Answer in the Negative

by Henrietta Hamilton

  Miss Quimper had worked late. She had left the building, she said, a little after half past seven, and had gone straight home by bus to her bedsitting room in Gloucester Road, reaching it about eight o’clock. A female friend in the same boarding house had been with her from that time until about ten. But that, as Toby pointed out unhappily, was no help at all. During the crucial period — twenty to seven until twenty past — she had been, on her own statement, alone in the Negatives Department; the last of her assistants had left a little before six. She was in the habit of working late two or three times a week, but not generally till as late as seven-thirty.

  Silcutt had left the building with Sally, Camberley, and Toby at about six o’clock. He said he had gone straight home to Putney by tube from the Temple. He was a bachelor, and it had been his housekeeper’s evening off, so no one could support his statement that he had reached his house at about seven o’clock and remained there. He could have returned to the Echo building and slipped in by the side door while its porter was out on patrol, but no one could see why he should have wanted to. He had voluntarily provided Toby with an account of his movements after Toby, supported by Camberley, had persuaded him to let Johnny carry on with his investigation.

  Teddy said he had left Echo House at five-thirty. This statement was supported by Bill and the two other messengers, and more credibly by the side-door day-porter. He had reached home at ten or five to six, and taken high tea with his aunt and uncle, who would presumably corroborate him here. He had left the house again at about six-fifteen and gone to the pictures — alone. He had wanted to get there at six-thirty, which was why he had hurried over his tea.

  ‘And I’m quite certain that’s a lie,’ said Toby. ‘Or at least there’s a lie lurking somewhere in it. I could tell by the look in his eye. I asked him if he could describe the films, and he gave me a graphic account of a Western with Dick Ray. But it could have been any Western. And he couldn’t remember much about the other. He said it was sentimental, and he went to sleep.’

  ‘Did he say which cinema it was?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘The Alcazar in the King’s Cross Road.’

  Johnny made a long arm, picked up the A to D volume of the Telephone Directory, found the number he wanted, and dialled it. After a moment he said, ‘Good evening. Would you mind telling me what your programme is tonight?…Thank you so much. And it was the same last night?…Thank you. Goodnight.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, replacing the receiver. ‘Dick Ray in Injun Trail, and Gillian Davis in Mothers’ Day.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Teddy said.’

  ‘The Alcazar is probably his local cinema. He’d know what was on, or he could very easily find out. So he could have been back at Echo House by the time the night-porter was looking round outside. What about Knox?’

  ‘Mike,’ said Toby with some exasperation, ‘is not talking. He said he left the Archives about a quarter to six, but he refused in so many words to tell me how he had spent his evening and said he had likewise refused to tell Lindesay. He added that if I liked to assume, he was protecting a woman’s fair name I was at liberty to do so. From which I deduce that he isn’t, but you never quite know with Mike. I’ll ask round about in Fleet Street — he’s a well-known figure, and I may get something.’

  Toby sat back in his chair and sipped his drink. But he didn’t relax, and after a little Johnny asked, ‘Anything else biting you? Apart from the general situation, I mean.’

  ‘Not really. We had a mild professional crisis today. Some pix went missing — the entire file on Venezuelan revolutions — and we haven’t found them yet. Presumably someone’s put them away in the wrong place; it’s happened before. In the meantime the editor of a well-known magazine is clamouring for them.’

  ‘When you say it’s happened before, you mean it’s been someone’s mistake?’

  Toby looked faintly surprised. ‘We imagine so. We mislaid the stuff on the Hungarian Rising a few days ago. The file was apparently missing one day and back in its place a couple of days later. It’s amazing what mistakes people can make, you know.’

  ‘I do,’ said Johnny abstractedly. He was silent for quite a minute, lighting a pipe with sure, unhurried fingers. Then he asked, ‘You are quite sure the things weren’t in their proper places all the time? People can slip up over that too.’

