“I repeat, have I ever falsely accused you?”
“No, I can’t say as you have.”
“Have I at any time exaggerated the evidence against you?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m not exaggerating it now. We have evidence. You have an alibi, but there is such a thing as accessory after the fact.”
“If there’s evidence, you planted it.”
Martineau shook his head. “You know perfectly well I don’t go in for planting. Besides, this is something the police couldn’t have planted. But you’re on the right track. Intentionally or otherwise, someone has implicated you. They’ve dragged you in. But if you’re innocent you can soon get yourself out.”
“By talking?”
“By answering my questions.”
“Ask your questions, and we’ll see whether I’ll answer.”
“All right. We’ll summarize your first statement. All Saturday morning you were in the Prodigal Son, getting ready to open. Then you had a bath and a shave, and your dinner; then you helped in the bar until some friends called with a taxi, and you went to Doncaster with them. You have witnesses, and all that has been verified. By the way, what sort of a taxi was it?”
“A Silverline. Your man verified that, too.”
“Do you usually have a Silverline when you go to the races?”
“No. We usually have Laurie Lovett, but be let us down. He said he was booked up.”
Martineau nodded, and made a note of the name, though he attached no significance to it.
“When you got back from the St. Leger,” he continued, “you had your tea and then worked in the bar till closing time. Then you had your supper, read the Sports Final, and went to bed.”
“You never said a truer word.”
“Right. Now I’ll tell you something. While you were in the bar I dropped in to see you-”
“Just when I was busy.”
“-and while I was talking to you I noticed that the evidence which implicates you wasn’t there. Get that clear, Doug. It was between that interview, and this morning, that you were drawn into the job. So now we get down to cases.”
Doug began to show interest, and some uneasiness. “Do you mean to say there’s some evidence in the pub?” he demanded. “Did you plant it while you were there?”
“The pub is being searched at this moment,” said Martineau, “but the evidence I am referring to is not there. And, wherever it is, I couldn’t have planted it. I can prove it. I came into your place and touched nothing and nobody, and I didn’t have a drink.”
Doug was bewildered. “I wish you’d tell me what this damned evidence is,” he protested.
Martineau would have liked to say that it was the Mark of Cain, but he refrained. “I can’t tell you yet,” he said. “But the sooner I get my men, the sooner you’ll know what the evidence is and who shopped you, if you were shopped. Let’s move on to Sunday. Sunday morning?”
“Cleaning up. Putting a couple of barrels on. I never went out.”
“Any visitors before opening time?”
“Only the cleaning woman.”
“Were you in the pub for the full opening hours yesterday?”
“Yes. The whole time.”
“Sunday is your long afternoon off, isn’t it? You went out between two o’clock and seven, I suppose?”
Doug hesitated, and Martineau smiled. He saw the pattern clearly. The races, the tossing school. It was at the tossing school that the innkeeper had handled marked money. He could not have taken enough of it over his bar.
Martineau’s pressure was very gentle. “If you went to a gaming school,” he said, “it’s no great concern of mine. I don’t even want to know where the school was. It’d be in the County area, anyway.”
“All right,” said Doug. “I don’t see as there’s any harm in admitting I was at the tossing school. But it’s a good job you don’t want to know where it was, because I wouldn’t tell you.”
“We won’t quarrel about that,” said the inspector, “so long as you tell me the names of the men who were there.”
“I’m not giving you any names at all.”
Martineau did not immediately pursue the issue. “The place you went to was an alternative site to the one near the Moorcock?” he suggested.
“Yes, the Moorcock was off. But why are you asking me, if you know it all?”
“Confirmation, just confirmation. But I’m not interested in gambling, or a bit of illegal booking, or the extraction of loose cash from a mug. I’m talking about the brutal murder of a young girl who never did a bit of harm to anybody. You don’t hold with that, do you?”
“By God I don’t.”
“Well, it’s the murderers I’m after. It was at the tossing school yesterday, or in your own pub, that somebody involved you in this murder. It was done quite unknown to yourself. You don’t owe that person any protection, as I see it.”
“You’re damn right I don’t. If you’re telling the truth.”
“I’m telling the truth. You were a winner at the school, weren’t you? Or a winner for a time, at any rate?”
“Yes. How the devil do you know that?”
“Just a guess. I don’t want to know how much you won. I just want the names of the men who were there.”
“And I’m not telling you.”
“Did you notice anybody who was abnormally flush with money?”
It was an old and very common police question. Doug shook his head. “I didn’t notice anything.”
Martineau was patient. “As I keep telling you, this is a murder job, not a gambling case. And in a murder job, personal considerations are not allowed to obstruct the investigation. If you won’t help me, I shall set about the job in another way. I shall start at the Prodigal Son. Every customer will be questioned.”
“It’s blackmail.”
“It is not. It’s something that’s got to be done.”
“You’ll get me a bad name. You’ll frighten all my trade away.”
“That’s your worry. What’s up with you, man? You know what I’m after. Murderers! Look, if you happen to give me the right names, it’ll do you a bit of good with the Chief. He might be inclined to overlook the next licensing offense, if ever there is one.”
“I’m glad you said the last bit. I run my pub right.”
“I don’t care how you run it. How did you get out to the gaming school?”
“I went in a car, with Les Norrish.”
“Les Norrish from the Black Bull? Right. Who else was in the car?”
“Nobody else.”
“Who did you see at the school?”
Doug began to mention names. Martineau reflected that he would probably withhold a few, but that did not matter. By questioning the men whose names he had given, the police would get all the others.
“That’s about all I can remember,” he said, after some final pondering.
Martineau nodded. “Now give me the names of the people who were in the Prodigal Son on Saturday night and Sunday,” he said.
Doug exploded. “I knew it was a bloody trick!” he bawled.
Martineau stared him down. “It wasn’t a trick at all,” he said. “I shan’t come near your place. But I must have some names to round off the inquiry. If it’s necessary to interview ’em, we won’t do it in your pub, and they won’t know who’s given their names.”
Somewhat reassured, Doug began to give more names. Soon he became interested in the number of people he could remember. He gave over fifty names. “And that’s not to mention the casuals I never saw before,” he concluded with pride.
Martineau went to the head of the gaming school list again. “This Sam Jackson, where does he live?” he asked.
“Out Boyton way, somewhere.”
“What’s his job, if any?”
“I have no idea.”
Martineau nodded, and asked for a general description, not forgetting physical oddities or abnormalities. He went on down the list, underlining the names of men he knew, and men of whom he had heard. They were the ones he would seek out first.
At the end, he had eighteen names underlined. Among them were Laurie Lovett, Lolly Jakes, and Clogger Roach.
10
Laurie Lovett’s taxi garage was a wooden structure in a cindered yard behind a lemonade brewery. Outside, there was a small petrol pump. Inside, there was room for five or six cars, and a tiny office with a telephone. The doors were wide open, and a car was standing half in, half out of the doorway.