town politics. Never had a nasty letter that I can remember.”
I moved toward the edge of the sofa. “Mr. Klein, do any of the following names mean anything to you?” And I began to recite them. He shook his head after each of the first few.
“Gladys Tripp. Now, that name rings a bell. Where have I heard it recently?”
“She was the telephone switchboard operator who was killed last week.”
“In a fire at the exchange, wasn’t it? That’s right. I remembered her name from before.”
“Before what?” Inspector Newcombe asked.
Mr. Klein frowned. “Maybe I’ve run into her around town? Go on. What were the other names?”
“The next person was the master of the local hunt. Major Wesley-Parker.”
Mr. Klein looked up suddenly. “Dapper little man with a mustache like that dreadful Hitler fellow? Thinks a lot of himself?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Oh, I remember him all right,” he said. “I served on a jury with him several years ago. He was an officious person. Took charge from square one. Bossed us all around. Wanted everything his way.”
“A jury?” Inspector Newcombe exchanged an excited look with us.
“That’s right. Come to think of it, that telephone lady must have been on it too. At least, there was some woman who chattered nonstop, inane stuff. I believe her last name was Tripp.”
“Think carefully, Mr. Klein,” Inspector Newcombe said slowly. “Who else can you remember on that jury?”
“Let me see. A refined older lady who locked horns with your hunting chap. There were a couple of people who never said a word—a large countrywoman, I remember, who looked distinctly out of place and uncomfortable. Did her knitting all the time. Click of knitting needles was most annoying. Then there were a couple of younger men who wouldn’t take anything seriously. That Major Whatsit did get annoyed with them. ‘You’re a disgrace to the county set,’ he said.” And Mr. Klein chuckled.
“Freddie Partridge. Johnnie Protheroe?” I asked.
“I really can’t remember names, if I even knew them. You don’t ever want to get too friendly with fellow jurors. It’s such an unreal situation that you just want to do the job and get out of there. At least, that was the way I felt. And most of them ignored me. I’m the sort that people overlook.”
The inspector cleared his throat. “Mr. Klein, what was the nature of the case? And the name of the defendant?”
“Now, that I do remember,” he said. “It was quite interesting, actually. He’d been a well-known music hall artiste. Had fallen on hard times since the demise of the music hall and taken to swindling old ladies out of their life savings. The prosecution wanted us to believe that he’d killed more than one of them. His last landlady had died from a fall down the stairs, but there was no real proof that he’d actually pushed her.”
“And his name, Mr. Klein? Do you remember his name?”
“His name was Robbins.”
Chapter 36
The inspector got to his feet, slamming his fist into his open hand. “I knew it. I knew my instinct was right all along.”
“You know him, then?” Mr. Klein asked.
“Oh, yes, I know him. He’s one of the convicts who recently escaped from Dartmoor. We’ve been looking for him.”
“My life, already,” Mr. Klein said. “You’re telling me that the man who broke into my shop and took those rings was that same Robbins?”
“Almost certainly so.”
“Then I’m lucky I wasn’t murdered in my bed.”
“You are very lucky, I agree. In fact, you’re the only one he hasn’t attempted to murder, most of them in ingenious ways.”
“Oh, he was a slick one, all right, from what we heard of the way he got around these old ladies. Knew how to charm people. Smarmy, that’s what I called him, but some of the ladies believed him. I don’t quite approve of having ladies sit on juries, if you don’t mind my saying so. Not enough experience of the outside world and too easily swayed by a charming smile.”
“What did he look like, Mr. Klein?” I asked.
“We know what he looked like. We have his mug shots,” the inspector said.
“I wanted Mr. Klein’s impression of him,” I said.
“Well-built chap, good solid jaw. Quite a big man and, as I said, charming smile. Charming manner altogether. If you’d believed him, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
“I take it you haven’t seen him recently?” the inspector asked. “He didn’t come into your shop, for example?”
“Oh, no. I’d have remembered him, I’m sure,” Mr. Klein said. “A person like that you don’t forget so easily.”
We took our leave then.
“Well, that’s a turnup for the books, isn’t it?” the inspector said. “If we’re to believe him, that Robbins fellow is still hiding out in these parts and bumping off the members of the jury, one by one.”
“He still has two to go,” I said. “We need to find out who the other members were before it’s too late.”
“That trial would have been at the Crown court in Exeter,” the inspector said. “The local magistrate’s court wouldn’t have touched a case like that.”
He turned to his driver and we swung onto the main Exeter road.
“What I want to know,” my grandfather said as we negotiated the narrow streets near the center of town, “is how he obtained all this local knowledge if he was locked away in Dartmoor Prison. Someone from around here must have found out about the details of the people he killed.”
“The same one who is hiding him, presumably,” I said.
“Doing a bloody good job of it too,” the inspector said. “We went door to door in all those local villages when the convicts escaped, but nobody claimed to have seen hide nor hair of them.”
The car came to a halt outside the court buildings and we followed the inspector inside. We were passed from one department to the next until we found where archives of court cases were stored. And then we waited, sitting on a hard wooden bench in a drafty foyer. At last a young man came back with a sheet of paper. “This is the one you wanted,” he said. “Robert Francis Robbins. Convicted November 22, 1928.”
We read it eagerly. “Who is Agnes Brewer?” Granddad asked.
“The farmer’s wife. Already dead.”
“That just leaves Stewart McGill and—oh.” I stopped, mouth open.
“Peter Barclay,” Granddad said. “Isn’t he the quiet little chap who plays the organ?”
“That’s him.” I looked at the inspector. “Do you have any way of telephoning the police station in Tiddleton and having some kind of guard put on Mr. Barclay?”
“I’ll do it from the station here,” the inspector said. “And we need to find out where this Mr. McGill lives. We have an address for him and it’s in Exeter.”
We drove with a growing feeling of dread to Mr. McGill’s address. It was in a rather shabby backstreet of terraced houses right on the pavement with no front gardens. We knocked on the front door and a young woman opened it. She looked unkempt, with a baby on her hip.
“Mr. McGill?” the inspector asked.
She stared at him defiantly. “No. You’ve got the wrong number. The name’s Perkins.”
“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Perkins?”
“Just over a year. What’s it to you?”
“I’m a police officer,” Inspector Newcombe said coldly and noted the reaction in her eyes. “You don’t happen to know where to find the people who lived here before you, do you?”
“No idea.” The baby started to wail. “Look, this isn’t a good time. He wants his bottle and the bigger ones want their dinner.”
“We’re looking for a Mr. McGill who used to live here,” the inspector said. “It’s vitally important we contact
