Murder Somewhere in This City Page 15

  “How many did you collar?”

  “We got the lot, thirty-one in all. A very small school. We had a good look at ’em, and took their names and addresses, and let ’em go. All except one.”

  “Ah, you got something?”

  “Yes, sir. It was the guy who tried to make the alpine getaway. He had about two hundred pounds in his pockets—we’re searching his house for the rest—and his hands were as green as lettuce. His name is Lawrence Jakes.”

  “Congratulations,” said Martineau. “Lolly Jakes, eh? Can we have him?”

  “Not without a written order from the bosses. We don’t know yet if it’s our murder or yours. But you can talk to him as much as you like. He won’t sing for me yet.”

  “They’ll all sing before we’ve done. Cheerio.”

  “Cheerio, old boy. You ought to try a little canter over the heather sometime. The fresh air ’ud do you good.”

  “Oh, give over,” said Martineau, putting down the telephone.

  He went to the interrogation room, and asked for Laurie Lovett to be brought in. He waited leaning against the table, so that his body concealed the four wads of notes from anyone who was near the door.

  When Laurie entered, his glinting eyes swept hungrily from corner to corner. “Where’s my brother?” he rasped.

  “Don’t worry about him, he’s all right,” Martineau replied. “He’s sitting down to think about what he’s going to say next.”

  “You’re daft. The kid can’t tell you anything. He knows nowt—not me neither.”

  “Well, if he knows nothing, he must have had a middling shrewd suspicion. We’ve already got Lolly Jakes.”

  Laurie’s watchful eyes did not even flicker. “Who’s Lolly Jakes, when he’s at home?”

  Martineau moved away from the table, and let Laurie see the wads of money which he had so recently regarded as his own. The prisoner looked at them for a moment, then returned his hard gaze to Martineau. Apart from the swift glance, not a muscle of his face moved.

  “Sit down,” said the inspector, himself taking a chair. And when Laurie faced him across the table he suddenly smiled, and offered a cigarette.

  “Don’t think I’m softening you,” he said, when they were both smoking. “I don’t think I need your statement. Statements by accused persons are sometimes a nuisance at a trial, and I believe I’ve got you right, without any words from you. I’ll tell you now, I’m going to prove that you were the driver of that Buick car; the murder car.”

  Laurie blew smoke at him.

  Martineau reached across the table and deftly took the cigarette from Laurie’s fingers, and threw it into a corner of the room. Then he went on calmly: “You made a good job of wiping off the Buick when you dumped it in the quarry, but you forgot one thing.” He paused to take a pull at his own cigarette, and said: “The driving mirror, you know. A very common omission. When you pinched the car you adjusted the mirror to your own height and then forgot about it. You left a lovely thumb print on it. At least, I’m betting it’s your print, when we come to make a comparison. Yours, or your brother’s.”

  Laurie remained silent.

  “We’ve got that, and this money which you hid so artfully, and your green fingers…”

  Laurie did not look at his fingers.

  “… I expect you’ve been wondering what the green stuff is. It’s a dye. You got it from the stolen money, and from nowhere else. It’s on your fingers, and Lolly Jakes’s, and Don Starling’s, and it’s on the fingers of that poor murdered girl. Green evidence. I’m hoping we shall find some of it on Gordon’s hands when he washes the dirt off, but he hasn’t handled as much of the money as you have. He’s only had his ten-pound allowance.”

  “You’ve got nothing against the kid. Nothing.”

  “He seems to think we have. He’s in a blue funk. And it all fits so nicely. There were four men in the Buick. You want four men, we’ve got ’em. Starling, Jakes, you and your brother.”

  “Nothing of the kind. I’m admitting nothing, but I can tell you this: you’ll make a fool of yourself over our Gordon. He’s innocent. Absolutely innocent.”

  “Then who was the fourth man?”

  “How—how do I know?”

