Death and the Visiting Firemen

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘I was a bit afraid of the bang,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve never shot with anything before. Is it wrong to jerk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Smithers said. ‘You’ll have to learn to release the trigger with a gentle squeeze, so that the weapon doesn’t move the slightest bit.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever want to learn.’

  ‘Now don’t be silly.’ A gust of irritation. ‘You can’t shut your eyes to things like that. There’s a great deal of pleasure to be got out of shooting if you get the chance. Guns will continue to exist whatever you feel about them, so you might as well make use of them in a proper way.’

  ‘Sir, why did you say that last bit, about in a proper way?’

  ‘Because somebody has just made use of this little gun in my hand in a most improper way. The piece on the end is a silencer. It doesn’t make the pistol completely noiseless, but it does reduce the sound. So if it was fired at the moment you loosed off your noisy weapon, nobody would notice. And this little thing, used skilfully, could be pretty accurate at a short range.’

  ‘Please sir, did somebody on the coach fire it at Mr Hamyadis then?’

  ‘I don’t think there can be any doubt about that now, Peter.’

  ‘And why was the gun with the silencer hidden on the coach?’

  ‘Because the person wanted to get rid of it before the police found out that the Durs Egg pistol had nothing to do with it. Pretending that Mr Hamyadis was shot by you gave them perhaps twenty-four hours to get rid of the real weapon.’

  ‘But why did they need all that long? Couldn’t they have just thrown it away?’

  ‘When? Just think what happened. We were all on the coach together until the police arrived and after that we were being watched all the time.’

  ‘Sir…’

  A doubt.

  ‘Sir, Mr Schlemberger wasn’t.’

  ‘No, that’s quite true. He wasn’t. That’s very good, Peter. Though as a matter of fact I had remembered that Mr Schlemberger walked over to the motor coaches, but you know Mr Wemyss watched him every inch of the way.’

  ‘I’m glad about that, sir. Mr Schlemberger’s a bit funny, but he’s nice.’

  ‘And I’m afraid that’s got nothing to do with it now. One of the people on the coach shot Mr Hamyadis, and though they may be nice about everything else we can’t be sure they didn’t have a secret. A secret which made it important to them to kill.’

  They walked in silence across the moon-soaked cobbles.

  ‘Did… And did the person mean to come back to the coach tonight and steal the pistol so that they could hide it, say in the river?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. By tomorrow the police will know what sort of a bullet killed Mr Hamyadis. Then they’ll start making inquiries about the gun, and unless I’m very much mistaken they’ll find that the automatic with the silencer on that Mr Hamyadis slept with under his pillow every night is missing.’

  ‘The Kett told everybody about it,’ said Peter.

  ‘The Kett?’

  A teaspoonful of reproof, quickly administered.

  ‘That’s what Dad calls her, sir.’

  ‘Well, when you speak of her to me, it’s Miss Kett.’

  ‘Yes sir, but she did tell everybody, didn’t she?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Sir, what about fingerprints, sir?’

  ‘Good boy. And have you noticed how careful I’ve been not to handle the pistol too much? The police will find a few of my prints on it, and they may find some others. But you know we were all wearing our costume gloves, so I’d be very surprised if they got anywhere on those lines. All the same I’ll put this nasty little weapon very carefully among my handkerchiefs so that the least mark will be preserved. And now, my boy, isn’t it time you slipped back into bed? Will you sleep all right?’

  ‘Yes, I will, sir. I was worrying about what I thought I’d done, you know. But I’ll be all right now. I’m sorry I sneezed though.’

  ‘We each did. It was chilly out.’

  They climbed the stairs together.

  When they got to the boy’s door, Peter whispered:

  ‘Sir, couldn’t somebody have seen the automatic as it was fired?’

  ‘Remember the big cuffs on our costumes. And everybody was looking at the highwayman. Now, off to bed.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And thank you, sir.’

  The door quickly closed.

  Smithers walked along the uneven corridor of the ancient inn to his own bedroom. Slow steps.

  He entered and locked the door carefully. Then opened the drawer of the rickety dressing table where he had put his handkerchiefs when for the second time he had unpacked in this room. Gently he laid the silenced automatic inside. He undressed slowly. His mind elsewhere.

  In bed he lay still, deep in thought while the stable clock struck quarters and hours. Across the wide oak floorboards of the room a swathe of moonlight from the open window moved as easily as the hands of the clock. When it reached the corner of the bed Smithers slept.

  He woke suddenly. The moonlight had almost left the room. A shaft, finger-thick only, lay obliquely. Smithers felt every muscle tense.

  A noise, slight, unaccountable, alien. What might have been a low snore, ending in a gentle thump.

  Smithers checked an instinct to call out. He peered with desperate concentration in the direction he thought the sound had come from. But it was too dark to see anything. Too dark even to be sure from which part of the strange room the noise had come.

  Suddenly the finger of moonlight switched off, on. In the darkness Smithers thought of some cosmic mechanism.

  An effort of will. A burst of futile anger at the sleepy brain.

  A cloud? A momentary mental black-out?

  Silently, fiercely, ears still straining, he worried at the mystery.

