“This is an epic,” said Wimsey.
“I can’t do justice to it,” said Mr. Cranton, “because Deacon never knew what he was doing and I don’t know enough to make a guess. But I gather he walked straight into a big strafe. Hell let loose, he said, and I shouldn’t wonder if he began to think kindly of Maidstone Gaol and even of the condemned cell. Apparently he never got to the trenches, because they were being shelled out of them and he got mixed up in the retreat. He lost his party and something hit him on the head and laid him out. Next thing he knew he was lying in a shell-hole along with somebody who’d been dead some time. I don’t know. I couldn’t follow it all. But after a bit he crawled out. Everything was quiet and it was coming on dark, so he must have lost a whole day somehow. He’d lost his sense of direction, too, he said. He wandered about, and fell in and out of mud and holes and wire, and in the end he stumbled into a shed where there was some hay and stuff. But he couldn’t remember much about that, either, because he’d had a devil of a knock on the head and he was getting’ feverish. And then a girl found him.”
“We know all about that,” said the Superintendent.
“Yes, I daresay you do. You seem to know a lot. Well, Deacon was pretty smart about that. He got round the soft side of the girl and they made up a story for him. He said it was fairly easy pretending to have lost his memory. Where the doctor blokes made a mistake was trying to catch him out with bits of Army drill. He’d never done any, so of course he didn’t have to pretend not to recognise it. The hardest part was making out that he didn’t know any English. They nearly got him on that, once or twice. But he did know French, so he did his best to seem intelligent about that. His French accent was pretty good, but he pretended to have lost his speech, so that any mumbling or stammering might be put down to that, and in the intervals he practised talking to the girl till he was word-perfect. I must say. Deacon had brains.”
“We can imagine all that part,” said Parker. “Now tell us about the emeralds.”
“Oh, yes. The thing that started him on that was getting hold of an old English newspaper which had a mention of the finding of a body in the dene-hole—his own body, as everyone thought. It was a 1918 paper, of course, but he only came across it in 1924—I forget where. It turned up, the way things do. Somebody’d used it to wrap up something sometime, and I think he came across it in an estaminet. He didn’t bother about it, because the farm was doing pretty well—he’d married the girl by then, you see—and he was quite happy. But later on, things began to go badly, and it worried him to think about those sparklers all tucked away doing no good to anybody. But he didn’t know how to start getting hold of them, and he got a vertical breeze up every time he thought of that dead warder and the chap he’d thrown down the hole. However, in the end, he called to mind yours truly, and figured it out that I’d be out on my own again. So he wrote me a letter. Well, as you know, I wasn’t out. I was inside again, owing to a regrettable misunderstanding, so I didn’t get the letter for some time, my pals thinking it wasn’t quite the sort of thing to send to the place where I was. See? But when I came out again, there was the letter waiting for me.”
“I wonder he made you his confidant,” observed Parker. “There had been—shall we say, ungentlemanly words passed on the subject.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Cranton. “There had, and I had something to say about that when I wrote back. But you see, he’d nobody else to go to, had he? When all’s said and done, there’s nobody like Nobby Cranton to handle a job like that in a refined and competent manner. I give you my word I nearly told him to go and boil himself, but in the end I said. No! let bygones be bygones. So I promised to help the blighter. I told him I could fix him up with money and papers and get him across all right. Only I told him he’d have to give me a bit more dope on the thing first. Otherwise, how was I to know he wouldn’t double-cross me again, the dirty skunk?”
“Nothing more likely,” said Parker.
“Ah! and he did, too, blast his worm-eaten little soul! I said he’d have to tell me where the stuff was. And would you believe it, the hound wouldn’t trust me! Said, if he told me that, I might get in and pinch the bleeding lot before he got there!”
“Incredible!” said Parker. “Of course you wouldn’t do such a thing as that.”
