The Man in the Queue (12 page)

"No, don't think so. Just has an office. Seemed to be doing quite well last time I saw him."

"How long ago was that?"

"Oh, long time."

"Do you know his home address?" asked Grant.

"No. Who wants him? He's a good boy, Sorrell."

The last irrelevance seemed to suggest suspicion, and Grant hastened to assure him that no harm was intended Sorrell. At that Thacker put his first and second fingers into either corner of his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle in the direction of the railings at the edge of the course. From the crowd of attentive faces which this demonstration had turned towards him he selected the one he wanted. "Joe," he said in stentorian tones, "Let me speak to Jimmy a minute, will you?" Joe detached his clerk, as one detaches a watch and chain, and presently Jimmy appeared a clean, cherubic youth with an amazing taste in linen.

"You used to be pally with Bert Sorrell, didn't you?" asked Thacker.

"Yes, but I haven't seen him for donkey's years."

"Do you know where he lives?"

"Well, when I knew him he had rooms in Brightling Crescent, off the Fulham Road. I've been there with him. Forget the number, but his landlady's name was Everett. He lived there for years. Orphan he was, Bert."

Grant described the Levantine, and asked if Sorrell was ever friendly with a man like that.

No, Jimmy had never known him in such company, but then, as he pointed out, he hadn't seen him for donkey's years. He had dropped out of the regular crowd when he started on his own, though he sometimes went racing for his own amusement or perhaps to pick up information.

Through Jimmy, Grant interviewed two more people who had known Sorrell; but neither could throw any light on Sorrell's companions. They were self-absorbed people, these bookmakers, looking at him with a vague curiosity and obviously forgetting all about him the minute their next bet was booked. Grant announced to Murray that he had finished, and Murray, whose interest had waned with the finish of the handicap hurdle, elected to go back to town at once. But as the car slid slowly out of the press Grant turned with a benedictory glance at the friendly little course which had provided him with the information he sought. Pleasant place. He would come back some day when he had no business on his mind to bother him, and make an afternoon of it.

On the way up to town Murray talked amiably of the things he was interested in: bookmakers and their clannishness. "They're like Highlanders," he said. "They may squabble among themselves, but if an outsider butts into the scrap, it's a case of tartan against all." Horses and their foibles; trainers and their morals; Lacey and his wit. Presently he said, "How's the queue affair getting along?"

Very well, Grant said. They would make an arrest in a day or two if things continued to go as well as they were doing.

Murray was silent for a little. "I say, you don't want Sorrell in connexion with that, do you?" he asked diffidently.

Murray had been extraordinarily decent. "No," said Grant. "It was Sorrell who was found dead in the queue."

"Great heavens!" said Murray, and digested the news in silence for some time. "Well, I'm sorry," he said at last. "I never knew the fellow, but every one seems to have liked him."

And that was what Grant had been thinking too. Bert Sorrell, it seemed, had been no villain. Grant longed more than ever to meet the Levantine.

Brightling Crescent was a terrace of red-brick three-story houses of the Nottingham lace and pot-plant type of decoration. Their stone steps were coaxed into cleanliness and hideousness by liberal applications of coloured pipeclay. Some blushed at finding themselves so conspicuous, some were evidently jaundiced by the unwelcome attention, and some stared in pallid horror as at an outrage. But all of them wore that
Nemo me impune lacessit
air. You might pull the bright brass bell-handles—indeed, their high polish winked an urgent invitation to do so—but you passed the threshold only at the cost of a wide-stepping avoidance of these constantly refurbished traps of pipeclayed step. Grant walked up the street that Sorrell had trodden so often, and wondered if the Levantine knew it too. Mrs. Everett, a bony, short-sighted woman of fifty or so, herself opened the door of 98 to him, and Grant inquired for Sorrell.

Mr. Sorrell was no longer there, she said. He had left just a week ago to go to America.

So that was the tale some one had told.

Who said he had gone to America?

"Mr. Sorrell, of course."

Yes, Sorrell might have told the talc to mask his suicide.

Had he lived alone there?

