The Attic Murder - S. Fowler Wright (ebook reader computer TXT) 📗

“I THINK,” Mr. Jellipot said, “that you may speak without reserve before Mr. Entwistle, who may be able to supplement any knowledge you have obtained.”

The Inspector looked the surprise he felt, but he had a well-founded confidence in Mr. Jellipot’s discretion. He said: “We’ve found out a bit, thanks to a good man who happened to be on his beat in Deal Street last night.

“He’d happened to see Hammerton in court when he was sentenced, and he recognized him going into a restaurant which hasn’t a very good reputation, at about seven last night.

“I had an interesting hour with the proprietor, and then with two of the waiters, and in the end I got this. Francis Hammerton dined there with Augusta Garten and two other men. One of the men left early. They can’t or won’t say who he was, and they’ve given me one of those general descriptions that mean nothing at all. It’s no use searching London for a tall dark man in a grey suit, and with a habit of wearing spats.

“The other man was an ex-officer named Driver, about whom we know a good deal and not much that’s good. He was cashiered from one of the Guards regiments after he’d been caught cheating at cards.

“Hammerton and Miss Garten left with him in his car about nine-forty-five p.m. and they didn’t go to the house in Hounslow where he has been lying low since we caught Tony Welch.

“Where they did go is what we’ve failed to find out as yet. But we know the number of Driver’s car, and we’re having a good look-out for it all over the south of England.”

Mr. Jellipot turned to Entwistle to ask: “Can you give us any idea where Driver was most likely to go?”

Peter Entwistle did not answer that. He asked Inspector Combridge: “May I put a question to you first?”

“You may if you like. I can’t promise to answer before I hear it.”

“I want to know why you were waiting for me with a warrant for my arrest in Mr. Garrison’s court. Did you expect me to be there when Hammerton was put in the dock?”

“Yes, I did. I thought at that time that you were the criminal, and there is a common belief that the actual murderer is unable to keep away when another man is being prosecuted for his crime.”

“Yes. I’ve heard that gag. I don’t know whether it’s true. May I ask you just one thing more. Did you have that idea yourself, or did someone else put it into your mind?”

The Inspector hesitated. He disliked being questioned by Peter Entwistle, and if he replied further he wished to be sure that he would receive payment in kind.

“If I answer that, do I understand that you will tell me how Francis Hammerton can be found?”

“No. He may be dead. But I’ll tell you the best way to save him if he’s still alive. And if you give me the answer I expect, I’ll tell you who murdered Rabone.”

“It was Mr. Banks who made the suggestion to me.”

“Did he say he thought I was guilty?”

“Yes. He held that opinion. So did I at the time.”

“What does he say now?”

“I believe he has that opinion still.”

“The low hound! He murdered Rabone himself.”

Inspector Combridge’s look of surprise approached incredulity. “It is a statement which would require evidence in its support.”

“Miss Fortescue saw him leaving, just before Miss Weston came down the stairs. He gave her a hundred pounds not to squeal.”

“Any evidence besides that?”

“No. I don’t know that I have. But who else would it be likely to be?”

“I can’t answer that. I don’t know why it should be likely to be him. It sounds unlikely to me. If you knew this, why didn’t you tell us before?”

“Because I’m not that kind of rat. He’d have been safe with me if you’d offered a thousand pounds — - “

“As a matter of fact, Sir Reginald Crowe’s offering twice that amount.”

“Then it’s likely you’ll get all the evidence you require. But you won’t buy it from me. I didn’t know it was he, though I might have guessed without overworking my brain. But I didn’t guess that he’d planned to frame it on me, as I know he has now, and that’s why I’m sitting here.”

“How do you know that now?”

“It was he who advised me to clear out. He said the police were looking for me over an old matter that’s — it doesn’t matter about that now. I believed what he said. I’d no idea that I was under any suspicion in the Rabone case.”

“You mean Mr. Banks told you himself to go in hiding from us?”

“I don’t mean he said it face to face. He passed me the word.”

“And then told you to come to the court when Hammerton was brought up?”

“I was to be there to meet one of the gang who was to give me the tip about the Leatherhead — it doesn’t matter what it was about now.”

Inspector Combridge was interested, but still less than convinced. He said: “If you could give me the least idea why Banks should have wanted to murder Rabone, or get you into the dock — - “

“Because he was the one who organized the bank frauds, and he knew that Rabone was going to give him away.”

“That,” Mr. Jellipot said modestly, “was what I had concluded to be the case.”

Hearing the assurance in his voice, Inspector Combridge began to place a new value on this incredible tale. He asked Entwistle: “You can prove this, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes. I can prove that. I can give you the names of half a dozen who’ll be all the evidence that you’ll need when they know what he tried doing to me, so long as you promise not to make it too hot for them.”

“It seems to me,” Mr. Jellipot said quietly, “that you should arrest Banks before he gets any idea that suspicion has been directed upon him.”

“It’s the one chance for Augusta Garten and Mr. Hammerton,” Entwistle said, “if it’s not too late now, as it most probably is.”

Inspector Combridge did not reply. He looked worried. A third arrest without justification would be a comedy which even his established reputation would not survive. And it was an absurdly improbable tale, based on no more than Peter Entwistle’s word, which an impartial judgement might not value at a high price.

Well, to be fair, he had said that Miss Fortescue could give it some support. Another witness of the kind that is likely to do more harm than good to the side which dares to put them into the box!

And even if it could be shown that Banks was at No. 13 Vincent Street on the night in question it was a long distance from establishing him as the author of the crime four doors away. Was he not commissioned by the London & Northern Bank to watch a number of suspicious characters of whom Peter Entwistle was one? He might have been there with good reason enough, and it was consistent with his reputation for reticence that he should not have mentioned the fact.

Mr. Jellipot, who understood his thoughts very well, broke the silence by observing: “It isn’t Mr. Entwistle’s evidence alone on which you have to depend. Miss Weston recognized Mr. Banks’s leg as he left the scene of the crime. She only hesitated to say this because it seemed such an improbable thing.”

The Inspector turned to Miss Weston, who had listened silently to this conversation, as a drowning man looks for a rope. “That a fact, Miss Weston?” he asked. “I thought it was the same when I saw Mr. Banks put his out of a taxi, but it seemed too absurd to mention. It was the spats I noticed particularly — - “

“Oh, spats!” Inspector Combridge recalled that these articles had been present in that description the vagueness of which he had lamented a few minutes before.

He said: “I think I shall give myself the pleasure of asking Mr. Banks a few questions.”

“I think,” Mr. Jellipot suggested, “if you put the handcuffs on him first, he’d be more likely to answer quietly.”

“Yes, I daresay he would. But wouldn’t he make a noise when I found I’d got to take them off him again? It’s easy for you to talk. You’ve no one to tell you when you go wrong.”

Mr. Jellipot, observing that the irritation of indecision had taken the inspector to the verge of incivility, had the discretion to avoid a direct reply.

He said mildly: “As I reconstruct the event — an operation in which I admit that my inexperience may cause me to overlook points which would be evident at once to your more experienced mind — the case has the simplicity which I am accustomed to associate with correct deduction.

“It is one of the difficulties of all large-scale criminals that they must have some legitimate place in the world, sufficient to explain their financial resources, and to provide them with an ostensible occupation, such as will prevent suspicion being inclined toward them.

“In Jesse Banks I see no reason to