Toby said slowly, ‘So there was nothing but that one photograph. The copy in the CID files was unlikely to be dangerous, because no one at Scotland Yard knows him — except Lindesay — and as far as we know no one at Scotland Yard has Morningside’s memory. But our copy was dangerous. Morningside was quite capable of seeing a man of fifty, whom he knew well, in the photograph of a boy of seventeen. I don’t mean he could do it in any given case; some people change beyond recognition. But most people don’t, and Smith was evidently photographed when he was made up as a grown man. Anyway, there was something almost uncanny about Morningside’s gift.’
There was a long silence. Then Toby spoke again.
‘Silcutt told me once that he lost his parents when he was very young and had no near relations.’
Camberley nodded. ‘According to his record, he never went to a public school — or any school. He was delicate as a boy, and he had a tutor. He went up to Magdalen, but rather late.’
There was another silence. Sally was thinking how magnificent Silcutt must have looked as the Sergeant of Police.
On the following morning Johnny remembered a customer of Heldar Brothers who had probably been up at Magdalen with Silcutt and was reliable and discreet. He rang up at half past ten to tell Sally he had got in touch with Vaughan and been asked to lunch.
Sally went to tea with Aunt Margaret Heldar in Kensington, largely in order to avoid the Press, and didn’t hurry home, because Johnny had said he was behindhand with his work at the shop and would probably be late. She let herself into the house a little after six, and met Nanny coming out of the kitchen with the children’s supper trays.
‘Good evening, madam,’ said Nanny. ‘Miss Marvell and Mr Toby are in the drawing room, and I’ve lit the fire. They’ve only been here about ten minutes.’
‘Oh, thank you, Nanny,’ said Sally, and went quickly upstairs. She crossed the first-floor landing to the drawing room door, and then stopped abruptly. Nanny hadn’t quite closed it, and Selina’s voice was clear even when it trembled.
‘…And I was so beastly to you on Friday. I said such nasty cheap things — just to hurt you. I went into the Ladies’ afterwards and cried my eyes out. I love you so much, Toby, and I’m not nearly nice enough for you.’
‘My darling—’ said Toby in an unrecognisable voice, and Sally turned swiftly away and followed Nanny upstairs.
When she went down again, she gave them fair warning by calling up to Nanny from the first floor and found them sitting decorously one at either end of the sofa and looking slightly dazed. It appeared that Toby was still hoping for news and had brought Selina with him. Sally said Johnny might come home with some information, and dispensed sherry.
But when Johnny came in, he looked a little worried.
‘Vaughan knew Silcutt quite well,’ he said. ‘He never met him before Oxford. But he remembers an occasion on which a friend of Silcutt’s father came up — a respectable solicitor who had known the family for years.’
‘Does that mean we’re wrong?’ asked Sally.
‘I don’t know. I rang up Scotland Yard to pass it on to Lindesay, for what it’s worth, but he was out for the afternoon, so I said I’d ring up again tomorrow.’
Toby and Selina didn’t appear to take much of this in. Sally asked them, as a gesture, to stay to supper, and made it easy for them to refuse.
After supper Camberley came to St Cross Square with Superintendent Wigram. He had been told about Johnny’s telephone call and had brought Wigram round to hear whatever news there was. When Johnny apologised for bringing them out for a very small matter, he smiled and said, ‘Well, I really wanted you two to meet. I’d like to explode the theory that the professional and the amateur never really work together, no matter what the detective stories say.’
After that the evening went quite well. Camberley was obviously on terms of real friendship with this large elderly man with the friendly face. Wigram belonged to the world into which the Brigadier had been born, and Sally was pleased to see that he hadn’t left it too far behind him.
Johnny repeated Vaughan’s information, going into some detail, and Wigram nodded.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that’s all of a piece with what we’ve learnt elsewhere. It’s not difficult to put together the past of a man of his kind, and we’ve found one or two people who knew him as a child. It looks as if we’re wrong. And yet I was certain you’d got the right motive, and there’s no one else of the right age.’
