Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  “None,” interposed Olive, though without resentment. “– but all the same I made a few inquiries on my own, meaning to head old Olive off if the shows were really what I heard. I asked quite a lot of blokes off and on, newspaper johnnies because they generally know all the worst, and at the club, and so on, and it must have been some bird like that who rang me this morning because he said: ‘That you, Albert?’ – sounds like a waiter, doesn’t it? Some day I shall put a ‘d’ and an apostrophe before it and make the ‘t’ mute – D’Al-berrr – sounds a lot better that way. ‘That you, Albert?’ the bloke said. ‘You were wanting to know about Judson’s shows? Well, last night he was done in there – at his place near Epping Forest. Found murdered.’ Well, I was a bit bowled over. When I started to speak again, the line had gone dead. The other fellow had rung off. And that was that.”

  “You have no idea who was speaking?”

  “No, but I’ll try to find out.”

  “I hope you will succeed,” Bobby said, not without irony.

  He had little faith in Peter Albert’s story and he suspected the error in the identity of the victim had been made on purpose so as to avoid showing too much knowledge. He added slowly: “Any confirmation of what you have just told me, Mr. Albert, would be exceedingly welcome.”

  “Do what I can,” Peter Albert declared. “Can’t make any promises, but you may be sure I’ll do my best.” Bobby nearly said: ‘Yes, but best which way?’ Instead he asked abruptly:

  “Do you know Mr. Macklin?”

  Peter Albert shook his head.

  “Never heard of him,” he said.

  “Yes, you have,” Olive interposed. “I told you. I met him at Mr. Judson’s – at least, if it’s the same man. He’s a partner or manager or something in Mr. Judson’s business.”

  “Oh, him,” said Peter Albert.

  A waiter came up to their table. He had a photographic frame holding three cabinet photographs. Frail looking old people, man and woman, at the right and left, and in the centre a fat little man, though broad-shouldered, who was smirking into the camera, exactly as if he were asking it for its order.

  “Mr. Troya’s photograph, sir, you asked for,” the waiter said.

  “The one in the middle, I suppose?” Bobby said. “Who are the old people?”

  “Mr. Troya’s father and mother, sir,” the man answered with a faint snigger as if all the staff found something amusing in their employer’s devotion to his parents.

  In fact, as Bobby knew, there is an exceedingly strong family sense among the Etrurians, stronger as it often is among the Latin races than in the Anglo-Saxon peoples.

  Bobby showed the centre photograph to Olive.

  “Is it anyone you know?” he asked, “anyone you have ever seen?”

  CHAPTER 9

  DICTATORS’ PORTRAITS

  Olive gave the photographs only one glance and then looked away, her gaze travelling down the long, crowded London street as though an urge were on her to take that way of escape. She drew a deep breath, but still did not speak, and Bobby gave the photographs back to the waiter.

  “Thank you,” he said, and then asked if they had in stock any of those inexpensive Swiss cigars he had learnt were often smoked by hotel and restaurant workers of foreign nationality.

  “I don’t think so, sir,” the waiter answered, evidently again surprised by the question, “we aren’t often asked for them. I could inquire.”

  “Mr. Troya smokes them himself, doesn’t he?” Bobby persisted.

  “I believe he does sometimes,” the waiter agreed. “I could ask if there are any in the office,” he offered.

  “Never mind,” Bobby said. “It’s all right. Don’t bother. You can take away the photo., too.”

  The waiter retired, bewildered and uneasy. He did not know what all this meant, but he wondered whether it would not be better to look out for another place. With the police, one never knew. Both Olive and Peter Albert were looking surprised, too. Olive had even withdrawn her abstracted gaze from the street to bestow it upon Bobby, and Peter Albert was smiling more broadly than ever, though still there was no mirth in those watchful eyes of his.

  “Quite in the best tradition of Hawkseye the detective,” he said chaffingly, “but I do wonder what Troya’s cigars have to do with it, and why you lost interest in them all at once?”

