Feathers for the Toff

by John Creasey

  “Did he get the number?”

  “Passers-by did. There’s a call out for it.”

  “That’s what I call efficiency!” said Rollison. “I—”

  “I was going to demand a full story from you,” said King, “but just before I arrived I had a telephone call from Scotland Yard. Superintendent Grice is coming down here, and that is good enough for me.”

  “Have you called him in officially?”

  “Oh, yes, we’ve put it in order!”

  “What made Grice decide to come in person?”

  “An earlier report which I’d sent him, I think,” said King. “I wasn’t very happy about your arrival, Mr. Rollison, it looked to me as if you were in deep water. We knew that it was connected with the Whittering murder. Is there anything I can do before Grice comes?”

  “Have you an antique dealer in the town by the name of Jeremiah Murgatroyd?”

  “Murgatroyd!”

  “I know it sounds as if he ought to come from the north, but—”

  “Jerry Murgatroyd’s lived here for thirty years,” said King, in surprise. “He can’t be mixed up in this!”

  “Let me tell you a little story about a clock in which was hidden a mysterious package, but let us go to Murgatroyd’s shop as I’m telling it. That’s if he lives there.”

  “He’s got a flat above it,” said King.

  By the time they reached the antique shop, King knew enough about the particular incident to be worried. He rang at the side door of the shop, and a meek little woman opened it.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Murgatroyd!” said King, heartily. “Is your husband in?”

  The woman licked her lips. “No, he’s gone out tonight.”

  “Told you to refuse to let us in, didn’t he?” asked Rollison. “It won’t do, Mrs. Murgatroyd, we must see him.”

  The woman’s thin features twitched in alarm, but she did not have the courage to make a further denial, and did not try to stop them walking up the narrow stairs. The shop was on their right. They turned sharp right at the head of the stairs, and ahead of them was an open door and a glimpse of a room furnished, surprisingly, in Scandinavian contemporary, all legs and angles. A shadow moved against the wall near the door.

  Murgatroyd was standing just behind it. He was pale, and greeted King with a sickly smile, although he evaded Rollison’s eyes. King was friendly; Rollison liked the local policeman’s matter-of-fact manner.

  “Now, Jerry, what have you been up to?” he demanded.

  A whisky bottle and a glass showed that Jerry Murgatroyd had been trying to drown his fears. Now he turned his bloodshot eyes towards Rollison, drew in his breath, and then spoke in a surprisingly toneless voice.

  “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m really sorry. I suppose I’ve asked for trouble, but I didn’t realise that there was anything wrong in what I was doing. Look here, will you have a drink and talk about it?”

  “That suits me,” said King, glancing at Rollison.

  “I’ve a thirst too,” said Rollison.

  “That’s very nice of you, very nice.” Murgatroyd was so deflated that he seemed like a ghost of himself. “It all started with that perishing grandfather—a clock,” he added hastily, as he poured out drinks. “Minny! Minny! We want a new syphon of soda!”

  “Coming, dear,” called Mrs. Murgatroyd, eagerly.

  “A friend of mine happened to call on young Stewart a few days ago, and told me about the clock. There are always customers for good old clocks, and I went along to have a look at it. Then I interested a customer at ninety-five pounds, and decided to buy it—Stewart had told me that it was for sale, you see. Minny!”

  His wife came in like a wraith, deposited the syphon, and went out again, without saying a word.

  “Say when,” said Murgatroyd. “Well, this morning I had a visit from a man and woman I’d never seen before. The man looked as if he’d stepped out of a tailor’s window, and the woman was a bit of all right. She had a sable collar worth a small fortune. They started to talk about grandfathers, I mentioned young Stewart’s, but I said I’d got a customer for it. Well, to cut a long story short, they promised me fifty quid more than I had to pay for it if I would let them have a package which was inside the clock. The tailor’s model said he was young Stewart’s father and that the package really belonged to him, he was on bad terms with his son. Well—” Murgatroyd handed round the drinks and looked miserably at King. “Of course, I knew there was something fishy, Jim, I was a damned fool to have anything to do with it.”

