Читать книгу Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel - John Russell Fearn - Страница 7

CHAPTER THREE

There was little sleep for Mr. and Mrs. Shapley after Morgan had left the shop, and even less for Betty. While her mother and father discussed in hushed voices the horror of the thing that had suddenly descended upon them, Betty lay wide-eyed in bed, straining in her inner vision to see some glimmer in the dark tangle of sudden death. That Vincent and Herbert had been rivals she well knew—and that Tom Clayton was the third point in the triangle—but that Vincent would brutally murder Herbert was, to her, an utter impossibility. Impetuous, reckless, fond of his own voice—yes; but a ruthless killer? Betty solidly refused to believe it.

Just the same, the law was still determined to find him, and she knew perfectly well that it would—sooner or later. Then what? How could Vincent ever explain his strange headlong flight on a bicycle into the night? And if he did not explain, he would be convicted for murder.

“No!” Betty whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and feeling tears leak between the lashes. “He can’t suffer for something he hasn’t done. That isn’t justice! I could believe it more of Tommy Clayton than of Vince, though God forgive me for saying it.… But he’s sullen, heavy, unpredictable. He might kill a man in sudden passion, but not Vince.”

She tried to convince herself that she was viewing this whole thing dispassionately—but deep in her heart something kept telling her that she was viewing it through the eyes of a girl deeply in love with the man who had cycled past her like a madman. Ironic it had had to happen this way, too; just after she had openly declared that she cared neither for Herby nor Tom Clayton in any deeply sentimental way, she found herself with one of them dead, the other a witness to Vincent’s flight, and Vincent himself—who had now aroused in her all the instincts of protection—gone God knew where.

“And they’ll find him!” Betty whispered to herself, conscious that her pillow was damp from tears. “Vince can’t get away! Oh, why couldn’t he have stopped and spoken—said a few words…?”

She hugged her knees under the bedclothes. She was in a desperate extremity. Two facts were clear. She had got to conceal what she knew of Vincent’s flight on the one hand—breathe not a word to the police—and on the other she had got to know where he had gone. But how?

She could not start a private hunt for Vincent Grey without the police asking her what she was doing. Even if by some fluke she discovered where he had gone, she realized that the police would watch her every move. They probably knew she had a regard for him—that she might possibly lead them to the very spot where he was hiding.…

She could not think clearly. She needed somebody older and far wiser than herself; somebody who would understand. But whom? She fell into a weary sleep trying to think of the answer and awoke again to a sunny summer dawn that seemed a deliberate mockery of the tragedy weighing upon her so heavily.

She came downstairs to breakfast looking utterly unlike the usual coquette with the well-brushed hair, neat frock, and entrancing blue eyes. Instead, she looked pale and washed out. She had even forgotten to rouge her lips and her hair had lost something of its usual golden lustre.

“Don’t take things to heart so much, Bet,” her father said, studying her over the top of the morning paper. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m not so sure,” she answered leadenly. “If it was rivalry which caused Herby’s death, then I’m the root cause. It’s an awful thought.”

“You’re taking too serious a view of it, Bet. You didn’t really love Herby, after all.”

“I’m thinking about Vince. The police think he did it; that’s obvious. Vince is the boy I want to marry—finally; and at this moment I feel instinctively that he needs me.”

“Maybe he does, love, but you can’t do anything about it.” Her mother was entirely practical as she finished setting out the breakfast. “The law has no time for moonstruck girls.”

“I’m not moonstruck!” Betty’s eyes flamed sudden defiance. “Great heavens, can’t I say I love a man and want to help him, without you jumping on me?”

Her mother smiled. “You have a drink of tea, love, and steady your nerves. Dad, get the bacon.”

He nodded and turned to the task. “You’re right about the police wanting Vince, Bet,” he said presently. “I see this morning’s paper has got the news already. Even you are mentioned as a friend of the dead man. Scotland Yard has been informed of what’s going on, and it says the police are anxious to question a man answering Vince’s description.… His name is given too, of course.”

