It was quiet round about. The whole house seemed suddenly very quiet. She said: ‘‘ I am not old—I mean I am new—round here. Two, three months, that is all. Soon, when it is safe, I shall go back from here, back to Utrecht. But yet it is not good to go too soon and so I stay. And so I keep my mouth shut, for it is safer that way.’’
‘‘All right,’’ I said. ‘‘We’ll leave it. I’m sorry.’’
‘‘It has not been a good experience for me. It is bad, this part. They say they will grill my face. And it is true. They tell me of a girl … I did not know that this is a bad house, that I should not ever remember what I see here. To me when I came it is like any other. I did not know until your brother dies. Then when I run out and call the police, they tell me they will spoil my face.’’
‘‘Who are they?’’
Upstairs a door banged and then a window screeched on its cords. She listened. A nerve in her cheek twitched twice.
‘‘That night your brother I first see standing by the bridge at an hour before midnight. It is a good moon hat night, but low and there are shadows. He has just come, I think, for he strikes a match to light a cigarette and twice the match goes out before he can light it. Like others, I think perhaps here is a man, see; but he pays no attention and stands smoking and throwing away cigarettes and then smoking again. He walks across the bridge and: back many times.’’
‘‘What is he like?’’ I said.
‘‘Your brother? High and thin, and broad long shoulders and the little stoop of the neck, so.’’
She bent her head forward in an attitude so exactly right that I nodded, instantly satisfied. ‘‘ Yes. Go on.’’
She picked up the hundred-guilder note, stared at it, folded it twice, tucked it rapidly into the top of her stocking.
‘‘It is not safe for you to be here,’’ she said. ‘‘ If they knew … It is not safe for me.’’
I said: ‘‘That money will pay your fare to Utrecht. Go tomorrow. Once you’re out of this district no one can touch you.’’
‘‘No? I am not so sure. Thirty kilometres is not enough.’’
‘‘You were saying about my brother …’’
She shrugged. ‘‘After he had been there some time the man came out of here. He was to walk away, but your brother stops him.’’
‘‘What is he like, this man?’’
‘‘How do I know? He has not been visiting me. Less high than your brother, and a small beard, like you say. I do not see him come in here but I seen him once before on the last night before. They stop and speak. Soon it is a quarrel or an argument …’’
From where I was sitting the long glass reflected the door. As I glanced in the glass I saw the door shift. It moved so slowly I thought it was just a flaw in the mirror. Then I saw her face and knew it wasn’t. I looked again. A man was standing outside the door,
‘‘Another cigarette?’’ I said.
‘‘OK. Thanks.’’ She took the cigarette out of my packet. The varnish had chipped on her finger-nails. Her, hand wasn’t steady now.
I said casually: ‘‘A fellow recommended. me here. He said there was nowhere like De Walletjes. He said he’d been here often.’’
Her eyes met mine. ‘‘ So?’’
‘‘Yes. He used to put in to Amsterdam regularly. About once every three months when his ship docked. Perhaps I’ll come again. That’s if you’d like me to.’’
‘‘Sure,’’ she said. ‘‘Sure. Come any time.’’
The door opened and the man came in.
I got up. He was a big man, middle-aged, with a stomach. His hair was of a faded fairness without being quite grey, and he wore octagonal rimless spectacles. If it hadn’t been for his clothes and his eyes he would have passed for a schoolmaster or a respectable clerk.
He shut the door and said in fairly good English: ‘‘What are you doing here?’’
‘‘What business is it of yours?’’
‘‘Some business of mine. This is one of my girls. I want to know what you are doing asking her questions.’’
I stared at the watch-chain with the lucky charms, the green silk shirt the red-dot tie. That was what let him down, the look of too much money wrongly spent
He said: ‘‘What is your name?’’
‘‘Turner.’’
‘‘Mine is Mr. Jodenbree. I live in these parts.’’
I said: ‘‘Say what you have to say and then get out.’’
There wasn’t much colour in his eyes at all as he stared at me: pupil and iris the same. I’d seen that look somewhere before. ‘‘What I have to say? It is that we don’t want trouble round here. We like it quiet. Mina is a good girl when she is quiet. But she is not used to being quiet, see.’’
