Читать книгу Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel - John Russell Fearn - Страница 6

CHAPTER TWO

Betty Shapley returned home, Clayton seeing her to the front door. Her parents merely looked at her as she entered; they had long since disavowed the mind-crushing tactics of the Victorians. They knew that Betty could look after herself and had the redeeming virtue of being truthful. To her the testing of three eligible young men was no crime—and she was capable of intense loyalty when she chose. As ever, there was a bright fire in the Shapley kitchen.

“I’m only late,” Betty said, moving to the table where supper awaited her, “because Herby’s car broke down. I had to walk two miles and then I stopped at Tom Clayton’s to ask him to pick Herby up. There! You can hear his breakdown truck starting off down the back now.”

“In fact, a bad end to a perfect day?” her mother smiled as she got up. “Well, I know Herby. He’s a shy boy but a nice one.… What do you want for your supper, love? There’s some cold pork pie.”

Betty nodded. “That will do fine.”

Joseph Shapley, seated by the fire with his pipe, was a big, lumbering man. His eyes were pale green, his hair and eyebrows white. Not many would have guessed he was only fifty-eight. He had reached that stage in life when he no longer watched the development of his daughter with excited interest but subdued astonishment. He never could quite imagine where the years had gone between her going to school and walking out in turn with three of Langhorn’s young bachelors. But never in her life had he raised a word of unjust protest against Betty.

Betty’s mother was different. If she felt there was something to question, she wou1d question it—with the forthrightness that Betty herself could reveal on occasions. She had more imagination, more refinement, than her husband. She was tall and grey-haired, graceful even yet, with the kind of understanding blue eyes that brought schoolchildren to the store to buy ice cream in the summer months. At fifty-two she had come to realize with extreme clearness that life is exactly what you make it.

“Did Tom like being dug out to go to Herby’s rescue?” Betty’s father asked.

“Of course not, Dad! But somebody’s got to do it, and Tom has got a garage.…”

Joseph Shapley grinned. “One rival drags another rival home, and the cause of the rivalry has her supper in comfort. Only a woman would think of a scheme like that.”

“Only a man would see fit to create rivalry anyway, Father,” Mrs. Shapley declared, as she made a cup of tea. “Nothing wrong with good, healthy competition. Here you are, love,” she added, setting the cup at the girl’s elbow.

Betty said: “I shan’t take long over supper. I want to watch Tom towing Herby into his garage. Just to make sure he’s safe. I wouldn’t like to go to bed not knowing what had happened to him…he’s a bit of a dear.”

“Then why don’t you put him out of his misery and tell him so?” her father demanded.

Betty hesitated, then: “I don’t really love him, Dad! That’s what I have been trying to make sure of. He’s too shy; he even seems half afraid to be alone with me. Can’t imagine why he should.”

Her mother smiled faintly. “I can.”

“Well, anyway, I think I shall tell him that I don’t really mean it. Only decent thing to do.” Betty cut a piece of pie decisively. “And I must do the same with Tom. He’s all right, but he’s too moody and takes such a long time to think things out. Besides, he’s interested in astronomy and science and stuff, as a sideline, and that to me makes him awfully boring sometimes.”

“Which means that you have only Vincent Grey left,” Betty’s mother said.

“He’s the one, Mum,” Betty said simply. “He’s big and cheerful and not afraid to take chances. And he’s the only one who has found a nickname for me! It’s—it’s ‘Cuddles’. And he can whistle like a bird, too.”

“Have to do more than that to keep a wife,” Joseph Shapley remarked dryly.

“He does, Dad. He’s doing very well in that solicitor’s office. He may talk a lot, but he’s the one I really like.”

Betty’s father wheezed to his feet. “Well, lass, I can’t be expected to see the world through the rosy spectacles of a girl of nineteen, but what’s wrong with you staying in this business of ours for a few more years? You’d perhaps get more settled ideas by then.”

“We’ve gone into this before. Top and bottom of the matter is I don’t like the business.” Betty shrugged. “You know I dislike routine. I want to see and do things.”

“All right, Bet, if that’s the way you want it. Vincent seems a bit overpowering to me, though, but maybe you know him better than I do.… Well. I’m going on to bed, and you see you’re not too late, young lady.”

Betty held up her smooth forehead for it to be kissed, then her father heaved himself clumsily to the door. He glanced back at his wife and she nodded.

“Might as well,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Good night, love.”

Again Betty took a kiss, then after her parents had gone upstairs, she sat finishing her supper and thinking. She was satisfied at last. Her three-man test was at an end and it was time for decisive action.

