Though Inspector Vance had often seen Harvey in court, the two had not hitherto met. As the former disapproved strongly of unprofessional meddlings in police matters, and regarded it as insult added to injury that a really helpful day’s work should have been initiated by the D.P.P.’s malignant senior assistant, the circumstances for a first meeting might have been more happy. Harvey was well aware of these feelings as he told his story. Mr. Vance listened without a trace of expression. Wray, his Turkish cigarette smouldering half the time between his bony fingers, kept his eyes on his desk, scribbled a few notes, and ignored the slight tension in the atmosphere.
At the end he leaned back, laced his fingers, and cracked them sharply.
“Reference Mortimer Shearsby,” ‘he said. “Your self-imposed researches, Tuke, seem merely to have confirmed the fact, already known to us, that he is tight with money. Now this bit of verse . . . ” Wray muttered the lines to himself, while Mr. Tuke watched him sardonically. “It means nothing to me. I don’t see how it’s going to be any help to us.”
“You may be right,” Mr. Tuke said accommodatingly.
Wray ground out his cigarette and took another. “Next, the man in the check coat. Why the devil was he chasing Mrs Shearsby? Whatever happened at Stocking, she wasn’t there. Therefore she wasn’t at Guildford. You agree, Inspector?”
Mr. Vance opened his tight lips for the first time.
“I don’t believe there are two in it, sir,” he said slowly, passing a hand over his thinning hair. “If these deaths are murders, and I’ve no real doubt about it now, then they were thought out a good way ahead. That means, taking the Mortimer Shearsbys first, if they were in it together her alibi for the Stocking business was part of the scheme. Her husband did his cousin in, while she drew attention to herself, in a way. It’s too much of a coincidence, otherwise, her going to Cambridge that day, and passing so near the place. It put us on to her, and then a day or two after she pulls an alibi out of her pocket by remembering this woman in the bus. But if I know anything about criminals, they’d have played the same trick at Guildford. There’d have been a nice little alibi for the one that didn’t do it. But there isn’t. Neither of them have a sniff of one, so far, neither for the Saturday or Sunday.” Mr. Vance drew breath, and Wray gave him a quick nod. “Yes, that’s good, inspector. Damn’ good. I hadn’t looked at it that way. How about the other couples?”
“It’s just the same, sir. If one of a pair has an alibi for one of the deaths, then neither has one for the other. So I’m laying they were both singlehanded jobs.”
Wray blew a smoke ring and watched it float away. “I always thought so. Well, eliminating the chemist’s wife, we’ve now cut our possibles down to four—of the original six.”
“Four?” Harvey queried.
“You won’t have heard. We’ve traced Mile Boulanger’s lorry. M.O.W.T. had a convoy routed down Warwick Way that night, and one of the drivers reported a woman almost chucking herself under his wheels. Weighing pros and cons, that seems to clear the Frenchwoman, though I don’t suppose we shall ever know whether she was pushed or not.” Wray cracked his fingers again in his fidgety way. “Now let’s get back to your man in the Morris. Well, I fancy we know who he is. Eh, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir. He’ll be Holy Joe.”
“He must be. We can’t have any more unrelated factors bobbing up. What’s the latest about Joe?”
“He left his home on the afternoon of the 28th,” the Inspector said. “Told his wife he’d be away some days. He gave the Cambridge poste restante as an address. Apparently there’s nothing in that—he’s always on his travels, looking up these precious hard luck cases of his. But he’s not been home since. All his wife’s had has been a postcard. As for her, I’d say she knows Eady’s a wrong ’un, but she isn’t giving anything away. As big a humbug as he is, from the look of her,” said Mr. Vance sourly. “White hair, and smiles, and a fine show of false teeth, and eyes like gimlets.” Wray turned to Harvey. “This will be Greek to you——”
“I know Greek. And it isn’t. I’ve heard about Mr. Eady. Sergeant Webley brought me up to date.”
Wray was frowning. “What was he up to, anyway? Was he going to this Whipstead place, or did he change his mind at King’s Cross? Did he see something when he got there? Or did he meet Raymond Shearsby in that lane? Why did he pinch the bicycle—if he did? To save his legs, or because something had delayed him? A hell of a lot of if’s and an’s and why’s. Curse the fellow! What with the grave giving up its dead, we’ve one complication too many already. Now we’ve got another.”
“Have we?” Mr. Tuke queried.
Wray stared at him. Inspector Vance was staring too. But the quicker wits of his chief were first off the mark.
“By God!” Wray snapped. “It could be. Holy Joe’s trump card is his gentlemanly manner. He’s about the same age as Martin Dresser. Dresser was a bad hat. Joe is one— we’re damned sure of that, in spite of all his benevolent friends. Dresser would have a reason for going to Stocking. What do you think of it, Inspector?”
The Inspector was frowning heavily, pondering the idea. “As you say, sir, it could be,” he agreed. Then, for he was an honest man, he glanced at Mr. Tuke as he added: “Yes, I ought to have thought of it. If the man in the Morris is Joe, and Joe’s Martin Dresser, it clears the decks and explains a lot.”
“Well, we may not know much about Dresser, but we know a good deal about Joe,” Wray
