“Somebody ate Meredith’s tea,” said Sloan, turning back the pages of his notebook.
“Very likely, but not Meredith,” pointed out the Superintendent with finality. “Dr. Dabbe says so.”
13
« ^ »
So somebody got him in between Dillow taking him his tea and him getting his teeth into it?” concluded Constable Crosby succinctly. He was still in the armoury though the Vicar and the laboratory people had gone.
“That’s right.” There were more elegant ways of putting it, but in essence Crosby was right. “Though after Meredith had made his celebrated discovery and telephoned the Vicarage in Ornum.”
“Do we know when that was, sir?”
“Mrs. Ames thinks it must have been about half-past three.”
“Then we’re getting nowhere fast,” Crosby said, disappointed, slinging his notebook down on the table that Dillow had provided for them in a corner of the armoury. (It was of inlaid walnut and quite unsuitable.)
“Oh?”
“William Murton was seen to get off the 5:27 P.M. Luston to Berebury slow train at Ornum Station on Friday afternoon and I still think he did it,” said Crosby all in one breath.
Sloan regarded his constable with interest. “You do, do you? Why?”
“He’s a painter for one thing.”
“That’s not a crime. Yet.”
“What I mean, sir, is that he’s a bit of an oddity.”
“Nor is that.”
“Suddenly he isn’t short of money any more.”
“Meredith wasn’t a rich man,” countered Sloan, “and the connection with this case and money is—to say the least—obscure.” It would be there, of course—it nearly always was once you’d ruled out lust—but Sloan couldn’t see where it lay.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you arrange for him to be watched?”
“Yes, sir. P.C. Bloggs is tailing him.” He paused. “London came through on the blower.”
“Well?”
Crosby sucked his lips. “From what they can make out he’s in dead trouble with a woman.”
The nearest Constable Crosby himself had ever come to being in trouble with a woman was being late off-duty, thus missing the start of the big picture.
There was something almost paternal in Sloan’s tone. “If every man who was that, Crosby, committed a murder, we’d never get a rest day.”
Crosby played his last card. “The Earl thinks he did it.”
“I know. It’s the best circumstantial evidence we’ve got that the Earl didn’t do it himself. Not that William Murton didn’t.”
“The Earl?” echoed Crosby, shocked. “You don’t think he did it, do you, sir?”
“No, as it happens, I don’t, but he’s a suspect like everyone else.”
All people being equal, but some being more equal than others.
Especially earls.
It was a natural step from there to Lord Henry.
“That’s another thing I’ve checked,” said Crosby, “without any joy.”
“What is?”
“His young Lordship’s car. There is some blood down between the fan blade and the radiator. I’ve told those two vampire chaps—”
“Laboratory technicians”—mildly.
“Them. They’re going to have a look when they’ve finished with the ‘Good Morning.’ ”
“He could have put it there,” pointed out Sloan.
“Yes, sir”—briefly. Crosby flicked back the pages of his notebook. “There are no fingerprints on the ‘Good Morning’ by the way.”
“I hadn’t expected there would be.”
“And Mrs. Morley, the housekeeper, said she bandaged Lord Henry’s hand for him after he cut it. Friday, it was. In the morning.”
“I see.”
“She saw the wound.”
“Doubting Thomases,” said Sloan bitterly, his mind darting back to his Sunday-school days. “That’s what we should be called, isn’t it? Not coppers.”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir,” murmured Crosby. “Anyway, Mrs. Morley said it was quite a nasty cut. He couldn’t have held a cricket bat.”
“Or a godentag?”
“Not according to Mrs. Morley, he couldn’t. She wanted him to have the doctor. Right across the palm, it was, and the index finger.”
“And he got it from a motor car, not from squeezing a dead man into a metal suit of armour?”
Crosby’s case rested on Mrs. Morley and he said so.
“I see,” said Sloan. “So you think Lord Henry is out as a suspect, but William Murton still in?”
“Except that he got off the 5:27 all right,” repeated Crosby, “because the Station Master saw him himself.”
“And have you checked that he didn’t nip up the line and get on at the station before?”
“Not yet,” replied Crosby in a nicely shaded manner which implied he had been about to do so.
“I should,” advised Sloan. “What size shoes does he take?”
Crosby stared. “I didn’t notice, sir.”
“I did. A nine, at least.”
“He’s a big chap,” agreed Crosby cautiously.
“Too big for a lady’s shoe, size six and a half, anyway,” observed Sloan, turning back the pages of his own notebook. “And the Countess and Lady Eleanor both take a five.”
“Handy, that.”
“Handy?”
“They can share,” said Crosby. “Like my sister does.”
“Crosby, people like this do not share shoes.”
“No, sir.”
“Assuming”—severely—“that the person who left a heel mark in the Muniments Room did so inadvertently, and I think they did.”
“Yes…”
“That means Miss Gertrude Cremond, Mrs. Laura Cremond, or Mrs. Morley went in there and turned everything upside down.”
“Unless it was an outside job, sir.”
“Crosby,” Sloan controlled a sigh. “We both know this wasn’t an outside job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So one of the three went in there…”
“After Meredith was killed, sir, or before?”
“Well, he’s hardly likely to have stood by and watched, is he now?”
“No, sir.” Crosby scratched his forehead. “Miss Gertrude Cremond’s big enough to have dotted a small man who was sitting down at the time, for all that she’s not young.”
“True.”
“Mrs. Laura Cremond isn’t.”
“No. Neither was Lady Macbeth.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Lady Macbeth. Another small woman. She got someone killed.”
“Secondhand, you mean, sir.”
“Precisely.”
“You think she might have egged on the Honourable Miles, sir?”
“Goaded would be a better word, Crosby.”
“Yes, sir.” He paused and said carefully, “I don’t think he would have thought of it on his own.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Morley would have had to have got Dillow to do it for her,” went on Crosby. “For all that she’s got biggish feet for a woman she doesn’t look the club-swinging sort.”
“There is another possibility…”
Crosby sighed. He wasn’t good at assimilating more than two or three at a time.
Inspector Sloan tapped his notebook. “That the attack on the Muniments had nothing to do with the murder of Meredith.”
Crosby had not thought of this. “Coincidence?” he said doubtfully.
“Not exactly. Just two things happening on the same day.”
“Matching up with the two separate discoveries, sir?” suggested Crosby brightly. “The one about the earldom…”
“Which may or may not be true…”
“And the one Meredith made on the Friday afternoon…”
“Which we know nothing whatsoever about…”
“That he tried to get in touch with the Vicar to tell him?”
“Well done, Constable. Now, can you tell me the only significant thing that we know about Friday afternoon so far?”