Inspector Cottingham Smells Blood
If anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve
o’clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt
to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important
newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been
provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would
have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly,
notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be
concocted in cold blood.
One does not remark casually over one’s second cup of tea: “By the
way, you people, an idea’s just occurred to me for hoaxing the British
Broadcasting Company rather neatly. Anybody care to give me a hand? I
shall tell them, you see, that I’ve got a trained rabbit that gives
organ recitals, and . . .” Certainly not. But give the average
law-respecting Briton (which Guy was not, nor yet Mr. Doyle, but
George was) a modicum of sound alcohol to titillate his sense of
humour into a slightly perverted form, taunt him through the mouth of
one friend with inability to carry the thing through, egg him on
through the lips of another to show the stuff he is made of, and smile
at him through his wife’s eyes as if to say, “Dear old Guy! Oh yes, my
dear, he often _talks_ like this—but bless you, he’d never _do_
anything. Oh, dear no!”—do these things to him, and then be very
careful not to answer for the consequences. For consequences will
certainly occur. In cold blood George would never have considered that
he possessed any corpse-imitating properties at all.
At twelve o’clock, then, two people stood in Guy’s drawing-room and
dithered; two others watched them happily. The ditherers were the
constable, who had been keeping it up for the last hour, and Mr.
Foster. These two victims of the modern cinema were being watched by
Guy himself, with critical appreciation of their efforts towards his
ends, and by Inspector Cottingham, of the Abingchester Police.
Inspector Cottingham was a fatherly man, with a large walrus
moustache, and he was very, very happy. He had not only smelt blood,
he had actually seen it. He had, not to disguise the truth, gloated
over it. Blood very seldom comes the way of a country Inspector of
Police.
Inspector Cottingham however, had been blessed above most country
Inspectors, for this was the second time blood had come his way. Many,
many years ago, when the Inspector had been a mere Sergeant, a small
village outside Abingchester had startled the placid neighbourhood by
becoming the scene of a particularly brutal and mysterious murder, and
Sergeant Cottingham had taken the matter in hand. To the admiration of
the neighbourhood, and the intense surprise of his superior officers,
the Sergeant, by a series of brilliant deductions, had followed an
obscure trail to the person of the murderer, who, sharing the
astonishment of the Sergeant’s superiors, had been so taken aback as
to confess at once to the crime.
This confession was very fortunate for the Sergeant. It obviated all
necessity to produce the person of a certain Ethel Wilkinson, a
labourer’s daughter, who had actually seen the murder committed, had
told the Sergeant all about it, and had pointed out to him the clues
which had so won the Chief Constable’s admiration—a series of facts
which the Sergeant had prudently concealed. Ethel Wilkinson, who had
no wish to be mixed up in such a sordid affair and help to put a rope
round a fellow-creature’s neck, had been grateful to the Sergeant for
keeping her name out of it and had never breathed a word of her
knowledge from that day; the Sergeant had been no less grateful to
Ethel Wilkinson. The Chief Constable, sharing in the general
gratitude, had come to the conclusion that he had misjudged a very
sound man and had caused the Sergeant to be promoted, by way of some
small reward, to the rank of Inspector. Ever since then Inspector
Cottingham had naturally been the district’s sage and authority where
the science of criminal detection was concerned.
He was now once more in his element, trying to obtain something
remotely approaching a connected story from the two chief witnesses.
He was an optimistic man, and he had no doubt that somebody must have
seen the murder committed once more.
Guy’s story he had heard already. That was simplicity itself. Guy had
been summoned away immediately after dinner by a note purporting to
come from an old friend of his who had just taken a house a few miles
away. He had gone off at once in the car with his wife, and after
spending nearly three hours in trying to find the house had come to
the conclusion that the address did not exist at all. He had thereupon
returned. In the course of his journeying the note had most
unfortunately been thrown away in disgust. Mrs. Nesbitt had
corroborated these particulars and then retired, somewhat hurriedly
(but that was hardly surprising), to bed. Cynthia, in fact, had chosen
the path of prudence rather than bravado. Otherwise there would have
now been three ditherers in the drawing-room instead of two. Cynthia
was very decidedly alarmed—and she was a poor liar.
