by Cyril Hare
“Need you bring that up now?” he asked wearily. “I should have thought——”
Susan was all contrition.
“Darling, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything to spoil things. It was beastly of me.”
“Angel, you couldn’t be beastly if you tried.”
“Yes, I can, and I was. But all the same,” she went on, returning to the attack, “we’ve got to be practical sometimes.”
“All right, then,” said the young man roughly, “let’s be practical. I know what you’re thinking. I’m a clerk in a dud firm that pays me two pounds ten shillings a week, which is probably about two pounds nine shillings more than I’m worth. I have been there four years and my prospects of getting any further are precisely nil. You have a dress allowance of fifty pounds a year, and if your father can raise it to a hundred when you’re married you will be lucky. Being what are known as gentlefolk, we can’t get married under seven hundred a year—say six hundred as a bare minimum. And if we tried it even on that we should hate it, and your father would have seventeen distinct apoplectic fits if we suggested it. Is that practical enough for you?”
“Yes,” said Susan in a small sad voice.
“Therefore,” he continued, “it ill becomes me to spend fifteen shillings on a decent meal, when I might be putting it in a nice little savings bank, like that ghastly young pup who shares my room at the office.”
Susan made a gesture of despair.
“It does seem pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?” she said. Harper looked out past her at the grey prospect of Goodge Street.
“I hate London,” he said suddenly.
A silence followed his outburst, and when he spoke again it was in a different tone of voice.
“Susan,” he said diffidently, “I’ve had a letter from a fellow I know out in Kenya. He’s got a farm there—sisal, coffee and so on. There’s not much money in it nowadays, he says, but it’s a good sort of life. If he could take me on—would you come?”
She clapped her hands in joy.
“Darling!” she cried. “But this is marvellous! Why on earth have you kept so quiet about it? You didn’t really think I wouldn’t come, did you?” Then seeing the irresolute expression on his face, she added: “Frank, there’s something else in this. What is it?”
“Yes, there is something else,” he answered unwillingly, as though regretting that he had said so much already as to make further disclosure necessary. “There is something else. What this man is offering is a partnership in the farm.”
“M-m?”
“And he wants fifteen hundred pounds for it.”
“O-oh!” Susan’s castle in Kenya tumbled in a long drawn sigh of disappointment. “What is the good of talking about things like that? Frank, I thought you were being practical!”
He flushed darkly.
“Perhaps I am,” he muttered.
“What do you mean? Frank, you make me angry sometimes. You know you haven’t got fifteen hundred pounds or the remotest chance of getting it——”
“Suppose I had?”
“What’s the good of supposing?” She looked him in the face, and then: “You don’t mean——? Darling, I hate mysteries. Are you seriously saying that you can really pay for this partnership, or whatever it is? Tell me.”
He smiled at her, though his face was still clouded with anxiety.
“I can’t tell you anything now. I’m sorry, darling, but there it is. I’ve got to see how things work out. But if—just if—I came along in a week’s time, perhaps less, and told you that the show was on, would you come with me?”
“You know I would!”
“And ask no questions?”
“Why not?”
“And ask no questions, I said.”
“Frank, you frighten me when you look like that. It seems so silly. . . . Oh, yes, I suppose so—ask no questions.”
“That’s all right, then.”
She looked at her watch.
“Darling, I must fly, or I shall miss my train, and you know what father is.”
She pulled on her close-fitting hat over her mass of auburn hair and dabbed powder on her nose while Harper paid the bill.
“I wish,” she murmured when the waiter had gone, “I wish you could tell me just a little more about it, all the same.”
“No, I can’t,” he answered shortly. “It’s just—just something that’s happened lately, that’s all.”
“I don’t know what’s happened lately,” she said as they made their way out. “I tried to read the paper on the way up, but I went to sleep instead. All I saw were some headlines about a Big City Sensation. Has that anything to do with it?”
Harper laughed sardonically.
“In a roundabout way, it might have,” he replied, as he pushed open the street door.
On the doorstep Susan almost ran against a small, sallow man who was just coming in. He gave her a look of open admiration of a kind to which she, who was quite aware of her own good looks, was well accustomed. Ordinarily she felt flattered or amused, according to her mood, by these tributes; but for some reason which she could not explain, this man’s glance, momentary though it was, filled her with resentment and vague disquiet. She felt as though she were being appraised by a snake.
Meanwhile the new-comer entered the restaurant and seated himself at a table by the window. Whatever the impression he made upon Susan, he was evidently a valued client of the management, for he was no sooner in his place than Volpi, looking like an agitated black water-beetle as he flitted between the tables, came up to him.
“Ah, Monsieur Du Pine!” he cried. “It is a long time since we had the honour. What will monsieur be pleased to take?”
“A café filtre,” said Du Pine shortly.
Volpi’s face fell, but it was not for him to criticize his client’s orders, disappointing though they might be. Besides, he too had read the headlines in the newspapers, and he was a man of tact. The coffee was brought with as much ceremony as though it were the most elaborate dish in the menu, and if Volpi had any comments to make they were uttered only to his wife behind the desk.
