'Why,' said the sergeant, 'because they 'as to rely on the damn-fool descriptions given to them by the public. That's why.'
'One up to you,' said Redwood pleasantly. 'Tell me, sergeant, all this stuff about wanting to interview the fellow is all eyewash, isn't it? I mean, what they really want to do is to arrest him.'
'That ain't for me to say,' replied the sergeant ponderously. 'You must use your own judgement about that. What they're asking for is an interview, him being known to have been one of the last people to see her before she was done in. If he's sensible, he'll turn up. If he don't answer to the summons--well, you can think what you like.'
'Who is he, anyway?' asked Monty.
'Now you want to know something. Ain't you seen the evening papers?'
'No; I've been on the road since five o'clock.'
'Well, it's like this here. This old lady, Miss Alice Steward, lived all alone with a maid in a little 'ouse on the outskirts of Nottingham. Yesterday afternoon was the maid's afternoon out, and just as she was stepping out of the door, a bloke drives up in a Morris--or so she says, though you can't trust these girls, and if you ask me, it may just as well have been an Austin or Wolseley, or anything else, for that matter. He asks to see Miss Steward and the girl shows him into the sitting-room, and as she does so she hears the old girl say, 'Why, Gerald!'--like that. Well, she goes off to the pictures and leaves 'em to it, and when she gets back at 10 o'clock, she finds the old lady lying with 'er 'ead bashed in.'
Mr Redwood leaned across and nudged Mr Egg. The stranger in the far corner had ceased to read his paper, and was peering stealthily round the edge of it.
'That's brought him to life, anyway,' muttered Mr Redwood. 'Well, sergeant, but how did the girl know the fellow's surname and who he was?'
'Why,' replied the sergeant, 'she remembered once 'earing the old lady speak of a man called Gerald Beeton--a good many years ago, or so she said, and she couldn't tell us much about it. Only she remembered the name, because it was the same as the one on her cookery-book.'
'Was that at Lewes?' demanded the young man called Arthur, suddenly.
'Might have been,' admitted the sergeant, glancing rather sharply at him. 'The old lady came from Lewes. Why?'
'I remember, when I was a kid at school, hearing my mother mention an old Miss Steward at Lewes, who was very rich and had adopted a young fellow out of a chemist's shop. I think he ran away, and turned out badly, or something. Anyway, the old lady left the town. She was supposed to be very rich and to keep all her money in a tin box, or something. My mother's cousin knew an old girl who was Miss Steward's housekeeper--but I daresay it was all rot. Anyhow, that was about six or seven years ago, and I believe my mother's cousin is dead now and the housekeeper too. My mother,' went on the young man called Arthur, anticipating the next question, 'died two years ago.'
'That's very interesting, all the same,' said Mr Egg encouragingly. 'You ought to tell the police about it.'
'Well, I have, haven't I? said Arthur, with a grin, indicating the sergeant. 'Though I expect they know it already. Or do I have to go to the police-station?'
'For the present purpose,' replied the sergeant, 'I am a police-station. But you might give me your name and address.'
The young man gave his name as Arthur Bunce, with an address in London. At this point the girl Gertrude was struck with an idea.
'But what about the tin box? D'you think he killed her to get it?'
'There's nothing in the papers about the tin box,' put in the man in the burberry.
'They don't let everything get into the papers,' said the sergeant.
'It doesn't seem to be in the paper our disagreeable friend is reading,' murmured Mr Redwood, and as he spoke, that person rose from his seat and came over to the serving-hatch, ostensibly to order more beer, but with the evident intention of overhearing more of the conversation.
'I wonder if they'll catch the fellow,' pursued Redwood thoughtfully. 'They--by Jove! yes, that explains it-- they must be keeping a pretty sharp look-out. I wondered why they held me up outside Wintonbury to examine my driving-licence. I suppose they're checking all the Morrises on the roads. Some job.'
'All the Morrises in this district, anyway,' said Monty. 'They held me up just outside Thugford.'
'Oho!' cried Arthur Bunce, 'that looks as though they've got a line on the fellow. Now, sergeant, come across with it. What do you know about this, eh?'
'I can't tell you anything about that,' replied Sergeant Jukes, in a stately manner. The disagreeable man moved away from the serving-hatch, and at the same moment the sergeant rose and walked over to a distant table to knock out his pipe, rather unnecessarily, into a flower-pot. He remained there, refilling the pipe from his pouch, his bulky form towering between the Disagreeable Man and the door.
'They'll never catch him,' said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly and unexpectedly. 'They'll never catch him. And do you know why? I'll tell you. Not because he's too clever for them, but because he's too stupid. It's all too ordinary. I don't suppose it was this man Beeton at all. Don't you read your papers? Didn't you see that the old lady's sitting-room was on the ground floor, and that the dining-room window was found open at the top? It would be the easiest thing in the world for a man to slip in through the dining-room--Miss Steward was rather deaf--and catch her unawares and bash her on the head. There's only crazy paving between the garden gate and the windows, and there was a black frost yesterday night, so he'd leave no footmarks on the carpet. That's the difficult sort of murder to trace--no subtlety, no apparent motive. Look at the Reading murder, look at--'
'Hold hard a minute, sir,' interrupted the sergeant. 'How do you know there was crazy paving? That's not in the papers, so far as I know.'
The Disagreeable Man stopped short in the full tide of his eloquence, and appeared disconcerted.
'I've seen the place, as a matter of fact,' he said with some reluctance. 'Went there this morning to look at it--for private reasons, which I needn't trouble you with.'
'That's a funny thing to do, sir.'
'It may be, but it's no business of yours.'
'Oh, no, sir, of course not,' said the sergeant. 'We all of us has our little 'obbies, and crazy paving may be yours. Landscape gardener, sir?'
'Not exactly.'
'A journalist, perhaps?' suggested Mr Redwood.
'That's nearer,' said the other. 'Looking at my three fountain-pens, eh? Quite the amateur detective.'
'The gentleman can't be a journalist,' said Mr Egg. 'You will pardon me, sir, but a journalist couldn't help but take an interest in Mr Redwood's synthetic alcohol or whatever it is. I fancy I might put a name to your profession if I was called upon to do so. Every man carries the marks of his trade, though it's not always as conspicuous as Mr Redwood's sample case or mine. Take books, for instance. I always know an academic gentleman by the way he opens a book. It's in his blood, as you might say. Or take bottles. I handle them one way--it's my trade. A doctor or a chemist handles them another way. This scent-bottle, for example. If you or I was to take the stopper out of this bottle, how would we do it? How would you do it, Mr Redwood?'
'Me?' said Mr Redwood. 'Why, dash it all! On the word 'one' I'd apply the thumb and two fingers of the right hand to the stopper and on the word 'two' I would elevate them briskly, retaining a firm grip on the bottle with the left hand in case of accident. What would you do?' He turned to the man in the burberry.
'Same as you,' said that gentleman, suiting the action to the word. 'I don't see any difficulty about that. There's only one way I know of to take out stoppers, and that's to take 'em out. What d'you expect me to do? Whistle 'em out?'
'But this gentleman's quite right, all the same,' put in the Disagreeable Man. 'You do it that way because you aren't accustomed to measuring and pouring with one hand while the other's occupied. But a doctor or a chemist pulls the stopper out with his little finger, like this, and lifts the bottle in the same hand, holding the measuring-glass in his left--so--and when he--'
'Hi, Beeton!' cried Mr Egg in a shrill voice, 'look out!'
The flask slipped from the hand of the Disagreeable Man and crashed on the table's edge as the man in the burberry started to his feet. An overpowering odour of violets filled the room. The sergeant darted forward--
