PARALLEL with the long platforms of Holmdale station, upon The Other Side of the railway line, runs, for two hundred yards, the thousand-windowed, green-and-white-painted back of the Breakfast Barlies Factory. At the southern end of the building there shoot into the sky, sudden and massive, the four great grain-elevators. These terrific towers are considered, by many of Holmdale’s citizens, to be the one blot upon Holmdale’s beauty. Actually they are the strongest claim to beauty which Holmdale has—their grouping; their smooth, sleek, immutable strength; their unbroken and unvarying shape; their almost brutal utilitarianism: all these—and something else; some indefinable and inner meaning not to be understood even by their makers—make them worthy to succeed the great trees which once stood where now the towers stand, but which, if still they grew, would seem shrubs clustered untidily about the towers’ feet.
They stood now, these towers, a black mass against the bloodshot sky of a winter sunset. The thousand-and-one windows of the factory sprang from blackness into golden life. Behind them the work went on. Good honest grain, ton upon ton of it, was being beaten and thrashed, roasted and split, drenched and besugared until, behind the gleaming windows at the northern end of the building, its final and tasteless distortions were packed, by white-clad females, into blue-and-white cardboard boxes, bearing all, in letters of red and gold, the words Breakfast Barlies. Under the splendid insignia was a picture of the factory, the grain-towers omitted. Under the picture were the words: ‘Breakfast Barlies beat the band, with cream and sugar they are grand; Dad likes them, so does little Pete, no meal without them is complete.’
There were seven hundred and seventeen day-workers in the factory. They were all well paid, well tended and worked under conditions almost painfully hygienic. They started work—girl-packers, men-machinists, roasters, clerks, porters, managers; everyone—at eight a.m., and they finished work—again all of them—at five p.m. Save upon most unusual occasions, and then only when armed with an official permit, signed and countersigned and franked again, was a worker seen to leave the factory before the proper time. But it was only ten minutes past four when Albert Calvin Rogers, second electrician in the belt-room, came up the stairs from the belt-room whistling, with hands in his overall-pockets and cap over one ear.
Albert Rogers was a competent working electrician hating electricity. Albert Rogers was a brilliant player of Association Football, loving the game with a devouring love. And in a pocket of the trousers beneath his overalls there lay a letter signed ‘Yours faithfully, F. T. Lovelace.’ This letter had come by the previous morning’s post and had been in the pocket or his hand ever since. Thirty-six hours and more he had had it; but it had taken every minute of those hours and all the assurances of the many to whom the letter had been shown, to convince him that the letter was fact and no imagining.
But now he did believe it. Hence the small scene, most dramatic, which had taken place in the belt-room ten minutes before. He had, as most workers, often mentally dramatised the visionary occasion upon which he would tell his immediate superior what he thought of him, but never—not at least, until just now—had it occurred to him that such an occasion would ever befall him in reality.
Yet it had. And down there was Masters, the foreman, with a flea in his ear and the other ear beginning already to thicken. And here was he, an hour before knocking-off time, coming up, by the forbidden stairs, a free and melodious man.
Sergeant Stelch, the Commissionaire, came out of his cubby-hole in resplendent wrath. In all the five-year history of Breakfast Barlies, Stelch had never before seen any one of the belt-room staff come up the Directors’ stairs nor heard an electrician whistle. The sight of the one added, in the same person, to the sound of the other, had at first amazed Sergeant Stelch and then infuriated him.
‘Oy!’ bellowed Sergeant Stelch.
Albert Rogers halted. He turned and his wide smile added fuel to the other’s wrath. ‘If you speak a little louder,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘a fellow might be able to ’ear you.’
Sergeant Stelch advanced. The fine tips of his waved moustache seemed to reach forward, bristling.
Albert Rogers stood his ground.
‘It’s you, is it?’ said Sergeant Stelch, his mouth not more than six inches from Albert Rogers’s nose.
‘Right,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘the very first time, my dear ’Olmes. Your methods are astonishing.’
‘None,’ said Sergeant Stelch, ‘of that! You know very well that no one of you blokes ain’t allowed up these stairs nor in this ’all. You know the rules and regulations of this firm just as well as I do.’
