The Unexpected Guest

‘It isn’t even as though we’d got any nice props handy,’ Starkwedder muttered. ‘You know, a Sikh turban carelessly draped over the decanter, or a Mau Mau knife, or a poisoned arrow.’ He pressed his hands to his forehead in concentration. ‘Damn it all,’ he went on, ‘what we want is someone with a grudge, someone who’d been kicked around by Richard.’ Approaching Laura, he urged her, ‘Think, woman. Think. Think!’

‘I—I can’t think,’ replied Laura, her voice almost breaking with frustration.

‘You’ve told me the kind of man your husband was. There must have been incidents, people. Heavens above, there must have been something,’ he exclaimed.

Laura paced about the room, trying desperately to remember.

‘Someone who made threats. Justifiable threats, perhaps,’ Starkwedder encouraged her.

Laura stopped her pacing, and turned to face him. ‘There was—I’ve just remembered,’ she said. She spoke slowly. ‘There was a man whose child Richard ran over.’

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_937acf80-a6de-574e-b958-459072e9c9c3)

Starkwedder stared at Laura. ‘Richard ran over a child?’ he asked excitedly. ‘When was this?’

‘It was about two years ago,’ Laura told him. ‘When we were living in Norfolk. The child’s father certainly made threats at the time.’

Starkwedder sat down on the footstool. ‘Now, that sounds like a possibility,’ he said. ‘Anyway, tell me all you can remember about him.’

Laura thought for a moment, and then began to speak. ‘Richard was driving back from Cromer,’ she said. ‘He’d had far too much to drink, which was by no means unusual. He drove through a little village at about sixty miles an hour, apparently zig-zagging quite a bit. The child—a little boy—ran out into the road from the inn there—Richard knocked him down and he was killed instantly.’

‘Do you mean,’ Starkwedder asked her, ‘that your husband could drive a car, despite his disability?’

‘Yes, he could. Oh, it had to be specially built, with special controls that he could manage, but, yes, he was able to drive that vehicle.’

‘I see,’ said Starkwedder. ‘What happened about the child? Surely the police could have got Richard for manslaughter?’

‘There was an inquest, of course,’ Laura explained. A bitter note crept into her voice as she added, ‘Richard was exonerated completely.’

‘Were there any witnesses?’ Starkwedder asked her.

‘Well,’ Laura replied, ‘there was the child’s father. He saw it happen. But there was also a hospital nurse—Nurse Warburton—who was in the car with Richard. She gave evidence, of course. And according to her, the car was going under thirty miles an hour and Richard had had only one glass of sherry. She said that the accident was quite unavoidable—the little boy just suddenly rushed out, straight in front of the car. They believed her, and not the child’s father who said that the car was being driven erratically and at a very high speed. I understand the poor man was—rather over-violent in expressing his feelings.’ Laura moved to the armchair, adding, ‘You see, anyone would believe Nurse Warburton. She seemed the very essence of honesty and reliability and accuracy and careful understatement and all that.’

‘You weren’t in the car yourself?’ Starkwedder asked.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ Laura replied. ‘I was at home.’

‘Then how do you know that what Nurse what’s her-name said mightn’t have been the truth?’

‘Oh, the whole thing was very freely discussed by Richard,’ she said bitterly. ‘After they came back from the inquest, I remember very clearly. He said, “Bravo, Warby, jolly good show. You’ve probably got me off quite a stiff jail sentence.” And she said, “You don’t deserve to have got off, Mr Warwick. You know you were driving much too fast. It’s a shame about that poor child.” And then Richard said, “Oh, forget it! I’ve made it worth your while. Anyway, what’s one brat more or less in this overcrowded world? He’s just as well out of it all. It’s not going to spoil my sleep, I assure you.”’

Starkwedder rose from the stool and, glancing over his shoulder at Richard Warwick’s body, said grimly, ‘The more I hear about your husband, the more I’m willing to believe that what happened tonight was justifiable homicide rather than murder.’ Approaching Laura, he continued, ‘Now then. This man whose child was run over. The boy’s father. What’s his name?’

‘A Scottish name, I think,’ Laura replied. ‘Mac—Mac something—MacLeod? MacCrae?—I can’t remember.’

‘But you’ve got to try to remember,’ Starkwedder insisted. ‘Come on, you must. Is he still living in Norfolk?’

