Case with No Conclusion (17 page)

“Oh yes, I was telling you. We went round to a nice little house at the corner of the mews. A Charringtons' it was. And he told me several things. He was on duty on the night of the murder.”

“How did he come to remember that?” I put in sharply.

“Well, stands to reason,” said Beef, “he knew Peter Ferrers as a gentleman in the block. Saw the murder had happened at his brother's house. 'Course he remembered everything. Besides, old Stute had checked up on him all right. Trust him. He says Peter came in that evening at about half-past ten. He stopped and asked the porter what had won the three-thirty—him and the porter often having a word about racing. The porter told him and they had a laugh over it because they'd both been on to the same horse. It seems to have been about as good as our Zig-Zag. He said Peter was quite himself, and spoke highly of him. No swank about him or anything like that.”

“Did he go out again?” I asked.

“Not by the front door, he didn't. He
could
have gone out by the service lift up till midnight. And there is a fire-escape. But the porter doesn't think either of them likely because how would he have got in again?”

“Surely that would have been easy enough,” I suggested. “The porter wasn't on duty all night.”

“Well, yes, but I found out something else,” said Beef. “The porter told me where he kept his car, and it so happens that he never took that out again. It's an all-night garage, and they remember him bringing it in at twenty-past ten also and saying he wouldn't want it again. It was took up in the lift, stuck at the back of a lot of other cars, and never touched till the following morning.”

“These people seem to have remarkable memories for things that happened so long ago.”

“You must remember they'd all been questioned at the time by Stute,” said Beef.

“Then he couldn't have got down to Sydenham and back again unless he took a taxi?”

“No. And Stute checked up on that. I got on the 'phone to him and asked him. Very rude about it, he was. Asked me if I'd just got to that point. Months ago they found that no taxi had gone down to Sydenham that night from anywhere round where Peter lived, and if he had got down by bus or anything, he could only have got back by a two-hour tram ride, and very likely have to wait two hours for a tram. One of the first things Stute had done was to check up on the conductors on that service, and they were sure Peter hadn't travelled.”

“That seems to suggest that Stute started by suspecting Peter.”

“Not necessarily,” said Beef. “You have to look every way when you're investigating.”

“What else did the porter tell you?” I asked.

“Nothing, except that Peter had breakfast brought
up to him next morning, and he was there as large as life.”

“So once again, you're not much farther on?”

“I wouldn't say that,” said Beef. “I wouldn't say that at all. Anyway, Peter Ferrers is coming along here this morning.”

I began to feel that the case was hanging fire altogether. “I think,” I said to Beef, “that it's about time you told me your theory, if you've got one.”

Beef looked very serious and said quietly, “I haven't got one—not what you might call a theory. Everything's in the air. The only thing I'm quite certain about is that Stewart Ferrers didn't murder Benson.”

“You realize, I suppose, that unless you can prove who did do it, you haven't much hope of getting him off?”

“Yes, I know that,” said Beef. “It's a worrying case if ever there was one. But we've still got to meet the man himself, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if we got something from him.”

At that moment the telephone bell rang. The sound seemed startling in that small, frowsty room, for Beefs home had an air of being closed and divided from the world. One never expected anything to be brought here, or to interrupt the drowsy ugliness of these surroundings. Beef answered it.

“Yes,” I heard him say, “Beef speaking.” And after a pause, “Good morning, Mr. Wakefield. Yes, Mr. Wakefield. Did he really? You only heard this morning? Well, I don't know whether I ought to
say congratulations, Mr. Wakefield …. Oh, I quite understand that. Yes, most interesting. Thank you very much, Mr. Wakefield.”

He put the receiver down. “Wakefield,” he said, of course.

“What had he got to tell you?”

“Something I never anticipated.” And Beef began to drum with his fingers on the table.

“Well?” I prodded. “What is it?”