“Not me,” replied Nobby. “What do you think?” He winked. “Well, we went on writing backwards and forwards till we reached what they call an impasse. At last he wrote and said he’d send me a what d’you call—a cipher, and if I could make out from that where the shiners were, I was welcome. Well, he sent the thing, and I couldn’t make head or tail of it, and I told him so. Then he said, All right; if I didn’t trust him I could go down to Fenchurch and ask for a tailor called Paul as lived next door to Batty Thomas, and they’d give me the key, but, he says, you’d do better to leave it to me, because I know how to handle them. Well, I didn’t know, only I thought to myself if these two chaps come in on it they’ll want their share, and they might turn sour on me, and it seemed to me I was safer with Deacon, because he stood to lose more than I did. Call me a mug if you like, but I sent him over the money and some perfectly good papers. Of course, he couldn’t come as Deacon and he didn’t want to come as Legros, because there might be a spot of trouble over that, and he suggested his papers should be made out as Paul Taylor. I thought it a bit silly myself, but he seemed to think it would be a good joke. Now, of course, I know why. So the papers were made out, with a lovely photograph—a real nice job, that was. Might have been anybody. As a matter of fact, it was a composite. It looked very convincing, and had quite a look of all sorts of people. Oh, yes! and I sent him some clothes to meet him at Ostend, because he said his own things were too Frenchy. He came across on the 29th December. I suppose you got on to that?”
“Yes,” said Blundell, “we did, but it didn’t help us a lot.”
“That bit went all right. He sent me a message from Dover. Telephoned from a public call-box—but I’ll forgive you for not tracing that. He said he was going straight through and would come along up to London with the stuff next day or the day after, or as soon as he could. Anyway, he would get a message through somehow. I wondered whether I oughtn’t to go down to Fenchurch myself—mind you, I never trusted him—but I wasn’t altogether keen, in spite of my face-fungus. I’d grown that on spec, you understand. I didn’t want you people following me about too much. And besides, I had one or two other irons in the fire. I’m coming clean, you see.”
“You’d better,” said Parker, ominously.
“I didn’t get any message on the 30th, nor yet on the 31st, and I thought I’d been had proper. Only I couldn’t see what he had to gain by double-crossing me. He needed me to handle the goods—or so I thought. Only then it struck me he might have picked up some other pal over at Maidstone or abroad.”
“In that case, why bring you into it at all?”
“That’s what I thought. But I got so windy, I thought I’d better go down to the place and see what was happening. I didn’t want to leave a trail, so I went over to Walbeach—never mind how, that’s off the point—”
“Probably Sparky Bones or the Fly-Catcher,” put in Parker, thoughtfully.
“Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies. My pal decanted me a few miles out and I footslogged it. I made out I was a tramp labourer, looking for work on the New Cut. Thank God, they weren’t taking on any hands, so they didn’t detain me.”
“So we gathered.”
“Ah! I suppose you would go nosey-parkering round there. I got a lift part of the way to Fenchurch and walked the rest. Beastly country it is, too, as I said before. I’m not doing my hiking thereabouts, I can tell you.”
“That was when we ran across one another, I think,” said Wimsey.
“Ah! and if I’d known who I had the pleasure of stopping I’d have walked off home,” said Mr. Cranton, handsomely. “But I didn’t know, so I trotted along and—but there! I expect you know that part of it.”
“Yes—and a nice business that was!” exclaimed Nobby with indignation. “Mr. Paul Bleeding Taylor and Mr. Batty Thomas! Bells, if you please! And not a hide nor hair of my Paul Taylor to be seen or heard of. I tell you, that made me think a bit. I didn’t know if he’d been and gone, or if he’d been pinched on the way, or if he was lurking about round the corner or what. And that chap Wilderspin—he was a good hand at keeping a hardworking man’s nose to the grindstone, curse him! ‘Driver, come here!’ ‘Steve, do this!’ I didn’t have a minute to call my own. All the same, I started to think quite a lot about that cipher. I took the idea that maybe it had to do with those bells. But could I get into the confounded belfry? No, I couldn’t. Not openly, I mean. So I made out to do it one night and see if I could make sense of the thing up there. So I made a couple or so of pick-locks, the forge being handy for the job, and on Saturday night I just let myself quietly out of Ezra’s backdoor.
