Prisoner at the Bar Page 9

  Franklin walked in through the tinted glass swing door. The air was heavily perfumed and he immediately thought of a tiger skin rug. The brunette sitting at the reception desk was exactly the kind of girl he’d have liked to snuggle up to on that tiger skin rug. “Afternoon, gorgeous,” he said.

  Her expression became frosty. “We do not do men’s hair.”

  “That’s bad luck for the men, then. What are you doing tonight?”

  She didn’t deign to answer.

  “Is the boss around?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Tell him I’d like a word with him and the name’s Constable Franklin of J division of the county police.”

  She picked up the internal telephone receiver, dialled a number, and spoke to someone. “You can see the manageress. Up the stairs and first on the right,” she said.

  He grinned. “How about coming up with me, love?”

  “I’m particular who I go upstairs with.”

  “You can trust me not to stop to do up my shoelaces.”

  He climbed the stairs that were at the back of the reception area. The girl at the desk was a ripe bit of crackling and when she’d learned he was a policeman she’d thawed a bit. If he chatted her up on his way out he’d yet fix himself up with a date.

  The first room on the right was an office whose furnishings were utilitarian and in direct contrast to the rest of the establishment. A middle-aged woman, plain, dumpy, with lank black hair, sat at the large desk. She wasn’t going to set fire to any tiger rugs, thought Franklin. “Good afternoon. I’m Constable Franklin.”

  “The receptionist said you wanted to speak to Monsieur Guichard. He’s very busy. Can I help you?”

  “It’s a matter of routine. Perhaps you could tell me if Mrs. Curson comes here to have her hair done and whether she’s been recently?”

  The woman looked astonished. “Why should you want to know that?”

  “Like I said, routine.”

  “I shall have to consult Monsieur Guichard. Will you wait here, please.” She left the room.

  Franklin put his hands in his pockets, silently whistled the top pop, and stared round the office. A woman, obviously a client, went past the open doorway. She was very, very smart and very smooth. A real bitch, thought Franklin appreciatively.

  After a couple of minutes, the manageress returned. She sat down at the desk, opened a large ledger, and checked through it. “Mrs. Curson was here on Monday morning, at ten-thirty.”

  Franklin took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He wrote down the date and the time. “Can you tell me what she had done?”

  “Her hair was trimmed.”

  “Didn’t she also have it tinted?”

  The manageress looked up and spoke in a surprised voice. “Yes. But how did you know?”

  Franklin winked. “Telepathy. What was the colour of the tint?”

  “Aztec gold.”

  “And what’s that when it’s around?”

  “A light reddish gold — a very delicate colour.”

  “Does Mrs. Curson always have her hair tinted?”

  “No. This was the first time. Monsieur Guichard persuaded her to try it as the colour has been specially brought out for her kind of hair.”

  “You’re quite certain this was the first time she’d used the stuff?”

  “Quite certain.”

  “Could I have some of the tint?”

  “D’you mean to take away?”

  “I wasn’t really thinking of wearing it.”

  “There’s no need to be insolent.”

  To his annoyance, Franklin was abashed by her observation. There was much of the school ‘marm’ in her. She went out of the office again and when she returned she handed him a small bottle half filled with the tinting liquid.

  Franklin went downstairs. The brunette was no longer behind the desk. He swore. Bang went the ripe evening he’d been planning.

  *

  The late sunshine streamed through the window of Bladen’s room in chambers and covered the tattered carpet that had been there even longer than Premble had been clerk. Bladen was in his usual chair whilst in front of the desk sat two men, instructing solicitor and Kay. Kay was a small, mean man with a face that was filled with an expression of malicious wickedness.

  “Mister,” said Kay, with a desperate earnestness, “I swear I didn’t do it.”

  Bladen stared down at the brief. Kay had been fourteen times convicted of indictable offences: twelve of his past seventeen years had been spent in prison. The evidence against him on the present charge of meanly swindling old age pensions was all but overwhelming.

  “Mister, I know it looks dirty, but it weren’t me that did it. The cozzpots ain’t givin’ me a chance. I’ve been goin’ straight.”

  Bladen noticed the solicitor’s expression of bored impatience. “But you were seen talking to Mrs. Fowler.”

  “I weren’t talking about being an inspector or tellin ’er she ’ad to pay me money for carrying out an ’ouse inspection.”

  “You were wearing a uniform.”

  “That was all I ’ad to wear, mister. I swear to Gawd and all ’is angels I wasn’t doin’ nothing. I just ’ad a chat with ’er to pass the time of day. It was someone else what twisted ’er. She didn’t give me no money.”

  “Let’s go through the rest of your evidence.”

  “Do you think…” began the solicitor, before stopping himself.

  The conference continued for another twenty minutes. At the conclusion, Bladen collected together the papers and his notes and put them inside the back-sheet. He folded up the back-sheet so that he could slip it inside the looped red tape. The solicitor stood up and Kay did the same. The solicitor told Kay to wait outside as he wanted a short word with Mr. Bladen.

