LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      Mike turned right from Chancery Lane into the Strand and searched irritably for a taxi amongst the whirling traffic. It was a lovely late summer’s morning but in the mood he was in he was totally incapable of taking pleasure in the polished sunlight gleaming on the red double-decker buses and glancing off traffic and shop windows along the busy street.

      His interview with Jaime Mainardi, QC, had been brief and infuriating. With difficulty he had kept control of his temper. Sammy Spears had been right, the man was a ham and should never have been engaged to defend a difficult client like Harold Weldon. Whether Weldon was guilty of murder or not Mike Baxter had not the faintest idea; but after his short, exasperating interview with Weldon’s legal brains Mike was ready to side with at least one of Sammy Spears’s theories, that the accused had been extraordinarily badly handled.

      What had appalled Mike more than anything else was Mainardi’s bland acceptance of his client’s fate. It must no doubt be galling for a lawyer to lose a case, but this was no ordinary divorce wrangle or libel suit: a man’s life had hung in the balance, the death penalty had been pronounced. He had expected to find some traces of regret, if not deep remorse, in Mainardi’s chambers but all he had sensed was calm indifference.

      He hailed a taxi, told the driver to take him to Scotland Yard, and climbed in.

      Mainardi’s astonishingly urbane summing up as he brought the brief interview to an end still resounded in his ears. ‘Really, Mr Baxter, you must excuse me if I cannot give you very much of my time, but I am a business man like any other and my bread and butter is earned by accepting briefs from new clients, not in trying to console clients whose cases I have unfortunately lost.’ And then, to crown it all, the man had had the effrontery to ask, in a far from delicate manner, just how soon payment of his legal fees might be expected.

      ‘No doubt you’ll get paid before they put the rope round Weldon’s neck,’ Mike had snapped.

      The barrister had popped his cheeks dramatically and laid an eloquent hand to his forehead, as if he were affronted by Mike’s abruptness. ‘Forgive me for saying so, Mr Baxter, but for my part I cannot quite understand what your interest in this case is.’

      ‘For my part,’ Mike had replied, ‘I’m just beginning to understand. Good day.’

      As the taxi wound its way down Whitehall, Mike forced himself to cool down. The fact that Weldon’s defence had been placed in the hands of a slipshod ham by no means proved the architect’s innocence. The same verdict might have been returned had he been superbly defended. Yet Mike found himself probing deeper and deeper into the affair, unable to resist (as Linda had put it) the whiff of cannon-fire and the sound of distant battle. Most of all he felt an imperative urge to meet Harold Weldon in person. As he paid off his taxi and entered the Yard he was wondering if Goldway could arrange a visit to Pentonville.

      The Sergeant on duty knew Mike well and after the usual formalities he was shown upstairs to Goldway’s room overlooking the river.

      The tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking Superintendent was busy on the telephone as Mike entered, but shot him a welcoming smile and waved him to a vacant chair. When the phone call ended Goldway stood up and shook hands, offering Mike a cigarette and inquiring after Linda’s health. Knowing the pressure under which Goldway worked Mike came straight to the point and told him of Hector Staines’s visit which had prompted his first stirrings of interest in the Weldon case.

      ‘I know it doesn’t sound very much to go on, John, but the truth is I’ve nibbled at the bait and now I can’t quite let go.’

      ‘Always was a chronic weakness of yours, Mike,’ said Goldway with a benevolent smile. ‘However, we’ve been glad enough of your assistance in times gone by, so I think the least I can do now is to offer some co-operation when you ask for it. I must point out, purely as a formality, that the Weldon case is officially closed, of course.’

      ‘Of course. But to a dyed-in-the-wool criminologist like myself no case is ever fully closed. We’re still arguing about some of the verdicts of the eighteenth century; and in this case the condemned man still has a week or two to live.’

      ‘Quite so. Let’s say your interest is purely academic. Now about this Lord Fairfax notion of yours; I’ve put some good men on running it to earth if it does exist, and I should think they’ll come up with a definite answer before the day is out.’

      Mike looked crestfallen. ‘No word yet? I was hoping for a lead there. Supposing my theory is accurate and the Fairfax is a pub or something, instead of a person, it would be rather intriguing to know just whom Lucy Staines was planning to meet there, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘Possibly. But I wouldn’t bank on it if I were you. As far as visiting Weldon in Pentonville goes, I can arrange that for you if you insist, though I don’t think you’ll find him much of a charmer. The man has a positively fiendish talent for getting one’s back up. There’s another man you might like to meet, though, who could be useful.’

      ‘Who’s that?’

      ‘Detective-Inspector Charles Rodgers. He was in charge of the case.’ Goldway picked up the internal telephone and spoke quietly into it, adding aside to Mike, ‘Don’t expect him to be delighted to make your acquaintance either; he’s a busy fellow and right up to his neck in a vicious stabbing case at the Elephant and Castle at the moment. I’ll see if he can spare us a minute.’

      Rodgers proved available and arrived within a few minutes of Goldway’s summons. Mike’s impression as he shook hands with the Inspector was of a tough, hard-driving, and extremely efficient man in his middle forties, a careless dresser, heavy smoker (from the nicotine stains on his fingers), a man of few words, in love with his job to the exclusion of most other interests.

      Goldway completed the introductions with, ‘As I said, Mike, Rodgers was in charge of the case.’

      ‘Right from the beginning, Inspector?’ Mike asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I see. The snag is, I wasn’t at the trial,’ Mike went on, ‘so I don’t know all the details. I know Weldon and his fiancée had a bad row – Staines told me all about that – and then they went to dinner and to the theatre. What exactly happened after that?’

      Rodgers’s mouth tightened in a slight grimace of annoyance and he glanced rather obviously at his watch.

      Goldway put in smoothly, ‘I don’t think this will take more than five minutes of your time, Inspector. Mike is an old friend of mine, and I’ve told him how pushed you are lately.’

      Rodgers grunted and rubbed the palm of his hand hard on his short-clipped hair. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Weldon and Lucy Staines left the theatre before the show finished, at about ten o’clock. According to Weldon’s first statement their quarrel came to a climax outside the theatre and Lucy turned her back on him and walked away. Weldon got into his car and drove home. He said – mark you, this was his first statement – that he arrived home at about half-past ten.’

      ‘Weldon had a flat in New Cavendish Street which he shared with a friend named Victor Sanders,’ Goldway put in.

      ‘Sanders failed to confirm Weldon’s story,’ the Inspector continued. ‘He said that Weldon didn’t get home till about half-past twelve. We tackled Weldon on this point and he

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