Suspects—Nine (33 page)

He looked feebly at Bobby. The situation was altogether too much for him. He knew nothing in the police manual of instructions to help. Bobby took Martin by the arm again and half led, half carried him into the adjoining bedroom.

He came back.

“Inspection of the portion of anatomy indicated,” he announced in his most official tones, “tends to confirm the statements made. It must,” he added thoughtfully, “have been applied with vigour.”

“With that riding whip,” explained Lady Alice, nodding towards one that lay in a corner of the room. “I agree about the towel. Some of the people on this floor make such a fuss about any little noise they don't happen to make themselves.”

Bobby went back into the bedroom and returned with Martin. He arranged the sufferer with care upon a settee, in a half-kneeling, half-reclining position, face downwards.

“I'll have the law on her for this,” Martin muttered, but rather in the manner of the small boy threatening what he means to do to the bully of the school—some day.

“What's it all about?” demanded Wilkinson, once again, and this time Lady Alice offered a reply.

“Thought he would try a little blackmail,” she explained. “Me! blackmail me!” she repeated with wonder in her voice. “He'll think twice before he tries again.” Martin gave a confirmatory, involuntary wriggle. Lady Alice continued: “Told me he followed me that night to Weeton Hill, the night of the murder. Said he took a snap of my car when I left it standing by the roadside at the bottom of the hill. I was there because earlier that evening he told me there was going to be an interesting meeting on Weeton Hill and I might like to see what was happening. My niece, Miss Maddox, was here, so I left her here and borrowed her car. Martin tagged along, apparently. ‘He was a bit scared of what might happen. He had warned me I had better take a pistol in case of trouble. I told him not to be a fool. Besides, I hadn't one. When my back was turned he took the opportunity to pocket a knife I had hanging up over the mantelpiece. I suppose he thought it might come in useful. It did. At least, he thought so. In a different way, though. What he says is he heard the shots fired and saw the murderer running away and saw him throw his pistol away so Martin knew where it was and was able to get it afterwards. Then he had the bright idea of blackmailing me—Me,” repeated Lady Alice, again with amazement in her voice, as if, even yet, she could hardly believe any one could be so foolish and so rash. “He explained he was going to accuse me of the murder. To help manufacture evidence against me, he was beastly enough to push my knife into the dead body. The fool thought the knife would show bloodstains, he hadn't sense enough to know a wound inflicted after death wouldn't bleed or that any doctor could tell at once.”

“It wasn't done on purpose, it was accidental like,” fluttered a sulky voice from the settee where Martin pouched in comparative ease.

“That was to be his story,” Lady Alice said. “He pretends he had the knife in his hand, stumbled, and the wound on the body was inflicted accidentally. Don't believe him, myself. I believe he thought it was a bright idea.”

“Caught my foot in the dark, tumbled, the knife went in, that's God's truth,” protested Martin once more.

“Believe it if you can,” said Lady Alice. “I don't. Anyhow, he thought it was going to be easy money for life. Told me the knife wound, the photograph of the car, so on, made up evidence enough to hang me. Said he had begun by sending a print of the photo to one or two people and did I want him to go on? because it would be the police next time. Asked for twenty pounds down—he got a dozen. But not pounds.”

Martin shivered.

“Made me drunk first,” he muttered.

“To avoid,” Lady Alice explained, “unseemly scuffling. When I considered him sufficiently intoxicated I put those handcuffs on him—I knew he would never find out they were trick ones—and pushed him into the cupboard in the bedroom. I put bolts on it to keep him safe. When he began to be noisy I let him out.”

“The knife to my throat,” said Martin gloomily, “said she would cut it.”

“I should have enjoyed doing so,” Lady Alice confessed, “but I grow conventional in my old age. I decided not to. I contented myself with a gentle prick once or twice—in the tenderer spots.”

“A-i-eee,” said Martin reminiscently.

“I then,” continued Lady Alice, “placed him in the required position across the table, inserted a towel in his mouth out of deference to the request of the management to avoid all unnecessary noise, and proceeded according to plan.”

“Crool, it was, something crool,” whimpered Martin, “the way she laid it on.”

