Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn
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“Betty you awake?” he asked sharply.
“Yes, Dad.…” She swept her gown from the bed head and scrambled from between the sheets to slip it on. “What’s wrong?”
“Come downstairs, will you? The police are here. Inspector Morgan wants a word with you.”
Inspector Morgan? Police? Betty groped round blindly for her slippers, found them. Drawing the girdle of her gown tight, she pulled open the bedroom door. Her mother, similarly attired, was just approaching along the landing.
“Can’t understand this, Bet,” she breathed. “You go first.”
For some unexplained reason Betty was trembling as she half tumbled down the staircase and into the kitchen. The light dazzled her for a moment. Dazed, she looked at two vaguely familiar figures; she’d seen them both about Langhorn from time. One of them was tall and young in a constable’s uniform and helmet with three stripes and a crown on his sleeve. The other was shorter, immensely broad, having a shiny peaked cap instead of a helmet.
Her father was standing by the fireplace. Her mother still hovered in the doorway. Betty crept forward, hugging her dressing gown modestly about her, her blonde hair streaming loose.
“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Miss Shapley, but it’s important. “I’m Inspector Morgan of the Langhorn Constabulary.”
Betty nodded. Morgan was solid and power-packed, his face square. Densely thick eyebrows scowled down over hidden eyes.
“This is Sergeant Claythorne,” Morgan added, nodding to the young man by his side.
“But—but what’s wrong, Inspector?” Betty asked, struggling still with sleepiness.
“No sense in wrapping things up, Miss Shapley. Herbert Pollitt has been murdered.…” An unfeeling, brutal statement at that hour in the morning.
“Mur—murdered!” Betty was abruptly wide-awake.
“But it’s impossible!” her mother declared, horrified.
“Afraid not,” Morgan said. “He was found tonight by Mr. Clayton from the garage next door but one—found battered to death! He reported the matter to us and made a statement. It seems that you, Miss Shapley, asked Mr. Clayton to go and tow in Mr. Pollitt’s car. Is that right?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Betty agreed. “But—but how was Herby murdered? It just can’t be!”
“I know it’s a nasty shock,” Morgan said, softening slightly as he always did before youth in distress. “But it’s true. His head was found terribly battered. And whoever committed the murder then tried to burn the body. The car was set on fire, and Pollitt’s body and clothes show distinct signs of burning.… However, these details are for the Police to worry over, not you.
“I have photographers and fingerprint men from Lexham on the spot at this moment, and Dr. Roberts is on his way there. In the meantime, I’m checking on Clayton’s statement. You did ask him then to bring in Pollitt’s car?”
Betty sat down before her trembling legs dropped her to the floor. Fire! A palpitating red glow across the fields.…
“Yes, that’s right.” She made a mighty effort at control and watched Claythorne record her words in his notebook.
“About what time, Miss Shapley?”
“It was eleven-thirty when I arrived at his house door. I remember the church clock just striking.…”
“I understand from Mr. Clayton you had been with Pollitt since dinnertime, and then left him finally to come and get Clayton’s assistance for the car. What time was this?”
“Oh, I—I suppose it must have been about half past ten.”
“Then it took you an hour to walk say two and a half miles?”
“About that. I—I took my time.”
“Hmm.… Mr. Clayton has stated that as he approached the spot where he expected to find Mr. Pollitt he saw the car on fire—and then a man came tearing past him on a bicycle. A man whom he identified in the headlights as…Vincent Grey.”
Betty, her eyes pinched shut behind finger and thumb, saw in her inner vision that white-sweatered figure pedalling with insane energy under the streetlamps of the High Street.
“I would add,” Morgan said, “that I have informed Scotland Yard of his description, name, and so forth. A dragnet will be out by now to catch him. He’s disappeared.”
Disappeared! Of course he’d disappeared! Down Riverside Avenue!
“Mr. Clayton,” Morgan resumed heavily, “was just in time to pull the dead man free of the blazing car, but having no extinguisher, he had to let it burn itself out—then he came straight to us.… I understand, Miss Shapley, that you are acquainted with Vincent Grey?”
“Yes.” Betty was almost inaudible.
“Do you know of any reason why he might have met Mr. Pollitt tonight?”
Betty lowered her hand and opened her eyes again. “No, Inspector, I do not. When I left Herby, he was alone. I can’t imagine where Vincent came from, or why.”
“I see.” Morgan’s eyes strayed to Claythorne’s notes. “Just what do you know of Mr. Grey? Was he on friendly terms with Herbert Pollitt? Or were they enemies?”
“Well, they—they were rivals. Over me.”
“Ah, I think I understand now.… When did you last see Vincent Grey?”
Defiance rose up in Betty—defiance of the truth, defiance of everything. Suddenly she saw the one man she really loved in the most deadly danger. She herself had seen him racing away from the crime.
“I last saw him on Saturday,” she stated quite calmly. “It was in the evening. He took me to the Langhorn cinema and left me here about eleven. Mother and father can verify that.”
Morgan glanced round, and Mr. and Mrs. Shapley both nodded.
“And,” Morgan turned to Betty with a direct look, “you have not seen Vincent Grey since that time?”
Betty was silent, and evidently Morgan took it for acquiescence for he nodded to Claythorne. The lanky young sergeant closed his notebook and waited.
“I’m sorry I had to ask you all these questions at this hour of night,” Morgan said, with a clumsy attempt at apology. “But we must learn all we can right away. I’ve already seen the landlady of the rooms where Pollitt lived, and Clayton has of course identified the body. Now I have seen you, I have got to discover where Vincent Grey has gone.”
“He didn’t go to his rooms, then?” asked Mrs. Shapley in surprise.
Morgan smiled coldly. “If he were at home, madam, it would not have been necessary for me to contact the Yard. Men do not as a rule dash straight home when they have committed a murder. I understand from his landlady that he went to Lexham to play chess with a friend, leaving his rooms at about half past six yesterday evening.…” Morgan drew himself up and fastened the top button of his uniform.
“I’ll not need to bother you any further at the moment. Thank you—and good night.”
He turned to the kitchen doorway with Claythorne behind him. Old man Shapley saw them through the shop and out into the street again—then he drew over the bolts noisily. Morgan led the way across the forecourt to his car.
“Looks as though the girl’s telling the truth, sir,” Claythorne said, slipping down in front of the steering wheel.
“Don’t let a pretty face run away with you, Sergeant,” Morgan advised him. “Don’t forget she had three beaux! Humph! Anyway, get going.”
Claythorne nodded, reflecting grimly on the tangled crime they were