Case with No Conclusion (5 page)

“Sit down, Wilson,” said Peter Ferrers. “You can smoke if you like,” and he handed him a box of cigarettes.

Wilson thanked him, lit one, and blew two columns of smoke through his nose like a picture of a dragon in a child's book.

Beef gaped at this performance, then seemed to pull himself together for his cross-examination. “What did you think of this Doctor Benson?” he began unexpectedly.

“Well, I found him all right,” said Wilson, “though he wasn't popular round here at all. Bit of a bully, I should say. But he never tried any of that stuff on me.

“Had you had any dealings with him, then?” asked Beef.

“Not what you could call dealings. I've driven his car round to the garage when he came to the house, and once or twice taken some plants up from the garden to his place.”

“So you do the garden, do you?” Beef asked him. “I never cared for gardening,” he continued to us all contemplatively; “thirsty work I call it.”

“I like it all right, but Mr. Ferrers wasn't really interested. I didn't have enough time to keep the place as I wanted.”

“You remember the day before the murder?” asked Beef, “and everything that happened on it?”

“Well, not everything, but I've got it fairly clear in my mind. I always come in at eight o'clock for breakfast, and it was then he sent for me and asked me if I could do with my evening out that day instead of the following Monday, as he wanted to go to the theatre on Monday evening.”

“Anything unusual about that?” asked Beef.

“Unusual! I should say it was. It's the first time I'd ever heard him mention a theatre. I've often
said I'd have liked a job with someone who got up to the West End a bit more. Other chauffeurs get a couple of hours in the evening to knock about where it's a bit livelier than down here, and I never have a look in.”

“Oh,” said Beef, “that's your type, is it? Want to go gallivanting round the West End every night?”

Wilson glanced at me, and returned, “No, not that exactly. But I want to see things, get somewhere. You feel, in a place like this, that you're buried alive, except on your day out. I don't want to be a private chauffeur all my life. I'd like to have a garage of my own.”

“Well, you're not likely to get it by 'opping in and out of West End bars where they charge you nine-pence for a bottle of pale ale. However, you was to go the theatre on the Monday. Go on.”

“Mr. Ferrers just asked me if I minded changing my day out, and although I wasn't very pleased, I agreed.”

“Why weren't you very pleased?” asked Beef sharply.

“Because on my day out I usually go to my sister's place, and I wasn't sure she'd be there if she wasn't expecting me till Monday.”

Beef made some of his painfully slow notes, and then looked up to say, “Is that all he said to you?”

“No, he asked me some technical questions.” Wilson's manner implied that this would be out of the scope of a mind as simple as Beefs.

“Technical questions, eh? What about?”

“About pre-selection gears.”

“And what might those be?”

“They're a kind of gear change without a gear-lever. That's as simply as I can put it.”

“Never mind about putting it simply,” said Beef; “had his car got 'em?”

“No, his was an Austin.”

“Whose had, then?” asked Beef.

Wilson smiled and drew slowly at his cigarette as though he knew that his reply would be impressive. “Doctor Benson's had,” he said; “it's a Lanchester Ten.”

Beefs pencil scratched, again. “And that's all that Mr. Ferrers said to you?”

“Yes, that's all.”

“Did you take your evening off?”

“I did.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Oh, threeish,” said Wilson.

Beef looked up and spoke irritably. I knew privately that the fact that the pubs had now been open for half an hour was telling on his patience. “If you mean three o'clock,” he said with solemn dignity, “perhaps you'd be good enough to say so.”

Wilson remained unruffled. “Well, about three o'clock,” he said.

“How did you go? By bus, or what?”

“No, I went on my motor-bike.”

“Oh, you've got a motor-bike, have you? Dangerous things. I always used to tell young Galsworthy, who was the best young policeman I ever
had under me, that sooner or later he'd break his neck. Flying round the country like someone gone mad. But these young fellows will never pay no attention to caution. So you went on your motorbike. Where did you go?”

“To my sister's home in Edgware.”

“What time did you get there?”

“I went straight there; I don't know what time it was.”

“Did you see your sister?”

“No, she and her husband were out: gone away for the week-end.”

“To a house-party, I suppose?” said Beef sarcastically.

“No, to Southend,” said Wilson.

“So what did you do?”

“Had some tea with the landlady, and sat talking for a bit. She told me that if I wanted to stay the night, as I usually did when I went over there, I could do so.”

“Why should you want to stay the night?” snapped Beef suspiciously.

“It's a long way to Edgware,” said Wilson, “and the roads are clearer early mornings, I always think. Besides, when I'm out, I never want to get back to this place sooner than I can help.”

“I see. No attractions here, then,” leered Beef.

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Well—there's two young girls in the house, you know.”

Wilson made no reply, but lit another cigarette.

“Did you stay the night, then?” Beef queried.

“Yes.”

“What did you do all the evening?”

“Went to the pictures.”

“What, alone?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Never thought of taking the landlady, I suppose?”

“What, her? No thanks, she's fifty.”

Beef grew sarcastic again. “And ladies over twenty-five wouldn't be expected to enjoy the cinema, I suppose?” he said. “What film did you see?”

“
Little Miss Broadway,
” replied Wilson, without any hesitation at all, “with Shirley Temple.”

“'Orrible,” commented Beef, shaking his head. “What was the name of the cinema?”

“The Super-Titanic,” said Wilson.

Beef bent over his notebook, and mumbled as he wrote, “Confirm film at cinema on date,” then looked up again. “Did the landlady let you in?” he asked.

“No, she'd gone to bed.”

“How did you get in, then?”

“By opening the door with a key,” said Wilson with patient sarcasm.

“How did you get the key?”

“The landlady gave it to me.”

