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134 pages

English

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The scene is The Blue Boar in the High Street, Lulverton. The occasion: the stag party planned to celebrate Sergeant Bert Martin's retirement after thirty years' service. 'It was good while it lasted,' said Bert, putting down his empty tankard with a reflective sigh. 'Bein' in the Force, I mean. Lookin' back over the long vista of the years...' But Bert had still until midnight before Bradfield was due to step into his shoes. At nine twenty-five Jimmy Hooker was still very much alive, if a little the worse for wear, when he barged in on the party in the upstairs room. At closing time he was dead in the saloon. 'And I don't think,' said 'Pop' Collins, licensee of the Blue Boar, 'that it was in the way of nature.'

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Publié par	Galileo Publishing
Date de parution	24 mars 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912916641
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Also by Clifford Witting
A BULLET FOR RHINO
LET X BE THE MURDERER
SUBJECT-MURDER
MEASURE FOR MURDER
CATT OUT OF THE BAG
THE CASE OF THE MICHAELMAS GOOSE
MIDSUMMER MURDER
MURDER IN BLUE

Galileo Publishers
16 Woodlands Road, Great Shelford Cambridge
CB22 5LW UK
www.galileopublishing.co.uk
Distributed in the USA by SCB Distributors
15608 S. New Century Drive Gardena, CA 90248-2129, USA
Australia: Peribo Pty Limited
58 Beaumont Road
Mount Kuring-Gai, NSW 2080
Australia
ISBN 978-1-912916-634
First published 1948
This edition © 2022
All rights reserved.
The right of Clifford Witting to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed in the EU

The republication of this book is dedicated to the memory of Diana Mary Cummings, the daughter of the author. She died November 26th 2021.
The original dedication was to
DUDLEY and EIRA

“… I classified Ona superstitions under four main headings. First: fear of magic and the power of magicians, even on the part of those who, professing their art, must have known that they themselves were humbugs. They had great fear of the power of others…”
E. Lucas Bridges: Uttermost Part of the Earth

Contents
I. Last Orders
II. KCN
III. The Overcoat of Jimmy Hooker
IV. Betty Is Tearful
V. In the Shades
VI. The Great Desro
VII. Cowhanger
VIII. Breakfast from Toni’s
IX. Mr. Zephaniah Plumstead
X. Mrs. Hooker Has a Caller
XI. The Uninvited Guest
XII. Family Conference in the Blue Boar
XIII. A Pair of White Rabbits
XIV. Bull In a China Shop
XV. Lunch at Toni’s
XVI. Woodcock Near the Gin
XVII. Kochowski Smiles
XVIII. When Greek Meets Greek
XIX. A Tragic Discovery
XX. Complimentary Tickets
XXI. Spotlight on X
XXII. Martin Has the Last Word

