Somebody at the Door

by Raymond Postgate

  Mrs. Grayling answered the door when he arrived. She was between thirty and forty, with a rather lean face—pointed nose, pointed chin and thinnish lips. She had wide dark brown eyes and a head of dark brown hair. Her face was devoid of any marked signs of distress; it had an impersonal expression like that of a hospital nurse. “I am afraid I have brought you out for no reason, Vicar,” she said. “I telephoned your house, but I was too late. He cannot speak or see now. There is nothing you can do for him. Dr. Hopkins is upstairs with him now. I expect he will be down soon and we will ask him. But he warned me against expecting any good news.”

  “What is wrong with your husband?”

  Mrs. Grayling spread out her hands in a gesture of ignorance.

  “The doctor doesn’t say. I think he doesn’t know. It is something to do with his lungs, I gather. But it is very sudden, for lung trouble, surely.”

  “Yes. Yes, indeed. And he looked perfectly well this evening,” said the Vicar unhappily.

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Grayling indifferently, “did you travel with him? What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Please come into the drawing-room and sit down.”

  She led the way and they waited in the drawing-room in silence. After about half an hour Dr. Hopkins, a greying man with a half-bald head, came in. “He is very ill,” he said without preamble, “and—oh, are you here, Vicar?— and I am afraid that you must prepare yourself for the worst, Mrs. Grayling.” He stopped short, looking at her uncomfortably. He felt he should have said more, but what could he say? The Vicar stepped in: “Perhaps I could see Mr. Grayling a minute?” he said. “I do not think Mrs. Grayling—” “Why certainly,” fussed the doctor, “I think it would be better for Mrs. Grayling not to come up, unless she insists; but certainly you can come. I must go up now; I cannot leave the nurse alone there any longer.”

  Mrs. Grayling made no move; and did not speak.

  Just as they were going she said in a rather low voice: “What exactly is wrong, doctor?” “Lesions in the lungs, chiefly,” answered the doctor, “but there are other complicating symptoms. And it is not clear what has caused them. This sudden onset is most peculiar.”

  Twenty minutes later the two men returned to the drawing-room. The Vicar advanced with outstretched hands. “He passed away while I was with him,” he said gently.

  He held Mrs. Grayling’s hands between his. “My dear,” he said, “is there anything I can do?” He checked himself from offering to pray with her.

  She looked up at him gratefully. “You are very kind,” she said. “I mean that. You are really very kind. But I don’t think so. I think you had better leave me to myself. And him.”

  Dr. Hopkins spoke. “I am sorry to trouble you at this time, but there will have to be a post-mortem. I am going to ring up the police surgeon now. We will cause as little inconvenience as we can, I promise you.”

  3

  “I assure you, Inspector, I am only too glad to answer your questions. There is no need for these apologies. I am really distracted, and I only wish you could take complete control of this house and everything in it.” Mrs. Grayling’s voice did at last show some emotion, if it was only that of exasperation. “To answer the telephone calls from Barrow and Furness’s branches alone is really too much for me. Please sit down. I will tell you anything I can. I suppose you will ask me my name, though you know it quite well, of course. Renata Grayling. My age—well, I really think that is not wholly your business—”

  Inspector Holly broke in gently. “I shouldn’t think of asking you questions like that, ma’am. I want to spare you trouble, not make it. I am so sorry that you have been worried by your husband’s firm telephoning. I will see if I can stop it. I cannot understand why they should do such a thing.”

  “Oh, don’t blame them. What else can they do? They want to pay their people. They keep asking what Henry has done with the money. I can’t tell them.”

  “With the money?”

  “Didn’t you know? Henry always brought home with him, every Friday, the money to pay the staff in five branches of Barrow and Furness. Quite a lot of money, he used to say. He had them made out into packets and on Saturday morning three of the shops sent round for theirs while he took the packets for High Street and Austen Road himself. Austen Road has telephoned me twice already, and the manager of Neville Road was here at 8.30 this morning. But Henry didn’t bring the money.”