“And when did you leave there?”

“About seven o'clock next morning.”

“Did you see the landlady again?”

“No, she wasn't up. I left the key on the kitchen table.”

Beef looked at the young man fixedly. “Have you any way of proving, then, that you did stay the night in Edgware?”

Still there was nothing startled in Wilson's manner. He thought for a minute, and then said, “No, I suppose I haven't. But I did stay there all the same.”

Beef grunted. “Go on with when you got back to the house,” he said.

“Wait a minute, there is a witness who'd prove it,” suddenly remembered Wilson. “An old chap I met as I was coming in the drive. I was just turning in on the motor-bike when I saw him. He looked as though he might have been out all night, and he came trotting along with a walking-stick in his hand.”

“From the house?” asked Beef attentively.

“Well, I don't know if he'd come from the house itself, but he was coming out of the drive.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“No, I can't say I had. He was probably just a passing tramp.”

“Would you know him again?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Is there anywhere he could have been in for a doss?” asked Beef.

“There's the summer-house; he might have been in there.”

“All right. Carry on,” said Beef.

“I was working in the garden before breakfast,” continued Wilson, “when I heard Rose, the housemaid, give a sort of scream in the library.”

“What do you mean, a sort of scream?” asked Beef.

“Well, half a scream if you like,” said Wilson.

“So what did you do?”

“Hurried indoors and went through to the library. The girl had just found Benson murdered. She was pretty well knocked out, of course, and I took her out of the room and called out to Duncan, then went back. It was enough to upset any girl. There was a lot of blood; nasty sight altogether.”

“How long was Duncan in coming?”

“Oh, a few minutes. I don't know exactly.”

“And that's all you know?”

“That's all I know,” said Wilson.

I felt I'd like to know a little more about this young man, and in spite of Beef's impatient snapping of his notebook and movements towards departure, I turned to him.

“What sort of education have you had?” I said to him.

“Pretty ordinary. I went to a Technical School.”

“You don't seem upset by all this.”

“Well, it's not exactly my affair, sir.”

“Not that your employer has been charged with murder?”

“He was my employer. He didn't mean a great deal to me personally. In fact, I scarcely knew him.”

“What does mean a great deal to you personally, if one may ask?”

“Getting on,” said Wilson, without any hesitation. “Being someone, seeing something of life.”

I thought how much I disliked the type, but left it at that. But Beef had remembered another point.

‘Here,” he said as the chauffeur stood up to go, “what was this story about Mr. Stewart and Mrs. Benson? What do you know about it?”

“Only what everybody else does, I suppose,” answered Wilson.

“And what was that?”

“People have seen Mr. Stewart and Mrs. Benson out in the car together, or at a dance, or going to the theatre. Everybody knows about it.”

“Where have you seen them together?” asked Beef.

“Well, I can't say that I have.”

“Who told you about it, then?”

“I believe it was Duncan—couldn't say for sure, but I think it was him.”

“Oh, it was, was it?” said Beef, but rather to show he had his own opinions on the matter than to ask another question.

Peter Ferrers, however, did not seem hurt by Wilson's carelessness. “All right, Wilson,” he said, “you can go. I'm sure you'll tell us if anything useful occurs to you.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and walked out as smartly as he had entered.

“What about the cook and the other house
maid?” I asked, but Beef had made up his mind.

“Not today,” he said pointedly. “I've had enough for one day. They'll be expecting me back near my home. I'll be down again tomorrow, Mr. Ferrers, to carry the investigation a stage further.”

It seemed to me that Peter Ferrers had more trust in Beef than I had. He was smiling as he said, “Do you feel that you're getting anywhere, Sergeant?”

“Oh, just inklings here and there,” said Beef as he picked up his hat. “It'll all come out in time.”

N
EXT
morning I was dozing comfortably in bed thinking over the stray ends of evidence which we had accumulated on the day before. I had formulated no theory yet, and I did not think that Beef had. But I felt that the police must have some good reason, of which we knew nothing, for having arrested Stewart. If Stewart were not guilty, then it seemed to me already that there were a number of people on whom suspicion could fall. The four who had slept in the house beside Stewart, Duncan, the cook, and the two housemaids, must not be excluded, however unlikely they seemed. Wilson had no alibi after some time early on that evening, and he had a motor-bike on which it would have been possible for him to reach the house. Peter himself could have returned in his car. And what had the old tramp been doing whom Wilson had met coming out of the drive in the morning? I made a note in my mind to tell Beef to find out whether the police had discovered at what time precisely Benson had been murdered, and I wondered whether he was also following up the possibility of the tramp having something to do with it.

Just then the telephone bell rang, and I lifted the receiver to hear Beefs voice. “There's a development,” he said.

At that time in the morning his pompously bookish phrases were rather irritating, and I asked him sharply what had happened.

“That old carcase as we were interviewing yesterday…”

“Do you mean the butler?” I asked.

“That's him,” said Beef, “he's done himself in.”

“What?” I sat up in bed.

“Yes,” said Beef, too stolidly for my liking, “they found him this morning. Hanged himself in the scullery he had. They found him in his night-shirt.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Well, he happened to be wearing it at the time, I suppose.”

“I mean, why did he commit suicide?” I asked impatiently.

“That we hope to know in due course,” said Beef. “What time will you be round here?”

“As soon as I'm dressed,” I promised.

“Well, no need to hurry,” said Beef, “I haven't shaved yet. The missus has gone out to get some kippers for breakfast. Peter Ferrers has only just rung up to tell me. It means the police will be down there this morning. I wonder what they'll think of me being on the case?”

“You seem to take this man's tragedy very calmly,” I said.

“Well, I couldn't help it, could I? See you later.”
And he put the receiver down.