The Case Against Paul Raeburn (6 page)

Janet looked as if she wanted this dance to go on for a long time.

Roger inspected the people about him. The City and the Mayfair Set were about equally represented in this mixed gathering of the upper crust of commerce and society, an upper crust which remained thick and unyielding in parts. The people present could put up more millions than he could hundreds of pounds; some were fabulously wealthy. One plump old harridan, with a tall, miserable-looking man, was loaded with diamonds; a dozen others carried fortunes on their fingers, at their ears or on their breasts.

Eve Franklin, on the other hand, was wearing little Jewellery. She wore a long-sleeved gown of bottle green, and a green chiffon stole. When Raeburn led her to the floor, her body moved with easy grace, but she seemed to have difficulty in turning her head.

He was a head taller than Eve, very broad-shouldered, particularly distinguished in evening dress. His hair was dark, with a touch of iron grey at the temples; he wore it rather long. He had an unusually striking profile, with a good chin and a high forehead; it was easy to imagine him to be an intellectual. Full face, he was handsome enough; add his money to his looks, and he had everything.

Roger saw a small, dapper man wearing a dark lounge suit come in, nod to the headwaiter, and walk to Raeburn’s table. He was noticeable because he was the only man not in evening dress. He walked with his shoulders squared and his back very straight, and was looking towards the crowded dance floor.

It was George Warrender, Raeburn’s chief aide in all his activities.

Raeburn spoke to Eve, and they left the floor at once. The band played on, the dancers were circling in a slow waltz; no one else seemed to notice Raeburn.

Warrender glanced towards Roger, and Raeburn did the same. Roger did not look away.

Eve was speaking, and when she finished, Raeburn shook his head. Then Warrender put what seemed to be a restraining hand on Raeburn’s shoulder.

Raeburn laughed, shrugged it off, and came towards Roger. He stood by the table as Roger started to get to his feet.

“Don’t get up, please,” said Raeburn. “I’m very glad to see you here, and sorry I hadn’t recognised you before. Are you with friends?”

“With my wife and a friend.”

“I’d very much like to meet your wife,” said Raeburn. “May I?”

The band had stopped, and couples sauntered back to their tables. Mark and Janet, still on the dance floor, looked across undecidedly, until Roger beckoned.

Whatever she felt, Janet’s smile was bright as she came up.

“Darling, Mr Paul Raeburn would like to meet you,” Roger said. “My wife ... and Mr Mark Lessing.”

“I have heard so much about Chief Inspector West’s professional activities,” murmured Raeburn. “One forgets that policemen have time to be ordinary family men.” The admiration in his eyes was certainly not forced, and his gaze was bold but friendly; he hardly glanced at Mark.

“
Is
Roger so ordinary?” inquired Janet.

Raeburn chuckled. “I don’t know him well enough to answer that, Mrs West.” He glanced towards the band, which began to play at once, stubbed out his cigarette, and asked: “May I ask your wife to dance, Mr West?”

“By all means.”

Janet seemed to hesitate, and then turned away with Raeburn, while in her corner Eve sat like a beautiful image, and Warrender sat stony-faced beside her.

Mark sat down and said: “I think I need a drink.”

“Have two, I’m in a generous mood,” said Roger. “My chief hope is that he’s so swollen with conceit that he’ll overreach himself. Warrender knows it, too.”

“The chap with Eve, pretending to be happy?”

“Yes,” Roger said. “I know him better than I do Raeburn, and he’s very clever. He and a woman named Beesley look after Raeburn’s private affairs, and a lot more. With Abel Melville, they make a powerful team, and they’ll aim high.”

“How high?”

“Too high,” Roger said. “I’ll bet Raeburn’s trying to pump Janet, and he’s got as much chance as I have of getting information out of Warrender or Ma Beesley. If I had to choose between dealing with Warrender or Beesley, I’d take Warrender every time,” he added thoughtfully. “Ma’s like a great fat slug; you can push as many pins into her as you like and she won’t notice.” He stood up suddenly. “Sauce for the goose,” he said obscurely, and made his way over to Warrender and Eve. He saw a glint of interest, perhaps of nervousness, in her eyes.

