Towards Zero (Superintendent Battle 5)

“It was Mr. Nevile just going out. He was taking his raincoat down from the hook.”

“What suit was he wearing?”

“His grey pinstripe. His face was very worried and unhappy-looking. He shoved his arms into his coat as though he didn’t care how he put it on. Then he went out and banged the front door behind him. I went on in to her ladyship. She was very drowsy, poor dear, and couldn’t remember why she had rung for me—she couldn’t always, poor lady. But I beat up her pillows and brought her a fresh glass of water and settled her comfortably.”

“She didn’t seem upset or afraid of anything?”

“Just tired, that’s all. I was tired myself. Yawning. I went up and went right off to sleep.”

That was Barrett’s story, and it seemed impossible to doubt her genuine grief and horror at the news of her mistress’s death.

They went back to Lazenby’s house and it was then that Battle announced that he had a question to ask.

“Ask away,” said Lazenby.

“What time do you think Lady Tressilian died?”

“I’ve told you. Between ten o’clock and midnight.”

“I know that’s what you said. But it wasn’t my question. I asked you what you, personally, thought.”

“Off the record, eh?”

“Yes.”

“All right. My guess would be in the neighbourhood of eleven o’clock.”

“That’s what I wanted you to say,” said Battle.

“Glad to oblige. Why?”

“Never did like the idea of her being killed before ten twenty. Take Barrett’s sleeping draught—it wouldn’t have got to work by then. That sleeping draught shows that the murder was meant to be committed a good deal later—during the night. I prefer midnight, myself.”

“Could be. Eleven is only a guess.”

“But it definitely couldn’t be later than midnight?”

“No.”

“It couldn’t be after two thirty?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“Well, that seems to let Strange out all right. I’ll just have to check up on his movements after he left the house. If he’s telling the truth he’s washed out and we can go on to our other suspects.”

“The other people who inherit money?” suggested Leach.

“Maybe,” said Battle. “But somehow, I don’t think so. Someone with a kink, I’m looking for.”

“A kink?”

“A nasty kink.”

When they left the doctor’s house they went on to the ferry. The ferry consisted of a rowing boat operated by two brothers, Will and George Barnes. The Barnes brothers knew everybody in Saltcreek by sight and most of the people who came over from Easterhead Bay. George said at once that Mr. Strange from Gull’s Point had gone across at ten thirty on the preceding night. No, he had not brought Mr. Strange back again. Last ferry had gone at one thirty from the Easterhead side and Mr. Strange wasn’t on it.

Battle asked him if he knew Mr. Latimer.

“Latimer? Latimer? Tall handsome young gentleman? Comes over from the Hotel up to Gull’s Point? Yes, I know him. Didn’t see him at all last night, though. He’s been over this morning. Went back last trip.”

They crossed on the ferry and went up to the Easterhead Bay Hotel.

Here they found Mr. Latimer newly returned from the other side. He had crossed on the ferry before theirs.

Mr. Latimer was very anxious to do all he could to help.

“Yes, old Nevile came over last night. Looked very blue over something. Told me he’d had a row with the old lady. I hear he’d fallen out with Kay too, but he didn’t tell me that, of course. Anyway, he was a bit down in the mouth. Seemed quite glad of my company for once in a way.”

“He wasn’t able to find you at once, I understand?”

Latimer said sharply:

“Don’t know why. I was sitting in the lounge. Strange said he looked in and didn’t see me, but he wasn’t in a state to concentrate. Or I may have strolled out into the gardens for five minutes or so. Always get out when I can. Beastly smell in this Hotel. Noticed it last night in the Bar. Drains, I think! Strange mentioned it too! We both smelt it. Nasty decayed smell. Might be a dead rat under the billiard room floor.”

“You played billiards, and after your game?”

“Oh we talked a bit, had another drink or two. Then Nevile said ‘Hullo, I’ve missed the ferry,’ so I said I’d get out my car and drive him back, which I did. We got there about two thirty.”

“And Mr. Strange was with you all the evening?”

“Oh yes. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Latimer. We have to be so careful.”

Leach said as they left the smiling, self-possessed young man: “What’s the idea of checking up so carefully on Nevile Strange?”

Battle smiled. Leach got it suddenly.

