Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

Lewis glanced again at his notes. “Time of depression. Yes, I see. It fits. And you’re all reasonably satisfied that only Maurice Reid and Joseph Ferguson could have seen this opera – that they are the only two of these four men who could have discussed it?”

“Yes, we’re satisfied,” Wade said.

“Then I think there’s no doubt that Ferguson was on that plane,” Lewis said regretfully, feeling, perhaps, that of the four men concerned, Joe, the most reputable, should, by some moral law, have been the man to escape.

“So it’s Harry or Morgan,” Prudence said in a taut voice. She put her hand in her pocket again and clutched the brooch tightly. She wanted to fling it on the table and run out of the room. Explanations were rising as far as her throat and sinking again. It was a time for nonchalance; she was sure she would blush. She had an important piece of evidence; they would all be grateful. She couldn’t endure the thought of being attacked as her father and Marryatt had been attacked. It was important that the brooch should be produced and the discussion finished before Marryatt came back. The door opened, and Marryatt was back already.

“Is everything finished?” he asked. “Was it Harry? Was it Morgan?”

“I’m about to explain,” Lewis said, sighing.

Marryatt looked at Hester. “Let’s get it over quickly,” he suggested.

“I was waiting for you, Mr Marryatt. I wanted to ask you – when you met Harry Walters on Friday, he told you he was having lunch under a haystack. He wasn’t more explicit? He didn’t tell you where he was going to eat his lunch.”

“No.”

“We’ve interviewed the woman in the village shop,” Lewis said, blinking at Hester. “She says he bought coffee, processed Stilton cheese, wrapped in silver paper, packed in a round cardboard box, with a yellow label; a pound of tomatoes; and some cream cracker biscuits in a blue paper carton. All on your account, Miss Wade. She remembers it clearly because afterwards she thought he should have said on Mr Wade’s account. She also thought he should have paid cash.”

“Oh, you keep nibbling away at Harry’s reputation,” Hester said wildly. “You don’t have to do it. Everything’s admitted. Harry wasn’t reliable. I know all about Harry.”

“But do you, Miss Wade? And I’m not here to attack his character. What I was wondering, was he a tidy kind of man?”

“He wasn’t,” Hester said shortly.

“Then he might have left that cardboard box and the blue paper carton lying around where he ate his lunch. It might just follow – I’m not saying necessarily it would – that we could find if there’s some place, not in this house, that he had reason to be interested in.”

“I think—” Prudence began.

“One minute, please, until I’ve finished what I have to say. I have some notes here, taken from a statement made by a man called Murray, the editor of a poetry magazine. He was a friend of Harry Walters’ and his statement may add to your knowledge of that young man. What he has to say is that Harry cultivated the society of criminals. He wanted to be – where is it? What was it, Sergeant Young?”

“Frangois Villon, sir.”

Lewis looked over the papers at Hester.

“You know about this Frangois Vllon?”

“I know who he was.”

Lewis looked relieved. “Then I needn’t explain. You understand that your friend Harry had some idea of becoming one of these criminals. It seems he actually arranged to take part in a train mailbag robbery, but he missed the train. You know about this?”

Hester shook her head.

“Incidentally, the attempt failed, and the gang was caught, but not because he informed on them. We’ve checked on this. Murray came to us because he was afraid the gang had held Harry responsible and might have – retaliated. But we needn’t go into that, although it’s possible the men concerned may still wrongly suppose that Harry was responsible for their failure.”

“And why are you telling us this, if we needn’t go into it?” Hester demanded.

“I’m trying to fit your Jackie into the picture. I’ve already arranged to have his description sent out – we won’t have much trouble in finding him. But, Miss Wade, Mr Wade, you should have known this isn’t the kind of place, nor yet the kind of house, that attracts men like this Jackie. There’s a chance, you know, he came here for a purpose.”

“You wouldn’t like to cut a straight line through all those circumlocutions?” Marryatt asked. “If you know which went on that plane, Morgan or Harry, why not tell us now?”

Lewis held up a warning hand. “There’s a possibility that Jackie chose this house and place by accident. There’s another that he came here deliberately, or was sent by others, to find out what he could about Harry, or Morgan. Wait. When the thoroughly confused statement made by this editor, Murray, is laid alongside Miss Wade’s evidence, a most significant point emerges. Murray explains that Harry was shown a photograph of the man who got away with the Sackford diamonds. You know about that? It was one of the biggest robberies of this generation. It was a classic affair. All the jewels were out of the bank for the Sackford girl’s coming-out dance. The dance of the year, the papers said it was going to be. The Duchess and her three daughters were going to shine like Blackpool on Bank Holiday night. In the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight, when the family was playing croquet on the lawn or whatever families like that do in the afternoon, someone walked into the house, coshed a detective at one end of a corridor; gagged a housemaid, tapped a footman on the head, lifted the jewel boxes, and walked away. He had five minutes to do it in, while detective number two was downstairs getting himself a cup of tea, so we’re certain that the someone was at least three men. And that was the end of the Sackford diamonds. The insurance company was offering ten thousand, but the diamonds didn’t turn up through the usual fences. The first fact we’ve had on it is Murray’s statement. One man got away with the diamonds and left his two friends out in the cold. These two have been looking for him ever since. They show everyone his photograph, and they showed Harry. Shall I tell you when that robbery took place? In June, two years ago. Two years and two months ago.” He looked at Hester. “Does that make anything in your mind stir?”

“How could it? What could we have to do with a diamond robbery? You don’t mean that Harry had anything to do with it?” she asked in a terrified whisper, as though she was speaking across a death-bed.

“No, he doesn’t. And we’ve had enough of this,” Marryatt said loudly. “Why don’t you come right out and say what you mean? If Harry had anything to do with it, it was only because he’d seen the photograph. Two years and two months. Hester, don’t you remember what you told us about Morgan? He said he’d been alone for two years and two months.”

“Morgan! Do you mean that Morgan stole these jewels?”

“I told you,” Marryatt said to Prudence. “I told you that he was hiding something and Harry was after it. And don’t get this wrong again,” he said angrily to Hester. “Harry had seen the photograph. He came down here with the Fergusons, met your lot, recognised Morgan. It’s a million to one he was only after the insurance. He wanted to marry you and he’d no money, and no other chance of getting any.”

“He should have come to us,” Inspector Lewis said bitterly. “All he had to do was to come to the police. If he’d told us he knew the man who had the Sackford diamonds, we’d have had them within twenty-four hours, and he’d have had his reward as well. But he had to go plunging round with his idiotic stratagems, playing his infantile games with death watch beetles and guns, until he had this Morgan Price in such an alcoholic panic that he took the terrible risk of arranging to leave the country, which is what he’d have done long ago if he hadn’t been afraid of being spotted at the ports. When Morgan heard that a plane was leaving from an obscure airfield for Ireland, he was driven by fear of Harry to take the chance. Remember, there are no passports needed for Ireland.”