Sergeant Abbott, having written this down, looked across at his Chief and observed,
“Quite a party-”
He received no reply. Lamb’s frown had become ferocious. His eyes, which that irreverent young man was in the habit of comparing to bullseyes, were definitely bulging. He said on a deep growling note,
“Is that the lot?”
Pearson sustained both growl and frown with an air of conscious virtue just perceptibly tinged with regret.
“In the matter of Mr. Masterman, I was quite unable to hear as much as I should have wished.”
“Masterman?” Lamb’s voice threatened to rise. His colour had deepened to a rich plum.
“Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Porlock took him off into the study before tea, and what with having my duties and other guests arriving, the hall was really not available as, if I may put it that way, an observation post. I was thrown back upon the dining-room, where the conditions for listening are not at all what I should describe as satisfactory. The parlourmaid came in once or twice about the silver, and altogether the only things I can swear to are that there was a quarrel going on, that Mr. Masterman used the word blackmail, and that there was some mention of a missing will. But I happened to be in the hall when Mr. Masterman came out of the study, and the way he looked-well, what it reminded me of was a Channel crossing on a rough day. The wife and I used to be very partial to one of those day trips to Boulogne before the war. Very good sailors, both of us, but you know how it is with a choppy sea-the way most people look. Well, I couldn’t compare Mr. Masterman with nothing else.”
“Look here, Pearson, you’re not making this up?”
“Me, sir?”
“Because you’d better be careful. You’re not on what I should call very firm ground, you know. Let’s see-you say in your statement to Inspector Hughes that you were in the servants’ hall having supper at the time of the murder-” He picked up a paper from the table in front of him and read: “ ‘I had fetched out the coffee-tray from the drawing-room about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes earlier. I did not go through to the front of the house again till the bell rang. During this time I was in the company of the cook, the parlourmaid, and the head-housemaid.’ Anything to add to that?”
“No, sir.”
“Sure you didn’t go through to the hall between taking out the coffee tray and answering the bell after the murder had happened?”
“Quite sure.” Mr. Pearson’s tone was one of reasonable protest. “The Blake Agency gives good service, sir. The clients’ interests are our study, but it wouldn’t run to murder-now really, sir!”
Lamb said grimly, “I suppose it wouldn’t.”
Chapter XX
Some time later, Pearson having departed with instructions to ask Mr. Justin Leigh if he would come and speak to the Chief Inspector, Sergeant Abbott said, “Plenty of suspects, sir.”
If he had thought this the moment to provoke a reprimand, he might have added, “Embarras de richesse.” Quotations from foreign languages being so many red rags to the official bull, he judged it better to abstain. There would, for one thing, hardly be time for the Chief to do himself justice on the kindling theme of Police College pups and wind in the head engendered by over-education. Frank Abbott knew most of it by heart, and would have been sorry if the salt had lost its savour. As it was, he got a grunt and a “Just about beats the band!”
Taking this as encouragement, Frank proceeded.
“If Pearson is to be believed-it all seems to turn on that, doesn’t it?”
Lamb grunted.
“There’s nothing against Pearson. He’d a good character in the force. Had a bad accident and was invalided out. He got better after a year or two and went to Blake’s. It’s a respectable agency.”
Frank balanced his pencil thoughtfully.
“If Porlock was a blackmailer, almost anyone may have bumped him off. Seems a pity anyone should be hanged for it.”
“Now,” said Lamb, “none of that! The law’s the law, and duty’s duty. Murder’s no way to set things right. Don’t you let me hear you talk like that! There’s no reason why Pearson shouldn’t be telling the truth, and I expect he is. He hasn’t got any axe to grind that I can see. So if we take what he says, Porlock was blackmailing Tote and Carroll for certain, and both of them for pretty serious offences. Masterman and Miss Lane are only probables. There may be others. We’ll see if Mr. Leigh can tell us anything. By what Pearson says, he was giving the orders after it happened. The man who keeps his head is the man who is likely to have noticed things. It’s no good saying I wish we could have been here before they moved everything. The locals have done a pretty good job with photographs and all, but it’s a handicap all the same. Photographs and fingerprints are all very well, but they don’t give you the feel of a place and the people. We come into it a matter of eighteen hours after it’s happened and everyone’s had time to tighten up and think what they’re going to say. If you can get there before they’ve got their balance you’re going to get something a good deal nearer the truth-especially from the women. And I don’t mean that just for the guilty parties. It’s astonishing what a lot of people have got something they’d like to hide or dress up a bit different for the police. Why, I remember thirty years ago there was a woman carried on as guilty as you please, telling lies as quick as shelling peas, and all it came to in the end-she wore a wig and she didn’t want her husband to find out. Well, here’s Mr. Leigh.”
He introduced himself and Frank with solid dignity.
“Detective Inspector Lamb of Scotland Yard, and Sergeant Abbott. Sit down, Mr. Leigh. I hope you will be able to help us. I’ve got your statement here, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. Now, how well did you know Mr. Porlock?”
Justin had been thinking that these two were interesting examples of the old-style policeman and the new. Lamb the product of village school, secondary education, and the wide, unsurpassable university of experience. Solid as English earth and English beef, that’s what he looked. The countryman’s burr on his tongue, the countryman’s balanced shrewdness in his eye. Just so the bargaining farmer balancing prices against pigs and heifers. These were larger matters, but the shrewdness and the competence were the same. Abbott might be any young man in his own club-public school- Police College -clothes that looked as if they came from Savile Row-noticeably well-kept hands. He wondered if he would ever fill the old man’s boots. He didn’t look as if he would, but you never could tell. The impression passed in a flash. He said,
“I didn’t know Mr. Porlock at all. I never met him until yesterday when I arrived here with Miss Lane in time for tea.”
Lamb nodded.
“ Miss Lane brought you-then you know her?”
“I know her very well. Perhaps I’d better explain. Mrs. Oakley’s secretary, Dorinda Brown, is my cousin. She has only just gone to the job, and as she is quite young and I’m her only relation, I thought I would like to meet the Oakleys. I was trying to find out something about them, and to meet someone who knew them. Porlock’s name was mentioned as being a near neighbour of theirs in the country, and very friendly with Martin Oakley.”
“Who mentioned it?”
“It was Miss Lane. So when she said she was coming down here for the week-end and she could easily ring up and suggest bringing me, I rather jumped at it.”
“ Miss Lane knew Mr. Porlock well?”