“Good lord, it’s the other one you’re checking up on. So that’s your idea.”

“It’s too soon to have ideas,” said Battle. “I’ve just got to know exactly where Mr. Ted Latimer was last night. We know that from quarter past eleven, say—to after midnight—he was with Nevile Strange. But where was he before that—when Strange arrived and couldn’t find him?”

They pursued their inquiries doggedly—with bar attendants, waiters, lift boys. Latimer had been seen in the lounge between nine and ten. He had been in the bar at a quarter past ten. But between that time and eleven twenty he seemed to have been singularly elusive. Then one of the maids was found who declared that Mr. Latimer had been “in one of the small writing rooms with Mrs. Beddoes—that’s the fat North Country lady.”

Pressed as to time, she said she thought it was about eleven o’clock.

“That tears it,” said Battle gloomily. “He was here all right. Just didn’t want attention drawn to his fat (and no doubt rich) lady friend. That throws us back on those others—the servants, Kay Strange, Audrey Strange, Mary Aldin and Thomas Royde. One of them killed the old lady, but which? If we could find the real weapon—”

He stopped, then slapped his thigh.

“Got it, Jim, my boy! I know now what made me think of Hercule Poirot. We’ll have a spot of lunch and go back to Gull’s Point and I’ll show you something.”

X

Mary Aldin was restless. She went in and out of the house, picked off a dead dahlia head here and there, went back into the drawing room and shifted flower vases in an unmeaning fashion.

From the library came a vague murmur of voices. Mr. Trelawny was in there with Nevile. Kay and Audrey were nowhere to be seen.

Mary went out in the garden again. Down by the wall she spied Thomas Royde placidly smoking. She went and joined him.

“Oh dear.” She sat down beside him with a deep perplexed sigh.

“Anything the matter?” Thomas asked.

Mary laughed with a slight note of hysteria in the laugh.

“Nobody but you would say a thing like that. A murder in the house and you just say ‘Is anything the matter?’”

Looking a little surprised, Thomas said:

“I meant anything fresh?”

“Oh, I know what you meant. It’s really a wonderful relief to find anyone so gloriously just-the-same-as-usual as you are!”

r /> “Not much good, is it, getting all het up over things?”

“No, no. You’re eminently sensible. It’s how you manage to do it beats me.”

“Well, I suppose I’m an outsider.”

“That’s true, of course. You can’t feel the relief all the rest of us do that Nevile is cleared.”

“I’m very pleased he is, of course,” said Royde.

Mary shuddered.

“It was a very near thing. If Camilla hadn’t taken it into her head to ring the bell for Barrett after Nevile had left her—”

She left the sentence unfinished. Thomas finished it for her.

“Then old Nevile would have been for it all right.”

He spoke with a certain grim satisfaction, then shook his head with a slight smile, as he met Mary’s reproachful gaze.

“I’m not really heartless, but now that Nevile’s all right I can’t help being pleased he had a bit of a shaking up. He’s always so damned complacent.”

“He isn’t really, Thomas.”

“Perhaps not. It’s just his manner. Anyway he was looking scared as Hell this morning!”

“What a cruel streak you have!”

“Anyway it’s all right now. You know, Mary, even here Nevile has had the devil’s own luck. Some other poor beggar with all that evidence piled up against him mightn’t have had such a break.”

Mary shivered again. “Don’t say that. I like to think the innocent are—protected.”

“Do you, my dear?” His voice was gentle.

Mary burst out suddenly:

“Thomas, I’m worried. I’m frightfully worried.”

“Yes?”

“It’s about Mr. Treves.”

Thomas dropped his pipe on the stones. His voice changed as he bent to pick it up.

“What about Mr. Treves?”

“That night he was here—that story he told—about a little murderer! I’ve been wondering, Thomas…Was it just a story? Or did he tell it with a purpose?”

“You mean,” said Royde deliberately, “was it aimed at someone who was in the room?”

Mary whispered, “Yes.”

Thomas said quietly:

“I’ve been wondering, too. As a matter of fact that was what I was thinking about when you came along just now.”

Mary half closed her eyes.

“I’ve been trying to remember…He told it, you know, so very deliberately. He almost dragged it into the conversation. And he said he would recognize the person anywhere. He emphasized that. As though he had recognized him.”