“Yes. It’s neat.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
“It’s the coat. If you were going to drown a woman in the sea, would you
wear an overcoat to do it?”
“I don’t know. ‘Pends how I meant to drown her.”
“How
would
you drown her?”
“Go swimming with her and keep her head under.”
“You’d have scratches that way, ten to one. Evidence.”
“Not me. I’d catch her by the heels in shallow water and upend her. Just
stand there and hold her till she drowned.”
“Williams! What resource. And what ferocity.”
“Well, how would you do it, sir?”
“I hadn’t thought of aquatic methods. I mightn’t be able to swim, or I
mightn’t like early-morning dips, or I might want to make a quick getaway
from a stretch of water containing a body. No, I think I’d stand on a rock in
deep water, wait till she came to talk to me, grip her head and keep it
under. The only part of me that she could scratch that way would be my hands.
And I’d wear leather gloves. It takes only a few seconds before she is
unconscious.”
“Very nice, sir. But you couldn’t use that method anywhere within miles of
the Gap.”
“Why not?”
“There aren’t any rocks.”
“No. Good man. But there are the equivalent. There are stone groins.”
“Yes. Yes, so there are! Think that was how it was done, sir?”
“Who knows? It’s a theory. But the coat still worries me.”
“I don’t see why it need, sir. It was a misty morning, a bit chilly at
six. Anyone might have worn a coat.”
“Y-es,” Grant said doubtfully, and let the matter drop, this being one of
those unreasonable things which occasionally worried his otherwise logical
mind (and had more than once been the means of bringing success to his
efforts when his logic failed).
He gave Williams instructions for his further inquiries, when he himself
should be in town. “I’ve just had another few minutes with Tisdall,” he
finished. “He has got himself a waiter’s job at the Marine. I don’t think
he’ll bolt, but you’d better plant a man. Sanger will do. That’s Tisdall’s
car route on Thursday morning, according to himself.” He handed a paper to
the sergeant. “Check up on it. It was very early but someone may remember
him. Did he wear a coat or not? That’s the main thing. I think, myself,
there’s no doubt of his taking the car as he said. Though not for the reason
he gave.”
“I thought it a silly reason myself, when I read that statement. I just
thought: ‘Well, he might have made up a better one!’ What’s your theory,
sir?”
“I think that when he had drowned her his one idea was to get away. With a
car he could be at the other end of England, or out of the country, before
they found her body! He drove away. And then something made him realize what
a fool he was. Perhaps he missed the button from his cuff. Anyhow, he
realized that he had only to stay where he was and look innocent. He got rid
of the telltale coat—even if he hadn’t missed the button the sleeve
almost up to the elbow must have been soaking with salt water—came back
to replace the car, found that the body had been discovered thanks to an
incoming tide, and put on a very good act on the beach. It wouldn’t have been
difficult. The very thought of how nearly he had made a fool of himself would
have been enough to make him burst into tears.”
“So you think he did it?”
“I don’t know. There seems to be a lack of motive. He was penniless and
she was a liberal woman. That was every reason for keeping her alive. He was
greatly interested in her, certainly. He says he wasn’t in love with her, but
we have only his word for it. I think he’s telling the truth when he says
there was nothing between them. He may have suffered from frustration, but if
that were so he would be much more likely to beat her up. It was a queerly
cold-blooded murder, Williams.”
“It was certainly that, sir. Turns my stomach.” Williams laid a large
forkful of best Wiltshire lovingly on a pink tongue.
Grant smiled at him: the smile that made Grant’s subordinates “work their
fingers to the bone for him.” He and Williams had worked together often, and
always in amity and mutual admiration. Perhaps, in a large measure because
Williams, bless him, coveted no one’s shoes. He was much more the contented
husband of a pretty and devoted wife than the ambitious
detective-sergeant.
“I wish I hadn’t missed her lawyer after the inquest. There’s a lot I want
to ask him, and heaven knows where he’ll be for the weekend. I’ve asked the
Yard for her dossier, but her lawyer would be much more helpful. Must find
out whom her death benefits. It was a misfortune for Tisdall, but it must
have been lucky for a lot of people. Being an American, I suppose her will’s
in the States somewhere. The Yard will know by the time I get up.”
