Death and the Visiting Firemen

by H. R. F. Keating

  Peter was trembling.

  ‘I thought it was all over one way or the other,’ he said.

  ‘You know, even if they do find it it may not help them,’ said Smithers.

  ‘But it would be something,’ said the boy. ‘I do so want to know.’

  Smithers looked down at him. His hands were holding hard on to the rough stone of the bridge parapet.

  ‘Peter,’ Smithers said, ‘I have a name in my mind and it’s one that need cause you no worry.’

  ‘You know, sir?’

  Sunlight through storm clouds.

  ‘No, Peter, I have guessed. All that business of the two things hidden in the coach put me off for a while, but, when I realized what all that was probably about, the rest of it suddenly became quite clear.’

  ‘Please sir, aren’t you going to tell Nosey Parker?’

  ‘He wouldn’t be interested in my guesses. And that’s all it is, remember, a guess. If I went to him with it the most likely thing to happen would be that he would discount the whole idea. And if I’m right, and I think I am, by telling the inspector I would simply have impeded the course of justice.’

  ‘I know you’re not going to tell me.’

  ‘No, Peter, not a guess.’

  A long pause. The boy’s clouded eyes.

  ‘But, sir, what will happen, then? Won’t anybody ever know?’

  ‘I think they will, Peter. You see it isn’t just that somebody decided to kill Mr Hamyadis, shot him, and then stopped. It’s something happening that’s still going on. The person I’m thinking of is still trying to improve on what they did. And that’s where they are going to make their mistake.’

  ‘And you’ll catch them, sir?’

  ‘I shall be on my guard.’

  They looked down at the river again. The searchers were now almost at the end of the marked section. The crowd was thinning. The outing party had opened packets of sandwiches and were sitting on the parapet facing away from the river. One of the waders beckoned to the sergeant. He went over and they had a short discussion by the river’s edge. The sergeant peered despondently at the muddy water at his feet and went back to the table. Inspector Parker stood up.

  ‘Do you think they’re calling it off, sir?’ said Peter.

  ‘They seem to have covered most of the area,’ Smithers said. ‘And I don’t think anyone in a hurry could have thrown the gun even as far as they have marked.’

  Inspector Parker walked down to the river’s edge. The sergeant took some papers from the table and followed him.

  ‘Yes,’ Smithers said. ‘It looks as if they’re calling it off.’

  The sergeant, the man in waders, and the inspector all talked together for a few moments. They looked down at the water. The inspector nodded.

  But, instead of wading out of the river, the searcher abruptly plunged his hand into the water at his feet.

  There was a splash as he snatched something up and buried it in a sheet of paper the sergeant held out to him. The sergeant bundled it up in a flurry of excitement.

  Inspector Parker shook the wader’s hand. Enthusiastically.

  ‘Right everybody,’ he called.

  Peter looked up at Smithers.

  ‘They have found it after all, haven’t they?’ he said. ‘They have,’ said Smithers.

  News for the news-hungry tea-table. Though as it turned out everyone who came to it had already heard the story that had gone buzzing round the town. Only to Kristen was the account of the finding of the gun something largely new. But she displayed little interest.

  ‘We all know Georgie was shot, don’t we?’ she said. ‘What good does finding the gun do? Why don’t they arrest someone?’

  ‘So you are anxious for an arrest?’ said Schlemberger. ‘That surprises me a little.’

  ‘Look, I don’t like it here,’ Kristen said. ‘The whole atmosphere makes me feel rotten. I want to go back to London, away from the whole lot of you.’

  ‘That’s kind,’ said Richard Wemyss.

  ‘Oh, Richie, why do you say things like that? You’ve changed. We used to be such friends. I’m sure we will be when we both get to London again.’

  ‘So you don’t expect Mr Wemyss to be arrested,’ said Schlemberger. ‘You know it would very much interest me to hear who it is you have your eye on.’

  ‘Have my eye on?’

  ‘Yes, who do you expect the police will arrest? We’d all like to know.’

