Hide My Eyes (22 page)

“A party from the lab is on its way down to Canal Road now and the preliminary report on the ’bus is positive, so I expect Mr. Oates to call a conference later in the night,” he was saying, referring to the Assistant Commissioner Crime and conferring an accolade on the investigation at the same time. “For Pete’s sake keep in touch. Have you picked up your star witness again yet? Kinder needs his head examined for turning him loose.”

“Waterfield? No, not yet. But I don’t expect any trouble. We shall see him again any time now. Meanwhile Kinder did a very thorough job on him. His statement is full of good things.”

“I know. I’ve got a copy here. By the way, Charlie—”

“Yes?” Luke pricked up his ears. The use of the diminutive was a healthy sign.

“I’ve been taking a look at your chart of that pet district of yours.” Yeo was apologising and was being short about it. “I’m inclined to change my mind. In fact, while I was looking at it I had a hunch myself.”

“What was that?” Luke bent over backwards to avoid any unfortunate note of satisfaction.

“Well,” the old man’s grin was almost audible, “you remember the Kent car dealer?”

“Joseph Pound, found in a chalkpit, pocket case picked up by children in Garden Green.”

“That’s the man. As soon as I read Waterfield’s statement something in it rang a bell and I turned up the widow’s deposition.” Yeo was proud of his memory which was indeed remarkable. “Chad-Horder was the name of one of the holiday swells she and her husband were drinking with in Folkestone the night before the crime.”

“Get away!” Luke’s exclamation of delighted surprise was unquestionably genuine.

“Fact.” Yeo was expanding. “Here it is on the desk before me. By sticking to your guns you’ve come up with something very interesting, my boy. I shall be happier when I hear you’ve got your man for questioning, but don’t let anyone forget that if by chance you’re right in including the Church Row case you’ll be dealing with a man who has shot his way out once and may do so again. Don’t let anybody take risks. We’re understaffed as it is.”

“Quite,” Luke said slowly. “I don’t know if that particular guess is going to stick. Mr. Campion had an idea about it but …”

“Ah, Campion.” Old Yeo had the grace to sound guilty. “I had a word with him this afternoon. He was coming up to see you. I don’t know if he did.”

“Oh yes, he’s been with me ever since.” Any note of reproach was gratifyingly absent. “He’s sloped off now, I don’t know where. He muttered something and next time I looked there he wasn’t.”

“That’s Albert.” Yeo was amused. “He’ll be back. He doesn’t miss much. You’ll find he’s had an idea and trotted off to test it. Well, good luck to you. I still think you’re asking too much if you try to link
all
those cases of yours. You haven’t a ha’porth of solid evidence in one of them yet. Concentrate on the most promising and scrap the rest. Those people Lettice and Reginald Fisher, who may or may not have gone off to South Africa, for instance, I shouldn’t waste any more time on them.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Guv’nor, but I’ve picked up one little thing that reminded me of them. Do you remember that
in
that inquiry the niece said she had sent her aunt a white plastic handbag?”

“Was it a distinctive sort of a bag?”

“No, a chain store product.”

“Then I certainly shouldn’t worry about it. You’ve got more than enough on your plate. I suppose Donne is concentrating on the Minton Terrace shooting? That’s your best bet. Has he struck anything yet?”

“Nothing conclusive, but it’s all very healthy. Donne has a girl friend of Chad-Horder’s with him now. She’s a woman called Edna Cater who runs the Midget Club.”

“I know. Just round the back there. Well, she was handy to the crime. But all these cases without any real evidence are very tricky. I won’t keep you any longer. Mention to Donne that what we most need are details of any further aliases. There’s nothing on the files under Chad-Horder and nothing relevant under Hawker, but a chap like that could have half a dozen names, and there’s always a chance that he’s been shopped under one of them.”

He hung up and Luke ducked his blue chin into his neck and grinned to himself as he heard the wire clear. Then, gathering up his folder, he went into the next office where Chief Inspector Donne, attended by a clerk and a sergeant, was interviewing Edna.

