In the Teeth of the Evidence Read online

  ‘The way of an inventor is hard in this country,’ said the quiet man.

  ‘Very likely, sir,’ agreed Mr Bowles. ‘I never had no turn that way myself, and perhaps it’s just as well. Ah! Good evening, Mr Edgar. Your dad was in here a few minutes back and left a message as he’d changed his mind and gone back to the Mills and he’d be obliged if you’d go and see him up there right away.’

  ‘Oh, did he?’ said the young man who had just come in. He was a tall, loose-limbed, loose-lipped youngster, somewhat showily dressed, and appeared to have been drinking rather more than was good for him. ‘Give us a double whisky, Bowles, and look here, if anybody asks you, I didn’t come in here, and I never got the Governor’s message. See?’

  ‘Very good, Mr Edgar,’ said the landlord, with a surreptitious wink at Monty. He eyed Edgar Robbins thoughtfully, as though gauging his capacity, seemed to decide that he could just take a double whisky without overflowing, and fulfilled the order. Edgar put the drink down at a gulp, glanced at the clock, which marked twenty minutes to eight, muttered something and banged his way out of the bar, nearly colliding in the doorway with another young man, who scowled angrily at his retreating back.

  ‘Did you see that?’ said the newcomer. ‘I’d like to teach that young – manners. Him and his – old father are a pair, the dirty—!’

  ‘Now then, Hughie!’ protested Mr Bowles. An elderly man, who had been reading his paper by the fire, got up and went out with a look of disgust. ‘I can’t allow that sort of language in my bar. You’ve driven that gentleman away, and him a stranger to the town. A nice idea he’ll get of Twiddleton. And in front of Mr Charteris, too. I’m surprised.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Charteris. Sorry, Mr Bowles. But I’ve had about enough of Robbinses. The old man’s got his knife into me, all right. Dropping me for that fool Benson, against the Swallows! I don’t mind standing aside for a better man – but Benson! Him keep goal – keeping chickens is all he’s fit for. It’s a damned insult. And young Edgar charging into me like a clumsy great goat and never saying so much as “Pardon,” the insolent lout!’

  ‘Steady,’ said Mr Bowles. ‘’Tisn’t the first time you’ve stood up to a charge, Hughie. Young Edgar’s had one over the eight. And he’s a bit put out. His dad left a message he was going up to the Mills and wanted to see him there, and Mr Edgar wasn’t having any. Told me to say he hadn’t been in and didn’t get the message. Spot of trouble there, I wouldn’t wonder. Maybe the old gentleman’s on to some of the ways he spends the money.’

  ‘Time, too,’ said Hughie. ‘Half of old-an’-mild, Mr Bowles, if you please. Young Edgar’s too much of a gentleman to work at the Mills, but he’s not too grand to take the cash and spend it on skirts. Be damned to the lot of them! I haven’t finished with old Robbins yet.’

  ‘The less you have to do with Mr Robbins the better,’ said Mr Bowles, severely. ‘You’ll let that temper of yours get the better of you once too often, and say something you’ll be sorry for. What’s the time? Quarter to. Your chop’ll be just about ready now, Mr Egg, if you’ll kindly step through to the parlour?’

  ‘I must be getting along, too,’ said Charteris. He picked up his clubs, bestowed a pleasant farewell upon the company and went out, leaving Hughie Searle alone before the bar, his dark eyes glowering, and his bullet head humped sulkily between his broad, square shoulders.

  At half-past eight, Mr Egg, having consumed his chop and chips, strolled back into the bar. Hughie Searle had gone, but the room had filled up and Mr Bowles, assisted now by a barman, was doing a brisk trade. The Eagle was the only hotel of genuine importance in the little town, and all Twiddletonians of any standing passed through its hospitable door most evenings in the week. Mr Egg had not been working that district of late, but he rediscovered several patrons and acquaintances who remembered him from six years back and were glad to see him. He was deep in conversation with Mr Harcourt, the bank manager, when the door was hastily flung open and a man rushed in breathlessly, his eyes starting out of his head.

  ‘Help! Murder! I want the police!’

  Every head turned; every mug and glass hung suspended; Mr Bowles, grasping the handle of the beer-engine, let half a pint of bitter overflow the pot and go frothing down the pipe.

  ‘Why, Ted, what’s up?’

