Swing, Swing Together

CHAPTER 28

Harriet had decided to talk to Sergeant Cribb about her theory. She had thought it over from every point of view and she was now convinced that the unfortunate Bonner-Hill had been murdered in error. On reflection, she had decided not to talk to Melanie about it. It was tragic enough to learn that your husband had been murdered, without having it suggested he had been murdered by mistake.

The theory was soundly based, otherwise Harriet would not have contemplated going to Cribb. From her observations he was not the sort to welcome other people’s help unless he asked for it. He liked to take the credit for himself. Yet it was her duty, if she had information, to give it to the police. And his to take account of it.

It was clear to her that Bonner-Hill had been murdered because he happened to be at the spot where Fernandez fished on Saturday mornings. Only lately had the two of them taken to going out together on these expeditions. All the signs were that this was a murder which had been planned for many weeks, before Bonner-Hill ever joined Fernandez. Humberstone, Lucifer and Gold had rowed up from Kingston like the characters in Three Men in a Boat, but the purpose of their journey had not been literary. It had been to get to Oxford on Saturday morning at half-past nine and murder John Fernandez. They had got to the spot at the appointed time and found a man there who fitted the description they had. Probably they were hired assassins who had never met the man themselves. The planning that had gone into the murder was as intricate as an anarchist plot.

She approached the desk and asked for Sergeant Cribb. It was just noon; the bells had been chiming everywhere as she had come along St. Aldate’s. He ought to be available.

“Sergeant Cribb, miss?” said the constable on duty. “I don’t know whether I ought to-”

Constable Thackeray made a timely appearance at the door behind the desk. “Miss Shaw! Good to see you, miss. Are you comfortable at that hotel?”

“I should like to speak to Sergeant Cribb if that is possible.”

Thackeray’s expression changed. “I don’t advise it just now, miss. The air’s blue in there-and I ain’t talking about the cigar smoke. He’s had a setback, you see. We should have charged our prisoners by now-you heard that I arrested ’em last night, did you? — but things have gone a bit sour. It’s not so clear as it seemed. You’d be better off having your lunch first, really, miss.”

“Please tell the sergeant I have something that may be of the greatest importance to tell him,” Harriet insisted.

Thackeray departed, muttering something uncomplimentary about young women who wouldn’t listen to advice, and presently put his head round the door and beckoned her into the office.

Cribb was speaking into the telephone. “Definitely Goldberg? You’ve checked the naturalization papers? Well, get on with it, man. I’ll hold on while you do.” He put his hand over the receiver. “What is it, Miss Shaw? I’m busy, as you can see.”

Harriet started expounding her theory. She had not got far when Cribb put up his hand and spoke into the telephone again. “I told you the name. Fernandez. No, Goldberg. I’m getting confused. Nothing in the name of Goldstein? No, it’s not helpful. It’s no help at all. Good-bye.” He hung up the receiver. “Where’s Thackeray? I think I’ll have that dog brought in. I feel like kicking it. Continue your story, Miss Fernandez. You have my full attention.” The telephone rang and he picked it up. “Who are you? Yes, of course I’m Cribb. Who did you expect-Charlie Peace? Names? I gave you the names before. Humberstone, Gold and Lucifer. Thank you, Constable. I can do without your feeble attempts at humour. I’m trying to investigate a murder here. What do you say? All employed in the Claims Department? Very well, I don’t need to know any more. Is somebody checking with the Home Office as I asked? Habitual Criminals’ Register. And the Convict Office? I know it takes time. I wasn’t born yesterday, laddie.” He hung up the receiver. “So you think it was all a mistake, Miss Shaw?”

Behind Harriet, Thackeray appeared again. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Sergeant. I thought you ought to know straight away that P. C. Hardy has returned. He’s ready to make his report.”

“Send him in and come in yourself. You don’t mind, do you, Miss Shaw? No need to get up. You can stay and listen. We’ve all had a small hand in this investigation.”

Hardy was still in blazer and flannels. His boater was tucked under his left arm and he carried a notebook in his right hand. Seeing him again after an interval, and so soon after Cribb’s tantrums on the telephone, Harriet was inclined to view him in a more favourable light than formerly. He turned a glance in her direction as he crossed the carpet to take his position in front of Cribb. “Good mornin’, Sergeant. Good mornin’, miss.”

Cribb took out his watch. “Good afternoon. It took you enough time to get here, Constable. We’ve had another murder and three arrests since we saw you last.”

“Moses!” said Hardy. “Did you cop the three-”

“They’re in the cells. Make your report, man. We’re not here to welcome you to Oxford.”

Hardy’s stance stiffened. “Very well, Sergeant. After leavin’ Clifton Hampden, I took the train from Culham, changin’ at Twyford Junction-”

“I’m not interested in the blasted train journey!” exploded Cribb. “What happened about the dog bite?”

