The Silk Stocking Murders

by Anthony Berkeley

  “And now,” said Pleydell, when they were safely out of earshot, “you can see why Miss Anne stepped so easily into Thumbs Up! But I’m quite serious about keeping my theatrical interests a close secret, so don’t mention it to anybody, even by way of joke, there’s a good fellow.”

  “Certainly not,” Roger acquiesced promptly. “Yes, I must admit I’d wondered how that came about. It sounded curious when she told me. And you’d gathered that she’d come up with that plan in mind?”

  “Oh, dear, no; it never occurred to me. But I remembered your mentioning that the family were a bit hard up, and I thought this girl might have come up to relieve the pressure at home, or even contribute her mite to it; so when I heard that a sister of Unity Ransome’s had been asking for a job, I told them she was to have one. That’s all.”

  “Your word goes, so far as Thumbs Up! is concerned, then?”

  “I’ve got a controlling interest in the rotten thing,” said Pleydell carelessly.

  Roger, no less than Miss Carruthers, was impressed. If he himself had possessed a controlling interest in a London revue, even a minor one, he would certainly not have mentioned the fact with such unstudied carelessness. He bought Pleydell a drink in token of his respect. The respectful poor are always ready to buy the drinks of the careless rich.

  But money has other uses beyond saving its possessor from having to buy his own drinks. Some of them were in evidence at the tea-table conference that same afternoon.

  Seated round a secluded table in the most exclusive, and therefore the most expensive hotel in London, the three discussed in low tones their plan of campaign, “just like real conspirators,” as Anne observed, with one of her unusual smiles. Roger had put forward for Pleydell’s opinion the suggestions Anne had made regarding the part to be played by herself in the partnership together with his own qualms as to the wisdom of it, and after careful consideration Pleydell had pronounced favourably upon the proposal.

  “I’m bound to say that I think it most unlikely to lead to any results,” he said, “but if it did they would be so valuable as to justify our risking the waste of time involved. And I don’t think that, if the proper precautions are taken, there is any real danger to Miss Manners.”

  “None whatever,” Anne said briefly. “I’m not an idiot.” She did not add that even if the danger were great she would not be in the least deterred, because that savoured of bragging; and bragging and braggarts constituted one of Anne’s particular aversions.

  “And of course,” Pleydell added in natural tones, “I shall consider myself responsible for the precautions we do take; financially, I mean. Let us have that understood from the beginning, by the way; all matters of finance are my pigeons. Goodness knows it’s small enough, but I feel that’s going to be my chief use to you.”

  Roger nodded, and Anne made no demur. She saw rightly that Pleydell’s wealth was an inestimable asset to the combination, and that through it things became possible which to anyone else in their position, rashly challenging the official police, would have been out of the question. Besides, as she told Roger later, it seemed almost a kindness to let Pleydell spend as much money as he could on the pursuit of his fiancée’s murderer; schooled and apparently unperturbed as he was, she could see something of the forces that were tearing him to bits inside and knew that he was on tenter hooks to do something, no matter what, that would achieve his end; and the spending of money is always a safety-valve, even to the very rich.

  They proceeded to settle the details.

  It was decided at once that the afternoons would be most convenient for the experiment, and the hours from two-thirty to half-past four were fixed. Every afternoon punctually at two-thirty Moira would leave the house as ostentatiously as possible, and Anne would stay, quite alone, in the sitting-room for two hours. At the end of that time she too would go out, for after four-thirty she would no longer be guarded.

  The matter of her guarding was less easy to determine. The first consideration, of course, was that the murderer must have no suspicions of what was in hand; and the sight of Roger or Pleydell entering the house at about the time Miss Carruthers was leaving it would simply defeat their whole object. Nor would it prove very practicable if the guardian had to arrive so early that he would not be seen to enter if the house were watched.

