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description= The Books of Leo Bruce: providing texts of his lamentably out-of-print detective novels Sergeant Beef Carolus Deene Golden age detective fiction;

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sergeant, beef, case, for, chapter, twenty, of, the, books, leo, bruce, archive, synopses, novels, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,

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at barnford the shoulters then either he was friendly with shoulter or as we maintain he was being blackmailed by him the latter is virtually a certainty and i don t think that flipp himself will deny it though he will probably maintain that he never administered poison to his wife but was being blackmailed by shoulter because he had purchased morphine at that time and was afraid that if this were known a case would be made against him at all events there was the poison book with his signature hidden in shoulter s room there were the withdrawals of money from his account in notes of small denominations withdrawals which were made before shoulter s visits to barnford and his calls on flipp after dark surely very little doubt about the blackmail very little conceded beef right then we have this powerful man of violent temper who had already we believe despatched one human being who stood in his way being bled by a drunken ne er do well who was in all probability the only man who had the information on which flipp was being blackmailed the setup is pretty plain isn t it moreover flipp had a gun and cartridges of a type used by half a dozen people in the neighbourhood flipp knew that shoulter was coming down for christmas and would walk alone through deadman s wood what could be more obvious what is more flipp knew that there were at least two people in barnford on whom suspicion might fall and there was a very good chance of at least one of them not having an alibi that afternoon there was the retired watchmaker chickle and the hot tempered young farmer joe bridge now he himself had noticed and called attention to the fact that little chickle was very fond of a particular spot on the footpath through the woods which shoulter would have to pass why not then lay in wait for him there if shoulter was shot in a place which chickle in mr townsend s word haunted and chickle was known to carry such a gun as shoulter was shot with there was a reasonable chance of chickle being suspected however improbable chickle s action might seem again he knew that it was joe bridge s custom to walk down to barnford from copling on saturday afternoons to see his uncle and aunt and with any luck this would bring the farmer to the spot all he had to do was to approach it by a route through the wood itself from his house wait for shoulter to appear shoot him and return home without being seen then like all murderers he over plotted his wife was away for christmas and it suddenly appeared to him that at all costs the servants must be got away from woodlands in case they saw too much of his movements this is where he made his first mistake as it happened the girls were not keen on going and he insisted now why what possible reason could he have for insisting on their absence unless he wished to remain unobserved to my mind that alone was almost enough to hang him but he left further evidence we know beyond doubt and we owe the knowledge to you beef that he was in the wood that afternoon and not many yards from the place where the crime was committed miss packham had sent him a christmas card which was delivered to him shortly before three he was already dressed to go out in an old mackintosh which as we also know from beef had a pocket lining missing the card was handed to him he hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket for he had not much time to spare and subsequently dropped it on his way to the clearing it was found there by a boy scout moreover we know from miss shoulter that in spite of flipp s statement that he never left his house he was not in fact there when she called at three forty five he was as a matter of fact on his way back from the clearing where he had just killed shoulter and lastly there is joe bridge s statement that as he approached the clearing a man in a raincoat was slinking away through the trees if this was not flipp who else could it have been not chickle for bridge described him as a biggish man there is no one else possible unless you are going to suppose that some complete stranger of whom we haven t heard was waiting for shoulter in the wood that day the only two other males in the district who are known to go into that wood at all are the poacher fletcher and packham the parson neither of them possesses a raincoat no i think you can take it that flipp was standing among the trees waiting for shoulter to come from the direction of barnford when he heard someone who turned out to be bridge coming from the direction of copling not wishing to be seen he hurried off among the trees to return when bridge had gone right right said beef with an emphatic nod then as we know from bridge shoulter came up the path a few minutes later since bridge met him before he reached chickle s bungalow half a mile away and he was carrying his golf clubs what i should like to know was in that bag in my theory it was the gun which he had borrowed without permission from his sister some weeks before after he had killed his blackmailer flipp may have noticed this and it gave him an altogether new idea why should not this be made to appear suicide it would be yet another fortified line in his own defence flipp s failing as a murderer was to overdo things if he had been satisfied with having left the suspicion to fall on chickle or bridge he would have made his case a better one but no he could not resist this new idea he pulled the corpse to the side of the clearing so that it would not be visible from the path and with the only kind of line handy a length of red tape which was either in his pocket or shoulter s he rigged it as best he could to look as though shoulter had shot himself clumsy that it scarcely needed our ballistics expert to say that the man had been shot from some yards away while he was on the footpath in defence of flipp s intelligence it must be remembered that the face of a man shot at point blank range by a twelve bore would have been so nearly shot away that at the time he could scarcely be expected to see that a ballistics expert would be able to gauge the exact distance of the barrel from the head just as his arrangements were complete some time past four o clock he realized that he was making a serious mistake the gun by the dead man had not been fired still wearing his gloves he remedied this using two of his own cartridges then he returned stealthily to woodlands quite unaware that miss shoulter had been there to see him or that he had dropped the packhams christmas card near the scene of the crime he believed in fact that he had achieved a pretty clever murder now the rest is conjecture i admit and at present forms no part of our case though i hope it will do so for i believe that flipp murdered chickle why and why according to chickle s housekeeper was he so changed after that particular afternoon there is only one answer that i can see chickle knew too much he saw some part of the proceedings perhaps the most fateful part and it worried him a peaceful little man of regular habits he was distressed by being brought into contact with anything so violent and was determined to keep out of it he lied to us to save himself not from the dock but from the witness box a form of lying more common than you would suppose but it