Death and the Visiting Firemen

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Do you know,’ Daisy said, ‘I’d forgotten all about it. I’m awfully sorry, major, when it was your big scene and everything, but so many things seemed to happen.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it, my dear,’ said Major Mortenson. ‘It helps me to make my point. The more we look into this the more it looks as though any one of us could have done the business. And that was precisely what I intended to show you by my little demonstration beside the coach. Knowing I had not killed Hamyadis I simply intended to prove that it could look conclusively as if I had. It was a warning.’

  ‘A likely story,’ said Wemyss.

  ‘An unlikely one,’ said Smithers, ‘and as such making all the better claim to our credence.’

  ‘It could fit,’ said Schlemberger. ‘It could be a case of the guy who’s too clever.’

  ‘That covers rather too much, I think,’ said Smithers. ‘Let us put it rather: the man who finds it necessary to express a simple logical thought in terms of wild imaginative exaggeration. Do you read P. C. Wren, major?’

  ‘A very fine writer, sir.’

  ‘He frequently makes use of such characters, and seems to honour them.’

  ‘All the same, Major Mortenson,’ said Schlemberger, ‘I contest your point. Someone killed Hamyadis. A patient investigation into every suspicious circumstance will very likely show us who. I propose to pick up our little inquiry at the place we left it off just now. Mr Wemyss, did your friend Kristen ever ask you to find something for her in the High Flyer coach?’

  Wemyss slowly raised his head and looked at Schlemberger.

  ‘I’ve not the least idea what you mean,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ said Schlemberger, ‘that answers one question. I think that we can assume it was Miss Kett herself looking round the coach in her own interests, whatever they may be, on the night after the crime.’

  ‘“Assume”, sir,’ said the major, ‘You’ve chosen the right word. I’ve seldom had to listen to such a lot of barefaced assumptions. You assume Wemyss here is telling the truth, you assume the girl has the guts to do her own dirty work, you assume a hell of a lot.’

  Wemyss stood up. He faced Major Mortenson.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he said.

  ‘I think we’ll go no further,’ said Smithers.

  A chill.

  ‘It was going to be quite exciting,’ said Daisy. ‘But I suppose you’re right. When it comes to it it’s always rather horrid.’

  Wemyss, almost pushing past Fremitt, strode back into the inn. At the door he met Inspector Parker.

  He turned and looked at the group by the seat and said loudly:

  ‘Perhaps you are about to hear the official answer to your sordid speculations. I sincerely hope so, and I don’t much mind which of you it is who goes down to the police station.’

  The inspector stood aside to let him go in, and drew the tip of his right index finger slowly across the side of his enormous nose.

  He walked across to them.

  ‘An accusation of murder leading to a breach of the peace might well be criminal,’ he said. ‘I hope nobody has been indulging.’

  ‘We were talking about the murder,’ Smithers said. ‘There had to come a time when we did. Unfortunately things got out of hand.’

  ‘There was some plain speaking?’ asked Nosey Parker. ‘Has anybody got anything further they would like to tell me, I wonder?’

  There was a short silence. Then Daisy said:

  ‘I think you’re being very unfair, inspector. Just because you haven’t been quite frank with us you seem to think we haven’t been quite frank with you. And don’t pretend you have been frank. I’ve just found out what all those artless questions about my scent were leading up to. I’m a little disappointed in you.’

  Inspector Parker looked at Smithers.

  ‘I see you have been talking well and truly,’ he said. ‘But I came out to ask Miss Miller if she would be so good as to look in on Miss Kett. She was complaining of feeling ill when I left her just now. I don’t think it’s a case for a doctor, but a little womanly sympathy would no doubt be appreciated.’

  ‘So she wouldn’t tell about her scent,’ said Daisy. ‘I can’t say I altogether blame her.’

  Inspector Parker looked down at his feet, small and neat in brown shoes.