“The operation concluded,” Lady Alice went on, “I replaced him in the cupboard and had meant to take him out again later on to administer another dozen.” Martin showed signs of quitting his comfortable recumbent position in favour of a speedy exit, but Bobby lifted a restraining hand.

“It's all right,” he said soothingly, “she shan't do it any more.”

Martin glanced nervously towards Lady Alice, as if he felt only incompletely reassured.

“Perhaps he's had enough,” conceded Lady Alice. “If you think so, you might take him away. Or do I ring up the dustmen?”

“Well,” said Wilkinson again. His vocabulary, unequal to the occasion, seemed limited to this one word. “Well,” he said once more, and sighed to think of all he might have said if only the occasion had not been so much too much for his powers of expression. At last he said to Lady Alice, “It's all very well, but you didn't ought, you know.”

“I enjoyed it,” Lady Alice pointed out, simply. Wilkinson gave it up and turned to Martin:

“Is it true you saw the murderer?”

Martin nodded.

“Who was it?”

“Don't know.”

“Why not?”

“Too dark to see and I was too far away, I didn't want to get too close, neither, not to a bloke what had just outed another bloke and still had a gun. I slipped along behind. I saw him throw something into that patch of bracken as he passed. I put a stone to show just where and followed him to his car. After he got in he sat there a bit and I crept up behind and noted the number, and then, because I thought it might be faked, I scratched my initials, ‘ W.M”, straight lines all, on the inside of the fender.”

“What with?”

“Her knife, what I had the accident with. If you can find the car you can identify it. ‘W.M.' in two places, middle of fender and left, near the end.”

“Might be useful,” Wilkinson conceded. “Suppose you know you've made yourself an accessory after the fact, suppressing evidence and all that?”

“Not me,” said Martin with spirit. “Trying to help, I was, only I knew it wasn't no good coming forward till I had my case complete. Trying to get confirmatory evidence, I was, from her”—he gave a sour glance at Lady Alice—“that's all it was, not blackmail at all, never mentioned, blackmail wasn't, and crool assaulted I've been just for helping the course of justice.”

“You were on the spot at the time of the murder?” Wilkinson asked Lady Alice.

“Seems so,” she agreed, “though I didn't know it at the time. I suppose you want the whole story. I employed that rat”—she jerked a contemptuous finger at Martin— “to watch Flora Tamar. She's ruined enough lives.” She paused, and for once her grim, controlled features showed a spasm of emotion. “There was a friend of mine—he committed suicide. Because of her. I knew she was at it again. Not that she had ever stopped. Any man was sport to her. There was Holland Kent. There was Judy Patterson. I thought it was Holland Kent she was after. Really, it was Judy Patterson. She was using Holland Kent as a kind of blind to keep her husband from knowing who it really was. At least, Holland Kent wasn't exactly a blind, a second string, rather, an understudy, a reserve to be played as and when required. I hired Martin to get information. He got some, mostly wrong. Probably, some of what he told me was just lies. Most likely, he already had it in his silly, dirty little mind that he would get us all in positions in which he could blackmail everybody. The story he told me that Friday night, he had all wrong, of course, on purpose perhaps, or perhaps not. The truth was that Judy told Flora he wanted to break off, and Flora, trying to keep him, to make him jealous, was going to spend the evening with Holland Kent. Motor drive. She didn't want to risk being seen, and Holland Kent had no nice convenient cottage. Martin knew she had sent him a message they were to meet at the usual place. He thought that meant Weeton Hill where Judy used to pick Flora up and drive her to Whatah Ope Cottage in his car to prevent any risk of her car she came in being seen and identified. And then, too, Martin, who is a fool at his job as well as a crook and a blackmailer—”

“I ain't,” protested Martin, “only a bloke must live. You can't keep straight all the time if you've got no money.”

“The crook's creed,” said Lady Alice. “Becky Sharp said much the same thing. Anyhow, by his clumsy way of making inquiries, he started all sorts of rumours, especially among Flora's servants. Munday, in particular. Munday realized something was wrong. I don't know for certain but I think it must have been that and I think that explains why he was on Weeton Hill. Spying. Perhaps that's why he was murdered, or perhaps he was mistaken for some one else.”