Sally said suddenly, ‘Haven’t we been thinking all this time of Smith as creating Silcutt and inventing his past? Supposing there was a real Silcutt — a quiet, delicate boy whom not many people knew, and Smith took his identity from him? There would have had to be a physical resemblance, of course.’
‘It might have been done,’ said Johnny doubtfully. ‘And we know Smith was a good actor. But there’s a difference between playing the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates for an evening or two and playing a real Lionel Silcutt for life.’
‘Was it the Sergeant in The Pirates?’ asked Wigram. ‘I don’t think I ever heard that.’ He broke unexpectedly and quite unselfconsciously into appropriate song, revealing a nice tenor.
‘When the enterprising burglar’s not a-burgling—’
Johnny and Camberley joined in an octave lower, ‘Not a-burgling—’
‘When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime—’
‘’Pied in crime—’ sang Camberley.
‘He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling—’
‘Brook a-gurgling—’
‘And listen to the merry village chime—’
‘Village chime—’ growled Camberley.
Johnny rose suddenly to his feet. He spoke harshly, interrupting the Superintendent, who had gone on to the coster jumping on his mother.
‘How did you know it was the Sergeant in The Pirates, Camberley?’
The next few minutes were nightmarish. In a sudden silence Sally saw Camberley’s ruddy face distorted. After what seemed a long time his mouth opened under his moustache and he said in a voice whose mild surprise was so studied that no one could have believed in it, ‘I must have heard it at Scotland Yard.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ said Wigram. ‘I never knew it, or if I did, I’d forgotten it. The photograph doesn’t give a clue; it’s just the usual stage uniforms. Might be any comic policemen. If they told us at the school what the show was, I didn’t remember; it wasn’t important. I don’t think anyone else at Scotland Yard remembered it either, and anyway you didn’t see anyone but me when you were there yesterday.’
His flat tones were curiously convincing and curiously menacing. ‘Come to think of it,’ he added, ‘the photo’s not unlike you.’
There was another silence, while the two men continued to stare at Camberley. Sally stared too, but after a moment she turned her head and looked at Johnny. What she saw frightened her. His eyes were merciless, and his mouth was set in an immovable determination. She looked at Camberley again, and saw him as another man. His pleasant, familiar features seemed to have dislimned, his mouth was open, and fear looked out of his eyes.
When he rose, the movement was so sudden that they were all taken by surprise. Wigram was a heavy man, and out of training, and it took him a moment to get out of his chair. Johnny moved instinctively between Camberley and Sally. If he had gone straight for the man he would probably have been in time, but the side-step held him up for a second. Camberley, who was nearest the door, reached it two paces ahead of him, whipped out, and held it just long enough to turn the key on the outside. They heard him crashing down the stairs.
‘His car’s outside,’ said Wigram.
Johnny put his mouth to the keyhole and roared, ‘Nanny!’ He added more quietly, ‘We needn’t get in a flap; we shan’t catch him anyway. We’d better try for his number.’
Sally had run to the nearest window and drawn back a curtain. She saw the big figure cross the pavement and leap into the long, lo
w car which stood at the kerb. The engine started, and the car shot forward. The light from the nearest streetlamp fell on the rear number plate, and Johnny, beside her, read the number aloud and went to write it down on the telephone pad.
The door opened. ‘Whatever’s happening, madam?’ asked Nanny reprovingly. ‘You were locked in, and the key’s gone. I had to take the one from your bedroom door. I heard Mr Heldar call out and someone running downstairs. If you’re playing noisy games, I’m afraid you’ll waken the children.’ She stopped as a drowsy wail drifted down from above. ‘There now, that’s Peter. Excuse me, madam.’
Wigram’s face, which was greyish, broke into a faint smile. Then he said, ‘I’ll use your phone, if I may.’
Johnny put an arm round Sally and they waited while the Superintendent issued sharp orders — all the sharper, she thought, because of the savage personal blow which had just been dealt him.
