“Except Gabriel,” Twister pointed out.
“But what good would the knowledge do him?” I was thinking aloud by this time, walking in a circle around Twister’s little office, “Even if he did kill his brother, why go to all the bother of redeeming the knife in the first place? He could have used any kind of weapon, the man would never have thought Gabriel capable of violence. With that kind of trust, you could kill a man with a hatpin up the nose, and nobody’d even know.”
“What about if Gabriel used the money you gave him for the papers to redeem the knife, in order to return it to the Baron,” Twister posited, leaning back in his chair and staring at the light fixture, also thinking aloud, “Gets home and has a shindy with Mike, stabs him in self-defense, and then runs off.”
“Only to come right back and let me in, pulling off a performance of shock and grief that would put Miss Bernhardt to shame. If he could simulate that, he’d be treading the boards, not the pavements. And he, also, has an airtight alibi for this morning. Me.”
“You slept with him?” Twister’s voice rose just a bit in anger. Was he jealous again? The Count had sparked his jealousy, and Gabriel, but not Professor Beran? How interesting.
“He didn’t want to be left alone,” I temporized, filing away that reaction for later consideration, “He was scared.”
“Hmph,” he abandoned the topic with a frown, “Is it possible he could have crept out during the night and returned without you knowing?”
“I’m a pretty heavy sleeper,” I admitted, “He could have got up and done a Parisian revue at the end of the bed without waking me, so long as he didn’t jostle me. But the hotel staff would have seen him. I’ve checked, and double-checked: there is no way out of Hyacinth House except through the front door or the kitchen, both of which are occupied by staff at all hours of the day and night.”
“What about over the roof?”
“An acrobat might manage, but there are no alleys between any of the buildings opening onto the street, and a boy in pale green silk pajamas scrambling down the front of a building and running up Piccadilly would have been noticed. Pond had his clothes and his shoes by then.”
“So,” Twister gave up the game and got up to get his hat, “You’ve ruled out everyone you know. I’ll just have to start widening my investigation to people you haven’t met yet. I’m sure there are plenty of other people who have Mike Baker and Mrs. Nazerman in common. It doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with the Baron or with Gabriel. Mike Baker was a nasty piece of work, there’s no telling what all he was up to. I’ll call around tomorrow morning to ask Gabriel to give me a list of Mike’s associates. You might ask him to write it up for me beforehand. I’m going home now.”
“May I walk with you?” I asked as innocently as I could, hoping to see where he lived.
“As far as the door,” he said, very tense again once we were on the stairs, outside the safety of his office, “You live west of here, and I live north. I recommend going out the Parliament Street side and cutting through St. James’s Park. I go up the Embankment.”
“One of these days, Sergeant Paget,” I promised, “I’m going to see your rooms.”
“They’re just rooms, Lord Foxbridge,” he replied, smiling at me in a faintly patronizing manner that was calculated to irritate, “Same as any others.”
“Of course they are, Sergeant,” I wouldn’t be drawn, “Then I will expect you in the morning, and ask Gabriel to provide a list. Shall I have Pond lay three places for breakfast?”
“No, thank you,” he said, pulling open the heavy door that led out into Derby Gate, the narrow road that separates the two buildings occupied by Scotland Yard, “I’m sure I’ll have had time to breakfast twice before you drag your lazy carcass out of bed.”
“Just as well, I suppose,” I turned to face him and took his hand in as manly a shake as I could manage, “The table only seats two comfortably.”
I saluted him smartly, turned on my heel, and strolled off in an elaborately casual manner toward the gate into Parliament Street, where I took Twister’s advice and turned up Great George Street in order to cut through St. James’s Park to Pall Mall. The paths were fairly empty at that time of day, when working people were on their way home to the suburbs and idle people were dressing for dinner, so I had a nice think as I skirted around the lake and crossed the little bridge to Marlborough Road.
