'You've got everything taped pretty well, sir. You don't really need us.'
'You mustn't judge us by him.'
'I'm not quite easy in my mind. He's followed someone here. He's a smart lad. We've never had anything on him before, and yet for the last twenty-four hours he's done nothing but make mistakes. The chief said he's blazing a trail, and it's true. It strikes me that he's desperate to get someone.'
The superintendent glanced at the clock.
'I'm off, sir,' Mather said. 'See you in the morning. Good night, Saunders. I'm just going to take a stroll around a bit before I come to the hotel. I want to get this place clear.'
He walked out into the High Street. The rain had stopped and was freezing in the gutters. He slipped on the pavement and had to push his hand on the lamp standard. They turned the lights very low in Nottwich after eleven. Over the way, fifty yards down towards the market, he could see the portico of the Royal Theatre. No lights at all to be seen there. He found himself humming, 'But to me it's Paradise,' and thought: it's good to love, to have a centre, a certainty, not just to be in love floating around. He wanted that too to be organized as soon as possible: he wanted love stamped and sealed and signed and the licence paid for. He was filled with a dumb tenderness he would never be able to express outside marriage. He wasn't a lover; he was already like a married man, but a married man with years of happiness and confidence to be grateful for.
He did the maddest thing he'd done since he had known her: he went and took a look at her lodgings. He had the address. She'd given it him over the 'phone, and it fitted in with his work to find his way to All Saints Road. He learnt quite a lot of things on the way, keeping his eyes open: it wasn't really a waste of time. He learnt, for instance, the name and address of the local papers: the Nottwich Journal and the Nottwich Guardian, two rival papers facing each other across Chatton Street, one of them next a great gaudy cinema. From their posters he could even judge their publics: the Journal was popular, the Guardian was 'class'. He learnt too where the best fish-and-chip shops were and the public-houses where the pitmen went; he discovered the park, a place of dull wilted trees and palings and gravel paths for perambulators. Any of these facts might be of use and they humanized the map of Nottwich so that he could think of it in terms of people, just as he thought of London, when he was on a job, in terms of Charlies and Joes. All Saints Road was two rows of small neo-Gothic houses lined up as carefully as a company on parade. He stopped outside No .14 and wondered if she were awake. She'd get a surprise in the morning; he had posted a card at Euston telling her he was putting up at the Crown, the commercial 'house'. There was a light on in the basement: the landlady was still awake. He wished he could have sent a quicker message than that card; he knew the dreariness of new lodgings, of waking to the black tea and the unfriendly face. It seemed to him that life couldn't treat her well enough.
The wind froze him, but he lingered there on the opposite pavement, wondering whether she had enough blankets on her bed, whether she had any shillings for the gas meter. Encouraged by the light in the basement he nearly rang the bell to ask the landlady whether Anne had all she needed. But he made his way instead towards the Crown. He wasn't going to look silly; he wasn't even going to tell her that he'd been and had a look at where she slept.
2
A knock on the door woke him. It was barely seven. A woman's voice said, 'You're wanted on the 'phone,' and he could hear her trailing away downstairs, knocking a broom handle against the banisters. It was going to be a fine day.
Mather went downstairs to the telephone, which was behind the bar in the empty saloon. He said, 'Mather. Who's that?' and heard the station sergeant's voice, 'We've got some news for you. He slept last night in St Mark's, the Roman Catholic Cathedral. And someone reports he was down by the river earlier.'
But by the time he was dressed and at the station more evidence had come in. The agent of a housing estate had read in the local paper about the stolen notes and brought to the station two notes he had received from a girl who said she wanted to buy a house. He'd thought it odd because she had never turned up to sign the papers.
'That'll be the girl who gave up his ticket,' the superintendent said. 'They are working together on this.'
'And the cathedral?' Mather asked.
'A woman saw him come out early this morning. Then when she got home (she was on the way to chapel) and read the paper, she told a constable on point duty. We'll have to have the churches locked.'
