Find the Innocent (24 page)

“Cur—wen!”

He grabbed Jill by the hand.

“You're going to be in on this, my girl! See that I do it properly. And then I'm going to break your blasted little neck and Canvey can rub along without you.”

Curwen appeared at the door of the lockhouse. “What are you up to now?”

“Come inside!” He dragged Jill after him into the sitting-room followed by Curwen. “Drop Mrs. Brengast out of this case and I'll confess to the murder.”

“Very kind of you, I'm sure!” said Curwen. “If you try any more stunts on me, Mr. Stranack, I'll charge you with obstruction.”

“My good man, I'm telling you it was I who killed WillyBee.”

“I heard you,” Curwen moved to the door. “Try it on the Sunday papers.”

“Inspector, it was all my fault,” said Jill. “I was terribly wrong. Won't you please give him a hearing?”

“I suppose I've no choice!” Curwen was rather overdoing it. “If I don't listen to some tomfool confession of his, he'll write a book about it. I'll bring the others in on this and we'll see what the new game is.”

“There's no game this time, Inspector,” Jill assured him.

Curwen registered disbelief and turned to Stranack.

“Which of them was with you on the job?”

“Nothing doing, Inspector! I'm confessing what I did. I'm not accusing anybody.”

“Here we go round the mulberry bush!” He was appealing to Jill for sympathy. “The whole three of 'em will confess and we start again the other way up.”

When Curwen had left the room Stranack resumed his tirade.

“Look at the mess you've made, Jill! Curwen believes that bilge of yours about me being in love with Veronica. He won't take me seriously. Nobody will. I shall be laughed out of court. And if I go on telling the truth, they'll put me in the looney bin.”

“Not if I confess too!” said Jill.

Eddis and Canvey came in, with Benjoy and Curwen in the rear. They bunched in the doorway, getting in each other's way. Eddis took charge.

“There seems to be some uncertainty as to the agenda,” he intoned, resuming his seat at the head of the packing-case table.

“I've told Curwen I killed WillyBee and he's taking it as a personal insult.”

From Canvey there came a mild explosive sound and he caught Jill's eye.

“Quite so!” she said aloud and smiled.

“Mr. Stranack,” said Curwen, “can sign a formal statement at headquarters—if it gets as far as that. Would you two like to say anything at this stage?”

“No comment!” said Eddis.

“I don't quite see how Stranack's confession helps us,” said Canvey. “It tells you only that neither Eddis nor myself literally killed Brengast. It doesn't tell you which of us was at the lockhouse.”

“Now then, none o' that!” barked Curwen. “If you two start ringing the changes on the
second man
—”

“The second man was myself,” said Eddis.

“There you are, Curwen! You've nothing to be afraid of!” Paradoxically, Stranack had recovered his spirits. “It's a perfectly straightforward case. We went to that office to remove the papers and models of our latest invention, intending to sell it elsewhere, as WillyBee was refusing us royalties. And I may as well tell you that there's no doubt we could have sold it very easily!

“WillyBee himself walked in while we were packing the stuff. I told him what we were doing and why we were doing it. He and I got pretty hot under the collar—he was a quick-tempered man. And then—it was all so damned stupid!—I picked up a crowbar the men had left behind, to emphasise something about leverage. I think I said: ‘I can lever the three of us out of your measley contract.' Then he pulled out that revolver you found, and I dotted him one with the crowbar. I meant to discourage the use of that revolver, not to kill him, but I don't expect you to believe that. When we were both sure he was dead, I asked Eddis to help me to hide the body. He's—what do you call it?—compassionate accessory. You can dress that up for my formal statement.”

Curwen grunted.

“I take it, Mr. Eddis, you have no comment.”

“On the contrary, Inspector!” To Jill it was a surprise that Eddis was capable of feeling and showing anger. “Stranack's statement is grossly unfair to myself.”

“That's what we want!” Curwen was eager. “Let's have it, Mr. Eddis.”

“From Stranack's account I emerge as a timid onlooker, coerced by a man of superior initiative. Nothing could be further from the truth. In point of fact—I dislike saying it, but it is true—Stranack lost his head. He even wanted to telephone the local police and invite their sympathetic understanding. It was I who had to point out the obvious absurdity of such a course.”

“It wasn't absurd,” said Curwen. “It was the sensible thing to do.”

“My
dear
Inspector! Surely you must know what local police are like?”

“I know now what industrial scientists are like,” Curwen indicated that the lesson had been painful. “What has all that education and special training done for you? It's made you clever in the wrong places. Uncivilised, you might say! Why, you don't even know a murder when you see it! As it is, we shall have to reduce the charge to manslaughter and unlawfully concealing a dead body.”

“How much will they get for that?” asked Jill.

“I don't know, Miss Aspland.” Curwen's tone was bitter. “They ought to get ten years apiece. But some of the judges are very unreliable nowadays. If Eddis's evidence stands up, Stranack may get away with self-defence. That'll leave concealment of the body. In the special circumstances that ought to be worth something—personally I'd make it a couple of years. But you can't tell. If the worst comes to the worst the judge might let ' em off with six months.”

Jill waited on the weir for Lyle Canvey, soothed by the rush of the water beneath her feet. He would not have to give evidence, and Veronica would escape scot free. Women like Veronica generally did escape scot free—to defeat themselves by the inane use they made of their freedom. Being rich was not a whole time occupation. It would be gorgeous at first, but it would soon grow monotonous.

The waters of the weir were growing monotonous, now she came to think of it. She must have been waiting for him for something approaching an hour. More than long enough for him to get over the shock of being rescued. She could trust him not to make a fuss about what she had done. One of the facets of him that she admired was his sense of human values. He would be anxious about the fate of the two men who had been his colleagues. But the anxiety would be lodged in a niche of its own.

When she walked into the sitting-room he was huddled up in the armchair.

“I thought you had gone!” he cried, springing up. As if regretting his enthusiasm, he added tonelessly: “Why haven't you gone?”

In silence she settled herself on the settee—which was answer enough.

“Thank God!” He sat beside her. “When you were here the other day, I knew you believed that I had not killed WillyBee. But I could feel you hoping that I had not made love to Veronica.”

“Why rub it in?”

“What's that gag of Kipling's?—‘I learnt about women from her.' I mean, but for her, I would have thought that it was the shape of you I love—but it isn't.”

“What a pity!” sighed Jill.

“What a bit of luck! In twenty years, you won't be as lovely as you are now—and I don't care a damn! Are you going to be fool enough to marry me? My financial prospects are virtually nil.”

“I don't care a damn!” echoed Jill. “It's the bit about my shape that I don't like.”

First published in 1959 by Herbert Jenkins

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Copyright © Roy Vickers 1959

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