  ‘I know. We all know, so in a case like that we always do a double or even a triple check. Morningside found the Hungarian stuff missing, I remember, and Selina and I checked that it was. The file itself had been taken out. And this afternoon one girl found the Venezuelan stuff missing and another girl checked. Same thing — file gone. It was there at five-thirty yesterday evening, too. But even the first incident couldn’t have been part of the persecution, Johnny. It was a most ordinary occupational irritation, and anyway no one could have known he was going to want the Hungarian stuff. Thought rang up and asked for it twenty seconds before he went to look for it.’

  ‘I see. Tell me, do you have a corresponding negative in the basement for every photograph upstairs?’

  ‘Yes — except in some cases where a neg happened to be lost or broken before the pic came to us. Even then we make a copy neg if it’s important.’

  ‘Just so. Then you’d have negs of the Hungarian and Venezuelan stuff?’

  Toby sat up and his face changed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, because that’s quite recent and comes from properly organised agencies. It’s only older negs and negs in private ownership that have been lost or damaged, as a rule. And it was some Hungarian negs that Miss Quimper missed. From the filed stuff. She missed them the day before Morningside was killed — no, the day before that: Monday. She didn’t report it to me till Tuesday; she thought they might turn up. And the Hungarian pix were missing on Friday — and back in their place on Monday. You know, I thought it seemed odd that Morningside should have been messing about with the filed negs.’

  ‘This is rather interesting,’ said Johnny. ‘Toby, have you got to give evidence at the inquest tomorrow morning? Yes, well, so have I, and Sally wants to be there. Would it be possible (a) for Selina or someone to watch the filing cabinet where the Venezuelan pix should be, and (b) for Miss Quimper to watch the box or whatever it is where the Venezuelan negs presumably are?’

  Toby nodded slowly. ‘It’s not easy to watch one particular point, especially for a Peex assistant, who has to attend to clients, but I’ll ask them to do their best. But do you think this has got anything to do with Morningside’s death?’

  ‘Frankly, no. But I think it’ll bear investigation, Toby. And remember, if anyone goes to the file or the box, he mustn’t on any account be tackled. He — or she — must be observed and allowed to go away again. I don’t think either the pix or the negs are in any danger, you know.’

  Toby was persuaded to stay for supper, but he said he had an article for The New Conservative which should have been finished a week ago and left a little before nine o’clock. Sally and Johnny listened to the news, in case there was anything about Morningside’s death. There were the still hoped-for summit talks, a colliery strike, a by-election somewhere, an IRA raid on an Army camp on Salisbury Plain, and various other items. But to the Heldars’ relief there was nothing about Morningside.

  Johnny had just switched the wireless off when the telephone rang. Sally, who was beside it, picked up the receiver and gave their number.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Heldar,’ said a deep voice with the hint of a country accent. ‘James Camberley speaking. I hope you’re all right — over the worst of it now?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sally. ‘Yes, I’m absolutely all right.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I don’t want to sound patronising, but I hope you’ll let me say that I was overcome with admiration. I shouldn’t have thought any woman could take a thing like that without a grain of fuss, short of being completely callous. You make the way of the investigator very easy for your husband. Which brings me to the second object of this call. May
I speak to him?’

  ‘Of course, Sir James. Here he is.’ She added with some embarrassment, ‘I’m afraid you’re too generous,’ and held out the receiver to Johnny, who came and sat on the arm of her chair. She put her head close to his and listened.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Good evening, Heldar. Lorn told me he was going to report to you this evening on alibis and so on, and I’ve found something which must be added to his report. I don’t like it a bit — we’ve caught someone out in a lie, at the best — and I don’t much like passing it on, but I’ve no choice. Miss Marvell evidently told the police she left Echo House just after six yesterday evening and went straight home. Well — she didn’t go straight home. She left just after six; the night-porter at the Fleet Street entrance saw her go. But he saw her come back, about ten to seven, and go up in one of the lifts. He can’t remember when she left again; he was out of the hall for a few minutes round about half past seven, and she may have gone then. I spoke to the only lift-man on duty, and he says he’s almost sure he didn’t take her up or down. As you know, there’s no man on the second lift at night. Brown — that’s the porter — says there were several people in the hall when she came back at ten to seven, so I suppose she may have thought she’d had cover enough to slip in unnoticed.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ said Johnny. ‘She may not realise that she’s rather striking.’