  ‘I’ll bid you good morning then,’ he said. ‘I’ve a lot to do. We’re dragging the river this morning. It’s just possible the person who disposed of the gun didn’t take many precautions.’

  The long nose suddenly flicked up and the inspector darted a look at them all.

  ‘And with any luck,’ he said, ‘we’ll have Dagg and his boy to talk to before this evening. There’s someone who will have something to say. And the boy too.’

  This time the look was for Smithers alone.

  ‘You don’t take Peter’s note at its face value then?’ Smithers said.

  ‘I’ve no comment to make,’ said Inspector Parker.

  He turned on his heel and walked quickly out of the archway turning in the direction of the police station.

  ‘I must go and see Kristen,’ Daisy said.

  The others parted without a word.

  Each went, to occupy themselves somehow or other. Filling in the long hours. Deadening the waiting. Looking for some distraction. Avoiding the question poised over them all.

  Aimless walks through the town, coffee lingered over in cafés, papers read to shreds, cigarettes smoked, small purchases carefully made, clock golf, crosswords.

  Smithers sat on the bench where the discussion had ended. He was reading the concluding pages of Vol. 5 of The Decline and Fall Vol. 6 in his well-worn edition lay beside him. The sun was warm. The pages turning regularly.

  Under the reign of Ommiades the studies of the Moslems were confined to the interpretation of the Koran, and the eloquence and poetry of their native tongue. A people continually exposed to the dangers of the field must esteem the healing powers of medicine, or rather of surgery; but the starving physicians of Arabia murmured a complaint...

  ‘Please sir, please sir.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ Smithers said without taking his eyes from the page.

  ‘Please sir, I’ve been telling you for the last five minutes, sir, I’ve come back.’

  Smithers looked up.

  Peter.

  Twelve

  Smithers closed the book.

  ‘I thought I might see you before long,’ he said. ‘Does your father know?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t, Mr Smithers, sir,’ said Peter. ‘Was I wrong to come?’

  ‘That depends on why. you came.’

  ‘I thought about it a lot,’ said the boy. ‘Dad kept saying that he supposed he’d done it now and the rozzers would pin the murder on him if they caught him, and he said he’d had to get away from them for me. I think that was why I thought it would be best for me to go.’

  ‘Then I don’t think you were wrong,’ said Smithers. ‘But tell me again, as carefully as you can, just what your father said.’

  The boy hesitated.

  ‘You can tell me, you know,’ said Smithers. ‘I’m only here to help you reason it out.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t say much really,’ Peter said. ‘He did a lot of talking but it was mostly the same things.’

  ‘I see. About the police pinning it on him?’

  ‘Yes. At first I thought that that must mean he hadn’t done anything. Then he would say something a bit different, and I’d begin to wonder if he hadn’t done something. You did know I was wondering about him and the murder, didn’t you?’

  ‘You couldn’t have helped it with all the talk you must have heard. The important thing was not to make up your mind unless there was something you couldn’t escape, and you did that.’

  ‘I still can’t make my mind up,’ said the boy. ‘Sometimes I wish I could, one way or the other.’

  ‘That’s what we all feel,’ said Smithers. ‘But we shall just have to keep on patiently
looking at everything until we get the right answer. That’s why I have to ask you these questions. Now was there anything else he said?’

  ‘He said a lot about keeping out of harm’s way.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And he said it wasn’t the same for him as the others, and that if he went who would I have.’

  ‘Who would you have?’

  ‘Well, nobody really. My mum was dead a long time ago.’

  ‘No aunts? No uncles?’

  ‘No, Dad hasn’t got any family. He’s what they call an orphan.’

  ‘Yes. And what else did he tell you up there?’

  ‘There was something else, something I didn’t understand,’ Peter said.

  ‘Perhaps I can help over that.’

  ‘It was something like being necessary before the fact.’

  ‘An accessory before the fact?’

  ‘Yes, I think that was it. Please, Mr Smithers, what does it mean?’

