Chapter 20
“Do you feel, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Baskin as the men dropped back to let her enter the parish hall first, “as if you’re leading a pair of lambs to the slaughter?”
“Not at all,” Daisy said crossly. “Assuming you’re both innocent as lambs, you have nothing to fear. And if … Oh!” She came to a halt, face to face with a horde of policemen making for the door, Mallow in the lead. “Good evening, Inspector. Are you off to arrest someone?”
“Good evening, Mrs. Fletcher. No, alas, we’re not about to make an arrest. Unless you’ve brought these two gentleman to confess?” he added with the smile that failed to reach his hard eyes.
“What, both of them?”
“Conspiracy is always a possibility.”
“I can’t help feeling that if Mr. Anstruther and Mr. Baskin had conspired to bump off Enderby, they’d have provided decent alibis for each other.”
“You told us you needed us to make formal statements,” Anstruther said impatiently, regarding the inspector with venomous dislike. “Since no one has come to us, we’ve come to you.”
“That’s very good of you, sir.” Mallow’s voice was smooth and bland, but Daisy, disillusioned, was sure he was being sarcastic. “Do
come in.” With a jerk of his head he sent the uniformed crowd on their way. “I expect you realize that you are not obliged to tell us anything, but anything you choose to say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. And you have a right to the presence of a lawyer.”
Baskin and Anstruther both shook their heads.
Alec and a second plainclothes man sat at one table, Constable Puckle at another, near the door.
As Mallow led the three newcomers forward into the Stygian gloom of the hall, Daisy hung back behind the men, so that Alec’s eye would fall on her last, when his mind was already occupied with the voluntary arrival of two of his suspects.
“These gentlemen are here to make statements, sir,” said Mallow, his tone congratulatory. “I’ve given them the warning. I’ll stay and lend a hand.”
“No, thanks, Inspector. Horrocks and I will manage. You go and eat with the others now so that I can leave you in charge later. Puckle, you’d better light a few lamps, please. It’s getting dark in here already.”
“There’ll be a downpour before nightfall,” Anstruther prophesied. “Thunder, too, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“And close the windows,” Alec added to the local bobby.
“Since you still want statements, Chief Inspector,” Anstruther continued, “I take it you haven’t found anyone to confirm our whereabouts?”
“In your case, Mr. Anstruther—Sit down, won’t you, both of you?” Alec motioned them to chairs in front of his table.
Daisy slipped away to find herself a seat out of his direct line of sight but within hearing. He glanced at her with a frown. She could practically read his mind:
He was wondering whether she had information to give him or had tagged along with Anstruther and Baskin in hope of finding out what was going on; he might consider the possibility that she had persuaded them to come, either to be helpful or because she wanted to hear what they had to say.
One way or another, he was dying to deal with her first and send her on her way—Daisy held her breath—
but he was afraid the delay might be enough to make the men change their minds about offering voluntary statements.
She let out her breath on a long, silent sigh of relief as his attention returned to Peter Anstruther.
“In your case, we’ve found a motor-car matching your description of the one you passed. The driver was in the lane you say you took, at about the right time. Unfortunately, he passed several bicyclists on his way from Plymouth and can’t specify when or where, let alone describe them. If you—”
“Mr. Fletcher!” A young man bounded in, waving a sheaf of papers.
“I’ve brought the autopsy report, sir. Dr. Wedderburn said to tell you he’s sorry it took so long but there were so many injuries …
I can tell you, it was perfectly ripping watching the dissection.
I think maybe I’ll be a police surgeon.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Alec said dryly. “You can leave the report with me, but it looks as if it’ll take as long to read as it did to produce. Could you come back in a while to give me a precis of the highlights?”
“Right-oh. Sorry, I shouldn’t have barged in like that when you’re in the middle of something. I’ll go and put the hood up on the old bus or she’ll be nothing but a tub of water in no time. It’s going to be coming down cats and dogs any minute. Cheerio!”
Daisy was glad she had brought her umbrella. The young man, she assumed, must be Andrew Vernon, the medical student. He certainly sounded quite as bloodthirsty as Julia Bellamy had given her to understand. She rather thought she’d leave before he gave Alec his report on the post mortem.
