“Now that I can’t answer, except to be sure they began with astrology. It might have been one word, you know, it might have been only one word, but it caught my ear. I’m very keen, very keen indeed, at hearing. Then Benson comes back and spoils it all.”
Benson suddenly grunted. “Woolworth’s. That’s it. I was once an under-manager at Woolworth’s,” he explained.
“Yes?” Lewis encouraged.
“I’m not now. I’m a nursery gardener for my health. But I was sitting there quietly drinking my beer, which is not good for my health any more than smoking, when I heard that name again. Woolworth’s! If ever I drown I’ll see the red front and gold letters come up before my eyes. Even through Smith’s babbling I heard the name. Then one of these men addressed the other by name.” He stopped to light his cigarette stub again.
There was a battle of silence. Inspector Lewis lost.
“The name. What was it?”
“It began with an M. It was the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. Was it Morrison? Martin? Morley? If I’d been concentrating, I’d have known, being interested in names.”
“Morgan, Morton, Maurice,” Lewis suggested.
“It’s gone,” Benson said in regret. “I’ll swear to the M, but to nothing else. ‘Woolworth’s, what do you think about that?’ one of them said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t think anything. I didn’t see it,’ says the second. And the third says: ‘Woolworth’s? What’s all this? When did it happen?’ And that’s all. I’d have heard none of it if Smith hadn’t been dragging out his old chart, and from the time he began talking about his horoscope, everyone else in the world might have been dead, for all I could hear.”
Smith began to cackle. “Now I’ve got it,” he said. “They’d been fishing in a strange place. It was Ceylon they talked about. Now what would you think if you heard the word ‘Ceylon’?”
“Snake-charmers and elephants,” Sergeant Young suggested romantically.
“Tea,” Smith said. “Even my daughter knows Ceylon is tea. So first it was astrology, then it was Ceylon to make me think of tea, and then something about being depressed but what that was about I don’t know, then the fishing I’ve told you.”
“They’d been fishing in Ceylon?” the inspector asked with justifiable amazement. “Let’s go back over this again.”
They went back over it again, but without enlightenment. Both men stuck to what they had said, and refused to add to it. With all their peculiarities, they were honest.
INVESTIGATION (7)
THE policemen returned to the Wades’ house expecting to find Marryatt there before them. They had not much idea of the kind of man he was, but they naturally supposed he would have enough social sense to be disturbed by their summons. They felt the normal official irritation at being kept waiting; they were prepared to put him in his place.
When he finally arrived, half-an-hour late, there was no hint of apology in his bearing. He was a young man, with heavy shoulders; a strong, dark face; black eyebrows. He had an air of independence, almost of insolence. His face carried the odd, uneasy familiarity of something that had been seen before. Perhaps it had been seen before, in a painting; a painting not of any contemporary; but of some aristocrat who had believed he owned the world; just as an Australian might believe it.
“You sent for me?” he said to Inspector Lewis, in a voice that rejected all respect for authority. He turned on Hester. “And I believe you told him to send for me.”
She looked at him as angrily as he had looked at her. “I did. People seemed to be accusing you of something. I thought, being what you are, you wouldn’t like anyone else to speak for you.”
“And what am I accused of?”
“You are not accused of anything. You are being asked to help,” Lewis said coldly. “In the first place, I tell you quite openly we’d have seen you anyway. We have a report from a Mrs Lightfoot – isn’t that the name, Sergeant Young? – yes, a Mrs Lightfoot, who breeds dogs, bull terriers, I think – a report of what she thought a peculiar incident on the road, about half-a-mile from this house. She took the number of the car. It happens to be the number of the car that Maurice Reid hired from the local garage. She made this report quite independently. She hadn’t heard of the aeroplane disaster. It was very easy to trace the car. Then when this question, the question of which man didn’t fly in the aeroplane, came up, we went into the matter a little more carefully. She described Maurice Reid quite well. At first she thought he was drunk. Then she thought he’d been assaulted, or that he’d been in a fight with someone. She had a glimpse of the other man; later, she saw someone in the village whom she thought was the same man. Well, sir, what we’ve been looking for all the time is a lead into any peculiarity in the lives of any of those four men who were supposed to fly in that aeroplane. What Sergeant Young here has always said is that if we can find the man among these four who had some urgent reason for vanishing, then we’ll know the man who took the chance to disappear when the plane crashed.”
“That’s not logical,” Prudence said sternly. “If one of them wanted to disappear he probably would go to Ireland and dig peat or something. He wouldn’t want to miss the plane. He might miss it by accident, but that wouldn’t happen to him more than anyone else. Unless they all wanted to disappear, I think it’s a stupid theory.”
“Perhaps they did all want to disappear,” Moira intervened coldly. “Except Joe, of course.”
“And Harry,” Hester murmured.
“But, my dear, Harry always wanted to get out of his commitments. Surely you know that?” Moira said.
Marryatt, seeing, like everyone else, how Hester’s already pale face turned paler still, spoke quickly.
“Get on with the questions. I’ll answer them.”
“No,” Hester said. “It’s not fair to put everything on to you. Particularly after what you said to me. You’ve accused me of enough, you know. And this isn’t just a question of Maurice. It might be anyone. We don’t know it was Maurice. But Father and I have talked it over, in the last hour, and we’re going to tell the truth. The whole truth about the whole of Thursday. You can tell your part too, if you wish. Please remember,” she said coldly, “we are going to conceal nothing, and there’s no reason why you should.”
They looked at each other in mutual animosity.
“It makes no difference to me who knows my private affairs, now,” Marryatt said significantly. “Go ahead, I’ll listen and put my hand up when the time comes.”
“Don’t expect me to join in this soul-searching,” Moira said.
Hester looked sadly at the downcast roses on the table.
“Thursday…” she said.
THURSDAY (1)
IT rained on Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning the sky looked as if it had been washed blue for a coloured advertisement. When Hester woke, the birds were celebrating. She looked out of the window with her usual morning happiness. She was amazed to hear a tap on her door. Prudence always charged through doors without knocking, and no one but Prudence ever came to her room in the morning.
“Come in,” she said, and Jackie appeared. He was carrying a cup of tea, and looked serious and dedicated.
“Good morning,” he said in a reverent voice. He put down the tea and tiptoed out of the room again.
Hester looked at the tea in dismay. She didn’t like to drink anything before she had brushed her teeth and washed and dressed; she liked even less to have the anxieties of the day appear embodied in her room while she was still in bed. She was remembering already that Harry had accused Jackie of carrying a gun. She wasn’t particularly nervous, but she didn’t want to be given morning tea by gunmen. She made up her mind that Jackie must go. She threw the blankets off and stepped out of bed. She washed and dressed quickly, mentally preparing her interview with Jackie.