Williams looked a little crestfallen. “Of course, I didn’t have a chance to talk to her,” he reminded.
“No. On looks it was quite a good reading, Williams. I wish I could read this case as well.” He sat down and ran his fingers through his hair. “What would you do, Williams, once you had got clear of the Marine?”
Williams understood that he was supposed to be Tisdall.
“I’d take a fairly crowded bus somewhere. First that came to hand. Get off with a crowd of others, and walk off as if I knew where I was going. In fact, wherever I went I’d look as if I knew where I was going.”
“And then, what?”
“I’d probably have to take another bus to get out of townified parts.”
“You’d get out of built-up areas, would you?”
“Sure!” said Williams, surprised.
“A man’s much more conspicuous in open country.”
“There are woods. In fact, some of the woods in this part of the world would hide a man indefinitely. And if a man got as far west as Ashdown Forest, well, it’d take about a hundred men to comb Ashdown properly.”
Grant shook his head. “There’s food. And lodging.”
“Sleep out. It’s warm weather.”
“He’s been out two nights now. If he has taken to the country he must be looking shop-worn by this time. But has he? Have you noticed that no one has reported him as buying a razor? There’s just the chance that he’s with friends. I wonder—” his eyes strayed to the chair where Judy had been sitting. “But no! She’d never risk as big a bluff as that. No need for it.”
Williams wished to himself that Grant would go to the hotel and have some sleep. He was taking far too much to heart his failure to arrest Tisdall. Mistakes happened to the best of people, and everyone knew that Grant was all right. He had the Yard solid behind him. Why need he worry himself sick over something that might have happened to anyone? There were one or two crabbers, of course—people who wanted his job—but no one paid any attention to the like of them. Everyone knew what they were getting at. Grant was all right, and everyone knew it. It was silly of him to get so worked up over a little slip.
If a policeman’s heart can be said to ache, then Williams’s stout heart ached for his superior.
“You can get rid of this disgusting object,” Grant said, indicating the coat. “It’s twenty years old, at least, and hasn’t had a button on it for the last ten. That’s one thing that puzzles me, you know, Williams. He had it at the beach, and it was missing when he came back. He had to get rid of that coat somewhere along his route. It isn’t a very extensive route, when all is said. And there wasn’t time for him to go far off it. He’d be too anxious to get back and cover up his mistake in going away. And yet we haven’t turned the coat up. Two duck ponds, both shallow, both well dragged. Three streams that wouldn’t hide a penny and wouldn’t float a paper boat. Ditches beaten, garden walls inspected on the wrong side, two copses scoured. Nothing! What did he do with it? What would you do with it?”
“Burn it.”
“No time. It’s damp too. Soaking wet, probably.”
“Roll it small and stick it in the fork of a tree. Everyone looks on the ground for things.”
“Williams, you’re a born criminal. Tell Sanger your theory and ask him to make use of it this afternoon. I’d rather have that coat than have Tisdall. In fact, I’ve got to have that coat!”
“Talking of razors, you don’t think maybe, he took his razor with him, sir?”
“I didn’t think of it. Shouldn’t think he had the presence of mind. But then I didn’t think he’d have the nerve to bolt. I concentrated on suicide. Where are his things?”
“Sanger took them over here in the case. Everything he had.”
“Just see if his razor is there? It’s just as well to know whether he’s shaved or not.”
There was no razor.
“Well!” said Grant. “Who’d have thought it! ‘You disappoint me, Inspector,’ says he, quietly pocketing the razor, and arranging his get-away with the world’s prize chump of a detective watching him. I’m all wrong about that lad, Sergeant. All wrong. I thought first, when I took him from the inquest that he was one of these hysterical, do-it-on-the-spur-of-the-moment creatures. Then, after I knew about the will, I changed my mind. Still thought him a ‘poor thing,’ though. And now I find he was planning a get-away under my very nose—and he brought it off! It isn’t Tisdall who’s a washout, it’s me!”
“Cheer up, sir. Our luck is out at the moment. But you and I between us, and no one else, so help me, are going to put that cold-blooded brute where he belongs,” Williams said fervently, not knowing that the person who was to be the means of bringing the murderer of Christine Clay to justice was a rather silly little woman in Kansas City who had never heard of any of them.
11
Erica stood on the brake and brought her disreputable little car to a standstill. She then backed it the necessary yards, and stopped again. She inspected with interest the sole of a man’s boot, visible in the grass and gorse, and then considered the wide empty landscape and the mile-long straight of chalky lane with its borders of speedwell and thrift, shining in the sun.
“You can come out,” she said. “There’s no one in sight for miles.”
The boot sole disappeared and a man’s astonished face appeared in the bushes above it.
“That’s a great relief to me,” Erica observed. “I thought for a moment that you might be dead.”
“How did you know it was me? I suppose you did know it was me?”
“Yes. There’s a funny squiggle on the instep part of your sole where the price has been scored off. I noticed it when you were lying on the floor of Father’s office.”
“Oh, yes; that’s who you are, of course. You’re a very good detective.”
“You’re a very bad escaper. No one could have missed your foot.”
“You didn’t give me much time. I didn’t hear your car till it was nearly on me.”
“You must be deaf. She’s one of the County jokes, poor Tinny. Like Lady Middleway’s hat and old Mr. Dyne’s shell-collection.”
“Tinny?”
“Yes. She used to be Christina, but the inevitable happened. You couldn’t not have heard her.”
“I think perhaps I was asleep for a minute or two. I—I’m a bit short of sleep.”
“Yes, I expect so. Are you hungry?”
“Is that just an academic question, or—or are you offering me food?”
Erica reached into the back of the car and produced half a dozen rolls, a glass of tongue, half a pound of butter, and four tomatoes.
“I’ve forgotten a tin-opener,” she said, passing him the tongue, “but if you hit the tin lid hard with a flint it will make a hole.” She split a roll with a pen knife produced from her pocket and began to butter it.
“Do you always carry food about with you?” he asked, doubtfully.
“Oh, always. I’m a very hungry person. Besides I’m often not home from morning till night. Here’s the knife. Cut a hunk of the tongue and lay it on that.” She gave him the buttered roll.