The smile of Albert Rogers grew, incredibly, wider. His sparkling blue eye rested longingly upon the jutting corner of the Sergeant’s jaw. ‘You know what it is,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘if you don’t take that face away, I might push it. Leave it there by all means if you like, but I’m not guaranteein’ what may ’appen if you do.’
The scarlet face became blackly purple. The points of the moustaches seemed to double their length. Beneath them the thick lips moved in an effort to get out words which would not come.
‘If you’re going to say,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘that you’re goin’ to see that I’ll get the sack, you’re mistaken. I shall not get the sack. You see, Stelchy, it’s Breakfast Barlies who’ve got the sack. I’ve just given it to ’em.’
Albert Rogers took Sergeant Stelch by the arm and spoke kindly to him. ‘You don’t,’ said Albert, ‘look very well. What you want, my little man, is to ’ave a nice quiet sit down.’
Still whistling, still with his hands in his pockets, Albert Rogers walked out of the main doors of the great building and down the sweep of the white steps. He had never been that way before; had never, in fact, wanted to. It was a much longer way than the way he and his associates generally used. But tonight he used it, savouring every step. He turned left at the end of the steps and walked along the neatly gravelled, white-bordered driveway to the great gates across the top of which showed in letters of blue and white light: ‘THE BIRTHPLACE OF BREAKFAST BARLIES.’ Presently, as he came out under this arch and spat reflectively behind him, his mind became really busy not with the past but with the future. Today was Friday and the letter had said next Monday morning at nine o’clock. And this meant that as from nine o’clock upon this unbelieveable Monday Albert Calvin Rogers would be a fully fledged and comparatively highly remunerated member of the Woolwich United Association Football Club.
Half-way over the new iron bridge spanning the railway line he halted. His fingers groped for the letter and found reassurance in its comforting but by this time greasy crackle. There it was in black and white …
Albert Rogers went on a little faster. By now it would be nearing five and at five he could suitably crown this day by turning into the public bar of The Wooden Shack. So down the slope of the bridge he went and turned sharp to his right and went behind the lounge and dining-room of The Shack and so round to the back where are the billiard saloons and public bar. The doors were open and the lights ablaze. Already, although this was only a moment past five, there were three customers and of these three, one—Frank Howard—was a friend.
‘Love us!’ said Mr Howard. ‘Look who’s ’ere. Wattle, Bert?’
‘With you,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘nothing. You’ll drink with me and so will everybody else. This is my lucky day.’ He turned to the barman. ‘Stick ’em up, Ted.’
The hand of Mr Howard descended upon his friend’s shoulder. ‘You don’t bloody well mean to say,’ said Mr Howard in tones of great astonishment, ‘that that bloody tale Wally was telling me about you bloody well being a bloody footballer is bloody well true?’
‘Frank,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘it bloody is!’
‘Kor!’ said Mr Howard.
‘On Monday next,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘… but ’ere, read for yerself.’ He pulled out from his pocket the letter, unfolded it and drew from its envelope the precious, be-thumbed sheet.
Mr Howard read. ‘Well, well, well!’ said Mr Howard. ‘’Ere, ’ave another.’
Albert Rogers had another; and then, when more friends came in, yet several more. Albert Rogers, who had a good head but not great capacity for bulk, switched from bitter to whisky. By half-past six he was in a condition which he himself, even at the time, described as three parts lit. He was, however, much in love with Mary Fillimore and had an appointment with Mary Fillimore for six thirty-five at a spot distant by fifteen minutes’ walk.
‘’Eu,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘I’m off.’
‘Not,’ said a voice behind him—a new voice for this evening—‘till you’ve had one on me, Bert.’
Albert Rogers turned. ‘Blimey!’ he said, ‘if it isn’t old Todd.’ He swayed a little on his feet and held out a ready hand.
Mr Edward Bultivle, chief compositor at the Lakeside Press, gripped the proffered hand, shook it warmly and within two minutes placed firmly within it a glass containing yet more whisky. Mr Bultivle then raised his own glass. ‘Here,’ said Mr Bultivle, ‘is to the most promising Outside Right in League Football!’
‘’Ear, ’ear!’ said Mr Howard.
And ‘’Ear, ’ear!’ came hearty chorus.
‘How the hic,’ said Albert Rogers, ‘did you know anyhic about it, Todd?’
