"THE MURDER AT FLEET"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 52, 2 March 1929, Page 14 (Supplement)

"THE MURDER AT FLEET"

By ERIC BRETT YOUNG.

CHAPTER 1. Alexander Hainish McArdle. a newlyfledged constable of the East Anglican Constabulary, was writing. An i iiimense red youth, this McArdle, standing nearly seven feet liigh from the spike of his helmet to Ills regulation >oles; hut with grave and innocent blue eyes and a passion for self-improvement. He. would have been handier with a broadsword than with a lead pencil. He could have played lead in a Scandinavian saga, and would have looked his best in the prow of a peaked ship, peering landward at the smoke of .plundcrable villages among the Essex creeks and marshes. But, having been born a thousand years too late for these diversions, he was content to sprawl over the well-scrubbed table of Swalechurch police station, wielding a vilely-blunt pencil in defence of publicorder. His helmet was beside him, and the light of sunny Xew Year's morning kindled his fiery curls. His tongue—the pen of an unready writer—writhed in sympathy with his" fist. His mind was on his work, and a succession of hollow thuds, as of someone throwing bombs in the middle distance, did not seem to disturb him. "I illuminated him." wrote Constable McArdle, "and said, Why don't you get up? He said I've been knocked down bv a blank motor car. I said, Tell that to the marines. I pulled him out of the ditch and found a bottle containing rum in one pocket and a hare still warm in the other. On releasing him he fell down and became contumacious. He said, I'll tell you what you are. He said, You are a-—." "Oh, come in!" cried Mr. McArdle. A new knocking had made itself heard above the bomber's efforts. "Ah, it's the 'Pilot and Messenger,' isn't it? You're heartily welcome, Mr. Reporter. Xow how could ye spell 'contumacious,' maybe?" "There's no maybe," said the visitor pleasantly. "I wouldn't." would not?" The blue eyes opened wide in boyish bewilderment. "I would not. \ou see"—the young man hoisted himself on to the corner of the table—"l'm that rather uncommon bird, a journalist that walks in terror of jargon. Jargon, Mr. McArdle, dulls a man's wits. It dilutes (if you'll forgive me) the gastric juices of the soul." The giant pondered this impartially. "Ay, I'll forgive ye," he decided. "I'm no' without a suspicion of your meaning. But will you, Mr. —." " "Ethelred Betts," supplied the voungster. Will you. Mr. Betts. as a professional writer—l take the 'Pilot' mysel'—be good enough to suggest an equivalent word or words?" I Mr. Betts was young, but he had the makings of a journalist. He was an occasional contributor to the "London Echo." He hedged. I should have to see the context if I m to justify your kind words of welcome."

The policeman shook his head. I misdoubt it wouldn't be regular. \ou see, Mr. Betts, this is by way of being an offeecial document. This is my report of a drunk and incapable that's coming before their worships immediately. but hoots toots!" "I beg your pardon?" said Ethelred. "But hoots toots," repeated the constable patiently. You mustn't thinkthat I welcomed you for the sake of literary instruction. The fact is, Mr. Betts, you happen to be fairrst fute. Now in Scotland we employ the expression 'fairrst fute' to designate the person who fairrgt—"

"1 know, I know." "—sets his fute over the threshold on the morn of Hogmanay. If that person is a dark man he brings good luck to the hoose. Man, I was mortal scairt it would be Sergeant Moon." Tie reporter of the "Pold.ey Pilot" (incorporating the "Isle of Poldey Mercury," "Swalechurch Messenger" and "East of England Advertiser") tossed his dark forelock and laughed. 'It was never one of my dreams," he confessed, "to bring a year's good luck to the local lock-up. I don't know why. But surely—isn't your respected sergeant as bald as an egg?" The Scotchman shook his head sadly. "On information received," he said, "it appears that on entering the forse, Mr. Moon was a bloml."