'No, watched,' Mather said. He warmed his hand over the iron stove. 'Let me talk to this house agent.'
The man came breezily in in plus fours from the outer room. 'Name of Green,' he said.
'Could you tell me, Mr Green, what this girl looked like?'
'A nice little thing,' Mr Green said.
'Short? Below five-feet four?'
'No, I wouldn't say that.'
'You said little?'
'Oh,' Mr Green said, 'term of affection, you know. Easy to get on with.'
'Fair? Dark?'
'Oh, I couldn't say that. Don't look at their hair. Good legs.'
'Anything strange in her manner?'
'No, I wouldn't say that. Nicely spoken. She could take a joke.'
'Then you wouldn't have noticed the colour of her eyes?'
'Well, as a matter of fact, I did. I always look at a girl's eyes. They like it. "Drink to me only", you know. A bit of poetry. That's my gambit. Kind of spiritual, you know.'
'And what colour were they?'
'Green with a spot of gold.'
'What was she wearing? Did you notice that?'
'Of course I did,' Mr Green said. He moved his hands in the air. 'It was something dark and soft. You know what I mean.'
'And the hat? Straw?'
'No. It wasn't straw.'
'Felt?'
'It might have been a kind of felt. That was dark too. I noticed that.'
'Would you know her again if you saw her?'
'Of course I would,' Mr Green said. 'Never forget a face.'
'Right,' Mather said, 'you can go. We may want you later to identify the girl. We'll keep these notes.'
'But I say,' Mr Green said, 'those are good notes. They belong to the company.'
'You can consider the house is still for sale.'
'I've had the ticket collector here,' the superintendent said. 'Of course he doesn't remember a thing that helps. In these stories you read people always remember something, but in real life they just say she was wearing something dark or something light.'
'You've sent someone up to look at the house? Is this the man's story? It's odd. She must have gone there straight from the station. Why? And why pretend to buy the house and pay him with stolen notes?'
'It looks as if she was desperate to keep the other man from buying. As if she'd got something hidden there.'
'Your man had better go through the house with a comb, sir. But of course they won't find much. If there was still anything to find she'd have turned up to sign the papers.'
'No, she'd have been afraid,' the superintendent said, 'in case he'd found out they were stolen notes.'
'You know,' Mather said, 'I wasn't much interested in this case. It seemed sort of petty. Chasing down a small thief when the whole world will soon be fighting because of a murderer those fools in Europe couldn't catch. But now it's getting me. There's something odd about it. I told you what my chief said about Raven? He said he was blazing a trail. But he's managed so far to keep just ahead of us. Could I see the ticket collector's statement?'
'There's nothing in it.'
'I don't agree with you, sir,' Mather said, while the superintendent turned it up from the file of papers on his desk, 'the books are right. People generally do remember something. If they remembered nothing at all, it would look very queer. It's only spooks that don't leave any impression. Even that agent remembered the colour of her eyes.'
'Probably wrong,' the superintendent said. 'Here you are.
> All he remembers is that she carried two suitcases. It's something, of course, but it's not worth much.'
'Oh, one could make guesses from that,' Mather said. 'Don't you think so?' He didn't believe in making himself too clever in front of the provincial police; he needed their cooperation. 'She was coming for a long stay (a woman can get a lot in one suitcase) or else, if she was carrying his case too, he was the dominant one. Believes in treating her rough and making her do all the physical labour. That fits in with Raven's character. As for the girl—'
'In these gangster stories,' the superintendent said, 'they call her a moll.'
'Well, this moll,' Mather said, 'is one of those girls who like being treated rough. Sort of clinging and avaricious, I picture her. If she had more spirit he'd carry one of the suitcases or else she'd split on him.'
'I thought this Raven was about as ugly as they are made.'
'That fits too,' Mather said. 'Perhaps she likes 'em ugly. Perhaps it gives her a thrill.'
The superintendent laughed. 'You've got a lot out of those suitcases. Read the report and you'll be giving me her photograph. Here you are. But he doesn't remember a thing about her, not even what she was wearing.'
