The Best of British Crime omnibus (21 page)

It was a possible theory, but I didn't much like it. I couldn't see either Mullett or Tanya in the roles for which it cast them.

The alternative – and more likely – explanation was that Mullett had been given, quite fortuitously, the room which had been occupied during the war by the stamp racketeer, and that this man, after enlisting Tanya's help, had killed Mullett in the course of an attempt to recover his own stamps from the place where he'd put them.

Once I'd begun to think on those lines, two conclusions leapt at me. The first was that the murderer was definitely one of the delegates. The stamps had been hidden by a foreigner in 1942, when several of the delegates had been in Moscow. They had lain untouched for nine years, until the arrival of the delegation, which was the only new factor. No one but a delegate qualified.

The second conclusion was more startling. I remembered that the period chosen for the attempt had been one when Mullett had been out of the way and the room had been empty. It had been a period, moreover, when Mullett was supposed to be broadcasting, and when the intruder could therefore consider himself safe from interruption. In those circumstances, it surely followed that
this man had not intended to commit murder at all.
If Mullett had not returned unexpectedly that night, he might still have been alive.

Now at last I began to understand something which had long puzzled me. With his unsealed doors, his balcony approach and his clumsy paste pot, the murderer had appeared to take quite unnecessary risks in order to bring about Mullett's death. A straight entry and a straight assault would have been simpler and safer. But if he had not intended to kill Mullett at all, there should have been no risks to speak of. If everything had gone according to plan he would have recovered the stamps and departed in good order before Mullett's arrival, and no one would ever have had any suspicion that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. Mullett wouldn't have missed the stamps, for he hadn't known they were there. He would certainly not have thought of examining the seals of his french windows on his return; and before long the paste would have dried. He would have been equally unlikely to investigate the contents of his wastepaper basket. All traces of movement on the balcony would soon have been covered by fresh snow. It should have been a cinch. Instead, by sheer bad luck, it had been a disaster.

There were almost enough facts available now for me to attempt a reconstruction of at least a part of that evening's events. The murderer must have passed through Tanya's room, I estimated, not later than half-past eight, because Jeff had gone in to her at a quarter to nine and by then her doors had been resealed. In all probability, he had collected the tin of paste and the strips of brown paper on his way through. He might have picked up the newspaper there, too. One of Jeff's old
Pravda
's could easily have come into Tanya's possession.

He had made the transit of the balconies, covering his tracks as he went. He wouldn't have needed to hurry, for as far as he knew he had plenty of time in hand. Then he had broken into Mullett's room. That was all clear enough.

The precise order of his actions after that could be a matter only of guesswork. His first impulse must surely have been to satisfy himself that the stamps were still where he had left them. He would, I imagined, have gone straight to the picture, recovered the loot, fastened up the back of the frame, and re-hung it. I doubted if he would have opened the package, but it was possible. He would probably have laid it on the divan or the table.

Next, I thought, he would have sealed up the doors behind him – a rather lengthy job, requiring care. There might have been surplus strips of paper to dispose of – he could have stuffed those into his pocket. Afterwards, he would certainly have needed a wash, and while he was in the bathroom he would probably have taken the opportunity to wash out the paste tin. Having no cause to expect any investigation, he would have felt quite safe in slipping the tin and the wet newspaper into the bottom of the waste basket.

By now, the time must have been getting on – well after nine, I thought, with all those jobs behind him. Mullett's voice would have been booming reassuringly from the loud-speaker opposite. Then suddenly, without the formality of a knock, a key had scraped in the door.

The scene was so vivid to me, sitting there in the room reconstructing the pattern of events, that I felt the sharp panic of that moment almost as physical sensation. If the intruder had had time to think at all, he would no doubt have supposed that a chambermaid was about to enter, but I couldn't imagine that he had had a second for thought. His reaction would have been instant. He had done, surely, what anyone would have done in the circumstances – retreated behind the bed curtain. From there, peering out, he had seen – of all fantastic, impossible things – Mullett!

Then what had happened? Somehow, I had to account for the presence of that stamped envelope on the table. Perhaps Mullett had been responsible for that. If he had seen a strange packet lying on his table, he would have opened it. He would certainly have been interested in the contents. He might well have drawn up a chair and settled down to examine them.

On that assumption, how would the intruder have acted? He had been in a fearful position. In a few moments, his unauthorised presence would inevitably be discovered. It could not possibly be explained away, for he had not even made his entrance through the door with a borrowed key – he had broken in, and tried to conceal the fact. An explanation would be demanded. He would have to admit everything to Mullett – tell him the whole sordid story of the stamps. It would mean humiliation. Far worse, perhaps, it would mean the loss of the stamps. Mullett might agree to forget the episode in the interests of the delegation, but he was not a man to surrender ill-gotten booty. All this must have flashed through the intruder's mind.

On the instant, he would have had to make a decision – to lose all, or to silence the man at the table. Not necessarily to kill him – just to creep up unnoticed and hit him hard enough to knock him out, and then slip away. By morning, the episode would have shrunk to a mere bump on Mullet's head.

And so he had gripped the nearest weapon, the only available weapon, a bottle, and he stepped out and had slugged Mullett. And because the old man had had an exceptionally thin skull, it had caved in against all the rules, and he'd rolled lifeless to the floor.

The shock to the killer must have been severe. Nevertheless, he'd managed to keep his head. He had gathered up the stamps – all except the solitary envelope which Mullett must have pushed accidentally among the papers. He had ransacked the dead man's pockets to leave an impression of petty theft, and he had left the door ajar behind him to suggest an entry from the corridor.

