The Ha-Ha Case Page 17

  “This’ll stand looking into,” the inspector reflected in no little exasperation. “It doesn’t make sense, no matter which way one looks at it.”

  Chapter Ten

  From Information Received

  A DAY or two after his visit to Edgehill, Inspector Hinton ran out of tobacco; and as he was passing up the village street he turned into a shop which bore over its door the legend: “I. Copdock, General Dealer.” The shopkeeper, a stout affable little man in shirt-sleeves, was arranging some goods at the moment, but he left his work at the sight of the customer and came forward dusting his hands mechanically.

  “The usual,” Hinton grunted, as he flung his pouch on the counter and began to count out the necessary coins.

  Like many other smokers, the inspector held tight to the illusion that he possessed the secret of the ideal smoking mixture. “Brains will tell, even in small things,” he would say, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he filled his pipe. After swearing Copdock to secrecy, he had supplied him with a written recipe for half a pound of the mixture, thus saving time when fresh supplies were needed. He was blissfully unaware that half the village had tried his special blend, by courtesy of Mr. Copdock; and had rejected it with outspoken contempt.

  The shopkeeper spread a sheet of paper on the counter and took down from his shelves various jars. Then, under the critical eye of the inspector, he busied himself with his scales, compounding the mixture according to his memorised formula.

  “Nice weather we’re having,” he declared, to open conversation.

  “Fair,” the inspector admitted in an unbiased tone. “Watch the Latakia this time. You must have undershot the mark with it in the last lot. So I found, when I came to smoke it.”

  “I’m sure it was right, Mr. Hinton,” the dealer protested in an injured voice. “You know how partic’lar I am. Just you keep an eye on it now, when I come to weigh it out.”

  “I mean to,” Hinton retorted. “Well, Copdock, what’s all the news of the Great Metrollops of Talgarth?”

  Copdock had once mispronounced the word ‘metropolis’ in the inspector’s hearing; and Hinton, with all the mercilessness of his kind, never allowed the wretched man to forget it. Copdock winced slightly under the dig; but it was his policy never to quarrel with any customer, so he ignored it when he spoke.

  “Oh, so-so. You’ll know more than me, I expect, Mr. Hinton. I haven’t seen you since the inquest on young Mr. Brandon, have I?”

  “You have not,” the inspector assured him gravely.

  “I was on the jury,” Copdock reminded him. “A sad affair, that. A nice young fellow he was. Used to be quite a good customer, one way and another, what with cartridges, cigarettes, tobacco, and such like. Very pleasant, too. He always had time for a little chat when he dropped in here.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Hinton, with unfeigned indifference.

  “His brother gave his evidence very well, I thought,” Copdock pursued, quite undamped. “So did Mr. Laxford, too, though he seemed a bit nervous-like. It was funny, though, that Mr. Hay didn’t turn up, wasn’t it? Some of us was a bit surprised at that. He left by the afternoon train, didn’t he, on the day of the accident? The summons didn’t get there till after he’d gone, I heard.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?” said the inspector ruminatively. “Beauty, I suppose?”

  Miss Jane Ann Tugby—‘Beauty’ to ironically minded intimates—became attached to the domestic staff of the Laxfords after their arrival at Edgehill. Her rather indeterminate function was to do any work which the other servants regarded as beneath them; but since this brought her into contact with both the cook and the housemaid, Miss Tugby preferred to describe herself as a between-maid, for she had a proper sense of values.

  She had also a long sharply pointed nose which, according to unkind critics, she was for ever poking into affairs which were no concern of hers. It cannot be denied that she habitually listened at doors, and that no letter escaped her perusal if its owner left it within her reach. But these practices were not dictated by any hope of personal advantage. Indeed, much that she overheard through the keyhole of the servants’ hall was greatly to her disadvantage, for the cook held decided views about her efficiency.

  Miss Tugby, in fact, like many a distinguished scientist, ‘wanted to know about things.’ The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, without ulterior design, was her object. And since the field of her researches was human nature, it would ill become the most eminent student of mere atoms and molecules to disclaim spiritual kinship with so zealous an investigator.

