CHAPTER 14

‘Don’t look too good for young Raymond, Chief,’ said Tom forebodingly.

‘No, but we’ve others to see yet.’ Alec consulted his watch. ‘Eleven-thirty, dammit. I hate to skimp on the initial interviews, but I do want to see them all and I can’t very well keep them up after midnight.’

‘Nor me, Chief.’ The sergeant failed to stifle an enormous yawn. Beneath the hairless dome, his broad face was lined with weariness.

The week in Newcastle had been no picnic, and the sergeant wasn’t getting any younger. Mrs. Tring wouldn’t hesitate to give Alec what-for if he returned her husband to her in less than apple-pie order.

As for Alec himself, energized by the hint of a threat to his daughter, he would have been prepared to work all night if it served any purpose.

‘Only three to go,’ he said.

‘You’re leaving the two young chaps to stew, eh? Jeremy Gillespie and Harold Bretton?’

‘Partly, and partly I’ve a feeling Smythe-Pike would take it amiss if he was left till last. If his temper is as uncertain as . . .’

A bellow from the residents’ lounge cut him short. ‘Demme if I’m struggling to my feet for any demned whippersnapper of a flatfoot. Let him come here!’

‘It is,’ said Tom, grinning.

‘If Mahomet will not come to the mountain,’ Alec said philosophically, standing up as Piper reappeared, ‘then the mountain must needs go to Mahomet. All right, Ernie, we heard. We’re coming.’

‘He’s got the gout, Chief, and if you ask me, he’s been at the port all evening.’

‘Squiffy, is he?’

‘Plastered,’ said Piper. ‘Though the old fella don’t show it as bad as the other two. Mr. Gillespie’s been swigging whisky and Mr. Bretton’s on brandy and soda. Not much soda, neether.’

‘Oh hell! And they’ll have heads in the morning, I suppose. I can only hope it’s loosened their tongues. The rest have gone to bed?’

‘Yes, Chief.’

‘That’s something.’ Pushing open the door, he entered the lounge. ‘Good-evening, gentlemen. Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, Scotland Yard.’

‘You a Scot, too?’ asked the sandy-haired, bleary-eyed man slouched in a chair by the fire. Presumably Jeremy Gillespie – in fact he looked more like his sister Kitty than Raymond, his brother. ‘These chaps are Sass . . . Sass . . . English. We Scots have to stick together.’

‘Scotland Yard, sir. The Metropolitan Police.’

‘Bloody Shcots,’ said the man leaning against the mantelpiece. Thinning, pomaded hair, beautifully tailored evening dress, he must be Harold Bretton, the would-be man-about-town. Taking a step forward, he waved his glass. ‘What’sh yours, Chief Inshpector?’ His drink sloshed over his hand and he prudently retreated to prop himself up again.

‘Not on duty, thank you, sir.’ He had no desire for a drink, but the ash-tray on the mantel shelf, full of cigarette ends, made him wish he could light up his pipe.

‘Stop drivelling!’ No question of the identity of the purple-faced, stentorian gentleman with his leg raised on a footstool. Desmond Smythe-Pike looked every inch the hard-riding, hard-drinking squire. On the table at his elbow, beside a silver headed cane, stood an almost empty decanter. Between white hair, slightly disordered, and white cavalry mustache, his eyes were glazed, but his enunciation was unaffected. ‘You there, if you have the demned impertinence to insist on questioning me, at least get on with it.’

Alec decided against asking the two younger men to wait elsewhere. They would only go and pass out Leaning on the back of a chair opposite the squire, he said, ‘Tell me about your interview with Albert McGowan, sir.’

‘The man was a demned traitor to his family and his race,’ trumpeted Smythe-Pike. ‘My wife’s own uncle leaving the family fortune to a native!’

‘You remonstrated with him?’

‘I lost my temper.’ He had the grace to look a bit sheepish. ‘Not quite the thing to shout at the old fella like that, I dare say, but it made my blood boil, him sitting there saying he’d do what he liked with his own, calm as you please.’

‘Didn’t shtay calm,’ Bretton put in sardonically. ‘Gave as good as he got, though going by volume my dear papa-in-law won by a nose.’

Alec turned to face him. ‘But Mr. Smythe-Pike failed to win his point, didn’t he, sir, so you went back later, to try again.’

‘Who the devil told you that?’ Straightening, Bretton glared at Jeremy Gillespie.

‘Not me, ol’ man. Haven’ had my turn to blab to the coppers yet’.

