Murder Isn't Cricket, page 11
Dr. Manson, one eye on the fish course and the other on the course of events going on below him, saw Wilkins eat his way through his meal to the sweets. He saw the waiter remove his plate. He saw Wilkins turn towards him, and knew that he had asked for coffee, “Not black, but milky.” The waiter returned with the coffee. Though he kept his eyes on the table and on all who approached it, or left it, the scientist saw nothing more. No stranger spoke to Wilkins; no stranger even approached him. Wilkins drank his coffee slowly; but made no move and no sign to his chief who was, he knew, above him. No drug appeared.
“Cleverer than I thought,” said Manson to himself. “They have rumbled that things are not exactly what they seem.”
He lay back in resignation and let his gaze wander idly over the scene below him. It was a colourful spectacle; white arms and bare shoulders shining above evening frocks which out-coloured the rainbow, and contrasting with their attendant swains in the unchanging black and white which is the heritage, and the law, of the Englishman in his gaiety. It was the kind of leisured spectacle that can be seen nowhere but in London, in Paris, and in New York (and, once upon a time, maybe, in Budapest). Laughter came in joyous ripplings, rising and falling like waves on the restless seas. Manson, from behind the fragrant smoke of his cigar, watched it enharmonically.
It was that germ of observation ever active in his analytical mind, suddenly springing into activity, that jerked the scientist violently into suspicion. Unconsciously, his eyes had been following a tall figure of a man in well-fitting evening clothes, a white gardenia in his buttonhole, who meandered charmingly round a circle of acquaintances at other tables, pausing to chat, or bandy a jest here and there, before flitting on his gay way elsewhere. There was nothing unusual in this; there were others, men and women, making a butterfly round of friends. But a similarity of formality in the peregrinations of the gardenia man was unconsciously exciting the quiescent mind of Manson. Once, twice, three times, he noted idly, the wanderer pause at a table, greet an acquaintance and, after a moment or two, produce his cigarette-case and proffer the contents. The offer was accepted, and a cigarette taken. Thrice he noted it placed beside the plate by the recipient, apparently until the tit-bit on the plate, or the cigarette already being smoked, was finished. “I’ll smoke it later,” muttered Manson mentally to himself, with a smile, in mimicry of the phrase that was undoubtedly being spoken in the distance.
When the wanderer stopped at a fourth table, the doctor found himself waiting for the formula. Not until it occurred did realization break on him that his mind was sending him a warning. When that brain of his told him to look for a thing, it was always a warning that it was working in his unconsciousness.
With an exclamation he rose to his feet and pushed a way towards the entrance. Inspector Kenway seeing the move, slipped through the door. The pair met in the cloakroom.
“What is it, Doctor?” asked the inspector.
“Wait,” was the reply.
They stood together chatting, as were others around them. Manson’s eyes stared at the doorway; he touched the inspector on the arm as two men entered, one with a gardenia in his buttonhole.
As they drew level, the doctor stepped in front of them. “May I have a word with you gentlemen?” he asked.
The couple eyed him in some perplexity. “Well?” inquired the elder.
“We are detective-inspectors of Scotland Yard, gentlemen, and we would like to see your cigarette-cases.” He held out a hand.
The men stared. “You must be crazy, sir,” was the retort. “I have no intention of taking part in any kind of a practical joke.”
“Nevertheless, I am sure you would prefer to humour us here than, say, at Bow Street police-station,” suggested Manson.
The two men looked at each other, and then, with a shrug of the shoulders, the elder of the pair drew out his case and handed it over. Manson opened it. He inspected the paper-covered cylinders, looking carefully at the ends of each. Then with his pocket-knife he slit the length of paper of one of them, and opened out the tobacco. He sniffed the weed. In turn, each of the cigarettes was similarly treated. Four cigarettes lay ruined in the case.
“Satisfied, sir?” the gardenia-decorated gentleman asked. Perhaps you will now allow us to rejoin our friends.”
Dr. Manson looked up with a disarming smile. He deposited the mixture of paper and tobacco in a cigarette-end bowl on a ledge, and, closing the case, handed it back to the owner.
“Now, will you oblige me by letting me see the other case?” he asked.
“The other case?” was the answer. “How many cases do you suppose I carry around with me, sir? I have no other case.”
“The one which you carry in a most unusual place, I mean—in the right-hand waistcoat pocket.” He held out his hand for the second time.
The man made no move, and the scientist nodded to Kenway. The inspector moved to the side of the man. The action seemed to decide him, for Gardenia, with a shrug, extracted the second case, and handed it across. Once again the doctor opened the case, and again inspected the contents of six cigarettes. He passed his fingers along the first of the cylinders, feeling the contents. Quietly, he handed the open case to Kenway to hold; and with his knife slit the cigarette and opened it out. Running through its centre for some inch and a half was a paper tube. Dr. Manson opened an end of the tube and tapped it over the opened case in the hand of the inspector. A little cascade of white powder settled itself in a tiny heap. Taking a crystal or two on a finger, the scientist touched it with his tongue. He turned to the second of the men.