  Then he knew. Something, someone had passed between himself and the moon. Was standing now beside the open window. Had come from the dressing table.

  He sprang out of bed, eyes fixed in the direction of the suddenly located window. Against the faint lightness of the part outside the moon’s beam he could half see a figure. Dim, unidentifiable, there.

  Arms outstretched, without a sound, he ran towards it. It disappeared through the window. Smithers banged against the sill, thrust out his head. In the full light of the moon was blinded.

  For a moment. For three seconds while his ears detected a hurried scuffling. Then he was able to see. In front of him ran a wide roof, scarcely sloping. He looked along it either way. Nobody. Nothing.

  He scrambled over the low window-ledge and stood balancing without difficulty on the tiles. To his left he heard quick footsteps on boards. He ran in their direction. Six yards. And found himself standing at the wide-open window of the main corridor of the inn. He stood looking into the darkness. Somewhere he thought he heard a door softly close. In triumph.

  The stable clock struck four. A cold wind stirred Smithers’s pyjamas. The pattern of stripes.

  He walked back along the creaking boards of the corridor to his own room, turned the door knob to go in, found the door fast against him. Carefully locked by himself.

  Wearily he retraced his steps. Barked shins on the corridor window. The slope of the tiles now inexplicably dangerous. His room again mysterious, looming with forgotten objects. He blundered.

  The light on at last. Revealing, implacable. He crossed to the dressing table, opened the handkerchief drawer, saw the neat piles of white linen. Nothing else. He shut his eyes. Slowly he pushed the drawer in and home. The noise that might have been a slow snore ending in a gentle thump. He sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders bent, wisps of grey hair awry, naked feet cold and shrinking from the bare boards.

  At seven o’clock as the stable clock struck, he telephoned the police station. He was told that Detective Inspector Parker was expected at eight and asked for an appointment.

  ‘So,’ said the inspector, Nosey Parker, ‘so you’ve had a closer look at your
travelling companions. What titbits have you got for me?’

  ‘I’ve got a confession to make,’ said Smithers.

  ‘Come, you sound so serious you might almost be going to tell me you killed Mr Hamyadis.’

  ‘And that would surprise you?’ asked Smithers.

  With curiosity.

  ‘A little,’ the inspector answered. ‘We haven’t so far been able to trace the remotest connexion between the two of you before he wrote to you as the author of the fourteen-volume History of Travel.’

  ‘Well, you’re right. There’s no connexion and I didn’t kill him. But my confession is serious. I think I’ve aided the criminal.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Smithers narrated without concealment the exact sequence of events from the moment he had realized there was someone in the coach house to the final opening of the handkerchief drawer.

  ‘And you took the boy with you as a witness,’ the inspector said.

  ‘Yes, I had thought I might be suspect, you know.’

  ‘You say you had to put out the torch just as you found the automatic?’

  ‘The boy was holding it for me. He put it out.’

  ‘Before or after he had seen what you found?’

  ‘Before. It came as a surprise to him when I showed it in my hand as we stood in the inn yard after the second intruder had run off. That must have been when the first person overheard me say where I was going to put the gun overnight.’

  ‘When you left the coach house for the second time, did you get any idea who it was running away?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘And the boy? Did he?’

  ‘He couldn’t have done. I was out of the door several seconds in front of him.’

  ‘As I thought. So he didn’t have you under continuous observation all the time?’

  Smithers was silent. Then said:

  ‘No. He didn’t. But remember, I wasn’t expecting to find anyone else there, much less two people. If everything had gone as I expected he would have been able to swear I had found the gun where I did.’

  ‘I see. Now about these intruders as you call them. Did the boy agree with you that there were two of them?’

  ‘I don’t remember exactly what he said about it. I became convinced of it only when I thought out how the theft from my room could have taken place.’

  ‘How much of the intruders did the boy see, would you say?’

  ‘Very little. I was generally running in front of him.’

  ‘But you told him what you had seen?’

  ‘Inspector,’ Smithers said, ‘it’s no use me pretending that I don’t know where your questions are leading. You’re insinuating that I persuaded the boy these people were about so that I could make him the victim of a piece of sleight of hand. I think he has been made victim enough already.’

  ‘He certainly has,’ the inspector said. ‘I had the result of the post-mortem late last night. The bullet was still in the body. It was probably fired from an automatic, certainly not from a nineteenth-century pistol. But to be quite frank with you this confirmation you have produced doesn’t really prove that you are not the person who played the trick on the boy in the first place.’

  Smithers on his feet.

  ‘It was intended to do nothing of the sort,’ he said.

  ‘All right. All right,’ said the inspector.

  He sandwiched his enormous nose between the palms of his hands and stroked it slowly.

  ‘Listen, Mr Smithers,’ he said. ‘I’ve mentioned nothing about charging you, and if I believed you had killed Hamyadis it would be my duty to do so, as I dare say you know very well. But I’ve said nothing and I believe nothing. Still, I have to consider possibilities. And to my mind the possibility that you are the person I’m looking for is now much greater.’

  Smithers sat down.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘I came here in a humble enough state of mind. But I hadn’t realized what my actions might lead you to think. Let me try and explain myself. I owe you that.’

