Murder Must Advertise (30 page)

“No, I didn't. I'll tell you why. I looked in your letter-box, and I saw a letter there from Miss Dean, and I–I didn't dare go upstairs. I was afraid I might let myself go. I felt like murdering you. So I went off and wandered about till I was too done-up to think.”

“I see. You didn't make any attempt to get hold of me at all?”

“No.”

“Oh, well, that's that.” Bredon dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand. “It's quite all right. It doesn't matter. I was only a little bit puzzled about the pencil.”

“The pencil?”

“Yes. I found it on the top landing, you see, just outside my door. I couldn't quite understand how it got there, that's all.”

“It wasn't me. I didn't go upstairs.”

“How long did you stay in the house?”

“Only a few minutes.”

“In the front hall downstairs all the time?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, well then, it can't have been your pencil. It's very odd, because those pencils aren't on the market, as you know.”

“Perhaps you dropped it yourself.”

“Well, perhaps I did. That seems the likeliest explanation, doesn't it? It's not of any importance.”

There was a short and rather uncomfortable pause. Willis broke it by asking in a constrained tone:

“What did you want to ask my advice about?”

“About the old subject,” said Bredon; “perhaps, now that we've had this little explanation, you may find it easier to tell me what I want to know. Circumstances have brought me up against the Dean family, and I feel a certain amount of curiosity about the late lamented Victor. From his sister I gather that he was a good, kind brother, but unfortunately a little wild in his morals–which means, I take it, that he became infatuated with Dian de Momerie. According to her, he took his sister to various places to meet the fair Dian; you interfered; Miss Dean then realized what the situation was, and withdrew from the association, while quite naturally and illogically resenting your interference; and finally Dian de Momerie shut down on Victor and sent him off home. That's true, as far as it goes, I imagine?”

“Yes,” said Willis, “except that I don't believe Dean ever was really infatuated with the de Momerie woman. I think he was flattered, and I think he thought he could make something out of her. As a matter of fact, he was a mean little beast.”

“Did she give him money?”

“Yes, she did; but he didn't get much out of that, because he found that crowd so expensive to run with. He wasn't naturally one of that sort. He didn't enjoy gambling, though he had to do it, to keep in with them; and he wasn't a drinker. In some ways, I'd have liked him better if he had been. He wouldn't dope, either. I expect that's why Miss de Momerie got tired of him. The worst of that crowd, you know, is that they can't rest till they've made everybody they have to do with as bad as themselves. If they'd only drug themselves into their graves and have done with it, the sooner they did it the better it would be for every one. I'd cheerfully hand the stuff over to them by the cartload. But they get hold of quite decent people and ruin them for life. That's why I got so worried about Pamela.”

“But you say that Victor managed to remain undefiled.”

“Yes, but Pamela's different. She's rather impulsive and easily–no, not easily led, but easily excited about things. She's high-spirited and likes to try everything once. If she once gets a sort of enthusiasm for a person, she wants to do the same as they do. She needs somebody–well, never mind that. I don't want to discuss Pamela. I only mean that Victor was just the opposite. He was very careful of himself, and he had a very good eye for the main chance.”

“Do you mean that he was the sort of man who makes what he can out of his friends?”

“He was the kind of man who never has his own cigarettes, and never happens to be there, if he can help it, when it's his turn to stand the drinks. And he'd pick your brains every time.”

“He must have had a pretty good reason, then, for going round with Dian de Momerie's lot. As you say, they're expensive.”

“Yes; he must have seen something remunerative in the distance. And when it came to sacrificing his sister–”

“Exactly. Well, that's all rather by the way. What I wanted to know from you was this: supposing he found out that somebody–say somebody in this office–as it might be yourself–had a skeleton in the closet, to use the pretty old metaphor, was Victor Dean the kind of fellow to–er–to dispose of that skeleton to an anatomist?”

“Blackmail, do you mean?” asked Willis, bluntly.

“That's a strong word. But call it that.”

