Too Many Cousins, page 15
“Puts a bit of life into it,” Sergeant Webley concurred.
At the police station in St. Andrew’s Street Mr. Tuke tactfully elected to remain in the car. But he was not left there long: within ten minutes the sergeant reappeared, accompanied by no less a personage than a superintendent, who looked at Harvey with respectful interest, and, after introductions, invited him in for a cup of tea.
“We’ll have some news before long,” the Superintendent said.
In his office was an inspector who knew all about the blue Morris. It was the property of Mr. Thomsett, of the tobacco shop, whose description tallied with its driver that day. It was used for hire purposes. Of Mr. Thomsett himself the Inspector held a poor view. The shop could be used as an accommodation address, and, it was believed, for other and less legal purposes. Mr. Thomsett’s friends were of the cheap, raffish type to be found even in university towns, and some of them had criminal records. The tobacconist was now suspected of running a new side line in black market liquor, but so far all efforts to trip him up over this or anything else had failed. He was a nasty piece of goods, said the Inspector, and as cunning and impudent as a cartload of monkeys.
Mr. Tuke had drunk his second cup of strong tea when the expected news arrived. Interviewed by an officer despatched on a bicycle with a specious inquiry about misuse of petrol, Mr. Thomsett had declared that he knew nothing whatever about the fare he had driven to Bedford and back that day. The man, a stranger to him, had come into the shop the morning before to buy cigarettes, and had noticed the advertisement of a car for hire. He returned in the afternoon, and arranged to be taken to Bedford the next day. He gave his name as Farley, and paid cash in advance, Mr. Thomsett holding strong views on bilkers. The police officer, rather hurriedly briefed, had not been told of the Morris’s call at Stocking on the way out, and this incident was not mentioned by Mr. Thomsett. Unaware to what extent his movements in Bedford were known, he gave a truthful account of these. He had not asked for any explanation of his fare’s rather peculiar behaviour there. Something to do with a woman, of course, said Mr. Thomsett with a leer; but fares were fares, and if you started poking and prying into their doings, you could soon whistle for your custom. He could tell some queer tales, and did tell one or two, with gross and impudent chuckles. Prompted about the return journey to Cambridge, he said his fare arranged to be driven back to the shop, which was as handy for him as anywhere else; but at Parker’s Piece Mr. Farley had suddenly remembered an appointment, and had asked to be set down. He had jumped hurriedly from the car before it stopped. Conscious, perhaps, that this was a weak point in his tale, Mr. Thomsett here went over to the offensive, demanding to know why he should be picked on. Had the police ever known him to allow his car to be used for a wrongful purpose? As for petrol, he could account legitimately for every gallon issued to him—and a miserable quota it was, too, for a poor working man who had to live.
In the police officer’s opinion, his visit was not unexpected. Mr. Thomsett did not seem surprised, and had all his answers pat. At this point the Inspector, with a look at the Superintendent, left the room, and his superior turned to Sergeant Webley.
“That bit about Parker’s Piece doesn’t fit with your story, Sergeant.”
“The other chap never got off there, I’ll swear to it, sir,” said the Sergeant. “Mr. Tuke will say the same. The car never slowed up. Besides, we’d have seen him—it’s all open on the near side, and I was watching the road, trying to pull out.”
“Oh, it’s clear enough,” the Superintendent agreed. “They spotted you, or had their suspicions, anyway. The fellow wasn’t running any risks, so he dodged off when they got into the side streets. And Mr. Thomsett knows a whole lot more about him than he let on to. Well, we’re putting a man on him, and another to find out if anybody saw his passenger. The trouble is, fly birds like Thomsett know all our chaps. It’s no strain on their memory, because when I say ‘all’, I mean the three men and a boy we’ve got left. I’d ask for one from Bedford, Sergeant, but you’re as shorthanded as we are, and if this is part of Inspector Vance’s case I don’t see why the Yard shouldn’t send a man along.” He reached for the telephone, adding, as he caught Mr. Tuke’s eye: “Oh, I know what they’ll say, sir. Run off their feet, and do we think they’re made of men?”
