Answer in the Negative

by Henrietta Hamilton

  The walls had been painted white, some time ago. The curtains and the rugs which lay on the worn linoleum looked to Sally like Latin American Brummagem. The furniture was cheap and ugly and rather sparse. There were a good many books, on shelves and elsewhere; most of them seemed to be political works of the Labour persuasion, but some were on Hungary and Latin America. A portable typewriter stood uncovered on a table, with a quarto sheet in it and a pile of papers beside it. There were two or three prints on the walls, all, apparently, of contemporary pictures, and to Sally almost incomprehensible. Everything was covered with dust, and the floor round the table was deep in crumpled paper.

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Longwall, picking up a bottle of wine from the mantelpiece. ‘This is Jugo-Slav, and quite good.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Johnny politely, and Sally refused too.

  ‘No? Sit down, then.’ He left them to find seats for themselves and dropped on to a divan covered with an already crumpled and rather unconvincing poncho-type blanket. ‘Now, about my book. It isn’t finished, of course, but I can give you a précis. Personal experiences of that type have a very big sale, as you know, especially when they’re decently written. And I’ve got some astounding original photographs. You’ll see them on the table there.’

  Johnny, who had put Sally into an uncomfortable armchair and was fetching for himself the straight chair in front of the typewriter, picked up the large, glossy prints and looked at them.

  ‘Very interesting,’ he said. He brought the chair over and sat down with the photographs in his hand. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not a publisher.’

  Longwall’s jaw dropped. ‘Then why did you say you were?’ he demanded.

  ‘I didn’t, you know,’ said Johnny. ‘You assumed I was.’

  ‘Then who the hell are you?’

  ‘My name’s Heldar. I’m a bookseller by trade, but at the moment I’m acting as a private enquiry agent for the National Press Archives. Tell me, did you really imagine you could publish these pictures as your own and get away with it?’

  Longwall began to stammer, and Johnny cut him short. ‘At the best it would have been a big risk. Anyone in the Archives and quite a number of newspapermen might have recognised them. But since there’s a certain amount of doubt about your visits to Hungary and Venezuela your publishers would probably have gone rather carefully into the origin of the pictures before using them, and even if they’d decided it was safe there would have been enquiries after publication. You would certainly have been caught out one way or another. What did you pay Parston for them?’

  The battle was comparatively short. Longwall became furious and tried to bluff it out. Johnny kept his temper and remained entirely unimpressed. Longwall’s fury merged into the technical Angry Young Man attitude and embraced the world at large and all those responsible for it. Johnny waited patiently. Longwall passed from anger to plaintiveness and, when that had no effect, to sulks, and still Johnny waited. Finally, when the wheel seemed to have come full-circle, he put his question again.

  ‘Five guineas each,’ said Longwall. ‘He wouldn’t take less. I didn’t tell him what I wanted them for, of course, but—’

  ‘But it was obvious to him that you wanted them quite badly. And it didn’t strike you that you were putting yourself in his hands?’ Johnny ran through the prints as he spoke. Even in his fury Longwall hadn’t attempted to take them back. Johnny’s ex-Commando physique and obviously first-class condition didn’t invite liberties.

  ‘Eleven,’ he said. ‘Was that all this lot?’

  ‘Yes. Those were all that were good enough.’

  ‘Or the pick of those that hadn’t been published. Nearly sixty pounds on them. And the Hungarian ones?’

  ‘Fifteen at the same price,’ said Longwall sullenly.

  ‘I see. One hundred and thirty-six pounds ten in all. I don’t know that it was particularly generous, considering what you obviously hoped to make out of the book, and what you must have been paid by the Sunday Echo for your adventures. You gave the boy cash, I suppose? Yes. Well, I’ll take the Hungarian lot as well.’

  ‘If I give them to you, will you advise the Archives not to take any action?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ snapped Johnny. ‘The Archives will do as they think best. They may prosecute themselves, or the copyright-holders may do it — or both. What is absolutely certain is that someone will take you to court if you don’t return all these prints. And I imagine the Echo will be rather annoyed too. If it comes out that you’ve gone as far as this to bolster up your story, they’re going to look awful fools.’