I. Last Orders
DETECTIVE-SERGEANT Albert Martin replaced his empty tankard on the small table by his side and sighed reflectively.
“It was good while it lasted,” he said.
Detective-constable Peter Bradfield replied:
“Ada’s on the way up with some more.”
There was still plenty of time before the Blue Boar closed for the day. It was not long after nine o’clock in the evening of the first Thursday of the year, and the little party of men in the room above the hotel bar were thoroughly enjoying themselves around the fire.
“I wasn’t meaning that, Peter,” Bert explained with a happy grin on his round red face. “Not that I don’t say but what another pint wouldn’t be welcome, ’specially from a source that’s not famous for splashin’ out ’ospitality.”
“You ungrateful old man!” protested Bradfield. “I bought you two pints in a row in this very pub last week. Your money was in your other suit—as it usually is.”
“Ungrateful maybe, but old—no. None of your back-chat, young feller. Just ’cause the ’igher ups see fit, in their ignorance, to make you up to D.S. tomorrow, that’s no reason to give yourself airs. You don’t step into my shoes till I step out of ’em, don’t forget, and that won’t be till the stroke of midnight. Then you can step into ’em.” He glanced down and compared Bradfield’s feet with his own. “But I doubt whether they’ll fit.”
“I’ll buy some cork socks,” said Bradfield, which, in its lack of any merit as sparkling repartee, was typical of most occasions when old friends sit drinking beer together.
Bert Martin took no notice of his subordinate’s impudence, but went on:
“When I said it’s been good while it lasted, I mean bein’ in the Force.” He coughed impressively. “Lookin’ back over the long vista of the years, what do I see?”
Just then Ada brought in the beer, and for a busy minute that was all any of them saw. This stag-party in one of the upper rooms of the Blue Boar in Lulverton High Street was something of an event, for it was to celebrate Sergeant Martin’s retirement after thirty years’ service. It was only a small gathering. Besides Martin and Bradfield it included “Tiny” Kingsley, the burly superintendent of the Lulverton Division of the Downshire County Constabulary, Detective-inspector Charlton, who was in charge of the C.I.D. men attached to that division, and Dr. Stuart Lorimer, the young police surgeon, who was a close personal friend of the others. Peter Bradfield was a sunny-tempered, tall young man, smooth-haired and with a wide, flat nose. His clothes were always well cut and he wore his hat at a rakehelly angle over the right eye, as if it had been thrown on his head from a distance and had somehow failed to fall off. He was the darling of the other sex and maintained the social contacts of the C.I.D. in Lulverton. During the second World War he had been in the Royal Regiment of Artillery and had come out with the rank of bombardier. Now, as soon as his promotion came through, he would have to accustom himself to answer to “Sergeant.”
These five good friends had enjoyed what Sergeant Martin had described when he had issued the verbal invitations as “a bit of a supper” and were now sitting round the fire, while outside the English climate was adhering to its New Year resolution to make things as unpleasant and damp as possible for the long-suffering inhabitants of the British Isles in general and, so it seemed to those in that unprotected area between the South Downs and the English Channel, Lulverton in particular.
Ada collected the empty tankards on the tray on which she had brought up the fresh ones, and went downstairs again. The men went on chatting about this and that as they smoked and drank their Downshire brew. Bradfield threw another log on the fire. It was all very cosy and pleasant. Martin mentioned, with pride and satisfaction in his voice, the handsome clock that had been presented to him by his colleagues.
“Couldn’t ’ave wished for anything nicer,” he said.
“There’s a rumour, Sarge,” Bradfield told him with a straight face, “that the Maharajah of Molhapur is sending you a little memento—probably an elephant.”
“Never ’eard of ’im.”
Inspector Charlton said with a smile: “Then you haven’t been reading the papers lately.”
“The back page mostly,” admitted Martin. “The rest of it’s all so depressin’. What’s ’is nibs been up to?”
“The Anglo-Molhapur Society are holding an exhibition in London during the next week or so, and the Maharajah and other eminent State dignitaries are parting with their family treasures for the occasion. I hope they get them back safely.”
Superintendent Kingsley took his pipe out of his mouth to remark: “They say the collection’s worth half a million.”
“Well,” chuckled the Sergeant, “I hope the old boy ’asn’t forgotten ’is former schoolmate, though I think the missis’d bar an elephant. ’Andful or two of the crown jewels would be more acceptable.”
Beer being what it is, Bradfield rose to his feet at this point in the conversation.
“I think that’s the phone,” he said.
Elsewhere in these pages there is a plan of the ground floor of the Blue Boar. The room in which Sergeant Martin was entertaining his friends was on the first floor, immediately above the hotel bar, and the door of it opened on a landing that is indicated on the plan by means of dotted lines. At one end of the landing was a wide staircase leading down into the hotel bar, part of which could be seen from the landing by looking over the wooden balustrade. At this same end of the landing was a door through which access could be gained to another flight—much narrower than the main staircase—which was used more by the staff than by residents or customers, and in particular by Ada on her trips downstairs to obtain further supplies of refreshment through the serving-hatch behind the counter in the hotel bar.
Bradfield now went down the back stairs, passed the serving-hatch and turned to the right. As he walked along the short passage, the door at the far end of it, which led in from the yard at the back of the building, opened to admit a man.
He was a tubby little fellow, somewhere between forty-five and fifty years of age. His face was as round and shining as a new penny and of the colour of a Worcester Pearmain. His bright eyes shone genially through gold-rimmed spectacles, and he wore a dark overcoat that fitted too tightly to hide his plumpness, a black Homburg hat and a thick grey woollen muffler. Hanging from his right arm was a dripping umbrella and in the gloved hand protruding from the over-short sleeve were clutched a score or so of leaflets that had not been improved by their exposure to the wind and rain.
He did not come right into the passage, but stood on the threshold, peeping round the half-opened door and looking, thought Bradfield, like a shy little cleric who has strayed into the sultan’s harem and is trying to find some kind person who will show him the quickest way out.
“Can I help you?” Bradfield asked politely.
“Indeed you can!” was the eager reply. “I am not quite sure whether this is a private entrance or whether it leads into the hotel.”
“It’s the back door of the hotel. Which part do you want?”
“I am in search of the drinking-bar.”
Bradfield turned and pointed down the passage.
“Go straight along and turn to the left. You’ll find the door to the bar just round the corner.”
“That is most kind of you. I fear I am not very well acquainted with the geography of the place. I am extremely grateful to you.”
“Not at all.”