“Christine Clay was no American, sir!” Williams said in a
well-I-am-surprised-at-you voice.
“No? What then?”
“Born in Nottingham.”
“But everyone refers to her as an American.”
“Can’t help that. She was born in Nottingham and went to school there.
They do say she worked in a lace factory, but no one knows the truth of
that.”
“I forgot you were a film fan, Williams. Tell me more.”
“Well, of course, what I know is just by reading
Screenland
and
Photoplay
and magazines like that. A lot of what they write is hooey,
but on the other hand they’ll never stop at truth as long as it makes a good
story. She wasn’t fond of being interviewed. And she used to tell a different
story each time. When someone pointed out that that wasn’t what she had said
last time, she said: ‘But that’s so dull! I’ve thought of a much better one.’
No one ever knew where they were with her. Temperament, they called it, of
course.”
“And don’t you call it that?” asked Grant, always sensitive to an
inflection.
“Well, I don’t know. It always seemed to me more like—well, like
protection, if you know what I mean. People can only get at you if they know
what you’re like—what matters to you. If you keep them guessing,
they’re the victims, not you.”
“A girl who’d pushed her way from a lace factory in Nottingham to the top
of the film world couldn’t be very vulnerable.”
“It’s
because
she was from a lace factory that she was
what-d’you-call-it. Every six months she was in a different social sphere,
she went up at such a rate. That takes a lot of living up to—like a
diver coming up from a long way below. You’re continually adjusting yourself
to the pressure. No, I think she needed a shell to get into, and keeping
people guessing was her shell.”
“So you were a Clay fan, Williams.”
“Sure I was,” said Williams in the appropriate idiom. His pink cheeks grew
a shade pinker. He slapped marmalade with venom onto his slab of toast. “And
before this affair’s finished I’m going to put bracelets on the chap that did
it. It’s a comforting thought.”
“Got any theories yourself?”
“Well, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so, you’ve passed over the person
with the obvious motive.”
“Who?”
“Jason Harmer. What was he doing snooping around at half past eight of a
morning?”
“He’d come over from Sandwich. Spent the night at the pub there.”
“So he said. Did the County people verify that?”
Grant consulted his notes.
“Perhaps they haven’t. The statement was volunteered before they found the
button, and so they weren’t suspicious. And since then everyone has
concentrated on Tisdall.”
“Plenty of motive, Harmer has. Clay walks out on him, and he runs her to
earth in a country cottage, alone with a man.”
“Yes, very plausible. Well, you can add Harmer to your list of chores.
Find out about his wardrobe. There’s an SOS out for a discarded coat. I hope
it brings in something. A coat’s a much easier clue than a button. Tisdall,
by the way, says he sold his wardrobe complete (except for his evening
things) to a man called—appropriately enough—Togger, but doesn’t
know where his place of business is. Is that the chap who used to be in
Craven Road?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is he now?”
“Westbourne Grove. The far end.”
“Thanks. I don’t doubt Tisdall’s statement. But there’s just a chance
there’s the duplicate of that button on another coat. It might lead us to
something.” He got to his feet. “Well, on with the job of making bricks
without straw! And talking of that Israelitish occupation, here’s a grand
sample of it to flavor your third cup.” He pulled from his pocket the
afternoon edition of the
Sentinel
, the
Clarion’s
evening
representative, and laid it, with its staring headlines, “Was Clay’s Death an
Accident?” upward, by Williams’s plate.
“Jammy Hopkins!” Williams said, with feeling, and flung sugar violently
into his black tea.
