Close Quarters (9 page)

‘Not bad,' said Hazlerigg. ‘Check up on the earlier train; he might have been seen. And that bag – he must have left it somewhere, as you say. Probably not in the cloakroom, though. It's only got one thing against it, and that is Malthus himself. He didn't strike me as possessing that sort of nerve. And you have still failed to produce a motive.'

‘I think the motive, when discovered, will be somehow mixed up with the first attacks on Appledown – and, come to think of it, Malthus was in as good a position as anyone with regard to that part of the business. In fact, better than most. As vicar choral he would have the anthems under his hand, and I believe he is supposed to be attached to the school as a master. Always assuming, of course, that the anti-Appledown campaign is connected with his murder.'

For the first time that evening Hazlerigg's equanimity appeared to have deserted him. He was clearly troubled. ‘There is a connection,' he said doggedly. ‘I know there's a connection, if only we were clever enough to see it. But we must be terribly careful. We mustn't half see it, or see it from the wrong angle, or it may blind us to what we really do want to see.'

Pollock was so unused to this defeatism on the part of the inspector that he must have showed a startled face, the immediate effect of which was to make Hazlerigg laugh.

‘We're not done yet,' he said, ‘though the immediate future is obscure. We have a conference with the Chief Constable tomorrow at ten, in order that we may report progress – if any. I propose to set out the bare bones of the case against Malthus; all his movements must be checked. We can hand all that over to them; they'll do it better than we can. But there are one or two things I meant to look at before then. Are you very tired?'

‘Not a bit,' lied Pollock loyally and suppressing an aching desire for bed. ‘Never felt more awake in my life.'

‘First, then, about Appledown's private affairs. It seems that he was either a very methodical or else a very secretive man. You may remember seeing a desk full of papers in the old chap's sitting-room; it looked as if we had a heavy job in front of us there. Well, I handed it over to the local men and I got a report from them this evening. Apparently there's nothing there at all! Nothing at all private, that's to say. Piles of bulb and seed catalogues and newspaper cuttings about everything and nothing, and old service lists from the year dot, and a bundle of receipted bills – all local tradesmen and for small amounts. But as for letters or notebooks or diaries or writings of any sort – they drew a complete blank.'

‘Didn't his brother show us some specimens of his handwriting?'

‘He did,' answered Hazlerigg, ‘they were lists of household duties which he had made out at some time for his brother – rather a nice domestic touch, don't you think? I sent them up to headquarters with the note we found pinned up beside the door. I'm rather anxious to have an expert opinion on the writing. Well, as I was saying, the men who searched the desk had found nothing; in fact they had finished and were giving it up as a bad job when one of them saw a pink edge of paper sticking out at the corner of one of the small escritoire drawers. Something had slipped down behind the back of the woodwork, and they had the devil of a job to fish it out, but I think it repaid their efforts. Here it is.'

He pushed over to Pollock a very much crumpled scrap of pink paper. It bore the royal arms and the heading “Post Office Savings Bank,” followed by a serial number, and it ran: “The Postmaster-General has been notified of the sum of £300 by cheque for the credit of the above described account in the books of this department,” followed by Appledown's name and address.

‘Acting on the hint contained in the words “by cheque” they did what we ought to have done already, they went round to see the manager of Appledown's bank. He must have been less obstructive than the genus usually are, for they soon had the information they wanted. Appledown was a wealthy man. He had a current account of over a hundred pounds, and nine hundred pounds on deposit. Further than that, the manager volunteered the information that Appledown had in the past bought a good deal of rather speculative stock through him, though what had become of the certificates he was unable to say.'

‘And the man who gets it all is that rascal of a brother, I suppose. There's motive enough and to spare.'

‘But it won't hold water,' replied Hazlerigg with a grin. ‘Wait a minute; I haven't finished with the bank manager yet. He further produced what is indubitably the last will and testament of Daniel Appledown; by it he gives, devises, and bequeaths his entire estate (real and personal) to the Friends of Melchester Cathedral for the restoration and upkeep of the fabric.'

‘But his brother mayn't have known—'

‘The witnesses,' went on Hazlerigg smoothly, ‘were the bank manager himself and Artful Appledown.'

‘Game, set, and match to Appledown,' conceded Pollock. ‘But what a fantastic situation! It amounts to this; if there was one person in the whole wide world who would want to keep Appledown alive and healthy, that person was his brother. Yet he didn't appear very worried this afternoon.'

‘Artful's deep. As deep as the Atlantic Ocean and about as difficult to cross. But he didn't commit this murder.'

‘Surely,' said Pollock, branching off on a new train of thought, ‘if Appledown was really a man of wealth and means he must have had private papers – unless he kept them all at his bank. Do you think he carried a pass-book with him?'