‘I suppose when you do, you’ll admit you went to see him, after all that talk about not pestering a sick old man? I saw you coming out of his compartment.’

Gillespie sat up. ‘Now wait a bit! I don’ care for your insin . . . insinu . . . your damn sly hints. I wasn’ coming out ’cause I didn’ go in ’cause I c’d see fr’m the door he was asleep.’

‘Or dead,’ said Bretton unpleasantly. ‘Turning to look back at your handiwork, were you?’

‘Asleep, ’ntil you came along ’n’ bumped him off in his sleep.’

‘Horsewhip both of you,’ roared Smythe-Pike.

‘Let’s have some facts here,’ Alec said sharply. ‘Mr. Gillespie, you went to speak to your great-uncle as soon as your parents left him?’

‘No, not at once.’ Gillespie stared at him with shocked though still befuddled concentration. ‘The mater said Uncle Albert was on the boil after the set-to with Uncle Desmond, so I waited a bit to let him cool down.’

‘How long?’

‘How long?’ His eyes ceased to focus on the present. Alec hoped they were focussed on the past, but after his brief moment of lucidity the whisky took charge again. ‘How long? How long what?’

‘How long did you wait before going to see Albert McGowan.’

Gillespie waved vaguely. ‘Oh, that. A while. “What’s the use of worrying?”’ he sang, ‘“It never was worth while, so pack up your troubles in your ol’ kit bag an’ smile, smile, smile.”’

Alec gave up on him. ‘What about you, Mr. Bretton? You went to Mr. McGowan’s compartment after seeing Mr. Gillespie at the door?’

‘More or less.’ Leaving the support of the mantelpiece, he came over to Alec, his steps unsteady. ‘Actually, my dear chap,’ he said confidentially, breathing brandy fumes into Alec’s face as he clutched the back of the nearest chair to steady himself, ‘actually, my dear old chap, what does it really matter? He’s got something there, you know. What’s the use of worrying? Albert was an old man, a very old man, not in good health. He was going to die soon anyway. Give the old bastard a helping hand, what?’

‘Did you?’ Alec asked, through teeth gritted in disgust.

‘Me?’ Bretton asked with owlish dismay. ‘Me? Not me! My best bet was to change the miser’s mind. Grandfather, y’know. Wife’s grandfather, baby’s great-grandfather. Named the squalling brat for him, bound to turn the trick.’

‘Then why did you . . .’

An ear-shattering snore interrupted him. Desmond Smythe-Pike had nodded off unnoticed. Now, having woken himself, he blinked, said thickly, ‘Bed,’ and fumbled for his cane.

Resigned, Alec gestured at him. ‘Tom.’

The big sergeant supported the big squire’s stumbling limp from the room. Alec surveyed the other two. Jeremy Gillespie was dozing more quietly, obeying his own injunction to ‘smile, smile, smile.’ After all, why shouldn’t he? As things stood, his father was heir to the McGowan fortune.

‘Ernie, can you manage him?’

‘Reckon so, Chief.’

Harold Bretton was still upright. More or less. Alec was about to invite him to sit down and answer a few more questions when he said with querulous dignity, ‘Make it under my own steam!’ Groping his way from chair to chair, he headed for the door.

As Bretton left, the landlord, Briggs, came through from the bar-parlour next door, long since closed to the public. ‘If you’re all done in here, sir,’ he said, ‘I’ll be closing up.’

‘Have you been listening in there?’ Alec asked, annoyed, as he moved towards the fireplace rubbing his cold hands. The remains of a coal fire flickered sullenly.

‘Not to say listening, sir. Couldn’t help overhearing the odd word. Didn’t get much out of those three, did you? Sozzled, the lot of ’em.’

‘How much did they actually drink?’

‘Plenty. They weren’t faking it, believe you me. Nerves, it’d be, being suspected of murder. Was it one of them did it?’

‘I can’t discuss the case with you, Mr. Briggs, and you’re to hold your tongue about anything you overheard. I’m not quite ready to close up shop, but we’ll go back to your parlour if it’s more convenient.’

‘Might as well stay here, sir. You’ll turn off the lights when you go up?’

‘Yes. Before you go, bring three hot toddies, please, and take mugs of cocoa to the bobbies on the front door and back gate.’

The landlord heaved a martyred sigh. ‘Right, sir,’ he said and stumped off.

