Settling Scores Page 12

  “Well, well!” Reggie murmured, and Lomas laughed. “It does all fit, doesn’t it, Bell?”

  “You mean he could ha’ made that queer long chisel they used in his own workshop. Yes, I thought of that. But it is quite a respectable business, old standing; his father had it before him.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Reggie smiled. “What are his teeth like?”

  Bell breathed hard. “Ah. I reckon that’s up to you, sir. I’ve had some fellows look at him, but all they can say is he has a scar on his face, healing. Playing football, he might get that easy.”

  “Do they play football in August?”

  “Oh yes, sir. Practice games. League season begins before summer’s over. What I was thinking—his team has a practice game this evening—if you’d come up and have a look at him.”

  “If you like. Anything I can do,” said Reggie meekly. “What about it, Lomas?”

  “Safety-first idea, isn’t it?” Lomas shrugged. “I should have said we have enough of a case to bring the fellow here and ask him a few questions. But there’s no harm in looking him over beforehand. I take it the thing turns on his tooth. If he’s lost the piece you found, then we’ve got him cold. If he hasn’t, then we shall have to work up something more.”

  “I don’t know about working up,” Bell grumbled. “We shall want something more. I thought of taking the chap who saw the burglars at work up to the ground to see if he could identify Clark.”

  “Oh no. No. I wouldn’t do that,” Reggie said hastily. “It’s not fair, Bell. The red-haired man he saw was in ordinary clothes. Mr. Clark may look very different stripped for football. Try him in a regular identification parade.”

  “Very good, sir,” Bell frowned. “You don’t mind my saying so, but you’re uncommon careful to have us do everything in the regulation routine way for you in this case.”

  “It’s that kind of case, you know.” Reggie was plaintive.

  “Quite,” Lomas approved. “Quite. You’re perfectly right, my dear fellow.”

  The huge amphitheatre of the London City ground was sparsely populated for that practice match. Two men who strolled in just before the kick-off had no difficulty in finding places against the rails. The players ran on to the field and lined up. The red head of Percy Clark glistened in the sun.

  “Yes. Quite oily,” Reggie murmured. “And the right red, thank you.” He smiled. “Cut over the eye nearly gone. Sturdy little wretch, isn’t he?”

  “He could have struck that blow?” Bell said under his breath.

  “Oh lord, yes! Just the man. Short and powerful. I told you he would be. Quick on his feet, isn’t he?” Clark was making rings round the opposing half. “That also. Oh, damn!” Clark had come into contact with the back. They had some badinage.

  “I didn’t see,” Bell muttered. “What is it? Tooth there, sir?”

  “No, it isn’t. The whole tooth’s gone. He’s had it out, confound him. And that is that.” He turned away.

  “What do you want to do now, sir?” Bell said when they reached the street.

  “Carry on, carry on. You’ll have to ask Mr. Clark to come to Scotland Yard, and if he won’t come—take him.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Lomas, sir.”

  “Oh yes. Yes. Let’s be correct,” Reggie smiled.

  And everything was done in order as he desired. That night two grave men called on Percy Clark in the neat little house beside his garage. They asked him to come and give Superintendent Bell a little information. He laughed. He wanted to know what about. They said the Superintendent would tell him. He replied that he had no time to go running round to police stations. They said he would have to make it. He went with them.

  “Cut it short, will you, old friend?” He greeted Bell jauntily. “I’m a busy man.”

  “All right,” said Bell. “You just tell me what you were doing the afternoon of Saturday the 20th.”

  “I don’t think!” Clark winked. “Want to pinch me for something, do you? Nothing doing, old bean. There’s been too much in the papers about what a chap gets by talking to the police.”

  “You can’t account for your time that afternoon?”

  “Not ’arf,” said Clark. “I’m saying nothing, mate.”

  “If you’re innocent, you’re a fool,” Bell frowned.

  “You’ve got nothing against me. I know that. Not being a fool, old friend, I’m not going to help you fake up a charge. Got that? Now, what about it?”

  “You’ll be detained as a suspected person,” said Bell.

  “What of?” said Clark.

  “You’ll hear when the time comes.”

