"Did he know anything about Angela Angel?"
"No, only hearsay. According to him, Charlie was never what you'd call the hope of the family. Sort of kid who pinched the other kids' belongings at school. He started life in the drapery business, and got the sack for putting the petty cash in the wrong place. No prosecution; old Carpenter - he's dead now - paid up. After that, our hero joined a concert-party. Seems he could sing a bit, as well as look pansy. He stuck to that for a bit, and then he got a job on the stage proper - male chorus. By that time what with one thing and another, his family had got a bit tired of him, and they gave him order of the boot from home, and no mistake. Then he went and got married to an actress. Name of Peggy Robinson. The next thing the family knew was that he'd waltzed off into the blue, and his wife was on their doorstep, calling out for his blood. Alfred didn't take to her. Said that was one thing he didn't blame brother Charlie for, leaving a wife that was more like a raging tigress than a decent woman. They managed to get rid of her, but not for long. Oh no!! She went off on tour, and though Alfred says they had news that she was properly off with another fellow, that didn't stop her coming back to tell Charlie's people how she'd heard that he was in town again, and living with a girl he'd picked up somewhere in the Midlands. Seems he'd been on tour likewise. What the rights of it was I don't know, and nor does Alfred, but there doesn't seem to be much doubt about it that the girl was none other than Angela Angel."
"Where is the wife now?" interrupted Hannasyde.
"Pushing up daisies," replied the Sergeant. "Died of pneumonia following influenza, a couple of years ago. Alfred knew Charlie had been to gaol, but he hadn't had word of him since he came out, and didn't want to. He never saw Angela, but he says he was pretty sure she wasn't on the stage when Charlie picked her up. From what the wife told him, he gathered it was a regular village-maiden story. You know the sort of thing. Romantic girl, brought up very strict, falls for wavy-haired tenor, and elopes with him. Well, poor soul, she paid for it in the end, didn't she?"
"Did Alfred Carpenter remember what her real name was?"
"No, because he never knew it. But taking one thing with another, it looks to me as though one mystery's solved at least, which is why no one ever turned up to claim Angela when she did herself in. If she came from a strait-laced sort of home you may bet your life she was cast off, same as Charlie was. I've known people like that."
Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, but it doesn't help us much. Did you dig anything out of Carpenter's landlady, or the proprietor of the restaurant he worked at?"
"What I dug out of Giuseppe," replied the Sergeant acidly, "was a highly talented performance, but no good to me. How these foreigners can keep it up and not get tired out beats me! He put on a one-man show all for my benefit, hair-tearing, dio-mios, corpo-di-baccos, and the rest of it. I had to buy myself a drink to help me get over it, but he was as fresh as a daisy when he got through, and starting a row with his wife. At least, that's the way it looked to me, but I daresay it was only his way of carrying on a quiet chat. Anyhow, he doesn't know anything about Charlie."
"And the landlady?"
"She doesn't know anything either. Says she's one for keeping herself to herself. That doesn't surprise me, either. She's not my idea of a comfortable body anyone would confide in. And there we are. It's Neville or no one, Chief. And if you want to know what he did with his weapon, how about him having slid a stout stick up his sleeve?"