  The man staggered to the settle and dropped down, panting. Eager faces bent over him.

  ‘Anything wrong up at the Mills?’

  ‘Mr Robbins – lying in his office – with his ’ead bashed in – all of a mask of blood. Get the police! It’s murder!’

  ‘Old Mr Robbins!’

  ‘Yes, the boss. A dretful sight it was.’

  ‘But ’oo done it?’

  ‘Think I stopped to see? I come off, fast as me legs could carry me.’

  ‘Didn’t you ring up the police?’

  ‘Wot? And ’ave ’im come up behind me and dot me one? Not me! There might be a gang of ’em ’anging round the place.’

  ‘Well, you’re a fine night-watchman,’ said Mr Bowles, ‘I don’t think. Racing down here that-a-way and the murderer maybe escaping all this while. Didn’t think to lock the gate after you, I suppose? ’Course you didn’t. Now, you pull yourself together and take a couple of the lads and go straight on back to the Mills, and I’ll ring up Inspector Weybridge. That’s right, George. You give ’im a brandy and try to make a man of ’im.’

  ‘I’ll run him up to the Mills,’ suggested Mr Egg, to whom a murder or a mystery was very nearly as satisfying as an order for 12 dozen ports at 190s. the dozen. ‘My car’s just out in the yard. I can start her up in two seconds.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said the landlord. ‘And I don’t mind if I come myself. George, reach me my big stick, in case we meet anything, and ring up the police-station and tell the Missus I’ve gone out for a bit and can she come and ’elp in the bar. Now then, Ted, my lad. Up you come! Mr Robbins murdered! That’s a nice thing to ’appen.’

  Mr Egg, by this time, had got his car started. Mr Bowles climbed in beside him and Ted was accommodated in the back seat, between the banker and a young farmer, who had added themselves to the party.

  A run of half a mile brought them to the Twiddleton Mills. The big gates were locked, but the small side-gate stood wide open.

  ‘Look at that!’ said Mr Bowles. ‘Whoever it was, he’ll have took hisself off by now, if he’s any sense. Ted Baggitt ain’t got no ’ead, and never ’ad, since I knew him.’

  They crossed a yard and came to the door leading to the offices, which also stood wide open. A light was burning in a room on the right, and through a third open door they looked into the manager’s room. Slumped in his swivel chair, his head and arms sprawled over the desk, lay what had been Mr Robbins. One side of his skull had been ferociously battered in, and the sight was horrid enough to subdue the exuberance even of Mr Bowles. The wretched Ted sank down on a chair by the wall and began to whimper.

  ‘He’s dead, all right,’ said Monty. ‘Best not touch anything, but it can’t hurt if I – eh?’

  He extracted a clean handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the dead man’s head; after which it was clean no longer.

  ‘I don’t see no weapon,’ said Mr Bowles, gazing vaguely first at the fireplace and then at the desk, which was strewn with scattered papers.

  ‘There’s a big brass paper-weight missing,’ said Mr Harcourt. ‘It used to stand just here, by the blotting-pad. I’ve seen it scores of times.’

  Monty nodded. ‘The man will have been sitting here, in this chair at the side of the desk. They’ll have talked a bit, and then he’ll have jumped up, snatching the paper-weight, and caught Mr Robbins on the head just as he was getting to his feet. The blow was struck from in front, as you’ll have noticed.’

  ‘That looks,’ said the banker, ‘as though the murder was not premeditated.’

  ‘That’s a fact,’ replied Monty. He peered gingerly at the dead man. ‘There’s a bit of torn paper here in his left hand;
perhaps that’ll tell us something. No, no, Mr Bowles. Excuse me. Best leave everything just as it is till the police come. That sounds like them now.’

  The noise of footsteps crossing the yard bore out his remark. A small group of men came in at the door, and Mr Egg found himself looking, for the second time that evening, into the face of the quiet man in plus-fours.

  ‘We meet again, Mr Egg,’ said Mr Charteris. ‘I’m the Chief Constable, and these are Dr Small and Inspector Weybridge. This is a bad business. See what you can tell us about it, Doctor. Now, where’s the man who found the body? What’s your name? Ted Baggitt? Very well, Baggitt, what do you know about this?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir – only the finding him. I come on duty, sir, when the man on the gate goes off at half-past seven. Mr Robbins had left the Mills when I came on, but about a quarter to eight, back he comes again. He lets himself in with his own key and meets me just outside the door. “I’ve come up to do a bit o’ private work,” he says, “and Mr Edgar may come along later, but don’t you bother,” he says, “I’ll let him in myself.” So I leaves him in this here office and goes off to get me bit o’ supper ready. My little room’s down in the other building.’

