“I had to be,” she said shortly. “Harry came back with us when we left here, and somehow, I don’t know how it happened, we all began to play Donegal Poker.”
“Oh,” said Hester, with so much pain in her voice that Prudence stood up protectively.
“Let’s get on with Thursday,” she said wildly. “It’s mostly Morgan, I think. Let’s not stop for lunch. Oh, there’s the phone.” They all listened to the telephone.
“Answer it, please, Prudence,” Hester said. “Newspapermen again,” Prudence said wisely. “Leave them to me. I’ll think of some falsehood.”
They heard her lift the receiver and answer, and protest, and then she came back in the room.
“It’s for you,” she said to Inspector Lewis. “Don’t let it worry you. We like you to use our telephone. I told them you didn’t want to be interrupted, but they said you did.”
“Sergeant Young, please,” Lewis said, and the sergeant went out to the telephone. Everyone waited with a feeling that some revelation was imminent, that the man who had missed the plane had been discovered at last.
The sergeant returned with his face stiff with excitement. “Sir, the landlady, Mrs Crewe at Brickford I mean, has found the two bitters. They are on their way to the station now.”
“Lunch-time,” Lewis said jovially. “We must be off. Just get in touch with this Running Fox place first, Sergeant. Ask them if they have a visitor by the name of Marryatt. If you can get him on the phone and arrange for him to meet us here in about two hours, then that’s so much time saved.”
Sergeant Young seeped out of the room.
“Poor Harry,” Moira said. “He was so happy that night. He won five pounds at Donegal Poker. Then suddenly he said he had other things to do, and left. I’m sorry for him. It’s not like Maurice or Morgan. As for Joe – he didn’t fly. I’m sure. Don’t ask me to explain. I’m just certain he didn’t fly.” She dabbed her eyes.
“Your husband had no business worries, Mrs Ferguson?”
“It depends what you call business worries,” she said. “He was ruined, if that’s what you mean. He said he was going to be bankrupt, or taken over any day. But he wasn’t worried.”
“No?”
“No. I was the one who did the worrying. I always wanted to sell one of the cars, live in an hotel instead of the flat, you know, economise,” she said, making a wide gesture. “But Joe believed in expansion. He said the creditors did too.”
“Is there any possibility that your husband’s affairs were in such – such confusion, that he might have wanted to disappear?”
“Do you mean he didn’t go on that plane? That he’s only hiding?” she asked, her soft face hardening in thought.
“I’m asking you.”
“Oh, Joe wouldn’t do that. He’d much sooner pay sixpence in the pound than nothing. Joe was so – so honest,” she said, groping for the right word and finding it.
“On Friday morning you drove him into Cheltenham, early. Did you see anyone you knew, there, when you were together?”
“I don’t believe we did,” she said absently. “They’d know at the station. Why don’t you ask them at the station?”
“We’d thought of that,” Inspector Lewis said ironically. “They didn’t know. They sell a lot of tickets, in Cheltenham.” Moira took a mirror from her handbag and studied her face.
“I’m so ignorant of police methods,” she said apologetically. “I’m a child in the affairs of this world. That’s what Joe said about me, always. But even though I’m ignorant, it does sound to me as though you’re suggesting I didn’t drive Joe to Cheltenham – or perhaps all you mean is that he didn’t take the train from Cheltenham to Brickford? If you’re really, seriously, suggesting one of these things then… I wonder what Joe would have said? I know. He’d have told me to get hold of a lawyer before I said another word. And I think that’s what I’ll do. So please don’t expect me to tell you another thing about Thursday, about Harry or Joe or Maurice or the Australian, until I have a lawyer sitting by my side. I know Hester’s sitting there thinking that only guilty people want lawyers. I will relieve your mind, Hester. I drove Joe to Cheltenham and I saw him buy a ticket for Brickford.” She pushed the mirror back in her handbag and looked defiantly round the room.
“Wait till you see that Australian, Marryatt. He’s someone who really does need a lawyer,” she said maliciously, her voice accepting everyone in the room as an enemy. “Doesn’t he, Hester?”
Sergeant Young came back from the telephone, and for the next two hours the Wades were left in peace.
INVESTIGATION (6)
INSPECTOR LEWIS dropped the file of letters on his desk. “Nothing here, Sergeant Young. The public, anxious as ever to help, has seen one or all of the missing men in the Channel Isles, Edinburgh, Penzance, and a great many spots between. Next thing, we’ll have a newspaper offering a prize. There’s a letter about that old, reliable friend of the family, Maurice Reid. Here you are.”
The sergeant picked up the letter and read:
“Dear Sir: I see from the papers you want information about Maurice Reid. He was the most vile and loathsome creature that ever polluted the earth. I won’t be the only one to say so. You’ll find out soon enough. If he was killed in that plane I believe at last that there is justice in heaven. There will be others to come forward. I’ve no need to expose my name.”
“Anonymous, you see,” the inspector said. “No need to pay any attention to that. When are those two bitters coming in? If they don’t turn up, we’re wasting our time here, eating dry sandwiches, giving the Wades the chance to plot out the next sequence. What do you think of the Wades anyway? The father looks to me as though he’d assassinated the Archbishop of York and was working round to a confession.”
“Miss Wade, Miss Wade looked – looked very upset,” Sergeant Young said, flushing.
“She’s a pretty girl. Don’t be taken in by looks, Sergeant,” Lewis said sharply. “Here they are, at last.”
The two bitters were ushered in; they gave the impression they were trying to hide behind each other. One was a dark, earthy man in his middle years; the other was old and dusty.
The sergeant took their names. The younger was called Benson; the older, Smith. Benson stared at his feet; Smith’s wavering glance explored the corners of the room, as though he expected to find a guillotine somewhere. He was a grocer, and his appearance suggested that his shop was very small, and that the articles wanted by customers could only be reached by ladder. Benson was a nursery gardener.
“You were in the Fairway Arms around half-past ten on Friday morning?” the inspector suggested.
They looked at each other, and nodded.
“And there were three men having a drink,” Benson muttered.
“We’ve talked it over. We can’t describe them,” Smith said in a voice that whined on a high note, like the wind in the chimney.
“You see, we go out to have a drink,” Benson said.
“We’d no reason to think they were anyone special,” Smith said.
“They weren’t anyone special if they hadn’t got killed,” Benson said. “Who is?” he added sombrely.
“We were talking. You don’t think of other people in the bar when you’re talking.”
“Nor when you’re being talked at,” Benson said.
“And why did they get killed?” Smith asked. “I’ll tell you, because they hadn’t taken trouble with their horoscopes. Ten to one, their horoscopes would have told them to keep their feet on the ground that day. You want to find the one that wasn’t there, don’t you, officer, don’t you now? You get their horoscopes, get the horoscopes of the four of them, and you’ll find the one who’s still got two feet to walk on.”