Inspector West Takes Charge Page 4

  ‘I just can’t understand it,’ Claude exclaimed, and uttered his ridiculous titter. ‘Never thought people did, if you know what I mean. Thought it was a figure of speech. But she did, this morning. I didn’t catch all she said, but it was something about time I joined the others. I remembered what had happened to the others. Got under my skin. I was going to see my solicitor this morning, but he couldn’t keep the appointment. Had some lunch, and Maisie said “shall we join the others”, meaning some people at the next table who’d ordered claret. No time for claret, myself, but well, I realized what she’d said, then. My God, it’s got me down! I knew Lessing had been asking a lot of questions and generally snooping, and Potter, that’s my lawyer, said that Lessing fancied himself as a private detective. So I slipped round to see him. He persuaded me to come and see you.’

  ‘I’m very glad he did,’ said Roger. ‘I shouldn’t worry, but people often talk in their sleep, you know.’

  ‘Dammit! I told you what my wife said.’

  ‘Your wife made a comment in her sleep which might have applied to anything. She may have been dreaming of a house party, a dinner-party, a hundred-and-one things.’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ retorted Claude. ‘I don’t. Not now. I can’t help feeling she hates my guts. Coarse way of putting it, but in the last few hours I’ve done some high-pressure thinking. She’s very friendly with my solicitor. He was her solicitor first. We had a terrible quarrel just before I came away, and I think it safer to stay away for a bit. My God, I didn’t think she’d got a mind like that!’

  Roger sat without speaking. Mark looked out of the window. Prendergast brooded and peered into the fireplace.

  Claude was at a high pitch of emotional excitement, Roger realized, and was suddenly faced with a picture of violence and murder; he was seeing himself as a fourth victim, with his wife as one of the chief conspirators. In such a frame of mind, he should be easy to handle. A Prendergast who felt as frightened as he did was a godsend to the police and a great danger to his wife and to Potter, if his fears were justified. So, Prendergast might be in two kinds of danger; from the murderer of his relations, and because he had cracked so badly.

  ‘What shall I do?’ he demanded.

  Roger said easily: ‘Mark, can you spare some time in the next few days?’

  ‘What for?’ asked Mark, as if suspiciously.

  ‘I thought as Mr Prendergast has left home temporarily, of course he will want to stay in a hotel. If you could share a room, or a suite, with him, he would feel much safer. I don’t think anything he has told us would justify police action, but I can understand why he is so edgy. Now if you –’

  ‘Lessing I’ cried Prendergast. ‘That’s it. That’s the answer. You must.’

  Both Roger and Prendergast looked at Lessing.

  ‘I don’t feel safe,’ Prendergast continued wildly, ‘I’ don’t feel I dare walk up the street alone. Three relations killed, and now me.’

  ‘No one will kill you,’ said Roger. ‘You’ve done what none of the others had thought of doing made sure of protection. If they were murdered, the deaths were made to seem accidental. They can’t kill you accidentally while you’ve someone looking after you all the time. Will you do this, Mark?’

  ‘You must!’ cried Prendergast again. ‘I tell you I beg you –’

  ‘I’ll make the time,’ Mark promised.

  Claude Prendergast was almost maudlin in his thanks.

  “We’ll go down to Delaware,’ he said, ‘our country house; comfortable there. Better than a hotel. And since Maisie thinks I’ve left her she won’t think of looking there.’

  ‘Can you tell me about your new-found relation?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Harrington? No. Only what my wife told me, and I’ve already told you that.’

  When Mark and Prendergast had gone, Roger went into the kitchen. Janet was knitting, and the kitten playing with the wool.

  ‘What made Claude like that?’ Janet asked. ‘He was little better than a hysterical child. When he came in he kept looking over his shoulder, and implored Mark to stay by the window even I saw that. Was that caused only by the quarrel with his wife? And this sudden fear?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Roger slowly. ‘I think Claude broke down because he’s been living on his nerves for a long time. No man, not even a Claude, would crack so completely on a flimsy piece of suspicion, if he were normal. I think that Claude might have been fed on drugs for some time. Whether he’s been self-fed or not makes no odds. He’s had the inheritance, the pitched battles with Maisie, and the drug. All of these have worked him up into his present state. I think he’s broken out at the wrong moment for Potter and Maisie. But –’

  He stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ Janet leaned forward.