  “Have I missed something, Bob?” asked the solicitor, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “This bloke hasn’t even half a leg to stand on. By my reckoning, this conference was a sheer waste of time — it’s just one’s got to give the blokes all the trimmings or they think they’re being diddled. Yet you’ve been going over and over the evidence as if there were something to be found. Don’t you think the police could lose half their evidence and still get a conviction?”

  Bladen spoke slowly. “It certainly looks bad, George, but Kay swears he’s innocent.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Then just suppose he is.”

  “I don’t think I can stretch my mind that far.”

  “Just suppose he’s been unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time so that the circumstantial evidence falsely seems to incriminate him?”

  The solicitor tucked the papers into his briefcase. “When a bloke is in the wrong place at the wrong time it’s invariably because he’s the right bloke for the police.”

  “Not invariably. What about Adolf Beck?”

  “I’ll guarantee one thing. Kay is no Beck.” He held out his hand. “I’ll be off, then. See you in court.” He left.

  Bladen sat down on the edge of his desk. All the evidence pointed to Kay’s guilt. A week ago, there’d have been no doubts: Kay had been miserably swindling old age pensioners out of small, but to them priceless, sums of money. But in the past four days he, Bladen, had learned that facts were not always just facts and that the obvious could be anything but the truth.

  He stubbed out the cigarette. What in the hell were the police doing now? Surely they must have uncovered or discovered something to show them how absurd their previous suspicions had been? Whicheck, calm, efficient, apparently totally unbiased, must have discovered how terrible his mistake? How could any of them believe he would smash a man to the ground, kick him violently, murder him? Even had he been in the middle of an act of adultery with Katherine, had he been disturbed by the peeping Tom and identified him as Thompson, he wouldn’t have murdered. Of course he’d have been furious, of course he might have given Thompson a damned goo
d belting, but there’d have been no brutal killing.

  How much did the police think they knew? It must be more than was so far apparent for them to have behaved as they had. How did they know he and Katherine had been in the lane on the Wednesday? Where was the shoeprint? Why had they taken his suit away — was it just to look for bloodstains, or was there something more?

  He was innocent. Because of this he knew nothing, his only defence was his innocence. Until now, he would have claimed that to be the finest defence of all. But his innocence meant he could counter nothing, having nothing with which to counter their accusations. All the time, the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of drifting closer to disaster, of being a rat in a trap, grew stronger.

  He stood up and angrily called himself a fool. Helpless, disaster, rat in a trap — what nonsense was this? He was innocent. No matter how warped his thoughts tried to become it was only necessary to remember that an innocent man had the finest defence of all — his innocence.

  Yet, he asked himself, what use was any defence unless you could prove its truth? How was he going to prove the truth of his?

  He lit a cigarette. Had Katherine learned anything more? He looked at his watch and saw the time was nearly six o’clock. He left his room and walked towards the door. As he passed the clerk’s room, Premble called out.

  “Have you the papers, sir?”

  “I haven’t got any papers.” He went out. Premble might worry himself into a couple of ulcers, but he had to see Katherine.

  Rush hour brought the usual traffic chaos to Paraford Cross. Policemen took over from the traffic lights and tried to get the traffic moving more freely, but the sheer volume of it practically overwhelmed them, as it did every evening. His Austin was forced to a halt by the Odeon in the High Street, by the new garage in Station Road, and by a dingy warehouse with boarded-up windows in Ebor Road. Only when he was within half a mile of the outskirts of the town did the traffic ease sufficiently for him to be able to drive at a reasonable pace.

  The countryside was green and fresh, there were only a few puff-balls of cumulus drifting before the light wind, and the Indian summer evening was one of peace and calm. The beds in the garden at Forden House still had plenty of colour in them and the lawns were quite immaculate. How long would it be, thought Bladen, before the effects of Thompson’s absence began to disturb this scene?

  He parked his car by the circular flowerbed, went into the porch, and pulled the bell that was in the form of a griffon’s head. The door was opened by Rollo.

  “Is Mrs. Curson in?”

  “Yes, sir. Will you come this way? It’s been a very nice day, hasn’t it, sir?”

  Rollo, thought Bladen, epitomised the pompous butler of popular belief. Had he once been normal and likeable? Katherine was in the green drawing room. As he walked in, she failed to hide her astonishment, but she kept up a conventional conversation until Rollo had left.

  “Bob, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Why have you come here?”

  “I was worried.”

  “What about?”

  It was strange, but from the moment of seeing her all the worries seemed to be so much less worrying and he suddenly thought he was making a bit of a fool of himself. “I… I got all steamed up and felt as if I was being squeezed on all sides. Now I’m here, that’s all become a load of old codswallop.” He smiled.

  She studied his face. “But what’s happened suddenly to make you so terribly worried? You’re not someone to be like that over nothing.”

  “It’s really just that I saw the detective inspector this morning.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was inclined to be suspicious.”

  She walked round a chair to stand immediately in front of him. “Bob, something more’s going on. What?”

  He hesitated.

  “You’ve got to tell me.”

  “He and another detective went back to my flat with me and searched through my clothes and shoes. They took away a suit and a pair of shoes. They were looking for bloodstains.”

