“You don’t know that, Mr. Treweek,” Ellis purred. “You were a mile and a half away.”
Mr. Treweek’s eye gleamed malevolently.
“Nor you don’t catch me like that, neither. Makin’ up traps for a man. ’Tisn’t no cop. I got a dozen o’ witnesses where I was to, all afternoon. Oversot that if you can.”
“We haven’t the least desire to oversot it,” Ellis assured him. “There’s only one thing we want to ask you, Mr. Treweek, and it’s got nothing to do with what you were doing yesterday afternoon.”
“Then why for d’ee want to ask it?”
“Will you put it to him, Inspector, or shall I?”
“It’s quite simple, Treweek. You went in to see Mr. Baildon from time to time?”
“What if I did? That isn’t no crime, is it?”
“Not at all,” Ellis said. “Most meritorious.”
Treweek eyed him sourly, then looked back at Bradstreet.
“Now and then, I believe, he used to ask you to post a letter for him.”
“No law against that; not as I knows of.”
“Can you remember if he gave you any letters during the time he was ill?”
“I don’t take no account of little things like that. Why should I?”
“I just wondered if you did; that’s all. When did you go to see him last?”
“Can’t say. Pity I don’t keep a di’ry, isn’t it? I shall ’ave to, for the future, by the look o’ things.”
“Have you been within the last week or ten days?”
Mr. Treweek drew his mouth together again. His eye glittered. Bradstreet looked at Ellis.
“Well,” he said peacefully. “If you won’t tell us, we’ll have to ask Mrs. Baildon.”
“She don’ know whether I was there or no.”
“She’ll know if she saw you. You might be there without her knowing, I admit. But she couldn’t see you if you weren’t there. Come on, man. What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t trust ee.” He grinned angrily. “I don’t see what you’m about: ’cep’ that you’m tryin’ to put somethin’ ’pon me what I never done.”
“We only want to know whether you were there recently, and whether Mr. Baildon gave you a letter to post.”
Treweek’s mind went off on a fresh tack. They almost heard it click.
“If ’e did, I shouldn’t call it to mind, not special. ’Tisn’t nothing so remarkable, to be give a letter to post.”
“He did often give you letters to post, then?”
The old man pondered cunningly before replying.
“I won’t say often: but ’e did ’pon times.”
“And he gave you one last week?”
“Maybe ’e did, and maybe ’e didn’t.”
Suddenly Ellis snapped round on him, so peremptorily as to make him start back.
“We know he did. Don’t try to deny it. And we know the address on the envelope. It was to Joshua Nelder, of Cuffe Street, London.”
“That it wadn’t, then,” Treweek squealed shrilly. “ ’Twas to Gilkins, or Gilkson, or some such bliddy name, see? So you bain’t so clever, after all.”
“Gilkison. This gentleman here, in front of you. Thank you, Mr. Treweek. That’s all we wanted to know.”
Ellis sat back, and regarded him benevolently.
“Why couldn’t you have told us that at once? It would have saved a lot of trouble.”
“ ’Tisn’t none of my place to save you trouble,” Mr. Treweek rejoined, with manifest ill humour. “That’s all you thinks about. When anything goes wrong in these parts, you tries to pick on someone nigh and ’andy: ’stead o’ goin’ up to the camp or the aerodrome, where they’m responsible, nine times out o’ ten. Afeared to go there, bain’t ee? Don’t want no trouble, eh? Gaah!”
Bradstreet got up.
“Well, Treweek. We’ll be seeing you again, I expect. Thanks for your information. Don’t trouble to see us out.”
“Gaah!” said Treweek again, disgustedly.
They walked out into the road in silence.
“You took a bit of a chance with him,” Bradstreet reproved Ellis.
“I know. I’m sorry. I got fed up. Anyway, he didn’t post any letter to Nelder.”
“No. I don’t reckon he did.”
“What camp and aerodrome was he talking about?”
“Dendle. And Possbury. They get the blame for everything locally—poaching and all. Well—what will you do now? Come back with me?”.
Ellis looked at his watch.
“Twenty past eleven. Let’s go and try our luck with Rattray.”
“On second thoughts,” Bradstreet said, “I think I’ll come and start you off with him. He knows me. He might think it odd if I left it all to you, and kept out of sight. Might think we had something on him. I’ll just introduce you, and then clear off.”
“Good man. That’ll be fine. I—yes—wait a minute. It might be. By God, it might.”
Ellis stood for a few seconds pointing, like a corpulent dog. Bradstreet exchanged glances with Gilkison.
“Got it!” Ellis exclaimed. “I knew there was something I was trying to remember, and it had slipped to the back of my mind. Gilk—yesterday evening—when we were talking to those two women: did you spot how it rattled them when I asked if old Baildon had written to a bookseller?”
“Now you mention it, I did.”
“Well. Does that say anything to you?”
“I can’t say it does.”
“Not coupled with the interview we’ve just had?”
“No.”
“Well.” Ellis grinned at Bradstreet. “Think it over.”
CHAPTER TEN
The first person they saw, on emerging from the high yew hedges that flanked the winding narrow path, was Rattray’s invalid wife. Her chair stood in the shade of a little verandah in front of the house.
A small dog came from under the chair and barked vigorously, wagging his tail. His mistress looked up with a start. Her face contracted at once in peevish dismay: she picked up a tiny hand-bell and rang it vehemently.
“Coming,” sang a tuneful baritone from somewhere unseen: and after a very short interval Rattray appeared. He was in shift sleeves, smoking a pipe, and they noticed that he did not hurry. Evidently such a summons was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Yes, dear?”
She made a helpless gesture, but he had seen the visitors. He stared, then took out his pipe and advanced to meet them. Coming closer, he recognised Bradstreet.
“Hallo, Bradstreet. I didn’t spot you. Can’t see a thing these days, without my glasses.”
He looked enquiringly at Ellis and Gilkison. Bradstreet introduced them, omitting to mention Ellis’s position, and styling him plain Mr.
“How d’you do. How d’you do.”
Rattray gave each a firm handshake, looking him straight in the eye. His smile was cordial, but with something of the professional glad-to-meet-you of a lay preacher or a social worker.
“Let me introduce you to my wife. Ursula, dear: Inspector Bradstreet has brought two gentleman from London to see us.”
She screwed herself into an attitude of pathetic appeal, and smiled weakly, disclosing long yellow teeth. The bones of her face were good, and her eyes had long lashes, but any looks she might have possessed were ruined by the deep lines in her forehead, the slack invalid’s mouth, the dead skin, and the general expression of resentful self-pity.
Her presence cast a restraint on the conversation. While Bradstreet was hesitating how best to raise the subject of their visit, Rattray himself plunged into it.
“A terrible business, this, about Mr. Baildon. Quite sudden, I’m told.”
Bradstreet looked up in surprise, to be met with a pursing up of the lips and a slight but definite gesture in the direction of Mrs. Rattray.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Er—there are just one or two points on which we would like to consult you. Mr. McKay is here with Mr. Gilkison about the books.”