he

was – always supposing there was anything to be concerned in. Stil, go and try

your hand on them again if you like, young ’un, and if you get anything out of

’em I’l hand it to you. Old Polock’s got his back up, and neither him nor that

brother-in-law of his, Bily Moggeridge, is out to give anything away to the

police. Stil, you trot along there. You’re a comely bachelor, and there’s no

saying but you may be able to get something out of the women-folk.’

The blushing Ormond accordingly made his way to the cottages, where,

much to his relief, he found the men-folk absent and the women employed at

the wash-tub. At first he was none too cordialy received, but, after he had

stripped off his uniform tunic and given young Mrs Polock a hand with the

mangle and carried two buckets of water from the wel for Mrs Moggeridge,

the atmosphere became less frigid, and he was able to put his questions.

But the results were disappointing. The women were able to give very good

reasons for having seen nothing of any horse or rider on Thursday, 18th. The

family dinners had been eaten as usual at twelve o’clock, and after dinner there

was the ironing to finish. There was a sight of washing, as Mr Ormond could

see for himself, for Mrs Polock and Mrs Moggeridge to deal with. There was

Granpa Polock and Granma Polock and Jem, what was that particular about

his shirts and colars, and young Arthur and Poly and Rosie and Bily

Moggeridge and Susie and Fanny and little David and the baby and Jenny

Moggeridge’s Baby Charles what was a accident what Mrs Moggeridge was

looking after, Jenny being out in service, al of which do make work and often

the washing don’t get finished til Saturday and you couldn’t be surprised, what

with the men’s jerseys and stockings and one thing and another and every drop

of water having to be fetched. Nobody hadn’t been out of the house that

afternoon, leastways, only at the back, not til after three o’clock for sure, when

Susie took the potatoes out into the front garden to peel for supper. Susie see a

gentleman then, dressed in shorts and carrying a knapsack, come up the lane

from the shore, but it wouldn’t be him as Mr Ormond wanted to know about,

because he came in later on with a lady and told them about the body being

found. Mr Ormond was quite pleased to hear about this gentleman,

nevertheless. The gentleman was wearing hornrimmed spectacles and he came

up the lane ‘somewhere between half-past three and four,’ and went straight off

along the road towards Lesston Hoe. This must, of course, have been Perkins,

and a brief calculation showed that this time fitted in reasonably wel both with

his own story and Harriet’s. Harriet had met him about half-a-mile further on at