‘‘I say nothing tonight, Joe. Nothing at all.’’
‘‘Oh yes, you say nothing because there is nothing to say. But we do not like snooping and prying. It is time that you go, Mr. Turner.’’
‘‘I’ll go when I’m ready,’’ I said. ‘‘Wait outside for me if you want to.’’
He said gentry: ‘‘Perhaps you think I am a bluff. I am Mr. Jodenbree. If that does not mean anything to you, then that is a happy innocence. You can only keep that innocence if you very quickly go.’’
I said: ‘‘I don’t want to bring the police in again. We might make a deal.’’
With one plump freckled hand he fumbled in the pocket of his gaberdine coat. He got out a silver whistle. ‘‘Once I was a trainer of dogs,’’ he said. ‘‘Once I learned a dog to switch on a light when it came into the room and switch it off when it went out. Once I learned a dog to dance. That is why I am patient. With fools I am very patient. But if a dog Is a fool too long I beat him. It is the same now, only now I no longer have to do it myself.’’
You could see he had done this sort of thing before, by the timing, by the inflexion of his voice; it was all there, the shabby technique of terror. Looking back, I’ve wondered if I was afraid. Fear disguises itself as anger so that you can never be sure.
I reached a hand across and let the window blind go. It went up with a rattle, and the woman jumped as if she had been shot
Mr. Jodenbree said: ‘‘ You think that will help you? That will not help you. Leave the blind, Mina. It is no matter.’’
I said: ‘‘Don’t you think we’re both rather old for that schoolboy stuff? And we both stand to lose by it. I proposed a deal. The offer’s still open.’’
‘‘What offer? What is it?’’ This was appealing to something older in him than the gangster; perhaps he had begun life as a street-trader, they were words he recognised and understood.
‘‘Certain things I want to know. When I know them I’ll go and trouble you no more. Chiefly I want to know about Buckingham.’’
At that he began to laugh, soundlessly, his mouth open a little. He looked quite jovial. Yet the whistle was taut in his fingers, making a lie of the rest. ‘‘Buckingham? I do not know the name. Who is he?’’
‘‘The man you were with the night my brother was killed.’’
I knew now where I’d seen those eyes before. During the war there was a morphine addict in the hospital at Gibraltar. ‘‘ I do not think you are clever to say that. It is clear that patience with you has a very poor reward, his two minutes——’’
As he spoke the door behind him opened again and Martin Coxon slipped in.
Jodenbree turned and hesitated. He licked his lips. There was nothing sensitive or sympathetic in Martin just then. He didn’t say anything.
‘‘Ah, so,’’ said Jodenbree, and blinked. ‘‘So this is how it is.’’ The new arrival had put him off-balance.
‘‘This is how it is,’’ Martin said.
‘‘I hoped you’d come up,’’ I said.
‘‘I thought it was time.’’
Jodenbree said: ‘‘You have a friend. That is interesting. I too have friends. It is quite simple … He made a movement with his hand.
‘‘Don’t use that whistl
e,’’ Martin said, ‘‘ or I’ll stretch you out.’’
The girl was trembling. I could see her hand as she tried to put her cigarette down. Perhaps it was seeing the way she was that came back on me. In the last few minutes the tension had built up unreasonably. I felt myself to be in the presence of evil, real evil, for the: first time in my life. It was unexplainable, but it was there, and I didn’t know quite how to deal with it.
I said to Jodenbree: ‘‘I’ve told you. I’ll leave if you tell me where Buckingham is. Is he still in Holland?’’
The girl gripped my arm. ‘‘Get out of here now. Go home. Go from Holland!’’
I turned on her. ‘‘Was my brother murdered? Did you see him murdered from here?’’
‘‘No, no, no, no!’’ she said vehemently. ‘‘I saw nothing! Please to go at once.’’
Jodenbree’s face twitched angrily. ‘‘You see what she talks. If you wish to go back to England you will go right now.’’
As he turned Martin hit him. I don’t know if it was all good judgment or partly luck, but it was as vicious as a snake. Jodenbree was hard enough for all his stomach, but his head jerked back and he went down like a folding umbrella. Things were clawed off the dressing-table as he fell.