  In the end, Pleydell solved the problem in the grand manner. They would take a room in the house next door, or if there was no room available there, as near as possible, and there either Roger or Pleydell would lie in wait each afternoon during the crucial two hours. A bell was to be installed in this waiting-room, with its button under a rug in Anne’s sitting-room, so that she could press it with her foot without alarming her visitor, as soon as he disclosed his intentions. The watcher would then hurry down his stairs, change houses and run up the others (a performance estimated to take, at the outside, ninety seconds) and catch the man red-handed.

  “Excellent,” Roger approved. “But we must guard against a surprise attack as well. I suggest that Miss Manners presses the bell throughout the two hours at intervals of ten minutes to show that all is well—a short, sharp flick of the button. Then if we don’t get that signal we shall know that something’s wrong.”

  “Yes, and to distinguish the ten-minutes’ ring from the real danger-signal I could make the latter a long, steady pressure, couldn’t I?” put in Anne, whose cheeks were flushing with excitement at the prospect of action at last.

  “That is the idea, exactly,” Pleydell agreed. “Well, I think that covers everything, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, if things fall out right. But shall we be able to get a room at all in these days?” Roger wondered.

  “You can leave that to me,” said Pleydell, with quiet confidence. “I’ll get a room all right.” And Roger had no doubt that he would.

  “And supposing they won’t let us fit up the bell-wire between the houses?” Anne suggested.

  “They won’t know,” Pleydell answered serenely. “You can leave that to me too. I’ll have all that done quite secretly. The wire could be taken along the roof, I imagine, or the outside wall.”

  “And of course,” he added, by way of an afterthought, but so obvious that there was really no need for him to put it into words, “of course if there is any trouble with the landlords, I’ll have the two houses bought.”

  Before such supreme omnipotence no further objections were raised.

  “Now, how about advertising our trap to the various people we’re setting it for?” said Roger. “I suppose we must include George Dunning, though it seems quite unnecessary.”

  “We must include everybody,” Pleydell said firmly, “likely or unlikely.”

  “Yes, I suppose we must really. Well, will you undertake Dunning? You know him better than I do, of course. I’ll put the hint to Jerry Newsome, though of all the impossible—however! I wonder where he is, by the way? I haven’t seen him since before the war. It’ll be jolly to get into touch with Jerry again.”

  “I think he’s in London,” Anne put in. “He only comes down to our part of the country in the middle of the summer for a few months, so far as I know.”

  “Oh, well, I can easily find out his whereabouts. And that poisonous creature, Arnold Beverley; I wish you’d undertake him too, Pleydell.”

  “I don’t know him, I’m afraid.”

  “I can manage him for you, Mr. Sheringham,” Anne said, with a faint smile. “I told you this morning that I’d only met him once or twice. That’s quite true, because he’s very careful whom he’s seen about with in our neighbourhood (they’re the great people of the district, of course, the Beverleys); but I fancy he might not be so particular in London. Anyhow, I’ll send a line to him and say quite brazenly that I’m always in, alone, between two-thirty and four-thirty, shall I?”

  “I wish you would,” said Roger fervently. “I hardly know the man, but a little went a long way with me—about a mile out of his way every time I saw him in the distance ever after. An
d in any case, I don’t quite see how I could introduce the fact that you’re open to receive visitors during those hours if he wants to take advantage of it.”

  “Very well. Of course if it comes out (and from what one hears of Mr. Beverley such a thing is more than possible) my reputation’s gone for ever; but I don’t mind that.”

  “I do, though,” said Roger. “And especially as it’s so completely unnecessary in Beverley’s case. The man’s been out of the running from the very beginning I haven’t even troubled to look him up or go into his movements or anything. If anybody on this earth since it flew off the sun has ever been incapable of murder of any sort, let alone this, Arnold Beverley is that man. Need we really worry about him, Pleydell, do you think?”

  “We must worry about everybody,” Pleydell replied, with a smile that was not without a certain grimness. “And talking of that, I’ve got two more for you to worry over.”

  “Two more suspects?” Roger asked eagerly.

