The Case of the Amateur Actor by Christopher Bush

Author:Christopher Bush [Bush, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

10. ALTON COMES HOME

IT WAS only a paragraph, and I wouldn’t have read it at all if the headline hadn’t caught my eye.

DEAD MAN FOUND IN DITCH

The body of a fully clothed man was found early this morning in a ditch that adjoins the road from Medlington to Dorminster by Herbert Grapple, an agricultural worker. The body, it is understood, had been for some considerable time where it was found. The Dorminster police began immediate enquiries.

Mind you, I saw no connection with the missing Richard Alton. I had no reason to. Mine was a kind of topographical interest: the fact that this body had been found within the Dorminster boundaries, and the afterthought that Standing would now have his mind off the Alton Case.

I finished my lunch and went back to Broad Street. Norris was out, but Bertha was in the office before I could even take off my coat.

“Dorminster police have been ringing you, sir. They asked if you’d ring them as soon as you came in. The number’s Dorminster 2323.”

“Get them,” I said, “and put me through.”

While I waited, Alton was very definitely in my mind: not in connection with that body but with the certainty that Standing had at last unearthed something and was anxious to discuss it. Then the call came through. I was speaking to the station sergeant.

“The Inspector isn’t here, sir, but he was wondering if you could get here.”

“When?”

“Soon as you can, sir.”

“I think I can manage it,” I said. “But what’s in the wind?”

“You haven’t heard, sir? We got the news through to the Press first thing.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Something to do with that body in a ditch?”

“That’s it, sir. It’s Alton’s body.”

“But it can’t be!”

“That’s what the Inspector said, sir. But it is. There’s no doubt whatever about it.”

I let out a breath.

“Right, Sergeant. I’ll be down as quick as I can make it. Probably in the course of the next couple of hours.”

“Just a minute, sir.”

In under a minute he was telling me that I might catch the two —twenty. Thanks to a handy taxi I just made it, and with time to dash into the flat and throw a few things in a bag. Bertha was booking me a room at the White Lion.

The sun was shining and it was a mild, almost muggy day, so that even the suburbs looked cheerful. To me it might have been any kind of day as I sat in my corner and tried almost frantically to give ideas a wholly new stability. In a minute or two I had a point of reference —the letter which Alton had sent to Joan Crewe from Berlin. If his body had been for some considerable tune in that ditch, then he could never have written that letter, a letter that had been posted more than three weeks after his disappearance. And if he had not written it, then someone had written it for him and in order to make it appear that he was in Berlin.

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