“Which means they’ll find him.” Betty looked fixedly at her breakfast.

Her father lowered the paper suddenly. “To my mind the whole thing is plain enough. Vincent Grey went off the deep end suddenly and murdered Herby. Men do that sometimes.… Jealous rage!”

Betty shook her fair head. “Vince wouldn’t do that!” Abruptly she pushed her breakfast aside and got to her feet. “I can’t eat this; I’m too upset. If only I could find somebody who thinks as I do. Neither of you seems to understand him.”

Her parents glanced at each other, but remained silent out of deference to her feelings. They had not, of course, the intimate knowledge of Vincent Grey which Betty had, but they were quite capable of assessing ordinary facts. The papers had told them everything; Morgan had left no doubt as to his views. So—

“I know!” Betty exclaimed abruptly. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Miss Black!”

“Miss Black? Your former Headmistress at Roseway, you mean?” her father asked. “But what on earth can she do?”

“Pretty well everything, I should think.” Betty’s voice became eager. “Don’t you remember how she helped Inspector Morgan on the Langhorn cinema murder case last winter? She’s a criminologist as well as a Headmistress, don’t forget.”

“That’s true enough,” Mrs. Shapley admitted, raising an eyebrow. “But what can she do? She can’t take the case over from Inspector Morgan. Besides, the facts are quite clear as they are—”

“I’m going to see her. This minute!” Betty gave her father an imploring look. “Dad, try and manage in the shop without me for an hour, will you? This can’t wait.”

She dashed to the door hook for her blazer, and then went out into the narrow back yard for her bicycle. In a couple of minutes she had wheeled it out to the front of the shop down the side path and mounted into the saddle. She noticed a solitary policeman approaching from the vista of the main street as she swung away from the kerb in the opposite direction. Coming to the shop? Probably. It might even become quite a rendezvous for police until the missing Vincent Grey was located.

To Roseway College from Langhorn’s High Street was a distance of two and a half miles. But for the worry on her mind Betty would have enjoyed the run. It was a perfect summer morning with the hot sunshine pouring in diagonal columns between the trees at the side of the lane as she pedalled along.

She reached Roseway breathless and vaguely excited, eager for the chance to tell her side of the story to somebody who might at least understand her viewpoint.

Mason, the college porter, came out of his lodge at her ring and contemplated her between the wrought iron bars of the gates. Betty knew him well enough from her schooldays, but he was obviously having difficulty in placing her.

“I’m Betty Shapley, Mason—don’t you remember me?” Betty managed to force one of her most attractive smiles to her lips. “I want to see Miss Black if I can. It’s very urgent.”

“Bit of an early hour for ’er, young lady—but I’ll see what I can do. Ain’t as though it’s normal school, you know. The summer vacation has just started. I’ll see, leastways.”

He shambled back into his lodge, was away about three minutes, then came back and opened the gates. “All right, she’ll see you,” he said. “You can leave your bike ’ere with me. You know Miss Black’s study?”

“Only too well,” Betty assured him, and she set off across the quadrangle briskly. In fact, it gave her an oddly nostalgic feeling as she crossed the concrete expanse towards the towering pile of the college, its wide, arched front doorway with the four broad steps lying straight ahead of her. How often she had made this trip during her schooldays, surrounded then by the happy friends now scattered far and wide. And now she was back again.

The front door, just as she had always known it, was open. The hall beyond it was wide and smelt of that elusive odour of furniture polish. Quiet calmness and an air of ponderous dignity was propagated by the panelled walls of dark oak. The parquet floor was brilliantly polished; the great central staircase loomed into noiseless upper regions; the innumerable brass plaques and cases of trophies against the hall panels still retained their air of chaste cleanness.

Betty half smiled to herself as memories walked with her across the hall and down the corridor which led to the Principal’s study. She had made this walk many a time before—and there had been trouble on her mind at those times, too. She reached the third door down the corridor and knocked.