  ‘The drug isn’t a guess but a reasoned deduction. I wondered why Claude’s eyes were so pin-pointed when I first saw them. I wonder what he’s been taking? Cocaine would do it. Anyhow, Claude has been drugged, fact one. Maisie has talked of a long lost cousin, fact two. I had hoped to have the rest of the evening off, but I’d better get back to the Yard.’

  ‘I’ve seen that coming,’ Janet said. ‘Thank goodness I’ve a kitten to keep me company.’

  Petrol shortage and a conscience made Roger go to the Yard by bus, except in emergency. He walked to Fulham Road, caught a bus almost at once, and went upstairs.

  The new relation, Harrington, was on his mind; was there one? Or was this a scare from Maisie? Who was Maisie? The sooner he could find out, the better.

  Then he thought of the kitten, and grinned.

  ‘Why are you so amused, Inspector?’

  Roger turned sharply, to look into the face of Gabriel Potter. He checked his smile, and then widened it edging closer to the window to allow Potter more room.

  ‘And what brings you here?’ he said.

  ‘Finding you on the same bus –’ Potter began.

  ‘No,’ interrupted Roger. ‘Following or preceding me, but not finding. Were you coming to see me when you saw me at the bus stop? Or were you just around?’

  ‘The meeting is entirely fortuitous,’ answered Potter. ‘If I wanted to see you, Inspector, I should call at your office, not at your private house. I had intended doing so tomorrow morning, but this may save my time. Inspector, I was annoyed, righteously annoyed, by your high-handed treatment of my client this morning.’

  ‘When did he become your client?’ interrupted Roger. ‘Before last night’s burglary and attack on Mr Lessing, or after it? If before, why did he need a solicitor?’

  ‘I think that you are a little drunk, Inspector,’ murmured Potter. ‘I have handled Mr Clay’s affairs for some years.’

  ‘Three times he took what wasn’t his, three times he spent a spell in prison,’ said Roger amiably. ‘Either a hopeless case or a bad lawyer, and I wouldn’t presume on the latter. Nothing about my “treatment” of Clay was high-handed. He is a specialist at a certain type of lock-cracking, and a lock was cracked in the way he works, last night. He was known to be in London, too.’

  ‘I trust you are now satisfied that he was nowhere near Chelsea,’ Potter said coldly.

  ‘Not for a minute.’ In Roger’s mind’s eye there was a picture of Chatworth’s rubicund face, Chatworth giving him the go-ahead with Potter. He could have laughed in the solicitor’s face. ‘I think Clay did that job, and his alibi was faked. You wouldn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘If I thought it for a moment, he would no longer be a client of mine,’ declared Potter.

  ‘Don’t apply the rule to your clients too generally,’ advised Roger. ‘You’ll soon be on the bread-line.’

  Potter stared at him, and then deliberately stood up and moved to another seat. Roger continued to smile, but only for Potter’s benefit; the phase of high spirits had gone.

  Why should Potter take this extraordinary course? Had he really followed Claude, and hoped to find out what Claude wanted at Chelsea?

  He stood
up as the bus drew into Parliament Square. Potter remained on the top deck, staring out of the window.

  ‘I’ll be at the office fairly late,’ Roger said in passing, ‘look me up if you feel like it.’

  He hurried down the stairs, nodded genially to the policeman on duty and went whistling towards his office. At a corner heavy footsteps materialized into the burly figure of Chatworth, dressed for out of doors. It was known that Chatworth disliked whistling, and talking above a whisper, in the passages. He glared at Roger, who bade him a polite goodnight.

  ‘Night,’ growled Chatworth.

  Roger made his way to his office and sat at his desk, glancing at one or two notes that had been put there since he had left. There was nothing concerning the Potter-Prendergast-Clay investigation.

  He lifted the telephone, asked for Guildford Police Station and for Chief Inspector Lampard. He had met Lampard, who had conducted the inquiries into the first Prendergast death, near Delaware. A sound man, with no over-developed sense of his seniority, and who had said that he disliked the inquest verdict.