Twister had made a point of saying that I’d eliminated everyone I know. Was there someone else involved in the case I didn’t know? Or was there someone I did know but Twister didn’t think I knew? I had told him pretty much everything about the Baron and Gabriel, Mike and Stan, the Green Parrot and the pub in Wardour Street.
In the American comedy pictures, actors always look terribly surprised when they have an idea: I probably looked much the same when the name ‘Stan’ rattled through my brain: I could see Harold Lloyd staring wide-eyed and gape-grinned at the camera with one finger held aloft as he figured out some hare-brained scheme for getting Clara Bow’s attention.
Stan could have killed both Mike Baker and Mrs. Nazerman, I had no idea what sort of alibi he might have. And he was certainly in the neighbourhood when both murders happened, I saw him myself not long before finding Mike Baker’s body.
But why would he do it? Like Gabriel, he could have killed Mike at any time with any instrument, though it seemed less likely that Mike would let his guard down with a big strapping fellow like Stan in the room. And why go through the expensive and dangerous procurement of the Baron’s paper-knife? He couldn’t have known that he’d have the opportunity to kill Mrs. Nazerman before the police got to her, and he must have known the knife would be traced immediately back to her, since I at least knew it was there, as did Gabriel.
But he was such a nice man, it simply wasn’t plausible — but then, the scenario Twister had concocted for Gabriel was just as implausible, and I had entertained it, at least briefly; there was no reason to leave Stan out of the equation just because he was such a jovial fellow.
But if he had an alibi, the whole question would be rendered moot; and my curiosity wouldn’t let me rest until I found out, so I hopped in a cab as soon as I reached Pall Mall and directed it to St. Anne’s Court in Soho. Though I still didn’t know Stan’s surname, I remembered the name of the betting shop from his story about the late Mr. Cavendish.
It was starting to get dark, and I was wishing I’d stopped to have dinner, when the cab dropped me at the Dean Street entrance to St. Anne’s Court. I poked my way along the cheerful, crooked little alley, reading the signs in the windows, and wondered why there were so few people out and about. The last time I’d been to Soho in the evening, it was streaming with people; but perhaps it was like St. James’s Park, deserted in that odd time between people going home after work and coming out for dinner.
I found Cavendish’s Racing Agents halfway up the Court on the left, squeezed in between a wireless-cabinet showroom and a cheese shop. I could see Stan behind the counter, but nobody else was there. I pushed through, causing a little bell to ring, which made Stan look up with a happy smile.
“Well, if it ain’t Bastian!” he cried out in delight, “What brings you by?”
“It’s my day for surprising people in their work,” I smiled back, ambling up to the counter and studying the horses and odds written on the black slate wall behind him.
“Care to take a flutter on a race?” he indicated the wall, “People are very excited about Cyloon for Ascot.”
“No thanks,” I had never been terribly interested in horse races unless I was attending them, “But I was wondering if you could help me with a couple of questions I had about Mike Baker’s death.”
“Oh. Righty-oh!” he came out from behind the counter and headed for the door, “Let me lock up the shop, and we’ll go ‘round to the pub for a pint.”
I stayed leaning on the counter and watched him with interest as he went around securing the place, bringing the notice-b
oards inside and pulling the wide green paper shades over the windows, locking and bolting the door. Then he turned off the lights, which startled me enough to cry out. Then he coshed me.
At least, I think he coshed me. I didn’t really feel it at the time, it was just another shade of darkness; but the back of my head hurt abominably when I woke up, so it made sense. It took me quite a while to realize I was awake, anyway, since I woke up in just as much darkness as I went out in. I could tell I was on a bed, in a cool dry place into which no light penetrated, and my right wrist was tied to something.
“Ow! Bright!” I yelled when the light came on, dazzling my eyes painfully.
