Case for Sergeant Beef (17 page)

‘Oh, the police,' I said, rather contemptuously, I'm afraid.

‘You don't want to underrate them. Chatto's a very shrewd chap.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘But it will take more than shrewdness to solve this crime,' Once having taken up this rather confident line I had decided to go on speaking with authority. ‘It will take a quality which I don't think that either of you have in sufficient strength – that is, imagination.'

Beef laughed again.

‘Well, all I can say is if you know who did it you've got a wonderful imagination. Wonderful.'

‘How are your search parties doing?' I asked in order to change the subject.

‘They're on the job now. They'll cover every inch …'

‘Exactly. Every inch of the wood. In the meantime what do we do?'

‘Take it easy,' said Beef, ‘and await developments.'

At that moment a dishevelled youth who needed a haircut
and
a pocket handkerchief sidled up. He was flushed with excitement, but he did not seem- anxious to say anything in front of me.

‘Well, Lionel?' asked Beef, for he had already learnt all the boys' names. ‘Lionel's the leader of the Porcupine Patrol,' he explained to me.

‘‘Ippopotamus,' corrected Lionel.

‘Well, what is it?'

He glanced uneasily in my direction.

‘That's all right,' said Beef grandly. ‘This gentleman is in my confidence up to a point. You may speak in front of him.'

I ignored this ridiculous mummery.

‘Found something,' said the boy called Lionel.

‘What have you found?'

When at last he spoke it came out with a rush.

‘You know you said we was to look at the barks of all them trees round that bungalow where that old toff lives with that old housekeeper down the bottom end of the path towards Barnford, don't you? Well, we done it.'

‘What?'

‘Looked. And just as you go into the wood, well about as far as a cricket pitch only perhaps a bit shorter, there's a tree where the bark's been ripped as you might say to ribbons just below a bough which runs out straight towards the bungalow, and Albert Stoke, whose father's a keeper over at Whitton, though he's laid up now, says a gun's been fired straight at the tree from quite near and you better come and have a look.'

Beef nodded.

‘Yes, I did.'

‘Did what?' I asked disgustedly.

‘Did better go and have a look. Come on.'

We found the tree in question surrounded by eager youngsters. I wondered what Mr Chickle might think if he chanced to look from the window of his study, which directly overlooked us. I felt extremely foolish and Beef went through a lot of hocus-pocus with a tape measure while the Boy Scouts watched in breathless silence. The bough, as the boy had said, stretched out almost precisely at right angles to the tree and pointed straight towards Mr Chickle's home, as though the tree were a natural fingerpost. And there was a narrow, but unbroken, space from the tree to Mr Chickle's lawn.

Beef had examined the bark of the tree just below the junction with the bough, and had found it scarred and charred as Lionel had described. If it was the result of a gunshot the weapon must have been quite close to it, indeed one would have said along the under side of the bough itself. The same idea seemed to have occurred to Beef, for he was scanning the bough closely. Suddenly, to my disgust, he actually pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket, on which a chorus of ‘Coo!' went up from the boys.

‘Beef!' I expostulated.

‘Come and look at this,' was his only reply, and he indicated some indentations and scratches on the bough. ‘See?' And turning to the members of the Hippopotamus Patrol he declaimed, ‘Boys, you've done it. This will be a great help. I'm proud of you. Now go on to your square of the wood. That's from the wire fence to where Nelson Grover found the jay's nest, isn't it?'

‘That's right,' they chorused and sped away with their eyes on the ground.

We ourselves, I am thankful to say, returned to the village, but not before Beef had reminded his assistants that they were to meet in the hall that evening and that they were to bring all they had found.

We spent the afternoon quietly; at least I was quiet, but Beef had a sleep, which in the daytime and after his noon glass of beer is usually a thunderous process. At tea-time Miss Shoulter looked in to see how we were getting on. She
seemed to have a childlike confidence in Beef and urged him not to spare time and expense in his investigations.

