Such Is Death (11 page)

“How absurd! To think that I might …”

“You turned back immediately?”

“As soon as I rejoined my wife, yes. It was good to get the wind behind us.”

“Did you meet anyone during the whole of your walk?”

“I can't be too certain about this because we go down to the promenade about three evenings a week. I remember that as we were walking against the wind we were caught up by a very short fat man who was stepping out briskly in the same direction. So briskly that he was soon out of sight ahead of us. And I seem to remember meeting a policeman at some point. I have an impression that there may have been one or two others but I can't be sure.”

“You did not speak to anyone?”

“Only to a parishioner,” said Mr Morsell as though certain that this could have no bearing.

“Who was that?”

“My dear old boy, I can't see that it can have the remotest connection with your problem. It was a parishioner of mine.”

“So you said. It was the name I wanted.”

Mr Morsell laughed.

“You sleuths!” he said. “You must find a few wrong trees to bark up, I suppose. What noses you have for red herrings! Here was a man who sings bass in my choir, born and bred in Selby, who has worked in the same ironmonger's shop for twenty years, and who chanced to take a stroll that evening. Yet you want his name. But I like you for it, old chap. I like thoroughness even when it's misplaced.”

“Thank you. What was his name?”

“Oh really!” said Mr Morsell, a touch of irritation coming into his manner. “Aren't you going rather far?
I don't want my friend upset by a lot of questions when he cannot possibly be concerned.”

“You decline to tell me whom you met that evening, Mr Morsell?”

“I'm sorry, old fellow, but I don't think you have much sense of humour. If you could see the person concerned! “Mr Morsell laughed. “Oh dear! “he added chuckling.

“Did you tell the police about this?” asked Carolus, whose face had not changed.

“The police? My dear old boy, what do you take me for? Do you think I want to make such an ass of myself? The police would have told me not to be ridiculous.”

“I see. Then since you refuse to tell me I shall have to inform them that you know of someone on the promenade whose name you do not wish to give.”

“Hoity toity!” said Mr Morsell. “Now you're becoming very public-spirited. I respect your sentiments but I wish you could see how absurd the whole thing is. The man's name was Stringer. But please, my dear old chap, don't go after him with a deerstalker. He's a good, quiet little man, fond of reading and devoted to his wife and children.”

“Thank you,” said Carolus again.

“What we have to think of is not these diversions, surely, but the real murderer, who must be splitting his sides by this time to see you and the police barking up every tree but the right one. He certainly seems to have had either extraordinary intelligence or extraordinary luck.”

“Exactly,” said Carolus. “One of the two.”

“Or both,” went on Mr Morsell. “Unless you find out from whence that hammer is missing I don't see him ever being discovered.”

At that moment, as the clergyman had predicted, his wife entered with a tray. She was a gloomy-looking woman, heavy and with cheeks of a dull yellowish texture. She produced a grudging smile for Carolus.

“Beryl, my dear,” said Mr Morsell while his wife was
pouring coffee, “Mr Deene has been asking me all sorts of searching questions about the night of the murder. I've told him that I had to leave you for a few moments….”

“When?” asked Mrs Morsell blankly.

“You remember. During our walk. When we found the public convenience locked.”

“Oh yes. I told you it would be.”

“So you did,” said Mr Morsell brightly, “and I didn't believe you. But not for the first time I was wrong and you were right. You remember I went down on the beach for a few moments?”

The ‘few moments' were a trifle stressed, Carolus thought.

“Yes,” said Mrs Morsell.

“Mr Deene wants to know if anyone passed you.”

“I don't think so,” said Beryl Morsell dully.

“How long were you waiting, Mrs Morsell?”

“It seemed a long time,” she sighed.

Mr Morsell laughed.

“I expect it did. All on your own in that wind!” he said.

“How long?” asked Carolus.

“It seemed hours,” said Mrs Morsell.

“You see?” said her husband delightedly. “She's even worse about time than I am. It was about three minutes, wasn't it, Beryl?”

“I suppose so.”

