Death and the Visiting Firemen

by H. R. F. Keating

  He left.

  Schlemberger shrugged.

  ‘I guess there are occasions when a little personal speaking is an excellent thing,’ he said. ‘I’m going to say right now that we must none of us forget that Major Mortenson suffered at the hands of that man Hamyadis.’

  ‘Come,’ said Fremitt, ‘you must have summed up the major by now. He’s a failure. Intelligent as you like, but lacking that necessary stamina. And he’s turned a little bitter. We must try to excuse him his outbursts.’

  An exit line. The door closing. An apologetic half smile, the door closed.

  ‘Mr Smithers,’ said Schlemberger,’ there’s something I want to say to you. You’re a man whose opinions I have a very high respect for. Of course, in many ways you’re a typical Britisher, and you might not expect me to share a great deal with you. But I reckon I can tell what a man is like no matter what dress he wears and no matter what customs he has. Sir, I’d highly value your opinion on a certain theory I have conceived as regards this crime.’

  ‘A theory, Mr Schlemberger?’ said Smithers.

  ‘Yes, sir. A theory. I don’t deceive myself into thinking I’ve solved this case. There are plenty of loose ends your British policemen will have to tie up, but I’ve been giving the matter a lot of quiet thought and I’d like you to put the final okay on it.’

  ‘And that,’ said Smithers, ‘I’m afraid, I’m entirely incompetent to do. I feel perhaps I ought to tell you that in ten minutes’ time I have an appointment at the police station with Inspector Parker.’

  He got up from the table. And like Richard Wemyss, like Daisy Miller, like Major Mortenson, like John Fremitt he left.

  Without hesitation he climbed the stairs and made for the alcove with the retired armchair and the neglected potted palm. Peter Dagg was sitting there where he had expected to find him.

  ‘Nearly ten,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘All right,’ said Peter.

  Neither spoke while they left the inn and turned into the street patterned with bright sunshine. It was only when they had to wait to cross a road that Smithers said:

  ‘You know that what we tell the inspector now will not necessarily mean anything, however it may look to us?’

  ‘I was hoping the scent wouldn’t be Miss Miller’s,’ said Peter.

  ‘Even if it is,’ Smithers said, ‘the worst we can do is to put Inspector Parker on a right track.’

  ‘But, sir,’ said Peter, ‘whatever the inspector’s right track is, it does mean somebody …’

  ‘It does, Peter,’ Smithers said. ‘And it’s no use pretending anything else. That’s the law, and without it we’d be in a pretty mess.’

  ‘Sir, what would happen if it turned out to be the man we heard and nothing to do with the scent. And if that man was – was … Well, was somebody.’

  ‘Look at it this way, Peter,’ said Smithers. ‘If a person is someone we respect very much, we wouldn’t believe he would be a murderer, would we? And if he was, in spite of everything, he wouldn’t be the person we thought.’

  Peter did not answer, and they walked into the police station without another word.

  As soon as they arrived they were shown in to Inspector Parker.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve managed to find out what scent the two ladies use. In fact I’ve found out quite a bit about what’s popular in that line at the moment, quite a bit.’

  He gave a sharp sniff and wriggled the tip of his huge nose. Another morsel.

  From a drawer in the little desk he sat at he took two buff envelopes and laid them in front of him.

  ‘One moment,’ he said. ‘We’d better have a record of your replies.’

  He jumped up and went out. Smithers sat looking at the desk, barer than when he had last been in this office. The two buff envelopes lay all alone on a folded sheet of pink blotting paper. Smithers saw in clear minute writing a set of initials on each – K.K. and D.M.

  ‘Peter,’ he said, ‘look out of the window for me, would you, and see if you can spot a clock? I’m not sure my watch is right.’

  Peter went towards the window. The door opened and the inspector came in followed by a constable.

  ‘There isn’t a clock,’ said Peter at the window.

  ‘Never mind,’ Smithers said. ‘I’ve an idea we arrived at exactly the time we were expected.’

  ‘You did,’ said Inspector Parker. ‘On the dot of ten.’

