And So To Murder (12 page)

He snorted.

‘You can bet I am, Tilly. Though never mind the spinach. That can wait for more important –’

‘Oh, you dope!’ shouted Tilly, transformed. She reached up and laid hold of his shoulders. ‘Can’t you get it through your thick head how important that is?’

Cartwright set himself, and made a broad oratorical gesture which knocked to the floor, with a ringing clatter, a pan half-full of coffee-grounds.

‘My dear Tilly, if my beard is such an offence in the sight of heaven, very well. Off it comes. There is my hand on it. But just at the moment I have some comparisons to make. I think I know who this malicious swine is’ – he held up the letter – ‘but for the life of me I can’t tell
why
. There is a certain person I have been keeping an eye on (with some care, Tilly) for the past three weeks. And in my desk out there …’

‘
Hello
!’ called Monica’s voice, from the other room. There was a noise of quick footsteps. ‘Hello! Where have you two hidden yourselves?’

2

She was standing in the middle of Cartwright’s office when a guilty-looking pair tumbled out of the cloakroom.

He wondered if she had overheard. For the atmosphere had changed. Monica’s manner was very casual, though there was colour under her eyes. She wore blue slacks and a blue jumper, and had a light coat drawn across her shoulders. Her long, soft hair was somewhat disarranged; a stain of typewriter-ink on her fingers had been partly transferred to her cheek.

‘Oh, there you are,’ she said without inflexion. ‘Tilly, what does it mean when it says the camera “dollies back and pans out”?’

‘What’s that, dearie?’

‘What does it mean when it says the camera “dollies back and pans out”?’

Tilly explained, though Cartwright was certain he had answered the same question from her a fortnight ago.

‘Oh,’ said Monica.

She put her finger on Cartwright’s desk, and twisted it there. She hesitated. The grey-blue eyes, widely spaced on either side of the short nose, sent an oblique glance between Tilly and Cartwright.

She hesitated again.

‘I’ve blacked out your windows,’ she went on, as though from a hollow silence. ‘I mean in your room, Tilly.’

‘Thanks, dearie.’

‘Please, can’t you do it yourself more often? I – I mean, see that they’re
properly
blacked out? It always makes me jump when that man comes bawling under the windows, at the same eternal time every night, shouting “lights” at us.’

‘I’ll attend to it, honey.’

Monica stopped twisting her finger on the table.

‘What were you two whispering about?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, dearie. Nothing at all!’

‘What’s the good of talking like that?’ Cartwright suddenly demanded. He took the sheet of pink notepaper out of his pocket and put it on the table by her finger. ‘We were talking about you, Monica. We’ve got to have this out. We –’

He stopped just as suddenly, while the emotional temperature of the room shot up.

The door to the corridor opened, catching them all in that same mid-flight of emotion. There appeared in the doorway the beaming and benevolent face of Howard Fisk.

‘Evening, everybody,’ he whispered, rapping on the inside of the door to emphasize his entrance. ‘What sort of hours do you people keep down here, anyway?’

Monica had checked herself, her lips half open and her fists clenched. Tilly Parsons coughed loudly. Only Fisk himself seemed unconscious of an atmosphere. He lumbered under the doorway, exuding an odour of tweeds, an old hat on the back of his head.

‘You’ve been living like hermits down here,’ he complained; and his pince-nez twinkled. ‘Nobody’s seen the face of any of you for a week. Hello, Tilly. Hello, Monica. Hello, Bill. Now see here, all of you. I’m here to take Monica out to dinner.’

Monica turned her head sideways.

‘Dinner?’ she echoed.

‘Yes, dinner. I’ve barked my shins and broken my neck to get down from the main building without a torch; and I won’t take no for an answer. Up there I’ve got a golden chariot, with petrol in it for probably the last time. We’re going into town and splurge at the Dorchester; and we’re not going to dress for it either. Hop to it, young lady.’

‘But, Mr Fisk –’

‘The name is Howard.’

‘I can’t,’ said Monica. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t.’

‘Just tell me why not.’

Monica suddenly seemed to be conscious of the ink-stains on her fingers.

‘Because I can’t, honestly. This is Monday. You and Mr Hackett are coming in on Wednesday to look at the completed script; and I’m ’way behind. It’s the detective part.’ Her eyes slid towards Cartwright.

