The Dusky Hour (24 page)

The colonel's head was beginning to ache worse than ever. Mr. Larson's story had seemed to shed a gleam of light on the affair, and here was darkness and confusion back, worse than ever. Whatever the truth might be, Mr. Moffatt's attitude was certainly not that of one who had submitted to blackmail, or committed murder, to keep secret a story he was now showing every anxiety to proclaim to all the world so that his grievance, and the wrong done him, might be as widely known as possible. Besides, if he had really been talking to his solicitor for nearly ten minutes on the afternoon, and at the hour, of the murder – and the truth of that could easily be checked – he had certainly an absolutely complete alibi.

“I inquired if you had been indoors all that afternoon,” the colonel remarked resentfully, for he felt this complete alibi ought to have been offered him before.

“Well, so I had, hadn't I?” snapped Mr. Moffatt. “What did you expect me to say?” Then he returned to his grievance. “Blacklisting me – me – a Moffatt of Sevens. I'll – I'll – I'll –” He swallowed again and tried to control himself. “Sorry,” he said. “Bit upsetting, you know – the insolence of the thing. I'll deal with 'em. Was it about your talk with Ena last night you wanted to see me?”

“No, no,” answered the colonel hurriedly, for, indeed, that was the very last subject on earth he ever wanted to hear mentioned again. “You told us you didn't know Bennett? That he was quite a stranger to you?”

“Yes. Well?”

“Do you think it possible he had got wind of this business with the steamship companies?”

Mr. Moffatt stared.

“Good Lord, no, I shouldn't think so. How could he? Not that I know of, anyhow. I wish he had. The more people I can prove did know of it, the bigger damages I can claim. I'll claim enough to build the new cottage hospital they're always talking about.”

“There is one other point,” the colonel continued. “I understand you consulted Mr. Larson about your investments?”

“Well, hardly that. I had a chat with him about doing something with a few hundreds I have in consols. Why?”

“A few hundreds? I understood... I thought I had heard you say – mention a much larger sum?”

“There's a trust fund,” Mr. Moffatt answered. “Can't touch that; tied up. Life interest, that's all. Too bad, all that money at two and a half, but there it is. No getting round the trust deed. I asked Meadows long ago. I don't save much, I know – impossible these days, with all the claims there are on one. Hard enough to meet them all. Income-tax, too. But I have scraped up a little – between two and three thousand. In consols, too. I asked Larson what he advised. He didn't seem to have much idea – didn't want to give anything away, I suppose. Close lot, these City men. Advised buying tin. Good Lord,” said Mr. Moffatt, exploding again. “I'm not a metal merchant. Sound advice, I dare say, but no good to me. Anyhow, he didn't recommend Highland Developments, like Pegley.”

“Mr. Pegley recommended that?”

“Yes. Larson gave me a hint to be careful. Larson said: ‘Never mind what I think. Ask your solicitors.' So I did, and Meadows said he couldn't even trace the thing. Bogus concern, he thought. Meadows said Pegley was after my cash. Don't trust the man myself. Larson called him a share-pusher. Look here, it's none of my business, but have you thought of Pegley in connection with this other affair?”

“The Bennett murder? Mr. Pegley? No. Why?”

“Well, if you inquire at the Oakley Road House, you'll find Bennett and Pegley lunched there together that day and had a row, and Bennett called for help and accused Pegley of having tried to murder him.”

It was too much altogether for the chief constable. With a sort of muffled moan he got to his feet and stood facing Mr. Moffatt. For a moment or two they remained thus, Mr. Moffatt frankly bewildered, the colonel unable to speak. He turned and looked helplessly at Bobby.

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby, and all the sympathy he felt was expressed in those two simple words.

The colonel took out his handkerchief and began to mop his forehead. He was grateful for Bobby's sympathy, though it was not sympathy but light and leading for which he yearned. Mr. Moffatt began to bristle – he was in a mood to bristle.

“If you don't believe me,” he snapped, “go and ask for yourselves.”

The colonel put his handkerchief away. He said sadly to Bobby:

“The moment we seem to be getting anywhere, it always turns out to be somewhere else.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby again. “It is pretty awful, sir.

He had the impression that the colonel was about to burst into tears. Instead, he walked out of the room. Mr. Moffatt stared after him. “Cracked,” he said. “The fellow's cracked. Plumb crazy.”

