The Dartmoor Enigma (6 page)

Superintendent Carstairs came out to them when he heard the sound of the car. “You seem to have had a busy day, Chief Inspector.”

“Yes, Mr. Carstairs; thanks to you for lending me your car, we have. We've seen Dearborn's bank manager and found out from him that the deceased man had lately bought a quarry near Moorstead.”

“Why, that must be what they call the Red Quarry. I didn't know that it had changed hands. Had he been out there on the day of his accident?”

“He had. We've been out there this afternoon and had a talk with the foreman, and now we want to get hold of a man named Richard Pengelly, who was dismissed by Dearborn and may have a grudge against him. He was the quarry-smith. That's not all we did. We went to the place where he lodged and were filled up with tales by his landlady's daughter, and so to-morrow, if you'll lend us your car again, we propose to go to Tavistock to verify some of her stories.”

“Good. You shall have the car for as long as you like. I see that you officers from the Yard go the same way to work as us in Devonshire. You look first for the motive. We've not been idle while you've been away. Dr. Fraser and Dr. Symon have made their reports, which don't coincide with the evidence Dr. Symon gave at the inquest. However, that needn't concern us; it's a matter for the coroner. What does concern us is that the medical evidence leaves the question of foul play open and we can go ahead. Of course in a place like this, it's impossible to keep things out of the papers. There was a paragraph in both the Plymouth papers this morning and the reporters came here for further details. I had to tell them something. I said it was quite true that there were some further developments and that, at the request of the Chief Constable, two officers from Scotland Yard had been detailed to help us, but that it was no good trying to interview them; they were far too busy. If I hadn't talked to them straight, they would have printed all kinds of fantastic stories.”

“I think that was very wise of you, Mr. Carstairs. And now to business. Which of your officers knows Moorstead best?”

“Oh, Inspector Viggers has known Moorstead man and boy for more than thirty years. As a matter of fact, he was born there.”

“Can I see him this evening, do you think?”

“Yes; as it happens he's in the station now to draw the pay. Step into my office and I'll send him in.”

Inspector Viggers was a weather-beaten man with a red face and sandy hair; a little slow of speech and perhaps of apprehension. He looked like a moor man in uniform. If he had ever been trained in gymnastics and marching, he had forgotten what he was taught.

“Inspector Viggers?” asked Richardson.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know Moorstead well?”

“I ought to, sir; I ought to know every stone in the place.”

“And every man, woman and child there.”

Viggers took time to consider this question before he replied, “Pretty near, sir.”

“You know the people living in Sun Lane?”

A slow smile dawned on the rugged countenance—a smile of reminiscence. “Yes, sir—most of them.”

“What sort of people live there?”

“They're the poorest people in the town, but that doesn't mean that they're all criminals. They're just—poor.”

“Do you know Mrs. Duke?”

“Yes, sir; she's had a hard life since her husband died, bringing up those children. If she hadn't let lodgings she couldn't have paid her way.”

“But now she keeps a car.”

The smile dawned again. “You'd scarce call it a car, sir; there's a driving-seat to it, but that's all. It belongs to that boy of hers, and how he raised the money to buy it second-hand I can't tell you. He says he's making a profit on it by taking it out with market produce, but he's down sick at home just now.”

“Then who drives the car when he's sick?”

“Not his sister—she's no licence and couldn't drive it if she had. I expect the car's laid up.”

“Would you give the Duke family a good mark for honesty?”

Again the inspector looked at his boots for inspiration. “Yes, sir, I should. The daughter Susie is a wonderful talker; she'd talk the hind leg off a donkey when doing a deal, but she wouldn't rob you.”

“Have you ever come across their lodger, Dick Pengelly, who was quarry-smith at the Red Quarry?”

“Yes, sir; he's one of them Cornish Labour agitators that's always trying to stir up trouble. There's no harm in him except his tongue. Everybody knows him in Moorstead and most of the folk are fed-up with him. He used to try and get up meetings in the market-place on Sundays, but he had to give it up because the people said, ‘Why, it's only Dick Pengelly,' and they wouldn't stop to listen to him. But I hear that his boss has fired him and he's gone off to find another job.”

