Dictator's Way (15 page)

Was it even possible that on those second thoughts he had accepted the offer – and was the death of Macklin the proof that he had carried out his instructions?

“What time was it when you saw Judson and Macklin in the car together?” Bobby asked.

Clarence wasn't very sure. Time was a thing he was always somewhat vague about. But he was clear that it was after lunch – and Judson had told Bobby in so many words that he had not seen Macklin after Macklin had left the office before lunch.

Then either Clarence was lying or Judson. But why should Clarence lie?

And if Judson were the liar, then again – why? It was a question to which the answer seemed full of dark and sinister suggestions.

Only at present the fact, if it were one, depended on Clarence's testimony, and Clarence was not the sort of witness one could afford to put in the box. How blandly would defending counsel ask: ‘I think, Mr. Duke, you have had the misfortune to stand your trial on a capital charge?' and how entirely after that would his evidence be held by any jury as utterly unreliable, indeed probably to be interpreted by the rule of opposites.

Someone else might be dug up, though, who also had seen Judson and Macklin together, and then there would be something to build on.

“Time I hopped it,” the voice of Clarence broke in on these meditations. “I thought it was only right to come and tell you, Mr. Owen, sir, and I hope it'll help you, me not standing for putting no bloke's light out.”

“What you've said may be a very great help,” agreed Bobby.

“Worth a quid, guv'nor?” suggested Clarence, always the keen business man.

“In the middle of the night?” Bobby retorted. “Think I'm a millionaire? Think my pocket's stuffed with quids? I'm about broke till next pay day. Tell you what. There's my wrist-watch – on the table there. You can take that if you like and pawn it – you ought to get near a quid, it's only a gun metal case, but it's a good make, only mind you send me the ticket so I can get it back. Mind, no tricks. I'll have it in for you if you don't send on the ticket.”

“Guv'nor,” said Clarence earnestly, “you're a gent, and I know I can trust you, though there's some as might do the dirty and make out as how I had pinched it.”

“That's all right, I won't do that,” Bobby promised. “I don't think any of our chaps would, for that matter. Mind, I'm trusting you to send me the ticket after you've popped it. I don't want to lose it.”

“Between gentlemen, it's a do,” said Clarence, and departed by the way he had come, shinning down the drain pipe into the street and leaving Bobby with a barb in his conscience, for though his offer to Clarence had been genuine enough, undoubtedly he was hoping that the receipt of the pawn ticket would give some hint of the locality where Clarence might best be sought, should it become necessary to find him – as it almost certainly would.

The rest of the night was tranquil, and Bobby, up early, was still shaving, when there came a tap at the bathroom door.

“Gentleman to see you, sir,” said his landlady's voice. “Mr. Charles Waveny.”

Only the invention of the safety razor saved Bobby from cutting his throat, as he would inevitably have done had he been using the old-style razor, so violent was the start he gave at this unexpected announcement.

“Oh, all right,” he said then; “tell him I'll be down in a minute. Ask him if he'll have some breakfast. You might do another couple of kippers if you don't mind.”

“They're big ones, Mr. Owen, two to the pound pretty near,” the landlady remonstrated.

“That's fine,” said Bobby, and with a note of passion in his voice, he added: “I do so hate a starveling kipper.”

Nevertheless the kippers, in spite of their size and succulence, were not a success. For one thing, the Hon. Chas. Waveny had a kind of sub-conscious impression that kippers for breakfast were slightly vulgar, proletarian indeed, if not almost Bolshevik in tendency. For him kippers were associated with three o'clock in the morning refreshment after fashionable dances, at £5 5
s
. a ticket, in aid of some charity no one had ever heard of, and a general belief that ‘
La Vie de Bohème
' had been plumbed to its depths. Even more important was the fact that he had no appetite at all, and indeed his breakfast consisted entirely of coffee and cigarettes.

“It's this murder,” he explained, “what have I got to do with it? I tell you I don't like it, if you know what I mean. Police chaps calling at the flats and asking questions – at the garage, too. I don't want to make a fuss... I thought I'd come along and see you first. But I want it stopped.”

