Sgt Beef - Case Without A Corpse Part 13

Yes.

What time? snapped Stute.

Well, said the publican sarcastically, not knowing that he had just done someone in, or was just going to do someone in, I never made a special note of the time. But I can tell you it wasn't many minutes after I'd opened at six o'clock.

Say 6.10? Stute asked.

Round about then.

And? What did he say?

What did he say? He said a double Scotch and a splash, if you want to know.

Nothing else?

Nothing much. He mentioned he'd just seen someone off on the six o'clock train.

Oh, he mentioned that. Did he say who it was?

No.

Did he look normal?

Normal?

Did he look himself, I mean? Anything unusual about him?

He was quiet. Very quiet.

Nothing else?

No.

Do you know if he came on his motor-bike?

Yes. I heard him start it up afterwards.

Where did he leave it?

Well, I haven't got a proper parking place. And rather than leave it in the road, I suppose, he put it down the alley beside the house.

Where does that lead to?

Down to the river.

I see. What was he wearing?

He had on all his motor-biking kit. Black oilskin stuff and a cap over his ears.

Thanks Mr. Sawyer. Come along, Sergeant. We haven't time to waste.

And with a curt nod to the publican Detective Stute made for the door at his businesslike pace. I could just hear some mumbled swearing from Mr. Sawyer, or Beef, or both, behind me.

Out in the open air, Stute was already examining the alky. It was narrow, and its ground was of darkish muddy cinders. One side of it was formed by the public house, the other by an empty warehouse, which rose to a considerable height of blank wall. We picked our way among the puddles to the water's edge.

Stute was looking up at the wall of the Dragon, in which there was only one window, and that on the first floor. But when he turned his attention to the warehouse, he gave a sudden sound which came as near to excitement as Stute would allow himself to go. For along the front of the warehouse, above the river itself, was a long wooden platform, built out over the water, to enable boats to be unloaded. And down to the alley from this were some rough steps.

We were soon on the platform, and Stute was going over the floor of it like a fox-hound. He looked down into the water, he looked along under the walls, he tried the two doors of the warehouse, so absorbed that he seemed to have forgotten Beef and me who stood rather sheepishly by.

It's a possibility, he said at last. Beef!

Yessir?

Tell your men to search every inch of this building, will you?

Yessir.

Very well. Now we'll make for Chopley.

CHAPTER X.

BETWEEN Braxham and Chopley was a heath. You may call it a common, if you like, in fact you would be correct in doing so. But viewed on that February afternoon from the police car, it seemed so barren and forbidding that I was reminded of Macbeth and his three witches. It Was, after all, the possible, the very possible, scene of a murder. Under one of the scrubby gorse-bushes which we could see might even now be lying the body of young Rogers's victim.

It was not an enjoyable ride. Stute and Beef remained for the most part silent, and I watched the bleak miles go by, wondering why I spent my time in this odd way, and wis.h.i.+ng, I'm afraid, that I was back in my comfortable London flat.

The distance was about ten miles, but we pa.s.sed through no intermediate village. There were a few houses built near the road, and a disused windmill away to our right, but for the most part we kept away from humanity.

'E could've done it out 'ere somewheres, observed Beef suddenly.

Undoubtedly, Sergeant. But there are a good many places in which he could have done it. It is our job to be definite. Now very soon we shall be able to follow most of his movements on that day. It seems, in fact, that we have only to visit sufficient licensed premises to complete it. We already know that he was in the Mitre at 2.15 and the Dragon at 6.10. I hope to-night we can draw up a time-table of his day. That will be a step forward. You see? Order. Method. You can't beat it.

The steeple of Chopley Church was before us now, and we all looked ahead. At the entrance to the village a constable stood beside his bicycle, and Stute drew the car up to him. The constable saluted.

I was expecting you, sir. Mrs. Walker's who you want. Go right through the village, and bear to the left at the fork. You'll find her cottage about a hundred yards down on the right. Rose Cottage, it's called.

Thank you. What's your name?

Smith, sir.

Stute nodded, and drove on. I was afraid it might be Kipling or Stevenson, he said aside to Beef.

'Ow did 'e know wot we was after? Beef asked.

There is such a thing as a telephone. And while you were taking your hour and five minutes for lunch, Sergeant, I made use of it. It has saved us time, you see, and time's everything. Here we are.

We had stopped at the gate of a small square cottage standing back from the road. There was a sign-board hanging in front of us on which the words Teas. Refreshments. Accommodation for Cyclists, appeared, while on the gate was the name Rose Cottage.

I was growing a little tired of these interviews with publicans and landladies, carried out in the hope of completing what Stute called a time-table of young Rogers's movements. I had not the same pa.s.sion for time-tables, lists, method and order, as Stute had. And when I saw Mrs. Walker, the woman we were about to question, I felt even less anxious for another of these contacts.