There was a triumphant gleam in Miss Stanton’s eye, and Reeves chuckled inwardly.
“Very courageous of you, madam—and your accurate description will be very valuable. Do you know anything more about Mr. Stort, or Mr. Listelle, who lived with him?”
“I know what was current gossip throughout the neighbourhood,” she replied. “Unfortunately, with so many people having been frightened out of London by the air raids, there are not many left to confirm what I say. I can only assure you that I have an accurate memory, and that I do not approve of malicious gossip. During the latter part of Mr. Stort’s tenancy of the studio—before the raids started, however—a woman lived on the ground floor of number 25 Hollyberry Hill. I think it probable—as did other people—that she was Stort’s mistress. I know that he used to climb into her room direct from the studio; I have seen him do it. He was constantly in the house, they made no attempt to conceal their intimacy. Can you wonder that I wished to have a trellis to raise my wall?” she concluded indignantly.
“Indeed, no, madam,” said Reeves. He went on, “Did you know anything about Mr. Folliner himself?”
“No, nothing of any interest. He had lived in that house for many years, during which period his house, and those on either side of it, deteriorated steadily. I am told that he was very poor, but if that was so, I fail to understand why he did not sell his house. It was a freehold property, and before the war he could have sold it for a good sum. Will you have another cup of tea?” she ended.
“Thank you very much, ma’am,” said Reeves sedately, and then continued: “We are anxious to trace Mr. Stort, and to find out where he is living now—if he is still living, that is.”
“Oh, dear me, yes, he is still living,” replied Miss Stanton with animation. “I am sure of that.” She got up and went to a paper rack in the corner of the room, and returned with a copy of the Morning Mail. She pointed to a small cartoon in the corner of the paper. “You notice that the picture is signed with a hieroglyphic resembling ‘Rand’ and a long squiggle. That stands, I think, for Randall, but the point is that that signature is Stort’s. I told you that I went into his studio. His drawings were pinned out on a board—not small drawings like that, but very big ones, done in dashing bold lines. Evidently his drawings are reduced for publication. I saw the signature, and it is unmistakable. I admit the work is clever; coarse, perhaps, but vigorous—rather like Stort himself.”
“Miss Stanton, madam,” said Reeves, “you’re a perfect marvel! I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to you.”
“Good gracious—and why, might I ask?” she demanded.
“Because you’ve saved me a week of weary, boring, irritating work,” said Reeves. “If it hadn’t been for you, and your very remarkable powers of accurate observation, I should probably have gone trailing round from Bickford’s offices to some derelict country cottage, and on and on until the trail petered out. You see,” he went on, “we’ve nothing at all against Stort—nothing. We want to find him and to interrogate him, but if, by any chance, he’s done anything he shouldn’t have, he’s probably changed his name and it won’t be easy to find him, but, with the information you have given me, I ought to be able to run him down in two twos.”
“Good gracious!” replied Miss Stanton, “you surprise me! I am very gratified to think that I can be of assistance. I hope also that you will not let Mr. Stort outwit you as he outwitted your colleagues in this neighbourhood,” she added severely. “He made a habit of using my garden as a short cut to his studio. I have seen him doing it—always very late at night. I complained to the police about this, and Mr. Stort, of course, denied it. The police made some efforts, I believe, to catch him trespassing—but of course they never succeeded. He was much too clever for them.”
“I’ll promise you that he doesn’t outwit me, madam,” said Reeves, adding, “though if I do get on his trail fast enough for him to be of any use, it will be thanks to you entirely. And thank you very much for the delicious tea,” he went on. “I’ve never enjoyed a cup more. I hope that one day you will show me your Christmas roses.”
“Ah, my Hellebore,” she said proudly. “Come this way.”
Reeves was led into the drawing-room at the back of the house, and shown a small glass bowl where half a dozen flat white flowers rested among their handsome green leaves. Miss Stanton regarded them with an air of almost maternal delight.
“I’m so glad you like them,” she said. “So few people know anything about flowers.”
II
Less than half an hour later Reeves was at the offices of the Morning Mail in Fleet Street. He saw the business editor, and was then passed on to the art editor, a man named Brenling. To this gentleman—busy, as all Fleet Street is busy—Reeves said:
“I want the address of an artist of yours—Randall Stort.”
“Never heard of him.”
Reeves picked up a current issue of the paper and pointed out the cartoon. “The chap who drew this,” he said.
“Oh, him. His name’s not Stort. He’s Victor Rand. What do you want him for?”
“I want his address,” said Reeves patiently.
“I don’t know his address. I’m busy, anyway. Hi! Miss Blake. Find the officer Rand’s address.”
“I haven’t got his address,” replied Miss Blake. “He just sends his stuff in, or brings it in, and collects his money at intervals. I don’t know about that. You’d better try the accountant’s office. He ought to have an address of some kind—the Inland Revenue people are always wanting addresses.”
Reeves went to the accountant’s office.
“Victor Rand? Oh, he’s always changing his address, I just can’t keep pace with him. Funny thing, another fellow was asking for his address to-day. Try this. Westways, Wealden Road, Harrow. That was the last address he gave me.”
“Do you know him—by sight?”