“Be quiet, you, Graves!” bellowed Inspector Cottingham, rounding
suddenly with portentous authority upon his underling. “I’ve heard
what you’ve got to say, and the less you talk about it the better; it
don’t do you much credit, when all’s said and done. And how on earth
do you expect me to understand what this gentleman’s trying to tell
me, if you will keep on about that blessed cupboard? I’m sick and
tired of that cupboard.” Inspector Cottingham was also a little
jealous of that cupboard, but he could hardly tell a subordinate that.
The cupboard, Inspector Cottingham could not help feeling, was the
place where somebody ought to have contrived that he himself should
have been the whole time, if the game had been played according to its
proper rules.
“Now, sir, _if_ you please,” he added, turning back to Mr. Foster.
“The whole story right through, please, in your own words.”
Mr. Foster, who in any case had nobody else’s words in which to tell
his story, complied with alacrity. He was a tubby, rather red little
man, and at the moment he looked as if he were suffering from an acute
attack of apoplexy. His slightly prominent, pale-blue eyes stood out
farther than ever, his wide loose-lipped mouth gaped with the unspoken
words seeking egress, his sanguine countenance was mottled with
earnest perspiration. He swept himself along in the flood-tide of his
own speech.
Guy listened with puckish delight concealed beneath the grave
countenance proper to the occasion. His acquaintance with Mr. Foster
had not been long, but it had been very intense. Acquaintance with Mr.
Foster was like that. He pervaded as well as clung. One may dismiss
limpets with an airy gesture, one may disregard the crab affixed to
one’s toe, one may smile in an atmosphere of poison-gas; but one was
still unfitted to cope with Mr. Reginald Foster. And the desolating,
the heartrending, the utterly unforgivable thing was that Mr. Reginald
Foster meant so well. Give us malice, surround us with backbiters,
fill our house with blackguards; but Heaven defend us from the
well-meaning bore.
Mr. Foster spluttered on. He had a good story to tell, and he was
making the most of it.
“Crown Prince, eh?” interrupted the Inspector, now thoroughly genial
again. “Crown _Prince_?”
Mr. Foster nodded importantly. “That’s what she said, Inspector, yes.
Crown Prince.” The words slid smoothly off his tongue, like salad oil
off the poised tablespoon.
“Perhaps you misunderstood her, Foster,” put in Guy, who was not
feeling any too happy about the Crown Prince; he felt that to drag in
Royalty was really overdoing it a little.
“She _said_ Crown Prince,” persisted Mr. Foster. One gathered that, in
Mr. Foster’s opinion, what she said went.
“That’s right,” ventured the constable. “All covered with ribbons an’
things, he was. Medals, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Tl! take your statement later, Graves,” boomed the Inspector. The
constable retired.
“Crown Prince,” repeated Mr. Foster, with the air of one clinching a
point.
The Inspector was only too ready to have the point clinched. He
clinched it in his notebook. “Yes, sir?” he cooed. If a corpse and two
murderers make a sergeant, what does not a Crown Prince and a whole
gang make an Inspector? Besides, somebody was sure to turn up.
Mr. Foster continued, rapidly and with purpose.
“Man with the Broken Nose?” gloated the Inspector, and moistened his
pencil once more.
With reluctance Mr. Foster brought his story to a conclusion. As if he
had timed his entrance for the same moment (which, in point of fact,
he had) Mr. Doyle strolled casually into the room.
“Hallo, Nesbitt,” he said, as if not noticing the other three. “Saw
your lights on and your library windows open, so I walked over. Hope
you don’t mind. George wanted to know rather particularly whether you
could—but am I interrupting a conference or something?”
“Not a bit,” said Guy heartily. “Let me introduce you. Mr. Foster,
Inspector Cottingham—Mr. Doyle. You’ve just come at the right moment,
Doyle. The most extraordinary things have been happening here this
evening.”
“Really?” said Mr. Doyle with polite interest.
The Inspector’s frown had brightened, only to darken a moment later.
He tapped his pencil with his teeth. Evidently the new arrival was not
the person who ought to be turning up.
Guy hastened to put things on a different footing. “Mr. Doyle is
staying with our next-door neighbours,” he told the Inspector. “Just
the man you want to see. You’ll want to ask him whether they’ve seen
anything of all this business, won’t you?”
The Inspector, who had not thought of any such thing, brightened
again. Guy had spoken with such deference in the presence of the
expert that nobody could have taken offence. Instead, the Inspector
took the suggestion.
“That’s right, sir,” he agreed paternally. “I shall want to put a few
questions to Mr. Doyle in a minute.”
