Bodies from the Library 3

by Tony Medawar

  White’s many novels include Some Must Watch (1935), filmed as The Spiral Staircase (1946), and The Wheel Spins (1936), filmed as The Lady Vanishes (1939). Both films have been remade and her work remains popular with anthologists.

  Even at the height of her success, White shunned publicity and would not talk about herself. As Peter Cheyney wrote in introduction to this story: ‘She says in answer to my queries: “I was not born. I have never been educated and have no tastes or hobbies. This is my story and I’m sticking to it.”’ ‘And the Answer Was …’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 13 March 1938.

  HE STOOPED TO LIVE

  David Hume

  The man enjoying his Christmas Eve by arranging a couple of violent deaths lit another cigarette and smiled at the three men facing him.

  They did not smile. Their boss, Steve Kelly, might take it the wrong way. And if he did, startling things might happen.

  ‘Charlie Ross ain’t going to reach Christmas Day,’ said Kelly, ‘and Sammy Prince won’t get far into the New Year. Everything’s in the bag.’

  ‘Blimey, Steve,’ said the man on his left, ‘you aren’t going to see both of ’em out of the party, are you?’

  ‘You guess well, mate. When I fix things they stay fixed. So that goes for both of ’em. Think l was going to take any more rough stuff from blokes like them, and sit back twiddling my fingers? Forget it!’

  ‘Well, we know you’re a smart Alec, boss, but our own crowd is pretty hot, and we don’t want the cops putting the skids under us.’

  ‘You’re shouting hot air. Ever know me arrange things so that they went wrong? That wasn’t how I came to sit on top of the dump, was it? I reckon I’ve stacked this deck of cards so that they just can’t come unstuck.

  ‘I’ve got everything that opens and shuts. But what the hell are you blokes screaming about? Don’t you reckon they’ve done enough to ask for all that’s coming to ’em?’

  ‘They’ve certainly given us a real basin of trouble. But still …’

  ‘Stow it,’ snapped Kelly. ‘We cased that Walworth warehouse, didn’t we? Had everything set, hadn’t we? And Charlie and Sammy dive into the dump under our noses and clean the lot up. Think I’d stand tor that?

  ‘We worked that Bruton-street smash. And what happened? Charlie and Sammy stuck up our lads, knew we couldn’t squeal, and got away with the whole issue. Now they’ve got to pay for it—and pay plenty.’

  ‘You reckon you’ve worked out a really fast stroke, eh?’

  ‘I could laugh about it. I reckon I’ve struck a new joke. Know what I’ve fixed? You’d never guess. You can leave little Steve to hit the high-spots. We’re going to murder Charlie Ross, and Sammy Prince is going to take the long drop for it! Can you beat that, mates? Murder the one, and get the other swung. I call that a bit arty.’

  Kelly smiled again. The other men gaped incredulously.

  ‘Thought that would tickle you,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you the whole lay, and then you’ll see the certainty we’re backing.

  ‘In half an hour’s time Charlie Ross will be heading along Landor Road for home. I’ve fixed that. He’s at the Stockwell Casual Club now.

  ‘So is one of my boys, and he’s escorting Charlie from the club to see that he arrives where we want him about half-past eleven. He’ll leave Charlie at the corner, and we put him all set for the mortuary slab. But that’s only the beginning.

  ‘Sammy and Charlie have had some trouble. Seems they couldn’t quite agree about their last split. It wasn’t fifty-fifty.

  ‘Sammy has been shouting the dome off his head, telling the world that he’s been crossed and double-crossed, mentioning just a few of the things likely to happen to Charlie when they meet.

  ‘A dozen boys have heard his squeals. I know ’em, and I can slam them into the box at the Old Bailey to start the gallows march. But even that’s nothing.

  ‘You blokes know I hold my ears pinned to the floor when the boys start talking. Right. I’ve got the best information in the world that Sammy is pulling a single-handed stroke tonight.

  ‘So he’s sunk when the splits collect him, and he starts thinking about an alibi. There’s plenty more yet.

