“Nothing very brilliant, Mr. Scrope. Ordinary police routine, that’s all. The explosion occurred just because I was on the scene. I wasn’t spy-hunting, you know. Merely seeking a murderer. And my presence on the spot seemed to set the machinery in motion.”
“A sort of catalytic for tragedy, eh? What was the original murder about?”
“As I said, the spy gang were at great pains to secure the exclusive tenancy of a new block of flats in Sussex, the scene of their particular activities. The place was reputed to be haunted. After an incident in which several of the tenants were involved and one in particular left, the owner of the property, a Mr. Burt, went down in person and determined to get to the bottom of the depredations of a so-called poltergeist there. Actually, the poltergeist was, in the first place, a young nephew of the previous owner and his pals, who made up their minds to render an account to Mr. Burt for the dirty trick he’d played on uncle by swindling him out of the family seat. The gang took advantage of the haunting legend to keep the place to themselves.
“In the course of his investigations, or rather, as the result of rough handling by the ‘poltergeist,’ Mr. Burt interrupted what must have been a seance of some of the gang for transmitting messages to Germany. Burt recognised the transmitting-set and thus put the criminals in jeopardy. Hartmann silenced him by throwing him downstairs and breaking his neck … poltergeist fashion!”
“Dear me! And through going down there, you smoked-out the whole hornet’s nest. That was very clever of you, in spite of what you say to the contrary.”
Littlejohn rose and stood with his back to the fire. Calmly he regarded Mr. Scrope and Scrope beamed back at him wondering what next. It came quietly and surprisingly.
“But tell me, Mr. Scrope, why did you take such trouble to meet me and tell me about Braun? It’s strange that you alone, of everyone I’ve met on this case, knew of his underhand activities.”
Scrope started like a scared hare.
“My dear Inspector! What a strange question. Of course, I wanted to help where I could. I was a keen thriller fan and thought my chance for a little real mixing in crime had arrived. I was quite unaware that I’d got exclusive knowledge.”
“Don’t you think you overdid it a bit?”
Littlejohn was still calmly puffing his pipe and warming his back before the flaming logs. He might have been gently rebuking an over-enthusiastic subordinate in his best avuncular manner.
“What do you mean, Mr. Littlejohn? One would think you were trying to pick a quarrel with me.… I can’t understand this sudden volte face.”
The man almost whined it.
“Have you still got the manuscript from which you translated the incriminating passages of Braun’s lectures, sir? I’d like to refresh my memory.…”
Littlejohn could detect a sudden change in Scrope’s manner. A stiffening of attitude, a frostiness creeping over his customary affability.
“I’ve returned it to my nephew, Inspector. It’s not available. But you must take my word for it.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that.…”
“Look here, Inspector. It’s time we terminated this interview.… I’m sorry that our pleasant relations are ending thus. I had hoped for many a yarn by the fire now that I know a real detective in the flesh. But after this, I fear I must stick to fiction. I shall poke my nose in no more investigations. I hoped, perhaps, to constitute the noises off, whereas now, I seem to be dragged into the middle of the stage, an unwilling principal.”
Scrope rose to his feet as one who dismisses a class.
“Just a moment, sir. I suggest that the so-called verbatim report of Braun’s lecture was no such thing and that your translation of it was impromptu and made with a view to setting me on the track of and eliminating a man who had become, by his pretensions, dangerous to a certain body in which you were interested.”
“Are you mad …?”
“Listen, Mr. Scrope. The manuscript you pretended to read to me was no lecture at all. It was the first thing of its type you could lay hands on and was the MS of an article in German by a member of the Cambridge Alpine Club, courteously lent to you before publication by its author, because you were once a would-be mountaineer yourself and were well acquainted with the subject of the essay.”
“Go on, Inspector. If this is the brilliance of the detective in the flesh, I prefer to stick to fiction!”
“The essay was called Melchior Anderegg!”
“Wherever did you get that cock-and-bull story?”
Scrope was now showing signs of uneasy rage and sat down again with a gesture of disgusted exhaustion.
