Dancers in Mourning (37 page)

‘I didn't read the physical description because they've checked it up that end. He's the chap who pinched the car all right. The paper-seller described him to a ‘T'. Well, there you are. It's what I've had in the back of my mind ever since I saw the stains on his hands. See who he is? He's the man who made that ruddy bomb.'

A
T SIX
o'clock breakfast arrived from the ‘Red Lion' over the way and the superintendent entertained his own inspector and the two distinguished visitors to the meal in his office. Yeo had become a new man since the message from the Records Department. The hunt was up and he was getting into his stride. His good humour had developed a certain vigorousness which might have been almost horrific in a less attractive personality. He sat eating a great plateful of bacon, fried egg, sausage and steak, his round eyes sharp and eager and his stubby fingers crumbling his bread as if he felt it represented an enemy.

‘It must have been blackmail,' he said. ‘I knew it as soon as I saw the body and heard the story of Petrie's stolen car. There had to be a connexion between the two cases. I'm not prepared to accept a miracle. We're not out of the wood yet, but if this should turn out to be another stroke of chance, then I'll resign and go in for conjury.'

‘When shall we know?' inquired Inchcape, who had been startled into meekness by this sudden turn of events.

‘I can't say.' Yeo was ready and happy to talk. ‘Cooling will have gone ahead under our Super's direction. The Austrian police may take their time, but I don't think so. Foreigners often seem to be a bit quicker than us,' he added naïvely. ‘We'll find out how long he's been over here and we'll find his lodgings. Once we can take a look at them I think we'll be sitting pretty. My guess is that he's been over here about ten days and when he came he brought that grenade with him.'

The local superintendent looked uneasy.

‘About the gentleman we're after …' he murmured. ‘Since there were no finger-prints on the car, other than the deceased's and Mr Petrie's, it shows he wore gloves, don't it? Probably they were ordinary gloves which he didn't trouble to take off. He'd never have wiped the whole car clean even if he'd thought of it, would he now?'

‘The lamp was wiped,' said Inchcape with his mouth full. ‘Still, every kid knows about finger-prints these days.'

Yeo looked at Campion.

‘We're going to catch this fellow, you know,' he observed. ‘I don't see how we can help ourselves. Did you ever hear of a chap who behaved so silly? There's no subtlety about him at all. He's behaving as if he's a god or something.'

‘Ah, they're often like that,' said the superintendent. ‘Not insane. Just sort of exalted.'

Yeo went on with his harangue, addressing Campion in particular.

‘I see a chap who is a sort of great white chief in his own little world,' he said meaningly. ‘A bloke who's used to getting his own way in everything. The people who work for him think he's something a bit bigger than life, and, because they stand for him doing the most amazing things, he thinks he can do the same elsewhere. He wanted to get rid of Konrad, and he must have had a good reason, mind you, or he wouldn't have bothered himself, so what did he do? He thought out a scheme which sounded all right and did what he was in the habit of doing in his business. He called in an expert. The expert delivered the goods and was paid for his trouble. Our man put his stunt into action and it went wrong. Instead of simply killing Konrad he raised little hell and got the police on him hot and strong. He kept his head – or more probably didn't quite realise what he
had
done – and went on with his own work in his own admiring circle. However, the expert who had delivered the grenade wasn't barmy. He could read the papers and he knew a good thing when he saw it. Our man was blackmailed by him. That settled it. Having found a simple way of getting rid of tiresome people, the man we have in mind proceeded to get going once again. He borrowed a car, choosing the one that he knew would be in a certain spot at a certain time. He seems to have got Kummer to do the pinching and I think how he did it was this. I think he stood at the end of the street, making the excuse that he was buying a packet of fags or something, and asked the chemist to bring the bus down for him. He probably just pointed it out and said: “Bring it along, will you, old boy?” or something like that. Then he got in and they drove out to the most convenient lonely spot he knew, a spot from which he could either walk home or pick up his own car. Then he made the other chap pull up for something, threw the rug over his head and beat him up with a spanner.'