  Longwall, rather white now, got another sheaf of prints out of the table drawer, and Johnny counted them. Then he said, ‘Where did you meet Parston?’

  Longwall hesitated, and the colour came back into his face. ‘At a dance at the Clerkenwell Palais,’ he said. ‘A fortnight ago.’

  ‘Quite so. Nostalgie de la boue, I suppose. Did he bring the Venezuelan pictures out here on Wednesday evening?’

  ‘No. I was in the Fleet Street neighbourhood anyway, and he met me in a pub — the Grapevine. It’s quite close to the Echo building. He brought the finished Hungarian prints, and the Venezuelan pictures for me to choose from. I made him bring the whole file in both cases. I couldn’t trust him to make any sort of selection.’

  ‘What time did he arrive?’

  ‘Just before seven. He was due at seven. He only stayed a few minutes. I would have liked to take a bit longer over my selection, but he was in a great hurry, and very jumpy. Someone had found out a bit about what he was doing and threatened to give him away. He told me about it, actually, when we fixed up the meeting at the pub on the telephone — that was on Monday evening. He’d been caught putting back the pictures — the Hungarian pictures — on Monday at lunchtime. He wasn’t keen to meet me again and get the Venezuelan prints made for me, but he said he would if this chap didn’t give him away in the meantime. He wanted the money, obviously — I suppose it was a fortune for him. The man who caught him wasn’t blackmailing him — he was apparently considering whether it was his duty to report him.’ Longwall’s voice was deliberately pompous. ‘The prefect type, it would seem.’

  ‘What was his name?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘The man’s? Mornington, Morningside — something like that—’

  Longwall broke off. ‘My God,’ he said, and put a hand to his mouth. ‘That — that’s the chap—’

  ‘You do read the papers occasionally, then,’ said Johnny.

  Longwall was too shaken to notice the sarcasm. ‘Yes. I never thought of it till now. But I remember — I remember now — Parston was very jittery, but he said he could deal with Morningside. I thought he was just showing off, but—’

  The Heldars left Hilary Longwall, rather thankfully, and climbed up to the road. Johnny looked a little sick.

  ‘I’ve never in my life,’ he said, ‘met anyone quite so self-centred. The moment he assumed without the faintest justification that we’d come after his book, I knew we were off, but I didn’t expect him to keep it up from beginning to end without a break. I’m sorry I took you.’

  ‘It was rather interesting,’ said Sally.

  ‘Ill-mannered cub,’ said Johnny, and the old-fashioned epithet seemed entirely appropriate. ‘He gave Teddy away with both hands, too. Obviously, Morningside didn’t know the whole truth, or he’d have reported Teddy without hesitation. But an investigation would have brought it all out, and that would have meant the sack, and perhaps prosecution. We know now what Teddy meant when he said to Morningside, “Wotcher goin’ ter do abaht it? That’s wot I wanter know.” From your description that sounded unusually urgent and persistent for a piece of ordinary rudeness, and Teddy sounded unusually upset. And Morningside said he hadn’t decided, but if Teddy went on that way, he’d get what was coming to him.’

  ‘Yes, and that was why he was looking for Morningside the day before. Morningside had slept on it, and he might have decided. And Teddy was
anxious enough to forget that he’d be at lunch.’

  ‘Teddy hadn’t very long,’ said Johnny. ‘On Wednesday evening, I mean. Even if he left Longwall at five past seven, he had to get back to Echo House, in by the coal-hole in Garrick Square, and up to Peex, and do the job and get away by twenty past at the latest. I suppose it’s just possible.’

  After a moment Sally asked, ‘What about alibis for last night? We know Michael Knox hasn’t got one.’

  ‘Toby hasn’t either. He left Echo House about six, went back to his flat, and stayed there.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. He’s got one for Morningside.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know about the others yet, but Toby’s going to do his best to find out. In the meantime’ — Johnny looked extremely uncomfortable — ‘I think I must see Selina. I’ll ring her up when we get home.’

