Authors: Alan Hunter
‘
O
DD THING, THAT
blasted bust falling over like that,’ brooded Sir Daynes as he presided over the Manor House breakfast-table the next morning. ‘Can’t see it has any connection with our job, though, eh, Gently?’
‘Mmp?’ Gently was busy with his liver and kidneys.
‘Just damned odd – I mean, it might have killed someone. Pity there weren’t a few confounded busts on the stairs, eh?’
It was a happy thought, and Sir Daynes pursued it. A well-toppled bust on the landing in the great hall would have satisfied the best of policemen. Busts did topple – they had had a bona fide example of it – and what would have been more likely than for the half-cut American to have embraced a pedestal on his trip across the landing, and gone to his doom, manifestly by his own hand? But alas, it was one thing with busts and quite another with truncheons. One did not embrace a truncheon, or having embraced, collect a fractured
skull; neither, unfortunately, did truncheons wipe and hang themselves back on the wall after such
encounters
. Sir Daynes shelved the question of busts with a frown and came back to more practical matters.
‘What did Henry talk about? Feller seems to have a crush on you.’
Gently shrugged as he unrinded a gammon rasher. ‘Talked about himself … not about the murder.’
‘Poor Henry,’ said Lady Broke. ‘He ought to talk to someone. He’s always bottled it up too much, I’m sure that’s half his trouble. What did he tell you, Inspector? Is there any chance of his marrying Janice?’
‘Hrmp! Hrmp!’ interrupted Sir Daynes hurriedly. ‘Shouldn’t say things like that just now, m’dear – position a little delicate, y’know –
sub judice
and that sort of thing.’
‘
Sub judice
?’ echoed Lady Broke. ‘What in the world do you mean, Daynes? Surely you don’t suppose that poor Henry is involved in this dreadful affair, do you?’
‘Of course not, m’dear, of course not!’ Sir Daynes turned a shade pink in his embarrassment. ‘But just at the moment, m’dear – best to be cautious. Never know how far a careless word may go, and that.’
Lady Broke considered this while she sugared her coffee. ‘Daynes,’ she said, ‘you
do
think Henry may be involved!’
Her husband grumbled and snorted and twice emitted a ‘preposterous!’
‘You
do
,’ repeated Lady Broke. ‘I know by the way you’re behaving, Daynes. And really, I’ve never heard
of anything quite so ridiculous. Why, we’ve known Henry since he was a little boy in a sailor suit. I practically mothered him, Daynes – Tony and he used to go birds-nesting together.’
‘I’ve already said, m’dear!’
‘Yes, I know what you’ve said. And I know what goes on in that silly policeman’s mind of yours. But you listen to me, Daynes. I’m not often wrong in these matters. Henry is the last person in the world to offer violence to anybody – he’s been anti-blood-sport for years, and an abolitionist nearly as long. Doesn’t character go for anything in these foolish enquiries of yours?’
Sir Daynes rumbled helplessly and made a despairing gesture to Gently. ‘There’s the feller who fancies Henry – I tell you, I’m trying to keep the man out of it!’
‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Broke firmly. ‘You don’t think hardly of Henry, do you, Inspector?’
Gently reached for his coffee and made
unintelligible
noises …
‘Didn’t get very much from those weaver people,’ muttered Sir Daynes as the Bentley again turned its bonnet towards the Place. ‘Dyson put them through it, but it was the same damn thing over and over. Got the impression they’d talked it over y’know – always tell, with that sort of thing.’
‘Anything fresh on Johnson?’ Gently ventured.
‘Not sure I’d tell you if we had, damn your impertinence. But we haven’t, and that’s the truth.
Only got the feller’s own statement. I thought that young feller, Wheeler, was going to let something slip, but dash me if he didn’t close up like a clam when we came to Johnson. Still got the servants to run through, but I don’t expect much there.’
Things, however, had brightened up during Sir Daynes’s absence. The conscientious Dyson, a great believer in repetition, had had a further session with the weavers, as a result of which young Wheeler had unclammed a few degrees. The strong man of the Northshire Constabulary’s CID met his chief with a manner of something like excitement.
‘I think I’ve got hold of something important, sir, something that will strengthen our case quite a bit.’
‘Hah?’ exclaimed Sir Daynes eagerly. ‘What’s that, Dyson, what’s that?’
‘It’s young Wheeler, sir. He’s admitted some information about Johnson.’
‘Johnson!’ cried Sir Daynes. ‘Well – go on, man – come to the point!’