Tom arrived at the same time as the hot toddy. Sinking into a chair by the fire, he took a deep swig. ‘Aah! Ta, Chief, that hits the spot. Smythe-Pike’d forgotten his room number, but young Ernie’s memorized the lot, even their servants’, so I fetched his man to him.’

‘And had a word with the fellow, I hope?’

‘’Course, Chief. The squire’s gout’s real all right. He’d be strong enough but likely not agile enough, and more likely to hit the old chap over the head with his cane in a temper than hold a pillow over his face. The vally saw Miss Smythe-Pike and Raymond Gillespie with the nurse and the children, but he doesn’t know what time.’

‘We may have to get onto the guard and the ticket-inspector about times,’ Alec said. ‘At least we’ll need a train timetable, and to ask everyone whether they noticed passing through Durham and Newcastle. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to tracking down all the other passengers in search of alibis.’

Ernie came back and, with him referring to his notes of the interviews, they discussed the other suspects. Finishing his toddy, Alec decided this exercise could not usefully proceed further without proper statements from Smythe-Pike, Bretton, and Jeremy Gillespie. Something someone had said niggled at his mind, but he could not pin it down. It would probably come to him at three o’clock in the morning.

He was about to say it was time to turn in when they heard the front door opening and the constable on duty saying, ‘There’s a light on in the lounge still, Sarge.’

Heavy footsteps in the hall, then a uniformed officer tapped on the open lounge door and came in, carrying a bundle wrapped in brown paper.

‘Sergeant Middlemiss, sir. Superintendent Halliday’s compliments, and here’s the missing pillow. Leastways, it looks like whit’s left o’ yon. The Gateshead police found it, right by the railway track, and it doesna look like anyone’s washing blown off a line.’

‘Gateshead? If he’d waited just a couple of minutes, it would have landed in the Tyne!’

‘Aye, sir.’

As Alec, Tom, and Piper crowded round, Middlemiss unwrapped the bundle. It contained a grubby, torn pillowcase with the limp remains of a pillow inside – striped ticking, also ripped, with a couple of handfuls of feathers.

‘What’s this?’ Alec grabbed the bottom of the pillow-case and lifted it so the dirty white cloth was spread out between him and Middlemiss.

Amid the black smuts and general grime, to be expected of anything which had spent several hours close to the railway, were four long, brownish smears.

‘Ah!’ said Tom.

‘Turn it inside out.’

Piper reached in for the pillow and Middlemiss turned the case inside out. Alec noted a laundry mark which would make the ownership easy to prove. Against the still-white inside of the pillow-case, the brown smears stood out clearly. Four of them, starting out roughly parallel, closing together as they grew fainter. The first and third started level with one another. The second was slightly longer, the fourth shorter and narrower.

Alec curled the fingers of his left hand into a claw and held his hand just above the marks.

‘Blood!’ Piper exclaimed. ‘Good old Albert marked him, Chief. We’ve got ’im.’

‘I hope so. If it’s what it looks like, our chummy’s got scratches on him it’s going to be very difficult to explain away. Dr. Redlow will tell us if it’s human blood. With luck he might be able to check the blood group.’

‘What’s a blood group, sir?’ asked Sergeant Middlemiss, an interested observer of their, speculations.

‘Everyone has one of four different types of blood, Sergeant, some rarer than others. It’s quite a new discovery, which came in handy during the War as it makes blood transfusions safer. If we find a man – or woman – with scratches whose blood group matches this on the pillow-case, then it’s another bit of evidence, not conclusive but useful.’

‘Only thing is, Chief,’ rumbled Tom, ‘we’ve seen the lot of ’em ’cepting Madame Passkeyay and I haven’t seen a scratched face yet.’

‘Would you have noticed scratched hands? I don’t think I would.’

‘Raymond Gillespie and Dr. Jagai got scratched getting Miss Belinda out of the brambles,’ Piper reminded him. ‘Maybe that was the whole point of that business, scaring Miss Belinda into the bushes so’s he’d have an excuse for the scratches.’

Alec’s mind boggled at the thought of taking such a risk for such a chancy outcome. What was the likelihood of being able to direct the steps of a terrified, fleeing child into a thorny thicket, especially in an unknown place? He couldn’t be sure without going up on the walls to study the situation, but it seemed a long shot.

He didn’t want to discourage young Piper by pointing out the flaws in his theory before a stranger. ‘It’s a good point, Ernie,’ he said, ‘but I should think we, or the doctor, can tell the difference between thorn scratches and fingernail scratches if it comes to that. Well, we’ll just have to check everyone’s hands tomorrow, but in the meantime I’d like to make sure it’s a tenable theory. Ernie, you play the victim.’

