“Just so, Mr. Squires. Did you miss your white coat when you went into your own room last night?”
“No. Didn’t notice it was gone. I was feeling rather dreamy.”
“So dreamy that you aren’t sure whether you attacked Mr. Lake or not?” Blount put all his weight and impetus behind the question, like a Rugby forward charging into a loose scrum.
Merrion Squires was silent. His eye roved uneasily over the magpie litter of his room, the books higgledy-piggledy in their shelves, the guitar leaning in a corner, the pencil and wash studies pinned to the walls, the floor scattered with magazines and shoes and artists’ materials, as though seeking from them advice or support.
“Come now, Mr. Squires,” said Blount peremptorily. “You told Mr. Strangeways last night—this morning, I should say—that you didn’t know whether you’d stabbed Mr. Lake or not. You have just now repeated something in the same sense. Surely it must be clear to you that—”
“All right, all right. Don’t nag. Yes, I suppose you’d better know the worst. Are you acquainted with the word ‘schizophrenia’, by any chance, Superintendent?”
“We hear it quite often in the Courts,” replied Blount icily. “From the lips of Counsel for the Defence.”
“You remember the coat-slitting epidemic in the Ministry last winter, Nigel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you see in me Jack-the-Coat-Ripper.”
The epidemic had caused a brief sensation in the Ministry. Several of the women in Visual Propaganda Division, to which the outbreak was confined, had found their coats hanging in their rooms slit from collar to hem. This wanton, malicious damage was naturally even more unpopular at a time when coupons were so short, and an ugly spirit of suspicion had spread, trembling on the edge of panic and very nearly pushed over it by Miss Finlay’s tactless remark that “One of these fine days someone will be inside a coat when it’s slashed.” The outbreak ended as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun, Miss Prince’s coat being the last to suffer. No clue to the perpetrator was found. There had been a strange epilogue a fortnight later, though, each of the three victims finding on her desk an envelope containing money and coupons enough to purchase a new coat.
Merrion Squires, looking sick with self-disgust, his hands trembling on the back of the chair he was sitting in his usual equestrian pose, now revealed that he had been the cause of it all. He had had no idea that he was the culprit, he said, until a member of the staff had caught him at work, the knife in his hand.
“It was as if I’d been sleep-walking, and someone had woken me up. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing in the room, with a knife. The last I remembered was sitting at my own desk working on some rough lay-outs. But there was the knife, and there was the coat, all mutilated. It was a pretty nasty awakening, I can tell you.”
Merrion went on to say that he supposed the flying bomb, which had blown him off the ledge, must have created something equivalent to a geological fault in his unconscious. However, the counter-shock of being discovered in the act seemed to have re-established equilibrium. Or so he had hoped, since there were no further cases of coat-slitting—until last night brought the whole nightmare down on him again.
“You can imagine what I felt like. In the same room. Staring at the same knife. But this time there was a person inside the coat. And I’d felt sleepy while I was sitting in my own room, waiting for Nigel to turn up. Oh, God, I don’t know yet! Did Mr. Hyde take control again?”
Merrion Squires buried his head in his hands. The Superintendent asked, in a kinder voice than he had used so far, “And who was it that discovered you that time? Miss Prince, I take it?”
“Oh, no. It was Billson.”
Blount and Nigel exchanged questioning glances.
“Billson? But I’d have thought he was the type who’d have reported it at once,” said Blount.
“So did I. But our Edgar turned out to be quite an opportunist. Or quite human, if you like to put it that way.”
According to Merrion, Billson had promised him that the matter should go no further if he made restitution. He offered to make up the required number of coupons, as Merrion had not nearly enough. Billson was even so kind as to propose, if Merrion gave him the money in £1 notes, to put it with the coupons into three envelopes and place them on the desks of the three victims himself, so that there should be no doubt that the full price of a new coat was in fact given to each.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Nigel. “This is a new light on Billson.”
“Yes, indeed. I found it most illuminating. But I must say, for a Finance Officer, his Simple Division of Money was a bit faulty.”