‘Off the next edition of the Clarion of course,’ said Mr Bultivle. ‘’Aven’t I spent the whole flamin’ day settin’ the darn thing up? And didn’t Tom Pearce where you lodge drop word into the Clarion office this mornin’? Of course he did and of course Miss Finch put somethink in, and a nice bit it is, I can tell you, Bert! ’Ave another?’
‘I will,’ said Albert Rogers firmly, ‘do nothink of the such. I … I’m goinc. I … I’ve got a pointment. What’s time?’
Mr Bultivle consulted a large watch. ‘The time,’ said Mr Bultivle largely, ‘is twenty-three and three-quarters of a minute to seven. You’re late already, boy. Stay and ’ave another.’
But Albert Rogers had gone.
Albert Rogers was willing his unruly but magnificent legs to carry his thirteen stone of well proportioned bone and muscle fast, and as straight as might possibly be, up the length of Market Road; thus to Forest Rise and so, eventually, to the hedged-in blackness of Links Lane. Half-way up Forest Rise he broke into a staggering run, He knew what Mary was when she was kept waiting. It wasn’t that she was cross with him or gave him the rough edge of her tongue or anything like that. It was just that she was hurt and it wasn’t as though she made a fuss about it like some sorts would. It was just that she was disappointed-like at the waste of time and couldn’t help showing it however much she tried.
Albert Rogers, running uphill upon legs which although steadier were still unruly, once more cursed himself for a fool. At the top of Forest Rise and the steep downward slope which joins this house-flanked thoroughfare with the rurality of Links Lane, he slowed down to a walk. No good charging, on these legs, down a steep and dark and stony road.
He tried, as he began the descent, to calculate the time. It must have taken him eight minutes at least since leaving The Shack. What had Todd said? Twenty-three minutes to seven. That would make it, now, about a quarter to … That would be all of twenty minutes she would have been waiting before he got up the hill the other side to the seat …
He found himself blowing hard, a thing he hadn’t done after a little run like that for perhaps four years … He despised himself … He stopped to draw breath … Cold air went down into his inflamed lungs like a sharp, hot sword. He got his breath. He went on again; walking. He got to the foot of the hill just by the little white stile into Crosbies Wood … He passed the stile … He was walking on the right-hand side of the road and so he went by not more than a few feet from the stile. He thought that he saw, dimly through the dark, a figure leaning against the rail to one side of the stile, but he was not certain until, from just behind him, there came a voice. It said:
‘I wonder whether you could help me.’
Albert Rogers turned, swaying a little with the movement.
Albert Rogers started to say—he was always a civil boy—‘I beg your pardon …’ But he got no further than the ‘beg.’
Something very cold hurt him … No, it wasn’t cold, it was fire.
A little stifled cry, like the squeak of a small injured animal, came from his mouth. He doubled, his hands clasped vainly to his stomach. His knees crumpled beneath him. He felt light, light …
They had lodged Pike in Fourtrees Road, in Number Twelve. This was, for Holmdale and Fourtrees Road, a large house, having five bedrooms, a sun-parlour and something over quarter of an acre of garden. The owner, a spinster of fifty healthy years, was Miss Honoria Marable. Miss Marable was a prosperously retired seaside boarding-house proprietress who, after thirty years of lodgers, was still weirdly unable to live happily without being constantly surrounded by these animals. Number Twelve was Miss Marable’s ambition brought about by Miss Marable’s self. Number Twelve was, necessarily upon a small scale, everything that boarding-houses should be, but so very seldom are. It is doubtful whether Miss Marable did anything but lose money over it, but it is certain that Miss Marable’s lodgers were well fed and well housed and happy and, to be all these, paid less than any other lodgers in Holmdale.
Pike was given the large bedroom in the front of the house, a much-windowed, cheerful room. Upon the evening of his first day in Holmdale, just after the evening meal, he sat up in his room looking out, through the glass of the bay-window, at the dark, clear night. There was no moon but the sky was encrusted with stars and there was that strange translucency to the darkness which sometimes comes upon a winter’s night.
It had been cold all day and now was colder. But there had been a fire—and a good one—in the room since early morning and Pike, seeing that the air was already misted with his tobacco smoke, threw open a pane of the bay window. Keen, sweet-smelling air rushed in. He knelt upon the window-seat, took his pipe from his mouth and leaned out, taking deep breaths.
