Answer in the Negative

by Henrietta Hamilton

  ‘Thank you,’ said Johnny. ‘On Wednesday afternoon, did Morningside by any chance speak to you about a Reflector cutting he wanted for Brigadier Camberley?’

  ‘No,’ said Knox.

  ‘According to Miss Quimper, he looked for it himself in your files about half past seven on Wednesday evening, found it, and went back to Peex with it. Will you look in your files now and see if by any chance it’s there?’

  Johnny glanced at Camberley, who provided the particulars. Knox made an Irish noise which seemed to signify comprehension, strode away, squatted down before a filing cabinet, opened the bottom drawer, and began to separate the files in it. After a few moments his long fingers came up, delicately holding a big cutting. He closed the drawer, straightened himself, strode back, and gave the cutting to Camberley. ‘This it?’ he asked.

  Camberley looked at it. ‘Yes, that’s it,’ he said. ‘Did you expect this, Heldar?’

  ‘No,’ said Johnny slowly. ‘No, I didn’t. I think, sir, it had better go to Lindesay.’

  ‘Fool that I am!’ said Camberley. ‘I’ve probably messed up any fingerprints there are.’ He laid the cutting carefully on the top of the nearest filing cabinet.

  ‘I doubt if there are any, you know.’ Johnny turned back to Knox. ‘Any use asking you what you were doing about six-thirty yesterday evening?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Top flat at Fifteen Crawley Street, Bloomsbury. I live alone. I got home about a quarter past six, having had a quickish drink in Fleet Street first. When you saw me at five-thirty I was on my way to it. I dare say the barmaid might remember me, but that wouldn’t give me an alibi for six-thirty. The Belgian couple who live below me may have heard me come in, but they’re the most frightful liars, and I’m afraid they like me.’

  ‘Any further comment on Wednesday evening?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Knox, and smiled warmly again.

  ‘Michael,’ said Camberley quietly, ‘you’re a hell of a poseur. But you’re not a fool, and you know your world. You know damn well that if your story isn’t relevant it won’t have to come out. If it’s completely irrelevant I don’t suppose Heldar will even repeat it to the police, unless he has to do it for your sake. On the other hand, of course’ — he looked very straight at Knox — ‘if you won’t tell it I should say you’re almost bound to get into trouble.’

  ‘I’ve been in trouble before now,’ said Knox, with another smile.

  ‘I know you have. I’ve been in trouble with you, which makes me foolishly reluctant to see you in it again.’

  ‘That’s very good of you. But please don’t worry.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done. All right, Mike. It’s no use pressing you.’

  Knox’s eyes rested on the Brigadier with a curious expression, which Sally couldn’t quite read. It seemed to be partly sardonic and partly rather unhappy.

  They went back to Toby’s office. Camberley said a little abruptly, ‘I’m sorry that didn’t work. Michael was a War Correspondent in the desert while I was there, and I got to know him pretty well. He seems almost like one of my own boys. But he hasn’t been quite the same lately.’

  Sally remembered that Knox had been slating Camberley in the Reflector. He was evidently an iconoclast, but it seemed a pity he had had to pick on someone so inherently generous. It was perhaps understandable that Camberley preferred not to ask him for cuttings.

  Chapter Nine

  They settled down to wait for Lindesay, who was supposed to be coming back to question the Saturday staff. It was after half past eleven when he appeared, and they gathered that he had been seeing the girls in Miss Quimper’s department, the two messengers on duty, and the people in Cuttings.

  He took Sally first and listened to Miss Quimper’s story. He looked rather more austere than before, and she was glad when he released her. She wasn’t allowed to rejoin the others in Toby’s office. But there was no objection to her waiting for Johnny, and the young plain-clothes man who had been left outside in Peex shepherded her to a table. Camberley was taken next. A quarter of an hour later he came out, and Johnny was fetched. Camberley paused beside Sally.

  ‘Will you forgive me if I don’t wait?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got to meet someone for lunch.’