  “You mean, how can you tell me without implicitly admitting that you were there? We know you were there, man. And if there was another man instead of your brother, I want to be knowing, before he hears of these arrests and clears off.”

  “You’ll get nothing from me,” said Laurie.

  Martineau rose from his chair and paced about. He made an almost imperceptible signal to the clerk at the little desk, then he turned to Lovett.

  “Listen,” he stormed, throwing down his cigarette, “I want four men and I’m going to have ’em. If I don’t get a fourth man, I’ll have Gordon. And don’t think I won’t get him. It’s my guess that all he did was to pick you up near the Moorcock and bring you back to town, after you’d driven your taxi out there and left it. But it’s a guess I can easily forget. Gordon has guilty knowledge, he’s in possession of some of the stolen money, and he’s your brother. And you’re in it up to the neck. He’ll do for me.”

  For the first time, Laurie’s face showed a faint trace of humor. “You can’t kid me, Inspector,” he said. “I’ve heard of you. If that’s all you think my brother did, you’ll not blacken the evidence against him. You’re just trying to make me think you will.”

  Martineau stopped pacing. He glared. “Now who’s softening who?” he wanted to know. He put a cigarette in his mouth and threw one to the prisoner, and sat down again. For a while he did not speak.

  Then he said quietly: “I’m offering no inducements. But with good counsel Gordon might get off Scot free. It all depends how much grilling he gets while he’s in our midst. All he did was to pick up his brother at the Moorcock. What is the name of the fourth man?”

  “Clogger Roach.”

  “Thanks. And the finger?”

  “Peter Purchas.”

  “That’s the lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, would you like to make a statement?”

  “No. You’ve got all you’re going to get from me. And I’m admitting nothing.”

  “Fair enough,” said Martineau. “Now you can go and sit down quietly while you try to remember the name of a good lawyer. You’re certainly going to need one.”

  14

  Strangely enough, of the five men arrested, the only one to retain some honor among thieves was young Gordon Lovett. Somehow, while he waited in the charge of a silent detective, he gathered enough resolution to face Martineau and remain defiantly unhelpful.

  “I’m saying nowt,” he said, “because I know nowt.”

  “You haven’t any sort of alibi,” Martineau reminded him. “You won’t tell me what you were doing on Saturday morning.”

  “I can’t tell you. I don’t remember.”

  “You keep a record of journeys, don’t you?”

  “Aye, but I’m a bit behindhand. I haven’t made out Saturday’s sheet yet.”

  “Are you going to make it out?”

  “I don’t know, now. I’d have had to make something up, anyway, ’cause I’ve forgot what jobs I did.”

  “I’ll refresh your memory, Gordon. You went out to the Moorcock and picked up your brother somewhere around there, and brought him to town.”

  “No I didn’t. I never went near the Moorcock.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “I’ve forgot, but I never went near the Moorcock.” Martineau was not deeply concerned about that denial. Having laid hands on four out of five older men, he could afford to let this boy escape him. But he persisted a little while longer. He had to make a show of interrogating Gordon; a few pages of questions and answers for the eyes of Higher Authority.

  “Laurie employs you,” he said. “What wages does he pay you?”

  “That’s none o’ your business.”

  “He gave you ten pounds yesterday. That
was wages; the wages of sin.”

  “No it wasn’t. Laurie didn’t give me that money. I had ten pounds yesterday, what I’d saved up.”

  Martineau reflected that Gordon was fortunate. The money from his wallet had been examined, and the numbers of the notes did not correspond with any of the numbers received from the Hallam police. He had not received even one dusted note, and his hands were not stained.

  “You say you’d saved ten pounds, but this morning you had less than eight. That’s not saving, is it? Did you spend two pounds on a Sunday night?”

  “No, I spent a pound. I—I lent a pound to a girl.”

  “Who was the girl?”

  “I’m not saying. She has a husband. He wouldn’t like it.”