  ‘I’ve no idea who they’ll arrest,’ Kristen said. ‘I’ve had other things to think about. It’s the job of that nasty inspector to make arrests, and I wish he’d get on with it.’

  ‘You know I think that’s a very sensible point of view,’ said Daisy. ‘I only wish I could stick to it myself. But I keep on and on wondering all the time. I try to work it out sometimes, but, of course, I only get in a muddle. Somebody tell me: is it important that they’ve found the gun?’

  ‘It might be certainly,’ Fremitt said. ‘It depends if the forensic science people can bring up any fingerprints. I suppose it must have been fired with gloves on. I think we were all wearing them, but it may have been touched with the bare hand when it was stolen from Hamyadis’s cases in the first place.’

  ‘Hocus pocus, sir,’ said the major. ‘Come, do you really know anything about fingerprints?’

  ‘Not a great deal I must confess,’ said Fremitt. ‘But in my own line we employ scientists and they can tell us pretty well what caused any fire. Remarkable work in its way.’

  ‘Remarkable deception,’ said the major. ‘I’ll tell you how it’s done. It’s quite simple. The secret of the whole thing can be put in two words.’

  ‘Be careful, major,’ said Schlemberger. ‘Let me warn you I am a hundred per cent on the side of my colleague in this. Those scientific boys have put .over some pretty good stuff.’

  ‘Then you listen as well. It’s high time you learnt some sense,’ the major said. ‘Two words, that’s all. And what are they? Just: stick together. Now, come, admit it, neither of you know very much about the methods these people employ. You can’t possibly check their work. So you are bound to believe what they choose to tell you.’

  ‘No, it won’t do, major,’ Fremitt said. ‘You perhaps don’t know it but often enough these experts disagree. They don’t stick together.’

  ‘So,’ said Major Mortenson,’ the experts tell contradictory stories and you still believe them. And what’s more, in spite of their contradictions, they still stick together. Not one of them ever gives away the show. They never admit that they’re just taking wild guesses. If they’ve guessed differently from the other chap, they invent scientific nonsense to account for it. They simply play into each other’s hands.’

  ‘That may be,’ said Smithers, ‘but the correctness or fallibility of the police scientists doesn’t really concern us now.’

  ‘But I thought the major said it did, and he was very emphatic,’ Daisy said.

  ‘He did,’ Smithers said, ‘but, however emphatic he is, I don’t think he will induce the police to abandon their methods, and if they get any results from them be sure they will act on them. That is our immediate concern.’

  ‘Do you know, it’s odd,’ said Daisy, ‘but now it looks as if it might all be over soon, I can’t believe it.’

  ‘They might find nothing on the gun,’ Smithers said.

  ‘I suppose they haven’t had any luck in their other search,’ Wemyss said. ‘If you ask me they’re on a better wicket there, even though that’s a pretty chancy one.’

  ‘Peter,’ Smithers said, ‘you know that sooner or later everybody is bound to want to talk about your father. You must have had short nights out on the downs; how about going off to bed straight away?’

  The boy thought for a moment.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  At the door Smithers said to him quietly: ‘Don’t forget what I told you this afternoon. Now I feel a little surer.’ ‘I won’t forget,’ said the boy.

  ‘I s
uppose you think I oughtn’t to have mentioned his father like that,’ said Wemyss when Smithers came back.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Smithers said. ‘Nothing we can say will make much difference. Sooner or later the police will pick him up.’

  ‘You sound very despondent about it all,’ Daisy said.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Smithers. ‘This is a nasty business, whatever happens.’

  After a while Richard Wemyss said:

  ‘I’m going for à walk. I can’t stand this. Kris, will you cheer up a bit, try and look decent, and come with me?’

  Kristen jumped up. The others sat in silence until she came downstairs again five minutes later and joined Wemyss. She was walking more jauntily than she had done since the murder.

