The Watersplash

CHAPTER XXIII

So they’ve asked us to take over the case.”

Chief Detective Inspector Lamb sat back in the chair which he filled with so much solid worth and looked across the intervening writing-table at Inspector Abbott, who was at the moment engaged in expert ministrations to a sulky fire. He stood up now, dusting his hands with one of those handkerchiefs which his Chief derided as “posh.”

“Yes, sir?”

Lamb frowned.

“I used to know Nayler pretty well. He’s the Superintendent at Embank, and he’s a bit of a Mr. Facing-both-ways. Not that you’ll be any the wiser for that. Children aren’t brought up on the Pilgrim’s Progress these days like they used to be, and more’s the pity.”

“Well, sir, I was. Anyhow the name speaks for itself. Which two ways does Nayler face?”

“He don’t want to upset the county people, and more especially he don’t want to upset Lord Burlingham.”

Frank allowed himself a disrespectful whistle.

“Oh, he’s in it, is he? Rather the heavy armoured car type and all that.”

“This young chap they suspect is his agent. Old county family and relations all over the place. Just the kind of thing that Nayler wouldn’t like. On the other hand he don’t want the Labour people to have any handle for saying there’s one law for the rich and another for the poor, and all that kind of thing. The Chief Constable is in pretty much the same mind-he don’t want to offend anyone. So between them they’re tumbling over each other to hand the bomb over to us before it goes off.”

Frank put his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. Then he said in a meditative tone,

“The Greenings case-girl drowned in a watersplash. Sounds quite a feat, doesn’t it? Name of Clarice Dean. Not an indigenous product. Down there nursing a Miss Ora Blake.”

Lamb fixed him with a suspicious eye.

“Got it all pat, haven’t you?”

“I read the papers, sir. The case made good headlines. Also” -his tone was negligent in the extreme-“I had tea with Maudie yesterday.”

The November light striking through a tall window disclosed the thinning patch on the Chief Inspector’s crown. Strong dark hair with a tendency to curl surrounded it, but just at the top there was a definite thinning. When his colour deepened as it did now from crimson to plum the patch glowed too. Frank Abbott from his standing position was able to observe this danger signal and to be inwardly amused by it. His Chief’s rather protuberant eyes stared at him.

“Miss Silver? You’re not going to tell me she’s mixed up with this!”

“The girl met her in a tea-shop a couple of days before the drowning and told her a very odd story.”

“In a tea-shop?” Lamb’s tone was both angry and incredulous.

“Well, it appears she did know her by sight. Some ass had pointed her out as a famous detective, and the girl just sat down at her table and proceeded to spill the beans.”

“What did she say?”

Frank repeated the outpourings of Miss Clarice Dean.

When he had finished, Lamb banged the table with the flat of his hand and said,

“It don’t make sense!”

“In what way, sir?”

Lamb’s eyes bulged.

“If that Miss Silver of yours was to tell you black was white, you’d believe it! And what’s more, you’d come here and expect me to swallow it too! Here’s Nayler putting up this Edward Random as his suspect, and then you come along with a story that gives Edward Random the best motive in the world for keeping the girl alive. He’s been done out of his uncle’s property, and she says there was a will made which would give it back to him. What possible motive can he have had for killing her? Seems to me you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick somewhere. You’d better give Miss Silver a ring and ask her to step round and see me. All this second and third-hand stuff-well, I ask you, what’s the good of it? It’s not evidence, and it can’t be used as evidence!”

“It sometimes puts you in the way of something that is evidence.”

“And I don’t need you to tell me that, my lad! Put that call through and tell her to put her best foot forward!”

Mentally translating his Chief Inspector’s message into something a good deal more deferential, Frank addressed himself to the telephone.

But it was Emma Meadows who lifted the receiver at the other end, and her voice which said,

“Oh, no, Mr. Frank-she’s not in. Gone away down into the country-packed her things overnight and off this morning as soon as she’d finished her breakfast. Will you be wanting the address?”

He said, “Thank you, Emma, I think I know it-The Vicarage, Greenings, near Embank. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

He turned from the surprise in her voice to meet Lamb’s fixed and angry stare.

“Gone down there, has she?”

Frank found himself echoing Emma.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what does she want to do that for?”

“I believe she has a most pressing invitation to stay with the Vicar’s wife.”

Chief Detective Inspector Lamb said, “Tchah!”