“Well, just give him an outline of the affair, Inspector, will you?
I’m going off to see if I can’t find a decanter of something. I think
the occasion requires it.” He went out of the room.
The Inspector, who had begun to look somewhat doubtful at Guy’s first
suggestion, changed his expression before the second one. Of course,
if they were all going to be friends together, as it were. . . . He
embarked on a brief résumé of the chief facts, as gleaned from his two
witnesses. Mr. Doyle commented fittingly.
When Guy returned Mr. Doyle was displaying the gifts which fitted him
for the exacting profession of journalism. “This is great, Inspector,”
he was saying warmly. “You’ve got the most magnificent opportunity
ever presented to an Inspector of Police. Properly handled, this
business is going to make your name for you.”
“It may do me a bit of good, sir, yes,” agreed the Inspector modestly,
wondering whether this engaging young man had ever heard of the
Garfield case, and if not, how he could tactfully enlighten him.
“Do you a bit of good! My dear chap, it’s going to make you famous.
And look here,” added Mr. Doyle very innocently, “I may be able to be
a little use to you. I’m a journalist, did you know? I can guarantee
you a couple of columns in _The Courier_, with your name splashed
about all over it. Nothing like publicity in a big London paper to
help a good man to get on, you know.” Mr. Doyle managed to convey the
impression that he had the editor and organisation of _The Courier_
attached to the end of a string, only waiting for him to jerk it.
The Inspector, who, less tactfully handled, might have repented of his
confidences on learning the newcomer’s identity, at once saw very
clearly that he need do nothing of the sort. More, he was able to
congratulate himself on his far-sightedness in making them. He was
quite well aware that important London newspapers can do a very great
deal for an able but unknown country policeman; quite well aware. He
accepted the offer, with dignified — careful nonchalance. Guy
interposed with interesting questions connected with the decanter and
siphon in his hands, and all was joy and loving-kindness.
“Extraordinary! Almost incredible!” remarked Mr. Foster, immediately
the conversation presented him with an opening for the insertion of
his own voice. “This affair is going to make the name of Duffley ring
throughout the length and breadth of the land, gentlemen.”
Mr. Foster was not unpleasantly aware that it would also make the name
of Mr. Reginald Foster reverberate in a similar manner. A happy old
age for Mr. Foster was assured, after a still more happy middle-age.
He saw himself for weeks on end surrounded by eager reporters, their
note-books at the ready; he saw his name familiar in men’s mouths as a
household word; he saw himself pointed out in the street for years to
come as “Oh, look, dear—there’s Reginald Foster! You remember—the man
who showed up so awfully well in that extraordinary business about the
murder of the Crown Prince of X at Duffley, years ago. They say he
goes to stay at the Palace every year on the anniversary. They say he
calls all the Royal Family by their Christian names. Of course he’s a
wonderful man, though. It was really he who got the murderers brought
to justice, you know. Yes, I believe there was a Police Inspector in
it, too, but, of course, it was Reginald Foster——” Mr. Foster’s
imagination ran blithely on, chased by its breathless owner.
“Indeed it is,” replied Doyle heartily. “I’ll see to that.” And he
looked at the Inspector as if to add that he would see that that
gentleman’s name rang in harmony with it.
The Inspector wondered harder than ever how to begin the enlightening
process.
“But who _is_ the Crown Prince?” demanded Mr. Foster earnestly.
“That’s what I want to know. _What_ Crown Prince? Now, it seems to me,
Inspector, that what you ought to do is to get on the telephone at
once to the Home Secretary, tell him what’s happened (I’ll corroborate
your story, of course), and ask him what Crown Princes are known to be
absent from their countries at the moment. Or perhaps the Foreign
Office would be better.
“Yes,” decided Mr. Foster, “I think it should be the Foreign Office.
Why, who knows what this may lead to? It may be another Serajevo! It
may precipitate another European war! Goodness knows what may not
happen. We must be very discreet, gentlemen,” said Mr. Foster
weightily. “Very discreet indeed. But, of course,” he added
thoughtfully, “we should do nothing to interfere with the freedom of
the press. Undoubtedly a full story must be got through to _The
Courier_ at once. Why not get on the telephone to them at once, Mr.
Doyle? Yes,” concluded Mr. Foster handsomely, “urgent though our
business with the Foreign Secretary is, I do think we should
communicate with the press first of all.” He ceased, because the most
determined men must draw breath sometimes.
