‘Out on your motor-bike, were you? Take anyone with you?’
Baker looked suspiciously at him. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘You answer my question, and never mind what I’m getting at. Come on, now! Took your young lady, I dare say, pillion-riding?’
Baker sneered horribly at him. ‘I’ve got no time for young ladies. Think I’d get married, with the world the way it is? Marriage is for the rich, and a man who—’
‘All right, I don’t want to hear about that. Had you got anyone with you, or hadn’t you?’
‘No,’ said Baker sulkily.
‘Where did you go?’
‘What’s that got to do with you?’
‘You take it from me, my lad, it’s got a lot to do with me. What’s more, you’re doing yourself no good by refusing to answer my questions.’
‘Don’t think you can come here brow-beating me!’ said Baker
. ‘The day will come when your kind will be in the gutter, where you’d like to trample the Workers of the World under your feet!’
‘One of that sort, are you?’ said the Inspector. ‘Now you answer me quick, or I’ll ask you to come along to the police station!’
‘One law for the rich and another for the poor!’ said Baker bitterly. ‘I went for a run to try out a new bike, since you want to know. I took her to Kershaw, and back. So what?’
‘Kershaw, eh? Went through Stilhurst village, didn’t you?’
‘Suppose I did?’ countered Baker, watching him.
‘What time would that have been?’
‘I don’t know. Think I go along looking at my watch?’
‘Must have passed by Mrs Carter’s place, Palings,’ said the Inspector conversationally.
Baker’s lean cheeks flamed suddenly. He took a step towards, the Inspector, his fists clenched. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Now, what is there for you to be all hot-up over in that?’ wondered the Inspector.
‘Come on, out with it! What are you nosing round after? Supposing I did pass Palings? What the bloody hell’s it got to do with you?’
‘Don’t you take that tone with me, my lad!’ said the Inspector. ‘I know how you went out to Palings twice yesterday, to see Mr Carter. What did you want with him, eh?’
‘If you know I went twice to see the dirty bastard, you ought to know that too! Go and ask him, if you don’t!’
‘Very clever, but it won’t wash,’ said the Inspector. ‘You’d better come clean! Trying to put the black on him, weren’t you?’
The flush returned. ‘I’ll knock the teeth down the throat of the lying swine who says so!’
‘Oh, lay off that stuff !’ the Inspector said, roughly. ‘You went out to Palings, ranting about Mr Carter having put your sister in the family way—’
‘Damn you, keep your ugly trap shut! So that’s the game, is it? Well, you can tell Mr Lousy Carter that my sister’s got her rights, and he needn’t think he can scare me out of bringing him to book! When the Red Flag’s raised in this country, it’ll be him and them like him that—’
‘Stow it! You went to Palings to blackmail Mr Carter for five hundred pounds, didn’t you?’
The effect of this accusation was not quite what Cook had expected. Baker’s jaw dropped; he repeated in a dazed voice: ‘Five hundred pounds?’
‘Well? Didn’t you?’