  Chapter Ten

  But when they got home Selina was there. Nanny, with unerring instinct, had recognised her as one of the original employer class, and had put her in the drawing room and lit the fire. She stood up as they walked in, tall and graceful in a long tweed coat, half in shadow because the November afternoon was closing in, half seen in the flickering firelight, which struck gold pieces out of her hair and turned her eyes to enormous pits of shadow.

  ‘I do hope you’ll forgive me, Mrs Heldar,’ she said. She hadn’t lost her poise, but her clear voice lacked a little of its usual assurance. ‘I was rather uncertain about coming, and when your Nanny said you were out, I nearly ran away. But she made up my mind for me.’

  ‘I’m very glad she did,’ said Sally. ‘She said you’d been waiting nearly half an hour, so we must apologise for being so long. Do sit down and let Johnny entertain you while I get some tea.’

  She had kept her own poise, such as it was. It was easier not to think that she might have in her house the woman who had killed Morningside and Miss Quimper — a woman who was attractive but insane. She had been forced to think so seriously about Michael Knox and Teddy that the impact of Selina’s admission had diminished a little, and she was confused.

  When she went upstairs with the tray Selina and Johnny were talking about the new play at the Sphere. Johnny got up and took the tray from her, and then went downstairs to fetch the cakes and the buttered toast. It was quite clear that he hadn’t joined issue with Selina yet.

  If Nanny had looked in, she would have thought it a very comfortable tea party. Sally had turned on the lamps and drawn the curtains. Everyone had a reasonably good appetite, and everyone talked. Selina, perhaps, talked a shade too much. But there was no other sign of strain.

  When they had finished, Johnny passed the cigarette-box to Selina and then to Sally. He lit their cigarettes and his own. Then he looked at Selina and said, ‘Well?’

  She said slowly, ‘Toby rang me up at lunchtime and told me about Miss Quimper, and Inspector Lindesay came to see me this afternoon. I’m frightfully sorry, and I’d like to do anything I can to help. But I’m not pretending to be entirely altruistic. This second — I suppose one’s got to call it murder — has brought things to a head for me. I’ve been trying to make myself come to you ever since Thursday morning. I know I’m a suspect. I knew I was going to be. The police discovered that I was engaged to Frank, and I can’t tell them all about it because they wouldn’t understand. They also discovered that I lied to them when I said I’d gone home just after six on Wednesday evening and stayed there. They know I went back to the Archives a little before seven. And now they know that I haven’t got an alibi for Miss Quimper. I left the Archives at twenty to six and went home and stayed there — I really did this time — but the girl I share with went home for the weekend — she went straight to the station from her office — so I’ve got nobody to swear to it.’

  She was obviously anxious now, and a little breathless. Her face was flushed by eagerness and the hot fire beside her, and she looked very lovely.

  ‘And you can explain it all to us?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘Not easily,’ she said. ‘Things of this kind are very difficult to talk about to anyone, and I made a frightful fool of myself. But it’s far easier to tell you and your wife than the police.’

  ‘You realise,’ said Johnny quietly, ‘that I can’t undertake to keep anything you may tell me from the police?’

  ‘Yes. I realise you’re a responsible person. You can use it as you like, if only you can sort things out.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Will you go on?’

  She didn’t answer for quite a long time. ‘I’m not quite sure myself,’ she said at last, ‘why I got engaged to Frank. It was partly reaction, I think. My mother is a twenty-horse-power snob, and I had a good deal of difficulty in prising myself out of the county background and going to Oxford and getting a job. I got engaged — at least half-consciously — to annoy her, and because I thought I wanted to cut my ties with the life I’d left. But at the same time, though I didn’t see it then, I was looking for some sort of compensation. The county background may be tiresome, but at least it’s secure and permanent, and when I’d renounced it, I felt lost. Frank and his background seemed satisfactorily solid and reliable — at the time I saw them as much more solid and reliable than anything I’d left. And much more worthwhile. I thought Frank had all the virtues that my own kind — generally speaking — lacked. In his world everyone was strictly sober and faithful and church-going. I thought that was what I wanted in a man. So when Frank asked me rather formally and restrainedly to marry him, I said I would.