  It was five minutes after that that she heard the low voices of two assistants behind the nearest row of filing cabinets. (Selina wasn’t here this morning; as Toby’s principal assistant she obviously wouldn’t be off duty on his Saturday off.)

  One girl said, ‘When do you suppose we’ll get away? I wanted to catch a train at ten past one.’

  The other said, ‘Well, at this rate, I doubt if you’ll do it.’

  ‘I ought to ring up, then. I was counting on getting off at half past twelve as usual.’

  Sally looked automatically at her watch. It was close on twenty-five past twelve. It flashed suddenly upon her that Teddy would presumably be leaving the building at half past and might make straight for his client.

  She got up without thinking and smiled at the young plain-clothes man.

  ‘Would you be very kind,’ she said, ‘and tell my husband I couldn’t wait after all?’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Heldar.’ He smiled too.

  ‘It’s the photographs we had to pick up,’ she added hurriedly, and moved on. ‘I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, Mrs Heldar; don’t worry.’ He came with her to open one of the glass doors. She thanked him warmly and went on.

  She ran along the passage and pressed the down button of the nearer lift. Everyone must have been too busy with the police for the last hour or two to send Teddy out on jobs or to organise him at all. He might not have been able to replace the Venezuelan negs, but he could probably have left the building half an hour ago without anyone’s noticing — anyone except the day-porter at Laxton’s door. The lift, according to the indicator, was at the ground floor and not moving. Sally, growing reckless, pressed the down button of the next one, which was at the second. But the nearer lift came first. The doors opened with their usual maddening decorum, and she went in and pressed the ground-floor button.

  He might well have gone, she thought, as she hurried out on to the crowded pavement. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be long. But she hadn’t got a newspaper, and she would probably have to go to the corner of St Barnabas’ Lane to get one. She couldn’t risk that. She was wearing a scarf over her head, so at least her hair was hidden. She would get into the doorway Johnny had used yesterday afternoon — unless the restaurant was open…

  Teddy emerged suddenly from Thrale Passage, and turned towards her. She turned abruptly herself, stared into the Echo’s display window, and saw his reflection pass her. Then she began to follow him.

  She had never done such a thing in her life. It was very rash indeed; he was almost bound to look round and see her. But this might be their only chance; he evidently wasn’t going home to the King’s Cross neighbourhood.

  He turned into St Barnabas’ Lane, walking so fast that she had her work cut out to keep him in sight. Presently he crossed the narrow, traffic-filled street almost under the bows of a news van. The driver leaned out and swore at him, but the incident gave Sally a little confidence. He was thinking only of getting wherever he was going.

  He turned into Holborn and increased his pace on the wider pavement. Sally began to trot. They proceeded in this way for a quarter of a mile. Then Teddy’s red head disappeared down the steps of Chancery Lane Station.

  She felt in her bag for coppers and seized a newspaper as she passed the news-stand at the top. Then she followed Teddy down. She was convinced for a moment that this was a trick, that he was waiting round the corner to find out if she was following him. But when she swung round it, she saw the red head in the queue at the booking-office. She was just near enough, when he reached the window, to hear him ask for a single to Belsize Park. Presumably he would go home from there when his business was done.
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  She asked for the same thing. By the time she reached the top of the first escalator he was near the foot of it, clattering down fast. He hurried straight on to the second, which led to the westbound platform. Sally put on a spurt, and reached the platform just as a train came in. Any train would be right. She saw the red head in the crowd but made no attempt to get into the same carriage. Better not. In a crowd like this she wouldn’t be able to move. She would probably be hidden from him, but she couldn’t hide. If he knew she was following him and Belsize Park was a bluff, she would lose him. But if it wasn’t a bluff, it would be all right as long as she was on the same train. Only she mustn’t get too far behind during the change at Tottenham Court Road.