“I don't quite know,” said Willis, after a few moments' consideration. “It's a devil of a thing to suggest about anybody, isn't it? But I can only say that the question gives me no shock. If you were to tell me that he had blackmailed somebody, it wouldn't surprise me very much. Only, as it's a pretty serious offence, it would have to be a very safe kind of blackmail, with the sort of victim who couldn't possibly afford to face a court of law. Mind you, I haven't the least reason to suppose he ever did anything of the kind. And he certainly never seemed to be particularly flush of cash. Not that that's much to go by, with a careful fellow like him.
He
wouldn't have let wads of bank-notes I come tumbling out his desk.”

“You think the tumbling about of notes affords a presumption of innocence?”

“Not a bit. Only of carelessness, and Dean certainly wasn't careless.”

“Well, thanks for speaking so frankly.”

“That's all right. Only, for goodness' sake, don't let Pamela know what I've been saying about Victor. I've had trouble enough about that.”

Bredon assured him that he need not fear any such fantastic indiscretion, and took his leave, polite but still puzzled.

Mr. Tallboy was lying in wait for him at the end of the passage.

“Oh, Bredon, I'm very much obliged to you, of course. I'm sure I can rely on you not to spread the thing any further than it's gone already. All quite absurd, of course. That fool Tompkin seems to have lost his head completely. I've ticked him off properly.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” replied Bredon. “Just so. Much ado about nothing. No real necessity for me to have butted in at all. But you never know. I mean to say, if you'd been detained and Miss Vavasour had got tired of waiting or–well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Tallboy licked his dry lips. “It might have been very awkward. When girls get hysterical and so on, they sometimes say more than they mean. I've been a bit of a fool, as I dare say you've gathered. I'm cutting it all out now. I've settled everything all right. Worrying, of course, but nothing really desperate.” He laughed uncomfortably.

“You're looking a bit over-done.”

“I feel it. The fact is, I was up all night. My wife–well, the fact is, my wife had a baby last night. That was partly why–oh, hell, what's it matter, anyhow?”

“I quite understand,” said Bredon. “Very wearing business. Why didn't you take the day off?”

“I didn't want to do that. It's my busy day. Much better to occupy one's mind. Besides, there wasn't any necessity. Everything went all right. I suppose you think I'm an awful swine.”

“You're not the first, by any means,” said Bredon.

“No–it's rather usual, I believe. It's not going to happen again, I can tell you.”

“It must have put you in a hell of a hole–all this.”

“Yes–at least–not so bad. As you say, I'm not the only man it's ever happened to. It doesn't do to let one's self be upset, does it? Well, as I said, thanks very much and–that's all, isn't it?”

“Absolutely. There's nothing whatever to thank me about. Well, sonnie, what do you want?”

“Any letters to go, sir?”

“No, thanks,” said Bredon.

“Oh, stop a minute,” said Tallboy. “Yes, I've got one.” He searched in his breast-pocket and pulled out an envelope, all ready sealed. “Lend me a pen one moment, Bredon. Here, boy, take this penny-halfpenny and run along to Miss Rossiter and ask her for a stamp.”

He took the pen Bredon held out, and bending over the desk addressed the envelope hurriedly to “T. Smith, Esq.” Bredon, idly watching him, was caught by his eye in the act, and apologized.

“I beg your pardon; I was snooping. Beastly habit. One catches it in the typists' room.”

“All right–it's only a note to a stockbroker.”

“Lucky man to have anything to stockbroke.”

Tallboy laughed, stamped the letter and tossed it to the waiting boy.

“And so ends an exhausting day,” he observed.

“Toule very tiresome?”

“Not more so than usual. He turned down 'Like Niobe, all Tears.' Said he didn't know who Niobe was and he didn't suppose anybody else did either. But he passed this week's 'Tears, Idle Tears,' because when he was a boy his father used to read Tennyson aloud to the family circle.”

“That's one saved from the wreck, anyhow.”

“Oh, yes. He liked the general idea of the poetical quotations. Said he thought they gave his advertisements class. You'll have to think up some more. He likes the ones that illustrate well.”

“All right. 'Like Summer Tempest came her Tears.' That's Tennyson, too. Picture of the nurse of ninety years setting his babe upon her knee. Babies always go well. (Sorry, we don't seem able to get off babies.) Start the copy, 'Tears are often a relief to overwrought nerves, but when they flow too often, too easily, it is a sign that you need Nutrax.' I'll do that one. Bassanio and Antonio: 'I know not Why I am so Sad.' Carry the quote on into the copy. 'Causeless depression, like Antonio's, wearies both the sufferer and his friends. Go to the root of the matter and tone up the overstrung Nerves with Nutrax.' I can do that sort of thing by the hour.”

