And So To Murder (11 page)

He moved obediently over to the nearest window, which was open. At the moment nothing could have interested him less than the opinions of the Air Raid Warden.

Outside, the low bank of the lake stretched to a point within twenty feet of the windows. In twilight the lake looked whitish and vast, contrasting with the yellow and black shapes of tattered trees beyond. The last gleams of daylight touched the far edge of it, making silhouettes of the figures of two men who were standing on the nearer bank, and whose voices rose faintly.

One was a short fat man with a cigar, the other a tall spectacled young man with an ultra-refined accent.

‘Lookit,’ said the fat man. ‘This last big scene at the end of the Battle of Waterloo.’

‘Yes, Mr Aaronson?’

‘This big scene,’ amplified the fat man, ‘where the Duke of Wellington dies in the moment of victory.’

‘But the Duke of Wellington did not die in the moment of victory, Mr Aaronson.’

‘He didn’t?’

‘No, Mr Aaronson. The Battle of Waterloo was fought in the year 1815. The Duke of Wellington did not die until the year 1852.’

There was a loud noise as the fat man smote his forehead.

‘Jeez, you’re right. You’re absolutely and positively right. I remember now. I was thinking of the other guy. You know. The one with his hat on in front instead of sideways.’

‘You mean Lord Nelson, Mr Aaronson?’

‘That’s it. Nelson. He died in the moment of victory, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, Mr Aaronson.’

‘I thought so. Well, then, we got to change the picture.’

‘Yes, Mr Aaronson.’

‘And I got a better idea than that. Boy, is this a knock-out! Lookit. He don’t die. But they
think
he’s going to die, see? He’s lying on his camp-bed, and the audience thinks he’s going to kick the bucket for sure. And then (here’s the big kick, see?) his life is saved by an American surgeon.’

‘But, Mr Aaronson –’

‘I’ve been thinking about this picture, anyway. It’s too English, that’s what’s the trouble with it. We got to remember Oshkosh and Peoria.’

‘Do I understand, Mr Aaronson, that you would like to have the Duke of Wellington’s life saved by an American surgeon from Oshkosh or Peoria?’

‘No, no, no, you don’t get the idea at all. It’s this way. The Duchess of Richmond –’

William Cartwright, though as a rule he relished these conversations, paid little attention to this one. It is doubtful if he even heard it. Drawing deeply on the skull-pipe, he closed the window. He drew the air-raid curtains, which were of thin black material having little protection against light unless backed by the heavy regular curtains, and drew these as well. He sealed up the other window. Then he groped back to the desk and switched on the light.

Tilly was now revealed as a pleasant, tubby little woman with patently peroxided hair. Though a nagging or worry remained in her eyes, a great load seemed to have gone off her mind.

‘Don’t look so dazed,’ she complained, drawing at her cigarette. ‘You can take it from me, Bill. It’s a fact.’

‘It is a fact,’ said Cartwright, ‘of which I am not altogether persuaded. How do you know this? Did she tell you?’

‘
Sh-h
! No! She’d kill me if she thought I was talking about it. But that’s how she feels. That is, except when she gets a letter from her family, and then she tries to think she hates your innards.’

‘Why? Are her family against me?’

‘No; that’s the trouble: they’re for you. You know them, don’t you?’

Cartwright stared at her.

‘To the best of my knowledge, I never set eyes on any member of her family in my life.’

‘Well, you must have met them somewhere. Her old man’s a parson; and he wouldn’t lie, would he?’ Tilly sighed, and then looked sour. ‘Anyway, I wish you luck. Monica’s a nice kid. She’s what I’d call a ginch: sweet voice, and big eyes, and sort of hesitate-and-wonder manner. If I was a man, that’s the sort of thing I’d go for.’

Cartwright sat down, the pipe clamped between his teeth. He put his elbows on the desk, and ruffled the hair at his temples. As a matter of philosophical fact he was merely confused; his feeling was the one for which Bovril is so notoriously recommended. At any other time he would have been astounded at the platitudes he heard himself uttering.

‘It’s a funny world, Tilly.’

‘It sure is. But what are you going to
do
?’

‘Do?’

‘Yes, do! I know what you ought to do, Bill Cartwright.You take my tip: you just walk straight in there now, and grab her.’

‘So?’

