The Case of the Treble Twist by Christopher Bush

Author:Christopher Bush
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2022-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Joe and I had quite a chat in the smelly quietude of that saloon bar. I gave him the same story and as soon as I mentioned a certain night, there was no stopping him. Not that I wanted to.

He gave me a complete account as remembered by Elmhurst and seen through its eyes.

“Quite a lot of customers in that night,” he said, “not that we aren’t always pretty full. Though I say it, this is as popular a bar as any in the town. The beer’s good for one thing. But about what I’ve been telling you, sir. The real sensation was when Fred Borrow came in—he’s the chemist just across the road. Lives in the first house as you turn into Ypres Road, if you know where that is. We’d already heard about this car accident and a man being killed, and when Fred came in he reckoned the police knew who the man was. He’d seen the fire from his house and had gone there and had heard the police talking about it. Later on it all came out in the papers.”

“Any strangers in here at that time?”

He smiled.

“Bless my soul, sir, it’s no use asking me that. Seven thousand people here, you know, and I don’t know the quarter of ’em.”

“Any of the residents in for a drink?”

He frowned as he tried to think back.

“A Mr. Stockwold was here that night,” I said, trying to jog his memory.

“Ah!” he beamed. “I remember now, sir. He wasn’t in here. A rare one for a game of solo, Mr. Stockwold is. The first thing he does round about dinner time is to try to make up a four, and that night there was a four in the upstairs lounge. I remember taking a tray of drinks up after we’d closed and having a dekko for a minute or two.”

I heard a whole lot more from Joe and had to listen with an ersatz interest though nothing further seemed pertinent. Finally I thanked him, gave him a ten-shilling note, reported briefly back to Carver and went out to my car. I drove clear of the town and then stopped the car and did some quick thinking. Somehow I was certain that Conward had slept that night at the Commercial Hotel.

To prove it to myself I had to work from the wrong way round. I’d wondered why Conward had decided to go on to Liverpool and to hide the jewellery when he’d taken every precaution to conceal the identity of Tibball. But if Conward had been in that bar near closing time that night—and he’d probably have been anxious to hear what was known—and if he’d heard that the police knew the identity of the dead man, then there was no need for me to ask myself any more questions.

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