  In most scientists the thirst of knowledge is accompanied by a desire to publish to the world the results which they have acquired. Hence these innumerable Transactions, Zeitschriften, Bulletins, Rendiconti, and what not, the stately and ever-lengthening ranks of which form the nightmare of university librarians in Europe, America, and the westernised portions of the Far East. Here the orthodox scientist had a decided advantage over Miss Tugby, who had no Journal or Transactions in which to record her discoveries.

  But Nature ever finds a way. In addition to her sharp nose and receptive ears, Miss Tugby had a mouth and a mother. Mrs. Tugby edited the raw material and then passed on to her sister-in-law the choicer morsels gleaned by her industrious daughter; and they thus, rather the worse for wear, came to the ears of the sister-in-law’s husband, Mr. Copdock, who put them into public circulation in the form of gossip across his counter, for he aimed to please his customers to the best of his ability.

  Thus along this devious channel there came to Inspector Hinton some news which his methodical mind immediately docketed under the heading: “Information Received.”

  “Oh, no, it wasn’t Beauty as told me about it,” Mr. Copdock asserted with the virtuous air of a man telling the literal truth. Then, with marked disingenuousness he added: “I don’t just remember how it happened to come to my notice. It’s no matter, anyhow. But I did hear that the summons missed him.”

  Quite unconsciously, Copdock had repaid the inspector for the gibe about ‘Metropolis.’ Hinton winced in his turn, for to his mind the dealer’s remark was a reflection on his efficiency.

  “I warned Hay that morning that he’d get a subpœna served on him. If he chose to clear out after that . . .” he said darkly. “Here! Go easy with that stuff! You’re putting too much in.”

  Copdock had blundered on to a sore point on the inspector’s skin. Hay’s disappearance had completely surprised him; and he had been staggered when Laxford coolly disclaimed all knowledge of Hay’s permanent address.

  “He was a friend of young Brandon’s,” Laxford had assured Hinton. “I haven’t the slightest idea where he lives. Young Brandon invited him down. It’s my house, of course, and nominally he was my guest; but I know nothing about him. You didn’t ask him his address yourself, did you?”

  And thus the inspector had found his teeth drawn. In these circumstances it was impossible to pretend that Edgehill was Hay’s ‘last permanent address.’ The fellow had simply vanished into thin air, so far as immediate affairs were concerned. Hinton had consoled himself with the thought that Hay’s evidence was of no great value. The coroner could get on without it well enough. Still, the affair had rankled, and he had no wish to hear Copdock—the most notorious gossip in the village—enlarging upon the subject. Better let him think it was all right.

  Copdock’s attention had been diverted by the inspector’s criticism of his skill as a compounder. He picked up a few shreds of tobacco from the scale-pan and dribbled them out one by one until the pointer showed exact equilibrium.

  “There! You can’t say that ain’t right this time, Mr. Hinton. And there’s all the difference it’d have made,” he added, exhibiting the wisp of tobacco still left between his finger and thumb. “By the way, you didn’t put Mr. Dunne up for to give his bit of a story.”

  The inspector tapped his forehead meaningly.

  “Can’t call that sort of testimony.”

  “No? Is that so?
Well, I s’pose that’s right enough,” Copdock agreed, though his tone was rather dubious. “Still, he’s none so loony as all that, by my way of thinking. I’ve seen him up there when the Fairlawns lot were playing the village eleven, this last summer or two, and he seemed as sane as what you and me are, in a manner of speaking.”

  “That’s the law,” the inspector assured him in a superior tone.

  “Well, the verdict was all right,” Copdock declared with something of an author’s pride in his handiwork. “‘Accidental death.’ That seemed to put the thing in a nutshell, I thought. No words wasted, as one might say.”

  “Quite so,” concurred the inspector drily. “And what’s the rest of the Stop Press News?”

  It would have taken much more than the dryness of Hinton’s tone to discourage the dealer. He prided himself on being thoroughly up to date in local affairs. Still, he resented the inspector’s superior airs, just then, and by way of retaliation he produced a piece of stale news to begin with.