  ‘Possibly not, though I don’t suppose it’s for want of telling. Brown is fully aware of her charms; that’s why he noticed her. I thought I’d have a chat with him about people’s movements, and this came out.’

  ‘I’m very grateful, sir. I take it he’s told the police?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Reluctantly, I gather. I imagine they’ve confronted her with his evidence, but I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I’ll talk to her presently,’ said Johnny, without enthusiasm.

  ‘That’s up to you. It’s quite likely, of course, that she went back for some entirely innocent reason, and was afraid to admit it. I hope that’s it, anyway. Goodnight, Heldar.’

  ‘Goodnight, sir, and thank you.’ Johnny put down the receiver, and Sally looked at him anxiously.

  ‘I hate this,’ she said. ‘It’s going to hurt Toby so much — even if she’s only been pinching pictures. Johnny, you asked him to get her to watch the Venezuelan filing cabinet tomorrow morning. Is that desirable now?’

  ‘I think we’ll leave it as it is,’ said Johnny. ‘It’ll be quite interesting to see what happens. I said, “Selina or someone”, anyway, so he may not put her on to it. But I think, if nothing’s happened by lunchtime, you or I must take it on.’

  Sally nodded. She looked at his rather strained face, and said, ‘What about some tea? And then perhaps bed? I’m sleepy.’

  He agreed, and she went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She had made the tea and was coming up the curved staircase when she noticed that the drawing room door was a little ajar. The next moment it opened, and a thick green Penguin book fell on the mat outside. Johnny came out and picked it up. She realised suddenly what he was doing.

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ he said. ‘I was just experimenting.’

  ‘I know. Do you want any help?’

  He looked doubtfully at her for a moment, and then said, ‘Just once or twice, if you will.’

  ‘Of course.’ She carried the tray into the drawing room, put it down, and turned back to him. He was moving a straight-backed chair to a position behind the door.

  ‘You’ll want this to stand on,’ he said. ‘You have the door a couple of inches open and balance the book like this.’ He reached up and placed it with its lower edge along the top of the door and its upper resting against the lintel. ‘See?’

  ‘Yes.’ She took it from him, and he edged out of the room and pulled the door almost to behind him. She climbed on to the chair and placed the book, got off again, removed the chair, and said, ‘All right.’

  She heard Johnny’s footsteps approaching, firm and brisk. The door opened. He had pushed it at arm’s length, his hand on the handle, and the book struck him on the right forearm and fell on the mat again. He picked it up and gave it back to her. ‘May we have it again?’ he asked.

  She did it again. This time he was close to the door when he opened it, and the Penguin just missed his head. The third time he pushed at arm’s length again, and again got it on the forearm, and the fourth time he came close and it shaved his right ear. The fifth time it got him square on the head and came out of its cover.

  ‘I’ll mend it,’ he said, and put it on top of the bookshelves. ‘I think that’s enough for tonight. Thank you, darling.’

  Chapter Six

  The inquest was a long-drawn-out affair, and rather painful to the lay witnesses at least, though presumably not to the keen-faced men who reported it or the tightly packed little crowd of people which their stories and headlines had brought to the Coroner’s Court.

  The Coroner sat with a jury. He called first the police surgeon who had examined Morningside’s body, and then the pathologist who had done the post-mortem — no doubt because they were busy professional men whose time was precious. They were agreed that Morningside had died of a fracture of the skull — though they didn’t put it as simply as that — which had undoubtedly been caused by the box of negatives falling from the top of his office door. Their evidence was crisp but a little nightmarish, and Sally thought she saw the faces of the reporters sharpen. The police surgeon was characteristically reluctant to commit himself very closely as to the time of death. But his to-ings and fro-ings, as Toby called them afterwards, seemed to boil down to a virtual certainty that, from his point of view, Morningside had died — probably almost instantaneously — between approximately seven and eight o’clock, or, roughly speaking, between an hour and an hour and a half before witness had first seen him. But the evidence of Camberley and Toby, which came later, put it beyond doubt that he had been alive until after a quarter past seven, and suggested strongly that he had died just about twenty minutes past.

