Part 16 (1/2)

No, sir. Not so far as wot we've been told's concerned I don't. But of course there's some narsty gaps.

Quite right. There are. Suppose we allow half an hour each time for his journey to Chopley. It couldn't take him much more, unless he had engine trouble, or was delayed in some other way. That means that there's an hour and twenty-five minutes unaccounted for between his leaving Chopley in the morning, and reaching Riverside. Then again if it takes ten minutes to walk from Riverside to the Mitre. . . .

No more, it wouldn't, put in Beef.

Well, you should know, Sergeant, said Stute.

I always bicycles, returned Beef.

Anyway, say ten minutes. That leaves a quarter of an hour left blank between the time he walked out of the Mitre with Fairfax to the time he started up his motor-bike in the drive. And another three-quarters of an hour which we can't explain between then and the time he reached Rose Cottage.

True enough, said Beef after a long examination of the 'time-table.'

But what is most unaccountable, said Stute, is the hour and a half between the time he left the Dragon, and his arrival at old Rogers's shop.

Yes. That is funny, agreed Beef, stifling a yawn.

However, said Stute, patience and system. We'll fill it all in with time.

I rose to go, for it was getting near dinnertime, and I was tired and hungry. I turned to Stute.

Thank you so much, I said, for letting me come round with you to-day.

Oh, that's all right, he returned with something approaching a smile, We're used to that, you know. A crime wouldn't be a crime nowadays without half a dozen of you literary people hanging about after it. Why only the other day . . . But perhaps I'd better not tell you about her. She'd put me in her new book. Good night.

The Sergeant followed me to the door. With a mysterious nod backwards in the direction of Stute, he began to whisper hoa.r.s.ely.

'E's staying at the Mitre, where you are. So I shan't go in there to-night. If you wants a game of darts after you've 'ad your supper, come on down to the Dragon, and I'll see you three 'undred an' one up. See?

I saw.

CHAPTER XII.

I ACCEPTED Beef's invitation, and after a cold meal, set out for the Dragon. As I pa.s.sed the alley running down beside it to the river, I paused to wonder why this had so much interested Stute. His orders that the Common should be searched argued that he imagined that the murder had been committed there. Why, then, his close scrutiny of this place, and his exclamation when he had seen the landing-stage? Had this been the fruit of an earlier theory, since exploded? Or had this place seen some other aspect of the tragedy? Or was it possible that the garrulous Mrs. Walker was right when she said that there might have been more than one murder?

Certainly the alley looked sinister enough, with the high walls of the warehouse looming over it. And I supposed that a body could have been dropped from that landing-stage into the river. But . . . well, I knew too much about investigation to start speculating.

Beef arrived a few minutes after I did, and we leaned over the bar. When Mr. Sawyer had satisfied his more insistent customers, he came up to us.

There was something else I could have told you to-day, he said, and eyed us blearily.

Wot's that? asked Beef.

Well, I didn't see why I should tell that other fellow. I didn't like him at all.

'E's all right, said Beef. Clever, too. You orter see 'ow 'e's worked out all wot young Rogers was up to on Wednesday. Got it all out with the times he was there and everythink. Course, 'e's used to it. A case like this isn't nothink to those chaps. 'E'll 'ave it all taped in next to no time.

I daresay. But I didn't like him, repeated Mr. Sawyer obstinately. He didn't seem to want to hear what anyone had got to tell him. And as I say, there was something else.

Beef sucked his moustache and tried to look interested.