Death at Hallows End (8 page)

“No, but a couple of reporters would. You'd be up quick enough if someone had come to interview you,” put in Doll sourly.

Carolus decided that it was not much good pursuing this point. Stonegate had thought at the time that Humby was asleep and now nothing could make him doubt it. Whether he was, or
whether he was dead might be established later but not from Stonegate's evidence.

“Can you give me any idea of the time when you saw him?”

Stonegate sighed.

“They all ask me that,” he said. “And the police kept on about it. Most important, they said it was. I can only work it out from what time I got home. That was twenty past four by that clock over your head now, and I rode straight home here. Say it was a little before four when I saw him and you won't be far out.”

“Thank you,” said Carolus. “That
is
important. But there's something which to my mind is more important still.”

“Oh,” said Stonegate haughtily, “and what might that be?”

“Just where on the road the car was standing.”

“By those three elms.”

“I don't mean that. Would you try to recall whether it had stopped on the crown of the road or pulled into the side.”

“I don't need to
try
to recall. I can see it as plain as a pikestaff. It was near enough in the middle.”

“Then had another car come along it couldn't have got past without moving it?”

“I wouldn't go so far as to say that.”

“But the road is narrow there.”

“It is that. No, I don't suppose a car could pass without going over the grass border. Now you come to mention it, I'm sure it couldn't.”

“Yet your employers, the two brothers Neast, must have been able to do so unless they moved the car to one side.”

“I see what you mean.”

“They were out in their lorry that day?”

“Of course they were. They'd gone to the market.”

“And they weren't back when you left the farm?”

“Certainly they weren't or I should have told them I was going … It's funny, isn't it? I mean that's where the car was found in the morning.”

“No, it was found on the side of the road.”

“You think the Neasts pushed it there?”

“I don't think anything so definite. But somebody must have, since you remember it so clearly as being in the middle.”

“Could have been the chap himself. Woke up and saw where he was and drew into the side before he dropped off again.”

“I suppose it could, if he was merely sleeping when you saw him.”

“I don't know why you keep on about that. The chap was asleep.”

“Then you may be right. He could have driven it to one side himself. Was the car still there when you went to work next morning?”

“I see you know very little about it,” said Stonegate loftily. “It was me who reported it to the police.”

“When?”

“Next morning when I got to the farm. As I was riding there on the Tuesday at my usual time, which is before eight because I leave here at seven-thirty, I saw that car in the same place.”

“In exactly the same place?”

“Well, I thought so at the time, but now I know it was nearer into the side.”

“And the man was no longer there?”

“Not a sign of him. The first thought I had was that the car must have broken down so he must have walked on to the farm and the Neasts would know about it. So I went on to work, where Holroyd Neast was out in the farmyard. He's the older one, you know.”

“The taller of the two?”

“That's him. I told him about seeing this chap asleep in the car on the afternoon before, but he didn't seem much interested. I said the car must have been there when he and his brother came home from market and he said yes, he had noticed a car in the road but hadn't thought much of it. I told him the chap was no longer there and he said no of course he wasn't. Who was going to spend a night in a car at this time of year when there were pubs and places handy? He could have got a room at the Ploughman in Hallows End or taken the taxi from the village somewhere else. So I told him I thought we ought to inform the police, I said, because it looked a valuable car and couldn't stop there forever.”

“What did he say to that?”

“‘Stonegate,' he said, ‘you will be sorry to hear my poor uncle died during the night and I'm too upset to bother about a car left in the road.' I said I was sorry to hear about his uncle, though as a matter of fact I'd never seen the old gentleman, who stopped at home for the most part. Then Holroyd said, ‘If you think you should, ring up the police straight away. Yes, that would be best. You go along to the house and phone.' So that's what I did and if I hadn't of done, it might have been another day before the police knew there was something funny going on. Did you say anything?”

“No. No. Please continue.”

“The inspector at Cashford congratulated me on what he called my prompt action and sent Gallup the constable at Hallows End to see what it was all about. I don't think much of Gallup, he's too fond of pushing his nose in where it's not his business, but I told him what I knew all the same. ‘You've done very well, Stonegate,' he said, ‘and I must go and telephone to headquarters and report the whole matter.' So that's how I came to be recognised as the last
man to see this chap alive and the first to inform the police. That's what the papers have been on at me for.”

There was another unexpected interruption from his daughter.

“Oh, show him your picture in the
Swanwick Reporter
and have done with it,” she said. She was evidently tiring of the whole thing and the self-importance it had given her father.

“Let's see. Which one's that? Ah, yes, I know the one you mean.”

“There's only been the one,” said Doll to Carolus. “He's been watching all the other papers but it never come out.”

“Tell me, Mr. Stonegate,” began Carolus, heading off a possible quarrel, “did you gather from the questions the police asked you that they suspected you of knowing more than you said?”

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Stonegate.

“That's what
I
said,” put in Doll with some animation. “The way they kept on you'd have thought they suspected Dad of doing away with the man himself!”

“Now you keep out of this, my girl,” said Stonegate. “And talk of something you know about.” He turned to Carolus. “I don't know what you're getting at, but the police was never anything but complimentary with me. As they ought to be.”

“I didn't mean that. I am sure they were very polite. But did they ask you any questions about your own movements? Did they ask what you did on the Monday evening after you'd seen the man in the car?”

“Well, just to complete their records they had to, didn't they? Of course I took no offence and told them straight out. I'd come home from work feeling ill and I went to bed straight off, didn't I, Doll?”

“How am I to know what you did? You know very well I was staying with Frede over at Swanwick that night.”