  Inspector Holly said nothing about any reflections that that last sentence caused. “I will certainly see that you aren’t worried any more,” he said.

  “Meanwhile could you—would you mind telling me just what happened last night, as far as you know it?”

  “Yes. It was about 7.30 or a quarter to 8—I can’t be sure exactly, but it must have been after half-past seven, because I remember thinking Henry was late and might have missed his train—he was very regular in his ways, and it was unusual for him not to be in strictly to time. I remember saying to myself that perhaps the bad weather had delayed the train and then that if he had missed the train I ought to go and take the dinner out of the oven or it would spoil. Alice’s evening out is Friday, you see, and I was alone in the house and had prepared our dinner. I was just idly wondering like that, thinking of nothing in particular, when I thought I heard a sort of soft thump against the door. I wasn’t sure, and I went out into the hall to listen; and then I seemed to hear a sort of scrabbling against the door.”

  A slight, almost imperceptible grimace as of horror went across her face.

  “Well, I turned out the light, and opened the door; and Henry practically fell on me. He must have been leaning against the door, unable to stand up. He must have been on his knees, I think, for when he fell down his body was only half across the threshold. I didn’t realize what had happened; I couldn’t understand it at all. I couldn’t see much anyway; you know how dark it is in the black-out, especially a night like last night; and I had just come out of a lighted room. I did look round, but I couldn’t see more than a few feet. It was all blackness. There wasn’t anyone using a torch or anything, not even a bicycle lamp. I could see that the snow on the garden path had been sort of smeared and brushed about. I suppose Henry had dragged himself on all fours up the path. Well”—Mrs. Grayling began to speak more hurriedly now—“I dragged Henry into the hall by his arms as best I could, and as soon as I had shut the hall door I turned on the light, and then I could see he was in a terrible condition. There was blood down his chin and on to his tie, and he had been sick. He couldn’t stand or speak, and he kept clutching at his throat. His face looked as if he was in most hideous pain, and was all blotchy. And while I looked at him he coughed up a fresh lot of blood and spittle, but he couldn’t say anything but make a faint sort of moaning noise, though I’m sure he was trying to tell me something. I went straight to the telephone and got Dr. Hopkins, and told him my husband was taken horribly ill, and he must come at once; and must see that a nurse came too. Well, he did so; and while I was waiting for him I managed to get Henry to bed and out of his clothes. And the rest I think you know.”

  Mrs. Grayling drew in her breath and let it out with a sound which was neither quite a gasp nor a sigh.

  The Inspector said: “Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. I have talked to Dr. Hopkins, and I do know the rest. You’ve told me everything very clearly. There’s only one other thing I would like to ask you—did your husband have a case or a bag with him?”

  “No. He hadn’t got anything in his hands. And he hadn’t his hat on. He usually carries an attaché case and he set out with it that morning. Have you found it?”

  “I think we have. We found a case fifty yards or so down the road. It was open and had some Barrow and Furness notepaper in it. Nothing else. No money. I’ll ask you to look at it later, if I may, to identify it. And Mr. Grayling’s hat, which was not far away. A black felt, with H.J.G. on the band. But there’s no hurry about that.

  “It’s very kind of you to have helped us s
o much. I want to express again, er, our deep sympathy in your bereavement and our thanks again. I will not intrude on you any more. I will go and deal with these telephone calls.”

  And thus, clumsily, the Inspector took his leave.

  4

  Inspector Holly walked slowly back to the police station after he had left Mrs. Grayling. He was a tall, thin man with iron-grey hair; he was walking just now with a slight stoop and with his lips pursed up as for a soundless whistle. He looked perplexed, as, in fact, he was. He was not a native of Croxburn; he was a Devonshire man who only recently had been transferred. He wished he knew more about the people concerned. For example, Mrs. Grayling had said he knew her name was “Renata”; but he had not known even that. He knew Grayling’s own position—that is, he knew that he was a very influential councillor, though not a very well-liked one. The Vicar he knew too: he rather liked him; he regarded him as a busybody, but an honest busybody. But he knew none of the gossip that an old inhabitant would know—not even enough to know where to look and what to ask.