She was seated in the tub chair before the desk, her back straight and her suit and hair-do as crisp and formal as if she were in uniform. Luke shot a single glance at her and decided that he knew the type. It was not a bad one but in his experience seldom as hard boiled as it pretended. She was trying hard, he thought. She looked scared but was determined to keep the party sweet.

Donne was putting her through it steadily, leaning towards her across the desk, his watchful eyes never leaving her face.

“About those oil drums which Chad-Horder described as making a wall to hide a racing car,” he began abruptly as he heard Luke come in. “Do you remember if he gave you any picture of them? Did he say what colour they were?”

“I think he said they were black.” She looked bewildered. “I doubt if they ever existed. I don’t think that this boy
Richard
who was with him, and who made this long statement to you, understood Gerry at all. Gerry was romancing. He didn’t even expect to be believed.”

“I see. He’s a liar, is he?”

“I’m not saying that,” she said. “He embroiders things to make them more amusing, that’s all.” She was appealing to him to understand her, the suppliance in her eyes looking extraordinary amid the make-up. “You must know the sort of man I mean—charming, moneyed, good family …”

“Good family? Do you know his family?”

“No, I told you just now I don’t know any of his people, although I’ve known him nearly five years. I don’t even know if he has any. He keeps all the private side of his life very quiet. Some people do.”

“Why say good family, then?”

“Because it’s obvious. He’s easy, assured, generous, attractive.”

“
You
find him attractive?”

“Yes, I’m fond of him.”

Donne turned to Luke who took the vacant chair beside him at the desk. The dark man with his powerful body and shrewd cockney eyes was very masculine and his approach was straight man to woman with very little of the policeman.

“You still feel like that, even after the walk-out on you this afternoon?” he enquired.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I can take it. I was just so pleased to see him. He hadn’t been in for a couple of months.”

“What do you think about him at this minute?”

“I think he’s in a jam and I’m prepared to do anything I can for him.”

“Do you know why we want him?”

“I can guess.”

“Can you?” He was surprised. “Let’s have it. We won’t hold it over you.”

“I don’t care if you do.” Her smile took the offence out of the retort. “I think that Warren Torrenden, the racing motorist, has made a charge against him. Something about a car or spare parts for one. I don’t know what it is so I can’t
judge
, but if I were you I’d make sure that I listened to the most reliable one of the two.”

Luke did not speak but sat looking at her inquisitively, as if he could not make up his mind.

“Yes,” he said at last, “yes, well I hope we’re not going to upset you, Miss Cater. Have you ever seen this before?”

He had taken up a brown paper packet from the desk and now removed the wrappings to reveal the remains of the white handbag which he had brought from the Dump. She glanced at it idly and at first he thought she was going to shake her head. But suddenly something about the ragged fold of plastic caught her attention and she put out her hand. She did not take the exhibit but turned it over on the desk and ran a strong white forefinger over a series of small flaws on the lower edge at the front.

“I’m not sure,” she said at last, eyeing them cautiously as if she feared a trap. “Is it the one that was in the cottage at Bray that Mr. Chad-Horder rented? It was some time ago, you know, over two years.”

“Is that the cottage that was mentioned in the conversation Waterfield overheard this afternoon?”

“It is.” The colour was dark in her face. “A client of Mr. Chad-Horder’s and his wife had been living there, waiting to go abroad. There were several of their things strewn about. I think this bag was one of them. Now I suppose they’ve come back years later complaining because everything they left behind wasn’t sent on? It’s extraordinary how people do make demands on comparative strangers.”

Her voice had risen indignantly and Luke sat eyeing her.

“What makes you think it’s the bag you saw at the cottage?”

“Those needle holes in the plastic.” She nodded towards the white fold of material. “When I first saw it there were two gilt initials just there. Someone had tried to stitch them instead of sticking them on and they were hanging by a couple of threads. I thought they’d get lost so I cut them off and put them in the bag for safety. Gerry said he was going to send everything out to them.”

“What were the initials?”

“One was an L and the other was an F, I think.”

“How can you remember after all that time?”

Her slate-grey eyes with the darker edge round the irises met his own resentfully.

“Well … it was another woman who had stayed in the house.”

Luke returned to the notes on the desk. “Fair enough,” he said. “Did you ever hear her name?”

