'That was lucky.'
The inspector rose and took his leave of Dawkins.
Billy saw a banknote change hands.
'Lucky for her,' Booth countered. 'I reckon she would have been his next. But that's how it is with a case like that — or this Melling Lodge business. You won't crack it the usual way. You have to hope something will turn up. Some little thing,' he added, unconsciously echoing the inspector's words earlier.
'You have to keep your eyes open.'
Little was said on the journey back to London.
Madden sat gazing out of the window, seemingly wrapped in thought. Billy, aware that another possible lead had turned cold, supposed that was what was on the inspector's mind.
Or was he thinking about all those men who had marched down through the town to the harbour and on to the Channel steamers? the young constable wondered. The route had been renamed after the war, Sergeant Booth had told them in the taxi. Now it was known as the Road of Remembrance. To Billy, recalling Alf Dawkins with his crutches and his nervous tic, begging for half-crowns, it seemed more a case of how quickly people forgot.
'Mr Hardy has three children and sings in the church choir. He's short and fat and gets breathless climbing a flight of stairs. I hope you had better luck with Dawkins, John.'
Madden's response caused Sinclair's eyebrows to shoot skywards. 'One leg! Poor devil — but couldn't someone have told us that?'
The chief inspector had returned from Have an hour earlier. He was seated at his desk, smoking his pipe. Behind him the late-afternoon sun lay like molten fire on the river.
'He remembers the incident well enough. They were all lined up by the sergeant major and marched in one at a time to be questioned. It put a scare into them, Dawkins said, but he swears none of them was guilty.
They returned from the farm in a group that night.'
Madden settled behind his desk. He lit a cigarette.
'He said Miller was rough on them. He behaved as though he believed they were hiding something. But after they came out of the line a few days later they never heard another word about the case.'
'I got the same from Hardy.' Sinclair puffed at his pipe. 'What did you make of it?'
The inspector shrugged. 'I wondered why Miller didn't talk to them again. Even if he believed the guilty man had been killed in action he'd still have wanted to question the others to get the full story from them.'
'I had the same reaction.' Sinclair nodded agreement.
'It's obvious Miller no longer regarded them as suspects. He must have had someone else in mind.
We've been chasing the wrong fox, damn it!'
'But still someone he thought was dead,' Madden pointed out quickly. 'He closed the case, remember.'
The chief inspector grunted. He shook his head pessimistically. 'I've been wondering what to do next.
It occurred to me the Belgian police might be able to help us, so I sent a telegram to the Brussels Surete half an hour ago asking them to check their records.
After all, those were Belgian citizens who were murdered.'
He sighed heavily. 'The trouble is, Brussels was under German occupation at the time and I'm not sure the civilian police were ever involved in the investigation. I've a nasty feeling they'll simply refer us to the British military authorities and we'll be back where we started. With Miller's missing memorandum.'
Harold Biggs had been looking forward to spending that Saturday afternoon at the races. He and his pal, Jimmy Pullman, had planned to drive to Dover in Jimmy's second-hand Morris, lose a few shillings on the nags and then look in later at the Seaview Hotel where there was a regular Saturday tea dance.
They might, if they were lucky, pick up a couple of girls. But a summons from Mr Henry Wolverton, senior partner in the firm of Dabney, Dabney and Wolverton, on Friday morning put a stopper on that.
'There's something I want you to do tomorrow, Biggs. Old client of the firm. Widow of client actually.
Got herself into a state about something. Written me a letter.' Wolverton, a stout middle-aged man with an unhealthily red face, spoke habitually in short sentences as though he couldn't summon up the breath for longer utterances. 'Wants someone to go and see her tomorrow afternoon. Has to be then.' He peered up at Harold over the top of his half-spectacles. 'Out of normal working hours, I know. You don't mind, do you?'
'No, sir,' said Biggs, minding strongly.
'He's got his nerve,' Jimmy Pullman remarked when they met later in the Bunch of Grapes for a lunch-time drink. Jimmy worked in a gents clothing store. 'Catch Mr Henry Bloody Wolverton spending his Saturday afternoon traipsing around the countryside.
You should have told him where to get off, Biggsy.'
Harold shrugged, pretending unconcern. He accepted a Scotch egg from the plate Jimmy pushed along the pub counter towards him. His job as a solicitor's clerk was the same one he'd held before the war and he'd been happy when early demobilization enabled him to reclaim it. Other men returning later to civilian life had not been so fortunate.
'What do you have to do, anyway?' Jimmy demanded. 'And why tomorrow afternoon?'
Biggs took out the letter Mr Wolverton had given him and squinted through his horn-rimmed spectacles at the nearly illegible handwriting, which meandered drunkenly across the page. 'All she says is she needs someone to do something for her and it has to be tomorrow afternoon. She's underlined "afternoon" several times. She says it's important. She's underlined that, too.' Biggs sipped his beer.
'And she lives at bloody Knowlton?' Jimmy scowled. 'What's her name?'
Biggs glanced at the letter again. 'Troy,' he said.
'Winifred Troy.'
The early-afternoon bus left for Knowlton at a quarter to two, and Biggs reached the bus station with five minutes to spare, having spent the morning working at the office. He just had time to dash back to his lodgings and exchange his dark suit and black bowler for plus-fours and a checked cap. A pair of two-tone shoes, which he'd recently bought at a reduced price through the good offices of Jimmy Pullman, completed his ensemble. He was ready for a trip to the country.
The journey to Knowlton took forty minutes. The bus service, linking Folkestone and Dover via a string of inland villages, was a post-war innovation, and it looked like the business was flourishing. Every seat in the green-painted vehicle was taken and Harold was obliged to share his own with a dough-faced woman in the late stages of pregnancy.
To pass the time — and to take his mind off the disagreeable thought that the short, panting breaths he heard coming from beside him might herald an impromptu birth — he began to conduct a mental exercise. He had recently completed a correspondence course in Pelmanism, a method of memory training designed to eliminate mind-wandering and increase concentration. The course, a popular one in Biggs's set, had been heavily promoted. 'How to Eliminate Brain Fag!' the advertisements trumpeted. Harold was convinced that his memory was sharper as a result and he set out now to recall as much as he could of what he had read in the previous day's newspaper.
The main story on the front page had dealt with the Irish peace talks, which had dragged on in London all summer. A formal conference of the parties was due to open shortly, but diehard elements in Sinn Fein were opposed to any agreement that excluded the province of Ulster from a United Ireland. The report recalled that a shipment of 500 sub-machine-guns destined for Sinn Fein had been seized recently in New York.
There had been further debate in the House of Commons on the government's decision to admit women to the civil service in three years' time. Despite recent rains most of southern England was still in the grip of drought and rigid economies would be necessary for the remainder of the year. The price of whisky had been increased again. A bottle now cost 12/6d.