  ‘Sammy left his place two hours ago. He didn’t take his car. I’ve got it tucked away round the corner now.

  ‘We’re going to use that bus when we crease Charlie. And I don’t mind if a few folks get a good look at it! I don’t mind if they remember the registration number.

  ‘As soon as we’ve done the rubbing-out we’re going to head towards Crouch End and abandon the car some distance from Sammy’s hang-out.

  ‘And in the leatherwork I’m going to slide the gun I used on Charlie. There won’t be any prints on it. The splits wouldn’t expect a cute bloke like Sammy to leave any.

  ‘Then, to complete the picture, I’ll see that the cops receive a mysterious message—just a nice, homely little story about the row between the pair of ’em.

  ‘They know that Sammy has got a record that’d stretch from here to Dartmoor. Believe me, they’ll collect him before he can fill the kids’ Christmas stockings. Now what d’you say?’

  The three men nodded appreciatively. They certainly had to hand it to Steve Kelly. He knew everything it needed to fix things.

  The boss rose slowly to his feet, pulled a pair of gloves over his hands, smiled again as he slid an automatic from his pocket, examined it and replaced it. Then he grabbed a hat and headed for the door.

  ‘Then we’re all set. Come along. I want you three to drop off the car at odd places when I tell you. I’m going to dump the car myself. But the bunch had better start in on the party in case anything slips up.’

  The men filed out of the room. A minute later they were on their way. It was exactly twenty-five minutes before midnight when Charlie Ross lurched to the pavement in Landor Road with a bullet in his brain.

  The man staggering about the pavement along East End Road, East Finchley, showed every sign that his Christmas Eve had been celebrated with more enthusiasm than discretion.

  In his right hand he carried a heaped basket of mixed fruit.

  The task of balancing the fruity pile at moments caused him extreme difficulty.

  Twice an orange from the summit of the stack bounced to the pavement. And both times the reveller laid down his basket, cursed, bent down as though likely to arrive on the sidewalk for the full count and recovered the fruit.

  A few yards behind him a little man was watching the performance with a smile. Then, for the third time, the orange arrived on the pavement.

  For an instant the inebriate hesitated, swaying like a reed in a gale. At last he reached a decision, kicked at the fruit, missed it, and continued with staggering progress.

  The man following in his wake picked up the orange, started to hurry after the reveller, changed his mind, and slipped it into his pocket.

  A local church clock chimed quarter to midnight.

  Anxious to arrive at home, Sammy Prince kept his hand on the orange, hastened his step along Archway Road, cut off along a side street soon after passing through Highgate. His wife was waiting for him in their unpretentious house.

  Before he had time to slide out of his overcoat a double rap sounded on the door. Sammy opened it—and gasped. He knew detectives quite well when he met them!

  ‘I thought you hadn’t had time to get out of your gear,’ said one of the officers. ‘We’re taking you along with us. Are you ready?’

  ‘Why, mister, what’ve I done? You can’t grab folks like this.’

  ‘Maybe at the station you’ll be telling us what you’ve done tonight.’

  Sammy winced, cursed softly. What a start to Christmas Day. He knew argument was useless. So he waved to his wife, and vanished into the night.

  For hours at the police station Sammy faced a battery of questions. He shook his head over and over again, asked why he was wanted. Finally, a divisional inspector shot the simple remark:

  ‘Charlie Ross w
as murdered tonight. And you can tell us plenty.’

  The little man shook his head emphatically. Now he knew that he could maintain silence no longer.

  So with a shrug of his shoulders he gave them the news—he had made an unsuccessful attempt to break into a house near St. Marylebone Cemetery.

  He was never out of North London. Had anyone seen him? No. Could anyone swear to an alibi? No.

  So the Inspector talked for five minutes, reciting the abundant evidence in their hands to prove that Sammy shot his friend, that he was in South London.

  Prince spent two days in gaol, pacing the cell helplessly. He was in a jam, couldn’t see a way out. The police had searched him, laughed when they found the orange, handed it back to him.

  Without thinking, he took a bite at the fruit. Then the gaoler dashed through the cell door. For Sammy had raised a vicious curse and spat the piece of orange on the cell floor.