“Oh?”
“He asked me for £200. Each of the girls found £25 in her envelope. Actually, £25 was adequate for buying a new coat. But £125 seemed to me rather heavy as an agent’s fee.”
“But that was pure blackmail!” Blount exploded.
“You bet your life it was. But what could I do? Even if I’d been willing for the coat-slitting story to come out, I couldn’t have brought blackmail home to Billson. It was a remarkably cunning arrangement on his part. In fact—I suppose I’m very ingenuous in some ways—but, when he asked for the £200, I genuinely believed he was going to divide the whole sum between the three girls—you know, give them more than double the value of their coats as a sort of sweetener.”
“But—but Mr. Billson is a Permanent Civil Servant,” said Blount.
“And therefore incorruptible? I know. I can’t expect you to believe my story. And I’ve no way of proving it.”
“Has he attempted to get money from you since?”
“As a matter of fact, he has. Last week. He didn’t get it, though. You see, it suddenly occurred to me that, although I couldn’t prove blackmail against him, it was equally impossible for him to prove that it was I who had slashed the coats. It would be his word against mine, in either case.”
“May we go back to the coat-slitting a moment?” asked Nigel. “Have you any idea why you slit those particular coats and not any other ones?”
Merrion Squires’ hands began to shake again, his eyes to slip and slide restlessly over his room.
“They were all three rather pretty girls, you remember,” he said at last, forcing the words out painfully. “And—oh, to hell with it! Let’s put it that, not long before, I’d had a row with Nita: she rejected my advances, as they say. And the others . . .” He shrugged his shoulders significantly. “But you see”—the words came tumbling out now—“you see why I was in such a stew last night? A couple of days ago, as you know, Nigel, I had a row with Jimmy. . . .”
Ten minutes later, Nigel and Blount were speeding in a police car towards Pinner, where Edgar Billson’s home was. An idea had been forming in Nigel’s mind, during the interview with Squires, and he wished to test it.
“What did you think of all that?” he asked.
“Well, now. Very specious. May be true. We can’t prove it, of course. Billson wouldn’t be likely to confess.” Blount’s eyes glittered behind the steel-rimmed glasses. “But supposing it isn’t true. Suppose it was not Billson but Nita Prince who caught him in the act of slashing her coat. Suppose it was she who had him in her power—perhaps blackmailing him. Now there’s a possible motive for the murder of Miss Prince. And it might be that Squires found afterwards she had betrayed his secret to the Director. So Mr. Lake has to go, too. If that were the truth of it, the whole of Squires’ story would be a very ingenious plan to draw us away from the danger area—from his hidden motive for poisoning the girl.”
“That’s sound enough, up to a point. And I must admit, before you came along, he’d been saying things which could be interpreted as an attempt to throw suspicion for Nita’s death on someone else.” Nigel gave Blount a resumé of the conversation. “But,” he went on, “if Merrion is the criminal, why, why, why should he confess to having had a row with Nita before the last coat-slashing incident? The rest of his confession tended to isolate the at
tack on Jimmy—whether Merrion actually did it or not. But, as soon as he volunteered of his own free will that a row with Nita—her rejecting his advances—might have been his unconscious motive for slashing her coat—why, he walks straight into what you call the danger area; he links up the attack on Jimmy with the murder of Nita.”
“I doubt he’s a bit daft, your Mr. Squires. I don’t like his eyes. Slippery.”
“Well, there’s this to be said for him: poisoners usually stick to the same weapon.”
“But this case is different. There was but the one poison container. Supplied free and gratis by that nincompoop, Kennington. It just so happened to be handy. Like Squires’ knife happened to be handy last night. And you could say Squires was well advised just now to feed us with schizophrenia. And you could argue that, having been a genuine victim of it when he slashed the coats, he would use that method on Mr. Lake with the assurance that his defence was already established supposing he was caught.”
“Why didn’t he use the same method on Nita, then? By the way, talking of poison containers,” whispered Nigel, “I see you’ve got a new sergeant.”
Blount looked his grimmest.