She got up and snatched down a coat from its hook, then she hurried through the darkened shop and opened the front door. There was no sight nor sound of Tom returning with Herbert’s car. The long stretch of Langhorn’s High Street outside was deserted save for a single bicycle lamp very bright and far away.

Betty watched it with a kind of detached interest as it moved under the widely spaced and dimly glimmering street lamps. As the cyclist came nearer she caught a vision of a white sweater.

It looked very much like Vincent Grey’s figure, though what on earth he was doing cycling through Langhorn at this hour of night—and in the opposite direction to where he lived—she could not imagine. He occupied rooms in Lexham, a town he had left ten miles away by now.

He was cycling hard, and fast—streaking under the lamps.

Betty hurried to the edge of the kerb and stood waiting.

“Vince!” she cried, as he swept past on the other side. “Vince, where are you going? What—”

She stopped. For the briefest instant he turned his face towards her and the expression on it gave her an inward shock. It was deathly white, gleaming in the momentary lamp light from exertion or emotion, and his eyes stared fixedly, unseeingly. He looked like a man who has seen some unimaginable horror and is fleeing from it as fast as he can go.

Then he was on his way without a word of acknowledgment, his dynamo whirring. Dumbfounded, Betty stared after him until he turned abruptly round the next corner on the right. For some reason he had gone into Riverside Avenue.…

Why had Vince ignored her? Why was he cycling like a madman through Langhorn at ten minutes after midnight? That he was pretty irresponsible by nature Betty, knew well, but he was not crazy.

She hesitated over walking to the corner of the avenue into which he had turned—then pride prevented her. If he wanted to ignore her, all right! So instead she looked up the high street for some sign of Tom Clayton or Herbert. She waited quite ten minutes or more, then she turned to go back into the shop. Just as she did so, she saw something that had only just come into being. It was a red glow wavering in the dark, misty sky. Hayrick on fire probably, out in the country. They often ignited in dry weather like this. The puzzle of Vincent Grey was more perplexing.…

But Betty stood looking at that waxing and waning glow and wondering. Funny thing, it might even be about the spot where she had left Herby. Surely Clayton and he had not somehow set the old car on fire?

Betty was feeling tired after her day in the fresh air, and in no mood to solve such a vague a problem. It would demand all her ingenuity to explain Vincent satisfactorily to herself. From what had he been fleeing?

She went back to the shop doorway and stood waiting—but there was no sign of Tom Clayton coming back with his truck. Maybe he had decided to make a repair on the spot instead. In that case.… Betty turned inside and bolted the shop door, returned to the kitchen and hung up her overcoat. After a final glance round, she switched off the light and went up to her bedroom.

She undressed in the dark with the curtains drawn back so she could watch that red flicker across the fields. Even when she got into bed, she could still see it as she laid her head on the pillow.… Then gradually, as the clock down in the kitchen struck half-past twelve, the glow finally expired. For another ten minutes or so she lay in the dark room listening for the noise of Tom Clayton’s returning truck, but it did not come.… Tired out, she fell asleep.

She was awakened again while it was still dark by remote concussions. They sounded exactly like somebody banging on the shop door. She stirred lazily—then the banging came again. It was the front door of the shop!

She sat up as her father’s heavy tread lumbered past her door in the passage outside. Tensely, she sat listening. The air seemed charged with an inexplicable feeling of dread, as if ghosts were abroad in the shadows, hovering—

Her ears caught the sound of mutterings from below. Then the mutterings ceased and her father’s steps came upstairs again. The boards creaked outside and then he rapped sharply on the door.

“Betty you awake?” he asked sharply.

“Yes, Dad.…” She swept her gown from the bed head and scrambled from between the sheets to slip it on. “What’s wrong?”

“Come downstairs, will you? The police are here. Inspector Morgan wants a word with you.”

Inspector Morgan? Police? Betty groped round blindly for her slippers, found them. Drawing the girdle of her gown tight, she pulled open the bedroom door. Her mother, similarly attired, was just approaching along the landing.

“Can’t understand this, Bet,” she breathed. “You go first.”

For some unexplained reason Betty was trembling as she half tumbled down the staircase and into the kitchen. The light dazzled her for a moment. Dazed, she looked at two vaguely familiar figures; she’d seen them both about Langhorn from time. One of them was tall and young in a constable’s uniform and helmet with three stripes and a crown on his sleeve. The other was shorter, immensely broad, having a shiny peaked cap instead of a helmet.

Her father was standing by the fireplace. Her mother still hovered in the doorway. Betty crept forward, hugging her dressing gown modestly about her, her blonde hair streaming loose.

