Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death

Herriott was encouraged by Cribb’s silent attention.

‘When I refused to pay him, he began to threaten me. Perhaps you got him to admit this?’

He looked hopefully at Cribb, but there was no response. After mopping his forehead with a handkerchief, Herriott continued.

‘He tried to make me believe that you had to make an arrest for the murders, and you’d grab the first man you could. He talked about the bad reputation of the old Detec-tive Branch, and the corruption that came to light in the Home Office inquiry. Of course, I dismissed such specious rubbish. I’ve always found the police entirely honourable.’

He flashed an ingratiating smile at the detectives.

‘And then,’ he went on, ‘Jacobson made me understand what he was threatening. He knew I’d been out on the evening before Darrell died. He said he would fabricate a story that I had been dining with Mrs Darrell. He demanded money from me, made me open the safe. So I was forced to pay him. I don’t need to tell you what happened after that, do I?’

He groped for the gin bottle and refilled his glass.

At last Cribb broke his silence.

‘You say you respect the police. Why pay up?’

‘Lost my head,’ admitted Herriott. ‘Panicked.’

‘You know Mrs Darrell socially. What’s so incriminating about a dinner out with her? I’ve heard her talk of you as an old friend.’

‘People misconstrue things, Sergeant.’

‘Then it’s up to you to speak the truth, ain’t it?’ snapped Cribb, animated at last. ‘Look, I know that you were with Cora Darrell that evening. You told me you dined alone at the London Sporting Club. I checked there this morning, and they hadn’t seen you for a fortnight. Then I got the truth from Cora Darrell. You’re full of lies, aren’t you? You told us Jacobson had robbed you, when you’d just paid him off to silence him. You had your reasons for keeping quiet about that dinner date with Cora, didn’t you?’

Herriott had disintegrated as rapidly as his story. He was deathly pale, and trembling.

Cribb pounced.

‘What made you sign the poison register in an assumed name?’

For a moment the question stunned Herriott. Cribb pro-duced a sheaf of papers from his inner pocket and tossed them on to the desk.

‘These are all reports on sales of strychnine-’

Herriott snatched one up.

‘No! By God! You can’t have found…’ He checked him-self. ‘Which poison register? What do you mean?’

Cribb was completely in control.

‘If you want me to produce the dispenser who served you…’

Even Thackeray’s eyebrows jumped at this. For Herriott it meant capitulation. He sunk his face into his hands.

‘It’s all over!’ he mumbled. ‘All over. Why couldn’t you have stayed out of this? It’s only because of you Monk had to go. If you had kept your nose out of it I’d never have had to finish him. He’s on my conscience, and he should be on yours, too. Bloody Darrell got what he deserved. Monk was different.’

Thackeray was writing furiously in his notebook.

‘Never mind Monk,’ snapped Cribb. ‘Why did you poi-son Darrell? You did that for Cora, didn’t you?’

Herriott acknowledged this with a slight gesture of his hand, and then covered his eyes again.

Cribb continued.

‘You met her in the weeks before the race, while you were watching Darrell’s breathings at Hackney. And when she flashed her pretty eyes your way, you saw an invitation in them, didn’t you? But being the man you are, you held back. You’re no philanderer, Mr Herriott, whatever else you might be.’

Herriott’s bowed head registered nothing.

‘I dare say she told you her story during those weeks,’ Cribb went on,‘-a snatch here and there as she made some excuse to exchange a few words with you. And you swallowed it all-misunderstood wife, bullying brute of a husband.’

The twitch of Herriott’s shoulders confirmed Cribb’s account.

‘But Cora miscalculated. She got your sympathy. Got dined out on it while her husband was foot-slogging last Monday night. But she didn’t know you were planning on marriage-once her brute of a husband was neatly boxed up and six feet under. She didn’t know you were the scrupulous sort, Mr Herriott-a man that wouldn’t take another man’s wife while that man was still alive. She couldn’t have known you’d already bought the strychnine.’

Herriott looked up.

‘That’s right. She had no part in the plan. She knew noth-ing-’ He laughed grimly. ‘She knew as little of me as I knew of her. It took Jacobson to tell me what sort of crea-ture she really is-too late, of course. It seems she gives her-self to anyone she fancies when her husband is racing.’

‘But you really believed she wanted to marry you?’

Herriott nodded.

‘I was completely taken in. Believe me, last Monday evening was the first time we’d ever dined alone. But I’d already planned to release her from this misery that she described. I wasn’t going to say anything to her, though.’ He sighed. ‘It all went wrong, of course. I doctored Darrell’s tonic that night. I’d sent Jacobson away to get a change of clothes, after he’d ruined his suit in the fire. Monk was out of the Hall. I slipped into Darrell’s tent and tipped the poi-son into the bottle. I thought Darrell wouldn’t touch it until he was exhausted, in the last days of the race. Instead he took it that second morning. He was dead in no time at all.’ Cribb nodded and took up the narrative.

‘We didn’t put it down to tetanus or heart failure, so your plan went wrong. You had to provide us with a culprit. Monk was the obvious choice. But how did you force him to write the note?’

‘There was no force in it, Sergeant. It was pure luck. He was an illiterate, man, you know. When he thought that tetanus was the cause of death he felt responsible. He shouldn’t have let Darrell run barefoot, you see. So he asked me to help him write a note to Cora. Afterwards, I saw that it made a perfect suicide note.’

‘And you fixed him at night, after Jacobson had left him in the hut?’

‘Yes. I could walk about the tents and huts as a matter of routine. But even that went wrong. I shouldn’t have stunned him. You would never have known. But you did find out- and the rest is a nightmare.’

‘Jacobson, you mean?’

‘That bloody idiot! Yes. He unknowingly stumbled on the one thing that could incriminate me-my evening with Cora Darrell. I was ready to pay anything to keep you from investigating that relationship. So I opened the safe, and he took what he wanted.’

‘What made you report it as a theft?’

‘What else could I do? The runners had to be paid tonight. If there was no money they’d have been on me like starving hounds. I gave Jacobson a reasonable time to escape, and then informed you. I couldn’t announce at the last minute that the money had been taken. That’s been tried before, and you know what happens. I don’t believe they’d have left one brick of this Hall standing, and God knows what they’d have done to me. I hoped that if the word got round in time, the story of theft might be believed. Jacobson might have got clean away, and I could have paid off the debts later. As you know, it didn’t happen like that.’ Herriott slumped, exhausted, over the desk.

‘Come on Thackeray,’ said Cribb. ‘We’ll get him down to the local station. He needs a rest-even if it is in a cell. What’s the time? Before midnight is it? Just made it in the six days.’

‘I’d like to know how you got Jacobson to talk,’ said Thackeray. He and Cribb were being transported out of Islington by hansom.

‘Jacobson? Never said a word.’

Thackeray was incredulous.

‘Well if he didn’t, whatever led you to Herriott, Sarge?’