Somebody at the Door

by Raymond Postgate

  “If he stole the stuff ready made, he could transfer it to the handkerchief and tin the same way, in any room that was convenient. I talked to Dr. Hewitt, at the Civil Defence Divisional Headquarters, in charge of Gas Protection, putting it up as a hypothetical case. He said it was perfectly possible.

  “Then about planting the handkerchief on Grayling. I’ve checked this up myself. I walked with the crowd going to the station, with a flat cigarette tin bound with tape in my overcoat pocket, and a damp handkerchief inside. I had rubber gloves on and kid gloves over them. It took me 25 seconds, 20 seconds, and 35 seconds, in three experiments, to do the whole business. I mean by that, to strip off the tape with my right hand, inside my overcoat pocket, open the tin, take the handkerchief out of it, and hold it in my hand inside the pocket ready to slip it into someone else’s pocket. I didn’t go the further step and actually do so. It might have been difficult to explain to anyone that I tried it on, and anyhow I’m not good at pickpockets’ tricks. But far more difficult things than that have been done, as you know. So the whole thing is possible anyway.

  “A direct attack on him looks like the only alternative. It’s not very likely. He would have fought and yelled—he was certainly not a meek or accommodating person at the best of times—and would probably have had to be knocked out or chloroformed. There was no trace of a bruise, and no one has mentioned traces of chloroform. And anyway, when he came to he would have made the devil’s own uproar. Suppose he had been attacked between Croxburn Station and his home—that’s the only place it could have happened—well, I know it was a dark and lonely night; but the streets are less empty then than at most times. People are coming home from work and we have our men on their beats. I don’t believe it could have passed unnoticed.”

  “Are those the only alternatives?” asked the Superintendent.

  “Practically the only ones, sir,” said the Inspector. “The doctor talked about the possibility of a gas bomb dropping practically on to him. I inquired into that, and both the Air Ministry and the wardens’ service said it was impossible. I think that is a dead end. I’m forced back to assuming my first theory is right. And then, as you said, I have six and a half good suspects.”

  “Any hope of tracing the means used?” asked the Superintendent.

  “Very little. The handkerchief should have been in Grayling’s overcoat pocket, unless he dropped it. But Mrs. Grayling sent the overcoat a couple of days later to the cleaners. He had vomited over it. I asked the cleaners if they had noticed anything about the coat— that is, if it had produced any symptoms of mustard gas poisoning. They said half their girls had running noses and wretched colds, anyway. As for a handkerchief, they had no record of one. But they volunteered the remark that since the war they had lost most of their competent staff and that records of such things were no longer properly kept. I got the impression that things found in pockets were more likely to be pinched than not.

  “The murderer could quite easily dispose of his own traces. The tin would go into a salvage dump, the tape be dropped in a gutter. If he had worn an overcoat, the gas would vanish from it after wearing it once out in the rain; if he had a mackintosh it would never have soaked into it at all. If there was anything left in the bottle— supposing he stole it in a bottle—he need only pour it into a gutter or on a bit of waste land on a rainy night and it would be washed away. In a few hours, I’m told, there’d be no traces. And we’ve had plenty of rainy nights.”

  He rose heavily. “I’ll just go on asking questions,” he said, depressedly.

  Chapter X

  1

  “They were both young, in dungarees, and fair-haired: one taller than the other,” said Inspector Holly into the telephone. “I’m afraid we have no other description.… No, just that they travelled up by that train.… They needn’t necessarily have been travelling home, of course; they might have been sent out on a job.… I hardly expected anything.… Of course, if you do find out anything, tell us at once.… What, still? It’s dry enough here.”

  He had been talking to the police of Mayquarter. They, like those of Pulchayne and Whetnow, had found no trace of the two workmen who had travelled down with Grayling. They did not expect to have any, either, unless the Inspector could give them more details to go on. And without wishing to be unhelpful, they had to remark that they were still kept busy by the effects of recent floods.

  The report on the results of a thorough examination of the railway carriage lay before him. Several buttons, two pencils, part of an old newspaper, and a hairpin had been discovered. There was no trace of any chemical or any other unexplained feature. Thrust down behind the seat was the following letter, without date or address:

  Dear Joe,

  If you did it, shut your silly mouth. If you didn’t least said soonest mended too. The doe had eleven. With love from

  Rosie.

  None of these, however enigmatic, seemed to be concerned with his immediate problem.

  The Inspector reviewed in his mind his round of interviews. He had done exactly what he proposed to do: he had visited every one of his suspects and questioned them again. Some he had even bullied. He had got peculiar results: he was not certain that they were informative as well as peculiar. The shortest and most unorthodox in every way had been the interview with Hugh Rolandson. The young man had come into the police station to see him, dressed in very light flannel trousers and a pale yellow linen coat, dragging his club foot. Fair-haired, bright-blue eyes, very obviously nervous, he sat on the edge of his chair, alarmed, and looking rather like a rabbit and liable to bolt at any minute. A pet rabbit, thought the Inspector contemptuously, and decided to use rough methods.

  “I must warn you,” he said, without preamble, “that you are not bound to answer the questions I propose to ask you. I merely advise you to do so.”

