The Second Curtain by Roy Fuller

Author:Roy Fuller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2022-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

To Garner’s surprise the coroner adjourned the inquest on Widgery after he had given evidence identifying the body. He shuffled out of the limelight to the chair in the front row of chairs on which he had left his hat and raincoat. He bent down for the canvas grip which he had had no time to leave anywhere since he came off the train. He straight­ened to find standing beside him the sallow detective, the senior of the two who had visited him in Bayswater.

‘Can you spare a minute, sir?’ asked this man. ‘Chief Inspector White would like a word with you.’

Garner felt the blood rush to his cheeks. ‘Certainly, cer­tainly.’

The detective led the way out of the little courtroom, down the white-­tiled passage to a room with the word ‘Witnesses’ on the door. A thick-­set man wearing a black homburg was leaning against the mantelpiece knocking his cigarette ash into the old-­fashioned grate.

‘This is Mr Garner, sir,’ said the detective. The thick-­set man said how d’you do, and shook hands. They sat down at a deal table which was dark with the moons of ink­-bottles, innumer­able fingers, cigarette burns.

‘I’m going to be quite frank with you, Mr Garner,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘We are puzzled about these two deaths.’

‘Yes,’ said Garner.

‘You know about the death of this man Kershaw, of course. He was employed by Widgery’s firm. Here we have two deaths, the first possibly suicide, the second apparently accidental. The two men are closely connected. We’d like to get to the bottom of it.’

‘I don’t think it has a bottom.’ Then Garner added foolishly: ‘It’s like the tale of the tub.’

The Chief Inspector did not betray any amusement. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I don’t know that we are very interested in what you think, Mr Garner. But I understand that you were just about the last person to see Kershaw alive.’

Garner felt as embarrassed and angry as when, at school, he had been rebuked by his contemporaries who had become prefects before him. ‘The last person?’ he repeated. ‘Yes, I suppose I was.’ He visualised the police enquiries at Cuffs and wondered what they were all thinking.

‘Why did he come to see you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Garner. ‘Perhaps he felt lonely in London.’

‘Let me put it another way,’ said Chief Inspector White, patiently. ‘What did he talk to you about?’

‘Widgery’s sister thought I ought to have some support in this to-­do of Widgery’s death, so she sent Kershaw down. It wasn’t necessary. She’d given Kershaw my address at Cuffs and so he came to see me there when he couldn’t get me at home. We didn’t talk about anything so far as I recall except what a frightful business it all was.’ One had, really, to co-­operate with the prefects.

‘Did Kershaw seem worried about anything?’

‘Well, he did say he thought he was being watched by you – the police. Was he?’

The Chief Inspector ignored the question. ‘Where had he been watched?’

‘I think he said on the train from Askington.

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