“Now, look here. What I’m going to tell you is gospel truth. I went down to that church a bit after midnight, and the minute I put my hand on the door, I found it was open. What did I think? Why, I thought Deacon must be in there on the job. Who else was it likely to be, that time of night? I’d been in the place before and made out where the belfry door was, so I went along nice and quiet, and that was open, too. ‘That’s all right,’ I thought. ‘Deacon’s here, and I’ll give him Tailor Paul and Batty Thomas for not keeping me posted. I got up into a sort of place with ropes in it—damn nasty, I thought they looked. And then there was a ladder and more ropes a-top of that. And then another ladder and a trapdoor.”
“Was the trap-door open?”
“Yes, and I went up. And I didn’t half like it, either. Do you know, when I got up into the next place—Gee! there was a queer feel about it. Not a sound, but like as if there might be people standing round. And dark! It was a pitch-black beast of a night and raining like hell, but I never met anything like the blackness of that place. And I felt as if there was hundreds of eyes watching me. Talk about the heebie-jeebies! Well, there!
“After a bit, with still not a sound, I sort of pulled myself together and put my torch on. Say, have you ever been up in that place? Ever seen those bells? I’m not what you’d call fanciful in a general way, but there was something about the bells that gave me the fantods.”
“I know,” said Wimsey, “they look as if they were going to come down on you.”
“Yes, you know,” said Nobby, eagerly. “Well, I’d got to where I wanted, but I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know the first thing about bells, or how to get to them or anything. And I couldn’t make out what had happened to Deacon. So I looked round on the floor with the torch and—Boo!—there he was!”
“Dead?”
“Dead as a door-nail. Tied up to a big kind of post, and a look on his face—there! I don’t want to see a face like that again. Just as though he’d been struck dead and mad all at one go, if you see what I mean.”
“I suppose there’s no doubt he was dead?”
“Dead?” Mr. Cranton laughed. “I never saw anyone deader.”
“Stiff?”
“No, not stiff. But cold, my God! I just touched him. He swung on the ropes and his head had fallen over—well, it looked as if he’d got what was coming to him, anyhow, but worse. Because, to do them justice, they’re pretty quick on the drop, but he looked as if it had lasted for a good long time.”
“Do you mean the rope was round his neck?” demanded Parker, a little impatiently.
“No. He wasn’t hanged. I don’t know what killed him. I was just looking to see, when I heard somebody starting to come up the tower. I didn’t stop, you bet. There was another ladder, and I legged it up that as high as I could go, till I got to a sort of hatch leading out on to the roof, I suppose. I squatted inside that and hoped the other fellow wouldn’t take it into his head to come up after me. I wasn’t keen on being found up there at all, and the body of my old pal Deacon might want some explaining. Of course, I could have told the truth, and pointed out that the poor bloke was cold before I got there, but me having picklocks in my pocket rather jiggered up that bit of the alibi. So I sat tight. The chap came up into the place where the body was and started moving round and shuffling about, and once or twice he said ‘Oh, God!’ in a groaning sort of voice. Then there was a nasty soft sort of thump, and I reckoned he’d got the body down on the floor. Then after a bit I heard him pulling and hauling, and presently his steps went across the floor, very slow and heavy, and a bumping noise, like he was dragging old Deacon after him. I couldn’t see him at all from where I was, because from my corner I could only see the ladder and the wall opposite, and he was right away on the other side of the room. After that there was more scuffling, and a sort of bumping and sliding, and I took it he was getting the body down the other ladder. And I didn’t envy him the job, neither.