Mr. Tallboy smiled wanly.

“It's a pity we can't cure ourselves with our own nostrums, isn't it?”

Mr. Bredon surveyed him critically.

“What
you
need,” he said, “is a good dinner and a bottle of fizz.”

HOPEFUL CONSPIRACY OF TWO BLACK SHEEP

T
he gentleman in the harlequin costume removed his mask with quiet deliberation, and laid it on the table.

“Since,” he said, “my virtuous cousin Wimsey has let the cat out of the bag, I may as well take this off. I am afraid”–he turned to Dian–“my appearance will disappoint you. Except that I am handsomer and less rabbity-looking, the woman who has seen Wimsey has seen me. It is a heavy handicap to carry, but I can't help it. The resemblance, I am happy to say, is only skin-deep.”

“It's almost incredible,” said Major Milligan. He bent forward to examine the other's face more closely, but Mr. Bredon extended a languid arm and, without apparently using any force at all, pushed him back into his seat.

“You needn't come too close,” he observed, insolently. “Even a face like Wimsey's is better than yours. Yours is spotty. You eat and drink too much.”

Major Milligan, who had, indeed, been distressed that morning by the discovery of a few small pimples on his forehead, but had hoped they were not noticeable, grunted angrily. Dian laughed.

“I take it,” pursued Mr. Bredon, “that you want to get something out of me. People of your sort always do. What is it?”

“I've no objection to being frank with you,” replied Major Milligan.

“How nice it is to hear anybody say that. It always prepares one for a lie to follow. Fore-warned is fore-armed, isn't it?”

“If you choose to think so. But I think you'll find it to your advantage to listen.”

“Financial advantage?”

“What other kind is there?”

“What indeed? I begin to like your face a trifle better.”

“Oh, do you? Perhaps you may like it well enough to answer a few questions?”

“Possibly.”

“How do you come to know Pamela Dean?”

“Pamela? A charming girl, isn't she? I obtained an introduction to her through what the great public–seduced by the unfortunate example of that incomparable
vulgarisateur
, Charles Dickens–abominably calls a mutual friend. I admit that my object in obtaining the introduction was a purely business one; I can only say that I wish all business acquaintances were so agreeable.”

“What was the business?”

“The business, my dear fellow, was concerned with another mutual friend of us all–with the late Victor Dean, who died, deeply regretted, upon a staircase. A remarkable young man, was he not?”

“In what way?” asked Milligan, quickly.

“Don't you know? I thought you did. Otherwise, why am I here?”

“You two idiots make me tired,” broke in Dian. “Where's the sense of going round and round each other like this? Your pompous cousin told us all about you, Mr. Bredon–I suppose you've got a Christian name, by the way?”

“I have. It's spelt Death. Pronounce it any way you like. Most of the people who are plagued with it make it rhyme with teeth, but personally I think it sounds more picturesque when rhymed with breath. What did my amiable cousin say about me?”

“He said you were a dope-runner.”

“Where my cousin Wimsey gets his information from, I am damned if I know. Sometimes he is correct.”

“And you know perfectly well that one can get what one wants at Tod's place. So why not come to the point?”

“As you say, why not? Is that the particular facet of my brilliant personality that interests you, Milligan?”

“Is that the particular facet of Victor Dean's personality that interests
you
?”

“One point to me,” said Mr. Bredon. “Till this moment, I was not sure that it was a facet of his personality. Now I do. Dear me! How interesting it all is, to be sure.”

“If you can find out exactly how Victor Dean was involved in that show,” said Mr. Milligan, “it might be worth something to you and to me.”

“Say on.”

Major Milligan reflected a little and seemed to make up his mind to lay his cards on the table.

“Did you learn from Pamela Dean what her brother's job was?”

“Yes, of course. He wrote advertising copy at a place called Pym's. There's no secret about that.”

“That's just what there is. And if that infernal young fool hadn't gone and got killed, we might have found out what it was and done ourselves a lot of good. As it is–”