  ‘I could have done it once,’ said Daisy. ‘And I would have done too. But nowadays I have to sleep the glooms off. And I’m going up to try.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ they heard Kristen say from the hall. ‘Ooh, I wonder if there are any letters for me. I thought having all this publicity would stir up a bit of fan - Hallo, Richie, here are two for you and both from America. I didn’t know you knew anybody over there. In fact you denied it the other day. I bet this means you’re the murderer, but don’t worry I won’t -’

  ‘Give me those letters.’

  Wemyss’s voice was low but it carried clearly to the group round the tea-table.

  Through the open door they watched him take the two letters, rip them open, and read them over quickly. Then he laughed.

  ‘That’s one in the eye for you, Kris,’ he said. ‘Fan mail, and from America too. A couple of teenagers who saw my elegant profile in an advertisement for Scotch.’

  ‘But both on the same day,’ Kristen said, her voice as loud as his. ‘I still think it’s fishy. Poor old Richie, now you’re in my power.’

  ‘Not really so odd,’ Wemyss said. ‘It so happens they’ve just released the film. I expect I shall get a flood of them from now on. But if you’re still prepared to risk a walk with someone you suspect of killing your ex-boy friend, come on.’

  They left together.

  ‘I ought to go along and see if the horses are all right, come to that,’ said Major Mortenson. ‘I need a brisk walk. You can cast off depression easily enough if you keep active. Mens sana, you know.’

  ‘And I must go along to that little office and have an hour on the phone with Sam,’ Schlemberger said. ‘Poor Sam’s a mighty worried man.’

  ‘I’m sorry to desert you too,’ Fremitt said. ‘But I promised

  Mrs Fremitt a daily letter and I find I need rather a long time to compose it. One doesn’t know what to say and what to conceal.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Smithers said, ‘I have my book, I shall be quite happy.’

  Fremitt looked at him for a moment.

  ‘There’s something ...’ he began, and then stopped. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I may be wrong. Another time will do if necessary.’

  Smithers picked up his Gibbon.

  The tea was cleared away and he sat on reading. The flick, flick of the pages, the silver chime of the clock over the stables striking each quarter.

  Six, a quarter past, half past... Seven ... Seven-thirty.

  Smithers jerked up his head and listened intently. Then he dropped his book and ran up the broad stairs. Along the corridor. No doubt now.

  Screams.

  High-pitched screams. Perhaps a woman, more likely a boy.

  He swept open the door of Peter’s room. The boy was sitting up in bed, pale as a ghost, wide-eyed, screaming.

  Thirteen

  ‘Peter,’ said Smithers sharply.

  The boy went on screaming.

  Smithers took a glass of water from the hand basin and flicked some of it into Peter’s face.

  The screams stopped.

  ‘Now then,’ said Smithers, ‘was it a nightmare, or what?’

  ‘No sir, it wasn’t,’ whispered the boy. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t.’

  ‘Steady then. It was something that frightened you, was it?’,

  ‘Yes.’

  Almost inaudible.

  ‘Well, there’s no need to be frightened now, is there? I’m here.’

  The boy looked cautiously round the room.

  ‘And no one else is, nothing else is. You’re perfectly safe. Now then. Lie down again and keep warm and then you can tell me all about it. Steady a minute, your pillow’s on the ground, I’ll pick it up for you.’

  ‘Then it was true,’ Peter said.

  Voice suddenly clear and loud.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Look,’ Peter said, scrambling round in the bed, ‘I’ve got my pillows. There were only two and here they are. That’s a different one.’

  ‘It must have been left in here. There’s nothing to get scared about in an extra pillow.’

  ‘No sir, it wasn’t left. Somebody tried to smother me with it, sir.’

  ‘Now Peter, it was simply a dream. You buried your head in your pillows and dreamt you were being smothered.’

  The boy sat silent.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘what about the extra pillow? I know it wasn’t here when I came to bed because I looked for my pyjamas under my pillows and they weren’t there so I know I only had two pillows.’

  ‘It may have been lying down there where I picked it up all the time.’

  ‘No, it couldn’t have been. I would have walked on it when I came back from the window and ... Sir, I never told you about what I heard.’

  ‘What you heard? What is all this?’

