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‘I suppose someone could have come in here while you were in the sitting-room,’ he suggested.
Harry Bache rubbed the back of his head with his rather dirty hand. ‘I reckon they might,’ he conceded. ‘They could ’ave come from upstairs or through the front door.’
‘What about that door yonder?’
Johnny indicated a door to the right of the bar.
‘That’s the club room—only used one night a week by club members. I always keep it locked, on account of the stuff in there.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Oh, you know—robes and chains of office and all that tomfoolery.’
Johnny Washington walked over to the door and tried the knob. The door was locked. Johnny paced back to the bar and picked up one of the two empty glasses, which were standing side by side, and poured into it a generous measure of brandy from his flask. Then he glanced inquiringly at the landlord, who shook his head.
‘No more for me, Mr Washington.’
Johnny sipped the brandy thoughtfully. A solitary car went past outside. They could hear the clock ticking in the public bar. Suddenly, Harry Bache said:
‘Funny I never ’eard that gun go off. Nor the missus neither or she’d soon ’ave—’
‘Not much mystery about that,’ replied Johnny absently. ‘If you look at the gun you’ll see it’s fitted with a silencer—that cylindrical gadget fastened to the end of the barrel. There’d only be a sort of quiet pop.’
‘Cor, ’e didn’t ’arf make a job of it, and no error!’ ejaculated the innkeeper. ‘But it beats me what ’e wants to come ’ere for—never set eyes on ’im in me life before.’
‘You’re quite sure about that?’ said Johnny quietly.
‘Course I’m sure. Who is ’e, anyway?’
‘Oh, just a friend of mine. By the way, did you say there was someone upstairs?’
‘That’s right. An old gent, name of Quince. Bit of a queer bird if you ask me. Got ’ere yesterday afternoon—says ’e’s on a tour of the county—asked me all sorts of questions about this ’ere place. There wasn’t much I could tell ’im, I’ve only bin ’ere six months myself.’
‘I think you’d better ask Mr Quince to come down here,’ decided Johnny.
Harry Bache seemed surprised.
‘What do we want the old geezer nosin’ about for?’ he asked.
‘The police sergeant will be sure to want to see him when he gets here, so we might as well break it to him gently.’
Harry Bache shrugged.
‘O.K. with me if you say so, Mr Washington!’
Johnny watched him go out muttering towards the stairs in the passage. He had always felt a vague dislike for this little man, but had tried to be friendly, as he had been with most of the folk round about. But there always seemed to be something lacking about the atmosphere at the Kingfisher Inn; there was none of that warm bonhomie one associated with the typical British country pub. Which was, no doubt, the reason why most of the locals patronized the other inn which was in the centre of the village.
When he heard the landlord’s footsteps at the top of the stairs, Johnny swiftly crossed over to the till, cautiously rang up ‘No Sale’, opened the drawer, examined the contents and closed it again. Before doing so, he stood apparently lost in thought for quite a couple of minutes, until he could hear distant voices from the stairhead.
However, Bache returned alone, and said that Mr Quince would be down in a minute.
‘I broke it to ’im,’ he went on, ‘and he took it as if I was passin’ the time of day. Never turned a blinkin’ ’air. If you ask me ’e’s as tough as the Office o’ Works and Board o’ Trade rolled into one!’
Johnny lit a cigarette and wondered how much longer the police would be. For the first time, the full implications of the death of Locksley impressed themselves upon him. The superintendent had come to see him about his possible connection with the gelignite gang; he had brought him down here for a drink and he had either committed suicide or had been murdered. Scotland Yard were going to be very difficult from now on, and it looked as if he was going to be involved with this case whether he liked it or not.
A sound outside the door cut short his reflections, and he swung round to see Mr Quince standing in the doorway. He was a man in the late seventies, neatly dressed in a dark blue suit but with, curiously enough, a fancy waistcoat. Johnny saw Quince take one look at the body then turn away again. After introducing himself, he led the old man to the settle where he sat facing away from the body.
‘As the dead man was a friend of mine, Mr Quince, I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions, just for my private information. Of course, the police will probably ask you much the same questions, so it may help you to get things straight in your mind.’
‘I’ll be only too pleased,’ replied Quince with a little smile, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t help very much. What is it you want to know?’
‘Well now,’ said Johnny, ‘I wonder if you could remember what time it was when you went to your room tonight.’
Mr Quince hesitated a moment, then said: ‘It was just on ten o’clock, because I remember thinking the place should be closed. I sat reading for a short while; I happened to come across a most interesting book about this part of the world—’
‘Quite so,’ put in Johnny suavely, hoping to head the old boy off what was obviously a favourite theme.
‘This affair must be quite a shock for you, Mr Washington,’ he went on. ‘The idea of a friend committing suicide is very distressing, an act of sheer desperation that is beyond the comprehension of many of us—’
‘Mr Quince,’ Johnny interrupted again, ‘what makes you so certain that this is suicide?’
For a moment he seemed a trifle bewildered.
‘What makes me so certain?’ he repeated in a puzzled tone. ‘What else can it be, Mr Washington? Unless, of course, Mr Bache shot your friend.’
There was a faint clatter from behind the bar as Harry Bache dropped a glass he had been wiping back into a bowl of dirty water.
‘’Ere! What are you gettin’ at?’
His voice sounded unduly harsh, and the back of his neck turned a deep red. He came from behind the bar, still clutching the towel. He drew himself up to the full extent of his five feet two inches and glowered down at Mr Quince.
‘What should I want to kill ’im for? Never set eyes on the cove in my life.’
Mr Quince stood up and peered at the body.
