old gent, name of Quince. Bit of a queer bird if you ask me. Got ’ere yesterday afternoon—says ’e’s on a tour of the county—asked me all sorts of questions about this ’ere place. There wasn’t much I could tell ’im, I’ve only bin ’ere six months myself.’
‘I think you’d better ask Mr Quince to come down here,’ decided Johnny.
Harry Bache seemed surprised.
‘What do we want the old geezer nosin’ about for?’ he asked.
‘The police sergeant will be sure to want to see him when he gets here, so we might as well break it to him gently.’
Harry Bache shrugged.
‘O.K. with me if you say so, Mr Washington!’
Johnny watched him go out muttering towards the stairs in the passage. He had always felt a vague dislike for this little man, but had tried to be friendly, as he had been with most of the folk round about. But there always seemed to be something lacking about the atmosphere at the Kingfisher Inn; there was none of that warm bonhomie one associated with the typical British country pub. Which was, no doubt, the reason why most of the locals patronized the other inn which was in the centre of the village.
When he heard the landlord’s footsteps at the top of the stairs, Johnny swiftly crossed over to the till, cautiously rang up ‘No Sale’, opened the drawer, examined the contents and closed it again. Before doing so, he stood apparently lost in thought for quite a couple of minutes, until he could hear distant voices from the stairhead.
However, Bache returned alone, and said that Mr Quince would be down in a minute.
‘I broke it to ’im,’ he went on, ‘and he took it as if I was passin’ the time of day. Never turned a blinkin’ ’air. If you ask me ’e’s as tough as the Office o’ Works and Board o’ Trade rolled into one!’
Johnny lit a cigarette and wondered how much longer the police would be. For the first time, the full implications of the death of Locksley impressed themselves upon him. The superintendent had come to see him about his possible connection with the gelignite gang; he had brought him down here for a drink and he had either committed suicide or had been murdered. Scotland Yard were going to be very difficult from now on, and it looked as if he was going to be involved with this case whether he liked it or not.
A sound outside the door cut short his reflections, and he swung round to see Mr Quince standing in the doorway. He was a man in the late seventies, neatly dressed in a dark blue suit but with, curiously enough, a fancy waistcoat. Johnny saw Quince take one look at the body then turn away again. After introducing himself, he led the old man to the settle where he sat facing away from the body.
‘As the dead man was a friend of mine, Mr Quince, I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions, just for my private information. Of course, the police will probably ask you much the same questions, so it may help you to get things straight in your mind.’
‘I’ll be only too pleased,’ replied Quince with a little smile, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t help very much. What is it you want to know?’
‘Well now,’ said Johnny, ‘I wonder if you could remember what time it was when you went to your room tonight.’
Mr Quince hesitated a moment, then said: ‘It was just on ten o’clock, because I remember thinking the place should be closed. I sat reading for a short while; I happened to come across a most interesting book about this part of the world—’
‘Quite so,’ put in Johnny suavely, hoping to head the old boy off what was obviously a favourite theme.
‘This affair must be quite a shock for you, Mr Washington,’ he went on. ‘The idea of a friend committing suicide is very distressing, an act of sheer desperation that is beyond the comprehension of many of us—’
‘Mr Quince,’ Johnny interrupted again, ‘what makes you so certain that this is suicide?’
For a moment he seemed a trifle bewildered.
‘What makes me so certain?’ he repeated in a puzzled tone. ‘What else can it be, Mr Washington? Unless, of course, Mr Bache shot your friend.’
There was a faint clatter from behind the bar as Harry Bache dropped a glass he had been wiping back into a bowl of dirty water.
‘’Ere! What are you gettin’ at?’
His voice sounded unduly harsh, and the back of his neck turned a deep red. He came from behind the bar, still clutching the towel. He drew himself up to the full extent of his five feet two inches and glowered down at Mr Quince.
‘What should I want to kill ’im for? Never set eyes on the cove in my life.’
Mr Quince stood up and peered at the body.
‘There doesn’t seem to be very much blood, Mr Bache,’ he announced a trifle wistfully.
‘There’s enough to give me the willies,’ retorted Harry Bache in a grating tone. ‘This ain’t no laughin’ matter, I can tell yer. Blokes ’ave lost their licence over affairs like this before today.’ A thought seemed to strike him and he swung round and confronted Quince.
‘If it comes to that, you might ’ave done it yourself. You wasn’t in bed when I knocked at your door.’
‘That’s quite true, Mr Bache,’ he said calmly. ‘I happened to be reading.’
‘Have you decided to stay here long?’ interrupted Johnny, conscious of the passing of the valuable minutes.
‘I haven’t quite made up my mind,’ replied Quince. ‘Most probably until the end of the week.’
This was the cue for Harry Bache to intervene once more.
‘You didn’t say nothing about that when you signed the register,’ he reminded him. ‘You said it was only for one night.’
But Mr Quince was in no way dismayed. He treated Harry Bache rather like a recalcitrant child.
‘It was my original intention to remain here only one night, but I found this part of the world so extremely interesting.’
‘You don’t say?’ exclaimed the landlord with heavy sarcasm.
‘Indeed I do. This inn must be at least five hundred years old—I refer to the outside walls of course—and the beams; they are quite magnificent.’
‘You can ’ave ’em,’ sniffed the landlord. ‘I been ’ere six months too long for my likin’.’
‘I’m sure it all seems quite snug,’ said Quince politely. ‘I should have thought you would get quite a number of tourists …’
Harry Bache did not deign to reply. He looked across at the body once again and shivered.
‘Them police are a long time gettin’ ’ere,’ he muttered. ‘Wish they’d ’urry up … it fair gives me the creeps to see ’im lyin’ there starin’ at nothin’.’ He turned to Washington.
‘Couldn’t we cover