‘Right, Chief!’ said Piper enthusiastically.

‘Sergeant Middlemiss, if you wouldn’t mind, take that cushion and smother him while Sergeant Tring and I watch. Go easy, now. I’d hate to have to explain a dead detective constable to the Assistant Commissioner.’

Middlemiss gingerly placed the cushion over Piper’s face. He held it there while Ernie thrashed around a bit like a beached fish then reached up to scrabble at his attacker. His fingernails scraped down the blue uniform sleeves, then he plucked at the cushion, trying to pull it away from his face.

‘That’ll do!’ said Alec.

Piper emerged, red-faced and breathless. ‘Cor, you didn’t have to be so realistic!’ he panted at Middlemiss. ‘Was that all right, Chief?’

‘You oughta be in the pictures,’ said Tom.

‘Not bad, except you stopped scratching before you reached his hands.’

‘Didn’t want to do the sergeant an injury, did I Chief, or he might’ve done me in for good and all!’

Alec smiled at him. ‘You showed our scenario is possible, even probable.’ He turned to the Berwick officer. ‘Sergeant Middlemiss, do you know if Dr. Redlow’s still working on the autopsy? I’d expected him to telephone by now.’

‘Still at it, I think, sir. He didna leave Newcastle till he’d etten his dinner.’

‘Then will you please take the pillow-case to him. I’ll ring up right away and explain what I want.’

Somehow Piper had the appropriate telephone number on the tip of his tongue. Going out to the lobby with Middlemiss, Alec wondered what happened to all the numbers no longer needed. Did they lurk there in the young man’s head, strings of figures just waiting for the proper stimulus to pop out of his mouth?

The fancy faded as he took the earpiece off its hook and spoke to the telephone girl. For once it wouldn’t matter if she listened in to the conversation. This was no local murder; his investigation could not be disrupted by a gossiping switchboard operator.

The bell rang several times. ‘I’m sorry, caller, there’s no answer,’ said the girl, but just then the bell cut off in mid-ring.

‘This is Dr. Fraser,’ said an impatient voice. ‘Who is it?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher, sir I’d hoped to speak to Dr. Redlow.’

‘Dr. Redlow cannot come to the telephone just now, Chief Inspector,’ Fraser said dryly. ‘If you saw his hands you’d know why. I’m assisting him.’

Alec explained about the pillow-case. ‘I’m assuming it was in fact murder,’ he said then. ‘Has Dr. Redlow come to any conclusion?’

‘Just a moment, Chief Inspector.’ Footsteps and a murmur of voices; Fraser came back. ‘I’m authorized to tell you that Dr. Redlow is prepared to swear in court that Albert McGowan died of suffocation due to the pressure of some soft object over his mouth and nose.’

Alec’s breath came out on a long sigh – he hadn’t realized he was holding it. He listened to the technical details with half his mind. Medical evidence he followed better on paper. When Dr. Fraser finished, he asked, ‘What about time of death, sir?’

‘Dr. Redlow concurs with my original estimate, Chief Inspector, since I saw the body much earlier. McGowan died between three and four this afternoon, with a half-hour margin of error either way. Sorry I can’t be more exact.’

‘That’s better than most, sir’. But no help whatsoever.

‘We’ll get onto the pillow-case as soon as it arrives,’ Fraser promised. ‘Do you want the results tonight?’

‘First thing in the morning’ll do, sir. Thank you.’ He rang off. About to return to the lounge, he had a sudden thought. Jogging the hook until the operator answered, he asked for the local police station. ‘This is Chief Inspector Fletcher. Is Superintendent Halliday still there?’

‘Yes, sir. Just a moment, please.’

Halliday came onto the line. ‘Mr. Fletcher?’

‘I thought you’d like to know, sir, that Dr. Redlow confirms murder.’

A windy sigh whistled down the wire. ‘Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. Then I can sleep in peace.’

Alec chuckled, glad to have set the man’s mind at rest. He must have been on tenterhooks wondering if he’d made a complete ass of himself.

Back in the lounge, he announced the news to Tom Tring and Ernie Piper. ‘Murder it is,’ he said. ‘Albert McGowan was smothered to death.’

‘Well of course, Chief,’ said Piper. ‘Miss Dalrymple said so, and she’s always right.’