Free Dead Man’s Shoes by Leo Bruce Page A

or two questions about this man Larkin who stayed here?”
    â€œYou Press?” asked Mr Habbard briskly.
    â€œNo. I’m making an independent investigation for Packinlay.”
    â€œI see. Because we’ve had enough publicity over this business. Not good for a hotel of this class. This belongs to the United Ancient Hostelries Association, and we can’t afford a lot of vulgar chatter in the newspapers.”
    â€œWhat,” Carolus could not help asking, though it was irrelevant to his enquiry, “what is the United Ancient Hostelries Association?”
    â€œMean to say you haven’t heard of it? My dear chap, where have you been? It’s the most important development in the licensing trade today. We take over fine old English inns, with their great tradition of hospitality, good liquor and good fare, and while keeping their ancient character and architecture, we add the amenities required by the modern motorist. Take this house, for instance …”
    â€œOh, I quite understand,” said Carolus hurriedly. “Admirable, I’m sure. I wonder whether Larkin approved?”
    â€œBetween you and me, old man, I didn’t have much to do with him. He was quite obviously not out of the top drawer,and when you run a place like this you don’t hob-nob with any of the guests whom you wouldn’t meet in your own home. This Larkin person, or Leech as he called himself, arrived in a self-drive car which he’d hired in London, or so he told the hall porter, who made some remark about it. He stayed only one night, and went off unexpectedly in the afternoon.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHe’d booked without saying how long he would stay. The girl at the desk had asked him, and he had shouted that he didn’t know; he thought a few days. Next afternoon I was in the hall seeing a client …”
    â€œMr Smite.”
    â€œYou’re very well-informed. Yes, it was old Smite asking for Packinlay. He’d got one of his
billets doux
for him, I gathered. I was just telling Smite that Packinlay hadn’t been in for a day or two when this character bounces in and starts giving me orders. ‘Have my bill made up at once,’ he shouts; ‘I’m leaving immediately.’ I’m not accustomed to being spoken to like that, but with characters of that type I find it best just to ignore that sort of thing. One point I did notice, though. The man was in a muck sweat.”
    â€œIt was a warm afternoon. He’d been walking.”
    â€œIt wasn’t just that, old man. He was trembling like a leaf. He’d obviously had some shock or other.”
    â€œYou didn’t enquire?”
    â€œA man in my position can hardly concern himself with things of that sort, can he? Of course if I’d known that he had just shot poor old Gregory Willick it would have been different. Very good chap, Gregory.”
    â€œIn your mind, then, there is no doubt that Larkin had murdered Willick?”
    â€œOh, none whatever. If ever I saw a murderer, that was one.
    â€œThanks very much. You’ve been most helpful.”
    â€œIt’s been a trying business for us. I had to attend theinquest, you know. A hotel of this class can’t afford to be mixed up in a thing like this. My directors were most upset. Lord Finchington was on the phone to me at once. ‘What’s this, Ray?’ he said. ‘It’s all right, Henry,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got it under control.’ Still, one could understand their anxiety. How do you like this old spinning-wheel? The Board have just bought a couple of dozen, one for each of our hotels.”
    â€œSplendid. Excellent,” said Carolus, and bade the manager good morning.

8
    B ARTON P LAGE was a Tudor house with a wing added in the eighteenth century. It stood in a most beautiful setting, the grounds having been designed by Capability Brown. You penetrated an outer irregular ring of