He could see dimly the black shapes of smaller houses upon the other side of the road and, a hundred yards or so to his left, a yellow splash of light where the street-lamp stood, outside the small white cottage which was the house of Sergeant Jeffson of the County Constabulary and, therefore, also Holmdale’s Police Headquarters.
He put the pipe back into his mouth again, leant his forearms comfortably on the sill and waited until the measured, regular footfalls which he had heard when first he opened the window should pass beneath him.
They drew near and nearer, two men walking together, with slow and unvarying pace, upon the pavement upon his side of the road. He leant out and peered downwards, straining his eyes. In a moment he levered himself back, satisfied. A patrol—and a patrol of regular constables. He had just been able to distinguish their helmets. The patrol went by at the same pace. The sound of their walking grew fainter and fainter and died away altogether as they breasted the small rise and went down the hill towards the end of Fourtrees Road and the semi-circular sweep of Fourtrees Avenue which was one end of their beat.
Pike tapped the ashes out of his pipe against the window-sill, sat back on his heels and reached out a hand to pull the window close.
But he did not close it. The sound of more footsteps came to his ears. These were not measured, regular footsteps. They were hurrying, stumbling footsteps; one person’s. Pike threw the window wide and leaned out listening. The footsteps were coming from the same way as had the patrol’s when he had first heard them. They must just have turned the corner from Marrowbone Lane coming, however, from the east end of Marrowbone Lane and not the west as had the patrol. They were thus upon the far side of the road from Pike. They came tripping and stumbling along with a sort of shuffling ring borne to Pike’s ears on the frosty air. It was no good hoping that he could see their owner from where he was. Half he decided to whip out of the room and down the stairs in the hope of waylaying the maker of the sounds; but he changed his mind immediately, realising that by the time he had got down the stairs and down the path and through the gate, the runner might be twenty or thirty yards ahead of him …
The footsteps, loud now, were exactly opposite him. Craning out of the window he could hear another sound besides that made by the feet. He could hear laboured, gasping breathing—a wild sound. Whether it was made by a man or woman he could not tell. It was the strangeness of this and also the tale which the breathing told of the runner’s distress that made him jump across the room in two leaps, fling open the door, go downstairs in four bounds, wrench open the front door, run down the path and vault the gate …
Pike could run. Pike knew that he was gaining over a yard with every stride. But his running stopped within a hundred yards. The pursued halted under the street-lamp opposite Jeffson’s cottage, fumbled with Jeffson’s gate and charged, reeling a little in his stride, up to Jeffson’s front door. Pike slowed down to a walk, reached the gate himself and stood by it, waiting, unobtrusive.
The street-lamp took within the radius of its yellow light the small, green door and the figure which now was knocking upon it with loud and irregular beatings. Pike saw that he had been running after a man of considerable age. It was a tall, lean and stooping figure which knocked. It supported itself with its free hand against the door-post. Its shoulders were bent and heaved to shuddering breaths. It had no hat and a mop of white hair tossed disorderly to its movements.
The door was opened by Jeffson himself. Pike heard his deep growl and then a high-pitched, wavering voice in answer whose words were marred to Pike’s hearing by their owner’s fight for normal breath.
Pike pushed open the gate and strolled quietly up the path. He arrived at the door just as Jeffson had waved his visitor inside.
‘Just a moment,’ said Pike.
Jeffson opened the door again. ‘Oh, it’s you, sir,’ he said. He heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Glad you’ve come, I must say.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the dark recesses of the passage. ‘That there, that’s …’ Jeffson never finished his sentence. His visitor’s voice came again from just behind him.
‘Quick,’ it said, ‘quick! We can’t stand here wasting time. Quick! quick!’
Pike and Jeffson looked at each other. Pike nodded. They stepped across the threshold and Jeffson closed the door.
There was a room on the right of the passageway which was half parlour of the Jeffson family and half rural police office. A flood of hard light from a yellow-shaded electric lamp showed to Pike’s eyes a slippered and coatless Jeffson, burlier even than in his uniform, and a cleric of extraordinary leanness from whose lined and working and ravaged face blue eyes blazed out with a strange light—a light which might have been mirth, or madness or sheer, naked terror.
