She poured herself put a gin, added the peppermint and renewed McCann’s beer for him.
“And how are you keeping, Miss Pratt?” he asked.
“Can’t complain. How are you?”
“I can see quite well,” said McCann truthfully, “that you don’t really remember me at all—”
“Well—”
“I’m sure I’m not surprised, either, when I remember the crowd of admirers that used to surround you.”
Ivy downed half her drink in a gratified sort of way and observed that uniform changed a man so, you could hardly credit it.
“You don’t even remember my skill on the ‘double-in double-out?’ McCann gestured with his head toward the dart board on the wall.
“Oh – in the private bar, you mean. We never had a board in the public during the war.”
“In the private bar,” added McCann hastily. “It struck me you’d shifted it.”
“You couldn’t have a dart board out here, not during the war,” said the landlord. “They’d have killed someone – those Canadians – no more idea of darts than putting the weight.”
“I’ve never met a Canadian who could throw a dart,” agreed McCann.
All this time he was thinking of tactics. In the end it was the honesty of the girl’s eyes that decided him. It didn’t seem to be a situation where anything could be lost by straightforwardness. In any case, other people would be coming into the place soon. Probably only the rain had kept the bar empty so long.
The man was busy polishing glasses at the other end of the room. McCann leaned one elbow on the counter and said, in a low voice, to the girl, “As a matter of fact, I’ve got a bit of news for you.”
“Yes,” said Ivy noncommittally.
“I ran into a friend of yours a few weeks ago. A chap I used to know in the Army. Julian Wells.”
For a moment McCann thought she hadn’t heard. Then he saw that she had gone very white. She opened her mouth and said in the tiniest voice, as if it was coming to him through layers of folded gauze, “No, no. You can’t have done that. How could you? He’s dead.”
Then she fainted.
The crash brought the landlord running. Together they carried her through the partition door and into the private bar. There was a sofa and McCann put her down on it whilst the landlord went for water. Before he was back she was sitting up. She still looked bad.
“What’s happened, Ivy?” The landlord sounded reproachful. “You did give us a turn.”
McCann had been thinking hard. He pulled the man to one side. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that it’s something I told her. Bad news. It was my fault. Didn’t break it gently enough. I think if you’d leave us alone for a few minutes. Could we have the door shut?”
“You could slip the bolt,” said the landlord doubtfully. “But it’s licensed premises, you know. It’s all meant to be open to the public.”
“That’ll be all right,” said Ivy, who seemed to be recovering some of her spirits. “Say it’s being redecorated. No one’ll know the difference.”
The landlord looked as if he would have liked to protest, but Ivy gave him no chance. She hustled him from the room and slid the bolt. Then she turned on McCann, with a dangerous light in her eyes and said, “Perhaps you’ll explain what you mean by startling the wits out of a working girl.”
Then McCann did his best to explain. It took some time.
“I see. You haven’t really seen—you made that up.”
“Yes. I thought I’d see if I could get some reactions—”
“You got some, all right.”
She was sitting on the wooden settle, in front of the tiny window, and she was watching the fat raindrops running down outside the misty glass. Her mind was far away. Ten years away, McCann guessed.
“Look here,” she said at last. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. You know about me and Julian – when he was at that school?”
McCann nodded.
“Well, that was all right. We never went too far, if you know what I mean. And when he left and joined up, I went to Winchester, I forgot about him. And that was that. Then, suddenly – in early 1943, that would have been, because I’d just left Winchester – before I came to this place I had a job in that big café in the square. One day he blew in, all dressed up in his second lieutenant’s uniform and sat down at my table. Then it started again, just as if it had never stopped. You never knew Julian, did you? If you’d known him you might have understood that part. He was a very easy sort of person to love. He wasn’t big and tough and strong and rough. Girls may marry that sort, because they think they’ll be a success in life and look after them – the poor saps – but when it’s just love, they pick the sort they like. And it’s the soft, lost type like Julian that gets them every time – or it does me.”