“Yes, dark fellow with a face like a potato, and a black lock of hair. Rather a mess.” The girl clerk looked up at Reeves. “’Tec, aren’t you? What do you want him for?”
“Just for a chat. Who was the other chap who wanted Rand’s address?”
“Search me. I don’t know. I’ve got a spot of work to do sometimes. The other chap didn’t get his address if that’s what you want to know.”
III
It was six o’clock when Reeves came out of the Morning Mail offices. He went into a telephone box and reported to Scotland Yard and then made his way to Baker Street and took the Metropolitan Railway to Harrow. Harrow covers a large area, and Reeves knew better than to go wandering round in the black-out hunting for an obscure house in an unknown road. He telephoned to his nearest colleagues of the Metropolitan Police, and was soon in a police car which drove him a very long way and put him down at the corner of a little dark roadway.
“Fourth house on the right,” said his guide. “I’ll wait until you’re inside and then stand by.”
Reeves could just make out the shapes of the small suburban houses on either side: a very unpretentious road of mass-produced modern houses, semi-detached, all replicas of one another.
The fourth house on the right—“Westways”—showed a thin façade of white rough cast and windows of unadulterated blackness. No least tiny glow of curtained light encouraged a visitor to believe that there was any life within to respond to a summons at the small front door. Reeves knocked—not too peremptorily, a carefully calculated unofficial knock. There was no response so far as the front door was concerned, but the thinly-built house enabled the detective’s quick ears to learn that someone was at home. He knocked again. After a further wait, the door was opened, and a woman’s voice, emerging from an almost dark passage, asked,
“Well? Who do you want?”
The voice was apprehensive and bad-tempered, and Reeves planned his campaign accordingly.
“I want Mr. Victor Rand. I’ve ju
st come from the Morning Mail offices.”
“Oh, damn, didn’t he send that stuff in? I reminded him. Said he’d take it to-day.”
“He must have forgotten,” said Reeves. “Is he at home?”
“At home?—at seven o’clock in the evening? What a hope. Oh, come in, it’s too cold to stand talking at the door.”
Reeves took a couple of steps forward and stood and waited while the door was shut behind him and a light switch put down. He could then see the woman who had admitted him. She was quite young, but thin and weary looking, clad in a tight-fitting scarlet jumper and navy blue slacks. Her fair hair, once elaborately set in modish curls was tousled now, as though she had just got up, and the scarlet of her lipstick made her face look the whiter.
“Isn’t he the limit?” she grumbled. “That’s the only job he’s got, and he can’t take the trouble to see that his stuff goes in at the right time. Come along in.”
Reeves followed her down the passage to a room at the back of the house and she put down a switch which brought on a strong white light whose glare made Reeves blink after the previous dimness. The room was much larger than he would have expected from the size of the house—it must have occupied nearly the whole ground floor. The walls were distempered in white, and there were drawings on them, some in charcoal, some in colour—bold vigorous portraits. The faces all had something of the same quality, staring, avid faces, harsh and mocking.
“Oh, don’t look at them, they give me the pip,” said the girl. “His Mail drawings were in one of those rolls—cardboard rolls. We ought to be able to find them somewhere. God, what a muck he gets the place in… Got a fag on you?”
Reeves produced a packet of Player’s and gave them to her.
“Oh, ta. Decent of you. I’m broke, and the old hag won’t give me any more tick. He is the limit,” she went on complainingly. “He’s clever enough—look at all this stuff. Other chaps make money, chaps without half his brains. My hat, if I could do it—draw like that—I’d make money out of it somehow.”
She sat down on a divan against one of the walls, lolling back and kicking off piles of loose sheets on to the bare floor-boards. There was very little furniture in the room—a draughtsman’s desk covered with a litter of materials, newspapers and magazines, cigarette ash and some dirty plates; a couple of chairs, an easel, a model’s platform and stacks of old canvases and portfolios.
“I know it’s a muck,” said the girl, as she inhaled her cigarette smoke avidly. “I tried to keep it decent when we came but I got fed-up, disheartened. I’d get some work myself, only I’ve been ill. When I’m better I’m going into the Services. Anything’s better than this.”
Reeves nodded. “Yes. I’d say it was. I can’t see that roll you were talking about. D’you know what time he’ll be in?”
“Oh, any old time. Depends if he can get people to stand him drinks: he won’t come back here while he can get a bit of fun somewhere else. I say, if you find those drawings, can you leave the money for them?”
“No. I’m afraid I can’t. It has to go through the office.”
Reeves was aware that his own position at the moment was irregular. According to regulations he should have had another officer with him—but Reeves did not always conform to regulations. He went on:
“Do you mind if I look at some of those canvases? I’m interested in pictures. Some of them might be worth something.”
“Lord, yes! Look at them all! Boy, if you’d only buy one I might get some supper.”
Reeves looked at her. “Bad as that, is it? Well, it ought to run to the price of supper.”
He began tilting back the canvases, one by one. They were mostly portraits, generally unfinished. At the back, against the wall, was a larger canvas: after a glance down at it, Reeves pulled it out, and stood it up against the table. “Lord, that’s clever!” he said.