  He put aside his worry for the minute with the reflection that after all it was not certain that much inquiry would be needed. The death was an odd one, it was true; but there was after all no very clear reason to assume it was anything but natural. The disappearance of the money that Grayling seemed to have been carrying was obviously something requiring investigation. But it did not seem a serious problem. If Grayling had been suddenly taken ill, he might well have dropped the case from his hand; and afterwards staggered home without it. He was probably trying to tell Mrs. Grayling about it when she picked him up. Meanwhile some passer-by in the dark found the case and opened it—or maybe it had flown open as it fell—and when he saw the packets of money inside, pinched them. If so, he was probably a local man; no one else was likely to be wandering about suburban roads late on a January evening. There were no fingerprints on the case, but that was not surprising. Anyone who had gloves would be wearing them on a night like that. Nor did it matter; if it was a local sneak-thief who had collected over £120 in one windfall he would fairly quickly give himself away. He would be caught spending it.

  The Inspector decided more cheerfully that he had reconstructed the course of events correctly; he straightened himself and began to walk briskly. All that remained was to confirm from the doctor’s that Grayling’s death had been natural.

  He found Dr. Hopkins with Police-Surgeon Campbell. He respected Dr. Hopkins as a hard-working, unpretentious G.P., quite competent to deal with any case likely to come his way; he neither respected nor liked Dr. Campbell. He could not follow easily what he said, for the doctor’s broad Scots was never in the least moderated for his Devon ears; he believed that the doctor regarded him as an intruder and was intentionally rude; he suspected that he drank whisky too freely and was inaccurate in his work. But he was the police doctor, and there was nothing Holly could do about it—not, anyway, until he had been in Croxburn considerably longer.

  “So ye’ve come, have ye?” said Campbell. (There is no possibility of attempting to reproduce his accent.) “Maybe ye will explain the case to the Inspector, Dr. Hopkins; I doubt I could make him understand.”

  Ignoring him Holly turned to the smaller man. Dr. Hopkins began fumblingly: “The case presents, um, several features of difficulty. I am not quite sure how to present—that is, to explain exactly …”

  “Dinna haver, man,” said his colleague. “Tell Mr. Holly we don’t know how the man died; and then tell him why we don’t know how he died. Be very simple for the Inspector.”

  “Well, it is not strictly true that we don’t know how he died. He died of heart failure, if you are going to be exact, Campbell,” said Dr. Hopkins. “But what induced the heart failure is, of course, as usual, the real question.”

  “And at that he may have died of choking,” interpolated the other.

  “Choking?” almost shouted Holly.

  “Ye see, ye have to be careful with the Inspector,” sneered Campbell. “Choking doesn’t necessarily mean someone strangled him. Explain it, Hopkins, in words of one syllable.”

  Dr. Hopkins, blushing scarlet for Campbell’s boorishness, went on: “The condition of the body, Inspector, is very strange. Grayling died of heart failure consequent on two, er, causes. That is to say, it might have been due to either one of them. They were: loss of blood, and suffocation. Both his lungs and throat were terribly affected. There was oedema of the lungs, and the symptoms of very severe laryngitis. The latter was the reason why he could not speak; there were even what are called pseudo-membranes in the throat. The tissues were very severely affected.…”

  “Blood must have been pouring into his lungs,” grunted Campbell. “Sodden like sponges they were.”

  “What caused all this, Doctor?” asked the Inspector.