“Come in,” bade a familiar contralto voice

Betty entered, closed the door quietly, then looked quickly round the well-remembered study. There was the same well-filled bookcase, the high-backed Jacobean chair, the broad desk, the Japanese screen in one corner, which had always excited her curiosity, the pile carpet, the skin rug. Everything was just the same. Even “Black Maria” was the same.

“Well, well, Betty, I am glad to see you again! How are you? That is—considering.” The contralto voice paused reflectively.

“I mean,” Maria Black explained, shaking hands with Betty, “the dreadful news in the morning paper concerning young Herbert Pollitt. You are mentioned as a close friend of his.… But take a seat, my dear.”

Maria motioned to a chair beside the desk and Betty sat down slowly looking up at her former Principal in something of the awe she always inspired. Maria Black was massive in build and becoming more so with advancing time, though she did her utmost to conceal this by gowning herself in receding dead black.

Viewed impartially, she had claims to being handsome—a long acquisitive nose, a wide, strong mouth, and determined chin. Her hair was needlessly severe—black and showing no signs yet of her fifty-eighth year. Swept back flat and straight from her high forehead, it terminated in a bun at the nape of her neck. And those eyes.… No, they had not altered, Betty decided. Cold, arctic blue—and possessed, if the girls of the college were to be credited, of the power to quell man or beast.

But Maria could smile at times—and she was smiling now as she stood against the desk, resorting to her unconscious habit of pulling at the slender gold watch-chain that depended down her ample bosom.

“Somehow, Betty,” she said presently, her scrutiny of the girl complete, “I half expected I would be seeing you before very long. And I am glad of it! I do not like to think of myself as some kind of ogress whom many of my former pupils are scared to approach.… So, what is troubling you? Or shall I save time and tell you that it is the late Herbert Pollitt?”

“Well, it isn’t exactly that, Miss Black.… It’s Vince I’m worried about. Vincent Grey.”

Maria returned to the high-back Jacobean chair at the opposite side of the desk and sat down. Her cold eyes aimed enquiry.

“You see,” Betty went on, “I’m in love with Vince Grey and the police are pretty sure that he—he murdered Herby. I’m—I’m going half crazy trying to decide what I ought to do, Miss Black! I’ve the horrible feeling that I caused all this to happen and—and.… Well, I just had to find somebody who might be able to help me. So I thought of you.”

“I’m flattered,” Maria murmured.

“Chiefly because you helped to solve that cinema murder round about last Christmas, Miss Black. You remember?”

Maria Black sat back and smiled to herself. She had found it quite enjoyable exercising her textbook-derived knowledge of criminology for the common good of society.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that the facts in this case are too obvious for me to be of much assistance, Betty. However, suppose you tell me your side of the story? And remember—no evasions and every fact. Now!”

Eyes half-closed, Maria listened while Betty went over the details. Quite truthfully she told everything from the moment she and Herbert Pollitt had sat watching shooting stars to when she had seen Vincent Grey making his dash down the High Street on his bicycle.

“Hmm…,” Maria said at last, contemplating her desk absently. “So you sat and watched shooting stars and wished—as two young people will. Then death came—uninvited. Looked at your way—or through the eyes of the newspaper—the answer still seems to be the same. Namely, that Vincent Grey murdered Herbert Pollitt.”

“But, Miss Black, I know Vince didn’t!” Betty insisted.

“Have you some proof of that?”

“No, I haven’t any proof. If I had, I’d have given it to Inspector Morgan right away. It’s just that I know Vince, and I’m sure there is some other explanation for him dashing off as he did.”

“Perhaps,” Maria admitted, pursing her lips. “Of course, I can understand your own inner worries: you feel that if you had not made Vincent and Herbert turn into rivals, this might never have happened?”

Betty sighed miserably. “I didn’t see that I was doing anything wrong. I just wanted to try out each one of them and make up my mind. In fact, I have made up my mind. I love Vince, and if he were to ask me to marry him, I’d do it. Herby was a bit too shy for my liking. As for Tommy Clayton, he’s a bit of a bore. He’s always reading scientific books in his spare time—astronomy and physics and things like that. Nothing wrong in that, of course, but they don’t seem to appeal to me very much.”

