Death in the House

by Anthony Berkeley

  ‘I ought not to have read that note out aloud,’ he said.

  ‘You can trust Arthur,’ Isabel returned quickly.

  ‘Arthur, yes. And Middleton. And you, my dear. But whom else? Lane… Pelham…’

  ‘Eric, of course,’ Isabel said, a shade less quickly. Eric was Mr Comstock, the First Lord.

  ‘Oh, Eric, of course, yes,’ agreed the Prime Minister.

  Father and daughter looked at each other. Both felt rather than knew what was in the other’s mind; neither referred to it in words.

  ‘I’d better go,’ said Isabel. ‘You’re going to be busy.’

  She rose, kissed him swiftly, and walked out of the room. The Prime Minister looked after her. That she was fond of him he knew, but Isabel was not a demonstrative girl; he was wondering when she had kissed him last.

  The Colonial Secretary was the first arrival. Without wasting time the Prime Minister showed him the new anonymous letter and explained why he had sent for him.

  ‘As you see, Middleton, our secret has somewhat mysteriously leaked out. I asked you to come round so that I could tell you that in the circumstances I consider yesterday’s arrangement to be automatically wiped out.’

  ‘You mean…?’

  ‘That I can’t possibly ask you now to make that speech.’

  ‘You never did ask me,’ the Colonial Secretary returned bluntly. ‘I volunteered.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, I’ll put it more strongly. I think you should reconsider your offer, because I believe…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I believe that your life is in danger. I’m quite sure,’ the Prime Minister corrected himself, ‘that your life is in danger.’

  ‘And if I withdraw, who will take my place?’ Middleton asked, with a grim smile.

  ‘It might be possible to make some arrangement to obviate the necessity for anyone to take your place.’

  ‘Do without the speech altogether?’ Middleton frowned. That would look damnable like weakness.’

  ‘It would be weakness,’ the Prime Minister agreed equably. ‘And therefore, my dear Middleton, if you wish me to speak plainly, I should take your place myself.’

  ‘I have no intention of withdrawing.’ Middleton’s voice was brusque. ‘None at all.’

  ‘That is your considered decision?’

  ‘That is all I have to say, Prime Minister.’

  The Prime Minister looked at him, hesitating for a moment before he spoke.

  ‘Thank you, Middleton,’ he said.

  He knew that Middleton would not wish him to say more.

  chapter four

  Much Ado and More Talk

  Sir Hubert Lesley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was brisk, dapper, and efficient. Unlike some of his recent predecessors, he had never been a soldier but always a policeman, graduating through the Indian Police to the Chief Constableship of an important county, and thence to Scotland Yard. There was nothing about police or detective work that he did not know.

  He arrived at Downing Street with a complete suite, consisting of the Deputy Commissioner, Sir Malcolm Burns, the Assistant Commissioner for the Criminal Investigation Department, Mr Willis-Carter, Chief Constable Nevilson, Superintendent John Armstrong, of the CID, and Superintendent Burrow, of the Special Branch. There were also a number of detective-inspectors, sergeants and constables, but these were left outside.

  Only Sir Hubert himself and the Deputy Commissioner penetrated as far as the Prime Minister’s library. The others at once set to work interrogating Dean, the butler, the Prime Minister’s secretaries, Isabel, Lord Arthur, and anyone else they could find to interrogate.

  In the library Sir Hubert gave the new anonymous letter a brief but careful examination.

  ‘Humph, yes. So far as I can see, exactly the same as the others. Same paper and, so far as I’m competent to pronounce, same writing – not even disguised. I’ll put my experts on to it, of course, but I doubt whether they’ll be able to make any more out of it than the others. Nothing to go on, you see. Might have been written by any of London’s seven million inhabitants. The delivery, that’s our only hope.’

  ‘My butler says it had been pushed under the front door,’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘Lying on the hall mat, just inside the front door,’ observed Sir Hubert, more correctly. ‘Yes, well, that’s hopeful. I’ve had three Special Branch men hanging around outside, to say nothing of the constables on duty – usual men replaced by detective constables. If it really was pushed under the door we ought to get him. They couldn’t have failed to spot him. Yes, I think he may have put himself in the cart this time.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ said the Prime Minister fervently.

