‘The plot thickens.’
Sinclair didn’t trouble to announce himself this time. He began speaking as soon as Madden picked up the receiver.
‘No sign of Ash himself yet. He’s still out and about. But we’ve learned that he may have disguised himself. It’s possible he’s wearing a military uniform.’
The chief inspector broke off to mutter something not meant for his auditor. Madden caught the words ‘be quick’ and do it now’. Either by chance, or as a result of orders given to the telephone exchange operators, the line was exceptionally clear.
‘The detectives I sent over to Lambeth have searched his room. They didn’t find anything incriminating, but what they did discover suggests he’s up to something. Before we get to that, let me tell you what his movements have been over the past few days. He turned up in Lambeth last Monday. Quill was murdered two days later and Ash’s new landlady confirms he was out late that night. The following day he was absent again — she only caught glimpses of him coming and going — and when he got back he had a big parcel with him, contents unknown. But we do have a clue as to what might have been in it.’
Again Sinclair paused and Madden heard him mutter. He waited patiently, the receiver pressed to his ear. The light outside the sitting-room window had dulled since his last call, and already he could see the faint outlines of his own reflection in the glass of the window-pane.
‘I’m sorry, John. With Christmas almost on us we’re even shorter-staffed than usual. I’m trying to do several things at once. This parcel, then: we suspect it might have contained a military uniform and that Ash may be wearing it now. His landlady’s our source for that. Mrs Cully, her name is, and she’s a classic of her kind. Not just curious, downright nosy. She can’t make head nor tail of this Mr Pratt. He never appears for either breakfast or supper and thus far they’ve hardly exchanged a word. The best she’s been able to do is have a good poke round his room on the pretext of cleaning it, and when our fellows turned up today she was able to tell them she’d seen two suits hanging in the wardrobe when she’d peeped in. Ash had gone out that day wearing another suit, so it was a matter of simple addition to calculate he had three, and they were all there in the wardrobe when our men looked through it, plus the hat which Mrs Cully had seen him with earlier.’
‘So he must have been wearing some other clothes, what he had in that parcel, most likely. Yes, I see.’ Madden spoke. ‘But what makes you think it was a uniform?’
‘Again, we’ve the eagle-eyed Mrs Cully to thank. She was still in bed this morning when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone was tiptoeing down them, and that was enough to get her up and over to the window in a flash. She caught a glimpse of an officer going down the steps outside: she only saw his back, worse luck — his greatcoat and cap — but she had no lodger of that description staying there and, as she rather primly put it, no young ladies of the kind who might think of entertaining a gentleman for the night. Which anyway was against the rules. In the course of the morning she observed her other guests departing, but there was no sign of Ash, and later she went upstairs to knock on his door on some pretext and found the room empty. So it looks as though this mysterious officer must have been our man.’
The chief inspector paused, either to catch his breath or to reflect on his own words.
‘It’s not surprising, after all,’ he went on. We know he’s disguised himself in the past. That was mentioned in the report Duval sent us. What puzzles me is why — why put himself to so much trouble? He’ll have to go back to his lodgings at some point and he won’t want to be seen dressed up as a soldier boy. Could it be because he’s feeling more exposed since we published that picture of him?’
The question was clearly rhetorical: he continued without pause.
‘There’s not much more to tell. Only a riddle to ponder. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the men I sent over came on something odd when they searched his room, an item Mrs Cully said wasn’t there when she went through it. It was a first-aid kit of the kind air-raid wardens carry around with them in their satchels. They’ve become war surplus; I’m told you can buy them at any of these markets that have sprung up. The one in Ash’s room had been torn open and there was a dressing missing.’
‘A dressing?’
‘A bandage and so forth. They found the empty packet it had been in. I wondered if he’d been injured. Could he have got into a fight with Quill the other night? There was no indication of it at the scene.’
Sinclair paused, perhaps hoping Madden might offer some suggestion, but when he remained silent he went on:
‘I had word from Styles not long ago. He and Grace aren’t far from Liphook. But it’s slow going. There’s a lot of snow on the roads. I haven’t heard from Petersfield again, but I dare say the men they sent will get there eventually. Once everyone’s assembled we can have another council of war. You can tell Mrs Spencer that. Say nothing’s decided as yet. I don’t want to drag this young woman up to London unnecessarily.’
‘A bandage, you say …?’ As though in a trance, Madden had been staring at his own reflection in the window-pane.
‘That’s right.’ It took the chief inspector a few seconds to realize what his old colleague was referring to. ‘A dressing from the first-aid kit. Why …?’
‘There was a man with his eye bandaged up on the train this morning. An army officer.’
Sinclair grunted. At first he seemed unsure how to respond.
‘I take it you didn’t recognize him?’ he finally asked.
‘Oh, no. In fact, I hardly looked at his face. He got off the train behind me and I gave him a hand down.’
The chief inspector cleared his throat. Though his old partner’s powers of recollection never ceased to amaze him, his ability to retrieve even the most trivial details from the well of memory, he felt bound in this instance to question the assumption he seemed to be making.
‘Aren’t you rather leaping to conclusions, John? After all, a wounded soldier is hardly a rarity these days.’
‘It wasn’t that. It was something else.’ Madden spoke in a dead voice. ‘I remember it now. He didn’t return a salute. Two, in fact.’
‘I’m sorry …?
‘A pair of privates walked by as he got off the train and saluted him. He looked right through them. No real officer would do that. You respond automatically. It’s drilled into you. I should know — I was one myself.’
Sinclair allowed a few seconds to pass.
‘Very well. Let’s say for argument’s sake that you’re right. Why the elaborate disguise?’
‘If it was Ash, he would have travelled on that line often, working as a salesman. Perhaps he was afraid of being recognized by one of the ticket collectors. He must know by now that his description’s been circulated, that every policeman in the country is looking for him.’
‘You’re suggesting Quill gave him the information, then? That he knows where the girl’s living?’
Madden said nothing. For the past few minutes he had been watching the light fade on the snow outside.
‘But that means he arrived in Liphook this morning, when you did, yet there’s been no sign of him. What’s he been doing all day?’
‘I don’t know, Angus. I don’t even know if it was Ash. But he may have been waiting for dark.’
He broke off to call out loudly over his shoulder.
‘Bess …! Bess …! Can you get in here?’
When he spoke again it was to the chief inspector.
‘Look, we can’t take the risk. I’m going to lock up the house. If you can reach Billy tell him to hurry.’
‘Wait a minute, John-’
‘No, I can’t, Angus, not now.’ He heard the sound of Bess’s heavy steps approaching. ‘There’s no time.’
31
She burst in.
‘John-?’
‘Ash may be here in Liphook.’ He saw her gasp. ‘I’m worried about Mrs Spencer and her son. How far away is