Ivy sighed, finished her gin, and helped herself absentmindedly to another one out of a bottle under the shelf.
“That’s how it was,” she said. “We started just where we left off. I was happy. He seemed happy. He was stationed at Larkhill. He was a gunner, too, you know, before he started doing that secret-service stuff. Perhaps you may have met him then.”
“No,” said McCann. “I was never a gunner. That bit was lies, too. Please go on.”
“There isn’t much else to say. I didn’t know till afterward that I wasn’t the only one. I don’t suppose it would have made much difference if I had known, come to think of it.”
“You mean there was another girl.”
“Yes. The wife of one of the staff sergeants at the camp. I never met her, but I heard all about her afterward, you can bet. There’s never any shortage of a girl’s best friends to tell her things like that.”
“I imagine not,” said McCann. He felt desperately sorry for the girl. Nor could he see how any of this was going to do Mademoiselle Lamartine much good.
“That’s all, really. After that he went away to do his training for that other job. Then I heard he was dead. You bringing his name out suddenly, it gave me a turn.”
“You never heard from him again? Before he went over to France – or even whilst he was there?”
“Not a sausage.”
Ivy finished her gin and got to her feet.
“Why don’t you go and have a word with Mrs. Staff – Sergeant Bellerby,” she said surprisingly, “Don’t say I sent you.”
“Is she still about?”
“She was last Wednesday. Her husband got a permanent job up at the camp. I sat next to them both in the cinema. I didn’t introduce myself.”
“Perhaps I will,” said McCann.
“They’ve got a cottage outside Amesbury on the Tidworth road. It’s just past Stonehenge Inn, on the right. You can’t miss it.”
“I’ll do that,” said McCann.
He went out to look up an Amesbury bus.
It was still raining.
“Your name is Randolph Partridge and you are a Detective-Inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department?”
“Yes.”
“In March of this year, you were the Divisional Detective-Inspector in Q Division?”
“That is so.”
“And Pearlyman Street is in your division?”
“Was in my division. I am now attached to the Central Office.”
“I see. On the night of the fourteenth of March of this year, as the result of a message you received, did you go to the Family Hotel in Pearlyman Street?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Will you tell the jury, in your own words, what happened?”
“I arrived at the Family Hotel at about ten minutes past eleven in the evening—”
Inspector Partridge was a large, sanguine man; he spoke with the point and fluency which distinguishes the habitual from the occasional giver of evidence.
“I was met by Monsieur Sainte, whom I understood to be the proprietor of the hotel. He conducted me to a bedroom at the back of the premises, where I found the body of the deceased lying on the floor. It was evident that he was dead and the absence of any weapon raised a clear assumption that he had been murdered—”
“One moment please, Inspector. Was it plain to you at that point what sort of weapon had caused the wound?”
“It was clearly a knife wound.”
“Have you, in your experience, ever known a knife used as a weapon by a person taking their own life?”
“No. A razor occasionally. Not a knife.”
“Then that fact also would influence you in deciding that you were dealing with a case of murder?”
“Certainly. I acted from the first on the assumption that I was investigating a case of murder.”
“Thank you. I wished that to be made quite plain to the jury in view of the steps you subsequently took. Please go on.”
“I understood from the account given to me by Monsieur Sainte that all the persons who had seen the body had been asked, by him, to wait in the room next door.”
“The room occupied by Mrs. Roper.”
“That is correct. I found there the hotel waiter Camino, Mrs. Roper and the prisoner. I asked Monsieur Sainte to join them, which he did. Before questioning them I made a quick examination of the deceased’s room. I found a knife.”
The exhibit was handed to the inspector and identified.
“I understood that this was a kitchen knife from the hotel. I had it placed on one side for expert examination. I did not, at that time, find anything else of significance in the room. There was a half-unpacked suitcase and some papers on a bedside table which seemed to be notes of some conference at the War Office.”