When it was time to go round to the Lady Flitch Hall I accompanied Beef, not without misgivings. To tell a score or more of vigorous youngsters to bring in everything they found in a wood seemed to me an incautious proceeding, and as we entered the place my worst fears were realized. I'm bound to admit that Beef did not delay in giving orders for the disposal of a dead and half-decomposed cat which was the most offensive of the articles collected, but it was long before its aftermath had left us, in spite of hastily opened windows. Four snares attributed to the possession of Old Fletcher who was known not to be above a bit of poaching were not, as they should have been, handed over to the police, and the whitened skull of a sheep was presented to the Mongoose Patrol as a souvenir. Three boots which might have been discarded by tramps in Queen Victoria's reign were consigned to the dustbin, and the remains of an umbrella likewise. A number of pieces of rusty metal were promised rather optimistically to salvage; and broken china was thrown out. An empty bottle was also said by Beef to be of no account, which led to some argument among the Water Buffaloes.

‘Might of had poison in it, mightn't it?' one of them suggested, to be snubbed promptly by a Rattlesnake who reminded him that Shoulter had been shot.

At last Beef came to the scraps of paper which had been collected into one heap. After a moment he seized the freshest of these and calling me to the light showed it to me. I must say I was impressed, and I could see that Beef was as excited as one of the Boy Scouts. For it was an envelope addressed to Mr and Mrs Flipp and containing a Christmas card. Absently I examined its still vivid design – a steaming football of Christmas pudding with a sprig of holly in it. Inside were the printed words ‘Good Cheer'! And under them were scrawled the names of the curate and his sister.

‘Who found this?' asked Beef.

A bespectacled boy with thin legs was pushed forward.

‘Where was it?'

‘I've marked the spot, Sarge,' he returned cheekily. ‘I'll take you there to-morrow. It was ten paces into the wood itself from the clearing where the body was found.'

Beef silently handed him his reward.

O
NCE
again Beef took his information to Chatto. I thought that this time there was something a trifle patronizing in the C.I.D. man's manner. Or if not patronizing, perhaps encouraging, as though he considered Beef a younger and less experienced man who must be kept going by kindness.

Without comment Beef described the marks on the tree near Mr Chickle's house and left the inspector to draw what conclusions he chose from them. Chatto scribbled a note but said nothing. When Beef referred to the evening on which we had watched Mr Chickle with the outsize shoes, Chatto nodded impatiently.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Chickle has reported that and brought in his finds.'

‘Good.'

Chatto showed some interest in Bridge's story, particularly his account of the man in the raincoat. It was agreed by all three of us that the man was Flipp, but the conclusions that each of us drew from the fact may have varied. In the matter of the red tape Chatto nodded. It was when Beef produced the Christmas card and described where it had been found that Chatto was really enlivened.

‘That's about the last straw,' he said. ‘I think we may as well arrest Flipp.'

‘Think so?' said Beef. ‘Of course you know your business best, but it looks a bit circumstantial to me. Nothing really to convince a jury with. And Flipp's not the man to plead guilty.'

Chatto looked mysterious.

‘We've got something else,' he said quietly. ‘The poison book. Hidden under the floorboards in Shoulter's room. Flipp bought the morphine all right. Signed for it under the
name of Phelps two weeks before his wife died. Our handwriting experts say there isn't a doubt of it.'

‘Then why not arrest him for the murder of his wife? You seem to have a better case than what you've got here.'

Chatto shook his head.

‘It needs the two cases,' he said. ‘Much more convincing. But why do you want me to wait? Have you got another iron in the fire?'

‘Not what you could call an iron. But I
should
like to know a little more about Mrs Pluck. She wasn't on the bus that Christmas Eve.'

‘Oh, Mrs Pluck,' said Chatto in a voice which implied that he had no interest in the woman at all.

‘Well, there are some rather queer things about Mrs Pluck,' apologized Beef.

‘How long do you think it will take to clear them up?'

‘Give me three days.'

Chatto thought for a minute.

‘It's true that I would like to get something a bit more concrete before arresting Flipp. We've got motive, opportunity, and presence near the scene of the crime. But they don't constitute a final proof. I don't think we shall make an arrest before next week-end.'