“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Miss Shapley, but it’s important. “I’m Inspector Morgan of the Langhorn Constabulary.”

Betty nodded. Morgan was solid and power-packed, his face square. Densely thick eyebrows scowled down over hidden eyes.

“This is Sergeant Claythorne,” Morgan added, nodding to the young man by his side.

“But—but what’s wrong, Inspector?” Betty asked, struggling still with sleepiness.

“No sense in wrapping things up, Miss Shapley. Herbert Pollitt has been murdered.…” An unfeeling, brutal statement at that hour in the morning.

“Mur—murdered!” Betty was abruptly wide-awake.

“But it’s impossible!” her mother declared, horrified.

“Afraid not,” Morgan said. “He was found tonight by Mr. Clayton from the garage next door but one—found battered to death! He reported the matter to us and made a statement. It seems that you, Miss Shapley, asked Mr. Clayton to go and tow in Mr. Pollitt’s car. Is that right?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Betty agreed. “But—but how was Herby murdered? It just can’t be!”

“I know it’s a nasty shock,” Morgan said, softening slightly as he always did before youth in distress. “But it’s true. His head was found terribly battered. And whoever committed the murder then tried to burn the body. The car was set on fire, and Pollitt’s body and clothes show distinct signs of burning.… However, these details are for the Police to worry over, not you.

“I have photographers and fingerprint men from Lexham on the spot at this moment, and Dr. Roberts is on his way there. In the meantime, I’m checking on Clayton’s statement. You did ask him then to bring in Pollitt’s car?”

Betty sat down before her trembling legs dropped her to the floor. Fire! A palpitating red glow across the fields.…

“Yes, that’s right.” She made a mighty effort at control and watched Claythorne record her words in his notebook.

“About what time, Miss Shapley?”

“It was eleven-thirty when I arrived at his house door. I remember the church clock just striking.…”

“I understand from Mr. Clayton you had been with Pollitt since dinnertime, and then left him finally to come and get Clayton’s assistance for the car. What time was this?”

“Oh, I—I suppose it must have been about half past ten.”

“Then it took you an hour to walk say two and a half miles?”

“About that. I—I took my time.”

“Hmm.… Mr. Clayton has stated that as he approached the spot where he expected to find Mr. Pollitt he saw the car on fire—and then a man came tearing past him on a bicycle. A man whom he identified in the headlights as…Vincent Grey.”

Betty, her eyes pinched shut behind finger and thumb, saw in her inner vision that white-sweatered figure pedalling with insane energy under the streetlamps of the High Street.

“I would add,” Morgan said, “that I have informed Scotland Yard of his description, name, and so forth. A dragnet will be out by now to catch him. He’s disappeared.”

Disappeared! Of course he’d disappeared! Down Riverside Avenue!

“Mr. Clayton,” Morgan resumed heavily, “was just in time to pull the dead man free of the blazing car, but having no extinguisher, he had to let it burn itself out—then he came straight to us.… I understand, Miss Shapley, that you are acquainted with Vincent Grey?”

“Yes.” Betty was almost inaudible.

“Do you know of any reason why he might have met Mr. Pollitt tonight?”

Betty lowered her hand and opened her eyes again. “No, Inspector, I do not. When I left Herby, he was alone. I can’t imagine where Vincent came from, or why.”

“I see.” Morgan’s eyes strayed to Claythorne’s notes. “Just what do you know of Mr. Grey? Was he on friendly terms with Herbert Pollitt? Or were they enemies?”

“Well, they—they were rivals. Over me.”

“Ah, I think I understand now.… When did you last see Vincent Grey?”

Defiance rose up in Betty—defiance of the truth, defiance of everything. Suddenly she saw the one man she really loved in the most deadly danger. She herself had seen him racing away from the crime.

“I last saw him on Saturday,” she stated quite calmly. “It was in the evening. He took me to the Langhorn cinema and left me here about eleven. Mother and father can verify that.”

Morgan glanced round, and Mr. and Mrs. Shapley both nodded.

“And,” Morgan turned to Betty with a direct look, “you have not seen Vincent Grey since that time?”

Betty was silent, and evidently Morgan took it for acquiescence for he nodded to Claythorne. The lanky young sergeant closed his notebook and waited.

“I’m sorry I had to ask you all these questions at this hour of night,” Morgan said, with a clumsy attempt at apology. “But we must learn all we can right away. I’ve already seen the landlady of the rooms where Pollitt lived, and Clayton has of course identified the body. Now I have seen you, I have got to discover where Vincent Grey has gone.”