‘But why so near home?' protested Inchcape.

‘Why chuck the bicycle lamp out into the garden?' retorted Yeo. ‘Because it never dawned on him that we might be able to prove anything against him. I've known plenty of men like that. Forty-five per cent of the criminal classes have that bee in their bonnet. Be careful of your finger-prints and you're okay; that's their motto.'

Campion stretched his long legs under the table. He looked haggard and weary.

‘If the murder took place about nine or nine-thirty –' he began and paused.

Yeo was regarding him with a slow, not unsympathetic smile.

‘Mr Sutane wasn't at the theatre after four o'clock on Friday,' he said. ‘He didn't appear that night. Phil Flannery, his new understudy, went on. I didn't know that until after you left us yesterday or I'd have told you. We were going to interview him yesterday evening and then this broke. I thought it would be best to wait to identify the body.'

Campion sat still and Yeo eyed him.

‘My case is mainly theory, I know that,' said the Yard Inspector. ‘Several points have got to be cleared up before we can make an arrest. That's why I particularly don't want anyone scared. We want that motive.'

Campion hardly heard him. His pale eyes were hard and introspective. As he sat staring down at the uneaten food congealing horridly on the coarse plate it dawned upon him painfully that the moment had arrived. The inevitable hour when he must pay for his return to White Walls was now at hand.

He got up.

‘I'm going back now,' he said. ‘If you'd care to run me down in the police car, Inspector, I'd like to have a word with you.'

Yeo rose with alacrity.

‘I'd like to. This last business makes all the difference, don't it?' he remarked as they moved towards the door. ‘I must say it wasn't in my book at all. I never thought he'd do it again so soon. The quicker we can pull him in the better. We don't want him taking a dislike to someone else.'

He coughed. His heavy jocularity had struck the wrong note, even to his own ears.

The telephone delayed them. It was the local sergeant phoning from the station to say that no one at all had joined the late down train on Friday night. The ticket collector remembered the occasion perfectly.

Yeo shrugged his shoulders.

‘It was only an idea,' he said. ‘He must have fixed it with a second car somehow. Perhaps they came down in separate buses, as Kummer appeared to be driving the coupé. We'll have to work on that. There's a lot of routine inquiries to be made. We're going to have a busy day. There's the weapon to find yet. That's in a ditch or a furze patch, I'll bet my last dollar. It
would
be. We must find it, of course. The doctor thought it might have been a spanner. Fancy looking over twenty-five square miles of rough country for a spanner …'

Campion blinked.

‘He may have got rid of it in the same way as he got rid of the bicycle lamp – chucked it away as soon as he had finished with it,' he suggested meekly.

Yeo stared at him.

‘He might,' he said. ‘Lord! he's a fool, isn't he? I don't think he knows we're on the earth. The boys have been looking all round the car, of course, but I'll make them go over that area with a tooth-comb. I'm beginning to hate this chap. He's so insulting.'

Inspector Inchcape, who had been listening to the conversation, came to life.

‘I'll see to it right away,' he said quickly. ‘You'll be back, won't you, Inspector? Our Chief Constable he do like to be in on everything. He's a wonderful particular gentleman. He and the doctor'll be down just after eight, I'll lay a pound.'

‘I'll be back,' Yeo promised. ‘Are you ready, Mr Campion?'

They drove out of the quiet little town into the lanes. The sun was climbing swiftly and the light mist over the low-lying meadows promised great heat in the middle day.

When they came to a convenient straight stretch just before the White Walls approach Yeo pulled up.

‘Now, Mr Campion,' he said. ‘I've been waiting to hear from you. I've let you see my position pretty clearly, haven't I? I'm going to get that man. Sooner or later evidence must come in which will get me a warrant. At the moment I can't stir because the P.P. doesn't like the idea of us holding him on suspicion, and although I can build up a first-rate case I can't substantiate every point until Cooling gets his stuff. What I need is the basic plank, the thing that pins it on to him and him only. I want the motive. I shall get him in a day or two, but in the meantime what else is he going to get up to? He's not particular whom he makes trouble for, is he? Look at Boarbridge.'