got on his mind he grew as mrs pluck said distressed and unhappy if he had only done his duty and told us what he knew he would have saved his life but he preferred to keep it to himself well you have seen the result flipp knew that he knew they may even have talked together in that clearing over the body of the dead man that we shall never know at all events flipp was taking no chances he induced chickle to come up to his house when no one else was there and silenced him for ever wasn t that a bit clumsy suggested beef hanging him in his own stable i mean chatto shrugged his shoulders this one was to look like suicide and take in the other too for if chickle committed suicide it would appear that it was because he had in fact been a murderer we know that flipp was a gambler he was getting odds of two to one he would clear himself of both murders by this or hang for the two it wasn t a bad idea as murderers ideas go well there you have it lock stock and appropriately enough barrel and i m only waiting for you beef to act according to precedent pull the whole thing to pieces and indicate an entirely different person as the murderer then mr townsend will be happy the police will be made to look silly and mr townsend s readers will get what they bargained for a surprise in the last chapter what about it beef shook his head can t do that he said can t pull it all to pieces you ve got too much truth there for me to treat your theory as a pack of cards both chatto and i were startled but for different reasons great scott cried chatto you re not going to admit that the police are right beef i exclaimed if you let me down after all the time i have spent on this case and the writing i have already done i shall consider it unforgivable are you going to sit there and tell me that the police suspect is guilty and that you haven t got a theory after all beef chuckled in his most irritating way hadn t you both better wait till you ve heard what i ve got to say i only said there was truth in what we ve just heard and there is any amount of truth but what i don t like about it is that it leaves so much unaccounted for if you don t mind my saying so inspector you ve chosen your bits of evidence to suit your theory and i don t believe in doing that i like a theory which covers all the evidence not bits here and there it s not to say that you aren t right enough in most of what you say but what about miss shoulter s old shoes and the shot at six fifteen and what bridge saw chickle doing in his garden and the marks the boy scouts found on the tree there s an awful lot you don t account for i thought this was coming said chatto go on you d better tell us whom do you suspect beef sucked his moustache i shall have to tell you the story in my own way he said chatto leaned back in his chair go ahead he invited posted by deadman on sunday august 27 2017 labels case for sergeant beef leo bruce rupert croft cooke case for sergeant beef chapter twenty six case for sergeant beef c hapter t wenty s ix mr flusting talks flipp had sobered up and had had a wash and shave before we arrived at woodlands indeed he looked a great deal fresher than constable watts dunton he shewed little surprise or emotion as chatto brought out the whole portentous formula ending with its warning that anything he said might be used in evidence against him i thought you suspected me he remarked dully chatto had read out all three of the names he had used and although he took no apparent notice of the philipson and flipp he asked rather anxiously i thought why chatto had called him phelps perhaps you ve forgotten that said chatto calmly it was the name you used to sign the poison book in shoulter s shop i was watching the wretched man intently and saw that this quiet statement had had its effect i want to see my solicitor mr aston he said and there was a slight trembling noticeable you can telephone for him from the police station conceded chatto we re taking you over to ashley watts dunton brought his coat and flipp made a great point of locking up the house he was accompanied from door to door after he had carefully shut the windows from the inside it was without further conversation however that we left woodlands that afternoon in response to a telegram from beef there arrived at barnford the last of the many people we had to meet in this case recalling it now i have to admit that i could see no point in sending for mr flusting that friend of crackle s who had been mentioned more than once in the course of our investigation he had been quoted as a lifelong friend of the little watchmaker who had been a neighbour of his during all the years in which chickle had built up his thriving business but i could not see how he would throw any light either on the murder of shoulter or on the death of chickle himself beef however set great store on the talk he would have with mr flusting and even spoke of the last link in the chain he arrived at barnford by the now fateful train and beef was on the station to meet him he was a tall thin grey haired man who wore old fashioned rimless pince nez a black overcoat and a starched collar too large for his thin neck his eyes were blue and rheumy and he spoke in a high pitched voice which he attempted to modulate into a tone of solemnity in speaking of the dead man thought you ought to know at once said beef as we walked away from the station mr flusting s next words surprised me suicide i suppose he said it was clear that he saw nothing inconsistent in this that s what i think it is said beef but the police have other ideas no no suicide i m afraid in fact i will go so far as to say i saw it coming did you indeed yes he has just been to see me you know stayed a few days he was very far from normal sergeant very far from it beef did not want to hurry mr flusting into any sketchy talk i thought but was determined to have the whole story from him in detail suppose we go and have a cup of tea he suggested and you tell me what you can you see mr flusting i m of the opinion that your knowledge of the dead man will be of the greatest assistance to us in clearing up the mystery surrounding these two deaths i don t know the police opinion on that but i know mine and if you would be so good as to tell us what you knew of mr chickle both in the past and more recently it would be very valuable i ll certainly tell you all i can replied mr flusting but i have begun to wonder lately whether i really knew chickle at all there were depths in that man not another word till you ve had a cup of tea exclaimed beef as we arrived at the crown but the time came for flusting to talk he lit his pipe looked weakly at the pair of us and began i ve known wellington chickle since he was a youth he announced and apprenticed to a watchmaker and i don t think that anyone else has known him at all there were two of him you know the bland and commonplace shopkeeper and behind that facade a fiery and ambitious soul who was determined to leave his mark on the world that is the thing you must understand about him the key to the whole character of the man he was determined to leave his mark on the world it may seem odd if you think only of the chatty little man you probably knew but remember i have seen behind all that i have heard his deepest confidences from the very first that was his resolve and how did he go about doing it for many years oddly enough in the most conventional way he meant to build up a big business make money and i suppose achieve success in the most ordinary manner perhaps he saw himself as a j p a mayor or a member of parliament and in one of these offices making history at any rate for nearly all the years of our friendship he dedicat...