Death at Dyke's Corner by E.C.R. Lorac

Author:E.C.R. Lorac [Lorac, E. C. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery, murder
Publisher: Alien Ebooks
Published: 1940-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Macdonald’s inquiries after he left Smith’s garage, were of the nature called “routine.” The point which he had established when he proved his surmise that Morton Conyers had put in at Smith’s garage for petrol was a very important one. It satisfied him that Braid was telling the truth in his evidence concerning the shortage of petrol in the tank of the Daimler, and it also satisfied Macdonald that Braid was guiltless of tampering with the Daimler’s exhaust. If the latter had been the case, Braid would have seen to it that there was plenty of petrol in the Daimler on Thursday night in order to remove the necessity of Conyers’ calling at a garage, where the escape of exhaust gas might have been noticed by an alert garage man.

Having eliminated certain possibilities, Macdonald also established others—notably that Lewis Conyers had deliberately followed his father, having pulled up while Conyers loitered outside Smith’s house, sounding his Klaxon to attract Linda Smith’s attention, were she in the house.

At this stage in his inquiries, suspicion could be regarded as equally balanced between Lewis Conyers and Elsom—as the guilt might well be shared between them. Macdonald left the garage with a lively interest in his next step—that of proving—or disproving—whether Morton Conyers’ car had been seen farther afield than Dyke’s Corner. The chief inspector was in possession of the many rumours reported to Superintendent Webber, in which the Daimler had been seen by more than a dozen witnesses in the district. That most of these witnesses were unreliable was patent, as their reports would have proved the Daimler to be in at least four improbable places, some miles distant, almost at the same moment. Every police case produces misleading evidence of this kind, and Thursday night was complicated by the fact that a lot of cars had been on the roads around Strand owing to the Hunt Ball.

Macdonald was a good hand at interrogating country folk. He talked to cottagers, to farmers, to roadmen, to roundsmen. He learnt who was ill, who was courting, who was out of work, who was prosperous. He found that old Mrs. Speed had died on Thursday night—and the doctor had been at the Hunt Ball—not that it mattered, poor soul, it was her third stroke anyway. Mrs. Bates, at Chilton on the Green, had had her first baby Thursday night, and the district nurse had had to cycle through all that rain from Strand to Chilton—drenched she was, too, poor thing . . .

The district nurse was next run to earth and interrogated, and produced the information that Ben Walsh of Haddington had walked into Strand between nine and ten o’clock to get medicine for the baby. Macdonald succeeded in making good friends with the nurse, who told him that Walsh had once been in trouble with the police over a matter of poaching, and though he was unwilling to give any evidence to the police, the nurse believed that Walsh could produce information concerning Thursday night if he were tackled in the right way.

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