“The case is crazy all right,” said Bobby grimly.

He hurried after the colonel and said something to him. They came back into the room together. Mr. Moffatt continued to stare. The colonel said:

“Sorry. I think I felt I wanted air – air.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Moffatt.

“You see, Mr. Moffatt,” interposed Bobby, “you have been so extraordinarily helpful.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Moffatt again, but this time an “Oh” in a different key.

“There's another point,” the colonel said, “that Sergeant Owen has reminded me of. It has possibly some connection with this muddle about the blacklisting. Our information is that you have been in the habit of visiting America nearly every year, but apparently did not wish your visits known.”

Mr. Moffatt glared and scowled and hesitated. It was plainly to be touch and go whether he exploded or explained. Finally explanation won over explosion.

“Private affairs,” he said. “I don't mind telling you, provided you keep it to yourself. I don't want – well, no good raking up old tales. There's Ena, too; shock for her. The fact is, I go to see a daughter of mine.”

“Daughter?” repeated the colonel, surprised.

“Illegitimate,” explained Mr. Moffatt, coughing in an embarrassed sort of way, for at heart he was an old-fashioned kind of person. “When I was a boy. All boys are fools. Got mixed up with a girl – barmaid, as a matter of fact. Unpleasant story. Ashamed of it still. Needn't go into details. My father hushed it up. Girl and baby packed off to the States. Mother dead now, but I've slipped over sometimes to see the child – woman now, of course, married and all that. It's why I've been trying to scrape a bit of money together. I thought Larson might help; told him how badly I wanted a bit of spare cash. All he could talk about was tin – thought I wanted to set up as an ironmonger, I suppose. I'm trusting you to keep all this to yourselves. Wouldn't care for Ena to know. She's no idea things like that happen; wouldn't understand; young girls don't, you know.”

Neither the colonel nor Bobby was quite sure of that. But they both murmured promises that the information would be regarded as entirely confidential. The colonel expressed his gratitude for Mr. Moffatt's frankness.

“Clears the atmosphere, and that's always a help,” he said. “You are inclined to think Pegley may be Bennett's murderer?”

“Looks like it to me,” declared Mr. Moffatt, grateful for this change of subject. “Couple of share-pushers. Knew I had scraped together a bit of money and thought they would like to get hold of it. I've only a life interest in the trust fund and the land, but any savings I can do what I like with. I wanted to be able to settle something on Hetty – my girl in America. That's what Pegley and Bennett were after, if you ask me. But Bennett didn't trust Pegley. That's why he was watching through field-glasses that afternoon – to see what Pegley was up to. Later on they met in Battling Copse. Appointment, probably. Pegley expected trouble, and borrowed my automatic to take along. He had plenty of opportunities of knowing where it was kept. They had a row. Pegley whipped out the pistol and Bennett got shot. Pegley tried to conceal Bennett's identity, hoped it would pass for an accident. That's my idea.”

“Upon my soul,” exclaimed the colonel, impressed. “I shouldn't wonder if you haven't hit on the truth.”

Mr. Moffatt chuckled, well pleased.

“When you resign, I'll apply for the job,” he said, his good-humour quite restored. “Glad you called – given me something else to think of. That blacklisting impudence got me annoyed. Upon my soul, when you got here, I believe I was on the point of throwing things out of the window. Well, young man,” he continued, turning to Bobby, silent and watchful, “you're Scotland Yard, aren't you? What does Scotland Yard think?”

“I think it's very important indeed.”

“My idea about Pegley?”

“Oh, no, sir, not that. I meant very important that you were on the point of throwing things out of the window.”

“Eh?”

“But not so important as that it was raining this morning.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Moffatt, beginning to bristle again. “What's raining this morning got to do with it?”

“I am not clear yet,” Bobby said, though as much to himself as to his companions, “but it may turn out conclusive.”

“Rubbish,” announced Mr. Moffatt with simple brevity.

“But, anyhow, one thing is clear,” Bobby added. “Neither Bennett nor Pegley knew anything about your private savings. Very likely neither of them would have minded lifting it, but we can be quite certain that neither together nor separately had they ever given it a thought – or even knew you had any savings.”

“Oh, they hadn't, hadn't they?” exploded Mr. Moffatt. “Then what was their game, eh?”

