Answer in the Negative

by Henrietta Hamilton

  Sally liked the warmth of his deep voice. It would have interested her to see more of him. But she must say goodnight to Peter and the twins, and she was much more anxious to see more of Johnny than of any other man. She explained that she had a family, and Camberley smiled and didn’t press her.

  ‘I hope you and your husband will join me another evening,’ he said, and it sounded as if he meant it.

  They all went down in the lift together. On the pavement they said goodnight, and Camberley and Toby turned left. Silcutt bolted away to the right, and Sally followed more slowly, but still briskly. She caught up with him at the corner of St Barnabas’ Lane, where he was getting into a taxi. He didn’t see her. She heard him give his destination in his small, precise voice.

  When she got home Johnny was peeling potatoes in his shirt-sleeves. He put down the peeler and kissed her, and she held on to him for a moment and said, ‘I’ve been thinking all afternoon about coming home and finding you here. It is silly, isn’t it? After so long.’

  ‘Very silly,’ he agreed gravely, and gathered her more tightly against him. ‘Now you know how I feel every afternoon.’

  After a minute or two she said, ‘I must go up and say goodnight. I shan’t be long. We ought to eat at seven, I suppose.’

  ‘Or soon after,’ said Johnny.

  When she came down again, they sat at the kitchen table, while the potatoes boiled and the chops grilled, and she told him the story of the afternoon. When she came to the scene between Morningside and Knox, he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Selina was mentioned in both the letters I saw. Not by name, but unmistakably.’

  Sally went on to the scene between Knox and Selina, and he frowned a little. ‘Do you suppose he’s really in love with her?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s difficult to say. But I think from his point of view he is. Do you think he is responsible for the letters?’

  ‘I don’t know, my darling.’ Johnny got up and prodded the potatoes with a fork, and then sat down again.

  ‘I want to get this clear in my mind,’ he said, ‘before I see Morningside.’ He paused, frowning again, to collect his thoughts.

  ‘The items in the persecution of Morningside can be divided into several categories. The first of them — chronologically — were two rude rhymes, which were evidently left in his office while it was unoccupied but open. On their own admission, Pat and Pam were responsible for that. On their own statement, they were not responsible for any of the items in the second and third categories — the prep school stuff and the ruder rhymes. If we accept that statement, and if we can decide that they are not responsible for the fourth and fifth categories — the really serious stuff — we can assume that the two rude rhymes are unimportant in themselves, and to be considered only in so far as they may have given ideas to someone else.

  ‘The second category, as I said, consists of the prep school stuff — tin blobs of ink, itching powder, and so on. I fancy that particular problem is now solved. I paid a visit this morning to the joke shop in St. Barnabas’ Lane which Toby mentioned. It sells Meccano and Dinky toys and suchlike, as well as joke stuff, and the proprietor is an aged professional humourist. I got what I wanted, though. I explained that I was working in an office where one of the messenger boys was suspected of a joke campaign which was upsetting everyone very much. If it couldn’t be quietly and unofficially stopped, he would probably lose his job. I described Teddy, and the old man told me at once that he had been a regular customer for about ten days at the beginning of this month and hadn’t been back since. He had sometimes been accompanied by a short boy, who was, I should think, Bill. He had bought itching powder, ink blobs, a snake on a spring, and so on. He’s not quite a usual type, so it isn’t very surprising that he was remembered. I bought a Dinky tractor for Peter, and the proprietor and I parted the best of friends.

  ‘I think we may assume that Teddy, with Bill as his accomplice, was responsible for the prep school stuff, and that after Silcutt’s interrogation he decided to let up on it. If we could be sure he was responsible for nothing else, we could also assume that these items again are important only in so far as they may have given ideas to someone else. It’s very improbable, you see, that Morningside inspired three entirely independent and coincidental persecutions. It’s possible that Pat’s and Pam’s efforts and Teddy’s were separately inspired — I admit Morningside was a natural for that sort of thing — but equally possible that Teddy heard about the rude rhymes, thought them a good idea, and produced a sequel more suited to his intelligence quotient. In any case, three separate inspirations are too many.

