A Tangled Web

by Nicholas Blake

  She found she had got herself dressed, without remembering one single movement of the process. Hugo was saying:

  “Yes. Jacko’s a good idea, if he can get down. You’re his patient, after all. Patient taken poorly. Medico sent for—old family friend. Examines patient. Slight operation required. Perfect reason for sudden return to London. No suspicions raised in landlady.”

  “Hugo!” It was almost a scream. Daisy, half distraught, could stand no more. She controlled herself, and in a voice roughened with emotional exhaustion, began again. “Hugo. Please! What am I to say if they ask me about last night? The police. Or anyone. Just tell me what to say.”

  “Sorry, love. I’m in a bit of a tiz.” He came over, and putting his hands on Daisy’s shoulders, looked straight into her eyes. “You remember that Yid who tipped me the sign, on the front, a couple of days after we came here? He was with another Yid, and a woman. He’s a chap called Joe. In the profession. Well, I ran into him again in the bar at the Queen’s Hotel. Actually, it was he who put me on to that bloody horse.”

  “Oh, Hugo, but you said it was the trainer.”

  “He knows the trainer,” said Hugo impatiently. “I couldn’t go into all that with you. Anyway, he told me he’d got a job lined up, and would I like to cut in. I said no, I’d finished with that lark. Then I lost the £50. I was desperate to get it back for you. So I went to see Joe again. He gave me that parcel of rope to keep, and said to meet him at the Queen’s at 7.15—that was last night—then we’d do the job together. Well, I wanted to and I didn’t want to. You know. I was worried. Expect that was why I left the rope behind. Couldn’t make up my mind to go through with it. But it seemed the only hope: so finally I toddled off, as you remember. I was only a few minutes late at the Queen’s, but Joe wasn’t there. I waited nearly half an hour, and he never turned up. Must have double-crossed me and tried to do the job alone. The rope was a dumb idea, anyway. Those climbing ropes with hooks are only good for houses that have verandas: which the houses in Queen’s Parade haven’t. So now you know all, my precious.”

  “You’ve got an alibi then.” Daisy was smiling brilliantly with relief. She believed everything he had said, because she wanted to believe it, but also because it made sense—it was just like Hugo. No wonder he’d been in such a state last night—utterly deflated after having keyed himself up for a crisis which never arrived, and in despair that the money for the baby’s birth was still lacking.

  “An alibi?” he asked.

  “Yes. Somebody must have seen you at the Queen’s Hotel, surely?”

  “I don’t know so much about that. Naturally, as I was up to a bit of no good, and in the near neighbourhood, I didn’t make myself conspicuous. Just sat in the hall lounge, where Joe was to pick me up, behind a newspaper.”

  “But couldn’t Joe—?”

  “Give evidence that he’d made an appointment with me there, to do a burglary, and then stood me up? Use your loaf, girl. Joe’s not a charitable institution. Who knows he didn’t bump off this copper himself, come to that? No, Joe’ll be keeping himself out of circulation for a while now. And so must I. Let’s get cracking.”

  They went first to the General Post Office, where Hugo shut himself up in a telephone booth. Daisy sat down on a bench and waited, her eyes straying uneasily to the door whenever someone entered. Half her mind was on what Hugo had just told her: yes, it made sense; but something was missing, and she wearily groped for it. In the telephone booth, Hugo’s lips were moving. He had got through—to his brother? to Jacko? Daisy saw him run his fingers through his dark hair, in a familiar gesture. Ah, the cap! It said in the paper a cap had been found near the scene of the crime. Oh God, said Daisy to herself, aren’t there thousands of men with caps in Southbourne alone?

  When they had left the Post Office and were walking towards the sea-front, Hugo said:

  “That’s O.K. Mark is coming down this afternoon, early. And he’s going to ring up Jacko.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Said I was broke. And in trouble. SOS. Old Mark isn’t a bad stick. He rallies round.”

  They came out on the esplanade, near the bandstand. The sun was still shining, and it had brought out quite a few people to saunter along the front or read their papers in the shelters.

