Maurice Procter - Murder Somewhere in This City

“Cleaning up. Putting a couple of barrels on. I never went out.”

“Any visitors before opening time?”

“Only the cleaning woman.”

“Were you in the pub for the full opening hours yesterday?”

“Yes. The whole time.”

“Sunday is your long afternoon off, isn’t it? You went out between two o’clock and seven, I suppose?”

Doug hesitated, and Martineau smiled. He saw the pattern clearly. The races, the tossing school. It was at the tossing school that the innkeeper had handled marked money. He could not have taken enough of it over his bar.

Martineau’s pressure was very gentle. “If you went to a gaming school,” he said, “it’s no great concern of mine. I don’t even want to know where the school was. It’d be in the County area, anyway.”

“All right,” said Doug. “I don’t see as there’s any harm in admitting I was at the tossing school. But it’s a good job you don’t want to know where it was, because I wouldn’t tell you.”

“We won’t quarrel about that,” said the inspector, “so long as you tell me the names of the men who were there.”

“I’m not giving you any names at all.”

Martineau did not immediately pursue the issue. “The place you went to was an alternative site to the one near the Moorcock?” he suggested.

“Yes, the Moorcock was off. But why are you asking me, if you know it all?”

“Confirmation, just confirmation. But I’m not interested in gambling, or a bit of illegal booking, or the extraction of loose cash from a mug. I’m talking about the brutal murder of a young girl who never did a bit of harm to anybody. You don’t hold with that, do you?”

“By God I don’t.”

“Well, it’s the murderers I’m after. It was at the tossing school yesterday, or in your own pub, that somebody involved you in this murder. It was done quite unknown to yourself. You don’t owe that person any protection, as I see it.”

“You’re damn right I don’t. If you’re telling the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth. You were a winner at the school, weren’t you? Or a winner for a time, at any rate?”

“Yes. How the devil do you know that?”

“Just a guess. I don’t want to know how much you won. I just want the names of the men who were there.”

“And I’m not telling you.”

“Did you notice anybody who was abnormally flush with money?”

It was an old and very common police question. Doug shook his head. “I didn’t notice anything.”

Martineau was patient. “As I keep telling you, this is a murder job, not a gambling case. And in a murder job, personal considerations are not allowed to obstruct the investigation. If you won’t help me, I shall set about the job in another way. I shall start at the Prodigal Son. Every customer will be questioned.”

“It’s blackmail.”

“It is not. It’s something that’s got to be done.”

“You’ll get me a bad name. You’ll frighten all my trade away.”

“That’s your worry. What’s up with you, man? You know what I’m after. Murderers! Look, if you happen to give me the right names, it’ll do you a bit of good with the Chief. He might be inclined to overlook the next licensing offense, if ever there is one.”

“I’m glad you said the last bit. I run my pub right.”

“I don’t care how you run it. How did you get out to the gaming school?”

“I went in a car, with Les Norrish.”

“Les Norrish from the Black Bull? Right. Who else was in the car?”

“Nobody else.”

“Who did you see at the school?”

Doug began to mention names. Martineau reflected that he would probably withhold a few, but that did not matter. By questioning the men whose names he had given, the police would get all the others.

“That’s about all I can remember,” he said, after some final pondering.

Martineau nodded. “Now give me the names of the people who were in the Prodigal Son on Saturday night and Sunday,” he said.

Doug exploded. “I knew it was a bloody trick!” he bawled.

Martineau stared him down. “It wasn’t a trick at all,” he said. “I shan’t come near your place. But I must have some names to round off the inquiry. If it’s necessary to interview ’em, we won’t do it in your pub, and they won’t know who’s given their names.”

Somewhat reassured, Doug began to give more names. Soon he became interested in the number of people he could remember. He gave over fifty names. “And that’s not to mention the casuals I never saw before,” he concluded with pride.

Martineau went to the head of the gaming school list again. “This Sam Jackson, where does he live?” he asked.

“Out Boyton way, somewhere.”

“What’s his job, if any?”

“I have no idea.”

Martineau nodded, and asked for a general description, not forgetting physical oddities or abnormalities. He went on down the list, underlining the names of men he knew, and men of whom he had heard. They were the ones he would seek out first.

At the end, he had eighteen names underlined. Among them were Laurie Lovett, Lolly Jakes, and Clogger Roach.

Laurie Lovett’s taxi garage was a wooden structure in a cindered yard behind a lemonade brewery. Outside, there was a small petrol pump. Inside, there was room for five or six cars, and a tiny office with a telephone. The doors were wide open, and a car was standing half in, half out of the doorway.

The car was a middle-aged blue Austin with a taximeter in the usual place near the edge of the windscreen. The bonnet was raised, and Laurie Lovett in shirt sleeves was stooping over the engine. When the police car stopped behind him he turned his hard, thin face to see who had arrived. Then he went on with his work.

Martineau and Devery got out of the police car and went over to him. Without speaking, they watched him work for a little while. His hands and his muscular forearms were quite covered with black grease.

Lovett was the first to speak. He stood erect and began to wipe his hands with cotton waste. “What’s up now?” he asked in an unfriendly tone.

“One or two things,” said Martineau. “I’m looking for Don Starling, and I’m also looking for his mates in last Saturday’s little job.”

“I know what you mean. The murder. Why come to me?”

“You’re a taxi man. You get around.”

“Plenty of other taxi drivers too. They get around an’ all.”

“That is so. But your name gets mentioned.”

“Ah. Who mentions it?”

“Who’s likely to?”

“How the hell do I know?” Lovett demanded. He had been busy with his hands, seemingly intent on wiping off the thick oil, but now he looked up, and his eyes met Martineau’s bleak gray glance. The inspector did not like him; did not like the look of him at all. Why had he selected this man to be one of the first on Doug Savage’s list? He remembered now. Lovett had been unable to take Savage’s party to the races at Doncaster. He had had another engagement. With whom?

Before the question could be asked, another taxi came into the yard. It was driven by a young man of twenty or twenty-one. Martineau recognized him as the young driver who had been in the Moorcock Inn at noontime on Sunday.

The young man’s glance shifted quickly from Martineau’s, and he called out: “Owt come in, Laurie?”

“No,” said Laurie. “Off you go down to the rank.”

“Right,” said the youth, but Martineau called sharply: “Just a minute! I want you.”

“Who’re you?” was the truculent demand.

“You know well enough who I am. Come here!”

For a moment it seemed that the youth would disobey, and Devery made a move toward the police Jaguar. That settled the matter. The newcomer got out of his taxi.