“Did you then, or subsequently, get any impression of what Major Thoseby had been doing when he was interrupted by the entry of the person who killed him?”
“It seemed fairly apparent that he had been sitting at the bedside table, writing or reading. There was a chair pushed back from the table, and the table itself was drawn out away from the bed.”
“It is a fair deduction, then, that Major Thoseby was sitting at the table and got up when – whoever it was – came in?”
“I think so.”
“Did you draw any further deduction from this?”
“Yes. I was of the opinion that it showed a slight probability – I don’t put it any higher than that – that the person who came in was a woman.”
“I object to that,” said Macrea. “It’s the purest supposition.”
“I don’t think,” said the judge mildly, “that the answer was an improper one. A gentleman would, I think, naturally rise to his feet if a lady came into the room – but he might remain seated if a man came in. No doubt you will be able to deal with it further in cross-examination.”
“I am obliged to your lordship,” said Macrea. “I certainly intend to do so.”
The witness continued.
“After searching the room I questioned all four of the people who appeared to be most possibly concerned. On the face of the evidence I dismissed from my mind, for the moment, Colonel Alwright and the guests who were still out of the hotel at a quarter to eleven. Also the daily staff. Neither then, nor subsequently, did there appear to be any evidence of an intruder from outside. I took statements, therefore, immediately from Mr. Sainte, Camino, Mrs. Roper and the prisoner.”
The witness read relevant portions of these statements referring, from time to time, to notes which he had made of them. These statements did not differ in any significant particular from their evidence as already given.
“When you had taken these statements, Inspector – how long did this take, by the way?”
“It was nearly one o’clock by the time I had finished. By that time I had also received the first medical report, indicating the approximate time of death and I had had a further opportunity of examining the wound and the knife.”
“And as a result of all this?”
“As a result of this, at about one-fifteen, I cautioned the prisoner and told her that I was taking her into custody on a charge of murder.”
“Inspector Partridge,” said Macrea, “you have told us that at the time of this investigation you were the Divisional Detective-Inspector in charge of Q Division.”
“That is so.”
“But since that time you have been moved?”
“Yes.”
“On promotion, I hope?”
“Yes.”
“Not as the result of any dissatisfaction over your handling of this case?”
“I am not aware of any dissatisfaction.”
“You must excuse a layman’s ignorance of police procedure, Inspector, but when you were called to this crime would it not have been the normal thing for you to bring a doctor
with
you?”
“I—yes—that would have been normal.”
“But you didn’t do so?”
“The message mentioned that the police doctor had already been summoned.”
“And you relied on this statement?”
“Yes.”
“A statement which unfortunately turned out later to be untrue?”
“Yes. As soon as I realised that, I had him sent for.”
“Yes,” said Macrea. “Most unfortunate. Most unfortunate. Now, Inspector Partridge – you have told us you were Divisional Detective-Inspector of this division. Any serious crime would, therefore, automatically be referred to you in the first instance?”
“That is correct.”
“If, at any time, you felt in need of assistance you could apply for it from the Central Office at Scotland Yard – when a chief inspector would have taken over the case – working with you, of course?”
“Yes. It was open to me to do that if I wished.”
“But you never did so?”
“No.”
“You did not feel in any need of assistance outside the resources of your division?”
“No.”
“Despite the fact that half the evidence in this crime was to be looked for outside this country – in France?”
“I don’t think that is quite correct. Only the motive was to be found in something that was alleged to have happened in France. I should not call that half the evidence.”
“Even when you were investigating the murder of a man who had done most of his war service in France, by a French girl, whom he was alleged to have met in France, in a hotel kept by a Frenchman with an Italian waiter who had spent all of his war service in France?”
“No.”
“A typical English crime?”
“It was an English crime. A crime committed in London.”
“You persist in that?”
“You will not intimidate me, Mr. Macrea.”
“Nothing,” said Macrea with a crocodile smile, “was further from my mind. Now, Inspector, would it be true to say that you have always held very strong views on this case?”