‘That's good,' said Beef. ‘That'll give me time to clear up all my points. Chickle's going away for a few days tomorrow.'

‘Yes,' said Chatto, as though anxious to show that he knew as much as or more than Beef about Chickle's movements. ‘To stay with his old friend Flusting in South London. Neighbouring shopkeepers for twenty years, I understand.'

‘Some Lodge,' said Beef. ‘That'll give me a chance for a nice quiet chat with Mrs Pluck to-morrow.'

‘You're welcome,' said Chatto.

But the ‘nice quiet chat', as Beef had called it, turned out to be one of the most interesting conversations among the many in this loquacious case.

‘Come in,' she said wearily, as though she had guessed
that sooner or later we should arrive at the door with the object of questioning her. ‘What is it this time?'

Beef slowly lowered himself into a chair.

‘How's Mr Chickle?'

She looked up suspiciously.

‘Why?'

Beef gave a ponderous shrug of his shoulders.

‘Just wondered.'

‘Well, if you want to know, he's been funny. Very funny.'

This common, but curious, misuse of the language did not seem to perturb Beef.

‘In what way?' he asked.

‘Ever since it happened, he won't hardly speak. He's all right with you, I dare say, but it's my belief he puts that on. He used to be nice and chatty and always have a civil word when he met me. Now he looks as though he's seen a ghost half the time. Proper miserable. And he's off his food.'

‘Worrying?'

‘Well, not so much worrying as miserable. Anybody'd think he'd lost all his money. I can't make it out at all. It's something to do with the murder, because up to that afternoon he was right as a trivet. Used to laugh to himself. Thought himself someone, too. D'you know one day after he'd been sitting in his room writing, he turned round to me and said – “I'm a remarkable man, Mrs Pluck.” “Are you, sir?” I said. Well, I mean, what could you say? “Yes,” he says, “and what's more,” he says, “the time will come when everyone'll recognize it.” “Indeed, sir?” “Yes,” he says, “long after my death, of course.” And he laughs away to himself as though he was pleased as Punch. But he's not been like that since the murder, I can tell you.'

‘Ah,' put in Beef encouragingly. Then, since Mrs Pluck volunteered no more information, he added: ‘Did you ever see that big pair of lady's shoes he had?'

She gave a croak of laughter.

‘Did I not? He had them brought home with a lot of old shoes he bought at the iumble sale. Nothing any good
except a pair of carpet slippers he took to and wore every night. When I first saw them I asked him whatever sort of an elephant they were made for, but he didn't say a word, and I dare say that was because they'd belonged to Miss Shoulter and I've always fancied he was a bit sweet on her. Well, they were lying about for weeks, then I never saw them again till a few nights ago when he brought them home wrapped up in an old bit of mackintosh after I'd gone to bed one evening. Well, it was the night you came to see him last. Next morning he saw me looking at them and spoke very sharp. “Don't touch those!” he said. “They're for the police.” And that was all.'

Beef spoke as sharply as Chickle must have done.

‘Did you ever wear them?'

‘Wear them? Me? I'd have been lost in them.'

‘Did you even try them on?'

‘No. I did not.'

‘I see. Now there's something I'm going to ask you straight and I want a straight answer. What did you do on Christmas Eve?'

‘I told you –'

‘You told me you took the bus to Ashley and you never did nothing of the sort. I want to know where you were.'

Mrs Pluck's long lips remained pressed close together.

‘Come on, now. Better speak straight out. We shall get to know sooner or later.'

‘It wasn't anything special. If you must know I met my daughter.'

‘Where?'

‘Well, we had nowhere to go for a chat. I'd written to her to come over and meet me at the bus stop. Then we went round to the house of a lady who's a friend of mine. I suppose you'll want to know who she was, so I may as well tell you. It was Mrs Wilks, and we sat in her back room for an hour.'

‘You must have wanted to see her urgent,' commented Beef.

‘Not extra. Only it was Christmas Eve and anyone likes to see her own daughter then, don't they?'