“That's what you sleuths are up against,” laughed Mr Morsell. “Three minutes become ‘hours' if you don't nail your informants down. And did
no
one pass you?”

“There may have been. I don't remember anyone. I was cold.”

“Oh dear, oh dear! If all your witnesses were as vague as that, where would you be, eh, Deene? It's a good thing I know what kind of information you require.”

“Do you often go out on the promenade at night?” asked Carolus, unmoved by the clergyman's complacent flippancy.

“Quite often, yes. We both benefit from sea air. I've said many times, there's no point in living here if we don't take advantage of it.”

“Always at the same time?”

“No, no. It varies widely. Sometimes we go just after tea. Never later than we were that evening. Whenever we can fit it in.”

“Had you seen the people you encountered that night on previous occasions?”

“Yes. The policeman certainly, and I think the little muffled-up man. Yes, I'm sure of it.”

“What about Stringer?”

“Forever Stringer, eh?” chuckled Mr Morsell. “I happened to mention to Mr Deene that we saw poor Stringer that evening, my dear, and he has seized on it!”

“Did we?” asked Mrs Morsell rather vacantly. “I don't remember.”

“Yes, you do. Just when we were about to go back to the car.”

“I don't remember.”

“Do you remember anyone else, Mrs Morsell?”

“You don't, do you, dear?”

“Wasn't there a policeman?”

“Apart from him,” said Carolus.

“I don't think so,” said Mrs Morsell.

“What time would you say it was when you reached your car?”

“Getting on for ten, I should think,” said Morsell.

“Don't you remember? “his wife asked. “I told you we should miss the News. It was ten o'clock.”

“So it was! This time my wife's better than I am.”

Carolus finished the coffee in his cup and stood up.

“If you feel like a yarn at any time, old boy,” said Mr Morsell, “don't be afraid to look me up. Two brains are better than one, you know. We'll argue it out together. I can always find time for crime.”

“Thank you,” said Carolus, “I think you have told me all I want to know about your movements. Oh by the way, do you use a coal-hammer?”

Mr Morsell gave his jolly laugh.

“I'm sorry I doubted your sense of humour,” he said.

“Do you?” persisted Carolus.

“Not for lethal purposes, old chap. Whether we have one in the coal shed I couldn't say.”

Mrs Morsell, pleased by her feat of memory over the time when the News was missed said—“Don't you remember buying it, Theo? From Taunton's. Mr Stringer served you. It must be about a year ago.”

“Did I? Well, well. I daresay I did, though I can't for the life of me remember it.”

“Do you use it?”

“Do I, my dear?”

“Of course you do, Theo. For those big lumps.”

“Oh,
is
that the thing we're talking about? That sledge-hammer sort of thing?”

“It is pretty heavy,” his wife agreed.

“I wonder if I might see it?” asked Carolus. “I've been hearing so much about coal-hammers, I should really like to see what one is like.”

“Certainly, dear old boy,” said Mr Morsell, and disappeared to return a few moments later with a heavy hammer grimed with coal.

“I wonder what you used before you bought this,” said Carolus, examining it.

“I don't think we used anything,” said Mr Morsell quickly.

“I seem to remember another, once,” said his wife. “But it was lost ages ago. It wasn't quite as heavy as this if it was the one I mean.”

“Have you seen the actual weapon that was used?” asked Morsell of Carolus with an air of professional interest.

“No. I can't say I have,” Carolus replied. “The police don't put it on show.”

“Pity, I think. Someone might recognize it.”

Carolus was now in the narrow entrance passage.

“Who's next on your list?” said Morsell.

“I rather want to see a man called Bodger.”

“Old Bodger! “Morsell smiled. “Yes, I daresay you do want to see him, the old villain. I should think that anyone investigating a crime in Selby would start with old Bodger.”

“Would you? But I've started with you.”

“So you have, and I do hope my comments have been some use to you. I know our lamented Detective Inspector Burton often tackled Bodger, and not in vain. ‘If old Bodger knows nothing about it', he used to say, ‘there's nothing to know.'”

