The Heldars had reached the door and looked in. They saw a smallish room, with a rather overwhelming contemporary wallpaper. At the far end was a little table with a gramophone on it and a chair on either side. The instructress — presumably Miss Molyneux herself — and her partner were just separating. The partner was a perspiring young man in a not very well-cut suit. He caught sight of the Heldars from behind the handkerchief with which he was mopping his brow, and his discomfort became acute. He was far too red in the face to blush, but he looked as if, given the slightest encouragement, he would run away, and Sally was sorry for him.
Miss Molyneux turned off the gramophone and came to the door. She was short and plump, and dressed in a black pleated skirt, a frilly white blouse, and a good deal of costume jewellery. Her carefully set hair was grey, and her face suggested a monkey which had put on weight. But she moved with a lovely fluent grace which in a younger and slimmer woman would have been breath taking, and even in her held the eye.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said in her ridiculous voice. ‘I’m full up till Christmas. I do wish I could help you, but I can’t. Not till January, I mean. I’d be delighted to take you then, but you would need to put your names down now.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Johnny, ‘but I’m afraid we were just looking for a friend. We must find him this evening, and we thought he’d be here, but he doesn’t seem to be. His name’s Silcutt.’
She shook her head, and her elaborate earrings swung furiously to and fro.
‘What a pity!’ she said. ‘This isn’t his evening, you know; he comes on Wednesday. Wednesday from a quarter past six till a quarter past seven.’
‘Oh, how silly of us!’ said Sally. ‘I believe he did say Wednesday. He was with us on Thursday evening, and he said he’d been here the evening before.’
‘Come to think of it, I believe he did,’ said Johnny. ‘Or did he say something about having cancelled it or changed it, or cut it short, or something?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Molyneux. ‘He came last Wednesday — it was his second lesson — and he came at the right time and stayed till a quarter past seven. He’s very punctual, and very persevering; I think there must be a young lady somewhere.’
‘That would be telling,’ said Sally, making an effort to fall in with this archness, and Miss Molyneux gave a genteel little giggle.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Johnny. ‘We’ve disturbed you for nothing.’
‘Not at all; we’re just resting. I do hope you find Mr Silcutt.’
‘We will. Later in the evening, I expect. Thank you so much.’
They walked a little way westward, and then picked up another taxi. When they were moving Sally said, ‘I can’t help thinking this is suspicious. What’s Lionel Silcutt doing in a place like that? If he really wanted to learn dancing, he’d go to the West End.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Johnny. ‘If he’s innocent, he’s keeping this a close secret because it doesn’t accord with his dignity, and it’s quite natural that he should have hesitated to ask any of his friends to recommend a place. In that case he probably picked Wednesday because it’s his housekeeper’s evening out. If, on the other hand, he’s guilty, this was a deliberately established alibi for the canteen period — he only started these lessons a week before Morningside was killed — and it had to be somewhere quite near Echo House. He couldn’t have danced in the West End till a quarter past seven and got back in time to rig the trap at twenty-five past.’
‘Why hasn’t he produced his alibi?’
‘He may possibly have given it to the police. But I think he’d have told me too, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it to Toby. If he’s guilty, I fancy he’s doing a little as we thought Knox was — being reticent about his movements so that his alibi will be more effective when it does come out. Only the innocent, as a rule, dare to lie when the lie is not to their advantage.’
Sally considered. ‘He’d know in advance that Morningside would almost certainly be in the canteen while he was dancing, and I dare say Camberley told him before six that Morningside was eating with him. He probably didn’t know that Camberley wanted a cutting, but Morningside was probably looking for it when he arrived in Peex. In any case he could have invented a reason for getting Morningside out of the way. But, Johnny, why? What motive could he conceivably have had?’
‘I’ll tell you what I think about that later,’ said Johnny with a curious diffidence.
Just before supper, when she walked into the drawing room, he was on the telephone. She heard him say obscurely, ‘Comic policemen? How very interesting. Well, thank you very much…Yes. I think it may be important.’
But it was only after supper that he explained.
‘Yesterday afternoon,’ he said, ‘when we were in Peex, Teddy came up from the dark-room with some prints. They were obviously prints from some of the old negs Morningside had been examining, and one of them at least had apparently been destined to his “Myself when Young” series, which Toby mentioned when he first told us about this business. Well, do you remember what Teddy said yesterday? “Might ’ave murdered ’im meself if I thought ’e was all set to publish one like that of me.”’
‘Darling,’ said Sally, ‘I know Lionel Silcutt’s a pompous little Civil Servant with an exaggerated idea of his own importance and a very tender dignity. But surely — surely he wouldn’t commit murder in order not to appear in public in a sailor-suit.’
‘Oh, no. No man in or near his senses would do that. But supposing Silcutt when young had been or done something which he couldn’t afford to have known today.’
Sally frowned. ‘It still doesn’t make sense,’ she said. ‘If it hadn’t been known before, how could a photograph give it away?’
‘Well,’ said Johnny almost apologetically, ‘it would mean that he’d been or done it under another name, you know. But Morningside had a remarkable gift for spotting people in old photographs. Supposing he happened on a picture of, shall we say, a notorious forger who had never been arrested, and recognised it as his chief. You know what he was. He wouldn’t have hesitated to expose him, if the thing was sufficiently serious.’