  “You certainly were,” said King.

  “Well, fifty quid from them and the price of the clock from my other client made me decide to wink my eye. The woman said she would come along with me to collect the package as soon as I had the clock—the package was all she wanted. It seemed dead easy. Only when I got there, the trouble started. This gentleman—you’re Rollison, aren’t you?” he added, slowly, “not Bootle?”

  “Yes.”

  “They told me that you might be there and might be difficult. Well, you know what happened. I thought I’d fooled young Stewart, but as the price went up I had to look inside the clock to make sure there was a package, because if there wasn’t I wouldn’t get my money from the tailor’s model, you see. There it was all right.” The fat man drew out an off-white handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “When you pulled that gun I don’t mind admitting I had the wind up!”

  “That was when you should have stopped trying,” said Rollison. “What made you run away?”

  “It was the gun that did it. I upped and at you because I was piping mad and scared stiff in the bargain. I don’t mind admitting it. The only thing I wanted to do was to get away.”

  “You certainly didn’t lose much time,” murmured Rollison.

  “I never was one to waste time,” said Murgatroyd, with a wan smile. “As a matter of fact, Jim, I thought it would be a good thing if I told you about it, and I would have come over to see you, only—” He broke off.

  “Go on,” encouraged King.

  “Well, the tailor’s dummy was waiting for me when I got back,” said Murgatroyd. “He told me that I’d got myself mixed up in a nasty business and I’d better lie low. As a matter of fact—” He drew in his breath and broke off to finish his whisky. “Oh, hell! He paid me a hundred quid to say nothing, and he told me I wouldn’t hear anything more of it if I did. He said you were a crook, Mr. Rollison, and wouldn’t go to the police. Wasn’t I a damned fool, Jim? I suppose you’ll want me over at the station,” finished Murgatroyd, miserably.

  Rollison said: “I don’t think so, King, do you? If Mr. Murgatroyd makes a written statement that’ll be all we need. He was obviously under duress.”

  Murgatroyd’s eyes brightened. “If only you could, Jim!”

  “You’d better make the statement at once,” said King. “I’ll send a man over for it. If you see anything of your tailor’s dummy or the woman, let me know at once.”

  “I’ll tell you all right,” said Murgatroyd. “You don’t know what a relief this is, I thought I’d got myself six months!” He turned to the door. “Minny! Go downstairs and get my fountain pen—no, get the little typewriter and bring it up here with some paper and carbons. Hurry, lass!” He expanded miraculously.

  “There’ll be plenty of questions to ask before it’s over,” said King, “but I don’t know that you’ve done anything to make real trouble for yourself. You’re not going away for a few days, are you?”

  “No, Jim, no, I’m not!”

  When he and Rollison were walking back to the hotel, Rollison said humorously: “You know him well, don’t you?”

  “He’s chairman and I’m secretary of a local bowls club,” said King. “We play a lot of billiards together. Don’t run away with the idea that that influences me, though. I think it’s best to wait and see whether he has any visitors, or makes contact with these people.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Rollison.

  When they turned into
the entrance of the hotel his smile disappeared, for the doctor was standing by the desk and talking in undertones to the manager, whose grave face gave an indication of the tidings to come. The doctor turned round, and spoke as they drew up.

  “Mr. Stewart’s dead, I’m afraid. We were hours too late.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Superintendent Grice Comes South

  Rollison had a solitary dinner, aware of curious glances from all corners of the pleasant dining-room. It was nearly eight o’clock when he went up to his room. He was just in time to find two of the staff moving in a bed to replace the one on which Lancelot Stewart had died. Grice was due any time, but King had told him that the 5.30 from London was running very late. He telephoned the hospital and got permission to visit Jolly, and as he was walking through the lobby the receptionist called out: “Oh, Mr. Rollison!”

  Rollison turned, to see the man holding a small shopping basket towards him.