  “Speaking about Mr. Laxford,” he said, “that’s a funny business, how he and the Brandon’s seem to have had a split, lately. A regular dust-up they had, so I heard. And then the whole Laxford family bar the governess was just bundled out of Edgehill and told to camp in the Cottage till they’d got time to look around and find somewhere else to go to. So I’m told.”

  “I seem to have come across that before,” said Hinton caustically. “In the Sunday papers last week, perhaps. Haven’t you got something with fewer whiskers on it?”

  Copdock considered for a moment before answering, then he leaned forward across the counter in a confidential attitude.

  “I don’t give this to the general public,” he pointed out cautiously. “Least said, soonest mended, in some things. But as it’s you, Mr. Hinton, I know it’ll go no farther. I’ve just heard some more about that row, and it seems it was all about money. At least they were talking loud and angry between themselves all about money, and ‘bankrupt,’ and ‘influence’ and ‘estates’ or ‘estate’ and things of that sort. Mr. John Brandon’s name came into it, some way, it seems, too. Not very easy understood by an outsider, I’m told; but that was the way it went. And of course the governess was on the winning side.”

  “Anyone can guess that, seeing that she’s stayed on at Edgehill instead of going with the Laxfords,” grunted the inspector. “It’ll be news to you, I expect, that she’s engaged to one of the Brandons. And what side did Beauty favour?”

  Mr. Copdock did not quite relish the crude manner in which the inspector coupled Miss Tugby’s name with the gossip which he had just retailed. One preferred a semblance of decency in such matters. This sort of information, one pretended, came to one from the air. It was bad taste to trace it to a definite source.

  “Beauty was engaged by Mrs. Laxford,” he pointed out with dignity, “so nat’rally she stayed in Mrs. Laxford’s service. The rest of ’em weren’t so partic’lar, it seems. They stayed on at Edgehill.”

  “Quite so,” Hinton said, though from his tone it was hard to discover which policy met with his approval. Then he made another blunder in tact from Mr. Copdock’s point of view by asking, “And what’s the latest about the Laxfords?”

  The dealer momentarily shrugged his shoulders as if the stream of his information was exhausted; but the inspector knew his man and waited confidently. Copdock could never resist a chance of displaying inside knowledge of things.

  “The Laxfords were in a queer hole, it seems,” he said after a moment or two, stopping his weighing to lend emphasis to his tale. “It seems some people were coming to Edgehill to shoot. They’d have landed here the day after the accident, a whole bunch of them. Terrible, isn’t it? to think of them expecting to come down on a visit to that young fellow; and then, just as they were on the edge of starting, to get a wire saying he was dead. Tragic, almost, as one might say.”

  “Almost,” said the inspector sympathetically.

  “There’s another set of visitors instead, now,” Copdock said cautiously as he began mixing the various ingredients together on the paper. “Some insurance people, come down about young Mr. Brandon’s death, it seems.”

  The inspector pricked up his ears, but outwardly he maintained an air of indifference.

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. I heard a day or two ago that they’d be coming.”

  The inspector had no difficulty in guessing the source of this news. Evidently Laxford had been leaving his letters about after reading them, and Beauty had managed to get a glimpse of this one from an insurance company.

  “They’re at the Talgarth Arms,” Copdock pursued. “Leastways they had lunch there and then went on to see Mr. Laxford. They’re catching the night train up to town, I’m told. They’ve ordered dinner at the Arms, but they haven’t booked any rooms for to-night.”

  “I suppose they’ve got a car to take them into Ambledown?” Hinton said in a speculative tone, as though the matter hardly interested him. “They’ve been at Edgehill, too, I suppose?”

  “No,” Copdock asserted confidently. “Not unless they’ve been there within the last hour or so. The housemaid from Edgehill was in here just before you, and no one of their description had called at Edgehill up to the time she left the house. So she told me. No, their job has nothing to do with the Brandons, I gather. It’s Mrs. Laxford that’s interested. Or so I’m told.”

  “Well, it’s their business and I expect they know what they want,” the inspector opined, reaching for the packet of tobacco which Copdock had finished tying up. “Time I was moving along.”