Sally shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. Silcutt’s so intensely respectable.’
‘I know,’ said Johnny. ‘I know. It’s far-fetched; it’s fantastic if you like. But it’s the only motive I can think of. And none of the others murdered Morningside, and in view of the persecution it can hardly have been anyone from outside the Archives.’
‘But he wouldn’t have to do murder. He’d only have to get hold of the neg and destroy it. And the pic if there was one.’
‘I don’t think there were any pix corresponding to these old negs, except those that Morningside ordered. I’ve no doubt the murderer tried to destroy the neg. It was probably he who messed up the old negs looking for it. Morningside didn’t deny that he had touched them, but from what Miss Quimper said, he was so tired and upset when she tackled him that he may not have been sure what negs he’d touched and what he hadn’t.’
Sally was still unconvinced. ‘But, Johnny, there’s no evidence for all this, is there?’
‘Well — there’s an indication. Pretty slight, I admit. When Selina told us how she waited for Morningside in his office while he was in the canteen, she said she’d looked at one or two of the old negs he was working on. I remembered, when she said it, that when we found the body there were no glass negs in the office except those which had been spilt from the box, and I noted the point as a possible indication that she might be lying — though on balance I was fairly certain her story was true. Before supper this evening I rang her up and asked her if she could be more specific about the negs she’d looked at. She said that on second thoughts there had been only one, and that it had been in the tray where Morningside put old negs he was inclined to keep. It had been a group of people — men or boys — dressed as comic policemen. Yes, you can laugh if you like. But when we found Morningside dead that neg was g
one — I looked at his desk and I know. I believe the murderer removed it. Anyway, Sally, I’m going to ring up Toby and ask him if there’s any chance of finding out the subject matter of that lot of negs. If I’m right, you see, we’re working against time to some extent. Silcutt’s lesson is tomorrow evening, and Désirée is almost bound to tell him we were asking for him. And once he gets our descriptions from her, he’ll know it was us — that’s why I didn’t bother to put on a more elaborate act. But it won’t be fatal, of course; he established his alibi in order to use it if necessary.’
He dialled Toby’s number. He didn’t tell Toby whom he suspected but explained his theory of the motive without attaching it to any particular person. Then he asked his question.
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Toby. ‘Those particular negs weren’t labelled, and there’s no catalogue — it was lost in the Blitz. So, incidentally, if Morningside found a picture of Charlie, the Cat-Burglar No One Can Catch, he’d have to recognise it as such for himself — perhaps from the background or some other part of the context — as well as recognising it as his esteemed colleague Mr Lorn. But there is one chance: the bags. All these old negs were packed in paper bags to preserve them, and each bag has a label stuck on it with the number of the neg — the number given it by its original owners, that is. And now and then there’s a note as well as the number. You might just get a clue to the Policemen’s Chorus there. The bags were removed in Negs, but Miss Quimper always kept them at least until Morningside had been through the stuff, just in case they were wanted, and I don’t suppose she threw out the last lot. She very seldom threw anything out. And her assistants haven’t done much on their own initiative since she died.’
‘Could you find those bags for me tonight, Toby?’
‘I could certainly try,’ said Toby, ‘if it’s urgent.’
‘It may be,’ said Johnny.
They found Toby talking to Laxton twenty minutes later. Laxton wished them good evening as they came in. His eyes were placid now, but he was interested by this late visit.
In Negs, with its fluorescent lighting, it might have been any hour. Toby looked over Miss Quimper’s desk and explored its drawers. Then he scuffed over to a table against the wall; his leg was dragging even more than it generally did at night.
‘Here we are,’ he said, and scuffed back with a wire tray. In it were three small bundles of old semi-transparent bags, each of them secured by a rubber band. Under each band was a slip of paper on which was written:
Negs to Mr Morningside 26/11/58. EQ.
The men pulled up chairs, and they all sat down round Miss Quimper’s desk. They took a bundle each and began to look through the bags.
The labels were a little dusty, and the numbers were written in faded ink. And now and then, as Toby had said, there was a note. By Johnny’s advice, they put all the bags with notes aside. But there was nothing that seemed to mean very much. The most usual form was: ‘Take print for Daily Echo’ — or for Smith’s or Brown’s or whoever the client happened to be — followed by someone’s initials and a long-ago date.
But after ten minutes Sally found something and looked up suddenly. She said nothing for a moment, but Johnny and Toby looked up too, as if her excitement had communicated itself to them. She showed them the note.
Take copy neg for CID.
NB Moustache of figure in foreground to be touched out.
EQ.
16/2/28.
‘My God!’ said Johnny. He sounded not so much excited as astonished, and Toby looked at him interrogatively.
‘Didn’t you expect something like this?’
‘I didn’t really expect anything. It seemed too much to hope for, even if I was right. Of course this may not have anything to do with the Policemen’s Chorus — though comic policemen usually wear moustaches — but even so—’
‘Even so, I imagine the CID want photographs for one reason and one reason only,’ said Toby. He paused. ‘This is Miss Quimper’s note. The murderer probably realised she might have had something to do with the neg in her Evans’s days. He may have killed her in case she remembered it — and in case she’d seen it again recently — as well as because he was worried by her conversation with Sally.’