  Apparently incapable of speech, Hugh nodded.

  “Is it correct that you have taken the full gas course at the A.R.P. centre?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Do you know where the poison gas is kept?”

  “I think so.”

  “You must know.”

  “I mean,” said Hugh more spiritedly, “that I believe it is kept in a particular cupboard, but I have never tested the fact.”

  “Humph. You travelled up with Grayling on the night of his murder?” continued the Inspector. “I did.”

  “You might as well know we are perfectly well aware of your relations with Mrs. Grayling, and the excellent reasons you had for wishing her husband out of the way. Our evidence goes to show that you would probably have lost your employment and would have found it very difficult to support your mother if he had lived.”

  Hugh looked sullen and made no answer.

  “You left the station immediately behind Councillor Grayling?” asked the Inspector.

  “I don’t know. I may have done.”

  The Inspector rose to his feet, pointed his finger at Hugh, and spoke in a savage, fairly loud voice. “Rolandson! You followed him out into the darkness. You came up behind him. And you gripped him round the neck with that pretty little hold they taught you in the training at the Centre—the Japanese stranglehold, don’t they call it? And then you clapped a pad soaked in mustard gas over his face and held it there until you knew he couldn’t live. Didn’t you?”

  Hugh leaped from his seat, yellow with fear. “No!” he said shrilly. “I didn’t. I didn’t.” He pulled at the door and ran out. He pulled at it so suddenly that he hit himself on the forehead, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Very interesting,” said the Inspector to the empty room, and made no effort to stop him.

  On the whole, he thought, Rolandson had come much higher up the list of suspects as the result of the interview. Charlie Evetts, on the other hand, had dropped back several points. He had seemed almost at ease in the Inspector’s room—physically and mentally a new young man. His cold? Thanking you for the kind enquiry, all gone long ago: never felt better. Pretty well all the of
fice had had equally rotten colds: they’d all cleared up now. Mr. Grayling? Any information he could give, only too pleased. The Inspector was not to bother about that cautioning stuff; Charles Evetts knew all about it—taken down, altered and used in evidence against you; ha, ha, ha. But really he had nothing to hide.

  The Inspector was a little dashed by this exuberance, though he noticed it cooled down a little when he asked Evetts some vague questions about his manner of life. It ended suddenly when he asked him right out if he had recently been in need of money. Evetts slowly pulled out his pipe: “Mind if I smoke, Inspector?” he asked in a very quiet voice.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I don’t know how much you know,” went on the young man slowly, “but I’m going to tell you something. Two things. One is, I’m going into the army. I’m exempt, but I’ve volunteered.” He turned full face towards Holly, expecting admiration. Holly merely nodded, but was unable—indeed, did not try—to prevent a more benevolent look appearing on his face. Charlie Evetts promptly dropped into the back rank of suspects, illogical though he knew he was.

  “The other thing is this. Maybe I ought to have told you this before. You’ll say so, anyway. I have been in need of money, as you call it. I’ve been being black-mailed.—No, I’ll not tell you details. I once was foolish enough to pinch something I wasn’t entitled to. I’ve paid back the value of it long ago, and no one knows about it bar one person, who was bleeding me for money. I made up my mind, a day or two ago, I’d tell him to go to hell. What’s more, I’ve laid a little trap for him.”

  Evetts smiled broadly. “Don’t ask me any more,” he said. “I’ll not tell you.” He radiated contentment. How fortunate that he had remembered that he had once introduced Ann Darling to Harry, when Elmer was there as witness. He had already drafted out in his mind the letter he was going to post to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Barrow and Furness at the end of his embarkation leave. No, better the night before actual embarkation, so as to be sure he was really gone beyond awkward questioning when it was received. The phrases danced through his mind. “… so moved by your generosity that I see now loyalty to the firm transcends loyalty to a colleague … great struggle with myself … noticed a suspicious action by Harry Kelvin and afterwards examined the chits … promised to respect his confession of the theft of two ergot bottles, but cannot go a journey from which I may never return with deception on my conscience.” Would it be wise to point towards Ann Darling’s death or not? He wasn’t sure; and he became aware the Inspector had said something. “Awfully sorry, old man: I wasn’t paying attention. Thoughts far, far away,” he said. “It doesn’t matter,” said the Inspector, and dismissed him.

  He had not troubled to make further enquiries about the Grants, mother and daughter. Mrs. Grayling he had interviewed in her house, and had had no more success with her than he expected.

  She sat upright in a hard chair, tired and looking fully her age, but all the same unquestionably a good-looking woman. Her greenish eyes looked him full in the face, and before he could start questioning her she said:

  “So that there may be no misunderstanding, Mr. Holly, I must explain to you that I am not going to answer any questions concerning my relations with my husband. If I have to answer such questions in court, I shall no doubt answer them. But meanwhile I consider them impertinent, and it will serve no purpose if you ask them.”

  “Very well, ma’am,” replied Holly, coolly, but disappointed. “In that case I can only ask you to go over with me the events of the evening that your husband died.”

  “On that, you may ask me what you wish,” she replied equally coldly.

  “What time did your husband come home?”

