“Neither Sergeant Webley nor I are clairvoyant.”
Wray’s fingers were drumming on his desk. “Well, get after him, Vance. You’d better go down to Cambridge yourself. You know the locals have asked for a man to watch this taxi-driver?”
“Thomsett, sir? Yes, Detective-Constable Pratt went last night.”
“You’ll have Sergeant Gowrie with you, I suppose? Take another man if you want him. We’re on to something at last. You’re watching Joe’s house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We ought to have his prints. I’ve a good mind to take a warrant out and have his place dusted for them. You’ve got Dresser’s with you?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Inspector again.
“Get Mrs. Shearsby’s story about Joe’s visit. You’d better handle that yourself. Though this Sergeant Webley seems to have his wits about him. But whoever sees her will have to go carefully——” Wray broke off to give Harvey a foxy look.
“What are you grinning .at, Tuke?”
“All this zeal and action. Most exhilarating. When you’ve finished, may I ask a question or two before Inspector Vance vanishes in a cloud of dust?”
“I have finished. Fire away.”
“How is the London end going? Any developments, apart from the rehabilitation of Mile Boulanger?”
Wray nodded. “One bit of news. We’ve got a line on Mrs. Porteous’s doings on Bank Holiday Sunday. Her friends in Guildford gave us the names of one or two more here in London. Mrs. Porteous called on a Miss Blissett, another schoolteacher, just before lunch that day. She was very much annoyed, because she’d come up to keep an appointment with a cousin. The cousin had telephoned on the Friday, and they’d arranged to meet at Waterloo at eleven. Mrs. Porteous waited in the booking hall for an hour, but the cousin didn’t show up. Unfortunately Miss Blissett was just going out to lunch, and was in a hurry, so she didn’t hear the cousin’s name, or sex. Mrs. Porteous said that as she was in London she’d look at the bomb damage.” Wray lighted another cigarette from the stump of the old one. “The story suggests that Mrs. Porteous was deliberately got out of the way that Sunday. Not necessarily by a cousin—a voice can be faked over the phone. But it narrows our time factor.”
“If it was a London cousin,” Mr. Tuke said, “you’d think she’d trot along to have it out with the culprit.”
“Perhaps she did. Perhaps she was too cross. They were both out that day, anyhow. So was Mortimer Shearsby.” Mr. Tuke knocked the ash from his cigar and addressed his next question to Inspector Vance.
“Do you know, Inspector, if Raymond Shearsby had a letter or telegram on the day of his death, or beforehand, making an appointment for that evening? I noticed that there is no telephone at the cottage.”
Mr. Vance looked at the Assistant Commissioner, who nodded before glancing curiously at Mr. Tuke.
“There was nothing about any appointment, sir, in the letters I took over from his cousin,” the inspector said. “I have heard nothing about any post or telegram for him that day. There were some bits of paper in his pocket, but they’d been so long in the water that the writing had run, and they were just pulp. You’ll remember, sir,” Mr. Vance added in his most wooden manner, “it was thought to be an accident, so the locals didn’t pay much attention to letters and such.”
“What are you getting at, Tuke?” Wray inquired.
“Leave me my little mystifications. But in my role of amicus curiae, may I make a suggestion?”
“You would, anyhow.”
“Then I would suggest an inquiry on these lines. There will be a record of telegrams, and as it was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a red-letter day in Stocking, the village postman may still remember if he had anything for the cottage.”
Wray continued to stare. Then he shrugged.
“Will you be good enough to humour Mr. Tuke, Inspector?”
“Very good, sir,” said the inspector, more flatly than ever. “If that’s all, I’ll be getting off to Cambridge.”
Mr. Tuke reached for his hat. Then he paused.
“I’ve been reading the cancelled story, by the way. ‘Too Many Cousins’. It is uncannily prophetic. Well, at the end you’re left in the air, with strong suspicions of the dead uncle who turns out to be alive. But he also has a wife, collected during his absence. Arising out of that, haven’t we forgotten something? Or somebody? What about Mrs. Eady?” Wray stared again. “Well, what about her?”
“What was she doing on the dates in question? Because if Eady is Martin Dresser. . . .”
“What revolting ideas you do have,” said Wray.
CHAPTER XXII
FROM the open door and windows of No 10 Falcon Mews East came a babel of talk. It was after seven, and the party was evidently in full swing. Mrs. Tuke, in navy blue, an impertinent blue trifle on her dark head, leading a procession of three up the narrow outside stair, found an overflow in the apple-green hall. Miss Ardmore’s sitting-room appeared to be packed with people. A thick layer of tobacco smoke hung under the rather low ceiling, and the noise was deafening. Gradually one or two familiar faces materialised out of the throng. Mr. Mainward was holding aloft a tray of glasses: Charles Gartside’s horn-rims and disgusted expression rose above a mass of heads in a corner. Mrs. Tuke felt a touch on her arm, and found Cecile Boulanger beside her. Then a sudden swirl of the scrum heeled out Miss Ardmore herself, tall and slender and surprisingly unruffled in green corduroy slacks and a yellow shirt.
“How nice of you to come,” she said to Yvette. “For this sort of thing one really needs expanding rooms, like Oxford bookcases. I’ll get you some drinks. Mr. Mainward!”
The tray of glasses began to sway towards them. She was now nodding to Mr. Tuke, and gazing at Sir Bruton with some curiosity. But if she caught his name when Mrs. Tuke effected introductions, it apparently conveyed