Alec turned back to Anstruther. “Your description of the car you saw was pretty vague. Try and think back to it, see if you can come up with more detail. You were cycling up the lane, thinking about …”
“Thinking about how much I’d tell Pritchard. I wanted his advice, you see, about asking for a shore job, but I didn’t need to go into details about my reasons. The car came down the hill towards me, making
quite a racket. I’m pretty sure it was blue, light blue, not grey. But I didn’t look at the number plate, and I couldn’t tell you the make to save my life.”
“We’ll hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Give me the silhouette of a ship and I’ll tell you her class, tonnage—give or take—and likely her nationality. Maybe even her name, not to mention her armament. But motor-cars …” He shrugged.
“Making quite a racket, was it?”
“Not so much loud, though those little machines tend to be noisy. More like sort of a cough and hiccups combined. I wouldn’t want to put to sea with an engine sounding like that, not unless the whole German Army was shooting at me from the shore.”
“Did the driver look worried?”
“Can’t say I noticed him at all—or her. I was busy keeping out of his way without going into the hedge.”
He sounded convincing to Daisy. Of course, he might have heard about the car’s colour and engine trouble from someone in the village, but then he’d know the make and that the driver was male.
Was the straightforward sailor subtle enough to realize that uncertainty on those points could serve him better than the facts?
In any case, his telling the truth about the car didn’t invalidate Mallow’s theory that he had cut across to the cliffs.
“You don’t recall seeing anyone else all afternoon?” Alec asked. “Even in Malborough?”
“I wasn’t in a mood to notice. You haven’t found anyone who saw me, then?”
“Not yet. It’s a matter of time and man-power. But I did have an officer go to Sea View Cottage, and Mr. Pritchard confirms he was out all yesterday afternoon.” Alec stood up. “Come over to the map, will you, and show me your route. Horrocks, Puckle, come and witness this, please.”
They went over to the table on the far side of the room from
Daisy. After a moment’s indecision, Baskin followed, but Daisy didn’t quite dare.
What she heard sounded much the same as what Anstruther had told Mallow.
Then, also, she had been unable to see the map.
Nor had her attempted exploration been successful—except that it had led her to Mrs. Hammett and thus to Olive Coleman’s disappearance.
The shortage of man-power for investigating Anstruther’s movements could be because all the available officers had been searching for Olive.
If they had found her, then Daisy’s snippet of information about Sid being her uncle would fall flat. Or PC Puckle or Mrs. Coleman might already have told Alec. Still, he couldn’t blame her for bringing stale news.
Baskin was going over his route on the map now. She couldn’t be sure it was exactly the same as what he had said before, but she thought so. The fact that Alec was bothering with it must mean no witnesses to his movements had been found, either. Both Baskin and Anstruther were still suspects.
The men all moved back to the other table, except Puckle, who resumed his seat by the door.
Prompted by Alec, Anstruther began in a low voice to tell his story, starting with the fracas in the Schooner bar.
Daisy caught only snatches of what he said, because the cats and dogs had arrived and were drumming frenziedly on the roof.
Water streamed down the high windows. Puckle lighted a couple more lamps.
The door opened and the bloodthirsty young man dashed in, dripping. He took off his hat and shook it, showering the floor, then looked around and came over to Daisy.
“Simply bucketing down!” he announced unnecessarily, setting a green canvas case on the table.
“I say, d’you mind if I introduce myself?
I’m Andrew Vernon. I’m helping the chief inspector with this case, don’t you know.
” Trying to appear nonchalant, he succeeded only in sounding very youthful and proud of himself. “Are you waiting to see him?”
“Yes. I’m—”
“Don’t tell me! Let me deduce.” He regarded her with sparkling eyes. “You’re Mrs. Fletcher.”
“How did you guess?”
“Not a guess, a deduction. Actually, I saw you in the Anstruthers’ garden when we came down from the cliffs yesterday.
But if I hadn’t, I would have worked it out anyway.
If you were an ordinary witness, Mr. Fletcher would have spoken to you first, because you might know something that would clear Mr. Baskin or Mr. Anstruther, so he wouldn’t have to interview them.
Or if you were a suspect, again he’d see you first. You might incriminate yourself and he could let them go. ”
“But since I’m merely his wife, I may await his convenience.”
Vernon grinned. “You said it, not I.”