Mather read it. He read it slowly. He said nothing, but something in his manner of shock and incredulity was conveyed to the superintendent. He said, 'Is anything wrong? There's nothing there, surely?'
'You said I'd be giving you her photograph,' Mather said. He took a slip of newspaper from the back of his watch. 'There it is, sir. You'd better circulate that to all stations in the city and to the Press.'
'But there's nothing in the report,' the superintendent said.
'Everybody remembers something. It wasn't anything you could have spotted. I seem to have private information about this crime, but I didn't know it till now.'
The superintendent said, 'He doesn't remember a thing. Except the suitcases.'
'Thank God for those,' Mather said. 'It may mean... You see he says here that one of the reasons he remembers her—he calls it remembering her—is that she was the only woman who got out of the train at Nottwich. And this girl I happen to know was travelling by it. She'd got an engagement at the theatre here.'
The superintendent said bluntly—he didn't realize the full extent of the shock, 'And is she of the type you said? Likes 'em ugly?'
'I thought she liked them plain,' Mather said, staring out through the window at a world going to work through the cold early day.
'Sort of clinging and avaricious?'
'No, damn it.'
'But if she'd had more spirit—' the superintendent mocked; he thought Mather was disturbed because his guesses were wrong.
'She had all the spirit there was,' Mather said. He turned back from the window. He forgot the superintendent was his superior officer; he forgot you had to be tactful to these provincial police officers; he said, 'God damn it, don't you see? He didn't carry his suitcase because he had to keep her covered. He made her walk out to the housing estate.' He said, 'I've got to go out there. He meant to murder her.'
'No, no,' the superintendent said. 'You are forgetting: she paid the money to Green and walked out of the house with him alone. He saw her off the estate.'
'But I'd swear,' Mather said, 'she isn't in this. It's absurd. It doesn't make sense.' He said, 'We're engaged to be married.'
'That's tough,' the superintendent said. He hesitated, picked up a dead match and cleaned a nail, then he pushed the photograph back. 'Put it away,' he said. 'We'll go about this differently.'
'No,' Mather said. 'I'm on this case. Have it printed. It's a bad smudged photo.' He wouldn't look at it. 'It doesn't do her justice. But I'll wire home for a better likeness. I've got a whole strip of Photomatons at home. Her face from every angle. You couldn't have a better lot of photos for newspaper purposes.'
'I'm sorry, Mather,' the superintendent said. 'Hadn't I better speak to the Yard? Get another man sent?'
'You couldn't have a better on the case,' Mather said. 'I know her. If she's to be found, I'll find her. I'm going out to the house now. You see, your man may miss something. I know her.'
'There may be an explanation,' the superintendent said.
'Don't you see,' Mather said, 'that if there's an explanation it means—why, that she's in danger, she may even be—'
'We'd have found her body.'
'We haven't even found a living man,' Mather said. 'Would you ask Saunders to follow me out? What's the address?' He wrote it carefully down; he always noted facts; he didn't trust his brain for more than theories, guesses.
It was a long drive out to the housing estate. He had time to think of many possibilities. She might have fallen asleep and been carried on to York. She might not have taken the train... and there was nothing in the little hideous house to contradict him. He found a plainclothes man in what would one day be the best front room; in its flashy fireplace, its dark brown picture rail and the cheap oak of its wainscoting, it bore already the suggestion of heavy unused furniture, dark curtains and Gosse china. 'There's nothing,' the detective said, 'nothing at all. You can see, of course, that someone's been here. The dust has been disturbed. But there wasn't enough dust to make a footprint. There's nothing to be got here.'
'There's always something,' Mather said. 'Where did you find traces? All the rooms?'
'No, not all of them. But that's not evidence. There was no sign in this room, but the dust isn't as thick here. Maybe the builders swept up better. You can't say no one was in here.'
'How did she get in?'
'The lock of the back door's busted.'