Clever it certainly was. The canvas depicted a very old man, whose pallid skin was stretched taut over his bald bony cranium and hawk-like nose. His eyes were set far back in the heavy shadows of deep orbital ridges, and his thin lips were sucked in to a hard line which yet achieved a grin. The head was painted in such a manner that the structure of the skull beneath the parchment-like skin showed clear and hard. The eyes glittered in their deep sockets, and the claw-like hands were holding some crisp white papers—five-pound notes. Reeves stared fascinated at the canvas. The old man was sitting up in bed and behind his head was the corner of a brass and iron bedstead. There was a cash-box on his knees, and the patchwork quilt on the bed was that which Reeves had seen on Mr. Folliner’s bed: the brass knobs and elaborations of the bedpost were the same too. Beside the cash-box lay a pistol. The title given to the rather ghastly tour-de-force was “Peep-Show.”
The girl lolling on the divan looked at Reeves with calculating eyes. “Yes, it’s clever, isn’t it?” she echoed. “It must be worth a lot, only people won’t pay for pictures these days. I believe if it was shown at a decent exhibition it might bring in a lot of money. It’d be worth anybody’s while to buy it.”
Reeves was doing some quick thinking: beneath his detective instinct and clear, hard, thinking capacity was the essential humanity which had made him sweat and toil in an inferno of blazing ruins to rescue his fellow-creatures in the blitz. He turned to the girl.
“Look here, kid. Are you married to him?”
She did not resent the question. Reeves guessed that she was too hungry to resent anything which might lead to a meal.
“No, thanks be,” she replied. “I was potty on him for a bit, but I’m through with that. Who’re you, anyway?”
“C.I.D. I’m on duty.”
“God! What’s he done?”
“I don’t know that he’s done anything. I want to ask him some questions. If you’ll answer one question yourself, perhaps you can save a lot of trouble. Look here, I’ve got my mate outside, another officer. I’ll get him in if you like, so that you can have a witness and know I’m playing fair. I don’t want to get you mixed up in a mess if I haven’t got to.”
The stark fear which had shone in her eyes for a minute died down, and she answered, “Oh, get on with your questions. I don’t mind you. You’re a decent sort. I don’t believe he’s done anything awful. He’s too lazy, and he’s a funk, anyway. He’d never risk doing anything tough—he’d rather live on a girl like me. What d’you want to know?”
“How long have you lived with him?”
“About a year now. This was my home—I paid the rent. Only I’ve been ill.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jenny Lane.”
“Do you know what Victor Rand—if that’s what he calls himself—was doing yesterday evening between eight o’clock and nine?”
“Yes. He was here. It was foggy, and he was too lazy to go out. He had a couple of other chaps here—boys in the Air Force. He drew their pictures, and they brought a bottle of gin with them. It was all gone before they left.”
“That’s all right then,” said Reeves. “If he can prove he was here he’s got nothing to worry about. It’s just a matter of asking him a few questions. Where was he living when you first took up with him?”
“In the country somewhere. I picked him up in Brighton. He’d done a bunk out of London because of the raids—he funked it. After a bit the country got him down, and he wanted to get back to London again. So did I. I’d got a bit of money, and we came here. It was my aunt’s house once. We’ve just mucked along—and then I got ill, and it was a proper old mess-up. I’m about through with it, I tell you straight. Funny, the way I’m talking to you. Haven’t talked like this for years—but I’m fed-up. He went out, and he pinched my last ten-bob note before he went. Makes a girl see red, that does.”
Reeves nodded. “Yes. A dirty trick. If I give you another ten-bob note, can you get a meal anywhere hereabouts?”
“Lo
rd, yes. There’s a pub round the corner where they’ll always give you a snack. Will you come, too?”
“No. I’ve got to stay here and see Rand when he comes in. Does he always call himself Rand?”
“Signs his drawings like that. It isn’t his name. His name’s Stort. He’s got that name on his identity card—it’s his real name, the other’s only a professional name.”
“Have you ever heard him talk about a studio he had in Hampstead?”
“Oh, I’ve heard him talk about lots of places, all very fine and large. Studios in Paris and Chelsea, and all that. Mind you, he’s clever—I’m not saying he isn’t, but he’s bone lazy. I think he did quite well before the war, but people won’t buy pictures now, and there’s the paper shortage, and there you are.”
“Just one more question,” said Reeves. “Has Rand ever mentioned a fellow called Listelle?”
“Oh, him! I nearly died laughing about him. He was afraid of bombs—frightened stiff he was. He went right away from London into the country and lived in a cottage miles from anywhere and a Jerry just jettisoned all his bombs one night plonk on that cottage and that was the end of Listelle—died of fright, as you might say.”
“I’ve heard of more than one person died of running away,” said Reeves. “Well, look here, kid, you’d better go and get some supper—you look hungry—but don’t go and mix your drinks, and don’t ever tell anyone I gave you a ten-bob note, or I shall get into no end of a howling row.”
“I won’t split. Boy, you are a decent good sort! Do you know I haven’t had a meal to-day?”
“You look like it,” said Reeves gruffly. “You’re no advertisement for your boy friend.”
Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery Page 16