“Now I will have from you the cigarette which this man gave you in the restaurant a few minutes ago,” he said.
Silently, the man produced his case and handed it over.
Manson extracted a cigarette, felt its length, and nodded to Kenway. The inspector addressed the two men. “I am going to take both of you into custody on a charge of being in possession of certain scheduled drugs, you not being persons authorized to possess or deal in such drugs under the Dangerous Drugs Act,” he announced.
“Get a constable to take charge of them, Kenway,” said Manson, “and we will get three more in the bag. I can identify them in the restaurant. I watched him hand each of them a cigarette without realizing what it meant.”
Half an hour later five men were in custody.
The news was conveyed to the assistant commissioner next morning.
“That means that we have broken up the new distribution centre, Doctor,” he said. “And that’s good. But will they talk?”
“I doubt it, A.C. Still, there is no harm in trying. The four of them will want their drugs pretty badly before long. They may say something in order to get it.”
CHAPTER NINE
SECOND FITTING
A wireless message on the desk of Dr. Manson next morning solved the identity of the dead man on the green. It read, when set out in its correct order, as follows.
The scientist walked with it to the Fingerprint Branch. Inspector Baxter looked up from his desk. “Who’s this?” he asked, taking the code.
“Exactly what I want to know, Baxter.”
“Umph!” Baxter rose and crossed the room.
Three minutes was sufficient to find the answer. “It’s that body of yours, Doctor,” he said. “That all right?”
“It is what I expected, Baxter, if that is what you mean,” was the reply, as Manson left the room.
He wandered to the office of Superintendent Jones, ponderingly, the wrinkles on his forehead and the crinkles in the corner of his eyes. The superintendent eyed him inquiringly. “In trouble,” he said. “Kin see that . . . want somethin’, eh?”
Dr. Manson nodded. “My village body was an Australian member of the C.I.D. in Melbourne, Jones,” he said. “Can you tell me why anybody in Thames Pagnall should want to go killing a Melbourne detective over here on holiday?”
“Know nothin’ about the place, Doctor. . . . Better ask that local inspector. . . . Only one reason why man should kill him as I kin see.”
“And that is—what?”
“Cos if he didn’t he’d be pinched.”
Dr. Manson started in surprise, and looked hard at the fat superintendent. “Do you know something which I should know, Jones?” he asked, for the lack of imagination of the bulky super was a joke in the Yard. Jones was the man who ferreted out every possible fact that there was to be obtained—for others to use their imagination in assessing the values.
“Nothin’, Doctor. Mind you, I’m only s’misin’, and you don’t have s’mises.”
“No Australian suspects or inquiries over here?
“Not any I know of.”
The scientist wandered out, and in the Special Branch. “Any Australian gentry in the news?” he asked the inspector in charge.
A shake of the head answered him. “Not that we are aware of, Doctor. Why?”
“My village corpse was an Australian detective, and I wondered was there anyone over here who might have had interest in his demise.”
“Sorry, know of nobody. But I’ll have the lads scout round for you.”
Inspector Carruthers, in Thames Pagnall, answered the scientist’s telephone call. “Come along here, Carruthers,” the voice said. “I think we should have another round-the-table talk.” He rang off, and dialled the number of the chief constable.
“I’ll be there with Carruthers,” said that chief.
The conference was held in the room of the assistant commissioner. Dr. Manson opened it. He looked at the chief constable and Inspector Carruthers. “Is there any Australian living in Thames Pagnall or district, or any person who has visited Australia?” he asked.
“Well, there’s me, Doctor,” said the chief constable.
“Anybody else you know, Carruthers?” asked Manson.
Carruthers shook an emphatic head. “Nobody, Doctor, I’m sure of that. I know all the people there pretty well. They’ve mostly been there for years and years, except one or two—Mr. Bosanquet, for instance—”
“What about him? Who is he?”
“Oh, he comes from Oxford. He was an undergrad there twenty years ago. I looked him up in the University book. Just to make sure after the death, you know. Anyway, why do you want to know that?”
“Because I have identified our body,” replied Manson, slowly. “His name is Eliseus Leland, and he is, or was, a member of the C.I.D. in Melbourne. He was obviously, from his diary and journeyings, paying his first visit to England, where he knew nobody. Why should a stranger shoot him on a village green?”
“You mean that it might have been an Australian over here?” asked Carruthers.
“It would be a fair inference that his enemy would be somebody he had shopped over there,” put in the chief constable.
“Or somebody he could have shopped over here,” put in the assistant commissioner.
“Well, Mr. A.C., and you, Doctor, I know of no Australian our way. But I’ll have a search round among the residents,” promised Inspector Carruthers.
“But without any publicity, Inspector,” warned the A.C.
And I will see if Melbourne can help us further,” said the scientist. He wrote another message for wireless transmission:
Jarvis Melbourne CID Stop Leland shot dead here Stop No reason known Stop Help wanted Stop Had he any special assignment or known enemy likely to murder Stop Do you know a Kathleen Smith Stop Manson Scotland Yard End message.
“Now we had better, I think, review the case in the light of any discoveries either of you may have made,” said the assistant commissioner. “What have you to say, Doctor?”