  ‘And did Mr Edgar come?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Leastways, the outer bell rang about 8 o’clock, but I didn’t take no notice, seeing what Mr Robbins said. I didn’t hear nothing more, sir, nor see nobody, till I’d ’ad me supper and come out this way to start me first round just about 9 o’clock. Then I see this ’ere door open, and I looks in, and there’s poor Mr Robbins a-laying dead. So I says, “O Gawd~!” I says to myself, “we’ll all be murdered.” And I takes to me ’eels.’

  ‘You never actually saw Mr Edgar?’

  ‘No, sir.’ The man’s face looked troubled. ‘No, sir – I never see ’im. You don’t think it could have been ’im, sir? That would be an awful thing, to be sure.’

  ‘Mr Edgar?’ cried Mr Bowler, in horror. ‘But you was there yourself, sir, when he said he wasn’t coming to the Mills.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Of course, he might have wanted us to think just that. It would be a very bold way to stage an alibi, but it’s possible. Still, at present we’ve no proof that he did come. Well, Doctor, what about it?’

  ‘Dead about an hour to an hour and a half,’ replied Dr Small. ‘Struck with a heavy instrument with sharp edges. A paper-weight, did you say, Mr Harcourt? Yes, it might well be something like that.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Charteris. And when the banker had explained:

  ‘I see. Weybridge, tell them to have a look round for the weapon. It may have been thrown away somewhere. Be careful of any possible finger-prints. Anything else, Doctor?’

  ‘His keys are in his pocket, so the murderer didn’t use them to let himself out. And here’s part of a letter, tightly clenched in his left hand.’

  The doctor spread the crumpled scrap of paper carefully out on the desk. The message was written in block capitals, in purple copying-pencil.

  The Chief Constable and Mr Montague Egg looked at the paper and then at one another.

  ‘The envelope that was handed to Mr Robbins tonight at the Eagle,’ said Mr Egg, softly, ‘was addressed in block capitals, in purple copying-pencil.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charteris. ‘And I think we may take it that this is it.’

  ‘H’m!’ said Inspector Weybridge. ‘And there ain’t much doubt who wrote it, sorry as I am to say it. It’s what I’d call an easy dockiment to reconstruct. “I’m a better player than Benson, and I deserve by rights to be put in goal. I want fair play and I mean to get it. I shall call at (or come to) your house tonight, at 8 o’clock” – Well, it don’t say tonight, actually, but it do say 8 o’clock – and then there’s “and if” at the end – looking like a threat might be coming. Has anybody seen Hughie Searle about tonight?’

  Only too many people had seen Hughie Searle, and heard what he had to say.

  ‘And to think,’ murmured Mr Bowles, ‘that it was me told him where to find Mr Robbins. If I’d a-kept my fat head shut, he’d a-gone up to the house, like it says in the letter, and nobody wouldn’t have been able to tell him anything. Except Mr Edgar. Gosh!’ added the landlord, ‘of course – that’s why Mr Robbins changed his mind and came up here, and left a message to Mr Edgar to come, thinking he might be a protection in case Hughie guessed where he’d gone and follered him up.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ agreed Weybridge. ‘The point is, was it Hughie who came, or was it Mr Edgar?’

  ‘The time would fit either of ’em,’ said Mr Bowles, ‘for they left the Eagle within five minutes of one another, or it might be ten. If Hughie had his bicycle, he could a-got here by eight, easy. He didn’t stay in the bar more nor a minute or so after you went into the parlour, Mr Egg.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Chief Constable, ‘we must find out if anybody saw either of them in the town at 8 o’clock or thereabouts. Let’s work it out. Suppose it was Mr Edgar. His father is expecting him and lets him in. They come in here, and Mr Robbins takes out this letter and shows it to him. Then Mr Edgar suddenly loses his temper and strikes out, killing his father, either accidentally or of set purpose. Then what does he do? He takes the trouble to tear away as much of this letter as he can, including the signature, if there was one – on purpose to keep all the suspicion to himself. That’s either very stupid or very honest of him. Then, instead of taking the keys and making his escape that way, he runs and hides somewhere, till Baggitt is fool enough to open the gate and leave the way clear for him.’