  “We don’t know. There was no previous history of bronchial trouble or throat trouble that we know of, and in any case it is doubtful if that would explain the attack. It must have been almost in the nature of a seizure. Most extraordinary. We did have,” Dr. Hopkins coughed deprecatingly, “an idea which momentarily seemed to explain the affair; but it had to be abandoned.” He stopped speaking; Holly wordlessly urged him to go on. “Well, we thought that possibly someone might have thrown vitriol at him.”

  “Vitriol!”

  “Yes; you see we found marked traces of burning round the nose and mouth. The eyes were badly affected. I think, indeed, that towards the end he was partly if not totally blind. The skin of the face seemed in parts to be almost raw. But although some of his appearance was consistent with an attack by a vitriol-thrower, that was all that could be said. It doesn’t explain the rest of the symptoms. And it was those after all that caused his death.”

  “The man didna die of a burnt face, ye ken,” added Campbell. “The long and short of it is, we canna tell ye how he died, and ye must bring in Sir James from the Home Office.”

  “He won’t be able to get here till Monday,” objected Holly.

  “Then ye must e’en wait till Monday.”

  Dr. Campbell clearly enjoyed leaving the Inspector on that sentence.

  5

  The Inspector had had a talk with the Superintendent, who had told him to do just what he had expected. Since no clear lead had come from the doctors, he was instructed to be on the safe side and inquire as fully as he could into the whole circumstances. If he had to have a hypothesis, let it be that Grayling had been attacked by vitriol at some time. But it would be better to have no hypothesis. He was just to reconstruct as closely as he possibly could Grayling’s actions that day, especially on his homeward journey. His first calls should be on the Vicar, who had travelled down with him and the manager of Barrow and Furness who would know about his actions during the day. It would be as well to make those calls early ones. Memories faded only too quickly.

  That was exactly what the Inspector had expected the Superintendent to say. It was the only correct thing to say, and if he had been in the Superintendent’s place he would have said it. But it was no more agreeable for that. It meant, in effect, going to look for something and not knowing what that something was. In the Inspector’s opinion, this talk about forming no hypothesis without sufficient facts was like the Judges’ Rules—something theoretically sound but, in fact, quite impracticable. To have no hypothesis was to have no object: to have a hypothesis which one knew to be untrue was no better.

  All the same, work had to be done, he telephoned both the Vicar and the manager of Barrow and Furness—the latter first, in order to catch him before he left the office. (It was now 11.30 on Saturday morning.)

  The manager had a disagreeable voice, and he seemed in a disagreeable temper. He appeared to hold the police and Grayling equally responsible for the loss of the money which should have paid the staff in the North-Western branches. Holly elicited from him, or was presented with this information:

  That the sum lost was exactly £124 10s. 3d.

  That he, the manager, was abo
ut to go away for the week-end by the 12.15, and that he would not adjourn his departure, nor give the Inspector an interview, nor disclose his week-end address. He would answer what questions he could on the telephone, forthwith or on Monday afternoon. He might find time to see the Inspector in the week. That the staff at the North-Western branches would merely not be paid that week-end. Something would no doubt be done on Monday. Inconvenience to the staff? The inconvenience of a heavy loss to the firm was his sole concern.

  That Mr. Grayling was one of four assistant cashiers, all of whom had been with the firm many years and possessed the firm’s confidence. That he had arrived at the usual time, 9.30, and left at 5.30, and spent his day as usual at his desk. All the assistant cashiers sat at desks which were visible from his, the manager’s desk, and nothing in any way unusual had occurred yesterday. He had no conversation with Mr. Grayling except a few words of greeting or farewell. On the question of the money, the manager said this:

  “Originally, the wages of the staff were sent out by special messengers on Friday afternoon. With the outbreak of war this expense seemed unreasonable. Besides, the men whom we employed being strong and healthy, would naturally at once wish to answer their country’s call. In any case, we dispensed with their services, and arranged for each assistant cashier to take home on Friday night with him the wage packets for the area with which he was concerned. In the morning he would deliver some, and some would be called for at his house.