Death Goes By Bus

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 74, 7 January 1949, Page 6

Death Goes By Bus

Serial Story

(Copyright)

By Leslie Cargill

CHAPTER XXIII MORE CHESS MOVES Maxley laughed aloud. This was really too funny. Here was the wouldbe detective worrying over some fruitless game at the moment when he had nearly heard an important piece of confidential news. “Very interesting, sir,” he remarked. “But not very helpful in dealing with real-life problems . . .

“Possibly you don’t play chess?” “Never tried it in my life. I’ve had to work for my living, you know.” “What a shame. Chess ought to be compulsory in the police force. Now tell me, since it is no longer a secret, where you ran Mr Huntley Young to earth?”

Superintendent Maxley positively gasped. People really do under the stress of strong emotion. “H —how did you know that?” he demanded. Mr Sharpe scattered the glasses haphazardly about the table. That little problem was settled. His hand almost caressed the tumbler Avith which he had threatened the flower vase with a deserved checkmate. “How did I know?” he repeated di’eamily. “Well, to be strictly accurate, you revealed it yourself.” “Don’t pull my leg, please.” “I wouldn’t dream of it, old man. That’s why I advised chess. You see that game teaches you to think with your opponent . . . even ahead of him.”

“Huh!” growled Maxley, still unconvinced. “You’re just an uncannily good guesser.” To his surprise the little man seemed on the verge of •flaring into violent anger. This was touching him on a raw spot. “I would have you know,” he exclaimed stiffly, “that I do not indulge in anything so lacking in exactitude as guessing.” Another heart-throb and he would have lost the opportunity of being present at the interview with the longwanted Huntley Young. Maxley must be appeased, not annoyed. Mr Sharpe called for drinks and set himself to play for an invitation to talk to the new-found commercial traveller. “What a wonderful organisation you must have,” he exclaimed placatingly. “Picking up the trail of somebody who has gone right away from his usual haunts savours of the miraculous/' Maxley winked. “Our friend did not clear out from his usual haunts, as you put it.” “No!”

“No,” snapped the officer triumphantly. “Play that over on your board and see what you make of it.” Such a challenge was not to be disregarded. Mr Sharpe asked for five minutes. Actually he began to unknot the ravel in about 12 seconds.

“A woman in the case,” he mused. “And a wife right at the other extreme of the country. Nothing new in that. Must be the obvious solution. Anything against that, Superintendent?” “Not a thing, sir. You’re doing nicely.”

“Good! Then suppose he had no business to be in this part of the world so far as his firm was concerned. That would mean that, after the murder, his name would be in the newspapers and rods would be in pickle at home and at Messrs Sillingway and Marlowe’s. How’s that?”

s“Too smart. We had to scour around for days to find out that much. I suppose you’re going to tell me the r_est as well.”

“No, I finish at the impending storms in Eastbourne and London. Anybody with a murky past might well get the wind up. Presumably Young sought refuge with the other woman, which means that he went into hiding almost on your doorstep. What happened when your men found him? Poison, or bullet, T suppose.” “Bullet,” agreed Maxley gloomily. “Don’t you ever leave anything for odler people to tell you?” * “Often. Sorry to deprive you of your hour of triumph but you did put me on my mettle, you know!” “Let it pass. I should have known better. You can’t be a police officer and a blooming thought reader rolled into one. Want to come along to the hospital to interview him?” “I’d be delighted if Young bad been taken to an institution.”

Maxley’s jaw dropped. “Here, come off it,” he said. “You couldn’t possibly know all the trimmings without being told.”

Morrison Sharpe looked modestly at the tips of his shoes. “My dear Superintendent,” he said, “you gave me all that information yourself. That wicked grin and the hesitation before suggesting going to the hospital revealed your determination to take one rise out of me.”

“Then you do indulge in guesswork after all!” “Nothing of the kind. That was an exact piece of deductive reasoning. But please let us make a move. Where is your latest victim?” “Number seventy-three Upper Lorriston Road.”

“What?” It was Mr Sharpe’s turn to laugh, for his chaffing remark about Huntley Young’s' refuge being next door to the police station had been almost accurate. Although not .exactly on the doorstep the house was only round the corner. Perhaps it was the safest place in which to have sought concealment.

MR YOUNG GIVEN AWAY Apparently it was a neighbour who had given Young away. This woman had had her suspicions before. The commercial traveller had always pretended that he was a married man called consistently away from Netherton on, business. But neighbours do not take such things for granted. The informer had heard Young’s voice through the party wall. What puzzled her was that she never saw him, although at nights she had an impression he went out —probably for exercise.

With the ’bus mystery a general local topic it was not to be wondered at that she eventually decided to pass her suspicions on to the police. And Huntley Young, it appeared, took fright at once, with the result that he was, at that moment, lying in a serious condition.

“Let us,” remarked Mr Sharpe, “go and have a look round.”

(To be Continued).

The characters in this story are entirely imaginary. No reference is intended to any living person or to any public or private company.