“When he got to the office this morning he found a letter waiting from Stewart's solicitors. They'd been to see Stewart in gaol yesterday and he'd given them instructions. Wakefield was very high and mighty about it. Didn't seem to like ringing me up at all. You know, spoke as though it was beneath his dignity.”

I sighed impatiently. “What instructions?” I asked.

“Why, instructions to pay over to the
Passing Moment
the sum they needed to keep it going.”

“It seems that the nearer men get to the gallows, the further they turn to the Left,” I remarked caustically.

“I shouldn't say it was that,” said Beef.

“Then what do you think? Perhaps Wakefield's the blackmailer, and not Benson at all.”

“I didn't like that man,” Beef pronounced. “Not in the least, I didn't.” And with that I had to be content.

P
ETER FERRERS
was shown in by Mrs. Beef. “I've arranged the appointment with my brother,” he said cheerfuly, and once again I found myself bewildered by this young man's manner. He might have been arranging to take us to a pleasant seaside hotel, rather than to be leading us to the gaol where his brother was held on a charge of murder. I remember thinking that this indifference nullified the porter's evidence about his cheerfulness on the evening of the crime. I was quite prepared to believe that even if he had come straight from the scene of the murder, he would still be able to discuss the winner of the three-thirty. A remarkable person altogether.

“What time are we seeing your brother?” asked Beef.

“I've arranged with Nicholson, that's our solicitor, for us to go and pick him up at eleven o'clock this morning. We can see Stewart at eleven-thirty.”

Beef nodded and referred to his notebook. “I've got all my notes handy,” he said, “everything I want to ask Stewart Ferrers. I didn't know we should have a solicitor there, though.”

“Yes, that's necessary,” said Peter. “Well, are you ready?”

We drove to some offices in a street off High Holborn and saw the name Starling and Nicholson on the plate at the door. I was relieved to see that I should not have to produce that onerous form of humour at the expense of solicitors firms' names, and that this one was content with a curt partnership instead of any form of repetition. It might so easily have been Nicholson, Nicholson, Starling, Nicholson & Starling. Nor had we the proverbial long wait, for we were shown almost immediately to the comfortable modern office of Mr. Nicholson himself.

The latter rose to greet us. He was a brisk and determined-looking man, bald, a little rubicund, but quick in movement, snappy in speech. He scarcely glanced at Beef as he shook hands with him, and invited us to sit down. His first words showed exactly what he thought of the whole proceedings.

“You think,” he said to Peter Ferrers, “that any object will be served by these gentlemen seeing your brother? It seems to me that matters would be less painful, and perhaps less complicated, if we did not trouble him with too many interviews.”

Peter was unruffled. “I've great faith in Sergeant Beef,” he said.

Mr. Nicholson slammed a book. “Just as you please, of course. I must say that this case begins to look to me as though our only hope of getting the verdict we want for your brother is to have someone else arrested. If this gentleman can help us, as you believe he can, our problems are solved. How
have your investigations gone?” he barked suddenly at Beef.

Beef cleared his throat. “Slow,” he said, “very slow.”

“Have you any suspicions?” pressed the solicitor.

“Not what you could call suspicions,” returned Beef, “but I know he never done it.”

“That's not much use, unless you know who did. I understand you chased that chauffeur to Belgium. Didn't that teach you anything?”

“Taught me I'm wasting my time not playing roulette,” countered Beef. “Two hundred and twenty pounds in two days he made.”

The solicitor turned to Peter again. “I feel bound to advise you against employing this man further,” he said curtly. “I don't know why you should think he can be of service, or how he can have acquired any reputation. I say this now while he is present because I think it should be said.”

I felt it time I intervened. “My friend Beef does not carry his goods in his shop window,” I said quietly.

That might have ended the matter, but unfortunately Beef became truculent and irrepressible.

“What's wrong with my shop window?” he asked. “I never made no claim to being handsome. I'm a detective, not a beauty chorus.”