‘This,’ said Jeffson awkwardly, ‘is the Reverend Rockwall.’ He turned to the cleric. ‘Mr Rockwall, this is …’ he hesitated, looking at Pike and receiving a nod, went on: ‘This is Superintendent Pike of Scotland Yard who’s down here about—’
‘Yes, yes!’ Rockwall seemed now to have mastered his voice. It was still high-pitched and strained, but the note of hysteria had gone.
‘Yes,’ he said again, ‘yes. But there’s been another of these … in Links Lane … I was walking down there. I was going home. I tripped over something in the road. It … it …’ He put up long, lean fingers and for a moment covered his face.
Pike pushed forward a chair. ‘You’d best sit down, sir,’ said Pike. His voice was calm and soothing and matter-of-fact.
Rockwall sank into the chair. From a pocket of the black, long-skirted coat he took a crumpled handkerchief and with it mopped the bony brow which glistened with great beads of sweat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry … What I stumbled against was the body of a man. I could … I could tell that he was dead. He had … he had … there was a wound in his stomach.’ He shuddered and looked at his right hand.
Pike’s small, bright eyes looked at the hand without seeming to look. They saw that on the ball of the thumb was a dark, drying stain. Pike said, quietly:
‘How long ago was this, sir? Don’t worry to tell us any more. Just answer my questions, if you would be so good.’
‘It seems,’ said Rockwall, ‘hours! But it can’t be. I came here … I ran … all the way. I don’t know how long it took me.’
Jeffson looked at Pike’s raised eyebrows then, calculatingly, at his other visitor. ‘Call it a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes,’ said Jeffson.
‘Did you,’ Pike said to Rockwall, ‘see anybody else on your way? After, I mean, you had found the body and were coming here?’
The white head was shaken. ‘No. Not a soul. All the way I was looking for someone. I felt that I should never get here.’
Pike’s hands were deep in his pockets and his eyes were fixed upon the shining toe-caps of his boots. He rocked a little from heel to toe. He was silent for a long moment. And then the hands came out of his pockets, the rocking ceased and he turned to Jeffson. He said:
‘Get in touch with the patrol stations. Tell ’em to pull in everybody from now on. Get ready yourself. I’m going to get the car. Bring a man with a bicycle. I’ll be back in four minutes. Mr Rockwall, will you please stay here and then accompany us.’
Two bright streams of white light—one stream from the headlights of the blue police Crossley, the other from the headlights of the Holmdale Cottage Hospital Ambulance—flooded the narrow hedge-lined summit of Links Lane. Where the two floods intersected in an oddly theatrical pool of whiteness, a group of men stood looking down at something which lay upon the road. The road was black under the white glare. The hedges were black, thick tracery against blue-black night. Every little irregularity in the road’s surface showed under the lights as a bump and a dip eight times their real size.
Pike came suddenly into the centre flood of light.
‘That’s that!’ he said curtly.
‘Anything, sir?’ said Jeffson.
Pike shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’
‘No … trace?’ said Rockwall.
Again Pike shook his head. ‘Not a trace, sir.’ He bent his head to look down at the sprawled thing, now covered roughly with a blanket from one of the ambulance stretchers, which lay at their feet. ‘What could you expect? The Butcher keeps his weapon and I don’t suppose ever so much as touches his victim. There’s a hard frost and even if there wasn’t this surface wouldn’t take any prints … No, there’s nothing. Nothing at all … Jeffson, you’d better tell the ambulance men to take this away.’ He nodded at the bundle which, so short a time ago, had been Albert Rogers. ‘The only thing we’ve got to be thankful for at the moment is that somebody knows who he is.’
For a moment Jeffson stood motionless looking down.
‘Poor kid,’ said Jeffson. And then, lifting his head sharply, turned and strode off and became brusquely official with the ambulance men.
Pike moved nearer to the cleric and looked at him. Pike said: ‘You’re sure, sir, that the body hadn’t been moved since you saw it?’
Rockwall shrugged thin shoulders helplessly. ‘So far as I can tell, Superintendent, the poor fellow hadn’t been moved … But you must understand … you must understand that I … I … I was overwrought … when I—’
‘Quite, sir, quite. I just wanted to make sure … Jeffson!’