“I got it from Mark Page, the author. I called to see him this morning. As you were turning the pages pretending to find the incriminating passages, I noticed the heading. It struck me as a bit funny at the time, but slipped my mind as irrelevant until afterwards. When I found out that Melchior Anderegg was a famous Swiss guide, I wondered how he came to be mixed up in a lecture by Braun to Nazi students. I made enquiries from the Cambridge Alpine Club, who put me on to Page.…”
“Well, if I did hoax you a bit there, you can’t convict me for it,” said Scrope at length. “I’d heard of Braun’s subversive lectures and to make my tale more convincing, I pretended to read you a bit of one.”
“Very well, let that pass, Mr. Scrope … no, no … don’t get up. I’m not going yet. I’ve not finished. Did you know Williatt, by the way?”
“Preposterous! Never heard of him until you mentioned him just now. What is this?”
“Do you remember giving me a sheet of plain paper on which to copy the extract you were so kindly translating from the Anderegg biography, Mr. Scrope?”
“I think I do.…”
“On that paper you also gave me a thumb and four fingerprints. Now it’s a funny thing that an identical print was found just over the back stud of the dead Williatt’s collar when it was examined!”
Scrope rose to his feet. He was no longer like a friendly garden-bird, but took on all the features of an old carrion crow.
“I’ve heard some strange tales in my time.…”
“Yes, Mr. Scrope, you’ve been in some strange places, too. For instance, you were once lecturer in Ancient History at Rangoon, weren’t you …? And you travelled widely in India. You even wrote a monograph on religion.… Thuggee, didn’t you? Do you know that Williatt was killed by the thug technique? It enables a little man with a knowledge of the tricks of the trade to put ‘paid’ to one twice his size.”
A great hush fell over everything. Scrope bit his forefinger as though pondering a problem.
Outside, somebody started a wireless-set or a loud gramophone …, Ravel’s Bolero. Rumtumtumtumtum, Rumtumtumtumtum.
“The matter’s not going to end here, Inspector, I can assure you. You’ve made the most outrageous insinuations against me. You can’t prove a word and I’ll make you pay for it.”
“Where were you yesterday afternoon and evening, Mr. Scrope?”
“Here. I’ve no alibi, if that’s what you’re after. I can’t pretend to keep a third party here during the long hours of study I spend, just in case the police want an account of my movements every time a murder is committed.…”
“All the same, I’m going to arrest you, Mr. Scrope, and I have here a warrant for that purpose. I arrest you in connection with the murder of Arthur Williatt and I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence.…”
Scrope rose to his feet, crossed the hearthrug and gently tapped Littlejohn on the chest.
“This’ll break you, Littlejohn,” he said, and then with a sudden burst of vigour, he pushed Littlejohn over the arm of one of the fireside chairs. With remarkable agility he was out of the door and into the corridor before Littlejohn quite realised what had happened.
However, Cromwell, mounting the stairs, blocked the passage of the fugitive Fellow.
Scrope turned, tried the door opposite his own, found it locked and like a
mouse, seemed to slide in the opposite direction, bolting through the tower entrance at the far end of the passage.
Littlejohn appeared just in time to see his coat-tails disappearing into the blackness.
“Run down to the main gate, Cromwell, and stop him getting out that way if there’s an exit from the tower in the gatehouse. And tell the constable on point-duty to come here, too, with as many of his colleagues as he can muster quickly.”
The little door was not locked and there was no key in it. Littlejohn was without a torch and fumbled his way, by the feeble light of a small window below him, down the narrow steps. Another small door, apparently leading into the gatehouse. It was locked. No signs of its having been recently opened. The lock and hinges were rusty and covered in dust and cobwebs. Scrope’s way out there had evidently been effectively barred. He must have gone up then to the belfry.
Littlejohn followed up the spiral stairs, halting now and then to listen. At length there was borne down to him the sound of scurrying feet, pit-a-pat, ascending rapidly.
