‘H’m!’ said Nigel politely; ‘that’s certainly an idea. It seems to me to have two rather salient drawbacks, though.’
‘And what might they be?’ asked the inspector, leaning back in his chair so that a roll of fat appeared above the back of his collar.
‘First, the fact that this alleged well-wisher stated the day and hour at which Bunnett should come to the brewery suggests that he proposed to be waiting for him there. An ordinary anonymous letter-writer would have no object in stating the exact time. If the night watchman was a pilferer, he would be just as likely to be pilfering one night as another. Second, if the watchman did kill Bunnett, why didn’t he put the body into one of the boiler furnaces? That would have destroyed all evidence of his crime completely; Bunnett would have disappeared and there would be no reason to suppose that he had ever gone to the brewery that night—the watchman couldn’t know about the anoymous letter, of course.’
‘Ah, but if every criminal always did the most sensible thing, the Force would have to go out of business. Still, I’ll allow there may be something in what you say. Now, sir, I had a talk with this Lock before he went on duty last night: and I found out one or two items of interest. First, he’s a new man—only taken on a couple of months ago. Second, he works to a sort of time-table.’
‘Time-table?’
‘Ah. He’s supposed to visit every part of the brewery—the various store-rooms and processes, if you follow me, at stated times during the night. It’s part of his job to see that the temperatures are kept right, the taps running proper, and so forth. He has a clock in a leather case on his wrist, that’s set by radio time every evening. There’s a schedule upon the wall of the little cubby-hole where he sits when he has a spare moment, showing what times these inspections must be made. Now, Mr Strangeways, do you see the significance of that?’
‘Well, you mean that—if he was doing his job properly—we should know exactly where he was at any time of the night.’
‘Yes and no, sir, yes and no. I looks at it this way. If he was doing his job properly, he should have been on one of his tours of inspection between 11.30 and midnight. Why then didn’t he see Mr Bunnett and the murderer—supposing there was a third party on the premises? You’d think he’d at least have heard a scuffle or something.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. The brewery is a big place, remember. If Bunnett was trying to catch out the watchman in some petty pilfering, he’d take good care not to be seen or heard. As to the murderer, he’d take equally good care to carry out his dirty work at a time when Lock was in another part of the building. As far as I can see, it only goes to show that the murderer had an exact knowledge of the way things worked in the brewery—which at least limits your number of possible suspects a bit.’
‘That’s theory, sir, just theory, if you’ll pardon me saying so. What I want is facts.’
‘Of course. And so say all of us. Have you got that schedule here?’
The inspector passed it across; then told the constable at the door to ask Mr Barnes would he step this way for a minute. Nigel took up the schedule. The important period, if the anonymous letter was really part of the murderer’s plan, must be around midnight: between 11.30 and 12.30 say, allowing a wide margin. The watchman’s tour of inspection ended at midnight, he noticed; so it would be after midnight that Bunnett might expect to catch him out knocking back the bottled beer. For that reason, if it was the watchman who had killed him—presuming, of course, that he had not been getting down to the bottled beer before opening time, so to speak—the murder would have been committed soon after midnight. But that applied with equal probability if the murderer was not the watchman: he would be less likely to attack Bunnett while Lock was going his rounds than when he had retired again to his cubby-hole. However, as the inspector said, it was all theoretical. Nigel hastily made a copy of the schedule and was handing it back when the head brewer entered.
‘This man Lock, now,’ said the inspector without preamble: ‘you say he’s entirely trustworthy?’
‘That’s right. An old army man, he is. Had a job at Roxby’s before he came to us.’
‘Had any small thefts lately—bottled beer, say, or sugar?’
Mr Barnes raised his massive eyebrows, and his lugubrious face took on an appearance of what might almost have been called animation.
‘Funny you should mention that. About three weeks ago, when we were checking up, we found there was a sack of sugar and a couple of crates of the light ale missing. How did you come to hear about it?’
‘Information received,’ replied Tyler curtly. ‘Why weren’t we informed about it at the time?’