  ‘Well, Superintendent Armstrong has that in hand. Let’s see, it was picked up about half an hour ago, and delivered to you presumably at once?’

  ‘Dean saw it when he went to answer the bell to let in Comstock.’

  ‘Ah, trust Comstock to be where the fun is. Never knew such a fellow. Always in the thick of everything. Yes, well, it’ll be difficult to say the exact time of delivery.’

  ‘There are always people coming or going in this hall,’ said the Prime Minister, in a tired voice. ‘It can’t have been there for more than a few minutes.’

  ‘No, of course. Well, I don’t think there’s anything more I can do here, Prime Minister. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and hear what the outside men have to report. Coming, Burns?’

  The Deputy Commissioner, who had remained entirely silent during the interview, prepared to follow his chief.

  ‘Oh, Sir Hubert!’ The Prime Minister detained them for a moment. ‘In a few hours Middleton will be speaking in the House. I want you to strain every resource in your Department to guarantee his safety.’

  The Commissioner looked at him. ‘We’ll do our damnedest, sir,’ he said.

  The Prime Minister lay back in his chair. He felt a very tired old man, and tired of being Prime Minister, too. He was glad of a few minutes’ solitude.

  Outside, the Commissioner received his report. It was brief, decisive, and perplexing. Except for Mr Comstock and Mr Lloyd-Evans, during the period in question no person had approached the front door of No. 10, Downing Street.

  ‘Damn!’ said the Commissioner.

  He waited for a few moments until the brief interrogations had been completed, then withdrew himself and his suite across Whitehall and back into Scotland Yard.

  There, in the Commissioner’s own room, a rapid conference was held. The results of all the interrogations were rapidly pooled, but nothing very helpful seemed to emerge. Superintendent Armstrong pointed out that the envelope appeared to have been trodden on as it lay on the mat, but whether by Dean or Mr Comstock it was impossible to say; in any case, there seemed small significance in the fact. None of the servants except Dean had anything in the slightest degree relevant to say. Both the Prime Minister’s private secretaries who were actually on the premises at the time had been engaged on their own work, in their own rooms, and knew nothing. All the men on duty outside the house were agreed on three things – that they had kept a careful watch on the front door of No. 10 with frequent reference to their own watches, that during the ten minutes to which the inquiry had narrowed down no one but Mr Comstock and Mr Lloyd-Evans had approached the door, that it was quite impossible that anyone else could have done so and remained unobserved. In fact the only curious item in the whole affair was that Mr Lloyd-Evans should have done up his shoelace on the top step, walked quickly back into Whitehall, and then come back to the front door apparently to push something through the letter-box.

  Mr Comstock, who had still been in the drawing-room with Isabel when the commissioner and his suite arrived, had already been interrogated, without much use. He had not noticed the letter lying on the mat when Dean let him in; he may have stepped on it so far as he knew; he remembered that Dean had stooped down just after admitting him and retrieved something from the floor, no doubt the letter
, he had heard nothing about its contents till the police spoke to him, not even from his fiancée.

  ‘Well,’ said the Commissioner, ‘someone had better go and see Lloyd-Evans. In fact, I suppose I’d better go myself. The man had the jitters, obviously, presumably over that letter of his; didn’t know how the PM would take it; jeopardising political career and all that; hence the toying with the shoelace and right-about-turn into Whitehall before he could make up his mind to deliver; probably we’ll find he had a quick one round the corner to work his courage up; then he walks slap up to the letter-box and shoves the thing in. I don’t suppose he noticed anyone else while he was monkeying about, but we have to ask him.’

  The Commissioner reached for his hat.

  Mr Lloyd-Evans was at his desk at the Board of Trade. To the typists and messenger boys he was a great man, was Mr Lloyd-Evans; to the permanent officials he was a bore, as all Cabinet Ministers must be, but less of a bore than some because he never interfered with them and, on the whole, did as they told him; to the Commissioner he was a badly frightened man.

  ‘Sorry to bother you and all that,’ said the Commissioner, ‘but there’s something in the wind again. Did you know the Prime Minister has had another of these anonymous letters?’

  ‘F-from the B-brown H-hand?’ stammered Mr Lloyd-Evans.

  ‘From the Brown Hand,’ agreed the Commissioner grimly.

