Bennett was studying his fingernails. After a few moments he rose and went to the window. He stood with his arms folded looking out. Sinclair glanced at Madden with raised eyebrows. The deputy returned to the table and sat down.
'Let me sum up, if I may.' He cleared his throat.
'There's no point in my tackling the War Office on this, no way of prising that memorandum out of them?'
'I believe not, sir. If it still exists, if they're withholding it deliberately, they'll continue to do so. If not, we'll only antagonize them.'
Bennett nodded, understanding. His frown returned. 'If you only had a name, something to go on…' He dropped his eyes. He seemed reluctant to continue. 'Then again, it's quite possible the cases are unconnected. The murders in Belgium, the killings here… We can't be sure.'
'Indeed we can't, sir.' Sinclair carefully aligned the papers in front of him and slid them back into the folder.
The deputy lifted his gaze. 'Perhaps, after all, it's time to look… in a different direction.' His glance conveyed sympathy.
The chief inspector acknowledged the words with a slight nod.
Bennett rose. He turned to Madden. 'Would you leave us, Inspector? I want a word in private with Mr Sinclair.'
Twenty minutes later the chief inspector walked briskly into his office. The bulky cumulative file flew from his hands and landed with a resounding thud on his desktop. As though in response, the nervous chatter of a typewriter in the adjoining room fell silent.
Sinclair stood before his desk.
'I rather hoped the chief super's non-appearance this morning might signal his dispatch to the Tower for immediate execution. But it seems Ferris was right we're the ones scheduled for the block.'
'I'm sorry, sir.' Madden scowled from behind his desk. 'I think they're making a mistake.'
'Perhaps. What's certain is Sampson has the assistant commissioner's ear. That's where he was this morning, by the way, doing some last-minute spadework with Sir George, making sure he doesn't change his mind.'
'Is that it, then? Are we out?'
'Not quite yet, though I dare say we would be if Parkhurst wasn't due in Newcastle this afternoon for a regional conference. He won't be back till Thursday.
That's the appointed day. He's called a meeting in his office. Bennett and I are invited to attend. You're excused, John.'
The chief inspector took his pipe from his pocket.
He perched on the edge of his desk. 'Poor Bennett.
He's in the worst position of all, trying to straddle a barbed-wire fence. He knows we're on the right track, even though it keeps going cold. But if he continues backing us he'll find himself exposed. I think he half suspects Sampson's after his job.'
'Surely not!' Madden was incredulous.
'Oh, he won't get it.' Sinclair chuckled. 'But our chief super's fantasies know no bounds. Never mind that. You were saying earlier you had an idea. Now would be a good time to hear it.'
The inspector took a moment to collect his thoughts. 'It all depends on how Miller went about his business,' he began.
'I don't follow you.'
'He wouldn't have worked alone. He would have had a redcap NCO along with him to take notes and type up his reports. But what we don't know is whether he simply drew a clerk at random from whatever pool was available, in which case it wouldn't be much help to us, or whether he worked with the same man regularly.'
'You mean if they were a team?' Sinclair frowned.
Madden nodded. 'If he used the same clerk, then that would be the man who took down the interrogations of B Company and typed up the records.
He'd be familiar with the case. They might even have discussed it.'
'You're suggesting this mythical clerk might have known what was in Miller's mind. Who he thought the guilty man was.' The chief inspector looked sceptical.
'More than that. He'd most likely have typed up that memorandum. And it wouldn't have been a routine job for him. He'd remember what was in it.'
Sinclair examined the bowl of his pipe. 'So what is it we need to know? The name of Miller's special clerk, if he had one. I'm not sure there's time. Thursday's our deadline.'
'I know, but I've thought of a short cut,' Madden said. 'Miller was travelling in a staff car when he was killed. It's likely he was on an investigation, which means he had a clerk with him, probably the driver.
He could be our man.'
'Now you're telling me he's dead!'
'He might be.' Madden was unfazed. 'But we don't know that.'
'Nor do we,' Sinclair agreed after a moment. He gave an approving nod. 'You're right, John, it's worth a try. I'll pester the War Office again. I'm in the mood to twist someone's tail.'
When she came to a convenient tree stump, Harriet Merrick paused and sat down, fanning her face with the wide straw hat she had put on to please Annie McConnell. (Mrs Merrick had pleaded in vain that the mild October sunshine was hardly likely to cause her sunstroke!) She was finding the gentle slope to the top of Shooter's Hill heavy going today. A slight pain in her chest, like a bolt tightening, had persuaded her to stop and rest for a while. She waited now for the sensation to pass.
She was reluctant to admit it, but she'd not been feeling herself these past few days. A nagging headache that had started on the night of her sixty-first birthday had continued to plague her since. At her son's suggestion they had taken advantage of the unusually warm autumn weather to dine outside that night, and Mrs Merrick thought at first she might have caught a chill. But the cold she feared did not develop. Instead, her head had continued to ache, keeping her awake at night and allowing her thoughts to wander restlessly in a state of increasing anxiety.
The trouble had started with Tigger's death.
Poisoned, Hopley reckoned. He blamed the farmers hereabouts who, he said, were laying down strychnine and other poisons against the foxes, which took a heavy toll of their hen coops. The gardener had come across the poor animal dragging itself on its stomach through the shrubbery in the early morning. Tigger had been missing all night, though Annie had called to him repeatedly before she went to bed.
The children's attention had been distracted while the dog was carried to the potting shed where presently he died. After lunch their father had told them what had happened. They had wept, but then, as children did, dried their tears and taken a lively interest in the funeral arrangements, which Hopley was charged with. That evening they had stood hand in hand with their parents and with Annie while prayers were said and the remains of the spaniel laid to rest in a grave dug behind the croquet lawn.
Their father had assured them he wouldn't let the matter rest there and had already informed the village bobby, Constable Proudfoot, who intended to look into it. The next day Harriet Merrick took her grandchildren aside and promised to buy them a new puppy on their return from holiday in Cornwall.
But, like spreading ripples in a pond, the brutal disturbance to domestic life at Croft Manor continued to claim its victims. On Tuesday night little Robert had become tearful again, and it was discovered he was running a temperature. He had been packed off to bed immediately by his mother while the unspoken thought hung in the air: if it turned out to be anything serious the whole family would have to delay their departure for Penzance at the end of the week.