Dictator's Way (16 page)

Then again there was the admitted fact that Waveny had used threats against Macklin. Jealousy, theft, murder, did they all run together?

Well, if the thoughts of his superiors at the Yard ran on the same lines, it would be for them to decide what steps to take. Thankful was Bobby indeed that the responsibility did not lie with him. In this drama he felt that all the personalities touched him too closely. Even for Waveny, though Bobby considered him a kind of museum piece, he felt a friendliness born of the football field and the taste of a muddy boot in the mouth, and between Clarence and himself, too, was the blood bond of bleeding noses and of blackened eyes.

Breakfast was over now, and Waveny, though with obvious reluctance, agreed to accompany Bobby to the Yard.

“Don't see what for,” he grumbled. “I've told you the whole thing. Hang it all, if you mean to marry a girl, it's up to you to see she doesn't get mixed up with that sort of thing. Aunt Tilly –”

He paused. He evidently felt that to mention Aunt Tilly was enough.

“You intend to marry Miss Farrar, then?” Bobby asked.

Waveny nodded, and somehow once again his nose came into prominence so that that small round mouth and chin of his were utterly eclipsed.

“Does Miss Farrar know?” Bobby inquired.

“If you ask me,” said Waveny profoundly, “a girl always knows.”

Bobby agreed, and during most of the journey to Scotland Yard was very silent. Arrived at Headquarters, he handed over Waveny to the tender mercies of Superintendent Ulyett, while Bobby himself was instructed to write out a full report of his nocturnal interview with Clarence.

When he had handed it in he was told to stand by for a time, and was then informed that Superintendent Ulyett, having finished with Waveny, had gone in person to conduct a further examination of Macklin's flat, and that Bobby was to report to him there.

“I expect he wants you to see if you can get on the trail of this Clarence bird,” explained Inspector Ferris who gave Bobby these orders. “Looks to me as if it was him all right. He's offered five hundred to do a bloke in and a bloke gets done in – cause and effect, I say.”

Bobby never disagreed with what inspectors said and made his way to the address given him. Ulyett, busy in the flat itself, one on the ground floor of a fairly large building, sent out word that Sergeant Owen was to stand by, and Bobby accordingly stood by, a duty in which like all other C.I.D. men, he was much experienced. The porter of the flats was, naturally enough, very excited and interested, since it is not every day a murder case impinges on the somewhat dull routine of a porter's life. So he was very ready to talk, and Bobby equally ready to listen, since he knew truth is as often to be found in casual chatter, as at the bottom of a well. He knew also that the humble and the lowly, sergeants, for instance, are often told more than large, imposing, and somewhat terrifying dignitaries like Superintendent Ulyett, so he was quite willing to encourage the porter to talk as much as he liked.

Reward soon came.

“One of our tenants won't be putting on mourning,” the porter told him presently. “Mr. Yates, I mean. I've seen Mr. Yates looking at Mr. Macklin as if he wouldn't have minded putting a bullet in him himself. He's said as much to me once or twice when he was a bit lit up.”

“Oh,” said Bobby, though without showing too much interest. “Bad feeling between them, was there? What was the trouble? Wireless?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. Mr. Macklin's flat's this one, on the ground floor. Mr. Yates lodges with tenants on the third – of course, rightly speaking, tenants aren't allowed to take lodgers, but you can't stop 'em having friends on a visit, and it's no affair of the office how long the visit lasts or if any coin passes. Nothing we can say, even though we knows. Funny thing is, it was through Mr. Yates as Mr. Macklin come here.”

“That was before they quarrelled perhaps?”

“It wasn't exactly a quarrel. Mr. Macklin was always friendly, and so was Mr. Yates to his face, had to be. They was in the same office, and Mr. Macklin got the job Mr. Yates thought ought to have been his. Seems Mr. Macklin turned up sudden from foreign parts and got took on. Mr. Macklin was looking for a place to live, so Mr. Yates told him about there being to-lets here, and Mr. Macklin came along to have a look and took one. Quite changed Mr. Yates was though when Mr. Macklin got the post he thought he ought to have had by rights – Mr. Yates, I mean. Seemed as if all the life went out of him. Used to go about muttering to himself and I've seen him look at Mr. Macklin very queer like.”