“No. Gerry wouldn’t tell me. That’s why I remembered the initials, I suppose.”

Chief Inspector Donne cleared his throat.

“Was the bag in this condition when you saw it at the cottage?”

“No, the lining was in it then and it was ready for use. I didn’t examine it, but there was a handkerchief in it and a compact, I think, and—oh—one or two ordinary things.” The thick cream skin of her forehead had wrinkled and he bent across the desk towards her.

“What are you remembering?”

She looked up and smiled in a startled way. “I was remembering that I thought it rather—rather
poor
,” she said frankly.

“Not smart?”

“No, not that. Just poor. Poor for a client’s wife.”

There was a pause. Luke dropped his hand on Donne’s wrist and the other man nodded, and his pencil traced a phrase on the blotter. ‘
Gal hasn’t a clue
.’

Edna took advantage of the pause to collect herself.

“Of course, it could be only carelessness on his part,” she announced. “You do recognise that, I hope? Gerry wouldn’t steal a handbag. He’s not that sort of person. That’s ridiculous. Wait until you meet him.”

Luke did not look at her. “How does he make his living?”

“I can’t tell you exactly.” She conveyed that she could make a very good guess. “I told you he never discusses his affairs. I should say he does a bit of car dealing, tunes up racing cars for other people, and has a private income.” There was a faint primness, an old-maidish satisfaction on the last word which stood out like a visible flaw on her hard façade of sophistication.

The two policemen eyed her as if they could actually see her feet leaving the ground.

“Is he sometimes much more flush with money than at others?” Donne suggested.

“That’s true of everybody but it’s particularly so of him. Sometimes he’s—oh—quite absurdly over-generous and extravagant.”

“Are these intervals regular?”

“How? Oh, I see. No, I don’t think it’s when the dividends come in. It’s when the deals go through, I fancy.”

Luke sighed. He had a kindly disposition.

“At the time of the cottage at Bray, was that one of the flush periods?”

“I’ll say it was.” She looked suddenly gay and mischievous.

“I hadn’t seen him for ages, and then he came in saying times had been fearful but that he’d got something cooking up. When I saw him again it had all gone through. The client had sailed earlier than expected and Gerry had got the cottage on his hands. That’s one thing about him, he doesn’t worry you with his worries. We had a wonderful time. There was money to burn for a bit.”

Luke rose slowly to his feet and stood looking down at her. His face was sombre but not unkind.

“Did you ever wonder what kind of a deal it was?” he said slowly. “Money to burn. Did he get that from commission on a deal with a man whose wife had a cheap plastic handbag, with initials which she tried to stitch on herself?”

There was silence and the atmosphere of the little office was unpleasantly noticeable. The woman sat watching the Superintendent with that particular look on her face which indicates that a half-thought question has been dragged out into the open.

“What do you mean?” There was no bravado there, no defiance, only the simple query. “What are you saying?”

“How much did he get from them? If it was a lot, was it all they had?”

“But it couldn’t have been. They were going away by sea and …”

“Did they go? The woman left her handbag.”

They were unprepared for her sudden movement. She struggled up out of her chair and stood breathing heavily, as if she found it difficult.

“Do you mean … like Haigh?”

“What makes you say that?” Luke had crossed round from the desk and was holding her arm as if he feared she might fall. “Why did you say ‘Haigh’?”

“I didn’t. I … Oh, it couldn’t be! Oh, my God.”

Luke lowered her gently into the chair and put a cigarette in her mouth, which he lit.

“Now come on,” he said, “be a good girl and clear your mind. We shan’t involve you if we can help it but you must do all you can. Come on, what made you say ‘Haigh’?”

She pushed her hand through her hair, ruffling the hard shell into untidiness.

“Haigh was the man who—who put—who got rid of—who bought … acid …”

“Forget the acid.” Luke was talking firmly and gently as if to a child. “Haigh was the soft-spoken friendly little crook who went the one stage further. Most crooks will take anything and everything from their victims, except the one final item. Haigh was the chap who thought that one final refinement was silly.”

“Don’t!” The word was a suppressed scream and she sat looking at him wildly. “That’s what Gerry said. That was his word.”