"Who are you, and what do you want to know for?" she asked, and Grant said that he was a plain-clothes officer and would like to come in and talk to her for a moment. She looked a little staggered, but took the news calmly, and ushered him into a ground-floor sitting-room. "This used to be Mr. Sorrel's," she said. "A young lady teacher has it now, but she won't mind us using it for once. Mr. Sorrell hasn't done anything wrong, has he? I wouldn't believe it of him. A quiet young man like him."

Grant reassured her, and asked again if Sorrell had lived alone.

No, she said; he shared his rooms with another gentleman, but when Mr. Sorrell had gone to America the other gentleman had had to look out for other rooms because he couldn't afford these alone, and a young lady had wanted to come into them. She was sorry to lose both of them. Nice young men, they were, and great friends.

"What was his friend's name?"

"Gerald Lamont," she said. Mr. Sorrell had been a bookmaker on his own account, and Mr. Lamont was in his office. Oh, no, not a partner, but they were great friends.

"What other friends had Sorrell?"

He had had very few, she said. He and Jerry Lamont went everywhere together. After some strenuous thinking she recollected two men who had once come to the house, and described them well enough to make it certain that neither was the Levantine.

"Have you any photographs of Sorrell or his friend?"

She thought she had some snapshots somewhere, if the inspector wouldn't mind waiting while she hunted. Grant had had hardly enough time to examine the room before she came back with two amateur photographs of postcard size. "These were taken last summer when they were on the river," she said.

The snapshots had been taken obviously on the same occasion. They both showed the same willowy background of Thames bank and the same piece of punt. One was a photograph of Sorrell in flannels, a pipe in one hand and a cushion in the other. The other was also a photograph of a young man in flannels, and the man was the foreigner.

Grant sat a long time looking at that dark face. The photograph was a good one. The eyes were not a mere shadow as in most snapshots; they were eyes. And Grant could see again the sudden horror that had lit them as they lighted on him in the Strand. Even in the pleasant repose of the moment on the river the eyes had an inimical look. There was no friendliness in the hard-boned face.

"Where did you say Lamont had gone?" he asked matter-of-factly.

Mrs. Everett did not know.

Grant examined her minutely. Was she telling the truth? As if conscious of his suspicion, she supplemented her statement with another. He had got rooms somewhere on the south side of the river.

Suspicion filled him. Did she know more than she was telling? Who had sent the money to bury Sorrell? His friend and the Levantine were one, and the Levantine, who had had two hundred and twenty-three pounds from him, had certainly not sent the money. He looked at the woman's hard face. She would probably write like a man; the handwriting experts were not infallible. But then, the person who had sent the money had owned the revolver. No, he corrected himself; the person who had
posted
the money had had the revolver.

Had either of the men owned a revolver? he asked.

No; she had never seen such a thing with either of them. They weren't that type.

There she was again, harping on their quietness. Was it mere partisanship, or was it a feeble attempt to head him off the track? He wanted to ask if Lamont were left-handed, but something held him back. If she were not being straight with him, that question in relation to Lamont would alarm her immediately. It would give away the whole extent of his investigations. She would give warning and flush the bird from cover long before they were ready to shoot. And it was not vital at the moment. The man of the photograph was the man who had lived with Sorrell, was the man who had fled at sight of him in the Strand, was the man who had had all Sorrell's money, and was almost certainly the man of the queue. Legarde could identify him. It was more important at the moment to keep Mrs. Everett in the dark as to how much they knew.

"When did Sorrell leave for America?"

"His boat sailed on the 14th," she said, "but he left here on the 13th."

"Unlucky day!" said Grant, hoping to bring the conversation to a less formal and less antagonistic level.

"I don't believe in superstition," she said. "One day is very like another."

But Grant was thinking hard. The 13th was the night of the murder.

"Did Lamont leave with him?" he asked.

Yes, they had left together in the morning. Mr. Lamont was going to take his things to his new rooms and then to meet Mr. Sorrell. Mr. Sorrell was going down to Southampton with a boat train at night. She had wanted to go to see him off, but he had been very insistent that she shouldn't.

"Why?" asked Grant.

"He said it was too late, and in any case he didn't like being seen off."

"Had he any relations?"

No, none that she had ever heard of. And Lamont, had he any?

Yes, he had a father and mother and one brother, but they had emigrated to New Zealand directly after the War and he had not seen them since.