“Sorry, pretty,” Stan said cheerfully, carrying something over to another corner of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the light, and my brain adjusted to the pain in my skull, I was able to take in my surroundings: a vaulted stone room with one metal door and no windows at all, an electric bulb in a tin shade hanging from the center of the ceiling, a large zinc laundry basin, an old black iron stove or water-heater, a rickety bedside table, and the iron-framed bed I was lying on. Bringing my attention closer to home, I looked down and discovered that I was quite naked, with only a threadbare sheet for modesty, and my wrist was tied to the iron bedstead with my own necktie, in a knot so intricate and tight that I couldn’t see the ends.
“What are you doing, Stan?” I asked, bewildered.
“Setting you up for a short stay,” he turned and smiled at me, “I don’t want you to starve to death, do I? Here’s some tinned meat and veg, some biscuits, beer and seltzer to drink. No tea, I’m afraid, that old stove there don’t work. But you get plenty of air out of it, you won’t suffocate.”
“Why am I naked? Why am I tied to the bed?”
“I don’t want you trying to get out of here, of course,” he went back to arranging the tins and boxes and bottles, “Clever lad like you might actually figure a way out, though I can’t see how m’self. Being mother-naked will slow you down. The fetter is just to keep you still while I’m here, you’ll get it undone in an hour or so. And don’t worry, I didn’t interfere with you while you was out, though I was sorely tempted. I’m not a complete bounder, y’know.”
“But why?” I wailed, frustrated by his smiling calm.
“I need a head start, of course,” he replied reasonably, coming over to squat beside me and look me in the eye, “When I’m a day’s journey from here, Marseilles maybe, I’ll send a letter telling the coppers where you are. You shouldn’t be here more’n three days before you’re found. And I can be on any number of ships going to any number of ports by then. I’ll not be found at all.”
“As a point of interest,” I looked at him squarely, trying to decide if he was mad, “where am I?”
“In a cellar under a basement,” he grinned, “under a Greek restaurant on Wardour Street, but there’s a passage from the yard behind me shop. The passage up to the Greek restaurant’s basement is bricked up, so we’re nice and secret here. I use it as a place to bring blokes for some fun, mostly. Nobody can hear nothing from here, we can whoop and holler all we want.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I whispered with some admiration: it was the perfect place to torture a prisoner or store stolen goods, yet he had used it as a place of assignation.
“Never thought it would come in handy for keeping nosy boys out of the way,” he reached out and ruffled my hair, making me flinch when he touched the knot on the back of my head.
“So, you did kill Mike Baker,” I said, wanting to get him talking so I could start to work on the knot, and maybe overpower him before he locked me in, “And poor old Mrs. Nazerman.”
“Poor? Nazerman was rich as Croesus and mean as an old she-wolf.”
“Still,” I went on, warming to the theme I had begun to explore with Twister earlier in the day — was it still only Wednesday? So much had happened already, “I can understand putting Mike Baker down, he was a ghastly cur, and killing him a public service; but doing in an old woman? That’s not quite pukka, old man.”
“Well, I wouldn’t of had to if you hadn’t gone poking your nose in. I saw you go into that shop and knew you’d be having your Scotland Yard friend around next, asking about that knife.”
“Nonsense, the police would have known where to look as soon as they talked to me or Gabriel, or the Baron for that matter. We all knew where it had been. I mentioned Nazerman’s to Sergeant Paget that same night, he might have gone right then and there.”
“Nazerman would’ve been closed by then, wouldn’t she?” his eyes twinkled merrily, impressed with his own cleverness.
“But why did you even take the chance? Why did you have to use the Baron’s paper-knife at all?”
“I figured the little round buster wouldn’t be questioned, bein’ a diplomat and all. They’d just assume he’d done it, or that big bruiser he brought with him that day, but wouldn’t be able to touch him. He’d go free, Gabriel would be free, and I’d be free. And the world would be rid of one mangy cur and one old she-wolf. Everybody’s happy.”
“Everybody but me,” I admitted: he was right, if it hadn’t been for my involvement, Gabriel never would have said a word to Twister, and then Twister wouldn’t have known anything about Mrs. Nazerman — and Stan wouldn’t have had to kill her. Without me butting in, nobody would have connected Stan to the affair at all. That was going to have to be on my conscience.