MARTA HALLARD, as befitted a leading lady who alternated
between the St. James’s and the Haymarket, lived in the kind of apartment
block which has deep carpet on the stairs and a cloistered hush in the
corridors. Grant, climbing the stairs with weary feet, appreciated the carpet
even while his other self wondered about the vacuum cleaning. The dim pink
square of the lift had fled upward as he came through the revolving door, and
rather than wait for its return he was walking the two flights. The
commissionaire had said that Marta was at home: had arrived about eleven from
the theater with several people. Grant regretted the people, but was
determined that this day was not going to end without his obtaining some
light on Christine Clay and her entourage. Barker had failed to find the
lawyer, Erskine, for him; his man said he was suffering from the shock of the
last three days and had gone into the country over Sunday; address unknown.
(“Ever heard of a lawyer suffering from shock?” Barker had said.) So the
matter which most interested Grant—the contents of Christine Clay’s
will—must wait until Monday. At the Yard he had read through the
dossier—still, of course, incomplete—which they had gathered
together in the last twelve hours. In all the five sheets of it Grant found
only two things remarkable.
Her real name, it appeared, was Christina Gotobed.
And she had had no lovers.
No public ones, that is. Even in those crucial years when the little
Broadway hoofer was blossoming into the song-and-dance star, she seemed to
have had no patron. Nor yet when, tiring of song-and-dance pictures, her
ambition had reached out to drama; her rocket had shot to the stars under its
own power, it would seem. This could only mean one of two things: that she
had remained virgin until her marriage at twenty-six (a state of affairs
which Grant, who had a larger experience of life than of psychology
textbooks, found quite possible) or that her favor was given only when her
heart (or her fancy, according to whether you are sentimentalist or cynic)
was touched. Four years ago Lord Edward Champneis (pronounced Chins), old
Bude’s fifth son, had met her in Hollywood, and in a month they were married.
She was at that time shooting her first straight film, and it was generally
agreed that she had “done well for herself” in her marriage. Two years later
Lord Edward was “Christine Clay’s husband.”
He took it gracefully, it was reported; and the marriage had lasted. It
had become a casual affair of mutual friendliness; partly owing to the
demands of time and space that her profession made on Christine, and partly
to the fact that Edward Champneis’s main interest in life (after Christine)
was to invade the uncomfortable interiors of ill-governed and inaccessible
countries and then to write books about them. During the book-writing
solstice he and Christine lived more or less under one roof, and were
apparently very happy. The fact that Edward, although a fifth son, had
nevertheless a large fortune of his own, inherited from his mother’s brother
(Bremer, the leather king), had done much to save the marriage from its most
obvious dangers. And Edward’s delighted pride in his wife did the rest.
Now, where in that life, as shown in the dossier, did a murder fit in?
Grant asked himself, toiling up the padded stairs. Harmer? He had been her
constant companion for the three months she had been in England. True, they
had work in common (producers still liked to insert a song somewhere in the
plot of Christine’s films: the public felt cheated if they did not hear her
sing), but the world which amuses itself had no doubt of their relations,
whatever their colleagues thought. Or Tisdall? An ill-balanced boy, picked up
in a moment of waywardness or generosity, at a time when he was reckless and
without direction.
Well, he himself would find out more about Tisdall. Meanwhile he would
find out about the Harmers of her life.
As he came to the top of the second flight, he heard the gentle sound of
the lift closing, and he turned the corner to find Jammy Hopkins just taking
his thumb from the bell push.
“Well, well,” said Jammy, “it’s a party!”
“I hope you have an invitation.”
“I hope you have a warrant. People shriek for their lawyer nowadays at the
very sight of a policeman on the mat. Look, Inspector,” he said hurriedly in
a different voice, “let’s not spoil each other’s game. We both thought of
Marta. Let’s pool results. No need for crowding.”
From which Grant deduced that Hopkins was doubtful of his reception. He
followed Grant into the little hall without giving his name, and Grant, while
appreciating the ingenuity, rebelled at providing a cloak for the press.
“This gentleman is, I believe, from the
Clarion
,” he said to the
servant who had turned away to announce them.
“Oh!” she said, turning back and eyeing Hopkins without favor. “Miss
Hallard is always very tired at night, and she has some friends with her at
the moment—”
But luck saved Hopkins from any necessity for coercion. The double doors
to the living room stood open, and from the room beyond came welcome in high
excited tones.