  “Hawkseye never explains,” retorted Bobby and turned to Olive: “I think,” he said, “Mr. Albert brought you here to-day to see if you could identify Mr. Troya as the man who annoyed you yesterday?”

  “You seem to know it all,” Peter Albert grumbled.

  Bobby continued:

  “You recognized the photograph?” Olive agreed with a slight affirmative gesture of the head. Bobby went on: “Would you like to say how it is you happened to be there?”

  “It was quite by chance,” she answered. “I like to get away for a drive sometimes – I don’t often get a chance, there’s the shop and there’s going out, cocktail parties and all that. I have to go to them whenever I can. Advertisement. If there’s a smart, new model I can wear, people may notice it, and if they do, it may mean sales.”

  “I see,” said Bobby, and yet was not quite satisfied, for this aloof, silent girl with the pale face and the burning eyes did not seem to him exactly the born saleswoman type.

  Indeed he found the idea of her frequenting cocktail parties in order to sell hats somehow vaguely displeasing. Wrong somehow, he felt. Nor could he rid himself of the impression that her mind was occupied with quite other things than the selling of hats, that into the framework of modern commercial publicity her eager and passionate personality seemed to fit but badly.

  “Sometimes I feel I must get away from it all,” she continued, “and then I get out the car and drive fast – fast,” she repeated with a little catch in her breath, the first sign of any yielding to emotion he had seen in her. “One gets – away,” she said. “It was like that yesterday and then I remembered I had never been to Mr. Judson’s place except at night and I thought I would like to see what it looked like in the daytime. That’s all.”

  “Ah, yes,” Bobby said and looked at her moodily. “I thought perhaps,” he said, “you knew the place pretty well as you seemed to spot that stand-pipe and the hose at once.”

  “Oh, I just noticed them,” she mumbled. “That’s all.”

  It was possible, Bobby supposed. Possible, too, that her visit to The Manor had resulted merely from a sudden impulse of curiosity, but an odd coincidence that that impulse of curiosity should have occurred on the day and about the hour of a murder. And Bobby had a great dislike for coincidences. If they really happened, it was confusion. If they hadn’t happened, then that was worse still.

  “Bit of a novel idea,” Peter Albert interposed, “those parties in an empty house. Makes people talk no end. I’ve been asked myself what sort of a place The Manor is and so I asked Miss Farrar. I expect that’s what made her think of having a squint at it in daylight.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Bobby, thinking that once again Peter Albert had come to the girl’s assistance.

  He found himself wondering what connection there was between them. They were not married apparently, nor close relatives, and yet there was an air of intimacy between them as if they were very close to each other. Yet they exchanged no lover-like glances. Perhaps, however, that phase was over. Peter was talking again, a little as if he did not wish Bobby to spend too much time in thought.

  “Any bit of novelty,” he was saying, “sets people talking like one o’clock nowadays when everything is exactly like everything else. I’m told the main street in Kamchatka is entirely occupied by Boot’s, Woolworth’s, and picture theatres showing Mr. Robert Taylor’s last film.”

  Bobby ignored this and said to Olive:

  “Did you mention to anyone before you started where you were going?”

  “I only thought of it afterwards,” she said.

  Bobby got to his feet.

  “Yo
u won’t be leaving just yet, will you?” he asked. “I’ll ring up, if you don’t mind, and ask if they would like you to call at the Yard, if you can spare the time.”

  He asked the waiter for the ’phone and was shown an extension in a small room on the same floor. There was no telephone directory visible so he asked for one, and Peter Albert, watching, saw it being taken to him.

  “If he’s ringing the Yard,” Peter Albert said slowly, “doesn’t he know the number?”

  Olive did not answer but after a time she said:

  “He seems so ordinary and then he asks just the very questions you don’t want him to.”

  As a matter of fact Bobby had inquired for the directory in order to ascertain from it the private address of Mr. Troya. It was not far from the restaurant and Bobby, having made a note of it, rang up Headquarters, reported, and asked for instructions. They were given him to the effect that Mr. Albert and Miss Farrar were to be asked to come on to the Yard at once. His own proposal that he should proceed immediately to interview Mr. Troya was approved.