  ‘What on earth’s wrong? Can’t you even eat an orange? You must be mad.’

  ‘Mad be damned, man. I’ve never in all my life …’

  Sammy ceased speaking with dramatic suddenness, stared at the orange, remembered the queer antics of the Christmas Eve reveller. Then he shouted hurriedly:

  ‘Get me a lawyer immediately. And I want a good one. Hurry up.’

  Half an hour later a solicitor left the police station with the orange in his pocket. He had just heard a queer story. It fascinated him. Sammy waited patiently for the time for his court appearance. He felt better.

  Prince’s appearance before the court was weird and wonderful. Counsel representing him decided to save time by making a statement. He had already consulted with Crown counsel. His opening was startling:

  ‘The defence in this case is an unbreakable alibi. A gentleman named West won a prize in the Christmas draw at the East Finchley Bachelor Club. He was presented with a basket of fruit. At the top of the pile was an orange.

  ‘Some fellow members of the club decided to play a practical joke on Mr West, who admits quite candidly that he was intoxicated.

  ‘Using a fountain-pen filler, they pierced a hole in the orange, injected into the fruit a considerable quantity of olive oil and an amount of ink.

  ‘Eight members of that club are in court today to testify that Mr West left the club at half-past eleven. His father is here to swear that his son arrived home at midnight. The odds would be ten million to one against there being any other such orange in the world.

  ‘On his way home Mr West lost that orange. The accused will tell you the circumstances in which he picked it up in East End Road, East Finchley.

  ‘The fruit was in his possession when he was taken into custody. He will tell you that he picked up that orange at exactly a quarter to twelve.

  ‘While in custody the accused took a bite at the orange, discovered the appalling taste, realised the significance of it, and arranged for the fruit to be analysed.

  ‘As the result of that analysis his legal advisers appealed through the Press for assistance in tracing the orange. The task was not difficult. The club members came forward immediately with their story.

  ‘There is little more to state. Charlie Ross, the deceased, was shot in Landor Road, Clapham, at about 11.35. In East Finchley, some twelve miles from the scene of the murder, the accused, who had no car with him, picked up the orange that must have been lost by Mr West at some time between half-past eleven and before midnight.

  ‘For the accused to have committed this crime is a complete impossibility.

  ‘Reflect that he was arrested at his home shortly after midnight, and that, having picked up the orange in East Finchley, he was moving towards Clapham and not away from it.

  ‘That fact alone demonstrates the accuracy of his statement when he placed the time of the incident at 11.45. I will call the witnesses as soon as it is convenient …’

  Two hours later Sammy Prince was discharged. An orange he had stooped to collect had saved his life!

  DAVID HUME

  ‘David Hume’ was one of the pen names used by John Victor Turner (1900–1945), who was known to his family as Jack. He also wrote crime fiction as J. V. Turner and as ‘Nicholas Brady’, whose series character was the Reverend Ebenezer Buckle.

  Born in Manchester in 1900, Jack Turner left school at sixteen to work on the Warwick Advertiser, and later moved to Walton in Staffordshire where he worked on a Leicestershire newspaper before joining the law courts staff of the national newspaper, the Daily Mail. After his wife committed suicide, the result of severe post-natal depression, Turner became crime reporter on the Daily Herald where he claimed to have a network of contacts in the London underworld. Drawing on his experience, he began writing fiction and his first novel, Bullets Bite Deep, was published in 1932. Its success led Hume to give up his career as a journalist and he went on to write dozens of fast-moving thrillers, many of which feature Mick Cardby, the ‘quick-decisioned, hard-slogging, amazingly intrepid younger partner in [a] famous firm of private detectives’.

  Several of Turner’s books were made into films and, badged by his publisher as ‘the new Edgar Wallace’, he claimed at one time to be writing ‘a novel a fortnight’. Although none of his Hume or Brady novels were published by the Crime Club, it did publish two of the seven mysteries written as by J. V. Turner—Homicide Haven (1935) and Below the Clock (1936).