“I see,” Maria said. “I need hardly suggest that you refrain from diffusing your affections in future. So, you think in your heart that Vincent is innocent, though you cannot see why. Well, I have known similar instances of faith in an innocent victim of circumstances.”

“You see,” Betty said, “Inspector Morgan only looks at facts, and I want to try and get at the truth before this dragnet Scotland Yard has put out finds Vince and nails him down. I want to find him first. I think he would tell me what really happened, whereas he’d be too scared to tell the police.”

“Is he a nervous type of man?”

“Well, not on the surface,” Betty answered, frowning. “To talk to him you’d think he’s one of the most courageous men on earth. But that’s just a pose, you see. He does it to hide an inner self-consciousness.”

“I think I know the type. Such a man then might be frightened quite easily by something unexpectedly diabolical happening without warning.…” Maria motioned vaguely with her hand. “I am endeavouring, Betty, to try and find some other reason for Vincent dashing off as he did. Now I know his temperament I agree that he may have done it for some reason other than because he murdered Herbert Pollitt.”

“To think,” Betty whispered, “I saw that car fire begin and never guessed what it meant.”

“How could you, my dear? Needless reproach.”

Betty hesitated for a moment, wondering if she dared express the question in the forefront of her mind.

“Miss Black, look how much you have seen already!” A little flattery between women is never lost. “About Vince, I mean. Wouldn’t you help me, please? Not only to find him but also to prove that he didn’t murder Herbert? There is a vacation in force, and that means that you are perhaps not so tied to college duty as usual.”

Maria smiled wistfully. “Do you imagine, young lady, that I can walk into Inspector Morgan’s headquarters and tell him that I have decided to look into the matter? That I can interfere with the plans of the police and go to work in my own way? I’m afraid not. I might even finish up in custody myself for butting in where I am not wanted.”

“But you did it when that man was murdered m the Langthorn cinema! You did it when that pupil of yours was found hanged in Bollin Wood. Frances Hasleigh, wasn’t it? So why not now? Don’t you see, Miss Black? An innocent man may be condemned if this goes on.”

A serious expression crept gradually to Maria’s face. Her restless fingers returned to the fondling of her watch-chain.

“You really do believe in him, don’t you?” she sympathized. “It satisfies me that my own analysis of your character is correct. And such faith as that outweighs the inhuman logic of the law.… Hmm.” She pressed finger and thumb to her eyes. “You spent the day from noon with Herbert Pollitt. In the twilight his car broke down. You sat talking, watching shooting stars, and making wishes. Herbert asked you to get Clayton. While you were gone, Vincent presumably came along on his pedal cycle and saw Herbert. We don’t know what happened between them. Later Clayton says he saw Vincent cycling away from the spot, which is borne out by you seeing him cycling through Langhorn High Street.… You say he went into Riverside Avenue? Why didn’t you have a look in that avenue?”

“I did think of it, Miss Black—but my pride was hurt that he’d ignored me.”

“Yes, I suppose that is logical. Tell me—the paper says Vincent is five foot ten and very broad. Would you call him an immensely powerful man?”

“Well no—not really powerful. He’s on the flabby side. You know how blond men develop that way sometimes.”

It struck Maria as passing odd that Betty tactfully ignored her own sex and colouring. “He is not, shall we say, a strong and muscular man?”

“No—he’s not muscular.”

“Then I wonder whence came his power to batter a man’s skull to pulp, as the paper so unfeelingly puts it? A very debatable point. I do question too why Morgan has taken the word of Clayton as if he were an unimpeachable authority.… You see, Betty, it is not easy to batter a man’s skull so completely. Smith and Glaister have commented in their excellent Recent Advances in Forensic Medicine that ‘the skullbone is so hard that it can—and often does—deflect a fast flying bullet.’ In fact, any anatomist will tell you that the skull is normally very hard indeed.… Yet here we have a man who is flabby, which suggests he is also out of condition, battering another man ruthlessly to death! After that he cycles with the speed of a racetrack competitor, whereas his efforts at murder ought at least to have left him somewhat exhausted.… Hmm, decidedly interesting.”

