Read Online Case for Sergeant Beef by Leo Bruce - Free Book Online Page A

nodded knowingly.
    â€˜That makes it murder,’ he said. ‘That’s good. I do hate suicide. Nasty panicky little crime. What else did the experts have to say?’
    â€˜Not a great deal. The doctor did not see the body until early on Christmas morning. He could not say more than that the man had been dead for anything from nine to sixteen hours, that is to say that Shoulter was killed between one p.m. and eight o’clock on Christmas Eve.’
    â€˜Not very helpful.’
    â€˜The bullet man was better. You can be pretty accurate when it’s a shot-gun. The spread of the shot and so on. He believes that Shoulter was coming up the path, that is to say walking from Barnford towards Copling. That would be his quickest way from Barnford to his sister’s bungalow. The man who shot him was hidden on the wood side of a little clearing beside the path. You can see the place. There’s a fallen tree there which would make excellent cover. When Shoulter was about level with the murderer he probably looked towards him, because he got both barrels in his face. His distance in that case would be just four yards. Then themurderer must have rigged the thing to look like suicide. He had some red tape in his pocket and tied it round the barrel and made a loop for the man’s foot. Then he dragged the corpse across the clearing and dumped it behind the tree. There was evidence of the body being dragged across the wet, sticky ground.’
    â€˜Did you see that yourself?’ asked Beef.
    â€˜Yes. Constable Watts-Dunton here had the sense to get me out at once, though it
was
Christmas Day. When I came to have a look at the place I found everything untouched since the crime, except just for the footprints of young Jack Ribbon who found the body at eleven-thirty on Christmas Eve. It was very useful. There was no doubt about the body having been dragged across the clearing, though very determined efforts had been made to destroy the marks of dragging.’
    â€˜Footprints, you said,’ prompted Beef.
    â€˜Yes. They were interesting. There were the dead man’s coming from Barnford and stopping short on the footpath about half-way across the clearing. There were Jack Ribbon’s coming from Barnford and turning off to go to the tree on which he sat down for a smoke that night before he found the corpse. And the only other ones were-guess!’
    â€˜Joe Bridge’s,’ I said at once, remembering how astutely I had already secured his name as a suspect.
    Chatto positively goggled at me.
    â€˜What makes you say that?’ he asked.
    â€˜Never mind Mr Townsend,’ said Beef rudely. ‘He’d say anything.’
    â€˜I’m interested,’ the inspector told him. ‘We
have
heard about this young Joe Bridge. Had a row with Shoulter, didn’t he? Know any more?’
    I had to admit that at present I did not know any more.
    â€˜Well, there were some of Bridge’s. But it looked as though he had simply walked down the path from Copling. There were some more interesting ones than that. The footprints we particularly noticed were those of Miss Shoulter.the dead man’s sister. And your client,’ he added with a rather malicious smile.
    â€˜Were they new?’ said Beef. ‘When had it rained last?’
    â€˜Night of the twenty-third – twenty-fourth,’ said Chatto. ‘These had all been made on Christmas Eve. Of course,’ he conceded as though he wanted to be kind. ‘Of course the clearing could have been approached by other ways which would have left no footprints at all. You could come up between the trees and if you were careful and avoided patches of mud you wouldn’t need to leave a mark.’
    â€˜I see. Now what about this Shoulter?’
    â€˜The dope on him is coming in every day. Masses of it. No good at all. Goes in for professional punting and has been mixed up with some pretty shady lots on the racecourse.