Du Pine drank his coffee in slow deliberate sips. When it was finished, he lit a cigarette, and that done, another. Little by little the room emptied, but still he showed no signs of leaving. It was almost deserted when at last a man came in and went straight to the vacant seat at his table.
He was of medium height, his thin body clad in a grey suit and overcoat, that had seen better days. Neither his face nor his jerky cock-sparrowlike manner was particularly prepossessing, but there was something in his appearance, whether it was the close-cut sandy moustache or the set of his shoulders, that gave the impression that this had once been an officer—even a gentleman.
Du Pine looked up as he came in. His expression did not change, and when he spoke, only his lips moved.
“You’re very late, Eales,” he said in a low tone.
“Fog in the Channel,” answered Eales shortly. “A double brandy and soda,” he added to Volpi, who had appeared at his elbow.
Volpi expressed regret with voice, face and arms.
“Alas, sare, but I am afraid it is too late. These licensing hours——”
“None the less, I think you can get my friend what he wants,” put in Du Pine.
“Ah, monsieur must not ask me——”
“But I do ask you,” was the cold rejoinder, and the drink was forthcoming immediately.
“I can’t think why you wanted me to come to an out-of-the-way hole like this,” grumbled Eales as he put down his glass.
“Because it is out of the way. Things have been happening.”
“I know that.”
“I wonder,” said Du Pine with a penetrating stare, “just how much you do know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know, for example, exactly where Ballantine is at this moment?”
“Why should I?”
“Do you know? was my question.”
>
“If it comes to that, do you?”
They looked at each other, mutually suspicious, and then as by common consent looked away.
“We are wasting time,” said Du Pine after a short pause. “You haven’t told me if your business went off satisfactorily.”
“Only because you haven’t asked me. In point of fact, it did.”
Eales’s hand went to his pocket. Du Pine stopped him with a restraining gesture.
“Not here,” he murmured. “I have to be rather careful just now. We will do our business in a taxi, if you don’t mind. Pay for your drink and we will be off.”
Eales displayed his discoloured teeth in a mirthless smile.
“You don’t like paying for things, do you, Du Pine?” he remarked.
“I pay for what I get, not otherwise.”
* * *
In the taxi, Du Pine said affably, “Would you like me to drop you near Mount Street?”
“Why near Mount Street?”
“It occurred to me that Mrs. Eales might be glad of your company just now.”
“You can leave my wife out of it, blast you!” said Eales violently.
“Just as you please. Now next time——”
“There isn’t going to be a next time!”
“All the same, I think there is,” said Du Pine softly.
6
NOT IN THE INVENTORY
* * *
* * *
Monday, November 16th
“Mr. Harper?”
“Yes, Mr. Browne.”
“I want your attention, please. And yours too, Mr. Lewis.”
“Very good, sir.”
Harper put down the pencil with which he had been playing, and looked with disgust at his fellow employee. Not for the world would he have allowed himself to call Mr. Browne “sir”. Lewis saw the glance and scowled in reply. In every respect but their age and occupation the two young men were utterly dissimilar, and for various reasons they disliked each other cordially. Harper was slim, dark and sharp-featured. Lewis was pug-nosed, fair and heavily built. Lewis took his position and duties seriously. He was satisfied with his employment, which had come to him as the result of much hard labour at night classes and correspondence schools during long years of drudgery as an office boy. His ambition was to qualify himself as an auctioneer, surveyor and estate agent, and his horizon was bounded by a partnership in Inglewood, Browne & Co. Harper, on the contrary, considered himself thoroughly ill-treated by the fate which had thrown him abruptly out of Oxford into what he felt to be an unworthy occupation, and somewhat foolishly, he made no secret of the fact. He could not be induced to look upon his job as anything but a disagreeable necessity, and therefore treated it with a casualness that, combined with his indefinable and quite unintentional air of superiority, caused Lewis perpetual annoyance. In consequence, they avoided each other as much as was reasonably possible, but in a small office they were continually being thrown together and therefore continually jarring on each other.
“No. 27 Daylesford Gardens,” said Mr. Browne. He cleared his throat pompously. “Furnished letting, Miss Penrose to—to—er——”
“Colin James.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harper. To Mr. Colin James. For four weeks, expiring tomorrow. The tenant appears to have vacated the premises before the end of the lease. It is none the less our duty to protect our client’s interests to—ah—the best of our ability. Mr. Harper?”
“Yes, Mr. Browne.”
“You will please take Miss Penrose’s copy of the inventory of contents and check it carefully—carefully with—ah—with the contents. You understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“Making at the same time a careful note of any dilapidations which you may—which you may note.”
“Quite.”
“Mr. Lewis?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will go along with Mr. Harper, and supervise him.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Really, Mr. Browne,” Harper protested, “I think I am quite capable of doing a simple job like that without any assistance.”