  ‘The third category consists of the ruder rhymes. Morningside was receiving them at the same time as Teddy’s attentions, but Teddy’s attentions started first. Teddy was certainly not responsible for the ruder rhymes; they were a long way above his head or Bill’s. The one I saw showed a very considerable degree of intelligence and skill, and some acquaintance with the less well-known poets. I talked to Pat and Pam this morning, and I agree with Toby that they’re not up to the required standard. Toby is practically certain that most of the staff of Peex, Negs, and Cuts can be dismissed — as far as the rhymes are concerned — on the same grounds. But we’re left with several people. Michael Knox, who wasn’t there, I gather, at the time of the original rude rhymes, but could easily have heard about them; Selina Marvell; possibly Miss Quimper, who is an educated woman, though she doesn’t appear to have much sense of humour, and Toby himself — Toby being the least likely, because if he were responsible for the ruder rhymes and not the filth he would probably have told me, and if he were responsible for the filth as well he probably wouldn’t have called me in. But one can’t be sure about that.’

  ‘What about Silcutt?’ asked Sally. She had turned the chops and was prodding the potatoes again.

  ‘Silcutt? Yes, I suppose one ought to include him. Though he doesn’t seem to have any sense of humour either. To continue: we must note that during this stage of the persecution someone acquired a key to Morningside’s office. Almost anyone, as Toby explained, could have acquired a key, and we can assume that it was done either by Teddy or by the rude rhymester. That’s an important point, for if we knew who had acquired the key, we should know who was responsible for the letters. Most of them are delivered by night, and therefore by someone who has a key. It can scarcely be a new joker inspired by example to acquire a key, because the porters’ duplicate hasn’t been available since the first copy was taken. We can’t rule anyone out on any grounds other than these. The letters don’t demand brains or skill or knowledge. This third stage in the persecution may of course be another divided effort. It may be that Teddy is responsible for the poltergeist stuff — tearing up pictures and smashing negatives and so on — and the unknown joker is responsible for the letters. Or, of course, Teddy may be responsible for the whole lot. I haven’t quite gathered yet whether the poltergeist stuff happens by day or by night, or both. I’ll get that straight with Morningside this evening. But the other point is more important. If he can say for certain that only the prep school properties or only the ruder rhymes were delivered at night, we shall be at least a step farther on. We may even be home, because we shall know whether Teddy or one of the other four — no, five — is our joker.’

  ‘Darling!’ said Sally. ‘I’d no idea you were anything like so near home.’

  ‘I don’t know how near we are, Sally. Morningside may not be quite clear about the things himself. He’s said to have a good visual memory, but that’s not quite the same as a memory for events. Still, I think we can probably sort it out. But we may well find ourselves faced with the choice between Knox and Selina and Miss Quimper and Toby.’

  ‘And Silcutt,’ said Sally, dishing up the potatoes.

  ‘And Silcutt. Odd how one forgets that magnificent man. And, Sally, there’s always Morningside himself, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I did think of that. We know he isn’t responsible for the rude rhymes or the prep school stuff,
and I don’t suppose he’d be up to the ruder rhymes, but could all that have suggested the rest of it to him? Consciously or subconsciously?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know at all. I must try to find out.’

  Nanny came down, stout and comfortable and starched, and collected her supper. She was of the old-fashioned type, and a little apt to treat Johnny and Sally as if they had been her charges too, and not so long ago, either, but they reckoned her one of their greatest blessings. They suspected that she felt the shop to be a slight stigma, but otherwise they seemed to measure up to her rigid standards.

  They had reached the cheese when Sally said, ‘By the way, do you want me to come with you, or would it be better not?’