Maria’s icy eyes sharpened as she looked across the desk again.

“Flaws, my dear, flaws,” she said, raising a finger. “The good Inspector Morgan, painstaking and plodding though I know him to be, is, I am afraid, a man without much imagination.… I am just wondering if I might not call upon him in a friendly way and point out these little discrepancies. I hardly see that he can take exception.”

Betty got to her feet hurriedly, fear and joy struggling together on her face.

“You—you mean you will really see what you can do?”

“Before I can approach the Inspector, I have to find a legitimate cause,” Maria explained. “I imagine I have found it.… Yes, I will do what I can for you—not only because I believe in your faith in Vincent, but because it is essential that a man who may be innocent of all blame be proved to be so.…” Maria rose from her chair and clasped Betty’s two hands firmly and studied her as a mother might an erring daughter. “Betty, what you have to do is go back home and try to forget this horrible business for a while. Just allow things to go as they are, and I’ll let you know the moment I discover anything.”

The girl had momentary tears in her blue eyes. “I—I sort of felt you’d see it my way, Miss Black. I’ll do just as you say and try not to worry.”

“Good!” Maria patted the hands gently. “Now be off with you, and if anything important happens, you know my telephone number. Being in the post office, you will be well placed to get at me, day or night.”

Betty nodded and hurried out. Maria strolled over to the window and watched her young, graceful figure go hurrying across the quadrangle, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze.

“Faith can move mountains, so maybe it can move Inspector Morgan as well.”

She turned and pressed a button on her desk. The call was answered by Eunice Tanby, the Housemistress. Years in the tentacled grip of algebra, arithmetic, and Euclid had left her as dry and very nearly as acid as a squeezed lemon.

“I am going out, Miss Tanby,” Maria stated, reaching behind the Japanese screen and bringing forth a beret and light dustcoat.

Tanby knew what that beret meant and gave a little sigh. “Am I to understand, Miss Black, that some—er—‘business’ has come up?” she asked.

Maria settled her beret comfortably on her dark hair before the mirror. “Exactly so, Miss Tanby, if by ‘business’ you mean a little matter of crime. The—er—‘Langhorn Bludgeoning,’ as the paper so delicately puts it.”

“Why, yes…! I have read about it in this morning’s paper. Young Langhorn man, was it not—Herbert Pollitt?”

“Exactly. One of three—hmm—boy friends of that blonde girl in our local post office.” Maria cleared her throat. “Betty Shapley, once one of our day pupils. Quite a clever girl; won a scholarship, if you remember. Now she is possessed of—er—hmmm—more than her share of good looks and figure.”

“Betty Shapley? I noticed her name in the paper, but I had quite forgotten that she used to be here. Yes, she was a very bright and bouncing girl.”

“She has just left me,” Maria reached for her sunshade on the hook behind the screen. “I have noticed one or two points in this business which strike me as being at variance with fact, so I intend to place them before the worthy Inspector Morgan. I am sure you will not mind handling matters until I return. There is little to be done during the holiday, fortunately.”

“Certainly,” Miss Tanby agreed. “I—I can’t help in any way, can I? You said that if you could ever find use for me—“

“At the moment I am afraid I cannot see any useful role you can fill, beyond deputizing for me here.… Now, if you will pardon me.…”

With a final nod Maria turned and left her study with dignified tread, the sunshade hanging by its strap on her arm. She swept down the corridor to the quadrangle and then went as majestically as an empress to the garages at the rear of the college.

In a few minutes she reappeared inside an Austin saloon. She was immensely proud of her little car, and of her driving. It helped her rheumatism by cutting out those long tramps that had been forced upon her from time to time when criminology had taken her far afield.

Sitting bolt upright before the steering wheel, she drove to the college gates. Mason saluted her as he opened them, then he stood watching and scratching his head as she sailed off down the lane with a faint haze of blue exhaust fumes.