  He went out of the shop, outwardly alert, but actually in a brown study. As he passed the gate of the coach-yard of the Talgarth Arms, he caught sight of a car with the two plates which showed it plied for hire. The registration number was a local one. In the gateway of the yard lounged the inn’s handy-man; and the inspector paused as though merely to pass the time of day.

  “Got some visitors at last, Fred?” he inquired jocularly, with a gesture towards the car. “Hope they’re staying for a while.”

  Fred shook his head gloomily and spat on the ground before answering.

  “Not staying long enough to need their shoes shined,” he said in a disgusted tone. “No tips out of them, not even for carrying in their luggage. ’Cause why? ’Cause they ain’t brought any. Not as much as a suitcase.”

  “Off to-night again, then,” Hinton interpreted. “Hard lines on you, Fred. Are they staying to enjoy our celebrated table d’hôte dinner?”

  Fred nodded again, a gloomy affirmative. Hinton made a rapid mental calculation. If the visitors dined at the usual time, they would have an hour in hand after dinner, before they needed to start out to catch the quick train at Ambledown. That would suit his purpose very nicely. He gave Fred a parting nod, which went unacknowledged, and moved slowly up the street again, deep in his brown study once more.

  All the inspector’s hunting instinct had been roused by a single piece of information which Copdock had given him. Insurance! That was a new factor in the Brandon affair. Insurance in itself was nothing to get suspicious about. If the Brandon family had stood to gain, the inspector would not have given the thing a second thought. But Laxford? Or, still more surprising, Mrs. Laxford? What insurable interest could she have in young Brandon?

  Hinton dismissed that detail from his mind at the moment, since he expected to get full information very shortly; but he held tight to the main fact that the Laxfords evidently had something to gain—whether much or little, he did not know as yet—from young Brandon’s death. Fishy? Not necessarily, he admitted frankly to himself. It might be quite all right. But if it wasn’t? . . . And at that thought Hinton felt a queer premonitory thrill which he strove bravely to disregard. Suppose, just suppose, that at last the long-awaited ‘big case’ had come his way: the case that was to win him his step and transmute Inspector Hinton into a Superintendent Hinton with the aura of high success about him.

  The more he pondered over
the Edgehill affair, the more tangled it seemed and the more sceptical he grew about the correctness of the jury’s verdict. There were facts enough and to spare; but there was a lack of cohesion between them. It was like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together and discovering that instead of a single picture they would make fragments of three independent pictures.

  He went over his data again, point by point. First of all, he had found no blood on the grass where blood might well have been expected from Laxford’s evidence, tacitly corroborated by Hay. Next, there was Dunne’s appearance on the scene, with a discharged gun in his hands and in a state which pointed to an attack of petit mal. Then, bearing upon that, came Dr. Barreman’s very evident desire to hush up the nature of Dunne’s trouble; and the reason for this reticence was plain enough from the passage in the book on Forensic Medicine. After that, there was Hay’s precipitate departure in the teeth of the warning that he might be called to give evidence. And, coupled with that, there was Laxford’s denial that Hay was an intimate of his, and his professed ignorance of the man’s permanent address. That, Hinton knew from other ‘information received,’ did not tally with the gossip of the Edgehill servants’ hall; nor did it account for the fact that Laxford—and not young Brandon—had gone to the station to meet Hay on his arrival. Curious, too, that young Brandon had died just before the arrival of this shooting-party on 1st September. And then, after the tragedy, there was this quarrel between the Brandons and Laxford, ending in the ignominious expulsion of the Laxfords from Edgehill—an affair which puzzled the inspector more than a little. Finally, there was this sudden descent of insurance officials in connection with young Brandon’s death; and Copdock’s hint that Mrs. Laxford was the interested party in that side of the business.

  “There’s something damned queer about the whole affair,” the inspector assured himself hopefully. “At the least of it, there’s enough to justify me bluffing these insurance fellows, if I can. And perhaps they won’t need much bluffing after all. It’s to their interest to get some excuse for not paying, I should think.”