Bobby decided it would be best to report all this to the Superintendent for him to deal with as he thought best. Ulyett might not like it if Bobby went on with questioning that looked as if it would turn out to be of first-class importance.

“Anyone else here on bad terms with Mr. Macklin or specially friendly with him?” he asked.

“No, very quiet gentleman, Mr. Macklin – but the biggest 'phone bill I ever saw. I noticed it lying on his table once when I was in there and the bell ringing constant, like a bookie's almost.”

“I suppose he wasn't anything in that line?”

“Lor', no,” answered the porter, laughing at the idea. He added that he didn't suppose many of the other tenants knew Mr. Macklin even by sight. There was one gentleman who had seemed interested in him and had thought at first he must have met him somewhere. But that was eighteen months ago and the gentleman wasn't often there. He was a sailor, a mate on a coasting steamer, and only came when his boat happened to be calling at London. He lent his flat to friends though, sometimes. Foreign gentlemen he met abroad very often. 

Bobby said nothing but he wondered how it was a mate on a coasting steamer met people abroad, and, still more, he wondered that a mate on a coasting steamer should be able to afford to keep for occasional use even a small London flat.

As a result of his report of the information imparted to him by the chatty porter at the flats, Bobby was relieved of the task to which he had been previously assigned, of searching for the vanished Clarence, and was instructed instead to continue to perform his familiar duty of ‘standing by'.

It is a restful occupation but Bobby was very tired of it when at last the tedium was relieved first by an order to draw as best he could from memory a sketch of Peter Albert and then, this completed and delivered to the waiting messenger, a summons, after yet another long wait, to Superintendent Ulyett's room.

He found that high official somewhat shamefacedly slipping his boots off.

“Haven't sat down since I got up,'' he explained, “breakfast on the hop and no lunch unless you call a glass of beer lunch, standing up, too. I suppose you've been knocking the billiard balls about all day, lucky young devil.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby meekly, though in point of fact he had not been near the billiard room, but a wise sergeant always begins conversation with a Superintendent by saying: ‘Yes, sir.'

From among the pile of papers on his desk, Ulyett produced Bobby's sketch, scowled at it, examined it closely, held it upside down, shook his head, might indeed have been an art critic inspecting the work of a not yet established artist. 

“Give me a photo, every time,” he said finally.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Best I could manage, sir. I've only seen Mr. Albert once.”

“What about the ears?” demanded Ulyett.

“I've tried to be very careful about them, sir,” answered Bobby, for indeed there is some reason for considering that the ears are always the most distinctive human feature. “Of course I noticed them specially.”

Ulyett grumbled a little longer over Bobby's sketch and then explained that the porter from the flats was waiting below.

“Want to see,” Ulyett explained, “if he recognizes his mate of a coasting steamer. Says the chap's name is Phillip Adams – same initials as Mr. Peter Albert. If it is the same man, looks as though we're on to something, and there won't be any difficulty in identifying him without the porter's help, so it'll be all right showing him your sketch. If the porter says it's someone else, we shall be saved a bit of time. Albert himself has gone out for the day apparently and no one seems to know where.” Ulyett paused to grunt his disapproval. “People in this case seem fond of going out for the day and no one knows where – don't like it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

The sketch was duly dispatched by an attendant constable for the consideration and opinion of the waiting porter, and then Ulyett began again rummaging in the piles of papers on his desk.

“How and When and Where are simple enough,” he remarked, “but not much help to the Who. It's the Why and the Who that's the puzzle. Take 'em all in turn. Mr. Judson for the first. Call him ‘Suspect A.'”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

“The yarn,” Ulyett continued, “that Clarence told you about Macklin having a hold on him seems confirmed. It's the general office gossip. Macklin drops in out of the blue. In less than a month he's head of an important branch of the business. Must be some explanation. Then those wheel tracks near the house of the car Macklin apparently came in could have been made by Judson's car, and again there's Clarence's story of his having seen Macklin and Judson driving together shortly before the murder in the direction of The Manor.