“He was a quarrelsome man, I suppose?”

The inspector searched his memory. “No…no, I wouldn't call him that. He was just an agitator because he was born that way.”

“Thank you, Inspector, that was all I wanted to ask you.”

“Very good, sir. Perhaps I ought to tell you that in Sun Lane they've been saying that Pengelly was courting the Duke girl.” He stopped for a moment to see how this piece of intelligence was received, then turned on his heel and left the room.

Sergeant Jago came in to know whether Richardson was ready for supper and bed at the hotel. As they walked down together, Jago inquired whether his chief had got anything useful out of Inspector Viggers of Moorstead.

“Nothing to speak of, except that in Sun Lane, where tongues run wild, Pengelly was believed to be paying court to Susie Duke.”

“Ah!” said Jago. “That's why she wouldn't tell us all she knew about his whereabouts. She was shielding him, which shows that he must have been guilty of something. And he had a motive for the murder.”

“It's too early in the proceedings to be making up your mind against anyone, as I think you'll find out before you're much older.”

Richardson had trained himself to dismiss his cases from his mind as soon as he got into bed, but that night he broke his good resolution and lay awake pondering. Pengelly was among the “possibles,” but would Pengelly, when on the tramp looking for work, be carrying a heavy walking-stick which obviously would have cost him something to buy? A “swanky” stick; and would a quarryman be carrying a walking-stick, anyhow? And then why would he be a quarter of a mile or more out of his way? Rowe's Quarry lay on the road into Tavistock, which meant going right through Duketon, and if he wanted to waylay Dearborn he could have done it just as easily on the road between Moorstead and Duketon. It was a puzzle whichever way you looked at it. The first thing to be done was to locate that motor-lorry in Tavistock, and the second to find out whether Pengelly had applied to be taken on in Rowe's Quarry. Perhaps it was this decision that brought sleep to Richardson's eyelids, for beyond the Pengelly clue everything was cloudy and mysterious.

When the two Scotland Yard officers met at their early breakfast-table next morning there was no change of plan. Sergeant Jago went off to arrange about the police car while Richardson smoked his pipe in the bar parlour. Twelve minutes after the car pulled up at the hotel door they were in Tavistock in Jago's own hunting-ground, making the round of the repairing-shops. News flies fast among the garage hands in a little town, and Sergeant Jago was quickly directed to a little shop only recently opened. Beside a few derelict cars with dismantled engines there stood the tiniest of motor-lorries with a driving-seat and a flat platform behind it. A mechanic in blue overalls was stretched on the floor beneath it, tinkering with the brake bands. Hearing voices he protruded a head and blew his nose on an oily piece of cotton waste. Seeing possible customers he writhed out from under the car and asked what he could do for the visitors.

“We've looked in to see young Duke's lorry from Moorstead,” explained Jago. “Is that it?”

“Yes, there she is, and I'm wondering how long she's to be left here. She's all ready for the road. I was just looking at her brakes when you come in.”

“Who left her here?”

“Why, the young lady, Ernie Duke's sister, and the bloke that was driving her.”

“Who was that?”

“I'm sure I dunno who he was. The young lady called him ‘Dick.' He said that her brother was laid up in Moorstead, but that as soon as he got better he'd come down and drive her away.”

Richardson picked up the thread of the conversation. “We were wondering what sort of a driver the man was who brought her in.”

The mechanic laughed sourly. “I'll show you the kind of driver he was. See that door?” He pointed to the wooden gate through which vehicles had to drive. “See that scar in the paint? He made that bringing her in. He took the turn too short out of the street and grazed the lamp-post with his bumper, and then lost his head and went into my gate. If I hadn't shouted to him to stop he'd have scraped the gate on the other side, too. He got down then and let me drive her in. It's my belief that it was the first time in his life he'd ever had a steering-wheel in his hand.”

