Cyril Hare - Untimely Death aka He Should Have Died Hereafter

“Mr. Parkinson has asked me to have supper with him and some friends at the Yard,” said Mallett. He seemed unenthusiastic at the prospect. “I’ve left my bag at a hotel near Paddington.”

Husband and wife exchanged quick glances.

“Why don’t you change your mind and come home with us?” asked Pettigrew.

Mallett’s face lit up. He turned to Eleanor.

“May I, ma’am?” he asked.

“I wish you would.”

“I ought to warn you-if I do, Mr. Pettigrew and I will be talking about this case half the night.”

“You can talk as much as you like, Mr. Mallett, so long as you arrive at some conclusion, if it’s only that there’s nothing to be done. I want a little peace and quiet, and I know I shan’t have any until this ghost is laid once and for all!”

How?” said Pettigrew. “How and By Whom?”

They were sitting in Pettigrew’s tiny study at Yewbury, Mallett smoking his pipe, Pettigrew pulling at one of his rare cigars. A decanter, a siphon and two glasses were at hand.

“As to How, sir,” said Mallett. “Well, you know what the doctor said at the inquest.”

“And I heard what Inspector Parkinson said about the doctor.”

“I think the Inspector is a trifle prejudiced about him, sir. Ever since I persuaded him that the medical evidence about the time of the death might be wrong- and what a job I had to get him to consider it!-he won’t hear any good of him. And yet all the doctor said was that the injuries were consistent with being knocked down by a car, and so they were.”

“It wasn’t Joliffe’s car, though.”

“No doubt about that, sir. It’s quite impossible to kill a man with a car without leaving some pretty obvious marks on it, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you’ll smash a headlight as well. There are no such marks on Joliffe’s car, and no signs of any recent repairs or painting. What bothers me is that Parkinson’s men haven’t found any fragments of glass or traces of paint where the body was found by Joliffe, which I should expect if he had been run down by a car.” Mallett sipped his whisky and added reflectively, “Unless, of course, he was knocked down somewhere else, and moved afterwards to Satcherley Copse.”

“No,” said Pettigrew decisively. “No. I absolutely decline to consider any more removals. This corpse is peripatetic enough as it is. You must think of something else.”

Mallett shook his head.

“I’ve only the medical reports and the photographs to go upon,” he said. “It’s quite clear to my mind that Jack Gorman was run over by a car-there are injuries on the legs and lower parts of the body that couldn’t well have been caused in any other way. But those weren’t the injuries that killed him. It’s my belief that Joliffe ran over the body as it lay on the road. He would have been coming round a bend there and could have done it quite easily by accident, though he won’t admit to any such thing.”

“And the injuries that killed him?” Pettigrew asked.

“A tremendous blow just over the heart. I’m not sure that it wasn’t two blows, but the area of damage was so extensive that it’s difficult to be certain. I’ve tried experiments, and there are several types of car and lorry that could catch a man at just that height with various parts of the wing or bonnet. But it is unusual to find the injury so concentrated as it was in this case.”

“So something else than a car could have done it?”

“Yes. A man with a sledge-hammer could have done it. Or better still, two men, each with a sledge-hammer. It would be rather a job to hit anyone in that particular part of the body if he was standing up, though. Easier if he was lying down.”

Mallett spoke in the tone of one discussing improbabilities so wild as to be virtually impossible, but his last phrase evoked a sudden disturbing suggestion in Pettigrew’s mind.

“Lying down?” he repeated. “In bed, for instance?”

“Quite so, sir.”

“I was thinking about what Miss Greenway had suggested as to Jack’s going to Highbarn Farm that morning.”

“That had come into my mind also, sir.”

“What kind of woman is Ethel Gorman?”

“I only know her by sight, sir. A very attractive young person.”

“And Tom Gorman?”

“Well, you’ve met him yourself, sir, and can form your own opinion. Quiet, reserved, wouldn’t you say? I should add, rather secretive.” Mallett paused, knocked his pipe out into an ashtray, and went on: “He has the reputation of being a jealous husband, if that’s what’s in your mind.”

“But this is impossible!” Pettigrew protested. “Jack had spent the night at Sallowcombe in bed with his own wife. He can’t have gone straight on to Highbarn and… ”

“It doesn’t seem probable, even for a man with Jack’s reputation, does it, sir? All the same, if I was in charge of this case, I should make a few enquiries at Highbarn. Whether I shall persuade Mr. Parkinson to, is another matter. He is very thorough, but rather slow in accepting suggestions. The trouble I had in getting him to send Jack’s coat to the Forensic Science Laboratory you wouldn't believe.”

“We seem to have moved on from How? to By Whom?” said Pettigrew. “I shouldn’t have said that Tom was a murderous type myself, but then so few murderers are in my experience. What about Dick? After all, he was the man who really stood to profit by Jack’s death-and still does, unless the unborn baby proves to be a boy.”

Mallett shook his head.

“If Dick did it, I’m a Dutchman,” he said. “I told you Tom was secretive, but Dick is just the opposite, with everything on the surface and ready to say the first thing that comes into his head-just as he did at the inquest. He might kill a man in hot blood-as any of us might-but he couldn’t take a calculated risk. He couldn’t have come along to me and asked me to help him prove that Jack died before Gilbert, knowing all the time that I only had to prove a little too much for him to be charged with murder. He just hasn’t got it in him.”

“And so we come back to Mr. Joliffe,” said Pettigrew. “I should be so much happier if he could be cast as the villain of the piece throughout. I’ve taken a thorough dislike to him.”

“But logically that’s impossible, sir. Let me explain-”

“Don’t bother. We’ve been over all the ground already, and I realize that it’s only wishful thinking on my part. I’m hopelessly prejudiced against the man anyway. Don’t forget that he gave me the most unpleasant experience of my life at Bolter’s Tussock last September. That reminds me of something I’d been meaning to ask you for some time. When Joliffe took the body out of his cold store on Tuesday morning, why did he go to the trouble of carting it back to Bolter’s Tussock? There must have been scores of places just as good for his purposes and far more accessible to his shop at Whitsea.”

“That point puzzled me too, sir. But I think there’s no doubt that you were responsible for that.”

“I was? In heaven’s name, why?”

“Well, it so happens that Mr. Percy-you’ll remember Mr. Percy, sir?”

“Percy Percy! I’ll remember him to my dying day, I should think.”

“Mr. Percy has a small farm on the other side of the moor and on the Monday, when his shop was closed, Joliffe went over to see him about some beasts he had to sell. They got talking of this and that, and Mr. Percy happened to mention-”

“That he had met a lunatic on Bolter’s Tussock who claimed to have seen a dead body there. I can hear him saying it.”

“Quite so, sir. Well, that must have put Joliffe in rather a difficulty. He wasn’t to know that you had not been able to have a good look at this body so as to be able to give a clear description of it. He expected you to go off to the police with that description as soon as you could get out of bed.”