When he had finished Johnny said quietly, ‘I apologise to both of you. I had no right to take things into my own hands like that, and one doesn’t as a rule tackle a murderer in one’s wife’s drawing room. But you see, there was no evidence against him, and there never would have been. The only chance was to stampede him.’
‘Yes,’ said Wigram heavily. ‘Well, we’ll talk about that when we’ve caught him. Tell me, Mr Heldar, did you work it all out while we were singing?’
‘Oh, no. I’d realised that he could have murdered Morningside and Miss Quimper, and that he could be Smith. But I couldn’t believe it till he gave himself away. I spent the time while you were singing trying to decide what to do.’
Wigram nodded. Then he said he must get back to Scotland Yard, and Johnny took him downstairs and came back to Sally.
‘The policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’ he said.
‘Nor is the amateur investigator’s, my darling. They will catch him, I suppose?’
‘Unless he smashes himself up, they’re bound to. And then there’ll be a trial, and he’ll have a very good chance of getting off. But there’ll be no future for him.’
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning Toby rang Sally up.
‘I’ve been trying to get Johnny at the shop,’ he said quickly, ‘but they say he’s with a customer. Sally, you’ve heard that Camberley was killed in a motor accident at Hammersmith last night? Ran himself into a brick wall?’
‘Yes,’ said Sally.
‘There’s a buzz going round Fleet Street that he did it deliberately, because he was involved in our affair. You know what I mean, damn it, and I’m not asking as a newspaperman. Is it true?’
‘Yes,’ said Sally. ‘He was involved, and the police are fairly certain it was deliberate. Would you like to come to supper, Toby? And bring Selina?’
As it happened, Toby came without Selina. Her mother was in London, he said, and Sally guessed that Selina had some explaining to do. But it oughtn’t to be very difficult. The son of a country rectory was something that Mrs Marvell would be able to understand, and after poor Morningside he would probably come to her as a great relief.
After supper they sat down round the fire, and Sally and Toby looked hard at Johnny.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Give me a moment to collect my thoughts.’
Then he began.
‘Camberley,’ he said, ‘was of course Smith. He murdered his aunt and got away with it — it seems likely he managed to board some ship and leave the country, but we shall never know that. He doesn’t come into the picture again until the outbreak of war in nineteen-thirty-nine, when he joined the army as James Camberley. I dare say it was safe enough; he was a man of over thirty, probably a good deal bigger and more mature than the City clerk of twenty, and probably, by that time, wearing a moustache. He was quite fearless and extremely ambitious, and no doubt he saw opportunities in joining up.
‘Well, you know that story. Promotion, decorations, every possible success, until at the end of the war he was a national hero. Then he turned to other things. Journalism, authorship, politics — and again every success. He was even knighted. He was of course a brilliant actor, and he minimised his risks. He never pretended to be anything but what he was — a man who had risen from the ranks. He told us he’d been brought up in a flat over a grocer’s shop, and that was part of the past he’d invented for himself — in fact his father was an innkeeper in a West Country town. So if he made the usual sort of social gaffe, no one worried. The general attitude was: “All honour to him for getting so far.”
‘He had very little to fear at first. Presumably he had had a copy of the Pirates group and had destroyed it after his aunt’s death. Presumably he remembered that it had borne the name of Evans. But I gather a lot of Evans’s stuff was destroyed in the Blitz, and he probably hoped his photograph had gone too. Could he have been certain it was among the stuff you took over, Toby?’
‘Virtually certain,’ said Toby. ‘Miss Quimper was able to date the salvaged stuff very accurately by the neg numbers.’
‘I see. Well, he wasn’t happy about Morningside’s memory, and he remembered that as the Sergeant of Police he had been made up as a man and had worn a moustache. He wore a moustache now.