“Who? By whom?”

Lady Alice shook her head.

“I don't know,” she said. “I might guess but a guess is nothing. That fool Martin muddled everything. Trying to be clever. I suppose,” she added wistfully, “you couldn't see your way to let me give him just one little half dozen more—only the half.”

“Here, none of that,” Martin exclaimed, in his alarm bumping the part where he was tender for the time against an arm of the settee. “A-i-eee,” he said.

“Keep quiet,” said Wilkinson, ignoring, however, Lady Alice's petition.

“It wasn't my fault, so it wasn't,” protested Martin,

“I was discreet. I always am. It's on my business cards. You look. Discretion and secrecy guaranteed. That's what it says and you can't say more. It was all Munday's own doing. He tumbled to it on his own—the missus's goings on, I mean. Shocking it was, the way she pulled the wool over her old man's eyes. Munday told me so himself and wanted to know more. So he got his, poor devil.”

“I saw nothing,” Lady Alice said. “I got out of the car and walked on. Then I heard shots. I didn't know what they meant. I waited and nothing happened and I went back home. Ernie was waiting. I told her to go home and not let herself be seen. I didn't tell her what had happened because I didn't know. I expect she guessed something was wrong. When she heard about the murder, I daresay she thought it was me. She's a good little soul, she kept quiet and never said a word.”

“How many shots did you hear?” Bobby asked.

Lady Alice shook her head.

“They came all together. I never even thought of counting them. That's all I can tell you.”

Wilkinson turned to Martin.

“What did you see?” he demanded. “The truth, now.”

“I wasn't near enough to identify nobody,” Martin repeated. “There was seven shots. I know that. I didn't count. You couldn't. All in a bunch they was. But these was seven cartridges I picked up. You find a car marked same as I said on the fender. Then you'll know. But it ain't one of Mr. Tamar's cars, nor yet Mr. Holland Kent's, because I've had a look on the Q.T. What's more, when I got a chance to put it up to Mrs. Tamar she didn't seem worried about the car being marked for identification—interested like but not worried. I didn't tell her what the markings was, though, just in case she knew more than she let on.”

“Did you tell her seven shots had been fired?” Bobby asked.

“Yes, I did. Why not?” Martin asked.

“I wondered how she knew,” Bobby explained.

“Trying a bit more blackmail,” Lady Alice remarked.

“The fiver she gave me, it was her own free will,” Martin declared, indignantly. “Ain't I got to live?”

“Why?” asked Lady Alice.

“That's all right,” interposed Wilkinson. “We shall want statements from you both. Makes it all clear as mud,” he added, “except any one, single, blooming thing to show who it really was.”

Official wheels move but slowly and a case has to be complete in every detail before it can be submitted to the Public Prosecutor; for Treasury Counsel, as the police are only too sadly aware, want proof, absolute proof, of every statement made. “Tell 'em,” growls Scotland Yard, below its breath, “that two and two make four, and they pack you off to New York to get a signed and sworn affidavit from Einstein that the statement is correct to the best of his knowledge and belief,” and then the Yard goes on to whisper horrid tales of men driven from home and family out into the wilds to seek confirmation of something that every one already knew and that, anyhow, didn't matter in the least.

So it was not till the early part of the next week that Bobby, pale and tired-looking, for he had been working all hours, came to the little Mayfair hat shop at closing time one evening with the news that at last the arrest had been made.

“I don't think he had any idea what was coming,” Bobby said. “I think he felt quite safe. It'll be in the evening paper, I expect.”

Olive listened gravely but made no comment. She had already realized the inevitable. Vicky was there, dressed for departure, but not yet gone. She said,

“Do you think they'll find him guilty?”

“His finger-prints are in the drawer where the pistol was taken from,” Bobby said. “The car he used has been identified by the scratches Martin made on the fender. His alibi has broken down. We know where he bought a broad-brimmed hat like the one Judy wore. The motive is strong. There's the anonymous letter too.”