The girl screamed. ‘‘You fool! You damn fool! He’ll get you for this! and me! He——’’
Coxon pushed her back. ‘‘Shut up or I’ll put you out too. Shut up and sit down!’’ He turned to me. ‘‘Now ask her your questions.’’
I pulled Jodenbree away from the electric fire. He was right out, and there was a trickle of blood from his lip where his teeth had come together. His spectacles were, hanging off one ear. After the awful clatter the place was suddenly quiet again; it was like brawling in a house of death. The girl fumbled, finger-nails scraping, picked up her cigarette. Her breathing was checked and noisy.
Martin wiped his hand across his nose. ‘‘… Petty hucksters crowing on their own dung-hills. I could put him in the canal. The right place …’’
The girl was swallowing the smoke, drawing it in and swallowing it and staring from one to the other of us. She looked sick under her make-up.
Martin turned on her. ‘‘ Listen—what did you see that night Dr. Turner was killed?’’
She said hysterically: ‘‘ Why do you come here to do this? Why do you come here? They will think it is my fault!’’
‘‘We want the truth about Turner’s death. We’re not the police; we can’t be fobbed off with any damned story! He was murdered, wasn’t he? How?’’
‘‘I tell you I see nothing more! Nothing——’’
‘‘Was he pushed in? Was it this fellow who did it or one of his rotten diseased friends?’’
‘‘I want a drink,’’ she said. ‘‘I think I shall be going to faint.’’
Martin rubbed his knuckles and jerked angrily round.
‘‘There’s a gin in the corner, Philip.’’
I slopped some into a glass and handed it to her. After he’d tried one or two more questions I put my hand on his arm. I said to her: ‘‘ You’re tired now. Is there somewhere we can meet tomorrow, away from all this? Somewhere where it’s safe for you to talk?’’
‘‘Nowhere is safe for me to talk! And nowhere is safe for you. Go home, you fool.’’
Martin watched her drink and then glanced at the figure of Jodenbree. He said in an undertone: ‘‘I doubt if we shall get more out of her tonight.’’
She had drained the glass. I said to her: ‘‘ Can’t you help us? Won’t you help us?’’
She seemed to be listening for something outside. Certainly she was not paying much attention to what I said. Then with an effort the hysteria cleared and she focused her eyes on me. ‘‘ Take your money and go home before you are in the canal yourself.’’
Martin opened the door an inch or so. We glanced at each other, weighing the advantages of staying and the risks.
‘‘All right,’’ I said. ‘‘There’s no more point in this now.’’
He opened the door wide. His knuckles were bleeding. I said: ‘‘But we can’t leave this fellow here.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘He’ll blame her.’’
‘‘He’ll blame her anyway.’’
‘‘We can carry him down into the street. Get hold of his knees.’’
‘‘Even touching him makes me want to spit.’’
We carried him down. She slammed the door the minute we were out and we had to grope our way down the stairs. Jodenbree got bumped about a good bit. At the bottom Coxon said: ‘‘This is far enough.’’ He dumped him on the bottom step.
We went out into the street. The mandolin had begun again. The sound blew upstream in the cold air from the North Sea. The lights reflected in the canal were like drowned faces, shivering where the breeze touched them. Nobody stirred on the empty cobbled quays. Martin gave a hitch to his tooled leather belt
I said: ‘‘Thanks for helping out.’’
‘‘Not very tactfully. But a man like that … It’s the only thing to do …’’
‘‘Well, it’s one thing to do.’’
He glanced at me and sucked his knuckles and spat. The blood from his hand had smeared his upper lip.
‘‘Don’t expect wisdom from me, Philip. I do what I think when I think. Anyhow, he wouldn’t have let us get away—not in front of the girl. He’d soon have brought his friends. I’m not fond of being beaten up, are you? Let’s go.’’
I was wakened next morning by the buzzing of the telephone at my bed. It was late because we’d stopped out late. Martin, obstinately intent on dredging the memories of his youth, had refused to go home and had wandered from place to place trying to find the old haunts he had visited years ago.