‘Ask the guv’nor, buddy, ask the guv’nor. Thought he’d do a bit of detecting like on his own. “Barnes,” he says to me, “Barnes,” he says, “these local bobbies are no catch,” he says, “if we’re going to find out who’s been lifting the stuff, we’ll have to do it for ourselves,” he says.’
‘Well, go on,’ said the inspector, not without heat; ‘I haven’t all day to listen to your reminiscences.’
‘So the guv’nor laid a little trap,’ continued Mr Barnes blandly. ‘The stores was checked every night and morning for a week, see, so if Lock had been lifting anything we should’ve noticed, see. But there wasn’t nothing missing then. Mind you, I’d have no objection to Lock taking a glass of beer at night—when the mood came on him, as you might say. But the guv’nor was a bit close that way. Soon after, his dog got into the open copper and he was rampaging about that, so the other business lapsed.’
‘Who did put Truffles into that copper, by the way?’ asked Nigel mildly. ‘Now that his owner has—er—gone the same way home, there doesn’t seem any point in keeping it dark any longer.’
‘Nor doesn’t there seem any point asking about it in that case,’ replied Mr Barnes, bending a glance of uncommon shrewdness in Nigel’s direction. ‘Let the dead bury their dead, is what I say. But I couldn’t tell you, sir, even if I wanted to. The guv’nor held an inquiry, mind you—fair turned the bleeding place upside down; but nothing came of it. Everyone could prove they was at work then—everyone except the accountancy office staff, that is, and myself and Mr Joe.’
‘The office staff being?’
‘Lily—that’s my daughter—Mr Bunnett’s secretary, she was, and a couple of clerks.’
‘Um. I must have a talk with them some time.’
‘Well, gentlemen, if you’ve finished with me for the present, I’ll be slinging my hook. The wheels of industry must be kept turning. So long.’ Mr Barnes raised his eyebrows at them and slung his hook.
Inspector Tyler’s temper was by no means improved by this interview. When the night watchman entered the room, Tyler said harshly:
‘Now, then, Lock, what’s all this I hear about your pilfering the brewery stores on the side, eh?’
‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, sir, but it’s certainly not true.’
‘Never have a bottle of beer at night, eh? Must be a bit of temptation with all that lying around.’
‘Not for me, sir. I’m a teetotaller—ever since I left the army. Can prove it, sir.’
The inspector sat back in his chair and fingered the anonymous letter. He said:
‘Well, there’s more things can be done with beer than drinking it—and with sugar, eh? What did you do—sell ’em to your friends?’
‘No, sir. I don’t know what you’re trying to put on me—unless it’s that theft as took place end of last month.’
Lock had been standing at attention, very straight—a stalwart, grizzled man with many wrinkles at the corners of his steady eyes.
‘What have you to say about this?’ asked the inspector, pushing the anonymous letter to the far side of the desk. Lock took a brisk, military step forward, bringing up one heel against the other with a click, and took up the letter.
‘Don’t understand this, sir. That sort of scrounging—it wouldn’t be worth while in a job like mine. You have to be hone
st—though I says it, as shouldn’t—for a watchman’s job. Ask my old regiment, or Roxby’s—them’s my last employers. They’ll give me a clean sheet all right, I’ll back.’
‘H’m. That’s as may be. And you still assert that you performed your midnight round of inspection the night before last, and heard or saw nothing suspicious?’
‘That is so, sir.’
‘Doesn’t it strike you as peculiar that a murder should have been committed on these premises and you should know nothing about it? Have you no ideas at all how it happened?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Yours not to question why, yours not to do—er—but it was Mr Bunnett who died, wasn’t it?’ said Nigel in a friendly voice. ‘Y’know, Inspector, I’m inclined to believe him. I wonder, Mr Lock, would you mind my looking at your hands.’
The inspector started slightly; then said:
‘What’s all this? Palmistry? That’s a new one on me.’
