Murder At Deviation Junction

    'Hello, baby,' I said.

    She sort of slid away, and the woman who'd made the speech had replaced her. She was holding out her hand to me. In shaking hands, she had to touch the bloody bandage.

    'Avril Gregory-Gresham,' she was saying. 'Lydia's told me so much about you.'

    The wife, slightly behind her now, close to Wright, was looking murder at me. It made her look beautiful in a different way. But Mrs Gregory-Gresham didn't seem quite so bothered about the state of me. She was more like Wright - a curious type, and she frowned quite prettily as she said, 'You look rather -'

    'Pardon my appearance,' I broke in; and it was as if a different man was speaking. 'I've been in a fight.'

    The wife was still there; but I did not like to meet her eye. Mrs Gregory-Gresham was frowning more deeply.

    'I am a policeman,' I explained

    'Yes,' she said, 'I know that,' and she was leaning towards me, not away, which was good.

    'The fight,' I said. 'It was much -'

    I couldn't speak for a moment.

    'Much of a muchness?' suggested Mrs Gregory-Gresham.

    I had meant to say that what had happened had been much less bad than it looked or sounded - or something.

    'Are you quite all right?' she said, and the fact of the matter was that she was trying to help. 'Forgive me, but you do smell rather strongly of -'

    'Yes,' I said quickly, 'carbolic.'

    'You were arresting a wrongdoer?' she asked, and I at least had enough off to say, 'That's just it. I am investigating a murder.'

    'The man you arrested was a murderer? But this is fascinating.'

    'The business was pursuant to a murder,' I said, or that's what I'd meant to say, but I'd never even tried to speak that word sober, so I suppose it came out wrongly. As Mrs Gregory-Gresham looked on, I fished in my pocket for the photograph of the Travelling Club. As it emerged, I saw that it had become quite crumpled after the adventures of the day, and I thought of it as being like the calling card of a man who travels in some goods that nobody much wants.

    'Most of these men are certainly dead,' I said, 'and so is the man who took this picture. Nobody knows why.'

    Least of all me, I thought.

    'You think,' she said, taking the photograph, 'that one of them killed the others.' 'Yes,' I said,'- or that someone else did.'

    There was quite a long pause, after which Mrs Gregory- Gresham asked:

    'What is your surmise about the murderer?'

    'That he did not want this picture seen, that he will stop at nothing ... that he is not a member of the Co- operative Movement.'

    She laughed at that, but only for a second.

    'But I know this man,' she said.

    She was indicating the young man.

    'Phoebe - that's my daughter - she knew him at the University. They had a jolly at the river; a day of . . . rowing, you know, and she introduced me to him.'

    'What's his name?'

    'I can't remember, but I know the face; oh, now I know it. He was from the north,' she said in a rush, 'Middlesbrough way - and he'd won a prize for speaking.'

    'Speaking about what?'

    'Anything. It's the hair that I recognise, and he was sweet on Phoebe, I distinctly had that impression. I also think she was rather taken with him, although of course she never let on.'

    A long bar of silence; then the piano started up again, just as Avril Gregory-Gresham said, 'His family had a place in Filey - on the Crescent, and they would summer there. Well, we have a place there too, and Phoebe had been in hopes of seeing him over the -'

    'Last summer?' I put in.

    'Last summer, yes.'

    'She looked in the register every week. It's a ridiculous thing, but any fairly well-to-do visitor is listed in the local paper there.'

    'Did he not come?' I said, thinking how strange the words sounded.

    Avril Gregory-Gresham shook her head.

    'He did not. I will speak to Phoebe, and I will get his name to you directly. I will speak to the girl next week, and pass on the name to Lydia, who will give it to you.'

    I took this to mean that she would after all be giving the job of secretary or typewriter to the wife, who for the present stood in the background, still looking very doubtful. A moment later there was a switch, and in the fast-changing strangeness of the Co-op ladies' social, the wife was before me.

    'Well, Mrs Gregory-Gresham found you fascinating.'

    More tea was being distributed.

    'I found you drunk,' added the wife.

    'Yes,' I said. 'Well, you're both right.'

    There was a new Co-operator speaking from the stage.

    'What's going off now?' I said.

    The wife half-turned her head towards the stage.

    'Blind man's buff,' she said. 'What do you flipping well think?'

    More speeches were taking place.

    'Some speak of the sections and districts of our organisation,' the woman was saying. 'I say we are the moon and the stars . . .'

    They applauded that, did the Co-operative ladies.

    'What happened to your suit?' enquired the wife. She was nearly but not quite angry.

    'It's been a very long day,' I said. 'But I'll tell you this. I think you have secured your position.'

    'I think you are right,' she said slowly; and she nearly smiled into the bargain.

    I held the photograph in my hands, and she was looking down at it.

    The woman on the stage was saying, 'Until the King himself hears our message . . .'

    'I've got into a few scrapes on account of these chaps,' I said, indicating the photograph. 'It's murders in the plural, looks like, and I had a bit of a row . .. not with a man I was trying to arrest, as I said just now, but with another officer.'

    'You were fighting with another policeman?'

    'One blow started and ended the matter.'

    'You should have told Mrs Gregory-Gresham,' said the wife. 'She's had many a fight with a policeman herself.'

    'I daresay,' I said, nodding, for of course the Co-op ladies went all out for the women's cause.

    'I had to take a drink with the Chief,' I said. 'I saw him this afternoon at the shooting gallery -' 'He was at a funfair, was he? I wouldn't put it past him, from what I've heard.'

    'Shooting range,' I said, 'if you want to split hairs. It was necessary for me to take a glass of punch in order to keep in with him.'

    'Does he take your part against the man you hit?'

    It was a cute question, but I gave a nod, just as though the matter could not possibly be doubted.

    'You must have your promotion, you know,' she said. 'Otherwise I will not be able to take up my own.'

    Wright was signalling to me from behind her.

    'I must see this chap,' I said, indicating Wright.

    The crowds of ladies pressing in from all sides were threatening to part us in any case. I cut through to