  ‘It looks more to me,’ said the Inspector, ‘as if the man that wrote the letter did the murder.’

  ‘Meaning Searle. Very well. In that case, Mr Robbins let him in, thinking it was Mr Edgar. Once in, he couldn’t very well be turned out by a man double his age and half his strength, and Baggitt was some way away, so Mr Robbins makes the best of a bad job and takes him into the office. They discuss this little matter of goal-keeping; Mr Robbins says something that gets Searle’s goat, and it all happens the same way as before, except that it’s more natural that Searle should destroy the letter, if he wrote it, and that he shouldn’t wait to look for the keys, since he wouldn’t know as well as Mr Edgar where the old man kept them.’

  ‘I can’t believe, if you’ll excuse me,’ said Mr Bowles, ‘that Hughie would go to do such a thing for such a reason. It’s true he’s got a hot temper, and uses language – but to take a brass paper-weight to an elderly gentleman! That don’t seem like Hughie.’

  ‘You’ll pardon my putting my oar in,’ said Mr Egg, ‘but even the humblest suggestion may be of use. “When it’s a question of stamps to lick, the office-boy knows most of the trick,” as it says in the Handbook. I wouldn’t be too sure that young Searle wrote that letter. What’s his job in life?’

  ‘He’s a motor-mechanic down at Hobson’s garage.’

  ‘Ever been in a drawing office or advertising business? Anything of an artist, or skilled letterer? That sort of thing?’

  ‘Nothing of that sort,’ replied Mr Bowles firmly.

  ‘I only ask,’ said Monty, ‘because this letter was written by somebody who’s been accustomed to write in capitals as quick and easy as you or I would write in ordinary hand. See how the letters are joined together, and how free the movement of the pencil is. It’s rough, but it’s clear, and it comes natural to the writer, that’s the point. It’s not the printing script they teach you in the schools. And it isn’t done laboriously, by way of disguise. It’s the script of somebody accustomed to roughing out head-lines.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Charteris. ‘That’s smart.’

  ‘About this man Fletcher, who had a grievance,’ pursued Monty. ‘He’s gone to live with his father. What’s his father’s profession?’

  ‘I believe he’s head-compositor at a small jobbing printers,’ said Mr Bowles.

  ‘Just the man,’ said Monty. ‘And that word “son” might very well
be “son” and not “Benson,” mightn’t it?’

  ‘So it might,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘But if you mean to suggest that the murderer was this man Fletcher, or his father, how did he know where to find Mr Robbins? Nobody knew he was coming up to the Mills except you and me and Bowles, and Mr Edgar Robbins and Hughie.’

  ‘One other person, sir,’ replied Monty. ‘The elderly party who was sitting in the bar with his newspaper – the man who was a stranger to you, Mr Bowles. He went out just after he had heard that Mr Robbins would be up at the Mills, and that Mr Edgar would not be there to protect him.’

  ‘By jove, you’re right!’ Charteris thought this over for a moment. ‘But all this about playing in goal—’

  ‘Ah!’ said Monty, ‘if you bar “gauge,” which they always spell “guage,” that word is the biggest stumbling-block a printer can have. Trips him up every time. It’s a disease with ’em. “You’ve acted like a thief by my son, and deserve by right to be put in gaol.” Don’t you think that sounds more natural? Personally,’ added Mr Egg. ‘I take the soft option and write it JAIL – mayn’t look so classy, but it’s safer.’

  DIRT CHEAP

  A Montague Egg Story

  Mr Montague Egg was startled out of his beauty sleep by the ugly noise next door.

  ‘Wah! wah! wah!’ in a series of crescendo roars. Then followed a long, choking gurgle.

  The Griffin at Cuttlesbury was an old-fashioned and ill-kept hotel. Neither Mr Egg nor his fellow-commercials would have dreamed of patronising it in ordinary circumstances. But the Green Man had been put temporarily out of commission by a disastrous fire; and that was how Mr Egg, after an ill-cooked and indigestible dinner, came to be lying in a lumpy bed in this fusty, dusty bedroom, without electric light or even a bedside candle and matches, so slovenly was the service.