The ascent was made in utter darkness for a time. The Inspector wondered if Scrope were making for some complicated exit. Round one side of the tower and down the other. If so, he might give him the slip. But what good would it do him …? They’d get him wherever he went.
Automatically the Inspector began to count the steps as he mounted.
Thirty-one-two-three-four.… A door slammed above. The darkness began to grow thin and very faintly the strains of Bolero, now winding-up for the finish, penetrated the dark steeple. There must be a window or something just ahead.
Forty-four-five-six.… The sound of bolts shooting. Then, through a small room without any doors, but with bell-ropes entering by the floor and leaving through the ceiling. It was dimly lighted by louvers through which the strains of the gramophone percolated.… Rumtumtumtumtum.
Fifty-eight-nine-sixty.… Signs of light. A small window in the wall became visible, illuminating a tiny stone landing with a heavy oak door set across it. This was closed and there were sounds of laboured breathing coming from the room behind it. Littlejohn’s own breathing was laboured, too. He mounted the last steps..… Scrope spoke.
“Approach the door and I’ll shoot through it, Inspector. I’m armed …” he panted.
“I’ve no intention of laying siege to you in a place like this, Mr. Scrope,” answered Littlejohn. “My colleague will be here shortly and then I shall send him down for a battering ram or the like and break down the door. After that, armed or not armed, I’m coming in for you.”
KNELL FOR A TRAITOR
THERE were all the ingredients of farce in the situation.
Littlejohn on one side of the solid oak; Scrope on the other. The Inspector could feel his quarry listening, waiting for the next move.
Half humorously, Littlejohn remembered an incident of his early days in the force. Two carters had met head-on with their horses and drays in a narrow street. Unable to pass and neither willing to give way, they had remained abusing each other for two hours until the police were called.… This couldn’t go on for ever!
In spite of Scrope’s threat, Littlejohn made for the door and threw his weight against it. Abbot William had made a proper job of it. Nothing short of a crowbar, a battering-ram, or a charge of explosive would shift it.
The detective searched in his pocket for a little-used object. His police whistle. It was filled-up with fluff and grit and he had to clean it with a match before it would blow. He went to the window and had a tussle to get it open. The fastening was corroded and someone had given the whole a coat of thick paint to add to the trouble. For the first time, the gadget “for clearing stones from a horse’s hoof” in his pocket-knife proved useful. The window opened at last.
Littlejohn looked down. He’d no idea they were so high up. Probably the bells were either behind the closed door or just overhead. Down in the quadrangle, tiny, foreshortened figures were ambling about like black cockroaches. He could even make out the cat, which had been set-upon by a large airedale and was standing its ground in a corner.
The gramophone merchant had evidently turned over his record, for now the strains of the Bacchanalian Dance from the same composer’s Daphnis and Chloë rose on the still air.…
Littlejohn couldn’t see a sign of Cromwell or the police. He blew a blast on his whistle, wondering if it would reach the ground. Evidently the sound carried, for two dons and the dog below began looking around to find where the noise was coming from. He blew again. This time Cromwell and two men in uniform ran from the gatehouse indoors without even looking up. From Littlejohn’s perch their antics looked grotesque.…
“I’m not coming out, but pray tell me what it’s all about.”
Scrope had broken silence.
“You know very well, Mr. Scrope. I’m after you for the murder of Williatt, to start with, and then as one of the leaders of the Harwood gang.…”
A forced laugh from the other side of the door.
“Wherever did you get that idea? You’ll be hard put-to to pin the blame on me, Inspector. What would I want with spies or murdering playwrights? The thing’s ridiculous and will make you a laughing stock.”
“I’ll risk that. I can hear my colleague coming upstairs. I shall send him for tools and break down this door. Then I shall take you along with me, unless you come of your own accord.”
“I’m not coming out.… Come and get me.…”
Scrope pattered off. Littlejohn could hear him scuffling about like a trapped rat. He wondered what had brought the little don up the tower. Was he going to throw himself down into the quadrangle if he couldn’t get away, or had he just bolted into the first funk-hole in a panic?