  Pleydell nodded. “The only two actors on those Riviera lists. Here you are—Sir James Bannister and Billy Burton.”

  Roger’s face fell. “Only those two? Oh, dear. Bannister might have played second murderer once on a time, but I’m sure he’s far too important to play even first murderer nowadays. And Billy Burton—well, why not Charlie Chaplin?”

  “Yet I’ve no doubt that both tragedians and comedians are quite human off the stage,” remarked Pleydell dryly.

  “But candidly, Pleydell; can you see either of those two in this particular role? And don’t talk about humanity; there’s nothing human about the brute we’re after.”

  “Candidly, I can’t, no. But I don’t pretend to be a psychologist. There may be hidden forces in one of them to impel him to do things that he may perhaps shudder over himself when his blood’s run cold again—just as there are, I’m told, in all of us, though some control them better than others.”

  “Well. I suppose they must be warned, like the others, but really—— ! However, if it comes to that, all five of our suspects to date seem to fail signally to qualify. If the murderer really is among them——”

  “And he is,” Pleydell put in with quiet conviction. “He must be. All the evidence points to it.”

  “Well, if he is, he’s going to turn out the most unexpected one of this century. Who’s going to warn those two? I don’t know either of them.”

  “I think I can manage that for you. I know Bannister very slightly, and I can easily arrange to meet Burton.”

  “Thanks. And I’ll see what I can find out about their movements round the important dates. Which reminds me, I must go to Scotland Yard to-morrow and try to worry out of Moresby what he’s discovered about the movements of the other three. And that artisan too…. I’m not happy about him. I hope the police have been able to trace him. Have you considered, Pleydell, that though an actor fits the bill, so does an artisan? You let a plumber or a man from the electric light company or anybody like that into your house without either a qualm or an introduction. I wonder if we ought to follow that up?”

  Pleydell shrugged his shoulders. “How can we? There are probably several thousand plumbers alone in London, to say nothing of men from electric light companies and the rest. That sort of inquiry would be entirely beyond our scope.”

  “I suppose it would,” Roger had to agree. “But I’m not at all sure that it isn’t there that the truth lies.”

  Pleydell rose to his feet and made his excuses. He had overstayed his time already, and had an important appointment in a short time.

  Roger and Anne sat on for a few mintures after he had gone.

  “I’ve never met a Jew I liked so much before,” Anne remarked.

  “The real pure-blooded Jew, like Pleydell,” Roger told her, “is one of the best fellows in the world. It’s the hybrid Jew, the Russian and Polish and German variety, that’s let the race down so badly.”

  “And yet he seems as reserved and unimpassioned as an Englishman,” Anne mused. “I should have thought that the pure-blooded Jew would have retained his Oriental emotionalism almost unimpaired.”

  Roger could have kissed her for the slightly pedantic way she spoke, which, after a surfeit of hostesses and modernly slangy young women, he found altogether charming.

  “I suppose it’s a matter of upbringing, and the sinister influence of the English public school,” he said lightly, thinking of one occasion at any rate when Pleydell had been neither reserved nor unimpassioned.

  “And his money doesn’t seem to have spoilt him a bit,” Anne concluded. “That’s very rare, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” Roger agreed, feeling absurdly jealous of the object of these encomiums. Yet what was he to Anne or Anne to him?

  Then Anne discovered that she had only just time to get to Sutherland Avenue to fetch a clean handkerchief, or something equally unnecessary, if she was not to be late at the theatre. Roger’s offer to buy her a dozen handkerchiefs for every quarter of an hour she would remain where she was now was treated with the severity it deserved.

  Roger paid the bill and they went.

  Having put Anne into the tube which she insisted on patronising rather than a taxi at Roger’s expense, that discarded novelist proceeded to his club to conduct a search for the present whereabouts of Gerald Newsome. By the time he had discovered the address in the London telephone directory, it was past seven, and, on calling the number, he learned that Newsome had just gone out and was not expected back till late. He left a message, arranging for lunch the next day, and went home to dine.