How long had the two men stayed with her?

Mr. Sorrell had been with her for nearly eight years and Mr. Lamont for four.

Who shared the rooms with Sorrell for the four years previous to Lamont's arrival?

There had been various people, but most of the time it was a nephew of her own, who was now in Ireland. Yes, Mr. Sorrell had always been on good terms with all of them.

"Was he always bright and cheerful?" asked Grant.

Well, no, she said bright and cheery didn't describe Mr. Sorrell at all. That was Mr. Lamont, if he liked. Mr. Lamont was the bright and cheery one. Mr. Sorrell was quiet, but pleasant. Sometimes he'd be a bit mopy, and Mr. Lamont would be extra bright to cheer him up.

Grant, remembering how grateful one is when some one deliberately attempts to take the black dog from one's back, wondered why it hadn't been the other way about, and Sorrell had murdered Lamont.

Did they ever quarrel?

No, never that she had known of, and she would have known quick enough.

"Well," said Grant at last, "I suppose you have no objections to lending me these snapshots for a day or two?"

"You'll let me have them back safe, will you?" she said. "They're the only ones I have, and I was very fond of both of them."

Grant promised, and put them carefully away in his pocketbook, praying that they were covered with valuable fingerprints.

"You're not going to get them into trouble, are you?" she asked again as he was going. "They never did a wrong thing in their lives."

"Well, if that's so, they're quite safe," Grant said.

He hurried back to Scotland Yard and, while the fingerprints on the photographs were being recorded, heard Williams' report of an unproductive day among the bookmaking offices of London. As soon as the snapshots were again in his possession, he repaired to Laurent's. It was very late and the place was deserted. A solitary waiter was absentmindedly assembling the crumbs from a table, and the air smelt of rich gravy, wine, and cigarette smoke. The distrait minion laid away the crumb-scoop and bent to hear his pleasure with that air of having hoped for nothing, and of having the melancholy pleasure of being right, which a waiter presents to the foolhardy one who attempts to dine when others have finished. As he recognized Grant he reassembled his features in a new combination intended to read, "What a pleasure to serve a favourite customer!" but which in reality was unfortunately clear as "Good heavens, that was a bloomer! It's that pet of Marcel's."

Grant asked after Marcel, and heard that he had that morning departed for France in a hurry. His father had died and he was an only son, and there was, it was understood, a matter of a good business and a vineyard to be settled. Grant was not particularly desolated at the thought of not seeing Marcel again. The manners on which Marcel had always prided himself had left Grant invariably slightly nauseated. He ordered a dish, and asked if Raoul Legarde was on the premises and, if so, would he be allowed to come and speak to him for a moment. Several minutes later, Raoul's tall figure, clad in white linen overall and cap, emerged from the screens by the door and followed the waiter diffidently to Grant's table. He had an air of a shy child going up for a prize which it knows it has earned.

"Good evening, Legarde," Grant said amiably. "You've been a great help to me. I want you to look at these and see if you can recognize any of them." He spread twelve photographs roughly fanwise on the table and left Raoul to examine them. The boy took his time—in fact, the pause was so long that Grant had time to wonder if the boy's statement that he would recognize the man he had seen had been merely a boast. But when Raoul spoke there was no hesitation about him.

"That," he said, laying a slender forefinger on the photograph of Sorrell, "is the man who was beside me in the queue. And that"—this time the forefinger descended on Lamont's photograph—"is the man who came to talk to him."

"Will you swear to that?" Grant asked.

Raoul knew all about swearing to a thing this time. "Oh, yes," he said; "I take my oath any time."

That was all Grant wanted. "Thank you, Legarde," he said gratefully. "When you are
maître d'hôtel
, I'll come and stay and bring half the aristocracy in Britain."

Raoul smiled broadly at him. "It may never come," he said, "the
maître d'hôtel
. They offer very much on the movies, and it is easy just to be photographed and look—" He sought for a word. "You know!" he said, and suddenly let his beautiful but intelligent face slip into an expression of idiotic languishing which was so unexpected that some of Grant's duck and green peas went the wrong way. "I think I try that first," he said, "and after, when I grow"—he moved his hands to indicate a corporation—"I can buy a hotel."