‘Oh, tut, tut! Hackett doesn’t pay you to be as conscientious as that. It’ll keep for one night. Come on!’

‘I can’t. I’m terribly sorry.’

Howard Fisk hesitated.

‘I don’t know what’s the matter,’ he complained, ‘that I can never get you to go out with me. What about you, Tilly?’

‘Sorry; got a date already.’

The director drew a deep breath. His air was disconsolate. He turned to Monica. ‘Well, then, if you insist on being business-like, I may as well not waste a trip down here. I wonder if I could see you alone for five minutes? It’s Sequence B, that underground business. Do you think we could clean it up now?’

‘
No
!’ said Tilly Parsons.

It was involuntary. It burst from her in her harshest croak; it jabbed the nerves like a needle under a tooth; it startled them all, but notably Fisk, who turned in obvious surprise.

‘Eh?’ he said.

In a fraction of a second Tilly was herself again. She laughed like a corn-crake. She dropped her cigarette on the linoleum floor, and trod it out.

‘What a woman,’ she mocked herself. ‘Just a touch of hang-over, that’s all. I was out with the boys last night, and I can still feel the floor rock in that pub. Pay no attention.’

‘Of course,’ said Monica. ‘Please come into my office, Mr Fisk.’

She held open the door.

Past her shoulder and through the door, they could see one wall of the little office. Monica was as tidy in her habits as she was untidy of thought. On a side-table against the wall were neatly ranged a little line of reference-books, an untouched ream of paper with two erasers, and her gas-mask in a leather container. Over it on the wall hung a framed photograph of Canon Stanton. This last had caused some ribaldry among those who visited the room; but to Cartwright – his senses and his imagination strung up – it brought a domestic touch, a feeling of honest things in a house of make-believe.

The door closed behind the other two; and Tilly glowered at him.

‘Well,’ she said grimly, ‘you sure blurted it out. About the letters. What are you going to do now?’

‘Wait until Howard goes, and blurt out the rest of it.’

‘I thought so,’ said Tilly. ‘In that case, there’s something I’ve got to get. I’ll be back in a minute; so hold everything.’

He did not hear her go. The image of words, written on a pinkish sheet of paper out of a sixpenny box, rose in his mind with too much unpleasant suggestion.

All right, Bright-eyes. I’m not through with you yet
.

He had thought there might be something on the way, and he was right.

Your Dad and your Aunt Flossie are going to get a pleasant surprise soon
.

He went back to his desk. Taking a bunch of keys out of his pocket, he unlocked the lower drawer. It contained a typewritten résumé of what had happened in the sound-stage on the afternoon of August 23rd, with accounts of where people said they were at various times. It contained a certain empty bottle. It contained a big photograph of the writing on the blackboard.

He put the piece of pink notepaper side by side with the photograph, and took a glass to them.

It checked. There could be no doubt whatever about that. The handwriting on the blackboard was the same as the handwriting on the letter.

The vitriol was a wash-out; but I’ve got another little treat saved up for you
.

There was not a sound in the whole building except the faint drone of voices from Monica’s room. The lamp, in its dark conical shade, shed a bright light on the metal fittings of the typewriter. William Cartwright put down the magnifying-glass. He stared at the keys of the typewriter. He picked up a pipe at random, and chewed on the stem of it.

Presently he pulled open the upper drawer of his desk. That drawer contained, in addition to paper and envelopes, some rough notes for a new story: they concerned a certain virulent poison, the way to procure that poison, and a diabolically ingenious way of administering it. If his mind had not been occupied with other matters, he would have had the sense to lock those notes into the lower drawer.

But he never thought of it. He rolled a sheet of notepaper into the carriage of the typewriter, dated it, and wrote rapidly:

Sir Henry Merrivale,

The War Office,

Whitehall, SW
I

Dear Sir,

I am a friend of Chief Inspector Masters: I will not waste your time with further introductions.

We need help and we need advice. If I were not sure that the matter concerned your department, Military Intelligence, I should not bother you. Just under three weeks ago, we had a near-murder here. I think I can tell you who is responsible –

‘Here you are, honey,’ said Tilly Parsons, appearing suddenly at his elbow. She banged down on the desk not only a pair of nail-scissors but a pair of long-bladed paper-cutting scissors as well.

‘Go away,’ said William Cartwright wildly.