“I waited up there and waited, till I couldn’t hear him any more, and then I began to wonder what I should do next. So I tried the door on to the roof. There was a bolt inside, so I undid that and stepped out. It was raining like blazes and pitch-black, but out I crawled and got to the edge of the tower and looked over. How high is that cursed tower? Hundred and thirty feet, eh? Well, it felt like a thousand and thirty. I’m no cat-burglar, nor yet a steeple-jack. I looked down, and I saw a light moving about right away up the other end of the church, miles away beneath me in the graveyard. I tell you I hung on to that blinking parapet with both hands and I got a feeling in my stomach as though me and the tower and everything was crumbling away and going over. I was glad I couldn’t see more than I did.
“Well, I thought, you’d better make tracks. Nobby, while the dirty work’s going on down there. So I came in again carefully and bolted the door after me and started to come down the ladder. It was awkward going in the dark and after a bit I switched my torch on, and I wished I hadn’t. There I was, and those bells just beneath me—and, God! how I hated the look of them. I went all cold and sweaty and the torch slipped out of my hand and went down, and hit one of the bells. I’ll never forget the noise it made. It wasn’t loud, but kind of terribly sweet and threatening, and it went humming on and on, and a whole lot of other notes seemed to come out of it, high up and clear and close—right in my ears. You’ll think I’m loopy, but I tell you that bell was alive. I shut my eyes and hung on to the ladder and wished I’d chosen a different kind of profession—and that’ll show you what a state I was in.”
“You’ve got too much imagination. Nobby,” said Parker.
“You wait, Charles,” said Lord Peter. “You wait till you get stuck on a ladder in a belfry in the dark. Bells are like cats and mirrors—they’re always queer, and it doesn’t do to think too much about them. Go on, Cranton.”
“That’s just what I couldn’t do,” said Nobby, frankly. “Not for a bit. It felt like hours, but I daresay it wasn’t more than five minutes. I crawled down at last—in the dark, of course, having lost the torch. I groped round after it and found it, but the bulb had gone, naturally, and I hadn’t any matches. So I had to feel for the trapdoor, and I was terrified of pitching right down. But I found it at last, and after that it was easier, though I had a nasty time on the spiral staircase. The steps are all worn away, and I slipped about, and the walls were so close I couldn’t breathe. My man had left all the doors open, so I knew he’d be coming back, and that didn’t cheer me up much, either. When I was out in the church I hared it for all I was worth to the door. I tripped over something on the way, too, that made an awful clatter. Something like a big metal pot.”
“The brass ewer at the foot of the font,” said Wimsey.
“They didn’t ought to keep it there,” said Mr. Cranton, indignantly. “And when I got out through the porch, I had to pussyfoot pretty gently over that beastly creaking gravel. In the end I got away and then I ran—golly, how I ran! I hadn’t left anything behind at
Wilderspin’s, bar a shirt they’d lent me and a tooth-brush I’d bought in the. village, and I wasn’t going back there. I ran and ran like hell, and the rain was something cruel. And it’s a hell of a country. Ditches and bridges all over the place. There was a car came past one time, and trying to get out of the light, I missed my footing and rolled down the bank into a ditch full of water. Cold? It was like an ice-bath. I fetched up at last in a barn near a railway station and shivered there till morning, and presently a train came along, so I got on that. I forget the name of the place, but it must have been ten or fifteen miles away from Fenchurch. By the time I got up to London I was in a fever, I can tell you; rheumatic fever, or so they said. And you see what it’s done to me. I pretty nearly faded out, and I rather wish I had. I’ll never be fit for anything again. But that’s the truth and the whole truth, my lord and officers. Except that when I came to look myself over, I couldn’t find Deacon’s cipher. I thought I’d lost it on the road, but if you picked it up in the belfry, it must have come out of my pocket when I pulled the torch out. I never killed Deacon, but I knew I’d have a job to prove I didn’t, and that’s why I spun you a different tale the first time you came.”
“Well,” said Chief Inspector Parker, “let’s hope it’ll be a lesson to you to keep out of belfries.”
“It will,” replied Nobby fervently. “Every time I see a church tower now it gives me the jim-jams. I’m done with religion, I am, and if I ever go inside a church-door again, you can take and put me in Broadmoor.”
Wimsey 009 - The Nine Tailors Page 27