At one place, in a cellar decorated with modern murals which would have left Freud practically nothing to interpret, Martin had borrowed an accordion and sung half a dozen songs—queer songs, not sea-shanties or Jolly choruses. Two by Schumann, ‘‘Du bist wie eine Blume’’ and ‘‘Hidalgo’’, and some by Fauré. When he sang was like when he smiled: the darkness left his face and he looked about twenty-five and happy and free from disappointment. I reflected that he was the type that perhaps only the English breed truly—the man who will fight a modern guerilla campaign on the principles of Hannibal or lead a last-ditch boarding party with a volume of Livy in his pocket. He seemed to me the classic man of action, whom only discipline might defeat.
For me these later and milder adventures of the evening bad had the effect of making the first one seem less tense and perhaps a little less important so that when at last I got to bed I had slept soundly for several hours.
I lifted off the telephone.
‘‘Mr. Turner?’’
‘‘Yes?’’
‘‘This is Inspector Tholen speaking. Good morning. I do not know you are in Holland. When do you arrive?’’
‘‘Only yesterday. I hope I may come to see you some time.’’ Get it in first
‘‘But of course. What I was about to suggest. Colonel Powell mentioned you may come.’’
Did,he indeed. The voice went on: ‘‘Today perhaps? Let me see … Not this afternoon. For lunch perhaps?’’
‘‘Thank you.’’
‘‘The American Hotel at one? Good. You are alone?’’
I hesitated. ‘‘ No, I have a Commander Coxon with me. I don’t know if you have met him.’’
‘‘No. But please to bring him also if you will like him to come.’’
Ten minutes later Martin came into the room and sat on my bed.
‘‘Have you had your breakfast yet?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘It’s nearly nine-thirty. I’ve been up since six.’’
‘‘For some reason?’’
‘‘It’s a habit one gets. I don’t sleep long any time.’’
‘‘Were you trying to make me drunk last night?’’
He vee-d his hair back and smiled. ‘‘ No, but
you were keyed up after the first part of the evening. It was high time you took your foot off the pedal. That was the only way I knew of getting you to do it.’’
‘‘Thank you. Well, it worked.’’
I told him of Tholen’s call. He said: ‘‘Confound the fellow. I’ve been trying to find another man who might be able to help us, but if he knows we’re in touch with the police … You’ve accepted for me?’’
‘‘Tholen must know I’ve a friend with me, or he soon will. But please yourself whether you come.’’
‘‘Oh, I’ll come. I want to hear what he has to say.’’
Chapter Five
Inspector Tholen tapped the ash off his cigar, and a fog of smoke drifted across the table. ‘‘I wish you have come to me yesterday, Mr. Turner, The visit that you have paid is very unwise. It is good that you come to no harm.’’
I said: ‘‘If you suppose we were in some danger last night, why are you so sure there was no foul play in my brother’s case?’’
‘‘Foul play,’’ said Tholen, ‘‘leaves foul marks. The medical evidence is for you to see.’’
‘‘Were there no other witnesses besides Hermina Maas? In a place like that surely——’’
‘‘In a place like that witnesses are hard to find. All say their blinds are drawn. But we are still trying.’’
Van Kenkum said: ‘‘ Was your brother a man liable to nervous exhaustion, Mr. Turner? Did he ever take stimulants or sedatives, do you know? Phenobarbitone is the universal, cure-all of-today. It’s prescribed for every Tom, Dick and Harry, and is not hard to obtain.’’
‘‘He wasn’t either a drunkard or a drug addict, if that’s what you mean.’’
‘‘No, I don’t at all mean that. But the more brilliant a man is the more highly strung. The danger of the barbiturates is loss of memory which can perhaps lead to an overdose …’’
I was still trying to get used to the idea of being entertained to luncheon at one of Amsterdam’s best hotels by an Inspector of Police. It couldn’t happen in England. Probably it didn’t happen here except when a man like Grevil Prior Turner came to a bad end and was esteemed as he had been esteemed. Perhaps that too explained Van Renkom, a very superior Dutchman who spoke English with a purer accent than I did, and seemed to be here in no official capacity. Martin made a silent fourth, his handsome pallid face closed up, secretive, thoughtful.
The Little Walls Page 5