“Did he have any brothers?”
Gold smiled and shook his head emphatically. “No, Officer, you won’t get it from me that way. My Uncle Solly and my Uncle Joe are Golds like me.”
“And so are your two sisters in Bethnal Green, I suppose,” said Cribb, playing his ace. “I wonder if they’re as sensitive on the matter as you are. It’s a pity I’ve got to send a constable round there on a Sunday morning to talk to them, with all the neighbours looking from behind their curtains. I have to make a telephone call to Bethnal Green Police Station to arrange it. It’s a lot of trouble to go to for a simple piece of information.”
Cribb’s penny-dreadful picture of Sunday morning in Bethnal Green did the trick. “All right,” said Gold. “It’s an infringement of my liberty, but I want no trouble for my sisters. The name we had in Russia was Goldberg.”
“Goldberg?” repeated Thackeray.
Cribb took the cigar from his mouth and stubbed it out with enough force to have pushed it through the desk.
CHAPTER 28
Harriet had decided to talk to Sergeant Cribb about her theory. She had thought it over from every point of view and she was now convinced that the unfortunate Bonner-Hill had been murdered in error. On reflection, she had decided not to talk to Melanie about it. It was tragic enough to learn that your husband had been murdered, without having it suggested he had been murdered by mistake.
The theory was soundly based, otherwise Harriet would not have contemplated going to Cribb. From her observations he was not the sort to welcome other people’s help unless he asked for it. He liked to take the credit for himself. Yet it was her duty, if she had information, to give it to the police. And his to take account of it.
It was clear to her that Bonner-Hill had been murdered because he happened to be at the spot where Fernandez fished on Saturday mornings. Only lately had the two of them taken to going out together on these expeditions. All the signs were that this was a murder which had been planned for many weeks, before Bonner-Hill ever joined Fernandez. Humberstone, Lucifer and Gold had rowed up from Kingston like the characters in Three Men in a Boat, but the purpose of their journey had not been literary. It had been to get to Oxford on Saturday morning at half-past nine and murder John Fernandez. They had got to the spot at the appointed time and found a man there who fitted the description they had. Probably they were hired assassins who had never met the man themselves. The planning that had gone into the murder was as intricate as an anarchist plot.
She approached the desk and asked for Sergeant Cribb. It was just noon; the bells had been chiming everywhere as she had come along St. Aldate’s. He ought to be available.
“Sergeant Cribb, miss?” said the constable on duty. “I don’t know whether I ought to-”
Constable Thackeray made a timely appearance at the door behind the desk. “Miss Shaw! Good to see you, miss. Are you comfortable at that hotel?”
“I should like to speak to Sergeant Cribb if that is possible.”
Thackeray’s expression changed. “I don’t advise it just now, miss. The air’s blue in there-and I ain’t talking about the cigar smoke. He’s had a setback, you see. We should have charged our prisoners by now-you heard that I arrested ’em last night, did you? — but things have gone a bit sour. It’s not so clear as it seemed. You’d be better off having your lunch first, really, miss.”
“Please tell the sergeant I have something that may be of the greatest importance to tell him,” Harriet insisted.
Thackeray departed, muttering something uncomplimentary about young women who wouldn’t listen to advice, and presently put his head round the door and beckoned her into the office.
Cribb was speaking into the telephone. “Definitely Goldberg? You’ve checked the naturalization papers? Well, get on with it, man. I’ll hold on while you do.” He put his hand over the receiver. “What is it, Miss Shaw? I’m busy, as you can see.”
Harriet started expounding her theory. She had not got far when Cribb put up his hand and spoke into the telephone again. “I told you the name. Fernandez. No, Goldberg. I’m getting confused. Nothing in the name of Goldstein? No, it’s not helpful. It’s no help at all. Good-bye.” He hung up the receiver. “Where’s Thackeray? I think I’ll have that dog brought in. I feel like kicking it. Continue your story, Miss Fernandez. You have my full attention.” The telephone rang and he picked it up. “Who are you? Yes, of course I’m Cribb. Who did you expect-Charlie Peace? Names? I gave you the names before. Humberstone, Gold and Lucifer. Thank you, Constable. I can do without your feeble attempts at humour. I’m trying to investigate a murder here. What do you say? All employed in the Claims Department? Very well, I don’t need to know any more. Is somebody checking with the Home Office as I asked? Habitual Criminals’ Register. And the Convict Office? I know it takes time. I wasn’t born yesterday, laddie.” He hung up the receiver. “So you think it was all a mistake, Miss Shaw?”
Behind Harriet, Thackeray appeared again. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Sergeant. I thought you ought to know straight away that P. C. Hardy has returned. He’s ready to make his report.”
“Send him in and come in yourself. You don’t mind, do you, Miss Shaw? No need to get up. You can stay and listen. We’ve all had a small hand in this investigation.”
Hardy was still in blazer and flannels. His boater was tucked under his left arm and he carried a notebook in his right hand. Seeing him again after an interval, and so soon after Cribb’s tantrums on the telephone, Harriet was inclined to view him in a more favourable light than formerly. He turned a glance in her direction as he crossed the carpet to take his position in front of Cribb. “Good mornin’, Sergeant. Good mornin’, miss.”
Cribb took out his watch. “Good afternoon. It took you enough time to get here, Constable. We’ve had another murder and three arrests since we saw you last.”
“Moses!” said Hardy. “Did you cop the three-”
“They’re in the cells. Make your report, man. We’re not here to welcome you to Oxford.”
Hardy’s stance stiffened. “Very well, Sergeant. After leavin’ Clifton Hampden, I took the train from Culham, changin’ at Twyford Junction-”
“I’m not interested in the blasted train journey!” exploded Cribb. “What happened about the dog bite?”
“Upon arrivin’ at Henley, I reported to the mortuary,” Hardy implacably continued, “where I had to wait for two hours for the police artist to arrive. I then climbed onto a slab and he made a sketch of the dog bite on my leg. He also made a sketch of the bite on the tramp’s leg. I have them here in my notebook.” He extracted a loose sheet from among the leaves and handed it to Cribb.
The sergeant arranged the paper on the blotter in front of him. “These aren’t the same size. The top one’s bigger.”
“That was my impression too,” said Hardy. “I thought the artist must have got his proportions wrong. He said he hadn’t and he produced a tapeline to prove it to me. We measured both bites again. The one on the tramp’s leg was clearly made by a larger dog.”
“Not Towser?” said Thackeray in disbelief.
Cribb was speechless.
“If you look carefully at the drawings, you’ll see that there are half a dozen other differences of detail,” Hardy went on. “It’s mainly owin’ to the sharpness of the teeth. The mortuary keeper said that Towser must have been a younger dog than the one that bit the tramp.”
“This means that Mr. Humberstone and the others didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Walters,” said Harriet.
“Or Bonner-Hill, for that matter,” added Thackeray. “We only suspected them of that because the circumstances were alike.”
As the implications of Hardy’s news fizzed and spattered like firecrackers in their minds, speech stopped in the room. For several seconds only their eyes communicated.