‘I know he didn't.' Hazlerigg unlocked his dispatch case and took out of it a gold half-hunter watch, a cheap fountain pen, a wallet containing five one-pound notes and a ticket to the free library, a handful of small change tied loosely in a rather dirty handkerchief, and last of all a bunch of steel keys of all shapes and sizes – some new, some with their wards and barrels worn thin and shiny. Each one had a little bone label, and Pollock read “West Door,” “Library” and “Cloisters,” cheek by jowl with “Front Door,” “Coal Cellar,” and even “Larder.”

‘A careful man, the late head verger,' remarked Hazlerigg. ‘Careful of his own and his master's property. Fast bind, fast find.'

‘Yet he went off without any precautions to a rather curious and lonely assignation.'

Pollock thought at first that the inspector had not heard him; he made no sign of having done so. At last he said: ‘That's a very good point; I confess that it had not occurred to me.'

Pollock wondered what new train of thought had started on his casual remark. He also wondered how long he could keep awake.

Hazlerigg may have divined the thought, for he looked at his watch with a little tchk! of surprise; it was past one o'clock. ‘Enough for one day,' he said.

Pollock felt suddenly dispirited and very tired.

‘I can't believe it,' he said impulsively. ‘They all looked so damnably normal. Don't you think it's just possible that we're mistaken, and some outsider did it after all? A tramp asleep in the shed, and annoyed at being disturbed by Appledown, or perhaps a small piece of stone dropping off the top of the spire. I read somewhere in a book that even a lump of sugar would kill you if it fell far enough. Or perhaps Appledown had a thundering apoplexy and fell and hit his head.'

‘You've been reading detective stories,' said Hazlerigg good-humouredly; he seemed quite untired by his day's work. ‘Find me a piece of stone, yes, even the size of a sugar lump, or some signs of your disembodied tramp who slays head vergers and flies over stone walls, or even a little tiny symptom of apoplexy. I for one should be only too glad to see it. No.' His face grew suddenly serious, and Pollock recognised such a quality of determination in the heavy jowl and the shrewd grey eyes as startled him back to wakefulness.

‘There's a mind behind this business, make no mistake about that. A very fine brain, cool, calculating, and deadly careful. Every step, every single step, has been thought out beforehand. I have felt that once—twice—three times already today. It's all in there, if you care to look for it.'

He stubbed a thick forefinger at the pile of papers which littered the table between them.

‘Do you know,' he went on, ‘I've got an unchancy feeling about this affair – what the Scots call a “grue.” There are more than fifty people sleeping over there in that Close – fifty ordinary people, as you say – kindly people, clever and stupid in different ways. But one man isn't sleeping. He isn't sleeping because his brain is turning over and over, considering, probing, questioning. Not the wild thoughts of a half-baked intelligence – the sort of criminal (you know him as well as I do) who gives himself away to the police by his own silly lack of nerve. But the calm and clever thoughts of a man confident in his own ability. Fifty ordinary brains and one with this extraordinary kink in it. Not madness, but sanity – a sort of terrible sanity. When we discover the truth we shall find it as something simple and obvious. Its simplicity will be its strength. No elaboration, no frills, nothing to catch hold of.'

‘Nothing to catch hold of,' repeated Pollock dully, desperately sleepy but hypnotised by the sincerity in Hazlerigg's voice.

‘What shall we do about it? We shall come at him again and again, searching for the weaknesses in his plan. And our unknown will be at our elbow helping us – chatting with us – we may sit in his drawing-room, admire his garden, laugh at his jokes. But in the end, if we are clever enough, probe deep enough, look in the right places – it's a slender chance, but we may scare him. And what will he do then?'

‘What will he do then,' repeated Pollock dreamily.

‘He'll make at last – God willing – that one deadly mistake which has brought the greatest murderers to the scaffold. He'll try to improve on perfection. He'll elaborate. He'll begin to wonder whether something hasn't been left undone. Some clue may be staring us in the face. Quick! Out of sight with it! Someone may let drop a remark. Really quite an innocent remark. Our murderer hears it and begins to wonder. Is that man safe? Has he seen something he shouldn't see – heard something he wasn't meant to hear? That man must be extinguished, too. But quickly, on the spur of the moment. No time for elaborate preparation or a careful alibi. And we shall be close on his heels. We shall have him then,' he added simply. ‘For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.'

This last remark Inspector Hazlerigg made softly to himself. His audience was asleep.

9

A FEW SHORT CASTS

‘To that extent,' said Hazlerigg, ‘we have proved that the murder was probably committed by a resident of the Close. According to your doctor's opinion we can narrow the field further and say a
male
resident of the Close. We can begin from there.'