  He picked up the envelope marked K.K. and brought the great nose down on to it. A sniff.

  ‘Strong stuff this one,’ he said. ‘It filters through the paper.’

  From the envelope he took a small white card, perfectly plain except for the number i typed on it.

  ‘Now then, lad,’ he said. ‘Have a smell of this and don’t say a word.’

  Peter smelt it. A flicker in his eyes. The inspector passed the card to Smithers without speaking. Smithers smelled at it.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  The inspector took up the second envelope. Again the nose swooped.

  ‘I think I detect the characteristic odour of unused stationery,’ he said.

  He extracted the card with care. It was exactly similar to the other except for the typewritten number 2. Peter smelt it. A quick frown. He smelt again.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  Uneasily.

  Smithers smelt. Once.

  ‘You want my verdict?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re quite happy about it?’ said Inspector Parker, Nosey Parker.

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Very well then.’

  ‘If there is any difference between the two samples I fail to detect it,’ said Smithers.

  Peter’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Are they the same?’ he asked. ‘I thought they were.’

  ‘What about the scent you say you smelt in the coach house?’ said the inspector.

  ‘As far as I can judge it’s the same,’ said Smithers.

  ‘I thought it was as soon as I smelt the first card,’ said Peter.

  ‘You’re quite right, lad,’ the inspector said. ‘I had it reported to me that both ladies favour the same scent. It’s the season’s latest, so they tell me, strongish – if that’s the word – and highly characteristic’

  ‘And which were you expecting us to pick as the one we knew?’ Smithers said.

  ‘Expecting?’

  ‘Don’t let us misunderstand each other, inspector. Was it K.K. or D.M.?’

  ‘There you are,’ said Inspector Parker.

  For the nose a tap with the tip of the right forefinger.

  ‘There you are, Mr Smithers, you haven’t learnt yet. I’m not here to help you over the unpleasant business of the boot boy who pinched the half-crown postal order. This is a matter of murder. I can’t treat anybody like a gentleman.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Smithers, ‘if no holds are to be barred let me ask you a question which puts you plainly in an embarrassing position. Do you believe I’m a liar?’

  ‘If I did I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of knowing,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Let’s put it another way, then,’ said Smithers. ‘Will you set a guard on the coach tonight?’

  ‘Now why should I?’ asked the inspector. ‘If the automatic was there, it’s gone now. If it wasn’t there, there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Very well,’ Smithers said. ‘Come along, Peter.’

  On the police station steps Peter asked:

  ‘Why did you ask him to guard the coach again tonight? The gun has gone.’

  ‘Can’t you think why?’ Smithers said.

  The boy looked puzzled.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you can’t be expected to work out everything,’ Smithers said, ‘though the inspector should have thought of this.’

  ‘Is it fingerprints?’ asked Peter.

  ‘No,’ Smithers said. ‘The coach would have a fair sample of all our prints anyway. No doubt Mr Parker knows t
hat.’

  ‘Then what is it he hasn’t thought of?’

  ‘Simply that two separate raids on the coach mean two separate things hidden on it, my boy.’

  ‘The pistol was one, and … Is there some money or something there too?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say this to everyone,’ Smithers answered. ‘You know I don’t like to claim things are true until I’ve more than a guess to go on. But it seems to me pretty likely that there is something hidden there. I don’t think it will be money, but I don’t know what else it might be. We shall just have to see.’

  ‘Does that mean another watch tonight?’ Peter said.

  ‘We shall have to try and be a little cleverer this time.’

  ‘Please sir, are you sure you want me?’

  Smithers stopped in the sunlit street.

  ‘So that problem is still worrying you,’ he said. ‘You know I think it would be best to find out one way or the other as soon as possible, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so, sir.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make it any easier, does it? We’ll see how you feel when I come and call you tonight.’

  ‘I think I will come, sir. I’ll try to.’

  After Peter had left him Smithers strolled round the ancient inn. He noticed that the little window looking out on to the alley from the coach house was now tight shut again.