  ‘You told me yesterday that you found it difficult to voice suspicions before you had proof,’ Inspector Parker said. ‘I imagine you will repeat that now.’

  ‘Inspector, I don’t at all like your tone.’

  ‘I’m afraid this must be something new to you Mr Smithers: to be at the wrong end of the law. You’re not in the ordinary category of criminals and possible criminals, so you’re used to policemen as useful, friendly, helpful people. But when it’s a case of murder everybody concerned has to be in the category of suspect. And policemen aren’t so pleasant.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Smithers. ‘Is there anything further you want to ask me?’

  ‘No, nothing immediately, I think.’

  ‘You know where to find me if you want me.’

  The hand on the door knob. Then:

  ‘Mr Smithers, if you wanted to show me you’re still on the side of the law-abiding, you could.’

  ‘I have done nothing to show you anything else.’

  ‘You have been anything but helpful.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Circumstances were too much for me.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that.’

  ‘You can, or need not, as you like. It makes no difference to the truth.’

  ‘Mr Smithers …’

  Wheedling.

  ‘You could prove you are on the right side.’

  ‘And how?’

  ‘By cooperating with me. By telling me a lot of things I want to know about those people. I’ve seen one or two of them a second time, at some length. You may have heard. But the more I see of them the more I suspect they are concealing from me. I must break in somewhere. Won’t you help?’

  The door knob released.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Smithers. ‘If you think you can induce me to pander to an unhealthy sense of curiosity by threatening me, you have chosen the wrong person.’

  ‘All right. I can’t compel you to tell me. But threats apart, your attitude puts you in a very curious light. Remember that. And now good morning.’

  ‘There’s one thing, inspector.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want you to have a word with the boy, Peter Dagg. I want to be present. I shan’t say a word but I want to see what effect his answers have on you. I’ve a right to ask this.’

  ‘I won’t conceal from you that I was going straight up to the inn to see him. But I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be present, with the father. But no questions, no hints, mind.’

  Already the sunlight on the street was warm. In silence, their two shadows pointing black in front of them, the two men walked along to the inn. The time was 8.17 a.m. A few inquiries by the inspector and they found that Peter was still in his room. A knock on the door. And abruptly without waiting for a reply Inspector Parker, Nosey Parker, jerked it open.

  Peter Dagg was still asleep.

  The inspector crossed to the bed, listened closely. Smithers smiled. Icily.

  ‘The luck has turned my way a little,’ he said. ‘You’re convinced of this, I take it.’

  The inspector shook the sleeping boy lightly. He woke.

  ‘Remember me, son?’

  ‘Nosey … Er – Inspector Parker.’

  ‘That’s right. And never mind about mentioning the pet name: I like it. It shows I mean business. I want to ask you one or two things.’

  ‘All right.’

  The boy sat up in bed. Tousled, bright.

  ‘Inspector,’ said Smithers, ‘you mentioned Mr Dagg.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ the inspector said. ‘This is off the record. It won’t take a minute. All I want to know is what you and Mr Smithers did last night, son.’

  And the boy told him. The account unvarnished, with the stamp of truth.

  ‘Just a couple of questions,’ said the inspector when he had finished. ‘Did you recognize either of the people?’

  ‘No, I just heard the steps and the other sounds.’
/>
  ‘No ideas at all?’

  ‘Honest, no. It might have been anybody, either of them.’

  ‘But you’re sure the second one was a woman?’

  ‘There was the scent. I smelt it in the coach house. You couldn’t mistake it.’

  ‘If I bring you samples of scent, would you recognize it?’

  ‘I don’t know much about scents and ladies’ stuff, but I think I would.’

  ‘And you, Mr Smithers?’

  ‘I make the same answer.’

  ‘Very well, will you both come down to the station at, say, ten o’clock. You’ll be wanting some breakfast, lad.’

  ‘Gosh, yes,’ said Peter. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘All right, we’ll have to start looking for this gun,’ the inspector said to Smithers.

  He grinned at Peter.

  ‘And one last thing, don’t talk about this to anybody.’

  Breakfast. The coach party all seemed to be late risers. When Smithers entered the dining room he found they had scarcely started. And still nobody speaking.

  ‘Ah, there you are, boy,’ said Joe Dagg. ‘Perhaps you and I can have a bit of a barney. I passed a few remarks earlier on about the weather, state of the roads, and such like, but I didn’t have the luck to meet with much in the way of replies.’

  Peter, who plainly could think of nothing else but the forbidden subject of the night’s adventure, had nothing to say.

  ‘Lord, you gone silent, too?’ said his father. ‘I suppose it’s all along of old Hammy. But I can’t understand it, straight I can’t. I didn’t think any of you much cared for him when he was amongst us, as they say, so I don’t see what you want all to go clamming up when he ain’t amongst us any more.’

  Smithers sat down with an air of resolution.

  ‘You don’t think the way he ceased to be amongst us might have put people on their guard, then?’ he said.

  ‘On their guard?’

  Light suddenly.

  ‘You mean it being a police job.’

  A glance over the shoulder.

  ‘Tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it. When it ain’t something to do with horses, commander, I wander off like.’