The Blind Side

Chapter XXIV

About twenty minutes later the Inspector hung up the receiver and faced Detective Abbott across the writing-table.

“Inquest tomorrow at two-thirty. We’ll have ’em all there, and perhaps it’ll put the wind up some of ’em. But we shall have to ask for an adjournment unless we get a bit of luck.”

“Like the murderer walking in and saying ‘Please, sir, I did it.’ ”

The Inspector frowned.

“Lintott’s gone to check up on Mr. Foster. I want his fingerprints. If they correspond with the lot we couldn’t account for on the banisters and on this door, then it looks pretty black against him.”

“What did the Ducks and Drakes say?”

“Oh, he was round there on the Tuesday night, but he was so drunk they wouldn’t let him in. Tried three times-asked for Miss Grey and said he’d got to see her. The porter says Mr. Renshaw put him into a taxi and sent him home. Well, suppose he got home and got drinking some more, and then came round here to have it out with Mr. Craddock-I don’t mind telling you it begins to look like that to me. I’ve told Lintott to find out at his rooms when he came in, and whether anyone heard him go out again-” He broke off because the sitting-room door was pushed open and Peter Renshaw came in.

“Am I interrupting?” he said.

“As a matter of fact I wanted to see you, Mr. Renshaw. I am informed that you met Mr. Foster-Mr. Bobby Foster-as you came out of the Ducks and Drakes on Tuesday night, and that after some conversation you got him into a taxi and sent him home.”

“All correct.”

“Well now, Mr. Renshaw, I have an account of that conversation from the porter at the Ducks and Drakes. He says Mr. Foster had been backwards and forwards asking for Miss Mavis Grey and wanting to know whether she was there with Mr. Craddock.” The Inspector made a significant pause, and then asked, “Was Mr. Foster drunk?”

“It depends on what you call drunk. He was walking and talking, but I didn’t take much notice of what he said.”

“Ah, but the porter did. He says Mr. Foster used threatening language-says he offered to knock Mr. Craddock’s head off and kick it in the gutter-says he used the expression that shooting was too good for him. How’s that, Mr. Renshaw?”

Peter groaned inwardly. Bobby would go and say things like that about a man who was going to get himself murdered. Gosh-what a mess! Aloud he said,

“Bobby is a most awful ass, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I take it that he did say those things then?”

“Look here,” said Peter, “I don’t know what put you on to Bobby Foster, but it’s damned nonsense your suspecting him. He was annoyed because his girl had gone out with another fellow, he’d had-well-one or two over the eight, and he was shooting off his face. If you’re really going to murder someone you don’t go and have a shouting match about it on the steps of a popular night-club with the porter hanging out both ears to listen-well, it’s absurd, isn’t it?”

Out of the depths of his experience the Inspector commented on this to the effect that a drunk would do anything-“And I take it, Mr. Renshaw, that you heard Mr. Foster say, ‘Shooting’s too good for him’-meaning Mr. Craddock.”

Peter smiled affably.

“Rather assuming that, aren’t you? Now,, leaving this somewhat controversial subject, I really came to tell yotf that I have been talking to my cousin Miss Lucy Craddock.”

“You rang her up?”

“She rang me up. She wants to make a statement.”

“She wants to make a statement?”

“Apparently. It seems to surprise you. She-” he hesitated for a moment-“well, she’s a very conscientious person and she thinks she ought to. But she’d had a shock, and she’s naturally timid, and-well, in fact she wants me to be there.”

The Inspector considered the point.

“I don’t see any objection.” He considered still further. “I’m very anxious to get a statement from Miss Craddock, and I’m thinking of sending Abbott to take it down. If she’s an elderly lady and timid, my coming in on her after a shock and all-well, it might, so to speak, dry her up. But there’s something about the young ones, especially if they’ve got fair hair, that’s wonderfully disarming with old ladies. Just bits of lads they think them, and they get the feeling they’re setting them to rights. It loosens their tongues a lot, I’ve noticed.”

When they were in a taxi Peter said,

“Look here, Fug, is it possible to have an unofficial conversation with you? I mean, are you on duty all the time, or could there be some sort of a hiatus?”

Abbott shook his head.

“My superior officer has made a point of reminding me that a policeman on a murder case is a policeman all the time-he doesn’t, properly speaking, come off duty at all. What did you want to talk about?”

“Nothing, if it’s going to be your duty to take it all down in shorthand and decode it for old Lamb. As a matter of fact, it’s nothing confidential. It’s only-hang it all, man, can’t you see what an infernal mess this is for all of us? I thought if we could talk like human beings and get rid of the condemned cell sort of atmosphere it might do both of us a bit of good.”

Fug Abbott looked out of the window.

“I don’t take shorthand notes all the time. If you want to talk, talk-only don’t forget you’re talking to a policeman.”

Peter laughed a little angrily.

“I wasn’t going to offer you a nice, neat confession. What I really wanted to do was to talk to you about my cousin Lucy Craddock. You’re going to get a statement from her, and I want you to realize what sort of person she is. She’s very easily frightened, and when she’s frightened she dithers and goes to bits, but-and this is what I want you to get hold of-however frightened she was, or however much in bits, it wouldn’t be possible to induce her to tell a lie. She might hold her tongue about something, but what she says will be the truth.”

Abbott said, “I see.” What he thought he saw was that Peter was very anxious for him to believe what Miss Lucy Craddock was going to say. He said without any expression in his voice,

“You know what her statement is going to be?”

“No, I do not. Horrible minds you policemen have. She rang me up, and I’ll tell you exactly what she said to me. First of all she said she was better, and then she said Mavis Grey had been to see her, and how dreadful it all was, and perhaps she ought to make a statement, but please would I come too, because she was afraid she might get flustered and she would like to feel I was there-‘and I won’t say any more on the telephone, dear boy, because you never know who may be listening.’ There, Fug, I give you my solemn word of honour that that is every word she said as far as I can remember. There’s one thing more. I told you that whatever Lucy said would be the truth. Well, one reason for that is that she was brought up to tell the truth, and another is that she definitely wouldn’t know how to make a story up. She’s got what I call a photographic mind-quite accurate, quite uninspired, no imagination at all. There-that’s all. Now tell me why you are a policeman.”

Abbott continued to look out of the window. He said laconically,

“I was reading for the Bar. My father died. There wasn’t any money.”

“Any prospects?”

“Quite good, I think. I should probably never have got a brief anyway.”