What seemed to be an oppressive silence fell upon the house. The constable went over to the body, pulled the sheet further over the head, and perched on a stool.
A minute or two went by, then Harry Bache suddenly said: ‘Why don’t we go into the back room? There’s still a good fire—looks more cheerful.’
‘Good idea!’ approved the doctor, getting to his feet.
‘What about you, Mr Pearman?’ asked the landlord.
The policeman shook his head.
‘I think I’d better stop in here if you don’t mind.’
‘Please yourself. We’ll be out there if you want us.’
Harry Bache and the doctor went out along the short passage to the little back sitting-room, where a small but lively fire was burning between the two old-fashioned hobs. The doctor set his glass, still half-full, on the table, and made himself comfortable in a well-worn rocking chair, while Harry Bache closed the door with some care.
‘Where’s your wife?’ asked the doctor, as soon as he was settled. Harry Bache made an upward gesture with a grimy thumb.
‘Packed ’er off to bed out of the way,’ he answered. They began to talk in low voices.
‘I don’t like this business, Doc,’ said Harry Bache, in a hoarse, apprehensive voice. ‘I ain’t never been mixed up with anything like this before.’ His Cockney origin became more apparent than ever in his agitation.
‘Don’t be a damned fool!’ snapped Randall in low tones. ‘Everything’s turned out all right. You’ve only got to keep your wits about you.’ His face was redder than usual, possibly because of the quantity of whisky he had drunk that evening. Harry Bache leaned against the mantelpiece and looked into the fire.
‘It’s tricky, Doc. I can’t think what the devil brought ’im ’ere—of all places. D’you think ’e’d found out anything?’
‘Well, nobody’ll know the answer to that now,’ replied Randall grimly.
‘It’s a nasty business,’ repeated Bache. ‘I don’t like the looks of that Mr Washington. E’s a queer bird, if you ask me.’
‘Yes,’ nodded the doctor. ‘I’ve read one or two things about him in the papers; we’ll have to keep an eye on him.’
‘What’s ’e want to come and live in these parts for?’ demanded Bache curiously.
‘He’s very fond of fishing.’
‘That’s what he says. But I don’t trust ’im. I’ve got a feeling ’e’s up to something.’
‘Pull yourself together,’ said Randall, taking a gulp at his whisky. ‘It’s quite simple. Locksley came down to see him because of that card left behind on the Gloucester job.’
‘Card? What card? I don’t know anything about—’
‘Skip it, and give me another drink. You don’t have to worry about Johnny Washington. We’ll look after him.’
The landlord opened a cupboard, took out a bottle and filled two glasses.
‘I thought for a minute ’e’d got wise about the club-room—’e asked to go inside—and found a damp patch on the floor, where I wiped up the—’
‘You damn fool! What did you want to let him go in for!’ The doctor was on his feet now, towering above the little innkeeper.
‘I ’ad to let ’im in. ’E said the police would want to go and ’ave a look round … it’d ’ave looked fishy if I’d tried to keep ’im out.’
The doctor sat down again.
‘He never mentioned anything about the club-room,’ he reflected. ‘Maybe he didn’t attach any importance to whatever he saw there.’
‘Anyhow, ’e can’t prove nothing,’ nodded the innkeeper. ‘I’m the only witness, and I got my story.’
‘Of course you have,’ rallied the doctor. ‘There’ll be no trouble.’ For a minute or two they drank in silence. Then Bache said suddenly:
‘’Eard anything about the next job?’
‘Yes,’ nodded the doctor. ‘Brighton.’
‘Ah …’ Harry Bache nodded several times. ‘Plenty of stuff down there if you know where to lay ’ands on it.’
‘It’s practically settled,’ Randall told him. ‘We’ll be meeting on Thursday.’
‘Not here?’ queried the landlord in some alarm.
‘Why not? This business will be all over by then. It’ll be safe as anywhere.’ The doctor drained his glass for the ninth time that evening.
‘This is a big job at Brighton,’ he went on. ‘One of the biggest we’ve taken on yet, and we’ve got to leave nothing to chance.’ He got up and went over to the door, opened it a few inches and closed it again before adding in a low tone:
‘I had the tip this morning that Grey Moose may be coming down here himself.’
‘How ever did I get on without you, Winwood?’ lazily demanded Johnny Washington, levering himself into a slightly more comfortable position in his arm-chair. His butler smiled politely without vouchsafing any reply.
It was just after nine on the Thursday morning after the death of Superintendent Locksley, on whom the coroner had returned an open verdict. There had been plenty of sensational headlines during the past few days, but the police did not seem to be much nearer establishing the exact cause of their colleague’s death. Crime reporters with varying degrees of imagination speculated upon the case from a number of angles, and two or three ‘played up’ Johnny Washington’s connection with it. They would not readily forget the young American’s comparatively recent exploits amongst the strange characters in and around the London underworld, and as it was known that Locksley had been investigating the gelignite robberies, the natural inference was that Johnny Washington was in some way linked up with that gang. With the result that a number of brisk young men, usually wearing shabby raincoats, had been seen in the district of Caldicott Manor during the past two days. Most of them had called at the house, but had been duly repulsed by the faithful Winwood, who, having performed just such an operation some forty times in a wide assortment of film productions, was able to command a variety of techniques suitable for any emergency.
Johnny gazed out of his french windows across a vista of Kent orchards, while Winwood methodically read reports from all the morning newspapers of the inquest on Superintendent Locksley. His own evidence was detailed quite fully, but gave no clue as to the reason the superintendent had visited him on that fatal evening. As he had caught sight of Inspector Dovey from the Yard in close consultation with the coroner just before the inquest, Johnny guessed that this omission had been carefully arranged.
All the reports of the inquest so far had proved reasonably discreet, until Winwood turned to the melodramatic pages of the Daily Reflector, with its lively display of two-inch headlines and bathing beauties on each alternate sheet.
‘This is a little more sensational, sir,’ began Winwood with a slight apologetic cough, deferentially inclining his head exactly as he had done in some long-since forgotten epic. He started to read a report with the by-line, ‘By Our Crime