Manson pondered for a moment, gathering his thoughts into sequence. “Well, I have now been through Leland’s diary,” he said, “and there are one or two points which have interested me. I emphasize, firstly, the phrase ‘T.P. Saturday’. A rather queer note, do you not think?”
“In what connection, Doctor?” asked the A.C.
“The man had been sightseeing for some time. Yet I find no date for any particular place, only for ‘T.P.’ Why should he especially want to recall that Saturday was a day on which he simply must pay a visit to ‘T.P.’ when, apparently, it did not matter on which day he paid visits to other places?”
The scientist paused.
“Unless it was not a sightseeing visit, and Saturday was the only day that would do for what he wanted,” he added slowly.
“It’s a bit curious, put like that, I must admit.” The comment came from Inspector Carruthers.
“Perhaps he didn’t want to miss the place, Doctor,” suggested the chief constable.
“But why, Colonel?” asked Manson. “What the deuce is there in Thames Pagnall to see? And you must not overlook the fact, as shown by his diary, that he had been twice on the doorstep—at Hampton Court, and hadn’t worried about stepping over to this place that he was so keen to see as to give it pride of place in his diary.
“Or had he?” he added, suddenly, speaking more to himself than to the company.
“What did you say?” asked the chief constable.
The wrinkles and the crinkles were back on the scholarly face, and for a moment he stared, as though uncomprehendingly, at the chief constable. “Now, I wonder?” he said. He turned to the three men. “Suppose he had been in Thames Pagnall before, A.C.?” he went on. “And suppose something that he saw there made it necessary for him to pay another visit—”
“But you said just now, Doctor, that there was nothing there for him to see,” protested Carruthers.
“I meant in the sightseeing line, Carruthers,” Manson retorted. “But if there chanced to be something that was not sightseeing, but more serious? Let me go into this. Don’t speak for a few moments.” He produced the diary and studied it, going slowly, once, twice, three times, over the entries.
He looked up once to ask Inspector Carruthers if he had arrived at any conclusion as to what the initials S.F. represented. The inspector shook his head. “I cannot connect them with any spots round about the place, Doctor,” he said.
The scientist returned to his cogitations. It was a couple of minutes before he looked up. The audience waited. He met their looks with a quiet gaze.
“I think we may be getting into shallower water, A.C.,” he said. He laid the diary on the table. “The entries in this on examination along my new lines of thought seem to have an odd sequence. On June 11 he was in H.C., which I think we may take as being Hampton Court. On June 12 he was at Kingston. Then, the following day, June 13, he was again in Hampton Court. Now, the vital entry concerning S.F. follows that. “Saw S.F. today. Strange. Must look into it. May be interesting.” June 13 was a Saturday. Then follows the entry “T.P. Saturday”, under the date June 21—that is the following Saturday, from seeing the interesting S.F. You follow me so far?”
A chorus of “yes” acknowledged the interest.
“Now, we have been assuming that S.F. was a place such as H.C. Suppose it was nothing of the kind. Suppose that, while in H.C., on June 13, he walked across to Thames Pagnall, and there saw S.F. In what direction does that take us?”
The assistant commissioner broke in with an exclamation. “You mean, Doctor, that S.F. may be an individual?” he asked.
“That is the idea in my mind.”
“Which is the reason, Doctor, you asked me if there was an Australian in the district, or anyone who had been in Australia?” commented Carruthers.
Dr. Manson inclined his head in agreement. “I should doubt whether he would find anyone so interesting, except some person known to him in Australia,” he said. He paused to collect his interrupted thoughts, and then continued.
“Now, supposing that he had seen the mysterious S.F. in Thames Pagnall on Saturday, the 13th, why should he make a special journey again to the place on the following Saturday—the 21st, and mark it in his diary in order to jog his memory?” The scientist looked round the company. “Why not the following Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or any other day? Why next Saturday?”
“Perhaps he was not free on any other day, and Saturday was his next clear date,” suggested the chief constable.
“But his diary is quite clear of any other engagement,” protested Manson. “T.P. is the only date reserved.”
He paused for any further suggestion. None was forthcoming; and he leaned forward, addressing the inspector. “Is there a cricket match on the green every Saturday?” he asked, quietly.
“Yes, Doctor. Either the first or the second team is pla—”
He stopped in the middle of the word, as realization of the implication in the question struck his consciousness. “My! You mean that he saw S.F. on the cricket pitch?” he almost shouted.
“That seems a reasonable way to look at it, Inspector. I am not stating it as a fact; but it is distinctly interesting to note, in passing, that he lets a whole week go by before investigating S.F. who is so ‘interesting’ and there are matches in Thames Pagnall only on each Saturday.”
“It seems pretty good circumstantial evidence, Doctor,” commented the assistant commissioner.
“Now let us see if there is any direct evidence which might tend to support that view,” said the Doctor. “Is there anything in fact—fact, mark you—possessed by us which associates such a possibility with his death?”
The chief constable and Inspector Carruthers considered the point for a few moments, but without result. They shook their heads.