“He didn’t go to his rooms, then?” asked Mrs. Shapley in surprise.

Morgan smiled coldly. “If he were at home, madam, it would not have been necessary for me to contact the Yard. Men do not as a rule dash straight home when they have committed a murder. I understand from his landlady that he went to Lexham to play chess with a friend, leaving his rooms at about half past six yesterday evening.…” Morgan drew himself up and fastened the top button of his uniform.

“I’ll not need to bother you any further at the moment. Thank you—and good night.”

He turned to the kitchen doorway with Claythorne behind him. Old man Shapley saw them through the shop and out into the street again—then he drew over the bolts noisily. Morgan led the way across the forecourt to his car.

“Looks as though the girl’s telling the truth, sir,” Claythorne said, slipping down in front of the steering wheel.

“Don’t let a pretty face run away with you, Sergeant,” Morgan advised him. “Don’t forget she had three beaux! Humph! Anyway, get going.”

Claythorne nodded, reflecting grimly on the tangled crime they were investigating. Murder, arson, and brutal bludgeoning all flung together.

“You know,” Morgan muttered, as the car streaked down the High Street, “I think it may prove to be the easiest murder we’ve ever had to handle. The murderer was actually seen cycling away from the scene of the crime. That’a rare stroke of luck. We know it couldn’t have been Clayton because he saw Grey cycling in the opposite direction, away from the crime. Not knowing then that murder had been done—and knowing the man as a rival instead of a friend—Clayton did not stop his truck to have words with him. When Clayton arrived, he found the car on fire and body afire, too. Nasty business Sergeant. But once we’ve toothcombed the district, we’ll find Grey. Then the job’s done.”

“Yes, sir,” Claythorne muttered, switching on the headlights as the car entered the long lane that led to tragedy—the same lane up which Betty had idled her way. “As you say, sir—but aren’t we taking Clayton’s statement a lot for granted? We’ve only his word for it that Pollitt was murdered when he got there. Suppose he had something to do with it?”

“Then why the hell should Grey pedal away at top speed? And why did Clayton come straight away and tell us? Murderers don’t do that. They do just what Vincent Grey did—run for it!”

“Yes, sir,” Claythorne said obediently; but there was no law to stop him thinking. He had imagination, within limits. Morgan had none at all.

Seven minutes more brought them to them to the area of the tragedy, illuminated now by the headlights of cars. There were three others besides Morgan’s. The fingerprint men from Lexham; the photographer and his assistant; and further back was Dr. Roberts’ two-seater. As Morgan and Claythorne climbed out into the glare they saw figures moving busily across the lights. Two policemen from the local force stood stolid and massive, looking on.

“Anything, Doc?” Morgan went over to the tired-looking Dr. Roberts, who did the local policework in addition to his own practice. He was just packing his bag.

“All I can tell you now, Inspector, is that he was hit with terrific force by something jagged and heavy. The blow seems to have hit him obliquely from above. The poor devil’s so badly smashed up and burned I hardly knew where to start probing. Even as it is, I can’t finish tonight. I’ll do a thorough p.m. on him in the morning if you’ll have him sent up to Lexham mortuary. Good deal of burning from the fire too, especially about the head. Anyway, I’ll find out tomorrow if there are any traces of the weapon left embedded.”

“Okay,” Morgan agreed, low-voiced. “Thanks, Doc.”

Roberts nodded and turned away to his car. Morgan moved forward and waited for a moment or two. The fingerprint men were busy on the ruined hulk of Pollitt’s car. They went back and forth to their own closed saloon carrying the implements of their calling.

“Anything doing?” Morgan asked presently, stepping out of the way of the two photographers as they hurried to a new vantage point with their camera and tripod.

“Afraid not,” answered the man carrying the small camera. “We’ve been all over the wreck—where it isn’t too hot to touch—but the fire’s done its work. It’s taken off what was left of the cellulose and blistered the wood. We’re unlucky this time, Inspector.”

“Damn!” Morgan swore.

“Sorry,” the other said briefly, and motioned to his companion as he collected together the equipment. They returned to their car, reversed it, then turned down the lane and headed off into the darkness towards Lexham.

“About finished here, Inspector,” said the photographer, coming up with his tripod over his shoulder. “Dirtiest business I’ve seen in this district for some time.… Bring you the prints in the morning?”

Morgan nodded. “Okay—thanks.”

The photographer’s car turned and left. Morgan stood thinking for a moment, the headlights of his own car the only remaining illumination. Claythorne stood beside him, and the two constables waited expectantly.