“Where does Bodger live?” asked Carolus.

“I can give you his address in a moment, old chap.”

“Parishioner of yours?”

“Hardly. He's not what they call round here a churchgoer.”

“But you know him?”

“Who doesn't? As a matter of fact we had him here the other day to do a small job for us. He used to be a ship's carpenter, you know. He's a very handy fellow when he likes. He built me a whole shed outside, beside the coal shed.”

“How long ago would that be?”

“Three or four months, I daresay.”

“He was seen on the promenade that night.”

“There!” said Mrs Morsell with uncharacteristic animation. “What did I tell you?”

“My wife is always ready to think the worst of Bodger,” said Mr Morsell. “I must say he was extraordinarily rude to her last time he was here.”

“No! Not that, Theo. Only I said …”

“You said you'd never have him in the house again and I don't blame you. Now, this address. Let's see—ah, here it is. 19 Archer Street. That's in what they call the Old Town. One of those narrow streets. I believe the old boy lives alone now. His daughter used to look after him but she got married.”

Suddenly there was a startling surprise from Mrs Morsell.

“Poor girl,” she said and gave a queer throaty laugh.

F
ROM
all he had heard of Bodger, Carolus supposed that this would be one of the toughest contacts to make and he debated with himself how to go about it. Should he find out what pub Bodger used and lie in wait for him there? Or should he go straight to his home and chance being turned away? On the whole he decided that though it was a gamble he would try the second of these.

He realized as soon as he faced the old man that it was touch and go. Bodger, tall and powerful, though in his seventies, stood on the brick floor of his tiny cottage looking down at Carolus in the narrow roadway. A smell of cooking came from behind him and Bodger looked impatient as though he had just left his stove and wanted to go back to it. He was clean-shaven with silver-white hair and he wore a navy blue jersey.

“What do you want?” he said.

“I wanted to ask you about something,” said Carolus, with deliberate feebleness.

“Ask away,” said Bodger without moving.

“I can't very well, in the street,” Carolus said.

“What's it about?”

“It's about that man who was murdered.”

“I can tell you all I know of him,” said Bodger, “and I don't need to go behind closed doors to do it. He deserved all he got and if I had known who he was I'd have done it myself. Does that satisfy you?”

“I don't say I don't agree with you, but …”

“Were you in this last war?” asked Bodger.

“Yes.”

“Army?”

“Yes.”

“Burma?”

“Yes.”

“Come inside. Sit there. Why should you bother to find out who was the killer when you know very well what kind of man it was he killed?”

“I'm more concerned with who wasn't the killer,” said Carolus. “Somebody will be charged sooner or later and it might as well be the right one.”

“You a policeman?”

“No.”

“Then what's it to do with you?”

“Curiosity,” said Carolus. “I want to find out the truth about it. I'm interested.”

Bodger grunted.

“You speak straight, anyway,” he said. “Why have you come to see me?”

“You were on the promenade that night and you had reason to hate the murdered man.”

“Not personal reason, I hadn't. I mean, not this particular man. And anyway I didn't know anything about him. I didn't even see him. But if you want to ask me questions you can. I wouldn't talk to the flaming police. Just wait while I go and take something off the stove.”

While the old man was out of sight Carolus looked about him. It was a small brick-floored room whose door opened on the street and whose little window was almost hidden by flowerpots in which grew geraniums—not, Carolus noted, of the common varieties. There was no fire in the grate but it was laid ready. Apart from that the whole room reminded him of a small ship's cabin, everything in it being neat and clean and carefully in place. The old man might live alone, Carolus thought, but he certainly knew how to look after himself. Moreover there was something about Bodger and his surroundings which suggested that he had more culture and knowledge than might be supposed and his manner of speaking was that of a man of some education. Carolus saw on the mantelpiece a photograph of a rather handsome youth
in uniform. It was signed ‘Dad from Danny 1940'. Caro-lus realized that he had been invited to take a chair with its back to this. Bodger returned.