‘His first idea, obviously, was to extract the neg before it got to Morningside and destroy it. He was already taking a keen interest in the Archives, and it was easy to keep close to the staff and learn the procedure they followed with the old negs. But looking for the right one was a lengthy and difficult business. He had to watch his chance and hurry through the stuff in Negs when no one was there to see him or likely to interrupt him. It was probably he who messed up the old negs last week — and no doubt on other occasions — as we thought a little while ago that Silcutt had done. He borrowed the cotton gloves so as not to leave fingerprints, but he couldn’t help leaving traces of some sort, because the bags were dusty. Unless he’d dusted the whole lot—’
‘No,’ said Toby. ‘Miss Quimper never let anyone but herself touch them before they went up to Morningside, and her fads were pretty well known. But Camberley probably knew that any interference would be attributed to Morningside. He knew a hell of a lot about our staff troubles, because people naturally confided in him.’
Johnny nodded, and went on. ‘He’d always realised that it might come to murder — he was entirely callous, of course — and he instituted the persecution of Morningside in case it did. A series of increasingly unpleasant incidents which might culminate in a fatal practical joke perpetrated by a joker who had become insane. Pat’s and Pam’s rude rhymes and Teddy’s prep school stuff inspired him, and he prevented Silcutt from sacking Teddy after the abduction of his car because he wanted the boy there as a suspect if Morningside had to die. He didn’t know, of course, about the Longwall business, which was going to give Teddy a motive. He also recommended Michael Knox for an Archives job, knowing that Knox had a record of violence (knocking down one’s editor is not quite the same thing as killing a man in cold blood, but it was better than nothing), knowing he was precisely the type to get on bad terms with Morningside, and knowing the Dowd story.’
Sally interrupted. ‘Camberley said that Michael never told him it was Morningside who had been involved with Terence Dowd.’
‘Camberley didn’t want us to start wondering why he’d recommended Knox — he who was such a judge of men. I’ve no doubt Knox did tell him, but it would have been his word against Camberley’s. We were left to assume that Silcutt had told Camberley. Of course Camberley persuaded Silcutt to come out with the Dowd story; Silcutt could be trusted not to admit that he couldn’t take his own decisions. And if, on the strength of that and various little suggestions from Camberley, we suspected the poor man, so much the better.
‘The persecution went quite well. It was of course Camberley who acquired the key to Morningside’s office. He was quite sufficiently intelligent and well-read to produce the ruder rhymes, and he always delivered them — and later on the letters — by hand, so that one of the staff should appear
to be responsible. He delivered a letter during the lunch-hour on the first day Sally watched Morningside’s office.’
‘Good Lord!’ said Toby. ‘I saw him go in myself. He said he wanted a picture.’
‘So you told us. Well, at last he realised he wasn’t going to be able to extract the neg. Morningside was getting through the stuff quicker than he could hope to do, and he knew it was time for his final joke. He was able to pick a Wednesday, when Morningside would almost certainly be working late, and luckily for him there was a box of negs in Morningside’s office. He admitted just after we found the body that he’d known that. But he’d have found some other weapon if he’d been put to it.
‘He asked you to have a drink with him, Toby, because he thought it safer to have an alibi for the pre-canteen period. But after that you became a serious complication. Obviously, you had to eat somewhere before your conference at eight. You might or might not eat in the canteen, but in either case you were quite likely to go up to Peex while he was rigging or springing the trap, and spoil everything. He decided that it would be better to have some idea of your movements than none, and that if he asked you to join him and Morningside in the canteen you would at least continue to help him with his alibi. The original idea was, of course, that in the normal course of establishing the victim’s movements the police would establish the murderer’s alibi.
‘Someone who knew them both by sight would probably see them together. You would make that certain.
‘After supper he asked you to telephone to me. He had deliberately not suggested your doing it from the Old Fleet earlier on, because he wanted it to occupy you now. He also made fairly certain that you would go out to do it, because that would take you longer. He arranged to meet you in the entrance hall at eight, and he hoped very hard that you were tired and wouldn’t go upstairs first.’
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