  ‘It was nothing to do with - with the smothering bit, sir. This was different. Or I think it was.’

  ‘Now you’re getting confused. Try and forget all about it.’

  ‘No, sir. This bit, what I heard when I leant out of the window, sir, wasn’t a nightmare. I could see them both as well as hear them talking.’

  ‘See who? You’re getting me into a fine old whirl.’

  ‘Mr Schlemberger and Mr Wemyss, sir. I heard them first of all. They must have woken me from a bit of a doze. They were quarrelling. I couldn’t help hearing.’

  ‘Didn’t you say you went to the window?’

  ‘That was after, sir. At first I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t think they would go on like that if they knew I could hear. Then I thought I would go very quietly and see if I could shut the window without them seeing.’

  ‘But you did listen?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to, sir, honestly. But as I leant out to see if they would spot me shutting the window I heard one thing Mr Wemyss said. And then I knew I had to hear as much as I could. It was going to be proof for you, sir.’

  ‘Proof for me? What do you mean?’

  ‘Proof about who did the murder, sir. You see I heard Mr Wemyss say loudly and sort of nastily, “Then I shall have to go to the police, after all a man has been killed.”’

  Smithers said nothing.

  ‘Was I right to listen to the rest?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Yes, yes, I think you were. You had better tell me, as nearly as you can, what you heard.’

  ‘It was mostly Mr Wemyss talking,’ said the boy. ‘Mr Schlemberger was sort of upset. At first he said “No, no” a lot of times, but then he stopped.’

  ‘And what did Mr Wemyss say?’

  ‘Well, after the bit I told you about he said he would go to the police again, and Mr Schlemberger asked him how he knew. Mr Wemyss said he had taken a tip “verb sap” -I don’t know what that means - and he had written to both Mr Schlemberger’s wives. I think that’s what he calls his exes, sir.’

  ‘Yes, go on.’

  ‘Mr Wemyss said a bit about it was a good thing his block of flats sounded so legal. I didn’t understand that, but he did say it.’

  ‘He once said he lived in a place called Chancery Inn. It sounds like law chambers but I believe it’s only flats. Go on now, and be very careful. What you heard may be quite important.’

  ‘I wasn’t dreaming
, was I, sir? The bit about the chancery proves it.’

  ‘All right. Go on.’

  ‘He said he had written and told Mr Schlemberger’s wives that if there was any connexion between him and Mr Hamyadis it might “be to their advantage”. I remember that bit, sir.’

  ‘Yes, it sounds quite likely. And then?’

  ‘Then he said he had had letters from both of them this afternoon, sir.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  ‘Yes. And they both said their private eyes had said there was a connexion. Please sir, a private eye means a ‘tec, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s American slang for a private detective.’

  ‘And the next bit I didn’t understand either. Mr Wemyss said it two or three times. It was “prohibition”. I think that was it. “Back in prohibition days” I think he said.’

  ‘That was the time when alcoholic liquor was forbidden, prohibited, in America. Lots of people broke the law to have it.’

  ‘It must have been bad for the pubs, sir.’

  ‘It put them all out of business. But go on. What did Mr Wemyss say about prohibition?’

  ‘I’m not very sure, sir. But I think it was that Mr Schlemberger had seen that Mr Hamyadis wasn’t troubled by fire inspectors in his warehouse. And something about “hooch”.’

  ‘“Hooch” means drink, illicit drink. I think I see the picture. Mr Hamyadis when he was in America must have gone in for the drink business in prohibition days. And Mr Schlemberger helped him by keeping fire inspectors away from the warehouse where he kept his supplies. It all hangs together. Now, tell me, what did Mr Schlemberger say to all this?’

  ‘He said, “Give me time”, and something about how he would be finished if anything came out. He said he would step under a car.’

  ‘Yes. Anything else? Did he say he wasn’t responsible for Mr Hamyadis’s death?’

  ‘He did say that. Yes sir. He said, “You aren’t so crazy as to think I did it”, and Mr Wemyss laughed.’

  ‘I see. And what did he say when Mr Schlemberger asked him for time?’