  She spoke fiercely. “They won’t find any.”

  “Of course not, but…”

  “But what?”

  “What keeps making them think there could be bloodstains on my clothes? It must be something more than their certainty we were interrupted when we were having fun.”

  “Are they so certain we were… doing that?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  It was her turn to show fear. “Why? Why won’t they understand the truth?”

  “We’re up against human nature. Why do people go to Lovers’ Lane? To make love, of course. We’ve been to Lovers’ Lane? Then we were making love there.”

  “That’s a horrible way of thinking.”

  “It’s the way most people do, simply because they want to believe the worst of others.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say.” She spoke with tired bitterness. “Elmer’s coming back this evening.”

  “When?”

  “At seven.” She looked at her watch. “Would you like a drink?” she asked.

  “Yes, please. Shall I get them?” He went over to the cocktail cabinet, in the manner of Chippendale Chinese that had been made at very high cost for Elmer. He opened the doors and searched amongst the bottles on the bottom shelf. “Your usual — Cinzano and gin?”

  “Yes… Bob, I suppose you did deny we’d made love?”

  He turned round. “Well of course I did. Why on earth ask that?”

  “Because it’s all become so beastly and sordid I can believe anything. Can’t you just imagine them at the police station, talking about it? D’you know the Curson woman? She was in the car with him. I bet they had fun…”

  “Stop it,” he said roughly.

  She sat down on the chair she’d been standing by. He poured out a white Cinzano and added a dash of gin. He handed her the glass. “Katherine, we mustn’t let this thing do this to us.”

  She reached up and gripped his hand. “I’m… I’m sorry. You’re not the only one who can get worked up and worried.”

  They heard the ring of the front door bell and she let go of his hand.

  “Elmer’s strangely early,” she said, trying to speak lightly.

  Rollo came into the sitting room. “There are two gentlemen who wish to see you, Madame. One of them is Detective Inspector Whicheck.” He could not quite hide his inquisitive interest.

  “Show them in here.” As soon as Rollo had gone out, she stared wildly at Bladen. “Bob — what’s going on? Why are they here at this time?”

  “Don’t tell them anything, don’t answer anything unless I say so.”

  “But there’s nothing to say…”

  “Then don’t say it,” he snapped, without meaning to speak sharply.

  Whicheck came into the room, accompanied by Detective Sergeant Eastbrook. Eastbrook gave the impression of a man determined not to be in the least bit overawed by his surroundings, yet nevertheless finding himself so.

  “Good evening,” said Whicheck pleasantly. “Sorry to interrupt you so late.”

  “What is it?” she asked, her voice high.

  “I’ve come to ask you for something.”

  “What?”

  “Would you be kind enough to give me a couple of hairs from your head?”

  “Why?” snapped Bladen.

  Whicheck half turned. “To help us in our enquiries, Mr. Bladen.”

  “How are hairs from Mrs. Curson’s head going to help?”

  Whicheck scratched his battered ear and seemed to be pondering the wisdom of answering. He finally said: “A human hair was found grasped in the dead man’s hand. I need to identify where that hair came from.”

  Bladen immediately remembered how the detective inspector had searched the clothes in his flat. “What is it — d’you think Thompson grabbed a hair off my clothes as he died?”

  Whicheck said nothing.

  “I didn’t kill him,” said Bladen.

 
; “Then you will no doubt advise Mrs. Curson to help us all she can so that we can quickly prove your innocence.”

  “I’m not going to let you twist the evidence to suit your ridiculous theories.”

  “I’m not twisting anything, Mr. Bladen.”

  Eastbrook said: “If you think…”

  “Shut up,” interrupted Whicheck, hurriedly cutting short whatever indiscretion Eastbrook had been about to make.

  Katherine spoke with passionate urgency. “The hair can’t have come from Mr. Bladen’s clothes.”

  Whicheck answered her. “Then the best way of helping to prove that is to give me a couple of your hairs so as we can hold comparison tests.”

  “Don’t do it,” said Bladen.

  She stared at Bladen for several seconds, a look of appeal on her face, then reached up to her head and pulled out a few hairs.

  “I just want to get it over and done with,” she said bitterly. She held out the hairs and Whicheck came forward and took them from her.

  Bladen spoke loudly. “The hair in Thompson’s hand could have come from anywhere. After all, he worked here.”

  “We naturally haven’t overlooked that fact, Mr. Bladen,” said Whicheck. “The hair in the dead man’s hand had been recently cut and tinted. Mrs. Curson visited the hairdresser on Monday morning and had her hair cut and tinted.”

  “Thompson could have picked the hair up after she got back…”

  “Thompson wasn’t here on Monday.”

  There was a silence in which the ticking of the Tompion clock in the far corner of the room seemed to grow louder. Whicheck took a small plastic phial from his pocket, carefully worked the hairs into it and then secured the lid. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Curson.”

  “I… I don’t understand what it all means,” she said.

  Whicheck spoke sombrely. “I feel sure Mr. Bladen will be able to explain to you. Goodnight, Mrs. Curson.” He turned and left and Eastbrook followed him.