Bobby made no answer. Colonel Warden came to himself with a start. He had been absorbed in his own thoughts, and had only heard vaguely what the other two had been saying. He said now:

“We had better be going – plenty to do. Bewildering business, all this. Switched off on a new line at every point.”

Therewith he and Bobby departed, and in the car the colonel said presently, after a long period of silent thought:

“What was that you were saying to Moffatt? Something about rain this morning?”

“Just an idea of mine,” Bobby answered. “It fits in with a vague sort of notion that I can't quite get into shape. I can't even get down to think it out,” he added complainingly, “when we get new ideas and facts sprung on us every hour or two. I only said what I did to Mr. Moffatt to puzzle him a bit and prevent him from talking too much – no good his letting himself in for a libel action. Besides,” added Bobby, fearing to seem too altruistic, “if he were, we might get roped in as witnesses. They hate that at the Yard when it's not their own case.”

But the colonel was not listening.

“Looks to me,” he said, “as if Moffatt has hit on the truth. No actual proof, but plausible. Pretty nearly good enough for an arrest. If there's real evidence of a quarrel at this road house, that'll be something. Prove Pegley lied when he said he didn't know Bennett. Why? Threats, and a pistol produced, apparently. That pistol's the crucial point of the whole thing – if only we could find the pistol and identify it with someone.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, “only if Pegley had a pistol at the road house at lunch-time, he wouldn't have needed to take Mr. Moffatt's when he went to meet Bennett – if he did.”

“No, that's so,” agreed the colonel, “but he might have taken it some time before. What's worrying me is why did Larson tell us all the things he did?”

“I think,” Bobby said, “he must have heard something about the blacklisting – of course, that sort of thing does get about.”

“So it does,” agreed the colonel. “It's possible this Carter person he talks about was just putting him off. Carter didn't want to explain where he had actually got that wad of notes from Larson saw in his possession. When Larson began asking questions about Bennett, Carter just followed. Saved him the trouble of inventing lies for himself. Quite likely Carter had never heard of Bennett before Larson asked about him. Of course, he would know something from what he had read in the papers. Anyhow, both Larson and Moffatt seem cleared now.”

After that he was silent, and Bobby was not sorry for the opportunity to try to readjust and rearrange his own thoughts that were buzzing and humming in his mind like a colony of bees at swarming time. He hoped, but not too confidently, that presently, like the swarming bees, they would arrange themselves into that coherent and ordered whole which at present he felt himself quite unable either to grasp or to express.

“If it hadn't been raining this morning,” he reflected, “I might never have given it another thought – after all, very likely it means nothing.”

The drive to the road house did not take long. When they arrived the tea-hour was over and dinner not yet, so that the place was almost deserted. The manager received them in his private office. He was a round, smiling, nervous little man, named George, and very anxious to do all in his power to please and propitiate anyone so important as the chief constable of the county. He remembered that some sort of quarrel or dispute had occurred on the day named between two customers – an event, he hastened to assure them, extremely rare in an establishment so well conducted as his. He did not know much about it himself, and he had not seen either of the disputants. The affair was over, and the two parties to it had driven away, before he could reach the scene – a prudent man, this Mr. George, Bobby thought to himself, and one with no itch to meet trouble half-way. It had all been quite a trifling business, Mr. George insisted; he had not paid it much attention; there had been no reason to report it; certainly neither he nor any of his staff had thought – why should they? – of connecting it with the Battling Copse murder of which naturally they had all read in the papers. Bobby received a clear impression that Mr. George had been by no means anxious that there should be any such connection. Road houses have their reputations, and like to keep them unsmirched by any hint of murder, theft, or other such unlawful happenings. Pressed, Mr. George admitted having heard that something had been said about a pistol one of the disputants had produced, and that threats had been used. Yes, he remembered being told that the word “murder” had been uttered, but he had only taken that to mean that the pair of them had been doing themselves too well at lunch. Certainly there could be no objection to the chief constable asking any question he wished to put to any of the staff. But Mr. George doubted very much if any description of the two disputants could be obtained. Lunch-time was busy; that day had been specially busy, and they a bit short-handed. Moreover, two of their waiters had left – probably, Mr. George thought pessimistically, the very two who might perhaps have been able to give some further information. Just possibly the garage attendant might be able to tell them something.