  Accordingly Bobby went back, paid for his sherry, explained that he wouldn’t have time to stop for his lunch, fortunately not yet ordered, and informed Mr. Albert and Miss Farrar of the official desire to interview them as soon as possible, if they would be so kind.

  “Suppose we prefer to be unkind?” asked Peter Albert.

  “We are hoping you won’t,” Bobby answered blandly. “Any time round about three would suit. A little later if you like. Ask for Superintendent Ulyett and explain you are expected. Then you won’t be kept waiting.”

  “Aren’t you coming, too?” Peter Albert asked. “Gyves upon our wrists, and all that?”

  “We’ve hardly got that far yet, have we?” Bobby retorted.

  “I suppose,” Peter Albert mused, “the idea is, you make your report afterwards, and then you check up and see if we’ve told the same story and if we haven’t, then you’ve got us by the short hairs. Deep, eh?”

  “But easily countered by the simple method of keeping to the same story,” Bobby pointed out. “If you do want to change it, please say so at once. And I would very strongly ask you both to be entirely frank and open. Oh, and we do like things confirmed. Red tape, I suppose. I expect if you told us two and two made four, we should send round to the appropriate expert to get it confirmed before we accepted it.”

  “You don’t think of getting signed and sealed certificates for everything you do,” Peter Albert grumbled. “I was busy all yesterday afternoon working out a cruise I have in mind, totting up the supplies I shall want, and so on. But I never thought of calling in a porter every half hour or so to testify that I was really there. Why on earth should I?”

  “I know, it’s often like that,” Bobby agreed.

  “Look here, about this murder,” Peter Albert went on, “of course, Miss Farrar happened to be there and frightful bad luck, too, but you can’t seriously think she did it – or Troya either. Hang it, why on earth should either of them want to do in poor old Judson?”

  “I haven’t the least idea,” said Bobby, and took his departure, more than a little troubled in his mind.

  Miss Farrar could hardly be the actual murderer, he supposed, and yet there was that identity of time and place it is always so important to establish. The method, the blow on the head, suggested a man, certainly, but a woman can hit out, too, on occasion, and this girl gave an odd impression of the strongest passions in reserve. As for her own statement that she had only arrived a minute or two before Bobby got there and so had not had time even to enter the house – well, it does not take long to commit a murder. A margin of ten minutes would be enough; less, for that matter. It would be odd if times could be established with sufficient accuracy to prove an alibi for her, seeing she was admittedly so near when the crime was committed.

  Bobby had the impression, too, that Peter Albert had been exceedingly nervous – more than nervous, afraid. That ready flow of talk of his, chatter almost, it had been, Bobby put down confidently as not natural to his character but a cloak assumed for the occasion. But then had that been for his own protection, or for Olive’s, or perhaps for that of some third person unknown? A question with no answer as yet. Bobby frowned reflectively as he remembered that Peter Albert had claimed to have been at home all that afternoon, busy with his affairs, and yet emphasized that he had no witnesses to the fact.

  Arrived at his destination, Bobby found Mr. Troya’s residence to be situated in a quiet, old-fashioned street, once occupied by the prosperous business-man class but now showing signs of decadence as its former inhabitants died off and their successors preferred the modern flat or the country – with garage. There was already one ‘Private Hotel’ in the street, and several of the houses showed by a diversity of window curtains that they were in the occupation of different families. Mr. Troya’s was one of the more prosperous-looking establishments, and the maid who answered Bobby’s knock explained that Mr. Troya was not well enough to see anyone, and that Madame had gone to town on business, and would not be home till late, but might possibly be found earlier at the restaurant.