"And Fortune prefers brunettes? I f-ee. But who on earth is making that infernal clatter?" The unseen anarchist had redoubled his bombardment, supporting it with what Mr. Betts, if he had read the constable's report, might have called a discharge of blank cartridge. ''That's liim," said McArdle. "The sergeant?" "No, the drunk. That's Edgar—Abel Edgar from Farting village. Ethelred reflected. "I seem to know the name. Hasn't he been up here before?" "Twelve previous convictions." agreed the officer. "You Edgir has a taste for partridgo that ill befits a chiel in his station of life. I wouldn't be in his shoes if Mr. Warden's on ths bench, as dootless he will be. Not tlmt it's a partridge t'jis time. It's a hare." "In either case it amounts to murder in the first degree. Look here, McArdle, I'll bet you a tanner—l mean saxpence— that he gets a month without the option." "No," said McArdle. didn t tirnk you would, braw laddie. It s a foregone conclusion, and I may as well i-ave time by getting my stuff written up now. Let me sharpen your pencil for you. Thanks. Now then: At Swalechurch on before Mr. Roderick "Warden, in the chair, the Reverend Hugh Benskin, Dr. Gilbert Ja go—they're the regulars, aren't they?— Abel Edgar, labourer, Harting, was charged with being drunk and incapable on New Year's Evo (that ought to let him cut, but it won't) and with being in unlawful possession of a hare, the property of—" II? poised an inquiring pencil. "Professor Jagc himself," supplied the constable. "At least it was on his land." ' Fleet, isn't it?"

"Ay." ' Make it two months, a magistrate's hare being doubly sacred. proved the ease. That zealous and enlightened officer—" "Hoots awa'," protested the giant "Just as you please. Then I'll come to the chairman's remarks. Mr. Roderick Warden," pursued Ethelred, "declared that this was one of the most shocking eases that had ever come before him. I envy our magistrates their capacity for being shocked. Accused had struck at the very root of our social svstem. which, when you come to think "of it! is a very fair description of the game

daws. So accused had aggravated his offence against property by an offence against public order. He had undoubtedly been drinking heavily. I should rather like to know how Mr. Warden saw the New \ ear in. J're.-umabjy with prayer and fasting. He (the magistrate i regarded him (the accusedi a- a blot upon the neighbourhood. He (the accused l probably regards him (the magistrate! in much the same light. I wonder who's right. I rather fancy—" "Is my father here?'' If the reporter had spared a glance for Mr. McArdle he would have seen his expression change from slightly shocked admiration to wide-eyed di-may. But the girl's voice behind him was his lirst warning that his audience had doubled itself. He swung round to encounter the lovely gaze of a pair of rather puzzled, rather contemptuous grey eyes. The constable had collected his legs from under the table and was standing politely to attention. "He is not. Miss Daphne. Like-Iv he's over at the Moot Hall. Their Worships will be sitting in five minutes' time." "I have just been there. He hadn't come." "If ye would entrust me with a mes"No, it doesn't matter. Or rather —" she hesitated and her eyes rested for a speculative instant on Ethelred. "The report-chap fra' the Pilot." Mr. McArdle explained. "He's a boot to go." "Oh yes—in that case perhaps " Daphne Warden stood aside to let Ethelred pass. Youth is easily daunted, particularly by the eyes of youth. The police station at Swalechurch hides itself roguishly in one of the obscurest byways of the little town. Thence, by taking croaked cuts, one may gain the market place and its 16th century moot hall in a matter of three minutes. Ethelred was glad that he was not obliged to walk the length of the High Street. He felt that the very butcher at his slab would have seen in him the image of the dog ejected from his sawdust paradise, and slinking away with his tail between his legs. Why was it so easy for a man to make an unpardonable ass of himself? Addressed to an admiring police constable, his imitation of Roderick Warden, lord of four-fifths of Poldey's acres, had been mildly factious, fairly amusing. The presence of the great man's daughter made them cheap, caddish, even—yes, even kiddish.

