The Attic Murder by S. Fowler Wright (read me like a book txt) 📕
Chapter III
FRANCIS HAMMERTON, if we are to think of him by his true name, had not considered the probability that Mrs. Benson might not be the sole occupant of the house, his mind having been concentrated upon aspects of his position which threatened more definite hazards.
Actually, the woman whose voice he heard was a next-door neighbour, Miss Janet Brown, who had looked in with no further purpose than to return a borrowed flat-iron. But it happened that she was already informed of the exciting incident of the afternoon, and when Mrs. Benson detained her for a cup of the tea which could be cheaply obtained by adding fresh water to the leaves in the lodger's teapot, and naturally mentioned the good fortune which had walked in less than two hours before Janet was quick to see the connection bet
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“No, I can’t say that I know. But if Colonel Driver’s under arrest, you’ll do well to have Cuckford watched. But I suppose you know all about that.”
Inspector Combridge was obliged to say that the name conveyed no useful idea to his mind. Peter Entwistle, who was accustomed to credit the police with more omniscience than they possess, as most criminals are inclined to do, was more surprised than he would have considered it good manners to show.
“It’s the Flying School at Cuckford I mean,” he explained. “I don’t know who’s supposed to own it, but it’s under Driver’s control. If you get Banks, or any of the others, badly alarmed, and don’t run them in, you’ll find that they won’t risk Croydon. They’ll put off from Cuckford without the formality of having their passports examined.”
“That’s a good tip,” the Inspector answered, and, per haps not illogically, the statement gave him more confidence than he had felt previously that he was not on the wrong track for a third time. “Thanks, Jellipot,” he added generously, recognizing that it was the lawyer’s urgency which had brought that information so promptly before him.
He went at that, with Peter Entwistle in his company. On arriving at the Yard he made him comfortable there, with refreshments appropriate to the occasion, and the writing materials that were equally indicated.
He had a hurried consultation with such of his colleagues as were available at that hour, with results somewhat discouraging to himself, and then gave certain instructions which resulted in the local police-sergeant at Cuckford remaining on duty long after his usual hours, and two cars of plain-clothes men, to whom firearms had been served out, leaving half an hour later, on the Cuckford road.
After that, he went out to interview Miss Gracie Fortescue, whom he was fortunate enough to find without much difficulty, and when she understood that he came in peace, and was not proposing to subject her to one of those periodic arrests by which she was required to share her earnings with the authorities of the State, she made little difficulty, finding how much he already knew, of a frank disclosure of the circumstances under which she had received a substantial bribe from Mr. Jesse Banks.
She said that he had been more expeditious than the Inspector (having a more direct and evident reason) in interviewing her after the murder. He had told her that he had been engaged in a secret investigation of great importance on behalf of the London & Northern Bank, and that it was essential that, if she were questioned by anyone, she should not disclose that he had been there during the night.
He had accompanied this statement with the enormous-seeming bribe of a hundred pounds, which he had implied was from funds placed in his hands by the bank (from which source Inspector Combridge saw that it might actually have been drawn), and that the importance of the matter at issue made this a relatively trifling amount.
At that time, she had not supposed that his presence at No. 13 could have any connection with a murder four doors away, and had accepted the money without anticipation that she might be drawing trouble upon herself, especially as she understood that Mr. Banks was of the nature of a police officer himself, and in the confidence or the force.
When the inspector had questioned her subsequently, she had not mentioned an incident which she had already pledged herself to conceal, and which she honestly thought to have no connection with the matter to which his own enquiries were directed.
Such was her tale, and when she found that she was neither to be involved in trouble for what she had failed to disclose on the earlier occasion, nor required to disgorge the money, she readily undertook to make a written statement in confirmation of the account she had given.
THE Cuckford Aviation and Instructional Company Limited owned a track of moorland country several hundred acres in extent, which lay, level and high, about three miles from the ancient village from which its name was derived.
It took flying pupils, for whom it provided a service of cars to bring and return them from their Cuckford lodgings, as there was no nearer accommodation. The company’s buildings consisted of a canteen, some hangars of considerable extent, and a range of barrack-like edifices which provided lodging for the permanent staff.
In separate rooms in these buildings, too closely watched for opportunity of escape, Augusta Garten and Francis had been confined, without opportunity for communications to pass between them.