  ‘But it didn’t work, of course. Frank had the — the defects of his qualities, though it’s hardly fair to call them defects, and anyway I should have seen them long before I got engaged to him; everyone else did. He was smug and priggish, and he had no sense of humour. And then—’

  Selina stopped for a moment and put her hands up to her temples. ‘It wasn’t particularly reasonable of me to mind all that — after all, it was my fault I was engaged to it. But it was far worse to mind his being non-U — crude and not properly educated and having an accent and not knowing his world. I felt such a beast all the time. It wasn’t his fault, and I’d no right to quarrel with it when I’d got myself into it. At the same time I was having hell with my mother — mostly at a distance. I couldn’t bring myself to take Frank home, and he knew damned well why, and Mummy guessed. And yet I was so pigheaded about it I couldn’t break it off.

  ‘We’d been engaged for nearly a month when Michael Knox gave a bottle-party. That was soon after he came to the Archives. Frank didn’t approve of that sort of party — he never drank — but he had to go because it was for us. That was Michael’s devilish ingenuity; he wanted to see Frank at a wild party.’

  ‘And also, possibly, to show you Frank at a wild party?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘Yes — I think so. How did you know?’

  ‘Various indications,’ said Johnny vaguely. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, if that was what he wanted it worked. Frank refused all drink, and tried to make me do the same, and I was so annoyed that I got tight and behaved very badly. I wasn’t the only one; it was that kind of party. But it was a beastly thing to do to Frank. He left Toby to take me home, and in the morning — it was Sunday — he left a note in my letterbox saying he really couldn’t go on being engaged to me after what had happened. That was a little over a fortnight before he was killed. We had to go on seeing each other, of course, but he was slightly condescending and confined himself strictly to business. As time went on, he became a little more friendly, and I realised that he was beginning to talk almost as if we were still engaged. He didn’t make any other advances, but then he wouldn’t. Even outside the Archives he’d always been extremely decorous, and I suppose that had irritated me too. Which was unreasonable of me again,’ said Selina with an effort, ‘because I didn’t really want him to break loose. Anyhow, this new change worried me, because I — I didn’t want to be engaged to him again. I thought about it all over Wednesday. I was trying to decide whether I ou
ght to leave it alone or have it out with him, and it was only when I was nearly back at the flat that I decided to have it out. It sounds rather bloody, but I really decided it because of that scene he had with Mike.’ She looked at Sally. ‘You heard it — you couldn’t help hearing it. I wondered how I could conceivably have wanted to tie myself up for life with someone who knew so little about it. Anyway, I knew he nearly always worked late on Wednesdays. So I got on to another bus and went back. I slipped in by the Fleet Street entrance about ten to seven. The night-porter was talking to some people, and I hoped afterwards he hadn’t noticed me, but he must have done.

  ‘When I got to Peex there was no one there. But Frank hadn’t locked his office — I suppose he thought there was no point, at a time when the joker could use his own key without being seen — and his overcoat was there. So I knew he was coming back, and I assumed he was in the canteen. I wandered about his office and looked at one or two of the old negs he was working on, and generally fiddled about; I was pretty restless by then. Frank didn’t come up till about twenty past seven. He looked pleased to see me and not in the least surprised. He said in his smuggest voice, “So you’ve come to say you’re sorry. I thought you would. Very well, my dear; I’m sure you’ve learnt your lesson, and if you’ll promise me, you’ll never touch alcohol again we’ll say no more about it. Here’s your ring.” He fished it out of his pocket in its box, and then he added, “I’ve quite decided now that you haven’t had anything to do with all these nasty things that have been happening to me. I couldn’t have been sufficiently at fault to fall in love with a girl of that sort.”

  ‘Well, I saw red. I called him all sorts of things which shocked him very much, and I wish I hadn’t now. It’s rather frightful to think that he was killed so soon after. Anyway, I left him after three or four minutes. When I passed through the hall the porter wasn’t there — and as it happened, I’d used the far lift both going up and coming down, and there’s no man on it in the evening. So I was encouraged to tell the police I hadn’t come back.’