  On 3 February 1945, Turner died at his home in Eastern Road, Haywards Heath, apparently after contracting tuberculosis. A few days later, he was cremated at Brighton crematorium, mourned by his children and his second wife, to whom he left only £300, equivalent to about £13,000 today.

  ‘He Stooped to Live’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 20 March 1938.

  MR PRENDERGAST AND THE ORANGE

  Nicholas Blake

  There were five of us in the room that afternoon, listening to the carol service from King’s College Chapel.

  Nigel Strangeways, as usual, had his ear right up against the radio; he liked his music hot and strong, he said.

  Prendergast, the nice little man he had brought along with him, was sitting bolt upright in an armchair; he looked worried and attentive, like a clerk being interviewed for a job; one expected to see the bowler hat and the pair of shabby kid gloves on his knee.

  Hailes, Aston, and myself made up the party.

  The last refrain of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ died away, with that long, beautifully controlled diminuendo in which the King’s College choir excels.

  … The playing on the merry organ,

  Sweet singing in the choir.

  Nigel turned the knob, and the room was silent for a few moments. Then Hailes launched forth:

  ‘Yes, it’s all very fine. But it’s artificial. Nowadays there’s nothing at Christmas but the professional sort of stuff we’ve been listening to and those dismal gangs of brats who go around caterwauling ‘Good King Wenceslas’, out of tune, all December. All the joy, the spontaneity, is gone, Now, in the good old days—’

  ‘In the good old days you had a gang of drunks going around, blaring out ‘Good King Wenceslas’ equally out of tune, no doubt.’

  Aston can never resist pulling the leg of Hailes’ hobby-horse. Soon they were at it, hammer and tongs, and the atmosphere got quite heated. Nigel interposed, changing the subject tactfully:

  ‘You ought to tell them about that Christmas you were arrested for murder, Joe.’

  We all gazed at the little man with interest …

  Mr Prendergast fidgeted, looking bashful, sulky, and deeply gratified in turn, like a boy asked to recite in a Victorian drawing-room. Then, rather breathlessly, he began.

  ‘It was the orange, really. I mean, if it hadn’t been for the orange I shouldn’t be here to tell the tale. The orange—and Mr Strangeways, of course’—bobbing his head in Nigel’s direction.

  ‘Five years ago it was. About the middle of December. I’d lost my job; and the wife and kiddies—well, you know how it is. So I decided to go down to Chelten
ham and make a last appeal to my aunt, Eliza Metcalfe.

  ‘She’d never answered my letters—my mother married beneath her, she thought, and she’d said none of us should ever cross her threshold. A very hard woman was Eliza Metcalfe, gentlemen.’

  Eliza Metcalfe! Now I remembered. RICH RECLUSE FOUND MURDERED. A man had been arrested, and—

  ‘So I thought, well, perhaps if I go to see her myself, she might lend me enough to tide us over. So I took a ticket to Cheltenham—cleaned me out, it did—and went to her house.

  ‘I can see her now, with her lace mittens and ivory stick—an old-fashioned lady, you know, but hard as nails.

  ‘She pitched into me, too. My word! What did I mean by forcing my way into her house? My mother’d been no better than a you-know-what. She’d see the pack of us dead before she gave us any help.

  ‘Well, I was desperate; and I told her so. And after a while she sort of relented. ‘Young man,’ she said, a bit gruffly, ‘it’s against my principles to lend money. I’ll give you £10. And don’t let me see your face again.’

  ‘I reckon she felt a bit guilty, you know; it was like conscience-money. At any rate, she went into the next room, and I heard her rummaging about.

  ‘When she returned, she was sucking her finger; she’d pricked it on a needle in the drawer where the money was kept, I suppose. There was a stain of blood on one of the pound notes she handed me. Nearly did for me, that bloodstain.’

  Mr Prendergast paused, a look of consternation creeping into his eyes as he remembered that dreadful night five years ago.

  ‘What about the orange?’ said Aston gently.

  ‘I’m coming to that. Well, gentlemen, I dare say £10 doesn’t mean much to any of you. But when you’re on your uppers it’s as good as a million.