by now if we'd had Miller's report from the outset. If he kills again, then whoever destroyed it will bear part of the blame. And may he rot in hell!'
The chief inspector was questioned by the journalists about Pike's background.
'He enlisted in the Army in 1906, giving his age as eighteen, though he may have been younger. From that point on he was a professional soldier. In due course he reached the rank of sergeant major and distinguished himself during the war. He was decorated twice for gallantry.'
'But before that?' one of the reporters asked. 'What about his family? His parents?'
'His parents are dead.' The slight hesitation in Sinclair's reply passed unnoticed. 'The Nottingham police are making further inquiries on our behalf.'
'He comes from there?'
'From Nottingham? No, from somewhere in the district, I believe. We're still seeking information in that regard.'
The chief inspector had advised Bennett and Madden in advance that he planned to be less than frank on the subject of Pike's past history. 'Let them dig it up for themselves. The longer we can keep this from turning into a shocker, the better. I've asked the Notts police not to be unduly helpful and I only hope they manage to delay things a little.'
Sinclair's own request for information had brought a reply the previous day from the Nottinghamshire force which had shocked him. Pike's father had been hanged in 1903 for the murder of his wife. 'They're sending me the file, but it sounds like a clear-cut case.
He confessed to the murder in open court.'
'Did he…?' Madden hardly dared to ask.
Sinclair nodded bleakly. 'Yes, he cut her throat.'
Bennett, too, was shaken by the discovery. 'My God! His lawyer will have a field day!'
The chief inspector glanced at Madden beside him.
'Yes, and I dare say your Viennese friend would have had something to say on the subject.'
'What Viennese friend might that be?' Bennett inquired innocently, and had the rare satisfaction of seeing Angus Sinclair turn scarlet with embarrassment.
'Or shouldn't I ask?'
Before the press conference ended Ferris held up his hand once more. 'I'd like to ask Mr Bennett a question.
We understood Chief Superintendent Sampson was going to take over direction of this investigation. Has there been any change in plans?'
'We?' Bennett appeared baffled. 'I do recall reading something to that effect in your journal, Mr Ferris, but nowhere else.' He waited until the laughter had died down. 'As you see, Chief Inspector Sinclair is still at the helm and likely to remain so. He has the full confidence of both the assistant commissioner and myself.'
'But what about Mr Sampson?' Ferris persisted. 'I don't see him here today. Hasn't he been advising on this inquiry?'
'The chief superintendent is indisposed.' Bennett's tone was bland. 'But we hope to have the benefit of his expert assistance again before long.'
'Severe indigestion,' Sinclair confided to Madden, when they returned to his office. 'His wife rang in this morning. Comes of having your nose out of joint, I'm told.'
He leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his head. 'All we can do now is wait. His picture will be in the Sundays. Pray God someone recognizes him.
And pray God this is the last weekend we have to sit through waiting for the phone to ring.'
His glance moved from Madden, who was at his desk, to Hollingsworth and Styles, who stood facing him, awaiting orders.
'Well? Have we forgotten anything? Is there something more we can do?'
Madden shifted in his chair.
'Yes, John?'
'I was thinking, sir — that batch of photographs we're sending down to Highfield. Why don't I take them? I know most of the villagers and I could help Constable Stackpole to get them spread around.'
Sinclair frowned. It was the only way he could keep a straight face. 'I could send one of the others. I hate to impose this on you, John.'
'I don't mind, sir.'
'Well, if you're sure…'
A little while later, after the door had shut behind Madden's departing figure, Hollingsworth and Styles in their cubby-hole were startled to hear the sound of humming coming from the adjoining office. The song was an old one and they were both familiar with the words which presently reached them, carried on the chief inspector's surprisingly tuneful tenor: 'Taking one consideration with another, A policeman's lot is not a happy one…'
Billy Styles nudged the sergeant. 'Hark at the guv'nor. He's gone mad as a maggot.'
'None of that lip, Constable,' Hollingsworth growled, though he was more than half inclined to agree.
The canvass OF Highfield residents brought little result. Although they walked the village from end to end knocking on doors, only one household yielded a positive response, and as Stackpole remarked, you had to wonder if May Birney wasn't overstretching her imagination.
'You think she might be trying too hard?' Madden asked. 'Because she was right about the whistle?'
The constable had been at the station to meet him and together they had put up copies of the poster in the ticket hall and waiting-room. Frowning, Stackpole had stared hard at the heavily moustached face. 'I know I haven't seen him, sir. At least, not that I recognize.'
As they walked into the village he told the inspector he had a message for him from Dr Blackwell.
Madden had rung the house from London but failed to reach her.
'She asked if you could pass by her surgery later.
She's had to go to Guildford. They had some typhoid cases brought into the hospital there and they needed help.' Stackpole smiled under his helmet. 'You're looking well, if I may say so, sir.'
'Am I, Will? I can't think why. We've been working like the devil.'
The Birney family lived above their store in the main street. Neither parent had recognized the face on the poster, but May, pink-cheeked from having been caught in the middle of washing her bobbed brown hair, looked hard at it for ten seconds and then said, 'I've seen him before.'
'Now, don't be hasty, girl.' Mr Birney rubbed his bald spot anxiously. 'You don't want to mislead the inspector.'
'The moustache was different.'
'He had a moustache?' Madden sat forward in the chintz-covered armchair. 'You're sure of that?'
'Yes, sir. But not as big as this one. But I'm positive it's the same man. I remember the chin.'
'So you saw him from the side, in profile?'
May Birney nodded.
'Try and picture him without the cap,' the inspector suggested, but she shook her head at once.
'No, he was wearing a cap. That's how I remember him.'
'What sort of cap?'
She didn't know. She couldn't recall. 'Just a cap. It was pulled down low over his eyes, like in the picture.'
'It can't be a military cap,' Madden remarked later, when they paused on the village green to confer. The autumn afternoon was drawing in. Lights were starting to come on in the cottages flanking the grass triangle.
'If there's one place we won't find Pike it's in the Army.'
'There's lots of other kinds, sir. Charabanc drivers, chauffeurs, delivery-men. They all wear caps of one sort or another. And what if it was just an ordinary cloth cap? Most of us have got one of those.'
'Whatever he was wearing, I think she saw him.
Talk to her again, Will.'
Madden had noticed the red two-seater parked in front of one of the cottages across the green. Stackpole had seen it, too. 'There's Dr Blackwell now. You'll find her in her surgery, sir. She rents rooms from old Granny