“That's all right,” said Bobby easily. “We'll stop it fast enough as soon as we've got to know anything you can tell us – why you talked to me the way you did, and why you were interested in Judson's parties, and all that. My boss was trying to get in touch with you all yesterday. Where were you, by the way? No one seemed to know.”

“Had to go and see Aunt Tilly,” Waveny explained, “up Bedford way. She's dying.”

“Dear me,” said Bobby sympathetically.

“Been dying for the last ten years,” said Waveny with some bitterness, “and will be for the next twenty most likely. But she comes through with a cheque now and then, and every so often I have to rush off to hear her last wishes. Or there would be a new will jolly quick.”

“I see,” said Bobby. “How about trotting along to the Yard with me?”

“I don't see what for,” Waveny grumbled. “It's nothing to do with me.”

Bobby wondered. There was a kind of unease, a restlessness in Waveny's manner that might be caused by the not unnatural disinclination many people would feel at the prospect of being in any way concerned in a sensational murder case or that might have some other cause altogether.

“Well, old man,” Bobby said slowly, “you know you did seem interested in the place, and then a murder happens there the same afternoon, so you can't wonder if our people are a bit curious, especially when they know you had been talking about giving the murdered man a good thrashing. Yes, I know,” he added, as Waveny tried to interrupt, “a thrashing's one thing and murder's another.”

“It's a girl,” Waveny explained, “he was getting fresh about her.” He paused, blushed slightly, looked embarrassed. “She's a girl... well, if you know what I mean –”

“I don't,” said Bobby.

“Well, she's... well, she's a girl.”

“So you said before,” observed Bobby, devoting himself to his kipper. “Lots of 'em.”

“Not like her,” said Waveny with unexpected decision. “Her people lost all their coin and now she's running a hat shop in the West End, just behind Piccadilly. Sort of thing lots of the best people do, you know.”

Bobby made no answer but the kipper suffered badly. An Honourable now, he thought bitterly, and not only an Honourable, but one who had as well a wealthy aunt on her death-bed. It was, Bobby considered, hardly fair. Peter Albert was bad enough with his yacht, his ready smile, his frank, engaging manner, and now here was Waveny with a title in the background and his periodically dying aunt. Of course, Aunt Tilly – otherwise as Bobby knew, the Dowager Duchess of Blegborough – might go on living for years, but anyhow she ‘came through' with cheques at apparently not infrequent intervals. Bobby found himself wondering if a detective-sergeant of the C.I.D. had any chance of wangling a job in the police- force of, say, the Fiji Isles.

Waveny continued:

“You see, a chap like me, family name, all that – well, he's got to be careful, hasn't he?”

“He has,” said Bobby grimly, “especially if there's a discipline board hanging around.”

“Oh, that's different,” declared Waveny, “I mean – well, all this Bolshevism about, chaps like us have got to look out. That's not all. There's aunt.”

“The dying one?”

“Yes. She's always on at me about getting married and if I did and she thought it all O.K. – well, very likely there would be a sort of settlement, if you see what I mean.”

“I do,” said Bobby.

“Only she's a bit starchy, old-fashioned, all that sort of thing. If there was any hint of a scandal or any gossip about her – if you see what I mean?”

“About your aunt?”

“Good lord, no. About any girl I got engaged to. Put the hat on any chance of any coin or any settlement either.”

“Well, that seems your private look-out,” remarked Bobby. “Our people won't be interested. All they'll want to know is why you came to see me, and why you seemed interested in The Manor the day before a man got murdered there.”

“That's what I'm saying,” Waveny protested. “I told Olive she ought to cut 'em. I told her they weren't fit for any decent girl to go to. I asked her to stop it. I put it to her as plainly as I could. After all, chaps like me, we can't think only of ourselves. There's a tradition.”

“So there is,” agreed Bobby, suspending his operations on the kipper to regard his companion with a certain awe. “A tradition. As you say. What did Miss Olive say?”

“There's no need to go into that,” said Waveny with some dignity.

“Well, what happened next?”