  In the morning, Bell put him up for identification by the man who had seen the burglars at work and the man who saw two workmen go off in a side-car. Both of these witnesses picked him out, both declared that they had seen a little man with red hair like his. Neither would say he was the man. His house and his garage were searched and such a tool as the long chisel which had been used in the burglary was found: more than one queer tool of no lawful use.

  Then Bell charged him with burglary and murder, and he grinned and asked to see his solicitor.

  Reggie was called out of his laboratory to the telephone. “Well, Reginald, Mr. Percy Clark is going to be put through it,” said the voice of Lomas. “In the police court tomorrow. Happy now?”

  “Not happy, no. Tranquil. I thought you’d have to.”

  “Quite. You’re satisfied? Good. So am I. Come round, will you? The Public Prosecutor wants to talk.”

  Reggie came into a room which seemed to be occupied by a large man in front of the fireplace, who lectured.

  “Oh, my aunt!” Reggie moaned. “Lomas—oh, you are there. I couldn’t see you for the noise. Hallo, Bell! You look disgruntled.” He turned at last to Mr. Montagu Finchampstead, the Public Prosecutor. “What’s the matter with you, Finch?”

  “He’s explaining that he doesn’t think much of the case,” said Lomas.

  “Fancy that,” Reggie murmured. “Haven’t we been correct, Lomas? How would Finch have done it?”

  “The question is not how I should have done it, but whether the evidence you have will obtain a conviction. And—”

  “Is it?” said Lomas. “I should say if the police have good evidence a man was guilty of murder he ought to go for trial.”

  “Good evidence, yes,” Finchampstead fumed. “There’s practically nothing but Fortune’s story.”

  “My what?” Reggie was hurt. “I don’t tell stories, Finch.”

  “We have some other striking facts,” said Lomas. “A man very like this chap was on the scene of the murder. He has the motor-bike equipment and the burglarious tools which the murderer required. He’s a footballer, and a football photo was stolen from the murdered man’s room after the crime.”

  “A lot of detail,” Finchampstead snorted.

  “Of course it’s detail,” said Lomas. “Every case is made up of detail: and when each scrap fits, the cumulative force is strong.”

  “Juries don’t bother about cumulative force,” Finchampstead announced. “We come down to this. The only clear evidence you’ve got is Fortune’s statement about the hair and the piece of tooth. And in my opinion it’s not satisfactory.”

  “Thank you for all these kind words,” Reggie murmured. “Why isn’t it satisfactory? The murderer left hair on the dead man’s fist which is just the colour of Percy Clark’s. He left a bit of a front tooth, and Percy has lost all that tooth.”

  “Just so. All of it,” said Finchampstead. “Which means that the bit you found is not evidence against him at all. A man can’t have something broken off a tooth he hasn’t got.”

  “How true, Finch! How brilliant!” Reggie looked at him reverently. “But don’t you see, dear, that raises the little questions, when did he have that tooth taken out, and why did he have that tooth taken out? For he had his front teeth all present and correct quite recently. I’ve found a smiling photograph.”

  “That’s right,
sir,” Bell nodded. “In the football papers. And I’ve found customers of his who want to swear he hasn’t lost a front tooth at all.”

  “Satisfied now?” Lomas smiled.

  Finchampstead scowled at him. “No, I am not satisfied. I am bound to say the evidence is inadequate.”

  “Now, what exactly do you mean, Finch?” Reggie murmured. “That you don’t think Percy was the murderer or that you don’t think you can make a jury say he was?”

  Finchampstead hesitated. “I don’t mind owning it’s a queer case,” he said reluctantly. “You show a strong probability that he is guilty. But I have to make a proof, Fortune.”

  Lomas laughed. “Just so. You admit it’s a case for trial.”

  “I agree we must go through with it.” Finchampstead rose. “Don’t forget, we have no idea what his defence is going to be.”

  “No. Not a notion,” Reggie murmured. “That’ll make it very interesting.”

  The conference broke up. But Bell took Reggie aside. “Mr. Fortune, do you believe this man’s guilty?” he said.

  “Oh yes. Absolutely. Not a doubt. Why?”