  “This was left for you a few minutes ago, sir, I was just going to send it up.”

  “Who brought it?” asked Rollison.

  “I don’t know, sir, I found it on the desk.”

  The wicker basket had a label addressed to Rollison at the Royal, written in block letters. Inside was a small, square box. He looked at it hesitantly. The receptionist looked at him curiously.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Rollison. “I’ll take it now.”

  He took the basket up to his room, removed the box, and put it on the table. Then he held it to his ear, but heard nothing. It was a stout cardboard box, quite plain, and tied round with much string knotted.

  “This won’t do!” he said aloud, and took out his pen-knife, cut the string, and lifted the lid of the box.

  In little partitions there were half-a-dozen eggs!

  When he saw a folded note tucked by the side of the eggs, his lips began to twitch. As soon as he opened the note he recognised the writing; it was the same as that on Sheila’s letter to Alec Stewart. It said briefly:

  “Rolly, dear, I thought your poor man would love these, do give them to him from me, won’t you? Oh, and Alec. How are you getting on? Sheila. P.S. Alec says he knows a man who will bring them in tonight. S.”

  Rollison was still laughing when he went downstairs with the box under his arm.

  Jolly was perturbed at the sight of the bruised face and strapped cheek, but Rollison reassured him, and then amused him with the story of Jerry Murgatroyd’s clock. He left the hospital soon after nine o’clock. When he got to the hotel, there was a message asking him to go to the police-station at once.

  As he expected, Grice was ensconced in an easy chair in the Inspector’s small office, and King was sitting at his tidy desk. Grice started to rise.

  “Don’t get up,” said Rollison, hastily. He sat on the corner of King’s desk. “Say all the evil things you want to say, and get them over.”

  “It would be a waste of time! What’s this about a mysterious package, Rolly?”

  “That’s a very sore point,” said Rollison, truthfully. “I had the solution of the whole business in these very hands, and I let it go! They’re a desperate crowd, but I think they’re getting cautious.”

  “Cautious!”

  “I said cautious. They could have finished me off, Bill, but they let me live. Any trace of the car they escaped in?”

  “It hasn’t been reported,” said King. “I’m finding out the name of the owner, but the records are at Southampton.”

  “A pity. Well, Bill, what’s been happening in London?”

  “You’re going to sit down and tell me everything you know,” said Grice. “After that I might decide to tell you what’s been happening in London, but it isn’t likely! And listen to me, Rolly, I want the real truth, not a concoction skilfully prepared for my special benefit.”

  “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—old tag.” Rollison took out cigarettes, and went to a chair. “All right, Bill, this time even I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t know the whole truth. The trouble is to decide where to start.”

  He did not tell the truth about Sheila’s visit to Whittering’s flat, nor the details of the Sheila-Alec association, but even without those factors there was plenty to be told, and he held both of them as the story unfolded. He laid emphasis on the Winchester visits of Whittering and Babette, and later of Lancelot Stewart, to the poultry farm; and, because he thought that Grice might already know, he included Lancelot Stewart’s statement that Deirdre Bryan and ‘Mrs. Babette Smith’ were one and the same.

  “And that is just about the lot,” said Rollison, glancing at the clock; it was a quarter to ten. “In an effort to cut through the superfluities and get down to the bones of the business, I’ve surmised that the whole mystery revolves about that package.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a brilliant deduction. Babette Smith took it, you say?”

  “No. The men who came to her rescue. Obviously the hotel was watched, we were seen to come in, and one of the men had been watching the window. He called his boy-friend at the crucial moment. King, I hate to be a nuisance, but Murgatroyd had the right idea.”

  King looked puzzled.

  “Murgatroyd? I—oh, a drink!” He laughed. “I can’t get you one here, but we can go to my flat.”

  “Coffee or tea would do nicely,” said Rollison.

  “Oh, I can fix that.” King telephoned an order. “Well, it’s a remarkable story, isn’t it, Superintendent? If we can get a line on that car we may be able to see the thing through fairly quickly. I think Mr. Rollison’s right, and everything turns on that mysterious package.”

