Part 16 (1/2)
Chapter x.x.xIX.
”WHAT tickets?” Mr. Entwistle asked, as the conductor approached them, after they had climbed to the top of a Wimbledon bus.
”I'm not quite sure. All the way, I should think.”
Mr. Entwistle didn't look pleased.
”Lawyer's office at Wimbledon?” he asked sceptically.
”No. Don't you see that it's nearer seven than six? Do you think we should find him at his office now?”
Mr. Entwistle took the tickets from a man whose impatience was becoming a.s.sertive, but he continued the subject.
”Know where he lives?”
”Yes; it's in Stagpole Road.”
”Been there before?”
”No. But he gave me the address if we should be late.”
Mr. Entwistle said no more. He appeared to find sufficient occupation in his own thoughts.
When they got down at Wimbledon he said: ”Half a minute. I've got something to do.”
He went into a telephone booth, and found Mr. Jellipot's name at the address which Miss Weston mentioned. Had he failed to do so, he had resolved to turn back.
He enquired from a policeman, and learned that Stagpole Road was nearly a mile away, on which he called a taxi, which, seeing a.s.surance of her own safety in the mood of suspicion which he displayed, Mary made no objection to entering. So they came safely at last to Mr. Jellipot's door.
The mode of travelling which Mr. Entwistle had preferred had not been the fastest possible, and Mr. Jellipot had finished dinner and was enjoying the evening cigar which was the one vice of his bachelor solitude, when his visitors were announced.
He received them with his usual quiet cordiality, and the timid, somewhat hesitant, manner which concealed the unhurried working of a very capable brain.
”I am particularly pleased to see you, Mr. Entwistle,” he said, ”because your coming a.s.sures me that you had no part in William Rabone's murder, which was an opinion I had already formed, and ventured, with some diffidence, to express to those who are most conversant with such problems, and consequently more capable of their solution than I can ever expect to be. And it also leads me to hope that another theory that I have formed, but on which I scarcely ventured to build, it being as conjectural as it was, may not be entirely unfounded... You will take a gla.s.s of wine, Miss Weston? And you, Mr. Entwistle? No? You may be right, for your work calls for a steady hand.”
The length of this somewhat involved, and yet fundamentally lucid statement, had given time for Peter Entwistle to settle comfortably in the softly upholstered chair which Mr. Jellipot had indicated for his use, and relieved him of the necessity of immediate speech. It gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he would be speaking to a lawyer whose mind had no lingering doubt of whether he were himself a party to the crime for which he was about to denounce another, and the final words, the implication of which he was quick to guess, confirmed an opinion already formed that Mr. Jellipot was of a more astute and more militant quality than his manner showed.
Mr. Jellipot, still in no haste to approach the subject in all their minds, asked by what means they had come, and being told that they had utilized the services of a Wimbledon bus, he had a moment of gravity.
”It was,” he said, ”a rather bold thing to do.”
Peter Entwistle, who had considered it in a contrary light, looked uncomprehendingly at this criticism, and Mr. Jellipot expounded it further.
”I suppose,” he said, ”you felt a doubt as to whether Miss Weston might be a decoy to lead you into a position of further compromise, or even more acute and imminent danger. I do not blame you for that. Whether or not you believed what she must have told you, it remained a possibility which you would wish to eliminate from a position already sufficiently hazardous. But did you think how easily, by the method you chose, you could be followed here by those whom you will have, in fact, a greater reason to dread?”
”No,” Peter admitted, ”I can't say that I thought of that.”
Mr. Jellipot shook his head slightly over the illjudging recklessness of the young, and recovered cheerfulness to observe that, as no one could have foreseen that Miss Weston would be calling upon him, or the purpose with which she went, the damage might not have been very great.
His next words went to the heart of the subject which had brought Peter Entwistle there, and saved him the task of preliminary explanation. ”I needn't ask you to tell me,” he said, ”who killed William Rabone. Your coming here is sufficient answer to that. What I should like to know is whether you have, or could obtain, anything in the nature of legal proof, or whether it will be necessary to make the arrest on the minor charge.