‘It’s not the palms so much as the backs of the hands that interest me at the moment.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ said Lock, stretching out his hands.
Nigel peered at them closely, pulled up the sleeves and studied the man’s wrists, then sat back in his chair.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Parade dismissed—as far as I’m concerned. I expect Mr Lock will be wanting to go to bed.’
‘What’s all the funny business about hands?’ said the inspector suspiciously when Lock had turned smartly about and marched out of the room.
‘You had an idea that Bunnett might have surprised Lock pilfering, that there was some sort of a struggle, Bunnett was killed or injured, and Lock put him into the copper. Well, now. If Lock drew a knife on him, you would have found traces of blood—or of cleaning up—on the scene. Did you?’
‘No, sir. We went all over the brewery last night pretty carefully, and I admit there was no sign of that. But——’
‘If Lock hit him over the head with a blunt instrument—or if anybody did—Cammison would probably have seen traces of it during his first examination. If he’d strangled Bunnett, there would have been scratches on the backs of his hands—quite likely marks on his face, too. There weren’t. The only other possibility is that he should have used his fists, knocked him out: I don’t think it’s in the least likely that, if Lock had merely injured him, he would have gone on to murder him. After all, he hadn’t enough at stake to justify that.’
‘A lot of “ifs”, sir. I don’t think you’ve proved anything.’
‘Not your sort of proof, possibly. But all that is comparatively unimportant. You know what’s the worst crime in the army, don’t you?’
‘Why, I suppose——’
‘Striking a superior officer. With all those years of discipline and tradition behind him, I’m prepared to assert that it was as good as impossible—physically and psychologically impossible—for Lock to have assaulted Bunnett. His immediate reaction, if he’d been caught knocking back an illicit glass of beer, would have been to spring to attention. And anyway—he’s obviously an honest, trustworthy type of man. I’ve no doubt at all you’ll find dozens of other people with infinitely better motives for putting Bunnett out of the way.’
‘You may be right,’ said the inspector, fingering his chin.
Just how right Nigel was, particularly in his last remark, was to be demonstrated sooner than either he or the inspector could have imagined.
VI
July 18, 1.30–4.35 p.m.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
SHAKESPEARE, King Richard II
HERBERT CAMMISON, SOPHIE and Nigel had just sat down to lunch—or, to be more accurate, Sophie and Nigel had sat down, while the doctor was carving a chicken with the somewhat sinister absorption of one who is operating for an appendix but anticipates some intriguing complications. When the remains of the patient had been removed to the kitchen and Herbert had helped himself to potatoes, salad, salt, butter and a glass of water with a deliberation that very nearly drove Nigel crazy, he said:
‘Well, Felston and I have been working on that skeleton.’
‘I hope you had an enjoyable time,’ said Nigel politely. ‘And can these dry bones live? Will they sit up and answer to their name, if I may so express myself?’
‘You may, young Strangeways. Up to a point, they will. We haven’t any doubt that it’s Bunnett.’
‘Oh, Herbert.’ Sophie no longer attempted to conceal the fear in her mind. She looked pathetically young and vulnerable, Nigel thought—almost like her own daughter might look at the age of fifteen, with those absurd horn-rim spectacles and her childlike fresh complexion.
‘You mustn’t worry, Sophie. I didn’t kill him, as it happens, and the percentage of people wrongly convicted for murder is really very low.’
Dr Cammison began talking about their next holidays. Sophie seized on the subject with pathetic eagerness. No one was at all deceived; but it passed the lunch-time as well as anything might. After lunch Nigel took the doctor aside and asked for details.
‘No signs of violence on the skull. No bones broken. The height corresponds pretty accurately with Bunnett’s—five foot seven: of course, one has to allow a certain margin of error in a reconstruction like this.’
‘How much?’
‘A couple of inches, at the very most. The hair, as I said originally, is the right colour. Tripp is still working on the dental plates, but he’s pretty certain they’re the set he supplied Bunnett with. Felston agrees with me that we’ve enough data to presume death. By the way, I rang up Tyler and told him our conclusion: he’s going along to interview Grimshaw—that’s Bunnett’s solicitor—at three o’clock: the will: he’s agreeable to your going along there, too, if you want.’
