Maurice Procter - Murder Somewhere in This City

“… I expect you’ve been wondering what the green stuff is. It’s a dye. You got it from the stolen money, and from nowhere else. It’s on your fingers, and Lolly Jakes’s, and Don Starling’s, and it’s on the fingers of that poor murdered girl. Green evidence. I’m hoping we shall find some of it on Gordon’s hands when he washes the dirt off, but he hasn’t handled as much of the money as you have. He’s only had his ten-pound allowance.”

“You’ve got nothing against the kid. Nothing.”

“He seems to think we have. He’s in a blue funk. And it all fits so nicely. There were four men in the Buick. You want four men, we’ve got ’em. Starling, Jakes, you and your brother.”

“Nothing of the kind. I’m admitting nothing, but I can tell you this: you’ll make a fool of yourself over our Gordon. He’s innocent. Absolutely innocent.”

“Then who was the fourth man?”

“How-how do I know?”

“You mean, how can you tell me without implicitly admitting that you were there? We know you were there, man. And if there was another man instead of your brother, I want to be knowing, before he hears of these arrests and clears off.”

“You’ll get nothing from me,” said Laurie.

Martineau rose from his chair and paced about. He made an almost imperceptible signal to the clerk at the little desk, then he turned to Lovett.

“Listen,” he stormed, throwing down his cigarette, “I want four men and I’m going to have ’em. If I don’t get a fourth man, I’ll have Gordon. And don’t think I won’t get him. It’s my guess that all he did was to pick you up near the Moorcock and bring you back to town, after you’d driven your taxi out there and left it. But it’s a guess I can easily forget. Gordon has guilty knowledge, he’s in possession of some of the stolen money, and he’s your brother. And you’re in it up to the neck. He’ll do for me.”

For the first time, Laurie’s face showed a faint trace of humor. “You can’t kid me, Inspector,” he said. “I’ve heard of you. If that’s all you think my brother did, you’ll not blacken the evidence against him. You’re just trying to make me think you will.”

Martineau stopped pacing. He glared. “Now who’s softening who?” he wanted to know. He put a cigarette in his mouth and threw one to the prisoner, and sat down again. For a while he did not speak.

Then he said quietly: “I’m offering no inducements. But with good counsel Gordon might get off Scot free. It all depends how much grilling he gets while he’s in our midst. All he did was to pick up his brother at the Moorcock. What is the name of the fourth man?”

“Clogger Roach.”

“Thanks. And the finger?”

“Peter Purchas.”

“That’s the lot?”

“Yes.”

“Now, would you like to make a statement?”

“No. You’ve got all you’re going to get from me. And I’m admitting nothing.”

“Fair enough,” said Martineau. “Now you can go and sit down quietly while you try to remember the name of a good lawyer. You’re certainly going to need one.”

Strangely enough, of the five men arrested, the only one to retain some honor among thieves was young Gordon Lovett. Somehow, while he waited in the charge of a silent detective, he gathered enough resolution to face Martineau and remain defiantly unhelpful.

“I’m saying nowt,” he said, “because I know nowt.”

“You haven’t any sort of alibi,” Martineau reminded him. “You won’t tell me what you were doing on Saturday morning.”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t remember.”

“You keep a record of journeys, don’t you?”

“Aye, but I’m a bit behindhand. I haven’t made out Saturday’s sheet yet.”

“Are you going to make it out?”

“I don’t know, now. I’d have had to make something up, anyway, ’cause I’ve forgot what jobs I did.”

“I’ll refresh your memory, Gordon. You went out to the Moorcock and picked up your brother somewhere around there, and brought him to town.”

“No I didn’t. I never went near the Moorcock.”

“Then where did you go?”

“I’ve forgot, but I never went near the Moorcock.” Martineau was not deeply concerned about that denial. Having laid hands on four out of five older men, he could afford to let this boy escape him. But he persisted a little while longer. He had to make a show of interrogating Gordon; a few pages of questions and answers for the eyes of Higher Authority.

“Laurie employs you,” he said. “What wages does he pay you?”

“That’s none o’ your business.”

“He gave you ten pounds yesterday. That was wages; the wages of sin.”

“No it wasn’t. Laurie didn’t give me that money. I had ten pounds yesterday, what I’d saved up.”

Martineau reflected that Gordon was fortunate. The money from his wallet had been examined, and the numbers of the notes did not correspond with any of the numbers received from the Hallam police. He had not received even one dusted note, and his hands were not stained.

“You say you’d saved ten pounds, but this morning you had less than eight. That’s not saving, is it? Did you spend two pounds on a Sunday night?”

“No, I spent a pound. I–I lent a pound to a girl.”

“Who was the girl?”

“I’m not saying. She has a husband. He wouldn’t like it.”

“I guess he wouldn’t,” said Martineau. “I suppose she repaid you, not in money but in kindness. You’re young to be starting on that game, Gordon.”

Gordon had the grace to look ashamed. He avoided the inspector’s glance.

He wouldn’t stand comparison with a sound, honest lad, Martineau thought, but he wasn’t really a bad kid. But, good or bad, there was no evidence against him. And if he remained consistent in his denials, there would be none. The police had failed to find a witness who had seen either him or Laurie traveling between Granchester and the Moorcock on Saturday morning. The statement of Purchas was only hearsay in its references to Gordon’s activities.

So Laurie’s betrayal had been in vain. He had sacrificed his only principle-and two accomplices-to save a brother who did not need saving. There was something about that: not poetic justice perhaps, not any sort of justice, but something. Irony.

Martineau had made a tacit bargain not to push Gordon too hard, and he had no case against him. So he sent him home. Gordon was only small fry, anyway. Martineau had bigger fish on his hooks.

He went to have a look at Clogger Roach, who had been arrested at a railway station as he bought a single ticket to Liverpool. He was being given the waiting treatment. He sat in a small room under the eye of a bored detective who would not make conversation with him. Martineau looked him up and down, and liked him no more than he had liked Laurie Lovett. The bitter, discontented face was of a type he knew well. This man was a demander of rights; a fanatic in a purely selfish cause; always passionately aware of what he considered to be his due. He was badly frightened now, but when he saw Martineau his dominant characteristic asserted itself.

“You can’t keep me here without telling me summat,” he shouted. “I have a right to know what I’m charged with.”

Martineau went away without speaking to him. The waiting treatment would do for Roach.

Peter Purchas was an entirely different subject. He was a despicable coward, ready to tell all; to say or do anything in the hope of lenient treatment. He had already made a statement, and signed it.

“Will I be charged with murder?” he wanted to know, with all his fear in his eyes.

“Accessory to murder,” said Martineau shortly.