“And what happened?” Sloan prompted him. Happy Harry wasn’t the only one with a fatal on his hands today.
“We had this call and my nearest car was practically at Cullingoak—it couldn’t have been farther away, Sloan, if it had tried.”
“That’s how it goes,” agreed Sloan. He hadn’t time to be standing here commiserating with his colleagues. “So…”
“By the time it got from Cullingoak to Lockett Hill…”
With blue tower light flashing, two-tone horn blaring, and every child on the route shouting encouragement.
“By the time it arrived,” said Harpe, “the garage—the garage—if you know what I mean…”
“I know.”
“They were there.”
“Damn.”
“Sloan, I trust those boys. They’re good lads for all that I shout at them.”
“Quite, but that doesn’t help, does it?” It might hinder, but Sloan didn’t say so.
“They must find out some other way,” insisted Harpe.
“How?” said Sloan automatically. In a case like this it was not enough just to prove—or have events prove for you—that someone was guiltless. Oh, it might be all right in a court of law… what was it called in England? The accusatorial system: Has this person been proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt to have committed whatever it was you were accusing him of?
Or her?
But as far as he, Sloan, was concerned, give him the other approach—the Continental one—any day of the week.
The inquisitorial outlook.
Who committed the crime? Just as with Inspector Harpe’s Traffic Division crews, so it was here at Ornum now. Events had proved that William Murton was not likely to have been guilty of the murder of Osborne. Meredith, but those same events had not revealed the true sequence of events.
Yet.
“How,” he repeated. “Someone must have told the garage where to go. Someone must have been telling them each time or they couldn’t have been getting there so quickly.”
“I know,” mourned Harpe. “I’ve done my best. I’ve been reading up all those incidents…”
Incidents was a good word.
Even in his present hurry Sloan could appreciate it. It covered everything from a flying bomb to an allegation of conduct unbecoming to a police officer and a… with an effort he brought his mind back to what Happy Harry was saying.
Before he mixed his metaphors.
“And one thing struck me,” went on Harpe, “as common to them all. Until now.”
“Oh?” Only long training kept Sloan’s ear to the telephone. He wanted so badly to throw it down and bring his mind back to Ornum.
“Each time the breakdown van got on to one of those accident jobs so mysteriously…”
“Yes?”
“It was out of working hours. Take last night, for instance, at Tappett’s Corner…”
“But not today surely,” said Sloan. “Today’s Monday. Isn’t it?”
He wouldn’t have been unbearably surprised to learn that they had run over into Tuesday—Sunday seemed so long ago.
“That’s right. Today spoils it.”
“It’ll have to wait,” said Sloan pointedly. He would ring off in a minute and pretend afterwards that he’d lost the connection.
“I’ll have to tell the Old Man,” said Harpe unhappily.
“I’m afraid so.”
“You don’t think it’ll stop him screaming for help over your business?”
“He’s probably doing it already,” said Sloan.
Charles Purvis took him along to the Long Gallery as soon as he put the telephone down.
“I’d clean forgotten about them,” admitted the Steward. “I never gave them another thought.”
“Who are they?”
“They call themselves the Young Masters Art Society and they’re doing a European picture tour taking in as many…”
“Old Masters?”
“That’s right. As many Old Masters as they can. They’ve already done one trip doing the public collections, galleries, and so forth.”
“It’s not the same,” said Sloan promptly. If he had learnt anything from his twenty-four hours in Ornum House it was that.
“No,” agreed Charles Purvis. “That’s what they say.”
They went back up the stairs, Constable Crosby two paces behind them.
“I was just taking them round the Long Gallery,” went on Purvis, “telling them what little I did know about the pictures—it’s not very much actually because that’s not my line. I’d told them about Mr. Meredith, though, and explained that they’d have to make do with me when we got round to the Holbein.”
“Halfway down on the right-hand wall in a bad light?”
“That’s right. It doesn’t do to put your best picture in full sunlight.” Charles Purvis might not know as much about the paintings as Osborne Meredith, but he had been trained in how to care for them. “You keep it away from daylight as much as you can. Certain sorts of artificial lights are better…”
Inspector Sloan halted suddenly on the staircase.
Constable Crosby didn’t and all but cannoned into him from behind and below.
“Miss Cleepe.” cried Sloan, bringing his hand down on the banister in a great smack. “She told us this morning…”
“Miss Cleepe?” Purvis merely looked bewildered., “Miss Cleepe didn’t tell us anything.”
“A walloping great clue,” declared Sloan solemnly, “and we none of us spotted it. Did we?”
“No, sir,” said Constable Crosby.
“No, Inspector,” said Purvis wonderingly. “Miss Cleepe? Are you sure you mean Miss Cleepe?”
“Miss Cleepe. Crosby, it’s in your book what she said.”
Crosby obediently turned back the pages in his notebook, licking his thumb as he did so. “Would it be the bit about the Holbein, sir?”
“Of course it’s about the Holbein,” snapped Sloan testily. “Can’t you see, Crosby, that all of this is about the Holbein? It always has been. Right from the very beginning, only we didn’t know.”
“No, sir”—staidly. Crosby ran his finger down the page. “Where do you want me to start?”
“They were talking about the Long Gallery being rather dark,” said Sloan, “and then Miss Cleepe said something about—”
“I’ve got it, sir. Here. It was after that bit about the ghost. Miss Cleepe said, ‘It’s such a long, narrow room, and the bulb in its own little light is broken. Dillow’s getting another for me.’ ”
“The light over the picture was broken,” breathed Purvis. “Of course.”
“I should have spotted that,” said Sloan. “It was a break with normality and so it was significant.”
“There is this special light over the picture,” agreed Purvis. “It’s meant to show it up without injuring it. It doesn’t get a lot of light otherwise.”
Constable Crosby made a credible attempt at imitating the refined tones of Mrs. Mompson by raising his voice to an affected squeak and reading from his notebook, “ ‘It’s practically in the half dark in the Long Gallery where it is. Halfway from each window and not very good windows at that.’ ”
Sloan said, “Are you feeling all right, Crosby?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Charles Purvis said slowly, “Someone put a broken light bulb in so people shouldn’t get a good view of the picture.”
“That’s right.”
“Most people wouldn’t know the difference between the one that’s hanging there and the real thing. I wouldn’t for one—you’d have to be a real expert.”
“We aren’t concerned about most people,” said Sloan, “are we? We’re concerned with one person.”
“Osborne Meredith.”
“Precisely.”
“The real expert,” agreed Purvis. “The only person who would know.”
“Other than The Young Masters,” said Sloan softly.