Free Case for Sergeant Beef by Leo Bruce

guns?’
    â€˜I was wondering perhaps whether Shoulter borrowed his sister’s gun last time he was down and had it with him that afternoon. She can’t swear to seeing it since he was in the house before. The murder might have been done with another gun, then this one fired off in the air and used to fake the suicide.’
    â€˜Conceivable,’ agreed Chatto. ‘And it had occurred to me. There’s nothing final against it, but two reasons why I don’t think it’s likely. First the ticket-collector remembers seeing Shoulter when he got off the train but does not remember his having a gun. He says he believes he had a golf bag, so I admit it could have been in that, but it doesn’t seem very likely. However, I still have an open mind. The second reason is that none of the double reports heard came near enough to one another. I mean, if he was going to fake it to look like suicide he – or she – would surely attend to that at once. There was nearly an hour between the first double report and the second, and an hour and a half between the second and third.’
    â€˜Of course,’ said Beef slowly. ‘If it was premeditated, and someone knew Shoulter would be coming off that train and walking up to his sister’s house, he could have fired the barrels of Miss Shoulter’s gun the day before in readiness.’
    â€˜True – though there are a lot of ifs. And
why
would he do that? Why not use the gun first for the murder, then leave it there for the faked suicide?’
    â€˜No reason. I was just looking all round, if you know what I mean. How about alibis?’
    â€˜Well, we haven’t touched on that much, as we haven’t gota suspect yet. Of the people who lived round about, for what they’re worth, very few have an alibi for much of the time, and none for all of the time. Miss Shoulter went out on her bicycle at about four and says she went to Copling (which you can reach by road from her place). She went to post a letter and can’t remember whom she may have met, if anyone. Joe Bridge was with his cowman till about five, then drove off in his car. He was in the Crown soon after opening-time, which is six o’clock around here. Aston, the solicitor -’
    â€˜Why have you got
him
in?’ asked Beef.
    â€˜Well, he has a gun, some Fesantsure cartridges, and he
is
a solicitor.’
    â€˜But that doesn’t make him a murderer, surely? Though I dare say there’s many a solicitor must
feel
like murder with the silly things people come to them with.’
    â€˜No. But it does mean that he might have had red tape in his pocket,’ said Chatto, and left this to sink in.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Beef after a moment. ‘And who else?’
    â€˜Little Mr Chickle left his house at three-thirty, and was back at ten to five. His housekeeper’s a sort of walking alarm clock, and notices all his times of coming and going. Then Mrs Pluck went off to the pictures in Ashley at six-thirty and young Jack Ribbon finished work at four. Flipp has no one to testify to his movements at all. His. wife’s away and he’d let their servants, two sisters from Ashley, go home for Christmas. Says it was his only chance of keeping them for another month or two. He says he was indoors all day. Never left his house at all. Of course you understand these are not our suspects. They’re really the only people whose movements could seem of the least possible interest. You may find some more whom we’ve not yet come on.’
    â€˜Who
are
your suspects?’ asked Beef.
    Chatto hesitated.
    â€˜Frankly,’ he said at last, ‘we haven’t any. Of course, Miss Shoulter’s footprints
do
take some explaining, and she’s not helpful. She says that she never used the footpath that day. The only time she went out was on her cycle. Quite positiveabout it, she is. A very downright woman. But I don’t suspect her. I cannot