“Well, don’t mention my name,” said Mr. Tuke, preparing to rise, for Sergeant Webley was pushing back his chair. “It might queer your pitch. The Assistant Commissioner seems to think I wished this case on him just to be annoying. / think it’s rather a nice case. It gets one about, and travel does broaden the mind so. And Sergeant Webley, unless I am much mistaken, has another little trip in view.”
CHAPTER XIX
“WHAT makes you think, sir, that I’ve another little trip in view?” the Sergeant asked when they were in the street again.
“If I were you,” said Mr. Tuke, “I shouldn’t be happy till I’d found out what that Morris was doing in Stocking this morning.”
“Well, it isn’t far out of our way, sir, if you can spare the time.”
“I’d like to know myself. You could also test your theory about Raymond Shearsby’s bicycle.”
“I’d got that in mind, too,” the Sergeant admitted with a smile.
And accordingly, for the third time that day, Mr. Tuke was conveyed along A 603 to Wimpole, and for the second time by the winding lanes to Dry Stocking. It was a quarter to six when the police car drew up before a neat little new house, with cream-washed walls and green-painted woodwork, which bore the enamelled sign of the Hertfordshire Constabulary. Sergeant Webley was still outside his own district, and the proprieties had to be observed.
When, a few minutes later, he was ushered out of the house by the village policeman, who was minus his tunic, for he had been gardening, the Sergeant was accompanied by another officer in plain clothes, whom he introduced to Mr. Tuke as Sergeant Oake, Inspector Vance’s actual deputy in these parts. For the best part of a week Sergeant Oake had been gleaning and sifting the gossip of the neighbourhood, with little to show for his work beyond the results set out in Mr. Vance’s own interim report; and by a happy chance he had just called on the local constable for a cup of tea before cycling back to Cotfold, where he was stationed. This being his territory, his fellow sergeant from Bedford had sought his co-operation in the present inquiries in the village, one of which had already advanced a stage, for as the newcomer got into the back of the car, Sergeant Webley, resuming his seat at the wheel, said to Mr. Tuke:
“Mr. Shearsby did have a bicycle, sir. We’re just going to find out what became of it.”
By Sergeant Oake’s direction, they drove a short way down the street and stopped again before a rambling and somewhat dilapidated house which had a yard and barns behind it. The local officer got out and entered the yard.
“The chap here,” explained Sergeant Webley, “does a trade in old furniture and such. He bought all Mr. Shearsby’s things from his cousin.”
Sergeant Oake soon returned. He was a lean, black-avized man, with a melancholy face and a blue chin, which he was now polishing thoughtfully.
“Looks like you may have hit on something,” he said to his colleague. “Old Worboys says there was no bicycle with the stuff he bought. And he took everything, and went over it piece by piece at the cottage with the other Mr. Shearsby. He remembers now that Mr. Raymond Shearsby did have a bike, picked up second-hand from some chap here, but he says he didn’t think of it at the time. The cousin was in a hurry, and rushed the sale through, though he didn’t forget, Worboys says, to haggle like a shrew over it. To hear Worboys talk, you’d think it was an offence to bargain with a dealer.. Not that the chap wasn’t tight about money —they all say that, and he skimped the funeral something shocking. Anyhow, he didn’t take the bike away with him, that’s certain.” Sergeant Oake fingered his blue’ chin and shook his head sadly. “I ought to have thought of it myself,” he said.
Sergeant Webley was looking justifiably pleased.
“I congratulate you,” Mr. Tuke said. “What is your next step?”
“If Sergeant Oake’s agreeable, we’ll set the constable here to work hunting for that bike. Somebody may have pinched it from the cottage, after Mr. Shearsby’s death— bikes are valuable nowadays—or it may have been found tucked away somewhere in a hedge, like I said.”
The police car, accordingly, returned to the constable’s neat little house, and that officer was instructed to leave his gardening forthwith and begin to scour the village for news of the missing bicycle. The car was then turned once more and headed down the street for The Bushel and Strike.
On the way there Mr. Tuke leaned round to speak to Sergeant Oake, sitting at the back caressing his chin.
“You must be an authority by now, Sergeant, on the rail way service to Whipstead. Do all the trains have corridor coaches ?”
