Hazlerigg followed him up the little flagged path. For the life of him he couldn’t say whether he was more relieved or surprised.
Ten minutes later he was still undecided.
Bob Horniman had not fenced with his questions. Neither, Hazlerigg was sure, had he answered them quite candidly.
The two men were facing each other across the table in the back kitchen. Under the strong unshaded light Bob’s face looked whiter than ever, and his eyes behind his heavy glasses were wary.
Suddenly he broke in on what the inspector was saying. “Will you answer me one question?”
“If I can,” said Hazlerigg.
“Am I supposed to have murdered Smallbone?”
Now this was the one question in the world which Hazlerigg wished to avoid having to answer. But before he could temporise, Bob went on, with a suggestion of flippancy. “Was I supposed to be sitting on deck debating whether or not to cast myself into the waters of self-destruction?”
“Well—”
“Look here, Inspector, if I were to promise you, on my most solemn word, that there is an explanation for the apparent discrepancies in my statement about Saturday morning and Tuesday night, but that it has got nothing at all to do with Smallbone’s or Miss Chittering’s death—would you be prepared to leave it at that?”
“No,” said Hazlerigg steadily. “I shouldn’t.”
“Very well,” said Bob, and his jaw came forward dangerously. “I suppose I can’t prevent you nosing round and looking for what you can pick up in the way of information. Only don’t expect me to help you.”
“In that case,” said Hazlerigg, taking a deep breath, “I have no alternative but to caution you—”
A sharp double rap made both men jump. Then, before either of them could say a word, the door burst open, and the aged Mr. Mullet appeared. He was out of breath and mauve with excitement.
“It’s come,” he piped. “I thought you’d like to have it at once, so I brought it.” He was waving an opened telegram in the air. Seeming to feel that some explanation was necessary, he added: “It’s all right, m’dear. I looked.”
Bob smoothed the orange form on the table and Hazlerigg read over his shoulder.
“A-Z negative. McNeil.”
“Thank God for that,” said Bob. “Excuse me a moment, I’ve got to use the telephone.” He strode out of the kitchen into the hall and they heard the “ting” as he took off the receiver.
“Have you got any idea what all this is about?” said Hazlerigg. He found himself speaking to Mrs. Mullet, who seemed to have materialised behind her husband.
“Trunks,” said Bob’s voice in the hall. “Sevenoaks 07632.”
“It’s that young leddy,” said Mrs. Mullet. “The ones he brings down here for the weekends.”
“Good God,” said Hazlerigg. “Of course. What a fool I’ve been.”
“Ten minutes? Well. I’ll wait for it.” Bob came back into the room. He was holding himself straighter and seemed somehow to have grown in size. “Now,” he said. “What would you like to know?”
“The truth would be helpful,” said Hazlerigg. “That is, if you’ve no objection to—”
“Oh, Mrs. Mullet knows most of it,” said Bob. “She thought you were a divorce sleuth the first time she saw you. However, I expect it would be easier without an audience. Would you mind taking your husband into the front room, for a few minutes, Mrs. Mullet. You might make the fire up, and open one of the bottles in the sideboard and get some glasses out. I think we might have something to celebrate.”
“Bottles it is, Captain,” said Mr. Mullet, who seemed to have a remarkable facility for picking up promising messages. “Leave it to me.”
“Now, Mr. Horniman,” said Hazlerigg. “Perhaps you’ll explain what it’s all about.”
“It’s Anne Mildmay, of course,” said Bob. “I’m madly in love with her, and in about seven and a half minutes I intend to propose to her over the telephone.”
“And that telegram was…?”
“Yes. I thought—we both thought—she was going to have a child. My child. Now we know that she’s not. She had an Aschheim-Zondek a fortnight ago. That telegram was the result. Don’t you see? If she’s not going to have a child it makes it easy. I can ask her to marry me.”
“I should have thought,” said Hazlerigg doubtfully, “that if she had been going to have a child you’d have felt bound—”
“That’s just it,” said Bob. “I should have felt bound. So would she. It would have been a hopeless basis for marriage. Now everything’s all right.”
“If you say so,” said Hazlerigg. “It’s your marriage. Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining—”
“Of course,” said Bob. “Well, that evening Miss Chittering was killed, of course, we were having dinner together. Not at that place in the Strand. At a little restaurant in Frith Street. I had a table booked for a quarter to seven.”
“Do they know you there?”
“They ought to,” said Bob. “I’ve been going there, on and off, for the last ten years. It’s quite a tiny place—just the proprietor and his brother who does the waiting. They both know me.”
Hazlerigg recognised the truth when he heard it.
“I’d better have the name,” he said. “Now what about that Saturday?”
“Well,” said Bob, “that really was rather awkward. You see, that was the day—well—that was when all the trouble started.”
Hazlerigg stared at him for a moment, and then in spite of himself he started to laugh.
“Do you mean to say—” he began.
“Yes,” said Bob uncomfortably. “I’m afraid I do.”
“No wonder you were too busy to answer the telephone,” said Hazlerigg.
“Yes,” said Bob. “Well, as you can imagine, we neither of us felt like doing much office work. We pushed off at about a quarter past eleven, as a matter of fact, and caught the midday train for Chaffham. It gets in at two o’clock. I expect Mrs. Mullet would confirm—oh, there’s the phone.”
He jumped for the door. Hazlerigg got up and warmed the seat of his trousers at the hob. He heard Bob pick up the receiver and say: “Sevenoaks—Oh! Is that you, Miss Cornel? It’s Bob Horniman here… Could I speak to Miss Mildmay?” Then a pause. Then Bob’s voice: “Anne, darling, it’s all right.”
Hazlerigg shut the door, and returned to his place in front of the fire. He could no longer hear what Bob was saying, but he judged from the tone of his voice that everything was all right.
III
“God’s fresh air,” said the stout girl in hiking shorts.
“That’s right,” said her companion.
“God’s free fresh air,” said the stout girl. “That’s what they say, don’t they?”
“That’s right.”
“Like hell it’s free,” said the stout girl. “Railway fares up, purchase tax on walking shoes, four and sixpence for a so-called lunch.”
“That’s right,” said the Yes-girl.
“Before the war,” said the stout girl, “I walked through the Lake District. Right through it. I stayed at Youth Hostels. I took ten days and it cost me three pounds sixteen shillings and eightpence, including fares.”
“Well, I never,” said the Yes-girl. “You’d hardly credit it.”
It was nine o’clock that evening. Hazlerigg was sitting in a third-class railway carriage, on his way back to London. When he had got into the carriage it had been empty, but he had been vaguely aware that two girls had got in at Ipswich. He was deeply engaged with his own thoughts.
He was reviewing the case to see how it looked without its central character. For Bob Horniman, in his opinion, was out of it. Not that his Saturday morning alibi was worth much. He could have murdered Smallbone and been in plenty of time to catch the midday train for Chaffham. Nor could you describe as strong corroboration the evidence of the girl with whom you were in love. But on one factor of certainty, on one base of the living rock, Hazlerigg rested his conviction of Bob’s innocence. The same pair of hands had committed both murders. No one, be they never so crafty or calculating, could have reproduced that fractional left-handed pull which hall-marked both killings. And if Bob had been at his Soho restaurant at a quarter to seven he could not have killed Miss Chittering. The alibi had to be verified, but he was certain he would find that it was so.