The Case of the Grand Alliance by Christopher Bush

Author:Christopher Bush
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

It was not a lot past eight o’clock when we left the local police-station. The traffic was only just beginning to build up but it was well after nine when we drew in at the Yard. Hallows was waiting in Jewle’s room with a youngish detective sergeant for company. He took care not to give me a questioning look.

Hallows, where Jewle is concerned, is also a very old friend. Jewle wanted to know if he’d had breakfast, and he had. I hadn’t neither had Jewle. Toast and coffee would be good enough for me, and Jewle rang down for the same for himself. While we were waiting, he said, Hallows could be giving his own version of things generally. He was sure we wouldn’t mind if it was a kind of unofficial statement. It was all very friendly and even genial.

“What kind of information is it that you want?” Hallows said.

“Oh, anything you think might help. That jewellery case you’ve been engaged on, for instance, and just how Daunt was connected. Things like that.”

A stenographer followed hard on the heels of the toast and coffee and Hallows began talking. I chewed and drank and put in never a word. Not that I didn’t feel a certain apprehension. Hallows left virtually nothing out. What he didn’t do was go even a day beyond the opening Tuesday.

“An extraordinary business,” Jewle said. “Most extraordinary. And what have you found out since?”

“Virtually nothing,” Hallows said. He gave his dry smile. “That’s something else that’s extraordinary. We’ve taken quite a lot of time testing the alibis of the four people concerned and can’t find a flaw. When we left things on Saturday, we hoped the weekend’d give us some new ideas. Now this has happened.”

“Nothing else you can think of, Mr. Travers?”

I said Hallows seemed to have covered everything.

“Yes,” Jewle said, but he didn’t wave to the stenographer to go. “I think, you know, the whole thing’s a pity. Surely Daunt was killed because of something you’ve been telling us?”

I said I was certainly disposed to think so.

“That’s what I mean by it being a pity,” Jewle said. “Daunt might still be alive if we’d been called in from the very first.”

“Come, come,” I told him reprovingly. “That was John Hill’s affair. Also, everybody wanted the whole thing kept a sort of family matter. There’s nothing contrary to the law in that.”

Jewle smiled. “I didn’t even hint there was.”

He turned to Hallows again. I was glad he did.

“What’s Daunt’s wife like?”

“Don’t know,” Hallows said. “I’ve never even clapped eyes on her. You can’t very well ask a wife about her husband’s alibi.”

“I suppose not.”

He thought for a moment, then said that seemed to be about all. If we liked to wait we could check the statements. I said I didn’t think it’d be necessary, so the stenographer went. As the door was closing on him, the sergeant came in.

“The possessions, sir, you wanted to see.”

There seemed very little and, what there was, was tied up in a clean white handkerchief.

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