“Not all, they don’t, sir.” Sergeant Oake had also heard of Mr. Tuke, Steeple Mardyke being in his county, and he replied without hesitation. “With some you can’t tell— they may be corridor, or they may not, or someth be mixed. The morning and evening trains all have corridor coaches— the 5.31 and 7.48 from Cambridge,, for instance, and the 6.43 and 8.5 from King’s Cross.”
“Just what I wanted to know. One other query. What do you make of the young man with the suitcase, who came, if I remember correctly, by the 5.31 and left again later. By the 8.5, was it?”
Sergeant Oake polished his chin vigorously. “I’d like to know more about him, I’ll own,” he said. “Just because I can’t find out what he was up to hereabouts. But you always come on these loose ends when you’re on a case, as you’ll know, sir. And this fellow couldn’t have had no hand in Mr. Shearsby’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking. He couldn’t have got to the lane and back in time. He was by the station just before the 6.43 came in, and he was away by the 8.5.”
. “I suppose the porter couldn’t have been mistaken when he says he saw this chap on the bridge?”
“He says he’ll swear to it, sir. They mark down strangers in country places like this. I’ve checked it other ways, too, and nobody was near the bridge at that time.”
At The Bushel and Strike, which was not yet open, Mr. Tuke adhered to his role of the interested onlooker, and remained in the car while the two police officers went inside. They were out again within ten minutes, but stood conferring together a little longer before they rejoined him. Sergeant Webley then passed on their news.
The two men from the blue Morris had stayed in the bar for upwards of an hour that morning. Mr. Twitchell did not think he had seen either of them before. The bar filled up while they were there, and presently the talk came round to the death of Raymond Shearsby. The landlord, busy serving, could not say by whom the topic was introduced; but once it was launched the man in the check jacket had shown much interest in the tragedy, though appearing to hear of it for the first time. Before he and his companion left, they knew all the village knew about it. The companion took little part in the general conversation, concentrating on his beer, for which the other paid. The latter was a pleasant fellow, with an easy, gendemanly manner. When the pair drove away, they were seen to turn up the lane which led to Raymond Shearsby’s cottage.
Deferring consideration of this episode, Sergeant Webley glanced round at Sergeant Oake, who leant forward to broach the subject which, it seemed, the two had been discussing outside the inn. Much impressed by his colleague’s reasoning about the missing bicycle, and its prompt confirmation up to a point, the Hertfordshire officer was anxious to apply a further test at once. As he put it, if someone stole the bicycle from the cottage on that July evening with the aim of reaching the main road in time to catch the last bus to Cambridge, it would be discarded very near that road. In which event, having every reason by now to know the neighbourhood, Sergeant Oake thought the machine might still be lying where it had been left, even though three weeks had gone by. The instinct of the thief would be to hide it, and this he must do in some field, behind a hedge, for there were no other hiding places. The lane he took was little used, and the fields thereabouts were all pasture, and when cattle or horses were turned into them it was merely a matter of opening a gate, and the animals would amble in, and for that matter out, of their own volition. Countrymen, said Sergeant Oake, never walked a yard further than they could help, and cowmen and horsemen, who stood for hours in a heat-producing mixture of straw and mud, notoriously suffered torments from their feet. In short, the odds were that nobody had entered the fields in question for weeks past, let alone investigated the hedgerows, and these, there being no hedgers and ditchers, were greatly overgrown, so that a weighty object like a bicycle would sink in among the autumn foliage and be invisible at a casual glance.
Mr. Tuke met Sergeant Webley’s eye at this point, and reading in it his natural anxiety to follow whither this further spate of reasoning led, grinned encouragingly at him.
“Don’t let him steal your thunder,” he said. “And count me in. It’s your idea, and your car, and I’m on holiday and enjoying myself hugely. We’ll all look for the bicycle.”
Sergeant Webley smiled gratefully and got into gear, and soon they were driving up the lane towards Raymond Shearsbv’s cottage. They halted at the bridge over the Gat Ditch, which the officer from Bedford had not seen, and then went on past the lonely cottage and so along the winding, deserted lanes explored by Mr. Tuke in the reverse direction that morning. It seemed ancient history, so much had happened in the interim.
