Reverse the Charges by Brian Flynn

Author:Brian Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

II

Anthony was fortunate enough to find Sir Charles Stuart at home. After appropriate inquiry, he was ushered into the presence of the Chief Constable. Sir Charles rose to greet him. Anthony could see at a glance that he looked grey and grave.

“Hallo, Bathurst—didn’t know I was due for this pleasure.”

Anthony smiled at him. “I didn’t know it myself, sir, until about an hour ago.”

“Really? Well—that’s an eye-opener. But I presume you’ve run into something important. What’s it to do with—the fourth murder?”

Anthony shook his head. “No, Sir Charles. I haven’t been on that much more than a couple of hours.”

Stuart made a gesture of dismay. “Nasty case. Very nasty. From some—er—angles, the worst one possibly of all. But I’m digressing. I haven’t heard about you yet.”

Sir Charles walked back to the seat he had been previously occupying. He waved Anthony into a chair facing him. “Now, Bathurst, let’s have it. What’s your inquiry?”

There came a slight interval of silence. Eventually, Anthony found relevant words. “I’ve come to ask you about Clarence.”

Sir Charles looked up—a little startled. “Clarence?” he repeated. Anthony nodded in confirmation.

“Yes, Sir Charles. In the first place, I must confess to a piece of appalling negligence.”

Up went the Chief Constable’s eyebrows. “Negligence? I’m afraid that I don’t quite—”

Anthony raised his hand. “Your patience, Sir Charles. Even though there are no cards to shuffle. Bear with me, please, for a moment or so. I will endeavour to explain to you wherein my negligence lay. It was a fault of omission.”

The Chief Constable stared at him wonderingly. Anthony went on: “It occurred in this way. When the body was taken from the water-butt in the courtyard of the ‘White Lion’ and it was identified as the body of George Clarence, for some reason which is still obscure to me and for which I am flagrantly culpable, the name made little or no impression upon me. Or rather upon my memory. It may have been that the circumstances of the crime were so unusual, and if I may say so, remarkable, that my mind was occupied with them, to the entire exclusion of almost everything else.”

Anthony paused. The Chief Constable waited for him to continue. “But eventually—I regret the dimensions of the delay—a wave of memory brought a wisp of fact back to me.”

“And er . . . what was that . . . Bathurst, may I ask?”

“A remnant of conversation that we had together, Sir Charles, upon the occasion when you were kind enough to extend an invitation to me to dine here. With you and Lady Stuart.”

As he finished the sentence, Anthony noticed that Sir Charles’s face was clearing. And though he was annoyed with himself to admit it, the fact somewhat disconcerted him.

“Of course,” came in Sir Charles. “I know exactly to what you are about to refer. I mentioned the name ‘Clarence’ to you. Before we went in to dinner, wasn’t it?”

Anthony inclined his head. “I rather fancy it was. You mentioned that a woman had made certain representations to you earlier on that same day.

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