‘Yep. About half a mile.’
‘Did you see any tyre-marks?’
‘Two sets, going and coming, and the place at the end where the car turned round. They match the tyres on Lammas’ car.’
The super picked irritably at the report sheet. ‘Put me in the picture,’ he said. ‘I can’t quite get it all. Give me the Lammas set-up to begin with.’
Hansom shifted in his seat and made another abortive pass at his cigar-pocket.
‘All right!’ snapped the super. ‘Smoke, if you bloody well have to!’
Hansom acknowledged the concession gratefully. A certain peaked look left his semi-handsome features as he sucked in the first mouthful of Havana.
‘James William Lammas, fifty-four, belongs to an old Norchester family… trades as a provision wholesaler in the city, Lammas Wholesalers Ltd., Count Street… wife and daughter the minor shareholders… wife about ten years younger… son, Paul, aged twenty, second year at Cambridge… daughter, Pauline, aged twenty-one, works at the business. In 1938 he had a big bungalow built at Wrackstead Broad. Before that he lived in the city. On Friday last he told his wife he was going to London for a week to attend a wholesalers’ conference — there was one on — and briefed his head clerk to carry on the week without him. In fact he had hired the Harrier for a week. He turned up at the yard late on the Saturday evening when most of them had gone home, referred to the woman he’d got with him as his daughter and set off downstream. On the Friday night the Harrier was up Ollby Dyke. At 8.30 p.m. the chauffeur, Joseph Hicks, alleges a call from Lammas and goes off in the car. At 9.30 p.m. Jabez Tooley of “The Cot”, Ollby-’
‘Yes, I know all about that!’ broke in the super tetchily. ‘It’s the family I want to hear about. What were they doing last night?’
Hansom puffed expensively. ‘The daughter’s got an alibi. The other two were just out.’
‘How do you mean — just out?’
‘Mrs Lammas has got her own car. She says she drove to Sea Weston.’
‘Which is in the opposite direction to Ollby. And the son?’
‘He was out on his motorbike.’
‘And anywhere but near Ollby!’
Hansom nodded. ‘Says he went as far as Cheapham.’
The super drummed on the desk with his fingers. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it at all. And I suppose nobody knew about Lammas’ fancy woman?’
‘Not according to what they say.’
‘Just one big surprise.’
‘That’s the way it’s played.’
The super drummed some more and threw dirty looks at Hansom’s cigar.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s take it in easy stages. Let’s pretend everyone is telling the truth. So the chauffeur gets his call from Lammas — where did Lammas make the call?’
‘There’s a phone-box near where the marsh-track joins the road.’
‘Right. We’ll assume he used it. Now, why did Lammas want the car? Answer, to send his tootsie home so that he didn’t have to sail in with her on a crowded Saturday morning.’
‘Meaning his chauffeur knows about his tootsie,’ put in Hansom brightly.
‘Precisely,’ returned the super cuttingly. ‘It’s something that chauffeurs usually do know about, Hansom. Now the chauffeur arrives — picks up the female — while he’s there, let’s say, Lammas asks him something about the yacht’s engine. He gets the cover off to show him — petrol leak — makes a spark somehow — woof — chauffeur jumps clear — Lammas perishes in the flames. It’s plausible, Hansom, completely plausible… up to that point. But now the chauffeur and the female, instead of going for help, decide to disappear. Why? What possible motive?’
‘They might have been in love?’ suggested Hansom.
‘That’s not a reason!’
‘She’s the sort of female a man would want to disappear with.’
‘But why disappear with her just then?’ snorted the super. ‘Surely there were other and better times? No — they must have had a stronger motive than that.’
‘Like having quarrelled with Lammas and bumped him off.’
‘No, man, no! If they’d done that and simply left a corpse, that would have been a reason. But if it was murder, it was made to look like an accident. And the only way it would keep looking like an accident would be for everyone to act naturally, which they haven’t done. So we’re back with the assumption that it was an accident.’
A frown crept over the Hansom brow. ‘If they’d known he’d got money with him; that might have been it.’
‘Money?’ barked the super. ‘What money had he got with him?’
Hansom stirred uneasily. ‘I said it was complicated… he seems to have cashed out on his business.’
The super looked as though he would bite him. ‘Go on,’ he said dangerously. ‘Take your time. Tell me when you feel like it. I’m only the Joe around here.’
‘Well… his head clerk came across with it. Lammas had left him a cheque to draw the wages. He presented it yesterday morning and the bank told him the account was closed. And that isn’t the whole story either. He’d been reducing stock during the last few months till it was practically at zero, also the lease falls through at the end of the month, also he’d closed his personal account at the bank. I made the bank give and we reckoned he had collected between seven and eight thousand pounds in small denomination notes, besides anything else he might have had. Now if he’d had that lot on board with him…’
‘Yes, Hansom,’ prompted the super witheringly. ‘Don’t stop… if he’d had that lot on board with him?’
‘Well, it might explain why the chauffeur and the tootsie lit out
… whether they bumped him off or whether they didn’t.’
The super breathed deeply. ‘Thank you, Hansom,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much. And are there any other minor details you would like to mention before we try to pick up the pieces?’
Hansom indicated that there weren’t and the super snorted viciously.
‘Now… getting back to where we were. Let’s just say he had the money with him, shall we? He had the money, and during the course of the week his female finds out about it. She tips off the chauffeur — perhaps she tries to smuggle the money off the yacht in her bag. Then one of two things happens. Either there is a genuine accident, or else Lammas finds out what is going on and they have to silence him. Now if it was an accident they might conceivably cut and run, though there would be no need for it. If it was murder arranged to look like an accident then they wouldn’t run anyway, because it would defeat its own purpose. The only logical circumstance in which they would run would be if they had stolen the money and left without knowing about the accident — that’s to say, before it happened. Isn’t that so, Hansom? Doesn’t it make some sort of sense out of the facts?’
Hansom wagged his cigar-stump dumbly. The super had a bad habit of making sense out of facts.
‘Very well,’ continued the super more agreeably. ‘Let’s not rush our fences. There’s enough homicide going about without people vamping up cases. We’ll keep an open mind, of course. The investigation will continue on its merits. But I feel pretty certain, from what you’ve discovered so far-’
He broke off and snatched the receiver from a ringing phone.
‘Superintendent Walker… good… what did you find… you DID!!! Are you certain of that?… of course… send it right away.’
He slammed down the receiver and glared at it for some moments in a black silence.
‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Yes! About this murder case, Hansom…’
‘Murder?’ gaped Hansom.
‘I said murder!’ rapped the super. ‘That’s the pathologist who was on the phone. He’s done his autopsy and there wasn’t a trace of carbon in the lungs — and you know what that means!’
‘He — he was dead before the fire?’
‘It does, Hansom. It means exactly that.’
They stared at each other across the superintendental desk. A look which was almost sympathetic came into the super’s sharp blue eyes.
‘It’s up to you, Hansom,’ he said kindly. ‘I won’t take it away from you till I get the down.’