”I need not tell you that you yourself will now be in great jeopardy till the arrest is made; nor that Inspector Combridge will be particularly cautious to avoid making a third arrest till he is very sure of his ground... I should add that I have asked him to be with us at ten o'clock, or as soon after as possible, so that you should be brief in anything that you may wish to say before he arrives, or if -- against which, for your own sake, I should wish to dissuade you very strongly -- you should prefer to leave without seeing him.”
Mr. Entwistle, thinking that the precept of brevity was somewhat contrary to the example which Mr. Jellipot set, was at last given an opportunity of reply. ”I don't know,” he said, ”what you'll call legal proof, but I can give you enough evidence to put him away for ten years on the London & Northern frauds, and I should think you'd do best to begin on that. You'll find it's easier to get evidence on the Rabone case after he's arrested, unless I'm wrong... But as to going before the inspector comes, there's no man that I'm more anxious to see... Does he expect that he'll find me here?”
”No. It was a suggestion that I felt I had no right to make until I had more to go on than what might have seemed to other minds an improbable guess. He will be coming here to let me know what he's been able to do to trace Francis Hammerton. I did venture to tell him that I might have something helpful to contribute from my side.”
”I don't know that I can help you in that. It depends upon what the Inspector knows.”
”He knew nothing this morning, but he won't have been idle since then.” And having said that, Mr. Jellipot turned the conversation to other topics. He was complimentary to Mr. Entwistle's wife. He expressed satisfaction when he learned that she had a life-interest in some property in Scotland, to which they meant to retire. He approved Mr. Entwistle's explanation that he had cultivated too many branches of manual art in the past and had decided that excellence would be more probably attained if he should confine himself to landscape painting, which, in future, he was determined to do. It was still a few minutes to ten when Inspector Combridge was shown into the room.
Chapter XL.
”I THINK,” Mr. Jellipot said, ”that you may speak without reserve before Mr. Entwistle, who may be able to supplement any knowledge you have obtained.”
The Inspector looked the surprise he felt, but he had a well-founded confidence in Mr. Jellipot's discretion. He said: ”We've found out a bit, thanks to a good man who happened to be on his beat in Deal Street last night.
”He'd happened to see Hammerton in court when he was sentenced, and he recognized him going into a restaurant which hasn't a very good reputation, at about seven last night.
”I had an interesting hour with the proprietor, and then with two of the waiters, and in the end I got this. Francis Hammerton dined there with Augusta Garten and two other men. One of the men left early. They can't or won't say who he was, and they've given me one of those general descriptions that mean nothing at all. It's no use searching London for a tall dark man in a grey suit, and with a habit of wearing spats.
”The other man was an ex-officer named Driver, about whom we know a good deal and not much that's good. He was cas.h.i.+ered from one of the Guards regiments after he'd been caught cheating at cards.
”Hammerton and Miss Garten left with him in his car about nine-forty-five p.m. and they didn't go to the house in Hounslow where he has been lying low since we caught Tony Welch.
”Where they did go is what we've failed to find out as yet. But we know the number of Driver's car, and we're having a good look-out for it all over the south of England.”
Mr. Jellipot turned to Entwistle to ask: ”Can you give us any idea where Driver was most likely to go?”
Peter Entwistle did not answer that. He asked Inspector Combridge: ”May I put a question to you first?”
”You may if you like. I can't promise to answer before I hear it.”
”I want to know why you were waiting for me with a warrant for my arrest in Mr. Garrison's court. Did you expect me to be there when Hammerton was put in the dock?”
”Yes, I did. I thought at that time that you were the criminal, and there is a common belief that the actual murderer is unable to keep away when another man is being prosecuted for his crime.”
”Yes. I've heard that gag. I don't know whether it's true. May I ask you just one thing more. Did you have that idea yourself, or did someone else put it into your mind?”
The Inspector hesitated. He disliked being questioned by Peter Entwistle, and if he replied further he wished to be sure that he would receive payment in kind.
”If I answer that, do I understand that you will tell me how Francis Hammerton can be found?”
”No. He may be dead. But I'll tell you the best way to save him if he's still alive. And if you give me the answer I expect, I'll tell you who murdered Rabone.”