‘Yes.’ Jeffson came trotting up, moving his bulk lightly.
‘Did you say something about this boy having had a girl?’
Jeffson nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. Mary Fillimore it is. In service. Parlourmaid at Mrs Sharp’s in Tall Elms.’
The ambulance men came shuffling with a stretcher. They set the stretcher down. They stooped and lifted the shell of Albert Rogers and soon bore it away.
Pike went on as if there had been no interruption. ‘Happen to know where they used to meet? Here?’
Jeffson shook his head. ‘Couldn’t say. We could wake the girl. Shall we? Or get her in the morning?’
Pike considered this. ‘In the morning,’ he said at last.
Jeffson, tilting his helmet forward over his eyes, scratched the back of his head. ‘What’s to do now, then?’
‘Get back.’ Pike was curt. ‘Get back and see if they have pulled anyone in. What’s the time?’
Rockwall answered this. He pulled out a watch, bent to see its story by the lights of the Crossley and said: ‘Fifteen minutes to eleven.’ He seemed calm now and in the thin face the blue eyes too were calm. The hand that held the watch did not tremble and the voice, though high-pitched still, was steady.
‘Thanks,’ said Pike. ‘Now we’ll get back. Jeffson, send that bicycle man of yours the round of the patrols.’
‘I wonder,’ said Rockwall, ‘whether you would let me ride in your motor car as far at least as the beginning of Marrowbone Lane. This … this …’
‘Of course, sir.’ Pike was quietly genial, in great contrast to his official curtness. ‘Come along.’
There came a sudden roar as the engine of the ambulance started and then a swinging of its light beams. It backed, turned, and then, with a soft purring in place of its roar, was gone. Against the hedge Jeffson spoke with a dim shape standing by a glittering bicycle.
Pike, his hand courteously ready to assist, led Rockwall to the car, settled him in the front seat and wedged himself into the driver’s seat beside him. Jeffson came running and climbed into the back. More swinging of lights. More backing and turning. Another, deeper purr as the Crossley went …
Links Lane was once more its black and empty and silent self.
The hands of the clock upon Jeffson’s mantelpiece stood at five minutes to midnight. The little room seemed crowded. Behind the plain deal table, which seemed to be the end of parlour and the beginning of office, sat Pike in a chair with arms and Jeffson upon a chair without arms. Before the table, at an angle to them, sat huddled in one of the parlour armchairs the thin length of the white-haired clergyman. By the door, upright, uncomfortable and yet most pleasurably excited, sat, nursing an awkward helmet upon more awkward knees, Police Constable 4123 George Birch.
Pike was speaking to the Reverend Lucius Charles Arbuthnot Rockwall.
‘… I think that’s all. No, there’s one other thing. If you wouldn’t mind telling me, sir, purely, of course, as a matter of form, what the business was which had taken you, in these strange times, to such a place that you had to walk back through Links Lane?’
‘Certainly. Certainly.’ Rockwall sat upright in his chair with a sudden spring almost inhuman to view. ‘I had been to visit a sick parishioner of mine, who lives in the farm cottages at the top of Links Lane just within my cure—’
‘Who’s that, sir?’ Jeffson put in. ‘Joe Starr?’
The white head was shaken. ‘No. Sarah Queen. You know her, Sergeant? Of course you do! Poor old dame! I’m afraid she won’t last another week.’
‘What time, sir,’ said Pike, ‘did you get to this woman’s cottage?’
The heavy lids were lifted from the strange blue eyes. ‘I really couldn’t say, Superintendent.’
Pike was looking down at the pencil with which his hands were toying. He spoke without raising his eyes. He said: ‘Surely, sir, you could give us some idea.’
From Rockwall’s mouth there came a queer sound, presumably a laugh. Its end was as sudden as the death of the sound of a loud speaker peremptorily disconnected.
‘I daresay,’ said Rockwall, ‘that I could … Let me think … I left my house immediately after my small evening meal … I should say, Superintendent, that that was at somewhere between seven and half-past. I remember that I did not want to go out but I had promised old Sarah that I would. I walked straight—’
‘Just one moment, sir!’ Pike’s interruption was suave but interruption nevertheless. ‘Did you walk to the cottage by the same way that you came back? Through Links Lane, that is?’
