Morgan agreed, low-voiced. “Thanks, Doc.”
Roberts nodded and turned away to his car. Morgan moved forward and waited for a moment or two. The fingerprint men were busy on the ruined hulk of Pollitt’s car. They went back and forth to their own closed saloon carrying the implements of their calling.
“Anything doing?” Morgan asked presently, stepping out of the way of the two photographers as they hurried to a new vantage point with their camera and tripod.
“Afraid not,” answered the man carrying the small camera. “We’ve been all over the wreck—where it isn’t too hot to touch—but the fire’s done its work. It’s taken off what was left of the cellulose and blistered the wood. We’re unlucky this time, Inspector.”
“Damn!” Morgan swore.
“Sorry,” the other said briefly, and motioned to his companion as he collected together the equipment. They returned to their car, reversed it, then turned down the lane and headed off into the darkness towards Lexham.
“About finished here, Inspector,” said the photographer, coming up with his tripod over his shoulder. “Dirtiest business I’ve seen in this district for some time.… Bring you the prints in the morning?”
Morgan nodded. “Okay—thanks.”
The photographer’s car turned and left. Morgan stood thinking for a moment, the headlights of his own car the only remaining illumination. Claythorne stood beside him, and the two constables waited expectantly.
Presently Morgan roused himself and went to Herby Pollitt’s ruined car. What had been a none too beautiful tourer was now twisted scrap iron, every trace of upholstery burned to ashes, the paint blistered and hanging in saggy skin.
“The car tracks to this spot are plain enough, sir,” reported one of the constables. “I made a thorough check up. Imprint in the dust of this lane is clearly visible. And it apparently came from Lexham direction and didn’t move from this spot until it was set on fire.”
Morgan looked back at the tracks and nodded. “And this trail belongs to Vincent Grey’s bicycle, eh?” he asked, pointing to a single, cross-pattern tread in the dust which ended in an abrupt skid where Grey had applied his brakes.
“That’s right, sir. They start again just up the lane, about fifty yards away. That’s presumably where he jumped on his bike and cycled off in the direction of Langhorn. Trouble is, there are no signs of footprints anywhere. Everything’s scuffed up in all directions, just as though there’d been a struggle or something. Over there, about fifty yards away also, are the tracks of Clayton’s truck tyres. You can plainly see where he reversed and then went back to Langhorn to report.”
“And still no footprints until you get to those tracks?” Morgan asked, musing.
“No, sir. As I said—all scuffed up.”
Morgan turned aside and moved to the silent figure under the tarpaulin sheeting a few yards away. He raised the top end of the cover and gazed down on the dead man. Morgan was not a sensitive person, but he had enough of human feeling to experience a definite revulsion. Herbert Pollitt had been cruelly, foully killed. Something had been used which had battered in the top and left side of his skull to pulp, an injury which had taken in nearly half the face. All the hair and eyebrows had been burned away, and down as far as his waist scorched clothes hung on seared and blistered skin.
Morgan let the cover drop back over the awful sight and straightened up.
“Filthy!” he muttered. “Makes you wonder what sort of minds some people have got. I’ve never seen an attack that showed such inhuman ferocity.… We’ve got to find Vincent Grey. He’ll not get far.… ’Bout time that damned ambulance was here, too,” he finished, scowling at the dark countryside.
“We’ve found nothing yet that might have caused the blow,” the second constable said. “Either the murderer took it away with him or else it’s well hidden.”
“Got to be somewhere,” Morgan growled. “From the look of the injury the weapon must have been pretty big—probably too heavy to carry. We’d better look again.”
So, inch by inch, a second search was instituted, lanterns and the car headlamps providing the illumination. The dust was examined carefully, so was the spot underneath the burned car. Then the ditch; then the hedges. Presently Morgan had to break off as the Lexham Hospital ambulance arrived. Two men came hurrying in view with a stretcher. Morgan nodded briefly to the corpse under the tarpaulin.
“Take it to the mortuary, boys. Leave it there for Dr. Roberts in the morning.”
In five minutes the job was done, then the ambulance backed, turned, and roared away into the night. Morgan breathed easier at the thought of that shattered corpse being removed from his sphere of activity.
“Inspector, I’ve found something!”
He turned sharply and hurried over to a point near the burned car. One of the constables was on his knees, holding back the long grass from the side of the lane and pointing to an irregularly shaped chunk of stone, delicately veined with pink, and having extremely saw-like edges. It looked rather like a massive barnacle.
“Looks like a chunk of rough granite,” Morgan said, scowling at it from under his bushy brows. “And—hello! What’s this?”
He bent closer to it and pointed to a brownish red stain on the rough surface that was definitely not part of the rock itself.
“Looks like blood,” Sergeant Claythorne said without hesitation. “We’ve found the weapon, sir.”
“This isn’t the only piece of granite lying about, though,” the second constable pointed out. “I went up the bank into the field there and there are a lot of chunks about this size, as well as a lot of smaller ones. No footprints show in the grass, unfortunately.”
“Nothing unusual about chunks of rough granite lying about when the quarries are only a couple of miles off,” Morgan said. “It’s kids who carry the pieces off. Fact remains this is the only piece near to the crime and the only one with bloodstains. How the devil did you come to miss seeing it before?”
“Hadn’t got this far, sir.”
Morgan grunted. “All right, we’ll take it back with us. Should have it photographed where it is by rights, but I’ll risk moving it. Not likely to be any interesting prints on this sort of surface, but take care how you handle it all the same.”
Sergeant Claythorne stooped and lifted the rock gently with his handkerchief underneath the rough parts. The chunk was pretty heavy for its size. He took it across to the police car and set it down carefully on the floor at the back. Morgan looked about him.
“May be other things we can’t see in this light,” he said finally. “We’ll take another look by day. You two men stay here for tonight and I’ll have you relieved first thing tomorrow. No more we can do at the moment.”
CHAPTER THREE
There was little sleep for Mr. and Mrs. Shapley after Morgan had left the shop, and even less for Betty. While her mother and father discussed in hushed voices the horror of the thing that had suddenly descended upon them, Betty lay wide-eyed in bed, straining in her inner vision to see some glimmer in the dark tangle