‘Certainly. Give her the old cave-man stuff.’ Tilly’s expression grew very earnest; she opened her eyes wide. ‘But I’m warning you, honey. There’s one thing you’ve got to do first. Take off that spinach.’

‘What spinach?’

‘
That
. Those whiskers,’ hissed Tilly, with a touch of impatience. She blew out smoke with a broad nervous movement of her shoulders, and stubbed out the cigarette in the ash-tray. ‘Otherwise she’d only wallop you. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Do you think any woman wants to be grabbed by the inside of a mattress?’

Inspiration came to Tilly. Her eye was forever applied to the range-finder of a camera; she saw all life as box-office. She bent closer.

‘
Sh-h
! Listen. I’ve got a pair of nail-scissors in my room. I’ll sneak down there, and get ’em, and sneak back. You cut the beard close with the scissors, and shave it off in the cloakroom there. I know you’ve got shaving things here, because you spent the night on that sofa when you forgot your flashlight. Off comes the spinach. And you’re then set. You just walk in the other room, and – ’ She made a triumphant gesture towards the door.

‘You want me to –’

‘
Sh-h
!’

‘All right, all right. But it’s getting late, Tilly. She’ll be leaving.’

‘No, she won’t. She’s all full of inspiration and orneriness. She’s got a bottle of milk and some crackers in there, and she says she’s going to work half the night. Besides –’ Tilly stopped abruptly. She studied him. Her eyes opened still wider. ‘Bill Cartwright, where’s the old fight? What’s wrong with you? You haven’t used a six-syllable word since I’ve been in here. Great suffering catfish, I believe you’re
AFRAID
.’

‘
Sh-h
!’ hissed Cartwright.

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘Certainly not,’ he returned, telling as much truth as he knew. ‘If you will kindly close those delicate lips of yours for five seconds, and allow me to get a word in edgeways, I will endeavour to explain my position in the matter.’

‘Now that’s more like you,’ cried Tilly admiringly. ‘Go on, honey. I’m listening.’

He put down his pipe in the ash-tray. ‘In the first place, Tilly, let’s establish something. I’m not the one who’s uneasy: that is, not much. You are.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes. I want to know the reason for your sudden plunge into match-making. Not that I’m not grateful. But why? To be specific, what’s on your mind?’

‘All right; you asked for it,’ breathed Tilly. She sat for a time silent under the light of the hanging-lamp above the desk; which showed her foreshortened, as though she were squeezed together like a concertina. Her plump hands were tightly clenched, the flesh shiny and sagging across the backs of her hands; and the big wedding-ring glittered as she twisted it.

‘Because Monica’s a nice kid,’ she said. ‘And if you don’t take care of her, nobody will. She’s scared, Bill.’

‘Scared? Why?’

‘Because I’ve got an idea,’ answered Tilly, looking him in the eyes, ‘that somebody is going to try to kill her, and maybe to-night.’

1

I
T
had returned again.

So he was a cashiered prophet, was he? A demoted calamity-howler at whom both Hackett and Fisk now grinned? Back to him in one rush came all the beliefs whose importance had been swept aside under the advent of war: the evidence at which nobody would look and the theories to which nobody would listen. He remembered an interview he had had with Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters in London a fortnight ago. He remembered how Masters had assured him, blandly, that it was probably all a practical joke; that it would be criminal to bother Sir Henry Merrivale with it, at a time like this; and that he would only clog the already overburdened post office by writing.

Yet in the lower drawer of that desk he had his evidence.

‘How do you know that?’ he demanded. His voice sounded shatteringly loud in the white-painted room.

‘Sh-h! That’s what I think, anyway.’

‘But how do you know it?’

‘Anonymous letters. She’s had two of them in the past week. Maybe more, for all I know.’

Cartwright took Tilly firmly by the arm. He led her across the room and into the cloakroom, which was no more than a biggish compartment built into one corner of the office. It had a small window, which escaped the necessity for war-time curtains by being covered with black paint. The place was a mess, since he, like Tilly, brewed coffee to write on; but this was not a time to apologize for the housekeeping. He closed the door and switched on the light.

‘Now, then,’ he said, ‘stop whispering and tell me what you mean.’

Tilly herself seemed scared by the earnestness of his manner. But her jaw was defiant.

‘Read that,’ she said. ‘Go on; read it.’

It was a folded half-sheet of notepaper, of the pinkish sort you can buy at Woolworth’s, which she took out of her coat pocket and flung at him. On it there were a few lines of writing in dark-blue ink.