  Bell drew a long breath. “Well, I’m glad. I did think you were keeping out of it: leaving it all to us.”

  “Yes. That is so.” He looked at Bell with half-shut eyes. “You notice things,” he murmured. “I wanted you fellows to work up the case yourselves. It makes you all nice and keen. I couldn’t force a prosecution. But Lomas can. And he has.”

  The arrest of a First League player for murder was a fortune to newspapers in the depths of the silly season. The great heart of the people was taught to yearn over Percy Clark. Pages of stories, pages of pictures, set forth his deeds on the football field, his beauty and his charm. He became a popular hero persecuted by the police.

  The prosecution went on its slow prosaic way. Before the magistrate an old solicitor of renown in criminal cases appeared for Mr. Clark, played lightly with the evidence against him and announced that he would reserve his defence. Mr. Clark was committed for trial.

  When the case came on, a crowd fought to get into the court, a crowd remained outside. The driest, hardest little Judge on the bench took the case. “Looks in form,” Lomas smiled. “He’ll hang the fellow if he can.”

  “He will keep the jury to the evidence,” said Finchampstead with dignity, glancing at the fleshy advocate who was leading for the defence.

  But Mr. Justice Blackshaw had no chance for his noted snubs. Sir Edward Pollexfen did not use the melodramatic style which has made him the idol of the criminal classes. He took the case as quietly as the neat counsel for the prosecution. The dangerous evidence of Reggie did not excite him, his cross-examination treated Mr. Fortune with careless respect. “Your evidence is that the murderer had red hair and lost a portion of a tooth in his struggle with the dead man. Very good. I suggest that many men have red hair, Mr. Fortune.”

  “Yes. Not so many this shade of red.”

  “Still, a good many. You produce one hair and a piece of a front tooth. You don’t suggest that piece is missing from any of the prisoner’s teeth.”

  “Not from any that he has now. He has had the tooth in the position from which this piece came removed.”

  “If he had lost that tooth before the murder, this piece cannot be his?”

  “If he had,” said Reggie, and was told that was all.

  Lomas looked at Finchampstead. “Taking it easy, what?”

  “Much too easy,” Finchampstead frowned.

  Reggie came from the witness-box to sit beside them. “Well, well. I should say we’re going to hear some good hard swearing, Finch.”

  “I should say they have a good answer. I was afraid of that, Fortune.”

  “Yes, yes. I know you were,” Reggie murmured.

  The defence continued to take it easy. The men who had seen a red-haired little fellow at the time and place of the murder were let go with the admission that they could not swear to Percy Clark. The woman telling of the stolen football photograph was only required to admit she did not know who was in it. The customers of Clark who swore he had had all his teeth till the eve of the murder were contemptuously challenged. Bell’s own evidence of strange tools in Clark’s workshop was dismissed with a few technical questions to confuse the jury.

  Pollexfen arose to open the defence with expansive confidence. The jury must be amazed at the weakness of the case which they had been brought to hear. In all his long experience he had never known a criminal charge supported by such scanty, flimsy evidence. It would be apparent to them that no rational man could find the prisoner guilty. But his client was not content to be acquitted for lack of evidence against him. He claimed the right to prove his innocence. And he would show that he could have had no part in the crime.

  “That means we’re going to have an alibi,” said Lomas.

  But they began with the tooth. Some of the other players in Clark’s football team swore that he had an accident in practice the week before the murder and stood out of training.

  “Yes, I dare say they’re telling the truth,” Reggie murmured. “He’d want time off to make his little arrangements.”

  They testified that Clark had a kick in the face, complained that it had loosened his teeth, told them the front one had gone so shaky he had to pull it out.

  “Thus avoiding any dentist’s evidence,” Reggie murmured.

  The prosecuting counsel, going gingerly, brought out that they had no knowledge how the tooth was lost except what Clark had told them.

  And then came a man who said he lived at Gilsfield. It is a little place fifty miles out of London, away from main lines and main roads.

  Reggie lay back and gazed at him with mild and dreamy eyes.