“I went straight to bed,” said Stonegate loudly, “and stayed there. There was nothing to get up for and I had a nasty chill.”

“You was better next day when I got home,” said Doll sulkily. “Well enough to eat the best part of a steak and kidney pudding, anyway. Then telling them all about your being the last to see the man alive. You hear what this gentleman says? You may not have been. He may have been dead as mutton when you saw him. And if he wasn't he may be alive now, for all you know. Where would you be then with your ‘last to see him alive'? I hope he does turn out to be.”

“So do I,” said Carolus heartily. “There are just a few more things I'd like to ask you, Mr. Stonegate. You've been very patient. Now when you reached the car that Monday afternoon, did you notice any wheel marks in the grass?”

“He'd never have noticed if there had been,” said Doll. “He never notices anything except what's on the plate in front of him.”

“As I see it,” Carolus hurried on, “if any car had come up the road behind the Jaguar at the time when you found it, that car would be forced onto the grass border to pass.”

“There was nothing of the sort,” said Stonegate. “Otherwise …” he looked fiercely at his daughter. “Otherwise I'd of noticed it for certain.”

“And when you found the car again in the morning?”

“Neither there was then. I couldn't help but see it if there had been.”

“Was there anywhere about there for a car to turn?”

Stonegate thought deeply.

“Not for a hundred yards or more away from there, there wasn't. But some way back towards the village there's an entrance to a field belongs to Mr. Harker, a big farmer whose ground joins on to the Neasts' and the Hickmansworths'. He
keeps his place up better than what they do and he's had some stones put down between the road and the gate. If anyone wanted to turn a car there he'd have to back in to that to do it. But it might not show because the tractor goes through there.”

“You saw no one else in the road up to the farm that afternoon?”

“Didn't I, then, and told the police so. There was a chap going the same direction as I was. I passed him just before reaching the village.”

“What kind of chap?”

“Can't tell you that. I came up behind him and didn't look round.”

“Was it unusual to meet a stranger there?”

“Course it was. Well, who is there to be? There's no one much goes up there but the postman, unless it's to the church, and then they'd be in motorcars, or on Sunday when they get a few from the village. With old Rudd dead and buried and Mrs. Rudd not going out much, there was only me and the Neasts likely to be up that way.”

“What about the Rector?”

“Well, he does sometimes pop up to the church, but he didn't that afternoon because I saw him as I went through the village after, and he hadn't even got his bicycle with him.”

“Are there no other dwellings near the church?”

“There's Hickmansworths, but they don't use that road. Their place lies beyond the church over to the left, but the Potters Cross road runs past them and they don't have to go by Church Lane at all. They fell out with the Neasts years ago and the two lots haven't spoken for I don't know how long. There used to be a cart track between their place and Monk's Farm but it's been Let Go and I doubt if you could find it now. There's a lot of funny people round here.”

Carolus looked pained.

“I don't see anything funny about Hickmansworths,” said Doll. “I think they're very nice.”

Carolus stood up.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Stonegate,” he said. “You've been very co-operative. I hope your information will help me to find Duncan Humby.”

“It'll make him look pretty silly if you do, after him telling everyone he was the last to see him alive,” said Doll.

Stonegate ignored this, and told Carolus grandly he was glad if he'd been any assistance, and he wished him luck.

“You're not by any chance going past the Falstaff, are you?” he asked.

“Yes. I'll give you a lift,” said Carolus, who remembered that the landlord of the Falstaff had told him of Stonegate's nightly visit.

“There he goes again.” said Doll. “Go and tell that lot up there how you've been interviewed. They've heard it a dozen times but you're sure to tell them all over again.”

W
HEN THEY REACHED THE
Falstaff, Carolus decided to accompany Stonegate to the public bar instead of listening to more of Mr. Sporter's up-to-date phraseology, he soon found that Doll had not exaggerated, for Stonegate entered like a triumphant hero and introduced Carolus to their fellow customers as “one of those who've been to interview me.” He seemed to take it as his natural right to have beer bought for him, and with a rather condescending “Well, cheerio” to Carolus, downed the best part of a pint.

One of the two customers was the gnomish little man who had directed Carolus that afternoon, and Stonegate, full of self-importance and benignity, drew him into his monologue.

“Here's a gentleman who ought to be able to tell you something,” he said to Carolus. “Being as he lives up Church Lane. His is the only cottage between the village and the farm, as you might say. His name's Puckett if you want to ask him anything.”

“I know the gentleman already,” said Mr. Puckett, a remark which set Stonegate back for a moment.

Carolus sat down beside the little man after filling his glass.

“What's he mean about my being able to tell you something?” asked Mr. Puckett. “What are you trying to find out about? You're not one of these insurance fellows, are you?”

Carolus took the last question first.

“No. I'm not,” he assured Puckett.

“Because I won't have anything to do with them. They got me to insure my wife's life some years ago and as soon as I did it, she died. What do you think of that?”

“Very unfortunate,” said Carolus. “You ask what I'm trying to find out about. It's this missing man. He was my solicitor and I'm a friend of his partner and his wife.”

“Widow, more likely. You'll never see him alive again, not if those Neasts got hold of him. They're a funny lot.”

This was too much for Carolus. This time “funny” had gone too far.

“Funny?” he said sharply. “What's funny about them?”

“Wait till you go up and visit them. You'll see for yourself. No, I don't suppose you'll ever set eyes on that poor fellow again. Not alive, you won't.”

“That's a very serious thing to say.”

“I mean it serious. I'm sexton up at the church. I pass by their farm every day and never get so much as a ‘good morning' because ever since they came here they've fallen out with the Rector and that means me, too.”