“What sort of man was he to look at?”

“Oh, a wiry sort of chap of about forty, I should say. I'd have put him down as a garage mechanic to judge by the state of his hands if it hadn't been for the way he drove the car in.”

“Well, we'll let Mr. Duke know that his car's ready and I dare say he'll be along to fetch her. What day was it they left her?”

“She's been here ten days. I understood she was to have been fetched away the next day.”

“Well, we'll remind him about it. Good day.”

The two officers stopped a moment to consult before they reached the car.

“Ten days,” said Richardson; “that brings us to the day of the murder, but it doesn't bring us any nearer to Pengelly, for what would he be doing with a walking-stick in the driving-seat of that little runabout, encumbered by that young woman?”

“But why did she tell lies about it? Why didn't she own up that Pengelly drove her into Tavistock?”

Richardson pointed mutely to a deep scratch on the paintwork of the lamp-post and to the scar on the garage gate. “If you'd been sitting beside a man who'd never driven a car in his life before and had no licence you wouldn't boast about it, would you?”

“Ah! Then you think that she was afraid it would come out that Pengelly was driving without a licence?”

“Yes, and I think, too, that he avoided taking the direct route through Duketon for fear of being stopped by the local constable. That's why he drove through Sandiland into Tavistock.”

“You don't think there was any more serious reason for that girl lying to us?”

“At present I don't, but if we can find Pengelly in Rowe's Quarry, we may get down to something like the truth.” He gave the order to the police driver to take them to Rowe's Quarry.

R
OWE'S QUARRY
was a much more extensive place than the little quarry near Moorstead. It had been worked for many years; the grey granite of which it is composed is to be found all over the district in churches, public halls and private houses, because it is the hardest and most durable stone in the west of England.

A foreman met the two detectives at the gate, which he opened a little unwillingly in response to Richardson's assurance that they were police officers come to make inquiries. The foreman led the way to his office, which was partitioned off from one of the sheds where the stone-dressing was done. Conversation had to be conducted to the musical ring of steel upon steel.

“Have you taken on recently a quarry-smith called Dick Pengelly?”

“Not as a quarry-smith, but I've taken on trial a man of that name as a smith's striker and he's shaping very well.”

“Can we have a few words with him?”

“Yes, but don't keep him too long. We happen to be full up with orders just now.”

Jago intervened. “Couldn't you turn on another man to take his place? There must be lots who can use a hammer.”

“Right; if you'll stay here I'll send him in.”

While they waited, Richardson was busy with a literary composition of his own: before him lay the two photographs of the anonymous letters. When a knock at the door announced their man he covered the photographs quickly with a sheet of official foolscap.

The arch agitator did not look at all the kind of man they were expecting. He was a wiry, sharp-featured little fellow with a hunted expression in his eyes. Evidently he had been told by the foreman the quality of his visitors; he was on the defensive.

Richardson pulled out a stool from under the desk and said cheerfully, “Sit down there, Pengelly.” He knew the value of placing a suspect at a lower level than himself.

“I'd rather stand.”

“If you don't mind I'd rather you sat down, because we've several questions to ask you and you'll answer them more comfortably sitting than standing. Last Saturday week you drove young Mr. Duke's lorry from Moorstead into Tavistock, didn't you?”

“I went in Duke's lorry, if that's what you mean?”

“Yes, that's what we mean. You went in the lorry, sitting at the steering-wheel.”

Pengelly seemed about to protest, but Richardson went on smoothly, “And instead of coming the nearest way to the quarry to look for work, you turned off on the road to Sandiland and left the lorry at that little garage in North Street, Tavistock, to be kept till called for.”

“You seem to know all about it.”

“We do know something about it. For example, we can tell you why you didn't take the direct road up through the village of Duketon. It was because there's a constable posted there and you were driving without a licence.”

Pengelly became defiant. “Oh, if that's all I was driving without a licence, but I dare say now that I've got a job the fine won't break me.”