“Yes. Sergeant Messer is going back into uniform. I will not stand for carelessness.”
“He didn’t search ’em properly?”
“He omitted to examine carefully some of the possible places of concealment—bodily concealment,” replied Blount primly.
“But, damn it, we were all in the room. No one undressed. How could any one have concealed the thing that way?”
“So Messer reasoned. But it wasn’t his job to reason. Anyway, you don’t have to undress in order to put a thing in your mouth.”
“No one would be crazy enough to put the poison container in his mouth, surely? Why, there might well have been some drops of poison left in it. And anyway, the fumes——”
“That is all quite true. Nevertheless, Messer fell down on his job.”
“What about your woman searcher?”
“She was thorough.”
“H’m. Well, I still cannot understand why the criminal should have bothered to remove the container, however he did it, at such a risk of discovery, when he need only have dropped it on the floor, or——”
“Maybe he was afraid it’d take fingerprints.”
“A tiny thing like that?”
“The identity of a criminal has been reconstructed from a mere fragment of a fingerprint before now, thanks to photo-micrography. Not that our suspects are likely to know this—they’re amateurs, after all.”
“All except one, Blount,” said Nigel slowly. “I should think there’s nothing Charles Kennington doesn’t know about—well, concealment. And subterfuge. And throwing dust in eyes. He did catch Stultz, after all.”
“There’s no use beating our heads against that wall just now. When we get to Billson’s house, I propose——”
The Superintendent outlined his plan. . . .
Mrs. Billson was dusting the front parlour when the bell rang. Drawing aside the muslin curtain, she peered out sidelong. A fat gentleman in a bowler hat and a blue suit; a tall gentleman, hatless, with tow-coloured hair. Couldn’t be commercials—they didn’t go about in pairs. She hastily slipped off her flowered apron, bundled it behind the sofa, patted her greying frizzy hair, and went to the door. Might as well face it. If it wasn’t now, it’d be later. Did you have to feed duns, bailiffs, whatever they were called, when they encamped in your house, she wondered distractedly.
“Good-morning, gentlemen. If you’ve come about that account at Shoolbridge’s, I can assure you Mr. Billson will be sending a cheque very shortly.”
“Madam, I think there must be some mistake. I am a police officer, and I would like a word with you. May we come in?” Blount held out his official card.
Mrs. Billson hardly looked at it. Oh, dear, she thought, now I’ve given it away, and Edgar will be furious. Why did I blurt it out?
“Of course. Please step inside. Pardon the untidiness. One can’t get a maid nowadays for love or money,” she said in accents so refined that Nigel’s teeth were positively set on edge.
“Now, madam, it is rather a grave matter—no, I will stand, thank you—but I hope you may be able to clear it up satisfactorily.”
“I can assure you, I—”
Blount held up a hand which, to the flustered woman, seemed as large as doom.
“If you will allow me. Last night we arrested a pick-pocket. He was found to be in possession, amongst other things, of a wallet we believe may belong to your husband. The man admitted having just stolen it—”
“Oh dear, Edgar didn’t say anything about—”
“Now, it has been brought to my attention that, later last night, an Officer of the Ministry of Morale rang up this house, and was told by you that your husband had been at home all the evening. You will appreciate, madam, that this puts the police in an awkward position. We should wish to restore Mr. Billson’s wallet. On the other hand, how could it have been stolen from him, some distance from here, if he was at home all the time?”
“Oh, I can explain that. Edgar—Mr. Billson, that is—doesn’t care for the Ministry gentlemen to know that he goes to the Sta—”
“Has an occasional flutter at the dogs, eh?” Blount beamed upon her like an appeased shark. “Quite understandable. One has to be careful in the Civil Service, naturally. So he asked you to say he was in all the evening, if any one rang up. Had he in fact returned home when Mr. Fortescue telephoned?”
“No. He got back about half an hour later. He had stopped at a friend’s house on the way.”
“Quite, quite. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. Can’t afford to lose wallets these days, eh? What stadium was he at, by the way?”
“Harringay, he said he was going to.”