“I've had a talk with Judson. He's jumpy. Natural enough. Swears black and blue Macklin had no hold on him. Very indignant at the suggestion. Says if anyone tried to blackmail him, he would know how to handle it. Thinking of Clarence and The Manor pond most likely. That's as may be. Says he knows there was office jealousy, but insists Macklin got the job simply because he gave the impression of being a first-class man and first-class men are rare. Sticks to his denial that he saw Macklin after lunch, but didn't like it when he knew someone swore to having seen him and Macklin in the car together. Wanted to know who it was said that and got quite raggy when I wouldn't tell him. No alibi. Says he drove out after lunch to visit a business associate in the country and then when he was nearly there remembered the business associate was abroad so he drove back to the office. Not too good. Left the office again about half-past three or a quarter to four and drove out to dine with another business friend in Essex. Confirmed as far as it goes, but evidently gives ample time by a bit of speeding to stop off for half an hour on the way at The Manor and do the job there. What do you think of all that?”

“No case as it stands, sir,” answered Bobby promptly. “No evidence Macklin blackmailed Judson, no evidence Judson wanted to get rid of him, no proof Judson was near The Manor, no evidence he was with Macklin that afternoon except what Clarence says, and Clarence isn't the kind of witness you can rely on. If we can dig up any confirmation of Clarence's story, any witness who can prove Judson was near The Manor that afternoon, anything to show Macklin was actually blackmailing him – then there might be something to show Treasury Counsel.”

“Have to work on those lines,” agreed Ulyett. “Have to tell off someone to take that on – let me see, who had it better be?”

He began to jot down names on a piece of paper and then asked abruptly:

“How did Judson strike you? Sort of man to pull off a murder?”

“Might,” agreed Bobby cautiously. “I think so, if he was cornered. Hard, pushing type of business man, I think. His interest in boxing suggests a bit of violence wouldn't scare him. These affairs at The Manor show he's a bit of a gambler, ready to take risks. He's in touch with shady types, too – like Clarence, and probably the people he gets his films from are a doubtful lot. And the way he reacts to the petty attempts to blackmail him do suggest that he might react more seriously to a more serious attempt.”

Ulyett nodded.

“That's logic,” he said approvingly. “Gambler, reacts to threats by violence – dumping people in ponds – and in touch with bad characters. Quite suggestive. Not a conventional, respectable type, anyhow, or he wouldn't have a name for showing hot films to his pals. Yes, Mr. Judson stays on the list all right. Now what about this Yates bird you turned in a report about?”

“Well, sir,” Bobby pointed out, “I only know what the porter at the flats told me. Apparently there were threats. But they may not have meant much. I haven't seen Yates.”

“I have,” Ulyett said. “In hysterics pretty near. Tall thin chap, long thin face, looks as if he hadn't had a square meal for a month, and eyes so far back in his head you can't hardly see them. Lost a finger in the war. Defiant about it, might have been an S.I.W. Sort of bird you feel might have got the V.C. or never stopped running, just as it happened to take him. Couldn't get much out of him except that he didn't do it. Admits to having used threats but says he never meant them. No alibi. Felt unwell after lunch and went home. No one saw him there. No one at home till the people he lives with get back about half past six. Plenty of time between leaving office and half past six to do the job. Looks as if he drinks a bit, too.”

“No direct evidence against him?” Bobby said thoughtfully.

“No, but he'll have to stay on the list for the present. There's a motive and threats all right, but if everyone in an office murdered the fellow who got the job the other chap thought he ought to have – well, do they?”

“It might be this way, sir,” Bobby suggested. “Suppose Yates thought Macklin had some sort of hold on Judson. That was the office gossip apparently. Suppose Yates thought he would try to find out what it was and shammed unwell for an excuse to leave the office and follow Macklin. Suppose Macklin spotted him, there was a row – and Macklin got the worst of it. The method of the murder doesn't suggest premeditation, more like a sudden quarrel, Macklin knocked out, and then the murderer making sure with a handy cushion.”