Sgt Beef - Case Without A Corpse Part 11

Really, Sergeant. Those should have been your first steps.

The buzzer warned him to lift up the receiver beside him, and in a few moments he was reading out the address of Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax in Hammersmith, and enjoining whoever attended to it to ring him up as soon as the information was through. I liked his brisk and businesslike method of attack.

Now that coat, he said, and the shirt.

Beef pulled them out of a cupboard, and handed them to him. Stute examined them carefully.

Yes, he said, I should say that was blood. Send them off to the research department. And the bottle to the a.n.a.lyst.

Galsworthy! I could see Stute shudder. Pack these up. Send the coat and shirt for research, and the bottle for a.n.a.lysis. See?

Galsworthy repressed a smile, I thought, as he said, Very well, Sergeant.

What about his boots? Examined those?

I did 'ave a look at 'em.

Let me see them, sighed Stute. What's the soil round here?

Very poor, sir. My scarlet runners last year. . . .

Never mind your scarlet runners, Beef. What is it? Loam? Clay? What?

Nasty chalky sort of soil, sir.

Same everywhere about?

Yessir.

Stute had turned the boots over carefully, sc.r.a.ped a little at the sole, and put them down. He picked up each piece of the dead man's clothing in turn and examined it carefully but without remark. Next he demanded to see the black motor-cycling oilskins that Rogers had worn earlier in the day, and Beef had to send for them, swiftly and surrept.i.tiously, from Rogers's shop.

What we've got to do, he said, is first of all to follow as much as we can of young Rogers's movements on the day of the murder. And by that time we may be able to eliminate one or more of the candidates for the role of murderee. We know he left his home at 10.30. Where did he go?

That I can't say, sir.

Well then, come along, we'll take the car, and see what we can find. Soon straighten this up, Beef. Only you need System, Method, Efficiency. Off we go. And he jumped to his feet and led the way to his police car at the door.

Poor old Beef! I couldn't help considering once again that his solution of the Thurston mystery must have been the merest luck. He looked such a floundering old fellow beside this brisk detective. But I did not like to hear him reprimanded quite so brusquely. After all, he had never pretended to be anything but a country policeman, and he had done his best.

We went to the little bootmaking establishment kept by the Rogers. Mrs. Rogers joined her husband behind the counter. She was calmer to-day, but still looked tired and unhappy. No. They were quite sure he hadn't mentioned where he was going. No, they had no idea that he was lunching with Mr. Fairfax. Why wouldn't he have told them?

Well, explained Mrs. Rogers, father never cared much for the Fairfaxes, as I told you. And Alan may have thought he wouldn't have liked it if he had known he was going to see Mr. Fairfax.

What had you against them? Stute asked old Rogers.

Nothing, really. There was a bit of sw.a.n.k with them, I always thought.

Did you know when he was meeting Miss Cutler?

Yes. He had told us that. Seven o'clock.

And you've no idea where he could have gone between the two?

No. None. I only wish we had.

Beef drew Mrs. Rogers aside to tell her the date and time of the inquest, and this seemed to upset her again, for we left her on the verge of tears.

They seemed to have been very fond of this fellow, remarked Stute as we entered the car.

But 'e was no good, said Beef.

He has succeeded in bewildering the police, anyway, replied Stute rather uncharitably. I think, before we go any further, I should like a little more information about his past.

When we had returned to the station, Stute told Beef that if he would put the telephone through to the exchange, he would get Scotland Yard himself. It seemed that he had no wish to hear a repet.i.tion of the constable's elaborate and literary name, p.r.o.nounced by Sergeant Beef. I sat back and listened, greatly impressed, while he gave his curt but thorough instructions. Young Rogers's fellow stewards were to be examined. His friends on board were to be identified and questioned. The Chief Steward was to be asked for information, and the Purser. Then, I heard, the Buenos Aires police were to be asked if they knew anything of young Rogers's record while he had been in that country.

Stute put his hand over the mouthpiece, and turned to Beef. Taken his finger-prints? he asked.

Oo's? said Beef.

Good heavens, man. Young Rogers's of course.

No, I 'aven't.

Then do so at once. He turned again to the telephone. I'll send you two sets of fingerprints to-morrow. Send one of them to Buenos Aires and get them to look them up.

Sergeant Beef seemed to be pondering something, as Stute finished speaking.

Well, Beef?

I was just wondering, sir, what use it was sending them finger-prints out to ... whereever you said they was to go.

What use? What do you mean?

I mean, wot could they do wiv' 'em? They don't know wot to look 'im up under. They 'aven't even got 'is right name!

There was a suggestion of triumph in Beef's voice. Indeed it did look as though he had caught the detective out in a blunder.

But Stute, instead of being annoyed, smiled. He leaned back, lit another cigarette, and turned to Beef.

It's just the sort of thing you have to know when you get to the Yard, Sergeant. His quiet cultured voice sounded complacent. Though of course none of us can know everything.

Wot is? asked Beef, still evidently under the impression that the other had tripped up.

This. The Argentine Police have a very efficient system of finger-print cataloguing quite different from any other. In fact, in the International Police Conference of New York a few years ago they surprised us all. It is called the Vucetich System, because it was invented by a man called Juan Vucetich thirty years ago.

Go on! The exclamation was one of deep interest, rather than an invitation to proceed.

Instead of cla.s.sifying their finger-prints under names, nature of crimes, district, or by any of the methods used by other countries, they cla.s.sify them according to certain fundamental types of finger-print. This has obvious advantages. Given a complete and clear set of fingerprints they can trace, among their enormous archives, the man to whom they belong.