‘It seems, sir, that Johnson has had a bit of a crush on Mrs Page since he’s been here. He’s never come out in the open with it, but these weaver people have noticed it, and if you ask me, sir, they were in a bit of a collusion to keep it from us.’
‘Hah!’ exclaimed Sir Daynes again. ‘Knew it, Dyson, knew it. So that’s what they were holding back on. Go on – what did Wheeler say?’
‘Well, sir, Wheeler isn’t what you’d call an observant type, and according to what he says he’d never added
up the score until he heard one or two of them talking about it last night. Then he started remembering various little points about Johnson’s behaviour when Mrs Page was around, and decided there was
something
in it. This morning, when I had another go at him, he let it out.’
‘Fine, Dyson, fine.’ Sir Daynes hugged himself with delight and took several paces up and down the great hall, where Dyson had intercepted him. ‘But we’ve got to get the others to admit it too, Dyson – this feller is just the thin edge. Won’t do just to have a witness who remembers because he was given a nudge – want simple, direct testimony on an important point like that. Have you been at the others?’
‘Not since I’ve spoken to Wheeler, sir.’
‘Hammer away at them, man, hammer away. We’ll get what we want now one of them’s loosened up. By Jove, this is a turn up! Jealousy on top of the rest! No doubt, Dyson, that Earle was making a play for Mrs Page – hrmp! – in spite of the fact that Janice wouldn’t have looked at him.’
‘So I understood, sir.’
‘You understood rightly, Dyson. Get your men in the blue drawing room, and start having these people brought in.’
‘I have, sir. Everything is ready.’
‘Smart feller, Dyson.’ Sir Daynes clapped him on the back. ‘Oh, and just one other thing. You’ve seen those fellers in the drive?’
‘You mean the reporters, sir?’
‘I do, Dyson – sitting there in their blasted cars, like a lot of pike watching for a minnow. Well, I won’t have them in – make that quite clear to them. There’ll be a handout later on, and I hope they get confounded frostbite.’
A constable was dispatched to deliver this high decree – which was, in fact, a repetition of a lower-level directive already imposed – and Sir Daynes, after stamping around in the hall for a few minutes in case Somerhayes should appear to greet him, turned to set off for the north-east wing. His intention was interrupted, however, by a sudden screaming of brakes and a rattle of gravel from out on the terrace. A car door was slammed with impetuous vigour; heavy steps pounded over the gravel and up to the door. No bell was rung, no knocker was rapped; the sacred front door of Merely Place, for the first time in its two centuries, was ravished by the application of an irresistible shoulder.
‘Where,’ enquired a voice of thunder, ‘where is the goddam boss of this crazy, tinpot, two-bit outfit?’
Sir Daynes drew himself up to his full six feet. He squared his shoulders, set his lips and thrust out his jaw. And he went to do battle with this untimely eruption of the United States Air Force.
‘I’m Colonel Dwight P. Rynacker, USAF,
commanding
officer of Z Wing at Sculton Airfield – and I’m telling all and several that I’ve got some questions that need short, sharp answers!’
He was a heavily built man of fifty or so with a melancholy, jowled face but tigerish, slate-grey eyes. He stood about five feet ten, and in spite of the cold, wore no greatcoat over his brass-decorated two-tone uniform.
‘By pokey, I’ve met some cases of obstruction since I came to this perishing island – I’ve met a few, and then some! But don’t nobody think they’re going to get away with the murder of a United States citizen – don’t let them think it for one teeny-weeny little moment – because you want to know something?’
‘I—’ began Sir Daynes, seizing the opportunity.
‘They
aren’t
!’ blazed Colonel Rynacker. ‘No, sir! Never! Not on your life! Not in this world! Not if the president of the United States has personally to arraign Elizabeth Two by the Grace of God and Senator McCarthy – they
aren’t
!’
‘Hah!’ got in Sir Daynes crisply. ‘Now if you’ll just—’
‘And no goddam lord is going to save his neck either – I’m telling you. I don’t care if it’s the classiest neck in this and six other peerages – if that’s the neck, by hokey, it’s going to be stretched, and Dwight P. Rynacker is going to stand by and see it done. Now – who are you?’
Sir Daynes extended his hand with simple dignity.
‘I am Sir Daynes Broke, chief constable of
Northshire
, Colonel,’ he said.
‘You are
?