Nicholson stared bleakly at him. “Remarkable,” he said. Then once again addressing Peter, “Well, if you have made up your mind, we will go. I do not want to feel that you have the opportunity after
wards of saying that through my advice you neglected some possibility, however remote.”

With that he took his hat from a chromium-plated peg, picked up his fountain-pen from his glass-topped desk, and led the way to the street.

“He doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of me,” chuckled Beef as we walked through the outer office.

“Do try and behave sensibly,” I hissed in his ear. “People will take you for a complete fool if you go on like this.”

That sobered him a little, and he scarcely spoke as the car started on its way.

This was the first time that I had ever been brought as near as this to what one might call the realities of crime. All very well to work out intricate theories, but to interview a man in custody, and aleady charged with murder, was another matter. I felt as though I myself was directly involved, and all the flippancy usually associated with even the most gruesome cases in novels immediately left me as I shook hands with Stewart Ferrers.

He was a sallow, thin man, with a drawn, anxious face and prominent dark eyes. They gave his head something of the aspect of primitive sculpture. As though someone had planned the shape of it generously, started to mould a broad forehead and protuberant eyes, and had then grown tired, or found he had not enough clay, so that the chin and neck lapsed into smaller proportions.

Nicholson spoke first. “Mr. Ferrers,” he said, “as
you know, your brother has engaged this detective to investigate the matter of Benson's death.”

Stewart nodded.

When Peter was about to speak I felt a thrill of curiosity, for I wondered what attitude there would be between these strangely contrasted brothers. I listened carefully. It may have been my imagination, but I was convinced at the time that there was an iciness, a cruelty in the younger one's voice, which I had not heard before.

“I believe,” he said, “that Sergeant Beef was the most capable of the private investigators available. Inspector Meredith, Inspector French, Amer Picon, were all busy on other cases which were far too promising or lucrative for them to leave for a matter of this kind which can scarcely run into a second edition. Nor did I feel there was any hope of tempting Lord Simon Plimsoll into a suburb as unfashionable as Sydenham. But Beef, in spite of his oddity of speech and manner, has an excellent record. He has solved two cases which bewildered more experienced investigators, and I believe he will solve this one. He has already, he tells me, found a number of most interesting clues, and it is our hope that before you are brought up for trial, he will have discovered the guilty person.”

“Thank you,” said Beef. “And now, sir,”—he turned to Stewart—“may I ask you a few questions?”

The curious tautness of Stewart's face seemed to show what he was suffering, but he made no reply beyond a brief nod.

“Perhaps first you could tell us your story of just exactly what happened on that night.”

Stewart seemed to look with appeal at his brother and Nicholson. “I have told it so many times,” he said.

Nobody spoke, so that it was as if in desperation he began:

“I had asked Benson to dinner about a week before. There was nothing unusual about that since Benson dined at the Cypresses every two months or so. It wasn't until two days later that you rang up, Peter, saying that you and Wakefield had a proposition to put to me, and suggested that evening for your visit. I was delighted, because I do not find Benson alone a very exhilarating companion, and I asked you and Wakefield to make a bachelor dinner-party of it. On the day of the murder I called young Wilson and told him that I wanted to go to the theatre on his day out the following week, and asked him to change his evening. He made no objection to this.”

“Why did you ask him about those gears?” asked Beef suddenly.

“I had been offered a Daimler car which, I understood, had pre-selection gears. It seemed to me to be a bargain, and I thought of changing the car I had for it, but I wasn't quite sure whether I should be able to handle those gears as easily as the ones on my present car. It was not until the police raised this point that I even knew that Benson's car also had these gears.”

“I was out all that day…”

“Where?” interrupted Beef.

Mr. Nicholson answered for Stewart Ferrers. “Mr. Ferrers has given to the police and to me a complete and detailed account of his movements, to which you may refer if you wish,” he said sourly.

“All right. Go on,” was Beefs only comment.