  Johnny opened his mouth to answer, and then changed his mind and considered the question. After a minute he said, ‘I was going to say better not, because it would probably embarrass Morningside. But on second thoughts I believe I’d like you to come, if you wouldn’t mind. You might as well meet him. But the point is, Sally, that unless the joker is Toby, he doesn’t know there’s going to be a conference, and he may try to do his stuff this evening. These offices aren’t quite soundproof, and it’s unlikely he’ll get as far as walking in on us. But if there were someone next-door to keep a look-out for him — would you simply hate it, darling? I’d post Toby, but I want him in on the conference.’

  ‘I’ll do it, of course.’

  Johnny looked worried. ‘You’ll have to be in the dark.’

  ‘I don’t mind that.’ She didn’t like any of it much — the dark, the great empty room with the rows of filing cabinets throwing shadows to hide anyone who came, the waiting for someone who was probably not quite sane — she remembered Michael Knox’s hard bony fingers. Then she remembered Morningside’s helpless despair, and said, ‘No, of course I don’t mind. You’ll be within call.’

  Johnny put his big hand over hers where it lay on the table and held it for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t dream of suggesting it otherwise,’ he said. ‘We’ll put you in Toby’s office, with the door open. As soon as anyone passes it, you turn on the light and scream. If he goes back the way he came he’ll have to pass the lighted doorway. On no account try to stop him; just see who he is.’

  ‘And if he comes in the other way? Or can’t he? Is there any way in through Comic Cuts? I can’t very well explore those parts; there wouldn’t be any cuts on my subject.’

  ‘Plenty on mine. Yes. The doors at the far end of Peex lead into a short passage. There’s a Ladies’ and a Gents’, and then a lift and a staircase, and Cuts at the far end. If you hear footsteps approaching from that direction, give it as long as you dare and then light up and scream, if possible, before he turns back. He can’t break sideways, that’s one thing; the filing cabinets will stop him.’

  Sally nodded and looked at her watch. ‘It’s just after half past seven,’ she said. ‘Have we time to wash up, or not?’

  ‘I should think so, yes. There isn’t very much, and we’re going to be devils and have a taxi.’

  The telephone rang. Johnny sighed and went out to answer it in the hall. Sally stacked the dishes on the draining board and began to wash. She had just emptied the bowl and picked up a towel when he came back.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I seem to have timed that rather neatly.’ He sat down at the table and leaned complacently back in his chair.

  Sally hung the towel over his shoulder, urged him on to his feet, and sat down in his place. He groaned and began to dry, and she said callously, ‘And who was it?’

  ‘Toby. He told Camberley we were having this conference, and Camberley said he’d very much like to sit in on it. But he didn’t want to force an audience on me if I preferred to be without one, so he asked Toby to ring up and make sure I didn’t mind. I don’t, of course. He’s just the man we want, if Morningside’s going to be jittery. The two of them and Toby have just been eating in the Echo canteen. Morningside was evidently not frightfully pleased when Toby broke it to him that we’d been detecting without his knowledge, but the Brigadier smoothed his ruffled feathers, and he’s quite relieved by the idea of the conference. I said you were coming, though you wouldn’t be in on it, and Toby said that would be fine.’

  Sally nodded and hoped that Toby was right.

  Chapter Four

  It was a dark night, and a thin rain had begun to fall. They drove to within a hundred yards of Echo House and walked from there along the wet pavement. Johnny kept Sally’s arm in his. It was two minutes to eight by the rather indistinct contemporary clock above the reception desk when they came into the entrance hall. There was a porter at the desk now, not a girl. Night-shift, thought Sally.

  Toby was sitting on a red quilted seat — a modern version of Edwardian plush — which ran along the left-hand wall between the call boxes. Beside him, large and reliable, was the Brigadier.

  They stood up, Toby a little awkwardly, as usual. He mentioned no names, probably because of the porter. He said only, ‘Ah, here you are. Come along,’ and led the way, firmly, to the farther of the two lifts. When it came down Sally thought she saw his reason. There was no lift-man in it; perhaps the night-shift didn’t provide for one.