A cool hand, evidently; but developments since the murder must have put an almost unbearable strain on the strongest nerve. An innocent man accused, an appalled accomplice whisked away. The knowledge that the Russians had discovered everything; that they were sitting tight and blaming others only because they thought he might still be useful; that he was wholly in their power. The fear, surely that they might change their minds about him. I didn't envy him his thoughts.

On one score I felt immensely relieved. Tanya's part in this affair had evidently been very different from what I at least had feared. She had, it was true, made it possible for her former principal to get secret access to his cache of booty but that appeared to be the limit of her moral involvement. Not for a second could she ever have contemplated the possibility that murder would result and it was plain that the shock had overwhelmed her. No wonder she had fainted!

Thoughtfully I re-hung the picture. It had told me a great deal – it had filled in all the gaps in my knowledge about ‘How?' and ‘Why?' But about the most important thing of all – the identity of the murderer – I still hadn't a clue. Except of course the trousers.

When I told Jeff the news next morning I could almost see the burden rolling from his back. In spite of his stout defence of Tanya, I think he'd been even more depressed by the thought that she might actually have had a hand in the planning of the crime than he had been about her personal safety. Anyway he certainly cheered up remarkably. In fact, he was now inclined to go to extremes and exonerate her completely.

‘Mind you,' he said, ‘I'm not kidding myself that that stamp business was exactly ethical. Kind of borderline case maybe. The thing is, it wasn't Tanya's show. She was obviously under this guy's influence, and I bet she didn't get much of a cut. Even if she did – well, hell, look how the women in this town were starved of decent things – look how they still are. I figure any girl around here would have done the same thing.'

I agreed. I certainly wasn't passing any moral judgments on that score. ‘At the same time,' I said, ‘helping the fellow to break into someone else's room was going a bit far.'

‘Sure it was – the kid ought to have her head examined. Still, even that wasn't as bad as it seems to us now. This guy would have claimed that the stamps belonged to him – there wasn't any question of theft. If there hadn't been a murder, it wouldn't have amounted to so much.'

‘I imagine the Russians would have taken a dim view,' I said, ‘murder or no murder. It would have meant a jail sentence for Tanya anyway.'

‘So what? They jail you here at the drop of a hat. What's that popular crack that Waterhouse was telling me about? – “Everyone here has been in jail, or is in jail now, or will be in jail soon.” If it hadn't been for this it would have been for something else.' He looked at me a little aggressively and then, slowly, he began to grin. ‘Okay, she shouldn't have done it, but she's a sweet kid all the same. Look, George, now we've got this far surely we ought to be able to clean the case up? Then maybe they'll let her go after a few months' timber-cutting or whatever it is she's doing.'

‘What about Ganilov's threat?'

‘Hell, that's all old stuff now. What you found out yesterday puts me right in the clear. I wasn't here during the war, and I don't know the first thing about stamps. With all this fresh evidence, they haven't got a hope of making a charge stick.'

I was inclined to agree about that. ‘The trouble is,
we
haven't much hope of making a charge stick, either. The delegation's leaving in a couple of days or so and we haven't the hint of a case against any one of them.'

He grunted. ‘What
have
we got? Just the pants?'

‘They're the only bit of solid evidence.'

‘Well, let's have a look at them.'

I fetched them from the drawer in which I'd locked them away, and he held them up to the light. ‘I guess these were a swell pair of pants once,' he said, ‘but they've sure seen their best days. What about the size? It's a pity we can't go around trying them on all the delegates.'

‘I've done the next best thing,' I told him, ‘I've tried them on myself. With the legs turned down to the original position they're a pretty good fit.'

Jeff regarded me thoughtfully. ‘In that case I'd say they'd be right for Bolting – his figure's the dead spit of yours. Islwyn Thomas, too – just right. They'd be a bit loose on the Prof, but he may have lost weight. No good for Tranter, no good for Cressey.'

‘I worked that out, too,' I said. ‘There's a snag, though. The trousers might not have been bought for the murderer.'

He looked surprised. ‘How come?'

‘Well, he may have had the idea of this stamp racket in his mind when he first heard he was coming to Russia. If so, he'd have stocked up with suitable garments and it wouldn't have mattered what size they were – in fact, a variety of sizes would have been all the better for his purpose.'

‘He was mighty smart if he saw that far ahead,' Jeff said. ‘It's much more likely he wouldn't have realised the opportunities till he got here. Anyway, these pants have been cleaned – and not in Russia, either. You're not suggesting he brought in assorted sizes of
used
clothes?'

I had to agree that that was hardly likely. ‘We still can't be sure the trousers were his, though – he could have got them from someone else while he was here. There was a lot of bequeathing – anyone who left the country for good would always pass on his old stuff to a pal, and believe me, nobody bothered much about the fit. If the legatee couldn't wear the things himself, there were always secretaries and girlfriends clamouring for cast-offs for their relatives. In those days you took what was offered and were grateful.'

Jeff digested that. ‘Okay, but it still seems more likely than not that the pants belonged to the guy who traded them.'

I conceded the greater likelihood. ‘Even so,' I said ruefully, ‘it's going to be difficult enough to trace them back after all these years.' He examined the threadbare garment again. ‘I guess you're right. What about this laundry mark? – it might come up with a bit of care. Any chance of getting a line on that back home, do you reckon?'

‘An outside chance, perhaps, if I could get some help.'

‘What about the other stuff that Tanya traded to your friend Liefschitz – doesn't that tell us anything. It sounded as though it was all American stuff – is that an angle?'

‘I don't think so. As far as the tinned food's concerned, this hotel was full of lease-lend stuff during the war – everybody had some. And the fellow could have brought the nylons in with him – most people bought a few pairs in Cairo or Teheran on their way through.'

‘Yeah, I see.' He puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette for a moment or two. Presently he said: ‘What beats me, George, is how this guy came to go off without the stamps in the end, after taking all that trouble. It seems crazy.'