Instrument of Slaughter

‘Do you recall an argument he had with Mr Ablatt?’

‘I do indeed, Inspector. Waldron was obnoxious. If Cyril hadn’t sent him packing, I’d have called the police to remove him.’

‘Would you say that he’s a dangerous man?’

‘When drink is taken, he’s a very dangerous man.’

‘That confirms what I’ve heard,’ said Marmion. ‘By the way, did you know that your assistant went to a meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship?’

The librarian replaced his spectacles. ‘Yes,’ he said, adjusting them. ‘He showed me their leaflet and sought my opinion. I told him that I thought they were a lot of well-intentioned cranks and that he was better off keeping away from them.’

‘What was his reply?’

Fussell quoted it in exact detail. He and his young assistant had evidently had some lively arguments. As the other man talked at length of Ablatt’s early days at the library, Marmion wondered why he’d taken a dislike to him. The librarian was astute, well qualified and undeniably in command. Yet he somehow annoyed the inspector. It was partly the way that he shifted between a lordly authority and an ingratiating humility. One minute, he was basking in his importance, the next, he was trying to curry favour. Marmion decided that he wouldn’t have liked to work under the man. You never knew what he was thinking.

‘Had he lived,’ said Marmion, ‘we both know what would have happened.’

‘Yes, Inspector, he’d have been conscripted.’

‘The first stage would be an appearance before a tribunal.’

‘Cyril had already worked out what he was going to say.’

‘And what about you, sir?’

Fussell was taken aback. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Surely, you’d speak up before the tribunal on his behalf.’

‘I hadn’t planned to do so.’

‘But you told me that he was your best assistant.’

‘He was,’ said Fussell, ‘I don’t dispute that. Unfortunately, libraries do not merit inclusion among reserved occupations. There’s nothing that I could say that would be of any help to Cyril.’

‘It’s not what you could say but what you could do, sir.’

‘Could you be more explicit?’

‘I’m thinking of it from Mr Ablatt’s viewpoint,’ said Marmion. ‘At the very least, you could make a gesture. Your very appearance on his behalf at the tribunal would have raised his morale. Did that never occur to you?’

Fussell’s tone was icy. ‘In all honesty, it never did.’

‘Now that it has, what’s your feeling? Had your young assistant requested your help, how would you have responded?’

There was a long pause, then Fussell enunciated the words crisply.

‘I’d have been obliged to disappoint him, Inspector.’

‘Was that because he could defeat you in argument?’ asked Marmion.

He saw the librarian wince.

Maud Crowther was a stout woman in her early sixties with sparkling blue eyes in a face more suited to laughter than sorrow. Age had obliged her to use a walking stick but she’d lost none of her zest. When she opened her front door to him, Keedy guessed that she’d spent much of her life behind a bar counter, serving drinks to all manner of customers with a welcoming smile that had been her trademark. Strangers never disconcerted her. They provided her income. Pleased to see such a good-looking man on her doorstep, she gave him a broad grin.

‘What can I do for you, young man?’ she asked.

‘Are you Mrs Maud Crowther?’

‘I am and I have been from the day I married Tom Crowther.’

‘I wondered if we might speak in private, Mrs Crowther.’

Keedy introduced himself and told her about the murder investigation. She was horrified to hear the details, all the more so because the body had been found only a few hundred yards from her house. As soon as he mentioned the name of Horrie Waldron, her eyes glinted.

‘Don’t believe a word that good-for-nothing tells you!’

‘You do know him, then?’

‘I know of him,’ she said, carefully choosing her words, ‘but I’d hardly call him an acquaintance of mine, still less a friend.’

Keedy could understand why she was trying to distance herself from Waldron and why she was furious that he’d even mentioned his name to a detective. Any relationship between the two of them was meant to be secret. Maud felt betrayed. Inviting her visitor into the house, she hobbled into the front room ahead of him and lowered herself gingerly into an armchair. Keedy sat opposite her. The room was small and crammed with furniture. There was an abiding aroma of lavender.

‘Why are you bothering me?’ she asked, glaring defiantly.

‘I just need to clear up one simple point, Mrs Crowther.’

‘Who else knows about this?’

‘Nobody,’ he replied. ‘And I’m talking to you in confidence. Nothing you tell me will become public knowledge. I’m not here to delve into your private life. I simply wish to confirm an alibi.’

She stiffened. ‘Alibi — you surely don’t suspect Horrie?’

‘I just wish to eliminate him from our enquiries.’

‘Why is that, Sergeant? What has he done? What has he said?’

‘He knew the deceased,’ said Keedy, ‘and there was bad blood between them. I interviewed him as a matter of routine. He has a number of witnesses — including your son — who can vouch for his being at the Weavers Arms yesterday, but he admitted that he did slip away for an hour or two. At first, he refused point-blank to say where he’d been.’

‘So I should hope,’ she said, grimly.

‘It was only when I threatened him with arrest that he was forced to disclose your name. My question is simple, Mrs Crowther. Was he or was he not here in the course of yesterday evening?’

Maud Crowther took time to mull things over. As she did so, she looked Keedy up and down. A life spent in the licensing trade had given her the ability to make fairly accurate judgements about the character of any newcomers. Whatever test she applied to Keedy, he seemed to pass it.

‘It’s not what you think,’ she began.

‘I make no assumptions, Mrs Crowther.’

‘And nobody must ever know about it. People wouldn’t understand.’

‘Can you confirm what Mr Waldron told me?’

‘Horrie is not such a bad man, Sergeant,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘I know he’s been in trouble with the police before but never for anything really serious. Whoever killed this poor young man, it couldn’t have been Horrie. He just wouldn’t do anything like that.’

‘Did he call here yesterday or didn’t he?’

‘So you can stop treating him as a suspect.’

‘You haven’t answered my question, Mrs Crowther.’

She made him wait. ‘He might have done,’ she said at length.

‘And might he have been here for one hour or two?’

‘One hour.’ She struggled to her feet. ‘I’ll show you out.’

Still reeling from the shock of what she’d been told, Ruby Cosgrove was unable to return to work that afternoon. Instead of taking her home where her mother would act as a chaperone, Gordon Leach guided her towards the nearest park. They found a bench and ignored the cold. Ruby was on the verge of tears. Leach slipped an arm around her and they sat there in companionable silence. Instead of being able to enjoy a stolen afternoon of togetherness, they were lost in their respective thoughts. It was Ruby who finally broke the silence.

‘What are we going to do, Gordon?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I can’t stop thinking of what happened to Cyril.’