‘H’m. I wonder…. That man seems to have come over all respectful like. I’m not sure I don’t prefer him with the gloves off.’
‘Tyler? A common or garden bully. Plays up to anyone in authority. Your uncle did that for you.’
‘Dear, dear! And I had been thinking it was the effect of my own masterful personality. Talking of which, by the way, what are your reactions to our Miss Mellors?’
‘Just what do you want to know?’
‘How keen is she really on her temperance stuff, for instance? Take it in her stride, so to speak, or a fanatic? What is there—or was there—between her and Joe Bunnett? How d’you think she’d shape as a murderer?’
‘My dear Nigel!’ Herbert Cammison for once looked startled. ‘What shocking ideas you do have! Ariadne Mellors a murderer! Come off it!’
‘What Mellors?’
‘Ariadne. Addie for short.’
‘Blow me down with an anchovy! Ariadne. Well, well, well. But this one walked out on Bacchus. However, one thing at a time. A fanatic?’
‘No,’ said Herbert carefully. ‘I shouldn’t say so. It’s the organising part she’s really keen on, more than the faith itself.’
‘Just like the Bishop of——?’
‘I have no information about bishops,’ said Herbert with a twinkle in his eye.
‘Well, what about Joe Bunnett?’
‘Joe?’
‘Yes, she gave me the impression this morning that she has him on a string.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. They’re good friends. Are you trying to deduce a romance between them?’
‘Not exactly. Who would know about them, though?’
‘Well, we’ve not been here long enough. You might ask Barnes. Sophie might know, as a matter of fact: Joe has opened up to her occasionally. People do.’
‘Yes. I can imagine that.’
Half an hour later, Nigel and Inspector Tyler were closeted with Mr Grimshaw. ‘Closeted’ seemed the only possible word, for the solicitor’s office was exiguous and his long, sprawling legs took up most of the floor-space. While the formalities were being conducted, Nigel watched Mr Grimshaw with fascination: his ears wiggled as he talked, which drew attention to the ginger-coloured hair that sprouted
out of them; he also had a habit of munching before every sentence, as though the words would sound better if they were chewed up small.
‘Now, Mr Grimshaw, I don’t think I need keep you long,’ the inspector was saying. ‘In an affair like this the question of motive has to be considered. That is why I am interested in the late Mr Bunnett’s will. Perhaps you would be good enough to inform me who the chief beneficiaries are, sir.’
‘Hum—mum—mum—nyah, I think we need have no hesitation about that. No. There are times when the law must have precedence over the lawyer. Mumnyum. Mind you, in the ordinary course of things I should not countenance such an eeregularity; but, er—mnyum, desperate events reequire desperate remedies.’
Looking, presumably, as desperate as he knew how, Mr Grimshaw unfolded a document with a sharp crackle that made Nigel start, struck it negligently over the face, then peered at it with some distaste.
‘M’m—yum, I should make it clear at the outset that I was not altogether satisfied with certain clauses in the will—as a man, not as a lawyer. In fact, I ventured—with considerable deefeedence—to remonstrate with Mr Bunnett on these points. But, as you know, my client was a headstrong man, accustomed to having his own way, so of course I had to bow to his wishes. But really’ (here the ears wiggled molto agitato) ‘the deeposeetion of the property is most peculiar. Most peculiar. It is as follows. Hum-mum-chumble-yum. Eustace Bunnett’s share in the brewery is bequeathed to his brother, Joseph Bunnett, provided that he be unmarried at the time of the testator’s death. Out of Eustace Bunnett’s personal estate, an annuity of £100 is to be paid to his wife, Emily Rose Bunnett. There are a few minor bequests. The whole of the reseedue of his estate is bequeathed to Mrs Annabel Sorn, provided she shall not have married again.’