  ‘It means knowing about something bad before it was done and allowing it to happen.’

  ‘I see.’

  The boy sat still in the warm sun. After a while Smithers asked:

  ‘Well, what do you think? Can you still escape it, or not?’

  ‘He didn’t say he really was a nec - an accessory before the fact. It all came in with the bit about it being pinned on him.

  He said it was something he would never have even thought of.’

  ‘Did he say much about that?’

  ‘No, I think he only talked about it once. That was why I wasn’t sure how to say the long word. Most of the time it was about keeping out of harm’s way.’

  Smithers sat without speaking for a moment. Then he slapped the two volumes of Gibbon together and said:

  ‘All right. But have you thought about what you’re going to do now that you have left your father?’

  ‘Will I have to go to the police?’

  Puppy dog beg.

  Smithers said nothing.

  ‘Dad did keep on about “You’ve always got to steer clear of the rozzers”.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve got to see them really if I did leave him.But Dad has got something to hide, I know he has.’

  ‘But you are here, aren’t you? Come along, I’ll walk you down and we’ll sort out what you have to say.’

  Peter was in the police station for about half an hour. Smithers was still standing on the pavement opposite when he came out. Peter crossed over and joined him.

  ‘It was all right really,’ he said. ‘In fact old Nosey was pretty decent. Oh, I’m sorry: you said I wasn’t to call him that.’

  ‘I know when not to hear a thing.’

  ‘I asked him if he thought Dad had done it.’

  ‘You know he isn’t allowed to answer that question.’

  ‘Yes, he told me. But he said I wasn’t to worry.’

  ‘Very sound advice.’

  ‘He asked me if I’d seen you, sir.’

  ‘And you told him you had?’

  ‘Yes, so he asked me what we’d talked about, and I told him that too. It was all right to, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘He asked me if you’d told me anything about what you’d been doing while I was away. It was a good thing you hadn’t, because I wouldn’t have told him.’

  ‘Do you want to know now?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Smithers gave him a factual account of his activities and ended:

  ‘I won’t tell you what I think is in the packet Mr Wemyss had because, for one thing, it’s only a guess. But I will give you this warning. Don’t mention it to anyone. It wasn’t the reason Mr Hamyadis was killed, but if anyone knew I had it, they might go to considerable lengths to get it back.’

  ‘I won’t say a word.’

  ‘Now then, come along and let’s get some lunch.’

  ‘I’ve got to see all of them again, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, but I will simply say you have been to the inspector and that will be enough.’

  When Smithers made his announcement there was silence. Only Kristen had any comment.

  ‘But he can’t run away and come back here like this,’ she said.

  ‘The inspector sent him back,’ Smithers said. ‘I propose to keep an eye on him for the time being.’

  ‘I suppose his father will just come in and sit down for tea,’ said Kristen. ‘The bloody police. They don’t know what they’re doing. That foul inspector bullied me half the morning and made me feel sick, and with a policeman there scribbling it all down. It isn’t fair. Why can’t they concentrate on catching the man they want?’

  ‘That’, said Smithers, ‘is all you will say on that subject.’

  Heads lowered all round the table. Exercise books toiled painfully at; discipline.

  But nothing could have prevented the glances at the window as the meal was almost over. Halted at the traffic lights in the road outside two open lorries, sitting neatly in them policemen. Serried. Purposeful.

  ‘I suppose they’re on their way to the down,’ said Smithers.

  ‘We must be prepared for the consequences of any act. Peter, you and I will spend this afternoon watching the dragging operations by the bridge. It is concerned with facts at their most tangible.’

  They had no difficulty in finding the place where the police were carrying out their seaich of the river at that moment. As they approached they saw a knot of people all looking down at the water. A motor coach was parked nearby and the majority of the crowd looked as if they were on holiday and were delighted to get an extra attraction free. Their numbers were added to by two errand boys leaning on their bicycles and three people dressed with more formality than the coach party, active in being in the crowd but not of it.

