Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“Thank you,” said the Superintendent. “Can you tell me if there was any unpleasantness during any of Mr Vereker's appointments that morning?”

“Yes; Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier was, I imagine, extremely unpleasant.”

“Why do you imagine that, Miss Miller?”

She raised her brows. “The room which is my office communicates with the late Mr Vereker's. I could hardly fail to be aware of a quarrel taking place behind the intervening door.”

“Do you know what the quarrel was about?”

“If I did I should immediately have volunteered the information, which must necessarily be of importance. But it is not my custom either to listen at keyholes, or to waste my employer's time. During Mr Vereker's interview with Mr Mesurier, and his subsequent one with Mr Cedric Johnson, I occupied myself with Mr Vereker's correspondence, using the dictaphone and a typewriter. What was said, therefore, I did not hear, or wish to hear. From time to time both voices were raised to what I can only describe as shouting-pitch. More than that I am not prepared to say.”

He put one or two other questions to her, and then got rid of her, and asked to see Mr Rudolph Mesurier.

Mesurier came in five minutes later. He looked rather white, but greeted Hannasyde easily and cheerfully. “Superintendent Hannasyde, isn't it? Good-morning. You're investigating the cause of Arnold Vereker's death, I understand. Rather an awful thing, isn't it? I mean, stabbed like that, in the back. Anything I can tell you that might help you, I shall be only too glad to - only I'm afraid I can't tell you much.” He laughed apologetically, and sat down on one side of the bare mahogany table, carefully hitching up his beautifully creased trousers. Just what is it you want to know?” he asked.

“Well, I want to know several things, Mr Mesurier,” answered the Superintendent. “Can you remember where you were on Saturday evening between the hours of- let us say eleven o'clock and two o'clock?”

Mesurier wrinkled his brow. “Let me see now: Saturday! Oh yes, of course! I was at home, Redclyffe Gardens, Earl's Court. I have digs there.”

“Are you sure that you were in home then, Mr Mesurier?”

“Well, really - !” Mesurier laughed again, a little nervously. “I was certainly under that impression! I had a bit of a head that night, and I went to bed early.”

Hannasyde looked at him for a few moments. Mesurier stared back into his eyes, and moistened his lips. “Where do you garage your car?” asked Hannasyde.

“What an odd question! Just round the corner. I have a lock-up garage, you know, in a mews.”

“Are you always careful to keep that garage locked, Mr Mesurier?”

Mesurier replied a shade too quickly. “Oh, I'm afraid I'm rather casual sometimes! Of course I do usually see that it's locked, but occasionally, when I've been in a hurry - you know how it is!”

“Did you use your car at all on Saturday?”

“No, I don't think I - Oh yes, I did, though!”

“At what time?”

“Well, I don't really remember. In the afternoon.”

“And when did you return it to the garage?”

Mesurier uncrossed his legs, and then crossed them again. “It must have been sometime during the early part of the evening. I'm afraid I'm a bit hazy about times. And of course, not knowing that it would be important - the time I garaged the car, I mean -”

“Are you sure, Mr Mesurier, that when you say the early part of the evening, you don't mean the early part of the morning?”

“I - I don't understand you. I've already told you I went to bed early. I don't quite follow what you're driving at. I mean, if you think I had anything to do with Arnold Vereker's death it's too utterly absurd.”

“The proprietor of the hour lock-up garages in the mews,” said Hannasyde, consulting his notes, “states that you took your car out at approximately five o'clock.”

“I daresay he's quite right. I certainly shan't dispute it. I told you it was during the afternoon. What I don't understand is why you should be so interested in my movements. Frightfully thorough of you, and all that, but I must say I find it rather amusing that you should actually take the trouble to question them at the garage!”

“The proprietor further states,” continued Hannasyde unemotionally, “that at one-forty-five a.m., on Sunday, he was awakened by the sound of one of the garages being opened. Apparently the garage you rent is immediately beneath his bedroom. He declares that he recognised the engine-note of the car being driven into the garage.”

“Of course that's perfectly preposterous!” Mesurier said. “In any case, it wasn't my car. Unless, of course, someone else had her out. If I forgot to lock the garage they might easily have done so, you know.”

“Who?” asked Hannasyde.

“Who?” Mesurier looked quickly across at him, and away again. “I'm sure I don't know! Anybody!”

“Whoever took your car out on Saturday evening must have had a key to the garage, Mr Mesurier. The proprietor states that when you had left the mews in the car shortly after five he himself shut the doors. When he went to bed at ten-thirty they were still locked.”

“I daresay he was mistaken. Not that I'm saying anyone did take my car out. It's much more likely that the car he heard at one-forty-five was someone else's. I mean, he was probably half-asleep, and anyway he could not recognise the engine-note as positively as that.”

“You will agree, then, that it is highly improbable that anyone should have taken your car out of the garage on Saturday night?”

“Well, I - it looks like it, certainly, but I don't know that no one did. I mean… Look here, I don't in the least see why you should bother so much about my car when I've told you -”

“I'm bothering about it, Mr Mesurier, because your car was seen by a Constable on patrol-duty, at a point known as Dimbury Corner, ten miles from Hanborough, on the London Road, at twenty-six minutes to one on Sunday morning,” said Hannasyde.

Again Mesurier moistened his lips, but for a moment or two he did not speak. The ticking of a solid-looking clock on the mantelpiece became Budding audible. Mesurier glanced at it, as though the measured sound got on his nerves, and said: “He must be mistaken, that's all I can say.”

“Is the number of your car AMG240?” asked Hannasyde.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Then I don't think he was mistaken,” said Hannasyde.

“He must have been. He misread the number. Probably ANG, or - or AHG. In any case, I wasn't on the Hanborough Road at that hour.” He put up a hand to his head, and smoothed his sleek black hair. “If that's all the case you've got against me I mean, this Constable's memory against my word, I don't think much of it. Not that I wish to be offensive, you know. You detectives have to try everything, of course, but—”

“Quite so, Mr Mesurier.” The Superintendent's even voice effectually silenced Mesurier. “You are only being asked to account for your movements on Saturday night. If you were in your lodgings all evening you can no doubt produce a witness to corroborate the truth of that statement?”

“No, I don't think I can,” Mesurier said with an uneasy smile. “My landlady and her husband always go out on Saturday evening, so they wouldn't know whether I was in or out.” He became aware of a piece of cotton on his sleeve, and picked it off, and began to fidget with it.

“That is unfortunate,” said Hannasyde, and once more consulted his notes. He said abruptly: “You had an interview with Arnold Vereker at ten-thirty on Saturday morning. Is that correct?”

“Well, I wouldn't swear to the exact time, but I did see him on Saturday.”

“Was the interview an unpleasant one, Mr Mesurier?”