At a little after ten o’clock next morning a very empty train approached Perry’s Halt containing two officers sent down from Scotland Yard. They were Chief Detective Inspector Lamb, a large imperturbable person with a sanguine complexion and strong black hair wearing a little thin upon the top, and Detective Sergeant Abbott, between whom no greater contrast could be imagined. They might, in fact, have furnished material for a cartoon entitled ‘The Police Officer, Old and New’ – Abbott being an extremely elegant young man who had arrived at his present position by way of a public school and the Police College. His fair hair was slicked back from rather a high brow. His clothes were of the most admirable cut. His expression as he sat opposite his superior officer was one of boredom verging on gloom. He had, as a matter of fact, just had his fourth application to be allowed to join the RAF refused, and refused with what could only be described as an official raspberry. To his Chief Inspector’s well meant recommendation to look upon the bright side he replied bitterly that there wasn’t one.
Lamb looked at him reprovingly.
‘No call to say things like that, Frank. I can feel for you all right, because the same thing happened to me in nineteen-fifteen. Downright put out about it I was, but I’ve come to see things different, and so will you.’
There was a faint insubordinate gleam in Sergeant Abbott’s pale blue eyes as he passed in review the shoulders, the girth, the very considerable avoirdupois of his superior, the reproof of whose glance became intensified.
‘Now you listen to me! I don’t mind betting – not that I’m a betting man or ever have been, but that’s just a manner of speaking – well, I don’t mind betting that you’ve been thinking, “What’s it matter whether an odd professor gets murdered, when there’s thousands blowing each other to bits all over the world?” ’
Abbott’s lips framed inaudibly the words, ‘Archibald the All-right’, and then passed rapidly to a bowdlerised version.
‘You’re always right, sir. That is exactly what I was thinking.’
‘Then you stop it and listen to me! What’s at the bottom of this and every other war that’s ever started? Contempt for the law, just the same as any other crime. Someone wants something, and he goes to grab it. If anyone gets in his way they get hurt, and he doesn’t care. Pity of it is, when it’s nations there isn’t anything strong enough to stop them. But when it’s what you might call private crime there’s the law and there’s us. Every time we lay a criminal by the heels we’re making people see that the law is there to protect them and to be respected. That’s the way you get a law-abiding people. And when you’ve got that, you’ve got people with a respect for other people’s law – what you might call International Law. You can’t keep things like that for yourself unless you’re willing for other people to have ’em too – not when it’s law anyway. That’s what’s gone wrong with the Germans – they’ve stopped respecting the law – other people’s first, and then their own. Well, that’s not going to happen over here. But the law’s got to be served, and that’s where we come in. Servants of the law – that’s you and me, and it don’t matter whether we’re flying, or driving a tank, or hunting a murderer, we’ve got to do our job. Well, here we are. There’s the local man on the platform, and I hope he’s got a car.’
He had, and they were driven in it to the police station at Bourne, where they interviewed a cocksure and uplifted Cyril Bond and took his statement. Questioned upon it, he gave definite and very clear replies, and was dismissed with an injunction to keep his mouth shut. After which Lamb announced that they would walk to the Rectory if someone would show them the way, but they would like to see the church first.
CHAPTER SIXTEEEN
MISS BROWN FACED them across the table in the old rector’s study. She was of such a pallor as to rouse some apprehension lest she should bring the interview to a sudden close by fainting. She wore a black dress. She sat stiffly upright. She kept her eyes upon the Chief Inspector’s face – haunted eyes with dilated pupils.
Sergeant Abbott sat at one end of the table with a notebook. He had seen a good many frightened people in the course of his professional duties, but he thought Miss Brown had it as badly as any of them.
After an impressive pause old Lamb was leading off.
‘You are Miss Medora Brown?’
‘Yes.’
‘You gave evidence yesterday at the inquest on Mr Michael Harsch, during which you stated that, having used your church key on Tuesday morning, you put it back in the top left-hand drawer of Miss Fell’s bureau, and that you did not go to the church again.’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like to modify that statement at all, or to add to it?’
Her lips hardly moved, but they said, ‘No.’
Lamb made a show of unfolding a paper. He did not hurry over it.
‘I have here the statement of a witness who says he was in a lane known as the Church Cut somewhere between nine and a quarter to ten p.m. on the night of Mr Harsch’s death. He states that you came through the garden door into the lane, and that Professor Madoc met you, and asked you whether you were going to the church to see Mr Harsch, who was playing the organ there. He said that you should not go, and that you should hand him over the key. When you refused, he twisted your arm and the key fell. The witness declares that Mr Madoc picked it up and went off in the direction of the church, whilst you went back into the garden and shut the door. Have you any comment to make?’
Miss Brown stared with those dilated eyes. She moistened her pale lips and said, ‘No.’
Lamb leaned forward.
‘It is only fair to tell you that Major Albany says that your key was not in the drawer on Thursday evening, but that by the time you all returned from the inquest on Friday morning it had been replaced. There is further evidence to show that you left the house at midnight on Thursday for a quarter of an hour, and that you went into the lane. There was some broken glass there, and you brought a bit of it in on your dress. Mr Madoc also picked up a bit of broken glass. From which we infer that you met him again on Thursday night, and that he then gave you back the key which he had taken from you on Tuesday.’
There was a somewhat prolonged pause. Lifting his eyes from his notebook, Sergeant Abbott surveyed Miss Brown. She was not looking at him but at the Chief Inspector. He at once became aware that the quality of this look had changed. It was as if, having heard the worst, she was assembling her courage. At least that is how it struck him. Certainly something had happened since he had looked at her last. She was, for instance, no longer so rigid. The extreme pallor was gone. You couldn’t say that her colour had come back. That thick, smooth skin of hers probably never had any, and when she wasn’t paralysed with fright it would appear very much as it did now.
As the thought went through his mind, she made a slight movement and said quick and low, ‘Will you let me explain?’
Lamb said, ‘Certainly. I shall be glad to hear anything you have to say.’
She moved again, leaning a little towards him.
‘Of course I don’t know who your witness is, but he is quite mistaken in what he saw. I can tell you exactly what happened. I could hear that Mr Harsch was playing the organ in the church. He is-’ she paused and corrected herself ‘-he was a very fine musician. I have often gone into the church to listen when he was playing. I meant to do so on Tuesday evening. I took my key because sometimes he has locked the door. I went down through the garden and opened the door into the lane. There is a similar door into the churchyard a little farther along.’
‘Yes – we have been over the ground.’
‘Then you will understand. I was just going into the lane, when I heard footsteps and saw someone coming from the direction of the village. It was a man, but I didn’t recognise him. It certainly wasn’t Mr Madoc. The man called out something, I don’t know what, and I went back into the garden and shut the door as your witness says. I thought the man was intoxicated, and I gave up the idea of going to the church. Afterwards when I got up to my room I found that I had dropped my key.’