“I determined to take a firm line,” declared Waveny, as it were suddenly thrusting that nose of his into prominence. “I told her she might laugh but she would see.”

“She laughed, then?” murmured Bobby.

“Girls are always giggling,” Waveny pointed out. “At nothing. She didn't understand how serious it was. I decided to arrange for the police to raid the next party Judson gave.”

“Oh, did you?” said Bobby. “Really?”

“That's why I came to see you,” continued Waveny. “I was in a position to tell you exactly what went on, as I had been there.”

“As Mr. Judson's guest?” murmured Bobby.

Waveny nodded, apparently without noticing the slight stress Bobby laid on the last word.

“Roulette,” he said. “High play, too. Poker.
Chemin de Fer
. Films, too. Hot, very hot.” He paused, smiled, even giggled. “Of course,” he explained, “if there had only been men there –”

“We must protect our women,” Bobby agreed. 

“That's right,” said Waveny, brightening up a little, for hitherto even he had been aware of a certain lack of sympathy in Bobby's manner. “So what I thought was I would take you round, show you the place, tell you all about what went on so you could make your arrangements, and let you know next time. Then you could raid 'em. I would take care Miss Farrar wasn't there, and when she knew what I had saved her from – you see what I mean?”

“I think I get the idea,” Bobby said. “Did you think that all out by yourself?”

Waveny nodded, not without complacence.

“Didn't strike you, I suppose,” Bobby asked, “that it was a private party in a private house? Anyhow, we needn't go into that. You can tell 'em all about it at Headquarters. They mightn't believe me but they'll have to when it's you telling them. You made rather a point of not taking me to The Manor that afternoon. Any special reason? ”

“I had an idea Judson might be there.”

“Why did you think that?” Bobby asked sharply. “Oh, it was something he said at the club the night before. We were playing bridge and someone wanted to make an appointment with him and he said, sorry, he couldn't, he was engaged, had to see a man out Epping way.”

“Where did you go after leaving me that afternoon?”

“I thought I would run down and see how Aunt Tilly was – she appreciates it if you pop in and say you've been feeling anxious.”

“Rather sudden, wasn't it?”

“Well, when I got back to my place –”

“Yes?”

“Well, there had been some bounder writing, some lawyer fellow. Wanted a hundred in twenty-four hours. Talked about one of those beastly writ things. I thought Aunt Tilly –”

“Did she?”

“Well, as it happened, I didn't need. She don't like it if you touch her openly, she likes to think it's a surprise. A chap I hadn't seen for months – Monty Evans – dropped in. He's owed me a hundred since the Derby last year and he just walked in and clapped it down on the table – notes, too, not a cheque. He said he was cleaning up before he went abroad.”

“Bit of luck,” said Bobby. “You went on to Aunt Tilly all the same?”

“Well, I had rung up to say I was coming, so I couldn't very well cry off. Besides, I knew she would be pleased if I went to see her and never even dropped a hint about being hard up.”

Bobby questioned him somewhat closely about times, but Waveny was very vague. According to his story he was on the way to his aunt's from about half-past three till he arrived at his destination in time for dinner. He hadn't hurried. He hadn't met anyone he knew. He had stopped once for a drink at a pub he passed, but he wasn't sure which pub or where; it was quite plain that no alibi could be established by his story. He could quite well have spent half an hour or so at The Manor about the time the murder had taken place. There was no evidence to prove that was so, but the possibility was one that had to be considered. The story of the demand for the immediate payment of a hundred pounds under threat of legal proceedings and of the opportune appearance of a debtor to repay exactly that amount, seemed a little odd, too. Suppose that necessary hundred pounds – the necessity for repayment more urgent than Waveny had allowed to appear – suppose it had come from no convenient debtor appearing in the very nick of time, but from some quite other source?

Suppose Waveny's knowledge of Judson's errand at The Manor had included knowledge that Judson intended to pay over to Macklin that exact sum of a hundred pounds, and suppose it had seemed to Waveny a good opportunity to secure the amount he needed – that possibly again he needed very badly? He might have known his aunt would give him nothing. He was a young man, powerfully built. Macklin was an older and a smaller man.