Feeling considerably nettled at the two rebukes he had had from his superior that morning, Poole made his way out into Whitehall. Owing to Miss Fratten’s visit, he had missed his rendezvous with P. C. Lolling at the police station, but the sergeant in charge had told him over the telephone whereabouts the constable was likely to be found; Poole found him, in fact, talking to the Park-keeper who lodged in the Admiralty Arch. Having detached the constable from his gossip, Poole questioned him as to his knowledge of the tragedy on October 24th. Lolling had seen nothing of the incident. He had noticed a crowd at the spot where—he afterwards learnt—Sir Garth had fallen, but as he approached it, it had dispersed—not, presumably because of his awful presence but because the body had at that moment been put into a car and driven away. He had made a note of the incident in his note-book, the time being recorded as 6.40 p. m.
Foiled once more in his attempt to get first-hand evidence of the death, Poole was about to turn away, when Lolling volunteered that he knew of somebody who had seen the accident—the gentleman’s death, that was. Curiously enough he had been discussing that very subject with his friend, Mr. Blossom, the Park-keeper, when the Inspector had come up. Mr. Blossom, it appeared, had an acquaintance who had actually seen . . . At this point Poole interrupted to suggest that Mr. Blossom should be asked to tell his own tale.
The Park-keeper had not, fortunately, gone far afield. He was secretly thrilled at meeting the detective who had charge of the Fratten case, but the dignity of his office did not allow him to reveal the fact. It was the case, he said, that an acquaintance of his, a Mr. Herbert Tapping, a tuning-fork tester—had actually witnessed the death of Sir Garth Fratten. He had had an argument with Mr. Tapping only yesterday, after reading the account of the Inquest. He, Mr. Blossom, had advanced the thesis that Sir Garth had been done in by his companion, the Jewish gentleman, at the place where he fell, but Tapping had countered this by replying that he had actually seen Sir Garth fall and that Mr. Hessel could not have struck him—he was holding his arm at the time that Sir Garth staggered and fell. Moreover, Mr. Tapping had gone so far as to state that nobody else was near enough to strike a blow at that time; he himself was about the nearest and he was fifteen yards away. Mr. Tapping’s theory was that the blow had been struck by the “Admiralty messenger” on the Duke of York’s Steps, or, alternatively, that someone had thrown a stone at Sir Garth.
Poole asked for and obtained the address of Mr. Herbert Tapping and, thanking Blossom for his help, made his way towards the Underground Station at St. James’s Park. As he walked, he turned over in his mind the baffling problem which this new evidence—if Mr. Tapping confirmed his friend’s story—only helped to deepen. Reliable witnesses stated categorically that Sir Garth had not been struck on the Steps; now a new witness, possibly reliable, said that he had not been struck at the spot where he fell. Where, then, in the name of goodness, had he been struck?
Mr. Tapping had suggested a stone; the idea was a wild one; who could throw a stone so accurately as to strike the small vital spot in Sir Garth’s back—and from where had it been thrown? No one had been seen doing such a thing. Coningsby Smythe, of course—the House of Commons clerk—had been close behind but he had—according to his own story, at least—been separated from Fratten by a passing car. . . . Poole stopped dead. A passing car! That must have been within a few feet of Fratten! He had actually fallen a little distance beyond the carriage way, but he might have staggered a step or two before falling. Was it conceivable that he had been struck by someone in that car?
Poole’s brain raced as he searched aspect after aspect of this theory. Another thought struck him: Miss Peake had said that she had seen Sir Garth’s assailant on the Steps “leap into a waiting vehicle and drive away.” Poole remembered the words clearly, though he had not taken them down; the old-fashioned “vehicle” had caught his memory. Miss Peake, of course, was mad—quite useless as a witness—but, if he remembered rightly, that sentence had not been spoken in the hysterical outburst, that had shown him how hopeless she was, but in one of her more lucid moments. He had thought nothing of it at the time; her hysteria had discounted everything she had said—and, of course, she was clearly wrong in saying that the man had struck Fratten on the Steps—the evidence of Hessel, Lossett, and Wagglebow, all independent of one another, was too strong to allow of any doubt on that head.
Poole decided to take the first opportunity of testing the car theory; the test might even be made at the very spot if it were done late enough at night; in the meantime he would go back and question both P. C. Lolling and the Park-keeper, Blossom—if Miss Peake’s story were true and there had been a waiting “vehicle” somewhere near the Admiralty Arch, one of them might have seen it.
There was no difficulty in finding Lolling; he had not, apparently, moved twenty yards from where Poole had first found him, and was talking to a mounted constable; the detective wondered whether conversation might not be rather a weakness of P. C. Lolling’s. Lolling himself appeared to be aware that appearances did not favour him, for he hastened to explain to the Inspector that he had just been questioning the mounted constable about the events of 24th October—apparently the latter’s beat took him occasionally down the Mall. It had not done so, however, on the evening in question; he knew nothing of the circumstances of Sir Garth’s death, nor, in reply to Poole’s enquiry had he seen anything of a suspicious-looking car “loitering” in the neighbourhood of the Admiralty Arch. Lolling, to his infinite regret, was equally unable to help Poole in his new quest, though he thought it more than likely that his friend the Park-keeper could. The united efforts of Poole, Lolling and the mounted constable, however, failed to reveal the present whereabouts of Mr. Blossom; after wasting half an hour in fruitless search, Poole gave it up, directing Lolling to send the Park-keeper to Scotland Yard as soon as he came off duty.
It was now too late to go in search of Mr. Tapping if he was to keep his rendezvous with Miss Fratten, so Poole decided to look in at Scotland Yard and refer his new theory to Chief Inspector Barrod, prior to taking the Underground from Westminster to the Monument. Barrod, however, had just gone across to the Home Office with Sir Leward Marradine, on some diplomatic case that was worrying the government, so Poole had to cool his heels for half an hour before starting for the City.
The evening rush had already begun when Poole reached the Monument. The shoals of small fry would not be released till six o’clock, but at 5.20 p. m. when the detective emerged from the “east-bound” platform, a steady stream of superior clerks, secretaries and managers, was pouring into the “west-bound” as quickly as was consonant with their dignity.