“You may think so, Mr. Harper. Unfortunately, I do not. I have observed recently a certain regrettable—ah—laxity in your work. It is most undesirable in our class of business that we should be in any way—ah—lax. That is why I consider it necessary to send you to check the inventory, and Mr. Lewis to check you.”
With a faint snigger at his own attempted witticism Mr. Browne thereupon withdrew to his private office.
The two young men walked to Daylesford Gardens in thoroughly bad tempers. Harper had many reasons for feeling annoyed, among them the slight which had been put upon him and the consciousness that it was quite justified. Lewis, on his side, while pleased that the superior Harper had been “taken down a peg”, disliked being sent out on an unnecessary errand.
At the door, Lewis broke the silence in which they had walked together from the office.
“Have you got the key?” he asked.
“It would have been rather more useful if you had asked that question before we started,” replied Harper coldly. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
They passed inside.
“Have you got the inventory?” said Lewis.
This time Harper made no attempt to reply. He merely pulled a folded paper from his pocket and planted himself with his back to the door.
“You read them out and I’ll check them off,” said Lewis.
Harper shrugged his shoulders wearily, and in a tone of infinite disgust began to read: “Hall and passage. Five and a half yards green lino. . . .”
“Right.”
“Carved mahogany hat-stand. . . . God, why do people have such things?”
“Right.”
“Ebony-framed wall mirror. . . .”
“Right. No, it isn’t. One corner’s badly chipped.”
“Well, it doesn’t say so here.”
“Then it’s a dilapidation. Mark it down.”
Harper made a note. “Not that it’ll do much good to anybody,” he said, “as the tenant has gone abroad.”
“He had no call to go until he’d settled the dilapidations,” snapped Lewis. “Anyhow, we must protect our client. She’s got a right to claim for it. Put it down.”
“Oh, by all means,” said Harper in his most infuriating manner. “Shall we proceed? Japanese lacquer hanging cupboard. . . .”
The hall completed, they passed to the front room on the ground floor. It was not a large room, but grossly over-furnished, and checking its contents proved a long and laborious affair. Lewis found two further small dilapidations and a cheap brass ashtray which was not in the inventory, and gloated audibly at his own perspicacity. Harper’s impatience became more and more manifest until at last his companion’s conscientiousness was satisfied and allowed him to move on to the smoking-room.
Harper was the first through the door. He stopped in the entrance, and as Lewis was about to follow, held him back.
“Just a moment,” he said gently. “I think there’s something here that isn’t in the inventory.”
* * *
The telephone bell rang in the police station which was at the corner of Upper Daylesford Street and the Fulham Road. Sergeant Tapper, who was a conscientious officer, made a note of the time before he answered it. It was 11.31 a.m. He put the receiver to his ear, and at first could make nothing of the message. He heard a succession of gasps, as if the speaker had been running fast. Finally a thick voice exclaimed: “Murder, murder! Come at once!”
“What do you say?” barked Tapper. “Who are you? Where——?”
“I say there’s been a murder——” repeated the voice. There was a moment’s silence, and the sergeant thought he had been cut off. Then a quiet, cultured voice broke in:
“I’m speaking from 27 Daylesford Gardens. Mr. Lionel Ballantine’s body is here. Will you come and remove it, please? . . Yes, certainly I’ll wait for you. Good-bye.”
Tapper
leapt from his chair with a speed that would have been remarkable in a younger man. Within a bare half-minute of putting down the receiver he was out of the police station, a young constable at his heels, while at the telephone another officer sent an urgent message to Scotland Yard.
At the door of No. 27 the officers found the two young men awaiting them. Both had the appearance of having recently been through an unpleasant experience. Of the two, Harper was noticeably the cooler. It was he who greeted Tapper.
“Glad to see you, sergeant,” he said. “You will find him in the room at the back. Nothing has been touched.”
They followed the policeman through the hall into the smoking-room. The blind was down and the electric light burning. The contrast to the light of day outside gave a touch of unreality to the scene. There was a moment’s silence, as all gazed at the corpse. Here was no dignity in death, no repose. The sprawled, stiffened figure was like a monstrous marionette, hideous, grotesque, unseemly.
The sergeant bent over the remains for an instant, then straightened himself.
“The divisional surgeon will be here in a minute or two, I expect,” he said. “Not that there will be much for him to do, it seems. Then I’m expecting a senior officer from the Yard. You can keep your full statements for him. Meanwhile I’ll just take down a few particulars.” He produced his notebook. “Names and addresses, please,” he began, and, these transcribed, continued: “Which of you was it that telephoned?”
“I did,” answered Harper. “That is, mine was, I think, the effective message. My friend here actually had the first words, but I don’t think they carried very much weight.”
Lewis went an angry red. “We’re not all of us used to finding bodies about the place,” he muttered.
“That’s all right, me lad,” said Tapper kindly. “Nobody’s going to blame you for being a bit upset at a nasty sight like that. It’s only natural.” He turned to Harper. “And how did you know this was Mr. Ballantine?” he demanded.
For reply, Harper took a newspaper from his pocket.
“Fairly obvious, wasn’t it?” he remarked.