‘No, no,’ said Laura. ‘He was only over here for a visit. To his wife’s relations, I think. I seem to remember he came from Canada.’

‘Canada—that’s a nice long way away,’ Starkwedder observed. ‘It would take time to chase up. Yes,’ he continued, moving to behind the sofa, ‘yes, I think there are possibilities there. But for God’s sake try to remember the man’s name.’ He went across to his overcoat on the armchair in the recess, took his gloves from a pocket, and put them on. Then, looking searchingly around the room, he asked, ‘Got any newspapers about?’

‘Newspapers?’ Laura asked, surprised.

‘Not today’s,’ he explained. ‘Yesterday’s or the day before would do better.’

Rising from the sofa, Laura went to a cupboard behind the armchair. ‘There are some old ones in the cupboard here. We keep them for lighting fires,’ she told him.

Starkwedder joined her, opened the cupboard door, and took out a newspaper. After checking the date, he announced, ‘This is fine. Just what we want.’ He closed the cupboard door, took the newspaper to the desk, and from a pigeon-hole on the desk extracted a pair of scissors.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Laura.

‘We’re going to manufacture some evidence.’ He clicked the scissors as though to demonstrate.

Laura stared at him, perplexed. ‘But suppose the police succeed in finding this man?’ she asked. ‘What happens then?’

Starkwedder beamed at her. ‘If he still lives in Canada, it’ll take a bit of doing,’ he announced with an air of smugness. ‘And by the time they do find him, he’ll no doubt have an alibi for tonight. Being a few thousand miles away ought to be satisfactory enough. And by then it will be a bit late for them to check up on things here. Anyway, it’s the best we can do. It’ll give us breathing space at all events.’

Laura looked worried. ‘I don’t like it,’ she complained.

Starkwedder gave her a somewhat exasperated look. ‘My dear girl,’ he admonished her, ‘you can’t afford to be choosy. But you must try to remember that man’s name.’

‘I can’t, I tell you, I can’t,’ Laura insisted.

‘Was it MacDougall, perhaps? Or Mackintosh?’ he suggested helpfully.

Laura took a few steps away from him, putting her hands to her ears. ‘Do stop,’ she cried. ‘You’re only making it worse. I’m not sure now that it was Mac anything.’

‘Well, if you can’t remember, you can’t,’ Starkwedder conceded. ‘We shall have to manage without. You don’t remember the date, by any chance, or anything useful like that?’

‘Oh, I can tell you the date, all right,’ said Laura. ‘It was May the fifteenth.’

Surprised, Starkwedder asked, ‘Now, how on earth can you remember that?’

There was bitterness in Laura’s voice as she replied, ‘Because it happened on my birthday.’

‘Ah, I see—yes—well, that solves one little problem,’ observed Starkwedder. ‘And we’ve also got one little piece of luck. This paper is dated the fifteenth.’ He cut the date out carefully from the newspaper.

Joining him at the desk and looking over his shoulder, Laura pointed out that the date on the newspaper was November the fifteenth, not May. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s the numbers that are the more awkward. Now, May. May’s a short word—ah, yes, here’s an M. Now an A, and a Y.’

‘What in heaven’s name are you doing?’ Laura asked.

Starkwedder’s only response, as he seated himself in the desk chair, was, ‘Got any paste?’

Laura was about to take a pot of paste from a pigeon-hole, but he stopped her. ‘No, don’t touch,’ he instructed. ‘We don’t want your fingerprints on it.’ He took the pot of paste in his gloved hands, and removed the lid. ‘How to be a criminal in one easy lesson,’ he continued. ‘And, yes, here’s a plain block of writing paper—the kind sold all over the British Isles.’ Taking a notepad from the pigeon-hole, he proceeded to paste words and letters onto a sheet of notepaper. ‘Now, watch this, one—two—three—a bit tricky with gloves. But there we are. “May fifteen. Paid in full.” Oh, the “in” has come off.’ He pasted it back on again. ‘There, now. How do you like that?’

He tore the sheet off the pad and showed it to her, then went across to Richard Warwick’s body in its wheelchair. ‘We’ll tuck it neatly into his jacket pocket, like that.’ As he did so, he dislodged a pocket lighter, which fell to the floor. ‘Hello, what’s this?’

Laura gave a sharp exclamation and tried to snatch the lighter up, but Starkwedder had already done so, and was examining it. ‘Give it to me,’ cried Laura breathlessly. ‘Give it to me!’