Campion shivered a little. He felt cold and strangely dispassionate.

‘Yes,' he said abruptly and with an authority Yeo had never heard in his voice before. ‘Yes, you're quite right. Now look here, there's a masseuse at White Walls, a Miss Edna Finbrough. Get her to go down to the station with you. Don't rouse her out of bed now. If you do you'll start the alarm and you must avoid that if you're going to get your man without trouble. When you get this woman down to Birley on some suitable pretext put her through it. She's tough but she's cracking. I've seen that for days.'

‘What do we want out of her?' Yeo was beginning.

But the thin man who seemed suddenly to have become so dry and impersonal went on without hearing him.

‘Tell her you know that she went to a theatrical lodging house on the Monday evening after Chloe Pye died. I'll give you the address. She made an excuse to go through Miss Pye's rooms alone and while she was there she ransacked the place for papers. I think she found what she was looking for and took it back to the person who had sent her. That paper was almost certainly destroyed that same night, but she can tell you what was on it, and from her information you will be able to get concrete evidence of the motive you need.'

‘Do you know what the paper was?'

Campion regarded the policeman coldly. He was very controlled and seemed almost callous about the whole subject.

‘I don't, but I can guess. It was a marriage certificate.'

Yeo whistled and his face looked like a comic mask.

‘A-ah!' he said. ‘Now you're talking. That's something like.'

His companion ignored him.

‘I think Konrad got to know about this marriage and was prepared to use his information. That is why he was killed. You may have some difficulty in getting it out of Miss Finbrough, but she knows.'

‘Like to see her yourself?'

‘No.' Campion's tone was sharp. ‘That's a job for the professional police. That's all I can give you. I shall be at the house all day. When you've found out what you can perhaps you'll let me know? I'll stay on the spot until you make the arrest. I should keep Miss Finbrough out of the way until then. Don't let her communicate with the house.'

‘Good lord no!' Yeo spoke fervently and the glance he shot at Campion was almost affectionate. ‘This is just what I wanted. If you're right you'll have put him just where he ought to be. I told you you had to come down here.'

Campion did not speak and Yeo, whose energy was mounting rather than diminishing after his long night, let in the clutch and roared on down the road.

‘I'll be along for the woman about eleven,' he said as he set his passenger down at the drive gates. ‘Don't worry, I'll be discretion itself. If this comes off I'll hand it to you. Did he kill the first woman too?'

Campion shrugged his shoulders.

‘I see. It's like that, is it? We'll never prove it anyway.' Yeo was grave and he made a little depreciatory grimace. ‘Nasty business. Hard on the family. Well, we've got enough to go on with, God knows. Once he's inside he may talk. Sometimes they like to, that conceited type. The newspapers are going to have a treat, aren't they? Well, so long, and thank you.'

Campion came slowly up the drive and saw the white house, like a lovely ship in full sail, in the blazing morning. As he crossed the lawn a bundle in a gaily striped dressing-gown detached itself from a deck chair and came padding towards him. It was Uncle William.

He looked pink and sleepy and pathetic, the wind ruffling his thin curls and his face puckered with weariness and anxiety.

‘Been waitin' since the dawn,' he mumbled. ‘Had to. Been prayin', practically. Every thin' all right, my boy? Relyin' utterly on you.'

Campion turned away and went into the house.

A
T
noon, when the garden was sweltering luxuriously in the full heat of the day and the house was peaceful in that odd Sunday quiet which is mysteriously different from the peace of other days, Uncle William let himself into Campion's room and advanced to the end of the bed.

He stood there for some little time, his hands in the pockets of his white trousers and his shoulders bent dejectedly. He looked more bear-like than ever.

‘Awake, Campion?'

The man on the bed regarded his old friend steadily. His appearance gave no indication that he had slept at all. His eyes were cold and wakeful and the skin was drawn tightly over the bones of his face.