But it was not this that rankled most. Naturally Miss Warden had thought him an unminnerly boor. He couldn't blame her for that. But the thing that 6tuck, that gave him an unseasonable attack of the prickly heat, was the detestable McArdle's explanation of his boorishness. He was the reporter-chap from the "Pilot."—That was enough. "Oh, yes- " the girl had said. "On, damn," said Ethelred. Let it be assumed that all men are equal. Then an Edgar, drunk or dry, is as good as the Warden whose partridges he steals; and the Betts who reports the subsequent proceedings for the local press is no better and no worse than either. But Ethelred did not believe in the equality of man. He held it meritorious to spring from six generations of gentlefolk, and the merit was not less because it could not be acquired by taking pains. Incidentally the young man from the "Pilot" could claim that merit himself, and this may have influenced his judgment. If it came to lineage —and not the journalistic kind—a Norfolk Betts could hold his own with, a Warden of Poldey, whose very name marked his descent from the official protectors of the island against the fury of the Spaniard. And if all men were not equal, still less were all women equal. Tnis Warden girl —Daphne, wasn't it ?—expressed race in every line of her slender tigure, in every movement of those puzzled, contemptuous grey eyes that had swept the "re-porter-chap" out of the scheme of things. He wished, absurdly, that he could have held that glance a moment longer. He wished he could have said: "Look at me again. Correct your first impression of me, which was natural but mistaken. It is true that I am a reporterchap, but that is because, having been educated at Oxford, I am not capable of earning my living in any other way. If you will keep your eyes on me a moment longer you will see at once that I am neither a cad nor a cub."

But those were tilings that would falsify themselves in the s-aying. Anyway the odds were enormously against, his ever meeting her again. So it didn't really matter. It was with this comfortable and strangely desolating thought that Mr. Betts entered the venerable Moot Hall (built by a Warden's bounty under Henry VIII) and took his place at the table reserved for gentlemen of the Press. This table was immediately below the high di-is from which the magistrates of Poldey handed out justice, and it. was not long before a murmured conversation overhead told him that at least two of their Worships had arrived. "Moon tells me there are only two eases" —the speaker was out of sight, but the richly modulated tones announced the Rector of Swalesehurcli— "and I'm not sorry. I want to get away." "Parish business." An unguarded, open-air voice. So Mr. Warden had turned up after ail. '"In a sense." Mr. Benskin seemed to be drawing a mental distinction of some nicety. "Yes. A man's coming over with a couple of mares. But that's a story that will keep. Are we to wait for -our psycho-analytic friend':"

•"Tlic professor?" Mr. Warden's asides had the gruffy impatient quality of a voice that had never learned to whisper. "Xo, we'll go on. Jago's not coming. That's a story, too."

The rector was interested. He hoped our friend wasn't ill. Such a regular attendant. c 'T don't know. Yes, he is—regular, I mean. Tho fact i*=, I've just seen Daphne and she tells me that Rosamund—Mrs. Jago, you know—has been ringing up. The professor was to have addressed a meeting in London last night, and he didn't turn up. No explanation and no message. He was all right, she eaye, when he left Fleet. As a matter of fact, I drove him in to Collingbridge station myself, in time for the London train, and—but, here's the Sergeant. Ten o'clock, De Castro." Mr. Alfred De Castro—clerk to the justice', district coroner, alderman of Swalechurch, and a power in the island nodded upwards, rose and called the name of Abel Edgar. The reprobate wae brought in. He had not been out of goal long enough to grow a forelock, but ae touched the