’ Colonel Rynacker absent-mindedly seized the hand and began to pump it energetically. ‘Well, let
me tell
you
a few things, chief constable – let me tell
you
! First off, what in the heck do you mean by obstructing the press in the free exercise of its prerogative in this case, hey? What do you mean by it?’
‘The press?’ queried Sir Daynes, also pumping. ‘Who says the press have been obstructed, eh, eh?’
‘I say they’ve been obstructed!’ boomed Colonel Rynacker, pumping harder than ever. ‘Haven’t I just been talking to those boys out there? Haven’t you just sent a cop to shut down the security on them?’
‘Pooh, pooh!’ countered Sir Daynes. ‘They will receive all the necessary information—’
‘Yeah, yeah – then why aren’t they in on the case?’
‘In this country, Colonel—’
‘In this country you can hush it up!’
‘In this country we do not permit—’
‘It’s a goddam lord, so you put a muzzle on the press!’
‘We do not permit the publication of information which may prejudice the subsequent trial!’ barked Sir Daynes, irritation getting the better part of diplomacy. ‘The press are kept informed, sir. As far as we can do so without prejudice, we give them every facility to report on the progress of a case. But we do not permit the press to obstruct us in the course of our duties, neither do we permit them to publish – and, sir, I may say that they would not want to publish – anything likely to interfere with the free exercise of justice!’
‘Gimme back my hand!’ bawled the colonel, dragging it away from Sir Daynes, who was performing
prodigies with it. ‘Great suffering catfish, do you have to dislocate a man’s arm while you’re laying the goddam law down? I had rheumatism in that arm ever since I set foot in this fog-happy corner of nowhere!’
Sir Daynes relinquished the afflicted member, but the light of battle ceased not to gleam in his eye. Colonel Rynacker nursed his arm fondly and made experimental movements with his fingers.
‘Preposterous accusation!’ snorted Sir Daynes.
‘Yeah, I can see it spread over the
Herald-Tribune
,’ said the colonel.
‘Doing our duty, sir, regardless of rank or
nationality
!’
‘Doing mine too, chief constable, and don’t try obstructing the United States Air Force.’
‘Obstruction, sir!’ rapped Sir Daynes, rearing up. ‘You seem obsessed with the idea – who in the world is obstructing you, sir?’
Colonel Rynacker’s eye wandered over the
stone-cold
walls of the marble hall, and returned to the baronet with the ghost of a twinkle.
‘You are, you goddam old war-horse!’ he replied. ‘What d’you mean by keeping a rheumaticky USAF colonel hanging about in this sonofabitch of an icebox – do you want to kill me off before I can get my hooks in you?’
It took a certain amount of Merely Place Scotch and a good deal of hard, factual talking to get Colonel Rynacker out of Sir Daynes’s grizzled locks. The
martinet of Sculton Airfield was full of dark suspicion about events at Merely, and much sold on the idea that if Lord Somerhayes was the culprit, it would need the US Military Police to put him well and truly on the spot.
‘Be honest, Bart! Just when was the last occasion that a British lord was strung up on a homicide count, huh?’
Sir Daynes wrinkled his brow, but could think of no such occasion. Gently, on being applied to, was able to suggest the execution of Laurence, Earl Ferrers, in 1760, for the taking-off of his steward, but the two centuries succeeding had been very low in
distinguished
gallowings.
‘And what’s the answer?’ demanded Colonel Rynacker triumphantly. ‘I ask you, is it logical that these guys knock off a lesser percentage than their neighbours? You tell me that! And if they do knock them off, how come they don’t never get strung up like you and me – what makes me think they’re goddam fireproof ?’
He departed at last, appeased if not satisfied, and an anxious Sir Daynes went hot-foot to the scene of the interrogations. Here, alas, there was small comfort to be had. Inspector Dyson had been hammering as directed, but all his smithwork on the weavers had struck out little in the way of sparks. As a body, they had gossipped about Johnson’s weakness for Mrs Page; as individual witnesses, they refused to give positive and undeniable evidence of fact.
‘They’re a confounded trades union – that’s what
it is!’ snapped the baronet, wringing his hands
anguishedly
. ‘Can’t they realize, between them, that we’re trying to pin a blasted murderer? Get Johnson in here – that damn feller has
got
to talk!’
Johnson came in, looking sullen and dangerous. There was no doubt that by now he had realized the role he was being cast for. He sat down without being asked, and deliberately rolled himself a foul-smelling cigarette. A lesser man than Sir Daynes might have quailed under the vindictive stare the Welshman gave him.