  She stood jam-packed as the train rattled through the darkness. Only two stops this time. First Holborn, and then the darkness again. Then the second lighted platform. The doors slid open again. She got out, looked for the way to the Northern Line, found it, and discovered the red head between her and it.

  It was quite a long way. Through to the eastbound platform and along it, up and down short flights of steps, along passages, round corners, and finally on to the southbound platform and through to the northbound. Then there was a wait. Sally didn’t know this line well, and she had to read the indicator and the map with her newspaper raised between her and Teddy. They wanted an Edgware train, and that would be the second one in. She retired to the entry by which she had come and stood there behind the paper. When the second train stopped, she walked forward, looking awkwardly for her way on the safe side, and dived in.

  She found a seat, and was able to relax a little, but not much. She had been once to Belsize Park Station, and to the best of her recollection there were lifts. If she let Teddy go up and took the next lift, she would probably lose him. If she took the same lift, he would probably recognise her.

  They had reached the station before she had made up her mind. She had realised that not very many people were likely to get off here, and she took it slowly. Teddy and two other people were well on their way, and the doors were about to close, when she slipped out and followed. Up a flight of steps, across a bridge.

  Mercifully there was no waiting outside. The lift was there. Sally took a desperate decision, pulled her scarf farther over her face and, with her newspaper in position, walked in. The woman who took her ticket told her to look where she was going, and she mumbled an apology. The doors shut, and the lift started with a jerk.

  When it stopped, she waited till the doors had opened, and then risked a glance at the further end. Teddy was already out. She followed again, her newspaper still up, and from the cover of the station exit watched him cross the busy road, turn to the right past a line of shops on the far side, and then turn off to the left. She shot across the road and ran. When she reached the corner, she looked round it, and to her relief saw him fifty yards down the side road.

  There were very few other people in sight. But she remembered that Teddy had never seen the coat she was wearing, and that her face was invisible except from the front. She was on the point of crossing the road when Teddy did it himself.

  Presently he turned into another road, flanked by small red-brick houses, with plane trees growing at the kerbs. After that he turned three times in fairly quick succession, walking faster and faster and never looking back. She followed on the other pavement, running when he had disappeared, always afraid of losing him.

  At last she rounded a corner just in time to see him turn in, twenty yards ahead of her, at a little gateway in a low wall from which the railings had gone. It wasn’t the gate which led to the steps and the high porch of the semi-detached grey stuccoed house, but a side gate beyond that. He dived down what must be another flight of steps between the house and its further neighbour and vanished again.

  Sally walked straight on, noting the name of the road and the number of the house. Beside the basement gate a name was painted in cobalt-blue letters on the top of the low wall: ‘Hilary Longwall’.

  At the next corner she turned and waited, half-hidden by a higher wall. She had waited perhaps three minutes when Teddy reappeared and turned towards the station. She stood still for a moment, undecided. Then she made up her mind. Better let well alone. She was quite certain he had delivered his prints. Nothing but business, surely, could have brought him so far off his usual beat — and apparently without his lunch, too. She was feeling the strain, and it would be a pity to slip up now. She gave him two minutes’ law, and then walked slowly back to the station. She didn’t catch up with him.

  There would be call boxes in the station, but she had to stop and buy cigarettes at a small café opposite before she had enough pennies. It was twenty-five past one. She assumed that Johnny had interpreted her hurried message correctly and gone home. She put the pennies in and dialled. The telephone rang once. Then she heard him say, ‘Hullo,’ and pressed Button A.

  ‘Johnny,’ she said, ‘listen. I’ve found Teddy’s client. I’m at Belsize Park Underground Station. At least, I shall be in a little café opposite, if you want to come.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘Tell me exactly what you’ve found, will you?’

  She told him. ‘I think the name’s familiar,’ she said when she had finished, ‘only I can’t place it. Can you?’

  ‘Not at the moment. What’s the name of this café?’

  She remembered it and told him.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you leave it before I get there, I’ll beat you. I’m not sure I shan’t do it anyway. Goodbye.’