  The rest of the morning Smithers spent sitting on a dilapidated bench in the inn yard. He read seventy-four pages of Vol. 3 of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Never once did his eyes rest on the door of the coach house.

  When he heard the lunch gong he went slowly indoors. He found a full table. Mealtimes the prisoner’s solace.

  ‘You’ve heard about Hamyadis’s automatic?’ Fremitt asked.

  ‘I have,’ said Smithers.

  ‘Do tell us you couldn’t have taken it from his cases in the hall,’ Daisy said. ‘All the rest of us could have done, and it would be nice to have somebody really innocent.’

  ‘Is that what the police think happened?’ Smithers asked.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Schlemberger. ‘Those cases were there for all to see. And in the very early morning after Hamyadis left any one of us could have gotten at them.’

  ‘I could have done,’ said Smithers.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Daisy. ‘Well, come and join the suspects round the table. At least the food’s good.’

  ‘I don’t see how anyone can eat it,’ said Kristen Kett.

  She took some soup. But nothing else.

  ‘Won’t you try just some of these vegetables?’ Fremitt said. ‘I can only suppose they come from the hotel garden. Deliciously fresh.’

  ‘I would if I could,’ said Kristen. ‘But really I feel lousy.’

  ‘I know what it is,’ Joe Dagg said. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking during the morning. You can’t eat after that.’

  His plate untouched. The nervous eyes.

  ‘I don’t know that you’re right there,’ Schlemberger said. ‘I have also devoted the morning to reappraising the situation.’

  For the second time the serving spoon dug into the piled potatoes.

  ‘It’s a curious thing,’ Major Mortenson said. ‘This business seems to be having the same effect on me as on our American friend. I’m going to have some more of that excellent salad. Carpe diem.’

  ‘Don’t you think’, Richard Wemyss said, ‘that we could try to forget about this business? I’ve been doing so all morning, and with excellent results. I too feel hungry.’

  ‘Do you Richie, dear?’ said Kristen. ‘I’m so glad. Mr Fremitt … No, I’m going to call you John – John, pass Richie the potatoes.’

  ‘No, no potatoes, thank you,’ said Wemyss. ‘I like to be able to wear what clothes I’ve got. But I will have a little more tongue.’

  Schlemberger passed him the dish.

  ‘Help yourself, Mr Wemyss,’ he said. ‘Eat up. You may not always feel so hungry.’

  ‘Oh, I generally have a pretty good appetite,’ Wemyss said. ‘I’m careful not to worry. People don’t pay enough attention to that. If you force yourself to stop worrying, you eat well, feel better, and look respectable. I sometimes think it should be made an offence to go around looking haggard.’

  ‘Now there I cannot agree,’ Schlemberger said.

  He moved his chair three inches away from the table, leaned back in it, and looked round the group.

  ‘Worry’, he said, ‘is the driving force behind all success. Nobody ever got anywhere without worry. And the ones who don’t worry get to thinking about things they have no business to. They get to start dreaming about sex and stuff. And you know what that leads to.’

  The overlong pause.

  ‘Sex, when it gets out of hand,’ said Schlemberger, ‘leads as often as not to crime. Now I’ve been doing a little worrying this morning. I’ve been worrying about my conference. I’ve been worrying because the death of George Hamyadis is interfering with my business. And in spite of what my young friend here says, I think my worrying has been to some purpose.’

  The drip, drip, drip of a tap. Nerves stretch.

  Kristen – the edge of the table gripped.

  Daisy – an unnatural stillness.

  Joe Dagg – the chair shifted, once, twice, three times.

  John Fremitt – a remark poised, withheld, poised.

  The major – food gobbled, eyes elsewhere.

  Wemyss – a dull flush mounting the cheeks.

  Smithers – a tautening of the facial muscles, a contraction of the eyebrows, a soft, slow drumming with the index finger of the left hand.

  ‘What lies behind all crimes of murder?’ asked Schlemberger. ‘Three things: the love of money, the love of power, the love of woman. Now, in this case I think we can take it that none of the people in a position to kill Hamyadis is likely to benefit under his will. Nor is any one of them likely to gain power by his death. So we come to woman. Now we can’t know the details of people’s private lives. We can’t know who has deceived whom. But there’s one thing plain …’

  The pause, overlong again.

