Mrs Boyle said again, even more indignantly, ‘Really, Mr Wren!’
Molly read hurriedly out, “The man the police are anxious to interview was wearing a dark overcoat and a light Homburg hat, was of medium height, and wore a woolen scarf.”’
‘In fact,’ said Christopher Wren, ‘he looked just like everybody else.’ He laughed.
‘Yes,’ said Molly. ‘Just like everybody else.’
In his room at Scotland Yard, Inspector Parminter said to Detective Sergeant Kane, ‘I’ll see those two workmen now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What are they like?’
‘Decent class workingmen. Rather slow reactions. Dependable.’
‘Right.’ Inspector Parminter nodded.
Presently two embarrassed-looking men in their best clothes were shown into his room. Parminter summed them up with a quick eye. He was an adept at setting people at their ease.
‘So you think you’ve some information that might be useful to us on the Lyon case,’ he said. ‘Good of you to come along. Sit down. Smoke?’
He waited while they accepted cigarettes and lit up.
‘Pretty awful weather outside.’
‘It is that, sir.’
‘Well, now, then—let’s have it.’
The two men looked at each other, embarrassed now that it came to the difficulties of narration.
‘Go ahead, Joe,’ said the bigger of the two.
Joe went ahead. ‘It was like this, see. We ’adn’t got a match.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Jarman Street—we was working on the road there—gas mains.’
Inspector Parminter nodded. Later he would get down to exact details of time and place. Jarman Street, he knew was in the close vicinity of Culver Street where the tragedy had taken place.
‘You hadn’t got a match,’ he repeated encouragingly.
‘No. Finished my box, I ’ad, and Bill’s lighter wouldn’t work, and so I spoke to a bloke as was passing. ‘Can you give us a match, mister?’ I says. Didn’t think nothing particular, I didn’t, not then. He was just passing—like lots of others—I just ’appened to arsk ’im.’
Again Parminter nodded.
‘Well, he give us a match, ’e did. Didn’t say nothing. “Cruel cold,” Bill said to ’im, and he just answered, whispering-like, “Yes, it is.” Got a cold on his chest, I thought. He was all wrapped up, anyway. “Thanks mister,” I says and gives him back his matches, and he moves off quick, so quick that when I sees ’e’d dropped something, it’s almost too late to call ’im back. It was a little notebook as he must ’ave pulled out of ’is pocket when he got the matches out. “Hi, mister,” I calls after ’im, “you’ve dropped something.” But he didn’t seem to hear—he just quickens up and bolts round the corner, didn’t ’e, Bill?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Bill. ‘Like a scurrying rabbit.’
‘Into the Harrow Road, that was, and it didn’t seem as we’d catch up with him there, not the rate ’e was going, and, anyway, by then it was a bit late—it was only a little book, not a wallet or anything like that—maybe it wasn’t important. “Funny bloke,” I says. “His hat pulled down over his eyes, and all buttoned up—like a crook on the pictures,” I says to Bill, didn’t I, Bill?’
‘That’s what you said,’ agreed Bill.
‘Funny I should have said that, not that I thought anything at the time. Just in a hurry to get home, that’s what I thought, and I didn’t blame ’im. Not ’arf cold, it was!’
‘Not ’arf,’ agreed Bill.
‘So I says to Bill, “Let’s ’ave a look at this little book and see if it’s important.” Well, sir, I took a look. “Only a couple of addresses,” I says to Bill. Seventy-Four Culver Street and some blinking manor ’ouse.’
‘Ritzy,’ said Bill with a snort of disapproval.
Joe continued his tale with a certain gusto now that he had got wound up.
‘“Seventy-Four Culver Street,” I says to Bill. “That’s just round the corner from ’ere. When we knock off, we’ll take it round”—and then I sees something written across the top of the page. “What’s this?” I says to Bill. And he takes it and reads it out. ‘“Three blind mice”—must be off ’is knocker,’ he says—and just at that very moment—yes, it was that very moment, sir, we ’ears some woman yelling, “Murder!” a couple of streets away!’
Joe paused at this artistic climax.
‘Didn’t half yell, did she?’ he resumed. “Here,” I says to Bill, “you nip along.” And by and by he comes back and says there’s a big crowd and the police are there and some woman’s had her throat cut or been strangled and that was the landlady who found her, yelling for the police. “Where was it?” I says to him. “In Culver Street,” he says. “What number?” I asks, and he says he didn’t rightly notice.’
Bill coughed and shuffled his feet with the sheepish air of one who has not done himself justice.
‘So I says, “We’ll nip around and make sure,” and when we finds it’s number seventy-four we talk it over, and “Maybe,” Bill says, “the address in the notebook’s got nothing to do with it,” and I says as maybe it has, and, anyway, after we’ve talked it over and heard the police want to interview a man who left the ’ouse about that time, well, we come along ’ere and ask if we can see the gentleman who’s handling the case, and I’m sure I ’ope as we aren’t wasting your time.’
‘You acted very properly,’ said Parminter approvingly. ‘You’ve brought the notebook with you? Thank you. Now—’
His questions became brisk and professional. He got places, times, dates—the only thing he did not get was a description of the man who had dropped the notebook. Instead he got the same description as he had already got from a hysterical landlady, the description of a hat pulled down over the eyes, a buttoned-up coat, a muffler swathed round the lower part of a face, a voice that was only a whisper, gloved hands.
When the men had gone he remained staring down at the little book lying open on his table. Presently it would go to the appropriate department to see what evidence, if any, of fingerprints it might reveal. But now his