  “Might as well be in Piccadilly,” Hugo muttered. He helped Daisy down the steep stone steps on to the beach, and they sat with their backs against the sea wall. Hugo took her hand, giving her one of his quick, mischievous glances.

  “Shall I make love to you, darling?”

  “I’m not much use to you nowadays, sweetheart, am I?” she absently replied. Then he was whispering in her ear:

  “Lie down flat. Put your left arm round me. Dig a deep hole in the pebbles with your right hand. People will only see a couple of lovers, and they’ll look away pretty sharp if we’re locked in a passionate embrace.”

  The girl gave a shuddering little moan. It was a moment of such anguish as she had never experienced: it was all wrong, all wrong. Then Hugo was leaning over her, on his elbows, his body hiding her right arm.

  “Go on, love. Dig. A nice deep hole.”

  She scrabbled at the pebbly shingle, in an ecstasy of embarrassment and fright, tearing her nails, only wanting to get it over quickly—this mockery of their sweet love-making, while Hugo’s lips wandered on her face and his right hand played with her tumbling hair.

  “Oh, this is horrible,” she whimpered. “I can’t go on.”

  “Don’t be so soppy,” he breathed, his lips against hers. “All in a good cause, love.”

  Finally it was done: the revolver transferred from Hugo’s pocket to the cavity, and the shingle smoothed over it. He seemed disposed to linger here, but Daisy scrambled to her feet and went stumbling along the beach, as if fleeing from a crime. When Hugo caught up with her, he was quite annoyed for a moment.

  “Do you want to call attention to us? Anyone who was looking would think I’d tried to rape you and you were running away from me. That’s just asking for trouble.”

  Tears came to Daisy’s eyes. “You’re so cold-blooded about it all.”

  “Somebody’s got to keep their head. You don’t seem to realise what a jam I’m in.”

  “But you’re innocent!”

  “Tell that to the dear constabulary. They’ll be out for blood, and they won’t be too particular whose blood it is.…”

  Mark Amberley and Jacko arrived soon after lunch: they had travelled down to Southbourne together. Daisy, who had not met Mark since the scene at his house a year ago, felt a kind of social embarrassment which, under the circumstances, she knew to be ridiculous. Nor did he make things any less difficult for her. He was obviously ill at ease, kept sitting down then standing up again, and created in the drab little parlour the atmosphere of a station waiting-room. When he had first come in, after nervously greeting his brother he had turned to Daisy, hand outstretched: then his shortsighted eyes took in her condition and swerved away from her. She realised that Hugo had never told him about the coming child. Jacko, on the other hand, was glancing round him interestedly and making affable small-talk, as if this was a house-warming he had been invited to. For a few minutes, till Daisy could have screamed, they chatted about the weather, the train service, any triviality. Then Hugo broke the unnatural constraint.

  “Mark, old boy, do stop fidgeting about. You look like a fly on a window-pane.”

  Smiling uncertainly, Mark sat down again. Jacko stood with one elbow on the mantelpiece, regarding the hideous ornaments displayed there, while the other three were now round the table with its red baize cloth and dispirited-looking maidenhair fern in the middle. Mark made a great effort:

  “Well now, what’s up, Hugo? You were rather secretive over the telephone, you know.”

  “You brought some money?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good man. And you’ve read to-day’s paper?”

  “You mean about the shooting of that—?
”

  “Yep. It’s a bastard. I suppose Southbourne station was buzzing with bluebottles when you arrived?”

  “Bluebottles?”

  “Bogies. Flatties. Policemen.”

  “Well, yes. There seemed to be one at each barrier.”

  “Now look, old boy. With your stainless past you won’t realise it. But anyone here who’s got a prison record—”

  Jacko gave a theatrical “psst,” and moving to the door with exaggerated caution, flung it open. There was nobody there.

  “Do cut out the playing-acting, Jacko.”

  “One never knows, with landladies.” Jacko gave his dog-like grin, then sat down beside Daisy. “Carry on, my dear Hugo.”