“Hope he made a haul.”
“Well, I couldn’t say, I’m sure. I was in bed when he got back. We—hem—have separate rooms. And this morning he overslept, and had to dash off to work without hardly touching his breakfast, so I scarcely had a word with him.”
“I only hope, for your sake, we’re right about Billson,” said Nigel, as the police car tore back towards Central London. “Or else he’ll raise an almighty stink about that interview with his wife.”
“Let him try. Did you notice, Strangeways, his wife took us for duns at first? It all fits in.”
“Yes. And it does seem to strengthen Merrion’s story. If Billson had been playing the dogs and getting into debt, that would account for his taking the £125 off Merrion instead of reporting him to the authorities. No doubt he got the extra coupons off some shady Black Market friend. Well, it quite revives my spirits to know that the correct Billson has been leading a double life.”
Blount looked worried. “But it doesn’t account for his attempting to murder Mr. Lake.”
“You think it was he?”
“I’ve an open mind. We want more facts yet. But I’ll grant you this: if Mr. Squires was telling the truth, the man most likely to have made the attack on Mr. Lake is the man who knew that Squires was behind the coat-slashing, and who therefore would use Squires’ coat and knife in an attempt to frame him. But why should Billson try to kill Mr. Lake? Suppose Lake had found out about his debts and his dog-racing—you don’t kill a man for that, not even in the Civil Service. After all, it wouldn’t prevent Billson’s creditors coming down on him.”
“Blount, I have an idea. It’s been taking shape for some time. Listen.”
As Nigel unfolded his theory, the Superintendent’s face began to light up as briskly as a technicolour dawn. At one point he even went so far as to remove his bowler hat in order to slap his bald head—a sign of excitement now, not of perplexity.
“Ah, well now, well now! That’s vairy interesting, vairy suggestive. Let’s hope Mr. Lake is in a fit state to corroborate. Now, supposing he does . . .”
They began to lay their plans. Here, Nigel’s inside knowledge of Ministry procedure
proved useful. It was agreed that there should be no questioning about the events of last night, beyond a formal routine inquiry by Blount into the movements of each of the suspects, ostensibly to confirm the alibis which Fortescue’s telephone calls had given them. The problem of lulling Billson’s suspicions was a difficult one. It was decided that Blount should take the offensive about his last night’s alibi, for Billson’s wife would almost certainly telephone to him about the police visit. Billson would then, presumably, fall back upon his second line of defence—that he had been at the Stadium. This alibi Blount would, subject to the usual checking, be apparently prepared to accept. If Billson had any lingering doubts, they should be dispelled by what would happen later in the afternoon.
On their arrival at the Ministry, Nigel went straight to the Deputy Director’s room. He noticed a policeman sitting stolidly upright outside the Director’s door, an object of some giggling and eyelash-fluttering on the part of the typists in the ante-room. Nigel asked Fortescue if he would send his secretary away for five or ten minutes: he had some private words for him. When this was done, Nigel lay back in the armchair, and began:
“Hark’ee, we want some co-operation from you. You must call an Emergency Progress Meeting for this afternoon. No trouble about that, with Jimmy hors-de-combat—re-assignment of work, and so forth.”
“To say nothing of the Head of the Editorial Section waltzing around with policemen when he should be——”
“Keeping his fingers on the strings, to prevent bottlenecks. I know. In the course of this meeting, you must say two things. First, that an arrest for the attempted murder of the Director may take place any moment; and you’ve been assured by the Superintendent that, as soon as it does, the police will all be removed from the building and we can get on with our war effort unimpeded.”
“Is this true?”
“In a way. The second thing is, you must give out that, first thing to-morrow, there’s going to be a check of the Q photograph files.”
Harker Fortescue’s cold and fishy eye lit up with something near to animation. He stroked the side of his chin. He opened a drawer, took out a packet of cigarettes, flipped one across to Nigel, and lit his own. Or rather tried to light it; but his lighter seemed recalcitrant, and in the end Nigel had to supply a match.
Minute for Murder Page 12