  ‘Oh, dear! oh, dear!’ Mr Lloyd-Evan’s white hands writhed agitatedly together on his exiguous lap. ‘They’ll kill poor Middleton – I’m certain they will. The Prime Minister really should postpone the Bill, he really should. It’s – it’s murder to ask a man to get up and introduce it, when – ’

  ‘Why Middleton?’ cut in the Commissioner.

  ‘Middleton?’ Mr Lloyd-Evans blinked at him.

  ‘Why should it be Middleton who’ll be killed?’

  ‘Why, because it’s Middleton – Oh!’ The President of the Board of Trade pulled himself up with a jerk. He looked at the Commissioner with suspicion. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, as it happens.’ The Commissioner was thinking that perhaps it was not so surprising after all if a close Cabinet secret leaked out. Perhaps the surprising thing would be if a Cabinet secret were ever kept. Given a few Lloyd-Evanses… and the type was common enough… ‘But if I hadn’t, I should now.’

  ‘If you hadn’t obviously known, I should not have mentioned the name,’ returned Mr Lloyd-Evans with dignity. The grip he had taken upon himself wilted as quickly as it had been born. The frightened look sprang into his face. ‘Er – did you mention another of these anonymous letters? What did it say?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. But, first, Mr Lloyd-Evans, will you tell me this: why did you stop to do your shoelace up on the step of No. 10, Downing Street before delivering the letter you had for the Prime Minister?’

  Mr Lloyd-Evans’ eyes opened wide. ‘Do up my shoelace? I’m quite sure I didn’t.’

  ‘What did you do, then?’

  ‘Why, I just walked up to the front door, gave my letter to the butler, and walked away again. What else should I do?’

  ‘That was the second time you were in Downing Street? I mean, after you came back from the Whitehall direction?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Lesley?’ asked Mr Lloyd-Evans, huffily. ‘I never came back from the Whitehall direction. I came from it. I was only in Downing Street once. And I can’t imagine what all this talk about shoelaces is. Kindly explain.’

  ‘Damn!’ said the Commissioner again, and explained.

  Mr Lloyd-Evans was indignant. He was also incredulous.

  ‘Impersonating me? Fantastic! Preposterous! Why on earth should anyone want to impersonate me?’

  The Commissioner explained again, rapidly and patiently.

  ‘They must have got wind of the fact that you were to deliver this letter of yours in Downing Street, and no doubt they hoped that your double appearance, so to speak, wouldn’t be noticed. And, after all,’ added the Commissioner, stifling a smile as he contemplated the indignant countenance opposite him, rather like that of a peevish owl, ‘after all, you wouldn’t be so difficult to impersonate, with that moustache of yours and those spectacles. As an actor, you’ll appreciate that.’

  The President of the Board of Trade flushed angrily. In his young and more giddy days he had made quite a reputation as an amateur actor, and it had actually been a serious question with him whether he should bend his ambitions towards the professional stage or towards politics. Having chosen the latter he hated to be reminded of the former.

  ‘Well,’ he said coldly, ‘if that’s all the help I can give you – ’

  The Commissioner rose. ‘Yes, it is. Thanks. Good morning.’

  Back again in Scotland Yard he told his Superintendents of the interview.

  ‘So the only blessed clue we can get,’ he summed up, ‘is that there are people working this thing who are right on the inside circle. Otherwise, how could they have known of this Round Robin of Lloyd-Evans’? Well, if that’s all we’ve got, work on that.’

  It was a busy morning in Ministerial circles. While Mr Lloyd-Evans was entertaining the Commissioner of Police at the Board of Trade, Lord Arthur, at the India Office, was called away from his coaching of Middleton to listen to a plea from the First Lord of the Admiralty.

  Mr Comstock put the case with bluff frankness, as chap to chap.

  ‘This thing’s got to be called off,’ he said. ‘It’s all round the place about Middleton now. You wouldn’t sign our little petition to the Prime Minister before the news leaked out. It’s up to you to make amends now. We can’t send Middleton to his death. That’s what it amounts to, you know. There’s a strong feeling against it. The PM would never get a Cabinet vote in favour. You go and have a word with him, old chap. He might listen to you, when he won’t listen to us. Tell him it’s madness to persist with the Bill till these fellows have been caught. Give the police forty-eight hours. That’s all: forty-eight hours. Damn it, they can’t work miracles. But they’ll have the lot of ‘em within forty-eight hours, if I know Lesley. Come on, now, Arthur. You cut along and see the Prime Minister and – ’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ interrupted Lord Arthur, in formal tones. He disliked Mr Comstock for himself alone, apart from his dislike of him as the future husband of Isabel Franklin. (How could Isabel contemplate throwing herself away like that? How little one knows about one’s childhood playmates!) ‘I’m sorry, but it would be quite out of place for me to attempt to advise the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ replied the First Lord, and began all over again.