'Could a girl do that?'
'A cat could do it. A determined cat.'
'Green says he came in at the front. Just opened the door of this room and then took the other fellow straight upstairs, into the best bedroom. The girl joined them there just as he was going to show the rest of the house. Then they all went straight down and out of the house except the girl went into the kitchen and picked up her suitcases. He'd left the front door open and thought she'd followed them in.'
'She was in the kitchen all right. And in the bathroom.'
'Where's that?'
'Up the stairs and round to the left.' The two men, they were both large, nearly filled the cramped bathroom. 'Looks as if she heard them coming,' the detective said, 'and hid in here.'
'What brought her up? If she was in the kitchen she had only to slip out at the back.' Mather stood in the tiny room between the bath and the lavatory seat and thought: she was here yesterday. It was incredible. It didn't fit in at any point with what he knew of her. They had been engaged for six months; she couldn't have disguised herself so completely: on the bus ride from Kew that evening, humming the song—what was it?—something about a snowflower; the night they sat two programmes round at the cinema because he'd spent his week's pay and hadn't been able to give her dinner. She never complained as the hard mechanized voices began all over again, 'A wise guy, huh?'
'Baby, you're swell.'
'Siddown, won't you?'
'Thenks', at the edge of their consciousness. She was straight, she was loyal, he could swear that; but the alternative was a danger he hardly dared contemplate. Raven was desperate. He heard himself saying with harsh conviction, 'Raven was here. He drove her up at the point of his pistol. He was going to shut her in here—or maybe shoot her. Then he heard voices. He gave her the notes and told her to get rid of the other fellows. If she tried anything on, he'd have shot her. Damn it, isn't it plain?' but the detective only repeated the substance of the superintendent's criticism, 'She walked right out of the place alone with Green. There was nothing to prevent her going to the police station.'
'He may have followed at a distance.'
'It looks to me,' the detective said, 'as if you are taking the most unlikely theory,' and Mather could tell from his manner how puzzled he was at the Yard man's attitude: these Londoners were a little too ingenious: he believed in good sound Midland common sense. I
t angered Mather in his professional pride; he even felt a small chill of hatred against Anne for putting him in a position where his affection warped his judgement. He said, 'We've no proof that she didn't try to tell the police,' and he wondered: do I want her dead and innocent or alive and guilty? He began to examine the bathroom with meticulous care. He even pushed his finger up the taps in case... He had a wild idea that if it were really Anne who had stood here, she would have wanted to leave a message. He straightened himself impatiently. 'There's nothing here.' He remembered there was a test: she might have missed her train. 'I want a telephone,' he said.
'There'll be one down the road at the agent's.'
Mather rang up the theatre. There was no one there except a caretaker, but as it happened she could tell him that no one had been absent from rehearsal. The producer, Mr Collier, always posted absentees on the board inside the stage door. He was great on discipline, Mr Collier. Yes, and she remembered that there was a new girl. She happened to see her going out with a man at dinner-time after the rehearsal just as she came back to the theatre to tidy up a bit and thought: 'that's a new face'. She didn't know who the man was. He might be one of the backers. 'Wait a moment, wait a moment,' Mather said; he had to think what to do next; she was the girl who gave the agent the stolen notes; he had to forget that she was Anne who had so wildly wished that they could marry before Christmas, who had hated the promiscuity of her job, who had promised him that night on the bus from Kew that she would keep out of the way of all rich business backers and stage-door loungers. He said: 'Mr Collier? Where can I find him?'
'He'll be at the theatre tonight. There's a rehearsal at eight.'
'I want to see him at once.'
'You can't. He's gone up to York with Mr Bleek.'
'Where can I find any of the girls who were at the rehearsal?'
'I dunno. I don't have the address book. They'll be all over town.'
'There must be someone who was there last night—'
'You could find Miss Maydew, of course.'
'Where?'
'I don't know where she's staying. But you've only got to look at the posters of the jumble.'
A Gun for Sale Page 8