Presently Morgan roused himself and went to Herby Pollitt’s ruined car. What had been a none too beautiful tourer was now twisted scrap iron, every trace of upholstery burned to ashes, the paint blistered and hanging in saggy skin.

“The car tracks to this spot are plain enough, sir,” reported one of the constables. “I made a thorough check up. Imprint in the dust of this lane is clearly visible. And it apparently came from Lexham direction and didn’t move from this spot until it was set on fire.”

Morgan looked back at the tracks and nodded. “And this trail belongs to Vincent Grey’s bicycle, eh?” he asked, pointing to a single, cross-pattern tread in the dust which ended in an abrupt skid where Grey had applied his brakes.

“That’s right, sir. They start again just up the lane, about fifty yards away. That’s presumably where he jumped on his bike and cycled off in the direction of Langhorn. Trouble is, there are no signs of footprints anywhere. Everything’s scuffed up in all directions, just as though there’d been a struggle or something. Over there, about fifty yards away also, are the tracks of Clayton’s truck tyres. You can plainly see where he reversed and then went back to Langhorn to report.”

“And still no footprints until you get to those tracks?” Morgan asked, musing.

“No, sir. As I said—all scuffed up.”

Morgan turned aside and moved to the silent figure under the tarpaulin sheeting a few yards away. He raised the top end of the cover and gazed down on the dead man. Morgan was not a sensitive person, but he had enough of human feeling to experience a definite revulsion. Herbert Pollitt had been cruelly, foully killed. Something had been used which had battered in the top and left side of his skull to pulp, an injury which had taken in nearly half the face. All the hair and eyebrows had been burned away, and down as far as his waist scorched clothes hung on seared and blistered skin.

Morgan let the cover drop back over the awful sight and straightened up.

“Filthy!” he muttered. “Makes you wonder what sort of minds some people have got. I’ve never seen an attack that showed such inhuman ferocity.… We’ve got to find Vincent Grey. He’ll not get far.… ’Bout time that damned ambulance was here, too,” he finished, scowling at the dark countryside.

“We’ve found nothing yet that might have caused the blow,” the second constable said. “Either the murderer took it away with him or else it’s well hidden.”

“Got to be somewhere,” Morgan growled. “From the look of the injury the weapon must have been pretty big—probably too heavy to carry. We’d better look again.”

So, inch by inch, a second search was instituted, lanterns and the car headlamps providing the illumination. The dust was examined carefully, so was the spot underneath the burned car. Then the ditch; then the hedges. Presently Morgan had to break off as the Lexham Hospital ambulance arrived. Two men came hurrying in view with a stretcher. Morgan nodded briefly to the corpse under the tarpaulin.

“Take it to the mortuary, boys. Leave it there for Dr. Roberts in the morning.”

In five minutes the job was done, then the ambulance backed, turned, and roared away into the night. Morgan breathed easier at the thought of that shattered corpse being removed from his sphere of activity.

“Inspector, I’ve found something!”

He turned sharply and hurried over to a point near the burned car. One of the constables was on his knees, holding back the long grass from the side of the lane and pointing to an irregularly shaped chunk of stone, delicately veined with pink, and having extremely saw-like edges. It looked rather like a massive barnacle.

“Looks like a chunk of rough granite,” Morgan said, scowling at it from under his bushy brows. “And—hello! What’s this?”

He bent closer to it and pointed to a brownish red stain on the rough surface that was definitely not part of the rock itself.

“Looks like blood,” Sergeant Claythorne said without hesitation. “We’ve found the weapon, sir.”

“This isn’t the only piece of granite lying about, though,” the second constable pointed out. “I went up the bank into the field there and there are a lot of chunks about this size, as well as a lot of smaller ones. No footprints show in the grass, unfortunately.”

“Nothing unusual about chunks of rough granite lying about when the quarries are only a couple of miles off,” Morgan said. “It’s kids who carry the pieces off. Fact remains this is the only piece near to the crime and the only one with bloodstains. How the devil did you come to miss seeing it before?”

“Hadn’t got this far, sir.”

Morgan grunted. “All right, we’ll take it back with us. Should have it photographed where it is by rights, but I’ll risk moving it. Not likely to be any interesting prints on this sort of surface, but take care how you handle it all the same.”

Sergeant Claythorne stooped and lifted the rock gently with his handkerchief underneath the rough parts. The chunk was pretty heavy for its size. He took it across to the police car and set it down carefully on the floor at the back. Morgan looked about him.

“May be other things we can’t see in this light,” he said finally. “We’ll take another look by day. You two men stay here for tonight and I’ll have you relieved first thing tomorrow. No more we can do at the moment.”