place where it might have been. Be- ! side tha towering and cow helmeted McArdle, lie seemed a small man, but the reporter noted that there was power in every line of his shoulders and his unusually long arms, power too in his square unshaven lace, which, to Ethelred. seemed strangely contradicted by a mild and almost- melancholy eye. Edgar was undefended. He pleaded guilty to both charges. The gaze that ho turned upon l'oc. who was j prompted by the. impatient rector to j make hi-s evidence as short as ]>ossible, ■ wns attentive. He appeared mildly sur- ! prised at the account of his behaviour. 1»• 11 there wa~ ?i»"» trai'e of malice iii hie; regard. It was difficult to believe that this w the man who, less than half an hour lie fore, had been raising C'ain with feet, and list asainst the door of toe Wk-up. It struck tlie reporter that neither the man's present resignation nor the ohstreperosity—McArdle'* word —of so few minutes ago was deliberately assumed. Rather it seemed that his violence must have been the outcome of their physical oppression, the purely animal passion of tae wild thing caught. Ethelred wondered if the earn© reflection would have occurred to that eminent, psychologist, Professor Jago, whose wife was so anxious about him. It was not likely to suggest itself either to the squire or to the rector. Mr. McArdle, with great reluctance, boiled his story down to the barest essentials. to tne fact that accused was lying helpless in a ditch, to the olfactory test that the constable had applied, to the corroborating half-bottle of rum (producedi and the tell-tale hare. He had rung up Doctor Matthews, but the doctor had been called away on an urgent case and was not, according to Mrs. Matt news, likely to be back until the small hours of-New Year's Dav. "Did he go quietlv',!" put in Mr. Benskin. "Only as far as the station, your Worship. With my assistance"' added McArdle severely. ''But on being placed in the cell ho became extr-r-r-emelv violent. '"He did, did he?" eaid the rector. "Aha!" "Obstreperous, your Worship." "That hardly concerns us," put in Mr. Warden bluntly, "le that all?" Sergt. Moon replied that it was, and implied that it was enough. Mr. Warden folded his hands on the desk before him. "Now. Edgar,-' his tono was almost confidential, "have you anything to say for yourself':" The prisoner shook his head with a quick gesture. "No, your worship. Thanking you, sir, all the same. "\ou needn't thank me, man. It's your rignt to make a statement if you choose. Are you quit 3 certain that there's nothing you watjt to say in your defence? Think again." "lh:nk again," echoed the sergeant, benevolently sure of his case. It struck Ethelred that the squire, after all, was a bit of a sportsman. Benskin, now, would probably nave accepted the first answer without this kindly insistence. But the prisoner, ofter a moment's thoughtful glance towards the dais, shook his head again. He nad nothing more to say. I

'"That, completes the case," said Ser geant Moon.

The magistrates conferred in murmurs. Ethelred caught only a startled "eh?" from the rector, and, a moment later: "As you please, my dear fellow All the same he didn't account fur the " Then, judicially; "Oh, I know. Yes, yes, yes. Just as you please." Then remained the judgment—the only remarkable feature in this very ordinary ease. It clearly surprised everybody in the court except the prisoner, who heard it unmoved. Incidentally it compelled Mr. Betts to cross out one of hie anticipatory headlines and substitute another. The expected homily ■was not delivered. Mr. Warden did not so much as mention the social system or his duty of protecting the community. Instead he announced in his cheerful, aggressive way, that the magistrates did not regard the charges as sufficiently established. Taey rested on uncorroborated police evidence; and the ownership of the hare had not been proved. In other circumstances the prisoner's previous record T.ould not have encouraged leniency. He had better be careful in future. "Case dismissed," said Mr. Warden. "Next." "And tha.t," soliloquised Mr. De Castro, raising his dark eyebrows until they met his snowy hair, "is that." "One more malefactor," intoned Mr. Benskin, "and I have done." A sulky youth whom McArdle had caught riding a bicycle on the footpath was relieved of five shilings. and the court adjourned. Ethelred scribbled his last word and collected his copy. The new year promised to be very like the old one. he reflected. He had spent a dull morning, and had every prospect of spending a dull afternoon. It struck him tliat a reporter's life on a country weekly was considerly less varied than a London l-us-driver's, which, in general, is true enough. It was to be proved later that Edgar celebrated his escape from justice by spending half an hour at the "Goat," a not very reputable tavern on ine outskirts of the town. The liare and bottle had been restored to him by Constable McArdle, who handed them over with the grim geuiality of a man who could afford to be magnanimous in face of an unexpected rebuff. "I'll get you next time," said McArdle genially. "Mjove along there please." The reprobate moved, as lias been said, to the "Goat" and when he left that house of call the hare had changed hands. He then tramped the four miles across the marshes to his cottage at Harting. At six o'clock the same evening he was re-arrested. In tue meantime Ethelred's anticipation of a dull afternoon had been printed. First, in continuation of Mr. Warden's hints to the rector, had come the news that Professor -Jago was unaccountably missing, both from his house at Fleet, half a mile outside Harting village, and from iis club in London at which he had announced his intention of spending the night. And then, within an hour of this announcement, Professor Jago had been found. (To be continued Saturday next.)