  The man said he was a retired grocer, and he looked it. He had a habit of going out for a stroll and getting a cup of tea at a wayside inn, the “Billhook.” He knew Mr. Clark by seeing him there pretty often. He was at the “Billhook” on the Saturday of the murder. He saw Mr. Clark there. Under cross-examination he was sure of the date, but vague about the time. It was tea-time: might have been four or five. “Or six or seven?” counsel suggested. But he was sure it was before the bar opened. The Court laughed.

  “Pretty vague,” said Lomas.

  “Yes. Yes. Mr. Clark will want them to do better than that,” Reggie murmured, and contemplated the sharp, impudent face in the dock.

  The landlord of the “Billhook” came next, an oldish, fattish man, sweating freely. He also knew Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark often came to the “Billhook” when he was out on his motor-bike. He came that Saturday. Came for a bit o’ lunch. Stayed on till it was getting dark. Had a bit o’ game with the darts in the afternoon. He knew the date, he’d got it scored up. Mr. Clark lost half a dollar to him and hadn’t paid yet. Again the Court laughed. And cross-examination made nothing of the landlord. He was anxious to oblige, in the manner of a publican, he wheezed and he sweated, but he stuck to his story.

  “So that’s that,” Reggie murmured, watching him out of the box. “Now, what’s little Blackshaw going to do about it?”

  Pollexfen’s speech for the defence took that for granted. He boomed assurance. The charge had collapsed; it was atoms, dust. The prisoner was proved innocent before God and man.

  And for the first time the little Judge had his chance to snap. Some lovers of football were applauding. He scarified them.

  The reply for the prosecution was in a minor key, ironic about alibis, sarcastic upon dentistry by hearsay, bitter in emphasis on the anxiety of someone to destroy the evidence that the murdered man had a footballing friend.

  Mr. Justice Blackshaw took snuff. The summing up came in his driest style. The jury would not be misled by counsel’s complaints that a grave charge had been made without proof. They would observe that facts had been given in evidence which were in substance unchallenged and which pointed to the prisoner’s guilt. They would also observe that evidence had been given to weaken the strongest part of the case an
d other evidence which would disprove it all. He made it plain that he did not think much of the explanation of the tooth. He treated the alibi with more respect. If they believed the witnesses for the defence, the foundation of the charge, that Clark had been at the shop at the time of the burglary, was destroyed. They must consider that evidence carefully and the evidence as a whole.

  “Fair little beggar, isn’t he?” Reggie smiled. “He knows Clark did it all right.”

  “He knows what your evidence is worth,” Finchampstead growled. “That’s a direction to acquit.”

  “I know. I know,” Reggie murmured. He gazed pensively at the man in the dock. The gap where the tooth had been showed in a queer, sneering grin.

  The jury did not consider long. They came back with a verdict of not guilty, and at the words a cheer rose from the back of the crowded court, rose louder, to the impotent rage of the little Judge, as it was swelled by a boom of cheering from the crowd outside.

  “I told you so, Lomas,” Finchampstead growled. “You’ve made a nice thing of it. This is what comes of relying on Fortune’s theories.”

  “No, it isn’t. It comes of doing one’s job,” said Lomas. “Well, let’s get away before they tear us limb from limb. Where is Fortune?” But Mr. Fortune had gone.

  On the next day a young man on a motor-bicycle stopped at the “Billhook” for lunch. His clothes were loud, his speech Cockney. He confided in the landlord that he was having his fortnight off: mooching round the country on the old jigger: rather thought of putting up somewhere for a bit. The landlord, who looked like the morning after a wet night, said the “Billhook” had no beds. “Sorry. You got some good beer. ’Ave one with me.” The landlord had one and another. “Prime stuff. I’ll be coming this way again, dad”—the young man winked. “Cheerio!” He rode off and found a bed in Gilsfield. He was Mr. Fortune’s chauffeur, Sam, a young man of versatility.

  The country round the “Billhook” is lonely, a picturesque and barren region of sandhills which grew heath by nature and have been made to grow larch and pine. Here and there the ponds, which such country is apt to produce, give variety to the vegetation. About this time a botanist, complete with vasculum, was noticed working over the heath. The solitary woodmen and gamekeepers found him affable. He was Mr. Fortune.