“Everybody but you,” he agreed, sitting down on the floor and making himself comfortable; I had found one of the ends of the knot with my right hand, and so as long as I kept his attention on my face, I might be able to work the thing loose and cosh him with the wash-basin on the table beside the bed.
“How did you know the Baron would be in Soho that day?” I wondered.
“I didn’t,” he admitted, “That was just gravy. I’d already planned what I was going to do before I left Gabriel in the morning. I’d found the pawn ticket, y’see, under his bed. The whole plan just bloomed in me head right then. I snitched his key before I left, and sent him on a fool’s errand to Epsom to check up on a horse so I’d know he was out of the way and out of suspicion. I went and got the knife from old lady Nazerman, not twenty minutes before you showed up. I bided my time at the pub, where I met you again, until I knew Gabriel was far enough away. Went to the Mews when I left you, and found your Baron running off like a hare with the hounds after him. I let myself into the flat and gave old Mike the surprise of his life.”
“That is pretty clever,” I smiled, though it galled me a little.
“Didn’t think through the Nazerman angle properly, though, did I?” he frowned at himself, “I’m just glad her assistant hadn’t been there when I got the knife. I couldn’t of hurt him, he’s a real sweetheart.”
“But you could hurt that tiny old lady?” I reproved gently.
“Bollocks,” he dismissed my concern, “Like a told ye, she was a nasty old besom. Lied, cheated, and stole whenever it suited her. Don’t you worry about her, she got what was coming.”
“She trusted you, though, didn’t she?” I pursued the point, “She turned her back on you, Twister said she wouldn’t do that with someone she didn’t trust.”
“I’ve sent plenty of business her way,” he shrugged, “Blokes as owed me money and couldn’t pay me in kind, if you see what I mean. I had a deal with the old bat, I’d lower their debt if they went to her for the money, and she’d stint ‘em at the till, and we’d split the difference. But she’d peach on me in a minute if it kept the coppers off her back. So I really had to bash her one. No choice.”
“I see,” I said, tired of arguing the point. He simply didn’t see Mrs. Nazerman as a helpless old lady, and I couldn’t see her otherwise. I had to assume it was a point of chivalry rather than of practicality, and abandoned the question, “What are you going to do now?”
“Dunno,” he shrugged, “I took four hundred and forty-two pounds cash off the old bat, and maybe a thousand in jewelry. And all the cash
out of the safe in Cavendish’s. I can go anywhere I want. I haven’t decided yet where. And if I had, I wouldn’t tell you, sly boots. Would you do something for me when you get out of here?”
“You’re really not in a good position to be asking favors, Stan,” I chided him, “I really don’t relish the idea of being locked up.”
“Well, I don’t want to kill you,” he said quite seriously, “But I don’t have to send that letter, y’know.”
“Oh, God,” I gasped, suddenly terrified by the prospect of dying slowly in that cell.
“Now, don’t take on so,” he stroked my cheek comfortingly, “I said I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to know that this is a courtesy on my part. I’d like you to do me a courtesy in return.”
“All right,” I whispered, still shaken.
“Take good care of Gabriel,” he said, “It was for him I did all this. I love that lad. Will you tell him?”
“I don’t know if he’d like to hear you killed his brother for love of him,” I said carefully after thinking it over, “But I will definitely take care of him. I already am. I got him a room in my hotel, and I’m going to find some way of getting him a living where he can use his mind instead of his body.”
“Now, that’s fine,” he grinned broadly, clapping his hands with satisfaction, “You oughta get him a little shop, sellin’ pretty things. He likes pretty things, and he has a way with people. Though a lot of punters won’t thank you for taking him off the game.”
“A shop?” I liked the idea, “I think I know just the place. I could pay his apprenticeship at a place I know in Bury Street. And when he’s learned the trade, help set him up somewhere nice.”
“See? I knew there was a reason I liked you, Bastian,” he ruffled my hair again, “You’ve a good heart.”
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