‘There doesn’t seem to be very much blood, Mr Bache,’ he announced a trifle wistfully.
‘There’s enough to give me the willies,’ retorted Harry Bache in a grating tone. ‘This ain’t no laughin’ matter, I can tell yer. Blokes ’ave lost their licence over affairs like this before today.’ A thought seemed to strike him and he swung round and confronted Quince.
‘If it comes to that, you might ’ave done it yourself. You wasn’t in bed when I knocked at your door.’
‘That’s quite true, Mr Bache,’ he said calmly. ‘I happened to be reading.’
‘Have you decided to stay here long?’ interrupted Johnny, conscious of the passing of the valuable minutes.
‘I haven’t quite made up my mind,’ replied Quince. ‘Most probably until the end of the week.’
This was the cue for Harry Bache to intervene once more.
‘You didn’t say nothing about that when you signed the register,’ he reminded him. ‘You said it was only for one night.’
But Mr Quince was in no way dismayed. He treated Harry Bache rather like a recalcitrant child.
‘It was my original intention to remain here only one night, but I found this part of the world so extremely interesting.’
‘You don’t say?’ exclaimed the landlord with heavy sarcasm.
‘Indeed I do. This inn must be at least five hundred years old—I refer to the outside walls of course—and the beams; they are quite magnificent.’
‘You can ’ave ’em,’ sniffed the landlord. ‘I been ’ere six months too long for my likin’.’
‘I’m sure it all seems quite snug,’ said Quince politely. ‘I should have thought you would get quite a number of tourists …’
Harry Bache did not deign to reply. He looked across at the body once again and shivered.
‘Them police are a long time gettin’ ’ere,’ he muttered. ‘Wish they’d ’urry up … it fair gives me the creeps to see ’im lyin’ there starin’ at nothin’.’ He turned to Washington.
‘Couldn’t we cover ’im up, sir? Just till the police come … it wouldn’t do no harm.’
‘Good idea,’ agreed Johnny.
‘All right. I’ll get an old sheet from the linen cupboard,’ nodded Bache, as he hurried out of the room with some alacrity, obviously relieved to get away from the sight of the corpse. He went off upstairs, and they could hear him opening a cupboard.
Quince sat quite still for a minute without speaking. Then he slowly walked round the room, pausing for some seconds to peer at the body. Presently, he said:
‘Was he a very great friend of yours, Mr Washington?’
Johnny shrugged.
‘I hadn’t known him more than a year or so. But he was a good guy. We got along.’
Quince nodded.
‘I thought for a moment his face was familiar, but I see now he’s quite a stranger to me.’
‘His name was Locksley—he was a superintendent at Scotland Yard.’ Mr Quince was suitably impressed.
‘Scotland Yard?’ he repeated. ‘Dear, dear, that makes it even more serious, doesn’t it?’
‘It certainly is very serious,’ agreed Johnny.
Quince walked over to the door which led into the club-room and bent down to examine the floor.
‘Is it my imagination, Mr Washington, or is there a damp patch here by the door?’
He went over to him.
‘’M, it could be,’ he agreed. ‘Perhaps somebody spilt their beer.’
‘There’s hardly been anyone in all evening,’ Quince told him. ‘This—er—moisture is quite recent—as if someone had cleaned up a mess of some sort.’
‘You mean,’ said Johnny quietly, ‘it could be blood.’
‘I’m not saying so,’ replied Quince hastily, ‘but it must be something.’
Johnny measured the distance from the body with his eye. It was quite ten feet … and if the blood came from the body why should anyone wish to clear it up before the police arrived? Johnny shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared pensively at the locked door.
When Harry Bache returned with the sheet and covered the body, Johnny said quite casually:
‘Have you got the key to that club-room handy?’
A shifty look came into the landlord’s eyes.
‘I’m not supposed to let anybody in there,’ he replied defensively.
‘Somebody goes in to clean the place?’ queried Johnny softly.
‘Of course they do—the missus does it. But it’s a private room. What d’you want to go in there for?’
‘Mr Quince and I thought we’d like to take a look round.’
Harry Bache was obviously reluctant to comply with. Johnny’s request.
‘There’s nothing to see in there I tell you—just a table and some chairs …’
‘In that case,’ said Johnny, ‘there can be no possible harm in our taking a look.’
He hesitated a moment, then said meaningly: ‘The police will almost certainly want to see in there.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘It’s fairly obvious I should have thought,’ said Johnny. ‘A murderer might have left some trace.’
‘Murderer!’ gasped Bache. ‘Mr Washington, you don’t think—’
‘I think you’d better give me that key,’ replied Johnny smoothly. Mumbling to himself, the landlord went over to the till, opened the drawer as far as it would go, and took out the key. Then he joined Johnny and Quince at the door of the club-room. The key fitted easily; he opened the door and switched on the light … As he had said, it was just a bare room as far as furniture was concerned, apart from a small table and about a dozen chairs. Opposite the door, a large cupboard occupied almost half the length of the wall. Johnny nodded in its direction.
‘What’s in there?’ he asked.
‘Oh, their robes and chains of office and all that sort of rubbish,’ sniffed Bache. ‘Like a lot of kids they are, playing dressing up.’
The room smelt strongly of disinfectant Johnny noticed as he crossed over to open the cupboard. As the landlord had said, it was full of shapeless robes and decorations. Meanwhile, Quince had crossed to the fireplace and was stooping to examine the floor again. Washington joined him at once, and turned to Harry Bache.
‘When did you say this room was last used?’ he asked.
‘Why—on club night—last Tuesday,’ said Bache.
‘Then how do you account for this damp patch on the floor?’
