Williams’s other contribution had not been so happy. He reported that Jason Harmer had not stayed at the hotel he had given as his sleeping place at Sandwich. Had not stayed at Sandwich at all, in fact.
Grant had left his Sunday kidney and bacon untouched and had gone out without ado to interview Mr. Harmer. He found him in his pinkish flat at Devonshire House, covered in a purple silk dressing gown, black stubble, and sheet music.
“It’s not often I’m up at this hour,” he offered, pushing sheets of scrawled paper off a chair to make room for Grant. “But I’ve been sort of upset about Chris. Very good friends, we were, Inspector. Some people found her difficult, but me, no. ’Cause why? D’you know why? ’Cause we both felt no-account and were afraid people’d find it out. Humans are awful bullies, you know. If you look and act like a million dollars they’ll lick your boots. But you let them suspect that you don’t think much of yourself and they’re on you like ants on a dying wasp. I knew Chris was bluffing first time I set eyes on her. You can’t tell me anything about bluffing. I bluffed my way into the States and I bluffed the publishers into printing my first song. They didn’t find out about it till the song was a wow, and then they sort of thought it might be a good idea to forget about having one put over on them. Have a drink? Yes, it’s a bit early. I don’t usually myself till lunch time, but it’s the next best thing to sleep. And I’ve got two songs to finish on contract. For—for—” his voice died away—“for Coyne’s new film,” he went on with a rush. “Ever tried writing a song without an idea in your head? No. No, I suppose you haven’t. Well, it’s just plain torture. And who’s going to sing them anyhow? That Hallard dame can’t sing. Did you hear Chris sing: ‘Sing to me sometimes’?”
Grant had.
“Now that’s what I call putting over a song. I’ve written better songs, I admit. But she made it sound like the best song that was ever written. What’s the good of writing songs anyway, for that up-stage Hallard bird to make a mess of?”
He was moving about the room, picking up a pile of papers here only to set it down in an equally inappropriate place there. Grant watched him with interest. This was Marta’s “merry kettle” and Judy’s “smouldering type.” To Grant he seemed neither. Just one of those rather ordinary specimens of humanity from some poor corner of Europe who believes he’s being continually exploited and persecuted by his fellow men, self-pitying, ill-educated, emotional, and ruthless. Not good-looking, but attractive to women, no doubt. Grant remembered that two such widely differing types as Marta Hallard and Judy Sellers had found him remarkable; each reading her own meaning into his personality. He apparently had the ability to be all things to all men. He had been friendly to the disliked Marta, that was certain: Marta did not hotly defend indifferent worshippers at her shrine. He spent his life, that is to say, “putting on an act.” He had admitted so much himself a moment ago. Was he putting on an act now? For Grant?
“I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but it was a matter of business. You know that we are investigating Miss Clay’s death. And in the course of investigation it is necessary to check the movements of everyone who knew her, irrespective of persons or probabilities. Now, you told the sergeant of the County police force, when you talked to him on Thursday, that you had spent the night in a hotel at Sandwich. When this was checked in the ordinary course it was found that you hadn’t stayed there.”
Harmer fumbled among the music, without looking up.
“Where did you stay, Mr. Harmer?”
Harmer looked up with a small laugh. “You know,” he said, “it’s pretty funny at that! Charming gentleman calls in a perfectly friendly way about breakfast time, apologizing for disturbing you and hopes he isn’t going to be a trouble to you but he’s an inspector of police and would you be so very kind as to give some information because last time your information wasn’t as accurate as it might have been. It’s lovely, that’s what it is. And you get results with it, too. Perhaps they just break down and sob, on account of all the friendliness. Pie like mother made. What I’d like to know is if that method goes in Pimlico or if you keep it for Park Lane.”
“What I would like to know is where you stayed last Wednesday night, Mr. Harmer.”
“The Mr., too, I guess that’s Park Lane as well. In fact, if you’d been talking to the Jason of ten years back, you’d have had me to the station and scared hell out of me just like the cops of any other country. They’re all the same; dough worshippers.”
“I haven’t your experience of the world’s police forces, I’m afraid, Mr. Harmer.”
Harmer grinned. “Stung you! A limey’s got to be plenty stung before he’s rude-polite like that. Don’t get me wrong, though, Inspector. There aren’t any police brands on me. As for last Wednesday night, I spent it in my car.”
“You mean you didn’t go to bed at all?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“And where was the car?”
“In a lane with hedges as high as houses each side, parked on the grass verge. An awful lot of space goes to waste in England in these verges. The ones in that lane were about forty feet wide.”
“And you say you slept in the car? Have you someone who can bear witness to that?”
“No. It wasn’t that kind of park. I was just sleepy and lost and couldn’t be bothered going any further.”
“Lost! In the east of Kent!”
“Yes, anywhere in Kent, if it comes to that. Have you ever tried to find a village in England after dark? Night in the desert is nothing to it. You see a sign at last that says ‘Whatsit two and a half miles’ and you think: Good old Whatsit! Nearly there! Hurrah for England and signposts! And then half a mile on you come to a place where three ways fork, and there’s a nice tidy signpost on the little bit of green in the middle and every blame one of that signpost’s arms has got at least three names on it, but do you think one of them mentions Whatsit? Oh, no! That would make it far too easy! So you read ’em all several times and hope someone’ll come past before you have to decide, but no one comes. Last person passed there a week last Tuesday. No houses; nothing but fields, and an advertisement for a circus that was there the previous April. So you take one of the three roads, and after passing two more signposts that don’t take any notice of Whatsit, you come to one that says: Whatsit, six and three-quarters. So you start off all over again, four miles to the bad, as it were, and it happens all over again. And again! And by the time Whatsit has done that on you half a dozen times, you don’t care what happens as long as you can stop driving round corners and go to sleep. So I just stopped where I was and went to sleep. It was too late to drop in on Chris by that time, anyway.”
“But not too late to get a bed at an inn.”
“Not if you know where an inn is. ’Sides, judging by some of the inns I’ve seen here, I’d just as soon sleep in the car.”
“You grow a heavy beard, I notice.” Grant nodded at Harmer’s unshaven chin.
“Yes. Have to shave twice a day, sometimes. If I’m going to be out late. Why?”
“You were shaved when you arrived at Miss Clay’s cottage. How was that?”
“Carry my shaving things in the car. Have to, when you have a beard like mine.”
“So you had no breakfast that morning?”
“No, I was planning to get breakfast from Chris. I don’t eat breakfast anyway. Just coffee, or orange juice. Orange juice in England. My God, your coffee—What do you think they do to it? The women, I mean. It’s—”
“Leaving the coffee aside for a moment, shall we come to the main point? Why did you tell the sergeant on duty that you had slept at Sandwich?”
The man’s face changed subtly. Until then he had been answering at ease, automatically; the curves of his broad, normally