  “I guess he wouldn’t,” said Martineau. “I suppose she repaid you, not in money but in kindness. You’re young to be starting on that game, Gordon.”

  Gordon had the grace to look ashamed. He avoided the inspector’s glance.

  He wouldn’t stand comparison with a sound, honest lad, Martineau thought, but he wasn’t really a bad kid. But, good or bad, there was no evidence against him. And if he remained consistent in his denials, there would be none. The police had failed to find a witness who had seen either him or Laurie traveling between Granchester and the Moorcock on Saturday morning. The statement of Purchas was only hearsay in its references to Gordon’s activities.

  So Laurie’s betrayal had been in vain. He had sacrificed his only principle—and two accomplices—to save a brother who did not need saving. There was something about that: not poetic justice perhaps, not any sort of justice, but something. Irony.

  Martineau had made a tacit bargain not to push Gordon too hard, and he had no case against him. So he sent him home. Gordon was only small fry, anyway. Martineau had bigger fish on his hooks.

  He went to have a look at Clogger Roach, who had been arrested at a railway station as he bought a single ticket to Liverpool. He was being given the waiting treatment. He sat in a small room under the eye of a bored detective who would not make conversation with him. Martineau looked him up and down, and liked him no more than he had liked Laurie Lovett. The bitter, discontented face was of a type he knew well. This man was a demander of rights; a fanatic in a purely selfish cause; always passionately aware of what he considered to be his due. He was badly frightened now, but when he saw Martineau his dominant characteristic asserted itself.

  “You can’t keep me here without telling me summat,” he shouted. “I have a right to know what I’m charged with.”

  Martineau went away without speaking to him. The waiting treatment would do for Roach.

  Peter Purchas was an entirely different subject. He was a despicable coward, ready to tell all; to say or do anything in the hope of lenient treatment. He had already made a statement, and signed it.

  “Will I be charged with murder?” he wanted to know, with all his fear in his eyes.

  “Accessory to murder,” said Martineau shortly.

  “Does that mean they can hang me?”

  “Better ask your lawyer that,” said the inspector, and left him.

  After instructing Devery to relieve the man who was sitting with Roach, Martineau found himself with a little time to spare. He looked at the C.I.D. clock. Eight-five. He went out, and strolled into Lacy Street. There was an awning of gray cloud over the city, and it shut out the little daylight that was left. The many brilliantly lighted shop windows made a welcome glow along the pavements. It was a slack time of the evening, and there were not many people about.

  Martineau reflected: Monday. Wash day. Women are doing the ironing. Husbands are figuring how much they’ve spent over the week end, and deciding that they’d better stay in tonight.

  He entered the Lacy Arms and stood at the end of the bar. The place was quiet. Lucky Lusk was there, behind the bar, but a male customer was engaging her in conversation and she did not immediately see Martineau. Another barmaid served him with a half pint of beer. Then Lucky saw him, and she ended her gossip with a brief remark and a smile, and came to him.

  “Hello, darling,” she said, and her smile was intimate.

  He said “Hello” and asked her to have a drink. She hesitated and said: “Could I have a gin and tonic?”

  “Have what you like,” he said, putting money on the bar.

  She sipped her drink and talked with him, occasionally leaving him to serve a customer. He had started his second half pint before she said: “When are you coming to see me again?”

  He looked at her hair, almost the color of mahogany, and thought about her. The thoughts were exciting. “I don’t know,” he said. “I won’t know, till this job’s cleared.”

  “Come tonight,” she said with a certain urgency. “Any time you like after eleven o’clock.”

  He shook his head. “When I leave here I’m going to be awful busy,” he said. “I might be three in the morning before I get away.”

  “Then come tomorrow afternoon, half past three.”

  “Hold on, Lucky,” was his smiling protest. “What are we starting?”

  She raised well-groomed eyebrows. “Don’t you know what we re starting?”

  “And if we find we can’t go on with it?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody knows what’s going to go on, and what isn’t,” she said. “Are you thinking of your position?”

