Part 34 (1/2)

Can't help your troubles, said Miss Smythe airily.

There was a pause, during which Stute seemed to be considering his future line of attack.

Finished now? asked Smythe. I've got things to do, you know.

How did you get that 20 out of Rogers? Told him there was a baby, I suppose. All right. Don't answer.

Another long pause, during which Mrs. Walker fidgeted irritably.

Look here, Miss Smythe, said Stute suddenly, in a more civil tone of voice, I believe you when you say that you knew nothing about the murder. Now you won't hear any more of me after this if you'll do your best to help me now. Just rack your brains and see if you can think of anything else that might help us. Rogers left you, and went straight off, so far as we can make out, and committed a murder. Now tell us if you can remember anything he said or did that would help us.

I'm trying to think, the girl replied. Honestly I am. No, I really can't remember another thing. I was as surprised as everyone else when I read how he'd done for someone, and killed himself. He seemed full of beans that night.

Stute rose. Very well then, he said, we'll leave it at that. And he turned to go.

I thought for a moment that there was going to be some discordance between the two women but both seemed to prefer an att.i.tude of exaggerated hauteur to one of violence. Mrs. Walker made her exit royally, and Miss Smythe pretended to yawn again.

Not until we were in the car, and at her mercy, did Mrs. Walker release her pent-up feelings.

There you are! she said. That's what comes of being good to anyone. And to think of that girl being alive the whole time! Deceitful, I call it. She might have told anyone and saved all that searching for her. And 20 too! If I'd have known she'd got all that, things would have been very different. But there you are. Well, now you know she's alive, so I suppose you've got to find out who was murdered.

Yes, said Stute, I have. And if you would be good enough to remain silent for a moment I might have a chance of concentrating what wits I have left on the subject.

There. That's a nice thing to say to anyone. And after I've come all this way to help you. Still, it's what one must expect from the police I suppose. I shall be glad when we're home.

CHAPTER XXV.

AT DINNER that night Stute was in good spirits, but I fancied that there was irony in his amus.e.m.e.nt.

Really, he said, this thing is going too far. It seems we have only to start enquiries for one of the people we supposed murdered, to find them safe and sound, and quite willing to tell us all they know. I've never had such a case. Do you know that for the first time in ten years I've been thinking of getting someone else in?

I don't think you should do that, I said. After all, it is narrowing down.

Narrowing down! I should think it was. It will fade away altogether soon. But what can I do? If I go to my chief and say I don't believe that anyone was murdered, he will instantly ask why young Rogers committed suicide. And whom he had stabbed with that knife. And whose blood it was. After all, even if n.o.body's dead, young Rogers believed there was. Where is that person?

I sighed. Don't ask me, I begged, I've been out of my depth from the beginning.

There is this about the facts that we've collectedthey are gradually establis.h.i.+ng the time of the murder. Now that we have found the girl it can be a.s.sumed that it was done after Rogers left the Dragon at twenty to seven I am going to concentrate everything on the next hour and a halfthat is before he got back to confess to old Rogers at eight o'clock I've instructed that constable. ...

Galsworthy, do you mean? Stute nodded irritably. I've sent him to question the commissionaire and box-office girl at the Cinema, to see if they remember Molly Cutler waiting there at seven o'clock. And we'll go to-morrow to see the people living on either side of old Rogers's shop, in the hope of discovering whether young Rogers came in while his uncle was out between six-thirty and seven fifteen. But it's all hearsay. All reports from townspeople. Nothing to go on. Give me an honest murder with a body to it, and I'll find your man. A couple of bloodstained carpets and a telegram from Bournemouth, and we'll have a hanging. But d.a.m.n itwhere are you in a thing like this? It doesn't need a detective but a fortune-teller, or a water-diviner, or a medium.

You know very well you're enjoying it, I said.

Well, it's unusual. But they're getting a bit impatient at the Yard. They need me in this Rochester affair.

You've still got the foreigner, I reminded him, and Mr. Sawyer's brother.

And a thousand other people who haven't been seen lately. I dislike the idea of even making enquiries about the publican's brother. It will make a fool of me, because no one would believe afterwards that I wasn't certain it was he. And also because I don't want to be the one who sends that poor devil back to his wife. I'm a married man myself.