‘Come on, honey,’ said Tilly, with sternness. ‘Take off that spinach. If the nail-scissors won’t do to start it, the big ones will.’

To devil a man engaged in literary composition is one of the primary mistakes which can be made by the daughters of Eve.

‘For the love of Satan and all the thrice-accursed hosts,’ howled Cartwright, starting up, ‘will you get out of here and stay out? Aroint ye. Scram. Can’t you think of anything but beards? Are you mad on the subject of beards? I am trying to devote serious attention to a serious question, and all you can think of –’

Tilly extended the long-bladed scissors.

‘For the last time, laddie, will you take off that spinach?’

‘For the last time, woman, I will not.’

Tilly was a woman of action. She hesitated no longer. The big scissors were extended, and she handled them with the precision of a swordsman. With one deft chop she cut off not only the end of Cartwright’s beard but very nearly the end of his chin as well.

‘Now will you take ’em off?’ she asked.

Some weeks ago, Monica Stanton had been merely stupefied – past speech – by a lack of tact which seemed to her to be beyond human comprehension. It was now William Cartwright’s turn to feel the same emotion. He merely stared at Tilly. He saw red. A more easy-going man did not exist, but for a moment he quite seriously considered picking up the chair and hitting her over the head with it.

Cold rage ensued. He took the scissors from Tilly, who was really alarmed now. He walked quietly into the cloakroom. He switched on the light. He ran hot water into the wash-bowl. He arranged shaving-tackle on the glass shelf above it.

In ten minutes the beard was no more.

‘Judas!’ said Tilly wonderingly. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it could make so much improvement. It makes you look ten years younger. It makes you not bad-looking, even. Are you going to take off the moustache, too?’

He looked at her for a second, and then turned back to the wash-bowl.

‘Now, you whey-faced witch,’ shouted the impolite Mr Cartwright, turning round in conclusion and hurling the towel over the gas-ring, ‘is there anything further I can do for you? Would you care to see me have my appendix out? Would it amuse you if I shaved my head and painted it green? If so –’

‘Don’t get sore, honey. You’ve cut your chin. Stick some stuff on it.’

‘Good night, everybody!’ cried Howard Fisk’s voice, distinctly. ‘If you people don’t want your dinner, I do. Good night.’

A door slammed.

‘Now’s your chance,’ hissed Tilly. ‘Go on in and do your stuff. I’ll be waiting in my room. You look fine. You don’t look like Mr William Cartwright. You look like Bill.’

It seemed to the newly christened Bill, as she impelled him across the room, that both he and Tilly were behaving in a somewhat ridiculous manner.

If he could not put his finger on the way in which they were behaving foolishly, he at least knew why. Tilly behaved so because she was nervous. He behaved so because he was in love with Monica Stanton, and didn’t give a damn.

Yet, as he lifted his hand to knock, he experienced certain qualms. His face, still tingling, felt very bare. Hitherto that beard had been his defence in encounters; he had marched, so to speak, behind brush, like Macduff against Dunsinane. The beard had given him (he thought) an appearance of mature years and sober wisdom. That was why he had grown it. His ideal, so far as appearances went, would have been to attain the age of about forty-five and stay there.

He knocked.

‘Monica –’

She did not turn round.

She was sitting at her desk in the middle of the room, with her back to him, bent over the typewriter. The light, brilliant and unshaded, showed the side of a flushed face. He felt that she was angry. What he did not know was that the girl was very near to tears.

‘Monica –’

‘So it was you,’ she said, still without turning round, ‘who stole it.’

His mind, momentarily diverted, was brought up against this with a bump. A cloud of cigarette-smoke hung in the room.

‘Stole what?’

‘You know what. That letter.’

Comprehension returned; and, with it, determination. ‘Monica, look here. You’ve got to listen to me. I didn’t steal your letter, but I ruddy well would have if I’d known anything about it. I want to help you. Curse it all, I lo –’

‘Oh!’ gasped Monica.

This was where she turned round.

It was an all-too-natural reaction: she laughed in his face. She leaned back, kicking her heels on the floor, and whooped with mirth until the tears came.

After a frozen silence he looked round. He saw the flushed, lovely face distorted with merriment; he saw even the photograph of Canon Stanton smiling indulgently at him from the wall. But something can here be said to the credit of the new Bill Cartwright. He did not, as his first impulse was, turn round and walk out of the room. He advanced to the desk.