  “Which Danny Bond managed to steal or otherwise come by,” said Rollison, leaning back and looking at the ceiling. “He brought it down here and hid it in the clock. Curious fact arising. He must have told someone where he put it.”

  “He did,” said Grice. “He told Babette. We let her see him,” added Grice, pulling a wry face. “We thought we might get something out of the conversation, and took it down verbatim. He didn’t mention a package, but did mention a grandfather clock. No one who first read the report could understand what it meant. It cropped up in the conversation. As Bond behaved as if he were highly excited, and was almost incoherent, it didn’t make any great impression on us. Now I know what it meant.”

  Rollison looked at him reproachfully.

  “I’ll forgive you this time, but you really must do better. When was this statement taken?”

  “This morning.”

  “Babette said you’d detained her for questioning.”

  “She wasn’t at Whittering’s flat on the night of the murder,” said Grice. “I’ve been able to check her movements from the moment she left the Kim-Kam. Her alibi is quite genuine. I wish we could find her now,” he added, grimly. “I’d have a few more questions to ask her. Lancelot Stewart died of the same poison as Whittering.”

  “I wish it had been arsenic,” said Rollison, and King stared at him. “I mean, the arsenic at the bungalow doesn’t line up with the other stuff, and suggests that it might have been put there by someone else.”

  “Now don’t make more complications,” protested Grice.

  “They come unasked! Well, we want that package, and the two men who attacked me at the hotel, Babette and—” Rollison shrugged his shoulders. “That seems about the lot.”

  “There must be someone else,” argued King. “Surely none of those are capable of conducting a campaign like this.”

  “Babette’s no fool,” murmured Rollison.

  “He doesn’t think for a moment that Babette, alias Deirdre Bryan, is the leader,” said Grice, briskly. “Who have you got in mind, Rolly?”

  “My mind’s a blank.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Grice, tartly.

  A police constable brought in coffee and sandwiches. As they ate and drank, Grice admitted that the Yard had got no further with its investigations into the murder of Whittering. Whittering’s many friends
and acquaintances all had alibis, but there was one significant fact which had emerged. A neighbour of Whittering’s had seen a man answering to Lancelot Stewart’s description at the flat, before Whittering had arrived.

  “I was prepared to believe that he had poisoned the whisky,” Grice said. “It doesn’t seem so likely now.”

  “If you’re asking me whether I think it possible that he also committed suicide, I don’t,” said Rollison. “He knew that he was ill, but I don’t think he realised what was the matter with him. He convinced me, too, that he had tried to keep his son out of trouble.”

  “That’s a subject on which you’ve said very little,” said Grice slowly, “but I think you will have to say more. Alec Stewart is a rough diamond, by all accounts, showing a deep bitterness or animosity towards (a) his father, (b) Sheila O’Rourke, for throwing him over, (c) Danny Bond, for replacing him in Sheila’s affections, and (d) Whittering—”

  Rollison said, softly: “I’ll grant (a), (b), and (c), but I haven’t got to (d) yet.”

  “You hoped I wouldn’t get to any of them yet, didn’t you? Alec Stewart gave you one account of Whittering’s visits to him, but at the hotel they had a fierce quarrel. It was some months ago, but was so violent that the manager of the hotel reported to the police. We had a note of it under Whittering’s name. It might have been an indignant refusal to have anything to do with Whittering’s scheme for revenge, but quite likely there was something else behind it. What’s more, the package was in Alec Stewart’s bungalow. He denied knowing of it—or at least he didn’t admit knowing that it was there—”

  “Oh, he denied all knowledge of it,” said Rollison.

  “In view of the way you came across it, he couldn’t stop you from taking it, could he?” said Grice.

  He paused, but was watching Rollison closely, and Rollison felt his heart beating uncomfortably fast. King stared intently at the Yard man, and a cup of tea by his side was untouched.