  As soon as they were in the narrow, enclosed space and moving gently upwards, Camberley held out his hand to Johnny.

  ‘We’ve met at Heldar Brothers,’ he said. ‘I’m very glad to see you. I think we need you badly. I fully admit I’ve no right to be here, and I ought to be at the House, but I should be enormously interested to hear what you make of the case. Are you quite sure you wouldn’t rather be left to get on with it, though?’

  ‘I shall be very glad if you’ll come, sir,’ said Johnny. ‘I gather Morningside wants a bit of handling.’

  Camberley looked at him and said, ‘You can do that, I think. He’s looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘He’s an extraordinary man,’ said Toby. ‘When he grasped that you and Sally were the people who’d been sitting about outside his door for the last two days he said, “Of course. I ought to have known. I thought I recognised them. I connected them with some pix of an inquest in Hampshire that we took over from Dale’s.” I take it he was right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny. ‘It would be one of the Westwater murders.’

  The lift stopped, and they walked out of it. They made surprisingly little noise on the composition flooring. Johnny’s step was always astonishingly light; his Commando training had something to do with that. Camberley’s was the brisk, firm step of the more orthodox soldier, but very little louder here. Sally was still wearing flat rubber-soled shoes and made almost no sound at all. Toby’s caged leg dragged with a slow, soft scuffing; it was very tired at the end of a long day. The squeaking of the glass door as he opened it was strident in the quiet building.

  The lights at this end of Peex were on; the far end lay in shadow. The men stood back to let Sally go in. So it was she who first rounded the end of the line of filing cabinets and saw Morningside. He was lying sprawled on his stomach just outside the open doorway of his office, with his head and shoulders out of sight inside it.

  ‘He’s ill,’ she said, and went quickly forward.

  Camberley said suddenly, ‘Mrs Heldar—’ and Johnny said, ‘Sally, wait a minute,’ but by that time she had almost reached Morningside.

  Perhaps she had been dimly aware of the unnatural position which meant more to the two men who had been soldiers. Or perhaps their words and their tone had half prepared her. At any rate she wasn’t taken totally by surprise. But when she stood by Morningside and looked down at his head — or what had been his head — with the black shower of shattered glass over and about it, she knew she couldn’t stand it for long. She put out a hand to find the jamb, and Johnny’s arm came round her.

  ‘All right, darling,’ he said. ‘This way.’

  He took her into Toby’s office, turned on the light, put her into the chair at the desk, and looked rather anxiously at her. She saw that he was very pale himself.

&
nbsp; ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to faint. Go and investigate.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll be just outside if you want me.’

  Her head had steadied, but for a minute or two she wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t going to be sick. She concentrated on the voices beyond the half-open door of the room.

  Camberley said quietly, ‘We don’t touch anything, of course. But this is your job, Heldar.’

  ‘I’m no more qualified than anyone else, sir,’ said Johnny. ‘Will you ring up the police? Scotland Yard, I think. That’s the first thing to do. They’ll lay on a doctor quicker than we can, for what it’s worth.’

  ‘There’s always an outside line plugged in to my telephone,’ said Toby. His voice was under control, but not quite as even as Johnny’s and Camberley’s.

  ‘It’s a separate switchboard, isn’t it?’ asked Camberley. ‘Good. We don’t want an invasion of eager young men from the Echo. We must try to keep this as much to ourselves as possible. I know a man at Scotland Yard. If he’s there he’ll do his best for us.’ He paused, and Johnny evidently answered some look or gesture from him.

  ‘I think it must have fallen from the top of the door. It would make a hell of a row, of course, but presumably there was no one on this floor to hear it. I don’t know about the next one below.’

  Toby said dully, ‘The floors are soundproof.’

  Sally remembered the shattered negatives, the stout wooden box, still disgorging them, lying upside down almost on top of the shattered head, the single negative gripped in the groping fingers. For a moment she struggled again with nausea. She heard Camberley say almost in a whisper, ‘Good God. A booby-trap.’