17
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Sloan would have given a great deal not to have been interrupted at that precise moment.
The very last thing he wanted to do at this minute was to talk to his colleague Inspector Harpe of Berebury’s Traffic Division.
Inspector Harpe, who was known throughout the Calleshire Constabulary as Happy Harry because he had never been seen to smile—he maintained that there had so far never been in anything to smile at in Traffic Division—had actually telephoned him at Ornum House and was asking for him urgently.
One of Sloan’s own constables brought him the message. One of the first acts of the police posse from Berebury had been to take over the telephone. Another had been to encircle the House. Lady Alice Cremond would have had a phrase for that.
Stoppin’ the earths.
That was what he was trying to do now. Now he had got onto the right scent at last.
Inspector Harpe soon drove all huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ analogies out of his mind.
“That you, Sloan?” he asked guardedly. “About this other business—you know…”
“I know.”
“There was an accident just before dinnertime today at the foot of Lockett Hill—near the bottom by the bend—you know…”
“It’s a bad corner.”
“You’re telling me. We’ve been trying to get the County Council to put a better camber on it for years, but you know what they’re like.”
“I do.”
“They say it’s the Ministry, but then they always do.”
“And the Ministry say it’s the County,” condoled Sloan.
“That’s right—how did you know? And everyone blames the police. It was a fatal, by the way.”
So someone had died while “they” were fighting about improving the road.
“And what happened?” Sloan prompted him. Happy Harry wasn’t the only one with a fatal on his hands today.
“We had this call and my nearest car was practically at Cullingoak—it couldn’t have been farther away, Sloan, if it had tried.”
“That’s how it goes,” agreed Sloan. He hadn’t time to be standing here commiserating with his colleagues. “So…”
“By the time it got from Cullingoak to Lockett Hill…”
With blue tower light flashing, two-tone horn blaring, and every child on the route shouting encouragement.
“By the time it arrived,” said Harpe, “the garage—
“I know.”
“They were there.”
“Damn.”
“Sloan, I trust those boys. They’re good lads for all that I shout at them.”
“Quite, but that doesn’t help, does it?” It might hinder, but Sloan didn’t say so.
“They must find out some other way,” insisted Harpe.
“How?” said Sloan automatically. In a case like this it was not enough just to prove—or have events prove for you—that someone was guiltless. Oh, it might be all right in a court of law… what was it called in England? The accusatorial system: Has this person been proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt to have committed whatever it was you were accusing him of?
Or her?
But as far as he, Sloan, was concerned, give him the other approach—the Continental one—any day of the week.
The inquisitorial outlook.
Who committed the crime? Just as with Inspector Harpe’s Traffic Division crews, so it was here at Ornum now. Events had proved that William Murton was not likely to have been guilty of the murder of Osborne. Meredith, but those same events had not revealed the true sequence of events.
Yet.
“How,” he repeated. “Someone must have told the garage where to go. Someone must have been telling them each time or they couldn’t have been getting there so quickly.”
“I know,” mourned Harpe. “I’ve done my best. I’ve been reading up all those incidents…”
Incidents was a good word.
Even in his present hurry Sloan could appreciate it. It covered everything from a flying bomb to an allegation of conduct unbecoming to a police officer and a… with an effort he brought his mind back to what Happy Harry was saying.
Before he mixed his metaphors.
“And one thing struck me,” went on Harpe, “as common to them all. Until now.”
“Oh?” Only long training kept Sloan’s ear to the telephone. He wanted so badly to throw it down and bring his mind back to Ornum.
“Each time the breakdown van got on to one of those accident jobs so mysteriously…”
“Yes?”
“It was out of working hours. Take last night, for instance, at Tappett’s Corner…”
“But not today surely,” said Sloan. “Today’s Monday. Isn’t it?”
He wouldn’t have been unbearably surprised to learn that they had run over into Tuesday—Sunday seemed so long ago.
“That’s right. Today spoils it.”
“It’ll have to wait,” said Sloan pointedly. He would ring off in a minute and pretend afterwards that he’d lost the connection.
“I’ll have to tell the Old Man,” said Harpe unhappily.
“I’m afraid so.”
“You don’t think it’ll stop him screaming for help over your business?”
“He’s probably doing it already,” said Sloan.
Charles Purvis took him along to the Long Gallery as soon as he put the telephone down.
“I’d clean forgotten about them,” admitted the Steward. “I never gave them another thought.”
“Who are they?”
“They call themselves the Young Masters Art Society and they’re doing a European picture tour taking in as many…”
“Old Masters?”
“That’s right. As many Old Masters as they can. They’ve already done one trip doing the public collections, galleries, and so forth.”
“It’s not the same,” said Sloan promptly. If he had learnt anything from his twenty-four hours in Ornum House it was that.
“No,” agreed Charles Purvis. “That’s what they say.”
They went back up the stairs, Constable Crosby two paces behind them.
“I was just taking them round the Long Gallery,” went on Purvis, “telling them what little I did know about the pictures—it’s not very much actually because that’s not my line. I’d told them about Mr. Meredith, though, and explained that they’d have to make do with me when we got round to the Holbein.”
“Halfway down on the right-hand wall in a bad light?”