  At much the same time the Prime Minister was reluctantly receiving a deputation in his library.

  The deputation was headed by Mr S P Mansel, MP. This alone was sufficient indication of the deputation’s importance, for Mr S P Mansel was to the world of finance rather what an exceedingly prosperous outside broker is to the Stock Exchange: that is to say, unorthodox, adventurous, and quite improperly successful. There were indeed few financial pies, so long as they combined both magnitude and unorthodoxy, with, of course, the chance of large profits, in which Mr S P Mansel was rumoured not to have a finger, from shipping arms to Spain to obtaining concessions from insecurely throned Eastern potentates; and usually rumour was not very wrong. Mr Mansel was known to have been interesting himself lately in India, which no doubt accounted for his presence at the head of this deputation. For the rest he was a small man, slightly bald, slightly plump, slightly unimpressive for one with so many desperate financial deeds to his credit, with a manner quiet but a little fussy, and a reputation for ruthlessness which he deplored in public and justified in private. He represented West Watford.

  Mr Mansel came to the point at once. In spite of the Prime Minister’s orders and the precautions taken, the Cabinet’s secret was now no secret at all. There was no member of the house which did not know all about the Brown Hand and the fate threatened to the introd
ucer of the Indian Restriction Bill, and the House was perturbed for its Cabinet. The deputation represented no fewer than a hundred and fifty members, of all political parties, united to urge on the Government the advisability of postponing the introduction of the Bill until those behind the outrage on Lord Wellacombe were safely in jail.

  Mr Mansel spoke briefly, but with earnestness and some degree of eloquence.

  ‘My own position at the head of this deputation testifies to the serious view I take of the affair,’ he told the Prime Minister, ‘for it is probably known to you that my actual interests would be much better served by this Bill being passed into law as soon as possible. I have heavy commitments in India, but already they are less heavy than they were; for property belonging to my companies has been burnt, stores looted, and strikes proclaimed. Nothing would suit me better than the severest measures to restrict this anarchy. But I am not considering my interests. I am considering nothing but the lives of valuable public servants, which ought not to be jeopardised unnecessarily. To postpone the Bill for a few days would make no difference to our prestige even in India itself. There are ways even of dropping it altogether with nothing but credit. But we do ask you, Mr Prime Minister, most seriously to consider whether even a trifling question of prestige can be set against the lives of men who have served the country well and whom we wish to see continuing to serve it.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ replied the Prime Minister wearily, ‘I sympathise with the feelings of humanity which have prompted your visit, but I regret that what you suggest is impossible. No British Government could follow the course that you advocate. This Bill must and shall be passed through the House in the usual way, without delay. And I would remind you that each day’s delay means the lives of literally scores of loyal Indian subjects. To set those against any possible threat to members of the Government is out of the question.’

  In much the same terms, and at much the same time, the Foreign Secretary was dismissing yet another deputation, from responsible Indians who were in London at the moment. This was headed by no less a person than the Maharajah of Ghanjia, who put forward the argument (which the Foreign Secretary knew quite well to be a fact) that the nefarious activities against which the Bill was directed were being carried out by quite a small group of persons. The object of this group was to obtain the independence of their native country, nothing more and nothing less. They were working on terroristic lines, because they believed that terroristic lines paid; the example of Ireland was their inspiration. Apart, however, from the outrages for which they were responsible, they were negligible. The great mass of the Indian people did not desire severance from Great Britain, and could not be either persuaded or intimidated into desiring it; the native princes desired it less than anyone else. The proposed Bill gave the terroristic group an importance which they did not deserve. The Government in India already had adequate powers to deal with the agitators, if only it would use them. It would be not yielding to threats and force to shelve the Bill altogether and apply with vigour the powers which already existed.