  Feeling at a loose end after dinner, it occurred to him that he might just as well try Scotland Yard that evening as the next morning. Taking a chance, he rang up and was lucky enough to catch Moresby. By sheer tactlessness he forced the Chief Inspector into offering him a halfhearted invitation to go round.

  Without more ado Roger went.

  To his surprise Moresby greeted him with something of his old geniality. To Roger’s request for information regarding the movements of the three original suspects on the important dates, Moresby replied at once that, though the reports were not yet complete, it seemed that any one of the three might be the guilty man so far as movements went. None of the alibis for the period covering the death of Janet Manners were confirmed; at the time when Elsie Benham must have died all three were reported to be in bed (and all three, Roger remembered, were bachelors), and two of the three at any rate had no entirely convincing alibis for the Dorothy Fielder case; the report on the third was not yet in.

  So far as could be gathered from the Chief Inspector, the chances were still evenly balanced.

  “Humph!” said Roger, distrusting the air of bland innocence with which this information had been given. There was something in the background somewhere, Roger was convinced, but he was equally convinced that the Chief Inspector was not going to divulge what it was.

  He went on to ask about the artisan and the solicitor who had visited the Mansions within an hour of the murder.

  There had been no difficulty in tracing the artisan, Moresby told him without hesitation, and gave details freely; Roger gathered that the police attached no importance to him. Nor did they to the solicitor-like old gentleman, who had, indeed, been out of the place at least half an hour before the murder was committed. The taxi which he picked up outside had been found, and the driver reported that he had set down his fare at Piccadilly Circus; the old gentleman had not been traced beyond that point. His business in the Mansions was still obscure, and nobody reported having received a visit from him or even knowing anything about him; but it was possible that he might have been to see Dorothy Fielder herself, who was of course alive at the time of the visit. In any case the police had not bothered very much about him, as he could not by any possibility be considered to have any connection with the murder.

  “And the taxi that brought our real suspect—the man with the wash-leather gloves?” Roger asked.

  “Oh, yes; we traced that easily enough,�
� replied the Chief Inspector glibly. “It was picked up in—let me see now!—one of those streets off Piccadilly. Half-Moon Street, or one of those. But that,” said the Chief Inspector airily, “doesn’t help us much.”

  “Doesn’t it?” said Roger thoughtfully.

  The Chief Inspector added a few remarks on the difficulty of tracing movements, even before the scent has had time to get cold.

  “And that,” said Roger to himself, as he came away, “is that. Now Moresby knows something, I’m absolutely sure, and something of tremendous importance at that. And he’s particularly anxious that I shan’t learn what it is. And, moreover, Moresby is convinced either that he’s already solved the problem or else that he’s just on the point of solving it; he wore every sign of ‘an arrest is imminent.’ Now what can it be that is making friend Moresby so insufferably pleased with himself?”

  The answer to that question was to be sitting on Roger’s breakfast-table when he arrived the next morning, in a purple silk dressing-gown and mauve silk pyjamas, to consume his eggs and bacon.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  “AN ARREST IS IMMINENT”

  THE letter which Roger leisurely opened the next morning, and began to read while pouring out, his coffee with one hand, ran as follows:

  DEAR ROGER,—What have you been doing with yourself all these years, and why the deuce have you never looked me up? It’s no good asking me why I haven’t looked you up either, because I got in first with that question. Congratters on your books and all that sort of thing, but what I want to know is what’s the poor old public coming to when you can be a best-seller? Great Scott, when I think of… But I expect you’re above all that sort of thing nowadays.

  Well, in case you’re wondering why I’ve broken our vow of silence, I’ll tell you. I’ve seen the tosh you’ve been writing in The Courier on crime and so forth, and I wondered if you’d like to be in on a cause cèlébre before the arrest, because as far as I can make out there’s going to be one soon, and I’m going to be it.