  Hugo proceeded to explain his predicament. He spoke crisply, more like a staff officer than a suppliant or a potential suspect. He must get out of the town and go into hiding for a while. Which meant, amongst other things, temporarily separating from Daisy. Which meant that someone else must look after Daisy. Mark Amberley, who was flushing and fidgeting harder than ever as the enormity of the situation broke upon him, at last stuttered out:

  “W-wait, j-just a mi-minute, Hugo. Surely all this is quite unnecessary. You’ve got an alibi, I take it?” He pronounced “alibi” as if it were some novel and probably disreputable term employed by a rival school of criticism.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Mark! If you’d ever taken yourself out of the cotton-wool you’re swathed in, you’d know better than to go neighing about alibis.”

  “Hugo, please!” protested Daisy.

  “I haven’t got a sweet little alibi. I just happened to be somewhere else. But I doubt if I could prove it. And anyway, if a bobby runs into a bullet, his chums don’t give a sod for alibis. Once the Law’s got its knife into you—”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised.” Mark’s voice was suddenly high and quavering with indignation.

  “Can’t say you’re surprised at what?”

  “Why should they treat murderers like—as if they were decent people. It was a brutal thing, shooting that inspector. And the chap who did it deserves what he’ll get. You talk as if criminals ought to be protected from the police. I can’t share that point of view.”

  “Be careful, Mark.” Hugo spoke with dangerous calm.

  Daisy had heard that tone before, and it terrified her—so much so that, without thinking, simply in order to interpose something between the two men, she said:

  “The poor chap had a family. I’m ever so sorry for them.”

  “Pipe down, Daisy, and let my brother finish his sermon.”

  “Exactly. But that doesn’t occur to Hugo. ‘If a bobby runs into a bullet’! How awfully careless of him! No one to blame but himself for the misadventure! He should have dodged, I suppose, or been somewhere else—not interfering with burglars who are just inoffensively trying to make a living. The self-pity of the average criminal makes me vomit!”

  Hugo had listened to this, with lips compressed and his swarthy face darkening. Daisy turned imploring eyes upon Jacko; but he was sitting up, absorbed in the altercation, a bright, anticipative, half-smiling expression on his face. Once again, Daisy was reminded of the ringside spectator. But, almost as soon as she gave Jacko that imploring look, he became aware of it: his face changed, and he winked at her reassuringly. And as Hugo, stung to fury by his brother’s sarcasm, jumped to his feet, evidently intending to go for him, Jacko said lightly:

  “Now, now, now! Don’t let’s get worked up.”

  “If you’d like to come outside, Mark, and repeat that sanctimonious rubbish—”

  “Some other time,” said Jacko, in his throaty, ingratiating voice, which took an edge on it as he added. “For one thing, it’s not very good for my patient here to be involved in domestic brawls. Could we think about her for a moment?”

  “O.K. Think away,” said Hugo ungraciously.

  “Would you agree to her staying with me, till things are straightened out?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was going to suggest that.”

  “Oh, Jacko, you are kind. But—”

  “That’s all right, Daisy. My housekeeper lives in, you know. She’ll be your chaperon.”

  “My God, how respectable we’re all becoming!” Hugo was amused, but still a bit disgruntled. Mark had got under his skin properly.

  “I’d offer to take your—take Daisy myself,” said Mark. “But I don’t know if Gertrude—”

  “Very good of you, I’m sure,” said Hugo brusquely. “We quite see your difficulty.”

  “Well, that’s Daisy disposed of.” Jacko looked round like a chairman of committee. “Now we come to Hugo. You’re set on clearing out for a while, are you?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  Jacko moistened his lips. “Only that running away might, under certain circumstances, be interpreted as an admission of guilt.” He said it with a slight upward inflection that made it sound like a tactful suggestion, or even a query.

  “I’ve got to risk that. You don’t expect me to hang about here, waiting to be picked up, just to demonstrate my innocence?”

  Jacko gave his companionable chuckle. “No. But you could go back to London openly, with Daisy, and resume your normal life. As if nothing had happened.”

  “‘As if’? Nothing has happened, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Nothing happened!” Mark broke out with a kind of bewildered, querulous violence. “We’re all talking as if—” He gulped, and started again. “I’ve never been in a situation like this. It’s a nightmare. Doesn’t make sense. Of course, I want to help. I’ve brought you £20, Hugo—and I expect I can manage some more. But—” He dithered into silence.