They had been brought there at a late hour of the previous night, each in a closed car, and with an armed guard sitting on either hand, after they had been subjected to some preliminary questioning at the Berkshire residence of a man whom Francis heard addressed as Captain Morgan, and who was known to Miss Garten by some other names in addition, without certainty as to which, if any, had been his original property.
After arrival at Cuckford, Miss Garten had been further questioned by this gentleman, and some other of her previous associates. The examination had not been unfriendly, and appeared to be genuinely concerned to arrive at the truth of her relations with Francis, and of her continued loyalty to the gang, and she had sustained it with sufficient success to feel some expectation that she would recover their shaken confidence, until, as the evening advanced, Captain Morgan entered her room with an expression such as she had not seen on his face before, and asked curtly: “What was the meaning of ‘Don’t come’ in the letter you sent to Hammerton two days ago?”
The question was so abrupt, and its substance so unexpected, that even her practised duplicity could not conceal the first moment of consternation, but she recovered herself instantly to reply: “I don’t know what you mean. I never sent any letter at all.”
“And that is the only explanation you have?”
“It seems to me to be a complete answer.”
Captain Morgan turned, with no further word, and went out of the room. He left her wondering how that letter could have come to his knowledge, unless Francis himself had revealed it, in a last desperate effort to save himself from the danger in which he lay, and even that explanation failed when she recalled that he had only heard of it from her, and could have no exact knowledge of the wording which Captain Morgan had quoted so accurately. But if they knew for a fact that she had sent such a communication, she saw that the last hope of mercy was surely gone.
Francis, meanwhile, had been subjected to a different ordeal. He had been offered release, or, at least, to be handed over to the care of the local Cuckford police, if he would make a written confession of his complicity in the crime for which he had been convicted, and the penalty of refusal had been plainly stated.
“If you are so unreasonable as to refuse,” Captain Morgan had said, “you will put me to the unpleasant necessity of assisting you to escape from the penalty of the law. We must provide you with a machine in which you can attempt to cross the Channel to such safety as may be found on the other side. We can start you off, but you will see that we cannot afterwards navigate the machine. If you should fall into the sea, which I fear would be a very probable end of your adventure, you will see that you will have perished in the endeavour to flee from an appeal in the merits of which men will suppose that you had no belief, and they will judge it to be the act of a guilty man.
“Why not therefore save your life by a confession which will place you in no worse position?”
Stated so, it was a hard thing to refuse, and he might not have rejected the temptation to write and then endeavour to repudiate such a document, had he not felt a natural distrust of the good faith in which the proposal was made. Might it not be that they desired to obtain it from him for their own security, before they sent him to dreadful death?
It was at a late hour of the winter night when he was roused from such sleep as his condition allowed, to be told to dress, as he would now be permitted to leave at once.
He was led, with a pistol-muzzle against his back, to one of the smaller hangars, which were for the renting of those who kept their own private planes at the aerodrome.
He looked up at a machine which was, in fact, of the larger size, and which seemed immense to his unaccustomed eyes, which had only seen such monsters before as they passed far over his head, or in pictures upon the screen.
He looked round in the vain hope of escape, or for someone to whom he might make what his reason told him would be no more than useless appeal, and saw Augusta Garten, similarly guarded, a few paces away.
She returned his glance, and saw in his eyes the desperation of fear. Better, he thought, to die in a useless struggle there, to make one last effort of breaking free, to be shot down if he must, rather than to be sent aloft to that certain and dreadful death. She said: “It’s no use, Harold. We’ve got to go. There’s no other way,” and he found himself calmed and steadied by the dull hopelessness of her voice, and by a sense of companionship in misery that it gave. He felt as though he would be deserting her at her equal need, if he should endeavour to break away.
All this was in an instant of time, for their captors were in a great haste. They saw, to their surprise, a pilot climb into the machine. They were pushed and hurried into seats at his rear.
They could not guess that the occasion for haste was that Inspector Beddoes was known to have already stopped at the Cuckford police-station, and now to be on the point of starting his cars on the three miles of road still separating him from the aerodrome, which four minutes would be sufficient to cover. They heard the whirr of the propeller. Slowly, heavily, but at ever-increasing speed, the machine moved out on to the field, and rose into the darkness.
Inspector Beddoes saw it go, and supposed ruefully that he had missed his intended
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