Free Death of a Bovver Boy by Leo Bruce Page A

arm and started whispering to him and the two of them walked out. I expect they went to the Bell; they’d serve anyone there. But these New People at the Star are very strict.’
    â€˜Did Stick recognize the girl?’
    â€˜He says he’s seen her before. He feels quite sure of that. Only it won’t come to him now. He’ll tell you if it does. Then that fellow’s been round again.’
    â€˜Which fellow?’
    Mrs Stick was never willing to use any of the accepted terms for the police; to say ‘a police officer’ would have choked her, as indeed it would a great many people, while ‘a copper’ ‘a rozzer’ ‘a flattie’ ‘a constable’ ‘a busy’ ‘a bluebottle’ or ‘a dick’ would have seemed undignified, not towards the police but in her own manner of speaking.
    â€˜That fellow that came to see you about the murder,’ she said at last.
    â€˜Oh, Detective Sergeant Grimsby,’ said Carolus.
    â€˜That’s him, whatever name he calls himself. He wanted to know where you were but of course I wouldn’t tell him. I mean it’s no business of his where you are, is it?’
    Carolus smiled.
    â€˜You might have said I was over at Hartington,’ he said. ‘Though I expect he guessed, anyway.’
    â€˜He said he’d be back this evening. Though he said when I asked him that there was nothing in particular he wanted to see you about.’
    Ten minutes later Grimsby arrived.
    â€˜I don’t think your housekeeper likes me much,’ he said when the two men were alone.
    â€˜I must apologize for Mrs Stick. She has been sorely tried by my interests. Policemen and criminals are about equally distasteful to her.’
    â€˜So they are to a good many people I’m afraid. How have you been getting on, Carolus?’
    â€˜Oh not bad. Someone meant to have a go at me tonight.’
    â€˜Where?’ asked Grimsby sharply.
    â€˜At the point where Stick found the body. Quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Except that you and I have been long enough at this game to know that there
are
no coincidences.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜I was driving back from Hartington when I had a quite unaccountable urge to have another look at the place where Dutch Carver’s body was found. But I didn’t need that urge—I saw a man lying beside an overturned motor-bike on the verge in front of the very place.’
    â€˜Did you examine him?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Because that was exactly what I was meant to do. It was a trap—a clever one because almost anyone would have jumped out of his car to have a look before he had considered the consequences.’
    â€˜But you didn’t?’
    â€˜I don’t claim much credit for that. I backed the car so that the lights were full on the man’s figure.’
    â€˜Recognize him?’
    â€˜No. But I saw two things about him. One was that he was wearing goggles, and two—though I’m not quite certain of this—that he had what looked suspiciously like a revolver in his hand. Something metallic anyway. I certainly was not going to hang around and find out. And I was right. I drove up to the roundabout and back along the road I had come by. When I reached the spot both the man and the motor-bike had gone.’
    â€˜You’ve no idea who it was?’
    â€˜No idea. Or at least none that I’m going to suggest to you. We agreed that I should tell you facts, nottheories. This would be nothing but the wildest theory. Remember, the man…’
    â€˜Sure it was a man?’
    â€˜No. Not at all sure. It was lying in a way that prevented one from guessing. I was going to say that It—if you like—was wearing goggles. I could not guess the sex.’
    â€˜Yet you appear to have guessed the identity?’
    â€˜That could be from another source altogether.’
    â€˜You