All right, Bright-eyes. I’m not through with you yet. Your Dad and your Aunt Flossie are going to get a pleasant surprise soon. The vitriol was a wash-out; but I’ve got another little treat saved up for you. This time you won’t be able to jump back
.

It was not only that the writing itself seemed to breathe malice in every line. But he only saw what he expected to see.

In his mind was a vivid memory of a blackboard by the door of sound-stage number three, with words scrawled across it in chalk. A photograph of those words lay in the lower drawer of his desk now. And, so far as he could tell without comparison, the handwriting of this letter was the same as the handwriting on the blackboard.

William Cartwright felt slightly sick.

‘You say she’s been getting letters like this?’

‘Two, anyway. One came this morning.’

‘What did it say?’

‘I don’t know, honey. She didn’t show me any of ’em.’

‘Then how did you get this?’

‘I stole it,’ returned Tilly, without embarrassment. ‘I thought it was time somebody did.’

‘You stole it?’

‘Out of her bedroom. I couldn’t get a look at the letter she got to-day, except for just a flash. It said something about “to-night”. That didn’t look so good to little Tilly.’

It was still difficult to realize. ‘You say she’s been getting these letters for a week and still hasn’t said anything about it to anybody?’

‘Of course not,’ growled Tilly, angrily taking another cigarette out of her pocket and lighting it. A bit of tobacco adhered to her broad-painted mouth: she dislodged it with a scarlet finger-nail, still angrily. ‘The girl’s movie-crazy. She’s dippy about all this. I’ve been in this game for eighteen years; and I’ve seen it happen time and time and time again. You think it’s dull. I think it’s good bread-and-butter. But
she
thinks it’s wonderful.’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s afraid they’ll send her away, and not let her work in sight of all the lovely sets. Look, Bill. I’ve been hearing rumours. They was something that happened two or three weeks ago – something about vitriol – ?’

She paused.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Tilly’s mouth was grim. But the shadow of both anger and fright lurked about her wizened eyelids.

‘That’s a kid for you. That’s a kid all over. She says ha-ha to these letters. She’s much more afraid Tommy Hackett will find out about the letters, and think she’s in danger, and chase her away for her own good. Judas, I give up. It’s some situation. What with a maniac hanging around the place, and never going to bed without wondering whether the air-raid siren’s going to go –’

This was the sort of talk which must be stopped.

‘Now, Tilly,’ he said wearily, ‘don’t you start talking like that. You’re in absolutely no danger. Don’t you know that?’

‘Oh, yes, I know. I know England’s got the Air Force. I know that the minute somebody takes a crack at London, they’ll go over the next night and blow Berlin to glory. But that’s no consolation to
me
. Judas, will I be glad when this job’s over and I can get back to the States?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, Tilly, it’s your privilege to go now, if you want to.’

‘Look,’ said Tilly. She put one flabby hand on the edge of the table that held the gas-ring, and grinned at him. ‘What I want is a cocktail and some dinner, that’s all. If the English can think these black-outs are no trouble at all, I can take it too. You’re a funny crowd: the more trouble they put you to, the more jokes you make about it. It’s just this waiting – like what that kid in there must be doing.’

She took a handkerchief out of the inexhaustible pocket of her flannel suit, and blew her nose.

‘But, you see, the kid won’t tell me anything! I was there when she got the first letter. I said: “Is anything wrong, dearie?” and she just said: “No.” Like that.’

‘How does she get these letters? Through the post?’

‘No. By hand.’

Cartwright stared at her. ‘By hand? At the Merefield Country Club?’

‘At the Merefield Country Club. They get pushed under the door. At least, two of ’em were.’

‘Who else lives at the club beside you two?’

‘The whole damn shoot. Tommy Hackett and Howard Fisk and Dick Conyers and Bella Darless and – no, Mr and Mrs Gagern have got a cottage like you, you plutocrat. There’s another pair of love-birds for you. But anybody’s got access to the club.’ Tilly finished blowing her nose; she winked her eyes, returned the handkerchief to her pocket, and drew deeply at the cigarette. ‘Anyway, that’s my story. It’s no business of mine. But I don’t want to see that kid wind up behind the eight-ball if I can help it. Now then, Bill Cartwright, are you going to go and shave off that spinach, and go straight in and have it out with Monica, or aren’t you?’