  “I do not know exactly. After eight, I think. I remember noticing some little while before that he was half an hour late.”

  “Will you tell me exactly what happened then?”

  “I opened the door and he fell in, on his hands and knees. I expect I said something to him in surprise, but I do not remember. I helped him in and then looked out of the door. I was puzzled, and as the hall light could not be on I did not see how bad he was. I suppose I thought somebody might have knocked him on the head. I think I even took a few steps out. But I am not quite certain. Anyway, I found nothing.”

  “Did he go—or did you take him—straight up to bed then?”

  “No. I helped him into the kitchen. I thought he would need a glass of water; and supposing he had been attacked he might have a cut that needed bathing. I thought there was blood on his face. I could see indistinctly.”

  “After that you saw him in the light and discovered how bad he was?”

  “No: the window in the kitchen was broken and the black-out torn down. It had only happened that day, and I was waiting for him to mend it. I couldn’t turn on the light. It was quite a while before I realized how ill he was.”

  “How long was it before you sent for Dr. Hopkins?”

  “I am not sure. It was some time.”

  “An hour? Two hours? Half an hour?”

  “I wouldn’t like to guess. The doctor would probably be able to tell you. He didn’t come at once. He had to arrange for a nurse, I think.”

  The Inspector gave it up at that point. Further questions seemed likely to be equally aimless.

  His interview with Ransom had been stormy. The corporal had come in in Home Guard uniform, though there was no parade that day, and had been truculent from the beginning. “Are you the same George Ransom,” asked the Inspector, “as the one who ran a shoemaker’s business about 1924 in such-and-such?” (He gave the name of the small town.)

  “If I am, what has that got to do with you?”

  “There’s no need to be quarrelsome. I know it came to an end in a very tragic way,” said the Inspector, civilly enough.

  “It’s not likely I’d discuss it with you,” answered Ransom.

  “What did you do between then and when you began work for Peters?”

  “Mind your own bloody business,” answered Ransom, without heat.

  “Ransom, have you got a police record?” snapped the Inspector.

  At this Ransom lost his temper. He seized the arms of his chair, as if to prevent himself from leaping at the Inspector, and cursed him for several seconds. His phrases, literally taken, reflected on the Inspector’s legitimacy, chastity and normality: except by inference, they contained no answer to the question. When the flood had subsided, Holly said:

  “I’ll be straight with you, Ransom, though you’re not being straight with us. Grayling was murdered by the use of poison gas. You know all about poison gas. You had access to it. You detested Grayling. You were in a position to administer it. And you could have done with the hundred and twenty pounds he was carrying, which have completely disappeared. There’s no use shouting abuse at me. You ought to have sense enough to realize that you’re under suspicion. Why don’t you co-operate with us?”

  “Go to hell,” said Ransom; got up and walked out.

  Holly rang a bell. “Don’t touch that chair,” he said to the constable who answered. “There are finger prints on it I want taken, and compared with Scotland Yard’s records.”

  Next day he got by telephone the news he hoped for.“Picking pockets, was it? I’m not surprised … gave the name of Gordon Richards, did he? They always keep the same initials.… That’s very helpful. It fits exactly.” He put Ransom at the head of his list now.

  Mannheim—if it was Mannheim—he spoke to in the corridors of the police court after the doctor had been fined twenty pounds. Inspector Atkins was with him, and the German started uneasily at the sight of him.

  Holly told him briefly why he lay under suspicion, and— with Atkins’ permission—emphasized that the most sinister charge against him was that he was not what he pretended to be. “Will you tell me frankly,” he said in conclusion, “what Councillor Grayling had against you? Why did he make this charge?”

  The German turned his square, dark head towards hi
m. “I am still surprised,” he said, “that the police are courteous to me here; it makes me still a little frightened. Believe me, I would tell you all I knew, if I knew anything. But what put this idea into his head I cannot guess.

  “As for me, you have just heard in court that I have used a bicycle and a radio set when I should not, and it is very expensive for me. Perhaps also you heard me say that the bicycle I borrowed one night when I was too late to come home before curfew; and I was careless and did not return it. Because you have treated me well and as a free man, so I have become careless. Perhaps, too, you heard it said that the radio set was a cheap one, which could not be used for short waves. All this was foolish of me, but does not show me a Nazi. Indeed, I may say that if I was a Nazi, then would I have been very careful not to be foolish, and to make the police enquire when I did not need to.

  “But still I have for days, ever since I heard of what Mr. Grayling said, asked myself: ‘How does a man prove that he is himself?’ I do not have an answer. In Berlin are those who know me; they are in Berlin. The young David, who rescued me, he is dead. In Metz was held an investigation, at which the Bureau was satisfied with me. And now for long the Nazis have been in Metz.

  “So do I tell you of my books, what I wrote in them, and who published them?” He bowed towards Inspector Atkins. “But as you have truly said, I could copy all that from the British Museum. I tell you where I lived, and whom I knew: that, too, I might have been told by the Nazis, if I am a spy. I did not take part in politics very much: I do not know those who are refugees here. In Germany I was not the sort of person who was photographed in picture papers. I can think of nothing else.”

  He waited for an answer.