early, and I’ll send you a relief.”
“I’ll stay with it all day,” said George firmly, “if it’s all the same to you.” He wanted to be sure of an undisturbed night rather than an uneasy and solitary sleep during the day. “Want me to contact Armiger’s solicitors, or will you do that?”
“Cui bono?” said Duckett absently. “I’ll get on to them myself. You make what you can of the bunch here, and I’ll send Grocott to help you with the day staff when they come in, and the list of people who were in the pub last night.”
George left them still busy with cameras and flashes, and went to interview the frightened maids and waiters and the pretty, bleached blonde who was Mrs. Calverley. He got as little from them as he had expected, but deduced from the frozen silence in which he found them that they had justified his forecast by withdrawing into themselves rather than sharing their fears. Laboriously he put together an account of Armiger’s movements during the last hour or two of his life. Shortly before ten, according to Mrs. Calverley, one of the waiters, a young man named Turner who lodged in Comerford, had come into the saloon bar and relayed some message to Mr. Armiger, who had excused himself to his friends and followed him out. A couple of minutes later he had returned, gone straight to his party and had a word with them, and then gone out again. It appeared that this must have been when the anonymous young pal arrived to see him, for what he did next was to bounce into the servery by the dining-room, help himself to a magnum of champagne, and make off in the direction of the side door, bumping into Bennie and giving him his orders with regard to Clayton and the car on the way. No one had again seen him alive.
By the time George had done with the last of them it was almost daylight, and the ambulance had long since taken the dead man away, though Johnson was still in possession of the ballroom, indefatigably combing every hospitable surface for prints. George took himself home for a bath and breakfast and a brief and troubled conference with Bunty, and then took himself off again before Dominic should come scurrying downstairs and begin to ask questions.
He called at the house where the waiter lodged, and found him sitting in his room poring over the day’s runners, half-dressed and not yet shaven. Turner was a Londoner, pale with the city pallor on which summer has no influence, thin and sharp-eyed and dubious of Comerford already. He wouldn’t last long, he’d be off back to town. Meantime he might well be detached about all the people involved in this case, since he knew none of them. He wasn’t worried about being visited by the police, only puzzled and intrigued.
Yes, he said, some time before ten, maybe five minutes or so, he couldn’t be exact, he’d been passing through the hall and a young man had walked in at the door and buttonholed him, and asked for Mr. Armiger. Didn’t give a name, just said ask Mr. Armiger if he can spare a few minutes, say it’s important and I won’t keep him long. And he’d delivered the message, and thought no more about it, and Mr. Armiger had gone out to his visitor, who had waited in the hall for him. That was the last Turner had seen of either of them, because he’d been back in the dining-room after that. Did he know the young man? He knew nobody here, he’d only just come. Could he describe him? Well, there was nothing special about him. Young fellow about twenty-five or twenty-six. Dark overcoat and a grey suit. No hat. Tallish but not tall, cleanshaven, brown hair, nothing particular to notice about him. But he’d know him again if he saw him. Or a photograph? Well, probably, but you can’t always tell with photographs. He could try. Why, anyhow? What did they want him for? What had happened?
George told him, in the shortest and most startling words he could find, watching the cigarette that dangled from a colourless lip. The ash didn’t even fall, but at least Turner’s eyes opened fully for the first time, staring at George with a curiosity and excitement in which he could see no trace of fear or even wariness. The unmistakable tint of pleasure was there. Nothing against the boss, you understand, but after all, he’d hardly clapped eyes on him a couple of times, and it isn’t every day you get up this close to a murder.
“Go on!” he said, gleaming. “Well, I’ll be damned!” And so he might, but not, thought George, for anything to do with Armiger’s death. “You reckon it was this fellow I saw who done it?”
“It’s merely one line of inquiry,” said George dryly. “What I’m trying to do is to fill in all the details of the evening, that’s all. What time did you leave the job last night?”
“About twenty to eleven.” The thought that he might have to account for himself had not shaken his confidence in the slightest. “I got back here before eleven, the old girl’ll tell you the same. What’s more, one of the other blokes walked back with me, name of Stokes, you’ll find him just up the street here, Mrs. Lewis’s.” He pushed the paper aside, not even the runners could win back his attention now. “Can you beat it!” he said, and whistled long and softly. “And they think they’ve got all the life down home!”
George went down the dingy stairs turning over in his mind the irony of this last comment, and betting himself, though without relish because he was on a virtual certainty, that Turner would be in for work before his time that day, if never again.
The news hadn’t got out yet, or at least it was not yet public property, for there was no crowd dawdling hopefully about The Jolly Barmaid when George returned to its bright new doors. He put in a call to Duckett, outlined his moves up to date, and the little information he had gleaned from them, and settled down to compile, with Bennie Blocksidge’s help, a list of people who had been present at the gala opening on the previous evening. There would be no opening hours to-day, that was out of the question with the emperor dead; and once half past ten arrived and the first customer was brought up short against a closed door and a laconic notice, the secret wouldn’t be a secret long.
By the time their list was as complete as their combined memories could make it, Grocott and Price were on the premises and waiting for orders. George unloaded the more promising of the routine calls on to them, and went to telephone Duckett again. By this time even solicitors should be working, and “Cui bono?” was still one of the leading questions. Had Armiger really cut off his son completely, or had he only threatened him and left him to stew a while in his own juice? Not in the hope of bringing him to heel, since marriage can’t be sloughed off as easily as all that even to satisfy an Armiger; but perhaps merely out of spleen, to punish him for his rebellion with a taste of poverty, before taking him back chastened and amenable.
And plus an ex-clerk wife who would be a constant reminder of a defeat to her unloving father-in-law? No, it wasn’t easy to imagine it, after all George turned a thumb down as he dialled Duckett’s number. About a hundred to one Leslie didn’t figure in the will, unless in some peculiarly hurtful and humiliating way. And Armiger’s wife was some years dead, and he had no other child. So somebody was due for a windfall. He wouldn’t disseminate his empire, living or dead. Nor was it really conceivable that he would have neglected to make a revised will, or even postponed it for a period of reflection. He had never reflected, but always charged, and this time would be no exception.
“I talked to old Hartley,” said Duckett. “The terms of the will won’t be much help to us at first glance, but they’re interesting, very interesting. Seems he had his old will destroyed and dictated the terms of a new one the very day he threw his son out. The boy isn’t so much as mentioned. Might as well be dead, apparently, to his father.”
“I’ve been betting myself,” said George, “that he wouldn’t let his pile be divided up. Right?”