It was a five-power conference. The Chief Constable was in the chair, and besides Hazlerigg and Pollock there were present both Inspector Palfrey of the Melset Constabulary – fat, cheerful, and spasmodically helpful – and the lugubrious Sergeant Parks. The time was a few minutes after nine; the Chief Constable, displaying that unselfish attention to public duty which is typical of an English gentleman, had arisen a full hour before his accustomed time in order to be there.

His manner proclaimed as much.

‘I've already told you,' went on Hazlerigg, ‘how we imagine the job to have been done. The time, also, can be settled with fair accuracy. Appledown was alive until about five minutes past eight, but was dead before the rain began at ten minutes past eight. Yet, as you see, at first sight it would appear impossible for any one of our suspects to have murdered him at that particular moment, unless two or more of than did it together, and then they might have combined to rig up an alibi, but that, at the moment, I'm not prepared to believe.'

‘Then what you say is this.' The Chief Constable was displaying a heftyish wit. ‘Someone in the Close did the job, and yet none of them could have done it, hey? I'm a man of ordinary intelligence, you know, Inspector, but it doesn't seem to me—'

‘Quite so.' Hazlerigg was unabashed. ‘But it's too early yet to talk about what's possible and what's impossible. If I may employ a metaphor myself, sir, before we start building we have to do a good deal of demolition. Gearing the site, you might call it. And our big obstacle at the moment is that confounded wall round the Close. It keeps a lot of 'em in, it's true; that's a help in a way, but it shuts other people out, and that's convenient too – convenient for them, I mean.'

‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage,' suggested Inspector Palfrey happily.

‘Yes, well, I want you, if you will, sir, to do this for me. Find out by inquiry amongst your men – after all, I suppose they ought to know, if anyone does – if it's considered possible to climb into the Close. Is it feasible to do it without being seen? Is it possible? Has anyone ever done it, and if not why not? That sort of thing.'

‘I can tell you the answer to that myself,' said Inspector Palfrey. ‘I walked a beat in Melchester for fifteen years, outside the Close and in, and you can take it from me that climbing over those walls is an impossibility. I believe boys used to do it once upon a time by climbing up the trees and dropping down inside the walls – I never caught them at it. But now they've cut down most of the trees and taken all the branches off the others, it'd be a job to climb the tree itself, let alone the wall. I should say myself that it was the third biggest impossibility in the Close – the other two being to get a rise out of Canon Bloss, or a subscription out of Canon Prynne.' He laughed heartily at his own pet apophthegm.

‘Hum – well, we must leave it at that, I suppose. Now, secondly, I want the commissionaire on duty at the cinema put through it – gently, you know. He will probably tell you that Canon Prynne spoke to him on Tuesday night when he was on his way in. Find out what time that happened – the exact time, if you can. The man may be able to remember. Commissionaires often get asked the time, and when films start and so on. Then I want to know whether he saw Prynne coming out afterwards – at about five past nine, that should be. I want to know whether it would be possible for anyone to leave the cinema and re-enter it during a performance without the commissionaire seeing him. Could someone do that for me as soon as possible?'

Sergeant Parks implied his willingness to undertake the task, and momentarily ceased eating his pencil in order to make a note in his book.

‘Thirdly, is anything known about an inn called the Victoria and Albert, and its licensed proprietor – a certain Mr. Begg?'

This innocent query produced a remarkable effect. Sergeant Parks glanced sharply at Inspector Palfrey, and both men started to speak at once. As is common on such occasions each reduced the other to silence, and this afforded a fine opening for the Chief Constable. On a sudden he had lost every trace of good humour.

‘That man!' he cried explosively. ‘I might have supposed we should find
him
in it somewhere; he's the biggest scoundrel in Melchester, that's what
he
is. He's more trouble and nuisance than the whole of the Licensed Victualler's Association rolled together. It's my considered opinion that he's a radical.'

Hazlerigg asked what the man had done.

‘We've had three complaints against him for keeping open after hours,' said Sergeant Parks sorrowfully, ‘but we've never convicted him. It's a great pity.'

‘It's intolerable,' amended the Chief Constable. It was not entirely plain whether it was intolerable of Mr. Begg to have stayed open after hours, or not to have allowed himself to be convicted for so doing.

‘How did he get off,' ventured Hazlerigg, ‘some jiggery-pokery with the clock?'

‘Black perjury, you mean.' The Chief Constable turned on Sergeant Parks. ‘It was your case, wasn't it?'

Sergeant Parks agreed unhappily that it had been his case. The memory of it appeared to pain him.

Hazlerigg interposed tactfully. ‘I don't think we need go into details about it. I take it we may assume that this man Begg is an unreliable witness, and a man who would certainly go out of his way to hinder the police.'