  ‘Roger West here,’ began Roger. ‘You’ll remember –’

  ‘Remember,’ Lampard had a quick, decisive way of speaking, wasted no time in how-d’ you-do’s or reflections on the weather. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘There’s a job you might be able to help me with, Mr Lampard. Claude Prendergast has just gone to Delaware House with a friend, a Mr Mark Lessing. Lessing is acting unofficially for me –’

  ‘Authority?’ interrupted Lampard.

  ‘No authority. He’s in his private capacity only. Claude Prendergast has an idea that he might be number four on a list. There could be something in it. Could Delaware House be watched?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lampard. ‘Anything to go on?’

  ‘I’m no further than an “if” and “might be” stage, but I should hate to leave Claude unattended. Isn’t there an AA phone box just near the house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If anyone turns into the drive of the house,’ said Roger, ‘a word with Lessing might be advisable. I’m half expecting Mr Potter or one of his clerks to go there, and possibly Mrs Prendergast. Maisie Claude doesn’t want to see her, and he has peculiar ideas about her.’

  ‘So Potter’s in this, is he?’ Lampard grew expansive. ‘I’ll do what I can, West. Anything else?’

  ‘You’ll be interested to hear that a new relative has appeared on the horizon,’ said Roger. ‘A man named Harrington. I’m trying to find him, but he hasn’t made himself prominent yet. Does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ said Lampard.

  Roger renewed his thanks and rang off. He called Information and arranged for a teleprinter request for news of the man Harrington and for information about Claude’s Maisie. That done, he cleared his desk, decided that he could go home, stepped to the door and then his telephone bell rang.

  ‘A Mr Gabriel Potter is in the hall, sir, asking to see you.’

  ‘I’ll come down and see him,’ said Roger, and rang off.

  He was beginning to feel very pleased with himself.

  Potter was standing in the hall, homburg hat in hand, pointed chin riding high above his stiff collar. He carried an umbrella and pigskin gloves.

  ‘Evening,’ said Roger brusquely. ‘Come along to the waiting room, it’s warmer than my office.’ He led the way. They settled themselves in two armchairs by the fire. Potter gave a thin-lipped smile.

  ‘Your consideration is appreciated, Mr West. If at any time I can reciprocate, I shall be only too glad to.’ He made no reference to their meeting on the bus. ‘I wish to see you about Charlie Clay.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Roger.

  ‘I have personally examined his story, and the witnesses of his presence last night in the Blue Dog, a public house in Wapping,’ said Potter. ‘There is no doubt that he was there during the evening, equally no doubt that he spent some time afterwards, until three o’clock this morning, in fact, in company of a woman.’ Potter’s distaste grew into cold revulsion. ‘Earlier in the evening, he was the worse for liquor. Unsavoury, perhaps, but irrefutable.’

  ‘Why tell me about it?’ Roger asked.

  ‘I’ should dislike it intensely if you were ill-advised enough to take the matter further, only to find yourself blocked by evidence which the Court would have to accept! Unsuccessful prosecutions are not good for a young progressive officer.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Roger dryly, and waited for the rest. Potter had not come solely about Clay’s alibi.

  ‘It occurred to me,’ went on Potter, ‘that you might have omitted to examine other possibilities in your eagerness to charge Clay. I did hear that a man named Fenton, Abie Fenton, was “out” last night. It might be wise to question Fenton. I hold no brief for the man,’ added Potter with a near approach to geniality, ‘and he is not my client. My object now, as always, is to see criminals pursued and prosecuted with the utmost vigour of the law.’ He stood up slowly, collected his hat and gloves, and showed his teeth. ‘Good night, Inspector.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten your umbrella,’ said Roger. He toyed with the idea of springing the name Harrington on the solicitor, but decided not to.

  Potter went out with deliberate strides. Roger watched him thoughtfully, and then tossed the stub of a cigarette into the fireplace.

  Potter had thrown Abie Fenton at his head so heavily that he must know Roger would realize it was deliberate.