Warrender jumped up. “Why, Mr West!” His bright smile failed to hide his alarm. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I bob up all over the place,” Roger said, and his eyes lit up as he turned to the girl. “Hallo, Miss Franklin, I had a feeling we’d meet again.” He saw her flinch, and recognised the anxiety in Warrender’s eyes. “Would you care to dance?”

“I – oh, I’d love to!” She was overeager to get up, and fear and uncertainty did not affect her dancing; she was like quicksilver, her movements had a natural rhythm, and as she grew bolder, she drew closer. If she gave Raeburn this treatment, it was easy to understand why he liked her around.

“I’m ever so glad we had a chance to meet socially,” she said, as the music stopped.

“We never know when we’ll meet next, do we?” Roger asked.

She wasn’t quite sure how to take that, so she giggled.

Roger took her to her table, where Warrender was all false smiles, then went to find Janet with Raeburn and Mark.

“Your wife is a delightful dancer,” Raeburn said, as if he meant it.

“I have luck in some things!”

Raeburn chuckled, and wished them goodnight, all with easy courtesy.

“I trust you didn’t bounce off that creature too often,” Janet said coldly, when he was out of earshot.

“Only when we turned the corners,” Roger said. “Was Raeburn a brilliant conversationalist?”

“I don’t know,” said Janet. “I talked all about the boys and their examination, and how big Scoopy is, and how Richard thinks you’re the best detective on the force. At least he knows I think you’re wonderful.”

“Did he try to pump you?”

“As a matter of fact, all he really said was that he hoped you wouldn’t waste your talents,” Janet said, and she was a little uneasy. “I had a feeling that he was really asking me to warn you that if you didn’t stop working against him, you’d get hurt. He didn’t put it into words, but “

“I know exactly what you mean,” Roger squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, sweet. Mark’s on our side now, Warrender is scared, while the little lady was positively jumpy.”

“If
she’s
a lady ―” Janet began.

“How about dancing with your husband for a change?” Roger suggested.

“You are taking Raeburn seriously, aren’t you?” Janet asked when they were in bed that night. “I had a feeling that he would try to squash anyone who got in his way.”

Roger didn’t say: “As he squashed Halliwell,” but he knew exactly what she meant.

At nine o’clock on the dot next morning, Roger entered his office. He looked at his laden desk, grinned, rubbed his hands and sat down, glad that no one else had arrived. He opened the files and started running through the cases – all concerned with routine matters.

The visit to the Silver Kettle had given him a bigger fillip than he had realised. Warrender’s jumpiness and the girl’s unease might be encouraging straws in the wind.

The door opened.

“Morning, Eddie!” greeted Roger.

“What, you ‘ere?”

“All fresh for the fray,” said Roger. “Why the look of astonishment?”

“Thought you’d be out at Battersea,” Eddie said. “Turnbull’s over there, ‘e asked me to tell you if you came here first. A man named Tony Brown, Eve Franklin’s ex, was found dead in his room this morning. Gassed.”

“My God!” ejaculated Roger, and grabbed a telephone. “Give me Superintendent Pinkerton of Clapham, quickly, please.... I wonder if Eve knows?... Hallo, Pinky! I’ve just heard about the Flodden Road job, and I’ll be on my way in a few minutes, but there are one or two oddments you could get cracking on before the official report’s ready:”

“Always a jump ahead,” jeered the Divisional Superintendent. “Tell me what they are, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Ta. If you could get me Brown’s history, going back to his first tooth, it would help. Then see if he’s ever had anything to do with The Daytime, the night club Raeburn owns in Clapham. This could be suicide because of unrequited love, but if it’s murder, we might find a double motive.”

“Jumping a bit fast, aren’t you?”

“I can’t jump fast or far enough to get Raeburn,” Roger said. “See you at the morgue.”

TURNBULL, MASSIVE and frowning, watched the pathologist who was examining Tony Brown’s body, which was cherry pink except where it had been in contact with the bed. His face was as red as a cherry trodden by a clumsy foot. The smell of gas had now almost gone, although in the corners of the room there were still traces. The tap of the gas fire, the door and the brass rails of the bedstead were covered with a film of grey fingerprint powder, and a detective officer was on his knees in front of the fire, brushing the tap gently with a small camel’s-hair brush.

The pathologist straightened up.

“Isn’t much more I can do,” he said. “He’s been dead since late last night. No signs at all of violence. There’s the usual pink coloration of the body, and the flesh is flattened where he was lying. He’d been drinking heavily,

I’d say – tell you more about that after the post-mortem. You needn’t keep him here any longer.”

