Dancers in Mourning (29 page)

The Superintendent made no comment on the extraneous tragedy so briefly recorded, but his face grew very hard and Mr Campion, who was sitting quietly in his corner, was reminded that Oates was a countryman who had come from just such another village with just such another millpool, and more than probably just such another porter.

The Superintendent plunged into business.

‘Major Bloom holds the view that the grenade was professional work. Does that help at all?'

‘Professional?' Yeo looked at the major blankly. ‘That's a funny thing. It must have been in a parcel lying around. Someone's hiding some little technical offence against the railway. Must be.'

He spoke hopefully, but without great conviction.

‘We've made fifty-four interviews and taken thirty-nine statements,' he went on slowly, ‘and at the moment, if I heard you gentlemen had decided it was a thunderbolt I should be convinced and thankful. It's an extraordinary thing, but no one admits to having seen anyone throw anything at any time, and they're nearly all strangers to each other, so it can't be conspiracy.'

The major, who had been listening with interest, leant across the arm of his chair.

‘Could you give me a good eye-witness report of the two or three minutes before the explosion?' he inquired.

Yeo grimaced.

‘I can, sir, but I'm afraid you'll find it very ordinary. There doesn't seem to have been much to see. There's one young chap who gives the down platform view very clearly.'

He opened a battered attaché-case and took out a sheaf of typewritten sheets.

‘I'll read it to you. Here he is. Joseph Harold Biggins, 17 years of age, 32, Christchurch Road, N.E. 38. He was one of the cyclists and he's in the cottage hospital with half the skin flayed off his chest, poor chap. I won't bother you with all the preliminary stuff, about how he got to Boarbridge and so on. This is what he says about the actual thing.'

He cleared his throat and began to read in expressionless police-court tones.

‘When the train pulled out of the station, Mr Konrad, our President, whom we had come to meet, was standing about half-way down the platform holding his bicycle. We advanced to meet him and as our secretary had been detained outside the booking hall I and Duke went forward in front of the others. Mr Konrad was in cycling costume and seemed very pleased to see us. He smiled as we came up and said “Hallo, boys, here I am,” or something like that. I cannot swear to the exact words.

‘There was a bit of a pause because of shyness on the part of the members, and to make everybody comfortable Mr Konrad indicated the bicycle he was holding, which was a present from the club, and said: “Is not she a beauty? She runs like a bird.” He then turned the bike sideways, showed off the drop handlebars with the special grips, pretended to switch the lamp on and off, et cetera. That is the last I remember.

‘There was a sort of roar and I remember falling. When I came to I was in great pain and Duke was lying over me. I did not realise he was dead until I saw his face.'

The Inspector ceased abruptly.

‘A terrible business,' he said. ‘All the statements are like that. Just horror coming out of the blue, you might say. One woman in the up train said she saw Konrad and the bicycle shoot into the air, but the porter with the milk-cans was between her and him and he staggered forward, you know, pulling the whole thing on top of him. The sight of all the churns toppling over on to the line in a shower of glass from the roof seems to have sent everything else out of her mind. The thing couldn't have been in a milk-can, could it? I don't know much about these things, but it seems to me –'

He broke off questioningly. The two experts, who had been exchanging glances, were on the verge of speech. Mr Culvert appeared to be urging his chief to make some sort of confidence and the major suddenly capitulated.

‘I wanted to be more sure, d'you see,' he began in his soft, homely accent, ‘because, frankly, the idea is so – so
peculiar
. But in view of that first statement made by the young boy I think we really might consider the evidence of the fragments of glass and the bicycle, even at this dangerously early stage.'

Both policemen and Mr Campion regarded him with polite bewilderment.

‘What glass?' demanded the Superintendent.

Yeo was interested.

‘You're referring to the little chunks of thick glass taken from Duke's body?' he said. ‘I wondered about that myself. What's on your mind, sir?'

Although he had decided to confide, the major was still very guarded.