  She went over to the café and ordered sausages and chips. She was halfway through them when she was struck by the frightful idea that Hilary Longwall might be an honest-to-goodness client of the Archives, and that Teddy might have been sent to him — or her — in the course of duty. She didn’t really think so, but she would never live such a thing down.

  She was eating biscuits and cheese and drinking coffee when Johnny came in. It was only a quarter to two, so he had probably taken a taxi. She had guessed from his voice over the telephone that he had been really anxious, and as soon as she saw him, she knew it. She knew too that she had been a little frightened. He sat down beside her, and she said in a small voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

  The café was quite empty except for themselves. Johnny took her hand and said quietly, ‘Never again. That’s an order. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Then the waitress reappeared, found them holding hands, and was obviously delighted. Johnny ordered the sausages and chips, and she brought him a fried egg as well.

  When he had reached the coffee stage, he gave Sally a cigarette, lit one for himself, and got down to business, speaking low again.

  ‘I rang up Toby about the name you mentioned. I gathered from your message that you would come home when you could, and that if you wanted to communicate you would probably communicate with home, but Toby stayed on his office telephone just in case. And, incidentally, I’m ashamed of you, vamping plain-clothes men.’

  ‘How do you know I did?’

  ‘The poor boy was all dewy-eyed when he gave me your message. Anyway, I rang up Toby, and his Fleet Street memory produced the information we wanted. Your discovery is the young man who went into Hungary during the October Revolution — which the Archives, for filing purposes, call the Hungarian Rising. At least, he said he went in. Since he didn’t travel with any other students, and didn’t meet anyone who could identify him afterwards, there is some uncertainty about it. The Sunday Echo bought his story, but the more sober newspapers were a bit chary. He got back to Cambridge halfway through the following term, but was let off with a caution — possibly, I imagine, because the authorities didn’t want to pander to his self-importance by giving him any more publicity. But he went off to the Venezuelan Revolution last January, and that finished his University career. At least, he said he’d been to Venezuela. Again there would seem to be no witnesses, though the Sunday Echo took him up that time, too.’

  ‘Of course,
’ said Sally. ‘I remember the story now. Are we going to see him?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t see why you shouldn’t come. He doesn’t sound a very formidable proposition. I think, by the way, I know why he wanted to buy the pix privately. It wasn’t just that he was looking for a bargain, and in fact he probably paid more than the Archives’ price. It was rather silly of me not to see the client’s motive before.’

  He explained the client’s motive as they walked back through the suburban roads. Presently they came to the wide avenue with the grey stuccoed houses. Johnny grimaced at the sight of the cobalt name. ‘My God, what affectation!’ he said, and followed Sally down the narrow flight of steps and into a messy little courtyard occupied by dustbins and smelling slightly of household refuse. In the wall of the house there was a cobalt door, rather dirty, and the name of Hilary Longwall appeared again, in the usual medium, on the stucco beside it.

  Johnny rang, and they waited. After a moment or two footsteps sounded inside, and the door was opened. A young man stood there — he was obviously young, in spite of his drab and rather ill-nourished beard; there was something very immature about him. His lank mouse-coloured hair was untidy and hadn’t been cut for some time. He was short and squat, and wore a red and green striped shirt, green corduroy slacks, and a pair of extremely vivid sandals.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said sulkily. ‘What can I do for you?’ It was a faintly Cockney voice, and a little husky.

  ‘Mr Longwall?’ asked Johnny. ‘The author?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the young man. ‘Have you come about my book? I’ve more or less fixed up with Ovingdon’s, but come in and have a drink and we’ll talk it over. I haven’t actually signed the contract yet, you know; I’m not altogether satisfied with the terms they’re offering.’

  Johnny accepted the invitation. Murmuring polite thanks, he got himself and Sally into the house before Longwall had stopped talking. They found themselves in a dark passage and slipped through an open doorway into a room at the back of the house.