Джорджетт Хейер - A Blunt Instrument

"It might have been Johnson, or Jackson, or even Jamieson," said the Sergeant sarcastically. "Anyway, he feels sure the name began with a j. Isn't that nice?"

"Good enough," Hannasyde replied. "I'll go into that in the morning."

"And what do you want me to do?" the Sergeant inquired. "Ask Mr. Brown a few searching questions?"

"Yes, by all means. Get hold of the girl again as well, and see if she sticks to her original story. And look here, Hemingway! Don't mention any of this to anyone at all. When you've interviewed Brown and Dora Jenkins, go down to Marley. I'll either join you there, or send a message through to you."

"What do I do there?" asked the Sergeant, staring. "Hold a prayer meeting with Ichabod?"

"You can check up on your own theory about Neville F'letcher's hat. You can take another careful look at the paper-weight, too."

"Oh, so now we go all out for young Neville, do we?" said the Sergeant, his gaze fixed on the Superintendent's face. "Are you trying to link him up with Angela, Chief? What have you suddenly spotted, if I may make so bold as to ask? Twenty minutes ago we had two highly insoluble murder cases in front of us. It doesn't seem to me as though you're particularly interested in Brown, so what is it you're after?"

"The common factor," answered Hannasyde. "It only dawned on me twenty minutes ago, and may very possibly be a mare's nest."

"Common factor?" repeated the Sergeant. "Well, that's the weapon, and I thought we'd been after that ever since the start."

"I wasn't thinking of that," said Hannasyde, and left him gaping.

The following morning was considerably advanced when Sergeant Hemingway was at last free to journey down on the Underground Railway to Marley. His two interviews had not been very successful. Miss Jenkins, vacillating between instinctive fear of the police and a delightful feeling of importance, screwed the corner of her apron into a knot, giggled, patted her frizzy curls, and didn't know what. to say, she was sure. She hoped no one thought she had had anything to do with the murder, because you could have knocked her down with a feather when she read about it in the paper, and realised why she had been questioned. Under the Sergeant's expert handling she gradually abandoned her ejaculatory and evasive method of conversation, and reiterated her conviction that the gentleman in evening dress had passed only a minute or two before the policeman, and had certainly been wearing an opera hat, ever so smart.

From what he had seen of the erratic young man, Sergeant could not believe that this rider could be applied with any degree of appositeness to Neville Fletcher. He left Miss Jenkins, and went in search of Mr. Brown.

This quest led him to Balham, where Brown lived, and was peacefully sleeping after his night's work, His wife, alarmed, like Miss Jenkins, by the sight of the Sergeant's official card, volunteered to go and waken him at once, and in due course Mr. Brown came downstairs, blearyeyed and morose. He looked the Sergeant over with acute dislike, and demanded to know why a man was never allowed to have his sleep out in peace. The Sergeant, who felt a certain amount of sympathy for him, disregarded this question, and propounded a counter one. But Mr. Brown replied testily that if the police thought they could wake a working-man up just to ask him what he'd already told them they were wrong. What he had said he was prepared to stand by. Confronted with PC Mather's own statement, he stared, yawned, shrugged, and said: "All right: have it your own way. It's all the same to me."

"So you didn't see the Constable, eh?" said the Sergeant.

"No," retorted Mr. Brown. "The street's haunted. What I saw was a ghost."

"Don't try and get funny with me, my lad!" the Sergeant warned him. "What were you doing at 9.40?"

"Cutting sandwiches. What else would I be doing?"

"That's for you to say. Ever met a chap called Charlie Carpenter?"

Mr. Brown, recognising the name, turned a dark beetroot colour, and invited the Sergeant to get out before he was put out. Rebuked, he defied the whole of Scotland Yard to prove he had ever laid eyes on Carpenter, or had left his coffee-stall for as much as a minute the whole evening.

There was little more to be elicited from him. The Sergeant presently departed, and made his way down to Marley. Finding Glass awaiting his orders at the police station, he said somewhat snappishly that he wondered he could find nothing better to do than hang about looking like something out of a bad dream.

Glass replied stiffly: "He that uttereth slander is a fool. I have held myself in readiness to do the bidding of those set over me. Wherein I have erred?"

"Oh, all right, let it go!" said the exasperated Sergeant. "You haven't erred."

"I thank you. I see that your spirit is troubled and ill at ease. Are you no nearer the end of your labour on this case?"

"No, I'm not. It's a mess," said the Sergeant. "When I've had my lunch, I'm going up to make a few inquiries about Master Neville's doings. He's about the only candidate for the central role we've got left. I don't say it was easy when North was a hot favourite, but what I do say is that it's a lot worse now he's out of it. When I think of the way he and that silly wife of his have been playing us up, I'd as soon arrest him for the murders as not."

"They have told lies, and it is true that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but it is also written that love covereth all sins."

The Sergeant was quite surprised. "Whatever's come over you?" he demanded. "You'd better be careful: if you go on like that you'll find yourself growing into a human being."

"I, too, am troubled and sore-broken. But if you go to seek out that froward young man, Neville Fletcher, you will waste your time. He is a scorner, caring for nothing, neither persons nor worldly goods. Why, then, should he slay a man?"

"There's a lot in what you say," agreed the Sergeant. "But, all the same, his latest story will bear sifting. You go and get your dinner: I shan't be wanting you up at Greystones."

An hour later he presented himself at the back door of Greystones, and after an exchange of compliments with Mrs. Simmons, a plump lady who begged him to get along, do, retired with her somewhat disapproving husband into the butler's pantry.

"Tell me this, now!" he said. "How many hats has young Fletcher got?"

"I beg pardon?" said Simmons blankly.

The Sergeant repeated his question.

"I regret to say, Sergeant, that Mr. Neville possesses only one hat."

"Is that so? And not much of a hat either, from the look on your face."

"It is shabbier than one cares to see upon a gentleman's head," replied Simmons, but added rather hastily: "For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."

"Here!" said the Sergeant dangerously. "You can drop that right away! I hear quite enough of that sort of talk from your friend Glass. Let's stick to hats. I suppose your late master had any number of them?"

"Mr. Fletcher was always very well dressed."

"What's been done with his hats? Packed up, or given away, or something?"

"No," replied Simmons, staring. "They are in his dressing-room."

"Under lock and key?"

"No, indeed. There is no need to lock things up in this house, Sergeant!"

"All right," said the Sergeant. Just take me along to the billiard-room, will you?"

The butler looked a little mystified, but raised no objection, merely opening the pantry door for the Sergeant to pass through into the passage.

A writing-table set in one of the windows in the billiard-room bore upon it a leather blotter, a cut-glass inkstand, and a bronze paper-weight, surmounted by the nude figure of a woman. The Sergeant had seen the paper-weight before, but he picked it up now, and inspected it with more interest than he had displayed when Neville Fletcher had first handed it to him.