  ‘We can’t blink the facts as put before us. George Hamyadis was during his last days plainly attracted to one member of our party. And that member was as plainly attractive to one other person. It only needs a little worrying over. Doesn’t it, Mr Wemyss?’

  Wemyss stood up.

  ‘How dare you,’ he said, ‘how dare you go prying with your nasty little mind into my private life? What right have you to assume .. .?’

  An unwillingness to express the idea.

  ‘I suggest you leave it at that, Wemyss,’ said Smithers. ‘I’ve some sympathy with your attitude, but I think the less said now the better. Mr Schlemberger, I take it you have stated your case to the full, you’ve nothing more concrete that you could have added?’

  ‘It’s merely the logic of the situation,’ said Schlemberger.

  An excuse. A feeble umbrella.

  ‘And that logic’, said Major Mortenson, ‘is wrong.’

  Said loudly, unexpectedly, with conviction.

  ‘What’s more,’ the major went on, ‘I can prove it. I will prove it straight away. Would you ladies and gentlemen do me the favour of accompanying me to the coach house and helping me pull the coach out into the light of day?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Kristen Kett.

  ‘I want to demonstrate exactly where the murderer was standing when the shot was fired,’ the major said.

  ‘The murderer?’said Schlemberger. ‘Do you know who the murderer was?’

  ‘You’ll come to understand when you see what I am going to do,’ said the major. ‘Quod erat demonstrandum.’

  ‘That’s scarcely good enough,’ Schlemberger said. ‘If you know …’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, you’ll find out in a minute or two,’ said Kristen. ‘Stop arguing.’

  She pushed aside her chair and walked to the door. The others followed. The major led them outside and across
the cobbled inn yard. They followed in straggling silence. Schlemberger two paces behind, head moving from side to side. Watchful. Ready for the fast one.

  Under the major’s instructions they hauled out the coach.

  Smithers went and stood beside Schlemberger. Two watchers.

  The major asked them to seat themselves as they had done on the day of the shooting. Without talking they did so.

  ‘It all began’, the major said, ‘just before the liner docked. I wonder now if any of you noticed it.’

  ‘Now he’s going to tell a story,’ Kristen said. ‘Can’t you get on with it?’

  ‘You none of you noticed it?’ the major said. ‘And I worried whether I had given myself away.’

  A silence. Something momentous not taken in.

  ‘Are-are you telling us you killed Hamyadis?’ Wemyss said.

  ‘My dear chap,’ Smithers said, ‘hasn’t the point of this meeting been plain to you from the start? We’re waiting to know why Major Mortenson has chosen this way of making his confession.’

  ‘Well,’ Daisy said, ‘I’m sure it wasn’t clear to me. In fact I’m not sure it’s clear now.’

  ‘Mr Smithers is quite right,’ the major said. ‘From the moment I saw George Hamyadis without a beard that morning I knew I was going to kill him. I’m only surprised it wasn’t written all over my face.’

  ‘I’m still not sure that I believe all this,’ Daisy said. ‘It doesn’t seem the sort of thing that happens, a confession like this. Why were you so sure you were going to kill George?’

  ‘Because I recognized him as the man who, under another name, had taken every penny I had ever owned off me at a sort of club in the West End,’ said the major. ‘And when I say every penny I ever had I mean quite a tidy sum. My father had died a year or so before and I was a moderately wealthy young man.’

  ‘But why did you want to kill him now? Why didn’t you kill him at the time? And why kill him at all? Winning at cards isn’t all that terrible,’ Daisy said. ‘I suppose I’m being very silly but I really don’t understand. This isn’t a dream, is it?’

  ‘I’ll explain,’ the major said. ‘It was only when the man had cleared out, changed his name, and grown a beard to disguise himself that I found out that he had won by cheating, and not only me, but hundreds of others. George Bitlis deserved to die.’