It was an hour and a half later and Detective Inspector1 Hardcastle sat down behind his desk andaccepted with relief an official cup of tea. His face still held its bleak2, angry look.
“Excuse me, sir, Pierce would like a word with you.”
Hardcastle roused himself.
“Pierce? Oh, all right. Send him in.”
Pierce entered, a nervous-looking young constable3.
“Excuse me, sir, I thought per’aps as I ought to tell you.”
“Yes? Tell me what?”
“It was after the inquest, sir. I was on duty at the door. This girl—this girl that’s been killed.
She—she spoke4 to me.”
“Spoke to you, did she? What did she say?”
“She wanted to have a word with you, sir.”
Hardcastle sat up, suddenly alert.
“She wanted to have a word with me? Did she say why?”
“Not exactly, sir. I’m sorry, sir, if I—if I ought to have done something about it. I asked her ifshe could give me a message or—or if perhaps she could come to the station later on. You see,you were busy with the chief constable and the coroner and I thought—”
“Damn!” said Hardcastle, under his breath. “Couldn’t you have told her just to wait until I wasfree?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The young man flushed. “I suppose if I’d known, I ought to have done so. But Ididn’t think it was anything important. I don’t think she thought it was important. It was justsomething she said she was worried about.”
“Worried?” said Hardcastle. He was silent for quite a minute turning over in his mind certainfacts. This was the girl he had passed in the street when he was going to Mrs. Lawton’s house, thegirl who had wanted to see Sheila Webb. The girl who had recognized him as she passed him andhad hesitated a moment as though uncertain whether to stop him or not. She’d had something onher mind. Yes, that was it. Something on her mind. He’d slipped up. He’d not been quick enoughon the ball. Filled with his own purpose of finding out a little more about Sheila Webb’sbackground, he had overlooked a valuable point. The girl had been worried? Why? Now,probably, they’d never know why.
“Go on, Pierce,” he said, “tell me all you can remember.” He added kindly5, for he was a fairman: “You couldn’t know that it was important.”
It wasn’t, he knew, any good to pass on his own anger and frustration6 by blaming it on the boy.
How should the boy have known? Part of his training was to uphold discipline, to make sure thathis superiors were only accosted7 at the proper times and in the proper places. If the girl had said itwas important or urgent, that would have been different. But she hadn’t been, he thought,remembering his first view of her in the office, that kind of girl. A slow thinker. A girl probablydistrustful of her own mental processes.
“Can you remember exactly what happened, and what she said to you, Pierce?” he asked.
Pierce was looking at him with a kind of eager gratitude8.
“Well, sir, she just come up to me when everyone was leaving and she sort of hesitated amoment and looked round just as though she were looking for someone. Not you, sir, I don’tthink. Somebody else. Then she come up to me and said could she speak to the police officer, andshe said the one that had given evidence. So, as I said, I saw you were busy with the chiefconstable so I explained to her that you were engaged just now, could she give me a message orcontact you later at the station. And I think she said that would do quite well. I said was it anythingparticular….”
“Yes?” Hardcastle leaned forward.
“And she said well not really. It was just something, she said, that she didn’t see how it couldhave been the way she’d said it was.”
“She didn’t see how what she said could have been like that?” Hardcastle repeated.
“That’s right, sir. I’m not sure of the exact words. Perhaps it was: ‘I don’t see how what she saidcan have been true.’ She was frowning and looking puzzled-like. But when I asked her, she said itwasn’t really important.”
Not really important, the girl had said. The same girl who had been found not long afterwardsstrangled in a telephone box….
“Was anybody near you at the time she was talking to you?” he asked.
“Well, there were a good many people, sir, filing out, you know. There’d been a lot of peopleattending the inquest. It’s caused quite a stir, this murder has, what with the way the Press havetaken it up and all.”
“You don’t remember anyone in particular who was near you at the time—any of the peoplewho’d given evidence, for instance?”
“I’m afraid I don’t recall anyone in particular, sir.”
“Well,” said Hardcastle, “it can’t be helped. All right, Pierce, if you remember anything further,come to me at once with it.”
Left alone he made an effort to subdue9 his rising anger and self-condemnation. That girl, thatrabbity-looking girl, had known something. No, perhaps not put it as high as known, but she hadseen something, heard something. Something that had worried her; and the worry had beenintensified after attending the inquest. What could it have been? Something in the evidence?