  Smithers and Peter joined the group and soon found themselves on the ancient bridge wedged against the lichened stones. The crowd had grown shortly after their arrival. A troop of schoolboys on holiday tacking itself on to the edge, milling and shoving. The forty people shifted and strained to get a better view of the activities below them. A buzz of chatter. And the unbudging stones.

  Below the river flowed steadily and broadly, the force of the current creating a slight wave as the stream parted at the heavy piers washed smooth by the water of centuries. The river had been marked out with light cords tied to poles stuck in each bank with other cords in the direction of the water’s flow held up here and there by bobbing corks. Some of the marker poles had small pieces of coloured rag fixed to the top and fluttering in the occasional puffs of summer breeze. A sports day. The crowd pushed, chattered, laughed. The sun shone.

  There was even a scorer’s table. It was set up about twenty yards from the river’s bank and at it sat Inspector Parker and a sergeant. A telephone line ran up to the table. The inspector in the intervals of directing the river search made frequent calls.

  Nothing of holiday in his anxious watch over the searchers. There to find a murder weapon.

  The work was being carried out systematically. One party of three men on each bank in shirt sleeves and wearing waders dealt with the water’s edge. Six divers, in bright bathing trunks with flippers on their feet, goggles, and breathing tubes worked section by section over the rest of the river.

  Every now and again one would break the surface holding out some object in front of him. There would be a gasp from the crowd, people would point and then the audible sigh of disappointment when as the mud and weeds fell away the find would turn out not to be a gun. After several false alarms the crowd began to thin. In the hot sun the search went on steadily. One of the divers at the farthest point from the inspector’s table sketched a little pantomime and when he had attracted some attention produced with a flourish an old boot. There was a round of applause led by the remaining members of the holiday outing. Value for no money.

  An ice cream van drove up and soon attracted a short queue of buyers.

  From the river, stirred
now to dirty turbulence, more slime-covered articles were produced. Smithers turned to Peter.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, ‘how do you feel about all this?’

  ‘I can’t help being a bit excited, sir.’

  ‘No, neither can I. I keep thinking that at any moment one of these men might, just might, bring up that gun that you and I saw in the moonlight outside the coach house. A solid object for the police scientists to work one. Each time one of those divers bobs under I hold my breath.’

  ‘Look,’ said Peter, ‘there goes another of them. I wonder...’

  They watched the hooked tube of the diver being dragged erratically about the patch of water marked out by the lines.

  ‘Do you think you can tell if he’s found anything by watching the way it goes?’ said Peter. ‘Sometimes they seem to stick in one place ever so long and then I begin to think the man’s trying to pick something out.’

  ‘Look,’ said Smithers, ‘he’s quite still now. And there’s one of his legs splashing. He’s kicking to get down a bit deeper.’

  The hooked tube was pulled under the water. The small square of river stilled. Then quite unexpectedly the diver’s head broke the surface.

  ‘He’s got something,’ Peter said.

  ‘And what’s more I think he’s pretty sure it’s what they’re looking for,’ Smithers said. ‘Do you see he’s not holding it up. He’s clasping it quite closely to him so that no one up here can get a proper look.’

  ‘And he’s coming out,’ said Peter.

  Quickly the rest of the crowd spotted the man. Talk stopped. Faces peered and craned as the man still holding something close to his body and cupped in his hands loped towards the inspector’s table. The sergeant stood up and took a half pace towards him. The man put the object on the table and all three examined it eagerly.

  Abruptly Inspector Parker flung himself back in the kitchen chair he was sitting on and gave a huge shrug of his shoulders. The gesture conveyed everything. Failure.

  The diver nicked the slime-covered find off the table and hurled it at a bed of nettles behind. But instead of going in the direction of his throw it shot out of his hand and landed on the river bank immediately under the bridge. Against a background of short grass there was no difficulty in seeing what it was. A toy cowboy’s six-shooter.