  Bobby explained that his business was urgent. He produced his official card and the maid looked suitably impressed and showed him into a comfortable, though slightly ornate drawing-room. Over the mantelpiece hung a large portrait of the Etrurian dictator, ‘Redeemer of his country’, in his characteristic country-redeeming attitude so strongly reminiscent of Ajax defying the lightning. It was flanked on each side by portraits of his brother dictators of Germany and Italy, though these portraits were of smaller size and had less ornate frames – enough in these days, Bobby thought, to produce an international incident. Between the windows hung another large portrait of the Etrurian Redeemer, in the company of two or three babies, one of whom he was embracing on the well-established Eatandswill precedent. There were various other portraits of the same gentleman scattered about here and there. In all, including those on the side tables and wall brackets, Bobby counted nine, and decided that Mr. Troya must be indeed a loyal and devoted adherent of the existing regime. But then perhaps that was only natural on the part of a restaurant keeper largely dependent on the patronage of that regime’s Ambassador. In one corner there was also a picture representing another and a different Redeemer, but it hung awry, and was evidently there on sufferance, before final removal.

  The door opened and Mr. Troya came in, heralding his arrival with a sneeze or two. He was a short, sturdily built little man, a trifle run to fat now, but with broad shoulders and a deep chest that explained how effectively that soup ladle of his had been wielded on a certain occasion. His eyes were small, bright, and shrewd, set in a wide fat face, above a bristling little black moustache with waxed ends. He was wearing a dressing-gown and Bobby noticed that there were fresh ink stains on the forefinger of his right hand, as though he had been busy writing with a fountain-pen that leaked a little.

  “Is. there any complaint, anything not satisfactory?” he asked, glancing nervously from Bobby’s card he held in one hand to Bobby himself and then back to the card again. “I assure you I am most careful – always. Never, never do I permit in my restaurant –”

  “Nothing to do with your restaurant, Mr. Troya,” Bobby assured him.

  “It is about the murder, then?” Troya asked, and grew more pale even than before. “I know nothing about it, nothing at all. It is true I knew poor Mr. Macklin. It was a shock to me, naturally. But only in business did I know him, purely business. He was not a friend, you understand, a client, a valued, a most valued client.”

  “How did you know there had been a murder, Mr. Troya?” Bobby asked.

  Troya jumped – literally jumped.

  “But – but –” he stammered. “But –”

  Bobby waited.

  “I heard – it was a message,” Troya stammered. “On the ’phone. I was rung up.”

  “Who by?”

  Troya gulped and looked round wildly, a little as if seeking hel
p and counsel from his country’s redeemer.

  Bobby waited.

  Waiting was always effective. If you stood and waited silently, then those who had reason to be nervous became generally very nervous indeed and soon felt it incumbent on them to do or say something. Troya wiped his forehead. It was wet with perspiration, but Bobby had in justice to admit that Mr. Troya looked as if he perspired frequently and on small provocation. At last he stammered out:

  “I assure you, I do not know, it was someone, but who I do not know.”

  “You don’t – know?” repeated Bobby with some emphasis on the last word.

  Troya let loose a stream of language, half English, half Etrurian, with an appeal at almost every word to every saint he could remember, each in turn, in the hope apparently that if one could not help another would, or perhaps on the simple theory that there is safety in numbers. He repeated that no name had been given and he had not recognized the voice. The news had so startled him he had not even wondered who his informant might be. He had been too ‘bowled over’ ‘as you say here in England,’ to think about that. Then, too, the speaker had rung off almost immediately and attempts to obtain further information had been useless.

  It was a possible story, Bobby supposed.

  But a little odd that Peter Albert had told one so similar.

  Noticeable, though, that Troya’s informant had given the right name.

  “Mr. Macklin was a client of yours?” Bobby asked.

  “Of the most valued,” Mr. Troya asserted, and then paused, but seemed to decide he might as well tell the truth since it would infallibly come to be known sooner or later.

  “It was for the suppers,” he explained, “the suppers Mr. Judson gave at this house where the tragedy has happened. I supplied the food, the wines, the service – all of the highest, the most superb quality.”

  “I see,” said Bobby. “Do you do much of that kind of work?”

  “As much as I can get – but only of the best, for those who understand and who can pay. I am not a universal provider,” said Mr. Troya with a touch of professional pride.