  “What’s on your mind, old boy? I’m grateful for the cash. Really. Forget what I said just now. You know I always had a foul temper.”

  “It’s not that.” With a visible effort Mark forced himself to look straight at his brother. “I only want to know… Hugo, you didn’t do this thing? You swear that?”

  “If you don’t believe me, there’d be no use my swearing.”

  “That revolver of yours, Hugo. I’m sorry, but I simply can’t forget—”

  Smiling, Hugo held up his hands, like a man about to be searched. “Take it easy, boy. I got rid of the nasty firearm. Quite a while ago.”

  Daisy had winced when the revolver was mentioned. She could not help it: for the burying episode had been so atrocious to her that she was still emotionally flayed. She hung her head, unable to meet the glance of amused complicity which Hugo had given her. She was unaware that one of the other two men had noticed her wince, and was now giving her a curious, covert scrutiny.

  12. “We’ll Get Him”

  While the four of them were talking in that lodging-house room, another conference had begun half a mile away. Early this morning, after a discussion with Chief Inspector Nailsworth, the Chief Constable had telephoned Scotland Yard, and Detective-Inspector Thorne was sent down to Southbourne in response to his appeal for help. The three men, with a stenographer at hand, were now sitting round a table in Nailsworth’s office at the police station. The Town Hall clock, on the other side of the square, tossed its golden chimes over the town, and a shaft of sunlight, striking through the dusty window, fell upon Nailsworth’s hands, stretched out on the table before him. They were large hands, in proportion to his huge body; and the left hand, with a signet ring on its little finger, kept clenching and opening again.

  The Chief Constable glanced up from his papers. Nailsworth’s face, round, pink and smooth, surmounted with short flaxen hair, wore an implacable expression which Colonel Allison had never seen upon it till to-day. Normally a good-humoured, easy-going man, the life and soul of Police smoking concerts, Nailsworth seemed to have gone hard in a night. Allison was aware, unofficially, that his Chief Inspector was known to subordinates as “Elephant”—not only for his immense bulk but for an incredibly retentive memory. Nailsworth was too big a man, in character as well as physique, ever to hav
e used that memory vindictively: neither the police force nor the petty criminals of Southbourne had any grievances on that score. But Herbert Stone, the dead man, had been an old friend and comrade, and to-day, “the elephant never forgets” bore a different meaning.

  “A bad business,” Thorne was saying conventionally. The Detective-Inspector was a peaky, colourless man, with one of those long, questing noses which seem made for poking into trouble.

  “I saw his wife again just now. It’s finished her.” Nailsworth’s face, so bland and pink, was momentarily convulsed: it startled the Chief Constable, as if a doll had suddenly expressed violent emotion. Nailsworth was taking it even harder than he had realised.

  “Well, gentlemen, let’s get down to it,” said Allison briskly. “Will you put Thorne in the picture?”

  Nailsworth flicked a fingernail over the reports which lay before him: he only had to refer to them once during the discussion that followed. Detective-Inspector Thorne’s long nose pointed at Nailsworth, as if he were listening with it.

  “At 7.32 last night,” began Nailsworth, “the sergeant on duty received a telephone message from 17 Queen’s Parade, to the effect that a man had been seen lying on the porch over the front door. The house belongs to a foreign lady, Princess Popescu—she’s lived in South-bourne some years now, and it was her companion, a Mrs. Felstead, who rang us up. The duty-sergeant telephoned to Herbert—Inspector Stone: Herbert looks after the Parade district, you understand, and has—had a small office nearby. He said he’d go and investigate. Four minutes later we had another call here. The Princess herself. Said there was a man shot, and to send help at once. The sergeant detailed P.C. Bowyer, and got in touch with our Police-Surgeon.”

  Without looking down, Nailsworth flicked a page from off the top of the sheaf and continued.

  “Herbert—Inspector Stone was lying on the pavement outside the house. He was dead by the time they arrived. Dr. James’s report: bullet wound between second and third ribs on the left-hand side; another on the edge of the left lung. Bullet had passed through the heart and Jodged under the surface of the right lung twelve inches from the point where it entered the body.”