Something, in all probability, in Sheila Webb’s evidence? Had she gone to Sheila’s aunt’s housetwo days before on purpose to see Sheila? Surely she could have talked to Sheila at the office?
Why did she want to see her privately10? Did she know something about Sheila Webb thatperplexed her? Did she want to ask Sheila for an explanation of whatever it was, somewhere inprivate—not in front of the other girls? It looked that way. It certainly looked like it.
He dismissed Pierce. Then he gave a few directions to Sergeant11 Cray.
“What do you think the girl went to Wilbraham Crescent for?” Sergeant Cray asked.
“I’ve been wondering about that,” said Hardcastle. “It’s possible, of course, that she justsuffered from curiosity—wanted to see what the place looked like. There’s nothing unusual aboutthat—half the population of Crowdean seems to feel the same.”
“Don’t we know it,” said Sergeant Cray with feeling.
“On the other hand,” said Hardcastle slowly, “she may have gone to see someone who livedthere….”
When Sergeant Cray had gone out again, Hardcastle wrote down three numbers on his blottingpad.
“20,” he wrote, and put a query12 after it. He added: “19?” and then “18?” He wrote names tocorrespond. Hemming13, Pebmarsh, Waterhouse. The three houses in the higher crescent were out ofit. To visit one of them Edna Brent would not have gone along the lower road at all.
Hardcastle studied the three possibilities.
He took No. 20 first. The knife used in the original murder had been found there. It seemedmore likely that the knife had been thrown there from the garden of No. 19 but they didn’t knowthat it had. It could have been thrust into the shrubbery by the owner of No. 20 herself. Whenquestioned, Mrs. Hemming’s only reaction had been indignation. “How wicked of someone tothrow a nasty knife like that at my cats!” she had said. How did Mrs. Hemming connect up withEdna Brent? She didn’t, Inspector Hardcastle decided14. He went on to consider Miss Pebmarsh.
Had Edna Brent gone to Wilbraham Crescent to call on Miss Pebmarsh? Miss Pebmarsh hadgiven evidence at the inquest. Had there been something in that evidence which had arouseddisbelief in Edna? But she had been worried before the inquest. Had she already known somethingabout Miss Pebmarsh? Had she known, for instance, that there was a link of some kind betweenMiss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb? That would fit in with her words to Pierce. “It couldn’t havebeen true what she said.”
“Conjecture15, all conjecture,” he thought angrily.
And No. 18? Miss Waterhouse had found the body. Inspector Hardcastle was professionallyprejudiced against people who found bodies. Finding the body avoided so many difficulties for amurderer—it saved the hazards of arranging an alibi16, it accounted for any overlooked fingerprints17.
In many ways it was a cast-iron position—with one proviso only. There must be no obviousmotive. There was certainly no apparent motive18 for Miss Waterhouse to do away with little EdnaBrent. Miss Waterhouse had not given evidence at the inquest. She might have been there, though.
Did Edna perhaps have some reason for knowing, or believing, that it was Miss Waterhouse whohad impersonated Miss Pebmarsh over the telephone and asked for a shorthand typist to be sent toNo. 19?
More conjecture.
And there was, of course, Sheila Webb herself….
Hardcastle’s hand went to the telephone. He got on to the hotel where Colin Lamb was staying.
Presently he got Colin himself on the wire.
“Hardcastle here—what time was it when you lunched with Sheila Webb today?”
There was a pause before Colin answered:
“How do you know that we lunched together?”
“A damned good guess. You did, didn’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I have lunch with her?”
“No reason at all. I’m merely asking you the time. Did you go off to lunch straight from theinquest?”
“No. She had shopping to do. We met at the Chinese place in Market Street at one o’clock.”
“I see.”
Hardcastle looked down his notes. Edna Brent had died between 12:30 and one o’clock.
“Don’t you want to know what we had for lunch?”
“Keep your hair on. I just wanted the exact time. For the record.”
“I see. It’s like that.”
There was a pause. Hardcastle said, endeavouring to ease the strain:
“If you’re not doing anything this evening—”
The other interrupted.
“I’m off. Just packing up. I found a message waiting for me. I’ve got to go abroad.”
“When will you be back?”
“That’s anybody’s guess. A week at least—perhaps longer—possibly never!”
“Bad luck—or isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Colin, and rang off.
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1
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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2
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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3
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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5
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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6
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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7
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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8
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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9
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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10
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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11
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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12
query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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13
hemming
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| 卷边 | |
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14
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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15
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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16
alibi
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| n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口 | |
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17
fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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