‘You must understand that I'm not giving you evidence,' he said. ‘There's still an enormous amount of work to be done before I could consider the case for the bicycle lamp to be absolutely watertight. There are certain comparisons we'll have to make, or a clever counsel could make us look like a pack of idiots. These legal fellows, you know, are very difficult.'

‘We haven't got that far,' murmured the Superintendent dryly. ‘We don't know if we're going to have to make an arrest at all. You people may have to go to war or something. It may be a political business, clean out of our province.'

The Inspector, however, had heard remarkable words.

‘The bicycle lamp?' he said.

‘Yes. Yes. As far as we can see, though I really don't like to commit myself.' The major was excited. ‘The grenade was inside the bicycle lamp – where the dry battery should have been. Some of these lamps turn on with a screw, you know, and my own personal theory – which isn't evidence – is that the man with the bicycle exploded the grenade when he turned on, or attempted to turn on, the lamp. That explains all the facts, you see: the state of the bicycle, which was injured in a most significant fashion; the tiny pieces of thick lens glass in the one man's body; the general direction of the damage; the fact that nothing appears to have been thrown; the –'

He broke off. No one but Mr Culvert was making any pretence of listening to him. The two policemen were staring at each other, speculation in their eyes, while Campion had frozen and sat staring rigidly in front of him, his mind leaping from one appalling conjecture to the next.

‘He brought it with him …!' said Yeo. ‘God Almighty, he brought it with him!'

‘You'll have to trace the original lamp and find me a similar one for comparison with my fragments,' put in the major, who appeared to be completely blind to the sensation he was creating. ‘That's most important if it comes into court. That woman in the train, too. You spoke of her just now. She must have seen the explosion itself. If one of us were to question her she might remember a great many little details which seemed to her unimportant at the time, and we may get a lot of stuff to help us to establish absolute proof. You see, I'm thinking that there was probably a very short time-fuse – say two or three seconds – fitted to the thing. That would have made it considerably safer to handle, and he could have moved the bicycle, or spoken even, actually after he'd ignited the fuse by turning on the lamp. As far as we know he made no attempt to save himself.

‘I haven't gathered all the circumstances yet. What was he doing? Making a protest of some sort?'

His final words percolated through the Superintendent's preoccupation. Oates looked up slowly.

‘He had no idea what he was doing,' he said. ‘That's certain. He was ignorant. He didn't know it was there.'

Yeo rose to his feet.

‘But all those people?' he began, his round eyes wide and shocked.

As the obvious truth dawned upon him the colour rushed into his face.

‘It was a mistake!' he ejaculated. ‘It was a mistake. It ought not to have happened there. It ought to have happened on a lonely road somewhere. It's a mistake. It's a murder gone wrong!'

He remained for a moment bewildered by his own discovery and then, as another thought occurred to him, he swooped down upon his brief-case.

‘Oates,' he said unsteadily, ‘it's all here. That bicycle was given to Konrad by the cycle club. The collection was taken and delivery made by the Secretary. His name is Howard. I've got his statement somewhere. He didn't like Konrad. That has emerged in several statements. It struck me at the time. He wasn't present on the station at the time of the explosion and – this is the point – he works in a wholesale chemist's. I've just remembered it.'

Mr Campion rose from his chair in the corner and came quietly forward. His voice was heavy and impersonal and he stood limply, as though the weight of his own body had suddenly become oppressive to him.

‘I'm afraid that's no good,' he said, unaware of the Chief Inspector's startled glance. ‘Konrad was given that bicycle weeks ago. You'll have plenty of proof that he's been all over it with the excitement of a woman examining a new handbag. But he had not seen it for five days before he collected it on Sunday morning, and hurried down to Birley station on it to catch the slow down train for Boarbridge. During that five days it had been standing in the cloakroom at White Walls.'

‘Where's that?' The Inspector put the question sharply.

Oates answered for Campion.

‘Jimmy Sutane's country house. He's the actor chap Blest was telling you about. Remember?'

‘M
R
C
AMPION
–'

The Chief Inspector set down his modest glass of Bass and leant confidentially across the coarse linen table-cloth.

‘When Mr Sutane phoned you last night and you spoke to him, what did you say?'