  “No. I’m thinking of yours.”

  Her smile was gay. “I’ll take a chance,” she said. “The other woman’s chance. Is it a date?”

  A woman who wanted him. A lovely, eager woman. At home there was a reluctant one.

  “But I can’t make dates,” he said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what I shall be doing at half past three tomorrow.” Then as her eyes clouded: “I’ll tell you what, Lucky. If I can make it, I’ll phone you, here.”

  Her smile returned. “No, don’t do that,” she said, promptly and shrewdly. “Phone me if you can’t come.”

  15

  At Headquarters, Martineau found that Lolly Jakes had been surrendered by the County Police. Because the assault which ended in the death of Cicely Wainwright had started in Higgitt’s Passage, it had been decided by higher authority that the murder was a City job.

  Jakes was being put to the question by Superintendent Clay, and, apparently, he was beginning to talk. Martineau did not join in that inquisition, but told Devery to bring Clogger Roach to his office.

  The waiting treatment had taken Roach through and beyond the period of fearful imagining, and now he was bored and bad-tempered, and hungry for a cigarette. When he saw Martineau he bawled: “What’s the bloody game? Keeping a feller sitting around like this! What’s the charge? If there is one.”

  “The charge is murder,” Martineau said. “You’ve been kept waiting because we’ve been busy with your friends.”

  “What friends? I’ve got no friends.”

  “Maybe friends isn’t the right word. We’ve got two statements already. You want to watch your step.”

  “How, watch my step?” Roach demanded. Then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Yers,” he said thoughtfully, looking at the floor. “Yers.”

  Then he looked up. “Who shopped me?”

  “The same man who shopped Peter Purchas. And Purchas has told us a thing or two as well. How he signaled to you from Gus Hawkins’ office. How you paid him off with two hundred pounds.”

  Roach was not interested in Purchas. He was thinking about the man who had betrayed him. “Jakes, for a quid,” he said. “The dirty bastard. I coulda got away, and he stopped me. What did he say about me?”

  “I can’t tell you what anybody said about you, but—watch your step.”

  “If he says I did it he’s a bloody liar!” cried Roach passionately. “I never laid a finger on that girl. Never even touched her! Jakes and that bloke Starling had her in the back seat. They’re the ones who croaked her.”

  “And you were in the front seat with Laurie Lovett?”

  “Ye—I
never said I was there, did I?”

  “You were there, all right. There’s no argument about that. They didn’t give you nine hundred pounds for advice.” Roach did not reply.

  “We’ve got the lot of you, except Starling,” Martineau went on. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. None of us knows.”

  “He must have said something.”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know where he is. He faded, and I wish I’d done the same.”

  “He can’t stay in England. Didn’t he talk of going abroad?”

  “Not a word. For God’s sake, gimme a cigarette, Inspector.”

  “Here you are. Did he say where he’d been since his escape?”

  “No. He only said one thing. ‘Keep moving.’ That was his motto. ‘Keep moving.’ Gimme a light, Inspector.”

  “Sure, here. Now, about Saturday morning…”

  16

  None of Don Starling’s accomplices could help the police to find him. That was established by persistent questioning.

  “He’s the one who matters,” said Martineau with savage regret, “and we can’t get within a mile of him. He’s moving around, and yet nobody ever sees him.”

  “He calls on friends, stays a few hours, and moves on,” said Devery. “That way people don’t get too fed up with him, and they don’t get much chance to shop him.”

  “He can’t have so many friends who’ll harbor somebody as hot as he is. Still, he stays hidden.”

  “He can’t hide forever, sir.”

  “No. He’s sticking around until he can lay hands on the plunder from the Underdown job. That’s what I think. I’m fairly sure he’s the only one who knows where it is, because he’s the one who hid it. When he gets that stuff, he’ll clear out. What’s worrying me is—he might have got it, and cleared out already.”