“Right,” said Turnbull.

“Nothing more you want me for?”

“No, thanks.”

“All right.” The doctor nodded and went out, leaving Turnbull alone with the body and the man who was on his knees. Photographs of the room and the body had already been taken, and an ambulance was waiting outside.

The officer in front of the fire stood up and dusted his knees. “Nothing at all suspicious,” he said.

“Sure?” Turnbull was hard-voiced.

“The only prints on the tap are Brown’s. I took an impression off his fingers, sir, and they’re identical with all the others in the room. He looked after himself; no one else in the house ever came in here. Looks as if he did himself in all right,”

“He may have,” conceded Turnbull. “Raeburn might be an honest man, too.”

The detective pretended not to have heard. “Shall I send the ambulance men up?”

“Not yet, Symes,” Turnbull said. “Have another go at the people across the landing and the woman downstairs. We want to know exactly what time Brown came in last night.”

“They all say ―” began Symes.

“Try them again,” ordered Turnbull, brusquely.

“Right, sir,” Symes, who so obviously thought that Brown had committed suicide, turned to the door, which was ajar. It opened wider, and Roger came in.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Morning,” Roger said, waited until Symes had gone, and said to Turnbull, without rancour:” If you talk to men like that, you’ll make them hate your guts, and you’ll never get the best out of them.”

“Morning, preacher,” Turnbull said.

It was a touchy moment. Turnbull, a rank below Roger, was always aggressive, often nearly insolent, as now, for they had clashed before. Roger bit back a sharp retort, and bent over Tony Brown, but soon turned away and looked about him. The telltale evidence of police work was everywhere. He did not ask questions, although, when he looked at the fire and glanced up, Turnbull shook his head. Roger went to the window, overlooking a terrace of grey houses, three stories high, mostly shabby, but some of them resplendent with new paint. At intervals along the street were plane trees, their branches spreading upward, dotted here and there with dry leaves hanging on tenaciously. Three stone steps led up to the front door of each house.

Leaning forward, Roger could see a cluster of trees in Battersea Park; not very far from this spot. Raeburn’s victim had been run down.

“Found anything useful?” Roger asked at last.

“Not a thing.”

“Know much about this fellow yet?”

“Not much,” Turnbull answered. “He didn’t do any particular job, but managed to make a fair living. Fond of whisky and women, and” – Turnbull paused deliberately – “in love with Eve Franklin.”

“Or just a boy friend?”

“I’ve talked to one of his friends who lives next door, and I’ve seen his brother, who lives in Tooting. At one time Brown had a different fancy every few nights, but he’s been steady on Eve for some time. His friends thought he was making a mistake. She isn’t popular... too expensive.” After a pause, Turnbull asked: “Are you going to see her?”

“I am,” said Roger.

“Room for me?”

“Why not? But I want another look round here first. What did he have in his pockets?”

Turnbull pointed to a bamboo table on which were a variety of oddments, some taken from the dead man’s pockets, and some from drawers in the old-fashioned dressing table. There were two photographs of Eve Franklin, one a snapshot of her dressed in cheap, tawdry clothes; the other a recent studio portrait which showed her as she had looked at the Silver Kettle. There were no letters from her; in fact there was not a letter of any kind, but there were betting slips, several copies of
The Winner,
and other pointers to Brown’s habits. Standing in a corner was a saxophone case.

“Wonder if he played that?” Roger picked up the case, and asked casually: “Has the sax been tested for prints?”

“It’s so dusty I didn’t think it worth while,” answered Turnbull.

It would have been easy to say: “Everything’s worth trying.” Instead, Roger opened the case. The saxophone was bright and shining, as if it had been well tended.

“We’d better find out if he ever played in a band; Eve used to sing with a third-rate dance band, remember.” Roger tossed a cigarette stub out of the window. “We certainly shan’t get much more from here.” He looked up as Symes came back, obviously empty-handed. “Any luck?”

“They all say they didn’t hear a thing, sir.”

“Keep at it, especially among people who live near by,” urged Roger. “Tell the ambulance men to get the body away, and then you stay on duty outside. We want the name and address of anyone who comes to visit Brown, especially of anyone who’s already heard that he’s dead. All understood?”