The Inspector eyed Mr. Foster with distaste. Mr. Foster did not appear
to realise that he was not the person in charge here. If Foreign
Secretaries had to be communicated with, then the police officer in
charge was the man to take the decision, not a mere outsider who
happened to be invested with a fortuitous importance as a mere
corroborative witness. The Inspector felt decidedly that Mr. Foster
showed every sign of becoming a thorn in his flesh. And what does one
do with thorns in the flesh? Pluck them out, of course.
“I must ask you, sir,” said the Inspector, with none of his usual
geniality, noting with pleasure that Mr. Foster in his excitement had
drained his glass, “I must ask you to go back to your own house now. I
have some important questions, of an ’ighly—h’m!—of a highly
confidential nature to put to Mr. Nesbitt here, and it won’t be in
order for you to be present. I will communicate with you,” said the
Inspector with dignity, “when I want you.”
Mr. Foster’s face fell with an almost audible thud. He expostulated.
The Inspector was firm. He implored. The Inspector was adamant. He
argued. The Inspector became peremptory.
And then Mr. Foster made a very bad move. He asked point-blank whether
Mr. Doyle, a real interloper, was to remain while he himself, of vital
importance to the case, was thus summarily dismissed; and he asked it
very rudely. Not content with this, in the same breath he accused his
antagonist of favouritism and threatened reprisals. He further added
his doubts regarding the Inspector’s knowledge of his own job.
The breach was complete. The hero of the Garfield case turned to his
underling and became very official indeed. With technical efficiency,
the remains of Mr. Foster were removed by the underling from the room.
“You’re not—you’re not going to arrest him, Inspector, are you?” asked
Doyle, when he had recovered from the fit of coughing which had caused
him to bury his face in his handkerchief. Guy’s features, it may be
remarked, had expressed absolutely nothing at all beyond sympathy with
a public servant in the execution of a painful duty.
“Not this time,” replied the Inspector with paternal regret. “But if
he comes interfering with me any more in the execution of my duties
and trying to teach me my own job—well, I’m not saying what mayn’t
happen.”
“Quite right,” agreed Guy gravely. “Perfectly correct. Have another
drink, won’t you?”
The Inspector graciously accepted this aid to the readjustment of
ruffled plumes.
Constable Graves, returning a trifle heated, a few moments later, also
consented to be soothed in a like manner. It would be too much to say
that Constable Graves had been sulking with his superior officer; it
would not be too much to say that he had been feeling a trifle
resentful. This was his little murder after all; it was he who had
been enclosed in the cupboard; it was his astuteness which had bidden
him lie low while the body was being removed, in order to collect
invaluable evidence—yet here was the Inspector taking the whole thing
into his own hands, bellowing at him as if he had been the actual
criminal, and not allowing him to put a word in edgeways! Constable
Graves felt he had legitimate cause for resentment. He had been able
to work some of it off upon Mr. Foster and now felt a little better. A
contemplation of the generous allowance of whisky which Guy poured
into his glass made him feel better still.
The police were not the only persons to view Mr. Foster’s retirement
with complacency. Mr. Doyle was also glad to see him go. The
enlistment of Mr. Foster’s aid had seemed a mixed blessing to Mr.
Doyle; certainly his testimony was useful in one way, in another it
was embarrassing. While feeling all proper respect for his fiancée’s
nimble exploitation of the situation, he did agree with Guy that the
introduction of a Crown Prince was overdoing things a little. Besides,
this man Foster was such a consummate ass that he might make trouble
out of sheer well-meaning enthusiasm.
Another matter was also in the forefront of Mr. Doyle’s mind. So far
he had only heard the Inspector’s version of the constable’s story,
and that astute man’s sojourn in the cupboard had been glossed over a
little hurriedly; Inspector Cottingham seemed to feel that his
subordinate’s ignominy in this connection was reflected to some degree
upon himself. Mr. Doyle was now anxious to put a few questions on this
subject to the principal actor.
Permission to do so having been craved of the Inspector with tactful
humility and graciously given, Doyle drew the constable a little
aside. Guy, seeing what was in the wind, at once engaged the Inspector
in earnest conversation. Doyle found himself with more or less of a
free hand.
“While you were in the cupboard, constable,” he began, “I suppose you
heard these people moving about when they took away the body, didn’t
you?”