Johnny nodded. ‘But he didn’t realise that the note would be here,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m going to take it to Scotland Yard.’
Toby said nothing more for the moment. He was frowning, and Sally guessed that he was making calculations. He himself hadn’t been born in nineteen-twenty-eight. Nor had Selina; nor had Teddy. Michael Knox had been a child or a schoolboy. Sally saw the look of incredulous enlightenment come into Toby’s face.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day was a long and anxious one, punctuated by occasional visits from the Press. The police could hardly be expected to sort out Silcutt’s past in a matter of twenty-four hours, but the Heldars hoped to hear something before long about the note they had found. When the front-door bell rang while they were washing up after supper, Sally had an idea it might be Lindesay. But it was Toby, wanting news badly and feeling that their house was the most likely place for it.
They sat in the drawing room and did The Times crossword to take their minds off the case. They had nearly finished it when the bell rang again. But again it wasn’t Lindesay. It was Camberley, and he came into the room as if he were glad to be back.
Johnny must have told him on the way upstairs that he could talk freely in Toby’s presence, for he didn’t hesitate. But it was clear that he didn’t like what he had to say. He looked worried and tired, and for the first time Sally realised that the strain of this business was telling on him.
‘My friend Superintendent Wigram,’ he said, ‘sent for me today to ask me what I knew about Silcutt. I didn’t know very much. I met him for the first time a little under a year ago, when he was appointed to the Archives. We went into him then, of course, and everything we learnt was satisfactory. But really my knowledge doesn’t go far enough back to touch the main issue. The police are digging hard. They’ve already unearthed a rather interesting story — though so far it seems to have no connection with Silcutt — which I think I may tell you in confidence. It’s in their records under the date of the note you found, and there are men at Scotland Yard who remember the case — Wigram himself is one of them. They remember it because, through no fault of their own, it was one of their failures.
‘Early in nineteen-twenty-eight a young man called William Smith was living in South London. He was twenty years old, and he worked as a clerk in a City office. He had been orphaned as a child, and adopted by a maiden aunt, with whom he still lived. He had been educated at a local grammar school, where he had done very well, and had shown, in particular, a considerable talent for amateur theatricals. He had probably concealed this talent from his aunt, for she was a Nonconformist of the narrowest type and would never have consented to his appearance on any stage. One of his masters said that he had wanted very much to become a professional actor, and it seems possible that he quarrelled with his aunt over that. In any case, the evidence of the neighbours made it clear that they had been on bad terms. Miss Smith was rigid in her views, a powerful personality, and extremely possessive. The boy had no life and no friends of his own, outside his office.
‘On the morning of the fifth of February, he opened the back door to the milkman and told him that his aunt had gone off the night before to Brighton, where her widowed sister had been taken ill, and would probably not be back for at least a week. He himself was going to share the digs of a friend at the office, and the milk should be stopped until further notice. Later in the morning the baker’s roundsman found a notice on the gate saying: “No more bread till further notice, please.” A local constable saw it too, so the police didn’t worry about the house being shut.
‘On the same morning someone rang up young Smith’s office, professed to be his aunt, and said he was laid up with food poisoning and would be off work for at least a week. The girl wh
o took the call was quite sure, at the time, that the caller was a woman, but you’ll remember that Smith was a clever amateur actor.
‘So no one worried for about ten days. And then the balloon went up. The local postman had heard the Brighton story from Miss Smith’s neighbours, who had heard it from the milkman. When he woke up to the fact that since Miss Smith’s departure, he had delivered two letters with the Brighton postmark, and addressed in a hand he’d been seeing for years, he mentioned it to the police. Enquiries in Brighton proved that she wasn’t there and that her sister was in excellent health. The police broke into her house and found her in the cupboard under the stairs. She had been struck repeatedly on the head, probably with a poker.
‘It was too late to tell to within a day or two when she had died, but there could be no reasonable doubt that her nephew had killed her. Apart from the other evidence, there were no signs of breaking and entering — although there was no money in the house — and no signs of a struggle. Various people who travelled on his usual train to the City had seen him on the fifth with a small suitcase, and he had told one or two of them the Brighton story, but after that, except for the telephone call, he had vanished into thin air. And no one has ever heard anything more of him.’
Camberley paused. ‘I forgot to mention the photograph,’ he said. ‘It was a group taken by an Evans’s photographer of some boys at Smith’s school in The Pirates of Penzance. Smith appeared as the Sergeant of Police, wearing a false moustache. He had a good baritone, it seems. The photograph was over three years old — he was seventeen at the time — but the police couldn’t do any better. If there had been any photographs of him in his aunt’s house, he had had the forethought to remove them. What was more, he had actually removed his fingerprints from every single object in the house. It must have taken him hours, but it secured his future — or so he must have hoped. His office happened to be an old-fashioned sort of place where three or four clerks worked at the same desk, and the police never got any really good prints there either.’
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