Free Tom Brown's Body by Gladys Mitchell Page B

Kay.
    'Come, come, sir,' said the Superintendent briskly. 'I'm sorry to have offended you. I can take it as definite, then, that you heard the sound of a bicycle at about nine-fifteen, but nothing later, and that you did not leave your cottage until half-past seven in the morning?'
    'Exactly right,' said Mr Kay, very shortly.
    'In that case, sir,' said the Superintendent smoothly, 'was old Mrs Harries mistaken in thinking that you visited her cottage last night between the hours of ten o'clock and one?'
    'Yes,' said Mr Kay. 'I don't know any Mrs Harries. She sounds to me like a criminal lunatic. Did she give you my name?'
    'No, sir. But the description fits, and we do happen to know you weren't at home at half-past ten last night because one of the other gentlemen came to borrow a book from you, and another of the gentlemen accompanied him,'
    'I must have been asleep when they knocked,' said Mr Kay, suddenly wiping his face, a sign of agitation which impressed the Superintendent deeply.
    'Very good, sir,' he said woodenly. Mr Kay wiped his forehead again when the Superintendent had gone. He did not go far, however. He went to interview Jack the Ripper, alias William Dobbs.
    'Ah. Bin rode, that there boike had. Put moi 'and on she and I knows,' said Dobbs, without hesitation. 'Ride her moiself I 'ave, see?'
    The kinaesthetic sense was no new thing to the Superintendent. He believed in it. It was not concrete evidence, to be sure, but he did not need to have read John Drink-water's Little Johnny to feel certain that touch can be, at times and with certain persons, one of the least deceptive of the senses. He understood, that Dobbs had 'borrowed' the bicycle and ridden it on more than one occasion.
    'O.K., Dobbs,' he said briskly. 'I believe you.'
    'So well you moight,' said the redoubtable William, 'bein' as 'ow I knows.'
    'Well, now for the bicycle shed,' said the Superintendent. But the shed yielded nothing in the way of concrete evidence. There was no doubt that the bicycle had been moved. For one thing, Mr Loveday and Dobbs had both moved it during their amateur investigation of the crime. Whether it had been moved on the night of Mr Conway's death was, in the opinion of the Superintendent, incapable of direct proof. He put away his notebook and went back to Mr Kay's cottage.
    Mr Kay's cottage still yielded no surprises, and was in no way remarkable, except that it was on the telephone. It did appear, however, that Mrs Kay occupied a bedroom on the first floor, whereas Mr Kay had a bed in his study on the ground floor. The Superintendent, naturally, made no reference to this domestic arrangement, but he tabulated it mentally all the same.
    'And now, sir,' he said to the fermenting Mr Kay whom once again he had recalled for questioning, 'I must ask you one thing which, don't misunderstand me, I shall be putting to every one of the scholastic gentlemen in turn, including, I may say, the Headmaster himself. What were your relations with the deceased?'
    'With the – oh, I don't know.' Mr Kay looked suddenly troubled, but he did not hesitate. 'Not altogether happy, I'm afraid. He had a sharp tongue, and I'm by way of being a bit of a black sheep here, of course.'
    'Black sheep, sir?'
    'Not an Oxford or Cambridge man,' Mr Kay explained. 'Not one of the ones. Educated in, as a matter of fact, first, a primary school in Manchester until I was eleven, then in Brazil, and then at a provincial university in the Midlands. And then I always think people see straight through me to a Eurasian grandmother.' He caught the Superintendent's look of surprise, and added, 'Oh, yes, that's my heritage. I call it Portuguese, and I had a Portuguese mother and an English father, but, all the same ...'
    'And very nice, too, I'm sure, sir,' said the Superintendent awkwardly.
    'You needn't tell anyone else,' said Kay at once, lifting his chin.
    'Certainly not, sir, if it's against your wishes. It could have no possible bearing, so far as I can see, on