The constable smiled benignly. Here, at any rate, was somebody who
took him and his cupboard seriously. He expanded, both metaphorically
and literally, hooking a thumb in the front of his belt as if to guard
against expanding too far. “Heard ’em, sir?” he repeated benevolently.
“Bless you, I _saw_ ’em!”
With a praiseworthy effort Mr. Doyle refrained from leaping violently
into the air. “The deuce you did!” he exclaimed, a little faintly.
“Er—_saw_ them, did you say?”
The constable was pleased with the evident impression he had made. He
expanded a little further still, to the imminent danger of his belt.
“Yes, sir, that I did. Through the key-hole. Saw em as plainly as I
see you this very minute.”
“That—that’s excellent,” said Mr. Doyle, wriggling uneasily under the
constable’s kindly eye. He plunged at a question that was burning a
hole in his tongue. “And—and do you think you would recognise them if
you saw them again?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the constable heartily. “Ho, yes,
I’d recognise ’em quick enough. Desprit villains they was too,” he
added with gusto.
Mr. Doyle was recovering his grip on himself. “That’s very important,”
he said gravely. “You had a good view of them then?”
“Well,” said the constable with some reluctance, “pretty good, that
is, sir. I couldn’t see ’em all the time, because of how the key-hole
was facing, if you see what I mean. Just now and then I saw ’em.
Pulling the body out, f’rinstance. On a mat, they did. Pulled him out
on a mat. Wouldn’t ’ardly believe it, would you, sir? Now, I wonder
why they did that.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Doyle in feeble agreement.
The constable ruminated. “Might just as well ’ave carried him. Not but
what he wasn’t a tidy weight. Big man, he was. Crown Prince they say,
don’t they?”
“So I hear. But look here, about these—er—villains, could you describe
them, do you think?”
“Near enough, sir. There was two of ’em, a big feller and a little
un’. One of ’em was big, you see, and the other wasn’t; well, little
you might call ’im. Undersized.”
“Little will do, I think. Yes?”
“They was wearing ’ats and coats, so I couldn’t see their faces not
too well, I couldn’t, but you could see they were foreigners.”
“Oh? How?”
“Because they were talking a foreign language,” returned the constable
with triumph. “That’s ’ow I knew they were foreigners. They were
talking a foreign language. There was a girl too.”
“A girl, eh?” said Mr. Doyle uneasily.
“Yes. I’d seen her before, of course, and let ’er slip through my
fingers, I’m afraid. She knew I was in the cupboard too, but she
didn’t know I was watching ’er. Funny thing, too, she’d taken off her
hat and furs and things. Now I wonder why she done that?”
“Perhaps she was hot. Er—I suppose you’d recognise her again, wouldn’t
you?”
“I would, and all,” replied the constable grimly.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Doyle, without conviction. This was a snag he
had not foreseen. He blessed himself for the happy piece of foolery
which had caused Nesbitt and himself to dress for their part and cover
their faces with the mufflers. In the meantime Dora would certainly
have to lie low till she got back to London.
“Now, sir,” the Inspector’s voice remarked in rolling tones. “Now, Mr.
Doyle, if you’ll come with me down the road to where you’re staying,
I’d just like to ask the members of the household there if they heard
anything. Mr. Howard, isn’t it? Who else is there?”
For the fraction of a second Mr. Doyle lost his head. “Nobody!” he
said swiftly.
To his guilty mind it seemed as if the Inspector’s eye became suddenly
less genial. “What, nobody else?” he said.
“Nobody!” repeated the guilty one firmly.
“No maids, even?”
Mr. Doyle drew a breath of relief. “No, no maids. Their maids come in
by the day. Mr. Howard and I were quite alone this evening.”
“Who keeps house for him, then?”
“Oh, his sister. Er—Miss Howard. But she’s away for the week-end.” Mr.
Doyle cocked an anxious eye at the door, to reassure himself that
Laura was not coming down the passage towards them at that moment,
complete with handcuff and accomplice.
“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better
come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here
now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered
where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during
the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a
valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”
As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said
quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle
nodded.
Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.
“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very
airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through to
_The Courier_, wouldn’t you?”
Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing up _The
Courier_, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if
possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without
divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining
exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up
to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one of _The Courier_’s
own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make
almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they
provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to
have been exceedingly buoyant.
Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent
one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he
was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the
house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch,
before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.
Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.
“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they
turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir. It’s
like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a
railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts
once. . . .”
Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.