  Inspector Lindesay was called after the doctors and described his first visit to the National Press Archives and what he had done there. He was followed by a fat woman in black, who was Morningside’s aunt and next of kin, and identified his body with a garrulity perhaps due to shock. The other lay witnesses came after her.

  The Coroner treated Camberley with great respect, but Camberley gave it back again. He was a first-class witness, careful, accurate, and beautifully clear. The pens and pencils of the reporters recorded him eagerly, and Sally was rather sorry for him. He never seemed to seek publicity, although he accepted it in his own entirely unselfconscious fashion, and she was sure this kind was not to his simple but unerring taste. But it was a greater ordeal for Toby. He spoke quietly and calmly, and the only sign of strain was a certain whiteness about his mouth. Perhaps only the Heldars guessed at the effort he was making.

  Johnny came last and was very unemphatic and very convincing. Since — as the Coroner pointed out to the jury in his summing-up — the proceedings and evidence at an inquest were directed solely to ascertaining who the deceased was, how, when and where he came by his death, and the persons, if any, to be charged with the crime, if the jury found that a crime had been committed, it was probably considered unnecessary as well as inexpedient to bring up the history of the persecution at this stage, and the Coroner required no particular reason for Johnny’s presence at the discovery of the body.

  The Coroner, having made clear the objects of the enquiry and summed up the evidence, explained to his jury that it was for them to decide on matters of fact. He was here only to guide them on matters of law. It was for them to decide how the box of negatives — the instrument of death — had got on to the top of the door. If they thought it, as they well might, extremely unlikely that the deceased had put it there himself and brought it upon his own head, the verdict of suicide was inappropriate. If they thought it equally unlikely that an
y form of carelessness, however blameworthy, had brought it there by accident, then the verdict of death by misadventure was equally inappropriate, and even a verdict of manslaughter was inadmissible. If, on the other hand, they believed that some other person had deliberately placed the box on the top of the door with the intention or in the hope of killing or injuring Francis Morningside, then — even if that person could not have been absolutely certain of causing Francis Morningside’s death — it was their duty to bring in a verdict of murder. If they were satisfied that the evidence they had heard pointed to any particular person or persons, it was their duty to bring in a verdict of murder against that person or those persons. If, on the other hand, they were not so satisfied…

  The jury, quite satisfied that the Coroner was right, consulted together in whispers and, without retiring, brought in a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown.

  The lay witnesses left the Court tightly packed in the crowd. Morningside’s aunt was well ahead, skilfully piloted by an indeterminate male escort. Johnny kept Sally’s arm in his, and Toby, who ought to have had a stick, moved with some difficulty on her other side. Camberley and Silcutt, who had been an obviously reluctant observer, were somewhere behind them.

  ‘Oi! Lorn!’ said a thin middle-aged man with a notebook. ‘Got a story for an old friend?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, damn your eyes,’ said Toby amiably. ‘Put away your horrid little notebook and run back and turn in what you’ve got already. You won’t get any more from me.’ He had taken Sally’s free arm and was edging her and Johnny unobtrusively away.

  But it was too late. ‘Good morning, Mr Heldar,’ said another voice. ‘You interesting yourself in this case?’

  ‘Give me a chance,’ said Johnny with a grin. ‘If I’d stayed away, I’d have been arrested for contempt of court or whatever it is.’

  A camera flashed. Toby’s friend said, ‘Funny thing you and Mrs Heldar should have found the body, though — don’t you think? Come on, Mrs Heldar. Take pity on a poor newspaperman and tell me what your famous husband’s after.’