‘That's right,' said Sergeant Parks, ‘unreliable and nasty.'

‘Assume it by all means,' agreed the Chief Constable. ‘How is it going to help us?'

‘At the moment, not at all. It might prove useful if we found any reason to shift our suspicions on to Parvin.' Briefly he related to them evidence relevant to the second verger and his movements. ‘At the moment I think we must concentrate on Malthus. There's almost a prima facie case against him.'

‘I agree,' said the Chief Constable. ‘On the facts that you've given us, I agree. Now, if you could suggest any positive motive for the crime – I should say, take a risk and pull him in. Arrest 'em first and prove it afterwards, eh, Palfrey?'

This frank inversion of police procedure appeared to upset the jovial inspector, who looked deprecatingly at Hazlerigg and ventured his first coherent comment.

‘I had a report, sir,' he murmured, ‘about Mrs. Malthus. You know you asked us to check up on her movements. Well, we've found one or two people who saw her about the town yesterday evening, but after six o'clock she seems to have disappeared. Vanished into thin air, as you might say. And she never went into Smith's reading-room, like she said. The young lady there knows her well by sight, and she was most positive of that.'

‘Curious,' remarked Hazlerigg, ‘curious and suggestive. But it doesn't necessarily prove anything against Malthus himself. I incline to think that we need more evidence before we act; though, mind you, he's got a lot of explaining to do. If we're right in our suspicions we should be able to find someone who saw him arrive by the earlier train – or saw him on his way down to the station. He can't have flown. That's the line to concentrate on. And he'll have to be watched. Discreetly, of course. I leave it to you.'

An hour later, as Pollock and Hazlerigg finally left the Chief Constable's office, they passed the door of the station-sergeant's inner sanctum. The only sign of life was Sergeant Parks (back elevation) wrestling like some modern Laocoön with an extension telephone. They attended, with what patience they could muster, to the usual one-sided conversation.

‘Ah. That's right. Freedom of the press, eh? Oh, ‘e did, did ‘e? Just spell it. C-R-U-N … what? Oh, M for monkey … all right. I heard. Oh, yes, that was the house where … so it was.' Long pause. ‘Oh, ‘e did?' Inflexion of surprise. ‘Ah, did ‘e, though?' Ditto cynicism.

A succession of neutral h'mps brought the sergeant to something which he evidently considered of first importance, for he produced his ever-ready pencil and inscribed on the back of an old envelope: ‘He … did … not mind … a … practical joke … but … he … drew … the … line … at … murder.'

A final hysterical cackle and Sergeant Parks rang off.

‘Message from Starminster,' he said, ‘they've had a man in the station this morning – tells a funny story by the sound of it. Apparently he read an article in the paper – the local paper that'd be – about this business here. It sent him round to the police station in double-quick time, saying he'd been the victim of a practical joke – name of Crumbles.'

‘What sort of a joke?' asked Pollock.

‘Well, it was like this. Some time ago, more than a month, he had a big envelope come by post. He'd destroyed it, of course – they always do. The envelope, I mean. Inside it was another packet of letters and envelopes and postcards, all stamped and written and dated. Pinned on to it was a letter – he had the sense to keep that – it simply said, “I'm having a joke on some of my pals in the Close. Will you send off these letters on the dates indicated? Enclosed find a pound for your trouble. When the last one has arrived here I'll send you another pound. Nothing criminal about it, just a joke.” “Well,” he says to himself, no doubt, “A pound's a pound.” I dare say he read some of the letters – silly from what I can hear, but no harm in 'em. Seeing that article in the paper though, it puts the wind up him properly.'

Hazlerigg smiled the smile of a man who has improved on Providence by casting his bread upon the waters and finding it good and early the next morning.

‘We'll get a proper statement from him this evening,' continued Sergeant Parks. ‘There's another thing you might like to hear. About that cinema. I saw the man myself. If you want a thing done properly – you know the old saying. Well, I can't help thinking that this ‘ere canon of yours must be a talkative sort of bloke. He spoke to the commissionaire when he was going in, as well as when he was coming out, and twice during the performance. Once he wanted to shift his seat, and once to complain that someone had stolen his umbrella, which was found subsequently, two rows back. He also passed the time of day with the girl who tears your ticket in half and the girl who shows you into your seat. He also bought a box of chocolates, which he left behind, and an ice-cream, I don't know what became of that. And I dare say,' concluded the sergeant sorrowfully, ‘that every now and then he found time to take a peep at the film.'

‘Holy Christmas,' breathed Hazlerigg. ‘Can that be true?' It was an expression he rarely used, and was the very token and sign manual of his profoundest interest.