Quimper completely. Naturally, when father really felt ill, he made a terrific fuss, and had Quimper going and coming, asking questions, going into everything he'd eaten and drunk. The whole thing was ridiculous!' Alfred spoke with unusual heat.
Craddock was silent for a moment or two, rather effectively. Alfred fidgeted, shot him a quick glance, and then said petulantly:
'Well, what is all this? Why do you want to know where I was on a particular Friday, three or four weeks ago?'
'So you do remember that it was a Friday?'
'I thought you said so.'
'Perhaps I did,' said Inspector Craddock.
'At any rate, Friday 20th is the day I am asking about.'
'Why?'
'A routine inquiry.'
'That's nonsense. Have you found out something more about this woman? About where she came from?'
'Our information is not yet complete.'
Alfred gave him a sharp glance.
'I hope you're not being led aside by this wild theory of Emma's that she might have been my brother Edmund's widow. That's complete nonsense.'
'This – Martine, did not at any time apply to you?'
'To me? Good lord, no! That would have been a laugh.'
'She would be more likely, you think, to go to your brother Harold?'
'Much more likely. His name's frequently in the papers. He's well off. Trying a touch there wouldn't surprise me. Not that she'd have got anything. Harold's as tight-fisted as the old man himself. Emma, of course, is the softhearted one of the family, and she was Edmund's favourite sister. All the same, Emma isn't credulous. She was quite alive to the possibility of this woman being phoney. She had it all laid on for the entire family to be there – and a hard-headed solicitor as well.'
'Very wise,' said Craddock. 'Was there a definite date fixed for this meeting?'
'It was to be soon after Christmas – the weekend of the 27th…' He stopped.
'Ah,' said Craddock pleasantly. 'So I see some dates have a meaning to you.'
'I've told you – no definite date was fixed.'
'But you talked about it – when?'
'I really can't remember.'
'And you can't tell me what you yourself were doing on Friday, 20th December?'
'Sorry – my mind's an absolute blank.'
'You don't keep an engagement book?'
'Can't stand the things.'
'The Friday before Christmas – it shouldn't be too difficult.'
'I played golf one day with a likely prospect.' Alfred shook his head. 'No, that was the week before. I probably just mooched around. I spend a lot of my time doing that. I find one's business gets done in bars more than anywhere else.'
'Perhaps the people here, or some of your friends, may be able to help?'
'Maybe. I'll ask them. Do what I can.'
Alfred seemed more sure of himself now.
'I can't tell you what I was doing that day,' he said; 'but I can tell you what I wasn't doing. I wasn't murdering anyone in the Long Barn.'
'Why should you say that, Mr. Crackenthorpe?'
'Come now, my dear Inspector. You're investigating this murder, aren't you? And when you begin to ask 'Where were you on such and such a day at such and such a time?' you're narrowing down things. I'd very much like to know why you've hit on Friday the 20th between – what? Lunch-time and midnight? It couldn't be medical evidence, not after all this time. Did somebody see the deceased sneaking into the barn that afternoon? She went in and she never came out, etc.? Is that it?'
The sharp black eyes were watching him narrowly, but Inspector Craddock was far too old a hand to react to that sort of thing.
'I'm afraid we'll have to let you guess about that,' he said pleasantly.
'The police are so secretive.'
'Not only the police. I think, Mr. Crackenthorpe, you could remember what you were doing on that Friday if you tried. Of course you may have reasons for not wishing to remember –'
'You won't catch me that way, Inspector. It's very suspicious, of course, very suspicious, indeed, that I can't remember – but there it is! Wait a minute now – I went to Leeds that week – stayed at an hotel close to the Town Hall – can't remember its name – but you'd find it easily enough. That might have been on the Friday.'
'We'll check up,' said the inspector unemotionally.
He rose. 'I'm sorry you couldn't have been more co-operative, Mr. Crackenthorpe.'
'Most unfortunate for me! There's Cedric with a safe alibi in Ibiza , and Harold, no doubt, checked with business appointments and public dinners every hour – and here am I with no alibi at all. Very sad. And all so silly. I've already told you I don't murder people. And why should I murder an unknown woman, anyway? What for? Even if the corpse is the corpse of Edmund's widow, why should any of us wish to do away with her? Now if she'd been married to Harold in the war, and had suddenly reappeared – then it might have been awkward for the respectable Harold – bigamy and all that. But Edmund! Why, we'd all have enjoyed making Father stump up a bit to give her an allowance and send the boy to a decent school. Father would have been wild, but he couldn't in decency refuse to do something. Won't you have a drink before you go, Inspector? Sure? Too bad I haven't been able to help you.'
III
'Sir, listen, do you know what?'
Inspector Craddock looked at his excited sergeant.
'Yes, Wetherall, what is it?'
'I've placed him, sir. That chap. All the time I was trying to fix it and suddenly it came. He was mixed up in that tinned food business with Dicky Rogers. Never got anything on him – too cagey for that. And he's been in with one or more of the Soho lot. Watches and that Italian sovereign business.'
Of course! Craddock realised now why Alfred's face had seemed vaguely familiar from the first. It had all been smalltime stuff – never anything that could be proved. Alfred had always been on the outskirts of the racket with a plausible innocent reason for having been mixed up in it at all. But the police had been quite sure that a small steady profit came his way.
'That throws rather a light on things,' Craddock said.
'Think he did it?'
'I shouldn't have said he was the type to do murder. But it explains other things – the reason why he couldn't come up with an alibi.'
'Yes, that looks bad for him.'
'Not really,' said Craddock. 'It's quite a clever line – just to say firmly you can't remember. Lots of people can't remember what they did and where they were even a week ago. It's especially useful if you don't particularly want to call attention to the way you spend your time – interesting rendezvous at lorry pull-ups with the Dicky Rogers crowd, for instance.'
'So you think he's all right?'
'I'm not prepared to think anyone's all right just yet,' said Inspector Craddock. 'You've got to work on it, Wetherall.'