The sun came out again, to gild the general enthusiasm, and beneath scattered clouds and assorted aircraft the police car eventually pulled up a hundred yards short of the main road and bus route. At this corner, on the 28th of July, the clerical looking gentleman had boarded a bus at 8.10 p.m. It remained to be seen whether any evidence of how he got there was yet left in the hedgerows. These were indeed sprouting untidily and luxuriantly, and would have hidden all the bicycles in Hertfordshire. The fields immediately at hand were empty of livestock, and the car had not passed a single human being since it left Dry Stocking.
The two sergeants took one side of the lane, and Mr. Tuke the other. When they entered the fields, the high hedges concealed them. His hands in his pockets, a Larranaga between his lips, Harvey strolled slowly over the tussocky grass, raking the hedge beside him for a gleam of metal. He reflected that a spur of this kind made even the country enjoyable for a time.
Suddenly he pounced. But what he had seen was only one of those rusted bedstead ends with which the English landscape is so liberally and incomprehensibly bestrewn. He sauntered on again, humming to himself:
“One said it was a hedgehog,
But another he said, ‘Nay’ . .
He had not, however, been alone for five minutes when an excited bellow reached him from across the lane. Hurrying back to his gate, he found the two sergeants emerging from theirs. And Sergeant Webley was trundling his sheaves before him, in the shape of a bicycle. His pleasant face was bright with triumph, and even Sergeant Oake was grinning.
“Not two hundred yards from the gate,” said Sergeant Webley ecstatically. “Shoved in among the brambles. And as good as new—or as good as second-hand—bar a bit of rust.”
“I congratulate you again, and heartily,” Mr. Tuke said with genuine warmth. “A long shot, Watson, a very long shot, as Sherlock Holmes said on a memorable occasion. And a damned good shot. Really, you know, this is a nice case. It improves every hour. I wonder what we shall find next?”
“This Mr. Holy Joe, I hope,” said Sergeant Oake grimly. “He’ll have a bit of explaining to do.”
“And the first thing he’ll have to explain,” added Sergeant Webley, glancing at Mr. Tuke, “is who he is.”
CHAPTER XX
MR. TUKE, who had telephoned to his wife from Bedford, where he dined, reached St. Luke’s Court soon after nine. Mrs. Tuke, he found, was not alone. Very much at his ease in the largest chair in her drawing-room, sat or rather sprawled the Director of Public Prosecutions.
“Are you here again?” said Mr. Tuke pointedly.
Sir Bruton gave him a pop-eyed stare through the smoke of the Larranaga with which his hostess had provided him.
“Whaddayou mean, again?” he demanded. “Can’t a poor lonely old man enjoy a spot of attractive society now #nd then without you butting in? Thought you were safely out of the way for another hour or two.”
The Director was believed to know more interesting people, including a number of criminals, than anybody in London. And though a bachelor, he lived in great comfort and untidyness in a house in Ashley Gardens, where several pretty nieces, now in the services, came to look after him, as they put it, when on leave. By their uncle’s account, he practically ran a hostel for them and their friends.
“Fact is,” he went on, “my niece Eleanor’s turned up, with a couple of other gals. Can’t get any peace in my own house. Regular Y.W.U.A., that’s what it is.”
“What does ‘U’ stand for?” Mrs. Tuke inquired. “Unchristian,” said Sir Bruton. “You ought to see the way they sink my liquor. Don’t know what gals are coming to. And what have you been up to, Tuke? Wray phoned this afternoon. Said you were interfering again, down in Bedfordshire. Filching police from their duties to go on some wild goose chase, and couldn’t I keep my own staff in order?” Mr. Tuke smiled at his wife, and lowered himself into a chair.
“Wray ought to be grateful. At last the case is making progress.”
“What case?”
“Come off it. This assumption of detachment deceives nobody. You really came here to steal a march on him.”
Sir Bruton abandoned pretence. “Thought you seemed to be having a good time,” he said. “Chasing cars, or something. Always like a bit of action in my stories. And this case grows on you,” he admitted grudgingly. “If it is a case, of course. Well, come on. Cough it up.”