Cromwell appeared, out of breath and followed by two panting constables.
“All right, sir?”
“Yes. He’s cornered in here and he’s barricaded the door. Go down and get something … a crowbar or a battering-ram, and bring it up. We’ll have to get him out.… I’ll keep guard here.… Hurry, that’s a good chap.…”
All three newcomers reversed gear and tore downstairs again. In an incredibly short time Littlejohn saw them back in the quadrangle deploying in search of tackle.
Scrope was again behind the door. Listening. At length, he spoke.
“I’m not coming out, but we might as well talk to while away the time. What have you against me? What’s suddenly turned you from friend to enemy?”
“You’re an enemy of this country, Scrope … so, I’m yours.”
“But where did you get that tale from?”
“I made a few calls among your old colleagues, men who’ve been in your scholastic circle all their lives … men who were at school with you sixty years ago. You’re not quite as old as you pretended to be when first we met.”
“Has that old dotard Chalmers been talking to you? He doesn’t know what he’s prating about more than half his time.…”
“Let me tell you about the man whose career Mr. Chalmers kindly sketched for me, Scrope.…”
“Well, there’s nothing criminal in my choosing this secluded spot for confidences and then, when you’ve broken down the door, we’ll see who’s the lawbreaker, you or I. Go on.”
“Years ago, this man was born into a wealthy family. The youngest son of four. All his brothers were great sportsmen and soldiers. He wasn’t. A sickly child, his physique debarred him from the so-called manly life. He was puny and studious.
“His father was disappointed in him. His brothers treated him like a girl and chaffed him about his swotting. The victim made up his mind to get even with his tormentors. He determined to make a name for himself in the world of learning. He soon got the impression that he was a genius. After all, he’d no competition at home. He thought he’d just knock at the door of fame and it would be opened to him. He would outshine his masterful brothers in glory through the power of his intellect.”
“That doesn’t sound like a policeman talking. That’s Chalmers at his.
best. You’re a human gramophone, Inspector. I congratulate you! The fall of the house of Scrope! Pray proceed.”
“I lay no claim to this psychological analysis. I’ve already told you that I’ve cribbed it from your colleagues.”
“I wish I’d known this. They’d have paid for it, Inspector.”
“They’re patriots, Scrope. When I told them what I was after, they tried to defend you. But when I gave them proofs, they rallied round me. Well, to get on. Our man went to Cambridge, where he certainly distinguished himself in political philosophy and ancient learning. He ought to have gone far, but he didn’t. You see, he was a social failure. He couldn’t lecture and he couldn’t teach properly.”
There was a moan from behind the barred door. The first sound of weakness. It struck a chord of sympathy in Littlejohn, but he repressed his feelings. Scrope was a traitor.…
“Our scholar had spent too much time being teased and bullied by his family and hating them in return. He’d lived too much in his own dreams of power and when he came in touch with reality, his qualities were far below those of many an inferior academic colleague.
“These inferiors got the places. They got the professorships over his head. Their lecture-rooms were filled. His were half-empty. Even his students drifted away without enthusiasm. He was lucky to get the hallmark of moderate scholarship, a Fellowship of his college. Then, in his quiet backwater, he nursed his pride. He had a spell in India without much success.…”
“Go on! Go on!” yelled Scrope, in what might have been rage or self-pity. He was like a victim of the rack exhorting his torturers to another turn of the screw.
“Then, he visited Germany. They made much of him there. They were busy pulling the wool over the eyes of Englishmen … the Nazis were just in power and showing what fine fellows they were. Most of the academic men shied at these baiters of Jews … but not Scrope. He swallowed the lot … hook, line and sinker.
“Our scholar’s Fellowship was a passport to the German academies and universities. He gave a series of lectures up and down the country. The idea of dictatorships appealed to him. Just as it did to Hitler, another crank, despised in his youth. Scrope longed for power to strike back at those who’d thwarted and neglected him.
Calamity at Harwood Page 16