“Upon arrivin’ at Henley, I reported to the mortuary,” Hardy implacably continued, “where I had to wait for two hours for the police artist to arrive. I then climbed onto a slab and he made a sketch of the dog bite on my leg. He also made a sketch of the bite on the tramp’s leg. I have them here in my notebook.” He extracted a loose sheet from among the leaves and handed it to Cribb.

The sergeant arranged the paper on the blotter in front of him. “These aren’t the same size. The top one’s bigger.”

“That was my impression too,” said Hardy. “I thought the artist must have got his proportions wrong. He said he hadn’t and he produced a tapeline to prove it to me. We measured both bites again. The one on the tramp’s leg was clearly made by a larger dog.”

“Not Towser?” said Thackeray in disbelief.

Cribb was speechless.

“If you look carefully at the drawings, you’ll see that there are half a dozen other differences of detail,” Hardy went on. “It’s mainly owin’ to the sharpness of the teeth. The mortuary keeper said that Towser must have been a younger dog than the one that bit the tramp.”

“This means that Mr. Humberstone and the others didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Walters,” said Harriet.

“Or Bonner-Hill, for that matter,” added Thackeray. “We only suspected them of that because the circumstances were alike.”

As the implications of Hardy’s news fizzed and spattered like firecrackers in their minds, speech stopped in the room. For several seconds only their eyes communicated.

Cribb said, “You knew this yesterday. What prevented you from coming back at once and letting us know?”

“I was acting upon your orders, Sergeant. After I’d finished at Henley, I proceeded to Marlow to examine the register of guests at the Crown. After the discovery about the bites, I fully expected to find the names in the register.”

“They weren’t there,” said Cribb.

“No, they weren’t,” said Hardy. “I was flummoxed. The receptionist couldn’t remember seein’ three men of their description. It seemed to me that if their dog wasn’t the one that bit Walters, they had no reason to pretend they were in Marlow on Tuesday night if they weren’t.”

“Eh?” said Thackeray.

“I decided to do some more checkin’,” Hardy continued. “I walked down the High Street to the town landing-stage and I was lucky enough to find a boatman there who remembered them tyin’ up the Lucrecia there on Tuesday evening, towards nine o’clock. He remembered them exactly as I described them, even the dog, which they left on the boat to guard it.”

“Did he notice where they went after they tied up?” Cribb asked.

“Yes, he did, because it was the public house he spent the rest of the evening in, a little place close to the river, name of the Polecat. Time he got there, they’d already had a few drinks. They were sittin’ at a table with three young women often to be found in the Polecat.” Hardy took a sidelong glance at Harriet, who continued to look steadily in his direction. “The boatman remembers them leavin’ with the, er, ladies at about half-past ten.”

“This begins to sound familiar,” said Cribb.

“Well, Sergeant, havin’ got as far as that in tracin’ the movements of the suspects, I decided I should try to speak to the ladies”-he looked again at Harriet-“to establish for certain where Humberstone, Lucifer and Gold spent Tuesday night. I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon footin’ it round the poor end of Marlow, tryin’ to find them. In the end I talked to a woman who said she knew them and they always spent Saturday nights in Maidenhead, because that’s where all the, er, swells go. She even mentioned the name of the pub where I could expect to find them. Havin’ got so far, I didn’t like givin’ up. I gave careful consideration to what you would probably order me to do in the circumstances and I decided it was my duty to go to Maidenhead. A bus left Marlow at seven and I was on it.”

“Did you find the women?”

“I found one of them, called Dinah, known in the Polecat as Dynamite.”

“Very whimsical,” said Cribb without smiling.

“And very dangerous it turned out to be, askin’ her for information,” said Hardy. “She had a man with her from London who formed the impression that I was tryin’ to cut him out. He got quite ugly about it. What made things worse was that Dinah was under the same misapprehension, but she seemed to, er”-Hardy eased a finger round his collar-“prefer me to the man from London, which hampered my inquiries somewhat. Not to prolong the story, Dinah told me when I pressed the matter that she and her two friends took Humberstone, Gold and Lucifer to a house of accommodation in Marlow after they left the Polecat on Tuesday. They were there all night and left early next day. To make quite sure, I visited the house this morning. That’s why I wasn’t here before now, Sergeant. The woman who keeps the place confirmed that three men answerin’ to their description were in that house from eleven on Tuesday night until seven o’clock on Wednesday mornin’.”

The impact of Hardy’s statement was devastating. When Cribb spoke, it was not to say the obvious, but to provide time to absorb the shock.

“That was it, then. You can see why they were so unforthcoming about their night in Marlow. A pilgrimage, they called it. It wasn’t holy places they were visiting. Not the sort of thing that would go down very well in the Providential, I imagine.”

“Never mind that,” said Thackeray, grasping the nettle. “It means that they definitely didn’t murder Choppy Walters. They couldn’t have. Are you going to release them, Sarge?”

“I shall have to,” Cribb bleakly said. “From what we’ve just been told, it’s clear that we’ve spent the best part of a week tracking down the wrong three men. It’s a blasted nightmare. If Miss Shaw is right, even the corpse is the wrong man.”