Rockwall shook his head. ‘I did not, Superintendent. I took the short-cut over the golf course half-way up Tall Elms Road.’
‘But you came back,’ said Pike mildly, ‘by the longer road?’
Rockwall nodded. For a moment the very poll of the white head was presented to Pike’s eyes. ‘I came back,’ said Rockwall, ‘by the longer road … as you say … The reason, Superintendent, was that it was so dark tonight that I had a great deal of trouble walking over the golf course …’ His thin lips curved into a self-deprecatory smile. ‘As a matter of fact I twice measured my length upon the grass, tripping first over a wire fence which I altogether failed to see and secondly stumbling down over the edge of one of the greens. I really thought it safer, after leaving old Sarah, to walk back by the road … Thank God that I did. Otherwise …’
‘Otherwise what, sir?’ said Pike. His tone was gently curious and he still did not raise his eyes.
Rockwall stared. There was an instant’s silence. ‘Otherwise …’ he said, ‘otherwise … Why, Superintendent? I am afraid I do not follow you. If I had not chosen to go back by Links Lane, I should not have … I should not have … made my terrible discovery, and if I had not … the … the … it might have been lying there still, uncared for and untended.’
‘Yes,’ said Pike. ‘Yes. I see, sir … And we know from what you’ve already told us that it was somewhere about twenty minutes past nine when you found … when you made the discovery.’
A film of vagueness seemed to have come over Rockwall’s lean, lined face and his eyes, too, were now dull. He waved a white, thin, long-fingered hand. ‘As you say, Superintendent. As you say.’
‘Now the walk across the golf course, I should say, would take you …’ Pike looked at Jeffson.
Jeffson twitched burly shoulders. ‘Say half an hour.’ He looked at Rockwall. ‘Do you agree, sir?’
Once more the hand was waved while the other hand rested upon the arm of the chair supporting the white head. ‘Yes. Yes. I should think you are right. I have never timed the walk. Yes. Yes. I should say half an hour. Quite half an hour. A full half-hour.’
Pike ceased to play with his pencil. ‘So that you would have arrived at the cottage of this Sarah Queen at about eight o’clock and, as I see it, the walk from the cottage to where this man Rogers was killed would take somewhere between five and ten minutes. You got to the cottage at eight and you left at a quarter-past nine. A longish visit, wasn’t it, sir?’
Rockwall closed his eyes. ‘Why, yes. But that poor old dame, she’s like all the rest of them … she was afraid.’ He raised his head from his hands and the lids from his eyes. He stared hard at Pike. ‘She was afraid, Superintendent, of death … I gave her what comfort I could. One cannot tear oneself away on those occasions.’
‘Quite, sir. Quite.’ Pike looked at Jeffson again. ‘I don’t think we need keep Mr Rockwall any longer unless, Jeffson, there’s anything you’d like to—’
Jeffson shook his head. ‘No, sir. No.’
Pike rose and came out from behind the table. Rockwall rose to meet him. For a moment they looked at each other.
‘I will be going on my way then,’ Rockwall said. ‘If there is anything further I can do—any small assistance which may lie within my power—I hope you will—’
Pike nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. We’ll certainly call upon you. We are, of course, much indebted to you for acting so promptly and properly.’
Jeffson opened the door. Police Constable George Birch sprang to his feet and stood, lumberingly, out of the way. There was a moment’s silence. Tall and bent and almost unbelievably thin, Rockwall stood in the centre of the little room. His eyes were darting glances here and there about the furniture.
‘Lookin’ for something, sir?’ Jeffson said.
‘Eh?’ said Rockwall, suddenly raising his eyes. ‘Oh, thank you, Sergeant. Thank you. It was … I was looking for my hat.’
‘Hat, sir?’ said Jeffson and began, too, to look.
Pike interposed. ‘When you came, sir, you had no hat with you,’ he said quietly.
‘Eh?’ Rockwall stared. ‘Oh, yes … yes … yes. It must have been lost in my run. Thank you. Thank you. Good-night!’
He went through the door and into the passage in which there was now a light. At a nod from his Sergeant, Constable Birch followed along the passage and opened the front door.
Inside the room Pike and Jeffson, looking at each other in silence, heard the click of the door shutting and then slow, weary-seeming footsteps ringing down the frozen path.