It was late in the day for lunch and Bonini's stuffy upper room was practically deserted. They had that corner by the window which gives into Old Compton Street to themselves, and Yeo's gentle murmur carried no further than the ear for which it was intended.

Campion, who was looking a little leaner and, in the Inspector's opinion, a good deal more intelligent than his usual, casually elegant self, blinked thoughtfully as the explanation of the hasty and pressing invitation was revealed to him. He glanced at Yeo, sitting square and absurd before him, and was inclined to like him very much.

Their acquaintance was of long standing and each man knew the other well by repute, but this was the first occasion on which they had had actual dealings.

‘He wanted me to go down there,' said Campion truthfully.

‘Why didn't you go? You don't mind a few questions, do you?' Yeo was smiling affably, but his manner betrayed caution, for as a valued expert and the C.I.D. ‘Super's' personal friend Mr Campion merited careful handling.

‘I thought I'd keep out of it.'

‘Quite. Quite. I can understand that.'

The Inspector was satisfied only in part. He tried another line.

‘It's an A case,' he observed. ‘We're out to get him. I saw our Chief Constable and the Assistant Commissioner this morning. I've got the whole Force behind me and I can have anyone I like to call on. The case is to get real preference. The man we're after is
dangerous
, you see, Mr Campion. I mean you could call him anti-social, couldn't you? If he's a private person with facilities for tapping stuff which is nothing more or less than war material, and doesn't mind whom he does in – well, I mean to say, he
must
be stopped!'

His earnestness widened his eyes and shortened his nose until he looked like a comedian in the midst of his act.

‘He must,' he repeated. ‘We've got to get him. That woman with the injured leg is in danger. If she dies there'll be four persons killed, eleven injured, and no one knows how much damage.'

Campion smiled crookedly.

‘My dear chap,' he said, ‘don't think for a moment that I don't agree with you. I do. The whole nature of the thing is so preposterous that I don't think any sane man could argue with you about it. Whatever the circumstances turn out to be, nothing could ever excuse or extenuate such an incredible piece of stupid wickedness. When you get your man you'll have to hang him. I do see that.'

Yeo shot him a relieved but still puzzled glance.

‘Both Oates and I knew you were sound,' he said naïvely, ‘but frankly we were wondering if you weren't holding something back – something that might put us on to a
motive
, for instance.'

Campion did not respond, and the detective continued after a brief pause.

‘You've had time to get to know all that lot down there, and they're a funny crowd. I can't help thinking that if there had been anything a bit fishy going on beforehand you'd have noticed it. Something that might have led up to this, I mean. We're at a great disadvantage coming in only after the event, with the newspapers printing all they can find the instant after they find it. There was that actress woman who died down there … did she fall or did she jump? No one knows, and it doesn't really matter. Still, it was a funny thing to happen all the same. I don't like coincidences. It's silly to pretend they don't occur, but I don't like them.'

Mr Campion raised his eyes from his plate.

‘You're concentrating on White Walls?'

‘Well, yes, in the main.' Yeo lowered his tone and scowled at the plump Bonini, who was bearing down upon them with hostly affability. The restaurateur altered his course, affronted, and the Inspector, having satisfied himself that he was not overheard, went on with his story.

‘It's four days now and we've been working steadily, with a certain amount of results, of course. As soon as you came out with your piece of information about the bicycle – which saved us quite a bit of time, by the way – I checked up on it and found you were right. Konrad had received the bicycle on the 2nd, nearly a fortnight before the rally, and I found quite a number of people at the theatre, and in other places, who had actually seen the lamp alight. Bit by bit we narrowed it down to the time when he took it to Mr Sutane's house. There's a chauffeur there, a decent, sensible chap – I don't know if you know him? He's one of these gadgety lads who was very taken by the bicycle. He swears that on the first Sunday Mr Konrad had it down there he, the chauffeur, made a complete examination of it and was particularly impressed by the lamp, which he described to me as “super.” He was able to give me complete specifications and these tallied exactly with those I got from the firm which supplied the machine.'