'He's a rambler, sir. It's how he spends his holiday every year, according to his sister. He visits different parts of the country.'
'How admirable! We must recommend him to the tourist board. So we still don't know whether he was Miller's regular clerk, or even if he has any special knowledge of that case?'
Madden shook his head.
Clutching at straws, Sinclair had telephoned the police in Bangor and asked them to pass the word along to sub-stations in the district to be on the lookout for Tozer. He was to be asked to get in touch with Scotland Yard at once. The same message had been left with his sister, who was not expecting him back before the weekend.
'I'll put a note in the file, but I don't see the chief superintendent stirring himself to chase up any ideas we put forward.'
Their last chance to advance the investigation came that morning with a further message from the War Office regarding Miller's wartime commanding officer in the Military Police. A Colonel Strachan, he was now retired and living in a village in Scotland so remote that even the chief inspector had never heard of it.
The Yard's switchboard had spent most of the morning wrestling with exchanges up and down the country. Sinclair was out of the office when they finally made contact with the colonel, and it was Madden who spoke to him.
'He says he recalls the case and knows it was closed,' he told the chief inspector on his return. 'But he can't remember the name of the man Miller identified as the murderer. He was killed in battle, though. He remembers that much.'
'And how did Miller know it was him?'
'He can't remember that, either.'
'My, my…' The chief inspector scratched his head.
'Remind me not to retire too early, John. It seems to have a damaging effect on the brain cells. What did you make of it?'
Madden frowned. 'It's hard to be sure over a longdistance line. His voice was very faint. But I'd say he wasn't bending over backwards to be helpful.'
'Nobbled?' Sinclair inserted a pipe-cleaner into the stem of his briar. He squinted at Madden.
'Possibly. But not by the War Office. He seemed genuinely surprised to get my call. If it was done at all it was done at the time, just as we suspect.'
'But not on his initiative?'
'I'm sure not. He was a military policeman. He'd have been breaking the law. No, the order must have come from higher up.'
'From headquarters?'
The inspector shrugged.
'I see a man.' Sinclair extracted his pipe-cleaner and blew through the stem. 'A general, perhaps. Or an overweight colonel with a scarlet hat band and lapel tabs. He's sitting in his office — it's in a chateau, by the way. He's just had a good dinner. The front is a long way off.'
'You're talking about a staff officer.' Madden scowled.
'Am I? Well, this one has a file in front of him.'
Sinclair examined the pipe-cleaner. 'A ticklish matter.
It's the investigator's memorandum that bothers him.
"No," he says, removing it and tossing it aside.' The chief inspector matched words to action, dropping the pipe-cleaner into the wastepaper basket beside him.
' "No, I don't think we'll have that."' He looked at his pipe. 'I wonder what the problem was. Perhaps he didn't want the name of the murderer made public.
Perhaps it would have been an embarrassment to someone.' He shrugged. 'Anyway, since the man in question was dead it didn't really matter. Justice had been served.' Sinclair put his pipe in his pocket. 'Yes, I'd like to meet that staff officer. I really would.'
He glanced at his watch. 'Time I was on my way.'
He rose, collecting the file from his desk. 'They're welcome to this.' He hefted the bulky folder. 'I shan't give Sampson the satisfaction of watching me squirm.
The convicted felon made a dignified exit. After all, it's only a job, as the bishop said to the actress He started to move around his desk, then halted.
With a sudden sharp gesture he slammed the file down. 'No, by God, it's not!'
Madden started in surprise. The chief inspector stared through the window at the rainswept morning.
He spoke in a low, angry tone: 'Somewhere out there is a man bent on murder. It's only a matter of time before he acts. Somewhere there's a woman, a whole family, perhaps, who stand in peril. And now I'm being asked to place this investigation — and the lives of these people, whoever they are — in the hands of a… nincompoopY He snatched up the file, and at the same moment his eye fell on Billy Styles, who was standing in the open doorway to the adjoining office with two cups of tea in his hands. He stared at Sinclair in horror.
'You didn't hear me say that, Constable. Is that clear?'
'Yes, sir.' The young man quailed.
'Absolutely clear?'
Billy could only nod.
With a glance at Madden, the chief inspector strode out of the office.
An hour later Sinclair completed his summing up of the inquiry to date. He'd been surprised when the assistant commissioner requested it. He had expected the proceedings to be brief, and to be confined to an expression of thanks from Sir George for his weeks of toil, followed by a brisk handover of the file to Chief Superintendent Sampson, who sat beside Parkhurst at the polished oak table with the air of a vulture perched on a branch.
The table was a twin of the one that graced Bennett's office. In other respects the assistant commissioner's rooms were more elaborately furnished. A thick pile carpet covered the floor and the walls were hung with landscapes of the green English countryside.
Two windows, overlooking the Embankment, framed a wide mahogany desk behind which hung a large photograph of Sir George with his namesake, King George V. The blurred outlines of a horse walking in the background suggested a racecourse as the likely setting for the picture. Parkhurst, in morning dress, stood with his head slightly bowed and turned attentively towards the monarch, who wore a glazed expression.
The chief inspector sat on his own. Parkhurst faced him across the table, with Sampson on one side of him and Bennett on the other. The assistant commissioner was in his late fifties. His fleshy cheeks were marked by a network of livid veins. While Sinclair was speaking his glance had wandered about the room, as though unable to settle on anything, in contrast to Sampson, beside him, whose small dark eyes never left the chief inspector's face. Bennett sat apart from both of them, his chair drawn away as though deliberately distancing himself. The deputy's face showed no emotion.
'Allow me to underline the importance I attribute to this recent aspect of the investigation, sir.'
Given the opportunity to explain himself, the chief inspector had abandoned his original intention of washing his hands of the whole business as quickly as possible. He was now enjoying the process of drawing it out, watching Sampson twitch with impatience, observing Sir George trying to screw up his resolve to put an end to the meeting. He would say what he had to say, and be damned! 'It's my belief — and Inspector Madden's — that the man who killed those people in Belgium in 1917 is the same man we're looking for now. The devil of it is we haven't been able to pin down his identity. But we will… or, rather, we would have, I'm sure.' Sinclair paused briefly. 'Sir, I cannot urge strongly enough that this line of inquiry should not be abandoned and that we should keep pressing the War Office to provide a name.'
Parkhurst stirred restlessly in his chair. 'All the same, Chief Inspector, you will admit there's no necessary connection between those killings and the ones at Melling Lodge. When all is said and done, you're well in the realm of speculation.'
'Indeed, I am, sir.' Sinclair nodded vigorously. 'But speculation is what this case has forced on us. And speaking of necessary connections, this has been our main problem. I firmly believe there was no personal connection whatsoever between the murderer and the people at Melling Lodge, other than the one that existed in his mind, and which we've been trying to unravel.'