  Roger went back to the office, and telephoned instructions for a call to be put out for Fenton. He replaced the receiver and scowled.

  ‘That’s what Potter wanted, of course, and he’s got it I wonder if that’s what he wanted all the time?’

  He put on his hat and coat, and started for home. With luck he would get in just before Janet went to the next-door neighbours. There was little he could do that night, except to wonder what was happening at Delaware House and whether Mark had made Claude talk even more.

  The front door opened as he turned into the gate.

  ‘Darling,’ Janet called. ‘Mark just telephoned from Delaware House. He says that Cousin Harrington’s there. Can you go at once?’ Breathlessly, she added: ‘I told him we would go. We can use the car for this, can’t we?’ she wheedled.

  ‘We can use the car,’ Roger agreed.

  As he got the car out, feeling sure that Mark would not have summoned him without reason, he wondered how far he would have got in this investigation without Mark. There was a lot to be said for an investigator not attached to the Yard, but there was the danger that Mark would be much more vulnerable than he.

  Anxious and eager, knowing that Janet was happy to sit and watch the passing traffic in this rare luxury of a drive in days of petrol famine, he drove fast out of London towards the countryside, Guildford and Delaware House.

  5: Dark Night

  Do you think we’ll make Delaware House before dark?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Not by half-an-hour,’ said Roger.

  He was optimistic by twenty minutes, for on the approaches to Guildford it grew dark. He had to go slowly through the Surrey town, then turn by the bridge and find the road to Chesham, a small town not far from Guildford. Beyond it was Delaware Village, and Delaware House, the mansion on the pine-clad hills, which the Prendergasts had bought years ago out of the proceeds of Dreem cigarettes and tobacco. The road was in poor condition, one of those not selected for repair in war time, and every hundred yards led to a corner. Faint objects flitted past them, telegraph poles, a cyclist without lights, and a creature which swooped across the headlights.

  ‘Ugh, a bat,’ said Janet.

  ‘An owl, more likely. Creepy place, in the dark.’ He went on cautiously, knowing that he was looking for a turning to the left, anxious not to overshoot it. The overhanging branches of trees growing close to the road dragged noisily across the roof of the small car. The going grew steep, high banks on either side showed a ghostly yellow. The trees made shadows which seemed to move towards th
em and then sag away. Beyond them were stretches of silent common-land, he knew, wooded in many places, with only an occasional farm or hamlet.

  As he began to turn at a T junction with a ghostly white sign, he saw the beams of another car coming from the side turning. He kept well in, realizing that the other car was coming at a suicidal speed for such a road.

  Janet drew in a sharp breath.

  Roger squeezed as close to the hedge as he could. As the car leapt at them, he was dazzled by the glare of the masked headlight. He uttered a silent prayer as his engine stalled.

  The car scraped past them, brakes squealing, and swung right towards Guildford.

  Roger re-started the engine.

  ‘I’d like that driver in dock,’ he said. ‘I wonder where he came from? There can’t be many places up here.’

  ‘Mark’s pretty crazy at the wheel.’

  ‘Not that crazy.’ Roger drove even more cautiously.

  There were two entrances to Delaware; the one he was taking being inside the large estate which joined up with the major driveway near the AA box he had mentioned to Lampard.

  Janet was peering out on her side.

  ‘There’s the gate,’ she announced.

  The white gate was wide open. Roger drove through. The road twisted and turned amongst shrubberies and copses, and the shadows increased.

  Then Janet exclaimed: ‘Look! Look over there!’

  Roger put on the brakes. Janet was peering to the right, and he followed her example. He saw nothing but the grotesque shapes of small trees and wild shrubs.

  ‘I thought I saw a man,’ said Janet defensively. ‘In fact I’m sure I did. Look! There’s a cigarette glowing red!’

  ‘I think we’ll stop here,’ said Roger. He opened his door, while Janet scrambled out on the other side, joining him before he moved towards the main gate. The figure of the man remained clear in the headlights.

  ‘I’m Chief Inspector West,’ Roger said. ‘Are you from Inspector Lampard?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ The big man’s face was in the shadow; the light revealed him clearly only as high as his waist.